Reworking characters: Archie version

[ToaArcan]

Here's an idea I had, similar to the Reconstructed stuff. That seems to be more about the stories themselves, but I want to discuss the most important part of the story: The characters.

Let's be honest, Sonic characters aren't the most fantastic out there. I generally see them as characters that have oceans of potential, and most of them are very good ideas, but they're hamstrung by SEGA's practices, or, in the cases of many Archie characters, the writers themselves.

Many of the Archie writers fall into a little trap I call "Story before characters". If they want to tell the story, but it doesn't make sense for the characters to act that way, well, they'll still write it. In my humble opinion, this isn't right, but then I suppose they're the professionals and I'm not. Still, I think if the story only works because one of the characters did something that doesn't make sense with what has been established about them, and that isn't in itself a plot point, then the story doesn't work.

 

So, with that in mind, let's look at the characters. How would you progress them from the foundation they have right now, or how would you change some things entirely? It's very tempting to start with Fiona Fox here, as I'm always fascinated by hearing what people think should've been done with her, but I don't think I shall. Instead, looks look at a more well-known target: 

How would you make Scourge work? What needs changing? What needs enhancing? What needs to be dropped altogether.

[Mr Nemesis]

I have two ideas on this. My first one is just working with Scourge as given could potentially work but you'd need to change two things. One show him in a more negative light as he has supposed to be "sympathetic" in a few arcs IIRC. Two have people react to him the way they really should as he is arguably one of the worst villains moral wise and he somehow managed to corrupt on of the heroes.

My second idea is a bit hampered as I still have to remember that it is a kid's comic but since Batman: The Animated Series did it, show how abusive Scourge would be to everyone. Not only is there evidence that he is at least emotional abusive to Fiona, probably physically as well due to his personality, he'd also probably have the habit of smacking around anyone who works for him if they even ask him to clarify something. If we must give him the spotlight then show what he is like when he isn't breaking stuff and trying to kill the hero or being forced to work for someone.

[ToaArcan]

Both of those are good ideas, THe latter, there's evidence for physical abuse too in BNM.

[Mike Arcade]

Well you got my interest.

Scourge really could go a number of ways, being less sympathetic would help out a bit, revealing that he's not as tough as he leads on in his backstory would help as well. Make him more pathetic rather then sympathetic, something that I feel Scourge always was and he became the way he was due to how screwed up his world is. But make sure to show he can be as bad as any of the villains, in the end he's more of a street punk on a power trip.

I would show that his counterpart, Sonic is not too far off from being similar or worse then Scourge though, which I think could give Scourge some level on him, have a scene like the One Bad Day part where in this case it's reversed, Sonic is the one taunting him but Scourge then pushes his buttons way too far. I know that's not entirely a Scourge only part I said but interactions like that are important, it keeps people guessing, wondering, and adds some depth to the story and characters.

I would also show how Fiona got on his side and the eventual downfall of their "relationship", and Scourge's ultimate fate being quite horrible. Like say since he absorbed energy from the Master Emerald, the conflicting energies in body made him stronger...at first, but then become unstable resulting in Scourge dying due to both Chaos and Anarchy Energy inside him.  If the Master Emerald was similar to the one in Sega Sonic and Post-Reboot, I'd have it so that in order to survive, Scourge would have to remain by the ME's side at all times...yes, in a twist of fate I would have Scourge become the new Guardian of the Master Emerald FOREVER, with it, or Tikal and Chaos able to stop Scourge whenever he tries to go back to his old ways, it would either free Knuckles of his duty or give him an unwanted apprentice as well.

Or we go full throttle here, he gets his big dumb Super Fight with Sonic and loses, however someone else would finish him off, either intentionally or unintentionally, I'll let your imaginations run wild on that one. So basically Scourge would be pretty dead at that point...at least he would be if Eggman didn't find him, barely holding on to life..
With that, we wouldn't just have Metal Sonic anymore...he'd be grafted on to a Legionized Scourge. We wouldn't have both characters as they once were, instead...this would give birth to a brand new, more terrifying Pseudo Sonic...

That's how I would rework Archie Sonic's Scourge the Hedgehog.

[ToaArcan]

2 hours ago, Mike Arcade said:

Like say since he absorbed energy from the Master Emerald, the conflicting energies in body made him stronger...at first, but then become unstable resulting in Scourge dying due to both Chaos and Anarchy Energy inside him.

Funnily enough, I've been operating on that exact same plan for years. I proposed a concept called Anarchy/Chaos Poisoning, which works a bit like a slower version of matter/antimatter annihilation. Basically, being exposed to Chaos Energy is harmful to a Moebian, and being exposed to Anarchy Energy is harmful to a Mobian. Even the background radiation of each world is enough to start slowly killing the subject. Symptoms begin with a shift in eye colour, followed by other slight mutations and a massive increase in strength. However, after that, the bad stuff happens- The body stops aging, unable to grow without its respective energy type. It soon stops healing too, wounds become a permanent fixture. Mental problems and muscle degeneration follows, with other symptoms springing up, before the whole thing culiminates in mass haemorraging and the subject dies. It affects normals more quickly than it does those who have powers, and it doesn't effect humans at all, as they have no connection.

 

The rest is very interesting. The Super fight sounds good. Sonic would win via experience and skill, as opposed to brute power, I'm guessing.

[Mike Arcade]

Nice, though remember if you have an ongoing story planned, it's always nice to keep concepts hidden from view so people don't immediately guess what's going to happen next in your story. XP
Still, good to see we are on the same wavelength on how that would work out for Scourge, bad fates all around! Unless he could somehow redeem himself, fates worse then death it is.

That's how it should go yeah.

[ToaArcan]

Eh, already used that one

Scourge, as a character, is pretty irredeemable. He's no more able to become a hero than Sonic is to be corrupted.

 

That said, I doubt we're going to get more views on Scourge. If you happen to be finding this thread later, then you're more than welcome to post your own thoughts on him, so let's try someone else. How about... Mina.

[Mike Arcade]

I'ma hold you on that one, as Archie Sonic himself is responsible, directly and indirectly for causing a LOT of problems and mass death on Mobius and Beyond, but that's a story for another day.

On a side note that's how I'd have Scourge if we are still following Pre-Reboot Mobius and not goiing for our own Archie Sonic take or Post-Reboot, except for the Master Emerald Guardian Part that is. In fact all of these Reworkings I'll post here for Archie Sonic are keeping in line with Pre-Reboot unless notified otherwise.

Mina huh, good choice,  for one thing I'd keep her as a singer but make her much more active, like have a few stories where she ends up in the mists of bad situations and with no other Freedom Fighters, despite her fears like how she almost got killed trying to be one, would have to take the role a few times. I'm not saying she would join the group officially but she would not just inspire people with her music, but her actions as well. With the whole Nicole thing, her fears can bleed into her lyrics and cause more harm then good by sending the wrong message. This would probably cause conflict with Ash not wanting her to put herself in danger, and perhaps even her band mates which could lead to a lot of potential stories as well, such as the choice of not being a Freedom Fighter, like what does that make her then? Will tensions with Ash break them apart, what about the band? Mina I think never had much of a spine, her only one heroic moment was taking a bullet for Sally, after that other then some feelings left for Sonic until the whole Nicole thing happened she didn't have a Character Arc anymore and grew weaker in mild comfort, until The Iron Queen happened. We have a girl who didn't know what she wanted in her life, wanted to be with someone, did stupid things, didn't win the boy and lost a lot with her Mom, but then discovered a dream thanks to her friends and became a big star, now that she's a star and is living her dream...what's there left to do? That's how I would handle Mina anyway, from shallow girl to star singer, then brought down a peg upon a song gone wrong, her character would go on from there and bear all the choices she would make.

[F07E]

3 hours ago, Mike Arcade said:

I would also show how Fiona got on his side and the eventual downfall of their "relationship", and Scourge's ultimate fate being quite horrible. Like say since he absorbed energy from the Master Emerald, the conflicting energies in body made him stronger...at first, but then become unstable resulting in Scourge dying due to both Chaos and Anarchy Energy inside him.  If the Master Emerald was similar to the one in Sega Sonic and Post-Reboot, I'd have it so that in order to survive, Scourge would have to remain by the ME's side at all times...yes, in a twist of fate I would have Scourge become the new Guardian of the Master Emerald FOREVER, with it, or Tikal and Chaos able to stop Scourge whenever he tries to go back to his old ways, it would either free Knuckles of his duty or give him an unwanted apprentice as well.

Or we go full throttle here, he gets his big dumb Super Fight with Sonic and loses, however someone else would finish him off, either intentionally or unintentionally, I'll let your imaginations run wild on that one. So basically Scourge would be pretty dead at that point...at least he would be if Eggman didn't find him, barely holding on to life..
With that, we wouldn't just have Metal Sonic anymore...he'd be grafted on to a Legionized Scourge. We wouldn't have both characters as they once were, instead...this would give birth to a brand new, more terrifying Pseudo Sonic...

You know I've actually had a similar idea before, however my idea was to have super sonic unable to beat him using just brute strength without risking innocent civilians, leading to him using his wits to goad scourge into going super with both the emeralds and the beryl (and maybe the sol emeralds if someone could make it work without contrivance) leading to scourge becoming a god in his own eyes, before the energy begins to promptly consume him as the conflicting energies begin to cause a chain reaction on a molecular level. I'd then have sonic(or shadow) use chaos control to teleport him a nice safe distance away in space and allow all that energy to go full on super nova inside of him. scourge goes boom, we avoid using blood to exemplify how dead he is (keeping in line with most mandates in the comic regarding it), and if he were to come back in a sense, it would be an entirely new character created by the lingering energy spit out by his ethereal ashes.

[TheRedStranger]

Excellent thread. Vibrant discussion.

 

 You just got featured.

[ToaArcan]

Interesting ideas for Mina, I really don't have much for her beyond "She exists", so I was interested in seeing what other people would make of her.

[Wulfsbane]

I think Mina could work well in a  support role for the Freedom Fighters. She could keep her music career and still tour but behind the scenes she's giving help and support to the Freedom Fighters from wherever she is and may be able to find things out while on the road. She could also use her fame to help grow the cause of the Freedom Fighters and such.

That's what I got off the top of my head, I'll probably have more in a bit, as well as Scourge

[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?

[Wulfsbane]

Eggman needs to drop the goofiness to him and become a more sinister villain again. He needs to instill fear in the hearts and minds of the people, his henchmen, and anyone who apposes him. When he was the unredeemable menace he was at his best. I think it would be best to not kill him if he is like this but have him somehow able to slip away each time, usually due to something happening to make Sonic go to his values, such as saving one of his friends. Have Eggman play the card that makes Sonic go through the hard mental choices; play the mind games

[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.

[Wulfsbane]

This Eggman would be a bit more sinister though, it wouldnt require someone other than Sonic to help but he would have a back up plan to threaten Sonic with? Perhaps if Tails is flying around the base Eggman could have multiple AA items that could easily take down Tails? Could also eliminate battalions and units of GUN and force other villains to work for him in circumstances that benefit him 99.99%

[Akessel92]

On June 18, 2016 at 8:57 PM, Wulfsbane said:

Eggman needs to drop the goofiness to him and become a more sinister villain again. He needs to instill fear in the hearts and minds of the people, his henchmen, and anyone who apposes him. When he was the unredeemable menace he was at his best. I think it would be best to not kill him if he is like this but have him somehow able to slip away each time, usually due to something happening to make Sonic go to his values, such as saving one of his friends. Have Eggman play the card that makes Sonic go through the hard mental choices; play the mind games

Well I don't think the goofiness is the problem. But he does need to instill fear as you said amongst his  henchmen and anyone who stands in the way. 

I also do agree that with other characters involved that neither of them have captured or killed him. But with Eggman's dozen showing that throughout Eggman has lost sometimes and won against other villains like Naugus and Wendy. I think it's safe to theorize the same for other groups of heroes and villains. It's just we haven't seen it in the post-reboot much. 

[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.

[Wulfsbane]

7 hours ago, Akessel92 said:

Well I don't think the goofiness is the problem. But he does need to instill fear as you said amongst his  henchmen and anyone who stands in the way. 

I also do agree that with other characters involved that neither of them have captured or killed him. But with Eggman's dozen showing that throughout Eggman has lost sometimes and won against other villains like Naugus and Wendy. I think it's safe to theorize the same for other groups of heroes and villains. It's just we haven't seen it in the post-reboot much. 

I see it as a part of the problem. I just havent been able to take him seriously in a while.

Having him Win and lose is a good thing it shows that he can win but he can lose. He's not invincible but not fully vulnerable. But this needs to be expanded a lot more

[Mr Nemesis]

For Sally I would start by making alterations to her reboot design. I would make her vest a little longer as bearing her midriff isn't practical and does not honestly seem like her style and make her shorts actual shorts, not jogging shorts.

I'd make her a lot more tactical in her leadership role not just pointing at places and telling people to go there. I'd have her call out Sonic for screwing up or playing around instead of just finishing the mission. Plus have more scenes of her fighting as, maybe it is just me, I don't think we get enough of her kicking ass in the reboot compared to the SEGA cast.

Finally the really obvious one, re-implement her romance with Sonic. Not only is it one of two romances with Sonic I've seen that makes sense, although the other one is just ship tease so might be a little generous, it was probably one of the better written character relationships even when they weren't together.

[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.

[TheRedStranger]

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?

__

The trick to character writing is to abandon your sense of self and allow the character to take over you. Sounds creepy at first, but this is how a vast majority of the Greats do it. Stephen King is one shining example; he even writes about the process in his work Memoire of The Craft. I recommend it to any writer wanting to develop characters. When it comes to Fiona such a process would really help. 

Let's start with the begining. Fionana is a character whose themes' focus on abandonment and the need for others (and the conflicts such motivations give us). Knowing that core motivation, we can begin to develop a psychohistorical picture of why she has shifted alliances and stances over the years. The prison should not necessarily be our first stop. And if we want to involve Tails, let's do so directly by having him involved with Fiona and not a robo-clone in our upcoming reconstructions. We should also ingrain her more into the backstory of the Freedom Fighters directly. Her connection now is incredibly abstracted and vague. Our characters actually have very little concrete connection to evoke any drama, let alone inner-conflict, when it comes to Fionana. The reader is getting a major disservice; we are expected to empathize with what was nwither seen nor developed. This is frankly an arc that comes out of nowhere and we are expected to relate too. We must do everything we can to flesh that backstory out and fix it to be relevant to the reader's experience of the story and a sense of Fionan being thinking and feeling person existing merely beyond the pages of the comic. We must develop a sense she is someone with agency in an equally active world beyond the mere aspects of one printed issue.

 Let's make her an early friend of our main cast, before the Coupe even. Perhaps we can make a fear of abandonment be an early motivation in life which leads to her eventual flaws like trusting people like Scourge and her dissent into a darker, dog-eat-dog worldview. We could do such like this:

 

Her father left for a more exclusive Mobian faction during the Great War, divorcing her mother who remained loyal to the Monoarchy. We show the reader a divided house hold in a divided world; it shows divisiveness and betrayal are things that then form her early view of Mobius. Also, being she still lives in Mobotropolis, she weighted down by a stigma that she does not seem to fit. She is the daughter of a traitor from a species that might even be stereotyped as deceitful. Secondly she comes from a non-traditional family with a single mother struggling to make ends meat. Foxes are famously monogamous and mate for life, you could draw on that as well. Her family being broken would be subject to societally judgement even in vulpine circles. Loosing her father and perhaps others in her family, the friends she does have then she clings onto and relates them to the inclusive values of Mobian culture (all differing Mobians together in one just and right society). Having these friends, which are our future Freedom Fighters, is actually her biggest anchor and the affirmation of what her mother believes in enough to be separated from a father that chose to leave Mobotropolis. Sally would be a huge influence on her then, she is the biggest symbol of equality and the Acorn ideal of inclusion. She is a Princess, but treats a young Fionana a friend. Perhaps we should even switch the focus away from Sonic when it comes to the infamously unseen prison scene and allot the failure to a novice Sally.

How we do such following scenes I will tell you perhaps in a later post or...perhaps a creative work of my own on the boards...

[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.

[F07E]

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.

[Akessel92]

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).

[TheRedStranger]

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?

[ToaArcan]

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?