#one episode left and i've completely disconnected this from canon

[kneworder]

my mom hates spoilers so much that i'm watching tua4 with her bc i need to complain about it with her and she won't let me say a word until she's seen it

[chaoxfix]

I've seen the end of Prime. I didn't think it was super bad, but I absolutely do think it's in the same boat as Forces after all is said and done. Complete with the goldmine for fix-it-fics.

I still stand by saying that Nine justified the show existing. I wish he wasn't left to be isolated in the Grim because that puts him right back to the status quo of his life. Isolated and hurt.

Above all else, it's obvious as hell the show needed more time in all directions. More time in the oven, and more runtime than a single 23 episode season. I have to wonder how the production of the show was behind the scenes, as well as if the Writer's and Actor's strikes had anything to do with how much this season stumbled.

under a cut because i dont really want to spread negativity about this show, i honest to god overall liked it. or, at least liked it enough that i dont feel comfortable participating in raking it over the coals. again, im not the target audience, but if i was, i would've absolutely *loved* it, no holds barred.

i do think the ending with nine was kind of a bummer, yeah. but ultimately i think the door is still open for other adventures with him reintegrating with other shatterspace inhabitants. i think nine and rusty rose could have a healthy friendship at some point. plus i think a lot of the other shatterspaces maintain the ability to travel which could have plenty of stories leading from it, not just with nine but with one another and sonic's main universe.

genuinely, my only complaints that feel legitimate are 1) sonic's personality, 2) the majorly extended fight scenes and overall pacing between scenes with the emotional depth i was watching for, and 3) "it's canon to the games"

everything else i didn't fully enjoy was purely because i am not the target audience. im not a fan of childish humor, i like more nuance with jokes and i dont think pointing out the obvious is all that funny, etc, etc. but this was written for kids, so that's just not a legitimate complaint imo. honestly even my #2 complaint doesn't feel all that legitimate, because the target audience probably doesn't really crave that same level of emotional complexity and might prefer the long flashy fight scenes -- why could explain why there are so many, and why they're so long.

but i think overall that anything that didn't stick the landing for me was #3, because of the producers saying that it's canon to the games timeline. because of that, the expectations were heightened by people like me, who care about things like timeline placements -- and we're generally older fans with a long history with the sonic franchise and laughably high expectations and a sense that the sonic franchise should just 'go back to when it was good' rhetoric... compare that to the actual target audience: kids. an 8-12 year old probably isn't going to care about timeline placements. if they would have just not mentioned games canon, a lot of older fans could've enjoyed this more because it would've been disconnected and not beholden to so many expectations. that's its biggest flaw, imo, and that's not a flaw of the series, only with its marketing.

...for my specific timeline concerns..... when i said everyone's clamoring for sonic to 'return back to when it was good' -- the advance series is actually what a HUGE amount of people consider to be the peak of sonic. and guess what sonic prime is meant to immediately follow? sonic advance 3. to be honest the only thing that throws me off is the idea that they all live in green hill, including knuckles. after sonic advance 3, angel island is where it usually is and knuckles is living there full time again, watching over the master emerald. that's my only real concern. i dont worry about people saying it doesn't make sense not to include blaze or silver, because again, this was meant to be set after sonic advance 3, which was released in 2004... before sonic rush came out in 2005 and introduced blaze, or sonic 06 came out and introduced silver. so i dont really care about them not being included, it makes sense for them not to be there, imo.

[trkstrnd]

hiya. wanted to pop in after i read ur rant post, i hope that's ok.

i agree with what you've said, and personally for me, after i knew That had happened, what had kept me sane was that deep down, i knew carlos would never do this, it is so out of left field, and this is just a shitty plot point the writers pulled out their asses in the s4 writers room (if they kept insisting that they thought of this since s1, they're going to have to try harder, and even then, i'm not sure i would believe them.) for the sake of drama. they know having a wedding planning arc throughout this season doesn't make for good drama, so what do they do? add in this shitty plot to impede their wedding planning.

what really kills me is, in the process of this, it might have undermined carlos' entire character arc in the previous seasons. it really hurts. i don't hate him at all, i understand completely where he's coming from. what i hate is carlos' as a character (in canon at least) suffers as a direct result of the showrunner and writers' shitty plotting and writing (i think this post makes a damn good point of what i'm trying to say,) and i hate how there's nothing we can do in the face of this. i feel helpless, and it hurts to see them go down this route for the sake of 'good drama', whatever the hell they think it means. clearly the writers and the fandom as a whole have wildly different understanding of things, as clearly shown in the interviews they've done so far.

which is why, i'm willing to wait it out and see how this unfolds, even though from the snippets i've read re: the upcoming eps, i think it will piss me off and probably the fandom as a whole. at the end of the day, as the eps start airing and we slowly move past it, i think we can easily choose to take away whatever we want to from this arc, and shove the rest down in a deep, deep drawer where i personally would never revisit again.

it just really sucks for now bc we only have one ep of information to work with, and 5-6 more days to wait until the next ep. i really do appreciate posts of ppl reminding us of how they've handled previous bad arcs (tk relapsing, the breakup, gwyn's death, etc., you get the drill) that have turned out to be phenomenal in hindsight, and i'm clinging to this until the eps start airing, and we get a more coherent picture. until then, we only have each other to discuss and perhaps rant to, to try to make sense of it all.

sorry for the rant, and thank u for reading this all the way through. sending u love in the meantime, and i know we'll get through this with time.

anon i mean this with everything in my body and soul and heart.

you summed it up perfectly.

we know it’s a bad plot, and we know we will move past it, and i really think the thing that hurts the most is it does really taint their entire story so far, knowing he had this all along, but i am hoping and praying that we get more, better plot in the next few episodes, and hopefully we can shove this down and forget it ever existed.

the disconnect between these writers and the fandom is insane, though. that’s what’s getting me. it’s like tim genuinely likes making us upset. remember when his twitter handle was cancelledagain? it’s like he doesn’t care about his own show, and the real drama for him is watching us all react and hate him for the plots he pulls out of his ass.

it’s so out of left field, and it fucks with everything we’ve known so far, and that’s why i see a bunch of people giving up on this plot and show, because it feels like we have been lied to the past few years as well.

even though we haven’t. it wasn’t the truth until he sat down and wrote it in. it’s fucking dumb, and surviving on 43 minutes a week with a plot like this is exhausting.

thank you so much. please never hesitate to dm me, anon. this ask was so very appreciated.