#sonic. is the way that he is (if he sees an image of any of his partners he goes SSKJDVHSLDKFVHDS)

[dreamcast-official]

the sheer difference in how the gay people currently fronting with me act is so funny

[septembersghost]

fwiw I would read your essay on the Memphis album ☺

😭 thank you honey, it's worth a lot

[hughiecampbelle]

The Boys Preference: Reacting To Your Tattoos

A/N: I have so many ideas for The Boys cast! Be sure to look out for more posts! I'm updating my request list to include them 😊 I'm sorry I've been a little MIA! I'll be getting back to requests asap! Hope you like it! Feedback is always appreciated 💜

Butcher loves them. This is not the moment to say something, to react, but he definitely takes notice. You got hurt, really hurt, and the only way to save you was for Annie cauterizing your wounds, buying you a little more time. Butcher didn't need to hold you down, you'd already gone limp, losing all color in your face. He begs you to wake up, to stay with them. There was so much blood. So much red. He was covered in it, seeping through his shirt. Your jacket was thrown off, the collar of your shirt torn, ripped, for easier access to your shoulder and they both discovered the tattoos. Your chest, your arm, neck, you were covered. He had a feeling there were far more, wondering why you never showed any of them. You were always so bundled up, he never even questioned it. He warned you this was going to hurt, though he wasn't even sure you could hear him. Still, as Annie's hands grew bright, he cringes, hoping you were too out of it to feel anything, hoping this would all seem like a far away dream. Hoping you won't mind the large scar that will warp your ink.

Hughie is pretty intimidated by them. The Boys are already a scary looking group, but meeting you, he thought you were going to bite off his head. Your body was pretty covered. After getting to know you, he realizes how wrong he was. You're snarky and stubborn, but you're also thoughtful and funny. If it were up to you, you'd never hurt a fly, just Vought. Still, every so often you'll do or say something that reminds him of that first impression, especially when you feel threatened or your friends are threatened. You'll show up with a few new ones, filling in the gaps. When it comes to open wounds you're ready to treat it with a strong drink and duct tape. When it comes to your tattoos, you're meticulous in your aftercare. He's never seen you so serene looking as when you're taking care of them, so gentle. Something about that makes him feel like he shouldn't be witnessing it, but he's grateful that he is. When they're in tricky spots, he's the first to offer to help. He works with nervous hands, afraid he'll do something to ruin it. You just laugh, walking him through it.

Annie knows all about your tattoos. They are, after all, linked to the V in your blood. You didn't start developing them until your late teens, your parents assuming the V they injected was a dud. Images started appearing and with them, your powers. By the time she met you, you were covered. You didn't like showing off to The Boys. You still had a long way to go to gaining their trust. Parading around the fact that you were a Supe wasn't going to help. Still, when it was just you and Annie you were less reluctant to show her. All kinds of images adorned your skin: weapons, insects, animals. You liked the weapons the best. The thing could project itself from your skin as if it were real. In seconds, you had a sword in each hand, as real and sharp as if you'd physically gotten one. The best part? Your skin was indestructible. Every few months, maybe years, a new tattoo would appear, giving you a leg up in the fight against Vought. She thinks you have by far the most interesting powers of any Supe she's met.

M.M. hates them. Because they're linked to the V you got as a baby, he sees them more of a warning than anything else, the way brightly colored animals are poisonous. He hadn't realized the first time you met, what they were from, and you were smart enough not to tell him. It was only when you were fighting for your life did you use your abilities: the circles on the back of your neck, layered, you let out a sonic scream that shattered windows, set off car alarms, and drew blood. The group that had attacked you were coughing it up, it was running down their necks from their ears. M.M. was far enough away not to be affected, but the way he tells it, he was *this* close to having his insides turned to goo. Some were safe enough to run away. The ones who were closer dropped dead with a wet squelch. He trusts you even less for not telling him. When he breaks the news to everyone else, he's shocked to find out that they either knew (like Annie) or they were unfazed, more impressed than anything else, like you'd become this great asset. You apologize profusely, but you know it'll be a long time before he can even look you in the eyes.

Frenchie thinks they're so cool. He went with you once and got one of his own: while you were getting a rather large piece finished, he wants to get a smiley face on his ass cheek. Despite the discomfort, Frenchie's all giggles. He's more than excited to show this off to everyone he decides to moon. You try to tell him how to take care of it, but he waves you off. He's eager to show The Boys. He's lucky it heals properly and by the end of the week, everyone he comes into contact with has seen it. Besides that, his favorite thing is to study the ones you have. They're intricate and beautiful and some of them are pretty silly. You never understood the sentiment that there had to be some grand kind of meaning behind them. If you like it, you get it tattooed. He asks questions about them, most done all over the world or, a couple, in prison. He thinks you look badass, especially when you shed the bulky layers and show off what they normally don't get to see. Your back piece is his favorite. When you're wearing something with a low back, or disregard a shirt completely, he can't help but watch you. You're careful, covering them with clothes or makeup so that whatever illegal thing you're doing can't be traced.

Kimiko asks a lot of questions. Did it hurt? Why that image? What does it mean? How long did it take? You never mind, in fact you like talking about them. You spent enough time getting stabbed, you wanted someone to ask. She especially loves the ones on your hands. They look beautiful as you sign back to her. Some are still a little raised despite how well you took care of them, those are her favorite. She touches them delicately, afraid it might hurt, but you assure her they're all healed. She watches when you're getting changed together, how they move with your skin and muscles. They make her smile knowing you feel so much more at home in your body because of them, something you admitted to her late one night after a few drinks. They help you like yourself, covering up insecurities, making you feel cuter/cooler than you would without them. She's always the first to notice when you get a new one, making a point regardless of the situation to tell you how nice it looks and that she likes it a lot.

Bonus! Homelander thinks they're horrendous. Disgusting. Just another way you've defiled your body. He can't stand to look at them and made sure you understand that. Around him, you keep them covered, either by clothing or makeup. You know better than to draw attention towards them. Regardless of how you acquired them (Compound V or just an aesthetic choice) you know not to bring them up or let anyone else bring them up. A-Train noticed the one of the back of your neck and that put Homelander over the edge. You were both thrown out of the room. You consider yourself more than lucky. He could have killed you, both of you, but he was feeling generous. He had bigger things on his mind. You knew working for Vought would lead to sacrifices, uncomfortable situations, but being interrogated by Homelander about your tattoos was never something you ever considered. He thinks about using his lasers every time he sees them poking out from your sleeve or pants. But he needs you. As long as he needs you, you're safe. The moment you stop being useful, he's going to cut off every individual image until there's nothing left. Until you look normal again.

[autisticshadowthehedgehog]

"Why Would You Bother With Me?" - An Analysis of Kitsunami, 09/07/2024

tw: major discussions of abuse, the cycle of abuse, re-traumatizing situations, toxic and abusive relationships (non-romantic)

so like when I first read this panel my reaction was just to joke with Cori that this is a "get out of my school" moment (iykyk) but I've been thinking about it a lot recently because I... couldn't remember any specific beef Kit had with Tails?

Last we saw of them interacting one-on-one, Tails was talking Kit down from fighting, and Kit's beef with the squad later was more with Sonic than him. Tails didn't take down Surge in #56 or even affect the fight in any way, and Sonic was the one who told Kit that Surge was dead beforehand. At least that I could remember, so I went back to those comics. Indeed, in #56 he shows no animosity towards Tails specifically, nor when he talks to Surge in #55.

Then I went back to #54.

See, he does seem to blame Sonic entirely for the Surge death fakeout, and he thinks that Sonic is literally trying to kill her when he walks in. But he does have one (1) reaction to Tails, right at the end of the interaction.

In the previous issue, after Sonic and Tails saved his life, Kit immediately switched on his subservient personality and was desperate for any kind of validation from the hedgehog. We only see it for a few panels before he is told about Surge and sinks into a depressive state, but it's made very obvious.

And when he leaves to help?

Kit's conditioning under Starline means that he is excessively codependent on Surge– and if Surge isn't around, on anyone who is nice to him. The hypnotic repetition shown to us was "You live to support Surge. You'll do anything for her." Kit's sole purpose in life is to be a Support party member.

Kit's conditioning was to be the new Tails.

Starline wanted Surge and Kit to replace Sonic and Tails– that much was obvious from the get-go. But what was also obvious was his fundamental misunderstanding of Sonic and Tails's dynamic and how that negatively impacts Surge and Kit's relationship.

Starline completely misses the strong sibling bond that Sonic and Tails have. To him, Tails is just there to support Sonic, to provide the brains and tech that Sonic lacks, and so Kit needs to be there to support Surge in the same way. He sees it only as a business partnership, and not a mutual relationship built on trust, love, and shared experiences. Starline only saw other people as tools, so obviously he projected that onto Surge and Kit, hoping that they would immediately take up the closeness that Sonic and Tails did because, well, they served the same purpose to each other, right?

Except Surge and Kit don't have that relationship. These two children were forced into the same proximity and made to work together. They're coworkers at best, being told to act like a family.

Obviously their dynamic is super toxic, with Surge clearly holding a lot of power over Kit, but it's also clear that this isn't because Surge wants to beat on the kid. She was made to be Sonic, and so she has his arrogance (and possibly Shadow's, considering IS1 showed his image when Starline was talking about stealing abilities), but, as Boom!Sonic says, "Without any of the awesomeness to back it up." Okay, wrong, she's plenty awesome, the correct phrase is "Without the experience" and, most importantly, "without the altruism that makes Sonic Sonic." Surge wasn't programmed to like the people she saves, because that would conflict with Starline's goal to take over the world. So she's only made to be competitive and to want to best Sonic, anyone inbetween them be damned. This clashes with Kit's programming to not only be liked, but to be liked by Surge. Surge was also programmed to believe fully in herself in order to enhance the arrogant trait, and Kit was made to give her the help that she doesn't want.

To Surge, Kit represents everything holding her back. And she's not built to view him as a person, because Starline doesn't view him or her as people. Obviously this doesn't absolve her of her treatment of him, and later issues showing her getting more and more aware as she becomes more social is definitely going to impact the way she views him– or, if it doesn't make her reconsider Kit's personhood, it'll serve to make her more antagonistic for the viewer.

But the point is, Sonic trusts Tails because he knows and respects him as a person. It isn't just because Tails can help him, but because he knows Tails will. Surge, at this point in the comic, not only doesn't view Kit as a friend, she doesn't even care what he thinks or feels.

And despite the brainwashing, I don't think Kit is oblivious to this. He knows how bad their situation is, but he is so conditioned to accept it that he can't escape it whatsoever. In both fights with Tails, Tails talks him down easily because Kit doesn't want to hurt anyone. Kit only reacts violently when Surge is brought up, because he's meant to do anything she wants.

Like he said to Belle, he was made for Surge. And what he says directly after– "Sonic can use me, too." Kit doesn't even view himself as a person, only a tool– that's how far Starline's brainwashing went. It's clearly even affecting Surge, who realized in the latest issue, #72, how fast she and Kit fell into their abusive patterns again once Clutch took over– they were conditioned to be tools. Clutch claimed to want to help them, but really he was just using them for his own ends, just like Starline. So they went back to the familiar.

And speaking of familiar– pain is familiar to Kit, specifically pain in service to others. In his breakdown in #50, he says that Starline made him happy he'd been hurt. And in Imposter Syndrome #3 and #4, we see that him and Surge hate Starline and want to usurp him... but also are still trapped in the patterns he implanted in them. Surge still wants to kill Sonic and outperform everyone else. Kit still can't do anything but what she wants, to the point he becomes near catatonic when he believes she's dead.

Another pattern Kit is still trapped in is the idea that he has to be okay with his own suffering.

The only sense of home or family Surge and Kit have is in each other, but they fundamentally can't work together, at least as they are currently. Kit is expected to take Surge's anger, and Surge isn't expected to treat him like his own person.

And this, I think, is Kit's problem with Tails.

He was made to be Tails, and he knows this, but he can never have what Tails has. He can never live up to Tails and do what Tails can do, despite that being his entire life's purpose.

He doesn't hate Tails because he was programmed to– as he says to Surge, he only wants to destroy Sonic because she wants to. When he first encounters Tails, he refers to him as his target- a simple, unemotional term. He doesn't have the deep ingrained hatred for him that Surge does for Sonic.

Instead, he hates Tails because of what he sees in him. He sees Sonic and Tails interact, he sees how much Sonic trusts and relies on Tails, and he sees how he also loves and respects him. He sees how Tails has his own motivations and opinions, and he's experienced Tails's genuine compassion that was in part fostered by the hedgehog that raised him. In turn, Tails is loyal to Sonic, but not because he has to be– because he, in turn, loves Sonic and wants to be with him.

Kit only wants to be with Surge because he was forced to. Starline wanted to use Surge and Kit to stop Sonic and Eggman's cycle, but he made a whole new one instead. Kit is trapped in a cycle of pain, knows he's trapped in it, and is helpless to escape it.

Tails isn't, and Kit sees that in Tails. Subconsciously, he sees Tails and only sees how he fails to live up to his life's mission, and how he'll never have what Tails has.

After all, why would anyone bother with him? They already have Tails.

Is he a target? I like it here now.

[shadamyheadcanons]

Who would be the first to confess? Or the first to realize their feelings?

I’m of two minds on this. In my experience, the more common concept is “Shadow falls first, Amy falls harder.” This Twitter thread sums up the trope very well:

[Image ID: a screenshot of a tweet by user absolutesilly on April 17th, 2023 that reads, “it’s important to me that the “A fell first, B fell harder” trope ISN’T about B loving A more. it’s about A spending a long time just getting used to having this (seemingly) hopeless pining going on in the background 24/7, while B is just. hit by a truck with it all of a sudden.

fell first: been suppressing their emotions for so long that it’s like white noise to them. always there but mostly manageable. a bruise that only hurts when you press on it

fell harder: if We Don’t Get Married Tomorrow I’m Gonna Start Biting People” /.End ID]

And I don’t think I even have to clarify which one’s which. Shadow’s love is quiet and intense. He’s loyal and devoted. His affection is usually of the slow-burn variety. He hasn’t had any canonical crushes so far, but you can see it in his familial/platonic love for those he cares about. It’s natural to assume romance would be the same way.

And falling hard and fast is what Amy does. Need I mention Sonic? And her desire for marriage?

“Shadow has a crush on Amy for months/years until he suddenly sweeps her off her feet” is common for a reason. I’ve written plenty of it myself, including multiple WIPs. It was how I saw these two for a very long time, and there’s no denying that it’s compelling and in-character. If I were writing a shadamy-esque relationship in a movie, I’d write them that way.

HOWEVER...

I don’t think game canon is following that trajectory.

Under the cut: lots of ranting and images/hints, both old and new. You’ll recognize a lot of this if you’ve read my meta analysis posts, particularly why I ship them, how they’d resolve their arguments, and my feelings on TMOSTH. There’s a tl;dr and relevant headcanon at the end.

In my opinion, “Amy falls for Shadow later” doesn’t quite jive with canon because I think there’s ample evidence to suggest she already has a crush on him. It’s not as strong or obvious as the one she has on Sonic yet, but it’s there, just a little. To make a long story short:

She doesn’t look at someone like this...

[Shadow the Hedgehog 2005]

unless she has a crush on them:

[Sonic CD]

She doesn’t go out of her way to seek someone out this fervently...

[Sonic Battle]

...unless she has a crush on them:

[Sonic X]

She doesn’t insist on bringing someone along like this...

[The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog]

unless she has a crush on them:

Wallpaper posted on Sonic Channel 2/22/21. Art by Yuji Uekawa

One fun aspect of all of this is that the social media team seems to agree with me and keeps noticeably leaning into it. The Twitter Takeovers obviously aren’t canon and I’m not putting those in the “evidence” pile, but it’s cute how they keep having Amy act flustered about her feelings regarding him, and it’s definitely not something I’m imagining this time. It’s most obvious at 18:14 here:

The gushing, the stuttering...it’s obvious what they’re implying. Cindy Robinson’s very convincing at sounding smitten with him, which isn’t surprising considering her feelings on shadamy:

The question before that one in the Takeover arguably counts, too, and the social media team was primarily in charge of The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog, after all. This is consistent for them. There are plenty of other bits and pieces from them and the not-so-subtle marketing team these days, but I’d be ranting like a conspiracist and hunting down links all day if I got started on those.

^ Me at 2am.

I bring this up not just because it’s fun, but also to prove I’m not the only one who sees it. It’s definitely there, and it always makes me wonder what would’ve happened if she’d met Shadow first instead of Sonic. Would her little crush on Shadow have become the primary one if he’d entered her life first? Would we see this kind of thing all the time if Shadow were the protagonist?

[IDW issue 59]

Yes

We’ll never know, I guess! 🙃

Regardless, she met Sonic first, so her attention is...divided. She’s usually in-tune with her emotions, so even though her outlook on love is tinted somewhat by hero worship, I do think she’d figure out she had feelings for Shadow if her crush on Sonic were sidelined. As she got to know him better, she’d find even more things to love about him, and before long, she’d be hooked.

For Shadow’s part, it’s pretty clear to anyone who’s paying attention that he has a soft spot for her of some kind. In my experience, even non-shadamy fans will usually agree with this if asked. And why wouldn’t they?

1. He let her hug him and see him cry in SA2, then saved the world because she asked him to. There’s a reason fans hate it whenever Amy’s elevator speech at the end of SA2 is put in someone else’s mouth. It’s just not believable that he’d save the world for anyone else--not Sonic, not Chris Thorndyke--because the gentleness isn’t there for anyone but her. That had to be built and proven.

2. She inspired yet another heel-turn of his in the conspicuously-named “Miracle of Love” route in ShTH where “bad boy” Shadow ditches Black Doom to help her, resulting in a hero classification.

I think we undersell how big of a deal this is. For those who aren’t too familiar with Shadow the Hedgehog (2005), that story route starts out with Shadow ignoring Sonic and...*checks notes*...defeating fifty G.U.N. soldiers? The mission says “defeat,” not “kill.” But Black Doom says “finish off those soldiers,” “destroy them all,” “exterminate,” and “annihilate.” In a game where you’re explicitly encouraged to use firearms. On human soldiers. So this Shadow quite possibly has a significant body count by the end of the level, and then he immediately snubs Rouge to destroy Earth’s digital highway system. There’s a reason he can’t get a hero ending past that point if he doesn’t help Amy. Just like in SA2, she’s the only one left who can turn him into a hero. She speedruns his redemption with one jaunt through a haunted castle. This is the sequence:

[Source]

The way he trails off at, “I didn’t have any reason to help her, but since I was looking for the doctor anyway, I figured...” stands out, like he’d forgotten how good of a person he can be.

This brief Twitter thread summarizes the events in a much funnier way than I can:

3. The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog is the most recent and blatant example. Goes to a party. Dresses up in a silly outfit. Embarrasses himself to get her a thoughtful gift. Agrees to go to a concert for a band he can’t stand just to make her happy. I don’t think I even need to explain this one, but if you want to see me do so anyway, here’s that link again.

4. In Team Sonic Racing, he’s sweet to her when they’re on the same team...

...and he’s borderline flirtatious when they’re on opposing teams. ;)

His lines are delivered in a snarky, teasing way, especially when he calls her cute, and she’s matching that competitive banter.

[Source: this Twitter thread by MeliCross22:

Absolutely worth a read, and it includes links to the lines so you can actually hear them.]

The question is whether his soft spot is romantic in nature, and as biased as I am...I don’t buy it. In the first two, she’s just reminding him of who he is by calling to mind his memories of Maria, and “Miracle of Love” isn’t meant in a romantic way. Likewise, in TMOSTH, it’s extremely sweet of him and he wouldn’t do that for anyone else, but it’s still not inherently romantic. TSR is less cut-and-dried. It could be flirtation, but it could also just be the race stoking their competitive spirits. It’s also just a side game, and while it’s still canon, I don’t know if Sega would put that kind of dynamic between them in the main series. It could be a case of the TSR writers being secret shadamy fans who are tossing us crumbs, but it could also just be them mixing it up so there isn’t yet another instance of Amy saying variations of “Sorry, but I’m in it to win it!” every time she hits someone with an item. Trust me, it gets old.

Canonically, I don’t see Shadow as being romantically interested in anyone to a significant extent at the moment, Amy included. He’s been too focused on his past, his identity crisis, the alien invasion, etc. I don’t think there’ll really be room for romance in his life until he fully makes peace with his trauma. This moment at the end of his game...

...just doesn’t do that. Shadow Dark Beginnings has made it abundantly clear that he hasn’t moved on.

And this is where Amy comes in, because I think she’s the ideal person for the job.

Sega seems to pivot back and forth between “Shadow has no friends” and “Shadow has two friends, but he even keeps them at a distance sometimes.” Without people in his life who are willing to reach out, he withdraws, and it’s really not good for him. A lot of fans feel he’s hesitant to bond with others because no one else is immortal and he knows how painful loss is. It’s not explicitly stated, but it’s consistent with his behavior. Isolating himself is easy. It’s safe. It’s something he can control.

But it’s not sustainable.

He needs love. He needs it so much. It’s his very purpose, in the most literal sense. Maria said it best in episode 2 of Dark Beginnings:

“You have a big heart! It may be difficult for you to express it, but I know that deep down you really do care. About me. About everyone! What you do is what defines you. I know you’re having a hard time finding answers, but I’m certain you will one day. Then, you’ll find even more people you can trust.”

^ This is what I mean when I say Maria would love Amy. Amy’s the only other character who feels love as deeply as Shadow does, the only one who could fully understand, and she just so happens to be a clingy girl who’ll reach out to anyone, even people who think they want to be left alone. It’s baffling that Sega basically hasn’t let them interact for two decades because she absolutely would insist on befriending him.

Shadow hides, but Amy chases. She loves a challenge and doesn’t shy away if she feels she belongs with someone, even if that person runs. If she decided Sonic wasn’t right for her, I think it’s only natural that she’d pursue Shadow given her obvious fondness for him. The only difference is that when someone chases Shadow, he doesn’t run. He clings. He clung to Maria, he clung to Team Dark, and he’d cling to her, too, and I don’t think he’d stand a chance against her charm from there. He’s a romantic in his own way, and that soft spot of his would turn rose-tinted in a heartbeat. If there’s anyone who could convince him that love is worth it, it’d be her; I highly doubt she’d regret her past love of Sonic, and if he thought about it, I don’t think he’d regret his attachment to Maria, either. Amy told him the people of Earth deserved a chance to be happy. Now he lives on Earth with her. Couldn’t she convince him that he deserves that chance, too?

And if he hesitated and tried to ignore his feelings for Amy, I could see Rouge stepping in to kick him in the right direction. It wouldn’t be the first time she talked some sense into him for the sake of his own happiness:

[IDW issue 36]

tl;dr: Amy already likes Shadow. If she spent more time with him, those feelings would grow, and it wouldn’t be long before she’d be pursuing him in earnest. With her talent for breaking down barriers and his existing soft spot for her, it wouldn’t be a very long chase.

This headcanon is the one that I think portrays it best. I don’t think I’ll ever fully stop writing Shadow Falls First, Amy Falls Harder because it’s so damn compelling, but I love this interpretation, too, and it lines up too well with canon to ignore.

[sonic-au-collision]

SONIC AU COLLISION: ROUND 1

click to see full image

RECOIL belongs to @transzsonix & @lazydayslivin [link to summary & reference sheet]

Broken Illusions AU belongs to @nb-hedgewolf [link to fic]

Explore each world below the cut!

RECOIL:

After a strange vision, Silver ushers to explore the ruins of the Ark alongside a wayward Shadow, seeking clues to another one of his seemingly prophetic nightmares. Before they can dive any deeper into the mystery, an old device is set off and Silver is captured in its vortex, sending him to the past!

Silver finds himself in the thrust of the mayhem on the Ark, and his good nature ends up making drastic changes to history when he saves Maria. Now, back in the present, Silver is facing the consequences of his heroism and what it's done to his friends. Alongside Screw (Tails) and their makeshift sonic-robot (Gumball--based on Silver's embellished recounts of his blue blur), they search for a way to right the past and fix the present while avoiding GUN'S ultimate weapon and Eggman's scheming. although, changing time never comes without a cost.

Broken Illusion's AU:

It's set in an alternate timeline building off Sonic Forces' plot, on which Infinite surrenders to The Resistance just three months after the intro cut-scene of the game, after discovering a truth regarding the fate of his squad that would break him inside out. The AU focuses primarily on Infinite's character, and exploring an infinite-less mercenary, and how he'd develop being striped from his powers. However part of it is also focused on Sonic's fate, what happens to him during the remaining months before the "main-game" of Forces' normal story; and the mysterious appearance of an unknown yet familiar foe known as the "Phantom Rider". [pictured in the image]

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

thinking about transfem metal sonic again bc she’s like. the most transfem character in fiction whos not in any way actually transfem or coded transfem like it’s entirely unintentional and that’s what makes it so interesting to me. bc like her entire Thing is identity issues she was built to emulate, surpass, and be a superior version of sonic which like. we can talk about eggman hating sonic so much he literally made a better version of him as his own child another time but besides that metal's entire life has been being forced to fill the expectations placed on her to Be someone she can never be. and this is something that causes her a great deal of anguish! she literally has a mental breakdown over it it’s something that’s clearly traumatic and distressing to her bc she can’t do it! defeating and proving herself superior to sonic is something inexorably linked to her, and both cause her nothing but misery and are both very literally dehumanising towards her. she clings to them, bc she has nothing else and it’s the only path that she’s been allowed to even consider, but they don’t make her Happy. she wouldn’t be so fucking angry all the time if she was happy! but it’s what she’s literally been programmed to believe she wants even though chasing that ambition provides her no joy or relief.

and in sonic heroes, the pressure makes her snap. if she Has to fill the mould she’s forced into, then it’s the outside world saying she’s doing it wrong that’s the problem, because she Has to be perfect, right? metal sonic is the golden child out of all of her “siblings”, and while that means she’s not outright going to be destroyed by her father and faces much less verbal abuse and marginally more affection, it also means she’s forced to uphold the perfect image her father sees her as, else she fail and face the same treatment she’s seen her fellow badniks go through. and that image she’s always tried so, so hard to force herself to fit is that of her father's magnum opus, his masterpiece, a superior version of his enemy. and to be superior to sonic she has to Be sonic and so if everyone says she’s Not they have to be the ones in the wrong and not Her she has to be the real true superior sonic and she has to Prove it.

but the thing is, not only is she forcing herself into performing the perfect role set on her- one that’s specifically masculine- she also reinvents Herself. this is something in heroes a lot of people miss, but neo metal sonic isn’t an upgrade From Eggman to her (and also came After her breakdown, she did it Because she felt she couldn’t Beat Sonic And Therefore Be Him if she stayed the same) her neo form is entirely self designed, and it was done all by her own hands. neo metal sonic is probably the closest we can get to how metal actually wants to present herself to the world, that’s Literally just named to be the New Her, and. ma’am this is a goth girl.

like. not only is she Literally Wearing A Skirt, not only does she Literally Have Eyeliner, she's also designed in such a way it looks like she’s wearing clothes, which feels silly to bring up until you remember sonic anthro characters almost universally only wear clothes if they’re female. and neo metal sonic straight up has hatsune miku sleeves a belt with a flowy skirt and leg warmers but with spikes. like it’s already fem as shit (in a emo edgy fourteen year olds oc way) but like i'm pretty sure by mobian standards this is about as feminine as a murderous robot can reasonably get. and while obviously that doesn’t = gender, metal specifically presenting as feminine in her idealised form she designed herself, while having a meltdown because she’s unable to Be A Specific Boy and is having an identity crisis bc she’s miserable trying to chase that is… like, that’s just a closeted trans girl innit. like this is Very Obviously not the intended read but like… it’s an extremely obvious and resonant one?

metal is, canonically, a scared teenager. as in, she herself says that she was scared Before her transformation. she���s mentally like 15 afraid of failure with an abusive and neglectful father figure suffering from psychotic episodes brought about by golden child burnout. like that’s not how it’s phrased in a 2003 game rated 3 and up but that is like, objectively what’s happening in sonic heroes she’s very open about her motives that’s just canon. which doesn’t make her Trying To Burn A Toddler Alive in any way not absolutely horrible like people forget how excited she was to murder a group that included Multiple small children in it brutally she’s fucked up. but her issues with her identity are more tragic than anything. her being dehumanised and treated only as A Superior Sonic broke her. and when she finally is able to express herself in any way, she's able to present as, well, a very edgy teenage goth girl but in robot form! she’s a fucked up and evil person but she’s also unable to be her true self and she’s scared and frightened and alone. and she’s not incapable of good! she Did sacrifice her life for shadow in rivals 2 like she can care for people she’s not inherently evil she’s a Person just one that steals your IP address. but what Makes her evil is sticking to a path and presentation that makes her evil.

tl;dr: canonically transitioning would have saved her (this was not an intentional story decision they just accidentally made her ideal form goth girl hatsune miku before hatsune miku was even an idea)

[fluideli123]

Okay so there's this Sonic Plurality meme going around

[IMAGE ID: Shadow and Sonic are standing side by side. Shadow says, "I have multiple personality disorder." and Sonic responds with, "Dayum!! Any of them freaky???" /END ID]

I'd seen it a few times across platforms but during one I stumbled upon an interesting response:

[IMAGE ID: I don't see anything to enjoy about this actually? Like I'm so confused. There have been no hints in the games and/or shows for Shadow to have DID (and losing memory is not the same at all, on the one hand it's trying to find out who you were, and on the other hand with DID it's literally different people living in the same body), so this is at best just something random that isn't funny, and at worst a poor attempt at a joke which both mocks people with such a serious condition and mischaracterizes Shadow. Then, the joke could reside in Sonic's answer, but considering the severity of DID, it would be pretty weird. And that's not even taking in account just how far from canon that answer is. I don't get it. I'm pretty sure there could have been many other explicit jokes to make that would have actually been funny, whereas this is just poorly thought-out. Plainly spoken, if Insta had a dislike button, you can pretty much guess what I'd use it for /END ID]

I will not be diving into the cesspool that could be created by creating a post in response to the claim that "this meme mocks DID people." So, instead I'm going to give my thoughts on the claim that thinking Shadow has characteristics of DID is mischaracterizing him might actually be an interpretation and not entirely a fact!

First of all, as stated by this person, Plurality is, in fact--in the most plainest and broadest of terms--multiple people living in one body! Shadow is partially alien since Dr. Robotnik used Black Doom's DNA to create Shadow The Hedgehog in a lab. Black Doom is part of an alien race in which one of their abilities is a collective hive mind!

A hive mind is, "a unified consciousness or intelligence formed by a number of alien individuals, the resulting consciousness typically exerting control over its constituent members." To simplify it means that a bunch of beings share one single consciousness, mind, and it can be shared between members in differing ways.

This is a characteristic of plurality! A lot of plural systems share a consciousness, thoughts, emotions, and ways of living. In some systems there are also "leaders" or types of headmates who are the main head of the collective. This would reflect Black Doom and his position of power within the hive mind and how it affects Shadow.

Outside of the similarities between the two there is also the biological aspect of plurality in play here. Shadow most likely has the genes for hive-mindedness, meaning he has the ability to share a mind with others, AKA a possibility for natural-born plurality. Which, differs from experience to experience!

Secondly, Shadow went through extreme trauma during his time on the ARK and on Earth. Disordered Plurality and Truamagenic Plurality share characteristics for their plurality being affected or formed by trauma within or outside the system. It is possible that he could have formed a type of plurality just from that experience alone, especially in combination of his natural alien genes. In a sense, he was never meant to be alone within his own mind.

Thirdly, he is a creature of chaos energy which is different and works in a hell of a lot of ways across media. So let's make a list real quick:

Chaos Emerald Energy

Manifest peoples' thoughts as power

Appliable to all living things

Can be channeled as a tangible energy

Feelings unleash energy and interact with the wielder differently

Can bend and affect reality (slowing time, warping, reshaping, travel through time and dimensions)

Temporarily enhance a user's innate talents

Channeled into Chaos Powers

Super transformations

2. Chaos energy (Archie)

Natural Liquid Chaos energy

Ability to track chaos energy

3. Chaos energy (Pre-Super Genesis Wave)

Derived from Chaos Force

Shadow and Knuckles are the only two known to harness Raw Chaos Energy

There is a possibility to harness even greater amounts of it

4. Chaos energy (Sonic X)

Emerald Chaos energy is needed to create rings

In summary, Shadow being a being made of literal chaos energy in such amounts can mean he has the possibility of each and every one of these known Chaos Energy Abilities.

Plurality can involve the formation and creation of headmates or introjects, a kind of headmate formed from something or somewhere else than within the system. Having the possible ability to interact with reality, harness raw chaos energy that others cannot, and create things based on feelings mixed with alien genes and trauma would be a pretty incredible mix for plurality. Not only that but, as you can see, it heavily ties to his own history and biology to be plural in some form or another.

Plus, is it really far off if Shadow had headmates? Many people theorize that he may not be the original after he met android versions of himself or a clone (I can never remember). Plus, his differences between Sonic Adventure, Shadow the Hedgehog, and other games (if we're to place them all within the same timeline) would explain why he acts, thinks, or shows different characteristics that some people believe "do not line up."

All in all, Plural Shadow truthers deserve to have fun and anyone who does or doesn't enjoy the meme that started this post is valid to have their own opinion. Just as it is to have different interpretations about Shadow and his form(s) of plurality!!!

[crisscross-sonicsauce]

Differences between the models from Sonic 2 and the Knuckles Show Masterpost!

I'm sure there are more but these are just what I've noticed so far...

(Also, this is kind of hard for Sonic and Tails because we don't see them much, but I'll do my best)

::Knuckles Show on top Sonic 2 on bottom

Okay, first...

Textures

For the most part, they're less furry.

Comparing these you can see that the fur around his muzzle is shorter or at least not as well defined. This is true for the rest of them as well. Everyone looks "smoothed out," especially around the face.

Another example...

You can see the fur around his ears is actually less fuzzy, and the triangle shape of the inside of his ears is more obvious. (Almost like he got a trim or something haha.) This is true for Sonic as well, especially the ear definition bit. Tails' cheek fluff is also more shapely and long, evoking his game design more. His forehead tufts now face slightly different directions instead of all pointing right.

This goes for Knuckles' chest pattern too...

The shape is SO much fuzzier in the movie.

His body fur is also less voluminous in the show (likely the cause of the aforementioned definition.) I think this goes for everyone else too (Except for Tails maybe, I can't really tell since we can't see his body that well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.)

Another one...

They got rid of his nosebridge pattern. The delineation between his muzzle and head color is much clearer. (You can also see the muzzle fur and ear change here.) I'm actually kinda sad about this one :( It was one of my favorite parts of his design. It could be due to the fur shortening and just for the show, but I'm not sure... :/

Exceptions

Tails' tails actually appear to be MORE fluffy.

and Sonic's chest fur is WAY fluffier

If I had to guess, I'd say most of these changes were made to cut down on rendering time. Switching out the movie's "denser" textures for these "lighter" ones cuts down on the budget without sacrificing the looks. Very smart, very smart. (Obviously, I don't know for sure that they did this, I'm just guessing based off of the differences.)

Structure Changes

Here are some things I noticed about how the bones of the models have changed (meaning not due to textures) (It's mostly Sonic lol.)

From the images above you can see that Sonic's shoulders are broader and his arms are thicker. His upper chest area is now more prominent, giving him a body shape closer to a "V" than the rounder "0" Sonic from Movie 2. It's really obvious in the second picture.

His quills also don't start on his upper forehead anymore, now beginning further back. His quills also appear to be thinner. They blend in with his fur more than before. (See below.)

He also emotes differently. His face rig must have changed with his model, because when he furrows his brow the way pictured above his face wrinkles like 3x more than before, haha (I hope that doesn't stick around, it's kind of weird to look at lol.) Actually, now that I think about it, it might just look that way because the show's less voluminous fur is not hiding it as much.

Yeah, that's definitely why haha. You can actually see the indents of the same crease placements in the movie model.

Also, is Tails taller?!?!? He sure looks taller here! But it could be a case of forced perspective since we can't see their whole bodies.

Knuckles' eyes are very different. I don't think the other's eyes are different, but we see them for like two seconds from afar so...¯\_(._.)_/¯

Also, I might just be imagining this, but it looks like everyone has more "neck" than before. Weird sentence, I know. You can kinda see what I mean here...If this is the case, it was likely done so posing is easier for the animators.

And generally, everyone is at least twice as vibrant, especially Sonic! Just look at the comparisons. My boys are G.L.O.W.I.N.G! Beautiful!

I think that's all I've got. If I can think of any more I'll make a part 2. If you noticed something that I didn't, leave a comment and I'll add it. Or add a reblog of your own if you want^^

(This took way too long (¬_¬"") )

[finalvortex]

Completely overanalysing Shadow Generations: Dark Beginnings Episode 1

The opening is a deliberate parallel to the scene leading into Maria's death (images taken here from Shadow '05, although this scene is also in SA2). If you're paying attention you can immediately tell it's a fakeout, though: there's no alarm blaring, the lighting is blue rather than red, and Maria is pulling Shadow along instead of the other way around.

It's the aurora borealis. You can only see them from certain latitudes down there, but up here, we can see the whole...

Maria's a nerd.

Shadow is immediately prepared to catch Maria when she collapses.

The low gravity here only keeps your condition in remission. You should know better than to exert yourself.

This is new information I think? I don't think this makes scientific sense but I guess it provides a justification for why Maria is up here aboard the ARK beyond 'that's where the research is being done'. Only, the ARK was a space colony, there were other civilians aboard it as well, like the future GUN commander.

I can't wait for the day when we can finally return. I was created here. I don't know if there's a place for me on Earth.

I just wanted to highlight this exchange as significant to Shadow's overall character arc across his history, being one where he has carved out a place for himself on earth.

Love the way Maria comforts shadow here.

You and grandfather are doing your best. I'm just as happy to spend time with you here, while you both research-

I think this is just awkward wording, but surely Shadow isn't doing any researching?

My boyyyy

Hull breach in the experimental weapons wing! Multiple subjects are free of containment!

Multiple subjects? Given the events of Lost Impact, things are just escaping from here all the time, huh.

Here's the entries on this incident from Gerald's journal in Sonic Battle:

The higher ups are threatening to shut down this research facility. I had no choice but to hand them the Gizoid to buy more time for my research. I tried to be careful and commanded it to never absorb any dangerous technologies. However, I have heard that other researchers have been making the Gizoid absorb weapons. Apparently, the way to cause the Gizoid to form a new "Link" is to show it power that surpasses that of its former master. While this poses immense danger, I cannot risk losing Maria.

My worst fears have come true. The Gizoid has absorbed enough weaponry and technology that it has started to go out of control. The resulting rampage resulted in the destruction of most of the "Ark." ... I have deciphered the rest of the stone tablet. It says, "When the Gizoid had learned all that it could, it became a god of wrath, and all was destroyed." The researchers somehow managed to subdue the Gizoid and sealed it away.

That robot was heading towards Grandfather's lab! Shadow, you have to save him!

Why was Emerl - uh, well, I guess Project Gizoid at this point - headed directly for Gerald? If he was overloaded with power, like at the end of Sonic Battle, he should just be destroying things indiscriminately, right? So... was this a deliberate ploy by GUN to get rid of Gerald?

Maria grabbing Shadow's hand breaks the illusion briefly and triggers a trauma-induced flashback (forward?) to the GUN soldier shooting her. Compare with the actual scene from Shadow '05:

Again, why is Emerl specifically targeting Gerald here?

Not much to say about the fight scene aside from the fact that it's really well animated, and it happens with no background music to emphasize the weight of the blows being thrown. It's also really cool how Emerl copies Shadow's spin attack - you don't need to know how the Gizoid functions for that to be a cool visual, but it's a nice nod if you do.

Ok this is really confusing me. Is there any mention of GUN having a space fleet anywhere? Where did these things come from? They don't even share the same aesthetic as other GUN vehicles, they look more like the Egg Fleet.

Nice look at Shadow's Air Shoes from below the glass floor.

Next Shadow lands into Gerald's cell on Prison Island, which raises the question: why is this in Shadow's memories? Is this just his memory of the recording from SA2? Or was Shadow not put on ice until after Gerald's execution? We know it wasn't immediately after the ARK was destroyed, since he was around long enough for Gerald to alter his memories.

There is a bit of static distortion here, with an analog effect that implies it might just be the video.

On the other hand, we actually get these very brief flashes of Gerald's execution here, which we don't see in SA2 itself.

The professor gets farther and farther away from Shadow. He can no longer reach him.

Shadow then falls into a red sky, with bits of debris floating all around him, reflecting the final battle against Devil Doom in Shadow '05.

Interestingly, this scene is mixing imagery from both Gerald and Maria's deaths. The image of the GUN soldiers is the firing line that killed Gerald, and the sound of the lightning turns into automatic gunfire, as opposed to the single pistol shot that killed Maria.

Finally, Shadow falls into the giant face and outstretched hands of Black Doom.

Waking up from his nightmare in a panic, Shadow uses that damn fourth chaos emerald* to Chaos Spear this unfortunate tree.

*Okay, the fourth chaos emerald was the white one.

The moon looks so good.

Shadow stands in a field surrounded by lilies, a flower which can be used to symbolise purity as well as death, and is a flower commonly used at funerals. In particular, they are often placed on the graves of children.

That was no mere nightmare. And it all began in view of the ARK. Could he have survived? No, that can't be. I need answers.

Shadow seems to think the sight of the ARK is what triggered this nightmare. I think the only 'he' that makes sense here is Black Doom, since Gerald and Emerl are both pretty definitively dead.

Based on the trailer, I think from here Shadow is going to collect Team Dark to raid an Eggman base so they can obtain a rocket to get up to the ARK.

The song that plays over the credits is a remix of Throw it All Away. I have no idea why it shows footage of the biolizard fight, beyond "this is the Sonic Adventure 2 focused episode".

[krysissy]

Daily reminder for the sonadow fans that this is a thing.

I didn't even got to say nothing. It explains itself, the month of Tanabata? The seperation of two lovers? The moon and it's shadow? That's romantic as fuck ngl. They are symbolizing that Shadow is this astronomical show that is Sonic's favourite. And I think I might as well explode. I actually can't believe that the Sonic Channel actually WROTE this.

THIS IS SAID PICTURE. HE'S NOT LOOKING BUT GAZING (yes they specifically used gazing and not looking which adds more to the romantic flavour 💀) AT THE MOON WHICH IN THIS STORY IS SYMBOLIZING SONIC.

Oh my god it's reciprocated.

"When explaining the relationship between Sonic and Shadow in the bottom description after the story, the title of the section is called: "A rare relationship that can enter one's heart." (In Japanese: 懐に入って来られる稀有（けう）な関係) The meaning of this phrase in Japanese is to describe a relationship that is rare and special that goes beyond superficial interactions and instead, reaches a deep emotional level between the two parties. In Japanese, the term "懐" (futoko) refers to the heart or inner most feelings of a person. It represents a sense of trust and intimacy. Along with this, the word "懐" can also be used to describe a pocket used when wearing kimonos that holds important valuables such as wallets or other important artifacts. When using this phrase, it can literally mean that someone is entering someone's heart/pocket where important artifacts go. The phrase indicates that someone is entering someone's heart, which can also indicate someone saying that they like a person because they are letting them enter the deepest and more intimate parts of their heart. In this case, it would mean that Sonic is entering Shadow's heart since later in the description while using the same term "懐," it mentions how Sonic is the only one that can say something that enters Shadow's heart.

(In Japanese: 実際、シャドウにここまで懐深く入って何かを言えて、それが心に届く（届かないことも多いですが）のは、ソニックくらいではないでしょうか。) This indicates that Shadow likes Sonic in a special and rare way that is on an intimate, trusting and deep emotional level since he at times allows Sonic to enter his heart. It also tells how Shadow sees his relationship with Sonic as rare and special on a deep emotional level that is not superficial and that he cares about him despite his Tsundere personality. This can further be seen in the Sonic Pic image of Shadow looking at the moon (Sonic) with fondness that was released later. [The phrase using this term "懐" is not used in any other description of relationship from the 2021 calendar stories, including his friends: Tails, Knuckles and Amy Rose.]"

Holy shit there's no way they actually wrote all that. They trust each other on a deep, emotional, intimate level. And I think I might just die.

[solalunar-eclipse]

Okay. Okay, I don’t normally do this, but I’ve been wanting to do some sort of analysis post recently and the Sonadow shipper inside me grabbed me by the throat and pointed in Netflix's direction, soooooo...let’s have a look at some clips of Sonic and Shadow interacting in Sonic Prime, shall we? (Putting this under a readmore because of all the images.)

The first clip comes from this post. (I don't know how to add that particular gif to my post, or else I'd put it here too, but oh well. I'm analyzing the first one, to be specific.)

So, we begin with Shadow walking away, saying “We’re going after Nine”.

Sonic then reaches out to stop him (with his right hand, despite the fact that he has to reach all the way across his own body to do so, possibly suggesting that Prime!Sonic is right-handed?). This seems to be just before Shadow’s noticed, because he’s still moving forward, looking resolved now that he’s decided what to do.

Shadow sees Sonic’s hand, and looks at it with an expression that seems…mildly irritated, but not outright angry. It’s about halfway between his “resting grumpy face” and his “actually angry face”, in my opinion.

He looks over at Sonic himself with a slightly angrier face (mainly made evident by the fact that the point in the middle of his brow is actually touching his muzzle instead of resting above it).

Then he looks back at Sonic’s hand again (in a pose that I swear is slightly different from the last one even if it doesn’t look that way). The only real difference is that he’s just looking down a little more. The effect of these last three images in actual motion, though, is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it glance at the hand, up to Sonic, and then back to the hand. It's sort of a "huh-what-huh?!" motion, I think. To me, this gives off extremely strong “what the heck is even happening right now?!” energy.

For completion’s sake, I’m going to finish out the rest of the gif with these last three pictures. Shadow pulls away from Sonic at this point (which, fair, Sonic did grab him out of nowhere and he’s not normally very touchy-feely although this may be disproved in the next gif), and it may or may not have felt like a small punch to the gut for me to see Sonic’s hand outstretched like that, but anyway.

Shadow shifts into one of his patented I’m Trying To Be Cool And Aloof Despite Being An Adorable Three Foot Tall Hedgehog poses, complete with an eyeroll. He doesn’t actually seem that upset about Sonic touching him, however, I think it’s probably more the context of the situation. Shadow keeps insisting that Nine is a threat that needs to be stopped, and Sonic keeps preventing him from doing that, so his frustrated reaction seems to have much more to do with why Sonic touched him than the fact that he did so at all.

And, least but certainly not least, a cute contemplative (and still slightly grumpy) expression from Shadow. (He’s just adorable!! Aaaaaaa—)

Now then! Let’s move onto a really, really big one…

…The Hug™.

The post that I got this clip from actually has some really good points that I’m going to discuss further, so please go read that first! It won’t take long, and also everything the OP says there is absolutely true.

Ready? Here we go! (Please excuse the slightly crunchy pictures...the only way I was able to get this level of detailed analysis was by recording the gif, scrubbing through the frames, and taking screenshots of specific moments, which naturally led to some artifacting.)

So, what's just happened prior to this frame was Rebel Rouge saying happily, "Sonic, you're okay!". Sonic, like the goof he is, does not acknowledge this in any way, fully focused on introducing his boyfriend to his other Shatterspace pals. Instead, he's just looking over at Shadow. Notably, Shadow is instead looking up at Rebel. I'd like to think this is because Rebel has the most put-together and leader-like behavior out of the Rouge counterparts, so he could be waiting for her to continue speaking and give instructions or commentary on the situation, like she does with Team Dark in the games. That's just my take, though, he could just as well be generally on edge—he is in the middle of a battlefield, after all.

Smear frame!! This is included for the expressions as well as for completeness…but mostly for the expressions. Look at how big Sonic's eyes are. Look at how excited he is. He's so hyped to introduce his best rival to everyone. Shadow, meanwhile, looks like he just bluescreened out of pure shock. Sonic's yanking him over so fast he's all blurry, but we can see that his expression is basically 0—0 right now. He has been Touched and he is being Moved and he has not had time to process Why.

(Notably, however, he doesn't break the hold, despite the fact that he definitely could...)

Now, they’ve both settled into place (although ‘settled’ may be the wrong word for Shadow, haha). Sonic is doing what I can only describe as beaming—just look at him! He has a big smile on his face, and he looks almost proud to be introducing Shadow. It really shows how much Sonic values and respects him. (*sobs*) Shadow, meanwhile, has shifted from “what is happening” to “oh Chaos I am being held I am being hugged?? What??? Physical contact? Why????”. He just looks so stunned by the hug, it’s too adorable! More specifically, in addition to the obvious fact that his irises and pupils have shrunk and that he has very stiff posture, if you look very closely at the gif as well as at the following pictures, his ears are also standing up a little straighter and his quills have pushed back slightly, possibly prickling at the sudden contact? Interesting…

Here, we can see Shadow’s ears relax now that he’s processed what’s going on, and his quills have more of a visible curve to them instead of sticking out so much. He’s also glaring off to one side in a position that could either be interpreted as frustration at his current situation (though not so much that he’s willing to push away!!) or as embarrassment. Personally, I think it’s a little of both. Sonic, meanwhile, is still smiling like the sweetheart he is.

Now, we’re getting into the frames leading up to Sonic leaning into Shadow (aka one of the most precious moments of the show). Honestly, I don’t have too much to say about this one, except that Sonic is moving in a way that he would normally while talking right now (shifting around, because this boy has loads of energy) so I have a feeling Shadow probably doesn’t expect the cuddles that are coming his way, ehehe.

The Smush begins!! Shadow looks like he’s quickly resigned himself to his fate, but also decently irritated that he’s essentially getting side-snuggled in front of everyone. This could’ve been another part where he shoved Sonic off himself (goodness knows he did it before in Avoid the Void), and yet he doesn’t, leading to the best part of this whole moment!

Sonic, you smug hedgie. Shadow’s already letting you hug him, don’t push it with that smirk! Shadow does have his eyes closed here, suggesting to me that he is at least a little bit annoyed by now. Again, though, I think this has more to do with the fact that he’s essentially in front of an entire crowd, none of whom recognize or know him. I’ve seen someone else point out that Shadow gets more closed off in Prime when he’s around people aside from Sonic, so honestly, the fact that he’s putting up with this at all sure is…something. (Shipping goggles on: it could be because he appreciates Sonic’s affection enough that he’s willing to cope with the embarrassment if it means the cute annoying hedgehog next to him will hold him a little longer :] )

Okay, so this is really difficult to see, but look at Shadow’s wrist protectors in this image as well as the last one. See how there’s less of them visible in this picture here? That’s because, as the person who posted this gif noted, Sonic moves his hand up and down Shadow’s arm twice after cuddling up to him like this. It actually moves Shadow’s entire arm and shoulder up and down with the movement, making it look a little bit like a friendly rub or shake. Sort of like “hey, look at my grumpy friend, isn’t he great?”. Meanwhile, Sonic’s still looking smug, but I’m now wondering if it’s a bit of a knowing look as well? I mean, this is the one friend of his who’s truly known him for more than a few days. I’m wondering if there’s a bit of “‘ey, Shadow, c’mon, don’t be so shy! You’re my pal!” vibes here, partially because he knows it’ll annoy Shadow and partly because he just knows how Shadow is but wants to drag him into his circle of friends regardless. (Look at how much Sonic cares about Shadow, trying to make sure he’s included! So cute!!)

THE PAT. Two of Sonic’s fingers are lifted up here, which he then uses to give Shadow a light tap on the arm. THE AFFECTION. THE OBVIOUS CARE AND FRIENDLINESS IN THIS ONE SIMPLE ACTION. SONIC CARES ABOUT SHADOW SO OBVIOUSLY IT HURTS ME TO WATCH. MY HEART. No matter how many times Shadow puts up walls, Sonic smashes them down. After all, Shadow doesn’t get to be the only one who does things like keeping Sonic safe or helping him stay grounded! Sonic’s not going to pretend those things just didn’t happen—Shadow cares about him in his own awkward, emotionally constipated way, and Sonic is reciprocating. You can’t stop him, Shadow!

I’m skipping the smear frame here, just because Sonic and Shadow basically pop up and right into this position. Sonic’s two fingers come out of the tap/pat and straight into the peace sign, and now he’s smiling even more than he was at the start of this whole thing. His eyes are all big and shiny too—he’s clearly very happy to have introduced Shadow, and perhaps also quite happy that he’s getting this moment of prolonged physical contact with Shadow. Now, while Shadow’s shoulder is still kind of smushed upwards, which could indicate stress in another circumstance, it seems to me here that this is mainly because Sonic’s hand is pulling it upwards slightly. (Although, I’m afraid it does appear to be the case that Sonic and Shadow are approximately the same height in Prime—remember, Shadow’s ears aren’t as perky right now as Sonic’s, and the ears are really the only height difference between them here.) Shadow’s expression, however, is honestly quite neutral. Despite his previous discomfort (part of which, I just realized, could be because Sonic essentially was pushing him off balance. Shadow was tilted pretty far to his left, which could be a little awkward of a position to be in, especially for an extended period of time), he doesn’t look bothered at all, instead just quietly existing in this situation. Most of the irritability in his expression comes from his angular eyes and his aforementioned “resting grumpy face”, honestly.

(I couldn’t find any gif that includes this next part—probably because the camera cuts away from Sonic and Shadow here for a moment to show the general confusion of the Shatterverse folks—but when it cuts back, Shadow is still standing there with Sonic’s arm around him. Heck, he looks willing to continue standing there for however long Sonic stays next to him, only pulling away when Nine comes back and makes noise, reminding everyone that we’re in the middle of a battle for everyone’s survival here. And when he does pull away, Sonic is dragged with him, which is probably mostly for laughs, but does also imply that a) he was holding onto Shadow pretty tightly and b) he wasn’t expecting to have to let go even AFTER Nine made himself known.)

This post is long enough already (and I drafted it when I could've been going to sleep, because the force of Sonadow infected me), so I won't be doing the "Shadow saves Sonic" scene just yet (unless a lot of people want to see that). For now, though, thanks for bearing with me throughout my descent into madness over these two. And if you want me to take a look at other gifs, feel free to send them my way or put them in a reblog and I'll see if I can make the time to analyze them!

[m3tr0n0m333]

This guy seriously believes he’s real looking like that?????

Anyways this is my vague vision of what Smoke & Mirrors Sonic would look like…. He’s all sparkly and crystally.

QUICK RAMBLE ABOUT HIM UNDER CUT

The THING about this Sonic is that he acts like. Well. Prime Sonic. Y’know how everyone complained about how Prime Sonic was “out of character?” Impulsive and uncaring, never learning his lesson, hopelessly optimistic…. Etc etc. anyways, that’s basically what this Sonic is like, cause Nine sees him that way. Maybe a little warped because your perception of someone in your memory gets a little shifted the longer you are without them. Nine has that running mind that overanalyzes everything… and he barely knew Sonic at all so… his perception of Sonic is OBVIOUSLY going to be out of character.

Anyways, he still clings to that image because that’s the only form of comfort he has. Even if this version is annoying.

ANYWAYS.

Sonic isn’t SUPPOSED to look like, well, the real Sonic. He’s distinct on purpose. He resembles Sonic, of course. His facial features, height, feel, outfit, whatever… but he’s all sparkly and stuff any crystally, just to emphasize the fact that THIS ISN’T REAL. And Nine is well aware of that.

He’s aware. And yet he wishes it was real. Sonic coming back for him. To see him again. This version is the Sonic he would’ve wanted- who joined him on the first offer of making a new home for them in the Grim. Who… left all his other friends behind for him…?

The real Sonic would never do that.

Nine knows that.

[chiropter36]

Three or More Foxes Form a 'Skulk'

Read on Ao3

AN: Oh my god it has been so long since I've actually finished a fic, I'm just going to post this before I overthink it too much.

So... watched Sonic Prime, wanted to give my boy Nine some interactions with Mangey and Sails, plus explore the immediate aftermath of where things were left with him and the other Shatterspace folks, and... here we are.

(There's a reference in here to a headcanon from @the-knucklesverse, specifically one regarding Gnarly. He doesn't feature much in this and it's not the focus, but I like the headcannon and felt it worked with something I wanted to have happen here, so I included it. I'm not involved with that blog, but check out their stuff for fun multiversal Knuckles shenanigans!)

---

Nine wasn’t sure exactly when he’d closed his eyes, but he really didn’t want to open them right now.

A small groan escaped his lips as he halfheartedly fought against whatever stupid self-loathing part of his brain kept trying to drag him back to full consciousness.

What had… happened? Disjointed images whirled through his head, and he weakly struggled to force them into a coherent order.

The Grim…

The Prism, gone…

Sonic… Sonic fading away, because of him...

The pink jungle hedgehog taking him on her bird mount, then her two counterparts leaving with Shadow on the Kraken…

They all got too far away to see…

A blinding flash of light from the distant Green Hill portal…

And then…

Nine didn’t remember passing out, but that was the only explanation he could think of. (Urgh, thinking, why did thinking hurt?) With no more imminent threat to deal with or time-sensitive problems to solve, everything he had been through over the past… had it even been a full day?...must have just hit all at once.

Another groan – this one almost more of a whimper – slid involuntarily out of his throat.

With consciousness returning came the awareness of just how exhausted he felt in every way imaginable. His head still ached from the strain he had put on himself using so much Prism energy so indiscriminately. (Idiot, you idiot, you should have known there would be consequences for that, but you just couldn’t stop, could you.) He doubted he could lift himself a centimeter off the ground right now with how sore his flesh-and-blood tails felt. His right cheek was still throbbing horribly from the sucker punch that damn echidna had got in, which had felt more like being smacked with a concrete block – judging by the taste of blood still in his mouth, Nine was pretty sure he could count himself lucky if just one of his remaining baby teeth had been knocked loose.

And then there was the awful ache in his chest that had nothing to do with any physical injury he’d sustained.

Not having to think or feel was such an enticing prospect right now…

At least, for some reason, one thing Nine wasn’t feeling was the hard floor of his base. Logically, that should have been what he’d collapsed on, but instead he felt almost like he was floating on air without moving his tails; his body gently swaying from side to side, trying to lull him back to sleep. It made no sense, but it felt so nice that he didn’t feel like questioning it.

Conversely, it seemed strangely as though gravity was pressing harder than usual against his body, but in an oddly pleasant, comforting way. Like a heavy blanket, sort of; warm and soft and–

Wait.

Gravity seemed to be breathing.

Nine forced his eyes open.

The first things he saw were the leaves of his two palm trees, their trunks stretching directly above him. So he was still in the Grim then; that made sense, but… wait, was he in the hammock? Had he climbed into it before blacking out…?

Before he could ponder that too much, his gaze turned down to where the soft, snuffling breathing sounds were coming from… and his brain froze in confused disbelief at the sight that greeted him.

One of the fakers. The one from the jungle world. Fur slightly more orange-ish with red-brown stripes and clearly having never once seen a brush; no cybernetic tails; gloves and shoes made of leaves and vines; but otherwise so nearly identical to himself in appearance that he could have been looking in a very distorted mirror.

And it was laying on his chest.

“What the- Hey! Get off me, you flea-ridden--”

The other fox let out a surprised yowl as Nine shoved him, leaping off and landing on all fours. The sudden movement sent the hammock swaying, and Nine overbalanced and tumbled off the other side. His tails instinctively extended out to catch him before he hit the ground; he set himself on his feet and immediately ducked into a defensive crouch, glaring at the offender and preparing for a counterattack–

“Oi, you’re awake!”

The sudden adrenaline rush throwing his self-defense instincts into overdrive cut off as abruptly as it had hit, replaced with a surge in the throbbing pain in his head. Nine put a hand to his head, groaning miserably as he waited for the hammer apparently inside of his skull to stop bashing his brain over and over.

A few moments and the pain faded to more-or-less the background level Nine had woken up to; able to think slightly more clearly, he turned to focus on the new speaker.

Ah, of course, the other one. Pirate-him. That ridiculous bandanna over one ear, cutlass hanging from his belt, the odd mechanism extending from his back that Nine supposed made a passable prosthetic tail, though nothing as sophisticated as his own of course. He stood next to where the feral one was still crouched and watching Nine warily, but in contrast was sporting an easy grin that instantly put Nine on guard. Meeting Nine’s eyes, he raised a hand in a hesitant wave.

“What did you…?” Nine stammered, his brain still struggling to catch up with the events of the past minute. “What… how did I…?”

“Oh, er, we put ye up in yer hammock there after ye conked out a bit ago.” The young pirate shrugged, smiling sheepishly. “I’ve taken me fair share of naps on a hard deck floor, an’ I figured ye’d prefer somethin’ a mite more comfy.”

“You…?” Nine did not know what he was supposed to do with that, so he pushed it aside in favor of addressing his other point of confusion.

“And why was that one sitting on me?”

The pirate fox shrugged again, patting his jungle-dwelling duplicate on the shoulder. “I guess he just thought ye could use some company after… everythin’.”

Nine frowned, glaring suspiciously at the two of them. Did they really expect him to buy that? More likely the rebels just had the idea to place one of their allies in position to hold him down in case he was faking sleep to lull them into a sense of security.

Wait, where were all the others?

Making sure to keep the other two foxes in his peripheral vision, he took a quick look around. They seemed to be mostly alone in the main room of his base, save for one other: the echidna pirate (“Dread”, he vaguely remembered Sonic referring to him as), who was leaning casually against the wall just inside the hole that had been blasted through the crystal pillars. He raised his eyebrows slightly in acknowledgment when Nine met his gaze, but otherwise seemed to be off in his own world, not paying him or the other two much mind.

Out past the echidna, on the other side of the hole at the start of the vast, featureless plain of the Grim, Nine could see a large gathering of all of Sonic’s friends and allies from across the Shatterspaces. Among the various rebels and pirates milling about, he picked out the other two echidnas, the three bats, the cyborg Rusty Rose and her two pink hedgehog counterparts...

Wait, if those three were back…!

Nine jerked his head back to the other hims, this time ignoring how the sudden movement aggravated his headache.

“Did… did he make it? Sonic…?”

The pirate and the wild child both pulled their ears back and exchanged a look.

“Well… can’t say for sure either way. Black Rose- that is, Cap’n Rose, she said that Thorn Rose’s Birdie got injured not ‘alfway there, so the Kraken picked ‘em up and took ‘em further. Then the ship got damaged too, so Shadow said he’d take ‘im the rest o’ the way. Rusty Rose says she saw Shadow make it to the portal; ‘twas too far for her t’ see for certain, ‘specially with how, well... faded Sonic was by then, and then there was that flash o’ light, and…” He shrugged helplessly. “She didn’t see either of ‘em after that.”

Nine swallowed, trying to hold back whatever emotion was trying to claw its way out his throat.

Pirate-him looked at him with... concern?... in his eyes, then put on a reassuring smile that somehow managed to look mostly genuine.

“If’n ye ask me, though, I’d say there be no doubtin’ he made it home. That hedgehog be tougher ‘n gristle an’ barnacle grit! No matter what any of our worlds – or any of us, truth be told – threw at ‘im, he always took it, got back up an’ kept runnin’ – heck, even when there weren’t any ground t’ run on!” He shared a grin with the jungle fox. “Not bad for a landlubber. Aye, an’ with that Shadow fella backin’ him, the Devil himself couldn’t stop ‘em! He made it home, we’re all sure of it.”

The jungle fox nodded emphatically.

Nine just stared as the other fox made this declaration. It was not escaping him the similarity between the pirate’s words and ones he himself had spoken to Mr. Dr. Eggman back at the Yolk, and he didn’t like it.

Grimacing through his headache, he tried to parse through his whirling too-many-thoughts and focus on the factual data that pirate-him had provided. Silly optimism that blatantly ignored the realities of the hedgehog’s deteriorating physical state aside, it sounded like there was a decent chance that Shadow had successfully gotten Sonic back to Green Hill before he faded completely. That… that was something, at least. He just wished there was a way to know for sure...

“Um, so…” the pirate broke the silence, shyly scratching the back of his head when Nine looked up at him again. “Don’t think we ever got rightly introduced. The name’s Sails, formerly of the Angel’s Voyage, from No-Place, and this here’s Mangey, from Boscage Maze. No ship, but we don’t hold that against ‘im.”

The jungle fox chittered happily and gave Nine a wave.

Nine stared at them blankly. “Okay,” he said with a dismissive shrug.

An awkward silence ensued, and both other foxes’ smiles dimmed slightly as Nine held their gaze, stubbornly refusing to engage them any further.

“And, erm, ye be called Nine, aye?” Sails finally broke the silence.

Nine rolled his eyes. He glanced over at the pirate echidna again, then back to the other foxes.

“Look,” he said with a tired sigh, “I get it. You three got put on watchdog duty – keep an eye on the traitor to make sure he doesn’t go all crazy again…” Not that he could really blame them for that. “But frankly I really just want to be alone right now. So if you could go tell your friends” – he gestured to the crowd outside – “to get off my world and go back to theirs already, I’d really appreciate it.”

“Wha- no, that ain’t–” Sails stammered. “Well, aye, some o’ the others thought that maybe… but that ain’t why…”

The pain in his head flared up again, and Nine couldn’t help the pathetic whine that came from him as he shut his eyes tight and gripped his head in both hands.

“Are ye okay?” Sails’ concerned voice cut through the pain. “Do ye need…?”

“I’m fine,” Nine growled out. He extended two of his tails threateningly in the direction the voice came from, just in case either doppelganger got any ideas about trying to approach him in his moment of weakness. “Just a headache. It’ll pass.”

And it did, or at least died down to a more tolerable level, though the process could have gone much faster in Nine’s apparently inconsequential opinion. When he could think clearly again he opened his eyes, only to see the same two uncomfortably-identical foxes still in the same spot where he’d left them, looking at him with twin looks of concern and… and sympathy, and still there even though they had no reason to be.

Nine scowled, trying to ignore the more confusing emotions in favor of one more familiar to him: annoyance. Why hadn’t these people left yet? They had promised Sonic they’d leave him alone, yet here they all were still invading his space, and the two he least wanted to interact with seemed inexplicably invested in doing so.

Sails cleared his throat awkwardly before speaking again, keeping his voice soft as if trying to be… considerate of Nine’s headache or something.

“No one told us to stay with ye. Th’ fight’s over, we know that. It’s just that… well…” He shrugged awkwardly. “You’re… and we’re…” He gestured somewhat helplessly between himself and Mangey as though that would articulate his thoughts better, smiling apologetically.

Nine didn’t smile back. “We’re what?” he asked coldly.

Sails wilted slightly at his tone.

“I mean, there’s differences, t’ be sure,” he continued hesitantly, “but... well, we all three of us got the tails” – he gave his own a demonstrative helicopter twirl – “an’ the brains, an’–”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Nine muttered, looking pointedly at Mangey, who had chosen that moment to sit on his haunches and scratch at his ear with a hind leg. “Not sure your little pet there knows how to use a toilet, let alone basic mechanics.” He allowed himself a small smirk. “Unless you mean he knows some hacking, but I think that’d be more the hairball variety than computer, you know?”

For the first time since they’d started talking, Sails’ expression turned angry. He scowled and took a protective step in front of the jungle fox, glaring at Nine.

“Mangey figured out your fancy-pants gizmos just as quick as me,” he snapped. “Fresh out o’ the jungle and an’ ne’er seen any contraption more complicated ‘n a vine bridge before, an’ he was pickin’ out the right bits from yer bots to build the bomb what took out a whole platoon of ‘em like he’d been at it all his life. An’ then ‘twere a two-man job pilotin’ that Catfish bot o’ yers, and I’m fair sure yer metal Birdies could tell ye how the both of us handled that… if’n they weren’t piles o’ scrap at the moment.”

Taken slightly aback by the vehemence in the pirate’s retort, Nine averted his eyes… and caught Mangey’s downturned gaze instead.

The upset frown and, well, puppy eyes the other fox was giving him made Nine instantly certain of two things: he had understood the insult, and was hurt by it.

A sickening guilt suddenly bloomed in his chest and began clogging his throat, suffocating him, as he stared at that pitiful face.

His face. The face Nine must have had in the early days, before he’d hardened himself, before he’d built his defenses; when the older foxes had thrown names before graduating to throwing punches, a variety of epithets but all telling him essentially the same thing: your existence is wrong, you are less than a person so it’s okay for us to hurt you. And him just curling up and waiting for it to stop and wishing he knew what he could do to be acceptable to them, but not wishing for someone to come to his defense (like Sails was right now for Mangey) (like Sonic had for Tails but not him) because even then that notion had been so outside the realm of possibility that it had never entered his mind…

He wrenched his eyes away from Mangey’s face. He felt like he was going to throw up. Is that what I’ve let myself become now?

To distract himself, he latched onto the last thing Sails had said. “How… how did you even manage to take over the Grim Big?” His voice trembled despite his efforts to sound composed and unaffected. “There should have been built-in safeguards against anyone but me taking control.”

Sails shrugged, scowl lightening only slightly. “Aye, that there were, but really ‘twere a simple matter o’ rewirin’ the computin’ base with an improvised Prism-energy redirector. All yer bots seemed to work on th’ same system, so while ye thought we were out o’ the action we took a closer look at th’ broken ones t’ figure ‘ow they worked, then scavenged enough scrap t’ put together a rudiment’ry adapter that could block out yer programmin’ long ‘nough for us to hack into th’ system an’ take control – an’ with no hairballs involved from either of us,” he finished with a smirk, crossing his arms defiantly.

It took a moment for Nine to realize his mouth was hanging open dumbly, and he quickly clamped it shut.

“Oh. Uh, yeah, I guess… that would do it. Um… that’s impressive. I guess. Of you. Both. I mean, I wouldn’t have expected…” He felt his face heating up, and cut off before he could embarrass himself more with his stammering. “That, well, that was smart. What I would’ve done in that position.”

He hesitantly made himself meet Mangey’s eyes again. The other fox met his gaze, and his upset expression turned into a small, almost bashful smile. Nine had to clamp down on a sudden urge to return it. The nausea in his throat faded slightly.

Another awkward silence filled the space, and Nine looked back at the rest of Sonic’s rescue party. He noted in particular the bat and echidna from New Yolk – Rebel and Knucks, he remembered vaguely – in the middle of what looked like an intense conversation. At something Rebel said, Knucks shot a look at Nine; his scarred face melted into a scowl as he met Nine’s eyes, before turning back to grumble something to his companion.

“But anyway, as I were sayin’…” Sails’ voice – less testy now – drew Nine’s attention back. “Ever since we first saw t’other in No-Place, I’ve… well, I’ve had ye on me mind. Wonderin’ what yer life be like, if it be anythin’ like me own…”

Truth be told, Nine had also been thinking about these foxes since their initial brief encounters, speeding through the Shatterspaces with Sonic on the way to Ghost Hill (where one other fox had also butted into his headspace). Putting together what their existence implied about his own; what had happened when the Prism had shattered; the reality of what the Shatterspaces were truly hitting him for the first time…

“...An’ then I met Mangey here in the egg-heads’ city, an’ we started gettin’ on, an’, well… Didn’t have much time ‘fore things got all…” He started awkwardly fiddling his thumbs, not meeting Nine’s eyes. “An’ then everyone was focused on goin’ after Sonic, an’ people’s blood was runnin’ a bit hot for a while there, but… now that things’ve calmed down a bit, I thought that maybe…”

He bit his lip nervously.

“Well, t’others all have three of ‘em.”

Mangey, who had been looking back and forth between Sails and Nine, now flicked his gaze over to the crowd gathered outside. Nine followed his eyes, and noted that he seemed focused specifically on the three Roses. The pink hedgehogs were huddled close together, the pirate’s hands on each of her duplicates’ shoulders. Presently, she was making some remark that had the bird-tamer laughing out loud and even brought a small smile to Rusty Rose’s normally impassive face.

Nine looked back at his own duplicates, the anger he had felt at their presence not moments earlier now fading in place of confusion and… something else, something he didn’t want to couldn’t give a name to, but seemed to be coming from the same place as the steady ache in his chest that he had woken up to and, unlike his headache, hadn’t been fading at all since.

When he managed to make himself respond to Sails, he couldn’t keep the incredulity out of his voice. “I literally tried to kill both of you just like an hour ago.” Another wave of guilt crashed over him, and he fought to keep his expression neutral.

Tried to kill them, yeah, and thought he had succeeded – even if the bomb had been their own, he had specifically targeted them with the robot assault that had forced them to use it at such close range – and had felt nothing but spiteful satisfaction at the notion of their deaths hurting Sonic.

Or at least, told himself that was all he felt. Anything else, any shock or sickening horror at the notion that he was responsible for ending the lives of two actual real living people, had been easily drowned out at the time with yet another channeling of Prism energy to send his brain into a manic power high.

After all, there was only one him.

(He’d yelled at Sonic that he was just as real as Tails, but he’d looked at these two and from the start seen only feeble, insulting copies of himself.)

“Aye, ‘tis a fact,” Sails said with a careless shrug, seemingly oblivious to Nine’s inner turmoil, “but we’re no worse for wear now!” He shot Nine a devil-may-care grin, putting his hands on his hips and puffing out his fluffy chest. “Ain’t th’ first time I’ve cheated Davy Jones’ locker, an’ I’m fair sure it won’t be th’ last! S’no reason to be holdin’ a grudge.”

Nine had been fairly dismissive, back on Ghost Hill, in his first impression of “Tails”; the friend Sonic had shared so many happy adventures with may have shared his face, but his bearing was too sunny, his eyes too bright, his whole demeanor just too… obviously cared-for, to have anything in common with him outside the superficial. Granted, all Nine had seen was a faded reflection of Tails repeating just one moment over and over, but even just that had made it clear that having had Sonic in his life from early on had made all the difference.

Except... here was this other two-tailed fox, also his own person separate from Tails and with no blue hedgehog in his past, but clearly nowhere near as beaten-down and cynical as Nine.

“How are you so… perky?” he finally asked, shaking his head. “You didn’t have a Sonic to… to protect you on your world either, right?”

Sails blinked, looking surprised at the question.

“Well, no… but I had me crew.” A small, nostalgic smile came to his face as he spoke. “They found me when I was just a kit, all alone on an island, strugglin’ just to find food every day without it bein’ stolen by the birds... They took me in, gave me a place, a home. A name.” There was something more vulnerable in the fox’s voice at that last admission than Nine had heard from him to this point. “Adventure on the high seas, an’ a share o’ the salvage to build me contraptions. Wouldn’t be who I am today if it weren’t for them. Prob’ly wouldn’t be here today.”

He frowned, his ears drooping a bit as he looked at Nine. “Ye… ye never had a crew, aye?”

Nine swallowed a lump in his throat, not meeting the other fox’s eyes, and just shook his head.

“Well… maybe that can change now!” Sails exclaimed, his ears popping up again hopefully. He gestured over to the pink hedgehog trio still chatting happily outside. “Look at the Roses! Th’ worlds they all come from couldn’t be more different, an’ I heard ‘em callin’ each other ‘sisters’ earlier.” He put a companionable arm around Mangey’s shoulders. “Why, I’ve hardly known me mate Mangey here for more’n a day, but we’re already thick as thieves!”

Mangey yowled a happy affirmative, leaning against his double’s side affectionately.

“What d’ya say, Nine? The three of us… could we be friends?”

Mangey nodded in agreement, bright blue eyes wide and earnest… then to Nine’s shock, opened his mouth and echoed:

“Fuh-rends.”

His voice was rough and growly, clearly not used to forming words, but that he made the effort to use it at all implied a deep sincerity that Nine couldn’t convince himself was faked.

A snide remark informing them exactly what they could do with their “friendship” immediately jumped to the tip of Nine’s tongue… but when he opened his mouth, it didn’t come out. Maybe it was Sonic’s influence getting to him once again, maybe he was just still so exhausted that he didn’t have the energy to keep being hostile, but all that he could manage was a tired sigh, his shoulders slumping despondently.

He hadn’t been able to handle this kind of openness from Sonic when he had offered it so freely; how could this new scenario possibly come to any better end?

“I-I’m… I’m not really good at… friends.”

“Yeah, no kiddin’,” a harsh voice scoffed.

Nine’s neck smarted as he whipped his head to face the voice, an adrenaline spike instinctively snapping his tails into a threatening defensive configuration as his heart suddenly burst into frenzied hammering in his chest.

The speaker – Knucks – was already raising his fists in response, glaring at Nine from behind them. Nine tried to glare back, but between his ragged, agitated breathing and his limbs trembling from a combination of frayed nerves and exhaustion he doubted he managed to look very intimidating.

“Woah, hey, hey, it’s okay!” Sails exclaimed, waving his hands and moving forward as though to interject himself between the fox and echidna. “Nine, ye be fine, they just want t’ talk to ye!”

At the same time a hand was placed on Knucks’ shoulder, and Nine became aware of the other person who had entered the space without him noticing: the bat resistance fighter, Rebel. She gave the echidna a pointed look, and he scowled but lowered his fists, though clearly with great reluctance, and not taking his eyes off Nine.

“Sails is right,” she said, stepping forward to stand slightly in front of Knucks. Behind her, Nine could see that the rest of the crowd was now watching them, though they remained outside. Dread was still in the same place Nine had last seen him, looking completely unperturbed.

His cheek throbbed even worse as he continued staring down the echidna, and he was more aware than ever of the coppery taste on his tongue. For a second he was back on the top of his tower, cowering behind his forcefield as punch after punch tried to batter through to get at him, which had itself sent him back even further to a time where he had no forcefield to protect him, trying in vain to shield himself from blows and words that just wouldn’t stop–

He shook his head sharply, actually welcoming the throbbing pain as a distraction. Trying to reclaim some semblance of dignity, he forced his tails to relax and focused on getting his breathing under control. He looked up and met Rebel’s eyes, already resigning himself to whatever this group had decided his fate would be.

“And here it comes. Without Sonic around to make everyone play nice, all that talk about leaving each other alone goes out the window.” He tried to sound droll and unconcerned, but all the eyes on him were just reinforcing how utterly helpless he was now, and his false bravado faded almost as soon as he could summon it. Dropping his gaze down to the floor, he muttered gloomily, “Just do whatever you want to me. I don’t care anymore.”

“Nine, that ain’t what…” Sails began, his ears drooping sadly.

“We promised Sonic we would leave you be, and I for one intend to stick to that,” Rebel spoke up, her voice calm and level. “Unless you plan to break your side of the deal?”

Nine looked back up at the bat. She was looking down at him with her arms crossed but her expression didn’t appear actively hostile. He sighed and shook his head.

“Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t anymore.” He looked over at the still-empty platform that had once held the Paradox Prism. A harsh fact that he had been trying not to think about since he woke up shoved its way to the forefront of his mind. “The Prism is gone; without it, I can’t reshape the Grim. It’s a clean slate, but now that’s all it’ll ever be.” He sighed morosely. “Probably for the best. No one should be trusted with that kind of power. It messes with your head. Makes you think you’re invincible. You’ve got so much power you can do whatever you want, so you should do whatever you want. And if you cause any harm it doesn’t matter ‘cause you can just fix it later once you have just a little more power…”

Nine almost didn’t realize he had been muttering all that out loud until out of the corner of his eye he noted Dread’s ears suddenly perk up.

“That’s actually something we wanted to discuss with you,” Rebel said, pulling Nine’s wandering thoughts back to the present. “When we all made that agreement with Sonic, it was under the assumption that you would continue to have access to the stabilized Prism. Without it… will you even be able to survive here?”

“I…” He shrugged, trying to look unconcerned. “I have some food and water stored. Once I go through that… I’ll figure something else out.”

Except, there wasn’t really anything else to figure, was there? The Grim only reacted to Prism energy. Without the Prism itself to harvest from, he wouldn’t be able to alter it to create supplies and sustenance.

He found his eyes migrating from the empty platform to the palm trees, the empty hammock strung up between them – out of the Grim’s endless potential, the first things he had chosen to make.

What did it matter if he was doomed to waste away here once he ran out of supplies? Even if he could figure out a new way without the Prism to turn this place into a paradise, it would still be empty.

“Well. Several of us have been talking, and taking the changed situation into account, we would like to propose an alternative.”

“For the record, this is a very generous interpretation of the word ‘like’ for some of us,” Knucks added.

Rebel elbowed him sharply. Knucks rolled his eyes, but stepped back to give her the floor.

“It’s honestly hard to believe that the Chaos Council is finally defeated for good – or at least, they’ll be out of the picture for a long while. Thanks for your help with that, by the way; seeing them float away into the void was immensely satisfying.”

The bat’s lips briefly twitched up in a small smirk as though replaying the scene in her head.

“But now we have the responsibility to take charge of our own world and heal what they broke. Once we return, we plan to start working on dismantling however much of the city we can manage safely at this point, and restore the natural environment. And… much as I hate to admit it, the Chaos Council’s tech would probably be useful for a lot of that, if we can repurpose it. Plus it would be prudent to build some sort of defense in case they ever do return. And while I’m sure we’ll be able to work it out on our own… the work would go a lot faster with someone who already understands that tech.”

Nine hardened his expression and squared his shoulders in preparation for what he could already see was coming.

“We have Rusty Rose, of course, and she’s already agreed to help however she can, but she told us that her expertise is more focused on weapons and vehicle operation and her personal system maintenance. She still has a better background than the rest of us, so it’ll help, but…” here Rebel gave Nine a significant look, “we could also really use the help of someone with a broader understanding of the city’s tech and the creativity to adapt it for new purposes.”

Nine scoffed tiredly. “There it is. Thanks, but no thanks. I had enough of my help being used when I was captured by the Chaos Council.”

“We ain’t the Chaos Council!” Knucks barked angrily. “We’re tryin’ to make a better world for everyone, not just ourselves! Though I guess that ain’t a concept that’s really on your radar.” He crossed his arms heatedly and turned to Rebel. “You’re wastin’ your breath. I told ya. He ain’t gonna help.”

Rebel held up a hand to cut Knucks off, still keeping her calm demeanor.

“The rebellion is over,” she went on. “It’s not going to be easy moving past all the paranoia and mistrust that we needed to survive in that environment… but we need to try. Or else, what was the point? The whole goal was to create a better world, one where all that wouldn’t be necessary.”

She sighed, a bit of exhaustion showing in her eyes. “Maybe as part of that… we can accept having misjudged you a bit.”

Nine’s eyes widened slightly in surprise.

“We followed Sonic here to help him because we assumed that you weren’t intending to keep your word after he gave himself up,” she continued. “Now… I’m thinking we may have been wrong about that.”

“Not that ya gave us any reason to buy that you wouldn’t betray us again,” Knucks grumbled. Then his scowl softened ever so slightly. “But Sonic… well, even after everything, he never seemed to doubt that you were on the level. And, well, he sometimes had good instincts.”

‘Even after everything you've done, everything we've been through – together, against each other – you're still my friend, Nine.’

Nine’s breath hitched, and he had to bite his lip against the something he felt building in his chest.

“I never wanted to harm your worlds,” he said, voice thick and shaky despite his efforts. “I swear. I-I know that I did, and I don’t… I don’t have any excuse for that. But I was certain that I could fix all the damage I caused, and I intended to. Even when… even when I was still angry at Sonic. My only goal was always just to build my own world here, and for everyone else to leave it alone.”

He swallowed thickly, avoiding their gazes.

Rebel nodded. “And honestly, after everything that’s happened… I am inclined to believe you now.”

“Don’t get us wrong, I ain’t gonna hold back if ya do turn out to be pullin’ somethin’ on us, but…” The echidna shook his head and sighed. “Whatever. I’m tired of fightin’ for now. And I never thought I’d say that.”

Rebel tried to meet Nine’s eyes again, but he stared resolutely at the floor.

“Look,” she spoke up again. “We don’t know you very well. But we are from the same world, the same home, we all lost the same things thanks to the Chaos Council. And if we-”

“Well, you’re right about not knowing me at least,” Nine interrupted sharply. A tiny spark of anger had fizzled into existence at the bat’s words, and he latched onto it, nurturing it into a tiny candle flame and slowly fanning it larger and larger; and he knew, he knew he shouldn’t because anger was what had gotten him to where he was now, but anger at least overwhelmed the something festering underneath. “I hated the Chaos Council as much as anyone, but I didn’t lose anything thanks to them. Can’t lose what you never had in the first place.”

Neither Rebel or Knucks seemed to know how to respond to that. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Sails and Mangey both looking at him with concern. He chose to let that fuel the flame in his chest even more.

“I used the Paradox Prism to restore New Yolk alongside the other Shatterspaces. I fixed what I broke, and a lot of what the Chaos Council broke too. Consider that my contribution to the rebuilding effort. But there’s nothing you could offer me that would make me go back there. It’s your home, you take care of it. I’m not letting anyone use me for their own ends anymore.”

That actually seemed to get Rebel mad. She grit her teeth and took a deep breath before speaking in a clipped tone, “We are not trying to use you, and we’re not going to force you to come with us if you’re so insistent on staying here on your own–”

‘We’re all on our own.’

“–but Sonic made a sacrifice to save all of us, you included, and somehow I don’t think the spirit of the agreement he specifically insisted we make with you involved leaving you to starve and waste away here. If that’s what you really want, though, fine. We’ll head back home without you and–”

The flame exploded.

“That city, that world, never gave me anything but pain! Why do you think I did this to myself?!” He flared out his cybernetic tails; Knucks flinched and raised his fists defensively, but Nine ignored him. “Why do you think I lived underground, away from everyone?! No one in that world ever wanted me. They made that abundantly clear for as far back as I can remember. I may have been born on that world, but it was never home.”

And then just like that the flame had completely burned itself out, leaving Nine with nothing but a horrible cold emptiness just as vast and pointless as the Grim. Standing was suddenly too difficult; he stumbled back against one of his palm trees, and slid down to sit so he could hide his face behind his knees, his tails falling limp on the floor.

“I-I don’t h-have a home. I don’t have anything.” He hated himself for how his voice hitched and shook, but he just couldn’t muster any energy to fight it. “S-sonic’s gone, the Grim is empty. I have nothing. Just like before, only now it’s my own s-stupid fault.”

He pressed his forehead against his knees, trying desperately to resist the pressure he could feel building behind his eyes, although part of him wondered what the point was – it wasn’t like these people could possibly think any less of him.

No one spoke, which only made Nine’s stomach start twisting into knots waiting for some sort of fallout from his outburst. After a moment he chanced a brief glance at the bat and echidna, and was vaguely surprised to see neither looked angry or harsh like he had expected; Rebel was frowning uncertainly at him, a trace of sympathy in her turquoise eyes that just made Nine feel even more pitiful, while Knucks was awkwardly averting his gaze, fiddling with his glove spikes.

Over to the side, there was sudden movement as Mangey, eyes wide and glossy like he was close to tears himself, took a few steps toward Nine, only stopping as Sails’ mechanical arm-tail settled on his shoulder, the pirate giving him a small head-shake, even as he bit his lower lip like he was struggling not to come over himself and try to administer some comfort that Nine knew he wouldn’t deserve.

He looked back at his knees, but could still feel everyone’s eyes on him – Sails and Mangey, Rebel and Knucks, the entire crowd of rebels and pirates and jungle-dwellers.

He wished they would all stop staring at him, wished he could just disappear, wished someone would say something so he didn’t have to listen to his own pathetic ragged breathing…

He wished Sonic were here.

A gruff throat-clearing cut through the lull.

“If I may.”

Nine’s ears twitched in surprise at the sound of the echidna pirate speaking up up for the first time, his tone light but clearly conveying that he intended to speak regardless of any objections. He looked up to see Dread strolling casually to stand beside his resistance fighter counterpart.

“What do you want now?” Knucks grouched, his scowl reasserting itself.

Dread shot a patronizing smirk at the other echidna.

“As entertainin’ as all this jabber be, I find meself itchin’ to get back to No-Place at some point in, oh, the next decade. So in the interest of speedin’ this up…” His flippant tone changed to something more serious. “I may have some smidgen of understandin’ what th’ lad is goin’ through right now, is all.”

Oh do you? Nine wanted to spit out, but he didn’t trust himself to speak right now without losing the fight to hold back tears, so he just forced a glower that he was sure wasn’t fooling anyone.

Dread stepped forward so he was a bit in front of Rebel and Knucks but keeping a polite distance from Nine. Briefly, he glanced over at Sails, his expression unreadable; the fox frowned uncertainly, but gave his ex-captain a hesitant nod. Then the pirate turned to look down at Nine, and spoke.

“Ye’ve lost it. The one thing in the whole wretched universe ye thought mattered. That if ye just managed to get yer paws on it… ye’d finally be satisfied. Finally be happy.”

His words were blunt, but spoken with a depth of emotion that despite himself Nine was certain they were born of intense personal experience.

“An’ now that it’s slipped from yer grasp… ye feel there’s nothin’ more what matters. Nothin’ t’ strive for, nothin’ t’ do but mope yer days away dreamin’ of what ye could’ve had.”

Dread looked away from Nine for a moment, staring off at something only he could see, before breathing a wistful sigh and meeting Nine’s eyes again.

“I got no business tellin’ ye what course t’ set for yerself now. I still be figurin’ that out for meself. All I’ll say, lad, is that whatever ye choose… don’t define yerself by what ye lost. Find somethin’ what matters to ye, and make a new goal t’ strive for. Or ye’ll just find yerself forever chasin’ somethin’ – even if only in yer dreams – that was never goin’ t’ give ye what ye truly wanted, an’ makin’ the same bloody mistakes each time ye grasp for it.”

With that, the pirate backed off and returned to his previous spot, leaning against the crystal pillar wall as if he’d never moved.

Leaving Nine to sift through a confusing swirl of emotions that had replaced the emptiness but still gave him no relief.

Disdain and anger were the easiest for him to parse out at first, naturally.

What could that idiot pirate know? What Nine truly wanted? He wanted the Grim. He wanted to be left alone, in his own perfect world. He wanted… he wanted...

He felt the hard bark of the palm tree against his back.

‘So… what else did we do?’

“I used t’ have nothin’.”

Nine looked over at Sails, his vision a bit watery despite his efforts. He quickly wiped his eyes with the heel of his palm as the other fox spoke.

“Then I had the crew, but… I didn’t quite know how I fit in with ‘em, at first.” His voice was soft and hesitant, like he was forcing into words something he usually kept very private. “Weren’t certain I was truly a crewmate, or just a… a temp’rary cabin boy they’d be ready t’ abandon again if’n I became more trouble ‘n I was worth. Ev’ry mistake I made, in those days, I thought were gonna be th’ final straw for ‘em, an’ they’d leave me at some village or maroon me on an island or just tell me t’ fly off an’ ne’er come back, an’ I’d… I’d be back were I started, alone.”

He swallowed thickly, then continued. “Took some time, an’ getting’ t’ know ‘em, an’… lettin’ ‘em get t’ know me. Which were really th’ scariest part. Didn’t happen all at once… but now, all these years an’ adventures an’ troubles later, I know they be where I belong.”

He turned to scan the crowd outside, passing in turn from the bat, cat and hedgehog in pirate garb, who each smiled fondly at him (the giant cat in particular was unabashedly wiping at his clearly watering eyes); even Dread gave Sails a small nod of acknowledgment when the fox caught his eye.

Mangey pressed his face against Sails’ side, before catching Nine’s gaze with wide, imploring eyes. He started looking pointedly back and forth between Nine and his fellow jungle-dwellers in the crowd. Nine suddenly found himself wondering what the wild-child’s story was, what he was trying to convey with those big blue puppy eyes that he couldn’t with words.

Disdain and anger faded to the background noise in his head, the wall that he had actively cultivated them into over long merciless years crumbling apart, and Nine finally forced himself to examine the less-familiar, uncomfortable feelings that just one evening with an aggravating blue hedgehog had managed to bring out in him.

What would Sonic do…?

Tch. Sonic would recklessly jump into things without any thought. He’d take it upon himself to help everyone, and in the end make a huge mess of everything.

...And then, once he realized he had done that… he would try to make amends however he could.

And he would always put his trust in other people.

Even if past experience might have made that trust difficult to give.

What Nine truly wanted…

Sonic was gone, but maybe… maybe what he had offered to Nine was still something he could find for himself.

But if it was… it definitely wouldn’t be here in the Grim.

Slowly, Nine pushed himself to his feet, setting his tails back in their relaxed non-combat configuration. He stepped forward to stand in front of the resistance leaders, forcing himself to look up and meet Rebel’s eyes; and, taking a deep breath that only shuddered a little bit, he spoke.

“...Back in New Yolk, before all this, I had a lab in the underground. I’m sure the Council ransacked it when they tracked down the shard I took, so I can’t really live there anymore, but it was… my sanctuary. A safe haven. If I do this, if I agree to come with you and help restore that world… I get a place of my own. I’ll put it together myself, you don’t need to do anything, but I get a place, outside of the city, away from everyone. And it is off. Limits. Whether I’m there or not, no one else is, unless I give explicit permission.”

He swallowed, trying to ease the scratchiness in his throat. “Deal?”

Rebel shared a quick look with Knucks, who frowned but shrugged in answer to her unspoken question.

“That sounds reasonable. Deal.” She held out her hand. Nine stared at it silently for a moment before reaching out his own, and they shook.

“Don’t make me regret this,” Nine stated. He tried to make his voice sound stern, but was pretty sure he just came across as tired.

“Same,” Rebel responded in a similar tone.

Releasing Nine’s hand, she straightened up and turned to look out over the rest of the eclectic collection of beings.

“Now with that business over with, let’s start working on coordinating getting us all back to where we’re supposed to be. Black Rose, how’s the Kraken looking?”

The hedgehog pirate stepped forward from the crowd, grimacing. “She jus’ barely limped us back here on one engine an’ a prayer. An’ it’s been slow-goin’ tryin’ t’ patch her back up. Ain’t sure if she’s got enough left in ‘er to make it to one world, let alone three.”

“Um… I could… take a look at it?” Nine offered hesitantly. Everyone turned to stare at him, and he again had to clamp down on the instinct to bare his tails. “A-and we can probably salvage some parts from the Council’s mothership, enough to at least get it working long enough to get everyone to where they need to be.”

“Aye, and the Catfish bot still be flyin’,” Sails proclaimed. He moved to stand just behind Nine’s shoulder, Mangey still at his side; Nine flinched slightly but actually found their proximity not as distressing as before. “It ain’t exactly speedy, but if we can take the engines for the Kraken that could boost it enough t’ keep it goin’ the whole trip.”

Rebel nodded decisively. “Alright, sounds like we have a plan.” She raised her voice to speak authoritatively to the crowd. “Everyone, let’s get out there and help them gather the parts we’ll need. Rusty Rose, do you think you can help with that?”

“Affirmative,” came the monotone reply. The cyborg hedgehog gestured out to the debris-strewn plane. “Come, sisters.”

As the gaggle of beings began to disperse, Nine found his eyes drawn from the hedgehog trio still sticking together like glue, to the jungle echidna running up to walk beside Knucks, to the other two bats fluttering over to join Rebel as she took flight.

He looked to his side, to Sails and Mangey. The other foxes shot him identical soft smiles, and while Nine couldn’t quite muster up one of his own, he found that the something in his chest was somehow no longer as painful as before; that the presence of these two people who maybe understood more than he had given them credit for was… comforting.

But noticing that, he also realized what was nagging at him, and a heavy knot formed in the pit of his stomach.

“Wait!” he called out, running over to the hole in the wall where everyone was exiting, Sails and Mangey on his heels. “There’s, there’s one more thing…”

Everyone stopped in their tracks and turned to look at Nine again; ears pinned back against his head, he swallowed nervously and tried to stand tall.

“I-I should tell you, just… to make sure you’re all on the same page. Without the Prism or any stored energy, there’s no way to create the portals the Chaos Council used to travel between worlds. Once you return to your respective worlds… you won’t be able to leave.”

Everyone’s faces fell as they absorbed this information. The three Roses looked particularly devastated as they exchanged crestfallen looks between themselves (Nine wouldn’t have ever guessed the cyborg was capable of such expressiveness). The jungle echidna rubbed his arm and bit his lip, looking at Knucks with dismay; the other echidna placed a hand on his shoulder, his own face determinedly stoic. Mangey whimpered and sidled up next to Sails, who put a comforting arm around the other fox’s shoulders.

“I… suppose that’s the way it has to be,” Rebel said, glancing around at her fellow bats. “Those portals were what started the collapse on all the worlds; even if we still had the Prism it would be too dangerous to start it up again.”

There were reluctant nods from among the crowd.

“Well,” Thorn Rose pronounced, her face set, “then it has been an honor to know you, sisters.”

“Oi, we ain’t splittin’ up yet!” Black Rose exclaimed, managing a grin despite everything. She slapped Thorn on the shoulder. “Save the heartfelt goodbyes for th’ actual goodbye!”

The mood slightly dampened, the crowd nevertheless began splitting into groups to begin scavenging.

As Nine prepared to follow, he stumbled as his foot slipped on one of the myriad broken crystal shards scattered around the opening in his fortress wall. Frowning, he kicked the shard away, and prepared to take flight over to the Kraken to see what he could do about it…

...But the glimmering of the crystal as it skidded along the floor of the same substance, bopping against other shards before coming to a stop, caught his eye.

Something niggled at the back of his mind, the same feeling he got when he had his ideas for inventions; arresting his take-off, he knelt down to examine the shards more closely, ignoring the remaining traces of his headache as he wracked his brain trying to get a lead on what had drawn his attention.

Something to do with the physical crystalline structure of the Grim? He’d done an analysis when he’d first arrived, of course, but then he’d been thoroughly distracted by the applications of Prism energy and had subsequently pushed any data not pertaining to that to the back of his mind...

Wait. What if…?

He was belatedly aware of Sails and Mangey beside him. Mind racing as he ran equations and factored in variables, he grabbed two shards then straightened and turned to his fellow foxes.

Both wore confused frowns as they looked at him, but as Nine worked the problem out further and further in his head and started arriving at some very promising conclusions, he found himself somehow feeling lighter than he had since waking up.

For the first time, he looked into those two pairs of identical blue eyes and a small but genuine smile came to his face.

“Here.” He handed each a shard. “Take these. Bring them with you to your worlds, keep them intact.”

Mangey curiously turned his shard over in his hands a few times, sniffed at it a bit… then gave it a good lick.

Nine felt his right eye twitch, but he gritted his teeth and pushed down the urge to snap at him and snatch the shard back.

If he was really going to attempt this whole friends thing, he supposed, he should start getting in some practice at not judging the other fox’s scientific process.

“What’re ye thinkin’?” Sails asked, staring inquisitively at his own crystal.

Nine reached down and picked up a third crystal for himself, then looked past his two counterparts out to the pitch black sky above, and the shimmering, far-off Shatterspace gateways floating through it like planets. The light green radiance of the farthest gateway seemed to shine the brightest to Nine’s eyes – a faint beacon in the dark to guide him on this new path.

“I have a theory. Don’t tell anyone yet, it’s nothing definite. But maybe… the Grim can still be useful after all.”

---

~ Several months later ~

Even before Knucks had noted where the light show was coming from, he knew it had something to do with Nine.

Normally he would have taken some time to appreciate a stroll through the countryside outside the city boundaries. Just spend a few moments taking in the soft green of the grass regrowing over the rolling hills, kneel down to look at the tree saplings slowly but surely pushing their way up into a world that would welcome and nurture them now, feel the sun on his face shining down from a sky no longer dreary red with smog but a shade of blue that he had almost forgotten. He would revel in the sweetness of breathing air not heavy with pollutants and the smell of ozone and slag, and just the simple joy of being able to see the horizon unobstructed by a skyline of ugly, pointless buildings.

He may have had to get used to the city life during the days of rebellion, just out of necessity, but Knucks had been hatched and raised in the untamed wilderness, and with said wilderness finally making a comeback, he was never going to take it for granted.

But right now he was an echidna on a mission, and that mission involved a certain arrogant antisocial fox brat, and the searing flash of light that had all of a sudden burst into existence over his house not twenty minutes ago.

A beam of light had suddenly crackled into the sky off in the distance, but loud and large enough to draw the entire city’s attention, and probably most of the folks who had moved out to settle in the countryside as well. For an entire minute it had remained as a pillar reaching up into the heavens, swirling with an admittedly rather beautiful rainbow of colors, then had faded away as inexplicably as it had appeared.

There had been some panic as civilians wondered what it could have been, but Rebel had managed to mostly calm people down, especially when she put Knucks on the case to investigate. They had shared a significant look at that, because they were both aware of a fact that the general citizenry were not.

Namely, that there was only one person who lived around the area where the light had appeared to be coming from.

And so Knucks stomped his way past the sapling forest, leapt from a large rock to give himself some height to glide from, swiftly making his way toward where the hilly grasslands met the beach, and soon enough had arrived at the entrance to the fox’s house.

Well, it was really more of a bunker than anything. The fox had claimed one of Dr. Don’t’s hidden underground labs close to the former city’s outer boundary and repurposed it. That part of the city had been the first to be deconstructed – the work going faster through the use of reprogrammed Chaos Council bots – and as the city boundary retracted further and further, Nine had soon attained the private sanctum away from the city that he had been promised.

With nature slowly reclaiming the area – aided in no small part by the seeding and terraforming machines Nine had developed – the entrance (at least, the one Knucks and Rebel had been made privy to; they were both fairly certain the fox had multiple other entrances and exits he kept to himself) was difficult to spot unless you were right in front of it. Built under an unremarkable grassy hill and looking out over the shifting sand dunes, nothing about it really drew the eye...

Save for one prominent landmark that seemed oddly inconsistent with the fox’s clearly-stated desire for people to stay away.

Two palm trees, with a homey-looking hammock hung between them, planted just a little ways off from the entrance.

The fox hardly ever left the place – or at least, was not often seen doing so. The rare times he emerged, to gather food and materials or discuss plans and issues with Rebel and the rest of the reconstruction council, there was some… animosity from the general populace. Many of them had seen Nine’s giant image in the sky, taunting Sonic to save them all as the world turned sideways, and few had been present at the final confrontation in the Grim. Rebel had so far managed to spin their arrangement with Nine as the fox’s “community service” to anyone who started making noise about locking him up or… anything further. So far there hadn’t been much more than grumbling and distrustful glares, but the decidedly unfriendly atmosphere clearly didn’t give the fox much incentive to come out of his hole any more than necessary.

Knucks frowned thinking about that. He was far from Nine’s biggest fan, but some of the folks passing judgment on the fox were… well, ‘unreasonable’ was probably a polite way of putting it.

Especially the ones who obliquely implied that Nine’s past actions were somehow related to his… unique physical traits.

Finding himself wanting to punch a face in on behalf of the fox kid during that one particularly heated council meeting had definitely been a new and unexpected experience.

(Ugh, why couldn’t this fox just be a complete unrepentant bastard like the Chaos Council? Feeling sympathy for someone who had once callously abandoned him and his teammates to die, and later almost destroyed everything he held dear, was not something this echidna was built for.)

Though, it was a big city, and there were some who were willing to give the kid a chance. There had been one instance where a little rabbit girl and her mother had hesitantly come up to Nine and thanked him for all he was doing to help restore the world, and even given him some home-cooked food as a gift.

The look on the big bad aloof super-genius fox boy’s face as his big bad aloof super-genius brain apparently short-circuited and he stammered out an awkward “You’re...welcome?” had been priceless.

Hey, Knucks wasn’t supposed to fight the jerk anymore, he had to take what he could get.

But who knew, maybe that was about to change. Maybe the lights from Nine’s home had come from some superweapon he was building, and the situation could just be nice and straightforward and solvable through punching.

With that happy (if, admittedly, unlikely) thought, Knucks began banging loudly on the metal door.

“Hey, Nine! We all saw the fancy light show, what’re ya up to in there?! Open up!”

His yelling was interrupted by a life-size holographic image of the brat in question suddenly vwip-ing into existence in front of the entrance.

The flickering semi-transparent fox looked down at him – the hologram floated in the air so that its head was about a foot above Knucks’, which the echidna was certain had been done deliberately to spite him – and put on a lazy smile.

“Always a pleasure to have you stop by for a visit, Knucks.” He spoke in the bored, mildly patronizing tone that never failed to get Knucks’ hackles up. “As it seems you’ve forgotten some of the details of our arrangement – understandable, as they involve several multi-syllable words – I’ll remind you of the parts relevant to the current situation–”

“Just shut up and let me in, fox! You got some things to explain!”

“–and provide you with aid regarding the environmental restoration, and in exchange, my personal space shall be respected–”

“Okay, ignorin’ me, fine, whatever, you’re only delayin’ the inevitable, brat.”

“–without my permission. Now, with the understanding that issues requiring my technological expertise will not always conveniently come up when I am outside my home, I have invented a radical new piece of technology to facilitate communication in such an event. You may have noticed, next to the door, a simple-looking square-shaped panel, but it is in fact so much more. When only a mild amount of pressure is applied to it, you see, it causes a musical tone to sound within my dwelling, thus politely alerting me to any visitors without any unnecessary banging or shouting.”

“Alright, alright, I get it–”

“Or, to put all that in layman’s terms…”

The hologram suddenly leaned forward directly into Knucks’ face, glowering darkly down at him.

“Ring. The doorbell. First.”

It straightened and resumed its casual tone. “Now, shall we try this again?”

Another vwip, and the image vanished.

Knucks growled, taking several deep breaths as he debated the pros and cons of just punching down the fox’s door.

Glowering for the benefit of the hidden cameras he was certain were showing Nine his every move, he reached one fist to the blue panel, moving exaggeratedly slowly. With his entire fist, he pushed it inwards and held it for several seconds longer than necessary, then finally released it. A muffled musical tone sounded from behind the door.

Knucks quietly seethed as he counted the seconds, certain that the fox was taking his sweet time opening the door just to annoy him. Finally, the metal panel slid to the side, revealing Nine standing in front of him, hands clasped nonchalantly behind his back, all nine tails swishing casually behind him, and looking up at him with a lazy smirk that Knucks desperately hoped he would have an opportunity to wipe off by the end of this interaction.

“There, now was that so hard?”

“Can it, brat.” He stomped past the threshold into the bunker proper. “What was with the light show? I know it didn’t have nothin’ to do with the world repairs. You up to somethin’ out here? Some schemin’?”

Truthfully, as aggravated as he was right now, the accusation wasn’t quite as serious as it might have been months ago. Knucks was still far, far from ever calling the fox boy a friend, but “ally” had slowly but surely become slightly less begrudging. There had been no signs over the past months of the fox going back on his word, and with how much faster the restoration efforts had been going thanks to his help, Knucks had to admit that Rebel had made a good call. He wasn’t to the point of letting his guard down around Nine… but he could see maybe getting there someday.

(Plus... there had been the whole uncomfortable revelation that the kid was not, as Knucks had originally pegged him from his overall demeanor, just a rather short teenager, but in fact not yet even past single digits.

(He still hadn’t worked out how he felt about… certain actions he had taken during the Grim battle in light of this information.)

The fox boy in question just shrugged at Knucks’ accusation.

“Welp, I guess you got me. I’m actually enacting my evil plan to betray you all again and eventually crush every world under my heel.”

“Ha ha. Look, ya didn’t warn anyone about any experiments you were doin’, so ya can’t blame us for–”

“Relax, Knucklehead. It’s–”

“Don’t call me that!”

“It’s nothing dangerous.” The smirk on his face softened, into what Knucks would almost be tempted to call a genuine smile. “I just... invited a few friends over for a brainstorming session.”

“‘Friends?’” Since when do you have friends?, he barely managed to keep from blurting out. (And Rebel said he couldn’t be diplomatic.) “Who-”

“Ahoy! City Dread!”

Knucks looked around with a start. The voice had come from another hologram – one that he at first mistook for Nine again, and briefly wondered if the fox was experimenting with creating a horde of holographic duplicates, before spotting a few more… pirate-y details that made his eyes widen in recognition.

“Wait… that’s…”

Another holographic fox bounded into view on all fours and drew his attention with a wave, this one dressed in leafy attire and with a semi-feral look to him. Both were full-color and life-sized, only their transparency and the slight crackle in the pirate’s voice betraying what they were.

“Wait… are they actually…”

“Here?” Nine finished for him. “Well, not yet, but this is actual real-time audio-visual communication. We’re still in the early testing stages, but if this continues to hold, it looks like we’ve finally cracked it.”

There was an understated pride in his voice that Knucks didn’t think he’d ever heard from the fox before.

Shaking himself out of his shock, Knucks belatedly noticed two small beams of light extending from each fox’s form and leading to a mechanical contraption over in a corner. Knucks’ first thought was that it looked like some sort of high-tech chimney more than anything, with a portion of it extending up through the ceiling – probably connected to some hidden antenna or something that had been the source of the light pillar, he now suspected. A circular opening in the center contained a shimmering cylindrical crystal shard floating in some sort of force field. It was from this shard that the beams of light were projecting.

“The ‘light show’ you saw was a side effect of the energy necessary to boost the signal through the Shatterspace gateways,” Nine continued explaining. “We’ve been testing it on smaller scales, but this is the first time it was large enough to be noticeable. Hopefully we’ll be able to fix that in the future.”

“Sorry ‘bout that, by the way” Sails chirped. “We be sailin’ uncharted waters with this here tech, it ain’t always easy to predict what the effects’ll look like. I be on an island right now ‘cause th’ first time I tested this on my end th’ flashes ended up attractin’ a glowin’ sea leviathan from the depths what almost capsized us!” He gave a little self-deprecating chuckle. “Cap’n Rose an’ I both agreed that maybe I should do me experiments from a greater distance movin’ forward.”

“Wait, all of you’ve been workin’ on this?” Knucks asked incredulously. The three foxes nodded. “How’d you… I mean, if this whole thing is new, how’d ya even manage to work all this out between you three?”

“Not easily,” Nine admitted. “It took over a month to even establish reliable two-way auditory communication. But now that we’ve worked through those problems it should be easier to coordinate our efforts going forward.”

Knucks nodded, stepping around the other two foxes (he supposed he could have walked through them, but that just seemed kind of rude) to scrutinize more closely the contraption that was projecting their images. Nothing about any of this looked sinister, but Knucks had never been the type to take such things for granted.

“So, ya say you’ve been workin’ on this for a while?”

Nine nodded. “Whenever I’ve had free time, for the past couple months. And before you say anything,” he added, rolling his eyes, “this project is entirely irrelevant to the restoration efforts so I was under no obligation to disclose it.”

Knucks frowned. “I thought you said we wouldn’t be able to communicate between worlds without the Paradox Prism.”

If Nine heard the suspicion in his tone, he didn’t acknowledge it. “I thought we couldn’t. And we can’t, really, at least not with methods utilizing the Prism. But before we all left the Grim, I… had an idea for a potential alternative.”

He gestured at the crystal in the heart of his machine. “The Grim’s physical structure is… well, I won’t bore you with the details, but essentially it’s one giant crystal with a strong elemental plasticity. Even when parts of it are separated from the whole, they still share a morphic resonance with each other and the entirety of the Grim itself – even, as we’ve confirmed over the past months, when transported to completely separate worlds. And it turns out it’s not only Prism-energy they react to.”

Knucks raised his eyebrows as Nine paced around, gesticulating excitedly with both his hands and tails as he spoke. He didn’t think he’d ever seen the fox brat like this, so eagerly showing off how his tech worked – heck, he didn’t even sound like he was deliberately trying to patronize Knucks by “dumbing it down”, which Knucks honestly would have fully anticipated.

“With these physical pieces of the Grim sharing the same energy signature, we figured out a way of using the Grim itself as a sort of ‘signal tower’ to project communications through. The biggest hurdle was honestly figuring out what energy to project with, since most forms physically can’t penetrate the Shatterspace gateways without an open portal.”

He stopped pacing and stood beside the two other foxes, nodding slightly toward the jungle-dweller.

“Mangey here had the breakthrough that allowed us to get to this point. Thanks to your counterpart on his world, actually.”

Knucks started, the image of another red echidna popping into his head, smaller and malnourished and with wild eyes constantly darting around, but still very much like him in so many ways.

“Wait, you talked with Gnarly?”

He hadn’t had much time with the jungle echidna, but after his interactions with Dread it had been an immense relief to encounter a version of himself whose nature didn’t utterly offend him to his very core. During their time sheltering in the Yolk together Gnarly had awkwardly gravitated towards him, and they’d shared words; from what Knucks gleaned from Gnarly’s stammered stories, the kid (he didn’t actually know if Gnarly was younger than him, but he just gave off that vibe) had never known any other echidnas on his world, which had… hit uncomfortably close.

Knucks had quickly found himself feeling rather protective of the other echidna (especially with their “allies” in the Chaos Council making snide remarks about his “unsophisticated” origin and mocking his skittishness). Gnarly was a good kid; a little off, yeah, but with a good heart, and loyal to his friends and allies (unlike certain pirates Knucks could name).

Plus, just… talking with a fellow echidna.

He had largely resigned himself to the notion that it wouldn’t be possible for them to see each other again.

“Not directly,” Nine answered. “Mangey’s been our go-between.”

“I thought Mangey didn’t talk.”

Nine shrugged.

“There are ways to communicate aside from words. Mangey knows how things work, even if he can’t always articulate it.”

The wild-child fox ducked his head bashfully and waved a hand as if to say “aw, shucks.”

“Anyway, apparently with the Paradox Prism stable again, Gnarly’s been picking up on some previously unknown form of ambient energy that he’s sensitive to, and Mangey was able to devise a means of utilizing it with the Grim shards. It’s taken a while – this energy is, well, chaotic and hard to pin down to make it work for us – but combining it with these” – he gestured again to the floating crystal – “we’re able to utilize it to produce similar effects to the Shatterspace portals.”

Huh. Knucks wasn’t certain what that was about – if it was an echidna thing, it was nothing he’d ever felt. But thinking about Gnarly brought up another thing that was bothering him.

“And did ya consider that some of us might wanna know that you were workin’ on a way we could talk with our friends in the other worlds again?”

And apparently Knucks was just going to keep having novel experiences today, because Nine bowed his head and actually looked genuinely contrite.

“I… I wasn’t one hundred percent certain whether this would even pan out. I didn’t want to give people false hope until we had something definite to show.” He settled his face and looked up to meet Knucks’ eyes again. “There’s still things the three of us need to work on right now while we’ve got this communication going, but I’ll come out to the city later and explain everything to Rebel and Rusty.”

Knucks shrugged, uncomfortable with the kid being so… agreeable. “I mean, I’m gonna be tellin’ ‘em anyway, but, yeah, that’d be appreciated. They’ll want the details from you, at least.”

Nine nodded, then turned back to look at his machine, his expression turning pensive.

“But anyway, once we can fine-tune this process and make sure it won’t cause any degradation like the Prism-energy portals did – it shouldn’t, since it’s not actually using Prism-energy, but we still want to be safe – we think we can probably eventually crack actual physical transportation between our worlds.”

“That be one of our two long goals,” Sails said in aside to Knucks.

Knucks frowned. “And what’s the other?”

The three foxes all shared a meaningful look between themselves.

“Finding a way to communicate with Green Hill.”

Knucks’ eyes widened. For a second he was back on the Grim, a washed-out hedgehog leaning against his shoulder for support, his seemingly endless vitality drained through his sacrifice to save them all…

“Oh.”

“Aye, this only worked ‘cause we each got a shard of the Grim to be actin’ as a connective point between worlds,” Sails said. “We been battin’ around a few ideas, but… well, even if’n we get a signal through, someone on t’other side needs to be there to pick it up.”

Nine again got a pensive look on his face.

“Yeah, that’s the major issue. Best case scenario, though, it’s possible – maybe even likely – that our counterpart in Green Hill will have the tech to pick up our signal if we can manage to force it through their gateway. And if Sonic…” He broke off, grimacing, and took a deep breath before continuing. “If Sonic’s okay, and if he’s told his friends there about us, then… Tails might be actively investigating the Shatterspace himself, which would make it easier. I mean, if he’s anything like us…”

The other two nodded in agreement.

Knucks… felt very much on the wrong foot here. None of this was what he had expected when he’d set out to this place. He couldn’t make himself feel upset about it though. Frankly, he was finding himself imagining the future with the foxes’ new tech – the chance to see Gnarly again; heck, even the prospect of meeting up with Dread too, if only because he’d been itching for a good fight…

And, of course, finally getting confirmation whether or not Sonic had made it home.

“You really think you can pull all this off?” he asked quietly.

“Well…” Nine turned to look at his fellow foxes.

He smiled then, and it wasn’t the insufferable smirk that Knucks had become used to seeing on the fox’s face when he wasn’t scowling. It was something hesitant, but soft and genuine and… happy.

He turned back to Knucks, Sails and Mangey on either side, identical blue eyes shining and each matching his smile.

“With the power of our three brains together, there’s nothing we can’t do.”

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

You always have good things to say in your essays, so I am curious what your overall thoughts are on the Sonic Movie 3 trailer?

Ah, well, thank you! I'm glad that you like what I have to say🥺❤️

So, I originally watched the trailer quickly before I had to go to work. I think at that time my general thoughts overall were basically:

Team Sonic!!🥺💖

Every new installment they surprise me with just how sad and wet Agent Stone's eyes can get in the presence of Robotnik

Pop pop?! Gerald?? He's alive??

Ough parallels between movie sonic and movie shadow

...What if Movie Shadow made a connection with Tails and Knuckles over their individual struggles in finding home despite their pasts?

Movie!Knuckles wants Movie!Shadow so bad it makes him look stupid. I love how excited he is to fight him. Like they just took Sonic's initial onesided fixation on fighting Shadow from SA2 and gave it to Knuckles and I'm not complaining

They should make Shadow and Tails implied friends like the Tailstubes did. For me 👉👈

Wooo fat movie Robotnik!

Ajsjsjjsq I love how he just ripped Stone's shirt off and kept it for himself

The juxtaposition between Sonic and Knuckles here is hilarious to me. Knuckles insulting Sonic when he sees Shadow, right in front of Sonic. Sonic trying to tell Knuckles they should be reasoning with Shadow and Knuckles is like "Nope can't hear you I need to fight him!"

I wonder just how much they're gonna tie in the Knuckles tv show. I kinda hope Wade and the flames of disaster make an appearance at least

ㅤ

I did, however, rewatch the trailer for this ask, so if you'd like to see some more in depth thoughts on the trailer, I've put them under the cut

ㅤ

"Sonic, you've finally found your family."

This line is interesting to me simply because Tom says it, but it only shows Knuckles and Tails onscreen.

Now, personally, I think this series is perfectly capable of presenting a version of "family" that doesn't 100% mean the nuclear family dynamics. In other words, especially since images of Maddie and Tom weren't put onscreen during Tom's line, I like to think that harkens back to the wish Tom and Maddie expressed for Sonic back in movie 2 to find his squad (his team of best friends and wingment to grow up with). In essence, I personally do not believe this line means "oh Knuckles and Tails are your siblings now", especially since it would contradict that sentiment in movie 2 and (while I don't think Knuckles finds them family in a nuclear family way either) would be weird paired up with Knuckles calling the Whipple family "home" in the Knuckles series.

So yes. Family because they're friends, wingmen, comrades who have each other's backs and work together, not because they're siblings unified under one particular household.

Woo! I see the flames of disaster!! Nice to see tidbits of things carrying over from the Knuckles series

I am very interested in the shot of Tom uncovering the picture Sonic drew of himself and Long Claw.

I suspected back after movie 2 that we wouldn't be done talking about Long Claw. Of course this is true by default if they want to touch on the Echidna/Owl war stuff any more, which they have in every installment thus far, but I mostly mean in terms of how Sonic's past.

Personally, especially with Knuckles turning out to be the Iblis trigger after the Knuckles series, and those lines from Long Claw about Sonic potentially being hunted for his power (even though we yet have no evidence the Echidnas were hunting Sonic for any purpose), I still think there's a possibility of the movie universe touching more on Sonic and Long Claw for bigger reveals into the past (quite possibly into Sonic's origins??)

But at baseline of course we will be getting parallels from Sonic's past to Shadow's. So I'd say that how much we touch on Long Claw and Sonic's past in this movie and the importance of it will remain to be seen.

"I know it's not easy, but you didn't change who you are in here." "Yeah. In my lungs." "Or your heart."

(The following is partially a joke) Tonhon Chonlatee reference making it's way into Sonic movie 3??

Okay, so it seems to be that someone is still going to free Shadow on Prison Island? The visuals kind of suggest he just broke out, but that line from Commander Walters can also still suggest that someone breached the security (Ala SA2 Eggman) to facilitate the freeing of Shadow. In this case, I'm highly curious as to who will be doing it, and whether they will be present when Shadow exits the pod. Personally, after Movie 2 I hoped it would be Agent Stone, but we'll get our answer when the movie comes out.

WOW that shot of Shadow punching through the glass of his stasis pod is freaking EPIC. Definitely a fav scene of him in this trailer for me

TEAM SONIC MENTIONED! (Team Sonic is my favorite team, so movies 2 and 3 are wins from me in seeing team dynamics with them)

THEM CRUMBS🥺💖

I am a shameless sontails shipper and lover of Tails so this shot is everything to me

Okay, so earlier in the trailer we saw Team Sonic separately in places all over the world. Here I think at least one of these is to show them looking for someone like Shadow with intent to stop him (or to stop another threat at baseline). Also in the trailer we see a short clip of Sonic searching in a room with a flashlight.

My first thought on this is that during the course of the movie, Team Sonic's secondary objective (either self imposed or given by GUN) is to find out more about Shadow and his past. So this scene could be related to that.

My second thought is that this scene could also be Sonic taking a look for clues on the arc, though I'm not sold on this interpretation.

Third, at baseline, this is clearly a scene of searching for someone or something. No matter who it is though, I suspect the reason or room is related to either Ivo or Gerald in some form. Plus the fact that Sonic is searching most likely means he entered the scene with intent to search rather than spontaneously deciding this.

Finally, though I don't have many thoughts here. A figure can be seen in the background in the right of this clip. Since they are not also searching with a flash light, this could be a scene where we see Sonic caught in the act of what he's doing.

Commander Walters talks about how similar Sonic and Shadow's stories are during the clip of Sonic searching, Shadow in the pod while Maria stands outside of it, both pressing their palms to the glass.

While not necessarily a confirmation, this is why I believe that scene of Sonic searching is related to Shadow's past or possibly Gerald.

Also, unrelated, I really love that clip of Shadow smiling in the pod at Maria while they press their palms together over the glass. I'm completely normal about it (sarcasm)

"But where you found family and friends"

This line from Commander Walters is overlayed over shots of Tails (during "family") and Knuckles (during "friends"), a line which (like the earlier family line) I'm sure the loudest Sonic fans are making 1k note posts about.

Anyhow, I have two interpretations of the intent of this clip in the trailer, especially since it's another scene where they neglected to show Tom and Maddie in the mini montage

1. Where the scenes are cut is meant to associate Knuckles more strongly with "friends" and Tails more strongly with "family". In this case, "family" will be used in a found family/found home manner that does not denote in nuclear family with/siblings to. In any case, while Knuckles and Tails are both his friends and undoubtedly part of his squad, it remains that Knuckles and Tails do not have the same relationship to Sonic. Despite all being friends, we see at the beginning of the Knuckles series that Tails is comfortable living with Sonic and his textual adoptive parents, and that he doesn't have the same problems as Knuckles fitting in as Sonic's roommate. Likewise, based upon Movie 2's attachment to Sonic in particular and love of being considered Sonic's friend (with those moments in movie 2), combined with what we see at the beginning of the Knuckles series, it's clear to me that Tails' home is with Sonic and Sonic in specific. Tails is Sonic's friend who considers him his home, but while Knuckles is also his friend, he goes on a journey in the Knuckles series which was meant for him to find his own home (which he finds in the Whipple family). In other words, I'm saying that one interpretation of this clip is to denote the difference in strength of bond to and relationship Sonic has to members of his squad. Tails is his family, his best friend, and Sonic is part of Tails' home. Knuckles is his friend, squad member, ally, but he does not find home in Sonic.

2. The downfall of interpretation 1 is that it contradicts what I said about Sonic considering them both his family, his best friends, his squad earlier with the other family line. So interpretation 2 asserts that the whole friends and family line is meant to be applied to team Sonic. Again, especially with the absence of Tom and Maddie, I believe this is not in a nuclear family way, but as in "they are my friends, my squad, my family". As in, Sonic feels connected to these two and feels that they are family to him in the sense that they are important to him and a big part of his life. The family one chooses to stay connected to.

For the record, I'm also biased towards this interpretation of the family lines (not just because I don't personally like the alternative), but because every main character thus far has avoided ever labeling his relationship to Tails or Knuckles as inherently sibling like. Sonic movie 2 even had Maddie and Tom at the very end saying Sonic had found his squad and best friends for growing up, and the beginning of the Knuckles series has Sonic call the two his roommates, while Maddie treats the two more like other kids that live in the house than necessarily *her* kids. Then there's also the Knuckles series ending, where Knuckles calls the Whipple family his home, but the series purposely chooses not to make it clear what his role would be in a nuclear family dynamic, only that he's a part of it. All of that juxtaposed with the fact that Tom and Maddie were explicitly confirmed as Sonic's parents in movie 2 (and combined with the fact that it's not taboo in Eng Sonic media to consider Sonic and Tails as bros or media in general to confirm characters of the same sex as basically adoptive siblings to each other) tells me that those involved in these movies purposely choose to consider these characters family to each other in a way that doesn't conform to nuclear family dynamics and friends to each other as well. In other words, they have had every available opportunity (especially if Sega wanted it or approved it) to confirm this sort of relationship outright (and might I mention that Sonic being given explicit adoptive parents is more big in terms of the past mandates than someone like Tails being a bro (which has been let into eng media on occasion in the past)), and have not done so. They have not given any indication they will do so. And I feel that at this point after showing us good examples of canonically platonic relationships that are important without necessarily being sibling/nuclear family dynamics, it would be a waste to just go "yeah they're siblings" and call it a day, ripping the complexity out of it.

But that's just me.

Right after the clip I just mentioned, we see Team Sonic race each other, with Tom and Maddie starting the race.

Now I've already seen postings about how this shot is confirmation about how Tails and Knuckles are so siblings to Sonic.

Since I have my own post here, I just want to say that at very baseline I think that reasoning is incorrect. This is because the Knuckles series, again, explicitly confirmed Knuckles' home to be with the Whipple family, in contrast to how the beginning hammers in how he doesn't fit in with the Wachowski family or feel quite at home with them. They literally cannot be canonically siblings to each other if they haven't referred to each other this way and if one of the characters involved in the scene doesn't even consider this family in question his home. At best to me the association of this clip and the words about friends and family beforehand implies that Sonic considers these 4 all parts of his family in different ways (again, not necessarily with all 4 fitting into nuclear family dynamics). I don't endeavor to say Sonic sees Knuckles and Tails as siblings to him (in a situation where the feelings aren't exactly the same both ways) because, again, Sonic outright avoids considering them this way, and considers them his friends and roommates explicitly in the first episode of the Knuckles series.

Anyways anyways. I digress. The point of this clip.

At this time I'm thinking either this is a friendly race they've asked Tom and Maddie to intervene for (possible), or this is the start of the journey earlier when we see the trio at different places all over the world. In other words, it's possible they started their separate journeys around the world with a race, intending to beat each other to doing something with a friendly contest.

"Shadow found only pain, and loss"

I know how people have been talking about this set of clips, but at this time I do not believe the fire (aftermath of possible explosion) we see is the original event on the Arc resulting in Maria's death. Yeah, sure, the movie universe isn't 1 to 1 with canon, but I really do not feel like that scene is depicting the arc. This instead reads as a scene to me where Gerald and Shadow are going through a painful moment of loss in the present and being cornered by GUN for capture. It seems more like a scene that occurs partway through the movie as an event that happens rather than a flashback.

Take that with a grain of salt though. That's just my interpretation, and there's not a lot of proof to find to back up any particular one.

We've also heard rumors of time travel being involved, so it's also possible there's a plot bit involving saving Maria and reversing the hurt that way and it tragically failing? Don't know.

Also love the shot of Shadow looking at the cracked glass👌

S sorry just them again looking at each other and Sonic turning to Tails for guidance 🥺🥺💖

This entire mini clip means quite possibly a bit too much to me for a mere trailer but I love their dynamic

I have talked about it before but damn. Knuckles "He is much more impressive than the hedgehog I fought previously"

We literally see a shot of Shadow revealing himself, and then Knuckles starts talking about how impressive he is.

I know there were a lot of jokes made in the last couple years that Sonic would see Shadow and instantly be enamored, but oh how the turntables! In the end, in this trailer at least, it's actually Knuckles who becomes instantly enamored. One look and he's calling him impressive. One look, and he's already ignoring any direction on Sonic's part to perhaps de-escalate the situation by talking to Shadow, because Knuckles wants to fight Shadow so badly it makes him look stupid.

The way the interaction is done reads to me that Knuckles wants to get a go at tussling with Shadow either more than the stakes of the plan at hand, or would want to despite reality. In other words, even if Shadow "switches sides" so to speak successfully here, Knuckles would still want to fight him for personal reasons.

Of course right after this we get the subject of a billion jokes about how Shadow hates Tails so much in specific that he goes out of his way to beat him up.

Where is that meme image of the guy looking out the window holding his cigarette, just tired? (Rhetorical question)

I did not think it would be need to said but here.

If you watch the scene, Shadow kicking Tails is not presented as more important or targeted than anything else. First of all, it is within a sequence where we see him take down the members of Team Sonic one by one in a single blow. Second of all, Tails' is actually the least focused on in the trailer. Knuckles punching Shadow only for Shadow to (presumably) break his wrist is shown as a big thing (especially as a call back to the first big clash between Sonic and Knuckles that was advertised a lot for movie 2). Shadow going for Tails is something he literally cuts behind Sonic to do, which quickly segues into him grabbing Sonic and using his air shoes to boost them high into the air so he can slam Sonic down into the ground. Tails being kicked here is presented like something he had to do to get to Sonic, not him going out of his way to beat up Tails. Seriously. How can that even be true when Knuckles and Sonic get flashier and longer beat downs?

Anyways, all that aside, this scene is very neat. It's very clearly to set up the disparity in power between Team Sonic and Shadow the same way it did between Sonic and Knuckles in movie 2, with the framing this time presenting Shadow as a powerhouse unlike anything anyone has ever faced. In other words, combatting Shadow will be more of an ordeal than combatting Knuckles was.

The scene where Tails says "this is a bad idea" and Sonic goes "when has that ever stopped me".

It would be completely fine and dandy if this does turn out to be about the crew looking for Robotnik and deciding to join with him. Personally, I think this is one of those cases where a line from a movie is cut in the trailer to show that it's about something when it really has to do with something else.

Besides the fact that we just don't know when or how everyone will learn Robotnik is alive (since it's pretty well considered by the main characters that he died at the end of movie 2), I think with Tails outright opposing this and Sonic looking angry, this scene is referring to something potentially more risky and dangerous than joining forces with Ivo Robotnik. Depending on how epic the scene is, this could predate a major moment

But I'm excited to see the context regardless of what it turns out to be!

Sorry I know I said it earlier but WHOO fat Robotnik. Hollywood fatphobia aside, I'm honestly glad that Jim Carrey has been winning his battle of moving his character closer visually to Robotnik's canon design.

It's pretty clear by the "we" have visitors that Stone has been with Robotnik taking care of him at some point since the ending of Movie 2. I remember a lot of us assumed the battle in movie 2 did kill Robotnik but that Movie 3 would involve Stone bringing him back somehow. Either way, though I know this was technically dependent on whether Jim Carrey would return to this movie, I do feel vindicated for saying "Robotnik isn't gone for good since we didn't see a body and GUN didn't find one at the end of movie 2".

Agent Stone and his sad wet eyes

So to go into a lot of detail would require a proper essay post, so I'm going to try to make this section as short as possible.

Now, as far as I've gathered since movie 2, Stone's sad wet eyes appear in 1 of 3 instances.

1. When he misses Robonik so so dearly (as seen in the beginning of Movie 2)

2. When he is jealous and fears being replaced by someone else Robotnik chooses to hang out with and go on his missions for the evil plan with (as seen during the scenes where Robotnik has Knuckles with him in the Mean Bean in movie 2)

3. When Robotnik continues to change from the exact kind of slick, collected, confident, and fashionable guy we see in movie 1 in ways which Agent Stone would percieve as him "getting worse" (As seen in movie 2 where Stone sees Robotnik again for the first time, remarking that he looks different, and in the annoyance he gets in movie 2 when Robotnik leaves him out of his plans and continues to include Knuckles rather than consult or use him (Stone))

Now, clearly it is not option 1, given that he is fully aware of Robotnik's location and has clearly been watching over him.

I also do not believe it is number 2, for two reasons.

1. The context clues imply Robotnik has likely only been around Stone all this time. There's no one already living in this space for Stone to be jealous of.

2. We see Stone and his bike blocking the path between Team Sonic and Robotnik, and it's Stone who brings Team Sonic inside to appeal to him. Since it's implied Stone chose to let them in and doesn't seem annoyed when he announces their presence, he does not have the sad wet eyes because he's jealous of their connection to Robotnik in any way.

So this leaves us with option 3: Robotnik is changing further in ways that are messing with Stone, and Stone sees it as Robotnik beginning to "fall from greatness" so to speak.

And I think this interpretation is actually pretty clear. We don't see evidence of a struggle on Stone, so it's unlikely he seriously fought Team Sonic. Rather, it seems to me that they told him they wanted to appeal to Robotnik to get him to help with protecting the world, and they convinced Stone to let them see Robotnik because Stone hopes their involvement (or such a mission) will get Robotnik out of whatever his current rut is (with the state of his hair and stache and the mess in the place he's staying in, it's pretty clear he's in a depressive rut). Stone is sad to see Robotnik this way and hopes Team Sonic can fix it.

We are not actually done with Stone's sad wet eyes though, as he still has them during the scene Robotnik retreats to the bathroom for an outfit change (yes, the scene where he rips off Stone's shirt). It's also worth noting here that Stone still sounds sad during this scene.

So, this is where I take the time to talk MORE about Agent Stone in relation to Ivo Robotnik (but again without going too in detail and doing too much outright essaying). This bit is connected to the previous part, but I wanted to give it its own section since this has to do with my prediction for the future.

My theory? Stone may be set up for an eventual Dr. Starline parallel.

Let me explain a bit.

So, if you don't know who Doctor Starline is, he origates in the IDW Sonic comic adaptation. He is a very intelligent (and fashionable) scientist who holds great admiration for Robotnik, and is obsessed with him. From the beginning he'd put Robotnik on a pedestal and had wanted not only to be like him, but to be vital to him. Starline wanted to be a great help Robotnik to take over the world, and essentially superimposed himself into the position of Robotnik's number 2 (a position comparable to Stone's in the Sonic Movies, Snively in SATAM and the Archie comics, and Grimer's in the Fleetway comics). Over the course of Starline's time together with Robotnik as his self imposed number two, the two start out fairly strong only to clash more and more often as Robotnik expects a lackey who only does what he says, and Starline expects a partner who will listen to his advice. Tensions grow, Starline becomes more disillusioned in the genius and superiority of his hero, and finally, Starline takes it upon himself to be insubordinate. Believing that Eggman's plans are short sighted and destined to fail, he takes it upon himself to "fix things" by going behind Robotnik's back and bringing in the Zeti as (assumed) pawns. It is after this act where Starline decides he needs to save his hero from himself that Eggman tosses him to the side and fires him.

Now, it's worth mentioning that Eggman so easily tosses him aside because there is one thing Starline does not have in common with the other examples of Eggman's number two in other media. This is that they have the advantage of time spent with Eggman, allowing him to become attached to them enough that even smaller acts of insubordination aren't enough for him to fire them completely.

But in any case, Robotnik didn't completely reject Starline after this. He was of the mind that he'd be willing to take Starline back if Starline begged at his feet and apologized. However, since Starline had too much pride, he did not do this. Rather, he begins to believe that Robotnik still is a grand genius, just that he's short sighted and can never take over the world with how he handles the threat of Sonic. So, Starline takes it upon himself to take over the world for Eggman (since he believes he himself is smart enough to do so without falling into Eggman's folly), and then dreams of doing such a good job that it's Eggman who begs to he at his side, since Starline is hung up on Eggman's rejection and wants him to choose him.

So, what does this have to do with Stone?

Well, I have no doubt that Stone was a smart man from the start given his position related to the US gov and that he's been able to perfectly Robotnik's assistant. But you can also take Eggman's word for it as well, courtesy of the prequill comic (which takes place between movies 1 and 2)

It is also by this very comic that we know that Stone was the only man Robotnik trusted to enact his plans in his absense, and perhaps the only man he had ever shared the secrets of his manifesto.

And it's how we know that Stone undoubtedly undergoes major changes by movie 2 compared to movie 1. Not only does he have it in his mind that he is Robotnik's number 2, a man personally responsible for doing what Robotnik cannot with the mission of personally rebuilding Robotnik's glory, but this entire experience contains the purpose of molding Stone to be more like Robotnik himself.

Stone by movie 2 is more cunning and calculating in the way Robotnik is. He was given a personal mission to rebuild his master's former glory, and he throws his entire self into it. It is not a stretch to assume that Stone is saddened upon meeting Robotnik again in movie 2 because it did not match his expectations.

All in all, especially since he'd given Robotnik the tools for a makeover, I think from Stone's end he was expecting for Robotnik to return to him a man who has gone through an ordeal but maintains his style and greatness (essentially, looking like he did before), as a man of who would congratulate Stone on his work in his absense (praise him even), and take him at his side as they work together to enact Robotnik's world takeover plan.

But Stone's expectations are dashed as Robotnik arrives in a new fit, with a new stache, seemingly more mentally unstable than before (keep in mind, Robotnik's thing in movie 1 was that he was more intelligent and thought differently than everyone else, not that he was unstable. He was the kind of "genius who is written off as unstable but sees what no one else does", but since his involvement with Sonic HAS been seemingly less cool and collected and more unstable), and with a space echidna at his side. In the span of one meeting, Stone had the means to feel replaced and to feel as if Robotnik was falling short of his glory/falling from greatness as he's changed.

And then over the course of movie 2, though there are people who do Movie Ivo character study who'd agree that Robotnik does genuinely care about Stone, just is bad at showing it or doesn’t show it conventionally, it's pretty clear that Stone himself doesn't really see it. He doesn't feel valued. He doesn't even get to be used by Robotnik as he was in movie 1, actively on the road trip with him. Nope. Robotnik leaves him at the Mean Bean most of the movie.

And this is why Stone doesn't seem happy most of the movie. This is why it excites him so that Robotnik accepts him at the end of the movie and makes room for him as a vital helper.

What I assert, in essence, is that after the prequill comic, Stone can no longer just be okay in his role as he was before with little praise/acknowledgement, nor can he even he even take solace in the fact that Robotnik will always keep him around because he needs him.

So here's where the Starline parallel comes in. Now that Stone sees himself as a much more important figure in Robotnik's life, with a mission given to him by a version of Ivo who Stone could possibly see as "at his most sane" to make sure he succeeds and attains his former glory, I think he sees his number two role as less of a guaranteed thing and something he must fight to keep (this means stuff like putting himself out there at the end of movie 2 and begging to go with Robotnik, or taking it upon himself to find Robotnik after the battle and support him). And so, I suspect (especially with those shots we got in the trailer, Stone being sad at presenting Robotnik's current state, his potentially angrier faces as he's finally allowed to groom Robotnik and shave his hair, his continued sadness even as Robotnik has moved out of his rut) that we're going to see Robotnik to continue to take Stone's presence as his "sycophant" for granted, while Stone continues to become disillusioned with his idol and master.

But in the end, this is just my theory. I do not yet know how much of this will actually come to pass, but I hope it's food for thought for you all.

I predict Stone will continue to become so disillusioned with Robotnik due to seeing him as a man falling from greatness and due to lack of acknowledgement and appreciation, that Stone will eventually turn on Robotnik. But not to stop him or to become better than him. No. I predict, Starline style, Stone will take it upon himself to restore Eggman to his former glory, to eventually go behind Eggman's back and enact his own plans, to attempt to take over the world for Robotnik, and to accomplish it all in such an amazing display that Robotnik has to express that he wants him around and to acknowledge him as a partner and to praise him.

At least, that could be the plan/setup. It would remain to be seen how these two characters resolve this event (essentially, in which ways this diverges from the parallel and the two inevitably come back together again). After all, no matter what ends up happening between Stone and Robotnik, I think something will need to give and change eventually, and the two will need to make their feelings/wishes...more clear to each other

By the way, I too love the Stobotnik scenes in this trailer. We are eating good👌👌👌 However, it really is hard not to see that scene where Ivo rips Stone's shirt off as another moment where Stone doesn't feel appreciated. Ivo over here ripping off a man's shirt (gay. Sorry. The people are right when they asked if it was gay for him to just rip it off and then choose to wear it during the movie), and it's entirely possible the man in question thinks that this is proof that Robotnik doesn't think much of him in this state (even if Stone is clearly not going to keep him from doing what he wants here)

"When we're done, there won't be anything left"

Cool, so Shadow is actively planning on destroying the world here. Potentially to satisfy revenge.

Interesting. So the scene with the Chao mascots also looks like an ambush is happening, with Team Sonic specifically being targeted with missiles

"What did you do?" "What I had to."

Movie Sonic has his classic extremely angry face here too, so Shadow must have done something major. It's either world ending, or it put the lives of his family and friends in HUGE jeopardy (or both).

AND FINALLY. Gerald reveal

I cannot express the surprise I felt here. This scene shows us that Gerald is here in the present, not just a man who died 50 years ago by execution. So, possible time travel shenanigans or not, the fact that he's involved in the present conflict (perhaps with Shadow personally) is highly interesting and I'm excited to see where this goes.

Also, based on the layout of the room here, it's potentially possible that either this is the same room Sonic is searching earlier in the trailer, or that Gerald had multiple lab like living spaces he was jumping between over the years to stay under the radar, and that Team Sonic and Team Robotnik ended up finding Gerald while looking into clues on Shadow

ㅤ

And...done. Whew. Wow. I had a lot of thoughts so uh. I hope my ask satisfied your curiosity, flashonetwo. I also hope for anyone that read this far that you enjoyed it at least a little bit, and that your mind is running with thoughts of your own.

I'm beyond excited for this movie, and I genuinely can't wait to see what happens next. So here's to seeing how much we get right in the future, and here's to enjoying what we get!😊❤️

[randomthefox]

"Rings don't actually exist. They're only for gameplay mechanics"

Meanwhile there are multiple characters who have rings on their person at all times

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/sonic/images/5/59/Sonic_Art_Assets_DVD_-_Amy_-_1.png/revision/latest?cb=20230731191523

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/sonic/images/1/15/Sonic_Art_Assets_DVD_-_Shadow_The_Hedgehog_-_4.png/revision/latest?cb=20230731210959

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/sonic/images/7/75/Shahra.png/revision/latest?cb=20150622115758

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/sonic/images/e/e4/Ariem.png/revision/latest?cb=20231102022111

There's stuff like Sonic having one or multiple rings on his person throughout the majority of Secret Rings

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/sonic/images/b/b2/Sasr21.PNG/revision/latest?cb=20220507181503

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/sonic/images/1/10/Darkspine_Sonic.PNG/revision/latest?cb=20220507180106

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/sonic/images/4/4c/SonicandtheSecretRingsBlueRing.png/revision/latest?cb=20210414221919

In SA2 Sonic and Shadow discuss rings and the necessity of collecting them to maintain their super forms

Rings absolutely exist within the setting. Anyone who says otherwise is being willingly obtuse for no reason.

Now I have to admit, I am not entirely unsympathetic to the perspective that "rings do not exist diegetically in Sonic, they're just for gameplay." I was aggressive in my response to wg_alen but that's because I could smell the stink of "Ian Flynn said so" on this tweet.

Seriously, the "as silly as that sounds" just REEKS of "Ian Flynn said rings aren't canon in a podcast and what he says goes" doesn't it?

For people who are actually using their brains instead of thoughtlessly regurgitating whatever Ian Flynn tells them to think, and who have independently came to the reasoned position that the rings in Sonic are just for gameplay and don't "actually" exist; I understand. Because I used to be the same way. I also used to believe that the rings were just a gameplay mechanism and we weren't supposed to interpret their existence as literal within the world of Sonic. Same with the springs and bounce pads. They're just there because of video game mechanics, the characters in the world of Sonic do not actually interact with them.

But eventually I had to face up to the cold hard facts that no, the rings absolutely 100% exist within the world of Sonic. They are referred to directly and specifically in dialog multiple times across several games, and are used as currency in both Sonic Adventure's Casinopolis and in Sonic Unleashed for exchange for goods at store fronts. The rings are used as currency and as a way of providing "energy" for the cast and setting. They absolutely exist diegetically in universe.

Now perhaps the rings do not function LITERALLY the same way they do in the realm of gameplay. We never see rings fly out of characters upon taking a hit in any cutscenes for example. As recently as Shadow Generations, Shadow takes a homing attack from Sonic and just hits the mat. No rings fly out of him. And in the games like Sonic Adventure 1 and 2 where you can have boss fight against other playable characters, their damage threshold is just represented like a hit counter or life meter. Collecting rings does not refill their hit points, and if they collected a ring from the boss arena and then take a final hit which drains their hit points the boss fight will end even while the rings they collected fall out of them meaning they should have one extra hit to take by gameplay logic.

So the way the rings provide additional hits/mistake allowances is just gameplay mechanics which shouldn't be taken literally. But the rings themselves definitely exist, and have value both as a unit of currency and as a means of providing energy. This cannot be denied. And if some dumbass comic book writer is saying that should be denied, then that is just further proof that he's always always always wrong about Sonic and should never ever ever be listened to about anything ever.