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The Chaos Project: Sonic the Hedgehog
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Tag Archives: Speed of Time Arc
Review: Season 1, Episode 1
Posted on June 30, 2018 by Chaos Project
I finally did it! My first ever standalone episode! Obviously, since this is the premiere of Season 1, this episode has been in development for longer than almost any other. Over three years ago, I actually drafted this episode on about a page and a half of lined paper. But I never got that paper back, so unfortunately, it is lost to time. There are a few things I remember about it. There was no package, it skipped straight from Sonic finding Omega to them taking a rest in the forest. Omega's thoughts weren't seen internally, there was just a brief paragraph explaining how overwhelming the noise of the forest was. And it ended with Omega agreeing to reboot.
I suppose I should start with that package. The inspiration came when I finally beat Sonic Heroes for the first time last summer. Not counting the end sequence with Team Sonic alone, the entire story ended on the note of Omega picking up the broken form of Metal Sonic, and sharing a look with Shadow. I instantly knew that I would have to expand on that moment. I decided that the package would be a great way to expand the depth of this particular story, while giving a sense of direct continuation from Heroes. The identification number, SH-123003 refers to 12/30/03, the original Japanese release date of Sonic Heroes. It's my hope that someone, somewhere, was able to guess it was Metal Sonic based on that information alone. I suppose that I should mention, while this is absolutely not the last you'll see of Metal Sonic, it is going to be a little while. This isn't a cliffhanger for the next episode, it's a lead-in to the next Season.
That scene with Omega's internal thoughts is also worth mentioning. Why did I do it? That's a good question. As a whole, I really wanted this episode to be exemplary of the entire rest of the series. That's why I selected this particular plot for the premiere, it's a simple pair-up of two maybe slightly unexpected characters, who go on a little adventure, and bond a little in the process. Expect that to be one of the most common plots moving forward. But anyways, if this episode is an example, that means I need to set forward a few things. Among them, the possibility of writing things in unusual styles or from odd perspectives, just for the sake of creativity and because I can. I don't want something else similar in the future to seem like a surprise. But also, part of it is because I didn't like that scene I wrote in the original draft. It made Omega seem kind of useless, like he couldn't ever handle being in a noisy place for any reason. This way, I made it seem a little more like Sonic's fault, giving Omega faulty instructions, then specifically demonstrating how it goes wrong internally. Even so, I'm still worried that I didn't quite capture that properly, like maybe it still kind of feels like Omega's fault. I'm also worried that that scene was just a total bore to read, I really have no idea.
The use of Heavy Gunner in this episode was also a difficult choice. Hypothetically, this would be the time to reintroduce Heavy King as the leader of the Heavies, since this is the premiere and all. But like I said earlier, I want this episode to serve as an example for all the rest, which means not necessarily starting off with a bang. The whole reason I brought the Heavies into this story in the first place was to serve exactly this role, someone for the heroes to fight each episode that isn't Eggman every single time. I chose Gunner partly for his rivalry with Omega, and partly for his presence as an officer of the law, since Sonic was getting arrested. Given those, I thought it would be a bit silly to choose anyone else. I did consider Rider just to change things up, but I feel like I should probably establish things before I go and change them. But already after this episode, I'm starting to worry that the Heavies will start seeming pretty pathetic if I have them losing every single time. I guess I'd better start thinking about having them win in the near future.
The last thing to talk about is Sonic and his role as leader. Obviously, this is something I've been leading up to since the very beginning. I think it was S0 E4 when Zero told Sonic "You couldn't lead your way out of a paper bag." And back then, it was totally true. Back in the early conceptual phases of this story, I thought about Sonic and his personality in Black Knight, and I thought that guy could make a great leader if he wanted to. I think he could've made a good King Arthur. And for this story, I knew I wanted Sonic to fill exactly that role. For one thing, I thought that having Sonic as the actual leader would help me to stand out a little bit from the comics. But also, I just thought it made sense. Sonic is the main character, and now the chosen one as well. Why shouldn't he be a leader? But then I looked to Colors, and especially Lost World, and I thought, that guy would make a terrible leader. Like, it would be hard to get worse. So I knew I had to do something about that. That's the entire reason why I put Sonic through his whole Season 0 character development arc. If I hadn't thought about it that way, I would've never given a thought to Sonic's current personality in the games, I would've just slapped on his personality from earlier and ignored the rest in a very pathetic way. So, I had Sonic build his way up, not just to being more heroic, but to becoming a better leader. And now, here he is. A related topic is that speech he gave. I was originally planning the speech to be a separate scene from the ritualistic handout of Emerald shards, but I combined them partly for effect, and partly just to save time. But I put a lot of thought into that speech, I stayed up until 1 in the morning to make sure I could write it all at once. I wanted to make something that, if said by a famous person at an important time, could totally go down in history. So I thought very carefully about dramatic structure and parallel wording, the kind of thing that makes a historical speech so memorable. And certainly, since Tails had the bright idea to record it, the "I know" speech will go down in this world's history.
Now, I know this season has only just begun, but I'm afraid I may be going on a brief summer hiatus. It's been difficult to write this past month, so the next episode isn't even halfway done yet, and I usually like to write ahead. Hopefully, things should return in full force this autumn. I'm very excited to share what the future of this season holds, and I even have a Special episode planned for September. In the meantime, I have lots of edits I still need to make around the site for Season 1, as well as a new Opinionated Review planned (this'll be a fun one).
-So until then, remember to live and learn every day!
Posted in Episode Review	| Tagged Archie/IDW Comics, E-123 Omega, Hard Boiled Heavies, Heavy Gunner, Heavy King, Heavy Rider, Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik, Knuckles the Echidna, Metal Sonic, Metal Sonic Group, Miles "Tails" Prower, Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic and the Black Knight, Sonic Colors, Sonic Heroes, Sonic Lost World, Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), Speed of Time Arc, The Master Emerald, Zero the Hedgehog	| Leave a reply
News Update, and a New Note on Canon
Posted on January 1, 2018 by Chaos Project
First off, happy New Year, everyone. 2017 was a great year for Sonic, so here's to hoping that…we'll get absolutely nothing this year so that they can focus on giving us something great in 2020.
Next off, the news update. It's been far too long coming, but I've finally played and completed Sonic Forces, and you know that means. The next episode of The Chaos Project is finally in development! Even now, I'm still debating how it will end, but I can promise that it'll be exciting.
Lastly, the canon. After much deliberation and reconsideration, I've concluded that I have no other choice. Sonic Forces simply doesn't fit into my established timeline. Therefore, against my better wishes, I must alter my present timeline to accommodate it. Before, the Speed of Time arc, the earliest chronological episodes, took place six months after Generations. Hence forward, that will be one year and six months. This extra dummy year should easily accommodate any future Sonic games, and shouldn't mess up much that has been said in-universe. Timestamps, on the other hand, may have to be altered significantly. I'll implement those changes slowly over the coming months.
-So until next time, remember to live and learn every day!
Posted in Meta, Official Announcement	| Tagged Sonic Forces, Sonic Generations, Speed of Time Arc	| Leave a reply
Review: Season 0, Episode 25
Posted on December 2, 2017 by Chaos Project
Since part one was done last week, we're now on to part 2, or at least, the transition between the two. As I mentioned that I didn't plan on splitting these episodes, I had no obvious split point in mind. It needed to be a place roughly in the middle which still left both parts with an appropriate amount of action. Usually, that would mean putting the faux final battle in the first part, and the Super (Hyper in this case) final battle in the second. But this time, I was subverting the whole faux final battle thing to begin with. Sonic jumped straight into his Super fight against Lumis, but the true final battle turned out to be without the Emeralds, against Chaos. Even if splitting those two apart had worked out in terms of even word count, it would've shamefully ruined my subversion of the formula to mark an entire Super fight as "part 1", since it would've been so obvious to predict there would be more. Luckily, I suppose, the need to have Tails, Knuckles, and Amy play a role by fending off Eggman and the Lumis clones took up quite a few more words than I expected, making for plenty of part 1 action. The specific cutoff point, with Amy dangling over the magma, was not intended to be a cliffhanger, just another dramatic part of the episode.
So the first thing to come up in this second part was the chant of the Master Emerald, otherwise known as Tikal's Prayer. The decision to make an extended version…came fairly recently. It isn't so much that I wanted a bond between Chaos and Knuckles, as that it was lingering in the back of my mind that they grated on each other a bit in an earlier episode, in a way that didn't seem resolved. On top of that, I did actively want some more resolution to the themes of the first episode of this arc, in regards to the comparisons of Knuckles as Guardian to Sonic as Controller, and of course, the original reference to S3&K and the Super Emeralds. Of course, the stealing and recovery of the Master Emerald was supposed to be enough to make Knuckles seem important after his introduction, but I quickly realized that that alone would fall completely flat. So, I needed to make Knuckles integral to victory in the final battle, I needed to make my S3&K reference more important, and I needed some way to form a bond between Knuckles and Chaos. And the one thing that ties all of those things together is the Master Emerald, which really needed a better reason to be there anyways. It took some thinking, but I decided on Tikal's Prayer as a good thing to link it together. Part of that thought process involved something that's been nagging at me ever since Speed of Time. Ever since Cast by the Light, really, though I didn't quite think about it at that time. The prayer on its own is so…empty. My vague-ish memories of Sonic X at that time made think of the prayer as a longer, more drawn out speech that could be repeated once or twice if necessary. But copying it down for Silver's scene in Speed of Time, I realized it was way shorter and less dramatic than I was expecting. Then, analyzing the exact phrasing more closely, I realized that there was a bit of a hole in it. It's almost kind of song-y in the way it's presented, the servers are the Chaos, the Chaos is the power, the power relates to the heart…and then all of a sudden, the Controller links back to the Chaos. The structure gives the sense of a circle, but that circle is broken in the middle. Of course, Sonic X actually did something that I didn't realize until I started researching, by adding the line "The heart is the controller," thus making a complete circle. But that line…doesn't make a lot of sense to me, especially seeing as Tikal seemed to imply that the Master Emerald is this unspecial non-capitalized "controller." And since Sonic X isn't exactly canon, I decided to ignore its suggestion in this instance, and go for something a little more helpful for my circumstances. I pose in this episode that this missing link between the heart and the Controller is, in fact, an entire missing half of the prayer that has been lost to time. But Chaos, who was there ten thousands years ago when the prayer was written (maybe he even wrote it himself, who knows?), knows this missing half, and was able to teach it to Knuckles. Conveniently for me, this half just so happens to encompass the underlying themes of Chaos and Balance that this series revolves around. Now, the prayer is far more dramatic and climactic, specifically built to be able to repeat itself if necessary. Also of note for this recomposition is the fact that in the past, Tikal used the phrase "The seven Chaos Emeralds are the servers," where Knuckles says "The servers are the seven Chaos." I pose that this is because Tikal picked up from the loop instead of the very beginning of the full prayer, and just so happened to leave out the important parts, being rushed for time.
Alright, sorry that topic was so long. On to the next. I already touched on it, but the Super Emeralds definitely deserve their own discussion. Now, I know that this is probably the second most fanfiction-y thing I've ever done (I don't like to talk about the first), but I came to this decision after a lot of hard thinking. Sonic 3 & Knuckles, as a cohesive unit with Super Emeralds, is non-canon, and I hope I've made that much clear. Sonic Team themselves have taken a similar stance. But Sonic 3, and Sonic & Knuckles, are each individually canon. Which means that, hypothetically, the Super Emeralds could have happened, but the circumstances required simply didn't occur in the canon timeline. And if it could have happened then, why not now? Of course, even then I couldn't quite bring myself to do it all the way. The Super Emeralds technically did not appear in this episode, merely a representation of them. It was Chaos and the power of the Moonstone that induced the proper Hyper Transformation. And that brings me to another topic.
This is something that's been a long time coming, something that I intended to do for the first episode of this arc, but ended up pushing back because Chaos didn't really appear in that episode. That would be his conceptual origins. Much like Blacklight, Chaos is a reimagination of an old concept from the days when my brother and I were children, dreaming up concepts for Sonic game ideas. This idea, in particular, was more my brother's idea than my own. This idea was for Hyper the Hedgehog. Hyper, an orange hedgehog with a "Hyper Emerald" embedded in his chest, and covered in grey circuit board-like lines that would become injected with color when he holds a Chaos Emerald, was created when Sonic touched the Hyper Emerald after it fell from the sky. The point of Hyper was to reintroduce Hyper Sonic to the modern canon, without the inclusion of Super Emeralds, as he could fuse with Sonic to induce that transformation. But that would be where the similarities to Chaos end. The Hyper Emerald, rather than coming from any kind of Realm of Chaos like the Moonstone, was instead one of many fragments of leftover material from the creation of the universe (a concept that may sound familiar to readers of Yuni Oha's "Pokémon Cosmic Quest"). Hyper as a character was built to refill the anti-hero role that Shadow was slowly leaving in favor of a more heroic one, very different from the role of Chaos. I suppose there is also a similarity in that the final battle of Hyper's introductory game idea took place in a volcano. Anyways, pictured below is a drawing I once made of Hyper in his first moments of life, which hangs on my wall just like the picture of Blacklight I showed off. "Who am I?" was his first words.
This was quite a few years after that other picture, so I'm not nearly as embarrassed about it. In fact, I'm even a little proud, considering my poor art skills in general, especially at that time (although, the scanner I used didn't do much justice to the already poorly used colored pencils). Anyways, if you look closely around the head, you may notice a lot of erasure marks. There was a lot of trial and error with those spikes. And one among many of those trials was a spike design which now exists in the form of Chaos (personally, I liked that design for Hyper, but Yuni insisted that I change it to what you see in the final product). Also of note is the little colorless robot by his foot. That's Servo, who, in the scene depicted, was commanded to pick up the Hyper Emerald just before it transformed. Before Orbot and Cubot ever existed (well, Cubot anyways), Yuni invented Servo as a snarky servant robot who exists mostly as someone for Eggman to talk to. I considered using Servo for this series, but it would have been silly to replace Orbot and Cubot with a practically identical concept. The reason he's colorless in the picture is because I never bothered finishing him. He's actually supposed to have a body, not just wheels and a head, but I forgot about that when I first drew it, and again, never bothered fixing it.
So, back on the topic of the episode itself, I guess. I'll skip along to things I was contemplating, but ultimately decided against, including a scene depicting Knuckles, Tails, and Amy making their way through a cave before making it to the volcano's interior, and, more noticeably, a scene depicting Chaos being freed from Eggman's control. I'm sure it probably ended up being a little awkward skipping straight from climax to epilogue without a clear resolution, but honestly, I had no idea how to really write this cancelled scene without just wasting time. I suppose it could have helped if I moved a little bit of the awkward dialogue with Chaos and the rest of the characters to this cancelled scene, but having everyone just standing around and talking on an empty battlefield would have felt even weirder. But it's okay if it's at a Birthday party. Speaking of the Birthday party, it's a little sad that it's a day late in universe, but five months late out here. Unfortunately, I simply couldn't write any faster. Tails' mention of the beach day he and Sonic had planned was a reference to the epilogue of Speed of Time. I planned on having that mentioned in part 1 of this arc, but it didn't come up, and I forgot to add it back in before I published it. And even though there are other things to say, I'll have to cut things off here, or risk talking for days to come. These two reviews have already taken me three full days of writing time to make. But…I suppose this makes the last planned publishing…indefinitely. Allow me to remedy that. Nothing's changed for The Chaos Project, but I think I can promise another part of Shadow of Time in…two weeks. That would be December 16th. So…I guess I'll see you then.
-And until then, remember to live and learn every day!
Posted in Bonus Content, Episode Review	| Tagged Amy Rose, Blacklight the Hedgehog, Cast by the Light, Chaos Emeralds, Chaos the Hedgehog, Dawn of Chaos Arc, In the Shadow of Time, Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik, Knuckles the Echidna, Lumis the Shining, Miles "Tails" Prower, Orbot and Cubot, Pokémon Series, Shadow the Hedgehog, Silver the Hedgehog, Sonic & Knuckles, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (& Knuckles), Sonic X, Sonic's Anniversary, Speed of Time Arc, Super Emeralds, Super Transformation, The Chaos Moonstone, The Master Emerald, Tikal the Echidna	| Leave a reply
Posted on November 27, 2017 by Chaos Project
So…here we are again. Five months later, and it's all the same. So what am I going to say this time? That I, for the fourth time in a row, wrote a single finale episode that ended up being so long that I had to split it in two? Or perhaps that I cut out all but the most bare essentials, and still ended up with something that dragged on for far too long? Well, all of the above. But let's start from the beginning. I was originally going to do one combined review for both parts of this episode, but that review, like the episode itself, ended up being way too long. So here's part one instead.
I suppose I should clear up that Chaos blacked out and lost the Emerald in the last episode because Eggman used the device to control him. I tried to infer it, but it wasn't very clear. Sonic's concerns about his leadership skills, and subsequent reference to Zero and the Speed of Time arc, wasn't something I was originally thinking about. It came up when I wanted to have everyone blame themselves for something to create a sense of hopelessness, and it was the best I could come up with for Sonic. I inserted the resolution to that concern in a conversation that I had been planning for a bit longer. Over the summer, I had my first real conversation with my older brother (fanfic writer Yuni Oha) about my story. He's known about it since last December, but that was the first time we ever really talked about it. And when I brought up my headcanon on Sonic as the Controller, he brought up a point that I couldn't ignore. While the concept of a "Chosen One" can add a certain sense of importance to the events of a story, and he agreed that my logic behind applying this concept to Sonic was sound, he warned that Chosen One implies destiny, and destiny discredits the actions and decisions of the One in question. If Sonic was really destined at birth to save the world, that means that every time he ever saved the world, it's because he was destined to instead of because he has a kind and heroic heart. You can't call him a hero for braving danger, because he never had a choice in the matter. I had never thought of it that way before. So I realized that I had to address it as soon as possible. And although actions speak louder than words, I decided that words were still quite important in this case. Words from someone wise, who would know exactly why it isn't true. So I built the sunrise scene around that concept, to confirm once and for all that Sonic is as much in charge of his own actions as he ever was, even going further to say that he would still be a hero even without his abilities. Regardless, I absolutely love how that scene turned out. Besides being some wonderful and much-needed bonding between Sonic and Chaos, it also set up Lumis as a villain with much more depth, something that I was afraid I couldn't get to work. And with that, I also disproved another common grievance with fanfiction. It is often said that fanfiction writers ruin the characters by making all of them share the writer's opinions. Here I presented a clear difference in opinion between Sonic and Chaos, where even though Sonic agrees to protect the Balance, he disagrees on the best way maintain it. He believes some joy and some sorrow to be better than neither at all. And…I'm inclined to agree with him. I avoided the trap of using an OC to convert everyone to my opinions, by putting him against my opinions, while still making him a good person whose ideals can be respected. At least, that's what I hope happened. This kind of thing is up to the reader.
From then through the end of part one, pretty much everything felt a bit obligatory, only existing to progress the story from middle to end, with one exception. The scene where Sonic goes into Lumis' orb of light was, once again, meant to add depth to Lumis' character, concluding for certain that he is not evil, but misguided. Anything else for part 1? There was that little bit Lumis said about Sonic's pain of abandonment. That probably means something. Probably. Rewinding a bit, Eggman's face being carved into the mountain is something that also happened in Sonic CD. Still trying to keep up those classic references. I'm glad that I got something to work out for the fake Emeralds, because I had no idea what I was going to do with them when I first brought the idea back up. Umm…the "backwards eclipse" marking the Ritual of Illumination is supposed to be what was pictured on the cover art for this arc, but that art was removed for Sonic Forces, so you can only see it in the Image Gallery now. The way Sonic tried to recharge the Chaos Emeralds was a direct callback to Sonic Adventure, where Perfect Chaos drained the negative energy of the Emeralds, but Sonic still went Super. This was an intentional subversion. Sonic proceeded to reference when Knuckles stopped the Emeralds in Adventure 2, as well as the Gaia Temples of Sonic Unleashed. And I'm pretty sure that's everything for part 1. But…
This next part was meant to be part of the part 2 review, but that one even on its own was way too long, so I'm transferring it here. This is something that I've forgotten to do in every review up until now. That would be the game idea. Now, as I've mentioned before, every arc I write seems to be less and less like a game, but technically the underlying concept is still there…even though this one isn't really all that thought out. This one wouldn't have multiple stories or anything, but it would have, akin to Sonic 06, a number of "amigo" characters. In general, the game would focus on a "tag-team" mechanic, not unlike Sonic Forces. However, in this case, it would behave more like the classic Sonic games (or Shadow the Hedgehog), in that your partner would be controlled by an AI, unless a second player picks up another remote. For the most part, this team would be Sonic as the leader, with some other character following, though on certain occasions in the story, it would be Tails and Knuckles, or Knuckles and Amy, or something else like that. Different combinations of characters have different abilities and special Team Attacks, and in the post-game (as well as a few special parts of the story) you would be able to pick-and-choose both team members, some of which have access to secrets and areas which the mandated team for the first playthrough wouldn't be able to reach. There would be a few exceptions where you don't have a teammate, such as the tutorial Starry Hill Zone, and the first boss fight against Chaos. Although…thinking about it now, it would be pretty awesome if Chaos would be the teammate for that fight, creating a player vs. player battle. I don't know, it's not like I'm actually making the game. But anyways, that's all for the basics of that. Except…I guess I never really came up with a title. Perhaps…Sonic Chaos? Oh wait, that's already a Game Gear title. So…Sonic Chaos 2? Nope, that would be Sonic Triple Trouble. Maybe something more about the tag-team mechanic? How about Sonic Duo? Sonic Doubles? Oh, I got it! Sonic Double Trouble, make it spiritually linked to a Sonic Chaos sequel. But no, those titles are all lame. Yeesh, this is harder than I thought. Sonic Shining, reflect the concepts of Light? No, I don't want this to sound like a horror film. Sonic Synergy, back on the teamwork concept? No, don't want his to be confused with Sonic Boom. Sonic Fellowship…eh, Sonic Balance sounds lame, Sonic Moonstone is too vague…maybe I should just stick with Double Trouble. I don't really know. But that's all I have on that right now, so I suppose that wraps up this review of part 1.
Posted in Episode Review	| Tagged Amy Rose, Chaos (Sonic Adventure), Chaos Emeralds, Chaos the Hedgehog, Dawn of Chaos Arc, Fake Chaos Emeralds, Gaia Temples, Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik, Knuckles the Echidna, Lumis the Shining, Miles "Tails" Prower, Shadow the Hedgehog (2005), Sonic Adventure, Sonic Boom Series, Sonic CD, Sonic Chaos (Game Gear), Sonic Forces, Sonic Game Gear Series, Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic Triple Trouble (Game Gear), Sonic Unleashed, Speed of Time Arc, Starry Hill Zone, The Chaos Moonstone, The Controller, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Zero the Hedgehog	| Leave a reply
Forces Shenanigans, and a New Note on Canon
Posted on October 20, 2017 by Chaos Project
Here's a whole bunch of stuff, because I'm too lazy to make separate posts every time something new happens. First, some nice atmospheric music.
Now, for the main reason I'm here. Recently, they have begun putting out a series of short prequel comics to the game. The first one was pretty uneventful, but the second brought something important to my attention. Take a look.
Knock knock. It's Issue #2 of our Sonic Forces prequel comics, featuring Knuckles and Silver. pic.twitter.com/sEByKmnKy2
— Sonic the Hedgehog (@sonic_hedgehog) October 19, 2017
In particular, note pages 2 and 7. Knuckles and Silver clearly know each other. For Knuckles, there are plenty of explanations, the most obvious of which would be that Sonic Rivals is canon. As for Silver…I don't don't know how it is that they screwed this up, but they did. Either…
A) — Silver comes from a ruined future timeline of Forces, in which Sonic loses and Eggman maintains control over the world, in which case Silver should have absolutely no recollection of any past encounters with Sonic and/or friends, since he's from a different future than he was in any such encounters. Or…
B) — Silver comes from a peaceful future, as we've seen in some games, and got the brilliant idea to intentionally go back in time and screw with history, potentially ruining the peace that he has. Bravo, Silver.
There is an option C), but it's a bit of a stretch. In a previous ruined-future timeline game, Silver returned from his attempts to save history, only to find that absolutely nothing had changed, because somehow, his meddling led to Sonic losing in Forces, and Sonic losing in Forces happened to result in an identical future to what Silver was supposed to fix. So, memories still intact, he would have to make a second try. It bothers me, but I can accept it if I must.
Okay, I suppose there might be option D) as well. Through some kind of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey nonsense, Silver was not affected by the changes to his own timeline, even though he has been in the past (future?). Related option D2): In a similar change-up of established rules, Silver's time-travel has already occurred, he is able to read about himself in the history books, so he knows that he has to go back in time because he's already been there. That's a paradox right there, but it's technically an explanation. I'm not willing to take either of these at face value, but if it gets explained in the game, I'll be happy with it.
But wait! Something doesn't sit right with me about what Knuckles said. "I thought you you returned to the future? [sic]" (Bad grammar, by the way. That was a statement, not a question. Yes, I do care about that more than the double you. No, that wasn't me making a transcription error. Yes, I am interrupting an entire thought to complain about typos, when I make plenty of them myself. Don't judge me.) Sorry about that. Anyways, let's take a moment to consider that quote carefully. Knuckles is implying that he has a hard time understanding how Silver could possibly have time-traveled more than once, instead stating that his gut reaction was to assume that Silver had never left. But…there's more than one Sonic Rivals game. If Sonic Rivals were canon, then the concept of Silver popping back and forth between the present and the future would be no big deal. If Silver, in memory, had come back to the present multiple times, then Knuckles' first thought would more likely have been "Oh no. If you're you're here again, that must mean something bad is about to happen." (I didn't realize what I just had Knuckles say until after I wrote it. Oh no. And yes, you're you're was a joke.) So, I conclude with near-certainty that Silver must have canonically come to the present exactly one time before. And since 06 decanonized itself, and you can't trust a word of what the handheld port of Colors tells you, that leaves one reasonable conclusion. Sonic's birthday party, at the end of the events of Sonic Generations, is canon and remembered (something I've been sort of avoiding in my story, but I had a plan that just got more difficult). Additionally, at said party, Silver and Knuckles must have interacted off-screen, not to the point of becoming good friends, but enough to remember each other's names and basic backstory. That's certainly the sense I got from the way they interacted, anyways. That also solves the problem of Silver's memory. Since he didn't actually change anything in the past, he returned to his future as-is.
So, there it is. If you don't think about it, it works just fine. If you do think about it, it looks like complete nonsense. But if you analyze even deeper, it isn't necessarily unreasonable. But something's still not sitting quite right with me. Oh, yeah. It's because my entire Speed of Time arc seems to completely contradict this. Yes, it's a problem only a fanfic writer could have, but can you blame me for thinking that Silver would never play such an important role again? After ten years of nothing but rudimentary stories featuring only Sonic and Tails? So here's how it is. Everything is canon. No, not everything. But this comic is canon to The Chaos Project, and The Chaos Project will not be retconned to accommodate it. How does it make sense that Silver doesn't believe in time-travel in Speed of Time, but remembers his previous time-traveling experiences in Forces? How does it make sense that Sonic doesn't remember Silver from Generations, but Knuckles supposedly does? (I know this also applies to Forces, but I'm waiting to jump to conclusions until after I know the full story.) These questions will be answered…eventually. I have a plan. It has to do with time-travel. Big shocker, I know. But…it may not have anything to do with Generations. That's an entirely different continuity nightmare that will be addressed in an entirely different episode or story arc.
Before I go, one more piece of news.
I haven't really taken the time analyze this fan-subbed new trailer yet, but it's definitely looking good. Space battles? Yes please. Exciting yet serious story? Yes please. Epic and powerful villain? Yes please. Avatar rental? Who cares!?
-Before I say goodbye to you one more last fist bump!
EDIT: Wait a minute! I just figured out, when you first meet Silver in Generations, he recognizes you! AGH! This ruins everything! This means not only that Silver must have been in the past more than once before Forces, but that Generations has the same exact problem! In fact, if Generations is taken to be canon, that means that either Colors DS or Rivals must also be canon. But Rivals is still a continuity nightmare, and Colors DS is barely any better. Or…Silver remembers Sonic from 06. Which would be bad. Very bad. So…how to make this work…well, Silver's exact words are: "Sonic? Is it really you?" So…I've got it! Silver had never actually met Sonic before. Instead, he recognizes him as a historical figure, perhaps even an idol. That way, he's less likely to trust Sonic upon meeting him, never having met him before, as well as solving the problem of Knuckles' line in the comic, since that would make Generations his only canon use of time-travel. I would propose that this is the same Silver from the end of Silver's story in 06, the timeline where Iblis is defeated (which eventually gets erased). Problem with that is that Crisis City is still in…well, crisis. There's no way that a Silver could have been pulled from an Iblis-controlled Crisis City who is on friendly terms with Sonic. Except for…if he had been pulled straight out of the final Iblis fight. But then, I feel like he would be a lot more concerned with being separated from Blaze in the middle of an important fight than he would be about a potential impostor of Sonic trying to steal the Emerald from him. Anyways, none of this really matters, since Generations is not the answer to Forces according the the canon that I'm building, but it really bothers me all the same.
Posted in Meta, Official Announcement	| Tagged Archie/IDW Comics, Blaze the Cat, Doctor Who, Fist Bump (Song), Hero the Wolf (Avatar), Iblis, Infinite the Jackal, Knuckles the Echidna, Silver the Hedgehog, Sonic Colors, Sonic Forces, Sonic Forces Prequel Comics, Sonic Generations, Sonic Rivals Series, Sonic Rush Series, Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), Speed of Time Arc, The Death Egg	| Leave a reply
Posted on August 26, 2017 by Chaos Project
So, this episode probably felt a bit…disjointed. Altogether, this one took about nine weeks to write. I don't know how I can go from a two-day episode to a nine-week episode, but I was writing steadily all the way up until the wall I hit after the hedgehog (Chaos) escaped from Sonic and Amy. Over the next few days, I struggled to crank out the one very short scene immediately after. After that, nothing. Not a single word. For almost a month. I simply didn't know what to do with it next. Several times I sat down and stared at the story, or reviewed the last episode, for an hour or more before giving up. But finally, after weeks of brainstorming, I managed to start going at about one paragraph per day of writing, and that pace finally started to increase towards the end. In the end, I actually managed to even get a few extra ideas in there which weren't necessary for the purpose of completing the episode.
But enough of that boring stuff. Thinking back to what I can remember, I find it kind of funny, but I wrote about the appearance of Lumis just a few weeks before the appearance of the character "Steve Eggman" (Morpho) in the Sonic Boom show, who looks relatively similar to what I always imagined for Lumis.
Now, in case you couldn't tell, the "Moonstone" is not a name which I had originally planned back in Crisis of Chaos. It would have been named such if I had been planning it. Originally it was simply to be called the rainbow Chaos Emerald, or simply not have a name at all, but I realized that I couldn't be calling him "The Rainbow Chaos Emerald hedgehog" for the entire episode plus. I decided that it probably should get a real name, so I started looking into possibilities. There aren't a lot of gemstones which legitimately contain multiple colors at once, but when I saw that moonstone could, I was immediately sold on the idea. I had already planned on it coming from space before then, so that fell into place quite nicely.
Another interesting note for this episode is its use of Amy. Originally, I was going to have her play her usual "mistake character-of-the-week for Sonic" role. I even set up for this by having his fur be blue at the time she sees him. But in the end, I decided that I wanted to play off of expectations instead. Last time we saw Amy in this series, she was quite a bit younger. Last time she played an actual role in the games (not counting Forces), she wasn't all that much older. But approximately two years have passed since the events of Sonic 06, and my proposition in this episode is that she's finally starting to mature a bit. We saw the first hints of that in Sonic Unleashed, when she actually did some work instead of fawning over Sonic the whole time. I wanted to continue the development seen through those two games. It was satisfying, in a way, making her not-totally-useless. And besides, while I haven't decided on a concrete relative age for Chaos yet, I want him to be a sort of father figure for Sonic, which would make him much too old for Amy. I don't want to get creepy with this.
And…there's not a lot more I can say without spoiling the future of this arc, even though you probably already know where it's going.
-So, until next time, remember to live and learn every day!
Posted in Episode Review	| Tagged Amy Rose, Chaos the Hedgehog, Crisis of Chaos Arc, Dawn of Chaos Arc, Lumis the Shining, Sonic Boom Series, Sonic Forces, Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), Sonic Unleashed, Speed of Time Arc, The Chaos Moonstone	| Leave a reply
Official Announcement: Sonic Forces me to Question My Own Judgement
Long title, but I couldn't resist. Anyhow, I've mentioned a few times before that the general theme of Sonic Forces is very similar to my own ideas for this story, which scares me. I'm getting a little tired of using the words "wait and see." Well, I waited until today, and I saw. New Sonic Forces footage has been released from E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo), with more likely to come. This new footage, seen below, actually has me a heck of a lot more excited for the game than I already was, but it also makes me even more scared than ever.
The very first thing you do as Sonic is to go look for Shadow (I think)! It's so obvious, and it's so amazing! Story implications for this game just went through the roof! After Sonic Boom, I was really afraid for what they would do with Shadow should he ever reappear in the canon, but now it's clear that they're putting him in what is perhaps the exact role I would want to see. But, while nothing absolutely shockingly new happened in this footage (except maybe Silver, but that was already leaked), it put a lot of things in perspective. It is now clear that "Join the Resistance" isn't just an arbitrary tagline. There is very clearly a larger resistance force at work than just Sonics and the Hero (or is it Avatar now?), especially given the appearance of "Soldier" during the Hero gameplay, suggesting that the forces go beyond even Sonic's group of friends (a step above what I had planned for at least the first season, so kudos to Sonic Team for that).
Point is, this is turning out a lot closer to what I have than what I was expecting. But it's not time to abandon ship just yet. Currently, we are finishing up the "Birth of Blacklight" arc. Next up is the "Dawn of Chaos" arc (I'll give you one guess at the character it introduces). After that was a planned arc which does not have a solidified name yet, which would tie up loose ends and set the stage for Crisis of Chaos. The concept for that…well, let's just call it "Shadow Forces." It's not exactly the same setup as Sonic Forces, but it's very similar. Sonic becomes incapacitated, and Eggman (as well as another foe) begin taking over the world, with little to stand in their way. Tails manages to recruit Shadow to fight back, then GUN manages to recruit both of them to form a team of generals, composed of all (or most, anyways) of Sonic's friends. What ensues is a war, including tactics of diversion and defense very similar to those described by the characters in this new gameplay footage. I can no longer ignore these similarities. That's why I've decided to hold back on writing this arc altogether, until I witness the story of Forces for myself, beginning to end. November is quite a ways away. I'll continue releasing the next two arcs as normal, but after that there will be a long break while I figure this out. I purposefully left room in the timeline for more games to happen between Sonic Lost World and Speed of Time, but I never expected something so heavy on lore after what we've been getting over the past 10 years or so. Worst case scenario, Sonic Forces completely obliterates any semblance of canon that my story ever had, and I'll have to make a spectacular decanonizing special episode very soon into Season 1. That would likely mean that the events of Sonic Forces would be ignored for this upcoming arc, and it would proceed as normal. Best case scenario (which probably isn't happening at this point because of Silver), everything about Forces falls perfectly into place, stepping on none of my metaphorical toes, in which case I might even be able to convert what I have into a Forces sequel (or at least tie-in).
Speaking of Silver, I give about a 95% chance that I'll have to start doing some retconning (assuming that I accept Forces as canon to the Chaos Project universe). That would mean literally going back and changing the content of those episodes, and making a note on this website of what was changed. I did what I did with Silver because I assumed he would almost certainly never appear in an important role in a canon Sonic game ever again. Because of that assumption, I constructed the story in a way that does not allow for him to appear between then and 06. But now, he does. Of course, I feel like chances are relatively high (maybe 40% as of now) that this game will end with a giant reset button ala Sonic 06, self-decanonizing the entire contents of the game, including any interactions with Silver. I'm not sure why they would want to do that after the way people complained about 06, but then again, how else would they explain such a rapid removal of Eggman's influence over 99% of the world? Of course, there are plenty of magic explanations out there, but a time reset would certainly be the easiest and cleanest. One last thing of note is the "Soldier" mentioned earlier. In my story, I have so far inferred and intend to elaborate on the fact that Shadow was one of the only animoids involved with GUN. Of course, there are others, such as Rouge, but the point being made was that it is an occupation dominated by humans. Mr. Soldier was definitely not a human. This doesn't exactly contradict my story, but I'd say it deserves an explanation. Mr. Soldier may end up with a real name and a character-of-the-week appearance in the Chaos Project. Of course, he might not have been GUN at all, but I'd say the helmet was pretty reminiscent. I'd actually be a little upset if they decided that they should include a military that isn't GUN. It exists for a reason. But, I suppose Mr. Soldier could be an average joe who only became a soldier when he joined Sonic's forces, sort of like the Rebel Alliance from Star Wars. I'd be okay with that, but I still really hope they don't ignore the existence of GUN in this game. It'd be a big waste and a disappointment.
-Until next time, remember, destiny lies before you.
EDIT: 10 steps forward and 1 step back! Take a look.
The preview image for the video alone tells you all you need to know. I was very wrong about the role of Shadow. I'm very fearful of character reversion, but, if we're being honest, it's small price to pay for a game with a dramatic, potentially deep and enriching story with continuity to the rest of the series. I won't even go in to the thousand different theories running through my head. (By the way, Chaos looks gorgeous.)
Posted in Official Announcement, Opinion Piece	| Tagged Animoid, Birth of Blacklight Arc, Chaos (Sonic Adventure), Chaos the Hedgehog, Classic Sonic, Crisis of Chaos Arc, Dawn of Chaos Arc, E3, G.U.N., Hero the Wolf (Avatar), Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik, Metal Sonic Group, Miles "Tails" Prower, Rouge the Bat, Shadow the Hedgehog, Silver the Hedgehog, Sonic Boom Series, Sonic Forces, Sonic Lost World, Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), Speed of Time Arc, Star Wars, The Deadly Six, Zavok	| Leave a reply
Posted on June 7, 2017 by Chaos Project
Alright, so, if this were the real game, the initial story would have ended about 20 seconds earlier, with Blacklight taking Shadow's hand. Yay, a happy ending, right? Unfortunately, completing the initial story after all seven Emeralds are accounted for would unlock final mode, which begins with Blacklight's coughing deception. Because, despite my best efforts to entice readers to take his side, we already know where his future leads. But, interestingly enough, I had no intentions of stopping the episode here. From the beginning, I planned on this being the final episode of the arc. Then I finished this "final episode," and realized that I had written well over ten thousand words. Four thousand tends to be my lower limit. It was one thing, having 8000 word episodes for the past two finales, which could barely make two full episodes if split into two. There was no good splitting point near the middle for Black Cloak, and splitting Speed of Time would have made for a finale episode of almost entirely plot resolution with almost no action. But this time around, I had no such excuses. As much as I want to keep the episode count for this season down as much as possible, it would be silly of me to ask of my readers to sit through such an incredibly long episode. It just so happened to work out that this end point of the initial story and transition to final mode happened just before the middle of those 10,000 words.
Now that's the end of the episode, let's go back to the beginning. It's actually been a long time since I started writing it because of the whole double length problem, but I'll see what I can remember. Starting with the very first lines, there seems to be something odd going on with Professor Gerald, as if he had not only met Blacklight, but watched him die. We've already seen Blacklight's death during Crisis of Chaos, so obviously that's not true. Perhaps he's mistaken Blacklight for someone else? The answer…not for quite some time to come. As for Maria…the idea to have her kidnapped didn't come to me until I started to think about what to write for Blacklight's connection about the Robotnik family. I realized that I'd made a plan for the goodbye scene between Shadow and Maria which no longer had any convenient place to be included if I wanted to use the goodbye scene with Gerald as well. I also realized that there were so many plot points throughout this arc which could be resolved far better by keeping Maria in the fold for a while longer. The results turned out quite wonderfully. And…I don't have much to say, other than that. I suppose this episode was pretty…standard.
Posted in Episode Review	| Tagged Birth of Blacklight Arc, Black Cloak Arc, Blacklight the Hedgehog, Chaos Emeralds, Crisis of Chaos Arc, Maria Robotnik, Professor Gerald Robotnik, Speed of Time Arc	| Leave a reply
Posted on March 18, 2017 by Chaos Project
Mostly, I'm here to deliver the unfortunate news that, as happened after the Speed of Time arc, The Chaos Project will now be going on another short break while I finish writing the final episode of the upcoming arc, Birth of Blacklight, now that the Black Cloak arc is finished. As was the case last time, I'll be spreading out the posting content so that I still have something to publish every Saturday. Normally, I would be posting the review of last week's episode now, but between Thursday's Opinion Piece of Sonic Forces and this post, I feel that I have enough to push that off to next week. Expect a preview of next episode the following week, and the episode itself to be published the week after that.
Now, there is a little more to talk about. I've been neglecting to update some of the finer details on the website after publishing the last few episodes, but now everything is completely up-to-date, and then some. Preparations for the upcoming arc have been made, such as the reorganization of the character guide to reflect the most important characters to come. More importantly, I've published a new page, title "Image Gallery," which contains all of the custom images I've ever made for these stories, including several images which have been replaced and can no longer be seen anywhere else. Also included are some first looks at custom-made sprites for characters who haven't had their official debuts yet, such as Omega and the Chaotix. Most importantly, there is a 100% exclusive image of "Super Black Cloak," Shadow in his Super Form as seen in the final episode of the Black Cloak arc, complete with broken chains, torn face mask, material burned away from the feet, and of course, his new superhero emblem emblazoned on his chest. Keep an eye out in the coming weeks for the addition of a preview look at the cover art for the upcoming story arc.
-And until next time, remember to live and learn every day!
Posted in Meta, Official Announcement	| Tagged Birth of Blacklight Arc, Black Cloak Arc, Blacklight the Hedgehog, Charmy Bee, E-123 Omega, Espio the Chameleon, Sonic Forces, Speed of Time Arc, Super Transformation, The Black Cloak, The Chaotix, Vector the Crocodile	| Leave a reply
Posted on March 2, 2017 by Chaos Project
So, a lot of topics were actually brought up in this episode which I intend to explore further in the future. Of course, there is the unnamed Chaos-proof Black Comet material, the entire reason that Eggman is involved in this event. Then there's the general relationship between humans and animoids that King briefly mentioned. There's also general aftermath of the Black Arms invasion, though that has been touched upon already. Lastly, there's Shadow's mention of his faulty memories of the events of Sonic Adventure 2. Ever since the end of Shadow the Hedgehog, it has been heavily inferred that Shadow at least has a very good idea of his life before the ARK was shut down 50 years ago, and this is supported by the thorough flashbacks he's had of that time period. But the only memories he's ever been shown having of Adventure 2 were a couple of brief, confusing images brought about by going to the exact place where he spent much of his time in that game. And really, he's had no need to remember any of that. It just seems likely to me that his personal memories of those events are spotty at best, only filled in by descriptions from Rouge and Sonic. It should only follow that he still holds some resentment towards having such an important event in his life be outside his reach. Exactly which memories he does and doesn't have, I intend to examine much more closely in the coming series.
In case you couldn't tell, this episode was pretty difficult for me to write, took much longer than average. It's full of way too many scene breaks, which is an indicator that I've run out of things to say for any given time period, and need to skip ahead. Anyways, going into this episode, I was strongly expecting it to be the final of this arc. But by the time Sonic and Shadow had broken out of their chains after that long conversation, I realized that I was pretty much out of time, so I quickly came up with a few extra scenes to help fill in the remaining episode-and-a-half.
*SPOILER ALERT*
I suppose I should probably mention the fact that Shadow is the Black Cloak. I would hope that I've already explained it way too thoroughly within the super long conversations within the story, but in case you're still confused, I'll still gladly explain my thought process. It was a thought that I had long before the concept of the Chaos Project. I thought, "We haven't seen Shadow in a really long time. I wonder what he's doing with his life?" Though I had done a little bit of research into Sonic 06 at the time, I don't think it had really dawned on me that Shadow was already working for G.U.N.. But my thoughts, the answer to my question, was "He would probably want to work towards fulfilling his promise of making a better future, in a way that only he can, and likely in a way that puts him as far away from Sonic as possible (thus why we don't ever see him)." And who goes out alone, using special abilities to help people while trying not to be discovered? Superheroes! (I know, that joke wasn't even funny the first time.) Point is, I decided that Shadow's personality, past, and powers would very likely lead him to become a superhero. It sounds so silly, but it just makes sense. And making him an edgy, Batman-style hero wasn't a hard connection to make.
Anyways, when I first started conceptualizing what would become the finale arc of the entire Chaos Project, one of the many included concepts was Shadow's return to being the Black Cloak for a brief period of time (it was only at that point that I had come up with a name for him, and even then I wasn't sure about it). And when I decided to expand the Chaos Project backwards to include what is now Season 0, I knew that it was an absolute necessity to include a Black Cloak origin story. Thus, this arc was born. The first order of business was to get Shadow out of the military, since it would be very difficult for him to do both of these things at the same time. It just so happened to work out perfectly that I needed Shadow to help develop Sonic's character during Speed of Time anyways, and it was very easy to add in a lead-in to this arc, which even helped inspire the setting of said encounter (I originally imagined it in an outside area where Sonic would hit a tree instead of a wall). All in all, things have been working very well for me in the way of accidental perfect planning, and I'm very glad to be having each of these arcs leading into each other without requiring the reading of any other arcs to understand, nor too dramatically impacting the story of each individually.
Wow, this was a long one. One last thing to mention is that, until literally the very last moment, this episode was intended to be called "The Shadowed Knight," a reference to "The Dark Knight," a Batman movie, but I decided that I didn't like that title, so I just turned this into the first part of what was originally going to be the single-part finale episode of this arc. I was also a little afraid that that title would spoil the contents of the episode. Okay, that's all, I promise. And I didn't even get to mention my thought process behind King. Maybe next time. But this time, thanks for reading!
– And until next time, remember to live and learn every day!
Posted in Episode Review	| Tagged Batman, Black Arms/Aliens/Creatures, Black Cloak Arc, G.U.N., Rouge the Bat, Shadow the Hedgehog, Shadow the Hedgehog (2005), Sonic Adventure 2, Sonic the Hedgehog, Space Colony ARK, Speed of Time Arc, The Black Cloak, Wolfric King	| Leave a reply
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NEW EPISODES: Saturdays at 11:00 AM Pacific Time (currently on break)
S1 E14: Out of the Shadows Part 2
Preview: Season 1, Episode 14
Review: Season 1, Episode 13 (Sort of)
Categories Select Category Bonus Content Cast by the Light Episode Review Episode Update In the Shadow of Time Meta Official Announcement Opinion Piece Preview
Birth of Blacklight Arc
Black Arms/Aliens/Creatures
Black Cloak Arc
Blacklight the Hedgehog
Chaos (Sonic Adventure)
Chaos Emeralds
Chaos the Hedgehog
Classic Sonic
Crisis of Chaos Arc
Dawn of Chaos Arc
E-123 Omega
Forces of Chaos Arc
G.U.N.
G.U.N. High Commander
Hard Boiled Heavies
Hero the Wolf (Avatar)
Infinite the Jackal
In the Shadow of Time
Ivo "Eggman" Robotnik
Maria Robotnik
Shadow the Hedgehog (2005)
Sonic's Anniversary
Sonic Boom Series
Sonic Lost World
Sonic the Hedgehog (2006)
Space Colony ARK
Speed of Time Arc
The Black Cloak
The Master Emerald
The Phantom Ruby
Zero the Hedgehog
Heat Salamance on A Very Special Kind of Preview…
Cast by the Light
Episode Review
Episode Update
Official Announcement


Dr. Ronald S. LaButti earned his undergraduate degree from Providence College in 1987 and attended medical school at the University Of New England College Of Osteopathic Medicine. After completing an internship at Rhode Island Hospital/Brown University, Dr. LaButti completed his residency at Oklahoma State University College of Osteopathic Medicine in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1999.
Following his residency, Dr. LaButti also completed a one-year fellowship in lower extremity and joint reconstruction with Kenneth Krackow, MD at Buffalo General Hospital/State University of New York School of Medicine at Buffalo in 2000.
Dr. LaButti is an Adjunct Clinical Assistant Professor of Orthopedics for the Oklahoma State College of Osteopathic Medicine orthopedic surgery residency program and has almost 20 years' experience with computer assisted knee replacement surgery and almost 10 years' experience with robotic total knee replacement.
His sub-specialty/interests are reconstructive procedures of the hip and knee including, hip replacement and computer assisted robotic knee replacement. Dr. LaButti has performed thousands of computer assisted total knee replacements and more than 1500 robotic total knee replacements.
Dr. LaButti, with the patient's input, develops an individual treatment plan for every patient based on their diagnosis as well as their specific needs. The patient is involved in every step of decision making on their treatment. Dr. LaButti understands that it is ultimately the patient's decision of how to proceed with their care.
Dr. LaButti was a member of the Board of Trustees for the Oklahoma State Medical Association (2009-2011) and member of the Board of Directors of the Arthritis Foundation (2011-2013).
He is certified by The American Osteopathic Board of Orthopedic Surgery. He is a member of American Osteopathic Academy of Orthopedics (AOAO), the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons (AAOS), the Oklahoma State Medical Association and the prestigious Psi Sigma Alpha – National Osteopathic Honor Society.
Dr. LaButti, his wife Robin, and their daughter Sophia, reside in mid-town Tulsa with their Yellow Lab, Henry; Yorkie, Coco and Havapoo, Teddy.
Dr. LaButti is a wine and music enthusiast, enjoys target sports and spending time with his family.


text:
New, potentially lethal COVID-19 variant detected in South Africa
SOUTH AFRICA – South Africa has identified a potential variant of interest (VOI) of COVID-19 that is assigned to the Phylogenetic Assignment of Named Global Outbreak Linages (PANGO) lineage C.1.2.
According to the reports, the C.1.2 strain of coronavirus was first detected in May 2021 in South Africa when the country was experiencing the third wave.
Speaking to the media, the officials stated that the C.1.2 variant of COVID-19 has since been detected across the majority of the provinces in South Africa and in seven other countries spanning Africa, Europe, Asia, and Oceania.
Health experts have warned that a new variant of COVID-19 can give rise to another ferocious wave in the future. The newly detected variant of interest in South Africa has also been termed as a variant of concern by the experts.
The variant has evolved from C.1, one of the lineages that dominated the first wave of SARS-CoV-2 infections in South Africa and were last detected in January 2021. According to the experts, C.1.2 is a deadly coronavirus variant that is associated with increased transmissibility and reduced neutralisation sensitivity.
"Compared to C.1, the new variant has "mutated substantially" and is more mutations away from the original virus detected in Wuhan than any other Variant of Concern (VOC) or VOI detected so far worldwide," a researcher was quoted as saying.
Studies conducted showed that C.1.2 has 41.8 mutations per year. It is approximately 1.7-fold faster than the current global rate and 1.8-fold faster than the initial estimate of SARS-CoV-2 evolution.
In the report, the researchers also stated that a similarly short period of increased evolution was also associated with the emergence of the Alpha, Beta, and Gamma VOCs. They also suggested that a single event, followed by the amplification of cases, drove a faster mutation rate.
The recent study has also found consistent increases in the number of C.1.2 genomes in South Africa on a monthly basis, rising from 0.2 per cent in May to 1.6 per cent in June and 2.0 per cent in July.
"The rate of mutations is similar to the increases seen in Beta and Delta in South Africa during early detection," one of the researchers said.
Meanwhile, India has also reported the presence of a new sub-lineage AY.12 of the Delta variant of Covid, which was recently classified in Israel.
A recent report by the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium, (INSACOG), shows many cases in India that were earlier classified as Delta, are now being reclassified as AY.12.
New symptoms associated with the variant are yet to be confirmed by health experts. However, they have cautioned that some of the common symptoms of the variants could be runny nose, persistent cough, throat pain, body ache, loss of smell and taste, fever, muscle cramps, pink eyes, diarrhoea, among others.
Stringent lockdown measures likely in South Africa as COVID-19 cases surge
SOUTH AFRICA - President Cyril Ramaphosa is expected to meet with the National Coronavirus Command Council to discuss the government's response to the third Covid-19 wave of infections and the…
South Africa administers nearly 500 000 COVID-19 Jabs, the highest in a day
SOUTH AFRICA - South Africa has manage to administer close to half a million vaccine doses in the last 24 hrs, the highest number of vaccines administered with such a…
Africa, Covid-19, South Africa
Sanofi, Regeneron burnish their blockbuster Dupixent franchise
France to donate 10 million vaccines to Africa over three months

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


If you've been thinking about selling your home, there's no time like the present. House hunters come out of the woodwork in warm weather months and "for sale" signs pop up everywhere. Your job is to set your home apart from all the others. In most areas around the country, it's a buyers' market. So how do you get a leg-up on the competition?
You may love the outdated recliner that was passed down from grandpa. You may also think that lime green and fuchsia are the foundation for a great color scheme. But others may not. Look at it from the buyer's point of view. Figure out what needs an update, a touch-up or an overhaul and then do it.
You want to open up the space to make it feel larger. While it's fine if your home has the "lived in" look, all the extra knick-knacks should be put away. Jospitre suggests renting a storage unit if your place is small. If you've got a garage or an attic, store your items there in plastic bins.
But do not shove all the extra stuff in your closets. People look in there - and a messy closet tells potential buyers that there won't be enough room for their things either. The same goes for drawers and cabinets. Tidy them up and organize them neatly. Make sure your belongings aren't packed tightly because it will make the cabinet look smaller.
Free up the space on your kitchen countertop. A coffee maker and toaster are fine. But put away the blender, stand-mixer and popcorn maker. You might as well tidy up the bathroom counter while you're at it.
Neutral colors allow house hunters to visualize what the space will look like with their belongings. "Heavily saturated colors are overwhelming and don't go over well with prospective home owners," says Jospitre. If they dislike the colors, they will be put off by the space.
Paint neutral colors that blend room-to-room. Agents generally agree to make room for an exception: "If you're living in a trendy area where something out of the norm is expected, then a bright wall could be a welcome feature."
Does the carpet need to be replaced? Better yet, is there hardwood under the carpet you can refinish? Go for the latter, if that's an option. Buyers love a good hardwood floor. Get the fresh coat of paint on the walls if they're chipping or peeling.
Move furniture away from walls. A big couch against a wall looks frumpy and is not aesthetically pleasing. And remove extra furniture (this could also be filed under "de-clutter"). It's good to see baseboards and corners, which gives the room a more open and spacious feel.
Clean. Then clean some more. A dirty, dusty house is a huge turn-off. Don't forget to clean the light fixtures on the ceiling. And after you've done all that, do a quick 15-minute spruce-up before potential buyers walk through the door.
Open the curtains and blinds. Let natural light in. It makes the home seem cheery and bright. Of course, make sure the windows are clean too. Keep fresh flowers in a vase.
And don't forget the smell. A fresh smelling home is a big plus. Open windows to air the home out. Don't cook potentially pungent foods - like fish or garlic - before a showing. Instead bake some cookies or use an air freshener that smells like baked goods.


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Rubal is a dynamic and talented entertainment writer, passionate about all things pop culture. From celebrity gossip to film and television reviews, his writing is always engaging and informative. In addition to his work as an entertainment writer, he is a fitness freak and an optimistic guy. You can find him working out at the gym and listening to his favorite songs when he's not busy writing.
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text:
The Cult of Beauty.
One thing that impressed and continues to impress me about Nazism is its subtle, bullying allure. The almost-welcome assault is glancing, almost insidious; definitely not an attention-getting promotional blitz that would leave one less awed but more fascinated perhaps, if not a bit stunned. No, I'm convinced that the root of the curiosity and ultimate attraction of "Hitlerism" is because of its puritanical albeit erotic brutality and righteous violence, the shameless cult of beauty, and its anti-intellectual, almost ritualistic sexuality. The drama is exciting precisely because it's forbidden to ordinary people. In a certain sense it was (and is) a magnificent experience.
In my last blog post I raised the question about Pope Pius XII and his complicity with the Nazis before, during and after the war, and asked the simple question: Why? Why did he side with unmitigated evil rather than the savagely and unjustly persecuted? A reader wrote in and answered it for me – The Holy See wanted to do everything he could to welcome Germany back into the Catholic fold – a schism that had existed since Martin Luther was excommunicated in 1517 for posting his Ninety-Five Theses, which paved the way, unwittingly, for the Protestant Reformation that spread throughout and transformed Europe and the world.
But I don't buy it – it's too schoolbook and obvious. And understandable, almost excusable, or at least justifiable granted the intended end. But the audacity of this betrayal is in such bad taste and so morally repugnant and cowardly that that can't be true. I think the answer to most of the malevolence that's foisted onto the world, especially if it's particularly cruel or vehemently denied is done for personal and selfish reasons. Pius was the papal nuncio to Germany for years before the war, and so had many, many friends in high places throughout the Third Reich. He was notoriously antisemitic. So he was just helping old friends climb the Nazi ladder (and later helped them escape their reprehensible pasts). He then simply watched silently from the sidelines in a sick quid pro quo as the Jews of Europe were murdered in the millions because he believed in his holey, unhappy heart that they had it coming. I know that sounds like a callous blanket judgment, without nuance or empathy – but there's no other conclusion that's not self-serving or insulting, especially for an opportunistic coward like this particularly fallible "Voice of God On Earth." He's since been beatified believe it or not.
That said, I think most of us reject Nazism's machismo and the horrific world of the concentration camps, but that unconsciously or subconsciously we are fascinated by its atrocious power and inescapable, dominating amorality, which seems, even today, to be impervious to irony or cliché. The Nazis may have been the vanguard of the plague that came close to achieving a total technologization of the state, and, thus, I am convinced that the only moral position possible is to take an implacable stand against it, even if that mean's risking and sacrificing one's life. However futilely it might seem. Because Auschwitz meant death, total absolute death – there could be no poetry after it – the vexing question of how to resist without endangering not only oneself but also one's family is actually quite irrelevant.
I've also come to the conclusion that all thought shouldn't cease with Adolf Hitler, that if, in the course of agreeing with a line of reasoning that might appear to run parallel for a time to arguments the Nazis had also held dear, one should not therefore slam the books, close the inquiry, and stop thinking in such a direction any further. That would be equivalent to letting the dead Hitler set up barriers on all the intellectual roads which could yet prove interesting and instructive and so would be a curious revenge for the Nazism which had been not only a monstrosity and a nightmare, but had also for a few years conquered Europe from within, conquered it before the war even started, conquered it psychologically decades and maybe even centuries prior to any hint of a Holocaust. But to learn from the lessons of history we must first understand what those lessons really are.
One lesson is: I think it's a failure of imagination and a catastrophic mistake to take Hitler at his word, that Nazism, initially, had any benevolent intent. To unify a war-battered people, to kick-start a devastated economy by creating a vast infrastructure of roads and railroads, to modernize industry – in short, to create a democratic regime that would rebuild and then rule a proud and inspired country for a thousand years is total tosh. I think it was Carl Jung who once said something like "If you don't know the motive, look at the result, and then infer the motive." So let's look at the result with a jaundiced eye and then take an educated guess at to the reason/means to that end; measure the monolithic weight of defeat and wretchedness against the osmian grains of other possible truths and obtuse views. Victory is how you define it.
In my opinion Hitler never intended to win the war. In fact, he never even wanted a war in the first place, but it was the best way he could think of to kill the most Jews the quickest. In fact, war was the perfect ruse, a world-shattering diversionary smokescreen that masked the self-imposed prison of Hitler's smallness – to exterminate the Jewish people entirely and efficiently by throwing an impressive industrial complex behind the idea – and with subversive but triumphant intensity. He wasn't motivated by hate, as is often mistakenly assumed, but by disgust, which is why he used Zyklon-B – it was equally effective in killing Jews and lice. I'm not kidding – a gaskammer was originally a building where clothing was disinfected.
Hitler didn't blunder into Russia; he didn't make errors of judgment in North Africa or miscalculate the strength of Patton's divisions, or any of the post facto armchair general horseshit that fills volumes and volumes of history books and biographies and autobiographies, ad nauseum. Hitler only wanted to win the war if it meant he could kill more Jews. But given the choice between victory and extermination, he was very clear going all the way back to Mein Kampf: he'd rather kill Jews. Think about it – if Hitler's priority was conquest he wouldn't have committed so much critical manpower and staggering amounts of scarce resources, especially toward the end of the war, to annihilating the Jews. He would have concentrated the might of the Reich to actually winning, and putting the Jews to work toward that end. Once victory was declared, he could kill the lot of them with impunity afterward. Instead, he kept all those murderous furnaces burning at a supreme cost to himself and his Reich until the Allies were literally banging on the gates.
We first found out about disgust, a key feature of the human condition, from Charles Darwin, of course, who in The Expression of the Emotions of Man and Animals defined it thusly: "Something revolting, primarily in relation to the sense of taste, as actually perceived or vividly imagined; and secondarily to anything which causes a similar feeling, through the sense of smell, touch and even eyesight."
It's essentially a disease-avoidance system put in place by natural selection to prevent us from consuming harmful food and vile bodily fluids. But I think it's possible that disgust evolved not just for disease prevention, but also as a useful albeit ad hoc yardstick to distinguish "us" from "them." In essence: we're clean because we don't eat pork (or shellfish), and you do so you're not. Disgust, it goes without saying, is not necessarily a good guide for morality, but we can't always rationalize away our horror. But it's there, ingrained, painful, permanent. Morality may be geographical as Betrand Russell once quipped, and I think in a similar sense so is disgust, but there are also transcendent human truths.
That said, I'm thinking there's a scary, and ultimately murderous consequence of morality based on disgust, especially when it's extended to out-groups – lumping together the "them" into a category and equating it with what's physically disgusting, threatening, or guilty. To paraphrase the psychologist Jonathan Haidt, "Moral rules based on disgust blind and bind" and become righteous, take-no-prisoners movements, particularly if the state or the law is heavily freighted in their favor. The Jewish Solution is the logical ultimate result of this spiteful, delusional and murderous "moral" endgame.
With these things on my mind I intended on writing a monograph that dealt with the most important problems of our time, of all time: how to face evil, the implications and demands of a totalitarian system on the individual, the conflict between overt behavior and secret, cherished beliefs, the destruction of self-respect, the fulfillment of the death wish – in fact the simple but confounding challenge of moral goodness. My whole goal was to find a certain universal truth, to make an attempt at radical subjectivity without being overly or overtly solipsistic. The answer turns out to be very simple, but not very easy. All, all of us must say, in every thought and action, not matter how small, even at infinite cost to ourselves, no.
Why the continued appeal then? It seems to me what's distinctive about the Nazi version of the old idea of the "noble savage" is its unvarnished contempt for all that is reflective, critical and pluralistic. It celebrates a society where the exhibition of physical skill and courage and the victory of the strong are its main aspirations. It glorifies surrender and glamorizes death, doesn't it? Another side of the fascistic ideal: a culture where women are merely breeders and keepers – excluded from all ceremonial functions because they represent a threat to the integrity and strength of men. Isn't this mindset undeniably misogynistic and paternal, Prussian even? His paranoic psychosis – to murder people considered racially inferior and thus dangerous to the Master Race in an effort to cleanse and purify – drew widespread support from centuries-old hatred and prejudices – envy is the first and strongest human emotion – until the masses made the righteous homicidal revenge fairy tale their own.
There is a general fantasy about uniforms – and Hitler and his agitprop henchmen knew this was one of the keys to their magical vengeance. Uniforms suggest community, order, identity, competence and legitimate authority. Why the Nazis in general and the SS in particular? Because they were the incarnation of the right to have total power and to treat others as absolutely inferior. Isn't it understandable, boring even, that the s/m movement has embraced and sexualized Nazi aesthetics? Of course. But this doesn't neutralize one bit the heinous message of the SS and the Nazis: we are supremely violent, yes, but also supremely beautiful. Have a look for yourself at Leni Reifenstahl's Triumph of the Will, or even Fritz Lang's prescient fears of lovely alienation and beauty in the machine-future world of Metropolis.
In communism, the official art expounds and reinforces utopian morality, a collective ethic, but suffers from one fatal flaw: it's ugly. In Nazi aesthetics physical perfection is the standard and the beauty is truth and truth is beauty idea is innate in all of us, not incidental. Nazi art is prurient and romantic and implies an ideal eroticism, verging on the homoerotic, and our tumescent hearts are hardwired to beat faster to this beguiling (tin) drum. I dare you to watch Charlotte Rampling's Gestapo-fantasy striptease in The Night Porter and try to pretend you don't know what I'm talking about.
"To be the spiritual battlefield of European antagonisms – that's what it means to be German" wrote Thomas Mann, and I think even and especially today, for slightly different reasons, that's not just pathetic and impudent rhetoric. Was Nazism the grotesque fulfillment and betrayal of German Romanticism? The Eclipse of Reason? The logical culmination of Western Progress, a simple and temporary "distorted phase of Wagnerism?" Or have theses themes – political, economic, and sociological become more complicated and convoluted and, I suspect, less morally adequate to explain away the collective guilt that Germany still seems to be suffering from today? And the bending over backwards out of shame and remorse, the suicidal immigration and twisted cultural and environmental Gordian knots that confused and conflicted country is tying itself up in now are as heart-wrenching as they are unnecessary I'm afraid. And they're almost all un-untieable.
Much in our world is indeed hateful, which is the understatement of the year, and hatred and the lust for destruction, no matter the euphemistic window-dressing, never led to an improvement of life for anyone. How long did how many overlook Hitler's emphasis on "the suffering of the people" as the mainspring of his actions? The real source of his livid and malignant lust for change was an overwhelming ressentiment, a deep-rooted, pathological disgust for the unclean. It's as simple as that. But compassion can be a wicked, fickle and dangerous two-edged sword, and when used as camouflage for power and control, as we have seen time and time again, always means the absolute suffering and death of millions. And everything, everything is personal.
Painting is Jean-Louis David's Venus Disarming Mars
February 20, 2020 — Johnny Mustard
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