#other than maybe that guy metal tends to suplex

[south-sea]

It's me again!! If you so desire to take another art request- if you've got any OCs associated with the Second Chance AU that you've been dying to show off, please draw them! This is your full permission to be self-indulgent.

stumbles in here nearly two weeks late HOW ABOUT A SONIC'IFIED CARETAKER?! i finally got a design for him i can show here

despite his looks, he has good intentions (probably). all teeth and no bite (except when he actually does). smokes like a chimney when he's stressed (that's the joke, he's always stressed).

he's an inventor/programmer, and thanks to metal, a little bit of a mechanic at this point too. i wouldn't consider him a particularly empathetic or intentionally-kind person, but some would argue his actions suggest otherwise.

a prime example of this being he is more or less responsible for why shadow/metal have a house where they do, given it's also where he himself lives. shortly after he'd taken in metal for repairs, shadow tagged along; he saw the place looks like permanently-night with electric blue nebulas, got a tad emotional about it, stayed the night. caretaker provided him a comically oversized blanket and a suggestion: go seek out the city owner tomorrow and request housing here.

so he did, and it was approved. caretaker here's quite close with the city owner, so he may or may not have put in a good word in advance.

metal, despite seeing him as a caretaker, still ended up "moving in" with shadow instead. caretaker's not exactly one for permanent company in terms of sharing his house long-term, so it worked out for everyone.

above all else, i'd consider him to be hospitable, but ultimately self-interested when you pull back the curtain. he's not a bad person, but he's not exactly a good person, either. he's just learned how to present himself as a fair balance, and occasionally the situation's just right to inspire what empathy he is capable of and directs it into bettering someone else's circumstances.

metal, being a robot, is the ultimate example of this: caretaker relates a whole lot more to machines and whatnot than others. he views metal as some kind of family first and foremost, and something like his own greatest project second.

when they're synced, metal absolutely refers to him as "father" by pure reflex. caretaker lets his slide; it's not really something metal can control, anyway.

[south-sea]

☆-happy headcanon ☮️-friendship headcanon ♦️-quirks/hobbies headcanon

for your Metal and Shadow AU!

WOO! feelin' good!

☆ - happy headcanon

i like to think of shadow as the type of person who finds joy in the little things. he could be out and about doing objectively fun activities, and it's still going to be the quiet moments after the excitement's died down where he's just watching the sunset with someone that really completes the day. it's wearing an apron and making home recipes until the whole house is filled with the scent of savory sweets, it's taking a second to just walk down a forest path or lying in a field of flowers and feeling the breeze in his fur, it's sitting shoulder to shoulder or in a pile on the couch while watching a movie, it's getting his achy hands massaged after a long day.

for metal it's the same but different. sure he gets a certain sort of joy out of making a ruckus, roughhousing, or generally just causing destruction, but the things that actually make him happy, the things that make his eyes switch from red to blue for how overwhelmed with fondness he is, are the quieter, more mutual moments with shadow. the moments where he gets to see his efforts have been worth it-- that his cherished person is safe and in good spirits. metal does not need, want, or ask for much, but so long as his self-chosen purpose is fulfilled, he's content. in particular, he's especially fond when shadow takes the time to buff out any scratches or scuffs in his paint, and generally any attention paid to his appearance despite the fact metal himself cares very little about it otherwise.

☮ - friendship headcanon

i'll answer this one from the angle of "how easy it is for them to make friends" since it's not something i've had the chance to talk about before--

metal is exceptionally difficult to actually "befriend". he very literally categorizes people, and those categories aren't exactly a spectrum. either you're shadow, someone who benefits him/shadow, or you're Just Some Guy. maybe if you're lucky he'll classify you as "durable enough to roughhouse with", which from an outside perspective might look friendly. after all, metal's idea of "playing" is throwing people halfway across a field or suplexing them if they've even slightly inconvenienced him, so one might assume him finding people he doesn't have to worry about accidentally hurting would mean he likes them, right? ... nope. it just means he likes having a loophole where he can get away with it without being scolded.

metal doesn't have "friends". he has people he's protective of (rare), the equivalent of business associates, and people who mean nothing to him beyond the fact he can just hulk them over his shoulder without someone else scolding him for it.

shadow isn't nearly as cold about it, but he does have a tendency to subconsciously hold people at arm's length. from an outside perspective, he could be as kind and helpful as can be to a person to the point one would assume he thinks very highly of them, but from his perspective, they're not any more special than the last random person he interacted with. he encounters a lot of people, some of which he tends to habitually help given he sees himself as somewhat of a nurse, but there's a certain magic in letting single meetings be just that.

you could argue it's just really rare for him to bridge the gap from "acquaintance" to "friend", or you could think of it as "he's really bad at realizing when someone actually qualifies as a friend". sometimes it's both. usually it's just the latter if he's met the person several times. typically though, he really is just perfectly neutral. he gets along with certain types of people better than others, sure, but he's not really the one to go out of his way to interact with them unless they really click. (hell, even metal was a matter of "this guy just lives here now, i guess", so they were in more regular contact than average, and it wasn't intentional on shadow's part.)

♦ - quirks/hobbies headcanon

shadow has so many hobbies and they are all over the board. he's generally the type to go through phases of interest where he just focuses on/picks up something at random, and if it sticks, it sticks. this was especially common in the earlier days when he was trying to figure out what it was he wanted to do for himself, so there's even completely mundane things like cloud watching. whether or not he still considers it an active hobby or not, he can semi-reliably identify cloud formations. clouds and earth-like weather was one hell of a novelty for a while, considering space was all he knew prior.

photography was his first and continues to be the main one, though: at this point he's got a whole portfolio and takes up commissions whenever the mood strikes. branching off from photography is scrapbooking; he even has a separate (polaroid) camera specifically for it. he's kept up with it regularly since shortly after his revival. it goes without saying that a lot of this also involves just generally wandering around/exploring. he'll snap pics of whatever strikes his fancy or seems novel. one of his favorite subjects is finding out-of-place things in the middle of nowhere, like a particularly unique tree compared to the rest around it, a single flower, long-abandoned campsites, completely overgrown ruins, etc.

apart from that, he dabbles a little in cooking (only when he finds something he really likes, otherwise he prefers to think of this particular hobby as "exploring food/new places to eat"), gardening, creating secret bases, or taking on missions of varying levels of danger. given these missions/explorations tend to take up so much of his time these days, he doesn't have as much motivation to just try out random things anymore, but i could absolutely see him learning bass/electric guitar if there was ever a reason or motivator to.

metal has exactly one hobby that doesn't involve being a destructive little thing: collecting data. he keeps profiles on just about every person he meets, every place he visits, and records even seemingly irrelevant information. i liken him to a walking library, and he takes his role as a "librarian" very seriously.

the information isn't for anyone or to serve any purpose but his own satisfaction/entertainment (unless it is medically relevant/a safety precaution). very rarely will he take commissions to scour a world for information on xyz thing, simply because he prefers to just hoard the knowledge to himself. he's not interested in being helpful to literally anyone but his people/himself, and has no real need for money after a certain copper-stripping stunt he pulled early on.