#selfref

[melunshark]

some sketches and watercolor and gouache, mostly personal photo references

[yaoist]

i've made this argument before but i think ultimately having monsters/aliens/demons invade so that the heroes can heroically wipe them all out is in many ways an explicit acknowledgement that these impulses are best confined to the realm of fantasy. it's not an implicit validation of the ideology any more than, say, your historically inaccurate faux-medieval romance is an implicit validation of patriarchal standards by the people reading it. the people consuming these things are doing them for fun, not as an ideological practice (hard to understand for leftists i know), and assuming their complicity is silly. there are a thousand impulses and ideas that are fun to engage with in the realm of the explicitly fantastical and i don't think that assuming people are too stupid to understand that is also silly.

of course some of them are going to believe unironically, but the fact is that if you want to make a movie/video game about evil invaders that must be heroically wiped out, in the USA, you can just Make It About Brown People And Scary Nations. and people do, regularly. the choice to engage with this human impulse through the realm of demons/monsters/aliens is a choice to acknowledge it as, at least in the piece of art, impulses confined to the realm of fantasy.

also, there are things that it IS cool and heroic to genocide, like smallpox. so you can't even say "this impulse is inherently evil in every possible circumstance." sometimes the organism must be defeated!

ultimately i'm not impressed by this line of criticism because it ends up in (though not always comes from) the same place as hottakes like "actually keeping pokemon captured and making them fight each other would be fucked up in real life!" - this is a world specifically constructed to erase the things that would make it wrong in real life, often indicating that the creator does in fact know why it is wrong. more damningly it's just a complete non-entity, it tells us nothing, it's just patternmatching politics to art. yeah i guess it sure would be fucked up if it was people! have we learned anything about the piece of art as it exists or gained real insight into it or how people actually engage with it? usually not.

[anniegraffe]

older sonic & tails hcs. i think in general they keep their values and interests and in a lot of ways stay similar to their childhood/teen selves. but they mature in slightly different ways.

11 & 18: the ‘only kind of maturing’ era

already written a bit with my one fic

tails:

hes just starting puberty and is extremely messy, in both actual cleanliness and personality. still very fixated on advancing his tech and helping his friends, but now gets more frustrated at his limitations than before, recognizes he’s still a kid and is annoyed because he feels so close to being an adult even though he’s a long way off. prone to massive disorganization, only remembers details that relate to machines and tech and his friends’ needs. his friends start realizing that if they’re gonna hang out they gotta do it at the workshop, or invite him on a mission. hes trying to stop being a kid, but he does still have some ‘childish’ (re: fun. he’s allowed to have fun) interests like building things, logic puzzles and toys (‘they keep my spatial reasoning sharp!!!’ ‘ok buddy’), video games, various types of boarding, comics, collecting figurines etc. he’s less insecure in his tech designs, so much as he’s anxious about the consequences of anything failing. he knows his friends rely on his designs and he can’t let them down. he still likes going on missions/adventures, and will always go if asked. but he gets really stressed about not building enough if hes away from his workshop too long. he’s also a little more manipulative and less shy about using it. he’s a little shit when he wants to be. he knows everyone’s weaknesses he just needs to come at it from the right angle. his biggest weakness was always that he was a lil kid… now he realizes he’s gonna be way OP as he grows up. but if he does have one weakness it’s stretching himself too thin, trying things he’s not automatically good at, and traumatic responses. true creative thinking is also harder the older he gets, because he focuses so much on logic and designs and contingency plans that by design are about reacting to threats, not proactive. talking about feelings is also harder and harder. and his impulse control also gets worse. he gets twitchy if he isn’t busy. also — he tried taking on all the paperwork stuff about bills and taxes and parents at like, 8. but now he regrets it because he’s constantly forgetting. ultimately amy (now 15) starts helping him out.

sonic:

still a globetrotting hero. stir crazy if he’s not literally in the middle of an adventure, …but blended with the feeling that he’s done it all before. 100% going to get himself seriously injured around this age, and probably more than once. not quite ready to grow up as he didn’t really have a childhood. in a way, he lives a little of that through tails, trying his best to make sure tails stays more innocent and can be carefree for longer than he could. painfully aware that tails is now as old as sonic was when he adopted him. very aware of mistakes. keeps inviting tails on adventures though, because he knows it means everything to him to be included. also doesn’t fully get how much pressure tails feels about his designs, as he was always under the impression that tails builds things just because he loves it — like sonic is with running / racing. sonic continues to form rivalries … i think he might get mixed up in some more dangerous ones, and maybe start having some more serious relationships (?) but never quite commit to any of them as he’s not sure if that’s a good idea with how dangerous his life is. truthfully he didn’t really expect to make it this far, and can’t anticipate going all that much further, so he’s just winging it every day. he probably has some brand deals going that easily support his life style. it’ll 100% get manipulated by eggman though. (sonic happy meal toys attacking everyone like that kim possible movie…). he also still can’t talk about feelings. starts getting legitimately angry when people try to force it, but is overall still a very laidback guy. i think it might also be time for a new deep-seated phobia as he’s kind of OP. probably claustrophobia after forces… (and likely a few similar brief captivities afterward).

14 and 21: the angst era

tails:

similar to 11, but now with a lot more maturity and a little more calculated recklessness and manipulation. way more cautious about missions. he and sonic start butting heads about that; he’s old enough now, and probably sees things at this age that he couldn’t be shielded from. and with him being older and more assertive, it makes him a lot more unwilling to sacrifice others’ safety if there’s another way. starts building a LOT of contingency plans. even messier than before. like… he holds toxic waste in his lab for safe keeping. disaster teen. he’s also taller & stronger than sonic by a good amount and uses it to his advantage on missions. …and he has a villain arc, but low key. he trusts his friends with everything but their own safety and he creates a device that can perfectly protect them… by limiting their agency to fight/dive headfirst into danger. but there’s a hopeful ending to the angst. he finally starts getting some extra support and will only go up from here, for the most part. also might (?) have romantic interest but can’t find it in him to prioritize it.

sonic:

almost dying a lot lately. his friends are … worried. like. very worried. he’s finding limits that didn’t exist at 15, and has probably collected enough injuries that he’s getting frustrated about boundaries that didn’t exist before. might have a relationship that goes badly that puts him even further off of even mild romance. he’s kind of a mess at this age imo. everything blurs by to him and thrill seeking gets lethal. he is aware that he’s a mess, yet isn’t aware that total aversion to feelings might be … perhaps … be a bad thing. it’ll probably be a mission that uses emotions / etc against him that finally wakes him up. it’s all very messy. might start distancing himself from old friends, probably goes on more solo adventures and on various self discovery quests. needs a vacation. won’t take one. needs therapy, definitely will not be going. burned out era, low key; makes fewer new friends and old rivalries get nastier in many ways. he’s never an asshole, still good natured, but thoughtlessness/recklessness is driving his friends up the fucking wall. he’s absolutely the driving force of tails’s villain arc, and they fight / are on opposite sides in that adventure before coming back together. their bond survives and tails gets what he needs but sonic still needs some time to figure things out.

18 and 25: ‘almost real adults’ era

tails:

he’s balanced out from his teen years … by a lot. he finally has a system to keep things in order life-wise, even if his lab and house are still usually a wreck. still not amazing at talking about feelings but cares about it enough to make an effort… mostly. worries openly about his big brother and is allowed to. has a very successful business. attends ted talks a lot. has an anti bullying charity and helps kids get into STEM. might low key be thinking of adopting a kid someday but also knows he’s way too distracted with tech right now to make it work. not that interested in romance but knows he has time, not all that bothered. loves making designs. finds true creativity again. self assured in what he builds, and confident that his friends will be okay. will still have ups and downs but generally knows things are going to be okay.

sonic:

significantly less of a disaster than he was at 21. there is 100% a solo mission that he went on that changes his perspective at like, 22, and he comes back feeling more like himself, and starts to mellow back out. might be gone a whole year before he comes back but he’s doing better afterwards… chillin again. by 25 he fully has his shit together again, or as together as it’s going to be. after all, he’s still a whirlwind hero and it’s not like he’s ever going to be like, filing taxes or starting a family. but he’s got that steady confidence and a little more patience, and a greater willingness to share the load. finds that zest for life we all love him for. there IS STILL joy to be had by jumping into the active volcano and there is ALSO joy in wearing a protective lava shield courteous of his fox friend just in case.

[melunshark]

Recent

from photos i took:

from references in books:

from imagination + an (overly flattering) self portrait:

watercolor you will always be my beloved !!

[anniegraffe]

okay so everyone here should be familiar with the well-respected well-documented might-as-well-be-canon theory that sonic is the original project shadow

(but here are all my favorite links on the subject in case you don't have brainworms like me)

(the documentation for it is trippy as hell, but like, its hard not to think its what the writers intended, at least through sa2 before different writers took over)

my theory addendum is this: gerald robotnik doesn't seem to be doing any real work with NIDS, so why the hell does he claim that's part of why he's making the ultimate lifeform? how on earth does a little hedgehog, in any way shape or form, cure his granddaughter?

no. i think instead (but still related), he was researching consciousness transference as a way to cure her. and GUN was willing to work with that, because why train supersoldiers when they could go james cameron avatar and put their best people into a powerful, immortal body?

and gerald robotnik's deal with them is that he'll make the ultimate lifeform, and he'll make it immortal and free of disease, specifically so that maria's consciousness could be transferred into a body that was no longer sick.

how i think it intersects with sonic is the original project shadow theory, is this:

this is the actual timeline of events of the ARK: the final version of project shadow took place between the biolizard disaster and the ARK raid... but there was actually only about a week between.

i think that's why sonic doesn't have much of a backstory and wouldn't remember any of the ARK; his mind was never really meant to be filled with his own memories, he was meant to make way for maria's memories. the same goes for shadow, as an additional prototype, though i vibe hard with the theory that shadow was purely made for revenge (credit @gayemeralds who expands a bit on it here)

i think maria released him because she knew she wasn't going to make it off the ARK. and because some part of her recognized the spark of life in sonic and thought he deserved the chance to start his own life. maybe she knew that gerald was making sonic for her to replace; maybe she didn't. either way she saved him, and gave him the instruction to protect earth and live all the vibrant adventures she knew she wouldn't live to see.

[anniegraffe]

5 Possible Storylines for Role Swaps for Sonic + Shadow (Tails still being an important character because I am who I am, ok)

And +1 where it may not be possible to have a role swap after all.

—

5: An (Initial) Origins Role Swap Meant to Change as Little as Possible About Canon. 

Sonic was aboard the ARK instead of Shadow, as the Original Project Shadow; Shadow, meanwhile, appeared on Christmas Island one day. But this AU is designed so that their storylines and alignments in-game and in-universe remain largely the same. 

Sonic was aboard the ARK and was designed as a perfect replica of the Mystic Ruins mural. When Maria saved Sonic and sent him to Earth, he vowed to uphold her memory by seeing everything he could. Yet because his pod crashed, he remained in stasis, unable to uphold any kind of promise while unable to escape his pod. He stayed in stasis for 44 years before, by happenstance, Dr. Ivo Robotnik found his pod and opened it. His fear of water is because his stasis pod crashed in the ocean; it’s the last thing he saw before he washed up on Christmas Island. Once he’s out, he quickly and easily escapes Robotnik and causes a lot of property damage on his way out – and continues to make a habit of it. He travels all around the world and makes a lot of friends, especially with people who remind him of Maria (Tails and Amy) or who can answer questions he has about his origins (Knuckles with the Mystic Ruins). Extremely little about him changes. So little, in fact, that one wonders if this is what SEGA team meant… 

Because Sonic has no canon backstory, ... in this AU, Shadow also has no canon backstory. He just shows up on Christmas Island one day. For whatever reason, he has no history, maybe no memory, beyond 10 years old. Maybe he didn’t even exist prior to that. Who knows. He might be tied to the Black Arms and planted on Earth to destroy it. Who knows! Anyways, he works for GUN with Rouge and Omega and is employed because of his control over Chaos Energy. He frames Sonic for a crime because GUN asks him to because they don’t trust Sonic “Property Damage” the Hedgehog. Later he saves the world because he like, lives there. No tragic backstory because it belongs to Sonic here, he’s just some hedgehog with a surprising amount of control over Chaos Energy.

Choose your own adventure: Who Dies? 

Sonic Dies: thematically fulfilling because he fulfilled Maria’s wish and seen as much of the Earth as he could, and saved it to honor her memory. He asks Shadow in his dying breath to take care of the friends he leaves behind. Shadow does so; Tails doesn’t accept him as a replacement, but Shadow does look after him, and makes sure he’s set up physically for success (Shadow gets him a contract with GUN to build a shitload of anti-Eggman defense weapons). Shadow Dies: thematically fulfilling because here he’s just some guy – and how could we kill the dude with the cool backstory and 500 friends? This is Shadow’s only opportunity to be deep and meaningful in this particular AU. Sonic pays his respects to a friend he didn’t really know all that well and looks after Shadow’s friends in upcoming adventures. 

4: Number Five But It Changes a LOT About Sonic and Shadow Respectively to Better the Role Part of the Role Swap: 

Sonic is Aboard the ARK as the Original Project Shadow. The ARK is Raided, Maria is killed, Sonic believes Maria to have sworn vengeance on the Earth. He crash lands and ends up in stasis for 50 years. Dr. Ivo Robotnik opens his pod, hoping to use him against that pesky Shadow the Hedgehog who keeps breaking his things. Sonic, hoping for revenge on behalf of his friend, agrees… only to totally scam Robotnik. Meanwhile, Shadow doesn’t have much of a backstory, but that doesn’t stop him from going around the world looking for things to do, and friends to make. He’s a loner by nature but he likes nature and generally likes people. He’s got a little brother who he’d die for and whose tech he doesn’t fully understand but does appreciate, is on good terms with the equally stoic guardian of the Master Emerald, an old penpal who fell for his deep and mysterious tone… mixed with hero worship for his regular exploits against Dr. Ivo Robotnik. He doesn’t have the capacity to make many rivals, because he’s quieter and tends to be more outwardly hostile rather than goading rivalries. The only exception is that damn blue hedgehog who wants to destroy the world that Shadow is trying very hard to save. Sonic is extremely powerful but disarmingly so, with how he jokes around. He’s reckless and confident and surprisingly good-humored, yet despite it all, seems to have a one-track mind on destroying the planet and everyone in it – and no one knows why. Not until his plan is almost complete. I imagine Tails, Shadow’s little brother in this AU, gets hurt in some way that triggers Sonic’s traumatic memories regarding Maria’s death. And he remembers her true wishes. Because of this, he figures out how to go super and use his power for good rather than pure chaos and destruction. Choose your own adventure: Who Dies? 

Sonic Dies: Thematically fitting as a redemption, but incredibly bittersweet. He probably died with a joke or lighthearted humor to soften the blow, maybe one last jab trying to get Shadow to laugh at his jokes/take it easy. (“Heh. All this glowing energy, and you still can’t lighten up?”) Shadow would have been shaken pretty bad by this death. He does his best to honor Sonic's memory and occasionally lighten up, but it doesn’t really suit him. Shadow Dies: Thematically unfitting but more likely as he does have lesser power than Sonic. He dies asking Sonic to use the energy he put towards destruction for good instead. To honor Maria’s memory and find new friends and new family to take care of. And to find it in his heart to look after Shadow’s loved ones. 

3: Canon is Exactly the Same, EXCEPT Sonic Dies Instead of Shadow at the End of SA2. What Next?:

Version 1.0

An older Tails tries to clone Shadow and implant Sonic’s memories. After all – Shadow had fake memories at one point. Maybe there’s a chance to make a version of Shadow that’s basically Sonic. Shadow, remembering a promise made to Sonic to look after loved ones etc, agrees to let himself be cloned, thinking he owes it to Tails. But this whole process is very morally skeevy as the Shadow-Sonic-Clone isn’t really asking to be made and the memory process is kind of fucked up, cherry picking bits and pieces of Tails’s big brother’s traits. They sure did make a person, but this person isn’t really Sonic, and it’s unfair to expect him to be someone he was designed to be. Lots of moral questions about personhood – questions that Shadow can bond with Shadow-Sonic-Clone on, given he was also an experiment. All together this is kinda the au that makes everyone start creating contingency plans in case Tails goes full Eggman. 

2: Canon is Exactly the Same, EXCEPT Sonic Dies Instead of Shadow at the End of SA2. What Next?: Version 2.0

Also somewhat Tails centric because I am who I am. Tails teams up with Eggman to steal the Phantom Ruby. Eggman wants to take over the world, Tails wants to bring his big brother back. Similar moral ambiguity as version 1.0 but this time with Phantom Projections instead of the cloning process. Shadow’s involvement: guilty over Sonic’s death but still fights the Sonic projection(s) as it’s a major part of Eggman trying to take over the world. Through proving that the real Sonic would never want to be used like this, it’s enough to get Tails to destroy the Phantom Ruby and lose Sonic. Again. 

1: Canon is Exactly the Same, EXCEPT Sonic “Dies” Instead of Shadow at the End of SA2. What Next?: Copying how Shadow never “died” because Eggman somehow saved him, according to later games. 

Choose your own adventure: What was Eggman using Sonic for?

Eggman draining Sonic as a battery to fuel his schemes: Eggman tries to clone Sonic / possibly to make new and improved Metal Sonics (a la Shadow Androids):  

Either way, Sonic ends up escaping with Amnesia(™) because Eggman managed to wipe his memory. Sonic escapes but doesn’t know who his friends are, and Eggman literally just tried to use him for nefarious purposes so he’s not really in a trusting mood. Team Heroes’ style shenanigans; every Team is just out there trying to find this damn blue hedgehog and convince him to go home. Except Eggman who wants to destroy him and hired the Chaotix to track him down for more nefarious purposes. 

+1: 

Alternate version combining parts of 5 and 3: 

…Sonic might just have been the Original Project Shadow, as it turns out. Maybe there can be no real role swap if they both had the same origins – just remembered differently. Basically Version 5, but Sonic doesn't remember Maria properly; his pod washes up on Christmas Island and he goes about his business as usual canon goes. Up until Sonic dies at the end of SA2, of course.

When Tails goes to clone Shadow, same reasons as Role Swap 3 -- he hopes he can program a Shadow Clone with Sonic's memories. With enough careful science, Tails thinks he can program a perfect Sonic. But as he’s experimenting with Shadow’s DNA and trying to remove the Black Arms DNA from Shadow’s hybridization to better recreate Sonic's speed......, he discovers that it’s only the Black Arms’ DNA that differentiates Shadow from Sonic’s DNA. 

That means Sonic was the original. That means everything Tails didn’t know about Sonic’s past – “growing up on Christmas Island til one day he left to kick Eggman’s butt” – may have been because of the ARK and remaining in a stasis pod for 44 years. And Shadow was cloned with Sonic, with the only physical and material differences being the Black Arms DNA. 

What does it change? Does it change anything? 

Sonic died and that was Maria’s last wish to him – even if he doesn’t remember it. Protecting the world would have been the way he would want to go. 

[anniegraffe]

tails made a fake chaos emerald in sa2

fake chaos emeralds cause/contribute to dark sonic (can’t be done otherwise) according to sonic x lore

all i’m saying is

tails should secretly mass produce them just in case they ever need them, not knowing what they could cause.

then they get stolen. and tails gets hurt in that theft / kidnapped to make more

and sa3 should then have dark sonic as soon as he gets there and is around that energy 😌

fic idea? fic idea

[anniegraffe]

general mobian headcanons about maturity in various subspecies that 1) all kids are meant to be very round and noodle-limbed and if they aren’t, somethings wrong 2) size of animal species influences overall size, both before and after puberty 3) limited … but non-zero effects of animal instincts (nocturnal, hibernation, fight or flight somewhat depending on prey or predator species, food palate depending on what animal species can eat, maturity and puberty and reproductive abilities mixed with more human ages of puberty), 4) mobian kids can be left alone more than human kids as they still have a connection with nature and can somewhat fend for themselves at a younger age — but family structures can and do exist (abandoned or orphaned children may never find another family while they’re growing up however and must only look out for themselves) 5) i expect that eggman is the reason there are more orphans than before tbh, he seems to target islands where mobians live and we know his environmental devastation must have a huge effect on them — so this generation has far fewer parents and a lot more isolated children