The State of Confusion

i don't know how to describe how much i love sonic battle's endings with words so i made a comic about it

epilogue:

@modmad thank you! not much of a tip but using the fringe effect and a lot of textured brushes really helps! I'm pretty sure clipstudio, krita, photoshop and a bunch of other apps have the border effect too as an option :>

For more informational blogs follow me on my website @https://rmmcdermott.com/

Congratulations! You’ve continued forward to the next step of creating your characters.

The next step we will take is creating a basic overview of your characters. We will talk about your character’s role, which side they are on, their name, and their gender.

Alright, let’s get to first step one of outlining your characters.

READY! SET! WRITE!

The primary tool that I use to create my characters:

The primary tool I use to keep all my world-building references together and straight is Notebook.ai.

Notebook.ai is a website that is a virtual writer’s notebook. It was created for writers by other writers. This virtual notebook acts as a continuously growing reference page with the information about your story that allows you to plug in information as you go along. They have pages for your characters, locations, magics, governments, and many others. You can use the limited version of the program for free or pay for the unlimited version which costs $84 yearly. This is personally my favorite tool.

I am not paid or compensated for mentioning them in this blog. Notebook.ai is just a tool that I have used for almost five years and love!

What is your character’s stance in your story?

Two things you must have in every story is a protagonist and an antagonist to create the conflict which your story will follow.

Protagonist:

The protagonist is the main character, often the hero of the story that your reader will follow throughout the book.

Antagonist:

The antagonist is someone who is going to be an opposing force against your protagonist. When looking at your antagonist, one thing to remember is that they are not necessarily villains in the comic book sense.

Side or Supporting Characters:

Once you know who your main protagonist and antagonist are, you will need to fill up your story with supporting characters.

Side characters will follow either the protagonist, or the antagonist along their journey through the book.

What is your character’s role in the story?

Characters Archetypes:

Archetypes are a grouping of characters’ behaviors that are readily identifiable to the readers as a specific type of character. For example – The hero, the best friend, the mentor, the teacher, etc.

It’s easier to have in mind what your character’s basic role in the story is and build on top of that to make a round, detailed character.

Note – You can mix multiple archetypes to make a multi-faceted character that encourages your reader to dig deeper into your characters to learn more.

The “Chosen One”

This archetype is the most common hero character in stories. Some wise one, item, or prophecies choose an individual out of everyone else and will be the only person who will break a curse or fight an evil.

The Explorer

This archetype is known for the characters that aren’t happy staying in one place, so they seek new worlds, experiences, and adventures.

These people are great travel companions to your main characters who will help guide them on their journey.

Another archetype that can be combined with this kind of character is a guide.

The Good Guy and/or Traditional Hero

This archetype is a hero that is the person who is going to fight evil with good and save the people from the villain.

Jester and/or Jokers.

This archetype is the character that acts as comic relief in your story. They are the characters that are the lighthearted, fun-loving characters that lighten a darker scene.

These characters might even be the ones that point out the other character’s flaws and insecurities.

The Leader

This character is the person that commands respect from the people around them and does their best to make decisions based on other’s best interests.

The Love Interest

This character stands beside another character with the hope of wooing the other character by the end of the story.

The Mentor

This character is an older character that acts as a person who teaches, inspires, and encourages the main character through their journey in the story.

Evil Incarnate

This archetype is one of the characters under the villain archetypes.

This kind of character is the kind of person that is an evil personification. This archetype has very little development or backstory that comes out through the story.

The Outcast

This character is the character that doesn’t seem to fit in anywhere in particular.

The interesting thing about this archetype is that they can be on the good, bad, or neutral side.

The Warrior

These characters are the fighters and protectors known for their strengths, skill, courage, and integrity.

The kind of character that can come from this archetype is a knight, soldier, etc.

These are sampling of the archetypes I love to use in my own stories, there are many others, and I’ll link to additional websites with lists of archetypes in the sources below.

Build onto Your Archetypes to Fit Your Story

Once you have a general idea of your character’s archetype or archetypes, build upon it in a way that connects their role into your personal story.

For example –

Archetypes: The Warrior

The Character’s Personal Role in the Story:

Rebert is a knight, one of the personal guards of the royal family, and is charged with protecting the king’s daughter, who is setting out on a journey to another kingdom to meet her new suitor.

This brief bio that you have created of your story can help you understand where your character may go throughout the story. It can also help you brainstorm the plot lines for your story that your characters will be a part of.

Your Character’s Name

Name them whatever you want. Please don’t listen to people who say that your names have to be easy or that it has to match your genre.

Just name your character.

If you want to name your character Sally, name her Sally.

If you want to name your character Azriel, name him Azriel.

If you want to use a cool-looking typo as a name, use the typo as a name (I speak from experience on this one).

You’re the writer; you get to create the final truth.

Choose Your Character’s Gender

It is your choice to decide what gender you want your main character to be; antagonist, protagonist, or side character.

Some genres prefer a particular gender for the main character.

Honestly, I have never paid much attention to what gender was more popular in a genre. I just write the character that will best do the story justice.

This Week’s Action Steps.

Decide which side your characters are on: Protagonist, Antagonist, Side Characters?

What is your character’s gender?

What archetypes does your character fall into? Here are some links that you can use to help you.

Create a bio for your characters based on the archetypes you have chosen for your characters.

Name your characters. Pinterest has a great list for that.

Good Luck, and I will see you next week.

Next Week… Breaking Down a Character’s Description

Sources

https://lonerwolf.com/archetypes-ultimate-guide/#h-what-is-an-archetype

https://self-publishingschool.com/character-archetypes/

https://industrialscripts.com/archetypes-of-characters/

https://blog.reedsy.com/12-common-character-archetypes-every-writer-should-already-know/

http://susannacarr.com/2019/08/28/hero-heroine-archetypes-the-best-friend/

Is Tails showtime!! :D

he is finally done!! now im really satisfied with his design, he is just a lil menace

I am sorry that I am late in answering this.

It's simple: Be nihilistic villains.

They do not have to die or be "redeemed."

Look, in all of Sonic's rogues galley, we have characters like Blaze, Shadow, Knuckles, Jet the Hawk, and Metal Sonic. Knuckles was misled and now fervently on the side of the good guys, but you'd be lying if you said the character did not lose his appeal when he made that transition to merely disliking or tolerating Sonic. Metal Sonic can't verbalize and even when it does, it's just Eggman as Sonic anyway. shadow literally is what Surge would become if turned good and thus would be redundant. Jet is already the cocky Sonic but actually a criminal thing going on, but not as evil as Eggman or Zavok. And Blaze already fills the niche of an alternatively good Sonic in her own dimension and the cast. Sorry, Surge and Kit must stay antagonists and actually bad guys because that is their lane that makes them different from anyone else. They don't want to conquer the world. They want to destroy everything. In between villain characters that are world conquerors like Eggman and the Zeti and kingpin-esque characters like Clutch or straight up criminals like Rough and Tumble, that is a great niche to have,

Part of the appeal of Surge is that she is evil or in the case of Surge, she is an sympathetic but nonetheless a villian. Venom of Spider-Man was haphazardly redeemed as an anti-hero and as a Spider-Man fan, I can tell you that took a lot of the edge away from Eddie Brock. His best work was when he directly antagonized Peter Parker and redeeming him via excusing that the reason he was after Peter Parker in the first place was because Daredevil with Spider-Man correctly identified a serial killer vigilante in hold-up while Eddie tried to lie and withhold the identity of the serial killer for clout which the serial killer that Eddie turned in was just a copy cat. Eddie was at his best when he was villain. When he was up in Peter's shit. Another example is Harley Quinn. Part of her appeal aside from her design and concept was that she was evil like Joker, but writers hammed up the domestic abuse angle and that is now her identity. That is all she is known for aside from being in a throuple with Poison Ivy(who is also redeemed but time and overall view of politics redeemed her so that is different).

As much you want to redeem characters like Surge, that is the point. You want to redeem her, but you can't. That is Arcane's and LoL's Jinx. That is Juri Han from Street Fighter. You are supposed to look at characters like Surge who have something off about them and think, "Okay, how can I make her worse?"

Surge puts on the most visually engaging fights with the titular character since the fight with Neo-Metal Sonic. She is the one character outside of Metal Sonic who will throw hands with anyone without the slightest provocation. And it is always with malintent. Not some misunderstanding or whatever cop-out to just make her one of Sonic's friends. She wants to kill them and dammit she won't stop until they are dead. If Surge sees Blaze, we are going to have a fight. If Surge sees Knuckles, we are going to have a fight. If Surge sees Cream, best believe she will throw hands with the rabbit and her Chao.

Why make her like everyone else when she can be her own thing? She destroys cities, burns down forests, damn near killed Sonic, and her justification for it all is society let her down.

Y'all look at this and think, " Let's save her."

She got away. Sonic and Eggman invaded their base, got thrashed, and Sonic nearly got killed. Mecha Sonic got defeated in Scrapnik Island. They survived her. And Sonic fucking knows it.

Like you people think this is a W?

There was no triumph. It was barely bittersweet. Only thing Sonic succeeded in was getting the Wisps back and who is to say Kit isn’t able to fix that Dynamo Cage and take other Wisps.

She still terrorized the city and both she and Kit got away with it along with the Dynamo Cage. She thrashed Whisper, Sonic, Eggman, and Metal Sonic.

Surge went on a reverse hero’s journey where she literally climbed out of the garbage chute from being succinctly defeated. She sought more power and got it and went on a tear. She went in a 2-on-1 fight against both Sonic and Metal Sonic alone and not only held her own, she depowered one and overpowered the other. Sonic lucked out and to act like that’s nothing, then I’m sorry but you lost the plot. From the gitgo, we are told she works better with Kit and for each fight prior to the third, she went at it alone. And when we finally see them work together, she isn’t as erratic. She is focused and reassured. And she is better.

First fight she was outclassed and lacked the experience. Second fight, she was too enraged. Third fight, she out maneuvered them and outthought them. She used strategy. Why do you think they hid in that room filled with water containers in the first place? She and Kit got that win and earned it.

I do apologize as I had a lot of thoughts I wanted to write out. So if anyones willing to do so, you can read more down below.

me when the things are scary:

Whether the prospect of attempting any feat or trial is stressful, exhausting, distressing, difficult dangerous, embarrassing, or anxiety inducing there is one thing that none among all the thralls of humankind can deny in such testimonies ranging from timid approach to careless abandon.

That you tried, despite any and all circumstances.

For courage is not the absence of fear in the face of adversity but to oppose adversity in spite of your fears.

I was imagining something pretty rough and aggressive, obviously, but I’ve honestly been having trouble finding characters who are voiced like that. I think the best candidate I’ve found so far is Patty Mattson as Baiken in the English dub of Guilty Gear Strive. Here, have a listen:

Not perfect for what I have in mind, but it’s the closest I’ve found for the more gruff, aggressive tone I was thinking about.

Starting from that base performance I first imagine the Pitch to be lower. Specifically lower than Fink's voice but slightly higher or at baseline with Lara's performance as Haru in the english dub of Beastars. Basically, enough to keep that gremlin energy whilst the range of it can get low enough for the voice to carry a lot of anger when Surge is genuinely serious or infuriated.

In terms of Cadence and Tone the former is perfect, save for more serious moments and lines, but other than those cases I don't imagine it changing much. Meanwhile I'd say the Tone would be closer to Haru the more serious or angry Surge is. Though obviously with much less composure and much more screaming and volume then Haru.

Then as for any Accents Surge would have I'd say a very, very light New York Boston accent would work perfectly whilst in a casual light-hearted mood. Though the Accent would drop almost entirely when she's pissed off while still having some slip overall when it comes to enunciation. Finally pronunciation would be generally normal so none of the small kid speak pronunciation that Fink has.

Sorry if this was a bit long, but I found myself more intrigued in giving a detailed rundown of what I imagine to be my headcanon voice for Surge considering how much work and detail can go into voiceover work. Hope that this helps or at the very least was interesting!