This World Is A Machine

I am the architect. I am the saboteur. I am the man who murdered his children. I am the man who stood in the duck pond with his dead wife in his arms, wishing the water would bring her back to him. I am the voice on the telephone, I am the butcher who skinned the Professor and beat God to death against the air loom. Only one question remains now. Am I also The Machine? (Independent roleplay blog for Oswald Mandus from Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs. All manners of interactions welcome! Tracked tag is abifurcatedheart )

[abifurcatedheart-a]

The stench of stale blood is always upon him.

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“Each half of me still living, but the guts kept falling onto my children. So we each went our separate ways and one half built a machine instead, to hold his hate in and to keep his heart beating. And the other fell into a sleep, to blunt the pain.”

Roleplay blog for Oswald Mandus; crossovers welcome + encouraged.

[videogametracks]

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weight of the world (prelude version) // final fantasy xiv: vows of virtue, deeds of cruelty {composed by masayoshi soken & keiichi okabe}

[ffxivdrive]

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Tomorrow and Tomorrow

For whom weeps the storm Her tears on our skin The days of our years gone Our souls soaked in sin These memories ache with the weight of tomorrow

Who fights? Who flies? Who falls?

Stand tall my friend May all of the dark lost inside you find light again In time tumbling turning we seek amends Eternal winds to the land descend Our journey will never end

From those who’ve fallen to those who arise A prayer to keep us ever by your side An undying promise that we just might Carry on in a song

Pray don’t forget us your bygone kin With one world’s end does a new begin And should our souls scatter unto the wind Still we shall live on

Stand tall my friend May all of the dark deep inside you find light again This time tumbling turning we make amends Eternal winds from the land ascend Here to lift us then we won’t end

[nullum-arcanum]

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A Perfect Circle ― The Doomed

[abifurcatedheart-a]

(Not sure if I showed off my Mandus cosplay on this account already, but here -- especially my lantern! It’s a real lantern, whose inside has been hollowed out, and a small battery-operated light placed inside. I had a lot of fun spray painting it.)

[abifurcatedheart-a]

coldblod23 replied to your post: Heard that the heart in the tower might be Oswald's which I think might make sense because eachtime you approach it he slows down. And also I think Oswald is alive because of compound X What do you think of this theory?

Yes! I love and agree with that theory, actually! I’ll admit I hadn’t noticed his slowing down(but now I want to play that part again later), but the song that plays when you activate the glass harmonicas is a very special song(one that admittedly always makes me tear up), one that has significantly more impact if you assume the heart to be Oswald’s. There’s also a note where Oswald talks about how he was split into two -- one half of him went on to build a machine to contain his hate and keep his heart beating, while the other half fell into a deep sleep to blunt the pain. If we take this literally, then the machine he’s talking about should be the factory, and the heart should be his.

As for the Compound X part, I’d like to believe that is why he’s alive. I’m trying to remember off-hand if there are notes that specifically allude to it, but I do think that, again, if we take the events of the game as actually happening, then Oswald should have died when he sabotaged the Machine the first time around. Something had to have been intervening to keep him alive, either that or he’s miraculously (un?)lucky.

[abifurcatedheart-a]

Of Machines and Pigs Pt. 6

"My dear Mister Mandus, I admire your vision, I really do, but there are surely not enough pigs in the whole of London to feed the appetite of such a machine."

"That all rather depends, Professor, on what one considers to be a pig."

(It's been a long while, but in this post I'm going to talk about the Mandus Processing Company! So get ready for quite a lengthy read!)

First, let's go back a bit and talk about the original Mandus Co. Meat Processing Factory, established in 1828. Presumably it has been a family-run business, passed down through generations. In the November 7th, 1898 Found Document which discusses the Mandus family's recent financial burden, we find out that Oswald Mandus, in an attempt to keep up with the risen era of industry, took a gamble on revamping his shop into a full-scale, machine-driven factory, and unfortunately for him the gamble did not pay off. Now he's in hot water, unable to move forward due to his exhausted fortune, yet unable to convince the bank to lend him what he needs to progress.

So, after scouring his great uncle's notes, he learns about various ruins and the treasures they may contain -- including the orbs, which he hopes to obtain and sell for profit. Of course, we all know what happens during his expedition in Mexico.

When he returns home to London, he immerses himself completely in his work of expanding his business, partly as a way to cope with the loss of his sons -- according to his phonograph conversation with Professor A. His newfound charisma, humanitarian ideals, and I'm going to presume pity points due to his intense illness win him the favor of many a wealthy benefactor, and, much to the surprise and awe of men like Professor A. he is quickly able to renovate his factory and then some. He builds an entire enterprise, an empire if you will.

It is called the Mandus Processing Company, and its logo can be found everywhere throughout the game.

Before we go further from here, let's detour a little and talk about Compound X, a liquid that is used for everything from machine fuel to coolant, to tissue mending and life restorative, and just about everything in-between. But what is Compound X, exactly? Another "gift" found in the notes of his great uncle, it's actually the discarded formula for manufactured vitae that Alexander had come up with in The Dark Descent. With all of the elaborated lore in Amnesia: Rebirth surrounding vitae, now its various uses in A Machine for Pigs make more sense. (For those who haven't played Rebirth yet, vitae is a curative, regenerative, fuel source, and a power source used by Alexander's people.)

In Oswald's company, Compound X is not only used in the surgical processes of creating manpigs, it is also, and perhaps more interestingly, used for helping to keep the factory running. Mandus has created an essentially self-sustaining workhouse, as well as connecting systems to his home to ensure that things like electricity and heat are generated using the factory's inner workings.

The factory is designed using the same various compartments and systems as any other slaughterhouse -- except the main line has been modified to accommodate human bodies, rather than just pigs. He alternates between capturing and slaughtering the rich and the poor, in order to make the disappearances less obvious; as he himself explains, it would seem too suspicious if too many wealthy, upper class individuals went missing at one time. But the poor, on the other hand? No one would notice the loss of the "undesirables" of the city, allowing him to kidnap them in bulk.

But how does he manage this, as critically ill as he is? He builds his reputation by donating money and food to the church and its charges, the orphanages, mental hospitals, and the workhouses, giving the impression that he cares deeply for the plight of the less fortunate and thus deserves respect and assistance. (One ironic aspect of his new factory is that it is a workhouse, granting employment to those in need of it, including children.) St. Dunstan's Church has been connected to his factory, and its congregation led into the metaphorical belly of the beast, with Father Jeremiah accompanying them following Oswald's grand reveal to him about his plan. The more distrustful lower class citizens are gathered and, owing to traps beneath the city streets, swept away in the blink of an eye to be turned into produce. Meanwhile, for the rich, he flaunts his new wealth and product, earning him the attention of those in higher standings -- enough so that he's able to throw luxurious parties at his residence for them. The various rooms of his home have been rigged with traps, so that unlucky drunk and drugged guests are easily transported onto the pigline through them, then are subsequently fed to the next guests at the following parties.

Not a bad system, or so it would have been had the authorities not begun to grow suspicious of disappearances. Their investigations, without fail, led them to Oswald Mandus, and so we are granted the phonograph conversation with Professor A. as a result.

But back to the factory! Three interesting locations worth noting are the laboratories, found beneath the main factory buildings; the nuclear reactor, lurking deep beneath the city and likely supplying most of the power to the resource-intensive systems; and South Tower, where much of the Compound X is stored and is likely regulated to the various compartments due to its cold storage.

The laboratories are where the experimentations are carried out by Oswald, most notably those dealing with Compound X and resuscitation of the deceased, and the creation of more manpigs. Victims are shipped down to this area and held in cages until it's their turn to be taken. The process, much like the production line process, is explained and described in various notes in-game.

The nuclear reactor, I tend to assume supplies a large amount of power to the factory because of not only the nature of it, but also because it's the heart of the sabotaging efforts that we are undoing during the first half of the game, and it isn't until after we restart it that the factory truly and fully comes back to functional life. Being that it, again, is the heart of the sabotaging efforts, I believe that it is the -- if not one of the -- most important parts of the "machine". There is also implication in the Machine's dialogue and another few found documents that the reactor's function is also to split apart the earth's core(the "egg of the world").

South Tower, fully known as "Electrogravitic Suppression: South Tower" is home to the Tesla manpigs, being that it's the only area cold enough to sustain them and their stability due to the high volume of Compound X within them. (You run into another variation of them in the sewer level, the "Failed Experiments".) It, curiously enough, also houses in its very center a human heart, suspended in air and surrounded on the room's outer area by glass harmonicas. What does it mean? I'm still not sure, but after activating the glass harmonicas and charging up the power to the room, approaching the heart seems to cause it to become electrocuted. If I were to take a guess, I'd assume the heart is located there to keep it alive and beating until that moment, as well as to preserve it using the cold temperature.

Alright, I think I've rambled enough for now. What are your thoughts and theories? If you've read this far, and the post has piqued your own curiosities, I'd love to hear what you think as well!

[abifurcatedheart-a]

"Only one question remains now. Am I also The Machine?"

After literally four or so years, I finally recovered and finished this piece. Headcanon Oswald Mandus, guarding his “stone egg” and coming to terms with the duality of his heart.

[abifurcatedheart-a]

I for one welcome our new morally ambiguous brethren.

[heart-of-appalachia]

[abifurcatedheart-a]

Have the lineart I’ve been working on, because I need more fluffy Lily and Oswald in my life.

Gonna start coloring it later tonight probably.

[abifurcatedheart-a]

abifurcatedheart​:

Amnesia: A Machine for All These Guns I Can’t Use

Look Mandus, all I’m saying is your survival instincts are nonexistent.

God, I forgot how much I love this game. By the time I get to the ending, I’m going to be fangirling over the machinery all over again.

[abifurcatedheart-a]

Amnesia: A Machine for All These Guns I Can’t Use

Look Mandus, all I’m saying is your survival instincts are nonexistent.

[abifurcatedheart-a]

zerachielamora replied to your post “@zerachielamora Tumblr won’t let me reply in the post, so here you go....”

OMG OH NO - can you imagine Oswald just lying in the bathtub like 'this is fine'

manpig just walks in, stares, decides they aren’t paid enough for this, and leaves.

Mandus has fallen and can’t get up.

also hi I had to restart the game LOL good thing I was still at the fuckass beginning.

[abifurcatedheart-a]

@zerachielamora

Tumblr won’t let me reply in the post, so here you go.

HELP I’VE ALREADY MADE A MISTAKE, I GOT STUCK IN THE BATHTUB

[abifurcatedheart-a]

Time to replay AMFP, since it’s been forever and a day.

[abifurcatedheart-a]

There is no misery greater than that of one’s own mind, vast and turbulent as the tempestuous sea. To be cursed with memory is pain; but the ache of a numbed consciousness, bereft of logical thought, is something deeper, full of an oft unrelenting despair. It spews tragedy from grinning lips as if it were the loveliest of poetry.

To this I tell you: do not allow your mind to idle for too long, lest you succumb once more to this invisible antagonist’s torture.