#sure I’m autistic but I don’t do the personifying objects thing really

[choosetheleft]

This was posted in my local “buy nothing” group and my first instinctive read of the caption was that they have to get rid of the lamp because it’s homophobic to their couch.

This is how my brain works.

[gupdoo3]

Alright so I’m FINALLY doing a write-up about my second major group of OCs

some background: once upon a time my friend @voteplant2040/@popelickva was doing a livestream of him trying to figure out a TF2 Newgrounds dating sim and someone in the chat (I believe it was @milesdafoo) said something to the effect of “I’d have more fun playing a dating sim where you dated a golf ball and a golf club”. I looked at that, said “challenge accepted”, and hashed out a few characters. I don’t know if I’ll ever turn this into an actual game because that’s hard work, but at the very least I’m proud of myself for having come up with somewhat interesting characters based on such a weird prompt. (Note: Technically Miles came up with two of these characters. Well, it was originally one character, but then it became two characters who share a hive mind because of weird sci-fi bullcrap. But I’m not telling which ones they are.)

Disclaimer: these characters haven’t been bouncing around in my head for a very long time, so they’re not as developed as I’d like, but here they are nonetheless.

(note: all Japanese names are in surname given name order)

Hajikano Masumi (gender and pronouns decided by the player, 17, japanese) is the (canonically autistic) protagonist with a vested interest in science and not a lot of social graces who occasionally forgets things like “eating”, “sleeping”, and “showering”. During the game they have the option to become an intern at the research wing of Iwadate Industries. They used to be really engaged in anime, manga, and visual novels, but that phase is mostly passed. Their way of calming down is to play golf, which is how they meet...

The Baishō siblings are the two love interest of this hypothetical game. They  serve as a deconstruction of the Stereotypical Anime Personification Of Inanimate Objects Who Are Also Your Love Interests, because, dude, what do you do with two humans who have spontaneously popped into existence, have no knowledge of the outside world, and don’t legally exist? And isn’t the concept of being an object and then suddenly becoming a sentient being a bit horrifying? (And as such, even if they act like they have it all together, they’re both scared of the new world they find themselves in and saddened because they don’t see themselves as truly human.)

(note: I’m not trying to do any faux-deep navel-gazing “i read an intro to psychology/philosophy textbook” type stuff, i just don’t want my hypothetical video game to be the same cliche drivel as everything else that stars personified anything.)

They came to life one day while Masumi was playing golf and later enrolled at his school under false names.

Baishō Kyō (gender and pronouns decided by the player, 17, japanese) is an innocent, naïve, wide-eyed idealist. They’re the golf ball. Kyo is short, stout, and albino, and those last two things make them a bit self concious about their appearance (once they learns that most people consider those things flaws).

Baishō Michi (gender and pronouns decided by the player, 17, japanese) is quiet, aloof, and calculating. They’re the golf club. No-one knows what they’re thinking.

Maruo Ryuta (male, 17, japanese) is Masumi’s hot-blooded, somewhat ditzy, nerdy best friend. Despite his nerdiness he’s definitely not the brains of the bunch; his flavor of nerdiness is more along the lines of visual novels (and the occasional English-language adventure game). 100% probability of giving too many fucks about any minor inconvenience. Has always wanted the chance to shout “OBJECTION!”

Monty and Molly Forrester (male/female respectively, 12, canadian) are two of Masumi’s next door neighbors. Their mom works as an engineer at Iwadate Industries as part of the Exercise project (essentially it’s an endeavor to make a robot who can play sports) and their dad is Masumi’s science teacher. Monty is a weird nerd kid (who eventually ends up bonding with Ryuta over their shared love of Monkey Island) and Molly is an outgoing girly girl. (I know which other twins these two might remind you of please don’t bother pointing it out)

Isoarashi Lydia (female, 11, canadian-born japanese) is Molly’s precocious best friend. She’s extremely stoic and laconic-- until you get her talking about Sherlock Holmes. Since she’s a little bit weird (and a whole year younger than her classmates), she had trouble making friends when her family moved to japan until she met Molly. The two initially bonded over being Canadian, but they quickly started partaking in each other’s interests. She’s a lesbian with a crush on Molly, and later on the two share a bit of a puppy love.

Dr. Scott Calvin (male, late 20s, british) is a computer scientist who works at Iwadate Industries on the Exercise project (but I’m not sure if computer science is what his phd is in?). He’s one of the youngest researchers on the team and certainly the youngest one with a PhD (he’s pretty much directly out of grad school; though he’s been working at Iwadate in some capacity since before he got his PhD). Although he’s not intended to be an example of “young wunderkid immediately beats all the seasoned adults at their own game” he’s certainly proven himself worthy of his position depsite his age. He’s pretty much always frustrated/disgruntled in some capacity, though his is a more subdued frustration than Ryuta’s (or, to quote John Mulaney “Adult life is already so goddamn weird, this might as well happen”). Will talk for hours about computers. He’s named after both Tom Scott and Marty McFly’s alter-ego “Calvin Klein”.

Dr. Bulan “Becky” Buanaputri (female, 30, indonesian) is Masmui’s step-aunt (ie his mom’s stepsister) and a kinesiologist who works on the Exercise project (her job partially consists of analyzing movement data from human test subjects but her exact duties are very hush-hush). Born in Indonesia, but her family moved to America when she was a kid. Went by Becky as a kid to avoid jokes about how much Bulan sounds like Mulan, and the name stuck. She’s very cheerful and loves cats. Never seen without a bag of microwave popcorn that she’s eating from, and she also has a bit of a sweet tooth.

Fritz Möller (male, late 20s, german-swiss) actually started out as an Ace Attorney OC in a fanfic which I started writing but don’t know if I’ll ever return to. Fritz is a meteorologist who works at the research wing of Iwadate in some capacity, and he trains dogs in his spare time. He’s involved with the mysterious Sector 22 project. Drunk a lot (obviously not part of his AA characterization). Usually not drunk at work. He’s best friends with Scott-- they were dormmates together and shared an apartment for a while. He now lives in a house with his grandmother (in light of her husband’s passing), right next door to Masumi.

Toshiyuki Harvard (male, late 20s, japanese-british) and “Hatch” (male, 30s, german-american) are two childhood friends of Fritz. Toshiyuki is introverted, stoic, and no-nonsense, while Hatch is generally more upbeat, and a bit of a klutz. These characters don’t get as much screentime as most of the others so I haven’t fleshed them out very much LOL

Agari Shirō (male, 60s, japanese) is Masumi and Ryuta’s homeroom/P.E. teacher. He looks like he could probably bench-press you, but is actually a jolly, amicable man. Is gay.

Exercise (???) is a robot being developed by Iwadate Industries but he might be gaining sentience DUN DUN DUUUUUUN