This is important if you want to understand what's going on: This is based off an idea Fear the Silly people and I came up with. It's based off an idea from Hetalia, where countries have people who basically represent them. We came up with the idea that fictional worlds have representations too. Which means the world created by SEGA for Sonic has a representation, which is, Sonic. So when referring to SEGA in the fic, I really mean Sonic. Also, Disney is Mickey Mouse, Riku is a character from Kingdom Hearts (Final Fantasy/Disney Crossover), Capcom is Pacman and Nintendo is Mario. But really, all that's important is that you understand that SEGA is Sonic.

If you are a Sonic fan who takes offense easily, read at your own risk.

SEGA, like most representatives of video game companies, hated the internet. It wasn't just the fanfics or the fanspawned OCs that stalked his every search of 'Sonic the Hedgehog', or even the yaoi/yuri/porn that surfaced on Google Images. No, he was used to that. They were all used to that. Well, maybe not the actual characters themselves -Disney had banned Square Enix from ever showing Riku the sorts of things 'Kingdom Hearts' fans concocted -but for the most part, all fictional world representatives had learned to either laugh at or ignore the parts of their fanbase they didn't like.

The reason SEGA hated the internet was because there seemed to be so many monsters lurking just beyond the 'Google Search' button. As soon as he clicked it, he knew what to expect: wars. Here a shipping war, there a canon war, everywhere a "Classic vs Modern" war. He didn't dare type in his own name, much less the names of his friends.

Yet he couldn't resist. It was like eating until you couldn't take another bite, but then still eating. You know you shouldn't, but you still do. Why? Easy answer:

Because you can.

It was just so easy. Type 'Sonic the Hedgehog' in, press enter, and bam. Millions of results, endless possibilities. So many people talking about him. How could he resist?

This was why he hated the internet. It was the only place where he could click on any forum and watch his fanbase tear themselves -and every possible extension of himself- to shreds.

On one end, he had the Old-school Fans- hard core fans of the glorified Genesis Era, where everything was 2D and simple. They showered Classic Sonic with praise, loved the simplistic gameplay, the lack of plot. To them, though, the classic era was the only era. This did not hold true for all of them, of course, but to some, starting at Sonic Adventure and carrying onward, every 3D Sonic game was crap. Complete and utter crap. 3D Sonic games were slagged and criticized, characters like Big, Cream, Shadow and Rouge were steered toward the scrap heap, and each new game made them cringe. The only thing that could appease them were the attempts to bring back the 'Old-School feel', games like Sonic 4 and Sonic Generations. But even then, some were just plain unappeasable.

Which led to the next army- the Unappeasable Fanbase. The whiny, so-called fans who griped and moaned about every little thing that got put out there. The games are in 3D now. It's ruined forever. His voice changed. Ruined forever. They added a new character. Ruined forever. They made a new game. Ruined. For Freaking. EVER. These were the people that bothered him the most. Of course they pointed out valid points, and had some good reasons for disliking the games, but they just had to take it overboard. No matter what he did, no matter how far back he bent over for them, nothing could make them happy. He'd pretty much given up, even if the company hadn't.

There were the milder fans, of course, those who liked the Genesis era because of its gameplay, and the 3D games for their stories and characters, but they were often the ones watching their fandom crumble around them. There were also the smart-asses, the twerps who thought anyone who liked a game deemed suckish by the fandom could be classified as a n00b or a blind fan. There were trolls, and flamers, n00bs and would-be peace keepers, all trying to get along in the same fandom -and for the most part, failing miserably.

And then, there were the brutal wars between the many extensions SEGA had allowed to be created for Sonic: SatAM, the Archie Comics, Sonic the Comic, and Sonic X. He couldn't bear to go into forums, to see the vicious wars between these people. Discussions and debates were fine, but to see some of the flames scrawled across the screen made him shudder. So many people tearing the Archie Comics to pieces with their words, while others completely disregarded the actual games in preference for SatAM. Characters from SatAM were idolized, actual game characters bashed, and Sonic X? Sonic X was chopped to pieces and buried beneath the other fans' stomping grounds.

It was a brutal digital world he skimmed through, riddled with pairing wars, especially throughout the different divisions. Old-school fans and SatAM fans would sometimes link hands in agreement that, since the end of genesis, every game had sucked. Sonic X fans were annihilated, left out with the creators of OCs and fancharacters...

He couldn't enter forums without seeing the wars: "Sonally is canon!"

"No, SonAmy is!"

"Sally's such a sue."

"Yeah, well Amy's a bitch!"

"The games would have been so much better if they'd had the Freedom Fighters in them."

"SatAM is way too dark."

"The Archie Comics are like bad fanfics! With awful OCs!"

"Yeah, like Sally!"

"Sally should have been in the games."

"SEGA should have stopped after Genesis."

"Yeah. Everything since then has sucked."

"You'd need an entire forum to list all of the mistakes SEGA's made."

It hurt to read some of these.

SEGA would admit, he was a bit vain. He'd picked up quite an ego, back in the Genesis era, when he'd rivaled his 'brother', Nintendo, so closely and even beat Disney for most recognizable mascot. It'd been a rush. Like many of the Old-school fans, he had a habit of dwelling on the past. After all, they did have a point. The Genesis Era was, without a doubt, the glory days for him. He always felt an oppressive nostalgia when he thought about it. While playing along in Sonic 4 and getting ready for Sonic Generations, he could never shake the overwhelming memories, that feeling that brought him back to the good old days. It was true. The classic fans knew what they were talking about, or at least, some of them did.

Yet, despite his vanity, his ego, he knew he wasn't perfect. It wasn't something he'd say to Nintendo or Capcom, or anyone else for that matter, but he knew it was true. He made mistakes. He screwed up. He'd watched the big man and the bosses churn out some pretty pathetic games. Sure, he hadn't had much of a say in it, but he still took responsibility for a lot of what went out there. Either way, he knew that some Sonic games weren't up to par. He knew the scripts were cheesy, that his personality had been tweaked and changed endlessly, and that some of his friends weren't exactly "loved" by the fans. He knew some games were random, just sad attempts to get more money. That the constant adding of new characters was pretty annoying, after awhile, no matter how adorable or helpful they were. He knew '06 was the worst year of Sonic fans lives, and he didn't blame them.

In a word: He understood. He got that none of his games were perfect, that some of them needed work, and that they weren't like the Genesis games. He knew not all of the fans liked what came out, but what could he do? It wasn't possible to make a game that everyone would like. He'd tried enough times, and seen enough of the big man's tries to know that it just couldn't happen. And it hurt to see them -his creators, the people he was meant to represent -try so damn hard to please all of these people, their so-called fanbase, and then receive such harsh criticism.

Some of it was deserved. He'd admit that (never aloud, of course). Sometimes, though, it just became too much.

So what if he did have the same voice actor any more? So what if he had buckles in his shoes and his eyes weren't a soulless black like they used to be? So, he'd made some new friends, met some new people. He'd made some mistakes. He'd tried to fix them, and ended up making things worse. He was like anyone else: imperfect.

What hurt the most was seeing the people say that he was a fail. To see the people that called themselves his fans tell others that the only good Sonic games were Genesis games, and that after that, there was no point in playing them. It stung to hear those sorts of things.

Sometimes he wondered why he even bothered going along with the ideas the big man and the rest came up with.

And then, he'd click into some forum, or some picture. He'd read through the wars and the flames and the hate, until he found something amazing. Until he found someone not fighting him, not defending just one part of him, but defending all of him. They didn't care if he was in the Archie Comics, or Sonic X. They didn't care if Sonally or Sonamy was canon, they didn't have any fancharacters they were obsessed with pairing with him, and they didn't think Genesis was some sort of God. They were just fans.

They knew he wasn't perfect. They acknowledged his fails, even sometimes laughed at them- but they didn't flame him. They didn't glorify one part of him and bash the others. They loved him because he was him, Sonic.

Because that's who he was, wasn't it? No matter how many fanfic-like adventures he went on, no matter where he decided to show his face- be it comicverse, TVverse or gameverse -no matter what he sounded like, he was still the same blue hedgehog-mascot that people had loved in the first Sonic game. He was still Sonic. And he always would be Sonic, that hedgehog, that mascot, the star of games, comics and shows.

It didn't matter what the internet said. It didn't matter what the fandumb told him. No matter how many mistakes me made, no matter how many blunders he had, there would always be people who cared. There would always be fans who loved him for him.

They were the reason SEGA risked the internet, the interviews, the forums. They were the reason that he would never give up.

I'm sick of people glorifying one aspect of Sonic and bashing the others. I'm sick of people worshiping Genesis and acting like all the 3D games are crap. I love playing Genesis games, I love Sonic Adventure and SA2. I loved Sonic Rush Adventure, I loved Sonic Heroes. I love the Archie Comics, and the Sonic OVA, and even Sonic X. I'm not afraid to say that I am a Sonic fan who likes the crappy parts of Sonic, because I love Sonic for what it is: Sonic. It's not perfect, it's not the most incredible series in the world, but that doesn't change a thing. I love it, I acknowledge it's flaws and accept that it can be cheesy and poorly made sometimes. But it's still Sonic -genesis, "Next-Gen", comics, SatAM, all of it. It's all part of what Sonic is, and you don't have to love it all. Just know that it's there- and there isn't anything you can do about it.