#i mean i draw faces kinda inconsistently anyway. which i need to work on

[bluuscreen]

also some other au sketches. will not be apologising for heathers in 2024 ur just gonna hafta live with it

[loversdelusions]

Lol I just got the most awesome and a really funny idea and here it is: How would yandere Deku(different versions of him) react to reader drawing silly doodles on their face while sleeping with a pen or something? And maybe even putting makeup and stuff lol

This quickly got out of hand--the thirst caught up to me.

Only YanDeku's part is kinda dirty. I mean it's implied, but no actual act or anything.

TW: Choking, godcomplexy(?), controlling.

Idk why but this ask confuzzled the fuck out of my brain. I was like ??? So excuse the inconsistent writing style.

Pt 1: Pro hero, Yandere, Villain Deku.

Pt 2: Vigilante & waifu deku.

Help me raise money to be a sentient cupcake:

Izuku X reader: ♡ Childish! ♡

Pro Hero Deku just wishes you have more appropriate timing. You always seem to pick the worst times to use his face as a canvas for your boredom. Though the less obscene the drawing is, the more chance you'll see him walk out to his hero meetings or events without taking it off. At first, it only happened because of the inconvenience. Waking up to alerts of a villain attack is not very great, especially may it be at night or after his goddamn nap that he barely has time for, anyway.

Rushing out into the scene doesn't allow him to freshen up, so fuckin surprised he is when he sees the news the next day, of him showing less than care for the villain's antics, appearing to the fight with whiskers on his cheeks, and the words 'I think I am sexy but I am actually just cute UWU' plastered on his skin.

Did you laugh your ass off? Yes.

Did he draw on your face in return and force you to publicly apologize? Definitely. He has a reputation goddamnit, and your work on his face made him get some backlash, as well as some support. Was he making fun of the villains? The people hurt? was it a show of smugness, or childishness?

Well, explain yourself because the media needs to know. And yes, he will write something stupid on your head the moment you fall asleep. Don't expect him to be lenient. Watch your damn back.

However, when it's makeup, he actually really doesn't mind. Depending on how much you put on his face. If you go full drag makeup, he's not too hot on fitting villains rocking a full exaggerated look. Though, if you match the colours to his hero suit he wouldn't mind wearing some type of eyeshadow, maybe eyeliner. I mean, he knew Bakugou wore eyeliner, but Deku didn't really enjoy taking off makeup, so if you take it off for him, which you'll be forced to (Hey! You made your bed, you lie in it!). So eyeshadow and eyeliner, (if tasteful,) he wouldn't mind.

Highlighter though... My god, he loves that thing the moment he catches sight of it later in the mirror. Yes, he'll be mad, yes he'll smile creepily in his anger and stare at you to make sure you were as uncomfortable as possible, but smile and answer way more politely than you expect, with only the dangerous edge to his voice to tip you off.

Though the moment you're playing with makeup, you'll notice him stagger back and stare, sometimes he'll sit and watch you do your thing while he works in the back, casually watching you do things and asking you to explain things to him. Hey, Izuku is as happy to hear you ramble about things as he is to ramble himself. Eventually, he'll pop up next to you and flash you his cutest look, almost sarcastically imitating a puppy. "Can I have some?"

"It's not food, Izu." You retort a soft huff at his question leaving you. He rolls his eyes, you couldn't decide if that takes away from the cuteness factor or not. "What is it you want?"

"That. That thing, what is it?"

"Don't act coy. You know what it is."

With a tsk, he'll flash you a grin, more mischievous and genuine than his usual brave hero smiles. "Highlighter. can you put some on me?"

Well, that's how he's indoctrinated into the cult because it's now a very usual occurrence for him to just lean over to where you're working, and wait with a soft smile for you to make him glitter.

Izuku really likes highlighter, you learned.

Izuku can't responsibly put it without making a complete mess of the highlighter and his clothes. He just doesn't see that he might have put too much.

I guess he really likes to shine.

Yandere Izuku is fuckin surprised and thoroughly conflicted. He definitely didn't see this coming, though he wouldn't be caught outside with anything on his face. He's too cautious for that, no, he's paranoid. He wouldn't exit the house without his perfect persona fully on.

Depending on what you write, his reactions vary. Depending on where you are in your relationship, his reactions get...worse.

If it was juvenile and vulgar, he wouldn't be so happy with you.

Did you think you could make fun of him? Did you think he'd let you make him look stupid just cause he loves you?

Well, you're dreadfully wrong.

Izuku maybe playful around you, he won't tolerate any disrespect. You obviously haven't learned what he is to you. You thought it was funny? What was it supposed to be, a fucking joke? You learn pretty quickly he doesn't think so. He isn't angry, no, you obviously were getting comfortable, he wanted this for you! But comfort doesn't mean there aren't any rules.

"Darling," his voice was calm, so calm it made shivers fall through you. You didn't need any more noise to know when he wasn't pleased. "Isn't this just so creative," He muttered, you watched him approach your hiding spot. You had run to his your room, already regretting the impulsive decision you'd made.

You were so childish, playing stupid games. Fine. He'll play. Chuckling darkly, while his quirk flurries around him, his voice turned cheery, so sweet it could only be hiding poison. "So adorable, you are! Come out, I have no time for hide and seek,"

"I'll make sure we can play later," Your heart slammed against your ribcage loud in your own ears. You held your hand against your lips, holding your breath while you watched him walk. He knows. He knows.

A scream died in your throat when a cold grip dragged you out of your hiding spot, quick and without much effort on his part. You couldn't even speak. The glee in his tone froze your mind as well as your body, left with involuntary tremors. It was as if your mind was fleeing faster and faster, leaving no place for comprehension.

There wasn't much need for it anyway, the only thing you need to comprehend is just that you were in his grasp. His smile told you so, the tick in his jaw told you so, fuck the way his eyes darkened at the sight of your shivering quacking body was enough to burn it into your mind. "Found you,"

Your lips parted to give some sort of retort, but he didn't need an explanation. "Playing such childish games," He commented, towering over you, hands caging you in between him and the wall. Your knees buckled underneath you, but his hand snapped and gripped your neck, tightly it drove the breath you were barely catching out. "You made me late, you know."

His grip tightened for a moment, dangerously making your head swim with the feeling of the oxygen being deprived. "Aren't you sorry for that? Won't you apologize?" His pout and fake hurt made your blood boil. Though you knew that it was stupid to say anything. Despite the anger-filled curses you had to bite off your tongue. Instead, you forced yourself to focus on attempting to breathe.

He had proved so many times it was useless to fight back. That never did stop you. Though you were finding it hard to fight when your hands maniacally tried to claw his grip off your throat. "I-Izu.." You rasped out, but he immediately tightened his grip, your words getting stopped midway.

"You can do it, little bunny. I can't blame you for being so childish, so dumb, but you know how to apologize." His pout formed into a sickening smile. "Go on."

This fucking bastard.

You could have sworn you'd been hearing your own blood pump in your ears. Words weren't forming, no matter how hard you tried, you could only fight to breathe, tasting the saltiness of your own tears. Izuku tilted his head, and leaned to the side of you, making you painfully aware of his breathing near your ear. His whisper made your heart quicken, faster than it'd been, pain blooming through your chest. "So rude of you, darling."

Your head was beginning to swirl, parts of the words you meant to say were legible, you couldn't be sure as the pressure carried from the bottom of your face, you couldn't tell if he was carrying or not, you could barely hear anything in your panic. "You do so much to me, your cute dumb little head can't imagine."

You could feel him against your thigh. This time your tears weren't only from panic. "You're so cruel, darling."

His hand toyed with the ruffles of your underwear.

"So cruel." Biting at your ear, "It's only fair, you solve what problem you create. Maybe then I can write exactly what I am doing to you on your pretty skin."

He only let your brain regain its oxygen when he was thrusting inside you. The euphoria that burned through your body was so thrilling to him, the beautiful noises you make, the confused hazy and terribly frightened look on your face! How could he ever get to work when you do such silly things?

So silly, little bunny. You should be careful what you play with, you know? Or he might just find it fun to join you.

(he likes makeup btw...I can't add anything to this lmao) ((ps. do his eyeliner like sukuna he'll like it a lot.)

Villain Izuku thinks you're really fuckin cute damnit. Who gave you permission to be so cute? Yes. He will rock whatever you draw or write on his face and he will actively be disappointed when he wakes up from naps with no cute messages on his face. It's a big responsibility, you know. You shouldn't do things that he finds endearing because he will whine when you don't do them as often as he wants.

He likes pushing Bakugous buttons on the battlefield, so it's extremely funny when you do draw or write things on him because Bakugou is so pissed that he isn't taking it seriously. Izuku will be sure to mention that it's his partner's doing, and that, "It's not my fault no one loves your sorry ass."

Izuku will not walk out of those battles unscathed. He has a bit of a habit of dropping more insults as he goes, he just doesn't notice it.

You will rarely want to do it because patching him up afterwards is tough on you. Even if he laughs through it. You won't find it as funny.

Makeup though, he enjoys. Not always, especially in the beginning.

He's not there for being made fun of, so he would establish his bone-chilling reputation first, then he'll find it in himself to sit in your lap and allow you to use his face as your canvas. Go ahead, make him pretty.

He'll watch shows or the news while you do so, and freak out every time something exciting happens and you'll have to erase half the shit you did cause he can't sit still. He means well... ehh..kind of.

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

hi I’m here to review the Clementine comic. it’s not good.

Does this even need an introduction? You know why I’ve gathered you all here today. You know the comic exists, and you probably know that it’s not great and we’re all upset about it. 

Myself included. I am not okay. At all. 

Skybound could’ve literally spit in my face and I’d come out feeling better than I did reading this comic, because this comic is an insult to the original Telltale games and Clementine as a character. 

This comic is a fancy fanfic. Glorified fanfiction. It’s not canon, and Skybound and Tillie can pretend that it is, but it’s not. Bold of them to assume we’d just accept this from people who didn’t work on the original games and never wrote for Clementine before, and based on this comic alone, any chance of us taking it seriously is gone. 

I’m gonna go through every single page, every panel, of this comic and give you my review. So I guess if you’re worried about spoilers [though at this point why would you?] then be warned, spoilers for the entire comic ahead. 

I also wanna add that I have nothing against Tillie Walden. I know a lot of dingdongs are harassing her on insta over this comic and that’s not okay. You telling her how much you hate her isn’t going to change anything. If anything, you keep being assholes to her and she’s just gonna block everything out, even things simply critiquing her work in hopes that it helps her improve. 

You’re allowed to be upset about the comic and share your feelings about it, but don’t take it out on the actual human being like that. Besides, like I’ve said before, if Tillie wasn’t gonna make the comic, Skybound would’ve found someone else to do. This was coming no matter what because Skybound wants that coin. 

That being said, I’m not going to hold back my opinions on this comic. Skybound and Tillie made this comic, they put it out there and asked for money for it, therefore I’m allowed to explain why it’s garbage as well as ponder over the questionable intent and whether or not Tillie actually has played these games. Y’know, it’s like how I have nothing against Kent, but sometimes he says things I disagree with and well, y’know how it goes. 

Alright, this is gonna be long, so let’s go--

The first few shots we get are of the school, two people sleeping, and Clementine’s empty bed. Nothing super note-worthy, we have no idea who is sleeping in the beds, it’s just there to establish that it’s early and everyone’s still asleep. 

The drawing of the school looks fine? Not super accurate, but I can give it a pass since it’s a few years later, I assume. What I can’t give a pass is how you managed to already mess up on the first page of your comic. 

Because..... why are you implying that Clementine’s room is upstairs? First of all, seems kinda dumb to put Clem, who has only one leg and has to walk with crutches, upstairs. Also, if you’ve played TFS and paid any attention to where her room is actually located [the dorms] then you’d know there isn’t any stairs leading to their floor. It’s the side building next to the admin building, you walk through the door, go down the hall, take a left and their dorm is right there sooo..... 

Oh right, it’s probably done this way so that we can have such a suspenseful moment where Clementine is sneaking out while the others are asleep and her foot makes a creeeeeeakk that could wake everyone up, thwarting her plans of abandoning everyone quietly so she doesn’t have to deal with any consequences. 

Because yeah, Clementine is sneaking out with all of her supplies because apparently, she’s been planning an escape from this place for a while. 

And just look at how gosh darn happy she is about it. You can’t see or hear me, but know that I’m laughing. Don’t worry, I will talk about her abandoning everyone later.

But first, I have a gripe with Clementine's design in this comic. It doesn’t look like her. This art of her right here is the most accurate we get throughout all 12 pages, and it’s the best looking, too. 

Moving on, she slams the door shut while this walker changes faces and hair between panels, so that’s cool. I will say, I like the idea of the Ericson crew putting spikes on the door. That’s fun. 

Though Clementine slamming the door shut while trying to sneak out seems counter productive but it fits with the theme this comic has of inconsistency, so it works. 

Next we have Clementine going to what I believe is the fishing shack by the river, and she’s going through some things that she’s stashed away, telling us that she’s been planning this escape for a while. 

Oh good, she has a map. Well at least now she won’t get lost out there in the woods while she makes her escape... also that last panel with her profile.... why does it look so funny? Like this page of the comic doesn’t look too bad, but there is something off putting about her eye there and how she has zero expression. 

And it turns out that rustle was a walker, and Clementine is super inconvenienced by this and gives us our first piece of witty dialogue.

Yeah you dumb walker, can’t you see Clementine is busy running away from home and abandoning all of her loved ones without a single goodbye so she doesn’t have to witness the consequences of her selfish actions?? Gosh, so rude.

Just a heads up, the dialogue in this comic is stilted, emotionless, and bland. The words have no flow, no charm, and never feel like they should be coming out of Clementine’s mouth. Then again, the upcoming graphic novels this is tied to are for young adult/middle graders so I guess we have to dumb everything down so their baby brains can process it. 

.....Why does her face look like that? Also, interesting that she decided to move her ponytail to the other side of her head.... which is a thing that happens throughout this comic, her hair will randomly change sides. 

I believe it’s a metaphor for her changing and inconsistent personality. 

So yeah, Clementine is just making off with the supplies she gathered [I’m sure Ericson doesn’t need ‘em anyway] and she’s just so gosh darn annoyed at all these small inconveniences bothering her.... because it’s just too early for this. 

.....Again, why does her face look like that?

I’m sorry, like I get it, Tillie’s style is supposed to be purposely messy yet minimal but it doesn’t work. When you do a comic in a more messy style, usually it has charm and heart put into it. Effort goes into the messy look, and when things are minimal, that usually means more clean, yeah? So you put them together and just..... that is nothing resembling Clementine’s face. 

Can we just--

Look at canon Clementine’s face. Look at the way her eyebrows are shapes, how wide her eyes are with her eye lashes. The dirt on her skin, the lines-- there is so much personality in her features. It doesn’t matter if she’s wearing a neutral expression or she’s expressing anger or joy or sorrow or whatever. 

Now, is it fair to compare a model of Clem from the games to the Clem in this comic? Well, I assume that if Tillie is doing this comic, she would use references from the game to ensure that Clementine is recognizable, especially now that she’s no longer wearing her signature hat. 

So why does she look like this? Why do I look at these drawings of her face and see nothing but a pair of eyes, a nose, and a mouth? You might as well draw me a simple smiley face. And I get that it’s a comic, and it’s a lot of work to draw the same character over and over again and you gotta cut corners somewhere, but maybe put some effort into the close up shots of her face so that we can actually see it’s her? 

Other fan artists have made comics in their styles that shine bright with Clementine’s personality, so what happened here? 

Anyway, surprise..... it’s not a walker annoying Clementine. 

........Why does AJ look like that??? I’m sorry, I hate to do the same thing I just did but--

Just because you put Clementine’s hat on AJ that doesn’t automatically make it him. I just.... wow. This feels like there wasn’t a single reference involved, like if someone gave Tillie a basic description of AJ and she just did this. 

But appearances aside, what is AJ saying? He says that he knew it, that Clementine’s leaving and I cannot stand this dialogue. It’s unnatural. Again, I know you wanna dumb it down for all of us because I guess we dumb.... but this conversation does not feel natural. 

“I knew it. You’re leaving.” “AJ....” “I’m coming.”

Even if you changed it to, “I’m coming with you.” it would sound more natural. Hell, he doesn’t even question WHY she’s leaving, he just stands there like “I’m coming” like??? I’m sorry, have you ever heard a single word this murder baby has said? I assume you have because I assume you actually played TFS, right? Soooo.... what happened here?

.....whY DO THEIR FACES LOOK LIEK THAT KSAJDLKJAS:LKDJLKASJD:L--

So now we’re getting into it.... into the bullshit. 

Clementine tells AJ to go back to the school, and AJ says that she wasn’t even going to say goodbye..... and then more bad dialogue that sound unnatural when you try to fucking read it. 

First off.... AJ’s reaction to Clementine attempting to leave is barely anything. Again, I hate to keep questioning if you actually played TFS, but AJ would throw a fucking fit if he caught Clementine out here ALONE like this, attempting to leave. 

And then he says “Like last time? You were going to come back?” this sentence makes my brain hurt. I just.... “Like last time, right? You’re coming back?” UGH

Wow, I feel nothing. 

I’m sitting here watching these two imposters with fucked up faces who are supposed to be Clementine and AJ and I feel nothing. 

I’m not even going to comment on the faces anymore. You can see it. You know. 

So yeah... AJ tells her the #1 rule, and reminds her that she promised.

Y’know.... she promised that she would never leave him again? Remember? At the McCarroll ranch? That flashback that was in TFS? The one you would watch if you played the game? 

Why is she looking straight at me when she should be looking at AJ as she says this? Is this Clementine’s way of telling me she’s sorry for what a shitty direction this is taking? I wouldn’t know because her face isn’t doing anything. Just because you draw a couple of tears that doesn’t mean I’m feeling the emotional heartbreak you’re attempting to convey. 

I don’t have enough middle fingers for this.

Well, my hat’s off to you. Ya did it. Ya fucked up everything single part of Clementine’s character in the span of two pages, I’m almost impressed. 

First off, the baby thing is weird. Why is she calling him that? She’s never called him that, which you should know.

Second, she’s not happy and that’s why she’s leaving. Clementine isn’t happy, and AJ can’t make her happy. Ericson can’t make her happy. So she’s going to go out on the road to.... what, be unhappy by herself? 

I’m sorry, but apparently we need a few reminders here of who Clementine is, because this isn’t her. 

This is Clementine. 

Clementine fought for years to find a home, something she hasn’t had since she was an eight-year-old girl before the apocalypse. The motor-inn wasn’t a home, the cabin wasn’t home, the ski-lodge, Howe’s, Wellington, Richmond, Prescott, none of them were home. 

She struggled for years, dealing with trauma after trauma while out on the road. She went from group to group, watching people she cared about die and she was powerless to do anything about it. Whenever she let her guard down and become comfortable, it bit in her in the ass and left her heartbroken.

She was there when AJ was born. She grew close to Rebecca while she was pregnant, she let herself do that even after everything she went through with Christa. Clementine had a bond with AJ even before he was born, and after Rebecca died, she did what she could to keep him safe, despite play choice. 

She cried when she thought AJ died and when she found him in that car again. She swore to protect him, to raise him right and love him. All they had was each other. 

And when she joined the new frontier and AJ got sick, she risked everything to save him and she was devastated when they took him away from her. When she found out he was alive, she is willing to go as far as helping Lingard overdose [INJECTING HIM HERSELF IF SHE HAS TO] to figure out his location. She did shitty things to find him, she killed people at McCarroll Ranch to find him again. 

Clementine raised him and he is her family, do you understand that? She went to hell and back for him, she taught him how to protect himself, and even though she made mistakes she sacrificed everything for him. She promised him that they would have a home of their own one day, she talked about how much she wished for a world where she didn’t have to worry about fighting and killing and AJ could just be a happy kid. 

She fought for Ericson, she watched her friends die or become mutilated by someone from her past. She allowed herself to be vulnerable enough to pursue a romantic relationship with Louis or Violet because she felt safe with them, felt safe at Ericson because it’s their home now. 

And when Clementine was bit, she thought she was going to die but she still fought to make sure AJ would be safe and happy without her and it was heartbreaking. She’s dying and the only thing she cares about is AJ. Not herself, not what’s going to happen to her after she dies or turns... no, she tries to make AJ smile again, she makes sure he remembers the rules, and she tells him that she loves him. 

Then he cuts off her leg, and she survives. AJ saved her fucking life, and she got to wake up at home and live to see her family again. She got to push AJ on a tire swing, she got to eat a hot meal and laugh with her friends, she got to make plans with her lover/best friend for what’s next for Ericson, and she got to talk to AJ and tell him the truth... and she asked him if she did a good job, and he’s honest with her right back. 

Hell, she tells him to keep her hat. Her iconic hat. The one thing she has left of her father, possibly her more cherished item. She lets him keep it. 

The last time we see Clementine, she’s happy. She’s sitting on the steps by herself, staring at her family with such fondness in her eyes and a smile on her face because she finally did it. She finally found a home where she can breathe. She has a bed to sleep in, she has AJ with her, she has a boyfriend/girlfriend who loves her and who she loves back, she has friends she can rely on. 

Clementine smiles, and lets out a small laugh. 

She doesn’t have to run anymore. 

And now you have the balls to tell me that AJ and Ericson don’t make Clementine happy anymore. 

She abandons everything to go back out on the road again, and that’s proof enough for me that you don’t understand a damn thing about Clementine or her journey. 

“ I don't even know the person I'm talking about... It's like all we have in common is the same name.” 

....Anyway.

Wow, Clementine found a car and kept is stashed. How lazy and convenient for this bullshit plot. 

And this is the part where I have to tell this comic to fuck off. 

What, you think if you throw in an incredibly inaccurate flashback next to a current pair of hugging Clem and AJ that I’ll feel anything but anger? That flashback is a slap to the face. It’s snowing, but the only time we’ve seen snow is in S2 when AJ was a literal new born, so why is he that big? Is that supposed to be from ANF because that ALSO doesn’t look like that AJ, and that’s not the outfit Clementine had on... AND there was no snow. This is cheap and meaningless. 

Any fan of the series who has played through the games could tell you this. 

So.... AJ runs into the woods and then we get this garbage.

This comic is awful. It misses the point of everything TFS, and the rest of the series, stood for. There is no heart here. I feel no happiness in reading it, and I don’t detect any passion behind it. It’s a lifeless comic that retcons everything in order to throw AJ away and start fresh with a new adventure for Clementine that makes no sense because the cow isn’t profitable unless it’s milked. 

This isn’t canon, and it won’t ever be canon, and honestly? At this point, I have no faith in the graphic novel trilogy. It will take a lot to do a turn around from this, and I don’t even know if that’s possible. 

Again, to reiterate, I don’t have anything personal against Tillie Walden herself. She’s just doing her job, and from what I’ve seen of her as a person, she seems like a sweetheart. I don’t want anyone giving her shit because I think the comic isn’t good or that you agree with me. All of my anger is directed at the comic itself, her work, not specifically her.... and a little bit at Skybound, because they’re the reason this is even a thing in the first place. 

So yeah.... there ya have it. 

[steve0discusses]

S5 Ep10: Kaiba Embarrasses Himself on International Television Again

We start off this duel by teasing us into believing that this is a part of a theme park:

The Kaiba theme park is a weird mix of actual horrorscapes and animal crossing cutesy stuff...you can really tell what parts were Mokuba and what parts were Seto in this park.

But Leon takes it well, just kinda standing there as he’s done this entire arc--being a general forgettable nice boy who just...doesn’t do anything. Like he gets up, he plays cards, he sits down. Having him on top of a rock with melodramatic Little Mermaid waves crashing at his feet is laughably the opposite of Leon’s whole vibe.

Leon just seems like the type that listens to coffee shop ambient Youtube videos when he wants to amp himself up. This kid appears to attend a private school...somewhere...I think, and just went to a dueling competition in his school outfit because he literally doesn’t have a style of his own hanging in his closet.

Like Yugi wears his school outfit, but he does that ironically, to off-set the amount of makeup and hair spray he has in his hair. Leon wears the school outfit maybe because he admires Yugi so much, but is like “time for my rogue bow I wear in my hair. That’ll scare my competition.” He completely missed the point of the 00′s alt school outfit scene.

I do way too much art to not see the imagery. I feel like this is half my job, and playing “where’s the hidden Freudian meaning?” is half the fun of going to any art museum.

(read more under the cut)

Anyway, Seto got tired of no one paying any attention to him, so he stepped out of his 14-monitor mancave, he very quickly pulled his Dragon outfit out of the (dirty) laundry, flicked a couple sea crabs out of his pockets, spritzed it with Febreeze and called it “good enough.”

Like, is it just me, or has dragon jacket greyed out a tad from last season? Like it’s starting to get a little...worn? Like what funk is coming off of Seto Kaiba right now?

Also notice that he brought his giant stash of cards to the duel. He’s going to put on this show as if he’s not going to pull out the giant stash of cards. But like...he’s going to pull out the giant stash of cards. Like Hell boring ass Leon is going to play his deck of Candyland characters again.

Leon is declared a winner on Technicality and it’s like.

Damn Seto, for reals?

So congrats, Leon, you did literally nothing, again, and yet you mystifyingly  persist on this show. Clearly you aren‘t going to grow a second head out of that ponytail like professor Quirrel in the last act of this arc.

That’s when Yugi’s hazy memory recalls something from the Before Times of “that time period before I was possessed by a needy ghost that eats up 3/4 of my memories and time.”

So Schroeder is Atari. Neat.

Also, this makes Zigfrieds outfits a hell ton more endearing when you realize he’s this Willy Wonka game company owner making toys for children. Kinda makes you wonder why Seto’s such a stick up the ass in comparison when it’s like--dude Kaiba, maybe you could learn a thing or two about whimsy. It could really help out your inconsistent park.

Anyway, Kaiba quickly realized who hacked the park and so, understandably, he asked Zigried to leave, which...backfired?

Y’all card culture is a lot. Everyone in the audience covered their faces in shame because they were so embarrassed by Seto Kaiba and I’m like...not sure why? Because he didn’t do a duel? Against this guy who snuck into his tourney not unlike Rex and Weevil? This asshole?

Recall that the last time Seto played a guy who had a fake name it was Marik freakin Ishtar and he killed a LOT of people (actually, it was Alister, pretending to be Pegasus, but he also killed a lot of people so that still tracks). Card culture can’t seem to learn from their mistakes, although Seto clearly sees the problem with dueling a professional hacker in a digital card game on a hologram that may or may not be able to murder you. At least its not a magic.

And so, tired of being humiliated on television, Seto decides to bust out the dueling gloves (well, not those gloves. You know what I meant) and use the equipment he BROUGHT WITH HIM and clearly never intended not to use in the first place.

(I hope you enjoy this dutch angle that wasn’t quite dutch enough, so it just looks like they’re lounging)

Roland patiently walks over from...somewhere? I don’t know where Roland comes from whenever he pops up, but he waltzed over to hold onto this suitcase as if that’s a formal part of his job.

I say this so often but like...I don’t know what Roland’s job is. He’s like a valet/butler/duel referee/duel cheerleader/CEO/and I will spend the rest of this series trying to understand it. Part of me is like...could Roland be a temp worker at an agency who just gets rehired for a different Kaiba Corp job every couple of weeks?

That weird ass fourthKaiba, I will never understand Roland.

Just one letter away from being a Zigfriend, Kaiba. Just one letter away. I know this because I misspell friend a LOT.

Zigfreind? Zigfriend? Damn it, both of them look the freakin same to me, this sucks! Why can’t I spell friend without autocorrect!?

Just the amount these two fight when Seto clearly barely even remembers who this guy even is.

Leon shows up in the seats, pretending that he’s totally cool about winning on a technicality right after Zigfried went on a rant about how shameful, irredeemable, and mortally embarrassing winning on technicalities are.

He seems to take it pretty well, smiling, sitting next to Rebecca, and then dissolving right into the background because this kid’s whole deal is being way too nice to exist on this show.

Y’all we just had that art meme where people were redrawing that “How to draw manga face” and guys...that’s what our anime used to look like.

I mean look at that uncomfortable chin there, that tapers in for some reason. Those eyes melting off of her face. The lack of any 3d sense. This was an anime ideal for a very, very long time.

Anyway, the “how to draw manga face” is a perfect masterpiece and never needs to change. (But it is fun to make fun of it although I guess the person that drew it was actually a kid, which makes sense from a publishing perspective to have a kid make a book about how to draw stuff for kids.)

We see a little flashback of Schroeder and why he hates Seto Kaiba, and can I just say, I kind of love this little outfit. Kind of a shame that it’s stuffed into a flashback.

Which is when we found out that Zigfried thinks Seto Kaiba did a plagiarism.

Which is hilarious because it was Gozaburo Kaiba who was plagiarizing Seto, so like...who did it first?

OK guys. Lets talk about this.

APPARENTLY, there was some sort of contest to work with Pegasus...kind of like an architecture contest (which is a thing, when a city is doing a big project, they send out a call, and big firms will compete to see who builds it) and I GOTTA know what Pegasus’ theme was.

Like did he say to all the little rich kid geniuses “I would like something that makes my cards ALIVE, can you do that?” Then when Pegasus got a hell ton of holograms and was he like “But ALIVE--it makes it alive, right boy?” And when he was shaking the hands of each stupid kid was he like “So if I hypothetically put my dead wife on a card and slapped it into the machine--could she EXIST. Like...enough? I just need her to legally exist is all, and not like..literally of course...but enough literally to be a sin against God, can you do that?”

I just want to know if Willy Wonka Wonderkid Von Schroeder had any idea he was creating a resurrection chamber for a dark wizard. Like he has no idea that he dodged getting his business bought straight from under him and his soul shoved into a card. And it’s not like Schroeder was going to abduct Yugi’s Grandpa and ensure that Yugi would be there to save him down the road. Like I’m pretty sure Schroeder would have been sacrificed waaay before that whole island contest even went down.

Zigfried got so freakin lucky. I can’t believe he’s mad. But then again...

...the man swims in milk pools so like...maybe his logic center is busted? Maybe he wanted to die in a horrific murder island? I don't know what Zigfried is into, but I do know that because Zigfried doesn’t have millennium rod powers linking him to the millennium eye--so would it have mattered? There’s destiny reasons that Pegasus chose Kaiba.

Course...we never found out where the scales ended up, have we? We think it’s Shadi, but have we seen Shadi bust those out since Season Zero?

Man that would be a good plot twist that will absolutely not happen.

Yo, make horse guy into a dark wizard, show, I dare you!

Anyway, that’s all for now, but if you want to read from the beginning, here’s the link:

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

[rodneymckays]

stargate episodes that should have been, part 20: an alternate reality episode where cam went to atlantis and sheppard joined sg-1. in this universe cam wasn’t injured in antarctica and i think that he is the kind of guy who would go to another galaxy for fun and also because he has to do the Best thing he can possibly do and that’s going to another galaxy. sheppard for whatever reason didn’t sit in the chair but did still fly jack down to antarctica so when they’re looking for sg-1’s fourth jack is like “well there’s this guy i met who kinda reminds me of me except he likes antarctica for some reason” so he becomes sg-1’s fourth under sam’s command. i think at first that would cause issues because of his problems with following orders + sam is new to her command and feeling somewhat insecure about it BUT these issues aren’t with sheppard disobeying sam’s orders they’re just sam worrying that he will. because sheppard only disobeys orders that he sees as bad and from what i remember of s4 + his personality in general he really respects sam. anyways this is actually a 3-parter because you have the sg-1 episode where our sg-1 meets the other sg-1, the atlantis episode where our atlantis people meet the other atlantis people, and then the crossover where they all meet one another because you can’t have the sheppards and the cams not meet themselves. i have no idea where in the timeline it is beyond “not season 4” because there are inconsistencies, but whatever. it’s also very long so i am using paragraph breaks for once!! also i will be putting a 1 after the duplicates from the show universe and a 2 after the duplicates from the au for clarity. (everyone without a number is the only one of themselves present and is from the au). also i definitely got carried away and this is too much plot and not enough character interaction even though i originally thought this one up for the character interactions, oops.

EPISODE 1: SG-1. somehow, our sg-1(1) is pulled through to this other reality. something to do with ba’al messing with some ancient tech in the other reality. the sg-1(2) of that reality, led by sam2 and featuring a major sheppard2, has snuck onto the ha’tak ba’al is using as his base of operations. they run into our sg-1(1) and there’s some spider-man pointing meme and then sam1 and sam2 start discussing how this could have happened while the valas compliment each other’s hair and cam1 and sheppard2 go “wait but you’re supposed to be in atlantis” “no, YOU’RE supposed to be in atlantis.” eventually we find out that ba’al is using ancient tech to develop a hyperdrive capable of traveling between galaxies, which the goa’uld don’t have. his test destination is the pegasus galaxy because he figures that if it works for one jump but then fails, then he can just turn up at atlantis and ask the tau’ri for help again after threatening them lightly to save face. obviously the humans don’t want ba’al going to pegasus, because we like our villains to stay confined to just one galaxy, and also if his hyperdrive works then he could destroy atlantis or ally himself with the wraith or be defeated by the wraith and have his ship captured and now the wraith have an intergalactic hyperdrive or—well, there’s lots of ways it could go wrong, and sg-1(1) gets the point that they need to help sg-1(2) stop ba’al. they spend much of the episode tracking ba’al and sneaking around the ship, until they finally corner ba’al in the engine room and teal’c2 shoots him. unfortunately, they enter hyperspace almost immediately after this, and are captured by… another ba’al. END.

EPISODE 2: ATLANTIS. somehow, our atlantis team1 is pulled through to this other reality. something to do with mckay2 and zelenka messing with some ancient tech in the other reality. our atlantis team1 is quickly locked in interrogation rooms because who are they and why is major sheppard with them instead of colonel mitchell? this tips off mckay1 to the fact that they’re now in an alternate reality. fortunately mckay2 and zelenka have already reached this conclusion and they’re let out of the interrogation rooms just in time for news to reach atlantis that a ha’tak has arrived in pegasus. (and also before ronon1 and ronon2 start fighting instead of just glaring menacingly at one another, because who thought it was a good idea to have ronon2 interrogate ronon1. he didn’t even ask any questions.) alternate weir decides to send the atlantis team2 in to investigate but mckay2 is like “i’ll need someone to help me with the goa’uld tech, we’ll take zelenka” but zelenka is immediately like “no?? there’s another you here. take him. i don’t like leaving the city” so it’s decided that both mckays will go, and you can’t send mckay1 without the rest of his team so EVERYONE is going. they take two jumpers because mitchell2 and sheppard1 both want to fly the jumper. when they arrive through the space gate that the ha’tak is near, they see a badly damaged wraith hive with no life signs. the ha’tak has also taken some damage, but much less, and they’re able to fly through a hole in the hull to board. they detect minimal life signs: two on the bridge, eleven in the cells, and a few others scattered around that must be ba’al’s jaffa. the group decides to split up; they toss a coin and mitchell’s team2 goes to the bridge while sheppard’s team1 goes to the cells. when sheppard’s team1 arrives at the cells, they find them unguarded but locked. mckay1 cracks the lock and we see the cell doors slide open. cut to the bridge. when mitchell’s team2 arrives, they see one of the dots on the life signs detector begin to fade. mckay2 gets the door open just in time to see ba’al collapse to the floor, having been fed on by a wraith. END.

EPISODE 3: CROSSOVER. what the hell, ba’al is in a wraith now. (i’ve always wondered about what would happen if the goa’uld met the wraith; would they fight and if so who would win? or would a goa’uld take a wraith as a host? is that even possible? i say yes because it’s Fun.) the symbiote entered the wraith and then promptly fed on his former host because he was hungry. this is obviously Terrible News because the wraith are bad enough but tbh they’re not very smart. ba’al is. mitchell’s atlantis team2 all point their weapons at him and radio sheppard’s atlantis team1 to let them know there’s now a goa’uld with a wraith host. sheppard1 responds and says “ok, we’ll we’ve got two sg-1s here. and also todd” to which mitchell2 replies “who the hell is todd?” (“pale skin, long hair, likes to suck your soul out with his hand but makes it weird by returning your soul ten minutes later?” “oh you mean casper.” “what the hell kind of a name is casper?” “what the hell kind of a name is todd?!”) we find out that “casper”, who is of course alternate todd but was named casper by mitchell2, was on the hive ba’al disabled. he and one other wraith were taken aboard the ha’tak, and he was put in the cell for later in case the first implantation of a wraith didn’t work. he’s willing to help everyone defeat wraith ba’al, because goa’ulds taking wraith as hosts is bad for the wraith too. so they do some stuff, and with much difficulty, kill wraith ba’al. it’s harder than killing a normal wraith because he has the goa’uld regenerative ability, and also he keeps feeding on his jaffa to recover after being shot. eventually they manage to trick him into a set of rings and space him. then they have to decide what to do with the ha’tak. casper wants it for himself because of the intergalactic hyperdrive and turns on them. they manage to activate the self destruct and flee back to the jumpers. they believe that casper is destroyed in the self destruct, but he survives somehow. the rest of the episode is the sams, mckays, and zelenka trying to figure out how to send sg-1(1) and the atlantis team1 home. we also get a few character moments between everyone and their counterparts: cam2 and both sheppards discuss puddlejumpers while cam1 is sad because he doesn’t have the gene and never received gene therapy so he can’t fly a puddlejumper. they break into medical to convince beckett to give cam1 the gene therapy; they’re pretty sure it’ll work on him since it worked on cam2. it does, and the cams and the sheppards immediately have a race to the mainland and back. (the sheppards win, but it’s close, and the cams try to blame it on the fact that cam1 has never flown a jumper before while everyone else has.) the daniels go to the library together and share their knowledge about the ancients and the ori; mostly they know the same stuff but they do both learn a few new things. the ronons fight one another. it’s a draw. the teylas and the teal’cs watch the ronons fight, and then meditate. the valas flit between each of the groups and compare their versions of everyone. vala1 ends up in weir’s office and bugs her with a bunch of questions until weir actually puts down her work and just Hangs Out. vala2 ends up with the cams and the sheppards because she’s absolutely best buds with sheppard2 and desperately wants to meet sheppard1. anyways after everyone hangs out for awhile they go home and it’s a very :) ending, which is what they need after All That.

i like this character swap idea a lot because after watching the pegasus project i was kinda chomping at the bit for more character interaction between sheppard and the rest of sg-1. particularly vala. more after the cut cause i wanna yell about all the other stuff i love about this!!

i also like the idea of sheppard not being in the team leader position. it makes me wonder what him following orders offworld, particularly sam’s, would look like. i don’t remember him and sam butting heads over command decisions in quite the same way him and elizabeth did at the start (sheppard wanting to go go go, make slapdash decisions, usually in an effort to help people, altho sometimes misguided, particularly in hot zone, vs elizabeth who was often looking towards a less militaristic approach, i.e not trading explosives to the genii, not torturing a POW etc. and who took her time making decisions). but then again, both sam and john are military. so, it’d be interesting to see how sam manages him along with the rest of the team. also, since hes not in a leadership position (no ones counting on him to keep the team together), would he be even more gungho about the self-sacrifice play? or just the same as ever? anyway, enough about john (once i start, i can’t stop, it seems), let’s get into the episodes!!

Episode 1:

“if it works for one jump but then fails, then he can just turn up at atlantis and ask the tau’ri for help again after threatening them lightly to save face.” LMAO truly ba’al’s modus operandi.

and the wraith potentially stealing hyperdrive technology is DEFINITELY something sg teams of all universes and galaxies should team up to put a stop to. a whole new galaxy to feed on?? not to mention earth??? NOT GREAT. the situation definitely calls for earth’s mightiest heroes squared.

also i appreciate a good sneak on an alien ship. especially times 2. and who would partner with who?? so many fun character combos!

Episode 2:

LMFAO OKAY. ronon vs ronon is such a ronon thing that i laughed out loud. both of them would definitely wanna know which one was tougher. also. also. i would love for zelenka and mckay1 to have a science twin moment and mckay2 to get all proprietary and be like “get ur own!”

i can’t imagine rodney would get along all that well with himself so its a good thing the rest of the teams will be there to run interference. and be separated on the ride there bahaha. cam and sheppard would totally fight over who gets to fly the cool spaceship (the teylas look at each other with raised eyebrows of sympathy and respect. both teams require them to pull on their reserves of infinite patience).

OOOO and ending on a CLIFFHANGER and INTRIGUE, QUICKLY, to the next episode!

Episode 3:

u kno, i was thinking earlier, after reading the first episode, what would an interaction between goa’uld and wraith look like? my immediate thought was, they are either gonna join forces to crush the stupid humans or fight because the goa’uld kinda need those humans for indentured servitude and, u kno, living. or, u kno, they would fight just because their ginormous egos clashed. but NEVER did the thought occur to me that a goa’uld might take a wraith as its host for its superior genetic makeup over humans (super strength, jedi mind tricks, telepathy etc.) and this is why ur brain is amazing. and a smart, conniving creature in control of a wraith body…spells trouble. and i didn’t even consider the double healing factor which would make any wraith on par with an uber wraith (that i dont remember ever seeing after the defiant one lol).

also cam naming his todd casper means everything to me. his ability to drop movie/pop culture references no one gets/appreciates is extremely endearing.

another amazing thing about this; sam actually gets to science with mckay and zelenka FOR ONCE. i’m really sad we were deprived this in season 4, like i get sam was the leader of the expedition in that season, and it wasn’t her job to be doing science/where is the time, but u can’t take the science out of the girl, no sir. i just wanted the beautiful mind children to be techno babbling it up, all with a begrudging respect for one another, as everyone stares in awe and confusion.

and cam gets to fly cool spaceships!!!! for leisure! with no one threatening his life! he did not get to do enough flying imo. and the teyla’s definitely deserve meditation time after dealing with double of their rambunctious team. and YES elizabeth deserves to have fUN. vala is the best person to help her with that. and vala and sheppard!!!! being buds!!! ALL I HAVE EVERY WANTED FROM STARGATE! what a fantastic ending to a wonderful series of episodes.

[dayofunity]

Echoes of the Past, Emperor Belos, and the Day of Unity

Spoilers,  please don’t keep reading if you haven’t watched this episode yet. The post is kinda long, so I’ll include a TL;DR at the bottom! Enjoy!

It’s five in the morning and I’m trying to get all of this out so I have bragging rights when Rebecca Rose puts all of this together in her reaction video, so sorry if it’s jumbled and incoherent. That’s just how I do- I made a Tumblr specifically to share this so I hope you enjoy! First of all, holy shitaki mushrooms, what an episode. This is exactly my favorite type of episode, the episode you’ll know you’ll watch later and know exactly what everything meant. I know we don’t have all the puzzle pieces yet but you can bet I’m going to try to put them together now. So, in this episode, they were clearly drawing our attention to this big mural. I have a lot of thoughts about this thing in particular. 

While I also have thoughts about the guy on the left, I’ll save that for another time. Let’s talk about the figure on the right. I think this is the Titan, or something related to the Titan.  Let me walk ya through why, because it’s for more reasons than “it’s big”.  First of all, look at the hand.

I know that there’s a finger difference, but that fourth finger could be hiding in the angle of the pose. It’s also worth noting that another depiction of what is presumably the Titan’s hand in the Unauthorized History of the Boiling Isles (top left illustration) gives the hand a completely different look and five fingers, so there are already inconsistencies in illustrations. Take this with a grain of salt. 

Another thing worth noting is that symbol on the figure’s chest. We have seen this before, in an incredibly interesting place. 

This is the top of Emperor Belos’s castle. Right before this shot in Agony of a Witch, Willow tells Luz that the castle was built as a “symbol of unity”. Considering that this castle is built in a chasm surrounded by bones, it doesn’t seem very... unifying. However, what if it’s literally a symbol for unity, an important structure for the Day of Unity? We don’t really know much about the Day of Unity- if memory serves, all we know is that it is the focus of Emperor Belos’s plans, that a date for it is fast approaching, that he needs wild witches to be “dealt with”, and that he needs the portal for it. Working with this limited information, it’s hard to figure out what the Day of Unity is. However, this new detail may shed some light on it. Stick with me here. 

Look at the way the tower was built, opposed to the rest of the building. It’s different, clearly added on later, as is shown by the fact that it’s sprouting from ruins. A bluish pipe- or vein, it’s difficult to tell with this show- runs up the tower, piping something in or out from whatever’s combusting at the top. Now, it’s hard to tell where Emperor Belos’s throne room that’s shown in Agony of a Witch is, other than the fact that it isn’t on the first floor, but for the sake of the argument, let’s say it’s at the base of this new tower, directly under it.

Above Emperor Belos’s throne is what we can assume is the Titan’s heart. Attached to it is a blue tubing of sorts. Obviously this is all speculation, but if that is the same tubing, then the Titan’s heart is connected directly the tower- the “symbol of unity”. I find the placement of this tubing on the heart rather interesting as well, as it is pretty much lines up exactly with where a witch’s bile sac is located.

I’m pretty sure we were already assuming- at least I was- that Belos was using the Titan’s power, not just communicating with it, as the powers he has displayed are unlike anything else we’ve really seen. We know that all magic comes from the Titan’s original magic- KIng alludes to it in the beginning of Young Blood, Old Souls (” [The Titan's] original magic was so potent, all life on the isles evolved to wield magic too”)- so we can assume that the Titan’s got a lot to work with.  Now, we circle back to the mural. The symbol of unity, as I’m going to refer to it, is seen in the center of the creature’s ribcage, right around where a heart would be. Emperor Belos’s castle was built in the Titan’s chest cavity, also where a heart would be.  So. What if this Day of Unity is a unification ceremony between Belos and the Titan, and with the power he has harnessed with this heart, he has made his entire castle into a glorified bile sac.  Think about it. The Day of Unity requires all wild witches to be “dealt with”. That means that they are either petrified or in covens, locking up magic into controllable channels. Magic originally came from the Titan. What if Emperor Belos is trying to gather all magic into his coven system, leaving all magic at his command, and what if this is necessary for the Day of Unity? He needs to return magic to the Titan, and he couldn’t do that when witches were harnessing magic for themselves without his control. So essentially, the figure in that mural isn’t just the Titan, but it’s the Titan after the Day of Unity? Not physically the Titan as in the bones the entire Boiling Isles is made of, but its spirit manifested and able to wield magic? Or maybe it IS its physical form, and the Boiling Isles is just doomed by this process. This would bring in the portal. While Belos is a... goal oriented dictator, maybe he doesn’t want to entirely doom a whole bunch of people? So his solution would be simple: bring witches to Earth- relocate them  It’s a bit of a stretch, I’ll admit it. But I can’t think of any other way to include the portal, and I wanted to address it in some capacity. He clearly needs it, after all, and I don’t think he’s human or trying to take over Earth.  Maybe he needs the myths that have spilled out into the Human Realm (i.e. giraffes) to come back to the Boiling Isles? I’m just spitballing now, so I’m going to move on. 

There’s another possibility to consider. What if that figure ISN’T the Titan? Now, I know, I just spent too long trying to prove that it was. I finished watching this episode two hours ago, I’ve already sunk a lot of time into this, so I’ll make this quick.  We don’t know much about Emperor Belos’s communications with the Titan. We’ve never seen it happen, and he’s apparently the only person that we know of that is capable of doing so. Now, he could easily be lying about this, but let’s pretend he’s telling the truth. This episode already played with the idea of a king truly believing a lie he’s been led to believe, with King believing he was the King of Demons. Emperor Belos being lied to about being a chosen figure, able to communicate with the Titan itself would mirror things in a way that I just LOVE. (Also they both have things over their faces with two horns, King has a crack on his horn, Belos has a crack on his mask, both Belos’s castle and the King’s guardians have a... fleshy quality to them, let’s say? These just feel like they’re Something but I don’t know what so) We’ve already seen a weakness in Belos’s ability to account for personal motivations. He believed that Lilith would continue to serve him after refusing to heal Eda. What if there is another entity out there, an evil one, that is looking to gain a physical form, and is using Belos to do so? I don’t have a lot of fact to back this up, other than the discrepancies mentioned earlier with the “Titan’s” hand, and the fact that the Titan’s skull looks different from the head shape of the figure, from what we can see, but it would be an interesting thing to see play out.  Anyways, all I have to say is that I have the feeling that if the mural wasn’t chipped on the head of that figure, we’d see two horns looking suspiciously like Emperor Belos’s mask. TL;DR: The figure on the right in the mural (top picture) is an entity, likely the Titan, that Emperor Belos is looking to merge with or gain control over on the Day of Unity. The symbol on the center of the figure’s chest matches the main tower of Emperor Belos’s castle, which is referred to as a “symbol of unity”. I throw a bunch of other stuff at this idea but if you’re in a rush, these are the two main takeaways.

[oldsoldierr]

The Carnation ~ Part 8

summary: the media always told you that the famous art critic bucky barnes is an arrogant, rude playboy and you agree, but something still draws you to him. is there a deeper reason to why he acts the way he does or is he the class A jackass you first met?

art critic!bucky x artist!reader

word count: 1.2k

series masterlist

There you saw Brock with his back against the window, preparing to jump out at any moment. He had a tight grip on Becca, one arm around her neck, nearly strangling her, and a large chef’s blade pressed to her throat. Small droplets of blood were trickling down her body, disguised by her already scarlet dress. Her eyes were wide and panicked, but she didn’t dare move an inch. Brock had a cold, sharp smile, which was somehow more terrifying than if he had a crazed one. All the color had drained out of the brunette next to you.

“I’m a man of my word, Bucky boy.”

Bucky looked on helplessly.

“You don’t have to do this,” he reasoned. Brock breathed out a laugh.

“Like hell, I don’t,” he snarled. “You need to be taught a lesson. Success comes with a cost. I made you a star and you were about to throw it away. A chance in a million. Though, I wouldn’t expect you to understand, you ungrateful little rat. Now, you’re going to let me walk out of here, or I’ll kill your girl too.” His cold eyes locked onto yours. Bucky stepped in between you and Rumlow protectively. 

“Leave her out of this,” Bucky growled. Brock looked unfazed, even amused.

“Not your call to make, is it?” He squeezed Becca’s neck tighter.

“Any last words you’d like to say--” He never got to finish his sentence. 

There was a loud shattering sound as a figure burst through the window behind Rumlow and tackled him to the ground. You heard Becca scream. 

It happened so fast you barely registered what happened until a few seconds later when you saw a man restraining Brock’s arms behind his back on the floor, with the window just behind where Rumlow had been standing moments earlier, broken beyond repair.

“Steve?” you heard Bucky question. The blonde man is breathing heavily but there’s a mischievous twinkle in his eye when he looks up at his best friend.

“I leave you alone for five seconds and this happens? I thought I was the one who was trouble.” 

The brunette looks upon the scene before him disbelievingly, but can’t help laughing. Whether that be from shock or relief, not even Bucky seemed to know. 

From outside the busted window, you saw familiar red and blue lights as well as the infamous siren of police cars. Bucky seemed to snap out of his trance as he rushed to help his sister.

“Hey, hey,” he said softly. “You’re gonna be alright, cmon B, cmon, stay with me.” He scooped Becca’s head into his lap. The blood from her neck stained his pants but he didn’t seem to notice. 

She looked up at him. Her eyes were glassy and unfocused, but she seemed to know it was Bucky. She lifted her hand weakly onto Bucky’s. She looked as if she were about to say something but unconsciousness caught up to her first. Her eyelids fluttered as they closed.

“No,” Bucky whispered. “No! Someone get help!” As if on cue, the front door was slammed down. The house filled with cops and a stretcher was rolled in. Everything became a bit of a blur as Becca was lifted onto the stretcher and carted off in an ambulance. 

Rumlow was put in handcuffs in a quick clicking noise and escorted away by some police officers. Your eyes met Bucky’s for the briefest of moments before he too was led outside for a medical exam, Steve followed soon after. 

You got the hint and followed Steve to the ambulance. There were a couple of moments of silence between you two as he got patched up. You were the one to initiate the conversation first, though slightly hesitant.

“I gotta ask, how’d you know where we were? And for that matter, why are you even here right now? Last I checked you were off in California.” Steve tilted his head slightly.

“Well, Buck’s accident is all over the news, though I suppose it wasn’t an accident?” You nodded in response. He cleared his throat and resumed.

“Well I booked the first plane back after I heard, but I went to both your apartments, as well as the studio, and no one was there. That was a little suspicious but I didn’t really think too much of it. So then I tracked his car to Becca’s place and thought I’d surprise you guys. When I got here I was getting ready to scare you, but then I saw Rumlow attacking Becca through the window, so I called the cops. Apparently, there were a bunch close by looking for a real speedy car anyways, so they took barely any time at all.” The blonde shrugged.

“Did you really have to jump through the window though?” you asked. “There have got to be easier ways of doing that,” Steve smirked, trying to lighten the mood.

“I have a flair for the dramatic.” You both chuckled at that. From across the yard, you saw Bucky sitting on the edge of a car, a towel over his broad shoulders. You excused yourself from Steve and walked over to the brunette.

“...Hey Buck,” you said putting your hand on his shoulder. He put his hand over yours.

“Hey.” You looked down at the ground awkwardly.

“Are you okay?” you tried. Bucky gave you a lopsided smirk that didn’t quite meet his eyes.

“Yeah, I think I will be. They said Becca’s gonna make it.”

“Good, good…” You shifted uncomfortably, unsure if you should continue. You fiddled with your fingers.

“So…back at the apartment when you were pointing that gun at me, you said you loved me.” You gaged his face for a reaction before going on.

“Was that true? Like romantically or was it family love or just a spur of the moment?” The brunette tapped his foot as he weighed his options. He finally sighed and made eye contact with you.

“It’s true...and I was kinda hoping it could be romantic?” He looked at you hopefully. You diverted your eyes away from him and your mouth parted in thought, trying to process his words. It seemed you took a second too long as Bucky perceived that to mean you weren’t interested.

“O-oh I mean it’s okay if you don’t feel the same way, I mean I get it, it’s not a big deal. We can just be friends if you want, whatever works. Sorry, I didn’t mean to put this on you right now, I just- you know what, forget about it. It’s water under the bridge. I mean you can probably get whatever guy you want, don’t worry about me. Or if it’s too weird for you, we can just not be friends, it’s alright, I’m completely fine with anything, just--”

You brought his lips to yours in a far overdo kiss. As you pulled away for breath, your lips spread into a wide grin.

“Shut the fuck up. I love you too.” He looked dumbfounded for a moment before his mouth quirked upwards into a love-struck smile. 

He laughed and pulled you back in for another kiss as the sirens and chaos surrounding you seemed to disappear.

ayy, just the prologue left now! thank you for all the support on my first series! sorry i’m always so inconsistent w my posts but we got here in the end! keep fighting for black lives matter and stay safe! love y’all💕

series masterlist

[jennikkugoesoff]

Jennikku goes off about a Sonic the Hedgehog Reboot.

If you follow me at all or have read many of my other rants, you’ll know I love Sonic the Hedgehog. A lot, with all my heart. I met my friends through Sonic and it’s a franchise that’s changed a lot in my life, for better, for worse and everything in-between. It’s the reason I started to draw, to write and to really give creativity a chance.

It’s a series that has been through many twists, turns, up and down and all arounds over the course of it’s long, 28 (as of the time of writing) year lifespan, and has stood the test of time, being heralded either as one of the best video game franchises of all time, or, well, one of the worst out there, becoming more and more dated by each passing day.

But, it didn’t start out that way. Everyone’s told the long, terrible story now about Sonic’s massive rise to the top of 1990s American Iconography and his massive plummet into the depths of Hell, dragging his now-bitter fans down with him following the turn of the century and segwaying into the modern age, so I won’t bog you with the details you already know, but here’s the main point.

Sonic the Hedgehog... kinda sucks.

And that’s because it’s a mess. An astronomically confused, tired, and beaten mess. In the 28 year lifespan of Sonic the Hedgehog, it’s canon has become massively tangled in knots. Inconsistent games, inconsistent comics, inconsistent cartoons, and so on and so forth. Anyone who’s a fan of Sonic comes from a place where they heard about Sonic, be it the games, the cartoons, the comics, and so on, and therefore, have a different mindset about what Sonic the Hedgehog should be, which is the cause for much of the heavy, almost unpleasable climate the fan community gives off.

Really? The only way I see the series being salvageable is to wipe the slate clean and begin... at least somewhat anew, and see how these scatted pieces of broken glass we call the ‘Sonic canon’ can fit together.

This has been tried once, with Sonic Boom, but it didn’t really end well, and I’d like to change that, so let’s have this hypothetical reboot take the same form as Sonic Boom, as a potential ‘new face’ for the entire series, rather than a spinoff continuity. (I feel like this was the original intention of Sonic Boom, but due to the backlash, was revoked.)

Are you comfortable? Let’s go. It’s gonna be a long-ass, tiring, winding post.

(Seriously I spent fucking 3 days just writing this post. For that reason, there may be a few gRaMatTcul eRors here and there, just bear with me, okay? I’m tired and I just wanna heave out this monster of an idea.)

Housecleaning and on wiping the slate clean

Ok, before we actually get into redoing the series, I wanna make this clear, when I say I want to ‘wipe the slate clean’, that’s sort of an exaggeration. I don’t think Sonic needs to be completely rewritten from scratch, and certain elements of the series DO work very well, so it’s more we’re gonna ‘wipe the slate clean, but immediately redraw things back on, except bigger and better than they were before.’

The reason why is, Sonic the Hedgehog has a kind of ‘hoarder complex’ when it comes to his franchise. As I established earlier, the main problem with rebooting Sonic the Hedgehog as compared to another franchise like, say, Ducktales, or Ghostbusters, is that Sonic the Hedgehog has a lot of lore. Too much lore. Think about the crazy amount of lore surrounding Solaris, Mephiles, Dark and Light Gaia, the Wisps, Chaos, and Tikal, Shadow and the Black Arms, Silver, the Sol Dimension and Blaze, Eggman Nega, the Nocturnus Clan, the list goes on and on and on. It’s head-spinning, it’s confusing, and most of all, obtrusive to what’s actually important in the Sonic Canon versus what seems important.

This isn’t helped by the fact that Sonic has never really had a consistent ground to stand on in terms of his world and where he lives because where he lives changes with every game or new thing Sonic is in. So, introducing these new, complicated gods and grand, sprawling history all of a sudden doesn’t give the world Sonic lives in any ground or any real meaning if it’s just going to be ignored later on when Sonic Forces completely rewrites the world map from Unleashed. (This is a problem I have with the Mario and Kirby series too.)

Even if you claim something like the Sonic Archie comics have consistency in their setting, think about how much the comic’s version of Mobius changed over the course of its lifespan after not only being completely rewritten (thanks Ken Penders. I’m sure your horrific 3d render children are proud.) and two crossovers, not to mention all the subtle shifts and changes the comic made from its debut comic to its cancellation.

So, if we’re going to do this, we need to get this straight right now.

A new Sonic reboot will NEED to cover EVERY base of the Sonic continuity. Games, Comics, Cartoons, Merchandising (with the exception of maybe some anniversary stuff), The Whole Echidna- er, Enchilada.

If the problem with Sonic as it is, is that the continuity is messy because it keeps adding new stuff? THEN STOP FUCKING ADDING NEW STUFF!!

NO ONE’S GONNA LIKE THE NEW STUFF ANYWAY!!

PEOPLE FUCKING HATE CHANGE!!

THIS FRANCHISE IS SO FUCKing MiSTReATED!- FUCK!!

Nah, but seriously. If this reboot is gonna work, then it needs to BE a proper reboot. Not a side-series like Sonic Boom, not an ‘alternate dimension’ to dip into for mainline games, not a one-off series of animated shorts, no quills, no pillows. If we’re gonna do this, we’re gonna go all in. At least in terms of continuity.

So, you know what we’re gonna name this reboot?

Sonic the Hedgehog

Just, Sonic the Hedgehog. Yep. All in, indeed.

Audience, Tone, and Genre

I feel maybe I should’ve split these into multiple sections, but, they really all go hand-in-hand. 

If we’re gonna remake Sonic, we gotta first decide how Sonic should feel, and who he’s going to appeal to. So, let’s consider what we’re working with first, based on the history of who Sonic has appealed to.

The whole point of Sonic’s young, hip, snarky personality was to appeal to the American youth of the 1990s (kids, teenagers, and young adults), the young, hip, snarky and coolest people around. Sonic sought to identify with these kids by being a little bit ‘edgier’ and ‘cooler’ than most other cartoon characters of his era, but still with the capability to be as cute, wholesome and inherently charming as his competition. Like the perfect little blend of the sarcastic wit of Bugs Bunny and the lovable personability of Mickey Mouse and Felix the Cat.

Many Sonic clones of the 1990s like Bubsy, Aero the Acrobat, and Zero the [CENSORED] Squirrel tried to piggyback off of Sonic in this manner by trying to play up Sonic’s edgy, snarky appeal, but what they lack is that more wholesome, laid back, simple, round and friendly aspects of his design. It’s why Sonic can look like this:

but also like this

like this

but also like this.

It’s why Sonic works so well as a cartoon character in animated shorts and cartoons, as well as an action character in high octane blood pumping action anime, and one of the reasons why I think his design is so appealing. It’s this, this perfect balance between cool superhero and cuddly, wholesome cartoon character that makes Sonic such the iconic character he is.

So what’s the point of me telling you that?

Well, lots of people disagree on what Sonic the Hedgehog’s tone should be, and what audience Sonic should appeal to. Many argue Sonic is a series strictly meant for children, and therefore shouldn’t take any risks and be cutesy, wholesome and bouncy. Others argue Sonic should market itself to teenagers and young adults by pushing its envelope with it’s material and turning itself into a giant melodrama with three-dimensional characters, intertwining relationships and giant, epic Dragon Ball Z style showdowns with blood, guts and the crunching of noses and teeth.

You know what’s popular right now though and seems to have been for a while? A blend of those exact two things.

It sounds dumb but, think about it. Video games and cartoons have been taking this turn toward being a little bit of the best of both worlds. Steven Universe, Undertale/Deltarune, Star Vs. The Forces of Evil, even stuff like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, that sort of thing.

So, I think a new Sonic reboot should be an Action/Adventure-Comedy. It’s a series about long, lengthy quests and the ongoing war between nature and machine, but it’s also about a quick-witted cartoon character having fun picking on an overconfident evil scientist and his lackeys.

And you know what? I think Sonic is and has shown that this is the environment he flourishes in. Think about why Sonic Mania Adventures and Team Sonic Racing: Overdrive work so well, or why OK KO: Let’s Meet Sonic! is so great! It places Sonic and co. in an environment in which they have the opportunity to be funny and cartoony, but also leaves itself open to lead into more strict action sequences or serious, emotional moments, should it feel the need to. It lets the characters be the characters, without being impeded by everything needed to be babyproofed, but also not interrupted by fanfic-tier melodramatics every 2 and a half minutes. And, considering how much any media featuring Sonic relies on its characters to garner appeal, this is important.

Besides that, this is also important for something I think is going to make this reboot go from good to great.

: ✧･ﾟ: U N I F I C A T I O N ! :･ﾟ✧ : 

I’ve said this before in my other essay on how I’d reboot Sonic, but I truly feel that bringing together a lot of different elements of Sonic’s history together for this reboot is a top-notch idea for not only bringing the series back together whilst maintaining a wide appeal but also broaden the scope of potential characters, settings, and plot points we can work with, rather than just limiting it to just the classic era, or just the modern era, it also might leave veteran fans wondering just who or what was going to show up in the next game, or next episode!

Why limit ourselves to just a classic-style series or just a modern-style series? Why not mix it up a little?

Let’s take the cute classic stuff and mix it with some of the cool modern stuff!

I mean of course there’s gonna be purists but, hey, if we have a little bit of both we might just start seeing eye to eye!

So, what does that mean for the audience? Well, I think in that sense, Sonic should be able to appeal to, about anyone, really. Adults, Kids, Teenagers, anyone. It’d be like going to see a Marvel Superhero movie in the theaters or watching Spongebob on TV, yeah, it’d be something kids enjoy, but also something young adults can appreciate too. Although if we absolutely have to stick to a demographic, I’d say the ideal targets for a Sonic the Hedgehog reboot are two groups of people specifically.

Older fans of the series who grew up with the Adventure and Classic games, and Younger people who are more familiar with the modern games. As far as drawing new people or embittered old fans in?... Well, we’ll get to that.

Plot synopsis

It may seem like a no-brainer what the plot of Sonic the Hedgehog is, right? Well, of course it is. It’s been the same for over 20 years, and, I think the premise? Is fine.

“Sonic the Hedgehog is the fastest thing alive and a protector of nature who loves adventure. He’s smarmy and mischevious, but with a heart of gold and an unshakable sense of justice with a can-do attitude. His archnemesis, Dr. Eggman, wants to take over his natural, sprawling home and begin building his planet-conquering empire in its place. It’s up to Sonic and his group of friends to defeat Dr. Eggman, and restore peace to the world, and the green back to the hills.”

This? Right here? This is Sonic the Hedgehog. No matter who you ask, from any branch of the franchises thousand-foot tall family tree, this is Sonic the Hedgehog. There’s a couple of doodads and twists here and there depending on the specific game, but that’s really honestly it when you break it all down, that’s the plot of almost every Sonic game. But this can easily get lost and bogged down between all of the God-summoning and all that shit that other Sonic media does.

So, let’s keep the focus on this, and this alone. Just the ongoing misadventures, setbacks, leaps forward, threats and triumphs between Sonic and Co. and the forces of evil.

...(But let’s add the Chaos Emeralds and Master Emerald, I don’t think I can stand having a Sonic continuity without them and they make for good plot fodder, plus, I’ll be damned if I’m not seeing Super Sonic by the time a series finale or end-of-game hits.)

Setting + Background Lore

So, to set a location, let’s dumb down where Sonic actually lives. (Figuratively anyway, Sonic has no true home, just places he likes to be at any one time.)

In the Genesis days, Sonic lived on a tiny island called South Island, and the game’s settings often took place on South Island or on it’s neighboring islands Westside and Angel Island, and, given how important these old zones, like Green Hill and Chemical Plant Zone, are to the current Sonic Canon, I propose that maybe the setting for this potential reboot takes place on said islands, with one island for each of the cardinal directions on a compass, but also some of the other islands that are included in the Sonic series (as well as some adjusted ones!)

And, as a reference to the days of yore, we could even call it

The Mobius Archipelago

Each of these islands would have their own unique areas (referred to as ‘Zones’ for both nostalgia and convenience’s sake) based on the different levels from Sonic games. I’m unsure of the exact geography of these islands in question, but, you get the idea if you’re at all familiar with the canon, South Island has all the zones from Sonic 1 (16 and 8 Bit), Sonic Chaos and Sonic 2 (8-bit), Westside Island has all the zones from Sonic 2 and a couple from Sonic Mania, Angel Island has all the Zones from Sonic 3 & Knuckles, North Island is essentially a fusion of all the different Eggman Zones (Crystal Egg, Sleeping Egg, Scrap Brain, Metropolis, Eggmanland, Robotropolis, Robotnik Winter, the zones from SegaSonic the Hedgehog, etc.), Flicky’s Island has all of the zones from Sonic 3D Blast, Cocoa Island has all the zones from Tails Skypatrol and Tails Adventure, Mirage Island has all the zones from Sonic 4 and also Never Lake, and Little Planet (and hence all the zones from Sonic CD) you get the idea.

I’m unsure what exactly Eastside Island would have on it, but I figured that Sonic games have so many zones and levels across so many games, surely something would find a nice home on that island, perhaps some of the zones from Sonic Mania, Sonic Blast, maybe even the Adventure games, who knows? But, inevitably, space is going to run out on those other islands and we’ll likely have zones or locations that’ll be good for the series to have.

And then, we also have a mainland sprinkled with City. This is where your Adventure/Modern style cities are, Station Square, City Escape, that sort of thing.

It may not seem like much, considering some Sonic games have settings that span entire planets, but when you think about how many zones are crammed into a few little islands in the genesis titles alone, it’s hardly a limited setting.

The natives of this island chain would be Mobians and Mobini. Mobians are your typical Sonic characters, your Sonics, your Tailses, your Knuckleses, and so on and so forth. They’re the more humanoid animals. Mobini, on the other hand would be all of the smaller animals, the kind that Sonic frees from badniks or are just knockin about doing little woodland creature things. For more information on Mobini, I’ve included a little blip about them in the ‘Side Protagonists’ part of this little shanty ‘pitch guide’.

Humans would live on the mainland, although some researchers and scientists would visit the Archipelago every so often because of it’s mysterious ‘new frontier’ kind of appeal, even if Mobians find their research a little weird.

Generally, Humans also keep to the mainland, and Mobians keep to their islands, but, make no mistake, Mobians and Humans don’t hate each other. Some Mobians and Mobini have taken to the urban lifestyle, whereas some humans have taken to the natural wonder of the Archipelago, starting environmentally friendly cities and towns in the sleepy groves and corners of this untamed wilderness.

This Archipelago would be the point of focus for our Main Characters because, well, it’s their native home, and it’d draw our Main Villains because this island is also home to the Seven Chaos Emeralds, and their Master Emerald.

The Chaos Emeralds are the main MacGuffins of the Sonic series, and for good reason! Gathering all seven of these things grants their holder infinite access to chaos energy, a kind of force that will turn their thoughts into power, whether positive or negative. While most Mobians would prefer to leave the Chaos Emeralds alone, due to them causing, well, chaos, villains seek these gems out on purpose so that they can easier accomplish their goals. However, if a hero were to gather all seven chaos emeralds, and had enough purity, desire for good, and strength in their heart, the emeralds will grant them immense power, too.

Upon a vast amount of energy being used however, the Emeralds will scatter across the Archipelago, waiting for their next holders to come, and initiate chaos once more.

And then, there’s the Master Emerald. The Master Emerald is very similar to the Chaos Emeralds, and contains tenfold the amount of energy of a full set of Chaos Emeralds, but also acts as an on/off switch for the Chaos Emeralds. The Master Emerald can completely drain the Chaos Emeralds of their power, or multiply their power exponentially if one knows how to control it, making the Master Emerald incredibly valuable too. However, villains usually tend to opt for the Chaos Emeralds instead, not only because legends of the Master Emerald are believed to be false, or even if it is real, no one knows how to control it, but the Master Emerald is also said to have a guardian. A very, very angry guardian.

There’s also the lesser-known Time Stones.

The Time Stones reside on Little Planet, an anomalous celestial body that appears only once every year over Never Lake on Mirage Island. These stones seemed to have formed in a similar fashion to the Chaos Emeralds, but rather than bending SPACE to the will of their holders, the Time Stones will instead, bend Time. The Time Stones, for this reason, are even more dangerous than the Chaos Emeralds and are responsible for many of the temporal anomalies within the Archipelago. Due to their danger, the Time Stones see much more infrequent use than the Chaos Emeralds, and keeping them on Little Planet as opposed to bringing them to the surface of the Earth is much safer, as the Time Stones will only seemingly affect the time stream of Little Planet and not the Earth.

The Time Stones won’t matter until later in the series when Sonic and Co. start tampering with time, and for a while, the focus will remain on the Chaos Emeralds and Master Emerald.

But enough about where Sonic lives, let’s look at him and the rest of our colorful main cast, shall we?

Main Protagonists

Hooh, boy I am not gonna make many friends with this decision, am I?

This is kinda where my reboot starts to get a lot little tiny bit more personal, but, I have reasoning behind picking who I pick. The characters I’d pick to be the main protagonists, as in the characters that the viewers of the cartoon series, readers of the comic, or players of the games are going to be:

A) Playing as

B) Rooting for

C) Following throughout most of the adventures.

are as follows:

Sonic the Hedgehog

Miles “Tails” Prower

Knuckles the Echidna

Amy Rose

Mighty the Armadillo

Ray the Flying Squirrel

The first two seem obvious enough, Sonic and Tails are the two spotlight protagonists of most Sonic games and are the two chief playable characters in most games of the Genesis Era. Knuckles should come as no surprise either for the same reason, although I’ll touch on Knuckles later when I assess the protagonists on an individual level. 

I chose Amy as one of the leads because, well, Amy frankly hasn’t seen that much time in the sun as a true character, and I feel like that’s a shame given her longevity in the series, being with us ever since CD. Her most complex appearance was in Sonic Adventure 1 and even then, she’s kinda reduced to the same traits as her white-bread, palid, boring, Genesis counterpart. While I would like to have another female character so Amy isn’t a ‘token chick’, I don’t really want to shake up the formula too much.

Mighty and Ray are a little bit different. With the release of Sonic Mania Plus though, I feel that Mighty and Ray are more relevant now than they ever were, and considering their placement as main characters in Mania Plus, I think that we could really benefit from their addition to the main lineup of Sonic’s friends! Sure, Mighty and Ray don’t have much personality, but maybe this is where we can change that and give these lost stars a chance to sparkle as main characters after spending so long in the shadows of the past!

However, I do wanna state, that I understand if some people feel Mighty and Ray are irrelevant. I get that, really, I do. It’s one of the things in this projected reboot that I feel is much more personally appealing to me than it is ‘what I think is best for the Sonic franchise’. Put plain and simple, Mighty and Ray are just... not as popular as other Sonic characters. And, adding these two to the roster of main characters means that the main character count skyrockets from an easily manageable 4 to 6, which can seem like a bit much to some people I’ll agree, and means that they’ll likely see more screentime than other popular protagonist characters like Cream, Silver or even Blaze. But, at the same time, I also feel that if they’re popular enough to be included in Sonic Mania Plus, then there at least is some interest in the fan community of them being relevant, regular characters again. And, what better niche for them to fit into than being two of Sonic’s close friends again while going on adventures with him regularly?

(Side note, I also felt like including Sticks as a main character, and I may come back to that idea later if I end up making any content for this reboot, but as it stands I felt 7 main characters were just a bit too much, although it would’ve been cool to have a character for each Chaos Emerald, and I think there are a lot of real, genuine comedic possibilities, as well as some unique action choreography from her.)

I also don’t think Sonic’s design or the design of his friends need to be changed around too terribly much for a reboot? (Although there are some characters I think could benefit from a rework, but Sonic and MOST of the main characters are okay imo) There’s a lot of contention on Sonic’s design in any sense but, personally? I think Sonic’s designs can actually be pretty well unified, all things considered. I think Sonic could benefit from a few design ADJUSTMENTS, but maybe not a full-scale redesign like Sonic Boom.

For instance, these early concepts for Dreamcast Sonic are an excellent starting place, as I feel they capture the spirit of all three versions of Sonic pretty well all things considered, save for their quills being a little long. the proportions on them are a little off, however, with a couple of adjustments, I think this could actually be a really good idea.

Nendoroid Sonic is also pretty close to what I think a unified Sonic design could look like, if someone held a gun to my head and told me to pick an ideal new design for Sonic, it’d probably be very close to this.

(Credit to JaysonJeanChannel on DA for this render of Nendoroid Sonic.)

Or, even moving back a little bit, “Toei Sonic“, although kind of overrated in my opinion, is a really nice compromise between the cutesy, cartoony nature of the original versions of Sonic, while still updating Sonic to be more obviously sleek, sharp and spring-loaded for his modern audiences, and is full of personality. That’s not to say I think Toei Sonic should be the new face of Sonic the Hedgehog for years to come, but it’d be a great starting point to work from, given that Toei is a version of Sonic suited for intense, rubberhosy, slippery animations.

In the end, the only thing that truly matters is that Sonic looks like Sonic, and not like a weird little blue goblin if the backlash on the first pass of the Sonic Movie is any indication? We shouldn’t try to fix what isn’t broken, I just think that maybe trying out a hybrid between classic and modern Sonic to see how people feel about it might be a nice compromise between those who prefer Classic Sonic vs. those who prefer Modern or Adventure Sonic, again, unification, the best of both worlds.

That being said, let’s have a look-see into each character individually, shall we? For this, I’ll give a name, my projected voice actor for them, and a little blurb about their personality, as well as a short list of their abilities.

I’ll also try to justify my reasons for some stuff that people may consider odd after all of the character bios.

Sonic the Hedgehog:

Voice Actor: Ben Schwartz/James Arnold Taylor

Sonic is heroic, ambitious, and a complete adrenaline junkie. He'll take on any challenge that's given to him in the history of forever, even if absolutely knows it's impossible or he could get hurt trying to do it or he's absolutely not skilled enough at what he's doing to do it. Hence, Sonic is extremely competitive and gets easily absorbed in things he does, even around friends. Sonic tends to not look before he leaps as he's able to get himself out of situations so easily, preferring to live on his feet without thinking too hard about anything, although he's not dumb by any stretch of the imagination and will slow down and strategize if he absolutely needs to, and will always be willing to slow down for someone in need. Sonic is cocky, snarky, and believes a little too much in himself, he has an ego the size of the sun and will do anything he has to protect his image, especially how he views himself. Sonic also has an incredible amount of attitude and makes fun of people he doesn't like or thinks deserve it with insulting nicknames or cruel jokes, often being sarcastic and witty even at the worst of times to be. Although Sonic tries as hard as he can to keep his cool a lot of the time and prefers to live without consequences or regrets on his mind, when he's angry, sometimes he can lash out at people and can become downright completely rude when upset. Sonic is also something of a juvenile delinquent, often breaking rules just because he can or he thinks it's fun or funny, which often gets him into trouble. Sonic EXTREMELY Dislikes being called 'slow' or things being faster than he is (often wanting to prove his mettle against whatever is faster than him even if it hurts him), and has even less patience for slowing down unless he absolutely has to. He hates to wait and hates to be kept waiting, oftentimes getting bored and leaving in mere seconds if a situation doesn't matter that much to him, although he's known to show much, much more patience when people are hurt, or upset, and has an affinity for relaxing for long periods of time with friends after lengthy expeditions and adventures. Sonic hates to see innocent people cry or have their feelings hurt and will often get  extremely upset at the cause depending on the person/situation, and believes that any situation he can tend to is important (as he often can do things so quickly it's often no trouble for him.) 

Abilities:

Insta-Shield (Allows Sonic to deflect incoming projectiles with precise timing. This also extends Sonic’s hitbox a bit so it can inflict damage, and gives him invincibility frames!)

Wall Jump (Sonic can wall jump, but they need to be timed properly, as when Sonic lands on a wall, he’ll begin to slide, sliding down a wall for too long will cause Sonic to slip and eventually fall.)

Super Spin Dash (Sonic can rev his spin dash up much faster and much more efficiently than other characters, Sonic’s spin dash also has higher maximum propulsion, and will break walls much quicker.)

Super Peel Out

Light Dash (Using the light dash on a trail of rings will allow Sonic to pick up vast amounts of speed instantly by traveling along a trail of rings, being slingshotted out of the trail at an intense speed, the longer the trail of rings is, the faster he’ll be when he comes out of the trail, but also the more vulnerable he’ll be when he’s flung out of the trail. Sonic can also easily reclaim his fallen rings by light dashing, but there’s no guarantee you won’t go flying into the hazard you just tried to avoid when you do.)

Can use the abilities of elemental shields

Miles "Tails" Prower: 

Voice Actor: Collen Villard 

Tails is Sonic's closest friend. Tails is very intelligent and is something of an amateur technician, roboticist and mechanic, although he specializes in work with aircrafts, small-scale robotics, and computer systems. Frequently he prefers a much slower, methodical approach to problems as opposed to rushing into everything headfirst like Sonic does. Often relies on his intuition over instinct. Tails feels he and Sonic hold a kind of 'mutual responsibility' over each other to keep each other safe, hence Tails keeps Sonic out of trouble or from doing things that are REALLY REALLY stupid, but most of the time, Tails likes to indulge in Sonic's antics with him and even enjoys being kind of silly or being a rebel with him. Tails really looks up to Sonic and wants to have the same kind of respect, cool and wit that he does, however, in doing this, because of his low self-esteem, Tails will often ignore a lot of his more positive traits and attempt to mimic Sonic instead in an effort to seem 'cool', which can really make him do some out-of-place or seemingly strange things at times when he doesn't mean it because he can be a little shy to be himself. Tails is a firmly humble inventor and often attributes his successes to the support of others more often than his own work, and he will not ever invent anything for the purpose of competing with someone or for the sake of jealousy, believing that his best work comes from his heart.

Abilities:

Flying (This would be nerfed significantly from Sonic Mania and S3&K so Tails couldn’t just fly over everything. Tails’ gameplay should encourage exploration in more ways than just one.)

Spin Dash

Tinkering (Allows Tails to reverse conveyor belts, turn off sawblades, and do other shit to help him get through mechanical levels.)

Ring Bomb (Short range projectile at the cost of rings, explodes in a small radius)

Remote Robot (Allows Tails to explore places he can’t otherwise get to at the cost of 1 ring per second)

Knuckles the Echidna: 

Voice Actor: Dan Green 

The key word to Knuckles is STRESS. Knuckles is the guardian of the Master Emerald, and boy does he take his job seriously, being the very last living Mobian Echidna, and being very in-tune with his family and extended tribe's history. He has an inherent connection with the Master Emerald that allows him to sense it's location, wherever it might be, if this feeling of his is tampered with only slightly, it sends Knuckles into an incredible, panicked rage that can only be quelled by returning the gem to where he left it, or by retrieving the gemstone from whoever stole or moved it. He will only leave the emerald alone for long periods of time once he is one-hundred percent confident no one will touch it or move it (and even then he oftentimes gets worried about it anyway) and hence, interacts with Team Sonic on a more infrequent basis because of this (although he still has plenty of moments dedicated to him.) However, when not guarding the Emerald and forced to loosen up and relax, one can find that Knuckles is rather stoic and full of quote en quote 'sage-advice' (or rather stuff that seems and can be profound but can also be kind of insane ramblings from someone who spends too much time alone with some rock.) He often doesn't understand Sonic's more urban lifestyle, preferring his more traditional, simple 'off the fat of the land' kind of life, but he's surprisingly receptive to new things (unless said new thing gets the emerald stolen of course.) Knuckles is also incredibly suspicious and paranoid of people, even believing people he's close to having the capability of turning on him, and because of this, he's incredibly gullible when it comes to people 'changing' or 'turning evil' or 'wanting to take the Master Emerald', although he's usually smart enough to not fall for the same trick twice... or at least, not for a while after it happens once. Because of his ability to be tricked so easily, and because tricking him often leads to bad things, Knuckles' temper and patience are very short, and very small things easily can make him very upset. Knuckles actually has a weakness for romance, being such a lonely soul, he often gets shy and acts noticeably different (read: Happier) around people that can charm him, but often won't admit it.

Abilities:

Gliding

Climbing

Spin Dash

Burrowing (works sort of like the burrow mechanic from Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, except Knuckles can remain and move underground for a bit to be invincible, although this ability is very limited and cannot be done on metal or synthetic flooring.)

Melee Attacks (Knuckles can punch things in a short range, nuff said.)

Amy Rose: 

Voice Actor: Kristen Schaal 

Amy is positive, bubbly, loud and honestly kind of a silly airhead sometimes. Although at first, it seems there's very little to her, there's actually a lot more to her than her outward appearance would suggest. Amy tends to not judge people by their looks or by their behaviors, and is very open-minded and emotional, often getting choked up over things she really doesn't need to. Amy is also pretty selfless, willing to help people without any benefit to herself or any reason besides being a good person, although that's not to say she just lets people walk all over her. Amy is also something of a social butterfly, having connections with about everyone anyone else even remotely knows, and can easily tell you all about them and will want you to meet them upon even the mention of their name. Her inherent energy makes her a lot to deal with at once, even people like Sonic, Tails, and Mighty can get tired of her very quickly, even if it's very clear that she means well. She also makes for a great therapist and is willing to help anyone with problems they might be having, even if they push her away at first. However, Amy isn't all the girly girl she seems sometimes and has kind of a violent edge, anyone who pushes her around or says anything bad about her friends is gonna get walloped with her hammer, and believe me, you don't ever quite forget a feeling like being Piko'd by Amy Rose. On this note, Amy also kinda... doesn't know her own strength, and can seem stronger than Knuckles, or even Mighty at times because she just absolutely does not know her limits, expect lots of spine-crushing hugs.

Abilities:

Triple Jump (Amy can jump three times in succession, however, each jump significantly degrades in height boost. Her normal jump will go the highest and her third jump will go the lowest. Because of this ability, Amy also does not spin when she jumps, meaning she can’t defeat Badniks or damage enemies by jumping on them, she won’t take damage from bouncing on them, it just won’t destroy them.)

Hammer Smash (A mid-range melee attack that will destroy most enemies instantly.)

Hammer Spin (Both an Aerial attack to make up for the fact Amy can’t spin jump and a dash attack to make up for the fact Amy can’t spin dash.)

Peel Out (Functions similarly to the peel out in Sonic Advance or Sonic 2: Pink Edition, replaces the Spin Dash.)

Mighty the Armadillo: 

Voice Actor: Beck Bennett/Travis Willingham 

Mighty is one of Sonic's oldest friends and is his foil in a lot of ways. He prefers to take his time with a lot of things and doesn't really mind going slow. Mighty is something of a 'meathead', he's naive, and kinda absentminded at times, even if he doesn't mean to be. Mighty is very strong and takes incredible pride in his abilities much like Sonic. He adores his own strength and quote en quote 'manliness' and will do anything to keep his ego inflated and his muscles bigger than everyone else's' (as opposed to Knuckles who views his strength as a humble reward for his years of training). Despite this, he has a very brotherly (read: dudebro) sense of personality though and likes to call people 'bro' and 'sis', and has a habit of saying 'not cool' when things don't go right or when people wrong him. Most of the time, Mighty's slow and naive ways can make him easily influenced into believing things (like conspiracies and the idea protein powder actually does things), and he's not afraid to speak his mind, often coming off as insensitive (which is how he got kicked out of Team Chaotix), when really, he just doesn't happen to know any better, although most of the time he really does mean well. Mighty also really likes to hear himself talk, oftentimes telling long-winded stories or going on long-winded rants or explanations. He tends to butt heads with Sonic and Knuckles, who get annoyed sometimes by his easygoing, borderline dim-witted nature, oftentimes reminding him of obvious things that are happening/have happened. However, Mighty greatly cares for his friends, and the one thing he absolutely will never bend on is he will not ever hurt someone who didn't do him wrong, and despite his naivety, Mighty's incredible sense of justice always triumphs over his unassuming nature. He's also Ray's best friend and will defend Ray over any other person.

Abilities:

Natural Armor (Allows Mighty to take one free hit from spikes, and defeat spiked enemies without being harmed. If a projectile hits Mighty while he’s spinning or jumping, the projectile will bounce off of his armor. This is only while Mighty is spinning, attacks from the back or while Mighty is running will still land.)

Hammer Drop (A ‘stomp’ attack that allows Mighty to crush most Badniks instantly, and will also instantly crush breakable objects and solid blocks much faster than other characters.)

Spin Dash

Mighty Arm (If Mighty presses an action button near an enemy, monitor or breakable item, Mighty will pick it up. While picking something up, Mighty will move slower and his jump will be downgraded, but he can throw the item to deal heavy damage to whatever it hits! And, picking up certain enemies or items may just come with some surprises!)

Super Wall Jump (Mighty can wall-jump much like Sonic, but upon sticking to the wall, Mighty will hang there, and will only slide down at the player’s discretion.)

Ray the Flying Squirrel: 

Voice Actor: Debi Derryberry 

Ray is neat, quiet, shy, easily disturbed and has a bit of a stutter to his voice. Ray tends to be sort of asocial compared to other members of Team Sonic and prefers not to get in the way if he thinks he's being a bother. However, despite this, Ray is much smarter than he might seem and has a level of resourcefulness to a point that even trumps Tails (who is much more intelligent) at times. Despite being so shy and cowardly, when he gets the chance, Ray is more than willing to do whatever it takes for the greater good, even if he's afraid to do so. Mighty is his best friend, and he gets obsessively worried about Mighty when he's not around, often worrying that he's wandered off or might have been hurt, kidnapped, etc. this often leads to Ray trying to find his friend or panicking that he's 'gone missing', even if Mighty was right under his nose the whole time, ironic, given his intuition and incredibly eagle-eyed nature. Much like Mighty as well, Ray can also be a little bit naive, although usually less so than Mighty himself.

Abilities:

Soaring (Ray will glide and can sweep upwards to gain height at a cost of speed, but also dip downwards to gain speed at a cost of height.)

Lite-Climbing (Ray can climb, and he can climb much faster than Knuckles, but players will need to position themselves carefully, as Ray can’t climb forever, and will eventually slip and fall, the more speed Ray has when Ray collides with the wall, the faster and longer he can climb it.)

Scout-Sense (Ray is able to detect hidden items nearby like Giant Rings, 1up Monitors, and power-ups, once Ray moves close enough to an item, an exclamation point will appear above his head, and the item he notices will be outlined in yellow.)

Dismantle (With similar timing to Sonic’s insta-shield, Ray can choose to land on a badnik instead of destroying it (even if he lands on something like a Shellcracker’s claw or Bubbles when spiked out), and he will begin to unscrew the badnik until it breaks. This rewards Ray with rings or more hidden items, and can make tricky badniks like Asteron and Shellcracker more bearable to deal with! This also works on bosses, except dismantling a boss will only cause a hit of damage to the boss, although Ray can stay latched on to deal multiple hits of damage if he isn’t knocked off!)

Hookay, if you’re not winded by all those character bios, let me try to explain some of my reasoning. I won’t be doing this with later characters because this post is already the size of a fucking dump truck, but, here we go anyway.

Yes. I chose Ben Schwartz over Roger Craig Smith and Jason Griffith for Sonic. No. I don’t hate Jason Griffith or Roger Craig Smith’s voices for Sonic. Yes, I realize Ben is going to play Sonic in the Movie. I know. But, you know what? I think Ben is the perfect person to play Sonic, he’s able to inflect a real smarmy teenager vibe and I DO like that a LOT. But Ben can also play a deeper or moodier teenager too, and I feel like that’s important for Sonic’s character just as much. Jason Griffith and Roger Craig Smith make a 15-year-old sound like he’s 24. Moving on.

I think Sonic needs to not be such a prep sometimes like he is in Colors, Generations, and Forces. Like, I get that Sonic is all about doing the right thing, but, Sonic is also a smarty-pants delinquent who disrespects authority because he can. There’s this great video on the design analysis of City Escape from Sonic Adventure 2 that shows just how much of a jerk Sonic is toward people he doesn’t care for, and how he feels about obeying rules and regulations. I feel being an asshole toward people he doesn’t like, is part of Sonic’s character, it’s just we need to make him an asshole in the right direction. Sonic can be a Bugs Bunny if we let him, it’s just that it shouldn’t be completely overblown... otherwise, we get STC Sonic.

Tails needs to do more things, and not sit on the sidelines like he does in Unleashed, Colors, and Forces. He does things in Sonic Adventure and Sonic Boom, hence this version of Tails is based more on those versions OF Tails. I don’t hate Unleashed and Colors Tails, but I feel the objectively superior version of Tails comes more from Boom (who I also feel captures all of the good things about Modern Tails ANYWAY) and Adventure (which is Tails at his most resourceful, intelligent and helpful.)

Knuckles needs to be not stupid. We can make other characters stupid, but Knuckles is not stupid, Mania made Knuckles stupid and I hate that because it’s never been who Knuckles is. Sure, he’s a bit of a dense knucklehead, but he’s not dumb, just dense, which is my problem with Boom Knuckles. There’s more to his reasons for why he does things the way he does than he doesn’t know better. He’s stubborn, he’s prone to anger, he’s traditional and very much centered on the past he never had, he worries, he panics. I don’t think Boom Knuckles is a bad character, I just think making KNUCKLES the character to get this personality was kind of a bad idea. 

Amy just needs a better-developed personality. Seriously, she’s, already kinda set in stone in terms of who she is, it just needs to be expanded upon. But, Amy kinda already has the groundwork laid out for her with Boom and Modern, it’s just it needs to be molded a little bit.

Mighty comes from the classic era, and he, therefore, has no real, defining personality traits besides being a wall-jumping armadillo. I think Mighty could easily inherit Boom Knux’s personality, (as I feel a character named ‘Mighty’ would have kind of a strongman, meathead personality) but maybe changed up a bit. Instead of being just, dumb, I think Mighty being more oblivious than just stupid is better, plus, at any one time, most of the characters in-game or onscreen are able to deduce what’s going on instantly, having Mighty be a contrast to that is interesting. I also think a slow, easygoing lifestyle is kinda befitting to the Mighty we’ve seen recently, given that he doesn’t seem to emote all that much when Ray finally finds him after he’s been missing for, well, a good while, and doesn’t seem to know his own strength all the time. The only other information I know about Mighty is that he doesn’t like to fight all that much and he’s similar to Sonic, so I tried to include aspects of Sonic in his personality, but also make him kind where he can be.

If Ray’s SegaSonic sprites are anything to go by, Ray just might be a little bit of a scaredy-cat. And, I think this would make for an interesting dynamic between Ray and the rest of the team, he’d make a nice Luigi to everyone’s Mario, a character who is afraid, but willing to set aside his fears for the greater good and even for himself. He’d also be #relatable to the stressed-out teenage and young adult audience he’d be appealing to. 

Side Protagonists

Here are my choices for side-protagonists in this reboot. These are ‘friendly characters’, characters that the main 6 characters regularly interact with, but are just not focused on as much. These characters would probably not be playable (except for Silver and Blaze MAYBE.)

The Mobini

Espio the Chameleon

Charmy Bee

Vector the Crocodile

Cream the Rabbit (and Cheese the Chao)

Big the Cat (and Froggy)

Silver the Hedgehog

Blaze the Cat

Now, I know what you’re thinking.

wHerE’s TeaM DaRK?!

Just, chill out..., okay? I’ll get to Team Dark in a minute.

I’d also like to clarify if this became a series, Silver and Blaze are probably not going to become relevant characters until much LATER in? I feel like Silver and Blaze should be saved for a very specific time in the reboot’s continuity and I’ll explain that later when we get into how I’d set this series’s continuity up, but there’s a very specific reason why I want to save Silver and Blaze for when the time is right, not because I hate Silver and Blaze, but because I think it’d make the most sense.

I also feel like the Chaotix should appear a lot more and play more of an active role in this new hypothetical reboot than they do in most modern Sonic games... and let’s make them a team of vigilantes instead of detectives. A team of vigilantes that uses TEAMWORK!... And combi-rings!

...Oh and while we’re here, let’s make Cheese a Hero Chao, mkay?

But enough talk about general things! Let’s dive into each of them individually!

The Mobini:

Voice Actor: Various, it’s likely mobini won’t need voices so much as varying sound effects.

The Mobini are the local, native, feral fauna of the world of this new Sonic reboot, all your normal birds, insects, lizards, fish, mammals, et cetera are all Mobini. Mobini, are mysterious creatures, as they harbor an inherent connection to the Chaos Emeralds, and are believed to contain small fractions of the Emeralds’ infinite energy. The Mobini are what first drew Dr. Eggman to the Archipelago in which South Island resides, as with this small portion of infinite energy within them, they can be used as organic batteries to power machines indefinitely!... Although this makes them very unhappy. Contrary to what you may think, Mobini are actually sentient, and remember friendly faces... and unfriendly ones too, so be kind! If you’re ever in trouble or lost in the sprawling forests of the Mobius Archipelago, Mobini may just be able to help you out. The most curious kind of Mobini are Flickies, small little birds native to Flicky’s Island and South Island (although they’ve seemed to branch out more recently), who are said to have an even closer connection to the Emeralds, and can even hold a super form! The phenomenon of Super Flickies is incredibly rare, but when it happens, Super Flickies will be more than willing to lend their power to someone who needs it.

Chao are a special type of genetically unstable Mobini that have no ‘Earthly’ counterpart. From the time a Chao is born to the time they pass away, a Chao will gain the traits of its parent, it’s friends, and or it’s caregiver. This makes Chao ideal pets, as their personality will adapt to suit their owner, this makes Chao not only incredibly diverse but surprisingly intelligent. Just be kind to Chao... you don’t want to know what kind of horror being unkind to these little creatures can lead to.

Espio the Chameleon:

Voice Actor: Phil LaMarr

The de-facto leader of the Chaotix, and the most responsible of the team, Espio is a lot quieter than most of the main cast, and much prefers the sound of a rushing, serene stream over loud, punchy rock music. With a powerful, free-flowing fighting style inspired by martial arts, Espio is an honorable fighter, believing only in fighting fair and straight and without exploiting an opponent’s extreme weaknesses. While he tends to be sort of reclusive and becomes easily annoyed by the antics of the Chaotix and Team Sonic, he’s a lot more unshakable than he looks, and actually kind of likes the excitement from time to time. He also has a long, sticky tongue which he happens to be embarrassed by, but sees more use as a tool than he’d like to admit. Espio will often dictate his mood or state of mind to people by changing his color.

Espio’s weapons of choice are giant shuriken, which he seems to be able to pull out of hammerspace.

Abilities:

Color changing

Partial Invisibility (Espio can cloak himself to appear invisible, as long as he stands still and isn’t connected to anything. This ability sees more frequent use when Espio is alone, as it doesn’t really apply much when he fights with his team.)

Combi-Ring Fighting Style

Tornado Spin (Similar to Sonic’s Spin Dash, except Espio spins horizontally instead of vertically, the tornado spin is very slow compared to the Spin Dash, but it’s just as deadly.)

Tongue (Much like Yoshi, Espio’s tongue can be used to grapple onto things with a surprising amount of force, either to pull them toward Espio, or Espio can ‘tongue punch’ things. He hates to do this.)

Charmy Bee:

Voice Actor: Sam Lavagnino (Ideally anyway, I understand if he’d be unable to, but imagine it! Catbug as Charmy Bee!)

A ‘junior member’ of the Chaotix, Charmy is a little bee in training to become a vigilante! However, he’s a little too excited about that fact sometimes. He’s meant to be cute and lovable, but also a realistic child fighting against things he probably shouldn’t be fighting against. It’s hard to hate him when he means so well though and tries his very best at anything he does. In this new reboot, Charmy also gains a small affliction toward electricity!

Abilities:

Flight (no duh.)

Combi-Ring Fighting Style (Charmy is surprisingly adept at carrying his fellow Chaotix members around with a Combi-Ring in hand, with Charmy around this can make for some high-octane, high-momentum fighting due to Charmy being so lightweight and quick.)

Volt Sting (Charmy can use his stinger, and believe me, it hurts. Fortunately, Charmy can sting more than once! and his sting will deliver an electric shock to anything it touches, this is bad news for anything mechanical, or wet!)

Thunder Shoot (Charmy can instantly ground any flying enemy by electrifying an ally and tossing them at the flying enemy!)

Vector the Crocodile:

Voice Actor: Keith Silverstein (Although I’m open to someone else if everyone else if sick of FIND THE COMPUTER ROOM!)

The Chaotix’s greedy, but fiercely defensive ‘leader’ (he’s able to make tough decisions a lot better than Espio, but he isn’t very responsible in many ways). Vector got into the whole vigilante business because of the money he could gain from it, but after meeting Charmy and Espio, his whole world changed, and the rough-and-tough reptile has found a new calling, being a leader. Although Vector is often harsh, blunt, and dismissive, he’s also incredibly resourceful and has an eye for small details, so if he does push you away, it’s likely because he has a hunch on something related to it.

Abilities:

Air Dash (Vector can dash in any direction while in the air. This does not protect him from harm.)

Death Roll (Vector’s trademark donut-like Spin Dash, it’s a bit less controllable than a traditional Spin Dash but it’s immensely powerful because of Vector’s spiked back.)

Combi-Ring Fighting Style (Vector specializes in a ‘wrecking ball’ sort of display with his fighting style, performing a Death Roll followed by his opponents flinging him into something by way of Thunder Shoot or Espio’s speed.) Vector can also achieve the same effect by flinging Charmy or Espio into an opponent, or by ‘holding’ (think Knuckles Chaotix) them.

Fire Combination + Volcanic Dunk* (While Espio is tornado spinning and Charmy is spinning as well, Vector can grab the both of them to make ‘fighting gloves’ of sorts. With this, Vector can perform the Volcanic Dunk, in which he turns Espio and Charmy into powerful fireballs which can smash into enemies to deal tremendous damage!)

*Yes I know this is what Team Sonic uses in Sonic Heroes but do you honestly want Vector Breath to be something that’s regularly used?

Cream the Rabbit (and Cheese the Chao):

Voice Actor: Michelle Ruff (I’d list a voice actor for Cheese too but... do I HAVE to? Chao can be easily voiced with stock squeaks or Chao sounds from SA2.)

A pleasant little girl who seems to get caught up in the ongoing war between Sonic and the forces of evil. Like Charmy, she’s a kid, although Cream is much more patient and polite than Charmy. Cream in this reboot would sorta fill the niche that Tails filled in SatAM, rarely going on adventures, but looking up to the main cast and always being ready to support them in times of need.

Abilities:

Flapping (Cream can flap her ears to gain a little extra height, although it’s made very clear this isn’t exactly equal to Tails’ flight and is very limited.)

Cheese (Cream can sic Cheese on anything she wants, although Cheese isn’t very tough, he’ll do his best until he’s knocked away!)

Big the Cat (and Froggy):

Voice Actor: Jon St. John

Big is large, and not very bright, even less so than Mighty. But he’s terrifyingly strong, he may just be one of the strongest characters in this new reboot in terms of raw damage output, probably second only to Omega actually. But, Big’s not a fighter and prefers to spend his days by the lakeside, fishing with his companion Froggy.

Unbeknownst to him, though, Froggy harbors a dark secret, and, in fact, is the current owner of the tail of the ancient God of Destruction, Chaos. How Froggy exactly came upon Chaos’ tail is unknown, but it’s gotten Big and Froggy into trouble before.

Abilities:

Super Strength

Fishing Sense (Big can sense what kind of fish or how many fish, or even foreign objects or other animals are in bodies of water. It’s unknown how he does or knows this, but he does.)

Silver the Hedgehog:

Voice Actor: Scott Menville

Silver is from an alternate future, a long-forgotten timeline in which Robotnik succeeded in conquering the world, But his massive cities and factories were later laid waste to by the sands of time, and ancient forces of nature, throwing the future Silver resides within into complete Crisis. And now, filled with a sense of vengeance and justice, Silver has come back to the past, determined to find the one responsible for whoever did this to his future, but... there’s just a couple problems. 

He’s only fourteen years old.

Silver is also rather bright-eyed and gullible, and him messing with the streams of time might have a bigger domino effect than he realizes, even if he has no intention of messing anything up.

Abilities:

Psychokinesis (Silver can move, and throw objects with his mind. Silver’s telekinesis is limited only by his focus and stress, as if Silver gets too stressed, he may release some of the objects he’s holding, the same goes for if he becomes unfocused. Using said telekinesis can make Silver very physically exhausted though, especially if Silver moves HIMSELF with his mind, which he can do to hover in the air for a while. Objects held by Silver will freeze, suspended in whatever state they were in when Silver grabbed them, and the objects Silver holds are denoted by a cyan aura.)

Psychic Knives (Silver can condense his energy into crescent-shaped blades of energy, which he can fire off at his discretion, again, only limited by his physical exhaustion)

Teleportation (Silver has the limited ability to teleport short distances, although he doesn’t seem to have a very good handle on it, as he often messes up his positioning and seems to almost... forget he can do it?)

Blaze the Cat:

Voice Actor: Tara Strong

Like Silver, Blaze is from an alternate future. Blaze is Silver’s best friend, but also kind of a sisterly figure to him. Blaze is older than Silver, and is much more reserved, mature and wary than Silver is, although she’s still more than happy to help Silver, and ensure a good future for both him and herself. Blaze is proud, trying to make the best out of her situation by trying and believing herself to be the best around, in a way, she sort of views Silver more like a sidekick, even if Silver does tend to pull his weight.

Abilities:

Pyrokinesis (Blaze can summon, control and is immune to fire. Her ability to do so is limited, although her fires are known to become more intense whenever Blaze is enraged. Blaze can use her fire either for offense by spraying jets of flame from her hands, or defensively by cloaking her entire body in flame, or using the power of fire to float for short periods of time.)

Tornado Spin (Like Espio, Blaze tends to spin horizontally rather than vertical, this, combined with her pyrokinesis, makes her incredibly fearsome to deal with.)

Main Antagonists

You know what the fuck’s going on already. These are all my picks for Major Villains in the reboot. The big bads. The guys who are gonna come in and try to take all those Chaos Emeralds and Time Stones and shit I was talking about and wreak havoc on the peaceful Mobius Archipelago.

They are as follows:

Dr. Ivo “Eggman” Robotnik

Orbot and Cubot

Metal Sonic

Heavy King (And the Hard-Boiled Heavies)

Great Battle Bird Kukku XV

Chaos

Emerl

Mephiles, Iblis, and Solaris

In the end, it was hard to decide on what villains to choose to be big bads, Sonic has so many good ones, but this is what it all bled down to eventually. I feel kinda like Dragon Ball Z or... like, any fucking action anime or cartoon ever tbh. I wanted to give some more underrated villains a chance to shine like Kukku and Emerl, while also bringing back some old favorites like Chaos and Mephiles.

...ALSO, I’M GONNA GET TO TEAM DARK DON’T WORRY!

Dr. Ivo “Eggman” Robotnik:

Voice Actor: Mike Pollock (as if there were any other choice.)

Dr. Ivo “Eggman” Robotnik is the biggest bad in this reboot, as he should be. Robotnik was formerly a young, gentleman scientist, who arrived on South Island with his colleague, Dr. Madonna to study the Mobini that lived there, however, using the grant money meant for his research, and not much caring about nature himself, Robotnik instead betrayed Dr. Madonna to begin forging an empire with his own two hands, an Empire he believed would eventually be able to conquer the world. And he would’ve gotten away with it, too... if all not for a meddlesome blue hedgehog child, who REALLY liked to compare the doctor to an egg. Since his first outing against the blue blur, Dr. Robotnik tried tirelessly, day and night, to get his empire up and into the air, coming back with bigger, and better firepower each time, even succeeding in conquering South Island and collecting six of the seven chaos emeralds at one point, but he was thwarted by this blue hedgehog, and later, his friends each time. This war has gone on for over 5 years now chronologically and maybe more in the actual scheme of things, and all those years of trying have really quite nipped at the doctor, who had gained a significant amount of weight, became a social pariah and had torn all his hair out, save for his mustache, which has overgrown and has become frayed, and the doctor had taken the name ‘Eggman’ as a shallow attempt to mock the blue blur. It’s not to say that Eggman hasn’t succeeded, his conquest and lust for power had bled everywhere, his Badniks, a series of small robots built by him, are an epidemic across the archipelago, he has factories, operations, and eyes everywhere, and Robotnik eventually succeeded in taking one of the Archipelago's many islands for his own, renaming what was once ‘North Island’ into ‘Eggmanland’, this little island is only a twisted glimpse into the madness of what a world under the doctor’s control could look like, his own personal carnival of evil, smog and dust, celebrating him, and only him. It’s these little successes, as well as his never-ending stubbornness and undying believe that man can and will always triumph over nature, that has warped Dr. Eggman from a nefarious, dashing gentleman, into a balding, crazed, nasty old coot. If trouble’s brewing on the islands, and you smell smog wafting by, you can be assured Dr. Eggman isn’t very far behind. To call him a ‘mad scientist’ is an understatement, but even through his delusions and megalomania, he really is a genius.

Orbot and Cubot:

Voice Actors: Kirk Thornton, Wally Wingert

Orbot and Cubot are the Doctor’s trusted aides and second-in-lines, and... probably the Doctor’s only friends as of current. Orbot and Cubot have special AI hand-crafted by the doctor and are arguably his most advanced and most sentient creations crafted by his own two hands. Orbot is serious, intelligent, and bitingly sarcastic, as he was meant to relay information about factories, schemes, and developments back to Eggman, whereas Cubot is dim-witted, slow, and lazy, as he was more meant to perform basic duties like keeping Robotnik’s living space neat and tidy (although he doesn’t always do the best job at this.) However, Orbot and Cubot have become more than that as time has gone on. Unlike the Modern games, Orbot and Cubot can actually hold their own in combat... well, sort of. They have their own unique ‘Scratch and Grounder’ style of dealing with Sonic and Co. and they don’t usually make much progress or get much done in this regard. In this reboot I want Orbot and Cubot’s designs to be updated besides being just ‘ball’ and ‘cube’ so that they can fight alongside Eggman and just look a lot more interesting in general.

Metal Sonic:

Voice Actor: Ben Schwartz (with an intense, robotic filter) if we HAVE to give him a voice. I’d really just prefer Metal to be silent or voiced by music cues and sound effects.

Metal Sonic is Dr. Eggman’s greatest creation. Designed and built by a Dr. Eggman from the future, Metal was sent back in time to aid the Eggman of the past, this, however, proved to be a mistake, as with Metal under his belt, the Doctor became easily overconfident in his victory, thinking now that he had his supposed greatest creation to aid him, nothing could possibly stop him. 

Which made it all the more disappointing when Metal Sonic inevitably failed and was defeated by Sonic.

However, that wasn’t the end of it for Metal Sonic, after being recovered from the future on Little Planet, Metal was repaired, and sent to do reconnaissance on Sonic and Tails during their visit to Mirage Island. In the process of getting there, however, Metal absorbed an artifact while patrolling around the Lost Labyrinth Zone, which superseded the limits of Metal’s hardware, and not only restored Metal to his former greatness but gave Metal something that few of Eggman’s creations can ever claim to have. True sentience. 

Now fully aware of who he was, and what he was doing, Metal easily made it to Sonic and Tails, and upon seeing his organic counterpart for the first time in so long ever since their duel on Stardust Speedway, Metal was filled with rage. Rage, unlike anything The Mobius Archepeligo had ever seen.

The artifact has given Metal all sorts of mysterious abilities, like the ability to manifest a near-indestructible shield, the power to harness the electricity flowing through his circuits to send himself into overdrive and utilize his own overloading as a weapon, and along with being a creation of a Dr. Eggman who has seen the fall of the Earth...

Who knows what kind of sadistic, inhuman thoughts lie behind those synthetic, glowing eyes?

Abilities:

Hyperspeed Thrusters (Metal’s thrusters easily make him as fast as Sonic, and, like Sonic, Metal can still spin, although Metal can also fly with his thrusters.)

Black Shield (Metal can form a defense matrix around him using the power of the artifact he absorbed in Lost Labyrinth, the Black Shield is completely indestructible. Nothing can break through it. Not even something as powerful as Super Sonic could even crack it.) The only caveat is, using the Black Shield renders Metal completely immobile, and unable to attack, and it has a slight warmup and cooldown period.)

Overdrive (Metal can use the artifact he absorbed to utilize the electricity flowing through his circuits to send himself into Overdrive. While in overdrive, Metal Sonic’s entire body sparks with electricity, and Metal can manipulate how he uses that electricity, whether it’s to cloak himself in sparks to beef up his physical attacks or create pillars of sparks and arcs of electricity to attack foes from a distance. The only thing is, Metal cannot do this too much, as doing this can easily cause Metal to overheat, or completely overload and have a ‘blowout’... in other words, explode.)

Heavy King:

Voice Actor: Jim Cummings (Yes, I know Jim did SATAM Robotnik but that’s not the voice I’m imagining for Heavy King. Jim can do more than just Robotnik you know, even though my decision was partially influenced by it being a nice callback. Again, these voice actors are only projections.)/Barry Humphries

Heavy King used to be EggRobo, a robot (which later became a line of Robots) built in the image of Dr. Eggman himself and meant to serve as a decoy for him, and as a stand-in to carry out his own ends.

But the energy of the Phantom Ruby changed that.

Now, Heavy King is the leader of an elite squadron of his EggRobo brethren known as the Hard-Boiled Heavies. They used to serve Robotnik, before breaking free of his control and serving their own ends, beginning a new (albeit, much, much smaller) empire under their own names. He and the other heavies are a force to be reckoned with, few are able to match the ruthless, cold, metallic hand of Heavy King. Despite this, however, Heavy King is known to be much more diplomatic and reasonable than Robotnik, ironically enough, because he believes himself to be vastly superior in every way to organic life. However, his inflated ego pays a steep price if you catch him at the wrong time. However, Heavy King is the current holder of the Phantom Ruby, and that alone should scare you.

(Also I won’t go over each of the Heavies individually because I don’t feel like it, but, I will list their voice actors.)

Heavy Gunner: Patrick Warburton... or at least a cheap impression of him.

Heavy Rider: Eliza Schneider

Heavy Magician: Alexia Khadime

Heavy Shinobi: Seth Green (I picture Shinobi having much more of a nerdy weeb voice than having a serious Japanese accent like Espio.)

Great Battle Bird Kukku XV

Voice Actor: Tom Kenny

A lesser-known big bad, or rather, big bird, Great Battle Bird Kukku XV (he gets upset if you don’t say the full name), is the leader of the Battle Bird Empire, a battalion of birds who, at one point, sought to take over the archipelago in a similar manner to Dr. Eggman, however, Great Kukku XV was thwarted by Tails. Tails, funnily enough, doesn’t remember him at all, in fact, no one does. As a villain, hardly anyone takes Great Kukku XV very seriously, even with his massive armies and capability. Fact is, Great Kukku XV is just a little too immature to be a leader, and hence, he’s not very dangerous. However, his battalion did give rise to a certain, screwy, trigger happy, fellow green bomb-throwing bird who happens to be a defector of his...

In this reboot, there would probably be a lot of jokes about people not knowing who Great Kukku even is, or how dangerous he is, but don’t worry, he’ll get his time in the sun eventually. 

Chaos

Voice Actor: N/A, Chaos only speaks in water sloshes.

Chaos is one of the many original forces of nature that populated the Archipelago many years ago. Legend has it that Chaos was responsible for the mass extinction of the Echidna on Angel Island, and was the one responsible for flooding Hydrocity Zone, and the former Hidden Palace Zone. Chaos was formed when a Chao, who happened to be very old and unhappy due to the Echidna tribes of the day treating his people very unfairly, mutated due to the exposure of Chaos Energy to the Chao’s genetically unstable body. Chaos is a being of pure hate and pure destruction. It’s almost entirely composed of a thick, water-like substance that can take on liquid or solid properties at Chaos’ discretion. His body hungers for Chaos Energy, and he is willing to destroy anything that stands in his way to have it, specifically by absorbing the Chaos Emerald. With each emerald Chaos absorbs, Chaos only becomes bigger, and stronger, becoming harder and harder to defeat. And if Chaos gathers all Seven of the Emeralds? You’d better hope you can find some way to calm this Great Old One down, otherwise, your world may just end up underwater. Luckily, Chaos was sealed inside of the Master Emerald by its former guardian, Tikal, and there he shall remain... for now, at least.

Emerl

Voice Actor: Various (copies the voices of others. To speak it splices lines that it’s heard together.)

Originally created directly to counter Chaos whilst the Echidna tribes were facing extinction, Emerl is a Gizoid, a kind of Robot created to copy the physical data of others. Although one can initially defeat Emerl pretty easily, it’s advised not to vary your tactics too much, as Emerl’s original purpose, and his ultimate capability, is to copy any behavior he’s seen, in order to not only replicate it, but replicate it better, and hence, conquer its original user. Terrifyingly, Emerl can even copy phenomenon that he otherwise wouldn’t, or shouldn’t be able to use, such as Chaos Control, Sonic’s Maximum Speed, or Tails’ intellect. The only thing truly limiting Emerl... is the kind of opponents he faces. And, if you give Emerl to someone who understands him and knows how he works, you may just be dealing with one of the most fearsome fighters the Mobius Archepeligo has ever known.

Mephiles, Iblis and Solaris

Voice Actor: Dan Green (Mephiles only) (This is just because Dan also voices Knuckles ideally but, again, if Dan doesn’t wanna come back to Sonic after being replaced, I understand that.)

If Chaos was the patron saint of water, Solaris is the patron saint of fire. Born from a sacred flame created by the Echidna, Solaris was worshipped by the surviving Echidna as a force that could potentially vanquish Chaos, as the ‘’sun’ to dry the rain. However, the tribes’ malicious intents caused their newly formed ‘God’ to become more of a beast, and it only helped Chaos in driving the Echidna extinct. Solaris later retreated to the bottom of the ocean after all was said and done, slumbering beneath the surface in an underground cave, in a damaged, unstable state.

Solaris has re-awoken twice since this has happened, and both times, his unstable shell split and formed two halves, it’s raw power, known as Iblis, and it’s mind, and spirit, known as Mephiles. The two halves of Solaris first re-awoke in an Alternate Timeline where Robotnik had conquered the world, re-awakening as the folly of the dictator had driven the Sun God’s split soul to awaken when the intense greenhouse heat began to boil the ocean. Mephiles’ primordial form simply died off in the intense heat, but Iblis remained awake, laying waste to the already horrible wasteland that was Robotnik’s Bad Future. Many survivors who reside within this future came to blame Iblis for their problems, even though Robotnik was what had destroyed it centuries earlier.

As for the other time The soul and body of Solaris re-awoke?...

Well... we’ll get to that. Let’s come back to someone I’m sure you’re all waiting for.

Antiheroes

HERE HE IS, OKAY? YOU HAPPY? I was saving him for a good reason! I actually want Shadow (and Rouge, to an extent, she kinda keeps her evil side tbh) to start out as a big bad! After Shadow’s done BEING a big bad though, he’ll become similar to his post-adventure 2 self, specifically how he behaves in Sonic 06 and Sonic Heroes, except with a bit more sympathy. Modern Shadow has a lot of brooding, edgy bite to him, and while that’s cool and all, I feel like there should be more to Shadow than just brooding and standing around crossing his arms and saying ‘tch’ all the time.

Shadow the Hedgehog

Shadow the Hedgehog:

Voice Actor: Anyone that’s not Kirk Thornton. I actually don’t have a good answer for who Shadow’s voice actor should be but, honestly, anything would be better than his current one in my honest opinion.

Shadow was synthesized fifty years ago on a small, man-made satellite called the Space Colony ARK by the brilliant scientist Dr. Gerald Robotnik. He was born from a desire to find a cure for the seemingly incurable disease for his granddaughter, Maria. However, due to an accident when splicing the genes of the quill of a Mobian Hedgehog, and experimental biomaterial found on the fragments of an asteroid that collided with the Earth millions of years ago, the doctor accidentally created something he absolutely didn’t intend, Life. And thus, Project Shadow was born. Gerald felt attached to his creation, viewing the resulting creation, which he called ‘Shadow’ as one of his own. Shadow developed rapidly, quickly maturing into an infant, and then juvenile, yet seemingly normal Mobian Hedgehog. Shadow’s equivalent age later capped once Shadow was done growing, and he remained that way, immortally perfect. The Ultimate Lifeform. Tests with Shadow later showed his destructive capabilities, as it seemed the asteroid’s DNA had morphed Shadow to be far beyond the capabilities of any normal Hedgehog, even in peak physical condition at that age, capable of creating explosions, firing bolts of energy, and even freezing time, appearing to ‘teleport’ in the process. Despite these curiosities, Shadow grew fond of Maria in his stay at the ARK, although Shadow couldn’t help her recover, he did make her much happier. However, a raid on the Space Colony by the mainland’s military led to a massive capsizing of the project, with the intention to destroy Shadow, who was viewed as a dangerous, alien, unholy abomination. Before he could be killed though, Maria shot Shadow down to Earth in an escape pod, where he subsequently landed deep in the jungles of Cocoa Island... but, Maria was murdered in the process of doing so. Shadow was later recovered by Gerald’s other grandson, Ivo Robotnik, 50 years after the tragedy. Hesitant to release Shadow immediately, it’s known that Robotnik has spoken to Shadow in his pod, although about what matters is unknown. For now, Shadow slumbers deep within the confines of Eggmanland, waiting for his proper, strategic time to be unleashed and to wreak his horrible vengeance upon the Earth.

I’ll bring up Shadow again later when we talk about how I project the series to actually go, for now, just sit tight and let’s talk about the rest of Team Dark... and some familiar faces.

Abilities:

Spin Dash

Homing Attack (Shadow can automatically home in on opponents while also performing an Air Dash.)

Burning Rollout (Inspired by the flame ring of Sonic Adventure 2, Shadow can cloak his spinning form in fire by turning on his shoes when rolling, doing this will significantly up the strength of his spin, and make a nice little ring of fire around his spinning form.)

Chaos Control (Can be used as short-distance teleportation, as a way to buff Shadow’s speed immensely, or as a way to freeze or dramatically slow Shadow’s relative perspective of time by dramatically increasing his speed.)

Chaos Spear (These are green bolts of pure, chaos energy. The energy used to form these bolts is so unstable that once hurled at something, the ‘spear’ will likely explode, although, if it doesn’t, it will easily pierce through whatever it hits. Shadow likes to shout ‘DISAPPEAR!’ before hurling these at things for some reason.)

Chaos Blast (Shadow’s Chaos Blast can be considered his ‘ultimate’ attack, Chaos Blast sees Shadow creating a kind of ‘mini-singularity’ with chaos energy that will detonate after a short time, easily eradicating anything caught in the explosion’s radius, even the ground around Shadow. The only problem with this is, doing this is a huge strain on Shadow’s natural supply of Chaos Energy, so a lengthy cooldown period is inevitable.)

and of course, we can’t forget

The Roundhouse Kick

Minor Antagonists

These are characters who are villains but are also more likely to show up in arcs that are only a couple episodes long or are side or off-boss fights. 

I’ll be honest, most of you know these characters already, so I’m just gonna run through them super quickly and give my suggested changes and my justifications for them.

Rouge the Bat

E-123 OMEGA

Dave the Intern

Fang the Sniper (Nack the Weasel)

Bean the Dynamite

Bark the Polar Bear

Rouge the Bat:

Voice Actor: Karen Strassman

Rouge is a thief and a treasure hunter but is also working for the military agency of the mainland, G.U.N. Rouge is sly, sneaky and has a silver tongue, easily able to manipulate people into what she wants by pure wordplay alone. Rouge is a lot less active of a fighter than Sonic and Co. as she prefers to stalk quietly in the shadows, and strike when the time is right. In this reboot, Rouge is gonna wear something a bit more modest. I’m sorry, I hate Rouges’ clothes in canon. That fucking catsuit? has gotta go. She can still look cool and... *gag* “”sexy”” but, I’d rather her not wear... THAT? But, I do want her personality to remain mostly intact because in full honesty? She’s not a bad character on paper. Like Shadow, though I do kinda want Rouge to be a straight-up antagonist at first, and a very greedy one at that.

E-123 OMEGA:

Voice Actor: Vic Mignogna

What can I say? Omega doesn’t need to change much at all, really. He works in about any Sonic setting tbh. He’s loud, and he likes to blow things up, and he doesn’t emote very well, what else is there? In this reboot though, Omega will be the only E-Series Robot, or rather the only... surviving one. And, yeah, like Rouge and Shadow too, I think Omega should start out as an antagonist.

Dave the Intern:

Voice Actor: Ben Schwartz (What? We gotta keep up the tradition of Dave sharing a voice with Sonic!)

An odd choice for a minor antagonist I know, but Dave the Intern is REALLY funny? And I love the idea of a character just hating Sonic for no discernable reason other than ‘he’s popular and cool and I’m not.’ I also thought it’d be cool if Dave frequently got way in over his head with the shit he does, and put himself into trouble that Sonic (reluctantly) had to get him out of. Plus, I really wanted to include some representation of Sonic Boom in this reboot because Sonic Boom as a show is really funny and really good, and I think taking a page from it might be good, plus, Boom is a part of Sonic’s history too!

Fang the Sniper (Nack the Weasel):

Voice Actor: Dwight Schultz

Fang is the leader of Team Hooligan, and in a similar vein to Great Kukku XV I think he’d take himself way too seriously, but would play off of other characters. In Fang’s mind, he’s a trained assassin, like an evil Aussie-accent Batman or something of that stretch. But, really? He’s just a sleazy conman with a popgun. I feel like a good joke to make in this series would be Fang reaching for what he thinks is his actual pistol, but then he’d pull it out and fire it and it’d be one of his fake popguns. And, do I even need to make a joke about the comedic possibilities between him and Shadow using guns? Also, his real name being Nack the Weasel but he wants everyone to call him Fang the Sniper is funny. I’m sorry but ‘Fang the Sniper’ is just a silly name and I like the idea of Fang being the equivalent of one of those nice guys with Otaku Katanas who think they’re WAY cooler than they actually are. I wanted to choose Fang as a minor antagonist in the reboot just because of the kind of character I think he is, he thinks he has everything under control and has all the cards laid out in front of him when in reality, this setup of his just fails dramatically. The kind of interactions between him and Sonic this could spell out are amazing.

Bean the Dynamite:

Voice Actor: Eric Bauza

What do you get when you throw Daffy Duck and Woody Woodpecker in a blender and make him an unstable arsonist? Bean the Dynamite, that’s what. I’d want Bean in this reboot to be an off-the-wall, screwy, but surprisingly resourceful and clever, explosion-crazed maniac. He wouldn’t be... *gag* ‘insane’, so much as he would be just hyper and unable to calm down, again, like Woody Woodpecker or Daffy Duck. He’d be quick-witted, fast-talking and zippy, even more than Sonic himself is. (In the end, Sonic would always outpace him, but the reflexes on THIS bird are crazy.) Also, I feel like the idea of Bean being a defector of the Battle Kukku Armada is just... great, considering they’re all bomb-throwing birds, but THIS one was a little too off-the-handle for even them? He’d be a real character and a surprisingly dangerous threat for Sonic and Co.

Bark the Polar Bear:

Voice Actor: I’m... actually not too sure who to cast Bark as tbh. Mostly because I see him being very quiet and not... speaking, much at all?

Bark is a quiet tough guy. He’s smarter than he looks, but he’s big, he’s mean, he’s tough, and he will Hulk slam at least one character in the length of this reboot. I don’t really have much idea on where to take Bark, I just think he deserves a place as a minor villain.

Projected direction for canon

So, we have all the pieces of the puzzle, let’s see how they all fit together! I’ll be going through these with the assumption that one game can be made to represent each season of the show in its entirety.

For this, I honestly think it would be best if we split this reboot up based upon Sonic the Hedgehog’s current history with its elements. Think, almost, the way Sonic Generations told its story. We’ll start with something with a more Classic Vibe to it, then move into something more Adventure-like, and then, finally, we do something a bit more Modern! It’ll be a little less linear, and we’ll double dip here and there, but it’ll all line up!

Because of this, I’d like to establish what games have already PASSED before going into this series. This is what all has happened going in, in roughly the chronological order they happened in.

Sonic the Hedgehog 1 (16-bit)

Sonic the Hedgehog 1 (8-bit)

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (8-bit)

SegaSonic the Hedgehog

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (16-Bit)

Sonic CD

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles

Sonic Chaos

Sonic Triple Trouble

Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episodes 1, 2, and Metal.

Sonic Mania

The intention is to begin sort of... around the time JUST before Sonic Adventure 1 happened in the old rudimentary timeline before Sonic Forces came out and clarified Classic and Modern Sonic were different beings.

Season 1/Game 1: Genesis

The first few episodes of the series will be more dedicated to introducing the characters and Sonic’s new home. We’ll see the new Sonic, the new Tails, the new Knuckles, Amy, Mighty, and Ray for the very first time, and we’ll also get to see some of the characters’ new capabilities as they take on some minor villains or assaults led by Orbot and Cubot for the first couple episodes; but not at all subtly tease at something bigger and better coming, although we’re also shown how frequent scuffles between Sonic and Eggman exactly are, as we see plenty of mention of the Doctor, but he never physically appears.

Then, I’d say at about Episode 5 or 6 out of say, 22-24? Eggman steps in and introduces us to his new Master Plan, as he does. To build a new Death Egg (which, Sonic obviously chides him on doing the same thing a THIRD time.), but, as Robotnik does, he turns out to be serious, and the episodes from there on out are a race against time for Sonic and co. to gather all the Chaos Emeralds from various different zones of various different challenging geographies, fight off villains and giant robots, learn valuable morals, run into some familiar faces, and have a couple laughs along the way.

The climax of the season would come with a few episodes left, where Sonic and Co. finally have all the Emeralds, and they chase Eggman down to the New Death Egg, maybe there could be an encounter with Metal Sonic along the way because nostalgia and to introduce Metal into the continuity, and of course things’ll play out from there, Robotnik gets the upper hand and shows his shit, gets in a giant robot, dukes it out with Super Sonic, and BAM! End of Season/Game!

At the very end of season 1/Game 1 though, I’d like to include a little teaser for Season 2/Game 2 in the form of a familiar-looking escape pod in the middle of a jungle, full of green bubbling fluid, and a flash of red eyes.

Season 2/Game 2: Chaos Emerald Chaos

Right out of the gate in Season 2/Game 2, we’re back in the game as Sonic and Eggman are seen duking it out a while after the first game/season has ended, but in a much different area than we’d seen in Season 1/Game 1. This fight would lead up to the pod in the teaser after Eggman lures Sonic into a dark room with the green glow in sight. By one way or another, maybe on purpose or on accident, this pod breaks open, and something is released from it. Sonic is understandably confused, but then, is knocked down, and a panning shot reveals one of three of our major antagonists for the season/game, Shadow the Hedgehog.

Shadow fucking wipes the floor with Sonic in this first encounter, but instead of finishing him off, Eggman instructs Shadow to leave him be and search for the rest of the Chaos Emeralds instead. Shadow nods and simply leaves via Chaos Control. Eggman, on the meanwhile, begins transporting Sonic back to North Island via dropship, revealing by surprise that this isn’t on North Island, but rather a much smaller place Eggman was using as a trap.

Meanwhile, Sonic’s friends (with Knux noticeably absent) are confused to learn that Sonic has been... committing crimes, upon his return back from a scuffle back with Eggman, and seeming very much unlike himself, always hiding away in the dark and staying away from everyone. When they go to confront him, it turns out that this was actually Shadow, disguised as Sonic, who was simply searching for the emeralds for Dr. Eggman.

Sonic’s friends demand to know where Sonic is, but Shadow kicks all their asses instead, and something about the Master Emerald is mentioned after the fight. We then cut away to Knuckles, who is soon confronted by Shadow.

Shadow puts up a hard fight, but, with the help of the chaos emerald he already had, defeats Knuckles, and goes to take the Master Emerald. But, in a last ditch effort to save the gem, Knuckles shatters the Master Emerald, causing the shards to scatter all across the islands. Shadow, understandably frustrated by this, scoffs and leaves, seemingly fooled into thinking the Master Emerald WAS destroyed. Unknowingly, however, shattering the Master Emerald caused Chaos, slumbering within the Emerald, to awaken.

Knuckles, obviously horrified by what he’s done, abandons Angel Island and sets to work on finding both the pieces of the Master Emerald, and any Chaos Emeralds he can, to stop Chaos before anything goes wrong.

At this point, we go back to Sonic, who finally escapes as the dropship taking him to EggmanLand and, by extension, escapes from the city as he hurries to try to reunite with his friends and tell them what happened.

From there, a combination of the events of Adventure 1 and 2 (with the addition of Metal Sonic and some other characters of course.) would transpire, with Rouge the Bat getting involved with Knuckles due to her finding the shards of the Master Emerald, and the Chaos Emeralds trading hands several times, all up until the Season/Game’s climax.

It would all build with Robotnik planning to use Chaos to terraform the Earth by transforming him into Perfect Chaos, who, once he takes form, begins wreaking havoc on a coastal city on the mainland. At this point, the Chaos Emeralds seem shut off, and even though the Master Emerald is restored, it seems like there’s nothing that can be done. Shadow, having already begun to go through a change of heart when he sees the kind of destruction the doctor’s plans have wrought, and after some choice words from Amy, decides instead to join Sonic and Co. in what seems like their darkest hour. And, Shadow mentions that Chaos only absorbed the negative energy of the emeralds, being in-tune with Chaos Energy himself, he’d know this.

And so, Super Sonic and Super Shadow defeat Perfect Chaos together, Knuckles and the spirit of Tikal work together to seal Chaos back inside the Master Emerald, and the city begins to drain.

Shadow, having felt satisfied with this, then decides to go off on his own for a while, and mentions something about ‘wanting to discover himself’, and ‘trying to decide what Maria would have wanted me to be.’ 

Oh, and Eggman is finally thrown in prison for literally capsizing an entire city. But don’t worry, he’ll be back.

End of Season 2/Game 2.

Season 3/Game 3: Triple Trouble!

This Eggmanless Season/Game would feature a ‘Triple Threat’, in the form of 3 major villains! And all three of them brand new to the series! We’re introduced to Emerl in this season, as well as Great Kukku XV, and Heavy King.

The entire season would be intense, Team Sonic rushing to get the Chaos Emeralds once again, while the Battle Birds (frequently interrupted by Bean the Dynamite, calling out to his ‘brothers’) and Heavies scramble to get them before the team does.

All the while... Emerl grows stronger and stronger by the minute.

And, in a surprise twist, Emerl, having copied the data of Great Kukku XV and the Heavies, among many others, grows the strongest he ever has, and, like Mecha Sonic in Sonic 3, uses the Master Emerald (likely stolen by Heavy King or Kukku at this point) to attain a Super form, and Emerl becomes a terrifying conglomerate of everything that has led up to this point, Perfect Emerl, the thing originally meant to take down PERFECT CHAOS.

But, luckily, Kukku and King realize when they’ve been beaten, and decide to help Super Sonic take down Perfect Emerl. 

End of Season 3/Game 3. But like Season 1, let’s end off on a teaser. How about a small, flickering flame, with a visible shadow?

Season 4/Game 4: Return of Solaris

This is the final season/game I have planned out, although that’s not to say more couldn’t be done with this concept, it’s just about as far as I got. Essentially I was thinking this season could be a retelling and retooling of Sonic 06 with some details omitted or changed up like, for instance:

The romance between Sonic and Elise being outright axed! Matter of fact, while we’re at it, let’s just NOT make Elise a focus character so she doesn’t eat up screentime?

The weird time shit in this season/game being altered with Time Stones instead of Chaos Emeralds!

Less plotholes!

Focus on NONLINEAR timelines with LINEAR storytelling.

Silver is less silly!

Metal Sonic!

The Chaotix! AND THEY’RE HERE TO ACTUALLY BE HELPFUL!

Important Sonic characters being important!

Hey guess what? Eggman’s back and busted out of jail and he’s kicking ass! And he’s totally gonna release Solaris even though that didn’t work out so well for him last time!

Mephiles is still a cool villain! And he gets cool new designs for this series too that don’t stray too far from his original form!

I feel like this season/game would be kind of a hard fusion of Sonic CD and Sonic 06, with elements of Sonic CD being changing the past to ensure the future, and the future/present changing as a result. 

The climax of this series would be, well, you know by now. Sonic getting shot in the back, but then revived using the Chaos Emeralds and Time Stones together. But, even with Super Sonic, all seems hopeless, but, Sonic and Knuckles seem to have an idea, and it leads up, to our grand finale:

Solaris, the extra-dimensional being of ultimate power.

Versus

Hyper Sonic, Super Shadow, Super Silver, Super Tails, Super Knuckles, Super Amy, Super Mighty, and Super Ray.

With Solaris finally felled, Sonic and Co. use the last of the energy of their super forms to do two more things. 

Vanquish the flame of Solaris and Mephiles, and ensure that Solaris may never return to any Time Stream.

Silver’s future, although still broken, now looks much brighter, and the world is saved for the final time.

End of Season 4/Game 4.

I’m sure these ideas could be tweaked or changed around to span more seasons/games if certain characters or aspects of the series become popular, or if demand for certain characters appearing gets to be enough. Sonic has an immense library of games to do over or retell in this reboot, why not? 

And, this is just my idea for it, it doesn’t have to go this way explicitly. My only goal with this was to try to unify the Sonic lore in an interesting, unique manner, but also in such a way that it was new, fresh, and it made sense, most of all!

Opening

This really applies more toward the cartoon part of this reboot, that’s not to say the video game COULDN’T utilize the cartoon’s opening or something, it’s just that the opening is more for the show than it is for the games.

There’s a number of ways to go here, but in my mind, the best way to open a Sonic cartoon? Is the way you’d open a Sonic game. How about a condensed ‘remake’ of Sonic CD’s opening, with a few short clips from the first few episodes thrown in there to get people curious and excited about the show when it first airs?

There’s a cover of Sonic Boom by Crush 40 and Cash Cash just waiting to be used for this very thing!

I also think a condensed (that is to say, censored. I hate to censor a great song but ‘kicking-ass fast’ is a bit much for a show that’s likely gonna be PG-rated.) version of the Zebrahead (aka the BEST) version of His World would make for a GREAT opening.

Or if we wanna piggyback off of the recent success of Mania, how about a condensed version of Friends? Maybe we could even end the intro off on a remake of Sonic Mania’s title theme if we wanna have like, a classic Sonic emblem at the end of the opening.

I’d say the opening should be about... 60% new animation with Sonic platforming around and parkouring like he does or whatever, and about 40% old animation of various clips from the show or maybe even the games if we’re feeling kinda frisky to show off the series we’re about to watch, but also for budgetary reasons and to, again, get people interested in what’s actually IN the show, or maybe we could even do it like Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure’s part 1 opening or something where a couple of important scenes from the very beginning of the show or games are re-animated in a flashy way to achieve the same effect, but also wow the audience. That'd be a huge budget sink though and going a classic clip-show-and-new-shit route may just be the ideal compromise.

Marketing

This next part is also a lot more cartoon oriented, and kinda heavily depends on who’s gonna be sponsoring the show and who’s gonna be running it, but, hear me out.

Part of Sonic’s rise to popularity in the 90s was controversial, competitive advertising. And you know what? I haven’t seen anything really quite like this in a long time (except maybe for cleaner commercials), but, lots of people remember how pushy and in your face these commercials were, and how much they really pushed the superiority of the product they were advertising. So you know what? Let’s bring this back. Let’s bring back Sonic’s violent guerilla marketing campaigns.

It’d be a great throwback as well as a statement about Sonic REALLY comin’ back and comin’ back hot; which might get some new people interested to at least watch a few episodes, and in the process of that, they may find they like the new show/games a lot!

(NOTE: I DON’T HATE NICKELODEON, AND THIS ISN’T EXACTLY WHAT I THINK THE SHOW’S SONIC SHOULD LOOK LIKE, THIS IS JUST A PROOF-OF-CONCEPT OF WHAT I THINK THIS SHOW’S ADVERTISING COULD LOOK LIKE)

Or, if we want to opt for more positive, passive marketing strategies, why don’t we revisit an idea that was misused and make it better?

Idk about anyone else but I actually really like the ‘blue streaks to show where Sonic’s been’ idea that the movie posters did, and I think it has potential to make a really memorable-looking advertisement.

Or, why not opt for a more nostalgic passive approach and recreate some of Sonic’s old box art?

Again, it’d be a great throwback as well as a way to get people interested in the show. Although, if we go this route I WOULD say maybe we should make it a little more interesting than just ‘Sonic 1 pose on a black grid or popart background’? Maybe we should combine these box arts and add the pop-art details for little pops of color while Sonic bursts out of this black-grid frame with a richly detailed drawing of Green Hill in the background? I dunno.

Conclusion

Okay, so. I didn’t get to everything I wanted to explain (like other marketing stuff, merchandising, the new actual GAMEPLAY for these new games, how to write the characters and humor, how I think the general ART STYLE of these new cartoons and games should look, etc.) as a matter of fact, I still have a ton more ideas for this reboot, but, here’s the main point:

Sonic the Hedgehog, right now? Sucks. Because it’s such a mess. It has too many ideas that are going off in too many different directions. The best way to change that, in my eyes, is to start over and try to unify all these broken-up ideas into one. I believe this is possible, while still maintaining a pretty widespread appeal and giving broken, old ideas a second chance to shine, but still being fresh and new enough to have a lasting impact and leave the door open for new content later.

I’m really bad at ending posts like this, but, if you went into this post thinking that Sonic can’t or shouldn’t change, I hope I’ve at least provoked thought on the matter. And, maybe, all those hardworking people at SEGA will decide one day that things need to change, whether by a reboot, rewrite or just... doing something a little bit different.

Maybe then, just maybe.

Our blue blur will really shine again.

- Jenny, of @jennikkugoesoff and @jennikku

[drink-n-watch]

This season of Psycho Pass is frustrating for me. There are some brilliant insights and promising pieces of world building but they get bogged down by a messy and overly complicated narrative or else squandered. But I’m not going to bore you with story structure today. I know most people aren’t really into that sort of thing. Instead let’s start things off on something people do want to now, how are you Matt?

I’m fine, thanks for asking!

This week picked up with the denouement of the immigrant plot and, spoiler alert, it kind of fizzled.

Oh-ho-ho, I guess this’ll be a review where we disagree a lot then! This was my favourite episode in a while!

I’m blaming Steins;Gate for my lack of focus this week though, seems I cannot hear the name Kurisu without thinking back on it! And you know how it is, once I start thinking about Steins;Gate I need a minute to get back to reality.

I’m surprised it took you this long in this review series to mention Steins;Gate! That’s gotta be a personal record for you!

Anywho, from my personal tastes, Psycho Pass have been introducing way too many characters since the start of the season without bothering to really develop any of them so by now I’m straining to just keep proper track of everyone and their motivations, let alone form an emotional connection. I enjoy big ensemble casts but not when you also have to weave in such a complex plot.

For instance, I never really connected with Sister, Kurisu or the other two. I also don’t care about any of the roundrobin players at this point. So even though the revelation of Kurisu being alive and his twisted plan were more or less coherent, they really didn’t have the impact on me they should have.

I didn’t connect with any of the religious leaders of Kurisu either–but I mean were we supposed to?

Yup.

What did get a surprisingly emotional reaction from me was the revelation that Kei is o.k. In fact he seems to have healed up nicely between episodes. And although Heaven’s Leap apparently had kidnapped Maiko for leverage against him, they immediately switched the bait to information about his brother which was just silly. I have a feeling it’s these guys’ first high level shake up.

As much as I loved Maiko’s badass turn later in the episode (and the potential consequences it has for her hue) the villains’ motivation and having Maiko dragged into it all seemed kind tacked on for added drama, but whatever I’m glad she’s not dead!

Hur hur hur… “dangerous bottom”

We got to see a lot of Kei and his daring escape attempts and I thought that part was way more fun than Arata tracking down Kurisu. Except for the few times he got to use his trace and am I the only one who thought that was such Donnie Darko imagery? Never mind, I’m probably the only one who still remembers Donnie Darko.

Oh I remember Donnie Darko, only because it’s one of my least favourite films of all time but let’s not get too distracted from the topic at hand…

Why have I never realized before that Shion has a mullet? A femullet!

To me, the most promising reveal we got this episode was the conversation between Mika and her boss (I’m sorry I don’t remember her name). It seems the really not all that secret, secret criminal organization Bifrost, has gotten a touch too bold and Sybil is getting ready to bite back. As a premise that in itself holds a lot of promise. Though I remain wary about execution.

They better not rush the (presumed) demise of Bifrost into a single episode, it’s too soon (in my opinion).

In my opinion, this sort of arc would work best if we got a bit more info on Bifrost. Do we even know what the winner actually gets?

I imagine like most incredibly wealthy and powerful people its just bragging rights. Being in Bifrost kinda seems like being in a way more high-stakes and influential game of Russian Roulette.

I keep saying this but because I have a blind spot in my Psycho Pass knowledge I can’t tell if the returning characters are simply inconsistent (that is NOT the Nobu I know!) or if their evolution has changed them considerably. It would probably be better if I also forgot the past seasons.

Your guess is as good as mine, and I even watched the other stuff!

Although the reveal mentioned above was indeed the most promising, it was not my favourite scene this week. Not by a long shot. That parallel to season 1 in the tunnels, with a white haired man holding a “helpless” woman hostage was simply brilliant. For most of it I was doing a snooty face and thinking to myself “I see what you’re trying to do and that’s cool and all but you’re really just drawing attention to how much better it was the first time around”. But then it subverted my expectations and I got to give it to Psyco Pass 3, that impressed me. Credit where credit is due, that was a very good scene. I’m trying not to describe it in too much details cause spoilers but you can see it in the caps.

I think I jumped the gun and mentioned it earlier but yes, a definite highlight.

In general though, for me, this episode was a few shiny moments in an otherwise dull mass. The art quality once again went down. Character motivations were often spotty and the twist ending, although not bad in and of itself, comes a bit too soon in my opinion. I would have enjoyed a bit of respite as to me this is getting close to melodrama and the stakes are already out of control.

For the first time in a couple of weeks I finally felt like I was able to properly follow everything going on and enjoy it all too with very few complaints. My particular favourite part was the final ‘confrontation’ between Kurisu and Arata, not only was it visually impressive–evoking some future-neon art sensibilities reminiscent of ‘Blade Runner’–but also having Sho there constantly checking Arata’s crime coefficient throughout and watching in disbelief as it dropped to zero was very cool. Maybe I was just happy to see this part of the story ~end~ in a satisfying way when I was so wary about it being possible last week but those are my thoughts anyway.

    Psycho Pass s3 ep7 – That Looks Familiar This season of Psycho Pass is frustrating for me. There are some brilliant insights and promising pieces of world building but they get bogged down by a messy and overly complicated narrative or else squandered.

[necropsittacus]

ok so uh. as of the wikipedia dyscalculia symptoms list (please be assured this is not the limit of the research i’ve done i’ve been kinda going “oh wait fuck” @this being a possibility since i was 15, i am not diagnosing myself with things just off wikipedia and we already know i’m autistic anyway so like.) 

Difficulty reading analog clocks [!!!!]

Difficulty stating which of two numbers is larger

Sequencing issues [unsure what this means]

Inability to comprehend financial planning or budgeting, sometimes even at a basic level; for example, estimating the cost of the items in a shopping basket or balancing a checkbook [!!!!]

Inconsistent results in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division 

Visualizing numbers as meaningless or nonsensical symbols, rather than perceiving them as characters indicating a numerical value (hence the misnomer, "math dyslexia")

Difficulty with multiplication, subtraction, addition, and division tables, mental arithmetic [!!!!!], etc.

Problems with differentiating between left and right [! i still have to check on my hands most of the time and i don’t think i knew at all which was which until elementary school]

A "warped" sense of spatial awareness, or an understanding of shapes, distance, or volume that seems more like guesswork than actual comprehension

Difficulty with time, directions, recalling schedules, sequences of events, keeping track of time, frequently late or early [generally early because if i’m late people will be Mad so i assume it’ll take like 20 minutes to get to class Just In Case]

Poor memory (retention and retrieval) of math concepts; may be able to perform math operations one day, but draw a blank the next; may be able to do book work but then fails tests

Ability to grasp math on a conceptual level, but an inability to put those concepts into practice [probably? unsure what this means; wikipedia could stand to be more specific]

Difficulty recalling the names of numbers, or thinking that certain different numbers "feel" the same (e.g. frequently interchanging the same two numbers for each other when reading or recalling them)

Difficulty reading musical notation [!!!!!! i nearly failed high school intro music theory because i got fantastic grades on all the history stuff but Could Not get good at playing the fucking recorder because of this]

Difficulty with choreographed dance steps

Difficulty working backwards in time (e.g. What time to leave if needing to be somewhere at 'X' time) [i tend to either rely heavily on how long google maps says it will take and then add extra time or just assume half an hour]

Having particular difficulty mentally estimating the measurement of an object or distance (e.g., whether something is 3 or 6 meters (10 or 20 feet) away) [!!!!!!]

When writing, reading and recalling numbers, mistakes may occur in the areas such as: number additions, substitutions, transpositions, omissions, and reversals

Inability to grasp and remember mathematical concepts, rules, formulae, and sequences [possibly? i’ve always had a HELL of a time with math but i’m not sure what this means precisely]

Inability to concentrate on mentally intensive tasks [unsure what this means]

Mistaken recollection of names, poor name/face retrieval, may substitute names beginning with same letter.

[taffysannotatedsonichu]

The Most Pointless Character in Sonichu

Taffy here. This was a post I made for the Kiwi Farms forum on the most pointless character in Sonichu in late October 2017, and I took up the challenge to prove every single character has no point. This was kind of my beta version of what would become Taffy’s Annotated Sonichu, so I thought it would be worth reprinting here (also I’m sorry it’s taking me so long to get more CWCDefense or GitM up, I’ve been really sick for the past two weeks and I’m just now trying to get back in the swing of things).

Chris's comic persona and fursona are pointless because he could have just lived vicariously through Sonichu and not have an in-comic presence.

Sonichu himself became pointless after Chris took over as main character but was already pretty pointless since really Chris could have just written a straight Sonic fanfic with Sonic as the lead in the first place. Besides the occasional electric attack and the complete lack of an original personality he's basically Sonic.

That said, all the characters ripped wholesale from Sonic or Pokémon (Sonic himself, Perfect Chaos, Robotnik, Giovanni) are pretty pointless as they were dropped not long in as Sonichu grew to have its own canon with its own crazy cast of characters.

In addition, any character ripped wholesale from any other franchise (Beavis & Butthead, Bugs Bunny, Meg Griffin) exist solely for "fan service", or rather fan disservice.

Rosechu is extremely pointless, all she does is A) be a token girl, B) prove Sonichu is STRAIGHT, and C) occasionally face rape someone. That said The Incredible Lioness is probably the closest we get to a real character with a point, rivaled only by the Voltorb that kills Simonla. They have simple purposes (to brutally maim and murder) and they do them to a T.

Kel is pointless since Rosechu could have just been Chris's Pokémon to begin with and she didn't need to exist as a middleman.

For that matter, any character best known for being a Moon Pal (Bill the Scientist, Metal Sonichu, Yawning Squirtle) or just as a meme in general (Inos), while being great for laughs, are all pretty irrelevant background characters.

Reldnahc Notsew Niatsirhc exists solely for Chris to physically obliterate his sexual insecurity.

Any Jerkop or Manajerk exists solely for Chris to vent his frustrations with real people who were just doing their jobs. Same goes for Hanna.

Blake is too inconsistent to have a point to existing. He was a pointless villain-of-the-week at first and then he was a pointless supporting character.

Sarah Hammer and Wes Iseli are particularly pointless because Chris' relationship with Sarah was already waning when he wrote Sonichu 2. Since the reincarnation plot point was dropped not long after, you can honestly skip Sonichu 2 entirely and not miss anything.

Mary Lee Walsh, while being awesome, is like the jerkops and manajerks just there essentially as a comic book voodoo doll. Maybe the point of her was to show that Chris can in fact write an interesting and badass female character? We'll never know.

Count Graduon is pretty redundant with Mary, power wise. Other than to vent frustrations with his graduation he's really pointless.

All of the Chaotic Combo are basically team filler filling out some elements that the rest of the team lacks. Specifically:

Wild Sonichu doesn't really have a personality. He's pretty redundant with Sonichu himself, other than, of course, we need a green Sonichu. The one thing that possibly could have made him interesting, the struggles of being a single father, are really rushed over so Chris can get back to the murder spree. His only notable father-daughter bonding experience was drilling a man to death.

Bubbles Rosechu, aside from being the token blue Sonichu/water type, finds one Sonichu ball and then returns to being a moron.

Angelica Rosechu, although I imagine her original purpose was to be a pacifist voice of reason and a token religious character, well, that got thrown out the window pretty quickly. The things that differentiate her from Bubbles besides their powers are few and far between.

Punchy Sonichu is just the token red character and the token Asian. Seriously I don't even know what "fighting type" means. In fact, why not make him fire type? It's the one element missing from the Chaotic Combo (Bubbles is water, Wild is earth, Angelica is air, Magi-Chan is ether/heart/mind, no one's fire!) (Note 26/11/18: I now know Fighting-Type is a type of Pokémon, but nevertheless “Fighting-Type is one of the weirder types. The Pokémon types are elements, supernatural creatures... and martial arts. And yes, the Fighting-Type icons in the series are red while Fire-Type is orange, but from a team balance perspective fire would have made sense).

Magi-Chan, especially after being paired off with Silvana taking away his sole unique trait of not being driven around by his penis, is just Chris's round the clock surveillance system.

Boulder Dropping Whale would have been useful if he actually killed Bubbles's mother but since he failed he's just a great meme.

Why does Flame the Sunbird even exist? He's literally just Kazooie from Banjo-Kazooie and his role could have easily been filled by Wild or Bubbles or anyone because that stupid Sunstone doesn't even matter, except it does make everything grow like Norma, whoever she is. Norma is the most relevant character in that whole issue. (Note 26/11/18: Yes, I named Nadine’s mom after this typo.)

Again, Darkbind and Zelina are crimes against nature. (Note from an earlier repost): I am referring to a previous post complaining that Darkbind and Zelina were the combinations of not two but four franchises (Sonic, Pokémon, Zelda & Darkwing Duck) and came off as clunky because of it.)

Crystal the sister is especially irrelevant now that Chris is a girl (why not make her a trans man to mirror Chris' own transition? Oh wait JERKS.), but she was always redundant with Rosechu and Chris himself.

Sailor Megtune - why didn't he just draw Megan herself? We know he's okay drawing her.

Megagi - Already kinda redundant with Megtune and she really had no reason to exist after Chris & Megan had that falling out.

Jamsta and Lolisa speak for themselves at their uselessness. I mean, they are just bit characters anyway. But as someone else mentioned before their radio station is particularly shitty.

Patti-Chan, while her story is cute, just exists as a way for Chris to hold on to his beloved pet and not fully cope with her loss.

Allison Amber, although being one of the better characters, wouldn't need to exist if Chris would just do some work for once. That said if the point of her character was to be an audience surrogate (I mean, until she shoots a man in cold blood) then for once Chris succeeded.

Bionic the Hedgehog as previously mentioned is just there for the sake of having an orange Sonichu, even though he isn't one.

All of the specific characters of Chris's "real life" "sweethearts" (Pandahalo, Blanca, Ivy) as well as their OCs (Jiggliami, Blazebob & Chloe, Layla Flaafy) are pointless because they all just disappear almost immediately after they're introduced after Chris finds out they were a troll or they "died".

Likewise any rendition of one of Chris' real life trolls (Jason Kendrick Howell, Clyde, Jack Thaddeus, Alec, Evan, Sean & Mao) are again just there as pen-and-paper voodoo dolls for Chris to take out his frustrations on. The trolls in particular almost work against Chris' point in including them because no matter how much Chris paints himself as the hero his violent murder sprees always end with him looking like the villain. (Justice for the Asperpedia Four!)

Beel is just Satan and a secretary for the 4-cent-garbage building. Pretty pointless.

Zapina is just there as a token "cute" character.

Simonla is just Wild's token sweetheart and then later the lynchpin Chris needed to justify executing his enemies.

Silvana, while another fairly interesting character, is just a villain-of-the-week with an added dose of Chris's sexual insecurity.

Sarah & Rita Jackarass - These two are both stupid minor characters, but why on Earth did there need to be two of them?

GodJesus exists solely to heap praise onto our beloved autist.

Those stupid Samurai Pizza Transformers are stupid. I hate them so much. I hope they burn in the Earth's lava core.

Sonichu & Rosechu's children are initially just there to be cloyingly cute and then once they're grown to be Chris's LGBT mouthpieces, forgetting that we won't listen to anything they say because we already hate them. Of special pointlessness is Cerah, because while Robbie is the most punchable he's at least the focus character of a lot of the newer stuff (even though we hated him as a Sonee, we hated him as a Sonichu, and we'll hate him as a Rosechu), and Christine is vapid she gives credence to the idea that Magi-Chan is giving it to Rosechu behind Sonichu's back which is way more interesting than canon. Cerah does jack squat besides be a lesbian.

The Asperchu cameos are just there for Chris to try to force Alec to give him what he wants and the Basement Rosechus are just there to slander Alec's name.

Sandy is particularly irrelevant since Simonla's back, she was never anything more than a replacement goldfish for her.

Kevin the Jew - I knew it! I knew it all along! Peppermint Patty is a boy!

Bananasaurus - Don't listen to your Patreon backers Chris.

Lastly, Russel & Cynthia are just there to fill the Sonee/Rosee void left when Cera Christine & Robbie evolved, a void no one in particular wanted filled.

Edited (27/10/17) to include all the MLP characters and Chris's ponysona - We hate them and we want Sonichu back. 

[himurakenshin]

ok ko storyboarders

ok so i made a post talking about some stuff i really loved about ok ko and one thing i wanted to bring up was all the styles of the storyboarders! in this i’ll talk about each of them and their styles individually. maybe in another post i’ll talk about the dynamic of the pairs because this post on its own is insanely long and adding that would make it even longer

also everything here is subjective

geneva

so one of the first things ive noticed with geneva’s style is how... on model she is (next to ryann). i find it to be really interesting seeing how everyone has taken their liberties with ian allowing them to go off model and she’s stayed the most accurate to the style. 

for the most part, i really like how she draws! i feel like the best part about her style is the improvements that she’s made over the course of the first season. the way she currently draws ko is just a little bit more off model than usual, but that’s literally only due to the height of his hair. it’s really good to see that she’s making the ok ko style into her own.

(episode 44 to episode 13 (the first episode she worked on and produced))

i would point out the poses of some of the characters but i feel like i cant since she’s gotten much better at it. none of the silhouettes of the characters she’s drawn nowadays seem very closed or stiff, they express much more than in the earlier episodes!

mira

out of all the other storyboarders, mira seems to go the most off model. it’s very very anime-esque and generally feels very fancy? i’ve noticed that in most (or maybe all) of the episodes she’s boarded, she’s also done the fight scenes that were in it and she’s really good at it! they’re all really smooth and expressive and its clear that she puts quite some thought into her poses like this one.

they both have really clear silhouettes and i love the simple shapes incorporated with them.

she seems to have an issue with facial variety, seeing as everyone she draws seems to have big eyes, big cheeks, and only rarely does she ever draw a circular head with the eyes not hanging over the side of the face. its also a little apparent to me that expressions are not her strong suit, which is a little essential when it comes to a show as exaggerated as ok ko.

these are all from 4 completely different episodes. they all have big cheeks and big eyes and that seems to be about it when it comes to her humanoid characters

ryann

ryann’s style is really cute and gives a nice contrast to parker’s without it seeming like a really big shift. they usually board more wholesome scenes and succeed at it because of how adorable the characters are in her style.

ko also tends to act much cuter with her scenes and more like a child which is something i really really like a lot about her style. i do want to see a fight storyboarded by her in the future though!

i dont have much to say for ryann’s style except for its good.

parker

parker has a really smooth and professional style, it always seems like his lines are a lot smoother than most of the others. i personally dont think there’s too much to say about his style apart from the fact that he has some issues exaggerating expressions and also poses sometimes. he usually has some really funny scenes.

i want to see more dynamic fights from him though, for what we’ve seen from him is average but very smooth. my favorite fight from him was carol vs succulentus. short but really fun.

he also seems like a chill guy (also im sorry i dont have much to say on him oml)

stevie

the first thing to notice about stevie’s boarding style is her strength in like. everything. especially the way she draws expressions. they’re wonderfully exaggerated and really expresses emotions extremely efficiently. 

if you tell me that you havent laughed or smiled at any of these scenes then youre probably lying and i will fight you behind cartoon network studios at 3 am. 

another thing to note are the poses she draws. more often than not (specifically in action poses) there’s always a ton of movement and they’re always really really dynamic.

danny

danny’s style is really interesting. her style has the most noticable development in it. it used to be quite on model but would give some of the characters a little more exaggerated features (specifically with enid and her really huge thighs). in the most recent episode that she’s boarded which was let’s take a moment, there is quite a contrast in the style. the heads are a lot bigger, bodies are smaller and.... that’s it.

it looks a little off putting because its a really big contrast to every other style, but its certainly not bad. its really cutesy. another minor problem i have with her style is that the arms tend to look kind of not connected to the body. it’s nothing too noticeable but i have an awful habit of seeing stuff like that.

regardless of some of these flaws, danny’s style is really cute and i love how she draws. she’s also pretty good at fight scenes as well.

dave

i dont really know what to say for dave except fo uh?? really good? very dynamic? probably one of the most detailed styles from all of the boarders. there’s a lot of lines on the faces which makes them feel more organic as well as expressive and also adds to the humor a lot. 

also have yall seen the amount of detail he puts into gar’s muscles like holy shit

haewon

haewon is probably the most cryptid storyboarder on the show since she doesn’t post anything too often on social media. i also dont have too much to say about haewon’s style except that its really unique. its really flowy as well and inconsistent which always kinda makes it hard for me to tell what scenes she draws. all of her scenes are really funny though and i think that has to do with her style. 

one of my favorite scenes that she’s done is from sibling rivalry, that entire sequence with rad and enid arguing. they’re all really squishy and maluable quick is a good quality, especially in squash and stretch.

 i dont think she’s done any fight scenes so far but i think it’d turn out well if she did so. 

ian

b-whuh? what do u mean ian. hes not a boarder he just does some revisions sometimes

yea i know, so i’ll keep this short and sweet. i feel like i shouldve left him out but at the same time i also feel like i couldnt? yall remember the driving scene in ko’s video channel?

yeah ian did these and hell they’re both really good despite being extremely short scenes.

1. the posing for one is amazing,the silhouettes with each is very clear in both pictures

2. the movement is GREAT, especially in the second one. u can tell that they’re going super fast and that the force is pushing them back without even needing to see outside the window.

anyway i want to see him do one part of a fight that seems like it’d be cool

-

thank u for reading this hellishly long post. i love all the boarders with all my heart and would sell my soul for their skills.

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

"Replace the personas with another supernatural element" oh I just meant if they went full final fantasy and just had P5 still be a mainline persona game but have it's world and lore disconnected from 3 and 4 (like, ignoring the inevitable fan backlash that would have at the start)

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh................ Tbh I don't know enough about FF to really do a....good job transferring Persona into a similar format. I know that summons, Chobos, and Cid are a common thing...... But I can try....

Ignoring that it wouldn't just be disconnected from 3/4 (but also 1/2).

Hmmmm I mean.....people (*cough*me*cough*) were theorizing that P5 might take place on an alt timeline to P1-4 prior to the release. So I don't think that it not being on the same timeline as those would be an issue for the fandom. So doing one more level of separation might not be that pad either.

Similar to FF, there would be similar terms that we see namely: Personas and Shadows. I doubt we could do much with changing their mechanics. And people will def draw a comparison to Palaces and the TV World Dungeons (I'm sure there's other similar overlaps in FF).

But regardless how we tweak separate it, P5 itself, has established it's own canon in it's own game. Even if Shadows/Personas are the same as the other games, P5 still explains what it is in it's own game. And it does this with the new rules it sets up for itself. Which, again, is all fine and good, but then it caves in on itself. Like a domino effect, or a spiraling whirlpool. It starts off as a small inconsistency before it grows bigger or you get sucked down deeper as they start to pile up and you realize that P5 has more holes than swiss cheese.

Low hanging/quick fruit examples: Why didn't they attempt to just ride their Personas at *insert issue*? If only Mako/Futaba can ride their Personas, why is that? Aren't they the same material? And why if everything is connected by Cognition, did the Sphinx still exist after Futaba was aware that the Sphinx wasn't her mom? ("Silly, P5R shows that she still doesn't 100% believe" shhhhh shhhhh SHHHHHH! Shit bandaid is what I call it, and really spits in the face of her literally facing her shadow. And it's all reliant on the MC saying the wrong thing. If you don't, she continues to deny the stupid thing so it's just pointless and not really showing she still has hang ups. All in all, the boss should've just disappeared all together). I mean the owner's Cognition is reflected in their dungeon no? Then why doesn't Futaba's change? "She's not in control" That....really makes no sense tho.......the world is still influence by her state of mind (it's why the world looks the way it does!), regardless if shadows are usurping her own Shadow Self or not. It flies in the face of the game's whole cognition thing.

That is something within the world of P5, it's own rules it's set up, and it breaks them time and time again. It's something that needs to be fixed, regardless if we pull a FF or keep it in the Persona verse.

That's without getting into the characters inconsistencies and it's themes bouncing all over the place and moving goal posts.

At least, this is the case of what we have now with P5. So I standby, P5 needs to be ironed out before I think it works.

But if you are wondering if Persona, in general, could work similar to FF? I don't see why not. It's kinda what they do with MegaTen anyway (not every single game is connected to another). But yes, if we could just isolate each game and not connect them, I wouldn't be opposed to that. I'm already a fan of alt timelines and universes.

Devil Survivor and Persona don't really have that much in common except the demons/Personas and maybe some other core elements that belong to the rest of the bigger franchise of Megaten.

[leighlikescartoons]

Marvel’s Spider-Man Episodes 6-8 (Review)

It's the Saaaaaandmaaaaan. Looks like Adam Sandler decided to... no wrong Sandman. I was a little surprised when they went with the same approach for Flint that they did with Rhino. Unwillingly being transformed into the big bad monsters they are. Ol' Sandcastle's voice has turned to wind as he struggles to form basic words, words that any civilian of a Marvel show should know. "Saaaaaave Me." Once he turns back to Marco his voice comes back and sounds spot on. I like the look. He actually looks like he's made of sand, as opposed to something thicker, like Oatmeal. Honestly, the way Characters are drawn is super pleasing in this show, but it just misses the mark with certain designs. His human form hits all the boxes I need. Striped green shirt and brown pants. Like Steve from Blue's Clues except big and muscular.

The episode is heavy on Venom action, which makes sense since the next episode (Episode 7) is called "Symbiotic Relationship". What I don't get is, just two episodes ago Max Modell was working on the Symbiote and seemed extremely invested in it. But now he's passed it on to four of his students? Why was there no mention of this? I'm not one to get mad and stomp my feet about continuity, but that's a preeetty big change.

This episode is much better than "Party Animals". We start out with a fun scene where Peter isn't the biggest loser in the frame. He's out geeked by Miles and Anya who refuse to enjoy the pier to work on their science project. Then, after Sandy Cheeks makes his debut, Gwen swoops in to save the day! Or she would have if Spidey didn't steal her thunder. Plus Harry works on more Goblin tech. It'll be interesting if he actually turns out to be the Green Goblin in this incarnation as opposed to Norman. I'm so glad they went with the not a villain angle with Sandman though. The end to his story arc in Spectacular warmed my cold animated heart. Flint Marco deserves to be a hero. (Please don't message me about all the horrible things he's done in the comics. Let me have this)

I do actually have two gripes about this episode. First, Hammerhead's voice stinks. Second, Aunt May's insurance didn't cover Sandstorms. Are you kidding? Oh man, what insurance in Marvel's Manhattan doesn't cover super related accidents? Maybe her package just doesn't cover it.

Symbiotic relationship! Looks like criminals are using the web-head's mask to hide their faces. I think it's a fun thing to do instead of just drawing them with standard issue ski masks. I would have liked it better if each wore a different hero's mask though. Extra points if one was Iron Man, as he pops in next episode "Stark Expo". That would have extra extra cool if A) the previews didn't so readily spoil it and B) it weren't playing back to back to back with Symbiotic Relationship and Sandman.

So we get a good look at Spidey's new power-up using his Symbiote, the design of which I love by the way. It looks... as you'd expect the Venom suit to look. The only gripe I have is he still has shoe bottoms. Does the Symbiote form shoe bottoms? Or does it just not cover his feet all the way? Is the Symbiote called Venom when it's still attatched to Spiderman, or is that an identity it takes on afterwards?

But then the next morning, Oh no! Spidey's cornered! They have guns! What ever will he do to get out of this jam against three identical looking extras?Norman is getting more and more shady. Hiring villains, associating with Allistair(sp?) known bully, and going as low as breaking into Horizon High to steal their expiriment. Lucky for Gwen and crew, Peter already lost it. Take that Osborne!

I would have liked if the entire Symbiote being attatched to Spidey was contained in this one episode, giving him a power boost for one or two and then letting Peter figure out it's bad for him. Oh well.

At the end of the episode Norman swears Spider-man will one day be his. Do you think there will be a romantic story line between them? That's probably what he meant.

Stark Expo! Looks like Tony is making his big appearance. After their relationship from the movie (No Spoilers) is anyone really surprised? He shows up and Spidey is a huge fan! But I'm not, his voice is a little... dorky. I mean he's an inventor, but he's also supposed to be a playboy millionaire with a presence. Batman doesn't sound like a dork... sometimes Batman sounds like a dork, but Bruce Wayne never does! And Tony doesn't put on a voice when he's suited up. Not to mention, his suit looks kinda bulky. Overall, I don't have a good first impression of him. Hopefully the inevitable scene where they team up changes my mind!

I'll be honest, I don't know who the villain is here. Maybe they're from Iron Man, but they could just as easily be from Spider-Man. He seems to be the physical embodiment of a computer virus. He shorts out Spidey's shooters and posseses Tony's new suit. Mark 52.

Speaking of Villains, Norman hints at Green Goblin's upcoming appearance. Just give me the crazy green villain I want! Goblin has the best personality AND the best color scheme. Don't mess this up!

So it looks like Max is back to working on the Symbiote instead of Gwen and co. for some reason. He's looking into developing it into something to advance prostetics though, so I'll let it slide. The inconsistency is trumped by the good intentions. Then in walks Tony! Honestly his voice sounds like a duck. Maybe the actor went in for a Duck Tales (which premiers next Saturday by the way) audition and got the spot as Iron Man instead. Not a bad upgrade.

Doc Ock is wearing... a military outfit? I mean, not standard issue or anything, but what you might've thought was standard issue as a kid. He looks very soldier like. Anyways, he's brought a familiar set of arms to Stark Expo and gets infected. Even if he's trying to be a good guy, he's simply fated to be bad. How unfortunate. But it does give Harry and Miles a chance to show off some heroic tendancies. Now the only one who hasn't is Anya, who I recently found out is the Alter Ego of Spider-Girl. How fun! I'd love if the Sinister Six had to take on Spider-Man, Spider-Girl, Spider-Gwen, and... er... Also Spider-Man.

They didn't get to show off their expiriments though! Ghost, the villain's name is Ghost, destroyed the Expo before they could. It's a shame, while Flash clearly had the best, and deserved the prize, I would have loved to see some of the other cool tech. Speaking of Flash, it seems like Eddie Brock may not show up, Flash taking his place.

At the end it seems Ock is getting set up to turn into his villainous counterpart. With mentions of connecting his arms to the spine and we all know how that ends. Not to mention Norman swooping in. I worry for that little round geek. I'm also not sure if he's a Professor, like they said in Episode 2, or a student. Maybe he's both?

All in all, on a scale of 1 to Spectacular I'd give this trio of episodes the scene from Street Sharks when Bends is such a trusting friend that he accepted the fact that his 4 friends had turned into shark monsters with a simple "No, It's me, Bobby." and then let 4 massive SHARKS into his car. What a guy.

[iwillsendapostcard]

don't worry it can still happen.. robert might cheat on aaron with chrissie next year :)

Oh nonnie! I mean, you could be right there- who knows? But I acutely have loads of theories about this! So, buckle in; this is probably going to be 1,000 words longer than it needs to be.

There are three points to this post;

I think this storyline is trying to tell us that Rob will not ever cheat again

Rob cheating with Chrissie would have been better for Bex’s character and mean that she wasn’t just brought into the show to be a walking womb

This could have been a really interesting story for Chrissie too, especially with the Lachlan rumours

I quite firmly believe that this storyline is trying to show us that Rob isn’t going to cheat again. When the first spoilers came through that The Incident was going to happen, I was actually kinda on board with it (when we thought it was just a kiss.) I absolutely do not want Aaron to be cheated on, but I thought that showing the audience the potential for it would be a good thing. Because I know that the GA would always be convinced that Rob would cheat again unless we saw him be completely devastated by it.

What I thought was going to happen was that Rob would kiss Bex and she would push him away, leaving Rob with the revelation that even though he tries to pretend that he has fully moved on, those parts of his personality still exist and he needs to work on them rather than ignore them. AND this would have meant Bex drawing a line under her past love (?) for him and make the decision to move on.

Obviously, that’s not what we got.

But, in a very complicated way, it’s almost better? In the sense that Rob is now really having to deal with the huge mistake he made. He can’t escape it, he can’t pay it to go away, he can’t push it under the carpet and pretend it never happened. This is partly why I think Vic is so involved with Bex right now. So that Rob has to face his mistake at every turn.

This should have two effects: hopefully it will make the boys talk to each other more (Aaron has done his own fair share of sweeping and this hiding from each other cannot be good. I’d like to see them work on this) AND it will show Rob the very real possibility of losing Aaron explicitly because of something he and he alone did. He’s already been through this twice, with the reveal and pub episodes, and he’s going to have to keep going through it for the rest of the child’s life.

The short version- I think what’s going on here is the change that means that Robert Sugden is never going to cheat again. And that is a big step since cheating made up such a huge part not just of Ryan Hawley’s Rob but also Karl’s; every relationship Rob has had has involved cheating in some way. Changing his character so that he won’t cheat again, and so the audience won’t think he’ll cheat again requires something pretty drastic, and I think that we can all agree that if this storyline is anything, it’s that.

On to Bex specifically: I feel that the way that her character has been written has been very inconsistent. I am also slightly concerned that she’s had so few storylines that are independent from the Sudgens. As such, it’s very easy to think that the main reason she was added to the cast was to be a part of this one particular storyline. Emily has said in interviews that she feels like Bex isn’t given as much sympathy because she hasn’t been in the soap that long. And to an extent she’s right. Because of the inconsistencies, we don’t know all that much about her character- her motivations are very difficult to work out, the snarky fun person who wanted the old Robert back is not the same woman as the one who feels like he forced her into an abortion. But, if Rob had cheated with another female cast member who was better established than her character may read as more sympathetic as the audience would understand her wants and desires more than they understand Bex’s.

Which brings me to Chrissie and the potential storylines there. Firstly, Chrissie is a much more established character and she is capable of inspiring both sympathy and derision (my mum, for example, thinks she was totally justified in setting Rob’s car on fire but thinks she went too far to punish Andy) so we instantly get a two sided view of the issue. Secondly, while Bex was set up as a worry for Aaron due to her past relationship with Rob there would still be that worry with Chrissie. This could have very easily been established with comments about Rob’s marriage to her in the lead up to the Robron wedding. After all, Rob never made the choice to leave her for Aaron and Aaron was always second best to her in terms of Robert’s long-term priorities. This would speak to anyone who has had a similar relationship where one person has left another for someone else and has the potential to resonate with a far wider part of the audience.

So, a better story for the GA, but could it have the potential to be a good story for Chrissie? Well, there is no way in hell that she would ever touch Rob again with a 10 ft bargepole. But we know this soap has no problem making drunk people sleep together. So, let’s suspend our disbelief for a moment and run with the drunk sex idea. It is abundantly clear that this story was never meant to be about consent, but having both parties equally drunk would have inspired a different conversation anyway. Then we have the fact the Chrissie would take the morning after pill- but what if she doesn’t remember? Then we might question why she wouldn’t have an abortion. But if we’re expected to believe that Bex always wanted to be a mum then I think we can easily believe that Chrissie wanted more children but had agreed with Rob that Lachlan was enough for now.

It seems like we’re heading towards a story about inheritance here, with John leaving and Bex’s (and I’m going to call them as I see them here) bizarre outbursts at Chrissie. But Bex doesn’t need to be pregnant in order to get her hands on Lawrence’s money as she is already his biological daughter. Whereas Chrissie and Lachlan are not and could be cut out- but would Lawrence really do that if Chrissie was pregnant again. A biological daughter verses an adopted one with two children? Seems like a more even playing field to me…

And while we’re on the subject of Lachlan: I would not be surprised if, privately, Chrissie thinks she messed up a bit there. Knowing her, she’ll blame a lot of people before she blames herself, but I also think she would acknowledge that the buck stops with her and that she won’t be winning any mother of the year awards. But 16 years later, could she get it right this time. Could this be the chance to prove that she can parent a child and that she’s learnt from her mistakes? Would she want to keep it to prove to herself and her family that she can be a good mum? Would the child give her something to hold onto once serialkiller!Lachlan rises?

Or, and I think that this would play into it, would she keep the child knowing that it will punish Robert and Aaron? Because however much Bex tries to tell us that she likes Aaron and doesn’t want to hurt him and wants to look out for him, I’m pretty sure that Chrissie doesn’t give a flying fuck about the man who slept with her husband for 6 months despite knowing they were married.

So yeah, that’s why the Chrissie and Robert theory made me scream a little. Nonnie, if you or anyone else is still reading this I would like to say sorry for putting you through that all. I just have a lot of feelings ;)

[itsybitsylemonsqueezy]

Robin Lord Taylor and Adventures in Internalized Homophobia

Alrighty, SO... RLT has said some controversial things in his latest Gotham interview. Some things that make me REALLY sad, but are honestly not surprising with his track record thus far. He’s always had a... complicated relationship with Oswald in interviews, which is REALLY sad, because he clearly loves Oswald, but he won’t let himself admit that on camera out of character for a lot of reasons, the biggest of which, I would argue, is internalized homophobia. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

If you haven’t seen the interview, I invite you to watch it HERE and draw your own conclusions! I know there’s been a lot of really negative reactions to it, so I do caution you all about that, as Robin pretty much gaslights Oswald which is... ridiculous and harmful on so many levels. I personally think he spoke without thinking, but that does little to mitigate any emotional reaction you might have.

Anyway, this post here is to try to unpack what he said. I will say, upfront, I am not a survivor of abuse so I did not come to this with that lens. So what I say is not from personal experience, only my reading of what Robin said and my best guesses at why. I hope that I provide some clarity to people who were left hurt or confused by what he said, but I do call it guesses. I’m not Robin, I can’t tell you what he was really thinking. So, knowing all of that, we proceed...

I was not seeing a LOT of coherent unity here, which makes me question a lot of things. Robin clearly has intense sympathy for Oswald, which is UNDERSTANDABLE, actors normally do love their own characters, that's a thing. And he doesn't unpack that, neither does he take time pointing out Oswald, you know, is a borderline-sadistic murderer with manic tendencies, doesn't unpack any of that. He describes Oswald as 'fractured', which is fairly accurate, but that doesn't make him unlovable or incapable of love, which is the whole problem.

He just flat out said that Oswald's confused about what he feels for Ed and... honestly that's not even true! Like, however Robin feels, THAT'S NOT WHAT THE SCRIPT SAID. Both Oswald's words and actions in relation to Ed read love, so... sorry, Robin, sorry, but you're just flat out wrong on this.

I could see that he thinks Oswald has jumped into a relationship with Ed too quickly, that he bounces erratically from grief to love, but... like, first of all, that's just Oswald 100% of the time, that's just him, so this erratic move is not in any way out of character or even unhealthy, given the grand scope of his character. And, number two, I can't really buy that, since it's almost a complete season for Oswald to admit his feelings. Yes, his crush on Ed starts brewing after the terrible loss of his mother. But again, Oswald doesn't express or act on these feelings until WELL after.

Robin could be talking about how Ed has not expressed any kind of consent to this relationship, but he doesn't say that in so many words, and that's also kinda getting the cart before the horse. Like... Oswald is allowed to have emotions and admit those emotions, how ever Ed reacts to them. Oswald's emotions are valid, even in love, especially in love.

And, you know, that's the whole problem, Robin invalidates love. Which is REALLY weird considering he hasn't invalidated any of Oswald's other emotions, many of which are a LOT less healthy than love. He couches it in terms that he thinks Oswald specifically is not capable of love right now, in this relativistic moment, but even taking it that way, it isn't true, it just isn't true. In the script, on the show, Oswald is shown to perform love, and I don't mean just with Ed.

Oswald is, except in his episodes of manic violence, actually a very respectful, rational, and even generous person. Like... legit. So you're just plain wrong if you think Oswald in some way can't love because he's too hurt or whatever. And, again, I definitely believe that Oswald IS hurt, he's been through trauma, but that doesn't make you less human, less capable of love.

And, again, that's confusing because at the top of the show Robin calls him VERY human, and then seems to walk that back. And I can't tell if that's internalized homophobia, if he's afraid that Oswald is a 'bad' queer representative, so he doesn't want Oswald seen that way.

Or if he's afraid of Ed and Oswald's relationship being construed as abusive, which it isn't, unless you're using VERY stark and unyielding measures. Because, like, yes, Oswald DID murder Ed's girlfriend out of jealousy. Traditionally, that's an abusive, even stalker-ish behavior. BUT, that's using real world values, this is a comic book show. Real world values are suspended; we romanticize, we exaggerate. And secondly, and more importantly narratively speaking, Oswald's going to get to pay his fucking due for it, he's NOT going to get away with it, not in terms of his relationship with Ed, or in terms of the law, possibly. He'll be held accountable, at the very least by Ed, which is all we really care about, narratively speaking. Heck, Oswald will even hold himself accountable because he will feel guilt, not over her death, but because he made Ed upset. And I need to emphasis that ‘guilt’ and ‘consequence’ are features not found in abuse.

Like, this is one of the differences between 50 Shades and Hannibal. Allow me to explain: in 50 Shades, Christian Grey is not held accountable for his MYRIAD abuses. THAT is trash, THAT is reinforcing abuse, it's awful and terrible and no one should find it sexy. In Hannibal, HANNIBAL IS HELD FUCKING ACCOUNTABLE. No one treats Hannibal as a hero or a safe individual NOT EVEN for a second because, you know, he's a living monster. He gets to face direct consequences for his actions.That doesn't make what he does right, not at all, but it does mean that there is a social and narrative weight to what he does, it matters. It means that even though we're showing these terrible things, we are acknowledging that they are terrible.

And like... that's how fucking story-telling works, you can't HAVE people who never do anything wrong ever, that's not a story. People make mistakes, people are bad, people do messed up things, so give them consequence, unpack that shit.

So, if Robin was implying Oswald was abusive, even unintentionally, he's wrong, because Oswald faces consequence and experiences guilt. He is not a monster, neither is he AT ALL abusive, like... I cannot at all stand by that.

Anyway... yeah, I just find his comments really puzzling, they make no sense. It is possible, it's really possible, that Robin fears or sees something in Oswald's attachment to Ed that he believes is suspect, I just can't for the life of me figure out what it is. Oswald lets him fucking go, man, Oswald, at every turn has treated Ed with respect to his autonomy. Even when ED doesn't. And that’s a really good example, maybe even the BEST example, of what Oswald feeling being love and not abusive possession because he lets Ed go. An abuser wouldn’t, an abuser would make Ed stay, they’d refuse and deny Ed’s decision. No, Oswald lets him go, without even a fight! You look me in the eye and tell me that’s not love.

So what does this all amount to? I think Robin seems very wary of loving Oswald too much, which is a real shame. There's a lot to love about Oswald and it's his retractions that are the most damaging and worrying. You could do a LOT with supporting Oswald, it's very easy to say 'I love him, he fucked up here, here, and here, but I love him anyway and in these other ways he's a good person!' I mean... it's not that hard to do.

BUT, you have to have this self-assurance that it doesn't reflect badly on YOU to say that. I think it may not even be about Oswald, I think Robin might be scared of being perceived as 'the wrong kind of gay’ or being too opinionated or too open or those things. That would make a loooooot of sense to me, that he takes out self-doubt and fear of social reprisals on poor Oswald. And that's legit! Like, totally valid that he reacts that way, it's just such a shame that he doesn't feel more confident or safe to say what he really feels.

So this points strongly to internalized homophobia and, guys, especially with the way Robin handles this, his reactions to being questioned on his own character are legit and valid, problematic as they are. Wherever he is in his life, this is how he feels now and he’s doing the best he can. I just don’t want to make this a criticism of Robin or an invitation to gang up on him because DUDE NO. Dude, he... he hasn’t unpacked this, there’s stuff going on here that Robin isn’t comfortable with or not yet equipped to talk about on air which is VALID and we can’t force him into it. It’s a terrible, terrible shame that this comes at the cost of destroying Oswald and injuring quite a few fans in the process, but I guarantee that wasn’t his intention and he wasn’t even aware he was doing it. He did not think at all about what he just said because it was a homophobic reaction. And internalized homophobia would explain why he's blind to the inconsistency in his own statements, how he can sympathize with Oswald so much but then is so desperate to paint Oswald as inhuman in this one very specific way.

For me, personally, it just feels really dishonest. :/ the whole thing, it feels disingenuous to do this to Oswald, to say that he doesn't feel love, that's... so wrong, so completely, flat out wrong. It's a betrayal, it's a betrayal to Robin’s own portrayal of him. I mean... what the hell do you mean bro? I really wish he had it in him to say 'Look, Oswald's a terrible person, but he's in love with Ed' because THE TWO ARE NOT MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE. That is a legit real life rule! Even murderers can and do love! It's a thing! Even the real life ones!

And, I hate to keep comparing, but... in a SIGNIFICANTLY more problematic show, Hannibal, neither the writers nor the actors, have ever minced words saying 'Hannibal is in love with Will.' Literally the ENTIRE CAST has said it, it was said on the show, and, to be quite honest, there's a LOT more room to argue that THAT SHIT is abuse. Much more than Nygmobblepot could EVER hope to be. And yet, we said love, we said a MONSTER, LITERAL MONSTER HANNIBAL LECTER is capable of love. And that is controversial to say! Because, again, actual monster.

Oswald is not a monster, it is NOT actually controversial to say he can love. It's honestly more controversial now that Robin’s denying it, you're hurting us man, you're hurting us. Robin's making this harder than it needs to be. Because no one is prompting him to walk back Oswald or his feelings about Oswald. He’s doing it from his own compulsion, which SERIOUSLY points towards internalized homophobia. Which is DESPERATELY sad, but we need to admit that that’s something anyone can have, including out gay men.

This whole thing makes me very, very sad, but I truly believe Robin didn’t mean it and doesn’t even recognize his own inconsistencies because he was speaking from paranoia fueled by homophobia. I can’t believe he means Oswald isn’t capable of love, and yet continues to play Oswald the way he plays him, that’s just... impossible, no actor can believe their character is that monstrous and deliver that genuine a performance. I don’t think he believes that Oswald is ‘too broken to love’ and I don’t think Robin meant that broken people can’t love. He was twisting himself out of having to admit that a gay and morally questionable man was in love with another man. And, to be fair, that’s a lot of controversy to hold at once and if you’re in any way afraid of social consequences, which Robin has EVERY RIGHT to be afraid of, then you might avoid taking on that responsibility. And that is fair and we have to respect him and his decisions on that. It, unfortunately, has a lot of repercussions Robin did not foresee, but it would not be fair of us either to invalidate Robin’s emotions or expect more of him than he can provide. He has to unpack his feelings about society and queerness in his own time, we can’t force that on him. 

Anyway, to sum up: Robin said some inaccurate and inconsistent things about Oswald that were VERY probably motivated out of internalized homophobia. I think that’s sad, it’s sad for me that he feels this scared, although I can totally understand it, and it’s sad for me that he’s inadvertently hamstrung a powerful, POSITIVE I would say, character by making us all feel weird about Oswald’s sexuality and romantic attachments, when in reality that was a non-issue. It was NOT a non-issue for Robin, which is fair. But it’s unfortunate that now we have a public issue about it when the show was not making one, the show has deliberately steered away from homophobia as the main problem in the Nygmobblepot relationship and now, unfortunately, homophobia is something we have to deal with because representing a character who is both gay and a bad person is REALLY hard and it’s really hard not to vilify his sexuality during that. I will say that as far as I can tell the show has written Oswald’s sexuality as wholly separate and unrelated to Oswald’s morally grey decisions, but... Robin’s conflated them and he’s probably not the only one. Gay and evil are often read together in the same breath, unpacking that is hard, undoing that is hard and it’s small steps. Robin may have just been scared of the weight this put on him, ESPECIALLY as an out gay man. Besides which, Robin has finally broken down to say that Oswald is at least LIKABLE, he’s comfortable with the controversy of liking someone as “evil” as Oswald, so he might have buckled down twice as hard on the queerness in response to that.

Just... Oswald is capable of love, that is written into the show, it’s already done, it’s already there. So nothing Robin says about it now can change that. And I think the writers will continue that, both in terms of the ship and Oswald’s continued characterization. If Robin had any idea of the impact of his words, I don’t think he’d have phrased it this way and if he thought this would affect his portrayal of Oswald he CERTAINLY wouldn’t. He loves Oswald, but he’s threatened by a cruel and misunderstanding world that so often has used gayness alone to deny a character, not to say anything of ACTUAL PEOPLE, their basic humanity. He reacted out of fear. He didn’t mean it. I know that doesn’t change anything, but I hope it helps some people understand and maybe heal.