#headcanon assimilated

[the-awful-falafel]

The Peppino dominance hierarchy

[reverseisekai-richie]

A conversation in Drowsy Town

[slugcatmusings]

What is the Rot? Why is the Rot?

Spoiler Warning and Holy Wall of Text Batman Warning. I got WAY too into questioning the turbo-cancer here, hopefully my rambling makes sense.

So, the Rot is… weird, from a biological standpoint. Really weird, if you stop to think about it. It’s most frequently described as some variation of cancer, and it certainly fits the criteria for it. Caused by damage to DNA? Check. Multiplies uncontrollably? Check. Comes in both benign and malignant forms, one stationary and the other mobile? Big fat check. Heck, even the Rot cysts eating other creatures kind of fits, according to some research I’ve done – there are apparently cancer cells that will eat other cells, which makes sense in hindsight since cancer cells are cells that have lost important genetic restrictions, which may include whatever lets cells identify other cells as “do not eat.”

(I ain’t a biology whiz and I’m doing research on the fly while getting my thoughts out here, so take whatever I say about biology with a grain of salt)

So, Rot is clearly cancer of some kind, right? Case closed. Except when me and a friend of mine were talking Rain World theories on Discord, she brought up some interesting points that got me thinking.

First point: Rot cells obviously mutate in a way that affects FAR more than just cell replication and termination. Some of the cysts can HEAR. As far as I know, cells in the body do not hear sounds. They communicate via chemical signals and maybe, MAYBE react to temperature. Hearing involves complicated, specialized sensory apparatus to pick up on vibrations in the air. Even if you simplify it and say that it’s only vibrations, that’s STILL a multicellular thing, not a single-cell thing. It’s something that took millions of years to evolve on Earth, if not billions.

And while Rain World’s timeline goes on for long enough that it those kinds of mutations might happen eventually, Rot cysts have the ability to hear pretty much right from the start – because even the Proto-Long-Legs react to your presence like the Daddy Long Legs do, and the Rot in Spearmaster’s campaign, where Pebbles has recently contracted it, reacts the same way as it does in later campaigns. It’s already able to hear.

As far as I know, cancer just means the same cell duplicating over and over again. Are more mutations possible with each division, as errors are made in the DNA during splitting? Probably. But not to THAT extent. There’s no way a lump of cancer somehow mutated the exact complicated genetic blueprint needed to grow organs, at least not without outside interference.

Second point: Cases of Rot are way too consistent across the board. Now, we don’t have a huge sample size to work from, but from what we see from both Pebbles’ Rot, and Hunter Long Legs, they’re… pretty similar. Hunter Long Legs is basically a mobile Rot cyst. They move the same way, seem to grow the same way (starts as a growth inside/on the body before eventually freeing itself from whatever wall/flesh it grew from in some capacity and moving elsewhere), they have the same senses, and they even eat the same way, via something like phagocytosis (how white blood cells “eat” invading organisms via engulfing them and breaking them down in a sac in their main “body.”)

Now, this doesn’t tell us much, because cancer, when it does emerge, is pretty consistent in symptoms/what the mutated cells do once they start replicating. It’s pretty much the same regardless of whatever organism the cancer is happening in. But what ISN’T consistent is what causes the DNA error in the cancer cell in the first place. IRL, cancer can be caused by all kinds of things – smoking, radiation poisoning, being out in the sun too long, drinking deadly chemicals and whatnot, anything that damages DNA. But in RW, the only time we ever hear Rot talked about, or see it present, is in the context of an iterator having f*cked up while mucking around with DNA. Pebbles was trying to create an organism that could change his own genome, and No Significant Harassment created Hunter as a messenger and probably mucked something up in the process in his haste to get them to Moon.

This doesn’t mean that there aren’t other causes of it, of course, we’re working with a sample size of two in an apocalyptic world with who knows how much potentially DNA-damaging stuff around, but… that’s still awfully consistent.

So, combining these points and everything we know to be canon, Rot is:

an organism that lives inside another organism

Until a certain condition is met, it cannot harm said host organism.

Once said condition is met, it goes out of control, wreaking havoc on the organism’s systems and mutating, giving it sensory capabilities and an appetite

Said condition is apparently someone messing up when re-arranging genomes, in yourself or others

It is widespread across multiple different species, at least iterators and slugcats but potentially other species as well.

Once you have a bad case of it, it is apparently NOT CURABLE. Pebbles tried everything he could think of but apparently exhausted all of his options by the time of the Survivor/Monk campaigns.

So, with all the context FINALLY laid out, here’s my wild theory: Rot isn’t a cancer. It’s a symbiote turned parasite. Specifically, I believe it’s a symbiotic microbe that lives inside the cells that make up every other creature in Rain World, and is held in check by a specific gene that all species share, and altering or getting rid of that gene causes it to go berserk, taking over and eventually mutating the host cells.

Yeah, I did watch Parasite Eve let’s plays as a kid, why do you ask? Anyway, hear me out here.

There is precedence for single-celled organisms living inside of other single-celled organisms. They’re referred to as intracellular endosymbiots (hopefully I got the spelling right there), and the most well-known one is probably the mitochondria. The powerhouse of the cell is thought to be descended from some bacteria way, WAY back that was engulfed by a larger cell and not only survived it, but BENEFITED from it. Since then those ancient proto-mitochondria and eukaryotic cells have mutually evolved to be dependent on each other. So it’s entirely possible for something similar to have happened in Rain World.

However, I don’t think it happened NATURALLY, here. Because something that’s able to take over a cell entirely and begin wildly mutating it is NOT something your average cell wants inside of it. There’s a VERY high chance of extinction if you do that. Which means that of course those funky bio-tech loving Ancients either took a look at a wildly dangerous cellular parasite and went “hmmm we can use this” or made one themselves.

Why did they do this? Who knows! Currently, I’m tied between “they needed a better powerhouse for the cell to power the various weird adaptations they’re building into various creatures,” “there was some sort of disease that this parasite gave immunity against and they wanted to make use of it,” and “it gave their creations massively powerful regeneration factors that made them much easier to maintain.” Possibly it was all three. Whatever the reason, the Ancients either found or created this parasite, and put it into their creations’ cells, hoping to reap the benefits.

Well, they got the benefits, but they also got a microbe that hijacked the cells and harnessed their pre-existing DNA blueprints to build organisms disguised as great big blobs of cancer. Which is not exactly ideal, but hey, they just had to figure out a way of keeping the cell hijacking from happening! And the way they ended up going about it was to alter the thing so that so long as there was a specific DNA sequence in the cell, it laid mostly dormant. All the benefits, none of the risks – so long as that specific string of genes remained intact.

And then BECAUSE it was so beneficial, they spread their artificial symbiote and it’s genetic reins throughout ALL of their creations, from the smallest pipe-cleaning slugs to the iterators. Which meant that as their purposed organisms replaced most of the original ecosystem, they spread the symbiote as well. Thus making it possible for pretty much ANY creature on the planet to come down with a bad case of the Rot. And with the iterators, I wouldn’t be surprised if this symbiote is tied to their self-destruction taboos. Try to cross yourself out? Well, it’s gonna maybe happen now, but it’ll be a slow painful death as you’re eaten alive from the inside and all your own parts turn against you, so was it really worth it?

And they never told their creations this perhaps even actively hid it, because why tell them the cause of the main deterrent to them mucking with their taboos? They might find a way around it. The iterators were left ignorant of how Rot works, and because of this they never figured out that Rot HAD a cure after all: rebuilding that genome that reins in the symbiote. Because why in the name of the Void would they repeat the same mistakes that gave them Rot in the first place, and potentially make it worse?

[lavampira]

maybe d’alia’s clan all had turali names. maybe d’alia and her parent only took on eorzean seeker names/titles when they settled in the mor dhona camp, which is why d’alia has his name now, even though he’s a tia and not a nunh.

[panstovoid]

Ok so in the Nimona comic Ballister’s last name is Blackheart not Boldheart. I found it interesting how they decided to change his last name.

My explanation in universe is that Ballister’s last name is actually Blackheart. But when the queen chose this scrawny commoner to become a knight had the last name of Blackheart she had him change it to Boldheart. It wasn’t out of malice, it’s just Ballister was already going to face lots of issues with society for being the first commoner knight in long line of knights with a noble lineage. Having the last name of Blackheart, which is essentially saying “evil heart”, would just cause him to receive more hate from the people around him since he is already outside what is deemed to be normal. Changing his last name to Boldheart would save him from the additional hardships. When it was posed to Ballister that he should change his name he did it because he wanted so badly to be a knight that everyone saw as worthy regardless of his upbringing and also as an orphan he had no strong ties to the Blackheart name.

[mecha-shadow]

Jet invited him unironically on a date to eat sunflower seeds and Sonic thinks it's their in joke and keeps sending it back to him like a meme.... and Jet the Hawk is the saddest loneliest bird and Sonic is a clueless arsehole

HELP

[candlecoveisland]

Episode 3: Love and Hate

Oh shit.

OH, SHIT--

NEW MIIS

As promised, I added Calvery, Dr. Heartfelt, Ms. Laughingstock, Sunny, Hoody Hans, and ManBearPig.

ROMANCE

We have our first crack ship of the game!

Of course, I helped this poor lovestruck fool and gave him advice on how to woo Sunny using his best assets.

The man can hit those high notes.

Admittedly, I'm not sure how this will work out long-term seeing that they have opposite personalities (Skin-Taker is outgoing and Sunny is independent) and there are (unverified) claims in the TL community that opposite personalities don't make good couples, but I don't know. You can really never know what'll happen in this game. In any case, they currently seem very happy together.

FRIENDSHIP

Percy wanted to "introduce" Poppy and Milo, but for some reason, they were deeply confused by each other, so they didn't become friends that time.

Milo met up with Poppy again later, so they did eventually end up making friends.

Janice and Calvery are best friends?? I have no idea when this happened.

Percy and Skin-Taker had a MASSIVE fight. What it was about, I have no idea.

Thankfully, Janice intervened, and they made up.

Poppy told me that he and Percy don't seem to be getting along that well. I told him that his and Percy's friendship was nothing special, and (surprisingly to me) he said that he wondered if there was a way for them to become closer, so I have hope for them.

Skin-Taker tried to make friends with Milo, but they didn't really hit it off. He asked me later if I thought he and Milo would make good friends, and I told him that their relationship wouldn't be anything special. (I did this for Milo's safety.)

I predict ManBearPig and Hans will become best friends. They've been each other's only friends for quite a while (two people tried to make friends with MBP and failed, and nobody has even bothered trying to make friends with Hans), and I always see them hanging out together.

They're my broTP.

EVERYTHING ELSE

Basically everything is open now that I've accomplished most milestones in this game (add 10 Miis, solve a decent amount of problems, have a decent mix of males and females, have someone confess their love).

Also, more rankings on the rankings board have been unlocked.

Orange is the popularity ranking (which is based on how many friends a Mii has), and green is the pampered ranking (which is based on how much attention I give a Mii). (Percy, Skin-Taker, and Horace are at the top because they're the ones always asking me to buy them shit--)

Oh! And another thing that has been unlocked is Quirky Questions!

What is it with people asking me for grits?? Janice asked me for grits too last episode. Is CandleCove Island in the south???

On the topic of food, Skin-Taker seems to have a problem with candy.

I feel like Milo is turning into a finance bro. I gave him this snazzy jacket, and he's always talking into this cell phone I gave him, and one time he asked me to look into his head (this a normal Tomodachi Life occurrence btw), and he was thinking about graphs??

(Oh, he also asked me for hair dye btw, that's why his hair is green.)

Speaking of looking into people's heads, Calvery was pondering a cactus (?), and Ms. Laughingstock had no thoughts, head empty.

Also, short announcement: I left out a lot of less-interesting stuff relating to friendships and food, clothing, etc. that I give the Miis just because the huge blocks of text are kind of unsightly (and they're HUGE blocks of text now that I have so many Miis), so I'll start recording that information in separate logs. Also, like last time, bonus footage will be its own post, and that's probably going to be the usual for this series.

Anyway! Next episode, Sea-Dog, Salty Jojo, Banana King, Phillip Fly, Joe Shortlegs, and Susan Siren will join in on the drama. See you then!

[basingstokemercury]

Are we going to get Bashir's backstory eventually?

[yeliuxi]

I venture into Tumblr's fyp. I see posts I've blacklisted because they were tagged christmas or xmas. I click view post. They are all about cnovel characters. I remember why I blacklisted the tag and why I should not click view post. The cycle continues

[beliscary]

🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊

[distopea]

How does Gabriele feel about protecting civilians during his missions as an undercover agent? What does collateral damage mean to him? How much is he focused on his goals? Would he able to sacrifice civilians to get the Cleaners?

@lured-into-wonderland

Well, to answer all these questions, I must first talk again about Gabriele's primal ambition. It's somehow complex and a bit long!

He's someone following a goal, a life mission. He has picked a side and he will remain truthful and loyal to that side. When he was undercover, his side would always remain in justice, and he was following the orders from the police to take down a whole organization. His goal had never changed; he was determined to succeed with his mission. 

However, where things are blurry remain in the fact that he wasn't a regular cop; he was undercover. It meant gaining the trust of people he would betray in the end; it was composing his whole existence with two personalities. It was then always a matter of balance between what could serve justice and what was a necessity for the mission. Of course, he would always try not to imply innocent or external people, he doesn't like to have blood on his hands, but it would definitely be a fake statement to say that he has always made sure to protect everyone around him. Once again; it's about finding a proper balance in the mission, and if something serves him for the main success of his goal, he can have dirty hands from time to time. 

Gabriele is someone radically focused on his goals; his colleagues say that he's a "rabid dog". He never stops chasing after what he has decided to focus on. After losing the ability to come back to his homeland (Italy), he already has the sensation that he has lost everything, and he has the sensation that only work and his goal can save him. 

Yet, he's not undercover anymore; he's the main investigator in charge of the "Cleaners" file, but he's not hiding under another identity nor working for the group to spy on them either. With those massive changes, we could expect that he wouldn't have those dangerous methods from when he had no choice but to prove himself to the mafia in order to gain their trust and respect. However, Gabriele is tainted with his past life and he follows other codes he's not even aware of; and in front of a wall, chasing after that form of bloody justice, I have a feeling he would be able to sacrifice more than civilians for the success of this new goal. 

[alexjcrowley]

House secretly listens to Hard Times by Paramore and then he stops doing it secretly because it's actually more of a power move for a middle aged man to blast girlish teenage angst pseudo-emo music with a straight face

[farginen]

if there's anything that cracks me up about the unverified fma lore is that some birthdays are confirmed with a big question mark because of how inaccessible the sources are i.e artbooks released in 2004 only sold in japan

which. fine. that happens with media

but it's just endlessly funny to me is how riza's birthday is usually listed october 2 citing the artbook #3 as the source BUT roy's birthday is also sometimes listed as october 2 (although most sites list it as march 25, i don't remember if they also cite the artbook #3 tho)

why out of all character the ones with conflicting and possibly share birthday is royai??? bonded pair much??

BUT THAT'S NOT ALL

riza also has another birthday date that a lot of people in the fandom use ?? it being september 1st

though i haven't found a single source even remotely official citing this date i've connected the dots though and i noticed tomoch1ngus, who is one of the biggest riza/royai fan artists, is army and their bias is jungkook, whose birthday is on september 1st

i have no proof but neither doubt that this is why people in the fandom went with sept 1 for riza's birthday

[bradsmindbrain]

pet name Ted has for Jack is 'Sunshine,' bc plants are attracted to sunlight

Okay, I love this one. Aside from Teddy Bear, it’s the thing he calls Ted the most.

[psychicthepsychic-daily]

Psychic is the sort of man who will repaint his friend's fence and arrange flowers for them and look after their pet and renovate their kitchen while flipping them off the entire time

[amatres]

cries the character creator lied to me about her eyebrows theyre so light in game

otherwise i think i did a decent job making her? the mods i downloaded made the hairs look real weird in character creator it was kinda freaky