Some they/he artist I guess | Call me uhh Crow/Comet/Eden/dynamite | Pfp & banner from objectified | My Pinterest (way less active on) : https://ca.pinterest.com/DRYR0TT/
I think wagyu's bigender not transfem, like he himself is male but his parasite is female which is why he states at himself in the mirror while clinging onto the coat with his parasite legs out at the end
OBJECTIFIED CHARACTER TOURNAMENT - ROUND ONE, POLL FIVE: SHARPS VS. COMET
Which character do you like more?
Sharps
Comet
Voting ended onMay 18
This poll is based purely on how much you personally enjoy the character, NOT how well-written you think they are or which one you consider to be objectively better; with that in mind, vote however you'd like!
objectified episode 101 - nightcrawler theory/analysis post
HELLO AGAIN here are my thoughts on the latest objectified episode because i know it's a very confusing and abstract one that a lot of people might not understand at first. i'll go page-by-page, breaking down what i think they all mean and then summarize with my theory on who (or what) the nightcrawler is.
major spoilers for the entire episode. let's get started!
Spiraling oil paint brush strokes fill the night sky, filled with stars. The Nightcrawler is nestled into itself, and then rises in the next panel. Roman numeral two appears above its head in large bold text. The Nightcrawler faces towards the viewer, the triangular mark on its head now visible and glowing. As a result, it resembles Comet's cloak more closely.
this panel is pretty self-explanatory- a nice introductory page to reaffirm that nightcrawler is the second half of comet's ""survivor duo"" now that they're here!
A black and white page is filled with textured brush strokes resembling singe marks. Some finer details are strewn throughout, like a spine, Comet posing with and without clothes, and eyes that stare at the words on screen. Surrounded by a real photograph of a dried flower arrangement is a poem. The poem reads, Dusk to dawn, Florid prize, Song is loud, Rein is mine. And oh it's terror to love no one. But I love someone. In the darker parts of the page there is a spiral textured overlay.
to the best of my understanding, this page is a poem that has been altered by removing specific words to change the focus perhaps from a love story or romantic piece of writing into something more akin to what comet is currently experiencing. line by line, 'dusk to dawn' obviously represents comet's episodes going from being set during the day to instead taking place exclusively at night- 'florid prize' may simply relate to the flowers on the page or perhaps the honeysuckles the nightcrawler gifts to comet later in the episode. next, there's 'song is loud'. i believe the "song" in question here is the often-shown humming sound produced by hivecores:
(it is important to note this hivecore in specific is from episode 19, the first sighting of a hivecore and more importantly a comet episode! fossil dialogue is from epsiode 29. there's a similar one in 64 as well)
this makes the most sense to me, given the fact that starsheet and therefor apparitia are a direct result of hivecore signals corrupting the minds of survivors. it could also reference comet's flute, maybe?
and finally, for the first verse, there's 'rein is mine'. i think this line is meant to be ironic, considering comet's growing loss of control due to fatal insomnia; it may also be referring to the nightcrawler 'taking the reins', so to speak. this will become much more obvious at the end of the post
the second verse is probably the strangest, though- 'And o it's terror to love no one, but I love someone'. my theory on this one requires some context we'll get to in a bit.
A fraction of Comet's face is shown in the next panel. On her face is a fly, which her pupil points towards. In the next panel, the fly walks down her face. Her eye and pupil are still, not following the fly's movements. In the last panel, a wet squelch noise is made with text on screen as one of her extra irises forms a pupil and moves to stare at the fly.
obviously, this is meant to show comet's deterioration due to apparitia; she seems to be in a state between conscious and unconscious, seeing as her eye moves to focus on the fly with one of her pupils without actually batting it away. there's not much of a deeper meaning here than to say "hey guys, comet is decomposing while still alive". definitely very concerning!
The Nightcrawler towers over Comet's tent. On the ground in front of the tent it hovers for a moment before leaving. In place of its silhouette is a small pile of food including an apple, a honeysuckle flower, and some berries.
so the nightcrawler is feeding comet, then?
The scene remains still for one panel, and in the next panel Comet's fingers begin to snake out of the opening in the tent towards the pile of food. Feeling around blindly for it in the grass, Comet extends their arm enough to reveal that their entire upper arm is covered in a thick layer of flies.
good god. hello comet. if the first fly panel wasn't blatant enough, here is direct confirmation that comet is wasting away. not JUST the flies, look at how skinny and sickly her arm is compared to previous episodes:
sadly... comet is not gonna live much longer in this state. unless by some miracle the hivecore nearby is destroyed, which likely wouldn't even cure her ailment, she's going to be following in minty's footsteps sooner rather than later.
She grabs the food, pulling it inside. In the next panel, the Nightcrawler is heading in the direction away from the tent and back towards the Rings.
i'd really like to draw attention here to just how cloak-like the nightcrawler looks in this panel. keep that in mind going forward! it'll be relevant again later.
i'll let the final pages speak for themselves, because there's not much to add:
It looks back towards Comet, when suddenly a bright light begins shining down towards it from the sky. The Nightcrawler swivels around towards the light.
The Nightcrawler then leaps backwards, away from the bright light. In a panicked state, its body has more defined shoulders, back, and some ribs showing. The jade beads attached to its body can also be seen as it throws itself backwards. The light touches its arm, burning it. The text describes the sound of hissing burning flesh.
It skids backwards in the grass on its two feet. Text describes the sound of its claws scraping the ground. The sky above parts, shining with an even brighter light. A speech bubble descends, calling Comet's name as the Nightcrawler stares upwards.
so... yeah, that's episode 101! the biggest question: what does it all mean? i'll give the theory i've seen the most commonly, why i disagree with it, and what my own interpretation is.
by far, the most common interpretation of the nightcrawler i have seen is that it is, in fact, morrigan. i think this is mostly due to the fact that comet's cloak is made of crows and obviously has a death motif around it- but i have several issues with this theory, the most important one being: morrigan is being assimilated in the rings. all of her sentinels, from EVERYWHERE, are going straight there. we've already seen this happening in a previous comet episode extremely prominently:
in fact, morrigan may not even have control over this mass-migration of her sentinels. she appears shocked in the very next page before disappearing into smoke:
so if morrigan's entire body mass is going into the rings, why would some of them hang out around a random inconsequential vagabond in outskirts? it doesn't make sense. additionally, if the nightcrawler is morrigan in the form of comet's cloak come to life, how on earth could she control it? we already know those crows died of blunt force trauma, which morrigan's sentinels do not handle well:
we've seen no evidence that morrigan's sentinels can come back to life thus far and we're over a hundred episodes in now. if that was possible, why didn't they just come back and kill citrus and spool? it seems obvious that if she could've done that, she already would've ages ago. we also have no evidence that her sentinels can take any form other than standard crows. i think all the crows in comet's episodes are moreso meant to represent exactly what they do in real life: death, misfortune, and curses. so, then, if the nightcrawler isn't morrigan... what is it?
the answer is simple: the nightcrawler is comet herself.
there's so much evidence for this it's actually insane and i will eat my hands if i'm wrong. let's start at the very beginning: the name of this episode, gemini, is obviously a reference to the zodiac sign gemini, the twins.
within astrology, the sign of gemini is represented as a stylized roman numeral two. sound familiar? it should! we've already seen it right above the nightcrawler:
(not part of the theory, but gemini is also a constellation- similar to the constellation imagery we see with razor and brandy during delirium sequences)
next, there's the matter of the nightcrawler's design. not only does it obviously resemble a cloak (remember how i said that would be important later?), it also has the exact same marking as comet's cloak does on the forehead of the skull:
as WELL as her beads, which we see her making to add to her bag, likely as well as her cloak!:
i feel like this is also the reason the nightcrawler appears to only have two limbs. what appears to be the back half of its body is actually just the trailing tail of the cloak behind comet, shrunken in and sickly from malnutrition and sleep deprivation. this would also explain why the nightcrawler appears rather skinny itself when startled; as an extension of comet, it retains the withering of her body to skin and bones.
in the final panel, we see the sky opening up to call down for comet and the nightcrawler appears to look up in response. this may just be someone looking up at a strange sound, but... how on earth would the nightcrawler be able to hear an apparitia hallucination we've already seen comet have once before? the only way this makes sense is if they're the same person. it's almost like the hallucinations are coming straight down from the sky... maybe this could all be a very elaborate reference to gemini home entertainment as we've already seen with thermos, but i think it's multifaceted.
of course, there's also the fact that even when seeing the nightcrawler walking away from comet's tent, it keeps the neon starlight associated with starsheet. if the nightcrawler is truly an unrelated entity, why would it keep the exact same spiral imagery unique to comet? gum also has apparitia, but there's no spirals to be seen within her episodes. maybe the nightcrawler is another object with apparitia, but what would the point of giving comet spiral symbolism be if it'd also go to a new character the second they show up? the simplest answer is usually correct, and in this case, the simplest answer is far and away comet and the nightcrawler being one in the same.
one piece of evidence i really like in particular relates to the scene where the nightcrawler gifts comet fruits and flowers- obviously, as we've seen dozens of times at this point, outskirts is an entirely barren grassy plain. the only things in it are occasional fields of dreamer's flowers; not a single berry bush or apple tree to be seen. we also see in the alt. text that the nightcrawler is retreating back into outer ring:
the Nightcrawler is heading in the direction away from the tent and back towards the Rings.
this obviously suggests that the gifts originated from outer ring, right? but if comet is the nightcrawler, why would she suddenly be getting over her fear of-
oh.
that's right: comet has been going into outer ring for food and supplies this entire time.
but why show this through the nightcrawler and not through comet herself? for this, i think we can turn to some of the more supplemental content on the website:
the description for the very first episode showing the nightcrawler is simply "epidermis". this puzzled me at first, but i think this post by @cypherthesilliest explains it much better than i could:
(thank you to cypher for allowing me to include this as part of my post, i really appreciate it!!)
the nightcrawler, with all this evidence in mind, seems to be created unconsciously by comet as a sort of protective 'skin'; one that protects her from the horrors around her, from parasites to other objects to the apparitia slowly killing her. it's a coping mechanism at its core- and with every panel, every episode, she is further giving the reins of her life up to the nightcrawler.
and this is where i'd finally like to explain the final line of the poem:
And o it's terror to love no one
But I love someone
it's true, comet has no one around them to love, no one to share there life with... no one but their own cloak, their protection from the outside world, though whether it's through courage or through madness they're finally able to confront their fear of society remains to be seen.
hell, you could say comet themself has been reduced to remains to be seen.
thank you for reading as always and please let me know if i got anything wrong or missed any evidence!
dededos
theartofmadeline
jacobvanloon
blakekathryn
annaxmalina
vaporwave
