Part 2: “A Choice To Be Made”
By Bane Keldare
darkaura@hotmail.com
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I could go into a long rant about how I question my choice of a fandom. But I won’t.
Truth be told, I don’t think about it all that much.
“Why am I in the Sonic Fandom?” That’s not a question that crosses my lips.
I’m here now. That’s all that matters to me. But since I’ve had this writing boon, I know that I can give at least a few answers to the question now. In fact, I can answer why I’m in fanfiction in the first place.
Because…I’ll admit it, I’m a bit lazy.
I had the choice to go into my own world, crafting and creating everything from the planet itself, to the countries, the factions. I could’ve spent hours on end creating characters, rulers, forms of governments, economics, systems of technology and/or magic. I could go for ages about the trade systems, the international treaties in place with which countries, and why.
Read that paragraph again. Think you could do it and then have the drive to write a story about it? I was almost mentally exhausted trying to think of all those ideas. I’ve read A Way With Worlds, and yes, it opened up my mind a bit. But all it managed to do was remind me just how MUCH there is to a world. How much I would have to do in order to create my own world, and have my characters interact with it.
I’ll face it; fanfiction is where I want to be.
The world of Mobius is already pretty much crafted for me. We have a dictator, we have currently existing heroes. We have a conflict raging on, we have distant threats and possible allies. In fact, every single comic and episode of the cartoon was another story that helped us all get another piece of that world. The world was a jigsaw puzzle, but ALL the pieces were already there. But some pieces were missing. They were left that way. The puzzle of Mobius was packaged with missing pieces.
So there was room to make some new ones.
When I write a fanfiction, I create a fan character. I don’t condemn it; it’s a natural idea…even if it is narcissistic. We want our characters to interact with Sonic, and his friends. It’s something so natural it’s ingrained in our heads as par for fanfiction. This I’ll go over in another post altogether, however.
But back to the point. I create a character in order to tell a story about Mobius that wouldn’t be told otherwise. The plight of Derek Shyfter in my fic…nobody would’ve known about it had I not brought him into the world of Mobius. There is a side of Mobius that most of us haven’t seen in the “traditional” parts of the fandom such as comics, shows, or games. The dark side; the side that the censors don’t want us visiting. The kind of ideas that we know would slip past the minds of little boys and little girls. It was these ideas that made Kingdom Hearts a big hit with people ages 16-25, but little kids, the original target audience, didn’t get it at all. In fact, with that age group, it flopped.
And the dark side doesn’t necessarily need blood, or sex. Just…a darker side. What about the Overlanders after the Great War? Yes, they were defeated, but a defeat doesn’t mean genocide. They could be somewhere else, biding their time, licking their wounds. What about Echidnapolis…the great city in the sky that Knuckles stumbled upon with Julie-Su? What about the Chaos Emeralds? How exactly did they come to be? What is their purpose? Why are only a select few able to use their power? Did we not see Chris grab all seven Chaos Emeralds in Sonic X…only to see that there was no effect for him? Only Sonic was affected by having them all so close.
So what does that mean?
It means that there are questions that need answering. There’s a side that we already don’t know, and maybe we’ll never know. What is so special about Sonic? Has anybody ever sat down and thought about the science of it all? The fact that Sonic is able to absorb the energy from the Chaos Emeralds into himself, but only a select few are able to mimic the action? Is it something in his genetic material? Was he touched by the Chaos Emeralds as a child, leading to a purely metaphysical explanation?
That’s what I’m talking about. Explaining the unexplained.
These are the pieces that were missing from the puzzle.
Now, we could all discuss the “truth” about a fictional character all we want, but we’d never get anywhere. There could be some answer in a comic somewhere, and if there is, great. If there isn’t, don’t start arguing the truth about Sonic. Sonic doesn’t exist. Sonic’s existence on the world of Mobius is false.
Of course, where’s the fun in explaining the unexplained, if we can’t create some mysteries of our own? None of you know what I know about Derek Shyfter…yet. You don’t know why he was untouched by the lasers in chapter 2, as they looked like they seemed to be avoiding him. You don’t know why Sonic could feel the vibrations, too.
…Yet.
But you’ll keep reading, won’t you? You want the mystery solved.
“So why are you in the Sonic fandom in the first place?”
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I digressed horribly. But look at where it got me, eh?
I’m in the Sonic fandom for a majority of reasons, but let’s look at the other fandoms I attempted to write seriously for.
SWAT Kats: Yeah, I tried this. Derek Shyfter was the lead in this one, too, and it was my first venture on the possibilities of a human existing in a furry world. This fandom flopped in my mind as I got so shuffled around in my life that…well…the fics just never got off the ground. I believe the one and only story I posted had its last line go something like this:
“I don’t think that’s the last we’ll see of Derek Shyfter.”
But it was. Ironic to a fault.
Gargoyles: This was spawned when I moved somewhere that got Toon Disney…so I was naturally pleased. I started writing these fics, focusing this relationship of close friendship between Brooklyn and Solus, a mage from the past of Castle Wyvern who found his way to the present.
TMNT: Yep, I even tried my had at this one for awhile. Again, had this whole close friendship thing going with Leo and Derek…but again, the series never flew far. I lumped these two, Gargoyles and TMNT, together for a reason.
They took place in New York.
Now, for
those of you who don’t know, I live in Washington State…and I’ve never been
past North Dakota as far as travel goes. I’d never been to New York before…so I
had no idea where I could have events happen. I’d just have to describe it as
“some alley,” or something. That works in movies or cartoons, but in the
written word, locations are important. I could’ve looked up places, but the
thought never crossed my mind. In my Gargoyles fics, I knew I had to move my
story to Avalon quickly, or else I’d just lose everything.
Star Fox: This series was my crowning jewel thus far. Perhaps the best stories I’ve written and completed to date. The Lylat System, with all the planets, once again threatened by Andross, an a human…the only human…caught in the middle? And the fact that he knew Fox when they were kids made it even better…it gave me a reason for Fox to cry when Derek was being carried away, blood all over his face. Because, for all Fox knew, Derek was dead…or dying. These stories are still up on my fanfiction.net account, because I liked them so much.
My problem with Star Fox was not that the world was too limited. The world was just too big.
This didn’t take place on a planet…it took place on many planets; between planets.
In the end, it was just too much, really.
But the Sonic world is perfect for me. The planet is big and unexplored enough that I can still craft my own places and stories, but there’s still enough structure to give me something to go on. I love all the characters, save maybe Amy and Cream, because their attitudes are awesome. Also, their attitudes are different from mine. Sonic’s outgoing and ready to beat Robotnik at every turn. Knuckles wants to be left alone with his Emerald. I just want to be there…but if I were there…I’d go out of my way to help anyone and everyone.
However, I can still make a character, such as Derek and Bane, and still find ways to make it fit. I know, the “brother of Sonic” idea is way overdone, but hey, I’ve always liked the idea, and it is, believe it or not, a pivotal point to the theme of my story.
But that’s another topic for another time.
End Transmission. –Bane Keldare, March 26, 2004