#layla flaaffy

[taffysannotatedsonichu]

Sonichu 11 Page 77

LAYLA: Do not call me. Do not find me. I’ve unfriended you on Facebook. I’d just assume not look at you ever again, unless it’s on T.V. Goodbye.

PUNCHY: I understand. I am not worthy of your love and compassion. I am truly sorry, Layla. Stay safe and well.

LAYLA: And as for you, banana.

BANANASAUROS: Rrr?

LAYLA: You are bruised, moldy, and downright not fruit full. Good bye.

Layla asks Punchy not try to contact her again. She assumes they’ll never meet again, unless she sees him on TV (not gonna lie, I kinda laughed at that bit, even though I’m not sure it was a joke.) Though in universe, the problems with Layla and Punchy’s relationship was solely caused by BS showing up, it’s more likely that more cosmic forces drove them apart - namely Chris. The decision to break up both Punchy’s and Angelica’s relationships at the same time was probably not a coincidence. Let’s start with the two non-Chaotic Combo members involved. Layla was, however indirectly, the brainchild of Ivy O’Neil, who had been “dead” for about eight years at this point and was naught but a memory to Chris (if he remembered her at all). Reginald was Chris’s replacement self-insert for when he couldn’t use his more blatant self-insert due to being trapped in the Time Void. Both of these characters were relics of a time gone by, the time of Classic Chris, and their continued presence felt like an artifact. As we’ll soon see, they get paired up together, seemingly tying together two loose ends and writing them off more or less into the sunset (not exactly, as we’ll see in Sonichu 12, but that’ll come later). Moving back to Punchy and Angelica, remember way back in Sonichu 7 when Magi-Chan said that Wild and Punchy were competing for Angie’s love, a plot point that was soon dropped when Simonla came on the scene and stole Wild’s heart away? Well, between their partners leaving them and their brief conversation in Episode 22, it’s possible that Chris intended to set the two up to get into a relationship, the first two Chaotic Combo members to date each other, but it never really took shape. Chris seemingly didn’t care to set them up any further in Sonichu 12, and then that ship wasn’t part of the Idea Guys’ manifesto, so seemingly it’s been on ice forever. Chris has spent very little time as of late on either character, so their fate in the post Idea Guys world is somewhat foggy, and it seems their latent attraction has been suppressed.

Punchy takes getting dumped surprisingly well. He’s surprisingly mature about letting Layla live her life without him, though that might be because Chris was just done with the Layla character by this point.

Despite calling BS bruised and moldy, Layla still takes a bite out of him.

[taffysannotatedsonichu]

Sonichu 11 Page 78

BANANASAUROS: Pbrrr…

BANANASAUROS {thought}: Aaaay, Punchy. It’s all cool, brah. I was dumped by a few women in my past life. (Granted, it was my fault for playing the field badly) Let’s go play some Call of Duty, dude.

PUNCHY: …Yeah. Give me lots of time to recover, then ask me again, banana-hopper.

CHRIS: I sincerely apologize, but time is short for this episode, with two pages left, so I’m summarizing the remainder.

CHRIS {narration}: So, after Layla leaves, she takes a cab to her temprary care-giving trainer, (like how volunteers temp care for cats and dogs, or like a volunteer big sibling) William Falkner. He lets her stay at his house, then the next day…

Caption: December 23, 3:30 PM, at an M.C.D…

CHRIS {narration}: Layla finds Reginald, recognizes him, and asks to share the table while she eats and searches the web for a job and a place to rent on her phone.

LAYLA: How have you been since the class?

REGINALD: Eh… I could be better right now.

Caption: December 27, 7:30 PM, Layla’s apartment… 

CHRIS {narration}: Reginald had not found a new place yet, so Layla invites him to bunk with her. A few days later, she finds a good place to rent, and a job at the electric company as a secretary in power management. Reginald moves in with her.

REGINALD: I’ll take the couch; you have the bed.

LAYLA: Nonsense, cutie. Come to bed with me.

Chris buts in to announce that the episode is almost over (I don’t know why he feels the need to wrap this up; it’s not like he had a strict time limit or anything. I guess he was just bored of this episode).

Seeing as Ivy is still dead, Layla is without a friend in the world, so she’s briefly taken under the wing of a “[temporary] care-giving trainer”. Her temp trainer shares his name with mid-Twentieth Century American novelist William Faulkner (whose birth name was in fact Falkner without the U), famous for The Sound and the Fury (1929) and As I Lay Dying (1930). Though Faulkner is from and strongly associated with his home state of Mississippi, he was briefly the writer-in-residence at the University of Virginia, where Chris was known to stalk girls at in his youth, so it’s possible Chris became familiar with his work through his time spent there (or it’s possible that he was assigned one of his books during his schooling, but given how well he did on most of his English assignments I doubt he would remember it). It’s also not impossible that this character is named for this Falkner, the Flying-Type gym leader from Johto, seeing that he and the Flaaffy Pokemon debuted in the same games.

After leaving Falkner’s care, she reunites with her old community college buddy Reginald Sneasel, and they meet for food at McDonald’s, possibly the same McDonald’s where Punchy and Layla had their first date. After getting a place of her own and getting a real job (apparently she wasn’t already working, like an unmarried and childless housewife), she invites Reginald not only into her house but into her bed, cementing their new relationship.

[taffysannotatedsonichu]

Sonichu 9 Page 98

MARY LEE {thought}: Oh well… he wins this time. I’m tired and I’ve done enough for now.

MARY LEE: Count, ensphere me and take us home.

COUNT GRADUON: Yes, Slaweel.

COUNT GRADUON {thought}: She’ll fall soon…

Caption: Meanwhile, below…

SONICHU: Thank you for catching me, sweetheart.

ROSECHU: That’s okay, honey-bolt. We watched your bought from down here. Why did you save her?

SONICHU: Well, as a hero, I could not help but to answer her cry. Besides which, the true final blow on that witch belongs only to Christian. Now, let’s help put the city back together, then let’s head home for dinner and “Mary Poppins” with our children.

Sign: Country Cookin’

Sign: CWCville Shopping Center

Let’s be clear here - Sonichu retreated. No one said that Mary Lee accepted defeat until she said she accepted defeat. Mary Lee was just saved by Sonichu, then he ran away, and then she said “I’m going to throw in the towel”. And despite the fact that Graduon just said that he was more than okay with letting Mary fall to her death, she tells Graduon to make a bubble, they’re going home. Graduon even ominously states “she’ll fall soon” - but Graduon, you’re carrying Mary several hundred feet above the ground. Unless removing this psychic bubble at this height would be liable to kill you too, why don’t you take the opportunity to kill her right now? Nevertheless, we’re meant to take away from this that Graduon and Mary’s formerly solid relationship is now on the rocks and their partnership will soon come to an end.

As an inverse of the earlier scene where Sonichu caught the unconscious Rosechu, Rosie returns the favor by catching Sonichu. She questions why Sonichu didn’t let Mary fall. He answers with the expected “I’m a classical, bleeding-heart hero who saves friend or foe”, with the added note that he believes he shouldn’t be the one to finish off Mary Lee, rather since this has been Christian’s vendetta all this time, only he has the motive to do her serious harm.

Team EHP gathers at the bottom of the screen, and Sonichu says that they’ll put in an appearance at the cleanup, then head on back to watch Chris’s favorite film, Mary Poppins, with his three children, seen here for the first time. From left to right (and oldest to youngest) we have Cerah, Christine, and Robbie. The three will get more individual characterization in the issues to come, but until they evolve, the three are just there to be cloying. Cerah is the only one of the three without a common name, though it’s assumed that she’s named after one of the many Sarahs in Chris’s life, most likely either Sarah Hammer or Sarah Cassandra McKenzie (Pandahalo). Christine’s name is a bit more obvious, and in fact Tomgirl Chris would later share the same name. Robbie was likely named after Chris’s father, or possibly the titular character from Chris’s second favorite film, The Adventures of the American Rabbit, Robert Rabbit, or less likely Robert Simmons V.

[taffysannotatedsonichu]

Sonichu 9 Page 45

PUNCHY: !

PUNCHY: Layla! Behind you!

LAYLA: !

Caption: Thunder!

LAYLA: Oh my God! Punchy, are you hurt?

PUNCHY: I’m okay. Wow! Good job!

Did you forget Layla was a Pokemon? I forgot Layla was a Pokemon.

She uses Thunder on the Janekop, I think, which I think obliterates everyone but her and Punchy to smithereens. (Well, there are a line of orange, yellow, and brown semi-circles at the top of the aftermath panel, which might be the tops of their heads, but we’re still not treated to much of what happened to them.) Punchy, presumably because he resists Electric attacks, is knocked to the ground but otherwise shakes off getting struck by lightning.

[taffysannotatedsonichu]

Sonichu Special 2 Page Delta

Sign: CWCville Baptist Church Chandler-Bundy Wedding

CANINO HOUNDHOWL: Hello, name please.

Character Bio: Canino -Houndhowl -Age:16 -Created by Megan Schroeder

CANINO: Camaro? Oh, the photographer, cool. We’ll be starting soon, but feel free to look around.

WILD: Hey, Sonichu. Look at Punchy there; he’s totally eyein’ Layla. It is so fun.

ROSECHU, LAYLA FLAAFFY, & SIMONLA: He looks soo smart and handsome.

The wedding takes place at CWCville’s Baptist Church, possibly based on Chris’s first church, Grace Baptist Church. That said, the timing doesn’t line up - Chris was banned from GBC in 2008, following the top brass there discovering Chris’s ED page, and Chris’s relationship with Ivy was in the spring of 2009. What’s more, according to emails with Regina Novakova in the early fall of 2009, only after about 6 months after Chris made this, both Chris and his father identified as Methodists (his mother identified as Presbyterian) and Chris was baptized by his new church Wesley Memorial United Methodist Church in May of 2008, close to a year prior to this. Seemingly by this point, GBC was out of Chris’s life entirely, yet he still chose to hold his wedding at this fictionalization of GBC. Maybe CWCville’s Baptist Church is a little more forgiving? Chris has been confirmed to have attended at some point in his life three different denominations’ churches (Presbyterian as a child, Baptist before 2008 and Methodist since), and he doesn’t seem to have any strong ties or identity to any particular denomination (aside, perhaps, a general mainstream Protestantism - as evidenced by the character of Angelica, he clearly views Catholicism as being a foreign practice to his own, and he’s expressed similar views towards Mormonism).

The wedding is dubbed the “Chandler-Bundy Wedding” despite Ivy’s real surname being “O’Neil”. The long standing assumption is that Chris made a mental connection between Ivy O’Neil and actor Ed O’Neill, and in turn Ed O’Neill with his character on the long running sitcom Married With Children Al Bundy, hence the confusion.

Canino the Houndhowl is the first of this issue’s cavalcade of new, weird characters that only show up here. Actually, the only reason I know the original annotator was even going to attempt to piece together these four bundles of joy is the fact that they included all the characters that only show up in the specials. What exactly a “houndhowl” is I don’t know. Given that it’s delineated from his first name in a similar fashion to Lilith the Meowth is later, it might be a fictional Pokemon species of Megan’s invention, or, given the similarity of poses in some of Megan’s drawings of the characters, a Sonic OC like Megagi (other drawings give Canino ram-like horns and a devil’s tail, not unlike the Pokemon Houndoom, so he might be like Jiggliami, an extension of the Sonic/Pokemon hybrids of the comic with a different Pokemon as the base).

Much like Megagi, despite Chris and Megan’s ties being severed, Canino still made an appearance (although, unlike Megagi, Canino didn’t stick around). This seems pretty out of place - When Megagi appeared while Chris was still wooing Megan, it was to suck up to her, but now he has nothing to gain by throwing in her lesser-known critter into his comic. In fact, considering this was written for Ivy, wouldn’t it be detrimental to remind her that she’s always going to be second to Megan in his heart?

Camero is the pun-tastic name of the unseen photographer of the wedding, leading to longstanding confusion on Canino’s name.

The bottom of the page is dedicated to the groomsmen and bridesmaids, a barely visible Magi-Chan, Punchy, Wild, and Sonichu, and Rosechu, Layla Flaaffy, and Simonla. Layla Flaaffy was the only character of Ivy’s creation aside from Ivy herself to appear in the comics proper; I’ll discuss her more thoroughly when she makes what was technically her first appearance (I’m going out of order because I didn’t want to do the specials in the middle of Sonichu 9) but this sequence teases the relationship between Layla and Punchy that would develop in Episode 19.

[taffysannotatedsonichu]

Sonichu 9 Page 15

Caption: *Montage* coming up…

WILD {IM}: Hello.

SIMONLA {IM}: Hello.

WILD: Nice day, isn’t it

SIMONLA: Yes, it is… how do you like the class?

WILD: It’s cool, even though I am usually wild, I feel shy around women. U?

PUNCHY {IM}: Hey. ‘Sup?

LAYLA {IM}: Hello. Uh… I’m feelin’ baashful.

PUNCHY: It’s cool. I would be shy myself, if I had not set my eyes on my goal.

LAYLA: :O How do you know you’ll still want her at the end of the semester?

LAYLA {thought}: My mind is a blank.

PUNCHY {IM}: I think I stand in good chances; she is a good girl :)

LAYLA {IM}: Really? Won’t you even give me a try before you go baa-bye?

PUNCHY: Ooh. R U jealous? ;)

REGINALD: Hey, Ponch, I hear your partner had a daddy Tauros, and loathes the color red; she likes women.

PUNCHY {thought}: Don’t mess with me, man.

SIMONLA {IM}: Same here. I get goose-pimply around guys a bit.

WILD {IM}: No worries. I promise not to bite. :D Do you like me so far?

SIMONLA: I am enjoying our chat so far. ;) You’re doing good.

The course of this day’s classes are played out in a montage. The pairings are connected via jagged white lines across the center of the page, signifying their electronic communication. Wild and Simonla hit it off immediately, because, perhaps from the inception of her character, Chris had destined her for a happy existence in his happy little fantasy world, and a loving husband in the form of Wild Sonichu, and a future with happy children, whether they be sons or daughters. It was that evil Evan that ripped these lovebirds apart, angered at the changes made to his fan character. See, fan portrayals of Wild tended to make him gay (most famously Asperchu, though that had yet to start at this point), and Chris was really pushing to find him a mate, any mate. So he changed Evan’s male Simonchu character into a female for Wild to get together with. Evan was not fond of this arrangement, done without his permission, so he conspired to take Simonla out of the picture.

The other couple on the page was having a bit more drama. Punchy is still intending to court Angelica and he makes no bones about telling his partner that he cares not at all for her. Despite her apparent apathy towards this situation, based off of her thought bubble, Layla attempts to talk Punchy down and convince him his attraction to Angelica won’t pan out, suggesting herself as a replacement in his heart. Layla’s speech is punctuated with “baa” signifying her past as a sheep, but while this would make sense as a verbal tic, this is written language, so Layla, aside from giving Punchy a clue to her identity as subtle as a two-by-four to the face, has no need to write out “baa-shful.”

Reginald, jealous little skank he is, tries to undermine Punchy and Layla’s newfound chemistry. I suppose his statements are meant to be a “two truths and a lie” sort of thing, the lie being that Layla is a lesbian. A Tauros is a species of Pokemon that resembles a bull (obviously), and it can breed with a the Mareep line, implying that Layla’s parents might be a Tauros and a Mareep/Flaaffy/Ampharos. Given that it says that “most of [the rumors] were verified false”, and Layla’s not a lesbian and given that she has no problems fucking the very red Punchy later, it’s safe to say she has no real aversion to the color red, I guess we’re meant to assume that the rumor that her father was a Tauros is the one fleeting thing Reginald got correct, though we never meet Layla’s parents (given that Reginald says that she “had” a Tauros father, it’s possible that he’s no longer in Layla’s life.)

Interestingly, whatever Chris uses to add that dialogue wouldn’t let him use two different fonts on the same page (or Chris was lazy) and Reginald’s speech and Punchy’s thought are written in the same, non-Comic Sans font as the IM’s. Page 19 uses both Comic Sans and the IM font, so I’m leaning towards Chris was being lazy.

[taffysannotatedsonichu]

Sonichu 9 Page 44

PUNCHY: Come on, Layla, we’ve got to quell these foes. Slaweel is making her big push, and we have to push back!

The next few pages are a mishmash of the fighting going on across CWCville, focusing on each of the relevant characters one at a time. We start with Punchy & Layla. Presumably out in front of their apartment, Punchy starts beating white-shirted Jerkops.

Layla just stands there like a moron, until Punchy tells her to stop being useless and actually help. In what has probably been the most direct attack from a female villain since Sonichu 5, a Janekop attempts to batter Layla’s lights out.

[taffysannotatedsonichu]

Sonichu 11 Page 76

BANANASAUROS: I win.

BANANASAUROS: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

SFX: Thwack!

PUNCHY: I’m spike, the banana punch, mom.

PUNCHY: Can we go to the doctor now?

Caption: Shin-nabe calls 911; both Punchy and Bananasauros are fully healed at the Pokemon Center.

Caption: December 22, 4:30 PM, at Punchy’s place…

BANANASAUROS {thought}: You kept beating me; I wanted to win once, dude.

PUNCHY: That is no excuse, man. You really need to mature more. And the dicipline! You need self-control! You are soo not cool, man.

PUNCHY: Hey honey, I’m… ooh! Not the suitcase! You’re leaving, aren’t you?

LAYLA: Yes, Mister Sonichu, I am. I have tried my hardest to keep up with you. Then this… skateboarder nearly kills you. I thought a strike ninja would have had more common sense. This worries me too much! So, I’m moving back in with my trainer.

BS gloats over Punchy, but he inadvertently steps on the loose floorboard Punchy is lying on, sending him flying up and the two crash into each other. This hurts both of them and they are then finally sent to the hospital, or in their cases, a Pokemon Center.

When they get home (I assume this is the same day), Punchy is shocked to see that Layla has packed her bags, preparing to move out. She sets out her treatise as to why BS is just the absolute worst - he’s getting Punchy hurt, despite his prodigious training. She’s done nursing him, so she’s cutting him loose and returning to her trainer (which I assume is essentially moving back in with her parents.)

I love how Chris included the time this takes place even though it’s not important, like, at all. This isn’t 24, Chris, we don’t need to know the time constantly.