Sonichu Taffy's Annotated Sonichu - Simonchu and Bananafunkle finished!

[Salt Water Taffy]

Hey guys, I'm sorry for the little hiatus there. I got really sick after Christmas and I've barely been able to type for the last two weeks. But I'm better now and I'm really going to put all of my time and effort now into TAS and GitM. Plus, for Christmas, I got some new writing software to help me keep GitM in order and I got a drawing tablet and I'm learning to use it so hopefully next time I have to draw stuff (like for the Director Amenities Fan Jam) I won't suck quite so hard. Hopefully I'm going to finish both TAS and GitM in 2019.

So, moving forward into Sonichu 10, Sonichu 10 is one giant episode (#21, Director Amenities), so while I've split up previous issues, splitting up Director Amenities is a necessity. Luckily, while previous episodes I just split up on boundaries that were only kinda boundaries, Director Amenities has more distinctive sections because each section was a lingering plot thread that Chris wrapped up with an anti-climax. My divisions are going to be as follows:

Spoiler: There's a lot of 'em

1. "The Opening Infodumps" (Pages 1-6) - Chris gets out of the Time Void, talks about his travels to 2015, rounds up everyone he needs to destroy 4CG
2. "The Devil Trolls" (7-12) - Chris symbolically takes his website back from the trolls
3. "Grand Theft Medal" (13-20) - The section Chris did right after Blanca stole the medals a year and a half before the rest of the issue
4. "The Naitsirhc Rematch" (21-24) - Chris defeats his lifelong rival in three pages
5. "Chris Plays a Parody of Cat Scratch Fever About the Declining State of the Power Rangers Franchise So Loudly and Badly that it Destroys a Skyscraper, Killing Hundreds" (25-35)
6. "That Weird Interlude" (36-42) - Sonichu and Rosechu complain about paparazzi, Chris makes out with Meg Griffin
7. "Saving Crystal" (43-47) - The Sonichu Balls solve all problems
8. "Saving Zelina" (48-50) - Chris is Jesus and he can bring people back from the dead
9. "Chris Destroys Alec's Personal Possessions" (51-54) - Chris nukes the Asperpedia and steals Alec's dating sim
10. "The Asperchu 'Hogs" (55-64) - Again Chris is Jesus and the Asperchu hedgehogs worship him, Extreme Electric Makeovers ensue, then there's this weird and stupid battle for no reason
11. "Railing Against Asperchu" (65-69) - As if the last fifteen pages weren't enough, there's even more ranting about how much Asperchu sucks, then there's those Basement Rosechu skanks
12. "Inos" (70-72) - Inos is the greatest character in all of Sonichu so he gets his own section
13. "The Final Battle with Mary Lee" (73-77) - Chris paralyzes an old lady
14. "Chris's Big Speech and the Death of Simonla" (78-84) - Evan killed mommy.
15. "Watching Sandy Grow and the Trial of the Asperpedia 4" (85-90) - The Asperpedia 4 do indeed rock, so if I was the judge I would have let them go.
16. "The Asperpedia 4 Zap to the Extreme and Independence Day" (91-94) - Alec rides the lightning, Evan loses his pickle, Sean is at a loss for 409-Cleaner, and Mao bends over backward for Chris, and then Chris steals one of the most famous speeches in cinema history to justify it all.
17. "Pandahalo's Section and the Ending Miscellanea" (95-98 ) - Panda's third memorial, her comic, the repeat of the Adult Chronicles ad and Marvey Blaziken's final speech
18. "The Revised Ending" (I'll only be covering the pages that were completely replaced, that is 91-97) - Mary Lee and Kathleen end up sharing a jail cell, they hide weed up their asses, and then the Asperpedia 4 live out their lives stepping on rakes in the Amish country

I'm going to try to get out at least one section a week, with some of the shorter sections I'll hopefully get two out at a time.

 

[Cedric_Eff]

Man I always love your work @Salt Water Taffy. Your work on GitM is really well done!

 

[Salt Water Taffy]

Don't be a moof or aloof! Sections 1 and 2 of Director Amenities are up!

https://taffysannotatedsonichu.tumblr.com/tagged/Director-Amenities/chrono

(Sorry it took waaaaaay too long even from after my last post but good Godbear those text walls)

 

[The Un-Clit]

Don't be a moof or aloof! Sections 1 and 2 of Director Amenities are up!

https://taffysannotatedsonichu.tumblr.com/tagged/Director-Amenities/chrono

(Sorry it took waaaaaay too long even from after my last post but good Godbear those text walls)

Good stuff! This was a LOT of spergery in large doses at once so don't blame you at all for taking a while to digest and process this. Well done. I'll catch up tonite.

OH, @Salt Water Taffy , one thing I did want to point out/ask about that I noticed earlier in the annotation series but forgot: in https://taffysannotatedsonichu.tumblr.com/tagged/Witch+Confront/chrono/page/7 I am surprised that no one even seemed to notice let alone point out one of Chris' bigger anatomy fuck-ups right up there with the 'Giant Drink Straw of Fail' (in my opinion) is how in the middle of the page, as Mary Lee Walsh giggles and waits for the incoming dual attack of Chris and Sonichu, her left arm is not even close to attached to her body, but seems in fact to be descending from the middle of the shoulderpad! There should surely be plenty of humor available for that little gem.

 

[Vehk]

Don't be a moof or aloof! Sections 1 and 2 of Director Amenities are up!

https://taffysannotatedsonichu.tumblr.com/tagged/Director-Amenities/chrono

(Sorry it took waaaaaay too long even from after my last post but good Godbear those text walls)

Chris' love for Guitar Hero doesn't get the credit for being as hilarious as it is; it always helps deliver the best laughs. Autobot breaks out GH? Sure, why not lol?

Have you ever looked into why Reginald is such a lighter blue than it should be? I can't think of any reason relating to Pokémon. He uses blues that are a much closer match to the actual shade, so is it a stylistic choice?

Belated congrats on the one year anniversary.

 

[Salt Water Taffy]

Chris' love for Guitar Hero doesn't get the credit for being as hilarious as it is; it always helps deliver the best laughs. Autobot breaks out GH? Sure, why not lol?

Have you ever looked into why Reginald is such a lighter blue than it should be? I can't think of any reason relating to Pokémon. He uses blues that are a much closer match to the actual shade, so is it a stylistic choice?

Belated congrats on the one year anniversary.

Here's what I can gather regarding Reginald's odd color scheme:

This is what male Sneasels looked like in Pokémon Platinum, which was released about a week before Reginald's claimed creation date (Platinum came out in the US 22 March 2009 and Reggie was created 28 March 2009):

And this is what shiny male Sneasels looked like:

And here's a gallery of every single Sneasel to appear in Pokémon media ever (thanks, exceptionals of Bulbapedia!) To summarize that up, all regular Sneasels have been some shade of navy blue with red feathers (except in the Gold and Silver games where they were weirdly brown and had white feathers but I chalk that up to not having the color scheme set in stone at that point, as those were the first games Sneasels appeared in, and the mangas that are in black-and-white can't seem to decide whether a black-and-white Sneasel is nearly black or a lighter gray) and all shinies are pink with yellow/gold feathers.
As you said Chris does seem to have navy blue markers (the ones he uses for night skies), I'm guessing this was a deliberate choice. I have two theories on why.

1. Sneasels are Dark/Ice-Type Pokémon, and the Dark-Type is generally represented by dark brown, and the Ice-Type by a pale cyan. In theory, making a Dark/Ice-Type be a dark blue seems like a nice compromise between the two colors, but maybe Chris thought it should be closer to the Ice-Type cyan.
2. Given that Reggie has yellow feathers like the shinies, maybe Chris wanted to make Reggie a shiny Sneasel, but thought pink would be too effeminate, so he made him blue.

Edit: Here's a bit of trivia (that just adds to the confusing) - Sneasel and Weavile are incredibly popular among "rival" characters (Silver, Harrison, Paul, Gladion) and actual villains (Cyrus), and at the beginning of Episode 19, where Reggie was introduced, he seemed to be the archetypical romantic rival between Punchy and Layla. But based on his appearances later on, and being paired up with Angelica, he's clearly not meant to be a villain. Then why did Chris choose one of the archetypical "rival" Pokémon for what's later an unambiguously heroic character?

 

[Salt Water Taffy]

https://taffysannotatedsonichu.tumblr.com/tagged/Director+Amenities/chrono/page/13

Hey guys, sorry for so little so late, but these last few weeks have been the busiest I've been in months, and I'm only going to get busier, since A) I'm going back to school (part time, but six credit hours is still a lot of time), B) since the government shutdown ended I've had to make up for a lost month of work, C) I just joined a gym, which has been really great for me but it eats up more of my time, and D) the new Smash Bros has been eating up pretty much all of the rest of my spare time. I'm not going to say TAS or GitM are on a hiatus, because I am still working on them, but they are sort of on a back burner at the moment. But hopefully I'll have more GitM up next week and have section 4 of Director Amenities up not long after.

Edit - Only about four hours later and the Jimmy Hill page already has a whopping 9 notes (that is, combined likes and reblogs), which is like, 9 times the amount I usually get.

 

[thehunteroftrolls]

Taffy,

I am most pleased by the service you are continuing to provide. Astute criticism adds depth and nuance to every kind of aesthetic response. If you need a brief respite, I would be happy to try my hand at writing a guest episode.

 

[Salt Water Taffy]

Taffy,

I am most pleased by the service you are continuing to provide. Astute criticism adds depth and nuance to every kind of aesthetic response. If you need a brief respite, I would be happy to try my hand at writing a guest episode.

Thanks for the offer, but TAS is still coming along quite nicely behind the scenes (also I just spent, like, eight hours on the Power Rangers wiki researching all the proper nouns in Revive Zordon and I don't want to let that go to waste). I'm going to take a cue from my predecessor and recommend going into business for yourself with one of the other awful webcomics of the world (Here's some good places to start if you need some inspiration, not to mention all the threads we have here on horrible artists and their work).

As an aside, one of the reasons I've been so slow with TAS/GitM updates lately is that I've been experimenting with some new formats for TAS related content. I don't want to make any promises yet, but I might have some big projects coming for TAS later this year.

 

[Salt Water Taffy]

Turn off that cockpy Power Rangers and gather 'round! Sections 4 and 5 of Director Amenities are up!
https://taffysannotatedsonichu.tumblr.com/tagged/Director+Amenities/chrono/page/21
Sorry it's not coming out as quickly as I hoped it would. I'll try to have some more GitM up, and maybe at least section 6 of Director Amenities, up on Christian Love Day when the forum is down.

 

[SneaselFox]

Turn off that cockpy Power Rangers and gather 'round! Sections 4 and 5 of Director Amenities are up!
https://taffysannotatedsonichu.tumblr.com/tagged/Director+Amenities/chrono/page/21
Sorry it's not coming out as quickly as I hoped it would. I'll try to have some more GitM up, and maybe at least section 6 of Director Amenities, up on Christian Love Day when the forum is down.

Reading it now; a bit of info: the fight between Reldnahc and CCSonichu is traced from the Super Sonic vs. Hyper Knuckles Archie comic.

 

[BigTubboWithLittleChina]

Great stuff.

Also - Jason traps Chris-Chan Sonichu in a cage that he can't escape from. Without explanation, the cage just handily vanishes.

 

[Super Colon Blow]

Reading it now; a bit of info: the fight between Reldnahc and CCSonichu is traced from the Super Sonic vs. Hyper Knuckles Archie comic.

That boy has never had an original idea in his head.

 

[Salt Water Taffy]

Salt Water Taffy's Annotated Sonichu

taffysannotatedsonichu.tumblr.com

Happy Christian Love Day, everyone! Since I didn't upload anything on last year's Christian Love Day, I made sure to get out some Sonichu goodness out on this year's Christian Love Day! I actually did what I promised for once!
Also I'm going to be posting in purple in memoriam for the Kawaii theme. RIP Kawaii theme.

 

[Salt Water Taffy]

Since we're about a third of the way through Sonichu 10 I thought I'd give the site an Extreme Electric Makeover into a Collosal Chris-Chan/Ultra Sonichu theme. Liking this way better than the blue and green, personally. Seems so lively. I'm leaving the icon for the time being since we still haven't covered that page yet. This weekend I'm going to see if I can crank out sections 7 & 8 since they're both really short, they'll probably be out some time next week, and I'm also making a "new month's resolution" to get that goddamned chapter 16 of GitM up.

 

[DoctorJimmyRay]

Godspeed, you magnificent bastard.

 

[Salt Water Taffy]

Hey dudes of all teenages, sorry to post again with no new content, but I've been doing a lot of work for my even bigger Sonichu project these past few days, and I'd like some suggestions from all of you for part of it. I'm working on creating a multi-media "ultimate reader's guide to Sonichu" to stand alongside TAS and GitM, and a part of this project includes a Sonichu playlist of songs, one for each episode (except for Rage Against the Garbage and Director Amenities, who get three and five respectively, and each of the Sonichu Babies sections gets its own part), with one condition: I want to avoid some of the more famous music cues from Vivian's Audiobooks - for this guide I really don't want people to think I'm trying to remake Vivian's Audiobooks (so no "I Am... All of Me" for Blachu. Actually I've been avoiding music from video games all together, along with instrumentals.). I already have a good portion of the music chosen, but there's a few episodes I'm having trouble with or I'm having second thoughts on my selections, so I'd like to see if you all have any suggestions.

Spoiler

• "Sonichu's Origin" - It would be obvious to choose a song about a rainbow, but I'm having trouble finding one I think works here. Right now I'm leaning towards Sia's "Rainbow", her contribution to the MLP movie soundtrack, but A) I worry it's a bit low key for such an action heavy part of the comic, B) I'm going back and forth as to whether the MLP connection works for the sequence or not, as Chris was definitely a fan of MLP at the time but it wouldn't really influence the comic for another thirteen issues.
• "Sonichu vs Naitsirhc" and "Evil is Afoot" - If there's one character I'm having the most difficulties with finding songs for, it's Nait. I'm specifically hoping to find a "Thunderbird" song for "Sonichu vs. Naitsirhc" as a play on Nait's Zapdos.
• "Anchuent Prophecy" - I've got nothing here.
• Punchy's section of "Sonichu Babies" - Because I really, really don't want to use "Kung Fu Fighting" or the Master Onion Chop Chop Rap from Parappa the Rapper.
• "Off Target" - Anyone got a good "straw" song?
• "My Best Friend's Cherokian Wedding" - "I Write Sins Not Tragedies" is too obvious. Currently going with James Blunt's "You're Beautiful" since it's got a pretty melody but it's kinda stalkerish which I thought would work well for the perspective of both comic Wes and IRL Chris. Not dead set on it though.
• "Time for a Ball" - I want to go with something about time, but I also sort of just want to go with the Ghostbusters theme.
• The Giant Penis Comic - Currently going with NIN's "Closer" as it's the rare combo of being about sex but being deliberately unsexy, just like the Giant Penis Comic, but if anyone has any other suggestions I'd like to hear them.
• The Gun Comic - Because the Audiobooks already used "Bang Bang He Shot Me Down".
• Simonla's Death - There are surprisingly few songs about explosions.

Our regularly scheduled TAS/GitM content will resume this weekend, hopefully.

 

[Vorhtbame]

What sort of tone are you trying to set with this music? Do you want things that sound affirmatively awesome, or sort of dinky and silly to go with the comic's quality itself?

I've found a rendition of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" that's a bit more speedy than the Judy Garland or Iz versions, this. Another version is one by Cosmic Gate, which is trance (I think?); I couldn't listen to the whole thing because it hurt my brain, but that's me.

If you want something actually good, you could use a classical rendition of Thunderstruck for Zapdos' theme.

And if you want something over-the-top stalkerish for "Cherokian Wedding", go with Do I Creep You Out.

 

[A Random]

Maybe "Jackie Chan" for the Punchy part? It's about as obnoxious as anything.

Simonla's death could be Killer Queen or TNT.

 

[Monolith]

Wes Iseli's theme needs to be this amazing, edgy piece of shit. (Edit: It actually works way better for the chapter where Silvana is introduced, if only because of the lyric "In this bloody dawn, I wash my soul... to be the son of doom.")

And this one should be for Sonichu Special 3.

Edit: I saw you needed a song for the Anchuent Prophecy. Here.