#she should be my wife ackshually but i guess he can have her in this save (jk but also)

[holocene-sims]

scenes from sunset valley ❄️

[rei-ismyname]

HEIR OF APOCALYPSE #4 - A WET FART TO END A TURD OF A MINI

So... This was a waste of time at best. I'm not going to bother with any literary analysis because I don't feel like putting more thought into it than the author, so I'm just going to dunk on it. Spoilers below the cut.

If you read my previous entries, you'll recall I reasoned that Mr Sinister would be part of the climax. He was in opposition to everyone else in the mini and had more page space than any two other characters put together. A Chekhov's Gunman, if you will. NOPE. Doesn't even appear. Emma asks where he is and Warren says he fucked off. WHAT WAS THE FUCKING POINT THEN? I didn't want any more of him, but I wanted a story that's internally coherent. He was already a nonsense addition to the cast, and his presence just makes it a mini full of shit jokes and OOC responses to him murdering everyone's friends. He choked everything else out. Readers already have Sinister fatigue from Krakoa, where he was a crucial character - here he's just infuriatingly needless like a child licking all the cupcakes. The child is Steve Foxe, the saliva is Sinister, and the cupcakes are character work and a plot. Would've been nice, but get fucked I guess. Let's check in with the rest of the contestants.

I've read this sequence four times and I still don't know what is happening here. Meant to what, Doug? You can communicate with a fucking rock but can't tell us what's going on? You deserve to get turned into a golden idiot. I take it back, nobody deserves that.

O.....okayyyy. He doesn't pick Cable. This is gibberish. This is the end of Cable's time in the book. Lucky him. I said I wouldn't do any literary analysis but ARGGGHH. This is all information both parties, AND the reader, know. No new context, just taking up page space.

Sup, Forge? You remember how you were going to solve global homelessness and starvation? You'd built this whole system and were excited. You already knew it would work but I'm going to tell you anyway. (Can Apocalypse see the future? Wtf?) Shame it needs Krakoan biotech.

You're just the best. What this world truly needs. Except... You made a bad thing once so you can fuck yourself buddy. Bit rich coming from Apocalypse, no? 'Deserve' is moronic coming from a social Darwinist. He doesn't get picked either. *Pushes glasses up* ACKSHUALLY, he made it to combat Dire Wraiths - it just happened to work on mutants too. Mega dickhead Gyrich couldn't wait to use it and he did. I'd say Forge's sin is actually working for the US military industrial complex where Gyriches can access your shit. Buuuut, that's NOT something Apocalypse can hang on someone else. He's been fomenting war for millennia. Storm is stronger for having lost her powers, so by Apocalypse logic he should be G. God this mini suuuucks.

Alas, Tumblr only allows 10 images per post. Danielle Moonstar will not be featured bc I don't want to explain it then dunk on it. Just trust me when I say it sucks. She doesn't get picked and she's quite fine with that. Maybe Big Blue learnt nothing from his ridiculous Egyptian traps and decided to make one of his four living children heir? Five if you count his clone, Evan, who is just the sweetest kid ever.

I wonder if he's still calling himself Genesis. That'd be funny cos that's Apocalypse's wife's name. We never did see Evan on Krakoa, what's up with that? It would have been the perfect opportunity for what Age of X-Man bungled - interrogating the reason for his existence, destiny, fate, etc. Would he rethink his position on Nature/Nurture upon seeing Apocalypse behave responsibly and selflessly? Many of the other clones had their personhood affirmed - why not he? These are all very good questions that I'll come back to one day, but I'm honestly just trying to build some tension where STEVE didn't. It should be obvious who 'won' using the process of elimination.

Dougie! You're a good kid. Maybe even the best. We know this already. He picks him btw. He picks Douglas Ramsay. Cypher is the Heir of Apocalypse. Does it matter that he survived the Pyramid obstacle course through luck? Or are we meant to assume he 'solved' whatever dumbshit puzzle it was? It's quite clear Big Blue chose who he wanted to and the Tournament somehow helped that process. Doug ends up in Egypt whereas everyone else is on Arakko. Seems like it should be the other way round but whatever. How did Apocalypse get there? The transporter I guess. This really could have been a one shot.

Were you here for more than a panel of Emma Frost, Laura, Rictor (who actually wants to be here and has a relationship with Apocalypse) or Warren? Too bad, fuck you. Were you here for ANY Exodus, Armageddon Girl, Monet, Gorgon, or even Sunfire who teased a way more interesting story in issue 1? Double fuck you. You get nothing. All people I care about more than Sinister and his dumb jokes. May as well have done a Deadpool movie tie in LIKE EVERY OTHER FUCKING COMIC THIS WEEK. Okay I'm getting distracted - Doug wins the nebulous position of Heir and a ... Transformation. Drumroll please.

Woo! Bei and Warlock sightings! It's nice that they're supportive and they're the first good thing in this book. The second is that Arakko isn't blown up or moved to another dimension or whatever. We might see it again, hopefully in better hands than this kick in the balls. Anyway, let's see what Doug looks like post-transformation and wrap this shit up. Hopefully he doesn't look like an idiot.

HAHAHAHA HAHAHAHA. Oh my god he looks ridiculous. His face and body language look like mine the first time I saw him. 'Fucking really, dude? This doesn't feel like a reward.' Gold, short, Apocalypse - That's what Doug looks like now. Big Blue can alter his own body at the molecular level and he chose Mini Me from Austin Powers 2. Ororo grew up in Cairo, maybe she can call his dumb ass out for cultural appropriation? He looks like a Halloween outfit or a bad cosplayer that doesn't know he's white. White boy dreadlocks given human form.

Is he fine with being renamed as well? Revelation is another word for Apocalypse, the greek translation AFAIK. It was mentioned a lot in Immortal X-Men and Excalibur. C-3PO here could tell him that too. It makes zero sense.

I can't see how this is close to a good thing for Doug, sorry, REVELATION. Apocalypse is kinda world famous as a genocidal lunatic. He may have worn a suit to the Davos economic forum and dropped awesome one liners but it's easy to forget that was a setup. They had 20~ dudes with psi-blockers, body armour and assault rifles to kill them. Unless he included some massive physical upgrades and defenses Doug is in great danger. I hope he got to Egypt by other means bc his days of commercial flight are over. Forget flight, going to the shops to buy food will terrify everyone he sees and he'll probably get murked by a SWAT team. Fuck this is dumb.

OUTRO/SLIGHTLY MORE SERIOUSLY

Okay, it's happened, I've accepted it. Heir of Apocalypse was hot garbage and Doug looks like a fool. What now? Doug has inherited the job of 'shepherding mutantkind' with his words. I know Warren is not listening to him lol. Why would anyone else? Big Blue built up *some* goodwill during Krakoa but blew it at the end. Look how many of the contestants showed up to keep an eye on him. Most of them. Nobody trusts this MF and looking like a gold version of him can only hurt his efforts. A good writer can make anything work, but those kind of pitches getting accepted are rare.

Sigh. What seems more likely to me is some dipshit making Doug a villain. I really hope not, because let's face it, Apocalypse's motivations were always nonsensical. He's like the Phoenix - totally iconic but becomes harder to take seriously each time it's used. Hickman and Gillen, respectively, are exceptions to that and part of their success was retconning the idiotic shit that had been overused and then recontextualising the concept from the ground up. One could argue that Doug as Heir of Apocalypse is doing just that, but if that happens that writer has a lot of work to do.

I'd LOVE for him to get his own book examining exactly how one fills that role with Doug's skills, powers, experience, and worldview. Truly, I would, but the Marvel formula is built on punching and Doug doesn't do that. He's just said he's not going to do that. The easy/obvious path to take is to have Doug go craaaazy (ugh) or be changed into Violence Man from whatever Apocalypse did to him, which would be a waste of time. It'd just be Apocalypse 2: The Goldening. Sadly it's probably most likely.

Until then, I guess Revelation is a gold idiot that's probably not appearing in any books. I'd love for him to show up to the bar Anole works at in NYX or something but let's be serious here. This wasn't even good bad, 'twas just an incoherent disappointment.

[crusherthedoctor]

Sonic Heroes: Sweet or Shite? - Part 1: SILVER

There are some heroes I like. And there are some heroes I don’t like. But why do I feel about them the way I do? That’s where this comes in.

This is a series in which I go into slightly more detail about my thoughts on the heroes in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, and why I think they either work well, or fall flat (or somewhere in-between). I’ll be giving my stance on their designs, their personalities, and what they had to show for themselves over the course of time. Two things to keep in mind:

1. These reviews will be focusing mainly on game portrayals. Though alternate media will occasionally be mentioned, it'll be for the sake of adding onto a point if a portrayal is similar enough, or to compare and contrast if a portrayal is different enough.

2. These are just my own personal thoughts. Whether you agree or disagree, feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions! I don’t bite. :>

Anyhow, for today’s installment, I decided to challenge myself by starting off with a complicated one. Born from the future, and never content to stay put in said future, it's the saviour whose debut came from the most unfortunate game... Silver the Hedgehog.

The Gist: Once upon a time, in the distant future, there was an idealistic young hedgehog named Silver, gifted with the power of telekinesis for reasons unknown. With his amazing potential, he was truly destined for a wonderful, prosperous li-just kidding, it was shit.

“All two of us.”

For as long as he knew, the world was forever plagued by Iblis, the terrible Flames of Disaster. Cities stood in ruin, flames stood high, the floor was lava... it was a bitter life to be certain, all thanks to Iblis. Not even defeating the titular creature did much good, since it would simply come back to be a shitty boss fight another day. What was he - and his friend, Blaze, a character we definitely never saw before and definitely didn't have a completely different backstory before - to do?

Trust the first person he sees, of course. Even if they look like they might be related to the same Flames of Disaster that he fights so constantly.

If he had eyelids, he'd be winking at the camera.

This mysterious fellow, Mephiles the Dark, informed Silver that if he were to wipe out Iblis for real, he would need to take a trip into the past, and eliminate the root of the problem... Sonic the Hedgehog? That was what Mephiles claimed, yes. What was his proof? There was no proof.

That was good enough for Silver.

Oh look, it's Fleetway Sonic.

After an elaborate series of events, which should sound exciting but really isn't because it was just Silver going “Iblis Trigger grrr” in varying tones of voice, he was finally able to corner the blue hedgehog... twice! And despite having less fighting know-how than the hero who saved the world plenty of times, he effortlessly came close to killing the blue hedgehog... twice!

This looks like a jobbing for...

Why twice? The first time was halted by Sonic's friend Amy Rose, who Silver had met beforehand after she mistook him for Sonic, an understandable mistake that even the keenest of eyes would be forgiven for making.

The second time was also interrupted, this time by Shadow the Hedgehog. There's only room for one controversial non-blue male hedgehog in this franchise, sonny boy. Actually, his reasons were more benevolent than that: he wanted to show Silver the truth about what was going on, by time travelling to the incident that gave birth to Iblis. Why was one able to to this, so long as more than one Chaos Emerald was present? No one knew.

That was good enough for Silver.

“I challenge you to a dumb-off.”

As it turned out, Iblis was one half of a sun god called Solaris, the other half being the aforementioned Mephiles. The Duke of Soleanna wanted to reunite with his late wife by harnessing Solaris' power, which succeeded from a certain point of view since he's dead now too. The resulting blunder split Solaris into two halves. One half was all brawn, with little capacity for intelligence. The other half was Iblis.

Understanding the error of his ways, and after making peace with Sonic, Silver went back to the future to try something different, which consisted of doing the same thing he always did. Luckily for him, the script decided it would work this time, albeit at the cost of Blaze sacrificing herself... Maybe? Sort of? It’s not entirely clear what happened to her, and it’s not like this was the last we ever saw of her.

~La laaaaaa, la laaaaaa, la laaaaaa, heading to a better game, la laaaaaa~

But ohhhhh nooooo, turns out THAT didn't solve anything either! In the present, Sonic was killed by Mephiles, after the latter realised he should probably do that already if he wanted to make any progress at all with his plan. This incident led to Iblis being brought into the present, and they fused to become the omnipotent Solaris once more. Such power... such divinity... such devastation...

Actually, he was really easy. The antlion from Underground Zone was harder.

Manchild robots - 1, god of time - 0.

With their super forms in tow, Silver, Shadow, and the revived Sonic joined forces to defeat Solaris, with Sonic in particular going the extra step in retconning Solaris out of existence entirely. Since time itself reset, meaning Iblis was no longer a memory, Silver's timeline was given a second chance. What was he to look forward to in this new, promising future?

Shit.

The Design: Let's take a closer look at Silver's appearance, shall we?

Or rather, a certain thing that's wrong with it.

He's holding up fifteen fingers.

Yes, you all know what I'm pointing to: the hairstyle. Let it be known that I'm very aware of the intention behind this design choice. It's supposed to be based on the Japanese Red Maple Leaf, which holds a lot of relevant symbolism for Silver's character. This is a fine idea in theory, and I can respect the intent and the creativity.

But here's the thing: If it looks like a ganja leaf, people are going to say it looks like a ganja leaf. I know some fans will gnash their teeth at me saying this, but the fact of the matter is that intentions and ideas, no matter how good they may be on paper, don't always translate well into the final product. Unleashed Secret Rings Black Knight Sonic '06 in general is certainly no stranger to showcasing examples of that, and Silver's hairstyle is no exception. There are ways to incorporate symbolism in a character’s design without making them look like meme bait in the process, and no amount of “umm ackshually” will change that, I'm afraid.

That said, there's another reason why I'm staying clean of Silver marijuana: it doesn't work for a hedgehog character. With the other hedgehogs, their hairstyles are simple and get the point across: Sonic's goes without saying, Shadow's is more angular to befit a slightly rougher hero, and Amy's is a cute bob cut of sorts. But Silver? Even without the ganja, you've still got the two tentacles making up the back of his head.

I'd rather not be reminded of hentai quills, thanks.

“I thought Crusher-san would like it :’(”

I do find it hilarious that they went through numerous designs for Silver, and this was what they chose to go with. Some of his prototype designs may have fared better had any of them been used instead... but we didn't end up with any of those ones. We ended up with this one, therefore I'm judging this one.

But don’t worry, it’s not all bad with Silver...

The Personality: As far as actual character goes, Silver's personality is as straightfoward as most characters in the series, yet it's no less interesting, because it took a while for it to fully evolve to what it currently is. The seeds of his character - a good-natured yet awkward and rather insecure kind of guy, who doesn't fully understand how the present time works - have always been there, but it was often downplayed in earlier titles due to him being hungry for Iblis Trigger blood... or being an arsehole for no reason.

Although to be fair, everyone in Rivals is an arsehole for no reason.

Eventually though, after the writers gave him a Snickers, these traits got more opportunity to shine. Mostly in side media admittedly, but it's been noted in the games as well. With no Iblis to angst over, he's proven to be a surprisingly bubbly chap, who just wants to know how you're all doing, fellow anthro kids. And whereas his naivety was previously used for intended tragedy to benefit the evil plan of a guy who thought taking the -istoph- out of Mephistopheles would make him inconspicuous, now it's been used for a bunch of low-key contexts that do a much better job at endearing him to the player.

Finally, something I can relate to.

Hell, he even seems to have learned from the Mephiles incident, as he was quick to make it clear to the next shadowy deep-voiced anthro with demonic eyes he met that he wasn't gonna fall for any of them fibs no more, ya hear?

“YouTube and Twitter don’t count.”

All in all, it works well enough, in my opinion. His personality does pave the way for some funny and wholesome moments, and since they’re no longer trying to build him up like he’s Shadow 2.0, he's nowhere near as much of a tool as he was before. So I guess you could say... I like it?

Does this mean I can say that I like the character as a whole then, design and '06-induced idiocy aside?

Well, not quite...

The Execution: This is where the complication part comes into play. We know now that I like his personality, not so much his design, but that's only the half of it. It would be more accurate to say that I like his personality... and dislike everything else.

Aside from that, obviously.

For starters, the creation process for his character and story was summed up with, in their own words, “Think Trunks from Dragon Ball Z”. So he comes off as rather lazy and uninspired. Now I'm not expecting my Sonic characters to be 100% unique, there's always going to be similarities to other franchises no matter what you do, even if subconsciously or by complete coincidence. Taking inspiration in itself is no big deal at all.

But... was that it? Copying a DBZ character to such a blatant extent? Was there no other thought put into it?

Naturally, this ties into an overarching problem: the franchise's mid-00's habit of trying way too hard to be the anthro Dragon Ball Z. Sonic has had DBZ influences since the early days, with the Chaos Emeralds and Super Sonic, but it didn't assimilate itself into every waking aspect of his universe. It was merely an additional flavor that added to the complete package, in the same way that a Death Star with a moustache didn't mean the franchise was suddenly Star Wars the Hedgehog.

But come the turn of the millenium, nearly every main title in the series ended with Super Sonic and/or Super Shadow saving the day, while everyone else either stood around being useless, or only helping in ways that no one actually cares about. Including the in-universe President apparently, since only Sonic and Shadow were featured in the photo on his desk.

Amy smiled. “I guess the rest of us can go fuck ourselves, huh?”

This reached its peak with - of course - Sonic '06, with Silver in particular being an obvious result of this then-ongoing trend. And yes, it would be unfair to use him as a scapegoat, considering it was already a problem long before he turned up. But moreso than even Shadow, it's an era that Silver is forever a relic of, for better or for worse.

But it doesn't stop there. Since Silver is considered a mainstay character, his gimmick of being from the future also creates problems of its own, because in order for him to make further appearances, he keeps turning up for little explained reason, and thus he suffers the Deadly Six problem of being shoved into places where he doesn't belong, for fanservice's own sake. Take Sonic Colours DS for example, where he went back in time JUST to check out Eggman's theme park... Okay...?

On one hand, I’d visit it too, since it's made by Eggman. On the other hand, I’d stay clear of it, since it's made by Eggman.

And when there IS a justification with more weight to it? It's just recycling the '06 routine of trying to avert his ruined future, which isn't much better. The cause may differ depending on the story, but if his future is a permanent shitehole for one reason or another, he might as well cut out the middle man and stay in the present altogether, since that's where his friends are anyway. But they seem intent on not doing that, despite the future schtick being a noose around his neck at this point.

In hindsight, maybe this was a hint to how the rest of the arc would turn out.

And then there's his dynamic with a certain purple cat... No, not Big. The other one.

“I’m here, by the way.”

Simply put: I don't like this dynamic. At all. Or rather, I don't like how they keep milking it. Blaze's backstory was radically changed to justify her presence in Silver's future, and it really shows, since she barely even shows up half the time, as if the developers themselves forgot she was in the game. But her backstory has since been restored to her original alternate dimension interpretation, so hanging around with the grey hedgehog is all good now, right?

To be brutally honest, I probably wouldn't care for this dynamic regardless. But I would be more willing to tolerate it, and I'd refrain from groaning every time they're seen together... if they weren't intent on playing it up so much in spite of '06 being wiped out, sometimes with a bit of commentary involving their thoughts and memories, which only succeeds at making things more confusing. If Blaze is around, Silver will be nearby, and if he's not at first, he will be soon enough. This franchise does have a problem in general with restricting who's allowed to interact with who (I personally believe Sonic Heroes may have led to this, or at least it accelerated it), but I'd argue it's at its most insufferable here, with Blaze's potential and her entire world taking a backseat to being the sidekick of Ganja Man.

And you might say “Well, it's part of the franchise now, so you'll just have to accept it”. To which I ask: Have you accepted Two Worlds? Have you accepted Solo Sonica? Have you accepted Sonic's friends not doing much as of late?

Yeah. That's what I thought. “It’s just how it is” doesn’t mean you can’t criticise it.

Meanwhile, Marine is lucky enough to get so much as a shout out.

So yeah, I have quite an extensive list of grievances involving poor Silver. But... very little of it has to do with him, right? They're all indirect problems that he just so happens to be linked to, as opposed to someone like Chris Thorndyke, who is genuinely a shit character through and through. This is more comparable to Tails being bitchy in Lost World, or Amy being manipulative in Chronicles, or Sonic being a smug dumbass in IDW, or Shadow not wearing a Hawaiian shirt in Boom. Frustrating, regrettable, but not really the character's own fault.

Yet even after all that, there's one last kick in the teeth... How do you fix all this? And how do you fix it when he's since gained a sizable fandom, many of whom like him for these very attributes? If you leave it as it is, you're stuck with this big, awkward mess that everyone pretends to ignore. If you try to do something about it, you'll get complaints about disrespecting the True Silver Spirit, and you’ll get questions about why you didn't create a new character instead... And if you did use a new character for the sake of a clean slate, THEN you'd get complaints about not using Silver.

It's a tough call to be sure, and it's such a shame because like I said, I do appreciate his personality, so I can't say he's bad outright. But with all this... clutter, I can only put him in the average category. So, in he goes.

Crusher Gives Silver a: Thumbs Sideways!

Well, I'm glad this one's out of the way. Putting my thoughts into words with Silver was harder than it should have been. I do slightly regret starting this series off on a rather downer note, but rest assured, it's a lot more positive from this point onwards, since while I have higher praise for some heroes more than others, the hero characters as a whole fare a lot better than the majority of villains not named Eggman.

I guess you could say that I hope to show why Sonic's friends aren't as shitty as the haters would suggest. ;)