ToaArcan

Let's not trash other fans, yeah?

It's in the Sonic section, soooo...

This is a thread dedicated to the expression of opinions that might be considered unpopular by the fandom at large. Maybe you really liked Sonic Underground. Maybe Chris Thorndyke was your favourite character. Maybe you think Sonic 06 is underrated? Here, it's all fair game. Of course, since this is all about posting things you like, that other people don't, let's try our best to be civil. Let's not freak out and tell someone that their opinion is wrong, because that's kinda, well, jerkish. 

I'll start us off:

I like Nic the Weasel a lot more than Nack. Her design may be "Nack with boobs", but she's not a bad joke that Ian wants us to consider a proper villain occasionally, and she plays a major role in the backstory of Fiona Fox, a character that I like writing a lot, and in playing around with interactions between the two, she became a much more worthwhile character. Coming up with a better design helped, I suppose.

Well, this is a bit of an interesting topic. 

Age is a fairly important thing in writing, as it plays a big role in a character's identity. The way someone acts will be influenced by how odl they are, as well their level of experience and in some cases, their intelligence.

That said, Sonic material tends to use it very, very badly. For a cast who are mostly in their teens, most of the characters act like they're in their mid-twenties. Amy, Cream, and Charmy manage to pull off their ages reasonably well, but that's about it. This is likely because the ages were stated by SEGA of Japan, to fit in with the standard animesque teen heroes/free-range children.

In the comics, this makes a bit more sense, as the characters were forced to grow up fast, but it's so rarely a plot-point that the most use it has seen is girls telling Tails he's not old enough to date them. Seriously. 

There are a lot of characters that have a screwed-up age that could be discussed. I could talk about what a mess the continuities have made of Tails' age, I could explain how I think Eggman should be in his fifties, etc. However, because she's the topic of the day in the Reworking Characters thread, and I said I'd cover her issues in this regard there... I'm talking about Fiona Fox first.

The issue here is quite simple once you give it a bit of thought: Fiona is a bit of a chronological impossibility. And why is that? Because of Auto-Fiona.

Auto's origin reveals a lot more about Fiona's age than you might think. We can see from her appearances that Auto was identical to FIona herself as a child. This means that Fiona would have to be the same age at the time of construction. THe robot looks about ten, but depending on whether she is tall or short for her age, she could be eightish or twelve-ish. But for simplicity's sake, we'll say ten. I've seen people say that she was older when the robot was built, but the robot was built by a factory machine, not personally designed, and is far too close to Fiona's actual form to be coincidental.

Here's where things get confusing: Auto was built for a single purpose: To lure Tails into a roboticizer. This means that she could only have been built once Tails became an active Freedom Fighter and a notable target for Robotnik, and considering that he was ten at the start of the series, this would logically make them the same age. 

You could attempt to explain that she was built earlier, but if there's one weakness that Robotnik definitely has, it's a lack of foresight. He would likely not have put any value on Tails until he was already a member of the FF, moreover, he likely would not have even noticed Tails until that point. You could also say that he built her to capture other young Freedom Fighters, but then there's the detail of where Auto-Fiona's parts came from: Auto-Sally.

Because Mike Gallagher, who wrote the "Growing Pains" two-parter, initially had no plans for there to be real Fiona, he stated that the robot was built largely from parts salvaged from Auto-Sally, the main antagonist of the Princess Sally miniseries, who was shoved into a roboticizer in Issue 3 and destroyed by an energy overload. This would set Auto's construction after Auto-Sally's destruction, and no earlier. 

This means that Fiona has to be about the same age as Tails... But then Ken Penders and his wanton disregard for continuity happened and he decided she was older, closer to Sonic's age. So, at best, she'd be three years older than Tails, and two years younger than Sonic, setting her at a believable 14 by the time of her regular appearance in the main comic. Until Ian decided she was a generic sixteen, of course. 

This is an interesting case, where the character's origin story, and the origin story of another character, explicitly contradict material later in the series. You can call it a retcon (I prefer to call it writers not caring), but then the backstories need some hefty rewrites, and that leads to even more continuity being edited, along with completely removing one of Robotnik's most important weaknesses. So, can we make this story work?

Yes.

Fiona's history gives us two possible explanations for the discrepancy between her given age and the age that her backstory would imply.

1) Experimentation

Auto's existence alone means that Fiona was used for at least one of Robotnik's experiments, in this case, the Auto-Automaton program. It is possible she was a semi-regular lab-rat for him. One of his experiments may have been a device designed to modify the age of the subject, since the existence of the prison camps alone means that Robotnik considered children not worth Roboticizing. Perhaps he wanted to use this machine to increase the age of the prisoners, clearing them for Roboticization. FOr extra irony, he could've been inspired to do this by the riot that Fiona played a part in starting, realising that he couldn't keep the children locked up. "Experiments" could also be used to explain her unnatural strength and agility that she displayed post-heel turn.

2) Magic stuff

Fiona spent her youth as a treasure hunter, working with Nic the Weasel. Given how many ancient artefacts have rare, mystical properties, something that Fiona was exposed to during this period could've caused her to grow at an accelerated rate momentarily. 

I prefer the first explanation, of course, but in any case, these are just my ways to line up the two contradictory stories and make them work. In this case, like Amy, Fiona would be similar in age to Tails, with an older body granted by other means.

So, what other errors can you find in the ages of the Sonic cast, how would you change them, or what would you suggest for it? DO you have your own explanations for the mess explained above? Maybe you think there's a clearer fix, or a detail I've missed?  

9 hours ago, F07E said:

I'm gonna throw my two cents in here and say the best way to keep the sting of failure as bitter and interesting as possible is to make sonic's decision similar to mass effects ashley or kaiden, except in this instance sonic's decision was a quick one where he was positive that he could rescue both fiona and whomever it was else he was rescuing (perhaps antoine just to add more depth to sonic's disdain for him at the start). To explain why they can't track her down, look no further than it happening on the day of the coup, with the ensuing chaos and associated danger forcing them to flee. I'd keep th idea of her being carted off to a work camp (as robotnik might have believed children as well as the old and infirm would be useless robians), and her subsequent escape forcing her to abandon another friend (made in the work camp) simply because they were slowing her down.

I like that idea, it makes Sonic's dislike of ANtoine less "Sonic picks on the wimpy kid" and more "Sonic is pissed that he gave up Fiona to save this useless guy who has a constant ego-trip about his non-existent worth", something that later comes to the fore when Tails tells the others about his solo adventure with his Fiona, which sparks an even bigger argument that ultimately reveals that Antoine has been wracked with guilt too.

However, I'm not sure about having her abandon someone herself. Hypocrisy is one of the big problems with Ian's version, and if we want to make her legit, then she should probably not make her stoop that straight away. It can happen later as partof showing her losing her grip, but not right at the start.

9 hours ago, Akessel92 said:

Red you hit the nail on the head with ideas for Fiona. To be honest I think Fiona was just made as placeholder character. That or catalyst for needless drama by making her the object in a "love triangle" (though I'm certain that is understatement of the bile that was these soapy drama years of the comic).

I think Penders made Fiona because he saw Auto-Fiona and decided that she needed to have a template, though Gallagher's backstory for the robot said she was built from leftovers from Auto-Sally with a tail bolted on. Bollers added her to the FF because he wanted to get rid of Sally and needed a "Smart girl love-interest" replacement, without really considering her character. This went on to colour the way Penders and Flynn used her. Penders actually decided to make the "Knockoff Sally" thing a plotpoint, having Sonic date her because he thought she would be similar, and he was still on the rebound from breaking up with her. However, he was supposed to learn that she wasn't like Sally at all, and break up with her and either try to find a spark with someone else or finally go back to Sally. This also would've brought her to the forefront for a while and developed her character a bit. However, he was fired for sucking at basically everything before this got to play out, so Ian got a comic where, to his knowledge, she was just a knockoff Sally, and he then turned her into an evil Sally who generally danced around being the complete opposite of what we know about Fiona already. For what it's worth, Ian doesn't think too highly of 172, and has called it a screwup. However, I don't know whether he means the idea, or the execution.

8 hours ago, TheRedStranger said:

Thanks Alex.

I think keeping it as Sonic's fault is indeed doable and I would love to see what Arcan does with it!

Right now I have not taken Sonic's flaws into account because I am looking at this tabla rasa. Trust me - we could do a LOT with Sonic. I think we all remember the supergenocide he was indirectly responsible for with E.V.E. Honestly I have to give a shout out to @Mike Arcade for point that one out to me. 

I think the quick choice idea F07E has could work with Sally if you went the original Ben Hurst route with Nichole. She has to choose who to save and she tries to save the one who would have the most gruesome fate( or she arguably was closer too in one moment of subconscious favoritism.) That would give Sally a  psychological reason to feel so responsible and how she developed flaws when it comes to micromanaging. She is still making up for failing both of them. 

I pick Sally because she could probably be a better counter-point in actuality. They make good potential character foils of each other. The famous gut-punch scene would be even more thrilling to see. Their Idealogical counterpoints would be a war for Tails's mind and heart. 

And Archie is failing big time to capitalize on the reality societal tension. In the real world we have people shooting and bombing each other because of the superficial color of their skin and/orwhere they are from. If we had a world where people are whole different animals...well that would be a whole different animal. Cultural disparity would be even more amazingly unique and yet have many more points of contention. Presently stories such as  Zootopia have really outshined Archie in this regard and they could have played these story cards on the table a decade ago but keep folding. Let's go deeper.

Who knows? I think we can actually get Sonic into the backstory as well. The question you have to ask is how does sonic fail and how does it impact the mindsets of characters and the overall deeper subtext of the story?

Nicole's story generally unfolds when Robotnik is still considered trustworthy, as opposed to at a point when the others were in danger. By the time any of them need saving, Nicole lives in Sally's pocket. 

Fiona's capture could also be something that explains why this Sonic isn't the permanently laid-back heroic hobo from the games too. Unlike SEGA Sonic, this Sonic knows that his actions could have consequences. WHile he knows there's nothing he could do to save Chuck, he could've saved Fiona, and didn't, and that's why, below all the jokes and cheese, he's serious about this.

FOr Sally's failure, I'd suggest the incident in which Bunnie is roboticized. 

In your first post, you suggested that Auto-FIona should be removed and have Tails' encounter be with Fiona herself. I've done something like that myself (With Fiona being a Robian with an artificial skin), but it's pretty old and meh, so I probably won't repost it here. However, I want to know how you'd have her serving Robotnik. DId he condition her to serve him while she was imprisoned, just straight up hypnotize her, is it an exploding leash situation, or did he twist her worldview and convince her to lash out against Sonic and his friends in revenge? By the same token, how does Tails escape? In the original story, Tails survives because Auto-Fiona's body is flawed and leaky, and she rusts from the inside when immersed in water. How would he get away here? Would he find a way to save her, or does that become a long-term goal for him?

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.

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.

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.

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.

Generally,the best way to run a game like this is through Skype, as the players need to talk in real time, as well as being able to use a private message to tell the DM who they're targeting. IN fact, this is a sort of game that would be difficult to run on the tabletop, as doing it in-person lacks a way to secretly communicate between DM and player.

So, there's a simple RPG called "Werewolf", not to be confused with the World of Darkness game of a similar title. THe premise is very simple: The playerbase are regular civilians, except some of them are secretly infiltrating werewolves. The game is divided into two phases, Day and Night. During the Day phase, the players attempt to figure out who the werewolves are. They can then accuse a player of being a werewolf, present evidence, allow the accused to defend themselves, and then leave it to the other players to decide their fate. However, the wolves can interfere here, accusing innocents to get them killed, and voting to spare accused friendlies. Given that this happens from Day One, this leads to some rather baseless accusations, but interactions during the Day are still important. During the Night phase, the werewolves attack, and each of them can kill a single other player. The game is over when either all the wolves are dead, or the wolves outnumber the humans. 

It's a generally fun game to play, and since the role each player has is decided by RNG, it can be set up and prepared in less than ten minutes. The length of a game depends on how many players, with a general need for about eightish players at least. Humans should have about twice the number of the wolves. 

Due to how simplistic the system is, it's very easy to just slap a different skin on it and make it suit a fandom of your choice. And after creating a Transformers version earlier today, I thought I'd do the same for Sonic.

So here's the setup:

The players are a cell of Freedom Fighters, opposing the cruel Robotnik Empire. However, they are more extreme in their methods, and a little paranoid, which the good doctor is exploiting. Recently, your leader was found Roboticized, which was confusing since he was still with the team at that very moment... Until you learned the horrible truth: Your leader had been replaced by an Auto-Automaton, and the real deal had been enslaved weeks ago. Furthermore, the robot alluded to more of its brethren being within your ranks. Now, none of you know who is a friendly, and who is machine in disguise... except the machines themselves, of course. 

During the nights, the Automata are snatching allies from their beds and carrying them off to be roboticized. Piece by piece, your team is crumbling. Realising the importance of this, the surviving members have gathered together to root out the robots, even if those same robots could be among them. 

Teams:

Automata: The players who will fill the role of the Automata are selected at random at the beginning of the game. It is their objective to reach a point where they outnumber the people, and thus nightfall would be an instant win for them. The Automata players are aware of who they are, and thus can vote to save their team-mates, or kill innocents. There are special roles within the Automata, which are also randomly decided:

The Commander: The leader of the Automata, has the ultimate say in who the Automata may target. 

The Disruptor: Can inject a poison which causes the victim to speak gibberish, removing their ability to take part in the Day phase for the next turn.

The FF: The players on the FF side are everyone who isn't selected to be a robot. Their task is to kill all of the robots, and due to their current condition, are willing to sacrifice allies to do so. Like the robots, they have special roles, but they are not aware of each others' status. 

The Spy: THe robots' acting is not flawless, and the spy can pick out differences in mannerisms. During the night, they can spy on another player and immediately learn whether they are a robot or not. If they are, they can then present this information, but of course, outing oneself as a spy places a large target on your back to the robots. On top of this, there is nothing to stop a non-special player from lying, and the other players may still choose to spare the accused anyway. 

The Assassin: Desperation reaches its peak, as the assassin decides to try and gun down the robots during the night. This player can instantly kill anyone during the Night phase, like the robots can. However, he does not know who he is killing before the shot is fired, so he may kill someone innocent.

The Sentinel: May protect a fellow player from any effects during the Night, including spying, capture, murder, or poisoning.

ANy players without a role are a generic member of that faction.

As an advisory note, my entire knowledge of the game is based on "The Upper Hive" videos, which show a few sessions of the game with a Warhammer 40,000 skin on it. There may be additional rules that I am not aware of.

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. 

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.

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.

Isn't that the game where Eggman brainwashes Sonic's friends and makes them play pinball against him?

Now that he's gone, I might actually watch it again.

Yardley used to have a problem with really big mouths in the early FLynn era.

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.

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.

Sounds good, this should be fun.

Alright, then let's go with my namesake!

Arcan is a Toa of Plasma with a rather painful history. Rather than going into great detail, I'll just keep it to what he's currently capable of and his appearance and condition. After all, such reveals would be on him to explain later.

Arcan can create, control, and absorb Plasma energy, and as a Toa, can perform a Plasma Nova Blast. He is resistant to extreme temperatures, fire, and electricity. He has, over the course of his adventures, equipped himself with the masks of Emulation, Diminishment, FLight, and Dimensional Gates. He is also equipped with a powerful mental shield thanks to his training, though sufficient damage can break it, and once that is done, he is especially vulnerable to telepathic attacks. He is reckless and has a short temper, being prone to violent outbursts when angered.

He is equipped with a suit of adaptive armour, which reshapes itself to allow him to fight well within any environment. By default, it includes a pair of sabillizing wings and a jetpack. However, it is not as sturdy as other forms of armour, relying on regeneration to keep itself secure. He carries a Plasma-powered greatsword, a pair of Power Sabres which amplify the power channeled through them, and double-bladed battle-axe. His other weapons have been destroyed and have yet to be rebuilt.

Arcan's eyes, voicebox, feet, and arms are cybernetic, after he sustained extreme damage in what amounted to a nuclear explosion. These parts are vulnerable to magnetic attacks. Much of the skin on his face is burned away, exposing the machinery beneath it. His body contains two implants, one that boosts speed, and another that boosts strength. However, they do not last especially long and overuse can render him physically drained.

POsting to test whether I can at Wulfsbane's request.

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.

SO what are the guidelines on characters here? Sonic focused, or does anything go?

Interesting points, could you elaborate a little further?