THE KEN PENDERS CHRONICLES: PendersCON Alert level 5- something actually made it to sale

While it is true that they are nowhere close to the majority opinion, what is a majority opinion is that the fanbase wants to be seen as such. The fanbase does want to believe their critiques and complaints are seen as feedback to Sega and Sonic Team that they would change their products as a result.

The anti-Ian Flynn crowd being so loud is a problem because the fanbase otherwise does rally around the "loudest" because that's what Sega would hear. That is why they are loud. That is why fans get so dramatic about shit like Sonic's quills.

That's why that specific crowd has escalated to the point of Ken Penders going "why are y'all mad about accuracy, is that not what you asked for" (though, to make sure that we know he hasn't actually changed, he says Ian Flynn talking about mandates is just "making excuses" even though Penders himself also complained about Sega's decisions affecting the comics to excuse his own work, because again, Ken Penders is hated for more reasons than people not liking his stories).

And now the anti-woke crowd uses those very complaints to use Sonic as a springboard to cry about "censorship" and "DEI" or whatever dogwhistles and bad faith arguments they come up with. It is entirely possible that this could get worse, though I doubt Sega is dumb or weak willed enough to see any of this as "feedback".

I'm not going to lie and say that's not exactly what I expected, but...

Well, I can say that the majority do think they're all full of shit and it really is only the worst recesses of Elon Musk's Twitter that these groups are taken seriously, let along get attention, which is a good thing.

 

Lmao, piss off Ken. I can name multiple Sonic games that have a better story than the fan fiction-tier drivel you're writing right now.

Anyway, Penders is just once again trying to be the center of attention. His defense of Ian is insincere, considering his past of shitting on him. The loudest, most obnoxious Ian haters on xtwitter are also big fans of Penders, which isn't a coincidence.

 

The community isn’t a monolith but it is funny to see Ken’s head spin like this so hard that he comes out sympathising for Ian.

 

I've always hated the Comicsgate-adjacent pro-Penders/anti-Flynn crowd. From racist harassment of Jon Gray to their pathetic Udon4Sonic campaign (which used stolen softcore porn of Sally and Bunnie as an example of how the cover of a good, non-woke Sonic comic would look like), those bastards are just a miserable group to engage with. And it's especially infuriating how Penders himself keeps validating them (Remember Scourge the Speed Demon? Fucking lmao.) despite presenting himself as a progressive figure.

That being said, people are not a hivemind just like BlackHole said, and a whole new group of people critical of Flynn has emerged after the release of Frontiers, me being one of them. Their primary concerns include Flynn himself caving in to pressure from toxic fans and therefore help replace some genuinely brilliant aspects of this franchise with stuff that's more to their liking. Many people in this crowd have no prior knowledge of or experience with either the Archie or IDW comics, and just want a better future for the game series than what would be the outcome of sticking with the current approach.

Sure, this crowd also has a lot of toxic, unpleasant and very vocal people in it. Sure, this crowd does often blame Flynn for stuff which is likely beyond his sphere of influence. And sure, this crowd does have some overlap with the above crowd. However, equating the two crowds is not only bad faith, but also extremely dangerous. Anyone who's been following the news knows how effective and harmful of a propaganda weapon it is to equate two completely different crowds just because they're critical of the same thing, especially if the other crowd is much more hostile and regressive than the other.

 

There might be a nuance to this to where he thinks of it more as a "get over it and write" type of thing where (I'm assuming) he didn't take to the Sonic Grams and bitch about having to revive Robotnik somehow, where Flynn will sometimes make comments about the small adjustments SEGA has him do that don't really change much about his story like "Shadow can't go out after using his OP kill everything move"

At least I could see that being a place someone could come from.

This, above all else, is something to remember. I don't want people going on autopilot saying everything Flynn's doing is good and any effort SEGA is actively making to change aspects of the series people like are for the better only to spite random nobodies who have never interacted with the series just to make it about something else entirely.

 

I don’t like penders, I am self appointed top 10 penders hater, but that comment is gold, good on him for sticking up for Flynn even if it is a bit backhanded with their history.

 

Say what you will about Penders but the dude strikes me as the sort who can see a fascist movement coming a mile away even if he was kinda crummy at communicating it through narrative

 

But not the sort who would be against those fascists being supportive of his works :P

When Charlie Chaplin found out that the far right loved his art, he made a film insulting and mocking their biggest idol. When Ken Penders found out that the far right loved his art, he let them contribute high-quality comic scans to his M25YL reprint.

 

Well that one I didn't actually know about (didn't look past the thanks ken penders blog's post on it). I stand corrected, dangit

 

He's taking down his entire Twitter profile this month in favor of Bluesky.

We better get archiving and quick, there's years worth of exclusive behind-the-scenes information about Archie Sonic in his Tweets alone.

 

No worries, I still have the screencap of him saying Asians can't act, so I'm all set.

 

Is it in the wiki though?

 

And i escaped to Blue Sky......now i might go back to twitter after all

 

How about we don't archive anything and blot this entire saga from our collective memories?

 

That's how we got Hyenas...

 

Hasn't it been the tenth time he said he'd leave Twitter, at this point ?

 

Given what’s going on that we’re not allowed to talk about here, I’d take it seriously this time.

 

Looks like he's changed his mind. Still leaving Twitter, mind you, but not deactivating his account.

This doesn't mean that we should give up on archiving his (or anyone else's) tweets, however. The whole website is still as stable as a table with two legs, and given how its owner now has his priorities somewhere completely different, I genuinely believe that it doesn't have much time left before he's pulling the plug.