Sonic Boom: All "Hail" Shadow

Sonic Boom, the TV series, is a Saturday morning cartoon series based on the video game Sonic Boom series (which is a spin-off of and takes place in a separate canon than the main Sonic series).

I haven't played any of the Sonic Boom video games, but I tried twenty minutes of the demo for Rise of Lyric for the WII U and enjoyed the gameplay well enough, and might have bought it if I hadn't subsequently discovered that the plotline kind of... stunk. (A large contributing factor to not getting it was discovering that Shadow had a role that lasted all of two minutes and felt very "he's here just because he's popular.")

My opinions on Shattered Crystal (for the 3DS) are a little kinder, and I found myself legitimately invested in Shadow's role in the game when I pulled up the cutscenes on Youtube. But, I definitely wasn't spending 30 dollars on a game that sidelined Amy and treated Knuckles... in the way they did. I'll get to that bone in the minute.


Y'see, I'm not here to talk about the Sonic Boom video games. I'm here to talk about the TV series.


The TV series, actually, isn't so bad. Out of 52 episodes I watched at least 30 and enjoyed somewhere around 20 of those. I'm not a diehard Sonic fan, but, for the most part, I liked the show. It's got some pretty good humor in general, decent animation, and some genuinely interesting plotlines in a good portion of the episodes. My favorite episodes are The Meteor, Hedgehog Day, the Curse of Buddy Buddy Temple, and Cowbot. 

It's also got some absolute gems of moments, like this one, and my favorite. (Unfortunately, I couldn't embed my favorite one.) There's also, uh, this:

My biggest complaint about the series (and, not just the TV series, the video games do this, too) is how Knuckles' defining trait is "dumb" and it's played into some really gross jokes on occasion. The whole "one person says something stupid while their Cynical Friend looks directly at the camera and/or makes fun of them for it" is my least favorite style of humor. They treat Sticks much in this way, too, and it gets real old real fast.

Though, actually, I'm not even sure this could be called my biggest complaint.

It's one of my least favorite things about the show, for sure, but my biggest beef with the show is probably episode 52, It Takes a Village to Defeat a Hedgehog. I'm sure you all saw this coming.


Cut to about two months ago, September 20th, 2015, which was nearly two months before the episode aired in English anywhere. (The French version is, for some reason, released two months in advance?) This post surfaced on tumblr, featuring various screenshots of Shadow in an episode of Sonic Boom.

Needless to say, I was really excited, because, I really love Shadow. A lot. A whole lot.

So I wait two months, and finally it's November 14th, and the episode is out in English, and I watch it, and....

It sucks.

It really sucks.

I don't think I've ever watched an episode of Sonic Boom that was as painful as this one. All of the other episodes were fairly decent, but then the episode with everyone's favorite character comes out and it's, somehow, the worst one they've ever written.

The episode starts in Eggman's lair, where Eggman and other evil side characters are having a meeting about destroying Sonic. Shadow crashes in on it half way through, and, well...

Eggman introduces him as "What do you mean who's this!?! IT'S ONLY SHADOW THE HEDGEHOG, THE SECOND MOST POPULAR CHARACTER IN THE ENTIRE FRANCHISE!!"

Honestly, that got a good chuckle out of me. Because, I was just like "Haha, yeah, that's literally how every fan is going to react to him, and they're poking fun, that's funny." And that on it's own was alright. But, from there, things got... bad.

The entire plot of the episode is "Eggman aggressively fanboys over Shadow and messes up Shadow's plans, causing Shadow to call him a Literal Disgrace To All Evil." (With, by the way, the worst voice acting he's ever had.)

I hate this because Shadow's played as Actually Evil the whole time, which he's... not? He never has been? And it wasn't even, like, well-written. He felt stiff and and wrong, which maybe shouldn't be too surprising from a show that chooses two base traits for each character, and Shadow got Evil and Better-Than-You as his, but it still sucked. It really sucked.

Also his "cool" and "better than you" attitude is entirely played as a joke, and when every other Sonic, uh, anything has tried to legitimately present him as Cool, it's a little jarring. He's not the kind of Cool that makes 12-year-olds go "YEAH HE'S SO FREAKING AWESOME" he's-- He's not even cool. They don't even try to play him as cool. They spend the whole episode making a gag centered around the fact he thinks he's better than Eggman.

He says like, five things, attacks Sonic for no reason (besides, uh "your inability to assemble furniture is a disgrace to hedgehog-kind"), and then he leaves, swearing to be back, though I don't have high hopes for when he does, and, may never watch the series again because of this episode.

I was really really excited to Shadow in the Sonic Boom cartoon, but his episode was absolutely disappointing, and I don't think I've ever been as disappointed as I was when I finished this as I have been at any other point in my life.

He was also in the episode described as "cool and edgy". Those... those were real words Eggman said. I'm... I'm still cringing.


Honestly, the more I think about it, the more I think the episode was intentionally written as a slap to a face to fans who doubtlessly begged for Shadow to be included in the TV series? It's incredibly self aware at points (Eggman's "he's only the second most popular character" and "cool and edgy" lines, along with the fact the episode ends with Orbot and Cubot mentioning an online petition, for example), on top of being horrendously bad.

I have no proof I'm right, but the episode does really feel like a tongue-in-cheek: "We didn't want to do this, but here you go, Shadow fans. Hope you're happy." kind of thing. The episode with Metal Sonic (It wasn't me, it was the one-armed hedgehog) felt similar, and considering Shadow's role in the Rise of Lyric video game....

Anyway, I digress.

The episode was bad, really bad, and I'm really disappointed. Do yourself a favor and never watch it.

Nintendo Direct 11 / 12 /15 !!!!!!!!

WOW!! A LOT OF NEWS HAPPENED!!!!!

I'm only gonna talk about what I'm interested in but it's still! a lot!! There's a lot.


We start with something I'm unfortunately very invested in! (Unfortunate only because *sadly turns out empty pockets* no money.)

Twilight Princes.... HD REMAKE.

There's also some news about the new Zelda Wii U game at the end of that video, but, EH, it wasn't anything new or jawdropping, in my opinion.

SO! TWILIGHT PRINCESS!!! HD!!!!!!

Twilight Princess is my favorite Zelda game, if only just because it was the first I played and because I spent a whole summer endlessly replaying it so it's filled with Very Fond memories. STILL, regardless of the whys, it is my favorite Zelda game, and I'm!! I'm excited for this.

 

It was rumored well before it actually released and so it wasn't entirely a surprise when it showed up but!! IT WAS STILL VERY GOOD TO SEE!! It looks so pretty and, I just, I really really love this game. It's probably not the best investment I could ever make when it comes to video games but BOY, I want it really bad, and will probably end up buying it at some point. Or getting it gifted to me for my birthday. (It comes out three days before and I left enough hints about it, haha.)

A little more unfortunately for me and every other fan who played the Wii version, they ended up porting the Gamecube version of the game to Wii U. I'm not, like, surprised, because I figured this was most likely since gameplay wise you wouldn't have to do much. (Gamecube controllers vs the Wii U Gamepad have nearly all the same buttons), I'm just.... still a little disappointed, because I'm going to get lost all the time now. Having everything mirrored is, well... disorienting.

Here's the Very Obvious proof it's been mirrored, by the way. You can tell through all the cinematics that it has been, of course, but for a split second I was sure the gameplay footage from the trailer (top) was the Wii version because Hyrule Castle sat on the right of the screen. Turns out I had the Link's position on the map wrong, and, once I placed him in that spot in the Wii version, saw I was wrong. It's, obviously, 100% the Gamecube version.

BUT THAT'S FINE! I'm still excited.


This was one of the top three things I was really excited about, but, while I'm still on the subject of Zelda, take this news, as well:

This is Linkle!! That is, Link, if Link was a girl. There's actually been concept art of her around for ages, so I wasn't horribly surprised to see her added to the roster for Hyrule Warriors: Legends. Looks like she's just in Legends (the 3DS version of the game), by the way. Maybe I'm wrong, but! Tossing it out there.

My opinion: she's cute, and this is cool, and she looks like she might be a fun character! Gameplay-wise, giving her a separate weapon than Link is obviously a good idea, but I'm a little mad that she's not more straight-up a Link clone, because apparently Girls Must Always Used Ranged Weapons and that.... Idk. If this is just female Link, why doesn't she wield a sword like Link? Also, the name Linkle isn't.... a very good one.

I mean, it doesn't matter much to me. I'll never buy Hyrule Warriors: Legends, so I'll never play her. If she was DLC for Hyrule Warriors itself, this might be another story, but maybe not. I'm kind of.... over Hyrule Warriors. The story was kinda bad and the gameplay's only engaging for a while. But! This isn't a review of Hyrule Warriors!! It's a news post!!!


NEXT UP? SPLATOON!!

Nothing super major, but there's some update news!! And, a lot of neat stuff, from the looks of it!

Lots of new gear, some cool new stages -- both things I want more of in my life! The new stages look like a lot of fun, and, more gear is always wanted! Gotta look as fresh as possible while I'm inking up the place. Plus, bandanas?? cool????


SOME MARIO STUFF!

Mario and Luigi: Paper Jam has a release date! Dec 3/4 in Japan and Europe, Jan 22 in North America! A little funny to me that it's taking it a full month more for it to come to North America, but, whatever.

Doesn't look like there's much new in the trailer, outside of the introduction of battle cards! They look kind of cool, I guess?

I dunno, I'm not super interested in this game. I mean, I run a fairly successful Paper Mario blog on tumblr so I'm obligated to be interested but, personally... I love Mario and Luigi series, I love Paper Mario, but my hopes for this game aren't that high, and there definitely a lot of other games I'd rather own first. (I've already played Twilight Princess, but I'd buy it in HD much sooner than Paper Jam, honestly.)


Then, well, I'm not into Mario Tennis, but I noticed this while watching its segment:

Rosalina's floating. It's hard to tell in a picture, so you may have to watch this segment yourself, but... she's floating. Of course, she's floated in every other game she's been in, rather than walked, for... whatever reason, so I'm not surprised. It just makes me smile.

See, her feet don't touch the ground, and it's not just because she's mid walk-cycle or anything. She's just straight-up floating. Amazing.


SMASH BROS NEWS!

This may be something you just have to see for yourself, but....

Cloud Strife, of Final Fantasy 7 fame....

...joins the roster for Smash 4.

My initial reaction was something along the lines of "huh, FF7?" (coupled with "oh is the HD port of FF7 coming to Wii U or--) then it was "Nope, Smash, the music just sounded thE WAIT A MINUTE. WHAT THE HECK!! YOU LITERALLY CAN'T DO THIS!!!!"


I mean, I'm not, like, upset. I'm just!! I don't know!! how to handle!!! these feelings!!! This feels so strange!! Cloud?? In Smash???? It's!! IT'S COOL! IT'S WEIRD!! I DUNNO!!!!! I'M JUST YELLING!!!!


AND, TO TOP THAT OFF....!!!

I BELIEVE IN MIRACLES.....

I SWEAR

I'VE SEEN A FEW!!!

Mother 3 gets a Virtual Console release in Japan!!!! 

Mother 3 gets a Virtual Console release in Japan!!!

Anyone who knows anything about Mother 3 knows that it's the sequel to SNES RPG Earthbound and the final installment of in the beloved Earthbound or Mother series. It was never released outside of Japan, though, and eventually, fans made their own English translation of it.

"Wait, why is a Virtual Console in Japan good news? It's still not in English, officially!"

No! It's not! But hopes are higher than ever. Mother 1, or, Earthbound Zero Beginnings was localized and put on the eShop back at E3 this year. (And, you should've seen the fandom's reaction then.) That already had Mother fans real excited, not only because was it released outside of Japan for the first time, but also because, if they finally localized it, could Mother 3 possibly be next?

Mother 3's release on the Virtual Console is a step closer in that direction, and as it turns out, Mother 3's tenth anniversary is next year. What better time for an announcement this big than then?

Tumblr user mariettapk sums it up pretty well in their post here.


SO! YEAH!! MOTHER 3!!!!


Anyway, that's all the games I cared about, but you can watch the Direct here for yourself!

What a great time to be alive, huh?

SPECIAL POST: KH NEWS?!!? / KAIRI IS REAL

apparently I started doing updates every other Tuesday BUT THIS IS AN EXCEPTION BC KH NEWS. Technically this is Late but.... I WAS EXPECTING A TRAILER, and we didn't get the trailer, so now I gotta!! Give the news!! without!! the trailer!!

It's fine.

A little backstory though, first!!

For the past year, I've been heading a movement on tumblr and twitter (but largely tumblr) known as #KairiNeedsLove2k15 - it's got an official tumblr here, and an official twitter here! (both run by me)


It started back in February, while I was replaying KH2. I started getting really worked up about Kairi and her subsequent lack in any KH game made after KH2 (I mean, alright, she was still in BBS, but that's only 1 of the 4 games released since 2006, while the other 3 had very heavy emphasis on Sora and Riku and their relationship).

You can see my initial posts about the matter here.

And if you want a good portion of the original posts I made for the movement, you can find them here!

I got really invested in this movement, blogging aggressively about Kairi, reblogging art, and other people's posts (if you want proof other people besides me want Kairi to have a larger role, check out this tag in particular). I made fanmixes, photosets, wrote a fic, (three, technically) along with hosted two major events and boy, I got this ball really rolling. 



Kairi E3 Fest 

This event was held around E3 of 2015, the basic concept being "E3 is when social media goes wild over video games, let's make some noise about Kairi during that time!"

You can find details about it here, along with see everyone's submissions for it! (We had somewhere around 70 posts made for this event.)

The E3 Fest was even mentioned in an article by Game Skinny! Pretty awesome.


Kairi Week

I'd seen other appreciation weeks on tumblr where you'd dedicate a whole week to making content about a character (or game, or series, or ship, whatever) and I decided to do one for Kairi! It didn't go quite as planned, but it was still a huuuuge success! It lasted July 6th - 11th, and had somewhere over 150 submissions. 

You can see the details / everyone's posts here!


SO, as you have probably got the gist of by now, I've spent the past year running a largely successful Kairi movement!


Here's one of the Kairi mixes I made for it:

Today's your day from rarmaster on 8tracks Radio.

Art's by ramflega on tumblr - check her out, she's got some real good Kairi / KH art!


The biggest fic I wrote for the movement was Dream, Drop, Don't Leave me Behind! - a retelling of KHDDD where Kairi actually tagged along to watch Sora and Riku's Mark of Mastery exam, becuase Kairi's lack in KHDDD is probably the biggest sore spot for me.

You can read it here!

I also wrote a smaller set of Namine-centric Kairi fics for Kairi Week, exploring the ways I would really really like their relationship to pan out. You can read all three of them here!


The crowning moment -- or, the moment that really sets the stage for my reaction to the news we received on November 3rd, is a post I made the literal day before, about why I really hate KHDDD, followed by a post further detailing its shortcomings regarding Kairi. (In sum: I'm really bitter about the fact we don't have an explanation at all why she isn't in KHDDD, we're just supposed to be okay with the fact she isn't there.)

So, there's that post, and then kind of churning bitterness for a whole year about how "Yeah Kairi's PROBABLY gonna have a role in KH3 but that's only a PROBABILITY, not a definite thing I can count on, and she's been treated so awfully by the games for the past five years and I don't have my hopes high at all".

I wasn't expecting it, and I'm pretty sure, well, no one was.

When we heard there would be KH news at the D23 in Japan, basically everyone expected it to be a lot like America's D23 - a new world reveal, and that's it, no Kairi. No Kairi.


The clock hits 1 AM my time, where I have waited four hours for the embargo on information to be lifted, hoping to get a glimmer of news as to what happened at the panel (because there were no livestreams and no one was allowed to post any information about it.)

The first post I see when loading twitter up is this:

Kairi is real.

It's one picture and that's all we got because the trailer revealed at the showing has not be released online but, it's, Kairi.

Kairi is there.

Kairi is there.

Kairi is there.


I didn't cry like others reportedly did, but I was shaking so hard, and my heart was pounding, and then you get a string of incoherent tweets from me which largely consist of "HO LY FRIK, KAIRI" becuase!!! Oh my god!!!!

I'm getting pumped thinking about it even now!! Kairi is real!! Kairi is here!!!


I've spent the whole year working up to this moment and it's just one image and confirmation she'll be in the KH2.8 game - in the section called 0.2 which is about Aqua, reportedly she and Riku are learning about Aqua and the 7 Guardians of Light, etc - BUT ANYWAY, it's just one confirmation, but it is proof. They haven't forgotten her. Her chances for a Big Role in KH3 are even higher than ever, and I'm just!!

I'm hooting!! I'm hollering!! I'm so!!! excited!!!!


I mean, chances of this actually having to do with my efforts and continuous #Kairi4KH3 yelling are pretty slim but!! BUT!! THAT DOESN'T CHANGE THE FACT!! KAIRI IS HERE!!! AND REAL!!!

I'M SOOOO!! HAPPY!!!

KAIRI CONFIRMED FOR KH0.2 AND PROBABLY FOR KH3!!!


THIS IS SO GOOD.

It's so good.


Anyway if you want other coverage of the D23 event, KH13 has a masterlist of all the info they have here!

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS JUST, KAIRI, THOUGH.

Kairi is real.

About rar and.... Writing!

See more in the About rar Series!

This post is gonna be about me and writing, but I'm gonna start it off with something a little different first!!

i needed another one of these, okay from rarmaster on 8tracks Radio.

This is one of two mixes I made ft some of my absolutely favorite songs!! You can find the other one here. (The photography is by me, btw!!) -- I figured that since this series was about me, I might as well share my favorite music! I think you can learn a lot about someone based on the kind of music they listen to, honestly. Maybe that's not true, but, well! Moving on!!

Also I guess this post is a little fitting today because we started NaNoWriMo, lol. Not that I'm officially doing it this year (I... I may have created a counter for a big Undertale fic, though) or that this post has anything to do with Nano besides being about writing, but, STILL.

*clears throat*


I've been writing about since I was 7? Or, how I generally phrase it: "story telling since age 7, successfully writing since age 13."

I grew up in an environment where there was a lot of play pretend and make believe, and creating stories was second nature to me. I did it with my sister. I did it with my friends. I did it on the playground.

Whether it was the Game or it was messing around with LEGOs, or running around on the playground pretending to be Princess Peach, or swapping stories with my bffe (who I met at age 8, and we're inseperable!) in her backyard while laying on her trampoline... We both had universes inside of our heads. We both were burning to get them out.

My older sister started writing probably when I was 10 or so?? I wanted to be like her. I had so many stories inside of me and I thought, "hey, I love reading, and I can write, anyone can write, that's how I'll get all the stories out."

Writing wasn't really a "I want to be an author when I grow up", writing was just... second nature.


At age 12 I thought that writing fifty novels was a totally feasible and realistic goal. (And, maybe it still is -- but it's definitely not when your characters in each novel are carbon copies of each other and you never consider much outside the setting and the world for them, never the plot.) Honestly, I started that probably at age 9. And, I did write! I started and got twenty pages written of at least fifteen separate stories. I just never finished them.

The first story I finished was the Truth Hurts, a Kingdom Hearts fanfiction. And, that, more than anything else, was what really got me into the groove of not just writing things, but finishing things. I don't know why I managed to finish that one. Maybe it was because I had so many people online wanting to know what would happen next. Maybe it was because my sister supported me the whole way. I don't know.

But I did finish it.

And finishing a story, in itself, is a shocking and terrible power, a huge source of confidence. I've finished one. I can finish another.

Falling to Pieces, the sequel to the Truth Hurts, wasn't much more, objectively, than a rehash of Kingdom Hearts 1's plot with the characters mixed around, and maybe that's why it was so easy to finish. But it did get finished.

I've finished two. I can finish another.

Nothing's Fair was a week's worth twenty page mess of a thing, but it, too, was something completed from start to finish. None of these stories were, are, perfect. I know they're not perfect. But for a 13 year old? They were good.

And, to toot my own horn for a second. The Truth Hurts, Falling to Pieces, and Nothing's Fair were all written in the span of seven months, and total, are about 80k words. That's not just good. That's impressive.

Dead Inside took me three years to write, and I learned so so so much from doing it. Objectively, it's not that great, especially when it comes to pacing and quality, but it is this: 40k+ words and 1000 pages. Perfect? No. But also pretty damn impressive.


This past year (a little more than?) has been spent largely on writing All that Remains, sequel to Dead Inside and final of the FtPverse series. But, I also rewrote Nothing's Fair (it's 1000x better now) and a 15k Kairi fic for a Kairi movement I started. And I've also written a lot of short oneshot fics since then, including five for UNDERTALE in the past month.

And, idk if that means anything to you, but, the point is:

Writing means so much to me.

I was born and raised as a person with stories to tell, and it was only natural I'd slip into writing from there (it's not like I ever had the patience to pursue drawing or art of any sort, so my stories weren't getting told that way.) -- I've written sooo much, and it's just, second nature now. It's habit. If I don't write, it's like? lol?? Who am I??

I'm someone with stories to tell and the tools to write them, the experience and dedication and gift to be able to weave words into a story, into people and their lives and their worlds and it's.... It's a really wonderful gift. I'm so glad to have it. I'm so glad to be this person.

I love to write, so much.

So much.


~

Curious to read some of my work? It's all fanfic, but you can find the entire FtPverse series here on my FFN profile, along with some other, fics I've written! 

And you can check out my AO3, which holds my more-recent work (that I'm much more proud of comparatively to anything on FFN, FtPverse aside) and all the Undertale fics I've posted and will post in the future.

Check em out!