OC Origins #3 · 8:40pm Dec 30th, 2014
: "Welcome one and all to another edition of OC Origins. In case you missed last week's edition and are now interested in reading it, here's the link.
"The subject of today's interview is Aza, or AZA-090, from Singularity. Out of all of Razalon The Lizardman's OCs, Aza is without a doubt the most dynamic and grandiose, being a living universe and all. While Aza's an entire universe and, as a result, has no defined appearance, the puppet which it uses to better commune with people is depicted in the upper right corner of the story's cover art, as seen below:
"Big picture, I know, and a strange-looking puppet, indeed. Perhaps some light can be shed upon the latter's reasoning in the interview. Speaking of which, let's get on with it!"
Describe Aza and its intended purpose in your stories.
Aza is a living universe, whose origin is unknown even to it. Being genderless, the characters always refer to Aza as 'it' instead of 'he' or 'she'. Aza has a childish demeanor in that it sees the entire multiverse as its personal playground, with all the characters it abducts being toys. Children aren't old enough to understand empathy or kindness, and Aza shows a true ignorance for both in the story. At the same time, however, children have an instinctual fear of their mistakes being exploited against them. This was shown in the latest chapter of Singularity, where Aza's usual over-confidence is replaced by timidness when its latest plan is thwarted. In essence, Aza embodies the qualities which all young children share to some degree. All this ties back into my inspiration for Aza's character, but I'll get into that when the time comes.
Aza's role in my stories is as the bridge between my will and the story. Whenever I want the characters to go through a particular challenge, I have Aza carry it out on my behalf. In that sense, Aza is my puppet, but it does serve another, more story-driven purpose. MMXOs like Singularity need an original element to tie all the different sources together, otherwise the story would be a cluttered, directionless mess. This applies to Aza's relationship with the characters as well, since it serves as a common enemy to them all. They all see Aza as the enemy to their livelihood, yet they can't do anything about it except survive until Aza grows bored and sends them home. Therefore, the overarching conflict is kept solid while still allowing plenty of wiggle room for interesting scenarios.
What, if any, real world experiences was Aza's character based on?
You might be surprised to hear that Aza was actually inspired by you, Master Hand.
Really?
Indeed. After all, you're both demigods with childish tendencies who gather up various characters for the purpose of entertaining yourselves.
...Yeah, I can see the resemblance, although, I don't put the Smash Bros fighters in harm's way.
True, but there's nothing stopping you from doing so except your character.
Anyway, Smash Bros is my favorite game series of all time, as I'm sure everyone reading this knows by now. One thing I've always loved about the series is its ability to take characters from so many different franchises and put them together in a way that's both cohesive and fun. And, as is typical of the young and naive, I wanted to make something in that same vein, but on a much grander scale. The first tangible product to come out of this desire was a project I made back in 2009 in my high school's Photoshop class. It was a mock-up cover for a fighting game called EPIC RUMBLE, and it had iconic characters from all different mediums plastered all across the page, some of which ended up making it into Singularity. When it came time to writing that story, as I stated above, I needed an original element to tie all the different sources together, and thus, Aza was conceived.
I'm honored to have served as the inspiration for its creation. Moving on, where does Aza's name come from?
When coming up with a name, I tried to think like game designers do when conceiving names for their characters and make it reflect the core essence of their being. Aza has access to literally everything in the multiverse, so I decided upon a name that reflected such. The name Aza is made up of 'a' the first letter in the English alphabet, then 'z', the final letter, and then another 'a'. The idea here is that Aza's name encompasses the entire alphabet, and the same applies to the 090 part of its name, with '0' being the first digit, '9' being the final digit, and the second '0' completes the circle. To translate Aza's name into other languages, take the first letter/character/symbol of X language and put it on either side of the final letter/character/symbol.
If Aza was added to the show's cast, what kind of role do you think it'd have?
I'm not even going to entertain the notion that Aza could ever be utilized in the show. Not only is a sentient universe way out of the show's league, but I sincerely doubt Aza could be sufficiently utilized in anything outside of Singularity or an accompanying side story.
And now for the final question; do you believe Aza is an example of an OC done right?
Yes, Aza is a good OC through and through, as far as necessity is concerned. Living universes aren't prevalent in fiction, much less ones with childish tendencies, so Aza was very much a necessity for Singularity to work right. Whether or not Aza's a good OC in regards to how engaging it is as a character is entirely subjective, but the little feedback I've gotten from people regarding Aza has generally been positive, so I'm happy with how it's been received by readers.
"Thank you for conducting another wonderful interview, Razalon."
You're welcome.
"And I'm sorry to hear about your recent loss. Know that you and your family have all of my sympathies, and that I hope things start looking up for you all from here on out."
I appreciate it, thanks.
"Join us in the new year for the next edition of OC Origins. Until then, goodbye everyone!"
Not bad for a bio. It goes to show how awesome crossovers can be
I'll be getting to those guest chapters soon enough.