Oh so TAILS gets a billion asks about how he's dead-not dead, but when ECLIPSE gets into the pictu- *trips down stairs and dies*
no let's talk about how when I "killed off" Rouge way more people were willing to believe that right away even though
- I didn't show a body
- There was way less blood on Shadow than on Sonic
but when I actually killed off Tails, so many people were like "well, I didn't see a body, so!" while doing the immediately-believing-rouge-is-dead thing.
I love your builder ascends AU, it's so cool. Please take this ask as an excuse to talk about it, i wanna know more 👀 💖
Ah, thank you so much!!! A chance to talk about my current project - but what to share, and what to keep as a surprise...
I mean, we've got the fundamentals down by now: by gaining the powers of creation that wake Malroth, the Builder slowly ascends to Godhood as well. ((This is not a good thing.))
What I'm having fun with is like.... what does it take to build a god? And how that lets me flip scenes and mechanics from the game on its head to make them rather more sinister!
For example, in Skelketraz, when the Builder dreams of all their friends waiting for them on the island, thinking of them... well, what's a god without followers? And what do followers do but pray?
((and does the god make the followers, or do the followers make the god?))
Things like that, you know?
The builders bell and IoA tablets as well - though I think I've done enough spooky drawings with the bells to hint at that already, haha. But there's something very fun about the idea that you ring the bell using the power of the gratitude (praise?) of the villagers, that your power then influences them, and that you learn recipes that are connected to their wishes. There's something juicy there for me to bite into.
((Are you creating for yourself, or because you must?))
Oh! And while most of my stuff so far has focused on the builder, I also want to really use Malroth to point out the necessity of destruction as well! I've mentioned it before on a post... maybe one of yours? But Malroth is often the one pointing out the.... I guess social and political flaws? In an area? He's good at breaking down people's faulty world-views.
And that's important! If you build on a flawed foundation, everything's going to fall apart eventually. Sometimes you have to break something, first. So I want to play up the ways that Creation can be.... mm, not passive, exactly? But less confrontational, maybe.
Ahhh, I don't know if I'm explaining this well. But I want to highlight Destruction a bit more, even as I'm making Creation a bit more unnerving. This will become especially relevant for the ending.
Speaking of....
I'm actually working pretty heavily on the AU right now - it's going to be a comic! I plan to start posting at the start of the New Year, since I like to have a bit of a backlog built up first.
As far as I can tell, this is going to be a very butterfly-effect style fic (much like the KH fic I did, interestingly). That is, very little seems to materially change about the plot, until it very suddenly does.
It'll be in the sorta quick-and-messy style I've been using over on the OC blog, ink drawings scanned in with some simple colors and text added digitally. Here's a bit of an unfinished page!
The ending is still a bit of a mystery for me. I'm having such a hard time with it! There's all these things I want represented: destruction and creation as opposites vs as a cycle, obsession with/creating your own god, wrapping up the different arc for the Hairy Hermit here (I have. Ideas for him.), and Lulu! I have this vague vision for her getting involved that I think has potential. Then the concept of the vestigial humanity inside a god and what that relationship looks like....
I also have a lot of questions about how I'm supposed to fit those all together, haha. It doesn't help that sometimes I have, like.. visuals? Like an image of a thing happening, but no idea for what the context should be.
I'm being super vague, aren't I? I'm torn between wanting to talk about the details with someone to work through my ideas, but also wanting the ending to be a really cool surprise! Mrrrgh.
Like, should I talk about that fact that I'm planning for [redacted] to be the [redacted] during the ending? Or that [redacted] actually created the [redacted] for the express purpose of [redacted]? Or is that something that's more enjoyable for people to put together as they read? You know???
But also I really want to talk about it wahhhh.
Sighhhhh. Writing is hard. It's so hard! And I'd really like to figure out the ending so I can seed the themes back into the beginning, and set up foreshadowing and junk.
Lol, I don't know if any of that was what you were looking for, but for as cagey as I'm being I do love talking about this! So thanks for the ask!!
I reread the issue again like you said and I don't know if anyone talked about this but in 8-10 when Sonic holds Shadow the forehead eye looks happy and it's really wholesome.
Also, the moment Sonic lost his navy hue there is a green glow in the panel and happened just as Chip got the blue emerald.
And in 8-20 when Omega absorbs(?) Sonic's energy the eye has the crossed out 'dead' expression.
I know this question is a bit odd, I was thinking about how the existence of time travel in the Sonic universe absolutely destroys any stakes in any story.
So, with that in mind, has Dr. Yu ever thought of researching time travel to try to prevent the tradegy he now seeks revenge for? Or was "revenge" his first idea?
Even if you as a writer would not allow time travel to be used in the story like that, was it ever considered by the characters themselves?
Ah, I'm not explaining myself properly. The question really is, does the story go "No time travel we're going to ignore that exists because it trivializes the plot" or is it a "Time travel was considered/will be considered but for in-lore reasons and explanations it cannot be used in this instance"
I'm not sure if something like this has been asked before, I'm more of a casual fan of the comic... sorry if it has.
I wouldn't say time travel doesn't exist within this universe just on the basis of Silver existing. To say it doesn't would pretty much ignore everything that character has done and say it didn't happen. Plus there's Sonic CD and its Time Stones. Because time travel is already so ingrained in Sonic lore, it cannot be ignored.
Now, that being said,
Dr. Yu wouldn't consider time travel. Why? Not his wheelhouse. Not his monkeys, not his circus. He's no expert on temporal manipulation, his realm is biology, with an additional interest in Chaos Energy and its relation to living bodies.
I think that, if Dr. Yu had more free time and more focus, and if certain factors about the way his brother died were different, he'd probably attempt to bring Vincent back Re-Animator style. Curing death, itself.
"Your favorite [thing] that you can't honestly recommend to other people."
"A piece of media that is Not Good, but whose concepts/wasted potential make you crazy."
Shsishbsjshdj im sorry im sorry those two questions were together and I couldnt pass up the opportunity
Hi!!!
Hah! Oh, that's good. I've heard a lot about that game, but never played it myself.
Your favorite [thing] that you can't honestly recommend to other people: Keeping the video-game thing, it's Harvest Moon 64 and Mega Man Legends for me. They both have a lot of really stellar features, but... those controls. Man. They're horrendous.
A piece of media that is Not Good, but whose concepts/wasted potential make you crazy: Hmmm... I'll do two for this one as well, to differing levels.
One is the 2006 movie Zoom: Academy for Superheroes. According to the wiki it's based on a book, which I have not read, but the movie... had some really interesting stuff on how awful it would be to be a state-sponsored superhero, which is then buried under way too much mid-2000s cheese. And not the good kind.
I'll also put Max Steel (2013) under here, though it might not be an exact match for the question. It's far more variable in its quality. There's some pretty darn good episodes, but also some abysmal ones - mostly any time it diverts into high school drama. When its really exploring the sci-fi stuff though... man there's some good ideas in there.
