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cutegirlmayra · 3 years

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What are your opinions on shadouge, silvaze, and tailream? I personally ship all of them.

I usually ship canon couples, meaning the company has chosen to make a romantically charged dynamic between one or more characters.

In this case, I believe Silvaze is the closest to having evidence from SEGA that they do intend to hint a little more towards romance but not by much. So I do support that, though I don’t think the two will ever be what they were in 06. I do believe, however, that they feel the residual lingerings of their past partnership continually, leaving for a tragic ending... (common in children’s video game media due to the ‘Star Rule’ of characters unable to be together.)

Blaze literally says, “But... I’ve always sort of liked that about you.” And in japanese, THAT’S GROUNDS FOR A CONFESSION PEOPLE! (though I believe the japanese script is slightly different. It still holds some weight towards this.)

It’s actively hinted at how well they work together due to their ‘erased’ timeline where they were so close. And there’s the hint that Sonic Channel art gives of them being the ‘separated lovers’ in mythology.

Also, matching outfits of this concept on ‘Sonic Speed Battle’.

This weird hinting of ‘missing/pining’ for the other is just--grips chest--AWgh. So heart warming but so tragic!

As for Shadouge, it was originally hinted at that Shadow would rival Sonic with Amy, but this was quickly scrapped and instead, Shadow and Rouge formed some unlikely teaming up and they expanded upon that relationship. Rouge actively goes out of her way to hint towards liking Knuckles romantically, but deeply cares about Shadow and his well-being. It’s clear she may like him too, but all evidence suggests she’s really just his only true friend, but then SEGA stated they don’t actually hang out much due to Shadow’s solitary lifestyle. In otherwords, her caring about him is out of loving sympathy, and though Shadow respects her, doesn’t let her influence him. So, it’s another tragic thing where Rouge’s care seems one-sided, but we’re all aware that Shadow would help Rouge and Rouge would help Shadow, whether he acted like he didn’t care or not, we all know he’s a good guy deep down inside XD

Rouge is often shown to have deep feeling for others, mostly through Knuckles and Shadow, so this makes sense that she’d mourn for Shadow more actively, and Sonic--being highly observant of others needs--would sense that Rouge’s sorrow is sincere. It would make sense to give her that last article of him.

Character placement in any media is important, this shows that they are close, probably the only true friend he has that cares about him actively. As for romantic, I often state it thusly, “She’s got her arms around both men, waiting for one of them to step up and make the first move...” but in all honesty, it’s canon that Rouge likes Knuckles, and is supportive of Shadow. (She should be his close friend, what the heck, SEGA. So he acts like he doesn’t reciprocate her worrying about him, so what? He’d still actively save/protect/be there for her if she needed him to be! That’s close enough for this edgy dude to consider them partners!)

As for Tailream, sorry to break any hearts, although I think it’s nice and don’t mind it much, I know that it’s actually canon for Bakkun to like Cream.

Rouge finds a locket in Sonic X that reveals his crush on Cream. Cream is also shown many times with Tails, but it looks as though each of those activities is ‘play’ like with young children, but not so much with any romantic intention within the cinema placement I before mentioned. It would fit within Cream’s character to admire Tails just like she would “Mr. Sonic” as heroes who have continually saved her and the world.

How is this scene

Really all that different from him making a sandcastle with Cheese?

This scene is useful, because it shows Tails trying to comfort her in the way you would a small child, and sets up his view of Cream as a friend and little girl. Amy is often depicted the same way when it comes to comforting Cream like this, and showing friendship with Tails as well. Meaning, they both give Cream the same treatment, Tails is not ‘favoring’ Cream in any way.

There are clear differences in ‘proximity placement’ when you examine this and scenes with, let’s say, Cosmo and Tails in how they’re ‘next to each other’ verses the others.

Everything on screen is a choice made by the specific people of the animation and show. Nothing but animation errors are “accidents”.

Even Vector’s day-dream.... is a way to hint that others are noticing Tails’s feelings for her.

In canon, Cream is far too young to love anybody, and Tails is shown to canonically like Cosmo, who is closer to him too.

Cream is a little girl, maybe with age, she would turn towards Tails in affection, but for now, Tails seems to be kind to her but not really interested in a romantic pursuit. I think as they grow up further together, something could spark, but I’m not sure. It’s got no clear evidence that SEGA was leaning towards that.

We must also notice that Cosmo only existed in the anime, even if Cream wasn’t always featured in every game, she is canon to the game world too. I would just argue that maybe Tails doesn’t have a love interest within the game’s canon universe? He’s young too, you know XD Sonic is speculated to have been 11 when he first met 8 year old Amy. So Tails still has one more year before he meets his fated lover, eh? XD (I’m just kidding, but it’s funny to say XD)

It’s also canon that Cream uses her polite innocents to manipulate others like Sonic uses his charm and cool, good, dashing looks to manipulate Amy XD

Clearly, he milks it.

He’s such a bad example for Cream, lol

I remember he was shown with bubbles and such which is common in anime to reveal his ‘trying to charm her’ but again, I think I’ve made my points XD

I still think with time, Cream and Tails could become a future ship, but Cream is only actually in Sonic X mostly, and there aren’t many ‘signs’ of Tailcream in games cause they never really interact all that much.

However, the argument does stand that they are placed around each other quite often. So maybe one day when they’re older~<3

But you could also counter and say... that they aren’t always placed next to each other in this manner, so open-mindedness and accepting if someone likes them together still has some merit, so let people ship what they like ;)b

When you think about it though... who else would you logically place with Tails then? Sonic and Amy are taken, Knuckles and Rouge, so... who? Cream makes sense if you’re trying to pair Tails with someone, you know?

#tailcream #tailsmo #shadouge #knuxouge #silvaze #ask cutegirlmayra #cutegirlmayra ask #sonic ask #ask sonic #sonic shipping

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shadowofthelamp · 3 years

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Started this like two weeks ago, oops. Part one here, more of that ‘redeeming Scourge’ au. Likes, comments, and reblogs appreciated!

Wordcount: 1000

At least he didn’t have a cellmate. The fact that he wasn’t flattened under a snoring cat was some small mercy.

“Yo.”

Unfortunately, it was a mercy negated by the fact that there wasn’t a routine he could plan around- or ‘visiting hours’. Anyone could waltz in whenever the hell they wanted, because the warden was a never-sleeping AI. Scourge gritted his teeth, counting to three before rolling off his bed. “What?”

“Can’t I come in to say hi?” Sonic was bouncing on the heels of his sneakers.

“You wouldn’t be here unless you wanted something, or to rub your victory in my face.” The ‘glass’ was perfectly pristine, no matter how many times he’d slammed his fists against it, so it looked like there was nothing between him and Sonic even though he knew that there was, and he couldn’t just punch him in his smug face like his fists were begging to do. Stupid nanites.

“It’s been weeks, I was wondering when you’d stop being pissy, actually.” Sonic raised an eyebrow. “I brought you in hoping we could at least start helping you, but you keep digging your heels in.”

“Look, at least at the regular slammer, they let us out for recess now and then without bribing us about it.”

“You know the deal.” Sonic leaned against the glass- it seemed as though his palm was flattening in mid-air. It’d be hilarious if Nicole dropped the door just for a second and his arms started pinwheeling before he’d fall flat on his face.

“Yeah, yeah, ‘community service’. I’m gonna have to be a little more desperate to start picking up litter or whatever.” Scourge examined his nails through his gloves.

“Zonic said you were actually falling into line for a while.”

Scourge froze, fingers tightening into place.

“Or at least Zobotnik thought you were. I wouldn’t trust him, but Zonic seems to think he’s pretty good at his job, and I’d imagine he’d know about rehabilitating prisoners.”

“That shit wasn’t rehabilitation.”

“Uh-huh.” Sonic didn’t sound convinced. “I can guess why you’d be touchy about the blunted quills-“

“Ya think?”

“-But come on, you’re a version of me. You conquered a planet, I’d think you’d manage fine with a couple of bruisers trying to smack you around.”

Scourge raised two fingers with a growl. “Two things, blue. One: These collars cut down speed and agility. You try and win a fight when somebody taped cinderblocks to your feet. Everybody else there was mostly used to ‘punch things hard’, so they didn’t have to readapt their flow. Two...” He gestured up to his face. “What do you see right here?”

“Uh, green? A handsome mug? Not sure I’m grabbing what you’re throwing out here.”

Scourge dragged a hand down his face. “Because what everybody else saw was a Sonic that could serve as a revenge replacement for the one that probably beat them up, and almost definitely brought them in.“

There were a few beats of silence, nothing but the omnipresent hum of the nanites surrounding them. “...Ah.”

“Yeah. Ah.” Scourge leaned against the wall, arms folded. “I bounced back, but it turns out even being a different color can’t stop everyone from seeing me as just another goddamn alternate.”

“Excuse me while I wipe away my tears. You were a jerk and dealt with the consequences. Boo-hoo.” Sonic gave a sarcastic clap, and Scourge growled, slamming his fist against the ‘glass’ right in front of Sonic’s face. The cell shook slightly, nanites absorbing the impact before reconstituting themselves in an instant. (Nicole had said the cells had held a lot worse than him. He’d buy it.)

“Alright, Blue, let me put it to you this way: Imagine your Robotnik capturing you.”

“That’s happened-”

“-And then breaking both your legs.”

Air sucked in through Sonic’s teeth as he gave a hiss. “Oh, come on, they didn’t-”

“This collar means I’m as slow as everybody else- slower, actually, since they overcompensated with mine. Only reason I made it out of there with my sanity intact was because I’m the baddest bitch around, got that? Losing your speed really, really fucking sucks when you’re one’a the smallest guys there and the one everybody is using as their personal punching bag because most Sonics are goody-goodies and the only other one in the jail was a beast twice your size.”

“Excuses, excuses.” Sonic waved a hand. “You don’t have to worry about that anymore anyway, so what’s the hold-up? You’ve got to be bouncing off the walls, I’d think you’d be jumping at any opportunity to get out, even under supervision.”

“Yeah, well, prison also taught me some patience, and I’m not gonna dance for you.” Scourge said. “Go find another puppet, I’m sick of getting yanked around by people who’re just using me for shit.”

“It’s not....” At that, Sonic sighed. “It’s not an act. I’m trying to help you realize you don’t have to be the bad guy anymore, alright? You tried to do things your way and it just keeps not working. You could really help the Freedom Fighters- and you could be happy.”

“You can keep me in here, but you can’t make me start ranting on about friendship like some sappy Saturday morning cartoon,” Scourge said, plopping back down on his cot. “That’s not going to make me happy.”

“Hey, I don’t expect that. Knuckles and Shadow are both still kind of prickly and neither probably would admit we’re friends, Shadow especially, but I know they’d both help if I really needed it. It’s less of a leap than you might think, and I know enough guys who just really needed somebody to care about them. Nicole’s always here to pass the message along if you decide that you’re willing to do something good for once.” Sonic waggled his fingers in a wave, zipping out before Scourge could throw out a retort.

He groaned, pulling his legs up to his chest and flopping his chin down on his knees.

#sonic the hedgehog #scourge the hedgehog #shadow writes stuff #sonic writing #archie #sth #king douche #scourge redemption au

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raywritesthings · 4 years

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Fade In, Fade Out 1/2

My Writing Fandom: Arrow Characters: Laurel Lance, Earth 2 Laurel Lance, Oliver Queen, Quentin Lance, Barry Allen Pairing: Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen Summary: Pretending to be her deceased doppelganger has as many drawbacks as it does benefits, so Black Siren decides it’s time to really switch things up on her enemies and allies alike. Oliver is confronted with his true feelings once again and must finally make a choice. *Can be read on my AO3 or FFN, links are in bio*

Laurel Lance, formerly of Earth 2, had a problem. Well, several problems. Actually, they were all the same problems she’d had before, only now they were even more compounded by the precarious position she’d placed herself in. Namely, impersonating a dead woman.

It had been the best way to ensure she could no longer be held by this or that group in this or that cell. She’d been tired and hurting and so, so fed up with it all. So she’d let herself finally do the one thing she’d been avoiding for almost two years now: be seen.

Now she was Laurel Lance, miraculously rescued darling of Star City. A former ADA with a sterling reputation and a loving family and friends. How nice.

While it had bought her a temporary reprieve, it was clear this had not solved all her problems the way she’d hoped it might. Diaz was still sending his men sniffing around to threaten her and her doppelganger’s father. The bitch in the Black Canary suit was still breathing down her neck, probably barely holding back thanks to her team. And this Earth’s Oliver was continuing his sanctimonious bull about caring one minute then pulling back the next and pretending as if they were perfect strangers.

He was worried she was going to ruin his Laurel’s reputation. Maybe she should, since he’d pretty thoroughly wrecked her own image of Ollie, try as she might to maintain him in her mind. But doing anything too out of character for this Earth’s Laurel would just put her right back into danger.

Her old way of doing things had lacked security, but now it was hard for her to make any kind of move thanks to public scrutiny. She needed to be able to get away; a new fresh start on this godforsaken Earth. But she needed to keep Diaz and all her other enemies looking one way while she snuck off in the other direction. But how to do it?

And then, it turned out, the opportunity presented itself.

Quentin, her doppelganger’s father, took a call late one night. It was from this Earth’s Thea Queen, who was apparently saying goodbye.

“And Nyssa thinks there’s more of these Pits? Well that’s, that’s something… I’ve never even heard of these places you’re saying. Ojos del — well, whatever you said. And where’s that Kamchatka, that sounds — oh, Russia. Yeah, I wouldn’t have guessed that. Well, you’ll be seeing a lot more of the world than most people do.”

Laurel sat there, not really reading the law book he had pressed on her for the umpteenth time. If they were talking about a Pit, was this that magic Pit thing that wasn’t supposed to exist anymore? The one that brought people back from the dead or whatever? The dead were dead, no matter if you came to a whole separate Earth and met them again.

That’s something, he’d said, with such a wistful tone to his voice. She knew exactly what he was thinking, and it burned in her gut, angry and jealous despite it all. If he wanted his Laurel back, why didn’t he go do it instead of trying to force her to be her? Ugh, it sounded confusing even in her own head.

But as she glowered across the room at him while he talked to the other Thea on that phone, she took him in. Old, thin, frail as he was, he could never make that kind of journey. Great, now she was feeling pity, too.

The more she thought about it, though, the more she realized that these Pits still being active was something. Something that could help her, too. If she wanted everyone’s eyes off her, why not give them something else to look at? Watch the birdie.

Laurel took out her phone and made liberal use of autocorrect and suggested search to find the information she needed about Kamchatka. Then she started searching for plane tickets.

Later, after Quentin was sleeping, Laurel went out that night to the cemetery with a shovel, hoping to God this wasn’t part of some officer’s beat. There was nothing much she could do once she’d dug up the casket besides shovel the dirt back on top and pack it down. Maybe people would assume the casket had been removed since she wasn’t supposed to be underground anymore. And now her doppelganger wasn’t either.

Getting her on a plane wasn’t too difficult, but God was she glad she’d borrowed some money from Quentin so she could hire some help to carry the thing up the mountain.

“I want to see the springs,” she told her guides. “The ones off the beaten path. You know what I mean, right?” If there were rumors about these Pits, they had to come from somewhere.

The two exchanged glances. “No one goes to those springs now.”

“And why not?” Damnit, had the idiots already destroyed this one?

“There are men. They guard the springs jealously.”

Oh. The other guys. Right. Tommy’s weird evil dad’s minions or whatever.

Laurel shrugged. “I think I can handle myself. You two wait here with my birdcage.” Leaving them to exchange perplexed glances, Laurel turned and continued her march through the mountain range.

It was funny. She could have wandered around here for days without finding it, except that, two hours into that, out of the shadows leapt a man in ninja gear. That kind of blew the whole thing, didn’t it?

Laurel knocked him right off the cliff with her scream, then twisted the arm of his buddy who tried to attack her from behind, getting possession of his sword and stabbing him in the gut with it. He dropped to his knees, cursing in some foreign tongue while Laurel examines her new sword.

“Not my style, usually, but I think I’m gonna keep this. Thanks.”

He didn’t reply. Probably because he was dead. Well, she’d at least made this easier for Speedy and Friends whenever they showed up.

She found the casket abandoned on the path by the time she got back. Huh. Maybe she should have paid those guys extra. Quentin wasn’t made of money, though. No matter how much he was going to owe her once this whole thing was done.

Few things sucked more than carrying a dead body up a mountain by yourself. One of the things that did suck more was carrying a dead body that looked exactly like you up a mountain by yourself. Laurel did her best to keep her eyes on the path as she put one step forward after the other. When she finally found the crevice in the rocks that led into the springs, she sighed in relief.

This was definitely the place. The ninjas had set up a small encampment to the side of the cave, and in the center bubbled a mysterious-looking water.

“This better work,” Laurel muttered to herself, then unceremoniously dumped the body into the waters with a splash that had her quickly backing away to avoid the droplets.

What would it be like, meeting the fabled Perfect Laurel? Was it rose-tinted glasses that had everyone on this Earth making her out to be a saint?

She paced the edge, waiting for some kind of sign she hadn’t been duped. The waters had gone totally still. What the hell was she going to have to do, fish her doppelganger out? She hadn’t even brought a net.

Then the waters started bubbling again like someone had flipped the switch for the hydro-jets. She slowed, laying a hand on the hilt of her new sword.

With no warning, the previously dead body made an impossible leap from the waters, landing in a crouch with her hair hanging in her face like a wet curtain.

“Shit,” Laurel breathed to herself.

Her doppelganger’s head snapped up, eyes wild and mouth snarling. Certainly nothing like a saint. She had a split second to recognize the pulling back of her lips for what it was before she was ducking to avoid a sonic scream. She retaliated, catching her disoriented doppelganger in the side and sending her rolling across the cave floor. She didn’t get up.

Laurel listened to make sure they hadn’t caused some kind of cave-in, but it sounded like the rock was holding. Then she crept over to see if she’d accidentally killed the other woman again. The rise and fall of her chest said she was still breathing. Good.

What the hell had the whole wild woman act been, though? Was it permanent? What was she going to do with her if it was?

It was weird watching herself. Laurel paced to the other side of the Pit and stood against the wall, waiting.

She’d give her doppelganger half an hour before she just placed the return plane ticket at her feet and took off.

---

Laurel, always of Earth 1 and formerly dead, shivered as she came to, rolling onto her side and curling in on herself with cold. She was soaked to the skin and exposed to the open air of whatever this place was. Her ears were also ringing. She shook her head, feeling her damp hair sticking to the side of her face.

“Ugh.”

“You said it.”

Laurel blinked and looked around. How had she heard her own voice come from another direction?

Leaning against a rocky wall was her. Or, it looked exactly like her. “What is this?” Was it some kind of illusion? A person that could mimic appearances. Though while this other her was dressed in sensible gear for what looked like hiking a mountain, she discovered she was in one of her nicer but rather thin dresses. God, it was freezing.

“What do you remember?” The other her asked.

“Talking to Oliver?” She’d been trying to encourage him, because she’d known he was probably beating himself up about her getting hurt, and then everything went kind of fuzzy after that. She thought she could remember him shouting for someone…

“Ugh, of course you do,” the other her said, rolling her eyes. “Okay, basically you’ve been dead for about two years—”

“Wait, what?”

“And I just brought you back. You’re welcome! Only took your own doppelganger from another Earth to get the job done.”

Her doppelganger. That’s what this was. So she was from Earth 2, she was pretty sure Team Flash had called it. Where they there now? It would explain why there was what had to be a Lazarus Pit to the right of her even though Nyssa had destroyed the one at Nanda Parbat.

“Why did you bring me back?” There was something about this other her’s attitude that suggested it wasn’t strictly out of the kindness of her heart. She reminded Laurel uncomfortably of some of her worst behaviors in the midst of her spiral.

Her doppelganger smiled, and it definitely wasn’t nice. “Smart question. See, I’ve been trying to live my life on this Earth for the last almost two years, but things keep getting in the way. Mostly the people from your life. So I figure if I give them you back, they won’t keep bothering me. We’re even, see?”

There was so much she wasn’t being told, and she wished that wasn’t an old feeling. “You’ve been pretending to be me?”

“Only for a little bit. Hey, at least you don’t have to come up with a story for the press as to how you’re still alive. Someone can fill you in on the cover. I’m heading out of here and do not follow me.” Her doppelganger hefted a duffle bag higher on her shoulder.

“How am I supposed to get home from wherever this is?” She gestured down again her bare feet and lack of possessions.

The other her grumbled impatiently. “Here, take some of this stuff.” She grabbed a pair of black boots and a League-standard tunic from a small pile near the other end of the cave they were in. Laurel hurried to put both on, not really caring to ask who they typically belonged to when it meant she could finally warm up a little.

A passport hit her in the face. Then a printed out boarding pass came flying, which she caught before it could smack her as well.

“Tag, you’re it,” her double said. “And I guess you can have your dad’s credit card back.”

Laurel straightened back up. “You stole his—”

“Of course I did. I’m getting his precious daughter back for him, so what’s he going to miss a few hundred bucks for? I only bought plane tickets and a guided tour, calm down.”

Laurel did not calm down, and instead marched over to her double and snatched the card from her lose grasp. “You might think the snarky act helps protect you from other people hurting you, but let me tell you from experience that it just hurts worse watching everyone walk away.”

Her double glared, leaning into her space. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“I am you. Or I was.” Laurel shook her head. “Why have you even been staying on this Earth? Haven’t you got your own?”

“And nothing there to return to.” She could see in the mirror image of her own eyes a deep-set pain and sadness. Laurel wanted desperately to ask, but she had a feeling she wasn’t supposed to be seeing it at all.

They stared at each other for a long moment.

“Look, there’s no point to this. We can’t both be you, unless we want to pretend you’ve been lying about being an identical twin your whole life,” her doppelganger finally said. “I’m leaving. Wait five minutes, then head down the mountain path. There’s a little touristy station set up at the bottom, and they can direct you to the airport.”

“You’re really just going to lay low the rest of your life on some totally strange Earth?”

“About the only option I have left. Believe me, I’m looking forward to semi-retirement.” With that, her double turned and walked out of the cave, with not even a snarky goodbye to show for it. Laurel winced; she’d been pretending to be her? Did the others know, or did they all think she’d come back from the dead with that attitude?

She had no watch, so Laurel guessed at five minutes and headed down the path. Sure enough, the tourist trap at the bottom of the mountain did have information on transportation to the nearest airport. She also discovered she was in Eastern Russia.

Laurel prioritized getting to the airport over getting access to a phone. Her flight was pre-scheduled, after all. She bought some new clothes for herself before boarding so she didn’t have to come into the Star City airport looking like a terrorist. Thankfully, her father hadn’t cancelled his credit card. She’d pay him back, assuming she still had a job.

She couldn’t believe she was really back from the dead. Around nothing but strangers, it didn’t feel real. She also couldn’t sense anything like the bloodlust Thea had had, but she wasn’t really experiencing anything that might trigger her anger. But she’d need to figure out if there was a way to get more of that Lotus sooner rather than later.

Thea, her father, the team and Ollie, how were all of them? What had she missed in her years of being dead? Did they miss her or think about her at all? It would be selfish of her to wonder if Oliver ever thought about what she’d confessed to him, right? Even she’d known that was nothing but a memory now. Hopefully he and everyone else were just happy and safe, at least as much as they could be in their line of work.

She followed her fellow passengers out into the Star City airport, breathing a little easier now that she knew she was back in her home. No matter how much she or it changed, she’d always feel that way.

Laurel started looking for a help desk, but a hand landed on her upper arm before she could take more than two steps.

“Let’s go.”

Laurel froze. “Ollie?”

He looked about the same as she remembered. It had only been two years, after all. But his expression was guarded, even hostile as he looked down at her. She almost wanted to draw back from him.

“Quentin called. Whatever you’ve been setting up in Russia, you’re going to tell me and him.”

“I wasn’t setting anything up. I just came back to life.” It was occurring to her that he thought she was her own doppelganger, that this dislike and distrust wasn’t really for her. “I’m the real me, Oliver. I’m not the other Earth one.”

His eyes widened for a second, before he shut down again. “Come on.” He yanked on her arm to get her moving.

He thought she was lying. Well, they were going to see her father, apparently, so she could just convince them both at the same time. It figured her own doppelganger would leave her a mess to clean up.

---

Oliver didn’t trust himself to speak as he guided her out to the car. The fact that she wanted to try this game again, fooling him, was proof that he’d been right to doubt her attempt to turn over a new leaf. God, what was she planning to do to Laurel’s reputation? Her legacy?

“Ollie, please,” she said as he turned the key in the ignition. “I’m telling the truth. One minute, I was in the hospital with you and the next, I was waking up in some cave in Russia with an identical copy of myself telling me I’d been dead for two years.”

“A Lazarus Pit.”

“From what I could tell.”

He smirked to himself, but nothing was funny. “The only Lazarus Pit my Laurel knew about was destroyed, so why would she assume she’d been resurrected with one?”

“Because I made an educated guess when I woke up soaked to the bone next to a bubbling hot spring. Why can’t you ever just believe me?” She demanded, and it sounded so much like her — the real her — that it tore at his heart. Oliver kept his eyes on the road.

“Because you’ve done this before.”

“My doppelganger.” Her head dropped back against the seat rest. “Oliver, I don’t know what she must have done or said the past two years, but I promise that’s not me. I don’t want to think I could be that cruel to try and trick you like that twice.”

“Then where’s your other self?” He avoided describing it in a way that made it sound like he believed her. Even if everything — her tone, her inflections, the chunky knit sweater she was bundled in, just the way that she moved — was perfect in a way Black Siren had never managed.

This Laurel didn’t seem like she was mocking herself.

She sighed wearily. “I wish I had a better answer, but she took off. Said she wanted to get away from all of this, so she was tapping me back in.”

Oliver frowned. She’d only been impersonating Laurel in the public eye for a short while. Would she really give up the visibility and protection against Diaz that Quentin kept claiming she wanted so soon? Unless — and something cold seized his heart — this was the visible protection. A Laurel out there in the public eye and Diaz’s sights while she ran off for who-knew-where.

Could she really be? He looked in her eyes for the first time and couldn’t detect any hint of a lie. Yet somehow it still felt like he was falling into some sort of trap.

“Ollie, you’re going to miss the turn,” she said. “If that’s still where my dad lives.”

“Uh, right.” He made it sharp, then pulled up outside the apartment building. He started up to his unit and she fell right into step with him without a word.

Quentin answered the door after two knocks. He’d been expecting them since he’d been able to get the number of the return flight off his credit card purchase. Oliver had volunteered to collect her in case something more was going on than a simple joyride on Quentin’s money. Now he wasn’t sure what to say to the man.

“So, five-hundred bucks later, how do you feel?” Quentin asked her.

“Daddy, I’m so sorry,” she answered, stepping forward and wrapping him into a hug. Quentin’s eyes went wide and his arms hovered in the air. He looked to Oliver.

“She’s—” Oliver cleared his throat and tried again. “She’s claiming to be our Laurel.”

Quentin gaped. “How?”

“I can explain, I promise,” She said, then looked up. “But how are you?” One of her hands rested over Quentin’s chest.

“I- I’m not sure,” he answered.

Oliver started ushering them all inside on the off chance one of the neighbors stepped outside and heard this. They gathered in Quentin’s sitting room, Quentin on the couch, Oliver standing against the side wall and her pacing the space between couch and coffee table.

“Okay, so I guess there’s a Lazarus Pit or something like it in Eastern Russia. There’s this mountain range called Kamchatka.”

“I was talking to your sister on the phone about that,” Quentin said to him. “She — Earth 2, I mean — was in the room with me.”

“I didn’t see Thea or anyone else, but I think the League might have been set up there at some point,” she continued. “Someone’s things were left behind.”

“Malcolm’s people,” Oliver said, and watched her nod. “He’s dead, by the way.”

Siren already knew that, but this Laurel’s shock looked genuine. “How did it happen?”

“He took Thea’s place on a landmine.”

Her eyebrows raised even higher. “Contradictory to the end, then. Where’s Thea now?”

“On a mission with Nyssa and Roy.” He wondered if she thought she’d have better luck convincing his sister. Oliver wasn’t so sure, because at the moment he badly wanted to be convinced even despite the warning voices in his head urging him to hold back.

“So your doppelganger brought you back with this Pit?” Quentin asked. “I mean, why? And why the hell didn’t we think of that first?”

“The bloodlust, for one thing.” Assuming she was telling the truth, this Laurel would need the Lotus cure the same as Thea had two years ago. Oliver crossed his arms. “Have you felt any symptoms?”

“Not so far. But it’s only been a couple days since I came back.” She looked from one of them to the other. “Do I have a grave we could check so you both feel more sure about this? I can tell you I woke up in my navy blue evening dress. It was a little cold for Russia.”

“I want to believe you, honey, of course I do,” Quentin said. “You have no idea what I’d give to have you back with us.”

“Then just give me some trust,” she said, reaching for his hands. “I’m your daughter. I almost went to work at a corporate law firm in San Francisco until you called me out because you knew that wasn’t who I was. I used to race Sara up the tree in our yard, and I always let her win after the first time when I made her cry and you told me it was my job to take care of her. We went out to dinner before everything at the prison happened, and you told me you were proud of what I was doing as the Black Canary, and I finally felt like I had made it somehow! Like I’d done right by you,” She said, her voice wavering.

Quentin stood, one of his hands cupping her cheek. “It’s really you. It has to be. Oh, my baby girl.” He crushed her to him, drawing in a ragged breath as she held on just as tight. “I don’t know why she did it, but I’m just so glad it’s really you.”

Oliver had to look away. It was too hard to watch. If this was some trick, it would only hurt all the worse once it was revealed. If this was real, then he’d been nothing but cold to her since she’d returned. Why did he always have to screw up when it came to her? He knew what he felt deep in his heart, but every time it came for him to act, he just—

“Ollie.” She had come up to him at some point, and he hadn’t realized he was that far into his own head. “I know I can’t ask you to trust me. But you know me better than anyone.”

He stared at her, willing himself to find some small thing out of place. If he didn’t see it now and he let himself believe, he would be lost. He knew that much about himself. And if it was all a lie, he didn’t think he could find his way back out again this time.

“What did you tell me in the hospital?” He finally asked, his voice sounding gruff to his ears.

“That you shouldn’t try to take on everything alone,” she said. “Even if you feel you have to to protect everyone.”

She was right that those had been some of her last words, and yet he couldn’t be certain that they were the only two who knew that; he himself had told Felicity, and as much as he wanted to believe she wouldn’t have spread it, he didn’t have that guarantee.

“And the other thing?”

She hesitated, glancing back at Quentin and licking her lips. “I told you that you were the love of my life and always would be.”

He heard Quentin make some startled sound, but he was too blurry in Oliver’s vision to make out any expression. He blinked a couple times, trying to clear it so that he could see her — Laurel — and he stepped forward, cupping her face with both hands, and kissed her forehead.

Oliver wrapped her in a hug after, as it sunk in that he didn’t have to leave this time. She was here in the real world with them. Laurel was alive, so much more than a dream.

She rested her hands at his back, seeming unsure, and he felt a fresh wave of guilt over how he had practically shunned her since finding her at the airport. He held her just a little bit tighter for a moment before finally letting her go, stepping back and running both hands over his face in an excuse to wipe at his eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

“No, I understand why you needed to check.” Her eyes stayed more on the floor than on her father as she turned to him and asked, “Could I use your guest room for a little? The time difference is kind of catching up to me.”

“Of course, honey. I, uh, had it set up for your doppelganger, but she took her things with her so it’s open.” The father and daughter headed back down the hall while Oliver walked over and sank onto the couch with unsteady legs.

Laurel was back. Truly. It was nearly overwhelming in its relief and yet the enormity of that fact was also hitting him. How did he explain this to Thea and the others hunting to find and destroy the Pits? How did he explain this to his team, whose experiences with the Laurel they’d known ranged from bad to worse? To his son, who was aware of the hero Laurel had been — and still was, now — but who had been warned to keep away from the woman who looked like her?

Quentin returned, taking his own seat in the armchair across. “I’m dreaming, right?”

“Feels like one,” Oliver agreed, knowing he had the experience to support that feeling. But there had been no strange glitches, and he was aware of all his memories, good and bad. This was all real.

“You’d think I’d get used to this. My daughters coming back, the whole world changing around us.”

Oliver nodded.

“Laurel and you.”

He froze and looked up, meeting Quentin’s gaze. “I… needed to know it was her.”

“Course you did. But I need to know things, too. Like just what your intentions are. I mean, you’re practically engaged, Oliver.”

He winced. “In a manner of speaking.” The thought caused his heart to sink deep down into his stomach or somewhere near it. A feeling he’d been having lately when his thoughts turned to Felicity and their tentative agreement.

Tentative because, and perhaps predictably, he’d started reconsidering at perhaps the worst possible moment: after their impromptu wedding alongside Barry and Iris. He had called the speedster up after the West-Allens had taken their honeymoon, just to catch up.

“We’re mostly just working on thank you cards now. Apparently super-fast writing also leads to super-fast hand cramps,” Barry had told him.

“Well, feel free to skip ours. Actually, what did we get you? Felicity never said.”

“Oh. It was, uh, an espresso machine.”

There was something off in the way Barry had said it, the pause and then the flat tone at the end. “Is it not working?”

“No, it does. I mean, I think so. I don’t actually drink much coffee since the caffeine doesn’t affect me,” Barry had admitted with an awkward laugh.

“Oh.” Oliver had felt his cheeks redden. He’d known that, thinking back on it. Shouldn’t Felicity have known that? He should have checked with her before they bought something, but she tended to take those things upon herself since she said teaching him Amazon was beyond her pay grade. “I guess Iris is making use of it?”

“A little. It wasn’t, uh, it wasn’t on the registry.” He’d been able to visualize the uncomfortable shuffling Barry must have been doing on the other end as he spoke. “She kind of had her fill of making coffee at Jitters, you know?”

“Right.” Oliver had closed his eyes, very tempted to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Could you send me the registry list? I can—”

“No, don’t buy something else. It’s fine. I mean, we’re not upset or anything.”

“About the gift,” Oliver had finished for him. “But you’re upset about something else.” Barry wouldn’t have even gone into any detail on the gift like this if something hadn’t been bothering him.

“Upset’s a strong word, Ollie. It’s just, you know, after the wedding was crashed and we lost Professor Stein and everything else, it kind of didn’t feel like our day anymore. And then we figured out a way to get some of that back and- and—”

“And we made it about us,” Oliver had realized with a wave of shame. What had ever possessed him to think that would have been a good idea? Yes, Felicity had asked, but he had been the one to start using the wedding backdrop as a way to hint he thought they should move things forward, and in doing so had upstaged Barry and Iris at their own celebration.

It had been the Lance family dinner all over again, where he’d subordinated Laurel’s feelings or those of Sara’s parents to a relationship he and she had wanted to try and force into working. Why was he always so selfish?

“Barry, I’m sorry. I don’t know what can make that up to you—”

“Look, we can just drop it, okay? What’s done is done.” Barry had sounded desperate to move on. “I just hope things work out for both of us, you know? We both got our dream come true.”

Oliver had hesitated.

“Right?”

“Yeah. Right,” he’d managed uncomfortably. Then he’d made some excuse or other and hung up the phone. He’d only felt it would have been an even lower blow to Barry to admit that his wedding hadn’t been interrupted by Oliver’s dream — far from it.

His dream was now sleeping just twenty feet down the hall.

Oliver dropped his head into his hands, feeling it starting to throb in his temples. He knew he loved Laurel and always would, had stopped denying that to himself over a year ago. But he was in a relationship — even a relatively chaste one since his misgivings about their not-quite wedding — with Felicity.

He’d been using William as an excuse, which wasn’t fair, but what he now couldn’t determine was, was it fair to William to have introduced Felicity into his life as a sort of surrogate only to end things with her? Or was his growing unhappiness in that relationship only going to teach his son a warped version of love and family?

They’d had no marriage certificate when they’d jumped in on Barry and Iris’ ceremony. They still didn’t. They weren’t really married. And he didn’t really want to ever be now. But was it right for him to start something with Felicity because he had been lonely and heartbroken, only to end it because the reason for his loneliness and heartbreak no longer existed?

“I know how I feel, I just don’t know what to do,” he admitted finally. Oliver jumped a little when a hand landed on his shoulder.

“Well, the first thing you gotta do is be honest with yourself and with the people in your life about how you’re feeling.”

“How do I do that without hurting someone?”

“Sometimes you can’t,” Quentin told him. “Sometimes you just can’t control how people are gonna feel, Oliver. But you have to let them feel it in their own way.”

He was right. He was right, and Oliver knew it. He also knew that avoiding the truth to avoid pain was one of his greatest failings. But by God, he had to get past this. Not for his sake, but for the people in his life.

“I should inform the team so they can start getting used to the idea,” Oliver decided. “And I need to talk to Felicity.”

She deserved an explanation, uncomfortable as it might make him to give it. He should have been honest with her about his remaining feelings for Laurel whether she was dead or alive, that it would always be a part of him. He would be honest with her now.

Oliver left the apartment, turning and heading down the block. But as he looked back over his shoulder at the building, he frowned.

The window of the guest bedroom was open.

He turned back around, walking and then breaking out into a jog. By the time he reached the hallway to Quentin’s floor, he was flat-out running.

Oliver rapped on the doorframe, waiting with impatience for it to open. Quentin blinked in surprise when he did so. “What—”

“I need to check something.” He walked straight back down the hall and knocked on the guest bedroom door. “Laurel?”

“You said you already checked it was her, and she’s sleeping,” Quentin argued.

“I’m not checking that it’s her, I’m checking—” The door was unlocked and almost bounced off the wall when he threw it open.

Oliver’s heart froze.

“She- she’s gone!” Quentin exclaimed behind him. He brushed past Oliver, going to the window and sticking his head out. “Laurel!”

It did no good, as she hadn’t been anywhere outside when he’d noticed the open window. Why had she gone? Where had she gone? Whatever the reason or location, he had to find out, and fast.

He couldn’t lose her again. Not this time.

#lauriver #laurel x oliver #laurel lance #oliver queen #arrow #black canary #black siren #green arrow #my writing

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timegal25 · 5 years

Text

The Odd Side of Youtube

YouTube, the popular video sharing website, has been around for over a decade. It’s had it’s over abundance of videos themed around Fortnite, “emotional apology videos” stuffed to the brim with ad revenue, a disturbingly high number of poorly animated nursery rhymes, and surprisingly graphic skits targeted at kids. But it’s also been an outlet for creative expression and connection for those outside the mainstream. For a socially awkward and isolated kid who found companionship in watching YouTube, fandom videos offered a sense of connection, belonging and reassurance that there were “odd people” out there who shared his interests and passions.

While the vast majority of people know about things like “Gangnam Style” and “Let’s Plays,” not as many can say they have extensive knowledge of the various niche fandom videos that make up a good portion of the website itself. These are the odd clips that either you only come across by looking up directly, or have randomly pop up in your recommended feed with no real reason as to why. In my case, I remember a majority of these from watching them when I was younger, and then rediscovering them when looking deep into the site on late night nostalgia binges. It’s a common hobby of mine, and it usually leads to me finding some of the strangest things as a result. Oddly, a great many of these strange finds just so happen to include Sonic the Hedgehog.

Let me preface this by saying what follows is in no way an attack on any of the creators of these videos, nor is it a call for others to go out and harass them. In fact, that’s part of the point. Many of the people who create some of the more odd or innovative content on YouTube are doing it as creative expression of who they are or what interests them. It’s a place to express a part of themselves, and it takes courage to do it. It’s easy for those who aren’t so brave to attack the creators. I actually enjoy a lot of the content I’ll be referring to because the people behind it are genuine and clearly having a ton of fun making it. This is all done in good fun, and shows just how strange and odd fandom culture as a whole can be. And for some of these innovators who dared to put themselves out there, it paid off big time just by how fondly remembered they are by those who talk about them. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s begin.

Part One: Hedgehogs and Dragon Balls

To start things off, let’s look at a project that is fully animated. Before YouTube, there was the popular website Newgrounds, a place where you could watch videos, play games, and just mess around. This is where a lot of influential and important creators got their start by posting their little animations on the site. On August 14, 2006, user Chakra-X (real name Aaron Cowdery), posted the first part in a three-part movie called Sonic: Nazo Unleashed with part two coming a week later and part three following in 2007. All three parts were later uploaded all into one HD remaster under the title of Sonic: Nazo Unleashed DX on YouTube in 2014. The film follows Sonic and his friends as they take on the mysterious and powerful Nazo, an unused form of Sonic from a promotional video for the anime Sonic X.

Now what makes this special from say the dozens of Sonic themed fanfics that follow a somewhat similar premise? Chakra-X did something no one had dared to do before. The animation was very heavily inspired by the anime megahit Dragon Ball Z and its then airing sequel Dragon Ball GT . The sound effects used and the presentation of special moves were ripped right from the series and even parts from the climax are just ideas presented in the show such as two characters fusing to make one new powerful being. In 2006, it was unheard of to see Sonic characters perform such high speed anime action. What was even more notable is that it was created by one single guy on the internet. The professionally produced Sonic X TV show that was airing at that time paled by comparison, even with a team of professional animators with high tech equipment.

In the decade since Nazo Unleashed originally came out, Chakra-X has been a part of various animated collabs and now works for Titmouse Inc , an animation company that has done work for companies like Warner Bros., Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, and even Disney. What was even more inspiring for me, Chakra-X is a young black man . This was the first I’d become aware of anyone who looked like me being a much sought after animator. It told me that I could be him, I could be in his position if I put in as much effort and love into a creative project. And with how amazing the upcoming sequel he’s working on looks, I feel that kind of hopeful inspiration even more.

The next piece I’m going to examine is another well known series in the Sonic fandom community that also is heavily influenced by Dragon Ball Z. While it is also animated and is full of high speed action packed fights, this one has its own amazing identity. The series I’m talking about is the always spectacular Super Mario Bros. Z by Mark Haynes, aka Alvin Earthworm, starting in 2006 and going until 2009. While this series was originally created on Newgrounds, it’s real exposure and popularity came from being uploaded to YouTube.

The series follows Mario, Sonic and friends as they go on an epic race against time to secure the powerful chaos emeralds from the clutches of the evil Mecha Sonic. Much like Nazo Unleashed, the influence of Dragon Ball Z series is anything but subtle, with the plot of “good guys need to find powerful objects before bad guys” being one of the key ways to describe Dragon Ball as a whole. One of the key things that makes this stand out on its own is the fact that this entire series is animated using sprites from the games. Just about every character that wasn’t made specifically for the series has their models taken right from their games. Mario and Luigi for example come from the Mario and Luigi role playing game (rpg) series on the Gameboy Advance (GBA), while the Sonic and Shadow sprites come from Sonic Battle also on the GBA. An extra step is taken by having the characters act like they do in their retrospective series. Mario and Luigi never actually use dialogue boxes in their games, with other characters still understanding them. The same is true here with the brothers’ words never actually being seen on screen. Going that extra step to emulate the games made the videos feel more authentic.

I was relatively young and new to the internet when Super Mario Brothers Z (SMBZ) started popping up. I wasn’t fully aware of what sprite animations were, as they weren’t as easy to make or common back then as they are now, so I would see all the action and Sonic and Mario on screen together and I thought that it was an actual game. I wanted to play it so badly on my Gameboy Advance SP. On one trip to a Gamestop, my young self boldly walked up to the lady working the register and asked “Hey, do you have Super Mario Bros Z ?” She gave me this look that said either she knew exactly what I was talking about or didn’t have a single clue at all and just nicely said that they didn’t. I went on to repeat this at several more gaming stores before I realized that it wasn’t a real game, nor did it ever claim to be. It was then that I started looking for games I wanted myself because sometimes just saying a title out loud can make you look like the strangest person around.

What made the SMBZ series so attractive and so entirely different from anything found on YouTube at the time was the animated action. You might think that since the series is using pre-made assets and models, that there must be some limitations on what can be done. However, with a bit of help from some custom new sprites as well as some fast editing and sound effects, things can get insane . Being able to translate the speed and intensity of a Dragon Ball Z fight is hard enough to copy with regular animation, yet Mark was able to do this with 2 dimensional sprites and flashing lights. And even that pales in comparison to the pure adrenaline of fights concerning the series main antagonist, Mecha-Sonic.

Originally starting off as a mostly side boss in Sonic and Knuckles , Mecha Sonic became a fan favorite thanks to this series. Like any good antagonist, he can easily prove himself as a threat to the heroes while also being able to take the hits himself. This comes across easily in the series most popular episode, Brawl on a Vanishing Island . This 30 minute episode has a variety of characters going up against each other, but the mood quickly turns the second Mecha Sonic arrives and absorbs the power of the Chaos Emeralds. What follows is an absolutely brutal beatdown of another team of antagonists, the Axem Rangers X. The speed, the sound effects, alongside an amazing remix of Sonic and Knuckles’ Doomsday Zone playing in the background, this is a simply amazing bit of animation that can’t really be put into words without it sounding absolutely ridiculous. And much like with Nazo Unleashed, so much of this was done by just one guy.

After episode 8 in 2009, things basically ended on a cliffhanger with the series being presumed over. Haynes had his own life and things to deal with, and something that took up so much time to make could be easily seen as poor use of it. In the years following, many others tried their hand at sprite animations with heavy action scenes with that becoming its very own subgenre on YouTube. Then, in 2016, Mark made a glorious return with the first episode of what was basically a reboot of the series. Fans loved it, amazed to see how far things had come. And then..there was basically nothing else. Originally, Haynes had a Patreon set up so that fans could fund him making this as well as possibly being a way for him to make this his job. It was shut down, most likely due to him directly saying it was going towards the series and Nintendo seeing it as someone else profiting off their IP. With any funding that could go towards rewarding all this time and effort being taken away, as well as Haynes having more important personal things and depression, it is unlikely that we’ll see an update anytime soon. It’s been three years since the first episode went up on YouTube, and while I still hope someday he’ll return, but as someone who knows that forcing yourself to make something others want even if you don’t want to is like, the personal happiness and health of Mark Haynes is so much more important. He’s already left an amazing legacy on the net, and the stuff he’s given us is already great enough as is.

And now to go from flash animation, to sprite animation, we’re reaching the next logical step. Out of all the series discussed in this part, this one is my absolute favorite. And it is one of the weirdest things out there. Another crossover series featuring the world of Mario and Sonic, alongside a few notable others. One that’s full of action and character, and it’s all animated in PowerPoint (no, I’m not kidding), this is Chocobro Cinemas’ The “Dimension” Saga. Strap in, things are gonna get really, really weird.

The series started in 2007, with Dimension Mix-Up as it followed various characters from Super Mario Bros, Sonic the Hedgehog, Frogger, Invader Zim, and Calvin and Hobbes. That was all 100 percent serious, and to the credit of both this and Super Mario Bros Z, there is a feeling of self-awareness running throughout the whole series. I unironically love this entire series from start to finish, mostly just due to the fact that there’s so much creativity and love being put into something that most people would just brush aside as another cheap fanfiction. When I originally found this back in 2007, it was like the most amazing thing ever. The computer I had at the time took forever to not only load flash animations, but even playing them took like 5 years for just a few seconds. I hadn’t really known what Newgrounds was fully back then either, so Super Mario Bros Z also wasn’t something I watched at the time, and I came across this. An action filled adventure that had characters not only from Sonic and Mario, but also Invader Zim which was still super huge at time, and Calvin and Hobbes?! To a megafan of all those things who would actually spend their time on Fanfiction.net reading stories about this stuff (Yes, even Calvin and Hobbes), this was like the holy grail. Also Frogger was there, so...that was cool?

This story should not work, these characters all being together on screen expecting viewers to care for them all should not work, this idea of using powerpoint back in 2007 to simulate animation of any kind should not work. Yet somehow...it does. Even with the fact that this is clearly just a camera recording a screen at this point, there’s something rather entertaining about it all. And the action isn’t half bad for something made with a tool that clearly was never meant to be used in this way. It can actually be creative with how some fight scenes are done. The whole of episode 6 is able to show off a giant robot boss battle with some pretty decent speed, while episode 8 can trick viewers with its looping backgrounds. The best part of this comes just from watching how not only does the quality of the video improve over time, but so does the writing and the story. Dimension Takeover and Dimension Obliteration are amazing and admittedly addicting watches that have the same level of love and care put into them as the previous two series discussed in this. Giving the fans such high quality action and adventures while also doing a really great job of making all the interactions feel like they’re from their source material. Well, at least as close and one can get when you have a hedgehog talking to an imaginary tiger and a group of cartoon frogs. I can’t say thank you enough times to the people who’ve made all their series, as my love of writing stories based on my own favorite series probably wouldn’t be as strong today. And hey, one can surprisingly do a good job with powerpoint. At least it wasn’t just a slide show.

Part Two: These literally are just slide shows!

Sticking to the topic of Sonic, he seems to be a super popular subject for crossovers. Besides Mario, he and his friends have appeared in both official and nonofficial meetups with all kinds of pop culture favorites. The one series that seems to dominate the realm of Sonic crossovers online is My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic . The series itself has had quite the impressive run of nine years, with its final episodes airing this year. What probably would have been seen as just another cheap product placement by the majority of people if it hadn’t been for the rather large audience of grown up fans that for a time basically ruled the internet. While in the later years the fan base has shrunk as all fandoms do, there are still those that happily enjoy watching cartoon ponies and doing various things related to them online, myself included.

Now how does a super fast and cocky blue hedgehog that saves the day from an evil egg shaped man and his army of robots have any kind of connection to a cartoon about six colorful and talented ponies as they go through their lives learning about and solving problems with the power of friendship? Well, both are series that have similar characters with Sonic and Rainbow Dash both being blue,fast, and cocky. Both series deal with giant world ending disasters by using powerful gems and the power of teamwork. And both believe in the real power of friendship. So, yeah. There’s bound to be a ton of fan series based on seeing these two worlds meet up. And hoo boy, Youtube sure seems to love hosting a ton of them.

The common theme in all the Sonic/My Little Pony Crossovers in this part is that they’re all going to be slideshows. There might be a few clips from the shows or games, maybe a piece of fanart or two, but 99 percent of the stuff in these videos is just going to be static text. Let’s start with the...highest quality one of the three brought up in this part, Sonic X Equestria by Speedstar Productions . The plot is nothing new. Eggman shows up to wreak havoc and Sonic must team up with the cast of My Little Pony, or Mane Six as they’re called, to help stop him. When I said most of these are just slideshows... I wasn’t kidding. The entire series will go from random screen cap to random promotional images, with text overlaid on the bottom. There is no original voice acting either, with the only voices that occasionally can be heard coming from the clips or sound bytes. There is no promised sense of consistency either, as photos of the characters can be pulled from different seasons, games, comics and shows all together. In this, Sonic is supposed to have his normal modern look but some screenshots are from Sonic Boom which is a show with different designs. Another example of this comes from shots of Twilight Sparkle. This show takes place in the My Little Pony world after Twilight becomes the princess of friendship and gets her own wings. Even shots from the first episode will use photos of her without them. It’s never actually a thing that matters to the show, as it acts like everything is on model, and that we can perfectly see everything that’s going on.

Another thing that this and many others like it seem to have in common is the idea that Sonic is the one doing all the work, while all the ponies just kinda...watch in the background. Sure, Twilight will pitch in with her magic every once in a while, but if Sonic’s taking on Eggman? He’s mostly going in solo. Sure, these ponies have easily taken on things like chaos incarnate, and powerful tyrants with black magic. But a man in a giant robot suit? Too unpredictable . Sure, one could argue that it’s because the mech being used in the fight only has images of Sonic fighting it...but in a later episode , the girls join in a fight that’s entirely animated! I shouldn’t be mad about this, yet I am!

Though..despite the rant, I still find myself enjoying watching this series. I can’t fully explain if it’s ironic or if it’s unironic. Maybe it comes from the fact that everyone still acts in character to their on-screen counter parts, leading to interactions that fans wanted to see. We want to see the ponies talk to Sonic characters, and help take down Eggman. The use of actual pictures from the shows and games helps too, making us help visualize it as if it were an actual episode. Maybe it comes from the fact that it feels like something I would watch in the early days of Youtube. The kinda low effort yet also decent attempt of trying to make events appear coherent in some way, even if the images shown aren’t the most in continuity. Though, episode 11 is literally the Shadic vs Nazo fight from Nazo Unleashed. Those things aside...this is still kind of a guilty pleasure watch that I’ll binge from time to time.

Sometime last year, I was looking up Nazo Unleashed videos late one night, due to that time bringing out a large sense of nostalgia for days gone. As I was looking, I saw a thumbnail that stuck out to me. Or rather...a title that stuck out to me, as well as a runtime that had my interest set to max.

The Adventures of Sonic in Equestria Nazo Unleashed The Movie HD , by Adam Selvig, is a title that feels like it should be one of those videos that promises an upload of a current movie in HD that only links to scam sites that will give your computer a virus. It isn’t that. This is a slideshow that’s the length of a movie. College lectures aren’t this long. The best way to describe this one is that Sonic and the ponies must come together to defeat Nazo as well Tempest Shadow, a character from the My Little Pony movie. Also, Sonic and Rainbow Dash have a daughter called Sondash, which is literally just art of a child Rainbow Dash. This series is weird. Another strange thing is that a lot of the channels posting Sonic / My Little Pony stuff in series like this...usually have around 1K subs. That’s nothing to any major Youtuber, but the idea that even just one thousand people subscribe to watch this stuff as soon as it comes out..is just mind blowing.

This film is part of a series, one that started all the way back in January of 2018. The playlist for this thing says that the series as of March 4th, 2019...is 103 videos long?! And with seemingly all of them in the 20 minute range...the question becomes, how long has Selvig been working on this thing, and does he have others help him with it? And again...why is it always Sonic that seems to be doing everything around here? Are the ponies just lazy now that an outsider is here?

The odd thing is that there are so many Sonic/My Little Pony crossover videos on Youtube, but when looked into, so many of them are the exact same content. Stills and transparent photos with clear backgrounds with text overlaid. And so many are able to get these creators at least a few hundred subscribers. In a surprisingly deep sea of similar executions, are there any left that stand out above the rest? Good news, there is at least one series that goes in another direction. In more mixed news, well…

This is Harmony and Chaos by Michael Evans. While originally popping up as text on gradient background sometime in 2017, the whole series is now being voiced over by its creator. That’s all this is. Text on a background while one man narrates over it in various voices. And for the most part, there isn’t much there at all in terms of action. Now, I’m only nine episodes in this seemingly sixty plus episode run with multiple seasons series, so I might be wrong. The main focus of this series is romance, and boy is there a lot of it. If there’s a male character from Sonic and a female character from My Little Pony that interact a lot in this thing, there’s a pretty good chance they’ll end up smooching somewhere on down the line. This sounds exactly like what many seem to see fan bases as general as, writing overly long amounts of fan fiction that are also chock to the brim with romance and needless drama. In this series, Rainbow Dash is getting a divorce from her husband who she thought was cheating on her, when really he only made it seem that way so that she wouldn’t have to know that he was dying from a deadly disease. It’s a move right out of the soap opera playbook.

Despite all of this, I find myself coming back to all of these series and watching them in huge chunks. It comes from a sense of odd curiosity on how the story is going to play out. It also helps that the people behind this stuff seem like just genuinely nice people that want to post their creations online and share it with the world. It’s just that the stuff they make is really weird, not bad, just strange. And even then, it’s not the most strangest thing on the net that’s out there.

Part Three: Big Adventures, Bigger Casts

The best way to start this final part was with an image. An image that perfectly tells someone everything they need to know, as well as absolutely nothing at all. Welcome to Pooh’s Adventures , a seemingly endless number of movies and tv shows that are “edited” to include characters from Winnie the Pooh, My Little Pony, Transformers, Thomas the Tank Engine and so, so many more. I put edited in quotes because really, does this count as editing in any way, shape or form? To give a basic plot outline of just about every single Pooh’s/Thomas’/Insert Character name here’s adventure, large group of characters are inserted into popular movie or show, where they help the main character of said movie or show against the antagonist who is now usually joined by other villains from various forms of media. Rinse and Repeat for every movie ever with vague hints of events from previous adventures running into this one. Take any movie, and there’s a good chance there’s at least the idea for a Pooh’s Adventures on it. Like for example Winnie The Pooh vs. Jaws , which while not a real movie as of this writing does have a devoted page on the fan wiki . And it seems to promise quite the cast of characters.

It can actually be somewhat hard in trying to find some of these, due to the fact that they’re just full movies with other copyrighted clips put in at random intervals. Those that are still up on Youtube seem to be the ones that use the most obscure of movies as their source . And just like with the Sonic/Mlp stuff, all of these channels seem to have at least a few thousand subscribers thanks to it. Of all the adventures that still remain on Youtube, Winnie the Pooh Goes to Hotel Mario / Pooh’s Adventures of Batman Forever is the one I’m most proud still remains. There is no connection between the two, besides the fact that both Hotel Mario and Batman Forever are both seen as surreal experiences that have very little connections to their source and are enjoyed in a “so bad it’s good” way.

There are still ways to find both older and newer uploads of the various adventures online. Many of the members will just upload their older stuff to Google Drive or Dropbox , and more recently, a lot of uploads are being moved to Pandora.tv, a mostly Korean based website where they can run ads on the video.

The wiki for this fandom is massive, with there being over thirty five thousand articles as of the time of this being written, with new ones being added or updated seemingly every few minutes. Most fantasy wikis can’t reach numbers that high! Though, most of the pages on it are bare-bones with only a single line or two for a ton of characters while others are pages clearly ripped right from other fandom wikis. There’s also ideas for series that are just the title and then nothing else, along with transcripts and posters put next to dozens of dead or empty links. For a site that seems so bloated and full, it’s actually pretty empty and hollow upon closer look.

I wanted to share all of this because so much of this resonates with me in some way, even Pooh’s Adventures , since I’d be lying if I said I haven’t thought up crossovers with insanely large casts that really should have nothing to do with each other.I guess in a way...I saw these all as the things I wanted to make but never knew how to. I’ve always wanted to animate, to tell my stories with these characters that I know and love to as many people as possible, to hear their feedback on all of it. That’s why I got so passionate talking about all certain moments or episodes, it’s all the things I would do! They’re people just like me, and that’s why I wish Mark Haynes the best in his life, why I’ll say the guys who work on the Sonic and My Little Pony seem like nice people. That’s why I’ll be so amazed by someone having a thousand subs or more. I see myself in these creations and the experiences of their creators. The pains of depression, the joy of seeing how their work has influenced others, the effort and care put into these things. I want to see them succeed and be supported, because that shows me that I can succeed too.

#informal essay #crossover #sonic the hedgehog #pooh's adventures #smbz #Super Mario Bros Z #sonic #super mario #Mario bros #nazo unleashed #My Little Pony #my little pony friendship is magic #dimension mix up #youtube #essay #calvin and hobbes #invader zim #fandom

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crusherthedoctor · 6 years

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Sonic & Tails: Beyond the Stars - Chapter 2

Chapter 2: The Mark of the Wilderness

“Those robot parts were everywhere,” Tails thought out loud in reference to the mess they cleaned up in the town by the meadows. “I think that was more time consuming than SAVING the place.”

“No kidding,” Sonic agreed. “Couldn’t you have told us that we’d have to clean them up on the way back?” He lightly nudged Lutrudis jokingly.

“Heh heh, sorry,” the horse replied with a guilty shrug. “But I did promise them... Wouldn’t have been fair for those poor townsfolk to tidy up their area all by themselves.”

“True. Now then... where to next?”

They were now back in Lime Shores, the town that the hedgehog and fox duo arrived in when they introduced themselves to Viridonia. The waves and the buildings shined just as bright as when they saw them the first time around, but gorgeous as they were, the sights were not on the heroes’ minds. The ominous creature that attacked them here had yet to be found, and at the moment, they had no clues as to where else it could possibly be hiding.

“So, uh, Trudy,” Sonic began to ask as he looked around aimlessly, having made sure to stick with his nickname for her rather than make another failed attempt to pronounce her real name. “What’s the nearest region from this point that we haven’t visited yet?”

“Oh, well...” Lutrudis had to pause for a moment as she was put on the spot, but it didn’t last for long. “There’s a jungle near the east side of the town, if that means anything to you. You don’t suppose it could be there, do you...? We don’t have any evidence for that...”

“No, but if Ol’ Egghead’s around here, he’s probably making a mess there too. He NEVER leaves a spot undisturbed.”

“It’s also a safe bet that there’s a link between him and the monster,” Tails added. “He’s commanded OTHER monsters, after all, and his presence in Viridonia sure is conveniently timed with its appearance. So even if we don’t find it in person, we could find out more about what’s going on at least.”

“Well, it’s not like we have other leads for the time being...” Lutrudis scratched the side of her face as she exchanged an unsure glance with Sonic to her left, and Tails to her right. “To the jungle it is, then?”

“Right away!” As expected of him, Sonic wasted no time in curling into a ball and rolling out of view in seconds. The seasoned and trained Tails was able to keep up with him easily, but Lutrudis...

“Oh dear, please wait up...!” She asked desperately as she tried in vain to keep up, being extremely careful not to overexert herself. “Not everyone is as fast as you, you know!”

“Actually,” Sonic began, having slowed down his speed a little so that Lutrudis could hear him. “Tails can catch up with me, he’s doing it right now!.So can Amy! Then there’s Shadow... and there’s Blaze... even KNUCKLES can be pretty fast when he puts his mind into it!”

“.........Not everyone is as fast as you, you know!” Lutrudis repeated with extra emphasis, while sounding even more desperate than the previous instance.

——

Tricky Tropics Zone

TT Act 1: Luscious Jungle

Lutrudis’ Badnik Logs: Buzz Bomber - “Everyone knows these buzzing pests. They fly around minding their own business, but if you’re nearby, they’ll shoot pellets at you. Curiously, they have the same face as Motobug... Perhaps they’re made on the cheap?”

Coconuts - “These cheeky monkeys will throw bombs at you from the safety of their trees, but some of them are bold enough to toss them them at you from the ground. Their bombs are even designed like coconuts! Gotta give points to them for keeping it thematically appropriate, I guess.”

Bloominator - “Don’t go admiring this flower! Behind those petals lies a seemingly endless supply of spiked projectiles, which it’ll be all too happy to launch at you should you go near it.”

Mushmeanie - “They pose as mushrooms... and then they don’t once their casings are whacked off. They bounce along the ground aside from that, though I must say, they’re rather cute for killer robots...”

Rhinotank - “It would seem that this design incorporates visual elements from both the Rhinotank and its older model, the Rhinobot, making for a very sleek yet dangerous result... Either way though, it still charges at you should you pop up in its sight.”

Teething Tiki - “Have the idols of the jungle come to life!? ...No, they’re just knockoffs made by the doctor. They’re quick to grab you in the hopes of taking a chomp out of you, which isn’t very idol-like if you ask me.”

You're getting into the adventuring spirit now, but things will be a little trickier around here compared to your time in the meadows. (Even the name gives that away.) The jungles are teeming with all sorts of natural traps, and that's without throwing in Eggman's environmentally unfriendly band of mooks. But you heroes have been through plenty of jungles before, so this will be a breeze... right?

The greenery surrounding the environment is very rich in tone, as are the vivid colours of the flowers, but those are not the only things you’ll be seeing here. Like Frog Forest before it, Luscious Jungle is named after its vast array of succulent, yet unnaturally-sized fruit, many of which can be used to assist you in your journey. You can use apples as stepping stones on the water, bananas can be used in place of ramps, grapes can be bounced upon to reach extra heights... And if you’re feeling really daring, you can even roll the giant oranges and lemons into unsuspecting Badniks. There’s plenty of fruit to experiment with, so don’t be afraid to do just that, even if it’s purely for the sake of your own amusement.

Sonic: Sorry Tails, I have to say it... orange you glad there’s so many of them?

Tails: ...Couldn’t resist, could you?

Sonic: Nope!

Lutrudis: Sounds like someone’s being a bit of a sour grape.

Tails: Aw, not you too!

Lutrudis: *giggle*

But what’s a jungle without its animal inhabitants? That’s right, you’ll get to encounter the exotic wildlife around here too. Some of them, like oncoming zebra herds and aggressive tigers, only serve to hinder you. Others can benefit you instead, like the elephants who are all too happy to launch you out of their trunks (hedgehog quills cause no pain for them, apparently), and the birds who occasionally drop handy item boxes... Just don’t get mixed up with the actual wildlife and Eggman’s wildlife. Regular monkeys aren’t known for having bombs on their person.

Though the area is largely dense, there are occasional segments from outside the immediate jungle area that lead into sprawling savannah landscapes. The glow of the mighty sunlight makes them an impressive sight to see, but be warned, for the Teething Tiki robots can often be found lurking in these exact areas. Luckily though, if you can’t be bothered confronting them, you can climb up the necks of the giraffes to lose track of them, as well as treat yourself to an awesome view.

Once you find the end capsule, you may notice there’s a blocky pyramid structure towering over the trees. You can’t see all of it, but it would be remiss of you to not investigate it...

——

“And just through here, you’ll find... this!” Lutrudis moved a large bush out of the way so that Sonic and Tails could see what she was referring to. As it turns out, she was referring to a village with a distinctly primitive quality. Wooden huts and stone pyramids were dotted across the land, in league with imposing idol monuments, and passageways made of temple structures. The sunlight had simmered down ever so slightly, but its shine was still palpable, and the wooded barriers surrounding the village had various colours of the rainbow painted on them. The colours still popped even after the years of decay and rust.

“Quite a sight, huh?” The horse turned to the two guys, but she noticed they had a peculiar look of thought on their faces, as if they were looking at something else entirely.

“It’s kind of like... like that city I was sent to during Chaos’ rampage, in the past... Wow...” Needless to say, Tails was very amazed by what he saw. “I know it’s different, but it looks so much like that city...”

“Wait, that happened to you too!?” Sonic asked his buddy out of equal amazement. “I was sent to the past during that time too! Yeah, I totally get you, Tails. This looks a LOT like that place...”

Lutrudis took a moment to analyse their mutual sense of wonder with crossed arms, before glancing back at the village herself with a neutral emotion.

“I’ve never time travelled, so I can’t comment.”

Tails examined the village further, in an effort to spot for citizens. “So would we be unwelcomed here, or...?”

“Well, no one’s actually lived here for a long time,” Lutrudis casually explained, all the while fiddling a little with the tip of her ponytail. “Certainly never seen a thriving community in this part since I was a kid.”

“So we SHOULD be fine if we run around in it?”

“As long as you don’t break any priceless artifacts and disgrace the work of whosoever lived here in ye olden days, then yes, I would say so.”

“Pfft, please. You think I can’t control my speed?” Sonic chuckled as he started running ahead to the village.

“I would say your turning is a bigger point of concern,” Lutrudis lightly snarked back as she followed him. Tails followed suit, and as he did so, he smiled to himself, as he continued to witness how quickly his new friend was getting used to the company of his oldest.

Little did any of them know however, that a camera was spying on them from the skies, held by the hands of a familiar blue droid with shifty eyes. Though it made no sound, the siren on his head glowed bright red in accordance with his sinister intentions. Using his jetpack, the round robot flew away from the scene in a hurry, satisfied with his footage.

——

TT Act 2: Temple Village

Lutrudis’ Badnik Logs: Jag-Off - “Such a ferocious beast! These jaguar bots are quick to pounce on you at a moment’s notice. They can be pretty fast... but not as fast as a blue hedgehog, right?”

Mayan Pawn - “Dressed in the style of ancient warriors, these dark blue Pawns will attempt to shiv you with their spears if you’re close, or they’ll resort to their blowguns if you’re at a distance. The doctor sure likes his stereotypes, huh...”

Returning Enemies: Buzz Bomber Coconuts Rhinotank Teething Tiki

Far from the first time you’ve been in an environment like this, but at least you weren’t warped to the past this time around. In this stage, you’ll get to explore all the ins, the outs, and the arounds of this ancient village, and suffice to say, it’s a pretty big village at that. And don’t worry, despite their intimidating stature, the idols won’t come to life, although the Teething Tikis are still around, so be vigilant.

There are no natives living among here anymore, but there are a few explorers for you to talk to if you want to, as evidenced by the little camp site they’ve set up in the area. Some of the explorers have a few interesting things to say...

“It’s said that this was once a populated city, but one day, everyone just vanished off the map! What do you think could have caused that? Did they bring a cruel fate upon themselves, like the ancient echidnas? Or was it something else... something more...?”

“It’s funny... This place looks ancient and all, but something about it feels very... NOT that ancient, if you know what I mean? ...Not even I’m completely sure on what I mean, though...”

Others have less than insightful things to say...

“Wow, are you really Sonic the Hedgehog!? I’m honored to meet you!... Now get out of the way. I can’t take the perfect shot of these pyramids while you’re mugging the camera.”

The majority of the village is on the outside, so the instances where you go inside the temples don’t last for long. That doesn’t mean they’re uneventful though: You can expect to find a healthy number of traps waiting for anyone foolish enough to enter, such as the spears that shoot from the walls, and the weak segments of ground that give way to a ghastly bed of spikes. It’s not all that pleasant, but you’ll live. (Unless you die, of course.)

The newcomer enemies are at their most prominent in the interior sections of the temples. Jag-Offs can almost jump scare you with how quick they can pounce, but they’re nothing too unbearable aside from that. The Mayan Pawns aren’t as fast, but they are more annoying, particularly when they use their blowguns.

It’s not just the temples you can explore, however. Some of the biggest and reddest trees have walkways built around them, and several tunnels have been made from within them. Have fun with scaling and shooting through the pine, but don’t get too careless, for Buzz Bombers love to hang around these sections.

When you finally reach the last bunch of temples in the area, it will turn out that I wasn’t being fully honest with you, for a particularly demonic-looking idol DOES come to life, which takes your character by surprise. Tails’ shocked reaction in particular is priceless.

Tails: AIEEEEEE!

After it takes a moment to growl menacingly at you, it then ascends higher in the air... revealing a serpent-esque body made of black stone, with red and orange markings for good measure. It also reveals two arms, each with the same colour scheme. While the explorers understandably run for dear life, you are made from a braver substance, meaning you’ll have to be the one who actually fights this thing. Unlucky!

BOSS: Idolossus

Right off the bat, it’ll summon four Teething Tikis. You don’t need to destroy them, but you might as well before they get in your way. The Idolossus itself is fond of using its strong arms to pummel you in all kinds of ways, most notably by slamming its hand at where you’re positioned, and sweeping an arm either clockwise or counter-clockwise along the ground.

What do you do? Well, the battlefield here consists of all the area that you’re currently in, so make use of that to get a fair distance away from it. It can still make a grab for you though, for its arms can extend their length to a certain point. Notice how some of the walls have large holes in them? What you want to do is position yourself in front of one of those holes, so that when it launches its arm and hopefully misses you, it’ll get stuck. It’s a rather tragic yet comedic sight, but you can’t think about that for too long, as it’ll eventually get its arm free if you don’t react fast enough. Quickly jump on the arm, spin dash all the way to the body, and land a hit on its eye. It’ll howl in pain while you fall back down to the ground,

It only takes three hits in total, but don’t assume that’ll make things easy. With each hit, it summons a greater amount of Teething Tikis, and more worryingly, it grows two more arms with each hit, culminating in a total of six arms. It also starts throwing in a few fire-based attacks for good measure, such as spitting out fireballs and leaving a temporary trail of flame wherever it sweeps the ground. You’ll also need to use a different wall with a hole in it for each hit, since the ones you already made use of get completely destroyed afterwards.

Spin dashing along the arm will be made tougher each time, since its extra arms will attempt to hinder you even while you’re trying to reach the body. But you can manage. Three hits in, and the Idolossus will let out one last howl before crumbling to the ground in pieces, revealing circuitry within its stone exterior. Not that there was any doubt beforehand that Eggman made this idol, but it’s nice to know for sure nonetheless.

——

“Personally, I thought this one looked ugly anyway,” Sonic commented upon looking around at the debris of the idol they had faced with his hands on his hips. He shook his head disapprovingly. “Seriously, black and red? Sticks out like a sore thumb. Not that that’s unusual for Eggman’s junk...”

“What was it doing here, though?” Tails asked as he scratched his head. “It’s a little weird for an Eggman robot to just hang around here and do nothing until we showed up... Maybe it was guarding something?”

“You might be onto something there, Tails,” Lutrudis grimly noted as she pointed in the direction of a few bushes and trees, which appeared to be emitting a strange purple mist. The three of them exchanged looks with each other, and with varying levels of dread, they slowly walked towards where the mist was radiating from. Sonic, the one in front, quickly brushed many bushes aside, his two associates close behind. The thick vegetation proved troublesome to traverse, but they marched on regardless, until at last, Sonic found the very definite source for the mist. Namely, a river filled with a substance that he had seen before...

“Mega Mack!” Sonic exclaimed.

“Mega Mack?” Tails asked with shock as he got to see it for himself.

“Mega Mack!”

“Mega Mack?” Lutrudis questioned in turn as she saw it too. She only had to glance at the area a grand total of once before she immediately covered up her face with her bandana. “Goodness gracious, that stuff stinks.”

“Yeah. Mega Mack. That freaky gunk that Eggman loves so much.”

Sonic frowned as he looked at the rest of the scene. In spite of the chemical’s effects, the rest of the environment remained fairly pleasant. The plant life and moss took on a much darker green than it did in the immediate jungle region, and the flowers came in stunning shades of white and light blue. A pale white shine engulfed the area, creating a sight that stood in stark contrast with the purple pollutant.

The hero’s firm expression grew tighter, as it only reminded him of what Eggman was doing to the place. He never understood the scientist’s habit of turning everything he could find into glamorized environmental hazards... nor did he care to know, as Eggman was infamous for his general callousness anyway. All he knew was that the river would only get worse if he didn’t put a stop to it.

“It won’t be pleasant,” he turned to Tails. “But we’ll have to follow the river if we want to find the source of this gunk.”

“There are worse experiences,” Tails shrugged, in a tone that implied he was thinking of something in particular when he spoke.

“If that’s what it takes...” Lutrudis added, her bandana still covering her face tightly. “This is still part of my home. I can’t just stand here and let the doctor get away with this disgrace, can I? The sooner we find the source, the sooner we can make this place less inhospitable... and less stinky.”

——

TT Act 3: Gloomy Bog

Lutrudis’ Badnik Logs: Venus Dire Trap - “Self-explanatory, really. When they spot it, they’ll make a swift lunge for their prey... which, according to their programming, is you. Pretty grim...”

Returning Enemies: Buzz Bomber Bloominator

Don’t let the unflattering name fool you, this swamp actually looks pretty nice in spite of its current situation (and, you know, being a swamp). It’s only really gloomy because it’s in the process of being corrupted by Eggman’s influence. The Mega Mack is not fatal - you can take a dip in it with no trouble (although why you would want to do that is anyone’s guess) - but like with regular water, you can drown in it if you’re under there for too long. If you’d rather not dive in the Mega Mack and risk getting a disease, there are wooden walkways and loops that you can run across.

You can also use the vines to catapult yourself across different angles, which can be exploited if you’re a cunning sort of player. On the other hand, the biggest obstacle around here are the mud pits. They’re not fatal either, but the longer you’re stuck in them, the slower you can move... which can prove to be a disastrous consequence if there’s a Badnik nearby.

Speaking of Badniks, the Venus Dire Traps are very fast for a second zone enemy. They’re not impossible to counter, but you really have to stay on guard with them, or else you’ll be turned into prey in seconds. The Buzz Bombers also like to fly above areas with mud pits, and the Bloominators are rather annoyingly placed in the middle of the walkways a lot of the time.

And by the way? Don’t think going through the whole stage under the Mega Mack will grant you an easy victory. Aside from the usual worry of drowning, Eggman was crafty enough to leave a few Venus Dire Traps under the Mega Mack as well... and since your reaction time is ever so slightly slower when underwater, dealing with THEM while underwater is a lot harder. Although you will be rewarded with handy items if you get past all the danger, so it’s your choice...

When you reach the capsule, you’ll spot what appears to be the source of the Mega Mack: a giant, mechanical bee hive compound. Buzz Bombers are rapidly flying out of it, and Mega Mack is callously spewing from different angles within the holes located on the structure. You better shut this thing down, eh?

——

TT Act 4: Hornet’s Nest

Lutrudis’ Badnik Logs: Hive Bomber - “Inside the big hive lies... miniature hives! Should you be careless enough to touch it, it’ll release a group of bite-sized Buzz Bombers for you to deal with. As if there weren’t enough of these fiends around here already, sheesh...”

Returning Enemies: Buzz Bomber Bloominator Venus Dire Trap

Another immediate jump to the next act. This stage takes place both outside and inside the robotic hive, as it’s been fortified in the event that you turned up to try and wreck the place. On the outside, you’ll have to deal with more Venus Dire Traps and Bloominators, as well as the natural hazards of the marshy environment. You may be reminded of the Great Megalith in fact, as the fortifications around the exterior are quite fancy, complete with lamps hanging on the ceilings, and on the walls.

The interior of the hive, however, is a different story. Fittingly enough, you’re gonna have to deal with a lot of Buzz Bombers in here, as well as their junior counterparts hiding away in their own little hives. Being the progenitor of the Mega Mack, there’ll be rivers of that here and there too, but since they’re rushing very rapidly here, you’ll get sent along its course if you accidentally go for a swim in it, Don’t worry though, this won’t count as a death. Usually it’ll just take you to an earlier point in the level, so it’s still annoying, but not an instant kill.

Naturally, there’s a bunch of honey-related gimmicks and obstacles in the hive as well. Honey on the walls can be used for wall jumping purposes, and honey slides can be used to gain a ton of momentum for the giddy players who like to just go fast. If you’re going up a slide, you can jump along the platforms that are conveniently provided for you.

The stage is honestly pretty straightforward for the most part, with no big surprises... until the end. You will eventually reach a tunnel, and it seems you’re in the clear, since there are no enemies or obstacles to be found. But your character is running towards the camera... You know what that means...

Right on cue, a truly massive Buzz Bomber emerges from the ground, and it wastes no time in chasing you down, presumably for all those years of destroying its smaller offspring. It won’t do anything other than chase you, but it’s pretty speedy, so don’t get cocky. Remember, there is honey everywhere in this tunnel, so on the occasion that it makes a faster charge towards where you’re running, you can avoid it by simply running along the other edges of the tunnel.

After a while, the tunnel will cease, and you and your chaser will reach an interesting room with a flower-shaped device in the center of it... which also happens to have five rivers of Mega Mack emerging from it. Now that you’re not being chased, you can have a better look at this Buzz Bomber. Longer wings, brighter stripes, notable spikes on its tail, a tiara-esque shape on its head... yes, this must be the queen. Time for some regicide.

BOSS: Queen Bomber

The Queen will start off by doing what every Buzz Bomber does: fly around and shoot pellets. Although for obvious reasons, its pellets are fairly larger than that of the average Bomber’s, and are thus harder to avoid. It will do this three times, although if you fly up as Tails, or make use of your parkour as Sonic, you can whack the Queen early to get it to move on. This won’t count as a hit, but it helps speed up the process if you’re impatient.

Either way, the Queen will eventually place itself in the middle of the flower, and the flower will close itself up to reveal laser cannons underneath, which will then process to sweep the ground. This can be tricky to dodge when you’re also trying to avoid the Mega Mack, but it’s also your moment to strike. Once the lasers have stopped, there’s a brief moment before the flower petals lower to reveal the Queen. Before that happens, spin dash one of the petals three times as quickly as you can, and this will destroy said petal.

The Queen will grow furious that you harmed its lovely flower, and in response, it’ll fly out of the camera’s view and fire a rapid onslaught of pellets straight to the ground. Fortunately, they have shadows, so you have an early warning as to where they’ll land. After which, the normal process will continue. Avoid the pellets, dodge the flower’s lasers, whack another petal three times. Smooth sailing from here, right?

Well, not quite. The process itself largely remains the same, but you’ll have more to dodge the longer the fight goes on. After two petals are destroyed, the Queen will make use of those spikes on its tail by firing them at you. Unlike the pellets, the spikes will temporarily bounce along the walls from different angles, and they’re faster as well. The Queen itself will also be slightly quicker in firing its usual pellets.

After four petals are shredded, the Queen will summon regular Buzz Bombers for assistance, so you’ll have to deal with them too. However, some of them will be colored red instead of blue. Aside from being a visual nod to the similar Buzzer model, it’s also an indication that they work a little differently, as the red Bombers will forgo shooting pellets in favor of getting in your personal space, hurting you via physical contact. This can be irritating, but you can use it to your advantage by attacking them from a certain angle so that they’ll crash straight into one of the remaining flower petals, destroying said petal in one hit.

When all six petals are down, the Queen will get REALLY mad, and it’ll throw all its previous patterns out of the way in favor of charging straight towards you! Simply bop it on the head a single time... and it’ll blow up. How anticlimactic.

Well, it’s still a Buzz Bomber at the end of the day. They’ve always went down in one hit. I guess the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.

——

With the Queen’s defeat, and the destruction of its flower, the rivers of purple liquid in the hive slowly began to die down. Their course grew slower, their gushing grew quieter, until eventually, the tunnels and holes that were once full of the chemical were drained completely.

“Yeah!” Sonic cheered as he pumped a fist in the air. “No more lousy Mega Mack!” He followed it up by exchanging a bouncy high five with Tails.

“i just hope the river will recover from this,” Lutrudis muttered with concern as she fidgeted with her hands. Her bandana was down again, now that her sensitive nose was no longer affected by the surroundings. “A lot of the goop made its way there... I hope it’s not permanently tarnished...”

Sonic gradually stopped cheering as he found himself unsure on what to say in response, as he too wasn’t sure about whether it would fully recover or not. Having noticed his friend’s worrying, he could only throw a look of sympathy her way. Tails simply looked down at his feet, similarly uncertain on how to address the horse’s thoughts.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Sonic gently reassured her with a small smile, patting her on the back. “Maybe not immediately, but... things have a way of working out. Trust me.”

"Heh...”

“As for that beast, we’ve STILL not found it,” Sonic pondered out loud. “We haven’t found Eggman either, come to think of it...”

“Why do you think Eggman’s hiding?” Tails questioned.

“Your guess is as good as mine, Tails,” the hedgehog shrugged as his quills drooped. “I mean, it’s not like he’s being secretive about his involvement. We KNOW it’s him. We KNOW he’s here. Being coy isn’t like him at all...”

“Hey, guys?” Lutrudis seemed hesitant to mention what was on her mind, but she went through with voicing her thought. “I don’t know this for sure, but... I think I might have an idea on what the doctor is searching for.”

“You do???” Sonic and Tails cried out in unison.

“Please tell us, Trudy,” Sonic added urgently, yet not without tenderness. “This could really help us. Even if you’re not sure about it, tell us anyway. If we can have even a vague idea on what he could be up to, we can stop him a lot quicker.”

The young lady was conflicted. Doubt plagued her mind. What if this wasn’t it? What if she leads them to something that amounts to nothing? What if she completely wastes their time and creates more problems instead of solving them? She looked at Tails, who nodded reassuringly, then she turned back to Sonic, and she looked deep into his eyes in particular. She felt her anxiety simmering down as she focused on the hedgehog’s bright, green, friendly eyes. She took a moment to nod to herself as she finally began to spill the beans.

“I’ll take you to it myself. It’s not far from my residence.”

——

“So they were at my Mega Mack compound, I see...” mused an all too familiar voice hidden away in the shadows, as he watched the footage that was provided to him by the blue robot, who twitched nervously at his master’s brief period of silence.

“Is the hedgehog foiling your plans again, doctor?” asked another voice in the shadows.

“...Nah,” the voice replied in an uncharacteristically relaxed tone. “He’s not doing that at all, not this time. You see, he can actually destroy as much of my stuff as he wants... and it won’t mean a thing. I’ll still win.”

“And what makes you so certain of that? What exactly are you planning?”

“Ho ho ho... You’ll find out in time. That said however...” He examined the footage once more, stroking his trademark facial hair all the while. “I think I’m going to keep an eye on the new girl.”

“She doesn’t seem like anything worth concerning yourself over, doctor. She has no fancy abilities from what we’ve seen, no experience with the Chaos Emeralds...”

“I have learned a valuable lesson over the years, Orbot. When Sonic makes a new friend, they always cause trouble for me. I’m NOT taking any chances.”

“Understood, sir.”

“That’s what I like to hear. Now then... Are YOU ready for your next job?”

A hand emerged from the darkness to point down at the blue droid. He looked to his left and to his right, as if he were wrongly accused of a crime. He finally nodded slowly, almost anxiously, his siren still shining brightly.

“Good stuff! Then in that case...”

Out of the shadows stepped a robot who looked very similar, but not completely identical, to the blue one. He was triple the height, with a proud spot of red. As three similar pairs of red eyes glowed behind the two machines, the red one silently raised his scepter in the air, as if to celebrate a glorious occasion.

A grin slowly formed on their master’s face. A grin that Sonic had seen many, many times throughout his adventures.

“Let’s go crash the party, my loyal Heavies...”

------

Back to Chapter 1...

To Chapter 2-3 Interlude...

#Sonic & Tails: Beyond the Stars #Crusher's Fanfiction #Sonic the Hedgehog #Fanfiction

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pasiphile · 7 years

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hey out of curiosity for Doctor Who (which I used to live but stopped watching because I lost hope for it), what happened that fucked it up this time? I don't care about spoilers, I'm just curious about how Moffatt keeps ruining good things

Okay, so, I’m gonna try to sum it all up, but if at any poit you think wait what this makes no fucking sense, that might just be the episode rather than me not explaining coherently.

So:

(cw: suicide, derealisation, dissociation. Seriously.)

Ep starts with the Doctor receiving an email with title “Extremis”. The screen then goes briefly static, opening theme starts playing like usual, and we’re up at the first scene, which is: a bunch of cardinals and the Pope, coming to the Doctor for help, because they don’t know who else to turn to. Apparently there’s an ancient text in the Vatican that used to have a translation, but the translation got lost after the sect who took care of the text committed mass suicide. Now, the text has been retranslated, but the translation’s gone lost again and everyone working on it has, again, committed suicide. So can the Doctor please come help? And why did they come to the Doctor? Apparently he got recommended by Pope Benedict the Ninth, who the Doctor describes as “a lovely girl” and “what a night”.

(Main offences: continuing the trend of the Doctor as basically Jack Harkness shagging his way through the universe; and using the fucking Vatican as the generic help-demanding damsels in distress. You know, I get already a bit miffed when they start using the Pentagon or the American President or Downing Street and portray them as fucking likeable and a bit helpless, but the fucking Vatican as the heroes?)

Next scene: Bill is taking a date home. A bit of haha-clueless-foster-mum as she tells off Bill for bringing a date home, then relaxes when she sees it’s a girl ‘cause obviously it’s not a date, then. Anyway, foster-mum (I think it’s her? No explanation whatsoever here) leaves and the girls go drink tea together. Bill’s date’s a bit nervous because “she’s not used to all this,” and Bill gives a lovely little speech about how “this isn’t anything yet if you don’t want it to be” and generally being full of reassurance and kindness and loveliness, well done Bill. She ends with “this is nothing to feel guilty about” - at which point the Tardis lands in another room in her house and the Pope comes storming in, talking in Italian. Bill’s date freaks out, runs to the other room, finds a bunch of cardinals in Bill’s bedroom and runs away in a panic. Bill, annoyed, tells the cardinals “they’re all going to hell”.

(Now, see, this would have worked for me if it was a thing they followed up on, like Bill being aggressively gay at the Pope and the Doctor choosing her side or something. But the way it’s played, it’s a gratuitous throwaway joke about religion and lesbian guilt, which, fuck no.)

The Doctor, Nardole (new sorta companion? idek how to explain him) and Bill go to the Vatican, where they’re keeping the text. The entrance to the hall of texts is a portrait of Pope Benedict IX, who turns out to be young and conventionally pretty and feminine. Doctor makes another flirty remark about her.

(THE DOCTOR IS NOT JACK FUCKING HARKNESS CHRIST FUCK)

As they head to the secret room, they pass a strange glowy portal that briefly appears, then disappears. One of the cardinals stays behind to examine it, and as everyone moves on we can just see a creepy red-robed hand reaching through the portal for the cardinal - who is never mentioned again, nor does anyone feel like checking up on him. Anyway, they go to the cage where they keep the text, where they find a panicked priest - the last surviving translator, holding a gun. He panics and runs off, leaving behind his laptop, where they find he sent the translation of the text to CERN. CERN wrote back an email saying “Pray for us”.

(they use the fact that hard scientists revert to religion as a sign of how bad things are, but it’s just - stupid and heavy-handed and simplistic. Booh.)

Bill, Nardole and the Doctor discuss the text, the Doctor tries to send them away after the man with the gun. Bill says something along the lines of “we don’t even know if he’s still alive” - at which point we hear a bang, and the Doctor’s sensors give a “no life signals detected” warning for the guy. And there’s a line like “guess we know now”.

(suicide as a throwaway joke)

The Doctor convinces Nardole and Bill to go off exploring while he looks at the text. There’s a cringe-inducing moment where Nardole, the bumbling assistant, gives this meant-to-be-authoritative speech to Bill about how she needs to stay behind him for her safety. Bill is impressed and obeys, saying “Are you secretly a badass?” all admiring.

(Cringe. Ugh. There was something incredibly patronising about that speech.)

They find the portal, go through and find a round room full of glowy lights, with a circle of pillars in the middle and portals all along the wall. They head through a portal and end up in CERN, where they bump into a man in a white coat drinking from a bottle, who seems cheerful in a desperate way. He invites them along and they end up in the dining room, where a bunch of other scientists are all sitting looking scared, and a timer counts down from five minutes. Bill looks under the tables, where bombs are strapped. She gets into a discussion with one of the scientists, who tells her they’re killing themselves to save the world, that this isn’t the real world, and when she doesn’t believe him, he asks her to say a random number. Each time Bill says a number, Nardole says exactly the same number at the same time, and after the first few tries the rest join in, each time giving all the same numbers. The scientist calls it a shadow test. With only a few seconds left on the timer, Nardole drags Bill away. They run off, and the scientists get blown up.

They end up in the round room with all the portals again, where Nardole says the pillars remind him of projectors. He realises what the shadow test is for, saying it’s possible the people at CERN where right and that they are just a projection - but he doesn’t understand, because he checked the coordinates on the Tardis and they were real. Unless... Then Nardole, with an expression of pure fear, muttering please let me be wrong, walks slowly to the pillars/projectors. As soon as he puts his hands beyond the projectors, he starts falling apart in pixels, screaming in terror I’m not real, Bill! I’m not real!

(do I... do I even need to explain how disturbing this is?)

Bill, in a panic, goes to find the Doctor. The Doctor has started to read the text but got interrupted by scary monsters in cardinal robes, who tell him when he yells this isn’t a game, “this *is* a game”. But the Doctor escapes, with the text. Bill follows his traces through a portal which leads to the Pentagon, and the Oval Office, where the Doctor is waiting and someonelse eis sitting with his back to us, slumped in a chair. “Is that the president?” “Was the president.” There’s a gun next to him.

(I lack the words, tbh)

The Doctor then finally explains. The text talks about how an Evil Monster wants to conquer the world, so it creates an exact holographic simulation copy of the real world to practice in, full of simulation-versions of real people. But the simulation is so good that the simulated people start developing independent intelligence. The people at CERN and at the Pentagon were simulations; their suicide wasn’t desperation but an act of resistance, preventing the Evil Monster from learning from them. The shadow test is mentioned in the text too; computers aren’t good with random numbers, so one test to see if you’re a simulation or not is to write down what you think are random numbers, then see if someone else got the exact same numbers. Bill, scared, says she gave the same numbers as the others too. The Doctor says I know, and Bill, terrified, dissolves into pixels. The monsters then come back in (they’re properly scary, btw, look like decomposing corpses) and tell the Doctor that he can’t do anything, that they’re keeping him alive to learn from his suffering. The Doctor almost gives up, then remembers something River once said (real goodness is goodness when there’s no hope, no reward and no witness) and he - somehow - sends an email with the entire recording of everything that happened since they went to the Vatican to the real Doctor (he was wearing his sonic sunglasses the whole time because he’s blind - long story, but they recorded what happened).

Screen goes to static, and we’re back at the very first scene, with the Doctor receiving the Extremis email and looking at it. He calls Bill, asks her if she’s on a date - she’s not - and then encourages her to call up the girl from the date, even though Bill says she’s way out of her league, because Something big and evil is coming and we’re going to be very busy soon. Roll credits; writer: Steven Moffat.

There’s also a sideplot with Missy being executed, only the Doctor backs out of the execution at the last moment and instead locks her up in a vault for thousand years which he vows to protect. Missy begs for her life and calls the Doctor her friend, and at the end of the episode the Doctor leans in to the vault and asks for her help. Horribly out of character, in short.

So. Plotwise? Bollocks. Really. Nothing makes sense. A simulation complex enough to mimic the entire history of the Earth can’t do random numbers? (it’s the same trick he used in a Christmas Special, btw, where it was a Dream Test - originality is not Moffat’s strong point). Some people have to kill themselves, while others just dissolve? How does a simulation send an email to a real person? etc etc.

Then there’s the implications. The whole thing is steeped in derealisation, suicide is fucking everywhere and actually treated as a solution, the Vatican and the Pope are cuddly allies and religion is everywhere. I didn’t see the end of the credits but I do fucking hope they put in the usual helpline-thing the BBC adds after showing triggering content.

We’re right back at the worst of Moffat’s last few seasons. For five episodes we’ve had villains who turned out to be not actually evil but simply the victim of severe misunderstanding; we’ve had curiosity and wanting to help as the Doctor’s main motivation; we’ve had explicit pacifism; we’ve had enemies that basically come down to “capitalism”, “racism” and “the patriarchy” (no, really, I swear).

And now, it’s another generic Big Evil Monster, it’s throwaway gay jokes with no follow up, and it’s arguably the most fucked-up underlying message I’ve ever seen in a Doctor Who episode. I mean, I thought the billion-years-of-repeated-torture was an unbeatable high in making me feel disgusted and uncomfortable, but I’ve never been as grossed out as I was during this episode.

#koni and i started out frowning at each other every once and a while #and then the last twenty minutes or so we just went I DONT LIKE IT at each other #over and over again #i spent half of the time looking away because i just. didn't. Want. To. Watch.#i just wanted to know how it ended #it was awful and clumsy and badly-written and horrible and i never want to see it again #astranaut #Doctor Who #Extremis #ARGH

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cutegirlmayra · 4 years

Text

Lavinya the Red Fox’s part in Soler’s story

This is for @solerwolf21‘s story, where he was wondering if I’d let Lavinya have a cameo for it!

Here’s the scenario he gave me for my Sonic OC (Who is OP and basically Genie-like from Aladdin. Just a jester, comedy relief character to be honest, but as brilliant as Jack Sparrow’s accidental tomfoolery)

Our chat:

solerwolf21 : Alright if your down theres two the first is like an intro to the character if you want but basically shes doing some task around the base (leave that up you) and she's about to bite it in doing the task but Soler comes to help her and we learn that they know each other (this definitely isn't the first time he's helped her)

The second is later on Shay escapes and Soler, Shadow and Sally are late to get there but someone is distracting him turns out is its our girly (again you can go nuts with whatever it is shes doing) but before Shay could get in a hit Soler comes in for the save again and though he tries to scold her slightly she feels she's saved the day (which she sorta did lol)

cutegirlmayra : Lol sounds legit how Lavinya behaves lol My first idea is that he's trying to get past her and she slams her hand into the wall to block him and looks up like, "Hey, you're hot." and he's like really confused. "I didn't say that out loud." And he's like, "Are you an idiot?" and she goes, "Wow, but you said that out loud." lolololol

I wrote this immediately after:

First part:

It wasn’t long before the base was trying to recover, and work continued with only a minor set of hiccups…

“HYUK!” A red fox with strange blonde hair suddenly flung her back up from bending over to collect some files out of a cabinet. “Hyuk! Hyuk!” she seemed to have hiccups, and looked around for some water.

Not finding any, her tails suddenly shot her back and made her jolt towards what looked like a corner. “Ow! Hey!” the tail, as though having a mind of its own, felt around a moment before finding a cooler and began to pour a drink.

When it presented the drink to her, she sighed in relief, “HYUK!” she quickly took the cup and drank down the water, holding her breath to try and get rid of the hiccups while the tail seemed to ‘shake it’s head’ at her stupidity to even manage her own life.

“Office work…” she plugged her mouth to not hiccup, when nothing came out, she slowly opened the hand like a barn door… looked down to her mouth to wait… and then continued, “Isn’t really my forte…”

She was startled again when Soler walked by, seeming troubled and maybe focused on staying lost in his thoughts before his foot crinkled a piece of paper in his speedy walk.

“Huh?” He bent down and picked up the paper, amazed by it’s importance before examining the rest of the room. “Why are all these documents scattered everywhere?” He must have thought they were still being ransacked, so the Red fox girl quickly ran over to aid him.

“N-no-no! It’s just a light hurricane of hiccups.” She wagged her hands out in front of her as though to calm him, but he thought she was speaking metaphorically and sighed.

“Lavinya… why is it there’s always a hurricane of something when it comes to you?” He helped her picked up the papers, “You’re more suited for something where you can move around… maybe not something as delicate as… paperwork organizing.” he looked at the crinkled pieces of important papers and sighed again, ‘Who put her up to this anyway?’

“Hehe… yeah… well,... my portal hopping and poofing doesn’t exactly suit well with the princess…” She gulped, feeling her nicely cooled throat by the cold water as she did so. “They say I’m too dangerously unstable for a mission…. Since I could compromise things, and I’m not too good a messenger since I either forget or lose the message in the process. And last time, my brilliant tape recorder was almost stolen by Eggman’s forces too… soo…. I’m kinda here.” she looked around the office, showing her disdain but also sorrow at being so useless to everyone. “I can’t control my powers… so I can’t really follow directives.” she picked up another paper, and her tail swished to do the same, holding it up to her like a mouth of a creature.

She smiled sweetly and took it, “Anyway, that must be hard to understand, right?”

He looked down, thinking hard about what she said. “Actually? I completely understand.” he flopped the papers down on the desk and walked by her, patting her shoulder. “You’ll master your abilities in time. Keep at it. I know there’s a special word and symbol we can’t say or draw around you, but besides that, you’re kinda impossible to defeat, right?”

“Defeat?” She looked a little offended, “What am I? A monster to you!?”

“Well, you do say your tail is a evil mastermind.” he jokingly pointed to her tail, which at the time, was acting like a normal tail. “Who’s to say you aren’t just covering for your random tendencies to cause trouble?”

“I don’t mean too!” She slammed the papers on the desk and stormed after him. “Hey! Soler! Wait!”

“I’m leaving you in the hurricane.” he waved behind him, smiling slightly at how silly this crazy girl could get, but knew in his heart her circumstances weren’t so far off from his own… except, they were completely different, but the feelings and desires to be enough for others were the same.

----

Situation 2:

Shay flexed through the dust of his latest attack, brushing off the rubble and then cracking his individual fingers, “My poor neck…” He taunted, cracking it before rolling his shoulders as though just coming out of a leisurely spa-day. “Now… where is that charming brother of mine..?” he turned to what looked like an office, room with the wall crumbling away from it. “They don’t just kill themselves, now do they?” he continued to march with a purpose before seeing a blonde but red fox girl stick her head up, trembling, from below a desk.

He smirked, seeing the fear. He gestured for her to slowly withdraw back behind the desk, and her blue eyes just simply blinked at his gesture.

He held a finger up to his mouth as though she should remain silent, and continued towards the door.

However, before he could reach it, she slammed her hand into the wall just before the door, putting her elbow up to loop her hand behind her head, and pretended to seem like she was just chilling there.

She stuck up her lower lip and continued to play it cool… even seeing his eyes… slowly… narrow to a deadly, hostile glare of annoyance.

She thought fast, “You’re hot.” she slipped out, checking him out in a humorous way that was completely faked.

Confused, he just narrowed his eyes and slightly withdrew his neck back at her appalling display. “What did you just say?”

“Nothing out loud, I can assure you.” While her hand was behind her, she silently kept snapping it, waiting for something to randomly happen. A rubber duck poofed in behind her head and landed behind her. As it squeaked about hitting the ground, rolling till it’s head got in the way, he slowly turned to glance down at it, then raise an eyebrow.

“Eh heh, office decor. They say it’s like your home so…” she stopped herself from furthering that awkward sentence…

She kept snapping and many random items fell from behind her. A miniature rowboat, a toy snake, a slinky, a stuffed puppy, before Shay finally had enough of it.

“Are you an idiot?” he grabbed her hand that was--not so secretly--snapping and shoved her back against the door.

“Ow!” she flinched, her eye twitching slightly at the pain. “Well, you said that out loud.”

“I won’t say this again.” He leaned in and softly spoke out such harsh and cruel words, twisting his grip to really tighten and pain her arm further. “Get out of my way, witch.”

Her eyes widened slightly.

She flexed out her hand and fell back through a portal.

Out of surprise, he let her go, amazed as the vortex looked so incredibly pitch-black with other minor colors swirling around that he honestly thought she just did something magical. He felt around the space, unable to see anything, before the red fox girl’s head popped out from the ceiling.

“Yoohoo!” she called and he turned around to blast a Chaos beam at her, but she was already portaling to another spot in the office. She blew a raspberry as he suddenly was playing whack-a-mole with this strange fox girl.

“What kind of power is this!?” he stepped back and slid on the rubber ducky, causing him to fall on the rowboat which blasted a horn. He covered his ear and turned, but that triggered the toy snake which clomped on his nose. “AH!” he jumped up to his knees but the Red Fox girl grabbed the slinky by having her two arms stick out of the portals, making a pretty twisty bow as she locked his legs together.

He tried to get up but stumbled from the horrible knot and fell down again, unable to move much but he did struggle.

As he fell, she removed the soft puppy plushie as his head hit the ground hard, and then proceeded to look at the puppy as though not sure how this would help but started whacking him with it.

The door opened and seeing her friends, she held her hands up and swayed them over her face, “Hurricane~” she teased, knowing only Soler would get the reference.

She had stalled him just long enough, and that was honestly her goal.

“Lavinya…” Sally marveled, seeing him struggling to break the slinky and realizing that her power made it an unordinary slinky. “Did you do this?” she looked at her in awe.

Lavinya flexed like a strong man a few times, her tail joining her, “Well, ah-ha, yeah, I did~” she showed off, “But I was honestly going for a sword…” she deflated herself a bit and let her arms dangle down from her hunched back in front of her. Her head also seemed despondent.

“Hmph, maybe you’re not just a clown after all.” Shadow walked by her, rubbing her head as her entire character changed to sudden glee, and he went to finish the ‘rope-tying’ she had started.

“ENOUGH!” Shay blasted the room with a Chaos Blast that had each of them shoved up against a wall.

“Offph..! He hit the mole…” she joked, even while in pain, and slid to the ground. He was strong enough to finally break the strange alien slinky as the rest of Lavinya’s summoned objects suddenly poofed out of existence once she was hit and fell to the ground.

She gripped her head, and as he grabbed her tail--which mimicked biting him, as though it had regained it’s separate personality from her again--looked as though ready to rip her to shreds.

“I’m not very fond of games…”

“Lavinya!” Soler swung a punch to a--once again--distracted Shay and helped her up. “What did I say about trouble!?”

“Sally… S-Shadow…” Lavinya weakly pointed to them as Shay’s eyes shook.

“Oh no.”

-need more @solerwolf21? lol it was fun xD- (This is based on my commission I made for him as well.)

I JUST REALIZED THAT THE COOLER WOULD HAVE FLOODED AND THE RUBBER DUCKY SLIP AND FLOATING ALONG THE SLIPPERY FLOOR WOULD HAVE MADE SO MUCH SENSE AND BEEN SO MUCH MORE FUNNY LOLOLOL

Note: My spell check is the WORST on the planet, so if there’s some errors forgive me T-T

#cutegirlmayra #solerwolf21 #lavinya the red fox #sonic oc #cutegirlmayra oc #me ocs #me sonic ocs #me writings #lavinya dabble #me dabbles #me prompts

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cutegirlmayra · 6 years

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Okay, so I headcanon that Shadow occasionally roams the earth solely to admire its form because he and Maria wished to visit earth when they were on the ark. I feel like he keeps Maria's desire to do so and does so in place of her, frequently imagining her being with him. Prompt: Shadow keeps visiting a particular spot near where Amy visits(or same place) and they gradually start to become close by pure coincidence? Tweak it as you like, I want to see what changes you make to make it better 😊

(x) Thanks to @sonicsis for her amazing Preview image! Please support her as well!

Type in Cutegirlmayra.tumblr.com/commissions for Commission options. Please read rules and purchases before buying/contacting me.)

Follow @idontworkforsega , my secondary “Prompts Only” blog. It’s easier to navigate, but they aren’t all there yet. Help me collect them all! lol

PROMPTS ARE TEMPORARILY ON SHUTDOWN. Don’t request any until further notice, thank you.

Been excited to do this one… especially since I’m all about that one-sided Shadamy XD But I’ll work on platonic this time, so no worries ;p

Prompt:

‘It really is beautiful, Maria… You would have liked it.’ Shadow began his normal walk around the lush, grassy plains just outside of City Square. Not only did he despise the city, but he hated the many stares of those who walked by him. Women pulling their children closer, or men giving him wary looks, as if unsure whether to scorn him or simply leave him be.

But this… this route was far from judgment. It was where he could think in peace… a peace he had long since been denied the pleasure of.

The metal on his shoe scrapped against the slightly soggy mud of the greenest grass that waved like ripples on the sea against the earth. Thousands of small hairs… as Shadow tried to describe it.

He would constantly try and figure out ways to describe where he was. As if… she could hear his thoughts.

Where would she like to go? What would she want to know about? The more his thoughts ran wild on the subject, the more quieter the world became… and the greater his melancholy swarmed his chest and left him breathing comfortably still.

He started realizing that he truly didn’t know much about Maria. Though she meant everything to him, he had no clue what earth scenery she enjoyed the most.

He made his way over to a waterfall but paused behind some trees when he noticed something moving under the waterfall’s downhill current.

Becoming cautious, he peered further into the bush and tree-gaps in front of him… until he saw her.

Amy flipped her hair back, letting the water roll down her open-back dress and raise her head up with a smile as the water tilted down her cheeks and washed the muck of the day off of her.

She kicked her feet out and laughed, before hopping out from underneath the waterfall and giggling a moment as she finished shaking herself free of loose droplets.

She jumped from one rock to another, before growing nervous at the rush of warm, summer wind that revealed a shaded figure in front of her. Seeming to hide in the light forest shrubbery and short standing trees, she braced herself.

“Hello?” She readied her hand to summon her hammer, about to take a step forward, her eyes narrowing down. “Show yourself! Or I’ll have to come in after ya!”

“…That won’t be necessary.”

“H-huh?” She was startled by the voice, as she momentarily lifted her foot she was about to let step forward. “S-Shadow!?”

Shadow walked out from his surroundings, moving aside to avoid tree branches and close, brushy bushes. But as he did so, Amy wobbled in her surprised and fell in, splashing up from the waterfall’s pool beneath it.

“You scared me! I was hoping for Sonic!” She spat out some water before staying put where she was, watching him curve around the outside of the edge and look up at the waterfall.

“What are you doing here?” He folded his arms and stared back at her.

“Hmph, I was going to ask you the same thing.” She puffed up a side of her cheek, making a sound of disapproval before shrugging it off. “Ah, well. It’s a free world.” She winked charmingly before swimming over to him.

“Hey! Are you just out and about like I am?” She came up to the edge just behind him, as he looked off and away from her.

“You could say that.”

“So you do love to take in the sights!” her eyes shined at this new found discovery. “I knew you weren’t all bad!”

He frowned, tsk’ing at her naiveness.

Still… her presence could be useful.

“How would you describe this waterfall?” His attention was pulled back to its sparkling cascades of shimmering, babbling life.

“Huh? The waterfall?” Amy blinked her eyes in confusion, lifting her arms up to the water’s edge and then peering over at it’s magnificent, curved, and watery stairwell.

“I’d say… it was like a song.”

Shifting his head a little aways, he seemed very confused and sighed.

He put a hand to his forehead, rubbing it. “That… makes no sense.”

“Hehe! We just see things differently then!” she concluded and got up. “I could also say,” she climbed out of the water and began squeezing the ends of her dress out, flapping them a bit but not too much in front of ‘company’. “It’s rapidly progressing through the many stages of its life.” She looked at its many descending rock formations. “The water is one unit, but… you could also see it as individuals.”

He wasn’t willing to listen to a physiological examination of a waterfall. His eyelids drooped in annoyance at the stupidity of it all.

“The water bends and twists… there’s new paths to follow. And some streams take different routes, but they all end up at the same, looooong fall down to the main pool.” She followed a stream of water until it finally plummeted down.

He was actually surprised he was still paying attention.

“You see? Each path was carved through centuries of some pieces of water deciding on a different course of action. I think that’s wonderful. It’s like all the pieces of a well-developed song. There’s the main lyrical, and then the many instruments on the side.” She glided her eyes down many different avenues the water could take to reach the fall, and then smiled warmly to Shadow.

She placed her hands behind her back and leaned forward a bit, wondering if he was still paying attention. “But if you were Sonic, I would just say it’s a rushing waterfall. He’d get the picture.”

“…Just… a waterfall…” Shadow thought about that, before looking back to her ducking his head down a moment, glaring… “If you were to describe this to a child… would you use the same, figurative speech? Or the condensed version?”

“Hehe, depends on the child.” Amy lightened up from his odd act and decided not to push it further. “What would you say? I bet that’s what really counts.” She blinked over to him, still cheery as ever. “Or does ‘rushing waterfall’ do it for ya, too?” she laughed.

“…No. I would describe it a little more. Remark on the light reflecting or the sounds around it.” He looked around the area, before back at the waterfall. “It’s impressive though… seeing something in so many different ways.” He then gave her a playful look, raising an eyebrow up to make fun of her momentarily. “Do you ever wish it was just a rushing waterfall?”

She stopped laughing with a jolt, before pouting and pursing her lips over at him, hunched after losing some of her confidence for a moment. “That seems harsh.” She then looked away and her shoulders bounced in glee. “Nah… I wouldn’t change it for the world.”

As she looked off, Shadow watched the wind pull some more of her wet hair over her shoulders… before she turned slowly back to him, looking more genuine and purer than before. “I love looking at something… with fresh, new eyes every time.” She beamed, almost like the crashing of the waterfall, she had spun around with the same, gentle velocity it had taken.

His eyes widened slightly.

“I love looking at something again and again! Till I can fully grasp what it means…”

“What it.. means?” he seemed confused but intrigued. “What meaning?”

“No,” she giggled, shaking her head out and spreading her arms to her sides, “I mean… Life.” She began to wander a bit off, kicking out her feet and following after the motion with her eyes. “I guess I’m just a kid in that regard too.” she gave him one last smile, before taking off.

Accidentally, they kept meeting like that. And every time, Shadow learned a new way to describe what he was looking at.

He thought Maria would like Amy. Her unique outlook on life and the things pertaining to it was something anyone could sit and listen too. Marvel at even. If they gave her enough credit and time to talk it out, that is.

Soon, even Shadow was laughing. And once Amy got him opening up about things, she wouldn’t let him close himself off again.

She would walk with him and describe things around her like clouds are like bunnies, women are oceans and men are wildfires, and lastly…

“Shadows… I think shadows haunt where light can’t touch.”

He stopped then.

“Hmm?” she turned around, used to him brooding to himself for long periods of time, just thinking to himself, but it annoyed her greatly to feel left out of the conversation or moment.

She pouted, slightly turning her head to advance on but keeping her eyes looking over her shoulder at him.

They were up on a narrow hill, and she was doing her best to keep her balance, finding it all a game when-

She started to balance with her arms out again and look down at her feet, humming when he remained looking down until the sun covered his eyes.

“Amy… I think… Shadows are longing for where the light does touch.”

She stopped, pulling her arms back in and slowly looking back in a bit of guilt.

“…Shadows can get lonely sometimes… when they’re without.” She held the back of her hand and pulled them close to her chest, thinking… “But… I think memories are meant to be made and discovered… not just remembered and forgotten.”

“What if Shadows are the forgotten memories?” he seemed to be getting a little defensive, but there was a quiet sorrow there…

“No.” she turned around, her eyes full of compassion for his words. She shook her head, “No, no, no. That’s not true! And you know it’s not.” She slightly stomped her foot down. “Shadow… There are more people out there that need you to shade them from the harsh sunlight that constantly burns their suntans!” She flopped her arms down by her sides, as he looked up with squinted eyes, utterly confused again.

“…What?” he dropped another eyebrow down and rose the other, attempting to hear her out on this one… as he did all her odd explanations to things.

She held herself a second, before turning to look at the setting sun again.

His eyes were viewable again, so she smiled, lowering her head to fiddle a moment with twisting her toe into the grassy hillside… before closing her eyes and giggling again.

“It can be really hot sometimes. And people do need to cool off… but I don’t know how to relate that to you…” she opened them to sweetly address him again. “I… Think I may be at a loss of words… but I do know this. You’re a constant, Shadow. You never leave someone’s side. You engulf them when they feel alone in the dark. And when harsh lights are drawn on them, you support and hold them up from the back. You never fully dwindle away. You are always a friend. Always watching with the will to help. I believe that much is true.” She nodded.

There was an uncomfortable moment of silence…

Before Shadow chuckled.

“Haha…hahaha!” he actually swung his head about himself a bit, before placing a tender hand on his stomach. “Hahaha….Hahaha! A loss of words, you say?”

Suddenly, Amy was full out laughing too.

Their laughter carried across the wind and open plains… until Shadow stopped a moment to look back at her.

‘Maria…’

As the sun set, Amy’s laughing figure began to slowly fade away.

‘Amy is like her namesake. A rose. Red for passion, and gentle with a will for life. A desire to live it to it’s fullest. She pulls all into her beautiful way of seeing things. She’s not afraid… of darkness… or the light… I can only describe her as… well,… thriving.”

Fin~

(Oh, look! I did a thing =3c)

#shadamy #platonic shadamy #shadowxamy #sonic prompt #cutegirlmayra #shadow the hedgehog #shadow #amy rose #shadow prompt #shadamy prompt #maria

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