#object sapience

[build-a-buddy]

I think the most recent object friend - Slushie - who I thought I'd lost perception of sentience for is actually fine and 'there', I just really needed him to... be 'merely' an object for a little bit.

He says he didn’t really mind, although for him, it was a bit awkward to be treated that way-- he's a considerable bit like PC, in that he doesn't really connect or ID with being a object.

This is the hard part, him being intended to be 'just' a plushie and then not being 'just', being his perceived sentient and his own person. It's unfair to treat him as a proxy, but it's also very painful to see something that looks like that character (who is both a comfort and a partner -- I'm both ficto + a selfshipper) and nor be able to interact with them in the way I had hoped-- ie, as a 'mere' object.

(Not that objects could stand in for my F/O anyway. That's not how my relationship with him works. I just had hoped for a simple comfort item...)

It's not Slushie's fault. It wasn't PC's either, and it isn't Fluffy's. I think at this point I need to realize any representation I get of my F/O, it's likely to be its own thing, and not 'merely' an item to me and thus can't be interacted with in the way I'd wish.

Which, I'm not saying I don't appreciate the friendship. It's just a lot. I don't think nonPOSIC folks get when I say that. The relationships -- friendships, etc -- I have with my objects are basically the same as those I have with human bodied people, and that means they're as complicated and messy as anything else. Sometimes you want an object to just...be. But I don't get to choose. So.

[tsukumogami-horad]

Hello there!

We are the system Red's Lost Roses, though you may know us better as @specialistmediamogai or @gotyosukestuff. After learning about POSIC, we were thrilled. 

The idea of objects having something akin to a "spirit" or "soul" has been something we've believed since we we're young. We are Multiposic: Spirposic and Aniposic. You might also say its from a belief in psychic phenomenon, which I'll go ahead and Coin as Psiposic. (Since it can't truly be fully defined by  Animism)

The name Tsukumogami comes from a  type of Japanese Yokai: animated objects that became Yokai for many reasons. Since Japanese culture and the Yo-kai Watch series were a huge part of my childhood, I thought it would be a good name.

We also probaly coin a few companion gendies here too.

Our only DNI is if you are here to cause drama or disclose.

Links:

Our Belief.

Companions and their drawings

[probablybadrpgideas]

Gratuitously evil spells for villains to learn

Mordenkainen's Highly Problematic Political Opinions

Spell that causes someone to experience the entirety of The Big Bang Theory in 6 seconds

Spell that causes a needlessly painful death. It figures out the maximum amount of pain it's ethically permissible to inflict based on context and inflicts twice that much on purpose

Fireball but it expands the area of effect to specifically hit all your teammates.

Mildly Upset Person.

Disintegrate but it bestows any object it hits with full human sapience just before the ray hits.

Locate Object but every time you cast it, it kicks a random guy in the nuts for no good reason.

Hellish Rebuke but it hits anyone who isn't attacking you.

Ray of Deforestation

Transmute Food To Food That's Produced Unsustainably And Using Unethical Labor Practices

Nullify Union

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA patch notes: rephrased the submissions I will reject/will probably reject sections of the FAQ

The only kinds of submissions I will 100% reject are as follows:

Posts that are not about an action you have taken, or are planning to take. We judge actions here, not thoughts, not emotions, not opinions. WIBTA (would I be the asshole) posts are fine, but please make sure your thesis question centers on an action.

Posts where the submitter does not think they are the asshole and has no compelling reason someone else thinks they are, and just wants to vent about someone who was an asshole to them

Posts that are unnecessarily graphic about traumatic events

Posts asking “aita for telling on my abuser?” You are not, cannot be, and will not ever be the asshole for telling someone you trust about your abuser. This is an objective and unchanging truth.

Arguments about a post. Take it to the notes! I will not be moderating your bickering through my inbox!

Submissions I will probably reject:

“WIBTA for ghosting/cutting off/ignoring someone for…” This is usually not an “am I the asshole,” but an “is someone else who isn’t me the asshole,” and as such not under the purview of this blog. If you did something that gives a compelling reason you might be the asshole in the situation unrelated to the ghosting, maybe.

“AITA for identifying as [x]?” The position of this blog wrt gender is You Can Do Whatever You Want Forever. Identify however you like, with whatever labels or not-labels or pronouns or descriptors you like, you are not the asshole. I decree this by the authority vested in me by the mandate of Heaven. This includes “WIBTA for transitioning;” I unilaterally declare you NTA.

Stories that happened when you were a small child that still haunt you years later. Before a certain age, you don’t really have life experience or, in the case of very small children, even full sapience. There’s only so much of an asshole you can be, and it kinda sucks to be a bunch of primarily adults passing judgment on a toddler.

[chicachomp]

I like him because he's a miserable little object with sapience pretending to be human because he's programmed to be liked. You like him because you think he's a daddy dom and can't accept that he's not a human and has fundamental differences. We are not the same

[meowcats734]

This article is about the rogue planet. For the mythological figure, see Icarus (mythology). For other uses, see Icarus (disambiguation).

Icarus was an icy rogue planet discovered in 2024. It is thought to have been ejected from its unknown home star 2.6 billion years ago. From early 2071 to late 2075, Icarus was present in the solar system, and was often visible to the naked eye. Of the lifeforms endemic to Icarus, only four hundred and seven species—an estimated .000005%—were documented by scientists. Of Icarus’ sapient lifeforms, only one living Singer (Icarus Sapiens) has been successfully returned to Earth.

Initially, interest in Icarus was predominantly limited to the scientific community once it was announced in 2025 that Icarus would not directly threaten Earth as it passed through the solar system. However, after the 2031 CLARITY mission, when liquid water and potential biosignatures were first detected beneath Icarus’ cryosphere, funding towards the exploration of Icarus rose significantly.

First Contact

Before the 2052 Daedalus landing site was established, popular consensus was that the first alien lifeforms humanity met would be technologically superior. However, the first Singer settlement discovered by the Daedalus crewed submersible was a tribal society formed within the decaying corpse of a Large-bodied Tenor (Mellifluus Civitas). The settlement, best translated as “Distortion of Sound in Warm, Rising Water”, was chosen due to its proximity to the Daedalus drill site; gas bubbles in the body caused by decomposition allowed Distortion to float approximately two kilometers above the surface of the ocean floor.

Although initial protocol for the Daedalus crew was to avoid contact, the crew did not anticipate the precision and sensitivity of Singer echolocation, and were swiftly detected. Despite initial concerns of conflict, with the assistance of the Daedalus AI’s linguistic analysis, tentative contact was established. By 2053, the Daedalus crew had established a basic understanding of Singer biology and the culture of Distortion.

The largest barrier to communication was the nature of Singer language. The primary Singer sense was their echolocation; as they evolved sapience, Singers learned to communicate by mimicking the sounds they heard when echolocating certain objects. Several Singer “words” well-known to popular culture include: the sound of a pod of Singers migrating (lit. “family”); the faint echoes produced by calling into empty water (lit. “loneliness”); and the high-pitched hum of the Daedalus propellers (lit. “impotent gods”).

The Massacre of Worms

Of utmost importance was successfully communicating to the Singers that Icarus was on a collision course with the Sun, and would be entirely destroyed by 2076. Even in 2053, the ice sheet which covered Icarus was already beginning to sublimate under the increased temperature. As there existed no word for fire, sun, or stars in the Singer language, a warning that their world would soon decay (lit. the sound of flesh devoured by worms, growing louder and coming from all directions) was transmitted to the citizens of Distortion of Sound in Warm, Rising Water.

In what is now known as the Massacre of Worms, the entirety of the Singer village immediately attempted to attack the Daedalus submersible. At the time, the mechanism by which Singers communicated was still poorly understood, but interviews and brain scans of the Last Singer have confirmed that Icarus Sapiens experience a species-wide condition similar to human synesthesia. In order to convert the feedback from their echolocation into useable information about their spatial environment, Singers evolved the ability to “see” sounds as hallucinated physical objects. As such, every word spoken by a Singer produces a corresponding illusory image in the mind of every Singer who hears it. Unfortunately, the warning delivered by the Daedalus submersible manifested as an imploding sphere of rotting flesh centered on the village of Distortion, and was interpreted as an attack. The Daedalus submersible sustained little damage, but out of fear that the Distortion villagers would sour relations with other Singer societies, released hypochlorous acid clouds to calm the attackers; it was believed that high concentrations of hypochlorous acid would cause the Singers to become lethargic and contented, as if they had recently consumed a filling meal. Unfortunately, due to a poor understanding of Singer biochemical sexual dimorphism, the chemicals released resulted in the deaths of nearly half of the Distortion villagers.

Through great difficulty, it was conveyed to the surviving Distortion villagers that the Massacre of Worms was a mistake, but the remaining Singers refused further contact with the Daedalus crew. Although a second attempt to halt the spread of negative rumors in Singer society was considered, the disastrous failure of the first attempt caused no action to be taken.

Termination of the Daedalus Mission

Swiftly following the Massacre of Worms came a breakthrough in solar magnetohydrodynamics, and with it, the alarming discovery that the collision of Icarus with the sun would cause a solar storm, which would deal trillions of dollars of damage to the economy. Negative press surrounding the Daedalus crew, as well as the importance of hardening the global power grid against the solar flare, caused funding for the Daedalus expedition to be cut, and the mission slated to end in 2060.

In an effort to preserve as much of Icaran life and culture as possible, the Daedalus crew attempted to make contact with and offer salvation to as many diverse Singer settlements as they could. At the peak of their efforts, in 2059, they had made contact with nineteen different Singer settlements around the planet, and although the Daedalus crew’s claims of planetary destruction were met with widespread skepticism, sixteen of them agreed to send representative Singers back to Earth. Unfortunately, four weeks before the launch date, when the Singer representatives were brought together, hitherto-unknown cultural conflicts between the Singer settlements the Daedalus crew had contacted caused the Singers to devolve into physical combat. A still-shoddy understanding of Singer biology led to the Daedalus crew being unable to save most of the Singers injured in the brawl. In the end, only one Singer survived the destruction of Icarus.

See also:

National Icaran Zoo

Icarus in popular culture

Consumption of Icaran lifeforms by country

Death of the Last Singer

(psst, I write more stuff here!)

[internetfriend]

genuinely though the assumption that every objectum person is posic is very exclusionary . i think there needs to be a level of reality involved in posic spaces that just because we percieve objects as sapient DOESN'T mean that other people share the same beliefs . there is not going to be a universal perception of object sapience . perpetuating that idea is stupid .

[jpitha]

Humanity is old.

Streaked between the stars at relativistic speeds, trips taking decades, or in rare cases centuries.

Tried out every different kind of travel method, governance, and community group. Wrote what happened down too, so when people next thought of it again, they were able to iterate.

Found no friends between the stars, so made their own. They gave their AIs agency, authority and sapience. They declared them people and gave them a part in civilization.

They had millennia of learning how to live with people back when they were thousands of disparate tribes, towns, cities, countries and so - with a few growing pains - were able to live with their creations in harmony - most of the time.

They fought, lived, loved, and died under strange suns.

All millennia before we met.

And still, when they met us, we had things to show them.

They never learned about the Warp Gate system; their worlds were too far away from it. They didn't even know it existed until we showed it to them. Their engineers swarmed it, learned all they could, dutifully built a few and installed them around their worlds to assist in transit...and then mostly continued to use the wormhole generators they've been using for the last seven hundred years.

They learned that their world is larger, heavier, harsher than most other sapients' worlds. Their bodies evolved to live on that harsh world and as a result their reflexes are excellent, they can eat nearly anything, and they can withstand almost an unimaginable amount of damage while continuing to fight. To watch a human do these things seemingly without even trying is an amazing thing to watch.

By pure coincidence, our worlds have similar enough day cycles that we're comfortable with each other's day/night cycle. We're awake when they are, they sleep like we do for about the same amount of time. We live around the same time, and so we can share lives together.

Like others have said, really it's amazing that they and us have so much in common, being originally hundreds of light-years apart. It's probably why we get along so famously. For nearly the entire time we have known about each other, we have been close.

They tell us that the greatest thing we have shown them is friendship. Humans crave it. It's odd to see. They'll make friends with anyone. They'll bond to inanimate objects, to sapients, to ships. Humans work in groups and if there aren't groups already they will make their own, the minute they arrive.

We are a social creature too, perhaps not to the extent they are, but being social as well meant that we understood their overtures, wanted to be in groups too and were able to help them meet that need they had.

The need to be friends.

Humanity is old. They are old, old friends.

[windvexer]

Thanks for that practice post, you made a really good point. i find that practising is a little harder when working with spirits though, do you have any thoughts/tips on this specifically related to spirit work?

We are in reference to this post, which advises to practice things you don't necessarily need just for the sake of getting experience.

Of course you share few details, Anon, so I'll shoot from the hip:

Work with the spirits of correspondences. Try just talking to them. If the correspondence is feeling a bit inert, this is a good opportunity to practice spirit invocation.

You can "interview" correspondences to learn more about them, how they can assist in spellwork, and so on.

You don't need to have a spell in mind. Try finding five or so household staples (including things like bar soap, vinegar, herbs and spices, cooking ingredients like milk, rice, and eggs, etc.) and evoking a spiritual presence within them to talk to.

Evoking a spirit back into its earthly corpse is a skill in and of itself and can be readily practiced with common household ingredients.

Spirit work can also be practiced out in public, which IMO is a riskier operation; ensure to bring some amount of protection with you.

Try "tuning in" to the spirits of places, or into the spiritual plane where spirits may be roaming. Try to identify if there are any spirits in the places you go. But, keep in mind, that it often seems to happen that when you go poking about, spirits will respond. They may ask for favors, or be flustered at your attentions.

Respond as you desire to gain experience in spirit work.

General offerings, given outside if possible, are an excellent avenue to practice spirit work. An offering given to broad categories of spirits (such as the spirits of the home, the land, the ancestors, the helpers, to those who don't stand in your way, and to those owed reparation), has the tendency to draw in lots of spirits.

This can help provide experience in watching spirits coming and going; in knowing when one is trying to get your attention; and in carving out time to pay attention to the local spirits, to help resolve issues.

If you have a few enchantments already worked up, like an ongoing container spell or protective amulet, engage the spirits of those objects. You can also work directly with the spirits of just about any tool of witchcraft: prepared waters, oils, powders; wands and ritual knives; any object kept on the altar, and so on.

Divinatory tools tend to be especially talkative.

This isn't to say that all of your tools, or everything on an altar, has a spirit. Many do not, or only have a vague notion of energies, or energy without sapience.

This is all the better for spirit work practice, to gain experience determining something merely energized from something that can answer back.

If you have the experience and confidence, providing spirit readings for others can rapidly provide a lot of spirit-working experience, specifically in the realm of contact and communication. Get the terms of the reading in writing, approach each reading with spiritual protection and with your own guides, and always behave with dignity.

Astral travel is another fine way to gain spirit working experience, and especially useful if you also need to brush up on your traveling skills. A personal astral temple which you invite the spirits of your court into is danged handy for establishing a point of communication.

If astral travel isn't your thing, building physical vessels for your spirits is a very helpful way to ground them into your life, and also provides experience in and of itself. (*You can do this along with an astral temple, it isn't one or the other)

An accessible form of the spirit vessel is a container, such as a box, which you decorate in such a way that it resonates with the spirit's nature (including only decorating the inside, if subtlety benefits you), and is then filled with objects that similarly resonate with the spirit's nature, or the spirit would personally enjoy. Such a vessel may be very small; advice for building altars and shrines applies here.

Obtaining such a vessel for each important spirit in your life (including gods) can open up doorways that advance the available avenues of spirit work. But it can also just be very useful, in general, as a point of connection. Learning to "read" these vessels, the way one reads an aura, is also very useful practice.

Concurrent with all of these activities is learning how to "tune out" and set up boundaries and barriers to limit spirits from bothering you all the time; so things like establishing house rules, creation of wards specifically to manage spirits, and spirit banishing techniques, also run parallel to spirit work, and will improve your capacity therein.

Last, keep in mind that acknowledging and honoring a spirit is not the same thing as establishing a working relationship with them. So don't feel like meeting any random spirit once or twice means you owe them a shrine and offerings forever.

[speaksleazy]

┣[ "|"|"|" ]═─ OBJECTUM, POSIC, & OBJECTIX FLAG REDESIGNS ± SYMBOLS ﹙self-indulgent﹚

◜OBJECTUM◞ — the attraction to inanimate objects of any kind, be it romantic, sexual, tertiary, etc.

◜POSIC◞ — standing for “perception of object sentience, individuality, and consciousness”, posic is a term for people who experience object sapience and view objects as sentient in some way or another for whatever reason.

◜OBJECTIX◞ — being objectum while not being posic.

please credit me when reposting my flags to places like pinterest. no credit is needed for personal use.

PT: Objectum, posic, and objectix flag redesigns and symbols. Self-indulgent.

Objectum: the attraction to inanimate objects of any kind, be it romantic, sexual, tertiary, etc.

Posic: standing for “perception of object sentience, individuality, and consciousness”, posic is a term for people who experience object sapience and view objects as sentient in some way or another for whatever reason.

Objectix: being objectum while not being posic.

Please credit me when reposting my flags to places like pinterest. No credit is needed for personal use. End PT.

[multiplicity-positivity]

Here’s some positivity for systems who need plushies for comfort!

Many systems and headmates may find that plushies bring them comfort and ease their tension when they’re stressed, sad, frustrated, or overwhelmed. Anyone, regardless of age, gender, ability, or means, can use plushies for comfort - if they help you, you should use them! Here’s to all the systems with comfort plushies out there!

Whether your system has just one plushie or a huge collection, we hope that there will be limitless opportunities for your plushies to bring you joy and peace. It’s okay to have a hobby of collecting new plushies, and it’s okay if you only have one or two! No matter how many plushies you have, we hope their presence inspires your system and fills you with strength and happiness.

If you or another member of your system is POSIC+, or able to perceive object sapience, individuality, or consciousness, we hope your plushies can provide your system with ample opportunities to build long lasting connections and relationships! We truly wish that both your system and your hoarde will be able to cherish and nurture one another for as long as you’re together. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being POSIC+, and you and your system are valid in your desires to seek companionship from your plushies!

If your system likes to bring a plushie with you when you’re out and about, please know that this is a fine way to keep yourself and your system calm, safe, and secure! If others think it’s strange or give you weird looks, that’s on them for not being accepting and understanding, and you don’t owe them anything! In truth, bringing a plushie along with you for comfort harms no one. If taking plushies out with you beings you comfort, or if you think it might, we encourage you to do this!

All in all, plushies can be a great source of comfort and security for systems of all sorts. Please don’t judge yourself or your headmates for finding comfort in your plushies - rather, try to embrace the joy and security they bring you! Thank you so much for reading, and have a wonderful day!

[feligayzed]

your p.ai.nter and your surface au are making me ILL (positive) im a huge huge fan ...

UM! if youd allow me to ask can you tell me all about surface au .... i need to know everything about them so i can be MORE ILL ABOUT THEM!!

HIHIHI!!! AUGH I finally have time to sit down and yap, I've been thinking about this ask all day SKJSJCJ AAAA FIRST AND FOREMOST I'm so glad you're enjoying it and it's making you deathly ill!!!! Good!!! Suffer!!! Along with me and the five other mentally unbalanced watercolor heathens here 🙂‍↕️ /silly

So!! Originally I thought it up just as an excuse to draw human(ish) Seb kissing and cuddling a robot in dire need of it, but then I Thought some more and it transformed into a hurt/comfort/healing au?? The healing being from the shared trauma they endured back at the Blacksite (working through it via various measures and expanding their relationship as a whole), while simultaneously learning how to function in a modern world they are very much unfamiliar with

The general premise is Sebastian gains most of his human form back, with Painter to help assist him in recovery, like physical therapy and reintroducing him to society XD Sebastian having a difficult time processing emotions now that he's free and it all has time to sink in, etc etc~ The same goes for Painter, however, and they're just gonna have to work it out together cuz they got BAGGAGE no therapist is qualified for. Our dear Painter has their fair share of shit too, such as the sapiency debate most people have an aversion to (because how could an object process thoughts and emotions in a meaningful way?? Unheard of! /sar)

And the rest is just domestic silliness because they're allowed some happiness 😁 and because I'm under the firm belief Sebastian would become a house wife if someone let him /hj

But that's basically it!! One big fat drawing prompt really (⁠.⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠) I commend you for making it through this whole yap sesh fr 🙏 if you're still interested just let me know and if I have sudden Thoughts I'm more than happy to drop them unannounced 💥💥💥 DOODLES FROM MY SHITFIC AS A TREAT‼️

[ganymedesclock]

To explain The Goblin Problem and not go on a tag rant on someone else's reblog, I will explain it in the nutshell.

The Goblin Problem is when a story establishes a group of creatures to serve as recurrent antagonists (not necessarily all one species; in a lot of rpg games this can broadly apply to "monsters") THAT:

Are never negotiable, or the negotiable parties among them are Token Heroic Orcs- that is to say, they are seen as objectors or 'good' versions who have absolutely no connections to, and hold no objections toward you attacking, the rest of their brethren, who they have forsaken as the price to be paid for being good.

Have obvious unique technology; they may attack you with weapons found nowhere else in the game, demonstrate the ability to speak, have their own obvious language, tame a creature that nobody else tames so that it's thus impossible that they are stealing already-tamed specimens from someone else

Are characterized primarily or exclusively as raiders who attack others, with the justification this means they are inferior creatures parasitically dependent on Good, Civilized Settings, e.g. they cannot possibly be sustainably hunting, gathering, or practicing either nomadic or settled agriculture.

Are often defined as having no choice to be evil or are created by a greater evil to serve as thralls, and yet, will not under any circumstances be regarded as indoctrinated victims, or if that is mentioned, there will nonetheless be an overarching lack of narrative concern as to where or how the survivors should live after the greater evil is taken care of, or if effort should be made to challenge the indoctrination and give them the ability to choose their lives.

What this ultimately creates is that they are unambiguously people, who obviously check all the marks of sapience, who are quite possibly wearing clothes, but the goblin or orc exists as a stopgap. You want your fantasy hero to get into a swordfight but you don't want him to kill another human being. So you invent something that wields a sword but is in some way "not a person", which is senseless. Unless you want the nature of this swordfight to be that a chimpanzee picked up a knife, at which point they are not going to use reliable sword techniques.

[defrostedvertebrae]

What are Zmei?

ORIGINS

In short, Zmei (singular zmeu, fem. zmeoaică) / змей are draconic or serpent-like beings of eastern-european folklore. Sometimes they are depicted as a human-like character with dragon-like traits. The origin of the word "zmeu" comes from Russian , zmei being the the masculine form of zmeya, a feminine noun, meaning "snake".

They may be male or female; in stories for instance, only the male dragons will masquerade as a human man to capture or captivate a princess or a maiden as a love interest.

Their most significant power is that of shapeshifting; morphing into human, animal, or even object forms. They rely on this for survival, but may also find joy in this ability. Both dragons and zmei are united by the symbolism of fire; the dragon breathing it and the zmeu turning into it. Zmei are crreatures of both wrath and joviality; depending mostly on circumstance.

In terms of origin; at least in romanian folklore; they are known to either be born by zmei, or having been turned into zmei from balauri (multi-headed dragons). Balauri are closer to animality, while zmei closer to sapience. This change from one to the other happens with the help of a solomonar (mage) and at the balaur's request and will; for whatever reason that may be.

To get there, the dragon has to pass some initiation tests, at the end of which they are then allowed to go to the Other Realm where he can shed his old appearance and become a zmeu.

ABOUT

In base appearance, zmei can have many heads or just one, as well as either 4 or 2 wings. Sometimes human folklore depict them as gigants, with an orc-like face more than dragon. Base forms as well as powers and abilities vary, zome zmei being powerful enough to steal the sun and the moon from the sky.

In diet they are known to have a taste for human flesh, though in its lack zmei are known to have cultivated their own food; being (more or less) omnivores. They are known to take great care of what is theirs and stray away from filth. They are also known to mix in human blood with wine to drink. (which if you ask me is pretty metal)

Regardless of the way they are viewed in EE folklore, they are nonetheless creatures with inteligence, cunning and determination; with a taste for life and all its joys. From an inside perspective, i suspect a lot of us are prone to bitterness and hatred; mostly due to the irreversibility of the change from balaur to zmeu and the possible regrets one draconic being may have upon being met with the realities of what it means to give up your form for an uncertain future in which you don't know how humans might treat you.

As for zmei that were born in families of zmei; from a mythology standpoint those are known to live in palaces and houses with their own farmland; livestock and the like. In some stories zmei born by zmei tend to organise very well as a kind, forming their own community.

VIEWS ON ZMEI IN EASTERN EUROPEAN FOLKLORE

In local (Romanian) folklore, similar to Serbian folklore, they are generally portrayed as evil and violent, incorporations of greed and hate; although it is not the case across all of eastern europe.

In Bulgarian stories, the zmei is sometimes described as a scale-covered serpent-like creature with four legs and bat's wings, at other times as half-man, half-snake, with wings and a fish-like tail.

In most Macedonian tales and folk songs they are described as extremely intelligent, having hypnotizing eyes. They were also known as guardians of the territory, and would even protect the people in it. Hostile behaviour was shown if another zmeu comes into his territory.

In Russia and Ukraine zmei have three to twelve heads, Tugarin Zmeyevich (literally: "Tugarin Dragon-son"), being a man-like dragon who appears in Russian (or Kievan Rus) heroic literature.

[preservationofnormalcy]

So I have a question, are living mannequin people...evil? I'm in Newville in the woods rn and there's this mannequin that's been moving about every time I look away but it isn't getting closer? It just moves place from place every time I blink. Should I be worried? I'm in my car rn with the doors locked...can mannequins break off a car door?

Asking if they can be “evil” is a bit of a loaded question.

Any animated object with sentience has the capacity to act in ways that are broadly beneficial or harmful. A lot of them act in harmful ways because they simply haven’t been told what’s right or wrong. Humans or other classifications have an entire childhood to learn these things - entities thrust into sapience often don’t. They’re lost and confused, and we should help them. This was part of my “Objects in Motion” PSA campaign, I might add.

….oh, right. The short term. Uh. Have you tried writing on the inside of the door? Maybe it can read.

We’ll send out a LEP Recon First Contact team. Try not to blink overly much.

[hazel0159]

I Think I Solved The Magnus Protocol Categories

In case you don't know what I'm talking about, in the description of every Magnus Protocol episode, there is a serial code describing the contents of the case. For example:

CAT2RBC4254-04011998-12042024

Architecture (landmark) -/- corruption (entropy)

The first part of that code is the category. Each case can be assigned a category of 1, 2, 3, or any combination of the three. In the example I just gave, CAT2 signifies that this case is classified as category 2. Despite the fact that The Magnus Protocol has aired over twenty episodes so far, there still isn't any consensus as to what the categories actually mean. I had an idea for what they could be a while ago, but didn't really have enough evidence to make a convincing argument. Now, nine episodes later, here is that theory.

First, I need to define some terms. Something is sentient if it can experience emotions, sensations, and its own perspective. Something is sapient if it has human-level intelligence and self awareness. A dog or cat is sentient, but not sapient. Human beings are both sentient and sapient. 

Which brings us to my theory. Category 1 entities are sapient and sentient. Category 2 entities look sapient, however it's a trick. They aren't actually sapient, and I don't think any of them are even sentient. I'll be calling these entities pseudo-sapient. Category 3 entities aren't sapient and aren't trying to look like they are. They may or may not be sentient.

As for the rationale for why the OIAR would care about the sapience of subjects, I think it's a measure of danger. Compare a situation in which a wolf wants you dead versus one in which a person wants you dead. Yeah, the wolf may be stronger, but the person's sapience gives them a different type of danger. Sapient beings can plan, manipulate, and coordinate in large organizations. Compared to that, a non-sapient wolf is just a set of teeth and claws. Considering the OIAR is a systemic institution, it can only really be threatened by an understanding of human organizational structure.

CAT 1

The biggest question that this theory has to contend with is how we can actually tell the difference between sapient and psuedo-sapient subjects. This is the foundation of the theory, so we need something more objective and falsifiable than just vibes. Fortunately, there is a way to tell the difference. Category 2 entities are machines designed to serve a function (generate fear). Their pseudo-sapience is part of that and any emotions or thoughts they appear to have only exist to serve their purpose. In other words, Category 1 entities have lives, beliefs, and emotions outside of their job. Category 2 entities never display anything that doesn’t work towards their job. So let's see some examples of CAT 1 entities being more than just their job. 

Reanimation (Partial) & Memory (Derelict):

I don't have anything to say about the consultant/Arthur/both? or [ERROR]/Violet's talking corpse beyond the fact that they seem sapient. We just don't know enough about either, frankly.

Mascot (Kids):

I'm on the fence about Bonzo. When Gwen meets him, he acts embarrassed and doesn't want to be seen. This could be a fear of the unknown/unseen thing, but Bonzo’s shtick is much more “unhinged, violent frenzy” than “unknown and uncanny”. I think this is a case of Mr. Bonzo being legitimately embarrassed over what a monstrosity he is, implying that he is self-aware and sapient. 

Hunt (Aristocratic):

Mowbray seems legitimately curious about Celia. She also doesn't try to intimidate Gwen and presumably used to be a normal person.

Transformation (Canine):

The episode is about a dog being granted sapience. CAT 3 being alchemically transformed into CAT 1. This could just be a trick, but considering this episode probably isn't based on fear, there wouldn't be any reason for it to be fake.

Transformation (Snake):

Snake guy clearly has some sort of vendetta against the Magnus Institute. It's never used to generate fear, so he and his anger are real. Also, he probably used to be a normal person.

Injury (Needles), Tattoo (Influencer) & Transformation (Tattoo):

These are easy. Needles’ and Ink5oul’s blatant insecurity actively makes them less scary. They also self-reflect and used to be normal people.

CAT 2 

Dolls (watching) & Tattoo (Corpse):

We don't know anything about the dolls or the Thing In The Water. 

Transformation (Eyes), Infection (Full Body), Disappearance (Undetermined), & Architecture (Liminal):

The CAT 2 refers to 

The forum members harassing RedCanary

Weber’s hallucinations of Maddie

The invitations and the theater’s cashier

The tower’s stewardess and diners

 All of these entities appear sapient, but don't display any evidence that their sapience is real. They only ever act aggressive, uncanny, and comforting in order to lure in their victims. All of these serve a clear purpose in generating fear and these entities don't have any depth beyond it.

Architecture (Landmark):

I know I said I wouldn't go off of vibes, but let's indulge for a moment. What if the withered doppelganger was sapient? Their function is clearly temporary. Once the construction worker dies, they would no longer serve any purpose and would be disposed of. If they're sapient, they must have some level of self awareness. Surely they would know they're temporary, if only subconsciously. And yet they don't seem to care, killing the construction worker and also themself. Why would the fears create an entire being with free will, just for that being to only exist for a minute or so? That seems like both a large risk and waste of effort. Maybe the doppelganger is some kind of shape shifter and just disguised themself as the construction worker at that moment? But that contradicts the psychological feeling of stagnation and constancy that the incident was supernaturally powered by. It feels like you can't make the doppelganger actually sapient without it being a pretty large stretch, implying that the doppelganger is pseudo-sapient out of necessity. These arguments can also apply to some of the previous 4 cases, though to a lesser extent.

Agglomeration (Miscellany):

This is the big one. For the first half of the episode, the charity shop volunteers act like every other CAT 2 subject. They act uncanny to generate fear and that's it. The interesting part begins once the security firm shows up and starts gunning them down because the volunteers just don't react. They keep up the uncanny shtick as if nothing is going wrong. This is absolutely not how any of the CAT 1 entities would react. Imagine putting Needles or Ink5oul in the same situation. They would break down in panic, and do anything to save themselves. Generating fear would be the least of their worries. Bonzo might throw a tantrum or try to hide. Snake guy might get angry and desperate. They'd all do something. Yet, the volunteers just don't react. Furthermore, when Dianne escapes from the burning shop, what convinces the security firm that she's innocent? The fact that she's scared, an emotion that the pseudo-sapient volunteers are incapable of expressing. They're made to act uncanny and that's it. Again, imagine if it had been Needles or Ink5oul in that shop. They would be just as scared as Dianne. In this case, the security firm would have been briefed ahead of time that their assignment was pseudo-sapient and therefore knew anyone expressing true fear must be innocent. Hence, the security firm knows the difference between CAT 1 and CAT 2 entities and utilizes the difference between sapience and pseudo-sapience.

CAT 3

Transformation (Full), Tattoo (Corpse), & Transformation (Canine):

Neither the tattoos nor the crystal fruit are sapient or sentient.

Transformation (Eyes):

This refers to the box that RedCanary stole from the Institute. It doesn't seem sapient and may or may not be sentient.

Collection (Blood), Dice (Bone), & Gambling (Application):

These are the violin, dice, and insectoid/trading app respectively. These three definitely have a sentience and personality to them, but they come off as much more animalistic than sapient. The violin and dice especially seem driven exclusively by hunger and spite when that hunger is denied. Their inability to communicate is also notable, as that's something that almost all the CAT 1 and 2 entities can do. Finally, the fact that they manifest as objects and animals instead of taking a humanoid form obviously can't be ignored.

CAT i

Ok, so I was lying when I said that the only categories are 1, 2, and 3. For some reason, the trailer is categorized as CAT i. Why? Well, we can explain this by adding a new rule. Only supernatural subjects are assigned CAT 1, 2, or 3. Nothing supernatural happened in the trailer, so none of those three are applicable, and it wound up getting assigned CAT i instead. Whatever that means.

This also makes some previous episodes make more sense. Namely, Collection (Blood) and Agglomeration (Miscellany). Neither the merchant nor the security firm seem to be reflected in their respective episodes’ categories. This could be easily explained if neither of them were supernatural.

Doppelganger (Interdimensional):

This case is assigned CAT 2. On first glance, it might seem like this would refer to Alternate Darrien. However, at no point does the episode indicate that Alternate Darrien is supernatural. If anything, the fact that Darrien killed him so easily would be evidence that he's perfectly normal. So the CAT 2 doesn't refer to Alternate Darrien, but to Doctor Dumfries, the therapist. After all, Dumfries is the one who seemingly caused Darrien to hop realities. Darrien repeatedly mentions little things Dumfries does that set him off. Dumfries may also be installing a false sense of security in Darrien, similar to a lot of the other CAT 2s. Finally, Darrien seemingly refers to Dumfries with both male and female pronouns which might be an indication of … something? As for Dumfries’ sapience status, he/she definitely appears sapient. There's not any evidence for or against the idea that he/she is pseudo-sapient.

The Assignment Process 

Let's go on a tangent to talk about DPHWs. More specifically, how the DPHWs are assigned. According to episode 1, the DPHW is a code written next to each section/subsection combination. For example, “dolls comma watching is... 1157”. So the DPHW is determined exclusively by the section and subsection. This is reinforced in episode two where Sam comes up with possible cases, Gwen guesses the applicable sections/subsections, then tries to remember which DPHWs are connected to those sections and subsections. However, this creates a problem. Episode 10 and 12 are both Mascot (Kids) yet have different DPHWs. How do we resolve this contradiction? It's magic. FR3-d1 is magic and FR3-d1’s categorization system is also magic. When a case comes in, the binder rewrites itself so that the DPHW (and category and rank) accurately reflect the case. In episode 2, Gwen was really confident in her inaccurate memory of the DPHWs. This could be overconfidence, or it could be more evidence that the DPHWs change over time. 

What Gets the CAT?

Now we can get into the weeds about which part of the case is referenced in the category. Agglomeration (Miscellany), for example, has both the pseudo-sapient volunteers and non-sentient items. So how is it decided whether the category is 2, 3, or 23? Well first off, it seems like connected entities are only referenced in the category once. So Ink5oul and their tattoos are either CAT 1 or 3, but both would be redundant? On the other hand, in Tattoo (Corpse), the The Thing In The Water isn't part of the tattoo and was just summoned by it, so they each get their own separate CATs. Maybe? Furthermore, lower numbered CATs have priority over higher numbered ones. So in cases with both pseudo-sapient and non-sapient elements, 2 takes priority over 3 and the whole case is CAT 2. If the idea is that sapient entities are more dangerous than non-sapient ones, then there'd be no reason to reference non-sapient entities when there is a more dangerous sapient one present. I think this schema is okay at fitting every case except Transformation (Full).

I think a lot of the weirdness around the sections, subsections, and crosslinks comes from the fact that the authors don't have objective criteria as to how they work, or what each of them individually do, so just make them up on a case by case basis. This is probably what happened for Episode 2 as well. Whoever assigned its category just figured that the tattoo was more important than Ink5oul and arbitrarily gave it CAT 3.

ARG Stuff

There's not much to say about Kl4-u5.xls. The only cases which might cause problems for this theory are the Unhappy Child and Cats, which are CAT 3 and 2 respectively. I guess the child would be sentient and not sapient? Maybe a crying infant based on fears of failing at parenting? And then for some reason there are pseudo-sapient cats. We don't really know anything about the ARG cases, so I'm not losing sleep over either of these.

Conclusion

That's my theory, Sapient/Pseudo-Sapient/Non-Sapient. It's definitely not perfect, but I think it's much better then any other major CAT theory that I've seen (namely Person/Place/Thing, Tria Prima, and Agent/Subject/Catalyst). CAT 2 being pseudo-sapient is definitely the least substantiated of the three. Hopefully Gwen will encounter a CAT 2 External sometime soon, as that would be really helpful in proving the theory. I doubt that would happen before the end of Season 1, though. Anyway, I know this was very long, so thanks for reading it :). If you can think of any points for or against this theory, I’d be more than happy to hear them.