Covers everyone who currently resides in the Library.
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Professor Lexicovermus
"There are secrets at the heart of every story; there is something that must be uncovered or discovered, both by the reader and by the characters." — Hannah Kent
The professor in a saner state of mind.
Read!!!
- Professor Lexicovermus: For no charge at all, I'll letcha nice morsels pick out ONE fiiine item from your ever-growin' shelf here at our faaantabulous intrazonal omnipotentual library! Whatever ya pick out, I can pass on to anybody else ya like! Even this savory green protagonator ya seem to enjoy pushin' around lately! Plenty-a things she don't know yet in all them tasty files n' journals n' whatnot! You pick it out, she gets to read it! Better choose reeeeal careful-like! Next time might be life n' death, ya never do know!
In addition to their ability to guide and direct Fern's actions, the Commentators have access to a most uncanny library
full of special supplemental reading material. Personnel files, blogs... even prose stories, all relating to other characters Fern has met. Fern isn't able to access any part this library, herself, (apart from material she, herself, has collected in-story.) Nor are her well-meaning Commentators able to share any of this library's information to her through commentary.
All that changed in the middle of hunting for the anomaly within the Inert Vessel. Fern and her team stumbled upon a strange book, containing this bibliophilic fellow from The Library. He addresses the Commentators directly and cuts a most unusual deal with them: if they promise to read more books from their own local libraries, he'll allow Fern access to a single item from the Commentators' library. But they have to choose which one.
- A Form You Are Comfortable With: The Running Narrator says that his One-Winged Angel form is closer to a true representation of him than the usual one we see.
- Almighty Idiot: His One-Winged Angel form lacks the capacity to think clearly.
- And I Must Scream: We can only hope that book the Professor's popping out from is purely a work of fiction. Because if not, that means Professor Lexicovermus transformed a random human being into a series of books and is in the process of eating this poor person. And the transformed victim in question is still fully conscious and aware while it's happening.
- Benevolent Monsters: Although Professor Lexicovermus was a bookworm first introduced in the Inert Vessel arc, he's not affiliated with any of THOSE worms.
- Bookworm: But of course.
- Brainwashed: The Parliament has been working on him, to the point that he is almost subservient to their agents.
- Clairvoyance: When the Commentators decided to share Mizer's Evaluation with Fern, Professor Lexicovermus sent it to her in the form of a clairvoyant vision.
- Fisher King: He is basically the Library's core, meaning that his condition and the Library's are linked. When Willis fixes some of the damage to the Library, it briefly restores some of his sanity, and likewise, his own death would destroy the Library.
- Flanderization: The second time Fern encounters the Professor, he won't even acknowledge her at all, and just acts far less... professorial than before, presumably due to Sanity Slippage.Fern: ...Do you even hear me talking? At all?Professor Lexicovermus: DOOOOODLY-DEEDLY-DOO! DEEEEEDLEDEEDLEDEEEEE!!! DIDDLY DONGDANG DUNGAROO!!!!
- From a Certain Point of View: Not all the Library's offerings come in written format.All at once, your mind floods with a meeting between the little doctor Phage and that grotesque, needle-headed Doctor Mizer. You're not exactly sure how this constitutes "reading" a "book" from "the library" but you no longer really question these things.
- From Beyond the Fourth Wall: Data which was meant for the Commentators' eyes only will be disclosed to Fern, thanks to this guy.
- Godzilla Threshold: If the Library is on the brink of destruction, he will fall into a state called the XK-Scenario Zonal Defense protocol, intended to defend against the nastiest of cognitohazards.
- Magical Library: There can be no doubt that the Professor's home zone is every inch as paranormal as The Hospital or Burgrr, Inc.
- Meaningful Name: 'Lexicovermus' is basically Latin for 'bookworm.'
- Moment of Lucidity: The Parliament's insanity inducing sabotage comes to the very brink of killing him, and the Library with him. But when Isaac comes to him begging for help, Isaac manages to nudge some last backup failsafe in his mind, causing him to drop his normal eccentricities, notice that something is very wrong, and get busy diagnosing the Library, giving the Commentators important info just before giving out.
- One-Winged Angel: After the Library crosses the Godzilla Threshold, the Professor is automatically set to XK-Scenario Zonal Defense protocol in order to deal with the Parliament and a tantrum throwing Willis, causing him to grow to gargantuan size.
- "Reading Is Cool" Aesop: The Professor's bargain with the Commentators. Most of them were agreeable to it.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: His eyes aren't supposed to be red, it's a symptom of his Parliament-inflicted madness.
- Sanity Slippage: Like Dr. Phage, the Parliament has been undermining his mental health. By the time they are finished with him, he is repeatedly trying to teach an absent audience the letter 'A', with the entire Library Zone about to collapse into nothing with the last traces of his sanity.
- Sizeshifter: He can be anywhere between the size of your head to gargantuan enough for a human to stand on his head. If he goes One-Winged Angel, he becomes Kaiju sized.
- They Look Like Us Now: The book that the Professor's eating seems to recall◊ having a professor with a voice like Lexicovermus', back when it was a human being...
Silverfish
- Meaningful Name: One of the silverfish's names is Alvin-Braxton-Calvin. Its initials are A-B-C, and it resides in The Library.
- Pun-Based Creature: They are literal silverfish — silver-colored fish with bug legs and antennae.
Running Narrator
Professor Lexicovermus's apparent daughter, who narrates the Willis & Isaac And The Boring Library Where Nothing Happens story arc.
- Abstract Eater: Eats language and was allowed to wipe violet-phase warblespeak out of existence as an appetizer.
- Bad Liar: She assures the Commentators that the Professor crossing the Godzilla Threshold doesn't pose any threat to her at all, and she's only helping out the Commentators because she would be sad to see them go. She admits that she only just learned this, because for completely unrelated reasons, she didn't exist before the last time the Godzilla Threshold was crossed.
- Brain Food: She describes our neurons as "juicy pudding".
- Character Narrator: It becomes clear that she is a character in her own right after she tells the audience that she hopes to figure out a way to break out and eat some of them.
- Great Way to Go: She wouldn't survive the Library's destruction, but her last moments would be a feast due to the rot.
- Medium Awareness: She knows that she is narrating a story with Audience Participation.
- Two of Your Earth Minutes: Starts using the concept of "time" as we understand it. She can even pronounce it without garbling it, whereas even fellow humans pronounce it as "t%me" rather than "time" after leaving Earth long enough.
- What the Hell, Player?: Sarcastically emphasizes the fact that the audience influenced Willis into boldly and openly addressing a potentially dangerous stranger without Willis even being aware that this was ever anything other than his own decision.
