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ToaArcan

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Everything posted by ToaArcan

  1. ToaArcan
    That's a very interesting thing to see. Fiona's age is a bit of a sticking point in the story of the comic- something I'll make a post about later, but her being a friend of the FF beforehand would be an interesting twist. However, I'd stick to it being Sonic's failure, not Sally's. We see plenty of Sally's screwups and the fallout from that, while Sonic seems largely untouchable. By putting the weight of this failure on Sonic, he gets a great failure of his own. A non-lethal Gwen Stacy. Sure, he's had times when he's screwed up, but by the end of the story, he fixes it and everyone is safe. Except here, that doesn't happen. The issue therein is why. Why don't they go back? How do you do that in a way that doesn't make our heroes look like complete pricks, but also doesn't make Fiona look petty. For example, if they screw up, and Robotnik takes her away on a ship and looks her in some far-off facility, how are they supposed to find her? It needs to be a something that they can't save her from, but she doesn't know that. As an aside, animal stereotypes don't appear to be common in Sonic material, outside of Tails' being smart. They sort of appeared as a reason for conflicts in Ian's run, but that was pretty bad writing.
  2. ToaArcan
    TIme to revive this. No point dodging it any longer, let's get a bit more complicated. This time we're tackling Fiona. There are actually three parts to this. They don't have to line up with each other, as each is handling a different issue. 1) How would you handle her introduction? Fiona was introduced as someone who held a grudge against Sonic and Mighty, because they'd seemingly abandoned her in a prison. Why they did this was never explained. So how do you give her this grudge without making it a giant unanswered OOC-moment for Sonic and Mighty? 2) How would you handle has a character, based on what Bollers and Penders established? Ian pretty much ignored that and made his own version of her who didn't line up with what we knew about her. So what would you do in this case? 3) How would you handle her as a villain? Evil!Fiona was a missed opportunity, as she ended up as a two-bit rival for Sally, who already disliked her, rather than a character that could've been an emotionally-draining foe for those who cared about her: Sonic, Tails, and Bunnie. So how would you make her evilness worthwhile and interesting.
  3. ToaArcan
    I would wager that they did have some connection- Tails goes to her after Fiona goes crazy in 172, rather than Sally or one of the other FF. However, because this is Ian "Blaze can't carry a story" Flynn, he never showed it because it didn't have enough explosions or punching.
  4. ToaArcan
    Bad writing Ian rewriting her personality to tell his bad story If we're going to try and marry her portrayal under Bollers with her derailment under Ian, it's quite simple: There was a disconnect. Rosemary would've been a much better mother if she'd been around during his formative years. Unfortunately, by the time she's around, Tails is already eleven years old, and in many ways, has fully matured (Because nobody except the DIC writers could actually make him act like a kid). She feels that she doesn't really know him, and the feeling is probably mutual. She may also not feel completely okay with who he grew up to be, and feels that he seems more like Sonic and Sally's child than her own.
  5. ToaArcan
    Spark of Life was an overall "meh" story that could've been much better if they just did a few things differently, hyped up as a mystery that Baker never intended to answer. Any edge that the Nikki backstory had was lost when they decided to make Nikki look completely different to Nicole and leave them with basically no actual connection, something that could've been rectified if they'd just made Nicole the spitting image. THat would make it far more tragic, if Ellidy had come close to saving her, but seemed to have not succeeded. Instead, Nikki just straight-up dies, some of her traits are passed on, and Nicole looks nothing like her because... reasons? The Phage story can be blamed on the cover letterer, who decided to make a point of "WHO IS PHAGE!?", but, since Baker had no intention of answering that question, it looks like the big reveal is "Eggman Minion #586", just like every other new villain. The conclusion of the story was also a letdown- Nicole gets her own Super mode... and has the most unnaturally non-plussed reaction ever, and then uses her powers to shut a door in Phage's face. As for Clove and Cassia, they know Eggman is a monster, they hate working for him, and they don't want to be there. If they know about Bunnie, why don't they go to Chuck? Furthermore, their introductory story has them failing to recognise the team that went to Crystal Cave, which included Sally and Tails. Baker wrote them as people who do not know that the FF exist, Evan Stanley gave them a backstory that fit with that, but that isn't the universe that Flynn is writing. In his stories, even the most physically underwhelming of the FF are famous enough that Breezie wants them on TV (Tails doesn't have any feats now that SEGA retconned everything he did outside of his mechanical skill, and Amy is a normal person with a fancy weapon), and Vector refers to the organization as "World famous", while the FF have used their status as an appeal to trustworthiness during the world tour arc. In a world where Bunnie is famous, any reason to go to Eggman for cybernetics is void- They can be acquired through a morally-justifiable means, and even if one is a villain, it still robs Eggman of a chance to screw them over.
  6. ToaArcan
    Slightly off-topic, but I'm one of those weird people that finds the slap a completely understandable reaction on Sally's part. Seeing it rendered well only helps that.
  7. ToaArcan
    I've found Aleah Baker's work to be pretty bad. Spark of Life was terrible and her stories for Clove and Cassia just don't work in the setting that Ian created for the reboot. They're predicated entirely on the logic that nobody knows the Freedom Fighters, that Sonic is the only famous face, and their first appearance has them not recognising Sally and co. However, Ian has stated all along that the FF are still world-famous, and it's not just Sonic that's well-known. In a world where Bunnie is a world-famous cyborg, there's no reason why people would go to Eggman for cybernetics when they clearly already despise him.
  8. ToaArcan
    Isn't that the game where Eggman brainwashes Sonic's friends and makes them play pinball against him?
  9. ToaArcan
    Now that he's gone, I might actually watch it again.
  10. ToaArcan
    Yardley used to have a problem with really big mouths in the early FLynn era.
  11. ToaArcan
    If they hadn't gone on their trip across the stars, Tails would likely not have fallen for Cosmo in the first place- Rather than actually writing a romance, the writers just dunked the two of them in a magic lake that Amy intended to brainwash Sonic into loving her (Yeah, X!Amy was kinda terrible), and skipped all that character-growth stuff. But yes, X!Sonic wasn't exactly a hero. He probably wouldn't have done much at all if the writers hadn't rendered almost every character useless except him, Knuckles, Shadow, and Rouge. It seemed like every episode involved Tails, Amy, Cream, and Chris going off to do soemthing, getting into trouble, and Sonic rushing to their rescue.
  12. ToaArcan
    Droodhenge is my personal favourite, just because it showed Tails finally starting to come into his own, as well as being part of the Doomsday Arc.
  13. ToaArcan
    I don't have a top ten list, but right now, I do have a favourite: Planetside 2 I can't stop playing this game at the moment. It's so much fun. Set on the faraway world of Auraxis, the human colonists split into three factions: The Terran Republic, the New Conglomerate, and the Vanu Sovereignity. The three fight over four continents, to gain more territory, but since everybody that dies is brought back to life by nanites, the war never ends. With a multitude of classes, vehicles, and aircraft, the game plays like a massive-scale class-based shooter. Only four maps? Each is a whole landmass. When you capture a region, you don't go back to a lobby, you get into a vehicle and drive/fly to the next one. Run solo or throw in with a platoon, which can contain 48 players at a time, no other shooter quite holds up after it, really. Oh, and it's free.
  14. ToaArcan
    Interesting points, could you elaborate a little further?
  15. ToaArcan
    I'm not sure beyond that, to be honest. Probably in charge of protecting something I guess. As for how did she keep them safe for so long, well, Robotnik didn't expect them to survive. He thought they would've starved, and so didn't bother looking for them.
  16. ToaArcan
    Well, we've had a bit of a revival. Hmm... Let's have a new character... How abooouuuut... Sally. How would you handle the leader of the FF and Sonic's main squeeze? What needs to change, what needs to be brought into the fore more, and what needs to be added.
  17. ToaArcan
    I would disagree there. Evil!Fiona had no personality beyond "Sneer at everything and hump Scourge's leg", and herstory didnt work because being forced onto an already-existing character, who had already been established as being completely unimpressed by Scourge and not at all evil. She didn't manipulate Tails at all, she spent most of her time antagonising Sally because Ian decided she and Scourge were the antithesis to Sonic and Sally. The one time she did argue with someone who was established to give a damn about her, it was Sonic, and he reduced her to tears in a few lines and went back to punching Scourge. This Cosmo would be foreshadowed from the beginning to have something ulterior going on, would use her position in the heroes' lineup to manipulate them (Such as getting the entire crew to fight Shadow on her behalf), and would become a very personal foe for Tails- One evil and manipulative, that he is also forced to love by a magic lake, perhaps leading up to an appearance by his own Super mode. Literally just adapt the game. Cut out all of the filler in Season 2 (Did we really need the story about Eggman causing a permanent eclipse?), and do Battle proper, complete with Emerl's character being intact. Of course, that would mean bringing back SHadow sooner, but eh, he was one of the better parts of that game anyway.
  18. ToaArcan
    Here's my idea: Rosie was some form of ex-special forces. Who else would Maximillian trust to look after his daughter? Who else could keep them safe and train them to fight for the next ten years?
  19. ToaArcan
    I'd make him a very minor character. He appears for a short arc, but is quickly phased out. Oh, this is easy. Remove the gender-divide. In the show, all of the Seedrian females were peace-loving and turned into trees, while all of the males were the warlike, omnicidal Metarex. It was... odd, to say the least. If we're going to have a terrifying army of plant-aliens that intend to wipe out all animal life in the universe, then let's have them all do it. Including a certain Cosmo. When Shadow pitches up and attempts to kill her because she's a spy, he is 100% correct. And for bonus points, let's keep this happening after she and Tails take a dunk in the love potion. Except Cosmo isn't affected, and why would she be? She doesn't have a flesh-and-blood brain, because she's a plant. But that's not going to stop her from using it to her advantage. Goes without saying that this Cosmo wouldn't be having flashbacks every ten seconds.
  20. ToaArcan
    It's interesting to note that Sonic continued to be lazy in the next TV adaptation. Weird, huh?
  21. ToaArcan
    Well, that answers why Sonic specifically would not deal the death blow, but it wouldn't always work. 1) Sonic often fights Eggman alone, with no-one around for him to threaten, in one of Eggman's bases, so nothing of value would be lost. 2) There are other characters around, especially ones like GUN or the other villains.
  22. ToaArcan
    Props for a Mecha Sally that has external armour rather than being basically rebuilt via body-horror. The former is what I went for with my design for her (And once again I bemoan my lack of scanner), and I think it works a lot better than the whole vivisection plot, which I felt was a bit too gruesome. The lighting of the scene and the dialogue Ian gave to Eggman made the whole thing unnecessarily uncomfortable too. The Phage idea sounds really good too. I think one thing that was missing from Spark of Life was that Nicole and Nikki didn't feel connected. Right down to Nikki looking completely different to Nicole for no real reason. Having Phage be part of Nikki would be very interesting, much better than her being Generic Egg Minion #45438;
  23. ToaArcan
    I'm going to look at this with a general reaction of "OKay, yeah", and only address a few things that should be brought up. 1) The Final Egg Blaster is a canonical weapon, and I actually lowballed it here. In Sonic Battle's final story, Eggman demonstrates this weapon, mounted on what was like the fourth Death Egg in the games. After being defeated by Emerl, Eggman uses the weapon as a show of force, intending to break Emerl's link with Sonic and force him to form one with him instead. It actually snuffed out multiple stars, but I brought it down to level of one star, and game up with the "Inducing a supernova" part to justify something of that power. Tying to the base in SA1 was me spitballing about why the base and weapon would have the same name. 2) Most of the stuff with Mecha Sonic was intentional. He's an old AI, programmed by a madman, granted sentience by a huge rock fueled by Chaos. If he doesn't come across as the most "alive", that's because he's really not meant to be. Just as Neo Metal simultaneously claimed to be the original Sonic yet boasted his purpose as "Being created to destroy Sonic", there are parts of Mecha Sonic that are just quirks of how his AI has been warped by Chaos. His hypocrisy was also an intended thing, as I wanted to make it so that he is largely in the right about Eggman's failures, he's not a perfect being waltzing in and speechifying. He's an egotist with enough power to make himself invincible to those he's confronting, and he loves the sound of his own voice. He has a cruel streak a mile wide and his people skills are just as bad as his creator's. If you find yourself hating him... good! It worked. 3) Reginald wasn't meant to be an important figure. He was my take on the "Tassel boy" thing from the more recent comics. He existed to be made an example of, but I wanted it to be done in a way that gave him a personality, rather than just using him as an awkward, uncomfortable punchline. Maybe you're used to fics that have unnecessary centralised OCs, but I prefer to keep everything centralised on the canonical protagonists and use OCs primarily as redshirts. 4) I wouldn't call Mecha Sonic a woman-beater. He's equal-opportunity evil. He's not interested in what's between someone's legs, he's interested in whether they are in his way or not. If they are, then he's going to go through them. What am I supposed to do, give him a female sidekick to have Designated Girl Fights with all the other female characters? By that same token, say I'm writing a fight scene with Sally in it. Can she only fight female characters and genderless robots? Do any male opponents just have to stand there and get beaten up because they're misogynist if they fight back? Mecha Sonic doesn't single out Thunderbolt for her gender, he attacks her because she attacks him first. 5) Mecha Sonic's excuse for not crushing Thunderbolt amounts to her being much less solid than Orbot and Cubot. They're mostly made of solid metal, whereas Thunderbolt is primarily made of soft tissue and she would make more of a mess. 6) This story has no hero. I wasn't about to try and make either Mecha Sonic or Eggman into a more likeable figure just so people could root for someone.
  24. ToaArcan
    Mina hasn't caused as much of a stir as Scourge, and I'm still holding off on Fiona for now...So how about Eggman himself? How would you handle the comic's most common villain? I'm going to weigh in a little here: I think Eggman's portrayal in the comic currently is hindered by Ian trying to make him a villain protagonist. Prior to the reboot, the opposite was true: Eggman was so vile that it was impossible to justify why nobody ever tried to kill him, especially since the FF did try to kill him when he was a robot, but conveniently stopped when he became flesh and blood again. Funny that. So yes, how wuld you handle making Eggman a good villain that makes sense in the universe?
  25. ToaArcan
    Cool.
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