Posted these on Twitter in a long thread hoping to show SEGA that Amy do desire to be able to play as her in games like Sonic Mania and Sonic Origins. So, while I don't ask that you like my gameplay concept for Amy pre-/without Piko Piko Hammer, I do ask that if you have a Twitter account to hop over and interact with the thread in a positive way as well as getting your friends, mutuals, and followers who are also Amy fans to so we can show SEGA that Amy fans want her and are willing to put in the effort to be heard.

Thank you everyone. Here's the link

(Urgent) I’m taking commissions

Hello my loves, I never thought I would have to do this again, but I really need help right now. I am doing art/translation commissions again, if you’ve known me since the pandemic you will remember I started to work in order to help my parents after my dad lost his job and got depressed, and was at the time too sad to do anything. I thought my parents were doing fine post pandemic since my dad got the will to study to get a masters degree, but my mom told me very recently that she is in debt (around S/ 20k peruvian soles or maybe more) and I’ve been weighing the options we currently have.

I know I haven’t been a good child to them. I dropped out of uni, and then dropped out of art school because I am too sick (clinical depression) to go. I am currently looking for a job as a waiter, and that money will go towards easing my mom’s debt. My best bet is looking for expensive restaurants, because foreigners come and go, and I’ve heard they leave big tips. I only speak spanish (mother tongue) and english (second language) fluently and I have faith that this privilege will help me. I’m trying, I really am.

Aside from doing this separately in order to help my parents, I am working on commissions (both art and translation) to help my partner. If I thought that my family had it bad, when I met and started dating my boyfriend it became clear that what we were going through is nothing. He is a very sweet boy, and he treats me like I am an angel, but he is my angel. He’s had it very rough. He’s struggling with addiction and I fret over him constantly, because he lives very far from where I do and if he were to be in any danger I wouldn’t be able to reach him in time.

Aside from struggling with drug addiction since he was a child, he left his home this year, and started living alone. I know that it is not ideal, but he was desperate to get away from his mom. I don’t want to be judgemental, but she is not a good person, he’s told me many things about her and I cannot trust her. To beat your son, to insult him, to make him feel like he’s a bad person, to make him feel like he’s nothing is so terrible. He once told me the last time she beat him he was sixteen years old, and she beat him so many times his back started to bleed.

Two days ago, he told me in tears that he’s scared of going back to that house because after he left his relationship with that woman started to improve, they had become friends. But apparently, his mom said after mother’s day that he only came back when he needed money (I honestly see nothing wrong with that. She is his mother, and it is her duty to take care of him until he is stable. She has abused him all his life, and I don’t understand how she expects better treatment from him after everything that she’s done. I don’t understand how he could forgive her, when I would have barely been able to even look at her in the eye. He truly is a sweetheart) and made him feel bad. And the worst part is, he had saved some money from his many jobs in order to take her and his grandmother out for dinner, and she never went. Only his grandmother was there. His mother went on a date with his stepfather.

Today, he has told me the landlord (landlady?) is kicking him out. I’m thinking this has something to do with his drug use or the fact that he’s been barely surviving, thus being unable to pay the woman consistently. She is insisting that he owes her and didn’t let him in since yesterday when he pleaded with her to open the door (he forgot his keys and phone in his room) and he had to sleep on a bench. It’s winter, and it is not safe where he lives.

I’ve pleaded with my family and they’re willing to help him find an actual apartment somewhere close to us, and a job. My mom told me she would help with rent until he was economically stable to do so himself. But until we find an apartment and a job and even after that, I know it’s going to be very difficult. His father is very irresponsible, and doesn’t help or even talk to him frequently (his father lives comfortably in Germany and can even travel abroad whenever he wants). I want to help him in any way that I can, whether it be food and groceries, shelter, anything. Right now I know he really needs it. And, perhaps, with enough help, he will be stable…

Please DM me for any information, my prices range from $15 to $45, no more, depending on the complexity of the piece. The only thing I will not draw is heavy gore and cp. I can also translate from english to spanish and spanish to english, if anyone’s interested. I’m charging $0.10 per word, because this is new for me despite being fluent. If you’re interested, you can check my tags: #my art // #translation for examples… I’ll tag them below to make accessing this information easier.

Please… help me help him. I am desperate. I don’t mean to bother anyone, I hope you can forgive me, friends.

Pay///Pal

The Sonic community has an issue with calling every relationship a "sibling" relationship when the relationship is literally just friendship or companionship.

Like, I don't even know if a lot of people really understand what it is like to grow up with siblings by the way they slap the label on everything.

Take it from me: I'm an identical twin, so for my entire life from even before birth I was sharing a space with my twin. As adults, we have chilled out considerably and I consider her my closest connection now, but there was a LOT of growing pains with a lot of fighting before that.

There were times that we didn't even want anything to do with each other which was difficult because other people kind of treated us as a match set. The point is that we sorted out our differences and conflicts because we had to since we shared a home and even shared a room for many many years. People see us now as insanely close but they never saw the biting, hitting, yelling and tears that preceded that.

For people around the same age, I would consider a sibling bond as those who sorted out their differences in time.

As for siblings with larger age gaps, there's a bit of a different dynamic. Sometimes older siblings have to act as parents to their little siblings for instance, but there is still a difference between them and a simple friendship or companionship.

Yes, there are siblings out there who never really had much conflict growing up, but it is more likely than not to have conflict due to the situation of sharing a space for many years. There isn't often much opportunity to have time apart when you have to share a home.

So to me, a good sibling bond is one built on past tension that has resolved simply due to time. We laugh about our past spats because we see them as insignificant now and sometimes we can't even remember what the conflict was in the first place.

Even if a friendship or companionship appears similar in shape to a sibling bond, that doesn't mean that it is a sibling bond. There will always be overlap among good platonic and sibling relationships simply because they are not romantic.

It's fine to hold headcanons about characters where you consider them like family to each other, but it is absolutely unacceptable to go around imposing that headcanon on others who see the relationship differently. You have all the control you need to curate your online experience through blocking people or content you don't want to see and simply not engaging with it. To do otherwise and whine at people minding their business is incredibly infantile, and I have to wonder if those who do this have nothing important going on in their lives.

Even for stuff that really rubs me the wrong way like "twincest", I don't engage with people who post content like that because I just do not want to see it and I have more going on in my life to spend time obsessing over it. Yes, I find it gross, but I can avoid it so I don't have to see it. I'm sure people who are getting twisted over ships that aren't even incest can learn to curate their online experience so they simply don't engage with or even see what they don't like.

Images you can hear:

Join Sonic Fan "J" tomorrow at 9AM GMT as she shares her thoughts on a number of subjects and takes the time to answer some of your questions.

Find someone who loves you as much as Amy loves breaking Badniks this Valentine's Day!

Here's the new cover artwork for "The Official Sonic the Hedgehog: Amy Rose's Fortune Card Deck". Artwork by @SpiritSonic.

Amy Rose's Fortune Card Deck will be released this July from @insighteditions.

All's fair in love and poetry...

🎨: @deegeemin

Wow. The patience, kindness and calm communication skills. Outstanding.

From raindovemodel

This made me cry. I wish all situations could be handled as perfectly as this

I just want to point out the core of what the diffuser did in this conversation

They recognized that the mother was also expressing a vulnerable truth about herself - that she felt like a bad mother because her child was expressing gender feelings she wasn’t equipped to help with - and met her where she was, a concerned parent with limited information - to point her where she should be heading, research and resources.

Im going to make more of an effort to stop reflexively pushing people away when they express biases and make more of an effort to hear the underlying fears when i can

“it’s easier to love ourselves when we feel loved as ourselves”

damn that is so  powerful though

God this always makes me tear up ahaha…

Wow. The patience, kindness and calm communication skills. Outstanding.

From raindovemodel

This made me cry. I wish all situations could be handled as perfectly as this

I just want to point out the core of what the diffuser did in this conversation

They recognized that the mother was also expressing a vulnerable truth about herself - that she felt like a bad mother because her child was expressing gender feelings she wasn’t equipped to help with - and met her where she was, a concerned parent with limited information - to point her where she should be heading, research and resources.

Im going to make more of an effort to stop reflexively pushing people away when they express biases and make more of an effort to hear the underlying fears when i can

“it’s easier to love ourselves when we feel loved as ourselves”

damn that is so  powerful though

God this always makes me tear up ahaha…

if sega ever removes this mandate its so over

The notes on this one are incredible

Happy New Year from everyone at SEGA! Art By: @miitarion

:^)

new years doodle!! happy 2024 ♥

sketches from 2023(vol.4). not in strict chronological order.

the last one of this year~ happy holidays everyone :D

Mistletoe 🌿💕

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!!!

.

Bonus: They kissed >:3

Nobody understands Amy Rose (and how would I write her)

Yes, another thread, I need to let some feelings go before I choke myself with them.

So, as I said before, 2023 felt like a huge apology gift for Amy fans, which makes me wonder, so why am I not surprised we are back with the Amy disrespect again just as the year is close to ending? Latest TailsTube really felt shitty, she gives Sonic a picture of herself with a heart portrait (which Sonic replaces) and she receives a broken Motobug from Omega, F U C K I N G A M A Z I N G, merry fucking Christmas. What's worse is that Amy doesn't speak up about her annoyance, she just shrugs it off like a good girl. You know how much I hate the arguments against Riders Amy? Everyone talks about Amy smacking Sonic with her hammer but no one talks about the stupidity he did before, sending her flying with Eggman for the sake of his Blender default cube deserved a beating, she respects herself enough to let go shit like this.

Why do people praise Amy getting disrespected like this and then clap with your ass cheeks when she doesn't express her disappointment? This is the exact issue that's been plaguing this character for a good while, she can't express her emotions anymore, she can't be herself anymore, she HAS to be the boring straight man of her team or else she's annoying. Say what you will about her past incarnations, but Amy has and will always be more interesting when she's an absolute menace, when she's cheesy, loving, and most importantly, fun to watch. Having a permanent frown when her team does something dumb doesn't make her interesting, it makes her boring, bland, it's an Amy that lacks fun.

Let me put it in perspective, if this bland Amy were what we got for an entire line of games, she would embrace her boring life, she would just shut up about being left behind, she would stay behind always because "girls not allowed" or "she ain't invited", and she definitely won't progress with Sonic because she has to be a damn tsundere who has to wait for the boy to make any bloody move. Is this the shit you'd tolerate for 30 years?

Maturity and Tarot cards are not replacements for her entire personality, if you cannot list what are Amy's traits without saying she's mature, doesn't chase Sonic or list what she USED to have for personality while talking about modern, am I expected to interpret you as Amy fan or someone who understands the character? You're a poser at most to me.

Amy used to be so much more, but nowadays it's impossible to determine what the fuck is she supposed to be because of this fanbase, she can't love Sonic because "she's a stalker", she can't use more than the hammer or be strong because "she's a civilian", she can't be on Team Sonic because "she's got Team Rose even though her teammates are never there", she can't show any emotions other than nice because "she's annoying", and she definitely can't be involved in significant ways on the bigger messes because "she has to always 100% solve everything with kindness". That, or the last exit she has is to be replaced with another "cooler" character and Amy has to either be pushed further to the background like in Archie Sonic or be retired, what a fucking joke. The lengths people go to trash on this character again and again, despite getting what you wanted, despite getting rid of everything Amy is, you'll never be satisfied until she's gone.

Knuckles is a Protagonist in Sonic Adventure 2, but why?

So I’ve asked this before, but I’ve never understood Knuckles’ role in Sonic Adventure 2. He is set up as a protagonist (read we see his story and point of view) but his story doesn’t tie into the narrative at all or even serve a purpose for him as a character. Now why do I say that? Well, lets’s look at the story of the game and then Knuckles’ story.

Sonic Adventure 2′s story focuses on the Legacy of Gerald and how it affects the characters. Sonic is affected by his similarity to Shadow and eventually Eggman threatening the world. Tails and Amy are Sonic’s friends who care for him most and get involved with Tails in the long running understanding Eggman more as a scientist, and Amy revealing before anyone else that Shadow is not as ruthless as he appears due to him not breaking out of her hug, something he hasn’t experienced since before the Ark was raided. On the villain side you have Eggman trying to exploit his grandfather’s research and learning secrets about him he never knew which makes him reflect on himself. Shadow is obviously a character trying to fulfill his duty while facing his role both in the story and the conflict of his love for Maria and how that all ties into Gerald’s plan to destroy the world in revenge. Then you have Rouge who’s primary purpose is to tie the government conspiracy instigated by G.U.N together and question Shadow’s existence and purpose while also playing Eggman in case he get’s too dangerous. But what a bout Knuckles?

Well, first thing to take note of is he isn’t even mentioned above at all which should get your attention if you remember the game. His story begins with him breaking the Master Emerald to prevent Eggman from stealing and he soon finds himself competing with Rouge to collect the shards. By the end of the game once it’s restored he uses it’s power to stop the Ark’s final descent to Earth and saves the world. It’s all pretty awesome, except for the small detail that none of it happened.

Now I know that line will probably miff a number of Knuckles fans, especially since it obviously happened and we played it. But the thing is, Knuckles roles are all met with indifference in the main plot. The big revelation in his story that Rouge is good is defeated just by playing the villain side which you are supposed to do anyway which reveals that she is fundamentally good despite her moral failings when you discover she is there for the benefit of the world and stopping Eggman’s latest scheme while also uncovering for the president just how deep G.U.Ns corruption runs and the whole Gerald conspiracy. Her act of charity to Knuckles showing that she is good isn’t necessary and is completely superfluous in the Dark Story. Even her love of Gems is all ready covered in Security Hall making Knuckles’ interactions with her valueless and redundant. So what about Eggman and stealing the Master Emerald? Same thing, but worse. From Eggman’s point of view it never even happens. His entire story is digging up his grandfather’s legacy for his own ends and he never interacts with Knuckles until the final story. In other words, the starting point for Knuckles’ story never happens in Sonic Adventure 2′s plot. that’s absurd.

Obviously though Knuckles’ role in the finale still has to be addressed. If he wasn’t there to cancel out the power of the Chaos Emeralds then they couldn’t have stopped the planetary drop of the Ark. The problem there is that Knuckle’s action is immediately canceled and made a complete waste, nor is it a natural conclusion to his story in the game. He goes through everything he does, and does not reflect anywhere without being invalidated within the actual plot. if he was removed from the game the main narrative would not suffer for it in the least. And since his story does nothing for his character or any other either there is nothing lost for him in the end either.

So yes, as Knuckles has his own story in Sonic Adventure 2 which is about him and his POV he is a protagonist of Sonic Adventure 2. That is a fact and cannot be disputed. However, as the main plot has no bearing on his point of view and his POV has no bearing on the plot or other characters I have to ask a very simple question; why is Knuckles a protagonist of Sonic Adventure 2 if the his story and the Main story both do nothing for him and he does nothing for the other? I’ve asked it before and been told that supposedly Shiro Maekawa had always intended Knuckles to be one of the game’s protagonist, but his role as the game is presented provides no answers as to why. The fact that he can be removed and the only thing that needs to change is why the Bio Lizard warps outside of the Ark speaks volumes about how unnecessary he is. As a result I just can’t see it. Why is he one of Sonic Adventure 2′s protagonist? His story is useless to both him and the plot. If not for the end of Heroes further tying Rouge and Knuckles together he doesn’t even get new characters to interact with and expand his character. Of course as that was only really explored in Sonic X rather than the games even that does nothing for Knuckles in the end. He serves no purpose in Sonic Adventure 2 and really should have never been left in when the finalized story had no meaningful use or interaction with him. Yet, he is in the game, and he is one of the game’s protagonist and I am still baffled by it to this day.

^

This! this! this!

I think that for a character to be protagonist in a story, having a motivation is not enough if said motivation does not tie into the story being told.

This goes to show that throwing the ME into a story is not enough to justify Knuckles appearing, and I’m glad more people realize this flaw in the way Sonic Team has been handling the character cast.

You already explained it very well: Tails is there because he cares for his big bro and wants to help him escape, then contributes with his remarkable intelligence to further aid Sonic on his adventure.

Amy too is involved for the same reason as Tails, wanting to rescue her hero, but her contribution to the plot is more subtle, and carries much more weight because she is the only character that could make Shadow have a change of heart, and to think that it all started with that little hug she gave him. Had Amy gotten the spotlight instead of Knuckles, we would had gotten to see more of her point of view, from how she chases after the military upon finding they detained Sonic, to infiltrating their base and retieving the key card from some poor sap probably named Bob, to interacting more with Shadow to better build towards the key moment that marks Shadow’s turn from bad guy to hero as Amy makes his humanity surface more and more as the story progresses. Maybe even having a rivalry with Rouge, seeing how Rouge is the bad girl to Amy’s good girl.

Sadly this did not happen. Sonic Team sacrificed the part of Amy in the story to shoehorn Knuckles. There is no other way to say it, and believe many people refrained from doing so, and continue to do so because there are certain things you’re not allowed to criticize without people saying things like “you’re not a true Sonic fan” or “this franchise is not for you then”… or at the very worse, they’ll claim you’re an SJW for tanding up for Amy, a character that just so happens to be female.

I think this is something that really needs to be voiced to Sega and Sonic Team: Your classic trio does not work. Not only does it exclude and holds back Amy in a very unjust and unfair manner, but also cheapens the character of Knuckles as he is thrown without any consideration for thngs like his character, his role, his motivation and how will he contribute to the story.

But like you said, I can also hear those fans getting ready to defend the classic trio, more out of blind loyalty instead of doing it by providing a logical argument, while Sega/ST will keep it only because of the fanbase’s association to the Genesis games that provided them with a false promise of the new game living up to the previous ones simply for having those three characters on the spotlight.

As you bring up the rivalry between Rouge and Amy here, it is actually another wasted opportunity as Rouge is a character who contrasts with Amy.

Amy is cute, Rouge is sexy. Amy is the one attracted, Rouge does the attracting. Hearts and the color pink are part of both of their motives. One believes in the good of others and is extremely honest while the other is very distrustful and manipulative. They are both heavily tied to the male hedgehogs on their side of the story. They both approach Shadow and question his motives, with Amy questioning his complete hatred and Rouge questioning if he is even who he thinks he is and in need of it. There are a ton of parallels between the two and significantly more than with Knuckles and Rouge. That they also both interact with and draw out traits and questions of Shadow who is central to the plot also shows major relevancy to the whole Gerald/Maria narrative. 

When I look at Rouge and what she does throughout Sonic Adventure 2 it is very hard to see her as a rival for Knuckles or even having a reason to interact with him. Outside of the Master Emerald which is completely wasted in Sonic Adventure 2 she normally wouldn’t even notice him or his existence. Amy on the other hand is directly involved with her actual plot function and her interactions with Shadow with that silly little hug of hers potentially being a trigger that allows any of Shadows memories of Maria to come up while rescuing Rouge. Mind, I don’t want to go too far into headcanon here, but thematically both for the game and characters, Rouge just screams to me that she was made to contrast Amy and not Knuckles. If I throw in Rouge’s espionage theme and that her big levels were infiltration and theft levels while considering that Amy own time on Prison island was also a stealth operation it starts to look very similar. If I also take into account the similarity the beetle in Death Chamber has with Zero from the first Sonic Adventure I really do start to wonder about the honesty of Knuckles always being one of the games protagonist alongside Sonic and Eggman. 

To me, Knuckles just doesn’t fit, not even with his ‘rival’. It’s so baffling to me and much as I don’t like jumping into conspiracy theories, I still wonder what was the point to Knuckles in that game unless his story was supposed to originally reveal and foreshadow the Bio Lizard and some of Gerald’s less than complimentary action. Yet he adds nothing and gains nothing. He doesn’t have a meaningful contribution to anything in the game, yet I’m always told he was meant to be there from the start and with the role he has. But basic storytelling tells you to discard anything which does not contribute to the story, and yet here is Knuckles being there and doing nothing. When I see that no one can tell me he isn’t just there so his popularity brought in a few more buyers so SEGA could make some extra money. It just doesn’t make sense otherwise.

Yup. That comparisson between Amy and Rouge makes so much more sensa than what the game offered that it’s not even funny.

Thematically, Rouge Seems like she was designed to be Amy’s equal in the bad guys team. Gameplay wise, I think that Rouge having Amy’s stealth-based missions not only fits her thief/spy role much better than Knuckles, but might actually had been much more fun since it’s also closer to Sonic’s gameplay where the goal is to head from a starting point towards the goal.

At this point, I think Rouge’s character could also had offered so much more if not because of how she was de-railed into a ME shard hunt that had little to do with the main story. If Amy was appealing to Shadow’s humanity, Rouge questioning his motivations also plays into the whole plot of Shadow acting the way he did because his original memories were tampered with, with some of them being even supressed, and discovering them would had helped him understand why the Ark incident happened in the first place.

IMO, at the end of the day this was an example of what happens when the focus is misplaced. This is why I say that being introduced in the Genesis trilogy, or being very popular will never be a substitute to having a motivation to become part of the story as well as having a role that impacts it in a meaningful way.

At IMO, SA2 is just the tip of the iceberg of the issue.

IIRC, this theme was also discussed at the Sega forums, and you essentially had two sides: those who believed Amy would make a better, more natural 3rd member to Team Sonic, and the ones that defended Knuckles in the trio in basis of “it’s what Sega says”/“that’s how it is”. That they can’t come up, with a compelling argument goes to show how that character is kept for what you mentioned: boosting sales. Now it’s pretty clear too why ST cheated Amy in Forces and gave Knuckles a role that made no sense with his character: they wanted him in the cover next to Tails to evoke that sweet S3&K nostalgia.

Just a little something to keep in mind for the next time they pretend to support Amy on International Woman’s day, given how when it comes to the things that really matter (the games) the clearly do not.

Admittedly I took the SEGA Forums side for Amy over Knuckles as I respect the characters more than SEGA’s bottom line. It’s not that I don’t understand a business exists to make money, but hard earned money lasts a lot longer than cheap pandering and since they do nothing with Knuckles but cheap pandering they hold themselves back based on imagery that has not been relevant for decades. It’s really rather pitiable if SEGA actually deserved pity for not even being able to understand that higher quality, which includes logical character use, improves reputation which improves sales. Adventure 2 was the perfect time to set up transitioning away fro Knuckles as well with his story wrapped up in the prior game. Unleashed actually started it again with Sonic needing emotional support and natural his best friend and the girl who cares about him like no other were his main supporting cast. The ‘I can punch harder than you’ rival who offered nothing was rightfully left out, yet the biggest complaint about the game is he should have been there for the gameplay ignoring the actual narrative and why he wasn’t. Again it’s a lot like Sonic Adventure 2 where Knuckles wasn’t needed for what was going on, but in Unleashed they actually had the guts to exclude him which was brilliant. As a result every character served their purpose and fit into the roles needed for the story. I can’t help but ponder how that would have affected Amy and Rouge had they been used that way in Adventure 2.

I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, but this response makes it kind of hard as it demonstrates either a lack of reading comprehension or creating a strawman. At no point did I saw or aimed to imply that I dislike Knuckles, my argument was that while he is a protagonist in Sonic Adventure 2 he neither serves the story and characters in it nor do they serve him. When I bring up Unleashed by the end and how it has the courage to exclude Knuckles as he has no place in the story I am complimenting SEGA and the writers for not hurting the story or Knuckles by needlessly shoehorning him into a story that he does not serve or is served by.

I think a lot of the problem that Knuckles fans and SEGA have is how his popularity superseded that he was a one off character. Sure, in the grand scheme of Sonic’s world he is one of, if not the most important character in the whole world due to his duty. the problem is though, in the day to day stories of Sonic’s world Knuckles is incompatible as he and his role is actually too large. He and his role are also too detached. and have nothing to do with the world directly. This also includes with Sonic.

One of those things that everyone forgets about Sonic is that he is a vagabond adventurer always off to his next adventure. He is a drifter always on the move and never looking back. When you consider that the story of the games is about him and the effect he has on the world or what he sees in it during his adventures and frequent clashes with Eggman then you also realize that making good narratives in such a world requires him constantly meeting new characters with only those with a vested interest in him being recurring. As Knuckles has no vested interest in Sonic including him requires a great deal of careful consideration in most cases, or at the least an investment in Sonic which he has never developed a natural one that fits his character or role in the world.

Now I’ve said before that most of Knuckles’ problems can be resolved with a change to how he is promoted. The biggest problem with Knuckles is that he is most commonly promoted as Sonic’s rival, which is something that has never really been true to his character. But that doesn’t have to be true, and it should root itself in Sonic being carefree and Knuckles being duty bound. Of course this brings up the Master Emerald as both holding Knuckles down and necessitating that he only be used when the Master Emerald is involved. Too that I say that more people need to know his story in the Japanese version of Chaotix.

In the Japanese manual Knuckles’ involvement with events is him actually investigating what the Master Emerald is reacting to from the island that rose out of the ocean in reaction to it. What needs to be taken from this Knuckles is a way from the Master Emerald but is still serving his role as Guardian. It should also be noted that no one else in the game has any clue why he is there. Those two facts need to be applied to his character both in and out of universe. Every bio of his should tell you that if you see him you can be assured that he is surface side because of the Master Emerald but his rivalry with Sonic might distract him, or his duty might make him an enemy.

Too me, Knuckles works best not as one of Sonic’s friends, even when their objectives align and he helps out, but as a wild card beholden to his duty. Roughly, a lot like Shadow who pretty much took that role from Knuckles after Sonic Adventure. In fact, by the Final Story Shadow’s heel face turn actually has him fully playing Knuckles’ traditional role making Knuckles’ appearance in Sonic Adventure 2 even further unnecessary. It just wasn’t a game that needed him, and as it did nothing for him either he frankly didn’t need it.

Now, before I go off to far on a tangent, what should be noted here is that even expanding Knuckles’ usability and availability while respecting his character and role, you’ll notice that he still has no vested interest in Sonic. He has no reason to constantly be there either personally or due to his duty. The only time he was invested in Sonic was when Sonic was an intruder on Angel Island. Since then there is nothing between them. So yes, Knuckles is an extremely important character in the world, but he is not actually important on a personal level to Sonic nor is Sonic to him. They typically have no reason to interact which is what happens throughout all of Sonic Adventure 2. 

As Knuckles doesn’t interact with Eggman, Shadow, G.U.N, or anything involving Gerald and Maria either nor that any of those elements interact with him even when they are the main focus of the game, him being a protagonist in Adventure 2 makes no sense. He is, but it serves nothing. Not the story, not the other characters, and not himself. That his inclusion requires an event which doesn’t even take place in the story as well from the viewpoint of Eggman who is the instigator of the entire story also speaks of how forced in he is. It just wasn’t a game for him and as such he should have been excluded. His character and role do not serve the game in any capacity so his inclusion makes no sense. Unleashed understood this and hence why I praise his exclusion even when everyone thinks he should have been there for the gameplay despite the story not needing him.

Now how these observations on his role in the franchise and inappropriate application of his character in narratives that don’t need him imply i dislike his character is beyond me. That strawman is lost on me, sorry.

The more I think about this as an Amy, Rouge, and (Especially huge one for her) Tikal fan, the more I think Knuckles is just an overall pointless, needless and easily replaceable character for 90% of the plotlines. (Sorry Knuckles fans) I think the only real reason Knuckles even existed in the first place is to serve as a plot device to foreshadow the ancient Echidna Clan — Who in turn plays a big and important role in how Angel Island came about and highlights the important roles the Master Emerald and the Chaos Emeralds plays as the world’s most important power sources in the Sonic series and the CHAOTIC consequences of misusing their powers for selfish purposes — And to show that echidnas still exists in the present day and you know what? His purpose made sense and worked at that time. But now that his purpose has finished, it’s time to let someone else have a chance to shine.

I think a great character who can carry Knuckles’ torch is someone who is also an echidna and in touch with the Master Emerald LONG before he was, yet has more reason to take the Master Emerald seriously and could use new friends and adventures after everything she’s been through and probably would’ve made a better Chaos Energy sensor and Emerald Shard hunter considering she and Chaos were sealed in the Emerald for 5,000+ years! (Imagine the amount of chaos energy that would’ve been absorbed in them for that long) Of course the character I’m talking about is none other than Tikal. (And no, just because she was unconscious in the Emerald for that long and now has spiritual powers doesn’t mean she’s now a dead ghost. I mean is Shadow a dead ghost too just because he was unconscious in a capsule for 50 years and can use new powers? XD)

And another unpopular opinion I have regarding Knuckles is I think the ship between him and Rouge — Quite bluntly — NEEDS TO DIE ALREADY! Even in my younger years, I’ve never found the thought of Knuckles and Rouge being a ship appealing because Knuckles and Rouge were intended to have a rival dynamic like Sonic/Shadow and Tails/Eggman and I think it works better that way because you can think of more creative ways to play with their respective character traits and abilities when thinking of a fanfic story of Rouge trying out creative sneaky ways to steal the M.E. and Knuckles fighting her to get it back, if there was no cheesy friendly lovey feelings between them going on, it would be easier to see their raw combat on full display without them worrying about “Oh no but s/he’s so cute and hot, what if I hurt him/er too hard? :C”. Don’t forget to mention that their lifestyles and moral values are almost vastly incompatible to make them work as an actual long-term couple beyond just short-term embarrassing flirting. Knuckles is a Master Emerald guardian just learning about his ancestry and Rouge is a “treasure hunter” (Which I think is just her sugarcoated way of referring herself as a jewel thief XD) and a double agent for Eggman and the president.

But yeah, even as a rivalry, I could think of other rivalries Rouge would have I personally would find more interesting and engaging with basis beyond just physical prowess and the Master Emerald, so thanks for bringing up the Amy/Rouge parallels and how Rouge is in a sense the dark equivalent of “The Heart”! (If the hearts in her design and bombs and stuff aren’t obvious enough) But I also came up with a Rouge/Tikal (And Chaos to a degree) rivalry as I believe would make an excellent challenge for their values they stand for. For these two, Rouge is like Pachacamac, but serves as an even bigger challenge because she’s more stealthier, more outwardly attractive, and better at putting up an innocent front to throw them off guard. For Rouge, she gets to meet someone who’s actually seen with their own eyes the serious consequences of stealing superpower gems out of greed. On the other hand, that rivalry can also highlight how Rouge is different from Pachacamac: She is not maliciously evil and perhaps that could leave room to go into detail on why — Out of all of the pretty shiny gems in the world — Does Rouge specifically come after the M.E. and the Chaos Emeralds. Maybe she wants to be it’s guardian and is jealous of Knuckles because he’s already one. Maybe Shadow’s sacrifice touched her heart and inspired her to use the Emeralds to protect those she cares about — Not for her own selfish desires.

But what do I know? I’m not a corporate slave, so I guess I’m just too dumb to understand how Knuckles + Classic Trio are actually so based and why money + nostalgia trumps storytelling.

You’re quite welcome! One correction though.

Knuckles was not created to foreshadow the Echidnas.

Knuckles is actually the end result of what started as attempting to design a rival for Sonic. Unfortunately, the character they ended up with doesn’t fit that original concept nor really the role of friend they use him in. Rival, stationary guardian, and friend are all of Knuckles’ core roles, but they aren’t used harmoniously at all and to the detriment of his character usually.

Other than that, this is an interesting argument for using Tikal. I can see it working based on how the whole IP is being worked.

It might surprise you to know that Knuckles actually started as a dinosaur due to popularity of Jurassic Park at the time brainstorming started on him. His bent tail is actually a carryover of that design. Also, he was never supposed to be a friend either.

Though I don’t have the links on hand to confirm what I remember (Sonic Retro has them all or you can ask @greenyvertekins who tracks all of this stuff), what led to Knuckles was one of many internal character contests in Sonic Team. Instead of another friend however they wanted an enemy or rival. For a while the rival idea was run with to the point that they had actually considered a character who was even cooler than Sonic that he would be envious of. A lot of these ideas were still present when Knuckles design was finalized, which was before he even was given a name no less attached to Sonic 3 in any clear fashion. By the time he was the envy of his relationship with Sonic was gone but later revived with him being envious of Sonic. Envy of Knuckles would actually end up on Espio, the main character of (Knuckles) Chaotix whose love of ancient civilizations made him envious of Knuckles living on Angel Island (wild how different the Chaotix are after their Heroes reboot, including actually being a group unlike in the game).

The most important thing to keep in mind however is that come the time of the Saturn, SEGA of Japan considered Sonic a shelved IP. So much so that he went from unpopular to completely unknown. SEGA of America tried to keep him alive, but as they did not control the license they were effectively powerless. It didn’t stop them from trying with an illegal attempt to make a Sonic game resulting in its assets turning into the game Bug. Of course the most popular example is Yuji Naka shutting down Sonic X-treme, which isn’t what actually happened. All he did was retrieve the Nights source code which was being used without his permission, with the Ristar team having already overwritten the original Sonic source code when they used it without permission to create Ristar.

So, if Sonic was shelved, how did we get to having Sonic Adventure at all? Remember that little game called Nights. It is the reason Sonic continued. As it was a Sonic Team it naturally had the Sonic Team logo, but Japanese players had no idea who the character was. In response to this curiosity, Sonic Jam was put together to introduce Japanese fans to Sonic. I’m not sure of the relationship between everything, but during this time the OVA was green-lit, providing the first instance of Knuckles being Sonic’s friend and not a rival/enemy, as well as the beginnings of Sonic Adventure coming together with Sonic Jam’s Sonic World being one of the earliest known prototypes for it.

I’ve never learned what the narrative inspiration was for Sonic Adventure’s story, though I do know that South America was an influence on the aesthetic of the game. However, I have always found it interesting how Chaos and the Master Emerald resemble the Dragon Egg legend Knuckles was familiar with that Eggman used to trick him in the Japanese story of Sonic 3 & Knuckles. But as you can see, Knuckles was not made to foreshadow the Echidna story. It was little more than something for fans to interpret as they would and otherwise explain why he was on Angel Island alone until they expanded on it in Sonic Adventure. I have no doubt that they had ideas back when they settled on Knuckles’ backstory, but at the least it’s not what he was created for.