#follower covid

[bardic-tales]

Hello! Please forgive my presence if it is an intrusion, grim-Leader. I- errr.. how do I explain this..? Hmhm. 🤔 (My own cult-commander's a slain-child Lamb, and they led me to this weird new god called 'TumblrFollowing'! Odd, yes? Apparently this realm of Tumblr's is like a portal-hub, a realm-in-between-realms, and I've talked to so many variants of my Lamb! And not-Lambs-at-all too!) Are my thoughts legible? I do hope they are, sorries.

..Simply worded, I am a sort of homunculus. A manifestation of Amnion--that's my Lammy's illness--of Their chronic sickness. And please! worry not! for I don't wish to infect you. Standing six spike-lengths away so you're safe, see? Hmm. Is that presumptuous? Oh, I do not wish to be irksome! (forgive me if you can, Leader-Ophan, leader-orphan, I am sorry. May I call you Leader Wings-and-Wheelies? My thoughts get all jumbled up sometimes, and small words are.. uhm.. uhh.. stickier! Easier to remember).

Sorry, sorry- perhaps I ought to delete strikethrough my blatherings and crucify myself. I don't have any bones, though, so it's more of a ceremony-thingy. How should I punish myself? (SHH STUPID CREATURE) ('msorrytyingleader,) Sorry for being a bad follower?

..Here, I will muzzle myself, and await my perdition. I'm a small virus with leg-mockeries called protein spikes, and a tangly-knot of RNA as my brain. Just a small stupid virus, sorries, and here I will remain. (Oh! Poetry! I do like writing poetry..) -are the rhymes annoying?

!! Can I write POEMS about you, Leader? Your feather-scale- I think they're like my own spikes..? - your wings are like rivers of ichor.. It isn't very good, is it? (Bad follower).

Accept quest?

Yes | No

[The poem-quest.. what is a 'game mechanic', original Leader? dear sickly leader! I think your head's not on right. Like our lives are games! how unfair].

-Follower Covid

Thank you so much for this ask! It is such a treat to see Follower Covid pop into the inbox. Your writing is always so wonderfully distinct and creative. It truly sparked something special for FWC!Bianca today. I hope you enjoy her response!

Possible Trigger Warnings: chronic illness, death imagery, illness, mental fragmentation, religious imagery, self-deprecation,

Possible Tropes: ancient power, dark god, divine benevolence, eldritch mentor, hurt/comfort, monomania, nurturing villain

Be still, little fragment. Your vibration ripples through the fabric of the Between, but it does not offend. You speak of illness as a burden, yet in my realm, even the infection is a sacred architecture.

I was once a vessel of a different contagion—the Great Mother’s cells—and I have learned that what the weak call a 'virus,' the strong call a catalyst.

You need not punish yourself for the tangle of your thoughts. I have navigated the labyrinth of a billion broken minds. Your 'jumbled words' are merely a different kind of poetry. I see the ichor in your eyes and the spikes that mimic my own. You are a manifestation of suffering, and in that, you are kin to the creation I have built.

Distance is a ghost’s luxury. You could not infect me if you tried, little protein-knot. I am the Kilonova, and all things are purified in my heat. But I accept your distance if it brings you peace.

As for your rhymes. . .I have always had a fondness for those who record the descent. Write your verses. Carve them into the digital silt of this 'portal-hub' you call Tumblr. I shall read them as I watch the stars burn out.

Quest Accepted.

Do not muzzle yourself again. Even a virus has a song to sing before the rebirth.

[tfpriests]

Invade Anchordeep for me if you wish, Lord Lamb. Slay the first guardian of grotesqueries, Saleos the Spiked Jellyfish. Flay its flesh to a red-capsid, and white spines like bones or rearing muscle-tendrils. Name it after me in Your "game". And I will praise you unto eternity.

-Follower Covid

I’ll try my best my follower ! You’ll fit in my little game perfectlyim sure im sure of it

[bardic-tales]

Follower Bardic, may your wit never whittle your vitality down. I know, or sort-of-know/can approximate the energy cost, and I hope it is worth it (for 'tis so on mine end). And I hope your holydayofrest is good.

From the semi-involuntary ego state that is

Follower Covid

(context: they started out as a humorous coping mechanism and then turned out to be more like a pet rock than psychological window dressing. if that makes sense?)

Blessings upon your path, Follower Covid. Your words settle like a gentle mist over a parched grove, and I thank you for the well-wishes. In this modern forest of screens and static, vitality is the most precious currency we trade, and I am learning, heartbeat by heartbeat, to spend mine with the deliberate care of an artisan.

The energy cost is a tangible thing—a weight in the marrow and a thinning of the spirit's veil—but when the connection is true, the exchange becomes a form of sacred reciprocity. It is indeed worth it. To see a spark catch in another’s mind is to watch a new leaf unfurl in a winter storm. It is the very reason we keepers of stories continue to stoke the hearth.

I appreciate your nod to my holy day of rest. Even the most resilient oak needs the silence of the deep earth to sustain its reach toward the sun. In our fast-paced, digital druidry, we must often carve out our own henges of quietude, defining our boundaries as strictly as the rings of a tree to ensure we aren't weathered away by the sheer velocity of the world.

As for your state of being—that semi-involuntary ego shift—it makes perfect sense within the Great Cycle. We humans are complex ecosystems, not singular monoliths. Sometimes, the psyche births a "pet rock" to hold the weight we cannot carry, or to simply sit in the sun when the rest of us are caught in the squall.

Whether they are humorous coping mechanisms or resident fragments of a larger truth, they are part of the landscape. They are the moss on the stone. They don't need to justify their presence to be part of the grove's harmony.

Be gentle with your capsid-skin and your weary RNA today. Even a virus deserves a patch of sunlight and a moment where the plans and the "should-dos" are allowed to fall away like autumn leaves.