The Character Corner: Antoine, part 1

 

♪ Why am I such a misfit? 
I am not just a nit wit!
  I'm an adorable coyote 
Why don't I fit in? ♪

Antoine does not have a character. And I say that as an Antoine fan who has a screencap of him as her Archive Of Our Own avatar. At least with Blitz he was in a show that got canceled by the network it was on after one season. Likewise, Esteban also has a character, even though they did very stupid things with him. The opportunity to develop Antoine in the Archie comics after SatAM's cancellation was sitting right there, since the show had a lot of 90's cartoon tropes and there was no way that Antoine was ever gonna get any kind of development there. 

But the comic writers completely failed to do so. The comic ran for over twenty years, not to mention getting a reboot. That's what makes his situation significantly worse than either Blitz or Esteban's (also, like I said, both those characters did manage to get a few decent moments in their respective series). 

Seriously, Antoine's just defined by his relationship to Sonic (rivalry and antagonism) and his one-sided infatuation with Sally. He's French, used to be scared of everything all the time, but then stopped being scared (gee, would've been neat to have seen that actually play out over the course of the comic...). And then he fell in love with Bunnie and they got married. Also, a bunch of bad stuff happened to him, like getting blown up by a robot and put into a coma.

That's it, that's the entire character. 

What am I supposed to do with any of that? Sad thing is, there were little things to the character that one could've easily taken and built something off of. But nobody -- not Ian Flynn, not Ken Penders, not Karl Bollers -- no one cared. Then you had the New Wave Genesis whatever (I hate that name, it's so unwieldy), which was a chance to start fresh and actually take Antoine's character somewhere. He was going to get a focus story there before the series was cancelled, but given the fact that Rotor had also gotten a background story that focused more on Sonic and his reactions to things rather than Rotor's, I have no doubt it would've just been the same for Antoine. Plus, I don't exactly trust Flynn when it comes to writing Antoine, given that he considers Antoine to be selfish and narcissistic. 🤨

Antoine didn't need to be headlining stories 24/7, but come on, they could've given him a little something to do aside from just having bad stuff constantly happen to him or being stuck in bad soap opera plotlines (that were never further explored or followed up on. How did he feel about being stuck on the opposite Mobius, for example?). Archie writers really did think tragedy = character depth.

They did attempt to give him a little backstory late into the game. One would think his dad would've had a bigger role in both Antoine's life as well as the storyline, given that he was one of Robotnik's roboticized lieutenants, but he was just a bland cipher. His mom was apparently a terrible person, then he also had this really horrible girlfriend named Tatiana that he'd apparently dated before he and Bunnie were an item but who we had never heard of before until that particular backup comic. Not that any of that matters, because none of it was never brought up again or played a part in anything after, AFAIK. But Archie had a very bad habit of doing that with a number of their characters. Gee, you'd think that if Antoine looked up to his dad so much he might've named his son after him in his honor, but he ultimately cared about him as much as Flynn and the other writers did, lol.

So why the interest from me in this relatively obscure, very unpopular character? Well, I only barely remember one episode of SatAM, where Sonic and Tails had gone into Robotropolis and encountered Muttski there. The show aired at a time where I didn't really wanna wake up to watch it, so I don't think I ever saw any other episodes, or if I did, they didn't leave much of an impression. So my first introduction to Antoine came about when I'd go to the grocery store with my parents, find my way to the magazine and comic book section, and read the Archie Sonic comics. 

I've always felt pretty bad for him because he was just written to be a bad luck magnet. Same factor for why I also like characters like Fredo Corleone, or the two dudes I brought up at the beginning of this post. I sympathize with being that weird kid who didn't fit in with the rest but really wished they did, liked somebody else who was way out of their league, and tended to screw up/or got made to feel like a screw up by others. Every now and then you'd get these little glimpses of character here and there with Antoine, or moments where you could extrapolate what his personality was like beyond just being comic relief. The sense of honor. Refinement. His fastidiousness. His attempts at wooing Sally, while goofy, had earnestness to them. He's a romantic (granted, I do not like his canonical love interest anymore). The hill that I will die on is that he is ride or die true blue, venturing into danger alongside the other Freedom Fighters in spite of his own fears. He might be whiny, he might wanna leave and go home, but never does.

Oh yeah, the rest of the Knothole Freedom Fighters. What do I think about them? 

(Well, I don't mind Tails.) Nowadays, I view Antoine's loyalty to the other Freedom Fighters as just people clinging to the status quo. I don't feel Sally and the others deserve or are worthy of his loyalty. Over the years I have grown to like them less and less as characters. Yes, I'm fully aware that's a very unpopular opinion to have. Sorry not sorry. I do not, to loosely quote William Friedkin, give a flying flip into a rolling doughnut about what other people think about me or my opinions. Don't think I have for years now. Back in the day I had to deal with countless anonymous people throwing hate my way for the vile crime of liking a cartoon coyote/or not liking said cartoon coyote the "correct way". So yeah, I've just gotten more apathetic towards the opinions of others over my preferences.

Actually, I don't understand why people to this day clamor for the Freedom Fighters to show up in something when 98% of the time the spotlight's on Sonic and Sally anyways. Or Tails, Nicole, Scourge, or Fiona. Or the writer's super amazing donut steel Spicy the Two-Tailed Cheetah or some such. So why do y'all even want Bunnie, Antoine, and Rotor there? They barely do anything. Rotor does mechanic stuff (even though Tails is also doing that) and Buntoine (I'll use the ship name just because they inevitably become one bland fused entity with no distinct individual traits of their own) is just there to be cute. If the two of them aren't together, then they're just animate set pieces that might say something stereotypically French or Southern every once in a while just to remind readers they're still present (someone being of a certain culture =/= a personality). 

Again -- why. Are. They. There? They're just side characters. I guess it's like Road Rover fics where Blitz, Exile, Shag, Muzzle, and the Master don't really ever do much of anything or even get pushed out of the picture, all so readers can focus on Hunter and Colleen getting married and having an American-style Presbyterian wedding or whatever. Sally absolutely needs Bunnie to always be her confidant and gal pal (sounds like when furry!Nicole debuted in Archie she shoved Bunnie out of that role though), while Rotor and Antoine (as well as Bunnie) need to be Sonic or whoever's personal cheer squad. Guess I shouldn't be surprised the fanfics are like this, given that the source material is the exact same way, with Archie original characters (Mina Mongoose, furry!Nicole, Fiona Fox, Tommy Turtle, etc) coming in and getting the attention and focus that these three should've gotten. That's honest to God pretty sad.

I don't think the fanbase is genuinely interested in these characters as much as they just have a shallow attachment to them based on nostalgia. Like the three of them have been around since the cartoon aired back in 1993, so they can't imagine getting rid of them. One would think that if people actually did like these characters as characters that they'd try to play around with them more, instead of merely relegating them to supporting rules where they don't do much of anything/exist to be cannon fodder/or be the universe's punching bag in Antoine's case.

I will say that I don't expect someone who doesn't like Antoine to sit down and write a whole subplot centered around him (in fact, probably not the best idea, given that countless fic writers just prefer to bash him). It'd be like someone coming up to me and asking me to write a SatAM or Archie-based story starring Sonic*/or Sally. I'd look them dead in the eye tell and tell them "No. I'd much rather take a rusty pen knife and try cutting off my own arm then do that, thanks."

*For what it's worth, I am currently working on my own concept for a Sonic AU that doesn't have anything to do with any pre-existing canon and in which Sonic is one of the main characters. But it's also going to be both my own improvements to and ideas for him as a character, so make of that what you will.

Apparently, there are only three kinds of stories that you should write about Antoine which are acceptable, according to some Antoine/Archie/SatAM fans. Those consist of him and Bunnie making endless kissy faces at each other, or bad soap operas (I feel positive that this is Archie's influence) where he can never catch any kind of break whatsoever and must be kept utterly miserable throughout the course of said story. If it's a story featuring an ensemble cast, then he needs to be bland generic hero #2,2207 who just hangs out in the background and a moving set piece. If you do anything with him that doesn't fit into either of those categories, even if it's just something like simply giving him a hobby or an interest of some kind, then you're making Antoine a Gary Stu or whatever and disrespecting canon. 🫤

My reaction:

Back when I was writing Knight Errand, I wanted to have Antoine interacting with Lupe, because I'd never seen that done anywhere before. I thought I'd share this idea with another Antoine "fan", thinking they'd be intrigued. Instead they told me that they shouldn't interact at all, because only Sally and Lupe ever interacted in SatAM and the comics before, and Antoine would stay back unless he was called over. Never mind the fact that Sally wasn't even with Antoine when he and Lupe crossed paths, and the conceit of the entire story was Antoine getting out of his comfort zone. 

I'm extremely glad I totally disregarded this person and just went ahead and just wrote the Antoine/Lupe stuff. What's extra hilarious about all this is that they've never even bothered reading Knight Errand apparently. 

It just goes to show, folks -- don't listen to people who try to discourage you and tell you what you need to be writing. Just write whatever you want. These people are not paying your bills, they're not in any kind of position of authority over you (in spite of whatever delusions they may be harboring), they are not your friends, etc etc. You can safely ignore them. I'm going to share a story about that particular fan in another post, since it's ironically humorous.

I would much rather write a weird, experimental idea I'm excited about that gets zero engagement then force myself to write bland cookie cutter slop for three or so comments (because it isn't like Antoine-centric fics get a whole lot of attention in comparison to fics about other Sonic characters to begin with. I lucked out with KE, and I think that was just because it was a longer story).

That's not to mention the gigaton of fan art and stories out there bashing him and making Antoine into a crazed rapist/stalker/traitor/or something else extremely negative. The bizarre thing is, I've encountered a bunch of people who readily call themselves Antoine fans fall into these exact same traps. The aforementioned individual who I spoke to about KE briefly is one of these. I've seen a massive number of fics as well as this discontinued fan comic (speaking honestly, I'm glad it never went anywhere) where he'd get verbally eviscerated in public or blown off by either Sally or Sonic, yet continued working alongside them and the other Freedom Fighters anyways because he has zero self-respect apparently. Or made into a homophobe. Or he's a hater towards some character the writer stans like Fiona or Scourge (I hate those two almost as much as I do Sally and co). Or you'll get a "reformed" Antoine who now spends his time constantly whining about how weak he used to be and need Sonic and Sally to constantly tell him what a big stwong bwave boy he is. Ugh. Fans consider this character development, a dull, generic good guy who can't let go of the past? I can see if he did this for a little bit, then went "Okay, I started on this path to self-improvement, and I need to continue." But that never happens. I've talked with a couple of these kinds of people before in the past, and I kinda suspect a bunch of them are extremely obsessed with making sure they stick to canon, which means no happiness or character development for Antoine ever, unless it either relates to being Bunnie and Sally's one-dimensional doormat or a punchline. So having him stand up to the others or even calling them out for their behavior was just out of the question.

There's also the ties between Sonic and neurodivergent people, and I have to wonder if that's another factor in play here with these kinds of folks. Though I'd like to point out that I'm also on the autism spectrum and don't act anything like them (incredibly weird, defensive, not the most emotionally stable). I can't sit up there and read the same story idea over and over and over again like they apparently can and enjoy it either. At worst, I just write long posts like this sperging on and on about my favorite characters lol.

There's also a number of minor things people do with his character in fanfiction and the like that I find very off-putting. It falls into the category of "Well, this is the reformed Antoine, but we can't think of any other way to include humor (I use that term very loosely)/or we still gotta get our licks in on him." These posts from Reddit are more than likely talking about different fandoms, but as soon as I read them I went "Yep, that's the exact same garbage I see in Sonic fandom.":

"Undercover character bashing. Where someone is ostensibly one of the protagonists and good guys in the story, but the author and the other characters are just constantly s******* on them. It’s usually presented in a, “oh, that character, what a dumb**** who can’t do anything right, but we love him and he’ll learn better one day. He’s so lucky to have all these people in his life to repeatedly tell him he f***** up and make him feel like s*** for not being able to figure out how on his own.” 

"Stories where the author is obsessed with characters "teasing" a character constantly about x relationship or about something that is disparaging the character and making them seem less or incompetent. It's not funny, it's annoying as f*** and it ends up being 90% of the dialogue. It happens in so many fics and it's annoying. Why do they have to constantly be bullying the character over x s***? It's frustrating and sucks the enjoyment I was getting out of an otherwise good fic."

So yeah. When it comes to platonic relationships for Antoine, I feel the same way about the matter that I do about Esteban. At this point I'd much rather have him around different characters than the other Knothole Freedom Fighters, in part because I want to explore interesting new character dynamics, and in part because Antoine gets held back as a character by them, in addition to often being treated poorly by them (and never receives any kind of apology from them for this once he's stopped being cowardly and is supposedly now friends with them). And if I do write a story where he's with them all as a group, then that story is going to be critical of Sonic and the others (Knight Errand, Predatory Drift, other upcoming stuff). Sorry. *shrugs* There are tons upon tons of stories out there where this is not the case. I would strongly suggest you go read those if you don't like what I'm doing here. Clicking the back button is not some Herculean task. Put your microwave burrito down and try it, it's as easy as 1, 2, 3!

Some fans talk about Antoine like he's less a cartoon/comic character and more of this dark entity that can somehow influence literal reality, like Satan or a Lovecraftian being or something. What I mean when I say this is that I have seen people discuss how Antoine was written in Archie versus how Sally was approached -- Antoine somehow made the writers approach him the way they did, so that's why he's a bad character. Sally? Well, the writers intentionally wrote her badly (i.e.: the infamous Slap) to make her look unpopular! That's why the writers (and Antoine I guess) are evil! 

Man, and here my goofy butt thought all Antoine was was just a funny animal character from a mediocre cartoon/comic all this time. The internet's great for learning new things! 

I swear on my life I saw and read this somewhere. IIRC it was either on Tumblr or deviantART (also, there was this guy on the Elena Of Avalor sub spouting that same "the show writers are purposefully trying to make my favorite character look bad!" line about Elena, that particular series' Princess Sally).

More greatest hits from Sonic fans: I was told once by somebody I used to speak to off and on that because Sonic and Sally had experienced difficult and even traumatic childhoods, that was okay for them to treat Antoine the way they do/did. So going by that logic, whenever someone who was hurt goes on to hurt somebody else, then it's fine because their trauma excuses them. So what about Antoine? He was separated from his family as well and more then likely has PTSD, but I guess that doesn't matter because he's not a main character? That's frankly a really incredibly childish, narrow-minded way to view that situation. Way too many of y'all out there are obsessed with your favorite characters (not just in Sonic, but in a bunch of other fandoms that I could name) to a degree that I'd readily describe as unhinged. Uncomfortable even. Like fans will literally crash out if it's so much as slightly suggested that certain characters face any sort of accountability or be called out for their actions at any point. How far are people willing to take that? If Sonic and Sally bombed a school bus with children on it, I guess their backgrounds would also excuse that then? Stupid kids. Why were they on that bus to begin with? Sonic and Sally never went to school!

"Antoine is ugly!" *shrugs* I always thought he just looks like a cute little cartoony dog myself (and since this is the internet and a bunch of people are gooner-brained, when I say "cute", I don't mean I wanna bang him or whatever). He doesn't look any stranger than anybody else in the cast to me. But we are discussing a fandom where people think Sonic himself is sexy and the single most desirable being on Mobius (and the Archie comics constantly pushed him as such), so... Move over Michael B. Jordan, Paul Newman, nothing says hot like a funny animal character that has a giant single eyeball with two pupils rolling around in it and Betty Spaghetti arms! 

I will say I don't like what Tony's design ended up evolving into in the comics, with that hot dog nose and weird-looking cheek fringe. Or his design in the NWG setting. I've seen a modern redesign done for him that would've been way more appealing. Or they could've made him something like Infinite. Infinite's got a great character design!

Guess it's time to discuss the subject of Antoine and his love life. When I was younger, I was so excited about him and Bunnie getting together. Finally, he could be with somebody who'd love and accept him for who he was and vice verse, they could help one another grow, all that good stuff. But as I grew older and started not only seeing how a lot of Buntoine fans act, but actually further reflecting on this ship as well as each character, this was my response:

  
For starters, it isn't a relationship between equals. Bunnie just gets glorified constantly by the fanbase for very shallow reasons ("Cool sexy Southern cyborg rabbit who has rockets and punches stuff!"), while Antoine just exists as an accessory for her and her emotional support animal whenever she gets emo about being a cyborg. Another post from Reddit says it the best: "When one half of a couple is serious, intelligent, and/or very competent, while the other is played for goofy comic relief, constantly loses their dignity, can't do anything right, and is generally just kinda stupid... In my opinion, the best relationships are between people who are equals: They need to be complements for each other and be able to be on the same page and wavelength. If they aren't, it makes me feel as if the smart, competent one is way out of the goofy, stupid, inept one's league and that they're a complete mismatch."

She cheated on him with Sonic of all people (yep, our heroes ladies and gentlemen, such a great, totally not at all dysfunctional group!). Fanon and canon both act like that never happened. I haven't forgotten. It just makes me feel even more justified in writing non-canon romances for Antoine. I have more stuff to say about how grating Buntoine shippers are, but I'll save it for a big post I have planned discussing why I hate shippers in general.

Why is one of their kids a cyborg too? That's just so lazy. And the fankids are just as boring and bad. 

Now, am I saying that every single person on the planet who likes Buntoine is just a crappy person? No. There are perfectly normal, chill ones out there I'm sure. But unfortunately, the obnoxious people outnumber the normal people, and are more vocal and obsessive as well. 

At the same time though, the people who hate this ship are just insufferable as the folks who obsess over it are.

"Falling in love with Antoine made Bunnie a worse character!" Okay Bunnie stans, then why we try a little something here, the Mr. Plinkett character test? Here we go -- describe Bunnie's character without mentioning any of the following:

- Appearance

- Skills (or in this case, her abilities)

- Plot relevance

- Relationships

Just tell me what her personality was like prior to her getting with Antoine. No headcanons, nothing from your fanfiction or somebody else's fic, just what was presented in the canon.

I also used to know someone who said that they hated Antoine and Bunnie getting together because they were hoping she'd end up with Tails.😟 Now, I don't know if this guy meant Tails once he got older, but even so, that still means you'd have this young woman waiting for some kid she seems to have helped partially raise to get older just so she can start dating him. If you don't think that's messed up and gross, switch their genders around. Does that still sound normal to you?

Many of the anti-Buntoine people also seem to lack the same amount of outrage towards the idea of pairing Bunnie off with female characters like Sally in what feels like the blatant fetishization of lesbian couples. But that can't be the reason, can it? 🤔

To date I've only met only one person who wasn't big on Buntoine (and it wasn't even that she disliked it, just that she couldn't see it occurring outside of Archie), but actually acted completely normal about it. Like she didn't rush in raging and carrying on like Antoine had stolen Bunnie from her (a lot of the animosity towards the ship feels like that, literal grown men jealous of a cartoon character for "taking" their cartoon crush 🙄) or something. Don't understand why that's so hard for everybody else. Sonic fans try not to be overbearing, socially inept weirdos challenge (impossible).

Pairing Antoine with Sally or Sonic?

 

"Okay, so who would you put with Antoine then, you big crybaby?" 

Well, lemme just say that in my main universe, Guardians Of Acorn, he ultimately gets together with Leeta. Years ago I drew a pic of him wooing both her and her twin (of course some Buntoine shippers got triggered 😂), and like the idea of him getting together with one of them (though I had to give both actual personalities). I think even in a SatAM adjacent setting pairing him with Leeta could be pretty interesting to write about. I also think Antoine and Elias would be a really interesting couple. It's also ironic because Tony does end up with an Acorn, just not Sally. I'd be pretty intrigued if anybody ever actually sat down and wrote a solid fanfic for this coupling instead of just making a few pieces of fan art for it. I once knew somebody who suggested a Shadow and Antoine pairing. Their reasoning was that Antoine would remind him of Maria because of the blonde hair. I thought "That's some pretty shallow reasoning", but brainstorming a plot for how a relationship between the two of them could play out sounds like a pretty fun challenge to me. Of course you've got good OCs as perfectly viable options for Tony as well. My last choice is a character whose identity I'll keep as a surprise, because I'm currently working on the story featuring them and Antoine. I'm sure it'll throw a bunch of people for a loop.

But there you have it. All that is why I barely look at Sonic fan art. Aside from a scant few exceptions here and there (AU stuff), I do not read fanfic for this fandom anymore either. I don't visit Sonic-related Tumblr. There were one or two Archie/SatAM critical blogs that I agreed with before they veered straight off into wild toxicity and character bashing. I told a friend that even when you're not in the fandom, the fanbase is still exhausting to witness. Anything Antoine-related there meanwhile is just insipid Buntoine shipping. I don't visit Sonic forums or roleplay Sonic. I just avoid anything Sonic, including the fans and especially Antoine "fans", and do my own thing. Whatever I put out there into cyberspace, people can take it or leave it.

Well, there are a scant few fans I actually do enjoy speaking with regularly, but the only one I'm in contact with right now is Spiral Writer. I don't know what happened to Dukect. There was a third person, but she's been gone for a long time now. The other individual's over on Instagram, and that's not exactly a platform conducive for conversation. The last party doesn't seem to have an online presence anymore and wants to preserve her privacy, so I will respect her wishes.

Please, go ahead and tell me that Antoine was super well developed, ackshually, and I'm just too stupid and ugly to realize it/don't have a man/because I didn't read all 700 issues of the comic/didn't read issue #496 story "The Ill-Made Hedgehog" that featured Antoine baking Sonic and Sally a quiche in the background of one panel or what the heck ever. I don't care. 

The followup entry to this post will be more upbeat because I get to discuss my version of Antoine.