#we'll have a hype for ark one of these days *(&@(%&*(^*

[risingsunresistance]

all the gold skills is SO weird, never thought i'd be anywhere near this. how do i get gold in cactus and netherwart someone please send help despite all my farming fortune i still barely break bronze-

[skaruresonic]

Unpopular take but the Shadow manga was pretty dissapointing from art wise to how different the characters behave from what we have seen in he older games. I just feel like the manga is getting overly praised because " its not idw or american or flynn therefore its good!' While not looking at the short story critical enough.

...What is there to criticize yet? People have been jumping the gun with assumptions that Black Doom retconned Maria's death when we quite literally don't know that for sure. This is the first issue. Maybe give it some room to breathe first.

I plan on reading the issue in full once I buy it, although not knowing Japanese will hinder my comprehension. I likely won't understand the dialogue, but it's not bad, at least from what few snippets I've seen. Certainly, it's no Tolstoy, but like. Does a manga need to be?

You also have to keep the Shiny New Thing(tm) phenomenon in mind. Lots of us have been asking for a Sonic manga for years and now we finally have one. Everything new will initially receive hype before people reexamine it with a critical eye.

Back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and IDW was just starting out, most of us were, in fact, praising the book and getting hyped for new issues. We weren't yet privy to the steep nosedive it'd take in quality following the metal virus.

---

I just feel like the manga is getting overly praised because " its not idw or american or flynn therefore its good!'

Hey now, that's not entirely true: I also enjoyed the Schadenfreude of dunking on "Shadow was tortured on the ARK" headcanons. To say nothing of the quality Shadria and that tasty Parasite Eve reference :P

Look, I know I have Shadria goggles strapped on so tight they're practically cutting off circulation to my head, but I feel like that's a little unfair to say considering we've only seen bits and pieces of issue one and have to rely on fan translations to know what's happening on any given page. It's not like we're 15 volumes in and Shadow's done nothing but brood. And just because I wasn't tempering my gushing with "Shadow looks weird in some panels" doesn't mean I wasn't silently thinking the latter. Trying to give the manga the benefit of the doubt here.

When you wander the Fauxteur Desert for years, even cloudy water will look like an oasis. In a series where the majority of fans and creators view the source material with disdain, as something to be mutilated in order to be considered "good," beggars can't be choosers. You have to take whatever Ws you can. It can be simultaneously true that I think the manga is good on its own merits and good because it's better than its contemporaries. One doesn't necessarily negate the other.

Besides, at the risk of sounding massively hypocritical... Is it so bad to feel relieved when you finally get served some decent food in this Chili's and you discover you're not as emotionally broken as everybody says you are? IDW fans gaslight you day in and day out with "you can't read," "you don't understand the characters," "you hate the series," and "you need therapy," and when you find something that brings you joy, for once, amidst the sea of phoned-in spinoffs tha pussyfoot around being faithful to the games at best and regard them with disdain at worst, something that doesn't feel like pulling teeth to read? You realize how full of shit they were.

The Shadow manga is better, objectively speaking. And I don't think it's quite fair to imply that comparisons to IDW should be off the table when we keep getting IDW forced down our throats as the cultural touchstone that defines Sonic, sometimes taking top billing before the games. I had to listen to everyone parrot "Eggman can't plan" as if it were Ohshima-given fact for three and a half years. Certainly, people can handle me going "omg Shadria <3" for a few posts.

The art is better. The blocking is better. The emotional beats land by virtue of being competently executed, instead of thinking we'll be won over by five-paragraph monologues. Sometimes the art carries the story! Wow! Compared to other media where the characters never shut up long enough to let us draw our own conclusions - a problem shared by Archie, IDW, Prime, the films, and Boom - that actually is a lot, all things considered.

And, yes, suffice to say, if fan translations are accurate, the writing is better, if only because it seems to come from a rare place of respecting the source material.

That probably sounds like I have no standards, but you have to realize the bar has been placed in hell and writers continue to cha-cha slide right on under it. IDW has Starline knock Shadow out with a freaking log, whereas in the manga Shadow stops a bullet in midair. I'm sorry I can't shut off my initial gut reaction of "holy shit that was bad ass."

It's not even like he stopped the bullet psychokinetically a la Neo, he caught that shit mid trajectory. Unlike the scene where Shadow gets knocked out with a log, nerfing him in order to hype up an OC, thinking about the logistics of the speed and precision needed to intercept a bullet in such a manner just makes it even cooler.

Good writing is enhanced by the application of thought. It doesn't punish the reader for considering the implications. The writer doesn't tell you to "go read something else" if the narrative disappoints.

This isn't even a contest.

...I know, dude. I'm aware it's not the best thing since sliced bread. It's a serial manga. Not expecting Shakespeare here. I just need it to be relatively faithful to the games and not emit an air of arrogant superciliousness towards the source material.

My standards are incredibly low considering how much higher they could be, and that's because 90% of spinoffs fail at clearing the first bar. If I maintained as stringent a standard as my adoring fans say I do, I'd have absolutely nothing to read lol.

[dexare]

[COR: SHESHA CLEPSYDRA - CF/Local:1955] - Part 1 of 3

[Mythology Analysis - by Agent [99] of the DieWell Collective] [SEC/00.66.99 Taken Earth]

"....on the way it's spread throughout the system, we estimate....Across the endless cosmos, were stars align-🎶...hm!/hm!/hm!...

99: Kör, you've been taking your time with that. Is it done yet?

Kör: Defragmentation is at 60%. Would you like to see the available data?

🎶🎶🎶

99: What is this Kör?

Kör: According to the information contained in the document, this file contains a song sung by Minueta Jenkins herself alongside several images.

The song is a revision made by Minueta Jenkins of the Folk Song "Braker" witch itself is based on the mythology of the world serpent "SHESHA CLEPSYDRA"..

99: Hmm.. Why would a woman like Minueta ever make a song like this?..

@^#^&##.......&$#^.....

99: Ok, so here it is 98, we'll kinda.. long fulkimg~ story UL-right~~

98: Just hurry up and tell me.

99: Alright, so there's this dragon.. He/she who dafuck knows, it doesn't know how to fly, and obviously, feels pretty sad about it. He travels the world until one day, he straight-up meets a demon.

The demon, unlike 99% of the people, is actually a pretty cool dud, and because he has a few thousand years freed up, he decides hes going to help out the dragon and teach it how to fly.

Now there's a problem the dragon has been roaming around the planet too much. Not only are his bones too heavy, but girl is ripped to kingdom come. He's got mussels for days, way too heavy to ever actually fly.

There's this big ark after that about them meeting different people, and basically, this were this religion gets all it's moral and ideology from. As they search for a way to help the dragon fly, the Dragon meets different kinds of asssholes and obviously end up dying in the most gruesome way possible, basic holy book stuff.

During this ark, you would expect to see the Dragon and the Demon get closer, but you kinda get the vibe that there's a wall between them. On top of that, even though this religion centers around the Dragon, most of what you can call the good parts and lessons come from the Demon, with the dragon being the one that unintentionally starts the problem in the fish place, it not his fault but it almost like everything about the world hates him.

Eventually, though, the demon unlocks a hidden power within himself after having this big enlightenment moment where the Demon becomes an angel again and redeems himself in the eyes of ??? Who dafuck knows? another fucking mystery.

Anyway, thanks to this, he can use his deus machina, magic, bullshit to finally give the dragon the ability to fly.

There, this moment in the book, we're the demon try's to warn the dragon about something inside him, but since were reading the book from the perspective of the dragon, and the dragon doesn't give a fuck. We don't get to know more about this warning. Suffice it to say that the dragon is so hype up about fly that he instantaneously decides to Fly off not even bother to say farewell or thanks to the demon, in fact we never hear about the demon after the Dragon leaves him and we're left to wonder what happened to him.

The book gets pretty weird from this point on. Up until now, the book has been pretty on the level it's a fantasy world, so to us, it looks weird, but to the people of local 1955, all of this sounds as realistic as a history book. The only thing I can maybe compare it to is Revelations from Bible in The Taken Earth. It has that same level of weirdness and metaphoric meaning.

Here also, where the famous song comes in, it's the page before the final chapter of the book. Oh.. and there's something you need to keep in mind. These people are in the medival ages, so keep that in mind while I tell you this next bit.

..The Dragon rises to the sky and chooses to never stop, never wanting for her talons to feel dirt again. He flies hooping to embrace the deep eternal blue, uncaring of the cost to her heart.

The sky's true face is made known to it, and although her eyes flutter, the Dragon gaze could see past a blinding light. Black waters teaming with pearls, that his eye alone could see before him.

Stars that mear mortals could never see as the God's themselves danced around him bound to eternal circles, in the center of witch was heaven. In the far distance, pearls of all colors.

Dancing in paradise, the Dragon was blessed with the heaven's warm embrace as it took hold of him in Ernest...

Bunch of trash after that, then it pick back up back her..

... Leviathan grabbed a hold of the dragon as the heavens themselves casted him away. Rejeted by the heavens, the dragon fell into the tendrils of the great beast, who drug the dragon to the sea.

Dejected as he fell, his mind wondered to the past, rejecting the very concept of his fall. He rose with anger as he battered his body in Rebellion against the world around him.

The dragons mind fractured, having only his promise to hold him true.. piercing the sky, the dragon splinters all of the beasts tendrils as he looks from above, at the body of the great Leviathan. The word itself, as it stood before him, as he vaow to keep his promise, plugging to the ground with such a force that Leviathan body crumbles into dust...

98: I don't know it's kinda hard to fallow the way you're explaining things, man.

99: I know, i know, but we don't care about any of that. Just listen to this last bit, and you'll see what I'm getting at.

..The Dragon rebirth by the orb of Turin was given into the flames of the true heaven's light and grew to understand the lie of the sky. Making a new vaow of chaos, he burned with greater glory than the false heavens and slaughtered the gods as they danced around it.

Surrounded by jewels, the dragon heart was now empty, with her promise fulfilled the dragons fractured mind, was now laid bare to madness. The only hope of escaping to find her past. Traveling to the north, the Dragon found pure light, where nothing existed beyound vail turbulant water. Not the land, nor the jowels could pearce the light, and even as the dragon saw the ocean im rage fighting to get trought the edge of life itself, nothing it could escape the the turbulant waters.

Rebellion.. The Dragon stretched out his wing and, without a thought crossed towards the light.. To the north lays, three pyramids were the Dragon vaows to kill it own past.

98: The Dragon attack the Congregation??

99: Yep, and not just that, I figured out where he ends up. The Dragon ended up on Earth Prime of all places. If we can figure out when, then... you get what I'm saying..

98: Then we can sneak inside and get access to the speakers, private network, holy shit 99..."

[DELUSION] [REBELLION] [JEWELS]

[Personal Device recording of agent 98]

"99: Folk- me man.. he fucking broke again, Ahh..

98: What? Did he overheat again?

99: Yeah, fucker decided to process the the same.. what 12-13 images over 852 times in a row.. fucking idiot.

99: Fuck that like what.. 97 million Aberration tears just for a couples of images. Jesus, he is dumb. "

[FRESH AIR] [MEMORY] [HATRED]

99: I feel like the biggest question about this entire book is the promise the Dragon made. It is pretty obvious to us that the dragon made a promise or, I guess, vaow to Minueta, but I can never see Minute of all people asking the Dragon to destroy a planet.

98: I don't know, but I'd be careful about making assumptions about this. I feel like we don't actually know enough to read into it like this. I read a little yesterday, and I get the feeling the dragon isint as Holy as the book paints him out to be, plus during the ark where the dragon travels with the demon you see him constantly looking for loops holes in arguments. I wouldn't be surprised if Minueta made a totally normal request only for the dragon to twist it for its own needs."

"99: I feel like you're trusting the Contance Foundation and Minueta, too much.

98: Maybe, but like you said, I don't see Minueta of all people asking for the end of some randome planet. By the way, what's up with the wizard dud in the image?

99: Aw yeah, that guy.. the books dosent mention him, but apparently, there's a separate scroll that talks about him. He knows as the Turin of Sahsha as apparently he'd been hunting the dragon until a woman killed him. You can guess who that was.

It pretty gruesome the way she kills him too, reminds me of when the dragon flies back up after being cast down into the ocean, apparently he twisted and contorted his entire body as he flew back up creating a tornado that split appart the planets atmosphere along side its magnetic field. "

98: Jesus man that fucking brutal.. did all of that already happen or is local/1955 still around.

99: On the galactic calendar well.. no, not yet, for us at least. It's still what 2 years out, I think. That is enough time for us to get ready. Apparently, the thing that gets the Contance Foundation to show up on Local/1955 is the arrival of the Phoenix version of the Dragon, so it's one of those loops where time keeps repeating. Works out for us since it gives us the perfect chance to steal from them.

98: Depends.. I'm still looking into what happens during the attack."

CHRONICLES OF REBELLION | FRACTURE [SHESHA CLEPSYDRA PART 1 OF 3]

Chronicles of Rebellion Track 09 - Braker Dans l'ombre des montagnes, un dragon rêve, Des ailes de feu, il désire qu'elles s'élèvent, Un démon bienveillant, avec un sourire, Lui montre les cieux, lui enseigne à s'envoler. Flieg, oh Drache, in den Himmel so weit, Die Sterne rufen, gib deiner Seele das Geleit. Doch in deinem Herzen, ein Schatten so tief, Eine alte Versprechen, das niemand dir schrieb. Il lève son regard, les étoiles scintillent, Un appel mystérieux, une histoire qui brille. Cherchant un destin, illustre et grand, Dans l'infini, il s'élance, le cœur battant. Flieg, oh Drache, die Weite ist klar, Die Hoffnung zu finden, es ist alles so nah. Doch die Stimme der Erinnerung, sie murmure so sacht, Ein ewiges Versprechen, das ihn in sich bewacht. Mais à chaque battement, la promesse résonne, Une chaîne invisible, un poids qu'il frissonne. Il veut l'oublier, fuir cette contrainte, Mais en lui, une flamme, une lutte l’atteinte. Er kämpft gegen das Echo, will die Freiheit spüren, Die Sterne, sie rufen, doch die Fesseln regieren. Im Herzen ein Sturm, die Dunkelheit weicht, Doch die Stimme der Treue, die niemals vergeicht. Alors il se rappelle, de son serment ancien, Le voler est un art, mais le cœur a son chemin. Dans un geste de foi, il choisit d’obéir, Plongeant dans la terre, décidé à périr. Mit einem lauten Donnerschlag bricht er die Erde, Die Maßen zerfällt, und die Sterne vergerben. Sein Herz schlägt schnell, in der Dunkelheit weit, Er hatte gewählt, in der Stille der Zeit. Il a volé, même au prix de sa chute, Sa promesse le guide, sa peur l’influte. Le dragon renaît, de ses cendres, il s’élève, Un destin trouvé, comme un souffle en trêve. Flieg, oh Drache, zurück zu dir selbst, In der Dunkelheit strahlst du, wie ein Licht in der Welt. Sein Versprechen nun stark, führt ihn zur Ruh, Der Drache, der fliegt, ist endlich er selbst, im neuen Licht, im neuen Flug.