what the hell! is that shadow's d-

isn’t rot such a beautiful thing? - Submitted by youllstealannuduh

OHOHOHO WELL

Her concept designs can be pretty South Asian-coded first off; in the middle bottom row there, you can see her wearing Shalwar, (maybe shalwar kameez? it's hard to tell what kinda top she has) which is a popular Southern and Central Asian fashion.

Her final design includes a straight-up bindi– listed as such on the Sonic wiki. Bindi are a mark on the forehead worn by women in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, and occasionally Islam (notably in Pakistan during Eid). While obvioulsy anyone of any race can be of any religion, as the bindi originated in Southern Asia, it's highly associated with that area and is worn by, well, a shitton of people in South and Southeast Asia, for both cultural and religious reasons.

Also, her kingdom: we don't see it much in the games (in Rush Adventure, they're mostly on outlying islands and ruins), but we do see it in the IDW comics.

It seems very inspired by Mughal architecture, an Indo-Islamic style developed from Indian, Islamic, Iranian and Central Asian traditions.

also. we got THIS tweet from the official Sonic account in November 2020, showing her having tea in her palace.

The caption is in Japanese, but translating it to English shows that the descriptive is literally "Indian summer with calm waves." An Indian summer is a term for unusually long hot weather in autumn, but like. Come on.

@penosh-wom pointed out that the patterns in the Sonic Channel artwork are "VERY reminiscent of India," and that the scenery outside looks very much like the asian coast.

Another thing I almost forgot– in Sonic Forces: Speed Battle, Blaze is given a costume for Lunar New Year, as is Silver. [sidenote: I'm not sure if Silver himself has any specific cultural coding, anyone?]

Lunar New Year is associated mainly with China, but is celebrated in several other Asian countries, including Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Yes, Blaze was partially inspired by South Asia and Middle East but it doesn't automatically make her a South Asian/MENA woman.

The same is for other characters. Sonic was made in Japan, does it make him a Japanese? No, it doesn't. Knuckles comes from Echidna tribe that was inspired by Mezoamerican tribes. Does it make him a Mezoamerican? It doesn't. Princess Elise and Mephiles come from the Kingdom of Soleanna which is a micro-country heavily inspired by Italian cities. Does it make both of them Italians? Of course not. All of them are Mobians and they have their own nationalities that don't have the same names as Earth nationalities.

IMHO, "coding" non-human characters as certain nationalities is kinda useless. You don't need to headcanon a certain character as your nationality/ethnicity to relate to them. And unfortunately, these nationality headcanons often come from nationalistic stereotypes, especially when it's done by a person who is not a part of that nationality.

@daxite are aware of what exactly?

I think the clearest example is the BBC doing deep dives into demographics and the economy every so often, but stopping at some point and saying instead "being too concerned about birth rates is racist" or "being too concerned about families is racist". Who cares if people can't afford to raise children as long as the population is replenished through immigration? Who cares about absentee fathers?

Snotgirl - Weekend II storyline

Part 1 (issue 18): out now

Part 2 (issue 19): March 12, 2025

Part 3 (issue 20): April 30, 2025