Rileyyellow6

Almost the exact same thing happens to him as Eugene, but it feels so much more personal there, and there feels like an intentional chain, as Rafta and Nestor both get disappointed when they can’t possess who they want to, and make it pretty obvious Sam is a reluctant backup

but you don’t get interactions like that between them and Marshall, he feels more like an Easter egg because of that lack of interaction, and it’s not helped by his physical distance, everyone is in one place except for him

he gets named, you can talk to him before the Rafta quest over multiple days for multiple lines of dialogue so you get a bit of his personality, he gets a unique design and functions different rom the other worm mutants (as you can watch him get attacked, get dialogue out of him for that, and he is entirely immobile) he is also given a particular role when he gets assimilated like Nestor and Eugene do, as he gives the worms quicker access to the sewers/basement floor, he and Eugene are the only two to be directly affected by Nestor’s pieces, assimilated because of fusion, and he is found in the same place Nestor is and Rafta talks to him directly

he means something to this plot, even in these small ways

It’s a quartet, there’s four main victims here, yet he’s kinda off to the side still, I’m probably the only one but it feels a little weird to me

y’know?

yeah anyway

gore violence (I think?) and body horror warnings woo I got plans for him

light in my room is kind of ass but ehhhhhh

okay I wanted to wait on this a bit to collect my thoughts but basically, I think the idea of the worms to me is that they're these cables of muscle and nerves extruded from their hosts - but the "head" end contains a packet of stem cells and can form into a lot of different structures, or fuse with other structures, something like that.

this is why the extra "hands" disappear after the fusion becomes more complete, the cables either became more interwoven with Eugene's body or started developing into more mouth-like appendages.

that's also why they can be quite varied in how they present, depending on the host and the circumstances

similar thing with Nestor's eyes, essentially the optic nerves have been converted into bundles of these prehensile cables that can do weird stuff

the worm colony relies both on more permanent "core" hosts that can be left intact, and ones that can be dispersed, extracted for resources. I could also potentially see this being a kind of defensive mechanism - you can't take out an entire colony if it's been scattered everywhere, in all directions.

my last kind of note/theory is... I think one of the reasons Nestor is terrified of being without a body is part of him can intuit that if he disperses too much, he may completely lose his mind.

Vomiting context and stuff

long story short cus I could get more specific probably, I like to think the worms form strictly from muscle tissues and organs, fats get absorbed or something and bones, with enough effort can get transformed too from the inside out, but they tend to avoid doing that as it takes more energy to break the bones down enough and absorb them, so the pieces either just

hang out, somewhere in the worm mass,

Theyre kept as structure, as the worms struggle to support themselves without that or a Eugene, or the bone pieces are repurposed as “teeth”

yeah so they basically liquify

like cheese bugs

Except Eugene, they need him in one piece

liquification occurs when major organs are hit (heart, lungs, brain especially I’ll elaborate on that)

infiltration of the brain is the quickest way to transform, giving the victim almost immediate “worm brain”

the panic, pain and disorientation all serve to quicken the process and contribute to the whole ordeal, ultimately resulting in rapid worm growth and the complete destruction of what once was the body

like Nestor and Marshall

with slower infiltration you get Eugene, he assimilates after a day passes compared to what had to have been like five minutes for the other two to get assimilated

and Eugene stays in one piece, he’s deformed still but he’s not spanning multiple floors

yeah anyway that’s enough context look at my artwork

big bug warning, and abrasive colors I’m pretty sure

YES.... I WONDER WHO INDEED...

Body horror wooo

Real life worms do freaky things and I’ve been desperately wanting to incorporate that into these guys and I just thought of subjecting it to Eugene in particular because he can’t have anything

I didn’t really do it justice so just pretend he moves like this little guy here this is the inspo :)

It’s just a quick thing though because it’s been hard to draw or write anything else I’ve been thinking of, I get too excited and I’ve generally been scatterbrained so

Nestor x Eugene or Eugene x Nestor whatever you call it

thank you!! ahhh I have more ideas I wanna explore with them when my brain is less foggy so I really do appreciate it - couple of odd sketches I had floating around