Sonadow.com

Sonadow.com is a website that focuses on the pairing of the characters Sonic and Shadow from the popular videogame series Sonic the Hedgehog. The site is designed to allow its users to post fanart and fanfiction of this pairing. The site houses 172 authors and 374 stories as of 16 September 2009.

• Addresses:
  • Website: http://sonadow.com/
  • Forums: http://www.sonadow.com/forums/
  • Yahoo! Group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sonadowonline/
  • IRC: irc://irc.sonicanime.net:6667/sonadow
• Founders: Sonic Remix - Shadow
• Administrators: Sonic Remix (Shadow), MASilvers (Sonic)
• Ran from/to: 2003 - present

History and services

The website was started in 2003 by Sonic and Shadow. In mid 2006, the site underwent a complete makeover in appearance and guiding users through the site. The majority of the of the artistic design comes from Shadow whose artwork is featured on the site itself.

This temporary version of the site was used from May 2007 to August 2007 when the current template came into use. In addition to these changes, Shadow added an inspirational welcome and encouragement to write Sonadow fanfiction, and draw Sonadow art with the phrase "Sing your verse."

The fanfiction portion can be viewed in multiple backgrounds that give the site a new appeal and the ability to customize to a user's preference. Prior to the version the website is using now, there was a temporary template that is considerably different from the current and original.

In addition, a forum is connected to the main site along with the addons of a "Sonic Slave Dressup v1.0," which was created by Shadow, one of the site's founders, a chatroom, and a news letter connected to the Yahoo group.

In December of 2008, Shadow made the announcement to integrate Sonadow.com with the "Sonic Kingdom" engine, a project that, as of April 2009, is still under construction. With a promised completion date of 'June 23rd, 2009', Sonadow.com promises to use the gallery and fanfiction areas of Sonic Kingdom to run. Shadow states that this is for greater management control over restricted content.

However, in May of 2009, Shadow announced on the website that the decision to integrate with Sonic Kingdom had been reversed, and that Sonadow.com will remain independent of its sister site.

Influential authors

One of the most acclaimed authors on Sonadow.com is Az The Dragon who has written the longest fanfiction on the site titled Bitter Flights at 25 Chapters and 182937 words. This work received 80 reviews with only the complaint that Az needs to update sooner.

However, Bitter Flights is not the all time favorite story among readers. A story called A Matter of Trust by Nameless Moonshine has been favored more and with little surprise. The story packs a mighty 77 reviews for its 20 chapters, and is a collaboration between Nam and Az.

With creative ideas and often comical one-shots, Sonadowluver93 is still the most prolific author. She has published 16 stories, and her influence is also seen as a prolific reviewer in submitting 287 comments on stories.

About the creators

Shadow said, in an interview about the site, "[We] orginally started the site as a place where ALL Sonadow fans can find all Sonadow stuff like art and fanfics in one place without having to stray far in the net and risk hitting bad sites just to find Sonadow stuff." Shadow has taken a dominant role, however, in working on the web site since its start.

Sonic and Shadow are both from Florida and friends in the real world. In May 2007, Sonic's boyfriend proposed to him and Shadow was there to witness the event. He said "Yes" but writes in the Sonadow forums that a date has not been announced. The happy news for Sonic, however, did not stop Shadow from his constant work on the site. Sonic still manages to help as an admin, but is considerably less active on the site.

In December of 2007, the user portraying host 'Sonic', was relieved of her duty. In March of 2008, user 'Shindou-Chan' of DeviantArt fame was chosen as a replacement to portray 'Sonic' on the site.

In May of 2009, Shadow announced on the website that 'Kitevo' was named as the permanent replacement to portray 'Sonic'.

After Kitevo left in July of 2008, Sonadow.com was without a Sonic once again, until August of 2009, when MASilvers stepped in unexpectedly and started lending a hand to Shadow. Eventually MASilvers integrated discreetly as the new Sonic.

Shadow recently added several rules in addition to the major improvements mention above. Shadow thanks SonicAnime.net and Sonadow Online staff members for their help on the site. They also grant a special thanks to Malstygian of SonicAnime.net in his help of coding for the site.