Had A Tweakout With The Groupchat Last Week. Tldr; Jeremiah Being A Reference To Paper Jekyll Sparked

On stars, guardians, and Rain World’s cosmology.

One aspect of Rain World lore that’s asked about quite a lot but normally never gets satisfying answers is the topic or Rain World’s space/universe/cosmology. Despite first impressions though, there’s a lot more it than meets the eye, so I thought I would compile most everything we know about it.

For one, to get it out of the way, Rain World isn’t on a planet, and its universe is fundamentally different from our own. This is something Joar has talked about on occasion.

He also said on an earlier dev log how Rain World functions more like a fantasy world where it doesn’t hold much relevance than a real sci-fi like planet.

“Oh, another thing - Rain World isn't a planet lol Cheesy Or I guess it might probably be on a planet, just as Lord of The Rings, Sex And The City, Zelda and Frankenstein's Monster are probably technically on a planet, but just as in those examples the planet aspect isn't really relevant at all. Rain World is more of a fantasy world or a dream world, not somewhere you can go in a space ship ~”

But even if it’s not incredibly relevant, it’s clear a lot of thought was put into Rain Worlds fictional cosmology, this was even mentioned by James.

So, that being said here's what we know about Rain World's cosmology in game.

The biggest indicator of Rain World's unique cosmology is that the Farm Arrays deep pink pearl just mentions celestial spheres, which are aspects of older cosmological models.

"This one is just plain text. I will read it to you. "On regards of the (by spiritual splendor eternally graced) people of the Congregation of Never Dwindling Righteousness, we Wish to congratulate (o so thankfully) this Facility on its Loyal and Relished services, and to Offer our Hopes and Aspirations that the Fruitful and Mutually Satisfactory Cooperation may continue, for as long as the Stars stay fixed on their Celestial Spheres and/or the Cooperation continues to be Fruitful and Mutually Satisfactory." ...May Not as long as the Stars stay fixed on their Celestial Spheres Grey Hand, Impure Blood, Inheritable Corruption, Parasites, or malfunction settle in Your establishment."

More subtly, there's also a mention of the ground colliding with the sky.

"If you leave a stone on the ground, and come back some time later, it's covered in dust. This happens everywhere, and over several lifetimes of creatures such as you, the ground slowly builds upwards. So why doesn't the ground collide with the sky? Because far down, under the very very old layers of the earth, the rock is being dissolved or removed. The entity which does this is known as the Void Sea."

You could chalk this line up to flowery language, but considering the presentation of the rest of the dialogue, it sounds more like an actual aspect of this world.

We know from the Chimney Canopy echo that the sun rises.

"From within my vessel of flesh, I would perch upon this spot to observe the rising of the sun."

And from the top of The Wall we can see the moon and stars (confirmed to be stars by Joar in the previous screenshot, instead of satellites or something else) , which are green!

So, what does this all mean? I think we can entail a few things with what they've given us.

For one, the mention of the ground colliding with the sky implies some sort of firmament, which isn't an unusual concept in the general realm of celestial spheres.

But on the topic of celestial spheres, the pearl actually isn't the only place we see the concept. Guardian halos are very similar to depictions of celestial spheres, and also astrological clocks.

You can make of this as you will, perhaps the astrological references being tied to guardians could hint at the nature of karma, but there isn't much to really delve into that idea.

For what it's worth, celestial spheres are also core concepts in Gnosticism, which Rain World is heavily inspired by. I explain it more in this post about Void Worms, but for a quick synopsis in Gnosticism there are seven planetary spheres, and an eighth above them; the planets and stars are fixed to their spheres. These things just further cement the fact that celestial spheres seem to be a key aspect of Rain World's cosmology, and it would also likely imply it's universe follows a geocentric model.

For a bit of a more out-there theory, people have pointed out how the view atop the wall stretches really far, going far beyond what we could see on a spherical planet like Earth, which has led some to theorize that the world is also flat.

But what is probably the most important aspect of Rain World's cosmology is the nature of dust. Dust builds up, and the bedrock of the world is eaten away at by the Void Sea. Civilizations rise and fall into the sea as new ones are built above it. Many, including myself, believe that the world exists in a sort of state of equilibrium. The world is dissolved from the bottom, then that falls back on the world as dust; even in the final moments of the game we see dust suspended in the void sea depths.

And hey, even void worms are described as being star-like.

"Oh, interesting. This is a diary entry of a pre-Iterator era laborer during the construction of the subterranean transit system south of here. In it they describe restless nights filled with disturbing dreams, where millions glowing stars move menacingly in the distance."

Cyclical, recursive, something else entirely? We can never really pin down the true nature of Rain World's cosmology, but the things we do get hint at something strange and unique. It's such an interesting aspect of the lore, and it seems like Videocult will continue to make mysterious cosmologies in their future projects...

can we give it up for Suzanne Collins for fucking off into oblivion with her money after hunger games fucking destroyed the YA market for like 6 years. everything YA was dystopian “EVERYONES IN A DIFFERENT QUADRANT” shit from 2010 to 2016 and we didnt hear a peep from her. true fucking power.

So since @plant-cell-park expressed interest in this, here’s the essay :

Leif & trauma

(VERY spoilery, complete Leif’s Request first)

Czytaj dalej

there’s nothing shameful about making things easier or more accessible for yourself btw.

if your disability means you can rarely/never cook so you have to order out a lot, or buy precut ingredients, or if you need other people to help you cook even “simple” meals.

if your disability means you struggle with personal hygiene so you don’t shower standing up, or don’t brush & floss “correctly” or long enough, or put up your hair when you can’t handle brushing it.

if your disability means you’re not able to engage in your hobbies in a “normal” or “correct” way. if you have to watch movies multiple times because your brain fog is making it hard to follow the plot. if you need accessibility tools to be able to draw or paint. if you have to do everything from bed.

you’re not doing anything bad or wrong. you’re being kind to yourself and caring for yourself in the ways that you’re able to. it’s nothing to be ashamed of.

all video games should have a “I’m shit at video games but I’m curious about the story and I don’t want to watch a let’s play” mode

”Oh if we didn’t have xenogenders/GNC trans people/neopronouns/MOGAI/etc etc etc then transphobes would respect us.” Untrue. Most transphobes are so insanely vitriolic that you could be the most standard, decent, agreeable trans person, and they would still hate you.

I’m a fairly basic trans man, online and off. I tone my gender down even more for work. I have short hair, facial hair, I wear pretty standard non-fitted pants and t shirts with some manner of compressive undergarment underneath, and I go by my fairly basic, common masc name. The only difference between me and my cis coworkers is that I openly engage in good-faith discussions about my being transgender when brought up, and I have a “he/him” pronoun pin I like to wear.

I have one coworker who I’m well aware has never gendered me correctly. I have assumed it was an intentional, bad-faith decision (because of other, unrelated-to-me conversations he has had with coworkers), but I’ve never really cared enough to bring it up to him. I figured, “if this is intentional, that’s his issue. I’m not interested in trying to change his mind.” I’ve reached a point in my transition to where I don’t really care that much if some random person doesn’t respect me or my gender, because I don’t need every stranger’s approval to be happy with myself.

With all that being said, I’ve treated him the same as I have every other coworker. I’ve been civil, I’ve been agreeable, I’ve still been friendly to him and haven’t gone around the workplace intending to smear his name. (Yes, I have discussed his behavior to those close to me who have asked, but I’ve kept it very private and said that as long as he doesn’t say anything outwardly malicious, I don’t really care about his behavior.) He has been outwardly friendly to me, too, telling me about his past careers, showing me pictures of his family, we’ve talked about our hobbies and other things we enjoy.

Still, after all of this, he has given up the ghost and decided to gossip about me negatively to coworkers. I won’t go into detail about what I’ve been told he said, but it was all explicitly transphobic and pretty aggressive. I’ve never gone out of my way to make him mad, relating to my gender or not, so it’s a little out of nowhere. I’m not particularly surprised by this, but I’m more surprised that he would be bold enough to say everything out loud when working for a company that has explicit protections for trans people in place. He was reported fairly quickly, without me ever knowing what occurred. The only reason I found out about everything is because I overheard a manager discussing it with a concerned coworker from my department.

So, if you take anything away from this, let it be that no amount of friendliness, gender-conformity, or civilness with stop a transphobe from taking their transphobia out on you, and it’s not your fault or any other trans person’s fault. Don’t victim blame trans people who become the subject of someone’s transphobic hate, because a transphobe is dedicated to harming trans people regardless of whether they blend in with cis people or not. Don’t use a transphobe’s needlessly malicious behavior as a reason to harass other trans, GNC, nonbinary, or otherwise gender diverse people.

Yes you get a whole fishstick doodle page, I love drawing the scugs interacting... This was supposed to be for pride month but sadly I was extremely busy so it only got finished now, but hey, better late than never huh?

hey, i was looking through your bug fables liveblog playthrough, and i had tried my hardest to figure this out for a good while but i have a question;

what is the explanation behind the leafbug portrayals in the game being racist? i’ve tried to figure it out for the sake of awareness, but i couldn’t find any sources. don’t feel obligated to explain if you don’t want to, feel free to delete this ask for your comfort.

its racist but possibly a better way to put it is that it plays into a lot of anti-indigenous tropes. for the record, i am not indigenous, so my insight on this front may be somewhat limited, but ill explain as best as i can.

the first time you hear of the leafbug tribe is when youre going into an area that is, directly stated or otherwise, not part of bugaria. theyre Outsiders that do not understand the culture of bugarian bugs. they also have their own language that is 'gibberish' that, funnily enough (/s), no one ever attempts to understand. this sort of othering is already a red flag, because its not portrayed in good faith. add that to the fact that you have to fight them for... no real reason in the game, and its really not painting a good picture.

im pretty sure the leafbug tribe is also explicitly described as primitive, somewhere? which is a very common and egregious anti-indigenous sentiment. theyre different, theyre not knowledgeable in science or whatever the fuck, they have their own brutal customs, theyre just unintelligent beasts that are obstacles in our path, and to get through we just have to kill them. do you see any parallels here?

one of my biggest issues with how the leafbug tribe is portrayed is that, again, there is never any attempt on any of the bugarian characters' part to properly communicate with them. for gameplay reasons they're 'just enemies,' sure, but why? why did the devs make the choice to paint a whole enemy tribe in this light? and also, why does the leafbug tribe have to fight the protagonists anyway? even if they're protecting their territory, why would they feel the need to protect it if they didnt have outsiders who never explain what theyre doing here traipsing on their lands?

one of the worst instances for me would be the team maki side quest where yin becomes an adult moth. maybe im just confused at where exactly the leafbugs live, but that section of the map is in the far grasslands, in wasp kingdom territory. the swamplands are connected to the grasslands, but the specific area yin metamorphoses in is not near it? but then surprise! you have to fight the leafbug tribe! because... idk, theyre convenient antagonists. shrug, its a video game. except its really not just a video game.

fundamentally, the portrayal of the leafbug tribe plays into a lot of anti-indigenous tropes, and everything about them is done in bad faith. the writing of bug fables already has other flaws, and there is another instance of racism in the bug fables universe—cough cough, elizant the second with ladybugs—and also given what ive heard of the devs im just. very wary, and very tired. to be fair i dont think they intended to native code the leafbug tribe, but these sorts of biases are very ingrained in popular culture and media, and just because its common doesnt make it less hurtful. especially not when its this blatant.

im not sure how clear this explanation and analysis is, but its as good as i can muster. other folks with more personal experience/knowledge may be able to contribute more. either way, i resent how the leafbug tribe was depicted.

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

we are looking 👀 to ➡️ tha moon 🌚 w this one ‼️‼️🔥🔥