#<- ramblings of a person driven mad by their special interest.

[saturnniidae]

The money I would pay for this.

[justafairytailofinnocence]

Hello dears💖, I made another one-shot of Draco.

Draco Malfoy x obsessed reader🐍

Green snakes🐍

Hello, how are you? I don’t believe we’ve met before, it’s quite interesting to see someone new. I don’t expect you to read all of this, who knows this may not even be the story for you. In which case I don’t blame you for walking past or ignoring the story.

 I know I ramble on don’t I. Well, I should get on with it shouldn’t I but before I do, I must ask?

Have you ever felt something towards someone being whether it’s fascination, infatuation or even obsession. Sounds quite scary doesn’t it the word obsession- it certainly does to me, the idea of having someone completely infatuated with you although if it were a handsome person that would be quite different wouldn’t it. Or…perhaps the opposite you have an infatuation with the person of your dreams.

Of course, obsession can be blissful and poetic, leading to many people’s happiness. Although very rarely does it lead to wonderful outcomes, so in question did I have an obsession: yes. Which side you may be asking: Both.

Yes, indeed I was obsessed with someone, they were how to say:

Elegant, extravagant, interesting, fascinating- well you get the point my entire four years of my youth was spent fawning over a boy.

However, I was one of those people that were, normal, I had friends, a family and quite a good reputation. I was so…innocent never have I truly known the difference between lust, love, or obsession. Now I wasn’t anyone special and to muggles that may be a different story but in truth I was someone you would pass by and ignore. I had average looks, and of course I was a half blood, someone with half purity and muggleborn blood.

Oh, would you look a that do I sound sick yet a sick and freighting monster…perhaps I am just that; a woman that sounds mad and I don’t blame you for thinking of me in such a way. Writing is beautiful isn’t you can already tell I’m putting the image in your head of some scary looking girl.

I must confess and say that no, I am not the villain in this story I’m a girl who grew to have feelings for someone that broke me. Of course, you may already know the boy and when you hear his name I wonder if you think of.

-        Bigot

-        Slimy git

-        Arrogant

-        Foul

-        Despicable

-        Awful

-        Cruel

I don’t blame you for even wanting to toss the boy in a fiery pit of ashes and cover him with every curse out there. Well, I certainly did and oh my it would’ve been satisfying, indeed.

You could probably already tell who I’m talking about and yes, it is Draco Malfoy. My word I sound sick perhaps I should’ve gone for Cedric diggery instead like many other countless girls. But yes indeed, I’ve fallen infatuated deeply with him and no I don’t regret it not only because he is cruel, but more for his complicated characterization maybe I should reveal what he did to me, will he hate me; oh undoubtedly.

You see we both had, affairs and he toyed with my emotions on more then one occasion. I was driven from my desire to be attached to him, and I’ve gotten so used to it now that no one else can fulfill me. We were both attracted to each other and well I even committed the worst sin and went behind my friends back pretending it would all be good and magical, I even watched as they attended Hogwarts.

Despite the doom and gloom, we’ve come to have good moments as well.

“Certainly, an extraordinary creature aren’t you, so…dreamy as if nothing can bother you my darling” He slurred with a distasteful look of satisfaction. My big eyes wandered towards his features admiring him, I felt like I was in utter heaven. My chest breathed slowly up and down as he smiled drinking tea, I laid on the sofa like structure.

The scenery was beautiful, my bare body felt the warmth of the sunlight “quite a remarkable day, do you have any plans with your friends hm?” I saw his eyebrow raise in question. “Um, no we were going to have butter beers, my friend she’s into magical creatures, she wants me to meet Hagrid”.

“Oh him, I still don’t understand how that man lives, I would rather die then live in anything utterly foul” I watched as his lip raised into a sneering tone. I had no opinion to be honest, I had met the man before I honestly liked him, although I wouldn’t say that out loud. “Your friend is quite the mud blood, isn’t she?” I knew he despised her not only for her blood status but for the fact she hexed him. “What a waste of time isn’t she” I could feel angry in that moment, I would not allow my best friend to be insulted. “I conquer, I care about her a lot” I was obviously not having any bit of that man insulting someone I care about.

“Perhaps I should leave this place, find someone else-“ before I heard the boy rush out of his seat looking furious. I could feel his lanky arms wrap around my chest, I was quite smart you see, I knew his weaknesses and fears. He does talk, we share quite a lot that I shall not reveal to this day but the one thing he cannot stand is potter. He hates him all right, if he's angry he’ll spend moments in the slytherin common rooms, spilling to me his deepest hatred and fears. I’m the escape that can’t leave so easily I could threaten but that would come to a cost of death; either his or mine.

“I beg to differ on this” I wanted to ask him, if he even cared “all you ever do is arrange these little meetings once a month and what for, so you can toy with me, have me locked away”. I could feel the tension in his arms soften “foolish idea isn’t it, why would I just invite anyone to my own home”. I quivered in sadness “to torment me”.

A different side to this boy came through, something that I’ve never even seen before. “Do you think I’m truly foolish to invite just random mud blood to my own home, I wouldn’t even dare allow something disgusting to roam through”. I pressed my hands against his arms, I could hear the boy whisper something, and it honestly changed me.

“I was a fool believe me, I could have anything against my whim and yet something still drives me utterly odd, I’m not the type of man to even go through with things such as this” on the back of my neck something rough and yet soft touched it gently. I whispered, “I’m disgusting, a mere foul creature”.

“No you aren’t, over the years of knowing you, you’re the only woman that can fascinate me” I pushed my hair back, as my body reacted to the lips on the back of my neck.

Well would you look at that oh how time flies, perhaps it’s been long enough. I can certainly see the confused look on your face, you know the disgusting one many people give me for speaking his name. I’m certainly stupid aren’t I for writing this but someone had to know eventually whether it was me or…

Never mind, now go on read something with better quality, perhaps someone with more adoration like Cedric, Sirius, Remus, or even potter.

For you see my story is anything but redeeming.

Just a hopeless sick girl infatuated with a horrible boy.

anyways thats all I have for now:

Ta Ta✨

[inkdemonapologist]

Okay but I do actually want to know both the things you love and the things you could rant about from DCTL?

OH BOY UHHHHHH okay lets see, I'm gonna see if I can do the "add a readmore after you post it" thing and see if that'll keep it stable.......

But also, much like Sammy, I am incapable of shutting up unless you strike me in the head with a blunt object, so uh, forgive my wordiness:

THINGS I ENJOY:

- DCTL gave us Sammy's ink addiction and like, if you had asked me before all this "what would you most like to see in a franchise?" I would not have answered "one of the characters drinks ink accidentally and then discovers that he can't stop" but boy that sure is my favourite concept that I LOVE to see handled literally any other way than how the book handled it!!!

- I like what it added to Tom and Allison and Norman!! Like, it's not big twists on their characters or anything -- we already knew Tom felt he was doing the wrong thing, so getting to see his CRUSHING GUILT over creating the machine isn't New Information, but it's nice to see and understand more of him; for all of them I feel a lot more attached to them after getting to see more of them as people.

- Like 90% of the "I LOVE IT" category for me is how the book handled Joey, and Buddy's relationship with Joey. The way Joey isn't a Sinister Mastermind Who’s Just Screwing With Everyone but just manipulative in a more mundane way -- someone who thinks of himself as just the guy with the vision to call the shots; he wants what he wants and this is how he's learned to get it; he exploits people not through devious schemes, but just by offering them something that they want or need and asking too much in return, expecting their loyalty for his favours. And the way he interacts with Buddy, making Buddy complicit with him and keeping Buddy off-balance and insecure while making him a favourite and treating him as Special is just PERFECT --  gives a lot of content to kind of extrapolate off of when pondering what must've drawn the others in and convinced them to ignore the red flags. I was initially frustrated with the idea of Buddy not being an artist and jUST DECIDING TO LEARN TO ANIMATE ON THE SPOT ("I've never done this before but I'm sure I can just do an artist's job" is a weirdly common throwaway thing in media and as an artist iTS A PET PEEVE) but actually the way they use his plagiarism to make him trapped in a lie in ways Joey doesn't even realise ends up being a neat echo of other employees (coughTOMcough), who were involved in much graver sins but suddenly felt they couldn't object or they'd lose their one chance, just like Buddy. There's a lot here that I think is really great.

OKAY THATS THE GOOD STUFF, LET'S COMPLAIN ABOUT SAMMY:

- Uncomfortable Bigotry Vagueness that we all knew was gonna be in this list -- I dunno man, a guy committing a microaggression and getting startled and defensive when he's called out for it doesn't necessarily completely ruin his character I GUESS, but the way this was handled is just SO WEIRD AND VAGUE that it's uncomfortable and it doesn't seem to serve any real purpose. "Is Tom black?" is a question I actually have to ask because the text sort of implies he is while also dancing around it and apparently Word of God said he's not??? which makes Buddy's comment nonsensical???? And I mean, you could go that route, since Buddy wonders to himself if Sammy talks to everyone like this -- HE ACTUALLY DOES!! Even within the text of the novel, he uses "Joey" instead of Mr. Drew, which is consistent with his audiologs in the game -- but that makes the writing suggest "this character THINKS this guy might be racist but actually they're reading too much into it and it wasn't racially motivated at all, he's just a jerk!!" wHICH IS SOMEHOW EVEN MORE ICKY??? Anyway like yeah I guess it's not inconsistent with his character that while Sammy Lawrence may not have any specific grudge against minorities he has probably not checked his privilege or done the work to challenge his own internal biases, but “Your Fav Probably Contributes To Systemic Racism In Ways He Hasn’t Considered, As Do We All When Our Assumptions Go Unchecked” is still a wild thing to wade through in a fun story about demonic cartoons

- but yknow so is T H E   H O L O C A U S T

- Sammy's voice is wrong. I'm actually okay with him being a weird awkward asshole, I already kind of assumed he was and that's part of why I like him!! but there's so many places he doesn't quite... talk like himself? And not just in terms of word choice, like -- so in his monologue at the end, he's described as talking so quickly that his words are "tumbling out faster than he can speak them," which initially seems fine; like yeah, that's a Standard Scene we're familiar with, the person who's been Driven Mad With Insight becoming more and more manic as they try to convey it -- until I tried to imagine it and realised that Sammy doesn't talk like this. That's a really consistent quality I always notice about his voice; whether he's almost giddily excited in prophet mode, or he’s his irritated and overworked human self, or he's violently angry and his voice has that echo effect -- he always speaks very deliberately. He enunciates carefully. There's some circumstances where I'd buy this as showing that he's Not Himself, but I feel like those would kind of need to be in the middle of his transformation, not at the end of it.

- In fact a lot of the scenes with Sammy kind of have this feeling -- that it's not necessarily an exploration of Sammy as a character, but that he is filling a trope or archetype role here. Once he's fully transformed he excitedly describes the process as more of a mental compulsion, which is in contrast to his weird yeerk-infected behaviour when trying to get ink from Miss Lambert. Both of those scenes don't seem wrong on their own because they fit tropes we know -- but they feel weird when you try to fit them together.

- I also just in general am not a fan of the ink acting like a weird yeerk. It can be a parasite I guess but when it starts overwriting and puppeting people and crawling around to enter their body that's just a completely DIFFERENT kind of supernatural story and it’s not what im here for!!!

- THE FREAKIN!!! HE WILL SET US FREE!!!! WHY????????? SAMUEL LAWRENCE WHAT IS HE SETTING YOU FREE FROM??????? Sammy has No Motive for any of what he's doing, other than just Ink Made Me Do It. The whole thing that was INTERESTING about Sammy as a character is the contrast between this frustrated, ornery musician with no specific love for the cartoons he works on, and the manically devoted cultist he becomes. What happened in the middle there? What made him desperate enough to shift his mindset so much? "Something supernatural made him do things that don't benefit him in any way" is a very boring answer to this question!!! Susie was a victim who implies that her transformation has forced her to do things she didn't want to do, but we can still see her motive -- she wanted to be Alice, so she took a sketchy offer to try to get what she wanted. Even now, her violence echoes that goal -- to be a more perfect Alice. What did Sammy want? WHO KNOWS. Even in his ink-addled state at the end, we don't understand what he hopes the Ink Demon will even do for him, and in fact he seems to be responsible for creating the very scenario he's begging Bendy to reverse in the game.

- [sighs loudly into my hands]

- Overall I'm left wondering if the author just..... didn't like Sammy Lawrence? And I don't mean that in the sense of him being a rude jerk -- like, Joey is not a good person, but the author seems to be interested in him and in what makes him tick. There doesn't seem to be that same interest in Sammy. Sammy's role in the story is that of a monster, transformed into something murderous, unable to prevent or choose it. He's not a victim of anyone but the ink, no one had to manipulate him or figure out how his brain worked or what he wanted or what he feared or give him any reason to do the things he does -- ink got in his mouth and overwrote his personality. And we don't even get to see that change, not really. He starts out angry and defensive and continues being angry and defensive up until his very last scene, denying his ink-stealing but not really much else. We see all his prophetic sketches but we never see hints of this in him, we never see him start to act more excited and hopeful, we never see him seek out the demon he desires to please. Why do we never see Sammy struggling between his dismissive angry front and a building religious fervour he can't quite suppress? We don't get to see any of the in-between. There's no interest at all in why or even what it looked like as Sammy became what he became, when, to be honest, I suspect interest in precisely that is one reason he's such a big fav.

- It's funny, in a "cries into my hands" kind of way, when Sammy is just knocked in the head while monologuing and immediately removed from the story without further mention, like...... that sure is the pattern with him, isn't it, he just tries very very hard and never actually gets to matter, but it also fits right in here, too, in this book that doesn't want to think about his motives -- he rambles nonsensically, explaining nothing, gets one trademark phrase, and then is hastily removed so the story doesn't have to think about him anymore.

...................I think that's most of it.

...

Y'all............ I'm not ready for Sent From Above.......... I'm just not.... I'm not emotionally ready...... like..... Sammy has to be in that right..... he’s Susie’s boss and she has that big crush on him..................................... I’m not ready

[first-son-of-finwe]

So this is my “leaving the fold” essay, which I mentioned some time ago. I wrote this mostly for myself because writing things down always helps me make sense of them, but quite a few people expressed interest in it, so here it is. 

I was raised as quite a strict Orthodox Christian, and the religion is a huge part of my mum’s life. This is mostly my experience of its ideas and processes, and how and why I ultimately decided to leave. It’s a bit rambling, all over the place and very long, but I kinda wanted to post it somewhere, so 🤷

TW for mentions of abortion, alcoholism and general conflict.

When I was twelve or thirteen, my parents and I set off on one of our regular trips to Russia. We used to do this every year before time and money became restricted, and one of our compulsory stops was always a large, sprawling monastery on the outskirts of the city of Nizhny Novgorod.

It’s a place of smiling nuns but very strict rules, where God forms a part of every sentence and church is mandatory for both mornings and evenings. It’s a place of communal meals, harvesting vegetables and milking cows, ringing bells, and lots and lots of praying. For me, it was a taste of pure rural life. I loved running through the fields, swimming in the pond and helping out with the manual tasks of running a communal settlement. I gasped in delight when I saw the lone horse in the field. Deep down I was never meant to be a city kid, and being at the monastery fuelled my dream of living the simple life.

But the fact that we were there purely for religious reasons? That was only an afterthought. An obligatory thing I had to go along with, because the adults expected it. Perhaps I tried to feel the same spirituality they seemed to experience, but I never quite got there.

I put on the headscarf, held the candle, wrote the names of my loved ones on prayer notes for the living. I bowed to the icons, made the sign of the cross when everyone else did. But I never truly connected.

One year on the day of a particularly significant celebration, a huge icon was carried over a horde of kneeling worshippers, and my mum told me to kneel down and pray for my dad to recover from his alcoholism. And so I did.

This is something I’d been praying for for a long time. It’s something I was told to pray for at every holy site, and before every relic. And no, he’s never quit drinking.

But I already knew that he wouldn’t, even as I knelt, closed my eyes and begged whichever saint was on that icon to help my dad quit drinking. I simply knew that it didn’t work that way.

I knew it the same way I knew that Santa wasn’t real. Every child seems to have experienced a shock-horror moment upon learning that they’d been deceived, but I recognised him for what he was right from the start - a story. For someone who’s always thrown themselves wholeheartedly into stories and fantasy, I’ve always had a very clear distinction between fact and fiction - though I’ve also not been so close-minded as to think that there isn’t a grey area in between.

No matter how hard I tried to convince myself, I don’t think I ever truly believed in their version of what was supposed to be happening.

But I think my moving away from Orthodoxy truly began the day I heard my mum on the phone to her friend, who was at the beginning of a difficult pregnancy and was considering an abortion. She and her husband were on different pages with regards to this, though I don’t quite remember who wanted what. My mother’s advice was this: “Well you should really listen to your husband, because you know that a husband’s word is God’s word.”

Even being the believer that I was then, my immediate reaction was complete shock, followed by a thought process that went something like “Are you joking?? SERIOUSLY?”

And of course, it was hard not to think of my own father in his worst moments of drunkenness. So it seems “God’s word” is actually a whole lot of slurred, barely comprehensible nonsense occasionally sprinkled with some insults. That’s really the logic we’re going with here? And beyond that, how can you hand such a deeply personal decision to someone else??

When I went away to university for three years and spent considerable chunks of time away from my mother’s influence, my skepticism only deepened with every day. I couldn’t reconcile the science-driven environment I saw around me with the ideas being propounded in church. Sincerely believing in the Adam and Eve story, in this day and age? It didn’t compute.

Having said that, I would certainly not call myself an atheist even now. I think it is just as presumptuous to assume your absolute knowledge of the infinite universe and declare it contains nothing, as it is to declare that your religion is the only correct one. I find many things about the Christian God to be extremely convenient (just so happens to be an old white bearded man, oh fancy that), but I am certainly not convinced that there are no intelligent forces in the world, whatever shape they take. We are simply not in a position to know these things, and I’m okay with that. 

In turn, I treat anyone who claims to know them with intense suspicion.

Ultimately, leaving Orthodox Christianity was a long and painful process (I say ‘was’ in the past tense, but the truth is that it is still ongoing) filled with guilt, second-guessing, deliberate habit breaking and an extremely distressed and persistent mother. But my reasons for it boil down to four key things.

Their ideas did not match my ideas. I will never believe that women are obliged to be submissive to men. I will never believe that being gay (or in any way not straight) is a sin. I will never believe that Eastern Orthodoxy is the one true faith among all the other hundreds and thousands of faiths that exist on this planet. Living with your partner without being married is not a sin. Eating some chicken on a lent day is not a sin. A woman on her period is not “unclean.” Their ideas of good and bad, right and wrong seemed so incredibly outdated and arbitrary that it became hard to take anything they said seriously. And I felt so uncomfortable standing there, surrounded by people who I knew believed in all of this wholeheartedly.

Despite the religion branding itself as ‘Christian’, I don’t think I’ve ever heard any of the priests or worshippers talk about helping others. It is not on the agenda. People walk into church and think that because they’ve said their prayers, abstained from meat and dairy and then said their prayers some more, they’re now good people. But what have they done to make anyone’s life better? Who have they helped? Who have they listened to, cared for, understood? It’s not about that. It’s about making yourself feel good because you recited the Lord’s Prayer before eating your lunch.

The process of participating is extremely rigid, and trying to remember all those rules and traditions is honestly just stressful. Which hand do I kiss? How many times do I have to make the sign of the cross before approaching that super special icon? Do I have to touch the floor, or is that optional? Oh, everyone is kneeling...I guess I should kneel too. Once, I accidentally addressed the Archbishop as ‘Father’ and got a slew of disapproving looks from everyone around me. I think perhaps people find a certain kind of comfort and stability in routine, but having one imposed on you when you’re constantly unsure of the rules is not a pleasant experience.

Sometimes there is a very thin line between a religion and a cult, and Orthodoxy is toeing it a little too closely for comfort. I’ve seen it overpower people’s rational thinking and tap into their most powerful emotions in a way that’s honestly quite frightening.

The first step to leaving was progressively going to church less and less. I’d only ever really gone because my mum demanded it, but now, I put up a bit more resistance. I got screamed and yelled and cried at, and at first, of course I gave in. But little by little, I began to get the message across that I was simply not interested anymore.

Then, I deliberately made the choice to break certain habits. We always faced a row of icons on the wall and made a sign of the cross before leaving the house, and coming back in. It was such an ingrained habit that I did it automatically, and for the first few months, I had to physically catch myself in order to stop. That came with its own sense of guilt and hesitancy, and with the feeling that hey, now God is mad at you - hope a brick doesn’t fall on your head when you’re out there without his blessing.

The next step was removing the cross I’d worn around my neck ever since I’d been christened as a baby. Even now I can’t not wear something around my neck, so I have a little key necklace there in its place. Having a bare neck just looks too weird to me.

That cross came off and went back on at least three times. Each time I’d be persuaded, guilted, given the simple but effective phrase of “just do it for me.” I’ve removed it for what I hope will be the last time, and “just do it for me” won’t cut it anymore. If I converted to Islam tomorrow, would it be okay for me to ask someone to wear a hijab “for me”, even though they don’t share my faith? No, it wouldn’t. Religion and expression of religion is a personal choice, and not something you can strong-arm your adult children into.

Now, I’m in a fairly comfortable place where I’ve shed most of that initial guilt and am happy with my choices. I’ve even been back into church a couple of times just to meet a family member, only catching the end of the service - and even then, I’ve been reminded of exactly why I left. My mindset is simply too far removed to find any spiritual value in Orthodoxy.

Does my mother still try to get me into church? Yes. Are the attempts extremely mild and infrequent, compared to what they used to be? Yes. On one hand, I’d like to have a deep conversation with her and explain all the reasons why I have no interest in the religion anymore, but on the other hand, I know it’ll likely make her extremely upset.

Perhaps it’s better to just let it be.

[craniumculverin]

so many. just. so many thoughts on stuff in feast for a king. lots of theories, that sort of thing. based on both in-comic info and info gathered from kosmic’s blog, some of which is like a year old. so what with how he’s changed the story over time, some might be plain wrong now. idk. enjoy my mad ramblings.

how did knife know to use sign language with rome when rome’s confident that next to nobody knows he’s deaf? i doubt that’s something knife would have gleaned from rome’s heartbeat alone.

is rome sex repulsed? pretty sure he’s definitely aro and/or ace. he’s had repeated instances of being disgusted by bodily functions as well as sex. doesn’t seem to be general touch aversion as he’s cool with handholding and being all close to king while facing that queen worm. he was engaged to a woman but for what little we know about the relationship between him and penny it could have been a strategic/political engagement that rome and/or penny wasn’t okay with.

Plus kos has inferred that rome’s aro/ace throughout their blog via asks in a multitude of indirect ways, soooo...

at the time of good leadman trying to take perkons from his cell, meat body robots (aka the helpers) were already in use. this means celadon had already received her creepy robot body shell from the aiguilles since she is all of the helpers, in some fashion. what was it that made that union between triangle alien and powerful human family? when did this alliance start?

cross was created by the aiguilles - specifically randall and rembrandt. being the creators of both cross and meat body robots, is it possible the aiguilles knew/found out about/was actively a part of cross’s change to cash? rome was born a year after cash was “born”. is it possible rome is a sort’ve meat body robot/human hybrid based from aiguille DNA? from the few aiguilles we’ve seen besides rome, they’re not a particularly physically jacked family. they’re brains and money. maybe they treated him like an experiment, fiddled with his DNA a bit? maybe this resulted in his genetic “oddities” (deaf, pink hair, orange eyes)? they were hidden from the public eye in order to have rome appear more “aiguille-ish”.

according to rome cash was his childhood friend as well as training instructor. did relations change between the leadmans and aiguilles (good leadman wasn’t to keen on randall at least, and info from scissor-as-cash adds more to her not liking how her creators treated her) in that 500 years for rome’s family to allow this? was it a strategic/political sort of thing for the sake of appearances? or did rome have more of a connection to the leadmans than just that? maybe his similar physicality to good leadman (and thus crimson) isn’t just happenstance?

cash’s “mother” is just another meat body she uses at the same time (at least occasionally?) as her main meat body for the sake of keeping up the daughter facade. so it’s possible, at least for an AI, to control at least two bodies at once. if rome is a meat robot after some fashion, maybe he could somehow be controlled? or allow someone to experience things through him at least? good’s dealt with plenty of shit to cause anyone to just shutdown, but maybe he’s not being as un-attached as it appears? maybe evil mother can see and feel what good’s original body/mind is up to - but hitching a ride in someone else’s might be a different story. if rome is aro/ace that could tie in - good doesn’t strike me as a voyeurism kinda guy... or maybe he just lucked out, idk.

dang this one feels like i’m really grasping for straws, why’d rome have to stay my favorite and somehow get next to no background yet, dang.

“aiguille” means “needle” in french. “de fil en aiguille” is a french saying, literally translates to “from thread to needle” but basically means “little by little” or “one thing leading to another” - moving from one thing to another, step by step. curious, what with all the thread-like, highly story-significant worms all over the place. plus, dylan’s particular specialty of using her worms like thread to “sew” people up; dylan, who was raised/morphed(?) to have such specialized skills either by or influenced by antony aiguille. and there’s the part where the aiguilles likely had a huge part to play in the initial near-extinction of the mandragora worms...

also, “anguille” means “eel” in french and for the life of me i can’t stop writing that instead of aiguille ffs.

also also, speaking of mandragora worms - crimson’s a human/mandragora hybrid (mandragora born in a human body), born with the usual 2 mandragora eyes and then a third, freak defective heart. king canary’s also a hybrid, except a hydragora/mandragora one(however that works). i’m guessing the mandragora part won out, since that’s how it usually seems to go between the two species, but what does that mean exactly?

did/does canary have 3 hearts - 2 mandra, 1 hydra? if so, how does antony’s becoming a sort’ve heart when he “fused” with canary play into it all?

some heart was used to fuel the creation of that meat pod and celadon (evident from that ugly turnip-ish looking thing amnesia!king pulled out of her finger) but which one was it?

my guess? which i suppose all of this is but still? it was the hydragora one. afterall it’s the hydragora worm kings that have the seeds, and king canary - if they (or evil mother as them) really did ever eat their father’s corpse - would be the sole worm in charge of the hekatonkheires (since they were made from one of his father’s seeds i think). it’d only make sense for any “seed information” to be stored in the corresponding species’ heart.

and it’d make everything waaaay easier for celadon if one of her bodies could control the main course of her eventual feast.

aeschylus has been “reborn” as a mandragora weed. weeds feed on worms, and he has amnesia to an extent - is he gonna be driven to kill worms now? did the weed do it’s job and make him forget about being a worm, or will he have some hang-ups about it? he remembers/is connected somehow with canary still... is that due to being knighted by king canary (who was actually evil mother att but w/e)?

if/when rome isn’t so ignorant about basically everything and more chill around non-humans - will he and aeschylus get along because yay killing worms? rome vaguely resembles leadman physically, and is kinda similarly empathetic - would aeschylus retain memories of him enough for that to affect how he sees rome? would being familiar with amnesia!king (who he'd remember because canary) give rome a leg up in case aeschylus remembers who killed his worm self?

aeschylus likely gets his name from an ancient greek actor that’s considered the father of tragedy - yay google for checking my spelling. anyway no one should be surprised when 2.0 weedman inevitably dies horribly. we all know kos enjoys doing it, lets not deny him that.

king canary’s body only has 8 seeds left according to antony. one was used to turn him into a worm heart-ish thing. evil mother likely used the other missing seed to create the mandragora weeds - which she planted inside aeschylus at some point while still piloting king canary’s body.

evil mother’s organization wants to wipe out humanity and is primarily comprised of hekatonkheires and hydragora worms - the worms that weeds eat. she also wanted almost desperately to revive her species. maybe having all those hydragoras in one place so to speak wasn’t simply utilizing a strong species...

could the disease she gave leadman be a sort of prototype of the weed? hm...

antony and dylan were doing experiments on worms, one of which was eventually aeschylus, the weed-bearing worm. one of those worms, licky, is/ends up being a weed. all/most of those worms had/have strange coloration for just common worms. antony claims he was close to curing aeschylus. were antony and dylan specifically experimenting with splicing/merging/whatever mandragora weeds with hydragora worms?

licky has some interesting patterns on their arms - kinda like a b-type hekaton’s. HMM.... more experimenting on antony’s part, or just an interesting subject? dylan couldn’t have been too involved, after all she didn’t know about hekatons.

it’s weird that king canary was alive but seemingly brain-dead before eating antony. could that be from worm/weed experimenting? could that explain king’s amnesia, that she was basically going through what we saw aeschylus 2.0 go through? ehh, feels like grasping at straws again...

and, to end on a different note...

mr. rotten’s original creator was randall, but the little guy didn’t get a franchise until relatively recent - like, 30ish(?) years before the present., about when fork was baby-kid age i think. so, who made mr. rotten into the franchise that it is?

my guess is rome and antony’s parent(s), or the third, unnamed aiguille brother. i could’ve sworn i remember seeing somewhere that rome was the eldest brother and antony was the youngest, leaving the unknown one to be the middlest brother, but i can’t find that info anywhere and i don’t feel like checking again.

anyway, my hope is that the unnamed third brother hasn’t shown up yet because he’s on wiggle world - being the guy in charge, or at least managing things. also he’s fat, like rembrandt. also maybe the least likely personality to be in charge of/ work at an amusement park moon based on a kid’s cartoon because he’s a no-nonsense, no-fun, business-minded butthead.

this is based on nothing but antony looking kinda like randall, rome’s weird, and there’s another bro that could look like rembrandt. except the last part, that’s just me being tickled by the irony of that character.

oh also, rembrandt - co-creator of the crosshatch unit, the most advanced AI ever, with a rather unique personality thanks to randall which rembrandt wasn’t too happy with. rock’s robot children/lackeys are known as rembots. where do the aiguilles fall on the HEEL/THUMB dichotomy, was that ever stated? hmm...

okay now i’m done, thanks for reading. if you didn’t, well

tl;dr - i think to much about a silly webcomic about worms.

[weekendwarriorblog]

30 Minute Experiment: The Scarlet Letter #30ME

No, I haven’t decided to turn this 30 minute daily experiment into a book report or review even though I borrowed today’s topic to a well known Hawthorne novel that I’m not sure I actually read even though we all generally know the basic concept: "The Scarlet Letter” in the title was the “A” that women had to wear when they committed adultery, a concept that’s been borrowed in so many different types of fiction over the years, as well as in historical contexts. Before we get too deep into today’s topic, I will say that this comes out of stuff that’s going on in the world today so this will be a rare COVID-inspired ramble/rant...

I think one of the biggest problems with the world right now is that there is so much confusion and disinformation even with the fact that New York is lucky enough to have a governor and a mayor who are fairly open with information and facts with what is going on right now... and when it might end if ever. 

One of the problems I’ve been having lately is that I have a lot of close personal friends who are realists, sure, but they’re also deeply pessimistic, and anyone who read my #30ME about concerts knows how irate I got with all the negativity that was surrounding me, something that absolutely is not helpful with my own mental well-being. (Heck, I have quit jobs over this desire to stay sane and not constantly be upset, stressed or anxious, which is very hard living in NYC at the BEST Of times!)

While I don’t want to get too political, I’m just so confused about the latest narrative which is now all about testing... testing for covid, immunity tests, tracing cases, isolating those who have it. I don’t know about you but this is sounding scarily like a situation that might lead to some of the worst possible situations. Yes, even worse than death, Governor Cuomo.

Part of my issues with the current push for testing is that it is likely to create a situation where those who have tested to have immunity to COVID might start getting special treatment... or everyone will have to carry around some sort of COVID ID with their status so that they can go out in public and not be stopped or questioned as a possible asymptomatic spreader of this disease. 

I hope it doesn’t come to that but sadly, there are a lot of scared and paranoid people out there who will only feel comfortable going to movies or concerts or the grocery store if they know that everyone there has been screened and passes rigorous tests to prove that they aren’t those asymptomatic COVID spreaders we keep hearing about. I mean, it’s not enough that everyone wears masks and gloves, which I’ve generally been doing anyway, but the politicians and news have now gotten everyone so on edge that I worry this testing might lead to really bad policies like the ones instituted by Hitler to make sure that all Jews would be easily identifiable for everyone who had become fearful and distrusting of them due to Hilter’s rants. (Yes, maybe there’s some irony that I’m writing this the day after Holocaust Remembrance Day but as I stated before -- probably in my review of Jojo Rabbit, I’m hyper-sensitive to these things having had both parents manage to evade and escape the worst of the Holocaust.)

I will try my best not to go on another rant about our President (despite my pal David suggesting today’s topic be “evil”-- don’t worry, we’ll get there) because this is about more than his policies to stave off immigration to make sure no outsiders steal American’s jobs.... at a time when there are no jobs to be had by anyone. No, I won’t go there, cause i really want to talk about testing and how it will be done and managed.

Right now, our Governor says that testing will be random but it also says that there will be isolating and tracing measure that could really compromise many people’s privacies and rights. It’s not like I have anything to hide. If you were to trace everyone I’ve been in contact the last month, you’ll find that it was maybe a few delivery guys for less than 10 seconds and maybe the clerk at the only deli in my neighborhood. 

But let’s say that someone who gets one of these random tests and it turns out that they have COVID but are asymptomatic. They’ll immediately be put under the microscope of being isolated and having their lives infiltrated into... and that’s maybe just for wanting to go into a store or once they open, movie theater/concert, etc. Will it get to the point where those who prove to be immune to COVID have to carry a card saying so or having some sort of badge they need to wear? What will this mean for those who aren’t tested and don’t have these IDS/badges? Will this mean it will be even harder for us not to get jobs even though I already have so many strikes against me?

I only ask these questions -- and maybe you’re starting to see the connections to The Scarlet Letter, although in this case it’s in reverse -- because I just don’t see any scenario where I might get tested either for COVID or for the community. I mean, I’m not a health worker and I don’t work at any retirement home or assisted living (the people who really need to be kept healthy) and I see no reason i might be going to the hospital, so why or when might I get tested? I’m not one of those people who is particularly curious about whether I’ve contracted COVID or not. I feel fine and I’ve been relatively fine since this whole thing started in February, and that’s with six weeks of almost complete and total isolation!

The mayor has said that there will be more testing at NYCHA buildings which is essentially low income housing of which there is a ton in my neighborhood. Things haven’t gotten so bad financially that I’ve had to move into one of those buildings (plus they’re really hard to get into as there is a lottery system) but that  pretty much rules me out of the testing for lower income NYC restaurants. Nope, I’m in this weird place where I have no particular interest in being tested and certainly not after six weeks to learn “Oh, you have asymptomatic COVID and now need to be isolated for two more weeks.” I would literally kill someone right now if I was told that after six weeks of following all the rules, I now need to be isolated for even longer. And that’s what’s really happening, so maybe I’m a little more sympathetic to those who are getting mad and (stupidly) congregating to protest the politicians since they’ve been put in such bad shape financially.

I’m not sure how much of my own financial hardships I can blame on COVID but it certainly hasn’t gotten any easier to find a job now and if jobs start asking questions about COVID (have you had it? Have you been deemed immune?) that just seems like one more hurdle that’s going to be put in my way. 

The whole thing really just sucks and not knowing how testing will work and how it will be used to eventually reopen businesses --remember that I live in a neighborhood where EVERYTHING is closed including the cheaper pizza place, laundromats, and most market/restaurants-- but more importantly to me, how this will be used to reopen movie theaters and the movie business. 

Sure, there will be people who will never feel comfortable going to the movie theater but you know what? Just like with concerts, a lot of these more pessimistic friends are the same ones who rarely go to movie theaters anyway.  But I just don’t understand how this testing will affect me in anyway. I just know how not being able to go outside and going back to my job hunt and not being around people is starting to hurt me, mentally and emotionally, and it’s not good.

Unfortunately, I just don’t think I’m gonna get the answers I’m looking for because everyone sees my particular interests to be minor compared to keeping people alive but even without being tested, I know that I’m probably one of the lowest risk people in terms of spreading the virus. I don’t necessarily enjoy big crowds (even at concerts and movies) but I’m also not so driven by my social needs that I’m at risk at spreading a virus that I don’t have and may never have had.

I guess I just want more answers that might directly affect me because as much as I appreciate what health care workers, doctors and nurses are doing, it’s not like I can suddenly shift my entire focus into medicine at my late age to get a job in that field where people are needed (and less now than maybe a month ago). 

I’m trying hard to be positive that we’re not heading towards some dystopian society where we all have to wear our COVID status on a badge like a Scarlet Letter, but I also can’t see how this can be avoided if we want people to stop being afraid to going out in public (as much for themselves as loved ones).

Hopefully this will be my last COVID-inspired ramble for a while because honestly, I hate having to write about it, but every week or so I’m just gonna need to rant a bit because I’m just really confused about everything going on around me.

And with that, my time’s up....