Spoilers for Vector's Story Chapter 5 or Charmy Nonsense Chapter 50!

Please don't read this if you haven't read that chapter yet!

I would hate for you to get spoiled.

Okay, I'm assuming you've already read the chapter and just want the extras for it now.

So here we go

Chapter 5/50's end notes.

The main thing is OMG Breezie is in this fic?! Yep. I put Breezie in the fic. I needed a mysterious yet alluring client for Vector to get thrown off by, to foreshadow other characters, and to be a general shake up to the current story. Enter Breezie, a non-robotic hedgehog. She's not secretly an android. She's also not Archie Comic's version of Breezie either, because I do not like Archie Comics portrayal of her. No, I built this Breezie from scratch (pun intended), she's different from all the other Breezie's you know. Hopefully you may enjoy her more than those other versions, but hey, that's up to you, not me.

Breezie's descriptions were fun, not because I was trying to be perverted about her looks, but because of the specific words and metaphors/similes I chose to describe her with. Lots of interesting wording and odd comparisons, wouldn't you agree? The idea to make her a Southern Belle was purely spur of the moment. As I was writing her dialogue, I was like "Ya know what would make this more charming? A southern accent!" XD
The place she works, The Happy Bar, is an actual location in Sonic Battle. It's across the street from the Gimme Shelter entrance. Granted, it has two separate signs, "Bar" and then "Happy", but I figured putting them together wouldn't be too far a stretch. The Sweaty Martini, the strip club owned by the sunglasses pig, is a competitor of The Happy Bar. Since The Happy Bar is located right at the entrance of Night Babylon from Downtown Central City, it is a great deal more popular than The Sweaty Martini. Also, it's just classier as they don't have "strippers", they have singers and other musical performers.

A few of the details added to Breezie's design are interesting, at least to me. Her gloves are a reference to Jessica Rabbit's gloves from Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. As is the "sparkling" finish to her dress. Her eyes being purple and her having purple eyeshadow was simply to add more purple to her design to balance her look. The bangles, I admit, are from Archie Comic's design of Breezie, but that's all I borrowed from that continuity. Lastly, the titular anklet is a very fun reference to a classic Noir film character, Phyllis Dietrichson from Double Indemnity. If you haven't watched it, I highly recommend, because it's good stuff. The dialogue is pretty snappy and iconic. Also, I have nothing against anklets, I just wanted to put it in as a stumbling block for Vector going into this case. XD

The other character included is another AoStH alum, Wes Weasely! I needed a very specific kind of character to be the missing man in this case, so I searched and searched and found Wes. I liked his design right away, he was quite charming and interesting to look at, so I didn't change anything about his look. Except how his glasses attach to his ears, but that's only because glasses in Sonic's World shouldn't work like glasses in our world. Their ears are on top of their heads, ours are on the side. Adjustments must be made in order to make sense. Also I added white gloves because he's an ordinary Sonic character. He needed the standard gloves XD

When I put him and Breezie side by side, I thought they looked surprisingly good together. Like, I could see them becoming entangled, even if he was married. Which is notable, isn't it? Mr. Weasely had a Mrs. Weasely and some Weasely Jrs. when he was smoochin' up Breezie. Food for thought. We'll learn more about him as the investigation gets going, of course C:

"Well gee, SAJ are you gonna be adding more characters from other Sonic continuities in this fic?" I'll never tell! Okay I'll tell, yes XD So get excited as you'll be seeing familiar faces included in unexpected ways ;)

Now for the details of familiar characters. Like I said in the previous chapter about Charmy, I'm not sure if Vector is suffering from panic attacks, really. I don't know if that's what's going on and I kinda wanted to lean into that, because if you think about it... would Vector look into that himself? Right now, in the state he's in? I would say no, which is why I have him admit that he's not trying to study this. It's all part of his character arc, he doesn't want to know specifically what's wrong with him. He's got work to do, "I'll sleep plenty when I'm dead", that line from Chapter 3/30 was very telling. It's not healthy, but it is very human (yes, he's a crocodile, I know, you are very clever for noticing, but you know what I mean when I say "human").

I wanted to highlight in this chapter an under represented relationship in The Chaotix, Ray and Vector. I will explore this more as the story continues but I felt this was the best place to include Ray's unique position in the group. Ray is passive most of the time, so I wanted to show how he breaks out of his passivity in little ways. Being the mediator between Vector and everyone else is his way of being more proactive. Again, you'll see this (and more) of him as the story continues, but Ray is gonna get plenty of chances to shine in this fic. I mean, everybody will, but Ray specifically will.

I wanted to clarify Vector's view of Charmy, since last chapter focused on Charmy's view of Vector and the chapter before was Mighty's view (and some of Espio's view) of Vector. I hope I portrayed it clearly, through the comparison to all the other kid characters in the series. Now, important to note, this is how I think Vector would view these characters, this is not a 1-to-1 read of what I personally think of these characters (except Colors Tails, fuck him, that is not my Tails). But it is a 1-to-1 of how I think Charmy differs from all the other kids in the series and what makes him such a unique character in general. And doing that through Vector's eyes just felt right. So for Charmy to "hate" Vector, who holds him in such high regard, would be agonizing.

The very short reference to Shadow's game, specifically Charmy's mission with the secret disks, was a fun one to explore. Shadow's game is mostly player choice. It's up to the individual what missions they choose and ultimately it's all undone by the Last Story. So, if you're thinking "Well, wait, Shadow had to help Charmy because that's the mission!", think again. In the Charmy Nonsense universe, during the Black Arms Invasion, Shadow did not help Charmy get the secret disks!

But then, how did The Chaotix get the secret disks and do their thing during the Last Story to save the day? Well, Charmy had to have finished the mission by himself! Good job to our boy! However, when relaying what happened, all he would focus on was how awesome Shadow was because he's a huge fanboy. So people would come away thinking Shadow did it for him and Charmy would let them because he doesn't care. He got to be with Shadow during an alien invasion! Vector would be the one to want the details, as he's so invested in Charmy, and that'd be when Shadow would reveal "Yeah, I don't even remember Charmy being there, I was too busy blowing shit up and finding Emeralds". So yeah, that was fun to include there. XD

Vector playing the keyboard to help center himself is obviously a key detail. That isn't the last we'll see of that keyboard, not by a long shot, bucko! And other than him trying to move forward with his case, he's just getting more and more depressed and anxious. Maybe solving Breezie's case will fix everything? We can only hope.

As for Charmy, a small detail that carries over from the previous chapter is Vector's last question to Charmy: "You know that I could never hurt you, right?" was not directly answered! Vector spent the entire chapter not answering Charmy's questions directly, so in the end Charmy didn't answer Vector's question directly. And that's partially why he didn't answer Vector's question. It's the same reason Vector didn't answer Charmy's or Mighty's or Espio's questions. So if we find out why Charmy didn't answer Vector, will we gain some insight on Vector? Who knows? All I can say for now is, I keep putting "hate" in quotation marks for a reason. I paired him up with Ray for a reason. I had him go talk to the kids of Wes Weasely for a reason. Just, lemme cook on this, alright? XD

Oh my God, so many things this chapter—there's several references to some silly Charmy Nonsense chapters. Charmy in the Library, Charmy in a Courtroom, Charmy Goes to the Dump, Charmy and the Harvest Feast. Which, of course, means that Vector's Story takes place after all these specific stories. That's the fun of doing a bunch of "oneshots", I kinda get to skip around and connect them however I want (more or less). It felt better to use these stories to support Vector's assessment of Charmy's character because that's what the readers would easily be able to agree with. "Yeah, Charmy's self-aware, look at how he acted in this chapter earlier! Yeah he's fearless, look at how he dealt with these situations in previous chapters! Yeah Charmy is ambitious when it comes to fun, that's basically every plot of the silly stories!" It's just an easy correlation to make to further present Vector's feelings as understandable to the reader. Even if you guys still aren't privy to all the secrets he's holding back.

And any other details I missed that you find, feel free to point them out in the comments! Thanks for reading and I'll see you next time! C: