#HOPE THIS MADE ANY SENSE AT ALL ANON THIS KINDA BECAME A BIT OF TECHNOBABBLE I THINK

[definitelynotshouting]

ok i read lost and have to confess that i uh, read hunger GAMES au the first time i saw the fic and kept waiting for the plotline to show up, and eventually just accepted hey, unusual spin on the au. it took me a reread of the fic to realise it was just ‘hunger au’ with no games. well maybe some mental games and illness but hey, shrug

thought it was funny enough to share, loved the fic and wanted to let you know :D i love how you characterise the hermits and the beyond impressive world building behind it all

(quick q, when grian’s pulling out the ‘connections’ (forgot how you describe it but the emotion feedin tethers things) between him and the hermits, is that a physical thing he can see or a mental connection? if so, does he visually imagine snapping em?)

ALDJAJDKQJDKEJWJSKWKSDJDKS HELPPPP YEAH I CAN SEE THE CONFUSION THERE..... THATS SO FUCKING FUNNY IM LOSING IT HELP MEEEE JDSBDJSJDNAKSJSK IM SO SORRY FOR THE DECEPTION KING 💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥

Actually i run into this problem all the time when i try to sneakily see if i have any indirects 😔😔😔😔 me when tumblr conflates hunger au with hunger games au and i have to suffer for world's silliest choice in au name

Ooooh im actually really glad you asked this question!!! So the whole thing about "hooks" and "tethers" is that theyre entirely metaphorical, theres nothing physical there and nothing to really see from either perspective, it was just one of the best ways to sorta get the concept of the way Watchers feed across that i could think of at the time. I do think i leaned a little too heavily on it unfortunately 😔😔 so im trying to see if i can dial it back a smidge so it doesnt feel quite so literal every time its mentioned.

The way i actually picture Watcher feeding is as a type of resonance-- theyre almost vibrating at a code level with the correct hertz frequency that lets them repair any damage theyve sustained to their code structure. Its not something really visible, but i like to think when Watchers in their true forms feed, their glowing underbellies brighten significantly, and visible light trails from their fluked tails as a way to shake off any excess. Theres something to be explored there in the process of converting ELF waves into visible light and what that means for them as a species, especially ones that camouflage themselves as adeptly as they do, and what that additionally means for the relationship between light/the electromagnetic spectrum and code itself, but i havent fully dedicated the time to tease that out just yet 😂😂😂😂😂 that may require several physics textbooks, who knows

But yeah to answer your question more directly, its not a physical connection or something that can be directly seen, just more of a way to visualize the concept using inexact metaphors. I do think Grian visualizes them like this because of the natural gap between Watcher and Player minds, and that being how he manages to bridge it for himself personally; so yeah i think he does mentally visualize himself snapping them or pulling them back in, when in reality its just him trying to shut off or pull back a form of extrasensory perception :]