WRONG

Its seemed Like Sonaze was gradually becoming more and more popular in the Sonic community (especially on reddit), being a rare ship its been great to see more art and support for it (as It is the only sonic ship I feel somewhat strongly about) I haven’t been very actively engaged in Sonic for a few months now, but I’m begging to see that with the rise of “toxic Sonaze fans” or something at least on reddit.

Now I haven't seen much of this actual toxicity, most just Blaze fans who are sick of her being attached to Silver all the time (a notion I agree with) But people have been turning that debate into a Sonaze vs Silvaze kinda thing, which is a completely different discussion and honestly pointless. Saw a comment along the lines: “are Sonaze fans the new Sonally fans?” and I don’t get anything against any shipping community in this fandom, but I can tell that has a negative connotation to it.

Being a minority shipper ain’t easy, personally shipping discourse is inherently useless, especially as romance isn’t and hopefully never will be a main theme in Sonic stories. I can write a whole essay about how awesome Blaze and Sonic’s relationship is thematically and character wise, and how their friendship should be more explored in Sonic stories (But give Blaze some solo stories + Marine and Cream first!) but I don’t want to get into pointless arguments with fans who believe the ship is “forced” (especially if your a Silvaze fan, that duo is the definition of forced, coming from someone who adores Silver)

Anyway with Sonaze week on Tumblr coming up I have a lot of art planned, and I may go back to making Sonaze (and Sonic in general) content going forward :D!

Warning: This post contains spoilers for the animated series "Sonic Prime". English is not my native language, so I apologize if my English isn't the best.

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Honorable mention - Grim Rouge.

I don't know if I should include the robotic version of Rouge on the list, but I'll mention it here because it's the least I can do. Anyway, the most I can say is that I like the design. I believe the designs of the Grims (and their troops) are really cool and an interesting interpretation of the Metal versions.

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4 - Prime Rouge.

I'm only putting the main version of Rouge in fourth place because we don't see much of her in the series. She served to deliver the information about the Paradox Prism, and that's it, but I'll admit, the interaction between her and Sonic in Tails' garage was a little funny.

Now, I'm going to talk about the character design, because I believe it's the most interesting topic to discuss. I don't know if many people hated this design when the series launched because it covered Rouge's body, but I believe some people might not have liked it because of that. I'll try to be honest, I don't hate the outfit itself; I think it's an interesting alternative outfit for Rouge to wear, and I think it works as a more "stealth" outfit, if you know what I mean. I'm not a fan of how Rouge's neck looks in the outfit; I think it looks strange, and that's the only thing that bothers me a little about the outfit. Oh, and I think the colors and details look good on the outfit too.

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3 - Prim Rouge.

Regarding the wild version of Rouge, I honestly think her story and broken friendship with Thorn Rose were interesting to see, even if it was somewhat simple and sometimes a bit slow. I don't have much to say, I like that she tried to use Sonic at the beginning and it shows her opportunistic side, I just wish there was more, because sometimes I even forget that she's supposed to be a variant of Rouge.

Regarding the character design, I think it's the design I like the least among the variants, honestly. I like that Prim hardly uses any purple and the paint on her face is something different, I think it looks nice. I'm not a fan of seeing the characters' hands without gloves, I think it looks strange most of the time. Like, it makes sense that some of them don't have gloves because they're in a wild era, but it's something I really don't like.

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2 - Batten Rouge.

This pirate version of Rouge is quite strange to me, because I like her charisma and personality in general, but I feel we missed a great opportunity to use Batten as a rival to Dread. First, the design is okay, nothing special, and it fits with pirates in general. I find the character charismatic most of the time, as I said before, and her accent is funny sometimes.

Now, my biggest problem with this variant is that I think the writers should have used her as the Captain who usurped Dread because he became a coward in capturing the Paradox Prism. Like, she's a pirate variant of Rouge, how come she doesn't have a bigger role than she was given in the series?! It would have been an interesting interpretation of the "rivalry" between Knuckles and Rouge, because Rouge wants to steal the Master Emerald and Knuckles wants to protect it; we could have had something where two pirates became rivals and both try to capture the same Prism. And also, I never liked that the pirates who usurped Dread were a bunch of nobodies; Batten should have been the usurper and become the new captain, it would have been amazing to see.

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1 - Rebel Rouge.

I'll get straight to the point, I like Rebel Rouge's design, I think it fits the universe she's in. I just wish it had a little more purple, because her flashback showed that her outfit used to be a bit more purple before the Chaos Council arrived and destroyed her home.

Regarding the character, I find it interesting that she went down a completely different path from the Rouge we know, because she was supposed to be the world's greatest thief, a rebel who doesn't care about the rules and the consequences that come after her. However, Rebel Rouge is quite different, because she's still a rebel and tries to break the rules set by the Chaos Council, but still tries to bring something of value back to her group: freedom and the nature that was destroyed.

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For no reason what so ever here is image

More happy and silly/ more serious and mature and overall closer to his 06/rivals characterization

Big w for Silver fans (ME) But with this I've seen people say he's now "too serious", which fair, but I've also seen people say that he's acting like Shadow 2.0, that's a common argument in favor of the sillier Silver of early idw, "we already have enough serious male characters" "Shadow and Espio are enough we need more variety"

While is completely valid to prefer the goofier Silver, to say that the more serious one is just "Shadow and Espio again" is so SO wrong it's making me go insane

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