Laik the Wolf - More Than Just a Sonic the Hedgehog OC

 

[ Artwork by Remi ]

The incredibly adorable art above was drawn by the talented RemiMun and you can find their VGEN account here if you're interested in in commissioning them!

The purpose of this post today is to gush about my little wolf guy a bit and, again, how important he is to me as a storytelling device.
First of all, Laik isn't meant to be a representation of myself. I have my fursona, Advrik Drahcir, serving as more of a self-insert for that sort of thing. But that's not the point of this blog post right now. What I'm here to talk about is how Laik is the culmination of years of various character development, failed story ideas and "actual" childhood adventures.

To put it simply: Laik is the pinnacle of everything I have been striving for all these years.
Going back to my childhood, I would always record my gameplay sessions on my SNES or Sega Genesis using my old VHS camcorder. I'd record myself in my room, doing voice-overs and whatnot. I was a kid who was granted the power to travel into video game worlds and save them from evils (namely, my neighbor, whom I absolutely detested). It was a combination of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and Superhuman Samurai Syber Squad, essentially, and I called the "show" Game Power!, which was also the phrase I called out when teleporting to whatever video game(usually Sonic or Mega Man) that I was about to play through and record.

(Late edit: This idea had even come back around in the form of a CARTRINGER, a super sentai-inspired fic that I tested the waters with earlier this year, before Crossworlds Traveler came along) 

Fast forward from 1995-2000 to 2014, and I've taken on a huge interest in writing. My first work came about in the form of a series titled 'Secret of Memoria', which while poorly written/paced/sloppy, it served as my first real take at turning the things I loved into something original, disassembling aspects of video games and other media and then reassembling them into my own makings; Things that worked within the world I had crafted.

While that does technically still exist online, it’s a mess that I’d rather not return to, despite being nearly 200k words in length. I had attempted to rewrite it this past year, but found the ship had unfortunately already sailed on that idea. Not to say I won’t return to that world in some way someday, but moving on.
Last Tail was my next big writing project, and that came about last spring and is still in active development and can be read on my Archive of Our Own account right now! It starts with Advrik Drahcir(my fursona) and he’s a grey wolf, wielding a massive sword in an alternate reality version of our Earth, where monster movies are all based on “true events” and magic is as common as the smartphone. It’s a commentary on our world right now, with how dire everything is at the moment. But more importantly, there are crossover elements that I incorporated that bring this subject back around: The monsters.

As I mentioned, monster movies in the universe of Last Tail are inspired by events that have happened at various points in history, due to the nature of the planet being populated by just as many monsters as there are anthropomorphic animals. Films like Alien, The Thing and even Mimic exist because there had been some worldwide news story involving monsters that already exist in the world, but had lead to a series of events that garnered media attention. This is where my interest in crossovers began to boil.
Fast forward to this year, when Sonic CrossWorlds Racing was announced during a huge resurgence in my interest in the entire Sonic the Hedgehog series. The crossover potential there, which honestly probably should have begun with Smash Bros, not Sonic the Hedgehog racing SpongeBob SquarePants, but I digress. When that game was announced along with the DLC it’d receive, it sparked in me a flame that quickly turned into a blazing maelstrom that has no end in sight.

Enter Laik the Wolf, Crossworlds Traveler! 

He is the culmination of ideas that were borne with the creation of Remy Niscent from Secret of Memoria, fused with elements of Advrik Drahcir and perfectly fine-tuned with the perfection that is the Sonic the Hedgehog character design philosophy. A style that can stand well beside (almost) any other style of character, be it from realistically proportioned humans to other video game franchises or media, and not look insanely out of place.

And while he now has a long, ongoing story tied to his character, along with a group of his own colorful friends that are intended to replace more canon relations so that it can continue to exist in its own pocket within the Sonic the Hedgehog universe(or one that is of my own making), Laik the Wolf is my primary vessel in which I can now use to explore other media franchises, framing them with Sonic the Hedgehog logic by inserting pre-established characaters into the mix and only using the “Well, he’s capable of teleporting to other worlds, so…” as my excuse.

So you see, this is how I’ve tied back those late nights in my room with my camcorder and my games. Laik is letting me explore these worlds I grew up with and love in a form that I’m 100% comfortable in, and if I want, I can bring a few of his friends along for the ride.