Sognic: Mall-tiverse of Madness is a Sonic the Hedgehog parody fanfic series written by CircusLion3000, aka DrNoPuma. The series is hosted on Archive of Our Own. The series consists of three episodes, and an intermission between episodes 2 and 3, released sporadically from July 25, 2023 to January 20, 2024. The third episode is considered the "season finale." The series is currently on hiatus, but not outright cancelled yet.
The series follows alternate universe versions of the Sonic cast. Our main characters are Sognic Hedhorg, Tals Fawx, Knockles Ekidnoo, and Ammy Ross Hedhorg. While running from the police, they find themselves at the Dreamcast Mall. But when they go in, they discover that the mall is a weird, supernatural place where time and reality are distorted. In the mall, they meet several of their friends, along with some Original Characters, whom Sognic hates. Each OC is eventually "hacked" and taken control of by the villainous Roter.exe, who resides in a burger shop in the mall. Roter.exe is bent on killing Sognic and friends. Can they survive this weird place?
The writer would later go on to start a more serious fanfic series, Batman: Restless Dreams.
You can find the series here
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This series contains examples of:
- Actor Allusion: In the first episode, Sognic is described as saying "Did I do that?" in the voice of Jaleel White. White voiced Sonic in the DiC Entertainment Sonic cartoons.
- Adaptational Comic Relief:
- Although Blaze the Cat is canonically a stoic and aloof character, her counterpart Blayz Ket is more silly and ditzy, and her speech patterns are borrowed from the old LOLCats memes.
- Shadoo's edgelord personality is exaggerated for laughs, unlike Shadow the Hedgehog, and he is also shown to like cutesy things.
- Adaptational Intelligence: Played for Laughs. While Froggy in the Sonic games is a Nearly Normal Animal that doesn't talk, his counterpart here, Five Nights at Froggy's, speaks in Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness.
- Adaptational Nice Guy:
- Freddy, Bonnie, and Chica are just normal animatronic performers instead of being evil and scary. Roter.exe does kidnap and fuse himself with Freddy in episode 3, which is slightly Played for Horror, but as soon as Freddy is freed from Roter.exe's control, he goes right back to being an innocent singer.
- AOSTH Robontik, instead of being a scheming villain like the canon version of Robotnik, is an average, well-meaning guy who is implied to be a case of Mean Character, Nice Actor. He is also stated to be Tals' father, a trait borrowed from iteachvader's interpretation of him.
- Although not a bad person, Blaze the Cat is kind of aloof in canon. Here, her counterpart Blayz Ket is more outgoing and affectionate.
- Affectionate Parody: Although the series is overall a lot sillier than the canon Sonic franchise, and Sognic is a Heroic Comedic Sociopath version of Sonic, this series was still made out of love for the Sonic franchise. There are frequent references to various aspects of Sonic's history.
- Artistic License: In the second episode, when Click uses the cards from the Solitaire computer game to attack, when Sognic is hit by a card, it turns out to be a Joker card. The Joker cards are not used in Solitaire.
- Bathos: Roter's death in episode 3 is one of the few moments in the series that is taken somewhat seriously. But even that is undercut by silly things like Knockles making a "Bite of '87" joke and Freddy Fazbear rapping.
- Big Bad: Roter.exe is the main villain, who corrupts various characters in the mall to try and kill Sognic and friends.
- Big Good: This role is shared by Blayz Ket, who mentors Tals and teaches him the power of wholesomeness, and Roter Warlus, who came to the mall to try and kill his Evil Counterpart, Roter.exe, before Roter.exe had a chance to escape the mall and wreak havoc on the world. Upon his death, Roter asks Sognic and friends to take up his duty of keeping Roter.exe contained.
- Black Eyes of Crazy: The Big Bad Roter.exe is described as having "BLACK AND RED EYES" (in all caps as a Running Gag,) just like his inspiration, Sonic.exe. Anyone who he "corrupts" gains the same eyes.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Whenever Sognic kills an Original Character in the mall, Roter.exe can pull up a holographic computer screen and type in the command ">run corruption.exe", which brings the OC back to life, but also puts them fully under Roter.exe's control. Roter.exe uses them to try and kill Sognic.
- But Not Too Challenging: In episode 3, Roter.exe places each of the six main heroes into personalized "nightmares" and attempts to scare them in various ways. Almost all of them laugh off his attempts to scare them, making Roter.exe increasingly frustrated. The only one who Roter.exe successfully scares is Knockles, who has a Comical Overreaction because Roter.exe replaced his canned pasta with a Shoddy Knockoff Product. Roter.exe remarks that scaring Knockles was so easy that it wasn't even fun.
- Composite Character: Roter.exe borrows traits from multiple characters:
- Most obviously, he's Rotor Walrus given the Sonic.exe treatment.
- He is also described as having a voice like the Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) version of Dr. Robotnik.
- He also takes a lot of cues from Oogie Boogie. He has stitches all over his body. He hangs Roter and Airo over a vat of his "Bat and Walrus Stew" (a reference to Oogie's "Snake and Spider Stew".) In the first episode, Roter quotes one of Santa's lines from "Oogie Boogie's Song," while in the second episode, Roter.exe quotes the first two lines of the song.
- Crack Fic: Downplayed. The series has a very weird and surreal tone, with lots of meme references and other silly moments. Also, most of the character names are intentionally spelled wrong. However, the series does make a slight attempt to be comprehensible. It's a crossover between Sonic the Hedgehog and many other works, but most of these works are video games with Funny Animal characters, so at least there is a common theme. In the notes for the first episode, the writer stated that the series was originally going to have a lot more Stylistic Suck, but he decided to try and put at least a little effort into making it somewhat good.
- Decoy Protagonist: Although Sognic is based on Sonic, the protagonist of his own franchise, and although the series is named after Sognic, he's kind of a buffoonish goofball who just goes along with whatever is happening. Tals is the one who takes the plot more seriously, gets more development, and generally moves the plot forward.
- Denser and Wackier: Overall, the series is a wackier take on the Sonic the Hedgehog series. Most of the character names are intentionally spelled wrong, there are a lot of silly jokes and meme references, and most of the characters are parodies of their canon selves.
- Digital Abomination: The Big Bad, Roter.exe, is a mysterious creature with various reality-warping powers. He can summon a holographic computer screen and keyboard, and type in a command to bring dead people back to life, while also making them Brainwashed and Crazy. In the Intermission, he also shows the ability to summon living dolls and then kill them by making them disintegrate into pixels. He used to be a normal Funny Animal, but he became an abomination when some version of Dr. Robotnik transferred his soul into a computer.When Roter.exe says
His power is eldritch
You'd better pay attention, now
'Cause I'm the master glitch! - Evil Counterpart: Roter.exe is an evil, alternate dimensional version of Roter Warlus. Notably, Roter.exe has taken Roter prisoner before the events of the series.
- Fantastic Racism: Sognic hates all Original Characters because he believes they all want to steal his spotlight and hook up with canon characters.
- Fusion Dance: In episode 3, Roter.exe fuses with Freddy Fazbear, becoming a demonic-looking version of Freddy called Fredder.exe. It's clear that Roter.exe is completely in control, as Freddy in this series is completely harmless and non-malicious.
- Heel–Face Turn:
- All of the Brainwashed and Crazy characters are freed from their brainwashing when Tals and the other heroes use "the power of wholesomeness" to hug them.
- The same technique turns Tails Doll good too. Notably, he wasn't brainwashed, but acting evil on his own accord.
- Heroic Comedic Sociopath: Sognic is not a stable person. He starts the series running from the police with his friends. He apparently caused a fire at Casino Night Zone, and whenever he talks about it, he stares at the camera and grins ominously. He also despises Original Characters so much that he orders Shadoo to beat up Chroma the Cuttlefish. He also steals from Beeg's booth.
- Humiliation Conga: Roter.exe suffers a lot of comic abuse in episode 3. He places each of the heroes in specialized nightmare worlds meant to scare them, but almost none of them work, and he gets more frustrated the more he fails to scare them. Airo One Hit Kills the Monster Clown that Roter.exe sends after him. Sognic easily runs away from the nightmare version of Ammy because she's doing an Ominous Walk. Ammy quickly overcomes her sadness at Sognic rejecting her in her nightmare. Knockles is the only one who is successfully scared, but Roter.exe feels that scaring him was so easy that it wasn't even fun. Roter manages to Rickroll Roter.exe. Blayz somehow wanders into Tals's nightmare, comforts Tals when he's scared, and gets the Tails Doll, who Roter.exe sent to chase Tails, to make a Heel–Face Turn. Then, later on, Roter does a Fusion Dance with Freddy Fazbear, but all the heroes laugh at him and quote FNAF memes. Finally, at the very end, he is trapped in the mall's PA system and forced to listen to Taylor Swift's "Blank Space," which he hates.
- Killed Off for Real: In episode 3, Roter dies after Fredder.exe takes a big bite out of his torso. He stays just barely alive for a little while, but eventually fades to dust.
- Massive Multiplayer Crossover: The series features a variety of characters from various parts of the Sonic franchise. In addition, it also introduces some Original Characters, as well as other Funny Animal characters, including Freddy, Bonnie, and Chica, Aero the Acro-Bat (referred to as Airo Arco-Bat), and Bubsy (referred to as Bubzy Bobket.) Bubzy also states that other "90's video game mascots" are canon to this world.
- Monster Clown: Deconstructed in episode 3. During Airo's nightmare, he is suddenly faced with a huge, hulking, scary clown. Roter.exe claims that since clowns are scary, he should automatically "win" at scaring Airo just by summoning a clown. However, Airo points out that he has no reason to be afraid of clowns because he has already beaten up so many enemy clowns in his home game. He then knocks out the clown in one hit.
- Monster of the Week: In each episode, Roter.exe takes control of a new Original Character in the mall to try and kill Sognic. However, he doesn't fight in the Intermission, and in episode 3, he mostly acts on his own before fusing with Freddy Fazbear in the climax.
- Nice Mice: Episode 2 has Click the Mouse, a friendly and cheerful mouse who owns a computer store.
- Not-So-Harmless Villain: Downplayed. Though he gets some intimidating buildup, Roter.exe initially seems like a pushover when the heroes confront him in episode 3. He even goes through a Humiliation Conga. However, he manages to perform one surprisingly gruesome act: killing Roter by taking a bite out of his torso. Also, Roter reveals a little earlier that he came to the mall to try and destroy Roter.exe, because he believed that Roter.exe could be a big threat to the world if he managed to escape the mall. However, most of the heroes still don't take Roter.exe seriously after that, and his fate at the end of the episode is still humiliating rather than deadly.
- Ominous Walk: Deconstructed in episode 3. In Sognic's nightmare, he sees a possessed-looking Ammy amble towards him creepily. However, Sognic points out that he's the fastest hedgehog in the world (and Ammy even said so just a few seconds prior), so he is able to run away with ease.
- Original Character: Each episode features a new character who works as an employee at a different store in the mall. Each one has different powers that Roter.exe exploits when he brainwashes them to try and kill Sognic:
- Episode 1 has Chroma the Cuttlefish, who works in the box office at the mall's movie theater. His moveset is themed around colors. He can shoot multicolored ink, and he can also change the color of his body. He can even turn invisible.
- Episode 2 has Click the Mouse, who manages a computer store. She has computer-based attacks such as throwing CDs, and using a Select box to grab people and freeze them in midair.
- Painting the Medium: Certain characters have unique speech patterns that help define their personalities:
- Sognic sometimes spaces out certain w o r d s.
- KNOCKLES' DIALOGUE IS WRITTEN IN ALL CAPS, TO SHOW HIS STUPIDITY.
- shadoo's dialogue is in all lowercase, to show his stoic personality.
- R0ter.exe inserts numb3rs @nd @ symbols into s0m3 of his w0rd5, to @dd to his gl1tchy c0mput3r m0t1f.
- Tails Doll spaces out all of his words and speaks in all lowercase. However, he only says a few short sentences, because otherwise it would be... h a r d t o r e a d .
- Punny Name: Click the Mouse, an anthropomorphic mouse who runs a computer store.
- Real Men Wear Pink: Shadoo Hedhorg is an edgelord who is capable of beating Chroma the Cuttlefish to death. But he also likes animatronics and plushies, particularly Build-A-Bear.
- Shout-Out: This series has quite a few references, so it has its own page.
- Species Surname: Most of the animal characters straight-up have their (intentionally misspelled) species names as surnames, with the "the" in between their canon names being omitted. This is most notable with Tals Fawx, whose canon name, Miles "Tails" Prower, doesn't even include "Fox" at all.
- Stealthy Cephalopod: Chroma the Cuttlefish's color-changing abilities allow him to turn invisible. When he is Brainwashed and Crazy, he uses this technique to hide from Sognic so that Sognic can't fight him.
- Stylistic Suck: Almost all of the character names are intentionally spelled wrong. There are more intentional spelling and grammar errors in some of the dialogue.
- Take That!:
- Episode 3 takes the piss out of the horror genre in general. Roter.exe tries to scare the heroes in various ways, but all of them except Knockles fail to take him seriously. Even with Knockles, his fear is just him doing Comical Overreacting to something that isn't really that scary. It also deconstructs some common horror tropes, like Monster Clown and Ominous Walk.
- At the end of episode 3, Roter.exe is sent to a place that Tals describes as "torturous." It turns out to be the mall's intercom system, which suddenly starts playing Taylor Swift's "Blank Space."
- Villain Song: In the Intermission, Roter.exe sings his own version of "Oogie Boogie's Song" (since Oogie Boogie was already one of the main inspirations for the character.) This version rewrites the lyrics to explain Roter.exe's backstory and motivations, while also having him gloat about how he's preparing to kill his captives.
- Wily Walrus: Roter.exe, the Big Bad, is an Evil Counterpart to the friendly Roter Warlus. He "corrupts" various characters around the mall, turning them into his slaves, and he uses their bodies and powers to try and make them kill Sognic and friends.
