#obscoorereference

[thankskenpenders]

i'm glad you mentioned the dingoes cause no one ever does (likely intentionally) and they're SO awful. sonic underground was a mistake

I know some folks enjoy Sonic Underground and like, you’re allowed. But it’s just such a painful show. Everything about it makes it so obvious that it was designed by committee with no actual artistic vision behind it and cranked out as fast and cheap as possible, right down to the whole “Sonic is in a band” thing that was only done to cash in on music royalties

Actually, I’m not sure many people know about the story behind Underground, so here’s late SatAM writer Ben Hurst on that shitshow:

Sonic Underground was a sad, sad story. With the opportunity looming large for the third season of SatAm, DIC made a creative decision to trash that continuity and strike out in a new direction. The reason: because they could add songs with the whole Sonic, Sonia and Manic thing and collect extra residuals from ASCAP/BMI (the group that pays song royalties - DIC makes deals with songwriters to split or sign over the rights to their compositions - exactly the same way that they force the writers and story editors to sign over all rights to their stories.) 

[…]

Here’s how Sonic Underground happened. After SatAm was canned because of a change in leadership at ABC and low ratings caused by multiple pre-emptions caused by sporting events and finally - being placed up against the red-hot “Power Rangers,” (now there’s some genius programming strategy) - a new version of Sonic was created: Sonic Underground.

Did they ask me or Pat or Len Janson to develop the series? No. In fact, I never heard of the series before a DIC story editor called and asked me and Pat to come to a cattle call for Sonic Underground. I refused (we don’t do cattle calls - which, for those of you unfamiliar with the term - is where they bring in about 20 writers to learn about a series and pitch written premises (for free) in hopes of snagging an episode or two). The story editor got us there by guaranteeing us at least a few episodes. So, off we went to a conference room at DIC.

We got there and yep, twenty writers. They showed an episode of SatAm (first season) to “illustrate the background” of the characters. It wasn’t one of mine or Pat’s - it was one of the other episodes. After they described the marvelous new direction (Siblings, Music, Missing Mother, Stupid New Characters) they ended the meeting. We were taken into another room with the story editor who told us he wanted us to write the pilot episode. We did. SEGA read the script, then the story editor was fired and we were hired. They also hired another team of story editors - who survived through about 8 episodes before they left. We also got a few fledgling writers shoved down our throat by the producer (results: I had to rewrite their damned unusable scripts from page one - they still got paid for the script - I got nada)

We tried our best to get some lore going, but DIC was racing through the series at 2 episodes a week - an insane pace and one calculated to maximize their profits. We managed to get a three-part origin story through, but with the limited time, we were unable to tie everything together. The only bright spot was that we assigned 6 scripts to Len Janson, who wrote some damn nice stuff.

[devipotato]

its good to have supportive friends

[ponett]

if you do random encounters is there a script that lets you implement a frequency slider so you can turn the encounter rate up or down (or off) like the bravely games since imo it's shameful to me that other contemporary rpgs haven't ripped that off harder because it's ths best thing ever

yanfly has a pretty straightforward script i’m looking at that lets you set a variable to alter the encounter rate, and i could theoretically let players control that variable in a ton of different ways

i do like the idea of incorporating this into the world somehow, like having magic enemy repelling objects you have to activate in an area to decrease the encounter rate, or a monster repelling (or attracting) charm you could equip or something. but just letting you change it whenever a la bravely default might be a good solution too since it’s just straightforward and just lets players play however they’d like

[howdoponieswork]

obscoorereference replied to your post: “We can’t have two mares date on the show because that’s “inappropriate...”

rarity doesn't know how straight horses act so she overcompensates to try and get what she wants from a man

is the closest thing i could come up with to a joke/rationalization :v

It’s not Rarity’s fault she doesn’t know how straight horses act. She’s never met one in her entire life.

[robindaydream]

obscoorereference replied to your post: “My Mudbray evolved into a Mudsdale! She is so big and strong. My team...”

hmu if you want your magneton evolved anytime soon btw cause the area it needs to level in to evolve is super-lategame :v

You’re so sweet to offer! Right now I’m fine with them in this form, but I’ll let you know if I change my mind later.

selective-yellow: replied to your post“My Mudbray evolved into a Mudsdale! She is so big and strong. My team...”

Mudbray/Mudsdale are SUPER good pokemon I wasn't expecting to take mine to the end but she was great!!

She’s so strong!! Like even when she doesn’t have type advantages she just plows over everyone. Bulldoze and High Horsepower are so powerful, haha.

[thankskenpenders]

so can we get a rough countdown of issues to go before Destiny happens or will it be better if, to my knowledge, the actual nadir of these comics comes as a suprise

Naturally, they had to save That for the much-hyped 150th issue

We’re very close. Terrifyingly close

[thankskenpenders]

y'know i've thought about this before but on reflection it's a little fucked up that in this comic about sonic the hedgehog "these characters actually act like friends and support each other" is a notable event. like i get that sonic and antoine's relationship was always kind of antagonistic so it especially sticks out here but

I was going to say something about how Sonic was supposed to be cool and edgy and how cartoons were more afraid of sincerity in the ‘90s... but then I remembered that between all the Jaleel White catchphrases SatAM had a lot of moments where Sonic showed genuine emotion and was nice to his friends and even cried

So I think it’s just that Gallagher and Penders are hacks

[thankskenpenders]

it's really funny to me for some reason that two of penders' least interesting, most time-wasting protracted pet storylines are set in the distant past and distant future respectively

It’s a sign of how Penders really wanted to be known as the writer who Fleshed Out Sonic’s World. He gave everyone their families. He added a bunch of historic lore. He wrote about what the characters would be like in the future, and what their kids would be like. And now he uses that to go on Twitter and talk about how he’s one of the most important Sonic writers ever who helped define the character