I saw The Spaghetti Experiment by @infraredturbine and it inspired me so here we are. Maybe this is the start of writing and posting more, who knows? Anyway, please enjoy!
“Seriously man, I just don’t think this is going to work, and if it does you aren’t going to get the results you want.” Raven said as she held a piece of painted plywood in place so Jon could nail it down.
Jon took the nail he was holding between teeth and hammered it in place. “I agree, you get mixed results from it with normal fluffies, but our crew is not normal. Besides what are you hoping to find?”
“I think it’s perfectly reasonable experiment to try and it will give us a point of reference on their thought processes.” Micah retorted defensively. “And I think it will be successful.”
“Fine. I’m so sure it will fail that I’m willing to make a bet with you,” Raven said, “I bet you $100 that this will fail.”
“How about $100 and you make me a fancy tooled wallet if I win,” Micah replied.
“Fine, and If I win you give me $100 and a case of mead.” Raven said.
“Deal.” Micah declared and they shook hands.
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Video opens on a plain room with a large, low table with a set of stocks resting on top of it. The edge of the table has a raised mesh barrier
Spaghetti experiment Round 1
**Subjects: August: earthie, avocado green coat with dark orange mane and tail; 4 mottled green tentacles are visible growing from his shoulders **
Poe: earthie, dark grey coat with black mane and tale; white triangle of fur on chest; visible aura that looks like an oil slick with glowing red symbols rising and sinking within it
Day 1:
Poe is restrained, August is free to move. Restraint device is too tall for a fluffy to use comfortably so a box was added for Poe to stand on, will cut down restraint device for future rounds. After getting fluffies in position, a small bowl of spaghetti is placed in enclosure.
“Wook Poe, sketti!” August exclaimed as he waddled over to the bowl.
Poe let out a dramatic sigh, “Am stuck, nu can weach sketti.” He said and sighed again. Every few seconds he looked forlornly at the bowl and sighs deeply.
August walked around the bowl, pausing occasionally to look back over at Poe. He then sat down heavily next to the bowl and stared blankly into the middle distance for several minutes.
(At this point I was afraid I would have to terminate this round of the experiment because it looked like August had lost his train of thought and completely forgotten about the spaghetti and Poe. -M)
August suddenly brightened and jumped to his hoofs. “August kno’!” he exclaimed and grabbed the bowl with his tentacles and carried it over to Poe. He then lifted the bowl up high enough to let Poe eat.
Poe ate half of the spaghetti, burped and said, “Fank yu August, yu awe bestest fwen evew,”
“Yu wewcome, August wuv to shawe wi’ fwend!” August replied brightly before finishing off the spaghetti.
(Experiment terminated at this time. I may need to adjust my methods as I did not take August’s. . .special abilities into account. - M)
Day 2:
August is restrained, Poe is free to move. By the time I reached the observation booth August was out of the restraints and the fluffies were sharing the spaghetti. Review of the tape showed Poe examining the restraints followed by him directing August on how to open them with his tentacles.
(I am going to accept this as a valid result and make sure the restraints can’t be tampered with for the next round. - M)
Day 3:
Poe is restrained and August is free to move. By the time I got back to the enclosure with the spaghetti Poe was out of the restraints. Poe was placed back into the restraints, and within a few seconds August had released him. I was unable to tell how the restraints were removed despite being in the room the second time. A review of the tape did not provide any answers, August’s tentacles are moving so quickly there was no way to slow the tape down enough to see exactly what he was doing. Will look into the possibility of getting better video equipment so that the clip can be slowed enough to be able to analyze August’s movement and to review the Day 2 video to see if there is any noticeable involvement from Poe beyond directing August on how to reach the restraints.
(At this point I’m going to exclude August from future rounds as I cannot find a way to take his abilities out of the equation. -M)
Spaghetti Experiment Round 2:
Subjects: Grim): earthie, grey coat with dark blue mane and tail; missing left eye, mane hangs down to cover socket
Luna: pegasus, ombre coat, pale blue on back to cobalt blue on lower legs, wings have same shading from top to tip, with silver mane and tail; heavily pregnant
Day 1:
Luna is restrained, Grim is free to move. Of note Luna is very pregnant so restraints were modified to hold her while she is her soon mummah bed.
Grim walks around Luna looking around the restraints. He nudges and pulls at them with his teeth.
“Gwim am sowwy, nu can get Wuna out,” he said after working the restraints for several minutes. “Wuna otay? Nu hurties?”
“Wuna otay, jus’ nu can move,” Luna replied and smiled, “Gwim nu nee’ to wowwy.”
“Otay,” he walked over to the bowl of spaghetti and nudged it over to Luna. “Hewe, Luna nee’ nummies mowe than Gwim.”
“Gwim nu wan’ skettis?” she asks with concern.
“Nu. Gwim nu hungwy wight now.” He said and moved to the front of the enclosure and began watching their surroundings.
(Days 2 & 3 went much the same way, regardless of if Grim is restrained or not he refuses the spaghetti and lets Luna eat all of it. Curious, I conducted an interview with him.)
Video starts with the camera focused on a dark haired man wearing a lab coat over a black shirt who is fiddling with the camera.
“Addendum to Round 2 of the experiment interview with subject Grim.” He announces and moves back toward a table. The grey fluffy is sitting on the table waiting patiently, off camera Luna can be heard singing to her tummy babies.
“Hello, Grim” the man says as he sits down.
“Hewwo Mistah Micah,” the fluffy says brightly in response.
“I’ve got some questions for you. Why did you give Luna the spaghetti every time we did the experiment?” the man asked.
The fluffy shrugged, “Wuma soon mummah, nee’ food mowe dan fwuffy,” he replied.
“You didn’t want to have any of the spaghetti at all?” the man pressed.
“Yus, Gwim wan’ sketti but wiww wait su odder fwuffies can hav’ nummies fiwst.” Grim replied matter of factly.
“But there isn’t a guarantee you will get spaghetti later.” Micah says.
“Gwim kno. Awso kno dat dah genewous an’ bwabe wibe bestes’. “ the fluffy replies. Video ends after this.
(I am still not sure what to think about interview with Grim. He shows better cognition that the average fluffy which is around 2 to 4 years old, definitely not a genius but much closer to a 5 to 7 year old. Also at the end it sounded like he was quoting something which is odd. Maybe something he had heard? I will have to follow up with Raven to find out what sort of media he is exposed to at home. -M)
Spaghetti Experiment Round 3
Subjects: Poe: earthie, dark grey coat with black mane and tale; white triangle of fur on chest; visible aura that looks like an oil slick with red glowing symbols rising and sinking within it
Ruby: unicorn, dark red coat with bright pink mane and tail, ivory colored horn
Day 1 :
Ruby is restrained, Poe is free to move around. Spaghetti placed in enclosure.
Poe walks around Ruby and tried to remove the restraints then nudges the bowl of spaghetti
over to her. He then begins to pace around the enclosure staring at the walls like he is looking
for something, As the seconds pass his aura begins roiling like a boiling pot of water, the sigils
rapidly rising and falling out of view. He stops suddenly and glares directly at the one way
mirror that hides the observation area.
Off camera you can hear the door to the room open and Micah comes into frame. “Poe, what
are you doing? “ he asks.
Poe stamps his foot and glares at Micah. “Poe nu wiww du dis nu mowe!“ he yells and floats
off the table to hang mid air in front of the man, his aura roiling at a fevered pitch.
“You bein’ meanie tu gud fwuffies and fwuffy wiww nu stan’ for it anymowe. Poe cuwse yu,
cuwse yu for a hundred bright times!” the fluffy yells.
A flash of sickly green light fills the room followed by oily black fog . When it slides away the
room looks the same with the exception of Micah’s hair which is now a vibrant purple. He
glares at Poe angrily and is on the verge of speaking when Ruby gasps.
“Mistah Micah youw head fwuff, is puwpwe now.” she cries out in shock.
He turns to look at himself in the mirror, “You have got to fucking be kidding me!” he
gestures angrily and stomps out of the room.
In the meantime, Poe had retreated to the table where he was now being chastised by Ruby
and looking quite dejected. The door opens again and an older woman walks in and releases Ruby who immediately marches over to Poe and gives him firm bop on the
nose and saying "Poe vewy, vewy bad fwuffy.”
Poe visibly wilts and looks like he wants to slide through the table into the floor. The woman
sets Ruby down on the floor, picks up Poe and walks over to the camera.
“And you young man are getting a good long stretch in the sorry box. . .”
Video ends cutting her off.
(Screw it, Raven wins the bet. I cannot work under these conditions. -M)
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The next day Micah stormed into Ravens office and slamed a hundred dollar bill on her desk.
She looked down at the money then back up at him.
“You won, email me with the name of the mead you want.” He ground out. “You can have all the results from this disaster too, I want no more part of it.” He tossed an accordion file down next to the money and started towards the door.
“Hey Micah,” she called out, causing him to pause at the door and turn to look back at her. “The purple suits you,” she finished with a wry grin.
“Oh fuck you.” he stalked back out the door.
“Well, someone’s a bit testy today,” she said and dumped the folder out sending a pile of notes and a thumb drive tumbling onto her desk.
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Spaghetti Experiment Commentary
My initial response when this experiment was suggested is that it was unlikely to work the way it was intended due to the number of fluffies involved and the nature of the fluffies we have at the center. The general idea is to test if a fluffy is likely to help a another fluffy is that is restrained or not. I think it would be an interesting study but you would need a much larger sample size and the initial full scale test would need to be done with fluffies with no unusual features or abilities.
Upon review of the notes on the limited results before the experiment was terminated shows that the fluffies we have here are not greedy and will gladly help others. This is something we already knew from observing the fluffies on a day to day basis. The much more interesting findings are what we learned about our fluffies’ abilities.
We were aware that most of the time August has good control of his tentacles and is able to use them for intricate maneuvers. Based on the video from this experiment it appears that there may be other factors in play that affect his dexterity, however it is not clear if this is purely physical, a side effect of his eldritch nature, an effect caused by Poe. It could also be something else entirely with him.
It has never been clear what Poe’s abilities are. We knew he had belonged to a prominent occultist who, based on what Poe has told us, was training him to be a familiar of sorts. Beyond that we know he can float, has an ominous aura and appears to have an eldritch nature. After this test it appears he can cast curses but he doesn’t appear to control what form the curse takes. Currently the working theory is that the effect of his curses are scaled to be appropriate for a fluffy, and any effect on humans (or other creatures, appears to be incidental, but again we have a limited sample size so this is merely conjecture. As of this writing, Micah’s hair is still purple despite his attempts to dye it, and based on the way the curse was phrased we are assuming is that this effect will last 100 days. Micah remains extremely touchy about the situation. I maintain purple hair is a good look for him.
Grim is an interesting case. When he was found he appeared to be dead, until he took a huge breath and cried out. From the limited amount of information he has given me he had, for lack of a better term, a near death experience and met someone or something before he was sent back to the living. It appears he has always been a bit smarter than the average fluffy but that experience changed him somehow. The line that Micah felt was a quotation is a line from one of the Eddas. It’s possible Grim heard it in a video I watched at home but I can’t think of anything I’ve watched recently that would contain that specific line. I’m hoping to find out more about his experiences as he heals and gets more comfortable with me.
H. S.
Edited because I’m not sure why but my ability to string words together into a coherent thought was severely lacking.
*Second much, much later edit, came back to reread this and see if I could muster some inspiration to do more writing. I ended up finding too many errors to let it slide. Story is the same I just cleaned a lot of shit up to make it more readable.