Reader reviews and responses, #2

This time we got a PM from Impishdude over on Fanfiction.net.

Hi! I just wanted to say that even though your Antoine story was never finished, it had a huge impact on how I view the character.

For a long time, it felt like most interpretations of Antoine focused primarily on his insecurities, mistakes, or comedic moments. Your story was one of the first that showed him as someone capable of growth. A person trying to find his place in the world rather than simply serving as comic relief.

Reading it made me realize I wasn't the only one who saw more potential in Antoine than what canon often highlighted. It inspired me to develop my own interpretation of him, focusing on his struggles with belonging, self-worth, and learning that courage isn't the absence of fear, but continuing despite it.

Even though the story was canceled, the ideas you explored stayed with me. I wanted to thank you for helping me see Antoine in a different light and for inspiring me to create my own version of his journey. Your work meant more than you probably realize.

Thank you, thank you! One of the things I've grown to really love about storytelling (original/or fanfiction) is how it gives us the ability to share our ideas and thought processes with one another -- and in this case, more people appreciating a certain character than what you might've been initially led to believe. It's just cool to see people be brought together in spite of whatever religion, gender, political viewpoint, race, or wherever you may be in the world. I also think it's wonderful to be inspired by others, or have other people be inspired by you. Even even if it is just one person, that's still absolutely amazing. 

Keep on creating, folks.

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 misfortune constantly befall 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. 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. Sensitivity. 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, Larry Lynx, 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 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 and tell them "No. I'd much rather take a rusty pen knife and try cutting off my own arm then ever 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 have 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 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 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 receiving 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 (BTW, 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 I could name) to a degree that I'd readily describe as being 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 look 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 this 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 as well as his and Bunnie getting together because they were hoping she'd end up with Tails instead.😟 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 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 begin and 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 it. 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 who I actually do enjoy speaking with, 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/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. 

Predatory Drift commentary & notes

Story summary: Infinite the Jackal goes up to Antoine and asks him "Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?"

REFERENCES:  

Predatory drift is a real biological phenomenon that occurs in dogs. I first heard about it years and years ago in a National Geographic show (I think; if it wasn't Nat Geo, then it was Animal Planet) in reference to a pack of Russian street dogs that were shown hunting a cat (I'm no animal expert, but I kinda think they were doing that just because they were hungry). What I've read online made it sound more like the dog could just be up there playing or walking around or whatever when they suddenly switch into this predatory drift. 

It doesn't seem like it affects every dog -- the dogs my family had back when I was growing up never displayed any behavior of this sort. They were all small breeds (two of which were shih tzus). But I had a coworker tell me about the time her shih tzu once stalked, killed, and ate a bird. AFAIK this was a house pet, not some starving stray dog. Wild stuff. So it seems like it can happen to any breed, but it's just more dangerous if it's a medium/large dog that can actually do some damage. It's honestly why I'd be very careful when having a small dog interact with a large one.

Anyways, my nerd brain went "Maybe I could use this predatory drift thing for one of my anthro fandoms", and filed it away for later use.

GENERAL:

- This is the first holiday-inspired fic I've ever written! I had two sources of inspiration:

1.) I knew somebody who said they were working on a Sonic story. One of the things they wanted to have happen was Fiona Fox trying to tempt Antoine over to her side by appealing to his predatory instincts. I (privately) turned to a friend of mine's and told them that this person was probably never going to do anything interesting with that idea, if indeed they actually even went through with writing the whole story at all (I was right, they didn't). I've chanced over any number of fanfics/or ideas before where a writer will inadvertently create an interesting situation with a particular character, but then either fail to follow through or don't want to be bothered to do so because the character(s) either doesn't interest them enough or they dislike them. Some people are just lazy/or simply don't know how to pick up a plot point and carry it.  

So I decided to do something with the idea myself, only minus Fiona because I can't stand that character. The idea wouldn't work in Guardians Of Acorn because that Antoine actually has a support system in place that would ultimately keep him from doing what PD!Antoine did. I kept the idea in mind however, still wanting to use it for a fic. 

2.) A piece of fan art for the movie Lady And The Tramp 2: Scamp's Adventure, where you can see the Angel character holding the leash of another dog in her mouth. She's pulling it back towards a bush, and behind her you can see Buster and a pack of other dogs waiting with these creepy whited-out eyes. I've been trying to track this picture down so I could link to it here, but haven't been able to find it. So if anybody out there knows what I'm talking about, then please link it to me. 

Anyways, I don't even like the movie in question (an understatement), but it is a very striking image. The juxtaposition of having a cute, innocent-looking character seducing someone into a bad situation as significantly more sinister figures, their comrades, watch hidden in the background is just really fascinating to me. I just imagine a Sonic-verse version of this with Antoine in Angel's place and Infinite and the rest of the Jackal Squad looking on behind him. 

So, every now and then I'll watch videos about Sonic-related topics on YouTube if they catches my eye. Well, I started watching one about Infinite the Jackal one day. The creator was a fan of his, and before I knew it, he got me interested in the character as well. He looks cool and he sounds cool, but it doesn't sound like he was utilized all that well in Sonic Forces, and they haven't used him in anything since. :( 

Then it hit me -- why not a story where Infinite takes notice of Antoine and think he'd be a great way to get at Sonic and the other good guys by playing on the fact that both he and Antoine are predators/canines and Antoine's outsider status? I typically don't like stuff where Antoine is a traitor or whatever just because it's very obvious the writer is going this route because they hate his character, but in this case, I thought I could make this into an interesting psychological horror story.

- Let me be clear, I don't like the whole predator/prey thing the way the internet has treated it for the past several years now. You got people who saw Zootopia who seem to actually think it's a literal wildlife documentary. I sincerely wish I was joking. I don't like the whole "predators are stand-ins for minorities" thing, I think it's very silly. Leave it at the internet to take something that could potentially be very complex and strip it of all nuance and thoughtfulness. I think prey animals are well within their rights to be wary of predators, especially in settings where they are more animalistic. I mean, have y'all seen what Cape hunting dogs do to their prey? And this is coming from someone who thinks they're cool animals. 

Then there are the weird furries who make the "I'm a furry/predator" thing their whole identity and lifestyle -- that's extremely annoying. I'm sorry, but I don't believe in encouraging people to just wholly immerse themselves in fantasy worlds instead of just dealing with real life and their problems. That's not healthy (also, I get very tired of being told to respect furries like this when a number of them rank up there as being some of the most disrespectful, judgmental crybullies I've ever had the misfortune of meeting -- right up there with Karens and the like).

But I'll discuss all that further when I get around to posting another one-shot in the future that also deals with predatory and prey animals.

- It's kinda funny, but I got two unpopular canine characters interacting with each other here. :D Granted, I do think Infinite has a bigger fanbase, or at least more people have a more positive attitude towards him, as opposed to all the folks who act like Antoine personally stole their girlfriends and murdered their nanas.

- The appeal of this whole idea to me personally is this -- a character like Antoine, someone who dresses and behaves like a noble gentleman, rediscovering his wild roots and exploring that. The person I mentioned above who'd devised the Antoine/Fiona thing also talked about Antoine's innate instincts (as well as Tails) being suppressed due to living around so many non-carnivores. Which is also interesting, but again, it didn't seem like that was going to be actually explored in the hypothetical story that was never written. Honestly, that idea could've been tackled by just having Antoine and Tails feeling dissatisfied or unhappy, not understanding why, so they both set out together to discover what the issue behind this could possibly be. Boom, you got a potentially interesting plot and character development right there. But I find that I'm way more interested in digging into characters' psyches and developing them, rather than being super self-indulgent like a lot of fans tend to be. I mean, my stuff can be self indulgent, but I also try to marry that with interesting storytelling rather then just stuff like "My favorite character collected all the Dragonballs/Chaos Emeralds/whatever and is now the most powerful, sexiest being in the universe!"

- Yes, walruses and foxes are not herbivores either. But foxes can be omnivorous* (plus, Tails is just a child), while I think an animal that largely eats things like shellfish can still fare better than a canine in Antoine's situation could. Apparently walrus bulls however will kill and eat seals on occasion, but Rotor's probably not going to be running around trying to stab somebody with his tusks anytime soon.

*Yes, coyotes can be omnivorous too, just like dogs, but being carnivores obviously prefer meat. You cannot feed canines a vegetarian diet because they can't get the proteins and such that they otherwise would get from meat.

- Very obviously I was just mushing together different bits of Sonic canon. We have Eggman, not Robotnik, Tails being a more active member of the team as opposed to his role in SatAM, Nicole is just a handheld computer, and no Bunnie/Antoine shipping.  

- Generally I depict Antoine as being part coyote, part dog. But since I wanted to get people interested in PD and avoid confusion, I decided to keep him a pure coyote.

- Dog imagery and references are rife within the story, very intentionally.  I think my favorite of them is this line: But that word – dog – did something. It rolled around his head, got teeth of its own. And compare Antoine's house pet vibe to Infinite's wild, feral dog vibe.

- A couple of major elements in the story are deliberately left vague or up to readers' interpretation. How much of what happened was actually due to Infinite/or his beacon? Or did he light the spark and Antoine just did the rest himself? It's entirely up to the readers. Sally's fate is also left ambiguous. 

- The line "You see me now, don't you?" was originally "I told her I would guard her." I thought the former hit a little harder.

FUN FACTS:  

- Since it was Halloween, I thought it'd be pretty fun to experiment with writing in a style evocative of certain popular horror authors, more specifically Stephen King, Clive Barker, and Ray Bradbury. 

Prior to this, I'd never read a Clive Barker book before or seen one of his movies the whole way through, though I was aware of who he is. I listened to the Midnight Meat Train on YouTube after watching the trailer for the movie adaptation on Tubi, and decided I really like his writing style. I don't mind audio books, but do find that I prefer to either read something on a screen or actually hold a physical book. So I'll probably see can I find the physical book at my local libraries. 

Pretty much have known who King was since forever. I'll go more in depth into my history with his work in a future post, since one of my future one-shot ideas involves a certain character of his.  

My first encounter with Bradbury was watching The Halloween Tree on broadcast television back in the '90s. Listened to a short story of his on YouTube, The Wind, and thought it was pretty good. My ultimate goal is to see Something Wicked This Way Comes (Disney turned it into an awesome-looking movie that I don't think a lot of people even knows exists) as well as read the book it adapts. 

I'm always in the market to read something by any of these three writers.

- While writing this, I listened to some music to get myself in the right frame of mind -- the soundtracks for The VVitch, Wolf, and The Shining, as well as the "Patricide" instrumental from Gladiator for the attack scene (that's not a horror movie of course, but that music/scene instantly sprang to mind while plotting out that particular part in the fic). All four very good soundtracks. I admit I didn't fully realize the role The Shining's soundtrack plays in that film, because it really is discordant and eerie to listen to even by itself. Ennio Morricone described visualizing Wolf's soundtrack as a man experiencing a "dark dream". I also wanted parts of PD to have a dream-like quality. I also had general seasonal ambience music going in the background for mood.

"It's Halloween -- everyone's entitled to one good scare."

In honor of the spooky season, I've written a little story: click me! Just be warned, it does get dark. BTW, from here on out all my Sonic stuff will only be uploaded to A03 (I need to post that announcement on my Fanfiction.net account as well).

I do have my concerns if readers will understand the intent behind the story. I can see people going "Sally's a martial artist/blademaster/whatever, I don't understand why she doesn't fight back and get away." And it's like, okay, but that's not the point of the story. Predatory Drift is not a traditional straightforward action-adventure story like many other Sonic stories are, it's psychological horror. Think like a Shirley Jackson story, Psycho, The Shining, Hereditary, The Babadook, etc, in that readers are supposed to be feeling a sense of dread and such, especially when the climax hits. That's not going to happen if Sally's up there kung fu fighting, y'know? 

Also, I wouldn't dare post PD on deviantART or FF.net. If I did, I'd more than likely end up having to go into hiding Salman Rushdie-style. 

Who are these two?

 

Found this image at a Sonic The Hedgehog club on Amino. Grimer and Rouge I recognize, but who's the character next to Rouge? And that robot on the end (that is a robot, isn't it?)?

Oh, and I guess it's 2024 now, so Happy New Year's. :-) A couple of my resolutions is to try get more writing done (especially for stories), as well as continue improving at drawing. 

BTW, the notes for Imposter Syndrome are still being worked on. Other then that I don't have much of anything else to report. Until next time!

Here's what's up:

Firstly, fics will not be publicly posted until they're mostly if not entirely complete. What brought this decision on was my reading the user page of a certain FF.net author and agreeing with her thoughts about posting in a timely matter for readers. Seeing how my thoughts and ideas have actually garnered the interest of other fans has been both interesting and exciting for me, and I want to be able to finish more fics for them to enjoy. 

TL;DR: Sometime ago I decided that I didn't like making readers wait months on end for fic updates/or completion. So stories will be posted when they're done. It'll take longer, but will pay off in the end. :)

As for this blog, I will be re-posting relevant posts (story/setting lore, other info of note) here when I can. Also, last week a bad thunderstorm threw my computer's hard drive out of whack and I had to get it repaired (BTW, I cannot stand computer repairmen because I have yet to meet an actual nice one). Prior to that whole disaster I felt my writing had been moving along at a nice clip, and I could see both respective plots playing out in my imagination.

In other news, this is something I didn't really go into a lot of detail about before, but I've decided to just go ahead and do a proper AU of Sonic The Hedgehog called Sonic And The Guardians Of Acorn. This does mean I won't be working on anything Knight Errand-related anymore. My sincerest apologies to people who were invested in that setting -- I love that folks enjoyed the story so much -- but it was becoming too much of a headache to try and explain away all of Archie's plot holes, figure out why X was Y or why those particular characters had been separated from their families, etc (and KE was supposed to be sort of a melding of Archie and SatAM with AU elements). By comparison, working on S&TGOA has been vastly easier and more fun as well. 

S&TGOA will be a hard reboot, so none of this "oh, I have memories of the other timeline!" junk like in New Wave Genesis (IMO, if you're gonna reboot something, then just cut the strings and properly reboot it already). I have a character lineup done, and have written some basic profiles for Dr. Robotnik and most of his crew. I'm on the fence about whether or not I should include Thunderbolt the chinchilla in with them... might be funny for Agent Stone to have a rival for "world's biggest Robotnik simp".

A master list of my fandoms

Having seen other people comprise lists of their favorite fandoms to write in and why, I felt inspired to do one of my own. It will be updated accordingly whenever I branch out to new fandoms.

Please note that this is all just how I personally feel about these particular programs/films/books/etc. I'm fully aware that a number of people out there won't agree with my viewpoints, which is perfectly fine. I hold no ill will towards normal fans of these series. All I ask is that people please be respectful in return. Telling me how I should enjoy something, or saying I don't understand the brilliance of [BLANK] is not going to suddenly make me start liking a series I've criticized out of the blue.

A character's name in bolded letters means I really love them. Just because I don't include certain characters as my favorites doesn't necessarily mean that I dislike them. I mean yes, there certainly are some characters I dislike, but there are also plenty of others that I'm just fine with but just really can't call favorites.

Major

Disney
Buckle up buttercup, 'cuz I got a lot of thoughts on this fandom.

Well, I felt it would be easier to just have a catch-all Disney category, instead of separately listing every single Disney show and movie I like. If I had done that, then this list would be significantly longer then it already is! Anyways, yes, I’m a Disney kid -- grew up on their shows and movies. I credit Disney (as well as Warner Bros and, to a minor extent, Don Bluth's movies) for inspiring my lifelong love of anthromorphic/animal characters, drawing, animation, and voice acting. I really don't have much interest in the theme parks though, the priciness of which puts me off. Plus, on this one Disney roleplaying game forum I used to be part of, there was a clique made up of staffers and popular roleplayers who would act like if you hadn't been to the parks in years you weren't worth talking to. Sorry I wasn't born into money, you guys. 😒

Very few people know this about me, but in my teenage years I went through an edgy phase where I was vehemently anti-Disney – I thought their films were childish and promoted a false view of reality, the company was bad, etc. I still think the company itself has done some pretty crappy things (for one, the late Peggy Lee being forced to take them to court just so she could get royalties for her work on Lady And The Tramp), and have some big problems with the direction they've been going in for some years now -- for starters, their ongoing quest to become a monopoly. But I fault the corporation for making these bad decisions, rather then the animators, producers, writers, etc who work hard on their animated properties. So I feel comfortable with watching the movies (and my preferred shows) because it's the characters and animation that are the main draw for me.

I'm not fond of all these mediocre sequels and live-action remakes that have been coming out in recent years either (or will be coming out eventually), and don't care for a number of their newer animated TV series like Elena Of Avalor and The Lion Guard. But I came to realize that blaming the films and characters for making young girls into docile housewives or whatever is about as absurd as blaming video games for causing violent behavior – for one, it’s ultimately up to parents to explain the differences between fantasy and reality to their kids. For the record, I never once had the idea that I needed to be rescued by a man or give up everything for one or something after watching Disney princess movies as a little girl.

I am a big fan of several ‘90s Disney Afternoon programs, many of the animated films, and a handful of their older live-action films. On the other hand, I don't really like most of the animated movie midquels/sequels/prequels (although some of the characters in them are pretty cool) and don't count them as canon. I also admit to not really liking Beauty And The Beast (the original version) like I used to, but that's due to its fanbase ruining the movie for me with their obnoxious antics. I had similar feelings towards The Little Mermaid for the same reason, though rewatching TLM years later I discovered that my bad memories have subsided (thankfully). I'm hoping the case will be the same for BATB. But I have a problem with the terms "Disney Renaissance" and "Disney Revival", as well as the fans of those two eras in general. 

I also don't care for the classic villains stans who carry on like those particular characters are the only noteworthy things about the movies, and in some cases, totally reimagine them as these unfairly persecuted saints. Like, the animation, the themes of the overall story, the score, none of that matters until this one character shows up and begins singing. Kinda superficial, that.

Seriously, every time I see a classic villain stan, this springs to mind:

In case you couldn't tell, I've always found the discourse surrounding the various films and characters to be very exhausting (it happens with some of the shows too, but not to the extreme that it does with the films). The bulk of it borders on outright absurdity, a refusal to look at the actual source material, and bad faith arguments. Sometimes I say that no one hates Disney like Disney fans do. Seriously, with some of the people out there who say they like Disney, it's like "Do you really? Doesn't seem like it (if you want to know specifically what I'm talking about here, then just ask. There's a difference between normal criticisms and then the stuff I see)." People, your preferences for certain characters and such are just that -- preferences and your own personal opinion, not indisputable fact. The fans seem to thrive on toxic negativity, not something I want any part of. 

Meanwhile, those who have a more open hatred for Disney are equally annoying, calling anything that appears twee and sentimental "Disney-fied" or any other number of similarly dismissive names when there's a massive variety of films and shows. Don't wanna watch something something cute like, say, Aristocats? Fine. There are several other films and shows which have intense/or thoughtful moments, or even dark elements -- off the top of my head, many of the elements in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Pinocchio, Gargoyles, the dinosaur and Chernabog scenes respectively in Fantasia.

Well, back to nice things about Disney, lol: It's so amazing and interesting to me to see their catalogue of movies through time and how each decade offers something different. There are films I prefer to certain other ones, and a scant few that I have no interest in watching ever again, but I am hard-pressed to actually call any of them awful. The ones I'm not big on I find simply aren't to my tastes/or are very mediocre. I've seen much worse animated fare from other companies. 

The sheer variety of characters and settings one has to work with when writing Disney fic is just plain awesome. So it's frustrating seeing fics which just parrot the same handful of ideas over and over again: Disney high school or college (which, granted, I have seen some fun fan art dealing with this concept), bland human OC goes to the characters' world/or worlds, all the classic princesses are subhuman. Several of my favorite characters are openly reviled by the overall fandom however. Oh well, that's just par for the course for me. As to how I choose which characters to feature in a story, I try to shuffle them around as well as give the less popular guys the spotlight. I love that the company seems to actively encourage crossovers. So my stories will either be crossovers, alternate universes, or just focus on certain films and series, such as Elena Of Avalor (the appalling writing of which I want to try and fix).

Favorite characters: Cinderella, Robert Callaghan, Dawn Bellwether, the Tramp, Scrooge McDuck (OG version), Hercules, Hermes, Councillor Esteban, Lexington, Matt Bluestone, Tiana, Prince Naveen, Aladdin, Dr. Delbert Doppler, John Silver, Darkwing Duck, Chief, Tod, Mr. Incredible, Basil of Baker Street, Genie, Jake, Bernard, Percival McLeach, Cedric (Sofia the First), Hans Westergaard, Lumiere, Bruno Madrigal, Camilo Madrigal, Pepper Ann Pearson (although I don't think there was a single unfunny character in the whole show), waaaaay too many others to try and name.

My Little Pony                                                                                                                                       Primarily Friendship Is Magic (Generation 4), though I don't have the absurd hateboner for the older series that a lot of other G4 fans do. After all, I did grow up on the original '80s show, and actually prefer the heavier fantasy/adventure bent and cool villains present there, things FiM lacks, IMHO). 

Now, there are FiM episodes which are cute and fun, I enjoyed the Rainbow Roadtrip movie, and there are some good things about the series, but it's not the greatest cartoon of all time to me. The series actually does have some potentially fascinating elements, but the show tended to bypass them in exchange for boring crap/or appeasing bronies, especially later on. Personally, I actually like certain characters way better then I do FiM itself. Some of them weren't utilized as well as they could've been. I didn't even bother to watch a number of episodes as well as the newer seasons simply because they don't appeal to me in any way. I also think the IDW comics are terribad. I'm honestly fine with just cherry-picking from the better elements of FiM for my works. 

But the fanfiction for this fandom? Quite a bit of it is just jaw-droppingly inventive, as well as being pretty solid. I tell people that this fandom churns out a much greater quantity of readable material compared to many of my other fandoms. I feel like the fans' minds go to much more creative, wilder places then canon does. Plus, fan works aren't restrained by having to target children and don't have all the show's excess baggage (the Harmony Tree! The Friendship School!) and bloated cast weighing everything down. I mean, there's bad stuff and overused cliches of course, but I will readily read a MLP fic before I will anything written for, say, Sonic The Hedgehog or certain Disney fandoms. There are a lot of good ideas to be gleaned from the fan art as well.

As for my ideas for this fandom? Well, most of them were crossovers that came and went. The one that's actually stuck around is a Elena Of Avalor crossover/AU that'll hopefully develop certain characters further, as well as some side stories that'll play around with certain characters and wordbuilding for this idea.

Favorite characters: Rarity, Prince Blueblood (yeah yeah, feel free to call me names or whatever. Don't care, take your salt elsewhere), Zecora, Steven Magnet, the FlimFlam brothers (who shouldn't be these hardcore villains, come on canon writers), Tree Hugger, Filthy Rich, Yona, Maud Pie, Fancy Pants, Ember, Heavy Weight, Granny Smith, Capper, Captain Caelano, Grubber. There are a number of other characters that I like the look of and seem interesting, but there's either not much meat to them (Fleur de Lis, Scootaloo, Spitfire, Somnambula [I'm still not sure why they choose to name her that]), or I hate what canon did with them (Iron Will).

Road Rovers
I was being too nice when I was talking about RR before. XD This isn't the worst cartoon ever, but I would definitely never use the word good to describe it either. At this point in my life I don't even wanna spend the cash to get the DVD set of the series. Sad to say, Hunter and Colleen aren't exactly favorites of mine's. Sorry guys. Exile, Blitz, Shag, the Master, and Hubert are much more likable and potentially interesting to me, but were never fleshed out any. Like a friend of mine's who's on the same page as myself said, the writers sacrificed storytelling, character development, and even logic all for the sake of telling jokes (many of which I don't think even have much staying power after the first time you've heard them). 

Oh my gosh, the freakin' jokes. A few of them aren't particularly horrible, and I enjoy a good action-comedy as much as the next person, but more often then not the show doesn't pull comedy off very well. A bunch of it is slapstick (which, y'know, if you're writing a story and you want to include humor, just goes over so well in prose). As a result, Road Rovers' tone is all over the place and the main heroes come off as being indifferent if not outright callous towards one another, as well as self-involved a lot of the time. This also set off a very obnoxious trend within the fandom of fans not just expecting but outright telling you to include goofy jokes in your stories because it's what the show did. The BNFs, who have stories referencing torture and rape and have stuff like angsty OCs who either get or have been tortured and abused in every way imaginable, do not appear to get this same sort of treatment from these reviewers. 🤔

The fanbase largely was and still only is vaguely interested in Road Rovers' core concept and fawn over some of the main heroes' designs, and that's it. This is a fandom where self-inserts and such took over with a vengeance. Aside from Hunter and Colleen, who are the major designated shipping tools (either with each other or with somebody's self-insert respectively), everybody else largely gets treated as animate props/or plot devices for fanfics. Blitz simply exists to be emotionally and physically abused by just about everybody else, including all of the Mary Sues and Marty Stus, Exile occasionally gets a few Mary Sues and evil siblings chasing after him and is never written well, etc. There's an unusual reluctance on the part of fans to worldbuild and explore the implications and effects of having a device like the Transdogmafier existing. Then you've got the stories and such that make you question if the creator even likes any of the canonical Rovers, given that their ideas center around having their Sues and Stus show up to humiliate and sometimes even literally assault and brutalize Hunter and co. And there's no character development whatsoever in any of these stories. As a result, the majority of the fanfics are just angsty action/adventure stories with furries and bad shipping. My friends and I literally quit reading RR fic because of all this.

Also, NGL, but I find how people gush over the Rovers as being so sexy weird. To me they're just generic cartoony-looking anthro dogs. At least when people say they had or have a crush on characters like Mr. Wolf or Nala I get it, because you often have the trifecta of appealing character design/personality/vocal performance at work there. The Rovers meanwhile are shallower then a dishpan, and there's kind of a hint of personality with the guys (certain ones more than others), but again, not very much. But the lack of a real personality makes it even easier to project one's fantasies onto whichever Rover you thirst after.

BTW, a few BNFs over on deviantART have stated before that they do not want people drawing porn of the characters, yet they themselves will draw fan art that is either highly suggestive/or literal fetish art. ಠ_ಠ

So with that shining endorsement of the series, let me talk about why I choose to write fanfic for it. XD I like superheroes. I like animals and anthro characters. Animals are true innocents, so the idea of them literally gaining the power and ability to help both themselves and others is an extremely appealing idea to me. I appreciate the fact that the heroes are an international coalition. The show’s universe has both supernatural and sci-fi aspects that offer plenty of story potential. I also knew one lone fan who actually wanted to develop the six canonical Rovers further. Even if I do have some disagreements and such with this particular author regarding his interpretations of them as characters (please note that when I use the word "disagreements", it's not like I think this guy is horrible and he deserves to be stoned. I just developed a different take on the characters is all), his ideas were still instrumental in pushing me towards creating my own storyverse. 

Later on, seeing how actual good shows like Steven Universe, One Piece, and Transformers Animated developed their characters, as well as remarkable fanfics for such fandoms as My Little Pony of all things made me go, "Why hasn't anybody ever tried doing that for the canon Rovers and co before?" Why not give them backstories and actual lives, you know, make them more then just one-note jokes, stepping stones to show off how l33t your OCs (donut steel) are, and ship fodder? Even if it is just a silly doggie cartoon, I still like for my heroes to have actual emotional cores.

So that's what I want to achieve with my fanfics -- let OCs help flesh out the world while alternately developing the canon characters. My fics also borrow a lot of fan characters and concepts from a few older fics, but I will try to explain these elements rather then just throwing them at readers and expecting them to know everything already.

Favorite characters: Blitz (doesn’t deserve all the bizarre hatred heaped upon him by the fans), Sport, Exile, the Master, Professor Hubert.

Sonic The Hedgehog
Well, I've played the older games and read the Archie comics as a wee one. A tiny minority of side characters are my primary reason for dabbling in this fandom in the first place, as is the root concept of the western canons. You have kingdoms and other exotic locales being menaced by both magical and technology-based villains, as opposed to the games/game-related media, where it's basically just a small group of kids fighting a mad scientist out in the middle of nowhere. Personally I prefer having lore and a more expansive setting to play around with.

But Sonic has some things in common with several of the other fandoms listed here which frustrate me and in turn makes me want to write for them. Aside from Sonic Underground, my feelings towards much of the source material ranges from "meh" to outright disdain (SatAM and Archie). SatAM is just an obscenely overrated kids' show and Archie a convoluted, wannabe edgy soap opera. Like I said before the games are simplistic, so I have zero interest in writing for them (doesn't mean I didn't have fun playing them though). The live-action films are just okay. That's all. And just to make something clear, I don't even think Underground was perfect or anything. Certainly not. I'm not too familiar with the anime stuff or the IDW comic, so I have no thoughts there.

ETA: Live-action Sonic is kinda adorable though.

I think the cast in the incarnations I am familiar with are painfully underdeveloped and banal, even the characters I'm fond of. For the most part I strongly dislike the major/popular characters, sorry. The modern character designs are completely unappealing to me -- massive spherical heads, hands that appear to be the same length as their heads (somehow), the Betty Spaghetti limbs... I could go on, but they look less like animal people and more like plastic dolls. The fact that the females must be fully clothed while male characters can't is also pretty silly. You can't see anything revealing on them, and secondly, the overwhelming majority of the females are so cartoony-looking that I don't even see what'd be so scandalous if they weren't fully clothed? I mean Rouge I get, but I've seen people freak out over SatAM!Sally and I'm like "Maybe the problem is less with her design and more with you?" I mean, God forbid characters just wear whatever best suits their personality and preferences lol.

The fandom (which completely deserves its bad rep) doesn't help matters at all. I'd daresay Archie fans are the most combative, obsessive branch of the Sonic fanbase. They seem hellbent on making me dislike Archie Sonic even more then I already do by acting like it's on the same level as the world's greatest literary classics, and no one should ever dare to criticize its depth, brilliance, and profound beauty (though SatAM fans aren't much better in regards to that particular series). Or they're just plain weird and cringey. I know that's saying a lot since so many Sonic fans in general often come across as childish and, well, extra about nearly everything. That's not to say that every Archie fan is bad though -- there are two I know of ATM who don't make me roll my eyes endlessly and can actually hold reasonable, intelligent conversations with me and other people. I know there are more then likely other chill Sonic fans out there, but unfortunately the nutbars stand out more, and it seems like you can't help but to run into them.

Another major issue for me is how a number of fans hate and discourage other people who want to try doing things which deviate from the source material. Stuff like people being advised not to make female fan characters that aren't stereotypically dainty animals, or pushing what are very obviously their own headcanons onto you as actual real canon. Wild overbearing nonsense like that. Oh well. So much for doing something fresh and unique with a series that's decades old now. This is also why almost every SatAM and Archie "reboot" or "alternate universe" fanfic I've seen just repeats the same mishmash of ideas again and again -- Sally is always the Freedom Fighters' leader and she/Tails/Nicole (if her furry form is being used)/or Sonic must get fifty+ power-ups -- nobody else is ever allowed to shine, because they just exist to be the cheerleading squad for the aforementioned characters and/or the writer's lame FCs (... much like the source material, actually). And that's if any of them even show up. If they do, then Antoine must always date Bunnie, Sally's brother and dad must literally act like the Malfoys, there's no character development anywhere in sight, etc. These fics are near-indistinguishable from the canons they're based on. I don't see the point of acting like they're something brand-new when the writing never takes any risks. I'm sorry to be a butt about this guys, but that's why I gave up on reading Sonic fics years ago. Most of them are about as boring and stale as a box of fifty-year-old crackers. At least you can eat crackers, which is actually a point in their favor against these unoriginal bore-fests.

Anyways, my fics are AUs. All of them. I'm just gonna go full steam ahead and tackle concepts and ideas I feel are fun and take risks rather then play things safe just to appease the fanbase and appeal to nostalgia.                     

Favorite characters: Antoine, Bartleby, Sonia, Knuckles (the Paramount movie version), Agent Stone, Lupe (admittedly more for her design and potential than anything else. Otherwise there's nothing at all to her character), and Hershey (see Lupe). Likewise, the potential of Prince Elias and Geoffrey St. John's characters was there, but the comic writers just failed spectacularly at handling them both. ETA: Okay, so I guess Paramount!Sonic has grown on me quite a bit. I'll add Infinite as well, but it sounds like he's another character like Lupe/Elias/Hershey/Geoffrey.

Secondary

Bravestarr

Somebody I knew referenced Bravestarr a couple of times before while discussing one of his original fan characters. I'd never heard of this cartoon, so, being curious, Googled it in order to learn more. It sounded interesting enough for me to look up the episodes online and watch a few of them. 

The show can be a little cheesy at times, but I still love it. What can I say, I'm a sucker for westerns and science-fiction. The heroes are all pretty upstanding people, as well as fallible (Bravestarr and Thirty-Thirty disagree with one another sometimes, for example), which makes them both good characters in my book, as opposed to the “perfect heroes who can do no wrong” I tend to see in my other fandoms. The heroes are also pretty badass, which gives them even more cool points, and it’s refreshing to have a show where a Native person is both the lead and a hero.

The mystery surrounding the Equestrians, the race that Thirty-Thirty belongs to, inspires me enough to write a story about them -- well, one of them anyways, and her meeting and subsequent adventures with the canon crew. Yes, that's right, it's the dreaded (female) original fan character! XD Don't worry, she's not going to be stronger and faster than Bravestarr is and immediately marry Thirty-Thirty and have a billion kids with him.

Favorite characters: Thirty-Thirty, Bravestarr, Judge J.B.

Danger Rangers
I got into this show late (apparently it debuted on PBS back in 2008), in 2012. The only reason I even started watching it in the first place was because I happened to be channel-surfing one morning, saw what looked like either a sea lion or seal character (who turned out to be Sully), and was intrigued, as I like pinnipeds and rarely ever see them as major characters in media. And that was my introduction to Danger Rangers.

It took a while for my interest in it to snowball, but my attitude slowly went from "Eh, this is okay", to really liking most of the Rangers as characters. I say "most" because at this point I feel Kitty is a big ol' Mary Sue. Anyways, the show's pretty cornball, especially the music videos (which I fast-forward right through), a number of the antagonists and incidental characters tend to be total stereotypes, and the designs for the supporting and background characters are more often than not ugly with a capital U. But the Rangers (aside from, ahem, that one character I just mentioned...) are actually interesting and fun. Also, the writers gave three of them backstories (or hints about their pasts anyways), which is rather surprising for a cartoon like this. Supposedly some of the safety tips featured in Danger Rangers really did help save lives (at least according to Wikipedia... heh). How awesome is that, if that actually is true (I hope it is)? I also managed to get a few other people I know hooked on DR too.

ETA: Something that I should mention is that my stories do make the characters a little more... eh, I won't say edgy, but I do give them more teeth, as it were, than what the show does They're adults, so I approach them as being such.

Favorite characters: Sully (I love this guy so much), Gabriela, Burble, Burt, Squeaky.

Digimon
I can still remember that weekday afternoon I came home from high school and began channel surfing to find something to watch. I came across this anime featuring an assorted bunch of weird but cute creatures, like dogs with unicorn horns and mini-dinosaurs. That show turned out to be Digimon Adventure. At first I just watched out of boredom and didn't give the show much thought afterwards, but after a while, decided to give it another try. And that time, I enjoyed it. I started watching the rest of the seasons when I could. Part of the fun of the series is seeing what forms the digimon end up evolving into.

I like all the previous seasons, even though Tamers annoys me for a couple of reasons (sorry, Tamers fans). For one, I find "Tamers" to be a weird name, as it seems to imply that the digimon are wild animals needing to be tamed. Most of them obviously aren't, so what's up with that? I never did see the rest of Savers due to Toon Disney abruptly changing their scheduling mid-season and airing the show at weird times (they had a really annoying habit of doing that with a couple of their shows). I did start watching Digimon Fusion on Nickelodeon. It was alright at best, but Nick stopped showing it (sensing a pattern here?), so I don't know how it ended. I'll have to see if it's available elsewhere. My favorite season has to be Adventure though. As to whether I prefer the dubs or the originals, there are things I like about both actually. While the original versions don't cut out important info or distort certain characters, I actually prefer the English voice actors for the most part. Too bad there's not a way to combine both versions.

Digimon is one of those canons that allows people to create their own takes on the whole concept, and I like that openness. I also enjoy seeing the relationships that develop between humans and their digimon partners, as well as among the digimon themselves. But in many stories, I notice the digimon are either basically nothing more than talking weapons, or take a backseat to poorly-written romance and melodrama. My story idea would be more in the spirit of the show. It's an untitled Adventure 02 AU that would explore elements of the show that could've been handled better, as well as adding in some completely new stuff. Like, I would not even make any kind of attempt to rewrite Ken's redemption. That was perfection. Instead, I'd go another route with the Digimon Emperor altogether... 

Favorite characters: I'm going to break this part down by season. Also, this list might be subject to change, just because I haven't seen any of the seasons in a long time.

Adventure:
Humans: Joe, Mimi (she gets a bum rap in the fandom I feel), Izzy, Tai, Sora, T.K.
Digimon: Gomamon, Agumon, Gabumon, Biyomon, Palmon, Patamon and his digivolutions.

Adventure 02:
Humans: Davis, June, Yolei (even though she tended to not be the most logical person at times), Ken, Cody (see Yolei), Rosa.
Digimon: Veemon, Hawkmon, Armadillomon (I don't care for Shakkoumon's design though... sorry ya'll. Yes, I know he's supposed to be based on a shakōkidogū. I still feel the same way), Wormmon, Pegasusmon, Nefertimon.

Tamers:
Humans: Kazou, Suzie.
Digimon: Terriermon, Renamon, Antylamon, Cyberdramon (I think I'm more partial to him now after reading Nolaqueen265's story Digital Realms)

Frontier:
Humans: J.P. (he reminds me of a human version of Blitz, lol), Koichi.
Digimon: Kazemon, Mercurymon, Ranamon.

Savers: Need to re-watch this one.

Fusion:
Humans: So far, Jeremy and Nene.
Digimon: No one yet.

Garfield 
Write-up coming soon!

How To Train Your Dragon                                                                                                                   These films are so good. Likable characters, compelling storyline, few if any of the annoying kids' media tropes I tend to see repeated elsewhere. The third one is... superficially good. What I mean by that is that I admit to liking it after watching it (the ending very much reminds me of stuff like this, which greatly charms me), but then later on, seeing a few (mature, rational) people online point out all the flaws with Hidden World's plot, I must agree that it disregards everything in the prior films. I'm aware there are books that the films are based on, but have yet to read any of them.

It's so wonderful watching Hiccup and his people develop over the course of the films. Yes, that's another big reason why I love this franchise: actual. Character. Development... for the most part. Admittedly they don't really delve into the other Riders like Fishlegs so much, and Astrid feels pretty generic, but it was Hiccup's show, so... Likewise, the twins seem stuck as idiots and comic relief (AKA Pumbaa and Timon Syndrome, lol). I feel Ruffnut was at her best in the first film. But this issue isn't as bad as it is with another Dreamworks franchise, Kung Fu Panda, which I used to like but at this point have zero interest in because any character not named Po or Tigress feels so wasted and one-note. At least we get to see Stoic change both his way of thinking and understand his son better. Also, let me just say this -- while I do find Astrid uninteresting, I don't hate her or anything. I do think it's nice Hiccup got his dream girl. 

I've not seen the spinoffs. I hear they're more kiddified then the films, but it sounds like the Dragon Riders get more focus there, which intrigues me.

I've seen some really good fanfics out there, but I've also seen some that just feel like Hiccup is the author's stand-in and the writer was evidently bullied in school or some such, so s/he has Hiccup beat up all his oppressors in the village and become the coolest kid on the block. I'm sorry, I thought I was reading a story about How To Train Your Dragon, not someone's personal power/revenge fantasies. That's not my thing at all. There are ways to handle Hiccup's confronting the other kids or whoever about his treatment without having the plot very obviously be the author's venting and such. 

Anyways, all fic ideas I have for this fandom are crossovers with Disney -- Aladdin, Mulan, and Sleeping Beauty respectively. I'm particularly excited about the Aladdin one because it involves Mozenrath. Snarky wizard meets snarky viking. This gives me life.

Favorite characters: Hiccup, Toothless, Ruffnut (I prefer fanfic!Ruff, since she has more depth and an actual learning curve), Tuffnut, Valka.

Littlest Pet Shop
I tried collecting the toys as a little girl, so any cartoon based around them will more then likely pique my interest. Yes, even now. This is one of the many fandoms I dabble in where the main characters are the only real draw for me. The 2012 series is the one I most prefer, even though it ranges in quality from cute to "good grief, what the heck did I just watch?" I didn't mind Blythe having some episodes revolving around her (she makes a good den mother and voice of reason for the pets), but the show's called Littlest Pet Shop, not Blythe And Her Boring Friends (I swear half the first season was like that). I'm sorry, I wish I could find Jasper and the other kids interesting, but they’re not, and they work better as the supporting cast.

The animals on the other hand have way more colorful personalities. Compared to the majority of the pet characters in the previous LPS series, they’re more likable and amusing. Unlike most of the fandom however, I hate the Biskitt sisters and absolutely do not find them sympathetic in any way. I'm not into the whole shipping scene that's so prevalent in the fandom either. Those people take hooking up brightly colored cartoon animals way too seriously for my tastes. But heck, I guess you could apply that to all the fandoms on this list.

I've had story ideas for this series come and go, with most of them being crossovers. The one that's looking the most likely to be written is this weird 2020 Sonic The Hedgehog crossover inspired by some fan art on deviantART I've seen.

Favorite characters: Sunil, Vinnie, Penny-Ling, Pepper (she grew on me like a fungus, lol), Captain Cuddles.

Loonatics Unleashed
Loonatics… Um, well... the less said about it the better, lol. I wanted to really like this show because I dig the goofy concept, so I watched the first season and about half of the second, but the second season is so bad I gave up on it. Looking back, the first season was a cliche blah-fest, but at least somewhat tolerable compared to the second one. Still, it's not exactly a series I feel revved up to revisit. That said, the Loonatics themselves have potential -- they just need personalities, Ace, Lexi, Danger, and Slam especially.

Another one of my issues with the show is that the execution was very flawed. For starters, why did Zadovia hire Danger Duck in the first place when she clearly greatly disliked him, or kept him around for that matter (well, on second thought, I do know why -- the show needed a buttmonkey)? Why is this woman who’s supposed to be a professional, respected leader playing favorites with her team (sorry Zadovia fans, but her character has never impressed me one bit with her attitude. No, her being a woman has zip to do with anything, if she were male I'd dislike her just the same)? What exactly was the point of humanizing Pepe Le Pew and Foghorn Leghorn’s descendants? My boy Pepe gets done so dirty

I’ve seen a few fanfics that are way more entertaining than the show itself is, and in turn was inspired to write one of my own. Coming up with ways of improving on the show also seems to become a thing with younger generations, which is really cool. I decided to go for a total reimagining and overhaul of the whole series, since I don't want my ideas to be confined by canon. The setting will be post-apocalyptic (a comet hit the freakin' planet for cryin' out loud), and the Loonatics hopefully more interesting characters to follow. It will have elements of a deconstruction fic too in regards to certain characters and canon plot events, but the whole idea is still a work in progress. Some characters from the show will still be sticking around though.

Favorite characters: I don't know if I even have any, lol. They're not really... characters. I saw somebody once refer to them as watered-down Looney Tunes. That's a very accurate description. Even some of the Sonic cast have more to work with, and those characters are hella flat.

Transformers
I'm a relative latecomer to this franchise. I didn't see the '80s cartoon as a kid. Beast Wars wound up being my first introduction to it. I wasn't a regular viewer though, and admittedly think I only watched just because I like the idea of robots that turn into animals. I've also seen the first four Michael Bay movies (though I've grown pretty bored with Bayformers since then), but the only things I like about them is Optimus Prime's being a badass with a cool voice. But I can see that in other better written series, so.... 

Some fan art and a friend were responsible for further getting me into Transformers. After deciding to write Beast Planet (see below), I realized I was going to have to learn more about the Transformers and their world. Shauni (the aforementioned friend) suggested watching Transformers Prime. So I did, and really wound up getting into it. The characters are fun and the writing is for the most part engaging. These days I do get why some people aren't that keen on it (a lopsided focus on certain characters for one). Anyways, out of curiosity I followed up with Transformers Animated, which I enjoyed even more, some Generation 1 (um, no comment), and 2015's Robots In Disguise, which was flawed, but there are things to enjoy about it too, IMHO. Rescue Bots is so-so, but I do like a few of the characters in it.

I intend on trying to watch Transformers Armada and the Robots In Disguise anime just to see what they're like, as well as re-watching Beast Wars at some point. The newer cartoons, Cyberverse, Rescue Bots Academy, and Earthspark have not been to my tastes, and I wound up drifting away from them after a few episodes. I am considering watching the Netflix shows however. And the movie Bumblebee surprised me with how fresh and entertaining it actually was. Originally the previews and plot synopsis didn't strike me as being interesting at all and I thought it was just going to be more Bayformers, but I'm glad I decided to watch it.

So far, my Transformers story will be a crossover called Beast Planet, which is a Disney/Transformers fusion/AU.

Favorite characters: Optimus Prime, Prowl (Animated), Ratchet, Bulkhead, Knock Out, Jetfire, Jetstorm, Blurr (I actually kinda like G1 Blurr too), Starscream (namely his Prime incarnation), Bumblebee (RiD version -- I liked him just fine before, it's just that with an actual voice his personality really emerged), Chase, and Boulder.