#this is 2-3 erasure

[luna-loveboop]

Yeah sky and time's relationship is a whole mess over the master sword

but can we talk about sky and wild's view of the sword

Because it's just a lot of contradictions

Sky loves the sword. Sky loves Fi. Sky openly admits she can hurt them. Sky knows she has best interests at heart. Sky is dying for someone to care about the sword. Sky is pissed that wild broke the sword. Sky still handed her back to him.

Wild loves the sword. The sword tried to kill Wild and he's a little bitter about that. Wild worked to earn the sword. Wild doesn't feel worthy of the sword. Wild breaks the sword. The sword always comes back.

.

Wild is the only one who openly invites Sky to talk about the sword- how he forged it, and the voice inside. There is a lot of negativity around Wild and the sword. And the sword is a major bonding point with Sky. He's dying for someone to care about her too, but at the end of the day Wild is the one who actually talks to him about her.

[indigovigilance]

Baraqiel and Azazel

Disclaimer: DO NOT ask Neil Gaiman to confirm or deny any of this. He doesn't want you to ask. I don't want you to ask.

SO DON'T ASK.

Edit: Neil confirmed this theory and it's not my fault: see the reblog

Now, on with the meta.

Thesis and evidence below the cut:

Dominion...

Angel of the Sky...

Hair an eye-burning ginger, eyebrows like grisly slugs, often draped in red…

Occasionally damp...

Most likely singed…

Most likely singed…

Most likely singed…

Most likely singed…

So that's everything from purely within Good Omens canon.

Baraqiel is described, additionally, in the Book of Enoch as:

Lord of Lightning

Who taught the forbidden knowledge of astronomy:

He is also the overseer of the Second Heaven, wherein lies the prison of Fallen Angels. More on that later.

The story of Baraqiel’s ejection from Heaven is contained in the Book of Enoch, but he’s not a main character. In fact, he’s only one of twenty major fallen angels, specifically, the ninth. The tenth is Azazel.

Who, then, is Azazel?

Firstly, Azazel is a fallen angel:

Who is damned because he introduces humans to forbidden knowledge, specifically, the knowledge of swords [and other devices of warfare]:

And also the knowledge of adornment, specifically, “the art of making up the eyes, and of beautifying the eyelids, and the most precious stones, and all kinds of coloured dyes.”

And insofar as Azazel is synonymous with Azzael, he denounces the authority of the Metatron:

In fact, Azazel is given all the blame for revealing the secrets of Heaven: “​​the whole Earth has been ruined by the teaching of the works of Azazel; and against him write: ALL SIN.”

and God orders Raphael punish Azazel: “And further the Lord said to Raphael: "Bind Azazel by his hands and his feet and throw him into the darkness. And split open the desert, which is in Dudael, and throw him there.””

We never learn in the Book of Enoch that Raphael actually does this (based on my reading), but it was commanded. In fact, Raphael would have had to throw Azazel into that prison which was in the domain of Baraqiel.

This puts Baraqiel!Crowley and Azazel!Aziraphale among the ranks of angels that went to Earth and delighted in Earthly pleasures, which caused them to be “fallen,” that God refused to speak to from then on, that Enoch!Metatron was ordered by God to tell that they were unforgiven and would never be forgiven.

It’s worth noting that there seems to be some disagreement among rabbinical scholars over whether Samyaza, Azza, Azzael, and Azazel are separate entities or if these are different names for the same entity. We should also remember that in the universe of Good Omens, entities change names when they ascend to or fall from Heaven.

Tying this all back to the Metatron: In 3 Enoch, the book which describes the ascent of Enoch the man to Metatron the angel, we learn that the overseer of the Second Heaven is Baraqiel, angel of lightning. The description of the prison in the Second Heaven and the angels trapped within it is terrifying, but not more than Enoch’s own actions when he is there.

At this point Enoch has not been transfigured into the Metatron yet, but when he passes by, the angels ask him to pray for them to the Lord; and he refuses, for “who am I, a mortal man, that I may pray for angels?” He is told about them again in the Fifth Heaven, about their sins, how they followed Satan, and that they will be punished on Judgment Day.

So we have a lot of reasons here to see that there would be enmity directly between the Metatron and Azazel, for questioning his authority before God, and between Baraqiel and Enoch!Metatron, for either Baraqiel was guarding the prison or already in it when the human who would become Metatron was supplicated for prayers of redemption and refused. Either way, the Metatron is responsible for Baraqiel’s fall, most directly because he refused to take the petition of the fallen angels before God and instead relied on his interpretation of a dream.

There’s been a lot of implication and even exposition throughout S2 that memory is vulnerable to erasure. We’ve gotten some direct hints that Crowley doesn’t remember all of his past, but I would venture to propose that Aziraphale has a very troubled past that he does not remember, that the Metatron (and possibly Crowley) does, and that further, because his memory was [partially] removed, his name was changed to Aziraphale, for which we see precedent in Jimbriel and all the demons.

My absolutely unhinged, unsubstantiated S3 prediction is that Angel!Crowley sacrificed himself to rescue Azazel from damnation, and the price of Azazel remaining an angel was losing the memories of his transgressions, including (and especially) those he formed with Angel!Crowley. That at the Garden of Eden, Crawley!Crowley knew that these things had been erased, and that he was probably talking to a husk of his former friend, the way that Jim was a husk of Gabriel, but that when he learned that Aziraphale had given away the sword, realized that the soul of the person he loved was still in there.

Partner post: For a meta on why we should believe that Enoch!Metatron aka Human!Metatron is a possibility, go here.

Edit: I read the Book of Enoch from front to back, twice, but if you want to check my work (or write a response meta!) you can find the source material here and here.

If you liked this husbands-centric meta, you may like A Nightingale Sang in 1941

If you liked this historic event speculation, you may like Sodom and Gomorrah

[bisexualfagdyke]

"lesbian poolverine" guys... I hate to be a bummer but Wade is canonically pansexual & Logan is implied bisexual.... if you genderbend them why would they not just be pan / bi sapphics...? 😭

[bluevelvet-room]

the persona champions thing on twitter has raised an interesting question and i'd like to satisfy my curiosity

[teastarfall]

hey guys! fun fact! LN2 will have its 3rd anniversary in like 2 months… i am in tears,,, i need to sit down…. huh

d,,drawings for now..

[daisyachain]

The nature of time is that (culturally) Christian Euro/Anglo colonial consumers (hereafter white ‘people’) fetishize the idea of being ‘close to nature’ or ‘primitive’ or ‘savage’ and latch on to the idea that there are groups of people in the world who are somehow bestial or who have some kind of special powers from holding animist beliefs/beliefs that acknowledge the body as opposed to the Christian belief that the body is a kind of useless appendage to a person. We see this across decades from the 19thC to today in the racist fetishization of indigenous people across the globe, particularly residents of the Americas, Australasia, and southern/eastern Africa.

White consumers use a warped conception of other cultures to live out the fantasies that the Christian soul/body stuff engenders. You keep getting told that your emotions and physical sensations are the devil’s work? You want to get in touch with those physical sensations, but you don’t want it to interfere with your worldview? Simply project them on to a convenient group of people with slightly different conventions from you. Imagine how cool it would be to be 100% physical sensation (especially those pesky violent and/or sexual urges) and no mental burden, then unleash that in a way that causes millions of deaths worldwide via the dehumanization of entire nations of people just trying to live their lives. White consumers love a Proud Warrior Race Guy.

Flash forward to the 2010s, it’s generally considered impolite to spread the same propaganda that justified the genocide and dispossession of many different groups of people. However white culture hasn’t changed that much and normal human activities still need to be explained away to maintain the veneer of white intellectualism that has been used to justify white violence for years and years. You can’t just stomp around and clap your hands and dance badly, you’ve got to project it somewhere else.

But wait! There’s a community of people considered ‘tribal’ and ‘savage’, considered violent and bestial, who were never colonized! It’s…the Norse. Fetishizing early medieval North Sea raiders can’t be cultural appropriation, see, they’re white! It’s not offensive to replace an entire culture with white (male) ideas of what’s cool if that culture is totally unassociated with colonizer stereotypes and is in fact a culture of colonizers!

And that’s my theory on why there are so many Norse-inspired folk bands/video games/tv shows/memes/literally anything in the 2010s. VSaga not counted because that manga has been running since 2003 and is actually well-researched and comes out of a culture with a similar but distinct tradition of racism. The Euro storytelling tendencies of needing some kind of violent avatar have taken on ye anciente Norseman now that people care a little bit about the gallons of blood used to sketch other ethnic stereotypes. Done and dusted. Except the other side is that the fetishization of early medieval Norse culture is literally just white supremacist 101 and a lot of artists don’t step around that nearly as carefully as they should

[alice-985]

drew this weeks ago and wasnt particularly proud but art ig

[lesbianclaryfray]

“actually ivy is CANON BISEXUAL in main continuity” and the “source” is 2 completely different continuities, a screenrant article citing a source that does not exist, and her “relationship” with her groomer

[rychuart]

Splatoon sketchdump (or: a record of my brainrot) from the last several months

i love... all of the idols.... sm

[arcanemadman]

[tohrinha]

There are two ways the last area of Dawntrail is bothering me-

1. Living Memory as capstone of Wuk Lamat's growth as a leader and diplomat

The entire first half of Dawntrail, and the vast majority of Wuk Lamat (aka DT's protagonist)'s arc, is learning to serve her people by understanding their ways and developing solutions that are driven by those people

Hanu Hanu - revitalizes a major festival by working closely with the festival leader and a local expert. Spreads forgotten knowledge about the festival's importance as a side effect of working with said expert. Changes the society. Driven by Hanu Hanu.

Pelupelu - fosters a young up-and-coming Pelupelu through her internship to become a valued role in her society. Changes one person. Requested by Pelupelu.

Moblins - generates new business connections to prevent a specialized industry being lost due to hurricane damage. Changes one person. Requested by Moblins.

Yok Huy - solves game of hide-and-seek by engaging with local historians and visiting important cultural sites. Permanently defeats long-standing threat to the Yok Huy. Changes the society. Requested by Yok Huy.

(Bonus) Chirwagur - negotiates temporary passage to a sacred site. Negotiated with Chirwagur.

Xbr'aal - participates in a cultural tradition by engaging with local practitioners and historians. Changes nothing. Requested by Xbr'aal.

Mamool Ja - reduces harmful cultural practice by finding the core unmet need, develops alternative solution to said need that would allow the Mamool Ja additional control over their current home, and proposing, not forcing, the alternative to the people as a whole. Changes the society. Negotiated with Mamool Ja.

When we got to Heritage Found, I assumed it would focus on understanding the Alexandrian's use of regulators and memory upload, and finding a way to restore contact with Tural and coexist in a way that respected their way of life (with or without changes to it).

We did the first part, then the situation changed due to actions of their queen. Fair enough.

Living Memory, however... as soon as we step in and establish that Sphene is no longer available for discussion, Cahciua approaches us and asks that we shut the city down. And we're on a strict time limit. We get chances to see the Endless's way of life on the way to the terminals, but at no point do we approach them to ask what they think about our actions or see if they've come up with alternatives during their five hundred year existence. We change everything about their society, on the request of a single junior member. We don't even give them the courtesy of a heads-up.

I agree it's better to attempt understanding and remember a people than forget them. But. They're still alive when we're here. They're not artifacts or museum pieces. We can learn about them and talk to them at the same time!

2. Living Memory as a parallel to Amaurot

I am a sucker for Amaurot. In general, I'm a sucker for doomed city-states that play an active hand in their own destruction. *cough*Numenor*cough* (I know Amaurot wasn't a city-state but the presentation in Shadowbringers is close enough.) The Amaurotines didn't start the Final Days, but they did decide to go ahead with the Zodiark plan, which at best would have removed half their population and caused societal trauma. In practice, it removed half their population, caused societal trauma, led one of their former government leaders to split reality, and set three of their current government leaders on an endless quest to recover their fallen. I would say they played a pretty active role in their fate.

Living Memory's only role in their shutdown was inaction. They didn't use their five hundred years to come up with alternative energy sources or brainstorm scalability solutions. So sure, they can fit into the "resource-sucking utopia hoist by their own petard" archetype, but I'm not as into that trope. And even then, the people I'm still mad at are Preservation and AI!Sphene for, again, not changing anything in the past five hundred years. This issue was entirely foreseeable! This is bad data/conservation/government practice!

So my emotional reaction is less "ah, a once-thriving society now only ghosts due to a Tragic Flaw, how sad~" and more "okay, time to shut off everyone's life support due to poor hospital management".

Also, if we're paralleling Amaurot, and I'm not saying the writing team intended the parallel, then I come down on a very different side in terms of "who is truly alive". With the Ancients and us, Emet's argument was that due to the sundering, modern people are fundamentally less people than his own. And I see his argument! I disagree with his argument, but it is a reasonable conclusion to come to given his background.

With Living Memory, there's uncertainty among our characters as to whether the computer-assisted memories are actually "alive" (are they actually people). I am 100% of the opinion that yep, the Endless are alive, the Endless are people, the Endless are, in fact, barring data corruption, the same people they were before they died. We have textual evidence that a person is a continuity of soul and memory. We have additional textual evidence from this expansion that the specific soul isn't super important, as long as it's a sapient one (i.e. not a feral/beast soul; though if they put the beast souls through the same processing as sapients, maybe they could!). Therefore a set of memories instantiated with a soul is a person.*

(Without the metaphysical evidence, I still lean alive and person. They have the ability to form new memories and make decisions; they're persons. Heck, my personal definition of person doesn't even require those two, they're just relevant arguing points given the situation.)

The problem with Living Memory is not that the lifestream is being used to power ghosts; the problem is that the lifestream is being used unsustainably and its leadership is uninterested in different solutions.

(Rejoinings are also a case of leadership being uninterested in different solutions.)

(Unlike. Say. The Mamool Ja. From five levels ago.)

---

I don't have a conclusion paragraph to this, I just found it really difficult to engage with the story and themes on their terms. Also Sphene. Sphene, I am disappointed in you. Take a data management course.

---

*This implies that with a little more innovation, we could have a FFXIV/SOMA crossover. (With Otis... maybe we already do.)

---

Count of Endless who knew we were going to shut down the terminals:

Cahciua (natch, the instigator)

Otis (figured it out)

Robor and Alayla (figured it out, have been trying to do so themselves; also, Krile, the time to ask "is there an alternative" was two terminals ago, but better two deep than four deep)

Count of Endless we voluntarily consulted about shutting down the terminals: 0

[liminalweirdo]

source

4 Reasons to (Re)Normalize Masking

1. Apathy is violence: resist white supremacy by refusing to contribute to mass infection, disability, and death.

2. Destroy the state's argument that masking is only used by "criminals" to hide their identities.

3. Protect mask wearers from targeting: cops can't single them out if everyone is wearing a mask.

4. Combat the exclusion and erasure of disabled people from public spaces by making them safer.

[wonk1s]

BUNGEE GOES SO HARD

[smartzelda]

WE WON, BOYS

Sometimes it feels like fighting for your life for your interpretations/ideas when louder fandom wants everyone to interpret it the same (*cough* the insistence that Nine's gonna die and Sonic is either going to have to choose between the variants or his original friends or thay the variants have to be absorbed back into the originals to "fix" things *cough*), but like

I was right! Option 3: Everyone, all the shatterspaces, Green Hill, and Sonic’s original friends all get to exist in the universe. Without the usage of shard energy there's just not currently a way for people to do interdimemsional travel.

Okay

Sonic Prime theory time

(Because I'm going through it right now)

Specifically I want to talk about my own answer to the question "How will the show end?"

ㅤ

Thoughts/Analysis under the cut

Season 2 Spoilers

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So, as I see it, there are about three possible endings.

Ending 1: Goodbyes are said. The universe is reverted back to its state before the shattering and Sonic gets his original friends back. (May also come with sonic being the only one who remembers what happened, but I can't rule out the concept of his friends remembering anything as well)

Ending 2: Sonic comes to terms with the fact that he can't bring back the original Green Hill and his old friends as they were. The shatterverse continues as is. (This most likely constitutes in a bit of a bittersweet ending where everything continues as is, but Sonic swears not to forget what things were like before)

And Ending 3: Sonic gets to have his cake and eat it too (He manages to fix ghost hill and bring his original friends back while the new shatterspaces and his new friends/all the new characters also get to stay around)

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Originally, while being partial to option 3, I assumed option 1 would be most likely. After all, option 3 originally originated as my happy "everyone lives" idea. I liked (and still do) imagining the possibilities that would arise from the universe from Sonic Prime entering a Kingdom Hearts-like state (where either the characters can travel freely between worlds while still needing to be conscious of each shatterspace's order, or travel between them is nonexistent/extremely limited). While I liked the bittersweet nature/possibilities of option 2, I found that outcome to be more unlikely given the show's audience.

I'm not saying that shows that keep an audience of children in mind can never end bittersweetly or that it's never happened before. It's just more like I find it hard to see those involved in the show effectively rendering beloved characters as dead/gone forever and make Sonic move on while with "different versions" of said characters.

However, now I'm a bit more inclined to believe in version 3 (the "everybody lives" ending), and here's...my long winded way of saying why

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So, about where I changed my mind is when I realized that Sonic Prime...isn't a typical alternate dimensions/multiverse storyline, especially with what seems to be it's basic framework.

So, when Sonic shatters the paradox prism, all of his friends and Green Hill are shattered as well. So it stands to reason that 5 different facets of his friends became splintered between 5 different versions of green hill, right?

Wrong.

I've seen a few different claims on what's going on here (usually to explain the other versions of Sonic's friends and their personalities). One of the most prominent is that each of the Amys, Tails, Knuckles, what have you, are meant to represent different pieces of those characters (i.e. that Rusty Rose and Thorn Rose represent different parts of Amy Rose's personality), and thus each versions of a singular character make up the whole of the original one. This of course functions on the idea that there *are* five different worlds of which there five different alternatives of any given person (or at least of those caught in the original blast) and that they all (personality wise and/or objective wise) are different necessary pieces to make up the whole of said characters (should Sonic want his original friends back).

But the inconsistencies in this framework (for which most of this theory's merit hinges upon) start beginning in the very first episode of season 1 "Shattered".

After "The Shattering" Doctor Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik returns as The Chaos Council (five different versions of Robotnik from seemingly different points in a singular lifespan, who refer to each other by nicknames). Of course it would make sense if these 5 (the chaos council) all came together after conquering their respective shatterspaces, using New Yolk as a central headquarters; however, we soon learn that this is not the case. The council only begins to learn about the shatterspaces and more about the shard energy they posses later in season 1, and season 2 elaborates upon the state of (formerly) Green Hill during it's conquering (building upon what the audience can gather from Renegade and Rebel's testemony of the event). Specifically we note that the five conquered (formerly) Green Hill and built New Yolk together. Evidence of course suggests that the five came to be in the same shatterspace, even possibly at the same time. No matter how perfect it is that there are five of them (one for each shatterspace as they set out to conquer the shatterverse), they all originated in a single universe rather than being split up across five separate ones.

And speaking of there being five eggmen, why don't we move onto inconsistency two?

Outside of Eggman, there exists only three alternate versions of Sonic's friends (this includes Amy, Tails, Rouge, Knuckles, Big, and Froggy). The only alternates exist in New Yolk, Boscage Maze, and No Place. Otherwise, The Grim is devoid of all life and has a repetitive (but distinctly non Green Hill landscape), and "Ghost Hill" just contains...ideas or blueprints of Green Hill and Sonic's original friends. It's strange that the Eggmen would all originate in New Yolk while the rest are the only one of themselves in each given shatterspace, and stranger still that there would be five eggmen but only 3 of the rest, if we intend to follow the framework of this being a usual world shattered into multiverse story.

And so, there are two final inconsistencies.

The first is the idea that each of the alternates of Sonic's original friends (and Eggman) are just...pieces of the originals, that each piece represents a different goal or personality trait. I won't dig into peoples' complaints about the characterizations of the alternates in relation to the original characters, and another theory/analysis of mine (reasoning as to why each of the alternates in each shatterspace are the way that they are) is best left for another post. So for now, I hope you all settle on the fact that...the alternates aren't actually presented as separate facets of personalities or goals personified? There's no separation by "Oh this is is the impulsive Amy, and this is the loyal Amy, and this is the nature loving Amy" or "This is depressive Knuckles, and this is angry Knuckles, and this is hopeful Knuckles", or even "This Rouge who loves shiny gems more than life, and this is Rouge who gives her all to fight for her home, and this is Rouge who is a seductress" (please understand that this is just an example of what I'm talking about, not character analysis of Sonic's original pals). In fact, even after season 2's end there is still no mention (even from sonic's end) of the idea of them being pieces of his friends (and more to suggest that they are their own, whole, well rounded people). But, as I said, that's all I'll say about this until I get on that character analysis post.

The second inconsistency is Green Hill itself and (frankly) the mere *existence* of both Ghost Hill and The Grim. Like I previously mentioned, under the typical "multiverse x splintered universe/people" framework it would make sense that Green Hill would exist in each of them (especially given Sonic's fixation on it with it being his home, but again, Sonic's influence on the shatterspaces is an analysis post for another time) as well as his friends and Robotnik. Yet, there exists a shatterspace with nobody on it (and if we're going under the assumption that each version of Sonic's original friends are splintered upon each universe, needing each piece to be whole again, it would be tragic for one of those "pieces" to be dead before Sonic even arrives, wouldn't it?) and an embryonic shatterspace.

A shatterspace where no one and nothing exists, not even Green Hill. Sonic pinpoints the landmarks of Green Hill in each shatterspace (always the loop de loop and Hedgehog's pass, and sometimes Tails' lab), only to come across a shatterspace where...none of that seems to exist or ever have existed (and if so, there is no trace of it).

A shatterspace where nothing quite is yet. A shatterspace stuck in the stages of forming. A shatterspace that is...identical to Sonic's Green Hill and even contains his original friends?

Well, isn't that fascinating

It's almost as if the idea that Sonic's original friends and the new characters cannot possibly exist at the same time is a misdirection at absolute best and at worst–

Ah ah ah. We'll get back to that later. For now let's continue on.

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So, these "inconsistencies". What does the existence of them mean? Bad writing?

Well...I think not. Stories about multiverses with alternate versions of the same people or ones that depict the future outcomes of different choices are not new or hard to find examples of. The animated Spiderverse movie did it, Marvel did it, DC did it, the Invader Zim comics did it, Futurama did it. Heck, even the Archie Sonic comics did that in the 90s. The same can be said about stories that feature horrible accidents resulting in singular people split into multiples of themselves or multiple personalities, or even stories that feature physical representations of a characters motivations, emotions, personalites, or goals. There are *too* many examples to draw from for inconsistencies like this to be on accident. Heck, anyone right now could write a multiverse story about a person who shatters their world into five separate worlds and the people on them into five separate people, that each dwell in the five different worlds, and each represents a facet of the original world and the personalities/motivations of the original beings that lived on the original world, after a freak accident, to which said person may need to merge the pieces of the worlds and people to restore the original world and the original people who lived there (now that I think about it...isn't this kind of one of the plots of Yugioh Arc V😅😂 I haven't fully watched that anime, but...random thoughts, you know).

So all of these "inconsistencies" I think are conscious choices by the writers.

Conscious choices that are *meant* to make us realize that *something* isn't right or usual here.

This story does not run upon the framework one would originally assume (and one that plenty of people think it is running upon even now). That's what I believe the inconsistencies mean.

So what does this have to do with the possible ending of Sonic Prime?

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Carry forward our theme of picking the story apart from its assumed framework and analyzing what we see rather than what we initially assume or are told.

And let us begin with the season 2 finale before we backtrack.

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So, uh

That finale, eh?🥲

I rewatched it again myself just today, and (although I did see it in my first watchthrough) it hurts to watch the buildup to it. It shows in the way Shadow distrusts Nine from the moment Sonic mentions him. It shows in Sonic and Nine's first conversation together in The Grim. It shows in the way different people try to get Sonic to stop trusting Nine, in the way Shadow tells him point blank that they likely don't want the same thing. It shows when Nine meets the other alternate versions of Tails and meets his apparition. And it comes to fruition the moment Nine finishes working on the paradox prism (save one shard).

Shadow was working towards the goal of reverting everything back as it used to be before the shattering (after all, he doesn't consider Nine and the others "real")

Nine was working towards the goal of building a home—a new home for he and Sonic to be together in the Grim. (After all, he is real, he could care less about anyone that's not Sonic, and he doesn't believe it's even possible to ressurect what he believes to be gone)

And Sonic was working towards the goal of restoring Green Hill and bringing back his friends while the shatterverse yet exists.

Yes, you heard me right.

Sure, way back in season one his goal was just to make everything "normal" again, and in a way that’s still true (it's just his definition of normal has shifted from "everything should be exactly how it was" to "my old friends and home need to exist again"), but his perspectives on the shatterspaces and the new characters are different from how they were back then.

Back in season one he'd considered them just *basically* his old friends shifted to the left or like his old friends were buried inside them. It took him a little while to call them by their own names/titles rather than referring to them by the names of his original friends. He'd believed that Thorn would come around to friendship because she was like his Amy deep inside, and that Dread would return to captaining his crew because he had Knuckles' loyalty deep inside him.

But we begin to see this shift in real time, and the proof of it all is something Sonic tells Shadow in their first conversation about Nine.

Nine is real to him. They're all real.

And if Sonic didn't think they weren't, he would not have pushed Nine to take him back to New Yolk so he could save Renegade and Rebel and the people from being killed/beaten down. If they weren't growing on him, if he didn't still want them around, he would not have admitted that he wants Nine to meet Tails (or any of his original friends)

But again, full character analysis (even that of Sonic) is best left for another post (so I don't go off on too many tangents). So, I'll make my point.

I think Shadow and Nine each represent two opposing goals/outcomes (the outcome where everything reverts back to how it was originally versus the outcome where everything continues as is and Sonic has to move on) while Sonic is stuck between them (no longer quite as willing to erase all of his new friends and their realities, despite how desperately he wishes to have his home and original friends back). And what this framework (of Sonic being stuck between two different theoretical outcomes and ideology (whether he should try to get everything back just how it was or move on and start anew, possibly even forgetting what was before)) seems to lead up to is Sonic's inevitable choice.

Our original choice of Option 1 and Option 2. Will Sonic choose to restore everything to as it was before, or will Sonic choose to keep everything as is?

And yes, some people think he's already made his choice (whether he's come to terms with the possible fact that he may have to sacrifice one for the other is irrelevant). Some people are already planning the funerals of our new characters as Sonic can't bear to choose anything over his old home and friends.

But...really. Who says he has to make that choice? Is choosing between reverting everything "back to normal" or moving on as if his friends/home are dead and gone really his only choice, or is it what the characters (and some of us by extension) have just assumed?

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Let's go back to earlier Season 2.

While Season 1 primarily focuses on Sonic trying and failing to collect the Paradox Prism shards in hopes it might fix something, Season 2's focus (aided by Sonic now making acquaintances out of the once strangers of the shatterspaces) is primarily Sonic's race against the Chaos Council to gathering and assembling all five shards (so Sonic can restore his home and friends and thwart the council's plan to conquer the shatterverse).

But while in Season 1 Sonic's attempts to gather the shards often fail once he accidentally touches a shard,

In Season 2 Sonic's attempts fail because of the conscious choice he makes to protect his new friends over making off with the shards.

Season 2 Episode 2. "Battle in the Boscage". Sonic takes the Boscage shard in hopes of luring the Chaos Council and their eggforcers away from Thorn, Prim, and the Boscage gang, allowing their lives to be spared as he takes off with the shard. Not long after he begins running, Dr. Babble throws a tantrum, throwing around his own eggforcers as he continues to fight the Boscage gang and topple trees. Seeing that the council did not follow him, Sonic is given the choice to keep running and make it out with the prism without trouble, or to save his new friends. Upon choosing to come back for the Boscage gang, he saves them at the cost of the council stealing the Boscage shard from him.

Season 2 Episode 4. "No Way Out". Sonic and Dread (in the midst of the 3 way battle between Dread's crew, Sonic, and the Chaos Council) begin a one on one fight over the shard. Sonic, who sees Rusty Rose about to be ambushed by an eggforcer, gives up taking the shard from Dread in favor of saving her life instead.

And then again in Season 2 Episode 4 "No Way Out". The Chaos Council, who has Sonic surrounded, gives him an ultimatum. The lives of his friends, or the No Place shard.

But the other two examples mostly stand to show off to the audience Sonic's morals and that he cares about the wellbeing of his new friends (and are more subtle about it being a choice, given that in Boscage he didn't assume saving the gang would result in him losing the shard, and earlier in s2 ep4 he had technically gambled on still being able to get the shard back despite his choice). This choice is much more clear and on a grander scale. Mr. Dr. Eggman outright says "Hand over the shard, or say goodbye to your friends forever". This is not just a choice in the heat of the moment. This is "the shard, or the lives of your friends".

And this scene of "give us the ultimate power we want and we'll spare your friends" too is not an uncommon scene in media (the season finale of mlp fim s4 does come to mind here).

Except, once again, despite the numerous examples for the writing team to draw on, there is again an "inconsistency".

Because Sonic *doesn't* make a choice within the framework the council gives him. Unlike in the earlier examples, unlike in similar choices in media, the story does not go down the route of Sonic willingly and easily giving up the shard as some of his friends yell "No!"

Batten makes clear her stance that Sonic should hand the shard over for their lives, Rusty makes her stance clear that her life is expendable if it keeps the Chaos Council from taking over everything, and Nine motions at him to keep gathering the shards as in the plan, to not give it over.

And just as everyone thinks Sonic is going to give the shard over, he throws it, and he tells the council to get it themselves if they want it so bad.

Yes, in the end the council ends up with the shard again while Sonic's friends are safe, but he did not yield to the "this or that" choice. He was stuck in the middle of getting the shard (possibly necessary to save his home) or giving the shard to the council (and making his goal of restoring his original friends and home harder), and he took the middle road (a choice which seems to please even Nine).

Taking the middle road allows him more certainty that his friends (save Nine of course) will be saved and allows him to gamble with the possibility of also getting the shard back. It is a choice that gets him closer to what he wants on his own terms.

And the narrative rewards him for making this choice.

Because after choosing to protect his new friends, which are equally as real as the old ones, and choosing to take the middle path he's on rather than succumbing to the "this or that" choice he's been given, so happens season 2 episode 6 "Double Trouble" and episode 7 "Cracking Down".

Sonic is allowed to get all 3 shards (which includs the two he'd lost as a result of his choices) and save Nine, and the two travel with Shadow to ghost hill.

Keep this in mind. What could have been a season long endeavor of plan (or plans) to get the shards back from the council (even after Sonic let them go to protect his friends) became a successful escape plan in which he and Nine stole them away.

ㅤ

So, back to the season 2 finale and beyond.

Just like with Sonic's ultimatum in Season 2 Episode 4 "No Way Out", Sonic is idealogically placed between Shadow (who is distrustful of Nine and assumes Sonic is trying to revert everything to as it was before with him) and Nine (who doesn't share Shadow's goal and assumes Sonic is on board with his goal to turn The Grim into a new home for the both of them).

(Perhaps Sonic, Shadow, and Nine's problems with assuming one of the other is on the same page as them would be another good essay topic, or perhaps it would function as a small piece of the analysis topic on why Season 2 ends the way it does)

But Sonic...doesn't get to make a choice. The shard is almost finished, but it’s incomplete still, and Nine takes it with him. Shadow isn't even in the room to exert his opinion as before. The scene is well, frankly, filled with miscommunication on the same scale as Nine and Sonic's first conversation in the Grim, because they both get something different out of it.

But I want to make my view clear. Sonic is still fundamentally in the middle of the two goals I mentioned. He is *still* stuck between Shadow and Nine (the difference is just that Nine thinks Sonic shares Shadow's goals, and Shadow most likely thinks Sonic shares Shadow's goals, and Sonic just...wants everything to work out fine for everyone). And I think Sonic will eventually be raised the outright choice or ultimatum (or at the very least, these assumed outcomes will come back for him to wonder over).

In Season 3, we will most likely see major parties fighting over the paradox prism (the council, Nine, etc).

I believe it's possible that Nine (because he's more attached to Sonic possibly than he even believes, and because he'd *still* made plans with Sonic after S1, even after he had every right to feel left behind and betrayed by him) may attempt to use this power not only to transform the Grim into his home, but to bring Sonic to his side. Likewise, as with the miscommunication that began Sonic and Shadow's fight in S2 Ep1 in Ghost Hill, I think it's possible we could see a similar fallout from the s2 finale with Sonic and Shadow (because I believe Sonic will make it clear that he believes his new friends' lives can be preserved), and I can see Shadow also trying to get Sonic to take his side (because he doesn't understand what there is to be attached to).

And I think when Sonic is raised this ultimatum (save Nine and the shatterverse or save Green Hill and his original friends), I think he will make his own choice.

The idea that he even *has* to make one of those two choices is a red herring.

For what other than speculation suggests there is no middle road?

I mean, the fact that for a moment Ghost Hill becomes Green Hill, Sonic's old friends begin to exist in the shatterverse while the Chaos Council and Nine work unperturbed show us that perhaps Sonic *can* have his cake and eat it too.

ㅤ

Tl;dr: Sonic Prime isn't a typical multiverse x shattered universe story. The narrative is building up to an eventual choice Sonic will seemingly have to make between his old reality and his new reality as it pits him between Shadow and Nine's respective goals. However, the choice itself is a red herring, as I believe Sonic will make a choice on his own terms (the choice to allow his old friends and home to coexist with his new friends and their homes). I think this story can plausibly end with an "everybody lives" ending.

Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

[tpwrtrmnky]

infighting

[ID: Three panel comic with crudely drawn stick people.

Panel 1: A turquoise person is talking to a lime green person, pointing at them in an accusatory manner.

Turquoise: "Gasp. You."

Lime: "Me?"

Turquoise: "You're the one. The lime green person. The one who's been corrupting dear sweet precious leaf green, and making them favor infighting with your theory! You and that terrorist!"

Panel 2: Zoom in on turquoise, who says:

"They used to be so kind. So inclusive. So willing to bend over backwards to everything I asked them to do. And you poisoned their mind with your verdantism.

Now they'll even talk about nonprimaryphobic concepts like misoviridy-exempt! You chromomedicalist scum! You æverthe!"

Panel 3: Zoom in on lime, who responds:

"Friend, I am literally nonprimary. Lime green is not primary green.

This kind of casual erasure makes me think you're not really engaging in good faith.

Unlike you, Leaf understands that it's not 'kind' to silence the more marginalized members of a community under the false pretense of avoiding infighting.

That behavior just enables further marginalization. It makes you the aggressor in the infighting.

End ID.]

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