Artist with brown hair and strange pronouns

Sketch

(Digital) Colored

Digital w/ Background

In the story, their relationship starts off as Leo being incredibly confused by Volt because he does a lot of weird shit and makes a lot of weird shit without thinking about it. Leo, being himself and not understanding when he's being rude or not, would go aoing with it out of sheer curiosity while also pointing out everything wrong with what he was doing. Volt would get annoyed and then try to make things or do things that would impress Leo so he could "finally make something that Leo could be impressed by." It turns into a weird version of a crush bcuz Volt has a track record of mistaking attraction for annoyance, and then hyperfixate on impressing that person. Queue Leo and Volt working together often and Volt being passive aggressive while also admiring him a lot, and Leo doesn't notice or care because he has the emotional intelligence and people skills of a wet sponge. Surprisingly, Volt's strangeness aorks, bcuz Leo does think the things Volt makes and what he researches is interesting and he finds excuses to go visit the center's shared lab (where Volt is most often) to talk to him.

The two do end up getting assigned a mission together to investigate some weird happenings in a cave that they think could be connected to Area Zero. It was the first time they were able to spend extended time alone together (with Volt still on his silly shit, but he also got a tyanmo out of it, so it's fine). They find some weird research labs there, which they're not fully sure about, but they realize it causes the pokemon there to go frenzied. Leo doesn't know much about mechanics and engineering, but Volt does, and he was able to figure out how to work the complicated machine and figure out what was causing the pokemon to go frenzied - a microchip of some sorts that was emitting weird aura. They bring it back to the lab and Leo, despite not knowing what it is, helps him bcuz he likes heating what Volt has to say about it. I wouldn't say this is the moment they became friends, but it is when they started being a lot more friendly to each other and Volt stopped with passive aggressiveness. The two become closer and bond over nerdy science shit, with Leo telling Volt about pokemon biology, history, and folklore, and Volt telling Leo about different mechanical stuff. Volt becomes more obvious with his crush, but Leo doesn't take the hints bcuz, again, his people skills and emotional intelligence are that of a wet sponge.

Even more random shit about them

Their relationship was inspired by Cecil and Carlos from WTNV, but like a swapped version of it. I thought the idea of a character having an obvious crush on a first-person protagonist who doesn't even notice could be funny. They were also inspired by Perceptor and Brainatorm from MTMTE, if it wasn't already obvious enough

Volt likes Leo because he thinks he's cool and he wants to impress him, but also bcuz most people who spoke to him in his life did so as if it was a chore and Leo actively chooses to listen to him and his ideas without berating him or calling him crazy or stupid. He also likes that Leo is willing to share his ideas with him and they can build on ideas together.

Leo likes Volt because he doesn't feel like he has to hide parts of who he is and can ramble about things he finds interesting and they can both piece things together like a puzzle. He's also vaguely attracted to people who are a bit insane, but it happens to the best of us 🤷‍♂️

Basically: nerdy egghead shit combined with neurodivergant trauma. I'm gonna bully them <3