#sonic adventure spoilers

[foxoftheasterisk]

the person you're thinking of in the first panel is Gamma

out of all my misconceptions and false assumptions about who the sonic characters are, omega's definitely the funniest.

[calam1typann3]

THIS SHIT IS HILARIOUS

[dzmaylon]

people don’t talk enough about this scene from sonic movie 3

(finished artwork, pls give it lots of love, thank you!!)

[krownjester]

sonic movie 3 my beloved (computer busted i must draw on paper)

[idk-whateveryouwant]

Also this unprompted hug attack in the second movie after Tails barely even knew Sonic for an entire day. Though, to be fair, it was brought on by Sonic saying Tails is his friend, probably the only one he had in his whole life.

For today's Wholesome Sonic and Tails Wednesday, may I present:

Tails having friends doesn't mean he's not autistic, or, How Having Zero Social Skills Will Accidentally Get You Adopted

(It's a little long but we'll get there, I promise)

Okay so I read a comment by someone basically saying that Tails can't be autistic because he has social skills and I? just? can't?

First off, yes, autistic people can have social skills. While it is a common symptom to not understand "normal" social cues, autism is a spectrum, and some autistic people have skills which others don't. Along with that, many autistics have learned to mask and imitate neurotypical behavior because of being bullied/punished when they act differently, or because they're trying so hard to fit in. So that in of itself is not proof someone isn't autistic.

Second, where are you getting that Tails has social skills?

Tails doesn't have social skills. Tails has FRIENDS. There's a difference.

You might ask, "How can someone make friends without having social skills?" Well for starters, I think there are a lot of decent people who are willing to be accepting of people who have a little trouble with social skills.

But the main reason Tails has made so many friends without social skills is that NO OTHER CHARACTER IN THIS WHOLE FRANCHISE HAS ANY. Most of the characters are neurodivergent coded, and even those who aren't still have zero social skills. You're telling me that in a world with Sonic the ADHD king, Knuckles the "a punch in the face is a warning" Echidna, and freaking Shadow, Tails is the one going to have trouble making friends? The entire Sonic the Hedgehog crew has exactly one social skill between them, and generally Amy has it. The characters just understand that people have trouble socializing. Maybe that's why they found each other. In my experience, we "odd" people tend to flock to each other. And once we've formed our weird little groups, who needs social skills?

But to show that Tails has very little social skills (and to prove you don't need them) let's analyze his first interaction with Sonic.

To start with, before meeting Sonic, Tails is just wandering around alone and bullied. Little guy, all alone, can't make a friend to save his life.

And then comes Sonic.

Depending on the version of backstory we're looking at, we have:

Tails spots Sonic, decides he's cool, and starts following him around until he finds his plane, which he then fixes and repaints without asking. Sonic shows up and is like, cool, you can come with.

Stalking will get you adopted, folks

Actual dialogue: "You looked cool, so I followed you, and when I found your plane, I figured I'd fix it up and we could be friends!"

Or Tails being bullied, Sonic runs by and stops it, and then again Tails just starts following him around until Sonic decides he can come with.

And the there's the movie version, where Tails, who's been remotely spying on Sonic for a years, shows up and HITS KNUCKLES WITH A STOLEN POLICE CAR, tells Sonic to jump in, and Sonic does because he's afraid for his life, upon which Tails proceeds to excitedly rant about how excited he is because he's literally meeting his special interest.

Also the version where Tails just falls on Sonic's head:

Does any of this scream "social skills" to you?

And in all these situations Sonic, who has zero social skills himself, just adopts him on the spot because that's just... who he is? This dude just wants to help everyone. Half his friend group have introduced themselves by trying to kill him, but he's willing to make friends anyway. And then those friends become Tails's friends, because he and Sonic give off classic "extrovert adopting an introvert" vibes (I'm not sure that Sonic is actually an "extrovert", but he's def. more open and better at making friends).

TL;DR: Having social skills doesn't make you not autistic, but even if it does, Tails doesn't have social skills, he just has a great big bro and a group of people with even less social skills than him

[onebadnoodle]

live and learn

[whisper-and-tangle]

im gonna fucking scream

[hvmus]

Future super sonadow acrylic standee, I'll probably finish the art tomorrow

Thank you for the food Sonic 3

[stelladrowned]

LIVE & LEARN🗣‼️🔥

[molinaskies]

What We Get Wrong About Dark Sonic

I find Dark Sonic incredibly interesting.

I’ve said this before, but Dark Sonic represents an overflow of Sonic’s negative emotions, the ones he usually suppresses: anger, sadness, and fear.

However, many people believe that Dark Sonic is somehow a betrayal of Sonic as a character (even Ian Flynn, reportedly, but I’ve yet to see an official source). Sonic is meant to be a beacon of optimism. Sonic is meant to be the pillar of hope when all else fails. Sonic is meant to be the last one standing, no matter what.

In this sense, sure, Dark Sonic contradicts the notion that Sonic is “uncorruptable,” but I think that depends on how we define corruption.

I see it two ways:

1) Corruption by way of losing faith, through dishonesty and fraud. 2) Corruption by way of a forceful shift from one state of being to another.

In the first sense, corruption occurs when someone’s paradigm is shifted through lies, cheating, or manipulation. It’s a conscious mental shift. In the second sense, corruption occurs when something (or someone) is co-opted and changed without its will or influence, like data corruption, or a shift in the meaning of a word or image. It’s a literal, physical and/or metaphysical shift.

There’s a saying that floats around the fandom that says, “Shadow is just ‘Sonic, if Sonic had one really bad day’,” and I think that makes sense. Shadow is jaded and cynical because of how the world has hurt him, but he still wants to do right by people—just like Sonic. What separates Sonic from Shadow, however, is Sonic’s tenant optimism and positive paradigm. Without those differences, Sonic has endless reasons to be as cynical as Shadow, or even more so.

So, Sonic doesn’t let himself feel those feelings for very long, and especially not when other people are around. He pours everything into a clean, neat bottle, with a tight screw-on cap, right?

What happens when something tampers with that bottle?

Dark Sonic is a forceful corruption of body but not of mind. Let’s talk about it.

How Dark Sonic Works

What I think people misunderstand most about Dark Sonic is that it’s not an intentional state of being. It never was.

Dark Sonic is the polar opposite to Super Sonic, which is achieved when Sonic harnesses the positive energy of the Chaos Emeralds. If Sonic wanted to harness the power of the emeralds for the wrong reasons and his heart accessed the negative energy rather than the positive, he could possibly bring about Dark Sonic willingly. This, however, would likely never happen because that is the betrayal of Sonic’s character that everyone worries about.

That said, the only reason Dark Sonic ever appears is because of a mix of Sonic’s pure rage over Black Narcissist physically assaulting Chris and Cosmo and the presence of hundreds of the Metarex’s fake Chaos Emeralds, which possess an aura clearly shown to impact Sonic and make him ill.

Sonic’s first interaction with negative Chaos energy from the fake emeralds is filled with discomfort and even disgust. Sonic reacting to the negative Chaos energy poorly is critical, as it showcases that it’s seeking him out, not vice versa.

When Sonic was as triggered as he was, the negative energy from the fakes harnessed his emotions and corrupted him. It was a complete, freak accident.

This situation is very similar to Darkspine Sonic, the in-game equivalent to Dark Sonic from Sonic and the Secret Rings. Darkspine Sonic only surfaces when Sonic is severely triggered after Shahra starts to betray him, Erazor Djinn murders her (she sacrifices herself for Sonic), and he sees Erazor Djinn’s final form about to destroy the storybook world. In his shock and anger, the Secret Rings of Sadness, Rage, and Hate target him, painfully turning him into Darkspine Sonic. Once again, external energies corrupt him at the height of his emotional vulnerability.

Sonic never seeks out the negative energy of the Chaos Emeralds because his heart is good. When the negative energy seeks him out in such overwhelming waves, it corrupts his abilities, alters them, and pulls them out to play.

But—

If it’s simply a matter of fake Chaos Emeralds, then why can Sonic use Tails’ fake Chaos Emerald in Sonic Adventure 2 without any problems? I posit this to the fact that Tails might have a better understanding of the balanced nature of the Chaos Emeralds (in that they are powered by both good and evil), while Eggman and Dark Oak have only ever used (or desired to use) the Chaos Emeralds for evil.

Recall Eggman’s laser at the beginning of Sonic Unleashed and Perfect Chaos in Sonic Adventure. Both uses of the chaos emeralds drained them of their power—their negative power, that is. (Albeit through different means based on the lore of each game), Sonic is still able to restore and harness the emeralds’ power because he relies on the positive energy of the emeralds. As intelligent as he is, I imagine that Eggman (as well as the Metarex) has a hard time replicating the intricate nature and balance of the Chaos Emeralds because their hearts are filled with hatred and turmoil, so unwilling to heed the perspectives of others. The power is there, sure, but not the heart.

~Chaos is power. Power is enriched by the heart~

Tikal's Prayer

I think the difference between Tails’ fake emerald and every other fake emerald we’ve seen in canon is marked by the fact that both Eggman’s and the Metarex’s fakes disintegrate after excessive use (i.e., Chaos Control), but Tails’ fake remains intact.

The Metarex's emerald disintegrates upon excessive use

Eggman's fake emeralds can't hold their form upon excessive use

Tails' fake emerald is intact and ultimately used to stop the Eclipse Canon from firing

In short, Tails’ emerald is simply a better fake, more accurate to the originals.

also, I refuse to talk about how dumb it is that Sonic was able to use a fake Chaos Emerald to do Chaos Control for the first time. However, it is canon, and therefore relevant to my point.

Another key problem cited in Sonic X is just how many fake emeralds there are. One emerald pales in comparison to hundreds. Sonic feels all the latent negative energy consume him because that energy is a corruption, itself.

It’s not that Sonic gets so angry that he just gives in to darkness, it’s that darkness captures him when he’s in extreme emotional distress and his guard is down. Dark Sonic is the result of negative, unstable, potent Chaos energy clinging to him, using his latent Chaos powers as a vessel when he least expects it and, thus, is powerless against it.

I think I can best prove this by contrasting Dark Sonic with Sonic’s other intimate encounter with darkness…

Sonic Unleashed, Dark Gaia, and the Werehog

I’ve spoken at length about this game and this specific scene, already, so kindly forgive my hyper-brief summary this time around!

When Dark Gaia’s “weight issues” cause its essence to disperse around the globe, many people fall influence to Dark Gaia’s despair, losing faith and hope in the world. Nothing like the influences of Chaos energy, but enough of an influence that much of the world feels it. A core aspect of the game’s plot is that Sonic, distinctly, does not. In the cutscene No Reason, Sonic asks Chip why he stays the same despite the darkness inside his heart while so many others change at night. Chip answers simply, saying that Sonic’s too strong to lose himself and that part of his good will is because he never doubts himself, even when he’s on his own.

The difference is that while Sonic undergoes a physical transformation, he never loses faith or gives up hope—made especially clear by the fact that Professor Pickle, once as hopeful as Sonic, eventually does lose hope.

Also key to note that Amy also never loses hope.

Unleashed is just another fun, high-stakes adventure for Sonic; there’s never a moment where he’s aggressively triggered by something or when his personal morals are ever tainted. Irritated, maybe. Flustered, even. Never at a loss. The closest we see Sonic come to this is when he loses the werehog form to Dark Gaia before the final battle. He falls to his knees, worn and exhausted, and tells Chip to run because he doesn’t want him to get caught up in the mess. Yet even then he’s not giving up.

That’s why Sonic’s heightened emotional state is so important to the conversation. When Sonic’s will is intact, he’s much stronger, but when he’s triggered by something and his defences are down, it’s much easier for corrupting forces around him to take hold.

Mind over Matter

Even with the parameters for Dark Sonic’s appearance established, something that stands out to me about Sonic’s encounters with dark energies, and something I see as additional evidence that Dark Sonic is only a literal, physical corruption and not a corruption of his paradigm, is that Sonic is still in control of himself—to an extent.

Even as he seethes in his amplified rage, Dark Sonic never inflicts harm on the innocent. After Gold and Silver are destroyed, it’s not expressly clear if Sonic intends to stop or fight Black Narcissist, but Eggman implies that Sonic was fighting Gold and Silver until there was quite literally nothing left. Sonic was given a target to attack, and he kept his focus there, even when other enemies presented themselves.

This also goes for the Werehog and Darkspine Sonic.

He also has the mind to listen to reason—from Eggman, of all people—and stop when it’s clear that he’s finished what he set out to do. Sonic channels his anger to where it needs to be, and it’s clear that Sonic’s moral code and paradigm on life are thoroughly intact.

The only thing that changes is that he’s no longer imposing his usual limits. Sonic is stupidly powerful, even without any power ups. If he ever wanted to kill Eggman, he would have by now. If he ever wanted to kill anyone, he would have by now (and technically, he has).

Sonic throws Erazor Djinn's lamp into a pit, never to resurface, effectively trapping him and ending his livelihood indefinitely.

However, Sonic holds back because he doesn’t want to be an arbiter of justice—he doesn’t want to deprive someone’s chance to be good unless it’s been clear that they cannot be redeemed.

Why I Care About This

It is no secret that I believe that Sonic is a highly emotional character—far more emotional than many give him credit for. It bears repeating that Sonic’s emotions are very big and can be cataclysmic when left unchecked…

…but that’s just part of growing up—growing up as a hero and, damn it, even just a kid.

Dark Sonic isn’t a case of Sonic giving himself to darkness, nor is it a perversion of Sonic’s character. It’s an energetic, chaotically-charged version of Sonic when he is at his angriest—and even then it’s not enough to change his morals or make him lash out unjustly.

Dark Sonic is cathartic, in a way, and I definitely think it deserves its place in canon.

[aphantimes]

i love that knuckles' imagination is being consistently depicted like this lol. did i miss any?

[cloud-ya]

my reaction to sonic 3 post credit scene but as shadow because I had my very cool shadow hoodie on lol

[libbys-braincell-loss]

sonic 3 spoilers without context

[autisticshadowthehedgehog]

my sister's keeper (2004) by jodi picoult || shadow the hedgehog and maria robotnik

There might be a morning when I wake up and her face isn't the first thing I see. Or a lazy August afternoon when I can't quite recall anymore where the freckles were on her right shoulder. Maybe one of these days, I will not be able to listen to the sound of snow falling and hear her footsteps. When I start to feel this way I go into the bathroom and I lift up my shirt and touch the white lines of my scar. I remember how, at first, I thought the stitches seemed to spell out her name. I think about[...] her blood running through my veins. I take her with me, wherever I go.

[glitchedcosmos]

LIVE AND LEARN !!

[hawkofkrypton]

✨Spoiler thoughts on Sonic Da Hedgehog 3 ✨

Movie!Shadow arriving on Earth like that instead of being made for a specific purpose by a specific alien like Game!Shadow is so fun because it’s usually the opposite (live action adaptations usually create explanations for stuff, to “ground” it)

Shadow being a feminist icon after being asleep for 50years >>>>

Gerald saying “Kids” referring to Shadow & Maria 🥺🥺🥺

The general stopping the GUN soldier from giving Movie!Maria a source accurate death I was dyyying 💀 even he was like “WOAH WE AINT GONNA DO THAT HERE DUDE”

Not sure about removing Maria’s illness BUUUT seeing her have SO much personality and hobbies beyond “the sweetest being ever” AND having that goofily mischievous streak that DEFINES the Movie!Robotniks was awesome

EVERY PARALLEL BETWEEN SONIC AND SHADOW FROM BEGINNING TO END RAHHHHHHHH

EVERYTHING ABOUT STONE X IVO ESPECIALLY THE MESSAGE AT THE END ITS THE THIRD TIME EGGMAN GETS AN ICONIC WORLDWIDE MESSAGE AND I WASNT EXPECTING IT TO BE A GAY CONFESSION-

The way Movie!Maria isn’t part of Movie!Ivo’s backstory BUT we get a mini version of that with his reaction once Gerald says “you’re no Maria” was… brilliant? Ditto for the BioLizard being a kaiju movie Maria and Shadow we’re watching AND HE FEELS LIKE AN ALIEN MONSTER BECAUSE OF IT LIKE THE GAME!BIOLIZARD REPRESENTS HIS OG FORM WHO WROTE THIS-

Shadow already feeling like a monster is gonna be very fun once he finds out he comes from Da Devil from Da Bible LMAO

LIVE AND LEARNNNNNNN

Did Tom technically do blackface?

LIVE AND LEARNNNNNNNMNMN

Am I tripping or was Movie!Sonic acting EXACTLY like Game!Sonic in his post credit scene with Metal? That was game dialogue, confidence and gestures were HIM him

Gerald died in the most “90s Jim Carrey movie” ever, by his own creation AND grandson nonetheless. Its so goofy but the fact that GAME!Gerald is the one who gets shot by the government (again, youd think LIVE ACTION would bring the grimmer fate) is SO fuckin funny help-