I’ve been really into Ena and Ena ocs for the past month so I wanted to make one for Buddy/Nox :3
(Some design notes/trivia under the cut because I put a lot of thought into this)
Voices:
—Villainess/Vampire’s voice comes from Medea (Hades II), I thought her moon-theming and general vibe were perfect
—Villain/Vessel’s voice is Zagreus from Hades, I just like how he sounds
—(Despite how much I love the voice acting, I’ve never actually played or watched anyone play Hades lmao)
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Design:
—Besides just being a part of my design for regular Nox: I included the moles because mouth moles are a signature trait of many femme fatale/vintage female characters, and moles below the eyes are called teardrop moles
—Vampire’s design mimics both a cat and, well, a vampire/demon
—Villain and Vessel’s design hinge a lot around crescent moons (including the little hair spike), and more curved lines compared to Villainess/Vampire
—Vessel’s black sclera and blue iris are inspired by the sad side of original Ena
—Instead of blue-screening, Budd-Ena beige-screens (books screens??)
—The text that replaces the voice lines is the opening of Franz’ Kafka’s Metamorphosis
—The text during Vessel’s freak out is Lorem Ipsum (aka placeholder text)
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Misc Things I might get around to if I make a full design:
—Villainess acts a lot like early-story Nox and Nox when he’s fully playing his role as a villainess. All the snark is concentrated in him
—Vampire is inspired by Nox’s more mischievous/malicious/emotional side
—Villain is like what little we see from Nox at the very end of season 1, much more mellow and solemn
—Vessel comes from when Nox is in a panicked state like in the coffin during Requiem, and is a representation of Nox feeling like he needs to play his roles as a villain/villainess — regardless of his own sense of self
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I might make more stuff with this design in future because I like him a lot :33
I don’t really know how to describe what I felt seeing seahorse shippers having a great time with the moments they got in no good deed (I) knowing what was going to be revealed in 5-6 weeks. It was kinda like watching your dog eat chocolate knowing it’s being put down tomorrow
genuinely had to pause for several minutes when the episode first came out just to look at her. category 5 event for cb sapphics everywhere, this is like our second coming of christ
fastpassing cinderella boy is so immersive!! like nox, I too am constantly put in a torture simulator as a result of withholding vital yet harrowing information that I’m not allowed to reveal for extended periods of time. it really feels like I’m there in the room with him :)
I’ve come around to Buddy (somewhat) having a british accent not because I think he’s british, but because Violet is the one with the accent and he’s kinda subconsciously picked up on it to be more like her.
bonus points if Buddy’s from New York or Boston or something, so he already has a different accent that gets mixed with the british one
even more bonus points if Violet started picking up a little bit of Buddy’s accent
violet appreciation post because it’s only hit me recently how she just needs to be doing random shit all the time. it’s such a small detail but I love it so much
literally in her first proper scene she’s doing a whole project in the background while talking with nox. (it’s so great how this is reoccurring bit btw). and if she’s not doing something in particular she’s still pacing around or just always moving
even when she gets upset her immediate first reaction is to make herself busy.
idk if this all because she can’t stand being bored, or feels the need to constantly distract herself from her situation (probably both), but I Do know that violet is the epitome of “shes so hot but if she doesn’t do something silly every 5 seconds she’ll explode” and it’s amazing.
shout out to cinderella boy characters who are so full of love that it ends up being detrimental to themselves and others, gotta be one of my favorite genders
oh boy I get to talk about buddy and wave being narrative foils now!! yippee!!!
side note: this is not organized or comprehensive, it’s like 1 am and I’m having Thoughts now the recent episode was released from fastpast jail
TLDR: Buddy and Wave are both liars but in their own fun special ways :33
I think maybe the biggest thing is how both of them go about their building outward personas and the way they use lying to achieve that.
To get information out of Chase, Buddy (under instruction from Violet) played into being the villain — to break down his defenses until he gave in. However, we know that he does not like doing it, and feels really guilty about it.
We also know that Buddy hates lies himself, which is why he never directly lied to Chase. (Emphasis on directly because I can’t even count his lies of omission, which, again, make him feel really guilty). The one time he tried to very intentionally manipulate Chase, during Beach Boys, he looked like he was about to vomit.
Wave on the other hand? It seems like he’s fine with lying to Chase and the rest (or at least stretching the truth, because I don’t fully buy his backstory even if there is some truth in it). Compared to Buddy, he uses the guise of honesty to get what he wants out of people.
And judging by the evil grin at the end of Stardust VII, it feels like he gets at least a little satisfaction/enjoyment out of being manipulative, acting like an airhead to earn trust.
side note: while buddy’s tactics, 9/10 times, were targeted towards chase, wave focuses on building trust with deacon and prunella. that’s probably because he knows chase does not trust his ass. (or he just likes deacon and prunella more, that too).
So — speaking very broadly — Wave’s outward act is more align with Buddy’s true self, and Buddy’s initial outward act is more align with Wave’s true self.
But is that last part even true? Because we don’t know much for certain about Wave, even when outside of Chase’s POV.
In contrast, we know almost everything we do about Buddy because we get to see his side of the story. Wave’s side, on the other hand, only creates more uncertainty.
My brain is mush so I’m going to call it here for now.,, I feel like I’m going to look at this tomorrow and it’s just going to be like completely incomprehensible. There’s probably (definitely) more that could be brought up or elaborated on, so if anybody wants to add anything PLEASEEEE do. I’d love to see it!!
(tacking this on to the end because we have fun around here, but maybe wave’s name has something to do with the day/sun, to further contrast buddy with the moon/night? probably not but I’m a sucker for parallel names)
nox truly has been having the worst day of his life for the past 150 years
he’s stressed, he’s overstimulated, he’s just climbed up dozens of flights of stairs to avoid a panic attack, and now he’s about to get shot 57 times?? (aka horrifically embarrass himself in front of his boyfriend but in his mind that’s probably the same thing)
the guy is allotted five (5) minutes of happiness per season and he used it alllll during perfect halo so now he’s fucked
