#theabsolutebuffoon

[zosonils]

screenshot of the ask so that i can keep it in my inbox for later - one of these got really long so i'm splitting it into its own post lol

7. Talk about three of your oldest OCs.

WELCOME TO HELL YOU'RE GONNA LEARN ABOUT MY SONIC OCS FROM PRIMARY SCHOOL!!!!

baby's first sonic oc was called jordan the hedgehog. i probably had others before him, but he stuck around long enough that i actually remember him. i made him in male furry dollmaker v1.1 and never gave him a better design. in retrospect he's excruciatingly uninteresting and there is genuinely nothing of note worth sharing about him, but i drew his boring ass so much when i was like 8. i made up a theme song for him with such baller lyrics as 'jordan the hedgehog, that is me, jordan the hedgehog,' and i sincerely have no clue whether i hijacked an existing song or made the melody up completely unassisted. love you jordan i'm going to go back to never thinking about you.

fortunately i soon rectified the mistake of having jordan the fucking hedgehog for a blorbo and set out to make my magnum opus, this time originating from sonic charrie maker. my memory of her design is much fuzzier because there was so much fuckin shit going on but my completely unironic mary sue was named tailikes [from tail + spikes because she was a hedgehog fox hybrid. girlie's parents looked at her and went 'haha crossbreed'] and looked approximately like this. she also didn't have a personality beyond whatever worked best for wish fulfilment and i don't think i even figured out an ability set beyond 'super powerful and can fly and use the chaos emeralds etc etc' but i'm so glad she existed. i have an agonisingly cringe memory of printing out a picture of her and getting kids in my class to sign it like a petition so i could send it to sega to make them put tailikes in the next sonic game. i'm sure yuji naka will be calling me from prison any day now

skip forward to when i was like 10 or 11 and the first oc i designed from scratch instead of lifting from a dollmaker was kicker [which was a nickname but i don't remember her 'real' one]. i grew up on a lot of archie sonic, and the roboticisation concept REALLY clicked with me [probably why i'm Like That now], so i wanted a cool cyborg sonic oc. at the time archie sonic had just hard-rebooted and introduced the retcon lore for bunnie where she was roboticised for experimental life saving medical technology reasons rather than robotnik reasons, and i thought that was really interesting, so i ripped off that backstory pretty much 1:1. i admittedly don't remember a whole lot about kicker's design or how/if i integrated her into the sonic cast, but i very much remember roleplaying as her with my friend basically every recess and lunch for a year, lmao.

maybe it'd be fun to see if i could salvage these guys with a redesign and another 15 years of artistic experience, but i kinda prefer just letting them be my friends from primary school who i'm not really in touch with anymore but who i sometimes think about fondly. like a time capsule of the kind of artist i was back when i didn't know what autistic burnout was and you could still just barely get novelty glasses in the shape of the current year to work. i ripped into my old ocs a lot here, but i think it's important that they're bad because that's how i learned to be kinda good. wouldn't feel right to paint over those formative rough spots, y'know. also how would i improve on such peak character design as tailikes the foxhog

[bonkin]

i am absolutely in love with your art style. i love how it's sketchy and loose and flowy but still distinct and solid. i was wondering if you had any tips about making your art looser? my art always looks stiff, with both the lines and the poses, and your art encapsulates a lot of what i'm aiming for

wahhh thank u so much!!! if it helps to know, i used to struggle with pressure in my lines + always tended to make them Too harsh and too dark Which in the long run i felt made my art stiff. i know this is like Old Wisdom that always gets passed around and is sometimes unhelpful on its own but rly what allowed me to combat this was Just genuinely practicing, and tbh experimenting— using different pencils and getting a feel for them, not allowing myself to erase anything, purposefully drawing as Light as possible. these exercises and others that let you build muscle memory as well as sort of figure out How you like to draw in the process have built my style up to where it is today. idk if thats helpful at all but 💦

[zosonils-art]

I would love to hear about hex woman, if that’s ok

[note: this ask was sent before i decided to make hex ace nonbinary, so it wasn't misgendering them!]

and i would love to infodump about them!! hex ramble under the cut

hex does repairs on space stations and other satellites! they usually work in earth's orbit, but they've been called to help out with spacecraft on or around different planets and moons. their body is held together by a personal electromagnetic field, letting them move their limbs independently of a physical joint structure and even suspend themself in midair if they have enough power for it. this makes them really well-suited to low-gravity environments, but any disruption to the field quickly renders them completely immobile. they have built-in shielding against the gentler electromagnetic disruptions that naturally permeate outer space, but anything more direct or powerful is pretty dangerous

they aren't exactly malicious, per se, but hex is about as mean as they come before they get decommissioned out of fear for public safety. they're snarky, sarcastic, and smug, and don't outwardly show a lot of compassion. their favourite thing to do when they're around people is to play pranks, which are always physically harmless, but they don't have a good sense of where the line is between a friendly joke and just plain harassment. in their defence, they'll stop if you ask them to without putting up much of a fight, but their default setting is to wake up and choose violence

their official serial number is DLN-00G - they're from the same line as time and oil! there's a whole bunch of headcanon stuff there but basically i think those two have letters in their serial numbers because they're from a slightly different line to the usual robot masters, dedicated to robots made with technology that's more experimental and requires a lot more testing before they can be safely assigned to a job. hex is definitely experimental enough to qualify for the line, what with most of their body being made of electromagnetic nonsense. i don't know who 00C through 00F are [i arbitrarily picked g for ghost lmao], but hex is at least friends with their two brothers! them and oil routinely team up to annoy several years off of time's lifespan

although they don't mind the work itself, they absolutely hate how lonely their job makes them. space is really quiet and empty, and even when they're working in the presence of other people [which isn't too often, since most satellites don't carry astronauts on board] they don't get much opportunity to interact with anyone beyond very formal radio conversations. outside of their creator and their closest brothers, they don't really have a social circle at all, and the loneliness gets to them at times. their meanness and affinity for pranks are definitely attention seeking behaviours, developed as a direct response to that chronic loneliness. they're so desperate for interaction that they'll take whatever they can get, even if it's just 'dude what is your problem'

while they're stubbornly against admitting it, even [especially] to themself, hex really loves their work, if not the side effects on their mental health. they actually enjoy taking in the sights and the feeling of space before the existential dread sets in, and they genuinely find it really satisfying and rewarding to successfully fix something - even when it's got nothing to do with their job, they can often be found fiddling around with broken bits of machinery and trying to get them to work just for fun. they're really handy and good at problem solving, and kinda like to show off about it lmao. they probably make horrifying frankengadgets by soldering chunks of gameboys and lawnmowers and led lights together into a single awful contraption that somehow does one specific thing absolutely perfectly

they're weak to pixel firewall because it's basically just a solid wall of electricity, which again would be super bad for the delicate field holding them together. to fit with their ghostly nature, every weapon that they aren't weak to [and isn't the mega buster because that'd be unfair lmao] phases right through them without doing damage at all. they're also weak to their own weapon! again, since eerie pulsar is just an electromagnetic pulse tinted purple it's really dangerous for them to get blasted with that. also i'm going off of pokemon logic, ghost beats ghost

also the anon who told me that hex is 'very gender,' before i even retconned them into being nonbinary no less, knows what's up. i've been using they/them and the 'ace' modifier - which a friend of mine once suggested as an equivalent to man/woman for nonbinary robot masters - throughout this post just for consistency, but hex is agender and accepts any pronouns or gendered terms! they don't care for gender one bit but they absolutely live for the confusion people tend to have trying to figure out what theirs is

i think purely design-wise hex might just be my favourite of the bunch, if only because of how blatantly self-indulgent everything about them is lmao. i like ghosts and i LOVE outer space, so of course i made a ghost robot and put them in space AND made them nonbinary to boot. it's the responsible thing to do! i started with a name and theme and kinda worked backwards from there. how is a robot a ghost? maybe they've got some kind of personal antigravity field! why do they have that? maybe they work in space! why does the spaceship repair robot have to be a ghost? suspension of disbelief, babey!!!!!

that's about it for the hex infodump! as mean as they are, they're a fiercely loyal friend if you're lucky enough to get to know them. love is stored in the hex ace even if they won't admit it and i adore them so much. once again, here's their art without any special effects!

[zosonils]

Hey, are you doing okay? You haven't posted in a few days. (Not trying to say that you *should* be posting, taking breaks is healthy, I just wanted to express my concern)

aw thank you for the concern, i'm alright! i had an iron transfusion a few days ago which hopefully should help with my fatigue issues in the long term but short term it has wiped me out so hard i can barely look at my dash let alone reblog from it

[zosonils]

if it’s not too many, 20, 23, 25, 29, 30, 32, 38, 42, and 49 for the OC ask game?

20. do any of your ocs sing? if they sing, care to share more details?

drum occasionally sings along to her music in private, although there's no way she'd ever admit to it. her voice doesn't lend itself great to singing, it's scratchy and very flat in tone, but it's a comfort thing rather than a performance one. weirdly despite him being The Music Guy i can't really see rhythm singing a whole lot, he's more of an instruments guy, but he'd definitely be really good at it if he tried

23. introduce an oc who's changed from your first idea concerning what they'd be like

COOL WOMAN cool genuinely changed so much while i was developing her she barely resembles the original concept at all. initially the idea was 'what if there was an ice robot named Cool Man who talked like a radical 90s anti-weed psa and did skateboarding and shit lmao' and i only expected to make a silly jokey character but oops! i decided i wanted to make a female robot with the idea instead [and jokingly went ayyyy she's trans but ended up making that a real important aspect of her character later], then the character herself went from ironically spouting dumb Totally Tubular lingo and telling kids to stay in school and not having much more to her to shedding most of the migrane-inducing slang and being a much more genuine person who defines herself by her healthy self-esteem and confident belief in others. i think she's better this way because as much as i love a good period-typical sonic ripoff i really love her as the honestly friendly and comforting figure she is now. also skateboarding became ice hockey at some point

sweet also underwent a lot of development as i talked about in the previous ask, although in her case i kept all the original ideas in place and just followed them through to their very concerning logical extremes rather than swapping traits out for ones i thought were more fun. i'd say the difference between the two is developmental change vs in-universe change

25. the oc that resembles you the most

honestly it's a tough call because i think i put a little bit of myself in all my ocs but also noticably more little bits of a bunch of other people and characters. it's such a cop out to say all of them but i think i have to say that because i genuinely can't narrow it down hjkdnbkjgf

29. which one of your ocs would go investigate an abandoned house at night without telling anyone they're going?

see i WOULD say glass because that's literally his job but he wouldn't go without telling anyone. what has archaeology come to if people are just wandering off unaccounted for!! so if neglecting to mention that they're peeping the horrors is a necessary part of the equation then probably hex because fuck it, they ball

30. which one of your ocs would most likely have a secret stuffed animal collection?

i mean she's an edgy teenager so drum is practically legally required to be viciously secretive about owning stuffed animals. i think she'd be more of a doll person though, so like rather than stuffed toys she's amassing a huge littlest pet shop collection with money embezzled from wily's evil plan budget and has names and personalities and backstories and relationship drama for all of them that's filed in her head and nowhere else and that she'd cut off her hands before writing down anywhere lest anyone discover she has interests

32. which one of your ocs would be the most suitable horror game protagonist and why?

pixel would make a good horror protagonist i think. they're horrendously anxious already, they have robot asthma so that's free chase sequence drama right there, his work with computers provides all sorts of opportunities for a good haunted technology plot, his ocd-related fixation on planning things out and double-checking everything is a great way to emphasise the horror of doing everything perfectly right and still being in mortal danger, the possibilities are endless with this poor man

conversely, hex is a horror game antagonist

38. which one of your ocs would be the best dancer?

rhythm! he can throw down a cool move or two and he's got a great intuition for how to properly move with the music. i picture him being a dance battler in his fight with mega man and timing his attack patterns to the music and all that

42. which one of your ocs would be the most interested in greek gods?

glass definitely knows a lot about greek gods from his work and research, if you asked he would very passionately teach you all the lore with the same kind of enthusiasm as people on tumblr explaining in intricate detail everything that happens to their blorbos

49. which one of your ocs would enjoy memes

i think they all would but they'd have remarkably different tastes. like drum and hex would be into deep fried edgy post-post-post-irony incomprehensible bullshit, cool and care enjoy the jokey mental health advice like shadow the hedgehog telling you to check for dirty dishes, tide rolls his eyes at most memes but passionately nods in approval at marine biology shitposting, rhythm and pixel send each other increasingly niche memes about the soundchips in old consoles or cult classic rhythm games and have gotten to the point where nobody except them knows what the hell they're talking about anymore, and sweet doesn't understand any memes that aren't trying to sell you something

[zosonils]

🍉, 🍍, 🍓, 🌽, 🎂, 🍩, 🍻, and 🍕 for gooigi?

[from this ask game!] also a couple of these were answered here, i'll just do the new ones in this post to save space

🍉 - not jewellery, but he's like this with his scarf! i went into detail on why it's important to him in the last paragraph of the linked post so i'll avoid repeating myself too much, but there's a lot of practical and emotional reasons why he's incredibly attached to it. he can be coaxed into taking it off when it needs washing or he's going on an expedition where he might damage or lose it, but other than that no force in any universe will ever convince him to part with it

🍓 - i think he'd have very positive associations with the scent of coffee. gadd clearly drinks a lot and i hc luigi drinks coffee to try and stabilise his sleep/wake cycle, so gooigi is very familiar with the smell and associates it with the people he trusts the most. conversely i think his least liked smell would be the one in the air when it's about to rain, if he recognises it. obviously getting caught in the rain is SUPER dangerous for him given his allergy to water, so noticing that distinct scent and knowing it's coming would be a huge source of panic for him

🎂 - early on it's easy to miss that he's even self-aware at all, given his usual lack of any expression and nature as a dubiously ethical scientific experiment. this becomes less of a problem over time though as he starts to use clearer body language and accessorise and enthusiastically introduce himself to new people, making it more immediately obvious that he's a very emotion-having little goober

🍩 - i imagine a lot of gadd's experiments are massive ethical/lab safety code/common sense violations, so gooigi is technically complicit in those crimes. there are no cops in evershade valley though so he'll never get caught

🍻 - gooigi is very easily comforted by hugs and other means of physical affection, and will calm down from a panicky state way faster if someone is there to reassure him he's okay. if he's too distressed to calm down quickly or just needs to spend time relaxing, he really likes blankets [not the weighted sort, though, they're too heavy for him to move on his own] because they provide constant tactile stimulation and comfort even if he's left by himself for a bit. he also starts feeling better quickly if he spends some time doing something he enjoys that's fairly low-effort, like doodling or reading a book

🍕 - when he's not researching with gadd or learning about the outside world with luigi, a lot of gooigi's hobbies involve learning in some form, since he's naturally a very curious little guy and is super committed to getting as good as he can reasonably be at things. he reads a lot about all sorts of topics, finds art interesting and tries his hand at drawing every now and then, will follow anyone in the house around and try to figure out what they're doing. he'd probably also like video games that don't require precise control or particularly fast reaction time, like pokemon or animal crossing. and of course he's always happy to just hang out with his family and listen to them talk and seek out a hug or two

[zosonils]

blues for the character bingo?

blues - oh blues..... with every passing day i get more and more mad that there's never been a coherent story-driven adaptation of classic mega man that's gotten past mega man 3 because GOD blues is so fascinating as a character but the nature of classic mega man is just that he's probably doomed to forever struggle in the lonely antihero role with no opportunities for development in a series that's functionally dead anyway. i really need to get around to making my own classic mega man adaptation where blues gets the narrative and in-universe love he deserves and it isn't tragically cut off without resolution right before mega man 4

[zosonils]

MWCA is the acronym for the p&f fan project Musical Without a Cool Acronym that, as far as I know, was released a few days ago. I don’t know too much about it and I haven’t seen it yet, but from what i’ve seen it’s pretty well made and probably worth looking into.

POG CHAMP