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Sonic Fan J

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Sonic Fan J last won the day on January 14

Sonic Fan J had the most liked content!

About Sonic Fan J

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    That wannabe author
  • Birthday 08/19/1985

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  1. And today's update on my story blog @ http://www.sa-b-ers.com is scheduled to go live at noon PST.

    It ended up being a shorter one today but since my goal is at least 1000 words a day and it's still over 1200 it's all good.

    To those of you who check it out I hope you enjoy (^_^)

  2. First of all please provide me with where you got that number from since I know that Sonic Dash has well over 100 million downloads, possibly 300 million if I heard Arron Webber right during the SXSW stream, and if you rolled that down to 5 downloads a person you'd still have 20 million people familiar with Sonic which if you put a ten dollar ticket in each of their hands that's 200 million dollars which is more than double the film's cost. So no, fans can make up a rather a huge number, especially if the second number were accurate and we were to go with my guestimate as you'd have 60 million people familiar with a single identity of Sonic and that would be 600 million dollars if you sold each of them a ticket. So again please show me where you got four percent from. As for your comparison to the Avengers, I find it more than a little daft. Yes, the films needed to have certain changes made to fit both the live action setting where lighting is not a free thing like in comics and stories had to be told a certain way to maximize the audience, but the Marvel characters are hugely popular on a global scale and were in fact banking on their names after Iron Man proved to be successful. Sure they weren't the heavy hitters like the X-Men and Spider-man, but comic book movies were already proven to be able to work thanks to the Raimi Spider-man films no less multiple successful Batman films dating back to the 60s with Adam West who practically single handedly saved the Batman franchise at that time as well as numerous other movies over the years. RED, the Del Toro Helboy, Blade, etc. Then there is also the fact that most of these movies even for there changes still embraced the core essence of what they were adapting. So no, I didn't expect 1 to 1, but I still hoped for Sonic to be more recognizable than in name alone and the most basic description of his appearance. I expected a fun loving, globetrotting daredevil who helped those in need that he met while looking for his next adventure which typically involved seeking out ancient legends and encountering Eggman who desired to exploit them. Or you know, something like Indiana Jones but with a daredevil instead of an archeologist. I did not expect Sonic the sentient raccoon who needs to bond with Tom the cop. And please try not to fall back on the origin story explanation because if you are telling an origin story then you don't need Tom. Tom's job is the audience surrogate, the one who bridges the audience between reality and the absurdity of what Sonic is. If you were going to tell an origin story then frankly you wouldn't need Tom as Eggman would be enough since by the Japanese Manual it was Eggman who first engaged Sonic and declared him his nemesis. then considering he is human and an established franchise character he himself serves as the bridge to introduce Sonic and his crazy world to the audience, no small town cop needed. All you'd have to do to make it work is play on Eggman's more human traits early on before twisting the story so that way the audience wants to see Sonic stop him. So while I agree with you that changes were bound to happen, I disagree that the changes we were given were the ones that best translated the Sonic IP. Mostly I feel this way because if I have to compare Sonic to Hollywood franchises than the one I find he matches the best is Indiana Jones with the exception of him being a daredevil instead of an archeologist. And as I've also said before, if you still need an audience surrogate in that kind of story than use a paramilitary organization that is trying to stop Eggman and your audience surrogate gets involved with Sonic due to whatever circumstances you can think of and they help each other out in accomplishing their goals. In my opinion that even actually results in an easier to swallow pill that a regular human can help out someone who can run at the speed of sound and tear through solid metal by curling into a ball. Honestly, I still don't know why Sonic needs Tom's help. He's, according to the leaks, rather successful living the life of a raccoon which also means he has no problem rifling through other people's stuff to get what he needs. So can someone tell me what's stopping him from just using his speed to run to San Fran in about two to three hours, blasting through a wall or two, grabbing his rings and warping out. It's not even like he doesn't have a grasp of his abilities and needs help like in Shazam since the CinemaCon reel implies when Tom first encounters him he's casually running at 700+ mph. It's bad enough that to date this film barely sounds like it resembles the source property in general, but the film itself doesn't make a lick of sense to me from what has been revealed on top of that. Sorry for the rant there, but hearing that asking why use Sonic if you aren't going to do Sonic is the same as asking why use the Avengers if you're going to update their costumes and tell different versions of established stories just seriously riled me up.
  3. Alrighty then, I've got today's update for my story blog (www.sa-b-ers.com) scheduled again for noon PST so we'll see if it works this time. I'll be keeping an eye on it though just in case so if you decide to check it out and it's not up please be a little patient while I get working.

  4. Sonic Fan J

    IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog

    I was just thinking, switching companion characters for Sonic per issue has usually been written with the most mundane of handwaves, but for going from issue 15 to 16 it actually is a lot more reasonable. After all, Sonic is infected with something he has no clue what it is so he can't carry Amy out of the base while he rushes for Tails for some desperately needed knowhow. It's not just a narrative handwave/convenience , but something that makes logical sense on it's own.
  5. I feel like I've run out of things to talk about and am falling back on self depreciation as it's an easy thing to talk about. There has to be better things to talk about...

    1. DanJ86


      You don't have to talk about Sonic here.

      Other games, television, books, the future, the past. Plenty of other stuff.

    2. Sonic Fan J

      Sonic Fan J

      That's true, though I've of late found my interest in almost anything non-Sonic related dwindling and I have little faith for the future to be honest. Then I'm trying to avoid talking about Avengers: End Game until after I've seen it so that isn't helping matters much either.

  6. I wonder which of my unpopular opinions is the most unpopular.


    My dislike of Amy's hammer.

    Me being fine and even enjoying Sonic being a larger than life idol to the younger characters, especially Amy and Tails.

    My general preference for everyone pretty much playing the same with only minor differences at best beyond characterization animations.


    Or maybe it's just how I express my unpopular opinions that rubs everyone the wrong way.

    1. JosepHenry


      I think you exagerate in how these opinions rub people in the wrong way, in fact, I see more you talking about these opinions like they are the most "controversial" things ever and I'm like... Sure. lol

    2. Sonic Fan J

      Sonic Fan J

      Maybe I am exaggerating it, but when I've had people passive aggressively insult me for having these opinions or outright accuse me of having some undefined agenda and not just having an opinion I do find it easy to fall into that trap.

      Now that said I can accept being considered more than unnecessarily hyperbolic about how people react to my opinions. It's something I could do to work on to be sure especially since my opinions are not the most controversial things ever. Mostly I think I just let myself get too frustrated by feeling like people are trying to put me in my place instead of actually seeing a discussion born from my opinions.

      At this point though I could probably call myself out as the pot calling the kettle black especially with some of my posts in the Sonic movie thread. Even in light of all of that though I still wonder which of my unpopular opinions is the most unpopular. I'll probably never get an answer either, but just thinking about can be insightful on its own so no harm there at least.

  7. One of the strangest defenses I've seen of things that have received negative reception has to be the whole routine of showing other people's optimism. It's a strange gesture to me and feels like it tries to appeal to a hivemind mentality. That is if everyone sees someone being positive they'll naturally be positive as well.

    It's a nice thought but it undermines individuality as well as personal opinion. For example, I find the Sonic movie to be a faithless, insincere, and devotion-less adaption of my all-time favorite IP. Yet instead of addressing those concerns I'm told that the people working on the movie are renowned, know what they are doing, that the IP can't sell anyways, it has to be changed to sell, it's not for me anyway, and of course look how enthusiastic everyone involved is. It's a string of hivemind fluff that relies on me deciding to follow the crowd instead of thinking for myself and at no point ever addresses my concerns. I mean, don't get me wrong, I think positivity is a good thing, but you can't sweep all negativity under the rug with blanket hivemind persistence. This is especially true if the negativity is a concern that should be addressed and considered. Even more so when telling people to be positive starts to come across as spite of differing opinions.

    Of course it goes both ways and I've seen those being negative being ruthlessly aggressive to those being positive as well. But whichever way the defense and prosecution swing, you can't approach someone's opinion by presenting someone else's. It's disrespectful and undermines the speaker's individuality. If you want to engage in discourse with someone over their opinion you should begin by gaining as much of an understanding of their viewpoint as you can and then speaking to the points that make up their opinion. Obviously though no one is perfect so pulling it off takes a lot of effort and awareness of your actions, but doing the right thing is usually not the easy thing.

  8. Sometimes I wonder about my interactions here at SSMB.

    I've kind of stopped sharing my opinions on certain subjects such as disliking Amy's hammer or that I prefer to see Sonic as a larger than life children's storybook hero that everyone looks up to (bar his enemies obviously) since they seem to do little more than rile people up.

    I've barely talked about the IDW comics in recent months and with the current delays there isn't really anything to talk about right now either. 

    I've little interest in TSR so I haven't engaged in those topics.

    I've given up on the movie thread at this time since that thread is going in circles at the moment.

    I don't really engage in any of the other topics here from games to everything else under the sun that isn't Sonic.

    As of late it feels like I've just been popping in and treating the boards as a news and rumor site only logging in to offer a good morning to a few users and receive notifications in real time on threads that I'm following.

    About the only difference of late is this week I've been promoting my new story blog

    (Shameless plug ahead)


    http://www.sa-b-ers.com with today's update going live, hopefully, at noon PST. 

    and I definitely don't want to overly spam that. It's not that I don't want readers and to let those who are interested know when updates land,


    Aiming for noon PST M-F for as long as I can manage it.

    but SSMB isn't my personal ad site and don't want to abuse it or my relationship with it. That kind of leaves me in a pickle right now as well, especially with me trying to focus on writing for my blog (being a slow typer and aiming for a thousand words a day when writing without a detailed roadmap is rather challenging).

    I'm sure I'm over worrying about things as always, but conversely I also can't help but ponder if I'm even being a good contributor of late. What opinions I do share seem controversial enough that most interactions end with being shot down in one way or another, and then my lack of interest in most of the currently hot topics means I end up not really saying anything. It particularly bothers me as well as talking about Sonic typically fills me with joy (even if there are nothing but complaints spilling out of me) and not being able to discuss anything whether by my outlook being to foreign or due to my lack of interest is just eating me up. That feeling probably has me convinced that things are a lot worse than they actually are, but sometimes it's hard to see things in a better light.

    Anyway, enough rambling from me for now. I'll just keep hoping that something I am interested in will gain some conversation traction and that I'll have something to contribute that doesn't make everyone look at me like I'm crazy.

    1. tailsBOOM!


      We don't think you're crazy J!  We all care about you and think you're great!

    2. Sonic Fan J

      Sonic Fan J

      Appreciate it tailsBOOM!

  9. To any who are interested, today's update for my story blog will be going live today @ 12pm PST (or in about 25 minutes).

    Please feel free to check it out @ http://www.sa-b-ers.com.

  10. So I'm at it again.

    I'm taking the dive.

    I'm challenging my self doubt and low expectations.

    Here I go from the beginning again.

    Please wish me luck.

    I'll need it surely.

    As of right now my latest story blog is up.

    Check it out at www.sa-b-ers.com.

    I'd appreciate any feedback you have and hope you enjoy all the same, ironically or earnestly.

    1. Failinhearts


      Congratulations on taking that leap of faith in yourself, buddy! Trust me, you'll do just fine. So keep at it, as this is a great start!

      Just believe in yourself!

  11. I've never really seen sports talk here all that much (no surprise really) but I just want to take a quick moment to talk sports.

    I remember over a decade ago thinking I was going to watch a bit of sports history unfold over the next few months and that excited me to no end. I love watching sports history happen before my eyes as it is just simply amazing. The Red Sox winning the World Series for the first time since before even my parents were born, Tom Brady (much as I've grown tired of him myself now) surpassing his childhood hero and achieving one Super Bowl win more than Joe Montana, and many more minor details here and there throughout the years. But what I, like a lot of others had, thought was a foregone conclusion was derailed by a trend amongst celebrities that destroyed their life that was soon followed by crippling injuries that all but effectively killed their career. To me, that was the end of it and it seemed unlikely that I would see history unfold there.

    Fast forward to yesterday though and general apathy on my part and it hadn't even crossed my mind. I had a bit of knowledge about what was going on but years of disappointment and accrued apathy in general allowed me to put it from my mind without even an effort. As a result I was out with my mom who wanted some company while she went shoe shopping. I didn't mind as I enjoy road trips and it was more than enough of a road trip just to get to a shoe store that had her shoe size. We were shooting the breeze so to say and then got a call from my sister who was letting us know what was going on with her as she was on the verge of yet another medical emergency and that took my mind further from sports than ever. Fortunately it seemed to calm down on it's own and she is fine again which is a major relief and made what I discovered when my mom gave me her phone to call my sister back all the more amazing. My older brother had texted my mom during our drive and his message was four simple words that blew my mind;

    Tiger won the Masters.

    Disbelief was the single all encompassing feeling that washed over me. I was so thrown off by those four simple words which had seemed all but impossible. Yet I knew it could have been true. After all, I had just heard the day before that he was in second place going into Sunday, though Tiger never winning without the 54 hole lead still made it seem improbable. Seeing those four words told me I was wrong and I just couldn't think straight. I didn't want to believe it, I couldn't believe it even as it seemed too early in the day and I was unaware of the early tee times due to the weather on the east coast. Even when my mom let me use her phone to double check and I scrolled past headline after headline telling me I just couldn't believe it. It was too unreal and surreal. Then I had a blood glucose low and forgot all about it until later that night when I had a chance to get online.

    It was CBS Sports highlights through the Bing homepage that was my first introduction to seeing what I had watched happen so many times in my teenage years. The massive crowds which only Tiger drew, the cheers with every putt he sunk, the fist pump on the 18th as he won it all followed by a triumphant shout with his arms thrown into the air in jubilation. Tiger Woods had once again won the Masters and was again on a slow crawl to setting history. Two more tournament wins and he will set the all time tournament victory record, surpassing Sam Sneed at 82, and what had been four more major wins to surpass Jack Nicklaus, the Golden Bear, was after a decade down to four.

    But as exciting as all of that was and the raw emotion that came out of it it was what came next. The highlights didn't go to a press conference, it didn't go to the Jacket Ceremony, it went to Tiger embracing his kids and his mom. In that moment, a man who had so messed up his life and had thrown away everything had found his way back to what was important and his victory seemed a reward for it. And I wasn't the only one who saw it, his peers and fellow champions, his caddy, the press that followed him for years becoming his biggest detractors while constantly asking if he would ever be back. And sure enough for at least Sunday he was, but more importantly, he found his way back to what was important and reminded everyone who was inspired by him why they were. And for me, in the first time in a very long time I shed tears of joy for another human being. He found his way back and it was cathartic.

    Even now just typing this I find myself choking up as Tiger was a huge part of my teenage years and having seen his fall first hand professionally and in his personal life it was a destructive disappointment in human beings in my early adult years. It was a sure sign that even the people who always seemed to have their head the most properly on their shoulders were sure to give in to temptation and prove that mankind wasn't worth caring for. It was an avenue for me to stop believing in people and grow more apathetic and increasingly nihilistic. I generally stopped trusting people or even giving them a chance and just approached everyone with proper courtesy and professionalism keeping my distance and not risking getting myself hurt. If not for Sonic and online forums I probably never would have opened back up again either as no one in my immediate life shares the same interests that I do to a degree that makes it worth opening up and yet know I don't know how to feel.

    I've never watched a fall from grace that has ended in a return to what is important. Ego and hubris has always been the defining traits of a fall from grace further destroying those who once had everything. As early as two years ago when Tiger made the news for a DUI arrest it seemed just as likely, and yet yesterday everything was different. Once again Tiger was where he had been with victory in hand and his family in his heartfelt embrace. He had come full circle and it leaves me at a loss for words. And yet I know that once again he has proven himself to be an inspiring man that through sport can change the lives of those around him, and himself, for the better.

    I love sports and Tiger is one of the reasons why, and yesterday he reminded again why that is.

  12. Sonic Fan J

    [Fanfiction] War of the Multiverse: Return of the Nexus Force

    So, what I really like about this chapter is how you establish the mystery and allow the audience to really sympathize with the confusion and disbelief of the protagonists. As a result you create a sense of curiosity about what comes next, or a desire to see it. Now for weaknesses in this particular chapter I would say that it's a bit harder to pinpoint as I need to grow more used to your style of prose before I get into detail. That said, you introduced seven characters but I found a rough physical description detached from their names and any blanket descriptors of their characters left them feeling more like an info dump than characters. I probably would have felt more attached to them if you had gave an idea as to how each of them stepped out from behind the trees to join Andrew as well as mentioning any minor actions while conversing with the Mythran. Without those little details to latch onto I feel I'll have to reference this chapter when they are all brought back in subsequent chapters to remind myself of who is who. Anyway, though my critiques bring with it the longer bit of text I am genuinely curious to see how these seven are pulled into the conflict and how their already hinted at to be troubled lives are overturned by the arrival of the Maelstrom.
  13. Sonic Fan J

    IDW's Sonic the Hedgehog

    You know @DabigRG reading your detailed analysis of Whisper (good read by the way) got me thinking of my own little theory.
  14. Of course the idea to raising brand awareness is to get people into the franchise so while the third option is just as likely as the other two, it is an acute failure of creating interest in the series which just like changing everything defeats the purpose of the movie being a tool to raise brand awareness. Be that as it may though, you are right that it will happen regardless and that means that it is most likely that most people who watch this movie who are not already Game Sonic fans will still not be Game Sonic fans after watching it regardless of their opinion of the movie. In that regard the movie is already a failure. Of course it also doesn't help that as you also said that anyone who has been made legitimately interested already and once the advertising ramps up will do their research and decide which Sonic they want if either/any. At that point brand awareness could actually hurt the movie among some customers just due to the dissonance between the bulk of the franchise and the movie. It looks like a case of confusion in what they are trying to accomplish and that isn't actually good for selling the movie. To me right now, the best thing the movie can do for itself is to actually distance itself as much as possible from the main bulk of the franchise once it ramps up it's advertising later on. Of course that also raises the question of why make a Sonic movie if you have to distance yourself from Sonic to be successful? This circular mess is kind of why I find myself so impatient to get to the main marketing phase for this movie as regardless of it not sounding like the type of Sonic film I want it will finally give me a clearer look into what currently looks like a mess and might actually bring some logic to it. Of course by that same note it could also just make things that much more muddled.
  15. I agree, and with the movie not resembling or promoting the games in anyway its existence and purpose are questionable to me. I'm really curious what the goal is beyond banking unfaithfully on an existing IP in the hopes of making a quick buck which itself doesn't make sense with Sonic being out of the public eye in a favorable light to begin with right now. The dissonance I refer to is between what movie fans want more of and what the franchise actually is. For fans of the movie who will have that as their first introduction to Sonic anything they seek from it in the main aspects of the franchise will be absent, most especially for those who buy into Sonic's relationship with Tom. As the movie uses so many original elements that are not in the rest of the franchise and/or serve radically different purposes what those brought into the franchise by the movie expect out of the franchise will be either absent or radically different. Now that doesn't mean they won't like what they find, but that dissonance will exist and will affect how they interact with the franchise be it for good or bad.

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