Salt Water Taffy's Annotated Sonichu

SONICHU: And after I answered Robbie’s call, he hardly got a word in as Cera shouted towards his phone “Dad! Bring me jeans and a t-shirt! I have long thought this through, ‘As soon as I evolve, I’m ditchin’ the skirt.’ Again! Jeans and a t-shirt! No skirts or dresses, please, dad!”

SILVANA AS SONIC: Ha! Sounds like Amy after nearly every fashion magazine, “I gotta keep up with the trends, Sonic!” “Sometimes I’ll forgo function for fashion.” “I wanna look awesome for myself!”

SONICHU: Yeah! But that’s more my Christine Rosechu; loves style up. Cera is more butchy. Roberta came out totally feminine and skirty.

SILVANA AS SONIC: Uh. Who’s Roberta?

SONICHU: That was Robbie. A month or two later, he had evolved, but before that, he questioned himself. Between the psychiatric evaluation, consulting with both of his sisters, and his choice in clothes, he realized that he was a female soul, and shortly after evolving Roberta got help from the doctors and Magi-Chan to make herself physically match who she has been. She has never felt more self-confident before the transformation or in her life!

SILVANA AS SONIC: Gee wiz! And I thought Shadow packing heat was crazy. And all this doesn’t bother you?

In another wall of text heavy page, we learn that Cerah decided to express herself as a butch lesbian following her evolution, rebelling against the frilly skirts her parents put her in as a baby. Transitioning over to talking about Robbie (pun intended), we get more or less a summary of Episode 25, which goes into more depth about Robbie’s coming out as a transwoman and the steps she takes to get there. 

CERAH: Robbie?

ROBBIE: I’m right here, sis!

CERAH: Woah! Man.

CERAH: When did you become super small, bro?

ROBBIE: I didn’t. You evolved! I guess that makes you Christine’s big sister again.

CERAH: Let me process all of this…

ROBBIE: How do you feel?

CERAH: Hmm… well, I feel more knowledged. I see everything brighter. I feel stronger. My perception of things has changed a bit. I feel like I could take on the whole world. And then… I feel a chill. Darn! I’m naked!

ROBBIE: Should I call mom and dad?

CERAH: Yes, Robert. Please, do. Thank God everyone’s looking at where that Jerkop was. Would you also escort me to the ladies room, dude?

ROBBIE: A scout’s duty is to help any person in distress, madam! Let’s go inside, and I’ll get my phone.

Much like Christine before her, Cerah evolving causes her to lose her clothes. Luckily she has that modesty text box. Apparently, growing from Rosey to Rosechu gives one enhanced abilities as a whole, not just stronger Pokemon stats but enhanced wisdom and even vision, apparently. 

Caption: One…

CERAH: Love!!!

Caption: Two…

CERAH: Not…!

Caption: Thunderpunch!

CERAH: …Hatred!

Caption: Paralyzed

DOGSON: Pant pant

DOGSON: For my love!

FERRAH: Uh… I think I left five bucks in my locker.

FERRAH: Later!

ROBBIE: Cera! That was amazing!

CERAH: I was just protecting my friends and family, baby bro.

ROBBIE: Still, you reacted more quick than I could. I love you, sis!

CERAH: I love you too!

Caption: Whoosh!

ROBBIE: Oh! My gosh!

CERAH: Ca ‘mon! Let me go!

The jerkop goes down in three easy panels, with Cerah using the Pokemon move Thunder Punch on him. Little Dogson, who apparently harbors some sort of feelings for Ferrah, also gives him a good kick. Ferrah bails, then Cerah and Robbie hug, but then Cerah, assumedly having gained enough experience points from taking down the jerkop to have leveled up, begins to evolve into a Rosechu.

FERRAH: I’m being bullied by the mean widdle kids; they teased me of my insecurities! Please, help me!

ROBBIE: Do not listen to him, sir! He’s the bully!

CERAH: Robert! Stop! There’s something off about that policeman. I sense it.

FERRAH: Hey! Jerk cop! Can’t ya hear me? I’m being bullied here!!

FERRAH: Well! There’s more than one way to get attention. Dogson! Ca m’ere!

DOGSON: Yes, sir! You called?

FERRAH: It’s time to play for our team, boy.

DOGSON: What?

DOGSON: !

STUDENTS: Oh! My gosh! / He kissed a boy! / But did he like it? / Soo going on my Facebook!

JERKOP: There will be no love in the world of Graduon, kid!

FERRAH: Woah, dude!

ROBBIE: Oh, man! A real Jerkop?! Here? Now?!

Dogson and Ferrah’s relationship might be a play on the relationship between Marcie and Peppermint Patty from Peanuts, Patty being aggressive and boyish while Marcie is demure and calls her “sir”, and the pair have long been speculated to be a couple or at least attracted to each other. Dogson’s name also might be a reference to his subservient, dog-like nature.

“Play for our team” is a variant on the phrase “playing for the other team”, a baseball-based metaphor referring to someone who is gay.

Two of the students loosely quote the chorus to “I Kissed a Girl” by Katy Perry, rephrasing it to be about male-male kissing instead of female-female. 

SFX: Bonk

ROBBIE: Ow!

CERAH: Little bro, are you okay?

ROBBIE: Yeah, I think so. Oh. Not big Ferrah again.

CERAH: That bully?

ROBBIE: Yeah.

Caption? Sonichu?: Long story short, this bully has:

-No parents

-Lives with drunk uncle

-Hates on those he’s jealous of

-Does not really know how to speak love yet.

FERRAH: Look at the yellow rat scorin’ with the hot babes. And with her thick-headed Triceratops too. Give me your lunches, or I’ll pound all of ya!

CERAH OR ROBBIE: No!

CERAH OR ROBBIE: What a brute.

CERAH OR ROBBIE: We’re not gonna take your ‘tude.

CERAH OR ROBBIE: Love, not hate!

CERAH OR ROBBIE: Back off, bull!

FERRAH: Alright! Alright! What about you, tripping tea?

FERRAH: Ya gonna cough up your grub? Or maybe miss me with your weak zap? Ooh! Run away! I’ll catch ya after you trip and fall!

ROBBIE: Neee!

FERRAH: That all ya got, tea-zap? Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!

FERRAH: Ooh! And what are you gonna do, Triceratops?

ROBBIE: I’m not runnin’ jerk.

CERAH: Leave us alone, Ferrah!

FERRAH: Wowzer! Now it’s two against one? I am soo scared.

CERAH: Keep making fun of us and find out!

FERRAH: I’ve got an idea! I’ll even the odds.

FERRAH: Here’s a cop!

FERRAH: Yo! Mister Police man!

Enter Ferrah (who is a dude, even though I’ve never heard Ferrah or the more common Farrah as a boy’s name). He’s a bully. Something about Ferrah calls to mind Butch The Bully from the similar So Bad It’s Good masterpiece Cool Cat Saves the Kids, though the similarities are likely coinicidental as both characters are simply standard bully stereotypes.

Ferrah has a smidge of depth to him, or at least some nuance - he comes from a broken home and he’s acting out because he’s jealous of Robbie and Cerah being happy. That’s… good? I guess? He does still want lunch money, the stereotypical bully motivation.

Worth noting that Robbie throws the first punch in the sense that he shoots lightning at Ferrah before he gets violent with them. Sure, Ferrah antagonized him, but still.

SONICHU: What’s been goin’ on with you? Last time, *we were rescuing my Rosey from Giovanni and Skysoar… by the way, Black Sonichu, A.K.A. Blake, has been reformed since then.

Caption: *Sonichu #1

SILVANA AS SONIC: Well, my adventures led me through a princess story. And, of course, Egghead keeps us in our paces often. My company has been too rushed, and wanting to appeal to my fans. Ugh! Sega! Do not rush my games out! Take your time, and chill!

SONICHU: I hear that. My duties were everywhere in and around here. Rosey and I got married, and…

SILVANA AS SONIC: Married?! Shoot! Amy keeps proposing endlessly! And you’re still runnin’ free?

SONICHU: Yeah, man! I still have my hero jobs. Anyhow, our kids, let me tell you…

SONICHU: They do grow up quick. Just last December, Christine Rosey evolved into her shiney Rosechu form. Suddenly, she is more smart and skips from fourth to ninth grade. As for being bullied, here’s a recent one from last February that Cera saved Robbie from…

Caption: February 17, 2009, Anneweston Elementary School…

Caption: 2:30 PM; 65 degrees Farenheit.

ROBBIE: Did everyone get enough tea and biscuits my mom and I made?

VULVA PIE: We did! They were really good, Robbie.

CERAH: If he can’t stop tripping while running, Robbie can be a good cook.

TEACHER: Yes. Robbie, I’d like to invite you to my next tea party.

STUDENT WITH BLACK HAIR: Thank you, darling.

After plugging Sonichu 1, the last time we saw actual Sonic, Silvana As Sonic becomes Chris’s mouthpiece for his problems with modern Sonic. The “princess story” might be a reference to the much-maligned Sonic The Hedgehog (2006), wherein at the end Sonic is reawakened by a kiss from the human Princess Elise, Snow White or Sleeping Beauty style, a move that received a lot of backlash. The complaint about being too “rushed” might have something to do with the quick pace of the Sonic Boom games, three games in as many years, all of which Chris loathed for having the Blue Armed Bandit in them.

Oh, I’m not certain I already mentioned this, but “Skysoar” is Chris’s renaming of Dr. Robotnik to avoid Sega’s wrath.

I find it interesting that Sonic and Amy are clearly out on an outing together, yet Sonic still seems to be brushing off her romantic intentions. I think it’s fairly safe to say that Chris is a “SonAmy” (Sonic/Amy) shipper, so it’s somewhat jarring to see an acknowledgement that the two canonically are not a couple.

Sonichu again states that he and Rosechu have gotten married, and the scene then transitions into a flashback to Cerah and Robbie at school. Robbie, showing off his effeminate personality, made tea and biscuits alongside Rosechu to bring to the class.

Why do we care that it’s 65 degrees Fahrenheit, Chris? It’d be one thing if it was insanely hot or cold or something that would effect the plot, but this is just a normal temperature. It’s actually quite warm for outside in February, but I blame that on Chris not paying attention to the months and numbers he was using.

The creature at the end of the table is Vulva Pie, one of Jackie Romy’s troll creations into the comic (as you can guess, the name was a joke Chris wouldn’t understand). She shows up again later, where I’ll discuss her further.

Title: Sonichu & Sonic / in Episode 24, part 1 / The Clip Show / Catching Up

Caption: August 21, 2009, at CWCville Shopping Center…

SONICHU: We should have a cart. It’s too bad malls don’t usually have any.

ROSECHU: Tell me about it.

SILVANA AS SONIC: Phew

SILVANA AS SONIC {thought}: Soo glad to finally get a break from Amy.

ROSECHU: Hey. Isn’t that…? [I]

SONICHU: Sonic, the blue blur! [II]

SILVANA AS SONIC: Sonichu & Rosechu, the zappers of our hedgehog bunch! Y’all are looking good. [III]

SONICHU: We’re okay, just a bit worn from lifting and shopping. [IV]

ROSECHU: Oh! You carry me, love. [V]

SONICHU: How ‘bout you? [VI]

SILVANA AS SONIC: I’m good. Amy dragged me here for the sales, “featuring the “CWC-sclusives””. J.K. The styles do vary by store. [VII]

ROSECHU: Amy’s here too? I wanna gosip! Honey? Can you mind our things for a while? [VIII]

SONICHU: Sure, Rosey. Sonic and I can jam here for a while. [IX]

SILVANA AS SONIC: Yeah! Awesome! [X]

SILVANA AS SONIC: Amy is at Macy’s now. [XI]

ROSECHU: Sweet! I’ll be back later. Be good, you too! [XII]

SONICHU: Alright, heartthrob! [XIII]

Yet another dialogue page that requires numbering, getting all the way up to a whopping thirteen.

DIRECTOR: Sixty seconds, Silvana!

SILVANA: Thank you darling, I will be right there!

SILVANA {thought}: So, I take each and every day, every minute, every second! And I continue onward at my greatest!

SILVANA {thought}: For without me…

Sign: Salonspa

DIRECTOR: Alright! We’re rolling!

SILVANA: Let’s make this clip show happen!

SILVANA {thought}: Some things in life would not exist or finally happen!

The “director” (who for whatever reason is not Chris, even though he’s claimed the title of “director of Sonichu” for himself in the past) calls out Silvana, and she begins to transform into Sonic the Hedgehog. As previously mentioned, Chris intended this issue to be the big reunion issue between a character and his bastardization, between Sonic and Sonichu. But Chris grew to fear a lawsuit from Sega regarding Sonic’s usage, so he threw in this workaround - See, Sega, Sonic’s not in this issue! It’s Silvana disguised as Sonic! That said, Sega’s more interested in preventing people from unlawfully using Sonic’s image more than actually having the real Sonic there (because there is no “real Sonic”), so this workaround would solve nothing if the lawyers got involved. Luckily, Sega doesn’t have the time or energy to smite a manchild drawing shitty webcomics, and thus they and Nintendo have left him be, trolls posing as them notwithstanding.

The director calls this episode a “Clip Show”, which is bizarre as the following episode is NOT a clip show - a clip show is an episode wherein all or most of the content is recycled from previous episodes as a way to recap the series, and all the forthcoming content is totally new. It is a flashback episode, but flashback episodes and clip shows are not the same thing.

Caption: Behind-the-scenes prologue

SILVANA {thought}: The spa treatments are simply luxuriousl. Outside of meditation, this is the best.

SILVANA {thought}: When I am the star of an episode of our history, it is good. But when I have to play as a “guest star”, it can be a trial for myself.

SANDRA: Is it to your liking, Silvana?

SILVANA: You have done most very will, Sandra. Thank you.

SILVANA {thought}: I suit up… 

SILVANA {thought}: And yet I do not suit up.

SILVANA {thought}: It is part of most jobs wherever in any world.

SILVANA {thought}: I remain most proud of Miss Chandler, for in her hands and soul lies great skill and love.

SILVANA {thought}: This is not biased! She has earned my deepest respects, she truly loves and cares for us, her family.

SILVANA {thought}: So, with my sharp mind and spirit, I keep on physical peak, so I can be at my best for my family too.

This “Behind-the-scenes prologue” is a spectacular look inside the post-modern mind of Christopher Christian Christine Ricardo Weston Chandler. This is the zenith of Chris’s “comic characters as actors” in the Sonichu comics proper, showing Silvana preparing for her appearance in this episode with a footbath. Silvana notes that she’s been a star and a “guest star”, the latter probably referring to how she’s going to be pretending to be Sonic the Hedgehog in the issue proper. 

After getting her hair done, she puts on her clothes, thinking “I suit up… and yet I do not suit up”. Silvana seems to have become self aware, aware that what to her appear to be her normal clothes, are her character costume to the outside viewing audience. And, of course, she praises Chris, because of course she does. In a line creepier with hindsight, Silvana says that Chris views her as “family”, and this was before Chris said to have married her. Granted, that was an Idea Guy fabrication and this came slightly before, but it still gains an incestuous tinge with her future marriage to Chris in mind. 

Silvana’s statements bring the validity of this entire episode, and the second part that follows in Sonichu 12, into question. Was all this stuff, like Cerah’s evolution, Chris-Chan Sonichu becoming Chris-Chan Rosechu, and the weird weight-gain subplot in Episode 24.2, staged for the cameras? Does Sonichu know that “Sonic” is Silvana in disguise, or is the wool being pulled over his eyes? Is Sonichu real life? Is it just fantasy? Dammit Chris you put all these questions in my brain just to try to avoid getting sued by Sega.

CHANDLER, Christopher Christian Christine “Ricardo” Weston Chandler - CWCRockin4Way.jpg, marker on paper, 2009

Chris’s second most famous (and less controversial) Rule 34 drawing, imagines Chris as a world famous rockstar, free to have sex with whatever groupie he so chooses. CWCRockin4Way.jpg is also known by the mangled French phrase “MenajAQuad.jpg”, trying to expand the phrase “menage a trois”, meaning a sexual encounter with three participants, possibly conflating “menage” with the surname of rapper Nicki Minaj (which itself is a mangling of “menage”, albeit a more deliberate one), and affixing the Latin prefix “Quad-”, as opposed to the more grammatically accurate “menage a quatre”. Drawn to help prove Chris’s heterosexuality, it shows him penetrating a woman of mixed white and black ancestry, according to other drawings she’s named Zuri Alryte, while using one hand a piece to finger a white woman, Kiera Bei, with his left hand and a black woman, Jody Zimmerman, with his right. They are, respectively, the singer, bassist, and drummer for Chris’s Guitar Hero band, Chris himself being the guitarist (obviously).

This image was leaked by Bryan Bash in September 2009, then Chris acknowledged it in a video from that October. Unlike SheCameForCWC, it is unknown what became of the original image, whether or not it survived the 2014 house fire like SheCameForCWC. Chris, in an edit to the CWCki, described the sexual encounter as “chocolate vanilla swirls”, but it’s unknown whether that refers to the half-black-half-white Zuri being a chocolate vanilla swirl, or the fact that Chris is simultaneously banging a black woman, a white woman, and a woman that’s a mix of both.

This image breaks Chris’s long standing sexual distaste for women of color, as he is actively enjoying the china of a mixed-race woman and performing other sexual acts with a black woman. In the past, he’d said that he couldn’t marry a non-white woman because his future daughter Crystal appeared in a dream to him, and seeing as she was white and not mixed race her mother must have also been white, but here, since Zuri and Jody seemingly aren’t Crystal’s fated mother, Chris is more than happy to break his rule for a casual hookup with them. Clearly, this is a win for diversity.

It has long been noted that, like his last porn drawing, there is much wrong with it anatomically - specifically, Zuri seems to be sitting in front of Chris, yet he is still somehow reaching her china with his pickle. She’s meant to be sitting on his lap not in front of it, but that’s not how it’s drawn, and thus is horribly anatomically incorrect. Chris is yet again wearing a Sonichu medallion, and Jody is wearing a gold choker in both this image and her clothed portrait.

Little is known about these three fictional women aside from their names and their band roles, and it’s likely Chris never gave any of them more thought than this image or the individual portraits of them he drew. Zuri has a yellow lightning bolt tattoo across her right arm (visible in both this picture and the portrait), likely done in tribute to her lover’s most famous creation. Bizarrely, her breasts are censored by her long red hair. Kiera seems to be a bit like late ‘90’s-early 2000’s era Britney Spears, and her fashion in her clothed drawing seems inspired by her. Jody, in her clothed portrait, is dressed very androgynously, to the point that this image of her in the nude is the only confirmation we have that she doesn’t have a pickle. She is doing the devil fingers with her right hand, possibly trying to communicate to the audience that making love to Christian is satanic. It’s possible these three were only on Chris’s mind a brief period in 2009, as they’ve made no lasting impact on him. Their only other appearance was from a contemporaneous video of him playing, on Guitar Hero, Bob Seger’s 1978 rock classic “Old Time Rock and Roll” while using a Guitar Hero guitar painted in the colors of Meatwad’s guitar from Aqua Teen Hunger Force. I think we can infer from that video that Zuri is a dead vocal ringer for Bob Seger.

CHANDLER, Christopher Christian Christine “Ricardo” Weston Chandler - SheCameForCWC.jpg, marker on paper, 2007

ShecameforCWC.jpg is without a doubt the shining pinnacle of Chris’s art, a masterpiece that a thousand Mona Lisas could not replicate. In this artistic touchstone of global culture, Chris is seen fingering Megan Schroeder as she moans in pleasure, fondling her breasts with joy. To celebrate his ability to successfully convince Megan to perform sexual acts with him, he gives the viewing audience at home a thumbs up. The “thumbs up” gesture is a near-universal symbol of positive reactions, believed by anthropologists to be as old as time immemorial, here used to symbolize that Chris is enjoying putting his big, greasy fingers up Megan’s china.

This work was made in response to the heathens of Encyclopedia Dramatica, who sullied Chris’s glorious female characters with depictions of them bearing male genitalia. To “combat the garbage”, he drew a divine quintet of Rule 34 of his own characters. His sketches of Angelica masturbating, Mary Lee Walsh forcing her jerkop slaves to perform cunnilingus on her, Blake and Bubbles engaged in cowgirl style sex, and Sonichu standing and fucking Rosechu (as seen here) were less interesting and thus faded from public memory in time, but SheCameForCWC has etched its place into Christorical history. 

Initially this image was most controversial because it was, in absentia of Chris confirming the identity of the censored woman, believed that the woman was Christian’s fictional twin sister Crystal, due to both women having long, straight brown hair, the vague incestuous aura around Crystal, and the fact that the picture was captioned with “Your sister has cum for me” (I believe Chris actually meant that as a prod against Megan’s real brother John, bragging that he slept with his sister). This idea was quickly debunked - Chris loudly insisted in his second message that it was not Crystal, but Megan. The Christorical community views this as a step-sideways in creepiness - moving away from an incestuous relationship whose creepiness was tempered by the fact that one of the figures was fictional to a non-incestuous relationship between Chris and a real woman who had no desire to engage in sexual intercourse with him.

Needless to say, Megan disapproved wholeheartedly of this image and was incentivized to cut Chris out of her life entirely. The aforementioned second message had Chris blame ED for this incident, because if they didn’t draw dicks on Rosechu, he wouldn’t have had to draw SheCameForCWC, and in turn Megan wouldn’t have had to cut him out.

Moving back to the artistic glory before us, it came under additional fire for its anatomical failures. Megan’s body resembles a sex doll, with its massive vagnial hole that seems to be up on her lower stomach with awkwardly bent legs. Her pubic hair has long been noted to resemble Hitler’s mustache, and her body lacks curves to the point her body has been compared to a prepubescent boy’s. Chris himself if not out of the woods here - his right arm is somehow bent by his side yet reaching over his shoulder, suggesting he can stretch out his arms like Mister Fantastic. Also, Megan’s vagina appears to be glowing blue. And Chris is wearing his Sonichu medallion despite seemingly being otherwise completely nude. He said at the time that he would like to have worn his Sonichu medallion during his first time, however it’s not known (and is unlikely) that Chris actually wore his medallion when making sweet sweet love to Mia Hamm, the hooker of dreams. It also seems to have troubles with perspective, as it’s hard to tell whether Megan is lying on a bed or flat against a wall.

Caption: And now, the paid advertisement from V.B.B. (regardless of how out-of-context, outdated, and juvenile one is)

Caption: Bananasauros

Caption: You can play as the titular banana dragon as he rescues his friends in a 2-D game setting.

Caption: Bananasauros

Caption: VBB’s Sonichu in Maradonia

Caption: (Seriously not canon at all)

Caption: Travel through Maradonia in search for the seven S-Chu ball crystals.

Caption: VBB’s Sonichu in Maradonia

Caption: *This game contains foul language and fan-made mis-plot(s).

Caption: **Both games require the DosBox emulator to play, which it is free to download from dosbox.com. Both mod-created P.C. games are available for download from shikadi.net. Neither game has been rated.

The main advertisement for this issue is the only one that was actually paid for by someone else - ya know, like an advertisement. Chris can’t get through the opening ad copy without snarking at Waterman.

Waterman is, apparently, something of a fan of old DOS games, and has offered two fictional examples here - a Bananasauros centric game, and a spinoff of Sonichu, VBB’s Sonichu in Maradonia. Both games appear to be 2D platformers, with screenshots likely made by Waterman.

The Bananasauros game seems simple - he rescues his friends by jumping over obstacles and climbing on trees. Who these “friends” are is vague, possibly Punchy and company?

“Maradonia” is the fantasy realm created by one Gloria Tesch (currently going by the pseudonym Sofia Nova), a lolcow in her own right who claimed to be a child prodigy releasing a fantasy epic series named “Maradonia” and turn it into a multi-media empire (the Two-Face inspired cover with a Sonichu face half normal and half deformed into a Medusa head is a parody of the first Maradonia novel’s cover), but everything aside from a few books fell through when the public at large realized Gloria and her parents were scam artists.

Waterman imagines a lolcow-created property crossover, with Sonichu characters traversing Maradonia in search of Sonichu Balls (I believe the player character seen in the screenshot is Sonichu). Chris seems to have reacted extremely negatively to this one, putting this games non-canon status directly under the title. It also apparently is more adult than its Bananasauros counterpart, with harsher language and “fan-made mis-plot(s)”, whatever that means.

Neither of these games have been produced, by Waterman or anyone else. DosBox is a real emulator of DOS games, and is in fact available for free download at dosbox.com. Shikadi.net is also a real website, a wiki dedicated to the preservation and emulation of DOS games, but there is nothing about Sonichu, Bananasauros, or Maradonia on the whole site.

CHRIS {narration}: Meanwhile, while he recovers from Layla leaving, David has been feeling more at home. “Best roomies”, V.B.B.? Not so likely.

Caption: December 28, 3:30 AM

CHRIS?: Fortunately for Punchy; not so much f

PUNCHY: She is not joking!! Endless gaming, not cleaning after himself, and not only have I lost peace of mind and sleep, I haven’t been able to binge-watch my “Samurai Pizza Cats” DVD set. Ugh!!!

CHRIS {narration}: Fortunately for Punchy; not so much for David, Master Shin-nabe hired David for various jobs around the dojo, and teaches further strict training.

SHINABE: Doing constant labor builds stronger endurance.

MAGI-CHAN: I, too, feel need to interrupt as well. I have been locating our Sonichites and Rosechites since the past August of 2008. And I have been prolific in keeping with Graduon’s then spiritual activities since his release.

MAGI-CHAN: With Christine Chandler’s protection, a spot of havoc is nullified at the SLGBTQ pride festival of 2009. But the greater threats will be building up after that, regardless. So, loyal patrons and fans, please do stay tuned to the drawn/printed pages of the “Sonichu” books; slice-of-life history and all. Thank you.

Caption: End

Punchy is finally feeling the effects of BS draining him, so miserable is he that he rips through the page, complaining that BS has taken up so much of his time that he hasn’t been able to finish the Samurai Pizza Cats DVDs he was buying at the beginning of the episode (I question how he hasn’t seen that series a million times by now; he’s been talking about the series since Sonichu 6). Luckily, Punchy is able to pawn BS off to Shinabe, and he becomes Shinabe’s odd-job doer. Thus ends the brief, bizarre life of Bananasauros as a character in Sonichu.

Magi-Chan pops in for a hot sec to tease the last episode of this issue and the main episode of the next; we’ll see Sonichites and Rosechites in Episode 24.1 and the SLGBTQ Pride Festival in Episode 26. Vaguely visible behind him is Larry the Alakazam, an Alakazam (that I think was once part of Kel’s team) who has a small role in Episode 25.

BANANASAUROS: Pbrrr…

BANANASAUROS {thought}: Aaaay, Punchy. It’s all cool, brah. I was dumped by a few women in my past life. (Granted, it was my fault for playing the field badly) Let’s go play some Call of Duty, dude.

PUNCHY: …Yeah. Give me lots of time to recover, then ask me again, banana-hopper.

CHRIS: I sincerely apologize, but time is short for this episode, with two pages left, so I’m summarizing the remainder.

CHRIS {narration}: So, after Layla leaves, she takes a cab to her temprary care-giving trainer, (like how volunteers temp care for cats and dogs, or like a volunteer big sibling) William Falkner. He lets her stay at his house, then the next day…

Caption: December 23, 3:30 PM, at an M.C.D…

CHRIS {narration}: Layla finds Reginald, recognizes him, and asks to share the table while she eats and searches the web for a job and a place to rent on her phone.

LAYLA: How have you been since the class?

REGINALD: Eh… I could be better right now.

Caption: December 27, 7:30 PM, Layla’s apartment… 

CHRIS {narration}: Reginald had not found a new place yet, so Layla invites him to bunk with her. A few days later, she finds a good place to rent, and a job at the electric company as a secretary in power management. Reginald moves in with her.

REGINALD: I’ll take the couch; you have the bed.

LAYLA: Nonsense, cutie. Come to bed with me.

Chris buts in to announce that the episode is almost over (I don’t know why he feels the need to wrap this up; it’s not like he had a strict time limit or anything. I guess he was just bored of this episode).

Seeing as Ivy is still dead, Layla is without a friend in the world, so she’s briefly taken under the wing of a “[temporary] care-giving trainer”. Her temp trainer shares his name with mid-Twentieth Century American novelist William Faulkner (whose birth name was in fact Falkner without the U), famous for The Sound and the Fury (1929) and As I Lay Dying (1930). Though Faulkner is from and strongly associated with his home state of Mississippi, he was briefly the writer-in-residence at the University of Virginia, where Chris was known to stalk girls at in his youth, so it’s possible Chris became familiar with his work through his time spent there (or it’s possible that he was assigned one of his books during his schooling, but given how well he did on most of his English assignments I doubt he would remember it). It’s also not impossible that this character is named for this Falkner, the Flying-Type gym leader from Johto, seeing that he and the Flaaffy Pokemon debuted in the same games.

LAYLA: Do not call me. Do not find me. I’ve unfriended you on Facebook. I’d just assume not look at you ever again, unless it’s on T.V. Goodbye.

PUNCHY: I understand. I am not worthy of your love and compassion. I am truly sorry, Layla. Stay safe and well.

LAYLA: And as for you, banana.

BANANASAUROS: Rrr?

LAYLA: You are bruised, moldy, and downright not fruit full. Good bye.

Layla asks Punchy not try to contact her again. She assumes they’ll never meet again, unless she sees him on TV (not gonna lie, I kinda laughed at that bit, even though I’m not sure it was a joke.) Though in universe, the problems with Layla and Punchy’s relationship was solely caused by BS showing up, it’s more likely that more cosmic forces drove them apart - namely Chris. The decision to break up both Punchy’s and Angelica’s relationships at the same time was probably not a coincidence. Let’s start with the two non-Chaotic Combo members involved. Layla was, however indirectly, the brainchild of Ivy O’Neil, who had been “dead” for about eight years at this point and was naught but a memory to Chris (if he remembered her at all). Reginald was Chris’s replacement self-insert for when he couldn’t use his more blatant self-insert due to being trapped in the Time Void. Both of these characters were relics of a time gone by, the time of Classic Chris, and their continued presence felt like an artifact. As we’ll soon see, they get paired up together, seemingly tying together two loose ends and writing them off more or less into the sunset (not exactly, as we’ll see in Sonichu 12, but that’ll come later). Moving back to Punchy and Angelica, remember way back in Sonichu 7 when Magi-Chan said that Wild and Punchy were competing for Angie’s love, a plot point that was soon dropped when Simonla came on the scene and stole Wild’s heart away? Well, between their partners leaving them and their brief conversation in Episode 22, it’s possible that Chris intended to set the two up to get into a relationship, the first two Chaotic Combo members to date each other, but it never really took shape. Chris seemingly didn’t care to set them up any further in Sonichu 12, and then that ship wasn’t part of the Idea Guys’ manifesto, so seemingly it’s been on ice forever. Chris has spent very little time as of late on either character, so their fate in the post Idea Guys world is somewhat foggy, and it seems their latent attraction has been suppressed.

Punchy takes getting dumped surprisingly well. He’s surprisingly mature about letting Layla live her life without him, though that might be because Chris was just done with the Layla character by this point.