so the image of the trickster lolly appearing when Caliborn activates his HYPNOT1C GL4R3 implies that, in much the same way that the trickster lolly is a drug, being possessed by Lord English is a sort of trip; as malo points out, “the joke” around Meulin and Kurloz is that a psychic attack is basically a bad psychedelic experience.

as of Volume: Meat we have a John poisoned by Lord English in such a way that suggests he is primed to be bodily possessed. I spent a little while throwing different poisons at the wall to see what else could be gleaned from the little information we get about John’s affliction, but ultimately seemed to come to the conclusion that, once again, the trickster lollipop somehow held the answer. I didn’t make the connection at the time, but following these two angles until they intersect, the answer seems clear; when John is ‘poisoned’, we should take that as synonymous with John being 'drugged’.

but talking about poisons that are also drugs, it’s hard to look past Gamzee’s sopor slime… again, I had a stint ranting out loud about what the true significance of the slime could be, and somehow ended up at the conclusion that sleeping in slime somehow amounted to having a little bit of Lord English in your head. that seemed like a bizarre train of thought at the time, even to me, but thinking now along the lines of drugs and poison it clicks perfectly into place… green slime is the very essence of Lord English, but surely it must also be his venom! to sleep in it is to be immersed in his world; to consume it is to become his willing follower; to have it injected into you directly is to become his next bodily host.

fitting, too, for the poison that prevents a god from regenerating - but does not kill them! - to also be used to fill up cocoons; in the troll subconscious, a symbol of ascension. the same poison English used to prevent John from metamorphosing being used for centuries beforehand to suppress the entirety of Alternia… the other day I touched very briefly on the idea that Alternia is a world where the spiritual is suppressed to allow the physical to take control; poisoning the entire race so as to make them unable to access the world of dreams, forcing them to live in the world of English’s illusion, would be a perfect way to do that.