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#he IS sonic so he won't have TIME for sonic
skaruresonic · 2 days
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So the latest discourse is that saying that Sonic isn't a hugger and his clingy behavior towards Shadow in Prime is proof of how much the fandom loves to complain about the smallest things. In fact, "yall say Sonic should be free but yall don't want him to do anything".
I find it fascinating. One, the language that implies that fans who say "no Sonic wouldn't do X because it's OOC" are actively stifling a person's freedom. My dudes, Sonic is a character, not a real person. Please don't conflate the two.
Second... this is the same fandom that has been crying for 10 years that Shadow is being written terribly. That now he's just Vegeta, that he's nothing like he used to be, that his Boom portrayal was a travesty, that his prickliness towards Sonic is completely wrong because he has always respected him, really, go play SA2 where he was at his peak!
Why is Shadow's perceived character defended so staunchly, but defending Sonic's character comes off as restricting the freedom of the very character?
It's as if Sonic, to these fans, simply doesn't have a personality in the first place. He can be whatever we want him to be. Shadow, on the other hand, can only be how he used to be in a game 20 years old now, because we loved that one.
So the latest discourse is that saying that Sonic isn't a hugger and his clingy behavior towards Shadow in Prime is proof of how much the fandom loves to complain about the smallest things. In fact, "yall say Sonic should be free but yall don't want him to do anything".
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If we're gonna treat Sonic like he's a real person, it's only fair to respect his boundaries, no? Why should your desire to see him be cuddly supersede his boundaries? Would you do that to a real person?
Ofc the better retort would be "Sonic is a fictional character with an established character and you're misconstruing his love of freedom to suit your flanderization; pull your head out of your ass," but since this argument was made in bad faith, you gotta meet it where it lives.
People have been misinterpreting Sonic's whole attitude towards freedom to justify OOC non-game portrayals. First they insisted that Sonic has some dutiful love for the platonic ideal of freedom and that was why he always showed his enemies mercy. Now they're saying "you won't let Sonic do anything," as if fans are physically preventing poor third-party creators like Prime's showrunners from creating Peak Sonic(tm) by... criticizing Sonic's behavior after the fact. Because that's totally how reality works.
No, Patrick. Just because Sonic is "like the wind" doesn't mean any and all behavior is automatically in-character for him.
I suppose tomorrow's discourse will contend that Sega should let Sonic take the fattest rip off that bong because ST put a gag drawing of Classic smoking cigarettes on the break room door thirty years ago.
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lol 420 blaze it
Anyway, if you look at the games, you'll find that Sonic isn't actually that touchy-feely. He rarely, if ever, hugs other people, but is typically the party being hugged instead. And he is usually portrayed as awkward or uncomfortable: he doesn't know what to do with his arms.
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While some may argue that Frontiers!Sonic now feels "comfortable" enough to put a hand on Amy while she clings to him, he isn't... exactly reciprocating? He only seems to feel comfortable being glomped on when focusing on his other friends:
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He's still not looking at Amy, he's looking at Tails lmao. More like he's just waiting for her to finish because he's come to expect getting glomped for long periods of time.
Whenever Sonic "touches" someone who initiates contact, he usually holds them at arm's length.
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This is how he holds his best friend in the entire world, the second half of the Unbreakable Bond. If not even Tails is exempt from the junior prom dance rule, what makes folks think Sonic would act even chummier towards Shadow of all people?
Besides, I'm sure Game!Shadow's reaction to Sonic even attempting to hug him would be
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Second... this is the same fandom that has been crying for 10 years that Shadow is being written terribly. That now he's just Vegeta, that he's nothing like he used to be, that his Boom portrayal was a travesty,
It's really bizarre. I swear this is the only fandom where the main characters' IC behavior is derided as OOC purely because it doesn't gel with the fanon fandom has built up in their heads. Mostly because we've fostered this environment of "the games suck" through a constant background radiation of disparagement, with such messages seeping through every pore of Sonic fan spaces as:
1.) "Sonic is inconsistent" 2.) "the series was never good" 3.) "the Sega-Sonic character design standard is too generic and cookie-cutter" 4.) "the games are incapable of being as complex or as deep as [insert spinoff media here]" 5.) "Sonic is a static character [and therefore that's bad]" 6.) "Sonic vs. Eggman is boring and routine" 7.) "game purists think the games and/or Sega can never be criticized."
that his prickliness towards Sonic is completely wrong because he has always respected him, really, go play SA2 where he was at his peak!
Thus, the conundrum of being an SA2 fan in a day and age where fewer and fewer who hype it up have proven they've played it, much less understand the game's themes. I get stuck between this rock and hard place of being just as tired of the overhype, yet being forced to admit over and over again that I acknowledge my favorite Sonic game it isn't nearly as unimpeachably Peak(tm) as everyone portrays it so people won't think I'm... for lack of a better term, the kind of SA2 fan who thinks SA2!Shadow is the GOAT. Battle!Shadow is the GOAT and nothing anybody says can change my mind. None of you fake-ass Shadows ever said anything nearly as metal as "This is the final voice of the last war machine," have you? I thought not
It can't be understated how much Gerald's brainwashing mitigates SA2!Shadow's portrayal. Although it doesn't completely invalidate the entire portrayal, it does beg questions of how much he was driven by forces outside his control.
While there are aspects of SA2!Shadow's character worth genuine analysis, people exaggerate his better qualities while ignoring or downplaying his less palatable traits (traits he displays in later portrayals as well), like the showboating and arrogance. And like I always say with Shadow, you can't cut him up into pieces like that. You have to accept the whole, rough edges and all.
It also doesn't escape my notice that SA2!Shadow advocates imply the only time Shadow ever had a "good" portrayal was before he underwent character development, which is another stereotype of us SA2 fans: that we perpetually huff nostalgia think the past is better simply for being the past.
Meanwhile, I've been saying for years that I would love for someone, anyone, to give Shadow something to do that has nothing to do with the ARK. That's why my first reaction upon hearing about SxS Gens was to headdesk. You have a character who's all about forging his own path and moving on, yet you're always sticking him in the same goddamn hamster wheel. Why.
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Why is Shadow's perceived character defended so staunchly, but defending Sonic's character comes off as restricting the freedom of the very character?
It's as if Sonic, to these fans, simply doesn't have a personality in the first place. He can be whatever we want him to be. Shadow, on the other hand, can only be how he used to be in a game 20 years old now, because we loved that one.
Tbqh, I don't think it's fair to pit Sonic and Shadow against each other like that because the entire cast, really, is being gutted by a fandom that insists the games have nothing of substance to respect. God knows people make shit up for Shadow and claim it has canonical basis too. And, you know, sometimes they don't even bother to do that - they just make things up simply because they figure the tropes that are good enough for other franchises must be good enough for Sonic as well. Looking at you, "Shadow was tortured on the ARK."
Sonic, Shadow, Eggman, Rouge, Cream, Tails, Amy, Knuckles, Silver... Most, if not all, the core cast has it bad these days. And I don't think this fanonization is going to get any better unless there's a change in fandom culture. Not until people stop thinking of the games as inferior and game purists as the no-fun-allowed fiction police.
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...Do you ever think about how Sonic truly is the only person who cares about Nine now?
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sage-nebula · 1 year
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I'm really glad that Sega has allowed Amy to move out of her harassment phase re: her crush on Sonic, because the way she was written back in the late 90s / 00s with regards to her crush on him is not only uncomfortable and not okay behavior (continuing to push yourself on someone after they've said "no" isn't okay even when you're a girl pushing yourself on a boy), but was also really detrimental to her character. Not only did it give people a negative impression of her (her obsessing over Sonic being her boyfriend / marrying her is remembered more often by casual fans than her actual stories in those games), but it also runs contrary to the fact that Amy has always been a kindhearted, compassionate, empathetic person. We see her compassion and empathy with other characters in those same games (wanting to save Birdie from Gamma, reminding Shadow of his actual promise to Maria, helping Cream and Big find Chocola and Froggy), so to then have her turn right around and completely ignore Sonic's feelings / boundaries because of her crush is just . . . bad. It's a bad look, and bad writing. And I don't hold it against her, any more than I hold instances of Tails having bad writing against him. These are fictional characters, they're beholden to their writers. But it's still not great and I'm really glad that Sega has realized that having Amy harass Sonic isn't funny or cute, and has instead allowed her to treat him like she does the rest of her friends: with the kindness, compassion, and empathy she's known for.
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pidgeonspen · 2 years
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I got this absolutely stunning commission from @fini-mun yesterday of my gal Carey, @hebby-arts OC Tough Love, and @frecklefacefromouterspace‘s Shadow (”Freckles”), loosely inspired by RP and related discussions!
Deebs did an amazing job with this piece, I’m in love with it! Thank you again! It’s my new lockscreen <3 
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wereh0gz · 2 years
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I have a feeling sonic is gonna turn super pretty early on in the game and there's something even bigger in store for us later on
That's why they spoiled it in the thumbnail of the new trailer. Bc super sonic is reserved for final bosses and stuff like that so there's gotta be something more
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sonicboomseason3 · 17 days
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a brief recap of what has been going on with the sonic movieverse in the past several months:
paramount has come out in public support of israel
keanu reeves, a man who has publicly rubbed elbows with none other than benjamin netanyahu, reportedly gets cast as shadow for the upcoming third movie
james marsden, the guy who plays tom, got exposed as having written a letter of support for a convicted pedophile
there's fucking??? zionist propaganda in the knuckles series???
kind of connected to the last point but adam pally, the guy who plays wade, is evidently pro-israel too
this is a complete and utter joke.
EDIT AS OF 4/30/24: if people see this version of the post, i'd really appreciate it if you reblog it instead of the other versions, as it's the most updated one with all the information that i want included. thank you :]
you know, it's been a few days since i've made this post, and some of you (not most) are staying determined in defending/justifying/giving the benefit of the doubt to keanu for that photo with netanyahu, whether it's because "it was a decade ago," "him being civil to someone he ran into at a party one time doesn't mean anything," "he's probably just silent because his pr managers won't allow him to speak up," etc. i've made my thoughts on the matter quite clear by directly responding to these people, but at this point, i'm tired of both seeing them in my notes and repeating myself, so take this as my final word on the issue.
i can't help it if you don't think the photo with netanyahu is damning, and i'm done engaging with everyone going out of their way to tell me that. i obviously disagree, especially after finding out that 1. the host of the party, arnon milchan, is a former israeli spy who has a history of developing israel's nuclear program and promoting apartheid in south africa (information that had broken out a few months prior to the party and thus would've been fresh news around the time keanu chose to attend) and 2. keanu has been caught hanging around at least two other weirdos, but if you don't find any of that to be cause for reasonable concern, then there really is nothing else i can say afaik.
with all that said, i'm beginning to realize how strange it is that these people's first instinct when seeing this post is to start debating about keanu's political stances without ever acknowledging any of the other bullet points. you guys realize that this isn't just about him, right? i know tumblr reading comprehension is known for being piss-poor, but like… you realize that i was trying to make a point of how there are MULTIPLE terrible things that have broken out about the people and company involved in the sonic movies, right? and yet, a lot of the people leaping to speak on keanu's behalf in my notes are completely ignoring the parts where i bring up paramount, pally, etc. all in favor of zeroing in on the singular point about keanu and making bad faith assumptions about me for holding him accountable. really makes one wonder where your priorities lie if, in a post that talks about so many other things, me accusing an a-list celebrity with, according to google, a net worth of almost $400 million is where you draw the line and apparently the only thing worth your acknowledgment.
ultimately, what i'm trying to say is that the intention of this post was just to gather up everything that i had been hearing for the past several months and put it all together in one place. there were a bunch of people who didn't know about at least one of the bullet points before seeing this post, and i'm glad that i could help inform them, that was what i was hoping to do! but as for the keanu thing, i've said pretty much all i can say for now, and i don't want to derail the original post even more than i may have already. unless something new comes up, i'm done talking about him.
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houseofanticipation · 7 months
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After six months of leaving your window unlocked, someone finally took the bait.
You frequent some dark corners of the internet. When tumblr wasn't enough to get you wet anymore you turned to reddit, and when that stopped working you moved to 4chan. These days the sites you cum to don't even have names, their URLs are just strings of random letters and numbers. It was in one of these places that you saw the symbol.
The only identifying feature of the original poster was an off-putting avatar image of Sonic the Hedgehog's gaping asshole. The post was a single photo of the symbol, written in thick marker on a scrap of looseleaf paper. Below it, the text read: place this symbol in your window to let passersby know it's unlocked, and you're ready to be taken advantage of.
You came when you saw that symbol. (You had been touching yourself for hours at that point, but still, the symbol is what pushed you over the edge.) You saved a screenshot of the symbol, and in the nights that followed you touched yourself to it again and again, daring yourself to do it, imagining the things strangers could do to you in your sleep. When your better judgement finally caved to that insatiable need, you touched yourself again. You sat there for an hour, edging and watching that symbol in the window, until your mind felt slow and stupid with fantasies.
You did that a few more times in the following nights. But the after a week the fantasies alone weren't doing it for you anymore, and you were increasingly realizing something that probably should have been obvious from the beginning: most people aren't into the same disgusting shit you're into. The people in those ugly little corners of the web lived all over the world. What were the odds one of them would just walk past your first-floor apartment one day?
So you forgot about it. Mostly. You left it there, of course, but the more time went by the less you believed anything would ever come of it. You turned to other places to make you cum. Lately you've been getting off on posting pictures of yourself, letting strangers describe the ways they'd like to use and abuse you.
And then this morning you found three polaroid pictures placed neatly on your kitchen table.
All three pictures are of you, naked and asleep in bed. You started sleeping naked ages ago, at the advice of a tumblr post detailing how to be more of a slut. You're glad you did now, because the feeling you get looking at these pictures is like nothing you've ever felt before. It's electric, a vibration in your brain and the pit of your stomach that makes your legs wobble and your knees press together. The first picture is of your body, undisturbed, sleeping on your stomach with your ass in the air. The second is a view from the foot of your bed, your pussy pressed against the sheets and your legs open. The third is of your face, an unfamiliar hand brushing back your hair and an unfamiliar cock resting on your cheek.
Before you can even think you're falling to your knees, masturbating desperately and furiously to those pictures. When you cum it's labored, almost painful, your breath catching in your chest, your moans short and agonized. You manage to stand long enough to take the pictures to your bed, where you're able to scrape together the self-control to edge for about five minutes before you cum for a second time.
The one you can't tear yourself away from his that cock on your face. The knowledge that someone was that close to you without your knowing. Touching you. Pleasuring himself to you. When you cum for the third time, it's to the thought that he didn't rape you, as far as you can tell. That means he intends to come back.
That night you feel like a kid waiting for Santa Clause to come. You toss and turn, too excited to sleep, but terrified that he won't follow through with it if he can tell you're awake. You close your eyes and stay as still as possible. If you can't be asleep, the best you can do is appear asleep.
You wake to sunlight streaming through your window, a little surprised to realize you fell asleep at all. You can feel immediately that something is different; you've been violated, you can feel it in your clit and in your cunt. You hurry to the kitchen and find three new polaroids. The first is a close up of your pussy, already swollen and wet. The second is taken from the same angle, but this time there's a hand in frame, three fingers pushed inside you, stretching you out. The third sends a thrill up your spine. In this picture, a man with a Halloween mask pulled up to his forehead has his head buried between your legs. His face isn't visible from this angle, but it's clear he's eating you out. What really excites you, though, is the out-of-focus smudge in the corner of the shot: you're certain it's the edge of someone's finger. There was a second person in the room with you last night, holding the camera. You wonder if he was there the night before too. You wonder if anyone else has been in your room without you knowing.
When you've cum twice, you're able to think clearly enough to wonder how you managed to sleep through all this. This isn't a cock brushing your face; this is penetration, stretching, clitoral stimulation. That isn't the kind of stuff you sleep through, is it? You get off for a while imagining you really are just that much of a whore, that you can have three fingers inside you and barely notice a thing, but then you spot the cylinder in the corner of the third picture. It's a metal canister, like an oxygen tank, connected at the top to the kind of plastic mask designed to cover your mouth and nose. They drugged you. That's why you didn't wake up. They put you into a deeper sleep so they could do what they wanted with you. Your clit is getting sore at this point, but when you come to this realization you can't help but cum one more time.
In your dreams that night someone is holding you down, kissing you, shoving his tongue down your throat. You're afraid and excited and wet, and you want to scream for help but you can't remember how to speak. Someone is saying something, but the words don't mean anything to you, and the relentless sucking on your clit is making it hard to focus on anything else. You want to moan, to arch your back, to press your legs shut, but your body isn't your own. Maybe you cum. Maybe you don't. It's hard to tell.
You come to slowly, blearily. You become aware of your surroundings one thing at a time, and out of order; first you notice the wetness, then the soreness, then the sunlight behind your closed eyelids. You stretch and rub the sleep out of your eyes, but your hands come away with more than the usual eye grit on them. With a jolt you realize your face is painted with cum, and looking down you can tell that it isn't just your face. There's cum on your tits, on your stomach, even your thighs and feet, and a hand between your legs confirms its inside you too. Hands shaking, you scoop it off your thighs and stomach, trying to get as much as you can into your pussy, fingering it deeper and deeper. You must have really taken a pounding last night, because your pussy is sore and your groin feels bruised, but the feeling of that cum inside you is worth every ounce of pain. You put a few pillows under your ass, trying to keep your hips elevated, keep it from spilling out for as long as possible. You imagine it taking root in your womb, changing your body, making your breasts and belly swell with motherhood. You imagine men you've never seen coming into you home while you're asleep and hungrily drinking your milk, squeezing and sucking so you wake up with your nipples sore. You wish one of them was here to fuck the cum deeper inside you, but you make do with your fingers. This time when you cum it's different. It isn't like the first orgasm of the day. It feels like maybe the fifth time you've cum in the last few hours; barely pleasure at all, just spine-tingling, mind-numbing sensation. Is it possible to cum in your sleep? It feels like it shouldn't be allowed, but you're having trouble thinking straight...
You need to stop touching yourself. You're sore and trembly and weirdly exhausted for someone who just woke up, but you can't stop thinking about those strangers in your bedroom, the cocks that must have been in your cunt and your asshole and your mouth. Your clit throbs, begging your fingers for just one more release. You make a compromise with yourself. You put on some panties to keep too much cum from leaking out, and you go to the kitchen to look at the pictures. But there are no polaroids on the kitchen table. Just a cheap plastic USB drive with your name in permanent marker on the side.
It shouldn't be a surprise that they know your name. They've been in your house, they can obviously find your name on your mail or your computer or your driver's license. But seeing it there in unfamiliar handwriting, one more tiny violation of privacy, makes your clit throb again, as if to remind you of its presence.
The voice of your elementary school librarian echoes in your head as you retrieve your laptop and return to bed. It is profoundly stupid, she reminds you, to plug an unfamiliar drive into your computer. There's no telling what kind of malware it could contain, and that kind of access could allow hackers to take complete control of your computer. But you've already done the most profoundly stupid thing. You've done it repeatedly, in fact, and you're in deep enough now that there may not be any going back. The drive contains a single folder, also with your name on it. The folder is full of pictures and videos, hundreds of them, from different cameras and different perspectives, every angle you could possibly want from the events of last night. Men in rubber masks, too many to count, taking turns raping your lifeless body. Stuffing their cocks down your throat and laughing as you choke reflexively. Squeezing your tits, pinching and biting your nipples. Playing with your pussy, intermittently fucking it and trying to shove ever-larger objects inside it. There's a closeup video of your face as one of the men ejaculates onto it. Another of your pussy as a cock pulls out, allowing a fat glob of cum to collect just at the entrance of your unresponsive hole. The last file in the folder is a .txt file, containing a single line of text: a string of numbers and letters that you recognize.
Right there on the first page of your favorite site is a picture of you, asleep and drenched in cum. Below it is your home address, and a short note:
Found this tasty slut by accident at the above address, just noticed the rapeme in her window and figured I'd come back that night. Good pussy, and she must like what we did to her because she hasn't taken it down yet. Stop by if you're in town; we like a limp body, but I bet she'd put up a nice fight if you'd rather forgo sedatives. Just make sure to gag her lol. don't want the neighbors complaining and ruining our fun. and remember to leave her a souvenir! She especially likes polaroids ; )
By the time you've finished reading you're in a daze. Your eyes can't seem to focus on anything. Your mind can't form a coherent thought. Your clit is no longer asking for your attention; it now demands it. As you begin to pull the panties back down, you notice something: the light next to your laptop camera is on.
You place the laptop on the bed between your legs, and begin stuffing the panties into your cunt.
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autisticsonic · 3 months
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My take on a Sonadow fankid! She actually existed for a while now, but the trend gave me motivation to finally draw her!
Most sonadow fankids are purplish and tube-grown, so I decided to make her neither!
Background for the story under cut, in case it gets long!
So in this AU, stories from the more recent games happen when Sonic and Shadow are at most around 20 years old. Back then Sonic was rambunctious and reckless as we know him to be, and Shadow was a depressed, traumatized emo kid. While at first they were rivals as depicted in the games.
Over the years tho, just like their friends, the two matured. They started getting along a lot more, and became official friends, which eventually lead to dating. They both were afraid of getting serious though, so they took things slow and casual. Due to some of their unresolved issues, they couldn't get any closer. But not for much longer.
Some of it has been brought on by a Particular Event, and some of it due to restructuring how they go about saving the world, but things changed. As Forces has shown, putting so much responsibility on One Guy isn't wise. Sonic felt so quilty for failing, but it never should've been his job alone, so they created an organization, to share the load more evenly!
The org became global, with local groups of heroes being recruited all around, meaning that now the characters we know and love now had more time to take care of their personal lives.
While for some the change hasn't been much, Sonic, and to a lesser extent, Shadow, struggled quite a lot. Many of things happened in between, but eventually both of them grew to quite enjoy the domestic life.
They moved in together, and started taking things to the next level, now that both have done some healing and therapy. They found that they get along quite great. After a bit longer, they decided to start a family :)
Shadow came up with the name. He wanted to honor his sister's memory, but Mar-Mar was also a symbol of all his progress. He did go to therapy to make sure that he can handle them sharing a name, to see if it's a good idea, and well, it was!
She's now 4 and very loved, and her dads love each other very much as well. For a certain Sonic though, things won't go so great.
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roadimusprime · 2 years
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THIS IS LIKE TAKING CANDY FROM A BABY WHICH IS FINE BY ME-Shadow The Hedgehog
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thankskenpenders · 4 months
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Sonic Prime Season 3: Final episodes, final thoughts
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Well, here we are. The final seven episodes of Sonic Prime are out on Netflix, concluding the story of Sonic's adventures in the Shatterverse. I've previously shared my thoughts on the first and second seasons, which I was pretty mixed on, but there were still glimmers of hope. The fluid animation, Shadow being fun in all his appearances, Nine being fairly interesting as a jaded alternate version of Tails, etc. There was enough to make me believe that after some highs and lows there was still the possibility that this show could end on a high note - or at least a decent note.
This did not happen.
Sonic Prime's final season sucks. The ending sucks, and the road to get there sucks. It's left me wondering what the point of all this even was. There are still moments I like that I'll try to highlight, and the animators and voice cast are still clearly giving it their all, but these efforts sadly don't outweigh the overwhelming mediocrity of the story. I would barely even recommend other Sonic fans who are on the fence go out of their way to finish it. I won't begrudge people who got more out of this show than I did, but I think overall I just really, really dislike Sonic Prime.
...The problem, of course, is that all other discussion of the show has been overshadowed by needlessly hostile arguments over its place in Sonic's canon. So we've gotta talk about that, too.
(This post will contain full spoilers for Sonic Prime.)
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The show's out of ideas but they've gotta stretch that shit out to hit the 23 episode mark somehow
Season 2 ended with the big twist that Nine decided to betray Sonic and Shadow, taking the Paradox Prism for himself so that he could go turn the empty world of the Grim into his own little paradise, since he doesn't believe he'll fit anywhere else. Nine has made himself the true big bad of the show.
The main impact this has is that now, instead of fighting endless identical Eggforcer bots and members of the Chaos Council over and over, the good guys and the Chaos Council have to fight endless Chaos Sonic-style robots sent by Nine while he goes "grrrrr I need Sonic's energy to stabilize the Paradox Prism." This continues for six whole episodes until the series finale, when the show decides it's time for Sonic and Nine to quickly make amends, fix everything, and send Sonic and Shadow home.
That's pretty much the whole season.
I cannot emphasize enough just how much of this final season is just fight after fight after fight against Nine's bots, and how fucking boring that gets. The season feels like one long, drawn out final battle that did not need to be nearly this long, but Nine had his big heel turn 2/3 of the way through the show and we've gotta fill up the rest of the time somehow. The novelty of the bots being based off of Sonic's friends (including the Chocobo-sized Birdie from the jungle world) really wears off quickly when they're just used as generic, silent mooks that the good guys have to fight by the dozen like it's the climax of an MCU movie. The first episode of the season with Sonic and Shadow fighting the new bots is pretty good, especially because Sonic and Shadow's dynamic is one of the few redeeming aspects of this show's writing, but after that it just gets boring. Three full episodes in a row are spent showing all the characters fighting robots in an empty wasteland while Nine scowls next to a big beam of energy. I found myself missing the in-your-face attitude of Chaos Sonic so much. He truly was one of the best parts of this show.
While the cast is busy fighting all these robots for what feels like an eternity, various things of varying levels of interest happen. There's a halfhearted attempt to have some kind of rivalry between Shadow and the main Grim Sonic throughout the final battle, but it completely falls flat because Grim Sonic has no personality whatsoever. It's like Shadow beefing with an above-average Egg Pawn. (Actually, no, that would be funny.) There's also a death fakeout with the two other versions of Tails, where they make a makeshift bomb and throw it a little too close to themselves on the battlefield and seem to get vaporized. If they had actually died there they would have had the funniest, most pointless deaths in the entire franchise.
I also realized at one point that they were trying to do the Avengers girl power fight thing with the three versions of Amy fighting a bunch of Rouge bots. This was very funny to me. Actually, so much of this is just following the tired MCU formula to the letter. Fighting over a macguffin, two armies just kind of running at each other and clashing in a big empty field, constant one-liner quips instead of actual jokes, the need to take out key targets to make the whole enemy army disappear, a villain who has a point but has to randomly hurt people so that there's an excuse for the heroes to fight him. When combined with how shit the multiverse stuff is, this whole show really is just Man of Action tackling some of the most played out storytelling tropes in modern pop culture in the most bland way possible. What a bunch of hacks.
By far, the one truly fun thing that happens in this protracted final battle is when a giant robot based on Big appears. It doesn't have arms or legs, but it can swing itself around to use its tail like a giant mace, and it can also shoot Froggy-shaped missiles out of its mouth. I wish the rest of the show was even half as fun as this. Again, Sonic Prime has just enough good moments to make you mad that the rest of the show isn't better.
The thing is, all this repetitive (but well-animated) action and the thin excuse plot would be totally serviceable if I just gave a shit about the characters involved. But I don't. I don't care what happens to the pirate version of Amy who goes "arrr." I don't care about what happens to Hipster Eggman. And unfortunately, by the end, I didn't really care about Nine, either.
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Nine as a villain
It's hard to criticize the story here without it coming off as a broad condemnation of the tropes at play. The thing is, I like many stories that try to do similar things. I love clashes between heroes and villains that are really just fantastical exaggerations of more personal conflicts. I love stories where a tragic, sympathetic villain lashes out at the world as an expression of the pain they feel, and a compassionate hero just has to get through to them. I eat that shit right up. Undertale is my favorite game ever made. Shit, I love other Sonic stories that do these exact things. And Sonic having to fight an alternate timeline version of Tails also has so much potential for drama!
So I can very easily imagine a version of the show where all this works for me. That just isn't the version we got.
Like I said last time, Nine's motivation is just too sympathetic and understandable for his sudden turn to supervillainy to make any sense. He just wanted to start over somewhere where he can be happy after a childhood filled with bullying and loneliness. Nine betraying Sonic and stealing the Paradox Prism to go make his own world? That tracks! Especially since we don't even know if Nine will still exist if Sonic goes through with his plan to restore his original world! But trying to kill everyone in New Yolk City by tilting the world 90 degrees, intentionally targeting the civilian population because it'll get to Sonic? Nope! Sorry, that's a bridge too far. I don't buy it. He's jaded and antisocial, but he doesn't strike me as cruel. Writing in an excuse about him needing Sonic's energy to fix the Prism does not make this make more sense.
This was really just one of those conflicts where it felt like everyone should stop and talk it out. Instead we got six episodes of fighting before one of Sonic's many, MANY attempts at reasoning with Nine throughout the season finally works. This isn't me pulling some Cinema Sins bullshit where I complain about characters in a work of fiction not always behaving rationally - the real problem is that it's just so damn repetitive waiting for this conflict to resolve. This could have been wrapped up in two or three episodes and instead it takes seven.
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A brief aside about that weird Dorkly-ass Sonic Advance 3 flashback scene hacked together with mismatched sprites where Gemerl happens to be present, presumably just because he's a part of the sprite for the Sunset Hill boss, and seeing him briefly makes me remember the extended cast from the games and how much I wish they had just made a cartoon about them instead of a bunch of stock characters wearing the skin of Sonic's friends, but then Gemerl just explodes with the boss machine at the end while Eggman is shown to get away so I guess Gemerl just dies in this flashback
Yeah that sure happened huh
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The ending
Despite having a final battle that felt like an eternity, Sonic Prime is a show that just kind of... ends. And that ending is weird and haphazard.
The understanding I had was that Sonic's normal world had "shattered" when the Paradox Prism was destroyed, and from those remnants these new worlds were created. This is why they use terms like "Shatterverse" and "Shatterspaces" and why there's shattered glass/crystal/whatever imagery everywhere. This is a broken, fragmented version of the real universe. Right? Right?? Isn't that the entire premise of the show? And therefore, if the universe has been shattered, then fixing it means putting all the shattered pieces back together. Which I would assume means that the Shatterspaces cease to exist.
So, in the ending... Sonic's world seems to just exist as another Shatterspace. Restoring the Paradox Prism doesn't seem to combine the worlds or anything, it just fixes the broken portal to Sonic's world that exists alongside all the others. So... what exactly was the point of all the shattered glass symbolism?
Things only get more confusing as the ending progresses. Shadow brings Sonic through the portal before the draining of Sonic's whatever energy makes him disappear, and they're transported back in time to right before Sonic broke the Paradox Prism. Only Sonic seems to remember what happened (Shadow might remember, but he doesn't say anything), and with the Paradox Prism never shattered, it's unclear if the Shatterspaces exist now.
I'm not particularly hung up on the time loop ending. It's very much in line with all sorts of classic morality tales like A Christmas Carol or It's a Wonderful Life, where the flawed protagonist goes through some kind of magical experience and then returns home with a new appreciation for the people in their life. It's always been pretty obvious that was the type of story they were telling. I'm more bothered by the fact that there's no time whatsoever spent on whether or not the other worlds and the characters in them continue to exist. Sonic seems to act like the worlds will go on without him before he leaves, but it's not like we get an ending scene that shows how the other worlds are doing, so they really truly might as well not exist anymore. Sonic just wraps up the adventure from the first episode when he gets home, and before he can explain what happened from his perspective he's interrupted by a mysterious energy wave from off-screen and it's off to the next adventure.
(Despite this odd cliffhanger ending, the show is extremely over and not coming back. I have to imagine this is just a "the adventures never end" type ending and not a hint that more shit is going on with the Paradox Prism.)
This ending is also a terrible resolution to Nine's whole arc, despite him being the driving force of so much of the show. The way I see it, there are are three possible fates for him:
The Shatterspaces continue existing, and things go as Sonic expects them to go. Nine is allowed to make the Grim into his own little utopia, and everyone else leaves him alone instead of punishing him for all the trouble he caused. Instead of finding love and acceptance so he can heal from a lifetime of bullying and loneliness, Nine is allowed to run away, isolating himself from every other living being in the multiverse, and live alone as the god of an empty world with only his own creations as company. Sonic was his only friend, and he's gone forever now.
The Shatterspaces continue existing, but because of the time travel ending, most of the events of the show never happened. Sonic never helped defeat the Chaos Council, so they still control New Yolk City. Nine is back to living in this dystopian city with no friends. He never met Sonic.
The Shatterspaces have been erased. After fighting so hard for his right to exist as his own person and not just a "wrong" version of Tails, when the timeline is altered, he just... stops existing. Along with almost every other character in the show.
Do I even need to explain why these are all unsatisfying?
Misc. thoughts
I skimmed over this, but a lot of the final season is just spent seeing Sonic's friends bicker with the Chaos Council and then Sonic has to beg them to get along to save the universe. It gets old.
We also never really got an explanation for why the Chaos Council exists. They can't have come from other Shatterspaces because there ARE no other Shatterspaces. If the original Eggman was just split into five guys or time travel was involved or whatever, it never comes up. I can live with this, but it seems like an odd omission for a children's show that's constantly bogged down in technobabble explaining the mechanics of its extremely small and finite multiverse.
I have no idea where Shadow was for the first part of the final battle. I figured Nine must have captured him off-screen after Sonic first left the Grim, but Shadow was just... hanging around until his cue in the script, I guess?
Sonic saying "help a brother up" to Shadow was funny
Hipster Eggman pointing to one of the few nameless extras who tagged along for the final battle and going "Who are you? Seriously, does anyone know who this is?" was the only funny thing he did in the entire show
Mangy Tails randomly pressing buttons on the Chaos Council's generator like a curious animal and managing to improve its output was cute
Rusty Rose randomly realizes that the Birdie in her chest actually isn't being used as a power source, and that the Chaos Council was just... using that to manipulate her, somehow? I don't really know how that works but whatever
The Sonic Advance 3 flashback uses the actual boss music from the game, but they can't use the real Sunset Hill theme because they didn't wanna pay Masato Nakamura for using the Green Hill motif, I guess
To my fellow fans of bad games: did you know that Man of Action wrote the story for the bizarre Square Enix game The Quiet Man? The one where the lengthy FMV cutscenes play out with muffled audio and no subtitles because the protagonist is deaf, so you can't tell what's going on? And you had to do a New Game+ playthrough to actually hear the audio and understand what's going on? The worst-reviewed game of 2018? That one? I only learned that recently and it blew me away
So yeah, that's the end of the show. I didn't like it, and I don't think I liked the show much as a whole. I am far from alone in this sentiment, but the reasons why people dislike the show... those vary a bit.
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The canon conundrum
More than anything else, it seems like most other discourse surrounding this show has been consumed by one talking point:
How can this be canon? Why is it canon?
I want to state very clearly up front that I, too, am a person who's noticed and complained about the inconsistencies with the games in Sonic Prime. Some of the characters are a bit off - or, you know, completely unrecognizable when discussing the writing of some of the AU counterparts. I think it's lame to say Sonic and friends all live in Green Hill and act like that's the entirety of their world. That sort of thing. But if Sega says it's canon to everything else? Sure. Fine. There's weirder shit in the canon.
Really, most of this can be explained away pretty easily. The show was written at a time when Sega was still figuring shit out and there were looser restrictions. Why does Sonic act a little more immature? Probably just because Prime is aiming for a slightly younger audience than the games or the IDW comics. (And also it's, y'know, written by Man of Action, who people have accused of only knowing how to write one kind of protagonist for years.) Why do Sonic and friends live in Green Hill? Because that's the most recognizable location from the games, and the game world doesn't get enough screentime to justify modeling multiple different environments, so they just focus on Green Hill. Why is this considered canon to the games? Because this is the first Sonic cartoon that outright references events from the games as things that have happened to Sonic in the past.
But announcing early on that Prime would be canon certainly let fans' imaginations wander. It was one of the few things we knew about the show before it premiered. People wondered if characters from the games and comics who had never made any appearances in Sonic cartoons might get their time in the spotlight. We wondered if it would tie into the lore or any existing storylines in interesting ways, like the IDW comics do. But above all else, we hoped that its canon status would mean that Sonic Prime would finally be the Sonic cartoon that was faithful to the source material with no catches. We've literally never seen the actual world of the games brought to life in a TV show. Sonic X came the closest, but that still took its liberties. And so hype built for this Canon Sonic Cartoon.
And then it actually came out, and after a brief intro in Green Hill based loosely on the games, it spent most of its running time focusing on things like "what if there was a version of Eggman who was a bratty teen who just wanted to play video games?" The disappointment among fans is understandable. I am disappointed. Look at how much I've bitched about this aggressively mid cartoon.
Some fans, however, came up with an elaborate theory about the series. You see, when asked about the show's place in the game timeline during a live Q&A, Ian Flynn (who only served as a consultant on Sonic Prime and did not write any of it) said this:
"I cannot answer because I know the answer, and you haven't finished watching the show yet."
A couple days later, when answering another question about Prime's place in the timeline and also about a writing discrepancy, he said this:
"As to where it fits on the timeline, I can't speak to it because that would spoil the show to a degree. So you're just gonna have to wait 'til it's done. Towards the other point, I don't know how much I can say, so it's probably better that I not comment. That's a really dissatisfying answer, I know, I'm sorry, but my hands are kinda tied on that one."
I feel the need to quote Ian directly here, because these very basic statements about how he can't talk about behind the scenes shit or anything from unreleased episodes was GREATLY misinterpreted by the fandom. People clung onto Ian's claim that we had to keep watching like a life preserver. Some took it as Ian saying that the ending would explain everything. Finally, we'd have a definitive answer for every little discrepancy and the apparent differences in worldbuilding. An explanation for why Sega and the producers repeatedly insist this show HAS to be canon.
And to these fans, the only explanation that made any sense... would be if the ending of Sonic Prime pulled a Flashpoint.
As this theory explained, the Sonic we were following in Sonic Prime wasn't the Sonic we know from the games and the IDW comics, and likewise the world he comes from isn't really the game world. This is a different Sonic who fights a different Eggman in a world that's literally just Green Hill. It was a hint that something was off all along! But in the end of the series, this Sonic would sacrifice himself to merge all of the Shatter Spaces together and form a brand new world, and that would be the more visually diverse world of the games and comics. According to this theory, Sonic Prime was canon because it was a new origin story for the entire franchise.
I want you to really stop and think about how asinine of an origin story this would be. Really drink this in. The idea that there was another, slightly different version of Sonic who went on a kinda shitty multiverse adventure and then sacrificed himself to create the real Sonic that we've known since 1991. People convinced themselves this made more sense than the simple explanation that a different team of writers got some stuff wrong and Sega didn't make them change it. Interviews where producers talked about drawing on Sonic's "mythology" (ie: they reference the games in the show) were taken very literally - they must be saying that Prime's story is mythological in nature, and that this show would be integral to the games' mythology. Why bother making a show that's canon if it's not going to be crucial to that canon, after all?
The final episodes dropped, and none of this happened. Because of course it didn't. It was all Sherlock fandom-level copium. But fans were left confused by the lack of a grand reveal of where Sonic Prime fits in the timeline, believing they had been promised this, and they turned to Ian for an explanation. Ian's answer:
It doesn't matter, b/c Prime wipes itself out. It's sometime after Advance 3*, but otherwise, it's moot. I didn't want to sour anyone's expectations or investment by spoiling how Prime resolves, that's all. If you enjoyed it, awesome. Savor it. If you didn't, then you can safely ignore it. Simple as that.
* About a trillion people have um, actually'd Ian to point out Orbot and Cubot briefly appear in the show, but if we're really being pedantic here we don't actually know how long before Colors Eggman built Orbot and Cubot, so it wouldn't be fully accurate to say a story featuring Orbot and Cubot couldn't be set before Colors. Either way, a story set anywhere around Colors, or at any point later than that, could still be described as "sometime after Advance 3." Advance 3 is just the most recent game that has specific in-game events referenced in the show. Yes I can feel myself morphing into the nerd emoji before your very eyes
Anyway, this is the latest reason Ian is getting death threats on Twitter. This time it's over a show he barely even had any input on!
I'll cut to the chase. It is truly wild to me that people are getting this heated over canonical inconsistencies in a series as historically inconsistent as Sonic, to the point that they think threatening Ian is justified. The aesthetics of the entire world Sonic inhabits change every other game. Sonic Chronicles may no longer be canon due to the Penders lawsuits, but it was canon at one point, and it took huge liberties with Sonic's world, moving Green Hill off of South Island and reinterpreting Station Square as a tiny outpost in a snowy alpine forest region. Characters' personalities change from writer to writer and based on what Sega wants at the time, with some being WILDLY different across different games. One game Sonic will be stoic and cool, the next he thinks "Baldy McNosehair" is the funniest thing ever. Sega's STILL trying to figure out what Amy's personality is supposed to be. We still don't have the explanation for how the two seemingly contradictory backstories for Blaze can fit together. There have been multiple huge, sweeping retcons, and retcons to those retcons. Sonic Forces claims that Classic Sonic is from an entirely different universe than Modern Sonic, and the plot only makes any sense if that's true - otherwise, Modern Sonic would have already known Eggman was going to beat him and take over the world when he did, because his younger self had already lived through that war. All of that makes no sense in the newly reunified timeline, but Forces is very much still canon.
For fuck's sake, we're talking about the series where Eggman blew up half the moon and then it looked completely normal in every other game after, explained away as "the moon just rotated so we can't see the destroyed side from Earth." This has never, ever, ever been a franchise where everything lines up perfectly with no issues. It's not that serious.
The real core problem with Prime isn't that things don't line up 100% with our current understanding of canon, or that Sonic's characterization means this can't be the real Sonic, or anything like that. The problem, as I've been saying this whole time, is that the story is bad. None of these discrepancies would truly matter if the story was better. They'd just be nitpicks. The fact that Sonic and friends live in Green Hill would be the farthest thing from my mind if the drama was more engaging, if the villains were better, if the jokes were actually funny, if more of the alternate universe counterparts of Sonic's friends had more than one generic character trait each, if the multiverse was more creative and varied, if the final seven episodes of this show didn't devolve into the third act of an MCU movie and then just arbitrarily end, if Nine's character arc actually had a satisfying conclusion instead of ending with either isolation or nonexistence. Maybe we'd be seeing people talk about more than just whether or not it should be considered canon if the writing was any good.
"Canon" is not real, and it sure as hell isn't worth sending people death threats over. It's a storytelling tool. Real human beings decide what does and doesn't go into that canon, or how much they do or don't want to draw on past stories, when creating a new story. Serving that canon is secondary to creating a story where the emotional truth resonates with the audience. And Sonic Prime failed to do that. That is its true failing.
And finally, to close out...
Since people will ask, here are my current ranking of the Sonic TV shows, now that Prime is finished.
Sonic Boom
Sonic SatAM
Sonic X
The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog
Sonic Prime
Sonic Underground
Yes, I'd say Boom is my favorite. It's far from my ideal Sonic cartoon, but it gets a lot of points for being as funny as it is. But the top four are all shows I'd say I like, more or less. They all have their pros and cons.
So now, uh... I guess let's hope the live action Knuckles show coming to Paramount+ is better than the underwhelming synopsis of "Knuckles helps deputy sheriff Wade train in the ways of the echidna warrior" would imply? Maybe we'll get lucky?
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convolutedblasphemy · 3 months
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I wasn't shitting you guys btw I actually made the one-sided radiostatic playlists
here is my lyrical masterpiece. both the vox version and the alastor one. done my best to make it as lyrically accurate as possible. @styrofauxm @onesidedradiostatic i hope you enjoy this (go check out the full lyrics for the songs on google if you can't listen to it but i recommend it because all of these are bangers) feat. my stupid commentary and vox's pathetic wet cat energy
Click to listen to the Vox one on YouTube
1. the hearse — matt maeson
thought this one fit so well lyrically. the "what was it like to feel in love" part i interpreted as vox asking himself that rather than alastor
❞ i am the man we both couldn't stand, i can't wash off the dirt from my hands, what was it like to feel in love? [...] i will never go backwards, i will never be free, i will never run faster; will you sink down to me? ❝
2. i'm just ken — ryan gosling
i'm not even adding lyrics to this one, everyone should have seen the barbie movie and this song at this point. this just HAD to be in there. can you feel the kenergy?
3. too many friends — placebo
less about alastor, more about vox's existential crisis
❞ my computer thinks I'm gay, i threw that piece of junk away on the champs-elysées as I was walking home. this is my last communique, down the superhighway. all that I have left to say in a single tome... ❝
4. creep — radiohead
i mean isn't this literally his theme song?
❞ when you were here before... couldn't look you in the eye. you're just like an angel. your skin makes me cry. you float like a feather in a beautiful world. i wish I was special. you're so fuckin' special. but I'm a creep, i'm a weirdo, what the hell am I doin' here? ❝
5. where evil grows — the poppy family
y'all seen the sonic movie? we need to see vox do that dance.
❞ i like the way you smile at me, i felt the heat that enveloped me and what i saw i liked to see. i never knew where evil grew. i should have steered away from you, my friend told me to keep clear of you but something drew me near to you ❝
6. one of us — ava max
i had to edit this one a bit in the video and cut out the part about the kissing because that for sure didn't happen
❞ one of us would die for love; one of us would give it up. one of us would risk it all; one of us won't even call. one of us could say goodbye, never even bat an eye... ❝
7. colorblind — amber riley
more pathetic wet cat energy brought to you by yours truly
❞ i don't think that i'll ever find that silver lining or reason to smile. you know i used to paint such vibrant dreams, now I'm colorblind, colorblind. when did my heart get so full of never mind, never mind? did you know that you stole the only thing I needed? ❝
8. arcade — duncan lawrence
more pathetic wet cat energy brought to you by yours truly
❞ a broken heart is all that's left. i'm still fixing all the cracks. lost a couple of pieces when i carried it, carried it, carried it home. i've spent all of the love I saved. we were always a losing game; small town boy in a big arcade, i got addicted to a losing game... all i know, all i know: loving you is a losing game. ❝
9. if i can't have you — skylar astin
i picked the version from zoey's extraordinary playlist on purpose because the context of this scene is that the dude who sings it hires a bunch of singers and dancers to confess in a public space as you, the viewer, sit there and cringe at him as he gets rejected. if that doesn't have vox energy, i don't know what does.
❞ i'm good at keepin' my distance (lie), i know that you're the feelin' I'm missing. you know that I hate to admit it but everything means nothin' if I can't have you. i can't write one song that's not about you, can't drink without thinkin' about you. is it too late to tell you that everything means nothing if I can't have you? ❝
10. do you want me (dead)? — all time low
when vox asks himself whether alastor wants him or wants him dead it's definitely the second option.
❞ i let it ride on a bet, i doubled down on a sinking ship; need a second to catch my breath: do you want me? or do you want me dead? oh, give it up for at least a second; i'm getting sick of your bullshit attitude and how you walk around like you shine brighter, it's killing me, so what do you say? do you want me? or do you want me dead? ❝
11. push — ryan gosling
i can't just put one musical number from the barbie movie in and not include the other one that fits equally as well.
❞ said, i don't know if I've ever been good enough. i'm a little bit rusty and I think my head is cavin' in. and I don't know if I've ever been really loved by a hand that's touched me, and I feel like something's got to give and I'm a little bit angry, well, this ain't over, no, not here, no; not while I still need you around. ❝
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Ice-cold rejection & vicious mockery: Alastor's version
the contrast of this is the best part.
Click here to listen to the Alastor one on YouTube
1. little big boy — madds buckley
he doesn't go easy on him. this is 0 compassion and 100% roast.
❞ brimstone fire and eyes aglow, little big boy's making the whole world know his name. raised on pillars and shining lights, breathing smoke for the right to keep his place. never satisfied 'till they all see how big this little boy can be. well the water's rising; tide's comin' in. does little big boy know how to swim in a pond filled with fish bigger than him? ❝
2. i help you hate me — sunrise avenue
he's so helpful fr but it's not working unfortunately
❞ i broke many hearts throughout my days. yours was the hardest one to face. though, I've never been a saint, i still love you every day, just not the lover kind of way. i know you wanna see me falling out, falling out the window. i know you wanna see me crashing down, crashing with my plane. baby, i'm way too young to die but I'll help you get over me. ❝
3. no surprise — daughtry
this is one of my favorite bands, i'm glad i got to include this.
❞ it came out like a river once i let it out when i thought that i wouldn't know how. held onto it forever just pushing it down, felt so good to let go of it now. not wrapping this in ribbons, shouldn't have to give a reason why: it's no surprise i won't be here tomorrow, i can't believe that I stayed 'til today. there's nothing here in this heart left to borrow. there's nothing here in this soul left to save. don't be surprised when we hate us tomorrow. ❝
4. go screw yourself — avery
i can picture him 1:1 delivering a swing version of this when vox confesses to him
❞ i know i've been holding it in, the way i feel about you. something i've been dying to say but I don't know how you'll take it; oh please don't go; you should know these three words i've been holding back; trying to fight, i'mma let 'em out... these three words, gotta let you know, here I go: go screw yourself. i've had enough, yeah, now we're done. ❝
5. the audacity — emelyn
this one's such a bop honestly. had to cut it in the video because i can't picture alastor realistically crying over anything vox-related.
❞ think your opinions should be broadcast... even though no one's subscribing, listening or liking but by all means, keep whining. must be tough if life's so rough. you should buy a mic, start a podcast, even though, wait, nobody asked. [...] where do all these men find the audacity? no actually, i'm stunned by your stupidity. ❝
6. friends — halocene
this one had to be on here.
❞ have you got no shame? you're looking insane turning up at my door. it's two in the morning, the rain is pouring, haven't we been here before? [...] so don't go look at me with that look in your eye, you really ain't going away without a fight. you can't be reasoned with, i'm done being polite. i've told you one, two, three, four, five, six thousand times. haven't I made it obvious? haven't I made it clear? want me to spell it out for you? f-r-i-e-n-d-s ❝
7. can't catch me now — olivia rodrigo
he likes the attention def especially after his return
❞ bet you thought i'd never do it, thought it'd go over my head. i bet you figured i'd pass with the winter, be somethin' easy to forget. oh, you think i'm gone 'cause i left but i'm in the trees, i'm in the breeze, my footsteps on the ground. you'll see my face in every place but you can't catch me now. through wading grass, the months will pass, you'll feel it all around. i'm here, i'm there, i'm everywhere but you can't catch me now ❝
8. take a hint — victoria justice & elizabeth gillies
this is on every rejection playlist and it's gonna be on mine too. a bop even after all these years.
❞ ask me for my number, yeah, you put me on the spot. you think that we should hook up, but I think that we should not. you had me at "hello", then you opened up your mouth and that is when it started going south. [...] what about "no" don't you get? so go and tell your friends i'm not really interested. it's about time that you're leavin', i'm gonna count to three and open my eyes and you'll be gone ❝
9. no — madilyn bailey & megan nicole
more rejection for y'all. the world needs more mean aroaces and this playlist is my contribution.
❞ first you gonna say you ain't runnin' game, thinking i'm believing every word; call me beautiful, so original, telling me I'm not like other girls, i was in my zone before you came along, now i'm thinking maybe you should go ❝
10. oh no — marina and the diamonds
a classic.
❞ don′t do love, don't do friends; i′m only after success. don't need a relationship, i'll never soften my grip [...] i know exactly what i want and who i want to be. i know exactly why i walk and talk like a machine. i'm now becoming my own self-fulfilled prophecy. ❝
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Reblogs are appreciated!
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project-sonadow · 2 months
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happy hour drabble # 2
Sonic had been dragging his feet all day. It was Monday again, which meant there wasn't much to do at Speedy's. Count the change, polish his roller skates, clean the fryers. That was his routine. By the end of his shift, it felt like there were lead blocks stuffed in his socks.
One of his coworkers gave him a strange look when he hung up his hat. "What?" he asked.
"Nothing," the girl replied. For some reason, her eyes looked sad. "Get some rest tonight, won't you, Arthur? We can't have you calling out; you're our best skater!"
Sonic raised an eyebrow, but before he could ask what she meant by that, she disappeared out the back door. Though her voice was muffled now, he could still make out her last request: "And don't forget to lock up!"
Rolling his eyes, Sonic twirled the keys in between his fingers and shook his head. This wasn't his first rodeo! After switching out his skates for his regular, non-wheeled shoes, he left the restaurant with his laces still untied. The door closed behind him, and he locked it with a soft click.
Shadow was waiting for him in his usual spot. The headlights on Shadow's motorcycle illuminated the dark parking lot with warm yellow light, and its engine filled the air with a weighty hum. Sonic hopped onto the back of the bike in one swift motion, and then wrapped his arms around Shadow’s waist like he'd been waiting to do it all day.
"No detours tonight," Sonic said. "I'm bushed!"
Shadow glanced back over his shoulder and was greeted by a mess of wild brown-and-blue quills. "Fine," he said. "That disaster you call a coat would give us away in an instant. Save your strength so I can fix it before bed."
If Sonic replied, it was drowned out by the sound of the motorcycle's engine as it roared to life. Sonic rested his head against Shadow's shoulder as the dark hedgehog drove them back to their apartment. The cool air felt nice against Sonic's fur as the wind whipped through it.
Soon, they arrived. Shadow parked the motorcycle in front of their apartment building before the two of them got off. Only then, under the bright white streetlights, did Shadow see the red flush on Sonic's cheeks. Without so much as a word, Shadow stepped forward and pressed the back of his hand against Sonic's forehead.
"Uh?" Sonic blinked. "Sh-- Lance? What're you...?"
Shadow dropped his hand from Sonic's forehead. "You're burning up," he said matter-of-factly. Then, he took Sonic's hand. "Come. Let's go inside."
Sonic let Shadow lead him up the stairs as he processed what he'd just said. "Wait," Sonic said as Shadow pushed open the door to their apartment. "I'm sick? But it's Monday!"
"Correct."
After both of them were inside the apartment, Shadow shut the door. Now, Sonic's face was screwed up like he was trying to solve a difficult math problem. "That doesn't make any sense," Sonic was saying. "I wasn't sick last Monday, or last last Monday, or--"
Shadow interrupted, "It's possible our minds aren't the only things that remain intact throughout time."
Sonic frowned, "So, someone's germs from the last loop are making me sick in this one?" He paused to think about that for a second. "That's not good, dude. That means..."
"Any consequences will persist regardless of our current place in time," Shadow finished. He was frowning now, too.
"Great," Sonic said, even though nothing about this was great. "Well, there goes my Plan A."
"And what was that?"
Sonic grinned, "'Run straight at the bad guy and hope for the best'!"
Shadow pursed his lips and sighed. Loudly. With agitation. "That's always your plan."
Sonic opened his mouth to reply, but a sneeze cut off whatever snarky remark he had prepared. His grin faded as he remembered how tired he was. Talk about a buzzkill! Next time he saw Tails, he'd have to ask him to make a shrink ray, so he could fight off germs with his fists.
Shadow shook his head as he watched Sonic's ears droop. "Go. Sit," he said. "I'll take it from here."
Sonic wanted to argue, but Shadow’s stern brown eyes made him feel funny. “Whatever,” Sonic muttered as he averted his gaze. “Just don’t take too long. I can’t promise I’ll stick around if you do!”
In truth, Sonic wasn’t going anywhere. Now that he was free from the constraints of his 9 to 5, and the horrors of capitalism were held back by the immutable strength of their apartment door, he was left with nothing to distract him from his fever. He shuffled into the bathroom and plopped down on the stool, waiting for Shadow to come in with the dye.
He sniffled. His bones hurt. He scratched his head, irritated. This never would’ve happened to world famous superhero, Sonic the Hedgehog. It was only because he was disguised as some random punk that he’d gotten sick.
“I seem to remember your fox friend recounting a tale to the contrary,” Shadow suddenly said. He’d appeared in the doorway, dye in hand. “Something about you and Arabian Nights…?”
Sonic waved his hand. “That was different,” he said.
Shadow popped the lid off a bottle of brown dye. “Oh? Is that so?”
Huffing indignantly, Sonic replied, “Yeah. That time, my worst enemy was a super powerful genie. This time, it’s customers!”
Shadow lowered his head. Sonic could’ve sworn he saw him smile. “Hold still,” Shadow said, his hands freshly gloved up and covered in dye. “I’ll be quick.”
Regardless of the truth of that statement, Sonic was physically, mentally, and emotionally incapable of holding still. He tried. Of course, he didn’t want to squirm around like a worm in the rain. But he couldn’t help it! Just like he couldn’t help but tap his foot against the linoleum, his claws clack-clack-clacking against the tile as he did so. That was, until one of Shadow’s hands moved to the back of Sonic’s left ear, and Sonic froze.
Sonic felt Shadow rub the dye into his fur. He felt his claws brush gently against the softest part of his ear. And Sonic stopped thinking about how lame it was to be sick. He didn’t worry about holding still. His heart fluttered in his chest and his eyes closed, totally focused on how good it felt to have Shadow’s fingers in his fur.
Shadow paused, having noticed the strange shift in Sonic’s behavior. But there was no time for him to lean forward and investigate, because a gentle pressure was now pushing against the palm of his hand, urging him to continue. 
It was Sonic, leaning into Shadow’s touch. 
Shadow nearly choked, but he managed to keep his composure. He isn’t feeling well, Shadow reminded himself. That’s all this was.
And yet, when Shadow resumed styling Sonic’s quills, he wasn’t thinking about covering up all the blue spots anymore. Instead, he focused his attention on just that one spot behind Sonic’s ear. He didn’t know why. Maybe he pitied Sonic. As the Ultimate Lifeform, he would never know how it felt to be ill.
Sonic leaned deeper into Shadow’s touch. His tense shoulders relaxed. His job, their mission, the time loop–none of that mattered anymore. Somewhere inside his chest, next to his heart, a soft rumbling began. Purring.
Sonic was purring.
Abruptly, Shadow stood. He turned away from Sonic, so he didn’t see him blink his eyes open sleepily. 
“Shadow…?”
“That’s all for now,” Shadow said stiffly. “Count yourself lucky. If not for your… illness… you would’ve been sitting there for much longer.”
And then he exited the bathroom, leaving Sonic sitting there as the last of his purrs quietly faded away.
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sage-nebula · 1 year
Text
Neat Lore Bits from 'The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog'
I just wanted to make a little list of everything I come across as I play through this little April Fool's Day game, because it's super cute and so much fun.
— Tails always carries Sparkle Gelatin as a snack whenever he travels. It's "a sparkly jelly that can melt any jaded heart."
— Sonic is world renowned, but not necessarily recognizable by the average person, even if the average person knows who he is and what he did.
— Amy is a huge fan of true crime podcasts.
— Once when Tails was at the grocery store, he slipped on some spilled juice because there wasn't a wet floor sign. Sonic caught him . . . but then also slipped on the juice because he was running too fast, and they both crashed into an elderly shopper's cart.
— Not lore per se, but both the detective and the journalist can't be the murderer or victim of the murder mystery, and got to hang out together for the hour before the game starts. Amy picked Tails to be the detective to her journalist, meaning she wanted to spend that time with him. Awww, Sunset Squad 4 Life 💖🧡
— Blaze prefers the birthday cake in Sonic's dimension to the cake in her own.
— Amy has multiple Piko Piko Hammers for different uses. She carries a lighter one when she thinks she won't need one for the day.
— Shadow is familiar with Super Monkey Ball, but can't get a very high score on it. Also, he signs high score boards as ULTIM (for Ultimate Life Form)
— Knuckles is not used to receiving compliments; they make him blush.
— Knuckles is a sore loser and breaks game cabinets when he can't get the highest score.
— Omochao is wanted for medical malpractice.
— Eggman has written a combined autobiography and recipe book.
— Tails claims to have never played in casinos and to not know how to play card games despite stating that he is banned from casinos for counting cards in Sonic Heroes. Either Sega has decided to retcon Tails' gambling habits, or Tails doesn't like to share his gambling habits with strangers.
— Amy's favorite band is Hot Honey, and Hot Honey band member Jeremy Bee is her current favorite musician.
— Shadow is not good with computers.
— Espio is fluent in 17 languages.
— Espio once speed-read a book just to spoil the ending for Knuckles.
— Sonic believes in the "salt over the shoulder" superstition.
— Sage the A.I. likes to play with robots.
— Shadow likes chocolate cake.
— Sage the A.I. and Metal Sonic have "let's go dad" t-shirts.
— Eggman has rubber ducks that look like himself and Sonic; they are the angry rubber duck and the happy rubber duck respectively.
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ratrrriot · 11 months
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How do you feel when people call Amy a stalker?
People can call her what they want, however…
Do i think it's fair to call Amy a stalker?
In some of the games? Yes, and even in some of the ones she wasn't a stalker per-se, she still showed possessive and obsessive tendencies. So i get where it comes from...
Generally? No. Her character originally wasn't supposed to be a harasser and she sure isn't one in the present. the franchise has been clearly trying to do better for her these past few years.
I think Amy's changing characterization is an interesting topic of discussion, so even though i technically already answered your question i'll take this chance and proceed to talk about my fave for way longer than i need to :).
Note: This is just my take on Amy and the way i understand her ENGLISH PORTRAYAL. I won't be talking about her japanese one which would deserve its own analysis.
Sorry for any writing mistakes in advance (english is hard) and feel free to correct me if i'm factually wrong about something (i wrote this thing mostly from memory so i imagine i must be.)
Amy has changed A LOT troughout the games and has been in the hands of many different writers across Sonic media ,so when talking about her is important to be specific about what game,series or comic we are talking about (and language),and while i know that some of you might not agree and i respect that, i think that -looking at the subtleties- Amy has had at least 6 different portrayals through the course of the games. That being said,i believe the idea that she is a stalker comes especifically from the characterization they started giving her around 2003
Originally,Amy was envisioned as a sweet 12-year-old kid who had a huge unreciprocated crush on her idol and a passion for fortune-reading ,but who wasn't exactly much of a heroine herself. In the classic era,her place in the narrative was just to serve as a damsel in distress and a cute,funny detail. Ofc,in comics and animated shorts for games like Origins, we have gotten more content of classic Amy being fully independent and capable of defending herself (even more with the upcoming playable mode for her in Origins Plus), but i think we can all see how such aspects of her character weren’t included at the time she was created (only exception being Sonic Fighters)
Especifically in the adventure era (AKA the birth of modern Amy) they gave Amy her iconic strong,compassionate,romantic personality and an interest/love for adventure (and her sassy attitude ofc). She's outspoken,stubborn,brave and honest. I also want to point out that in this first portrayal ,her love for Sonic feels more like innocent childish idolization than an obsession and that her character doesn't revolve exclusively around it (she will stand in his way if she doesn't think what he does is right). Tbh i think she's incredibly funny,cool and lovable,
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They slowly started planting the seeds for her character to stop being a "damsel in distress" by making her playable and defeat ZERO all on her own at the end of SA1,then also being playable in Sonic advance and helping Sonic get out of prison in SA2 (and tagging along for the rest of the adventure). In all these games,her character revolves around empathy,optimism and kindness. The way she protects the flicky since the moment she finds it,how she defends Gamma from Sonic and the iconic moment in SA2 where she convinces Shadow to help save earth are all great examples.
THEN, in Heroes , they decided to try something new with her taking her confidence and sassy attitude to a whole other level. Giving her the chance to be a fully-fleshed hero who didn't need rescuing anymore. She became independent and the leader of her own team of friends who she wanted to help. I love this Amy cause she feels really strong,determined and empowered without losing her peppiness,silliness,positivity and kindness. Her flaws are also especially endearing to me: How much of a wild kid she is,How even if she means well, she relies way too much in brute force, How she has trouble getting out of her own head, etc. She really feels just as confident and energic as Sonic,but just like him,you can tell she has a huge heart.
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HOWEVER, as much as i love how they made her strength and bravery shine in this game, Heroes was the game that gave birth to the idea that Amy is willing to chase and even fight Sonic just to insist that they should marry (in SA2 she did follow him to the prison but it was only to help him and tag along in the adventure).
Ofc this was supposed to be comedic and to be seen as childish,harmless behavior- I say this because the rest of the characters,including Sonic himself,don't seem to take it seriously- but what was supposed to be seen as an endearing flaw at the time, would rapidly mute into what's probably Amy's worst portrayal ,as the writers turned it into harassment for the next mainline games (Ignoring Shadow the hedgehog where she is the same as in heroes and only has a brief appearance.)
Before i go into Battle,i just want to say that the definition of stalker according to google is “a person who harasses or persecutes someone with unwanted and obsessive attention.” A definition that definitely did not apply to her before Heroes,but that i can't deny that does apply to Amy for the next few games:
In Battle, Amy is suddenly written as aggresive and self-centered. All her compassion and empathy from the adventure era is gone, intimidating people (even Cream) and demanding information from them from the get-go. Of course she does a few good things throughout the game too,like take care of Emerl and such,but she still mainly uses him for her benefit (calories counter and emerald radar). Right off the bat,at the start of her storyline she insists on searching for Sonic even when she herself assumes he is hiding from her -which implies she knows what she's doing is worth hiding for- and tries to justify her behavior by saying that Sonic actually loves her and that he is being “ just shy “ or that “ he got cold feet”- while others characters react in a way that implies that's obviously not the case and that her behavior is worrysome..
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I think it's important to mention that before Battle, we hadn’t gotten a single line of dialogue that implied that Amy tought that her behavior could be hurtful for Sonic, nor did she ever threaten anyone at all unless it was self defense. She knew he didn’t reciprocate her feelings and was actively trying to make him fall for her anyways,sure, but we gotta remember that while the canon ages might have been scrapped recently, at the time Modern Amy was created they were still very much canon and you can tell they had them in mind when writing these characters. Amy was supposed to be 12 ,so it makes sense that she didn't understand why Sonic wouldn’t accept her affection. She idolized him and misinterpreted the fact that he always was protecting her as possible romantic interest,but never actually imposed anything on him. The worst thing she ever did to him was wanting to hug him without consent,and again, the games implied that she clearly didn't realize such a thing wasn't ok. Sonic also didn't seem to want to hurt her feelings so while he did run away and expressed being annoyed by her he never explicitly told her to stop. I actually think that if he had sat her down and made it clear to her that what she was doing was truly bothering him, The Amy from the adventure era would have stopped, but i doubt he cared enough to do that honestly (after all ,in his recap screens it is implied that what truly bothers him about Amy being near him is not her crush,but that he thinks shes exposed to danger.)
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BUT in Battle and for the next three games,Amy doesn’t seem to be written as a 12-year-old who mistakes admiration for love anymore. This is where the writers started to portray her as someone who is clearly still young and definitely childish but not innocent. Her whole character revolves around harassing Sonic and using her strength to intimidate others, and don't get me wrong,I like that Amy gets angry easily!! i like that she isn't afraid of a fight,that she complains a lot, and that she isn't peaceful. After all,those are important parts of who she is. But Battle!Amy is on a whole other level: she gets mad at her friends just because they don't agree with everything she does or says. It's not about having a strong personality anymore,she's just generally aggressive. For the next few games she and Sonic can't have one normal conversation that isn't Amy imposing her own wishes over him and him trying to get away from her, so it's hard to believe she wouldn't realize that what's she's doing is wrong nor accidental as we were supposed to before. This time It just feels like she is deciding to ignore the signs.
This continued in advance 3 ,where she literally threatens him with her hammer just cause he shows signs of not being interested in spending time with her when they meet, Then in rush she becomes possesive and jealous the second he mentions Blaze and also seems to treathen him with the hammer in the credits scene because he is running from her hug.
They changed the direction of her characterization again after Rush. The best way i can describe the Amy that is present in Riders,06,etc is one that has two very polarized sides to her personality. On one side,she is a peppy,sweet,over enthusiastic and romantic girl, on the other she is a pretty intimidating one with an obsession with Sonic and very fiery temper. However,contrary to her last portrayal,she is more polite and actually asks Sonic if she can come with him various times,doesn't harass him and doesn't threaten people simply cause they don't agree with her anymore, but she still doesn't seem to have any sense of boundaries,still follows Sonic without permission sometimes and still clearly has no consideration for his personal space. Another thing about this Amy is how her flirting is really intense, and even if she isn't as aggressive as the Amy from Battle,if someone messes a bit with her she doesn't hesitate to resort to intimidation or take her hammer out.
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She still gets violent towards Sonic sometimes,but what's different from her last characterization is that instead of doing so merely because he doesn't show romantic interest in her ,its mostly because he doesn't follow on his promises (end of Black Knight) or shows up to save her “properly” (Referring to 1- that scene in Riders where he blows eggman -who had caught Amy- away with wind and she chases him with her hammer because “how could he not think that would hit her too “ and 2- the one in Zero Gravity where he arrives late to save her and she playfully throws him a few fists saying that “it took him long enough!”). I don't think she's necesarily right to do that but i don't consider it to be problematic either, since by that point the games had strongly implied that there was a non-spoken agreement between the two that he'll always show up to save her and the whole thing feels more playful than anything else. Mostly because Sonic seems to be fine with her being around again, as he never really denies her acussations or runs away when she gets mad,and even tries to explain himself to her.
So yeah,this Amy is one of the more famous -and infamous- ones,as her negative and positive qualities are more balanced than the one from Battle. However,i personally don't like her much as there's almost no focus on the empathetic/compassionate side of her character that was so prominent in the adventure era and ,even if i wouldn’t call this version of her a Stalker , she's still is way too obsessive and possesive for my liking. The writing for her character is still pretty much completely based on being attracted to Sonic, to the point that In 06 she tells Silver that, if she had to, she'd “choose Sonic over the world".
In Sonic Chronicles , Amy gets a lot of dialogue. She gets jealous in a scene but its not as bad as in Rush and she tries to make Sonic jealous by inventing a fake boyfriend (terrible trope) but her levels of aggressiveness are up to the player's treatment of her. I am ,however , mentioning this game because of a scene in specific near the final section in which Amy is scared they might die and aks Sonic if she can have a moment with him. She then tries to have a serious conversation and politely asks if he cares about her or if he likes her at all. if the player chooses to make Sonic say he does care for her she is legitimately surprised and thankful. Idk what happens If he rejects her cause i haven't been able to find any recordings of that and i never owned this game,but i'll assume that her reaction won't be too bad considering she is asking in the first place(?) feel free to tell me if you know…
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This portrayal of Amy is still present in Unleashed (2008) ,in which Amy is there to cheer/support Sonic on throughout the game and to serve as an important indicator that Sonic is quite self conscious of his looks when he's a werehog. She is generally very sweet towards him in this game (especially when she shows no rejection towards his werehog form,which is a detail i adore), even if she does get annoyed when he doesn't pay as much attention to her as he does to Chip or reciprocate her feelings.
A good example is how, before the last temple ,she asks him if he'd like to go on a date with her after everything is over. If you choose the positive dialogue option she is ,again, positively surprised and thankful. If you make him say no she complains about how he's being mean, but doesn't insist on it and just accepts it.
In Free Riders (2010) ,Amy just generally acts extremely out out of character (like,she doesn't even fit into Battle's portrayal). It really feels like someone who didn't know anything about the character wrote her, so for the sake of the pink hedgie let's ignore it and go back to talking about portrayal 4.
I already mentioned her brief apparition in Black Night and there's nothing worth mentioning about her in Generations so i'll skip them.
This portrayal ended in Lost World (2013),In which they toned down Amy as a character in general,leaving out all of her flaws and iconic traits out. She feels plain and her strong personality,confidence,sass,energy,etc all seem to be completely gone. She's just sweet and that's it . For some reason there's a scene where she literally tries to confess to Sonic and is cut off before she can finish,which is very funny considering it had never been treated as a secret before??? it really goes to show how hard they were trying to pull some kind of reboot on her. Fortunately,this characterization was only a two-game-thing (She is just as plain in Forces (2015)) so i'll put it in the same bag as the Free riders one and we'll leave it at that.
After Lost world came Boom (2014) ,and then we got the most recent change of Amy's personality,which we all know has had a mixed reception from the fandom. Originally people thought that this Amy would stay just in the Boom universe ,but this personality has been showing up in the mainline games for a while now,like in Team Sonic Racing (2019) and Frontiers (2021).
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This Amy feels older than any of the ones that came before her. She kept the sass,the love for romanticism,the positive attitude,the confidence and the strenght but her bad temper and over enthusiasm are gone,as she is generally more calm,less energetic and not childish at all. Most importantly,this Amy is extremely emotionally intelligent,as the rest of characters seem to look for her help and advice constantly ( to the point that she has been given the "therapist friend" title by the fandom and is even referred as "the nice one" by Eggman himself ). Another interesting thing about this Amy is that she doesn't flirt with Sonic anymore,In fact, she barely expresses her liking for him (She does so a bit more in Japanese chz the characterization varies) and Sonic seems completely comfortable with this version of her around.
A lot of people say that this version of her is out of character and I completely understand where that comes from, but i must disagree because this characterization of Amy is the first one since the adventure era that focuses on her compassion/empathy rather than on her crush on Sonic, which combined with her intelligence,makes her not out of character,just the most emotionally mature Amy to date instead. I actually think that if the og modern Amy had grown up,this is the kind of personality she would’ve developed while becoming an adult (although she isn't supposed to be one). A good argument to defend this point would be that one Egg-memo you can buy through the fishing minigame in Frontiers where Eggman talks about how Amy has "come a long way" and how it took her some time "to find herself" and get out of Sonic's shadow.
Only problem i have with this Amy is that i wish she was more flawed and bubbly,mostly cause she can come off as very plain from time to time and way too mature. She is a bit too perfect for my taste. I'd like her to mess up more,to not always be so smart,to be more impulsive,a little bit more clumsy,fiery and wild,just so she could have some more of the charm of the original,y'know?
Before i talk about her more recent Videogame portrayal (TMoSTH) i want talk about IDW Amy:
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in IDW, all of Amy's flaws and positive traits from past games are balanced pretty well: she is flawed and relatable and can mess up a bit sometimes because of her impulsivity,but she's emotionally and strategically inteligent, optimistic and incredibly kind. She is a great fighter and leader,but also a wonderful friend who offers emotional support. She has a strong personality, lots of sass and can be very aggressive and intimidating towards her enemies, but not any less of an empathetic and compassionate person because of that. Her strength and confidence are pillars for her character instead of nonsensical anger,but she still shows self doubt and fear from time to time. She is energic, idealistic and still a romantic,but not obsessive nor possesive. peppy but emotionally intelligent. She still loves Sonic, but her feelings for him feel authentic rather than childish idealization,and given that she now respects his space,she's written to be happy just with fighting by his side and jokingly flirt from time to time. (their bond also seems stronger,but that's a topic for another day.)
I believe this portrayal of her is one of the best we've gotten in the sense that she represents a good mix of most things that has made her positively memorable since the beginning and lacks every problematic aspect of her character that was added post her creation. And because of this good mix of characteristics, IDW Amy is constantly praised by the fandom. But something i hear a lot is people saying how they love IDW Amy and despise "Main Amy" -by which i'll assume they refer to videogame Amy just in general- and that way of summarizing all of Amy's game portrayals feels very odd to me, especially because IDW Amy is a culmination of every single good aspect that has been added to this character combined with most of what she was meant to be at the start. In other words,IDW Amy couldn't exist if it wasn't for all the game Amys before her.
It's true that in IDW we haven't seen her character be as impulsive and outspoken as in the Adventure era or Heroes, and i miss that as much as every other Amy fan. But I do think that ,because so much assertiveness wouldn’t coexist very well with things like careful thought, the reason for that change must be that IDW is writing an more mature version of the character and It’s hard for them to keep such aspects of her personality intact without her being seen as childish by the audience now that they are paired up with big responsabilities (ex: the restoration) Especially since that super impulsive nature of hers probably came naturally at the time because she was supposed to be a 12-year old and wether we like it or not, it was implied by the narrative that it was one of the main reasons she got caught by eggman both in SA1 and SA2. Aka,IDW Amy isn't allowed to make as many mistakes as the og.
After all ,Amy used to be written to be mostly seen as a comedic character and as an "extra addition" to the main team rather than as an important,needed member of it. ( even in Heroes,where she had formed her own team,she was still trying to catch up to Sonic and his team because she had been excluded of it.) If she made a mistake and got caught by eggman because of her stubborness,the writers would just make Sonix fix things. In IDW she doesn't just feel older,but she has also gotten to have important roles in the fight against Eggman and people rely on her with their lives,so it doesn't surprise me that the writers try to make her be more conscious and careful when it comes to her actions now that she has more responsibilities and can't allow herself to make as many mistakes as she did back when she was written to be more immature and impulsive because of that extreme assertiveness.
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Now,I personally believe that Amy in TMoSTH is the same as in IDW, just that she feels more like her OG self in TMOSTH because ,for the most part ,Bday Girl is on that train literally to just have fun and do as she pleases. She doesn't have any weight on her shoulders nor expectations,she is free of responsabilities all the way until the climax of the game and the game itself is very comedy-centric for the most part, so the writers pobably felt like they could set that impulsive,assertive side of her loose again, and i loved it!
In this game her character doesn't revolve around Sonic and she messes up a lot (The way she was so ashamed of how she broke her hammer when she tried to escape the closet with brute force that she lied, how she didn't realize Sonic was actually hurt because she was too excited about the game, how she was overconfident and impulsively tried to solve the case and completely failed ,how she and vector started beating a wall violently after realizing the train was alive,etc),but her positive qualities shine throughout the game as well ( How she took the time to organize a party that she'd think everyone would have fun at,How she is so thankful that everyone showed up and doesn't mind that Shad and Sonic didn't bring gifts, how she makes sweets remarks about others and cute jokes in distressing situations,how she has faith in Shadow's goodwill, The way she delivers the final blow at the end and says that despite everything,she loved the party because it was an adventure,etc ). Throughout the game,Sonic and the rest treat her in a way that really goes to show what a good friend and a lovely person she is ,and she expresses great appreciation for everyone's presence in her life.
It's honestly an amazing coincidence that this game takes place on her bday considering that it's the one that made this portrayal of her "game canon". As a fan of her, i celebrate it and hope we get more of it in the near future.
So yeah, i didn't talk about Sonic X Amy,Archie Amy nor all the comics,series and games that came out between the big videogame titles. There is much more about how Amy has been written that could be said, but i think i did a pretty decent summary of the most important changes her character has gone through the years mainline game-wise,at least good enough to defend my point that she wasn't a stalker originally and she definitely isn't one now. As i mentioned before,i agree that she was portrayed as possesive and obsessive for a long period of time and as an actual harasser for a shorter one , and that we should definitely recognize it and be critical of such things being portrayed as “quirky” and “funny” aspects when they are in reality, hurtful. BUT summarizing her whole character by calling her a stalker and an obsessive fangirl is defining her based on the worst examples of her characterization and ignoring her good ones completely.
Feel free to disagree with my character analysis,my opinions and the way i categorize her portrayals,but i strongly believe that Amy rose isn't meant to be a harasser,an obsessive fangirl or personal space invader.
My girl deserves better.
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000marie198 · 2 months
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What were to happen if Sonic and Tails both became babies? Y'know, besides Knuckles and Amy having to wrangle their clingier than usual sibs.
Imagine two gremlin twin kittens who just got reunited staring at you with these faces:
:3 :3
Moments before disaster strikes
.....
But this happens after they are placed in the same space together and make friends.
The first instinct of baby Tails would be to pounce on his fellow age mate cuz he wanna play
The first instinct of Sonic would be to yip in terror and roll away from the fox and tremble while still curled up in a teeny ball. He won't know it but his action will make baby Tails pause and tilt his head in confusion and then curiously approach the still trembling ball to nudge it. It pricks him due to quills and he also yips and scuttles away, then whimpers and sniffs, holding his bleeding snout.
The hedgehog, recognizing the sounds as expressions of pain and fear and not sensing anything else for a full minute uncurls slightly to make a little peek at the kit, he's cautious but also curious.
They don't really have the memories of their lives but the general instincts and bonds are there and seeing the teary blue eyes and soft sad sniffles... Little hoglet is not able to handle it and uncurls completely and whimpers too.
He hurt the other. He doesn't want the other to be hurt. He's really sorry he hurt the other.
Little hoglet stumbles towards the sniffling kit and pats him with his little paws over and over till baby Tails stops tearing up with a hiccup and stares curiously at the hoglet.
Baby Sonic let's out an open mouthed smile. Tails gets curious and comes closer, which reactivates the hedgehog instincts and Sonic rolls away again.
Baby Tails realizes the other one can get scared if he comes close without warning or pounces so he doesn't do that. He just sits and waits, tails lightly swishing back and forth, watching baby Sonic till he calms down and uncurls, meeting the fox replicating his earlier smile.
Big wide eyes staring at each other and slowly they both become comfortable enough to actually start communicating, in babbles and gestures but it's still communication.
In a while, Sonic's stomach growls, he has always had higher metabolism okay. Baby Tails starts sniffing around to find him something to eat. He sniffs something he likes, FLIES OUT OF THE PEN, locates a cookie and brings it to Sonic. The hoglet muches on it and offers it to Tails after 3 or 4 bites. Tails also munches on cookie.
They start competing on who can munch louder, it's a miracle one of them hasn't choked on a crumb while giggling so much.
They bond over chocolate cookie :]
........
There's a lot more moments we can add afterwards, aka once the two have become friends. .
Both babies would literally have that package deal, Do Not Sperate level separation anxiety specifically and only when it comes to the other.
Knuckles would carry Tails away to feed him something and Sonic would start wailing and reaching, Tails doing the same. They are very loud and they won't shut up till you reunite them, which will end up in close hugs and sniffles
There was that one time Amy had to take Sonic away for a little bit to give him a bath and Knuckles had to fight to hold a frantic clawing fox kit away, especially when Sonic's cries of sorrow turned into screeches of fear. This was so not easy.
Tails bites both their older friends after that while Sonic naps in the background all freshened up and tidied.
........
You cannot leave the babies unsupervised anywhere! They will work together to escape one way or another no matter where and they will drive everyone nuts looking for them only to be found inside a barely ajar cupboard with cereal scattered all around them and blinking like deer caught in a headlight.
......
You give one of them a toy or teether or rattle and they'll fight over it and scream. Sighing, you take away the toys. Next time you make sure to give both of them identical toys. They still look at the other and try to snatch it, starting another fight.
.......
There are two gremlins rolling around and flying all over the house, getting into the craziest, unreachable places. Sonic just scuttled under the fridge, Tails is perched on a ceiling fan. Everything is scattered
.......
The next time baby Tails pounces on the hoglet to play with him, Sonic doesn't curl up in fear
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yanderegrizzsworld · 4 months
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i remember the yandere sonic the hedgehog sonic, shadow, silver about the reader dying because of like tails and such what if one day they see the reader standing near where they died the reader managed to make themselves a physical body except they still have wounds and blood all over them the reader can touch them and objects
It's alright if you don't wanna do this request
Have a great day :3
This genuinely has so much angst potential & I could talk about how each of the hedgehog's could at first believe that they're merely hallucinating at the moment because there's no way you're still alive— You can't be alive— & yet here you are, standing right in front of them, just as pretty & as charming as they remember, though you are covered head to toe in blood but they won't focus on that right now. How a silent laugh or a sudden cackle rises from their throats as their finger or hand or arm twitch to go & touch you, to feel you— Maybe, just maybe, you are here...
How Sonic immediately dashes to you at such speed that you barely process his foot initially lifting to him pressed against you, hands clutching you so hard you're incapable of moving if you tried. How his mouth— Just like his feet— move without pause nor end, each phrase & word blending & bluring into each other at such rapid speed you'd assume he'd just created a new language. How he claims he's sorry for not being there for you, not being there to protect you— But that's okay! He's here now, you're here now & he promises to never allow it to happen again, he swears!
How Shadow just stands there, staring— Almost contemplating about what he's seeing, is his mind playing tricks on him? Is he so lost in his grief & mourning for you that he's imagining you right there? Right here? Right now? How when you call his name— Whether in confusion or in calm delight, it doesn't matter— He's right here infront of you, a few feet away at first, then a few inches & now holding your wrist up to his face. How he slowly rubs his thumb in circles on your skin, your warmth radiating through his glove & into his palm. How he raises your hand closer to his face until you feel his breath hit against & through your fingers. How he presses his lips against your knuckles & just leaves them there for a while & you swear you see tears build in his eyes. How you feel him mumble against your knuckles, though what he says you don't understand, & that's fine, you don't need to comprehend him saying how he'll ensure you never leave him through death again.
How Silver appears stunned in his spot, but just as quick as he froze, his now tackled you to the ground. How his embrace is so hard— So tight— You feel like you can't breathe, you feel like you can't talk because of the lack of oxygen. How after softening his grip & you mutely gasp for fresh air in your lungs do you see the tears in his eyes, rolled down his cheeks & dripping off his chin slightly damping you clothes. How he can't seem to help himself & just peppers your face in kisses, equally as soft & swift as the last. How he's so glad you're here with him! How you'll never leave him again & he can't wait to spend more time with you, how he promises to protect you at all costs, even if it costs him his life, so be it! As long as you're here with him, it doesn't matter.
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