#basically the Watchers lore

[sophietheghost]

Oh dear canary

You shoud be dead, but a lover give you life

You should be dead, but your family begged you to kill them

You should be dead, but the word saved you

You should be dead, but you just run out of time

The word love you

But even then

We can't stop you from falling

Dear canary,

Our sweet songbird

We're so sorry

[cinnamonbeka]

so like,,,

1) if its canon canon the dead float around and watch shenanigans and

2) jimmy solidarity, our resident canary, dies first all the time

then surely hes spent a lot of time floating around and watching,, wonder if hes Watched enough to become one

[fluxedbuds]

The Watchers sound fun. Would love to have a base knowledge of that someday.

I can give you that!

Basically, they were introduced in an old-ish series called Evo, as mysterious semi-powerful figures that set up little puzzles to be solved and punished crimes with mild annoyances. They talked/typed weird and liked depicting themselves as angels, and also threw meteors at some cops once which was cool

On a meta level, they were explicitly intended to be a representation of the audience itself- literally the people watching! but with more direct influence than an audience, obvs. unless youtube used to have a Throw Meteors button

[yourqueenb]

Reading the new lore tablet really just confirmed my theory from chapter 2, but I think I have it a bit more fleshed out now. I think the creation of The Watcher was what split the realms in two. And if they ever become whole again, The Watcher will die or cease to exist. He even says that he’s pretty much existed since the realms came into being himself.

But the realms are constantly trying to get back to their natural state and have been since their initial separation. It might not have been noticeable at first, but as time went on, the “rifts” got bigger because the realms were moving closer and closer together. And this happens every time The Watcher resets them.

How does he reset them though? By using realm-walkers. I don’t think he can leave the space between the realms. So he needs someone who can travel freely to close the rifts. He probably gave all of the past realm-walkers the same little spiel he gave MC. And once they close all the rifts, the realms are pushed farther apart, The Watcher can live a few hundred years more, and the realm-walker dies — maybe because closing the rifts has some sort of negative effect on them or it just eats up too much of their light — which explains all of their mysterious disappearances.

The “Old gods” thought they were doing the people of Morella a favor by separating Light and Shadow since they considered magic to be inherently dangerous. But in doing so, they caused everyone to have to pay a terrible price every time they use their “pure” Light magic and most likely exacerbated, if not created, the strife that exists between Light and Shadow

[astrowarr]

(slaps the roof of my roomies zombie apocalypse au) there are so many political nuances in this bad boy

[pocket-watcher]

Day number ??? Of clearing out my room. Things I have discovered:

My gigantic DS game collection of which I will probably keep 5 games (Drawn to Life, Drawn to Life 2, Mario Kart DS, The Simpsons Game, and Brain Age… maybe Cooking Mama 2 but I’m not sold on it yet)

My 3rd grade recorder which I CAN STILL PLAY

Neon pink shoes (never worn, but are my size) from this one time a company messed up my order

A MHA shirt I wore so much it cracked to the point of no return

A red electric guitar my friend gave me and I completely forgot existed

And Christmas decorations…. It’s June?? Why are these not in the Christmas box in the attic?!

[pufthebirb]

so.

life series watcher bird symbolism.

the three players who the watchers hate are jimmy, grian and martyn right?

grian is a parrot. we may keep parrots as birds (the way the watchers took grian in and made him one of their own) but parrots will never be fully trained to exactly what theyre told when theyre told to do it (grian is always in some way or another going against the watchers, always getting them upset at him)

jimmy. the canary in the coal mine. the watchers hate him, he listened to the listeners instead of the watchers in evo, so now they will use him for eternity as a prophecy of death killing him first every single time. the way people didnt care about the canarys life the watchers dont care about jimmys

and martyn. the watchers favourite tool. they tried to use him to get rid of grian in last life. they used him in limited life at the last second to cause a bit more suffering in killing scott and impulse. i see martyin as a messanger pigeon. hes the watchers messanger to the real world. when they dont have direct influence theyll use him bcause, like pigeons dont have a survival insinct to this day because their entire species was domesticated at some point, martyn has never even once tried to revolt against the watchers, hes always listened to them like an obedient little bird.

[coatree]

The star of the show

Small flash warning ;P

The still frames <3

[sleepiestwizard]

helloooo desert duo pirate au with lots of worldbuilding, i hear? i would indeed love to know more

HELLO OMG. it is not done or posted yet (im probably gonna start posting once im over halfway cause i dont wanna make people wait too much in between updates) but basically!! it is like this:

boatem (except grian) are the crew of a ship called the flying jellie with scar as their captain! they go on many adventures and try to antagonise the newly crowned Red King (ren) and his Hand (martyn) (renchanting are not evil they are silly guys) and also a fearful crew of "pirates" called the Watchers, that rule the seas.

grian has grown up on the seas with the Watchers since his blood family was supposedly killed and the Watchers "found" him. as much as grian is concerned the Watchers are his actual family - even if he antagonises them sometimes - along with another avian boy he kinda adopted as a younger sibling when the Watchers "found" him named jimmy.

grian HATES pirates (the Watchers are NOT pirates thank you very much!) and especially the crew of the flying jellie and its irritatingly charming captain. until something happens to his brother jimmy and his only option is to go to scar for help.

shenanigans ensue

[the-somwthing]

canon scott: typically chill, thinks things through, has lots of allies and people tend to like him, he tends to survive till the end, in watcher lore the watchers kind of hate him because he didn’t go through with the boogeyman curse but yknow.

cringefail au scott: has lost all semblance of chill, everyone hates him, dies stupidly, watchers hate his guts simply because they think he’s annoying

I love this roleplay 😭

[hkpika07]

The reason for a lot of the fanon watcher lore is ATUS (and the universe shifts) (or was it as idk/idc) an honestly mid fic from 2019 with a shitty creator and the source of a lot of fanon watcher stuff like the masks and the tortured sad boi Grian stuff it pretty much just got really popular and a lot of people took some ideas and even now it's mark remains

kinda like the ace attorney burnt letters which from from my understanding just came from a popular narumitsu fic

Aw man that sucks ass. Yeah I remember ATUS when it got popular back when s6 was airing. The creator sucked. I heard a rumor that some of the hermits read the fic as well. Sucks that most of the fanon lore got taken from that. :/

It just sucks that something like that was reduced to grian torture porn basically. It's not even that interesting of fanon lore, it's just making Grian suffer and is very flat in concept. HC going the same bad route of not watching/interacting with the source material like the ace attorney fandom makes me really sad.

[princekirijo]

OK fuck it I've want to try one of these poll things and I've been struggling to decide so:

Context: I just beat Dark Souls 3 today (main game only - I've started the first DLC) I'm wondering what game I should play after I've beaten both DLCs. I know like 4 or so of my followers have played a souls game so if you haven't just pick vibes only or whatever I'm gonna play them both eventually. Only other souls game I've played is Elden Ring.

Pros of playing Bloodborne: I've heard it has amazing combat, it's one of the most highly rated of the Fromsoft games, I adore the aesthetic of the game.

Pros of playing Dark Souls 1: I just beat DS3 so playing this game would help me understand the lore, the level design is excellent, its a fun game too, ARTORIAS.

[meaningless-mayhem]

^prev yep, Hermitcraft(and Life Series, etc.) Twitter always appreciates funny Hermitcraft Tumblr posts. I think it's because a good portion of the communities overlap/are on both platforms lmao

Here's the link where I saw it:

We're just all crazy about our funny headcanons lol

Mumbo: Y'know, Grian, I've always wondered something — why are your eyes purple?

Grian, panicking: I have Alexandria’s Genesis.

[grunckle]

Watcher lore already

“A lonely, lost slugcat scrambles through the ravages of a warped world.

When the dirt beneath your feet cracks and crumbles, will you hold on to all you once knew...or dive into the unknown?”

I was conflicted when I first saw the modded content, particularly for the lore aspect. But it’s been confirmed not only James is helping with all the lore, (which apparently is taking on the more esoteric sides of Rain World) but the whole Videocult team is getting together!

Heres Cappin, one of the downpour devs, talking about writing the lore for The Watcher.

And Andrew talking about Videocult’s involvement.

But anyway I’ll talk about some things I noticed.

This area looks like some sort of Memory Crypt. You have the large ornate boxes that heavily resemble cabinet beasts.

And, in the sky you can see an Underhang-like structure.

Now as for the ripple effect around The Watcher, I have a few theories. There’s certainly echo-relation, (the golden flakes around them basically confirms that) but I don’t think The Watcher is an echo in a typical sense. Instead they peer into a higher reality, maybe the one echos reside in.

Inside the ripples are gold tendrils, or strings, heavily implying the void relation. Though I’m not sure what they are exactly.

But I think Watcher will experience a, “pulling back of the curtain” in some way. In the warped world, we see glimpses of the true nature of reality. Maybe it’s all just a fleeting ripple across the Void, some big revelation like that.

As for why it’s in a Memory Crypt, I already wrote an extensive post on the importance of memory, more specifically qualia, in Rain World so if you want to check that out here’s the link.

As a side note, if this is the underside of an Iterator, I doubt they’re still alive. We see no other iterators still standing above the clouds in a Steam page screenshot.

Anyway this is really exciting! One of the more disappointing aspects of Downpour for me was that they mostly retread on the same story events and themes without adding too much. So it’s a breath of fresh air to explore different, more esoteric aspects of Rain World lore. And having the whole Videocult team return to Rain World is incredibly exciting. I’ll be tentatively awaiting more news.

[str1wberry7thyme]

Martyn saying that the watchers hate love the most out of all emotions with zero pauses on this mornings lore stream is driving me crazy because it’s explains. Everything.

The way they made sure Grian was still miserable even after winning third life because they wouldn’t let him enjoy a win with his partner that he spent the whole season intrinsically attached to. How silly was he to forget, he still needed to kill Scar.

Scott ending last life with nothing but bad blood between his two closest allies that continued on across multiple seasons, and still hasn’t truly been fully resolved in wild life either.

Pearl winning Double life, the season about soulmates and what should be filled with love, completely by herself. And in the end when she realises she doesn’t truly hate or want revenge against Scott, only wanting him to understand her like he used to, it was too late. The watchers were never going to allow two winners. They wanted soulmates to rip each other apart in the end, almost like they wanted to make a point that you are better off alone in their world this way.

Martyn used his alliances to his advantage and immediately betrayed his mean gill that he did care for in his own way because he knew that’s what it took to win these games. Exactly how the watchers wanted.

Scar was so confused, so shocked when he realised the man without any friends had been “rewarded” for it in the end by being crowned the winner. But that’s not what he wanted for himself, he wanted to be nothing but a good person but every task he was given forced him into antagonising others and made sure there was no love left for him in the end. He can’t believe how this is possible.

..But then comes Joel and his stupid car. Joel and Gem and their stupid family. Joel and his stupid decision to hold his anger and forgive others instead. Joel and his stupid win that had even the ghosts of the dead full of joy for him. Joel and his stupid victory that actually felt like a victory for the first time in the series. Joel and the way he stupidly killed what was basically a walking symbol of the watchers with a laugh. I wouldn’t be surprised if the watchers hate to see him coming.

[tonythr]

The Watcher's telescope view is a social commentary and here's why

Ok so let's set some things right first. City of Tears is amazing.

(Yes, Pale Court is also an amazing mod)

I've played Hollow Knight many times, and City of Tears is probably the one location I never get tired of. The scenery, the lore, the room layout, the music, the atmosphere - it's all perfect. It's the culmination of Halllownest's beauty, the peak of the game's art style, and the narrative's most essential location. City of Tears is the heart of Hollow Knight.

This game is a story about a Kingdom and its death, a tragedy of a society that was built on dreams of light but ultimately was consumed by the light so much that darkness became its only hope. And City of Tears stands at the center of this story. So it's fitting that the themes of corrupted dreams, society flaws, and dark hopes are what shape the lore and atmosphere of this beautiful, gorgeous location.

Did you ever notice that the tears of this Kingdom are dark despite them originating in a glowing blue lake, and the waters that flood the streets are almost as dark as the void in the Abyss? Do you ever think about how the vibrant blue color of the City is basically a culmination of how the color blue is presented in other locations (Howling Cliffs, Forgotten Crossroads, and later Royal Waterways being more of a remix of it), and how it's tied to the very essence of Hallownest (and how Resting Grounds, the location that contains Blue Lake and also uses a bright blue color, represent the very foundation of Hallownest's history, that being Seer's story about the Moth Tribe's betrayal that started the war between Pale King and the Radiance)? Do you feel like Soul Master basically represents the thunder and the lightning in this never-ending rain? Do you get it????

Anyway yeah, there are many things that can be said about City of Tears, and this is hopefully not the last time I make a post about it. What I want to talk about here is the City's society.

Basically, Monomon said it better than anyone could:

It's a very complicated topic. The narrative basically explores the inner mechanisms of a free mind, how its primary need is finding a purpose, and how its purpose turns out to be a constant need of... something. Anything. As long as there is something to want, a free mind will want it. As long as there is something to yearn for, something to enjoy, something to dream about, our minds are going to move in its direction, never wanting to stop. Because a stasis is worse than death. Because a world without dreams is an empty world.

But then again, isn't constant yearning another instance of, well, constance? If dreams never end but also never evolve, doesn't that create another kind of stasis?

Like I said, it's very complicated. Let's go back to what I was getting at in the first place. What I actually wanted to say is this:

Theese guys fucking fucked up as a society.

It's classic dystopian shit (or maybe I'm using the wrong word, but you get the point). Rich people are living in luxury while the rest are suffering. They're making gold a fucking religion and are seeing it as the only beauty in the world. The corrupt upper class are using heavy gatekeeping on the lower class.

Literally.

What's interesting is that, at first, we barely see any lower class bugs in the City. There's suspiciously few regular husks in this location, compared to how many rich guys are on the eastern side. But then we get to Soul Sanctum and it all starts to make sense.

There are no red cloaks in those corpse piles. Only the poor were killed for those experiments. It can't be a coincidence. It's straight-up elitism-based genocide (again, I don't know if I'm using the right terms, correct me if there's a better way to say that, but the point is clear).

Also, see how many streets are flooded on the western side in comparison to the eastern side.

Point is, the bugs that ruined the kingdom by always wanting more (what Monomon wrote about) are most likely theese rich ones. It's a very fitting thing for this dystopian narrative: neverending greed that leads to the downfall of a civilization.

There's a note in the Hunter's Journal that describes it in the best way possible:

For every location in the game, there is a place that functions as the center of its essence, its narrative heart, the culmination of its themes. For Queen's Gardens it's the White Lady's cocoon, for Greenpath it's the Lake of Unn, and for City of Tears (or at least its eastern part, the one with the upper class) it's the Watcher's Spire. The tallest building of the great capital. The home of (evidently) the most rich and influential bug of the City's high society. Literally the top of this social hierarchy.

He is also arguably the most mysterious dreamer out of all three. I mean, why does he have only one eye? What type of bug is he? How did he get this much power? Does he really have some kind of connection with the Collector? Is he a motherfucking fluke? Why does he seem to have an obsession with serving the King?

That last question is kinda answered by the cut content though.

That last sentence is kinda confusing. Is it regret? Is it humility? Is it pride in his sacrifice? In any case, here we see that Lurien actually knew that the Pale King was literally a god, and desired to worship him, like any other bug yearns to worship some kind of deity. So while other bugs of Hallownest worshiped PK because he was a monarch, albeit a godlike one (for all they knew he could be just an extraordinary bug, but a bug nonetheless), Lurien worshiped him as an actual god. And the intricacies of worshiping a god are one of the central themes of the game. From the moth tribe's betrayal of Radiance leading to the birth of the Infection to the Godseeker's shenanigans leading to the birth of the Shade Lord - the game makes multiple statements about gods, religious devotion and the semantics of divine power. Just that one idea that a god takes its power from the ones that worship it deserves its own post - heck, it deserves its own book.

So yeah, Lurien's devotion to the King is an important part of the story. He sure is an important character in this narrative. He also got a cool house. Being able to observe the entirety of the Hallownest's capital is badass.

But there's one thing I find odd about all that, and it's the moment we get to actually look through his legendary telescope.

Is it just me, or does this feel kinda... Underwhelming? Almost disappointing? I mean, don't get me wrong, I love this view, it's beautiful, and I would certainly love to be able to see something like this with my own eyes irl, but, looking at this picture, I can't help but wonder...

Did he actually see anything from up there?

In cut dialogue, Lurien talks about how he loves the City's streets, and his hidden lore tablet contains words about his love for bugkind, but... I see neither any streets on this image, nor any bugs (that are not vengeflies). Only spiked rooftops and rainy fog, clouding the view of the actual City.

And sure, the Spire has many windows and even had multiple watchers who were helping Lurien with overseeing the capital...

But his own spot was always this one.

His telescope was sealed in one place, letting him see only a small portion of the City and its life. Almost like his own worldview was stuck in one perspective.

Notice the wording here. It's not "The Seals must remain". It's "Bonds must remain". He's not thinking just about the Seals containing the Infection. He's thinking about the whole Kingdom needing to stay unchanged. His dream is the stasis that the Knight (and also Monomon, Hornet and, in a sense, even Radiance) want to end. The stasis that the Pale King wanted to create in order for his Kingdom (and therefore himself) to be eternal. The stasis that would allow for both Pale King and Lurien's worship of him to remain forever.

But there is always a cost to ascending higher than others, and it's that you can no longer see what's going on below or who's suffering down there. I think Lurien, sitting atop the tallest tower, was actually detached from the struggles of regular bugs. He and his Spire are the culmination of the City's upper class' ignorance towards the ones who were below them on the social hierarchy. A dreamer who dreamt of watching over the very heart of the holy civilization lived so high up he could no longer see his beloved world in its complicated, detailed entirety – and the tears of the stasis created by those like him only blinded him more.

All those flooded streets, those broken buildings, those empty halls, those starving bugs, those sealed doors - even though he watched over them, he couldn't see them.

I'm pretty sure Lurien didn't even know about the Soul Master's experiments, despite the fact that the Soul Sanctum was located right next to his Spire.

Or maybe he knew but chose to turn a blind eye to it (pun intended).

But it's kind of poetic, isn't it? It's the beauty of the tragedy of this game's characters. A Beast who had to surrender everything to the opposing civilization. A Teacher who could no longer teach. A Watcher who couldn't see the truth.

And all that makes me wonder... How much suffering could the Pale King see, standing on that platform at the top of the Abyss, facing away from the pit where his children died?

TL;DR: Lurien's point of view was too high up to actually see what was truly going on down there, both literally and metaphorically. His desire to worship the Pale King made him ignorant of the struggles of regular bugs. Similarly, the extreme elitism of the high society of Hallownest lead to ignorance, discrimination and greed, which ultimately caused the sprawl of the Infection. This side of Lurien's story might also parallel the Pale King's with his ignorance towards the discarded vessels.

TL;DR²: Eat the rich