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shadamyheadcanons · 8 months

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Been thinking a lot about this and wanted your thoughts. Isn't it strange the only character shown to not be openly afraid or judgemental of Shadow is Amy? I think the only one that comes close to that is Rouge but even then

A lot of characters are easily intimidated, scared of, not trustful or even judgey of Shadow a lot of the time. Which given some past actions and his general vibe is understandable but it never seems to apply to Amy

Even when she mistook him for Sonic she wasn't immediately scared afterwards just confused and later encourages him to save the world because she believes that he is a good person deep down. It's especially prominent in the Sonic takeover video, like when it's revealed that both Shadow and Amy enjoy Taylor Swift?

Sonic is surprised that Shadow the Edgy boy likes a pop artist and treats is a semi big deal. Amy meanwhile is just happy they have something in common, not even a 'oh that's surprising coming from you', just general happy they share similar music tastes

I might be thinking too deeply into it but it occurred to me that Amy never treats Shadow as someone to be scared of and treats him as no different from anyone else right from the start.

Tbh, I don’t think it’s strange at all. It’s standard Amy behavior. Metal Sonic is a scary robot who kidnapped her as a kid, but she still helped him without hesitation in that Sonic Mania short, even after he startled her. Gamma was an armed robot who was keeping her in a cell, but she didn’t show any fear toward him; she stood up to him to protect a Flicky, then befriended him immediately. She saw Silver nearly murder Sonic with incredible powers she’d never encountered before, and she still jumped in front of him to protect Sonic anyway. The werehog was big and scary, but not only did she accept Sonic in that form, she hugged the werehog the first time she saw him and showed no discomfort about it, merely expressing confusion at having hugged the wrong person even though she actually got it right that time.

She just doesn’t see anyone as a monster. And while that’s wonderful and wholesome, it’s a little worrisome, too. Rouge likes and trusts Shadow, but I don’t think she’s unaware of the extensive damage he could do. Omega probably feels the same way. That’s the wise way of looking at it.

But Amy? It’s not just her faith in the goodness of others, it’s straight-up naiveté. Her upbringing was rife with violence, kidnapping, danger, and death, and now she doesn’t know what’s normal. This is the same girl who somehow waltzed onto Prison Island with the intention of casually rescuing Sonic from a high-security prison by herself. If Tails hadn’t shown up, she easily could’ve died! She’s honestly lucky she’s gotten this far without being seriously injured or worse.

I’m sure Shadow loves that she doesn’t fear him and truly values her for that, even if he doesn’t say so, but he’d worry about her, too. I can picture him thinking, “She clearly has no sense of self-preservation. I’ll have to look after her to make sure nothing happens.” Maybe he already does. It could figure into their interactions at Cryptic Castle in ShTH. This sweet girl takes one look at him, of all people, as terrifying as he knows he is--on the darkest story routes you can take, no less--and she says, “Friend? :D” before running off alone into a dangerous, haunted castle to save a child and a Chao. So he follows her. Because she clearly doesn’t know how to stay safe. And she’d be safer by his side than pretty much anyone else’s not only because he’s as strong as you can get in this universe, but because he’ll go farther than anyone else to protect the ones he loves. He knows how it feels to lose someone important, and he won’t let it happen again. It’s time someone put Amy first!

Still can’t figure out how Sega made these two characters so perfect for each other *by accident.* Most movies I’ve seen can’t craft things so well even on purpose.

#ask #waituntilwinterr #not a headcanon #shadamy

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beevean · 1 year

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I'm getting really tired of Ian using the whole thing about the writing and characterization in the series being inconsistent throughout the years as an excuse. Yes, there has many wildly different interpretations and takes of the characters in the many different spin-offs in media that have been made throughout it's history. Imo it's why the franchise has remained so relevant and it's fandom so active to this day, because it's made the characters and series more accessible that way. Anywhere can be a jumping on point for people. But I really don't think people are asking too much for there to be some consistency or set of rules within a continuity that he and the others working on IDW have, or tried to have, established. Unlike with Archie, where they were literally making things up as they went along, they're supposed to be starting completely from scratch with IDW.

And it doesn't help with him doing writing work on a mainline game like Frontiers, because it's meant to take place in the same exact canon as the main games. Assuming he had something to do with it, I wouldn't have any problem with how the whole Eggdad thing was done(aside from it just feeling completely rushed) if it was in a completely different continuity that was it's own thing, as the character has had so many different portrayals throughout the franchise's history. But since this is meant to be the same Eggman from the games, I have to look at it through the lense of how he's been in the previous games up until that point- which I would say has actually been pretty damn consistent- and because of that, it feels so off-putting for him to suddenly soften up out of nowhere, when he normally would have immediately pushed the off button on Sage, or do a bit of "reprogramming", the second she started talking back.

It's a lazy copout, not befitting of Best Sonic Writer The Veteran, and it's not even true!

You know what, I'll just put this from the FAQ, which wasn't written for sport:

“Games!Sonic is inconsistent.”

Yes, different writers choose to emphasize different aspects of Sonic’s personality. In ShTH, he was overly giddy and excited, and even seemed to not notice Shadow being upset because he remembered his own death. In ‘06, he was overly stoic. In Colors, he gained the sudden quirk of taunting robots who couldn’t respond.

However, Sonic still has core traits that no game has changed: for example, Games!Sonic is always supportive towards his friends, and trusts them to know what they’re doing… something that isn’t always present in IDW. Games!Sonic remarked that Shadow saved the world once and thus he isn’t just a weapon in Battle; IDW!Sonic guilt-tripped him by reminding him that he tried to obliterate the planet once in #6. Games!Sonic listens to Tails, and he makes sure to apologize to him after the one time he has offended him in Lost World; IDW!Sonic brushes Tails off and deflects blame when Tails confronts him about his decision to let Metal Sonic go in #50. Games!Sonic is fairly terse when it comes to himself, and only speaks for longer when he talks about the power of friendship; IDW!Sonic goes on whole speeches about his general modus operandi (granted, this is an issue with Flynn’s writing in general, who really seems to like writing many words).

Sonic is a simple character at his core, and as such, the traits that make his very being have always been respected. Sonic is friendly, kind although with a noticeable ego, he always always tries to save people in need even if he has no idea of what's going on, always sees the best in those people, but he's somewhat uncaring of villains, especially the ones who have crossed the line in his mind - he doesn't automatically go for the kill, but if he has to kill them, he'll do it. The fact that he's more of a chatterbox in Colors than he is in '06 doesn't mean that there is one game where Sonic has suddenly turned into a manipulative bastard, or somehow thinks that Eggman could ever reform.

The games. They're meant to be played. With care.

And of course, same with Eggman. Yes, the Eggman from '06 is a much more serious, less hammy version of the character, that is inconsistent. But throughout 31 years, Eggman never, ever displayed any positive quality that would suggest that he'd grow emotionally attached to a child, even one of his creation. This is why I hate the argument "well Bowser can be a dad and still be evil!" sure! Bowser. Not Eggman. They're not the same character. Anti-heroes who slash everyone in their way and still are heroic exist, but that doesn't mean that Sonic would be one of them!

Justifying it with "muh inconsistency" means you're not above the level of a 6 year old who makes up the rules of the game as they go along, because they really want to win.

#sonic the hedgehog #also i really hate flynn's sarcastic attitude #'it's not like...' shut up and be courteous will you?#and more respectful to the brand that allowed you to ascend so high

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welcome-to-green-hills · 1 year

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I forgot you like the science stuff ooooooooh okay and you mentioned mind uploading and I have a THOUGHT.

A HEADCANNON (kinda) because I like ti take pieces of canon and try to fit them all together.

And I'd love your thoughts.

In Sonic Brawl, Rouge says Shadow has Maria's soul. That is super vague, but we do know that Gerald was willing to go to any lengths to save Maria.

... Do you think a backup of her brain was created and 'downloaded' into Shadow?

(I have other thoughts in tandem with this but they're all mildly sad so I just want to ask the fun one💜)

Hello, my dear!❤️✨

I’m terribly sorry for taking so long on your ask. I wanted to make sure that my answer was reasonable, as well as supplied some knowledge to the character’s purpose of creation. Essentially, I wanted to make sure that I was thorough enough to share my thoughts. I’ve even shared this question with a couple of my colleagues at the lab to hear their thoughts too. This will be a pretty lengthy, but well-educated answer.

I absolutely agree, the journal entries from Sonic Battle are vague. I feel that they are purposefully meant to be vague so that the audience could make their own conclusions on what it means. Short answer: possibly, but I lean more towards “no.” Long and complicated answer can be found under the “read more” tab (because why not😅).

We just don’t know the extent of how extreme Gerald’s plans were with discovering immortality. We’ve seen in SA2, Sonic Battles, Sonic Rivals 2 and ShTH 2005 that Gerald has been known to tamper with very questionable forces in order to achieve immortality at the cost of risking everyone and everything around him. It’s desperation, yes. He care more about Maria than anything else. I think it’s just… really up for debate.

We have a couple of ideas that need to be addressed first in order for me to share my thoughts:

1). Brain uploading requirements, zettabytes

2). Psychology/Ethics and Moral Teachings

BRAIN UPLOADING REQUIREMENTS (ZETTABYTES):

The assumption that Gerald was crafty with uploading a consciousness into a computer is a process called “Whole Brain Emulation (WBE).” This is also referred to as a “mind transfer.” This is a process in which, presumably, has the ability to scan the state of our minds and transfer into a database whether it’s postmortem (deceased) or antemortem (living).

As of now, the process of uploading one’s consciousness into an artificial body or database is a pseudoscience. This means that it’s more of a fantasy sci-fi scenario other than supplying factual results. Whole Brain Emulation would have to take into consideration of scanning layers upon layers of one’s mind and convert them into various strands of code. The human brain is made up of neurons; the human mind has about 86 billion neurons (PNAS, 2012).

In order to even begin scanning the mind, we’d need an exorbitant amount of storage space that could store not even a handful of neurons. We’d need to take into consideration of zettabytes. The human mind itself can store about 1.1950 petabytes of data in a lifetime if it was used at its fullest capacity (Houzel, 2009). That’s roughly two zettabytes. That’s like finding the Pacific Ocean with water twice! Thankfully, we live in a world where we have access to zettabytes. Zettabytes are used to store large sums of data in servers for social media sites, like Tumblr and Twitter. Being able to store all of the data into a database seem plausible, but we still run into a couple of problems.

We would not be able to get a 100% accurate reflection of Maria. If anything, we’d only be able to replicate it via artificial intelligence. We would have to take into consideration of Maria’s mannerisms and wide variety of responses to the world around her.

PSYCHOLOGY/ETHICS AND MORAL TEACHINGS:

With all of the technological advancements made in human history, the capability of transferring organic consciousness into a mechanical device is nonexistent. We might be able to replicate states of consciousness, but we would have to teach AI and code human ethics and morals. In this case, we could make an attempt in replicating Maria’s consciousness to a certain extent. We don’t know a whole lot of Maria’s characteristics other than the fact that she mattered tremendously to both Shadow and Gerald.

The problem here would be that we’d lack a ration and irrational response of decision making of the individual. What we think that we might know of a person might be different from them being right then and there as they respond to the phenomenon. If anything, we wouldn’t have Maria’s internal thinking and logic. Everything that would be coded would not be Maria’s true thoughts, it would be an assumed thought of the AI and/or programmer.

There is no guarantee that the AI will possess every thought and feeling that Maria might have had when transferring her consciousness. In order to get that, we’d have to do extensive psychological research of Maria’s response to every situation in a controlled environment. This would have to be monitored 24/7. The Maria program would have to relearn everything about herself on top of learning culturally acceptable ethics and morals depending on the environment she was raised in.

If this is the case, then Shadow would have to be habilitated into having the same—or nearly the same—mannerisms that Maria would have had if having her consciousness uploaded into his mind. And if she were still a child, then that would take longer. A child is still in the process of knowing themselves and their identity. Because we would only have a secondary source of Maria’s characteristics, we would lack internal feelings of her growing up.

CLOSING STATEMENT:

It’s safer to assume that everything that Shadow has done in his life are his own thoughts and feelings. Shadow is meant to be perceived as his own person. I’m positive that his actions are influenced by Maria and his interactions with the world around him. Most, if not all, of his actions after learning the truth from SA2 are his own. I do not believe that Maria had her consciousness uploaded into Shadow’s mind, but it is a possibility that Gerald thought about it. The problem here is that we might never know. All that we know is that Gerald would have done nearly anything, even using government funding, to save Maria (Windii, 2018).

Most of my thoughts and feelings are told through the perspective of human interactions. We don’t know enough of Shadow’s physiology in order to make a true comparison. Until we learn more about Gerald and Maria’s characteristics, I think that it’s safe to say that this is more of a hypothetical scenario that needs more information.

I hope this answers your question, my dear!❤️✨

SOURCES:

PNAS, 2012: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1201895109

Houzel, 2009: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2776484/

Ted-ED, 2023: https://youtu.be/2DWnvx1NYUA

Windii, 2018: http://info.sonicretro.org/Sonic_Adventure_2_-_The_Truth_of_50_Years_Ago...

Here’s a great text from the National Institute of Health made that talks about neurogenics: https://www.ninds.nih.gov/health-information/public-education/brain-basics/brain-basics-life-and-death-neuron

#Also… I wrote this with three hours of sleep in mind #If you need clarification on anything please let me know #Also keep in mind that I’m an anthropologist/archaeologist… I might be missing a thing or two if a physicist would know #mystery anon #off topic #shadow the hedgehog #Maria Robotnik #Gerald Robotnik #Sonic Adventure 2

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superemeralds · 3 months

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🌷How will they deal with saying goodbye?

👯‍♀️How often do they see the others? Their other friends, too?

🖤Free space! Ask what you like, or request a random headcanon

<- hit us with your weirdest shot?

🌷shadow and omega b oth have very complicated relationships w the concept of good bye. they don't really age or die? omega specifically has the advantage of having very limited emotion and a highly logic mind, so he would not waste energy mourning and accept when things end. Shadow is def still trying to figure it all out. as of rn in universe ofc he doesn't have to think abt it much yet, he's doing his best to prevent his friends from harm right now, and he'd rather just face the problems as they happen. especially in shth he learned that theres no use thinking about the what ifs, because there's a right now that needs to be dealt with. the more he thinks about what differenciates him from others the less he can concentrate on what matters: the things he's got in common. like the ground beneath their feet, the star they orbit around, the wind that blows in their faces... He knows about the inevitability of death enough through maria, and he will try his best to not make the same mistake twice. he's determined to move on. ofc its easier said than done, especially in the conceptual event that rouge would fall in combat or even worse.. because of a mistake that he made.. but there are so many possibilities that i could analyze we'd be here for ever.........

rouge herself i think hasdealt with loss before, and she might have had some history with people that she has cut out of her lives. it might seem cold but i think she as a person has mastered the art of severing. whether its healthy is not the question rn... she def has a very soft spot for shadow and omega, tho as stated above these two are really hard to kill so there's not much to worry about in that regard, if anything it's a worry that might not plague her right now, but eventually she's going to think about what it means to be the one that's being severed by forces beyond anyone's control

anyways i dont wanna get existential this morning so this is where i stop

👯‍♀️I headcanon rouge has some friends she regularly meets in her bar (i'll let it be open if it actually belongs to her or if she's just a regular) and she would def visit knuckles every now and then. not saying she'd like. actually talk to him tho. might just lurk in a bush and stare at the master emerald

omega is a tough one to think about tbh. i admittedly don't have too many thoughts on him outside of being part of the team... this is telling me i need to dig more into his individual character tbh. what would he do for fun? when not with the otehr two?? Maybe he actually is like a gamer playing shooters and made friends in voice chat. no one believes him when he introduced himself as killermachine, they think its just a nickname

shadow likes solitude, but i really like that one bit in the recent twitter take over where he and knuckles stood in the forest for hours watching the plants and animals and hwo the light changes throughout the day while going through the leaves etc etc... theyre both very connected to nature in their own ways and i think they could bond over that. also about how they both prefer solitude. they can be alone together! they dont need any words, they can just exist next to eachother for a few hours and feel good about it. he also most surely hangs out with sonic every now and then. hangingout being racing and having a good fight together. though im sure sonic can eventually convince him to spend proper time together. for example making a race into a trekking tour where they go random places sonic knows or doesnt know yet, and they learn about the culture and obviously the food. shadow does seem like someone who'd like to learn about the planet, and sonic's the type of guy who's super eager to have someone to show around and explore with that can keep up!

🖤oh man idk weirdness is super subjective. uh. i wrote a fanfic once about how team dark and team sonic have a bowling competition

#fan lore #Anonymous #text heavy #im proud of that fic actually

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true-blue-sonic · 6 months

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The thought of Eggman Nega having a hand in Silver’s “creation” is hilarious. The Robotnik bloodline just cannot escape the curse of at least one of their best creations turning against them in some way.

…Actually, right after I sent that last ask, I happened to remember something. I know it’s been mentioned before that Silver likely isn’t an artificial creation because he mentions having been born, but isn’t it possible in the Sonic universe to implant fake memories? I always thought that that was the way Gerald got Shadow to believe he had to destroy the world. And that was 250 years before Silver’s time, so imagine what the tech from his time could be capable of

I think it would also fit with the fact Eggman Nega is just so bad at being a credible villain that he never managed to get Silver back under his control again. Eggman reprogrammed Metal after the events of Heroes to have unwavering loyalty to him once more, and Gerald was long dead by the time Amy managed to make Shadow remember his true wish (and in ShTH Gerald's video message furthermore inspires Shadow into a second wind that allows him to beat Black Doom, so he managed to undo the destruction of the world after all like his sane self would have wanted).

But indeed, on the topic of Gerald and Shadow, in Gerald's speech in SA2 in the Last Story he says: "I designed its mind to be perfect, pure…", implying to me that he meddled with Shadow's mind somehow (because the Shadow we see in earlier flashbacks is quite kind with Maria, while pondering over his purpose and why he was created). We also see that Shadow at first does not recall Maria's actual wish ("Give them a chance to be happy. Let them live for their dreams."), and instead only remembers bits and pieces. Here it is interesting to note that in those, Maria never says the word revenge or anything urging for it. She just says "Shadow… I beg of you… please," and "Do it for me… for all the people… on that planet…", which Shadow fills in with her desiring revenge. I'm not certain if this is indeed what happened, but I figure Gerald actively repressed the parts where Maria asked Shadow to protect the world and put the idea of revenge in Shadow's head instead, while still leaving enough pieces of Maria's presence and words for Shadow to recall she had a wish for him to fulfil. So from that, I figure tampering with memories is absolutely not impossible in the world of Sonic.

In canon, I doubt Silver is indeed an artificial creation because there is nothing pointing towards it, but I quite like the idea of a story where Nega created him to be the ultimate fighter in his army or something like that... and somehow managed to make a hoglet with such a strong sense of justice and desire to help others that it all backfired on him immediately. I can imagine Nega pulling a Starline-esque move wherein he kept erasing Silver's memories in attempts to this time get him to be loyal, except Silver somehow managed to escape and be free from his control between memory wipes. He'd remember enough about Nega to know he's very dangerous and wants to destroy the world, and he also knows enough about himself that he doesn't want that to pass, and thus them being archnemeses is settled for life. And Nega is never going to be able to defeat him, haha! I think it'd be even more interesting if he made Silver with just some base powers (some telekinesis, maybe being able to teleport), but Silver keeps developing himself further. And now he can fly at the speed of sound! And make knives from pure psychic energy! Some precognition and telepathic abilities, why not? Lifting literal tons of weight at once, sure! Eggman Nega can't even be proud of the fact his creation is able to do all this, because it's only ever used to wreck his plans. He'll be beyond bitter about it!

#I really love SA2's story actually I find it incredibly intriguing #just... Gerald's video message. How he describes Shadow as a son in ShTH but goes insane with grief so much he begins to see Shadow only as #a means to an end to take revenge on everyone who took Maria from him #he goes from calling Shadow his son to just calling him 'it'#and Gerald even *says* he's gone insane and that it frightens him yet he continues with his plans anyway #and everything Shadow was supposed to stand for (helping people) got twisted into him destroying them all instead #it intrigues me so much #silver the hedgehog #eggman nega

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chasingvelocity · 1 year

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tumblr might be about to do horrible things to the quality of this, i'm not sure, but the preview does not fill me with confidence. ANYWAY

these were made for the Elysium intro so technically this is out of chronological order of. everything. but also before i start posting comics i want to give a good visual on who these guys are! also hey these are all the guys that were relevant to the askblog (besides Shadow), nice

(oh my god i just realized i didn't actually put Sik in Elysium. i mean he's in the bit in the second half where it's flashing through everybody but i didn't put him in the actual intro with everybody else.. sorry buddy, Double's the more important custom hero i guess lmao)

Sonic the Hedgehog: you know her, you love her, she's transgender now! 19-ish as of Forces, aroace, personality and vibe same as always, nothing gets her down. the big plot twist with her is that she's an artificial life form like Shadow and was engineered with an aptitude for chaos energy, but she does her best to shrug off the implications.

Miles "Tails" Prower: sonic's adopted little brother, 17-ish as of Forces, transgender (this will be a theme), low self-confidence despite his intelligence and his ability to hold his own. a LOT of things happen to him, uh- Colors, Chronicles, and Lost World kinda got slammed together into one story arc, so he got halfway roboticized AND blasted with negative color until he was able to break out of the brainwashing. he hasn't found a way to undo the roboticization yet.

Amy Rose: i love amy so much but i don't know how to accurately capture her vibe. 18-ish as of Forces, she had a crush on sonic but has eased off on it and now they are comfortably friends (even if she can still be a bit much at times), she does tarot, i think the most that got changed is her design tbh

Knuckles the Echidna: straightforward-thinking treasure hunter, dealing with responsibility of guarding the master emerald vs him finally having an opportunity to explore the outside world, 20-ish as of Forces, got tormented a bit in the askblog

Shadow the Hedgehog: nonbinary alien hedgehog clusterfuck my beloved. they/them, actually somewhat chill underneath all the edge, technically Sonic is a knockoff of them, still has a pretty shaky sense of identity, at one point jorb helped me figure out what ShTH story path would be most canon for them but i don't want to find it rn

Daedalus "Double" Perrow: first of many OCs! maned wolf, 17-ish (?) as of Forces, more on him later because a lot of the comics so far involve him lmao. fills in 1/2 of the custom hero role in Forces (did the prison break, teams up directly with modern sonic, has past history with Infinite) and gets nicknamed "Gadget" by sonic. trans of gender

Wayne "Infinite" Bay: whoops i took an oc and accidentally spliced him into being infinite. double's friend, 19-ish as of Forces, got kidnapped and experimented on by eggman. the askblog plotline was building up to double trying to find and save him because they were friends before wayne got corrupted by the phantom ruby, but my energy fizzled out before that could get anywhere

i can't believe sik didn't get a cool image like everybody else. get wrecked lmao

#chasing velocity #cv: sonic #cv: tails #cv: amy #cv: knuckles #cv: shadow #cv: double #cv: wayne

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antirepurp · 3 months

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Yo! I just want to say that the reason why the true/canon ending of ShTH is considered 'dubious' is because multiple good endings could be considered canon since SEGA refuses to elaborate how much of his memory Shadow has back and they're kinda finicky when it comes to Shadow working with GUN. Pretty much you have to cut out the 'what hasn't happened' vs the 'what could have happened'.

Shadow clearly is a good guy so all bad endings are out, he doesn't stay on the ark so that endings is out too, does he work for GUN? Maybe. Does he kick black dooms ass and sends him back into deep space? Maybe. Did he go super and blast them to smithereens? Maybe.

Obviously with the 11th secret endings and the special level if you get As on all stages, the super Shadow ending is supposed to be the canon ending but every now and then SEGA likes to give fans a wink, a nudge and a 'are you sure?'

i guess that teasing is happening outside of the realm of games because unless colors ds is doing something wacky i can't really think of instances in games where stuff like this comes up? whatever goes on in sonic battle takes place before shth as well (unless they did another "oh this is a prequel" thing which i find unlikely with how messy the thing with rush and 06 was), and the concrete appearances of shadow we have post shth are 06, chronicles, colors ds, gens, forces... and the murder mystery game, if you wanna consider that canon i suppose. riders and story book games are their own continuities, though i suppose a case could be made for the rivals games. my point is that shadow's biggest appearances are in 06 and forces if you exclude handhelds, and in the former he definitely worked with GUN to at least some degree (his story starts with him on a GUN related mission!), and by 2010s the idea of humans in the sonic universe was quietly being phased out, which means GUN was kind of axed by forces. though with frontiers supposedly starting some kind of new era they may be around again, i guess only time will tell with that one. but at least to me there doesn't seem to be a huge question of which of the endings in shth is the canonical one, unless again something like colors ds decides to shake up the competition or if the rivals games are being wacky too and considered to be mainline titles as well, or chronicles which i don't have many opinions on because i never finished that playthrough of it that i started and honestly i don't know if it's a separate continuity or not

of course that's just me and admittedly i haven't even finished shth and played the 11th ending and what have you, and if you want to take things like the comics and twitter takeovers as canon that's an entirely different can of worms that i tend to brush aside, except for that one time when sonic admitted to rise of lyric being his favorite game that'll always be canon in my heart

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autisticshadowthehedgehog · 2 years

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Chaos Emerald Theory Act II: Movie II Update

THE GHZ PODCAST: But yeah, are- are Sonic’s powers related to the Chaos Emeralds?

PAT CASEY: It’s... hard to say for sure, but I’ll... tell you that in my mind... the answer is, uh, yes, probably. [x]

Sonic 2 has offiically dropped, and with it, a seeming confirmation that the Chaos Emerald Filmverse theory is false; after all, the Chaos Emeralds were seen irl, and used to turn Sonic into SuperSonic.

However, as you see in the above quote, the emeralds are definitely connected to Sonic. And honestly? There’s a LOT of strange beats in both films that are still going unexplained. So something is UP with Film!Sonic and the Chaos Emeralds, and we’re gonna dig up what. Goin full Sticks the Badger, let’s go.

The first theory post was made by my sis @birdsareblooming back in 2020, and here’s a quick recap of that and the updates we had afterwards: Sonic’s power is oddly connected to the Chaos Emeralds in the filmverse.

Firstly, the change in Sonic’s skillset; instead of simply being fast, he can also create electricity and blasts of energy. His powers are also explicitly tied to his emotions-- just like the chaos emeralds. The emeralds’ powers also VERY much describe Sonic’s-- explicitly worded as having unlimited power, same as Sonic’s quills. Positive thoughts (“he was my friend”) bring positive power and negative thoughts (”i really am alone, forever”) bring negative power (such as explosive blasts).

The emeralds can also bring back the dead– again, “he was my friend”– and bend reality to achieve feats, known as “chaos control”– such as Sonic freezing time to speed around the bar.

Cori then noticed that Sonic’s quill literally has the chaos emerald sound effect when Robotnik pulls it out– in this video you can see that the sound also plays when Sonic comes back “from the dead,” though a bit quieter.

Sonic’s explosion on the baseball field also looks almost exactly like Shadow’s chaos blast in the ShTH opening– which Jeff Fowler would know, as he worked on the cinematic cutscenes for that game.

Then, the first film’s novelization, while not accurate to the film, was based on an early version of the script, and in regards to Sonic, refers to his powers as “chaos” or “chaotic” nineteen times. It includes such wonders as:

“There were some who believed his powers would unleash chaos on the world.” -pg8

“They wanted to unleash the chaos energy inside him and overtake the world.” - pg10

“He squinted and just caught a massive wave of blue chaos energy shooting up and out across the sky.” - pg39

“Sonic launched himself in the air, and suddenly he could see everything in fine detail. He had sensed it at the roadhouse, too, but he was having too much fun then to understand what was happening. All the madness, the mayhem, the pure chaos of the fight slowed down in his mind, and he could perceive every motion of Robotnik’s mindless Badniks.” - pg114

“He’s got the power of chaos now,” Sonic said as he dropped through the air in the free fall. “I can’t leave him with even a drop of that power.” - pg118

“You thought you could steal a bit of my chaos energy and use it to bend the world to your will. But it doesn’t work like that. Chaos doesn’t get controlled, and neither do I, Ro-Butt-Nik!” - pg130

“Chaos doesn’t have to mean destruction,” Sonic said, dodging from side to side. “I know how it works now.” -pg131

So. EXTREMELY tied to Chaos Energy– aka the Chaos Emeralds, Master Emerald, etc.

To add to this, in the Sonic the Hedgehog 2 Pre-Quill Comic, released just a week before the film, Tails explicitly is tracking Sonic via Chaos Energy.

Towards the end of Tails’s section of the comic, he goes to different zones, and says that there’s “just leftover chaos energy from when these places were turned into ruins.” The word leftover definitely implies that wherever Sonic would be would have ACTIVE energy.

The original theory, and one we still love, was that the Chaos Emeralds, in the filmverse, took mobian form, and Sonic was the dark blue one (Maxixe). Now, of course, we run into the problem of: we saw the Chaos Emeralds in the last film. Those tiny lil gushers locked in the Master Emerald that eventually gave us SuperSonic and a moment in the theatre I’ll never forget where every single person started screaming and clapping and cheering.

But the emerald theory isn’t over. The quote I put at the beginning of the article, from film writer Pat Casey, indeed implies that the emeralds have something to do with Sonic’s powers. And even without that quote– there was a lot more in the second film that was suspicious to say the least.

Both Sonic and Knuckles have moments where the Chaos Emerald sound effect again plays while they explode with power– I will put specifics once the film is out on digital. Knuckles and Sonic have a very similar power, but no explanation as to where it came from aside from those sound effects. There was also the fact that only Sonic’s magic seemed to unlock the emerald map.

And also.... when Sonic got too close to the Master Emerald-powered robot, he seemed to completely lose his speed. It’s not mentioned directly, but if you look: when he gets up close to it, his energy disappears, and he looks confused and concerned. He does not show any magic then until the emerald has broken. This is interesting because in Sonic Adventure 2, Knuckles says that the ME neutralizes the other emeralds– aka limits their power.

Another thing to note– Tails claims that the chaos emeralds all fused into the ME. Firstly, that hasn’t been in any canon thus far, and second: it’s not even in this one. After Sonic yeets the emeralds into orbit, Knuckles is still able to repair the Master Emerald, which appears to still have power. So the ME exists separate to the CE, despite what the old owl ruins claimed.

Once again, Sonic’s powers are strange and unusual, both in-universe and out; Sonic says multiple times that people kept chasing him for his power, which wouldn’t be A Thing if it was a normal mobian skillset.

Knuckles doesn’t seem to question his own power, though then again he and Sonic were in some stressful situations and that wouldn’t be a good time for conversation. However, considering they didn’t mention any explanation onscreen, I think it’s safe to say that Knuckles doesn’t know, either. He would’ve been 4-6 when his tribe died, so it’s also probable that they didn’t know or didn’t tell him about his power source; if they did know, they still knew it was a bad idea to bring a 4yo into battle which. Good for them.

So both their powers are still a mystery... and still VERY tied to the chaos emeralds.

Also, a sidenote– whatever the power is, Tails seems to have it, but I don’t think he knows. He has the same energy trail as Sonic and Knuckles in both films, and, similar to Sonic, wakes up from being knocked out when he’s referred to as a friend. There’s also the fact that Knuckles seems to have been tracking Tails under the impression that he’s Sonic, which implies they have the same power source.

so, all that... what’s it mean now?

Well: I have two running theories at this point. The second is much more likely to me, but we’ll discuss both.

1. Fake or Diminished Chaos Emeralds

It’s entirely possible that the emeralds inside the ME were either fakes or had diminished power. We’ll get to the latter later, but as for fakes: it’s completely probable that the ME could create illusions as it also turns thoughts into reality, and made some lil emeralds when Sonic expected to see them. Fake emeralds have existed before as well– such as in Sonic Adventure 2, as well as alternate dimension emeralds like the Anarchy Beryls and Sol Emeralds.

However, I don’t think this is the case. My main evidence is that SuperSonic seems to only be possible with them, and not something he can do on his own. There’s also the fact they do indeed swirl up into him when he transforms, and when he sends them out he seems aware that they caused the transformation.

As for diminished– many have pointed out that the emeralds are much smaller than they are in the games. If some of their power was elsewhere, that could explain it; the ME also seemed to shrink a little after losing the CE. So, perhaps the CE still exist, but don’t have their full power? In that case, they still have a deep connection to Sonic, and likely Tails and Knuckles, too.

UPDATE 2/23/2022 - The Chaos Emeralds were not originally supposed to be in the film; seems they weren’t supposed to be in the filmverse at all. The writers didn’t want to get into the “infinity stones” arguments, but they were added because Sonic Team did not want Sonic turning Super simply from the Master Emerald.

Not to be that bitch, but that seems to work great with the CE Theory...

Which leads us to theory B...

2. Chaos Champions

My current running theory, is that while the emeralds still exist, they’ve chosen “champions” to host a huge extent of their power. They’re still intimately connected with the emeralds, just not them specifically.

In the gameverse, Knuckles has a deep connection with the Master Emerald, being able to sense where its pieces are and put it back together himself. I believe that in the filmverse, this connection now exists with all emeralds, and each has chosen a guardian. With the colors their powers show, Sonic and Knuckles are definitely the Maxixe and Bixbite (blue and red), and Shadow's eyes indicate he may be Heliodor (gold) if Tails is not.

The question is, then, why did the emeralds choose champions? And why now– with neither Longclaw, Knuckles’s tribe or Tails, who lived on mobius, figuring this out, it’s probably never happened before. Why (potentially) diminish themselves and grant random mobian children extraordinary power?

Well, the emeralds themselves are said to be sentient– in Sonic Rush Adventure, they’re believed to have brought Sonic and Tails to Blaze’s dimension because they knew they’d be needed. So it’s possible that inside the ME, the CE knew something was coming that would need their Chaos Powers and chose champions themselves, leaving them the wielders of the emeralds’ power.

What could be coming? I would say Chaos themself, but considering Pachacamac was Knuckles’s tribe chief, it’s likely that whatever happened with Tikal happened after Sonic was born and gifted powers. But they’re not the only powerful villain in the Sonic franchise, far from it: we have multiple gods, including Solaris, whose main goal is to eat time itself. Though Solaris is from a failed game, so they’re probably not comin up. We have the Metarex from Sonic X– Sonic’s sending the emeralds into space looks a lot like when he sent them away from Dark Oak in X.

And then. There’s...

2a. The Black Arms and Shadow

We know that Shadow is coming from the midcredits scene that made me blow out my voice screaming. And the thing is, while Team Sonic have had shifted backstories, Shadow’s has been METICULOUSLY set up.

We know that he’s involved with the Robotnik family from the GUN files. While GUN seems to be a new thing, military involvement with the Robotnik family is not. Eggman is an orphan and the second film novelization has his middle name as “Gerald.” The project was a “black site,” with someone trying very hard to keep it hidden. The GUN Commander knows what Project Shadow is, which makes him the Commander from ShTH. (Also, very minor, but when Wade is calling out to people around town on the scooter, he names a “Maria–” likely not our Maria, but an easter egg for people who may be paying attention...)

This all makes sense, considering, as mentioned, Fowler worked on ShTH, so he knows his Shadow lore. In a recent interview with Insider, Fowler said of the Shadow teaser:

But yeah, Shadow is awesome. However he's handled in the films, we all know how much fans love this character, love his backstory. It's what makes him prolific, and so we would be very respectful of all of that.

Fowler loves Shadow as much as we do and seems 100% on track to keep his backstory. (including the “fuck the military” stuff!) The one thing in his backstory that doesn’t seem to have been foreshadowed yet? Is the Black Arms, the demonic aliens who created Shadow for the purposes of... using him to locate the chaos emeralds.

Shadow was created over fifty years before he was released into Sonic’s world. More than enough time for the emeralds to figure out something was going on, that the Black Arms were getting close to their destructive plans, and say “Well. If they’ve got their own champion, so do we.”

Also, @birdsareblooming pointed this out to me while we were on call: the fake chaos emerald in SA2 was yellow. Shadow’s eye spark color is red, like his powers, and... yellow.

This isn’t a super solid theory, we’re still working on it. But the movie just came out– we got about a year to theorize, badgers!

Anyway, the only thing we know for sure is that Rouge is coming in the next movie. The writers have said more than once they want to bring her in and we need some gals in this squad so. Cannot wait to see her break into the Wachowski house to steal all their valuables. If her entrance isn’t a complete recreation of “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” then what is the point?

#sonic 2 spoilers #sonic movie spoilers #sonic the hedgehog 2 spoilers #sonic the hedgehog #sonic the hedgehog 2 #sth #sonic theory #chaos emeralds #chaos emerald theory #sonic cinematic universe #mine #connie theories

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rollflasher · 2 years

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So as a result of rambling with @beevean as usual, I got inspired to make a quick post involving yet another one of the many interesting but wasted ideas ShtH brought to the table, in this case being a character.

Does anyone else think that that the G.U.N Commander had potential as a character?

Most of the time when people bring him up, they usually focus on his monstrosity of a face as a child somewhat silly motivations, mostly the idea of him being traumatized just by seeing Shadow wake up and then working for the same organization that killed Maria.

However, one thing that’s never talked about this and the game obviously never explores, which is why I count this as wasted potential, is that this apparently silly situation is a whole can of worm with a lot to unpack with the implications.

One of the most overlooked aspects about the ARK’s incident is the fact that not only it was covered up as an accident, but it was also a top secret operation, even internally at G.U.N, meaning that it’s very likely only a select few people knew what actually happened there.

So here’s the questions that could have made the Commander more interesting if they were explored...how was his perspective of this situation?

It’s common to say that the Commander joining G.U.N is really stupid since they were responsible for Maria’s death, alternatively other fans (myself included at one point) theorize that maybe he wanted to change the organization for the better, but I think the elephant in the room here that never gets adressed is that the ARK’s raid pretty much happened when he was a little child.

Maria was older than him at 12 years old, so the Commander couldn’t have been older than that.

Considering Maria is a full head taller than the Commander, with this I think it’s safe to assume he’s at the very least between the 8 to 10 years old gap.

Why do I bring this all up? Because with this in mind, the Commander’s perspective suddenly becomes very interesting and critical for his motivations.

The Commander certainly is aware of the ARK’s raid and the consequences it brought. But what was he doing when that happened? Did he personally witness any of the events that happened? Did any soldiers try to harm him? Maria certainly died despite being a child but she was escaping with Shadow, the main reason G.U.N was there to begin with, so it can’t be guaranteed he was treated with the same hostility.

In fact. Who says the Commander wasn’t simply taken away by the soldiers and told a completely different story of what happened, without seeing the full detail of the whole event? Not only that but since the Commander is just a child here, he probably couldn’t properly grasp and understand the full scope of what happened.

Suddenly, a lot of things make sense. As stupid as it is, the Commander did get horrified at the sighting of Shadow’s creation to the point that in his narration of the flashbacks, he labels Gerald as an ‘’insane’’ scientist. So, because of the Commander’s age, his growing grudge for Shadow and Gerald, and overall lack of information about what happened, suddenly it makes a lot of sense to think that the Commander shifted all the blame from G.U.N to Gerald and Shadow, because he probably didn’t have a specific person to put the blame on what happened besides them.

Not only that but, it’s not hard to think that after everything was done, he probably got told that the place had to be shut down because Gerald lost his mind and was going to cause a disaster with his creations.

And if we assume it took at least until he was 18 years old to join G.U.N, then the Commander would ONLY have Gerald and Shadow to scapegoat for everything for years, and by the time he did join G.U.N. and had a high enough ranking to know more about what happened, I’m pretty sure that because of the top secret nature of everything related to Shadow he probably only got confirmations of Gerald going insane, which would just add more fuel to his shortsighted belief of who was the real culprit of the ARK’s incident. Considering that the Commander probably wasn’t even aware of Shadow’s escape duing SA2, I don’t think it’s too farfetched to think that even he couldn’t uncover all the vital information on what truly happened during the day the ARK was shut down.

Is any of this actually explored in the game?

Sadly, no, not even close.

These are mostly HCs and questions I came up with from the top of my head, but the point I wanted to prove is that the Commander had a lot of potential and it would have been very interesting to see him get fleshed out more as a character. Even visually he stands out compared to the other humans (I don’t think it’s a coincidence that anyone involved with the Robotnik family stands out compared to other Sonic humans :P).

This is pretty much a testament to how ShtH had so many interesting ideas that would have actually helped a lot to make the game properly execute the more mature tone it was going for, but unfortunately, we know what happened and all of that potential got wasted in such a fashion that it’s even criminal.

But hey, at least there’s still some nice fanfic fuel I guess.

#sonic the hedgehog #shadow the hedgehog #shth #gun commander #sonic musing #maria robotnik #ark #ramble

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darkqueenofshadows85 · 2 years

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Shadow the Hedgehog (2005) Story Review

Disclaimer: I will be judging this game by the plot and writing, not the gameplay.

Introduction

Greetings, mortals! For today's review, we'll be looking at one of my all-time favorite Sonic game stories, Shadow the Hedgehog.

This game marks the beginning of what is commonly referred to as the Dark Era, which I believe got its name due to the darker storylines and grim atmosphere.

This is part of a series of reviews in which I’ll be going into slightly more detail about my thoughts on the main series Sonic game storylines, and why I think they're either well written and engaging, or an absolute trainwreck (or somewhere in-between). I’ll be giving my stance on the character portrayals, visuals, soundtracks, voice actors, and what themes/messages they had to offer. Keep in mind that these are just my own personal thoughts. Whether you agree or disagree, feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions!

Anyway, let us begin! ^^

Plot

Shadow with amnesia gets visions of Maria, he wonders who she is. Suddenly, Black Doom and his Black Arms army arrive. Black Doom asks Shadow to collect the seven Chaos Emeralds as promised. Shadow decides that Black Doom is the key to his past so he joins in. The player then chooses what Shadow does next: joining Black Doom and the Black Arms, joining Sonic and friends, or going alone.

Characters

Like in the previous games, Shadow is portrayed quite well here. They got the edginess just right, to the point where it isn't overwhelming and stupid like in the Meta Era. I like how he gradually regains his memories and rediscovers himself. I honestly never understood why some people blame ShTH for how Shadow was portrayed in the Meta Era, saying that this game is what ruined the character. I disagree. Shadow has amnesia in this game, so he has a narrative reason to be different, and when his amnesia goes away, he becomes the Shadow that we know from the 2000's. The Meta Era games have no narrative reason for Shadow being what it is.

Sonic and the other characters didn't really contribute much to the plot, and they were just kinda there for the most part. However, the Chaotix did make a significant contribution to the plot during the climax.

I love Black Doom because he is the most complex villain in the entire Sonic franchise. Sure, he did seem power hungry, but in a way it seems more he desired to obtain power in order to keep his people thriving. Like, it's very clear that he cares a lot about his people, and sometimes he does get a little bit selfish in his desires, but who doesn't? He's still a villain, but a villain with understandable and even somewhat sympathetic motivations for what he does. That's why I not only consider him to be my favorite Sonic villain, but also one of my favorite Sonic characters, period.

As for Dr. Eggman, he tried to convince Shadow that he was an android in the Neutral route, the Eggman Empire went to war with both the United Federation/GUN and the Black Arms, and he did later confirm that Shadow was in fact the original Shadow who we saw in SA2, so that's at least something.

The GUN Commander's backstory makes no sense. He was friends with Maria aboard the ARK and then he saw her get killed by a GUN soldier, so now he works for GUN, the same organization that killed his childhood friend. What the hell? Also, why did the GUN Commander blame Shadow for Maria's death? That never made sense to me either.

Visuals

To summarize, the CGI cutscenes look fantastic, and the in-game character models, while dated, do look really good for their time. In fact, I'm actually quite partial to the Heroes/ShTH character models myself. I think they look adorable ^w^

Soundtrack

This game's soundtrack is my absolute favorite out of all of the Sonic soundtracks. I love all of the vocal tracks to be honest, but my personal favorite is the main theme, I Am... (All of Me).

🎶“I See No Hear No Evil!!!!!”🎶

Voice Acting

ShTH was the first Sonic game to introduce the 4Kids voice cast, and honestly, I consider them to be the best Sonic voice cast. Jason Griffith is the perfect voice for Shadow in my opinion. He perfectly captures Shadow's dark, mysterious personality. I absolutely ADORE Sean Schemmel's voice work as Black Doom. His voice is so soft and dark... >w<

Some of the other voices I liked include Jason Griffith (Sonic), Mike Pollock (Dr. Eggman), Dan Green (Knuckles), Lisa Ortiz (Amy), Jeff Kramer (E-123 Omega), James Carter Cathcart (Vector), Amy Birnbaum (Charmy), David Wills (Espio), Rebecca Honig (Maria), among others.

Theme/Message

The central theme of the story is search for identity. Shadow's goal in this game is trying to find out who he was in the past and what his purpose in life is, because he has amnesia (continuing the narrative from where Heroes left off) and nobody wants to tell him about his past for some reason.

Conclusion

I fucking LOVE this game's story. Despite having divided opinions on it within the fandom, Shadow's solo game as a whole is not as bad as some people say it is. Quite the opposite, in fact. Sure, it does have its flaws, and there are some things in the narrative that don't make sense (the GUN Commander's motivations and backstory in particular comes to mind), but for me, the pros definitely outweigh the cons. I love the story, I love the soundtrack, and most of all, I love Black Doom, he's the best part of ShTH, and the best part of the franchise >w<

💜💜💜💜💜💜

My final score:

5.8/5 (Amazing)

#sonic the hedgehog #shth game #black arms #black doom #review #blog post #opinion post

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miniwolfsbane · 3 years

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Sweet Tooth S1 thoughts (BIG SPOILERS)

First off, I am disappointed we were shown a PURRING PUPPY BABY in the trailer and had 0 follow up with it? Did he/she escape to Istanbul with it’s parents? Get captured? Live a nomadic life? Live in the forest? I WANT ANSWERS!! :( Also, puppies don’t purr, so I want answers to that too. Unless they were trying to go for a whimper or an animal noise and just went with that instead.

BIG SPOILERS under the cut

Anyway, the only two things, aside from the bits of gore and violence (Reviews are all like “IT’S A FAMILY SHOW!” And I counter back with “I would not let any child under 13 watch this and I have never seen a family show with three seconds of guts being removed and two scenes of implied, live vivisecting on sentient beings without anesthetic.”), the only things I didn’t like about this were using 2 overused cliche’s. One being the hero hanging off a bridge for what seems like 12 years above peril, and the other I can’t remember. It was Jeppard nearly missing the train. The only thing that saved it was the flashback.

The other thing was that, while dark, there’s a bit of predictably and not much depth to the story. I realized last night that the comic source material my have the depth I’m craving out of the story. Just because it has child actors doesn’t mean the story can’t be dug into deeper and have more meaning. I applaud them for what they did and how they handled it, mixing in human-ish vivisecting with neighbors burning down their friends houses and being murderous hypocrites into a story about children, but it wasn’t enough for me. I wanted more. Edit: Not more violence, obviously, just more to the story. dig into the universe, hard. Like gardening, just shove both metaphorical hands into that story soil and root around in it. Find all the gems that are the interesting parts of this universe and answer our questions.

Sadly, I see someone on tumblr called it...something. Like, were we even watching the same show?? A multi-racial cast that gives all it’s characters dignity isn’t...that.

Bobby isn’t creepy to most and not shown that much. If you really think Bobby is that creepy, you need to go see original Bobby and get back to me. https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=mv4YBZHa&id=071BD6BDAA183CA5965247E7F8F68E873375399B&thid=OIP.mv4YBZHau8dTzxGoK0L0ggHaHD&mediaurl=https%3A%2F%2Fvignette.wikia.nocookie.net%2Fmarvel_dc%2Fimages%2Ff%2Ffc%2FBobby_Sweet_Tooth_001.jpg%2Frevision%2Flatest%3Fcb%3D20150813115735&cdnurl=https%3A%2F%2Fth.bing.com%2Fth%2Fid%2FR9afe180591dabbc753cf11a82b42f482%3Frik%3Dmzl1M4eO9vjnRw&pid=ImgRaw&exph=616&expw=647&q=sweet+tooth+comics+bobby&simid=608026455638091252&ck=7A4DBACCF6BFE43E3B1E799F7F88C55A&selectedindex=0&adlt=demote&shtp=GetUrl&shid=3fb5000d-4d63-494a-986d-006fedeb28d5&shtk=Qm9iYnkgKFN3ZWV0IFRvb3RoKSB8IERDIERhdGFiYXNlIHwgRmFuZG9t&shdk=Rm91bmQgb24gQmluZyBmcm9tIGRjLmZhbmRvbS5jb20%3D&shhk=NjRWN4Jv1KDrxu8T30I3UN0IQ71oVtCAEnsLIeSmFl4%3D&form=EX0023&shth=OSH.nyb0RMh%252Bnm%252B%252B%252FIH1cnkhHw

Okay, kid does sorta look like a gremlin mixed with a Furby in the show, like one post said, but I’ve seen worse. https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=F9mlBjUo&id=49C0257935E4A941563E579C7E9DCF48B72BEC01&thid=OIF.eyTVbAuEqt0R%2bKFmrIK4gA&mediaurl=https%3a%2f%2fepipoca.com.br%2fwp-content%2fuploads%2f2021%2f06%2fE3NUK2kVoAE5Ct_.jpg&cdnurl=https%3a%2f%2fth.bing.com%2fth%2fid%2fR17d9a5063528805f1ade0ea77464df86%3frik%3d%26pid%3dImgRaw&exph=675&expw=1482&q=sweet+tooth++Bobby&simid=297111136187&ck=7B24D56C0B84AADD11F8A166AC82B880&selectedIndex=49&FORM=IRPRST&ajaxhist=0&ajaxserp=0

Sometimes stuff goes over my head. I had no idea that the babies were being born and not made in a lab. When they showed them in the maternity ward, I genuinely thought they had been experimented on and didn’t come out of the womb like that. Apparently I missed that it was a maternity ward in a hospital. That’s my other problem with this show I forgot to mention: It defies logic and you really have to turn off your brain to accept the hybrid concept. I’m guessing the virus or other means (possibly according to the comics, I tried to avoid big spoilers), mutated them in utero. That still doesn’t satisfy me. Thankfully, Gus was somehow lab created, so that helps. (More information and context would be appreciated. Was it, like, they were experimenting with in-vitro or what?) Edit: This article https://screenrant.com/sweet-tooth-theory-purple-flowers-cure-sick-virus/ explains that putting the virus in a chicken egg produced Gus. Which makes even less sense. Edit: This MAY or MAY NOT be right. Someone on YT pointed out they never said this in the show.

IRL, Virus + chicken embryo=would never randomly produce a human/deer hybrid baby. It’s so freaking random it sounds like nonsense or the delusions of a madman, not a rational comic book author with a presumably sane mind. Just...I’ve said it before...things have to make sense, even in fiction. 5 step process of anything cannot equal random result. It goes against all science, right? And made up worlds have to have rules, even silly worlds. Like I said, you have to turn your brain off, but this stretches even my disbelief. Hybrids, I get, fine, but that? I’m sorry, what? *headdesk* I don’t know, maybe the comics had something I’m missing since I never read them.

I’m eager to learn the connection to the kids and the virus as we go. And if we don’t get a season 2, I’ll be getting the comics to satisfy my thirst for this show.

Gus is my baby and I don’t understand how a kid could be that cute. Jeppard is the GOAT (lol) Bear could use better line delivery at times, but her acting will improve I’m sure. Nice to see Diana Ramierez acting again, her character is likeable. Wendy is cute, but kinda just there for me. Needs more traits or character development to get on my favorite characters list. Bear also needs more than just backstory and a tough girl persona. She’s not bland, she just needs more spark to her as a character. More personality, if that makes sense.

Lastly, I wanted a tiny bit more from the make-up department. Wendy and rabbit kids (yes, I took note of this detail and I love bunnies) make-up is on point, but the rest look like kids dressed up in dollar store feathers and fur for a school play. Get more creative if you’re gonna show these hybrids, even if it’s just for a few seconds. You have the budget!! (But I think most of that went to Bobby’s puppetry/CGI and Jeppard’s baby, to be honest.)

I wanted a cat girl or boy, because the lulz for the anime community (Also, because I have 2 cats and stuff), but at least we got bird kids, even if they weren’t cockatiels like mine. I’m ready for Season 2, hurry Netflix!!

I can see why people wouldn’t like this show or wouldn’t recommend watching it, but I see many have embraced it. It’s either you’re thing or it’s not, but you should give it a chance and see. Just don’t shoot it down if you hate it, there’s enough wet blankets out there and we all have different tastes.

Edit: One last thing. I do have a problem with hybrids being half-human. Like, you would think that being half-human, they’d still have all the problems humans have with causing wars and all. I know it’s a dark story with a good outcome, but there’s something too saccharine about hybrids having “The best parts of us.” What exactly are those best parts? Last I checked, humans are selfish and vain at their core. Even the most altruistic, giving person can be greedy about something or want more. It’s like Genie said in the new Aladdin, “You can have all the money and power in the world and it still won’t be enough”. Wouldn’t bird people and pig people and deer people all want to side with each other instead of living in some grand utopia? Fighting over land and resources? Portraying hybrids as taking over the earth after people are gone from extinction and everything going peachy doesn’t quite work for me. Not that I’d want it to still be dark, but, eh, they’d have to have SOME problems, wouldn’t they?

#Sweet Tooth Netflix #Gus #Jeppard #hybrids #Sweet Tooth spoilers

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the-era-of-shadow · 3 years

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A random Harazuki headshot ❤

✨ Pride version ✨ and ~transparent version~

~Ramble below contains me going off about Hara's whole ass backstory basically, I know some are just here for the OC art, also the Ramble includes a death mention or two sooooo ye cut off point~

Ya know? I'm not fully sure what to call Hara

Like, she's the midway point between Shadow and Eclipse, but only kinda?

She was created quite a bit after Shadow, Shadow was finished in 1954 and Harazuki was created in 2003, ya know? She's the sequel no one was expecting, well, sorta. With doubts of the planned invasion of Earth set for 05, Harazuki was made to replace Shadow in a way.

But once she was finished, she was mostly regarded as a failure, mostly due to her short stature (she's like a full foot shorter than Shadow) and her less than powerful Chaos based fighting, as a lot of the Chaos energy inside of her was being used up to power her unique Chaos Flight power (not showcased here, but basically she can manifest wings made of Chaos Energy (similarly to how Shadow's Chaos Spears are) and use them to fly). Black Doom believed in her a bit more than Black Death did (yes, they both worked on her, but Death did most of the work while Doom mostly oversaw the process) but ya know, two years after Hara was created, Doom died so... either way she was more considered in Death’s family anyway, both because of him doing most of the work on her and the fact that between her creation and the events of ShTH, Harazuki lived with Death’s grandmother Lillian (another oc of mineee ;p).

Either way, she was meant to be a new Shadow, but she was intentionally made a bit more alien like. Shadow had to be created to look almost perfectly Mobian because that's what Gerald demanded, but with Harazuki, there was more freedom, though Black Doom desired her to still mostly resembled Shadow, both as to make her a more welcoming, sibling-like presence if they were able to get Shadow back, and also cause Doom missed Shadow a good bit still :'). Hara notably does not have Shadow's nose, and her mouth """"fur"""" is very light while Shadow's is rather dark, but she has the hedgehog ears, and Shadow's eyes. She both does and doesn't look like she could be Shadow's younger sister, she more looks like a cousin. As far as actual relation goes, no one but Doom and Death know whether Doom's blood was used in Hara like it was for Shadow, and as I said earlier, most people see Hara as Death’s daughter rather than Doom's. Death refused to let Hara live with Doom, as to not place a "burden" (his words not mine) on the Dark Lord. As for Doom, he truly just wanted Shadow back, and then the idea of Doom taking Hara in was completely shut down when his wife Black Widow (again, another oc :3) fell pregnant.

But the events of ShTH aren't the end of Hara's story, far from it. Despite being basically shunned by him, Black Death forced Harazuki to come with him on his away mission as "assistance". Perhaps he started to see the good in her? Maybe then that she would become the new Shadow she was meant to be?

But those dreams of Hara's were never fulfilled, as the events of ShTH happened, and just like that, she lost so much. She lost the woman who took her in, she lost the one of her two creators that really seemed to love her. All she had left was one of her two best friends that she had made in those two years on the original Black Comet (maybe one day I'll talk about the one who died. They're more of a fan character than an oc just owned by me... haha), Black Death's nephew, Yuki. Yuki wasn't even supposed to be on the away mission, but he snuck in because he didn't trust Black Death with Hara alone (seeing a guy killing your mother in a blind rage right in front of you will do that to ya, ya know?). Hara, trusting herself with Yuki after him doing such a thing for her, stuck by him for a good couple of years.

But enough of the sad stuff for now, I'm actually about to cry.... haha (well maybe if I wasn't listening to "Hey There Delilah" while writing that part I'd not be-)

Anyway, right after getting the news that Shadow killed Black Doom and the majority of the Black Arms, Black Death quickly got planning to get revenge, and took the base idea of Hara and took out some things (mainly the Chaos Flight), expanded on other things, added an all new Monster Form, and long story short, Eclipse the Darkling was created. Eclipse looked full on alien, though that look includes having Hara's mouth/nose area structure and her tail (not showcased in the picture).

So, there's arguments to make for calling her a hedgehog, yes (mainly the ears), and you probably could call her a "hedgeling" or go through the effort to constantly write "Hedgehog/Darkling hybrid" but after writing all that and info dumping on y'all with minimal warning like Doom did to Shadow in the cutscene before Sky Troops, I think calling her "Harazuki the Darkling" works well

Or I could just use her full name Harazuki Chai/Harazuki Black-Chai

If you're reading this part, thanks for reading my nonsense haha-

Why don't you read a bit more while you're at it? Here's my fanfiction.net account link, where you can read more about Harazuki and other characters of both mine and SEGA's https://www.fanfiction.net/u/14774919/

#teos #the era of shadow #sonic au #sonic oc #art #artists on tumblr #includes cut off info dump #info dump includes death mention tw #harazuki tag

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beevean · 2 years

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You know what? All the key characters of the series got shafted aside in Sonic 06. The “supposed” anniversary game.

Sonic was sidelined while Shadow got the better role.

Eggman wasn’t even much of a threat or big boss which went to the poorly executed Mephelis.

Amy got horrible reception for siding with Sonic over the world while everyone was applauding Rouge and Omega who were saying the exact same thing towards Shadow. Just worded differently.

Tails and Knuckles where just clutter and had little impact to Sonic’s story unlike Blaze was to Silver or Rouge & Omega for Shadow. Seriously, the fox and echidna should’ve had something meaningful with Sonic in that game. How about THEY express they’d stay by Sonic’s side despite chances the future would be ruined like Silver (falsely)accuses him for?

I’m not upset with 06 about the gameplay or story. I’m upset that the characters who should’ve got better treatment in 06 were downplayed in favor of others who should’ve got the back burner or made little sense.

100% agree

This is the main reason I cannot defend '06's story. That, and how needlessly convoluted it gets thanks to the non established rules of time travelling.

You can tell the game was made at the peak of Shadow's popularity because he's literally the only character who's given proper respect. He gets the best scenes, the best lines, he's the smartest by far, and he's the most proactive. This game is literally ShTH 2, except nowhere near as funny.

The way Sonic is shuffled to a side plot in an anniversary game named after himself is simply embarassing. He's literally on the same level as Big in Adventure 1! Big is artificially made relevant to the macroplot because he keeps chasing Froggy, who has a Chaos Emerald and a part of Chaos inside it; Sonic is artificially made relevant to the macroplot because he keeps rescuing Elise, who has a Chaos Emerald and the Flames of Disaster inside her. Wow. Poor Eggman too, not only he's barely important to the plot, not only he randomly dies in a mundane accident, but even Mike Pollock sounds bored out of his skull when voicing him. Everyone sans for Shadow (and arguably Rouge) is so bland and lifeless here!

Tails and Knuckles are just sad. Tails gets Wave Ocean 2 for literally no reason other than to pad out the already long and padded game. You could literally edit Knuckles out and nothing would change, you'd just get less headaches because you wouldn't need to surgically remove him from the walls. And while Amy at least gets some cute scenes (although yeah that "if I had to choose between the world and Sonic" scene got heavily misunderstood, it was part of a recurring theme!), Blaze was written in a way that you could really think she's a mere figment of Silver's imagination.

And we all know by this point that Mephiles, the new big bad guy in town, comes off as a giant idiot for how stupid his 4D chess playing is. Again, the time travelling in this game is lazy.

I get that the game was rushed to hell and back, and I'm sure that it affected the story too, but some things can't be justified by rushing, like the amount of importance Shadow got.

#sonic the hedgehog #sonic 06 #when watching a video about '06's story the author said something interesting regarding the time travel #that it's almost like past present and future run together on parallel timelines #and you can jump from timeline to timeline #but the amount of time you spend in a timeline also passes in the others #so it's almost like dimension hopping #it's so weird

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chaosbcrne · 5 years

Text

something probably worth mentioning,

although i’ve established that my shadow’s canon shth ending was the true hero one simply because it ties in best with the last story which is undeniably canon, there’s another of the ten ‘identities’ he claims for himself in the other endings that definitely still resonates with this shadow, and that would be the one where he declares himself protector of the ark

shadow may not have come to that conclusion as ceremoniously as that ending depicts, he never stated it explicitly but it’s definitely a responsibility he’s taken on for himself. despite being a place tied to highly personal events and sentiments and nowadays serving as a sanctuary of sorts for him, what’s left up there is still both dangerous and no one’s business

sonic & co did a good job at sweeping over the place in sa2, and it’s safe to say that it’s no longer swarming with gerald’s g.u.n. defender bots designs and artificial chaos, but it’s just as easy to assume that there’s likely some remaining around some corners. maybe there’s even some experiments gone wrong still rotting up there, if the biolizard was encapsulated and kept alive for 50 years, why not whatever else that was experimented on and abandoned following the raid ? maybe there’s even some black arms left, possibly mutated, remnant from the invasion that would have survived the comet’s destruction after coming into contact with whatever experimental medicine was developed up there

that place is full of ghosts, literally and figuratively, it’s not a good place to be for the common person

not only that, but the outer portion of the colony has proven to be extremely hostile, with it bearing its own small gravity field and attracting asteroids to its surface almost constantly. the ark is as dangerous as any abandoned place can be

there’s also the notion that it houses plenty of content that’s off-limits; while im sure g.u.n. has done a decent job during the raid of wiping or seizing most of what was developed, the place is huge, it’s a maze, and it was the most technologically advanced of its time - there’s no doubt in my mind some things were left behind, most of which shadow wouldn’t want anyone getting their hands on

and of course it’s also his home. the closest thing he’s ever known to one, anyway. he doesn’t live there anymore, but it’s his place all the same; where he was made, where he was raised, and he’s the only one left alive to really know it and have a personal connection to it. it may be a selfish decision (or at least one he shouldn’t have taken on his own), but he’s taken it so no one should go up there unless he allows it

that’s not much of a problem in the sense that there’s only three ways to get there, none of which are typically accessible to people; chaos control, a rocket ship of some sort, or the transporter in that desert pyramid base which is already very difficult to get into as it is

shadow definitely considered destroying that transporter altogether, but decided against it after thinking on it, simply because you never know. he did, however, tweak it so he’d get notified if anyone used it. similarly, he probably hacked into whatever was left of the ark’s working communication array to also get a notification if unusual radio waves are detected up there, meaning he knows if any vessel approaches it

basically, if you somehow get there of your own accord, you can bet he’ll be waiting for you by the time you set foot on the colony, and you better have a damn good excuse ready to serve him

#✮ ☾ step inside and hold on for dear life ☽ ↳ headcanon #this got longer than intended but what else is new #long post

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superemeralds · 4 years

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OH WOW thank you for answering so fast!! I wanted to ask because in my opinion, Shadow is written kind of... poorly.. at the metal virus arc :c and I love how you characterize Shadow!! I was wondering, if you could, how would you have written him in it?

okay so this got. RAELLY long. it’s under the read more.. hhaaa... get ready for rambles.

before i start on what i would love to see different, here’s a few things that i really liked about his characterization in idw:

shadow being persistent about what he thinks is right, being very straightforward and strict in wanting to execute his ideal

the way he stepped down and let sonic try his way instead of being stubborn because sonic made a very good point. Shadow wants to be fair, and if he of all people deserves a chance, then so should eggman. kind of ties back to maria also, which is a nice nod to have considering it seems like modern writers for sonic usually treat the ending of shth as “ok she never existed to him anyways”

i like that he uses his GUN affiliation to his advantage to do good and help people (even if by rouges account he does it because he doesnt want to deal with zombots)

he has great devotion to make sure the truck is safe and peole get a chance to get out, giving (according to the comics anyways) more than 100% of his power dealing with hundreds if not thousands of zombots alone

I like that there’s a nod to shadow being insecure about his status as ultimate life form, and he is tempted to get infected just to prove to himself he really CANT get sick and he really IS a perfect being. He struggled a lot with the high expectations that were laid upon him, the expectations he’s laying upon himself.

I like how he had a great sense of shock and defeat when he realized that he DID get infected. It’s very true for him to be thrown off by it, get a little careless due to shock. its natural. it’s good.

his “i told you something like this would happen” towards sonic in the beginning of #19 is justified. He hates that he was right, he always is, and he wishes he wasnt. he could’ve prevented this, but its too late now. then later he risks getting infected with the metal virus, and he DOES get infected. He suddenly wasnt right anymore. This sense of irony... it’s probably one of the reasons he has trouble to concentrate on the fight. it’s a nice parallel. IDK if ian intended it to be this deep, but that’s what i read into it.

(i also want to point out that i like that herms gives everyone slightly diverse “skin”-tones. like diverse undertones. im still peeved they are all pretty pale but its hoenstly a nice little nod)

okay so here’s what i think could’ve gone better:

I feel like shadow being the one to drive the truck into the city is a reference to 06, where he is driving around in various vehicles. That in itself is nice, and i think shadow is a person who prefers to do things himself if there’s a lot at stake (which there was a lot of peoples lives) but i also think that he would think of himself as a powerful shield. He would rather be the one overseeing the battlefield insread of being the designated driver. He knows he was created for the frontlines, and he is someone who knows he can survive the front lines. He is not a sacrefice tobe made, he is the one who will make sure that no one else has to sacrefice themselves. Shadow should’ve been on site from the very beginning. Where is the rest of GUN anyways? Those low level humans should make an effort to protect the life on their planet.

Shadow did absolutely NOT use 100% of his pwoer to protect the truck. He could EASILY have done more. He can lift trucks. He could use chaos blast. He could easily have prevented just faling victim to the zombots so easily.

As mentioned above it kind of DOES make sense for him to go down easily due to being infected, but I think this was the wrong time to let him get infected. I think he wouldn’t let his guard down and carelessly touch a zombot. He would not give in to the temptation to test his limits like this if there was not a greater cause. I think he would easily break if someone he cared about (other than sonic) fell victim to the metal virus. This is something that would get him emotional, to get careless. He knows sonic can outrun the virus, but rouge can’t. Amy, Tails, Knuckles, Vector, all of Sonic’s friends can’t outrun the virus. There’s a big chance that he is immune, there’s a slim chance he is not. But even with that slim chance, he knows he could outrun it, just like sonic. Losing someone he cares about to the virus would remind him of his superiority, of how fragile life is and of his responsibility to protect life itself. Any restrait would be gone. He would be driven by guilt and anger at himself, that he could’ve done better, that he HAS to do better. It’s something that spirals him totally out of control. It’s something that would make him want to prove to himself that he has the ability to fix it all. because it’s all his fault.

this is honestly something that is so important. he feels responsible for this, because he did what was right and gave sonic and eggman a chance. In his mind, sometimes the right hting to do is the wrong thing to do, because sometimes only wrong actions get you to the right goal. he is a gray character like that, and i think it’s not shown enough. his regret and guilt don’t surface enough so that anyone who is not as invested in the character would be able to read it out of #19. there’s a lot of stuff going on inside shadow in this issue and its just. not enough time to unpack it all. this whole deal of him getting infected was too rushed. (as mentioned above i wouldve preferred he get infected a little later or under other circumstances)

I think shadow is aware of his responsibility as living weapon to not fall into the hands of the enemy. he has learned what it means to be manipulated, he learned what it means if he was used as a weapon by an enemy of life on earth. he does NOT want to be used as an object of destruction ever again. He would RUN. even if hesitant, but his emotions would make him excell even in that. he would make sure he’d run faster than sonic. he’s want to make sure that he’d give 110% and cure himself, something sonic couldn’t do.

the way he would go down in my mind is him excerting himself. He would absolutely reject help. he would prefer to not have any contact with anyone at all. For one because he feels guilty and he doesn’t want to deal with that emotionally, also because he doesn’t want anyone to see him in this state of weakness. He absolutely would loathe the idea of anyone being able to see him go down and surrender to the enemy. He would absolutely exhaust his entire energy reservoir building barricades and being the sole and only front line protecting evacuation efforts from a distance, to make sure that they have enough buffer to escape, should he fail.

shadow is someone who is rash and has a tendency to boast his strength, but he also is someone who tries to consider any and all possibilities, no matter how painful they are to admit to his pride. he will shove them to the back of his mind, but they are still there. and if it COMES to those scenarios, he will have a plan for them. only if unpredictable things happen, or things that shake him emotionally, he would lose grip.

also in all those talks abt things shaking him emotionally, i dont mean that other people who arent his friends are not important to him, its just that friendship has a bigger impact on people. i think that should be pretty obvious, but since people like to misinterpret shadow id like to make sure people understand that i think that shadow values all and every life on the planet. he griefs over random deaths as much as his friends, it’s just that it hits more personal. mostly because he thinks... of himself as someone who always protects, but never has to be protected.

shadows relationship with himself is complicated. he thinks very low of himself. he pretty much hates himself. but that is because he thinks oh so highly of himself. he is perfect, ultimate, unbeatable, unstoppable, immortal, immune.... he expects all this of himself... even though he knows that it’s not true. it’s the one thing that he knows of himself. The one thing he feels that he could maybe achieve if he tried hard enough, and of course he is never trying hard enough; and at the same time he is trying so hard. He gives 300% and yet he still feels like he halfasses everything and he still feels like he could do better. On the outside he presents it with his strict edgy persona, that looks down on everyone. but really he feels so small. most of all towards sonic. sonic is so so tall compared to shadow (pun intended).

he looks up to sonic so much, because he always manages to go out of hisway to do what is right. even if it meant risk, even if it meant weakness. Sonic, the guy that easily could just get killed and hurt and not recover. the funny jokes dude that never thinks more than a single step ahead. This boy is out there risking his life for the life of this planet on the front lines and he shows not a single care about his own safety, always putting everyone else before him. shadow envies him. he really really does. thats why he values his opinoin. thats why he listens to him and even steps back from his OWN ideals, something he would do for only VERY few people, because of course shadow is always right. this is referenced in various sonic games (sa2 most of all,shth,sth) and in sonic x (yea its not canon but like. They Really Got His Character).

ADDING SOME RAMBLING AFTER ISSUE #33 RELEASED

#shadcanon #kinda?#meta/ shadow #i still love my meta tag #anonymous #fan lore

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