I finally got my lousy feline paws on a proper computer. With a stable connection. Yay me.

I read this story again, from ch.1 to 10, all in one take, so that I can judge it as an overall work. In retrospect, I must say that the abrupt switch to third person kind of puts me off, because the first person narrative doesn't really return from that point onwards. It is of minor importance to the narrative itself, of course, and I suspect you did it because from chapter five onwards you need to exit the protagonists' minds and focus on their actions.

I also like the introspection of the first chapters. I didn't find it unnecessary or dull, because I am interested in what lies in the mind of people.

The closing chapters are filled with some awesome dialogue. It flows naturally and sometimes nods at the absurdist movement with an elegance that is usually unlike you. For me the climax of the entire story comes with Tails' death- an innovative, fresh death scene unlike any other I have ever come across, described so vividly that it'll probably stay with me for a long time. And for a good reason. The jumbled post-mortem narrative is a befitting coda to his personal ordeal, and I like the ambiguity of it. Does this happen in a supernatural, otherworldly place? Is it a dying hallucination? You are right. I don't want to know.

The closing lines of chapter 10 are pure awesomeness. "She knows she is supplemental, a plot device at best. She knows she won't be back. She knows this to be true." You sly bastard. You leave that stuff for whoever is capable of grasping the humorous overtones. Which is why I like you so much.

Contrary to what other reviewers said, I like the inclusion of narrative threads that are of little importance to the actual murder spree. It shows you care about the characters and their world, and it makes me care about them all the more. I like Amy. She is much stronger than she herself acknowledges and the resolution of her story is beautiful.

I want to mention something else, because if I saw correctly somebody commented on your extensive and repetitive description of people who smoke and drink. Tell me if it was unintentional, but I actually thought of this choice as satire, if anything. To me, it kind of parodies mainstream noir that features edgy brooding characters that sulk all over the place with a cigarette hanging from their mouths. A detail, but and it could have been only me, but it came to mind and I had to say so.

It is, finally, obvious that you wrote this with a soundtrack in mind. Which makes it all the more cinematic.

If I have a sole complaint, that has to be coherence. And I am not talking about making sense, because I would be murdering cornwallace if I asked for something as counterproductive as that. There is an awful lot of characters and interweaving threads, and sometimes, in later chapters, we jump from place to place and from style to style in a manner that from time to time makes the entire text flow less smoothly.

I am still extremely proud this is in my favorites.

...Eeeh. I find myself split on how to feel. On the one hand, I really liked Ari's bit at the end and Amy's general tone. On the other hand, it feels like you're kind of showing Amy's dark past rather than telling us. For example, the daughter's death. I didn't care. I was confused as to what had led up to her suicide. We don't get much insight other than Sonic's abuse and Amy's familial issues. Feels unearned.
Sonic and Amy's abusive relationship is an interesting idea, but I don't feel you've explored it enough throughout the narrative to really get the viewer's attention.
As for positives: Tails's conversation with Charmy was a breath of fresh air. Though I'm not sure how everyone feels about a hairless anthropomorphic creature wandering around the premises. Hasn't anyone called the police or asked if he needs help? Either way, good scene. And as previously stated, Ari's death and character were done very well.
All in all, I give this chapter 6.8/10. Good concepts, but not quite strong enough to pull me through the way chapter seven did. On to nine!

First off, Earl and Stebbins. Love the names, love the characters. Not much else for me to say that they don't already address.
It's jarring to see you implement the sentence "You quick, boy." in an unironic sense (still not over the SnK parody A scourge of beasts), but it works.
Tip: you occasionally switch back between present and past tense. Pick one and stick with it, it's immersion breaking in what otherwise is a good chapter. Really, I thoroughly enjoyed the individual scenes with Bunnie and Ari, in particular. Ari in general is a great character.
Random question: what's "lose canon"? Did you mean loose cannon? Whatever the case, this was by far my favorite of the seven chapters so far. Good characterization, good pacing, just good, all around! Curious to see what goes down in eight.

Chapter six! Things are picking up here. Sonic is still an asshole, but it feels more in place than it did in ch. 4. Progress is good.
Tails is...hm. Apart from the unapologetically disturbing tail-removal scene (another fav scene), I thought he was lobotomized. Shouldn't he be compromised, in terms of motor-skills or thought-processes? Or is that story about him even true? ...You know, I'll let this one slide on account of his slow descent into a psychological meltdown, but next time I won't be so lenient.
Amy is refreshing. I welcome her presence.
As fir Sonic tampering with the evidence...well, it works. Nothing to complain about.
Eerie conclusion. Let's see where you go next.

Look, another review! (Hey, I said I'd go through the whole thing, and so I will.)
This! This is such a welcome departure from chapter four's angsty clusterheck of a scenario that I'm ALMOST tempted to let you off easy...but you and I both know that would be weaksauce, so I won't bite!
I like Rotor's introduction and honestly, the first paragraph is one of the best aspects of this chapter as a whole. About Vernon and Nolan; are they mouthpieces? Noticed them throughout a few other tales, not always your own.
Their dialogue is...okay. Not the best? Feels needlessly cynical. It's not placed all that gracefully, either. More like it was thrown out into the middle of the scene like a heap of rotting Thanksgiving leftovers or something. Hey, it's a good idea with better execution than chapter four, but I think you could have chopped up the rotting carcass and put it in two or more separate trash cans instead of stuffing one scene to the brim.
The thriller bit is a breath of fresh air. Love how Rotor's sleep-deprived mind works, even if it turns out to be too-little-too-late for him. Tails is actually pretty dang scary, and the murder scene itself and the ending of the chapter are both good 'oh-shit' moments that feel EARNED: there's build-up and payoff!
And THIS: "It all happens so fast. His eyes widen. He quickly reaches for the gun without even looking and the wrench cracks against the back of his skull. A sudden savage guttural outburst of protest as his hand goes limp, dropping the gun just in time for the rusted red monkey wrench to crack against the back of his head again, blood splattering against the peeling paint job on the wall, and the schematics on his desk. His body ragdolls to the floor and the grip around the wrench tightens. Thud. Thud. He doesn't stop until he's sure."
THIS is the kind of prose I know you're capable of. You didn't disappoint! If I have to nit-pick, though, the use of "ragdolls" as a verb really pulled me out of the scene. An action word would have felt more appropriate, indicating movement. But I digress.
Five was much better than four, but not without its flaws. Hey, I'll still take it!

I'm gonna be harsh with you, because I know you're a damn good writer and I respect you a lot. Okay? Cool.
That said, I slogged through chapter four. Even chapter three, I was able to manage okay. But this? I'm sorry, but the melodrama, the bitterness-it's not working! Sonic is written in a way that does very little to differentiate him from Tails, but he's not smart, he's not chilling or cunning or even very interesting, he's just an asshole with a short fuse. And even then that should be enough to make him separate, but the way he's written, it feels like he's just a jerk for the sake of jerkiness. Yes, I know, it's a stressful situation he's in right now, but there's got to be another way to get that point across than strangling a homeless cat-guy to death and giggling a little.
Even the prose feels oddly vacant and childishly dark. Where is the plot, the pacing? What is the POINT of this story?

Okay. So we're back to the blunt, choppy sentences. There's consistency, that's good!
And we get some more insight upon Tails. Also good.
But this is my main issue; the break-out, the flashback, neither of these scenes feel earned. Good concepts individually, and your execution of them is fine, but it feels terribly rushed. With that said, I'll move on.

Yeah, I just don't get it. I think I hated this story, even though the second half (or whatever was posted by present-day cornwallace) was definitely well written and enjoyable. Just mechanically nothing worked for me. Story's got all these rough edges and parts sticking out all over the place. Characters with arcs that don't go anywhere, questions without answers, wild shifts in tone, wild shifts in rhythm, missed opportunities, setups without payoffs, payoffs without setups...

And what is one to take from an ending like this? Seems like you're shooting for some blurring of the line between internal and external, but what's the point? Your characters can mention the reader, and...? Why would Amy be concerned about the reader? What's that got to do with anything? It just comes out of nowhere, suddenly, and that's where you leave us?

People will praise you because they're distracted by your great characters and all the movement and fun action, but I think for your next project you really need to step back and just think for a minute: Does what I'm writing even make sense? Just mechanically, technically, does this make sense? Does it make sense to introduce Rotor as a sympathetic POV character, then instantly kill him? Does it make sense to just plop in devil radio show hosts out of nowhere in the final pages of the story? Does it make sense to keep dwelling on how my characters are smoking cigarettes? Does it make sense to keep cutting back to playful cop banter between scenes of graphic, unironic violence? Maybe it does in some cases. I don't know. But it's probably worth thinking about.

Sorry to be such a complainer all the time, but you're the best writer I know by far, and I want to see you make the most of your amazing talents. I just don't think this is it.

I dunno. So much creativity. So much emotion and imagination and incredible talent, all in service of a plot that revolves around... basically a string of senseless murders? I think I wanted more scenes like the one with Fiona, and I wanted them a lot earlier. Something very weird and almost occult going on there, same with all the talk of goblins.

Cops feel really tired and old at this point. Smoking feels really tired and old at this point. My god, the smoking. I don't think it ever was interesting, and when you completely pause the story to describe every motion in elaborate, Sweet Phobia-style detail it becomes even less interesting.

We still don't know why Tails is doing this. We still don't know why he went nuts. We're 20,000 words in and we don't know why. We don't know anything about him, really. Most of the other characters you managed to salvage in one way or another, but Tails remains a complete mystery. I guess I just don't get it.

A bit long-winded here, but I guess you had to make up for the near total lack of anything established in the first six chapters, so it makes sense.

Good scenes, good characters, all very real and concrete.

Sooooo much better. A galaxy-wide leap in quality from the previous chapter to this one. So much more character, so much more humor, so much more to look at. Check out Gregg from chapter six and compare him to Gregg from chapter seven; it's like "generic cop guy" versus a real person. No longer using the fandom as a crutch, but building your own world within theirs.

No Country.

Everyone smoking all the time, starts to feel like going through the motions. Every scene someone's lighting up, but there's no real hook to it. Just feels like something for the characters' hands to do.

Sonic's pursuit of Tails is the interesting part right now, even if there's still no clear protagonist. Not sure I get how Tails is so clever after apparently being lobotomized by a bullet either. He wasn't fit to stand trial; how's he even coherent at this point?

I like the idea of Tails shaving himself as a disguise. Could've done without the graphic self-mutilation, however.

Nothing happens in Amy's scene. She just sits and drinks and smokes and thinks.

Introduce us to a third protagonist, spend all this time with him, talk at length about his many problems and concerns, then just kill him off and move on. Makes sense.

Exposition disguised as radio talk show. Frank Sinatra Jr. and Mozart in this universe for some reason. Then you rush to the finish line.

This is the problem with fanfiction. You're using "Sonic" and "Tails" as labels to endow completely unrecognizable characters with backstories the reader is already familiar with. If the narrator here were named "Joe" and Miles were named "Jim," this chapter would instantly lose the intrigue it relies upon for momentum. The only reason it's shocking just how crass and violent and hateful Sonic is, is because the reader already knows who Sonic is. If his name were Joe he'd just come across as some random mean guy with a hazy backstory. I hate to be one of "those people," but the further away I get from writing and reading fanfiction the more I tend to see it as a sort of crutch, a way of bypassing perhaps the most difficult aspect of fiction writing: world building.

Should've been the first chapter. It's like you finally got warmed up. Clear images, a goal, tension, conflict, good stuff.

Not sure about the flashes back and forth, speaking to a crowd or something? Felt a little like a device. I just wanted to stick with Miles in that creepy bed turning out screws. End of this chapter's a bit dismaying, though. Frantically bashing a guy's head in? Again?

When Miles tackled the nurse I had this eerie, discomforting vision of him just drawing all over her face with the red marker, how that'd be such a profound and disturbing violation. But then he just stabs her. Hrmm.