River the Echidna (current version)

"Revenge is what started that whole mess in the first place, and I think it would be better just to let the fire die down rather than to fuel it..."- River

River the Echidna is an extremely rare, or evolutionarily impossible, cyan echidna and has the ability of hydrokinesis. She was given these traits shortly after birth thanks to the radiation of a chaos emerald, but in return her life depends on the fate of the emeralds. Despite this chain, she normally remains upbeat and mellow, and uses her powers for violence only when necessary, but most of the time just for the fun of it. River the Echidna is a character created by KnucklesFangirl (KFG for short)

Concept and Creation
Sometime in late 2012 and early 2013, KnucklesFangirl had become interested in the Sonic the Hedgehog series and fandom, and of course as a custom for every fandom she entered, she would have to make at least one fancharacter for the series. So there came a large series of horrible unused characters, which are mostly ripoffs of characters from other fandoms, and she decided that they were too pathetic to keep as a main character. Eventually, she decided to make a simple green Hedgehog named Terra, who would have the power to control earth. However, after browsing the official Sonic Wiki, she had found an interesting fact about the Chaos Emeralds which stated, "The colors of the Babylon Rogues and Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles are the same colors of the Chaos Emeralds, save for the Cyan Emerald."

Seeing as how there wasn't a canon character to match the Cyan Emerald, KFG decided that it would be a good idea to change her character's color to cyan. Eventually Terra was re-worked into a Hedgehog named Liz, who was originally a runaway that had to work for Eggman (as a cleaning lady, of all occupations) in order to have enough money to survive. But as her design developed, Liz eventually began to look much more like an Echidna, and for a brief week, she was known as Liz the Hedgechidna, but quickly enough she became Liz the Echidna. At first, the character seemed pretty complete for the most part. However, that was when KFG found out that in the Sonic universe, all Echidnas are warm colors, and they're meant to be extinct save for Knuckles. That was when the endless list of ridiculous backstory ideas appeared, however the constants in each backstory was that she was born weak and on the verge of death, and the Cyan Emerald's radiation saved her, but bound her to the Emeralds as well. Eventually her powers were being worked out, the first idea had to do with "Chaos Shouts" which were basically a ripoff of Dragon Shouts from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Then after testing possibilities with wind powers, electricity powers, and many others, KFG had a realization that hydrokinesis would work perfectly, as the god Chaos was given water powers due to chaos radiation and he is highly associated with Echidnas, and Liz was an Echidna and also mutated by the Emeralds.

Liz the Echidna was first posted on the Sonic Fanon wiki, but was ignored and overlooked. Then several pictures of her were posted on DeviantArt, but were ignored as well. Eventually KFG began to lose hope, until she stumbled upon the Sonic Fan Characters Wiki. As a last minute change, Liz's name was changed to River in order to fit her powers, and she was posted on the SFCW. The third time seemed to be the charm, as River was very recognized by the other users, and she eventually became a well-known character on that wiki.

However, sometime in January 2014, KFG had grown a strange lack of enthusiasm towards her own character, and she decided to restart with a new character, Mandolin the Caribou. It did NOT last long at all, as a week later, she began to completely rework River's backstory, design, some personality, and basic stats. And around February, a completely rebooted version of River was posted, and it recieved MUCH more attention than the previous version, having literally 10x as many comments as the original had, and still possibly growing.

Personality
River, at first, seems to be extremely skeptical of new people and very cautious around them. She is rather shy, but tries to be polite around strangers as well, as to not risk ruining a possible relationship before it even begins. However, since she isn't exactly sure of what offends certain people or not, she normally ends up being extremely awkward and unsure of what to say. It may take a little while, but eventually you can manage to gain her trust. Then after that, she becomes a completely different person. She becomes outgoing, humorous, a bit brash, and brutally honest towards others but mostly herself. She has a tendency to run into things without thinking, but laugh about it afterwards even when no one else laughs along with her. River becomes a go-with-the-flow kind of person; whenever something comes up that confuses or concerns her, she calmly shrugs, accepts it, and moves on. She does the same for people, as she is never truly afraid of someone by first glance, just a little shy, and she tries to be as kind as possible to everyone. But this doesn’t apply to all situations.

River is normally very slow to anger, and when faced with any sort of conflict or offense towards her she just tolerates it as best as she can. But when she snaps, she really snaps, like a thin stick that had a 50 pound weight dropped on it. When she is infuriated, for a short moment she seems to lose her sense of morality, as she willingly uses her Hemokinesis (which is a taboo to her normally) and she has even been known to threaten to kill another while in this emotional state. That being said, she also says some stupid and offensive things as well, like slipping out secrets, lashing out on someone she cares about, etc. and even though she doesn't have immediate regret, she feels remorseful once she has calmed down and regained her sense of logic.

River also happens to suffer from an internal inferiority complex, a part of her that isn't often shown to someone who isn't close to her. She always finds some way to compare herself to another person, and find one of her own traits that she feels is inadequate compared to them. It is surprisingly common for her to grow insecure over her own self-worth, ranging from very minor to extreme doubt and uncertainty about herself. Sadly, this conflicts with her polite trait often, as when she wishes to confide in someone about these insecurities, she makes the opposite decision as she believes having her own problems weigh on someone else is rude and too much to ask.

Powers and Abilities
Being an Echidna, River has electroreception. It is a biological ability to detect electrical currents that are given off by movement, and it is used mostly by aquatic animals for hunting purposes. However, due to beinga short-beaked Echidna, this ability is extremely weak compared to other animals who have it. She can detect weak presences that are nearby her, but that's about as strong as it gets. Another application to being an Echidna is that she can tolerate low oxygen levels, as Echidnas are a burrowing species.

River, as her name might suggest, is a Hydrokinetic. Basically, she can control water and anything that has water in it. If she’s in a humid environment, she can pull water straight out from the air, but normally she would need some other source like a lake or a puddle or something. However, in a dry and bare place like a desert, her power is almost completely useless since there is no water source. But in the rare moments when she’s in extreme desperation, River has been known to injure herself (not severely, though) and use her own blood as a weapon. Another application to this is the ability to control blood while it is still inside of other people, thus being able to use others kind of like puppets. However, she almost never uses this ability; one, because it's extremely difficult to pull off (as it seems to switch on and off for her), and two, she hates doing it to others, so it only comes out as a last-resort defense. River is also able to alter other aspects of water as well, such as pressure, density, and state of matter. For the first example, she can create high-pressured jets of water, which she normally uses on sturdy or armored enemies. With her ability to alter the density, she has the ability to make most things that wouldn't float on top of water rise to the surface, and if she concentrates this enough, she is able to make herself and others stand upon water. And finally, given enough time, she is able to freeze or evaporate anything that contains water. However, it is not instant, and takes several minutes for it to change form. She is also unable to change it to the fourth state, which is plasma.

List of Attacks

 * Water Jet: Using her abilities to pull out water wherever it may be, she can collect a mass of it and highly pressurize the water. Then, she fires a stream at her opponent, and due to the pressurization it blasts them back.
 * Freeze: River is able to change the states of matter that water is in (to an extent), so she has the capability to freeze whatever form of water she can use. However, she cannot generate ice straight from hand.
 * Melt: Again with her abilitiy to change the state of matter, she can melt ice back into a liquid form.
 * Bubble Creation: River is able to mold the shape of water around air to create a single bubble or more. It's practically useless in a battle, but it does provide some sort of distraction, and she often uses it as more of party trick to entertain her friends.
 * Whirlpool: Only useable when around a lake, ocean, or other large body of water. River shifts and spins the large mass of water in a circular motion, creating a whirlpool that would sink anyone who got caught in it.
 * Ice Claws: River wills for water to mold around her arms like gloves, and then freeze into ice. There are sharp tips on the ends of her fingers, which she can use like claws to slash at an opponent.
 * Ice Dagger: A much weaker and small-scale version of the ice claws. Normally used when a water source is scarce, River forms what little she has into a knife-like shape, and freezes it into an ice dagger.
 * Bloodbending: River takes control of the blood and other fluids inside of a living being and forcefully moves them to her will. She can manipulate most parts of the body, and cause internal bleeding, aneurysms, vein ruptures, slowing of blood flow, and etc. However, she only uses it as a last resort due to the brutal and immoral effects of it.
 * Ice Armor: Highly similar to her ice claws and ice dagger, River has the potential to encase her entire body in a mass of water, and freeze it in specific and precise ways that form a suit of armor around her. It gives her a good boost in defense, but unfortunately can only be used for a short time before it shatters or melts.

Weaknesses
As you may have noticed, her fur color is no where near normal considering her race. This pigment mutation is due to Chaos radiation, which is also the reason behind her powers (if it can turn a Chao into a water god, then it should be able to turn some girl into a Hydrokinetic). Of course, with every blessing there has to be a catch of some sort; in her case, she's forced to co-exist with the Chaos Emeralds. Sure, if she dies or gets hurt, the Emeralds are fine, but if the Emeralds are damaged, misused, drained of their energy, etc. she suffers from it. Depending on what the Emeralds are put through, what happens to River can range from annoying headaches to death.

She also has varying reactions to Chaos Energy itself. If River is given too much positive chaos energy or too much negative chaos energy, then it throws her body off balance and disables her powers. However if she is given a large amount of both negative and positive, her powers become extremely strong and she is able to use them without the need to move. But the side effect is that it is extremely painful to endure the overload of energy, and her powers are rarely under her control. If a large amount is taken, it is also painful and her powers can also be temporarily disabled, and if all of the energy is extracted, then her fur would return to it's natural color and she would die if the energy isn't returned to her within a short amount of time.

You might be wondering how exactly does she recover from these overloads/extractions; well, her body is able to generate Chaos energy, which is how she recovers from any extractions. It's like how bone marrow generates red blood cells after having blood drawn. And to prevent from giving herself an overload, she has the ability to release that energy slowly and gradually at the same time it is being produced, so therefore it remains at a steady balance. Before you ask, no, she is unable to perform Chaos Control, Chaos Spear, Chaos Blast, Chaos Rift, etc. However, because of this generating ability, she can easily be a target for villains as she is like a substitute for a Chaos Emerald. To put it simply, she's like a battery that regenerates it's electricity.

Also, as mentioned before, she needs a water source to be able to use her powers. It's not too hard, considering that 70% of the planet is covered in water, but it can still be a drawback sometimes. As for more mundane drawbacks, River has a weak right leg from an incident in her childhood where she broke it. Because of Ali'ikai's inadequate healthcare, it didn't heal as properly as one in a more developed country would have, and therefore that limb is very vulnerable to injury and attack. Other than that, she's still vulnerable to things that most people would be; such as poisoning, burns, electrocution, illnesses, frostbite, anything that can kill a normal human, etc.

Elias the Echidna
Elias is River's Uncle (on her father's side) and their relationship is... complicated, to say the least. While she was child, they got along fine, and didn't really interact with each other too much. But at the age of ten, when Elias' wife died, he blamed River for the death, as the woman died by drowning and his niece was the only person he knew who was able to manipulate water. As a result, he began to grow physically abusive towards her, and being a child who had never experienced this, she had no idea how to react. But eventually, she began to manifest hatred towards him as well, and on occasion she would try to fight back, but this fighting spirit was killed at the age of thirteen, when he first injured her to the point where she had to be hospitalized. From that point, she had been too afraid to ever approach him again, and when she moved to Station Square she believed that she was finally safe from him. Then, she was soon proven wrong as about a year later, he had privately visited her and assaulted her in her own home. This would have gone on longer and more frequently, had Upsilon the Mink not intervened and prevented Elias from doing any more harm to River for the most part. Then, months later, they had finally confronted him to hopefully end the torment once and for all, but unfortunately in ended in an accident that sent River to the hospital once again with a concussion. Elias, finally realizing what he had done wrong, had made the decision to reform and conceal his inner anger with calmness. Now, the two are on better terms, but they are still extremely awkward towards each other due to their shared history.

Upsilon the Mink
Upsilon and River are currently in a romantic relationship, and to be honest it was rather unexpected. She was a bit afraid of him when they first met (mostly because when they first met he seemed rather odd and later she caught him following her, AND he was considered a villain at the time) but eventually she was able to see past that and grew to like him more. When it comes to Upsilon, she acts a bit awkward but at the same time is very casual and easygoing with him; and when he's going through any sort of conflict she is ready to stand up for him and reassure him. And (what I was able to tell through analyzation) he seems to be very gentle towards her and in an overall happier mood when she's around. He seems to be very passionate about their relationship, and whenever she's going through a difficult time, he gives her much support, emotional security, and protection.

Yein, Baron, and Andric the Echidnas
These three are likely River's worst enemies at the moment. First off, let's start off with her connection to the leader of the trio, Yein. As young children, these two were close friends, and were each other's only actual friends. But when both reached the age of five, River had discovered her hydrokinesis, and needless to say Yein was extremely shocked, but for the following year she tried to pretend that she wasn't afraid or disturbed by her friend's ability. But eventually, she couldn't conceal her true opinion for too long, as she turned on River, and began to treat her coldly with no kindness whatsoever. It didn't get any better after Yein had met Baron and Andric, as the following years they grew into her bullies, but most of the time their harm consisted of petty teasing and manipulating River's gullibility. It wasn't until the tsunami incident that Yein grew violent towards her, and she was often verbally tormenting the girl while she ordered Baron to inflict physical harm on her. This went on for five years, but it only stopped when River had finally left the island. But the amount of time that she was gone hadn't calmed Yein down, as when the cyan echidna visited Ali'ikai later, she was assaulted and nearly murdered when Yein attacked her with a knife. It's very likely that this relationship can never be mended, and there will always be bad blood between these two.

Now, if River had to choose which one of these three she had to be stuck in a room with for an entire day, she would choose Baron. While she does fear him as well (mostly due to his intimidating appearance and his violent acts towards her), he doesn't have a legitimate hate towards her. He really only hurts her if Yein orders him to, and he sees this as a way of blowing off steam despite all the better alternatives. When the two are just alone, they don't really say anything and awkwardly stare at each other.

Finally, despite all that Yein has done, Andric is possibly the worst of them all. He has never directly harmed her, or directly insulted her for that matter. Out of the three of them, he was the one River trusted the most, and actually considered him a friend at one point, as he hadn't done anything to her despite the people he is allied with. But, when they became teenagers, something had changed within him. Whenever he saw Yein and Baron hurting River, he was strangely attracted and aroused by it. However, the girl was unaware of this, and one day she made the decision to visit him and look to him for comfort, as at the time he was really the only closest thing she had to a friend. This took Andric by surprise, as his"crush" had actually came to him herself, and he saw this as the perfect chance. He was beginning to act extremely friendly... a little too friendly in fact, and it began to raise her suspiscion. Before anything could go down, River quickly caught on that he was trying to take "advantage" of her, and abandoned him as soon as she could. Ever since then, she has been disgusted by his perverse desire of her, and the fact that he was only more attracted by seeing her in pain only strengthened her hatred and fear towards him.

Characters Owned by Other Users
When it comes to other people's characters, she has a pretty casual relationship with most of them. She hangs out with them and talks to them every once in a while, but she isn't close enough to be considered a best friend. A few others know her a bit better, but not enough to be considered close. She has also gotten into conflict with several other characters, but she hasn't made any archenemies yet.

Prior to Birth and Early Life
On the island of Ali'ikai, a small and extremely isolated island home to the remaining population of echidnas, a child was born to two of the residents: Anna and Zale. Of course, at this time the child was simply an egg preparing to hatch someday, and the parents eagerly awaited their arrival.

But about a month or two before it was due, Anna and Zale's wedding anniversary had arrived, and to show his affection for his wife, he had planned an evening for them near the river where they had met. Not only this, but the husband had hidden a special gift along the riverbanks, a vibrant cyan jewel that he had discovered less than a month before.

The night had gone perfectly, they were enjoying themselves, and even though they had to bring the egg along, neither of them seemed to mind, and in fact were happier than they would have been without it. But, when Zale had left Anna alone to find the gift, and bestow it to her, their worst possible nightmare had occurred. The echidna woman had been holding their egg herself, eagerly awaiting to see what her husband had prepared, when out of pure clumsiness, the egg had slipped out of her arms. It made a perfect and hard impact upon the rocks against the banks, shattering instantly. Blood was pouring out everywhere, the premature infant's body had begun to seep into the water of the river.

The moment Zale returned with the jewel, he had heard his wife shriek in panic, and it barely took him a second to realize what had happened. In pure horror, he dropped the gift and ran, leaving the gem to sink into the water along with their helpless dying newborn. But then, suddenly, the water had begun to glow, revealing that, unbeknownst to Zale, that the jewel he had discovered was a chaos emerald. The radiation from the chaos energy had empowered the water, and with the child still in the stream, the light had encased and enveloped its body. The parents had no idea what was happening, but it was perfectly clear when they had saw their child slowly grow, as if absorbing the power, and using it to grow the rest of their undeveloped body to near ideal perfection. Once it was done, however, the light had faded, and the gentle current had pushed the new child to a soft, moss-covered part of the riverbank.

When Anna and Zale had finally laid their eyes upon it, they saw a young baby girl, with cyan fur to match the chaos emerald that had saved her life, a color that had never belonged to another echidna before. Immediately, the two picked up their newborn daughter from out of the water, and were practically crying tears of relief from the fact that she was alive. When they had taken the infant home, the new parents had agreed, that from the circumstances of her birth, the child would be named River.

Childhood
River had begun to grow into childhood over the years under the watchful and protective gaze of her parents, loving them dearly and was closely attached to them. Despite how obvious her fur color was different from her family, as well as every echidna living on the island, she had never suspected that something was odd or different about her. The girl's life was going relatively normal, she had already made a friend in the form of another girl the same age, named Yein, and had begun going to school.

However, things had changed permanently for her, when River had reached the age of six. While playing near the small koi pond in her parents' garden, an incident occurred, where she had accidentally created a bubble of water around one of the koi fish, allowing it to float and swim above the pond. This was the very first sign of her powers, and not knowing what to do, she immediately revealed it to her parents, who were extremely surprised to see such a thing that had never been heard of before.

Looking for an answer to this, the family had taken a short trip to the mountains of Ali'ikai, to visit the closest thing the island had to a central ruler: the shaman. The shaman was said to have mystical abilities of his own in the form of foresight, and supposedly from what rumors have said, near immortality. When River was presented to him to be analyzed, he very quickly decided that the source of her powers was from the chaos emerald that had saved her life on the night of her birth. Not only had he done this, however, but he had also used his foresight to look into her future, as it was a common practice for other parents to have the future of their children to be told.

But when he looked into River's future, he recoiled in shock, acting the most surprised he had ever been. He said nothing to the naive girl, and instead went to her parents, only wishing to speak to them. The shaman had begun to recall what he had seen, and he had told Anna and Zale that their daughter's life would be filled with much torment, that she would have comitted horrible atrocities before she was even an adult, and that she would one day become more dangerously powerful than anyone on the island could imagine. However, hearing this, the parents didn't believe a single word of it, and took River home, never to see the shaman again.

As weeks passed since then, word of River's newfound powers, as well as what the shaman had seen of her future had spread around her village. There was obvious fear among the people, and rumors being constantly spread around of what the girl was truly capable of. This fear had even spread to her only best friend, Yein, who had soon abandoned River after the events. The little cyan echidna was now alone, and had never felt so uneasy in her life, which was soon about to get worse.

The years slowly passed by, and the girl grew up even more. She would hone her powers on occasion, but never learned how to use them for violent purposes, and instead had used them to play by herself. Unfortunately, this didn't settle well with anyone outside of her family, especially not among her own peers in school. It wasn't long before she had become a victim of petty bullying and teasing, from her previous friend Yein, and her two new allies, Baron and Andric. Various things had happened to River because of this, which slowly declined her confidence in this time, to the point where she grew to be a near silent and extremely shy girl. At this point, she didn't believe that much could change, and that even possibly her life would begin to look up soon...

The Tsunami
But all of the sudden, her life took a turn for the worse at the age of 10. That was the age when a horrible tsunami hit Ali'ikai, and while it didn't effect her directly, the disaster killed many other islanders, including her Aunt on her father's side, Kaiyo. In the recovery/aftermath, her Uncle's family sought out refuge with her family after losing Kaiyo. But for some odd reason, her Uncle, named Elias, began to grow a disliking towards the girl. One day when she was alone with her much younger cousins, they began to grow upset over the loss of their mother, and River did her best to comfort them. However Elias had seen this, and suddenly he approached her, and hit her backhanded, leaving the girl extremely shocked. He had never hit her in the past, and she didn't know why he did so right there. Several moments later, her mother and father came rushing in; Anna escorting the three girls away from the scene, and Zale fighting with Elias.

Afterwards, almost everyone she knew began to despise, ostracize, and bully her; even some of the adults. She didn't know why, at for what felt like the longest time, she was left in the dark about the reason. However, one day when she was being bullied by a trio of other children, known as Yein, Baron, and Andric, she learned why. As she was the only person on the entire island with the ability to control water, it would make sense for people to blame her for the tsunami, as with their lesser technology at the time they had no other way to explain it.

Upon learning this, River quickly grew furious, and while being hit and mocked by the others, she suddenly turned with her arms raised, and saw that Baron stood paralyzed. When she moved her arm, his body would follow her actions as he was suddenly unable to control it. Extremely confused and shocked, River relaxed her arms and the other child returned to normal. That was when she learned that she possessed a horrible application to her water manipulating abilities: Hemokinesis; the ability to control the blood of another, as there is water in blood. River began to grow distant from the world, as she was now feared and hated by the other Echidnas, and she would still suffer abuse from Elias. Eventually, she began to return the emotions, and at this point it seemed as though there was nothing that could make her happy again. She was constantly furious, snapping at her family and neglecting them, and when she wasn't angry, she was deathly afraid of everything and everyone. It was the worst at the age of 13, which it seemed like she was constantly in conflict and would always come home with fresh injuries of some sort. There was even a time when she came home with a broken leg, and she would still try to violently fight back. This behavior didn't end until the day that Elias had gone just a little too far one day, and beat her to the point where she needed intense medical care. That attack had overpowered her so much, that she dreaded her Uncle even more than before, and it killed her spirit to ever fight back against him, or anyone for that matter. Finally, her parents had taken drastic actions, seeing as how often their daughter was attacked. They grew to become extremely over-protective of her, and took extra precaution to make sure one of them was always with her and kept her in the house most of the time, which only isolated her from everyone even more. As time went on, her emotional condition only seemed to grow worse and worse…

Recently
... that is, until a certain biplane crashed on the island. This was the first time she met anyone from outside Ali'ikai, and was very curious about the two travellers that crashed there. She watched them from a distance until finally confronting them, which was when she learned that they were Sonic and Tails. Realizing that there was a completely different world outside of her home island, one that would possibly accept her, she managed to convince them to take her along when the plane was repaired and ready to go. Then, arriving in a foreign land, she went on to meet plenty of other people that actually weren't hostile towards her, and the acceptance made her slowly grow into a calmer and more optimistic person, leading her to where she is now.

Future It isn't exactly clear of what happens to River in the future, but there are several definitive points that occur. The first point, is that sometime in the future when she is older, River looks back upon everything that the echidnas from Ali'ikai had done to her, and she makes the decision to practically disown herself from her own race (but not her family, of course, as they were the only other echidnas kind to her). In order to show this, she alters the most definitive feature that her race has: their long quills. She grabs a knife, and despite her Aichmophbia, she musters up the courage to slash off her own quills. It left an extreme amount of pain, but it eventually healed, leaving her with much shorter quills that never grow back. It also helps her overcome her phobia somewhat as an adult, but she still is mildly uncomfortable around sharp objects.

And another time in the future, it is known that she eventually marries Upsilon the Mink, and has three children fathered by him, Epsilon the Minkidna, Bubbles the Minkidna, and Rain the Minkidna

Theme Songs
Into the Ocean - Blue October  First of all, this is a song about water, oceans, hurricanes, etc, so there's one thing. Also several parts reflect the position she is in, as the song is also about recovering from depression and turmoil, and chronologically speaking River is learning how to live normally despite her past.

From Shadows - Jeff and Casey Lee Williams  Sort of reflects her backstory in a way, more specifically the events that followed after the tsunami incident. Basically her emotional breaking point as a child.

Time For Our Little Talks - Of Monsters & Men VS Imagine Dragons Both of these songs somewhat represent her current state, where she is clearly pretty happy and upbeat but is still capable of feeling darker emotions. I figured that the mashup sounded nice, so I used that instead of the individual songs.

No One Mourns The Wicked - Wicked Piano Tribute Everyone needs a sad theme, right? The original's lyrics work very well for River, as it reflects a major part of her past, but as told through the perspectives of people other than herself. However, the original was a bit too upbeat and dramatic in tone for the majority of the song, so I chose the slower and more subtle piano version.

Waterfall - Runescape OST Wow hey, a song that has nothing to do with backstory! For me it's more like personality in general, like how she acts pretty upbeat yet gentle and easygoing at the same time, like the tune of the song... also the other reason for this choice is because it has to do with water...

Mr. X Stages - Mega Man 6 Complete Works I'll just say that this song is pretty dang good for like, anything. I'd kind of imagine it as her battle theme if she somehow managed to get into an actual sonic game. It has an action-y backup/base/whatever you call it, but the melody is rather soothing, kind of like her personality in a way.

Trivial Facts

 * This character is a reboot of River the Echidna, who still has a page here that you can read.
 * She hates it when someone calls her blue and not "cyan".
 * The Chaos Emerald she was exposed to was cyan, which caused her fur to be the same color. If the emerald was any of the other colors, she would have matched that color.
 * Throughout all but one of her designs, River's shoes have stayed exactly the same.
 * While she's my first character on the wiki, she's actually the 13th Sonic character I've ever made. I guess you could say there was a lot of Trial and Error in making her...
 * She's kind of a Chao magnet. If she's in an area where Chao live, they immediately flock to her even if she doesn't want them to. However, this is the complete opposite with the animals that Eggman uses in his machines, as they immediately flee at the sight of her.
 * During the reboot, several ideas were considered that were completely scrapped. One of the ideas was her being half Chameleon, another was having her be half whatever the heck Chaos 0 is, and another consisted of her being a clone. However, these ideas seemed pretty odd after a while and they were scrapped.
 * If River was born naturally, her fur color would be crimson. Also, she would have a tail.
 * So far in Cartoon Comics, she has nearly drowned Thunder Punch, Blue Jay the Blue Bird, Dark Ace the Mongoose, Dash the Turtle, Emily the Hedgehog, and Sam the Rabbit (twice for him).
 * It is appearently a Meme now to ship River with just about anything you can find.
 * Whenever she is afraid, her hands start shaking uncontrollably, most of the time without her realizing it.
 * Her last name is meant to be a parody of extremely long and complicated names with ridiculously simple pronounciation (i.e. Megan and Meighgen having the same pronounciation). Her last name is pronounced like Noo-ee... in a nutshell, every K, G, H, and E is silent.
 * River was born without a tail, most likely due to her premature birth. Though the reason for this design choice was because in every picture I constantly forgot to draw her with a tail, so I decided to make it canon that she never had one in the first place. Also, due to her lack of a tail, she has rather poor balance, and as a result she's extremely klutzy.
 * She is actually the first major fancharacter I have made that isn't angsty, mentally ill, overly emotional, and/or remorseless. Basically, she's the first happy fancharacter I've ever made.
 * All of her colors (minus her fur color) were chosen on a complete whim when I first drew her.
 * She was designed without eyelashes because originally she was meant to be more tomboyish than any of the other canonical females, however once that idea changed, she seemed to look strange with eyelashes, so it was decided that she wouldn't have them. However, if we want to go by the story, she actually gained this trait from her mother's genetics, as on her father's side, the females have eyelashes.
 * River's powers are controlled entirely by her hands and feet, so if those were immobilized or bound, then she would be unable to use her hydrokinesis at all.
 * Despite the fact that she isn't extremely feminine, she has more dress designs than any character I have ever made.
 * River tries to be as much of a pacifist as possible, which explains why she has trouble bringing herself to fight back whenever she is being attacked or insulted, although it is very difficult for her to remain peaceful when an ally of hers is the one under fire.
 * River absolutely refuses to eat fish, as she has a strong affinity towards them. Same goes for eggs, as she is an egg-laying species.
 * She is absolutely oblivious when someone is trying to flirt with her, even when it is obvious. *This explains why she has never figured out someone (i.e. Upsilon, Andric) had been romantically interested in her until they admitted it or until it was way too late.
 * River's first rebooted design (the weird black jumpsuit with the overshirt) was from when she was trying to abandon her ties with Ali'kian culture and assimilate to the styles of the mainland. However, she switched to her current design out of guilt after her parents finally found her after she had run away. So chronologically speaking, she still had not been found by her parents during the first Gem High, then in between that and the Summer spinoff sequel was when she was finally found and nearly forced to return home, thus explaining her outfit switch in the story.
 * Her red scarf originally belonged to her great-grandfather, Levian. Later on in life, she passed the scarf down to her son, Epsilon.
 * There were several other names that River could have had when it was decided to be changed from Liz. Some of the names include Aqua, Aquamarine, Ocean, Atlantic, Coral, Lake, and etc. However, River was chosen because it doubled as a human name and a name relating to water.
 * River has shown some minor talents, especially dancing and weaving. On the contrary, she is absolutely horrible at cooking (without assistance) and a rather poor fighter, since she has only used her powers for combat purposes rather recently.
 * River only hates two types of sea creatures, which are the Stonefish  and the Sea urchin, as in her childhood while swimming, she has stepped on and been temporarily poisoned by both.
 * River has been made in the Sims 3, and her download link can be found here. (Requires: Late Night, Supernatural, Pets, and World Adventures expansion packs, and it includes custom content as well)