Around March of 2020, YouTuber Some Call Me Johnny streamed a mod for Sonic Adventure 2 known as Sonic Adventure 2 Randomizer, which changed certain levels, characters, cutscenes, etc. around for comedic effect. The result was a clusterfuck of a playthrough.
A few days after, a fan named Casey got the idea to cobble together a plot based on Johnny's streams in order to make sense out of everything that happened, which was later read by Johnny himself on a stream.
And thus SomecallmeJohnny's Sonic Adventure 2 Randomizer was born, a plot full of contrivances, padding, and twists galore. A visualization of the story can be viewed here.
This mess of a story provides examples of:
- Accidentally-Correct Writing: In the original stream, one guy wished that after completing Mission Street as Chaos, that the military would nuke the island; guess what happens.
- Adaptational Villainy: In the original game, Maria was Shadow's Morality Chain, but here, she's a jewel hoarder who launched him into space sometime before the events of the story. This turns out to be a false memory, however, as he later remembers that she was actually Omochao, a heroic being who wielded the Chaos Emeralds.
- Adapted Out: The president from the original version of Sonic Adventure 2 does not appear, as Shadow is the president instead.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Eggman succeeds in usurping the presidency for himself, ending the story planning his Eggman Empire.
- Bigger on the Inside: The ARK, while already a massive space station, is shown in the story to house a forest, an island, a pyramid, and a small city.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: The Hero's Side concludes with Sonic destroying the ARK out of frustration that the story's going nowhere.
- Butt-Monkey:
- Infinite, who's just trying to prove that he's a great villain. Throughout the story, nobody knows he even exists, he drowns, fails to accomplish his goals, and despite beating the Biolizard, doesn't become president because nobody knows he exists. Even Johnny felt bad for him.
- The Biolizard, due to getting beaten several times throughout the course of the story. Even his final showdown with Shadow is over in a few seconds.
- The Egg Golem, gets destroyed three different times over the course of the story: Once by Silver Sonic, once by the blue Chao, and once by the Dark Chao.
- The Cameo: Movie!Sonic appears in a random dream sequence Metal Sonic has where he raises several Chao.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Subverted with Infinite. Despite being a minor character who manages to beat the Biolizard and become president, it ends up not happening due to nobody caring about him.
- Cluster F-Bomb: The first time Knuckles shatters the Master Emerald.
- Dead Person Impersonation: After Sonic is seemingly killed during the Dark story, Silver Sonic decides to take his place as he rampages around Radical Highway.
- Decoy Protagonist: Despite having his name in the title and being a major protagonist in the original game, Sonic is relatively inactive in the story, as not only is Knuckles the one running for president, but Sonic isn't even playable in any stages until the final boss fight. While he initially appears to be playable in Eternal Engine, this is later revealed to have been Espio the Chameleon in disguise.
- Disney Death: Sonic is seemingly killed after Eggman launches him into space for the second time during the Dark side story. He isn't revealed to have survived until the eleventh hour.
- Downer Ending: Everybody, sans Rouge, Chaos, and Eggman, either end up in prison or a complete failure.
- Election Day Episode: The entire story is built around Shadow and Knuckle's runs for the 2001 presidential election.
- For the Evulz: Characters often beat up each other up for no given reason.
- Four Lines, All Waiting: There's a lot of side stories, most of which don't contribute to the overall story.
- Shadow and Knuckles fight alongside their companions over who gets to become president.
- Metal Sonic and friends do whatever they can do ruin Eggman's day, even if it means crashing the game.
- Chaos and his random adventures throughout time and space
- Infinite and his goal of proving that he's a good villain.
- Espio hunts down Shadow in order to halt his campaign, but it goes nowhere, as he is killed by Shadow immediately after confronting him.
- The Chaos search for each other in order to engage in a race war, despite both working for Metal Sonic.
- The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You / Rage Quit: Metal Sonic crashes the game after losing to Amy in a fight.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Former president Shadow uses up his energy in Last Story to prevent the ARK from crashing into the earth.
- Hijacked by Ganon: Initally, series antagonist Eggman is a secondary villain who offers to help Shadow with his presidential campaign, but at the end of the Dark side story, ho obtains the seven Chaos Emeralds and takes the title of President for himself.
- Mind Screw: Plenty. Characters show up only to disappear, flashbacks are given to characters who don't matter, and Tails is revealed to have never existed despite helping Sonic escape Eggman's first trap.
- Nuke 'em: During the Hero's Side, the military nuke an entire island housing a small city in order to get rid of Chaos. It doesn't work, as Chaos teleports to the Ark just in time.
- Our Presidents Are Different: Shadow is the current president who must beat Knuckles to secure a second term.
- Prequel: One fight in the Hero's Side is between Tikal and Chaos, taking place way before the events of Adventure 1.
- Random Events Plot: Justified since that was it was played on the Randomizer mod.
- The Reveal:
- Maria launched Shadow out of space not because she was a gem hoarder who wanted his chaos emeralds, but because she was a hero trying to protect the emeralds. Plus, she was Omochao the whole time.
- Eggman has somehow gathered up the chaos emeralds behind everyone's back, ensuring his victory as president.
- Tails never existed.
- Last Story reveals that Sonic survived his supposed death from Dark's Side.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: The Last Story has Amy taking revenge on Eggman for Sonic's supposed death by destroying the ARK.
- Rogue Agent: At one point in Hero's Side, Rouge goes rogue against her bosses in order to support Shadow in the presidential race.
- Show Within a Show: One part of Dark's Side deals with the filming of the in-universe movie Chao in Space.
- Tomato in the Mirror: The ending reveals that Tails never existed.
- Too Dumb to Live: Sonic falls into Eggman's trap to launch him into space despite the fact that Eggman explained his plan out loud in front of him, and only survives because of intervention from Tails. As if that wasn't bad enough, Eggman uses the exact same plan later on, and Sonic falls for it again, seemingly being killed for real this time.
- Villain Protagonist: Despite being the protagonist of the Hero side story, being the one aiming to become President, Knuckles doesn't do anything heroic, instead spending the story beating up characters unprovoked and arguing with Rouge.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Infinite becomes President after he defeats the Biolizard, but none of the other characters are even aware that he's involved in the plot, and he never appears again after this, effectively leaving the presidential title up for grabs.
- "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue:
- Sonic: Was quickly arrested once again upon returning to Earth for his multiple prison breaks, earning 12 life sentences with no chance of parole.
- Tails: Never existed, he was made up.
- Knuckles: Fell into a state of depression after losing the election to Eggman, becoming a heavy drinker, and later arrested for his multiple assaults throughout the story.
- Amy: Tries several times to get Sonic out of jail. She's not very good at it.
- Eggman: Currently building up his Eggman Empire after securing the election for himself.
- Rouge: Somehow got her job with G.U.N. back, and is living a successful life.
- Chaos: Continues to chill on the ARK.
- Infinite: Failed in his goal to prove to everybody that he's a good villain, and decided to teleport back to Forces.
- Metal and Silver Sonic: The two reunite and attempt to undermine Eggman even though he's rising in power.
- The Chao: They start a race war.
- Shadow: The former president's ghost continues to loom over the world, gazing upon it in disappointment.
