I Really Hate That So Many People Can't Tell A Difference Between "lost Media" And "commercially Unavailable

As someone with extreme Mental Health Fuckery, especially related to morals, and a sexual abuse victim: if you are saying "if you don't do XYZ related to social justice, you are going to become a sexual abuser", ESPECIALLY untagged, then I'm going to steal something out of your fucking house!!!!

The Architecture of Rain World: Layers of History

A major theme in Rain World's world design that often goes overlooked is the theme of, as James Primate, the level designer, composer and writer calls it, "Layers of History." This is about how the places in the game feel lived-in, and as though they have been built over each other. Here's what he said on the matter as far back as 2014!

The best example of this is Subterranean, the final area of the base game and a climax of the theme. Subterranean is pretty cleanly slpit vertically, there's the modern subway built over the ancient ruins, which are themselves built over the primordial ruins of the depths. Piercing through these layers is Filtration System, a high tech intrusion that cuts through the ground and visibly drills through the ceiling of the depths.

Two Sprouts, Twelve Brackets, the friendly local ghost, tells the player of the "bones of forgotten civilisations, heaped like so many sticks," highlighting this theme of layering as one of the first impressions the player gets of Subterranean. Barely minutes later, the player enters the room SB_H02, where the modern train lines crumble away into a cavern filled with older ruins, which themselves are invaded by the head machines seen prior in outskirts and farm arrays, some of which appear to have been installed destructively into the ruins, some breaking through floors.

These layers flow into each other, highlighting each other's decrepit state.

The filtration system, most likely the latest "layer," is always set apart from the spaces around it. At its top, the train tunnels give way to a vast chasm, where filtration system stands as a tower over the trains, while at the bottom in depths, it penetrates the ceiling of the temple, a destructive presence. (it's also a parallel to the way the leg does something similar in memory crypts, subterranean is full of callbacks like that!)

Filtration system is an interesting kind of transition, in that it is much later and more advanced than both of the areas it cuts between. This is a really interesting choice from James! It would be more "natural" to transition smoothly from the caves of upper subterranean to the depths, but by putting filtration system in between, the two are clearly demarcated as separate. The difference in era becomes palpable, the player has truly found something different and strange.

Depths itself is, obviously, the oldest layer not only of subterranean but of the game itself. The architecture of Depths has little to do with the rest of the game around it, it's a clear sign of the forgotten civilisations that our friend Two Sprouts, Twelve Brackets showed us, there's not actually that much to say about it itself, it's mostly about how it interacts with the other layers of subterranean.

That said, Subterranean is far from the only case of the theme of layers of history. It's present as soon as the player starts the game!

The very first room of the game, SU_C04, is seemingly a cave. It is below the surface, the shapes of it are distinctly amorphous rather than geometric. (well. kind of, it doesn't do a very good job of hiding the tile grid with its 45 degree angles.)

But let's take a closer look, shall we?

See that ground? it's made of bricks. The entire cave area of outskirts is characterised by this, the "chaotic stone" masonry asset is mixed with brickwork, unlike the surface ruins which are mostly stone. This, seemingly, is an inversion of common sense! The caves are bricks and the buildings are stone. This is not, however, a strange and unique aspect but a recurring motif.

This occurs enough in the game for it to be clearly intentional, but why would materials such as bricks be used in otherwise natural looking terrain?

The answer lies in the "Layers of History" theme. This is in fact, something that happens in real life, and it's called a tell

en.wikipedia.org

Tell (archaeology) - Wikipedia

To be specific, a tell is a kind of mound formed by settlements building over the ruins of previous iterations of themselves. Centuries of rubble and detritus form until a hill grows from the city. Cities such as Troy and Jericho are famous examples. The connections to the layers of history theme are pretty clear here, I think. Cities growing, then dying, then becoming the bedrock of the next city. The ground, then, is made of bricks, because the ground is the rubble of past buildings. The bones of forgotten civilisations, heaped like so many sticks!

I've noticed a lot of games I like have things to say about immortality so I decided to make a list

Bug Fables: How are you going to get the immortality? How do you plan on handling the consequences of your actions? Is it worth it? Did you think anything through at all?

Hollow Knight: You can't be immortal. Don't try. It just makes more problems.

Everhood: Do you want to be immortal? NO YOU FUCKING DON'T. ENJOY NOTHING FOREVER.

Mad Rat Dead: Why do you want to be immortal? You should really have a reason. Otherwise, it's kinda pointless.

Rain World: People can have different opinions about immortality! Just try not to make too much of a mess, or you and/or everyone else has to deal with that forever.

Thank for LethalSpaceship for idea

PLEASE tell me your takes on the Photographer I adore them and desire the content. Thankyou.

Ah, alright! So, here:

My take on the Photographer.

I like to think that the animal bots in the area, kind of like with fishbot and lonely wizbot, are cyborg beings that were once flesh. In the wasted world (haha) of Botopia, there's no place for flesh and blood creatures. Very little safety or care is given to ensure they even have land. Much of the once wooded island is even just.. a muddy, rocky expanse.

So wouldn't the person documenting and actively collecting proof life existed want to preserve it?

I designed him based on that purpose! Those fins allow it to work almost like a sonar, sensing around the area. The horns are like the antennae on a radio, allowing the Photographer deposit photos into a drive within Botopia. Not to mention pincers along his body that work like spider mandibles, that can trap and contain prey, but seem almost incomplete.

This is because it ran out of parts eventually. That's a large reason why there's so, so little of anything left near the cabin. It used up its resources. So he could only use bits of his body to complete that work. Of course, the fellow sees no issue with that. It can still complete its work by having strung itself up inside of its darkroom alongside the vines and moss, sending out a small drone to do the work they had once done.

The Photographer could certainly make synthetic skin and allow itself to become a beast-like being.. but it values the purity of life. It trusts and loves so dearly in the flesh and blood beings it once only preserved in photos.

Had to check and its been ~3 months since my last canonical ask (forgot to sign one)

Sooo how we thinking about Irving and the Scrybes interacting? Like it makes sense they would've done so but also Wild innit

-🥊

Oh it’s absolutely WILD to me, especially because I cannot imagine Irving would get along with any of them. He’d appreciate their devotion to the game, sure—no problem with them whining about reassignments, so less work for him—but… they’re still The Scrybes From Inscryption. He’d get annoyed with Magnificus’s insistence on “perfection” (which, in Irving’s eyes, is completely inconsequential but he knows better than to tell Magnificus he doesn’t know what he’s talking about), frustrated with Leshy’s pedantic mannerisms (though at least Leshy keeps to himself), irked by P03’s not-so-hidden intent to bring all of Inscryption somewhere else beyond the Gameworks, and Grimora… honestly I think he’d just find Grimora unnerving.

The James Cobb situation must have happened pretty early on in Inscryption’s development though—I can’t imagine that Irving would be able to send anyone in or out once the floppy disk had been buried (not to mention that Leshy had taken over during that point, putting yet another barrier in addition to the several feet of dirt).

Inscryption to me seems like the one corner of the Gameworks universe that no one really wants to talk about, they’ve just heard absolutely bonkers rumors about the people there and have to suppress a shudder. Except the rumors are 100% true and oftentimes worse because no one in Inscryption can behave.

Happy (early) Valentine’s Day to all aspec folks!

All aros & arospecs

All aces & acespecs

All aroaces, anywhere on the spectrum

All aroallos (you guys are magnificent btw)

All alloaces

All aphysical, aemotional, and atertiary folks

All anattractional folks

Whatever attraction you feel or don’t feel deserves to be acknowledged. Your identity does not make you lesser in any way.

Happy Valentine’s Day :) <3

getting fixated on an object show character is so hard because it's like Okay. this character is a twist antagonist from the previous season of the show. on a surface level she is manipulative and selfish, but harbours a deep regret for her previous harmful actions that resulted in a close friendship of hers being sabotaged. she introduces herself to a new contestant, initially only helping her for her own gain, but quickly develops an emotional attachment to her as their friendship becomes less transactional and more real, but once again her own toxic behaviour sabotages the only connection she has. she's now drowning completely in her guilt and self-hatred, believing herself to be irredeemably evil.

and then someone says "oh this character is really interesting where's she from!" and you have to say Well actually. She's a

Sigma male P03

i color picked his colors from PS1 and PS2 memory cards :0]