Annie: There are legends of people born with the gift of making music so true, it can pierce the veil between life and death; conjuring spirits from the past...and the future. In ancient Ireland, they were called Filí. In Choctaw land, they called them Fire Keepers. And in West Africa, they were called Griots. This gift can bring healing to their communities. But it also...attracts evil....
If I had a nickel for every time an one-noted minor character gets inspired by their dead freckled ‘partner’ and became the best character, I’d have two nickels.
Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice.
the other day I saw a tweet where someone asked why pride flags only had colors instead of featuring flames, explosions, and dinosaurs and my brain thought, you know. that seems exactly like the kind of flag they might have on the boiling isles
also please appreciate my flag it’s so small in the comic I spent longer making it than I did drawing the panels
hi! i'm not sure if you've been asked this before but sonic seems very cool and you seem very knowledgeable so i was wondering if you have any advice for getting into sonic? all i know is cool speedy hedgehog with cool friends, rings, colorful emerald things, eggman. thank you if you answer :D
hello yes! id be happy to help!! putting under a cut to not clog ppls dashs ^v^
okay obviously the way most people get into the sonic franchise is through the games, but these also have the biggest hurdle to jump through to consume them (money + proper consoles). here is a list of the mainline sonic games in chronological order (out of universe that is; in universe a few are switched around), and here is a list of EVERY sonic game. try to play any that seem interesting to you! the classic games (1 + CD + 2 + 3&Knuckles) and the adventure games (SA + SA2) are the most essential viewings. the classics are all getting rereleased on switch in june as sonic origins and are otherwise very simple to understand, and the adventures have large cutscene movies you can watch on youtube!
if you like darker and more serious storylines, i say check out sonic 2006, shadow the hedgehog, sonic forces, and to a certain extent sonic and the secret rings, and sonic and the black knight.
if you like more lighthearted cartoony stories, check out sonic heroes, sonic unleashed, sonic colors, sonic generations, sonic lost world, and sonic mania.
note that i make no guarantee of quality because some of these are infamously bad but its okay because liking bad storylines and games is a part of liking this series 💗
okay other than the games theres also animated media you can check out! there were three american animated sonic cartoons in the 90s, Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog (aosth), Sonic the Hedgehog (satam), and Sonic Underground.
aosth is a super lighthearted cartoon thats just about sonic and tails running around defeating robotniks schemes together. its not much in terms of story or meat, so if you dont like eggman, or sonic and tails, then its probably skippable. my personal favorite episode is Tails New Home. all of its on youtube.
satam is the darker cartoon of the mid 90s. its about an underground revolution against the dictator robotnik by the village knothole outside the city of robotropolis. this would get cancelled after 2 seasons, and would get a comic adaptation which ill talk about in a second. all of its on youtube as well.
sonic underground is a nonsense show lmao. sonic has blood siblings in this one and they fight robotnik using magic amulets that turn into magic instruments. a nostalgic favorite for many fans, and its notable for being the only cartoon tails isnt in because the writers chopped up his personality and split it into other characters. again, its all on youtube!
theres also 2 japanese anime adaptations of the series!
the sonic OVA is a 40 minute movie that was originally a pilot for a series, but it wasnt picked up. i personally adore the animation used in it, its adorable and its length makes it fun to watch on the regular. its normally on youtube but currently down i think, so you can watch it on places like dailymotion and vimeo.
sonic x is the story driven anime adaptation from the mid 2000s! it got dubbed by 4kids in the us, but they censored tons of stuff so everybody tells everybody to watch it subbed. theres three seasons, and while i havent seen this yet ive been assured its actually very well written and a good watch. the dub is on youtube, but since again you want to see it subbed, both versions are on hulu. its also on uh. other sites <3
and we're back in the us for recent stuff!
sonic boom is the most recent sonic cartoon from 2014. a cartoon adaptation of series spinoff game Sonic Boom and the Rise of Lyric, everybodys designs and personalities are slightly off, especially knuckles. its not necessarily in character half the time, but its funny enough nobody cares. its like a sitcom with sonic characters and everybody loves clipping stuff out of context. you can watch it on hulu! and other sites <3
THE MOVIES! everybodys seeing the movies. what are you doing if you arent seeing the movies? pirate the first one off paramount+ and then buy your ticket for the 2nd one right now. theyre genuinely good movies and are super super fun to see with friends!!
okay thats it for cartoons! finally, theres multiple comics you can read about sonic.
Archie Sonic is the first, american made comic series with over 500 issues if you include spin offs. this is the satam continuation. its infamous for its behind the scenes drama with ken penders and its terrible relationship drama in comic. it gets good when ian flynn starts writing though. you can read these on any comic sites online, and heres a reading order, since it gets super complicated to keep up with.
Sonic the Comic is the british version of the series. commonly dubbed fleetway sonic by fans, its lore is re sonic and eggman is vastly different to the rest of the series. its much shorter than archie, with less than 200 issues. again, you can read these online, and heres a much less complicated reading order.
finally, theres IDW sonic. started in 2017, its a spiritual continuation of archie in some ways due to the returning writing staff after archie ended in 2014. its also a literal continuation of sonic forces, and you should know what happens in that game before reading these. this is most peoples favorite comic run, due to it being the most consistent in story and art quality. its more recent and still ongoing. you can read it online, and heres a reading order as of the issues released when typing this up. thank you tumblr user thankskenpenders for both this and the archie reading order!
thats.. basically it! theres more that i have not mentioned here, but you can do research into the nooks and crannies yourself after checking out any of these and deciding if you like it! i hope i could help and i hope you end up liking the funny animal guys ^_^
also adding onto ur answer abt getting into sonic, pro tip from someone who is shit at platforming or quick reflexes: if you decide to play a game and it ends up frustrating you, just watch a playthrough or cutscene movie instead, i promise it will save u so much emotional grief (esp if youre playing infamously buggy games like 06, i love 06 but playing it is a painful ordeal)
also if youre really interested in playing games that you dont have the device or console for, i think theres a video on YouTube along the lines of "the best version of every sonic game" which gives a pretty good rundown of what to use if theres an emulator available, or the problems you'll face playing any particular version. just to make sure you get the best possible experience !
woke up this time thinking about luz as sora, with gus and willow being goofy and daisy. I'm not sure if hunter is good for riku but amity can be kairi.
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i have no interest in swapping lore from the toh to kh. im just thinking about toh characters in similar designs to kh!
ok so i’m making a list of intentional cultural coding on mobian characters (ex: blaze is coded south asian via her outfit, kingdom architecture, etc; knuckles was originally intended to be jamaican) and i just realized like. how many of you know that sonic is legitimately coded as black
ok so like. in Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog 1x50, “Robotnik’s Pyramid Scheme,” Robotnik goes back in time to try and prevent Sonic from ever existing by keeping his ancestors from meeting. Sonic goes back in time to stop him and we meet Masonic and Penelope who are Sonic’s great-great+ grandparents and live in ancient Egypt
Later in the episode they end up inside a pyramid and meet yet another ancestor of theirs, who is an enchanted mummy hedgehog. He gives Sonic a chaos emerald to kick Robotnik’s ass.
And SPEAKING OF enchanted mummy hedgehogs! In the Sonic Underground episode 1x22, “Mummy Dearest,” Sonic is AGAIN explicitly given ancient egyptian ancestry, when he and his siblings find a book talking about their family history. They use the book to find directions to a magic scroll which is protected by one of their ancestors, Aman-Rapi, who is again very clearly from Ancient Egypt.
In this pic, they can be seen posing in front of a wall containing heiroglyphs, with a mummy behind them, Amon-Rapi is literally dressed as a pharaoh wearing a variation on a Khepresh, his name is obviously a play on Amun-Ra… yeah, they’re Egyptian. So like in two different adaptations Sonic has been given African ancestry.
(Should also note that for both these shows and Sonic SatAM, Sonic’s voice actor was Jaleel White, who is, you know. Black.)
Also this one is a bit more minor but in Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022), there’s a scene where Sonic messes with his quillstyle and is seen experimenting with different styles. Before he settles on the mohawk (very much resembling his AoSTH-SatAM style), he tries out what looks like a Flat Top haircut and Natural Afro; in the latter, he specifically strikes a pose very reminiscent of the 60s Disco Era, which was suuuper associated with African-Americans.
While Sonic is obviously an anthropomorphic hedgehog, many other Sonic characters have had intentional cultural coding– I mentioned Blaze and Knuckles earlier but there’s more examples: Tikal and her tribe, who are so heavily inspired by Mesoamerican culture that her and her dad are literally named after Maya temples, and Lupe and her wolf pack in SatAM are very obviously reminiscent of Indigenous American tribes. I have a list somewhere in my notes on different cultural coding that different characters got but these are the ones off the top of my head.
tl;dr Sonic is coded as Black, specifically Egyptian.
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