It makes me very excited to be in a place I love surrounded by Sonic fans in my country and my city
But before we fast forward to the future lets go back to the past for a bit and look back on how Sonic made a huge impact on my life since 2007
Well actually a little backwards before then
I sort knew bits and pieces of what Sonic was during my childhood years
Such as the Sonic OVA film on VHS thanks to trailer of it on a Pokemon VHS and watching it as a kid with my sister
I think someone playing Sonic CD or another game at someones house?? but thats more a very vague memory
Sonic X I remember seeing bits and pieces of on TV and also the mcdonalds mini games
But the one game I remember enjoying and playing the most and what began it all for me was
Sonic Heroes on the Playstation 2
I played the game at someones house as a kid
but it wasn't until 2007 when it all began
I first got a PlayStation 2 thanks to my mum on birthday
and this was one of the games I got for it while we were in Canberra for family related reasons
and I was very excited to play it and own it as I loved playing it over and over again at a friend of mums house so it was great to play it and even getting better at the game over the years (don't play the original ps2 version though it sucks play it on PC with mods I'm begging you or at least the GameCube version)
I ended up very addicted to playing the game and very obsessed with it
even to the point I couldn't be bothered doing basketball anymore I was HOOKED
even to the point where it was all I could think about that I could tell my primary school teachers and helpers and even other students were getting sick of me talking and thinking about it even though it was the one thing for me at the time that made me happy
proof of this with this old mosaic pic I still have from primary school
and I wanted to learn more about Sonic in general so I rented the other sonic games on ps2
got some sonic x dvds
the archie comics (from 170)
and even begged mum for a pink Nintendo DS just to play Sonic Rush
I even remember browsing sonic websites back in the day mainly Sonic Central and learning more about Sonic back when I had to rely on my mums workplace or other places for internet since back at home we only had dial up for a long time
and then one random afternoon on my mums old windows XP laptop
I randomly browsed on google the character Metal Sonic
and found a website called Youtube
and it was a random clip from the Sonic OVA
Watching Sonic AMVS, reviewers
classic funny videos such as coodoo17's sonic sprite videos
and newgrounds stuff like sonic uncut and the short volumes
sonictoasts animations
Sunrose112 and her adorable chao videos
and many many more
Of course the one character I ended up loving and adoring the most was
Shadow The Hedgehog
Which I will admit.. started for probs the most dumbest autistic reason
So for those from other countries reading this
We have this sports game called Australian Football aka the AFL
which is very diffrent to american football and the UKS soccer
and one team in particular I randomly went for as a kid was Essendon aka the Bombers (which yeah yeah I know not the best choice cause of their own controversies but we aren't here for that aren't we)
and with the team being red and black color wise and shadow also having the same colors
something hit in my autistic brain and then BAM
Shadow The Hedgehog became my biggest obsession to the point where I would claim he was my husband/boyfriend which in hindsight would of been cringe but it did also do me a favor in high school when I wasn't ready for irl relationships at the time soooo....
take the good with the bad lmao
could also explain my taste in men too... especially in fiction
I even remember seeing myself as either Sonic or Maria with Shadow and even had my hair as Maria for a bit with the headband because thats how much I really loved Shadow
HOW THE FUCK WAS THE SONADOW SHIT NOT AN EARLY SIGN OF LITTLE EGG ME BEFORE COMING OUT AS A QUEER NON BINARY TRANS MAN?!?!
hahaha anyways
In my irl life I felt very lonely being one of the only sonic fans in a rural town in Gippsland/Latrobe Valley at the time until I met this kid named Ryan at a place called Kids Biz we were good friends and bonded over our love for Sonic and even went to a video game exlbhition at ACMI in 2008 but then I guess we lost contact and I haven't heard from him since
where ever you are now hope life is treating you well
I will say I at least got my friend Emma into Sonic a bit at the time so that was nice and I guess it was good my family and others around tried to enjoy or understand mt interest
By 2009
thanks to the sonic sprite community from people who were fans of coodoo17s videos and wanted to do videos similar to him
and thanks to the sonic recolor community which yeah say what you want about sonic recolors... at least its not the shitty ai slop we get these days
I got a program called skype when I finally got broadband internet
and met some people who became my lifetime long friends and people I consider very important in my life
People such as
Tazz
Adam
Venom
Kendall
Tim
Realmwars
Chris
Sam
and many many more I met over the years thanks to sonic and other interests on the internet
In fact thanks to Sonic its how I learnt about a bunch of other video games
music, films and television
anime and many more of my other interests over the years!!
and most likely also why I'm furry trash and an otaku
one of the reasons I loved the internet to be honest and the rabbit holes it use to get me on
Some people sadly also left a very bad negative traumatizing effect on me as well from those days too such as me being groomed in my teen years and emotionally mainlapted by someone and one incident 2 years ago especially really fucked me up and made my heart sink that I had to cut a close former friend off for hiding and lying about certain things
and as much as that shit fucked me up even to this day I still have bad negative effects
for whatever reason it never changed my love for Sonic or made me hate him or its fandom despite how I knew since day 1 how chaotic and fucked the fandom was
if anything it still gave me comfort in a way
can't say the same about Splatoon sadly... or the sfm gmod side of things....
Which is a shame cause I loved splatoon's lore and gameplay and characters a lot and yet for whatever reason I still prefer sonic over that...
but anyways
Don't be like me and let shit like that ruin a fandom or people for ya
as a fellow sonic fan since 2007
the Sonic fandom has always been chaotic, problematic and filled with dumb discourse and crazy shit
the best thing is stick with your niches and your close homies and yeet out the bad folks and if that doesn't work well hopefully find other things that still give you joy and love or focus on the little stuff you still enjoyed about Sonic, Splatoon, Pokémon, MLP or whatever other fandom or media
Over the years I have seen the sonic fandom and sonic as a whole through hell and back especially during the sonic boom/sonic forces era
GOD THAT WAS AWFUL
but seeing how Sonic is slowly coming back to the light and never giving up and still as popular as ever if not bigger then ever especially because of his movies
just makes me so happy and filled with so much joy
even to this day I am meeting new amazing people mainly on vr chat from sonic worlds EVEN PEOPLE FROM MY OWN STATE AND CITY
No matter how much pain or hurt or hell I went through because of Sonic
I also can't bring myself to hate him or his games and the positive impact he made for me and the amazing people I met and I consider big important parts of my life because of him
heck even now I'm now on the Sonic.EXE Rabbit hole thanks to Tazz
which is something I will save for a separate blog when I'm in the mood so stay tuned for that when I feel like it
If Sonic can keep on going and moving forward
then so can I
its almost been 20 years since Sonic changed my life forever and I will forever be grateful and loving this precious speedy hedgehog
(Nicola The Koala my furry/sonicsona Art by Bracardi Curry aka @DreddStarin on twitter
Who also does art for the IDW Sonic The Hedgehog comics)
and heres to many many more years of fast speed
fun characters
and amazing art and music and people from the community both online and irl
and I cannot wait for the upcoming panel at PAX AUS this year!!!
To end this blog
I'm gonna say a few of my all time fave Sonic games and my fave sonic related stuff
Sonic Heroes of course despite its flaws I still have a soft spot for the game
Shadow The Hedgehog
Sonic Riders and Zero Gravity
Sonic Adventure 2 Battle one of the best 3D sonic games of all time in my opinion
Sonic Adventure (though if you are playing adventure DX use mods)
Project 06 (The better version of Sonic 06)
Sonic The Secret Rings (and recently project ignition) and Black Knight
Sonic Colors
Sonic x Shadow Generations
Sonic Frontiers
Sonic Gems Collection (Games such as Sonic The Fighters, Sonic R and Sonic CD and Tails Adventure and a classic sega game I wish got more love Vectorman)
Sonic Mega Collection Plus (Games such as the classic sonic games even though I suck at them as well as Comix Zone)
Sonic Mania granted I suck at the classic sonic games I am adding it anyway
Sonic Rush
Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games many many fun memories with those games
Sonic Racing Crossworlds
Sonic Unleashed although I more suggest the recompiled version
Sonic X (in Japanese mainly it was thanks to this I learnt how much better a lot of anime and stuff was in Japanese actually!! blew my mind as a kid how better the Japanese version of Sonic X was compared to the 4kids dub)
Thats all for now
later my dudes!!~
Nothing starts until you take action
If you have time to worry
Then run!~
