Bite-Sized Bruce

Воскресенье, 17 Октября 2021 г. 23:13 + в цитатник

I decided to fiddle with Bruce's design in Fuzzbutts. His old one was based on his Pandoraverse design, which was initially created to be a one-off unimportant character. Pony Bruce is thus very monochromatic and simple looking, which I think works well when he's standing against my more complex and colorful pandoraverse characters, but in Fuzzbutts, he was left looking drab and unimportant. :<

So! I tweaked his colors and also changed his species. He's now a whiptail wallaby (Notamacropus parryi), also known as the pretty-faced wallaby(~ They're a small, fluffy marsupial known for the striking markings on their doe-like faces. So you have the contrast of Bruce, who is introverted and cranky, burdened by this sort of natural beauty and effortless cuteness. He has long lashes and his markings make him look like he's wearing eyeshadow. Bruce is a doctoral student (working on a Ph.D in Botanical Science) and currently works as an underpaid adjunct professor. His tiny size and pretty face often earn him the giggles and fawning of his students, as well as from his fellow faculty members, as well as from random strangers that try to hold the door open for him and invite him out to coffee. All of this pisses Bruce right off. He just wants to be taken seriously, and furthermore, he wants to be left alone. Bruce's favorite place to be is alone in his room, with just his houseplants and books for company. Unfortunately, his apartment is populated by his dumb dog of a roommate, Sunny, who also is apparently not immune to Bruce's pretty face.

2.) Sunny, having a private internal crisis: ......interesting phrasing there buddy

Let's get something straight right off the bat....Fuzzbutts is not Beastars. I love me some Beastars, but I feel like as irl people already tend to lean paranoid and tribalistic, any world where part of the population is confirmed to instinctively devour people would just be an absolute shitshow. Like there'd be no wolves falling in love with bunnies, only anarchy and philosophical horror. Carnivores in Fuzzbutts are fortunately not (normally) gripped by constant primal urges to maim and consume their friends and neighbors, nor purchase people-meat at illegal black markets. Even real life carnivores are not bloodthirsty monsters with an uncontrollable urge to kill.

But. Predators in Fuzzbutts are still animals. They do still have instincts. Namely, the prey drive. In all predators, the prey drive follows a sequence: Search-Stalk-Chase-Bite-Dissect-Consume. In a civilized society, this drive has been greatly reduced over generations, but it is still present....and it's stronger in some species than others.

Sunny's prey drive often manifests as a strooong fixation on Bruce. Bruce is, after all, a prey animal. Smells like prey, moves like prey. Sunny often finds himself naturally following his roommate's movements with his eyes, the way a cat watches a mouse. He is very aware of Bruce's scent and the sound of his heartbeat, he can track him through these things alone. Bruce finds this....creepy. ("Stop staring at me, you dumb dog!"). He can't help the sinister feeling that underneath that innocent puppy face, Sunny would very much like to eat him.

....Little does Bruce know that Sunny's fixation does not include a desire to do him harm. It's more than he finds Bruce (with his itty bitty paw-hands and pretty coat and hippity-hop gait) extremely cute and naturally wants to protect him and keep him safe. Just like a little bunny~

....Or maybe his yandere canine brain just sees Bruce as his prey and doesn't want anybody else to have him. Who knows for sure? Certainly not Sunny....

3.) "Now, now, Margo, don't drink so quick, you greedy ol' girl...."

fiddling with bruce's design and exploring his character a little more. he's a fucking DORK

Besides maintaining the rooftop garden of the boarding house (I'm tentatively dubbing the house 'Zoo Haven'): , Bruce keeps anywhere from twenty to thirty plants in his cramped ass apartment. Every single one of them has a name and a "personality", Bruce cares for them with a gooey sort of tenderness that he shows to literally no one else. He talks to them pretty much daily, and unconsciously performs silly voices for them to "talk back" at him with. Sometimes these conversations get a wee bit out of Bruce's control, and his plants start pressing him about why he keeps declining Priscilla's invitations to hang out, or how he isn't as exasperated with Sunny as he pretends to be, or why he's so mean to Logan, or how he should probably talk to people who are not plants. Bruce tells them to mind their business.

: The only reason that Bruce's room isn't dim and dank and smelly and depressing is bc his plants need sunlight

Me: Bruce has had times where he crawled out of his depressive episodes because his neglect was killing his plants. Even when he can't take care of himself, he has to take care of them.