Mounting Board

INNOCENT has several structures where xrafstar are kept in long-term isolation.

The Spreading Board or Mounting Board, in keeping with the dry and neutral language of insect taxidermy. The penetrating object secretes a paralyzing agent that preserves them in a single position, although the antennae are somehow less affected, capable of whipping very fast at first, like a video with too many frames, and then slower, languidly, but ceaselessly. This is an excellent way of seeing at a glance if the prisoners are still alive. If vitals slow, look for the button corresponding to that plot on the Mounting Board—the penetrating object can be electrified to provide a jolt to the heart. And this should be done regularly regardless of their vitals, to ensure the equipment still works.

They might struggle with a sensation of vertigo; the feeling of always sliding down the penetrating object, although they are fixed in place. As the paralytic fully saturates their muscles, this type of struggle will cease, at least to the outward eye.

Direct pinning. Direct pinning is the insertion of an entomological pin directly through the thorax of a specimen. The insects are pinned vertically through the thorax with a suitably sized pin, but by convention they are not pinned on the midline, but to the right, so as to leave at least one side undamaged.

To maintain equilibrium, imagine you are looking out on a field of grass blown by a gentle wind.

Minuten pins. Insect pins without heads, 12mm long.

The chamber is flooded with stabilizing radiance that eliminates perspective and reference points. It requires minimal monitoring but recognition of drift. They provide the monitor with a cassette: Sounds of Summers Past. If you listen long enough to the surf, which is simulated with static, when he listened long enough, or they listened cumulatively, it had the effect not at all of summer but of a dark winter radio, your memory of that dark radio and the furnace failing. So you hold the case to the light to see the artwork of Summers Past, like reading a menu while eating.

If you were at other structures, there are other ways of doing things, and other cassettes to play.

An even better method of preserving [soft body prisoners] is to carry them home alive in separate plastic or glass containers, then submerge them for 1 to 2 minutes in boiling water. After this they can be immediately placed in the vials of alcohol. This process kills bacteria in the digestive tract and prevents discoloration. After a day or two, the liquid may become discolored. When this happens, transfer the specimens permanently to fresh alcohol solution. 🔗

The penetrating object may be placed anywhere within the 5-inch specified radius without killing the prisoner. Of course, wherever it is penetrated will be the case for an extremely long duration. Stomach acid can degrade the penetrating object so it is best to avoid an overly low placement. Long-term cardiac duress or impaired breathing may increase the need to jumpstart the vitals. Years of “sensation of incomplete respiration” or “permanent heart attack” may affect outcomes if the prisoner needs to be partially de-anesthetized and questioned at a later date. But in the worst case scenario, they can be placed into the Relaxing Chamber, and “rehydrated”.

Place the [prisoner] in shallow, open containers…and fit the lid tightly on the relaxing chamber. Amount of relaxing time needed varies with the size of the [prisoner] and how dry it is when first introduced. Retrieve and mount [prisoners] as soon as they are pliable enough to pin easily, but remember that they can be ruined if left in a relaxing jar too long. Relaxing the [redacted] of [prisoners] is essential to allow them to be properly spread. 🔗

“Rehydration” is a nonlinear process. Don’t be disheartened if recovery is slow. The “flow chart” always wins.

Gassing in a killing jar is typically only used on adult hard-bodied insects.

The Killing Jar uses a cascade filling system to tailor gas blends to size, age, and desired outcome (the most common blend ‘innox’ is 90% of all fills, achieving a satisfactory pain-behavior to time dilation effect for easy monitoring).

At the Y Structure, bisection is useful for full vitals control, with manual control of lungs, heart, etc via respirators and punishment pacemakers, and it would be interesting to see whether trisection, quadsection, etc to the nth degree, is possible. However, that was many years ago and of the recent work what can be said…

Here, I again offer data from my in-progress work on humane slaughter methods for black soldier fly larvae. I cut 200 individual larvae in half on body segments 9-12, where they could be expected to reach their open body cavity with their mouthparts, to replicate the effects of the blade in a commercial grinder. I observed their behaviors for either 90 seconds (n = 160) or 5 minutes (n = 40) after the cut. Out of the 26,400 seconds I spent watching those 200 larvae, only 1 larva – for about 45 seconds, 0.17% of my total observation time – attempted to eat its own body. 🔗