Heads up!
This post contains SA2 spoilers. Also, I wrote this before the Sonic Movie and before Sonic Prime.

I thought I'd take this time to talk about why I write Sonadow Fan Fiction. Honestly, it's to overcompensate that I don't understand what happened to Shadow's character over the years. Sonic Adventure 2 was my first experience with a fictional character making me cry and so I just loved Shadow so much after that. He was so special to me as a kid. And I'll admit, I was one of those fans that advocated for him being edgy and went gaga when he got his own game. I even wrote an email to Sega about how I would buy a Shadow game and it'd be okay if it was dark and edgy. The end product was a bit, um, well, it kind of lost the feel. I'm so thankful Sega listened to the fans and gave him his own game and the game itself was mostly fun to play. But the storyline bothered me. Shadow forgot what happened in Sonic Adventure 2? Or at least the end? That made me sad because he forgot about being friends with Sonic. And I know this really started with Sonic Heroes and Sega was possibly going to go with Shadow being a robot. As ya'll probably already know, Shadow wasn't supposed to come back after SA2, hence the whole dying at the end thing. (OMG, I'm so sorry if you haven't played it! Please forgive me for the spoiler! I know it's an old game but I hope I haven't ruined it for you!)

I guess from Sonic Heroes onward, it has been this mental battle for me to figure out what's up with Shadow. I happen to really enjoy Sonic Boom but when Shadow showed up, man, he totally hated Sonic. And I'm talking about the show. I only played the 3DS version of the game.

Basically, this hatred he has for Sonic and only working with him or fighting along side him on "his terms," kinda makes Shadow seem like... a douche bag. And it makes me bummed because by the end of SA2, he had me in tears with how kind and humble he turned out to be. I think there are some moments of that characterization in Sonic 06, as much as people rag on that game. But beyond that, he's just become mean. So to overcompensate, I started writing Sonadow Fan Fiction. Hindsight: Let me just note that I did sort of like the whole Negaduck thing going on with Shadow in Sonic Boom but it had to grow on me. Also, Sonadow isn't the only reason I wrote Sonic Fan Fiction, it was one a several things I wanted to explore.

THEN! The whole thing with Infinite happened, with Shadow being beyond a mean bully and him actually being a sociopath. That REALLY bothers me. I read somewhere that Sega is not allowing anything Infinite-related in the new comic anymore. I do wonder if the face and Jackal Squad reveal made Infinite too likable and that's why. But still, its out there now so it definitely does make Shadow seem flat out awful for killing Infinite's squad, which they really illustrated to possibly look like Infinite's blood relatives in my opinion (totally headcanon, it's definitely not a thing as far as we're aware). Ack! That's so terrible! Poor jackals! Yeah, so I wrote an Infinadow story to make up for it. I also ship Infinite with Tikal because ya know, bad boy with sweet girl tropes are fun and stuff.

In my Sonadow stories, I work with Boom Shadow, as I feel that, since Shadow got very little airtime, I can construct something believable. Mostly I go with the whole, insecure closeted gay guy who beats up his crush to make sure he never knows scenario. But with Infinadow, I went with the multiple Shadows created for multiple universes by Black Doom scenario. So in my Sonadow stories, it's Boom Shadow and in my Infinadow story, it's ARK Shadow. I call him this because of the Shadow the Hedgehog game. There are over 300 alternative endings. One of the most memorable ones to me is where Shadow proclaims that his purpose is to guard the ARK. I feel this version Shadow would get along with Infinite and even despise what canon Shadow did to hurt Infinite. By the way, I love Infinite in case you didn't notice. Also, it's a running gag with Team Diamond that this version of Infinite is called, ARKfinite.

But yeah, that's my reasoning for Sonadow (and Infinadow). What do you think of Shadow? Sonadow? Infinadow? Any of it. I'm very curious to read any thoughts from fellow slash shippers/readers. I heard a cosplayer say once that all ships are valid. I'm very open minded when it comes to ships. So please feel free to share your thoughts.