#i need to read idw so bad

[raspberriessoda]

op warmup

maybe he just looks sadder bc i was listening to casual while drawing idk

[fount-of-knowledge]

on god im always excited when ppl get into my interests but the sole exception is sonic the hedgehog Then im monitoring you extremely closely and any mistake can mean instant block. IT GETS SERIOUS

[devilart2199-aibi]

Can we get a better quality version of that Hot Rod/Rodimus? I always need more content of him

Of course! :D (This is the one you meant right?) This was my first attempt at making a Roddy design in my style! (He's Hot Rod here...i think, i drew this quite a bit ago so I can't remember exactly what i was leaning towards haha) I'll be doing another take on him once I've read some more comics with him in them! 😊

[mrmeepsmadmind]

okay u got me ehehhe i looove old toxic doomed yaoi rhehehhe

red alert WOAH GAY. GAY. GAY... GAY.. Mac it's always sunny shameless point ( ends up in a poly gay relationship ) (not with trailbreaker tho 💔 ) ( it's still hot tho ) ( trailbreaker gets fucked as per usual by life, & not in the sexy way ) ( whirl pretends not to care abt losing his hot piece of depressed aft ) (he misses his real smile )

[cluescorner]

Unfortunately for the balance of the universe, I am at it again

https://archiveofourown.org/works/62006263/chapters/158569063

Doing @yearoftheotpevent with Megarod because I'm normal about IDW and especially the co-captains.

[sonknuxadow]

i think some people are setting their expectations wayyyy too high for what shadow will be written like now. "the mandates are COMPLETELY gone shadow is fixed now guys!!" no theyre not literally all they said is that the rules have changed a little. like dont get me wrong thats good news too but a lot of people are exaggerating and setting themselves up for disappointment in my opinion

[sorenlionheart]

the more i think about it the more i realize that archie sonic wouldn't be nearly as infamous if it happened in the context of a superhero book rather than sonic the hedgehog lol

[lemonmatronics]

GUUUUUYS OMFG OMFG OMFG

[theblueblurhero]

❝ i don’t need your help. ❞ the tenrec denies any and all aid at this point. she wants to rot where she lies, but she can’t. she knows it’s impossible, especially whenever sonic is around.

paws on the ground, claws brushing and gripping against the concrete and rubble that remain intact as she tries to steady her stance from that otherwise fatal blow.

❝if ya know what’s good for you, you’d hightail it outta here. ❞ because once she got to recover, it’s lights out for you bucko.

@tactccladv

Sonic sighed havily. Standing a few feet away from them vut offered his hand anyway, even with her comments he wouldn't leave. He wasn't cruel. Even too rivals, ebenmy or people who WANT to hurt him.. Huh maybe he too nice.

"Come on..I'll leave but only after i help you,okay?" He was too stubborn. "Are you hurt badly?"

[flightyalrighty]

FIRST | PREVIOUS | NEXT CH 1 PG 36

Infested will return on June 27th. --- Thank you to the following Ascended supporters: @chaogongoozles, @fiiresiidefrfr, @elizard4227, @grogar, Ezzoh, @susivoi, @calculuscacophony, Eros, @ivycorp, @summersdale @borrelia, @mizukiz, @sanicdetails, @combinegrunt-echo-1, Pica, @veeceear, @quackenburt, ItsmeMonarch, @memendoemori, @trans-girl-sonic, & savarsenic

Content Warnings | Store | Ko-Fi (Discord!) | Read On Comic Fury! DISCLAIMER: "Infested" is a horror comic ft. content not suitable for those under the age of 17.

A long-winded looking back on things below the cut:

The first few pages of Infested were uploaded to this blog on March 2nd, 2023 -- Over a whole year ago! I was so busy, too, that I completely missed its birthday (Sorry Infested). Looking even further back than that, the original story was was something I began writing on December 25th, 2022 (Merry Christmas).

It took two years to get to this point.

And hey, not to toot my own horn about it, but completing even one chapter of a webcomic is a big deal. Especially for me. My first webcomic, Fight/Flight, didn't get very far. I completed the prologue, started Chapter 1, and then had to drop it for a number of reasons (I didn't really agree with what baby-me had to say, politically, anymore).

This comic was born from a lot of intense feelings. The story, itself, too. Some good. Some bad.

I had been forced to move away from my hometown, and with that move, I lost the physical connection that I had to all of my friends. I lost the familiarity of a place I'd known for most of my life. I'm now stuck somewhere... Worse. It felt like a cage. Still does. Disconnected from the life I thought I would be living after college. I didn't have health insurance, either -- Got kicked off of it because of the move -- And as a result, I was off my antidepressants.

So there I was, at a pretty low point in my life. I miserable and lonely and every single day dragged on. And on. And on. And I felt so disappointed in myself. That disappointment became self-loathing, and it all kinda spiraled.

Have I mentioned that I'm a huge Sonic fan? I don't think I need to. I'd say it's pretty obvious. But for the sake of this story, I'll say it again: I'm a HUGE Sonic fan. I've been that way since 2003 with Sonic Heroes. The franchise has been in my life for over two decades. I had a monthly mail subscription to Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog. Sonic the Hedgehog was something that I truly loved more than any other piece of media. It brought me endless joy. Until I didn't.

I had dropped Sonic after Lost World was... Itself. I had already felt pretty irritated with the Meta Era, and Lost World was the final straw. The last bit of hope that the series could recover was snuffed out when Forces was released. It was over. I was done. If Sonic was truly that embarrassed by itself, if they had truly lost touch with what made the series so great, then I wouldn't waste my time any longer. I was so sure that I had to just... Grieve and move on. My beloved childhood game series was dead. Long live the king or whatever. I'd just bitterly read IDW Sonic and think about what could've been. I was lucky to have that comic, at least. Archie had been canceled, too, after all. I was lucky to have my scraps.

Then Sonic Frontiers came out. And it changed everything.

And my god, it was everything. It was everything to me. Flaws be damned, it was everything. To. Me. The spectacle. The serious tone. The vastly improved writing. Kellin Fucking Quinn. It was FUN! It was actually FUN to PLAY. He was back. I was back. Sonic pulled me by my hand out of the ocean of misery I'd fallen into, and he looked me in my eye and he said;

"Hey. You're gonna be alright."

Metaphorically speaking. Sonic The Hedgehog didn't actually literally speak to me -- And sure, okay, maybe it's a little dramatic to describe a game as this great Depression Annihilator but I'm dead serious when I say that, for that time, before I was able to get back on my meds, I was self-medicating with Sonic.

Sonic was all I was thinking about. I reread the Unleashed arc in Archie Sonic, which got me sorta realizing something, and which led to my post where I said something along the lines of "Sonic would hide a zombie bite."

Archie Sonic would, at least. Because he basically did do that in the Unleashed arc of that comic. He let that problem fester until it became an even bigger problem because, ironically, he didn't want to be a problem.

So one thing led to another. I thought more about Sonic becoming a zombie. Bada-bing, bada-boom, Infested was born.

I didn't expect it to get the attention that it did. I felt lucky when the first page I drew Rouge on (Page 6 I think?) blew up. The right people saw it at the right time. I'm extremely grateful for that.

I'm extremely grateful for all of you.

So yeah, one chapter. Woo! Here's to many more.

[revelboo]

went through all of "everything is alright" and I'm far too attached to it already (and also heartbroken as of the current chapter 💔💔), thank you for the amazing writing and quick updates!!

(also you made me finally purchase some of the blokees I had my eye on🫶)

Thank you for reading my nonsense! The Blokees figures are some of my favorites- I love little figures

Everything is Alright Pt 80

IDW Starscream x Reader, Soundwave x Reader, Megatron x Reader

• “Everything.” One little word that sends cracks running through him, lets the ice seep in. The numb anger. Because he knows the things he’s done to further the Decepticon cause. Some of them of his own volition to enhance his position, others under Megatron’s name. Your eyes looking up at him, hurt and almost pleading with him to deny it. To tell you it’s all a lie, because you don’t want to know the truth of him. That he did the hard things, he did what was necessary. You hadn’t resisted when he’d picked you up. Maybe as broken as he feels. No matter how much he’d wanted to shield you from the reality of this war, to let it be something you don’t need to think too much on, there’s no hiding it anymore.

• “Now you know,” he growls, rasping voice colder than you’ve ever heard it. Wishing he’d denied it even if it was a lie. You’re not a child, it’s not like you don’t understand that they’re at war, but some of those things were just cruel. Violence for the sheer delight of causing pain and you don’t want that to be who he really is. Don’t want to love someone who could do that. Want to pretend that it’s still alright. That it’s just you and him learning each other, growing closer without reality slipping in. Because right now, your heart is breaking.

• Watching you hurts, because Soundwave can feel that despair, that aching sting of grief. And he doesn’t know how to fix this. If it even can be fixed. As Starscream turns to leave with you, he reaches out, catches his arm. “Wait,” he says. Wanting to take you, keep you with him, because right now he doesn’t trust the Seeker’s mindset at all. And Starscream rounds on him, denta bared and a cannon in his face. Realizes that the SIC has nothing left to lose, optics furious with hate. So it’s a surprise when Starscream lowers his arm and walks past. As if he’s not even worth the bother. Taking you away as his spark aches, because this isn’t what he wanted at all.

• It’s oddly freeing realizing it’s all gone, everything taken away from him. You’re still there in his hand, but that trust is broken. And he just wants to scream, to destroy something. Because having you with him and so distant and quiet is worse than just losing you. Wonders if you’ll be able to bear looking at him anymore. If you’ll speak to him or just hide from him. See only a monster. Entering his quarters, he looks down at you, meeting your eyes. Megatron said the words, but this is the culmination of a lifetime of his decisions. “Talk to me, please.” Those soft words make his spark ache. Cut through the indifference he wants to protect himself with. “Star?”

• “Do you want me to deny everything?” He asks. And you really do, but you just shake your head. “I made mistakes. I was cruel and ambitious,” he says slowly, a servo sliding against your hip as he keeps you trapped in his hand, standing in the middle of his habsuite. Like he’s afraid to put you down in case you try to get away. “And I’m not entirely sure I can be anything else at this point.” Jaw working like the admission cost him something, you close your eyes. But… That’s not exactly true is it? He’s been changing, softening every day. Those big hands capable of violence, but never towards you. If he’s been monstrous in his past, that’s not the him you know. Even if those horrors laid out for you can still hurt you, they’re not him anymore. Right? Because you need to believe that or you’ll come apart completely.

• “I want to hear it all from you. The truth, good and bad,” you whisper, a tear sliding down your cheek. Not pushing him away or abandoning him. Not yet and he doesn’t know what to make of you. You already know. Megatron would have told you in grisly detail, so why ask for more pain? Are you trying to understand him? Making an effort to reach out to him still? Servo sliding over your cheek to wipe away the tear, you touch his hand. Remembering your hesitant admission that you liked him what feels like forever ago. He’d never told you how he felt about you in return, though. Not really. Unable to bring himself to admit that he needs you beside him, to make himself vulnerable that way with words. That he can’t sleep without you there, that you’re everything now, his world narrowed down to you, tied to the beat of your heart, to your smiles. It’s why he’d bonded you to him without asking, because he needed you and he was afraid of being denied so he’d taken. Optics shuttering, he sits on the berth with you. And slowly, hesitantly, he begins to speak. To get all the awfulness out.

• It’s funny. Breaking the Seeker’s little pet didn’t give him the satisfaction Megatron expected. Only left him more exhausted than before. Sitting on the edge of his berth, he keeps picturing your eyes leaking. Your pain. And it doesn’t matter. You’re just a human, you’re nothing. But he keeps thinking about it all the same. Telling himself that he doesn’t care. That you’re one more casualty of the war and that those ghosts don’t bother him.

Previous

Next

[fiber-optic-alligator]

Desperation vs. Domestication (Pt. 2)

Pairing: IDW Drift x Human Reader

WARNING: This story contains soft vore. If this makes you uncomfortable, please do not read this story.

Word Count: 4431

Summary: Though you have been lulled into a deep sense of security by Drift's kindness and comfort, you still haven't completely lost the need to be free. A terrible nightmare refuels your desire for escape...but Drift isn't someone who wants to let you go.

HEEHEEHEEHEE I REALLY WANTED TO WRITE A PART 2 OF THIS...so I did. It's because Drift is my all-time favorite Transformer and I absolutely LOVE putting my favorite characters through angst. If you enjoyed reading part 1, then I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it! Likes, comments, feedback, and reblogs are never expected, but always appreciated! Enjoy! :D

Here is the link to pt. 1 if you haven’t read it!

Also available to read on AO3!

  Two months later…

  You dream of Earth tonight.

  There are fields; you are standing in one. Long Bermuda grass tickles your ankles with the gentle presence of the planet recognizing its own. The endless green is splattered with occasional droplets of color: pink poppies, yellow sunflowers, marigolds, dandelions. It is warm. There is a slight wind blowing, playing with your hair. You turn your face towards the sunlight and bask in the relief of knowing you are home.

  All of a sudden, you hear a sound. Thumping. Steady, rhythmic. Loud. You feel the wind die down and suddenly the sun is gone, and there is only darkness. A massive shadow blots out all of the light. You see a figure looming over you, red-and-white with bright blue eyes that stare into your soul and make you feel terror.

  You try to run, but find you cannot move your legs. There is nothing you can do when you watch a giant hand reach down in slow motion and pluck you up, holding you between titanic fingers. The monster’s mouth opens, and then you are tumbling down, right into an abyss of metal and isolation. The Earth melts away forever. You are trapped. You are alone.

  Shooting forward out of your nightmare, you hear yourself scream. The squishy floor underneath you makes you lose your footing when you scramble upward in a blind panic and fall into Drift’s stomach wall. Everything moves, the organ grumbling unhappily at you being awake. Your hands scramble at the mesh cables. Little pink bubbles of cybernetic blood pop anxiously beneath their semi-transparent surfaces. The walls close in to squeeze, holding you in a secure hug, attempting to keep you still. But you cannot think. You are scared, and you feel trapped, so you desperately begin to thrash and fight against the stomach.

  Drift’s voice booms above you, panicked. “Little one? Little one?!”

  “Let me go!” you shriek. “Please, letmegoletmegoletmego!”

  The walls loosen up, freeing you. You collapse into the fetal position, gasping while sweat beads your brow and your heart goes crazy.

  Drift presses his hands over his middle. “Little one, little one, shhhh, shh, shh, shh,” he hushes frantically. “Safe, safe…safe, all is safe...no need for fear…”

  Gradually, you calm down. Only when you are no longer trembling does Drift tentatively begin to squeeze you again. In and out, slow kneading, like he’s silently coaxing you to continue breathing at a healthier pace. “Little one…okay?” he asks.

  Your voice quivers. “I-I’m fine. I’m okay. It-It was a bad dream. A nightmare.” You sit upright and lean into the stomach wall. Drift holds you close, the undulating muscle relaxing you with its constant massage. His biolights pulse and flicker, a clear sign of his stress. You woke him up with your screams. It makes you feel bad, so you snuggle his cables further. The robot’s stomach is not a big place, but Drift likes to be conscious of you. The support you provide him in completing this task is obviously appreciated, because he hums softly and pats his hand over where you are.

  There is peace again. Peace and warmth. But you don’t feel the usual safety. There is a lingering pit of dread growing deep within your gut, foul roots clawing their way through your body, leaving you jittery, uneased. Your nightmare is the first one in months, and it’s a sure sign things are not right.

  It has been such a long time since you thought of your possible escape plan. You don’t know how long, but you do know that you can’t be comfortable here anymore. Your mind is sending the signals loud and clear.

  No more stalling, you think to yourself. No more being complacent.

  You are not domesticated yet.

  When Drift lets you out of here…you will go through with the plan to take an escape pod home. For real this time.

  It takes you weeks to perfect your plan. And when you do finally have it all figured out, you come to the conclusion that things may end up being more complicated than you thought. Escaping a spaceship filled with giant alien robots is hard enough, yes. But then there’s the issue of what will happen when you return to Earth. You don’t know how long you’ve been abducted. It could be months. It could be years. What if all of your family and friends are long gone by the time you get home? What if things are so different that you’ve been completely left behind?

  No. You can’t think like that. A sharp patting to your cheeks snaps you out of it. Keep it together. This is the moment you have been waiting for. Regardless of what awaits you on Earth, you will be there to face it.

  You’ve packed everything you own into a small fabric knapsack your mech gifted you during your first days here (Who knew robots are such good knitters?). It’s not much, not much at all: snacks Drift gives you, strange pellets that clean your teeth, three cans of filtered water…but that’s all you really require for the trip you are going to embark on. You don’t believe it will be particularly long. The escape pods need to have some sort of device that allows them to leap through lightyears to their destinations. You believe this because you’ve watched the mothership do it from the observation windows Drift likes to bring you to sometimes. Hyperspace will occasionally be activated, with stars and planets blurring together into dazzling white paint streaks before coming to an abrupt halt in a totally new galaxy.

  Now, do you know how lightjumping works? Absolutely not. Last time you were on Earth, no such human technology had been invented yet. So you don’t exactly know how you’ll get the escape pod to lightjump like the ship does. But you’ll find a way. You have no choice.

  Now for the hard part: getting away from Drift long enough to activate the escape pod and blast away. He’s not going to make it easy for you. Drift doesn’t like letting you out of his sight if you aren’t in his room, and hardly lets you roam free. You’ve spent hours, both within his stomach and out, pondering how to go about this. It’s left you with the agonizing decision that you’ll just have to wing it somehow.

  The door to his room slides open. You’ve been sitting on his berth with your hands beneath your head and one leg crossed over the other, thinking, thinking, thinking, that at first you nearly didn’t hear him come in. You sit up to greet him with more eagerness than you’d like to show. The nightmare didn’t stop your affection for Drift from rearing its persistent head.

  There’s no waiting for him to give you his time today. When he enters the room, his focus is immediately on you with no prior distractions. Drift walks with a spring in his step, his finials perking up like an enthusiastic dog. You notice a small white box he holds in one hand, and think nothing of it. Drift’s room is decorated with countless knickknacks from other planets. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s brought some strange little souvenir home.

  “Hey, big guy,” you murmur happily when he kneels down before you. He settles the box to the side and cups both hands behind you, humming his typical car engine-purr greeting. You hug him when he draws you forth so he can nuzzle his nose into your middle. “I’m guessing you missed me?”

  Drift beep-boops excitedly. He gives you an affectionate tickle to your side, causing you to giggle. Your reaction delights him. He keeps it up, and pretty soon you are laughing so hard your stomach hurts. “D-Drift, s-stop! I-I can’t breathe!”

  He gives you one last light prod, then ends the bout of torture with more cuddles. You recover from the laughter, feeling airy and light like nothing else matters except for the giant robot holding you.

  “Little one,” he coos. “My little one.”

  “Mhm,” you mumble goodnaturedly. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m yours.”

  He suddenly looks like he’s remembered something very important, and he straightens, chirping rapidly. You watch as he grabs the white box and, to your surprise, presents it to you. You glance at it, then turn to him. “For me?” you ask, pointing at yourself.

  He chirps again and nods.

  You take it from him and open it with a slight air of confusion, because he’s never given you something like this before. You think it might be a piece of jewelry, or some sort of charm. But what you see inside is neither of those things. You suck in a sharp breath of pure disbelief and go numb.

  It’s a collar. A damn collar. Sleek and narrow, its solid red with a single white stripe circumnavigating it. On one side is a strange symbol of a boxy red robot’s face-the same symbol he has on his chest. These are his colors, you realize. He’s making us match. He wants the other mechs to know that he owns you.

  Drift rumbles expectantly. When you remain frozen, unable to pry your eyes away from the collar, he gently pries it out of your now slightly shaking hands. With extreme carefulness, he clasps it around your neck. It fits comfortably and locks with a quiet click.

  “My little one,” he repeats. “Mine.”

  He’s not trying to scare you. You know he isn’t. Yet your throat is dry, and the snug weight of the collar makes you feel sick.

  You need to get the hell off of this ship.

  You spend the night feverishly trying to break the collar off, working yourself up like a caged animal driven mad by captivity. But no matter how hard you yank at it, it remains stubbornly fast around your neck. You refuse to eat the food given to you and cry yourself to sleep within a very concerned Drift’s belly, who can’t seem to console you no matter how hard he tries.

  Drift doesn’t know what to do with you.

  You’ve been moping ever since he gave you the collar. Over the next few days, any sort of drive to escape has left you. You're depressed and disappointed in him for what he’s done. You don’t want to talk to him. You don’t want to accept any of his gifts. Blanket after pillow after plushie-all made by him, with the crude markings of homemade love-are ignored. You shy away from his touch and reject his attention. When he swallows you at night, you give him no inclination you care. You sit like a stone within him and just…stare off vacantly, unable to ignore the collar around your neck.

  He’s brought you to the ship’s doctor multiple times. On the first trip, the old red medic bot looked you over and finished his checkup with a shrug and dismissive chuff. The second time, he growled at Drift and waved him away. And on the third time, he didn’t even let him through the door. There’s nothing physically wrong with you. But mentally, how could they know? How could he know he’s hurt you? You trusted him to treat you with some level of respect despite your situation, and he had, until now. The collar was your breaking point. There truly is no way for him to ever see you as anything more than a pet, and it hurts you, because by god, you love him.

  “…Little one?”

  Drift calls out to you with a soft, sad tone. You huddle up tighter beneath one of your blankets and give no answer.

  You hear him shift at his desk. There’s silence between the two of you that is not wanted. He heaves a low sigh and tries again. “Little one…please?”

  Damn your heart, you can’t keep giving him the silent treatment when he sounds like he’s about to cry.

  You push the blanket off of your head. Drift slouches in his chair, back bent like an old man’s. His finials are drooping, and the glow from his biolights is dimmer than usual. He’s obviously been letting his personal hygiene go for the sake of finding a way to help you, and it hurts to know he’s in this state because of your shitty attitude towards what he simply sees as a gift. The collar is a curse, but you can’t exactly tell him that, can you? This entire situation is all your fault.

  It's the treacherous part of your mind which attempts to convince you of this. It partially works. Giving in, you sit up slowly, drawing the blanket tightly around your shoulders and tilting your head while giving him a questioning look.

  He’s surprised by your action, like he genuinely wasn’t expecting you to respond to this extent. But he takes advantage of it. Drift offers you a hopeful smile and picks something up from his desk. He stands and walks to you, going slow. You don’t flinch when he crouches down to your level. The warm light of his eyes leaves a kind feeling on your skin.

  Tentatively, Drift extends his hand. In his palm is a piece of chocolate, one of the many treats he has at his disposal to provide you with when he feels you are being especially good. It’s an olive branch. A reach in the right direction.

  You hesitate…and then you think, Oh, what the hell. Staying mad at Drift when he has no clue he’s done something wrong in the first place won’t get you anywhere. So you accept the candy and take a small bite.

  He sags with relief, exhaust whooshing from his nose as he watches you eat. When you're finished, he moves his hand closer, twining the palm around you and resting the tips of his digits against your head and sides. You hold his index finger, resting your forehead against it and closing your eyes as a sign of trust. But you feel guilty.

  “I’m sorry,” you whisper, knowing he won’t understand. But you say it anyway. “I love you. I love you so, so much. But you're destroying me. I can’t stay here anymore.”

  A tear slips down your cheek. You don’t notice it until Drift gently brushes it away.

  “I have to go.” Your voice breaks. “I need to leave. I hope you’ll learn why. And I hope you won’t hate me for it. I-I don’t think I could handle it if you did. Please don’t hate me. Please don’t think I hated you.”

  Drift coos. His reply is indecipherable. You think he’s trying to comfort you…but you’ll never know for sure.

  He doesn’t swallow you tonight. You don’t know why; maybe he thinks you need a break. Maybe he just wants to hold you in a different fashion this time. You stay awake hours after he falls asleep, your little form nestled in the crook of his neck while he snoozes on his stomach with his arms crossed beneath his massive pillow. You peer off into the darkness, listening to his quiet breaths.

  For the longest time, you’ve thought of this room as yours and his. A space the two of you share together. Ours. It's fed into your delusional ideations of a future in which the two of you learn each other’s languages, where you stand on equal ground, you belonging to him and him belonging to you. A future where mechs and humans join hands and say “I see you. I know you. I understand you and you understand me. Neither of us is higher than the other.”

  But it will never happen. The collar around your neck is physical proof. There is no future between the two of you anymore. If you want to be you again…you need to let Drift go.

  You shuffle away from the bot’s neck and stand. The only parts of him that are lit up right now are the red symbol on his chest and the soft blue of his mouth. He’s so peaceful. This giant alien, who you know has fought in many battles from the scars you can see, is soothed by your presence. You, an insignificant little human being. The dynamic is honestly quite hilarious. You're like his very own version of a chihuahua.

 You want to hug his nose, knowing you will never have another chance again. But Drift is a light sleeper, and you're testing the waters enough already. You can’t risk it. It pains you, but you drop your arms and turn away.

  Using the metal ladder he made for you so you’d have easy access to his berth, you climb down and grab your knapsack. Quietly padding across the long expanse of the room, you make it to the door. It senses your presence and slides open. You force yourself not to look back when you walk out.

   You wonder if he will cry for you when he wakes up and finds you gone.

  The spaceship is ominous at night. The only thing you can hear as you traverse the hallways is your heartbeat pulsing in your ears. You're trying to be quiet; passing by multiple rooms with slumbering bots inside has you holding your breath and then letting it out in a forcefully slow, reedy wheeze. You are, after all, a mouse in a prison filled with cats; slow and steady and silent wins the race.

  You survey the elevator when you get to it, at a loss of how you’ll possibly find a way to operate it due to how small you are. A miracle finds its way to you, however, in the form of a mech. This one you don’t recognize. He has a similar color scheme to Drift, but is noticeably bulkier, with a strange cannon sitting on his right shoulder and a blue eyepiece over the adjacent optic. All of his focus is on the datapad in his hands as he summons the elevator. You wait for the doors to open and for him to step inside before darting after him. Luckily he doesn’t look up once on the short journey. Your cover remains unblown when the doors part again and he heads off. You go in the opposite direction, because like hell are you going to follow the strange robot to someplace where there are probably more strange robots.

  You slip in and out of sight, staying far away from any mechs who are awake. They do not see you, which means you are doing this right-though there are some alarming instances where you think you’ll be caught. One such occurrence happens when a tall, thin blue mech with a chest like the front of a helicopter nearly sees you duck into an open storage room for quick cover. Its single orb ominously scans the darkened room. You watch from beneath a large shelving unit, terrified out of your mind. You don’t move, nor do you make a sound, keeping a shaking hand over your mouth.

  Finally, after what feels like hours, the mech stomps away. You let your head fall forward respitefully.

  You know you're nearing your one-way ticket to Earth when you see bright yellow signs plastered on the walls with loud black alien words telling you to hurry left with the help of large arrows. Escape pod symbols, accompanied by a funny little robot mascot, are the giveaway. You feel a sort of giddy euphoria swell up within you. You're almost there. You're going to escape. You're going to go home. It all seems far too good to be true; sure, you’ve imagined this scenario happening over and over again, but you never really did believe it would happen.

  You pinch your arm multiple times just to make sure you aren’t dreaming. This is not in your head. This is happening. You really are going back to Earth.

  Your collar suddenly vibrates. And then it starts to screech.

  You nearly jump out of your own skin. The alarm is loud, piercing, and undeniably going to alert someone to your presence. You slam your fists against it multiple times, but it doesn’t let up. Your heart sinks when the realization of what's going on hits.

  Shit. He put a tracker in it.

  You need to run. You shove yourself forward into a full-on sprint, dashing down the last remainder of this hallway, then turning the corner and seeing the numerous escape pods all lined up in the wall. You choose the first one, grabbing the edge of the circular door and pulling with all of your might. The tendons in your neck strain as you grunt and slowly bring the door back with you. Clamoring in, you give it one last heave before it shuts on its own and seals you inside. You hear the lock click into place. The entire cabin flickers to life, with the lights on and the control panel booting up. As you expected, everything is far too big for you to reach. But it seems you won’t need to. A loud robotic voice emanates from the central console, speaking to you in the native mech language.

  Your collar is still going off. You don’t have a lot of time.

  “I-I can’t understand you!” you yell over the din. “I’m a human, from Earth! I speak English!”

  The voice pauses. Seconds later, to your amazement, it talks, and you can understand. “Language notifications made. Destination updated. Scanning…” A panel on the ceiling pops open, and a blue light filters out, washing over you. “Scanning complete. Species: Homo Sapien. Homeworld: Earth. Milky Way Galaxy. Status: Critically endangered. Suggesting immediate travel to Earth.”

  You clap your hands. “Yes! Yes, that’s it! Earth, set the destination to Earth!”

  “Destination set. Awaiting command to launch LOST LIGHT LIFEPOD 01.”

  You are about to give the order when something slams against the door. You whirl around, your heart stuttering when you see who’s there. It’s Drift. He’s made it. And he looks horrified. With trembling fingers, he yanks on the handle. When the pod remains fastly shut, he pounds on the circular window with so much force the entire thing shudders and you think he’s going to rip it right off of its hinges. “Little one!” he screams, voice muffled beyond the barrier of glass. “Little one! Open…!” The rest of the sentence comes out as sharp metal shrieks.

  You stand there helplessly. The pod once again inquires for your command, yet you can’t find it within yourself to speak.

  Drift is doing everything he can to get to you. He’s like a rabid beast, clawing at the window, teeth bared in visible frustration. His biolights are going mad when he roars and sends his whole body into the door. This time, it does give a little. You can see some dents in the gray metal.

  This…is a side of Drift you have never seen. It is desperate, vicious. And it terrifies you. You stumble back to the opposite end of the pod and curl up, hugging your knapsack to your chest like a child squeezing their favorite stuffed animal. Drift continues his futile attack on the door, but pauses when he makes eye contact with you. His face falls. His fists relax and slide downward to press palm against the glass.

  He’s quiet as he seems to reflect on how he just presented himself front of you, then whispers heartbrokenly. “...Sorry.” Tears stream down his cheeks. His hot vexation melts away and exposes his remorseful center. “Sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Little one. Y/N.”

  Oh my god.

  All noise ceases when you register what he just said. Your name. He said your name. He’s never done that before. You didn’t think he knew your name.

  He learned to say it. For you.

  Drift whimpers like a kicked dog, moving to crouch lower. “Y/N. Y/N, please. Stay. Stay with me. Please don’t go. I love you.”

  You’ve changed his life. You don’t need to be told this. You know you’ve brought him a sense of joy he hasn’t felt in years. You didn’t come here of your own free will. But you freely chose to love him. You gave yourself up and became his everything while he became yours. Isn’t he your home? Isn’t he the one who saved you? Can you really leave someone who cares about you so much?

  Your legs move on their own accord. Your heart beats with his and you take tentative steps towards the door. Drift twitters and gives you an encouraging nod, gesturing for you to keep walking.

  Why do you want to leave him so badly? Why would you want to throw away this perfect life?

  Your little human hands come to rest right over his massive robotic ones. You two are separated, but you think you can feel the warmth coming from him. Drift bonks his forehead against the window anticipatingly. “Come on,” he whispers. “Come on. It’s…okay. You're okay. Please.”

  Your hands are human. You will never see another pair again if you return to him.

  Your life is not supposed to be perfect. A human’s life is messy, and disastrous, and chaotic, and beautiful. His life is too, but not in the same way as yours.

  “Goodbye, Drift,” you murmur, voice breaking. “LOST LIGHT LIFEPOD 01…take me to Earth.”

  The escape pods hums and rumbles. “Command accepted,” it announces. “Preparing ejection in three…two…one.”

  The last thing you see and hear before the pod lurches forward and rockets out of its dock is Drift’s agonized expression and his wrenching wail.

  Your vessel speeds away. You get a fantastic view of the ship in all of its stunning glory. It felt so gigantic when you were inside, but from out here, you can fully comprehend its overwhelming proportions. You watch it rapidly shrink as you gain distance from it, until it's just another speck of light in the universe. And when you can’t even see that anymore, you allow yourself to collapse against the floor eagles-spread. You gaze up at the ceiling, feeling surprisingly hollow. There is no victorious sense of triumph, no excitement to return home. You don’t even know where home is anymore. Somehow, after everything you’ve gone through, you’ve come out even more lost than you already were.

  The waterworks start shortly after the escape pod jumps into hyperspace. Heaving sobs, messy tears, you lie there and weep to the stars, not noticing when your collar finally stops beeping.

[thankskenpenders]

Amy's fortune cards

The Sonic fandom has long been the kind of fandom that takes minor details very seriously, for better or worse. On the one hand, this means fans will really dig for the diamonds in the rough, latching onto fun character interactions, animations, bits of background worldbuilding, and more in pieces of Sonic media that many would write off as "the bad ones." But it also feels like every week another needlessly hostile debate over Sonic minutia erupts on Twitter, whether it's over individual lines of dialogue, fanart that makes Tails' shoes blue, or the ideal length and volume for Sonic's quills.

So it was probably inevitable that a fandom-wide debate would erupt upon seeing Amy's new gameplay style in the DLC for Sonic Frontiers, which takes the once-obscure fact that she enjoys reading tarot and shines a spotlight on it like never before.

I mean:

The thing is, while I basically always try to tune out Sonic fandom bickering... for once, I kind of sympathize with the detractors? Don't get me wrong, I like Amy's tarot stuff, and people on all sides of the discussion are being overly nasty about their opinions, as usual. (Sonic Twitter remains my personal hell.) But when I set aside the hyperbole and zoom out, I do think I understand why some fans are put off by the sudden shift in focus for the character, even if I think it's cool.

It's complicated. Let me attempt to present the cases for and against Amy's fortune cards

For years, I was always one of those fans who thought it could be fun if they played with Amy's tarot reading, or even leaned into some kind of magic with her. Part of that is my own biases showing, but there's just something that makes sense there, especially when you look at Sonic, Tails, and Amy as a trio. (I would argue that's the real "Team Sonic" these days, especially in the comics where Knuckles is more likely to be stuck on Angel Island or otherwise doing his own thing.)

You could argue that Tails is all about logic, relying on science and technology and deductive reasoning to solve problems. But Amy is all about emotion. She wears her heart on her sleeve, is extremely empathetic, and is very prone to magical thinking - both figuratively and sometimes literally. Her origin story has always been that her tarot cards told her it was her destiny to meet Sonic on Little Planet. She's claimed to be able to "sense" peoples' presences - particularly Sonic's. She's the type to believe that The Power of Love is a literal magical force. So, on some level, it makes sense to mirror Tails's science by having Sonic's other best friend believe in magic. And then Sonic is somewhere in the middle, primarily following his own gut instincts but taking advice from both of them as needed. This isn't totally accurate to how their dynamics actually function in canon stories, but I think it's a mode that could work for them.

Going off of that, it's fun to lean all the way into Amy being a magical girl, or even a witch, using her fortune telling as a foundation. Take, for example, this version of Amy from Diana Skelly's old Sonic cast redesigns from before she freelanced for Archie and IDW. This is one of MANY such redesigns for Amy.

Fast forward to the 2020s, and Amy's tarot cards are, in fact, finally getting brought up again in canon. Which is fun! I like seeing that. I like all of the individual stories involving Amy's fortune cards. This is a fun character trait for Amy, a fun nod to old lore, AND a fun storytelling device, all in one. It's really cool that the Sonic universe has its own thematically appropriate arcana, and that the cards are getting made as physical merch. And sure enough, the official card backs and borders were designed by none other than Diana Skelly, in yet another cool example of an ascendant fan leaving their mark on the series.

BUT... when you step back and look at the big picture, I get why some fans find this shift in focus jarring. At the moment, it's starting to feel like every new story about Amy involves her fortune cards to some degree.

The most recent mainline comic arc to feature Amy as the lead character, 2021's Trial by Fire arc, prominently features a sequence where she reads fortunes while camping with the girls. The Origins version of Sonic CD now bookends the game with scenes of Amy and her tarot cards. Sonic randomly mentioned it in a scene in Frontiers. And now, just this week, we got the (very cute, gorgeously illustrated) Amy's 30th Anniversary comic with a story revolving around Amy's tarot cards, followed the very next day by the Frontiers DLC in which she gets a brand new tarot-based moveset. Even her base melee attack now has her throwing tarot cards instead of swinging her hammer. Again, I like all of these individual things, but after years of it almost never coming up at all, it's VERY noticeable that Amy's tarot cards are suddenly everywhere.

To be fair, I'm looking at this from the perspective of a superfan who's actively following ALL Sonic media. Casual fans - especially kids - aren't necessarily going to be reading the comics every month, buying the thousandth rerelease of the Genesis games, or playing the ultra-hard new alternate ending DLC for a game that came out last year. Each of these stories is going to be someone's introduction to the idea that Amy can read tarot, and that's probably part of the idea behind this unified push.

But to play devil's advocate, for my fellow superfans, I understand why it feels like a very minor footnote of Amy's character is suddenly becoming the entire focus of her personality. While Amy has always been said to enjoy fortune telling, that wasn't really a character trait in and of itself, but rather an example of her being a typical girl who hopes she'll be able to find true love one day. It's less that Amy can literally predict the future and more like her using a cootie catcher or going "he loves me, he loves me not" while picking the petals off of a flower. So I get not vibing with this stuff, or feeling like it's being pushed very hard out of nowhere.

What I don't agree with are comparisons like "it's like if they made Knuckles' moveset revolve around him liking grapes." Like, I get it. Ian Flynn loves shoehorning in his little winking references for us nerds, and mentions of Amy's tarot cards were previously on the same level as other random bullet points from old Japanese manuals. But a multifaceted hobby like fortune telling that opens up so many narrative and aesthetic possibilities is obviously very different from having a favorite food. It's ALWAYS been a part of her story, not just a random fact, and there's no reason why the fortune telling can't be elevated to something more.

And, hell, even if it wasn't an established character trait, there's nothing inherently wrong with injecting new ideas into a character. One of the best Amy stories in recent years, the Free Comic Book Day special "Amy's New Hobby" written by Gale Galligan, came up with the idea that Amy's secretly been drawing little comics about her and her friends. Is this based on Lore? No. But it's cute, and helps tell the story of a younger Amy who's still coming out of her shell as both a hero and a friend.

Certain fans are also looking at Amy's Frontiers moveset and using it as evidence that once again the Vile American Contributors like Ian are CORRUPTING Sonic Team's perfect vision of Sonic with their misinterpretations. And like. Come on. Ian does not control the gameplay. He's a freelance writer. The tarot stuff is clearly something that Sonic Team likes if they made it the basis of Amy's new moveset - and, you know, if they keep approving comics and animations about Amy's fortune telling. None of this gets made without their blessing, and lord knows how much they can micromanage shit and shoot down ideas over the most minor of details.

Like, yeah, Amy's fortune telling was probably conceived less as a sign that she Knows Magic and more as a pretty mundane hobby for a lovesick young Japanese girl to have. But you're gonna sit there and tell me that using Amy's tarot cards for more than that could only be the result of a cultural misunderstanding? That nobody in Japan uses tarot card theming and aesthetics (or the general idea of magical cards) for the cool factor? Stardust Crusaders? Persona? The Astrologian class in FFXIV? Cardcaptor Sakura?? Hello??? Do you think Capcom put Gambit in Marvel vs. Capcom ironically because they thought using magic to throw cards at people was stupid? There's tons of precedent for this! It's nothing like Knuckles throwing grapes at people, be for real.

Giving Amy a very magical girl-esque moveset also just makes a lot of sense. For decades her hammer attacks have literally made sparkly heart shapes appear around her. Leaning into both that and her tarot cards in her new moveset makes a lot of sense to me.

But, admittedly... I do think it's very odd that her hammer is treated as a secondary element here, rather than having her primarily use her hammer and adding the cards for extra flair. If hitting the attack button made her swing her hammer instead of throwing cards, I'm not sure we'd even be having this discussion right now.

But the tarot-cycle and Amy riding her hammer like a witch's broom are fucking SICK and I will not concede on this point

The thing is, this whole fortune card discourse is but a small piece of a bigger problem. Amy's been a character who needed some work for ages, but there's basically nothing you can do with her without pissing SOMEONE off.

Years of stories where Amy's crush was her primary motivator and Sonic went "Ew, cooties!" have lead many casual fans to believe that being Sonic's obsessive fangirl is Amy's entire personality. At best people might call her Sonic's Minnie Mouse. This isn't just a matter of Amy having haters within the fandom - venture outside of that bubble and you'll realize that this is how MOST video game playing people seem to see her to this day. I don't feel like this is a fair assessment of the character, but this idea didn't come from nowhere. No matter how much good deeply entrenched Sonic fans may see in their old dynamic where Amy perpetually chases Sonic, this is a very real problem that Sonic Team has to contend with for their leading girl. Of course all those games where the way-past-cool protagonist thought Amy was annoyingly clingy and tried to get away from her made people think less of her.

If new stories were to go back to emphasizing Amy's crush on Sonic a little more, they'd probably be taken as confirmation that Amy's just the girl with a crush on Sonic and that this is her entire personality. Conversely, when the crush is played down, you piss off the hardcore SonAmy fans who don't seem to understand that they're Charlie Brown and Sega is Lucy holding the football. You can't win.

And so here we are. In the absence of what was once her defining trait, now reduced to an occasional blush or wink in Sonic's direction, new stories are trying to mine Amy's past for additional material to work with. Having been a thing fans wanted to see for years, right now we're getting a lot of tarot, but we're also getting reminders of her compassionate nature and her desire to go out of her way to help the little guy. This is an ongoing process. I continue to hope that her bubbly, exuberant demeanor can shine more in future stories. Now, I also hope that the tarot stuff gets balanced out a little better with other traits of hers. But I don't want it to go away. I think it's fun.

This course correcting is far from exclusive to Amy. Knuckles is getting stories that remind us that he's a competent fighter, an experienced treasure hunter, and even a self-taught archaeologist after years of him being perceived as either the dumb one or just the guy who stands in front of the Master Emerald all day. And Tails has been getting some stories reminding folks that he's a capable hero in his own right and not just Sonic's timid kid sidekick.

But no supporting character will ever compete with the sheer number of new ideas Sega has tried with Sonic himself. Like Amy, his Frontiers moveset has also given him half a dozen new superpowers that he never had before, from the Cyloop to air-slicing projectile attacks to his own take on Shadow Clone Jutsu and beyond. He's also been a hoverboarder, a swordsman, a time traveler, an Olympic athlete, a racecar driver, cursed with a Flame of Judgment, imbued with alien power, a fucking Werehog with stretchy powers, and on and on and on.

If Sonic can do all that, Amy can try out using a tarot-cycle.

Anyway TL;DR the REAL problem with Amy's current characterization... is where the FUCK is Amy's bestie, Honey the Cat???????

[tizeline]

Asking some artists/writers that I follow:

What is the most recent thing you've written or drawn? Do you like to share sneak peeks of your work, or do you prefer to post finished pieces only?

I'm currently working on a follow up on that comic I posted recently where Donnie sneaks to April's school, so here's a peek of that. Kendra also shows up in this part of the story, so I wanted to draw a reference image for her (Kendra and April are around 11-12 years old here btw)

I took some inspiration from Angel when coming up with her outfit and hair. Fun fact, for a short while I thought Kendra WAS Rise's iteration on Angel. I watched Rise first, but I'm bad at names so I immidietly forgot that her name was Kendra, but I still remembered that she existed so when I watched the 2003 show and read the IDW comics and both of them had a girl with purple-dyed hair who had ties to the Purple Dragons I just assumed Kendra was Angel as well but... I guess not? Anyway, canon be damned, I still headcanon that Kendra is Rise's version of Angel lol

Anway, I do like showing sneak peeks of my WIPs, but I mostly tend to do it when work on longer projects like comics and animatics, otherwise I usually don't really feel the need to show it off until after I'm done with it.

[shadamyheadcanons]

For me, Shadow and Amy's dynamic is basically two different types of touch starved in a person

((If any of the gifs on this post aren’t loading for you on mobile--like they aren’t for me--you can download them or check the sources listed. As for desktop, they play just fine, but they won’t line up next to each other like they do on mobile. Tumblr is a comedy of errors.))

Yes! Absolutely. I’ve seen tons of fans say Shadow is prickly and would respond badly to hugs, but canon says otherwise. This is a bad reaction:

[Sonic 06]

Whenever I feel like being sad, I wonder if Bad-Future-06 Silver has ever been hugged.

This is a bad reaction:

[Sonic Unleashed, gif source.]

And I shouldn’t have to say this, but...yeah. These are very bad reactions:

[Sonic X]

[Sonic Generations]

Yikes. I feel bad for both of them.

But this?

[Sonic Adventure 2, gif source.]

This is Shadow’s only canonical hug in the games, and aside from jumping slightly from being snuck up on, he seems to like it just fine.

Just look at that smile! He’s happy. He finds it endearing.

It was a hug from a complete stranger meant for someone else, but he still drank it in--and, given that he’d effectively just lost Maria, he really did need it. It’s the combination of Amy’s gentleness AND her speech that changed his mind. After all, if someone as sweet as her sees something in the humans, maybe they’re not so bad.

My buddy who runs @shadowxamyweek recently reblogged a post about this hug, and their tags sum it up perfectly:

[ID: A screenshot of tags on a post. The tags read:

#official art #4kids #shadow the hedgehog #amy rose #YEAH 😭 #listen I read nothing that has happened with them in SA2 as shippy - and i ship them #THIS HUG? THR SPEECH ON THE ARK? #those are two lonely kids #those are two left behind kids #those are two kids so desperate for affection #for two vastly different reasons #Amy loves with her whole chest and will never stop doing so- no matter what happens #and Shadow does too- that is key to remember- Shadow loves... so fucking much... that it hurts #you are RIGHT op when you say this is probably the first time someone has been gentle with him in a long long time #he doesn't even run away #in the game- when Amy flees- he takes a step after her- a moment's hesitation- a 'wait' #this kid NEEDED a hug #and i firmly believe part of the reason Shadow listens to Amy in the end is BECAUSE she is the only person who showed him gentleness #softness and kindness and affection #if only for a moment #fjdodhdofjgor THIS is what i mean when i say 'be gentle- be kind' #it MATTERS #it FUCKING MATTERS

End ID]

Shadow doesn’t hate hugs inherently; it’s just that no one hugs him in the first place...

...aside from one person.

Amy’s easily the most affectionate character in the cast. It’s cute at first glance, but there’s a common thread to every instance that puts a damper on it.

She’s always, ALWAYS the initiator.

She puts more into each hug than anyone else does.

She’s always the last to pull away.

The most reciprocated Amy hug I know of in canon is this one:

[IDW Sonic issue #22]

Which is absolutely adorable...but Amy still initiated. Because it’s always her job. Even the characters who like affection don’t need it the way she does...with one exception.

And this tiny detail just killed me. The little, “wait, come back 😟”

It’s the only time I know of when someone has actually stepped after her like this. In a game where everyone left Amy behind, he wanted to follow her. Mister so-called-prickly didn’t want the hug to end.

Because he’s the only one who needs it as much as she does.

He wants to be held as much as she wants to hold someone else, and no one else is warm and sincere enough for it. Compare these instances:

[IDW issue #6]

Sonic thinks Shadow is wrong about something, so he grabs Shadow’s arm to stop him, and Shadow aggressively wrenches it away and leaves.

[Archie Sonic Universe #23]

But when Amy thinks Shadow is wrong about something and grabs his arm to stop him, he gently removes her hand and thinks about what she has to say.

Even when he doesn’t want to be touched, he makes the distinction between “don’t touch me” and “not right now, please.” These are from two different continuities, of course, but I think the point stands. Amy’s special. He’s gentler with her than he is with other people, and that’s consistent across all canons.

Side note: how often does Amy get to feel special like that? I actually really like that Sonic doesn’t place others in a hierarchy of importance, and I wouldn’t change that about him even if I could...

[IDW issue #2]

...but Amy does play favorites. I want her to feel like she’s someone else’s favorite, too. I want her to have someone who puts her first and likes her best. I think Shadow’s more than capable of that. I believe he craves clinginess like hers deep down, even if he hasn’t consciously figured that out yet.

I have an entire tag for these two being affectionate. My favorite is probably this one.

Of course, there may be those who say I’m reading too much into one (1) hug. And you know what? Maybe they’re right! We need a bigger sample size. Sega, make more characters hug Shadow, please. Let Rouge comfort him after he confides in her about something. Have Omega give him an awkward metal embrace because he read on the internet that organic beings like that kind of thing. Make Shadow himself pull Silver into a hug when he’s breaking down crying from the stress of always having to be a hero. Show Tails accidentally grab onto him out of fear when they’re trapped in a lightning storm, and when he gets embarrassed and pulls away, have Shadow hold him for the rest of the storm and admit he’s not fond of bright lights, either.

[Sonic Boom]

That scene where Shadow and Amy rescue Cream and Cheese from Cryptic Castle? That easily could’ve turned into a cute group hug.

[Shadow the Hedgehog (2005)]

And I have seen some absolutely adorable fanart where he holds Cream’s hand while he and Amy lead her through Cryptic Castle to make sure she doesn’t get lost 🥺

Have Knuckles give him an empathetic bro-pat on the shoulder when he finds out Shadow’s the last one of his race, too.

[Archie Sonic Universe #89]

Have Sonic try to hug him, and then when Shadow inevitably pushes him away and says he doesn’t do hugs, have Amy arrive and latch onto Shadow instead while he tries to stutter out an excuse as to why she’s allowed to and Sonic isn’t.

The most affection Shadow has in recent history is stuff like this...

[Sonic Prime season 2 episode 1]

...where Sonic tries to hug him and Shadow immediately pushes him away, knocks him over, and tries to punch him in the face. Kind of says it all. Amy stands out as the only one with a good track record here.

[IDW issue #36]

Especially when you have him look at her like this when someone else is on the receiving end of that affection.

So in the absence of further evidence, I have no choice but to interpret this in the most Shadamy way possible. Your move, Sega.

[itsmespicaa]

Could you recommend lambo twins fanfics? Specifically ones that are sunstreaker centric? Sunstreaker barely appears in media and ppl barely write about him and I neeeed sunstreaker content to consume

Oh boy...here we go *cracks knuckles* there's quite a few (not as many as other chars obviously), but I tried my best to link the ones that I really enjoyed and recommend you read too!

I'll try to sort them into categories, and I'll also tag the Sunstreaker-centric ones with * and the twins-centric one ** for easy perusal :) Sideswipe-centric will have no stars, but I still recommend you to read them anyway bc they're really good (and Sunny is there most of the times)! Starting with—

My Top 6:

Misaligned Gemini by Anonymous**

This one's a classic. Set in IDW 2019 (or IDW 2) where the twins have a completely different origin, this one takes you for such a crazy ride from start to finish and will have you holding on for dear life. I definitely cried a lot reading this lol it's that good. Easily one of the best Lambo twins-centric fics out there (and the longest one too to date).

Lifeline by Kattli (Kathrine)*

Set in the IDW-verse. One of my personal favorites as well as my fav interpretation of the twins' messy and complicated relationship in IDW. Canon-divergence in the best way possible.

Sideswipe's Secret Vacation Spot by BalloonArcade**

AU where the twins actually joined the Cons (one of my fav AUs for sure). Has by far my FAVORITE interpretation of Sunstreaker and one that definitely affected my own take of his character. The twins' dynamic here is *chef's kiss* so good. I adore them so much here.

No Rest for the Wicked by fuzipenguin*

Absolutely delectable 6k joyride with Sunstreaker pretty much murdering his way out of the enemy's base like the utterly ruthless warrior that he is <3 you love to see it!!!!

Snap, Crackle, Pop by SergeantCookie

I was so pleasantly surprised by how amazingly-written this fic was??? Like- the blend of comedy and realism feels so natural especially from Sideswipe's POV. Definitely one of my fav Sides-centric fics, and the other characters are an absolute hoot LOL it's so SO good from start to finish.

Followers by Bibliotecaria_D**

This one...completely caught me off-guard. An utterly different take of the twins' relationship in IDW (and in general, really) that I needed a whole day to digest what I just read because it was just- so raw and real and painful, but I think that's the beauty of it. Might not be everyone's cup of tea tho so here's my warning (bc the writer isn't a fan of fanon!Lambo twins), but I still recommend people (esp their fans) to read it to see a different perspective of the twins' dynamic.

Others, also really good:

and when i got to st peter's gate, i told the keeper that i'm not the one who needs to make amends by rosesscythes

IDW again, this time from Sideswipe's perspective before he died. It healed something in me to read this, so maybe it might heal you too :")

Little Brother by pipermca*

Another IDW fic, this time from Sunstreaker's POV post-canon. Another cathartic fic that feels like a balm after what happened in canon.

Poker Face by SSSSEEEEVVVVEEEENNNN*

A deep dive into Sunstreaker's psyche in the face of Smokescreen and it's so. SO good omg. You can see everything play out in real time from Sunstreaker's POV while at the same time you can tell he's so unreliable and so, so bad at social cues that it was painful to watch. But everything is from HIS view so he MUST be right...right?

Unorthodox Protection by FiftyShadesOfMetal

Another one of Sideswipe's shenanigans that...went a bit more south that he intended? Sunstreaker cameos a bit later but the true star of the show is the human inside of Sideswipe-- wait what?!

Loyalty by BalloonArcade

Prowl/Sideswipe with a substantial focus on the twins' relationship in IDW on the side. I really liked this take of the twins and what made them that way here.

Sunshine, Roses, & Other Treacherous Things by jukeboxes**

Incomplete but the first 3 chapters are so compelling that you can't help but desperately want to know how it ends.

Crack(ed) Me Up by Kattli (Kathrine)**

Sunstreaker and Sideswipe are unfortunately stuck with the bots they try to kill the most...whoops. Really funny and you get to enjoy seeing their (mostly Sunny's) suffering

In the Dust by Hours_Gone_By

Msytery fic, spooky-tastic. The twins aren't the sole focus here, but the fic is so good that you'd be too invested in what's happening to notice (or if you're like me, you do notice every time they interact but it won't detract from the story itself ahaha). But they are there and I'm not one to be picky, so you really don't wanna pass this one up.

The City by Hours_Gone_By**

Spooky-fic, reaally well written (this writer has a talent with writing horror I swear), keeps you at the edge of your seat through the whole thing and wanting nothing more than for them to go--

Bayverse:

Mess With the Bull by CaptainCougar**

A classic take of Sunstreaker's arrival during the period where Cemetery Wind was hunting down all the remaining Cybertronians. Really nicely written and satisfying to read.

Solar Eclipse by SeaSpectre160**

My favorite take on Sunstreaker's arrival on Earth with all the chaos and squishy human-hating on Sunny's side. You love to see it.

Snake Eyes by snarechan

Sideswipe and Sunstreaker face a familiar foe, with a twist. I love the way they're written here.

AUs:

All The Friendly Ghosts by Anonymous**

Something's just not right about Sideswipe, and--it's not what you think it is. Really satisfying build up and payoff. I adore the writing style for it too.

Search & Rescue by sssunstreakerrr

Shattered Glass at last!!! It's sadly incomplete but the sheer quality of the available chapter and the premise makes it so so worth reading anyway.

Beneath the Vaulted Heights by Magnusoftheward**

I don't want to spoil anything bc it's best read going in blind so...just keep reading. I promise you it's worth it :D I really love the eeriness and confusion and just- the overall vibe of the fic. It's so good gah-

Abandoned by Hours_Gone_By

Horror fic, so so good. You can feel the eerieness of the place from the character's perspective. Ugh. Literally kept me at the edge of my seat the whole time. Other characters are also there!

Geminus by postapocalyptic_cryptic*

Pacific Rim AU. The twins are co-pilots. Really well-written fic! :D Bring your tissues

A Flash of Gold by pipermca**

Another Pacific Rim AU with human!Sideswipe. Where's Sunstreaker you ask? Well...

Pure Silliness:

Exothermic by SergeantCookie

I cackled from start to finish, it's that good LOL. If you need a good laugh, pls go read this. Also connected to "Snap, Crackle, Pop" by the same author.

How to Save the World in 8 Minutes and 3 Seconds by BalloonArcade

Pure chaos written in such an in-character way, poor Prowl lmaooo

In Which Sideswipe was Bored with a Board by a Boar While Bored by murtlewikisam

An absolute hoot omg I couldn't stop my head from going ????? the whole time XD

Aaand that's all for now! I'm sure I've missed some, but these are some of the ones that I already have in my bookmarks :D Hope you have a good (or wonderfully painful) time reading them!! And let me know which one you like the most if you do read them hahha