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phgq · 4 years

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PSA NegOr calls for public cooperation for 2020 Census

#PHinfo: PSA NegOr calls for public cooperation for 2020 Census

DUMAGUETE CITY, Jan. 15 (PIA) -- The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) Negros Oriental is appealing for cooperation from the public once it rolls out the 2020 Census of Population and Housing (CPH) in May 2020.

Speaking in a Kapihan Forum held today, PSA Provincial Head Engr. Ariel Fortuito announced that the CPH will start nationwide on May 4, 2020 which will involve more than 100,000 enumerators who are mostly teachers of the Department of Education (DepEd).

“Manawagan mi sa mga katawhan particularly sa Negros Oriental na suportahan ang CPH. Unsaon pagsuporta sa usa katawo? Una, sa dihang naay moadto manuktok sa inyong mga panimalay at least man lang entertain-non ninyo. Tubagon sa insakto tubag ang mga pangutana ug kung mahimo hiktan ang iro (We urge the people in Negros Oriental to support the CPH. How can we show support to this? Entertain the enumerators when they go to your homes. Answer the questions correctly and if possible, keep your dogs leashed),” Fortuito said.

PSA-Negros Oriental Provincial Head Engr. Ariel Fortuito (center) urges the public to cooperate with PSA enumerators when they conduct the 2020 Census of Population and Housing (CPH) all over the province on May 4, 2020. Fortuito discussed the preparations for the 2020 CPH during a Kapihan Forum held Jan. 15, 2020 at Bethel Guest House, Dumaguete City. (PIA7-NegOr)

The 2020 CPH is a nationwide undertaking pursuant to Batas Pambansa 72, Executive Order No. 352 and R.A. 10625.

PSA is the agency mandated to carry out the census of population.

The people’s response to the 2020 CPH is mandatory under R.A. 10625.

Some of the data that will be gathered during the census this year include size and geographical distribution of the population, population composition (sex, age, marital status), education and literacy, birth registration, religion, ethnicity, and functional difficulty.

On the other hand, additional information will also be gathered from some sample households.

These include occupation, industry, class of worker, place of work, fertility indicators, housing characteristics, manner of garbage disposal, type of toilet facility, type of fuel for lighting and cooking, main source of water supply, land ownership, presence of operator in crop farming, livestock and poultry raising, aquaculture, and fishing, language/dialect generally spoken at home, location where the household intends to reside five (5) years from now, household conveniences ownership, ICT devices ownership, vehicles ownership, type/s of internet access available at home, and location where the household member/s use the internet in the last three months.

Fortuito added that the conduct of the census in May will be “house to house.”

The PSA official cited they are aiming to get an accurate data on the census population and housing, noting that the data generated from the census is important for government policy-makers in formulating economic and development plans for the country.

“The objective of conducting CPH is critical because the government executives, policy-makers, decision-makers, and planners will update population and housing data. This is a comprehensive data collection and this is the only data collection to be conducted nationwide up to the household level,” Fortuito emphasized.

PSA here has undertaken some initial steps in preparation for the 2020 CPH, such as geo-tagging which were carried out two years ago to ensure the accuracy in conducting the census.

PSA also organized the Census Board per municipality chaired by the local chief executive in December 2019.

The local census board will convene to discuss potential issues on the conduct of CPH especially in hinterland areas or in communities with affected by insurgency and map out possible strategies with the agency to address it.

“We can ask for the assistance of the Census Board including Philippine National Police if there is a need. Ato sad gi-set with locality para ma-ascertain gyud nato if there is a need (for security assistance). If matawag gyud siya ‘very critical’ (and) ‘cannot be enumerated’ at the time of the census, we will do something about it - either head count or kami sa PSA will go together to saturate the area (We are going to settle it with the locality to ascertain if there is a need for security assistance. If the area is really identified as ‘very critical’ or 'cannot be enumerated’ at the time of the census, we will do something about it - either head count or PSA personnel will go together to saturate the area),” Fortuito explained.

“As to typhoon or whatever circumstances, we have risk registry in place,” he added.

Aside from this, Fortuito also shared plans to meet with local DepEd officials to determine the number of teaching personnel who will be assigned as enumerators, discuss other concerns especially in conflict-affected areas and to find out also if there is a need to hire additional enumerators who are not part of DepEd.

Meanwhile, the training for enumerators, supervisors, and other personnel involved in the conduct of the 2020 CPH will begin on March 30, 2020 until May 2, 2020.

For now, Fortuito stressed the need for massive information dissemination to raise public awareness on the census.

PSA is ready to hold dialogues with barangay officials and homeowner association presidents to elicit their support.

He also appealed to the members of the media to continuously share this information and PSA’s appeal cooperation to the public.

PSA assures that all information gathered in the 2020 CPH will be strictly confidential. (ral/PIA7-Negros Oriental)

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References:

* Philippine Information Agency. "PSA NegOr calls for public cooperation for 2020 Census ." Philippine Information Agency. https://pia.gov.ph/news/articles/1032833 (accessed January 16, 2020 at 04:13PM UTC+08).

* Philippine Infornation Agency. "PSA NegOr calls for public cooperation for 2020 Census ." Archive Today. https://archive.ph/?run=1&url=https://pia.gov.ph/news/articles/1032833 (archived).

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lightofthetrees · 6 years

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tagged by: @irreverentecthelion I know the original post was only a list of favorite male characters, but I wanted to make a list of my favorite lady characters as well! I’ve also decided to make these my favorite NON-TOLKIEN characters (just as a challenge). The order is just the order I thought of the characters in - it doesn’t really mean anything. This is long, because I wrote a short blurb about each character.

Top 10 Favorite Male Characters

Garrus Vakarian - Mass Effect Garrus is one of my favorite characters from this series - he’s always by Shepard’s side, no matter what. He knows when to crack a joke and when to stay solemn and serious. He’s also a total badass, capable of completely insane feats in combat. He also really grows as a character throughout the games. Han Solo - Star Wars A classic. He’s a great sarcastic sidekick. Though he doesn’t always do the right thing right away, he gets around to it when the going gets tough. Sam Vimes - Discworld One of the things I love about (Sir) Terry Pratchett’s writing is his characters. Sam Vimes is no exception. He has this coffee-drinking, hard-working cop vibe, but underneath this gruff exterior is an incredibly courageous man who loves his city. He also makes sure he has time to go home and read to his son (Where’s My Cow?!). Dorian Pavus - Dragon Age I love Dorian for similar reasons to why I love Han Solo - the witty sidekick is just my favorite trope, ok. He also has an excellent mustache. He’s a show-off who’s always making jokes. And he’s a wizard. What’s not to love? Dorian also shows us that not all people from Tevinter are horrible and evil. He’s a good dude and he wants to do what’s right. Jarlaxle Baenre - Forgotten Realms novels This guy. He’s just. !!! A mysterious mercenary with a great fashion sense. HE CAN “TURN OFF” THE NOISES HIS (fabulous) BRACELETS MAKE YOU GUYS THIS IS IMPORTANT. As much as I love Drizzt, Jarlaxle is definitely my favorite R.A. Salvatore character. Miguel & Tulio (”Mighty and Powerful Gods”) - Road to El Dorado This was one of my favorite movies as a kid, and Miguel and Tulio are pretty much my favorite kind of characters - basically just D&D bards on a crazy adventure. They get themselves into a TON of trouble, but they find their heroic sides at the end of it all. Crowley & Aziraphale - Good Omens Another mighty bromance, and more of Terry Pratchett’s wonderful influence. I love how these characters are the polar opposites of one another, and not just because they are an angel and a demon. Their personalities and tastes are completely different, and yet they manage to team up (and even be friends) in spite of all this. Harry Dresden - The Dresden Files A main character who I don’t get tired of (or who I don’t just hate in favor of their sidekick). Yes, he’s an exceptionally powerful wizard, but he’s also just a guy who wants to protect his friends and his city. He tries hard to adhere to his own moral code, but he is by no means perfect. Definitely one of my favorite protagonists. Top 10 Favorite Female Characters

Cassandra Pentaghast - Dragon Age Ok, so, I love Lady Knight characters (see Brienne, below). This probably doesn’t come as a surprise. Though Cassandra is kind of annoying in the DA2 cutscenes, she becomes a remarkably complex character in DA:I. Though initially stubborn and quite harsh, she becomes one of the Inquisitor’s most trusted and loyal companions (most of the time). She is not only a great warrior - she’s a woman of principle. Despite her strength, though, even she sometimes feels lost. She questions the validity and morality of her actions. Rey - Star Wars She’s a powerhouse of Force ability, and she’s fiercely independent. She doesn’t need a romantic interest to be a complete character. I am so excited to see where Rey goes as a character in the next movie. Leia Organa - Star Wars Best. Princess General. Ever. <3 Eleven - Stranger Things Eleven is such a great character. As is pretty evident here, I love to watch how characters grow and change over time. As she develops her psychic abilities, Eleven learns what it’s like to have friends that care about her. She will do whatever it takes to protect them. Brienne of Tarth - Game of Thrones I love Brienne because while she is a female warrior, she isn’t just a fashion model wearing some armor. She’s larger in stature than most women and is really self-conscious about her appearance. She is fighting to find her place in a world in which men (and very traditionally beautiful women) hold the power. She’s also honest, loyal, and motivated to do what is right. Daenerys Targaryen - Game of Thrones Another powerful female character who, even though she has dragons and armies, is still coming to terms with who she is. She goes from a naive, frightened girl to a queen who metes out brutal justice and leads an invasion to claim her throne. Yup, she’s ruthless. But it works for her. She’s the Mother of Dragons. Moana - Moana Another character who shows that a girl doesn’t need a romantic interest to be a complete and wonderful character. There is NO ROMANCE PLOT in this movie and I LOVE IT. Moana doesn’t have to marry anyone to become Chief. She’s the Chief’s daughter, so she’s next in line, and nobody questions it. She, too, goes on a journey to become the ruler she needs to be - compassionate but also strong enough to defend her people. Karrin Murphy - The Dresden Files I love Murph. Yet another lady warrior, I know. :P But she’s great. She’s always there for Harry when he needs her. Like him, she cares deeply for her friends and her city. Charity Carpenter - The Dresden Files I love Charity because she will do anything to protect her children. She’s basically Super Mom. Also, she makes armor. Liara T’soni - Mass Effect How to go from sweet, innocent scientist to badass information-broker in 10 easy steps. Like Garrus, she’s there with Shepard through all the ups and downs of their adventure. She’s intelligent, motivated, and loyal. tagging: anyone who wants to! (You don’t have to stick to male and female characters - this is just the way I chose to do the lists. Basically I just think it would be cool to know about characters you guys like.)

#ooc #munday #it was difficult to do the female list without tolkien tbh #because GALADRIEL #also i have recently gained a new appreciation for luthien #and i mean eowyn is a total boss #so

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m0r1bund · 1 year

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Hi. It’s been 3 months. I am still alive, I have just been busy with… stuff… and things… haha… a…

This is not The Thing that i have been busy with, but it is A Thing that i have been using as a siesta from The Thing. You are getting my no-effort warhamster art, because everything else is firing on all cylinders right now. And boy am i more of a no-cylinders kind of gal.

This is Frey and the Oracle of Caeres. They are very messy and also in nemeses with each other. I should probably stop making up gay people who are in nemeses with each other, because the messaging and social commentary about the Empire is suffering. But here we are.

Long image descriptions and essays about made-up gay people under the cut. Read on below or at m0r1bund.com ▶︎

[Image: A sketch page of Frey and the Oracle of Caeres. The Oracle is a rather distinguished-looking individual with a sharp profile, perpetually lidded eyes, and a knowing smile. His lips are painted red, with a single streak running from his lower lip to his chin. Her hair falls past her shoulders in loose curls, while her embroidered galero casts deep shadows over her face that are only vaguely sinister. He wears circle-rimmed glasses that hide his eyes when the light catches them right, and a long, loose cloak that obscures his silhouette. Under it, her double-breasted overcoat is tailored to her svelte frame and broad shoulders. She has no business being as tall as she is, and carries herself completely secure in the knowledge that everyone around her knows this.

Frey is a severe-looking mechanic who is rough around the edges, and really is quite full of edges in general. She has strong features and a tall nose, and her hair is styled in a messy undercut, with her bangs bleached white. They fall over her eyes in such a way that she looks chronically pissed. She wears her old mechanic’s jacket with its sleeves cut off, the ragged edges framing her strong shoulders and lean, muscled arms. She’s on the smaller side overall, though. The rest of her uniform has seen better days, and in many places has been defaced so that the Imperial cog symbol is broken or obscured. She totes around a revolver with a shiv taped to it, because of course she does.

The two are drawn butting heads over this or that. In one scene, Frey holds up the Oracle at gunpoint, just after executing the poor sap who was sitting at his desk. The blood spray doesn’t faze the Oracle, and neither does the revolver. She seems inconvenienced at best by the thought of getting this all cleaned up later.

In another vignette, Frey is locked behind bars in a dingy little cell (perhaps for sending that man into an early retirement.) Her arms and legs are bound, though she tries to gnaw the ropes off her wrists. Suddenly, a ring of keys comes soaring through the bars and into her lap. She jumps, and looks up. The Oracle gazes down at her through lidded eyes, her expression unreadable. She walks away before Frey realizes that the keys don’t exactly help her current “no hands” predicament, though.

Another scene shows Frey and the Oracle sitting across from one another. The Oracle holds Frey’s wrist in his hand, so that he can daub perfume on it.

He says “It has notes of jasmine and bergamot. I think you’ll find it too delicate for your tastes, though.”

Frey is distraught. She came here to kill him, and this is not how she imagined it would go. She’s probably revisiting the thought in another doodle, where the Oracle leans over her shoulder and gets uncomfortably close to whisper something in her ear.

Finally, there’s a teeny scribble of an even teenier Frey climbing through the Oracle’s arched window with a shiv in hand. She is furious and singular of purpose, even if she does not seem to know what that purpose is. The labels above her head read “Mistaking attraction for rage” and “mistaking rage for attraction,” with arrows pointing to her. The Oracle just sits in the foreground and reads, smiling placidly, apparently oblivious. The label next to her reads “ambiently infatuated,” with an arrow pointing to her.]

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Content Warning: Blood, injury, death, messy relationships, abuses of power, typical Empire fuckery.

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The Caeres, Kairos, The Oracle of Caeres, The Sacer Vates, the Oracle, the Seer, whatever. Our mans is all titles and no names that the living can remember.

Mercurial and mysterious, the Caeres creates no “Great Works” of his own, as far as anyone can tell. She commands no armies and governs no territories, and no one alive today remembers who she is, where she came from, or how long she’s been with the Archive. Most people don’t even know what office she occupies, because—like most Archivists—she hardly ever works.

Unlike most Archivists, the Caeres doesn’t spend his free time quibbling with his peers for power. The running joke in the Archive is that “the one person we see less than the God-King Himself is the Oracle of Caeres.” He only makes an appearance when he is needed, though these interventions typically don’t make sense until after the fact.

She is someone who holds many cards but plays very few. When she does, she would rather give others the glory of making history by ‘massaging fate’-- passing on a secret message, a forgotten relic, a key piece of intel, and so on. The annals of the Imperial Archive all have her touch on them somewhere. When Kairos can’t be found, one can only imagine that they are out there, somewhere, watching and waiting while their delicate machinations unfold.

The other Archivists recognize her power, and often consult with her behind one another’s backs on matters of politics, military strategy, and petty blackmail. But the Seer gives no innocent answers– if he gives them at all. Most people come away from their meetings with a poem or a proverb, and no meaningful directions for where to go next.

When he does offer more than pretty words, one can’t help but feel like they’re being used as pawns in a much larger game. The Seer does not lie; he gives counsel that is sound on paper and in practice. He has made kings, moved mountains, and brought empires to their knees. And yet she has ways of turning the sweetest success to ash in the victor’s mouth. Some chase headlong after their ambitions, only to become locked in bitter wars of attrition, while others win pyrrhic victories and lose it all. Others yet will live their whole lives owing their good fortune to the Oracle of Caeres, and only years after their death will anyone realize the significance of his involvement. Most are just left wondering what, exactly, the Oracle has in mind for them…

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Frey is the unwilling martyr (can any martyr be said to be willing?) of an industrial hellscape manufactory world. She used to be a mechanic, a forgettable cog in the manufactory’s labor machine. She wasn’t singled out because she was particularly disobedient, nor was she distinguished among her peers as gifted, respectable, or charismatic; she just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Dissent brewed in the manufactory, as it always does, in places where the straw boss can’t see. But by the time the manufactory’s Foreman caught wind of the rebellion, it was too late. He sought out the Oracle of Caeres for advice, desperate to get his colony back under control before the Powers That Be took notice and got him under control.

The Oracle was not interested in resolving petty administrative disputes. She blew him off with a nonsense prophecy: the Foreman could crush the rebellion, but only if he could find its head and cut it off. “You’ll know the false idol by her mark: yea high, dark hair, brown eyes, work-related injury scar on her right shoulder,“ or something like that. He made up a description of a rebel leader that was so specific and yet so statistically average that it should have been impossible to find… Or so he thought.

It came as something of a surprise to Frey, then, when the orderlies dragged her out of the ironworks and brought her before the Foreman. She had every mark the Oracle said she would–everything but the scar. Delirious with fear and frustrated out of his mind, the Foreman decided that if he could not find his figurehead, then he would have to create her.

Frey gained a scar that day, and lost everything. The awful spectacle was like a spark to a powder keg. The works went up in flames, as the factory floor descended on the Foreman.

Frey was not thinking about anything but her own survival when she crawled out of the wreckage, days later. She disappeared. Ironically, the rebellion was crushed, in the end–it lost its figurehead–but perhaps not in the way that the Foreman had imagined.

For her part, Frey isn’t interested in being made into something that she’s not. She left home bitter, lost, and angry with the hand that she was dealt. The Foreman might have been taken care of, but, it seems, there’s still another who hasn’t answered for what they did to her...

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#listen to me. listen to Me. i do not control the rate at which i complete tasks that I am under an NDA with myself on #nor do i control the rate at which i make new awful people that live rent free in my brain #chief and the r.a. tag #The Oracle of Caeres tag #Frey tag #content warning: death #content warning: blood #content warning: injury #content warning: abuse of power #content warning: messy. MESSY.

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m0r1bund · 1 year

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“1ore, couldn’t you separate these into individual pieces so that they aren’t a mile long” absolutely not. I hope you understand. Image captions are enclosed under the cut for length, continue reading below or at m0r1bund.com ▶︎

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[Image: A sketch page of two space marine-lookin’ gals. The one on the top right is a Sibyl, or some kind of warrior-priest, and she looks like your average lawful good paladin. She is outfitted in heavy power armor, wielding a huge claymore and a cog-shaped shield that’s just out of view. She has a somewhat dour profile with a strong jaw, sharp chin, and aquiline nose. A streak of grey runs through her long, black hair, and her undereyes are adorned with dark and heavy mascara, or maybe facepaint. Two wing-shaped ornaments rise from the air canister/jump pack on her back, adorned with prayer tags.

Her counterpart on the left, the ex-Sibyl, is outfitted in a similar fashion. She looks more like the frontrunner of a heavy metal band, though. Her armor is defaced with paintings of teeth and eyes, studded to hell and back, and singed in places. Several broken wing ornaments hang from the hem of her tattered shawl, like a fringe, and they sway as she raises up a bolter the size of her forearm. She has equally strong features as her cohort, but they’re softened a bit, with a broad nose that bows slightly at the end, and a more rounded jawline. Her head is shaved in a messy undercut, with long, white bangs flopping over the left half of her face. She wears black lipstick and smiles unhingedly, eyes wide enough to show her black sclera.

The right half of her face is overtaken with the inky black tendrils of some sort of shapeshifting disease. They creep down to where her right arm would otherwise be, unravelling like strings of smoke, or roots. The many cords of tissue come together at the end and form a huge, clawed hand.

Various sketches show the Sibyl and ex-Sibyl locked in bloody combat with each other. Contending with the shapeshifter is an ordeal—she advances on the Sibyl, limbs passing like smoke through her sword and shield, but the Sibyl holds her own. Though the Sibyl wears a helmet, and the ex-Sibyl a mask, they seem to lock eyes with one another.

Even when she is grievously injured and bleeding out, the Sibyl rebukes her foe. She weakly balls her fist around the ex-Sibyl’s shawl and pushes her away. The ex-Sibyl unmasks out of respect and cradles the Sibyl’s body, but it’s hard to say whether the woman perceives her deranged smile as respectful. Another drawing shows the ex-Sibyl dragging her old enemy’s body away, leaving bloody smears in the dirt.

When the Sibyl comes to, she’s not dead—just lying on an altar with her wounds mysteriously dressed. She maybe wishes she was dead, though, judging from her indignant expression. She finds and confronts the ex-Sibyl with a kitchen knife, but it’s hard to hold a knife to that shit-eating grin when it’s the same shit-eating grin that saved her life.

The rest of the drawings unravel in many different directions. Other encounters are shown, with the two Sibyls getting maybe a little bit too close in the heat of battle. In one, the ex-Sibyl kisses the Sibyl’s knuckles like a knight swearing fealty; in another, the Sibyl tries very very very hard to read a holy text while the ex-Sibyl wraps her monstrous arms around her, tendrils creeping in unhelpful directions.

One drawing shows the Sibyl spearing her rival clear through the torso. The ex-Sibyl is unbothered, flesh unravelling into those cords of shapeshifting tissue. “Is there even anything human left in you?” asks the Sibyl, to which her foe responds “How am I supposed to know if you keep dismembering me?”

A series of margin doodles shows the Sibyl holding the ex-Sibyl at gunpoint, straining, and saying “If I go to hell for this I’m taking you with me.” The ex-Sibyl gasps, touches her face with glee, and says “PROMISE???”

Another comic shows our old friends, the Chief and her research assistant, discussing the new arrivals. The R.A. wraps her arms around the Chief’s big shoulders and says “There were other women in your company? This is great! You must be so happy to see them again!”

The Chief strains. “Um—”

At that, the Sibyl rocks up and postures at the two women, smiling menacingly. “Irene Lysimachia Isidoros,” she says, addressing the Chief with her full name.

The Chief strains harder. “Hello, sister.”

The Sibyl continues. “Heh… So the rumors are true. You’ve gone soft. Of course, I always knew you were a weak-willed fool.”

The Chief’s silence is interrupted only by the sound of the R.A.’s opinion taking a swandive, but before either of them can say anything, the ex-Sibyl kicks down the door and says “HEY. PRIESTESS.”

The Sibyl turns to look, and is rendered speechless by the shock of seeing her old enemy again. It ends when the ex-Sibyl points a gun at her (entirely good humoredly! Really!) and says “FUCK YOU”

There’s also a riff on Ward Sutton’s ‘Sickos Guy’ comic somewhere in there, yeah. Just for laughs. The ex-Sibyl presses her face up against a window, grinning and saying “Yes… Ha ha ha… YES!”]

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Hello. Last week I woke up with a thought that went something like this:

The Chief is probably more than enough disgraced space marine for one woman to handle.

~But what if I made another ooooone~

so uhhhh enjoy the walking Otep song. The Theseus’ (relation)ship.

They are… Sibyls, or warrior-priests, or something. Religious guides who keep the rest of their company in line and safeguard them against ‘temptation’ or whatever. The one on the left is an ex-Sibyl who got a little fucked up by the endeme, and was dropped by the Empire like a bad habit. Her cohort on the right was dispatched to replace her. No they don’t have names yet ): help

They meet on the fields of war and quickly become nemeses. They both know that belief is fragile, and much of it hinges on carefully-constructed Imperial propaganda… So whenever the ex-Sibyl blasphemes, it sits in the back of the Sibyl’s head for weeks like an inoperable bullet wound. Of course, the Sibyl demands nothing short of perfection and perfect devotion from herself. She’s never had a chip in her armor until now. The more she thinks about it, the angrier she gets. This rivalry becomes Extremely personal and she Will be the one to wipe that deranged grin off of the ex-Sibyl’s face, dammit.

The feeling is mutual. Somehow they always find each other, and lock themselves in blood combat until they’re the only ones left still going at it. The ex-Sibyl has the great (mis)fortune of being an unkillable lesbian, and though the same can’t be said of her rival, that doesn’t mean much when they’re both walking tanks made of bullets and power armor. They are fully committed to their mutually assured destruction e.g. dragging each other kicking and screaming to hell.

At least, until the Sibyl is mortally injured in battle. This is unacceptable to her blood rival. What is she going to do if she loses her nemesis? Get another one? Absolutely not. Never felt this way before and never will again. The ex-Sibyl personally drags her back to her Foul Den of Iniquity and tends her rival’s wounds with all the love and devotion that she was never shown, while she was still serving. Likewise, this is the single most selfless act of kindness that the Sibyl has ever experienced, committed by the single most vile woman she has ever had the misfortune of meeting. One thing does not compute with the other. It would be so easy to just kill her and get over it, but suddenly that’s starting to feel like a herculean task, and not just because of the whole ‘unkillable lesbian’ thing.

This may have some kind of effect on the blood rivalry. They will Not be talking about it.

Other things:

The ex-Sibyl’s collection of wing crests are trophies taken in battle from other members of her former company. Not necessarily from those she killed, but most people just assume they are. (Meanwhile someone, somewhere comes back with one or both crests comically missing.)

The Chief previously worked with the ex-Sibyl, who was both more agreeable and less agreeable than her replacement. More agreeable because of her warmer and more empathetic demeanor; less agreeable because she was keenly aware that the Chief carries some, err, emotional baggage from the whole Markus debacle. It’s hard to be vulnerable with the one who is watching you for the slightest sign of weakness, waiting for you to slip up. The ex-Sibyl goes M.I.A. sometime after their dispatch to Earth, so her successor doesn’t really meet the Chief or learn about all this until it’s public knowledge.

Shamelessly stealing lore that whips from the most unfortunately-named chaos space marine warband in 40k: the ex-Sibyl never unmasks on the battlefield except when facing her worstie <3 love wins.

Gender dynamics are whatever (read: I think about it so much that I don’t want to think about it) but I still picture the Chief as a black sheep for being the only woman in her company. That the two Sibyls come after her is probably significant. Somehow less isolated and more isolated because they are two very different but equally awful people to deal with. Messy messy.

yeah that’s the Chief’s actual real full name

#chief and the r.a. tag #chief tag #maila reyes tag #content warning: blood #content warning: gore #content warning: injury #content warning: war #content warning: for the love of god these women need deprogramming

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m0r1bund · 1 year

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This thing’s a mile long, so the rest of the image captions are enclosed under the cut. Continue reading below or at m0r1bund.com ▶︎

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[Image: A big ‘ol sketchpage of funny little centaur-spider-beetle guys. From the waist down, they are mostly hexapedal, with thick carapaces and stocky limbs that are equal parts ungulate- and insect-like. Their upper bodies are more humanoid, with two arms and an upright posture. Their chests and shoulders are enclosed in large, collar-like shells, and their heads are covered by a carapace forming a hood. They have a vaguely avian profile, with large, blunted beaks and oversized mandibles inset into their jaws.

One of them, Rho, hangs out with area human and research assistant Reyes. Rho is bipedal instead of hexapedal, with segmented satyr-like legs and a short, stubby carapace ‘tail.’ Her left arm and leg are mechanical prosthetics, as well. She watches Reyes shred on a makeshift hoverboard that they probably ripped off of a hunk of Imperial junk. In another doodle, Rho rides an old Imperial motorbike through the wastes.

Her cohort Oeste is a battle-scarred old woman with kind of a puckish, sanguine energy. He is missing his left arm. He’s variously drawn hoisting a basket of fish over his shoulder and getting up on his back legs to reach some fruit at the top of a saguaro arm. One drawing shows him carrying a scrongled-looking Reyes on his back, while he comments ‘This seems demeaning, somehow.’

There are some drawings from his not-so-distant past, too. He is shown contending with a space marine-lookin’ soldier on the fields of war. One drawing depicts the fateful loss of his left arm to a brutal cleave of the soldier’s longsword. In another drawing, he returns the favor by firing a mortar point blank at the soldier’s shoulder.

Only later does he learn the soldier’s identity. The Chief immediately identifies Oeste by his arm, and vice versa. It plays out like a reenactment of the ‘same hat’ meme, with the two of them pointing at each other and saying ‘The same arm!’

When the impulse to run away and self-isolate gets the better of Chief, Reyes insists ‘You should at least apologize.’ The Chief looks like she would rather die.

When she does finally sit down on neutral ground with Oeste, getting the apology out is like pulling teeth. She digs her sweaty palms into her knees and says ‘There is no way to rectify this but. I’m sorry. forcuttingoffyourarm’

To his credit, Oeste is very forgiving, if blasé. He says, ‘Oh, it’s no trouble! I think we both learned our lesson. It is very bad to flock like that! What a terrible delusion we have all suffered!’

The Chief strains. She says ‘There isn’t… Some kind of human hivemind… I did that.’

Oeste looks at her blankly and says ‘I fail to understand how that correlates with anything I have said.’

All at once, it finally clicks for the Chief. Geometry and trigonometry overlays converge with sentence fragments about imperialism and settler-colonialism to arrive at the final conclusion, captioned ‘Military industrial complexes is the same’]

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Thinking about my old buddies Oeste and Metahei Rho and [these] [guys] again. There was a time when they were called the Suhti, but ‘Suhti’ feels exactly like something I would conlang in 2013, so I’m also thinking of renaming them. Nixthi? Nixtli? Nithi? Who knows. Anyway, it was only a matter of time before they found a home bullying the Empire.

Noodling on this sketch page made me realize I was sitting on more ideas than I thought I was. These guys have been living in the back of my brain for all of 9 years, so I guess that’s typical. There’s like 9342345245 separate threads that are coming together in a way that’s hard to untangle, so I’m just going to start writing and hope for the best.

Oeste is the chipper-looking hexapod who’s missing an arm. He’s a former agent of the ‘old guard,’ who gave up the gun and dishonorably discharged himself. He’s considered a kooky old lady with an air of death around him, but is ultimately well-meaning and tolerated. Put a pin in that thought.

Rho is the biped and Oeste’s understudy / one of few people who really trusts him. She and Reyes have some history, where the ashrunners in Reyes’ family regularly met with the wasteland scavengers in Rho and Oeste and co. They’re like family friends. Put a pin in that thought, too.

Trying to describe the, I guess, thesis of the Nithi is hard. I am very leery of the way fantasy+sci fi interacts with the concept of race and especially nonhuman race. If it lingers on biology for too long then I get kind of freaked out, so it’s hard to imagine in that space, even though I love to think about nonhuman cognition + the interior worlds of plants, animals, fungi, etc. But I’m trying! God Do I Try.

Lately I’m drawn to solitary animals who seem to get a genuine kick out of the company of other animals, e.g. octopus interactions with humans. I think that’s so fun to extrapolate on. Allergic to the company of your own species, but hanging out with the funnie primate? Oh Yeah. That’s Good. Put a pin in that thought x3.

One of my bigger bones to pick with 40k is that you really don’t need to narratively justify the dumb shit the Imperium does with some kind of outside existential threat, whether that be Bugs of Unusual Size, or aliens, or Actual Demons. Giving the Imperium a “reason” to exist just feels dishonest about how empires come to be and how they perpetuate themselves. On the flip side, this is a great lesson in how empires construct narratives about themselves. Reading 80% of the 40k lore as wartime propaganda about the ‘other,’ intended to justify this atrocity or that, is what keeps me sane in the trenches of the wiki.

I also just think it’s more fun if the ‘existential threat’ is a fabrication of the unceasing machine of Propaganda ™ in the face of an empire’s own terminal* existence. Legitimate only in that, strictly speaking, it could pose an existential threat to the empire, but an existential threat to an empire =/= an existential threat to its citizens or even humanity, even though a very concerted effort has been made to conflate those. Put a pin in that thought x4.

*Did yuo know? the average empire lasts about ~250 years, which raises some funny historical revisionist headcanons for 40k, but we can’t get into it. gotta sell figs war somehow.

ANYWAY. Speaking of the unceasing machine of Imperial Propaganda, I am always looking to bully the Empire in fun new ways. I think it would be very funny for the Empire to encounter a people who are, like, categorically asocial around their conspecifics and only societal with other sentient species, because Bad Things Have Happened whenever they organize among themselves at scale. And the Empire misunderstands this to mean that they assimilate into some kind of violent hivemind when they gather en masse, but the actual reason they refuse to associate societally is because they’re living out the dying throes of their own collapsed empire. When the Archive describes the Nithi as a monolith ‘so monstrous, a force so bloody and singular of purpose that humanity shivers at the touch,’ that’s just them taking a look in the mirror and not liking what they see. The shots are coming from inside the house.

Of course, it’s great to have some kind of alien ‘other’ for the Empire to justify its existence and lionize its endeavors abroad. Every effort has been made to drive a wedge between the citizens of the Empire and Nithi at large. Probably because if they realized they had more in common with each other than the Powers That Be, as two peoples carrying the baggage of two shitty empires, they would unionize. And That Would Be Baaaaad.

… Which brings me back to Oeste. He is an ex-soldier who fled to wasteland Earth to dodge the high price of desertion, i.e. execution. He had great timing, given that the collapse of whatever dominion was lording itself over the Nithi came right on his heels.

He carries the ‘old troubles’, or wartime knowledge, that most people, Nithi or no, are wary of. But as the Empire trains its eye on Earth, this raises some very real and difficult questions about the right of sovereign Earth to defend itself, and how. Among Earth’s Nithi in particular, this is an existential question of coming together and doing a rare and terrible thing for some sort of greater good. There is enough continuity between ‘old guard’ veterans like Oeste and armed guerilla resistance in the Empire’s frontier that the Empire perceives no meaningful difference; opposition is the same, whether it comes from another empire or a scrappy resistance force. The Archive is still operating on the hivemind hypothesis, so… not likely that they’re going to grasp the intense political landscape of Nithi mutual-defense accords any time soon.

It sucks. But the silver lining is that they get to heckle Imperials with ooky-spooky hivemind jokes. And fool them into thinking they’re acting of much greater numbers and coordination when they are… absolutely not!

Anyway, Oeste came to Earth to ‘get away from all that’ and keep an eye on the youth, e.g. Rho. He hasn’t been asked about his war wounds, and he’s perfectly content not offering his opinion about them unsolicited. (At least, not when it isn’t funny.) Probably there will come a day when that will change, but he hopes not.

Of course, these things have a way of coming back to haunt a guy. Oeste doesn’t talk about his arm for the same reason that the Chief doesn’t talk about hers, or most of her past deployments. Military trauma that you can’t even pretend to be proud of. They met once on the fields of war and left a, errr, marked impression on each other. Who struck first? … That’s between the Chief and Oeste.

Seeing each other in ~peacetime causes a little bit of a situation, but they’re kindred spirits. Oeste has a lot to impart to the Chief as someone who is much further along the whole ‘deprogramming and reintegrating into normal society’ process, and who is perhaps more familiar with what Imperial programming looks like than others. Besides, someone really has to tell the Chief that the Archive might have been wrong about a few things. A lot of things.

Reyes and Rho are just happy to see the old geezer (and Irene, lbr) make a friend.

Other napkin scraps:

Dunno if the hexapod / biped variants are morphs, or lifecycle phases, or if Rho is just a special case.

Hexapod Nithi have two major gaits—they can walk in an ‘alternating tripod’ gait like an ant or a bee, or in an ungulate-like fashion with an extra set of forelimbs taped on (with all relevant gaits like walking, trotting, cantering, galloping, etc.) The joints connecting to the femur and tibia of the hindmost legs are very flexible, and can shift to accommodate the tripod gait (by facing backwards) or ungulate gait (by facing forwards.)

It is extremely bad taste to get on someone’s back like a horse why would you do that. (Oeste has no shame though.)

Probably both an exoskeleton and endoskeleton going on in here, so full-body armor is redundant except where soft tissue is exposed (upper arms, joints, etc.) Clothing and other adornments happen at leisure. Carapace carving, painting, and piercing is especially popular. Rho gets to wear pants because she physically can and because she thinks they’re fun.

Don’t ask me if they still have stingers or can spin silk or not. I don’t know. I don’t know. it would be very funny to hock a sillystring loogie, though.

After years of research, the Archive has documented many aspects of Nithi biology that make them such confounding and lethal enemies, including:

Their bulletproof carapaces (true.)

Their venomous bite (false.)

Their ability to regrow limbs (false.)

The fact that they pop out of the propagule fully formed and able to defend themselves (false.)

Their ability to communicate in subaural vibrations (true, but this is only a small component of several larger somatic language families.)

Their keen thermoreceptors (sort of true, they are coarser and more imprecise than the Archive thinks.)

Their ability to smell fear (false.)

Their inability to feel pain, remorse, or any emotion at all in a way that matters (buddy what do you think.)

The Archive is very good at science and would never lie to you.

#tfw you the social animal can't recognize another social animal #chief and the r.a. tag #metahei rho tag #oeste tag #maila reyes tag #chief tag #content warning: blood #content warning: gore #content warning: injury #content warning: war #content warning: xenophobia

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m0r1bund · 2 years

Photo

[Image: Sketches of the Chief in various stages of transformation. The leftmost is Chief at rest; she’s a brick wall of a woman with broad shoulders, unusually long, black hair, and an armored prosthetic arm.

The middle sketch is a transition state between her human form and monster-y form. She becomes even taller and more top-heavy, with longer arms and digitigrade feet. She also gets pretty fuzzy—her hair becomes long and moppy, trailing down her back to the beginnings of a stumpy tail. Body hair grows into full-on fur on her arms and legs, and nails grow into talons on her right arm. Her face is masked by a gas mask, which looks a little bit more like a muzzle, right now.

The rightmost is a fully monstered-out Chief. She has something like a full-body horse’s mane now, with hair growing in a continuous line from her scalp to her spine to the tip of her large, possum-like tail, which is unfurred on the underside. The tail counterbalances her extremely top-heavy frame and huge claws. Her face is shown in this drawing. It’s hard to pin down, like a human head stretched out into a muzzle, with a sort of gorgonopsid-lookin’ puppy mouth. Her eyes are shadowed by her long hair, with only her pupils visible as two white dots.]

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EauuuuauaauUUuauuuu I’m out of control. Realized I’ve drawn a lot of chiefs, but only like two chiefs in crittermode. So, this is that.

I don’t know that I have a lot to say about it….?! I guess there’s mechanics. She can go back and forth between shapes, and can middle anywhere on the spectrum rather than just one end or the other. Emotions are a big factor in triggering the change—namely ones that she never had the chance to experience or regulate in their most extreme forms, like fear and joy (the ‘perks’ of being a genetically-engineered supersoldier.) It becomes increasingly difficult to talk the more changed she gets, but she picks up a form of sign language from the R.A. that she uses while shifted.

I don’t know what the situation on clothes is (i.e. whether they are assimilated or annihilated in the act of changing) and I’m trying not to worry about it. What’s worse? chewing through new shirts every other week or 　 flesh clothes

Not shown are the neural cables that attach to the ports on her spine and neck, which become appropriated into extra appendages when they fill with tendon and muscle and stuff. Flesh tubes. Don’t think about it too hard.

#chief tag #oh mary oliver. the soft animal of her body is really in it now #Chief and the R.A. tag

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m0r1bund · 1 year

Text

[Image: Several turnarounds of a funky trilobite-platerodrilus-eryonid-lookin’ guy. She’s the size of a house, and is built like a tank to match. She sports 6 walkin’ legs and 2 pedipalps below her mouth, and her frontmost legs are heavily armored, with thick chitin plates. The pattern is repeated across the rest of her body, with broad, flattened plates extending down to her sinuous tail.

Her face is concealed by another huge, v-shaped plate, with each prong reaching outwards, like horns. Two circular “lenses” are etched into the plate where her eyes would be. They look kind of like goggles, or a knight’s visor. Her muzzle is plated chitin as well, and looks like a shark’s nose crossed with a turtle’s beak. When she opens her mouth, it’s revealed that she has a second set of jaws in her throat. These jaws resemble a squid or octopus beak.

There are some other doodles, too. Reyes picks up a chubby little baby version of the critter, which looks more like a typical trilobite. She smiles a deranged smile at it. Another doodle shows Reyes eating a breakfast burrito in front of the critter’s fully-grown form. The beastie delicately extracts individual pieces of ham from the burrito with her second set of jaws while Reyes isn’t looking.]

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you hear about bugs

silly little essays about space bug ecology under the cut. you can read more below or at m0r1bund dot com ▶︎

I’m already doing PR work for fungi, hiveminds, and parasites with the endeme, but what if i did PR for crop pest species too. I’m thinking about tyranids and zerglings and how they hold up a mirror to colonial settler fears. you are afraid of everything the eye can see being extracted by a foreign invader? of the very landscape around you becoming biologically, functionally, culturally, socially uniform? what if the terrible things i did to other people… happened 2 me….

The endeme keys into impaired ecosystems that are artificially kept in the first stages of succession, and that’s the reason it is monstrous and scary and ‘successful’ (like most weeds and pioneer species, it is not competitive and becomes second banana to whoever comes after it.) But I think it would be neat to meet it from the other end and play off of fungal and viral crop diseases. Maybe there are some funny little guys who are, like, not a big deal until you put a monoculture in front of them. Like normally there isn’t a giant interstellar bug in the sky, but you razed + converted an entire planet into its favorite food. what did you expect.

Anyway I think it would be funny if Earth had a cicada ‘nid horrible spacebug spawning event every 17 years or whatever, where the hive masses of the void return to their natal origin and eat all of their young and fuck and die and get eaten by their giant mom. They’re like salmon moving nutrients from the ocean to the continents, except they’re shuttling nutrients from the unfathomable beyond to different planets. And they can crawl onto land and eat all of your corn. You know how it is.

I think what happens is there’s a “larval” stage that spends most of its life as a detritivore, wiggling around in the dirt for 17 years. And then they have a mass emergence event that coincides with the “hive” forms returning from abroad to hunt and eat most of their young. In turn, they’re hunted and eaten by their larger, more predatory peers, climbing up and up the trophic chain until you make it back to The giant space bug herself.

I think this is like a summer gorging event crossed with a rare mineral pilgrimage for them. Fueling up for years and years of floating around in the abyss between worlds, and collecting rare vitamins while they’re at it.

The impact on Earthen flora and fauna is dramatic and mixed. The buggies are playing a really meta game of energetic monopoly, which has also been brewing underground for 17 years. So, their main objective is extracting their larvae + passing them up the chain as food to mom. But they are also looking for other things to eat. They prefer plants, algae, and fungi at the bottom of the trophic chain to critters at higher levels of the chain, because producers make up way more biomass and are doing more efficient energy transactions. They are also trying to minimize what’s basically mass bioaccumulation, which hivemom is *extremely* sensitive to. So, they’re actually quite picky about which individuals have the ‘honor’ of becoming food.

Some people think it’s more complicated than this, and that the hive is making complex land management decisions informed by things like carrying capacity, local extinction, replacement rates, succession, and so on, but that’s craaaaazy hahaha…. They would never develop such a sophisticated relationship with plants and animals…...... Unless?

Either way, this results in very patchy feeding pockets, where some forests might be nibbled down to the dirt, and others are untouched. This also means that most heterotrophs don’t really have anything to worry about during the spawning/eating frenzy. There’s a 7-ton centipede outside the house and she might cause the roof to cave in, but she mostly just wants to eat your potatoes.

Outsiders understandably view this as an apocalyptic feeding event, because oh my god every trophic level is usurped by bugs, and a non-negligible amount of organic matter IS being taken away by bug mom. But they also leave behind an equal mass of dead bugs, individuals who fall prey to the local flora and fauna, have reached the end of their lives, or were deemed “unfit” for intraspecies eating because they have, like, more than 0.3 micrograms of zinc in their body.

Obviously if you were planning on growing any kind of staple crop that year, good luck have fun. But typically their buggy leavings are enough to last other animals through the year while the plantlife recovers. It’s like a rare treat that comes around every 17 years.

All that to say Reyes ate nothing but forbidden lobster tails for several months when she was, like, 10, and she has been thirsting for them ever since.

#chief and the r.a. tag #maila reyes tag

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m0r1bund · 1 year

Text

another mile-long sketchpost, huh, lore. image captions and essays about the walking existential nightmare are under the cut. Read on below or at m0r1bund.com ▶︎

[Images: Many many sketches of Frey and the Oracle of Caeres.

The first few doodles show a very different Oracle than we’re used to. Row 1 depicts the Oracle in digital ink washes. She’s a black silhouette, hanging from the ceiling by a great mass of wires and threads. They fan out from her head like hair, chaining her to her surroundings. She’s posed differently in each vignette: hanging upright, bound with her hands behind her back, and reversed, like the ‘hanged man’ tarot card.

The next drawings show an Oracle who has seen better days. He looks more like a shambling wraith than his typical well-groomed self, with singed robes, cracked glasses, and a grisly gash across the chest that exposes his ribcage. His face is gaunt, cheeks hollowed out like a mechanical mask. Most striking is his hair, which fans out in all directions like a maze of red arteries, reaching beyond the borders of the page.

The Oracle is a little more put-together in the next doodle, although her hair is still an unruly web of threads and wires. Frey charges bravely into the mess, brandishing a brush. Kairos looks uncharacteristically concerned about this as her hair envelopes her.

Following shortly is a drawing of Frey with a fistful of the Oracle’s hair, which she diligently brushes. The Oracle buries his face in a pillow, looking nervous. He says “You’re taking out the entire CIN-38 annex… My surveillance arrays will take weeks to recalibrate…”

A nearby sketch shows Frey with a flathead screwdriver, negotiating with some exposed machinery in the Oracle’s stomach. The Oracle glances away and fingercombs her hair tersely.

The last bit of tomfoolery shows a more typical Oracle of Caeres, who is cracking an amused smile at Frey. Frey seems to have weaseled her way out of prison, but not the binds on her wrists. The Oracle comments “My, my, all tied up by the strings of fate.” Without warning, Frey whips around and tries to headbutt the Oracle. He steps out of the way, unfazed.

Finally, there are some sharp, graphical drawings of Frey and the Oracle. They’re rendered in black and white, with splashes of red and yellow.

The first drawing shows Frey breaking free of a birdcage, while the scar over her eye is still fresh and bleeding. She’s composed so that she fits neatly into the negative space of the broken cage. Behind her, yellow canary wings are drawn on tangents with her outstretched arms, and two geometric feathers lie under the cage.

The second drawing shows the Oracle, hovering in the center of the page. She is a black silhouette with no expression behind her circular glasses lenses. Her hair fans out around her in blood red, neatly snaking around the contorted silhouettes of several Archivists. They’re in agony, limbs locked at unnatural angles as they cry out. Each one is speared through the chest by a single, red hair. ]

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Was playing around with the idea of the Oracle being a secutor in disguise, but then I went back and forth on it for a while, because it ruins the fun of her being unknowable. But also it's whatever, it literally does not matter and I’m having fun thinking about it. Maybe the Oracle of Caeres should submit to the Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known. Maybe that would fix her.

I’m not 100% sold on who he is or where he came from. I think it would be funny if he was some warlord’s court wizard advisor who failed upwards by making the most outlandish predictions that somehow came true, and now everyone expects him to know things, but his deep dark secret is that he has zero predicative power and is just making shit up as he goes. Orrrr maybe even he can’t explain why this gift came to him, or how he got here.

Either way, the Empire eventually became unhappy with the idea that their puppet might someday die, or retire, or try to run away. So they did back-alley surgery on him and entombed him in an estate-sized prison-computer for 4763654837573 years.

To improve her intuition, she was hooked up to the most sophisticated surveillance array known to man, i.e. the red strings of fate, i.e. bad cable management, i.e. her ‘hair.’ Each thread is an individual sampling instrument so sensitive she can feel a pin drop on the other side of the known universe. Thousands of them are trained in every direction, on just about everything worth knowing. With these, she collects the massive amounts of data needed to run her complicated models and make predictions.

The threads are also tools of manipulation. They can slip unnoticed through skin and bone, and join with nerve tissue to send false signals or intercept neural impulses. This augments her foresight with an uncanny sense for what’s going on inside the heads of those around her. That said, it’s tricky to take readings without alerting the victim that something is wrong. Incoming signals can rarely be parsed in detail, beyond flickering images or vague emotional impressions. This kind of surveillance is often unnecessary, anyway, when the Oracle’s methods of indirect sampling are more accurate and reliable.

It’s also much easier to “read” someone's biomechanical augmentations than their nervous system. Convenient that these modifications are so popular in the Archive, because the Oracle needs to watch his back around other Archivists the most. On the flip side, this means that unmodified individuals are like black boxes to him—not worth the trouble of such invasive sampling.

Outgoing signals are even less precise. The Oracle’s power of suggestion is real, but it’s not accomplished by pulling strings. It is very difficult to mask these signals as normal impulses, and on the whole it feels Very bad and Very wrong to be puppeted around by them. Really, the most he does with them is change his appearance (a honed skill; virtually nobody notices that anything is different) or make people go away (no need to practice, because the discomfort is the point.)

Incidentally, there’s nobody left who remembers what she did before she dabbled in soothsaying. What happened to them? Don’t worry about it.

…She’s kind of subsuming the ghost at this rate LOL

◆◆◆

Have also been rotating Frey in my brain. She’s a little weird because, like Reyes, she’s one of the few Imperials with no biomechanical augmentations. Initially I was like “well, that’s a fun coincidence.” But then I extrapolated, because of course I did.

Normally you accumulate modifications over time, in her line of work. The ceaseless, grinding machines inevitably claim bits and pieces of the engineers who work on them, what with the famously ethical labor practices of the Empire. Even without some kind of grisly workplace accident, it’s desirable to get rid of your squishy bits, because it makes you more useful.

For this reason, I think Frey started out as a proverbial canary in the coal mine. Without any biomechanics to protect her, she would have served as an early warning system for gas leaks, radiation, and other environmental hazards.

It’s morbid work, but there’s tradeoffs that make it appealing to some. For one, it was in everyone’s best interest that she didn’t die. She also received better healthcare than probably everyone on the factory floor, and the chop docs were even discouraged from doing any ‘experimental operations’ when nobody was looking. On the flip side, the foreman won’t wait for you just because you don’t have the PPE your peers do. Frey would have to do 10x the work, 10x faster, 10x riskier just to keep up.

How does she feel about all that?

… Eh.

#chief and the r.a. tag #the oracle of caeres tag #frey tag #content warning: injury #content warning: blood #content warning: mind control #content warning: manipulation #content warning: by god you are the surveillance state nightmare #content warning: empire-typical fuckery lbr

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m0r1bund · 2 years

Photo

[Image: A gathering of funny little hooded cyborgs that are hanging out around the foot of a great pine tree. The tree twists and turns around the form of an even larger construct, a hooded figure who has been partially engulfed by its bark. The figure sits in the crook of the tree, with their mechanical hands folded politely in their lap. Below the waist, their body is like a cross between a centipede and a snake, many-segmented limbs entwined with the winding bark and roots.

Reyes, the mechanic, sits on the figure’s huge knee. Another cyborg, MarkOS, helps her lift one of the figure’s insectoid legs so that she can repair it. The gathering watches them through their big ol' goggle lenses, bemused.]

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The Endling Cult gathers in June, just before the rainy season. Nobody really knows where they gather, or why, or how it is that they know where to go, exactly. Their journey is as mysterious as that of the migratory birds they study, and every bit as long.

So when Maila blows in from out of the wasteland, it comes as something of a surprise. This is the first time in anyone’s memory that an outsider has been allowed to tag along for the journey—and stay for the gathering.

< Read on below or at m0r1bund.com ▶︎ >

She has been called here to repair one of their own, a venerable ex-secutor that they call ‘the Col.’ Though the endlings have no leaders or governing bodies to speak of, it is often necessary for elder secutors like the Col to watch over their proceedings. Few are old enough to command the respect of their peers. Fewer still can keep the peace when tensions run high.

Maila would like to be honored by the summons, and to some extent, she is. The pressure of being trusted with such a high-profile repair job is enough to make her hands shake. But the truth of the matter is that there isn’t much the endlings need to worry about, around her. Not because she’s privy to the cult’s secrets, but because she has no hope of ever understanding them.

The hum of conversation fades. Maila looks up. The Col waves a delicate hand overhead, and it’s like a switch is flipped. All eyes are on them.

The Col’s speaking voice is slow and methodical, their voice modulator rattling around the synthetic edges of their words. They introduce her to the crowd and explain the reason for her intrusion.

The endlings simply watch her. Maila gets the feeling that she’s supposed to say something. She begins to speak, but pauses. Then, as if by some invisible signal, the crowd carries on. The dialogue continues without her.

Maila can’t keep up with it, even if she wants to.

Theirs is a Devonian language of clicking, humming, and static bursts. When the Col speaks, now, she feels it more than she hears it—a thrumming in her chest, like thunder rolling through a valley. MarkOS sounds almost musical by comparison, his human voice chopped up and intercut with what sounds like radio feedback.

They all talk over one another, but there is no crosstalk. Their cybernetically-altered brains hold onto each and every incoming signal. With mechanical speed and precision, they dissect its meaning, commit its contents to indelible machine memory, and articulate a response. Maila only perceives the exchange as white noise. With each passing moment, her brain has to choose what to keep and what to forget—a decision made unconsciously, and without her permission.

Much of the conversation happens beyond her senses entirely, in the exchange of phytochemicals and electromagnetic pulses. Fungal mats entwine their threadlike fingers with one another, deep beneath the earth. Optical implants keep watch over the crowd’s shimmering heat signatures. Leaves open their stomata to exchange water for carbon dioxide, and maybe some other things, too. The air itself comes alive with conversation.

MarkOS occasionally pauses to interpret for her, but his explanations are clumsy, and they usually raise more questions than they answer. She knows that what he chooses to tell her barely scratches the surface. In one mechanized breath he can deliver an argument that Maila would struggle to explain in an hour. Add a hundred secutors to the mix, and the discourse mutates rapidly from moment-to-moment, concerns raised and settled in mere minutes.

On one hand, there is the slow language of rocks, mountains, and plants. On the other, the cryptic secutor pidgin, spoken only in hushed whispers and frantic radio bursts. Both are languages she barely understands.

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reyes visits thos skitties... what are they up to............................

im making up microsocieties in my head as usual. and listening to a lot of the album Reality by Wolfgun. Apart from the usual Mechanical Screams of the Damned in the Mechanicus soundtrack, I really like the more pensive tone of Reality. catch me in the dirt about 'Mars' and 'Our Kind.'

#thinking so hard about them #markOS tag #Chief and the R.A. tag #maila reyes tag #research associate tag

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m0r1bund · 1 year

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[Image: The Chief, in full power armor, walking the streets somewhere. She looks up at a wall, which is plastered with anti-imperial leaflets. They are simple and graphical, block-printed in black, white, and red.

One leaflet depicts the stylized Valkyrie helmets that are worn by Chief’s company. It is split down the middle and bleeding profusely. The text reads ‘REMEMBER THE DAY, FOR THEY WILL NOT.’

Another depicts a silhouetted figure. Only their eye is visible, which weeps blood. The tear streak splits the composition down the middle, sort of like the other leaflet. The background is further divided into a red maze of wires, and a blank white plane. The figure holds up their hand, which is stained with blood, or perhaps they are holding something bloody. The text reads ‘THE BODY REMEMBERS WHAT THE MIND FORGOT.’]

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Many thoughts, brain is a scrambled egg. Maybe you will get the essay at some point, but not right now u_u

#chief and the r.a. tag #chief tag #content warning: blood #content warning: wartime imagery

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m0r1bund · 2 years

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Play Killswitch ▶︎

Killswitch is a ~40 minute visual novel / piece of interactive fiction about doing some things that you really, really don’t want to do. It’s centered on a minor act of heresy committed by the Chief, a battle-scarred supersoldier of the Empire with a Capital E, and Reyes, her scrappy little research assistant. Unfortunately for them, the eyes and the ears of the Empire are everywhere...

Content Warnings (abbreviated): There’s UI animations like flickering text, shaking, and crossfades, as well as sound (!!). This is a visual story, and it contains many depictions of blood, gore, injury, violence, and generally living under an imperial hell-state.

This is an abbreviated list of some of the more conspicuous elements that need warnings. You can read a full breakdown of content warnings, accessibility quirks, and game tips at the link above.

A static, soundless, screenreader-accessible version of the game is available here.

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This is easily one of the more certifiably deranged things I’ve created. Not necessarily in subject matter (though that’s pretty bonkers too, to be fair) but in process. Why did I do this? Why did I brute force Twine into being a visual novel? Why about the lesbians from the Warhammer ripoff? Why in the span of two weeks, so urgently you would think I had been burdened with the foreknowledge of my own death?

I don’t know!!

But it’s done, and you get to look at it now :)

#i dont even really know what to say. easily one of the things ive made of all time #chief tag #markOS tag #the chronicler tag #the doctor tag #i guess now that some of them have names i should do something about that #Chief and the R.A. tag #maila reyes tag #research associate tag

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m0r1bund · 2 years

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[Image: A short comic. It opens with the battered body of a dead mourning dove (Zenaida macroura), laying among its own feathers. Dried blood cakes its eyes shut. In the next frame, someone picks up the dove’s cold, limp body.

The frame pulls out to show the cyborg MarkOS, kneeling down on mechanized legs. He wears a chunky respirator under his hooded robes, and goggles that blot out his eyes. He scoops up the dove in both hands, and cradles it close to his chest. Panes of light reveal that we’re actually looking at his reflection in a window. The glass is cracked, and the cracks distort MarkOS’ reflection somewhat, but the source of the damage is hidden somewhere off-screen.

MarkOS stands up. The fractured glass comes fully into view. It's a mark of the dove’s fatal collision with the window, and it eclipses MarkOS’ profile like a halo of spidering stress fractures. Blood drips down from the raw edges of the glass, and his reflection becomes so distorted that it’s hard to make out.

He looks at his reflection—at the viewer. The shards of glass catch the light just right, and he catches a glimpse of his old self. It takes him back to a memory from another time...]

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And it feels different And it feels the same

(checks my pulse) no yeah I’m still on one. Post-Killswitch ruminations. TYPHOON is full of pathos and so is MarkOS.

For those who don’t go here: hi, this is my boy MarkOS. He’s from a story about two women traveling an irradiated hellscape in the far, far future, and learning about things like love and restoration ecology and dodging the draft.

With gratitude to Archaii for sharing these broken glass resources. I love rendering glass and reflections, but for some reason, drawing believable-looking cracked glass is something that takes me 8 years. And I very much needed to get this out of my system Quickly.

Anyway.

[Image: Another short comic. MarkOS presents the dead body of the mourning dove to the Doc, who is a tall, inscrutable something-or-other. She wears thick robes that resemble MarkOS’, but are somewhat fancier. They conceal her whole body from toe to tip, and her face is hidden behind a mask that looks like some sort of bird skull.

She glances over at MarkOS’ strange offering, and one has to imagine that she makes a face at it.

“That isn’t what I asked for,” She says.

MarkOS insists. He raises the dove as high as he can for her to look at it. The Doc throws her head back indignantly.

“It’s dead,” she says, waving her talons at it dismissively.

MarkOS just stands there, holding the dove up.

The Doc puts her hands on her hips and examines him, instead. “What’s wrong with you? Did one of your semantic cables come loose?”

Her lab assistant, Reyes, is off in the background repairing a doorway. Reyes looks over at the two of them, and says “Think he wants you to fix it, boss.”]

#markOS tag #the doctor tag #content warning: animal death #content warning: blood #Chief and the R.A. tag #maila reyes tag #research associate tag

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