![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pengillyEvery time I see someone announce their "hot take" on Sonic 06, saying that they like Princess Elise for her "great potential", then go on to say that her romance/crush on Sonic is "questionable" and should be removed, I roll my eyes so hard.
LIKING ELEMENTS OF SONIC 06 FOR THEIR "POTENTIAL" IS NOT A HOT TAKE. Not even remotely so. I see a take along these lines about as often as I see outright hate for Elise; it's become a cold take by now.
Now, for my (actual?) hot take: I really don't think these fans like Elise that much. They often don't even bring up what gives her potential in the first place. Is it her emotional discipline keeping a god under lock-and-key for half her life? The power Iblis brings her in gameplay? Her stoicism, humility, and selflessness? Those traits are subtle, but still there. See, it's always about removing something, not expanding on the so-beloved traits that are already there.
Her feelings for Sonic being romantic in nature arguably further characterizes her as being relatively sheltered from things that could potentially bring her grief again. Not to mention that friendships can also be poorly written; changing the nature of their relationship won't change the issue that the dialogue gets stale at times (Sonic doesn't display much of his usual lighthearted/jokestery tone around her, feeling a bit excessively polite for my taste), and the constant abduction meant they didn't get to know each other that well before the Last Story.
But actually thinking of specific improvements that, unaddressed, could also potentially cause issues in a platonic interpretation as well is just too hard 😔 Much easier to parrot fandom groupthink, while labeling it as an "unpopular opinion" to appear bold.
I'm convinced most of these fans come from a place of wanting to remove the romance due to being upset that it threatens Sonic having feelings only for their special blorbo, or thinking it's bestiality because Sonic's "technically a hedgehog" (In the same sense that humans are "technically primates". Almost like having sapience in common is the real thing that matters in a cross-species relationship or something...)
The romance only lasts a single game. There's a whole cutscene where Sonic confirms that he'll leave Soleanna once he saves her. His feelings were just that, feelings. Sonic's crush wasn't a huge thing that was going to derail his free spirit, and the whole series. Not to mention the fact that the timeline is reset at the end.
Even if I can get some folks arguing Sonic shouldn't return any feelings (though I disagree), I will never agree with removing Elise's side of things. It's like trying to "fix" Amy by removing her crush on Sonic. Even if the execution was lackluster, it was an important part of both their arcs. And love makes them stronger, not weaker.
Now, have a gif for slogging through the sea of salt.
I would like for my journal to generally be about the things I like, rather than shadowboxing annoying/repetitive takes I see elsewhere. One of the reasons why I stopped frequenting the Sonelise tag on Tumblr was because it felt like I saw vents about fandom toxicity and counter-arguing awful takes I had never heard of before, than actual discussion or art on the pairing itself. (Which is those fans' right, of course. But shipping is escapism for me. Seeing constant reminders that the thing I liked was hated, even in a rare positive space, was bringing me far more stress than fun.)
But I genuinely feel better after getting all that out. Especially since on Mastodon, I deliberately avoided making any references to Elise's unpopularity in the fandom, or even posting opinions on her, or her main pairing that may be controversial to the point that people may debate me. Just art, fanfic recs, and the most bland, milquetoast headcanons no one could disagree with without looking like a fun-hating asshat. I think my logic back then was to "trick" casual Sonic fans into thinking it was just like any other ship? To avoid looking like I don't respect people's NoTPs due to counter-arguing a common fanon misconception? Ugh. I was so dumb...
That's part of why I've been spending so much time on Dreamwidth lately. Feeling like I haven't restricted myself to a certain style of posting. But when my tastes change again, and my style of posting gets different? Do I just move on to another site? That would suck, and probably be an overreaction. People probably don't get that annoyed about how others post anyway.
Well...I am going to cross-post an abbreviated version of this to Mastodon. Just to see how it goes.
Can't believe I was actually able to get all that out coherently. Hell, I could probably write a manifesto on this pairing...drop it in some Dreamwidth comm maybe only five people will see, then improve on it later...then post it to Ao3, and...profit?
LIKING ELEMENTS OF SONIC 06 FOR THEIR "POTENTIAL" IS NOT A HOT TAKE. Not even remotely so. I see a take along these lines about as often as I see outright hate for Elise; it's become a cold take by now.
Now, for my (actual?) hot take: I really don't think these fans like Elise that much. They often don't even bring up what gives her potential in the first place. Is it her emotional discipline keeping a god under lock-and-key for half her life? The power Iblis brings her in gameplay? Her stoicism, humility, and selflessness? Those traits are subtle, but still there. See, it's always about removing something, not expanding on the so-beloved traits that are already there.
Her feelings for Sonic being romantic in nature arguably further characterizes her as being relatively sheltered from things that could potentially bring her grief again. Not to mention that friendships can also be poorly written; changing the nature of their relationship won't change the issue that the dialogue gets stale at times (Sonic doesn't display much of his usual lighthearted/jokestery tone around her, feeling a bit excessively polite for my taste), and the constant abduction meant they didn't get to know each other that well before the Last Story.
But actually thinking of specific improvements that, unaddressed, could also potentially cause issues in a platonic interpretation as well is just too hard 😔 Much easier to parrot fandom groupthink, while labeling it as an "unpopular opinion" to appear bold.
I'm convinced most of these fans come from a place of wanting to remove the romance due to being upset that it threatens Sonic having feelings only for their special blorbo, or thinking it's bestiality because Sonic's "technically a hedgehog" (In the same sense that humans are "technically primates". Almost like having sapience in common is the real thing that matters in a cross-species relationship or something...)
The romance only lasts a single game. There's a whole cutscene where Sonic confirms that he'll leave Soleanna once he saves her. His feelings were just that, feelings. Sonic's crush wasn't a huge thing that was going to derail his free spirit, and the whole series. Not to mention the fact that the timeline is reset at the end.
Even if I can get some folks arguing Sonic shouldn't return any feelings (though I disagree), I will never agree with removing Elise's side of things. It's like trying to "fix" Amy by removing her crush on Sonic. Even if the execution was lackluster, it was an important part of both their arcs. And love makes them stronger, not weaker.
Now, have a gif for slogging through the sea of salt.
I would like for my journal to generally be about the things I like, rather than shadowboxing annoying/repetitive takes I see elsewhere. One of the reasons why I stopped frequenting the Sonelise tag on Tumblr was because it felt like I saw vents about fandom toxicity and counter-arguing awful takes I had never heard of before, than actual discussion or art on the pairing itself. (Which is those fans' right, of course. But shipping is escapism for me. Seeing constant reminders that the thing I liked was hated, even in a rare positive space, was bringing me far more stress than fun.)
But I genuinely feel better after getting all that out. Especially since on Mastodon, I deliberately avoided making any references to Elise's unpopularity in the fandom, or even posting opinions on her, or her main pairing that may be controversial to the point that people may debate me. Just art, fanfic recs, and the most bland, milquetoast headcanons no one could disagree with without looking like a fun-hating asshat. I think my logic back then was to "trick" casual Sonic fans into thinking it was just like any other ship? To avoid looking like I don't respect people's NoTPs due to counter-arguing a common fanon misconception? Ugh. I was so dumb...
That's part of why I've been spending so much time on Dreamwidth lately. Feeling like I haven't restricted myself to a certain style of posting. But when my tastes change again, and my style of posting gets different? Do I just move on to another site? That would suck, and probably be an overreaction. People probably don't get that annoyed about how others post anyway.
Well...I am going to cross-post an abbreviated version of this to Mastodon. Just to see how it goes.
Can't believe I was actually able to get all that out coherently. Hell, I could probably write a manifesto on this pairing...drop it in some Dreamwidth comm maybe only five people will see, then improve on it later...then post it to Ao3, and...profit?
no subject
Date: 2026-04-17 04:48 pm (UTC)