#i think Sonic is one of those characters that gets a lot of freedom in the posing and movement department which ive noticed in his media

[sticks-stones-sonic-insanity]

He's just the epitome of fun sometimes!!!

[yanderes-galore]

Hello, could you make a platonic concept for Sonic and Tails (game version) sharing the reader? Since they both see each other as brothers, they could try to make the reader their new sibling.

Aww... Sonic and Tails making you part of a trio 💜 Here you go! Sorry for the long wait as always, I'm really trying :)

Yandere! Platonic! Sonic + Tails Sharing Darling

Pairing: Platonic - Sharing

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Obsession, Overprotective behavior, Manipulation, Jealousy, Paranoia, Tracking, Stalking, Violence, Brief blood mention, Clingy behavior, Implications of murder, Dubious companionship.

Sonic and Tails have been friends for, what, years?

The two are probably the closest to one another due to all the adventures they've had.

They'd definitely share an obsession between one another as friends.

I can't really see the two fighting over someone... they care for each other too much.

The two would be protective of a shared friend between them.

Like... extremely protective.

The two have been through nearly everything together since they were friends.

Most of the time it's due to them dealing with Eggman.

I imagine the two ended up meeting you on one of their adventures, perhaps even saving you from Eggman.

Sonic is his usual cool and laid-back self, always playful with you and Tails.

Tails is more shy but always wants to help you out, often offering you a gadget to help your daily life.

The two love to give their friend gifts as then you'll think of them.

The two are no doubt incredibly affectionate with you as their friend.

Now, if they view you as a friend or sibling... they could go either way as it doesn't change much.

Tails seems like he'd love hugs, honestly Sonic would too but not admit it often.

There's times when you greet them and the two bombard you in affection.

They are both definitely physical when it comes to affection.

Regardless on how they view you, as platonic yanderes they take such a role seriously.

The two value your safety... especially with all they've been through.

Tails definitely hides at least one tracker on you to know where you are like in his usual concepts.

He'd often alert Sonic where you are, originally he only uses it to keep you out of trouble.

Over time they both just find comfort in knowing where to find you....

I imagine Tails is more tame while Sonic can come off as intense at times.

Sonic can come off as intimidating if his friends are hurt.

In this case that would include both you and Tails.

Because of the universe and personalities of both characters, I don't expect any murder.

Violence on the other hand... that can happen.

Tails seems like the type who would give subtle threats to those who bother you.

While Sonic is similar, I can see Sonic being more up front about threats.

While the two care about you a lot, I want to believe they won't socially isolate you too much.

They'd be more likely to just insert themselves into interactions you have instead.

For example, you'll be talking with someone only to have either Sonic or Tails join the conversation.

Tails is always so sweet about it while Sonic uses his popularity to distract the attention off of you.

I'd say they both can get jealous.

Tails is more quiet about it but Sonic seems to be more vocal about it.

They're probably one of the best duos to have since they are mostly not that intense.

They genuinely just want to care for their friend and most likely won't kidnap you.

Instead there's the whole tracking situation... but with that you at least have your freedoms, right?

They aren't too fond of isolating you too much.

Even Sonic loves his freedom.

Instead they choose to protect you from danger as friends should.

Although... they may make you second guess your choice in friends.

Maybe the two end up giving you trust issues, jealous if you're spending time with others more than them.

They can be lenient... to a point.

The two see themselves as your heroes, always knowing what's best for their dearest friends.

Heroes shouldn't get blood on their hands...

Key word is shouldn't

However... perhaps there's some exceptions.

If the two ever did hurt someone for you, they'd work together to hide it.

The most I can see them doing is beating someone up or threatening someone to be quiet.

The two killing is rare and almost unheard of...which may just give them the perfect cover if I'm being honest.

You have no clue what the extent of their friendship with you really is.

Far as you know, they're harmless heroes who are just protective of you.

In reality they may be threatening and beating up those who may make your life less than perfect.

Perhaps the friendly exterior Sonic and Tails have around you and others isn't fully truthful?

Maybe they really do threaten, lie, beat up... or maybe even kill...

But surely there's nothing to worry about...! They'd never do such a thing... that's what you tell yourself, that is.

In reality, who knows what they do to maintain their friendship with you...

Perhaps the rumors are true... and there really is blood on their hands.

"Hey, has anyone been bothering you lately? You seem a bit worried...."

"You shouldn't have to worry, friend... we'll take care of everything, right?"

[banmitbandit]

more hedgehogswap!!! some really basic sketches, but proof i am still thinking abt them lol

curious about whats going on? me too! but my tag for this AU is #spindashswap. its not its official name, but for now, its the best name the au has v_v TLDR; A lot of character's roles are swapped, with the intent being to keep their personalities intact.

The original copy, Metal Shadow is Robotnik's greatest creation, a combination of Robotnik's mechanical genius and Shadow's Life Data, Metal Shadow is Shadow's 1 to 1 in practically every way! Running off Chaos Energy, Metal Shadow is capable of using Chaos Spear, Blast, and Control, and gives Shadow a run for his money in their proficiency with them. Like most things, however, they are not immune to a kick to the head.

Iblis is a fragment of the God of the Moon, Lunares, representing the harsh light that reflects from the moon's surface, it's counterpart being Mephilis, the moon's shadow. Whilst Mephilis is the retrospective and thoughtful half, it is also content to wait, for it is inevitable that they will be released, as the Princess Elise is doomed to shed a tear eventually. Iblis, on the other hand, is sealed within a sceptre, and is accidentally released by the Ultimate Lifeform, Sonic the Hedgehog.

(Whilst I speculate that Shadow's Arc in SA2, Heroes and 06 has been about his own agency and his desire to keep his promise to Maria, Sonic in canon doesn't really have that. He's always been a paragon of his own freedom and doesn't give that away to anyone. No one can stop him in his pursuit to do the right thing, and he can't really be manipulated into it either, unlike Shadow or Silver. All this to say that I think it's super interesting that Mephiles never attempts to manipulate Sonic, and instead relies on his consistency in his plan to make Elise release Iblis. He doesn't bother trying to get Elise to become close with Sonic because it's an inevitability he can rely on. )

Iblis, instead of attempting to manipulate Sonic, instead attempts to destroy him by openly mock about his fight against the inevitable. Sonic can run at the speed of sound, but surely he cannot outrun the speed of light. He are unable to save the world he desires to protect, and they stand in the proof of that, in Crisis City, the shrouded remains of Soleanna. Everyone that they have come to care about is long gone, and Sonic is finally (inevitably, Iblis might say) caught by GUN and sealed away. Wheras Mephilis attempts to break Shadow's will by trying to convince him that they will always be seen as a villain, and the world will betray him, Iblis attempts to break Sonic's will by trying to convince him that it is a lost cause. He wasn't strong enough to protect those on the ARK. His freedom was taken by GUN. It will inevitably happen again.

Of course, it doesn't end up working. Sonic fights anyways. There are people that are counting on him and he doesn't have time to entertain the possibility that he could let them down. Let Tails down.

As for what Iblis steals from Sonic. Maybe his reflection or something. This is a lot of word dump for a silly roleswap au.

(I am making this AU up as I go, so if you have suggestions, yell at me in my ask box if you want! Thanks for reading either way!

[lastoneout]

I do wanna say tho that people should probably not get their hopes up about this turning into a Sonic movie situation.

Granted my understanding of the industry isn’t as in depth as someone who is an actual animator at a place like Illumination, but from what I know with Sonic all they had to do was re-do Sonic’s model and animation. It’s a lot of work, but that was only one thing that needed changing. They were, as far as I know, able to use everything else they’d already made(live action footage, practical effects, voice lines, ect.) as it was, they just had to change Sonic’s animation.

With the Mario movie, they would not only have to re-record ALL of the voice lines for Mario, which he’s the main character so that would take a really fucking long time(remember, in the Direct they said that they’d only just wrapped all of the voice work, and they announced the cast a YEAR ago) they would also have to redo all of Mario’s animation, because animation is based on the existing voice work, not the other way around. And not just lip flaps, a lot of the character’s body language/movement is based in part on the voice work, so they would have to basically reanimate Mario entirely. That would take ages and be insanely hard and very involved. Def would take a massive delay and cause a lot of crunch time.

(Not to mention that whatever actor is replacing Pratt would probably have to put their current projects on hold/back out of them to make time to do the new voice work, or just work their ass off to get it all done. This isn’t as easy as you’d think. Recording all of the lines for a main character of a full movie isn’t something you can just knock out in a weekend. Not if you want it to be good anyway.)

Sure, they could TRY to get a new actor to just dub over Pratt’s lines, but if you’ve seen dubbed 3D animation it’s always a little off, and Nintendo clearly really wants this project to be PERFECT. Plus, then the new voice actor wouldn’t have the freedom to act as well as they could otherwise. Not to say dubbed performances are all bad or the actors can’t do a good job with those constraints, actors who do dubs are amazing and deserve respect, but the new actor would HAVE to follow all of the body language and lip-flaps that were based on Pratt’s lines, and thus would be stuck giving a performance pretty close to Pratt’s to make sure it fit, and if all of Pratt’s stuff is really flat, well then they have to come across as flat too.

And if they, at any point, got more than one actor in the studio at a time to get more natural dialogue then the performance of anyone who was bouncing off of Pratt’s work is probably gonna look off too, and that’s even more stuff to fix.

So like, please don’t get your hopes up on this one. We don’t have a Sonic situation on our hands. It would take a fucking miracle to get them to change the movie so fundamentally this close to release. As much as it sucks ass we are probably just going to have to live with Chris Pratt’s shitty Mario and just pray that everything else about the film is good enough to make up for it.

[fernsnailz]

please i have to know the turbo tails lore

bitcoin i can assure you there’s no fucking way you’re ready for what’s about to unfold in this lore post

i’m willing to talk about the turbo tails lore because it gives me the chance to explain my favorite panel from ALL of archie sonic:

below is over 2,000 words worth of turbo tails lore. don't say i didn't warn you lol

TL;DR: a convoluted prophecy, a cryptic grandpa, and a single lost backpack make turbo tails one of the strangest things to come out of archie sonic

THE TURBO TAILS LORE.

note: any time i say “it’s actually really simple!” in this explanation please know i’m saying it with the thickest tone of sarcasm and bitterness known to man

we gotta start wayyyy back in early archie sonic - specifically, at the tails miniseries. these issues follow tails as he travels alone to a place called “downunda” (aka the archie sonic equivalent of australia), where he helps the freedom fighters there defeat some badniks terrorizing their home.

tails’ journey is sparked by his own desire to become a hero and the frustration he feels when the rest of the freedom fighters treat him like a little kid. in the first part of the miniseries, we see a comic that tails makes about him becoming a superhero called “captain super foX-MAN” (the writers did a lot of comic references in early archie sonic).

when tails gets to downunda, however, he becomes injured and finds himself in the bottom of a crater. here, he meets an oldass echidna named athair. this dude is one of knuckles’ (many) relatives, and hopefully the only one i ever have to talk about

athair’s main character trait is that he’s cryptic as hell. nothing he says makes any fucking sense, but is treated as all-important because… he says it is. he’s gonna be relatively important through all of this, so we gotta keep peepaw around.

athair takes tails further into the comet and introduces him to some guys called the ancient walkers. you might think, “hey, are those just dinosaurs wearing masks?” and. yeah that’s exactly what they are

the ancient walkers are pagan dinosaurs that discovered the chaos emeralds and developed some sort of immortality and futuristic vision because of them. or. something like that

so what the hell does this have to do with tails? well, the ancient walkers speak of a prophecy: a chosen one who will realign the chaos emeralds for a “higher purpose,” and cause something called the great harmony.

we won’t be getting to THAT for a WHILE tho

after his adventure in downunda, the next important thing to cover is sonic, tails, and knuckles’ battle against a dude called mammoth mogul.

for simplicity’s sake, the main things you need to know about mogul is that:

he’s immortal and really old

he wants to take over the universe

he has a chaos emerald embedded in his chest

he’s ALSO going to be very important

i don't like him he’s really boring

at this point, mammoth mogul has stolen a bunch of power from another villain called enerjak (LONG story), and has used it to transform into his own sort of “super” form called master mogul.

mogul really wants to fight the sonic gang so he can use the three of them to take over the world, and this is what his vision of that looks like LMAO

sonic and knuckles go into their super and hyper forms respectively, but even the two of them can’t take down mogul. however, a mysterious caped hero shows up to help - TURBO TAILS.

turbo tails's design is in reference to the superhero tails was drawing at the beginning of his miniseries, captain fox-man. this is turbo tails' first official appearance, and he’s able to fight off mogul where BOTH super sonic and hyper knuckles couldn’t. kid’s strong.

once they defeat mogul, they trap his ass in the master emerald. however, note this all takes place before the comic’s adaptation of sonic adventure 1. and if you know SA1, you know that stuff inside the master emerald gets OUT of it eventually. and oh boy you’ll never guess who gets out of the emerald when eggman eventually destroys it

however, we’re not worrying about that right now. in the next bit we’re covering, tails is at SCHOOL! however, he’s lost his backpack and needs to find it. oh no!!!

but before he can find it -

athair teleports into the school, says tails is needed for something (but doesn’t say what), then teleports tails away.

BRO DIDN’T EVEN FIND HIS BACKPACK HE HAS GEOMETRY CLASS IN FIVE MINUTES

this specific teleportation will be really important later.

athair takes tails to angel island where he wants tails to… fight knuckles. i guess. currently, knuckles is stuck in a state called “chaos knuckles,” where he’s green, confused all the time, and really strong. homeboy’s going through it

before tails can really do a lot, he gets knocked out by some falling rubble, and ghost athair does nothing to help. have i mentioned that athair kinda sucks?

athair then takes tails to our favorite guy - tails’ uncle, merlin prower! merlin is a wizard and that’s all you need to know right now. athair wants merlin to wake up tails so he can go and fight knuckles, but merlin is FUCKING PISSED!! and reasonably so.

imagine. some oldass dude teleports into your house, hands your unconscious nephew to you, and then goes “hey can you fix him? i need him to fight the hulk.” like?? HE’S BUT A MERE LAD!

merlin is kinda right - tails has been dragged into echidna family drama for no reason other than athair seems to be out of ideas. and since tails' parents are gone, merlin's nephew is the only family he seems to have left.

unfortunately, merlin can’t find a way to argue with athair’s “we gotta do it for reasons i can’t explain” argument, and brings back our boy turbo tails.

however, turbo tails gets his ass kicked.

(side note: from here on out, turbo tails' cape is red. i don't know why that's just how it is)

when merlin goes back to his unconscious nephew (again), athair searches turbo tails’ mind to figure out why he got his ass kicked so bad. and the explanation is actually really simple!

this turbo tails is actually a duplicate of tails and the original tails is just. somewhere we don’t know.

so. yeah what the fuck

neither of them know how tails was duplicated or where this one came from. athair’s solution to this is just “let’s not tell anybody.” great job peepaw you really solved that one

after this, tails 2 just kinda keeps living his life without knowing he’s a duplicate of the original. however, he starts having nightmares about a weird, mysterious cave. when he and sonic eventually find this cave, they find the original turbo tails, trapped in a stasis.

and then, guess who shows up in the cave!! oh boy it’s everyone’s favorite character mammoth fucking mogul!!!!!

mogul explains the tails duplicate thing, and it’s actually really simple!

you know that one time athair teleported into tails’ school and kidnapped him while he was trying to find his backpack? yeah, so mogul basically kidnapped tails while he was being teleported, replaced him with a duplicate he created that was identical to the real tails, then placed the real turbo tails into stasis so he could harvest his power, thus regaining his original power before he was trapped in the master emerald.

do you see why i was dreading talking about turbo tails?

sonic fights mogul off, but tails 2 is kinda going through it. i don’t know how, but mogul made a duplicate that was near PERFECT, and tails 2 still has all of the original tails’ memories, emotions, and bonds. so when tails 2 disappears… it’s strangely tragic?

and then they just kinda move on lol

the original tails is released and returns to living his life, but unfortunately his life is kinda not so great at the moment. he just learned that his parents are alive on an alien planet (read THIS lore dump for more context), he’s part of this weird confusing prophecy he doesn’t understand, and he’s frustrated that he isn’t allowed to know about this great prophecy that directly affects HIS life.

and when tails confronts peepaw athair about this, athair does this.

good riddance

in the next issue, sonic and tails are visited by an alternate universe version of sonic called zonic, who serves as a sorta time cop that watches over the multiverse to make sure no one is messing with the space time continuum.

that’s obviously a bit to unpack, so here’s the main stuff you need to know:

the multiverse exists and is very important in archie sonic

all of the alternate universes and dimensions are called “zones”

the sonic and tails of the main story are called the “prime” versions, basically meaning they’re the true canon of the entire multiverse.

i don’t want to explain the existence of zonic rn. just know that he stands on things sideways

zonic is freaking out a little bit because someone’s in the process of destroying the entire multiverse, but he can’t figure out who. however, he heard about this weird “chosen one” prophecy thing, and he thinks that tails might be able to help.

while with zonic, tails and prime sonic realize that the person destroying the universe is our favorite guy mammoth fucking mogul, who collected enough power from the turbo tails he had in stasis and chaos knuckles (who he fought at a different time) to become all powerful enough to destroy the universe. plus, weird spacetime shenanigans are happening because knuckles died and was then resurrected (don’t ask), which kinda threw off the balance of the multiverse.

the prime bros and zonic are starting to run out of time, but zonic has a plan (sorta). see, he hoped that tails could help somehow, but he didn’t know WHICH tails across the multiverse would be the chosen one.

so he recruited ALL of them.

tails, knowing that he’s the chosen one and all that jazz, tries to fight the universe destroying god form mammoth mogul alone. this obviously does not work, so the rest of the tails and sonic come to his aid.

however, when sonic is injured in the fight, tails is convinced that he died. in his anger, he’s able to fulfill his destiny and converge with every single version of himself across the multiverse, becoming…

TITAN TAILS.

"YOU WILL NOT" is one of my favorite reaction images

titan tails might be one of the most powerful characters in all of sonic canon, as he’s able to defeat a universe-destroying mammoth mogul in a matter of seconds.

me when my energies are pulled away lol

with mammoth mogul defeated (again), titan tails uses his power to return the world back to the status quo and imprison mogul in yet another emerald.

so that’s the end of the prophecy, right? that’s all the chosen one jazz, and titan tails was a result of the great harmony?

well, no.

if you look back at that prophecy from the original tails miniseries, it never mentions anything about the multiverse. instead, it only mentions the chaos emeralds realigning for a higher purpose, brought about by the chosen one. so what’s all that about?

this brings us back to tommy turtle.

after the events of titan tails, an eggman AI named A.D.A.M. learns of the chosen one prophecy and the great harmony of chaos emeralds. A.D.A.M. has been working behind the scenes of a LOT of various plots as a figure named Anonymous, where he was working on a greater master plan to become an all powerful being. and man, that chosen one prophecy that speaks of realigning EVERY chaos emerald in the universe? that sounds promising.

i talked about A.D.A.M.’s plan a little more in my tommy turtle lore dump, but the basics of it is that he kidnaps both shadow and tails in order to use their super forms to cause the great harmony mentioned in the prophecy. through using super shadow’s chaos control, he can open up doorways through spacetime to summon them all. however, the emeralds won’t arrive unless he has the chosen one - turbo tails.

using both of them, A.D.A.M. summons every emerald in the universe, of which there are a LOT. in archie sonic, the chaos emerald lore is that each planet has a bunch of chaos emeralds, but only of one color. for example, the emeralds on mobius (sonic’s world) are all green, while the rest of the colors all originate from different alien planets.

so, with every emerald summoned, thus begins the great harmony and the end of the prophecy from the classic tails miniseries.

once super shadow and turbo tails are freed, they work together to finally complete the prophecy: realigning all of the chaos emeralds by placing them in the zone of silence, which is kinda like the distortion world of sonic lore. basically, they’re putting them in storage and out of reach because the writers didn't want to deal with a bajillion chaos emeralds anymore.

after the great harmony, the archie sonic chaos emeralds return to a form that are similar to that of the games - there are only seven, one of each color. thus ends the prophecy, the chosen one’s purpose, and the turbo tails lore.

and that's it! turbo tails never shows up in archie sonic again, and will likely never appear in any piece of sonic canon ever again. and really, there’s only one question i have after revisiting all of this again.

where the FUCK is tails’ backpack??????

[fortemelody]

there are a couple universally hated sonic characters (for example chris thorndyke). but do you know who i think deserves to be shitted on more? DULCY. IM SORRY BUT SHE ANNOYS THE SHIT OUTTA ME. LIKE ESPECIALLY BECUS THEY JUST RANDOMLY ADDED HER TO S2 OF SATAM?? AND HER RUNNING GAG WITH HER MOM IS NOT FUNNY TO ME LIKE GIRL STFU

she got a whole episode named after her too 💀 i do kinda appreciate that they at least attempted to give her a backstory and the concept was sorta interesting but it felt like too little too late yknow

but the weirdest part is that this is coming from someone who LOVES antoine. he is legit my 5th fav character in the whole franchise. they literally both just serve as comic relief characters but idk antoine is just so much better to me. i think a lot of it is his design and VA tbh. but lowkey they did my man dirty later on in S2 becus the two episodes that mainly focused on him were the “odd couple/robbecca”, in which his house gets invaded by sonic and then he gets chased by a horny ass robot. this then lead to him just screaming the whole time (also his animation style change wasn’t my cup of tea either). this is like the equivalent to a squidward torture episode LET MY MAN CATCH A BREAK 😞

okay anyways back to dulcy sorry this just turned into an antoine ramble

but yeah i feel like she is there to just help the freedom fighters get to their destination faster and be a “new type” of comedic relief, one that isn’t really driven from fear like in antoine’s case. i also will admit that she’s probably more useful than antoine seeing as though he can’t fly but legit i still could not give two fucks about her. maybe it’s the lack of a personality and the randomness factor idk. and this is a more serious topic but istg if people think i’m hating on her just becus she’s a woman like the whole lanolin situation imma be so upset. i am afab myself and my first fav character is amy so like don’t even try to tell me that 😭 i would never stoop so low to say some of the awful things people say on twitter about sonic women (…or just women in general sometimes).

ALSO i’m solely referring to dulcy in SATAM, not the archie comics. based on videos i watched i remember she had a pretty big story arc and then was later rebooted as a normal sized mobian. i’m sure she’s much more bearable there cus i trust ian flynn but i haven’t actually read those for myself. double also i still have like 4 episodes left of SATAM to finish so if she possibly can somehow get better in the span of 4 episodes than ig i’m wrong

okay rant over basically fuck that dragon i hate her with a burning passion

[eggseabutter]

I think Sonic’s issue in this debate is that he just assumes that fixing the Paradox Prism will fix everything when in true it would take a lot more than that.

The shatterverses despite being mirrors of his world are unique and with their own stories, he has made various promises in each of them to help them out but he just seems to believe that once the prism is fixed it would all be back to normal for each of those worlds.

I also think that given that Sonic is reminded often by his memories that he was the one to cause his world to be a ghost he unconsciously thinks that the other shatterverses are an extension of this mistake and need to be fixed in the same way.

So despite how much his final argument with Nine saddened me, he DID need that slap. All worlds deserve to be saved but they won’t all be saved on the same manner, is a lot more pressure than he originally thought.

Sonic has always been impulsive and he has always been one to see the solution of a problem as an exciting adventurous path yet in his terms, a simple one.

Even in X when everyone was brought to the human world he didn’t even worry.

He won’t let the other worlds disappear after everything that’s happened, I just can’t see it, that’s a bad ending. And Sonic main thing is freedom, he won’t let that happen.

Here a little theory, it was implied that the reason why Shadow wasn’t shattered like the others were was because he had been carrying the chaos emerald. The emerald fell to the darkness in the void, I don’t think that was just a simple thing to add on the chapter

I’m sure the emerald and the darkness will certainly come back to the plot as well as why Shadow can’t enter the shatterverses and Sonic can. I can’t be possibly just a main character thing, there MUST be a reason just like why in Frontiers Sonic was the only one free

Do I have blind faith in Sonic at this point? Maybe. Will that stop me from believing in him? Huh nah.

The series was first presented as road of redemption, which I’m sure Sonic will get.

In conclusion, he’s not selfish, he’s just not stopping to think things through, it also hasn’t helped that he hasn’t catch a break since this whole mess started

Disclaimer: I’m saying that Nine was absolutely right about taking that out on Sonic, he will be an antagonist now but I don’t think he’s a villain, he’s just broken.

He deserves better. And I know Sonic will be better for him, I just do.

[sillyandquest]

A while ago I posted about an obscure character from MegaMan named Piano, but recently I remembered another obscure character. He's from the Sonic games this time around and his name is Feel the Rabbit.

Here's some doodles, info, and some silly musings about him. See y'all at the end!

To start off, before Sega created Sonic to counter Mario, they held a mascot design contest. Feel was one of many options, another being Eggman in pajamas called Mr. Snooze. (I think)

This would make Feel the prototype of our favorite Blue Blur.

One of his abilities include using his ears to grab things, sort of like Tangle and her tail. I'm pretty sure it was a coincidence, but the ideas are similar enough that I wouldn't be surprised if Feel inspired Tangle's creation too. At least a little bit.

Silly idea, I figured he'd be almost completely mute, much like classic sonic was in the games. Since he doesn't talk a lot I tried to make his ears more expressive to make up for his lack of voice. This idea makes him seem more dramatic and I like it!

Speaking of, personality wise, we don't have much to go on. Sega was only looking for a new design at the time after all, so personality probably wasn't first on the list of priorities. That's just leaves us to guess and make up something new for our dashing little prototype rabbit. Here's what I have:

What if Feel was Sonic's older brother? The person (mobian?) that inspired Sonic to be the brave and kind freedom fighter we all know him as now. Granted, Feel was never as fast as Sonic, but he always seemed to get there before the little blue hedgehog. Probably using his ears to playfully yank Sonic and slow him down a little. Feel was a prankster and Sonic was all for it. Those two were such drama queens and always found someway to liven up the mundane Island they lived on. Running races, eating good food, busting baddies, even stopping to smell the flowers were good times well spent. They did everything together for a long while.

Though, that wouldn't last forever. Sonic and Feel had to say goodbye to each other one final time.

That's okay though. Even if his older brother isn't here anymore, Sonic had always remembered the first lesson Feel ever taught him.

"Even a small act of kindness goes a long way."

[randomthefox]

And that was Sonic Lost World! I actually think the main theme of Lost World is kind of a boring let down, so I just edited a really good song from a really lame fan project over the credits instead. I apologize if this offends literally everybody.

Sonic Lost World is a good game! I sincerely and legitimately have no idea what the fuck peoples problem with it is or why it has the reputation it does. I assume people just haven't played it? I'd say that's reasonable considering it was a Wii U exclusive BUT THAT'S NOT EVEN TRUE BECAUSE IT'S ON STEAM YOU CAN PLAY THIS GAME ON PC RIGHT NOW so I literally don't get it at all.

This game is absolutely stunning to look at, it's so visually vibrant and beautiful the colors just pop and everything is so aesthetically appealing. The level design feels like an effort to take the design philosophies of the 2D games and do the Super Paper Mario Z-axis flip and show those 2D levels from a 3D perspective, and the way they took the Different Routes element from those games and just made it this optional choice players could make of which angle they want to take across a stretch of level with the freedom to go back and forth was very creative and allows for a lot of player expression. The kind of speedrun shit people do with this game is insane.

The plot feels like a natural evolution of the Back To Basics approach that Colors had, still with a focus on comedy but the cutscenes never have a chance to outstay their welcome because of how brisk and to the point they are. And they even manage to touch on more thoughtful subjects like Sonic and Tails coming into conflict, and like I detailed - this is Sonic at his absolute lowest point where he's left completely alone and is beset by doubt because of his own mistakes. This is the kind of Sonic narrative that people SAY they always want, and hype up the comics for supposedly having, but then they don't give this games story its chops and I don't understand why.

The Zeti are great, they're flat one dimensional characters for the most part but they're all so much fun and have such great designs and boss fights. And this is EGGMANS game, he has SO much screen time and dialog and great moments.

Sonic Lost World is PHENOMENAL. Disregard EVERYTHING you hear people say about this game and listen to me instead: this game is $30 on Steam, fucking play it.

[frostythefrostedfox]

After my most recent rewatching of the Frontiers cutscenes for other purposes (making fun of how bad they are), I have noticed something, something that let me to have a new headcanon

One that y'all will be forced to read right now, whether you like it or not, and the worst part is that I have evidence of what I am saying, kind of, because this isn't a very serious headcanon, this is just shitposting.

When Sonic first comes across Knuckles, this is the face he makes

They talk for like 1 minute, knuckles punches sonic's hand and this is the face he makes

Knuckles replies with this face

Sonic immediately replies with this face

And then right after they have a staring contest doing these faces

When attacked by Sage, sonic dismises knuckle's advise by doing this face

By the end of his story, they stare at each other like this for like a minute before doing something else

And this is what they do literally on the next scene, like the very next one.

So why did I filled this post with many many pics of sus faces by sonic and knuckles?

Well, because they are the base of my headcanon

Sonic and Knuckles are totally fucking, and not even like on the side type of thing, no, these two are fucking fucking, like fuckbuddies but more bros, fuckbros if you will, they don't say anything about it but everyone that is their true adventure companion or spends enough time with them knows, like Tails, but nobody minds, its their thing and it kinda fits them, everything is a competition with these two dorks

But wait, I hear you say (Actually no), what about Rouge, isn't Knuckles dating her? Well yes! And why you act like those two things are mutually exclusive? Rouge knows, actually she knew even before getting on her thing with Knuckles, and she supports it, the bat is by far one of the oldest characters around besides Big and Vanilla, so she has seen a hell of a lot, and besides, for the type of shit she gets up to, this is like entry level, trust me, you don't wanna go there; she thinks its funny to see the lenghts these two are actually willing to go just to one up the other, she even openly comments about it when in the company of either of these two or someone else that knows, because when you know, you know.

That brings me to my next point, the reason why Sonamy has never been canon other than teasing and baiting, it's because Amy doesn't knows, and Sonic knows that she wouldn't get it, she is younger than Sonic, and her whole life has been pretty normal and average, so why any of these things would ever cross her mind? Sonic thinks that hanging out with Amy is cool and all, and he probably thinks she is cute and so on and so on, but its just more than that, she just wouldn't get it, and that's a problem, so that's why Sonic never took things that far or went serious mode with it.

What about Shadow? Not only he knows, he is also included on the shit, what? Are you for real gonna tell me that these two don't become like 90% gayer on the presence of one another, he is also a hot headed mess that won't give an inch to Sonic because not beating him means losing to him, so he also gets down on that zaza. Oh and BTW, Rouge knows of Shad's involvement too, she encourages it actually, like some sort of enabler of kinkyness, which is the type of friend that everyone needs and everyone should have.

I hope that y'all hated this, if you did then that means I did it right, this is why I shouldn't have the freedom to simply post whatever crosses my mind, follow me for more weird and crack headcanons of any and every franchise.

If you didn't hated this, thought it was funny or actually agree, congrats, you're one of the real ones, mostly because you know I'm saying facts right here

I won't be taking questions, and I won't be changing my mind

[scruffyplayssonic]

Are the ArchieSonic comics actually an 80's/90's syndicated cartoon? Episode 56: The Writer's Barely-Disguised Fetish (part 1)

Welcome back to my look at the ArchieSonic comic series, and how it shared a lot of the same story tropes as a typical ‘80s or ‘90s syndicated cartoon!

…sigh. Buckle in, kids. This one is going to be a bumpy ride.

Episode 56: The Writer's Barely-Disguised Fetish (part 1)

I mean, where do I even start with this one? Over its 23 year long run, there were sooooo many different fetishes that popped up in the comic at one time or another. I’d even go as far as to say that if you have a particular favourite fetish that it probably showed up in ArchieSonic at some point.

Are you into magical girls?

ArchieSonic’s got you covered, fam.

Are you into furry love triangles?

ArchieSonic’s got you covered, fam.

Are you into feet pics?

ArchieSonic’s got you covered, fam.

But maybe you’re more into cannibalism.

ArchieSonic’s got you covered, fam.

How about tickle torture?

ArchieSonic’s got you covered, fam.

What about leather and whips?

ArchieSonic’s got you covered, fam.

Or maybe asphyxiation and/or drowning?

ArchieSonic’s got you covered, fam.

How about vore?

ArchieSonic’s got you covered, fam.

Whatever the f*** this was?!

ArchieSonic’s (clap) got (clap) you (clap) covered (clap) fam.

But hey, no kink shaming here. I’m all for encouraging the kind of things you sick, twisted readers are into. 😀 But what about the writers themselves? What kind of weird stuff are they into? Well… look, I’m not going to say that Ken Penders has a fetish for tickle torture, but I will point out that he wrote that Tails scene I showed you earlier, and also drew this... “political statement.”

I’m just going to let you come to your own conclusions with that information. 

There is other stuff we could look at as well though. I’m not sure whether or not the rest of this stuff technically counts as “fetishes”, but considering the number of times it got written into the comic, I don’t think we can completely rule it out. For this section I’d like to concentrate on the three writers who contributed to ArchieSonic the most: Ken Penders, Karl Bollers, and Ian Flynn.

Ken Penders is first up, and there’s a lot to explore here during his time on the comic from 1994 - 2006. First of all, he had a habit of introducing zillions of new characters (usually echidnas). But as was pointed out by former ArchieSonic writer and colourist and current awesome person Aleah Baker, that topic might be a little too broad. So let’s break that down into several smaller categories. The first one is “Introducing secret family members that no one knew about and/or were supposed to be dead.” There were so many instances of this!

Sonic’s long-lost parents!

Sally’s long-lost brother and mother!

Antoine’s father!

Knuckles’ father!

Knuckles’ mother!

The League of Extroadinarily Racist Grandpas!

This is in stark contrast to both post-reboot ArchieSonic and the current IDWSonic run, where very few of the cast have family members making appearances.

Another one Penders loved to pull out was introducing unnecessary new characters who were there for the single purpose of replacing already established characters, usually those that were introduced in the games or SatAM. ‘Wait, who did Penders want to replace?’ you may be asking. Quite a few people, actually. For starters, he wanted to get rid of Princess Sally. Do you remember this infamous moment from the Endgame saga?

Sally eventually recovered from that fall, but Penders’ original intention was the death fake-out to be for realsies. Ken wanted Sally gone, as he felt that having King Acorn back gave us a character that served the same purpose as leader of the Freedom Fighters, and that Sally, in Ken’s own words, “cramped Sonic’s style.” Fortunately SEGA intervened and demanded that Sally live, partially because they were using her for marketing SEGAWorld Sydney. I got to visit that place as a kid, fun times. 

It wasn’t long after this that Ken pulled Sally’s long-lost brother Prince Elias out of his hat, whom I can only assume was also designed to serve a similar purpose to Sally.

Is that not bad enough? Well then how about the time when Ken killed off Dr. Robotnik and planned to replace him with this guy?

Meet Dr. Ian Droid (ugh, I hate the pun), a guy who basically boils down to “Dr. Robotnik but cooler because he was made by me, Ken Penders.” Who is this guy? What are his motivations? Buggered if I know. He was supposed to be the villain of Ken Penders’ original series, The Lost Ones (which only ever had a single issue released), and Knuckles: 20 Years Later (which was scrapped and replaced with the Mobius: 25 Years Later storyline).

Dr. Droid was implied to be a time-traveller who had fought Sonic and Knuckles in the past… or future… or whatever! We didn’t really find out anything else about this guy in the single issue he showed up in - a crossover with Image Comics. We should all be grateful that this bland knock-off never showed up again.

Lastly, whether or not he intended this, Ken Penders largely replaced the Chaotix. With whom? Why more echidnas, of course! The Chaotix may be an independent team nowadays, but back when they were first introduced ArchieSonic established that these guys were Knuckles' crew. I’ve talked about this before, but as the Knuckles series progressed the Chaotix tended to make fewer appearances, often becoming background characters whose page time was eaten up by Julie-Su, Constable Remington, and the League of Extroadinarily Racist Grandpas. Even in a three-issue arc called “The Chaotix Caper,” the Chaotix spent a large chunk of it hospitalised while Julie-Su and Remington investigated the case they had been working on.

Penders even used this arc to write Charmy out of the story for the next few years aside from a few brief cameo appearances.

Were there any other “fetishes,” Penders constantly wrote about? Well yes, and it’s a big one: daddy issues. There was King Max of course, a jerk mostly known for making typical boomer calls such as demanding Sally agree to an arranged marriage with Antoine or lose her right to the crown, or calling for all the robots who used to be Robotnik’s mindless slaves to be disassembled.

Obviously, Sally’s relationship with him was rather strained. But it was Knuckles’ father Locke, introduced and mostly written by Penders, that was quite possibly the most controversial character in the entire series. On the one hand, he was something of a guardian angel (pardon the pun) to Knuckles, watching out for him from afar and secretly helping him in his most desperate times. But wow, did he ever go about it the wrong way. Locke took Knuckles away from his mother at a young age to train him to be the next guardian of the Floating Island, and when that training was complete Knuckles had to watch his father yeet himself into a wall of fire, leaving him completely alone.

Obviously Locke didn’t actually kill himself but instead took up residency in a secret base called Haven where he could spy on his son all day long. But Knuckles didn’t know that and was left alone to suffer. When Knuckles finally reunited with him and wanted to know everything he’d been kept in the dark about up to this point, Locke was surprisingly forthcoming and finally came clean with the big secret.

Before Knuckles was born Locke had a vision of him in battle against forces he couldn’t comprehend, so Locke decided the only way to ensure his future son’s survival was to pump himself full of steroids before impregnating his wife and then blasting Knuckles’ egg with radiation from a Chaos Emerald. You all know the meme:

Penders was famously upset by other writers’ interpretations of Locke, especially when Ian Flynn became head writer of the comic and killed Locke off.

Penders had already previously written Locke’s death to take place during the future events of the Mobius 25 Years Later arc - and dedicated the story to his own late father - but despite his insistence otherwise, this was not considered to be the canonical future of the series but rather and "elseworlds" or "what if?" story.

It’s quite possible that this incident was the reason Penders decided to copyright all of “his” characters and start writing The Lara-Su Chronicles. But no matter what Ian wrote for Locke, nothing can be as bad as what Penders himself wrote for him:

Ick. I’m sorry, I thought I got all the gross stuff out of the way at the start of the post.

Tumblr has a limit to the number of images you can put in a single post, so I’m going to have to save Mr Bollers’ and Mr Flynn’s fetishes for next time. I’ll try to have that one out for you tomorrow. 🙂

[zippy-reacts]

Sonic the Comic Liveblog: Issue 76

Porker has a lot of forehead wrinkles for a character I presume to be a teenager. Freedom fighting is a stressful life huh?

Well shit, now I feel a little bad for my previous joke. That is a lot to go through, and it's neat to see StC seeming to head in this more serious character-driven direction.

It's been a while since we've had StC Sonic be a total ass like this

It's also nice to see the rest of the group call him out on it.

I keep fucking forgetting that Charmy talks Like That

…Travellers? Do they mean that in the literal definition of the word or are do they mean like… Irish Travellers? Because this is a British comic and I wouldn't put it past them.

What a convienient coinkydink that the puddle of water connected all of the Swatbots but none of the freedom fighters

Awk, that's really nice actually that Sonic owned up to beng an ass earlier. I think having a bit of an attitude is always gonna be a core characteristic of StC Sonic, and of course the British have a culture of banter that can really toe the line, but I feel like it's important for any iteration of Sonic for the audience to feel like he y'know, actually likes his friends. I have to say, I quite enjoyed that one-off

Those golden guys have pretty neat designs Also does Plunder have a wheel as a prosthetic? I thought it was always a really wooden peg leg, when did this change happen?

Simpson my beloved. Hope he gets to do some cartoon physics and/or fourth wall breaking bullshit soon.

Anyway, the Tails story wrapped up but I literally had nothing to add

I'm sure StC characters appearing in the games was a massive wish for a lot of UK kids reading the comics, but I'd be fucking surprised if a single member of either Sega of Japan or Sega of America around this time period knew these characters existed.

[mephyyy]

So I was trying to find some random Sonic OCs off Google to draw today because, man, art block killing me. I would like to prefece that I, myself, have Sonic OCs.

(This is all old art, except for my sonic.exe oc, but alas)

I think they're fun and a good way to express your creativity, whether that's writing them to date a character that you like or to be the most popular/powerfulest person EVER.

But with my not very deep dive into the 3 page of Google, I realized that even the really well draw or intriguing OCs are "cringe" and "Mary Sues".

With this, the notion comes that OCs are inherently cringe and not worth making unless you make them the most boring and unspecial person ever. Like: "This is my Sonic oc, Joe the cat. He works at a desk job, and he likes coffee." Making just your average Joe can be fun, but the thought that ALL OCs have to be fucking boring is dumb.

This thought is everywhere. You scroll through Google for 30 seconds, and you see articles about sonic OCs being a sickness, like this article from the medium. Like the drawing that a 10 y/o posted on deviant art about their green sonic will irreparably damage art.

This mindset actually hurts art in the long run. If you get told over and over again that the self insert you make is cringe and you should never draw again then, inevitably, you're going to stop drawing.

I was someone actually who thought for a very long time that my OCs shouldn't be special, or have super cool powers, or even have heterocromia. A good lot of my original characters were boring because I was worried about making a Mary Sue (Thanks CyberSans). It's actually a very deliberate choice that my self-insert/persona, Mephy, cringe.

Yes, I took things from jjba and Sonic to make this weird combo of Mephiles, Diego, jouta, and myself. I did this to push myself to make something "cringe," and anytime I think about removing his tail, I remember why I gave him one.

After I disregarded being seen as cringe, did I start to like designing characters. Just the want to make something I like without being worried if it's cringe or not. I think the freedom to make things like this is very important for young artists (or just artists in general). It's very liberating.

I took the making things purposefully cringe into my TF2 OCs. I gave them on the noise names, and I gave them back stories that were edgy. I enjoyed it. It made me happy.

With the acceptance of being seen as weird, I almost forgot what things were "cringe." I've just been seeing so many people happily making sonadow fan kids that I forgot people think that's cringe. I forgot that edgy OCs is cringe. I forgot that just being into something odd is cringe, and that makes me sad. I honestly thought that we got past thinking that darkspine the evil hedgehog (original character, do not steal) is cringe.

It's just sad. These OCs are cool. And yes, there are sonic OCs that aren't seen as cringe, like Ian Jr, S.N.T., or Trevor the hedgehog, but those are the exceptions. When was the last time you heard something say that Rosechu was their favorite OC? That's right, you haven't because sonichu is very much "cringe" (and don't bring up that Chris-chan did some fucked up shit, y'all didn't like she before she went to jail or did any of that fucked up stuff.) Why can't someone just make someone weird?

Concussion: Stop seeing things as cringe, and cringe culture is NOT dead until we kill it ourselves.

Anyway, I think I have written enough, and my English teacher would say that this is an emotional rant and that I need to rewrite like half of this. I think one of her exact words on a paper I wrote was "zack, this sentence makes me want to smear poop in my hair."

Here is some old art is some of my favorite little guys I found off Google (:

[iratusmus]

Hii, I read that freakishly looong (but interesting) take on Fiona

Personally, I think the major problem for her in the comics was that she wasnt really of major importance to the writers. I think the writers thought of her as interesting at first then got bored of her and she was lost to the wind.

I think thats where the problem started.

Secondly, I think the freedom fighters were also at fault. I think they forgot that not everyone has the mental capacity to be a hero. Not exactly good person but I think they expected too much of Fiona. Im not saying this in a degrading way tho. I mean, she went through a lot and they expected her to be healed already, they expected her to suddenly see them as heroes and want to be good. They forgot that not everyone has that inclination. They expected too much and I think that also got her overwhelmed.

Im not sure if this makes sense but yeah this is my take on it.

its pretty clear that bollers and penders didnt have much investment in her character at all, but also that that point she was really just a tangentially relevant side character. like i said in my post, frankly before ian gave her a corruption arc she didnt really have much to offer in the first place. you cant really fault the writers all that much because she wasnt really meant to be of major importance. when ian took the helm as main writer he clearly thought she had potential as a character and utilized that through the corruption arc. she wasnt "lost to the wind", she just became a villain and, as such, didnt need to be on the main screen all the time. archie sonic has a lot of villains and it would be honestly a bit annoying if we spent all of our time with just a handful of them - theyre great characters and should be used accordingly! yeah she took a bit of a backseat in the "scourge+fiona+ss go to mobius and get whacked for it" arc, but like. come on they were clearly setting something up here

she comes back in journey to the east and is pulling together her own gang there, and then comes back in full swing in scourge lockdown, in which they were. also. clearly setting something up

the plan according to ian is i believe that scourge & fiona were gonna have an epic breakup and she'd take the destructix in the divorce, which tracks plenty enough with the setup that was being put in place.

also, honestly im gonna have to partially disagree with you on the second point. its a complicated situation and i think youre simplifying it a bit too much. fiona willingly chose to "become a hero" - its not like they made her. she literally couldve left at any point in time to just be a normal civilian (which is... literally what mina did. nobody had an issue with it, even though mina's superspeed wouldve been a massive aid in battle. she wasnt equipped to be a hero in that way because, like you said, that kind of life really isnt for everybody).

also, the freedom fighters frankly cant be everybody's personal therapist - theyve all got so much baggage themselves and they cant even address that because theyre all in the middle of a war 😭 i dont think its that they expected too much of her - id say its much more in the direction of that they didnt even really consider what she went through or how it wouldve affected her in the first place. its less that she got overwhelmed and more that she was functionally an outsider who had no support system and no friends to stick up for her or try to really make her feel like she was one of the team - not out of malice or anything, but just because nobody really ever thought about it in the first place.

overall its just a really messy situation and while fiona made the bad choices that she did of her own volition, there were real reasons behind why she made those decisions in the first place

[supergenial]

Unicorn Overlord: It’s good

Well you already know I like to talk about games sometimes and if you have ever read me you already know what gets me writing: When I think a game is really good but also tremendously disappointing in one or two relatively unimportant aspects. So let’s dive into my thoughts on the latest game by Vanillaware: Unicorn Overlord.

First off, nearly every attack animation in this game is a delight both graphically and sonically. The attacks truly feel like they have WEIGHT to them, like someone’s getting fucked up for sure. Of course halfway into the game I started skipping animations quite a lot but the reason I skipped is because fights are a bit hypnotic to look at, and seeing Every Single Fight would make the game last an additional 10 hours or so.

Beyond that, the fact that the game makes you a programmer is just cool, you get to set several conditions to decide if and when attacks will be used in skirmishes. This opens up a tremendous timesink to anyone who cares about optimizing their teams. And hey, if a fight doesn’t seem like it’ll work, just move the characters around a bit, or their skills, or turn the assists off and on again, the rng is seemingly static so you can try any number of combinations before combat, and the battle preview is perfectly accurate so any prediction you see is guaranteed to happen.

Ok but is it too easy?

Surely enough, you’d think any game with that much player freedom is bound to be either too easily beaten by skilled players or too hard for casuals and my surveying seems to indicate: both, but mostly the first one. Upon release date I had to read a plethora of people complaining that the game was Too Easy, even on expert and True Zenoiran difficulties (true zenoiran being the difficulty you unlock upon clearing the game).

Honestly though I think the difficulty should be fine for most players, the problem here is that obviously most of the people buying day one are seasoned srpg veterans who will obviously utilize the system to it’s greatest extents. It’s no wonder that I saw spoilers for The Worst ending (which requires beating the final mission extremely early into the game) before I ever saw spoilers for the midgame or even the actual finale. People playing this day 0 were freaks desperate for a new srpg.

So rather than complaining that the game is too easy, I’d rather say that the issue is that it is Too Rewarding. This is a game where doing stuff gets you stuff, if you make a well thought out unit that steamrolls your enemies it is no surprise that it actually works out and it successfully steamrolls your enemies.

It reminds a bit of the time Breath of the Wild was released. If upon clearing the Great Plateau you go straight to hyrule castle, you will have a fight against Ganon at this maximum possible difficulty. If instead you choose to actually do the game’s content, the divine beasts will let you skip the first few phases of the fight, resulting in an easier fight against Ganon not only because your Link is stronger thanks to the hearts, equipment, energy and techniques acquired through the journey, but also because Ganon simply has less hp. To a lot of people this was an issue, they wanted the fight to be hard, but clearing most of the game actually made it significantly easier.

As far as I’m concerned though I don’t really mind it! Obviously if you prepare for a fight the fight will be easier. This is a complaint that while I do understand, I don’t really share at all.

In the same breath that I praise it for being too rewarding I will however also admonish it for not having enough content for these types of players. Surely enough a casual like me feels like freaking Einstein for beating a boss while taking no damage but it’s fair to say more content or more interesting content needed to be there to fully satisfy those who love the struggle.

Not to say vanillaware didn’t try. You have the Coliseum where your units face off against actually well thought out teams, leading to an epic fight with a beautiful gigantic woman who will join your army only if you defeat her. And once you do defeat her there’s even more well thought out teams waiting for you in further arena levels.

This however begs the question: if you can make better enemy teams in this mode, why didn’t you do that for the main game too. Not only that but challenging coliseum levels will net you very powerful rewards that will make your army even stronger and the main game even easier. Hell, you can get all the way to Amalia early on and have a lvl40 behemoth among your lvl20 main army.

To make matters worse, Amalia’s fight is easily cheesed by the thieve, one of the very first classes you acquire. The fight will count as a victory as long as you lose less percentual hp than she does, which is way too lenient. For her final form at least they should’ve made it so you can only win by actually getting her hp to 0.

This highlights the issue we talked about earlier that I will spell out once again: the game truly rewards everything you do, however it doesn’t offer any further challenge for the rewards it gives you. To be fair with Vanillaware, they reportedly ran out of money while working on the game so it’s no surprise there’s no real post-game or whatnot.

The point is: you can show you understand team building and get Amalia early but this will make the following chapters extremely easy. Hell the game won’t force you to go to any place even though there’s obviously an intended order but if you skip ahead and go to the harder places, your reward will be having an abysmal time going back to easy low level content if you want to just enjoy the story. And oh boy, let’s talk about to the story, but first

The marketing

Can't recall if official sources actually said “From the creators of 13 Sentinels” or not but I'm still blaming the fans for spreading this one because no it’s not. Why would you ever say this. Different writer, different character designer and different game director. Blud_thinks_he’s_on_the_team.jpg. Yes it’s the same company and they have a similar style in the 2D segments but that’s it. If 13 Sentinels was an actually popular game (lol) do you have any idea how detrimental this would be to unicorn overlord?

These are completely different games. One is basically a visual novel with a gripping story that will have you hooked all the way to the end, which also happens to have some gameplay, while the other is an srpg with captivating gameplay, which also happens to have some story. These are two insanely different games, why even bring it up. Haven’t felt this mad since Zanki Zero said it was by the creators of Danganronpa. Bitch one of them is a cool, dark story taking place at the very end of humanity where some kids are humanity’s last remnants of hope, and the other is danganronpa. Don’t bring that shit up. They’re totally different games. Also before going on to the story:

The Characters

Auch is the coolest boy ever. He's my little blorbo or whatever tumblr people say these days.

Honestly, it’s a cool cast, for the most part. Some person said on twitter that the game really gets the essence of just throwing Guys at you and they could not be any more correct. “Hey guys I’m Lex and I climb trees”. What more could you possibly want from a character? One of them even has the balls to, in his epilogue, invent democracy in a story where there’s only kingdoms and empires, hell dude you helped a king rise to power. What the hell. You get an old witch that reverted back into being young and instead of looking like a 9 year old she looks like a regular grown woman. For a japanese company to do that it must have taken So Much restraint.  There’s also a half-elf that’s discriminated against by full-elves, epic dungeon meshi reference, amirite. Hell there’s even a catgirl that’s just a human with no cat features, she simply used to be a cat.

Aight you got me, the characters are quite simple for the most part but I assure you they are endearing precisely because of that. My favorites gotta be Melissandre (been a sucker for swordmasters for over a decade now, plus her rapport with Scarlet is really cute), Aramis (his poses are so extra, love him), Auch (not only is everything about him hilarious but his epilogue goes HARD) and of course my most beloved: generic female elven fencer, for no one has ever breasted quite as boobily as she has.

The Story

Alright so, the story, now we’re heading into spoilers. That’s right, spoilers for King’s Ranking and Dangan Ronpa, and also Unicorn Overlord to a lesser degree.

You know how in Ousama Ranking we see how despicable it is when the previous generation clings on to life and their so called glory so desperately that they would rather supplant or ruin the lives of their children who insist on being their own person as opposed to merely vessels of their will, an impending global issue happening right now as our planet slowly rots away to it’s demise because 80 year old politicians outright despise the newer generations so much they’d rather burn the world as opposed to letting them have it. Ok. what if we used that theme but like, uninteresting?

Don’t get me wrong, I had fun with the story. At first I was supremely pissed off when there was mind control like 5 minutes into the story but the game eventually reveals there is no mind control and when it does, it kinda doesn’t fix the issue? Surely enough this is better than just a generic mind control scheme, the type of bullshit danganronpa 3 the animation despair side (aired in 2016) would pull off, but it’s still not stellar.

Turns out all these mind controlled people are actually possessed by souls from a bygone kingdom from olden days. The unicorn ring doesn’t dispel mind control, it exorcises the souls possessing the body, so that the original owner can retake control. So that’s pretty ominous and dark for sure but fundamentally doesn’t solve the issue brought up by mind control.

When Super Dangan Ronpa 2 reveals that it’s cast used to be supervillains prior to having their memory wiped all the way back to the time when they were still innocent, for a moment it raises a lot of questions. Going further beyond the issue of forgiveness for those who repent their crimes: Should we forgive those who don’t even remember their crimes? Who commited crimes against their will? A man burns down your house, your family still in it, but he was brainwashed, would you want him jailed? This is a fun thing to think about before it is revealed (in the anime) that they weren’t actually evil, they were simply brainwashed by brainwashing tech. Their acts of evil did not stem from bad choices made at bad times, they were simply forced into doing evil. This reveal of course retroactively ruins a large part of danganronpa and most of what it ever meant to me.

Unicorn Overlord, in trailers, fancied itself a game with Tough Choices, I vividly remember the trailer showing the protagonist next to a defeated enemy and the options Recruit and Spare being shown. So I for one thought that perhaps recruiting a bad guy would make it so I can’t recruit a good guy later on, or some other shortcoming. Like maybe executing someone would result in a drastic change in the narrative. But this isn’t the case.

Gameplay-wise there is no particular downside to recruiting any character in the entire game. Everyone recruitable is a Certified Good Person, who was either possesed or Doing It For A Very Good Reason. Ultimately it’s just the age old question: would you rather spare a poor man’s life and hang out with him, or gain +1 movement?

Hell, there’s only two recruitable guys I actually wanted to kill. One survives anyway, you face him off again later on and he lives again and is spared without your input. He’s not even possessed but still did something questionable, I wanted him in jail but he just lives on like nothing.

The other guy I would’ve killed is immediately spared without player input. He also wasn’t possessed but still cooperated with the bad guys, in a nation high enough in levels to possibly be able to resist the forces of evil. Tough Choices my ass.

Even if there’s no changes to the story though, the ethical question would by itself be worthy of note. I forgave this guy who aided evil but did he really have a choice? Was he right in that it would protect the people if he cooperated or is there something inherently insidious about allowing evil to be in power? Unicorn Overlord says: Who cares. He was just possessed bro. Or his ends justify his means. Stop having moral conundrums we’re trying to have fun over here. 

Point is that it doesn’t matter if they’re mind controlled or possessed, ultimately it just absolves criminals and takes away any moral question to be had about their forgiveness. No one has to be a bad guy because the zenoiran empire are the bad guys.

I guess a more interesting question would be: What if the zenoirans were good guys? Or at least decent guys. What if they only possessed bad guys, and once in control they just chilled and formed a secret society instead of trying to take over the world. Would their robbery of people’s lives and free will be so inherently wrong that it fundamentally makes them evil even if they’re improving other people’s lives? Is it ok to let people lose their free will as long as they’re shitty people? If there was some kind of evil guy, a king who’s a molester and abused everyone around him, but he turned good once he lost his free will or was possessed by an ancient relatively chill guy, would that make it ok? If you think those are decent moral conundrums know that you’re indirectly praising Persona 5, a game were The Good Guys go inside people’s minds to take away their free will.

Anyway, I shouldn’t be complaining, I’m the type that for a while has been on the side of just wanting simpler villains, any time we get something with even a little bit of nuance to it you get the most annoying people online consistently arguing about it for… I guess 5 years now?

They did put plenty of effort into this possession stuff, particularly notable in The Worst Ending. If you sequence break in a tremendously unnatural way and clear the final mission before saving Scarlet (the main love interest who is kidnapped at the beginning of the game) you get the worst ending in which you face off against her possesed body (which is implied to have undergone tremendous suffering and agony before finally giving up to the possession). After beating her and the final bad guy, Galerius possesses the protagonist and we see an ending featuring all the good guys in black armor led by Galerius, implying they’ve all been possessed too.

What’s really cute about this ending is that the credits show Galerius and his buddy Baltro first in the credits, that shit is hilarious for something that so few players will actually get, showing the final boss first in the credits like he’s the protagonist.

Well, aside from that, all the stuff with the sanctuaries that tell the lore of each continent near the end of the game, that’s really cool. Angels aren’t heavenly, they’re a failed experiment that can breed. Furries aren’t a different species, they’re elves that adapted to the environment using magic, whereas elves from the south had no need to evolve like this because their environment is so different. Honestly, that stuff was cool, I liked it. Really cool world building.

Anyway, by the end of the story the game spells out even louder for everyone that judging is bad and forgiveness is good, as it gives you the option to either kill or cleanse Galerius, with the choice to kill Galerius leading into the bad end. So if you’re ever in a situation in which you can kill Hitler remember: Unicorn Overlord wants you to spare him, he’s just a little baby boy who’s probably doing it for very good reasons.

Jesus christ dude just stop talking and tell me if the game is good or not

It’s a good game. 8/10 at the very least. Elven fencer my beloved I will follow your tits and ass to any game you’re featured in. Also play 13 Sentinels, not because it’s related in any way but because it’s freaking 13 Sentinels, if you haven’t played it then you really should

[blazehedgehog]

Okay so you've apologized for choosing the wrong words over the SAGE 2024 showcase trailer, but doesn't that mean that somewhere inside you still think parts of what you said are true? You still came to those conclusions one way or another.

Yes and no.

I would like to open this saying I used to be known as a pretty harsh critic when I started writing about SAGE for TSSZ News. I hurt a lot of feelings but I always had a logic behind what I was saying. Ultimately I figured I was judging people by standards they didn't deserve, and I kind of softened my view.

By that I mean I was judging fangames against more professional standards, and then I realized these were just hobbyists having fun and didn't deserve to be raked over the coals like that. After all, a game you pay for and a game you download for free create two very different expectations.

So I'm going to single someone out here and I'm sorry in advance for doing this, but I saw Sonic Test Labs in the SAGE 2024 showcase video. They've removed Sonic and replaced it with an original character -- a furry wolf wearing jeans, I believe. (It's a rat)

Now, I'm not out here to insult somebody's OC or even their fursona. Something I've been trying to remind people in slamming on the brakes of all of this SAGE hot water over on Twitter is that I think anybody should make anything and be proud of that. I literally just put out a Shadow Generations video 2-3 months ago where I have a long montage of fanart I drew of my Sonic OC, as I talk at length about not running from your past and embracing who you used to be, even if it was cringe. I am not here to tell anyone to stop making things.

But, like, the 90's were full of "mascots with attitude" and really only one or two stuck around, and the most prominent example is Sonic the Hedgehog. Most of these furries were lucky to get a single sequel and then they disappeared off the face of the planet, some only resurfacing ironically.

Sonic the Hedgehog, just as a character design, is kind of a one-in-a-million shot. To be so simple and so iconic and so appealing to so many people... the epitome of lightning in a bottle.

And the indie game space is a very different place than it was when a lot of people were pitching Sabrina to ditch "Lilac the Hedgehog" and make Freedom Planet into an original game she could sell, you know?

So when I see Sonic Test Labs and it's got a new name, it's dropping the Sonic connection and it's starring a fursona it's like, good for you, all the power in the world to you, I hope you succeed, but also, at this point... is this going to be worth the change? I guess I'm not the developer of what is now "Wick3r: Tricks, Keys & Speed", so I can't answer that. They have a lot of talent, though, and Sonic Test Labs was a standout game for me last year, so we'll see.

I am coming at this from my own perspective as a game developer, and I've hit a pretty big streak of bad luck as of late, I feel. I have no more time for the sort of game development I really want to do and I haven't released anything meaningful in years. The last few things I did release, I'm not really proud of anymore.

Let's take OverBite. I genuinely wanted to make OverBite into a real game. I was making steps towards that. Then my whole life got turned upside down, I lost my motivation, and I got caught up in the Youtube game.

The further I get from OverBite, the more I see its flaws. It was a Game Jam game. Most of its levels were constructed in about five hours. I have a fat design document full of too many ideas for the final game that need to be re-thought, paired down and streamlined.

I can't do any of that. I have absolutely no faith that a current version of OverBite would sell anything even remotely meaningfully for me to be worth the time I'd put into expanding (or even outright rewriting) its code, polishing up its visuals, implementing new mechanics, new levels, bosses, etc. That means spending years effectively wasting time I could be spending on my Youtube channel, where my hard work is more directly rewarded.

And it kills me. It makes me want to cry. But there's a cold part of me that says, "Get over it. You can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't do everything. Pick a lane and build that up, you can't be so scattershot anymore."

But I have so many game ideas, and more keep piling up. And even if I tell myself I can't be so scattershot anymore, I still end up working on some of them anyway. Because my heart wants to make video games and my brain says it's not worth it anymore. The market is too crowded, the investment is too large, the gains are too small.

If I put my full weight behind my Youtube channel, I make thousands of dollars a year. Not even five figure numbers, but a non-trivial amount. For Overbite, I made just over a hundred bucks, and most of that was begging for people to help cover the Steam Greenlight fee.

Or, let's say, "Better Bubsy." That Bubsy joke game that stopped being ironic and started being earnest. I work on it for a few weeks every April for the last four or five years. It got to the point where some respected people I know were saying I should pitch it to whoever owned the Bubsy IP. Which at the time was UFO Entertainment. Eventually that changes hands when Atari buys the Bubsy IP from UFO, and the CEO of Atari is out there making an open call for indie devs to submit a Bubsy pitch. This is my chance. Better Bubsy could be a real thing!

I even speak to someone who works directly at Atari! I don't even have to drop it in their pitch inbox! It's getting personally sent up the chain!!!

...

Atari and Limited Run announce a Bubsy remaster pack where they are making their own "select improvements" to the old games. That is effectively confirmation that they did not care about what I was selling. More time wasted.

Forgive me if I'm not very warm to certain ideas right now and I have a cynical, bitter heart towards certain aspects of game development. I am personally in a very conflicted place right now, and it came out in the wrong ways towards people who did not deserve it.

(For those of you who don't know what this is about, this, this, and this twitter thread should clear things up.)