#obviously it’s not supposed to be realistic

[zosonils-art]

rewatched the sonic ova a few months ago. since then i've thought a bit too hard about the only loosely explained way that hyper metal sonic was created, been irreversibly changed by the idea of a sonic who wakes up in a body that isn't his and discovers that all his memories and friendships and adventures belong to someone else now, rekindled my obsession with the various metal sonics of pre-reboot archie, and finally learned how to care about sonic heroes

photon is basically every version of metal sonic ever, a few of the charmingly edgy aus i wrote when i was 11, and a few sonic cd fan theories all thrown in a blender and kicked down a flight of stairs, and i'm kind of obsessed with him. really, REALLY long infodump and some supplementary scribbles under the cut

WELCOME TO THE PHOTON ZONE

a little after sa2, eggman lures sonic into some trap that pins him down long enough for an electronic copy to be made of his brain. sonic trashes the place and escapes with only a mild headache and a bruised ego, but all the data eggman scraped is intact. as he's creating neo metal sonic, eggman uploads this digital ghost of sonic into him, with the intention to upgrade from having a fancy bootleg to a truly 'perfect' answer to sonic, who can simulate his entire psyche in real time and know everything he's going to do before he does it

[eggman would love to steal a hedgehog, actually]

unfortunately for eggman, his latest copy is too perfect, and sonic's indomitable will and sense of self easily overpowers any feeble attempts the rest of neo metal sonic's programming makes to keep him in line. pretty much the moment he's booted up, he books it outta there as fast as possible to go find his friends and fix things. with all of sonic's memories embedded in him, the thought that he isn't the real thing doesn't even cross metal's mind - as far as he knows, he made an embarrassing blunder in a dingy old egg base, had something done to his brain, and then woke up miles away in a robot body that eggman must have stuffed him into somehow. he just has to find tails and amy and knuckles and the rest, make sure he didn't hurt any of them during that mysterious gap in his memory, and slap together a plan to get his body back and shove eggman into a puddle. no sweat!

so naturally, it's a bit hurtful when none of his friends believe for a second that he's who he says he is. and it's a LOT hurtful when the real sonic shows up, in the body that's SUPPOSED to be his, and metal suddenly has no idea who or what he is

even though it's not enough to override the sonic personality, eggman's programming is still twisting metal's thoughts. an angry killer robot is an effective killer robot, so any negative emotion or violent impulse is forced to the front of his mind. metal is angry at eggman for doing this to him, and at his friends for not trusting him, and at sonic for existing in the body and life that belong to him, and all of this gets mixed in with the existential despair and knee-jerk denial of what's happening to him and then magnified tenfold. a version of the sonic heroes storyline takes place as metal's mental state worsens exponentially, and he begins to lash out more and more violently at everyone and everything around him in increasingly desperate attempts to prove [mostly to himself] that this other sonic is a fake.

this culminates in the metal overlord battle, where metal [who's escalated from 'prove himself superior to sonic' to 'defeat sonic and force him to admit the truth' to 'literally just kill him, since he's obviously a hyper realistic android sent by eggman or whatever and not a real thing that can feel pain and die'] harnesses the chaos emeralds in a last-ditch effort to prove his strength and reduce the 'fake' sonic to ashes - only for his body to twist and mutate into something so utterly, viscerally Wrong that the fear and confusion cause what's left of sonic in him to just shut down from distress, finally leaving only the mindless killing machine eggman set out to make in the first place and forcing super sonic to step in and kick metal overlord's ass. defeated by the power of friendship, depowered, and severely damaged, metal finally accepts and admits that he isn't the real sonic and probably never was, and doesn't fight it when his systems fail and he loses consciousness

contrary to what his anger had him believe, though, metal's [former?] friends did see that he was suffering and needed answers, and so sonic and tails take him back to the workshop in mystic ruins to shed some light on the whole situation. when tails finds a disturbingly perfect resemblance to an organic brain in the program map, everything finally clicks - what that weird Beam Of Give You Headache sonic got hit by a couple months ago was, how eggman made a metal sonic that knew so much about the real thing's life, why this metal seemed less mechanically violent and more genuinely emotionally distressed. with eggman's loyalty programming scrubbed from his system, metal wakes back up confused and upset but much more 'himself', and even manages a few natural-feeling responses as tails explains what he found and apologises over and over for not being able to help sooner.

he still doesn't like sonic.

metal leaves pretty much as soon as he's in working condition. even when sonic isn't there reminding him that he isn't himself anymore, he can't stand being around a tails who isn't his brother. he takes to wandering the world directionlessly, trying to figure out who he is now and find a place in a world that doesn't remember him. he's not sonic anymore, and it'd be easier to list the things he doesn't hate about being called 'metal sonic' or just metal, so after a while he settles on introducing himself as 'photon' - another intangible fast thing, like sound, but comfortably distant from his old name. [it's also a stupendously petty means of one-upping sonic, light being faster than sound and everything. drama queen.]

the timeline gets way fuzzier after all this overdetailed nonsense, but things do get better for photon. he has an identity now, and it's fragile and cobbled together and still missing pieces, but it belongs to him and nobody else. he strikes up a few odd but sincere friendships - he hangs out with big when he needs a calm and comforting presence, and has a fierce friendly rivalry with shadow underpinned by their quietly shared experience of not knowing whether to trust their own memory, and much later down the line he bonds with belle over the mundane frustrations of being a robot [and, privately, because she's the best fit so far for the tails-shaped hole in his heart]. he keeps up the drifter lifestyle, making new memories to replace painful old ones, finding ways to use his robot abilities for fun or to help people rather than purely as tools of destruction. it's not perfect for photon, he's still deeply bitter and existentially lonely and missing a sense of purpose, but it's Better, and that counts for something

photon is like some of the earlier [western] depictions of sonic in personality - rougher around the edges, more sarcastic and much less sincere, often brushing up against the line between playfully teasing and just being a bully. whereas sonic has grown into the generally kinder and more patient person he is these days thanks to the friends he's made and the adventures he's had, photon split off from him when that character development was just barely starting, and the trauma from his loss of identity made him regress instead of moving forward. he's still a kind person at heart, but that period of artificially inflated anger and despair has left its mark on how he handles his emotions, even if the programming that first caused it is long gone.

powers-wise, photon is pretty much identical to neo metal sonic, albeit with some limitations. he's as fast and strong as the real thing, can shapeshift or use chaos control if he's got an emerald with him, and with all 7 can take on a super form - though since the metal overlord incident, he's refused to try. [i'm leaving it open whether metal overlord is his innate super transformation now or if it was caused by him tapping into the negative energy of the chaos emeralds rather than sonic's usual positive, since both are really fun ideas. either way, becoming metal overlord was way too traumatic for photon to have any interest in trying again for now.]

he can still copy the biodata of living beings that he comes into contact with, but most of his storage space is taken up by the entire organic brain being simulated in realtime, which he's definitely not willing to modify or delete, so he's effectively limited to only the most recent two or three powers he's copied. he shapeshifts a little to reflect the data he's pulling from, mostly because it's fun to imagine what it'd look like. also because i'm a mega man guy. once again it all comes back to worlds collide being peak fiction

this concludes THE PHOTON ZONE, if only because this has been in my drafts for 3 days and i just want to make my damn post already. if the 1400 word infodump didn't make it clear i am VERY obsessed with my sad little metal sonic amalgam lmao. all this and i still had to cut a ton of details to prevent this infodump from being do you love the colour of the photon, so if my unhinged ramblings have convinced you to care about him even a fraction as much as i do i'd be thrilled to answer any followup questions here or on my main!!!!

[reco-obsessed]

anybody else feel like the scene where reko dies in the Alice Lives route felt weirdly rushed and logically inconsistent compared to Alice's death? more under the cut

The biggest inconsistency is how the real Reko dies in her given route; the fake reko has a knife for whatever reason- ive heard whispers of it being kais so im going to hand wave and assume how it gets in her grasp is discussed at some point (im hoping)- and despite Alice somehow being able to lay there with about 40-60% of his major bodily organs exploded out of his body and still give Reko his dying words, Reko just. instantly dies. flops to floor. from one stab wound. with what i can only assume is a sharpened butter knife because its so damn tiny. she doesnt even fight back? or say anything? these details seem small but feel distracting for such a pivotal moment in the game and seem strangely out of character. i get that the real reko is probably shocked out of her mind about what the fuck is happening, but there shouldve been at least like, 1 line of diaogue making that more explicitly clear. on top of it being kinda bull that they only get to reconcile in the Reko Lives route. It feels like a very purposeful choice to remove Reko's ability to properly forgive her brother in her last moments, so perhaps this is supposed to reflect something about her/the nature of their dynamic, but its execution is just kind of sloppy. Im assuming her strangely instant death was an attempt to make it so she couldnt have last words towards her brother in order to reinforce some aspect of his character arc (in which case it doesnt get covered nearly enough to feel like thats the case, but the yabusame's character arcs being cut short is an entirely different rant) but of all the weird ways to die in this game, why choose stabbing? even choking wouldve made more sense; cant exactly talk while youre being choked. it takes about 4-5 minutes to die from asphyxiation, add a short scene where nao is arguing with the fake reko as the real reko dies and boom. still probably a little too quick to be realistic but i would argue it makes more sense than Instant Death Induced By Butter Knife Impalement. but how the real reko dies is kind of besides the point, because the fact that she passes without dying words is far more bothersome to me. because throughout the entirety of the things that happen between the yabusames in chapter 2, we never get to see what the real reko's view of even a little of it was. all of it is from alice's perspective. part of this makes sense- her relationship with her brother and how she used to be in the past in general* is something shes clearly closed off about. and i could excuse her rushed death if we got a stronger understanding of her view of it in the route where she lives, but we barely even get that either. we dont even get any hint of her feelings on nao dying. why did you give up on the yabusames like that Nankidai. huh. and shes probably holding back discussing any of this because shes not about to trauma dump on a highschool girl, but at least a scene like the one we got in the monitor room where shes obviously sad even if she isnt saying anything. give me reko yabusame shinji ikari posing in that room with all the paintings. anything. *reko AI does give us details about her past, but i think its safe assume this has to do with it being the pre-personality version of reko.

[sevikasenby]

sevika crochet tapestry is finally finished!

[aviul]

i think there’s something wrong with the simulation

[llilychen]

it’s really sad that i always looked forward to rhaenyra and/or alicent scenes last season but i now feel the urge to fast forward every time one of them comes on screen

- every alicent scene is her looking sad or crying or her with cole but nothing she does adds anything of value to the plot

- we get the same black council scene in which the men are undermining rhaenyra twice per episode and still nothing is done (i do believe she will make some progress in the next episodes but it’s just so boring to watch her have the same scene over and over again)

cersei and dany i miss you both so much

[falinscloaca]

people who characterize marcille as ‘oh that lesbian elf motivated so much by how she wants to bang her s/o’ literally don’t get it. a marcille who KNOWS shes a lesbian would be on a whole ‘nother level of “annoying about it.” insert joke about gay being a characters only trait level annoying. she still writes off her gay shit as gender envy, protectiveness, or solidarity. once she realizes , its all over. shes going to be getting into harmful intra/ter-community discourse on twitter before collapsing into a years-long disillusionment wreckage as all her online buddies either go entirely transmisogynistic or end up overcorrecting and becoming a different kinda queerscourse radical. she even takes the word ‘lesbian’ out of all her urls :-(. not because she isn’t one or its bad but bc its a painful reminder of a sense of pride that now exists only in memory. and eventually she changes it to FALINSC-💥

[lesbiansanemi]

I am so fucking sick of living with my roommate and his fuck ass boyfriend. Also watching my roommate burn every single one of his (already rather minimal, I might add) bridges for this guy is also kind of painful but also his relationship with me is one of said bridges so I'm almost past the point of even feeling bad for him lmao

[www-pinkhearse]

I’m sorry

[antirepurp]

a state of delirium is brewing inside me and telling me to look into yakuza modding. it wants me to put jojo characters into this game

[selfcarecap]

I just remembered how I used to get upset (not truly lol) that people would call my Peter smut cute instead of hot but I didn’t even think it was hot most of the time😭

[uiruu]

I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you’re very young and aren’t deliberating spreading misinformation about how the US branches of government work. The president does not have ANY say in Supreme Court decisions. The president belongs to the executive branch of government. The Supreme Court belongs to the judicial branch. The only influence the executive branch has on the Supreme Court is if/when the president gets the opportunity to appoint a new justice, which only occurs when a current justice dies or steps down. Those appointments from the president’s office need Senate approval before a justice can be confirmed to the court.

The US currently has a conservative majority on the court: there are nine justices total with six being conservative — three of them were appointed by Trump due to vacancies that occurred during his administration* (technically one vacancy occurred under Obama, but the conservative-majority Senate at that time blocked his nominees until he left office, meaning Trump was in a position to fill that vacancy. Hm, almost as though voting does in fact matter because of how our branches of government are designed, and Democratic presidents alone can’t achieve unilateral change!).

I understand the frustration with the state of the country right now, but acting like Biden is a king with unprecedented power over the judicial and legislative branches is dangerously out of touch with the reality of how this country works. Although ironically, Trump and his allies plan to redistribute power into the executive branch when he takes office by minimizing the power of the legislative and judicial branches (see Project 2025). If Project 2025 comes to fruition, the executive branch WOULD have king-like power, which is what The US Constitution was written to avoid. I recommend learning about the limits and parameters of presidential power before you “voting is useless” your way into handing absolute power to Trump.

im not gonna respond to very much of this, except to say that i'm almost certainly older than you, and also it's funny for you to be like "Biden isnt a king and doesnt have absolute power, there's nothing he can do about the supreme court. but Trump will have absolute power". which one is it? is the president important or not? also, you people all say that the democrats will be better than the republicans. where's the proof of that? what have they done for anyone? commit genocide?

[avida-heidia-5]

MASSIVE SPOILERS for Chapter 6 of the fanfic There Is Thunder In Our Hearts, Baby by @kaossbells!

🌀 Child of the Wind:

Eeeeeeee! I turned this scene into a mini comic!!!! 🥰🥰🥰

There was just so much to unpack from this moment. I was stuck on what to do for a long time, wondering which bit I should draw. Then I had the genius idea of turning it into a comic book styled format.

What do you think? 😊

[fideidefenswhore]

'AB should have stayed on cromwell's good side and supported his policy, which she believed unduly favoured those of the realm who were already wealthy and would disadvantage the poor'...........you are not serious people.

[theautistichalflinghole]

One of the most realistic depictions of worldwide reaction to a zombie apocalypse is a Christmas musical and no im not joking

[infizero]

hold the phone guys i've just been informed that in the manga light's death is even MORE pathetic. this is fucking awesome oh i cant wait

[slippery-minghus]

gods, why didn't i get a college degree in anything useful?