When a handful of Westboro Baptist Church members showed up Saturday at the funeral of Orlando shooting victim Christopher Leinonen, counterprotesters donning large, white angel wings were there to shield mourners. Members of the Orlando Shakespeare Theater put together the wings as a symbolic but also literal screen between the WBC and funeral attendees. An Orlando Police tweet later proved the efforts to stop the WBC worked.
Okay, but Iâm actually crying tears of frustration, because the article doesnât even mention the history behind this act.
Thereâs a reason this was undertaken by a theatre company. It means they knew The Laramie Project. It means they knew that the idea for the angel wings came from their use to block the WBC at the funeral of Matthew Shepard, a gay college student who was murdered in Wyoming in 1998.
The original âAngel Actionâ was a counterprotest organized by LGBTQ activist Romaine Patterson, who had been a friend of Shepardâs in high school. This is part of our history. Weâve been shielding our loved ones from hate groups while we bury our dead for decades â and that deserves acknowledgement.
@monpian (IDK why I canât tag you) has just informed me that Sonic the Hedgehog is literally canonically an alien and the games refuse to explain that
SO
AT THE END OF SONIC 3
Yâall know this big mural, yeah? the prophecy predicting the end of it?
ok so buckle the fuckle in cuz this is about to get messy
BEFORE I GET STARTED, THOUGH, bear in mind that this is all based on the chronological release of the games. What Iâm tackling here only makes sense up to the SEGA split between Japan and the US, where the development of the series became less cohesive and started going in two different directions. In other words: a lot of this was retconned.
SO, JAPAN
Japan REALLY loves its DBZ. We all already know Super Sonic is basically a big Super Saiyan joke, right? 7 Dragon balls, 7 chaos emeralds, going blond and sparkly and superpowered? All on the same page? Ok, good, good
We also all know that the Echidna civilization is basically a parody of Atlantis, right? Okay? Knuckles is the last âAtlantean?â aight cool excellent SO
IN SONIC ADVENTURE TWO
we learn that Gerald Robotnik was trying to create the ultimate lifeform. now, you gentlepeople reading this are likely familiar with the English version of the game, which leaves a lot unexplained â what was the Biolizard, exactly, in relation to Shadow? Was the Biolizard really the ultimate life form? Was Shadow? If theyâre both attempts to create the same thing, why do they look so vastly different?
Why does Shadow look so much like Sonic?
We learn that Gerald Robotnik managed to create Shadow using a bit of alien DNA and splicing it into his creation. Shadow was the result. So⊠again, if heâs part alien, why does he look so much like Sonic?
Itâs implied that Gerald came across some strange things in his search for the secret to immortality. Because the Chaos Emeralds are, starting with Sonic 3 and continuing through the rest of the series from then on, not just a gimmick but an actual central plot element, we know that any lore to do with them is also central. It is, then, a reasonable inference that Gerald came across the ancient Echidna murals from Sonic 3 and Sonic Adventure, depicting grand battles with horrific beasts and, in the case of Sonic 3, a hero using the power of the emeralds to fight back.
There are two possibilities for the Sonic 3 mural: either itâs a prophecy, or itâs a historical record of a battle that happened long ago, in a âhistory is doomed to repeat itselfâ sense. Either way, this begs the question of âwhy did the echidnas know about Sonic? Why did they know he could turn super like that?â
Either Sonic himself was around back then, another of Sonicâs kind was around back then, or they simply made a prediction based on what they knew. However you take it, they had to have known of Sonic.
Now, letâs head back to the present again. Sonic is one-of-a-kind in this series â at this point, weâve met another hedgehog, but Amy isnât anything like Sonic. Sheâs got that hammer and boatloads of determination, but sheâs hardly superpowered. Sonic is the only character with a true inherent superpower: the power of speed. He also arguably achieves the most powerful super-form of all the characters, in that like the others, he is invincible, but his speed still far outmatches all the othersâ. He is also capable of achieving multiple super states, even at this early point in the series (Hyper Sonic).
Shadow is the only other character whoâs shown to rival Sonicâs specific skills⊠and he is only able to exist by way of having been created with alien DNA. Even then, however, Shadow is only able to perform Chaos Control with real Chaos Emeralds, as is reasonable. Sonic, however, can perform it even with a fake emerald â using the far lesser energy it contains. He doesnât even practice â it comes naturally to him.
See where Iâm going with this?
The only way to even get close to Sonicâs capabilities, as portrayed by the mural on Sonic 3⊠was to use alien DNA. These abilities were not naturally-occurring on Earth, at least to Geraldâs knowledge.
How did Gerald get that idea? Why, from the same place where he initially got the inspiration to make Shadow after the Biolizard experiment failed â the same place he got the idea to model Shadow after a hedgehog. The Sonic 3 Echidna mural â which, based on Geraldâs appearance, he might have mistaken to depict somebody of his visage giving the Chaos Emeralds to somebody of a hedgehogâs appearance. I mean, look at it. Without context, itâs an easy mistake to make.
In the Japanese version of SA2, Shadow specifically realizes, and vocalizes, that Sonic is, in fact, the true ultimate life form. This doesnât happen in the English version. The JP voice acting in the ending of the game also has Sonic realizing, musing to himself, about how Shadow was created to be the âultimate life formâ⊠in a way that pretty clearly shows heâs wondering what that means for him.
Now, look at all this again with the lens of understanding that, like a lot of Japanese media at the time, it was using the same kind of story tropes as DBZ. Super-advanced alien race comes to a planet, bestows its knowledge upon that planetâs people; those lucky people get to enjoy advanced alien knowledge and technology as a result. Eventually these people die out, leaving one guardian (often one who doesnât fully understand his own past) to protect their secrets.
Echidnas, with Knuckles as the sole heir, who doesnât even know enough to recognize his ancestorsâ savior/benefactor from the prophetic murals.
The sole member of the super-advanced alien race gets separated from his ancestors, possibly as the last of his kind. He grows up, unaware of what he really is, and makes friends with the local inhabitants.
Not Goku or Superman. Sonic.
Shadow doesnât look like Sonic in spite of the alien DNA spliced into him. He looks like Sonic BECAUSE of it.
Sonic is the creature Shadow was created to imitate. Shadow was specifically designed to imitate Sonic, and the only way to achieve this was to use alien DNA. Going backwards from here, this also means that the Chaos Emeralds, which seem to be conducive to Sonicâs natural talents, might not have originated from the echidnas â no, they might have originated from the being they engraved in their murals as some kind of protective deity. Knuckles hasnât just ben protecting the secrets of the echidnas all these years â heâs been protecting the secrets of Sonicâs origins.
And neither Sonic nor Knuckles realizes it. The only one to canonically realize whatâs going on is Shadow, who came to the conclusion that Sonic was, in fact, the ultimate life form.
And then Shadow died, and was intended to stay dead, until the USA branch of SEGA made him his own game.Â
Meaning he was meant to die with Sonicâs secret⊠and Sonic would never learn who and what he really is.
TD;DR: THE ANALOGY BETWEEN SONIC AND GOKU GOES A HELLUVA LOT DEEPER THAN JUST A ONE-OFF SUPER SAIYAN JOKE, MY DUDES. SONIC IS LITERALLY GOKU, SHADOW IS LITERALLY THIS STORYâS VERSION OF VEGETA, AND KNUCKLES IS FUCKING KRILLIN
Today I got to go on one of our runs to more rural shelters to help relieve overcrowding there. We ended up bringing back 21 kittens and 10 dogs. So fun day. But this morning, while I was getting stuff together in preparation for the 90 minute driveâŠ. This happened.
Excuse you Tiniest Opossum, but you are NOT allowed to escape through the front bars of the cat carrier we were housing you in. Iâm going to put you back.
âNO!â
I am going to catch you and put you back and you have no say in this matter.
âNO!â
Catching you and putting you back now.
âNOOOOOO!â
Aaaand back you go. Let go of the purple towel and go in the cardboard box.
The year is 2022. Youâre driving home from work, wifey calls & asks you to get some diapers for the baby. You grab roses for her. Lifeâs good. Sheâs crying in the closet you forgot the diapers whatâs she gonna do with roses idiot thereâs shit everywhere this is why your parents never loved y
The year is 1351. Youâre driving your ship home from work, wifey calls and sends you to the local store to get some rags as diapers for the baby. You grab a bouquet of flowers for her too. Lifeâs good. You both die from the plague
The year is 2020. Youâre driving home in your tractor after voting for Trump, the man of your people. Your sister calls and asks you to get some diapers for the baby you bought from the Walmart parking lot last week. You steal roses for her on your way out. Lifeâs good
The year is 2068. Youâre staring at the most beautiful stranger. She explains to you that sheâs your wife. You have dimentia. You smile and take her hand as your grandchildren jump around the room. Youâve lived a good life. Suddenly youâre staring at the most beautiful stranger
The year is 2018. Youâre scrolling through Tumblr and you see a post by none other than thebootydiaries. âGoalsâ, you think to yourself. Yes, this was it. What youâve been waiting for. Your entire life has led up to this. Your fingers shake as you type your comment. âGoals.â You hit reblog as youâre trembling, the chair squeaking ever so slightly. âI canât wait to forget diapers, and have dementia.â You sigh. âAnd buy a house, dogs, and cars. AndâŠandâŠâ goosebumps race through your entire body. âAnd get the plague.â