Review: Season 3, Episode 11

And so ends Season 3’s obligatory pre-finale comedy episode. This was certainly an interesting one. The last two seasons’ equivalent episodes were carried by a constant flow of jokes taking place in ridiculous situations, but this one focused much more on the latter half of that. Not to say there weren’t any good jokes, just that the comedy was supposed to come primarily from the wackiness of Big going on a space odyssey and somehow never getting any closer to his relatively simple goal. The biggest source of inspiration here was Big’s role in Sonic and the Secret Rings, which we’ll talk about later. But, much like S1 E16 “Hate That Hedgehog,” the base idea for this episode also took inspiration from stand-out comedic episodes of other shows from the past. In this case, that would be the episode “Mondo Coco” from an old Cartoon Network show, Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends (and, perhaps to some extent, the episode “World-Wide Wobbuffet” from Yuni Oha’s Pokémon Cosmic Quest, which began from similar inspiration). Much like this episode, that one features a particularly silly character being swept up on a long journey featuring progressively more ridiculous situations.

Of course, like previous comedy episodes, I also wanted to make sure that this one was here for a reason. Of course, the space theme made it obvious that this episode had to go in this season and nowhere else, but that’s sort of the opposite direction of logic from what I need. Of course, given that Big went missing a full season ago, and that he mysteriously appeared in the Frontiers special, this episode was automatically necessary and “story-important,” but that still didn’t really resolve my problem. I want the reader to walk away from the episode feeling glad that they didn’t skip it. So, as I was mapping out all the different parts of the journey, knowing that Big would have to end up in Cyber Space somehow, I decided to put the destroyed homeworld of the Ancients as one leg of that journey, and use Seraph’s expertise to lead into that. Just like with last episode, (S3 E10 War of the Lost World) having direct relevance to the lore of Frontiers is what made this one work.

But how was I to establish that relevance? What could Seraph help us learn about the Ancients that Big and Froggy could spur her to say? Well, what association do they have already? Big, not much. But Froggy. Froggy swallowed Chaos, and had a reaction to that which still hasn’t been explained—and Chaos is an Ancient. I took that and rolled with it. Although it was not definitively confirmed in the end, the implication is that Froggy is not an Earth frog at all, but perhaps instead an Ancient frog, or descended therefrom.

And then there’s the whole Paradox thing. Planning for this episode, I was not expecting it to end with Froggy acquiring the powers of an elder god, but somehow, that’s the way it went. The train of thought started simply because, in the long line of crazy ways for Big to get from one place to the next, my ideas ran dry on the Lost Hex. I mean, obviously I had the option to actually send him home the “planned” way of reaching the portal before Espio closed it, or simply finding the unclosed one, but that would make for a pretty anticlimactic end to the recurring dramatic irony that drove the episode. There are also Wisps on the Lost Hex he could’ve made friends with as was the plan on Planet Wisp, or he could’ve simply found the portal back to Planet Wisp, but going back to Plan E after Plan F failed would have been, again, anticlimactic. I think, if I didn’t have the Paradox route to go down, I probably could’ve salvaged something out of an idea like “all the failed plans come together to work in the end.” So maybe he finds the portal back to Planet Wisp, and discovers there that Seraph, Barry, and Dodon Pa have all been gathering Wisps to his cause. Obviously that wouldn’t make sense as-is, but something to that effect. But, ah, I’m rambling again.

So anyways, I wanted an ending that doubled down on what was supposed to make the episode funny in the first place, and to me, that meant finding the most ridiculously unlikely way home that can possibly be imagined. I was already considering how this episode would be highlighting Big’s incredible luck at making it out of so many situations alive when he really doesn’t have the skills to. That kind of thinking tends to get the concepts of branching timelines and alternate realities on the brain, which is probably what got me thinking about the preparations I’m making for the currently-delayed Sonic Prime special. And I decided from there how interesting it would be if Big’s luck was more than just an accident—then I decided to take it all the way. I thought that the ultimate culmination of this episode would be the suggestion that it is literally impossible for Big to get home. But he’s so lucky that he defies the balance of the multiverse in order to continue his journey, effectively rewriting reality to his will. Reminder that we’re still talking about Big the Cat.

So anyways, I decided that luring in the character formerly known as Yin-Yang Shadow would be the climax of the episode, but the details remained hazy as I began writing. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that sending Big home might not even be the best option. We already knew from Sonic Movie Special 2: Next Level Nexus that Yin-Yang Shadow and his mystery companion have been trying to build a team of “Prime Candidates,” and I had my ideas in mind for what that team would be. But I hadn’t considered the fact that the delay of the Prime Special would make one of my intended characters, who was available in this season but won’t be for the next, unusable. That character needed a replacement, and, while Big certainly isn’t an obvious choice to fill that role, I had just gotten through coming up with all the reasons that Big should be able to attract the attention of these multiversal protectors. And if he’s unique enough to get their attention, why wouldn’t he be unique enough to join the team?

The changes I needed to make from there were minor. I’d already decided on the idea of Froggy helping Big find this Paradox crystal to set the events in motion. And now, if Froggy simply does as Froggy does, and eats the dangerous magic gem, we would not only have a little extra excitement for the climax, but we would also end up with an unquestionably valid power for the team of Big and Froggy to have that they can use in their coming multiversal quest.

Of course, there’s also Yin-Yang Shadow himself to talk about. Or, should I say, Paradox the Hedgehog. And I suppose I should discuss Sonic Prime in general here. Last time we saw this character was in the Sonic Movie 2 Special, in April of last year. That was more than half a year before the airdate of Sonic Prime, but at the time I don’t believe the date was announced yet, and I wanted to be prepared early on in case the show was premiered without much warning. I teased the coming Sonic Prime Special in a mostly subtle way, by using shattering effects for his multiverse powers and making that one brief hint at the end of looking for a “Prime Candidate.” At that time, I figured that what I was leading into was a Special Episode that would have been written some time last year. I hadn’t yet decided if it would be my standard best-guess-at-the-details release-day celebration, or a more relaxed but fully informed follow-up to the show, or a two-parter that tries to accomplish both. As the date got closer and we still knew so little about the details of the show, I decided, given that Netflix (for some reason) likes to drop whole seasons at once instead of progressively airing episodes like a normal show, I would have the opportunity to binge the whole show in one weekend, then crack down on the Special quickly while the general audience is still watching the show.

Then the show aired. Or at least, one-third of the show aired. We already knew from the announcement that this show was written as a single 24-episode season, and then Netflix goes and releases a whole whopping 8 of them, with the audacity to call it “Season 1”. And now we know for sure that they’re calling the next incomplete batch, “Season 2”. It’s a scummy marketing tactic, taking one complete story and pretending like it’s 3 so you can “release” it 3 times. But, my distaste with Netflix aside, the result is that I don’t have enough of a show to make an episode out of. So, with regret, I chose to delay the Sonic Prime Special until, apparently, “Season 3” comes out, and we actually understand what the show is supposed to be about. That’s why I was rather pleased at the chance of bringing these hints back up in this episode, and expanding on them a bit. I wanted to remind readers that this is still coming, and confirm that it hasn’t been cancelled, while also making it look like I was actually just planning really far ahead. (I wasn’t.) Now, because of these multiple lead-ins, this is shaping up to be one of the most important over-arching stories of the series, which was definitely not part of the original plan.

Yin-Yang Shadow’s new name was a curious situation. This character has consistently been at the whim of last-minute ideas, and now is no exception. Basically, I got tired of that weird “Yin-Yang Shadow” name. It’s cumbersome to write, confusing for the readers, and especially awkward seeing as the in-universe characters would never refer to him as such (besides Movie Sonic, who never actually learned that his name was Shadow). But, after I already, over a year ago, decided to tie him closely in with the concepts of Sonic Prime, and given that his character is, in the most literal sense, a walking contradiction, giving him the new name of Paradox just felt obvious. It’s funny, because when I decided to make him important to Prime, we knew nothing about the “Paradox Prism” or any such use of the word.

Of course, there’s lots of other fun references and ideas to talk about in this episode. Barry and the space train, for example. For those who haven’t played yet, this was all one big reference to “The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog,” the free PC game the social media team put out for April Fools this year (and which Blacklight played and left some voiced commentary on). Barry is the name given to the character in the reveal trailer, and like with Hero, I decided that was the best route to take for choosing a canon name. I went through some debate over whether this weird piece of Sonic history should be considered canon, but in the end, I decided that the ridiculous factor was exactly what this episode needed. The concept of a “space train” probably felt pretty far out from left field, but to be fair, among the branching options for how the story ends, some of the options for what Barry can say they did after the story includes, in one breath, going to space and getting promoted to conductor. The implication was that these were exaggerations, but it’s not like any other parts of the story were really any less weird. To a very small extent, the concept was also vaguely inspired by the DC character “Space Cabbie.” It is what it sounds like. A decision also had to be made about Barry’s gender. They’re referred to exclusively by they/them in the original story, yet they’re clearly designed as a male animoid. Also appears to be more clearly attracted to females than males, not that that necessarily means anything (as Blacklight was quick to point out). It’s a question of whether the character was actually meant to be non-binary, or if the developers just wanted to save some money by not writing differing dialogue options for a user-selected gender. The developers have declined to respond to such questions, or so I’ve heard. So I’m inclined to assume the latter, but, in the end, I figured a bit of enbie representation wouldn’t hurt.

There’s also the debut appearance of Dodon Pa and the canonization of Team Sonic Racing. The game has already been loosely referenced, and of course, the Donpa Kingdom was mentioned explicitly in Frontiers (and equivalently in the Frontiers special), but there was still technically the option of low-tier “it didn’t happen quite the way you remember it” canon, which has now been removed in favor of pretty much complete acceptance. I’m always hesitant to embrace the weirder aspects of Sonic canon—the plot of that game really didn’t make any sense at all, there were some pretty significant out-of-character issues, and, excepting the existence of the Donpa Kingdom, it didn’t really contribute anything valuable to the canon. But that’s a very big exception, and, this being the alien season, the Donpa Kingdom was one aspect of the greater Sonic universe that I figured I shouldn’t ignore. While I was at it, I figured I should capitalize on the chance to showcase some of the uniquely weird aspects of the Donpa Kingdom that TSR talked about but never showed. I mean, an intergalactic motor company run by the ruling monarch of a planet of mythical creatures? That idea is nothing if not unique, but TSR just didn’t feel like elaborating on that. Technically, we don’t know that the Donpa Kingdom is inhabited by mythical creatures, but I think it’s a reasonable extrapolation. Dodon Pa himself explicitly is one. It could be that it’s an entire planet of Tanuki, but that raises an awful lot of questions. If what we know on Earth as a mythical creature is actually an alien from this other planet, what does that mean about our other myths? It would suggest that they all come from a similar source. Plus, if Earth, Planet Wisp, and Kaos are all multi-species planets, it stands to reason that the Donpa Kingdom is as well. And anyways, I think it’s more interesting that way.

Dodon Pa himself was actually a surprising challenge to write. His character in TSR is…a bit confusing. He spends 90% of the game with every word out of his mouth sounding intentionally over-the-top suspicious, but then we learn the full truth about him, and suddenly he doesn’t appear to have a malicious bone in his body—his goal is universal peace and clean, renewable energy. It’s really incongruous, and it was unclear if he was okay sharing all of his secrets with Eggman in the end because he thought Eggman incapable of causing any real harm, or because he simply didn’t care. Given his lack of concern over anyone’s safety, I’m inclined to think the latter. I decided it would be most practical to focus in on this aspect of his character, which meant downplaying his “universal peace” side a little bit. I’m sure this is still his stated goal, but I’m framing that more as a marketing slogan for his business. He’s a businessman first, a world leader second, and a “philanthropist” third, only because it makes him look good in those first two aspects. So, he’s happy to help Big get home. But only if Big does something for him in return. And when Big suggests an alternate option, Dodon Pa simply won’t have it, because that would ruin his business opportunity. That also means that he is perfectly okay with his products being used for illegal activities, as long as it isn’t made to be his problem, which is pretty much what happened with Eggman.

And lastly, we have the originators of this episode’s plot, the Pisceans. Funny story…I wrote this episode thinking that I made them up. I was quite convinced that I was building an alien species out of the vacuum, so I was free to design their appearance, architecture, and culture in whatever ridiculous ways I wanted. I’m not sure exactly how it is that I forgot, but somehow, the fact that this was originally meant to be an existing species in Sonic just completely vanished from my mind somewhere along the way. Here’s what I forgot.

These characters, Hokey and Pokey, are NPCs from the Crater Lake hub world of Sonic Boom Rise of Lyric. Even if you’re one of the few who played the game, I get the strange impression that you probably forgot about them too. Now, to be clear, I still have absolutely no memory of making any sort of decision to take inspiration from these characters. But Hokey (left) pretty much exactly matches the generic design I envisioned for all Pisceans, perhaps just a bit too short and hunched over. And, you know, the humanoid faces. So, what I assume happened is this. It was roughly February of 2021. Ahead of my upcoming episode, S2 E13 Non-Zero Chance, I was doing a quick re-watch of the full story content of Rise of Lyric. Roughly 6 months earlier, I had just completed my first full playthrough of Sonic and the Secret Rings, the very last 3D Sonic game missing from my list at the time. One of my biggest takeaways from that game was, unexpectedly, Big’s role, which was a total shock to me when I first learned about it. The fact that he had all these cameos akin to those of SA2, but with an actual background story put to it, was crazy to me as a Sonic fan. In his second to last journal entry from the game, he talks about being able to find Pisces in the Milky Way, and wanting to “meet him.” I had that simmering in the back of the brain as something I could use for a space/alien themed episode for Season 3. That same source of inspiration created the general backbone for this episode—Big is whisked to away to a strange place because someone mistakes him for a blue hedgehog, goes on a ridiculous and perilous journey where he keeps showing up in the background of important things, and somehow manages to survive through all the escalating danger. So that’s all relatively recent on the brain, and then I get to watching Rise of Lyric, and I see these two strange robot-alien-jellyfish characters who are completely out of place among the rest of the game’s NPC cast, and something makes me think, “That’s it. Those are my Pisceans.” Given that I was pseudo-canonizing RoL anyways, and that I was planning on addressing as many of its mysteries as possible, I suppose this one just felt like a no-brainer to explore in the Alien Season, and the Big episode felt like the easy place to put these aquatic aliens. It was such a quick and easy thought process that I made no effort plot it out, or take notes, or anything that would help the moment stick in my memory. So, two years later, any memory of the moment of inspiration was gone, and all I had left  was a vague image of a species design.

So anyways, even though I wasn’t thinking about it when writing it, I will state plainly for the canon here that, yes, Hokey and Pokey are Pisceans, or at least are some related species using Piscean exoskeletons. Why they look different and how they ended up on Earth are another question entirely. Perhaps some other time.

Now it’s on to the trivia, I suppose.

• This episode’s title, “Big’s Big Space Adventure 3,” is an unusual one. It’s meant to have the eye-catching “Adventure 3” title as a sort of prank to get readers excited for something that this definitely isn’t. More literally, the implication is that Big’s yet-untold trip to the ARK in the background of Sonic Adventure 2 would have been the literal “Big’s Big Space Adventure 2,” and this is a follow-up to those events. Just don’t ask me what the “Space Adventure 1” would have been.
  • This title also resembles a Sonic Social Media–endorsed fangame titled “Big’s Big Fishing Adventure 3” ( playable at bigthec.at ). This fangame was originally conceived as an attempt to tell the aforementioned story of Big’s appearances on the ARK, although I guess the story went through some changes from there. I’m not sure where the 3 comes from in their case. I will not deny that some inspiration was taken here.
• The following locations from previous Sonic and SEGA games, as well as other media, appeared or were mentioned in this episode:
  • The Constellation Pisces (mentioned in Secret Rings)
  • The Algolian System (Phantasy Star)
  • The Mirage Express (Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog)
  • Homeworld of the Ancients (Sonic Frontiers flashback)
  • Kronos Island (Cyber Space replica, Frontiers)
  • Western Fishing Spot (replica, Frontiers)
    • This one was a little awkward. In Frontiers, the Fishing Spots turned out to be in Cyber Space, but I didn’t know that at the time of writing part 1 of the Frontiers Special, so I plopped Big next to a pond on Kronos Island and pretended like that was normal. I figure, for whatever reason, this Cyber Space replica of the Starfall Islands has its Fishing Spots merged in with their respective islands. Doesn’t matter now, they’re all destroyed anyways.
  • Donpa Motors (mentioned in Team Sonic Racing)
  • Donpa Kingdom (Planet) (mentioned, Team Sonic Racing)
  • Planet Wisp (Colors)
    • Mother’s Canyon (TSR)
    • Hex Valley (mentioned in S3 E10)
  • The Lost Hex (Lost World)
    • Windy Hill Zone
    • Sky Road Zone
    • Silent Forest Zone (cameo)
    • Lava Mountain Zone (cameo)
    • Frozen Factory Zone (cameo)
    • Bridge Zone (cameo, originally from Sonic 1 8-bit)
    • The Legend of Zelda Zone (cameo)
      • The Kingdom of Hyrule (originally from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom)
        • This was a spur-of-the-moment reference, but given that I already canonized The Legend of Zelda Zone in the last episode, I figured this wasn’t too much of a stretch. And I couldn’t go without referencing the hot new game right now.
    • Desert Ruins Zone
      • Dessert Ruins Zone (note the inserted ‘s’)
    • Sea Bottom Segue
      • Another odd one. This technically isn’t its own zone, and it also doesn’t have a name. It’s a visual theme that appears in a single act of two different zones, sort of like Dessert Ruins, but without its own punny name. “Sea Bottom Segue” is the title of the music that plays during these levels. “Segue” is a musical term, but it also shares a general concept with the more literal word of a seamless transition from one place or idea to another. Literally, this is an undersea tunnel connecting one place to another, so the name makes sense. We also have “Honeycomb Highway” to look at as another example of a music track that clearly applies a name to a level theme that doesn’t otherwise get an in-game name.
  • Between this episode and the last one, the only level theme from Lost World not to make some kind of appearance is the casino level in Frozen Factory Act 3 (music title of “Double Down” probably doesn’t work for a name here), as well as the “Hidden World.”
• This episode shows that Big was contributing in the background plots of several previous episodes, including:
  • S2 E18: Metallic Madness Part 2, when he went missing in the first place.
  • S3 E3: Impending Doom, where he met Seraph and got her interested in the people of Earth before she ever arrived there.
  • S3 E6: Arms Race Part 1, where Shadow arriving on Orthan and confronting Black Rex created the distraction that unknowingly allowed Big to escape.
  • S3 E8: The Final Frontiers Part 1, the only episode on this list where Big actually appeared, only to be left behind.
  • S3 E10: War of the Lost World, where Espio sealing the portals of the Lost Hex unknowingly prevented Big from returning home.
• Big is able to judge the metric weight of the mutant demon shark on sight alone, referencing the weight tallying score system used in Big’s Sonic Adventure levels.
  • He’s able to lift this obscenely large fish out of the water without much trouble—reasonable, given his ability to do the same with a full-sized car in his Adventure story.
• Among the planets mentioned but not seen in this episode are “Cascade” and “Green Gate.” These are both planets from the Metarex Saga of Sonic X. Their descriptions as tourist destinations would suggest that Metarex do not (yet) exist in this universe to ravage them.
  • Apart from the occasional “gotta go fast” that’s only been used because of relevance to the Sonic movie, this is the first direct reference that has been made to Sonic X in The Chaos Project. In hindsight, it’s very odd that Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic Boom both got full episodes based around them before X was even referenced. I suppose that’s because the former two both sit comfortably in alternate non-canon universes, so introducing their ideas into the canon makes it clear that this is all meant to be a reinterpretation. But Sonic X is in a weird not-quite-canon limbo that makes any kind of reference dangerous—I don’t want to imply that the events of Sonic X have taken place, because in CP canon, they haven’t.
• More SEGA references in space to round off the season.
  • Seraph’s ship, unnamed before now, is called the SG-1000, SEGA’s 8-bit predecessor to the Master System.
  • The Algolian system from Phantasy Star shows up yet again.
  • The ship Dodon Pa tries to sell to Big is the TeraDrive, which, exactly as Dodon Pa describes, was a Japan-only Mega Drive with a built-in home computer.
• The Orthani language has been brought to you by ChatGPT. The AI model was used to workshop the structure, grammar, and syntax of the language, and then all the lines in this episode were translated using a consistent dictionary. I’ll put up the dictionary in the bonus content area at some point.
• Barry claims to have found Froggy in the trashcan. This is a reference to a sub-plot in The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog involving Barry’s ongoing quest to search trashcans for clues.
• Upon realizing that they need to think, Barry pulls out a “Dream Gear”. This is the device on which the running minigame is played in Murder of Sonic. However, the game theoretically suggests that there is no actual Dream Gear, just a metaphorical representation of Barry’s thoughts. But they also don’t say that there isn’t a real Dream Gear. I find the image of Barry actually pulling out a gaming handheld in the middle of an interrogation while everyone is watching to be hilarious, so I ran with it.
• The method of Big’s arrival in Cyber Space resembles that of Knuckles in the prologue animation Sonic Frotniers: Divergence.
  • The portal that Big takes is a purple one, implying it to be a Fishing Spot portal, despite it leading to Kronos Island. That oddity was already mentioned above.
  • It is new information that there were Cyber Space portals on the Ancients’ Homeworld. The End suggests that Cyber Space was only created for the purpose of trapping it, but there is some cause for doubting that information. If nothing else, perhaps this was just a lone prototype that Big “accidentally” turned on.
• The Scavengers that assault the Mother’s Canyon race appear to be the same group from the Sonic Movie 2 and its Pre-Quill comic. In the comic, they appear to speak Ancient Babylonian (as does Longclaw’s clan in the movie, but who knows if that’s related), so I decided to acknowledge that by suggesting that they are “carrying on the legacy of the Babylon Rogues.” This doesn’t imply anything one way or another about what role the Babylonians had left in the galaxy after Babylon Garden crashed on Earth, but it does provide the new suggestion that the Rogues specifically were already known to be intergalactic thieves even before that crash. The alternative was to make them actual Babylonians, but given that they appear to be more humanoid than animoid in the movie, I thought that would be too much of a stretch.
• The way Big is rescued by the Wisps parallels Sonic’s own rescue at the end of Colors.
  • Similarly, the way the Wisps play as he tries to recruit their help closely mirrors some shots from the title screen opening movie of Colors.
• The way that the Jade Ghost Wisp induces a partial transformation, allowing Big to phase through the ground without taking on the Ghost form entirely, also happened to Sonic in the Sonic Colors: Rise of the Wisps animation made for Ultimate.

And that is all for now! The Season Finale is in the works, so stay tuned!

-And until then, remember to live and learn every day!

Opinion Piece: Sonic Frontiers + Sonic Central (June 2022 News Blitz) Part 2

My, how the tables have turned…

[Blacklight]: When you asked me to tie myself to a chair, I figured you might have something more fun in mind…

Watch what you say there. I’m only letting you out if you behave yourself.

[Blacklight]: And that would be my…only reward?

Besides letting you stick around for this discussion in the first place? Yes.

[Blacklight]: You never let me have any fun… But fine. Let’s talk about Sonic stuff. Starting with something that isn’t Frontiers, apparently.

Review: Sonic Movie 2 Special Episode

(Most of this review was written before seeing the movie, so there’s some conjecture and future tense involved.)

I have some mixed feelings about this episode. In many ways, I feel it was written more out of obligation to remain consistent with the existence of the first movie special than it was to actually tell a story I wanted to write. Funnily enough, that sort of ended up being Sonic’s loose character arc for the episode. As a whole, I’d say the episode turned out funny, lighthearted, and a bit simple, theoretically a perfect match for the movie it’s based on (or at least for the movie series as a whole). But I’m not really sure that I nailed the whole “match” thing. I mean, sure, Sonic and Robotnik each had some great jokes that would’ve been right at home performed by their respective actors on the big screen. But that just means that I matched the high points, not necessarily the wholistic characters. There’s a lot less of an excuse for that failure now that I have the entire first movie to draw from, I doubled the difficulty by using two movie characters instead of one, and Robotnik specifically added even more challenges on top of that. Theoretically, he should be wackier and less predictable than he was in the first movie, but even his unpredictability in the first movie is something that I just couldn’t keep up the whole way through. It’s difficult for me to write an unpredictable character, because I can’t apply any kind of logical formula to how the character should react in any given situation, by nature of being unpredictable. On top of that, much of Robotnik’s comedy in the movies is rooted in his body language, facial expressions, and vocal inflections, which are all things that I could very seldom represent in written form without ruining the joke every time. Again, I think I fit some great Jim Carrey type humor in there, but on the whole, I don’t think I nailed the character quite as well as I would’ve liked.

Focusing on Robotnik, or even including him at all, wasn’t necessarily part of the original plan. Then again, very little of this episode was planned very far in advance. My earliest thoughts were to step back a bit from the movies themselves, and celebrate them instead by acknowledging the greater context of their world. Strong consideration was given to making this episode all about Longclaw. Perhaps she survived the Echidna attack by escaping to the Chaos Project world? Or maybe she’s been looking for Sonic ever since, and only just now arrived here. Instead, I might have opted to create a “canon” version of Longclaw, so this episode technically wouldn’t have any crossover with the movies at all. I liked that general train of thought, it would give me lots of ideas to work into a narrative without worrying too much about the content of a movie I haven’t seen…but as the trailers continued to roll in, I realized that there would still be plenty of worry there. I was originally prepared to assume that Longclaw would be forgotten and ignored for the remainder of the Sonic Movie timeline, because it’s so easy to forget that this isn’t Sonic Team we’re talking about. But between Knuckles, the Owl iconography, and the talk about warring clans, it seems like the entire point of this movie will be to follow up on the first five minutes of the first movie. For all I know, Longclaw actually is alive and will show up in this movie, and I certainly don’t want to step on that plot if it’s even a remote possibility. I figured, if I ever want to do an episode like this, I’m better off waiting until the movies tell us more about this character and her origins, which I now know will happen.

So, with that avenue closed off, I was back to thinking about skipping the special. But, again, obligation. On top of that, I really started thinking about what the Chaos Project schedule for the rest of the year is going to look like, and decided that it was important to get this extra episode in here. More on that later. So anyways, I kept at the brainstorming, used Yuni Oha as a sounding board, and eventually we collaboratively came up with this idea of Robotnik showing up in CP world while Eggman is away in the events of the previous episode, giving him the chance to surreptitiously take over, and I decided that was good enough to build the rest of the episode around. To expand this out, I brought back a concept that was cut from an earlier special episode. Back last June, in my search for a concept that would work as a big anniversary celebration, I had one idea under consideration in the form of a Classic Sonic episode. In order to actually tie that in with the greater Chaos Project lore (and also to give Classic Tails someone to talk to) I came up with the idea for Yin-Yang Shadow. Well, technically, the character already existed, but I wasn’t really planning on using him again after his brief cameo at the beginning of Steeled Heart. This idea would’ve been for him to have ascended into the multiverse, where he watches over the Balance in a non-interfering role—pretty much exactly what he ended up doing for Movie Sonic instead of Classic Sonic.

So, from there, the rest just came down to finding enough padding. The nice thing about these movie characters is that their quips and references alone can keep scenes going for a while. I decided pretty quickly that this wouldn’t be a proper Sonic 2 celebration without a Sonic vs. Knuckles fight, so I fell right back to the convenient hanging plot point that I intentionally left for myself last season—Knuckles’ wrestling mask. I said in the review back for S2 E7 Casino Fight Zone that the decision to use that mask was pretty spontaneous, but that I had every intention to bring it back up for a future movie crossover, and here we are! Back when the plan was to use Longclaw for this episode, it would’ve been her who got some PTSD at seeing the mask, and that’s probably the biggest reason why I scrapped that plan. I had no way of knowing if that mask, and its owner, has any significance to her beyond that one attack we saw in the first movie. I wasn’t necessarily planning immediately on transferring this interaction to Sonic, but it definitely worked out much for the better that way. Him being a toddler at the time and all, that gut instinct reaction to the mask is much more believable coming out of him, and of course, it was the perfect excuse for the Sonic v Knuckles fight I needed. By the time of writing, the full “Meet Knuckles” scene from the movie was officially released, so I was fully aware of the fact that Sonic did not, in reality, have an immediate PTSD reaction to seeing an Echidna for the first time since the attack. But even if I hadn’t seen that, I knew that the mask was very convenient for me, because I could justify his reaction as being specifically to the mask no matter what his actual reaction to Knuckles turned out to be. Funnily enough, his reactions to Robotnik and Knuckles ended up being completely reversed compared to the movie—confused but still confident and jocular at one and totally pissed off at the other. I justify this reversed reaction to Robotnik by the major differences that in this episode, one, Sonic was told beforehand and knew what to expect, and two, Robotnik didn’t show up at and threaten his home.

This episode contained lots of references to references to references, so trivia might be a bit complicated, but we’ll see how it goes.

• This episode’s title, “Next Level Nexus,” integrates the familiar tagline of the movie ( W E L C O M E T O T H E N E X T L E V E L ), along with an added word often associated with multiverse stories, “Nexus,” roughly meaning, “a place where things come together.” Basically, it was used as a synonym for “crossover” in this case.
  • This is a continuation from the previous Sonic Movie special, which also used a movie tagline, albeit a scrapped one from an early concept poster, in “Fast Friends.”
    • Robotnik quoted that previous title directly in this episode. Ironically, I later found out that he spoke the tagline for this movie in the movie itself. I count that as 1 point for accurately predicting the movie so far.
• Although this episode was written before the movie was available to watch, there were a few tweaks I was able to make before publishing after catching a preview showing the evening before.
  • Upon seeing Robotnik for the first time, Sonic describes his look as “Professor X meets the Monopoly Man,” a quote of what he said in the movie. As this interaction was original written, he instead commented on it having a far more generic “mad scientist look.”
    • Technically, I still predicted that some sort of exchange like this would happen, but that’s an obvious one, so I don’t think it deserves a point.
  • Towards the end of the episode, what was originally a handshake with Knuckles was promoted to a “power bump.” (I kinda like that. Sounds less cringey and more heartfelt than the Forces use of “Fist Bump.”)
  • Around the same time, when Sonic is searching for something to have autographed, a mention of his world map was added. This isn’t a reference to the new movie any more so than it is to the old one, but its relatively higher importance in the new movie brought it to mind where it wasn’t being considered originally.
  • The DER chasing Sonic down as Robotnik declares “Coming. Getting.” On repeat. Not the funniest part of the movie in my opinion, but it was relevant to add here.
• A much larger majority of movie references in the episode were able to be made because of trailers and preview clips, instead of early show cheating as for the above. Not going to go through everything here, but I’ll point out some highlights.
  • Among Sonic’s list of potential superhero names to try out are a few seen in the Pre-Quill comic.
    • Although the plotline of Sonic trying out all these different names was made clear in the comic long before the movie came out, I still came up with this idea independently, long before the comic preview pages were available. I count that as point number 2 of successful predictions made in this episode.
  • The Oil Ocean tanker car is intended to have the same general spirit as the Splash Hill water delivery truck seen in the movie and trailers, and other such zone references across both movies.
  • The key Knuckles line from the trailers, “Do I look like I need your power,” is transformed by our Knuckles as “Do I look like I want your power?”
  • Sonic stole a Knuckles line from the trailers and combined it with one of his own. “For a guy named Knuckles, you’re really bad at punching,” got mixed with “I was expecting more of a fight.”
  • “Untrained, unfocused, unworthy,” dropped the last item on the list, because it doesn’t make a lot of sense for our Knuckles to say it.
  • Sonic got his “that moment chooses you” speech from Shadow instead of Tom. Luckily, he forgot everything after this episode, because that would’ve been awkward if he heard it again later. Perhaps a latent familiarity with the line is why he later questioned if it was stolen from Oprah.
  • “Step one, light taunting.” Step two is actually picked up by Shadow, unlike the movie where Sonic is left hanging.
  • Sonic suggests that he was expecting Emperor Eggman to be more like Emperor Palpatine, shooting lightning out of his hands. Little did anyone present know, this was a power that Robotnik would soon be getting in the movie.
  • Robotnik wanted to add eye lasers to the DER. He will eventually to exactly that when building his own.
    • There is an implication that perhaps the movie’s Death Egg Robot itself was somehow subconsciously inspired by the events of this episode.
  • In the end, Sonic adds a very important item to his bucket list— “Get a real sidekick”. He, of course, will accomplish this upon meeting Tails.
• Of course, just as many references were made to the events of the first movie as to the second.
  • In the Doctor’s Log (as he was recording at the end of the first movie) he refers to this planet as significantly-more-inhabited-than-the-last-one, in the same way that he referred to the last one only as an uninhabited planet.
    • The recorded date of this log suggests that Robotnik was transported to this world on the same day as the end scene of the first movie, which would put this episode at about 200 days before the second movie.
    • It’s unclear what became of these logs at the end of this episode. It’s possible that he still has them, and simply never listened back to them, instead starting over at Day 87 once he was returned to the Mushroom World with his memory wiped.
  • “Agent Stone” is used almost like its own character in this episode. Although Robotnik talks to it as if it’s a real person, he still acknowledges that it’s an inanimate object when he asks Orbot and Cubot to bring it back up to him after its “rock-conaissance.”
    • The stone’s fate is left unclear at the end of the episode, but it can be safely assumed that if Yin-Yang Shadow returned the quill to its proper place, he did the same with any and all other objects taken to this world. After all, how else is Robotnik going to make his mushroom coffee?
  • Sonic is still using his same bucket list from the first movie, now running out of room to cross things out. The list of names on the opposite side is an original idea that I’m almost surprised didn’t come true as a prediction.
  • Sonic takes much of his superhero inspiration from The Flash. This is specifically referencing Sonic’s marathoning of the entire Flash comic line at the beginning of Sonic 1.
    • Frankly, I’m disappointed that Sonic 2 went for all Batman references when The Flash is so much more appropriate, but I suppose that’s just what’s considered more recognizable to the audience. Especially the moviegoing audience who probably just saw a Batman movie the previous month.
  • Robotnik’s “time to push buttons.”
  • “Simultaneously adorable yet terrible” is a phrase Sonic used to describe Robotnik’s smallest laser-shooting drone in the first movie, applied now to the Egg Turtle instead.
    • Sonic proceeds to comment on helping the poor slow turtles experience the miracle of speed, something he did at the beginning of Sonic 1.
  • Sonic treats the Egg Turtle’s head like a mechanical bull, something he got experience riding in Sonic 1.
    • This coincides with the quote “Nailed it,” something he says in both movies.
  • After announcing his new friendship with Eggman, Robotnik adds that he won’t be going to any weddings. This is a reference to a line of his in the first movie, stating that he doesn’t have any friends because friends expect you to be the best man at their wedding out of town like we don’t have anything better to do with our time.
  • Robotnik’s available playlists for maintenance montages are all the same ones seen on his holographic screen in the first movie—Crush 40 included.
    • I hope the DER dance doesn’t need any additional explanation.
  • Sonic refers to his “origin story” as involving a biker bar and pork products (read “chili dogs”). This, of course, refers to a particular scene from Sonic 1.
  • Robotnik getting punched in the face was a running gag from Sonic 1, which Eggman continued here.
  • It’s not real Sonic movie media without a reference to Olive Garden.
• The following real-world people, places, things, memes, and other media were referenced by Sonic and Robotnik during this episode.
  • The city of San Francisco, California
  • DC’s “The Flash”
  • The state of Montana
  • Star Trek’s “Borg” species
  • “Did I stutter?” meme
  • Marvel’s “Professor X” of the X-Men
  • The “Monopoly” board game and its mascot
  • Communist Bugs Bunny “Our [subject]” meme
  • Various iterations of Marvel’s “Spider-Man”:
    • Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse (implied)
    • Spider-Man: No Way Home (implied)
    • Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man” (2002, quoted)
    • Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends
  • A playlist including the song “Where Evil Grows” by the Poppy Family
  • A playlist which is most likely named after the song “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Tears for Fears
  • The country of Canada
  • Crush 40 and various songs thereof:
    • Call Me Crazy
    • Live and Learn
    • Knight of the Wind
  • DC’s Batman (implied by quote)
  • Marvel’s The Avengers (2012 movie)
  • Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson
    • Sonic’s suggestion that Knuckles sounds like The Rock is a reference to the popular fan suggestion that The Rock could have been the voice actor for Movie Knuckles, prior to the Idris Elba announcement.
  • The Olive Garden restaurant, and its Never-ending Pasta Bowls™.
  • Vin Diesel as seen in the Fast and the Furious Franchise
• And now, for whatever miscellaneous remaining trivia I can think of.
  • The opening scene of this episode bears a resemblance to the opening of the Sonic Boom episode, “Hedgehog Day,” which similarly has Orbot presenting Eggman with breakfast. This is a coincidence.
  • In his daily log, Robotnik describes subtly as being “paramount,” a subtle reference to the producers of the Sonic movies.
  • Just as the first movie special quoted the phrase “Speed Me Up,” this one, in narration, referred to the “Stars in the Sky,” each of which are the end credits songs of their respective films.
  • Coincidentally, Sonic initially nicknames Yin-Yang Shadow as Mr. “Black-and-White Cloak,” immediately before suggesting that he knows something about being a superhero, which, as the former Black Cloak, he does. Upon meeting regular Shadow, he further shortens this to “Black Cloak.” In fact, he never actually learned Shadow’s real name.
  • Sonic’s Spider-Man reference calls back to the first movie special, where he compared his meeting canon Sonic to the plot of Into the Spiderverse. This time, he says that the Spider-Men “keep doing it,” now referring to the more recent No Way Home, which also uses a multiverse plot.
  • The Olive Garden scene is, as mentioned in the episode, a reference to The Avengers’ famous shawarma post-credits scene. As with many such Marvel scenes, it even ends with “[character] will return”.
• And lastly, all of my successful prediction points that haven’t been mentioned yet.
  • Another comic prediction in using Knuckles’ mask from Casino Fight Zone, given Knuckles’ role in a Casino Night fighting arena in said comic.
  • The importance of reading the instructions when handling an unfamiliar mech.
    Sonic specifically having a flashback to Longclaw’s death upon being reminded of the Echidnas who attacked them.
  • “Just let me do this.” I’m pretty sure that ended up being said word-for-word to Tom as it was to Shadow, but someday I’ll have to double check that. Half a point for now.
  • I count the importance of Shadow as an accurate prediction, even though it’s more for Sonic 3 than it is for Sonic 2.
  • Although it was only because he dropped them, I still technically predicted that Sonic would run out of rings in the movie by suggesting that he was running low by the end of the episode.
  • Robotnik blasting his tunes out of the DER at the first available opportunity is arguably the single best prediction this episode made. Unfortunately, I can’t give a second point for those tunes being Crush 40. Nothing but cowards at Paramount, it would seem.

That makes 7 and 1/2 uncannily accurate predictions. And I think that’s all I have for today.

-So until next time, remember to live and learn every day!

Opinionated Review: Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022 Movie)

(Note that this a review for the actual movie, not for the special tie-in episode. That comes next week. Be warned: spoilers ahead!)

Welp, a promise is a promise.

[Blacklight]: That was the greatest movie I’ve ever seen in my life.

Slow down there, buddy. We need to break this down properly before we go giving our final opinions. This is going to take a while.

April Fools, Jerk

[Mr. C]: (offscreen) I said I was sorry…

[Blacklight]: I’m not talking to you. Murphy, just, explain to me again why we can’t go back in time to delay the movie.

[Mephiles]: The release of this movie is a fixed point in time. If you try to change it, you won’t like the results.

[Mr. C]: (offscreen) Blacklight, I told you not to try it!

[Blacklight]: Still ignoring you. Movie Sonic, why won’t you just knock out the power grids of all the movie theaters for me?

[Original Design Movie Sonic]: Uhh… Meow?

[Mr. C]: (offscreen) You do realize that this website also runs on electricity, right? If you knock out the power grid, you still won’t have a show. Anyways, it’s five minutes to midnight. April Fools is over.

[Blacklight]: But… But… But…

[Mr. C]: (offscreen) I know it’s not ideal, but you don’t even need this day anymore. You’ve become a main character on the website this year, and I could never really fire you.

[Blacklight]: You…you really mean that?

[Mr. C]: (offscreen) I do. And I’ll tell you what. Once we both see the movie, we can get back together here to review it. The doors are always open for you.

[Movie Sonic]: Uhh… Meow?

[Mr. C]: (offscreen) Not you. You’re an April Fools exclusive.

[Blacklight]: Okay, that guy’s really starting to annoy me.

[Mephiles]: Shall I get rid of him for you?

[Movie Sonic]: *gulps* Gotta go fast?

[Mr. C]: (offscreen) Sounds like a good idea to me.

[Movie Sonic]: Gotta go fast! *exits*

[Mephiles]: I should be going as well. I have my own plans to attend to. *exits*

[Mr. C]: (offscreen) I’m sorry, what were they doing here in the first place?

[Blacklight]: I needed them to complete my Team Rocket trio.

[Mr. C]: (offscreen) I’m…not even going to ask what means.

[Blacklight]: What? I do have a life outside of your website, you know.

[Mr. C]: Sure you do. Anything else to say before the clock strikes midnight?

[Blacklight]: Just this. If there’s one thing I’ve learned today, it’s that life has its ups and downs. You can never count on things going the way you plan them. But that’s no reason to stop being you. Who you are isn’t about the things that happen to you, it’s about who you choose to be in spite of it all. If someone tells you no, you get back up and ask someone else. If you want to be a psychotic maniac, you keep trying to be a psychotic maniac, and you don’t let anyone tell you otherwise!

[Mr. C]: This was almost going so well…

[Blacklight]: It may have been brief, my friends… But thanks again for sharing another laugh with us.

The Blacklight Takeover III DX: Director’s Cut

[Mr. C]: (offscreen) Great news! Read the title! Your request is being fulfilled today!

[Blacklight]: You mean I really get to do the movie-themed Takeover with a special look at cut scenes from The Chaos Project co-hosted by old design Movie Sonic?

[Mr. C]: (offscreen) Nope! The director is cutting Blacklight. You’re fired.

[Blacklight]: Say wha?

[Mr. C]: (offscreen) We just can’t afford to do a full Takeover this year.

[Blacklight]: You’ve gotta be kidding me! The Sonic Movie has been an integral part of Blacklight Takeover lore for the last two years! Now that the sequel’s coming out and it’s more important than ever, you’re cutting me off!?

[Mr. C]: (offscreen) Actually, the movie is sort of the reason why I can’t spend all day with you here. If it weren’t for that deadline, we could waste as much time here as we want.

[Blacklight]: So what you’re saying is, if I go back in time and convince Paramount to delay the movie by a couple weeks, I could get my show back?

[Mr. C]: (offscreen) Please don’t try that.

[Blacklight]: What if I just burned down every movie theater on the planet?

[Mr. C]: (offscreen) No.

[Blacklight]: Or I could just get us some early screening tickets and we could go see the movie together right now.

[Mr. C]: (offscreen) That’s…the sanest idea you’ve ever had. Unfortunately, it’s too late for that.

[Blacklight]: Work with me here, man!

[Mr. C]: (offscreen) I wish there was another option. I really do. Maybe we can try again next year?

[Blacklight]: Maybe I’ll just throw you out a window and do my thing without you.

[Mr. C]: (offscreen) That would be in violation of your contract.

[Blacklight]: What contract? You fired me.

[Mr. C]: (offscreen) Right, that wasn’t my brightest idea… Well, what if I made it up to you by putting your theme song in the next episode of The Chaos Project?

[Blacklight]: You can’t just bribe me with— Wait, which song?

[Mr. C]: (offscreen) I suppose you’ll just have to wait until April 8th like everyone else. Unless you maim, murder, or otherwise incapacitate me. Then that episode will never see the light of day.

[Blacklight]: Wait a minute, you’re just advertising yourself!

[Mr. C]: (offscreen) I mean, yeah, this is my website.

[Blacklight]: Pfft. Whatever. Be that way. I’ll just go bug Team Rocket all day instead. Thanks for killing my hopes and dreams. *exits*

[Mr. C]: (offscreen) I’ll still see the movie with you if you want!

[Blacklight]: (offscreen) Forget it!

Review: Season 3, Episode 5

Yeah, this one probably requires some extra explanation, doesn’t it? I mean, it’s not exactly like this is the first time I’ve tried to canonize Boom to the main series. After all, we’ve already had Lyric appearing as the main antagonist of S2 E13 Non-Zero Chance, and Dave the Intern playing a role in S2 E16 Hate That Hedgehog. What makes this episode unique is that it’s the first time I’ve really indicated that anything resembling the present-day Boom world still exists in our present-day. Dave and Comedy Chimp alone could be considered coincidences, and Lyric could be something that only exists in the past. but here we’re actually kinda sorta saying that the Boom games are almost sort of canon. Obviously not actually canon, because Sonic and the gang met Sticks in Rise of Lyric and it didn’t go over anything like this. But we are claiming now that the setting, characters, and historical context in the canon world are all pretty much identical to the Boom world. Of course, if you’ve read In the Shadow of Time, you’d know that I’ve already made that exact claim from the opposite perspective—claiming that the events of Shadow the Hedgehog and earlier are canon to the Boom universe. Of course the real question is why. And that comes down to Sticks.

Simply put, Sticks is a good character. Appealing design, memorable personality, and she fills a niche that Sonic’s otherwise diverse cast is lacking. In debating what the primary cast of The Chaos Project would be, Sticks was definitely on the shortlist from the outset. Of course, I couldn’t just have her exist as a canon character—after all, she’s not a canon character. (Not yet, anyways. Fingers crossed that SEGA doesn’t decide to revive her now, I guess.) So she had to get a new introduction, and that’s how the base ideas for this episode began to form even before I’d made the final decision on whether or not I would end up using her at all. The big debate against it, of course, was the possibility of confusing readers. The last thing that I want is for someone to think that this is some weird fanfic-y hybrid universe—it would defeat the purpose of this series trying so hard exist very specifically in the standard game canon. There’s also the lingering question of if Sticks might just be too weird to take seriously as a character. But I quickly decided that I wasn’t going to let something like that stop me—after all, if the whole Sonic cast gets parodied, flattened versions of their characters for Boom, Sticks would naturally get something a little more three-dimensional for her canon debut. More on that later.

Turning a Boom character into a canon character definitely brought its own set of challenges. Going the other direction, we see that when a canon character is turned into a Boom character, there is a certain foundation you’re expected to understand from the canon, which Boom proceeds to twist and joke off of. So, taking Sticks into canon, we would need to see that same shared foundation, giving her a personality that can present itself in a logical way that could be twisted into more random humor for Boom. Of course, it’s also important that the character is still recognizable as the same person, or the entire purpose of using the character is defeated. My goal, as writing began, was to start off with something that is instantly recognizable as a typical Sticks, and subtly build into a more cohesive character from there. She’s still the same mistrusting, superstitious conspiracy theorist we’ve always known. But as time goes on, you may start to notice where the differences lie. At its root, it comes down to logic—something that Boom Sticks generally lacks, yet this new canon Sticks holds to impressively. You would never hear CP-Sticks say anything like “my breakfast is plotting to kill me” or “they’re replacing my houseplants with violins.” But you might hear “take an antitoxin in case there’s poison in the food” or “the aliens are stealing our plants,” because these are things she’s actually observed as realistic possibilities, however ridiculous they may sound. My rule of thumb throughout the episode was “All conspiracy theories must be at least 25% rooted in reality.” There might even be a case or two where she gave a theory based on evidence that we may not learn until a future episode. It was also a plan I had in mind that some of her primary character traits would be switched around a bit. Canon Sonic is a hero first and a free spirit second, but Boom reverses that, making interruptions to his leisure time one of his primary motivators. Canon Knuckles is a dedicated guardian first and a gullible brawn second, but Boom reverses that, making him absurdly buff and completely lacking in intelligence. I wanted to do something similar with Sticks, putting her wild girl skills and mistrust of others at the forefront while dialing back the superstition and conspiracy theories, but I don’t think that ended up carrying through quite as well as I’d hoped. Even if there wasn’t quite a reversal, I still feel the result was a much better balance of these traits than Boom ever had to offer.

Of course, the root of all these changes was addressed in the episode’s plot quite thoroughly.  It was actually quite nice how things worked out—I’ve already established “the Ancients” as the humans who lived before Zero’s time, but relative to the context of Boom, these Ancients are quite unknown in modern times. The question of why no one would know is a fair one. As what is by far the most reasonable Boom character to introduce the canon world to these ideas, Sticks provided our answer while simultaneously providing an excellent motivator for the personality we already know she has. It’s a conspiracy, and she made an argument for that which was hard to deny. And if the biggest conspiracy in the history of the world turns out to be true, why wouldn’t she be inclined to assume others are as well? So that motivates the conspiracy theories, but not so much the distrust. That’s where Stones came in. It’s a fairly straightforward narrative—straightforward enough that I never even had to specify what exactly he was to her. Teacher? Sibling? Boyfriend? The truth is, it doesn’t even matter. He was the only important person in her life, and his loss is what left her with the impression that trust was more trouble than it was worth. I also never specified his species, but I do, at least, assume that he was also a Badger.

So, did this Stones story also happen in the Boom universe? Well, I’d be inclined to say no. After all, he died in the effort to prove the existence of the Ancients, who are already known to exist in the Boom universe. It’s possible that he still existed, and that something still happened to him, it just wouldn’t be anything that had quite the same symbolic meaning to Sticks. Maybe that’s why Sticks has such a relatively easy time trusting Team Sonic in the Boom world, at least compared to what we see in this episode.

The other aspect to converting Sticks to the canon was character design. Luckily, that job was done for me. The design seen in the episode pretty much looked like artwork A below:

We have a little bit more of a serious face, a charm on the neck that gives a little bit more of a wild, tribal/spiritualistic vibe, and of course, sports tape. I was amused by the ironic notion of giving back sports tape to the only Boom character who didn’t have any in Boom when pulling them out of Boom. Plus, as we’ve seen plenty of times before, I like making use of scrapped concept art where possible. That’s all it really comes down to.

That just about covers the Sticks story, but she was hardly the only character in use here. In this episode, we saw Tails getting what is effectively the resolution to the character arc he’s been on since Season 1. It isn’t necessarily that anything about his character changed in this particular episode, just that we’re getting a full look at the payoff on the rift that’s been growing between him and Sonic, and what seems to be the final outcome of his growth into an individual. My hope is that it was as cathartic to read as it was to write, seeing Sonic and Tails finally talk out their problems and make up like normal people. Certainly, I’ve had readers express the hope that it would happen by now. The trick was making sure that getting these brothers back together didn’t come at the cost of any character reversion on Tails’ part. That’s sort of what the point of this episode turned out to be. Tails may be back to a place where he is trusted and forgiven, but he remains a person who confidently makes choices for what he sees as the greater good. Truth be told, that wasn’t necessarily part of the original plan though. It wasn’t until I wrote Sonic saying the phrase “every villain is the hero of their own story” that I realized… “This episode would be a lot better if Tails turned out to be the quote-unquote villain.” The original plot would’ve been a lot more like the red herring plot turned out to be. Eggman would’ve actually been on the island in the active process of uncovering more Ancient technology to use for himself. The technology jamming aspect probably wouldn’t have been a thing. Sonic and Tails probably would’ve been independently assuming the other is either dead or not on the island anymore, and so their focuses would’ve each been on finding and stopping Eggman, only to accidentally meet and save each other on the battlefield. That would’ve freed up some more plot focus for Sticks. In fact, before this episode’s chronological placement was decided, it wouldn’t have had a Tails sub-plot at all. It was only because the episode was placed here that it had to start with that long make-up conversation between Sonic and Tails, which was what mandated having a resolution to the Tails plot at the end. Without that, this certainly would’ve turned out as a far more predictable, by-the-numbers, filler-esque episode, so I think everything worked out for the best.

Further from there, it was not necessarily part of the original plan to have Eggman appear. The episode was first written without the usual opening teaser, mostly because I wasn’t sure what to do with it. I originally had it in mind that the Sonic-Tails conversation would be the opening teaser itself…or rather, it would be the beginning of it, and cut to the title card when they crash (or maybe even when Sticks announces herself). Then that scene ended up taking 4 pages, so that was a no. Anyways, I got all the way to Sonic confronting Tails at the end before I was finally forced to face the question: “How exactly would Tails be so certain that Eggman is here?” It was only then that I came up with MAIA’s role in the episode, so I immediately went back to write her and Eggman into the opening. It made sense, seeing as I already introduced MAIA for no apparent reason back in Non-Zero Chance without any real idea of if or when she might be used. The one regret I’m left with is the question of if using both MAIA and Zooey for a theoretically similar role for Tails was just too overcomplicated.

I think that covers all the major points I had in mind, so now it’s on to the trivia!

• This episode’s title, “Bygones,” has a triple meaning. As mentioned in the episode, the primary setting is Bygone Island. The plot is driven by the relics of a bygone era that are presumably the island’s namesake. But most importantly, the purpose this episode serves in the greater plot of The Chaos Project is to get Sonic and Tails back together as they “let bygones be bygones,” so to speak.
  • Had this episode not had such a focus on the relationship between Sonic and Tails, an alternative title under consideration would have been “Sticks and Stones.” (Keeping in mind that this was before “Stones” was thought of as a character.) The joke being that the episode is about Sonic breaking his bones, and Sticks being involved.
• This episode featured the first appearance of Emerald Hill Zone since the original Rebel Camp Alpha was abandoned in S2 E10 Heads or Tails.
• Multiple locations from the Sonic Boom series were featured or mentioned in this episode.
  • A facility which is strongly implied to be the Abandoned Research Facility level from Rise of Lyric.
    • The original level was not set on Bygone Island, but instead near Cliff’s Excavation Site on the mainland. Technically, it is possible that the same holds true in this episode, as it is never specified that the technology disruption field covers only the island. However, that would require Eggman to be somehow transported to the island after the opening scene of the episode. More likely, this is an alternate-timeline variation of the same facility which was built on the island.
  • Sticks’ Burrow from the TV show.
  • The Unnamed Village, originally from Rise of Lyric, later renamed to Hedgehog Village in the show.
  • A cave entrance which served multiple purposes in the TV show, perhaps most notably in the episode “Mech Suits Me.”
  • Also mentioned is an underwater tunnel which connects to the mainland. This could be referring to certain areas of the Ocean Purification Plant level from Rise of Lyric.
• Many characters from Sonic Boom are also seen in this episode. Apart from Sticks and MAIA, we have:
  • Lady Walrus and her baby, recurring gag characters from the TV show.
  • Zooey the Fox, Tails’ TV show girlfriend.
  • Mayor Fink, originally from RoL, recurring in the show.
  • Fastidious Beaver, originally from Rol, a recurring gag character in the show.
  • Perci the Bandicoot, a semi-important character from RoL who also makes a few appearances in the show.
  • Comedy Chimp, a show-original character who was already CP-canonized by reference in Hate That Hedgehog.
  • Soar the Eagle, a show-original character making his CP debut.
  • Dave the Intern, a frequently recurring show character who already appeared directly in Hate That Hedgehog.
  • An army of unspecified Lyric robots, most likely consisting primarily of Gatling Elites, already seen in Non-Zero Chance.
  • A single full-sized Sentinel robot, most likely the same one seen under construction in Non-Zero Chance (which in turn is the same one scaled in the Lyric’s Weapon Facility level of RoL).
• For the most part, all characters listed above have their original personalities and designs left unchanged from their original appearances. Redesigning them for the canon wasn’t worth the effort.
• The members of the new Rebel Camp Delta were chosen as a fairly balanced set of representatives for both game-original and show-original characters, using the most memorable appropriate choices from each. For the game-original characters, “memorable” generally ended up meaning “survived the transition to the show.”
• This episode is the first in which the Eggshelter is neither seen nor mentioned since its introduction in S2 E12 Deep Cut (though it’s only mentioned by technicality as the IOPS in Hate That Hedgehog.)
• In the opening scene of the episode, Eggman mentions how it “feels good to get out once in a while,” which is an acknowledgement of the fact that Eggman is very rarely seen in-person in this series.
• Throughout the episode, events are referenced regarding Zero and Gregor defeating Lyric in the ancient past. Although these events have not been seen, it is safe to assume that this will happen some time in Zero’s fairly near future. Spoiler alert for Silver & Zero that he doesn’t die, I guess.
  • In this timeline, Zero and Gregor seem to fill the same role that Sonic and Tails did when travelling to the past in the events of RoL. This could be interpreted as the potential timeline split that causes the Boom Universe in the first place—if Sonic and Tails go back in time (perhaps even during the events of this episode), a self-sustaining Boom time loop is created. If they don’t, Zero and Gregor pick up the slack (though are apparently too late to save the Ancients that were living on Bygone Island) and The Chaos Project happens instead.
• MAIA quotes her own lines from Rise of Lyric throughout the episode.
• Sonic and Tails’ “cursed beach day” was first brought up in S0 E8 Race Against Time Part 2. Attempts to go through with it failed in S0 E25 Light and Dark Part 2, S1 E7 The Bigger They Come, and S2 E10 Heads or Tails, making this one of the longest-running sub-plots to exist in this series.
• This marks the third time in The Chaos Project that one of Tails’ planes has been destroyed in the same episode/arc in which it was introduced, the last time being the Tornado Mach 2 in S1 E15 In Too Deep. The original Mach Tornado, introduced in S0 E26 Infinite Possibilities and destroyed in Crisis of Chaos Part 2, was the only model to last more than a day or two (though the classic Tornado seen and destroyed in the Dawn of Chaos arc was probably around for a while before that). Maybe it’s not the beach that’s cursed…
  • This is, of course, a reference to Sonic Adventure, where Tails crashes not one plane, not two planes, but three.
• Throughout the episode, Sticks has Sonic drink a juice blend of onions, bananas, and pickles. A similar blend was given by a guru to Aang in an episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender. This was an accidental coincidence that came about when I tried to form a list of the most random collection of natural ingredients I could think of, but I was aware of it when writing. There probably was some sort of unconscious inspiration there.
• Among the many accusations Sticks makes against Sonic is that he is a Froglodyte in disguise. The Froglodytes are a recurring race in the Boom TV show, trapped in an underground cave by Sticks. Later in the episode, Sticks also mentions that there may be a problem if the robots open the secret room in the back of her burrow, which would presumably be the entrance to the Froglodyte cave. To be fair, this doesn’t necessarily mean that Froglodytes are canon, just that Sticks thinks they are.
• Sticks’ chalk depiction of Sonic as a cyborg also appears to include a drawing of Cow Bot for no apparent reason. In another timeline, that part of the theory might have panned out a bit better…
• In theorizing how the situation might have ended up as it did, Sticks comes up with several ideas which wouldn’t be too surprising to see in a fictional drama like this one.
  • Her first theory, that Sonic might actually be trapped in a simulation, was something I was certain I’d heard before, though I had trouble remembering exactly where. Of course, shows like Star Trek involve a pretty sizable number of “it’s just a simulation” episodes, but the more specific details of the protagonist crashing on an island and being helped back to health by a friendly female local, only to realize that he was actually captured by an enemy and trapped in a simulation sounded very specifically familiar from something else. Finally, I remembered the episode from an old cartoon from my childhood—Codename: Kids Next Door. That’s certainly not something I ever expected to be referencing. Regardless, it’s a real plot that someone else did come up with, so Sticks’ theory isn’t too outlandish in that regard.
    • In trying to justify this theory, Sticks references the “classical form of philosophical skepticism.” The wording used to describe this theory was actually taken from Peter Unger’s “Ignorance,” a scholarly work that I actually studied in college philosophy class. It’s a very real theory. In the end, she boils it down to “For all we know, our lives could just be some kid’s video game,” which, technically speaking, is 100% the truth for her and Sonic. Dangerously close to breaking the fourth wall there.
  • Stick’s second theory, that she is actually maliciously responsible for holding Sonic there, actually is a plot from Star Trek: The Next Generation. In the episode, Captain Picard crashes on an alien planet and is treated by a girl there, who tries to convince him that he is injured and unable to leave in order to force him to fall in love with her. As Sticks says, it’s what the writers of a weird TV show would do, and that’s technically what I am, so the seemingly ridiculous theory is once again actually shockingly sound.
  • Sticks also talks about how “the aliens are stealing our plants,” which, as usual, sounds ridiculous on the surface, but implies that she actually saw White Seraph performing her Xenobiologist duties a short time before the events of S3 E3 Impending Doom.
• As Sonic heals over the course of the episode, it his revealed that his appearance is varying closer and closer to that of his Sonic Boom design—though his usual scarf is used as a sling to hold down his unusable robot hand. Similarly, Tails also takes on his Boom outfit with additional goggles and toolbelt, though with Eggman/Lyric’s robot control device added to his arm on top of that. These designs are both ditched at the end of the episode.
  • This episode confirms what was already implied in the first Sonic Movie Special, Fast Friends—that Sonic’s arms would always be blue if he didn’t shave them. It’s basically the equivalent of him growing a beard, which is kind of funny to think about.
    • (What’s that you ask? Why do I say “the first special” when there’s only one of them? Take a wild guess at what I’m working on right this minute. Or just skip to next week’s post if you’re reading this in the future.)
• On the way to village, Sticks brings up a legend about a curse-breaking Marmoset. This references a character and plot of the Boom episode, “Curse of the Cross-Eyed Moose.”
• Sticks says that Stones died in a collapsing mine. Given that this is a different timeline, this could potentially refer to the same mine in Cliff’s Excavation Site which collapses early in the events of Rise of Lyric.
• In describing her adventures with Stones, Sticks mentions that they collected shiny little trinkets and everyday objects that were much to old to be anything other than evidence of the Ancients. This is a reference to Sticks’ limited role in Rise of Lyric, where she enlists your help in collecting “Shinies” matching that exact description, without any indicator as to what she wants them for.
• Sonic’s “character arc” in this episode is effectively spent “rejecting the Boom premise,” so to speak. The idea is planted in his head that his life would be easier if he simply retired—built a nice beachfront house, and only ever did hero work when it happened to be convenient for him. We’re teased with this idea that he’s close to actually literally turning into Boom Sonic, and recovering with Sticks, he’s given a taste of what that would be like. Thanks in part to Sticks, however, he rejects the notion that one can simply run away to a place where nothing matters. This rejection is reiterated when he tears off the sling/scarf. (Brown is so not his color.)
• Sticks’ final theory about Sonic is that he is the living reincarnation of the wizard who defeated Lyric—that being a relatively accurate description of Sonic’s relationship with Zero. She goes on further to suggest that this would make a him a cult leader. As far as we’re aware, that part of the theory is nonsense…but Sticks’ theories are rarely so far off from the truth…
• Apparently, following the events of this episode, Sonic has now canonically had “the talk” with Tails. Isn’t that fun?
• The introduction of Mayor Fink and Fastidious Beaver references both of them as election candidates, which, surprisingly, is a reference to Rise of Lyric, and not the TV show.
• EDIT: Following the release of Sonic Frontiers, this episode received a slight retcon, adjusting the introduction of “the Ancients” to make it clear that it’s a different group than the one introduced in that game.

There’s probably more that I missed, but frankly, I’m already way behind on writing the next episode, so I’m going to cut things off here.

-Until next time, remember to live and learn every day!