Sega has created an official Sonic the Hedgehog Discord server, giving the blue blur’s most dedicated fans a space to chat about the series and everything they love about it together, in an extremely bold move that everyone seems to be having the same reaction to: Oh no.

Look, I have nothing against Sonic. In fact, one of the very first games I ever played at 4 years old was Sonic: 3D Blast, and I’ve been a casual fan of the series ever since. But the hardcore Sonic fanbase has a reputation for being a rowdy bunch, to put it politely. While not everyone is out here posting about Eggman mpreg, engaging in aggressive Sonadow vs Sonamy shipping wars, and other not exactly PG-13 behavior, it’s fair to say that enough people have participated in the fandom, er, loudly enough to leave folks concerned as to what chaos could unfold when tens of thousands of fans are invited into the same virtual space.

“Why the fuck would you think this is a good idea,” as one Twitter user puts it, and… yeah.

Right from the get-go, Sega has outlined some rules for anyone who wants to participate. The very first is to “keep it family friendly,” and “ensure your messages, images, links, and videos are appropriate for fellow fans and small woodland critters of all ages.” Basically, please don’t post inappropriate messages about the cartoon hedgehogs, thanks.

Almost certainly with this in mind, there are currently some strict media sharing restrictions. In a frequently asked questions post, the official Sonic account (amusingly named johnsega1960) explains that a fan art channel will be added “in the future,” but “right now, with the large amount of new users joining in, images are disabled by default. You’ll be able to unlock these permissions in time.”

That means that the server hasn’t been flooded with the cursed artworks you might expect. Yet. But that’s not stopping folks from expressing themselves in other ways, many of which truly push the limits of Sega’s “family friendly” rule.

“Eggman is hot,” one message proudly sent within – count ’em – 14 minutes of the server invite being posted on Twitter, declares. “Sonic pregnant,” another early user sagely shares. “Sega when are you confirming that Eggman and Agent Stone are married,” asks another, and hey, they have a point, actually.

It should be said that it’s not all been silly shenanigans, though. Over on Twitter, some users have also reported people filling the server with slurs and other hateful language. A huge wave of bans was quickly rolled out, as well as an apparent temporary server lockdown where no users could send messages at all. Sega has since acknowledged that some users “may have been accidentally banned” automatically, which it’s going to deal with in due course.

Needless to say, the server has hardly had a smooth start, and frankly, I’m not sure how much that situation is going to improve over time, especially when that fan art channel is added. Over 78,000 people have joined the Discord at the time of writing, so to say Sega is going to have its hands full would be an understatement.

Sonic boss sees the franchise “like my own son” after 35 years, since the hedgehog is technically older than his human children.