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Sonic - Blog Posts
Sometimes I feel like I'm bad at video games.
Then I remember that I beat Crisis City without light-dashing on a single ring during my playthrough of Sonic '06 360, which usually fixes it
I was actually thinking about a slightly less angsty version of this where everyone is used to Silver coming from the future to fix things, so no one bats an eye when they see a hedgehog step through a time portal (I always picture the freaking chaos control portals from 06)
Anyway no one really looks as a figure walks through the foggy portal, and just go "oh, hey, Silver!" And then he growls and everyone stops and looks up to see Future!Shadow instead. More pissed than ever before. Everyone instantly gets a bad feeling cuz they know something went wrong. And Shadow growls and goes "Silver's missing, and his stuff is starting to vanish. Which one of you idiots stopped him from being born!" (And that's how present!Shadow finds out that Silver's his adopted son.)
And then the rest of the story is just everyone trying to fix whatever's wrong without any clues as to what happened, meanwhile Future!Shadow is no help because he's too angry with them to give them any real info. (Mans seeing Red, he's not focused on anything but "give back meh son"
And it can be mostly Eggman's fault and he's like the background external conflict or something idk
Not really espilver, sorry. I don't ship it, but I don't not ship it either, so... It would probably be extremely easy to turn it into an espilver plot. Like, just have espio lose it more than everyone else over that and putting the most effort into trying to get him back. And then when silver returns Espio is rly happy and they have a moment™
now that im thinking about espilver angst if silver died in the past who would tell shadow. how would he know. would he have to guess? worse, would he have to be well aware of the fact that one of these days his son's going to go to the past and never come back?
It is extremely important for people to understand how their chosen media works. There are tons and tons and TONS of people who slave away for what are seemingly simple projects. Dozens of animators for just one pilot, tons of people with headaches all in the writers' room trying to figure out how to tackle continuity issues, a plethora of geniuses debugging for hours, several sleep deprived musicians determined to find the exact wrong pitch that would make the scene come together.
If you want to try and wrap your head around this, go listen to the Gravity Falls behind the scenes podcast. Even if you're not a huge fan of the show, watch one episode, and then Alex Hirsch's explanations for the scenes in it. I listened to it because I was curious about the writing, and I fell down a rabbit hole much deeper than I thought. I could make a bingo card of all the times he talked about someone else bringing it home and making his dreams come true.
"I was worried about this scene, but producer ____ figured it out."
"If it weren't for the music ____ composed this sequence would've dragged"
"if it weren't for my friend ___ telling me to rewrite that scene, this episode wouldn't exist"
"if it weren't for these brilliant storyboards by ___"
"if it weren't for ____'s costume designs"
"if it weren't for my friend being masochistically willing to stay up all night with me, this show would suck"
I have a huge amount of respect for every piece of inspired media that was worked on by actual humans, because there's more work put in than you could possibly imagine. It's unfair to blame any success or failure in a franchise on one person. Everyone deserves credit for the good and bad they did for something, and with something with as much heart and soul as Sonic, there's clearly much more good being done.
Help me out here: Why is there so much Ian Flynn hate going around lately? I thought everyone loved that he was contributing to the games. Now suddenly they aren't. I guess that's par for the course for this series but I don't get it. He isn't perfect but I like what he's done. Am I a weirdo?
Ian Flynn has always had a lot of fans, but any creator putting their work out there is going to have detractors as well. That's just the nature of being an artist. To some extent, it's no big deal. He's not a perfect writer. Nobody is! I consider myself a fan of his work, but I've criticized plenty of individual writing decisions from him on here.
But Ian doesn't just have critics. He has his own obsessive hatedom. And the specific nature of Ian's hatedom is... interesting.
A decade ago, Ian was only the guy writing for Archie Sonic, meaning any debates over his work were quarantined within that tiny niche of the larger Sonic fandom. Only people who kept up with the comics month to month had any real reason to have an opinion on the guy, which means we're talking about merely thousands of fans as opposed to millions.
Within that group, he had some haters. You had the people who were mad about story changes made during his run, particularly things like ancillary characters getting killed off (although over the years we've learned that most of those were editorial mandates from Mike Pellerito). You had the people mad that Ian didn't push their favorite ship, with feuding SonAmy and Sonally fans claiming that he was CLEARLY biased towards one or the other. You had the people who just really, really liked one of the previous writers way more - usually Penders, as hard as that may be to believe today. That sort of thing. Pretty normal comic fandom type stuff. Again, it comes with the territory.
Unfortunately, many of those haters only got worse over time, morphing into reactionaries who constantly try to incite Comicsgate type culture war bullshit.
There are people still mad at Ian for making Sally bi and pairing her with Nicole instead of Sonic in the later Archie comics. There have been elaborate MS Paint red string conspiracy boards explaining how people like Ian and Jon Gray have apparently been destroying the franchise from the inside for years by Making Sonic Woke. (Jon gets dragged into this because people are still mad about him drawing The Slap 20 years later. Yes, really!!) There was an unhinged change.org petition trying to get Ian fired, specifically from people who were mad that the Freedom Fighters aren't in the IDW comics. There was even a very sad little fan campaign from these people trying to get Sega to move the Sonic comic license away from IDW and over to Udon, because they thought Udon would bring Sally and Bunnie back and also make them sexy again. There's a lot of this.
(Unfortunately, Penders has also exacerbated this by gossiping about Ian on Twitter and giving these fans ammo, but that's a whole 'nother discussion.)
The thing is, for years, people who only played the games or watched the cartoons had no reason to pay attention to any of this. Now, though, Ian isn't just writing for some weird spinoff comics that only the super nerds read. Now he's writing comics that are canon to the games, and ALSO some of the games themselves, and ALSO consulting on other tie-in media like Sonic Prime, and ALSO writing the official Sonic encyclopedia, and ALSO serving as part of the new Sonic Lore Team at Sega. And on top of all this, he's got an increasingly popular podcast where he fields questions about his work on all of these things, which serves as one of the fandom's main windows into creative decisions being made behind the scenes.
As a fan of Ian's work, it's been really cool to see him rise in prominence. But the dark side of this is that his obsessive haters from the Archie days now have WAY more of a potential audience of their own. Now, every Sonic fan has to have an opinion on Ian. What this frequently means is that you'll have the Comicsgate types taking things Ian writes or says out of context, attempting to get more of the general fandom to yell at the guy.
Unfortunately, there are a wide variety of Sonic fans who take the bait:
You've got hardcore fans who disliked basically any recent piece of Sonic media and are looking for someone to blame.
You've got the people who are concerned about the sanctity of Sonic's canon, who shoot the messenger any time Ian mentions a new retcon from Sonic Team on the podcast - or any time he even mentions the THOUGHT of changing anything about the canon, as we saw recently with the Sol Dimension nonsense.
You've got people who romanticize some sort of mythical artistic vision that Sega of Japan supposedly has (or had) for the franchise. To many of these fans, American contributors like Ian just don't "get" the heart of the series and are trying to turn Sonic into something different. (This "heart of the series" tends to be some mix of Japanese instruction manual lore, the cinematics from Sonic CD, the OVA, and/or the games written by Shiro Maekawa, depending on what Sonic media the fan in question grew up with.)
You've got fans of specific characters or ships who pin the blame for how their faves are depicted entirely on Ian - most vocally fans of Shadow, even though the root problem is that Sonic Team hasn't known what to do with Shadow since 2006. At best this stops at regular old criticism, but at its worst this devolves into claims that Ian has an agenda against certain characters.
You've got fans annoyed by a perceived over-emphasis on comic-original characters in the IDW comics, ignoring the obvious facts that these characters exist because the game cast is so tightly controlled by Sega, and also, you know, that people just like the IDW characters and want more stories about them.
You've got a LOT of discourse over IDW's Sonic being a hero who tries to give his enemies second chances, as if half of Sonic's closest friends aren't already former villains and rivals. Honestly this is very transparently just reheated Steven Universe discourse lmao
You'll also see people who just think they could do Ian's job better. They can't believe that THIS GUY is the American fan working on all these Sonic projects, when clearly THEY understand the characters and lore and themes SO much better than this charlatan.
All it takes is for someone in one of these categories to be unhappy about some recent piece of Sonic media, and for them to come across an out of context quote or comic panel that rubs them the wrong way, and suddenly the leftist Zoomer Sonic fans will join the latest dogpile on Ian alongside the reactionary Comicsgate types who are mad at him for Making Sonic Woke.
In general, when fandoms get upset, they tend to want a scapegoat. A person or two to point a finger at and go "THAT's who ruined the thing I love!" This tends to be based less on reality and more on which contributors are the most visible online. You'll sometimes see teenage and adult fans of children's cartoons single out a storyboarder who's particularly vocal on Twitter, blame them for every story decision they don't like, and harass them off the platform out of a sense of retribution for their favorite ship or whatever. Failing that, fans might choose to blame every nitpick, down to individual lines of dialogue and frames of animation, on a showrunner, just because that's the name they associate with the show. And unfortunately, when it comes to Sonic, Ian is now arguably the most prolific and outspoken contributor on the English speaking internet, and therefore a common scapegoat.
Some of the things I've seen Ian blamed for are truly wild. A lot of people have claimed for YEARS that he's just lying about the existence of creative guidelines and restrictions from Sega - or, as fans call them, The Mandates - even though they're just an inherent aspect of working on a licensed property. Others claim that The Mandates are real, but somehow Ian's fault. A vocal minority of fans have convinced themselves that Ian is the sole reason the Freedom Fighters don't exist in the IDW comics, even though Ian says he's been pushing to bring them back since day one.
Sometimes you'll see people say he ruined shit he didn't even work on. A few weeks ago on Twitter I saw someone claim that Ian had written a rejected script for Sonic Forces in which Tails died. I could not find a source for this for the life of me. As far as I can tell, the rumor seems to have been born from an alleged leaked script for Forces with margin notes from Aaron Webber that criticized the way Tails was written, and also an old tweet where Aaron joked that Tails would die in an upcoming episode of Sonic Mania Adventures. These merged into "Aaron Webber criticized a draft of the Forces script in which Tails died." How'd Ian get dragged into this? Who fucking knows!
It's all just a big game of telephone. All it takes is some asshole to make something up about Ian on Twitter or YouTube or a DeviantArt journal or some forum, and at least a couple people will believe it, and then it gets repeated as fact. Again, this used to be contained by the niche nature of the Archie Sonic fandom, but now there are WAY more people who are receptive to this shit.
It's just sad to me that Ian tries to be so open and honest about his work, to try to explain the rationale for certain things, to keep fans looped in on the direction the franchise is headed, and this just gives the Flynnspiracy types more quotes to take out of context and try to paint him as the devil. If it sounds like I'm being overly defensive and dismissing his critics, man... some of the things I've seen people say directly to him are just unbelievable. People will send paragraphs-long angry screeds in to his podcast that completely tear him apart, and he has to sit there and be like "Well, that's your opinion, and you're entitled to it." People literally pay for special guest interview episodes where they just rapid fire complaints about his writing at him directly to his face. I don't know how he does it. I would snap.
All of this over Sonic the fucking Hedgehog of all things.
I don't know how to wrap this up. Engaging with fandoms online is very tiring, which is why I tend not to do it. Things like this are too common. I guess, just... remember that making art collaboratively is a complicated thing. The people involved are generally trying their best given the circumstances, but they're only human. They make mistakes. But please treat them like humans. Criticism and dogpiling are not the same thing.
Ok so I’ve been in the STH fandom for a bit now and have been aware of the chaotix but never really looked into their dynamic. But can I just say I have now and I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT.
Idk how to even describe it but they are all just so chill compared to the other characters in the Sonic franchise. I mean their main objective in Heros isn’t to save the world or get revenge or anything- it’s literally just to pay rent. Like that’s just so cool and funny to me.
I think Espio is my favorite of the bunch, (mainly because he’s purple and I am heavily biased) but Vector and Charmy are the personalities that really put this trio together for me. I mean Vector literally uses bubblegum to fly! Like what?!?!
Tbh I’ve never played the games so I get most of their dynamic from watching gameplay clips and reading fanfic interpretations of the crew so maybe my opinion is a little skewed but either way it’s still fun!
More thoughts for my Shadamy Legally Blonde Au because I don’t have a title for it yet:
Initial post here
- it’s gonna follow most of the beats from the musical, minus some at the beginning, probably more Shadow and Amy interaction but I’ll get there when I get there
- I think I wanna put Eggman as prof Callahan but the lore is gonna change a bit to fit into the universe better
- there’s gonna be a few ocs for background characters like Enid or the delta nu girls (minus 1 bc I think sticks should at least be Margo) but for the most part more minor characters aren’t a huge issue
- some of the motivations will have to change to fit the characters obviously. Like shadows not in law to try and buy a house for his mom lol. I’m thinking he’s trying to become a lawyer to get justice for the people who killed Maria
- I’m struggling to figure out what I want included: I don’t think they have powers it’s more real world au, but should I incorporate the chaos emeralds? Maybe flickies and badniks?
- Oh and chao exist because I want Amy’s to be the Bruiser equivalent
- I thought eggman could still be all supervillain but not yet and Amy finds out about it and has to leave which fits into the plot near the end a bit better- she has a soft spot for flickies anyways and maybe to see that he’s building machines using their power would really upset her. But then what? Is his goal to get the chaos emeralds? Or is this like a general power grab type thing?
Side note: if anyone has any shadamy fic requests to read so I can get a hold of their characters a little more pls send them my way!
All love!❤️ hope everyone has a wonderful day!!
Had a cool idea and I need thoughts:
So like I was thinking about writing fanfics but then I’m like what do I write about? So I’m brainstorming and hear me out- a Shadow/Amy legally blonde AU!!
Crazy right? But then I’m like it could kinda make sense on a base level. I mean you got Amy as Elle, Shadow as Emmett, Sonic as Warner- it could work!
Still not entirely sure who to put for other characters since I literally just came up with this but we could go like Rouge as Paulette (and then knuckles could be the mailman wait that’s actually so funny). Maybe put Blaze as Vivian or maybe Sally (although I have very little knowledge of her character).
No clue what to do about professor Callahan, maybe robotnik? But that feels weird considering the plot so maybe just make him an oc?? Or of course we could switch up the plot but idk yet…
Then I also thought about putting silver or the chaotix in there somewhere? And of course tails idk where to put him. And where would omega fit if he does at all? And is there going to be a dynamic between shadow and rouge? And what about age ups/gaps?? And as far as legally blonde goes im gonna need someone to be Brooke Wyndham and the delta nu girls.
Also to be clear I’m basing this off the musical version of legally blonde bc it is better- and I mean who doesn’t love Laura Bell Bundy and Christian Borle like cmon…
See this is why I’m making a post I need help bc I really want to make this an au but like idk where to even start so please give me ur thoughts!
Like is this a good idea or am I just tripping?
Edit: GUYS SHES LITERALLY PINK LIKE COME ON GUYS PLEASE HEAR ME OUT BRO-
Team Dark sketches!!!
Love them so much
Let me LOOK
I REALLY like the small details in Shadow's image, indicating his artificial, non-Mobian origin.
Like Shadow is such a MIRACLE
Be quiet. They're communicating
A series of pictures with hedgehog kids, showing that in order for Shadow to stop frowning, it is necessary that someone else suffer in the frame.
Little sleepy buddies — a bonus!!!
I'm not sure I'm happy with the work I've done....
I think a lot about how traumatized these hedgehogs are.
Do you want some hedgehogs??
Sonic 3 | ☆☆☆☆☆
I'VE COME TO MAKE AN ANNOUNCEMENT, I love this movie. I don't care if it was stupid at some points, it was perfect. I don't know if they were really references to the Fandubs, but every reference had me screaming. This was the most fun I've had watching a movie in a while and the AKIRA SLIDE! This movie was ridiculous and the animation was insane. It was perfectly comical and I loved it. I just love Sonic so much. And Knuckles and Tails. I love Tails. MARIAAAA!
Wednesdays are becoming my favorite days cause we get amazing content about the bros and damn I love the content about the bros.
Same
wow look, another fic
except this thing is two months old and i never posted it cause when i wrote it i didn’t like it :]
but now it’s nighttime and my impulsive thoughts wanted this so here we are
knuckles and tails bonding cause i’m in love with their dynamic
EVERYONE
I NEED YOU TO LIKE MY FRIENDS STREAM! IF HE GETS 100 LIKES HE'LL PLAY SONIC BOOM ALL OVER AGAIN https://youtu.be/QOFmhT-dNPY
Hey!!! here's art lolzy
Sorry for not posting in a while and sorry for the last thing I ever posted literally being a Poll that I don't remember making so to make up for it! here's Petunia Prowler, a Sonic OC I have! Originated from a Sonic Prime AU to being from an actual comic series I plan on making.
Probably one of the hardest lines this Fox has ever dropped ong
Lol I drew the sassy fox from Sonic Prime
Original Image:
Metal Sonic 😳
This was a joke thing that my friends and i did so i drew it
⌈GENERATIONAL⌋ - Sonic the Hedgehog
Watch this guys! Is so cool
Follow the creator and repost this so more people can see their amazing work!