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#raintailed rambles
raintailed · 3 months
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how do oyu draw scvaenegrs theyre soooo shaped i love them....
GYAHAHAHA!!!!!!! TUTORIAL TIME!!!!!!
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first things first! basic anatomy!
These guys are somewhat monkey-shaped. They have deep chests, long arms, and short legs. They usually move by knuckle-walking, using their arms to swing their legs forward as if they're using crutches.
Scavs have eartlers (which i think are technically horns lol), funny whiskers/sensory frills, and frills/quills on their backs. I also give them ears because I think it looks cute.
A note about their tails: scav tails vary in length (many are tailless), and their tails are thinner than slugcat tails. I imagine their tails aren't as important for balance as it is for slugcats.
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From the side, my scavengers have sorta egg-shaped heads; they don't have a very prominent snout. They do, however, have some gnarly teeth - baboon like, but better suited for carnivory? Idk honestly
Scavs have long, 3-fingered hands and 2-toed feet. Some scavengers have a third toe on their feet, but it's vestigial. Their palms/soles are hairless for better gripping and are usually lighter than the surrounding fur.
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Variations!!! Scavs are super diverse and I highly recommend taking many screenshots of them. I didn't draw anything for elite scavengers here.
Horns range from nubs to large branches. Some scavengers have horns on their cheeks as well as on the top of their heads.
Whiskers can range from being absent to looking like beards.
Scavenger eyes range in size, narrowness, and angle. Pupils can be absent, dark-colored, or light-colored.
For colors, scavengers are usually gray or brown with darker points. Light and bright-colored scavs are unusual but they do appear!
Proportions and quills vary, and that can have some hilarious results. I've seen scavengers with stick-thin arms, others with tons of big quills, etc.
Scavenger body language is pretty complex. I recommend checking the wiki and watching them in-game to study how they move and act. Their quills do seem to be an important part of how they communicate, since frightened or startled scavengers vibrate their quills!
Hopefully this stuff is helpful!
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nevadas-explorer · 9 months
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Types of Void
Hehehe more lore at last!!! These are all headcanons, so know these aren't canon to their source material. This gets quite long, so everything is under the cut!
List of void types so far:
Gold void (Rain World)
Abyssal void (Hollow Knight)
Nightmare void (Don't Starve)
End void (Minecraft)
Aetherial void/shimmer (Terraria)
Memory Void (Sky: Children of the Light)
This document contains spoilers for all of the above games!
For context on what void is and some basics about it, go here.
Back to the lore masterpost
Gold Void (Rain World)
Appearance: Black in its pure form but develops ripples of gold when exposed to impurities. Normally exists as a liquid called "void fluid."
Location: Naturally found in subterranean reservoirs known as "void seas." While it may seem that Rain World's planet has a mantle made entirely of void fluid, this is false; the void seas simply seem infinite due to the weirdness of void. Void fluid has also been exploited by an extinct civilization and can be found in various artifacts.
Creatures: Always have gold in their palettes. Some creatures are mostly dark-colored while others are mostly white. Species include echoes, ghost voidspawn (the small gold ghosts), and void worms.
Properties:
Capable of dissolving virtually anything, including reality itself. This makes storing void fluid very difficult and expensive. Rain World's Ancients found a way to dilute void fluid and were able to engineer materials that take a long time to dissolve, allowing them to store it. Since gold void is highly corrosive, handling it is a very bad idea.
Unstable and volatile when exposed to energy. Void fluid is normally inert, but using energy sources (such as heat, kinetic energy, electricity, or even void fluid that's already been energized) can make it volatile. This was harnessed by the Ancients to power technology. However, this technology must be handled with care, as mishandling can lead to a runaway reaction and the formation of a temporary singularity.
Has an unusually strong effect on reality. Examples of this include the void sea's screen-melting effect and the aura that echoes have. Some Ancient technologies make void fluid wiggle reality in a specific way to get desired results (e.g. to produce an antigravity field).
Abyssal Void (Hollow Knight)
Appearance: Pitch black and may have glowing white "eyes." Normally exists in a liquid form but becomes gaseous if disturbed.
Location: Similar to gold void, abyssal void exists in reservoirs deep underground. One such reservoir is found directly underneath Hallownest.
Creatures: Black with glowing white eyes. Some abyssal voidspawn inhabit physical bodies or constructs, which act like a protective shell. Includes vessels, shades, kingsmoulds, and whatever the Collector is.
Properties:
It absorbs sound and creates silence. Locations near an abyss are eerily quiet, and abyssal voidspawn tend to be silent as well. Some voidspawn can "roar," but instead of making a sound they make a wave of silence instead.
Nightmare Void (Don't Starve)
Appearance: Nightmarish shadows. Its tangible form is a gelatinous liquid known as nightmare fuel. It can also appear as dark flames.
Location: Found all over the Constant but is strangely abundant in the Ruins deep underground.
Creatures: Nightmare voidspawn (aka fissured voidspawn) are normally living shadows with holes where their eyes would be. They are normally invisible and incorporeal but can be seen by creatures that have low sanity. Includes terrorbeaks, crawling horrors, and Mr. Skitts. Some creatures resemble the Ancient Fuelweaver instead, or are more tangible like the fused shadelings.
Properties:
Has an insanity aura. Creatures and objects made from nightmare void cause intense unease and stress in living creatures. Since nightmare voidspawn usually only appear to someone who has low sanity, this can create a nasty feedback loop.
Can be puppeteered - for a price. A monarch (formerly a king, now a queen) exists who is able to direct and control nightmare void; however, they are changed forever by this and are, in a way, voidspawn themselves.
Note: "Them" in Don't Starve lore refers to multiple beings. Void is the most powerful and influential of them.
End Void (Minecraft)
Appearance: Black, purple, or staticky. Its tangible form is a purple particulate that does not persist for very long.
Location: Mostly found in a dimension known as the End. Tangible end void is rare and is emitted by some end voidspawn.
Creatures: Usually mostly black with purple eyes and accents. Includes endermen and the Ender Dragon. If a living creature lingers in the End for an extremely long period of time, they may eventually become an end voidspawn.
Properties:
Can be used for teleportation. Endermen are able to teleport and eyes of ender are used to activate End portals.
Aetherial Void/Shimmer (Terraria)
Appearance: Glowing, shimmery, and pearlescent. Usually found as a liquid known as "shimmer."
Location: Pools of shimmer naturally generate in the Aether mini-biome.
Creatures: Shimmery and pearlescent. Include shimmer slimes and faelings.
Properties:
Can transmute or decraft things. By dunking them in shimmer, many items can be given a new form or broken down into the materials used to craft them. Critters and slimes are easily turned into aetherial voidspawn through transmutation, but larger creatures such as humans need more time to soak.
Intangibility. This is also known as the Shimmering debuff, where the player becomes intangible for a short time after entering a pool of shimmer. Aetherial voidspawn can become intangible at will.
Memory Void (Sky: Children of the Light)
Appearance: Doesn't have a tangible form. Instead it manifests as pocket dimensions called "memory spaces." These dimensions have two variants: an empty, grayscale one with a solid, reflective floor (ex. the ancient memories) and one that is blue with distant stars and no floor (ex. the vault of knowledge). It's possible the blue variant exists due to interactions with light magic.
Location: Memory spaces.
Creatures: Ghostly and translucent with glowing, star-like flecks. Includes cosmic mantas. Normally the only way to convert a creature into a memory voidspawn is if it dies while inside a memory space.
Properties:
Can form memory spaces. Memory spaces preserve locations in a moment of time as if it's a memory. These spaces can be entered and interacted with. Shared spaces are a miniature and temporary form.
Is harmless to living things. This is highly unusual for a void type. The only danger presented by a memory space itself is the fact that it's infinite, so it is possible to get lost inside one (light barriers can be erected to prevent this).
The world of Sky has many memory spaces, including:
Most of the Vault of Knowledge. The actual Vault is the stone room you reach after meditating at the end of the realm.
The empty void you are in after dying in Eden.
The starry location you reach after going through Orbit and before you are reborn.
The memories accessed in the Season of Shattering quests.
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raintailed · 3 months
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rain rain rain rain how do you draw iterators and slugcats btw like all your gyus are so shaped its so fun to look at theyre just little guys...
i'm gonna start with slugcats! my old guide from 2023 is here.
Note: "slugcat" refers to multiple species (slugcats are in a species complex). It can be hard to differentiate slugcat species, since some are very similar and hybridization between them is common where their ranges overlap. The species that Monk and Survivor are members of is called the "common slugcat."
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Slugcats are weird sorta-feline creatures that walk bipedally and have little hands. Their average height is 3'3" or about 1 meter tall.
Their basic body shape is a round head on top of a trapezoidal body. Their legs are digitigrade, they have human-like arms (that are often skinny lol), and their tails are thick and tapering. Slugcats also have retractable arms ig??? I have no idea how that would work
In terms of head shape, it's similar to a cat's, but with a somewhat taller forehead (bigger brain! more room for being Smart!). Slugcats usually have short muzzles, big eyes, and long ears.
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Note: slugcat arms usually rest in front of the body (think meerkats) rather than to the sides like a human.
Uhhh I like giving slugcats dewlaps (rabbit dewlaps are a good reference)!
And for fat slugcats, fat is usually stored in the tail (and dewlap) first. So naturally my gourmand has a big tail and a big dewlap :]
And!! I like to think that some slugcats have fur, and some don't. Hairless slugcats are slimy; furred slugcats have oily, waterproof coats. Some shorthaired slugcats have smooth fur like otters and seals do.
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TEEFS!!! Except technically, slugcats don't have teeth. Rather, they have sharp, jagged beaks (think cephalopods). Their beaks continually grow and they are self-sharpening. Because their beaks are really sharp, slugcat bites are always serious injuries.
The length of their "fangs" varies by species. Some carnivorous species have long fangs, for example.
And! They have bristly tongues like cats (and kinda like the radula of a gastropod).
For their paws, slugcats have 3-fingered hands and feet. Their claws vary; some individuals have blunt claws, some have sharp claws, others have retractable claws, etc.
The inner toe of a slugcat's foot is opposable, making it easy for them to grab onto poles with their feet. (Compare to scavengers, who mostly use their arms to climb.)
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SLUPPIES!!!!!! (don't worry about the fluffy one, they're just eepy)
Slugpups have different proportions than adults! Including having a bigger head, chubbier body, etc. Fluffy slugpups can also be a bit scraggly like longhaired kittens are.
My slugcats are basically egg-laying marsupials. They lay eggs, store them in their pouch, and then the eggs hatch into itty bitty babies. The babies stay in the pouch, feeding on milk until they're big enough to venture outside.
When pups are too big for the pouch, they ride on their parent's head or back. They also begin the process of weaning around this time, since by then they've started growing a sharp beak (i guess before that, their beak is dull and too small to self-sharpen?).
Note: some slugcat species are unisex and others are trioecious (having male, female, and hermaphrodite individuals).
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For expressions, ears are important!!
Neutral: ears relaxed. The relaxed position varies by individual; some slugcats have their ears rest slightly tilted back, for example.
Alert/interested: ears perked up.
Angry: ears pinned back. Very angry slugcats have their ears positioned so they're almost in line with the top of the head.
Afraid: ears pinned down (sometimes slightly to the sides, too).
Sad: ears droop to the sides.
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Slugcats mostly use their tails for balance, but they're used for some emotes too.
Upwards-curled tail is an excited or enthusiastic hello! Kinda like how some cats raise their tail when they see their human.
When upset, annoyed, or grumpy, slugcats may thump their tail against the ground (kinda like how rabbits stomp).
Some slugcats wag their tails when playing or excited. This isn't a universal thing, though.
Slugcats with fur may puff up their tail when startled or scared. They may also puff their tail when excited or playing, too.
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raintailed · 4 months
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HI I have headcanons for overseers. Theyre funny little bugs to me
Overseers are somewhat sentient and are basically little creatures. They don't do much beyond avoiding danger, looking at interesting things, and listening to directions from their iterator.
They do have little nuggets of personality, though! For example, some overseers are braver than others, some will follow a creature for a long time, etc. Heck, some overseers even prefer to communicate with specific overseers (friendship??). Overseers are also able to have favorite objects, places, or creatures.
If an iterator is unable to communicate with their overseers, their overseers will continue doing their duties and trying to follow instructions. An example would be Iggy, who may have been obeying a command given to it shortly before Moon's collapse to go and get help.
Also, the death or incapacitation of an iterator does not necessarily spell death for their overseers. The surviving overseers will keep working but tend to be directionless and lost. They don't truly understand that their iterator is gone. Orphaned overseers often don't survive for very long, since there's no one around to repair them or keep them from wandering too far from home.
Overseers don't respawn - their bodies don't have enough biological material for that to happen. Instead, if an overseer is killed, its eye must be retrieved and repaired (note: repairs are often long and finicky processes) in order to bring it back to life. Some iterators choose not to go through the hassle of reviving overseers and instead replace them.
It's possible to assign an existing overseer to a new iterator. However, the overseer may be confused for a while, since its code says it was made for a different iterator.
This information is for the standard overseer model. Some iterators have specially-made overseers that are more intelligent, can do more things, can travel farther, etc.
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raintailed · 4 months
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Shoutout to rw artists who draw five pebbles like a bug
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raintailed · 7 months
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revisiting dragon shrimpfish and their relatives!!
"Bristle-face worms" (better name pending) are a sister clade to the shrimpfish. They retain more primitive traits, such as having more limbs, less developed vertebrae, etc.
My current thinking is that bristle-face worms are usually benthic or live in burrows. The benthic species roam the ocean floor in search of dead animals while the burrow-dwelling species are ambush hunters. Most of the bristle-face worm species are long extinct. Also, these guys will travel long distances to search for mates. Their luxurious "bristles" (antennae) help them detect pheromones released by potential mates.
Meanwhile, shrimpfish (or at least the early ones) are reef-dwellers. There are some species that are very similar to early shrimpfish and they're basically cleaner shrimp. Also they are quite small (dragon shrimpfish themselves are 4 inches long?).
Both clades have weird mouthparts that are comprised of 4 jaws (which open like the petals of a flower) and a tongue. I'll have to figure out what exactly the tongue is for. I'm leaning towards the tongue being used to pull food into the throat (similar to the pharyngeal jaws that moray eels have). Some species do use their tongue as a harpoons though in a similar way to cone snails.
Both clades also have a line of setae on each side of their body. These setae have a similar function to the lateral line system of fishes, allowing the animal to sense water currents around them. These setae are stiff and brushlike.
The belly setae, on the other hand, are softer and longer; good for sticking eggs onto. Both shrimpfish and bristle-face worms carry their eggs for a while before dropping them somewhere suitable, not unlike what lobsters do.
Primitive species like these don't have much in terms of magic use. They are able to sense the presence of environmental magic but that's about it
Notes transcript and all that under the cut
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"Bristle-face worms" primitive relatives of shrimpfish
cyan/purple internals?
harpoon-like tongue? radula?? idk
has rudimentary vertebrae
long, whispy setae on belly for holding eggs
setae on sides are stiff and brushlike. similar function to a fish's lateral line system
setae fin, like what shrimpfish have
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part of the jaws are inside the head when at rest. they move forward, then outward
some species have jaws that snap shut like a bobbit worm's
bristle-face worms and shrimpfish have similar faces?
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shrimpfish vs bristle-face worms
shrimpfish:
tail is flattened
reduced tail plates
tail for propulsion, limbs for swimming
bristle-face worms:
whole body is flattened vertically
2 pairs of feeding arms
shrimpfish lost the 4th and 5th limb pairs
poor swimmer, mostly crawls
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raintailed · 3 months
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Normalize meowing and beeping on voice calls. It's fun
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raintailed · 4 months
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Im Cooking lore
Namely, headcanons about batflies, owls, and northern vultures
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Batflies are weird bug/bat/bird things. They have both an endoskeleton and exoskeleton (though their bones are lightweight and fragile). They only have four legs and 2 wings (earth insects have 6 legs and 4 wings, by default).
Batflies are important pollinators! They can also be pests, since they can chew into walls to build their burrows (whose entrances are protected by spiky structures).
Their mouthparts are weird - they have a sort of split beak, and the upper/lower portions can move apart. They also have small teeth in their mouths.
On the right is a concept for giant mothflies, a species found in the northern regions. They're larger, fluffier, and have nocturnal habits.
Both of these species are considered primal fauna, though their genomes have been contaminated by hybridizing with modified individuals. This is likely why they are able to chew through metal.
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Owls are a creature i made! This is a rework of them.
They're distant relatives of batflies and are basically if bugs evolved into birds. Most of their exoskeleton has been reduced, with their mask being a remnant of it.
Owls are roughly slugcat-sized and are important to the ancients that once inhabited the northern regions. Owls were bred and trained for falconry. Their mask became a symbol of hunting; this symbol spread south along trade routes, and was incorporated into the design of both vulture species.
This is also a primal species.
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And then! Northern vultures! The story goes that the rough vulture concept was executed by two different groups of bio-engineers, resulting in two species of "vultures" that had similar behavior but very different anatomy. Northern vultures are heavily based on the genomes of owls.
Northern vultures have a similar head shape to real-life bearded vultures.
I'll have to figure out the situation with the machinery on the backs of northern vultures. Perhaps it's technically part of the exoskeleton, and is basically organic machinery? Also, expelling gas is less important for northern vultures than it is for southern/vanilla vultures, since n. vultures have wings that provide much more lift.
Just like with owls, losing their mask is a serious injury for northern vultures. It's literally part of their face! Of course vultures are upset when their mask gets taken!
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Finally, a comparative anatomy thing showing the differences in body segments between batflies, owls, and northern vultures. Limbs and wings aren't shown for visibility.
Like earth insects, these animals have 3 body segments: a head, thorax, and abdomen. In batflies, these segments are distinct, and the abdomen holds many of the internal organs.
In owls, the abdomen is reduced, so the thorax holds more organs. Owls also have one fewer limb pair. The trend seen in owls continues with vultures.
Note that the body segments are more defined here than they actually are. They also probably aren't as... strict?? As what insects have, so they could be divided into sub-segments that can move independently? I have no idea
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raintailed · 4 months
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I dwell in the walls of the discord servers im in. I have a cozy little space in there with many trinkets and lore items. Sometimes i crawl outside to say hi and grab thingies to stash in my cozy little wall home. I have a huge hoard of character references in there. Also I had to clean out some weird fluff in the wall to make room for the reference hoard. Sorry if that fluff is important
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raintailed · 21 days
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Not sure how to implement iterator generations into my personal lore... i probably can't do it based on puppet design because uhhh. Looks at all my iterators. They're very diverse
Basically I think that iterator puppets often reflect local culture and the art traditions of their Ancients. Not always, since there are plenty of puppets that just use a template. And also I have some blorbos who have a specific detachable model (including Lilypads Afloat, Visions from Windows, Volunteer in Stone)
Mayyybe I could base generations on how cans are constructed? Later gens are smaller but have more efficient systems? Maybe the internal mechanics of their puppets are more refined? Stuff like that. Like how computer generations work
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raintailed · 4 months
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perhaps i am a mantis shrimp in disguise. i can see colors no other human can
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raintailed · 1 year
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Decided to give an update/overhaul to the piperats. Their old info page is here.
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Piperats have long, noodley bodies and slimy skin.
Their teeth include large incisors, which allow them to chew theough roots that have grown into pipes. Some slugcats retain this trait.
The diet of piperats is similar to that of real-life rats.
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Piperats have two natural color morphs: light (pale body and dark eyes) and dark (dark body and pale eyes). These morphs can be found in slugcats too.
Fancy variants of piperats exist! They were bred or modified for companionship and shows. Fancy traits include: unusual coloring, piebaldism, different ear shapes, having a fur coat, etc. Some of these fancy traits were passed down to future species.
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Piperats have a very good sense of direction and quickly memorize their travel paths. Slugcats still have these traits; their sense of direction is visualized by the in-game map.
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Piperats communicate with body language, facial expressions, and vocalizations. The sounds they make include "wa"s, trills, meows, and chirps.
Being vocal is very useful for piperats since that allows them to communicate even when inside dark, crowded pipes.
The vocalizations of piperats eventually evolve into the languages of slugcats.
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Piperats are very social! They forge friendships, play together, and groom each other.
Being social is an intentional trait. It helps prevent fights between piperats and encourages cooperation.
Piperats have a similar intelligence level to real-life rats and can be taught tricks.
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Nowadays few populations of piperats remain. Most populations have evolved into new species such as lantern mice and slugcats.
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raintailed · 4 months
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I love the toyhouse favorites feature. I love collecting little guys and organizing them so i can stare at them like bugs in a terrarium. I love the critters
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raintailed · 9 months
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Thinkin about those pipe-cleaning slugs that Moon talks about...
The pipe-cleaner slugs were essentially a "first draft" for piperats and are, in a way, their predecessors.
They were created very early on in the history of bio-engineering. At the time there wasn't advanced simulation technology like what iterators have, so the only real way to test a draft for a purposed organism was to create the organisms and study them.
The pipe-cleaner slugs worked well for clearing biofilm from the insides of pipes, but the problem is that pipe-cleaning requires more than just scraping off layers of microorganisms. The slugs were unsuitable for addressing things like roots growing into pipes, objects lodged inside pipes, etc. They also weren't too good at navigating and reproduced quickly, resulting in the slugs colonizing pipes and needing to be cleaned out themselves!
And so, the pipe-cleaner slug plans were redesigned into a completely new creature, which was more versatile and far more intelligent: piperats.
The original draft for pipe-cleaner slugs weren't completely scrapped, however. The blueprints were later refined into a new species: snails. The snails are designed to not only eat algae/biofilms/lichen, but also barnacle-like organisms and rock/metal debris. Snails' shells repurpose the calcium and metals from their diet. Also, snails have remained largely unchanged since they were created, although there are some new species that have evolved since then.
Tldr: the pipe-cleaner slugs were a first draft for piperats. The original blueprints were later reworked into snails.
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raintailed · 9 months
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Some headcanons abt the portable holes in Toontown: Corporate Clash:
long-distance teleportation requires the use of a waypoint system. each toon's set of waypoints differs, but by default they can all teleport to: Toontown Central, their house, and the picnic area in Acorn Acres
setting new waypoints requires specific methodology?? Maybe a silly-looking machine that works like a conveyor belt oven bc I think it's funny. Whatever it is, not many toons know how to set waypoints. These toons include the ones which give you tasks with a reward for teleporting to a new playground
short-distance teleportation doesn't need waypoints; you only need to be able to see where you want to go. this is based on how when you initiate a cog battle, sometimes cog and toon will use their respective methods of fast travel to go to where theyre gonna battle
placing a portable hole requires only one thing: enough space to put it down in front of you (putting it directly below you isn't safe!). This means that in instances where a toon is captured by cogs, if they're put in a cage that's big enough to put a portable hole in, the cage is effectively useless. I can imagine some toons will stay just to humor the cogs and to bother them lol
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raintailed · 11 months
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Had a neat thought about iterator puppets!!
What if they are very diverse in design partly because each puppet is a manifestation of their city's artistic culture? So colors/patterns/symbols that are culturally important may be incorporated into an iterator puppet
And even for iterators that don't have cities, their puppets still represent their creators/designers in a way
I think this is neat bc it's a way for ancients to leave a bit of their culture and art behind, even when they're all gone. And it also means that an iterator puppet also represents their city in a way
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