#karma files spoilers

[rozetheeuwu]

"It was necessary, but, I feel awful for creating this.

How many people will it hurt? It's going to tear away at so many lives…

End of Night.

The Obliteration Spell."

[pain-del-doge]

I have been extremely busy... But I am not dead yet so I'll take it as a win lmao

here's a sketch of Luc in Interceptor mode, if she tries to access it in her true form + an alt. w her visor on :"

[percephilous]

Uhh. Karma file spoilers lol

It's pride month,,,,,, yknow what that means??

This came to me in a dream btw

[primacuey]

More silly stuff :3

Hanging out at the mall w/ Crescent was a little funny cus I almost always chose the wrong options replying to her and all I did there was.... buy potions.....

I like her though!! She may not like Iris, but she's really sweet in her own way haha 🫶

The little indicator that pops up when you lose a friendship point with her reminded me of when I played BG3 and Astarion disapproving of everything I did😭😭😭😭

[revalentinee]

Rejuv musings about Melia (spoilers up through .karma files!)

One of my favorite little bits of characterization for Melia is during chapter 9, where you get the chance to read her diary from while she was in the past. She doesn't sound like how we're used to-she's rude, swears a lot, and is just angry at everyone around her for the sudden downturn her life has taken. The thing is, this is meant to be private. It immediately reframes Melia's kindness and patience not as some supernatural part of herself, but as something she works to maintain. She cares because she tries. It's a much more realistic take on this type of character than others that fall into the same tropes. It's why when she does crack, when she is angry and swearing and violent, it wasn't surprising to me-it felt like a natural escalation for her character.

Now, let's talk about M2. I've heard criticism of this version of the character on how she's apparently nothing like the Melia we knew, and I was definitely wary of that going into .karma files, but the more I saw of her the more I saw the Melia we knew in her. Yes, she did try to abandon all pretenses of being polite and kind. She did say she'd go along with the Renegade Interceptor's plans of destroying the world. She concocted a whole (s)hit list of people she wanted dead.

But, that care is still part of her. She only went after people who had wronged her. She let Ren go, who apologized for even the things this version of himself didn't do. She was greatly affected by Mildred's death-someone who she knew for an evening tops, but who stuck her neck out for M2 just because they were friends. A friendship that M2 formed on her own, that wasn't conditional on them already knowing this Melia.

She's every bit as kind, selfless, and caring as this world's Melia. And she's just as willing to destroy for what she thinks is right as 'M1' was.

Because Melia is. And Melia would.

[chaos-era]

art dump wahoo (i am so mentally ill about this game)

[superdummymags]

[several-ravens]

jonathan sims is becoming paranoid and live for it

local man found his secret drawer open and thinks someone is reading his diary

[oocpokemonfangames]

[ladyofthebookcase]

ok real talk though i have at least 120 cycles at this point and still at least 5 regions to go until The Thing That's Going To Happen Happens and im suffering so bad. there need to be more karma flowers in these regions if a) warping is randomized and therefore the chance of getting to uninfected regions gets smaller each time another region is infected and b) needing a karma flower to progress is LITERALLY A MAIN GAME MECHANIC. they are far too sparse and hard to find i fear. i think some regions don't even have any. couldn't find a single one in badlands. i love this dlc but my god the second ending in particular needs a couple gameplay tweaks.

[rozetheeuwu]

Odd Friendships

I wanted to draw my ocs interacting with canon characters more so here I go!!!

I finished the first two for the set a little while ago but got burned out for the third one.... Anyway first set for my brokenchainverse ocs!!

[praisethesuns]

theories about the watcher and what it entails

obligatory MASSIVE FUCKING SPOILERS under the cut. this post will discuss one of the endings of the campaign, the path required to get there, and what it means about the greater world of, well, rain world.

this is the product of a considerable amount of contemplation and thinking too hard; it is also just a theory for now although i really do think i am onto something. further information as more of the watcher releases may change things but i want to record what i've concluded so far for posterity.

to also note: i do not have the dlc myself, and most of my conclusions have been drawn from watching others' playthroughs and piecing together the game's mechanics and dialogue. if how exactly one goes about something in the watcher is inaccurate, that is my bad.

to also also note: i tend to be rather verbose when it comes to explaining things. i do hope it is not too grating.

SO WHAT THE HELL IS UP WITH THE WATCHER'S SECOND* ENDING???

*i consider the "rot"/"prince" ending watcher's second ending, with the OAOA echo's (who i will be referring to from now on as top, due to their name in the files being implied to be "spinning top") as the first

for starters, i think a recap of what the second ending entails is pertinent - that explicitly stating what occurs is tantamount to untangling what precisely is going on.

---

the rot-prince's ending in the watcher campaign requires you to visit the outer rim and create rifts from it to the other new regions of the campaign, with every new rift to a region turning the latter region purple on the greater map. sheltering in these purple-marked regions results in purple rot encroaching further through these regions. creating rifts from these regions to other regions will spread the rot further; and reaching the ending requires most regions to be corrupted, followed by visiting the throne one final time.

returning to the throne several more times along the way, the watcher will meet the titular prince (again, that is what they are referred to in the files), first as a presence as they climb the tree, then as an individual (arguably even puppet? which i will expand on later), who can be spoken to and interacted with past a certain point.

on the final meeting, however, the prince's puppet will be silent and still. the world will warp, and karma flowers will bloom from their head. the following cutscene depicts thousands on thousands of karma flowers growing, the darkness and purple of the outer rim's rot overcome with golden light.

at this point, then - credits roll.

so what exactly happened here?

COLOUR THEORY, THE GREAT PROBLEM AND A BRIEF RETURN TO VANILLA - PRELUDE

to start, the rot we see throughout the watcher campaign is very clearly purple - a departure from the blue we see in vanilla's campaigns within five pebbles. this colour is present as a motif throughout all this path of the watcher's campaign - the purple of the corrupted regions, the purple of the rot.

but the presence of purple is especially notable because of one key thing - purple is the complementary colour of yellow (especially in the RYB colour model - and to note, blue is the complementary of yellow in the RGB model, but we will focus on the purple here)

yellow, a colour associated with many things in rain world. ascension, karma, enlightenment, void fluid. this places the purple of watcher's campaign as a very deliberate inversion of what we traditionally associate with the process of passing on that the ancients/forebears/benefactors idealized so much in rain world. and this inversion in and of itself inverts once more at the end of it all, as all the outer rim is overcome with yellow in the final cutscene.

granted, while i consider the downpour and watcher dlcs to be very mutually exclusive branches and expansions of vanilla, there is a particular mention of inversion in downpour that i think should be noted.

throughout the broadcasts of downpour, an iterator with the tag "NGI" repeatedly refers to a "transcendental inversion", pushing it as a theory towards the solution of the great problem. while they are disregarded by the other iterators in the chats, the idea of a transcendental inversion being heavily involved in the solution sounds rather familiar, no?

it's the final culmination of the prince's ending where all the purple in outer rim inverts to yellow.

(of course, for a more continuity-compliant piece of evidence, NGI's acronym has been translated in other languages to roughly mean "indigo" something - indigo, the colour between blue and purple on the spectrum. even if the inversion is not mentioned by them in canon vanilla itself, NGI's seemingly dismissable interjections may have more truth to them than their peers think.)

i believe the final cutscene of the prince's ending is us witnessing that very transcendental inversion - witnessing the triple affirmative and the solution to the great problem finally come to fruition, at the end of it all.

which is a rather steep task to fulfill! but at this point we should also dissect what precisely the great problem is, and what the triple affirmative entails.

the great problem involves allowing all the beings of the world to reach enlightenment - to allow every last living creature to thus reach ascension. this is not just for the ancients, but for the creatures as well - particularly the creatures, as the ancients believe that it is their obligation to the world to spread the capability for enlightenment.

the iterators are thus created to find a solution to this issue that fulfills the triple affirmative - affirmative that it has been found, affirmative that it is portable, and affirmative that a technical implementation is possible and generally applicable - a method to enlighten/ascend all the world that is logistically feasible to implement and carry through.

so how does spreading the rot contribute to all this?

WIBBLY WOBBLY TIMEY WIMEY... STUFF

the regions in the watcher's campaign are scattered throughout time and throughout space. this is most apparent following top's story, as the watcher follows their path through both. it is this very shadowing of top that allows them to truly move on from their echoic state in the end.

but what i find most relevant to this theory is what happens when you meet top after creating a rift without the protection of a karma flower - something directly stated as "risky". they will comment on the state of the region - a corrupted, rot-infested version of a vanilla one - and they will say that all the world looks like this "when they go too far". that the final end state of the world is rotten, decaying. i believe the fact that they take you to outer rim specifically after this conversation is them bringing you to the closest "safe" place - the outer rim's name is significant because it is the outer reach not of space, but of time. it is the furthest future before the absolute end.

so why is the world consumed by rot? what does this rot have to do with the ultimate transcension?

this likely lays within further dialogue we see from the prince themselves - expressing a desire to further their "kingdom", seeing the watcher as a friend - but these specific lines are what is most telling to the prince's nature -

"I am cataloging all things, you know. The imperative that was in THEM remains in me. But I am not wholly them, and not blind to the folly of their forbearers. I am… something new."

furthermore, the room where the prince's "puppet" (note the very specific word i am using here) is labelled as "AI" - the very same that the puppet chambers of five pebbles and looks to the moon are labelled as. this notation is nothing short of deliberate, and the prince's line (referring to THEM (the iterators), their imperative (the great problem), their forebears (the benefactors)) more or less implies that they are a successor to the iterators, but not one of them themself - they are something entirely new. combined with the knowledge from vanilla that rot comes from iterators adds a whole new meaning to it.

the prince is an agglomeration of iterators - maybe pebbles, maybe sliver, maybe more - and they are the descendant of the remains of those iterators' consciousnesses ("I am not wholly them"), with the drive to fulfill the triple affirmative all the same ("the imperative.. remains in me").

and drawing back to the solution? the transcendental inversion, the outer rim blooming?

the prince sought to expand their kingdom to all the world (all the regions in-game) so that they may fulfill what their predecessors were tasked to do so long ago. that they may unite all as one under the rot and move on from the world. not just them, but every last being that was subsumed by their infection - the iterators, the creatures, the world. all is overcome with the rot and all passes on at the very end of everything.

that this is what we as the watcher accomplish. that the ripples of our meandering and of our rifts and of our search for answers echo through space and time, all culminating in the final departure at the end of it all.

it's bittersweet, and it comes at a hell of a cost - the whole world is assimilated into one, and countless creatures and beings had to suffer along the way - subsumed and consumed by the rot and the greater intelligence it would eventually form.

but at the end of it all, the world finally moves on.

...

Thank you for reading to the end. i hope you find something worthwhile in my thoughts/crazed ramblings. i don't think this conclusion is one every rain world fan will like but this is the one that, for better or worse, makes the most sense to me. in the end, we will all have to see what comes next, what the subsequent arcs of the watcher's story tells us. what i am positing may in the end have no truth to it at all. thank you again for reading, and take care of yourself out there. <3

[juiceshiru]

cw /// blood + rejuv paragon karma files spoilers !!

[spar-kie]

Do You Have The Time?

A Thorough Dissection of What Past Aevium Means For You

So I've been reading through @/jazz-kitty's rejuv playthrough (not actually tagging them bc this will contain spoilers for shit they've not gotten to but if you're reading this Jazz, keep up the good work! It's super fun to read through your playthrough :>), and I've realized we got some concrete dates (in a fashion), meaning that, we might be able to figure out when Storm 9 happens, within a couple months! As well as some other details.

Anyways even if you don't want to hear my rambling about dates, there's gonna be something I really want to share underneath the cut, I'll put some big bold header text so you know where to scroll to.

Now, it all starts here, with Melia's Mimikyu, which we are there to see caught, giving us a concrete date, October 10th, 198X.

Now you may be asking yourself, but Sparkie, the screenshot says 1984? That's because my buddy Nym, who is on the dev team, stated that to its memory, the year is calculated based off your system date. Meaning that the year will change depending on the year you play Rejuv in. However, Jazz's post that I got this from does mention in the tags how the rest of Melia's pokemon are caught from 1981-1983. I had an old save file kicking around that was near Blacksteeple, and checking "Emma's" Pokemon in that I can also say that these dates are variable based off system time. Being 198X-3 through 198X-1. For simplicity's sake we're going to be based off of System Time being the year 2024, mostly because shit like 198X-1 is hard to read. But just keep in mind that as Rejuv is set in 202X these dates have about a 10 year range they can vary by, this will come back later, take note of this.

I want to establish before we go forward, you can also see how this works for yourself rather easily, if you go into the past and catch a pokemon, the date it's caught at will be your system time, minus 40 years. This, combined with some plot elements such as Melia's birthday being after she catches this Mimikyu confirms that the past segments take place exactly 40 years before present day, with the Time Crystals not sending you back or forth to a specific time and date, but rather a set amount of time forward and back (in this case 40 years).

Anyways, this also lets us know that Storm-9 happened a little over 39 years ago as of the game's start, and at some point during the game's time span we will hit the 40 year anniversary. I always thought it was 50 years before the game's start, I don't remember if I got that from somewhere in game or it's just one of them things I got in my head, but between the wiki and a reply from Zumi on one of my tweets it's actually 40. If anyone has the same misconception I had, I hope that clears it up.

But through what we can gleam in game, we can actually tell (roughly) when Storm-9 happens! Judging by the fact we can still visit the past at the end of the .karma files, Storm-9 has not hit the past yet. It's going to happen very soon, but it's not there yet. Thankfully, we have a very concrete date on when that would be, December 25th, 2024, as the Xen Raid is just one day later. Meaning, that as of December 25th, 1984, the Aevium region is still fine. This combined with the fact that there is a note on the door of the house occupied by the A-Gang near Hyoshi City that says they'll be out until the Summer means that they are going to be at school until late May, early June, assuming it runs at similar time frames to a school in the U.S.. Meaning that, at some point, most likely in Early 1985, but possibly for about a week in Late 1984, is when Storm 9 hits. You could extrapolate more (i.e. no teachers/other students in the academy during the Interceptor's Nightmare Realm means people might've been on break, meaning it was Late 1984 and the gang was just hanging out at the academy) but as that's explicitly stated to be not entirely accurate to how that day actually was, I'm not going to do that.

HI IF YOU JUST WANT THE FUNNY INFORMATION SCROLL HERE

Anyways, now that you've heard me ramble about dates like your history teacher, we get to the fun part! That being I get to tell you about the A gang! That being we know the protag choices are 17-18 years old, and given that we know Storm 9 happened in either very Late 1984 or Early 1985, we can assume that the A-Gang were those ages during Storm-9. Meaning their birth years could range between 1966-1968, placing them firmly in Gen X, meaning they are chronologically old enough to be some of the people reading this's parents!

But that's not all, do you remember how I stated that Rejuv took place in 202X, meaning it could be any year of the 2020s? And thus, the past segments take place in any year 40 years before that, in the 1980s? If we were to say, put the year Rejuv takes place in in 2020, then that would mean the A Gang would be born in the years 1962-1964.

The general consensus on baby boomers is that they were born between 1946-1964.

The A Gang could, conceivably, be baby boomers.

Have a nice night everyone.

[gamergirlshelby]

alright this is a theory that i've had in mind for a while but im finally gonna go into the details of it since i am once again thinking about this amazing game again.

i first want to note however that this will be going into MAJOR MAJOR spoilers for Pokemon Rejuvenation, a game that I recommend extremely highly to anyone who is into fangames so please check it out, the level of detail and quality thats been put into it still amazes me and i am very excited and patiently waiting for the next update to be ready!

i'll also be taking screenshots from Dred's videos showcasing the content, so i recommend checking out their channel.

anyways without further ado, the theory will be under the readmore.

My theory will be going into the idea that the Paragon and Renegade routes are connected, and the idea that the Interceptors from each route are working on getting the best possible ending for at least one of them.

And this idea all came to mind from this line said by the player:

Now my theory is the They that the Renegade Interceptor (will shorten to RI for brevity) is the Paragon Interceptor (will shorten to PI) and their timeline.

The RI knows that what they're doing is for not, as they will be erased, but there is still a version of the world and all their friends that gets to live on.

But the question is, how exactly are the two helping one another? By giving the other the tools that are needed to accomplish their goals. The RI had built the Red Chain, and the PI along with Melia created the Obliteration Spell or the End of Night.

And the way Melia talks about the creation of the spell mentions that it had been necessary, likely being necessary for the plan with the RI. And after re-watching the entire Renegade Karma files, there is no scene or dialogue that implies the RI had created a version of the spell to use, especially not while working with M2, who goes on to question what the heck the spell even is, deducing that it is total annihilation.

sorry for the red lines i'll retype the quote from M2 here: "You spent all of the time gathering those Red Games. And after all that time crafting the red chain you just decided to yeet it into space?"

But the thing is the chain wasn't just yeeted into space. It was delivered somewhere.

And that somewhere I think is the Paragon timeline. As similarly to the End of Night, the Red Chain is never crafted in the Paragon timeline, but it is still used to restrain Tiempa. And I have a hunch that the Lake Guardians are loosely aware of what the interceptors have done as if you go to find and catch them in the Paragon route, they hop out of the small rifts as they did in Renegade, and all have this text:

Now why would the PI steal the red gem components from the Lake Guardians? Its shown in PLA that if you pass their trials normally you would be able to get the pieces gifted to you so why would they not do that off screen? Its cause they weren't even the ones to take the red gems. It was the RI.

And in my opinion is the dialogue from the failed world segments, but I will be taking special note of what Karma says during the Renegade section.

I will be dissecting the whole dialogue which I have linked to in Dred's video which I will be linking to the timestamp here (if it didn't work the conversation starts at 37:48 and goes on to around 39:03)

"But to be confined through the laws of space and time... This is not possible. I will break these rules. We will move forward." This quote at the end I think is the smoking gun. Karma in an attempt to start again and create the perfect base for the true happy ending had caused there to be a connection between time and space, allowing for the two interceptors to connect. I think that this rewind might have been the initial timeline before Paragon Melia took the place of M2 in the Failed World, and after the rewind happened M2 had been moved to the Renegade timeline, allowing for Paragon Melia to more easily take her place, come up with a plan with the host for the Interceptor, and create the happy ending.

Now I speculate that Karma and the supposed World Shatterer will likely play as a final sort of threat to the story after the Xen Raid and how the Rejuv Team handles that will definitely be something I'm looking forward too.

If anyone has any possible supplementary information or ideas I'd love to hear them and I'd be happy to hear about anyone's other theories about what could be going on in the story. Anyways thank you for reading this long long theory post and again I'd love to hear thoughts on it!

[fcmn]

So, I decided to talk about Downpour DLC of Rain World, because, why not?

I'll talk only about More Slugcat Expansion part of DLC, because Co-op and expeditions that were added is just great, I don't have anything to say about them.

Also I want to make clear that everything said here is purely my opinion and I don't force anyone to agree on it, and also spread hate on anyone who disagree on this opinion.

SPOILERS!!!

So, Downpour. An Expansion, that added 5 new characters to play and 5 new campaings to expirience, and yet, there's something I don't like about it. So let's talk about everything one by one.

1. Slugcats

Gourmand, Artificer, Rivulet, Spearmaster and Saint. Five new scugs, five new ways to play the game. I really like how fun they are, really, they all powerful and unique, you have to adapt for every single one of them. But this coin has two sides. Fun and power we got, cost us the idea of vanilla Rain World, the fact, that we are almost at the bottom of a food chain, we can overpower every threat, but with pure strugle and effort, not just because we have the ability to make everything go kaboom. I can't say I dislike the gameplay of new scugs, but I can't say I purely like it. The same creatures and threat that we encountered as vanilla trio, doesn't feel the same way for new squad, they can arguebly easy kill anything. I do believe, that there is a golden line between fun and philosophy of Rain World, it is probably possible to balance every scug in a way, that they will feel more natural for the eco-system, but still being fun to play. I'm not a developer, nor a game-designer, it's just my opinion as a player.

2. Story

This is something that I started to think about not so long ago. Each of the new campaings, except Saint, has a pretty similar pattern: Go to FP, listen to some dialogue, go into new region and get your score screen. Why is it always Five Pebbles? You have to visit him in order to progress the story. Which isn't true for Hunter, Monk or Survivor. I mean, as a new player, you'll visit him to get a basic understanding of what are you even suposed to do, but when you know where do you need to go, you can get to the ending without visiting Pebbles or Moon. You could say, that it makes sence for them to go to Pebbles, because they have to receive something from him. Fixing ID drone for Arti, giving Riv the ball, opening gate to outer expanse for Gourm and taking thr pearl put of Spearmaster. For SM, I'll say right now, that it is logical for him to visit Pebbles in prder to progress, he is a messenger. Probably it is the same for Riv, but I still have a filing that it could be done differently. Though I think it should be different for Arti and Gourm. As a Gourmand, it doesn't make sence for Pebbles to give him a mark of communication at all, he could just sent him out of his can and show him the direction to the Outer Expanse via the Overseers, much like Iggy does guide Monk and Survivor to Looks to the Moon and then to Five Pebbles. For Artificer, since she's next after Spearmaster, of which visit FP wasnt happy at all and he could just lock the karma gates to FP region like he did with Outer Expanse, so no one could enter his structure and distract him. Sofanthiel (ID drone), could be more useful in this scenario, he could act as an Overseer of sorts, pointing out threat, flashing images of Chief Scav and Elite Scavs as warnings and he could lead to the alternative way into Metropolis and also, I would give player a bit different route to the Chieftain Scav arena, the route that would make a visit to Atop the Tallest Tower mandatory for going forward, and the Echo there would give player a choice, proceed with the path of violence or choose a path of Ascension, which, in my opinion, does fit the "What fate a slugcat?" phrase.

Saint is just worth a whole another post to just talk about him, because he gives off mixed signals for me. But I can say, that, I love his campaing.

Overall, I do think that downpour story is good at some points, for me at least, but I also think, that it could've been done a lot better.

3. Five Pebbles.

I do like the new character of Five Pebbles, it does waves away almost everything pre-Downpour FP showed us, byt it's still a great character with good tragedy story. Five Pebbles and other Iterators being more human-like is a good thing for me. Five Pebbles being more similar to humans with his personality is something I like, because you can grow a bond with him through out the story. From SM's campaing where he is an angry teen who just pushes everyone away, all the way to the Riv's campaing, where he is more mature, regretting everything he's done in the past, not seeking forgivness upon himself. Seeing him first time in Saint's campaing and listen to him barely able to speak is... Heavy. It is a really emotional moment and I couldn't hold the tears, looking at the way he speaks and trying to listen his favorite pearl, even though it's already showing sings of decay, slowly fading out.

4. Sliver of Straw.

It's more about Challenge 70 being uncanon. I do dislike this statement and I think, it wastes a lot of interesting things to discuss because of it. All the theories about Sliver and Saint, also about Iterator's abbilities just fell into nothing. I personally love the theory about Saint being THE triple affirmative, created by Sliver herself to ascend her and probably others, but, it just happend too early, before Sliver was able to share the news about solving their great problem, and that's why she fought back, as Saint tried to ascend her. I just love this theory and I hate the fact, that it all just nothing more than a silly headcannon, because of how Challenge 70 is considered non-canon >:(

That's all I have to say about Downpour. Sorry if there was too much hate of just straight up nonsence, these are just my unfiltered thoughts on the DLC. Also I am, by no means encouraging you to spread any form of hate towards Downpour developer team or Videocult themselfs, they all did a massive job to bringing this Expansion to life and I am happy we do have it at all.