Community Interview: Shayne Thames and the Evolution of SonicUnderground.net

Sonic fansite webmaster Shayne Thames has had a rather colourful history in the community. The last time we spoke to her, she revealed that she had personal correspondence from Sonic Team's Yuji Naka - that's not something a lot of fans can claim! Now, with a new Sonic cartoon on the horizon, we catch up with Shayne again to find out how she is evolving SonicUnderground.Net in preparation for the launch.

TSS: Hey, Andrew here with Shayne Thames of SU.Net, for our special update interview. thanks for taking the time Shayne, how you been since last December's interview?

Shayne Thames: Been quite a busybody really!

TSS: Wow! Hows the SU.Net website been going? And for those who don't know what it is, please update us on its current status and a lil' background.

Shayne Thames: Well it's been quite a year for SU.net. We settled down into Crosswinds after our original move from Yahoo, but we got kicked out of there before summer even started. Spent all summer looking for a server to settle on. By the time August rolled around, three websites had shammed us and STILL had no place to settle on!

TSS: Seems like you are now settled in well. What has been up with SU.Net since you got your new host? To better explain that question, what's new?

Shayne Thames: Well first off I decided I was fed up and looked back to Yahoo to try and find a solution to my hosting problem. In the end, I ended up paying for a dedicated server, so now I have all my websites in one place! Yay me! ^__^. SU.net is kinda sitting idle right now, but we got big plans coming up!

TSS: Can you give us any hints on those big plans or are they top secret and MIB's will soon be knocking on more door?

Shayne Thames: It all comes together at SonicCommunityOnline.net, if you've been there recently.

TSS: I've been a bad hog, I haven't been anywhere recently. Could you update us on the games you were working on when we last interviewed you? what happened to those?

Shayne Thames: ::Laughs:: Gosh, dead really. i think Qtoken is still working on a Text RPG we were planning, but now I think I have my attention on other things.

TSS: Ahhh, sorry to hear that. I heard someone wrote a book? Who's this person and what book would that be? XD

Shayne Thames: Lots of people write books, silly. Just kidding, but seriously, yea, I DID write a book. It's called "Crystal Star: Legend of the Mecha Fighters"

TSS: What would this book be about and where did you get the idea to write it from? Plug-it in! ^_^

Shayne Thames: Hehe! Its about an alien girl, who's the last of her kind, living on this planet in the 30th century that was colonized by humans. The natives are all furry... and scaly. She's a police detective for a human city, protecting it against furries who are rebelling against the humans, but most importantly against their biggest enemies, the Reptilians. She chases a jewel thief to some caves one day and discovers a suit of armor and becomes a superhero called Crystal Star.

I got this idea from Sonic of course :-)

TSS: How long did it take you to write it and will you ever think about writing another book later on?

Shayne Thames: It took me over a year to write Crystal Star, and YES, I do plan a sequel. I won't give away too much, but lets just say that a new character I'm adding is named after a certain black and red hedgehog we all know and love ^^

TSS: Wow! Sounds exciting, how many pages is Crystal Star and are there any big words in it? XD

Shayne Thames: Crystal Star is about 150 pages, the size of your average junior novelization. The reading level is about that of Harry Potter. So yes, there is some bloodshed involved.

TSS: I'm sure you heard about the new Sonic Anime SEGA is working on. Since you're a fan of the Sonic cartoons (especially Underground), what would you like to see in this? Would you like to see it as a sequel to the first anime or a new one in all?

Shayne Thames: Well what I HAVE heard is that the Anime is gonna be based on Sonic Adventure. I would be DAMNED if those guys tried to pick up from the movie. The story was lame and the voice acting sucked even worse!

TSS: So I guess the video game voices dubbing the import of the anime are out of the question? If you could choose what this anime would be like or what characters, what would you choose?

Shayne Thames: I actually wouldn't mind something based on SA2. And the video game actors don't suck. The anime voices do. Ryan all the way man! BTW, I would like to mention that I am running a section on SU.net covering the news on these new cartoons.

TSS: Well Shayne, it was greating doing this update interview! Good luck on the sequel to Crystal Star and SU.Net's big plans. And Merry Christmas!

Shayne Thames: Merry Christmas to you too...again!