#slugcats too to an extent

[honks-n-stonks]

bell's ask got me thinking about my crazyass MH au again. I WAS planning on adding Rain World to it but now it made me realize that YES I could totally get away with the existence of the iterators and essentially keep them intact in the au. as well as the creatures that exist in RW.

after all, it's been shown multiple times that some of the ancient civilizations DID totally have some really advanced technology, as shown with the artian sets as well as the tower from frontier. also the scrapped/noncanon stuff like the equal dragon weapon. oooohoohooooooo

[mothsakura]

Thinking of Watcher DLC...

It's been 4 months and I am still thinking of Watcher DLC, so I am just gonna yap here- this is mostly my speculation. i need watcher dlc to come out auughhh i neeeed it i neeed it i need more rain world I NEEED MORE RAIN WORLD !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THE HYPERFIXATION IS HYPERFIXATING !!!!!!!!!!!!

Trailer details:

First, the trailer

I want to bring attention to 3 things: -poleplant -rot -void theme/watcher coming out of the shadows First I'll start with the pole plant as it will be easiest to explain. This most definitely takes place before saint's campaign, as I have not seen pole plants (I believe they went extinct?) in saint's campaign. Further details about the timeline are with the blue lizard's typical appearance (lizards look slightly different in saint's campaign), which too suggests that this is at least before saint. (Also lack of snow but I think that is too obvious) The rot is another thing I wanna focus on. We only see rot originate from two things: the iterators, and failed purposed organisms. The rot is also not specific to pebbles, as iterators have already known about the rot before pebbles got it. We can assume that we are either near an iterator district, or directly in it (judging by machinery and pipes in the background.). Now who is this potential new iterator? I am unsure, but I know it's definitely not pebbles' and moon's district both due to the screenshots on the steam page, and the fact that we've already explored all major plot points in pebbles' and moon's stories, adding more to their stories would be a rather bold move. Last thing, void themes and seemingly watcher's ability to come out of the shadow. I believe these two are connected. Although I have no clue what watcher's ability is, and what it has to do with void, but perhaps watcher can camouflage themselves in the shadows similar to how white lizards blend into their environment? Perhaps this ties into the void theme somehow? Although really I am unsure for this one.

Steam page, specifically the description:

"Rain World: The Watcher is a DLC expansion of Rain World. Journey beyond to something, somewhere only ever glimpsed. When the world beneath your feet cracks and crumbles, will you hold on to all you once knew? Or dive into the unknown?

The wilds that await will be unlike all that's come before.

Unknown creatures stalk and climb and dive and hunt. New breeds rip and pluck and burrow and hide. Predator and prey redefined. And through the middle of it all, a lonely lost slugcat trying their best to outlast the ravages of a warped world."

"Journey beyond to something, somewhere only ever glimpsed." caught my attention first. This further proves that this will not be in pebbles' and moon's district. However the last part, only ever glimpsed, suggests we know about this new place at least by some extent. Perhaps we have heard about it in character dialogue? Perhaps it is one of the districts of iterators we already know (NSH, Suns, UI, CW, SoS, and all the miscellaneous broadcast ones)? I believe that the latter is the case, especially with UI (close to pebbles, justifies the rot? also I am coping because UI has no lore), NSH (unsure how rot will tie in to him, but we have definitely heard a lot from him) or Suns (once again unsure how the rot will tie in, but we have heard from them a lot too). "The wilds that await will be unlike all that's come before." too shows that we are definitely gonna be in a new place. Another thing, the "when the world beneath your feet cracks and crumbles," this can either be a metaphor for a major change, or quite literally some kind of collapse or disaster. Honorable mention to warped world, also playing into the major change metaphor, or some kind of disaster.

"Unknown creatures stalk and climb and dive and hunt. New breeds rip and pluck and burrow and hide." I believe there will *definitely* be new creatures as well, some perhaps using the sand (and... salt... i think?) to burrow, and jump out at ya' like a dropwig or stalk ya' like a white lizard, or swoop down at ya' like a vulture! Except it's gonna be new variants or perhaps some new creatures altogether!

Screenshots:

I do not have much to say about this except for "this isn't pebbles' or moon's district", which has become more and more clear by now. I am very curious about this pink place however:

Why is it so pink? Is this iterator machinery or some kind of mast / tower / tall place ? Why can we not see any fellow iterators. I believe, the regions shown in the screenshots are still wips to some extent, so if this is the case, perhaps video cult and the dev team have yet to add iterators.... if not, I wonder where exactly this place is? Is it far far away from iterators? Is it facing somewhere an iterator cannot be built? WHY IS IT SO PINK!!! I unfortunately do not have much else to say about screenshots aside from they're very funky and I cannot wait to play Watcher DLC................................... I need watcher dlc omfg I need more rain world this hyperfixation is no joke......... I hope this ramble has been at least to some extent comprehensive, and that I did not make myself sound like a fool trying to seem too smart XD If ya'll have anything to add on, or speculate on other details, please please do in the notes or comments!!!

[gay-artificer]

Perhaps my most controversial take is that Saint might not be a slugcat.

If we consider Survivor (and to a lesser extent Monk and even Hunter) as the quintessential example of a slugcat, we have the basis for what actually counts as one. From there we have to look at the deviants from basic form and determine how severe they deviate- which I think all others but Saint don't go to far. Spearmaster- Modified organism using a slugcat base. Stretching the definition of a normal slugcat here maybe, but more or less still resembles the rest of the group minus the obvious. Definitely not considered a member of the same species though. Artificer- Minus the weird explosion bacteria, it is a normal slugcat in terms of form Gourmand- Literally just fat and strong. Perfectly normal fella. Rivulet- Okay this is where we get interesting. Rivulet is both the first to deviate notably from the basic slugcat in terms of readable physical traits, and is also set further in the timeline. An evolutionary split from what a 'slugcat' is fully possible. However, their actual traits are rather minute. Rivulets main trait is the presence of external gills, suggesting an aquatic adaption. However in real world examples of external gills they are mostly a development of species that already had gills in some form in either their lifecycle or biology. The most obvious inspiration for rivulet's design is likely the axolotl, which is a salamander that has neotenic (juvenile) traits due to never metamorphosing. If you force metamorphosis, an axolotl looks like a normal salamander

Gills or gill-like structures can also be internal or land-modified- Spiders for example have book lungs, which are likely evolved from book gills (whereas in human evolution our gills did not evolve into lungs, and gills instead 'turned into' parts of our skull and ears) you can also have lungs and gills, as seen with certain species of lungfish. It seems perfectly reasonable to guess that the slugcat- either currently or historically- made use of a gill or gill-like system- which would set rivulet up for either a reemergence of the trait or as an alternative evolutionary path. I could easily see the rivulet 'type' of slugcat existing alongside the normal species, just isolated to coastal and other floodzones- or as one of several independent cases of the external gill trait emerging. Complicating things further- Sea slugs make use of gills in several forms, while (most) land slugs have lost their gills and created a simple lung out a hollow cavity. There is also at least one slug that completely lacks both lungs and gills and breathes entirely through their skin. Lots of variety there within a group. What we can confirm though is that at minimum- slugcats do have a nose. However the presence of the nostrils alone doesn't tell us the fine details; Frogs also have nostrils and make heavy use of them for the vast majority of their breathing, but also have permeable skin that also allows for oxygen exchange (particularly while under water). So its complicated. All this is a very complicated way of say that there's no real indication that rivulet is all that particularly unique compared to the basic slugcat, minus the gills- which are something that could be a perfectly normal trait to develop without getting too far from the traits that make a slugcat a slugcat. It would be, at minimum, its own species though. Genus you could argue about. And then we get to Saint. Saint is ages forward in the timeline for our 'basic' slugcat, to the point where even lizards have heavily shifted their evolutionary patterns and there have been notable extinctions within the window the game provides. Saint itself has a very notable deviation: Very obvious long fur (or at least, something convincingly playing the role of fur). While furry slugcats (whether that be more cat-like or fine fur like a seal) is popular in fanon works, official art has an obvious smoothness to it more indicative of bare skin (Although the quality of this skin, such as if its more mammalian or amphibian, etc- is unknown)

While the type of skin could heavily change how big of a deal this is (it would be a lot easier to develop and lose fur with the structure of mammalian skin than amphibian skin; and if we are being technical mammals are the only thing that can truly develop fur/hair) It does at least mark the development of a trait that seemingly took several generations to acquire, at least on par with the development of a fur or fur-like trait in all surviving species of 'lizards' It does seem to intend to mirror, to a degree, the evolution of mammals. Which begs the question... can you really call Saint a slugcat? When you think about what survivor is, and how removed Saint is from them in both physical features and time period... would the term be appropriate? And to be specific, its technically incorrect to say things evolve "into" other things- they split and grow into distinct things (and sometimes all but one dies off in the process). Evolutionary history is difficult to chart for a number or reasons, and its extremely complicated- but when we say something like "snakes evolved from lizards" what it really means is that at some point there was a group of something we agreed were lizards, and then something within that group began to change into something with its own distinct features and traits until we gave it a new name. In the lizard and snakes example, snakes are technically lizards. Just lizards with very specific traits we don't consider lizard traits. But you also have examples like mantodea (Mantises) and Blattodea (Roaches and Termites).

A some point there was something that was neither mantis nor roach (the roachoids, which despite being more roach-like than mantis-like we don't consider them proper roaches), that split into things that would go on to form the basis of those groups (and then termites would split from there, making termites technically a type of roach). And for the rest of history humans would argue constantly about what to do with this mess So really the question is what do we consider a slugcat, and is Saint part of an evolutionary lineage that 'slugcat' applies fully across, or does Saint mark a split into something else, that would technically go alongside "true" slugcats under a wider net. Slugcat definitely isn't a singular species and I lean towards genus but could see an argument for family or order. Lets do DNA analysis on pixels and find out they are actually a type of lantern mouse

[rw-ethology]

Slugcats, Sociality and Altruism

Seems like a decent place to kick off the blog :)

Even from just the intro cutscenes, dreams, and alike that provide a glimpse into their lives before braving the harsh ecosystem alone, it's easy to tell that slugcats in general are very much a sociable sort. Whether part of a large colony like Gourmand's appears to be or the single family shown in Monk and Survivor's cinematics, none of the "wild" slugcats we actually get to learn about the circumstances of are alone before the events of the game- and some of them don't stay that way either, with the recent introduction of lost slugpups to find and take care of. But what's so unique about that?

(Long post under cut.)

At first it might not seem like anything special- a given, even. Animals grouping up or remaining with their families into adulthood, eating, sleeping, grooming and playing together, isn't that unusual; even if you're not particularly bothered about companionship, there are many survival benefits to being part of a closeknit group when you're a small and squishy prey animal. Perhaps most straightforwardly, the statistical odds of you specifically being picked off by a predator go way down when your prospective attacker has more targets to choose from, and more trying to drive it off- safety in numbers is a given, when it comes to everything from finding food to raising offspring. The more eyes and ears and hands the better, and it just so happens many creatures that do this are also very sociable with each other.

Sociality to the sheer extent slugcats seem to take it, though is actually considerably rare in the animal kingdom. A lot of animals, even those that are very close with their families, simply don't care all too much about anything outside of their immediate circle- while protecting their own mate and offspring is important, any stranger could be a potential threat or after their valuable resources, and there's little reason to expend time and energy rearing young that aren't theirs. But then in certain more large-brained, intelligent species (and slugcats are undeniably intelligent), where the payoffs and benefits of collaboration and compassionate acts between peers become great enough to create a huge social advantage, things can get a little more interesting. Over time, evolutionarily, an emotional motivation to help others in need starts to emerge.

This is a big deal! Animals with lower comparative intelligence just don't do this; this particular response goes beyond instinct, it creates the capacity for true altruistic behaviour, even in the absence of any immediate tangible reward. And considering the behaviour is learned, reinforced and reciprocated between an entire group so that everybody benefits, it's easy to see how it's so effective. For virtually any creature on its own, missing one too many meals or becoming badly injured or otherwise incapacitated can be as good as a death sentence. Within a group that's personally invested in your wellbeing, however, you've got the insurance of the stronger, fitter members of your family being willing to provide for you catch-free while you can't for yourself, giving you increased survival odds that other animals in the same predicament simply don't get. In a world where just about everything larger than you wants to eat you, having companions who would rather nobody gets served up for dinner is one of the biggest advantages you can have!

However, problems do arise when you lose that advantage of numbers. Having apparently evolved to pass up on sharp edges and defensive strategies in exchange for smarts and compassion, a lone slugcat with no support system has little to rely on but their own resourcefulness to survive- while also likely battling the psychological effects of separation and loss commonly observed in highly social animals. But not all hope is necessarily lost; even in the absence of their own kin, a slugcat's motivation to care is hard-wired, and evidently not limited to their conspecifics either. They can befriend scavengers, another intelligent, social species with a similar inclination to return favours and good deeds; tame lizards (their own predators!) by acting as a provider of food or rescuing them from harm, which will then defend you against others; and in some campaigns, take in lost pups as their own, who will also attempt to come to their aid when in danger. And then, of course, there's perhaps the most interesting friends they could make in the circumstances.

After all, it would be amiss not to mention their apparent affinity for meddling in the affairs of passing gods! Whether or not you fetch them in your own playthroughs, Looks to the Moon has more neurons the later you encounter her in the timeline, and by Rivulet's time even the old cloak recoverable from the depths of her superstructure, suggesting their canon* retrieval- not to mention the events of Rivulet's entire campaign. Considering extending kindness to something as wildly different to them as an iterator is clearly not a stretch for even wild slugcats, it's probably not just a coincidence they seem to make such effective purposed messengers, either; there are likely stronger, faster options to choose from, sure, but you'd be hard pressed to find a creature more loyal, versatile and sympathetic to the plights of others anywhere else.

All things considered no matter the campaign or how aggressively you personally play, just from looking at the overarching plot and events considered canon, it can be said everything happens as it does because slugcats are just how they are- motivated to act based on how strongly they feel for others, whether for better or for worse (read: Artificer's grief-driven rampage). Despite being just another little creature struggling their way through the cycle, time and time again a lowly slugcat manages to affect the world around them and/or its inhabitants in ways far beyond their comprehension and well into the future, just by following their nature. If things were any different, in all likelihood the overarching story and timeline as we know it wouldn't be remotely the same!

*Not technically confirmed as far as I can tell, but for the purposes of this post I am going with the implication that Monk and/or Survivor are responsible for the extra neurons and returned cloak.

[rw-ship-showdown]

ok I keep seeing Monk ships losing and I just want to throw this out here real quick

okay. Both Survivor and Monk are shown to be younger in their cutscenes. And since monk is the younger sibling (was that actually confirmed somewhere or is it a community thing?) people tend to shy away from their ships.

Monk/Gourmand? I get that. They look related.

Arti/Monk? I get that too, motherly character paired with a character usually portrayed as a child.

So on, so forth.

however. I raise you this:

We don’t know how long survivor and monk have been separated. They could’ve been searching for YEARS before their campaign. Yeah it’s unlikely that they haven’t ran into each other at all in that time but it’s not impossible.

also, kids aren’t in the cycle (as seen in arti’s campaign) so how do monk and surv come back? They have to be at least young adults. I’m not forcing people to ship them, just… maybe something like a Let Papyrus Say Fuck day for both of them. They aren’t children.

hopes and prayers to the monk and survivor ships out there. hopefully they can get at least something in the loser’s bracket.

while this is headier than id usually allow to tournament discussion i want to throw in my own two cents because i DO NOT want people to think that i do think that monk and survivor are canonically children and am flippant about shipping them- as far as i am aware, nowhere in the fiction of the game, past the initial cutscene, does it indicate that monk and survivor are any younger than the other slugcats. they are the same exact size in game and in the end cutscenes. aside from there being no evidence that they ARE children, the developers specifically confirm a timegap between the opening cutscene and the start of the game;

survivor is also noticeably larger than the slugpups you can find in game so unless the ingame slugpups are neonatal this likely indicates survivor is an adult by the end of its journey, and monk is the same size as it

(similarly as you note, idc about people shipping them either, i just dont want anyone to think i havent thought about this. as far as i know theyre regular slugcats- though i will note, i dont think 100% of their losses in the tournament are because people think theyre children- its likely its just because monk and survivor are, kindly, kind of boring, at least compared to the others who have backstories and usually explicit motivation. the extent of their storyline wraps them up with each other rather deeply, but leaves little room for personality past 'going' and 'following')

obligatory: here are the remaining monk ships to vote for: rivmonk and solar eclipse.

[steampaul]

i've started a little series of weekly posts documenting every MoC i made (digitally) over the last few years:

Week 9: 2022

some old MoCs returning, lego art, 90th anniversary toa team, video game stuff and more Rock Raiders (yay)

this one will be the penultimate week.

remember back in week 2 (2018) where i tested out the differences in rendering between stud.io 1 and 2? i tested out the mecabricks extention for Blender to render some digital bricks.

this took way too long to setup and render, so i decided to not use blender for rendering after that (escpecially after the win11 updated fucked with my graphics card)

another mandalorian s2 set MoC. din djarins N1 starfighter, based on the last N1 set we had back in 2015. i think these proportions aren't good, but a bit better than the official set. (its still too big though)

the Horizon: forbidden west set was also teased/revealed around that time, so i decided to make a diorama with just the watcher (and one with a corrupted one) that would be a bit more managable in both cost and size than the tallneck.

i still got the tallneck, becauce those robot dinos are cool as hell and i want to support video game based sets, even though i am a big supporter of the concept that LEGO should make more original themes instead of big and expensive licensed sets (like rivendell....)

some greebles inspired by the ones on the Icons (formerly master builder) "theme" of sets, also my header image for tumblr.

back in 2017 (week one) i made The Slugcat Portrait mosaic, and i decided in 2022 that i would remake it to be more in line with the way i would built with bricks at that time. i think i improved wuite a bit.

i like the 90 years of play tahu, even if his design was considered to be controversial, so i decided to make the full 2001 set lineup for bionicle. i think they turned out pretty good, but i find it a bit annoying that the maccaroni piece does not exist in tan or medium blue (a dicontinued colour)

anyone remeber Valley? the momentum-based FPS platformer? no? it wasn't really mind-blowing, but i still enjoyed the movement and flow of the game. i also always wanted to try out the Legoland Miniland style of character building. this was the perfect opportunity to combine both of these things.

i think the proportions might be a bit off, but i still like this little desk friend

someone asked me on twitter to send them the instructions for my marble machine MoC (as seen in week 7), but i didn't want to give them such and outdated build, so i re-designed it to be more up to date.

they ended up giving me about 14 $ for these instructions, which made me pretty happy.

i tried to make a micro-scale version of the exo-force set 7701 Grand Titan. i really dislike the way this one turned out.

Lego Ideas had yet another contest. this one was about designing a poster for the then new 21334 Jazz Quartet. i called this one "Golden Sounds" and it is the first mosaic-type MoC that i made where i first sketched it out to kinda figure out how i wanted it to look.

i like the way this one turned out, but i think i should've built it in such a way that the colours in the background wouldn't be as dim.

remember last week when i said i wanted to make more Rock raiders MoCs? turns out i did. a lot too.

this VTOL-style transport vehicle was kinda inspired by those industrial transport helicopters and was supposed to be some sort of reimagining of 4980 tunnel transport. i think it's a bit too clunky and a bit too skinny at the same time. not my favourite.

also there's a modular open container (is that what they're called?) that can be fixed under the vehicle. (as well as the room container that you'll see next)

Modular bases are so cool you guys. this one is inspired by 4990 Rock Raiders HQ and those big old moving platforms Nasa uses. it could be controlled with a motor, has a removable cockpit (with an access hatch) and the platform has a lot of room for modules. like the crystal refinery, the room container, the high platforms, the crane and the crane attachment holder.

here are a few variants for the room container: an artifact storage with workbench, a small break room and a laboratory. i like those and i might do more in some time in the future. idk yet.

my take on the rock monsters. some crystal infested/energized Fauna.

first some bipedal designs (the left one is a modded version of a deviant form an eternals sets) that could be more agressive carnivore types.

in the middle are some quadrupedal guys that could be a bit less agressive and even friendly. Left is a modded version of my SCP 860 creature from week 4 (which was based on either an legendary beast from Chima or a dragon from elves) and the right one is a recolour from the fluffy-tailed Hog from my satisfactory series from week 3

and lastly, some insectoid designs, a kind of beetly creature and two ants, one of them with wings. these could be some sort of neutral (like in minecraft) swarm that might be a problem for buildings and cocky miners.

this is probably my favourite of my Rock Raiders Builds from 2022. it's 4920 rapid rider built with modern pieces that has been overtaken by the energy crytals. it can be fully freed from crystal and reassebled, which is nice.

we'll see another rapid rider next week...

first week last week final week

[akirameta84]

I admit. My first thought when it comes to a Saiki K. × Rainworld AU is Iterator Saiki and his hoard of Slugcats that he accidentally adopted.

So your Scug Saiki AU is a lot more creative than whatever I can come up with lol-

thats still a very good idea!! i just knew slugcat + many pups would be the funniest haha. though iterator + many scugs isnt too dissimilar lol

an interator saiki is cool but like- as a slugcat he may not have the full extent of his psychic powers in canon, but he's definitely still pretty powerful. and he can move freely. compared to iterators hes much more powerful lol

i also wanted to keep the iterators and other slugcats in rain world canonically still there. and, like a previous ask suggested, scug saiki and his friends/pups would work wonderfully in the timeline right in between ruffles and saint

[luc1d-dr34m5]

AYYY MACARENA

MY RAINWORLD OCS(one is based off a friend's oc tho)

ITERATORS:

Triple Core System | TCS (Nickname: Cor3)

Iridescent Ravaged World | IRW (Nickname: Iris)

SLUGCAT/S:

The Radiant (nicknames: Little demon, pest, little baby boy, lil baby man, round, a wawa, a lil weewaa)

Facts about thems under the cut

Triple Core System:

Is a serious guy, but he can be silly at times... Just with usually an amused or nonchalant face

He is so CLINGY

Im not lying if Iris wants to go somewhere he gotta go too

But alas, he has to stay to manage their cans...

He is AroAce

Absolutely loves his scugger son

Deranged but looks soo normal

Iterator that focuses on making mechanical stuff

An older generation model like Looks to the Moon

Iridescent Ravaged World:

Is so deranged and silly

Theyre not even TRYING to be normal

Will dissect you and put you back flawlessly out of curiosity

Is also Clingy but not tot he extent Cor3 is

AlloRomantic & AlloSexual

but uses the label of AroAce

Absolutely loves his scugger son

Iterator that focuses on making purposed organisms

He modified the rot to be helpful but lost half his face instead

Same gen model as Five Pebbles

The Radiant:

A Slugcat made from scratch by both IRW and TCS

It took those two so many goddamned attempts to make Radiant that when this baby lived for more than 1 cycle they cried in happiness

His alternate Title is "Our Magnum Opus"

Is specifically modified and added on to be able to easily survive any harsh enviroments

Very efficient messenger bc this lik guy can just float and raze his way into an iterator's can

this baby scug can work as a power core for a whole iterator can

in fact, in sacrificing all the extra food pips they can make a new energy cell taht only lasts for 3 cycles

Already has a mark of communication and can reply back with text to speech

Hates 5P bc they almost ripped the pearl out him when they arrived after Spearmaster just left

Already glows, and knows how to detach an iterator from their arm.

Extras!!!

IRW and TCS were built very very close together. The bridge is short for a superstructure.

Due to them making purposed organisms to repair wnd defend their cans, No creatures like scavengers and vultures dare to be in proximity to the cans.

Instead of using water, they use purposed organisms that generate liquid and gas nitrogen to cool down their cans. this slowed down the initial rot bc it kept freezing

Superconductive magnets are frequently used to transport things around inside their cans due to liquid nitrogen being abundant

dont fall into the pools tho

youll freeze

Radiant is a very smart boiyo and if you give them tools theyll dismantle an iterator cans basic areas in atleast 10 cycles

Their local group is the "Factory Initiative" as they were given tasks other than finding a solution

Everyone else in the local group is dead

except 1

if you count someone barely concious alive that is

Also, the liquid nitrogen is very effective if done right, but its rlly hard to transport them arohnd... so they were only ever used in the factory Initiative group because they can easily transport and produce more across eachother.

The only iterators in that group that still used water cooling were the ones with farms to manage. and they discharged rain more frequently to decrease the danger to the plants and such theyre growing

so basically for those iterators, its a near constant on the clock making sure the rain they discharged wasnt lethal

anyways shsmsn

[kelocitta]

ooh i really appreciate u answering that!

but the sad thing is I've tried Literally* every one of these :( my problem is that I'd like to just be ignored by predators. I want to see the ecosystem in action, but w/o being involved in it. But a mod for that probably won't ever exist, if it doesn't yet..

I hope u can find some light assist tho! I struggle w that too lmao

* not the controller thing cuz i got the basics down. its the advanced moves i want but can't pull off bc my keyboard is stupid :( can't do any of the slides

Sorry I couldn't help! And I wouldn't say never- with Downpour and official workshop support there is a decent chance you might get something like that in the future as more people might take interest in the modding scene. I feel like i remember seeing something similar, but I can't find it atm. It probably wouldn't be impossible as you could probably get the right effect by just changing the way most creatures see the player. If you want a band-aid option- Dev tools are builtin now, and you may be able to give yourself "immunity" from the world via that (I dont actually know the full extent of the tools). Creatures will still react to you, but you can easily remove yourself from the situation with that (I know you can grab slugcat and hold them inside a wall for a little bit as at least one way). There might be a choice to make the player "invisible" to creatures with that for all I know, might be worth looking into? If not, there is a mod called Death Protection on RainDB that gives immunity to most lethal events like creature bites, but I don't think its been ported yet. High chance someone will remake it for the workshop as those tools are very useful for casual play!

They did also add safari mode which makes the player an overseer that can target and take control of creatures (or just follow them around) which gives a similar effect... But safari is independent from any story modes and requires you unlocking their levels similar to arena.

[omensgate]

since i run this blog lets look under the hood and see my definitive opinion on every ship which may become increasingly incoherent because i dont have any particularly strong feelings and wringing words out of me is like. water from rag. it stops eventually

SURVFICER v FULL MOON this is going to be a running theme with anything with survivor (and monk) in it; i dont really care about them because i cant imagine them having any personality. i also personally imagine surviver as just a wee babe. gourmand and nightcat are fun, i totally forgot nightcat is literally in its colony. thats sweet! very homely. so i voted for full moon

SOLAR ECLIPSE v CHERRY BOMB sorry to disappoint everyone. i really dont ship artihunter, i imagine them as fundamentally incompatible and in anything i write id write them as bitterly, bitterly divorced. i dont get behind the headcanon that hunter is malicious, and definitely not to the extent that artificer is. it might be run off from vanilla rw where hunter was The combat slugcat but coming from downpour without having the framework of there only being Four slugcats for Four archetypes, the way IVE interpreted hunter is that its on a just and righteous quest to SAVE someone, not go on a murder tour, especially when its character select specifies its high aggression is just due to its digestive system. for them to be divorced though they have to be married first so yes i did vote for artihunter but i cant imagine them ever being on the same level in the end. hunters final death bumping to highest karma while arti without effort is bound to karma 1 is so opposites. its interesting. i dont think theyre frolicking through flower fields cheering and dancing together but theyre so intriguing. solar eclipse of course is nothing to me. nightcat in general has no substance (sorry. i love it but its just nightcat) and monk is nothing also.

BLOOD MOON v KEBAB i voted for kebab not because i care about them but because nightcat is nothing to me. ive seen others write tactful analysis slotting them together so thats all i need to be convinced. also i just like gourmand. its so charming!

SPEARMONK v REVERSAL Spearmonk is nothing at all. i think you could write something fun with peace loving monk startled by spearmasters necessary violence to feed but aside from that its nothing. reversal on the other hand is funny so i did vote for it. gives mad like.. discord and fluttershy energy in my mind

LAGSPIKE v SUPERNOVA i did vote for supernova and then regret it a little bit because i see lagspike is winning now but ive seen such compelling fanart of supernova and i like anything related to stars. im also in the nightcat is a freak of nature camp (see my inv lore) which fits in nice against artis karma trap. lagspike is funny too though, idk why when i think dating sim moments i think spearmaster

CANDY CANE v SEAFOOD candy cane is of course nothing to me. seafood is (shrug). it reminds me of playing with my (boy)friend as gourmand where he (arti) carried me around for mobility. the pair of quick movement carrying something that can kill in one hit is super nice.

SPEARHUNTER v LANTERNFISH lanternfish is nothing to me (i imagine nightcat too timid to jive with rivulets energy...) spearhunter is very interesting. i think i did say before i got into rw community that i was confused why everyone shipped spearmaster and rivulet without ever including hunter who serves a similar purpose. i prefer spearhunter over other spearmaster ships for character roundedness, i like how i imagine hunters confidence to uplift spearmaster

GOURVIVOR v SCRAMBLED EGGS i dont care about either of these. i voted for scrambled eggs because 1. i care about survivor less and 2. funny name! AND OF COURSE, have bombs toghether.

SURSAINT v BARBECUE well. everyone likes barbecue. im not so sure if i super get it but its what everyone else likes and i dont care about survivor

NACHOCHEESE v SPEARVIVOR spearvivor is nothing to me of course, and nachocheese has some ardent defenders. i think both characters classify as "silly" so i vote for it.

COUNTERSTRIKE v RIVSAINT yes i voted for the losing team -_- ive seen more people ship counterstrike than rivsaint. the only appeal i can think of is theyre close in time. neither really have anything going on, i just dont think about socialization with rivulet or saint a lot. hunter and inv can both do anything to me

CHERRY PIE v BOOMSTICK this one.. makes me so sad and i hate that the randomizer pit them against each other on week one. i voted for cherry pie because the image of gourmand taking care of hunter as its sickness progresses breaks me apart. to me their characterization is both "take like slowly but take it, and for all its worth" which is so important to me. and spearmaster and artificer, i get the appeal, i think personally theyd make each other worse and be a vortex of bad feelings supporting each others negativity which would be so fun. but cherry pie is cuter so i voted for it.

MONKHUNTER v MONKMAND when i keep thinking about stinker brackets i think about this one. i dont super care about monk. the opposites of monk and hunter are the only reason i vote for it but its like, gun to my head. i have no feelings in particular

SPEEDRUN v PIRANHA this one is so hard and im not going to reveal my choice because i feel like i cant make one now... i think speedrun has a more palpable hypey energy but piranha has such an endearing charm with moons saviors together... hard to say .

MONKFICER v ERROR 404 who ever thought of monkficer. no one. and my dark secret? im super kinning inv and im kissing myself in the mirror. its clear. its also the ship that super got me into rain world so its special to me.

FISHTICKS v GODMODE i know everyone ships fishsticks. i just dont care about it. spearmaster is too exasperated for me i could only ever use it as a gag. godmode on the other hand is everything to me. these 2 are definitely echoes. theyre also definitely divorced extremely badly. but see artihunter; they have to be married first.

SURVULET v CHERRYBUSH hunters death karma and aggression with saints karma drain and pacifism is so intriguing and enamoring to me. and the name is also very cute. i imagine saint as very pretentious religiously and i imagine it preaching aggressively at hunter in its time of weakness. i imagine a sort of softness not traditionally born from the situation worming its way into both of their hearts with hunters short time on the earth as hunter the slugcat and saints continual treading. and. need i say; survulet is Nothing.

SPEARNIGHT v MONKSAINT monk is as ever nothing to me. spearnight is fun because i think they look the same, and i imagine them both very reserved. but its more of "the one i dont care about slightly less" situation again

NIGHTSAINT v MONKVULET voted for this one because i think nightcat and inv are the same guy so read godmode. genuinely surprised anyone ships monkvulet because, say it with me guys. monk is nothing to me

BATHBOMB v SPEARSAINT imagine the energy with bathbomb! spearmaster and saint are both so placcid its not so interesting. but imagine the shenanigans with riv and arti. i dont super care but they are funny to me, mostly i love the name

SAINTMAND v PAPRIKA GOURMAND AND SAINT ARE DAD ENERGY TO ME Like socks and sandals and shorts sitting on the porch energy to me. paprika is nothing ive seen before so i do not care.

thank you. goodnight.

[ask-bigsistermoon]

❇ hey Moon i made a very bad mistake. I mean its kinda not my fault but still it is my fault to some extent . i was messing around with how adaptable and good at surviving to say it the simplest. i can make my avatars because i was bored . well the answer is : EXTREMELY ADAPTABLE and well i made 3? new avatars... Accualy 2 avatars all of the avatars i made were put to a test of how good at surviving they are . their goal was : SURVIVE UNDER ANY CONDITIONS. All of them passed with 100% . to put them on that test i needed to cut my connection to them making them seperate enteties that can operate without me pozzesing them . i. Was observing each one of them with my overseer avatar to see how well are they at what i made them good at . after the test i regained the connection to them and they stopped being a seperate entity. I i would like to add that i was kinda basing these avatars off creatures from my world and other universes . well theres where the mistake occured or rather i say an error. The third avatar. The one that was doing WAY better than the first and second and must i say it was too good at surviving and adapting went rouge . by that i mean i was unable to regain connection to it - im not able to control it , the " avatar" became its own thing. i made a monster Moon. i didnt even wanna use this avatar i was planning on getting rid of it because it was just... Really hard to control it even before cutting connection. the ' avatar' looks as if Carrion moster from Carrion had an unholy child with Rot and some poor slugcat , its as big as a Miros bird at least the main body because the Legs can change their lenth ,it had the ability of the weird insects from the paincones - it can immobilize a red lizard in seconds , it also has the ability of Spitter Spider-paralizing darts , and big spider - it can revive itself for a short amout of time , and of course Long legs great hearing and the legs if it grabs you therses no escapin it , it also has way too many fucking mouths and eyes it grew them after i lost connection to it , it also can regenerate by eating . it can eat anything , its really smart too . i pray to whatever cruel god there is that this thing cant reproduce even tho i dont believe in god . its currently near Pebbles leg in the memory crypts massacaring Miros birds and i think its heading his way. This avatar is REALLY agressive and it should be killed under any circumstances . killing it in a way that it wont revive itself with its ability should do the trick because i didnt connect these avatars to the cycle before the test at least i hope ,i didnt connect them . i sent a similar message to NSH and a warning to pebbles because no way in hell would he believe me if i explained it to him like i explained it to you and NSH . also i think its good to add that this thing doent give a f about the rain it does nothing to it . it just walks around like its nothing while it rains eating any poor animal that didnt menage to find shelter before the rain came . its also not blind unlike DLL heres the picture of this frobbiten spaghetti monster avatar that i took with my overseer avatar , it was kinda hard to get a good picture of it because it tried to eat the overseer avatar :

Also happy halloween 🎃 i think i should name the overseer avatar i had it for how long? A week , two weeks?? And it still doesnt have a proper name . i mean this thing doent have a name either . im gonna go warn Pebbles. Also idn how long it will the jellyfish take NSH said they will tell me when theire done❇

Oh, I see.. Im afraid I cannot help you, no matter how much I'd want to.. Quite an interesting creature tho.. Fits these seasons perfectly..

(Beautiful beast tho, 10/10. Love the shit)

[chipovnik]

пришло время познакомиться чуть более лучше

it's time to get to know each other a little better

text on the picture:

Yuff

creator of this blog

information about me:

I am a purple slugcat, I do not belong to any universe In any way

I live here in white space or emptiness

l have a double with the same name, the only thing that distinguishes me from him is that he is a character in a plot, which I do not have

I can travel to different universes, they look like giant soap bubbles

All the plots that I draw, I take it from there

Sometimes I just come to some places for fun or relaxation

Some universes have their own storage, so to speak, inside which not only the original, but also others smaller, they are all in what to some extent, they differ from the original Due to the possibility of opening teleports, I can get into any of them

I have already met like me, but I could not find a common language with them, someone is too dangerous, someone is hyperactive, and someone ... in general, it does not matter

Now some other information:

I draw in procreate

I never mind answering a couple of questions

(Even more)

I will try my best to keep

this blog alive

I hope that it will be really

interesting for you to read and

see what I do

Good luck

надеюсь теперь инфо стало более развёрнутым и понятным

I hope now the info has become more detailed and understandable

[venus-is-in-bloom]

[rain world] a string of new pearls

hi i have not finished rain world but i’ve manually read up on as much of the lore as i could find in order to write this! it’s just a short fic about Looks to the Moon.

cw: hints of suicidal ideation, maybe body horror?

it’s below the cut, although if you want, you can also read it over on ao3!

One hundred cycles after that last little slugcat visited you for the last time, you haul one of the ruined solar panels out of the muck and the garbage that surrounds you, and you hook it up to one of your loose cables, and you charge off it for an hour when the sun slants in through the hole in the roof.

Then the light fades, and the air thickens with humidity and pressure, and the ground shudders as the rain pours down across the landscape, and it wrenches the panel away from you, tearing the connections from your sockets. You clutch the neuron flies tight in your arms as the water rises, drowning you. The mechanical crane anchoring you to the wall heaves and groans with the current. It still holds, though it's long past functioning.

The rain passes. Water drains from your chamber slowly, squeezing out of the holes where clogged drainage pipes have burst.

The panel is gone, washed away. It was worth a shot.

-o-

The Great Problem. You haven't thought about it in a long, long time, except in abstract. When your systems broke down, so did your capacity to devote subroutines and cycles to contemplating the suffering of all existence. You can't hold it all in your consciousness any more; your ten living neuron flies can barely keep your memories intact.

You feel small, useless, meaningless, when you think about that. But somehow, you also spend long stretches of time without it coming to mind at all. Other things occupy your mind. That's not an experience you've had before.

Having almost died, having come back... you feel free of certain restrictions.

-o-

Your chamber gets few visitors. It's buried in a sea of waste water and surrounded by sea predators. The scavengers only visit you when they're carrying data pearls for you to read. You rarely can give them what they want. Knowledge of the old world only interests them a little; they want salvage, weaponry, hiding places they can dam from the rain.

You can't blame them. If you were out there, you wouldn't care much about the vicissitudes of the ancients, or the dry, dull work of the iterators. But scraps of that knowledge are all you have.

The particular little scavenger that wakes you this time has come alone, which is a rarity. Their spindly limbs are stained with mud from the water they've had to swim through to reach your chamber, and they scrub at their forelimbs as if they're uncomfortable with the sensation. Oh, you miss being clean, too.

¨Are you the Pearl-Reader?¨ they ask. That's their name for you, the scavengers'--you speak their language with difficulty, your hands don't move as fast as theirs, so they know you by what you can do instead.

You keep your answer short--"I am." And you tap the little hollow in the scrap heap you sit upon, to show that you're willing to accept what they give you.

"I have a gift for you," they say, and you expect a data pearl, but it's some kind of device instead. You recognise it immediately--an electric torch of ancient design, meant to be carried by hand.

You lean forward, and take it from the ground where they've left it. You flick the switch, just to see, and it lights up.

The scavenger seems as surprised by the light as you are, and blinks at the flickering bulb. You expect they'll want it back. Maybe they're from one of the villages in the darker regions, out towards the exterior. "I have nothing to offer for this," you tell them.

 But they're already turning to leave. "This was a favour for some one else," they tell you, and then, "I'm on a journey, you see."

You put the torch down. "A journey?"

"Yes, to see some one like you. But you're not the one I'm looking for."

And with a clipped goodbye, they're gone, no doubt hoping to be out of the shoreline region before the rain comes again.

-o-

The torch isn't remarkable in itself. It's strapped to something else--a bulky little fusion reactor, still full of compressed hydrogen fuel, only recently activated. You turn it over and over.

This must be a sign, you think; or a message from some one. Your ten little neuron flies, and now this--

Who could it be? Five Pebbles?

Maybe he hasn't forgotten you exist. Maybe he is sorry. Maybe, when he exhales his thunderclouds of steam, and the rain drowns out the world and floods your ruined chamber, he is thinking about what he did to you and to himself. Maybe the rain is his tears, wept for you because you cannot weep any more.

You wonder if you'll be able to forgive him.

-o-

You can reach behind you just far enough to mount the battery on the bolt-holes in the crane that supports you. It takes precious effort, precious power, but you tighten it in place, and hook it up, and it seems like it'll hold fast for at least a few cycles.

The rush of energy flowing into you is unbelievable. Every second, years and years' worth of sitting here catching little bits of sunlight on your hands.

You stand up.

The mechanical crane moves with you, its rusted servos screeching.

You rise into the air. With a jerk, a joint breaks free and slams you into the far wall, face-first. It's fine, though, it's fine! You can move! You can speak! Diagnostics run in the back of your mind, the neuron flies leap into action around you, and you're alive again. You're alive.

Just a little more power. You can fire up just one or two internal mechanisms, and it might just be enough. Heating elements boil the water beneath you, and as it turns to steam, the pressure lifts off the floor hatches. A mobile fixer unit pops out of one of them, hauling its long arms behind it. Its biological infrastructure has long rotted away, but you can still use some of its functions. There's a lot of maintenance to be done.

It reaches out its long, flexible arms and hauls sheets of metal from the debris pile, hammering them until they bend into the right shape or shatter. It's clumsy without a proper grip on its arms, but its drilling is precise, and in time it's patched a new cover over the roof of your chamber, sealing it shut. Then the hole in the wall, the one the scavengers use to come in. You can't let the water in, anyway. The fixer unit welds over the gaps, leaving them airtight, and retreats back into the floor to start clearing out the drainage pipeline.

You settle back down to the floor, still covered in scrap and dried mud, but cleaner than it's been in a long, long time. This battery could be good for decades. Imagine what you could fix!

You feel it again, that itch.

You could stabilise your infrastructure. Rebuild your connection to the iterators. Restart your generators. You could sort things out with Five Pebbles. If you can come back from death, maybe there's even something to be done about his rot, and then...

Then you'd be back to work.

-o-

The rain sounds almost gentle, pounding against the new walls of your chamber. The makeshift sheets rattle, but they hold.

You're too energised to sleep. You have no need for sleep. You're not going to wait for another of Five Pebbles' cycles to end! There's work to do.

Rain roars and gutters through the pipes below you, reminding you that most of your complex is still flooded. Your transformer arrays would be dangerous to activate, meaning you can't transmit power to most remote locations. But your sole functional fixer unit continues its work in the clogged drainage system, clearing out a channel that leads to your outlets. It breaks up mats of weeds and kelp, cuts through metal or plastic blockages, processes the masses into smaller chunks.

You focus on it, more and more. You forget about your little humanoid avatar as you delve into your depths.

-o-

An Overseer signal reaches your antennae. It's sheltering from the rain inside a dense wall. That surprises you. You didn't think there were any left--you vaguely remember being brought an eye, damaged beyond repair.

The transmission is uneven, intermittent, probably due to damaged hardware. You catch some images that can be decoded: something moving outside the walls of your chamber.

You take a moment to review them. Spindly-limbed creatures, carrying tools and supplies for themselves, trying to get in, ultimately turning around. Perhaps another time you'd be vaguely curious, but your mind is elsewhere, almost there, almost...

You recall the Overseer to you. It might be useful later, not wandering around this enormous garbage heap.

-o-

Your fixer unit soon passes out of the range of your functioning internal sensors. You send your Overseer after it to monitor its progress, and keep you updated; you inspect the garbled reports it faithfully returns.

Good progress. It's patching up the tears and leaks as it goes, using whatever materials it has on hand. It shunts piled masses of waste into bypasses and maintenance accesses--to be dealt with later, when you're properly online. You just need the one passage open for now.

You busy yourself testing which of your systems still work, and to what extent. The damage is severe, to say the least. Entire sections of your infrastructure have sagged or warped under the weight of the water. The physical substrate of your memory arrays, and their bacterial colonies, are of course long gone. Your own nuclear fuel reserves were depleted even before all of this happened--you thought it was sufficient to survive on solar power, but with Five Pebbles still clogging the atmosphere with steam, that will be harder.

It's okay. You can make some small repairs, repurposing local loading mechanisms, consolidating floodwater to clear out at least some of your vital elements. Many of them are mired in so much silt and waste that you can't even judge their condition, let alone move them. You grind and grind against whatever's jamming the mechanisms, hoping something will come free, or something will break. Either way, it'd be better than this.

But no, it's okay. It's just something else to solve, once you can. The amount of work ahead of you grows and grows, a list of little problems, obstructing you from accessing the Great Problem, the final problem, the one that matters.

How frustrating! How pointless! You can't bear it.

-o-

You feel more helpless, if anything, in the period that follows than you did before. The rain abates briefly, then returns in full force, thundering on your newly watertight confines. Your body is in better shape than it has been in a long, long time. Parts of it are active. You have a chance at rebuilding yourself.

But it is taking so much time. It is so much effort.

You are, by default, a tremendous burden on the world. Your bulk, your industrial mass, the effort of your construction--it was an expenditure of resources unparalleled by any other programme. To make you, the ancients scoured the world, uprooting everything, destroying their own future, giving themselves to ascension. And you would complete their work, you and the other iterators; you would make the end of the world worthwhile.

Until then, you will be a blight, corpulent and terrible, digging into the skin of the earth to siphon its resources, to drink it dry and belch its waste. The screeching of your bowels portends it as you step methodically down your central axis, testing, trying your integrity with motions that feel minuscule to you. Pistons groan and your compromised skeleton aches, and you know that you can survive your own collapse if you must, even the tremors of your crossbeams shearing and your landlines tearing and your skin cracking open in great fissures--you can survive another world's end, you were built to, but--

But you hate it. But there is something about your existence that you hate.

It's not that you long for death, like he does, is it?

It's that, as long as you're alive, you--

-o-

Your Overseer returns sooner than expected, but nothing seems amiss at first. You pay what attention you can to its account, in between trying to figure out what happened to the stockpiled components in your manufacturing facilities--whether those facilities still exist at all; all your sensors in the region are dead, giving no response.

You read that the fixer unit has completed its task, and the drainage channel to the outer basin is open. The last of the debris has been bound by cables for later processing, but... the unit itself is gone.

The basin...

It's been clogged with garbage. Metal, plastic, and organic rubbish--wasted, unprocessed--have been dumped into it along with the waste water, piled up so high that there's hardly room for anything else to fit. There are heaps here and troughs there, whole concrete girders overgrown with algae, ecosystems living in polluted ponds, no order and no sense to it. It's a horrendous sight--all that precious material, unrecycled, unused. Five Pebbles did this, and you know that in abstract--he created a huge garbage dump, trying to purify himself--but you never figured out that it was here, in the middle of your drainage system.

The Overseer's report continues.

Grainy, jerky video. Shapeless masses, pulsating with bubbles of blue light, crawling and swinging from infinitely jointed limbs sheathed in slimy flesh--they converge, like predators, on the fixer unit as it heedlessly finished its checkups and powered down to charge. They grab it, one by one, dribbling acid onto its orifices, tearing out hinges and pouring liquid matter into whatever holes their limbs find. The unit shuts down automatically, its internal processes overwhelmed by the onslaught, and it is dragged home to become a nest for the creatures.

You aren't familiar with these organisms, exactly, but you know what they represent perfectly well. It's the rot. It's his rot.

Blurry images, layered over with colour corruption and static, show them creeping into your newly opened tunnel, pursuing new homes or new prey in the shelter of your crevices. But they aren't new arrivals. Their primary prey, leeches and bats, lizards and fish, are already familiar with them.

Your hull is long, long compromised, there are thousands of holes in it where--things--have crawled through and laid eggs in the pit of your stomach, and the Overseer obligingly shows you everything it's seen in its time roaming your can: nests of these parasites, squatting on the walls of your memory arrays,  budding and dividing and multiplying as they cannibalise your systems. They've infested most of your mobile fixer units. Colonies have grown on your manufacturing lines, feeding off the steady supply of machine-parts and batteries until the systems were too backed up with their excrement to continue functioning.

You thought you survived, but his rot has gotten into you. It's been there for a long, long time.

-o-

The loathing that burns through you cleanses nothing. Your body is still dead weight, unmoving, rotting. You still have ten neuron flies and no functional machinery. You are worse than useless, worse than condemned. And it's his fault.

You hate him. You hate him for what he's done to you. You hate how little he valued your input, your work, your struggle, your life. You hate that he's still alive, after having gone to all this trouble to die. You hate that you know his situation is hardly better than yours by now, that his fate is fixed, that you've missed your chance to curse him for murdering you. You hate that you are voiceless, your transmission towers home to vultures and insects, unable to tell the other iterators what he's done. You hate Five Pebbles. But it changes nothing. All you can do is cling to the certainty of it, for as long as your vestigial memory will let you, because in the end, for as long as you both exist, you'll have to live with him, and he'll have to live with you, and for the purpose of everything that matters, you and he are exactly the same.

The rain that floods your hull cleanses nothing.

You call on your feeble little power source for everything it can give you, and get ready to flush out your systems.

-o-

Your mainframe creaks as you open every working hatch, fire up every pump that even partially functions, and let the filthy, polluted water pour into the one working drain passage. You feel the weight of its motion, thousands of tonnes of it being forced into the channel all at once. The pressure threatens to burst the pipelines again, hastily repaired leaks popping open and spraying jets of water on inner machinery that was delicate when it had any hope of running.

But you need this, and so you force it through, out out out with as much water as you can get.

The ground shakes, but you are the ground, and you've chosen this. (What some called a sea drains away in minutes, like a bathtub when the plug is pulled.)

The water superheats so rapidly with the friction of the current that it vaporises as it pours out of the outlet. Debris goes flying out along with the waste, organic matter and inorganic, animals, algae, mud, machines, all together mulched into high-speed ejecta. A monstrous roiling mass of steam piles into the sky above the garbage wastes, blotting out the sunlight, flashing with lightning.

You purge your body, and it rains again, less than an hour after the last cycle ended, while his waters are still draining. It is the worst flood of the last ten thousand cycles.

-o-

There is a thought you never finished.

There is something you forgot, in your anger, in your need.

It doesn't begin with you, but this is the first you know of it:

The thin plating protecting your chamber from the outside buckles under the weight of the water. It tears loose--you barely register what you desperately fling out your arms towards--and in an instant you are drowned again, the water pounding pounding pounding you flat against the floor. You can't move. You can't see. You can't think.

There is nothing separating you from the world, no wall and no system insulating you from the tribulations that all the little organisms on your skin must suffer through. This is the first thing you forgot.

You are not conscious to feel the little nuclear battery be torn from your little back. Your facilities shut down. Your Overseer loses track of you. Your neuron flies--

-o-

You awake to a hint of sunlight, and the dripping of water. Plip, plip, plip.

There is nothing left. There is nothing left for you.

You have destroyed yourself. You were always going to; it's the story of every iterator that has died. This is the second thing you forgot.

It's time to shut down.

-o-

So why are you still conscious?

What are you seeing? What are you feeling?

You ping your neuron flies, and they respond, floating lazily off the ground next to you.

There is a scavenger standing over you, leaning on a spear, eyes curious behind their protective mask. It is hard to bend your neck so that you can see them. You're in a strange position. Did they...?

You try to rise. The crane squeals and shudders and sparks, pain signals shooting into your head, and the scavenger beside you leaps back, letting out high-pitched clicks of... alarm?

That flood. When the water crashed down, it hit you so hard that the crane bent between the joints, crushed against the ground. The struts on one side have crumpled, on the other side almost snapped in two. It can no longer move at all. You're stuck down here, face-down against the floor, one arm trapped underneath your torso.

The scavenger clicks twice again, softer now. They call your attention with soft, quick snaps of their dark palms against each other.

With difficulty, you focus your two eyes on them. Just the two eyes now, in your little head. You have no surviving link to the rest of your facilities. Your power source is gone.

"Stay still," they say, once they know you're looking.

You feel hands working on the crane. Tap, tap. Tick, tick. Futile. You couldn't put yourself back in shape, so why do they think they can...?

"Loud noise," the scavenger warns you.

The explosion is like a thousand firecrackers. Your head rings with a final barrage of pain warnings, your nerves screaming with the , but--

The crane screeches, and breaks. The last cables are pulled taut like fire, and snap loose. You are severed.

And suddenly... you can move. Your--your legs, your two legs, they shift beneath you, they lift you up, your trapped arm is freed... you are up on all fours, you can freely rotate your head.

You feel... so small. So light. You've lost your body, but you can move so freely.

It's easier to support yourself on just your two feet. Moving like this, rising like this, feels strangely natural. You're standing up, you're swaying back and forth, adjusting to a new balance, the stub of the crane throwing off your sense of your own weight, you're standing up!

The scavenger looks silently at you, and you stare back. Why does this feel so natural, so familiar...?

As if... Ah.

Long ago, before you were hooked up, before you were set to work...

You remembering entering this chamber. You were walking freely, just like the ancients did. But they joined you to that body, and you forgot--you forgot what it was like to be just this, primed but not conditioned.

This is the third thing you forgot.

You raise your hands, you fold and stretch your long-neglected fingers. Your neuron flies gather weakly, lining up in the hollows of your knuckles--like this, it'll be far too costly to sustain the levitation field that lets them move freely.

You look to your left, to your right. There are three scavengers here, circling around you, picking idly through the debris on the floor. Who are they...?

You remember that you can speak their language. You lift your right arm.

"Why--" you begin. "Why did you come here?"

"Concerned," says the scavenger who welcomed you. Their way of speaking--they're from the wastes, aren't they? "We were unable to reach you. We thought you might be trapped in the rain, Pearl-Reader."

You look up, through the hole in the ceiling that's reopened. The sun is there, its light slanting through onto your face. It shines, steady and resolute. And if you have judged the cycles right--there beside it, pale, almost invisible next to it, is the moon. You cut yourself off from them, but now they're showing themselves to you again.

You pull your attention back to the conversation at hand. Your mind is wandering... there's so little to think about.

"I am glad, but I have little to give you," you reply. "Unless you have more pearls, I am of little use." And it is true. What can you do, now? The world is so great, the Problem greater. You feel so... separate from all of that.

One of the other scavengers makes a dismissive motion, scraping their long fingers along the ground towards you. "You have lost your home. We wanted to help. There's no bargaining in that."

The first adds, "You've done much for us in the past. You must come with us--at least, until we reach our camp." And they come towards you, offering you something. A thick, waterproof travelling cloak, just like the ones they wear, and a bag of treated leather, meant to be hung across the torso by its single strap.

The third seems distracted, trawling fingers through the pool of water outside. You spy sunlight sparkling on the little ripples they make.

You take the cloak and tie it on around your shoulders—it is lighter, too, than it appears--and you take the bag, and you realise there's something inside it. It's... ah.

Carefully, you unwrap the device. The solar panel is heavily damaged. Only half the original surface area remains, even counting all the fragments that have been included. It's a mess. But the battery and the circuitry and the insulation are intact. It'd probably work right now, after a fashion.

You look up at the scavengers, wondering if they know what this means for you. Then you slide the panel back, folding a flap of leather back over it to separate it from the neuron flies that you tip inside. The knots are fiddly at first, but your fingers remember how they work before you do: you close the bag, and secure it tight.

There's no going back to the way things were.

You're at the mercy of the cycles now. You're so light, you could be washed away at any moment... but you have a different way to survive, now.

"Thank you," you say to the scavengers, at last. "You're very kind, and... I'm ready to go."

"Then follow us, Pearl-Reader." And they clap their affirmation, and you wonder if perhaps you're being too hasty, but there's nothing else to take from this chamber. Even the debris is gone, fallen into the drainage channel that you so briefly opened.

And you will go. You will travel. You will pass through the rotting superstructure that you called your body, and you'll leave it behind. From there...

You don't know what will happen.

But you are alive in a way no iterator has ever been. Maybe, to them, you are dead; lost to the cause; not an iterator any more. Maybe this is what happened to Sliver of Straw.

You feel at peace with that idea.

You catch up to the scavengers as they perch on the overgrown railing at the edge of the water, preparing to dive in; you ask them their names.

"At the next shelter, we will make introductions," they answer, one by one agreeing. It is their common wisdom.

"Very well," you say—and then you leap headfirst into the water, splashing them in your excitement, and swim with strong, vigorous strokes towards the far shore.

-o-

[fadebolt]

people dont like every slugcat being male except artificer because it kind of implies some weird things

people only headcanon arti as female because they had kids. but like, noone hcs gourmand or survivor as female despite also canonically having children in their endings

it implies some weird things like arti HAS to be a mother because only a mother would be enraged by their kids deaths. it makes no sense why survivor and gourm arent seen as female in the larger community

that or it implies some real weird stuff about why gourmand is headcanoned as male (probably because fat men are widely more accepted than fat women, which is a whoole other issue)

overall its just Weird. its kind of like male is seen as the “default gender” until they do something remotely feminine

Hey, uhh, sorry for taking a while to respond to this. As you could probably tell, I was feeling rather exhausted and stressed during the week, so I thought it might be better to answer after I could catch a little break, and have a much clearer head. Moodiness can make people say and do unreasonable things, and other people refusing to even tolerate me while I'm genuinely trying my hardest to be polite is something that tends to irk me, even when I'm feeling great otherwise. But I'll promise to try and handle this stuff a little better in the future, and just not let it get to me again (or at least not make problematic ramblings in moments when I very clearly shouldn't).

Anyways, as for your points, I'd say I sort of agree. Kids cartoons have absolutely set this problematic trend of "if you see a monster/creature/animal/machine/whatever non human entity, it is male, unless it has specific female traits or features" and this is simply such a common pattern that for a lot of people, it is nigh impossible to start assessing media without it (cus humans do have a hard time ditching their patterns). And wouldn't you know it, excessively caring and overprotective parenting where the children are pretty much the character's whole world, just so happens to be one of those said 'female traits or features'.

And is this an issue? Well, kinda, yeah. There's a good reason why media has been trying to subvert this for a long while, and I always love to see these characters that possess traits which are usually associated with the opposite gender (for the overly caring parent example - think Marlin from Finding Nemo), or female creatures that straight up possess zero of the feminine traits that tend to be used to identify non humans as female (think something like Rek'Sai or Naafiri from League). I could think of many more examples for both these categories, which I'm honestly very grateful for, because I do feel like it would really suck if we would have hard-set rules for what male and female characters are allowed to be, which would not only be a problem for the future of media and art, but it would also likely end up having an extraordinarily shitty impact on society.

However, the problems start kicking in when people are beginning to demand that you never portray male and female characters with any of their common stereotypes. And to an extent, I get it, but sometimes, those things might actually work, and restricting creators from using them is going to not only create needless conflict, but will also make it more difficult for them to see their artistic visions through. I understand that people would do this to solve a problem, but the issue is that we're swinging too far to the other side. We can uplift the non conformists without belittling the conformists, especially when we're in a fandom, a place where all kinds of people can unite over their love for a piece of media, as a way to relax and have harmless fun in their free time.

And also just because some people portray their characters a certain way, it doesn't mean that they're setting universal truths that everybody must follow. Just because someone thinks "Oh, an animal getting outraged over the deaths of their kids... sounds like a mother to me!", it doesn't mean that they're trying to spread this notion that a father couldn't react in the same way, similarly to how headcanoning Gourmand as male doesn't automatically make someone hate fat women. Are there a few people where these concerns might actually be true? Absolutely, but to claim that they make up the majority, just feels like a wild over exaggeration. And making these sorts of judgemental assumptions over fictional headcanons just doesn't sit right, at least with me.

I know I've written a boatload here (sorry xd), but I really wanted to fully express my thoughts, especially after the whole fiasco. This might sound surprising, but I'm genuinely grateful that you've sent these asks, not only to get me to my senses, but also to actually engage with me on this topic in a meaningful manner. To me, it really doesn't matter if someone else's opinion differs from mine. I'm willing to hear and consider it, and it makes me very happy when the other side is also willing to hear and consider mine. This is how we learn and grow after all, and is a way better strategy than just shutting ourselves into an echo chamber with a bunch of yes-men, and being mad at everybody outside of it... which is something I hope will not be a common phenomenon in this community. This fandom is very important to me, and the last thing I would want is to see it turning into a warzone between a bunch of isolated camps that viciously hate each other (though I am very frightened that the post might be contributing to us heading towards that direction, hence why it felt so awful for me to be silenced... let's just pray that it won't have any nasty consequences, like community members getting harassed or something).

So thank you, for coming here and giving me a chance to speak. It means a lot, and you'll always be welcome here, no matter how badly we might disagree on something. I'll make sure to try and be open to what you, or anybody else might have to say, and I encourage everybody else to do the same (unless that things is a blatant unconstructive insult meant to do nothing but harass, but that's beyond the point xd)