2022-11-03 22:44:49 ¶ ●

‘I’m made of plastic, silly!’ elicits a very specific image to a modern audience. One of shiny, brightly coloured modernism. Perhaps of cheap animal figures, and barbie dolls; harmless childhood toys.

But bear in mind this is said by a creature of the past. Have you ever held an antique baby doll? a weakly cast action figure? Even the case of an old typewriter? You can feel the brittle plastic, cold and rough; it feels as if it would snap under your fingers and its deceptive strength leaves your hands unsure of the density and your mind trying to figure it out.

Have you ever seen an old automaton? I read a book about them once, it was the first time I ever felt truly afraid of a puppet. Not the brash, fluffy, celebratory animal things of America, but the original European circus pieces.

One of the primary reasons a circus succeeds is spectacle: the creation of something so entirely awestriking that audiences have no choice but to gawp, and pay their fees. There’s something so terrifying about not being able to look away. Sometimes not being able to see really is a good thing.

To see something that isn’t a person move and talk like a person is horribly unnerving. It’s far too common in this modern age, but can you imagine the terror of seeing these things firsthand for the first time, in a world where technology is scarce beyond an idea?

That fear is enough to power a thing for years to come. Enough to give it more power than a thing like that should ever have.

2022-11-20 20:23:53 ¶ ●

Can you imagine how weird it’d feel to have a bone taken by Jared Hopworth? Jon says to remove “something I wont miss”, but truth be told we’re all a bit more aware of our skeletons than we’d like to think.

Putting your hands on your hips, smoothing out your shirt, laying down, bending over- all of these things change at the loss of two ribs.

Can you imagine the feeling of tight, suspended flesh where bone used to be? Running your fingers over the gap like you might poke at where a missing tooth used to be.

That’s the thing; Jon didn’t just go through pain to save Daisy, he sacrificed a part of who he was, tore up his form, dragging himself ever further away from what he was when he was human.

Every action Jon took to save somebody took a piece of him, and every person he saved reprimanded him for sacrificing his humanity. Little do they know he tore it apart to protect theirs. Becoming less than human isn’t something you can really do without help.

It’s often seen with dementia patients that when they’re taken from a place where they have memory hooks their condition deteriorates faster; similarly, when the body that housed your soul becomes unrecognisable, it makes sense that your humanity would deteriorate along with it.

Jon suffered greatly in falling away from his humanity, and the punishment he received for it pushed him down further.