#expectamus

Why did Woodrow want to become a robot to begin with? There’s almost no personal information to go off of that would help anyone reach any definite conclusion. Maybe they were doing it to escape chronic pain, a terminal illness, or perhaps just their identity as a human still being perceived as such by those around them. It could have even been a personal project that wasn’t connected to any of those things. Whatever it was, they were focused on making that plan a reality, and that just so happened to lead to them working alongside Wagstaff.

The sheer amount of robots in their room is very interesting to me, because it implies either one of two things. Either those were prototypes that were kept for the sake of note keeping and as a show of progress, or those were other backup bodies for Woodrow, should their main one fail. The latter seems to be at least somewhat supported by WX-78’s skilltree, in which you can have access to backup bodies as needed.

WX-78 is decent nonbinary representation, both because they used to be human, so they’re more than another nonhuman nonbinary character added to the pile, and because this former humanity throws a bit of alterhumanity into the mix, which is always fun to see in media when executed correctly. They had their reasons to do this, so it wasn’t tossed in there just for mere representative value. I find this important to bring up since there is no getting around talking about how building a robot body for themself is crucial to their character arc. While we don’t know the exact reasons for why Woodrow wanted to upload themself into a robot body, we do know that it was enough of a motivator for them to dedicate their life to it. At some point, they met Wagstaff, became acquaintances with him, and then the two worked as equals. Wagstaff had an extra person to help him out with building a portal to the Constant, and Woodrow had the resources to pursue their own personal projects.

Where does Wagstaff fall into this, exactly? Well, he was the closest person to Woodrow when they were working on their new robot body, and he likely watched them steadily decline. This personal project is where the two disagreed. Wagstaff was clearly upset with Woodrow’s decision to devote their time to something other than the main project the two were working on, but let it continue due to the fact that it would be a great technological breakthrough. However, Woodrow became obsessed with this idea of working as a robot, and not dealing with their human body. The experiment was clearly a success, and even though their human body was still alive, their consciousness was in a machine.

Wagstaff is described by WX-78 themself as a short-sighted fool who’s afraid of progress, and while this assessment is biased, it does have some logic behind it. Wagstaff clearly didn’t accept that Woodrow had changed into WX-78, and kept viewing them as the human that they once were, even when this was no longer the case. This treatment could have been going on for some time, which may have led to WX-78’s outburst in the Disconnected animated short, but there is no way to prove this. If Wagstaff had been more tolerant of their new identity, then maybe they would have never been sent to the Constant, and this would have never happened.

However, I don’t believe either one of them is the victim here.

From WX-78’s point of view, Wagstaff wasn’t accepting of what they did to themself. It’s clear that this was only marginally a collaboration between the two, as they would have needed some help in going through with the experiment, and was otherwise independent in building their new form. This was their idea, and they went through with it. From Wagstaff’s point of view, he had no prior data to compare this situation to, since this was a new experiment for the time, so there was no way of knowing if WX-78 would survive the transfer. Despite everything, he did care for them, even if that was seemingly limited to their human body. With all things considered, both of them were in the wrong.

Wagstaff was preserving WX-78’s human body, and once he saw them working on more robots, he decided enough was enough and sent them to the Constant, throwing their things away to make room for their human body. I believe that there may have been an agreement beforehand to keep WX-78’s human body anyways, since there were so many uncertain variables, but that doesn’t excuse this behavior from him. All of that research was for nothing, in that case, but he likely deemed it as dangerous information, and this is shocking coming from someone like him. Good to know that there are certain lines he won’t cross, though. However, WX-78 isn’t free from questionable behavior, since they did lash out at Wagstaff at some point, which was further evidence that they were decidedly unstable.

We do know that WX-78 had difficulties adjusting to having their consciousness uploaded into a robot, a few symptoms of which leaning heavily towards what looks like dissociation. There were moments where they thought they were human again, even though this wasn’t the case. This could potentially have something to do with the fact that while they had technically uploaded themself into a robot, their mind was experiencing a disconnection from their new body, and their human body was still technically conscious. This could have also led up to them lashing out at Wagstaff, since it was likely unpleasant to deal with. Speaking of him, his motive for sending WX-78 to the Constant could have been from perceived danger, or even to try to socialize them with others again, since there were other survivors. However, this might have been him sending them away so he could figure out how to get their human body to respond to him again, since he could have been working off of the assumption that the two were separate.

There have been theories about how people would go about robotization today. Some of which include scanning and making a digital copy of the brain, effectively making a sort of consciousness clone of a person, or outright trying to copy every nerve of the physical brain and thereby destroying it in the process as it’s transferred over. If the former had occurred in this case, then it becomes a situation in which the psychological argument of ‘nature vs nurture’ applies. Woodrow’s memories would have been transferred over to WX-78, so they would functionally be a copy of them, but their experiences would be different, since technically they didn’t live through any of that. Robots can be coded as well, so then someone would have to find out what they were built with, and what was carried over during the transfer. However, this seems more like a situation where WX-78’s consciousness was uploaded, and it left their human body without that, even though they were still technically alive and able to somewhat react to their surroundings, although minimally.

I would like to point out that there is a difference between a physical brain/body, and a consciousness. Therefore, even though Woodrow’s physical body had likely died, they were still technically alive via their consciousness being in WX-78. However, this consciousness transfer and new name could be read as transitioning, and therefore they are dead in a sense, but it’s their past identity that’s dead, not themself as a whole. This is the main issue I have with people mourning the past version of them, since they’re still alive, just in a functionally different form. I have also seen people hating Wagstaff for being transphobic or exosexist, but I do think that a lot of this is circumstantial, since he was close to them and was worried about them during this, and he may have been stuck in the past a bit. This does not make what he did good, nor does it excuse his actions, because not being able to come to terms with the fact that WX-78 did what they did led to this issue in the first place, and his resulting behavior of getting rid of everything they had was uncalled for. In his mind, he may have assumed that he was watching an acquaintance essentially kill themself, since he might have not fully understood the ramifications of the project, but the refusal to adapt to the resulting changes was fully on him. Likewise, WX-78 was exhibiting worrying behavior, working on this project obsessively, and even lashed out prior to getting banished to the Constant.

Okay tf do i do now

YAP ABOUT WX/WOODROW INCOMING❗️❗️❗️❗️❗️❗️EXPECTAMUS ARG SPOILERS

Rambling about expectamus (I love this arg to bits. my Woodrow/WX crumbs), and I don't really know if anyone has discussed this yet since I'm new here lol but. I think the scene where WX's human body (just going to refer to them as Woodrow for convenience) is twitching and moving might be related to the proximity of WX's conciousness in their robot body? I know they're not LITERALLY close (they're only even seeing their body because of the projector), but it starts to leave its comatose state when wx approaches and stills after they leave.

Maybe because the body of any living being is inherently created for a consciousness, the separation of such consciousness from the physical vessel causes it to try unconsciously seek it out? (I refuse to use the word 'soul' because their whole shtick is. Being soulless 😭) Of course, then comes the question of whether Woodrow and WX-78 are even the same person anymore, considering how Woodrow's eyes open in the last few panels which doesn't really seem to be from WX's perspective at all?

Personally, I believe they are in one way or another, but there are so many interpretations possible from just this one comic!!! When WX permanently separated their conciousness from their original body, there are (essentially) what I think are the main possibilities of what happened:

1. The body is simply a shell that Wagstaff refuses to discard (against WX's wishes). It has no conciousness, it is literally just a meatsack. Any movements are pure instinct from the conciousness being near, or some other trigger. (Doubtful, to be honest...)

2. The body retains some form of conciousness when WX's main conciousness in their metal body draws near. It briefly awakens from its coma and reacts as a part of WX's conciousness (that WX is aware of)

3. The body develops conciousness when WX draws near SEPERATE from the main conciousness. WX is not aware of this conciousness, and it is independent from WX as an 'other half'. It dies as soon as they turn away from the path of reclaiming their past.

4. The conciousness has ALWAYS existed within Woodrow's body. When WX transferred their mind into the robot body, a part of themselves remained in their human one; their 'human' half, for a lack of a better term? The conciousness of the human half (or fragment, really) remains stagnant in the comatose body, which Wagstaff sustains until he gets decked and WX comes near. They briefly awaken, but WX chooses to cast that part of them away from themselves, and that fragment of conciousness dies with the body when it runs out of the amber juice... thing(?)

5. Woodrow and WX are completely different consciousnesses: 'WX' is created when 'Woodrow' transfers their mind into the robot body, either as a separate entity or a 'copy' of the original mind.

There's a LOT of body horror potential in some of these oh lord😭 imagine being WX and there's a semi-sentient flesh body you scarcely remember desperately trying to get your mind in its body, chasing you relentlessly with some sort of unholy drive... scary...

BUT I'm getting off track. Of course, there are probably more probable theories out there BUT. These are just the thoughts of someone relatively new to their lore and trying to figure stuff out! If anyone else has any differing opinions PLLEEEAASSSEEE let me know I need to learn more about the fandom's general consensus on their past. Also please do tell if my theories about their consciousnesses are just. Deadass wrong and it's something else entirely😭 currently a believer of 4/3 but I'm still figuring stuff out...

Of course, there's the fact that WX's sprites show a skeleton inside the robot body?????? And the skeleton under Wagstaffs floorboards???????? So it's possible they're not even the same person at ALL and I'm just crazy but that's a whole other can of worms...