Sonic girls sleepoverrrrr (ft silver)!!!

sonic the hedgehog idw comic gorls ✨ tangle the lemur, whisper the wolf, and jewel the beetle (and also the wisps)

In a similar vein to my last post, I’m tired of every girl in the IDW comics being hailed as “the new Sally.”

“Amy is the new Sally!” “Jewel is the new Sally!” “Lanolin is the new Sally!” Aside from “female commander,” none of these characters are even remotely close to Sally as a character. Whenever I hear someone say that ____ is “the new Sally,” I just imagine that they’re a butthurt Archie/SatAM fan that wants a replacement goldfish after Sega flushed theirs down the drain, only to be unsatisfied with it the next day because the color is slightly off.

It’s time y’all stop comparing every other girl to Sally and move on

Sonic Bravo - Part 2

KYLE CROUSE: Here’s one from DDRMASTERM! “It’s the return of Sonic Bravo! With how poorly his advances went with Amy, he’s moved on to new targets. How does his flirt attempts with Rouge, Blaze, Jewel, Tangle, Whisper, and Lanolin go?” [chuckles] Dude, that’s too many names, you should’ve narrowed it down.

IAN FLYNN: Yeah, for a live show, let’s just pick the top three here, real quick. KYLE: Yeah. [moment of silence because it’s a live show and you can’t edit those out in real time] KYLE: Uh, you go for it. IAN: I didn’t get the whole list, so you— KYLE: Oh, Rouge. IAN: — you pick three names. KYLE: Okay. Uh, Rouge. Alright. IAN: I… pff, Sonic Bravo has zero chance. He is not remotely in her league, and he realizes that real fast. He’d roll up on her, [Johnny Bravo voice] “Hey there, pretty mama! I, uh, hm. I— I got nothin’.” KYLE: [chuckling] IAN: And she’s like, “No, you don’t. But you can leave anytime.” KYLE: Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. IAN: [as Johnny Bravo] “You’ll remember me! I’ll be back!” [as Rouge] “Oh, I’ll remember you, alright.” KYLE: [laughing] IAN: [continuing as Rouge] “And I’m sure you will be back… on your hands and knees.” [as Johnny Bravo] “Hey, if that’s what you want, pretty mama!” KYLE: [cackles] How about Jewel? IAN: [as Johnny Bravo] “Hey there, little mama, you’re all… sparkly and well put together, HOO-HA! How about you and me tour a museum?” [as Jewel] “That… that’s what I do. That’s my job.” [as Johnny Bravo, briefly awkward] “Ah… well, you know what they say. If you do what you love, you never work a day in your life!” KYLE: [chuckles] IAN: [as Jewel] “That’s surprisingly coherent, coming from you.” [as Johnny Bravo] “Thank you! Thank you very much!” KYLE: [laughs] And… let’s go Lanolin. IAN: [as Johnny Bravo] “He-hey there, pretty—” [interrupting as Lanolin] “No.” KYLE: [cackling] IAN: [as Johnny Bravo] “I didn’t mean to—” [interrupting again as Lanolin] “I know.” [as Johnny Bravo] “I just—” [as Lanolin] “Leave.” [as Johnny Bravo, let down] “...Alright then, be that way.” KYLE: Yup. [laughs] Kinda figured. IAN: And then later, someone’s like, “Who was that?” And Lanolin’s like, “Who?” “That guy you just blew off.” “There was a guy? I’m sorry, I think I just reflexively deflected something.” KYLE: [laughs, then makes the sound of a punch being deflected]

—— TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: Please remember that nothing that is said on BumbleKast is canon! It’s just some guys and their opinions occasionally spitballing ideas. If you don’t like an answer, you don’t have to take it as Word of God or anything like that. It’s all just for fun!

Had a real hard time figuring out what I wanted to draw today, but I figured it's Sonic Sunday so why not an image on Sally. See? she was in IDW Sonic the whole time, just in the background doing paper work for the restoration.

featuring my beautiful freak pipe dream continuity

Welcome to the Freedom Fighters Lanolin The Sheep!

How the Archie Cast Lives On in IDW Sonic (Mini Essay)

Archie Sonic happened and we all just have to live with it.

While the series ran for nearly 300 mainline issues, this was only because it spun out of Sonic's earliest days. Long before he had a more concrete world and cast.

I go into it more here, but Archie Sonic's cast of Freedom Fighters has had their identities and purposes lost as the canonical cast expanded and the roles of these Freedom Fighters were overlapped by more interesting characters. Despite the reboot giving the chance to reinvent the Archie cast, these problems still largely remained.

However, that isn't to say that there wasn't some good to be gleaned from these characters. And the team behind the IDW Sonic series has recognized this by using these bits and pieces to invent new characters from the ground up and show the true potential of these characters if they were invented in the modern day.

This is how some of the Archie cast lives on and is improved through the IDW cast.

Whisper the Wolf

Whisper has been hurt. She is obviously traumatized and deals with the mental wounds inflicted on her by Eggman everyday. She lost the people closest to her and is terrified of the people she has now grown close to.

This is much in the same way that Bunnie Rabbot was half-roboticized by Eggman. Some of her most memorable stories in the original Archie run have her dealing with her roboticization. Her fear that it will fully take it over, that it will kill her and possibly harm her friends.

Both of these characters use part of the trauma inflicted on them to fight. Bunnie with her mechanical parts while Whisper uses a modified Wispon with aid of her former team's wisps.

However, these characters aren't the same. Whisper is so much her own character that these bits of inspiration easily slip through the cracks.

Bunnie is a joyous character, despite everything. Hell, she survives the reboot with her marriage intact because the joy it brings her is so intrigal to her character. Whisper, though, is still sore. She usually works alone, lashes out when her trauma is triggered, and nearly actually murders Eggman.

As a bonus, Whisper's wisp weaponry seems to be taking a few notes from Eclipse the Darkling. Eclipse raised dark, corrupted wisps and used them to fight much in the same way Whisper now fosters her former team's wisps. This could be the rare time in an action series a character is a light reflection of an established one instead of the other way around.

Surge the Tenrac

This is absolutely the most blatent of the bunch with its inspiration, but the parallels can be a bit harder to nail down.

Sure, S(co)urge is a green-furred rival to Sonic who is dead-set to best him and essentially take his role in the world, but is that really where the similarities end?

Scourge is just Evil Sonic. Same moves, same speed, etc. Before he turned green, he was literally just called Evil Sonic.

Surge is more complicated. She and Kitsunami don't know their past. They feel abandoned by the world. They've been cybernetically enhanced and have the undying desire to best Sonic instilled in them.

But between them, there is still that lust for power. Scourge's motivation may be fairly Joker-esc while Surge literally cannot stop herself, but both still want to essentially end their respective worlds.

Jewel the Beetle and Lanolin the Sheep

It may be a bit odd to put these characters together, but there is a good reason for it. Why? Because we need to talk about Sally Acorn.

Sally has always been a strange character that never really worked. While the Freedom Fighters did need a leader, she usually just became someone keeping Sonic on a leash while also being his love interest despite the two never seeing eye-to-eye.

The problem is, she never really evolved from that. As the franchise grew, a powerless leader-type grew more and more worthless. So she mainly fell into the role of bringing drama to the plot. Will Sally die during the Endgame arc? Can Sally rebel against her own father now that he has returned? Is she a good enough leader? Is it Wednesday and she has to break up with Sonic again?

Even worse is the identity crisis of Sally's character. A question asked and never really answered is if she belongs in the field or leading the free world. An attempt at stirring drama from this is still being raged about by Sally's fans and mocked by just about everyone else. Even the IDW comics made an intrinsic promise to not go anywhere near the character drama Sally lived in.

(For the record, this entire issue is basically a long conversation between Sonic and Amy about the same dilemma that caused The Slap™)

The reboot tries to solve this by having her simply be the commander of the flying airship the Freedom Fighters worked from, but it still led to her being mostly pointless. At best, Sally was inoffensive and boring while at worst she caused drama that is still being debated to this day.

So when it came time for IDW to replace her, many thought Amy would fall into this role. She was head of the Restoration and naturally fit into the role.

However, Amy may love the world, but she's no leader. Like Sonic, she values freedom. Enter Jewel the Beetle.

Jewel ran a jewelry store and then got promoted to basically running the free world. She has no combat abilities but isn't supposed to be in combat situations to begin with. Jewel is an improvement on Sally's confidence issues and her role as a more political leader. She organizes the Restoration and the defense groups much in the way Sally was the political face of the Freedom Fighters when dealing with the Acorn Kingdom.

Lanolin, meanwhile, is a newcomer and very much an improvement on Sally in the field. Instead of being powerless or a basic melee-brawler like in the reboot, Lanolin focuses on defense and more specialized situations thanks to her Magenta (Music Note) Wisp. While she also exhibits some confidence issues, she is given more focus on the flaws that Archie left mostly ignored.

While she's only just been introduced, the IDW team acknowledging these faults is already giving her far more potential than Sally ever reached in nearly 300 comics.

Even better, both of these characters have actual motivations and histories. While Sally's motivation is mostly just a vague 'I was the princess so I guess I'm a leader now', Jewel just genuinely wants to help in a way she can while Lanolin was inspired by Sonic to help others and eventually found herself as a combatant.

Archie Sonic was mired with a long history that only allowed one chance for change: the reboot. However, too much change and the fans would be mad. Too little, it would feel like a wasted opportunity. Unfortunately Archie Sonic took the route of doing too little. However, the IDW team took the removal of the Archie cast as a chance to do more with them and they succeeded.

Mina and Jewel

drew my 3 favorite Sonic characters: Breezie, Jewel & Fang!

Round Three - Match 12

Triple Special!

Girlies + Kit

It’s mildly insulting to both Sally and Lanolin that people who don’t remember Archie are saying Lanolin is the new Sally. And I say this as someone who hates Sally Acorn.

Honestly, it’s tiring that anytime there is a leadership role given to a woman in this series, people immediately assume said character is ripping off Sally. Sally was bossy, and obnoxiously commanding. Sally was girl boss princess. Sally will let you know she is in charge and it’s not a question who is in charge.

Amy’s leadership of the Resistance was way more diplomatic as she gave Sonic a lot of more leeway than Sally ever did in Archie pre-Wave. Amy Rose accepted Sonic’s decision to operate independently of the Resistance and Restoration almost immediately. Her tenure was marked with community rebuilding projects that she self-admittedly states were beyond her. Sally would have relied on Nicole for rebuilding projects while she operated the military and field missions with impunity. Sally was the person who connected with Freedom Fighters around the world. She was the point person and absolutely would not have let Sonic just willy-nilly do whatever the fuck he wanted. Even in peacetime, Sally, infamously and not unjustly given Archie’s setting, wanted to tie Sonic down.

Jewel is more of a supervisor than leader as she is far more likely to delegate positions towards others to prevent centralized authority. Sally is literally royalty and frequently butted heads with the council and her own father, the King, anytime her decisions were challenged. Sally in Jewel’s position absolutely would not have let Tangle go do her own thing. She wouldn’t be satisfied with desk work. She would have had a conniption.

I can’t speak to Lanolin’s character yet as we only have so little but people are pointing to her butting heads with Sonic being similar to Sally’s interactions with him. First off, Sally’s Freedom Fighters were not volunteer based. She vetted every single one of the members save for Tails whom she thought was too young. Lanolin’s volunteer squad seems to be a revolving door situation in terms of participants so as the organizer and leader of the team, she has to lead off of the approval of the team. Throughout the issue, Lanolin is seeking coordination and cooperation. Sally would not have bothered because the only uncooperative element on the Freedom Fighters was, you guessed it, Sonic. He was the one that she and Antoine had to reign in. Sally would have relayed to the team immediately that this was a stealth mission. Lanolin assumed that they knew that it was a recon mission and Sonic and company would act accordingly. The Freedom Fighters are Sally’s Knights/Royal Guard/City Watch. Lanolin’s volunteer team is the Restoration’s proactive offensive force.

If Sally led the Diamond Cutters and IDW/Games Sonic, it wouldn’t have been Tangle yelling at Whisper for thinking of going solo. It would have been Sally as she does this with Sonic frequently in Archie. Sally wouldn’t be discussing with Sonic in terms of tactics. She would be arguing with him. And Sally would have been a lot more fed up with Tangle’s shit. And more importantly, the narrative would have agreed with her versus Lanolin whose discussion with Sonic is more, “Well, they both made great points and neither aren’t entirely wrong.”

If I could some up the girls’ leadership styles.

Amy Rose - community leader/influencer

Jewel - Community Organizer.

Lanolin - Neighborhood team leader

Sally Acorn - Commander-in-Chief/General.

If anything, Sally has more in common with Sonic Rush 1 Blaze which makes sense since they are both Princesses. The difference between those two is that Blaze is fully capable of leading her own charge and had to be convinced to ask for help sometimes versus Sally who would never even need to be reminded of such.

Sally should not be the ubiquitous girl leader in Sonic the Hedgehog.

Look at my crackships, boy

@aaronscottlazar

Honored to be a part of the next generation of The Secret Garden.