#nineteen-spades

[canisalbus]

What if Vachete holded hands as LPS

.

[sp1resong]

iive decided romantic love and attraction isnt a concept that exists within rain world's universe. this is canon now trust me im videocult

[ninten-draw]

Worldbuilding day one - famous townspeople

Adding character to echos

[fishsfailureson]

Day 27- 7 year anniversary

decided to draw one of my favourite memories from my first campaign :) anyways this was hell to draw I'm going to go die now

[aliasofgenericart]

day 3: chimney canopy

backgrounds are still not my strong suite lmao. honestly i kinda hate chimney canopy, but i love the echo there (nineteen spades, endless reflections). rain world spoilers/ me rambling about the art beneath the cut

they became an echo not because of vain, or greed, or other material things, but because they loved the sunrise. they watched the sun rise from the same spot each morning, and became stuck to it when they failed to ascend. they're my second favorite echo, behind rhinestones beneath shattered glass. since they're implied to be of high status. with the count of 2 blocks and allat, i gave them a purple cape thingy since purple fabric historically has been used to designate high status or royalty due to its rarity. oh and i have them guardian ball things because why not i strayed from a the prompt a bit but i did the detailed background practice yesterday alright don't @ me

[spicyicymeloncat]

First attempt at funny robots

[transgenderfivepebbles]

i'd like to apologize to any maker of a popular post that i've blorbotagged with a completely incomprehensible string of words

[bubblybloob]

“I had progeny”

Y’all sleeping on the echoes man, they’re probably the coolest thing you can find in the game.

That’s Monk btw, they got all dirty and bloody from the difficult climb up to Nineteen Spades, Endless Reflections.

[fadebolt]

"Perhaps I reminisce because I cannot go. Perhaps I cannot go because my memory traps me here."

I had to travel for quite a long time today, so I unfortunately couldn't refine the third day drawing as much as I wanted to. However, I think it's a decent first attempt at an Ancient, and figuring out a design was pretty fun.

[grunckle]

Qualia and Ascension in Rain World

(To clarify I'm mostly talking about base-game lore and not including Downpour, but honestly most of these things can transfer over)

Qualia

One thing that’s relatively hidden in Rain World’s text and subtext is the concept of qualia. Qualia is described as being, “sensory experiences that have distinctive subjective qualities but lack any meaning or external reference to the objects or events that cause them.” It’s a personal sensory experience that cannot be comprehended by another person other than the individual themself, and are often hard to convey via language.

Qualia is a reoccurring motif in Rain World, but what’s more important is the way in which it’s conveyed to the player. The picture that’s painted is that of a world or civilization that placed a great importance on the individuals’ experience, and it’s shown through pearls or environmental details.

Here are some examples of qualia appearing in the text through pearls.

“It's qualia, or a moment - a very short one. Someone is holding a black stone, and twisting it slightly as they drag their finger across the rough surface. The entire sequence is shorter than a heartbeat, but the resolution is extraordinary.”

“A memory... but not really visual, or even concrete, in its character. It reminds of the feeling of a warm wind, but not the physical feeling but the... inner feeling. I don't think it has much utility unless you are doing some very fringe Regeneraist research.”

“This one... is authored by Five Pebbles, when he was young. There has been an attempt to scramble the data, but it's sloppily done, and most is still somewhat legible. It's written in internal language, or thoughts, so it is hard for me to translate so you would understand.”

But the most prominent examples of qualia and it’s importance in this world are the Memory Crypts and possibly ancient naming conventions. The deep purple pearl (shortened) found in Shaded Citadel states,

“In this vessel is the living memories of Seventeen Axes, Fifteen Spoked Wheel, of the House of Braids (…) Seventeen Axes, Fifteen Spoked Wheel nobly decided to ascend in the beginning of 1514.008, after graciously donating all (ALL!) earthly possessions to the local Iterator project (Unparalleled Innocence), and left these memories to be cherished by the carnal plane. The assorted memories and qualia include:”

Ancients likely mutated their own neural tissue into the cabinet beasts we see in Shaded, which were used to store their memories and qualia before ascension. Even james said once "how 5 pebs got the rot is a good hint here" in response to someone asking how cabinet beasts work, and how they're made.

Adding on to this, ancient (and iterator) naming conventions seem to be built off of the concept of qualia, with them focusing on individual images or experiences.

Nineteen Spades, Endless Reflections

Droplets upon Five Large Droplets

Two Sprouts, Twelve Brackets

Looks to the Moon

Generally, this all points to a world focused on the expression and preservation of the individual experience. You could even consider some of the echo dialogue as more evidence for this running motif, but I already have too many quotes lol.

Ascension

So now time to talk about my interpretation of ascension. In short, you turn into a worm, but I should probably explain more than that.

So its been surfacing on rw-tumblr that the light in the end of the game is called the egg in files. Although file names shouldn't be taken as fact or canon, it is pretty obvious given the birth imagery.

But something a little lesser known is what happens to the worm that takes us down to the void-sea depths. Void worms normally have a bright glowing effect, on their body, which is present for ours as well. But after it unhooks us, it swims down, and when it passes us on it's way back that glowing effect is gone.

To be honest, I don't really think this can be interpreted in many ways, but the most obvious one and the one I personally subscribe to is that the worm laid the egg. Biology and spirituality really aren't that different in Rain World, it's implied that karma is stored in the brain through Five Pebbles's slideshow. Adding on to that, we see voidspawn after eating an iterator neuron. One's spiritual state is innately tied to their mental state, and that dictates what and what they can't perceive.

And for that reason I decide to take a more biology leaning approach to what happens in the ending. At face value, we are fertilizing the egg of a void worm to be reborn into a voidspawn.

Not only do void spawn and void worms have multiple characteristics in common, (worm like bodies, tendrils/tentacles, glowing heads, void spawn look microbial and void worms are likely some of the oldest "life" in game)

but voidspawn are seen inside egg-like coverings and share the same egg light seen in the end of the game, confirmed to be the same thing by Videocult in a livestream they did.

I believe that all this points to ascension being re-birth into a voidspawn, which eventually undergoes metamorphose into a worm. Higher-dimensional beings, who manifest and give birth to a new world.

So how does this tie in with qualia? Another thing you might know is that the area in which void spawn are most plentiful is Shaded Citadel and areas in Shoreline near Shaded. And shaded is absolutely packed with Cabinet Beasts, even outside Memory Crypts. I believe these qualia-storing creatures are what manifest voidspawn.

From what we see in ascension, it still looks physical and largely based around the real world. Hunter still has his scars and see's an iterator, survivor sees the slug tree in a more mystical and formless state, and monk sees survivor frankly just looking like a normal slugcat. I think that ascension is a product of qualia. We transcend our earthly knowledge via the egg, and our own qualia is used to give birth to a new world. This is why voidspawn appear most in Shaded Citadel.

Now I won't be getting into Void-Worm theories too much here, I'm mostly focused on ascension but I can't ignore the Gnosticism parallels. For those who don't know, Void Worms heavily resemble the Yaldaboath from Gnosticism, along with sharing some similar celestial motifs.

and running with that some people theorize that, like the Yaldabaoth, void worms are responsible for manifesting the material world. Ascension seems to be a mix of the concepts of Gnosis and Nirvana, but I believe it might lean more on Gnosis.

From my limited knowledge, Gnosis is a few things, some of which being a state achieved from experiences or intuitions, and an essential part to salvation is personal knowledge. While researching a bit, I came across this text by Peter Wilberg called "From NEW AGE to NEW GNOSIS" which brings up some comparisons between Gnosticism and qualia as well.

"Gnosis is subjective knowledge of an inner universe made up not of matter, energy, space or time but of countless qualitative spheres or ‘planes’ of awareness – a knowledge obtained directly through inter- subjective resonance. It is the subjective science of this inner universe."

One thing though that has been brought up when discussing this is how this can be consolidated with the tone of the ending. It is pretty un-ambiguously happy, but if we're going with the Void worm Yaldaboath theory then that would put a bit of a sour twist on it right?

I agreed with these for some time, but now I actually think it ties in perfectly with Rain World's core themes as stated by the devs, "overcoming differences and finding empathy." I don't think the void worms are "evil" or malevolent, but I think they (and subsequently us after ascending) play a key role in demonstrating this theme.

By manifesting the physical world, we allow these souls to experience life and develop their own qualia so one day they can ascend themselves. We are shown compassion, and pass it forward.

[hazbinshusk]

day nineteen of salem's unofficial attempt at kinktober: cockwarming/in the workplace (blitz x reader)

+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +

“Moxxie, I swear to fucking Satan that if this ain’t life or death I’m gonna come out there and fuck that little red hole of yours.” Blitzø snarls under his breath, and your own breath hitches as he shifts his hips up slightly. The movement presses his cock deeper into you, and your fingers grip the edge of the desk in response. He raises his voice, his arm wrapping around your waist to keep you in place on his lap. “Give me a fuckin’ minute!”

“Sir, I—” the door opens incrementally, slamming shut again when Blitzø grabs the nearest object on his desk – a mug full of broken pencils – and hurls it against the wood. The cup shatters, and you jump at the sound, a moan catching in your throat at the way it bounces you on his cock.

You can hear Moxxie complaining about his treatment on the other side of the door, but Blitzø growls, the rumbling, possessive sound making you shiver. “Oh… you liked that, didn’t you, whore?”

You can’t help it; you nod.

Blitzø has had you on his lap for the better part of an hour, his thick, hard cock buried deep in your cunt. It was driving you crazy – every tiny shift of his hips up into yours as he went through the motions of sorting through client files. Any time you made move to relieve the stretching ache between your thighs, he’d dig his claws into your thigh, sink his teeth into your shoulder.

“You wanna fuck me so bad, don’t ya?”

“You’re such an asshole, Blitz.”

He snickers, trailing the spade of his tail up between your thighs, the tip teasing under the hem of your skirt to play against your sensitive flesh. You whimper, eyes squeezed closed as you desperately try to slow your breathing. Blitzø rocks his hips up against yours, grinning against the back of your neck when you gasp.

“Yooooou love it, bitch.”

“Just… just let me cum. Please, Blitz.”

He hums teasingly against the side of your throat, the sound vibrating into your skin. You feel his brush his lips just barely against the nape of your neck, and your eyes roll towards the ceiling for a moment at the feeling of it.

“Awww… I thought you could ‘handle anything I threw at you’,” he taunts, claws grazing up the side of your thigh to your hip. It lifts the hem of your skirt with it, exposing your cunt, stuffed with his cock, to the office. Somehow the exposure makes it all the more intense - the cool air of the air conditioning caressing your bare skin... the risk that now, if one of the others decided to enter his office...

They'd see everything. They'd see just how good your boss's cock looked buried in your pussy.

He still barely lets you move; the soft rocking of his hips enough to set you on edge as it makes it feel as though he's swelling inside you. Each slow nudge against your g-spot makes sparks swirl in your stomach, and your nails dig hard into the edge of his desk as you fight to keep yourself steady.

“Don’t tell me you’re tappin’ out already.”

You groan, and Blitzø laughs again, his fingertips just barely brushing against your clit. “Fuck…”

“And I’ve got sooooo much I wanna do to you, princess.”

[dragonpropaganda]

you should talk about your thoughts on rw fanon (looking with huge eyes)

Oh god, there's a lot of major misconceptions have concreted into fanon, mostly around ancient society and ascension.

First things first! Ascension is not death! They are entirely separate things treated entirely separately by the text of the game. I can see where the interpretation is coming from, but it doesn't really align with how the text treats either subject. Five Pebbles may want to remove the self destruction taboo, but from his reaction to the rot it's clear that he doesn't want to die. Conflation of ascension and death only comes up as an offhand possibility that pebbs makes on iterator 4chan, when he's going into the possibilities of scenarios that even the other sliverists are doubtful of! (let me make clear that I am not a sliverist by any means)

Ascension is more of talked about as a form of transcendence, yeah? A Bell, Eighteen Amber Beads talks about their sitution as being "To have grasped at the boundless infinites of the cosmic void…", not as them seeking an end to life.

The beta dialogue goes into more detail, mentioning the "infinities of time and space" and the "boundless fractal planes of spirit and reality...", though this dialogue was cut and it's hard to tell how much it reflects the concept as in the released game.

As for the cultural misconceptions... there's A Lot to talk about, but the first that comes to mind is the common conflation of the five natural urges and the christian concept of sin.

It is true that the negation of urges is mentioned by moon as an alternative method of ascension, but much of what we know about the culture of the people who the fandom calls the ancients (which makes discussion of the depths a mess but that's something for another post entirely) points towards the urges not being seen as shameful.

Even the first urge does not seem to be particularly scorned! Being a warrior is presented as a cause for bragging in the Shaded Citadel pearl, being comparable with being an artist and a fashion legend. The second urge, also does not seem to be suppressed. Multiple sources attribute some level of honour to parenthood! The aforementioned pearl also mentions Seventeen Axes, Fifteen Spoked Wheel as being a "Mother, Father and Spouse" without any hint of shamefulness. Nineteen Spades, Endless Reflections expresses pride about having progeny, mentioning it alongside their owned land and esteem among their peers.

After some peer review, an esteemed friend has told me to add a section on purposed organisms as well! This is not so much my area, so I might be a bit off on some things.

As moon says, the majority of purposed organisms were tubes in boxes, and that the primal fauna of the world are almost entirely extinct. A lot of the fandom seems to ignore the first part, and i can't say I blame them, but the evolution of the creatures is so much weirder than people think.

Concept art for the creatures has this interesting quality to it, where the organic parts of the creatures have an almost... melty quality to them.

In the concept art, the flesh appears as if it's almost defying the machinery to form an animal shape. It's as if it's conquering its own artificiality the way the foliage grows over the (stone, brick and concrete, not mostly metal as some think!) ruins.

Of course, it's hard to really tell how much of this reflects the finalised concept, most of the integration is much smoother in the game, in line with a seamless kind of biomechanical design. There was always an intention of biomechanical strangeness, as shown in this screenshot of the devlog before the term "slugcat" even existed!

That said, the melty nature of the concept art shows a level of wild change inherent the biomechanical nature of the creatures, as if they truly are the result of these "tubes in boxes" almost revolting against their own boxes.

and considering centipedes... some tubes may not have had boxes in the first place!

[citadelrock]

"I made it all the way to Phoenix on the money I had saved. The trees looked different, but everything else was exactly the same. I started using a new name. Sleeping at the cheapest hostel I could find. The Pink Opaque was over. I got a job at the mall. At Build-A-Bear, filling the dolls up with stuffing. I got out of that town. That place, I knew would kill me if I stayed. But something was still wrong. Wronger, even. Time wasn't right. It was moving too fast. And then I was nineteen. And then I was twenty. I felt like one of those dolls, asleep in the supermarket. Stuffed. And then I was twenty-one. Like chapters skipped over on a DVD. I told myself- this isn't normal. This isn't normal. This isn't how life is supposed to be."

"I thought about running away again. About moving to Santa Fe and changing my name one more time, but I knew that everywhere would just be the same. I had seen how it ended. I knew where I was. A little bit after my twenty-second birthday, I paid this burnout kid who used to hit on me in the food court fifty bucks to bury me alive. I mean, he didn't know he was burying me alive, but I doubt he would have cared too much even if he did. I bought a coffin. I dug a hole. I got inside and I closed the lid. I said to myself, this is crazy, what you're doing is crazy, but another part of me knew that it wasn't. That it was survival, and that I didn't have much time. That what felt like years in this world was actually just seconds."

"So I waited. And then finally, the first spadeful of dirt hit the top of the box. And then another. And then another. I sang songs to myself. I counted to ten thousand without skipping any numbers. I pissed and I shit my pants and I forced my mouth to produce whatever saliva it could muster just so I would have something to drink. I screamed as loud as I could for help. I apologized for the whole thing, and I begged God for someone to come along and save me. I tried and tried to claw my way out, but that burnout guy had packed the dirt in too tight- just like I had asked him to do."

"And then, after I don't know how long, I felt myself start to leave myself. And it was like I was watching myself on TV from across the room. And I was moving further and further away from the screen until the screen was so small that I couldn't even see myself anymore. And then I was clawing my way up out of the ground. And then I was at the surface, gasping for air, rain pouring down on me. Thunder and lightning. And I was finally back there. Back at our old sleepaway camp."

"And just like I was waking up from a bad dream, that whole life- that whole reality where I was Maddy Wilson- drifted away. Like a brief hallucination that, after a few moments, I could hardly even remember. And all those memories that had felt so real washed away with the rain back at our old sleepaway camp. And I was me. I was finally me again. And it was the season six premiere."

I Saw The TV Glow (2024)

[fishsfailureson]

Half of an artwork that I'm currently working on

[the-obnoxious-sibling]

Hi Meredith! I'm a huge Buggy fan and I LOVE your analysis about the manga and I want to share this idea with you. I found myself thinking about Ace, well, we know he met Shanks when he was still with the Spade Pirates and wished to see his "little brother savior", but his meeting with Buggy was a totally different story. At that point years had passed and he was in Whitebeard's fleet as a "son" and commander, looking for revenge on Teach. That makes me wonder... was it really some casuality that he showed up in the Big Top or maybe, just maybe, he was curious to see the other man that was raised by his real father? I mean, I'm sure the old Newgate told something about Roger's past to him, even if Ace denied his origins. if I were in him I would be intrigued, plus it is clear by his acting on the ship that he percives no treat in Buggy, he's clearly not there because he's worried for Luffy, rather he enjoys the meeting very much.

It might be just my fantasy but I'd like to know your opinion.

Love!

[on ao3]

“you’re bold as brass, kid, i’ll give you that,” marco the phoenix said, the twentieth or thirtieth time he patched ace up. “fight a warlord for five days straight for a chance to meet your first emperor, lose impressively enough that pops offers you a spot on his ship, and what do you do with that? try to kill him every day for months.” smiling, he shook his head in a way that infuriated ace, like he thought knew better than ace how things were gonna go.

(he had, of course. ace was hardly the first hotheaded kid marco had seen make the transition from enemy to son—though ace did take the longest time about it.)

“not my first emperor,” was all ace bothered to say in response.

“oh? who else?” marco looked ace over and decided, “not kaidou, not if you attack all emperors on sight. he’s not half as nice as pops.”

ace snorted, grimaced at the spatter of blood this threw across the bandages marco had just finished tying off, and, wiping his nose with the back of his hand, said, “no, it was shanks. and i wasn’t there to kill him.”

marco startled. “oh man, i keep forgetting that kid’s an emperor now! time flies…”

ace sat up. “you know shanks?” he couldn’t help but be curious—he didn’t know much about the man who’d saved, and inspired, his baby brother.

“yeah, i’ve known him nearly thirty years.”

oh, he had meant it when he called shanks ‘kid.’ “…was he a whitebeard pirate too?”

marco laughed. “can you imagine?” he asked, glancing down the deck to look at whitebeard, lounging casually in his oversized chair, like ace hadn’t flung a half-dozen bombs at his head twenty minutes ago. the old man didn’t turn to face them, but his mustache twitched, a sure sign that he was grinning. “no way, that kid was roger’s start to end.”

the name hit ace like a punch to the gut—like the one whitebeard had landed on him nineteen minutes ago, actually, blunt and out of nowhere. “roger?” he asked, breathless.

”oh, yeah, you’re young enough you wouldn’t know,” marco realized. packing away the last of his supplies, he said, “gol d roger didn’t have a fleet like pops, just the one ship, and just two apprentices: shanks and buggy.” scratching at his chin, marco said, “what’d you always call them, pops?”

“red-hair and red-nose,” came the response.

“that’s it.” marco chuckled. “roger’s red boys. hey, if you met shanks, you must’ve seen buggy too. blue hair, bad attitude, and—well, pops is right, you can’t miss that red nose.”

“uh…” ace thought back, or tried to—the memory of shanks, luffy’s friend and savior, was being overshadowed by this new knowledge. a warm smile in a snowy cave—a smile worn by a monster’s pupil. surrounded by men with wary looks at an upstart with an interest in their captain—a captain whose former captain was that man. were any of them blue-haired? had any of them looked at ace, seen a demon’s spawn, and been glad at the sight? “doesn’t ring any bells.”

“no?” marco looked disturbed for a moment. “well, it’s been a long time. i guess even those two might’ve gone separate ways.” marco gave ace a pat on the shoulder and got to his feet. “alright kid, you’re in as good a shape as i can get you! try not to ruin all my hard work by going after pops again tomorrow, huh?”

but he said it like he knew ace would. again and again, until the siren song of the word “son,” genuinely meant, grew too strong to withstand.

it would be years before ace thought of that conversation again. he had other conversations with whitebeard—with his pops—about roger which lingered more in his memory. the fact that there were two people out there in the world who were, essentially, raised by that man… ace put that knowledge out of his head.

at least, he put it out of his head until, running dangerously low on supplies while hunting down teach, he spotted a ship with a red-nosed jolly roger.

“a red nose, huh?” ace brought striker into the larger ship’s wake, considering climbing aboard. if shanks had known ace for who his father was, he hadn’t mentioned it. this buggy guy would probably be similarly ignorant, or discreet. and if he did know, maybe he’d feel obligated to feed his old captain’s son? ace’s stomach growled painfully, a reminder of what single-mindedly hunting down a traitor could do to a man.

a delicious aroma drifted downwind, along with a raised voice shouting something about “strawhats” and that clinched it. between his brother, his father, and his hunger, ace needed to see what this red-nosed buggy was about.