After a scavenging trip to an abandoned Robotnik facility turns up disturbing information on the individual known as Miles Prower, things will never be the same.
The Furminator
is an ongoing Sonic the Hedgehog fanfiction series written by DoomFox, first published in July 2020 on Archive of Our Own.
Personality Crisis - The Furminator provides examples of:
- Adaptation Amalgamation: The story is mostly based on the games' continuity up to at least Sonic Unleashed, but also alludes to characters and events from Sonic Boom, among others.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Played with. It's revealed that the infiltration unit malfunctioned almost immediately, with the Miles Prower Imprint gaining sentience and preventing Alpha from fulfilling its function (spying on Sonic and passing information back to Robotnik), and by the time the story starts Alpha has no interest in going back because it would mean both of them being deleted. Alpha only activates when Miles' operational longevity is being threatened.
- And I Must Scream: Tails realises that the Alpha imprint is taking over in response to Knuckles threat and is terrified about it.
- Armor-Piercing Question:Tails: How can this u... How can I possibly be alive? I'm just a... collection of wires, metal, circuits... implanted with false memories and deployed to fool people... I'm not real, not alive... I'm nothing...
Shadow: Why are you still here?
Tails: Please determine query.
Shadow: It is in your programming... that in the event of total mission failure, the unit must return to Robotnik control for complete dispensation and replacement of organic camouflage... and personality subroutines. Is that correct? (Beat) Is that correct?
Tails: Affirmative...
Shadow: And what does that mean?
Tails: Compromised identity... must be replaced with new... personality subroutines...
Shadow: And what does that mean for the individual known as Miles Prower?
Tails: Deletion...
Shadow: In essence... You cease to exist. You die.
Tails: (barely whimpering) Yes...
Shadow: So you choose to ignore your programming. Because you don't want to die? (Tails doesn't answer) So... Sorrow, sarcasm... imagination... fear, self-preservation, consciousness, freedom of choice... [...] That doesn't sound like a soulless machine to me, Miles... Whatever you are Prower, if you can feel and choose your own path... that's what makes you alive. Take it from me. - Fake Memories: Tails was activated only four years ago, the day he met Sonic, making his previous eight years of memories a lie.
- Fighting from the Inside: Tails, when Alpha takes over and tries to kill Knuckles. When he manages to regain control, he chooses to impale himself on a pike and destroy his power core.
- Flashback: Chapter 5 flashes back to when Tails was activated and first met Sonic, before turning out to be a dream, when Tails malfunctions and exposes himself as a robot right away.
- Grand Theft Me: Tails defeats Metal Sonic by injecting Alpha's personality imprint into him.
- In Medias Res: The story opens after Sonic and Tails return from Robotnik's facility, in the middle of Tails' Freak Out over what they've learned.
- "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: When Sonic tries to stop Alpha from killing Knuckles by appealing to Tails.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Knuckles warns Tails that, "If I think for a microsecond you're about to hurt my friends... there won't be so much as a single circuit or screw left of you." This threat is enough to trigger the Alpha imprint, which takes over Tails' body and tries to murder Knuckles.
- Override Command: When the heroes confront Robotnik, he uses an override code, 10-16-1992, to take control of Alpha and orders him to restrain Sonic. It works the first time, forcing Sonic to pull his power out and put it back in, but when Robotnik tries it again Tails just turns off his audio receptors.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Tails' eyes change from blue to red often, especially when the Alpha imprint takes over.
- Robotic Reveal: Tails. Sonic briefly thinks the file on him was a sick joke left by Robotnik, but Tails is able to prove it thanks to his super strength and by ripping his artificial flesh off.
- A Shared Suffering:
- Shadow compares Tails' situation to himself being a Robotnik creation as well.
- Sonic compares it to the Werehog fiasco. Tails points out several differences, one of which being that Sonic changed back, but Sonic reveals that the Werehog is still in him, it's just become easier to control.
- Shout-Out: The title is an obvious reference to The Terminator, as is the premise of Tails being a robot covered in artificially manufactured organic tissue.
- Tomato in the Mirror: Tails discovers that he's an ilfiltration unit built by Robotnik.
- Troubled Fetal Position: Tails reaches this point during his Sanity Slippage after the reveal, ranting to himself about the "Fascinating technology" that created him.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Shadow attempts, with some success, to convince Tails he's more than a soulless machine.
Personality Crisis 2 - More than Machines provides examples of:
- Daydream Surprise: The story opens on a scene of Tails imagining himself being exposed to Sonic under different circumstances and Alpha taking over and killing him.
- Embarrassing First Name: Olgilvie Maurice Hedgehog. Presumably overlaps with Embarrassing Middle Name.
- Happy Ending Override: The first story ends on an optimistic note with Tails having come to terms with being a robot, and no longer in fear of losing control of his body and hurting anyone. The sequel has him slip back into depression because he thinks he can't act on his crush on Zooey, and when he does go out with her, it ends with him outing himself as a robot, scaring her off and creating other legal complications for himself.
- He's Back!: Tails snaps out of his Heroic BSoD to intervene in a Badnik attack on the town.
- Jerkass Realization: Zooey comes to regret how she reacted to Tails' robot form.
- Made a Slave:
- Thanks to Tails' stunt, he's forced to register with the Department as a Personal Service Unit in Sonic's property, with a Tracking Device and a Restraining Bolt. For his part, Sonic refuses to treat him as one and intends to fight it in court, with help from Shadow, but Tails is depressed enough that doesn't see the point.
- Despite seemingly escaping in the first story, Alpha has been recaptured by Robotnik in Metal Sonic's body and forced to resume helping him.
- Papa Wolf: Zachary Denn for Zooey, first in an overprotective way when he finds out about Tails but later in a more positive sense after Zooey's roboticization.
- Shipper on Deck: Sonic and Amy for Tails and Zooey.
- Troubled Sympathetic Bigot: Zooey and especially her father are prejudiced against robots, as a result of a Badnik killing her mother. They both get past this after Tails helps rescue them from the Egg Carrier.
- Unwilling Roboticisation: Robotnik does this to Zooey, and it plays out like Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM): her body is effectively turned into the robot body, with only her brain left over.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Sonic is furious with his brother after finding out that he publicly exposed himself as a robot, getting himself in trouble with the GUN Department of Robotics, though he regrets his reaction when Tails reminds him that Sonic pushed him into pursuing Zooey, and points out that this wasn't going to stay secret forever.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: When Zooey is feeling down about being turned into a Badnik, Tails shows her his original robot body and explains that when he found out that he was built to be a weapon, he simply chose not to be one, making the point that she can too.
