"New Dogs, New Tricks" Chapter One commentary & notes

REFERENCES: 

 

-- Forgot to mention this in the last post, but the fic title is a reference of sorts to the title of Eric and co's debut story in the Quick Strike-verse, New Dogs On The Block. I wanted a twist on it as a nod to that particular story. In the Friendship Is Magic fandom, a lot of people were doing AUs that shifted the roles of that series' characters around, with some plots being rewrites of canon episodes, so a number of rewrites have titles which reference the original episode. I thought that'd be fun to do here. New Dogs, New Tricks is also of course a nod to the saying "You can't teach an old dog new tricks." Though I do wonder if it seem like I'm implying that the canon Rovers don't have any new tricks of their own, as it were. Which is not my intention -- in fact, one certain character will get his chance to shine in NDNT.

GENERAL:

-- I do feel like the Master creating the Transdogmafier would have a domino effect on the setting. I have yet to see any fanfics touch on that. It's just like one day the Road Rovers are there, then the next, there are more animal people who've seemingly come out of nowhere walking around and humans don't react to them, like they're something that's always been around like birds and vehicles. It's like the author started out at point A and then skipped straight ahead to point C. Missed opportunity for worldbuilding there.

 -- I chose to make Professor Hubert a bloodhound/basset hound mix. The Master proclaims he has the best sense of smell in the world. Well, in the dog world that title belongs to the bloodhound. I mean, they're kinda famous for it. People back in the old days of fandom called him a bloodhound. But Hubert's markings don't look very bloodhound-like. They are however more similar to a basset hound's. Bassets are regarded as being right behind the bloodhound in terms of their noses. So I was like "Heck, smush 'em both together. Mix-breeds are cool."

- First draft I had Hubert listening to the Beastie Boys on a Walkman. Regarding Project Circe that he mentions to the Master -- if you know your Greek myth and you look at this chapter, you can probably put two and two together about what kind of project Hubert was working on for Shepherd.

-- The Master being psychic is an idea I got from a fan writer named Chris Chestnut. I think it's an good solid explanation for why he can do the weird stuff he can do.

 

-- Yep, no Hunter or Shag in this story! This is a writing trick I picked up from another writer who goes by Dimensional Gatekeeper on FF.net -- shuffling characters around in order to spotlight other characters, as well as breaking up one large group of characters into several smaller ones. It's a way of seeing how they might behave without the entire team present, or with different characters in the mix. Plus, writing an eleven person team all hanging out together for an extended amount of time can get tricky. Some characters' voices can also end up getting drowned out, or the writer runs the risk of everyone all sounding the same. So it's also a good way of making sure every character gets some attention.

So Colleen might be absent for the next story, or it could be Muzzle/or Blitz (I mean, Muzzle didn't always go with them all the time in the show either).

-- My issue with many Road Rover OCs isn't necessarily the fact that people feel the need to create them, but how they aggressively dominate everything and aren't handled particularly well. Some feel like they would fit better in an original world of the author's own personal vision rather than the actual show itself. The canonical characters get no attention or development, and that's if they're even in the same story as the OC (although the OCs usually don't really evolve as characters any either). Or one particular canon Rover gets glazed and the rest treated like the Three Stooges as well as not being as special and morally upstanding as the writer's favorite Rover is. The Rovers' focus shifts from saving the world to helping out the super special OC with their own personal issues. Granted, that tends to revolve around a villain OC that's connected to the OC, but everything still ends up getting tied back to the OC. 

Now, I do find the concept of fan-made Rovers extremely appealing, firstly because the show's setting feels kind of empty, and secondly, I think the Master would want to create more Rovers to help out. Not a literal army -- that line from the Master about not wanting to create his own army was a very deliberate choice on my part, as I've seen a bunch of fics where that was indeed the case, and it just begs the question of how is RRMC able to support all these Rovers living there. And why hasn't crime just been wiped out by the Rover army? I also think having a ton of characters ends up taking away from the special-ness, as it were, of the ones we're supposed to be following in the fics.

At any rate, why not have other characters around for the canon Rovers to bounce off of and interact with? OCs equal new character interactions and relationships. Hunter and co can make new friends, new enemies, or new love interests. Or maybe some of them are neutral towards one another. That's what I'm interested in. Plus, with characters like Hunter and Colleen, I think they need pushback from other people who might *gasp* not look at them like they hung the moon, or even just disagree with them sometimes (FYI, I feel the same way about character dynamics in Sonic The Hedgehog and Elena Of Avalor. Bring in new/or different characters around the main group who can then look in and observe the inner circle). I mean, Blitz is the only one ever shown to be critical of Hunter in any way, and is often shown as being in the wrong the overwhelming majority of the time. I don't think that's realistic. Granted, we're not going to see much in the way of criticism towards Hunter or Colleen from this particular batch of new heroes just because they don't start out as having that kind of personality, but I've got some OCs of my own who will handily take care of that in the next story. :-) 

Also, the new Rovers in NDNT come from countries that it makes perfect sense to have Rover representation for. France is one of the nuclear powers, while mid '90s Japan and Canada were both global powerhouses. It's also brilliant to have this lineup of presidential pets be interspersed with dogs who already have homes with regular citizens.

 

-- This is my thought process -- a dog born on the streets, or one that constantly lived outside would not have any frame of reference for what a werewolf even is. Aurora knows about them (or at least werewolves in fiction) because she has a home and her master watches horror movies, so it's something she's picked up via osmosis.

-- Here's a basic rundown on those other RR teams I referred to as already existing here:

 

The Wild Kats: These guys were created by Greywolf Lupous. Dusty, who's a mixed-breed cat, is their leader. The rest of the team consists of Sugar, the siamese/burmese mix who's basically their Colleen, Trouble, the half manx half Maine Coon witch's cat, and Moffet the tech genius. There was a fifth character, Dinamite, Sugar's brother, but I ultimately chose not to use him because he's pretty flat and doesn't bring anything new or unique to the table. The Kats were first formed as a team when the Master called on them to rescue the canon Rovers, who'd been captured by Parvo. 

The Maddog Bounty Hunters: What it says on the tin. They belong to Greg Willis. Outlaw the mutt is their leader. We also have Beowulf the Great Dane, Silver the coyote, and Sapphire the Siberian husky. As mentioned in NDNT, their tech expert is human named Wesley Hawk. I think these guys are pretty unique (something that's I personally feel is lacking in most modern day OCs) and have some pretty creative backstories. There's more details I've left out but will cover when the Maddogs actually pop up in person. Also, props to Willis for how he handled the cano-mutants by remembering that they're actual threats that were only made that way thanks to General Parvo.

The Freelance Rovers: Yet more creations of George Aguirre. They're an international team of Rovers that were said to have several bases across the globe in George's fanfics, but I'm thinking that in STARS they'll just have one in Europe somewhere and a backup base elsewhere in case the first one gets discovered by villains or something. The few stories I've found starring them have not really been forthcoming with info about them or what exactly their specialty if any is. Their leader is a greyhound named Blades Broadsword. I'm not going to use every Freelancer there was, because with a number of them the only info I have is a name, maybe their breed, and nothing else. I do have a few ideas for the FRs, though this is mostly in the capacity of them being background characters. Same verse as before -- I'll talk more about my approach to them when they actually start appearing in the flesh then.

-- There are two variants of the akita, the American version and the Japanese. Obviously Blades is the Japanese subtype. They tend not to like other dogs or strangers very much.

-- Writing the scene where the new guys get to show off their respective personalities was very fun. Comparing the Master to musician Edgar Winter was just simply too good a joke/reference to pass up, and the surfer dog from Cali was the perfect guy to make the observation. In fact, I'd like to start a trend of other characters comparing the Master to famous guys, fictional characters included, with long white hair.

FUN FACTS:

 

-- If you're curious as to the thought process behind the new guys' powers, here they are as shared with me by EW: 

Eric: EW just thought that flight would be a cool power to have.

Powerplay: His breed; labs are famous as being water-loving dogs.

Tyron: A character from the series Big Bad Beetleborgs. 

Streetwise: The Super Punch was inspired by another OC who had a "super howl" as their power (though I don't know if that power was based more in soundwaves or if it was a shockwave). EW's twist on the idea is basically a joke based on Streetwise's breed.

Dama: Not really sure, actually. Apparently illusion casting was Aurora's original power before she got  invisibility.

Aurora: The Invisible Woman (Marvel Comics).

Cyan: Cypher (Marvel Comics).

Blades: A character from an obscure cartoon called Skeleton Warriors.

The Character Corner: Antoine, part 2

 

This is my exact same reaction when I have to do taxes or anything finance related.

INSPIRATION

Way, way, way, way back when I actually kinda engaged with the Sonic fandom, I'd see a few people here and there throw out ideas concerning Antoine, rather than actually write stories featuring him or ones where he could play a major part. One idea I remember seeing was someone who said he could've lost part of his tail in an accident, and that's why he became so anxious. I dunno, that could've made for a good fic, IMHO. But barely anybody writes anything that just centers around him and him alone, or even just giving him a B plot in a bigger story. I've seen readers leave reviews on Antoine-centric fics admitting that they would've liked to have written something about Antoine themselves, but were scared to because of the potential reactions from the rest of the fandom. Don't know how stuff is today, but you can indeed witness a lot of Antoine bashing in fanfic reviews. I have the feeling that's why a lot of Antoine ideas never got the story treatment. Shame on those who bully others into repressing their creativity just because they can't cope with someone liking a character that they don't.

All that said, I don't think some of these people were intimidated by Antoine bashers as much as they either weren't very creative/or just despised the very idea of going against canon. For example, that one weird person who didn't want me to have Antoine and Lupe interacting theorized about Antoine having OCD as well as some other stuff for him, but never did anything with any of it AFAIK. And that kind of thinking confuses me so much. I don't even get the point of why you'd devise so much headcanon for him to begin with, only to not want to use it.

I will say I was influenced by the following people who waved the haters and the source material off and powered on through:  

StarlitSvader: She devised a number of intriguing headcanons for the little guy, including the idea that Antoine's jumpiness is actually caused by his having keener than average hearing, a concept I utilized in Knight Errand. And I was pleasantly surprised to see that she's still actively creating stuff for Antoine!

Omnicenos: Someone who genuinely likes Antoine and doesn't feel like the character must be ground under Sonic and the others' heels and treating this as an acceptable thing. Some of my Antoine headcanons are courtesy of this cool dude. Sonic does crack on Antoine off and on in his story Kitsune, but also has to eat crow himself at several different points and even has something genuinely nice to say about him later on, so things actually with the cast actually feels balanced, something I greatly appreciate. He also seems to have a more down to earth view of the KFFs, as opposed to the "Sonic and Sally are untouchable deities who are always perfect" mindset that so many other fans suffer from. I remember there being a picture of Sonic checking Sally out while her attention was elsewhere on his deviantART account, and some stan commenting Sonic would never do that to Sally because he's so mature and such a gentleman and blah blah blah. Wingedhippocampus' response was that Sonic is a hormonal teenaged boy, which is 100% on the money (heck, I had Antoine checking out Leeta and Lyco in Knight Errand). Lastly, bonus points to WHP for writing the other KFFs in a way that doesn't make me want to throw rocks at them. 

KivatheDCWizard: One of the first people I saw actually doing proper AUs for the western canons. I really like a lot of his ideas for Antoine as a character in his settings.

Also, let me just say that even though I no longer like the Knothole Freedom Fighters like I used to, that doesn't extend to AUs where they're actually fleshed out as characters and given more appealing personalities. The aforementioned writers all succeed in doing that (without trashing Antoine or using him as a tool for angst or ridicule in the process to boot). Spiral Writer is working on her own Sonic reboot that has Bunnie at the helm instead of Sally. It sounds like it's going to be pretty fun and inventive.

FUTURE PLANS

Antoine is a character that I've devised a lot of headcanon for, just because canon didn't bother to fill in the blanks, or I just don't like what they did. Sorry not sorry, but I want to write an actual character, not a walking talking plot device/one of Sonic and Sally's cheerleaders.

This is what we do it with Archie and Archie-adjacent grimdark misery porn lore 'round these here parts:

 

What'd be the point of using Archie's stuff for him anyways? At least my ideas come from a place of actually being invested in the character. IMHO, the Archie writers just threw whatever at him and went "Okay, glad I got that crap outta the way, now back to the important stuff -- more Sonic/Sally relationship melodrama!"

I'm sure certain people who might read this will say I'm just mad jealous of Archie because they're professional writers whose names everybody knows while I'm just some nobody. I wasn't aware that calling out poor writing means you're really just sooper sekritly jelly of the pro writers, but okay. You right. 

Secondly, I wouldn't want to work for a big company like SEGA or Archie, where there are restrictions in place on the types of stories I can tell or what I can and cannot do with the characters in the first place. That's why I'm currently plotting out my own original graphic novel.*

I'm also just really over all the fan works where Antoine ends up either extremely depressed/ physically disfigured/maimed/dying and the whole plot just revolving solely around that. Like he's never shown pushing through adversity and discovering fulfillment or contentment. Can he have a nice ending for once? There is so much of that kind of content out there and it's just... blegh. I guess Antoine fans don't like hopecore.

Most of my ideas deal with Antoine breaking away from the other KFFs and finding friendship and romance elsewhere. And in at least two stories the KFFs don't even exist (either as a group or the individual characters themselves). To me, it just doesn't really make any sense for him to continue hanging around people who often act like the KFFs do towards him. Seriously, the other KFFs are super mean to him in these fics even when he isn't doing anything, is trying his best to achieve something, or has the audacity to show a little concern for someone (typically Sally). IMHO, kinda amazing the fanbase sees nothing wrong with characters who are supposed to be these wonderful, magnanimous heroes acting this way. But I think that says a lot right there. All the fanfics as well as the fans that treat that kind of thing as being just fine come across as pushing a highly toxic, immature mindset. The "friendship" between Antoine and the others also comes across as being pretty forced, in both canon and in fanfics (again, not counting the stories of the previously named authors). What does he have in common with any of them? What does he have in common with Bunnie even? Another Antoine fan (who's actually rational in regards to the source material) told me that it is believable that Antoine and the other KFFs would be linked together based on the shared trauma they experienced as children, but that doesn't equate to them working as friends. I'd much rather Antoine go make more worthwhile relationships elsewhere. There are tons of other characters across the various branches of the franchise, so why not explore his dynamics he could have with somebody else?

One fic will be a collection of one-shots featuring him and Lyco. Another story I have in mind has a heavy emphasis on drama when, after discovering that Bunnie and Sonic have stabbed him in the back by hooking up together behind his back, Antoine decides to leave the KFFs behind for G.U.N, where he meets a certain black and red hedgehog... Oh yes, I'm doing that fic.

The Stranger, which is currently being worked on, was inspired by Steven Universe and Chainsaw Man. I don't want to give too much away, but the summary is as follows: "Two unlikely Freedom Fighters suddenly get much, much closer then anyone thought could ever be possible. This has far-reaching consequences for not only them, but those around them as well."

Kindred Spirits is basically a rewrite of the SatAM episode "Ghostbusted", only with a plot that's actually interesting (or at least I think it's interesting). Basically, Antoine and Tails encounter a real ghost who they befriend after some initial misunderstandings between them.

Antoine will also be prominently featured in Sonic And The the Guardians Of Acorn as one of the major characters alongside Sonic and a few other familiar faces. I've also started playing around with a separate crossover idea where a certain DC character gets introduced into Sonic's world. Better believe that Tony's gonna be present in that story.

HEADCANON

You could alternately dub this section "how I personally would improve upon Antoine as a character."

Something that really gets under my skin is when people see someone else writing about a certain character and whining "Why are you writing about them? There's no point!" with the implication being that said character is flat, not interesting, one with a very small role in the source material, etc, ergo, so they don't need to have fanfic written about them. 

I beg to differ. Just about any character out there can carry a story if it's 1) written well, and 2) you get creative with both your plot and the character in question. I've seen people complain about other fans writing fanfics focusing on characters like Krypto the Superdog and Minerva Mink. "Why would anyone want to write about them??" Hmm, maybe because fanfiction doesn't always need to be about the popular characters and ships 24-7, or only focused on the characters that you like? Shockingly enough, the world doesn't revolve around you and your preferences, Karen/Ken. Now, I don't know about the quality of Minerva fics, but I have seen people write actual good stories about Krypto before (the version from the old animated series). There are characters out there that I absolutely hate, but I'm not going to tell people not to write about them or flip out because somebody did write a fic starring them because I'm not a jackass. 

Basically my point is Antoine can carry a story just as easily as Sally or Tails or Sonic can. I just think you have to actually like or at least be interested in his character and want to explore him beyond just the surface-level "My dad/or mom abused me/Muh trauma/Bunnie I love you."

-- I tend to refer to my Antoine as Tony for shorthand as a way to differentiate him from his canon self (BTW, I do this with Esteban too -- he has a different surname in my headcanon then he does in the show).

-- Long time ago I saw a post somewhere suggesting that Antoine was a hybrid -- part dog, part coyote (before Archie gave him an official species, people weren't sure what he was supposed to be. I've seen him be called everything from a fox to a shrew). Someone else said he was part poodle, I'm sure as an insult. But I like that as a serious idea and have used it ever since. To me, it actually works to explain away his hair. Also, this is kinda funny, but there was this one adult animated series, House Pets, that I don't care for at all, but I found it funny that it featured a poodle falling in love with a coyote. XD

My Antoine is of Mexican and French heritage. His mother is Carmen Moreno e Lopez, and his father's named Siarl de Colete. I swapped the ‘rents species around from my old fanon, so now Carmen's a coyote and Siarl is a poodle. That was done because I rarely see male poodle characters anywhere. Also, it technically makes Antoine a dogote (coyote mother, dog father) rather than a coydog, which is the other way around. Carmen and Siarl's characters are still being worked on.

ETA: I forgot to mention this, but a trope I used to see in Sonic fanfic is making Armand either abusive or extremely controlling. I don't know if this is still a thing or not. It's something that's never made any sense to me. The vibe I got from canon is that he actually admired his dad. His mother already sounded kind of neglectful in the comics.

-- The spelling of Antoine's family name in my fics is "de Colete" instead of "D’Coolette". The former looks more like an actual name. Apparently D’Coolette was a name tossed around for him in the original show bible before the show went with Depardieu. His full name is Antoine Miguel de Colete (because mom figured that if he wasn't going to have a Spanish first name, then he sure as heck was gonna have Spanish somewhere in his name). 

-- I originally made Antoine a coydog because of the short tail he was/is drawn with in canon, but that's before I realized people often docked the tails of poodles. So my Antoine just has a regular long tail now. His appearance is a bit shaggier than in canon as well, especially on his ears, throat, chest, and elbows. His hairstyle is based on Timothee Chalamet’s (and it is his actual hair). It's also less of a bright yellow color like we sometimes see and more golden blonde. His base fur color has varied from canon to canon, but generally I stick with lighter/medium brown shades like caramel and Peru brown for him. Here's a new redesign I did which incorporates black and white into his coat. It makes it more apparent that he is a coyote mix.

- In a few non-Guardian settings, Carmen died when Antoine was small, so he remembers little of the Spanish she spoke. He can understand it to an extent however.

-- His favorite foods are honeycrisp apples and and soupe à l'oignon. There's a Spanish dish that he also really enjoys, but I haven't decided on what it could be yet. I thought it'd be a nice nod to his mother's heritage.

- I deepened Antoine's center. Rather than just wanting to win Sally's hand, what he actually wants is to be a hero that everybody looks up to and loves. Getting Sally (when he starts out crushing on her; in my stories he either gets over her or doesn't even know who she is, so the crush never happens in the first place) would just be an added bonus for him. I do think part of the issue with the character is that he often gets reduced to being one of Sally's orbiters, even after getting with Bunnie, and very much comes across as a simp. Then you got Antoine's dad working for Sally's dad as his general. I completely did away with the family connections to the Acorns and just have the de Coletes doing their own separate thing entirely. Doing so I feel also potentially helps with worldbuilding, because now you get to explore a brand new locale on Mobius (the de Coletes' homeland), not just the same place where the KFFs live/operate out of. Just having had all the Freedom Fighters grow up alongside Sally limits them as characters and is pretty boring.

- Antoine is on the autism spectrum. Many people online approach certain characters as being autistic. It's kind of a mixed bag. I both see a lot and hear a lot about these fans' takes on autistic characters, often infantilizing them -- peak irony, considering that some of these fans are more than likely the same sorts of people who consider Abed from the show Community an offensive stereotype when he's probably closer to an actual depiction of an autistic person as opposed to their uwu smol soft bean babbu who stims and watches Bluey is. 

Currently, Antoine's one of the only characters I have that I do headcanon as actually being on the spectrum. I was lurking at the forum for the old defunct website Sonic HQ where this person brought up the possibility of Antoine being autistic. For some extra added irony, this person double posted, and their posts had that particular... tone you tend to find from people who are neurodivergent. Nonetheless, I found myself agreeing with what this person had to say.  I'm sure SatAM's writers didn't even intend for this to be a thing because they just wanted Antoine to be made fun of, but to me, some of his quirks could be read as autism. You got the social awkwardness, the overly formal/unusual way of talking, the clumsiness, the tendency to take things literally. I read his dislike of margarine as a food sensitivity. I was hinting that this was the case with him all the way back in Knight Errand, but don't know if people picked up on it or not.

-- I've made Antoine a fencer, so he doesn't have the saber/cutlass that he was shown to use in the comics. It isn't like we were ever told what kind of sword fighting style he even uses, so whatever. He uses a rapier (which I think looks much more elegant and appealing than his Archie cutlass), eventually becoming one heck of a swordsman.

-- I don't mind his being into cooking and cuisine too much. I don't know if I want him to be doing that in Guardians Of Acorn though, since his hyper focus there is monsters and dealing with them. Maybe he could get into baking though, since that utilizes chemistry in a sense.

-- "He's a soldier/knight/royal guard/noble!" Well, he was supposed to be a palace guard in SatAM. Don't think the comics ever actually cared about what he was supposed to be or his role there. I don't know where any of that other stuff comes from either. These days I generally just approach him as a swashbuckler-style character.

-- Shockingly enough, Antoine actually was going to get his own personal enemy in the post New Wave Genesis setting, a badger named Inigo Cortez. Knowing Ian Flynn’s stellar writing ability however, I'm sure Sonic would've also dominated that storyline just like he did the one that was supposed to be about Rotor and his backstory. 

At any rate, I like the idea behind Cortez enough to want to use him in my stories. I think giving Antoine his own personal nemesis/foil could punch him up as a character. I'm considering changing Cortez's first name (I suspect it's meant as a nod to the Princess Bride character, and I'd personally rather not tie such a cool hero to a villain), though I'm still on the fence about that. I had the idea of his family hailing from the same area where Carmen and her family lived/or his family knowing the Lopezes.

- I'm just going to copy and paste something Wingedhippocampus said here: Yes, I KNOW there was a SatAm episode where Antoine claims he can't swim. I call bullsh*t. Canines who've never seen anything deeper than a water dish in their lives can swim if you throw them into water deep enough to facilitate it. I think they were just overplaying the whole useless coward angle is all. 

- This is where I thank Omnicenos again. If I had to associate an element with Antoine, then I'd choose the element of water. This is due to Omnicenos' story Kitsune. To directly quote from it: "Antoine is mercurial, his mind and emotions flow from one thing to another. He will often become whatever a situation requires him to be, in the manner than a stream will allow itself to be split by stones, but always comes back together. Antoine is Water."

- Although one of the reasons why I appreciate Antoine is in part due to his being an ordinary dude who still chooses to fight, I also don't mind tricking him out with a little extra something to make his fighting these robots and wizards and stuff believable. I very much want to avoid the "Rock Lee" problem of a character getting left behind while his teammates get stronger (Sonic and his speed, Sally and whatever superpower/or mystical doohickey a writer decides to give her for that day, Nicole, Tails, Bunnie). Antoine's just not capable of fighting the increasingly more dangerous enemies without serious risk to his life, so I'd much rather power him up somehow than have him be forced to stand on the sidelines playing cheerleader. 

Hilariously enough, of course you have people getting angry when you (and by that I mean me*, or the New Wave Genesis continuity where Antoine could do a spin dash technique with his sword that was like the only cool thing Ian Flynn has ever had him do) give Antoine a special ability of his own, because now he's a Gary Stu or whatever in their minds. You heard it right here, guys -- super hearing is a Gary Stu power! 🤣 

Y'all hate him when he wants to run off and hide. Y'all hate him when he isn't a coward and he gets an ability boost so he can better help the other heroes out. These kinds of people just hate him existing period and will never be happy no matter what's done to improve on him as a character. 

Then you have the Antoine fans who don't want him developing any kind of new useful skill or ability because, once again, it all ties into their deep obsession to preserve the comics/SatAM where he's just this flat fodder character. What is with these people? Am I the only person who finds this kind of environment -- one that says you're not allowed to sandbox and play around with new ideas -- extremely rigid and unwelcoming? If people want to stick to canon that badly then fine, but don't force your views onto me or other people and then get pissy when we disagree.

*To date, the only other Antoine fans I know of who've given Antoine some kind of special ability have been StarlitSvader and KivatheDCwizard.

At any rate, the abilities/powers Antoine winds up with will vary depending on the story. We'll get to see a superpowered Antoine in The Stranger, the DC crossover (spoiler alert: he becomes the Mobius equivalent of Steel there), and GoA.

- So, what is Antoine's problem aside from the autism? Well, it doesn't have anything to do with parental abuse. Siarl and Carmen were/are perfectly normal and loving towards Antoine. In case you couldn't tell, I hate the "abusive father" trope fans often use to explain away the issues of self-aggrandizing characters like him. I keep on seeing this with these types of characters -- Blitz, Vernon Fenwick, probably some other ones I forgot about right now. I think it's lazy writing for one. It's never fully explored, and you'll be lucky if the story bothers to take it into consideration by having other characters become aware of the issue and try treating the other character with grace, instead of the usual contempt and harsh impatience. 

Anyways, Antoine is insecure and has a poor self image. In that respect, he's actually got a lot in common with the Leonardo we get in Rise Of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (a series which I actually quite like). This is an excellent video delving into Leo's hang-ups and which I feel also applies to my interpretation of Antoine.

BTW, Antoine's self-image is going to be delved into a lot in The Stranger.

PERSONAL

"You act like Antoine never did anything wrong!"

Number 1) Oh I'm definitely biased. Like I've said previously, yes, I get being that annoying person who's on a different wavelength than everybody else. To me, all the hatred towards him is overblown to a frankly toxic degree (yes, it is toxic to attack people online for having the audacity to like Antoine and leaving hate comments on fan art/fics). 

Number 2) Like with Blitz and Esteban, Antoine is just silly and annoying at worst. But people act like he's Jeffrey Epstein mixed with Logan Paul or something. It's hella weird. A portion of the hate definitely has roots in Francophobia and homophobia. It may have gotten dialed back in the last couple of years since online fandom spaces have started leaning more left (though I honestly don't know what side the Sonic fandom falls under), but I definitely remember seeing some people call Antoine "fruity" or "feminine". 

I feel a lot of his antagonist moments in the comics (such as his being the prosecutor during Sonic's trial after Sonic was roboticized and attacked the KFFs) come across as just trying to make Antoine look as awful as possible. Then after he "reformed", they had no clue what to even do with him, so he just floundered around being a nothingburger. And people hate him and think he shouldn't exist because of the writers not caring about trying to make him an actual character.

Honestly, I don't get why more people aren't upset by the characterization of the SatAM characters in Archie. 

Bunny: Boring ho. :) How one makes a literal cyborg boring I don't know, but Archie certainly did it.

Sonic: Self-interested manwhore who treats his best friend like his very own personal boot licker and was willing to toss aside their friendship all because he wanted into Fiona Fox's pants. He also slept with his "friend's" girlfriend. This y'all's boy?

Antoine: Exists to have every bad thing imaginable happen to him. Also boring.

Sally: If people thought she was a Mary Sue in the cartoon, then the comic ramps it up to obscene levels.

Rotor: Got his back jacked up. 

ETA: Accidentally posted the wrong video!

But if you want to talk about toxic positivity, then one doesn't need to look any further than the Archie Sonic fandom (unless something bad happened to Sally, then the comics somehow became the literal worst thing ever).

The Sonic series could have easily taken cues from shows like Avatar: The Last Airbender, He-Man, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Stormhawks, Buzz Lightyear Of Star Command, or Legion Of Superheroes, series where different characters were allowed to take the spotlight and we got to know them better as the series progressed. I suspect that if you (hypothetically) gave the SatAM concept to a different group of writers, like, I dunno, the folks who worked on the Mike Young version of He-Man, we could've seen a more emotional story about a character who desperately wanted to prove himself gradually learn important lessons through trial and error, and actually grow. That show, while not perfect, was still good at exploring the flaws and insecurities of the heroes and developing them. But the writers never cared about other characters. It was just the Sonic and Sally Show. It's why partly I don't care about canon any. And then there are people out there who unironically say Sally didn't get enough attention in SatAM. It's like "What the hell are you even talking about?? Are we watching the same show?" 

Anyways, I can say that my stories don't revolve around acting like Antoine can never do no wrong. He does boneheaded things, looks silly, and makes mistakes. So do the other characters! I was doing that all the way back in Knight Errand. I don't treat him like the infallible God Emperor of the universe who's tears can cure cancer, because that'd be boring. He's just a dude. I appreciate that ordinary-ness. Ironically, I don't feel stans of certain characters are capable of doing that for their favorites. Like I never hear Sally stans actually talking about the her flaws (but according to them, "She's totally not a Mary Sue you guys! Agree with me, or else I'll find out where you live and stab you!"), or Sonic stans doing the same for that character. It's all just usually about how cool and amazing they are. If they are given flaws, then it's stuff like they "care too much" or have sad backstories -- stuff that in no way actually impedes them. 

But someone once told me that a bunch of fans love projecting like an IMAX lol. This person was absolutely 110% correct in that regard (heck, you can say that same about people outside of fandom spaces). 

We all have characters we dislike for one reason or other, and that’s okay -- but you don’t have to take it farther than that. People who spend their time obsessing over hating a certain character, IMHO, have some other kind of issue(s) going on within themselves/or in their lives. It becomes an even bigger problem when they start shifting that hatred over to the fans of said character -- like how dare someone else like the character just because they personally hate them. I'm going to say the same thing I said about Blitz before: the simple solution for fan writers would be just to either write Antoine differently, or don't have him in your story to begin with. Characters are just abstract thoughts that can be interpreted in any number of ways. 

ETA: The talented and prolific Rob Paulson's voicework as Antoine adds to the character's adorkable factor. One of the best birthday gifts I've ever received before was someone who snagged me a recording from Rob at a fan convention. He did a little greeting for me as Antoine! <3

*Yeah, so about that original concept of mine's -- it's still a work in progress. I might talk about it sometime over on Pillowfort, but I'm gonna keep a lot of info close to my chest because there are skeevy people who be out here stealing.

My reaction to Digimon Beat Break

As someone who saw the last two Digimon seasons and found them to be very disappointing, Ghost Game in particular, getting an actual decent season again is a relief. 

(Actually, I just remembered Digimon Fusion exist. Didn't find that one all too impressive either. I haven't seen App Monsters, so I don't have any opinion on it.)

I'm trying not to celebrate too early since we haven't gotten to the end yet, but I'm really digging what I've seen of the show so far. The new mains are good, and I really like their partner Digimon. It's so refreshing to get a break from dinosaurs, dragons, and huskies/wolves.

ETA: LOL, someone called it "Digimon Peak Break".

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. 

The Character Corner: Exile's Extras

 

Hey, it's dog eat dog. *is shot*

 

What he said, lol. Also, comparing that hot dog to how food usually gets drawn in anime is like night and day. So unappetizing-looking.

EXTRA HEADCANONS

1.) Forgot to mention that at the start of the the STARS-verse series Exile is twenty-eight years old. So that's why I said before that when it comes to shipping Blitz and Exile I personally don't. A nearly thirty-year old guy does not have anything in common with a nineteen-year old. Blitz like to rib him by calling him "Greis", the German word for "gray", a reference to his age, and otherwise acting like Exile's a grandpa lol. Again, wanna make the teasing between the two of them feel more like two friends bantering, rather than things being more one-sided like they are in canon.

2.) (Note: This is EW's idea) Exile's official role here would be the team mechanic and computer expert primarily. I also seem to recall him being the one who'd pull out a gadget of some kind during missions, but not as much as I remember him messing with computers and vehicles. He's also the third in command, and if either Hunter or Colleen are unavailable, then he steps up as deputy under either one, or leads the group in their stead if neither is around.

3.) I find that I make Exile more mature and more of a peacemaker within my stories. You did see this side to him in the last episode, "A Day In The Life", where he chatted with Hunter and Colleen respectively about their issues at different points. So I think he's a shoe-in for this role. Granted, I do try to highlight all the canon Rovers using their heads during tough situations more so then they did in the cartoon, but Exile's the one who keeps the peace and calms things down, which I think the others need. 

This is in response to fan writers often making the Rovers aggravatingly stupid and goofy in their fanfics. I mean, they were goofy and self-involved in the show quite a bit too, but fanfic ramps that mess up to twelve. They'll have some dark storyline going on, like the villain OC succeeds in getting away with all these elaborate plots and murders like a million nameless cannon fodder Rovers and innocent civilians, all while the canon Rovers (as well as the writer's OCs) sit around doing stuff like cracking on Blitz, going on day trips, or telling unfunny jokes. And I'd be sitting there reading this stuff going "Why are these characters so dim? Is Hunter seriously thinking about having a public wedding ceremony while he and the others know full well that the bad guys are actively gunning for them? Maybe they all do deserve to die."

My thoughts on Transformers One.

 

About fan communities

 

(Head's up for some language as well as potential spoilers at the 4:58 mark if you haven't caught up on the entirety of My Hero Academia yet.) 

Really, you could take any show, book, game, whatever and apply what the creator of this video is saying to it. It's absolutely 100% true. 

Ultimately, fans can engage with a medium however they'd like. But I agree it's pretty out there how people will project themselves onto certain characters or whatever and base their enjoyment of the medium on that one thing, then get angry the story doesn't go the way they wanted. And other such craziness. 

One person in the comments believes the video creator is trying to push a mindframe of toxic positivity, but I don't think so. Toxic positivity, according to Psychology Today, is described as "the act of avoiding, suppressing, or rejecting negative emotions or experiences. This may take the form of denying your own emotions or someone else denying your emotions, insisting on positive thinking instead." I didn't pick up that vibe from the creator or what he said.

I've personally had a few experiences with toxic positivity, including within fandom settings. Back when I was still part of the Elena Of Avalor subreddit over on... well, Reddit, there was an episode of that show that I found pretty subpar, and said so in a discussion thread. Not in any way that was insulting to fans who enjoyed it, just that I didn't think it was a good episode when they'd done better ones in the past. I explained why I thought this. Well, this new guy jumped on my case because I was very critical towards Elena's character and saying the episode was excessively corny to the point of cringe. You could tell he was already on the defense and just getting madder and madder that I wasn't agreeing with him that his cartoon girlfriend was the coolest. 

Afterwards, this guy would come after me not only whenever I had a negative opinion about EoA, but would also start baiting me by insulting stuff I like even when I wasn't being critical of EoA in an effort to get under my skin. And then the whole subreddit started turning into that. Now that's toxic positivity right there.

Nothing wrong with criticism. But if something I like starts turning into garbage and there's no signs of improvement, I jump ship. I'll fuss about it from time to time, but I don't keep watching/reading/etc because I feel like I'm having my time wasted (which is a massive pet peeve of mine's, especially these days), and I don't want to see something I originally enjoyed go down the drain. In the case of EoA, I just started writing fanfiction. 

The Character Corner: Exile, Part 2

It's story time with Uncie Exile, kids!

 INSPIRATION

Regarding his personality, my inspiration in writing him just comes from how I perceive him to be in the show. He strikes me as being a genuinely enthusiastic, generally happy character who typically openly expresses his thoughts and feelings there. The one time he wasn't, when he thought he had turned into a werewolf ("A Hair Of The Dog That Bit You"), I interpret his behavior there to stress and fear of hurting his teammates. He cares about others. I am just not a fan of this icy, closed-off Exile I tend to see in fan works. He's truly invested in the well-being of others and wears his heart on his sleeve: off my head, in "A Day In The Life", he comforted Colleen when she was upset about Hunter's potentially having a special someone (who wasn't her), he was very enthusiastic about Hunter's plan to free all of the imprisoned dogs in "Hunter's Heroes", in the same episode he apologizes to Blitz when the latter slips and falls on an ice sheet Exile had created to waylay some cano-mutants (and if you're someone who thinks Exile wasn't being sincere in that moment, then why he'd even apologize to Blitz in the first place then??? If he really didn't care, then he either wouldn't have said anything at all or just made a smartmouth comment when he did), he loves giving out hugs. We got thirteen episodes of Exile behaving this way, so I tend to feel like this is what his personality is typically like.

So why do so many fans either make Exile a jerk/or this ultra-serious stoic robot in fan works?

We don't know anything about Exile's past beyond what little we get in the pilot. He isn't a fleshed out character. We don't know what his personal hobbies, interests, dreams, and fears are. Many fandoms would salivate at this, getting to come up with their own takes on a major character's backstory and flesh them out further. Look at all the diverse ideas people spin for character histories in stuff like The Lion King, NCIS, the Transformers franchise, Power Rangers, or My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. Countless fandoms. But the Road Rovers fandom... hardly anybody seems even remotely interested in offering up anything for Exile (based on what I've seen of a number of other people on Fanfiction.net and deviantART, I would say that I don't think any of them really want to either). It's the same for the other characters minus Hunter, whose backstory we did (kinda) get. Honestly, I feel like that's partly a side effect of how the show was written. The fandom treats the rest of the Rovers the same way the show does -- all of them play second fiddle to Hunter. They're just not as important as Hunter is (my original stance on Hunter has only hardened over the years), so who cares about explaining who they are and where they come from? The fact that original characters likewise heavily dominate fan works doesn't help matters any. It's sad.

The only two fans who I've personally ever seen demonstrate an actual interest in Exile (that was unrelated to shipping him with their fan characters) were Usami and That One Evil Writer. I borrow some of their ideas for my own story-verse.

As far as relatives for Exile goes, I use the original family members created by Usami for her story Power Of The Pack. It's a pretty solid story about Exile discovering that his family members have been turned into cano-mutants by General Parvo. I thought these new characters were cool, and decided to incorporate them into STARS. Oddly enough, out of all the canon characters, a lot of fans love giving Exile siblings who are either evil or get brainwashed into becoming evil the most. I don't know why that is. But Shurik, Illya, and Star (Zevezda in STARS; "zevezda" simply means star in Russian) are some of the better examples of this trope.

FUTURE PLANS

So what will Exile be getting up to in the STARS-verse? Well, right now my major guiding point would be giving his character more dimensions instead of just being a joke machine like in the show. I can say for certain that I'll have him revisiting his past, including having him meet up with his former owner to let him know what's happened to him and see how he (the sled team owner) is doing, an idea Evil Writer mentioned to me. Looking at fanfics in RR fandom, you wouldn't even know the Rovers have owners in the first place (their current masters and, in Exile's case, the sledder who used to have him back in Siberia). They're treated like they barely exist, and most of the time you never even hear anything about their existence. The Rovers just seem so indifferent towards them. One would think that when Hunter is going to marry Colleen he'd go "Oh wow, you know, I'd like to tell my master the truth about me being a Rover so I could invite him to the ceremony!" Or go and talk to him about marriage or whatever (although I know Bill Clinton is a controversial figure, so maybe that's not one of the better examples I could've used. But the only reason I picked him as my example in the first place is because guess the Rover who's most often shown getting serious in a relationship/or getting married? I'll wait). Pretty weird, considering how the Rovers acted so happy about getting homes in "Let's Hit The Road". Again, I think it's just more evidence to show that most fans are only vaguely interested in the show's concept, a few characters, and nothing else. 

Another fan named Bart Walls actually devised an archenemy for Exile named Boris "Hacker" Sanhusky. I really like the idea of Exile getting to have his own personal foe, so Hacker is a character I've chosen to incorporate into my own 'verse. He'll make his appearance sometime in the near future in a story I'm calling The Island Of Misfit Rovers. Of course, we'll learn more about him then.

I also plan to focus on exploring his relationships with other characters, both canons and original. Yes he will be getting his own love interest, which will be an original character. And... he'll also be getting a power up!

HEADCANONS 

• Early on he is the closest thing Colleen has to a 'girlfriend'.
• His favorite thing to eat are beef pirozhkis. 
• Out of all the Alphas, Exile is the one who keeps on top of the latest technologies. 
• I don't really understand the point of the cartoon's giving him night vision, since dogs can naturally see in the dark and all. Either the writers didn't know that, or did and his night vision was just supposed to be better then most dogs (the show never stated how good it was). I just say his night vision's on par with a feline's. 
• His heat vision relies on the heat within his own body, so if his body temperature drops enough, then he really can't use that particular power.
  
• Usami came up with a couple of interesting theories regarding Exile, including the ones that I'm using about his heat vision and his getting glasses. She pointed out how Exile seemed to have trouble locating a certain image in one of those "find this object" picture books and had to ask Shag for help, who found it right away, plus, how he needed glasses to read a manual. She was fully aware that all those instances were just gags, but suggested the idea of Exile having trouble with his eyesight could be turned into a serious issue. I think Exile would look nice in glasses, and his having to get some is a cool idea. 
• Exile and Blitz are best friends in the vein of Shawn and Gus (Psyche).

If you're someone who wants to approach Exile and Blitz's relationship in a testier manner however, then may I suggest you watch the series One Piece* and take notes from it? Two of the major heroes in it, Zoro and Sanji, often argue, fight, and poke fun at one another. At the same time however, the story demonstrates that when push comes to shove, both has the other's back. They've agreed with each other in certain situations. Zoro and Sanji also think pretty highly of each other's skills and abilities -- although they probably wouldn't outright admit it to the other's face lol. They're a terrific example of frenemies done right. 

ETA: Here's the link to the video showing Zoro and Sanji together; YouTube won't let me post it in video format here.

By comparison, the way that not only the Rovers but lots of heroes from other western media who work together in a group are written, having that one person that barely anybody else on the team likes and picks on, well, I don't think the good guys would actually function as a unit nearly as well as they do in canon. But I'll touch more on this issue when I get to Blitz's analysis. And I specified western media here because I noticed anime like the aforementioned One Piece tends to be much better about handling this kind of thing.

Now, when you're animating for a weekly show, the character designs need to be simple enough in order to be easier to animate and therefore meet deadlines. That's not a bad thing, it's just a thing in the industry. That's what they did with Road Rovers. In my setting, which I freely admit at this point is an AU from the Kids' WB show (that's right Canon Cops, my fics aren't canon because they're NOT supposed to be canon!), I've tweaked Exile's design to be more like a real husky's as well as more detailed, and so make him a little more interesting to look at. I'll try to get a pic of him up soon. His design in the cartoon isn't bad, just simplistic.

 PERSONAL 

Discussing Exile has been a different animal (ho ho ho 😏) when compared to my talking about Esteban before. Road Rovers, like many cartoons back in the day, is a lot more episodic in nature when compared to Elena of Avalor, which has plot elements that are carried on to later episodes. The show's also interesting in that no one character held the spotlight (though the writer seemed to have a strong bias towards a certain one...), and we didn't get much of anything in regards to consistent character development. This means that Exile, as well as the rest of the Rovers, are pretty flat when compared to some of the other characters I'll be talking about in future installments here. Basically, I have had to build his character from the ground up, but that's okay, because the show gave me some good stuff to go off of for him.

ETA: I wonder... why did the people working on the show decided to pick the name Exile for him, and not a more standard Russian/or Russian-esque dog name, like Boris? That'd be a far more interesting question for Tom Ruegger (the creative mind behind Road Rovers), instead of pestering him about when the show's coming back. 

I can answer that last one. It's not ever coming back. Never. It's been gone for two decades. If it ever does return, then it'd probably be as a reboot, and even then I cannot see that happening.

*"One Piece is a really mid anime, OLU!" Okay, but you're missing the forest for the trees. Please listen to the point that I was trying to make about how Sanji and Zoro are written.

The Character Corner: Exile

In Soviet Russia, milkshake drink you!

There's not a lot to Exile, but he still displays more interesting traits that one can play around with then either Hunter or Colleen do. I'm sure people are not going to like that I said that, but that's how I feel.

Exile was once my favorite character until Blitz edged him out of first place some years back, but I still really like Exile. Not simply because he's a Siberian husky, like I suspect a lot of people do -- not just furries either, but people in general (and I'm not trying to knock anyone for having a favorite dog breed, but liking a character based solely on their species or breed and absolutely nothing else is honestly kinda shallow, IMHO). I like nice characters, and Exile is a genuinely bighearted, happy, friendly guy. I also like Exile's accent and how he mixes up his English, all of which further adds to his charm. The fact that they played against type and made him the gadgeteer as well as the Rover who knew his way around computers and vehicles was also cool, since you wouldn't necessarily expect that from a character like him. 

I've never seen anyone who said they disliked Exile before, interestingly enough. Aside from him and Muzzle (who either gets treated as a deus ex machina or is just outright forgotten/ignored by most fans), I've seen at least one anti-fan for the rest of the Rovers (and some of them have more anti-fans then others do...). Hunter and Colleen seem to have the bigger respective fanbases though.

There's some strange fanon which has sprang up around everyone's favorite Ruskie. I started noticing it well after the fall of the first iteration of the fandom back in the mid to late 90s. I don't get why so many people depict Exile as being this massive hulking beast height-wise. Shag was obviously the tallest Rover, which makes sense because his breed, komondorok (plural form of komondor), can weigh up to 125 lbs and stand 27.5 inches at their withers (the area between a dog's shoulder blades and the back of their necks. This spot is used to measure height). Huskies are much smaller at 21-23.5 inches and 45-60 lbs for male dogs. Exile, while being pretty stout and muscular, was actually one of the shorter guys. 

This is the best screencap I could find of Exile standing relatively level beside another guy. He looks like he's a few inches shorter then Hunter, which he would not be were he 8'' tall or whatever. I mean, they both could be taller then Blitz, but I doubt it. I'd have find another screencap or rewatch the series again to see how he measures up to Blitz. I have a strong sneaking suspicion this whole "Exile is a giant" thing ties into sort of a macro/bear fantasy/fetish for gay male fans, since the fandom very strongly overlaps with furry fandom. Please note that I'm not attacking gay men or furries (though I will honestly say I do have strong criticisms regarding furries), I'm just pointing out something I've noticed. You wanna depict a 6'7'' Exile lovingly massaging your OC, go wild homie.

Some more fanon I don't really get is when fan writers make Exile an expert on anything supernatural that comes up. I assume this comes from the werewolf episode "A Hair Of The Dog That Bit You." It's something else I'm not... wild about.  Just because he related a legend from his homeland to the other Rovers when he thought he was becoming a werewolf doesn't mean he'd also know how to fight vampires or be knowledgeable about fairies. It's like someone expecting me to tell them all about jiang shi just because people talk about seeing Bigfoot where I live. Why not just have the Rovers, I dunno, research the legend or myth together, or go talk to a real expert?

His array of superpowers indisputably made Exile the team powerhouse in battle, but I kinda hate how the show underplayed his super-strength. The Master mentioned it in the first episode, then we never see him blatantly use it after that. Instead more attention went to his vision-related powers, which, granted are cool and useful, but still, I really wanted to see more feats of strength from him. It would've made him even more versatile, and it'd be fun watching a shorter dude toss cars and stuff around. This is just theorizing on my part, since nobody who's ever worked on the show before has ever come out and talked about it AFAIK, but I think the inspiration for his powers comes from the fact that he's a sled dog. Sled dogs can pull heavy loads, and they tend to come from colder climates.

Being single and one of the more desirable male characters, Exile tends to be a pretty popular character to pair off with OFCs, the vast majority of which suck, to bluntly put it. They're usually either horrible Mary Sues (or sometimes, Gary Stus) who were/are either bland or very, very very annoying. Not to mention that a number of ship fics featuring Exile tends to be really out there furry fetish stuff/or porn, especially if Exile is paired with Hunter/or Blitz. 

"Well wait, why are you kinkshaming, you uptight prude?!"

Listen, if you post some of the stuff that I've stumbled over (I'm not about to go into detail since there's no way I can not make it explicit, and I don't know who's actually looking at this blog. It's not just regular old "insert tab B into slot A" sex though), not everybody's gonna be up there oooing and awwing over it. It is legitimately bizarre stuff. Harmless yes, but still bizarre. For the record, if someone were to actually write a good ExileXBlitz fic that was an actual romance and not ultra weird OOC furry wanklit, I'd read it.

Moving on, if I was going to ship him with another canon character, I actually like the idea of him and Colleen together. Never in a million years would I have thought of this pairing were it not for Usami and her story Eye Of The Wolf. The both of them do get along pretty well in the show, and it's a refreshing change of pace from all the Hunter/Colleen stuff. In my main bunch of stories however, Exile's getting shipped with an OFC (holding off on revealing the character's identity for spoiler purposes).

Dokey-okay. :) So coming up next time you're gonna see my many Exile headcanons, my inspiration in writing him, etc etc.