#idk how much time i have left with gerald and i don't want for his last days to be suffering

[dykethang]

very certain my neighbor just witnessed me skulling vodka cruisers while crying and listening to virtute the cat explains her departure in my carport. c'est la vie or whatever

[fantasiac]

Rough Idea for a story of Shadow in between the moments of Shadow witnessing Maria's death and Gun capturing him for stasis

(it needs a lot of work obviously)

shadow just after being ejected from the Ark finds himself of the planet, Maria's death still fresh in his mind, gun hasn't captured him yet, and his memories of Maria haven't been altered, he escapes gun at every chance he gets, he's on the run.

he has a few moments where he really takes in Maria's ideology of the beauty of the planet, he breaks down sometimes in grief, he eventually shuts himself off, becoming cold, he eventually meets an anthro child (idk the animal yet) that reminds him of Maria, she is EXACTLY like Maria, but Shadow doesn't care much for her, he doesn't even notice the similarities, he helps the child, showing his heroic side a bit, he gives the child a chance to be happy, he finds a city, with the hopes of finding a home for the child (he's still cold and stoic through the whole experience, keep that in mind), but gun finds him and he bolts, after he escapes, he finds that the child has followed him, great.

he has moments where he's angry and annoyed at the child, but he ultimately cares for her, Shadow hears that Gerald is alive (this story would show his descent into his insanity), and decides to try and find him, eventually, he tracks down a gun base, he infiltrates it to find data on Gerald, but he gets detained, he wakes up, finding himself in a machine next to Gerald, it's clear he's gone mad and unstable

Shadow gets his memories of maria altered

Shadow escapes, with a splitting migraine and two memories fighting in his head, he runs, he feels like he's losing himself (this is similar to the nightmare scene in DB)

the child eventually tracks him down and tries to help him, but Shadow pushes her away, he has been changed, he breaks down, he removes his inhibitor rings and exhausts himself of all his power, he falls unconscious and nearly burns up

he wakes up, the child had crawled into his arms, this had somehow prevented him from burning away, he gets up and sits down next to the lake, reflecting on his altered past, "Maria, I will make it my mission to follow your final wish, Maria, for all the people on this planet, I promise you... revenge"

he decides he will try and track down the chaos emeralds for the eclipse cannon, he fights with himself about leaving the child, he's shaking at the thought of abandoning her, but... Maria's wish...

the child speaks for the first time, she wasn't asleep; "the man you love, the one you were looking for... he did this to you, didn't he?"

Shadow doesn't respond as he clips his inhibitor rings back on, he notices the child has one, but he doesn't take it back yet

child: "you've forgotten about her wish, for everyone to have the chance to be happy"

Shadow: "I don't know what you're talking about-" a tear ran down his cheek, it surprised him, bit he ignored it

Shadow: "I have a mission, it's not safe for- ...you'd only hold me back"

child: "I'm not going to follow you this time, forget about me..."

Shadow hesitates, but listens, he zooms off, in search for the emeralds, leaving the child at that lake

Gerald and gun find the child with one of shadows inhibitor rings. they had tracked his outburst

weeks later, shadow finds the cyan emerald, he gets ambushed by gun, but they don't try to detain him, they just send the message that they have the child with Gerald, if shadow wants the child alive- shadow is already boosting away for the base, without a second thought, he doesn't care how much his mind tells him it's pointless to waste his time, he doesn't care how much internal fighting there is inside him, he's going to save the child from gerald

he breaks in, weakened by the lack of a limiter ring on his left arm, he's been slowly burning away from this

he eventually finds the child, but gun knocks him out, he wakes up in the machine that stole his memories again, he's genuinely scared, this machine made him insane, he has to get out of here, now. (this is a placeholder, I need to make this more cohesive and have a lot more weight to it)

but he can't escape, he's weakened, he can't even remember why he's here, gun destroyed the evidence of the child in shadows mind, he even has the inhibitor ring back, they force shadow to watch Geralds death, and then knock him out again, he wakes up 50 years later, by Eggman for sonic adventure 2

(needs a lot of work)

also the child is litarally this character, and they were born with great chaos powers like Sonic was (green eyes)

idk, I wrote this after rewatching the Fight Song music video by Eve (go watch it), I thought it would fit shadow and thought I could make a comic series / au, I might forget about it though so who knows, if I was to make this, I would try and fit it into the game canon best I can (which is why I made them erase the child out of shadows memories, but they have no reason to do that yet, so it's just a bad bit of the story), but idk

[artsymyargentavislove]

Guys, Boom!Shadow is the local cryptid...

Ok, if the Boom Universe is it's own thing separated from canon, there are no humans and no GUN...

Where did Shadow came from then?

At this point I can totally see Sonic saying: 'Idk, he just goes whenever he pleases and destroys shit up because he feels like it and it's not like anyone but us can stop him'

Imagine if Boom!Shadow is an experiment gone horribly wrong just like the original but we are left completely on the dark about it. That's the only explanation I can find for his absolutely nonsensical behavior, nonexistent social skills, his 'Angry, FIGHT ME' attitude and how eggman can easily deceive him with a shitty edited video when the original was a fucking menace that played with everyone he met like chess pieces on a board to the point he almost succeeded in his plan to destroy earth and everything in it.

Like, he's the same Shadow but there's no Gerald, no Maria and no greater purpose like curing illnesses and protecting humanity, just a creature given intelligence and thrown into the world to figure it out alone, like Frankenstein's monster but this one's half two different aliens and way too much power.

Imagine that for some reason animals don't fear him, he's an asshole to everyone else but then he has pretty birds eating from his hand, absolutely calm and quiet when around an animal he finds cute, imagine he simply can't bear to see caged animals and gets in a specially bad mood if he sees one making tricks in exchange for food (Even if they are completely healthy, happy pets), he criptically comments 'Feeling superior, aren't you? Having lesser creatures humilliate themselves for your own entertainment'.

Then the next scene have Eggman annoying him visiting his cave only to find him with a bunch of birds and a pair of squirrels all over him and the dark hedgehog absolutely unbothered, one silent glare and Eggman magically takes out a big bag of bird seeds as a peace offering, Shadow scoffs and only then he listens to whatever he has to say (QUIETLY) while feeding the birds. Eggman may know something we don't here given the a bit too familiar way he acts with Shadow through the show. (He just nonchalantly invited himself in what is meant to be someone else's house, regardles if there is no door to keep him out)

Imagine him eventually trusting Knuckles or Sonic enough to teach them how to win a bird's trust and it's the only time he doesn't immediately pick a fist fight with Sonic because he doesn't wanna disturb the animal since it's his favorite, if he gets questioned about the animal's name (As if implying it's his pet) he says his own version of 'Animals don't have names because they know themselves' (From Coraline)

(Original: Now, you people have names. That's because you don't know who you are. We know who we are, so we don't need names.” There was something irritatingly self-centered about the cat, Coraline decided.)

Then who named Shadow? Himself? Or someone else?

Imagine him treated like a wild animal, chained in a cage and poked with so many needles and scalpels without anesthesia you point at him with something remotely sharp and he goes ballistic and hissing bloody murder. Taught to obey commands like a parrot and rewarding him with 'treats' he doesn't even like but absolutely refusing to acknowledge he can talk in full, comprehensible sentences and may be equally, if not even more intelligent than you want to accept because this creature exists for my own amusement, I created him so I can do whatever I please with it, Right?

Take Stick's whole conspiration theories, (Haven't seen the series in quite some time, but as far as I'm concerned she more often than not turns out to be RIGHT) Shadow-the-fucking-Hedgehog is a living, breathing goverment conspiracy, I can absolutely see her chasing the poor guy down enough to corner him to the point he becomes absolutely paranoid and terrified of her until he has enough and yells 'I'M NOT GOING BACK TO THAT CAGE, OVER MY DEAD BODY!' and everyone is like: 'What did you just say now?'

Or someone says something specifically triggering for Shadow and he just freezes like he saw a fucking ghost and makes him lose composture and even Sonic is worried about him only for him to run away as fast as he can before he spirals into a panic attack. (He does, but in the safety and comfort of his cave)

Whoever has watched the series and has better memory than me feel free to add whatever you want. I'm just like, ok, make Shadow the villain but make it made sense, give him a valid reason to hate the world and the people in it other than just tape glue the word edgy on his forehead, but again, I'm not even able to make him an actual villain, guess the anti-hero status remains...