Tw Parasite - Tumblr Posts
Oktigi headcanons
About random things
1. Hematophage (blood sucking) parasites have some useful ways of locating food and I headcanon that Oktigi seek some of these signals instinctively like warmth, that could be potentially cute. They also instinctively grab onto and wrap around things so they are very cuddly for sleepy time (if you're not afraid).
2. They can taste through their suckers like octopuses do, if they touch you with an arm and recoil you need to shower.
3. They need to hidrate as they seem at least partially aquatic so they come back home to do so at the end of the day.
4. I am undecided how they sleep, if they are semi-aquatic they could sleep in something that has water? a water bed?, fountain? a little fancy plate with water?? A small fancy tank?? Just a normal cushioned bed but small???
5. The way they wrap around their host all day unfortunately ends with that host being a drooled on.
6. Let's say you want to pet your nice friendly Oktigi partner to sleep, the best place is all across the top and above the eyes, the sides are risky and more sensitive, do not touch under, like a cat.
7. You need to do them favors of all sorts, they will refuse to do things themselves for as minimal effort as they take, they are lazy, very lazy.
8. They don't like being in their actual bodies away from their hosts for too long as they are naked, defenseless, tiny and rather useless.
9. Host bodies, just like any possesion and property are symbols of status and other Oktigi will judge what and who you're wearing.
10. They live about 80-100 years nowdays. They tend to be unhealthy as anyone in an industrialized society ends up being, but they are healthier than other industrialists since they mainly use up someone else's body more than their own.
11. Reproduction requires way more nutrition and thus a whole lot more blood feeding like in many earth hematophage parasites.
About their diet and feeding
Lorne said they are blood sucking parasites and I have two elaborations on this. They are either obligatory hematophages and they feed their host well enough so that then they can suck their blood right after. Or they are facultative hematophages and aside from blood they can feed on other things, so they do go out to fancy and costly dinners where they eat barely anything anyways.
They would need to feed little amounts but several times to keep themselves from going hungry while not letting that nice host body of theirs simply go anemic and go to waste, also to let time pass between feedings and make them short because I would suppose that as any hematofage they inject anticoagulants and they don't want their host bleeding out on their nice suit and also just dying. But an Oktigi getting greedy with blood and killing their host accidentally does happen, especially to younger ones, for that reason they do switch bodies every now and then, some have quite a few different ones.
About their parasitism
We see Sekto hijack the motor functions of his host and move fluidly as if natively and Lorne said Oktigi obtain the knowledge of their host so unlike mind controlling parasites from earth that control would technically come from something beyond enzimatic and hormonal control, knowledge and memory are simply firing patterns in the neuronal array so that's electrical synapsis and to control the body of the host that well he'd have to in fact hijack the central nervous system and everything and control the celular signaling pathways of all systems, so my headcannon is that Sekto would have to have an organ or appendage inside his "maw" that can penetrate and connect "like a usb port" to the brain of the host and inside it there would be an extension of his neurons (think of how neurons extend across an irl octopus arms) and that would incredibly only theoretically pass signals from one to the other as in a single network (let's ignore morphology and everything esle entirely).
Now the true sci-fi comes in and all I can say is that to me it works like in Avatar where the blue people have those weird tendrils that they can interconnect with eachother and other creatures and thus make a "bond" across their minds to the extent that one can feel and perceive through the other in a bizarre mind melding way, I remember @ohfugecannada theorizing about a peaceful symbiotic shared state of consciousness between the Oktigi and host that is born out of a lot of trust and it seems to me that's possible this way, that would be a very bizarre and intimate thing to experience, very interesting. But most Oktigi aren't about that life, I don't know if they are biologically obligate parasites or facultative ones but as a sapient species at least they are socially required to if they want to stand a chance in life, so that connection would somehow include a mechanism that can suppress the host's mind, how? Idk tbh but I guess it would be like when you inhibit the receptors that affect certain areas of the brain and sort of shut them down, but you would need most to still be active at least partially control it. All this on a living organism, I saw mentioned they can parasite dead ones and there I have no idea because cellular destruction would definitely be an issue since there would be no neural network to work with and no way to transport signals through the bloodstream. Anyways that's my headcannon on how the parasitosis by an Oktigi kinda works, there is 0% need to explain this but i like theorizing.
About their reproduction and life cycle
They're the kind of parasite that doesn't go through change of phases in their life cycle, they are born like that and just grow with age. They lay eggs and there's many of them but few make it since the start. There isn't much of a parental care whatsoever and they're less social than Glukkons. I don't see them as a superspecies but idk Lorne loves those. They have dioecy but between females and males there's little to no sexual dymorphism.
Our daily struggle with epidemics📌.
In the midst of the ongoing siege and war in Gaza, the population is suffering from multiple crises, including the spread of lice and skin diseases. The high prices and scarcity of cleaning supplies have made life even more difficult, leading to increased cases of illness due to poor personal hygiene. Children, who are the most vulnerable, live in harsh conditions that facilitate the spread of lice and skin infections. These epidemics affect not only their physical health but also their psychological and social well-being, as they experience feelings of shame and isolation. In these circumstances, the desire for even the most basic necessities of life, such as cleanliness, becomes a distant dream.
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The salt in my wounds will turn into pearls, as parasites always do.