Leonard Church - Tumblr Posts
Yes I die and come back. Yes you've seen it happen multiple times. But it would be NICE if you acted a LITTLE surprised every time. You don't know what it's like when you're dying in someone's arms and he asks you if you'll make it back in time to play Crash Team Racing later
Just to throw my RvB/RWBY idea out into the void: RvB cast replaces main RWBY cast, and act accordingly to their own characters in the rwby situations (For example, Tucker and Caboose both take the place of Ruby, it'll get explained). Carolina, Church, and the other A.I are runaway siblings. It's gonna be super canon-divergent, to the point I'm just calling it the Faunus AU, and probably a little self-indulgent, these are my only concrete plans
Alrighty, slightly more info to the au! (races+semblances, weapons are a WIP)
Carolina: Human, semblance is speed
Church: Cat (tail), semblance is projectable platforms
Omega: Cat (ears), semblance is telekinesis
Gamma: Crow (wings), semblance is shape-shifting
Delta: Raven (wings), semblance is cloning
Eta & Iota: Squirrel (both tails), semblances respectively increase a persons negativity and positivity
Theta: Dog (tail), semblance projects light-shields
Sigma: Human, semblance is hypnotism
Grif: Deer (antlers), semblance is water
Kai (Sister): Deer (ears), semblance is fire
Wash: Ferret (ears), semblance is an emp
Tucker: Coyote (ears), semblance is ability to open portals
Caboose: Dog (tail), semblance is enhanced strength (probably)
Sarge: Puma (ears), semblance is chain-reaction explosives
Donut: Road runner (tail), semblance is, kind of cartoon physics
Doc: Dove (wings), semblance is being able to read someone via touch
Simmons: Red panda (tail), semblance is ability to shrink and grow at will
Just to throw my RvB/RWBY idea out into the void: RvB cast replaces main RWBY cast, and act accordingly to their own characters in the rwby situations (For example, Tucker and Caboose both take the place of Ruby, it'll get explained). Carolina, Church, and the other A.I are runaway siblings. It's gonna be super canon-divergent, to the point I'm just calling it the Faunus AU, and probably a little self-indulgent, these are my only concrete plans
hollow knight/rvb crossover bc im very much in favor of jamming completely disparate media together like a child with a bin of legos
church is a vessel bc quite frankly theres lore threre that fits to me but also him being a mute manlet is really funny
i’m sorry it’s already too late and july not june now I know my mind was…elsewhere, I hope everyone had a good and safe Pride month, regardless of in or out of the closet, and have some Blue Team
In order: Caboose (Pan) and Church (Demisexual) Kaikaina/Sister (Bi/Trans) and Tex (Pan/Trans) Tucker (Aro) and Junior (Gay/Demiboy) Carolina (Bi) and Wash (Demisexual)
You know I am disappointed that no one in the rvb fandom’s long and crack-filled history
took a moment to have an au where Lopez falls in love with church
Like Lopez and Sheila are just two bisexual ai in a strait presenting relationship in cannon.
It is a very bi thing to start a revolution/uprising
The idea of Lopez coming too only to see a (slightly broken) smart ai stretching out right in front of him and not taking a nano second or five to check out his code before panicking over the fact:
A) that’s a blue
B) that’s a male(?)
C) does this make me gay??
F) wait do I technically have a gender??
And twenty more existential crises and one failed attempt to literally run from his problems later he says ‘fuck it’ and just tries to seduce one dumb smart ai
————-
Church: ok which one of you asswipes keeps breaking into my room and l leaving me erotic binary?!
Tucker: dude, the fact that you understand binary so well that you know it’s erotic is kind of sad..
Church: WAS IT YOU??!
Tucker: no!? Why would I waste time with you when I could copy and paste some shit off of google and hand it to a lady??
Church: I DON’T KNOW! All I do know is that it’s like twenty pages long and smells like motor oil.
————
Lopez: step one, do not be attracted to the blue team leader
Church not looking up from his laptop: hey Lopez, command just sent out our monthly munitions and just decided to send the tank supplies anyway even though Sheila is on the fritz. Do me a favor and have a five finger discount on any motor oil and spare parts you like. *muttering*god knows no one else in this side of the goddamn cannon would know what to do with it
Lopez: I have failed step one
——————
Sarge: Lopez how could you fall in love with the enemy?! A harlot who will only break your very combustible heart!
Lopez: I get free oil from a hot ai who gives zero shits. It’s meant to be.
Grif: hold on sarge how do know he’s been at the blue from his own free will? Maybe he’s been brainwashed or they put a bomb inside him or something!
Lopez: nope. Literally just the booze and hot dude.
Sarge: no it’s no use I can see it in his eyes! He’s loveblind!
Simmons: HE DOESN’T EVEN HAVE EYES!
Sarge: I know it’s hard to look past the rose petals and red tint but you godda Lopez! You just godda! You’re like a son to me!
Lopez: I could literally care less.
————————
*Shelia turns back on*
Lopez: WHY IS IT THAT ALL THE HOT AI GO TO BLUE TEAM?!!
——————
Church: hey Lopez is there any way I can hop a ride with you without doing the possession thing? Because I am done with the rest of the team and honestly you don’t make me want to rip my hair out so you are on my ok side right now so I don’t want to be dick.
Lopez: this is sudden I need a moment
Church: why?
Lopez: I get sweaty when I am nervous.
~~~~~~~~
*after they get church situated in a port-like system*
Church: man! This is actually pretty nice! You know how to roll out the red carpet for a guy huh Lopez?
*church stretches and accidentally brushes against one of Lopez’s code*
Church: shit! Sorry! Uh you good dude? Because I just felt your motor do something funky.
Lopez: *Basically on the fritz due to the code equivalent of church grabbing his hips*
I know that I might get some looks for this but it is what I wish you to consider
Separated some of the groups from the bigger picture, so they’re easier to see individually (I had to go back and re-draw a few areas that were covered in the final version). First is Church and Tex with the AI Fragments. Then there is Tucker and Caboose, with Wash and Carolina. After that is Kai leaning against her bro, and Grif with Simmons in his lap. Next is Locus, with Donut and Doc. Then, Sarge and my OC Poppy. Finally, Sheila and Lopez (being romantic as heck). I had fun doing all these different poses, and just… look how happy they all are~
church is so short if he fell in a pothole he'd get lost
also this
i just want church to be nicer to caboose.
Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Red vs. Blue Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Michael J. Caboose & Leonard L. Church, Michael J. Caboose/Leonard L. Church Characters: Michael J. Caboose, Leonard L. Church | AI Program Alpha Additional Tags: Season/Series 05, No Smut, Tickling, Non-Consensual Tickling, There's a safeword he just has his pride, Accidental Stimulation, Ableist Language, He gets punished for it don't worry, Use of the R Slur, Dom/sub Undertones, Sexual Tension, Awkward Sexual Situations, Foot Fetish, Not but it might as well be, Awkward Boners, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Caboose Fucks Series: Part 1 of Y'all Need Therapy. Have Some Tickles Summary:
Church is tired of Caboose always watching the same damn show. Caboose is done with Church calling him a child and using slurs.
A fight for the remote ends up into something more.
found a bunch of stupid tshirts on pinterest today
first base is murdering you. second base is ressurecting you from the grave. third base is murdering you a second time
The moment Tucker figured out Church was a robot
Tucker had never believed in ghosts. Aliens, robots, those were one thing. Those had science-y explanations that were too boring to actually read about. Ghosts? No way man. If humanity hadn’t found proof of them yet, they weren’t going to.
So he was understandably a little spooked when his buddy who had just taken a tank-round to the face showed back up to boss him around again. Spooked enough to listen to the disembodied spirit of Church, which was kind of embarrassing. Tucker had barely listened to that asshole when he was alive. Why start after he was dead? But more than spooked, Tucker was skeptical. First of all, what sort of douchebag ghost walks around in full body armor? Like, okay, he died in it and all, but still. And in all of the B-horror flicks turned porn he had ever watched, the ghosts were coming back to, like, avenge their deaths or to see out some grudge or something. Sure, Caboose had shot Church, and sure the guy had a grudge against pretty much everybody, but he wasn’t exactly vengeful. Just an asshole. That wasn’t exactly a new revelation. If anybody was going to come back as a ghost, why couldn’t it have been Captain Flowers? That dude was already kind of creepy, but at least he wasn’t so obnoxious.
The skepticism only deepened when Church started possessing that weird robot the Reds had built. For days he could only speak Spanish. Tucker could pretty much guarantee that Church could never speak Spanish before, and if he could he probably would’ve been shitty at it. He definitely shouldn’t have been able to set out on his usual bullshit monologues in Spanish. They had to figure out how to turn the robot’s Spanish function off to get him to speak normally again. Even afterwards, Church could still monitor some of Lopez’s internal data, like weather forecasts and time and temperature functions. Since when could ghosts do stuff like that? Like, sure, possessing dolls he could see, but a military-grade robot seemed a little bit more complex.
Then O’malley showed up. Tex’s old AI, Church had explained. It wasn’t like the concept of Artificial Intelligence was a new one to Tucker. Some of the UNSC’s ships were equipped with them. For that matter, so was Sheila. By that time they already had a second “ghost” on their hands, and they both seemed to like taking out their frustrations on him. He didn’t think about it for a while, but when O’malley started jumping bodies, it all fell into place. Who else could jump into other people’s bodies like that? Motherfucking Church, that’s who. He thought about talking to Caboose about it, but that would do about as much good as shooting himself in the foot, and would probably be just as painful. No way was he going to spill his guts to Tex, either. He tried telling Church about his theory, once, though. “Hey Church, can I, uh, talk to you about something?” He asked as the two of them were trying to restore Blue Base to its former glory after their leap into the “future” and Tucker’s bizarre-o quest. “Oh for the love of god, Tucker. I’m not having a discussion about your feelings. I expect this kind of thing from Caboose, but c’mon man. I don’t care if your mother didn’t hug you enough. No one here cares. Just shut up and get back to work. That couch isn’t gonna move itself.”
Fuck that. Let that asshole think he was dead if he wanted to. Not like it was going to change anything. Whether he was ghost or an AI, he was still going to be the same old Church. Man, why did he have to get stuck with Crabby McBitchpants instead of that hot chick that hung out with Master Chief? Just his luck. Church could run around and act like an undead pain in the ass all he wanted, Tucker knew the truth. His best friend was a fucking robot.
[[Woohoo for my first piece of Red vs Blue writing! I’m sorry it’s a little wonky, I was having trouble getting into character! It was a great prompt though!]]
who let leonard church attempt to assassinate the former president of the united states?
too emo about chucker
happy chucker chewsday
comms open
This was really fascinating to read. As someone who’s a big fan of the series and admittedly has at-most a semi-decent understanding of DID and how it’s represented, I figured rvb’s depiction of it would be considered pretty subpar since again, the show is mostly about comedy and I figured it didn’t really put an emphasis on details like that. I had no idea they actually researched the subject and made it a pretty faithful depiction, which is really good for me to hear because the feeling that it wasn’t accurate was one of the things stopping me from recommending the show to friends (among other things lol) so in a way it’s relieving. I know this show is by no means a perfect representation and has its flaws all around (which makes it kind of a guilty pleasure for me to watch) but its cool to hear that this show I really liked was a little better than I thought it was. All around this was a really cool and insightful read :)
here’s the full essay about churchs plurality. this was written for ppl who don’t know anything about the show and it doesn’t have anything about sigma or the meta so i don’t consider it complete but. here you go:
Leonard L. Church (referred to as Church for the rest of this) is a canonical, textually stated traumagenic system.
Church is the main character of the first ten seasons of Red vs Blue. A part of the ways through the show, it is revealed that Church is an AI called the Alpha and it is canonically stated on screen that he has DID and the rest of the AI we’ve met through the series so far are his fragments. (note: the show calls it the outdated term of “multiple personality disorder” but this show is from the 2000s, where even though it had been updated medically, resources were much harder to find than they are now and many that were there still referred to it as MPD. The creators correctly identify it as DID outside of canon later). In show, Church’s alters are referred to as fragments, and their behavior matches the definition of fragments in DID perfectly. This is genuinely the only piece of media we’ve ever seen that is able to capture the experience of what it’s like to have and be a fragment with so much accuracy. They’re defined by the one “aspect” they have (logic, rage, ambition, etc.) and some of them stay that way, while others evolve and turn into more fully fledged alters. Neither one of these thing is presented as the more correct way for them to exist, they just both are as they are. Many of the fragments end up somewhere in the middle. Many of the fragments also struggle with the process of becoming their own person, which is spurred on by the fact that they are all separated. Alters being separated is admittedly not the greatest rep but this is treated as a horrific tragedy and violation of human (well. AI) rights and is also remedied later (see part about Epsilon).
Along with fragments being a textually stated part of Church’s system in canon, there are other alter types that are canonically acknowledged from the creators. In the director’s commentary, the writer talks about how he did research on DID and specifically calls out how he wrote one of the fragments to be a little, and another to be a persecutor. (note: it’s because the writer is able to use these terms with such accuracy that we are willing to let his use of mpd slide; if he did enough research to be able to accurately depict fragments, littles, and persecutors but still came away thinking the correct term is mpd, that seems much more the fault of the research at the time than it does his own ignorance). The little, named Theta, is maybe the only depiction of a little that has managed to resonate with us so deeply. Red vs Blue is a story about war, and Theta is, essentially, a soldier, but they are also a traumatized child. The show has characters treat them as both, often simultaneously, and Theta seriously struggles with this. They are constantly stuck between wanting to act like a child and being forced into adult situations and wanting to be taken seriously in them. As an adult bodied system with littles, we relate so heavily. Our littles frequently struggle with our adult body and it’s adult struggles in our adult life. They want to be children, but they cannot be. Theta wants to be a child, but they cannot be.
RvB’s depiction of persecutors can unfortunately fall into villain alter stereotypes. but that’s really only on the most base level reading of the show. Omega/O’Malley is the rage fragment. He has the ability to jump into people’s minds to kind of “infect” them with anger. What’s notable, though, is that Omega isn’t causing them to be angry for no reason or his own goals— when Omega enters someone’s mind, he gets mad about what THEY care about. He makes them act out in their own self interest, to get the justice that they deserve, through any means necessary. This is very like ours and systems we know experience with persecutors.
Something else the show depicts, though it isn’t explicitly called out by the creators, is introjects— specifically, factives. Church was originally created as the Alpha based off the mind of another character, Dr. Leonard Church, aka The Director. When he was younger, The Director’s wife, Allison, was killed in war. This traumatized the Director so badly that, as Alpha was created from his mind, the stress of remembering the event was too much and he split of Beta, aka Agent Texas aka Tex. Tex is, in all but name, a factive of Allison. She identifies as Allison, has memories of Allison’s past, and is sometimes treated as Allison. by the Director. However, she also has her own identity, that at times she struggles with. Tex could also easily be interpreted as a protector, as she was formed to shield Alpha from the memories of Allison’s death and continuously throughout the series has her priority be of keeping Church safe— with varying levels of effort and success.
In order to talk about the other depiction of introjects, I first have to talk about Epsilon. After the Alpha split Beta from the trauma of Allison’s death, the Director realized he could cause more trauma and stress to force the Alpha to split more, torturing the Alpha to create more AI once they are separated. As I said before, though the show is for the most part a comedy, this is appropriately presented as a horrific and tragic act. All of the fragments are formed as a way to try and protect himself. The last fragment formed, Epsilon, also known Leonard Church (though he will be referred to as just Epsilon for clarity) is a memory/trauma holder. Alpha completely dissociated himself from the events prior, giving him complete dissociative amnesia about it. Epsilon, then, remembered all of it, and was accordingly incredibly traumatized by all of it. He develops a form of dissociative amnesia of his own, and becomes what is essentially dormant for a long time. Until Alpha, who spent many years as Church at this point, living unaware of his identity as an AI, dies, and Epsilon is brought back. Because of his dissociative amnesia and spurred on by the actions of another character, Epsilon develops memories (easily interpretable as pseudo/exomemories) of being Church. He takes on the identity of Church, most other characters accepting him as stuff. As a system who has had to switch hosts, this process reads so much to me as an old host going dormant and a new host forming to take their place. The new host is their own person, with their own identity, but they have the identity as the old host pushed onto them. All their friends know them as their old identity. Though they have their own name, they have to use their old hosts name. Epsilon has all of Alpha’s memories, but he doesn’t have memories of the time after he split, AKA all of *Church’s* memories. Epsilon also has his own memories. and his exomemories of being Church, and with all of these he struggles to know who he really is. He does identify as Church, he *is* Church, but he can never be the old Church, the old host that his friends knew.
Epsilon also, as he explores his dissociative amnesia and remembers more of his past as the Alpha, splits his own version of Tex, we’ll call her Tεx. Tεx is, in all but name, a factive of a factive. She’s an introject of Tex who’s an introject of Allison. Unlike the original Tex, who struggled with her identity at times but was generally okay with her identity as Allison, Tεx is not content with who she is. She desperately wants to know more about herself. Though the original Tex could be seen as a protector, Tεx does not fill this or any traditional system roles. She’s willing to do what it takes to discover more about herself and figure out who she is. Tεx is also separate from Epsilon for much of her life, though they rejoin together towards the end.
After Tεx, Epsilon also develops factives of the other AI fragments. They are, again, acknowledged to be different than the originals, but still respected as their introject identities. No one questions their identities; they are all very content with their identities of introjects of the original fragments. These fragments do NOT ever leave Epsilon, making this the only 100% “true” depiction of plurality in the series (multiple entities inhabiting a single mind/body) but hopefully reading this you’ll understand why I feel Leonard Church as a whole should be considered plural and not only Epsilon. Still, this depiction maybe touches us more than any other in the show. Epsilon is explicitly, undeniably plural. While Church exists for a long time before discovering his DID and spends most of it as (in all but name) and empty system, plurality is baked into the very core of Epsilon’s existence. He is created as an alter, as a trauma holder. Hi is present in the show for six seasons, and it’s only ~half a season after his debut that his own alters are first depicted. He gets overwhelmed and switches out with Delta. This is his only full blackout switch; his system operates akin to a P-DID system. From here his most featured alter is Tεx for a few seasons.
At some point, we spend time inside his headspace, where there are versions of his friends. We don’t have a headspace, but have been told by other systems that do that it feels like an accurate depiction. His friends there can be interpreted as introjects who live solely in headspace, or as the NPC denizens of headspace, either way I’m told they fit. From there, there is an excellent scene where Epsilon is shown to be conversing with his fragments. His system here is at the absolute forefront; it cannot be ignored or interpreted as anything else. He works with his alters fluidly, each offering their own strengths to help out. It is very clear that having his system is beneficial to him and to those around him. It isn’t, however, all perfect; there is still intrasystem fighting. The introject of Omega encourages Epsilon’s anger and pushes them towards more violent solutions— however, unlike the original Omega, he is not villainized for this. Omega’s intentions are much more clearly laid out here: he is acting in what he thinks is the best interest of the system. His rage is protective, even if it’s not especially helpful.
that’s the end. no conclusion bc it’s not done.