#iterator biology????

[mirwx]

ever since i read BTTS winged pebbles has been stuck in my mind

i was going to make a quick sketch but then I rendered the metal. so here.

[noodles-and-tea]

i had an idea but idk its a little out there. dipper is smart, but i was like him once and i think he’d get burnt out fast. mabel has been shown to be smarter than she lets on, as well as curious and interested in the strange and unusual.

relativity falls where mabel fell into the portal and dipper had to clean up and run the shack. mabel would adventure around space & time, surprisingly making lots of friends. theres a little short comic about how mabel went to the mabel dimension and allied with them to defeat evil mabel, so i think she’d be really good at making allies wherever she goes. also i’d really like to see mabel jumping over some frog dude as she runs from the time police.

dipper would be stuck at home, trying so hard to bring her back, while running the mystery shack, trying to balance all of these things and it overwhelms him to the point where he becomes a shut in, and nearly like a cryptid or urban legend he’d read about.

also your art is so gorgeous and cozy!!! i love it so much :D

IM SORRY I DIDNT DRAW MABEL JUMOUNG OVER A FROG DUDE

[carp3tpasta]

Neural

[yellosnacc]

what if you exposed Neal to the wonders of biomechanical computers such as but not limited to: iterator

if not what about exposing to the wonders of a happy slugcat?

Well, he'll have a lot to ask about...

...If he doesn't collapse from the fact the "riding mountain" can speak to him, among other things.

So after they get over basic things about biology and technology Neal won't understand, they can talk about feelings!! He knows that a little!

Enjoy this very serious crossover post. The iterator shown here is one of these guys - post.

No slugcat today, it was in a shelter at the time.

[sluglore]

Explaining The Iterator's Purpose (And Why They Weren't Made to Circumvent The Echoes)

Alright, I know there's already been a few posts like this out there, like this older one from @halvedforest, and this recent one from @noizepushr, which are both good posts, but I've been meaning to touch up and cross-post my own older misconceptions post from reddit for a while now, and provide a deeper, more expanded analysis as to why this misconception exists and explain what's actually going on, so here it finally is haha I'll also be using the term 'Benefactor' instead of 'Ancient', if people are confused about that, I intend to make a post about it eventually ^^

( If you're confused on who out there even believes this, this idea originated from Rain World YouTube lore videos, long before Downpour was ever a thing! It is unfortunately still quite prominent on there... but it's definitely getting better :3 )

This misconception stems from misreading the singular pearl to ever mention the echoes, being the Bright Red farm arrays pearl, so let me begin by attaching the specific section below:

“There were some horror stories though... That if your ego was big enough, not even the Void Fluid could entirely cross you out, and a faint echo of your pompousness would grandiosely haunt the premises forever. So even when the Void Fluid baths became cheaper, some would still starve and drink the bitter tea.” (Bright red Farm Arrays pearl dialogue)

Note the specific usage of “some” here. Echoes weren't presented as an issue significant to re-center Benefactor society around, (let alone build the iterators for) but as some horror stories which only "some" people (likely on the fringes of society) would believe in. Nowhere are we given anything that alludes to the existence of Echoes being regarded as a societal problem to address, much less have anything to do with the Iterators.

Additionally, although we know for a fact that echoes do exist, its fairly possible that most of Benefactor society didn't, as LTTM doesn't even know what they are either, regarding them as nothing more than superstition. On the very next line, LTTM confirms that the void baths continued all the same, while again mentioning that "some" would still choose to abstain from them, and drink the bitter tea.

Then what’s the purpose of the iterators if they weren't created to circumvent the echoes? What is The Big Problem that they are even trying to solve in the first place? Well, both FP, LTTM, and the Exterior colored pearl dialogue spell the answer out for you. In fact, it's the first thing FP even tells you!

“The good news first. In a way, I am what you are searching for. Me and my kind have as our purpose to solve that very oscillating claustrophobia in the chests of you and countless others. A strange charity - you the unknowing recipient, I the reluctant gift. The noble benefactors? Gone.” (Five Pebbles dialogue to Survivor) (Monk's version also hits similar notes)

Five pebbles introduces himself as a “reluctant gift," with his purpose being "to solve that very oscillating claustrophobia in the chests of you and countless others," meaning to solve the cycles for everyone and everything else.

If you bring Looks to the Moon a neuron, she has the chance to repeat the same exact explanation to you.

"We were supposed to help everyone, you know. Everything. That was our purpose: a great gift to the lesser beings of the world. When facing our inability to do so, we all reacted differently. Many with madness.”

FP, LTTM, and the rest of their kind were created to serve the rest of the world in finding a method of total mass ascension, of ending the cycle entirely for everyone.... and everything. Not only including the fauna of the world, like the slugcat, but the bedrock, microbes and even gases, as explicitly stated in this snippet from the Exterior pearl dialogue below:

“The Moral Argument: Five Pebbles is our Creation, and we have Parental Obligations towards him. As an Iterator, he is also a Gift of Charity from Us to The World (unable to reach Enlightenment by itself - being composed mostly of Rock, Gas, dull witted Bugs and Microbes - and towards which We thus have Obligations)” (Pale Green Exterior pearl dialogue)

Here we have the Benefactors define it very clearly, that as an iterator, Five Pebbles is a "Gift of Charity from Us to The World." It's important to note that many misinterpret the next section in parentheses as being about FP himself, but if it were, it would be the only time FP is ever referred to as “it”. What's really being described is the world, “unable to reach enlightenment by itself, being composed mostly of rock, gas, dull witted bugs and microbes” The world is unable to reach Enlightenment on it's own and therefore, that's why the iterators were created. (Also- when you think about it, the description of "being composed of rock, gas, and dull witted microbes" doesn't even really fit FP's description lol)

Quick but necessary tangent, the concept of non-living things being apart of the cycle is a little confusing, and tricky to quickly answer without going deep into cycle lore discussion, (I have an entire post in drafts dedicated to clearing this up) but it's actually incredibly important for understanding what The Great Problem is! To shed some light, it's not that non-living matter are able to somehow comprehend the cycles, but that the entire physical world itself is actually an intrinsic part of the cycles.

If you leave a stone on the ground, and come back some time later, it's covered in dust. This happens everywhere, and over several lifetimes of creatures such as you, the ground slowly builds upwards. So why doesn't the ground collide with the sky? Because far down, under the very very old layers of the earth, the rock is being dissolved or removed. The entity which does this is known as the Void Sea. If you drill far enough into the earth you begin encountering a substance called Void Fluid. The deeper you go, the less rock and more Void Fluid. It's believed that there is a point where the rock completely gives way - below that would be the Void Sea. When that stone you placed on the ground has finally done its time in the sediments, it meets the Void Fluid and is dissolved, leaving the physical world. (Teal Subterranean pearl dialogue)

There's a reason that 'Cycles' is always plural in Rain World, because there's multiple of them! Organic life is in cycles, the physical bedrock of the world is in cycles, even the very concept of civilization is in cycles. In order to ascend everything, that means ascending not only all living things, but the entire physical universe itself! That's what the Great Problem really is :D (Also technicallyyy it's only ever referred to as "the big problem" and not "the great problem", the latter term stems entirely from the community but it's whatever i just wanted to quickly mention that. great problem definitely sounds cooler LOL)

In conclusion, Iterators are described as "Gifts to the World" not once, not twice, but three entire times throughout base game Rain World's dialogue, one from FP, one from LTTM, and one from the Benefactors. Rain World lore holds many unanswered, purposefully ambiguous questions, but the Iterator's purpose is not one of them!

If you're confused/interested in analysis of the Benefactor's motivations and perspectives on Ascension, I made a post a little while back containing my thoughts right here :)

[ressioo]

Slug doodles!

Spears is a creepy lil test tube baby. Local cryptid

Been playing inv recently. Absolute hell but also very entertaining. Brain workout

[mebis-reblogs]

ok it's about time I elaborate on this post, at least on the starting point

so what's this made up fellow, and why do I think it's the building block of iterator processing biota?

almost every biological component we see inside an iterator has a combination of dots (nuclei?) like little flashing balls, and mycelia (well, wall mycelia only shows the mycelia strands but still). this drawing is what this common denominator would be

you can even see that coral neurons are composed of entangled/"braided" strands rather than a single red mass (think of it like how muscles are made of several fibers in bundles)

coral stems are covered in segments, but these seem self-grown, potentially similar to what encases the circuit connector (round roomba thing)(completely forgot to include it in the original post btw), so I'd argue they too, like the red coral neurons, are a bundle of strands (you can think of them as axons, or like the puppet's umbilical)

then there's deep processing

at the background layers of many rooms, blue lights flickering much like these dots/nuclei

these could also just be the blue flashes resulting from interacting mycelia, or a distant fuse panel (seen above), but i personally do think both options still lead to a thick, interconnected layer or strata of these lil guys, and from this strata wall mycelia and coral stems grow

(the fuses could very well be partly made out of these guys after all)

tldr most fleshy bits made out of filaments and beads meshed together

[secretlyscraptrap]

hey uhh

feel free to reblog i want a kinda-decent sample size

also feel free to explain your thoughts in the tags

i feel like im gonna annoy so many biology nerds w this😭😭

edit: also, you could use "silicate based" as "other chemical based" if you want

[rotten-machinery]

hi hello *throws a sketch of speculative biology of an iterator puppet's chest cavity, and runs off*

[critters-world-being-rained]

I’ve been cooking an au that I doubt I’ll write but I certainly have been drawing.

I’ve been working on it for weeks now but finally have thought of how I want to start sharing it. For now, I can show the end results of hours and hours of messing with speculative biology and deciding the roles and plot.

The basic idea as far as this post will show is the iterators are bio mechanical creatures combining iterators and orca whales created by an aquatic race of ancients. Local groups act as pods but Suns was separated from his and joined Moon’s. I had tons of versions (mouth placement and where to start or end the whales and how iterator to make them verses how human or how whale) but I think I like where the concept ended up.

A deeper explanation is bellow but know that, beyond the speculative biology I had a lot of fun with, it does involve discussion of real world and in-universe animal cruelty. Specifically Orcas in captivity and how they have been shown to suffer- not for long or in much detail but certainly could be upsetting.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On mobile the more doesn’t show here so pause and check the warning the warning above before reading

!!!!!!!!!!!

In one of my discussion based environmental science classes, the professor was having us discuss Orcas in captivity because she recently published a paper on it and, as is typical for me, I cope from how completly tragic and upsetting a topic is by relating them to my hyperfixation of the time.

Orcas in captivity are some of the only other animals known to self harm. They also notoriously harm eachother and their trainers. One of the main reasons they suffer so much is because they are so A)smart and B)social. The lack of stimulation and enrichment combined with being locked in a too small space, removed from their natural environments and purpose.

That connected to how I’ve always felt like that reasoning is part of why Pebbles does as mentally horrible as he does. He is a smart supercomputer trapped in a single place, the main consciousness stuck in a single room because the rest of the building is his body so he can’t simply leave it behind. He once had so many processes and tasks, taking care of the ancients and seeking the great solution- created late enough to have certainly been effected by his creators’ impatience. He’s also a rare case of not being fully in charge of himself and is limited on resources due to his location. His existence was also controversial. When the ancients left he was left with too much time and processing power and not enough to do with it. His self isolating habits certainly would not help. Even though they are stationary nobody can convince me iterators don’t couldn’t as social species when they were made to collaborate with each-other and their citizens.

He hurts others (especially moon) and himself because he feels frustrated and trapped. Orcas hurt themselves and others in captivity for similar reasons. Orca health deteriorates horribly in captivity, Pebbles is not physically or mentally healthy for any of the time we see him in canon. Pebbles is practically in captivity, he would do horrible in it. The dehumanization would also hit hard, he would have being treated like a simple animal- and Orcas being treated like simple animals when they are so smart and social is horrible. It just- it just clicked in my brain and now this au is clawing its way out of my head!

Thinking of those parallels lead to wanting to make an Au where Pebbles is an orca in captivity. I went back and forth on if the other iterators would take the place of humans or if they would be Orcas as well (and if they would also be in captivity) and the roles of the slugcat characters a lot. But I decided to have a modern/anthro au for Slugcats and scavengers on the surface and the iterators all remaining in the ocean until Pebbles is captured.

In future art I will go more into detail on the plot and other characters but that’s it for this one. Tho, feel free to send me asks about the AU! Since it’s not planned to be a fic I don’t have to be coy with plot points and don’t have a real way to share details outside of Tumblr :p

Just call it “the rotting in captivity au”, “orca au” or “captivity au”

[transingthoseformers]

I need to think about Quintessons more

[ladyofthebookcase]

five pebbles: every creature, from the microbes in my processing strata, to me, who is, if you'll excuse me, godlike in comparison--

the rot in his processing strata: schlorp schlorp schlorp

[snailfen]

sniffs

[rain-world-headcanons]

the various parts inside of iterators are purposed organisms that take the roles or like our own cells, so like the inspectors/hydras/axons are similar to our white blood cells, the dark blue wavy things are like nerves that receive signals from the neuron flies. So when a scug is moving through their systems and occasionally crashing into things and eating neuron flies in the normally sterile environment it’s like when a pathogen gets into the blood stream. For pebbles, in the parts that have been rotted, he has no sense of them, so it’s kinda like losing a limb or an organ in a sense. An iterator’s body is that whole building!!!!!! I just think that’s so cool!!

-

[yellosnacc]

Just because I sorta enjoy it here's my funny rainworld canvas

[echosian]

small thing

i got bored in environmental and made myself an explanation on how iterators fit in they cloaks with their big spikes