Antcruz

Anthony Cristopher Cruz, most commonly known by his nickname “Antcruz”, is a 15 year old yellow boy who lives in an apartment in Mirai City, one of the more urban areas of his home island, Miracle Island. He is very adventurous and loves to explore and uncover the mysteries of his strange home and even has electric-based superpowers due to a powerful beverage known as A-Cola. Since gaining these abilities, one of his priorities has been to keep the island clean and in safe hands, although whether or not he enjoys this is unknown as of now. He can also transform into a much more powerful "ultimate form" if he gains the power of at least 20 cans of A-Cola. Whenever he isn’t exploring, defending the island, or at school, he is mainly either hanging out with any of his friends or just in the basement playing video games.

Backstory
In the beginning, Antcruz was an average little one born and raised in the United States by a white mother and a hispanic father. As time went on, he grew sick and tired of the stress that was built up by many parts of his life at that point, such as an over-demanding school, a neighborhood that was starting to become riddled with ghetto kids and drug dealers, and a falling out between family members that eventually led to his father abandoning them, so he decided that he was just not somewhere he belonged. After years of acts of desperation towards his guardians, he started a new life on Miracle Island, one of the most obscure albeit nice islands on the map. There, he would buy out an apartment in Mirai City, apply for a scholarship at Miracle Academy, and meet new friends such as Dash, and later Sarah, the former of which being his first ever friend on the island and the latter of which being a former friend he briefly met prior to moving to the island who would move in with him later due to a more tragic incident than the one he faced. One fateful day, Antcruz accidentally left a can of soda he had yet to finish outside before running in, due to a severe thunderstorm that came out of nowhere. After realizing this, he quickly ran outside to grab it, only to nearly be struck by lightning. Thankfully, he was able to dodge the lightning strike, which ended up hitting the inside of the soda can instead. When he came back inside, Antcruz was so focused on his thirst that he forgot about his drink being electrocuted and possibly overheated, so he took a sip of it anyway. After this, he noticed sparks emitting from the top of his throat first...sparks would then start emitting from his heart, arms, and hands, until the sparks became full blasts of electricity that would start flashing right from the palms of his hands. He suddenly remembered the accident involving the lightning strike and the soda can and left more outside, turning this accident into an experiment that would change his life from this point on, realizing that he now had electricity-based superpowers. Although it would take the magic of Tiffany for him to continuously power himself up using more new cans, this is largely how A-Cola came to be.

(Note: Do not try that last part at home. Chances are you will actually get a much less exciting result if you leave your soda can outside during a thunderstorm and then drink it.)

On another fateful night, Antcruz would make his first true encounter with Ava, learning about her evil intentions, while also finding out about her creator, the evil inventor Zane. Remembering his electrical abilities, he finally decided to make use of them by dueling against her, making this the first ever occurrence where he’d actually have to use his abilities in any sort of important context. From this point on, he would continuously use his abilities for similar purposes, although he would later have to use it on Sieren, a significantly more dangerous threat than Zane; He would learn about Sieren after having to encounter her inside of a trap that his friends accidentally fell into, although he wouldn't actually know her full background and story until Aihana told him about the war. Antcruz would earn a variety of achievements through the usage of his electrical abilities throughout his adventures. Not only would his group of friends eventually turn into a team of heroes consisting of Sarah, Dash and Natalie, as well as Nico and Andre, but he would even be regarded as "one of the most powerful human beings ever" and even being officially named "our most important foreigner" by Sakura, the mother of Aihana and the queen of Planet Blossom.

Personality
Generally, Antcruz is rather adventurous, but laid-back and easygoing most of the time, being open-minded about people around him and not trying too hard to socialize with others but still throwing himself out there. Antcruz is a strong believer in freedom, loving and equally caring for his island and knowing exactly when the time has come to defend it; He is also a very adventurous boy, loving to make each day of his as eventful as he can make it. Antcruz’s main ability and the trait he is most known for among his peers is his ability to generate lightning and electrical beams from his hands, and because of this, is regarded as “one of the most powerful human beings ever,” though still not quite as powerful as Sieren due to his lack of access to one of the Sorcerer’s Keys. Despite this, Antcruz is confident in what he can do with his abilities and usually ends up outsmarting her because of this. Antcruz is also notably considerate of others and is open to helping people whenever they need it, even if it's the most dangerous task; The most notable instances are letting Sarah live with him after she became endangered and offering to help Aihana defend her planet even if it meant having to travel all the way through space. Antcruz has also had moments of tone-deafness or naiveness, usually being clueless as to what certain bigger words or popular slang terms mean, or misinterpreting certain acts the wrong way. He is honest for the most part, but is prone to lying at the worst of times. He is also prone to daydreaming or wandering in his mind especially when needing to pay attention to something.

Appearance
Antcruz has basic yellow skin with curly, black hair and dark brown eyes. His outfit includes a dark blue cap with a blue rim, which is worn backwards and includes an emblem representing an A inside of a C, grey shorts, black sneakers with blue laces and yellow bottoms, and a white t-shirt with a blue gradient lightning bolt symbol. His alternative outfit, which was used in his previous design, includes grey sweatpants and a dark grey hoodie with grey laces, sleeves with colored squares on the sides (2 blue-shaded squares on the outer side of the left sleeve and 3 yellow-shaded squares on the inner side of the right sleeve respectively,) and a design on the front that features a white “ア” Japanese letter over a blue circle. According to Antcruz, the hoodie was gifted to him by Dash, but Sarah claims that the hoodie was a production by her clothing company Studio Presence created specifically for Antcruz that was just delivered by Dash (despite the company focusing exclusively on girls, and there being no SP logo or tag anywhere located inside of the hoodie.)

For his “super” transformation, he generally looks the same, but his skin begins to glow, his eyes turn to black with glowing white pupils, and his outfit changes colors, with it having a more washed-out yellow color scheme. For his “ultimate form” transformation, which occurs when the power of his “super” transformation is combined with the power of one of the Sorcerer’s Keys, Antcruz transforms into an entirely new being of light and energy that transcends humanity; This being resembles a fiery silhouette of Antcruz’s normal body with blazing white hair and gigantic, electrical wings that are held together by a glowing white electrical force covering the back and sides of his body that take a similar appearance to lightning bolt-shaped veins.

Sarah
Being roommates, Antcruz and Sarah have been shown to be best friends with each other, with a playful rivalry in some instances, most notably showcased in the Artist Review series of videos. Antcruz also cares deeply about Sarah and has empathy for what she went through in the past, most notably shown near the beginning of Sarah’s residence in Miracle Island, when Antcruz let her stay with him in his apartment, with the two of them becoming roommates si nce then. The two often go on adventures together when they’re not busy, and often aid each other in battles.

Dash
Antcruz and Dash’s friendship has had a somewhat rocky history; Antcruz has always had good will towards Dash despite the latter’s negative opinions on him at first, although the two would later fully settle their differences and become good friends, often going out on “Guy’s Nights” together (often used as a backup plan whenever Antcruz’s bed space is being occupied by Natalie during Sarah’s sleepovers.) The two are also often paired up for assignments at Miracle Academy and are often teammates when playing basketball together, their favorite sport. Dash is also a frequent ally in Antcruz’s battles, using his ability to run very fast to his advantage.

Natalie
What is possibly Antcruz’s strangest relationship is his friendship with Natalie. While Natalie has a crush on Antcruz and has made it no secret despite never being direct about it when he’s around, Antcruz just considers her as a good friend and takes her flirtatious acts as “friendliness”, showcasing his more naive attitude in certain circumstances, although he does seem to have a limit, as shown by his tendency to leave before or during her sleepovers with Sarah, especially near bedtime. Despite the annoyances, Antcruz cares about his friend and has no problem helping or sticking up for her when the occasion asks for it. A moment that best represents Antcruz’s attitude towards Natalie was when she started working at Avery’s Super Spacecade in order to pay for damages she accidentally caused to Antcruz and Dash’s basketball court, later letting Antcruz fill in for her due to her feeling stressed out and him feeling guilty.

Nia
Nia is one of the main things Antcruz looks forward to when coming home from school. Since he and Sarah found her and nursed her to health after her mysterious crash to Earth, Antcruz has always had a soft spot for his pet sector kitten and loves playing and relaxing with her, especially on long and stressful days.

Nico
Antcruz doesn’t know much about Nico, only meeting him through an introduction from Natalie, with her then asking him if he could join their team of heroes against Zane. Although Antcruz trusted Natalie enough to accept her request, he couldn’t allow this until Nico was able to demonstrate his abilities. After witnessing him storm into battle and successfully beating off each robot before anyone else could, Antcruz and Nico would subsequently earn the respects of each other, even if Antcruz still wasn’t all that familiar with Nico and his story.

Andre
Antcruz has very mixed feelings about Andre; While he appreciates his help and thinks he’s a fun person to hang around with on occasions such as nights out at the arcade and such, he finds him a bit suspicious considering his history and reputation. Andre also enjoys spending time with Antcruz, but his arrogance can still carry over towards him and his actions can tend to put him in danger in some situations, such as him easily forgetting to keep Nia a secret.

Trivia
- Antcruz is voiced by me, unsurprisingly.

- Antcruz is the earliest of my OCs, with his oldest surviving “artwork” dating back to August 31, 2013, though his character status usually ranged from sona to self-insert up until late 2018.

- This also makes Antcruz my only non-scrapped OC to be made prior to 2018 (unless Antlia is counted.)

- Antcruz didn't receive his electrical abilities until early 2019. They were added since I wanted to give him a nudge in character that would make him a more interesting protagonist and a superpower that would make it easier for him to fight enemies rather than just fighting by hand. The electricity element was chosen because electric-type characters are among my favorites and I thought it would be fitting given the lightning bolt t-shirt he wore at the time.

- The first drawing featuring Antcruz’s current design, drawn in early July 2019, has a few extra touches; a broken heart symbol above his left pocket and Japanese text which translates to “Everything gets better”. This was a reference to a breakup I was going through at the time.

- Antcruz’s current design was originally intended to just be a secondary, more “casual” outfit. I ended up making this the main design from that point on since I ended up liking it better than what I was using at the time.

- While Antcruz first appeared with his signature yellow skin on September 10, 2013, he was still portrayed with standard tan skin numerous times since then. It wasn’t until 2014 when the yellow skin started being used consistently.

- While Antcruz’s previous design, or the “classic” design as I like to call it, was the one still being used while I was starting to move on outside of Scratch in 2018/2019, the design actually started being used in 2016, although it has had a few tweaks during its lifespan (ex. him originally having gloves, his shoes turning from brown to blue, a yellow/brown symbol on his cap brim being removed, etc.)

- The classic design originated from a doodle I drew while I was in CCD in 2015 that depicted Antcruz with a comically overly-detailed outfit. The design was actually a more simplified version of this doodle, although some of the weirder design choices still remained intact (ex. his shirt being made of cotton with the sleeves being metallic.)

- According to numerous character bios in 2015 and 2016, Antcruz’s original backstory was that he was created as a robot and somehow became a human. This was, of course, changed because I thought it was stupid as hell not long afterwards.

- According to another Scratch project posted in 2014 which showcases this, Antcruz had Super and Hyper forms at one point, similar to Sonic the Hedgehog. While this was scrapped, the modern super/ultimate forms could be considered similar, although it was actually mainly inspired by Jinners4.

- From 2020 to early 2022, what is currently Antcruz’s super form was actually considered his ultimate form, but I downgraded this and created an actual ultimate form after brainstorming what would potentially happen if Antcruz got a hold of one of the Sorcerer’s Keys himself.

- While Antcruz was still mainly a self-insert at the time, he was still the main character of a universe briefly before the current one was created. This is mainly shown in The Antcruz Show.