#1010 dsync

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i feel like white and green's dynamic is just those memes of stick figures mauling each other, they're both so pathetic and i adore how you write them

Thanks, I'm glad to hear that you enjoy how I've completely butchered and maimed these beloved characters beyond recognition <3

That said, I dunno if that's quite the vibe they really have. Saying they "maul each other" implies that Green has any power in their dynamic.

(Static version + Captions under the cut)

Yellow: Hey White, why are you crushing Green's windpipe?

White: He called me a "basic bitch." So he's being punished. <3

Red: He doesn't look alive anymore...

White: That means the punishment is working! <3

Green: ... --- ... --(-)

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Doodle Dump (NSR Edition)

Notes + Captions Below

1-2) Primary Trio + Suplex. First sketches to the "White vs. Green" response ask. The other 3 are kinda indifferent to

3) "How does White Smoke?" I've thought about making a comic explaining how/why Desync!White smokes when he's a robot. The short answer is that 1010 actually do have a "lung," but it's function is less as a respiratory system and more of a cooling system.

Captions:

*This is a non-canon depiction of the character

Mayday: Hey professor, if 1010 is a robot? Don't you need to inhale/exhale air to smoke?

DJSS: Well, let me tell you!

4) XIO + Crew doodles. I don't think I've ever drawn XIO's crew in this AU.

5) Kun3h0!AU Doodles. Part of a comic about White asking why their outfits reveal so much skin when they're built for combat. I thought the idea and punchline were funny, but it feels kinda weird to write a an AU!Comic based on my OCs before I've ever done anything with those OCs. XP

Captions:

GAB (NJ): Hah? Are you really asking something that basic?

White: I just figured that if I'm-

6) "Headbands". An idea I had for Kliff to model different types of headbands. Left to right, top to bottom they are: Elastic, Alice, Alice (ribbon style), B-Style.

7) "Keychains". This is actually a VERY old sketch (you can tell 'cus the BG color is kinda off). Anyway, my dream is to have little keychains of these two, but I dunno who would make/want them besides me ;3;. (Maybe a handful of people, but not enough to get them seriously made XP)

8) B2J x Sanrio. Sketches of the next NSR x Sanrio set. Dunno when I'll get around to finishing it.

9-12) "Slutty?" This was the original response to the "Slutty White" ask I got.

TBH, I was kinda baffled by the ask when I first got it. Like I originally said in my response, almost every word in it was "wrong," because I don't think that I've ever shown Dsync!White as being particularly promiscuous (nor was he "absent" to his "sons." In no uncertain terms, Dsync!White is Green's abuser which, ya know, requires him to have been very involved in Green's life.)

Like, I know that some people just call characters/people "sluts" as a "joke," because it's a "naughty" word that invokes the idea that the character is sexy and sexual.

But it just rubs me the wrong way for anyone to say that about Dsync!White. I know part of it is that everything I know/think about Dsync!White isn't public, so things like how he is actually sex-repulsed (well, human-repulsed really) are things y'all don't know, but even with just what I've posted about him so far, I still don't get how anyone could take away that he was a slut.

But I figured I was just over thinking it, so I decided to roll with the "joke" at the time, but I'm really not okay with calling him a slut like it's a good thing. Like, I don't mind if people say that about Canonish!White or XIO, because they are openly sexual and are proud of it, but Dsync!White absolutely isn't.

Captions:

White: Slutty?

White: HEY! Just because I'm provacative doesn't make me a slut!

White: For the record, I've never had sex once in my 30 years of service.

Green: Never?

White: Never.

Green: Not once?

White: Not once.

This was supposed to go on a lot longer, but I already decided I didn't want to pick a fight with anon that probably just didn't know any better and turned the first panel into the response I posted.

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Grab Bag Doodles

Where did my motivation go... I feel like I'm getting swallowed by the sadness again. Nevertheless, life goes on, and I still manage to doodle once in a while.

Notes under the cut.

1-3) 1010 DSYNC doodles. Since I'm trying to go a little lighter, I'm trying to simplify how I draw them. It'll be harder to be mad at White when he's just a little fella, ya know? I'm not a big fan of how it's turning out, but it's a direction I suppose.

4) Kliffby. Stupid ass doodle I did. I don't think it needs elaboration.

5) Tabuu doodle. Didn't think I'd be drawing this guy again. I used a model reference for the pose, but I don't feel too good about it. I don't feel like this drawing is actually mine when I stick to the reference so closely. The last sketch I posted of White also used a model reference, but it was a "reference", not so much a trace like I did here. I dunno, I guess this is what they're there for, and I'm allowed to do it, but even if the art comes out more coherent like this, I don't feel like I'm growing...

6) Kun3h0 sits. She sit. Will I ever actually stream again? Maybe someday.

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Hm...

I'm remembering this one time I was talking to someone about Kliff (I think we were discussing favorite NSR characters), and they said something to the effect of wanting them to have a redemption arc. (Well, it wasn't that *they* wanted it, it's more like they were insinuating that it's what *I* would have wanted because I like him.)

And, I think that just completely misses the point.

I don't think Kliff can be redeemed in any meaningful way because he represents what Mayday would have become had she not realized her mistakes. It doesn't make sense to redeem him if Mayday has completed that arc lest we re-tread old ground. The only place where it makes sense for him to be redeemed is if there's a greater evil to compare him to or if there's a different lesson that he has to learn.

For what it's worth, I realize that DSYNC B-side can read like a Kliff redemption arc, but that's not the point. For the most part, B-Side is supposed to be about Kerinting healing from the trauma he suffered as a 1010, but the root of the problem is NJ (or rather the system he's created as a result of his own trauma). Compared to being overworked, bullied, and ignored, being indebted to a guy that's willing to treat him with the bare minimum of human decency was an upgrade for Kerinting.

But Kliff is not supposed to be particularly kind in this AU. From what I can tell from the original game, Kliff specifically has a negative reaction to "abandonment". He considers the feeling of being "ditched" by Tatiana to be "pure and utter hopelessness," and he only lashes out at B2J when they firmly cut ties with him.

The main logic for him sympathizing with Kerinting is that he can't bring himself to "inflict" abandonment on someone else, especially after witnessing it happen, with the bonus that having a super robot that might contain some of NSR's secrets could be beneficial in other ways. His motivation is not "kindness." As corny as it sounds, it's a trauma response.

As with most people, Kliff sees Kerinting as something he can benefit from, so he keeps him around out of convenience. I never really got to it, but Kliff does impart some toxic ideals onto Kerinting that they both have to unlearn. It's only after a significant amount of time together, and after Kerinting almost "dies," that Kliff even recognizes Kerinting's value as a "life" that has intrinsic value.

I would consider that a small character arc, but I'd hardly call that a redemption arc because I think these traits are present in the original material.

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i've seen you mention black 1010 before and i'm super curious, did you ever plan out a personality or lore for him? what was his relationship with white like? your little "family tree" doodle said he went rogue in desynchronized, does he play some sort of role in the au? do he and kerinting/e.g. ever meet? what sort of dynamic do they have if so?

i'm super sorry if this is coming off as annoying, i'm just really interested in your 1010 stuff! as someone with my own black 1010 oc, i'm always super invested in other black 1010s. have a nice day <3

Thanks so much! I'm always happy to hear when people like the nonsense that I babble about out here~

And it's all good, I love to talk about this kinda stuff, but sadly my Black 1010 is severely underdeveloped. More than anything, he was always just a plot device and I never gave him a solid personality.

The original idea was that he was the first 1010 to be retired because Black & White were too similar to justify keeping both when Red and Blue were conceptualized for the group. Of course, there were minor differences: White was supposed to be the more openly flirtatious and playful one while Black was supposed to be more gentlemanly and mature, but they weren't distinct enough for that to be clear to the fans.

What little could be separated from Black was added to the current White, so internally this White is referred to as "Gray."

At first, this didn't really bother him since his ability to process complex thought was more limited at the time, but as he's evolved through the years, his composite personality and memories started to resent the fact that he wasn't "allowed" to keep existing as 2 different people.

After desynchronizing, this resentment, on top of all the other stressors in his life, is why he developed such an ugly personality and became abusive towards Green who he saw as being "allowed" to exist despite Green's constant "failures".

At the time of developing the family tree (which may or may not be canon now, I haven't looked at it in a while XP), the idea was that after being retired, Black actually managed to escape Barracca and is the first "lost" 1010, and he's been living in the shadows of Vinyl City ever since. What exactly he was doing was never set in stone.

In some iterations, he was the ringleader of all rogue robots and he dedicated himself to making sure the rogues were able to take care of themselves, so he usually went around collecting spare parts and doing free repairs to the ones in need. In this iteration, Kerinting being a "spoiled rich kid" was a prominent part of his character arc, so Black was going to teach him about how the more unfortunate in Vinyl City have to live and the stark differences between the luxuries he had back home and what it really means to fight for survival. So he would have become the real mentor figure that Kerinting has been missing for most of his life.

In other iterations, Black was the mysterious champion of an illegal robot fight club. This was where Kerinting was going to meet him for the first time after he accidentally got dragged into the club while he was looking for work to pay off his debts to Kliff. Kerinting made it to the final round due to being one of the few actual combat droids in the ring, but when he faced off against Black, neither of them could hurt one another because they still recognized each other as 1010s, and 1010s cannot harm each other (normally). Usually Kliff would have stepped in to drag Kerinting out of there by threatening to report the fight club if they didn't release him, but there are also versions where they're able to communicate wirelessly, so Kerinting takes the loss since he wasn't really interested in staying in the fight club.

In almost all versions, Black would have defended Kerinting from an attacking White who was tasked with bringing him home for termination after it was discovered that Kerinting didn't actually self-destruct. In some versions, Black actually "killed" White to keep Kerinting safe (White would have just "respawned" at the mansion, but was clearly shaken due to encountering Black), in others Black simply tells him to go home to which White obeys because his system got so confused by Black still being alive that he starts malfunctioning. In either route, Black would have helped to repair Kerinting who'd already been heavily damaged by White before he'd intervened.

In a very recent rewrite for the new DSYNC continuity, I had considered rewriting Black to actually become the current Red to help justify why Red is closer to White even though Blue is Red's designated partner. I dunno if I'm going to keep this change, but otherwise I haven't really thought of anything for Black to do in DSYNC now that I'm trying to move away from those kinds of dark themes/moments.

So yeah, Black was very important to a few key scenes in Desynchronized, but he unfortunately just isn't a developed character in his own right. I'm sorry if that's disappointing UmU.