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amerricanartwork · 5 months

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RW Headcanon: The Omnivores and the Carnivores

Figured I'd start sharing some headcanons! Buckle up, folks, this is gonna be a looooooooong post! With a bit of Artimand sprinkled in (hope you like it @melissa-titanium)!

This was based on an idea lingering in the back of my mind for a bit, but after drawing the above image from a previous post I got reminded of it and decided to develop it a little more! I'll put the full headcanon down below!

By the way, I should warn you that the verbosity habit in my post asking about headcanons was no joke. This headcanon, as I've explained it below, is literally almost 700 words...

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I headcanon that there are two subspecies of “wild type” slugcats — omnivores and carnivores. I like the idea that slugcats were descended from a pipe-cleaning organism (although I still see them as mustelids rather than mollusks, but that’s a headcanon for another day…), so in this headcanon, a carnivorous variant of the slugcat ancestor was made to be more specialized for killing pests. Back when the Ancients were still around, they had a reputation similar to that of real-life raccoons and pigeons, while the omnivorous slugcats were more-often kept as pets.

As of the present Rain World timeline, though, omnivorous and carnivorous slugcats look almost identical. Omnivorous slugcats are still more iconic — they’re what you’d think of when one says “slugcat” — but the biggest differences the carnivorous variant possesses are their sharper teeth, stronger jaws, and sharper claws. Carnivorous slugcats also tend to be more muscular, while omnivorous slugcats have more body fat due to their largely plant-based diet.

Culturally, though, the two subspecies show more contrast. Omnivores are more peaceful hunter-gatherers who focus on trying to passively get by in a bigger, more dangerous world. Carnivores, on the other hand, are active hunters who tend to encourage combat training more and pride themselves on rising up to the ferocity of larger predators. The two tend to live separately in their own colonies, and don’t interact too often. There’s also some degree of prejudice in each group towards the other due to these cultural differences; not enough to cause large-scale conflicts, but enough that they side-eye each other occasionally. In more extreme cases, omnivores are perceived by the carnivores as weak, lazy, and meek, while omnivores see the carnivores as aggressive, loud, and cynical.

To bring it back to the image above, in my own personal fic-idea concept thing of how Artificer and Gourmand get together, this prejudice is a minor, but additional reason why they never expect to fall in love with each other; Arti is descended from a small group of carnivorous slugcats modified with explosive spit, while Gourm and the rest of the slugcats in his colony are all natural omnivores. Combine that with the rest of their attitudes in life, and at first, it seems they’re just too different to ever make a good pair.

A few more quick thoughts about these two subspecies:

Survivor and Monk are both naturally omnivorous. Hunter and Spearmaster, while directly engineered, were both derived from the carnivorous subspecies, while Rivulet was derived from the omnivorous subspecies.

Despite Gourmand being a natural omnivore, he eats larger prey more often than any other slugcat in his colony both out of curiosity for how other meats taste and because, true to his name, he honestly just likes to eat whatever (hey, as long as it’s edible)! However, once he and Artificer get together, he really starts to eat more meat from the creatures he hunts for her. And, interestingly enough, because he likes to use fruits and other plants as side dishes or as toppings to add flavor, this causes Arti to start eating more plants (now that’s what I call a “balanced diet”)!

Even though the carnivores are culturally more similar to scavengers, the omnivores tend to get along better with them due to their more peaceful attitude, and the fact they naturally compete less with the scavengers for food (I like to imagine scavengers as pack-hunting carnivores).

Carnivores tend to move slightly faster than omnivores.

Carnivores often have bigger, more ravenous appetites than omnivores because they require more energy on average. Again, it’s partly what the image above is referencing!

Back when the Ancients lived, there actually existed a bit of a friendly discourse around which variant of the slugcat ancestors made better pets. It was in a similar vein to the modern “cat person vs. dog person” idea, but, to some degree, it’s actually continued on in various iterator groups, including the main one! FP, NSH, SRS, and CW are firm believers in carnivore superiority, UI passionately cheers on the omnivores, and Moon just giggles in the background and makes sure the debates don’t get too heated (but is also secretly team omnivore).

Anyway, with that said, BIG thanks to anyone who made it all the way down here! This headcanon originally formed as a way to explain in-universe the noticeably different diets of the main slugcat characters, but I just couldn't help adding more to it!

Let me know what you think of this concept, if you have anything to add to it, or if you'd like to see more of my headcanons! I just LOVE developing fictional worlds from ergonomic, analytical, and narrative perspectives, so if you want more, I've definitely got it!

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soaricarus · 3 months

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i just think rain world is a beautiful game and i like doing it justice [as much as i can, anyway] when i write about it.

just consider how big the world is and how small you are as a slugcat. this world is not yours and yet it is. you've ended up here due to an incident during harsh rain. you're lost and you don't know what you're doing other than looking for home - and yet nothing is home. at least not in the same way as it was before. as the slugcat learns about this decaying world created by a now long-gone civilisation, one you can only learn about if you've seen the two biomechanical demigod constructs - and seen the city on top of one of them. the city you see as stargazer plays, just stinging you with a feeling of how alone and insignificant and small you are. the city in the distance looks so small, and yet it still looks and feels so much bigger than you and anything you've ever seen. and then you step out to the left, and then you see how vast the world is. there's so much more to it that you'll never see - so many more iterators standing there, in the far beyond, as the clouds slowly float by. if you pay attention you can see small green flashes underneath them behind the clouds. who are they? you don't know, and you never will, and you'll never know what's near them either, if there's more slugcats there, or even if there's creatures or even regions you'll see as familiar. the world is so vast and you are only so small in the grand scheme of.... everything.

and yet being there, in those moments, showing just how little you matter, and seeing them, are the only ways you'll ever be able to learn about that long-gone civilisation. you learn pebbles calls them the benefactors. he speaks of an older civilisation too, that he calls the ancients, that built temples beneath the ground and "danced their silly rituals". you will never know more about them, but you can learn small bits and pieces of what was once the benefactors. you even see the karma murals, as you go out of pebbles access shaft, showing just how important it was to the benefactors. you can find small little round shiny objects, that you can learn moon calls "memory construct pearls", through a single small line she'll say when you bring her nothing but a simple diamond sphere that's as useless as the carbon it's printed from. if you bring her pearls from the sunbaked lands with flora reaching beyond the clouds, you can learn once more about the other iterators. there's a conversation log between five pebbles, and seven red suns, someone we can assume he knows and is friends with. you learn he's angry. you learn he doesn't want to be a bug in a maze. you also learn nothing truly dies. there's another, that's just a small part of a larger conversation in a closed group called SliverOfOcean. you don't have the full context to this, but EP mentions someone called sliver of straw, and a triple affirmative. it sounds important, with how they're speaking about sliver, but you can't tell why. and then a third, giving you a little more context to the SliverOfOcean group - this time between five pebbles, chasing wind, big sis moon and no significant harassment. chasing wind mentions the pseudonym "Erratic Pulse" - if anything, it's more than clear this is the EP mentioning the triple affirmative and sliver of straw. you see how NSH jokes about gnawing through bedrock with their overseers, and you can see how moon worries about this. you learn there's something called sliverists, and someone that wants to "cross themself out". and then there's two more, one where moon says pebbles drastically increased his water intake - the iterators are behind the rains, it seems - and that he and moon share groundwater. it's dangerous for her. she has seniority privileges - further context other than forced communications is not anything you get. and she has no memory of writing this... and the last is her pleading for five pebbles to stop. he says she ruined everything. you don't get more context.

and then you're left wondering.... what was any of that about? you find a yellow pearl in the decaying body of moon, hidden in a little crevice, and you bring it to her for her to read. it's about sliver of straw. she's legendary among the iterators. a big problem, the triple affirmative... you're finally given context to the SliverOfOcean broadcast. "affirmative that a solution has been found, affirmative that the solution is portable, and affirmative that a technical implementation is possible and generally applicable"... whatever that may mean? sliver of straw is dead. it's extremely hard to kill an iterator. you learn more about how iterators split into factions regarding sliver of straw - and how moon thinks she should just be allowed to rest.

so you go searching for more pearls. none of them ever mention sliver of straw again, or the triple affirmative. but you learn about void fluid, the void sea, and how moon's creators' ancestors learned to use it to create energy, and that void fluid drills started a big technological leap. if you go down there, you don't return. then you find whats supposedly a small plate, which is a little text of spiritual guidance. there's a name tied to it. four cabinets, eleven hatchets... what an odd name. it's from before the void fluid revolution... does this relate to the big technological leap mentioned before, you wonder? regardless, it's how to starve yourself on herbal tea and gravel but disguised as a poem. you learn there were horror stories of leaving echoes behind when you jumped in a vat of void fluid, and how some would still starve and drink the bitter tea instead of taking the risk. you remember you saw one of these colroed memory construct pearls on top of pebbles when you went there and saw the city in the background. it's still as breathtaking as it was the first time; you feel just as insignificant as you really are when you stand there. you bring the pearl to moon and you learn that five pebbles is "Gift of Charity from Us to The World (unable to reach Enlightenment by itself - being composed mostly of Rock, Gas, dull witted Bugs and Microbes - and towards which We thus have Obligations)".... whatever any of that means. enlightenment? odd. the slugcat doesn't really understand this, and neither do you, as the player.

... you saw a golden pearl on your way here when you got lost, you think. you go looking for it and bring it to moon, too, but not before getting bitten by a few lizards and hauled off by a few vultures, only just managing to kill the last vulture by pure luck as it tries to stop you in your tracks. it's illegal information, sent over pearl to avoid being overheard on broadcast... huh. it's something about circumventing the self-destruction taboo that iterators have, and how there's more, but the slugcat isn't told, and neither are you, but they're written into every cell of their organic parts. as she explains.... this feels like it relates to the breeding program mentioned a certain EP individual doing. hm.

you remember, a few times while being chased by leviathans and salamanders and nearly drowned by leeches, you've seen two pearls in shoreline and you go looking for them, bringing them to moon. the pink one has the genome for a purposed organism. you learn moon is one - but only a small fraction of one. you learn most of her is in the walls.... she is the walls? was it the same for pebbles? was that why he berated you for crashing through his memory conflux? most organisms barely even looked like creatures. she mentions primal fauna. what does she mean by that? you can guess she means creatures that weren't purposed. she mentions its highly likely you're a descendant of a purposed organism. then there's the purple pearl. you learn how water is vital to an iterator, otherwise slag will build up and they will painfully die. you learn that iterators haven't ever really seen a river, so the analogy of an iterator drinking a river is completely lost on them. water supply was important when placing iterators, until a great equalizer, the fact they breathe as much water out as they breathe in, where they could be placed almost freely. apparently building pebbles so close to moon was believed risky.... both of you can see that it was a good decision in hindsight, despite how little the slugcat, and you, know. hm. you remember a bright blue pearl somewhere in industrial complex and you go looking for it and bring it back to moon, but not after dying to lizards a few times. something about bone masks, and how they were used to abate the self, and then later used for self expression. something about radiating the material with holiness. this record of a mask factory is from Side House, on pebbles grounds. is that what industrial complex once was? the slugcat, and thus, you, the player too, will never really get an answer to this. but you can wonder. many old industrial-religious were reused and incorperated in iterator projects, so, it is possible...

...

just how much more is there, to this world...? this is nothing but a tiny piece of what is out there. and yet you feel like you've learned so much you'll never quite understand. and that's because the slugcat won't ever understand it, either, it's as clueless as you, the player, are. you're on the same line as it. you can guess and wonder as much as you want to, but you'll never learn about everything there once was. and that's the point. you'll never learn about everything and you can't because it's gone. you're not the main character to learn every little lore detail about this wonderous, new world, you're a slugcat doing it's best to survive in this unfamiliar ecosystem.

and i think that's rain world's beauty.

#words on the wind #rain world #rainworld #making this love of rain world rant its own post. because i love it actually #writing this was so fun. i loved writing it. and i'm proud of it #long post #...1.7k words. goodness #rw rambles

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staryskullz · 5 months

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Meet The Scugs!

I dunno if I will ever make this a whole series/au thing, I am working on another big Rainworld related project that takes up alot of my time. But I do wanna post lil drawings n comics. But for now here are the bio's n stuff for these guys. Just know some of the stories aren't exactly the same as the scugs in the game.. This is more of a scenario of "what if the Slugcats and other Rainworld creatures evolved into humanity and navigated the ruins of the world the ancients left behind? So, some of the lore from Rainworld may not apply or be changed to fit this narrative. Keep in mind these are also baseline character descriptions, as time goes on things may be subject to change or tweaked slightly! (and ofc there will be RW spoilers) with that said, Lets get started!

Artificer Age: 28 Pronouns: She/Her Occupation: Hunter/Gatherer Arti is one of the colony's hunter-gatherers, She was pretty much destined for the role due to her explosive powers. She has a tough exterior and is often blunt, which makes most intimidated by her. But deep down, she's caring and protective. She gets along really well with most of the other folks in the colony but is especially great friends with Gourmand, the colony leader. He helped support her through a low point in her life. There is one person she can't stand, Hunter. She's just too pretentious for her taste. Will they ever get along? who knows?

Gourmand Age: 40 Pronouns: he/him Occupation: Colony leader Gourmand is the beloved leader of the Colony in Outer Expanse. Sweet, caring, and kind. A father of two and an excellent cook. He is a natural-born leader. He adores his community and would do anything for them. Likewise, he makes sure that the Colony is safe and comfortable for every single member and is always willing to take in others if they need shelter. Of course, he isn't perfect. He doubts himself and works to the bone, often burning himself out. At the end of the day, his friends and family are always there to support him.

Hunter Age: 30 Pronouns: She/Her Occupation: Hunter Gatherer

Hunter is a sarcastic and smug slugcat, charming to most and pretentious to others (cough cough Artificer). Hunter is very talented at hunting and tracking, skilled with a spear, and knows how to survive even the toughest of situations. She developed rot tumors on her belly and hip. While not fatal, it has hindered her ability to survive solo, as she needs frequent breaks and rest to not completely tire herself out. She found Gourmands colony and was immediately accepted with open arms. Everything was going pretty well until she met Artificer. She still doesn't completely understand why she has a vendetta against her, hey! At least they can go on a hunt together without bickering the whole time, progress is progress!

Rivulet/Ruffles Age: 22 Pronouns: They/Them Occupation: Gourmand's Assistant Rivulet, (or called Ruffles by their friends) help's out Gourmand with the colony. Deliveries? Chores? Packing? Moving? Whatever it may be, Rivulet is on it speedily and quickly. They are also a fantastic swimmer. It's never a dull moment with them around, they'll always be there to cheer you up. While a great helper, sometimes they act before they think, being clumsy from time to time. Luckily they got the help of their friends if they ever encounter a sticky situation.

Spearmaster Age: 24 Pronouns: he/him Occupation: Armory/Tool making/Handyman Spearmaster's name is literal, a master of spears. He is very good at building things, a true craftsman. Spears is well-rounded and knowledgeable. He is generous and always helps the colony with building stuff and supplying all the farmers and fishers with tools. He can also fix lots of things in a pinch. Spearmaster is a bit odd, he has no mouth but can still talk. How does he eat? Well, he doesn't. he stabs things with his tail spears and gains nutrients from the things he stabs with them. He came to the colony out of nowhere. There is a rumor that he is from a superstructure far far away from the colony. Maybe he is a little peculiar but definitely cherished by all.

Saint Age: 36 Pronouns: he/him Occupation: Town Physician and Cleric/Mentor Saint is a wise one, a calm and gentle soul. He is very in touch with the cycle and knows the ways of the world. Not only does he help the sick and injured, but he also is there to guide and counsel those who need it. He is also good at being a mediator and solving problems. This means Artificer and Hunter keep him on his toes, but as with everything, he handles it with grace. No one really knows too much about Saint's upbringing or origin, he doesn't really talk about himself much at all. As for right now, he is teaching and mentoring Monk about Medicine and teaching her brother Survivor, Clergy.

Monk Age: 18 Pronouns: she/her Occupation: Saint's Pupil, learning medicine Monk is the youngest of them all, bashful and shy but a sweetie. She came to the colony with her older brother, Survivor. They got separated from their parents at a young age, and have stuck together ever since. Monk is still figuring herself out but for right now she's trying her best to take the role of physician in the future, helping the sick and injured is rewarding for her and something she is passionate about pursuing. Navigating adulthood is hard, but she is slowly learning and making a difference in her community.

Survivor Age: 21 Pronouns: he/him Occupation: Saints Pupil, learning Clergy Survivor is Monk's older brother, He has a head on his shoulders and is always willing to try his best. He has his flaws, he isn't the most socially aware person and is a bit stubborn. He never really got to socialize with other slugcats, he isn't sure if he will be a good cleric but he wants to try. Not only that, but he had to spend the majority of his life taking care of his little sister, being her main protector and caretaker. He never really grew up finding what he was good at or what he wanted in life. He just learned how to survive. He hopes that joining the colony would benefit him and his sister and being Saints pupil will point him in the right direction.

Enot/Inv Age: 24 Pronouns: They/He Occupation: Tailor/clothier There is so much to be said about Enot, but I'll give you the gist. Enot works as a tailor and helps make and sell clothes for the colony. They are a bit melodramatic and misguided and a hopeless romantic, commonly making a fool out of themselves. Even if they are awkward at times, they mean well and are always willing to take part in any festivities, always overdressing no matter the occasion.

Nightcat Age: 23 Pronouns: he/him Occupation: Carpenter Nightcat isn't much of a talker, blank-faced, and has almost nothing to say. Everyone knows he can build a perfect shelf or cabinet though. If you ever get to know him personally (which is rare) You will find that He is a straight-to-the-point, matter-of-fact type of guy. He doesn't have many friends, usually only talking to Spearmaster and occasionally Enot. Who knows, maybe he'll come out his shell.

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simcardiac-arrested · 1 year

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BOO!!!!! sillyguy jumpscare

“looks like a raver ancient built him” - my friend

“i am SUCH a fan of how you make all of your fanocs annoying himbos with unnecessary swag” - my other friend

“he’s fresh sans” - like, two people

so — he’s finally here!!! the Basketball!!!! be warned INSANE and MINDBLOWING loredrop below‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️ as well as some general trivia about NWB + some more silly doodles

The Ancients, dissatisfied with the very prominent lack of results the Iterator project was bringing, began having doubts. Perhaps they had gone about this the wrong way? After all, the jellyfish that doesn’t try is the one that doesn’t get caught in the net. It seemed they had made their design of the Iterators inherently flawed — they tried too hard to solve the Problem, over and over and over again.

It was time for something new. An alternative.

And so, the idea for the Anti-Iterator project was brought into the world — a whole generation of Iterators that didn’t try. Some called it redundant, some pointless. But it convinced plenty, certainly enough to make that idea a reality, and the plan came into fruition.

No Way Back was the first created; his name was given to him to signify a turning point, a new era of Iterators. One that would bring with it change and, hopefully, finally, a solution.

so anyway NWB did absolutely nothing except talk excessively about the ancients’ fashion and sometimes ask them for their drip clothes for his collection and also make cringefail music. the project was discontinued immediately

NOW!!! TOP 10 GAMER TRIVIA:

- makes the shittiest sounding music possible, sincerely believes it’s peak art. if you don’t think the same way he’ll say You dont get it. You just dont

- fan of fashion, art & history, but in a normal way (unlike pebbles). really wishes he could have a whole wardrobe of clothes like his creators, but they’re all gone now </3 and even back then when they were all still alive they. did not like giving him stuff (they did not like him)

- one of them did give him the nikeys though

- most of his creators deemed him useless and didn’t particularly care for him. however, some of them (usually the kids) liked talking with NWB, and he enjoyed interacting with them too. he kind of misses the ancients even if they were asses

- is an enigma to his local group: he barely sends messages, and when he does it’s wildly off topic, and literally NEVER about work related stuff. occasionally he’ll drop his “bangers” in the groupchat and ask for opinions. unfortunately most of the iterators ignore him because they find him annoying (and useless as well. very ancientcore of them)

- kind of incomprehensible. he just says things

- doesn’t really have a god complex so he’s generally friendly, open-minded and easy going, but if you’re mean to him he’ll go Wow. Not cool, man. and he’ll probably give you a lecture like a 90s PSA

- calls himself a DJ. doesn’t even have a proper DJ name. probably doesn’t even know what a club is

- fan of nature, enjoyer of life. has no friends and no purpose but doesn’t let it get to him. at least he can make the equivalent of cbat 2 and force every iterator in the world to listen to it

- he’s stupid but he’s also really smart because. supercomputer. however he chooses to not use his brain and instead be silly. he thinks it’s funnier that way

- sometimes sends his music to other iterators besides his local group’s. they also ignore him

- you really can’t tell when he’s being ironic or not, and whether he’s really THAT dumb or if he’s just trolling. one thing for sure — he loves to mess with the stuck-up iterators from his local group if they decide to bother him

- if the ancients had any equivalent of the 80s, he would’ve been a very very big fan of it

- loves animals too. would call slugcat “little dude”

leave your thoughts in the COMMENTS below!!! remember to LIKE and SUBSCRIBE and listen to DJNWB on SPOTIFY (suddenly becomes normal) if you have any questions feel free to ask and i will answer. i love this guy he’s my everything

#myart #rain world #rain world oc #iterator oc #he’s like if a guy was a guy. and then was a guy again #this iterator is BALLIN he got REAL ASS JORDANS #he will tell you about the joys of life but only if you let him be incomprehensible and cryptic first #and call you Bro at the end of every sentence #btw i absolutely love adding tumblr posts to my refs it’s so fucking funny to me #oc: no way back

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sevenrs · 8 months

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*shines the OC rant laser on you*

i can't decide who to talk about so you get (at least) one fun fact about everyone. and most will be meta

brass lining: my first ever iterator oc. they were made over a year ago. they are my most "typical" (working to solve the great problem) iterator and though i don't develop much for them, they are important because i use them as a reference point for my other iterators

flight of the crows: their antenna are really hard for me to draw. why did i design them like that? because it looks cool. they are somehow both very emotionally intellegent and also unable to figure out how to handle other peoples emotions

chains by summer: originally, i based him off prometheus but now he more resembles achillies. i wouldve added more ancient greek influence to his design and atititude but greece nor a greece-like culture exist in rain world

three star songs: personally my favorite iterator color pallette that i made (i didnt make paradox). i consider her one of my more underrated iterators because i love her so damn much but i feel others are more interested in summer or paradox. NOTHING wrong with that by the way

paradox of creation: their lore was originally concieved because i am autistic about the immune system. now one of the greatest explorations of iterator anatomy and physiology ive done

salt wind blows: stole his name off of a username i saw somewhere. i dont really talk about her much but she's a secret favorite of mine

garden of bones: unrevealed because i want ita designer to post them first but their name comes from a song i thought was a sick iterator name for months

all the immunerators: each of them have at least one dot on their face, inspired by cell nucleus :)

equinox of winter: when i made them, i wanted to try drawing iterators different from what i usually do and in canon. very much will draw more bulky iterator ocs in the future!

call of the blade: she has three dots because she is based on a neutrophil. neutrophils have a three-lobed nucleus!

a perfect tragedy: it never moved in its can because the puppet is literally attached to the walls. its other structuremates cannot understand how it doesnt want to fidget

rising memory: vaguely inspired by the same origin as my sona! archivist from inscryption. help

bead from the branch: bead's body markings are based on a simplified drawing of antibodies, which b cells produce

blue lotus: already explained the origins but more flowers grow as it gets colder

arsonist: my first ever slugcat oc. her markingd were inspired by a black kite! if you know, you know

scholar: also vague inspiration from archivist inscryption... they have seen many iterators in their day and will keep meeting them too!

livewire: a vulture even smaller then a slugcat. three star songs made it after figuring out ghost was a bad messanger

the yoinky sploinky: two headed lizard i never did anything with and still has its placeholder name. based on the fact that reptiles are more often hatched with two heads then anything else

neuron slugpups: my friend blip was taking inspiration for designs to make. i said neuron flies. i later took home neuron pups for paradox

mixtape: bright blue coop pup i found. themed around an inspector

heart: an artificer sona :)

#asks.txt #rehkloo6 #ocposting #i have. a lot of ocs!

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rainy-mars · 1 year

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Iterator OCs 2: Electric Boogaloo

And the followup to my first Iterator OCs post: the other four! Same as last time, big credit to JuniperRainz for the bases I used and mildly edited for these characters!

Scries for Stained Light, he/they. SSL is a calm Iterator, being rather kindhearted for any little creature that wanders near him. He holds many pearls and memories of Ancients that were given to him, especially holding those given by children dear. However they’re not immune to gossip, having at one point seen two Iterator puppets free from their cans via an Overseer, and spreading the news to a good friend, SBC. SSL really just lives for the sentiment, and continues to ponder the Great Problem, not out of boredom or necessity, but rather because he knows the Ancients would have loved to hear his thoughts, even if they no longer can. Some days, though, they do wish they could have walked in their city among their Ancient friends, or go down and explore the lands Ancients once claimed to create them, and meet their fellow Iterators in person. But until the day he’s shoved into the situation in which he can go free, he’s content to stay where he is and ponder an unreachable solution.

Once Flawless, she/he/it. OF is an old, old Iterator, being one of the first created, hence the name. Over time her puppet and structure was overcome with rust and breaking systems, leaving her isolated from communications. Even despite this fate coming much sooner than any other Iterator, he doesn’t hold anything against his creators, instead just staying on his lonesome with no care for what should come of his future. It’s content to play with the lizards, regardless of its degrading systems preventing it from doing much. Her structure ended up collapsing from wear, and her only real reaction was that creatures will be more able to reach her. Even despite his apathy towards his own state, he’s horribly caring to every other Iterator and creature in the world, worrying endlessly when his most common visitor doesn’t come back one cycle, or another comes back injured.

Flooded Stream of Tears, they/them. FST is cynical and rude, but knows when to calm down and approach things from a softer angle. They think distastefully of their creators, hoping to eventually reach a self-destruction after the legend of Sliver of Straw spread to their local group. In doing so, however, they make sure to avoid harming any others, having heard the horror stories of Sliver’s group falling apart, and not due to aging metal. Being found by TCU was a sort of saving grace, the other Iterator giving them a perfect out, locating the Void Sea. Their journey takes them far, but they’re determined. And, via a modified Vulture designed to act as portable communication arrays, is still able to talk to other Iterators and report their findings across the lands!

Astronomical Complacence (yes I spelled her name wrong in the thing), she/they/it. AC can be best described by ‘little shit’. They’re trolly and funny and wants everyone to be happy, even though their methods of doing so are less than conventional. One too many nearby Iterators have had a trained lizard or slugcat crawling into their chambers and proceeding to juggle, guarded by a purple Overseer. Nevertheless, it’s attempts do succeed, and its happy to be the comic relief when everything else gets far too stressful. When members of their local group begin freeing themselves from their cans, AC gets the idea to basically host a sort of travelling circus, in which they’ll tame various creatures and travel to any Iterator they wish, and offer them company and a fun show to boot! Still, their own worry is strong, as they want everyone to be happy and that’s a hard task to fufill, especially when the stories of the local group some ways away reaches theirs. Such sad souls fill the land, and a task as impossible as hers can only lead to mental deterioration.

And that’s all! Thanks for reading if you did and I hope everyone has a wonderful day <3

#rainworld #rain world #rain world ocs #iterator #iterator ocs #broken chains logs

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i3utterflyeffect · 1 year

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Triple Affirmative

it's once in a blue moon lads. that means it's fic time (even though im very rusty) anyway i wrote this in 30 minutes or smthn bc i had the idea and thought it was cool

AO3 Link

Summary: Two mysterious stories become one. Sometimes, you must join the cycle to end it.

Sliver knew this was risky. How could fae not know?

The danger of gene editing had already made itself clear when iterators had begun to come down with the rot. The process of creating creatures was safe, of course.

But to control to a new, separated puppet was completely unheard of.

Nonetheless, Sliver was sure that if this worked, everyone could escape this damned cycle.

The triple affirmative was not something other beings needed, but none of the iterators had a choice in it. If they could all ascend, however, there was nothing left to stay here for.

Faer sat down in front of the new puppet.

It was a green, furred slugcat— a variety special to Sliver’s cold reigon. They were adaptable, clever, social. They could travel long distances.

It was perfect.

Faer began the process.

Despite the tingling of faer neurons reaching out, the alien feeling of a new body, it came quite easy. Fae’s mind wanted to flit about, the excitement getting to faer, but the distraction was too costly to risk, so faer set into a low power mode, only focusing on the work.

Cycles and cycles passed. Faer did not know if the others were calling.

All they knew is that the solution was close.

So close

that they could

touch it.

100% COMPLETE.

The notification was jarring, startling fae out of faer focus.

Faw could feel the defined surrounding of the slugcat. That was a good start.

Sliver moved one paw.

Then the other.

Slowly, fae stood, and a thrill rushed through their body.

TRIPLE AFFIRMATIVE.

Sliver had found the way out. They were free. Everyone could finally, finally be free!

The excitement overwhelmed faer systems, and at first, faer didn’t care to monitor that feeling.

That is, until fae felt a spark.

Suddenly, agony ripped through every piece of faer— from the smallest neuron to the surface of their can— and it hurt, IT HURT—

A scream ripped from faer vocal cords as everything began to malfunction in an agonizing series of individual processes.

First, faer cooling systems.

Then, the gravity of faer rarefraction cells.

The spine carrying faer puppet began to seize as faer body thrashed in the air, and neurons dropped dead one at a time.

It was at the very end, where the chill of death settled in, that something happened.

The scorching pain became background to an unusual sense of peace.

Fae could see it.

Fae could see it all.

Every ancient that had built faer and faer siblings. Every creature that had journeyed to the void sea. A cycle that spun on into eternity.

Sliver was not sure where fae was, or even who fae was, but the knowledge of ten thousand eons poured into their mind.

Fae thought faer processors would not be able to take it, and yet somehow, faer mind was clear as ever. The knowledge wound through every part of fae, before neatly furling in faer chest, like golden thread on a spool.

Fae felt more awake than ever, not weighed down by every process that had plagued faer mind anymore.

Somehow, the feeling didn’t quite dissipate with the high that came with it.

Sliver’s senses returned to faer, and fae found faerself staring up at faer hanging puppet, limp in the air.

Fae could feel their eyelids over their eyes still, but vision remained with them all the same.

When fae opened faer eyes, fae saw golden string.

It hung from every surface, somehow denoting a date in faer mind.

The answer finally came to faer as fae stared into the yarn intertwined with everything.

Fae could cut these threads.

Fae could cut a cycle short.

My string...?

Looking down at faerself, fae found a thread spiraling all around them, tangled and knotted, unruly.

It did not end. In fact, it seemed to go on forever. Fae’s paws went through the wires when they tried to cut it.

Eternity was designated to the thread.

It would never end.

But if fae could cut each thread but faer own, that meant fae had found the Triple Affirmative. For everything.

Everything but faerself.

A grim whisper of a laugh escaped faer lungs, sounding more like a breath of air than a sound.

Fae finally wobbled up onto faer own two feet.

If fae was the solution, then fae needed to get moving. Faer siblings would not free themselves.

Silently, fae wondered if eternity would be more bearable if fae could journey.

Fae would have to find that out for faerself.

#rain world #saint rain world #sliver of straw #rain world sliver of straw #i don't know man. it's just such a fun idea to me. sliver of straw becoming saint is just so fucked up and evil

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pikkish · 1 year

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@dwellerinroots videogame exchange list for you! A handful of my favorite open world/open world adjacent games.

Hollow Knight - 2D metroidvania platformer. Metroidvanias are like, basically open world games, right? right? It’s still centered on exploration, so I’m gonna say it counts. Anyway, Hollow Knight is a very special game in that it is one of two games where, partway through, I stopped and thought, “I did not pay nearly enough for this game.” You play as a strange little bug creature known only as the knight or the little ghost, and explore the ruins of a forgotten underground city that long fell to a mysterious disease. Very little lore is directly given to you, and not much of that given to you makes sense until much later, but the game is an excellent example, and should be a role model, of “show, don’t tell” and environmental storytelling. Beautiful art, haunting soundtrack, compelling characters, a huge map to explore, tons of secrets to find, a lore rich story, and a fast and tight combat system. It does have a reputation for being very difficult, both for combat and platforming, but less “this is a poorly designed game” and more it just has a steep learning curve. Well worth the challenge, though; the game will rip out your heart in the best way possible. I cried about at least two of the endings.

Subnautica - probably one of the crown jewels of open world exploration, tbh. Your ship crashes on an aquatic planet, and you have to survive, find out what crashed your ship, and build a rocket to escape. The world is beautifully alien, vibrantly alive, and the entire thing being underwater lends map design a unique sense of verticality that most normal-landscape open world games don’t have. There are, iirc, two timed events that happen, but otherwise you are free to ignore everything plot-related and explore as you please. I’d recommend playing in a dark room with good headphones for the full atmospheric effect. *(Due note though that Subnautica is... a little broken in some places. Reviews say it’s partially a horror game, but the scariest thing that happened to me was when one of the giant fish that wants to eat you pulled a Bethesda on me and clipped straight through a mountain to come get me. It’s a bit unpolished in areas, some mechanics don’t work quite as well as they were intended, and I suspect some areas might’ve been a victim of scope creep. There’s apparently been an update recently that supposedly fixed a lot of these, but based on my experience, it doesn’t quite feel like a complete game, and I’d definitely wait for it to go on sale before buying.)

Dying Light - This one is a bit more populated and quest heavy, but it has neat maps and fun gameplay. There’s been an outbreak of a zombie virus, and you’re a secret agent dropped into the quarantine zone to find some research on a cure. You must work with the survivors set up in the quarantined city both to accomplish your goal, and just to stay alive. The core gameplay is parkouring across the city to escape the zombie hordes, some of which are just as good at climbing as you are. Said parkour mechanics are very fast and fluid, and running around the city, chased by zombies, on a quest, or just for fun, is downright exhilarating. I did have some stuttering issues I couldn’t quite figure out how to fix, which is... a little bit of a problem when the gameplay is all about how fast and smooth you can move, but otherwise a great experience.

Rain World - ‘nother metroidvania platformer. I actually didn’t get too far in this one on account of the controls being a bit more -heh- sluggish, but that’s more of a personal preference thing than an actual problem with gameplay. You play as a little creature known as a slugcat. Separated from your family and stuck within the decaying corpse of an ancient machine, you must scavenge food to fill your belly, avoid other creatures that very much want to fill their bellies with you, and seek shelter at the end of each cycle to avoid drowning in each night’s torrential downpours. Very large map, wonderfully designed environments, and an achingly melancholic feel to the entire thing. I know there’s some pretty deep lore from watching a friend who was far better at the game play it, but if my own experiences are anything to go by, you are entirely able to scurry around and do your own thing for hours without paying the slightest bit of attention to lore.

Noita - This one’s a roguelike, but I feel like it deserves an honorable mention as an open world game, just for how dang big it is, both in actual map size, and in how much content there is crammed into that map. It’s apparently very heavily based in Finnish folklore, but it doesn’t really tell you any of that, it just kinda goes “Here’s how you move, here’s how you shoot, ok have fun!! :)” and then just throws you into the game. Its combat system centers about building your own magic wands with different spells on them, and combining spells in different ways can have wildly different results.For as deep as the wand mechanics are, though, the real selling point is the world simulation: every individual pixel is simulated, and everything interacts with everything else. You can burn things, break things, crumble things, shatter things, melt things, freeze things, and probably do a whole lot of other things I don’t even know about. Expect to die a lot, and expect to accidentally kill yourself a lot.

#pikspeak #bideogaem rambling :)#hope at least one of these catches your attention!#def let me know if u pick one up and what u think of it #may or may not add on to this list later with more- albeit unrelated- games #some of these descriptions got a little longer than anticipated haha #love talking about my favorite games :)

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alter1412 · 1 year

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Sleep comes for those who wait for it

This is an AU where a Human gets teleported to the world of Rain World and meets two Ocs Iterators of mine. Its has part of the backstory of my two Iterators that I hope to post later one day.

Pre-Ascension:

When the ancient built the First Iterators, many oversights were made. Because of this, they build Sleep In to Oblivion; an Iterator with the ability to move between the Iterators of the zone. She functions taking rain water for her refrigeration and also some ground water when viable. Her purpose is to repair the others Iterators with repairs drones, and help with the great problem. The drones are made from the others Iterators. She can make them if she founds a suitable water supply, but the process to make them is to exhaustive and time consuming for her.

Post-Ascension:

After the Ancients left, the work load of SIO increased tenfold with the passing of the cycles. SIO is only one Iterator of her class in the local group, and time is no kind to her. The materials to make drone dwindle with every passing cycle, and she can’t stop to make more (she doesn’t have the time).

One after another, the Iterators succumbed to the Erosions of the Terrain and The Rot. Those with the Rot, SIO kept them company. And when the Rot is too advanced, she takes them out, the last thing that she can do for them (a kindness).

When only two Iterators where left, Sleep Into Oblivion and A Feather Soaring Through The Sky, a human arrives, whose name is Alba Amaani de los Milagros La Forgia, making the cycles more bearable.

Alba lives in SIO can, exploring this strange world that she doesn’t know how ended up in and discovering what happened in it. With time, Alba is given an ancient name by the Iterators: A Silver of Light, Shining in the Dark. Alba is modified by A Feather Soaring Through The Sky. This modifications where requested by Alba herself.

With the time, Alba forgets is original name, taking the Silver part as her name of the name given to her by the Iterators

After some time (years), A Feather Sparing Through The Sky gets The Rot by an experiment going wrong (that experiment was a surprise for Silver, it was going to be the ability to fly). SIO and Silver were too far away to help, and so, when they return to A Feather Soaring Through The Sky, it was too late.

Even with The Rot, A Feather Soaring Through The Sky finish her gift. But she can’t give it to Silver. When Silver enters the chamber of A Feather Soaring Through The Sky to confront her, the first thing that happens is a that A Feather Soaring Through The Sky hugs her. –I am sosososososo Sorry!! I didn’t mean to keep it a secret for the both of you; I just wanted to make both happy and- A Feather Soaring Through The Sky rambles. SIO and Silver are mad at A Feather Soaring Through The Sky, but when everything is explained and misunderstandings solved, SIO and Silver stay with A Feather Soaring Through The Sky.

Silver won’t apply the gift to herself after a long, long time. She applies the gift before the collapse and killing of A Feather Soaring Through The Sky, when the anger had faded to see that A Feather Soaring Through The Sky cared for her and wanted her happy. It is applied by SIO, because A Feather Soaring Through The Sky Rot has taken most of her.

The first flight is a valued memory for the three of them.

When A Feather Soaring Through The Sky can collapse, and all that remains is the puppet barely functional, SIO can’t pull the trigger to free A Feather Soaring Through The Sky of that suffering. Silver press the fire button with tears in her eyes, blaming herself for have come to this world, because if she hadn’t showed up, A Feather Soaring Through The Sky may have lived a little longer.

Silver doesn’t fly again after A Feather Soaring Through The Sky death.

After that, Silver and SIO fall into depression. They almost let themselves to decay, but are put out of it by Zuko, a red slugcat that in some manner can manipulate fire and has a scar in the opposite side of his face (left side?) with respect at Zuko of ATLA (not the same personality, the slugcat is more gentle and young, very young. It recently reached it adulthood) . He wanders through SIO installations, and when he reaches the Iterator chamber, is greeted by a depressed human and Iterator. After that first meeting, in which he receives the mark of communication and understand that this two beings are too sad for their own good, he starts to visit more and more, keeping them company and trying and succeeding in “lift them up” of that depression. Sio and Silver are fascinated when the slugcat attempts communications, so they teach him sing language to know what is he saying.

After many, many talks with Zuko, they decide to leave the “local group territory”. They realize that there is nothing left for them, nothing keeping them there.

And so, they head east, in a world that they only knew bit and pieces, and discover the fate of the rest of the Iterators.

#rain world #rain world game #Alter writes things #oc #my ocs my beloved #alternate universe #fanfic

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joutacujo · 4 years

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Story below cut

Polybius didn’t know what to think. He was a father now? How could one of his tumours just pop off and be sentient? Was it the result of him eating the Hunter’s corpse?

Whatever the reason, he was confused-- and scared and strangely proud like any new parent. This small, mewling creature was of his flesh and blood. It depended on him! He could hardly look after himself let alone another creature! He tried to think back to his own puphood, but those memories were long buried by his transformation and the endless blur of those days when nothing ever happened. The Hunter climbing through Five Pebble’s can and meeting him was the best thing to ever happen in his short-- or was it long now? --life. That was until they died of the same cancerous rot that allowed Polybius to survive in this harsh environment.

Oh Ancients. How would this little creature survive in this place? He focused his infrared gaze on the pup who was curled up on the cold, metallic floor of the room. She was shivering. Oh! Should he carry it?

Carefully he nudged her with his muzzle until he got a hold on her fat scruff. Oof! She was a heavy little thing! His feelers gently touched over her body to get a better mental image for what she looked like. What colour was she? He couldn’t really tell. Darker than he was, he figured. Polybius set off to his shelter, head held high as he trotted in his weird, careful way.

Eat her.

He paused. What?

Eat her. One bite and it’ll be over. The flesh is soft. You are hungry. You’re always hungry! One bite! ONE BITE!

He dropped her with a frightened hiss! His growths twitched in distress and he felt his short fur raise along his spine. He couldn’t! He may have eaten her other parent but-- Not her! Not his own flesh and blood! He shook the thoughts away as he trembled with fear. Why was he like this?

The pup hit the floor with a soft thud-- alerting him to what he just did. Oh no, no no no! In an instant he was crouched over her, sniffing her over frantically, tentacles not daring to touch in case he hurt her further.

WEEEH!

A loud, displeased squeal sounded from the infant. Polybius breathed a sigh. Oh, thank the Ancients. He purred softly, nuzzling her and drawing her against his chest for comfort. How was he supposed to carry her? On his back like the Scavengers do? She was so small though! She barely had legs let alone paws to grasp with!

Then an idea hit him.

The tentacles from around his chest unwound themselves and wrapped around the small creature, fastening her to him. Tentatively, Polybius stood back on his haunches, taking a few steps upright to check if the grip was tight enough. Was it too tight, maybe? She seemed to have calmed down.

The mutated slugcat studied his new daughter for a moment. Though he could barely see her, he knew she was beautiful. A precious, chubby ball of soft fur.

Oh he had to show Five Pebbles.

Trotting along on all fours, Polybius made his way through the can with little difficulty. His long legs and tentacles allowed him to traverse through areas of sketchy gravity and being part DLL himself, the mold growth left him alone. He was struck with intense fear when a brother reached out to grab the pup, but soon realizing she was the same as them, let them pass on.

He slithered through the vent and landed with a thump on the floor of Five Pebble’s can, making sure not to accidentally squish the baby with his ungraceful landing.

Five Pebbles could only glance at him in annoyance then continue his work. He was used to his… companion in mutation visiting often. Perhaps, he even enjoyed it-- though he’d never admit it!

“What is it now? Have you found something to gift me again?” he drawled in a sardonic tone. Ancients forbid it was another half eaten thing. To his surprise a loud purr rumbled from the beastie. Slugcats could purr?

The iterator moved his arm down to join the creature on the floor, sitting crosslegged. When he held out his hands to receive whatever gift it was; he was expecting something like a memory pearl or other shiny thing-- not a whole ass child.

Pebbles blinked.

He ran a quick diagnostics scan on his optics.

Oh yes, he was seeing that right.

“You… didn’t steal a pup, did you?” he asked, raising a brow at the pleased creature. Polybius shook his head and gestured to his back. There was a notable gap where a large tumour had been growing. A tumour that he… was now holding in his hands in the form of an infant slugcat. “.... I am not going to ask how that works or how that happened. The world works in mysterious ways. Perhaps this is just another of the cycle’s strange quirks.”

Five Pebbles turned his attention on the pup. It was a fat thing; a thick roll of baby fat on it’s neck and chubby cheeks. It was staring at him with odd, red eyes…. Was it cross eyed? He waved a pearl in front of it, watching it track it with unsteady movements; its pupils fixed facing its nose. “Ah, poor thing…” but not unexpected. It’s sire was mostly blind after all. It was female; covered in dark brown fur with blue spots going down her spine like her sire. There was… what appeared to be a tumour’s sensor on her forehead. He poked near it and indeed it twitched like the DLL’s did when they heard a creature. Strange….

“I suppose you want me to name it as I did you, hm, Polybius?” he mused, looking back at the slugcat. Polybius nodded, crawling over to lounge across Pebble’s lap like a grand pet. Five Pebbles sighed but allowed it. The iterator held the pup in the crook of his arm, wiggling his fingers of his other hand in a game. He had to admit, she was pretty cute-- though he’d never say that outloud.

Ancients forbid NSH ever heard that. Creators know that the iterator loved these little beasties. Well! He couldn’t have Pebbles’ ones!

…. Oh, Ancients he was just as bad as him.

Symbols flashed around him as he thought it over. What name would suit her? Knowledge, as reference to Polybius’ name? Little Rock? No, no…. Something different…

His memory banks flashed back to the time of his creators. Their culture, their strange habits, their cuisine.

“Well, it’s a fitting name,” Five Pebbles decided as he held up the pup with both hands, “Brownie! That’ll suit you.”

The pup blew spit bubbles at him in approval and Polybius purred. Pebbles allowed a bit of warmth to bloom within him. “Perhaps I could allow you two to stay in my can for a while. Just until this little one is old enough to walk that is--” he was interrupted by a glob of saliva dripping on his face.

Eugh….

“Oh, I hate you creatures.”

#rainworld #rain world #slugcat #slugpup #brownie child #polybius #hal art #hal writing

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venus-is-in-bloom · 5 years

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[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-

#rain world #fan art #writing #things venus wrote #things venus said #just feeling things as usual!!#this is... more than 4000 words long which is really remarkable for me #long post #just in case the break doesn't work for anyone!

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