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AD INFINITUM

[fluffydeoxys]

hello! i'm fluffy. 21+, she/they/it. i post about MADNESS COMBAT! thus, some art will include gore and violence.

i mostly post about my OCs! if you'd like to learn more about them, check them out on my toyhouse or send me an ask!!

TOYHOUSE — ARTFIGHT — MY TAGS — PFP CREDIT

[fluffydeoxys]

sinner's retribution

[fluffydeoxys]

kids who don't know why they bleed

[fluffydeoxys]

just thinking out loud really but i think zero and hank's dynamic is the last one left, the one that i still don't think is 'ready' or 'done' yet. it's been my hardest one to get right and i still have absolutely no idea how to 'move' or 'fix' it, frustratingly. rambling a little about it in an exercise of expressing some OC development/thoughts, and whether someone has like. an idea? or an evaluation/view of their own? i dunno. just some #oc #talking

right so i almost feel like zero and hank are too.. similar? maybe? it's their intent in that they are 'forced into' similar roles (things of or bound to the maker and the machine), and thematically they have a great deal of overlap, but they end up kind of almost blurring together somewhat. this is also still intentional, they encompass death, the beginning and end of a story, but putting aside all the hoo haa and theoreticals of their story, its a bit.. boring? not meant or thought meanly, but that's how it feels to me.

i am not sure what their conflict is, their arc or evolution, if anything it all seems a little stagnant. maybe my understanding of hank doesn't have the right angle, but conflict with it seems to be more about how it meshes with others (the lack thereof, rather) as opposed to its own thoughts and feelings (which are peculiar, highly specific and difficult to understand). it altogether avoids people if it has no need to be around them anyway. my gut feeling says it would like zero, but i wonder if that's too boring? but i can't see a reason why it would dislike her either?

if it did like her, i feel like that would have to be grounded or contextualised in something interesting. as in, "what makes hank liking zero interesting at all?" for someone like doc its a deeply complex thing, and for deimos and sanford they are just 'mortals' with their own relationships with death, but i'm not sure... what hank has.

the one thing that they DO have without a doubt, is their relationship through combat (haha). they are equals in mind and body, their wills against each other is like a dance - one that can be incredibly intense. it evokes feelings of 'being alive' in one another, and its freeing because they are entirely arbiters of their wills. THEY choose if they wish to fight, and when to stop, if at all. this as a great deal of meaning for both respective parties. the physicality of it, of each other, and how they will seek the other and bring them back.

i think it is weird, it has to be weird, i mean like they are 'concepts', they're not really people but they sort of are but not. it contrasts well against 'normal' characters, but it seems a lot more complicated to make interesting when both parties are like that. especially when the fragments of their personalities don't even really seem like they'd clash much either...

i guess the one thing hank 'has' that others do not is a complete understanding of zero. doc is trying to achieve that, but he only has motes with which to do so, and his comprehension could never grasp the whole picture. its just too vast. but i'm not really sure what this does or 'change' either. cool i understand the totality of your incomprehensible existence but what difference does that make

if zero is an extension or will of a primordial form of death, and hank is a vessel for it, a machine to be pulled apart and put back together again... maybe there's something, but i'm not sure how to put it. i don't want zero to be yet another manifestation of the machine's design to pull it through nevada (as she is beyond its scope of influence, anyway) .. hm. i dont knowww monkey image i dontknowwww

[warrior-of-fight-or-flight]

what if our ocs were friends. is that okay . u can kill me if not

[sillydeimos]

i understand blaming jeb for what went wrong with nexus city but when ppl blame him for hofnarr turning into tricky thats always something thats very funny to me because genuinely what the hell are you supposed to do when your friend starts injecting himself with antimatter concentrated liquid cocaine and starts dressing up like a clown whats the protocol in that situation

[sillydeimos]

honestly its funnier to me that jeb does not at all mention the whole clown thing. he still calls him hofnarr and does not bring up his appearance at all its really comedic but its never brought up once everyone has just accepted hofnarr became a clown

[fractale-circuit]

you know what, yeah. i'll go on a tangent about this. hi mutual! 👋

now, before i knew a lot about nexus, i had this misconception too; that jebediah was somehow at fault for hofnarr going absolutely bonkers clown mode. i think i've even talked about it here a few times, but if i contradict any of my old points.. we'll call it growth via actually getting to know jebediah and hofnarr a lot more over the course of time. i don't remember what i said, so just listen to this. small disclaimer that i do ship christnarr to death so this is written from my perspective of jebediah feeling a lot for hofnarr during all the.. everything.

obviously, hofnarr losing her mind was out of jebediah's hands. she was the spearhead of dissonance research, he'd have every reason to think she knew what she was doing-- and i am absolutely certain she did, too, but.. waves my hand in a circle. the nature of these things. jebediah of course has this track record of putting people in places of power they maybe can't wholly handle, look at the sheriff, but it feels almost.. belittling to her to presume that she couldn't manage herself with all of the intelligence she possesses. he didn't really have a reason to think that she would fail. she was the closest thing to an equal he'd ever see, and for a guy like him, that's nothing to sneeze at.

i do also think that it was somewhat of a calculated risk, and when i say that i mean it in the same way that everything jebediah did was a calculated risk. things always have the capability to go wrong, that's kind of unavoidable. i'm sure jebediah knew of dissonance and what it can do through hofnarr chatting to him about her work, knowing of and being an expert are just very different things. she was educated and highly capable. honestly, he probably thought any issues with her would be the least likely thing that could have come from this plan negatively, in the grand scheme of things. we could argue that he's not wholly absolved purely because it was his idea to do all this crazy shit but like.. what else was he going to do?

so, yes, he's walking this fine line of "you couldn't have really known that'd happen" and "your plan left her alone, so technically this could be vaguely on you". and that line pretty much only exists in jebediah's mind, because jebediah perceives situations so far beyond the realm of any normal human being.

guilt is not.. an unfamiliar feeling to him, exactly, it's just one he tries to avoid. jebediah is a really contradictory person and that's how both of these concepts exist at once within his mind. he wouldn't call himself quite heroic but he knows what he did was necessary and for the greater good. given an opportunity he would do it again. the sanctity of nevada is his top priority above himself or any personal relationships.. that doesn't mean there's nothing in those other boxes, though. that's where it all gets confusing for him. if it was a success, why are there parts that hurt about that mission? why does it sting to think about what and who he lost?

hofnarr, she's part of nexus city. a "piece of the plan". that's how he tries to justify it. if you asked jebediah how he felt about it all he probably wouldn't say that about her, unless it was purposeful to try to make himself feel less for her, but it's the truth of how he envisioned her at the time. it's this kind of casual dehumanization jebediah does without wholly realizing he's doing it. people are just fragments of the grand equation. it's easier for him to keep her on that level along with everybody else than it is to admit she actually holds something meaningful to him, because in that admittance also comes acknowledgment that she got altered via his plans..

and that is exactly why he refuses in turn to acknowledge the existence of tricky the clown. that's admittance that something went wrong. everyone who once worked at nexus has changed for the worst of ways; crackpot also lost what was left of its mind, gonne is missing in action, jebediah is.. this. but hofnarr has always been different and special to him, and that's where the line lies. hofnarr is the one who entirely lost herself. hofnarr is the one he trusted most. he does not want her to be gone and can't admit to himself that she is.

even with everything about her being different, her losing (almost) everything that made him feel so strongly for her.. surely he could shove past that guilt and try to accept reality, yeah? especially by getting her hand in aiding s.q with taking nexus down for good? well, no, because this is jebediah, but also because of this.

"SHOULDN'T YOU BE OFF SAVING YOUR PRECIOUS NEVADA RIGHT NOW, CHRISTOFF?"

"YOU WANT MY HELP?! THEN YOU'D BETTER LIVE LONG ENOUGH TO GET IT!"

tricky does not feel the same way he does. tricky is acutely aware of what happened, that it was left behind by jebediah. maybe it was for the greater good or some shit like that, but it still happened, and tricky isn't cognitively there enough to remember their closeness in a way that matters. jebediah wanted to work with tricky, knowing and trusting its intelligence still, and tricky went.. you're so funny, jebby, i like you better dead. ouch..!

jebediah had met and known tricky before this, he has to have if he knows where that clown was hanging out anyway.. plus the whole "remember when we teamed up to kill hank" thing. i still think this stung him in a special way. in the moment he won't feel it, too focused on surviving and the mission ahead and all those things. in the aftermath, though, when he's left to his own devices, and he hears a raspy voice echoing those words in his mind.. that's when he feels the most guilty. it was a waste of a brilliant mind, of a brilliant person.

it is out of his hands now, but it could have, maybe, in another world, not slipped from his grasp to begin with. that's kind of what keeps him up at night, the what if.

tldr.. i don't blame jebediah, but jebediah does blame jebediah. cheers.

[fluffydeoxys]

i want to make the annex crew in tomodachi life but i realised i uh. i still don't have designs for these guys. so some rough, basic concept drafts

[fluffydeoxys]

see him cutes

[sillydeimos]

him saying doc is catastrophically alone and sad? oh my god man

[ms-scarletwings]

What really hits hard is contextualizing that with the knowledge of everything else about Doc and where he has placed himself in the greater web of Nevada.

That he actually lived/roomed with the Hank J. Wimbleton for some unknown amount of time.

That he gets along and works well with Skinner and all the guys and whatnot.

But they’re not his friends. They’re his operatives and errand boys. And for the most part he’s running a pretty successful and impressive operation.

But he also tells you he’s “not a leader”. He kind of comes across as someone who’s developed at least a little bit of completely rational paranoia for whatever on earth he’s done and seen to get to where he is. He plans contingencies on contingencies in the event of something threatening him because he’d be an idiot not to.

He’s worked with the Maker itself, put reigns on some aspect or multiple of the Machine, and somehow evaded the attention of the Employers for decades.

That he’s avoided the direct notice of the specific employer he once worked for against his now most utilized ally.

And he’s the only man alive in Nevada who’s seen and been up close with whatever humanity or approximation of it that Hank has. Hank, less a man but more observable phenomenon, an entity he may even rightfully fear not for who they are but what potential they represent as a weapon wielded by anything else other than him. And he harbors them, supports them, ushers them back across the veil between worlds, voluntarily.

That he can become more or less the handler of that walking, bloodthirsty hurricane, yet Sanford (bestie of Deimos and would get along “famously well” with Rich) wants less than nothing to do with him beyond the purely professional.

And I’m really coming around to thinking every single one of those facts are connected.

Of course 2BDamned’s path is a lonely one. And it is one he continues down of his own accord and awareness, because his ultimate ends, whatever the hell they are, are only going to be achievable down said road when turning back now also could mean the end of the world. He has to keep his hands in so many places higher than he could risk to bring anyone else up to, and the majority of any security he does have comes from secrecy and the advantage of being someone who exited Plato’s cave, glimpsed the sun, and upon returning, devoted himself to learning how to create his own shadows upon the wall.

What’s interesting is where men like Phobos attempted to seat himself among those same puppet masters out of arrogance, 2bdamned does not come across as hungry for power out of corruption or ego, but pragmatism. He DOES pursue it and dangerous tools alike for sure, but more as a survival mechanism, and one that has inevitably snowballed beyond the point of no return. Which all begs a cool question about how much control Doc actually has if the power of such knowledge only grows shackled to proportional responsibility and risk. If he were afraid of caring about people, he’d have to keep them distant from his own emotional vulnerability. If he did care about people, he’d have to keep them distant from his knowledge and the very real threat it would pose to them. If he feared betrayal or spies, again, the same answer. The importance of his work is so much more than any of that to such a degree that there is only one way this path can be walked, no matter what. Alone.

[fluffydeoxys]

stop being mean to yourself !! I couldn’t draw anything for madness day either and that’s entirely fine !

what you have going on at the moment looks incredibly good ! I continue to enjoy the way you utilize shapes in your pieces. your colors are also balanced very well, the contrasting sharp red of Hank’s goggles is very nice.

if ur mean to yourself again I’ll like . idk. sob . in your name !!

- ☠️

I had put off responding to this for some time, I think from shame. Firstly I want to apologise for doing so, because these are such incredibly kind words and I don't want to seem like I have been, well, ignoring them. I haven't. What you have said has helped me a lot, but I also feel rather embarrassed - I still remember what I said/what prompted this ask, and I should NOT have let my low self-esteem come through so plainly, haha!

My self-hatred has been frankly debilitating. I keep tearing myself up over past mistakes and not letting myself breathe, to a point where evidently, I haven't been drawing. I tell myself I have nothing worth sharing in contrast to others, but now I've ended up not meaningfully making anything at all. But what's the point of that? When there are things I want to make, that I want to share? Things that I'm proud of, and that I want to make more of? (And if anything, I was very proud of that Hank! I'm practically fully content with how I do its face now)

People care too - they always have - and I think it's a shame, and a bad example to set. I would, without a second thought, encourage anyone to share the art of creating, to share that joy with others. Beating myself up like this isn't helping anyone, and I do feel shame that people have had to step out and yknow. Be nice. Because I'm being a pathetic moron ahaha. But I really do appreciate this, I've come back to it a few times over the months that've passed since. I am doing better now.

This is already mortifying enough so I won't go on and on, but thank you, seriously, with all my heart. Same goes to anyone who has seen my art, read something of mine, rbed anything, sent an ask and so forth. All of this still feels new to me, but I've come this far and I want to keep going. So I sincerely appreciate everyone's kindness, patience and time day in and day out. Thank you.

[fluffydeoxys]

anything interesting happening on fluffydeoxys island?

of course my friend! here is a handful of pictures of some fun and/or silly things. i've been having an absolute blast, and i hope you are too!

[fluffydeoxys]

can't do anything in this household

[sillydeimos]

him saying doc is catastrophically alone and sad? oh my god man

[roachie-paradise]

doodle for my lovely mutuals

its been a while since i interacted with anything madness combat... im still deeply invested in the ocs ive had the pleasure of discovering and i would offer more serious art however you have to understand i am failing 5 classes rn on top of some other unrelated bigger problems

nothing can stop me from stalking the oc tags and observing however. i know artfight will be happening soon but its not enough i need to live and breathe madcom content

characters are valentine ( @fluffydeoxys ) and retcon ( @automatonknight )

[fluffydeoxys]

how would rover feel about sheriff?

Oh man, this is a fun but hard one - I’ve mused on this often, but I’ve yet to really write it down fully, or give ideas and feelings tangible names, explanations. I hope you don’t mind but I’ll probably ramble a little without the best structure, at least just to get out a response of some kind. So I don’t get hung up on perfectionism, and make nothing at all. If anything, thank you for asking me this, so I can attempt to unify the fragments floating in my mind and between random conversations. 

It’s best to start with the beginning, before Sheriff and with Rover himself. This is purely based on my own headcanon/take of Phobos, and has no root in actual canon material, just as a forewarning HAHA. Phobos and Rover were like two halves, inseparable dreamers of Nevada’s future, at a time when G01s were spreading out across the land and G02s were following in their footsteps. Their dream was the beginning of Nexus Core (nexus being a means or series of connections): a place to call home, a community that they would foster and shepherd as two leaders. The two believed in this dream with all their being, for their own reasons, and formed a deep bond through it. 

As you now know, Nexus no longer embodies that dream. It has warped and changed ever since Phobos glimpsed beyond Something, when a piece of Prime Code was plunged into him when the Charter was given by the Employers. That godhood was the only answer, that hope did not dwell in any corner of Nevada, and only Phobos could reshape it. To lead people, Phobos must redefine the world with him as the ‘master.’ For without it, they are all subject to the invisible whims of higher powers, to a story none can write for themselves.

While Phobos lusted for power, constructing a spire that reached for the heavens, gathering minds that would see his vision realised, Rover withdrew and worsened. Where centuries ago he was an amiable and headstrong leader, now he is solemn, depressed and lost. He did his job diligently, serving as Phobos’ right hand and second-in-command, overseeing and becoming thoroughly familiar with every step, every stage of this terrible project. Seeing the limits of life itself seized and stretched, memories contained, bodies remade, death averted. Phobos saw all of it as the greatest accomplishment anyone had ever achieved. Rover saw it as an affront to the very marrow of existence. 

But being a part of that terrible machine for 30 years took its toll on Rover, especially when she slowly, unwittingly became another test subject of Phobos. Rover’s Half-MAG size, and his eroded S3LF, are thanks to micro-doses of Dissonance solution (which were developed as the basis for Gestalt serving as a gateway to the Other Place). The physical, mental and emotional toll was long, life-altering and rendered Rover completely unrecognisable from her past self. 

The tower is a symbol of pride for Phobos, but it is a prison for Rover. It is a lonely spire staring out into the mist of the Nowhere, a lonely White Sea of Nothing. Elevated away from the community, churning something terrible, while Rover walks its borders with blade in hand, overseeing new information, meeting with head scientists, and reporting back to Phobos. 

Rover feels trapped. She is trapped. Trapped inside herself, in her circumstance, in her dream, in the person who Phobos used to be and who he is now. 

So when Christoff and Hofnarr planned its fall, Rover agreed to be a part of it. Too little too late, he thinks, but anything is better than nothing at all. When Rover joins Christoff in his assault on Phobos’ office, Phobos is sent into a blind rage, tearing out Rover’s eye - an optic, from when Rover was altered to better fulfil his role as a war commander. When the deed was done, when Phobos lay motionless, his helmet fractured, Jeb left Rover behind. 

That day, Rover was meant to die. Extreme blood loss left him at death's door as he crawled down from the very top of Nexus Tower. Over the bodies of Nexus scientists, over unfinished MAGs, over stray Zeds and Sleepwalkers. What compelled him to push on, not even he can say. 

But what it meant was that, by the time he lay in the rain, ready to accept an unfulfilled end, was when Sheriff came around. Pieces of MERC had banded together to pick off what Nexus Core members remained, those who tried to flee, and any stray Zeds still roaming around. Overall, just attending to the mess that Jeb had made, the one that has now been entrusted to Sheriff. 

Now Sheriff really hasn’t met Rover before, not properly, sort of tangentially when he was working with Jeb to get that whole plan set into motion. Not put a name to a face at least. So when Sheriff calls for MERC to stay their fire, Rover doesn’t understand why. She doesn’t understand why Sheriff is pulling her out of the muck, into the fray of begrudging MERC members who undoubtedly recognise the Nexus Core second-in-command. 

And Sheriff would admit later that even he isn’t entirely sure why he made that choice in that moment. 

And I think I made that choice deliberately. Sheriff’s entire life is punctuated by choices he never really made for himself. A cowardice that’s kept him alive, that’s killed him, that’s formed the framework for everything he is and has ever done. His name, his role, none of it is really “his.” That’s not to say he wholly, comprehensively despises himself. The hat, the armour, the name - they are all pieces of him, but they form an identity that protects him as much as it is a terrible burden on his shoulders. 

MERC was just a byproduct of Jeb passing on this burden, but it's the first time Sheriff is genuinely, well, responsible for something. Sure, he’s far from the ideal leader - and I don’t think he really sees himself as one either - but he’s trying. Imperfectly, through sleepless nights of alcohol and a paranoid finger on the trigger, because this has to be different. Clutching the new hat, curling inside his shell, wondering why it all came to this. 

I don’t think Sheriff has a lofty dream, or an admirable hope beyond just living to see the next day, but ultimately, his unique resilience has resulted in MERCs success in the present day. Despite how isolated he feels in the very deepest recesses of himself, where his self-loathing soaks deepest. Sheriff still has a spark of kindness, I think. If he truly didn’t care, I don’t think he’d stay as MERCs leader. I mean, not long after bringing Rover in for medical attention, Sheriff actually does run off and gets killed in the events of MC3. He comes back to take the role properly, having clawed out of the Other Place himself with a desperate desire to change just anything in himself at all. 

A lot of rambling preamble to say that Rover and Sheriff are sort of.. I wouldn’t quite say foils, but they are meant to reflect parts of one another, filling in gaps, scars, trauma with their experiences. Where Rover has spent centuries seeing the spark of hope fade, Sheriff was reborn in its fire. Sheriff feels utterly and completely helpless, a man defined by his own cowardice, whereas Rover has been tempered in decades of leadership and hardship. Rover feels indebted to Sheriff for rather literally saving his life, while Sheriff has never done such a thing for another person before. Sheriff looks to Rover as a pillar of stability, something to tentatively trust. 

MERC is a community resting in the bones of Nexus Core, where Rover’s dream once lay. For Rover to be a part of that is having a second chance at life, but if it were just Rover, he would have walked to the edge where the Nowhere starts and let it claim him. I wouldn’t quite say the only reason Rover chooses to stay alive is because of Sheriff, but I guess that’s one way of seeing it. Rover is there to serve as a foundation for MERC to be built on. His knowledge, his experience, his very life, given entirely to a new generation. Whether to atone or to hope again, these are thoughts Rover is currently exploring. As is his relationship with Sheriff, and a partner that they both share (and my friend, @automatonknight 's OC), Deputy. 

I think she is a person so entrenched in her role that separating her from it is basically impossible, and to begin with Sheriff and Rover really only ever spoke about well, MERC. But I think Sheriff is prone to letting emotions slip when the beer runs heavy, and Rover softens ever so slightly, piece by piece, until something stirs deep down in that crust. 

It’s not dating to me, it's something aroace, but Rover cares in a way that he fully believed his heart was not capable of anymore. And Sheriff having someone else to trust, a friend, I think that’s fairly significant. Someone that he can be himself with, fully. I dunno, I think Sheriff’s trust is an incredibly rare thing. 

These are the broad strokes, and I don’t think it covers ALL of it, and I think it’d probably flesh out more if I think of and elaborate on more specific examples (like idk. Interactions or shit like. What are their morning routine together. Or something) too. I need to think on it more, them more, I need to write more about Rover ahhh ahhh!!!!!!

Nonetheless again, thank you very much for the ask! And doubly so, for reading all of this HAHA! I am forever refining, chipping away and reshaping the feel and detail of my characters and these dynamics, and I am very proud of them. So these questions mean a lot! I’ve said in the past I need to ramble more, and indeed I do, and these questions/asks are the perfect format for me to do so in a way that I seriously enjoy. I am terribly shy, but I do love chatting with people about stuff like this! So for the final time, thank you!!! :D

[fluffydeoxys]

heya,,, I made Colonel in tomodachi life demo,,

(Deputy is here too)

I SQUEALED OH MY GOODNESS I see you got the 3rd Mii to fall for the 1st, heheheh. Honestly I'd say it's pretty accurate to how Rover grows fond of Dep first (#aromantically). I'm so floored these look so incredibly accurate, they look fantastic!!! I did a rough pass of my own Rover but I completely ADORE your take, I gotta take notes on what hair that is... And his eyes!!!! Wow!!!

I've been honestly struggling with finger drawing (looking at getting a stylus soon!) so any time I see any measure of fine detail, I can only admire the dexterity and patience needed for it. Especially cus Rover has got a Lot going on in the face. Drawing his beard is gonna take so long... argh... but I utterly adore the little whiskers you've given him, and WOW the eye scar looks great!! You honestly put way more effort into this than what I did on my second demo file LMFAO.

Thank you so so much!!! This is so incredibly sweet ;v; It put a huge smile on my face!!!

[automatonknight]

ooh ohh hmm what about something from a media or thing that’s made you happy lately? or if that’s a bit too broad or vague, maybe something of Dee? I really like its design!!

my sweetie pea!!!!