What's your characterization of the Classic Trio (Sonic, Tails, Knuckles) like? I think I have a gist of your take on Knuckles, but I've realized you don't actually talk about Sonic and Tails themselves much when it comes to their personalities!
Yeah probably safe to say that most people understand how I write Knuckles by now, since I've spent who knows how many other posts talking about him at this point. We'll leave him out of this discussion to keep things concise.
Sonic: The way I write Sonic doesn't stray too far away from most canons, but I do lean really hard into the idea that he teases people for fun -- and notably, he doesn't know when to quit. He IS still a good guy for the most part, but yeah, he's kind of an ass if he gets going. Note that this isn't played up to be a fun character quirk, it is definitely a flaw. He very much takes things too far sometimes and is absolutely the asshole in those situations. A lot of time this gets intertwined with his arrogance, which is also heightened in this canon and often has the same kind of outcomes.
One of the main reasons I have this approach with him is that Sonic suffers a little bit from that thing where good-guy protagonists are sometimes portrayed as too good, to the point of being boring. I grew up with 90's Sonic, where he was meant to have more of an edge, and yeah that means sometimes he's meant to be rude. I think it makes him a more interesting character to keep this side of him in tact because it can cause interesting reactions in those around him, and if those reactions are negative, that'll subsequently cause interesting reactions in Sonic himself. His mouth running faster than his brain is something he struggles with from time to time, because not everyone (such as, say, Knuckles) is willing to just brush that aside because "it's just how he is, he didn't mean it."
The other main reason I write Sonic this way is just for some variation across the cast itself. Knuckles and Finitevus are morally pretty grey, but the bulk of the characters they interact with are on the hero side, and it's easy for hero characters to be kind of same-y amongst themselves. Sonic having this kind of character flaw sets him apart from the other good-guy characters and keeps the pool from getting stagnant.
Tails: There's a much bigger difference between RP and canon with Tails. He started very much the same as he is in canon, but after a bad injury to his lower spine 1) greatly reduced his ability to walk, and 2) completely paralyzed both of his tails, his personality gradually began to change -- not because of how the injuries themselves changed his life, but because of how everyone else treated him differently because of them. All of the respect and recognition he'd fought for to be recognized as a useful and capable member of the group suddenly vanished; everyone was back to babying him at every turn, leaving him out of plans and missions, and insisting that it was "too dangerous" for him to participate in the very same things he'd been doing flawlessly up to that point. All of that coupled with how many elements of his life had changed or been lost -- such as the ability to fly, which was such a core part of his identity -- definitely took a toll over time. He's become a volatile, impatient person with an explosive temper.
I will say that Tails did his best not to go down this path. He actually maintained a very good attitude for a long time and did his best to view his condition as temporary; after all, new medical procedures are developed every day! In fact, his father was funding some research that might be able to help him one day! And even if nothing could be done medically, maybe he could come up with something himself to fill the gap. He's proven over and over again that there's very little he can't fix when he's given an opportunity to engineer! But as time dragged on and on and on, it got harder to keep up that outlook, particularly when no one else seemed to share it. It was clear that he was seen as a helpless child that needed to be protected, no matter what he came up with to help himself, or how skilled he became and moving with the means he currently had available. His attitude gradually became more snarky and combative, but seriously came to a head one day when [some plot stuff happened that I possibly shouldn't be revealing right now, we'll see].
Hmm, how to approach this... Let's just say that in the wake of a certain event, Tails essentially gave up the hope that things will actually get better and fully gave in to the rage boiling away inside of him. He became incredibly destructive as a way to vent his constant anger, to the point of developing weapons and bombs, which he fired off at the edges of town (and did not care at all whom he frightened in the process). It got to the point where the only person he would really talk to, if briefly, was Finitevus, because he wanted to relate to someone who understands the overwhelming urge to destroy things. I genuinely thought for a while during this period that Tails was going to flip on us and become a new Big Bad to deal with.
While I can confirm that that hasn't happened (yet, at least), I can also say that he hasn't gotten much better since then. Some things have improved, but they came at the expense of other things, and overall he's still at a net negative. I may go into more detail with this another time, because it IS a really good story honestly; I'm just being a bit mum right now because that could also mean it'd make another good show sometime, so we'll see.
