hello, and welcome to my blog! i'm infinite. he/him, 27, transman, faggotâand fictionkin, if the latter wasn't obvious.
"who are you" is a question that i struggle to answer; what defines a person? my presentation is ever shifting, and so the best i can offer beyond that is an overview of what i do here. i'm a hobby artist, and i like working with multiple mediums, but primarily i write needlessly elaborate prose and indulge in traditional and digital drawing. i create for myselfâbut i share it, sometimes, if i feel it may be appreciated. :]
my main interest is sonicâinfinite specifically (nobody is surprised) and shadow as a close second. i have extensive lore for my own canon, eternal chaos, and multiple fics in the works, however if you don't fuck with shadfinite, you might be in the wrong space. i've been kinning infinite since the day that forces released and dissecting him just as long, so my knowledge is pretty vast and i have an abundance of trivia stored away in my mind. you might expect it'd get boring after all these yearsânot at all. should you want to yap about this stuff, drop me an ask if they're open; i take breaks from fandom now and then, but i do love to ramble when i'm feeling more sociable.
as far as other interests go, i play minecraft, splatoon 3, and animal crossing new horizons! formative games for me were the early tomb raider titles (core design era, 1 through to angel of darkness, which is my favourite) though i have played up until tomb raider 2013, and final fantasy x. my fav bands are sleep token, deftones, and i prevail. also really into thornhill and loathe.
please note: i don't desire to participate in fandom discourse, and i am strongly against policing other peoples' identities and creativity; thought crime is not real and, yes, this applies to things that make you uncomfortable. selectively assigning morality based on personal disgust is never a good practice. if nobody is getting hurt, in real life, without consentâi do not care. depiction in fiction or "taboo" thoughts do not equate to unethical action, nor are they an inherent precursor.
i have no dni, and simply block people as i see fit. this varies from terfs, fascists, and those that i merely think are rudeâit's rarely personal. for the sake of my peace of mind, i will break mutuals and soft or hard block if my feed becomes discourse heavy or aggressive. i do not like the way a lot of people talk about and to each other with such hostility and egoism, usually over things so inconsequential as differing queer headcanons or general character interpretation, and especially degrading casual fans for lack of knowledge rather than pointing them in the right direction. to be irritated by uninformed criticism is one thing; to then be outright cruel in response is another. it will solve nothing. for this reason, i engage in fandom sparingly now.
while nobody is entitled to my diagnosis', i'll be upfront, i have a lot of shit going onâso if my behaviour seems odd, apologies!
tagging system below the cut.
my original post tag is #transmission, and is used for all post formats, be it text, photo, video, etcetera. #inf1nyxwrites is for my writing. i have no visual art tag presently. i also use #analysis for my analysis posts, and #infinite tag and #shadow tag for posts regarding... infinite and shadow, as you probably guessed. and of course, i tag their ship under the most common names. for those that abide by the old ways when it comes to name orderâshadfinite truther. i used to default to infinadow simply as it's what i'm familiar with seeing and hearing more. my canon tag is #eternal chaos. my fics, should i post about them, will be #rebirth and #undeath, as per their titles. my tag for general things that i like, such as pretty images, is #resonant, and #comfort is exactly that.
no but actually it's so sad how like... one scene caused people to declare that infinite is a pathetic, weak and whiny villain. i understand why the infamous "i am not weak" thing first got memed, but whenever i hear these jokes five years later, and i'm reminded this is his legacy... man.
infinite, canonically, was a mercenary captain; he was the leader of his own team and not only that but alledgedly, people refered to him as the ultimate mercenary, which i'm actually inclined to believeâeggman also cites them as the best mercenaries around, and with regards to the confidence/arrogance infinite displays when instigating the battle, and the way he reacts afterward, to me it is also indicative he isn't used to losingâmaybe once, maybe that who he used to be, part of the motivation for his strength pursuit, but not anymore. of course, it should be noted his behaviour would be emotionally charged; but when you think "that seems like a disproportionate reaction"... well, why might that be?
he had a reputation. he had to have trained, built up a lot of skill, and bear in mind, he's also almost inarguably half blind (doesn't need to see out of the blacked out side of his mask, wields his sword in his left hand primarily but switches to his right as wellâis he naturally left handed, or was this an adaptation, meaning he could, theoretically, be self-taught ambidextorous?âand overall facial trauma is referenced and drawn attention to frequently) ... this would imply, for his position, a large amount of dedication in my opinion, as he would have had to adjust his combat strategies and the like to this in order for it not to disadvantage him. he was (is) strong, and capable, all things consideredâthis isn't some kind of stretch. and losing one fight to the ultimate lifeform while having absolutely no supernatural powers himself doesn't automatically negate this.
if we're to acknowledge that infinite was a well-known, feared mercenary, for whom losing wasn't a common occurance, let's go over it again. shadow, the ultimate lifeform, apparently slaughtered his entire team, then called him worthless, and directly told him his face (his scarred, blind face) was pathetic. this was like... a combined trauma assault; a new trauma created with his squad being killed, and pre-existing trauma also being triggered by the insults used in that vulnerable, terrifying moment.
you might believe that infinite was selfish based on his reaction, and how he carries himselfâand i really can't say that he's decidedly not selfish. but selfishness doesn't inherently imply his team meant nothing to him, either. characters can have complexities, and i believe that this is super important for infinite as a wholeâmore on that later, but it's ill-advised to take a character who's theme is masking himself at face value.
i think that the reason there was so much heavy emphasis on his weakness during his breakdown was because of that pre-existing traumaâor if not outright trauma, then an issue that was apparent prior to his defeat at shadow's hands. there's a decent amount of evidence to support this, and i think it would also serve to explain how he became such a force to be reckoned with as a mercenaryâhe was constantly pushing himself to be better, better, better, because weakness wasn't allowed in his eyes, losing wasn't allowed.
and then he does. in the most horrific way possible. he loses that fight, but he also loses just about everything else. his squad, his entire squad, are dead. all at once, just like that, there then gone in a single night. and, i think, how could he not blame himself? how could someone like that not come to the conclusion that, this is because i was incompetentâthis is because i was weak?
anyhow, i digress lol. all this to say that infinite is a skilled combatant. infinite successfully captured sonic. infinite trapped shadow in virtual reality. infinite's illusions had real world impact. infinite talked back to eggman, he wasn't just a pushoverâyou can read more on my thoughts on that dynamic here, if you like. and even if the phantom ruby "wasn't his power", that not only doesn't mean he's useless without it, but what is the difference between acquiring power or being born with it except choice? shadow would have a harder time without his tooâthe only difference is he was made with his, sonic was born with his, and infinite was not, taking matters into his own hands. and he still made a name for himself before he had the ruby. i don't think you could achieve these results with just anybody; it's not just about the power itself, it's about who uses it and how it's used, and i think his prior combat experience leant itself to him being such a threatening wielder.
so, that is to say: i genuinely don't think infinite is weak. i understand that he talks big game, and many people walked away from sonic forces feeling underwhelmed by him, but i mean this wholeheartedly. there is so, so much i want to say about him as a character after all the years i've spent rotating him in my mind and analysing him to my friends haha, but it's hard to formulate my thoughts into something more coherent and... y'know. makes-sensy. doesn't sound totally unhinged. yeah.
i'm gonna just go ahead and post this now as i've been sitting here for far too long (longer than the length might suggest). in conclusion umm. dog. sure that'll do
I disagree in a lot of things o this post. I understand your point and I do also think that those "haha infinite weak haha he sucks" are getting kinda annoying and it gets to a point that I can't stand them, but most of your reasons to debunk this argument are kinda weak (funny reference please laugh) đ Â
Backing up the statement that "Infinite isn't actually weak and you're just missinterpretating his character" with assumptions of his character even if they're "inarguably" true doesn't helps to make him seem more complex. You can't argue that he isn't weak if your evidence it's just headcanon; It isn't clear if he's blind, it isn't clear if he actually cared about his squad and it isn't even mentioned that "pre-existing trauma" in any part of the games or the comics. Counting just heacanons and assumptions of vaguely implied things doesn't helps to make people feel interested for Infinite as a character. Saying "he did" along with these things doesn't means anything to anyone that still makes the "haha he's weak" jokes because his backstory is still unclear and with a lot of rushed things that feels that the writters didn't actually thought for a story for him (or at least one interesting). You can't blame of people for making fun of such a stupid moment that doesn't has the context necessary for it to be truly impactful, and even less if we're talking of a character like Infinite; that was so messily written from the start that all his backstory could change and he would still be the same nothingburger that throws evil edgy lines for the sake of being edgy. Sorry but I cant tell nor care of, what if Infinite really felt bad for his squad and that moment really affected him?? Or should I care about background characters with only 2 appareances and 1 mention in all the media of the saga, that only are there to fil the null backstory that an already flawed character needed to be less 1-dimensional? We dont even know their names and not even the RELATIONSHIP they had with him, whenever it was a family/friends or just coworkers like. How WE'RE supposed to know what they represented to Infinite if that wasnt even tell in his backstory comic?? If the actual writing was so good and complex then the story should had shown us or implied in a more hard way the struggles and psychology of the character, how their trauma / past relationship affects their personality and how they act when the plot happens, not just Implying with nothingburgers of of lines of text that could be interpretated as everything else but the message they're supposed to clarify if THEY really wants us to feel sympathy or understand why they are like that. The point if Infinite as a character is that he's a whiny edegelord that hides his insecurities under the mask of a though bully that torments everyone, that while the whole part of his squad could be an extra to give more reasons for him to be himself, it isn't clear and no one is wrong for assuming the opposite. And as for other confirmed things, That "ultimate mercenary" title isn't backed in any way outside of words and if we take in consideration all the fights he had saw him getting involucred pre-forces then it gets worse; it's not the fact that he lost to the ultimate lifeform, is the fact that he didn't put a decent fight outside of a few second before getting kicked in the face. Infinite is not complex, nor wathever his character is supposed to be about works because there's so many ideas slapped on him and none of them are correctly done; and even if he was mean to have a deep full relationship with his squad it doesn't works because we couldn't care less about them; so if the moment of the "I'm not weak" was because of him losing his squad and be geniunily affected, then is something that was done TERRIBLY because outside of him being their boss, you could remove and replace all of them with a rock and the story would be the same. Zero meaningful interactions with him, zero backstory actually explored, zero depth of Infinite as a character, and zero mentions to them in the main plot outside of a DLC and a comic where they appear in only 2 pages.
Tho I agree that he isn't weak at all like many fans claim he is, the writing doesn't gives him justice đĽ
Summary: Infinite deserved better from the shitty narrative Forces has
heyâalthough you apologised in your tags if you may have come off as rude or harsh, i would like to express that it feels you have taken me in extremely bad faith despite claiming to have understood.
i made this post quite some time ago, as per the timestamp, so please bear that in mind, but even then, my speculations were explicitly stated as such and i cited my reasons for them merely as potential point of interest. as it happens, i myself think all too often people forget what is canon vs fanon, so i understand the gripe, but relying on headcanons is not what i was going for. they were included for fun, because i was rambling and i thought other people that enjoy analysing small details might appreciate it. i did not say those things were 100% canon, just that they would provide context, nor were they my only sources, and i think you dismissed a lot of what i said under the assumption i do not know better.
that said, this brings me to say that subtext is very important. i think that while there are many things that should have been stated explicitly, it is simultaneously true that we should not disregard those details: you're absolutely correct in that it is not officially stated whether he is partially blind, or what his relationship to his squadmates was, or if he was traumatised in the past. that does not mean there were not indirect hints, including but not limited to:
why would the mask be blacked out on the right if he can see perfectly well? it would be a pointless handicap to self impose.
why does he repeatedly draw attention to the event of their deaths if he didn't care enough for it to stick with him; "you. you destroyed my squad." (the very first thing he said to shadow); "i'm the last one that's standing" (his theme); "friends are nothing but a fleeting illusion" (sonic forces)? if it were so insignificant, he would not be giving it thought. he would not feel the need to say such things.
if not having been traumatised in some unknown way, why: "i was born in this pain / it only hurts if you let it" ; "i don't crumble for nothing / i got the world on my shoulders" (his theme)? these are not the words of a mentally healthy person.
perhaps i should have kept to the facts i cited and stayed on-topic, but this was also just me making a random blog post, and i think you have misunderstood my intent in including them. it was not to completely absolve SEGA of the fact they should have been more upfront with some aspects of his past. but to desire everything to be handed to you, in my opinion, is just as bad. it's precisely why they had eggman gas him up in casefiles and recount what the fans who engaged with forces instead of writing it off already knowâbecause it seems people want it all spelt out more than they would to think about it for themselves. it was belated damage control.
the intention for infinite has always been as formidable force. he was written, barring his loss to shadow, to be just that from the start. if you want explicit, straight from the source facts, the English SEGA website cites him as "a notorious masked bandit and former leader of the Jackal Squad; he's an adept swordsman who uses illusion and deception against his enemies. Motivated by a need to prove his strength, Infinite fights with intensity, turning fear itself into a weapon."
the encylospeedia also states the event with shadow and his squad's deaths left him scarred.
infinite's supposed one dimensionality is on purpose. he was meant to be a mysteryâwhy do you think things were left open-ended? you think they didn't intend to give us more had other fans not reacted so visecerally to his debut? his entire theme is masking and obfuscation. the weak jokes mattered because they drowned out any actual discussion. i stated i understood why it was memed; it was just unfortunate because it meant we did not get that further development until almost a decade later, just like what happened to mephiles, because the focus was on "game bad".
you claim there was no context to give the scene impact. i disagree. it was all there. he equates his worth with his strength, and had not only just lost his squad, but then been degraded and had his entire being challenged with the defeat. whether he cared for them deeply or not: he still failed his team. i have not stated people that think he did not care are wrong, only that i think to claim based on selfishness alone it is somewhat misguided because selfish, cruel people are still capable of caring for others, as contradictory as it seems.
in regards to the fight, be honest: would most people put up a decent fight against someone that overpowered while in an emotionally unstable state?
why would his squad have been mentioned outside of a few lines when no other characters knew his history, and he only alluded to them likely because, while he still thinks about it, he isn't usually that direct? because it would mean facing the reality of his failure? he mentions them in the casefiles, and yet it feels out of place because it's a blatant recap for new fans and those that didn't pay attention.
i've since written a fully cited essay about this wherein my point was precisely that the problem was never infinite's supposed weakness but the shortcomings of forces overall, but honestly, i have little desire to release it.
you say you agree that infinite isn't weak, so i honestly don't see the point in dragging up a post from years ago to nitpick my wording. i don't really post much these days, as fandom has become exhausting for me. after reblogging this i am turning off the reblogs, as this is an old post that i don't want circulating and filling my notifications with debates.
the phantom ruby: an analysis/speculation/rambling that is hopefully somewhat coherent because this rock drives me insane.
i've wanted to make this post for ages. honestly, there is so much to cover on this topic; what we do know, what we don't, hypotheticals. even on a basic level, things tend to get very muddled.
the phantom ruby first appears on angel island in sonic mania. as we know, it is briefly passed between the hardboiled heavies until, during a final altercation, it in some unknown way overpowers the chaos emeralds and forces classic sonic out of super form before sucking him into a portalâtransporting him through time, if we ignore forces claiming he is from another dimension altogether.
this poses... a lot of questions right away. none of which can really be answered definitively. just how powerful is the ruby? is it rival to the master emerald? if it can exert control over the chaos emeralds wouldn't that indicate as such? it strikes me more as having been not a natural reaction as colliding energy forces, but purposeful. is it sentient? what exactly is the nature of the way their energy interacts, however? are they opposed forces? chaos vs. order? are they repelled by each other inherently? could the chaos emeralds or the master emerald manipulate it in turn? could they transfer power between them or substitute each other to power machines?
all of these questions create even further questions; if it is sentient, for example, why is it doing what it does? abiding by function? does it "feel"?
anyway. the scope of its abilities are interesting. it all generally falls under reality bending, i guessâtravelling through time, portalling between worlds depending on, once more, the murky canon surrounding that. it alters appearances of wielders and can grant visions of a person's desire on contact, and act independently as well.
here's where people get tripped up, and i don't fault them because the game just calls infinite's "the phantom ruby" too: infinite's ruby is not the same one. it is not the original. it is an artificial clone that eggman made, the final prototype; the real one is kept back to power the death egg robot, and this makes sense, because eggman has been betrayed before. it's also very possible the original could not be wielded at length by someone or something organicâwho knows.
either way, as a result, we cannot truly get an idea of how the two match up in power because we haven't seen the limits of the original. we don't even know if nullspace is accessible via the original or a byproduct of what happens when you try to use a copy of a supernatural object to portal through space-time (headcanon of mine, canon to eternal chaos). we don't know how many abilities they share because it's unknown how much else the original could do, or even other capabilities infinite's could have in theory.
would infinite's also interact with chaos energy strangely? it'd be very interesting if it did considering his worst enemy is made up of itâthe thematics would go hard, a representation of opposing force, of manipulation, powerplay; if you're insane like me and a shadfinite enjoyer, as a tragic thing for shipping dynamics between them where they cannot get too close, the energy repelling them as they themselves fight to remain together in spite of the pain. not taking that route in eternal chaos, but i've had the thought for quite some time. alternatively, could they be compatible? again, could energy transfers and substitution happen? wilfully sharing, or forcibly draining the other to sustain and grow stronger? or, does infinite's not have these properties at all?
all we know is it was supplied by various generators, because the amount of usage demanded from it required it. i imagine it self sustains, replenishing over time, but that was insufficient when it was in constant activation.
on the topic of the ruby and chaos energy before i move on from this part: it would have made for a very high-stakes final boss if infinite could, as the original ruby did, rip sonic out of super. take away his trump card, make him feel what it's like to have the rug pulled out from under him, and reinforce sonic having to rely on his friends to rally together to take him down by sheer willpower. i call this concept aqua regia end, because aqua regia is the substance that dissolves gold. not canon to eternal chaos either but figured i'd throw it out there.
additionally, it's unlikely infinite's is sentient. or at least it's... not made to be. it replicates abilities of the original but, unless somehow any sentience from the original was replicated too, or split from it, i personally think it's a stretch? in my opinion it'd be an accident if it wasâeggman wouldn't make that thing conscious, infinite is already a step far enough as a being that thinks for himself and could therefore jeprodise his plans. he's taking enough risks.
what people also understandably get tripped up on is, as much as i love the themes of his powers being illusions, and canon even states them as such, they're... not. and it's not virtual reality. "like a dream so real, if you bump yourself, your sleeping self will bruise?" ...but they actually hit you. physically. they impact the environment directly. an illusion can't destroy a building because you thought it did, or punch you in the face to where it sends you flying. you can't be running on the ceiling because your brain thinks you are.
infinite is manipulating reality. it would make more sense to call this augmented realityâoverlaying his reality atop the one that already exists. his clones, by this definition, would thus also be real in their own right, you could say; and that is incredibly fascinating because of the implications. the clones are typically not made to be like fully formed people; just soulless replicas. but if he wanted to, would it be possible? and what about the ethics of that? if he could make a sentient being and dismiss it at willâyeah, there's a lot to think about. (personally, i think he would try this only once, out of desperation and grief, naive as to the possible consequences and questionable nature: an attempt to mimic his squad, except they come out terribly warped by his distress and or due to the ruby's limitations, and he has to dismiss, ergo the equivalent of kill them, retraumatising himself. and never fuck with it again after that.)
anyway. my final commentary is regarding the phantom ruby's concept art; it is depicted in one illustration as an ore, and implies, given multiple of them in a cluster, that there is more of them, and somewhere out there, they're growing. comforting thought.
upset stomach can definitely not be explained by me only eating a candy bar for breakfast. i must have some sort of rare and mysterious illness that science has yet to name
i hate this weird trend in fandom where subtext is seen as a Bad Thing and is only done if the creators are too cowardly to commit to showing something. i hate to break it to you but nuance and layers are what make stories interesting, if you have no subtext then you have a very flat story
sometimes things are subtext because they donât quite fit the tone of the story, or because the story isnât about that (and if they showed it outright they would have to take time to explore it), or sometimes the characters arenât ready to face it, or sometimes subtext is just the right choice for this specific story, or SOMETIMES itâs just fun and interesting to have underlying themes and implications!!!!
also just because itâs subtext doesnât mean itâs not deliberate or not meant to be part of the story. âwell if they WANTED it to be canon they shouldâve SAID SOâ some of us can understand implications. some of us enjoy thinking about the media we consume and donât just want everything handed to us on a silver platter. âwow i canât believe the writers didnât even realize what this impliesâ im going to beat you to death with hammers
the reason characters with red eyes are so great is because red is the opposite of blue and blue eyes can be really scary. therefore red eyes are beautiful and comforting
There is a fundamental difference between "men are dangerous" (wrong, bioessentialist) and "the patriarchy allows dangerous men to exist unchecked" (true).
i want a horror game thats focused on that trope of there being some kind of monster that steals the appearance of people around you in an attempt to trick the player so they can kill/eat them etc. where you have to overanalyze every single tiny thing anyone does and kill everyone who doesnt fit the proper mold for your own safety, but by the end of the game make it very apparent that not a single person youve encountered was actually a monster and you've just been conditioned into being so paranoid & fearful of the people around you that you just murdered a bunch of innocents for being a little offputting to you specifically
