(also sorry for the late reply, some russian asshole kidnapped me thursday night and attempted to ship me to a gulag by truck, and I broke my leg escaping)
Style Wild as a Ted Kaczynski style anarchist. He did grow up in the forest and no doubt would have some issues integrating to modern society (except CWCville).
I love this idea, because yeah, I could easily see Wild becoming some sort of hardcore eco-terrorist or something. Hell, you don't even have to go that far. Just have him rely on instinct and his bestial nature. Sort of like a more feral version of Wolverine or something. He's more willing to kill and use violence than the other members of the Chaotic Combo because he thinks in terms of "fight or flight." Nature red in tooth and claw and all that.
For characters to be interesting, they need flaws and personality, something Chris' stable of recolors is sadly lacking. Just off the top of my head, without going too grimdark about it:
Exactly. Gritty reboots can be fun (and honestly I already have some crude ideas as to how that could be applied to Sonichu) but what is more important is having character flaws and weaknesses. Of course, extending this a little further, Chris doesn't really put his characters into much danger or conflict. There's no motivations. There's no long term goals. Characters pop in and out with little development or even relationship to existing characters, all of the heroes just get along, and the villains hate Chris for the sake of hating him. Oddly enough, there aren't any villains who are even all that interested in the supporting cast. Wild or Punchy don't have antagonists, for example. Just Chris (and Sonichu, who is pretty much just an extension of Chris anyway).
I'd like to see Magi-Chan as a con artist in way over his head. His father was a petty crook who caught a break when Sonic the Hedgehog became popular started to make a living working as a cheap, unofficial Sonic impersonator, doing childrens' parties and store appearances etc. A lawsuit from the original Sonic put an end to this, and Magi-Chan's father quickly drank himself to death.
Magi-Chan drifted around for a while, until the appearance of the Chaotic Combo gave him his opportunity. Inventing a backstory involving psychic powers and being raised by Mewtwo, Magi-Chan worked his way into Mayor Chandler's confidence using nothing more than basic sleight of hand and simple cold reading. While Magi-Chan is clearly far brighter than the Mayor and the rest of the Chaotic Combo, he possesses none of their elemental or telekinetic powers - in a straight fight he'd stand no chance.
As the story progresses, we'd see exactly how far Magi-Chan will go to protect his secret. Finding himself with the resources of CWCville at his disposal, will he use this opportunity to take revenge upon Sonic the Hedgehog, or will he concentrate on doing what he can to mitigate the effects of the Mayor's bad leadership on the city? Will he act on the obvious tension between himself and Rosechu? What will he do when confronted with Silvana, an enemy who seemingly possesses actual psychic abilities?
How about the "cherokians" are really Shawnee. More specifically, they're undead followers of Tenskwatawa, and the whole "giving an autistic man child superpowers" anchunt prophesy is really a revenge plot against the American government for it's treatment of natives. Chris thinks they're Cherokee because he's Chris.
Of course, then you come dangerously close to the "evil savage injun" villain, so you'd have to be pretty skilled to make it not seem blatantly offensive.
Well, I wouldn't go so far. Hell, I can sympathize with Tenskwatawa's pan-Indian idea. Besides, there are tenuous links to the Cherokee there. Tenskwatawa's mother may have been a Cherokee, and Tecumseh definitely fought alongside the Chickamagua Cherokee in 1789. Also, the Cherokee were influenced by Tenskwatawa's Prophecy enough to give rise to the Cherokee Ghost Dance, which was documented by James Mooney. Tsali, the Cherokee Prophet, was actually a pretty interesting character.
Personally, I'd probably work off a corruption of the Nephites from Mormon mythology, or even some mysterious, pulp type civilization (Atlanteans! Lemurians! Ascended Masters! Deros!). Even their pseudo-Hellenistic/Bronze Age armor and inexplicable blond eyes and Euro-American appearance fits with that. Haha... come to think of it, the Deros might be the best bet. They are malicious and intent on corrupting human civilization after all. What better way to do it than by "inspiring" Chris.
Those are things of beauty! They really deserve to be in a museum. I mean, you've pretty much pulled aside any sense of illusion and revealed the horrific nature that lies beneath Sonichu and company. Great job, once again. Can't praise those enough.
Sonichu- Has delusions of grandeur and wants to "be the very best", to harken back to Chris's love of Pokemon. However, he doesn't have the discipline to develop his powers very deeply because he wants everything to be quick and easy. His character arc involves learning the value of honest to god effort.
Rosechu- More powerful than Sonichu (due to her being essentially a raichu) because she takes her time with the things that she does, yet still feels unfulfilled in her life and relationships. Her major character flaw is unfaithfulness, and is having an affair with Magi-Chan because she considers him more mature, yet refuses to leave Sonichu out of the fear of hurting his feelings. (Christine had to come from somewhere!)
Blake- Has a lot of issues dealing with being "artificial", and hates Sonichu for having the advantage of being "real" and wasting it. His character arc involves overcoming his negative attitude toward himself and turning toward more healthy pursuits. Science, perhaps?
Wild- Aimless drifter. He claims he never really found his proper place in life, but he's more of a lazy bum. Has a phobia of failure, so he never does anything to avoid failure. Plays acoustic guitar like a hipster.
Bubbles- Rough peppy tomboy type, very headstrong. It sometimes leads her to make poor decisions because she thinks much more with her heart than her head. Her hobby is kickboxing, but she tends to change obsessions often.
Angelica- A very cold high church type. Stays out of the affairs of the common people because she sees everything they do as being coloured by sin, and therefore wants to stay in a sterile church environment so she won't have to be around things that are "unclean". (Think Aron's attitude from East of Eden) She has a whole host of mental issues from being raised in a strict Catholic convent. Struggles severely with homosexual feelings.
Punchy- He wants so badly to be a proud and graceful warrior, but he has too strong of a temper to truly fit the mold. Some sort of degenerative bone disease could add some serious internal conflict by promising to end his dream forever sooner or later.
Magi-Chan- Embittered by his ability to read minds, he's practically incapable of seeing the good in people. Wouldn't you feel the same if you constantly were able to see everyone's worst thoughts? He legitimately believes the best thing for man/chukind would be complete extinction. He later becomes a major villain.
Even borrowing heavily from common anime tropes I can write them better than Chris. And this is just ten minutes consideration while I'm writing this post.
The best I can think of off the top of my head is that Magi-Chan could be a commentary on government surveillance and moral corruption. I guess I think that would be interesting but I don't know about anyone else.
I feel that Magi-chan would be compulsively honest about things. After all, he grew up with a constant psychic link to his mentor, and being brought up like that he would never have encountered the concept of deception until he was out in the world as an adult. It would probably seem completely alien to him, who can see through deception at will.
I feel that Magi-chan would be compulsively honest about things. After all, he grew up with a constant psychic link to his mentor, and being brought up like that he would never have encountered the concept of deception until he was out in the world as an adult. It would probably seem completely alien to him, who can see through deception at will.
I'd love to see a compulsively honest Magi-Chan turn into a Cassandra figure as Chris and the Combo quickly start tuning him out in favour of comfortable delusions...
I'd love to see a compulsively honest Magi-Chan turn into a Cassandra figure as Chris and the Combo quickly start tuning him out in favour of comfortable delusions...
"Mayor Chandler, your new Lego Tax is bankrupting the city! There are riots in the streets! This is your worst mayoral policy ever, and if you don't repeal it soon, the city will destroy itself from the inside with the public unrest! Mary Lee Walsh will have won without lifting a finger!"
"No no Magi-Chan, Rose-i-chu tells me everything is fine, don't worry so much you dodo brain!"
As Rosechu looks on with her constant, fixed smile, the fires in CWCville continue to happily burn...
I feel that Magi-chan would be compulsively honest about things. After all, he grew up with a constant psychic link to his mentor, and being brought up like that he would never have encountered the concept of deception until he was out in the world as an adult. It would probably seem completely alien to him, who can see through deception at will.
I think this illustrates the blank-canvas appeal of Chris' work. In the course of a few posts, you and I have come up with two complete opposite possible Magi-Chans: one defined by trickery and deceit, the other incapable of dishonesty. Yet there is very little in the Sonichu canonical works which would suggest either possibility were more valid - all we learn is that Magi does a bunch of stuff; we have no indication why.
Sonichu almost demands fan fiction, as almost everything happens for no reason, and most people are not good at accepting this.
I think that pretty much sums up Sonichu's strange appeal perfectly. It speaks to the warped, twisted part of my mind that wants to try and explain what motivates these seemingly insane characters who have little to no driving motivation behind their (sometimes rather horrific) actions.
The part of me that is, even now, trying to write a CWCville setting for a psychological horror tabletop RPG.
Chris' bare bones characters and almost surreal setting are perfect for this sort of thing because you can interpret them in so many different ways.
I think that pretty much sums up Sonichu's strange appeal perfectly. It speaks to the warped, twisted part of my mind that wants to try and explain what motivates these seemingly insane characters who have little to no driving motivation behind their (sometimes rather horrific) actions.
The part of me that is, even now, trying to write a CWCville setting for a psychological horror tabletop RPG.
Chris' bare bones characters and almost surreal setting are perfect for this sort of thing because you can interpret them in so many different ways.
There's "Don't Zap to the Extreme", an adaptation of Dont Rest Your Head featuring our favourite recolours in the Mad City of CWCville with the protagonists as citizens who have broken out of their Magi-Chan induced daze to see just how terrible the place truly is, with exposure to Magi-Chans powers giving them latent abilities that allow them to casually break reality at the cost of their sanity.
I'm also doing the slightly less developed and slightly less horrifying "CWCling: The Lolst", an adaption of White Wolf's "Changeling: The Lost". I envision Chris as one of the True Fae, searching for his sweetheart.
There's "Don't Zap to the Extreme", an adaptation of Dont Rest Your Head featuring our favourite recolours in the Mad City of CWCville with the protagonists as citizens who have broken out of their Magi-Chan induced daze to see just how terrible the place truly is, with exposure to Magi-Chans powers giving them latent abilities that allow them to casually break reality at the cost of their sanity.
I'm also doing the slightly less developed and slightly less horrifying "CWCling: The Lolst", an adaption of White Wolf's "Changeling: The Lost". I envision Chris as one of the True Fae, searching for his sweetheart.
There's "Don't Zap to the Extreme", an adaptation of Dont Rest Your Head featuring our favourite recolours in the Mad City of CWCville with the protagonists as citizens who have broken out of their Magi-Chan induced daze to see just how terrible the place truly is, with exposure to Magi-Chans powers giving them latent abilities that allow them to casually break reality at the cost of their sanity.
I'm also doing the slightly less developed and slightly less horrifying "CWCling: The Lolst", an adaption of White Wolf's "Changeling: The Lost". I envision Chris as one of the True Fae, searching for his sweetheart.
I think that pretty much sums up Sonichu's strange appeal perfectly. It speaks to the warped, twisted part of my mind that wants to try and explain what motivates these seemingly insane characters who have little to no driving motivation behind their (sometimes rather horrific) actions.
The part of me that is, even now, trying to write a CWCville setting for a psychological horror tabletop RPG.
Chris' bare bones characters and almost surreal setting are perfect for this sort of thing because you can interpret them in so many different ways.
I'm also doing the slightly less developed and slightly less horrifying "CWCling: The Lolst", an adaption of White Wolf's "Changeling: The Lost". I envision Chris as one of the True Fae, searching for his sweetheart.
What if Sonichu had been written by Crystal, Chris's hot, but still autistic and Chris-like female twin. Would the lovequest be about finding a cute boy? Would Rosechu be a stupid and vapid muscle head? Would Reldnahc Notsew Latsyrc be a lesbian?
That... That actually kind of sounds interesting.
Speaking of tabletop games, I've been meaning to use a Mary Lee Walsh inspired villain for a game. I'm tilting between using her as Merrily Wish, an idealistic magical girl turned cynical megacorporation CEO who uses a combination of arcane skills and brutal military tactics to obtain resources and destroy her opposition, or as "Slough-Eel" Iram, a heart-stealing boogeyman who uses black magic to isolate and destroy her victims
I've also been wanting to give out a magical boomerang called the Bent Duck. But none of my players would be willing to pick that one up.
[/spoiler="punchy"]
