#within the program and beyond ( lore )

[king-of-confections]

____" ʏᴏᴜ ᴡɪʟʟ ʀᴇᴍᴇᴍʙᴇʀ ᴍᴇ, ____

_ ʀᴇᴍᴇᴍʙᴇʀ ᴍᴇ ꜰᴏʀ ℂ𝔼ℕ𝕋𝕌ℝ𝕀𝔼𝕊! "_

{ WRECK-IT RALPH centered archivist & writing/RP blog, contains spoilers┃canon & original muses (mainly focusing on King Candy/Turbo)┃18+ content (horror, gore, body horror...) viewer discretion is advised┃blog still under construction┃ Penned & loved by mun Klaue .┃I follow back from my main: burgerrat! }

BYF || ABOUT THE AUTHOR

MUSES || AREAS || TIMELINE & LORE

CREDITS:

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[vespidclan]

There's something i don't understand, and while i waited to see, it seems like the comic isn't gonna explain it

How did Snake understand any of that digital stuff at all, when the cats don'teven know whatcars are? She just saw what looks like a floating wall painting of her

Did 404 "mentally" blast her with the knowledge of human technology and what coding is when she showed her her sprite? By messing with the coding of her memory/knowledge ?

Did seeing her sprite unlock a sort of self awareness that immediately made her understood what she was, because the possibility of being aware is always accessible dur to her literally being code?

Hope i don't sound accusatory or mean, tone is hard through text ^^". Genuine question from being eager about learning lore and worldbuilding and trying to understand

Making a "realise it's all a video game" story with characters/species who don't even know what basic technology is seems really tough, and I'm really curious on how you made it work 👀

Also, how much does snake know? Does she think only her clan is fake coding, and the rest of the world is normal. Or does she know that her kithood is made up memories and the entire world is just as fake?

This is a very good question!!! I’ve had to go through a similar thought process with the whole “how would cats understand the concept of being in a game?” and I got it down to this;

Cats in real life don’t have a sense of self, but cats in warrior cats (and in Clangen overall) do, this helps me give them ‘human’ personalities that we can relate and understand to. And while they don’t know things like coding, files, and anything technical, they understand that there are things they cannot ever understand.

I take inspiration from H. P. Lovecraft’s work, and this excerpt from The Call Of Cthulhu perfectly sums up what I’m trying to explain

404 doesn’t just give Snake a blank, lifeless reflection of what she truly is; within the morse code, she tells her something that she shouldn’t know. Something that is beyond her level of understanding as both a cat and as a living organism, and along with that was proof of it all—the subliminal incarnation of herself.

If you were to explain to a cat in the warriors series about programming and compare it to their own way of living, they would find it so bizarre that they would see it as almost otherworldy and nonsensical. Similar to how there are some concepts within our reality that we cannot fathom; things like these are ideas that shouldn’t be found and don’t need to be found in our lifetime. Even if it was something familiar to us like in this sense, being in a simulation as digital characters, it would still be something completely unbelievable to imagine

The very moment Snakevalley was told the truth, through lines of numbers and script, from the bare autonomy that builds up her world and existence, that everything she breathes in was never organic, it shattered her.

Again, thank you for this really great question! I love answering stuff like these, really glad I’m able to explain a little bit on my thought process of how things work :D

[annie-silverl2]

CHARACTER STUDY: Liquidator, Representation of parody or oblivion by the script?

INTRODUCTION

Good morning / good afternoon / good evening or Good night, Returning with the third character in this analysis, Liquidator / Bud Flud. First of all, this post wasn't the easiest thing to structure, especially when the character doesn't exactly have a good depth within the program itself, so let's not leave aside the points to add to these characters, there is a guarantee of better reach with the public when the screenwriter explores how to think and until the end he will realize some things that basically they would have made him one of the strongest of the superhero's main team of adversaries, without further ado, let's follow the information.

IMPORTANT WARNINGS ABOUT SENSITIVE CONTENT: NONE

DARKWING DUCK SERIES - Taking everything the show SAYS for itself

The episode “Dry Hard” is characterized as the first and last of great participation in the sense of having attention on his abilities, there was a comic strip, but publicly only one. To sum up the basics, Bud Flud is one of the businessmen responsible for selling water on a very hot day and to earn the final income he poisons the water of his opponents. Until he is stopped by Darkwing Duck until he meets his end as a normal dog. Later, chemists somehow brought him back to life and enhanced his abilities so that they could manipulate matter and its form, giving enough idea to snot the total water of Saint Canard and sells the fresh water expensively (I don't know where this guy got the water from, if it wasn't his I don't know but where he made it appear). Luckily Darkwing has the upper hand when he beats him by throwing cement from the local construction site and learning something from the episode. Unlike those who remember, Darkwing used his own opponent as a garden decoration (old-era Disney wasn't The family friend, was it?).

DARKWING DUCK FANDOM - Building everything that was formed for the fans together with the most indirect interpretations perceived in my participation when writing or drawing with lore

There is a great personality who worked finger by finger on the character of Liquidator, whoever walks in the community must recognize the great effort and quality of this artist's work, so I also want to add to the old ones from the first internet communities like Devianart and Instagram, have been working for quite some time on adding abilities, design variation beyond their basic concept of a mutant water dog.

The point that I will highlight as its differentiation in our main universe that we will have in this meeting is that the character received a few more things from references, from a renewal of its personality, adding some points and making it go a little beyond sales dialogues. Give to cauterize a mix between a character with little social filtering/sincerity and a bit of a sensor of ease in getting into fights (it is not possible to go into too much detail, this part is better worked on than said). Trying not to leave this passage too vague, the character here gets a light dose to flourish his best characteristics that range from confidence (perhaps pride), greed (a big point) and professionalism, being able to say that in his episodes he failed to defeat the protagonist. However, there are some moments like the boiling water trap for the water modification that could have easily resulted in a filming accident, originally the villain 's animation is SIMPLY WEIRD, only, only weird, of course there's not really any indication that it was intentional by Darkwing, however it seems to have been a moment... of possible poor elaboration in the scene? It's an opinionated piece, but honestly here, Darkwing Duck barely showed any resentment or guilt over the ACID DEATH of a criminal, yes, criminal, however in this version there is a makeover that shows that it was an accident and without attempts at humor here, this moment could really have a more dignified passage and less than an episode of the week. Darkwing Duck really isn't the type who wouldn't take passages involving death, this isn't one of the first times.

IN DARKWING DUCK appearing in the episodes:

"Just Us Justice Ducks, Part 1" (Season 1, Episode 20)

"Just Us Justice Ducks, Part 2" (Season 1, Episode 21)

"Life, the Negaverse and Everything" (Season 1, Episode 35)

"Dry Hard" (Season 1, Episode 36)

"Darkwing Doubloon" (Season 1, Episodes 40)

"Jail Bird" (Season 1, Episode 62)

IN DUCKTALES 2017 appear in the episodes:

"Beware the B.U.D.D.Y. System!" (Season 1, Episode 11)

"The Duck Knight Returns!" (Season 2, Episode 16)

"Let's Get Dangerous!" (Season 3, Episode 12)

IN COMICS (Boom! Studios and Joe Books):

"The Duck Knight Returns, Part 1"

"The Duck Knight Returns, Part 2"

"The Duck Knight Returns, Part 3"

“The Duck Knight Returns, Part 4"

"Crisis on Infinite Darkwings, Part 3"

“Crisis on Infinite Darkwings, Part 4”

"Dangerous Currency, Part 1"

"Dangerous Currency, Part 2"

"Dangerous Currency, Part 3"

"Orange Is the New Purple, Part 1"

“Orange Is the New Purple, Part 2”

“Orange Is the New Purple, Part 3”

DARKWING DUCK/DRAKE MALLARD - Story adapted without extreme spoilers, just adding the changes, ideas on his biological identity and influence:

One thing that is important to note is that we gathered information from the episode and with the loose ideas that we already had about what led to the character's acceptance of crime, for now.The main point is that we improved the approach with their own solo appearances and made it a little harder to win. One example is that now cousin Mortimer has a better participation in the character's past. :›

LIQUIDATOR/BUD FLUD - Conceptual And Final visual:

Concept art Vs Final Design

Not enough data…

Canon Redesign

DEVELOPMENT

The first point not to forget is that the character deserved as much attention as the others in terms of giving him room to deepen his skills, of course, possibly the animation was not very cheap, But then why do they still bring the same character who only had one episode? This is your chance! Liquidator is a perfect villain to give the protagonist trouble, he not only manipulates water (and possibly is not entirely water), he himself is an unstable chemist with unknown capabilities. Able to change the state of a liquid, transition components, general manipulation of one's own body, in addition to low damage capacity, this super villain advances without difficulty within a police conflict. If Saint Canard hadn't already had some budget misappropriation, they would have reformed the banks as well as the police department to keep this villain in (yes, in the comics it was easy for him to have simply broken the glass, IF BY CHANCE it was glass). The question of the character's abilities is pure experimentation, both in script and in combat, and,the only thing that seems to be able to bring this character down is purely pricing his original body, very similar to some other characters in the cast of characters with liquid bodies, right? I can't say anymore for now, secret AU information.

> CREATIVE WRITING: What ideas can be worked and how can each one fit in?

RELATIONSHIPS:

In this process, you can work on the character's relationships as you prefer, whether platonic, loving, intimate or aggressive, the dog's relationship with others. Would he act with Negaduck the same way he did with the other Fearsome Five? Would he be open to questioning or would he find a way to manipulate the situation for his own good? Would he still have any family he would like to meet again in another life? But what reason prevents him from doing so other than mutation? Dynamics are the soul of stories, feel free to respond with your observations about this mischievous dog.

THE IMMORTALITY:

Before working on this issue I will add a theory that I tried to formulate with zero experience in chemistry, Maybe it didn't come out very well, but I'm going to transcribe what I explained in private to an acquaintance. "The fact responsible for making the jealous is the neutralizing component in the character of the donor due to three factors, CaO, H2O, CO,2, KOH and NH4, summarizing what these components found in the productivity of the agricultural process leads to the decay of electrons to a positive form of a homogeneous mixture (on this side the entire Liquidator is internally heterogeneous and nothing mixes), then the jealous has components that neutralize making a base mixture, because in the end jealous is the base of water." Summarizing what I said there.

Structuring this concept, the fact responsible for the opportunity for rebirth and maintaining the character's consciousness makes his body purely unstable to maintain each item. This point is visible because its shape is always spilling and is basically impossible to be physically damaged. Of course, with this concept the only object of damage to your body is through reactions or addition of components that break down in water, ranging from soap, chlorine, liquid or powder products in general. However, this is a theme that influences the character's personality and life, because it can gradually make him feel the consequences, perhaps destruction of the components, seeing everyone in his friendship circle die, becoming a completely unhuman figure and perhaps making him as crazy a criminal as the rest of his team, and, If this observation is correct someone could easily threaten him with this weak point in mixtures.

INTERESTING REFERENCES FOR YOU TO PICK YOU TO PICK UP FOR THE CHARACTER

Hydro-man (The Amazing Spider-Man #212) of Marvel Comics:

Clayface (Detective Comics #40) of DC Comics:

Globby of Operation Big Hero - The Series:

Sevika of Arcane: League of Legends:

CONCLUSION

This post ends here, I will not complicate the information as much as I had planned, unfortunately, without a bonus about the theory of what reaction Bud performed to bring his life back.Possibly messing with the fictional more than actually some technical source of what I expected, well, I'm leaving, see you around, BYE-EEE!

[soylent-crocodile]

More Myr

Here are just a few more statlines for Myr, a generic battlemyr and a large superion. I don't have much lore here; this is more of a rules supplement to my core Myr piece!

(Myr Superion by Jana Schirmer & Johannes Voss)

Myr, Superion

This towering machine has arms like pillars and a head like a deep-billed bird’s beak.

Misc- CR7 LN Large Construct (Myr) HD9 Init:+1 Senses: Perception:+8 Aura: Myr Shepherding 15ft Stats- Str:30(+10) Dex:13(+1) Con:- Int:4(-3) Wis:19(+4) Cha:15(+3) BAB:+9/+4 Space:10ft Reach:10ft Defense- HP:79(9d10+30) AC:21(+1 Dexterity, -1 Size, +11 Natural) Fort:- Ref:+6 Will:+7 CMD:31 Resist: Immunity: Weakness: Special Defenses: Construct Traits Offense- 2 Slam +16(2d6+10 plus Grab), Beam +10(14d4 force, 60ft ranged touch) CMB:+20 (+24 to Grapple) Speed:40ft Special Attacks: Constrict (2d6+15) Feats- Lightning Reflexes, Power Attack (-3/+6), Multiattack, Awesome Blow, Tactician’s Emblem Skills- Perception +8, Sense Motive +7 Spell-like Abilities-  Share Memory /at-will Greater Make Whole 1/day Special Qualities- Scrying Focus Ecology- Environment- Any Languages- Common (Can’t speak) Organization- Shepherd (1 Myr Superion, 4-5 Battle Myr) Treasure- None Special Abilities- Myr Shepherding (Su)- Other myr within a superion’s aura of myr shepherding may reroll 1s rolled on damage rolls. This ability does not let them reroll the same roll more than once. Scrying Focus (Ex)- Myr are perfect vessels for scrying on. They get a -5 penalty to saves against spells with the Scrying descriptor, and magical sensors made to scry on a myr and its surroundings get a +5 bonus against rolls to perceive it. Additionally, myr- and any object or creature they are in contact with- are not protected by spells such as Nondetection and Screen.

Superion are the apex of myrkind, hulking behemoths which serve to shepherd myr and perform heavy labor that the average myr’s small frame wouldn’t allow. 

(Alpha Myr by Dany Orizio)

Myr, Battle

This small humanoid machine has a head that resembles a heavy bird’s beak and a set of long, razor-thin claws on each hand.

Misc- CR2 LN Small Construct (Myr) HD3 Init:+3 Senses: Perception:+3 Aura:  Stats- Str:14(+2) Dex:16(+3) Con:- Int:5(-3) Wis:14(+2) Cha:12(+1) BAB:+3 Space:2.5ft Reach:0ft Defense- HP:26(3d10+10) AC:14(+3 Dexterity, +1 Size) Fort:- Ref:+3 Will:+2 CMD:17 Resist: Immunity: Weakness: Special Defenses: Construct Traits Offense- 2 Claw +3(1d4+2), Beam +5(4d4 Force, 30ft Touch) CMB:+4 Speed:30ft Special Attacks:  Feats- Multiattack, Weapon Focus (Claw) Skills- Acrobatics +4, Perception +3 Spell-like Abilities-  Share Memory /at-will Make Whole 1/day Special Qualities- Scrying Focus Ecology- Environment- Any Languages- Common (Can’t speak) Organization- Guard (2), Squadron (6) Treasure-  Special Abilities- Scrying Focus (Su)- Myr are perfect vessels for scrying on. They get a -5 penalty to saves against spells with the Scrying descriptor, and magical sensors made to scry on a myr and its surroundings get a +5 bonus against rolls to perceive it. Additionally, myr- and any object or creature they are in contact with- are not protected by spells such as Nondetection and Screen.

Battle myr are among the simplest of their kin, basic creatures programmed to detect intruders and protect their designated charges. They are scarily organized in combat and vast in number; scholars of the Plane of Metal worry what may happen if they are brought to the Material Plane.

There are two primary variations on battle myr; the one shown above, which have large claws, and a variation with dextrous hands that has proficiency with all martial weapons. Beyond those variations, there are a number of other similar small myr, such as those with wings, psychic powers, or electric energy.

[sav-less]

🚨 NEW MC 🚨 this is the MC from the upcoming Sebastian fic :) see Seb’s characterization here (x)

Anya Westwood — ‘The Soldier’

Born to an unnamed family and transferred to a secret facility to train as an assassin, Anya’s mastered the delicate language of combat. Between her life before Hogwarts and the Goblin Rebellion, she’s got a lot more blood on her hands than she’d like to admit.

Ready to clean herself of it, she embarks on one final journey to uncover her past. And she’s willing to do anything to get what she’s owed— even make a deal with the devil.

Date of Birth: November 4, 1874

Blood Status: Unknown

Wand: Nine inches, Unyielding, Yew wood, Dragon Heartstring

Strengths: Hand to hand combat, psychological manipulation, memory alteration, Occlumency, ancient magic attacks, identity transfiguration

Lore Headcanons

The facility she’s transferred to is within the Department of Mysteries; training administered by Unspeakables in the Brain and Death field. Its mission is to create soldiers that will spy on and eliminate international wizarding threats— because even wizards aren’t immune to war. They specifically recruit children with no family, making them disposable in the eyes of the Ministry.

While her ancient magic capabilities waited until she was 15, her basic magic developed normally around the age of ten. But the witches and wizards being trained were not allowed to attend a school like Hogwarts. Instead, they received specialized education from within the Ministry.

Soldiers ‘graduate’ from the training at the age of 16, after undergoing a series of physical and mental challenges meant to prepare them for espionage and lethal combat. After graduation, soldiers are required to serve the Ministry for a variety of missions. Anya completed the training, but never officially graduated out of the program before leaving for Hogwarts.

When her powers fully manifested, she tried to leave— it was only after she killed six guards and destroyed an entire floor of intel that they reported her presence to Headmaster Black in hopes of getting her under control.

The Ministry intended to erase her memories of the program entirely, but since they trained her to be exceptional at Occlumency, it was incomplete. She lives with the memories of her training and the pain she endured, but the names and faces of those involved have been removed.

It was because of her known strength that the Ministry refused to step in during the Goblin Rebellion. They knew who she was and what she was capable of, so despite Fig’s many pleas— they let her face it alone.

The Sorting Hat took a long time to sort her. Conflicted by her lack of identity and her Occlumency walls, it had a hard time finding her true values. It eventually settled on Slytherin, as it could sense her determination the clearest.

She’s certainly overpowered but not without consequence— this will be explored in further posts and her fic.

“She’s tired of playing soldier; when will she learn she was always destined to be a weapon in somebody else’s war?”

Beyond the Veil coming soooooon.

[sylvan-librarian]

The Last of the Animists: Exploring the Concept of Animism and How it Defines Nissa Revane

Prologue

Since the characterization of Nissa in the Kaladesh block is such a massive undertaking due to the density and quality of material therein, I decided at first to take a little break from my regularly scheduled programming (i.e. - having a public, frenzied, and unhinged obsession with my favorite Magic the Gathering character). However, I couldn’t stay away from the topic entirely, so here we are. 

Introduction

The source of Nissa’s magic, its manifestation within Magic’s lore, and how it is represented mechanically on cards has intrigued me to no end over the years. Mechanically, I always felt that Nissa’s cards stood out more than the other two regularly-printed green planeswalkers (Garruk and Vivien). Garruk and Vivien cards often do what you would imagine a green planeswalker would do: create 3/3 green beast creature tokens, tutor creatures from your library, give overrun effects to your board, etc. The design space across these two characters’ cards always felt limited and uninspired to me. One of the things that intrigued me about Nissa, Worldwaker (read about my love for that card here) when I first encountered it in 2014 was the fact that it played around with lands rather than creatures: it animated lands into beaters, it untapped lands, it fetched lands from its owner’s library. This struck me as a unique, inspired design at the time, and it made me feel excited to use the card.

However, while yes, I have always found Nissa’s skillset a unique design for green planeswalkers – a fact that makes the desparkening all that much more disappointing to me – my primary interest in Nissa’s magic as a deranged Vorthos is how it is described in and displayed throughout the stories. 

Nissa, as we are often told in post-“Nissa, Worldwaker” stories, is the last of the animists, a rare type of mage on Zendikar who can hear the voice of the world itself, but the plane of Zendikar rarely had anything nice to say; in “Nissa's Origin: Home,” Nissa’s mother, Meroe says that the soul of the land, which so often is a source of terrible nightmares for Nissa, “was never after anything other than random destruction.” Animism, we learn, is a taboo brand of magic to the Joraga (the tribe Nissa belongs to), and Numa, the Joraga chieftain, exiles Nissa because he, like many others, believes that the inherent anger of the land is due to some untold, unknown blasphemy enacted on the world by the animists. He tells Meroe, “[y]our people angered Zendikar and they paid the price. There is a reason that you are the last of the animists.” We come to understand that the reason for the plane of Zendikar’s anger is due to the Eldrazi Titans’ imprisonment on it. The world recoils in disgust at the eldritch monstrosities who eternally strive to break free of their imprisonment and consume and pervert every living thing in their way; the plane’s anger feels justified in this light, but almost no one on Zendikar understands this, not even Nissa or her mother. 

So in short, animism in Magic the Gathering is the ability to connect with the soul of the world itself which allows animists like Nissa to (among other things) animate the land itself into living creatures that can fight alongside them. 

However, the concept of animism has meaning beyond the lore of Magic; why did Magic’s designers label Nissa’s powers this way, and how can a real world understanding of animism help us understand Nissa in a new way? 

Part I: The Animation of All Nature 

Animism is a term developed all the way back in the 1870’s by British anthropologist Sir Edward Tylor as a method to describe similarities in “primitive” religions. Let’s take a quick moment to acknowledge that Tylor was a bearded white man living in colonial-era Britain using words like “primitive” to describe the religions and philosophies of people he will never meet, many of whom were currently unwilling subjects of his own government. This is an unfortunate commonality in academic studies. That aside, Tylor’s description of animism gives us our first understanding of this term. He writes in his 1871 anthropological treatise Primitive Culture that “[f]irst and foremost among the causes which transfigure into myths the facts of daily experience, is the belief in the animation of all nature, rising at its highest pitch to personification” (emphasis mine). In other, simpler words, animists personify the natural world, assigning traditionally human traits to immobile objects. The root of the current English word animate, after all, comes from the Latin animus, which means “soul, spirit, mind.” The “animation of all nature,” then, refers to the belief that what we might call objects of the natural world have their own interiority. Tylor writes elsewhere that animism is

[a]n idea of pervading life and will in nature far outside modern limits, a belief in personal souls animating even what we call inanimate bodies, a theory of transmigration of souls as well in life as after death, a sense of crowds of spiritual beings sometimes flitting through the air, but sometimes also inhabiting trees and rocks and waterfalls, and so lending their own personality to such material objects.

Humanity’s relationship to nature, then, becomes that of subject-subject rather than that of subject-object. 

What does this say about Nissa, though? If you’re thinking that the above description is frighteningly similar to how Nissa views the world, you’d be right. While what Tylor argued back in the 1870’s was that animism is a crude belief system that would eventually evolve to the rise of world religions and later on the rejection of religion in rational society, Nissa’s practice of animism is very much alive and vibrant. It is hammered home often that Nissa deeply respects the personhood of objects, whether they be trees, animals, or even the ground itself. We see this very clearly in this long selection from the beginning of the Battle for Zendikar story “The Silent Cry”:

Every day there was something new, something Zendikar taught Nissa that surprised and delighted her. The land had hundreds of magnificent secrets, and it was sharing them with her.   She would never have guessed that the giant mantises secreted a scent meant to simulate the odor of fresh worms and thus attract small song birds—but not for the mantises to prey on, rather for the purpose of enjoying the birds' melodies. The songs were one of the few things capable of lulling the mantises into an easy sleep. Nor would she have known that the vines draped between the close-growing, towering heart trees of the Vastwood Forest were more like arms than vines—arms that were holding hands. Each vine grew out of the trunks of two trees; it did not belong to one tree more than the other, it was shared equally between them, a tether that bound the trees. The vines connected one heart tree with its chosen companion, and allowed the two to share memories, feelings, and dreams. These trees were linked forever; they mated for life. And the gnarlids, the silly, beastly, sneaky gnarlids; they had a ritual that they managed to keep hidden from most everyone else on Zendikar. On the darkest nights, when there was no moon but the skies were clear, the gnarlids scaled the tallest trees, poking their heads above the canopies, and they laughed at the stars. Little breathy snickers that to anyone else listening sounded like nothing more than the leaves of the highest branches rustling in the wind. It was an inside joke meant only for them. Equally as impressive was the tribe of humans who lived in the lowest canopy of the Vastwood's trees—not in a central encampment, but spread out through the expanse of the forest. Five or six humans shared each treehouse hamlet, and there were over a dozen hamlets. The tribe was able to stay well informed of each other's movements and needs thanks to their ancestors, who had closely studied the language of the chatter sloths. The people sent messages to each other by speaking to the nearest chatter sloth. It was only a matter of minutes before the sloth would relate the gossip to its neighbors, who would pass it along through the network of tree dwellers. Soon all humans in the tribe would know of the hamlet's news thanks to the little gossipmongers.

It’s important here that Nissa shares equal amazement with the goings on of plants and animals as she does with the ingenuity of her fellow sentient mortals; to her, they are no different. To Nissa, the “animation of all nature” is not some crude, outdated philosophy that has been surpassed by rationality. It is her everyday reality. 

Of course, however, Magic the Gathering is a game of wizards battling each other, and its worlds and characters are full of wonder and, well, magic. The “animation of all nature” has another meaning to Nissa in that she can call out to the interior soul of immobile objects and, in a non-metaphorical way, personify them … as in, she can “animate” objects into living, walking, thinking, fighting creatures with a will of their own. In the first story of the Zendikar Rising arc, “In the Heart of the Skyclave,” Nissa and Nahiri, looking for a specific object of interest, are at a loss at which place to begin hunting for it in a giant, city-sized airborne dungeon when Nissa spots a lone fern:

Nissa crouched down to one of the ferns. Its leaves were as large as she was, but its flowers were tiny, delicate, and blue. "How is it possible for plants to thrive here?" Nahiri asked, coming up behind her. Nissa smiled. "You'd be surprised at how many things thrive in unlikely places on this plane." "How—" Nahiri began to speak again, but Nissa tuned her out. She rested a hand on the top of the fern, like a parent's hand on the head of a child. She closed her eyes and felt its life under her fingers, felt its struggle and its pride in surviving in such a foreboding place. Nissa smiled at that strength and that pride. And she called it forth. She heard Nahiri give a gasp as the elemental emerged into existence. It was a tall thing, twice her height, green and vibrant as its life force, its head a mass of fronds with small chains of blue flowers entwining its arms and neck.

The dual meaning of the “animation of all nature” is on display here. Nissa very clearly acknowledges the personhood of the fern, using terms usually reserved for descriptions of the lives of people like struggle and pride, and at the same time she animates the stationary fern into a creature, a person with a will of its own and strength to match. In the end, many elements of the Zendikar Rising arc were lacking, but I always found this particular scene to be a wonderful marriage of the best parts of Magic story: great character moments tied together with a childlike wonder at the beauty and power of magic.

Part II: Infinite Possibilities

Anthropology, however, has moved far beyond its Victorian, colonialist roots. On the same note, Nissa has grown and expanded far beyond the borders of what she previously was.

In 2006, anthropologist Tim Ingold published an essay titled Rethinking the Animate, Re-Animating Thought that reevaluates the concept of animism (there are, of course, many evolutionary steps between the philosophies of 1871 and those of 2006, but for the purposes of this piece, suffice it to say that things have changed). Ingold’s primary thesis is that animism should be considered less of a primitive branch of religious thought and more of an ontological philosophy, an experience of being present in the world. In his research, Ingold provides this anecdote:

One man from among the Wemindji Cree, native hunters of northern Canada, offered the following meaning to the ethnographer Colin Scott. Life, he said, is ‘continuous birth.’ I want to nail that to my door! It goes to the heart of the matter. To elaborate: life in the animic ontology is not an emanation but a generation of being, in a world that is not pre-ordained but incipient, forever on the verge of the actual. One is continually present as witness to that moment, always moving like the crest of a wave, at which the world is about to disclose itself for what it is.

This is a lot to unpack, but let’s use this to point out the similarities and differences between the previous 1871 understanding of animism. Like Tylor’s initial exploration of the concept, Ingold’s animists still treat the world around them with same respect and reverence; they still, in other words, still interact with the world with a subject-subject relationship instead of a more rational subject-object relationship. However, instead of fixating on the spiritual aspects of animism (i.e. - the inherent soul of inanimate objects), this modern take is more of a state of being, a practice of actively engaging with the world around you. 

Ingold, in other places, argues that, while yes, animism intentionally blurs the line between what is considered ‘alive’ and what is not, the true cornerstone of an animist ontology is the process of change:

Wherever there is life there is movement … The movement of life is specifically of becoming rather than being, of renewal along a path rather than displacement in space. Every creature, as it ‘issues forth’ and trails behind, moves in its characteristic way. The sun is alive because of the way it moves through the firmament, but so too are the trees because of the particular ways their boughs sway or their leaves flutter in the wind, and because of the sounds they make in doing so.

An animist, then, in this ontology is in a responsive, conversational relationship with the world around them. They wouldn’t fixate, for example, on the personhood of a tree, but they would know how to have a positive, symbiotic relationship with the tree.

What does this new way of looking at animism have to do with Nissa Revane, though? It seemed like Tylor’s outdated definition of animism already had both Nissa’s worldview and the manifestation of her magic pegged down. What could be added? Well, like the definition of animism, like this “world that is not pre-ordained but incipient, forever on the verge of the actual,” Nissa herself has changed drastically in recent years.

If I had the time and bandwidth, I might set out to argue that, of all Magic’s heroes in the last decade, Nissa has gone through the most character growth of any of them; she has shifted through the most colors and she has gone through the most development of any other planeswalker. However, for the purposes of this piece, I’m going to focus on the most recent story (to date) that Nissa has appeared in: Grace P. Fong’s “She Who Breaks the World.” Now, I’ve made it no secret that this is my favorite piece of Magic fiction since the Ixalan days, so I’m certainly biased here, but the narrative meat in this text is rich and vibrant.

When we pick back up with Nissa in “She Who Breaks the World,” we find her at likely the lowest point we have ever seen her at. Her agonies are manyfold at this point. To start, she is still reeling from the unbearable trauma of what the Phyrexians did to her. She had set out with a strike team of her planeswalker allies to stop the Phyrexian invasion of the multiverse, but upon their failure, Nissa, along with many of the others, were captured. Her mind was chemically altered against her will to be utterly, completely submissive to the will of Elesh Norn (the Phyrexian leader, if this essay somehow reaches beyond the MTG sphere). Similarly, her body (again, against her will) was then chemically and mechanically altered to be more in line with the Phyrexian understanding of perfection. Then, Norn used Nissa’s body, mind, and animist powers to launch an invasion of the entire multiverse; Nissa ended up being instrumental in this process because it was her animist abilities that allowed Norn to directly control the Invasion Tree.

Nissa was eventually freed from the Phyrexians’ control in the aftermath of the war, her mind given back to her, and as much of the grafted metal removed from her body as could safely be removed. However, no level of healing could “cleanse the memories of what she had done” while her mind was under the domination of Phyrexia. She understandably has trouble forgiving herself for what she did, whether she had agency in the act or not.

Secondly, if that wasn’t bad enough, after she woke up with her mind intact, she discovered that she had lost her planeswalker spark. While she is not alone in this (all of the other planeswalkers currently on Zhalfir aside from Chandra lost theirs as well), it hits Nissa particularly hard because, for one Nissa has always had a deep connection to her home world of Zendikar, and secondly, Zhalfir is full of people she tried to ruthlessly kill while under the influence of Phyrexia. She cut down in cold blood dozens, if not hundreds, of these survivors’ friends and family. While the surviving Mirrans and Zhalfrins understand that she did not have control of herself during this time and forgave her, Nissa does not feel incredibly comfortable living around people she so directly harmed. She is restlessly homesick with no feasible way to get home and stuck with people she doesn’t feel worthy enough to be around. Furthermore, Nissa’s planeswalker powers are integral to the identity she has created for herself. This sense of self is just one more thing she has lost.

And lastly, there is the issue with Chandra. While they were technically a romantic couple after they kissed at the end of the previous March of the Machines story, “The Rhythms of Life,” things are still far from well between them. Apart from the tremendous guilt and shame Nissa feels from what she did to Chandra during the Phyrexian story arc (Nissa almost killed Chandra multiple times, one time even impaling her), both of them are still dealing with the fallout of their breakup as described in War of the Spark: Forsaken (even typing the name of that book makes me feel ill). Nissa wonders if Chandra can ever love her the way she needs and if that is even a reasonable thing to ask of her after all the two of them have recently gone through.

While this was a long, drawn-out summary, I think it was necessary to show what Nissa is going through on the cusp of her metamorphosis. The depression she is feeling along with what could probably be described as PTSD has left her stuck in the past. She laments the fact that she no longer hears the voice of nature. The leyline songs are completely silent, and when she calls out to the soul she knows dwells in all the objects in the world around her, nothing answers. She assumes this is punishment for what the Phyrexians made her do. 

She’s wrong, however. Nissa and Chandra finally have a moment of understanding between the two of them, and as a part of this intimate moment, Nissa finally admits that her animist power no longer work; when Chandra expresses surprise at this, Nissa responds,

"They won't listen to me. I tried. Many times. But when I call out to them, it's like my voice isn't my own. Like it belongs to Phyrexia instead, like everything I've ever connected to is drowning me out." For once, Chandra pauses. "You know," she concludes. "You have good connections, too." "What do you mean?" "It's true—you did bad things while they had you. But everyone you've connected with over the years with the Gatewatch, we're just happy you're still here. With us." Chandra sets fire to a chunk of moist dirt that was about to fall on Nissa, turning it into a soft rain of ash. "With me." For the first time since she awoke in Zhalfir, Nissa smiles. Chandra, sweet Chandra, even if she doesn't realize it, has always understood and explained emotions better than Nissa ever could. Chandra continues, "Your connections aren't drowning your voice, Nissa. They're changing it into something new, maybe something even more powerful. Infinite voices, infinite possibilities, right?" Infinite possibilities. Nissa offers her hand to Chandra. "All right, let's try." Gripping Chandra's fingers in hers, Nissa closes her eyes. She retreats inward and listens for her inner voice. It's hard, much harder than before, but Chandra is dutifully helping her concentrate, blasting the falling rock away before it can reach her.

Nissa is greeted by ringing deep in her ears, but she refuses to be deterred. With her connections in mind, she picks the static apart into unique melodies, the individual songs she picked up from all around the Multiverse. She arranges them, harmonizes them, and this time, when she calls to Zhalfir, her voice is amplified in chorus. She offers an apology. The plane answers. It too was cut off from everything it knew, from the connections it had made. It, too, was scarred by Phyrexia and is growing into something new. It forgives her, and Nissa can finally forgive herself. Magic floods her flesh, her blood, her bone. She hears Chandra laugh, delighted by their success.

I could literally talk forever about this scene, how it is also a marriage of everything I love about Magic Story, but let’s zero in on how Nissa’s change in perspective is similar to how animism has changed meanings over the past one-hundred and fifty years.

In the same way that Tylor was fixated on how “primitive” he felt animism was, how it was just a cultural stepping stone on the way to enlightenment, Nissa remained fixated on her animist powers. To her, the voices of the natural world were oftentimes more real to her than the voices of her friends. The songs of the leylines, the elementals she could animate with a whisper, the power she wielded in defense of the worldsoul … To Nissa, these were all in all.

However, what Nissa learns from Chandra in the climax of “She Who Breaks the World'' is to accept that life is exactly what Ingold calls a “continuous birth.” Nissa embraces this conversational relationship with the world around her, and nature is no longer all in all to her. Hand in hand with Chandra, Nissa now lives “in a world that is not pre-ordained but incipient, forever on the verge of the actual,” as Ingold puts it, and a world of “infinite possibilities,” as Fong puts it.

As the definition of real-world animism has shifted over the years, so too has Nissa’s magical animism. She used to obsess over her connection with nature with religious fervor, and even though Nissa worshiped no gods, her devotion to the soul of the world around her was stronger than many devout worshippers on Theros. However, in “She Who Breaks the World,” Nissa learns to recognize that she, and the rest of the world around her, is alive because she moves in her own “characteristic way.”

Epilogue

While I have certainly been burned by WotC’s treatment of Nissa in the past, I am cautiously excited for the stories that can now be told about her. Nissa is currently set up to grow and expand in interesting ways, and I hope (beyond hope) that future Magic stories starring Nissa will continue on the path that Fong set her on.

Nissa may be the last of the animists, but that doesn’t mean she can’t be the first of something else. I’m excited to see what that “something else” will be.

Bibliography

Every source quoted in this essay is linked directly before the quote in question. I was too lazy to create a reference page today. Sorry! 😬

[thebrokenmechanicalpencil]

Mold the Body, Burn the mind, the Heart is still the same.

(@quibble-auk hehehehehe some Comet lore, and your BOY. Oh and angst and stuff. War and casualties. )

Within the medical bay sat a very odd bot, that was the rumors that circulated after the failed forward march at the front. And the influx of wounded that crashed into the base after. The front line medical units were completely overwhelmed with casualties, dead and the soon to be flooding in. Not many made it off the tarmac.Those that did were in dire straits. Busted and fractured armor littered the open halls from the rush to bring in the soldiers. From the look of it that battalion had been shelled beyond hell by seekers. Some were so badly maimed the medics had no choice but to put them down. “Why would they send him here, he should never have made it off the ground.” One in particular was critical. A red and black frontliner who’s gladiator programming almost led to a medic losing a hand. He would have if not for he red mech’s companion.

Holding on tight and stopping any rampages was a small mech. Green and dark eyed he had soothed the bot and made it so the medics could complete triage. The ex gladiator had severe busted internal lines and was drowning in his own energon. He was sent into surgery the moment he could be sedated. His friend, as most assumed, stayed out to help with the unloading of casualties. He spoke a word to no one, moved quickly.

Hours later the surgeries had all been done, wounds patched, limbs reattached and all they could do was wait. Waiting was the worst part of a base when under a deluge of the dead. It was a grim reminder to all far from the front that the war was happening whether they remembered or not. Slowly the bots who could be transported were shipped off to better equipped facilities. Some had to stay. One of those was the red mech and his green guardian.

The mech did not leave the med bay often, he stayed firmly by the bedside of his companion who could not be moved, nor had woken up. Every bot that entered the facility took a peak at the strange mech. Hunkered by a bedside, never leaving to refuel.

He noticed every glance. 

Comet knew the not so polite stares quite intimately. Ever since he was young they followed him. Nudging and poking at his skin. That's why he hated odd bases and strange med bays. Too many questions. Too many eyes. Bots were nosy by nature and he didn't need that. Not right now. He was wound too tight to be questioned by stupid creatures. He let out a slow sigh at the bitterness in his mind. He had no right to be cruel, he spared a glance at the trio of medics working. All of them had been kind enough to let him stay and wait for Sideswipe. None had ratted him out and got him redeployed. 

He would be less tense, he knew that, if Sunstreaker was here. He would know what to do. Sunstreaker would be telling him all the slag Sideswipe was saying about him over the bond. He would be there at his side, the protective force he had always been.

 But, because life was cruel to those who loved, instead of Comet being on the side of the crater that exploded, it was Sunny. 

They had lost contact the second the convoy was hit. Mechs and weapons scattered and lost, energon and ash everywhere. Comet knew he should have been awake when it happened. He should have heard the birds and their rumbles. He could have commed Sunny and told him to stop helping and move. He could have shoved Sideswipe under him. 

Another deep breasted sigh, he needed to stop. This was going nowhere. Comet in time with his heart beats marked out what he knew. Sunstreaker would need to find a safe place to contact anyone first. He wasn't stupid. It would take time. Sunny was going to find them. Comet hugged onto Sideswipe’s hand he held in his grip, noticing with a squeeze to his heart, it was so much smaller than what it had been when Comet was a child.  He gazed down at Sideswipe’s cracked face plate and patched stomach. His older brother had never looked so frail. Comets' skin flared. The medics had begun to move, he gently released Sideswipes hand. His paranoia wouldn't let him sit while they walked around, it was too much vulnerability on top of everything else.

Slowly CometEater stretched and sniffed the air. He wrinkled his nose at the smell. That was another thing keeping him on edge. He walked around the berth holding his beaten blackened brother, mind whirling. He slid his hand firmly into his brothers, after his aching lap around the berth. Comet’s hip had been hurt during the explosion, he could feel it. It cracked and strained under every twist of the joint. It was rather ironic, he allowed an amused hum as he sat back down, that he couldn’t ask for any help with the problem in a med bay of all places. Comet ran his thumb softly along his brother’s as he stretched out the offending piece of him. He would have to wait till he saw Ratchet again, he was the only one who could help him. The slagger might have been mean, but he knew how to sort out Comet’s internal workings like no other. And Comet wasn't about to introduce himself as an alien life form to one of these weird smelling medics with a pamphlet and ask for help.

Yep it had to be one of them, that smell. He sniffed deeply as the smaller one, Jeopardy? Began his rounds with the other patients. That odor however did not belong to him. It wasn’t right. He smelt, well he smelt like antiseptic and energon. But beyond that, his spark smelt like warm wood. Not the smell that was hiding beyond Comet’s senses.

Comet knew the smell of a spark well, better than even the taste of one. The way they sizzle on his tongue. It was a light smell that clung to every cybertronian alive. It made his mouth water if he didnt watch himself nowadays, if the hunger grew bigger than his heart.

 Their odd sizzly hearts were all different, he remembered most if not all the smells and who they belonged to. Now it wasn't an overpowering scent, no their thick armor and paint helped hide it, but if you breathe in deep enough you could taste it in the back of your throat.

He knew his two brother’s scents very well, waxy and heavy. Sideswipe was peppery however, Sunstreakers deep and dark. It coated his heart and made him warm to smell it.

This new smell, was different. It was the faintest spark he had ever caught wind of. Made him uneasy.

It was marred and smothered in other scents. Like the extra plating a mech can wear over his natural shell. He felt bile rise in his throat.

It reminded him of how Sunrazor’s spark smelt. That's how he knew she actually had one under all those scars and thick plating. He had snatched the scent when he had opened her chest in a particular battle ago. It had hit him like a wave.

She smelt burnt.

Like hot metal, it had shrouded some other scent he knew had to actually be her heart. No one smelt purely of hot and stress. Her hardware had been hurt badly, her innards scraped of her spark’s presence. But, Comet had struck deep enough to catch what had been hidden. 

Sunrazor smelt like deep water. The deep green water back home.

Now as he sat firmly holding  Sideswipe’s hand, far from that twin creature who smelt like his old home, he still almost gagged.

He redirected his mind however when the odd muster of a smell caught his attention again. Comet could almost catch it. It was so buried, like Sunrazor’s it had tried to be hidden away past other smells. 

Usually he didn't sit around and sniff people, he noticed scents. It took him a while to notice that his brother’s hearts had a smell. But now that scent was so close to familiar it was clenching his muscles and grinding his teeth. Because it was hiding. Someone didn't want to be found and Cometeater knew why things hid their scents. Same reason why he wears this skin. 

He felt eyes dig into his flesh once more, not the soft pecks of glances. A hard stare. It was a knowing curious stare. Comet felt himself stiffen sharply, the faint scent was very close now. He tilted his head up ever so slowly to find a large mech planted at a desk, datapad in hand. He wasn't facing Comet, his red and black helm down. Don't take the description of down as a weak display however. The mech in question had a beyond familiar build. A flash slipped past Comet’s eyes. Glares. Breathes. Yelling. Blood. Pain. Fear. Watching. Family.

He breathed in carefully as he tilted his helm. The coy smell was close, close enough to be deciphered.

Comet knew him. 

Like the smell of your own turf, trees, rocks and sand.

The mech smelt of the Pit.

He had tried to wash and scrub and layer but he still smelt of the arenas. The energon he had bathed in clung to him. Past those already dead smells was his heart.

It smelt of cold glass. Warmth within and cold on its clear skin.

He could hide his teeth and strength but his spark would always smell the same.

The same cold that had gnawed at Comet when he was young. Those same optics had stared at him once before, in the same vein. Curious. As they did now, perfectly composed and for the first time in a very long time, Comet felt his hackles raise in the presence of the mech in front of him. 

“Dropmix.”

(next)

[retphienix]

it still annoys me that Fawkes' "You're destiny culminates here" moment is so thoroughly memed as a sign that FO3 is terribly written, when it's honestly par for the course for the story they were telling; a very simple "Good vs Evil" RPG story that needed to end with a good or evil option because it was 2008 and we were still drooling over fable 1's 2004 depiction of those decisions.

I mean hell, Fallout 3 released only a few days after Fable 2, we were waist deep in these things, it was the style at the time.

The game was ending it's straight forward story and wanted to end with a nice big boom, and sacrificing yourself is like, still common in "good ending" stories in games right here and now- having Fawkes, the most well read companion who dwells on the deeper meaning of actions- even naming themselves based on what they deemed a thematically appropriate reference- see our story as it is written- with our father's sacrifice and the immense importance of this action- and say some bullshit artsy "Destiny" line is like- so fucking expected and normal for a video game story that it's impressive it caught anyone's attention beyond school yard "Well Akchtually, they should have done it so I could keep being a wastelander 🤓" discussions.

His dialogue in that scene is just a nudge to stay on track for the big sacrifice scene that tugs on the strings of immersion /slightly/. (not even harshly). And it was probably done to avoid adding like 15 more ending slides (3 companions are immune, good and evil variants, FEV and non FEV variants etc)- the same justification done for plenty of FO3 and NV things.

It kind of isn't a matter of "Well it doesn't make sense", and it's much more of just a narrative plot pushing video game moment- it's nowhere near high literature- it's just "what it is". Similar to how you can't actually take over the strip with your interesting charisma, speech skill, and powerful ballistic fist in NV- you have to doom the world to an upcoming robot uprising because they railroaded you into that instead.

It's legitimately so bog standard that if hating FO3 wasn't a meme in and of itself then it wouldn't come up. If anything people'd have fun little conversations about which of the 3 radiation immune companions do a worst job of maintaining immersion for that story moment.

(It's RL-3. Charon is a dickass with a vague "contract" of loyalty- the vagueness leaves plenty enough room for him to say no because we don't actually know what the limits are- it's all hearsay. Fawkes is an artsy fuck who definitely thinks they are providing a meaningful end to a meaningful life. RL-3 is a robot programmed to obey us- no amount of military lingo alters that he's given an order and says "No Sir!")

it would be a fun tidbit people bring up every handful of years and go "Hey, isn't it funny how Fawkes could have done it? Ha!'' but that isn't how the fallout community handled it.

It being the style doesn't excuse bad writing, but that's the thing, it's just "neutral/popcorn narrative" writing, with some fun ideas written here and there.

Fallout 3's writing overall isn't half bad- the worst it does is "be written by a different team than Fallout 1+2" and "Be written in the exhaustively hot epicenter of good/evil video game narratives" which is like... yeah, obviously it's that.

But even within that "sin" they take the time to explain the lore as to why factions depicted in 3 are different than 1-2 (such as the BoS we witness in 3 being an offshoot that abandoned the BoS way), and they try to explore what you can do within the standardized "good/evil" formula in a /few/ quests, about as much as you'd expect for a 2008 release still trying to fit within the current fad design.

Anyways, Fawkes' moment at the "end of the game" is thoroughly memed as a sign that the game is devoid of good writing logic or reason and is just stupid railroading- and it's not even how the game operates for 99% of players because of broken steel, a DLC that extended the end of the game into an infinite sandbox (because players wanted it) and allowed you to use Fawkes, RL-3, or Charon in the "sacrifice" scene instead, since all 3 are immune to radiation.

You know, the version of the game everyone plays today, the one where instead of the ""iconic"" immersion breaking line Fawkes says this:

Yeah.

I think in reality it bothers me mostly because what is effectively a removed voice line is treated as the smoking gun- when the exact event people "demanded" be possible and continue to claim couldn't happen- literally happens.

Fawkes goes in for you.

That's how the game has worked ever since 2009.

His fucking removed voice line is still the first thing you see on his fandom wiki page, as well as being the final "noteworthy quote" instead of including his revised lines anywhere in those areas.

Cute, I guess.

Anways, Fawkes is a neat super mutant concept- I often forget like 99% of their character (since FO3 isn't companion writing focused) but revisiting it in Tale of Two Wastelands is reminding me that as a "concept" I like them a lot. I think they do a good job of presenting it when you meet them too- it's just a shame that Fallout 3 didn't do companion quests to further explore them because I like what's presented and how it's voice acted- but then they just become the gatling laser companion who screams in combat a bunch.

[king-of-confections]

_.:HISTORY TIMELINE:._

1982 - THE ARCADE OPENS.

TurboTime, one of the many arcade games that are set up at Litwak's, is finally plugged in and ready to recieve coins for a good race~ 🏆

These are known by Turbo as 'the glory days'.

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↓

1987 - GOING TURBO.

We all know what this is. What made Turbo's name go down in infamy: getting two games unplugged for his own selfishness, and the rest is history.

The few things Turbo was able to salvage from his own home apart from his own code are: the twins' codes, and his game's mascot: Tyrus.

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↓

1997 - A NEW HOME, UNINVITED.

Sugar Rush is plugged in!

After ten years of hiding, his code crying out to do what he was made for, a light in the dark tunnel, that he made for himself, appears for the homeless racer- a light that did not belong to him, but he would take regardless, because who wouldn't?

Sugar Rush' short-lived monarchy by Vanellope would get shoved aside by a new face, their true ruler- King Candy.

And because he wasn't able to save Tyrus' coding to implant into Sugar Rush as well, King Candy has had to attach Tyrus' character to his own, like a leech.

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↓

2012 - THE CRASH.

Events of the movie ensue, up to Turbo's demise, which ends up causing his giant, old code box to explode within the code room, completely crashing the game Sugar Rush.

Upon restarting, Turbo regenerated along with the world and it's inhabitants, albeit accompanied by his cybrid form from which he can semi-control the ability to shift between that and his racer form, thinking he has full control over it- and still concerned about Ralph, Vanellope & co. ruining his game, the racer feels a new wave of confidence now that he has a more 'direct' form of putting a halt to things.

...Except he doesn't. Because there is no Vanellope nor Ralph to be found. In fact- the exit to Game Central Station isn't even there as it was supposed to be before! But, the citizens of Sugar Rush have no idea what their king is rambling on about.

Very few are aware of their king's peculiar ability to transform (with the occasional glitching back to a stranger racer form they don't reocgnize, be he is their ruler after all, so who are they to question it? Not that they'd know what to ask.).

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2013 - FAMILY.

Foolishly assuming he had full control over his cy-bug form with no consequences, Turbo neglects most of what his insectoid half demands of him: kill, eat, multiply. This led to the monarch's already-volatile mood (especially with everything that's happened) to accentuate to the point where he: A) started to struggle to keep his racer form, making him unable to race more than once, and B) started to attack his own subjects, attempting to eat them.

Oh and, of course the unpleasant surprise to find out he could lay eggs. And the more he smashed each clutch, the more his bug-half would grow distressed and the more he would make- so... eventually, even the greatest racer ever had to accept defeat, since there is no winning against a virus' coding. Now he's the turbotastic father of 10 to 15 spawns, not much but hey- enough to get his stupid bug code to pipe down... some are humanoid, that end up being much bigger than Turbo himself in his insectoid form, others are cy-bugs that just never grow up but grow old mentally, though not all; some become self-aware and develop conciousness, other remain feral and stick to their coding, some remain perpetually babies that need to be looked after; both the gigantism and growth defects (mentally and physically) in them is due to the disastrous mess going on back in the code room.

As the not so rightful ruler of Sugar Rush, King Candy begun to take his bug-half a bit more seriously, if it means he'll be able to control it enough to be able to just race.

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↓

2014 - WE MEET... AGAIN?

Of course, after the crash, once the chaos and initial shock of having died had settled a bit, King Candy tried to access the Code Room to see for himself more clearly just what was going on- safe to say he is barely able to access to the Program to nagivate through it- the Code Room has transformed into a glitching, disorganized malfunctioning mess. The entangled guts of his own code have spilled out into the game's untouched programming and now it's tainted; attempting to navigate through it not only is a difficult chore for the king, but it can end up harming him too if not careful! Pulling on the wrong wire can end up de-stabilizing his form into a jumbled mess of pixels...

Genuinely concerned about what this meant for the game itself other than just him, and after finally realizing that his original game's mascot that he'd secretly kept inside his castle had gone missing, King Candy would begin to explore the lands for himself. This led to the discovery of cy-bug infested areas, clones of himself running around- some so changed and warped by the program that they turned into completely different individuals, and... TurboTime.

An area of Sugar Rush, far away... a small portion of the sweet land transformed into the racetracks of his original game, it had the audience, everything... even the Turbo Twins, his old competition- the game had programmed them in to regenerate.

He doesn't question it, he's not horrified- King Candy is nostalgic, he is in awe. But the twins don't recognize this strange monarch wandering alone...

That is, until his accidental glitching back to his original form out of excitement upon exploring TurboTime after so many years; 'His Majesty' is confronted by the twins, the initial shock eventually causing a scandal in front of the NPC pixelated audience, and some of the other cybrids, cy-bugs & other creatures watching from afar. This led to a rather indecorous fight between the three racers, and drama, probably the biggest one they've ever had since their game was plugged in.

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2017-2021 - LOCKED UP.

Turbo goes through a mid-life existential crisis. How long has it been? With nowhere out of Sugar Rush and no screen for a player... what is he racing for? He feels trapped, locked up to be forgotten, and begins questioning what it's worth to keep racing. But he couldn't stop, racing is his life.

He was made to be adored, the protagonist of his game. Players loved him, as they should- but now they aren't there anymore. If there isn't a screen... or an exit to Game Central Station, are they even inside an Arcade anymore? Night and day cycles in the game come and go, each new day they race- "it'sth for the players! Hoo-hoo!" King Candy would reassure, but really it's just the one lie that actually benefits his subjects to avoid more chaos, there are no players to use them as avatars. There is no one to play Sugar Rush.

His attention begins to turn more towards his subjects- care for them? Not impossible, they're all he has left, their attention was better than nothing. Did the Twins count? Although they fought? Was it the nostalgia that spoke on that bit? Perhaps regret? It doesn't matter... attention is attention. And he needed it.

One mistake is all it would take to go down in history. And in the end he will be remembered.

He will be remembered, for centuries.

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↓

2022 - REALIZATION.

Ten years. It took the ruler of Sugar Rush to realize after ten years that maybe... just maybe, he could have gone about things in a different manner if he hadn't acted so selfishly. He could've given Vanellope special treatment instead, and made her a racetrack all for herself to race, while still keeping up his lie...

But Vanellope doesn't exist in this world anymore. So why would it matter now? And why would anyone care what he chose to do? Him, of all people? The most important person is and has always been him, and that's all that matters. Besides- now he's got a whole kingdom to look out for, kids of his own and doubles of himself to deal with!

Vanellope Von Schweetz is no more. Now it's just King Candy.

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↓

2024 AND ONWARDS - PRESENT DAY.

(you are here!)

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WHAT HAPPENED WITH THE ARCADE GAME KNOWN AS SUGAR RUSH?

Nobody knows for sure, at least... nobody that resides inside the game! After Turbo's demise in the Diet Cola Mountain, nobody would've expected the entire game console to completely collapse due to the mad racer's code, filled to the brim with junk, exploding within the code room shortly after his death; the console shut off by itself, taking everyone inside before restarting.

As far as the racers & candy citizens know... nothing happened at all, it's just another active day of racing in Sugar Rush. Their ruler is King Candy, and they often have to deal with a pesky glitch that causes problems for their race.

And as far as King Candy knows... well, he (and Sour Bill, a little bit) knows much more of course- he remembers what happened, he knows why it happened. The crash of the console seems to have irreversibly messed with the racers' memories and coding, believing King Candy to have always been their ruler instead of Vanellope Von Schweetz; his original code dating all the way back to TurboTime also has fused with the game, having recreated a setting of the game within another game, with some familiar faces... the cy-bug coding has unfortunately also taken it's toll on Sugar Rush, now these beasts have become native to the game! Although coding can be uh... messy, especially if a console is not restarted properly, which leaves the bugs often too messed up to reproduce properly, or they end up killing eachother by eating themselves after consuming candy, becoming candy, seeing a fellow bug that is made out of candy and... well, the cycle repeats. They mostly infest the candycane forest and underground fudge caverns.

But one thing just doesn't make sense... where has the exit to Game Central Station gone? Why has the screen from which the player can see the avatar disappeared? Are they still at Litwak's Arcade? Are they all dead? Is this some purgatory? For now... the only thing that's clear is that they actually have a space online to communicate, and perhaps interact with some other fellow racers?

[ilovebeingcringe]

Just putting this here for context about the lore of my tmnt oc I have on TikTok 👀 This is ridiculously long sorry 🙃

Full name: Nicolette Hoffman

Ethnicity: German American

Languages: English, German, Russian, Spanish, French, Japanese

Age: 16

Height: 6'0"

Weight: 142 Ibs.

Skin color: Pale

Eye color: Green

Hair color/style: Hot pink, emo fringe, pixie cut

Personality: Very unhinged, risky and borderline insane, but an incredibly smart prodigy and very skilled mixed martial artist. She has a cocky and prideful personality and almost never takes anything seriously. She's disciplined and wise beyond her years and can give good advice when asked for it, but mostly stays on the sidelines and watches things go down instead of intervening. She loves to crack jokes and push people's buttons. Getting her to take something seriously would require doing something that'd really make her mad. She secretly hates herself for many reasons and tries not to attach herself or tie herself down to anyone. She's afraid, more than anything, of making a connection only for it to fall apart.

Backstory: Nikki's parents were both overachievers and highly respected people. Her father was a very famous German MMA fighter and a war hero. He was seen as an inspiration to all. Her mother was one of the smartest biochemists in the U.S. and has received many rewards for discovering and creating new cures for the incurable. While Nikki wasn't as well known as her parents, her mom and dad were seen as picture perfect and the ideal couple. But in reality Nikki lived an unhealthy home life and her parents treated her horribly. They wanted to continue upholding their family name once Nikki was old enough and expected her to be just as smart, strong and skilled as both of them combined. Nikki's father-who was also secretly a mob boss-put her through cruel, torturous daily training on top of constant stressful studying and high education levels, insisted by her cold, workaholic mother. Nikki was expected to train and study every second of everyday. Throughout Nikki's training, her father had her come with him to and from Germany for many years of her life to participate in underground training programs that involved putting Nikki through insanely dangerous expeditions and assignments. She was forced to do terrible things that she's still ashamed of that include murder and theft and she thinks of herself as a monster. With the constant stress and pressure, her mental health had deteriorated the older she got and she would often rebel against and lash out at her parents. As a troubled teen wanting attention from her parents-whether it be good or bad-Nikki quickly grew to find immense joy in the reactions she'd get from them. She'd dye her hair, wear crazy clothes and purposely start fights. Ashamed of their daughter, Nikki's parents would keep her hidden from media.

She took advantage of her knowledge and education, using what she learned as the daughter of a biochemist, to create her own poisoness weapons. This included jelly pellets laced with chemicals that she'd shoot her enemies with, using black and pink guns she built herself. They can burn through solids, explode, stick to things, blind people, etc. Or they can just hurt really bad and feel like a punch in the face. She also had many small hidden, custom, poison-based weapons she created, hidden within her utility belt. Which is why she wears her gas mask and goggles-so she can protect herself. Her main weapon she used for hand to hand combat was a spiked mallet.

When Nikki was 13, the Kraang discovered her mother's work as a scientist and wanted to use her for testing. They broke into her family's home and kidnapped Nikki's mother, leaving her father distraught and spiraling. Because the police weren't any help, he went out of his way to look for Nikki's mom himself. He sent Nikki to live her aunt in the meantime. Her dad completely stopped contacting her and went missing while on his journey. Unbeknownst to Nikki, both her parents died at the hands of Kraang.

Nikki's aunt on the other hand hated her father and disowned him several years prior. She wasn't prepared to take care of Nikki and couldn't get over how much she looked like her dad. Her aunt was a successful multimillionaire and ceo, who was always busy and often traveling. She thought it'd be a bad situation for both of them if she had to drag Nikki along with her, so her best alternative was to buy her old apartment in NYC for Nikki to live in. She'd send money, taking care of all of Nikki's expenses while expecting Nikki to take care of herself. If Nikki's aunt was ever asked to be present for any important events-such as a parent/teacher conference for school-her aunt would have her assistant substitute in her place.

Nikki spent the next two years in her new home learning how to take care of herself and attending the same school as April and Casey. She was often outcasted due to her insane behavior and scary personality, as well as rebellious tendencies that none of the staff had any patience for. Meanwhile, Nikki was secretly taking after her father's poor decisions and was looking for her parents herself. As much as she hated the way they treated her, she was still a conflicted teenager and they were the only family she had. She didn't want to be alone in NYC any longer than she needed to. After hearing many rumors about mutants hiding in the city, Nikki went undercover as a secret assassin who'd take up jobs from underground gangs and businesses, such as the Foot Clan, Don Vizioso, the Purple Dragons, etc. She'd use this persona to sneak around and gather any information she could find about the Kraang.

In the earlier seasons, when Karai was still considered Shredder's daughter, Karai-impatient and vengeful-secretly hired Nikki behind Shredder's back to stalk the turtles and uncover their secret base. The turtles wound up catching Nikki stalking them, and tried fighting her off. Nikki, however, was too skilled for them. She found immense joy in teasing them and pushing their buttons, while avoiding their hits and punches. As they fought, she mocked and ridiculed them while cracking wise jokes until they'd blow a gasket. After being beaten, the turtles ended up having to retreat and run away to their lair before Nikki could catch them in time. She was intrigued and very interested in the fact that they were mutants, thinking they could somehow be connected to the Kraang, and wanted to continue secretly working under Karai so she could learn more about them. Nikki eventually became one of the turtles many regularly known villains. She loved getting a rise out of them and taunting them until they'd lose their tempers. This led to Master Splinter teaching them the importance of patience and control and that it's best not to give Nikki a reaction. After lots of practicing and planning they finally defeated Nikki and caught her with April and Casey. They tied her up and interrogated her in an abandoned warehouse, which Nikki did not take seriously in the slightest.

April and Casey were both fascinated and surprised that their classmate was a full-fledged assassin. Nikki was more than capable of escaping, but humored them anyway and took the situation as an opportunity to learn more about the turtles and possibly getting information on the Kraang. After lots of back and forth, they finally dropped the bomb on her of their knowledge about the Kraang. Nikki demanded that they gave her more information, immediately standing up from the chair she was tied to, that she had already secretly escaped from prior. They refused however and tried to fight her back, only for her to immediately fight them off and run away so she could gather more intel. They were all very confused and curious. As one of her peers, April felt empathetic and suggested they tried befriending her. Casey and the turtles immediately dejected the idea though.

Weeks later, while sneaking around in a Kraang base to look for data that Donnie needed, the turtles, April, and Casey ran into Nikki who also managed to find the base. There was lots of back and forth bickering, as Nikki didn't want to admit she was there to look for her parents to a bunch of strangers, until April and Leo convinced everyone to stop arguing so they wouldn't get caught. They convinced Nikki to work together with them so they could all find what they were looking for. Reluctantly Nikki and everyone else agreed. After lots of sneaking around they found a computer room to hack into and look through all the Kraang's files. Nikki couldn't help but antagonize Donnie and compare their knowledge and hacking skills with each other, boasting how much smarter she is than him.

Donnie eventually found the data he needed and gathered it in a specialized usb he made as Nikki continued looking through all the files of the humans the Kraang had captured and used over the years. In doing so, she discovered under both her parent's files that they were dead. They were all surprised and slightly impressed upon discovering that she was the daughter of two very famous and highly respected people who went missing two years ago. April, who genuinely felt bad, tried to console Nikki, but Nikki snapped back at her and everyone else. She felt dejected, angered and enraged. Nikki and the turtles went back to bickering. She scolded them on their nosiness and prying, insisting she told them over and over that her intentions with the Kraang were none of their business. They argued back that she was a sketchy assassin and they needed to know what she was up to. They're arguing alerted nearby Kraang droids which led to them

getting cornered. Nikki's rage for her parents and psychotic risk-taking tendencies overcame her and she fought the droids single-handedly. Her skills and bravery allowed her and the turtle crew to escape the base safely. However, after they escaped, the many hits and blows Nikki took all caught up to her at once and she collapsed from exhaustion and pain. April insisted that they should help Nikki with a strong and firm-toned lecture about their petty rivalry, and the turtles finally gave in and brought Nikki to their base to ask Master Splinter to help heal her.

Nikki woke up after a few hours in the dojo, surprised and on edge, only relaxing after being given a brief explanation as to what happened. Knowing she owed them for saving her, Nikki reluctantly explained what happened to her parents and what she was doing in NYC. They all empathized with her and offered their friendship. Nikki was very hesitant to get close with anyone, but felt inclined to accept their truce anyway, brushing them off as "acquaintances" instead.

After a few years of being close "acquaintances" fighting along side each other, etc. Nikki gradually grew closer to the crew and developed relationships with each of them. She spent a lot of time with Donnie in his lab-much to his dismay-constantly teasing and tormenting him, while silently watching the strange love triangle between him, April and Casey on the sidelines. She felt very conflicted and uneasy upon discovering her little crush she had on April as well, but never intervened, knowing it would only make things more complicated. She also was too hesitant starting a romantic relationship with anyone, afraid it'd conflict with her traumatic past and self-hatred, on top of her constant fear of losing more of her loved ones. Over time, Master Splinter became somewhat of a father figure to Nikki as he was the only adult she ever encountered who had enough patience, care and understanding for her.

Throughout even more time, Nikki slowly let her walls down, letting the weird little bunch of mutants become a more integral part of her life. Through a very slow burn, she and April eventually began a relationship and Nikki eventually considered the rest of the turtle crew as the loving family she never had.

[vellichorom]

i feel like this is an obvious question based on what you've said abt tsp,exe in previous moments, but is it malware of some sort?

what im asking is: if you were to download the stanley parable.exe onto your computer, would the game (or ig thierry) do typical creepypasta virus game things like encrypting your files, getting a hold of your personal info, putting pop-ups on your screen that either multiply or dont close whenever you try to close them, manually crash/turn off/restart your computer, or other adjacent things?

as a matter of fact, it does ~

are the ".exe" genre of games considered malware ??? i mean, i know of ones that could be but... curious;

now, i of course welcome my beloved @tomiechu's input as well here if they have anything to add, but the way i see it;

your personal information & files are safe! most of the odd happenings occur within the game & tucked in its own files; the worst you may have to worry about is your storage space getting filled brimming, or the occasional bug or buggy pop up. it's one of those things you have to consciously go & find in your computer more than it is in your face, methink.

what is it that's taking up that storage space? well, the game's a bit heftier & bloated than the original game would be, & while its files are getting moved around, altered, & deleted all the time ( due to thierry actively updating the thing ), you're likely to find a couple of his digital footprints, a few notes & to do lists, stuff like that. among other things... a couple audio clips dated back to the skip button period, a thorough, drawn chart of rosemary's anatomy, a few notes meant to be scattered in the office that have nothing to do with the in-game lore... et cetera.

in-game, the gameplay is relatively normal - as much you'd probably expect from the base game, but wow... there's a LOT of endings to this thing, isn't there? & the game is liable to freeze & pause in certain rooms & areas, textures of red may seem to flicker in in random spots & may stay there, depending. there IS an occasional jumpscare in the form of some horrific bug - perhaps like the sound of grinding or the visage of a character without a face, but nothing the game should have pre-programmed; nothing with a record it should have ever been. fans of the game ( in this world ) are truly puzzled.

there were once reports of players being able to find traces of old viscera on the compactor plates, or outright walking in on something they shouldn't have. theories have sprung up that The Stanley Parable is actually meant to be more of a horror game beyond mere psychological play, but not everyone can agree on this. any of these reports sent back to the developer OR his accounts are met with radio silence or being told they're just screwing around.

things like that, you know! relatively " tame, " but not things that should be or happen. thierry can't make heads or tails of it either.

ah well.

[luckystar2025]

Kagami: (casually) "Hey, I saw some Hatsune Miku merch at the mall the other day. That anime sure has a lot of fans."

Konata: (immediately slamming her hands on the table, eyes wide in shock) "EXCUSE ME?"

Kagami: (blinking, startled) "...What?"

Konata: (leaning in, deadly serious) "You just called Miku an anime character."

Kagami: (raising an eyebrow, unimpressed) "Yeah? She looks like one, she’s drawn like one, people treat her like one—what’s the difference?"

Konata: (pointing aggressively) "Everything. The difference is everything."

Tsukasa: (blinking, confused) "Wait, Miku’s not an anime character?"

Konata: (shaking her head, exasperated) "Nope. She’s not from a manga. Not from a light novel. Not from an anime. Hatsune Miku is a software product. A vocal synthesizer. Her entire character is just the face of a tool for making music. But here’s where it gets interesting—she doesn’t pretend to be something she’s not. She is exactly what she claims to be. That means she’s real."

Kagami: (crossing her arms skeptically) "Okay, so she’s a mascot. That still makes her fictional."

Konata: "Ah, but THAT’S where you’re wrong, Kagamin. Miku is canonically digital in her lore, and that's exactly what she is. What's fictional about that?"

Tsukasa (tilting her head): “But… can you hug her?”

Konata (pulling up a mixed-reality app): “With AR? Yes. Look, Tsukasa-chan! Miku’s right there, sitting on your lap!” [She shoves her phone at Tsukasa, who squeals and swats at the air.]

Kagmi: (rolling her eyes) "Unbelievable. You’re telling me this cartoonish blue-haired girl with leek props is somehow ‘real’ just because she’s generated by a computer? That doesn’t make her any less fictional."

Konata: (mock-offended) "Fictional?! Kagamin, listen carefully. Hatsune Miku isn’t tied to a specific story or universe like Goku or Harry Potter. Her entire existence revolves around being a digital performer. When you play a game featuring her, you’re interacting with HER—not just some representation of her. It’s like FaceTiming a celebrity!"

Miyuki: (adjusting her glasses thoughtfully) "While Hatsune Miku originated as a voice synthesis application developed by Crypton Future Media, her persona has evolved beyond mere software. Fans perceive her as a distinct entity capable of independent expression within the framework of her design. This blurs the line between creator and creation, raising intriguing questions about identity in the digital age."

Kagmi: (groaning loudly) "Philosophy aside, she’s still just lines of code programmed to mimic human behavior. Saying she’s ‘real’ is stretching things way too far."

Konata: (pretending to ponder deeply) "Hmm… lines of code, huh? So what happens when AI becomes advanced enough to hold conversations or perform live concerts? At what point do we stop calling them machines and start calling them people? Think about it, Kagamin—Miku already holds concerts attended by thousands of fans worldwide. They cheer for her, sing along with her, and even cry over her performances. Isn’t that proof enough?"

Tsukasa: (giggling softly) "But Kona-chan, if she’s real, does that mean she eats pudding? Or does she run on electricity instead?"

Konata: (snapping her fingers triumphantly) "Electricity AND pudding, Tsukasa-chan! She's hiding in your wi-fi eating pudding right now!."

Kagmi: (facepalming) "This is ridiculous. Even if she performs concerts and interacts with fans, she’s still fundamentally a product designed by humans. She doesn’t have thoughts, feelings, or free will. That makes her fake, end of story."

Konata: (grinning mischievously) "Fake?! Ouch, Kagamin, your prejudice against non-biological beings hurts my circuits. Besides, who says she needs ‘free will’ to be considered real? Plenty of humans go through life following scripts written by society. Is Miku really so different?"

Miyuki: (smiling gently) "It’s worth noting that Hatsune Miku represents a unique intersection of art, technology, and community engagement. While she may lack physical form or consciousness, her impact on culture and entertainment is undeniably significant. Perhaps defining ‘reality’ solely in biological terms limits our understanding of modern innovation."

Konata: (glancing directly at the camera with a knowing smirk) "Exactly. And Kagamin, and who's to say you're not one of those perfectly drawn anime characters following a pre-written script—like all of us in this story. But hey, that's what makes it so fun, right?"

Kagami: (blushing furiously) "Don't even start, Konata!"

Tsukasa: (giggling) "I think it's pretty cool that our lives are like an anime sometimes."

[loominggaia]

(Very dark question inbound) What place on Looming Gaia has the highest suicide rate? And for the reverse, which place on Looming Gaia has the happiest population?

This is kind of a hard thing to measure, because I think certain groups within Great Kingdoms may suffer from these issues more than others. For example, the suicide rates in Evangeline Kingdom are very low for commoners, but very high for fae and gaians.

I would say that overall, the Empire of Damijana has the most deaths by suicide, followed by Zareen Empire, and then Yerim-Mor Kingdom.

In Damijana's case, it's the oppressive work culture, lack of sunlight or natural surroundings, lack of freedom in general, and extreme social pressure that pushes citizens to their limit.

As for Zareen Empire, people are overworked, underpaid, sick and miserable from pollution, and lack purpose in life beyond feeding a capitalist machine.

And Yerim-Mor Kingdom...well, between the Gold River War's aftermath and the Cult of the Crescent's terrorism, it's basically become Hell. The Morites live in extreme poverty and constant terror. They view suicide as a better alternative to being tortured by cultists or starving to death, and I can't say I blame them.

Now, for the happiest kingdoms...

Lamai Nation takes the top spot. Most Lamaish citizens are satisfied with their lives and feel supported by their families/communities. Faith in the local religions are strong, the government is relatively competent, and this kingdom faces very little foreign conflict. Some species don't do very well here and are not happy, but most Lamaish citizens are gorgons, and Lamaish culture revolves around gorgon needs.

In second place is Matuzu Kingdom. While this kingdom is very large and diverse, its holds are all pretty well-funded and social programs are abundant. Its cultural diversity means there is a lot of opportunity, no matter who you are. It's hard to feel "stuck" in Matuzu Kingdom because there are so many paths available to its people. When one path doesn't work out, Matuzans are free to try another.

I think Etios Nation takes third. There is some serious inequality in Etiosi culture, but overall, most of its citizens are satisfied with their simple way of life. Its this simplicity that keeps peoples' heads clear. While the industrial kingdoms are overwhelmed by tons of small anxieties, the Etiosi tend to have bigger but fewer problems in their lives, and much more support from family and community to solve those problems.

*

Questions/Comments?

Lore Masterpost

Read the Series

[someones-here-for-sure]

Hiiiiiiii

I saw your oc and its really cool so drop some lore on meeee

(if you don't mind)

OMG ING IMG IMG OMG AAHHHH SOMEONE ASKED SOEMONE FINALLY ASKED AHHHH YAYAYAYAYAYAY OH MY GOD OH MY GOD ITS HAPPENING IT’S REALLY ACTUALLY AHPPEMED AIIANHHHHHHH AYYAYAYYAAAYYAYAYYAYAYYAYAYA AHAHHHHH I’m normal I swear.

okay so my OC is Amber! They are gender-fluid, (he/she/they and I will use them interchangeably) and they are 17 (I think I actually haven’t written this all down yet but I have thought about a lot.)

UHH HEAVY TOPICS BECAUSE OBVIOUSLY I HAVE TO TRAUMATIZE THEM BEYOND GOD. (Tw, suicide, alcoholism, child abuse, that kinda stuff)

when Amber was born their dad was an alcoholic, and was gone before Amber was 3, so then it was just her and his mom. Their mom was extremely mentally ill due to the abuse she took from her ex husband(ambers biodad), so she began to neglect her child(Amber),

when Amber was seven her mom lost her job due to her illness’s, and they quickly became homeless, within a year, her mother had sold Amber to a sketchy guy in return for a large sum of money, Amber was then ripped from her mother, and put in an “orphanage” of sorts.

The world was slowly falling apart and due to on going wars between countries, the country Amber lived in started about 200 programs of soldier, assassin, and defense training camps. Amber was put into an assassin training camp.

Ambers training began once he was 8, and it started with tortuous training regimens. She would wake up at 6am and train until 9am. then if they did good, he would get breakfast. From 9:30-10:30 was lunch, there was educational training from 11-4, and then more physical training from 4:30-9:30pm, and then they would be given dinner(if they earned it) at 10pm. by the time Amber was 10, they began “mini missions” and were expected to hunt. Amber was always good at it. They always beat everyone near them. But a part them wished it wasn’t like this. She did get to meet some people though. And it wasn’t all bad. Except at exam days.

exam days, the children would be taken 2 at a time to fight. The winner, would get the other child’s food rations, stuff, and blankets, while the loser child would just- disappear. No child knew what happened to the loser. But they knew it would be nothing good. Amber always won. But, by winning, she often ruined friendships. By getting rid of peoples friends, siblings, and sometimes even partners.

by the time she was 12, she had either gotten rid of, or pushed away everyone. He was alone. Ambers brain began to change after that. They stopped trying to make friends. Or anything. They had never been interested in romance to begin with,(aro/ace icon here) but he gave up on friends.

the programs staff were well aquinted with Amber. As Amber often times got into fights, or pushed themselves far too much, or hurt themselves, to try to cope with the anger and pain.

when Amber was 15, they “graduated” from the program, leaving blood and people behind. She began talking on missions then. And he found that they LOVED, killing the bad people. It was conditioned that anyone they were assigned to kill, was born to die.

they lost their mind a little, everytime they ended a life. He enjoyed it more. Knowing she was getting rid of filth. But, there was a part of him that wanted a human connection, so when they were 16, she decided to take a month off, to try and make some friends in his field.

they met Rey(design in process) and he was so- just impressed? They began taking on partner missions together and even though their job abused them to hell and back, constantly over working them and threatening them with their lives, he knew as long as he had Rey, it would be okay. (QPR THEY HAD A QPR AND I LOVE THEM) Rey and Amember lived together after a while, and had been for almost a year and a half, they’re were both 17 when

When well, Rey wasn’t there. Rey went on a 4 day mission, and didn’t come back. Amber vowed to never come close to anyone ever again. Amber then honed in on her work, climbing the ranks and becoming pretty well known.

she couldn’t feel. Not for a second, it was kill, kill, kill, and that’s where they are now.

OKAY THATS IT, THATS ALL I HAVE RIGHT NOW I KNOW THERE ARE SOME PLOTHOLES BUT IDC RIGHT NOW!! THANK THANK THANK YOU. FOR ASKING THIS I AM SO HONORED LIKE AHHHHHHHH

[auntie-browning]

✏ again :3

Send ✏ (or "PENCIL") for mun to write about a muse they thought about trying to roleplay or one they are already roleplaying outside Tumblr RPC.

||: The next muse I want to showcase is going to be an OC. I know that OCs aren’t exactly special by all manners of speaking but I did want to try a different ethos with them. Mostly the idea of a transformative muse that can be collaborative effort for both myself and maybe you who are reading this. It’s a bit much but humor me by following me down.

Before them stood another door beside the last one that had been broken through thanks to the efforts of a certain pink haired leviathan. Opening it (as one should…) reveals a winding staircase of impossible proportions. It’s ending couldn’t be seen anywhere in sight. However, the distance wasn’t all too far. At the end of the path presented a lab like plane, floating in the expanse of the unformed realm of idea.

||: Forgive me a bit, I’m a little paranoid when it comes to showing the things I so I don’t exactly want to show everything yet. Thus, I won’t be showing you the actual muse I had in mind…but two beta versions of them.

||: Meet ∃ or There-Exists if you’re not too familiar with proofs. They’re the prototype digital consciousness testbed I’m still fiddling with. ∃, greet these fair people.

“Greetings, my designation is ∃. I am currently a prototype for a much larger system. With time, I hope to assist USER:TOWER with the creation of this project.”

||: Not much of a talker, I know. It’s a bit of a basic algorithm currently. With time I hope to perfect it and maybe get a precise tune on how mechanical the main muse should be. Considering that the main muse will be a relatively flexible for how others would want them to be, I like to start with a baseline of inhuman before moving into granting them a personality.

||: Now, an AI is pretty bog-standard kind of character considering Browning is also technically an AI as well. So, what gives? We’ll, I’ll direct you to the other prototype I have around. Its designation is ¬∃! which I’ll let you all figure out what that means.

Before them now stood a container filled to the brim with a metallic substance similar to the property of the element Mercury. When moved, it ripples around, diffracting any reflection of light around. Inevitably, it returns to a state of balance once more.

||: Liquid metal, memetic poly-alloy, grey goo…nanomachines, son…The label doesn’t exactly matter so much that this will be what their body will be composed of. The composition since their inception was of a new generation of “smart armors” similar to the US Army’s ill-fated Land Warrior and Future Force Warrior programs…if a little more fantastical. However, the project would go a little off the rails and well…the creation would be a mechanical life from that would be capable of acting with semi-independence within the battlespace.

||: I could go more in depth about the certain background lore explanations for these kinds of things but I feel like when I do make the blog for them, I will have it published there for others to read. The meta reason for this is mostly because: A) I think its cool and B) this body will actually help with molding the character into a specific narrative angle if one wants to exploit that. From supernatural fluff to actual terror inducing horrors beyond our comprehension. Very flexible…and to be honest, this OC was created for that express interest. Having a flexible muse to play different roles with ease.

||: Once I do start actually pouring my heart and soul into them then I can give more concrete ideas and rules to govern how they should operate. Until then, I hope you enjoyed kind of reading through this little ramble.

||:Now go on, shoo! I have things to do!

[oddlyunaware]

Detailing the Cast in “Where Art Thou?"

Hey! Sorry for the wait, part two of my introduction to Where Art Thou is finally here!

Let's get to our main characters. Please note I have only completed designs for four of them, and will upload everyone else's designs at a later time!

MK

Xiaotian, or just "MK", is the adopted son of demon-dirtblood couple Pigsy and Tang. He appears to be an everyday dirtblood, until one way a tail suddenly sprouts gruesomely from his back and he gains fangs.

MK is actually the last product of Project NUWA, a super-soldier program detailed in my earlier post. The system had switched on one last time, thawing out a frozen embryo and injecting with sleeper agent cells, not revealing his simian traits until much later in life. He was subsequently spat out by the biometric machine, where Tang and Pigsy found him by chance while scouting out the old facility, the only identification on him being a small tag with the words "CD: Xiaotian - SUBJECT 94-268-426 (MK)" engraved on it.

Red Son

Red Son is the disgraced son of the warlord Demon Bull King, a giant-sized man with bull horns who could very well be compared to Immortan Joe from Mad Max, if Immortan Joe actually drank his respect woman juice.

Red inherits quite a lot from his father, such as his raging tenacity and a small bull tail. He has quite a genius level intellect, yet perhaps the most peculiar thing about him is his nitroglycerin blood. When he is cut, his blood can be ignited into flame, and as such Red Son is nigh-impervious to fire.

Xiaojiao-Mei

Xiaojiao-Mei, or just Mei for short, is a dragon hailing from the coast, in search of a mysterious person to "deliver a message" to. Dragons are specially mutated folks who did not gain their traits from existing animal DNA mixing during the fallout, but rather mutated on their own from the radiation.

As such, Mei is a proud and foolhardy young woman, who never leaves without her ancient sword passed down onto her. However, she does not trust easily, and takes a long time to properly warm up to others outside her familial circle.

SUBJECT 63942, Nezha

Project LOTUS was one of the last super soldier programs approved for the war. The attempt was to integrate animal and plant cells together in a human host, giving them powerful traits to assist in the war. Unfortunately, most attempts led to the subjects dying off at an early age... except for one.

Subject 63942 "Nezha" was the only successful asset in the entire project. Growing at unprecedented rates and displaying intelligence beyond his capability, he was subject to experiments that tested his humanity greatly. The only kind soul within the entire program seemed to be Dr. Yin, who taught Nezha the good in humanity. The good worth protecting.

But then the bombs fell, just about 200 years ago. And Nezha hadn't seen her since.

...

Aaaaaand that's all the lore I got for now folks! I don't wanna reveal too much of what happens next, because I've decided to turn this AU into a full fledged fic! I'll link it below once the first chapter is written.

Thanks for reading!