#[[ask to tag?]]

[flickering-nightfall]

Playing with some ideas mostly regarding gender/reproduction in RW, and slugcat colonies.

Full transcript under the cut!

Creatures in Rain World are typically simultaneous hermaphrodites but require partners to reproduce, with either individual capable of being a genetic donor or carrier. Alongside what we are familiar with, this has lead to interesting reproductive strategies such as rotating donor/carrier roles, or dual/simultaneous genetic swaps.

Rotating donor/carrier roles - A K-selection reproductive strategy. One partner carries the first child, the other partner carries the next child, and so forth. Allows each partner to recover from the demands of childbearing.

Rain Deer aren't quite monogamous, but they tend to choose the same breeding partner whenever mating season rolls around. They serve as a donor one season, then bear and raise a child the next. Calves are raised away from the rain and worm grass, in places that have less food but more safety. Calf wool is softer, not yet gunked up by the dirty rainfall. Their legs are sturdier as children, allowing them to run for cover while the parent wards off threats.

Dual/simultaneous genetic swap - An r-selection reproductive strategy. Parents fulfill the donor and carrier role for each other. The more children you make, the more likely some are to survive!

Multiple batflies lay thousands of eggs in a single "blue fruit." Several eggs congeal and become nutrient paste for the surviving eggs (and for hungry slugcats). Like some plant seeds, batfly eggs that are consumed before pupating can survive passing through the digestive system. Ew.

Ancients also fell under this umbrella. Their genders (and the genders of iterators by extension, who have no sex anyways) could have been determined by a variety of other factors, such as societal role, donor/carrier preference, or simply different categorizations of personal expression.

It's difficult to say how well their common pronouns would translate to ours, but it seems they can translate to an extent, given what Moon and Pebbles use canonically.

Slugcats, like real slugs, can have children with a partner or self-fertilize. Unlike real slugs, they are often known to adopt.

In the case of self-fertilization: children who are born from one parent may display a large amount of genetic diversity despite the circumstances. Maybe slugcats have some sort of... genetic reservoir independent of their own genetic code?

Slugcats live 20-30 years on average... if they manage to reach adulthood. Their mortality rate is sadly rather high, especially in pups. If they were to develop as a civilization, it's likely their lifespan would increase dramatically.

Slugcats in a colony are more likely to have more children, and to successfully rear those children to adulthood, than those who wander alone or in small groups. The safety and stability of a colony cannot be understated.

Colonies either have a set, cycling migration path, or wander continuously. Survivor and Monk's tree home was a nesting site that their colony frequents about once a year. So it's likely that they'll see their family again!

...also, the strength of large colonies are why scavengers are likely to become the dominant species. In the time of Saint's era, continuous migration has become more of a risk, and it has become more difficult to support large populations. Slugcat populations have shrunk back to the more forgiving equatorial zones.

Saint's tongue is pretty unusual and probably unique to them, or to a small population that they hail from. Fur (of varying thickness) is much more common.

Meanwhile, scavengers are bulkier and covered in thicker insulating fur. They:

have seemingly massive populations

have a burgeoning society (the existence of merchants, tolls, bartering, elites and leaders)

are adept at communicating (non-verbally)

manipulate their environment

can build structures (scavenger-made structures were a scrapped idea from Saint's campaign)

can create complex weapons and tools

may have agriculture behind the scenes (unsure if scout parties prioritize exploration or hunting)

I would wager on scavengers developing more quickly than slugcats, but it would be nice if there was a future where both could co-exist.

[catboymoments]

Some hotel purgatorium/hellaverse redesign/rewrite info yahoo !! I really don’t know if I’m gonna be doing anything with the imp guys but I just wanted to try my hand at reworking them .

Also it bothers the shit out of me that viv didn’t do enough research on biblical lore so I guess being raised Catholic has its advantages sometimes /lhj

[waifujuju]

Dependency Inspired by this piece!

[kelocitta]

What if we were both girlthings and slugthings

[insinirate]

🐅🐍 cheap meat

[logicpng]

venty lil thing. i figured i may as well upload the small stuff as well

[Image Description in ALT]

[faygelehh]

CRINGETOBER 2023

DAY 2: SELF-INSERT

Ft. Bluey & Bingo! (or… Bingir? Bingo/Gir?)

[jorgyjuice]

i'm back with whatever this is

[ID: digital art of sotheby, regulus, and x from reverse 1999. sotheby sits nervously in front of a computer while regulus and x stand over her. x instructs her, "ok, ok. now type, 'kill yourself, loser'" while regulus nods. /end ID]

[kantocamping]

xatu anon. it ended up being an infertile egg. i didnt get to candle it to confirm but she watched my seviper eat it without moving a feather so i'm pretty sure

I will be honest with you. This does not paint you as a very responsible pokemon owner.

[corruptimles]

it’s just a hot food joke

original Pop Team Epic version under cut

which has an absurd degree of context that I’m not going to get into right now

[avoidcrowdraws]

Chilaios Kinktober day 6 - biting

Chomp

[c-kiddo]

caleb has ocd to meeee , and yes , some of these behaviours are created from paranoia about very real dangers, but i think despite that all, he always feels safer when he creates rituals. clothes folded the same way Or Else, odd numbers or Else, distressed that frumpkin's whiskers are uneven (some fell out) and feels antsy until he re-summons frumpkin. he pats the doorframe or else he'll be found, lay down the silver thread, talk to each of tmn before bed, clench and unclench his jaw, cover himself in dirt so then he's dirty all over and not unevenly, pick the skin off his fingers, check the lock check the lock check the lock . etc etc

[catboymoments]

The first emergence of Bronwyn’s dormant curse.

“It was supposed to be just… a quick performance for my Bard class… I’d played in front of people before, so I didn’t think anything would go wrong…”

[softenedsunbeams]

[ascene]

trohman: This fried bumble bee now lives inside my stomach, with it's entire hive. Tasted like corn nuts.

[sunrisetune]

Lukewarm to mid-temperature take about Dragon Age II meta that I found in my drafts from a hundred years ago, but I was still right -

I think Justice was corrupted when he and Anders joined, but it wasn’t anything Anders did that corrupts Justice, eventually; it’s what was done to him, what he lived through. Like, spirits corrupt when they’re acting against their nature, or can’t fulfill their purpose. Two thirds of Anders' life, up until the Wardens, had been an extended injustice. Justice could not handle that shit intact, but when they did the ritual, there wasn’t a choice. So he changed, and lashed out uncontrollably. It’s only by Anders’ will (very literally) and their common ground that Anders doesn’t become a body-horror-activated abomination right there.

This also tracks with how Justice changes in DA2 depending on Hawke’s and Anders' relationship in the friendship / rivalry routes. If you encourage Anders’ views and help him with his cause, reinforce that being kidnapped and brought up in a Circle wasn’t right and he does have the ability to do better, him and Justice work together. You can hear Justice’s tone of phrase come through, and him referencing his memories sometimes, when Anders is talking. But if you rival Anders, tell him the Chantry and templars were right to imprison him, that mages are incurably dangerous, that everything he lived through is (if you’ll forgive the pun) justified-- Justice gets worse. Instead of working with Anders until they share a purpose, he overwrites Anders’ mind & will with his own. The acceptance of injustice makes Vengeance the only possibility. (Stealing a line from one of the only good Frankenstein movies,, if he can’t satisfy one he’ll indulge the other.)

+ Worth Noting, Three: The way that Justice and Anders mix together. I really think that part of Justice’s corruption arc is the others genuinely not recognizing how much of him is there. Like, the whole ‘Justice is righteous. Justice is hard’ line. Justice was very black-and-white with his thinking. Justice also didn’t know what cats were, and he worried about Sir Pounce-A-Lots freedom of person. Justice liked feeling the wind on his face. Justice made a joke about the darkspawn ‘catching Kristoff’ when someone mentioned he'd went to go to catch them. If Justice hadn’t been inhabiting a corpse the first time he realized he’d caused someone grief, he would’ve cried, he wanted so badly to help.

Absolutely, revenge and (yk) judgment were significant parts of him. Justice was also kind. He had humour, and complicated ethical questions he was grappling with.

I think that so much of that got folded into Anders, the only thing that Hawke and the others recognize as different, fully ‘Justice’, was his rage. And that's a huge part of the tragedy of it. But Anders was right, he was there the whole time.