State of the Multiverse - The Evolution of Laik and His Importance (to me)

 

So, if you had told me a year go that I'd be sitting here writing a big old blog entry about something that started as a Sonic the Hedgehog Original Character based on my Fursona, I'd probably have laughed. No lie. A year ago, I was of the mindset that wanted very little to do with the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise outside of media tied to the Classic era, and honestly, had it not been for my picking up Sonic Frontiers and playing through it as Hurricane Helene tore up the east coast, I know for absolute certainty that I wouldn't be here typing this particular entry up.

But that's a blog entry for another time.

What I'm here to talk about today is my little video game guy: Laik the (Timber) Wolf. Cross-World Hero. Pizza connoisseur. Apple in the eye of one Lanolin the Sheep, whether she wants to admit it or not. 

Laik started out as hardly anything more than a direct 1:1 conversion of my fursona, Advrik Drahcir. Just because I wanted to see him a Sonic-styled character. But time went on, and my interest in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise as a whole blew up and I suddenly--after years of only minding the Classic era stuff--wanted to take in everything it had to offer again, much in the same way I had as a kid. I think the third film did a lot for me in that regard as well, but I digress.

art by hallie.xd

 

When I took a good, hard look at Laik in what I now refer to his beta stage design, I got the feeling that things were off about him. There were aspects of his design that betrayed the, I guess you would call it, the design philosophy of characters in the series. Too many colors. Colors that clashed. It looked garish to me, and while the colors worked just fine coming from the character he'd been derived form, it just didn't flow right. Pretty much in the same way Whisper's design urks me because of how many colors she has going on(not to mention the mystery of how the blond on her fur across her body).

So I took Laik, then known as Rik, back to the drawing board. Bringing GhostlyKuma on to help flesh him out and bring him more in line with what an actual in-game Sonic character would look like while taking cues from the newer characters like (funny enough) Whisper and the wolf avatar from Sonic Heroes. When the design was finalized, I was ecstatic. While he still bore some similarities to the fursona he was derived from, he was a totally unique individual now.

art by ghostlykuma

 

A blank slate that I, almost five months on, am still carving!

I initially intended for Laik to appear in little on-off stories set around Mobius, dipping in and out of the IDW continuity in silly little adventures. But as development on Sonic Cross-World Racing came to light and the crossover capabilities of Sonic the Hedgehog and those like him became easier and easier for me to quantumize, I was struck with the idea to make him more than a simple Sonic OC.

He was going to be a world-hopping, crossover character while still being an individual--a Mobian--from the Sonic the Hedgehog. He would be my vehicle, my vessel in which I could use to write not just stories in the Sonic the Hedgehog universe, but other video games and media as well! Something I had attempted once over the summer with Cartringer, a super sentai-inspired take on the idea that didn't get very far at all.

Once I realized what I had, I began to develop Laik, his backstory, the reasons for his world-hopping abilities and how it related to his role in Sonic Forces, which is where I kicked his overall story off, much in the same way the IDW comic series did for their story. Giving players the ability to create an avatar within the Sonic universe, no matter how limited, served as a great jumping off point as any for connecting Laik to the main cast in a way that didn't come off as forced or, dare I say it, cringe.

 

art by specterpie

 

 

As I developed him, I started realizing just how limitless the possibilities with his setup were. A Mobian that was able to(eventually, anyway) travel to any world and universe he wanted and go on adventures there with characters and such, all the while maintaining the Sonic the Hedgehog elements and balancing them with laws and lore from whichever piece of media I wanted to put him in at the time.

From that moment on, Laik pretty much replaced Advrik as my online persona. He was family-friendly(though his stories are on the upper end of the PG-13 rating), had a design and look that wouldn't look outlandish when standing next to the likes of actual humans or characters from say, oh I don't know, Dragon Ball Z. As I said, I see nothing but endless possibilities with the character and that has fueled my creativity like nothing else in recent memory. I write for fun, and I am having SO MUCH FUN writing about Laik and his adventures.

All of which can be read here on my AO3 account!

 

art by specterpie

Writing about the adventures of Laik the Wolf is allowing me to not only craft my own story within a universe full of characters, places and events that I love and have a lot of nostalgia for and a a substantial understanding of, but to also play around in OTHER media that I have similar love for. I don't have to worry about crafting my own continuity for those worlds from the ground up in order to inject myself into. I just throw Laik in there and go, even if it doesn't make a whole lot of sense in the grand scheme of things.

Plus, with Laik being a crossover character, it gives me ample opportunities to have him portrayed in various guises from pretty much any media IP I want, assuming I can find an artist willing to do so.

art by bubblesmcgee

art by sheyrosewind

 And just as an aside because it's an ongoing thing in the two ongoings. I've always wanted to re-enter the shipping fray, something I had done decades ago but fell out of as I began to lean more and more into creating entire casts for myself to do as I pleased as opposed to doing the "cringe" and pairing them up with a canon character... But then, I was crafting everything from the ground up with the likes of Secret of Memoria and Last Tail, so shipping wasn't really a thing at that point in my life.

Anywho. When I started reading the IDW comics, I was initially enamored by Whisper the Wolf. The strong, silent but mentally disturbed type that always seemed to draw my attention. But as the series continued, we got to meet Lanolin and hoo boy, lemme tell you, I fell head over heels for that sheep! And that was before I even learned the fandom had a hate boner for her for the stupidest reasons. 

 A strong female character with an attitude, caffeine addiction and isn't willing to just accept Sonic the Hedgehog's recklessness like most everyone else. What is there seriously not to love there? Her critical nature towards Sonic had actually eeked its way into my AU, with the world becoming increasingly concerned over the actions of Sonic and his friends.

And I won't lie. Her figure was a point of attraction as well. Mobians with such qualities don't really exist outside of Rouge and, oddly enough, Sonic Adventure 2 Amy. It gives her an air of maturity that few females in the franchise have had since the days of Sally Acorn. 

art by specterpie

 

I loved the character and the Wolf x Sheep pairing that she and Laik made so much that I integrated her into my AU and redesigned her, tossing out the tank top and replacing it with a halter vest and moving her bell to her hip in order to accentuate her chest further. Gone are the heavy military boots and in their place, hiking sneakers. The four tufts of wool on the back of her head have been replaced with a single cloud that replicates the look of a ponytail.

I've never redesigned a canon character before, but I really had fun doing this and am having a lot of fun just developing the slow-burning relationship between her and Laik.

 So yeah, there's the current "state of the multiverse" as far as Laik the Wolf goes, his history and where he's going. I have hundreds of ideas and writing prompts in my phone, as well as art ideas and such involving the little wolf Mobian.

Anywho, that's it for me for now. Thank you for reading this far.