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south-sea · 1 year

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Second Chance AU Shadow (Headcanons Masterlist)

I was encouraged by a certain someone to share all the Shadow headcanons I omitted from a more recent post, but it quickly got away from me and turned into a sort of masterlist with all the links being added in for context.

So in the interest of eventually having a working catalogue of "view these specifics posts for more organized information on Second Chance AU instead of sifting through various rambles", here it is!

Initial context for what this AU even is is here.

(edit: this is definitely out of date by the time you're seeing it, see pinned for an overall tag)

He figures things out about himself/interacts with new or developing interests in phases. Which is probably pretty standard, but so far he’s gone through a particular trend of weather —> photography/scrapbooking —> food —> adventuring/getting into Situations [you are here]. No telling what’s up next, but he never really abandons discovered interests either. He still keeps up with photography/scrapbooking, still appreciates new weather patterns/cloud formations and whatnot, and is basically never not thinking about Good Food. I would love for him to some day focus on music and maybe pick up an instrument or something; he could learn piano from Metal’s caretaker, even.

Discovering preferred foods is also a slow but unique process in that he doesn’t notice, really, until someone else points out he has a clear preference for something. From his perspective, he still doesn’t really have favorites because why would he, but anyone else would be able to tell there are certain things he gravitates toward (and that applies to everything, not just food). So far, other than expensive chocolates, that’s mostly tomatoes, whether raw or roasted; cherry tomatoes especially. They’re somewhat of a comfort food at this point. A few other honorable mentions: avocado, sautéed spinach mixed in with things, and grilled veggies in general. Weird little kid who goes out of his way to ask for vegetables, really. He also especially likes the crunch of carrots, but celery and lettuce on their own practically insult him for how comparatively tasteless they are.

Don’t ask him what his favorite color is either. He has no idea. He likes the green Emerald the most, but also the light blue one (he’ll never admit it, if just because he doesn't consciously realize it, but it’s because that one specifically reminds him of Metal). From his perspective, that’s about as much as he’s able to place; wires get crossed and he answers according to his Chaos Emerald color preference, not ‘colors in general’. From my perspective, I see it as him being partial to blue and green because that’s what he’d most commonly see from the ARK, looking down at earth. Objectively, blue probably wins by sentimentality alone, given so many of the people he’s close with are/were inherently associated with blue.

He starts a lot of sentences with “I think”, as a sort of parallel to Metal regularly starting statements with “but”. Those who don’t know him might wrongly assume that this, paired with the fact he rarely speaks above something comparable to a whisper, means he’s not very assertive/sure of himself. Not the case, he’s just naturally very quiet. To hear him use his whole chest to speak is unusual, and to hear him shout is downright shocking.

He rests his hand on his forehead to self-soothe, as leaning it against Maria was something he would regularly do when cuddling with her back then. As a direct consequence of this, he does not allow people to touch his head without warning, but pushing his forehead into someone's chest/shoulder is often something he does automatically if someone hugs him, so it's an "on my terms only" kind of thing.

This is very much canon. She/her feels like he’d be stepping on toes (that’s for Maria, not him), they/them doesn’t quite feel right, and neo pronouns are not for him. So, using he/him really is just for the sake of convenience. It’s not quite right, but being referred to that way doesn’t bother him either, so there’s really nothing else for it. That’s just how it is.

The more exploring and such he does, the less sensitive his paw pads get. That eventually leads to wearing half-gloves instead.

He currently lives in a place that looks an awful lot like space. The house is shared with Metal, and has two stories. Upstairs is where his study/bedroom technically are, but he rarely goes up there to do anything but write. A majority of his time is spent downstairs, either cooking or napping. Who needs a proper bed when he has a comically oversized blanket to make a nest out of? (This blanket is eventually torn beyond reasonable repair. While it's replaced with another of similar size, the original is eventually tailored into a jacket.)

Re: this, it directly lends to what I was getting at in this post. There will come a day where he’s so much more “Maria” than himself that he practically drops everything and has to find a more earth-looking [second] home. He will keep and take care of this place even after the “Maria day” passes. I expect this location to be mostly rural—he wants to appreciate nature, its sounds, weather, and things like sunrise/sunsets unhindered, but not so much that he’s fully isolated. Maybe on the outskirts of a smaller town, but still within walking distance of it so he can check in and people-watch or window shop, things like that.

Relatedly, his relationship with his own age is complicated at best. He's neither adult nor child. (There is no argument to be made about how mentally mature he is otherwise. No matter how you spin it, he is still a minor. Arguments about that are not tolerated here.)

The rest of the points are arguably less general and more “Shadow regularly gets himself into trouble: the series” and delves into things like his regeneration ability/biology in relation to the Black Arms/etc, so I’m stuffing ‘em under the cut. Nothing particularly gory or anything like that, just a general courtesy in case people don’t want to read about that rougher/more scientific aspect of his character.

Shortly after his revival, he (safely) gave himself over to trusted scientists. For a few months, he underwent a gauntlet of tests/scans/etc in hopes they would help him find a cure for the illness Maria suffered. Some of these scans were painful despite what he thought was a high pain tolerance, which came as a surprise to him. This is relevant for most of the upcoming points.

Most controversial take: he finds guns boring. Primarily in the sense of what’s being used against him as a weapon, though. Bullets will not stop him. If you want him to stop moving, you’re going to have to lop something clean off, then flip a coin. Heads he stops, tails he’s too hyped up on adrenaline/chaos energy and will still wreck the antagonist’s shit.

Needless to say, his relationship with pain/injury is a bit weird, to the point of being distressingly casual about it. He can recover from just about any damage within reason; so far, he can and has regenerated an entire arm before (with help from an Emerald). Pain and dangerous situations that might inflict damage do not scare him.

His tolerance for pain is another matter entirely, though. In some twisted kind of way, once he realized he does in fact have a limit/pain threshold (e.g., the scans, and a particular other few events, even before the arm loss), he almost started getting more reckless to challenge and raise that threshold. His pain tolerance is already pretty high, so the fact there still exists situations in which damage exceeds that tolerance is almost like a thrill/challenge. He won’t go out of his way to or purposely hurt himself, but if the dangerous situation he’s half-intentionally placed himself in causes an accident or something, then so be it. The more experience he gains, the less likely he's going to be stunlocked by pain when stakes are high.

If he’s left to his own devices for too long, he gets restless. Being restless leads to getting himself into Situations (e.g., the above points, and also kind of like this.) Basically his impulse control just plummets. That’s where races or spars with Metal might eventually come in later. He can only stand being serene and mild-mannered for so long. There is still Black Arms blood in him; it's where he gets his otherwise well-hidden temper/competitiveness/etc. Playing rough with Metal, who has a similar “so what if I lose an arm, it can be repaired” outlook, is a good way to safely manage and expend that energy when it starts to drive him a bit stir-crazy.

Speaking of blood, his is not green. The chaos energy overrides the Black Arms’ blood color, so instead his glows bright gold in the first few seconds it’s exposed to air, and then gradually dulls down into a near-black.

In the event he’s injured, the spots being healed/regenerated come back a bit paler, not unlike a scar (the fur, too, is a bit finer). Eventually his fur evens back out to the usual black, but is a bit longer around the edges of where the injury was for a little while after/to the point he might have to manually trim it. Also tends to keep souvenirs of sorts when he gets into Situations. (General sketch page mulling over all of this. I'm still not 100% sure about the 'his fur eventually goes back to its normal color' thing; he may just Stay Like That with the paler patches/missing quills/etc like regular scars, but until I decide for sure, I'm just operating under the assumption this is not the case.)

He's essentially a highly efficient energy burner. Food/water just gets converted into pure chaos energy. Nothing is wasted; frankly his anatomy doesn't even allow for it.

In the same vein, he can go a few days without food/water, but it'll take a lot to replenish his energy stores. It's typical for him to go into an almost coma-like sleep for a few days to recover from critical injuries (not unlike in Sonic Battle). Outside of that, if he doesn't replenish his chaos energy quickly enough, he stays lethargic/fatigued for about a week.

He is biologically incapable of contracting illnesses (the Metal Virus would still, hypothetically, be an exception), and cannot be poisoned. Whether it's inhaled/ingested, he'd just cough or spit it back out without it taking effect. Similarly, he doesn't experience typical nausea outside of extreme fatigue/pain, so it's one of the few things he knows of due to his time with Maria, but can't really empathize with.

When tired, he's more Creature than not. There's a lot more little squeaks/chirps/huffs and whatnot that you'd expect from a typical hedgehog. This is especially true when he's already asleep/recovering. If he's cradled or hugged for an extended period of time, he will start to purr in a way more comparable to a bear cub than cat. It's so faint it's more felt than heard, and can otherwise only be heard by the person actively holding him.

#second chance au #second chance highlight #shadow the hedgehog #& co #sea talks #occasionally you'll see me still drawing him with the paler patches #it's not a continuity error or anything #don't worry about it #other than that there may be a few miscellaneous things missing #but i suppose little tidbits like that are just a bonus for following me #[for legal reasons this is a joke]#tumblr immediately freaks any time i try to reformat these big posts so i am once again apologizing i couldn't make it less of a text brick #i just want to add line breaks between the bullet points...!! and then it refuses to save!#every time!!

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