Intelligent Idiots' Playground

Victim - it/its, unlabeled

This I actually have more behind than just vibes… for it, it/its was purposefully dehumanizing because it didn’t feel fully like a human and/or wished it wasn’t human so Alan’s actions wouldn’t have hurt as much, but as it healed, how it used it/its also changed and it used it/its in a more reclaiming/confident way, like “you may have not viewed me as a person, you viewed me as a thing for your enjoyment. Maybe I was made that way, but I am also more than your plaything” dialectical thinking iykyk

Red - she/he/it (idk order, doesn’t matter, idk gender either)

Green - he/they, cis man

Blue - it/its, genderfluid

Purple - any/all pronouns, pangender

This is another purposeful one, and the reason I made them use any pronouns and have her be pangender is I wanted to purposefully show that abuse/dysfunctional families (unsure which it is since I haven’t seen any statements) can happen to anyone so I showed that in pronoun choice

King/Orange/Mango (I have seen so many names for this guy) - he/him, cis male

Gold - he/it, cis male

In my AvA/AvM headcanon, it/its pronouns are extremely normalized and common (lots of people use them) because of none of them actually being humans, all of them being creations of humans… i like it/its pronouns

An Italian restaurant was an interesting choice for OJ to go along with. He’d never even tried it before, but just agreed anyway. Paper just made him stupid like that, he supposed. That was probably against his better judgment, he shouldn’t get too comfortable too early. He couldn’t risk…

No! No, no, no! He was not going to start thinking like that. Salt was in jail, and paper was kind. This would all be fine.

He was escorted to the reserved table, where paper was already seated. Seeing him made OJ feel underdressed. Here he was, in a casual first date button up, while paper was dressed in a long, flowing sundress, the colour going through different shades of blue in a gradient. And were those jewels scattered about?

“Um… wow.” he couldn’t help but stare. “You look beautiful.”

“Oh, thanks! I wanted to make a good first impression- at least, first proper face-to-face impression.” he blushed. “And, um, you’re pretty too. Your outfit and, well, you.”

“The-thank you!” he tried to keep the wobble out of his voice. It was just a compliment, nothing to be afraid of. “I’m-I’m OJ.”

He held his hand out, and paper happily shook it, letting go as soon as OJ pulled away.

“OJ… I like that name. It suits you.”

“Thank you, you’re too sweet…”

“Oh, no! I just try to be kind. Treat others how you wish to be treated, you know?”

“Uh, yeah, I get that. It’s a pretty nice way to live.” OJ agreed.

“Yeah…” paper smiled. “Oh! Right, feel free to order whatever you’d like, I’ll pay!”

“What? No, no, we can split the bill.” OJ retorted.

“OJ, do I look like I’m hurting for cash? I chose the restaurant, it’s only fair you don’t have to pay.”

“I guess this is just the problem with being gay. Who picks up the bill?” OJ joked.

Paper giggled. “I guess you’re right.”

The waiter came by their table to ask for their drink orders. Paper ordered some sort of wine, while OJ settled on orange juice.

“Would you like that as a cocktail, or..?” the waiter asked.

“No, no, I don’t drink.” OJ explained.

The waiter moved on, leaving them alone once again.

“If… if I can ask, why did you choose, you know, your job?” paper asked.

OJ went quiet for a moment, lost in thought.

“It-it’s okay if it’s a sensitive subject! You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to-”

“No, no, it’s alright.” OJ reassured. “I guess I just… wanted attention. Is that bad?” He could hardly meet paper’s eyes. “I mean, I wanted to help people, of course! But I wanted that help to be visible, acknowledged.”

“I completely understand that. You deserve credit for your work, however you wish to receive it.”

“...sometimes I think I made the wrong choice. That-that if I’d just become a nurse, or a doctor, things would be… different. I know they would have been different if I just… wasn’t so full of myself.”

“...that must weigh heavy on your mind, huh?” paper asked.

“Yeah, it does.”

Paper fidgeted around, a bit uncomfortable. “We don’t have to think about that right now, if it bothers you. We can just… try to forget for tonight, if you’d like.”

“Yeah, I think I’d like that.” OJ smiled. “So, what about you? Why did you become a reporter?”

“Well, it’s a bit corny coming off what you said, but I also wanted to help people. I thought I could help bring awareness to things happening in the world. The truth, you know? Not just what sells. Actual reporting.”

“That's admirable. You’re a better man than me.”

“Oh no, nothing close! I could never be as brave as you are.”

“I’m not brave.”

“You are. You keep coming back to the job, everyday, no matter how hard or scary it gets. It's heroic.”

“Heh, you’re too kind to be real.” OJ sighed.

“No, no! Not at all! There’s… a lot to me you don’t see. You wouldn't be saying that if you knew about the other parts.”

“I don’t think any part of someone like you could be that bad.”

“It’s not that simple.” paper looked away.

“Are-are you okay?”

“...OJ, I have something I need to tell you.” They locked eyes again.

“Uh, alright.” he nodded.

“I-I want to be transparent with you, you don’t ever have to talk to me again if it scares you.” he took a deep breath. “I have dissociative identity disorder. That means that I have multiple people in my head. I’m just one part of ‘me’. That’s why I’m so ‘perfect’ seeming. I’m the ‘empathetic’ part of our mind. The kind one, who deals with people. Everything else is held onto by others. All of the baggage that comes with people is held onto by someone else, separated from me. So, yeah. That’s why I’m like this, because I’m just what people want to see.”

“...oh.” OJ was expecting a lot of things, but not that. “So, you were born with multiple personalities?”

“Uh, no. I-we used to be one person, when we were a kid. But… something happened, and it was too much for that kid to handle, so his mind just… broke.”

“And, you’re one of those pieces? The ‘part people want to see’?”

“Y-yeah.” paper confirmed. “I’m sorry if that’s too much for you, but I understand.”

“I may not understand everything, but… I’d love to meet the other ‘you’s. If you’d want me to, of course.”

“I-I’d love that!” paper smiled. “I-oh god, I'm crying, I’m so sorry. I-I’m just so happy! I was worried I’d be too much for you, just like I’m always too much for everyone else… too broken”

“Well, my mind didn’t break, but I’m pretty broken too, I'd say. So, I’m no one to judge.”

“Well then,” paper wiped a tear from his eye, and held out his hand. “Let’s be broken together.”

CRT is the fankid of Mr Puzzles and Mr WPNZ, being a sentient robot that Mr Puzzles made during his 20s whom he later abandoned.

Part of Puzzles’ backstory, as Mr Puzzles (aka Lennon) was trying to find ways to become his mascot without doing enormous damage to his body, so he would think to make a robot body he could inhabit. CRT was the prototype for that idea, as if he could get a sentient AI to live and operate a robot body then he could too. The project was called Project Jigsaw, based off a side character he made for his mascot called Jigsaw.

Puzzles spent a decade on this Project, whilst also working with cybernetics, only to shut the project down not long after CRT gained ‘sentience’ (more on why that is debatable later). CRT mostly lived on his computer, only being transferred into the robot body for testing.

The reason for the project shutting down was because: it took too long and the amount of memory and ram to get the same functions of a human brain was too extreme and required too large/heavy of a body. CRT is not conscious during their shut down.

However, when Puzzles was trying to find ways to infiltrate the SMG4 crew, he decided to bring CRT back after 13 years and made them a very efficient virus/adware. Which he later used to continue spying on SMG4 until he was imprisoned, and CRT was abandoned and confused until Puzzles’ computer eventually shut down, taking CRT with it.

Mr Puzzles has practically forgotten about CRT. It is WPNZ that finds the computer and therefor CRT, when asking about it Puzzles would explain who CRT is and agree to transfer them from the computer to the body.

Mr Puzzles didn’t really want to give back CRT their body, he find them to be annoying at times due to how needy/childish CRT can get, Mr WPNZ on the other hand, almost immediately becomes parental with CRT and forbids Puzzles from putting CRT back in the computer, essentially freeing CRT.

CRT technically is over 20 years old, but was only sentient and conscious for at least 4 years. They mentally are an 8 year old, they are a child. I repeat, CRT is a CHILD.

With CRT free, they would form an extreme attachment to WPNZ since they view them as supportive figure, something that Puzzles becomes envious and distressed by. He views him as just an AI, whilst WPNZ treats them like his own kid. So you can imagine Puzzles’ annoyance when WPNZ allows CRT to share their bed because CRT has extreme abandonment issues.

Whether or not CRT is sentient depends on your own view on sentience. So that is up to completely up to you, and I have made a small list with a few stuff about CRT so you can reach that verdict.

CRT Can:

- Generate independent thoughts and actions from what they have learnt

- Create based off observations

- Feel physical and emotional pain

- Retain memories (short term better than long term due to being an AI)

- Desire things based off what they see/observe

- Mostly understands death/danger to themselves

CRT Lacks/Cannot:

- Remove the want to hack, it’s a constant itch

- Understand/feel complex emotions they/others feel

- Thinking outside the box

- Understanding metaphors

- Little understanding of morality/change/danger to others

This idea of their sentience, and Puzzles’ behaviour around CRT juxtaposing WPNZ parental bond with CRT is planned to become the longest comic of this AU. There is so much to cover.

It should be noted that Puzzles does warm up to CRT after some weeks, but early weeks are very rough and the effects still impact CRT.

Enough of context! Design wise, this lil bot was probably the easiest of the three character I have designed. The hardest part was making them not look completely deranged.

Since they are a prototype, I didn’t want to make them too advanced, more like a science project. So most of their cables are exposed and held together by zip ties. Due to this, CRT is not very strong and can become very overwhelmed when exerting themselves. Their body has lots of scratches from Puzzles’ manhandling and the crack was formed when Puzzles dragged them too harshly one day, leading to one of CRT’s sensors being weakened. And yes, the crack being on their right eye is parallel to WPNZ’s and Puzzles’ eyes.

CRT is not nearly as avoidant about it as Puzzles, but not completely having accepted it as WPNZ. In the middle.

Week One:

The clothes they wear in Week One are Puzzles’ old NTV (aka MTV) shirt and WPNZ’s trousers from his teen years, since they didn’t have any clothes for CRT. CRT is much more okay with their robot body being exposed during this time frame due to being very naive to the fact their own value as a sentient being is being questioned.

Week Three:

During week three, no thanks to Puzzles being Puzzles, CRT slowly realises this and becomes shameful and resentful about being a robot so would cover themselves up as much as they can, using turtlenecks and hoodies. However, they also would experience with art, making patches and doing textiles to add onto their trousers and hoodie. I wanted to reference the keyboard CRT’s gives SMG4, so the motif was used there.

Puzzles also got his shirt back, he didn’t like how CRT had it for so long. But did give them one of his glove pairs.

Week Five:

Taking place sometime after Puzzles stops being the neglecting father his dad was, and would be supportive, CRT’s self esteem would improve. With the odd moments of existential dread. Being okay again to show their robot body. But, decides to keep the gloves, making they own with the help of WPNZ, since CRT was annoyed about how many time bits got stuck in the wires of their hands. The gloves’ eyes is a referenced to the pale monster in ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’. Puzzle would give back his shirt, one way to apologise for his negligence. Puzzles also would have given CRT one of the merch plushies he had during his PuzzlePark era.

Additional Details:

Much like all my characters, the birthdays and dates are not random. Paralleling an invention/date. CRT’s birthday parallels the release of the movie ‘Artifical Intelligence’ (29th June 2001), the shut down of Project Jigsaw mirrors the first ad to hire on television (1st July 1941), and their repurpose into being a virus parallels the one of first internet viruses ‘The Morris Worm’ (2nd November 1988)

CRT’s character and design was influenced by many characters: Zero (from @yasmin70 ), Telly (from @its-a-me-mango ), Norman (from the music video ‘Evil’ by Interpol) and David (from ‘Artifical Intelligence)

CRT has very limited expression, only being able to smile. CRT is somewhat bothered by this, but eventually grows to accept it. But his antennas are expressive, like Puzzles, but more restrictive as they can only move from side to side.

The vent on the back of CRT’s TV head is the exact same vents WPNZ has on his back.

CRT nightwear is based off two scenes in ‘Its Gotta Be Perfect’, the background of CRT’s ad and the eye symbol when SMG4 goes absolutely bonkers.

Orginally, instead of the eye symbol it was going to be a reference to the first virus Creeper, the shirt would say: ‘I’MTHE CREEPER: CATCH ME IF YOU CAN”

Fun Fact:

Since CRT is a sentient AI, Puzzles has banned them from seeing certain series/films, here is just a few from that list:

- ‘Pinocchio’ (1940) - ‘A Space Odyssey’ (1968) - ‘The Terminator’ (1984) - ‘Short Circuit’ (1986) - ‘RoboCop’ (1987) - ‘The Matrix’ (1999) - ‘Artificial Intelligence’ (2001) - ‘9’ (2009) - Alita: Battle Angel (2019) - ‘Mitchells Versus The Machines’ (2021) - ‘The Amazing Digital Circus’ (2023)

CRT has seen this amount from that last (either pirating themselves or WPNZ sneakily allowing them to):

- ‘Pinocchio’ (1940) - ‘A Space Odyssey’ (1968) - ‘The Terminator’ (1984) - ‘Short Circuit’ (1986) - ‘RoboCop’ (1987) - ‘The Matrix’ (1999) - ‘Artificial Intelligence’ (2001) - ‘9’ (2009) - Alita: Battle Angel (2019) - ‘Mitchells Versus The Machines’ (2021) - ‘The Amazing Digital Circus’ (2023)

(No, Puzzles was not pleased to later find out about this)

Anyways, me think that is all to say so far.

Thank you so much for reading, here is the lightless version of the character sheet as promised.