Quickly sketched this panel from the new manga in my style, just wanted to compare human-mobian proportions

I've never seen anyone else ever bring this up, or it brought up in any of the official content, but like... Why didn't Shadow ever try to finish the cure for NIDs that his DNA was supposed to provide?? It's not like NIDs stopped existing or like it was a disease that only Maria had. The idea was that it was rare but still a very real problem that was killing people, right? Like that's why they had a whole team working on a cure? With 50 years of medical advancements, you'd think there'd be some sort of conclusion to that but it's never acknowledged in his self-titled game or his personal character arcs within the comics.

Like... he says he does volunteer work in communities, and at the end of the day he does still want to help humanity (even if he recognizes their major flaws and holds resentment for them) so I feel like it's strange he would just idk, totally drop all of that progress for the cure and never look into cooperating with any medical research team again. Maybe he worries he'd be taken advantage of to create more bio-weapons, but if that's the case then like- Why was it never brought up!!?? Are people out there still dying from NIDs while he walks around with the potential for a cure inside of him and thinking nothing of it? I feel like it was just forgotten somehow or that the writers didn't even realize that the cure could still be worked on regardless of if Gerald is involved or not.

Thank you sm!!

Yea even though it's not colored yet I really wanted it to be out there already cause I feel like I never see content exploring this interpretation of Shadow. Like I said in an earlier post, I believe the characters to be more symbolic than literal. I mean, yes, you can interpret them literally, they're definitely set up for that too and it'd also be correct, but I think there's deeper symbolic meanings standing behind the literal interpretation too. I think Maria is supposed to represent innocence and lost childhood, and so in my mind I always loosely interpreted Shadow and Maria as being one and the same- a part of himself that he lost, or a part of himself that was tarnished and forever changed but that he still has control over moving forward. Your "inner child" and all that.

And then in the literal interpretation of their story, they're still not quite pure simple siblings. Shadow was made for her, literally modeled after her- how could you not have identity issues over it? Or inner conflict from your partly artificial and self-conflicting personality? That inner struggle of being both a weapon and a cure, trying to accept such polar opposite halves of yourself, the consequences of your development literally being a game of tug-of-war. I feel like in interpretations like these, his inconsistent behavior throughout media can make a bit more sense. Also yeah, Gerald was crazy dude, and even if Gerald was a pure soul before grief corrupted him, there was still GUN fighting for control over Shadow the whole time.

I love the "ARK siblings" concept and I love cute lighthearted fanart of them being siblings but I feel like a lot of people forget that they literally canonically share a soul and that her death is, in my opinion, I think supposed to represent a part of one's self dying and that they're supposed to be, symbolically, a lot more than siblings.

NO WAY?? How is this somehow more surprising than princess peach

I think Shadow growing softer with Tails and building a bond in fan-content is awesome when it's representing him adjusting to his new life and putting in effort to better himself socially and become involved in team Sonic, cause like its a point of reference for his self growth since he's always the harshest on Tails

But as a nod to Maria??????? To have Tails fill that hole? Nah... the whole point and moral of his self-titled game anyway was to stop seeing his loss as a hole inside him he needed to replace and instead accept it as a changed part of himself, "I am all of me" and all that

If Sonic's new super form is blonde and blue-eyed.... ppl better not start Maria-ing him lmfao

Is anyone else annoyed over Fandom and old canon doing that thing with Shadow where he gets instantly attached to absolutely any blonde woman or young girl regardless of if she even has anything to do with Maria, or even regardless of if Shadow has shared much (or any) time with them?

Like sure I can see that happening in the beginning when her loss is fresh and he's just reaching for anything that could possibly fill that gap, or with Hope Kintobor from the archie comics cause she's literally in that family

But other than that I think he understands that Maria's value and his attachment to her isn't related to her appearance or that blondness is something unique and uncommon lmfao, like his first example of someone reminding him of Maria is Amy not bc they look the same but bc they hold the same morals and compassion

Like why do ppl make stuff of him with Helen from Sonic X or even... princess peach in the Olympics crossovers??? But never like.. ever point out the fact that Ivo Robotnik is identical to Gerald and is his grandson? Maybe I must be the one to make content of that, that conflict of familiarity from someone who hurts you but could have been family

I think ppl think PTSD triggers and grief are like.. "this new thing and the old thing visually look the same (even if the old thing is something common, like blonde hair) and so now I will apply the old feelings to it" and not "this experience just put me in the same headspace of the old experience/this new thing is intrinsically tied to the old thing and cannot be kept seperate which causes conflict for me" like commander tower who is literally related to Maria and has conflict with Shadow over Maria's loss

I mean Shadow helped eggman in Sonic Rivals and in Shth commander Tower has action dialogue expressing forgiveness/remorse where he offers to connect with Shadow and yet these connections between the Robotniks are never picked up again in canon or explored in fandom outside of Maria and Maria look-a-likes (Molly, Chris, Hope, and in fandom ppl will use Cream and Helen too)

Also if they do this with JoJo in the 3rd Sonic movie or something I'm walking out of the theater LMAO

Sonic Timeline (?)

Okay guys.. help me with this. Is THIS the current canon timeline for the main-line games? I really wanna figure out some sort of standard main-line canon, so feel free to pitch your two cents in comments & reblogs.

Read below the cut to see the timeline I put together, based on what I'm pretty sure might be the official canon timeline we're in right now.

HEAVY SONIC SPOILERS WARNING