sonic the hedgehog has been an intrinsic part of my life ever since my dad bought me sonic adventure dx for the PC in 2006(?). i remember booting up the game and being unable to beat chaos 0, so my dad had to do it for me. some of my earliest internet memories are of scrolling through the now defunct sonic central webpage looking at fanart and listening to the music they had. i spent hours playing flash games on newgrounds and watching the sonic short animations also on newgrounds.

i remember discovering sonic x and being shocked at finding out sonic had a TV SHOW O_O and trying my best to watch it whenever i could (not often because we didn't have cable). i scoured my library for archie sonic comic issues and made OC after OC and even RPed on the 4kids forums. i drew art of my OCs and put them on deviantART, i even ran a terrible little youtube channel back when youtube was cool that was just slideshow AMVs of my OCs set to bangers like animal i have become by three days grace. basically, sonic got me into basically every creative endeavor i've ever cared about.

my TOP GAMES are: SA1, rush, rush adventure, unleashed, and riders.

my TOP SOUNDTRACKS are: shadow the hedgehog, riders, unleashed, rush adventure, and SA2.

it is so hard to pick a handful of favorite STAGE TRACKS so here's a random assortment of ones i like: westopolis, the supernatural... for final chase, dive into the mellow... for aquatic mine, sky babylon act 1 and 2, press garden act 1, palmtree panic act 1, metallic madness act 2, rooftop run, metal city, casino park, twinkle cart... for twinkle park, the ark, quartz quadrant, vela nova, the palace that was found...look it's no secret that sonic music does NOT miss.

my favorite VOCAL THEMES are: dreams of an absolution, his world zebrahead version, catch me if you can's zero gravity remix, endless possibility, and i am... all of me.

my favorite CHARACTERS are: blaze the cat, surge the tenrec, knuckles the echidna, sonic the hedgehog himself, and jet the hawk. (and sally acorn as a bonus sixth option)

but arguably most of my time with sonic has been spent with the comics. i love archie. there's a lot wrong with it but i firmly believe it's not as bad as a lot of people say, and i think the moment ian flynn came onto the scene, everything took a turn from Bad to Really Good. since archie had been running for such a long time there's lots of janky worldbuilding made obsolete by the games, forcing the writers to develop an entirely new canon and lore--and yeah some of it kind of sucks, but i loved the creativity the team was allowed to have, and when the writing was good it allowed for the most interesting depictions of sonic and his friends without being shackled to the image of a high-speed action romp for kids. i love the freedom fighters and miss em dearly.

some sonic resources for you!!:

• sonic riders dx and sonic riders tournament edition are mods by different teams for the gamecube version of sonic riders to re-balance the game, add new characters, gameplay tweaks, etc.. there's even options for netplay for online competitive play (or to play with your friends). definitely check em both out and download the one you like more (or both!) if you like sonic riders or might want to get into a niche little esport.
• SA mod manager for SA1 and SA2 is a mod manager that allows for a much simpler management of mods for both SA1 and SA2 in the same tool. also allows for one-click installation of mods thru gamebanana. highly recommend if you have any interest in modding SA1 and 2 at all.
• chao world extended for SA2 is a chao garden mod that drastically expands on the mechanics of the chao! this is a MUST if you like chao!! make sure to go into the 'configure mod' section on the mod manager to turn on settings you might be interested in!
• chao island has been around for ages (i remember going to their site for information on chao evolutions in like 2007) and has a very comprehensive overlook of chao and how to raise them. helpful especially if you aren't modding the game and need to know animal locations!
• a comprehensive list of mods that help with SA1 and SA2 tweaks is simply too many to name especially as older mod managers have been replaced with the SA mod manager now so i encourage you to just go deep diving on gamebanana to find the mods you might want for each game!
• as of writing this (8.13.24) this is the most recent update to sonic P-06 which is a complete overhaul of the notorious sonic 06 game. it is a re-envisioning of sonic, shadow, and as of the last update, silver's stories and aims to fix everything about 06. truly an incredible undertaking that breathes life back into a game everyone was just convinced was going to be a permanent black mark on sonic's record.
• archie sonic online is a fan-made continuation of the archie sonic comics canon pre-sega genesis wave (which was basically an in-universe retcon). i haven't read this since it first started being posted back in like 2019 or so but definitely worth checking out if, like me, you miss the pre-SGW era.
• sonic charrie maker from 2008 deviantart. you actually need to download a flash player from archive to play it (info included in the description!), but this was the hallmark of sonic OCs in dA. i made countless lil guys with this thing. here's an awesome snapshot of kagamineroxas6633's OCs they made in 2014.
• another ancient sonic oc maker on newgrounds. i used to use this one until i discovered the one on dA which appealed to me a bit more lol. still a lot of love in my heart for this one though!