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#Is this why people think Sonic Prime is gaybaiting? Because they genuinely think Shadow wouldn't normally try to save Sonic's life?
jouska-the-deer · 4 months
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I see a lot of people not liking the way Shadow is portrayed in the Twitter Takeovers and while I do also have issues with some of the stuff they've done with him I feel like people are placing their discontent in other places than me.
Like... it literally does not impact Shadow's personality if he likes eating coffee beans or smells like lavender or has a routine for making his bed. All those small quirks of his day-to-day life literally would not affect how he acts in the games even if the Takeovers were canon. People can be serious in some situations and have goofy seeming interests in others.
Meanwhile I more take issue with the way his dialog is written to make him more rambly than he is in the games (Oddly in the recent Takeover Knuckles specifically commented on the fact that Shadow only talks when he needs to, contrasting with some of Shadow's very meticulous answers in the takeovers) as well as making him more aggressive toward the other characters, specifically Sonic.
The last point kinda goes the other way too. In the recent Takeover, someone asked everyone to give their opinions on Shadow, and Sonic straight up calls him edgy and has to admit that he respects him.
Firstly... Shadow is only really edgy in the perspective of him as a character who goes against the norms of the children's games he's a part of. "Edgy" when referring real people (as would apply to Sonic talking about Shadow) implies a sort of "try hard" personality that Shadow just doesn't have. Shadow is cool and doesn't fake it. Infinite is edgy; Shadow isn't. Worse yet, Shadow has not done anything that Sonic hasn't also already done, (besides use guns that one time). So, is Sonic calling him edgy for being black with red highlights? That's rude.
Second, I think the part where Sonic was reluctant to say he respects Shadow is even worse to be honest. Not only would game Sonic not have a hard time saying he respects Shadow, he'd also consider him a friend. They butt heads and bicker sometimes but there's no bad blood between them; They're just super competitive people who enjoy having someone around that can evenly match their skills. I don't even think Shadow would pause to think about if he respects Sonic or not. They're very similar in a lot of ways and politeness is one of them. Neither would genuinely struggle to point out the strengths eachother has.
I like the Twitter Takeovers for their goofy moments and little peeks into what the daily lives of these characters could be like, but I do genuinely worry that people will let the sitcom-esque portrayals of the cast influence how they perceive their game counterparts. People already confuse Sonic X, Prime, and the IDW comics as being canon to the games, since they're not as visually non-canon as the movies and Boom as well as taking more inspiration from the games, so I wouldn't be surprised. It also doesn't help that the Takeovers do throw in some stuff that genuinely seems to be trying to explain game canon the way that the TailsTube videos have.
Anyway, Shadow's favorite flowers are lantanas and I think that's neat. Sucks that the Twitter Takeover writers think he and Sonic have a hard time standing each other, though.
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