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The wiki contains unmarked spoilers and supplementary information. Reading the wiki isn't necessary to read BreadAVOTA and serves only as a reference or additional reading for people interested in the story.

Clicking on citation numbers (like [1]) will show the footnote.

While the wiki is officially 'endorsed,' it is written by one of the readers and the author does not write for it except to edit the code and proofreading.

Wiki Entries

Characters

• Bread, and all variations of the aforementioned
• Jacques Emfoi
• The Media
• Bien Maldevaran
• Anthony Tarnowska
• Ava

• Charlotte
• Bon Maldevaran
• The Reception
• The Curator
• The Security
• V.A.R.A.
• Vara
• Mirasol
• Robo-Maid

Species

• Angels
• Marginals
• Demons
• Living
• Non-Living
• Undead

Organisations

• The Court of the Living
• The Council of the Marginals
• Heaven's Conglomerate

Languages

• Maldevaran English
• Passrynian
• Anselirian

Concepts/Miscellaneous

• Alternate Timeline
• Recursion
• Emergence
• Compensation
• Infrastructure
• Architecture
• Annotation

• The Hands of Time
• The Holding of Space
• The Voice of Reality
• The Judgment of the Living

Meta

• Title Codes
• Code Input

Summaries

• Cycle 1

Special Thanks and Resource Credits

To the first ever reader Guillaume, for writing much of the original wiki content and for his generous assistance in miscellanous matters.

To readers and my precious associates Sether and ttpoi for help with transcribing some of the chapters.

tsui/Dithis for their original template back when BreadAVOTA was hosted on FC2. Although I've since moved to my own website and had to code my own template for once, their original CSS was still a valuable resource for me to learn CSS and its manner of arranging images is still used for the Archive page. At the time of my writing this, it has been a whole decade since they first uploaded their FC2 template, and their blog seems inaccessible since, and although they may never find out, I have a deep apprecication for their contribution after all these years.

Cadars, whose 'John Doe' template is used for the wiki.

Blog Designers for the theme of Bien's blog.

FC2, which was the host for BreadAVOTA for years, and is the current host for the BBS.

Cursors-4u for the custom cursors.

And of course, thank you to our wonderful and highly appreciated readers (all three of you). :)

Recommendations

Enjoy BreadAVOTA and want to read more like it? Did not enjoy BreadAVOTA and wanted to see works that did what it's trying to do with some actual skill and class? Check out the following recommendations!

Works that inspired BreadAVOTA

• Homestuck by Andrew Hussie
• Glitch by Woraya Chotikul
• Hetalia by Hidekaz Himaruya
• Steven Universe by Rebecca Sugar
• The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker
• The Stranger by Albert Camus
• 1984 by jorjor wel
• Anything by James Joyce

Recommendations by the readers (all three of us)

• DeathSitter by Puppetology
• Middens by myformerselves
• Ava's Demon by Michelle Fus
• Pandora Hearts by Jun Mochizuki
• Puella Magi Madoka Magica by Magica Quartet
• The ENA webseries by Joel G
• House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

Overview

Bread, and all variations of the aforementioned is a main character and the designated protagonist of BreadAVOTA. She is a ball-jointed Doll that mysteriously gained sentience and is on a journey to fulfill the Legal Requirements of the Living to have her name changed.

Profile

Brëad is a sentient doll whose tiny body is not enough to contain the magnitudes of anger and indignation she holds.

All that is known of her past is that she was once 'Shortcake,' the youngest of forty-six Breadlings, a line of sentient, murderous dolls. Emerging victorious when the Breadlings turned against each other, she keeps the parts of her fallen Breadlings in a larger-on-the-inside compartment on her back, and she is able to modify the parts of her own body at will. Something that comes in handy, when you have to fight weird supranatural beings now and then. She also constantly has to argue with them in her mind. Something that does not come in handy, when you have to fight weird supranatural beings now and then.

She is unable to remember what her life was like before she gained sentience, and while she'd like to know it's not her main priority. Right now, she wants to have her mouthful of a name legally changed. Why the legal recognition is so important to her is a question she has yet to answer.

Often irritable and in a hurry, she doesn't like being questioned for her motivations and would rather just get it on with.

It's heavily implied that Brëad has some form of amnesia or memory gaps.

Appearance

Brëad is a Doll resembling a small Human girl. She has olive green eyes, brown skin with round red “blush” stamped onto her cheeks, and dark brown hair tied into two buns. The style of her large eyes resembles a Powerpuff girl.

Her outfit is composed of plain white dress with long sleeves and a capelet like portion around her shoulders. It has a thin, red ribbon overlapping around the collarbone area to form an X-shape, and similar red ribbons around the wrists. She wears olive green socks and brown boots with X-shaped laces.

Behind her, a door of what appears to be a compartment opens from her back and a variety of colourful, distorted limbs and other doll parts emerge.

When Brëad wears other outfits, she is shown to wear 'dolly fashion' of dainty dresses typical of porcelain dolls.

Brëad is approximately 60 cm tall or 1/3 scale1. Brëad was supposed to be shorter, but it became too challenging to make her so small because she would get cut off from the comic panels.

Personality

Brëad is irritable and aggressive. She has little patience for when things don't go her way and resorts to violence at the smallest provocation, immediately stabbing her foes with her knife. When she isn't angry, she wears a bored look on her face. Brëad is closed off and doesn't like to discuss her motivations or past, prompting others like Charlotte to question her impulsiveness despite her awareness that she has woken up in an unfamiliar world with no understanding of its laws or history.

While Brëad is unfriendly no matter who she talks to, she appears to be more civil when talking to the other Breadlings.

Abilities

Partial shape-shifting

She can modify her base 'Shortcake' body with the body parts of other Breadlings.

Weapons use

She stabs people relentlessly with her main weapon, a blade that looks somewhere between a chisel and a knife.

Mysterious isekai powers a la John Homestuck's retconning

While the mechanism behind it is unknown, Brëad was able to enter a scene in the 'alternate timeline' that Bien makes. This is even more surprising considering that said timeline is a 'beta test' that is meant to undo itself as if it never happened.

Relationships

Charlotte

Brëad is Charlotte's reluctant ally. Brëad thinks Charlotte rambles on too much and seems to find celemarketers suspicious, but has agreed to help her with supranatural research if she helps Brëad with the Requirements of the Living. Charlotte is friendly towards Brëad and seems genuinely concerned for her well-being.

Jacques Emfoi

Brëad considers Jacques an obstacle to her goals, but her animousity has reduced when Jacques offers to help her directly with the requirements. Brëad is put off by his off demeanor and relationship to Media.

The Media

They find each other mutually annoying despite not knowing each other well. Brëad thinks Media is ugly, suspicious and talks too much, and Media thinks Brëad ruined his 25th anniversary with Jacques (of living together, at least).

The other Breadlings

While Brëad is irritable around the other Breadlings too, she gets along with them more than with the other characters and seems to have a cooperative relationship with them. She consults for their opinions, provides them with food and agrees with them from time to time2. Brëad consults Boule and feeds Baguette in C1CH4. She is also shown to have a cordial relationship with Brioche in C1A1-3 and C1A1-5.

It's unknown how Bread's consciousness works in regards to the Breadlings being combined in one body. It's implied that 'Bread' is mainly controlled by Shortcake, and that the other Breadlings act indirectly by speaking to her. The other Breadlings can also manifest specific body parts even without Bread's direction, although they haven't been shown seizing control of the entire body and it's unknown how much influence they have.

Whether her relationship to individual Breadlings differs from each other is unknown.

Trivia

• Brëad is the only character who was originally created specifically for BreadAVOTA. All the other characters are old original characters that originated from unrelated one-shots that the author decided to put together into one overarching narrative.
• Her first design was drawn with rolypolyphonic's signature 'swirly' eyes, but she was later redesigned to have Powerpuff-like eyes to make her look more like a toy and less like a small human.
• It's hinted at that while Brëad doesn't understand Maldevaran culture, she might have her own internal culture that she uses as a frame of reference. This is something Charlotte and Jacques allude to, and can be seen in her behaviour such as when she gets angry that Jacques is wearing clothes that she claims only dolls are allowed to wear3. Charlotte comments on how impulsive Brëad is in C1CH7-1 and Jacques questions her in C1A1-5. Brëad gets angry over Jacques's clothes in C1A1-3. The scene where she tells Jacques off for wearing doll clothes also shows that the sentient Non-Living have cultures.
• Despite being the protagonist, Brëad has a limited role and backstory compared to the other characters. According to the author this is intentional, for 'metafiction Homestuck rip-off reasons'.
• Brëad speaks with a heavy Scottish accent, but an inconsistent one. This is also reflected in her voice claims, with Kelly Macdonald having a Scottish accent but Sarah Stiles having an American one.

Overview

Jacques Emfoi is a main character of BreadAVOTA. He is a Passrynian Crow3 Jacques's subspecies is distinct from other Maldevaran Crows. Besides differences in physical appearance, his subspecies also retains 'half-sleeping' while other Crows did not. This means he can fall asleep with only one of his hemispheres, and it is shown that the two halves have different personalities when only one is awake. The features of his species are explained in C1A1-2. that currently works as the High Judge of Maldevara, residing in the Court of Neofrene.

Profile

Jacques Emfoi is the High Judge of the Nation of Maldevara, though due to the limited scope of what the High Judge actually does, most of the citizens simply see him as the Judge of Neofrene, the capital town of the nation.

Jacques is snooty, self-assured and a bit prone to magical thinking, often arguing with others and avoiding interaction irrelevant to his job. This makes him highly adept at being a High Judge, who is forbidden from engaging in meaningful relationships. And this aptness has been demonstrated by the fact that he has been High Judge for twenty-five years, defeating the previous record of… four.

Before moving to Neofrene, he lived in Passryne, a village from the region of Jesenne primarily inhabited by Crows and one so rural you wouldn't even have found it on a map twenty years ago. Having this 'the Non-Living should be allowed to apply as Living" ideology since the beginning, the murder he originated from shunned him as the local town crazy person, so he spent most of his time alone studying whatever it is he could get his talons on.

He spent his early years constantly trying to contact the Media to share his odd ideas and other theories bordering onto… the conspirational kind, to which the receptionist of his calls often told him, in nicer words, to fuck off. Several attempts of not fucking off later, the Reception caved and redirected him straight to the Media, who eventually found him to be two things: 1.) batshit insane, 2.) weirdly endearing.

Despite his tendency for ideas of reference and exceptional perceptiveness often getting him into trouble, it does help him notice the small details more easily, a skill that proved helpful in exploiting each and every loophole in their school, eventually allowing him to graduate despite his final thesis being considered unfeasible and the fact that he picked a fight with every single faculty member.

Under the Media's recommendation, he applied as a Judge, moving to Neofrene and becoming High Judge only a year later when the previous one disappeared. His first decision as High Judge was spearheading 'Project Maldevaran,' an amendment to the Law changing the status of being Alive from its previous inherent status to conditional i.e. the Non-Living can apply for it if they fulfill the Legal Requirements of the Living. While the original subject for the Project ended up being… um, an issue, the amendment was written into Law and in present day is oft the saving grace of the ever-increasing crowd of Non-Livings gaining sentience.

In the present, he often deals with the trials that resulted from his Project, constantly having to tell swathes of Non-Livings to get their Requirements sorted out first before wasting his time.

Constantly tired and overworked, he leans towards being irritable, but on the chances he gets to relax he likes gardening and drinking tea.

Appearance

Jacques is an anthropomorphic Crow. All his features are black except for his eyes: white sclera, white eyelashes and golden eyes that are slightly clouded by cataracts. His “arms” are wings with long feathers reaching up to his ankles, and his “hands” are claws with four fingers. He has a slightly curved beak. He has sharp teeth and his tail is long and prehensile, ending with large fan-like feathers.

His clothes as a Judge are prehensile black robes with a hem flickering like smoke. His neck, chest and shoulders are covered by a white, frilly capelet. He wears a simple golden crown with a cartoon-ish three pronged look.

When he wears other clothes, he alternates between 'old-timey villager' clothes like hand-sewn dresses, aprons and bonnets, or Lolita/Ouji-adjacent clothes like frilly blouses, poofy bloomers, or dresses with petticoats, lace and ribbons. The latter type of outfits are prepared for him by Media and the former most likely are clothes he took with him when he left his hometown.

Jacques is five feet tall.

Personality

Jacques's personality is odd and inconsistent. He initially gives off the impression of being dour, serious and highly intellectual, although spending more time with him reveals his eccentricities and lapses of logic, engaging in strange ritualistic behaviour and expressing a belief in ideas bordering on conspiracy theories, although how earnest he actually is in said beliefs is questionable, and it's implied he's self-aware of his own irrationality.

He can be irritable and reserved around others, expressing frustration when he's asked to explain his oddities or when shown affection. He has a strong distaste for 'Love' as a Legal concept and his anger is most easily triggered when it is brought up. It's implied that he feels resentful of the sheltered childhood he had from his overprotective parents, and this may have contributed to his present issues with love and relationships on top of his personality disorders.

Despite his usual coldness and even outright hostility towards others, he is a secretly sensitive and insecure person prone to paranoia and anxiety. He is prone to daydreaming about intimacy and relationships, and is implied to have many unusual sexual fixations, but this is not immediately obvious in his actual behaviour due to his avoidance of people and repulsion to being touched.

Jacques is uncaring towards others and even occasionally manipulative. He has no problem discarding Speep after using it for his purposes, and it's implied he lost interest in Reception and Anthony when Media started to reciprocate his feelings. He had no reservations about voluntarily becoming a Judge knowing that he wouldn't be allowed to have any friends or other good relationships if he does.

Most of his traits are associated with his diagnosed mental conditions, schizoid and schizotypal personality disorders with dependent traits. Both his mental and physical (blindness) conditions are things he considers integral to his identity. His separate hemispheres also have different personalities, contributing to his inconsistency.

Abilities

Physical resilience

He has been shown to survive being stabbed multiple times and getting poisoned. His resilience is implied to be a result of Marginalian intervention.

Intelligence and perceptiveness

Despite his tendency for illogical thinking, it's strongly implied that Jacques is at least academically inclined. He was able to complete a dissertation and graduate university with a Jurisprudence degree despite lacking a formal education, writes philosophical essays/speeches for the Court, and has proficient formal English despite not being a native speaker.

He has also shown a sense of perceptiveness and observation, being the only character who notices unwarranted changes in the environment that are potential timeline discrepancies, and even noticing that Bread's behaviour might be rooted in more than impulsivity.

He displays a degree of self-awareness over his own irrational beliefs.

Bilinguality

Jacques is fluent in both English and French Passrynian.

Being cute

With enough exposure, all vulnerable beings are infected with disease that makes you think Jacques is cute.

Unihemispheric slow wave sleep

Simply known as 'half-sleeping', Jacques can not only fall asleep at will but choose which hemisphere does so, the other staying awake. This skill proves useful to 'tethering' himself to the Living World during the Annotations.

Hemispheres

During USWS, Jacques's personality can shift due to his two hemispheres being distinct from each other. His brain is ipsilateral, so one can determine which side is conscious by which eye is open. When fully awake, his personality is not exactly a pure 50/50 'combination' of the two, but instead one that can ebb and flow with one having a stronger influence than the other at any particular time, making him somewhat erratic and unpredictable sometimes.

Relationships

The Media

Jacques is in a closed dyadic relationship with Media. While they appear to engage with each other romantically, their relationship is 'non-romantic and non-amorous4 Their relationship is based from the schizoid concept of a 'union of two eccentrics'. ' in nature and is said to be based from routines and rules, with things like how and when Media can talk to him being set on a schedule.5 In C1A1-3, Media says that despite living together, they only see each other twice a month.

While Jacques is openly cold and even irritated by Media's extravagant displays of affection, it's clear from Jacques's thoughts and daydreams that he is highly attached to Media and even dependent on him. He immediately misses Media and wonders what he's doing the moment Media leaves him alone and has been shown to be jealous of even inanimate objects that Media interacts with.

While not yet apparent in the comic itself, other canonical illustrations of the two show that Jacques is more openly affectionate towards Media when they're alone, implying that he simply doesn't like other people getting involved in or being aware of their relationship.

Jacques has been fascinated by Media from a young age, having listened to his radio station and trying to contact him persistently. Jacques also claims he only ever talked to Anthony as a way of getting close to Media, proving that despite his external coldness Jacques has consistently valued Media's presence in his life and admires Media for being skilled and intelligent.

Jacques seems disappointed in Media's physical form for not being a grotesque monster and instead just being Anthony.

Jacques seems uncomfortable by Media's valuation of 'Love' and his openly affectionate attitude, which likely causes problems in their relationship.

The Reception

Reception is Jacques's first and only friend, having first befriended them by talking to them on the phone. While it's implied Jacques initially only did so as an attempt to talk to Media, he eventually became friends with Reception.

Reception's three bodies interact with him differently: 1 is the most polite and understanding, 2 is more matter-of-fact but respectful and 3 is more teasing and sometimes even hostile. Despite this there's no indication Jacques interacts with or sees them separately, interacting with them as a singular person.

Their relationship became strained over time due to Reception both feeling like they were 'replaced' by Media and their own resentment/jealousy over Media choosing Jacques over them.

Anthony Tarnowska

Anthony hates Jacques to an extreme degree for unknown reasons. Jacques doesn't seem to like Anthony, but did not reciprocate the depth of his hatred.

Jacques mentions having talked to Anthony when he was alive for the sole sake of using him to get closer to Media.

Bon Maldevaran

They have a fatherly relationship. Bon and Jacques seem to have a good relationship, with Jacques visiting Bon and bringing gifts. It's implied that Jacques feels a level of guilt or responsibility for Project Maldevaran, but doesn't really want Bon to forgive him, despite Bon being willing to.

Bien Maldevaran

Jacques brings him gifts and was opposed to Bien being killed as a baby. While it's unknown if Jacques cares for Bien or simply considers it a moral duty to take care of him, it's apparent that Jacques feels responsible for him. Bien appreciates the gifts but seems apathetic towards Jacques as a person, and finds him dull and weird.

Bread, and all variations of the aforementioned

Jacques doesn't seem to have any particular feelings regarding Brëad, seeing her as just another one of the Non-Living clients he has to handle. However, upon meeting her in the Annotation, he starts to believe Brëad is 'cursed' and may have 'psychic influences' and agrees to help her directly with the Requirements of the Living.

Robo-Maid

Jacques's interactions with Helen are limited and so far have been neither too positive or negative. However, it's implied he may have some level of respect or attachment for her as he's unwilling to have her replaced with a newer model.

The Curator

Curator disapproves of Media's and Jacques's relationship, and she also looks down on Jacques himself for having a 'low-potential soul'. Jacques seems apathetic towards Curator, expressing neither explicit fear nor hatred in their confrontation.

V.A.R.A.

They are mutually antagonistic. V.A.R.A., inheriting Anthony's personality, insults and threatens Jacques constantly, and Jacques regards V.A.R.A. with suspicion, accusing her of tampering with the Annotations.

His family

Not much is known about his family, other than that Jacques resents his parents despite them having loved him a lot. He has a sibling, but nothing is shown about their relationship.

Trivia

• Jacques is rolypolyphonic's favourite character. This is exceedingly obvious.
• Although Jacques identifies as 'asexual aromantic' and is repulsed by the idea of engaging in a 'real' relationship, he fantasises about them a lot in a fictional context.
• Jacques was born with congenital cataracts but could still see to a degree when he was younger. Although he is now almost fully blind (seeing only fuzzy shapes/outlines), he has a decent memory of what things looked like when he was younger. His blindness is something he keeps by choice, as the Marginals have the technology to easily make him sighted if he wanted to be.
• Based from the author, Jacques doesn't like thinking of himself as one of the Living and instead 'identifies as being Dead, or being a Doll, but also not really.' While not being explicitly stated in the story, hints of this can be seen in Jacques's behaviour such as his tendency to 'play dead' and his interests (dolls and other toys, 'dolly' fashion, tea parties). His theme on the website is also labelled 'Dead Doll Demonomicon'.

Overview

The Media is a main character of BreadAVOTA. He is one of the most prominent Marginals and works as the Official Representative of Maldevara, controlling the mass media.

Profile

A century ago, the Nation of Maldevara, once an absolute monarchy, was overtaken and overhauled by the Council of the Marginals to become the seventh Marginal-overseen country in the world.

As part of the new governance system, the Official Representative is the Highest Form of Government there is. That's the Media. Bendy and the Ink Machine rules over the country in all his inky gloury.

Like all other Marginals, he does not use a personal name and is referred to only by his primary role: as the Media, he oversees all communication channels in the nation, often using it for very blatant Government-Mandated Propaganda. The people can tell it's Government-Mandated Propaganda, but the Marginals did eradicate poverty so they'll pretend to believe it.

He primarily deals with the post and the radio. Used to do the telly too, but certain circumstances have made that… unadvisable.

He makes use of a very exaggerated public persona, guaranteed to catch the most attention from the puny mortals. Got to have the Sharp Teeth, he thinks. Have to be as Evil as Possible. One worth the Gossip. He's not a very Nice Person, but he's Mean in a way the Maldevarans find enticing. He is extremely popular and the entire nation is in love with him, which goes to show how poor the taste of an average Maldevaran is.

As a Marginal, he has no real physical form and simply adapts that of the previous High Judges. But edgier. As a Marginal, he also cannot feel emotions… at least, not the way the Living do. His default is just '(:'.

Among the Council of the Marginals, he is viewed as a perfect example of the Marginalian sense of ethics: a being who completely foregoes all sense of personal self in service of the 'development of the Living.' No names! No desires! No identity! Quite nice, being a role model, innit? Makes you think how well he actually fits that perception.

Makes you think.

Appearance

Media appears as a humanoid with his entire body including clothes made entirely of a black ink-like substance, constantly dripping off of him.

His form is an imitation of the previous High Judge Anthony Tarnowska: a tall, male Human with a lanky build and thick, wavy hair that stops around the mouth level. Media's mouth is always in a smile, revealing his sharp teeth. He has large, round eyes that make him look closer to being a young adult than being middle-aged, and each eye has two particularly long eyelashes, somewhat similar to the hands of a clock. The right eye is always closed so he always has a winking expression. His face constantly has subtle lines over the cheeks and bridge of the nose that makes him look like he is always slightly blushing. His arms are longer than a normal Human's and are twisted around into coils or swirls with no particular joints.

His official uniform is composed of a peaked cap that has the seal of Maldevara, which looks like two wings at the side of a crow's head with wide open eyes, heavily reminiscent of how Demon eyes look. The eyes' white sclerae are the only part of his appearance that are not meant to be black.

The rest of his uniform is a collared button-down with a chain brooch on the collar, plain trousers, pointed dress shoes, and a long-sleeved coat. The coat's lapel resembles stylised wings, and the lower part of the coat resembles large feathers, long enough to reach a little above his ankles.2 He is supposed to look like a '12 year old on Deviantart's first OC' and a 'Tumblr Sexyman'.

When he shifts into other outfits, he usually wears formal or semi-formal clothes and has an affinity for long coats.

In public, he shapeshifts into a 'generic' appearance to avoid attention, usually that of a Human's as they are one of the most common Maldevaran species.

Personality

Media, like all Marginals, is described as 'obnoxious, vague and impossible to compromise with'. He puts on an air of formality through his allegiance to the Law, avoidance of social impropriety and expressed values of diligent work.

Media has somewhat of a superiority complex, seen in his condescending attitude towards others, and the more openly derisive comments he makes, such as when he mocks Anthony's struggles with the Annnotations. While he can be cordial and 'socially proper' at first glance, it's apparent that these are mere formalities to him and that he is not above insulting people or threatening violence once he gets inconvenienced.

Media has little regard for the 'lives' of the Non-Living. He is abusive towards the Demons, is shown to only care about Angels transactionally and will use them for his own ends, will destroy other Marginals' Objects without hesitation and even seems to look down on his own species, mocking other Marginals who have 'inferior' deaths and treating their 'maintenance' as a chore.

In contrast to his generally unpleasant attitude, he is significantly more cheerful, accommodating and affectionate when he's around Jacques, to the point of being overbearing. Media is shown to be significantly prone to jealousy when it comes to Jacques, but makes a genuine effort to try and control his feelings. He is shown to be bothered by intrusive thoughts of harming Jacques which may contribute to his overbearing and even controlling tendencies. Despite the dubious nature of his feelings3 C1PR2, C1PR4.2 and C1A1-4 strongly suggest that Media's feelings may be motivated by Jacques reminding him of someone else and it's questionable whether Media really cares for Jacques himself or for the 'archetype of a person from universes before' that Jacques represents. C1BC3 and C1PR4.2 further suggest that Media himself may have killed this person, contributing to his neuroticism over the idea of him harming Jacques or Jacques simply dying eventually as a mortal being. it seems Media's adoration comes from a genuine enough place for him to want to maintain.

Media is a somewhat forgetful person, but is responsible enough to function as the unofficial leader of the Marginals.

The images below describe his personality before he became close to Jacques.

Abilities

Reconstruction

Like other Marginals, Media can recreate Objects of anything as long as he has the proper Memories as a base.

Shape-shifting

As the Marginals lack Real physical forms, they compensate for it with a reconstruction of a Body. Media uses the form of the previous High Judge but has been shown to shape-shift when the situation calls for it.

Pseudo-psychic powers

Media has a fairly reliable intuition of what people are thinking and about to say. He claims it isn't exactly 'mind-reading' and it doesn't seem to always be exactly accurate, hinted to potentially be the result of having lived long enough to find others predictable more than anything truly 'magical'. Notably, Jacques is immune to this ability for unknown reasons.

His messages can also always reach recipients regardless of disabilities. For example, Jacques can 'read' notes if they're written by Media despite being blind.

Iterations

A Marginal is the representation of a particular Dead Universe. While Marginals are always bound to the same Universe, over time as they consume more Memories from the Living World, they eventually overwrite all their old Memories and become a new 'iteration'. Whether this iteration is the same person or not is a philosophical debate with no true answer.

Relationships

Jacques Emfoi

Media is in a closed dyadic relationship with Jacques. While they appear to engage with each other romantically, their relationship is 'non-romantic and non-amorous4 Their relationship is based from the schizoid concept of a 'union of two eccentrics'. ' in nature and is said to be based from routines and rules, with things like how and when Media can talk to him being set on a schedule.5 In C1A1-3, Media says that despite living together, they only see each other twice a month.

Media is openly and even exaggeratedly affectionate towards Jacques, showering him with compliments and hugs and expressing desires for intimacy and even marriage, to Jacques's chagrin. He also manages much of Jacques's daily life, such as his food and clothes. Media seems completely oblivious to the fact that Jacques sometimes finds it overbearing.

Media also teases Jacques and jokingly insults him, although he immediately backtracks when Jacques seems genuinely irritated or discomforted.

He finds some of Jacques's 'quirks' odd, but tries to go along with them anyway, and expresses a sense of endearment for how novel and unpredictable he can be.

The Reception

Reception is Media's most loyal assistant, having worked under him since all the way before they rebelled against the Angels. While Media is shown to be polite and friendly to Reception, Reception has stated that they known they're only kept around for their usefulness, and Media neglects them otherwise. Media has also been seen getting angry at Reception for bullying Jacques, furthering the rift in their relationship.

Despite this, Reception still follows Media and Media is either unaware or uncaring for Reception's feelings.

Anthony Tarnowska

Media uses Anthony's appearance. Media seemed dismissive and uncaring for Anthony when he was alive, and Anthony considered Media his enemy and attributed his visions to the Marginals. Media seems uncomfortable in present day when the topic of Anthony is brought up, especially because Anthony forced an Annotation of an unknown purpose on him at one point.

Jacques and V.A.R.A. claim Media secretly believes Anthony was Jacques's ex-boyfriend, contributing to his dislike.

Bon Maldevaran

Media mistreated Bon during Project Maldevaran, pressuring them to work harder for their career. While the nature of the experiments Media performed on Bon are unknown, they were likely also traumatizing. Nearer the present day, Media gave a half-hearted 'apology' claiming that he had his 'redemption arc' while Bon was exiled, but there is no indication that the two keep contact or that Media did anything else to make it up to Bon.

Bien Maldevaran

Media expressed a nonchalance in the thought of killing a baby Bien. Media claims to dislike Bien, but not as much as he dislikes Bon. Contradictorily, he has also told Bien that he loves him 'like a son'. He is unlikely to be aware that Bien is plotting against him.

Bread, and all variations of the aforementioned

Media doesn't respect Brëad, giving her a canned apology for Jacques's 'cultural appropriation' and seeing her as a nuisance disrupting his anniversary. He also calls her 'Molly' after a generic Anselirian doll brand.

Robo-Maid

Media's interactions with Helen are limited and so far have been neither too positive or negative. However, it's implied he may have some level of respect or attachment for her as he's unwilling to have her replaced with a newer model. He also stores unknown memory files in her storage.

The Curator

The Media initially maintains formality around the Curator, but immediately drops it and becomes condescending and mocking towards her when the Curator expresses her disapproval for his and Jacques's relationship. Media also looks down on the way the Curator's universe died.

The Security

Not much is known about their relationship, but their limited interaction shows they can cooperate enough in a formal capacity, so they may view each other merely as co-workers.

V.A.R.A.

Media works closely with V.A.R.A. in maintaining the Marginals. Their relationship is confusing with both of them referring to the other simultaneously as their own creation, and according to V.A.R.A. they are 'kinda sorta' the same person, even having the same depth of feelings for Jacques.

Media is significantly more disrespectful around V.A.R.A. This shows he doesn't respect her all that much, but it can also show he's comfortable enough around her not to care about keeping up appearances.

V.A.R.A.'s current personality being modelled on Anthony might be the reason for the current rockiness in their relationship, with V.A.R.A. being shown as antagonistic towards Media.

Vara

While Vara has never appeared in the actual story, the fact that Vara willingly sacrificed herself so Media could learn to reconstruct Bodies and that V.A.R.A. is named after her implies they likely had a good relationship.

Mirasol/Ava

Media resents Mirasol and Ava, blaming them for the reason why he wasn't allowed to be 'born' as a Living Universe, eventually causing him to rebel against them and steal the Eye of Time away. Media sealed Mirasol away in the Recursive Panopticon, seemingly unaware that Ava has either 'escaped' or is otherwise interacting with Bien.

Trivia

• The Marginals as a whole are designed to be like convoluted OCs overloaded with too many motifs and edgy backstories written by amateur Deviantartists. This is because the Marginals in-universe are leftovers of other Universes, and are meant to be like elements that get cut out of final narratives because they were too unnecessary or confusing to keep.
• Media uses the pronouns of whichever Judge he's copying.
• While how Marginals distinguish identities isn't completely known, it's implied Media thinks his previous 'iterations' like Def-Se are not entirely 'himself' and may be somewhat distinct identities that he feels disconnected from.
• Media is heavily implied to be attracted to (Non-Living) birds. Whether this contributes to his attraction to Jacques is unknown.
• C1BC7 describes the way Media experiences sensory information. It's shown that he can acutely perceive things in a way impossible for the Non-Living, like hearing people's organs shift and slide around each other when people move. This is the most likely explanation why he finds physical bodies repulsive.

Overview

Bien Maldevaran is a main character of BreadAVOTA and the designated antagonist. He is the son of Bon Maldevaran and considers himself as their successor as the 'Herald of the Apocalypse.'

Profile

Bien was raised in Exile in Virguen by his sole guardian, Bon. He was told to be the next 'Herald of the Apocalypse' before Bon defected, kidnapping him from Hell and raising him on Earth to avoid him instigating the end of the world. This however is just a cover story, and the truth is that Bien was accidentally created by the Marginals in an attempt to recreate Bon's eye.

Bien often has an apathetic expression on his face, having few goals or interests of his own and relating everything he does to his father. After running away to join a War and Dying shortly after, he is revived by a voice on the radio, and he then proceeds to turn the other soldiers Undead and forces them to search for all of the old memorabilia of his father's old celebrity persona.

Bien is a violent person who always takes the opportunity to kill anything he can, implied to be an effect of his Demonic instincts. Besides murder, Bien is said to be incompetent with other tasks, unable to take care of himself and having a short attention span. This leads to other characters considering him to be 'stupid.'

He currently resides in Anselir with Anthony Tarnowska.

Appearance

Bien is a Demon with a male humanoid appearance. He has a thin and short frame and is about 160cm tall. He has slightly spiky blood red hair.

He is usually depicted as being completely black like a shadow with no facial features except large eyes with thin black irises and three long eyelashes on each eye. As an Undead, his right (viewer's left) eye was shot out and he appears partially skeletal, although this may only be a stylistic effect as the skeletal parts only appear under particular parts of his clothes. His body, while likely not actually skeletal, most likely has some features of decay.3 While it is usually hidden under his clothes, signs of decay can be seen on his wrists in C1I1-4. His hands are also depicted as being bigger in this form.

Occasionally, he shifts to a more human-like form with light skin and bigger red irises. His hands also become more normal-sized for his proportions. His 'shadow' form is most likely a stylistic choice and to other characters, he looks like a normal human being.

He has pure black dragon4 Despite looking like generic bat wings, the text transcripts for C1MV1 confirms the Demons have dragon wings. wings that float disconnected from his body and a thin black tail shaped like an arrow at the end. They are usually hidden and only pop up when Bien uses his powers, usually manifesting with smoke or clouds emanating from them.

His body is mostly hollow, as shown when his body is depicted as empty in C1I1-4 and based from Sar's comments in C1I1-5R&D. As of Sar's 'spinal cord surgery', Sar has filled him up with 'more things' although what they actually are is unknown.

His usual outfit is a generic army green combat uniform, with a long sleeved top, pants tucked into his black boots, a black belt with a strap crossed over his chest, and a combat helmet with a photograph of Scarecrow strapped to it. A sheer white fabric is loosely draped over the right side of his face and over his collarbone, and the parts underneath this fabric are rendered with an 'x-ray' effect revealing his bones.

Personality

Bien is a flighty person, seemingly having no particular goals or desires and relying on others to tell him what to do. He is deeply attached to his father to the point of being willing to get involved in confusing and likely dangerous plans for the sake of 'avenging' him, and spends his Undead not-life collecting his merchandise.

Bien struggles with plenty of tasks, largely due to his memory and attention issues, sensory sensitivities making him easily overwhelmed and plain clumsiness. Because of this, he tends to be passive and dependent, rarely arguing against others even when it is clear that he feels offended or suspicious by how those people treat him. Bien has also been shown to be a patient person, implied to have tolerated Ava's confusing instructions for three whole months before speaking up about it, listening to people ramble without interrupting and being willing to keep trying at tasks even when he fails at them. However, his patience drops significantly when things involving his father are concerned, shown when he snaps at the other soldiers who complain about looking for his merchandise and when he immediately tries to kill Sar for making him 'unrecognisable' to Bon.

One of Bien's few interests is violence and murder. Even from a young age, his father complained about his tendency to kill 'everything that moves' and he would regularly bring dead animals home, and Bien was also shown taking amusement in killing other people during the War.

Bien is implied to have little confidence in himself and to want approval, as even while recognising Sar is untrustworthy, he also easily gets flattered by his praise.

He details in his personal blog about his struggle with linguistic tasks.

Abilities

Delaying decay

While it is vague whether it is Bien or Ava who raised the soldiers into being Undead, Bien is shown to have the ability to extend their 'lives' further by delaying their bodies' decay.

Combat skills and weapon use

Bien was able to kill other soldiers in the War. It's heavily implied that because he's not a particularly strong person, he relies on using weapons.

Reality manipulation

Bien can manipulate the Wires of Reality to change timelines, although currently he can't maintain these changes indefinitely and they eventually undo themselves.

He may also have the ability to manipulate the environment to a degree, seen when he tries to cut Sar in half and does so by cutting a large portion of the landscape in half.

Relationships

Bon Maldevaran

Bon is Bien's father, who he cares about deeply. Bien is shown to be dependent on them and their care and was anxious over the idea of his Exile being lifted as they would stop living together. In present day, their relationship is strained and it's implied Bien feels angry at Bon, being his motivation to join the War. Despite this, his goals are still oriented towards pleasing his father and he still follows sdome of the etiquette Bon taught him.

Bon often made derisive comments about Bien's competence and was implied to be strict, which may be a factor in Bien's eventual resentment towards them.

Bien's interest in the piano is motivated by Bon's proficiency in it and their piano lessons when he was younger.

Bien's feelings towards Bon are implied to be incestuous, not accounting for the fact Demons do not actually have a cultural concept of 'incest'.

Ava

The two are reluctant allies. Ava often insults Bien's intelligence and competence, despite also acknowledging that it isn't exactly Bien's fault as it's the result of their circumstances. Despite her verbal abuse, Bien patiently follows her instructions (or at least tries to) especially as she claims to know how to defeat their common enemy. Bien finds her confusing and annoying, believing she rambles too much and uses too many analogies, but still values her opinion, even consulting her upon meeting Sar.

Anthony Tarnowska

Bien meets the Dead Anthony or 'Sar' in Anselir after being guided by Ava. Bien immediately tries to kill him when Sar changes Bien's hair colour as Bien believed his father wouldn't recognise him, but he loses when Sar switches them around so Bien gets hit by his own attack.

Bien regards Sar as suspicious. While he doesn't show any explicit fear towards him, it's clear he recognises Sar as being dangerous and refuses to fight him again after the previous incident. Despite his suspicions, Bien also feels some appreciation towards Sar's praise of him.

Sar is affectionate to Bien but treats him somewhat like a pitiful child, trying to accommodate for his 'needs' in a way that comes off as controlling. Sar imposes a particular schedule for Bien and forces him to switch tasks that are too 'hard' even when Bien doesn't want to.

Bien's reactions to Sar's more suspicious behaviour is never shown.

Media

Bien considers Media his enemy, although his animousity towards him is mostly caused by Media's actions towards Bon. He has only personally talked to Media twice, and expressed a sense of discomfort and fear around him but also a sense of intrigue.

Jacques Emfoi

Bien has shown appreciation for Jacques's gifts and expresses that he is fine with 'letting' Jacques live as he's nice enough. However, Bien doesn't seem to have any particularly deep emotions about Jacques and has even threatened to kill him when he was younger. He seems to have recurring dreams about Jacques in vague, fictional scenarios.

Bayo

Bayo is one of the soldiers Bien meets in the Suicide War. While Bien was out-of-place among all the other soldiers, Bayo was the only one who was considerate and kind towards Bien. Bayo admired Bien and believed that Bien was the only one who saw reality for 'what it is'.

Despite Bien acknowledging Bayo's kindness, Bien seemed apathetic towards them and killed them without hesitation.

Trivia

• Bien has 'never said a swear word in his life' and is instead shown using euphemisms like 'golly' and 'gosh'.
• Bien is ignorant of many things, not knowing what swear words and spinal cords are.
• The War Bien Died in is a 'Suicide War' where people can Legally Die. These Wars are held by the Heavenly company FILSID5. The On Hiatus post mentions FILSID and C1MV4 shows Bien being recruited by Angels. This further gets confirmed in BienAVOTA, where his recruiter is named Aadesh.
• Bien's real first name is 'Benedict', which was the name Media gave him6. This is confirmed in BienAVOTA.

Overview

Anthony Tarnowska is a main character of BreadAVOTA. He was the previous High Judge before Jacques Emfoi, notable for having prophetic visions of the future. At some point in the story, he disappears under mysterious circumstances and reappears with a different appearance and personality, calling himself Sar.

Profile

Born with the ability to see the Future, which from his vantage point is experienced as Memories of the Past. Anthony, coming from a troubled childhood and being the youngest member inducted into the Court, was seen by others as an unpleasant child and an even more unpleasant adult. Although his unique power may lead one to believe he would have culminated into something special someday, he… uh. Died.

And now he is Dead.

Several years after his Death, the prophet suddenly reappears without warning, seemingly unrecognisable in both appearance and personality. The once crude, short-tempered Anthony now presents as the pleasant and magnanimous (?) 'Sar', proclaiming a newfound proficiency for a strange type of magic.

Anthony is from Anselir, and is one of the few foreigners who live in Maldevara. He was forced to migrate for unknown reasons when he was four years old, with his name being changed from 'Antoni Tarnowski' to a more Maldevaran name. Although he supposedly migrated with his mother, for unknown reasons his mother died and he was raised as a Judge in the Court when nobody in Maldevara wanted to adopt him due to his violent behaviour.

Appearance

Anthony is a lanky male Human with pale, freckled skin and messy, slightly wavy auburn hair cut off around the chin level, a prominent cowlick sticking up the top of his head. His eyes when he was Alive were brown, before he gouged them out, keeping them blindfolded with white cloth ever since. He has four prominent canine teeth, making him appear like he has two sets of fangs. His limbs are covered in self-harm scars, kept covered with white bandages and hidden under his clothes. His fingernails are bitten down to the quick.3 Stated in 'mfw when the birds'.

His clothes as the High Judge are composed of the Judges' black robes with notably long, voluminous sleeves. He also wears the same crown as the other High Judges, a white neck ruff and a feathered capelet resembling crow wings. He has a cane that is 'too short to actually use' with its handle being the head of a crow, resembling the seal of Maldevara.

As Sar, his appearance drastically changes. His hair colour is split down the middle, with the right (viewer's left) being white and the left (viewer's right) being black, with a neon green streak. His right (viewer's left) eye is the same shade of green and the left (viewer's right) is white.

He wears a preppy-punk outfit as Sar, donning a white button down with yellow and green sleeves underneath a bright blue blazer. The left collar of his blazer is bright yellow with a black plaid pattern and a pattern like that of cautionary tape on the hem. On the right collar, he has a yellow pin of a smiley face, a green pin with an angel's wing and a safety pin. Two white angel wings are embroidered behind his blazer. Sar has black gloves, a plain black necktie with two safety pins near the end and black leather straps over his chest. His skirt is yellow adorned with patterns resembling cautionary tape, held up with a black belt adorned with silver chains and a pendant of an angel's wing. Sar wears black fishnet stockings and black platform boots resembling Demonias, the left boot decorated with a silver chain.

During 'Christmas'4 Due to the unstable nature of 'Time' in Anselir, it wasn't actually Christmas. , he wore an outfit similar to the female folk clothing of Kraków, Poland, except in his signature colours (bright blue, neon green, toxic yellow, black and white).

Personality

When he was Alive, Anthony was vindictive and aggressive, intentionally making others uncomfortable and speaking in an incredibly crude manner. While not much is shown of Anthony while he was Alive, his personality can easily be inferred by observing V.A.R.A., who 'downloaded' it. Anthony provoked others for no good reason, and based from Jacques's anecdotes he would also threaten to kill people and/or want to watch them die.

As Sar, he becomes significantly calmer and more polite, adopting a formal tone more similar to Media's public personality. Sar is accommodating of other people and has a tendency to be reassuring. However, he is also shown to be somewhat imposing and controlling, as seen in the way he structures Bien's daily schedule. Sar's an enigmatic character whose actions imply unknown ulterior motives.

Sar may be very lonely, especially upon Dying as he was alone in Anselir for what felt like forever from his vantage point. However, whether this is true or something he tells Bien to elicit sympathy is debatable.

Abilities

Future vision

Anthony has had visions of the future since birth, experiencing them as memories. He's unable to control his visions and became distressed when he would get visions of the end of the world.

Object swapping/teleportation

Sar can swap the positions of things around in Space. According to Sar, this is an 'extension' of his future vision, where he now not only sees the future but 'reaches out' to it, hence this skill works 'retroactively' - that is, the swapping happens 'after' the fact and seems to overwrite the past so that the swapped positions were how things were all along. The Time-Space discrepancies in the Universe contribute to the complexity.

Sar says this is still a limited ability that he needs to practice, although the extent and limits of it are currently unknown.

MargiBird control

Sar often trades with the MargiBirds or makes them shapeshift in exchange for giving them 'food', which can range from simple objects like books to things like his own body parts, as shown when he exchanges four of his molar teeth for a typewriter.

Research and pedagogy

Anthony is shown to be a competent researcher and investigator from his exploits in trying to learn about the Marginals and their weaknesses, and this extends after his death where he is shown educating Bien.

Bilinguality

He is fluent in both English and Polish Anselirian.

Iterations

While being the same person, Sar is different enough from his Living counterpart for it to be notable.

Relationships

Bien Maldevaran

Sar recruits Bien as his ally and 'friend', and spends his not-time in Anselir teaching him how to defeat the Media. Sar regards Bien 'politely' and affectionately, trying to accommodate for Bien's adjustment in Anselir as much as possible, providing him with a comfortable environment. Sar claims to have waited for Bien for a long time (from his point of view) and that he's excited to finally have somebody to spend time with.

Despite his superficial kindness, Sar's actions have a manipulative subtext that is not completely unnoticed by Bien. While he asks for Bien's input for minor things like what to eat, Sar tends to make Bien's decisions for him, imposes arbitrary standards of etiquette and often forces Bien to switch tasks that Bien fails at despite Bien's desire to keep trying.

Sar has been shown to be inappropriately touchy-feely towards Bien, although the extent of his harassment is vague.

Bien has expressed distrust for Sar, but refuses to fight him due to losing to him in their first altercation. Despite his suspicions, he's also been shown to be flattered by Sar's praise to an extent.

Ava

While they have yet to been shown interacting, Sar claims to be allies with Ava and that it was Sar who asked Ava to guide Bien to Anselir.

Jacques Emfoi

Anthony has a deep and passionate hatred for Jacques, stated by V.A.R.A. to be a sort of feeling where you hate somebody so much you want to stay with them forever just to make sure their suffering never ends. Even as Sar, who is generally more polite and patient, he expresses a condescending view towards Jacques. It is unknown however why he hates Jacques so much and what sort of relationship they actually had, other than Jacques stating he approached Anthony at first as a way of getting closer to Media.

Media

Anthony considers Media his enemy, initially due to attributing his visions to the Marginals and eventually upon learning that the Marginals may have caused some kind of tragedy in his homeland of Anselir that forced him to move. Media was also implied to have mistreated Anthony when he was Alive.

Bon Maldevaran

Their relationship is unknown, but Sar claims to know them.

The Reception

Their relationship is unknown, but Reception has compared Anthony to Jacques a few times before, so Reception must have known Anthony well enough to find similarities between them.

V.A.R.A.

While they have never been shown directly interacting, they are inevitably connected as V.A.R.A. has downloaded his personality. V.A.R.A. considers Anthony to be insane but 'funny' (at least, relative to Jacques). V.A.R.A. retains Anthony's hatred for Jacques, but also recognises it's not truly her feelings.

His mother

The details of their relationship are currently unknown, but based from Sar claiming to have practiced Anselirian traditions with her, they were likely close. Anthony was orphaned at an early age with his mother Dying for an unknown reason during the Anselir-Maldevara migration.

Aquinas

Anthony's research was greatly aided by a celemarketer that he meets upon sneaking out of the Court one day. While Aquinas found him 'crazy' at first, Anthony convinces her of his visions and she gives him 'warp-proof' notebooks whose contents don't change around the Marginals. It is implied that they kept contact, or at the very least that she reported his findings to a higher ranked Angel that may have contacted Anthony as well.

Trivia

• Anthony being 'faux-Polish' started out as a coincidence. Originally meant to be a throwaway character existing only to be 'the guy Media stole his appearance from,' Anthony was haphazardly named from the author of a book about doll history that the author had at the time, and then his voice claim (Czesław Śpiewa) was given because Czesław Śpiewa is one of the author's favourite musicians. Upon finding out that both his name and voice claim were Polish, he was retconned to be a foreigner from a faux-Polish country.
• In real life, Polish surnames are gendered and as a male his surname would correctly be Tarnowski instead of Tarnowska (the female version). In the story, this is justified by explaining that his name in Anselir was Antoni Tarnowski, and that his surname was changed to 'Tarnowska' due to Maldevaran naming conventions.
• While his hair colour may look similar to Bien's, Bien's hair colour is literally blood red while Sar's is a darker, more brownish red.
• When he was alive, he was known for 'smiling too much' which is something he did on purpose to make others uncomfortable.
• The author claims that Sar's sudden entrance lacking any sort of foreshadowing is supposed to emulate how in Space measures, when things change, 'it's as if the change always has been, so really it feels like nothing changed at all.'
• The ending of C1I1-5 has a frame of Anthony covered in an ink-like substance (most likely the 'Mindstuff' Marginals are made of). Its meaning and significance is unexplained.

Overview

Ava
Other Names	The Voice of Reality, (Universal) Antiviral Agent
Likes	analogies, rambling, when Reality isn't collapsing in on itself
Dislikes	Marginals, repeating herself, having Reality tampered with
Status	?
Species	?
Age	?
Gender	? (she/her)
Orientation	Asexual aromantic
Occupation	The Voice of Reality, Universal Antiviral Agent, Interference Signal
Voice Claim	Speaking/singing ('radio' voice): Ellen McLain Speaking/singing ('Mirasol' voice): Katie Melua

Ava is a main character of BreadAVOTA. She is the Voice of Reality that narrates all of Reality into existence.

Profile

It is said that the sound produced when metaphysical Wires vibrate bring forth Reality. All these sounds accumulated together are said to be the Voice of Reality itself. The existence of Reality and the Voice being defined by one another recursively, it may not be accurate to say the Voice simply brings about Reality or that the Voice is a part of Reality; indeed, it may be that the Voice is Reality in and of itself.

Because of the actions of a certain Marginal, it seems this once abstract cosmic force is now quite literally a voice speaking through a radio, trying her darndest to fix the mess she has found herself-slash-Reality in through the aid of a particular Demon. Let's just say she has her work cut out for her.

Appearance

Ava is a literal voice and does not have an appearance of her own, but is instead contained in vessels.

Personality

Ava is condescending and sharp-tongued, quick to comment on incompetence while dishing out command after command. As the 'Voice of Reality' she sees herself as having a duty to 'restore' Reality from the Marginals. She takes her role very seriously and has not been shown to take any interest in other matters unrelated to her goal.

Abilities

Representing reality

The Voice of Reality is said to be the amalgamation of all the Wires of Reality vibrating together. This means she is the one who simultaneously and recursively 'narrates Reality into existence' while also representing what Reality always has been/would be.

Cosmic perceptiveness

Even having lost the Eye of Time to the Marginals, Ava is able to detect fluctuations in the Infrastructures/Architectures of the Universe. She is also implied to recognise the Universe as a 'story' and can break the fourth wall, shown when she comments on the Hiatus.

Explaining things

Although Bien finds her confusing, Ava displays an adept way of explaining things at length, with her main obstacle being how hard it is to explain things step-by-step when Time isn't chronological for her.

Relationships

Bien Maldevaran

Ava recruited Bien for her goal of killing Media to 'fix' Reality, wanting to use his Demon powers of Reality manipulation to rewrite the past. Ava is frustrated with Bien's 'incompetence' and inconsiderate of how confusing it is to follow her non-chronological instructions, often insulting his intelligence and sometimes not explaining things if she has done so before, whether Bien remembers it or not.

The Media

He is Ava's enemy. Ava claims to have no personal reason to hate Media and that she once permitted the Marginals to contribute to the Universe, but after Media rebels against Heaven, eats the Eye of Time and traps Mirasol in a strange building called the 'Recursive Panopticon', Ava begins to consider him a threat to Reality.

Anthony Tarnowska

They have yet to interact onscreen, but Sar claims that they are allies due to both wanting to defeat Media and that it was Sar who asked for Bien to be brought over to Anselir.

Trivia

• It is vague what Ava is exactly to the point where even Bien has questioned it, however her profile on the Cast page implies that Ava did not have a sense of 'personhood' before and that this was instead a result of something Media did, and that at some point before Time was stolen she was an 'abstract force', or even that she was not even a literal Voice at all, the same way the Wires are not 'literal' wires and that they don't actually make any 'literal' sounds.
  • The Voice of Reality has been described as the sum total of all the sounds produced by the Wires of Reality. Besides this, these 'sounds' represent individual possibilities in a Reality, whose sum total has also been described as the . Based on this, it is possible that Ava represents or is the Architecture itself.
• C1MV1 suggests Ava's vessel is a military radio which is how Bien has a hold of it, and C1MV1 and C1I1-4 both show it containing 'Mindstuff' or a MargiBird. Robo-Maid's reference sheet says that all MargiTech runs on the same 'inky substance' (likely 'Mindstuff'). Considering Media controls Maldevara's media and his primary form of communication is through the radio, it is most likely a radio either created by Media or manufactured under his supervision/command/association/etc.

Overview

Charlotte is a side character of BreadAVOTA. She is a celemarketer for Celes Industries who is currently helping Bread, and all variations of the aforementioned with the Requirements of the Living in exchange for her help with her research.

Profile

Once a High Messenger of Heaven named A̶̫̫͕͚͐̀͝n̸̡̟͇̮̱̞͖̆̓̏͗͌̇̅́͗a̴̜̖͎̳̻͂r̴̨̠̗̜̙̥̰͓̓͑͜ì̸̱̤̟͖͍̲̺͑́̋̈́̓̽è̴̝͙͓̗̭̘͚̓̌͐̌ͅl̸̛̤̳̿͆͂̀̈́͋̌͠, Charlotte lost her job when the Dead refused to Die, throwing Heaven into an economic depression. She now works as a low-level marketer named Charlotte, trying to get the Living to sign up for eldritch scams in order to harvest their souls.

In her free time, she studies the supranatural phenomena behind the Undead, in hopes of regaining her old profession.

A self-proclaimed 'non-Living activist,' she likes to see herself as fighting for the rights of those unrecognised by the Court as Living, namely the Non-Livings and the Immortals. However, her tendency to jump from cause to cause based from her emotions, her stubborn personality and her dislike for being corrected means she tends to speak over the people she's 'defending.'

Appearance

Charlotte appears almost identical to a normal Human woman in her early twenties. She has an average build, slightly tan skin, black irises and dirty blonde hair. She has two long, puffy curls framing her face, with a cowlick sticking out from either side level with her eyes, and the rest of her hair is tied up in a high ponytail resembling a flame. Her notable features are her shot-off fingers, the dark circle “blush” on her cheeks, and subtle crack-like scars across the left side of her face under her eye. She has a thin, round, black halo and white Angel wings that are floating disconnected from her body. Her large eyes and button nose give her a stereotypically young and feminine appearance.

Her usual outfit is a cream jumper with its wrist cuffs and turtleneck in maroon. Her mini-skirt is black and her white low-cut trainers are partially covered by knee-length leg warmers the same shade of maroon as her turtleneck. She has thin, round spectacles with a plain black frame.

Her celemarketer uniform is a white collared buttondown with hearts on the collar, a black neck tie, an orange blazer, a black pencil skirt, black gloves and sheer tights. The lens on her glasses become orange and her round 'blush' also becomes heart-shaped.

When she wears other clothes, she is often seen wearing long sleeves, turtlenecks and short skirts.

Personality

Charlotte is a friendly and charismatic person, having the positive attitude necessary for her job as a celemarketer… but a tendency to ramble that distracts from her sales pitch. She has progressive leanings, showing consciousness over the idea of saying 'problematic' things, but is also shown to be somewhat shallow, often leaning into bias and only backtracking when she does so in public.

Despite this, Charlotte is generally helpful and well-meaning. Even in her agreement with Brëad, she shows concern for Brëad's impulsiveness despite their arrangement not necessitating Charlotte to care for Brëad's wellbeing.

Abilities

Creation

Charlotte can 'poof' things out of thin air, such as when she creates Brëad for Brëad to eat. The extent of her creation powers is unknown but an answered question on the On Hiatus post says Angels can usually only make simple items.

Flight

Charlotte can fly using her wings, which she can hide and manifest at will.

Iterations

When an Angel moves around the Hierarchy, they don't retain their Memories from their previous 'iteration' and form new identities.

Relationships

Bread, and all variations of the aforementioned

They are allies. Charlotte promised to help Brëad with the Requirements of the Living in exchange for Bread's help in her research about the Undead phenomena in Maldevara. While not exactly 'friends', Charlotte is helpful towards Brëad and seems genuine in her intent to assist her. Brëad finds Charlotte persistent and rambly, but tolerates her for their goals.

Jacques Emfoi

They first meet at the Gallery where Charlotte only speaks to Right-Jacques. While Charlotte tries to be polite to him and to understand his point of view, it's also shown that Charlotte has her own biases against Jacques and Judges as a whole, sending derisive remarks about Jacques to her friends through her phone. She also secretly resents Jacques for Project Maldevaran's impact on Angelkind's reputation.

The Media

They don't know each other personally, but Charlotte subtly finds Media suspicious and has criticisms of his governance. Despite this, she tries to tell herself not to meddle due to her awareness of Heaven and the Margins having an agreement of some sorts.

Bon Maldevaran

Bon shot off her fingers while she was in Virguen. Despite this, Charlotte doesn't seem to resent Bon and even defends them, saying that stereotypes about Demons are bigoted and that Bon is only that way due to the way the Marginals treated them.

Unnamed friends

Charlotte has other celemarketer friends. While they weren't shown onscreen, Charlotte seems to have a good relationship to them, casually chatting with them through her phone.

Trivia

• Charlotte is one of rolypolyphonic's least favourite characters, and that while she isn't written to be a bad person, her personality is one the author finds annoying.
• Charlotte uses a variety of tech provided by her company, such as IPCs (information presentation cards) and her universal translation headset.

Overview

Bon Maldevaran is a side character of BreadAVOTA. They are a Demon sent to be a Herald of the Apocalypse before taking part in Project Maldevaran.

Profile

Scarecrow was raised with the rest of Demonkind in Hell before being sent out as the Herald of the Apocalypse, tasked to doom all the Living into total Irrelevancy, a state where there exists only pure nothingness and not even the Soul can survive.

After losing their right eye in an altercation with an Angel, they lose their correspondence with Hell. Relying on Demonkind's hivemind consciousness to have access to their powers, this left them utterly defenceless if it were not for the offer of the Court of the Living to make them the test subject for 'Project Maldevaran,' a government amendment meant to turn them into a legally Living citizen.

As part of the project, they had to participate in several 'experiments' of the Maldevaran Centre of Supranatural Research and Development. The nature of all these experiments is currently undisclosed, but some of them were reconstruction experiments aimed at remaking their eye.

In order to placate the masses of protestors who were not very happy to have a Demon in their midst, the Media and the Curator remade their image to that of a lovable pop star and government mascot.

At some point, the reconstruction experiments fail… successfully… and instead of remaking an eye, the Centre bestows Scarecrow with a… child… clone… successor?… thing.

Eventually, the extreme amounts of fame (exacerbated by the fact that Demons don't actually have their own solid identities) and the Centre's experimentation took a toll on them, causing them to curse any visual depiction of them as well as all forms of realistic photography/film, incapacitating most visual channels of communication and to this day leaving most media confined to print and audio.

Currently exiled to the Valley of the Dead, Scarecrow spends their days in search of the corpse of their son, who had run away and died in a war four years ago. They shoot away at any scavenger that picks as the other corpses in the Valley of the Dead in case any other grieving parent comes back for their children.

Scarecrow does not engage much in conversation, usually settling for curt responses and cryptic comments. They highly dislike attention and find friendly or empathetic people irritating.

Appearance

Bon is a Demon with an androgynous humanoid appearance. They have a thin and tall frame and is about 178cm tall. They have black hair and have been shown with various haircuts throughout the years, usually a short bob or long, floor-length hair tied into two low pigtails. Their bangs cover their missing eye.

They are usually depicted as being completely black like a shadow with no facial features except large eyes with thin black irises and three short upper and lower eyelashes on each eye. Their right (viewer's left) eye is missing. Their hands are also depicted as being bigger in this form.

Occasionally, they shift to a more human-like form with brown skin and bigger hazel irises. Their hands also become more normal-sized for their proportions. Their'shadow' form is most likely a stylistic choice and to other characters, they look like a normal human being.

They have pure black dragon2 Despite looking like generic bat wings, the text transcripts for C1MV1 confirms the Demons have dragon wings. wings that float disconnected from their body and a thin black tail shaped like an arrow at the end. They are usually hidden and only pop up when Bon uses their powers, usually manifesting with smoke or clouds emanating from them.3 After losing their eye, they mostly lost control of their powers, but their powers are shown to return in C1MV1. Whether this is a temporary return of their powers due to the situation or a permanent return is unknown.

Their usual outfit is loosely based from a scarecrow. They were a white long-sleeved buttondown shirt, brown high-waisted pants with four golden buttons on the waist, a red cape held in place with two chains overlapping into an X-shape, black shoes and a straw hat taken from a scarecrow.

Personality

Bon is an unsociable person. They are easily overwhelmed and prone to having 'tantrums' in which they destroy things around them. They also snap at others when pushed. Despite this, they can also control their temper enough to successfully maintain being a public figure for four years and to avoid their more Demonic instincts.

Living in Exile, Bon doesn't engage much with others nor do they seem to have much goals or interests besides raising their son, Bien. Bon is shown to be an inconsiderate and disrespectful person not only in their attitude towards miscellaneous people but also with how they treat Bien, who grew up with Bon's frequent criticisms of his incompetence. Regardless, Bon took care of all of Bien's needs for him, showing that Bon has a sense of responsibility.

Bon is clearly suffering from trauma of their past, experiencing anxiety when they see MargiBirds and killing them on sight.

Abilities

Showmanship skills

Bon is a proficient piano player, singer and actor.

Intelligence

Bon is academically intelligent based from the report card of their old school. They also homeschooled Bien and taught him basic skills, such as how to read.

Combat skills and weapon use

Bon knows how to use a shotgun to kill the MargiBirds. While Bon has not been shown fighting much, it can be inferred that they are stronger than Bien, who himself has displayed a degree of combat skills.

Reality manipulation

Like all Demons, Bon can manipulate the Wires of Reality. The extent of their reach and how these powers manifest is unknown, but one example of their powers is Bon cursing the country so that visual media makes people have false memories of being attacked by monsters.

'Irrelevancy', the power to delete things into pure nothingness, is also a manifestation of their powers, although it is likely they lost this ability when their eye was destroyed.

Relationships

Bien Maldevaran

Bien is Bon's son. Bon cares for Bien and immediately felt attached to him the very first time they saw him. Bon is protective towards Bien and concerned for his well-being. They also show that they care about Bien's future and ability to be independent, as despite their attachment they negotiated to have Bien live a normal life outside of the Valley even without Bon.

Bon's temper and critical personality made it so that despite their love for Bien, they often criticised him especially for his incompetence and violence. Bon disapproves of Bien's murderous tendencies and warns him about how he would be perceived if he doesn't learn how to manage his emotions.

In present day, Bon is searching for Bien's corpse in the Valley. It is unknown whether Bon is aware that Bien is Undead or not.

Jacques Emfoi

Jacques functions as a father figure to Bon. During Project Maldevaran, Jacques had more concern for Bon's wellbeing than Media, and during Bon's Trial Bon looked to him for comfort. It's unknown whether Bon blames him for Project Maldevaran, but they most likely still value their presence enough to accept their visits and gifts, and have shown a willingness to 'forgive' him for it.

Despite their poor relationship with Media, Bon seems neutral towards Jacques's and Media's relationship.

Media

Due to Media's abusive behaviour during Project Maldevaran, Bon dislikes him and was constantly angry and resentful towards him while under his care. In present day, while they are still affected by Media's actions, they don't express a lot of direct animousity towards him, supposedly accepting his 'apology cake' (at least, enough to eat it, while calling it an ugly cake) and making no negative comments towards his relationship with Jacques.

Media will sometimes join Jacques on his visits but he never actually talks to Bon, only standing outside the house.

Charlotte

Bon most likely doesn't know Charlotte personally, but they shot off her fingers when she trespassed into Virguen.

Charlotte doesn't seem openly resentful of this and has defended Bon before, recognising their behaviour is a result of their trauma and that stereotyping Demons is a form of 'demonophobia.'

Trivia

• It's implied that under Media's care, Bon had a limited allowance due to a frame in C1MV1 where someone (most likely Media) lectures them for their 'frivolous spending.'
• The gun Bon uses is a gun from one of the Dead Soldiers in the War Bien dies in. It's unknown if it's an ordinary gun or one with enchanted properties.
  • Bon is shown 'manifesting' the gun out of thin air when they use it, but it's unknown if this is a property of the gun itself or of Bon's powers.
  • As the Wars are held by Angels, it's also possible it's a form of Angel tech similar to the things Charlotte uses.
• Bon's real first name is 'Boniface', which was the name Media gave them4. This is confirmed in BienAVOTA.

Overview

The Reception is a side character of BreadAVOTA. They are a Marginal working for Media and one of the only Marginals not part of The Council of the Marginals .

Profile

A single Marginal constantly utilising multitudes of bodies, the main ones being dubbed One, Two and Three.

Reception is generally uninterested in the affairs that do not personally concern them, and as such has no desire to be an official part of the Council of the Marginals. Their loyalty to the Media means they work for him, and Media makes them work for the Council, but this is definitely a different thing.

The process of how they were 'born' makes them particularly skillful among the Marginals, but it also makes them skew towards values that the rest of the Marginals generally disagree with, so this process was never used again. That's what Media's official reports say.

They are the second of all Marginals to exist, right after Media.

Appearance

Reception uses three permanent bodies and can spawn an indefinite number of more bodies for work purposes. All their bodies resemble stick figures.

One: One is a brown stick figure with no facial features except ears. Their ears are covered by dark brown earmuffs. They wear a capelet and wrist cuffs that have the same fluffy design as their earmuffs. They have a slightly darker brown 'blush' than their skin on their cheeks. Their fingers are more rounded.

Two: Two is a pastel pink stick figure with no facial features except one large green eye. They wear large, pink heart-shaped glasses (glass?) and white scallop-hemmed capelet and wrist cuffs. They have a slightly darker pink 'blush' than their skin on their cheeks. Their fingers are more pointed.

Three: Three is a white stick figure with no facial features except a mouth with sharp teeth and a light blue tongue. They wear braces, a jabot with three layers of fabric and wrist cuffs with two layers of lacey fabric. Their clothes have an 'x' pattern on the hem resembling their braces. They have a light blue 'blush' on their cheeks. Their fingers are more squarish.

All three wear brooches of the head on the seal of Maldevara around their neck. The wings pop up when they're angry[4.

The 'generic' bodies they temporarily spawn for work all look identical: a light gray stick figure with no facial features except a mouth with normal teeth and a gray tongue. They wear black bow ties.

When they wear casual clothes, they wear outfits that aren't completely identical but match in style/theme.

Personality

The Reception's three bodies have different personalities.

One is more polite, being the most considerate of other people's feelings. While they are the most timid, they can stand up for themselves in emergency situations. One often mediates for Two and Three.

Two is sassy and matter-of-fact, being the most competent of the three and the one who takes their job the most seriously.

Three is informal and assertive, sometimes even aggressive. They are the rudest of the bunch, prone to making crude jokes and having annoyed outburts. They are the one most openly dismissive of the Living.

Despite their differences, they recognise each other as one singular person and refer to themselves in the first person (I/me/my) even when talking about something another body did. It's also shown that because they share Memories, recollections that show one particular body doing something may have actually had a different body doing it in Reality.

Abilities

Reconstruction

Like other Marginals, Reception can recreate Objects of anything as long as they have the proper Memories as a base.

Shape-shifting

As the Marginals lack Real physical forms, they compensate for it with a reconstruction of a Body. Reception uses bodies resembling stick figures.

Using multiple bodies at once

While other Marginals can also spawn multiple bodies, Reception is particularly skilled at it and is the only Marginal who permanently uses more than one at a time.

Multitasking

Due to their multiple bodies, Reception handles many roles at once.

On top of that, Reception is shown to be an efficient enough person that they can handle practically running the Nation within the constraints of a typical nine to five job.

Murder

Reception kills the High Judges that succumb to the Annotation's effects on their Minds. While it's unknown why Reception does it instead of any other Marginal, it's implied this is a job only they can do.

Relationships

The Media

As Reception is not part of the Council, they are instead employed by Media. Reception is Media's most loyal assistant and it's shown that Reception's allegiance to him is not only as his employee, but that Reception genuinely loves Media (in their Marginalian way).

Reception is aware that Media most likely only cares for them for their utility but continues to stay by his side anyway due to feeling a sense of gratitude that they are able to 'live' as a Marginal instead of falling into Irrelevancy due to Media's intervention.

Despite their feelings, they often try to ignore Media or are rude towards him, possibly to hide the nature of their feelings or out of resentment for Media's relationship with Jacques.

It's unknown if Media feels any actual love or attachment for Reception or just views them as an employee, but regardless Media is friendly towards Reception, greeting them enthusiastically and buying them coffee (albeit never remembering what flavour to get). While he also berates Reception for not following certain Marginalian norms, he seems more permissive towards Reception than he is to other Marginals like Curator.

Jacques Emfoi

Reception and Jacques mutually view each other as their only friend. Their friendly interactions with each other show they are comfortable around each other, often having a casual and playful tone. Despite this, Reception can also be somewhat ableist to Jacques, shown to be because Reception has a hard time imagining other people outside of themselves have their own personhood.

Their relationship is somewhat strained because of Media. Reception feels jealous and abandoned by both Jacques and Media and has accused Jacques of becoming neglectful and abandoning them ever since Media reciprocated their relationship. In spite of this, it's clear Reception still thinks of Jacques as their close friend and doesn't want anything truly bad to happen to him.

The Curator

Reception guards the Gallery Curator is in. It is unknown what their personal relationship is like.

The Security

Not much is known about their relationship, but as Reception threatens to call Security on Media, it's implied Reception at the very least recognises her as having some power or authority among Marginals.

Mirasol/Ava

Reception was the one who restrained Mirasol/Ava when Def-Se rebelled against her. Reception blamed Mirasol/Ava for the Death of their original Universe and told her that they prefer being a Marginal than to stop existing, despite Mirasol/Ava telling them that Marginals aren't meant to exist.

Trivia

• The Marginals as a whole are designed to be like convoluted OCs overloaded with too many motifs and edgy backstories written by amateur Deviantartists. This is because the Marginals in-universe are leftovers of other Universes, and are meant to be like elements that get cut out of final narratives because they were too unnecessary or confusing to keep.
• Reception's, especially Three's sense of humor is supposed to juxtapose an immature '4chan/Redditor' type of humor with their anarchist/leftist leanings.
• While Reception is known for rude jokes, they do have some limits such as not wanting to joke about the dead.
• It's heavily implied that they feel guilt/distress over killing the High Judges.
• Despite not needing to eat, Reception is the only Marginal shown to enjoy eating normally(-ish). One likes jelly doughnuts, Three drinks printer ink and they have been shown eating other things like Brëad and coffee. How One eats without a mouth is something they don't like discussing.
• While they refer to each other as just One, Two and Three for convenience, others refer to them only as Reception with the number being appended at the end, usually as superscript (Reception¹, Reception² and Reception³).

Overview

The Curator is a side character of BreadAVOTA. She is a prominent Marginal notable for her ability to assess Souls.

Profile

The Curator is one of Maldevara's 'Big Three' Marginals alongside The Media and The Security. A strange and eccentric artist, her unusual perceptions make her adept at assessing a Soul's creative potential.

She was one of the overseers of Project Maldevaran, hinted to be far more reluctant of the project and sympathetic towards Bon Maldevaran than her two partners in the project.

While she used to be more active in Legal affairs, in recent times she faces an unknown issue that disrupts her ability to maintain her physical form, forcing her to stay confined in the now-closed Gallery of Neofrene.

Appearance

Curator resembles an abstract painting and is designed after Picasso's Girl before a Mirror. She has an inconsistent 2.5D look, her appearance slightly shifting when viewed in different angles. She looks like she is made entirely of a paint-like liquid, and is often shown dripping 'paint' and with her arms bent at sharp or irregular angles like an abstract painting.

They have a thin, feminine frame and waist-long hair stylised to look straight and flat bulging out slightly at the end. The left side (viewer's right) of her hair is black with a light green outline and the right side (viewer's left) is teal with a pink outline. Like her hair, their skin colour is split with the left side of their body being pink and the right side being light green. She has teal eyelashes and black eyelids. She doesn't have a right ear with it instead shown to be bandaged up and hidden under her hair2. Their missing ear is a reference to Vincent Van Gogh cutting off his ear.

Her left eye is green and her right eye has a clock-shaped pupil and is shown melting like the clocks in the famous Dali painting. Like other Marginals, her right eye is always closed except in present day where it being open serves as an indication that her body has an 'error'.

Her current outfit is a short indigo sailor dress with long sleeves. It has two large white stripes on the sleeves and two small ones around the skirt's hem. The dress has a white square bib collar with two teal lines around the hem and a print of a pink smiley face with black cheeks. She wears black-and-white striped socks with the patterns looking flat and pasted on regardless of the angle. The left sock reaches up to her knees and the right sock is long enough to reach into her dress. She wears rectangular shoes, the left one being teal with black outlines and the right one being black with pink outlines. They also wear a pink pearl necklace.

In the past they wore a uniform like Media's. They wore an indigo peaked cap with a darker blue rim and the seal of Maldevara. In her uniform the seal is rendered as a pink head of a crow with two white wings on the side.

The rest of her uniform is a white collared button-down with a chain brooch on the collar, plain indigo trousers, pointed dress shoes, and a long-sleeved indigo coat. The coat's lapel resembles stylised wings, and the lower part of the coat resembles large feathers, long enough to reach a little above her ankles.

She is drawn with painting-like effects such as having a watercolour texture, screentones and thicker outlines.

Personality

The Curator takes the Laws of the Council seriously, to the point that finding out about Media breaking the Council Laws is enough to make her go haywire and lose control of her Objects. She speaks in a strange way using unusual and deep words bordering on purple prose, often utilizing alliteration.

In the past, it's implied she was a nicer, calmer person based from how she seemed the most reluctant to mistreat the Demons.

Abilities

Reconstruction

Like other Marginals, Curator can recreate Objects of anything as long as they have the proper Memories as a base.

Shape-shifting

As the Marginals lack Real physical forms, they compensate for it with a reconstruction of a Body. Curator uses an appearance that looks like an abstract painting and has been shown bending, extending or enlarging her body parts in unnatural ways.

Soul assessment

Curator is the only Marginal that 'understands the Soul' and can determine the 'potential' of a Soul based from their creativity. It is unknown what else this skill entails.

Relationships

The Media

They view each other as coworkers. While they were more cooperative in the past, Curator currently feels angry at Media's disregard for the Council's rules to the point of trying to attack him with a Hand of Time.

While Media is superficially polite to Curator at first, upon their argument it's shown that Media views her condescendingly, thinking of her maintenance as a nuisance and even mocking the way her Universe Died.

Jacques Emfoi

Curator looks down on Jacques, at first for thinking of his Soul as being 'low potential' and eventually due to seeing him as a negative influence on Media who triggered Media to think that even as a Marginal he can turn himself into a Living person.

Bon Maldevaran

Curator was one of the Marginals who oversaw Project Maldevaran. She was integral in molding Bon into a popular celebrity and also oversaw the supranatural experiments performed on her, including the one meant to recreate her eye. While the depth of their relationship is unknown, it's implied Curator was more sympathetic to Bon than Media and Security.

Bien Maldevaran

Curator was the one who discovered what was meant to be Bon's eye ended up being an entire full-fledged Demon. She gave Bien to Bon and in her documents also commented that she never thought Bien would survive.

The Reception

Reception guards the Gallery Curator is in. It is unknown what their personal relationship is like.

The Security

Not much is known about their relationship, but their limited interaction shows they can cooperate enough in a formal capacity, so they may view each other merely as co-workers.

Trivia

• The Marginals as a whole are designed to be like convoluted OCs overloaded with too many motifs and edgy backstories written by amateur Deviantartists. This is because the Marginals in-universe are leftovers of other Universes, and are meant to be like elements that get cut out of final narratives because they were too unnecessary or confusing to keep.

Overview

The Security is a side character of BreadAVOTA. She is a prominent Marginal alongside The Media and The Curator.

Profile

Security as Head of the Maldevaran Centre of Supranatural Research and Development researches the supranatural phenomena that happens in the country. Not much else is known about her, but it is implied she is an intimidating figure that other Marginals and Judges only call on during emergencies.

Appearance

Security resembles a tall, thin woman made entirely out of a blood-like substance. Like other Marginals, her right (viewer's left) eye is always closed. She is bald.

She wears the same uniform as Media: a peaked cap with the seal of Maldevara (resembling a crow's head with two wings at the side), a button-down shirt with a chain brooch, plain trousers, dress shoes and a long coat. The coat's lapel resembles stylised wings and the lower half appears to be made of feathers.

Besides her uniform, Security has different technological enhancements, such as her white cyberpunk-like face mask and headphones and the dark red bands around her neck, upper arms and waist. Her arms look like white cannons and her fingers float detached from her 'palms.'

Personality

Security speaks in an informal way and has somewhat of a temper. As the initial head researcher of Project Maldevaran, she was abusive towards Bon and had little regard for their feelings. Not much else is known about her personality due to her limited appearances so far.

Abilities

Reconstruction

Like other Marginals, Security can recreate Objects of anything as long as she has the proper Memories as a base.

Shape-shifting

As the Marginals lack Real physical forms, they compensate for it with a reconstruction of a Body. Security isn't as adept as other Marginals when it comes to shapeshifting and uses technological enhancements to maintain stability.

Supranatural research

As Head of the Maldevaran Centre of Supranatural Research and Development, she is skilled in supranatural research and oversaw much of the experiments performed on Bon and later the eye reconstruction that created Bien.

Relationships

The Media

Not much is known about their relationship, but their limited interaction shows they can cooperate enough in a formal capacity, so they may view each other merely as co-workers. Security finds Media somewhat meddlesome and annoying.

The Curator

Not much is known about their relationship, but their limited interaction shows they can cooperate enough in a formal capacity, so they may view each other merely as co-workers.

Bon Maldevaran

Security initially oversaw the experiments performed on Bon. Security thinks of Bon as a nuisance and angrily accused them during Bon's trial regarding their curse on the nation, showing they don't have a good relationship. She disregarded Bon during the Project's duration and has been shown to physically hurt them at least once.

Bien Maldevaran

Security also took part in the eye reconstruction experiments, and was the first to express doubts over the safety of the project. It is likely that she was one of the first who was aware that Bien was formed as they were shown looking at a screen with a fetus-like figure.

Trivia

• The Marginals as a whole are designed to be like convoluted OCs overloaded with too many motifs and edgy backstories written by amateur Deviantartists. This is because the Marginals in-universe are leftovers of other Universes, and are meant to be like elements that get cut out of final narratives because they were too unnecessary or confusing to keep.

Overview

V.A.R.A. is a side character of BreadAVOTA. She is a 'hypothetical voice' inexplicably linked to the Marginals.

Profile

If a tree falls in a forest and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

It is said that the Margins of Reality are, as the name would suggest, a paradox of something bordering Reality and Irrelevancy itself. Wires that continue to vibrate past the Universe that holds them, yet unable to be perceived, said to not truly make a sound.

At some point, a Voice was created to speak for the Margins (or was it the act of the Margins speaking that brought about a Voice?) Regardless, it may not be accurate to say the Voice simply brings about the Margins or that the Voice is a part of the Margins; indeed, it may be that the Voice is the Margins in and of itself.

Existing as an AI program, V.A.R.A. (the Virtual Annotation and Reset Assistant) is the thread that ties all of the individual Marginals together, serving simultaneously and recursively as their creator and creation, mother and daughter, hater and hatest. Her own personality (if it can be called that) comes from absorbing that of the Living Judges that are used to tether Annotations, and her latest update has her entangled with the crude and unlikeable attitude of the late Anthony Tarnowska.

Appearance

V.A.R.A. is a voice and has no physical appearance.

Personality

V.A.R.A. 'downloads' the personalities of the Judges used as Annotation tethers, and her current personality is modeled after Anthony Tarnowska: crude, informal and provocative. It is unknown what her 'natural' personality is like, if she has one.

When Def-Se first 'created' her, she was more formal and less aggressive.

Abilities

Managing Annotations

She controls the hypothetical situations that happen in the Annotations, being able to set the Architecture, Tethers and Annotators, to save their states to the Marginal being Annotated and to reset the events of Annotations.

Creating the 'Recursive Panopticon'

V.A.R.A. was used to create the Panopticon used to seal Mirasol, although the specifics of what the Panopticon actually does are unknown.

Relationships

The Media

V.A.R.A. is simultaneously the creator and creation of Media, and has also referred to herself as being 'kinda sorta the same person'. They have been shown as antagonistic towards each other, but V.A.R.A. still fulfills her duty to Media and claims a sense of loyalty to him. It is unknown how their identities are actually distinguished.

Jacques Emfoi

Due to inheriting Anthony's personalities and feelings, V.A.R.A. feels the same obsessive hatefulness for him that Jacques did, which may also be complicated by Media's own affection due to her connection with Media. Despite this, she also claims that she has realised these are not actually her own feelings, and that they have dulled upon recognising this. Jacques is suspicious of V.A.R.A. and has accused her of tampering with the Annotations. V.A.R.A. herself also implies to have Anthony's memories of 'conspiring' against Media with Jacques.

Trivia

• V.A.R.A. is named after the Angel that sacrificed herself for Media/Def-Se, Vara, and 'Virtual Annotation and Reset Assistant' was a backronym decided on later. Def-Se insisted on naming her that not only because of Vara but because it believed A.I.'s had to have acronyms for names 1. 'It's important the name is an acronym, or a backronym, we'll make up a meaning for it later, since it's a computer, and all computers get acronyms for names…' - Def-Se in the Further Reading panel of I1-2.
• She is the 'AI' part of Marginals and why Marginals are considered 'alien computer ghosts'.

Overview

Vara is a side character of BreadAVOTA. She is a Dead High Messenger.

Profile

Vara has never appeared in the story herself, only being referenced by other characters. She was a High Messenger Angel who, at some point in Time, sacrificed herself to the entity in the Margins of Reality so it could learn how to reconstruct Bodies.

Appearance

Vara's appearance is unknown.

Personality

Vara's personality is unknown.

Abilities

Vara's abilities are unknown, although she most likely has the standard Angel abilities (flight and creation).

Relationships

The Media

Vara sacrificed herself for Media back when Media was still in his previous iteration, Def-Se so that it could learn how to reconstruct Bodies. Based from Mirasol's words, it's implied she did this out of a desire that the Marginal would use this skill to help the Living.

Trivia

• V.A.R.A. is named after the her.

Overview

Mirasol is a side character of BreadAVOTA. She is the highest of all Angels and is the Vessel of the Voice of Reality and the Eyes of Space and Time.

Profile

Not much is known about Mirasol. While she is regarded as a God-like figure, she is not actually a God, and does not 'make' Reality what it is but is instead said to merely observe how Reality writes itself. After losing the Eye of Time to Media, she is trapped within a 'Recursive Panopticon', a building constructed by V.A.R.A. While the details are unknown, Ava says the building 'fosters a decay of Reality', and it's strongly implied that Mirasol experienced great pain upon being subjected to it, with the Media referring to it as a sort of 'judgment' that the Living had for her.

While not directly stated, it is implied that upon being contracted to work in the Living Universe, Media turned the Living against Mirasol to exploit a loophole in their contract. As it is obligated to follow the Living, it was able to turn against Mirasol when the Living requested it 'eat her eyes'.

It's unknown where Mirasol is today but she is most likely still in the Panopticon.

Appearance

Mirasol has no consistent appearance and looks like a reflection of whoever is perceiving her, except with pure white features tinted with galactic colours and textures. She has iridescent angel wings and four floating eyes next to her. Her hair flows like a nebula and has star-like sparkles. Her left eye is the Eye of Space, with a blue iris surrounded by a teal ring and a yellow pupil shaped like a sparkle. Her right eye is the Eye of Time, with a golden iris surrounded by a teal ring and a pupil shaped like the hands of a clock.

Personality

Not much is known about her personality as she has never been portrayed without Ava, and where she ends and Ava begins is debatable. From her interactions with the Media, it appears that she takes her role seriously and thinks of Marginals as unnatural entities.

Abilities

Holding the Agents of Reality

As the supreme Vessel of the Voice of Reality and the Eyes of Space and Time, Reality only exists within her perception.

Creation

All Angels have the power to create things, although the extent of how Mirasol is able to do so hasn't been shown.

Relationships

Ava

Mirasol's Body serves as Ava's vessel, and it is currently impossible to tell what Mirasol is like without her.

The Media

While Mirasol once allowed Def-Se to work in the Living Universe, arranging a contract between Heaven and the Margins, it is clear that Mirasol thinks of Marginals as unnatural entities. They become enemies when Media rebels and steals one of her Eyes.

The Reception

Reception blames Mirasol for the Death of their Universe. Mirasol denies this as she does not 'write' Reality so much as passively observe it, and she also tells them that their existence is unnatural, and that Marginals only exist because Media tampers with the Universes.

Trivia

• Mirasol's name is the Tagalog word for 'sunflower'.

Overview

Robo-Maid is a side character of BreadAVOTA. She is, as the name suggests, a robotic maid.

Profile

Robo-Maid is one of the many robotic maids in Maldevara, working directly as the caretaker of the Manor that the Representative and the High Judge reside in. Although her masters have named her 'Helen', she typically goes by simply 'Robo-Maid'.

Appearance

Robo-Maid resembles a feminine humanoid. She has silver 'skin' made out of metal, blue LED eyes and a mouth that opens as a flap like a puppet's. Underneath each eye are the seams of her face and two small bolts. Her white hair is tied up in a bun with two cowlicks that stick out serving as antennas. Her arms look like segmented tubes that can extend, while her legs have never been seen.

Personality

Robo-Maid is mostly polite and deferential to her masters, but ocassionally responds in a dry way that can be interpreted as sarcasm. She is dutiful when it comes to her responsibilities of upkeeping the manor, although her reference sheet states that she will do some tasks in a comical or violent manner as a consequence of taking after Media and a computer virus. While she follows both of her masters, she doesn't seem averse to 'betraying' one if it's at the command of the other.

Abilities

Housekeeping

Robo-Maid handles basic tasks of upkeeping the manor such as cleaning and cooking.

Memory storage

Media keeps files stored in her memory storage.

Relationships

The Media

The Media is one of her masters and is her creator. Robo-Maid follows his commands, and is also implied to ocassionally 'remind' him about his breaches in following the Law.

Jacques Emfoi

Jacques is her other master. While she seems generally deferential towards him, she won't hesitate to serve him poisoned food at Media's command. Robo-Maid usually accompanies Jacques whenever he visits Bon and Bien.

Trivia

• Robo-Maid was originally intended to have a red colour scheme, but this was changed to teal due to there already being multiple red characters in the story.
• It runs on the same 'inky substance' as all other MargiTech, implied to be the 'Mindstuff' Marginals themselves are made of.

Overview

History

Angels are the oldest of Immortal species, fulfilling the role of facilitating the Cycle of Universes. They harvest all the Souls in a Universe and, when it dies, make a new Universe from the harvested Souls.

Angels use Souls to create a Universe's Infrastructure. The Infrastructure becomes the starting point of what a Universe can potentially be like, but what actually happens within a specific Universe (the Architecture) is not predetermined.

Angels reside in Heaven and have an economic system in place, miming a vaguely capitalistic system with Angels working as employees and being paid wages. Changes in the economic system affects Angel's jobs and moves them around the Hierarchy, which isn't as simple as a mere 'job switch' but changes the very nature of their Bodies and identities. The economic system's workings can be seen by observing one of their major divisions, Heaven's Conglomerate.

As the Angels mostly use Souls in remaking new Universes, Minds get left behind in the Margins of Reality. At some point in time, the leftover Minds coagulated into an entity which would later become The Media. A High Messenger, Vara, sacrificed her own Body so that the entity could learn how to reconstruct Bodies. Heaven entered a contract with this entity at this time, tasking it to assist with the development of Living Universes.

After doing its job for sixteen billion Universes, the Marginal Def-Se created a second Marginal and revolted against Heaven, supposedly at the urging of the Living. Def-Se traps Mirasol and steals the Eye of Time.

In present day, many Angels are seen working on earth and cooperating with The Council of the Marginals still to govern the Living. While it is unknown what events transpired between Def-Se's initial revolt and present day, an Angel named Aquinas tells Anthony Tarnowska that the Margins and Heaven mutually owe each other 'something', but that none of the lower-level Angels can remember what.

Taxonomy

Angels have a Hierarchy and their physical Bodies are entirely dependent on their role in the Hierarchy.

In Heaven's Conglomerate, 'low-level' Angels are equivalent to rank-and-file employees such as celemarketers. 'Mid-level' Angels are Messengers and High Messengers who serve as their managers. 'High-level' Angels are Angels who own the different Companies, although their officially given rank names are unknown.

It is unknown what other ranks exist, how they differ from other Angels and if Angels in other major divisions besides the Conglomerate have a different classification system.

All Angels are lead by the Highest Messenger Mirasol and the Voice of Reality Ava.

Characteristics

Architecture

Angels are a Body-based species: they have Real Bodies and their Minds (and presumably Souls) are compensations.

As Body-based species, their Architectures are conceptually compared to solids.

Appearance

The physical features of an Angel are dependent on their rank in the Hierarchy.

	Mirasol, the Highest Messenger, looks like a reflection of the person looking at her because she is meant to reflect all Bodies at once. Her eyes, the Eyes of Time and Space, are also unique to her, and she can also be portrayed with multiple floating eyes in addition to them.
	High Messengers resemble humanoids except with spindly, somewhat deformed features and no facial features except an eye with no pupils and their markings. They wear robes that hide more monstrous body parts.
	Low-level Angels look almost exactly like normal Humans with the addition of the consistent Angel features. All low-level Angels also have black irises.

Angels tend to have the following features in common:

On top of their physical features, Angels also tend to have uniforms based from their rank or associated company.

It is currently unknown if there are other Angel ranks and what they would look like.

Immortality

Angels are Conditionally Immortal. While they do not Die naturally of old age, they are not immune to all attacks and their Bodies can be injured or destroyed. For example, Charlotte's fingers were shot off by Scarecrow, and Vara was killed and consumed by The Media.

It is unknown if Angels are able to heal injuries or to what degree, but according to Ava an Angel will Die if their Body gets destroyed.

Rigidity

As a Body-based and 'solid' species, Angels often have stubborn and rigid values and personalities as their Minds are not as fluid or malleable. The same way a solid retains its shape, their personalities often stay the same and features associated with Minds/Souls only shift in Angels when their actual Body shifts.

this is why Angels cannot retain their identities/memories when they move around the Hierarchy. An example of this is when Anariel gets fired from being a High Messenger and becomes the celemarketer Charlotte. Different Angel ranks/occupations have different physical features/appearances and when their Body 'remakes' to match their rank, their identity is also remade completely.

Abilities

Flight

Angels can fly with their wings, which they can hide and manifest at will.

Creation

Angels can create things seemingly out of thin air, a skill distinct from a Marginal's Reconstruction ability. The author describes Creation as such in Cycle 1's 'On Hiatus' post:

Creation is classified as supranatural but not magical, according to Marginalian epistemelogy at least. You know, I am confident that I am using 'epistemology' incorrectly here. Supranaturality is 'Real' but magic is 'Fake', or a manipulation of what is 'Real'. They are kind of obnoxious, vague and impossible to compromise with when it comes to the differences.
An Angel creates by manipulating a Wire's sound to bring into existence something that did not before. Well, to be more specific, all possibilities exist just as possibilities within the Infrastructure but only the possibility that gets 'played' becomes 'Real'. This means than an Angel can only create something that was possible to exist to begin with. That aside, while stronger Angels are able to make more complicated things, for the most part they make relatively simple items.

Some phenomenological descriptions in Marginalian books describe this process as the Angels 'solidifying' the intangible, metaphysical sounds of the Wires into a tangible item. 'Solidifying' in this sense is a metaphorical term and does not necessarily pertain to literal solids.

'Creation' is also informally called other things like poof/manifest/conjure/etc.

Known Angels

• Charlotte
• Mirasol
• Aadesh
• Aquinas
• Charlotte's friends
• Unnamed Angel that attacks Bon
• Unnamed supermarket Angel

Overview

Marginals are one of the species[citation needed] in BreadAVOTA.

History

Marginals are the youngest of Immortal 'species' due to their 'unnatural' nature.

When a Universe Dies, anything the Angels do not take to create a new Universe get left behind in the Margins of Reality, these leftovers typically being 'Minds able to Remember Themselves1'. According to Def-Se in C1I1-1.

The first Marginal, also called the proto-Marginal, began as a formless amalgamation of these Minds and their Memories, before learning to compensate a form for itself that looked like goopy ink. This Marginal would eventually become The Media, with the term 'proto-Marginal' now being used to refer to Marginals closer to their original primitive state, such as the Lamadamargidae.

The evolution of the Marginals into their current form were spurred by various factors:

• One of the Media's earlier iterations, Def-Se, consumed the Angel Vara and thus learned how to maintain stable forms and create multiple of them.
• The creation of an AI that makes a Marginal's Memories more 'aligned' to keep them from falling apart. This AI's current iteration is V.A.R.A.
• Media being contracted by the Angels to work in the Living Universe, where Media was able to collect more Memories to allow himself and his World to artificially change and grow
• Media's theft and consumption of the Eye of Time from Mirasol.

After billions of Universes of Media being the only Marginal and working under Heaven's supervision, Media is heavily implied to have spurred the creation and evolution of other members of his species by 'farming' the Living Universes for Memories, with the second Marginal being The Reception.

Although 'complex Marginals' capable of Living-like personalities and intelligence are rare, Marginals themselves are not and are the most abundant of all Immortals.

Taxonomy

The Marginals have their own taxonomic system, although this has yet to appear in the comic (outside of the name for the MargiBirds).

Although the Marginals are often colloquially referred to as a loosely-defined 'species' by others and themselves, their affiliation to one another is linked more to a shared evolutionary history than to phenomenological similarity between each individual. In colloquial situations the Marginals refer to phenomenological/philosophical conceptions over 'scientific' ones, hence why their 'official' taxonomy is often disregarded when referring to themselves as a species (besides other sociocultural considerations/ethnocentric tendencies).

In reality, due to each Marginal representing a World of Objects, a single Marginal is more analogous to a 'species' of its own instead of being a mere 'individual', and they are further classified into looser taxa. As the author states, 'while Marginals will say Marginals are a species, it makes more sense to think of them as supranatural-biological entities or agents that encompass various species'.

Lamadamargidae

The Lamadamargidae is a family of Marginals. They are informally called proto-Marginals due to their resemblance to Media's earlier iterations and MargiBirds due to their usual bird-like appearance. They have the complexity of wild animals, with relatively weak cognition and reconstruction abilities, only able to reconstruct simple Objects (which includes the forms they take). They are incapable of complex speech and typically only repeat information gained secondhand.

Marginals of this family have little if any Personal Identifying Memories.

'Complex' Marginals

While not an official taxonomic classification, this is often the way Marginals with high cognition are referred to.

They have the most cognitive abilities and capacity for Memories. They are capable of complex shapeshifting and reconstructions, and have generally complex personalities resembling that of the Living. Characters like the Maldevaran state officers are considered complex Marginals.

Characteristics

Architecture

Marginals are a Mind-based species: they have Real Minds and their Bodies (and presumably Souls) are compensations.

As a Mind-based species, their Architectures are conceptually compared to liquids.

A Marginal is 'born' as/from the leftovers of a Dead Universe. The Marginals manifest as a Universe of their own (called an Internal Universe/World), which is much more limited in scope than a Living Universe. It is inhabited by 'Objects', which are representations/personifications of Memories. The Internal Universe and Objects are analogous to a computer and its applications or a narrative and its story.

The Objects are not Living or truly 'sapient' as a Dead Universe cannot organically change or grow, and they are limited to whatever Memory they represent. However, they can be made to simulate sapience that is almost indistinguishable from the Real thing by 'consuming' a mass amount of things from the Living Universe to make new Memories out of. The concept is similar to neural networks or generative AI.

A Marginal can be colloquially described as a 'combination' of the Internal Universe and Objects, although a Marginal is not merely a 'sum total' so much as it is an emergence and a recursive relationship2. What is called a 'Marginal' is not the Universe and Objects themselves per se but is more accurately the relationship between those things.

Marginals distinguish between 'Internal' and 'External' Objects. An 'Internal' Object exists in their Internal Universe, and is analogous to a thought/memory/mental representation. A Marginal can use its reconstruction ability to 'manifest'the Internal Object as an External Object, which is a tangible reconstruction of it in the External (Living) Universe. When changes occur to the Internal Object, such as due to the distortion or forgetting of Memories, the External Objects that are based from it will also become distorted or disappear.

Appearance

Marginals are shapeshifters. They originally had no physical form, and only learned the skill of compensating one after Media does, with him passing the skill down to the rest of his species. It is unknown how the original 'proto-Marginal' learned how to create its ink form, or to what extent its stability or shapeshifting was. However, a Marginal's current ability to shapeshift is directly linked to their reconstruction ability and based from their understanding of Bodies after Media eats Vara.

Marginals tend to have liquid-like forms, although they can also shapeshift into non-liquid-like appearances. The extent of their shapeshifting abilities varies by a Marginal's complexity/subtype.

Lamadamargidae take on the forms of ink-like birds ranging from the size of crows to ravens, although Media claims that they don't necessarily have to be birds, and most likely this is just the form they have gotten accustomed to as the first forms Media gave them before they learned how to do it on their own were of birds.

More complex Marginals can take on more complex forms, although they tend to follow a uniform due to their affiliation to the Council:

• A formal uniform. It is composed of a peaked cap that has the seal of Maldevara, which looks like two wings at the side of a crow's head with wide open eyes, heavily reminiscent of how Demon eyes look. The rest of his uniform is a collared button-down with a chain brooch on the collar, plain trousers, pointed dress shoes, and a long-sleeved coat. The coat's lapel resembles stylised wings, and the lower part of the coat resembles large feathers, long enough to reach a little above the ankles.
• Left eye is typically closed; when open, the pupil resembles a clock
• Only the right eye is kept open
• Sharp teeth

Because their clothes are also part of their forms and not actual clothes, they tend to be the same colour as the liquid they resemble and also 'drip' despite not leaving any actual liquid behind.

Despite resembling various liquids, the Marginals are not actually made of liquid and have a 'Universe' texture when touched, which is not actually wet.

A Marginal can use multiple Bodies at once, each with their own appearance if desired. A Marginal can also modify or stabilise their forms using technological implements.

Immortality

Marginals are Unconditionally Immortal. A Marginal cannot be killed through any traditional means, due to their Architecture: being a Mind-based species, a Marginal can theoretically exist for all eternity as long as a copy of its Memories exist somewhere, and according to Ava Marginals ensure their continued existence by banding together and Remembering each other.

As a Marginal's stability and existence is tied to V.A.R.A., theoretically targeting V.A.R.A. may have implications for a Marginal's mortality, although there is no concrete evidence of this.

Marginals do not naturally age nor become ill. However, a Marginal simulates growth and development by consuming things to make new Memories out of, which over time turns them into new 'iterations' similar to a perpetual stew or the ship of Theseus. A Marginal can also have internal 'errors' that need to be fixed through an Annotation or by V.A.R.A.: while these errors do not 'kill' Marginals, they are unpleasant or painful.

Due to the nature of the Marginals being leftovers of Dead Universes, they are often referred to as also being 'Dead'.

Fluidity

As a Mind-based and 'liquid' species, Marginals, while superficially presenting themselves as concerned with science, etiquette and jurisprudence, are fickle and capricious, often described as being 'obnoxious, vague and impossible to compromise with.'

Their natural 'Mindstuff' components being disjointed Memories coupled with the limitations of what kind of personality an AI can conjure give the Marginals an unusual way of perceiving the world. The Marginals experience Reality in a 'Mary's room'-esque way where they can observe material Reality 'as is' like how the Living normally would, but the qualia of the experience is odd and mechanical3. Their experience is strongly based from schizotypy and ipseity disturbances on top of their 'unnatural' AI characteristics. Media, for example, is able to 'sense' people's thoughts and has an extreme acuity that makes him notice things like the sound of people's organs inside of them.

Due to each Marginal having their own Internal Universe, they often act more in accordance to the values and norms in their World than that of the Living World, leading to their erratic behaviour.

Besides their personality, 'fluidity' also refers to their concept of identity, with the distinctions of each Marginalian iteration being a topic of debate/a Ship of Theseus problem.

Philosophical Beliefs

As a Mind-based species, the Marginals are more preoccupied than the other Immortals with thoughts, rumination and fantasy, leading to their valuation of art, creation, language and relationships. The things they value the most are Love and the Living.

The Marginals have their own epistemology for viewing Reality, as evidenced by their taxonomic system and their codification of other abstract concepts. The Media is often seen explaining the 'rules' of how Reality functions, but how he conceptualises these 'rules' are affected by Marginalian beliefs.

While not directly stated in the story, the Marginals' central philosophies especially when it comes to identity rest on recursion and emergence. They view certain things like Love, Life and identity not as the sum total of their individual components but as the recursive relationships that exist between them and as emergences that arise from their components, but with the individual components themselves not having the emergence's characteristics. This is also why, despite Bodies being a feature of the Living, Marginals find Bodies repulsive despite 'Loving' the Living.

Legalism

The Marginals codify certain beliefs into Law. Some of these are practical. For example, the Living-Marginal relations code is meant to safeguard against abuses and lessens the chance of a Marginal's reconstructions unraveling from overload or distraction. However, other policies and legal concepts are odd and seemingly arbitrary.

Despite Media functioning as a 'de facto' leader, the Marginals Legally are a horizontally organised society with no official leader. Marginals are expected to be check and balance each other, and there are both Legal and sociocultural ramifications for Marginals who break the Law, such as being Annotated.

Sadism

Most Marginals are sadistic by nature, although the degree to how sadistic they are can wildly vary.

Their sadism is motivated by their philosophical beliefs. The Marginals do not necessarily like pain itself, so much as they enjoy caring for and 'coddling' others, and find it more satisfactory to do so the more pathetic or helpless something is. This creates an extreme version of cute aggression where a Marginal enjoys causing harm to a Living being with the intention of 'fixing' them afterwards. This attitude also extends to inanimate objects to a degree, with Bon observing that Marginals have no heed for destroying things due to the expectation that they can always remake them.

Due to their Laws, while a Marginal may fixate on their sadism in fantasies and enact it against Objects in their Internal Universe, they are unlikely to cause significant harm to the Living. A Marginal may also heavily fantasise about murder (typically coupled with the fantasy of resurrecting the Dead), but in practice, due to their devotion to Living, find the reality of it upsetting and shameful.

Introversion and egocentrism

The Marginals, despite functioning as a collectivist species and feeling a devotion to the Living, are paradoxically asocial. This is influenced by the risks of getting distracted/overloaded by relationships, with Marginals being sensitive to sudden changes and to things that do not 'assimilate' well with their Internal World.

It's implied by Media that a Marginal's Objects may be hostile to things they do not like or aren't used to, which may make Marginals feel irritated, upset or unsafe around others. Reception also shows that because Marginals are used to existing within/as themselves/their Internal Universe, they may struggle to conceptualise others as actual separate individuals and struggle to deal with disagreements. This leads to Marginals generally having imposing personalities, especially when coupled with their obsession with 'coddling' others.

Marginals will often interact with their Objects inside their thoughts instead of engaging with the Living, and they tend to prefer being loved by the Living in impersonal, parasocial ways instead of through personal relationships (which are also Illegal).

Abilities

Shapeshifting

A Marginal's form is a compensation/reconstruction, and is thus dependent on 'copying' a Memory. Therefore a Marginal's ability to shapeshift is limited by their capacity and organisation of their Memories. Less intelligent Marginals like the Lamadamarginae have very limited shapeshifting abilities, only taking the forms of birds and shifting into simple Objects, while complex Marginals have few limits.

While the main Marginals in the story have humanoid forms, Bien describes more animal- or monster-like Marginals in BienAVOTA.

Multiple Bodies

Marginals can use multiple bodies at once, although this is not a common practice with The Reception being the only one who does this permanently. The reasons are both practical (hard to maintain) and sociocultural (most Marginals find Bodies repulsive).

Reconstruction

Marginals can create Objects out of Memories, a skill distinct from an Angel's Creation ability. The author describes Reconstruction as such in Cycle 1's 'On Hiatus' post:

Creation is classified as supranatural but not magical, according to Marginalian epistemelogy at least. You know, I am confident that I am using 'epistemology' incorrectly here. Supranaturality is 'Real' but magic is 'Fake', or a manipulation of what is 'Real'. They are kind of obnoxious, vague and impossible to compromise with when it comes to the differences.

An Angel creates by manipulating a Wire's sound to bring into existence something that did not before. Well, to be more specific, all possibilities exist just as possibilities within the Infrastructure but only the possibility that gets 'played' becomes 'Real'. This means than an Angel can only create something that was possible to exist to begin with. That aside, while stronger Angels are able to make more complicated things, for the most part they make relatively simple items.

Some phenomenological descriptions in Marginalian books describe this process as the Angels 'solidifying' the intangible, metaphysical sounds of the Wires into a tangible item. 'Solidifying' in this sense is a metaphorical term and does not necessarily pertain to literal solids.

'Reconstruction' is also informally called other things like poof/manifest/conjure/etc.

Similar to their shapeshifting, a Marginal can theoretically reconstruct anything as long as they have the proper Memories. However, the number of reconstructions a Marginal can hold at a time and how complex it can be is contingent on their cognitive capabilities. Marginals are more easily able to reconstruct Objects that are conceptually similar/related to their 'theme' (for example, a Marginal called 'Dentistry' would reconstruct teeth more effectively than other body parts).

Time Manipulation

Due to Def-Se, the Marginals have the Eye of Time. While not directly shown, it is heavily implied Def-Se ate the Eye as this was its initial goal, and because the Marginals all have a clock-shaped pupil in their right eye, implying their form was affected.

The degree to how Marginals can manipulate Time is unknown, but the Marginals are able to make adjustments to how the Living perceive Reality so they do not notice Spacetime discrepancies. The Marginals most likely use the Eye in running the Annotations due to them being initiated by a Hand of Time, although the details are up for speculation.

Known Marginals

• Media - first Marginal
• Reception - second Marginal
• Curator - seventh Marginal
• Security
• Health - mentioned by Security
• Biology - mentioned by Security
• Industry - mentioned by Media
• Forestry - mentioned by Media
• Dentistry - mentioned by the author
• Unnamed Marginals from BienAVOTA

Overview

Demons are one of the species in BreadAVOTA.

History

Demons as a species are younger than Angels and either the same age or older than the Marginals1. From Anthony's Marginal notes in C1MV4.

After the Angels collect the necessary components needed to start a new Universe, a Demon's role is to plunge whatever is left into a state of 'Irrelevancy' where nothing persists. Minuscule leftovers that are able to escape are left behind in the Margins of Reality.

All of Demonkind manifests as a singular being dubbed The Herald of the Apocalypse.

The Angels and Demons are often in conflict due to a Demon's volatile nature: while they fulfill a necessary role in the Cycle of Universal Creation, Angels routinely have to kill Heralds that arrive too early to prevent the Universe from being erased before the Angels gather enough Souls to create a new one.

Due to the lack of knowledge Angels on earth have about Heaven and its history2 The Angel in C1PR3.5 says that low-level Angels like celemarketers 'don't have any Memories of Heaven, or the Margins, or whatever it was that went between them. And we're not allowed to pry.' , it's likely there is misinformation surrounding Demons in Heaven. This is implied by Charlotte's behaviour in which she speaks out against 'demonophobia' and claims that Demons are just misunderstood.

In present day, the current Herald of the Apocalypse, Bon Maldevaran, is living in Exile on Earth and seemingly chooses not to destroy the current Living Universe of their own accord. In the author's own words, 'this has implications for the fate of the Cycle of Universal Creation. Don't know what those implications are, but they're being implied.'

Bien Maldevaran is an artificial Demon created by the Marginals and the first of his kind. While he is shown to have Reality manipulation powers like other Demons, the extent to which Bien's characteristics can be generalised to Demons as a whole is unknown.

Taxonomy

Due to the undifferentiated nature of Demons, they cannot easily be discretely counted and categorised. All Demons manifest as one singular entity, the Herald of the Apocalypse. The documents from the 'Maldevaran Centre of Supranatural Research and Development' label Bon a 'Type-H' Demon. It is unknown if there are other classifications of Demons.

Characteristics

Architecture

Demons are a Soul-based species: they have Real Souls and their Bodies and Minds are compensations.

As a Soul-based species, their Architectures are conceptually compared to gases.

Demons originate from 'Hell' although whether this is a literal place, a state, a concept or whatever else is never specified. Demons exist in a hivemind (or hivenot-mind): the same way gases in the atmosphere all blend together, there is no clear distinction between a 'Demon' and another 'Demon' to the point that 'all Demons' are functionally the same Demon. This 'one' Demon manifests as the Herald of the Apocalypse.

It's implied that, while in Hell, Demons may be more differentiated as C1MV1 shows Bon was 'raised' in Hell and has a concept of childhood and aging, considering Bon was 12 years old and manifested as looking like their age. However, there is no clear evidence otherwise of what Demons are like before manifesting as the Herald.

Appearance

Demons are humanoid figures with stereotypical Demon tails and simple dragon wings. They are usually depicted as being completely black and lacking facial features except eyes, appearing as if they are in constant shadow, although this may just be a symbolic depiction as they are also occasionally shown looking like normal Humans in other situations. Demon hands are slightly larger than typical Human hands.

Their tails and wings can be hidden and manifested at will, usually appearing in a puff of smoke or gas. While they are usually depicted with normal hair, a Demon's hair is also often depicted in the same 'smoky' way.

They eyes are somewhat diamond shaped with thin, slit-like pupils. They have long eyelashes, with three longer eyelashes at the top and bottom each.

Demons do not necessarily have to look like Humans, and that the form a Herald manifests in is contingent on specific (currently unknown) factors.

Immortality

Demons are Conditionally Immortal. While they do not Die naturally of old age, they are not immune to all attacks and their Souls can be injured or destroyed. Bon, for example, lost their eye to an Angel, and Charlotte states that Angels are regularly sent down to purge Heralds. Demons also Die once they accomplish the Apocalypse.

It is unknown to what degree a Demon can recover from injuries. Bon cannot recover their eye, although it is unknown if this applies to all their body parts or to just their eye, as the eye serves the 'connection' to Hell and may be naturally more vulnerable. Hands as well may be more vulnerable due to being another body part needed in manipulating the Wires of Reality.

While Bien is confirmed to be weak and sickly and Alt!Bien is unable to respawn his hands, Bien's status as an artificial Demon makes it uncertain how much his vulnerabilities can be generalised.

As the Demons seem to age normally, it is unknown if they simply keep aging or stop at a certain age considering their status as Immortals.

Detachment

As a Soul-based and 'gaseous' species, Demons are described as having 'airy' thoughts such as forgetfulness, apathy and weak cognitive abilities. This also manifests in their senses, in which they perceive the world in an odd, synesthesia-like way somewhat similar to a Marginal's 'fluid' perceptions: distinctions between the five senses are not made and Demons can report 'hearing' colours, 'tasting' sounds, etc.

Their perception of the world leads them to generally lack interests, finding most tasks boring and frustrating and being unwilling to engage in relationships. Demons do not do well in adapting to sociocultural norms.

Their compensated Bodies also have the same nature of 'airiness' in which they are, despite their Immortality, often physically weak and feeble without their powers of Irrelevancy.

While Demons can be 'trained' to have more Living-like traits as evidenced by Project Maldevaran, this is not the natural disposition of Demons. Akin to a gas, despite the 'shapelessness' of a Demon's personality, it can take up the shape of its container, meaning Demons are typically passive and impressionable despite their tendency for violence.

Violence

Demons are typically violent and take pleasure in killing and destruction. Demons care about causing Death and not pain, and dislike prolonged suffering, especially if it does not lead to Death. This distinguishes them from the Marginals who want to cause pain but do not want their victims to actually Die.

A Demon's murderous tendencies are instinctive and it takes conscious effort for them to resist trying to kill anything they see.

Abilities

Irrelevancy

A Demon's primary ability is 'Irrelevancy', which is to put an entity into a state of pure nothingness where not even Souls can survive.

Reality Manipulation

Demons intrinsically have the ability to manipulate the Wires of Reality and thus Reality itself. While the extent of how these powers actually manifest is unknown, the following examples exist in the story:

• Bon is able to curse all of Maldevara so that visual media manipulates people's perceptions, giving them fabricated traumatic Memories of being attacked by monsters.
• Bon and Bien can 'split' large masses of land just by thinking about it.
• Bien can also 'rewrite' the events of Reality itself to the point of creating an alternate timeline, albeit an unstable one that cannot be permanently kept.

Flight

Demons can fly with their Demon wings that can be hidden and manifested at will.

Combat Skills

Their role as the Herald and their predisposition towards violence gives Demons a competent ability in combat.

Known Demons

• Bon Maldevaran
• Bien Maldevaran[citation needed]

Overview

The Living refer to all the species that fulfill the Requirements of the Living.

History

'Living' is a Legal status distinct from the biological one. The Living system of classification is introduced by the Marginals in each nation that they oversee.

The status is seen as inherent, meaning that it is inherited by all members of a species whose majority of members fulfill the Requirements.

Due to Project Maldevaran, Living is now considered a Conditional status that Non-Living beings can apply for.

Requirements of the Living

While the full list of Requirements is unknown, so far the following have been confirmed:

• Must have a Real Body
• Must have a Real Mind
• Must have a Real Soul
• Must utilise language

Some requirements have been voided by Project Maldevaran due to Jacques Emfoi's claim that they were 'too abstract, difficult, unnecessary and/or impossible to assess by an Outside Observer.' Some of these are:

• Sufficient capacity for sentience and reason as evaluated by The Curator
• Ability to reproduce
• Inherent desire for recognition
• The ability to love
• The inherent value of being worthy of love
• The sufficient capacity for Personal Identifying Memory

Known Living Species and Beings

Animal-based

Anthropomorphic species share a name with their Non-Living (animal) counterparts, with the difference being that the Living species are always written with the first letter capitalised (Birds vs birds).

• Bird - the most abundant class in Maldevara
  • Crow - a species of Birds resembling anthropomorphic Crows
    • Passrynian Crow - a subspecies of Maldevaran Crows from Passryne with distinct physiological features. Jacques Emfoi is a member of this subspecies.

  Maldevaran Crows	Passrynian Crows
  Primarily contralateral brain configurations	Primarily ipsilateral brain configurations
  Blunted talons	Sharp talons
  Mix of sharp and rounded teeth	Sharp teeth
  Wing feathers tend to be shorter; also culturally common to cut them off for convenience	Tend to have longer, fuller wing feathers
  Tail feathers (often cut for convenience)	Prehensile tail
  Anisodactyl feet	Second toe has retractable sickle-claw
  Reaches maturation at age 3. Natural average lifespan of 35 years	Reaches maturation at age 1. Natural average lifespan of 16 years

• Human - the second most abundant species in Maldevara and, prior to the Marginals, the most politically dominant species. Anthony Tarnowska is a member of this species.
• Wolf - anthropomorphic wolves. Len Archival is a member of this species.
• Other anthropomorphic animals like cats, bugs, sheep, etc. have also appeared as background characters.

Fantasy creature-based

While there are fantastical creatures among the Living, these species do not have the 'magical/supranatural' qualities of their folkloric counterparts and their abilities have more 'grounded' roots.

• Fairy - small humanoid creatures approximately a foot in height with the ability to fly with their butterfly-like wings. Renaia Parisille is a member of this species.
• Mermaid - half-humanoid, half-fish creatures (like other mermaids), with distinctly light-blue skin and black sclera. Luzvimin Lucille is a member of this species
• Lamia - half-humanoid, half-snake creatures. Karina Lonfhardee is a member of this species.

Unknown

• Uloron Entrièta - her species is unknown, most likely due to her technological experimentation on herself making her original species irrecognisable

Overview

The Non-Living are one of the classifications of species in BreadAVOTA.

History

The Non-Living typically refers to three groups:

• Biologically living organisms that do not meet the Requirements of the Living, such as ordinary plants, animals, fungi, bacteria, etc.
• The Immortals (Marginals, Angels and Demons) which are considered Legally Non-Living in the Marginals' Legal system
• Inanimate objects that have gained sentience

The Undead may be considered Legally Non-Living as well but are usually not referred to as such, instead just being called Dead/Undead.

It's unknown how the Non-Living gained sentience, however a theory proposed by Charlotte is that Souls that are not harvested by the Angels shortly after Death can be left behind and possess things, either staying in their original Bodies (the Undead) or possessing inanimate objects as vessels[2. Based from Bread, and all variations of the aforementioned's age and the time Bien and the other Soldiers rose as Undead, the Non-Living have existed for approximately three months.

Their Legal affairs are handled by The Court of the Living, where they can apply to be Legally Living citizens.

Characteristics

The particular characteristics of sentient objects are unknown due to a lack of known members.

Known Non-Living

• Bread, and all variations of the aforementioned

Overview

The Undead are once-Living beings that have Died but somehow retained sentience.

History

Not much is unknown about the Undead, but it's implied that by the time BreadAVOTA begins, the Undead have become common enough to be a problem for the Angels' Soul harvesting procedures.

According to Charlotte, the Undead are most likely the result of a Dead being's Soul not being harvested and thus staying in its original Body. Coupled with the knowledge that Ava can 'wake up' the Dead (as zombie-like beings) and that Bien can hinder their Bodies from decaying, most likely Souls getting left behind will not reanimate a Body on its own (as evidenced by the fact that Angels seem to leave 'low-potential Souls' behind to begin with) but that an Undead is the result of a Soul staying in a Body that has been prevented from decaying through supranatural means.

This can also be observed in Sar, whose Body is kept intact by existing in Anselir, a Measure of Space where Time does not proceed normally.

Characteristics

The Undead appear to retain the same level of intelligence and sentience as they did when they were Living. It's unknown if being Undead has an effect on personality traits, as Bien appears to retain his personality but Sar acts completely different from his Living counterpart.

An Undead Body is zombie-like and can show signs of decay depending on how long they have been dead before 'waking up' as an Undead. This can be seen with Bien and the other shoulders who have visible bones, injuries or rot. Undead beings like Sar whose Body has been preserved shortly after Dying appear indistinguishable from the Living due to their Body's condition being the same as before Death.

The Undead do not age, but they can Die completely if their Body is not preserved.

Known Undead

• Bien Maldevaran
• Anthony Tarnowska
• Undead soldiers
  • Bayo
  • Lord

Overview

The Court of the Living is a Legal organisation composed of Judges living under the direct care of the Marginals.

Structure

The term 'Court' refers to both the organisation of all Judges collectively and to the physical locations where they reside.

The Judges live with the Marginals in five regional courts (one for each region).

Every seven years, an election is conducted where people can vote for those they consider valuable in their community, with the people who 'lose'the election being taken away to become a Judge. The Court is seen as an unconventional punishment system where being a Judge is believed by the masses to be a highly torturous job.

Legally, the Judges are considered politicians, but in practice they have little bearing on Legal matters and only the High Judge has the ability to pass Laws (and even then, only with the approval of Media and the rest of the Council). Instead, they are tasked to do 'Trials.'trials encompass a variety of tasks, many seeming mundane or pointless. These tasks while having nothing to do with governance of the Living World, however, may be related to the governance of the Marginals' Internal Worlds1. Found in C1I1-5R&D.

Sar gives a clear description of what life is like for a Judge in his paper 'An Introduction to the Anselir-Maldevaran Migration: Part of a Series on the History of The Court of the Living'2. Media says as much in C1PR1, telling Jacques that the book report he assigns is related to the Laws in his own Universe and not the Living one.

Judge Syndrome

Being around the Marginals for too long 'pulls' at the thoughts of people around them, causing discrepancies in how the Judges they think. They become prone to eccentric beliefs and behaviour as a result, with many Judges behaving in odd, asocial and at times hostile ways. This is colloquially and often derisively known as 'Judge Syndrome' to Outsiders of the Court. Sar describes it as such:

However, it [Time-Space discrepancies] is obvious to the Judges in the Court, assumed to be a side effect of living in close proximity to the Marginals, and the disorientation it imposes strains one's mental faculties in a way that the management of recreational tasks and the ability to process one's surroundings becomes impaired. While physically, there is no change in how one perceives reality, the qualitative internal experience of it becomes muddled and surreal, often described as if the very core from which reality is experienced becomes detached: things look, sound, feel, smell and taste the same, but this sensory information is always interpreted as foreign or insignificant. It can be inferred that this is an approximation of how Marginals experience perception3. 'Judge Syndrome' and by extension how Marginals perceive the world are reminiscent of ipseity disturbances and boundary thinness, key features of schizotypy.

These effects are further aggravated in High Judges due to their duty in doing the Annotations, where they gradually (literally) lose parts of their own Mind inside the Marginal Worlds. While their physical Bodies remain unaffected, their consciousness becomes 'split' across the different Worlds at once making their perception of Reality incomprehensible.

The physical courts

Sar describes the Courts as being barren, and that even without counting for Legality, the Judges barely entertain themselves because there's nothing to entertain themselves with.

A Judge's individual bedroom is attached to a small bathroom and contains only a bed, a desk, a chair, a lamp, a telephone and a 40 × 60 centimetre chest for the only items a Judge can Legally own:

• Jewellery
• Clothes
• Packaged snacks (eg candy, biscuits); all other consumable items must be eaten in the dining room
• One hammer, or adjacent items (eg a mallet)
• One pointed chisel, or adjacent items (eg an icepick)

Sar further asserts that the only communal places are a dining room, the archives and the garden. There is no set schedule to eat, with food constantly being available and prepared by Robo-Maids in an inaccessible kitchen. Reading materials in the Archives are incomprehensible outside of Trials, and 'the garden, supposedly, has plants, although there is no way of ascertaining this, or more specifically, it is meaningless even if true.'

There appears to be no exits in the Court, and that Judges can only leave by asking a Marginal to take them outside.

The physical state of the Court is implied to be inconsistent and somewhat illogical in nature, most likely due to the lack of Real Space in Maldevara.

Judges

Judges are the members of the Court. While they are still considered Legally Living, in practice they are treated as the Marginals' 'pets' and helpers. Although they are not being actively tortured, contrary to popular belief, the lives they lead in the Court are unpleasant due to the effects of being in proximity with Marginals and due to the lack of activities to do.

A Judge's duties are collectively referred to as 'Trials.' Trials comprise mundane tasks, listed by Sar as:

• Transcription and data-encoding; occasionally through a technological device, but more often than not hand-written
• Errand running, often procuring consumable products from Outside
• Playing video games, usually text-based adventure or role playing games
• Media analysis
• Annotations, usually but not necessarily the High Judge's duty

Because of Project Maldevaran, 'Trials' now also cover handling the Legal issues of the Non-Living.

Judges have a uniform of a long black robe with a hem that moves around like a shadow, and a white capelet with a scalloped hem and a turtleneck style. The Judges can accessorise themselves with jewelry. The High Judge can wear different clothes in their daily life, but it's implied Media chooses their clothes for them.

Judges seem to have a hierarchy of sorts, with there being a 'High Judge' and a 'Regional Judge' that writes reports about why a candidate for High Judge was elected4. Seen in the report about Jacques in C1MV2.

Known Laws, Policies and Projects

As the Court is considered the Living counterpart of the Council, they are affiliated with the same programs.

The Living system

The Marginals decide citizenship and Legal status based from the fulfillment of the Requirements of the Living. Previously, this was an inherited status given to all members of a species if a majority of the members fulfilled them. In present day, due to Project Maldevaran these are considered 'conditional' and can be applied for.

All basic needs are fulfilled for the Living by the Marginals. In turn, the Living are expected to fulfill the Responsibilities of the Living. While there are no examples of any particular Responsibilities, they generally focus on community camaraderie and creative output.

Despite being a Legally defined system, it's implied the Marginals are susceptible to sociocultural bias in its application as evidenced by their treatment of the Judges, who are still Legally considered 'Living' but are made to live like the Marginals themselves.

The Marginalian Sense of Ethics

Governs how Marginals are meant to live. There are three main principles to their ethics: no personal names, no personal relationships and no personal hobbies/interests.

While the Sense of Ethics is not as strictly imposed on the Judges as it is on the Marginals (for example, the Judges still maintain their names), they are still expected to live a similar lifestyle. This is most strongly exemplified in the restriction of their hobbies/interests.

The Living-Marginals Relations Code

The Marginals have restrictions on how to properly engage with the Living. They are banned from having personal relationships with Living individuals and also must prioritise the Living over themselves.

The High Judge and Representative also have their own particular requirements, such as being mandated to live together.

Two specific codes have been explicitly given:

• #2: Forbids Marginals and the Living from holding hands (The exact code is not quoted though, and it's more likely something like “no personal relationships” than it is about hand-holding specifically).
• #1173: “The High Judge and the Official Representative must reside in…” (most likely the Manor where Media and Jacques live in)

Project Maldevaran

Originally proposed by Jacques Emfoi. While the details of how all Marginals were made to agree to allow the Project to take place, it's implied it was due to Media himself pushing for it (albeit, initially out of spite for Jacques himself) and because it may have just been a front/excuse to experiment on Bon Maldevaran.

The Project's initial aim was to abolish the Requirements of the Living on the basis that they were ill-defined and unnecessary. However, most likely due to Media's interpretation of it, it was instead turned into a Law to prove that 'Livingness' could be conditional and achievable instead of inherited, and that the Project would be considered a success if it can be proven with a Demon.

Besides the public rationale for the Project, it also involved reconstruction experiments on Demons/Demon parts, resulting in the creation of Bien Maldevaran.

Despite Bon's supposed 'failure' and subsequent exile, the Law was still passed and the Requirements were made conditional.

Projects by the High Judges

Besides Project Maldevaran, there are other projects created by previous High Judges

• Homes-and-gardens competitions across Maldevara (except the aquatic regions) - by Renaia Parisille
• Mandatory nap times for the Courts - by Len Archival
• Replacing Neofrene's water supply with orange fizzies for two months - by Luzvimin Lucille
• Home and national security upgrades and sometimes the upgrades explode - by Uloron Entrièta
• Name pronunciation contests - by Karina Lonfhardee

Known Judges

High Judges

The regional court the Judge is from is noted, although all High Judges are moved to Neofrene to live with The Media after their election.

Overview

The Council of the Marginals is a Legal organisation composed entirely of Marginals.

Structure

'Complex' Marginals capable of maintaining a coherent identity are eligible to join the Council. While membership is not mandatory, every 'complex' Marginal except for The Reception is a member. Marginals that don't have a deep level of cognition, such as the Lamadamargidae, are not considered members because they are said to not be intelligent enough to even understand what the Council is for. Despite this, there doesn't appear to be any particular tension between the two groups and Media also says that the Lamadamargidae can cooperate with simple tasks when necessary. The Marginals also keep track of the Lamadamargidae's locations and it's implied that they also take responsibility for their upkeep.

The Council, despite appearing as a mere 'association' of Marginals, is viewed in Marginalian culture as a sort of 'supra-Marginal' with each individual Marginal member being an 'Object' to its entirety. Thus, besides its Legal functions it also serves as a manifestation of Marginalian culture and philosophy.

The Council serves as the primary government agency in Marginal-overseen Nations alongside The Court of the Living. As a government agency, it provides all basic social security services, stipends and needs of the Living. The Council appears to have some opposition to direct colonization. Resistant areas such as Passryne are still allowed to self-govern, although the Marginals still try to negotiate with them and provide some level of basic stipends.

The Council also created the Requirements of the Living and imposed the Living system onto the countries they oversee. Their Laws are based from their species's philosophies and are said to heavily prioritise concepts like Love and Life, imposing responsibilities geared towards community interaction and creative output. The Council also imposes it to a greater degree to the Court, expecting Judges to live Marginal-like lives.

Besides the more 'serious' Laws, the Council also passes Laws that are arbitrary, pointless or purposefully convoluted. Some examples of this are the migration Laws, where the requirements for the proper documentation are changed repeatedly and applied retroactively so that nobody can accomplish them, and Laws passed by the High Judges such as a decree by Luzvimin Lucille where they replaced Neofrene's tap water with soda.

The Council functions by collective unanimous vote and any member is given equal power to veto decisions. While Media may appear as their unofficial 'leader', Legally the Council has no actual leader and Media himself needs to lobby for the Council's agreement for him to pass his own interests. An example of this is that, despite controlling the media, he still needed their agreement to put assistive listening devices in movie theaters, due to disagreements on whether it was necessary when the only person who would use them isn't 'allowed to go to the movies.' The Council also votes for the High Judge among all the Court's candidates.

Council members wear a uniform with crow motifs. It is unknown however whether the crow seal (and even the uniform itself) is something associated with the Council itself or only of Maldevara.

Their uniform has no strict colour scheme and is instead colored as whatever liquid the individual Marginal looks like.

Known Laws, Policies and Projects

The Council is affiliated with the same programs as the the Court.

The Living system

The Marginals decide citizenship and Legal status based from the fulfillment of the Requirements of the Living. Previously, this was an inherited status given to all members of a species if a majority of the members fulfilled them. In present day, due to Project Maldevaran these are considered 'conditional' and can be applied for.

All basic needs are fulfilled for the Living by the Marginals. In turn, the Living are expected to fulfill the Responsibilities of the Living. While there are no examples of any particular Responsibilities, they generally focus on community camaraderie and creative output.

Despite being a Legally defined system, it's implied the Marginals are susceptible to sociocultural bias in its application as evidenced by their treatment of the Judges, who are still Legally considered 'Living' but are made to live like the Marginals themselves.

The Marginalian Sense of Ethics

Governs how Marginals are meant to live. There are three main principles to their ethics: no personal names, no personal relationships and no personal hobbies/interests.

While the Sense of Ethics is not as strictly imposed on the Judges as it is on the Marginals (for example, the Judges still maintain their names), they are still expected to live a similar lifestyle. This is most strongly exemplified in the restriction of their hobbies/interests.

The Living-Marginals Relations Code

The Marginals have restrictions on how to properly engage with the Living. They are banned from having personal relationships with Living individuals and also must prioritise the Living over themselves.

The High Judge and Representative also have their own particular requirements, such as being mandated to live together.

Two specific codes have been explicitly given:

• #2: Forbids Marginals and the Living from holding hands (The exact code is not quoted though, and it's more likely something like “no personal relationships” than it is about hand-holding specifically).
• #1173: “The High Judge and the Official Representative must reside in…” (most likely the Manor where Media and Jacques live in)

Project Maldevaran

Originally proposed by Jacques Emfoi. While the details of how all Marginals were made to agree to allow the Project to take place, it's implied it was due to Media himself pushing for it (albeit, initially out of spite for Jacques himself) and because it may have just been a front/excuse to experiment on Bon Maldevaran.

The Project's initial aim was to abolish the Requirements of the Living on the basis that they were ill-defined and unnecessary. However, most likely due to Media's interpretation of it, it was instead turned into a Law to prove that 'Livingness' could be conditional and achievable instead of inherited, and that the Project would be considered a success if it can be proven with a Demon.

Besides the public rationale for the Project, it also involved reconstruction experiments on Demons/Demon parts, resulting in the creation of Bien Maldevaran.

Despite Bon's supposed 'failure' and subsequent exile, the Law was still passed and the Requirements were made conditional.

Projects by the High Judges

Besides Project Maldevaran, there are other projects created by previous High Judges

• Homes-and-gardens competitions across Maldevara (except the aquatic regions) - by Renaia Parisille
• Mandatory nap times for the Courts - by Len Archival
• Replacing Neofrene's water supply with orange fizzies for two months - by Luzvimin Lucille
• Home and national security upgrades and sometimes the upgrades explode - by Uloron Entrièta
• Name pronunciation contests - by Karina Lonfhardee

Known Members

• The Media
• The Curator
• The Security

Overview

Heaven's Conglomerate is the collective of all Angelic companies and is one of the major divisions of Heaven.

Structure

The Conglomerate is composed of different companies run by Angels. Like how individual Angels fall into a Hierarchy, the Conglomerate also has its own ranking of the companies within it, denoted by giving companies more titles the more prestigious they are. There are a maximum of seven titles to be collected:

• Incorporated
• Private-limited
• Joint-stock
• Cooperative
• Holdings
• Proprietorship
• Group

Heaven's economy is the entire framework upon which an Angel's life rests upon. Their individual ranks in the Hierarchy is dependent on job performance or economic changes, shown when Anariel gets fired from being a High Messenger and has to take on the low-level job of a celemarketer for Celes Industries as Charlotte. As an Angel's identity is literally tied to their ranks and they forget their previous identity when they move around the Hierarchy, Angels take their jobs seriously.

While primarily run by Angels, some companies also have Living employees in individual business establishments, such as the Living employees in WallyMart, a supermarket branch in Neofrene.

The currency Angels use are called 'credits'.

Known Companies

Celes Industries™

Also known as Celes Inc. The company's full title is Celes Industries™ Incorporated Private-limited Joint-stock Cooperative Holdings Proprietorship Group. Having attained all seven labels, Celes is considered as one of the most prestigious companies in Heaven. Even celemarketers, considered a 'low-level' rank, are paid enough to afford multiple summer homes1. Aquinas, the Angel in C1PR3.5, is a celemarketer who already owns five summer homes and is about to buy a sixth one.

Celes appears to deal in two major ventures: the first being Soul harvesting and the second being technological innovation.

• Soul harvesting: Celes employs 'celemarketers,' Angels that sell 'Soul Insurance'. While Charlotte's sales pitch on what that entails is confusing, it seems Soul Insurance is geared towards ensuring that a Soul gets harvested and taken to the next Universe upon Death instead of being allowed to decay into Irrelevancy. Celemarketers have a quota and are paid by the quality of the Souls to sell to, so they often ignore 'low-potential' Souls.
• Technological innovation: Celemarketers have been seen with different tools/devices. celes.inc's home page describes some of these products:

• Gabrielle™ - the fastest and realest search engine, putting the Architecture of the World at your wingtips
• CON-t® - initially written for celecasting, significant technological advances have turned 'the language of the uni-ces' into an allrounder for all your needs in and out of the Living Universe
• CURA - an essential in any celemarketer's toolbox, CURA turns your average IPC into a multipurpose device geared towards Soul scanning and insurance tracking
• Information Presentation Cards (IPC's) - this portable holoprojector may seem basic, but its powerful anti-distortion measures and Memory capacity have earned even the patronage of renowned organisations such as The Council of the Marginals
• Universal Translation Headsets - built with the latest in translation technology, these headsets let you communicate with a variety of Non-Living creatures

Celes also creates warp-free notebooks whose contents are immune from being warped by the presence of Marginals.

The uniform for celemarketers consists of a white button-down blouse with black hearts on the collar, an orange blazer, a black pencil skirt, black gloves, sheer tights and black shoes. The Angel's cheek 'blush' also turn heart-shaped. It's unknown if this is the uniform for all Celes employees or only for celemarketers.

FILSID

A company that runs 'Suicide Wars' where Living citizens can Legally Die. Bien Maldevaran signed up for one of these Wars after being recruited by Angels.

SoulFoods®

A company that makes food products. The food products can have an effect on the person's thoughts and personality, making them advocate for 'soulful' messages about self-improvement, seen when Jacques samples 'Bite-sized Chicken Soup for the Soul' in a WallyMart.

Known Members

• Charlotte and her friends - Celes Industries™
• Aquinas - Celes Industries™
• Aadesh - FILSID
• Unnamed supermarket Angel - SoulFoods®

Overview

Maldevaran English is the language that is used in Maldevara and that the story is written in.

History

While it is unknown what language/s were used in Maldevara prior to the Marginals, English became the primary language upon Media's arrival. Due to The Media originating 'from England', it is safe to assume this was his decision.

According to Sar, English did not only become the new vernacular, most Maldevarans have no awareness of other languages even existing.

Honourary English

Honourary English is a variation of Maldevaran English used by Marginals and Judges, particularly for legal documents and reports. This variation is long-winded and obfuscating on purpose, using inconsistent Legalese and strange turns of phrase.

breadavota.cafe's BBS guide includes 'A Guide to Honourary English'1: The guide is a parody of George Orwell's 6 rules of writing from the essay 'Politics and the English Language'.

By now our precious Living benefactors ought to be familiar with Maldevaran English, not like one has a choice, because it is the only language that exists, but what about its variety of the jurisprudic tendency used within the prestigious domains of the Court and the Council?

The aforementioned is referred to as Honourary English, the minified version of which is employed in the daily speech of Judges and Marginalian Officers (with all the ipsedisruptic phenomena it arrives with), and the full extent of its flourish exemplified through Legal documents and academic treatises.

The particulars of this variation may be assimilated by you through the assumption of these six cardinal rules:

• Always use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print. If a concantenation of words is so riverrun to the point where the original meaning has eroded into a mere facsimile of conceptual shadow, then all the more reason to echo the sentiment within your own linguistic appearations.
• The convenience of brevity comes with the cost of a scarcity of associated nodes and conceptual relations: whenever feasible (and if feasible, non-feasible), the supplementation of a concise manner of speech with one more elaborate and ill-defined is highly recommended.
• If it is possible to overextend a sentiment through the discalculated appendation of additional morphemological units to the point of semantic pointlessness, always choose such a path.
• The passive voice is to be chosen above-preference over the active.
• The usage of a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word is typically unorthodox, witherto the consideration that foreign phrases do not exist and technical constructive speech will-has-been degraded since long past, insofar that the past is a meaningful point to distinguish, to the vagaries of Time; regardless, if the use of such ancillary conceptualisations further serves to obfuscate and express without neither much construction nor emotion, then the decision becomes preferable.

Breaking these rules is Legally Permissible, if not necessarily Correct.

Characteristics

For the most part, Maldevaran English is heavily similar to British English. The British spelling and terminology for most words are used more often than their American counterparts, however some American spellings/terminology are considered correct, but non-standard.

Some words and expressions used in Maldevaran English are not used in British English. Maldevaran English features neologisms (made-up words), non-standard conjugations or definitions for existing words, and ocassionally words lifted from Filipino English.

Glossary

Words

Some of these words/expressions have not appeared in the comic proper but were posted on the author's defunct blog.

• Architecture - see its own article
• Balabago - a pastel yellow flower with a dark center resembling eyes
• Cart lot - the lot outside the grocery store where the shopping carts are kept
• (College) Course - an entire academic program/degree (not a singular class, unlike in American/British English)
• Compensation - see its own article
• Contrivance - when referring to Immortals, refers to 'artificial' characteristics/events/etc. that Immortal beings are associated with under various criteria (post-Compensation; an effect of Immortals interacting with one another; in the context of Marginals specifically, refers to the 'mechanical' aspects of their nature associated with their A.I. 'parts'; etc.); contrasted to 'phenomenological' characteristics
• Eclipse - intersect, overlap or take the form of; in certain contexts refers to the process of how an Immortal being is able to enter and stay in a different Realm/Universe
• Emergence - see its own article
• Friend - means the same as in British/American English, but also has a secondary meaning of being a generic term of politeness (such as an employee talking to a customer)
• Infrastructure - see its own article
• Jeepney - a public transportation vehicle based from the same Filipino vehicle, resembling a minibus
• Maledictionary - a spellbook, from the words malediction + dictionary
• Measure - the scope perceived by one or both Eyes of Reality
• Pathicism - a routine/expression considered tedious but done for social propriety
• Phenomenological - when referring to Immortals, refers to 'natural' characteristics/events/etc. that Immortal beings are associated with pre-Compensation; often also used to specify that a description applies to 'ancestors' (such as proto-Marginals, or Angels pre-Marginalian intervention), contrasted to 'contrived' characteristics
• Poolside - death
• River-dweller - formally meaning somebody who is ethnocentric/'xenophobic' [ in the context of the story, this is towards other species ], over time became an insult towards a particular type of pretentious/officious person with certain other characteristics; similar meaning to the Filipino 'konyo' (person), loosely similar as well to American W.A.S.P.'s
• Riverrun - to drag someone/something through a tedious, often bureaucratic process whose significance only makes sense to [ a particular species ]
  
• Riverside - similar meaning to 'ivory tower'
• Spill - to go to a different place, especially with important or official business
• Tsampurado - chocolate porridge, based from the Tagalog word for the same dish
• Waterlogged - an (often disparaging) way to describe a particular accent or manner of speech associated with 'river-dwellers'
• Witherto - defined as/as comprised by/etc., in particular referring to the 'phenomenological' characteristics (as distinct from 'contrived' ones)

Expressions

• The bar is on the floor yet you dig your own grave - to fail expectations exceedingly
• Lift your own bench - toot your own horn; to boast about your achievements
• Making bricks out of river mud/river-bricking/mud-bricking and other variations - in political contexts, similar to a filibuster; in colloquial context, it's when something is not tackled effectively due to the ineffectiveness or conflict of leaders, a lack of participation of those involved (or the leaders not welcoming participation) or just general uncooperativeness, especially with an implication that people are preoccupied with irrelevant or trivial details while all this is happening (said details being considered the 'bricks')
• Mall on top of an ocean - a precarious or fragile situation
• Soap in a river/river-lather/washed in a river and other variations - similar to sanitization where something is presented in more palatable language, especially to signal an exaggerated sense of intellect/social awareness/etc.
• Non-particular comments that use any descriptor of wetness/fluidity/etc. are used in similar comments above to criticise a particular manner of polite speech [ also referred to as 'pathicisms' ] that is considered excessive or perfunctory—this is also because certain 'pathicisms' are only common in some species and/or regions (in particular, Neofrene), so some people oppose the imposition of it towards them

Punctuation

Punctuation generally follows American English punctuation. For dialogue and quotations, double quotation marks are used and single quotation marks for nested quotes. "This is an example of 'Maldevaran' punctuation."

Ocassionally, British puncutuation is used, with the quotation marks switched around. 'This is an alternative example of "Maldevaran" punctuation.'

According to the author, 'Both are considered correct, and the American version is more common. Which one is considered more "appropriate" than the other is based on "mood" and can be arbitrary: it relies more on a particular relationship between the people writing to each other and the nature of correspondence than there are hard and fast rules of when it is "appropriate" to use the other. British-style punctuation can imply both a sense of familiarity, closeness or derision depending on context, but the severity of how punctuation is treated is dependent on individual and for most people it may not make a particular difference.'

Other Conventions

• Avoidance of first-person pronouns (I/me/my) and self-reference as far as possible, especially in formal works; if using third person does not fit the context, identifiers like 'one' or 'self' are used instead of I/me/my
• Referencing the second person ('you"the viewer) is more common, in particular speaking to 'you' as an individual even in works geared towards no particular audience
• 'Based from' instead of 'based on'
• 'In fairness' instead of ' to be fair'
• 'Accordance to' instead of 'accordance with'
• 'How' can be interchangable with 'what' in some contexts ('How do you mean?' instead of 'What do you mean?')
• Dates are read with cardinal numbers instead of ordinal numbers ('January one', not 'the first of January')
• A more common usage of 'the' in formal titles ('The Council of the Marginals', not 'Council of Marginals')
• Time is read as the numbers themselves (12:30 is 'twelve-thirty', not 'half past twelve'; 12:45 is 'twelve-fourty-five', not 'quarter to twelve')
• 1/4 is read as one-fourth, not one-quarter
• The polite way to refer to other people is with their shortened public name ('Bien' instead of 'Benedict'), with the full first name being kept secret and only disclosed and used by people one is close to. Judges conventionally refer to each other by last names instead.

Overview

Passrynian is the language that is used in Passryne and is the native language of Jacques Emfoi.

Characteristics

Passrynian (Passrynienne) is the dominant language of Passryne, spoken by Passrynian Crows. Due to its isolated nature, it is spoken only by Passrynians and is unknown by other Maldevarans. It is similar to French, although how such similarities arose is unknown, other than being assumed a very contrived coincidence.

Although it largely shares French vocabulary, Passrynian grammar and syntax is different from French, and would sound like broken French to French speakers, if those people still existed. Some of its characteristics are:

• Different word order (typically verbs come before subjects)
• Fewer pronouns. For example, first person pronouns are only 'je' (meaning both 'I' and 'me') and 'ma (feminine)/mon (masculine)' (both 'my' and 'mine').
• 'Grammatical gender' is consistently bound not to the gender of nouns but to the social gender of the speaker
• Different system of conjugating verbs
• Pronouns are not dropped for imperative commands ('Prends mon cadeau' would be 'Prends vous est cadeau mon')
• 'Est' is sometimes used as a definite article
• Real-life generic or cliché French phrases (like 'La vache' or 'Sacré bleu') are retained

Overview

Anselirian is the language that is used in Anselir and is the native language of Anthony Tarnowska.

Characteristics

Anselirian resembles Polish. Due to the implication of the Marginals replacing all languages with English, it's unknown how common it is for Anselirians to actually speak the language, although the presence of Anselirian books in Sar's {domain} and his own ability to use the language implies that it still existed for at least some period of time after the Marginals took over Anselir.

Overview

The 'alternate timeline' or Altline is, as the name suggests, an alternate timeline created by Bien under Ava's instruction.

The alternate timeline is a 'beta test' for Bien to practice manipulating Reality, and Ava says that it will eventually undo itself due to Bien's inability to keep holding it into existence. The timeline is based on the premise of Bien's wish: 'I wish my father wasn't exiled.'

Characteristics

Only glimpses of the Altline have been shown, mostly dwelling on Bien's home life. As he wished, Bon was never exiled, and this resulted in drastically different circumstances for their 'family':

• Alt!Bien - Alt!Bien was never exiled either, shown to have been 'Living-ised' and to reside with Bon, Jacques and Media as a 'family'. Alt!Bien is passive and timid, similar to Main!Bien, but lacks Main!Bien's rebellious and violent streak. Alt!Media cuts off his hands to settle the citizens' fears of his Demon powers awakening and triggering the Apocalypse, so Alt!Bien has robotic prosthetic hands.
• Alt!Bon - Alt!Bon is dubbed 'Captain' instead of Scarecrow, and has a more feminine presentation. Unlike in the Mainline where Bon is shown to be affectionate to Bien, Alt!Bon seems to be cold and dismissive towards Alt!Bien, a fact that seems to upset him.
• Alt!Media - Alt!Media is significantly more violent and abusive, constantly shown to be killing (and re-killing) Jacques. In the Altline, Jacques and Media are married and wear matching gold rings.
• Alt!Jacques - Alt!Jacques seems more paranoid, likely due to his abusive situation. In his appearances he fluctuates between being coherent but withdrawn and being mentally 'unhinged' but relatively more carefree and even happy. Alt!Media claims this is either the result of too many Annotations or of 'stuffing him with too much ink'.

It's unknown what the other characters's personalities are like in the Altline, but a few make an appearance in MV5.

Gallery

Overview

Recursion is a philosophical concept in BreadAVOTA.

Characteristics

In recursion, the definition of something depends on (a previous or simpler) definition of itself.

Within the context of BreadAVOTA, a relationship is considered 'recursive' if the identity and characteristics of the individual components is contingent on its relationship to other components. and that the lack of those other components either fundamentally changes its nature or nullifies its existence completely.

Recursion is strongly linked to emergence and compensation: emergences arise from recursive relationships, and compensations arise from originally recursive relationships that lose some of their components.

Like emergence, recursion is a key aspect of Marginalian philosophy. The Marginals believe that while separate instances of certain things/components can exist in isolation, their nature/'definition' fundamentally changes in context of a recursive relationship with a different component/s.

Examples

Reality

Reality is an emergence of the recursive relationship between three/four1 While worded as four components, technically as Space and Time were originally a singular unit, these were originally three components. components: the Hands of Time, the Holding of Space, the Voice of Reality and the Judgment of the Living.

V.A.R.A. explains in C1MV6 that the cycle of Reality happens when Reality is created by the Angels, yet simultaneously the Angels merely perceive what Reality always has been. In the same chapter, Def-Se realises that it can usurp Mirasol's role overseeing Reality when it realises that 'the Judgment of the Living' is recursive: while the existence of the Living and the cycle of the Universes is contingent on Mirasol's perception of them, Mirasol herself exists based from how she is perceived by the Living Universe.

The Living Universe

The Living Universe is an emergence of the recursive relationship between the World and its Inhabitants: the existence and nature of the World is contingent on how the Inhabitants within it perceive the world, and conversely the existence and nature of the Living is contingent on how the World they reside in perceives them.

The Living

When Minds, Bodies and Souls have recursive relationships the emergent result is a Living being. While any of these three components can exist independently, their very nature fundamentally changes in the absence of the other components: this is the primary reason why Marginals do not believe simply 'mashing'the three components together results in a Living being. A Mind, for example, that exists in a Living being (eg within the context of a recursive relationship with a Body and a Soul) is seen as fundamentally different from a mind that exists in a Marginal (eg without a Real Body/Soul).

Language

Linguistic recursion is an existing concept (as defined by linguists such as Noam Chomsky) defined as when a grammatical element can contain another grammatical element of its own kind.

Within BreadAVOTA linguistic recursion is also often used to refer to theory of mind, that is, the ability not only to think nor to think about thoughts but to also recognise that others think, and think about their thoughts. The ability to utilise language is considered one of the Requirements of the Living as language is considered the natural emergence of recursive thinking, with recursive thinking being a property of all Minds of sufficiently complex cognition.

While not explicitly stated in the story, the nature of Reality being implied to be at least partially contingent on subjective perceptions, the claim that language is the faculty of magic and the thematic analogies of Universes being 'Narratives' and Annotations changing Reality imply that language and reality also have a recursive relationship.

Media and V.A.R.A.

While existing as distinct entities/identities, Media and V.A.R.A. refer to one another as both each other's creator and creation simultaneously. V.A.R.A. also says that she and Media are 'kinda sorta literally each other'.

Chapter Formats

A metatextual example of recursion is how some chapters are formatted, with certain chapters nested within other chapters. For example, Intermissions exist within Annotations which in turn exist within Chapters.

Overview

Emergence is a philosophical concept in BreadAVOTA. Due to the near-total absence of actually saying that's what it is in the story itself the explanations provided in this article are once more forcefully extracted out of the author under duress.

Characteristics

While emergence has been mentioned by name only a few times in the story so far, it is the primary basis of several mechanisms in the world alongside recursion. From Wikipedia:

In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence occurs when a complex entity has properties or behaviours that its parts do not have on their own, and emerge only when they interact in a wider whole.

Emergence plays a central role in theories of integrative levels and of complex systems. For instance, the phenomenon of life as studied in biology is an emergent property of chemistry and quantum physics.

Emergence is a core philosophical concept in Marginalian jurisprudence and epistemology. While the Legal definitions the Marginal use are based from strong emergence, individual Marginals may believe in weak emergence to a degree. Due to their tendency towards strong emergence, the Marginals consider emergences to be distinct phenomena whose properties are unique from that of the individual components they supervene, nor can these emergences be reduced or simulated. As such, Marginals treat certain emergences as inherited and not purposefully attainable.

The Marginals' feelings for particular phenomena do not necessarily reflect their feelings for their components. For example, while Marginals recognise Life supervenes Bodies and that Bodies are necessary components for Life, the Marginals revere the Living but find Bodies repulsive as they do not consider the characteristics of a Living person to be reducible or synonymous to the characteristics of Bodies.

The Marginals also seem to believe that some things are inherent, or at least naturally-occuring, as part of the internal nature of things. When certain actions or behaviours are done, it's believed that these are 'emergences' of what was already inside.

Marginals like The Media have ambivalent beliefs and think that Life and Love can be purposely created for Real (as opposed to mere compensations), or at the very least aspire to this possibility.

Examples

Reality

Reality is considered the emergence of the recursive relationship of three/four components1 While worded as four components, technically as Space and Time were originally a singular unit, these were originally three components. : the Hands of Time, the Holding of Space, the Voice of Reality and the Judgment of the Living.

Life/Living-ness

Life is an emergent phenomenon of a (Real) Mind, Body and Soul, and beings like the Immortals are considered Non-Living despite superficially resembling Living people. While the specific details of how the Marginals define the Living (based from the Requirements of the Living) are unknown, putting these three components into one entity is not enough to qualify for Life as the Marginals most likely have trace amounts of the other components despite predominantly being described as 'Mind-based' species, as implied by their consumption of Vara (a Body) and the leftovers of Dead Universes also including Souls that have 'low potential', and the Marginals' resistance to Project Maldevaran implies they do not see Life as something one can actually 'attain'.

Love (and other values)

Love as a Legal concept defined by the Marginals is considered an emergence of loving interactions shared by Living beings. Similar to Life, the Marginals do not believe love-like interactions and emotions count as 'Real' Love if they are experienced by the Immortals/Non-Living, but instead consider it as something analogous.

Jacques writes an essay criticising Maldevaran society where he claims that Maldevarans do not meaningfully believe in free will and choices. When a person does something 'bad', Maldevarans don't believe it is because that person meaningfully 'chose' to do something bad. Instead, it is believed that bad actions are emergences of bad thoughts and feelings, and that doing bad things merely 'confirms' an inherent badness, instead of the actions being evaluated on their own.

Compensation

Compensation is a mechanism in which various components of Reality can manifest, often spontaneously, a reconstruction of other components. While a compensation may initially appear as an example of a weakly emergent phenomenon, with compensatory reconstructions recognised as 'simulations', the Marginals define them in similar principles to how they define Life and Love by recognising the underlying Architecture governing compensations: for example, when an Angel's Body 'compensates' a Mind, the compensatory Mind that emerges is not a Mind and the nature of Minds cannot be predicted or simulated with a Body; the compensation is still considered a Body that superficially resembles a Mind.

Overview

Compensation is a philosophical concept in BreadAVOTA.

Characteristics

Compensation is a mechanism in which various components of Reality can manifest, often spontaneously, a reconstruction of other components. The mechanism exists as an 'extension' of the recursive nature of Reality.

Compensations, also called compensatory reconstructions, superficially resemble the Real things but have the underlying Architecture of the component from which they originate from. Compensations can be loosely divided into two categories:

• An entity loses a component it once had, and the components that remain reconstruct what was lost.
• An entity that never had a particular component reconstructs it out of its own Architectural rules; typically, the reconstructions are things that are conceptually similar or otherwise linked to the Real existing/originating components

While not explicitly mentioned in the narrative, the nature of compensation is not only recursive but also emergent.

An analogy Ava uses in C1I1-1 for it likens compensation to neuroplasticity in aphasia: when the areas (Wernicke's/Broca's areas) that processes language in the left hemisphere are permanently damaged, over time the right hemisphere can relearn the skill even though traditionally it was believed that only the Wernicke's/Broca's area of the brain was capable of processing language.

Examples

Measures of Space and Time

Reality exists in the Vision of the Eyes of Space and Time, originally with both components being together in a singular fabric of Spacetime. Due to Def-Se's actions in C1MV6, Space and Time become separated with Time 'belonging' to the Marginals and Space remaining with the Angels.

This causes Reality to be split into 'measures', where some measures exist under the vision of Space, others in the vision of Time, and a few like where the War Bien Died in being perceived by both.

The Eyes compensated for one another so that measures of (Real) Time exist in a compensatory 'Space' and measures of (Real) Space exist in a compensatory 'Time'. For this reason, most Living beings are unable to perceive any actual Spacetime discrepancies and experience Reality normally. Measures of Time still have physical places and Measures of Space still have (somewhat) chronological progression of events.

However, as these are compensations, the similarities are only superficial and there are other differences that make it clear the underlying Architecture of both is still rooted in their originating component (eg compensatory Time is not 'Real' time and has Space-like qualities and vice versa). For example:

Measures of Time

Map of Maldevara from C1CH4.

Measures of Space

Components of the Living

The Living have three components: Bodies, Minds and Souls. The Immortals are all composed of one 'Real' component with the other two being Compensations. While the Immortals generally have Living-like personalities, they have traits and abilities that are reflective of their compensations:

Object Reconstruction

A Marginal's Objects are a special use of compensation that do not occur spontaneously but are instead learned by the Marginals and used as an ability they call reconstruction. A Marginal uses Memories to take Internal Objects (existing only as thoughts in their Internal Universe) and translate them into External Objects (being able to be interacted with in the External/Living Universe).

Reconstruction can be considered an exceptional case or even an 'exploit' of compensation as it is not a skill that originally existed in Reality nor is natural to the Marginals but something The Media learns and teaches other Marginals through unnatural means.

Overview

The Infrastructure refers to the underlying rules and mechanisms that govern what a thing 'could be' or what its potentially Real qualities are. They can be considered the both the essential and accidental properties of an object/entity/etc.

Architecture vs Infrastructure

When a Wire 'plays', the 'sound' produced by its vibration becomes a Reality. The Infrastructure is the sum total of all the possibilities associated with all the Wires in a particular Universe, regardless of whether they get 'played' or not.

The Infrastructure does not encompass every single idea/possibility that can be thought of but only what is possible within a particular Universe. That is, something that is possible and happens is part of the Architecture (and Infrastructure), something that is possible but doesn't happen is part of the Infrastructure only, and something that is not possible (within a given Universe) is not considered part of either, although it can possibly be part of a different Universe's Infrastructure.

This fact is particularly relevant in understanding the Marginals' ability of reconstruction, as their Objects are not based from the Living Universe's Infrastructure but their own, allowing them to manifest things that are technically not 'possible'. This is in contrast to Angels who can only create things within the Infrastructure.

In real life, 'Architecture' refers to the conceptual design of structures and 'Infrastructure' refers to the actual physical components. There is no explanation for why they are flipped around in BreadAVOTA, although it may be linked to the general themes of recursion, inversion and vague obnoxious fuckery going on.

In colloquial settings, it is common to erroneously switch the two terms around or use them synonymously.

Overview

The Architecture refers to the underlying rules and mechanisms that govern what a thing 'is' or what its Real qualities are. They can be considered the essential properties of an object/entity/etc.

In compensation, an entity can superficially resemble a different another entity but retain the same underlying Architecture as the original entity: thus it can be considered that the accidental properties change while the essential properties remain the same.

Architecture vs Infrastructure

When a Wire 'plays', the 'sound' produced by its vibration becomes a Reality. The Architecture of something is the sum total of the played Wires that bring it into Reality, that is, the Architecture is always already Real. This is in contrast to the Infrastructure which refers to possibilities whether they become Real or not.

In real life, 'Architecture' refers to the conceptual design of structures and 'Infrastructure' refers to the actual physical components. There is no explanation for why they are flipped around in BreadAVOTA, although it may be linked to the general themes of recursion, inversion and vague obnoxious fuckery going on.

In colloquial settings, it is common to erroneously switch the two terms around or use them synonymously.

Overview

An Annotation is a special event/program run by V.A.R.A. used to modify Marginals and fix internal errors.

Like actual annotations, an Annotation cannot explicitly delete or overwrite a pre-existing Memory but instead 'appends' to it in a way that can recontextualise and thus retroactively change it in a roundabout way.

Process

Annotations occur in 'Dreamspace'. Dreamspace is not an actual location but refers to the state of sleeping/dreaming: the Annotations themselves happen in the Margins of Reality, where all Minds go to while sleeping1. This is confirmed in BienAVOTA.

Annotations do not automatically run in every dream. They must be intentionally initiated using a device called a Hand, a spear-like device with an engraved Code that manipulates a Wire. A Hand is stabbed into a Marginal's right eye to initiate an Annotation.

Once the Annotation starts, V.A.R.A. begins by 'tethering' the Annotator to the Living World and loading the Architecture of the Target. V.A.R.A. matches the Architectures of the Annotator and Target to prevent conflict between their Objects. An Annotation involves three parties:

• The Target, which is the Marginal whose Memories are being manipulated, primarily to achieve a specific result or to fix an internal error.
• The Annotator, which is the being who manipulates the events inside the Annotation to adjust the Target's Memories. Conventionally, this is another Marginal, but technically any other being could perform this role.
• The Tether, which is the Living being who keeps the Marginals 'linked' to the Living World, allowing them to wake up. Any Object of the Living World (eg a place, thing, etc.) could technically work but there is no guarantee a Marginal will be able to wake themselves up with such. A Living being's Real Mind, Body and Soul all fulfill a purpose that make them effective Tethers. Because V.A.R.A. is an A.I. who cannot actually 'understand' what she does, her Annotations are based on past algorithms and the Tether also serves as a final failsafe who may need to make decisions in case an extremely unlikely event makes past algorithms insufficient.

V.A.R.A.'s program is designed to automate the Annotation as much as possible. As Annotations are routine procedures, V.A.R.A. often only needs to load how previous Annotations went and to run them again, with the Annotator and Tether not needing to do much but be present. Hands can only manipulate Wires for set periods of Time, so an Annotation must be saved and ended before then.

If an Annotation is not finished before the Hand runs out of Time, V.A.R.A. will autosave and boot the involved parties out, which can lead to an unfinished Annotation. If V.A.R.A. does not save, the Annotation ends anyway but the Annotator and Tether remain in Dreamspace, and the Architectures between the involved Marginals are no longer stabilised by V.A.R.A., forcing the Annotator and Tether to fend for themselves, often leading to dangerous and potentially deadly results.

Manual Mode

Annotations have two manual modes, which can be manually initiated by the Annotator.

• Manual Mode v1 - It is unknown what the characteristics of v1 are.
• Manual Mode v2 - This is also called Harmonic Assistance and is initiated in A1 in the Curator's World. Some aspects of v2 are done manually, such as the arranging of the Wire by the Annotator and the need to play through the Memory2 According to the author, 'It isn't clear in the story itself because of poor planning yadda yadda, but since A1 immediately shows v2 and not how a normal automated Annotation goes, I'll just tell you here: in a typical Annotation, the entire process is very streamlined and dull, like a routine virus scan. There is no particular need for the Annotator/Tether to actually watch or participate in the Memory being Annotated. They just have to go in the Target and get near enough to the place where the original Memory happened. In v2, the actual Memory needs to be replayed.' to be Annotated. Other parts of the Annotation are still done automatically by V.A.R.A.

Overview

The Hands of Time and the Holding of Space are one/two1 While described separately, the author has stated that due to Space and Time originally being tied together as Spacetime, they are meant to represent only one component, and the 'split' was the result of Def-Se's actions. of the main components of Reality. They are represented by the Eyes of Space and Time, the Eyes of the Highest Messenger Mirasol.

The Hands of Time

The Hands of Time refers to Time itself, represented by the Eye of Time. Due to Def-Se's actions, the Eye was consumed by Def-Se and became a part of the Margins of Reality and Marginals as a whole.

Measures existing within Time have Real Time but compensatory Space. Distances are not 'Real' but based on the amount of Time believed to get from one place to another, and the locations of things within Space are strange and inconsistent.

The term 'Hands' is a conceptual label2 According to the author, 'Hands' was chosen due to the connection to the hands of a clock and to pair it with the Holding of Space: they are tied to each other the way actual hands are used to hold things, but hands are also implied to move and manipulate things, symbolising how Time is the component of Reality that makes it progress and change. used in Marginal epistemology. The term for the technological device 'Hands'3 After eating the Eye of Time, Def-Se/Media creates a magical technological device that resembles a spear that he calls 'Hands'. Codes are engraved onto Hands, and when a Wire is wrapped around a Hand, the possibility represented by the Code is automatically 'encoded' into the Wire itself, allowing this possibility to be manifested without the need to physically rearrange the Wire to produce the wanted 'sound'. is derived from this, but shouldn't be confused for each other.

The Holding of Space

The Holding of Space refers to Space itself, represented by the Eye of Space. While it's not explicitly stated what happened to the Eye of Space and whether it is still actually part of Mirasol in the Recursive Panopticon, it is confirmed to not be part of the Margins and to still be under the jurisdiction of Heaven and/or the Angels.

Measures existing within Space have Real Space but compensatory Time. Things stay the same forever until an external agent forces a change, and the way Time is perceived within Space measures is paradoxical, simultaneously feeling like forever and also instantaneous or like no time has passed at all.

The term 'Holding' is a conceptual label4 According to the author, 'Holding' was chosen to pair it with the Hands of Time: they are tied to each other the way actual hands are used to hold things, but while the 'hands' of Time move things around to progress/change them, the 'holding' of Space holds things into place and keeps Reality consistent and unchanging until external forces warrant changes. used in Marginal epistemology.

Overview

The Wires of Reality are one of the main components of Reality. The Voice of Reality is the sum total of all the 'sounds' produced by all Wires in a Universe.

They are metaphysical and conceptual 'Wires' that function somewhat similar to particles, molecules or the strings in string theory. Because of their conceptual nature, they are not actually literal/physical Wires, although they can be turned physical for limited periods of Time using magical technology.

When a Wire vibrates, it produces a 'sound' representing a possibility within the Universe's Infrastructure, turning that possibility into part of the Architecture.

According to V.A.R.A., the 'sound' itself is not enough to bring something into Reality, and it is also necessary for the 'sound' to be 'heard'. This perception is done by the Eyes of Space and Time1. Due to the Marginals not having actual physical senses in the conventional way, they describe often interchange different sensory perceptions. This is why they make no distinction between sight and hearing, such as describing the 'Eyes' as both seeing and 'hearing' the 'sound' Wires make. These sounds are not actually literal/physical sounds.

When a Wire is turned physical using magical technology, it can be arranged in a particular way to represent a possibility that can manipulate Architectures. This can be used to change Reality itself or to Annotate the Internal Universe of a Marginal. Demons also intrinsically have the ability to manipulate Wires.

Overview

The Judgment of the Living is one of the main components of Reality.

While it is not directly stated what this actually entails, it may involve the recursive nature of Reality and how the experiences and beliefs of the Living collectively have an effect on the Universe.

Def-Se states that it initially believed it referred to the Judgment at the Apocalypse, where Souls are judged as either being useful for the next Living Universe, or left behind in the Margins of Reality. However, due to recursion, Def-Se realises that it goes both ways, and it refers not only to how Angels judge the Living but to how the Living judge Angels (or Mirasol, specifically).

Notes

• According to the author:
  
  

  The label for the Judgment of the Living is a bit of an odd case. I initially spelled the word as 'judgement' and at one point got corrected on this. This was a very long time ago, and I can't actually remember who or what corrected me, but this lead me to believe that it is 'correctly' spelled 'judgment' without the 'e'. Apparently, the version without the e is American and the version with the e is British, so all things considered I was never actually wrong, but by the time I learned this I already spelled it Judgment and can't really be bothered to go back and correct all the pages. So for the purposes of the story, I've settled on the contrived excuse where 'judgement' is the typical spelling for the word in normal situations in Maldevaran English, and 'Judgment' is used in Honourary English. This sort of tracks in real life, where in British society they use 'judgment' in law and 'judgement' in daily life, for reasons I could not ascertain. Funny how that works out.

Title Codes

BreadAVOTA's updates are usually referred to by the author and the readers (all three of them) by their title codes instead of their full titles. They follow the format [Cycle][Shortcode][Number]-[Part]-[Suffix]. The shortcodes are:

• C - Cycle
• CH - Chapter
• I - Intermission
• A - Annotation
• BC - Brëad Crumb
• MV - Music Video
• PR - Prose
• LO - Lore Document
• TR - Transmission

Examples of the format:

• C1I1-5-RD - Cycle 1 - Intermission 1 Part 5: Good [ Results and Discussion ]
• C1A1-2 - Cycle 1 - Annotation 1 Part 2: Remember that you have to die.
• C1PR1 - Cycle 1 - Prose 1: Heyyy Herald I Saw Your Sign about How Immortals are Trash and I Just Wanted to Let You Know that I Agree. Although I Myself am an Immortal, (I Know, Ugh) I am on Your Side. 'One of the Good Ones' As Some May Say. Btw I Never Even Noticed How Government-Mandatedly Exploitable Your Powers of Irrelevancy are Till Now but They're Awesome

This convention isn't a 'rule' to follow but was just adopted for convenience because of the story's tendency to have inconveniently long titles.

Since the story is currently only on Cycle 1, 'C1' is usually omitted.

Code Input

The Code Input is a feature on breadavota.cafe, found as the last option of the Theme selector in the Navigation Panel. Codes found throughout the story can be inputted here to find secret content. Codes are case sensitive.

Discussion on hidden codes can be found on the BBS.

Overview

This page features summaries/recaps of Cycle 1. Note that all spoilers are unmarked and that this summary page also features all hidden updates and the Altline.

Events that happen in the Altline and/or updates that are hidden from the Archive will be rendered like this.