#metamadow

Amy, trying to stabilize a tower of folding chairs that Metal Sonic is sitting atop: Oh nothing much.

Y’all I’m a multishipper now it’s official, I have two otps shadamy and metamy y’all can fight me about it. But then, like, I thought..... Because Shadow and Metal have surprisingly similar personalities alright, but they have a lot of other stuff in common too, like all of team Dark Metal has obviously worked for Eggman, but he’s also not mobian, artificially made, like Shadow. I think they’d bond over that deep similarity. Also just look Metal’s wiki entry for his relationship with Shadow thanks

They literally all have chemistry together. Amy is the bundle of joy and brings them both vulnerability and compassion and open affection & validation, while both guys are determined and witty and make her (and each other) laugh and care for her obvi, and with Metal & Shadow it’d be that soft quiet kind of relationship with a foundation of understanding. Seriously tho they’d have a blast going on missions together, all three are hypercompetent powerhouses but y’all, Shadow and Metal? Ok and once Metal learns more about dry humor he’d be unstoppable. Also just think about Sonic tripping and both Metal & Shadow just gleefully chuckling about it, the menace duo. I think even them having arguments would go over well and interestingly esp if Amy is there to mediate it and keep it fair, even if she can be a hothead as well. She’s their moral compass and light at the tunnel but they can be each other’s anchors.

Amy: Do they?

Metal Sonic: No.

Amy: Then why did you tell them that?

Metal Sonic: Because I can do this.

Metal Sonic: Hey Shadow! Do you love us?

Thinking about Amy & her two autistic boyfriends again... 

Ok so both Metal and Shadow can be hotheaded and impulsive, but the way I see it, Shadow jumps into the fray without the proper calculations more than Metal; Sonic may be Metal’s weakness and disobeys Eggman to go after him, but Shadow does it a bit more consistently, like more of a character trait, specifically thinking about his defeat by the zombots here. Not that Shadow isn’t grumpy and often in a bad mood or doesn’t have a temper, but he doesn’t raise to baits all that often, or gets truly mad, so I think he’d be the less hotheaded of the two. 

Metal Sonic can be a hard character to characterize, but I personally see him as more of a hothead. Less generally impulsive, he’s cold and calculated, but gets riled up more easily/frivolously. Driven by an intense need to prove himself and destroy his target of hatred, while Shadow has had multiple character arcs and mostly mellowed out, while keeping his classic grumpiness of course. I’d probably add his tendancy to gets upgraded to eldritch abominations to the list of in what way he’s hotheaded.

Also Metal’s very goal-oriented, and in my autistic reading of him (yeah I wasn’t joking lol) he kind of masks a lot (in the perfectionist “I have no quirks” way). He’s already a robot, but he tries to be perfect for his missions, especially as he’s supposed to be superior to everyone around him. So what I’m saying is, as he goes out more instead of staying with Eggman 24/7, dates Amy and Shadow and everything, he’d stop masking as much and would emote more! Show his emotions more with beeps, visor expressions, etc. So he’d become a little bomb of emotions haha, without taking away the machine-like coldness of his character though. Especially when he hangs out around Amy who is super expressive, he’d pick up social cues and learn how fun it can be to set yourself loose! Amy is very open with affection and honest about her emotions and what she thinks, after all. Meanwhile hanging out with Shadow would remind him it’s ok to be chilled out/unexpressive and it would prevent from masking in the "I’m so social and normal and extroverted” way! 

Okok, so where was I going with this with hotheadedness? (yeah the impulsivity bit just came of me wanting to explain how Shadow is less so) Well! : Metal and Amy bicker and tease each other more than Shadow and Amy do. Shadow just doesn’t rise to Amy’s baits much, but they do joke with each other and everything too of course. But Metal... Oh how he does raises to baits lol. Shadow and Amy might get a bit competitive and play around, but it won’t be as driven by raw emotion as Amy and Metal I think. I mean that in a childish sense lol, like, Amy flicks him and runs and Metal chases after her filled with playful pure spite. As Metal learns more humor from Amy, he’ll probably start teasing Shadow as well, and Shadow is just the straight man (comedy dynamic wise lmfao) mediator of the polycule haha. He snickers when he sees the two act like idiots though, it’s peak entertainment and it reminds him how fond of them he is. Rouge and Omega are so shook this is what he (willingly) puts up with when they come over.

Physical affection dynamics: Shadow doesn’t dislike holding hands but does it less often than Amy or Metal, he’s less receptive to touch and prefers to have his arms crossed usually. Metal & Amy are the almost inseparable ones who are always holding hands when walking in public and such! But Shadow does like casual kisses and cuddles most of the time, he’ll put his arms around shoulders and cuddle in bed at night. Metal usually doesn’t cuddle at night (and sleeps over the blanket) though because his engine gets progessively super hot overnight if he does and it’s bad for his body. Amy just takes all the physical affection she can get. Metal can’t kiss but gets twice as many to compensate for it <3

Touch is definitely Amy’s love language though gifts score pretty high as well, words and acts of service and are Shadow’s and then Metal’s are a mix of gifts and touch. All three have a pretty active quality time love language as well! 

Metal He has minimal possessions but loves making gifts to show his love, and he likes the feeling of being held and getting so much affection (also subconsciously it reassures him about not being organic bc they still treat him with affection and touch), so gifts are his main way to let others know he loves them and touch is how he knows he’s loved, it’s like “proof” of affection to him. He’s bad at processing and detecting emotions both in himself and others so words are kind of hard to him, and he might be a bit paranoid over lies because as a machine he’s so black and white with word definitions. gifts: He usually finds or buys his gifts, he sees something that reminds him of Amy or Shadow/he thinks they’ll like then get it for them, be it flowers, shells on the beach, or a cool gadget he found in a store. Sometimes he’ll simply take things to gift that he finds cool, special or interesting, like a rock that is 50% quartz, or a feather from a bird that should have migrated by now and so is pretty rare. Amy loves those kind of gifts, when she doesn’t think she’ll get some disease from touching them haha. She’s very enthusiastic and happy when she gets them. Shadow encourages his curiosity and wonder of mundane things, but is generally more disinterested and doesn’t keep them around much. He probably has a neat drawer he keeps all the gifts in and sometimes the fancy will take him to look at it for a bit but that’s pretty much it.

Amy  Like stated above, touch is Amy’s love language and she’s a cuddlebug, but she knows to be attentive to her boyfriends’ love languages too! Amy loves receiving gifts and giving them too! She might sometimes buy gifts for her boyfriends, but she likes making them more: craft personalized cards, knits scarves or clothes (especially for Metal since he has unusual anatomy, but also gloves that go well with Shadow’s inhibitor rings, or things that don’t get in the way of his skating shoes). When she does buy them something it’s usually something mechanical in nature, for self-care for Metal and maintenance of Shadow’s shoes and bike. They’re both very appreciative of the gifts she gets & makes for them, and they usually either have a decorative use and get left on a shelf, or are practical and get used regularly.  Words: As Amy is very open and has no problems talking about her feelings or being affectionate, she tells her boys she love them and such things often. She’ll often use pet names for them! Shadow doesn’t show it much but it always makes him very happy and soothed. Metal files away her regular declarations of love in its own file. She’s definitely the most versatile of the three! It goes with being emotionally stable lol.

Shadow Shadow’s main love languages are words and acts of services. Quality time and touch can have a soothing effect and reasure him that he’s loved, but at the end of the day he wants to know that by hearing it loud and clear. He’s a sweet talker when alone with his lovers, and he likes saying affectionate things as much as receiving nice words. He’s very earnest on that front, sometimes teasing, but mostly earnest and serious with it, or in that fond tone. Metal is mute, but honestly Shadow knows how Metal’s mind works so well that he doesn’t feel the need for his words. It’s always nice hearing things from Amy though. He can have phases or days where he’s less comfortable speaking or being open though. Acts of service wise, Shadow is there whenever Amy or Metal needs him or a hand. He runs errands, do dishes with them, clean the place when Amy asks, and all those kind of things. Shadow values his time and usually dislikes domestic chores, so to him it’s a big show of how much he cares for them, and the lenghts he’s willing to go for them. He wants them to know that he’s there for them and desires to show how much he loves them through his actions and all the little things he does for them.

Acts of service: Metal likes doing acts of service as well, but it’s more to be useful when his partners need it rather than out of an intrinsic notion of it. Amy likes to lend a hand as well, and usually manages to have a good time with helping out, but for her it’s more about helping out when someone needs it, and making it easier on them, rather than some demonstration that she values them.

Quality time: They hang out together and go on dates often, be it all three or two of them. When only two of them, it’s usually Amy and Metal or Shadow, instead of Shadow and Metal, because Amy feels comfortable in public and is very outgoing, while Shadow and Metal can feel very uneasy and closed off in public, they see the appeal of going to places for activities to a lesser extent than Amy. Instead, Shadow and Metal do activities at home, or in the wilderness. Due to their jobs in the sonic universe as heroes, they all also often go on missions together, so they end up spending a lot of time together.

I was listening to Overhead from FNF and thought of how it’s kind of a perfect song for metamadow-

The instrumental represents Shadow, the fast pacedness of it and the banger beat to it, pretty acoustic because despite the This Machine theme song Shadow is more often represented by genres like hard rock, punk & all that stuff. I always imagine Shadow skating along to this song ngl Metal is Whitty’s voice, it’s actually lowkey a voice claim in my mind because oh lord it fits so well. Beep boop. And obviously beside being very robotic-sounding it has that agressive texture and tone to it which really fits him imo Then Amy is Bf’s voice and the soft synth piano we hear then and there, which is pretty much literally the only thing adding softness in that song

Lowkey I want to do an animated music video with them for this song but also, what I have in mind is way too ambitious lol, maybe one day. It just sparks so much cool dynamic movement ideas, like, beyond the 10 ways to make Shadow skate, 0:58 would be so fun with Amy doing hammer tricks and twirls, then Metal can add an artificial aesthetic to it, with artistic shots of his eyes that affect the whole color palette of the shots or something

Anyways I made a spotify metamadow playlist:  https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5Erp04IfkP1vkMdboW8m9H?si=c9bad63f92c743da I’m always adding more songs as I think of them so next time you look at it there might be more. I try to put them in an order I think can impact the listener more or for a pleasing flow, so it’s kind of like a journey

Then I have my Shadow and Metal Sonic individual playlists, which besides their personal angst also have touches of shadamy and metamy. I just got into metadow recently so that’ll come in due time

My Shadow playlist:  https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3PYXd36uthOqUGm9vvn4Xe?si=e4cb54d6e24244e4