#so I can't comment on the legitimacy of these stereotypes

[thelediz]

Sonic Underground episode 31: Country Crisis

I’m watching Sonic Underground in search of inspiration to finish a fic I’ve been writing forever. It’s a sad state of affairs. See the recap of the first three episodes here, if you're interested!

The plot (for want of a better word): In Southern Mobius, two settlements have been feuding, and it’s keeping them from stopping Robotnik’s latest scheme. Can the Sonic Underground unite the two factions and save Southern Mobius?

Low-intensity parental guidance warning about this episode. This episode very much plays on Country Bumpkin stereotypes. It’s all meant with affection, but it’s still…. -vaguely annoyed gesture-

Oh, we are not starting off on a good animation note, friends. There is no life in these eyes, this does not bode well.

However, Aleena’s talking about weaknesses within the Resistance that Robotnik can exploit, which implies internal conflicts being the primary plot and you know I am always here for that! (I am going to be disappointed)

It’s girl versus obnoxious boys, with Sonic and Manic celebrating after a successful mission and Sonia wanting to move on. I’m pretty sure we’re supposed to be on Sonia’s side here, but I would like to take a break less than a minute in to Real Talk you, anyone who is listening:

Celebrate your wins. Even if they’re small. Don’t let them pass by until you can only focus on the failures and setbacks. CELEBRATE YOUR WINS.

Anyway.

They find a… glowing piece of paper? From Aleena, of course. She tells them about a hydro-electric dam that Robotnik is building (which is surprisingly sustainability minded of him), and more importantly, there’s a feud between two factions of freedom-fighting locals. So obviously their goal is to unite the locals and… stop the dam, I guess? Because the dam will apparently destroy the area? I don’t know, they don't go into how this will hurt the ecosystem, they focus on the human mobian impact (environmental education in 90s TV programming? Nah, not this time!), so whatever.

Once they reach Southern Mobius, the triplets are greeted with a genuine missile launcher in the face, and we meet the Romeo of our Feuding Families Jared (Jarret? Jarryd? Romeo.) and Stereotype One, complete with missing teeth, bad breath, barely comprehensible speech, mostly blind… sigh.

To convince the grandfather they’re the Sonic Underground (“and he’s Sonic” – I admit, that was kind of a cute introduction), Sonic agrees to race the resident speedster Romeo. It goes as you would expect.

Despite how they opened, this episode will NOT have the Sonic Underground bickering with each other aside. Which, I mean, I will give them points for not completely adhering to tropes, it just seems an odd choice given the initial disagreement.

Meanwhile, Sleet and Dingo are very much being Bounty Hunters this episode, watching the hedgehogs and aiming to get ‘big money’ from Robotnik by catching the hedgehogs. I actually prefer this as their motivation, over them being cowed into it, but I really wish the show would pick a lane…

But again, a fun exchange between them (I think I like this episode’s writer) “Yes, retire. You can spend the rest of your life waiting on me hand and foot!” “Oh, boy, wow, thanks!”

But back to the plot. The Feud between the two families began because Aleena gave them a medallion to prove the land was theirs. Don't notice that this apparently happened when the Stereotypes were young adults and Aleena looks about the same age as Romeo and Juliet. But the Mountain people lost their half and blamed the Valley folk. An argument broke out, with both sides thinking the other one is trying to take full control of the land.

The triplets go to see the Mountain folk, and we meet the Juliet, Sera (Sarah? Zero? I legitimately can’t parse her accent and no one will ever say her name for the rest of the episode. Juliet.) and her grandmother, Stereotype Two: only one tooth, strong jaw, bad grammar, spine so curved she’s on a constant 90 degree angle. SIGH.

The Sonic Underground broker a temporary truce between them so they can defeat Robotnik’s dam, but the deal is immediately off when Stereotype Two sees Romeo and Juliet holding hands, and BOTH STEREOTYPES PULL OUT RIFLES. As you do?!!

Sonic gets between them, but apparently requires Sonia to tell him he did so to stop a fight from happening (seriously, his brain is not plugged in today. They even animate the cogs whirring. It’s so weird). They should apparently instead settle their differences with music (I mean… look, I know the series I’m watching but WHAT?! I mean WHAT) which everyone agrees to (SERIOUSLY WHAT).

The stereotypes nominate Sonic and Sonia to battle it out on their behalf, and to start with it sounds like they’re getting into the rivalry, but because these two actually work quite well together, it just leads into

THE SONG: How you play the game. It starts as a competitive “I’m better than you” debate, before the chorus kicks in and points out it’s better to just play together. It’s kind of fun, I legitimately enjoyed it, and their voices are very much more suited to this country-style, so that’s a nice bonus.

So the united factions help the Sonic Underground defeat the dam, and Sleet and Dingo, Manic gets to save the actual day for once by drumming the dam apart, and all is well. Huzzah.

We end with Romeo and Juliet getting married (of course), and Stereotype Two discovering that her half of the medallion has been in her music jug for decades. Because tangible resolution of how stupid rivalries are is necessary.

AND, more importantly, they give the triplets the medallions, who put them together to discover a map. Yes, that’s right, this is a PLOT RELEVANT EPISODE.

Sonic chooses to dance with Manic instead of Sonia, for… reasons. And that’s the ending joke.

Are we all having fun?

Okay, so because I could not figure out these characters’ names and it was bothering me, I went online and discovered that the songs have actual names and I’ve almost definitely been getting them all wrong. WHOOPS. Oh well. This is what happens when you only use the source material, and will continue happening. Forgive me my trespasses, I am a fan having fun.

The counters:

Sonic implying less than 100% American heterosexuality: 6

Sonia in love with Bartleby: 5/37

Sonia in love with someone who is not Bartleby: 3/37

Sonia’s got super strength: 4

Manic’s thieving Is A Problem: 5

Come back tomorrow if you’re interested for more!

[shaunashipman]

Also a reminder that the BoB minority online might be loud but they're still pretty much a minority. 9-1-1 is a procedural with a mostly mainstream audience who mostly reacted positively to Buck's bisexuality and Tommy. It was a breakthrough moment for the show and it brought them the largest audience in a hot minute and it got them praise for queer publications and organisations on how they handled it with so much love and care, they're not gonna throw that away because some girls on twitter and tiktok think he's kissing the wrong guy by making them break up while Buck is in a vulnerable position or off screen a few weeks before pride. If they anger BoBs they risk a small fraction of the audience quitting the show, if they fuck up with BuckTommy they risk compromising the legitimacy of their show by falling in tired stereotypes

In any way like that one post I saw earlier said they're already pushing their audience a bit making Buck bisexual, they're going to need time to settle with that and if they're planning on any queer revelations for Eddie it's not going to be for at least a couple seasons more if at all, definitely not by the end of season 7 or beginning of season 8 (and that for me means BuckTommy is pretty safe and hauled for the long run)

ppl like to act like fandom is this big pushing force for the show, but we collectively make up like 1, maybe 2%? of the audience. it's also why stuff like comments on the official insta don't matter as much as view/likes. the average audience member isn't trolling the internet for hints, they see that the official accnt posted a picture, give it a like and move on

and yeah, I agree, making both of the "hot straight guys" queer so quickly together would, unfortunately, lead to backlash. it's great that the reception to bi buck has mostly been positive, but as much as I hate to have to say, we can't push the envelope too far too quickly

my biggest reasoning for why bucktommy are safe and will still be together come s8 is simple pacing. if KR were still in charge it would be a concern, cause she couldn't pace a story to save her life, but tim seems to know how to do that, and there just isn't enough time to have a satisfying breakup in the last 2 eps. and breaking them up over hiatus would mean buck is starting a second season in a row with an off-screen breakup of a relationship that seemed on good terms when we left them, which, hamster wheel anyone?

[nulfaga]

10, 12, 17 and 18 if you like ♥️👀?

wow this got so long....thank you jay sorry jay <3

10. Top three favourite fic tropes

oh god ummm i love a long timeline for sure, like following characters at various points in their lives...i enjoy the fake marriage for the sake of like, a heist or an infiltration or whatever (esp. if one party has been like nursing a crush for ages and finds this arrangement excruciating)....what else...yeah the in vino veritas one. no further comment

12. If you write in more than one language, what’s the difference?

for real i've been thinking about this literally my whole life, like how many authors are there who spoke multiple languages but didn't translate their own work/write original works in their other languages...imo it's because you basically start from scratch for every other language. in my case dutch is my first language and i have the same command of it that i have in english except in the arena of creative writing. i haven't even tried it since i was like, 12 (and a 3 page screenplay for an assignment in like 2018) but i know that if i did it'd just be a bunch of trite, clunky nonsense.

there's that quote like "true ease in writing comes from art, not chance, as those move easiest who have learned to dance" - so my feeling is that you have to learn to dance (from zero) for every language like: what tools are at my disposal, what does the literary canon look like for this language ie what works am i in communication with when i write.........it's a lot

feelings-wise though reading english and dutch impacts me differently. reading a work in english i'm like looking for the aesthetic beauty (which is no less moving, to be clear), but in dutch everything feels more...idk. tactile and geometric is the best explanation i have?

as for french i would need to do a lot more reading to be able to feel the difference. i know that "je ne voulais pas être connu par lui - je ne voulais pas être connu par quiconque" hit me harder than "I did not want him to know me. I did not want anyone to know me" but i couldn't tell you why lmao. maybe passive vs. active voice?

17. Past or present tense? Why?

i think the stereotype is that present is more contemporary and past is kind of a little refined and vintage, so for me it completely depends on what flavor i want the work to have. it's also a matter of consistency ie all the stuff i've written for the true gold-verse is in present tense, so i'd hesitate to change that up unless it was really necessary...but both my original works are in past tense and i admit i was drawn in by that old timey sheen :')

the other thing is it has to serve your chosen format? like is it an epistolary work, is it in the voice of a character recollecting an event, etc etc. most of the time you get your answer that way

18. First, second, or third person?

i think i do a pretty fair share of all three. like tenses it is also a matter of preconceptions ie third person is the least likely to raise eyebrows.

first person is fun in that you can't possibly forget the voice of the narrative - it's the voice of the character speaking. you have to contend with "I" - sometimes it helps, because it distinguishes the speaker from everyone else, you avoid a lot of pronoun confusion, you don't have to name the characters ad nauseam, but it also sticks out. I did X. I said Y. etc etc it's a balancing act

third person again kind of lends legitimacy purely by being what it is, but because you don't get the narrative's voice just handed to you like you do w/ first person it's crucial to develop that for yourself. like who's narrating, how much do they know, how much do they want to reveal, etc etc. how close do you want the reader to be to the protagonist. are we in their head or are we looking down benevolently.

second person...the only published work i've read that uses second person is nk jemisin's fifth season - and that works pretty well, but it's only one of 3 perspectives in the book. i think doing second person for more than the length of like, a novella is kind of unbearable lol...as for myself i've only used it in reader inserts and the only reason i write those is to do a character study without having to bother about serving the viewpoint character. then the "you" is basically a floating pair of eyeballs that exists to perceive the character. you notice there are freckles on her wrist. you catch her smiling. etc etc