Terrible realization dawned upon me that I actually very much do Not have worked out how the whole "child acquired" thing happened with Lace and the Sentinels. Not one that is up to date and more gijinka-lore alligned.
Like... Sec used to be kind of mean in this, from an angle... very much directive obsessed out of anxiety/fear(?). Lace ain't Directive- this wasn't a situation-based face, this was Lace-based face.
The thing that fucks me up most about Jax is how self imposed his own suffering is.
The other people in the circus are an ideal group to come out to. Zooble uses any pronouns and everyone is chill about that even the 48 year old man who has trouble holding onto information and the computer ai from the 90s have zero confusion or trouble with their identity and pronouns. Gangle is a lesbian or something, Pomni leans towards masculine or androgynous clothing, her and Ragatha are also probably lesbians or something.
Everyone is comfortable with queerness, no one ever says anything queerphobic, EXCEPT Jax! He’s so deep in his own head about what happens to trans people outside the circus, what happened when he told his mom, who had thought might be okay with it, that he doesn’t realize that he is surrounded by the ideal kinds of people to come out to.
But then that’s the thing! It’s not just cause he’s trans! It used to be his only issues were being trans and being a victim of emotional incest, not that those are easy things to deal with on their own, but then he fucked everything up with Ribbit, the person who cared about him with all her heart and wanted to help him even when he was a dick a to her. He was so afraid he’d killed his mom on accident but then his fear of people finding out about his transness, maybe mixed with his fear of hurting those close to him, led him to push Ribbit away which led to her abstraction.
He probably didn’t kill his mom but he was the reason Ribbit abstracted.
And now he has to live with that. He could hardly handle the possibility of killing his abusive mother after she verbally berated him for being vulnerable with her, how the hell would he ever be able to live with the near 100% certainty that he is the sole reason that the person who only showed him love is now dead?
And then of course that causes him to spiral and close himself off and ruin his reputation with the people around him by being an asshole to all of them. At that point there’s a lot more on his conscience than a bad mom and being trans, both things that he can’t be blamed for, now there’s way too much heavy shit that is his fault on top of that that he just has to deal with.
Then Kaufmo dies and even though I don’t think it was his fault there’s a damn good chance he still blames himself. And he just keeps spiraling and getting worse.
How could he ever dig himself out of the grave he’s dug at that point? He made his own nightmare his reality several times over, the toxicity that eats him alive comes from HIMSELF.
All he knows how to do is run but when he’s the worst the thing that ever happened to himself there’s no where to run to. Everywhere he goes he will always be there.
Of course he abstracted that’s the only place he won’t have to deal with himself. GOD. FUCK ohhh my goddddd bro. AAAAAA. HOLY FUCK. Jesus. Anyways. Group abstraction in 5?
so the writing was going well and all, pretty smooth, im not stuck and i dont hate anything etc etc etc BUT THEN. i rmbred i was reading this one amazing fic earlier so i spent like 5 minutes wondering if i shld read that fic or write, and so of course i came to tumblr instead:D
I've wanted to make a post for a bit now collecting some of Hikari's behaviours that I think could be read as autistic traits so screw it here we go.
Hikari doesn't talk a lot but when he does it's usually pretty straight to the point and blunt, cutting right to the chase regardless of any convention. In the dollhouse episode he mentions that he kind of didn't have friends before meeting the others.
He also tends to sit further away from the others when eating or doing some other social thing too. As the series goes on he sits closer to or at the same table as the others though.
He's also confided in Kagura (and later Tokacchi) that he has trouble expressing his emotions. This leads to him coming off as cold and unapproachable at times. He gets pretty fired up when he's mad though, like he punched a wall and insulted Kagura after the thing with his kendama in an early episode.
On the topic of his kendama, him playing with it as often as he does (usually during idle moments and/or while thinking) can very much be read as stimming imo.
It definitely reads to me as a comfort object too, given the aforementioned outburst. I should mention that this point makes a lot of sense outside of this reading too, given it was given to him by his grandma (someone he cares deeply about and remembers barely anything of to begin with).
He has a preference for sandwiches (specifically egg) over most other foods and is later shown to have a strong dislike of vegetables. The latter point is a known kid thing in general tbf but the first point both on its own and then combined with it sound a bit like Hikari has sensory aversions relating to food.
This is another one with a preexisting textual explanation but the Kendama Detective definitely deserves a mention too. Obviously the Rainbow Line and everything about is powered by imagination so it makes sense that he'd have his moments like this. That being said given his (seemingly) more limited imagination compared to the others the way he takes to this persona of his so easily feels kind of special interest-y to me. Like in both episodes where he plays detective he's shown to enjoy mystery stories (reading the book at the start of the first + saying mystery is his favourite movie genre at the start of the second).
This post kind of got away from me with how long it is and yet I'm still probably forgetting something that I'll append later.
How I look genuinely praying to Mother Aphrodite that I get a fandom (if I do my writing fucking SUCKKKKKKKSSSSSS) not like Gooseworks nor Gachituka (HEAVY on the Gachituka fandom on twitter cuz wtf) but maybe like the owl house or like crk or like some good fandom
[Start ID. A redraw of the official icons of the ten named slugcats from Rain World, arranged in two rows: Survivor, Monk, Hunter, Nightcat, and Gourmand in the first, Artificer, Rivulet, Spearmaster, Saint and Enot/Inv in the second. Each is drawn in roughly the same pose as in the original art and fitted with speculative interpretations of their biology, and the second image is a “dead” version of this. For example, all ten have slug-like rhinophores in place of ears, cuttlefish-like colorful eyes with strangely-shaped pupils, cephalopod-like beak "teeth", expressive barbels or oral tentacles at the corners of mouths, spiny radulas, and the frilly mantle fringes of sea slugs, though otherwise their faces are squishy, simple and mammalian-shaped.
Cream-colored Survivor and yellow Monk both share triangular, bicolored spots matching their eyes (which are tan and brown, and two shades of blue, respectively), small, bumpy fringes, and relatively neutral looks on their faces. Defensive-looking Hunter is mostly a dull orange-pink, though their blobby fringe is a more violent red and their back is purple and marred with lumps. Nightcat is navy blue and flecked with dots of yellow and teal, their rolled rhinophores are a lighter blue, and their shading fractures into stars in some places. Gourmand is almost uniformly tan, their wide, very ruffly white mantle fringe bordered by a spray of white spots, and their beak sticks out from either corner of their smile. Primarily red Artificer, snarling, has yellow markings of multiple sorts, a prominent yellow dewlap and their characteristic dark scar taking out a chunk of its face. Rivulet is a darker blue than usual, with long barbels, red gills and rings, countershading, and a cheerful expression, sticking out their radula. Spearmaster is purple with orange accents, eyes and spots, a large fringe and spines down their back. Saint’s green caryophyllidia are marked by small, yellow diamonds, and their long, thin radula extends far below them. Enot is decorated with mottled red stripes, blue patches, yellow stars, and an uneven and almost cartoonish imitation of blush, though generally the same deep blue as Nightcat, a passive or almost slightly smug look on their face and their rolled rhinophores out to either side.
In the second image, nine of the slugcats’ eyes are crossed out, indicating that these are death icons. They look fairly the same, with mostly expression differences. Survivor is caught in the beginning of a threat display, a karma flower sprouts from Monk’s side, Hunter is burdened with overgrowing, purple and blue rot, Nightcat’s rhinophores are pinned back, and Gourmand looks mildly disheartened. For the final row, Artificer bites its radula between small plumes of smoke, Rivulet drops their expression, Spearmaster looks very startled, Saint looks almost entirely the same besides half-open eyes and their markings greater in number, and Enot grins confusedly. End ID]
If you'll excuse the unusually lengthy ID: the arena meme introduced by @pansear-doodles at long last after a nearly year-long wip status (or, rather, finished a month ago today to honor my own first time playing it!)
Design notes and shout-outs under cut! :]
The following people are some of those who’ve inspired my designs most since I started this eight months ago (or just inspired me to get a little weirder with slugcat biology), among many others for sure, and I thank them for it–but this is simply to bring attention to artists I find cool, and in no way an obligation to interact or anything :]
> @saturncoyote , @carpsoup , @charseraph , @gallusgalluss , @bitsbug , @dopscratch , and @0hmanit (and a special mention to dddeerbo and hunterlonglegs, who’ve since deactivated)!
Survivor: Surprisingly the hardest to pin down the colors for, since nothing with its sibling's palette seemed to match up right (I did have to add in a little blue somewhere for Monk, the beginning of making it clear how much I’m simply going based off of vibes for the colors of scug innards). I consider them, Monk and Gourmand to be part of the same gene pool of slugcats, and even possibly the same colony even if the latter isn't really related, so took a bit of Gourmand's coloring and fit them in with their inspiration: Goniobranchus verrieri. They serve as a bit of an introduction to my ideas of scug traits (i find it really fun how many people have thought to add so many silly sluglike fixtures of biology completely independent of me, buuut here I’m mostly talking about species variation), and like in-game they’re pretty average! They, Monk and Hunter have a couple scars sourced from a piece of Joar's concept art that I'm failing to find, those across the bridge of the nose, under the eyes, and across the rhinophores, respectively, and my Survivor interpretation features many on the back of the neck, as a result of survived lizard bites.
Monk: Their coloring is primarily based off the fact that I associate them with blue fruits, honestly, a bit because I was compelled to establish a familiarity with Rivulet, and lastly inspired by the spots of Goniobranchus kuniei (and geminus, less important to me as one of my characters is a kuniei instead, but more fitting). Between the yellow + blue and the circular marking in the center of their face, they’re meant to bear a little resemblance to an iterator that shares similarities with the characterization I’ve given them, and similar coding of her sibling can be seen on Survivor’s markings around the eyes. As both a “default” slugcat and one whose campaign I haven’t played, though, I can’t say I have much more to point out about em.
Hunter: The whole rot thing made for a really fun time drawing them, and while the color change on their back is a result of this, it’s also an excuse to relate them to Babakina festiva, arguably my favorite sea slug (mostly for sentimental purposes). And to Spearmaster, a fellow messenger slugcat, and it serves as a gradient between Hunter’s pink and the “traditional” color of Rot seen in the DLLs. Aside from their affliction, they’d actually be the plainest in terms of design, as they don’t have any patterns or quirks of body type, just the red + purple and strange lumps + possible malnutrition. I can’t remember if NSH had created them in particular or just...caught + released or something, but it probably wouldn’t be strange for a lab-grown slugcat to be simple like that.
Gourmand: Like the two above, they’re rather plain in terms of coloring and adaptation, and like the two above, I find that fun. I decided it would be nice to avert the “all slugcats being of the same body type, and Gourmand’s out of place as the exception” thing by just...adding more fat to all of them, really. I did want to emphasize their sheer bulk even so, both fat and muscular (not like I couldn’t have still gone further with it, of course, but slugcat anatomy can be a little obfuscating sometimes, and they were intended to look rather plush considering personal size headcanons and therefore the lack of proper gravity), and the thick and flounced mantle looked like a good addition, as per their sea slug Glossodoris hikuerensis. Unlike Survivor and Monk, I didn’t attempt to hold their resemblance to any particular other character (which means a little less to balance out the “default gene pool” thing), so those are all the design notes I have for em.
Artificer: The second slugcat I’ve ever played, or finished the campaign of, my favorite for at least a long time, and the first thing I did was give them yellow accents, the shape of which have troubled me slightly (not quite like the spots or stripes of the others). They’re both a little more appealing and more explosive-looking to me, and considering how early on I played Arti, actually present in some of my older art. It does give them a little resemblance to Saint (completely intentional, two slugcats with strange relations to karma), as well as the fact that its radula is green for familiarity with one of its children (at some point it was going to have all-green markings, even!). I’m generous with their scars, partly because it was fun to overemphasize the one on their face and partly because it does seem like a reckless slugcat, on top of the dangers of its explosive abilities–I’ll probably just keep adding more forever. Mostly-red sea slugs aren’t too common, but Hexabranchus sanguineus works for sure. The ridged, yellow dewlap can expand for combustion purposes, or something along those lines. Arti’s where I began experimenting with a lot of the mildly-offkilter features seen in my interpretation of slugcats, as they’ve once again been a favorite from the start.
Rivulet: I've obviously given other slugcats spots, deeply enjoy the bubbly-soda markings of other peoples' slugcats, and thought seal riv would be cute. Despite not too closely resembling it, they've been government-assigned Hypselodoris bennetti, for color reasons and for a couple sentimental ones. Originally, the colors of every scug were meant to match up with the custom colors I gave them at the beginning of their campaigns, (though Arti, Gourm and Spearmy are the only three who actually apply here, since I've only played through half the slugcats: I gave arti the yellow as mentioned above, gourm brown eyes and spearmy light pink spears, furthered by the outskirts pearl accompanying me and that palette all the way to moon. Tolerance training for eternity in hell cause I already knew about the maroon pearl quest). I initially gave them the colors of the bi flag for fun... but with the limited palette of this image, I was left without pink for a while and decided to see how they'd look in red. I then realized how they now wonderfully matched Moon, and besides, red's a sort of camouflage in deep water! As a side-note, the difference between their eyes and those of others always bothered me a little for anatomical purposes, and the cephalopod eyes were probably influenced by this!
Spearmaster: Inspired as much as possible by @notyourfunnyman ’s wonderful spearmy: designed in a way that helps it fit in with scavengers, at least between the long sensory tentacles, big ruff, back spines and slightly thin/distended anatomy, a form of defensive mimicry. I always had annulate rhinophores in mind, for a little diversity sure, but mostly because the shape reminds me of radio antennae and communication towers (seems fitting for the comms array and being a messenger slugcat)! I started searching for a real-life slug to give them just by looking up their rhinophore shape...and was met immediately and coincidentally with annulate-topped nudibranchs that fit them more perfectly than I could've imagined: Flabellina and surrounding clades, I think Paraflabellina ischitana works very nicely. The orange was completely unplanned, but there wasn’t a place for light pink among the other slugcats’ palettes, and importantly it likens them to both Hunter and Seven Red Suns a little more.
Saint: I am very much a non-furred slugcat enjoyer, with respect to those who aren’t, so figuring out the only visibly furred slugcat was an interesting challenge. I’ve decided that they likely have other, milder adaptations for help in the cold, mainly just more efficient fat storage, and what looks vaguely like fur is instead a bunch of tubercles (called caryophillia, for the second reminder out of three). Their inspiration doesn’t have these, however, Miamira sinuata’s numerous yellow and blue spots (not to mention...whatever’s going on with that shape) and general effect of being the only really green nudibranch I could find were probably perfect for a strange green echo. Not pictured, but their beak-teeth are tiny and flat to make a surface for grinding soft food against with the lack of a functioning radula, which is tipped with a specialized spiny “grapple-hook” for better traction/grip (not to mention the numerous little teeth running down the whole thing).
(Best part of hiding this under a readmore means edits will be seen by all reblogs, I'm mostly sure, because I completely forgot to mention! The spots on their forehead are simple eyes. Their camera eyes appear closed in-game, I like to believe their complex eyesight is rather poor anyways or otherwise reason that they aren't seeing out of those, and while this was far from her REASON for attunement with the world, it does help compensate for mainly viewing it through a canvas of simple light and dark. This, and the fact that their swapped-out "fur" is not only to commit to a lack of hairs but contributes to sensory input!)
Nightcat/Enot: I guess you could say I found the “these two are technically the same person” compelling. (E.g. similar colors, both very strange and enigmatic, and Enot/Inv/Sofanthiel’s remark during the dating sim about getting removed from Arena Mode.) I doubt they’re the only two slugcats in their body, considering humans with DID tend to have more than a few (and I find it very funny that a slugcat bearing resemblance to Nightcat appears in Gourmand’s ending. They’re allowed in the colony and Enot isn’t </3), and I have to credit @faelingdraws ’s art for being what convinced me on it! Their design inspirations come down to trying to balance a few different ideas: making the patterns and palettes of both look oddly similar (special mention to the stars, since those are fun to draw), basing them off of Felimare sechurana and juliae respectively, using blocks of color with the same placement as in Enot’s official art, and specifically making Enot look...biologically reasonable and imperfect, whilst also clearly trying to imitate human displays of emotion (what with...the eyes and blush on that one piece of official art).
Lastly, here’s just a lineup with notes on body shape and size. Most of the nicknames (existing to give a little more space, that’s all) are obvious, and while I can’t remember why I shortened Nightcat to Nox, it is in honor of my friend by the same nickname :]
