I will say, while the “I know writers who use subtext, and they’re all cowards” quote is a very funny meme, I don’t think most people are prepared to see the full context where that quote came from…
The western mastiff bat is a member of the free-tailed bat family, Molossidae. It is found in the Western United States, Mexico and South America, and is the largest bat native to North America. During the day they form colonies of less than 100. Unlike most North American bats, they do not undergo either migration or prolonged hibernation, but are periodically active all winter. It feeds on insects, up to 80% of which are moths. It will often drop down and forage on the ground with its tail sticking up. photo credits: hsu.edu, Merlin D.Tuttle, utep
I found out about this very recently when looking up things I’d want to make Orre variants of Pokemon for, and I feel like you need to see this because oh my god look at this fucking Creature.
Anyone reading this should look up even more pictures of them because they really do have that pure goblin energy there.
What is your thoughts on Sonic lore or the idea of the Sonic series having lore?
This is one of those video ideas I have stashed away in the library of potential videos I could do, so I’m not going to write a novel about it.
But my general thinking is this: some of the most successful branches of Sonic the Hedgehog have always been ones related to story. The Saturday morning cartoon…
Once the comics picked up the story of the Saturday Morning cartoon, there was a stretch of time where the comics were basically the most popular branch of the entire Sonic brand. The Archie Comics were considered family friendly, so they sold in lots of places most comics did not. And because of that, Sonic routinely outsold heavy hitters like Spider-man and The X-Men.
There’s a reason it made it to nearly 300 issues across a 20+ year run. It’s hard to believe considering the long stretch where it was trash, and how hard Sega chooses to disown it, but it was sort of a big deal. For a time, it was the only Sonic the Hedgehog that mattered.
So Sonic’s always been big on story.
Even if you’re one of those diehard “Sega of Japan Sonic is the one true Sonic,” even those had considerably in-depth lore. America would get, like, three paragraphs of story in the instruction manual. Japan would get this big two page spread, sometimes more. Famously, the story in the Japanese manual for Sonic 3 is what sets up and establishes Sonic Adventure.
Story is a necessary component of the Sonic franchise and to some degree almost always has been. From at least 1993, and probably even earlier than that.
To yes-and, I feel like this is also why it’s a minor tragedy that the one Sonic RPG we got was both double-fucked by EA and Ken Penders because, given how good his counterpart Mario’s RPGs are, Sonic absolutely deserves to have a long-running robust RPG spinoff series….
I will say, Starro’s one of my favorite supervillains specifically because his mix of tones perfectly sums up what’s great about cape comics.
Like, he’s a big silly colorful starfish from space called Starro. On the other, he’s an incredibly powerful mass-mind-controlling parasite that can conquer worlds. These two qualities are embodied in the same character.
Also, same applies to Mr Mind as well.
Like, he’s a funny little space-caterpillar with glasses who communicates through radio! He also ate moments out of the timeline to become a fucking god!
These two properties belong to the same character! God it sucks this little bastard wasn’t in Shazam 2!
If I was a pokemon NPC I would definitely be in some corner of a library doing Pokemon based historical research on ghost types. Like can you get your stupid Bulbasaur out of here I have a deadline.
Yeah yeah I have a spiritomb. I bought a stupid book in a library overflow bin that HAPPENED to be haunted, and now I have to take care of this thing. It screams and knocks shit over unless I feed it wisdom, yeah turns out these things eat wisdom.
Yeah it doesn’t really understand physical reality so it can only have play dates with other ghost types. I tried taking it to the park and it nearly hurled some lady’s Flareon into traffic. So I had to buy a mismagius off Pokebook marketplace so it wouldn’t get anxious and start psychically throwing cups around my apartment.
…I will say, if you removed the swearing I could see this as actual dialogue from a Pokemon game.
Presumably by an NPC that turns out to be that town’s gym leader, who you have to drag back into doing their actual job.
More from Si Land because I am obsessed and need people to read this its like my new favorite thing
Ryo Sumiyoshi is an amazing artist. (also designed Mizutsune from Monster Hunter because of COURSE it was designed by a furry)
…Okay, I need to look into this, but also I wonder if the author’s inspired at all by Tezuka art-wise, because the artstyle does remind me a bit of that, and the man did love his furries…
