Well, it seems to be the time for Centauri tentacle metas, so I thought I’d throw my own thoughts out there.
- How strong are the tentacles? How dexterous?
- Not strong enough to easily overturn a glass of water
- Although that may have been affected by trying to keep movements discreet
- Able to manipulate a playing card and move it at will
- Related: do they have suckers of some sort? How did the playing cards stay attached? Are they sticky? Or is that something I really don’t want to think about? (I don’t. I don’t want to ever think about playing cards with Londo if he’s going to be touching them with a dick.)
- Are they nimble enough to, say, wrap around and pull objects towards oneself?
- Is that something you’d even want to consider doing with your tentacle penis?
- Would it be painful?
- Londo apparently had no qualms with having one out and doing stuff with it. (Until he got caught.) Is this a usual attitude? Like, if you were wandering around the Centauri court, would you just…see people with their tentacles hanging out? Would that be considered extremely vulgar as the equivalent is on Earth? Do Centauri ever use them to reach high shelves or stuff like that? Was Londo more comfortable with it because he was surrounded by aliens who were less likely to realize what he was doing? Was he just desperate to win at cards? Extremely desperate?
- To quote my original liveblog of that episode, “What the fuck, Londo.”
- Obviously the Centauri are fine with statues of their gods going around with tentacles everywhere, but that would be reminiscent of the reverence held for Ancient Greek and Roman statues, equally naked. (Although the ones with penises waving around are generally not displayed as prominently.)
- It’s hard to avoid going back to draw on 18th century social history for the Centauri.
- 18th C people were more than fine with naked statuary, in fact, collections and Grand Tours were a status symbol.
- This is very much a tangent, but what about Centauri Grand Tours? Going around colony worlds and stealing cultural artifacts? (They’re all bastards.)
- Anyway. Back to the original point. Tentacles. Are they very uncomfortable to have wrapped around your abdomen most of the time? Are they easily damaged? What happens if someone punches you in the tentacle? Are they sensitive to various fabrics?
- They are also very long. Do they break? If they get cut off, do they grow back?
Thanks, hi, I’m gonna creep on your blog and find all this because I’m just so glad someone else is thinking about any of this.
I’ll even add a read more because I’m aware that I never shut up and most of you find this weird as hell. You’re welcome, I’m here to help, etc.
I thought about the ‘wow, you just casually grabbed a card that has been touched by at least a dozen dirty drinking aliens with what I’d think would be a limb you wouldn’t want getting infected’ thing a shit ton. There looked like - I should probably stop with why I think they were able to grab a card. But he definitely had no hesitation about doing that, really. Or at least, none that we saw. I almost wish they were not a big deal. Like feel like those would be sort of useful as supplementary limbs - not strong enough to cart things around maybe, and not super dextrous apparently, but still kind of useful? Londo is able to steer one of those things under a table, avoiding knees and whatever structure is under the table while not looking at any of it, and get himself at just the right spot to reach over and grab a small thing. It’s a little shaky, but that’s a lot of control to have over something like that while also sitting and holding cards, taking a drink, pretending you aren’t up to some shit. One is sort of forced to conclude he could do that with all six at one time. It’s got to be just like an extension of our mental awareness of where we are in space, he just has six extra things to have that awareness with, but it’s kind of mindblowing to me. I’m trying to imagine the way it would feel to manipulate potentially 8 limbs at once, for any reason. I used to joke about wanting four hands so I could do two paintings at once, but I can’t even fathom the way my brain would need to be set up to do it when some people can’t rub their stomachs and pat their heads at the same time. There must be some amazing wiring in their brains.
That got a little out of hand, but going back to how casual he was, I actually really considered once that Centauri could have stopped using them for random tasks or as helper limbs when they came into contact with other races who thought it was kinda not cool to be super casual with your genital equivalents. Possibly they have always kept them tucked under 40 layers of upholstry, but it seems a weird thing to do something that has even the amount of control that Londo has.
I keep thinking of them like squid limbs, sort of equal parts functional thing and reproduction, and then you say, ‘if they get cut off do they grow back’ and I’ve just envisioned them as having literal starfish arms coming from their torsos.
