i eat words for lunch @antropophagi - Tumblr Blog

"theyll hate you for this" "but theyll be alive" is THE juiciest thing to me

i will ensure you stay alive above all else. even if what i do to make it happen is horrendous. even if it violates all your wishes or moral principles. even if you can never look at me the same way again, even if you hate me for it. because at least if you hate me it means youre alive

#prev #they...

wolf-three-fifty-nine

it is pride month meme but will henry being like ?? you want us to hunt gay monsters?

#the monstrumologist #lmao

wolf-three-fifty-nine

I wish book 2 explored will henrys sense of isolation a little more like imagine theres this man youve lived with for a year or so and you know he's well respected and famous in his field but it doesnt really sink in until you meet all these folks and see the life he had before. and you cant go back to your life bc it doesnt exist but it is eye opening to see how easy it is for him to slip back into that life

#the monstrumologist #will henry #also the fact warthrop tells him to never fall in love #only to literally live his own romance with Muriel when they're in new york #i feel like it would be extra hard for will henry #it makes me think of that brief moment in isob where will henry catches a glimpse of the kid who used to be his best friend before #he can never go back

wolf-three-fifty-nine

really like the idea of will henry finding warthrop's old dresses and whatnot in a trunk or smth and maybe even some old photos and thinking holy shit warthrop has a sister (wrong)

#the monstrumologist #pellinore warthrop #will henry #i love your monstrumologist thoughts this morning!!#it's absolutely canon to me

wolf-three-fifty-nine

this is set sometime after they come back from the asylum

#the monstrumologist #pellinore warthrop #will henry #OMG YES??#warthrop both insulting and praising will henry's intelligence yessss you've nailed him

When is Warthrop's birthday?

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Voting ended onJun 5

#the monstrumologist #pellinore warthrop #is there a more efficient way to do this?#perhaps but i do not care #i'm pretty sure there's nothing but his birthday year in the books #i love the idea of him being born in August but that is a pure vibe thing

Ever since @wolf-three-fifty-nine brought it up, I've been thinking about making polls so we could decide what could be Will Henry and Warthrop's birthdays, so here we are!!

When is Will Henry's birthday?

Late November

December

January

Early February

Other

Voting ended onJun 5

I've followed the rough timeline the books give us to determine a probable birthday month but if you guys feel like Will Henry's a spring or a summer child, feel free to say so!!

#the monstrumologist #will henry #what about making their birthdays some sort of fandom celebration days too?

mintearo

ummm ummm made me think of them umm

#the monstrumologist #will henry #pellinore warthrop

Warthrop saying ''You are the one thing that keeps me human'', while feeling very satisfactory as a reader who has been frustrated by Warthrop's tendency to avoid any emotional conversation with Will Henry, is a truly horrifying thing to say to a thirteen-year-old child. To be fair, he didn't say it to Will's face, and given his reluctance to expand on it afterwards, it's clear it's not a sentiment he wished to ever share.

But the result is that Will Henry is now aware that he has a very clear role to perform for Warthrop and that if he strays from it, it will have grave consequences on Warthrop's character. Even though Will Henry often refers to Warthrop as someone cold and cruel - which is pretty fair considering the circumstances - it's also arguable that he might feel pride at the idea of working for someone who is very righteously principled: seeing Warthrop stands against murder, poor treatment, torture, etc, makes for a good example for Will Henry. And while Will Henry knows he's indispensable to Warthrop - and that it goes deeper than his apprenticeship - he didn't know until then that one of the indispensable services he provides for Warthrop is moral guidance/direction.

By hearing Warthrop saying that, Will Henry ends up shouldering the responsibility of keeping Warthrop human. He knows Warthrop can be good because he has seen it happen; he also knows what happens when Warthrop isn't and how people suffer for it (ex: the Stinnets situation). He would feel very keenly the weight of his burden, not only on a personal level - he wants Warthrop to be good - but also on a bigger scale - Warthrop's work has an impact on people (it saves people's lives on good days).

Will Henry's insane level of devotion to Warthrop in the Isle of Blood is tightly linked to his idea that he now has to keep Warthrop human. It's the first book where Will Henry makes plain that Warthrop needs him (usually, it's Warthrop who insists Will Henry is indispensable) and he also makes it clear that what Warthrop needs him for is something that goes beyond being his apprentice/assistant:

''He doesn't need me to cook or clean or take his dictation or care for his horse or any of that. Those things anyone can do, Dr. von Helrung. He needs me for the dark places.'' (The Isle of Blood, Chapter Thirteen)

Of course, it gives him a new sense of self-importance. He's the one who keeps the great Pellinore Warthrop human! It makes Warthrop's departure a hundred times more painful because it comes so soon after beind told how indispensable he was:

How dare he, after all we'd suffered together, after my saving his life more than once. You are the one thing that keeps me human. Yes, I suppose I am, Dr. Warthrop, until you find someone to keep you human in my place. (The Isle of Blood, Chapter Thirteen)

So there's a duality here. Will Henry is both crushed by this new responsibility, in the sense that he now has to protect something more fragile than Warthrop's life, and honored to be the one having to shoulder this burden. He resents it and relishes it at the same time. In any case, it's what drives him to action during the entirety of the Isle of Blood. He has to save Warthrop, both literally and metaphorically.

I had distrusted and then hated [Arkwright] for taking Warthrop from me, had tried and convicted him in my mind for a crime conceived only in my mind, and in the end it was not a ''bloody, soulless killer'' who had orchestrated his final test, no ''mean king'' as in Torrance's parable. No, it had been a thirteen-year-old boy consumed with jealousy and self-righteousness, casting himself in the role of protector and avenger of a man who had rejected him for another and exiled him from the rarified atmosphere of his presence. (The Isle of Blood, Chapter Twenty-Six)

Will Henry goes far to serve Warthrop; he goes even further to protect him. In book 2, when he kills Chanler, it's framed as an act of self-defense and an act of protection. It's the morality of the moment, Kearns would say: Will Henry has to kill Chanler to make sure both he and Warthrop survive the night. Afterwards, this death is treated as something that was necessary and therefore forgivable (but not forgettable). In addition, it's less about killing Chanler and more about killing a soulless monster. It's less a moral dilemma and more an emotional conflict (killing his master's best friend).

When Warthrop says, ''You are the one thing that keeps me human'', it implies that Will Henry is able to do so because 1) Warthrop cares about Will Henry's opinion and will adapt his choices to Will Henry's approval and 2) Will Henry is a child who represents innocence (re: the motif of the bucket). Innocence is associated with goodness and purity: Will Henry is the one person whose judgment carries weight for Warthrop because, to the monstrumologist, he is the epitome of a possible absolution.

But Will Henry loses that. He is no longer innocent:

''They may be a different color, but we've the same eyes, Master William Henry, you and I. Occulus Dei - the eyes that are not afraid to look, that see where others are blind. [...] Your eyes have come open, haven't they? It's why he keeps you with him, because you see in the dark places where he is afraid to look.'' (The Isle of Blood, Chapter Forty-One)

He is no longer pure:

If I confessed, there would be no absolution; I would still be nasu. (The Isle of Blood, Chapter Thirty-Three)

And he is no longer good (in the sense that he starts considering immoral actions to solve problems):

I looked past him, to the sea framed in the arched opening of the wall, to the line formed where the water met the sky. The world was not round, I realized. The world was a plate. (The Isle of Blood, Chapter Thirty-Two)

Everything that made Will Henry morally capable of steering Warthrop towards the light is gone. Paradoxically, it is only by losing these qualities that he can protect Warthrop's own sense of moral. By taking it upon himself to cross the invisible line and kill, he protects Warthrop. If he were to reveal his misdeeds to Warthrop, he would drag him down too:

He would be made unclean by my touch. My ''success'' at the Tower of Silence would be his failure, the fulfillement of his deepest fears. He would know beyond all doubt that by my saving him he had lost me forever. (The Isle of Blood, Chapter Thirty-Three)

This is what has to be given to fulfill his role as Warthrop's indispensable apprentice. This is what Will Henry has to do to keep Warthrop human. He cannot even obtain the absolution of confession because confessing would not save Warthrop. Will Henry lies by omission - lying is the worst kind of buffoonery - because this is what he feels he must do, what he has internalized from Warthrop's ''You are the one thing that keeps me human.''

In essence, The Isle of Blood is Will Henry's desperate attempt to save the humanity in Warthrop. Ironically, Warthrop is doing the same thing:

''The very strange and ironic thing is that I left you behind so you wouldn't have to live on that plate with them. (The Isle of Blood, Chapter Twenty-Six)

Both fail. But where Will Henry's failure rewards him - it gives Warthrop a new sense of urgency to do anything he can to protect him (the ''I will raise you upon my shoulders'' scene) - Warthrop's constant failure is what cements Will Henry's loss of innocence. Where Will Henry manages to keep Warthrop human (his love for the boy takes precedence over Will Henry's potential to effectively offer absolution), Warthrop fails to keep Will Henry from crossing the line between a round world and the plate-world.

In the end, ''You are the one thing that keeps me human'', while a touching sentiment and a proof of Warthrop deeply caring for Will Henry, is still the egotistical product of what he calls the dark tide. It sweeps Will Henry in a darker world, one where he feels he has to give himself up so that Warthrop can live in the light:

I had failed him and I had saved him. I had gone down to the darkness that he might live in the light. (The Isle of Blood, Chapter Forty-Two)

Will Henry may not have been born with the mark of Cain on his forehead, but ''You are the one thing that keeps me human'' left a much deeper mark on him.

#the monstrumologist #will henry #pellinore warthrop #this should not be taken as meta or anything else other than the ravings of a madman #but i have been working on something and it spiralled into this #me when the doomed relationship is doomed #of course i've viewed the word human through a moral lens but i'm sure it's intended to be more polysemic than that #in any case i am so fascinated by the lengths to which will henry goes in the isle of blood #and how both of their character arcs are sharply opposed #and i do find it interesting that the dynamic of who keeps who human changes in the final descent when will henry is older

wolf-three-fifty-nine

Snap to! Sign-ups are open for the second Monstrumologist gift exchange. Sign-ups will be open until Monday June 15, and prompts will be as

Snap to! Sign-ups are open for the second ever Monstrumologist exchange! If you know you want to participate for sure, you can skip the interest check entirely and fill out this form instead.

Here's a tentative event schedule, though dates are subject to change.

May 25 - June 14 - Interest check period

May 25 - June 15 Sign-up period

July 1 - Prompts assigned

Reveals - TBD. Potentially sometime between autumn to winter 2026.

If there are any questions, do not hesitate to reach out!

#the monstrumologist #the monstrumologist gift exchange 2026 #let's gooooo the best part of the year is starting soon!!!

wolf-three-fifty-nine

Interest check for the second Monstrumologist exchange. Answers accepted until June 14.

Snap to, Will Henry fellow monstrumologists! The interest check form for the 2026 exchange is now live. The interest check will be open until June 14th, and if you know you're interested, you can skip straight to sign-ups here. A minimum of two sign-ups are required for the exchange to move forward, but I've enough faith that there will be enough interest. That is why I'm circulating the interest check and sign-up forms simultaneously. Here's a tentative event schedule, though dates are subject to change.

May 25 - June 14 - Interest check period

May 25 - June 15 Sign-up period

July 1 - Prompts assigned

Reveals - TBD. Potentially sometime between autumn to winter 2026.

I am pretty busy from July - August, so you may have noticed that August is not an option for reveals. I'm also playing around with the logistics of how folks can post previews of their pieces in the lead-up without potentially spoiling who has who.

If there are any questions, do not hesitate to reach out!

#the monstrumologist #for anyone interested this is your chance to participate!!#i promise it's cool and fun #the monstrumologist gift exchange 2026

madnessmaddd

#the monstrumologist #will henry #pellinore warthrop #lmaooo #i love your will henry sooooo much!!!#also yep this is canon to me now

wolf-three-fifty-nine

we don't (afaik) have birthdays for any of the monstrumologist characters so when do we think they would've been born?

i like the idea of will henry having a spring birthday and warthrop having a December birthday

antropophagi

A while back, I tried to establish a rough timeline of the series and it seemed to imply Will Henry's birthday is set somewhere between November and early February. At least, if we can trust his memory (which, I believe we can, considering he apparently remembered perfectly well his age). He speaks of himself as a twelve years old boy in the second book, but says he's thirteen in The Isle of Blood.

The Isle of Blood begins in early February (around the 12th, I believe):

Meanwhile, a part, if not all, of book 2 happens in November:

So that would mean Will Henry's birthday happens during that time :) It also means he has about three months to recover from the wilderness before embarking upon an even darker adventure :')

I don't think there's any indication of a birthday for Warthrop in the books, but I do like to see it happening in August, just to have a contrast with Will Henry's.

#the monstrumologist #pellinore warthrop #will henry #ofc canon can very well be ignored in honor of celebrating will henry's spring birthday!#we should start a poll and vote for their birthdays dates!!