The Humble Motor:

On The Prince's awakening, and enlightenment through echoes

While the throne has probably existed for eons, and something was starting to coalesce at its peak, it is pretty openly stated that it is watcher's precense in the throne what acted as catalyst for the birth of the prince's selfhood

Ahh! To move! To breathe free!

Never again... STARVING, pressing, grinding, SQUEEZING

against... us? But now... I? A... SELF And... an OTHER.

Oh the joy! The incomparable JOY!

Ahhh hah... familiar.

There was... such discomfort... and hunger. Endless hunger! And then... a presence!

A light! A scent! A tunnel! To freedom! How beautiful, FREEDOM!

A scent. Familiar. So familiar.

The watcher is probably the first living thing to be to the throne proper in an eternity

But I think there's more to this

4 karma "murals", 4 karma upgrades

4 visits, 4 warp points

Watcher's visits brought enlightenment like visiting echoes would do for a slugcat

"The highest enlightenment, achieved by the hardest path. A feat even guardians must respect" This achievement requires the player to raise their maximum karma to the highest level without visiting Five Pebbles. To do this, the player must find 4 out of the 6 Echoes, each of which raise the player's maximum karma by a small amount. All 4 Echoes must be found before visiting Five Pebbles. The achievement is earned as soon as the last Echo raises the player's karma level to the maximum of 10.

And is not as simple as just visiting 4 times either: for this awakening to properly progress you must make it to the top, eat the karma flower, then make it to a previously sealed chamber to open a warp point there

almost as if you're opening new pathways in its brain (tree)

A light! A scent! A tunnel! To freedom! How beautiful, FREEDOM!

These paths you weave. Through them I have expanded my kingdom. I have tasted and I have become. It is my true purpose I believe. Perhaps the only purpose!

Enlightenment is gaining knowledge, understanding, insight

Perhaps Echoes don't just give you more karma merely by merit of being extraplanar beings with influence over karma itself, or by the insight behind their anecdotes

Perhaps Echoes give you a glimpse into what lies beyond, a window to the fractal layers of reality

Perhaps what is happening here is something similar, the watcher showing the throne other worlds through the paths

the karma flowers though, thats harder to understand

perhaps the one at the very top represents the little death that is sleep ("like sleep like death")

Echoes always send you back to sleep after all

Centered

Today's Seal Is: Shrimply Postured

I feel like "trump wants to throw away literal dinosaur fossils" would really turn heads if we actually had a functional opposition party in this country to get messages out, but I guess I'll just have to get a paint pen and write it on my car. fine, I'll do it.

Karma gates are like Torii if you think about it

that other anon was right, people he/him-ing prince is absolutely infuriating. 'prince is a masculine term' have you never heard of a metaphor in your god damn life. do you really look at this rot born thing, and think that it would use traditional pronouns? that thing would NOT care. it has things to do like spreading its kingdom. coming from the same fandom that misgenders srs, i'm pretty sure at least a good 50% of you would continue to use he/him even if it was named the monarch.

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One thing I really love about Rain World's worldbuilding is how fresh of a take on the Advanced Precursor trope it has, just in the sense that there's a very real sense that the Benefactors were. just people.

Like, in broad strokes they are the Advanced Precursor trope, a bunch of stylish jerks that were there, built some cool ruins, fucked shit up, and are Gone now. But the way they go about it is refreshingly human. Like, ascending to a higher plane of existence is a classic thing for precursors to do but the benefactors give a real sense of what it would be like for a society to do that. Not just in the logistics but in the circumstances that would cause it.

It helps a lot that the remains they left behind are so telling about who they were. There's an endearing mundanity to a lot of the pearls that gives a sense that they were just people in the end, and we don't really get that stuff with other Advanced Precursors in media. I really can't imagine like, a chozo working minimum wage.

say it with me: deserts aren't inherently bad. deserts are very important and are home to many ecosystems. you want an unhealthy, over-exploited desert to become a healthy, thriving desert. you don't want an unhealthy, over-exploited desert to become a forest. deserts and forests are distinct, separate biomes that are both indispensable. you want to see them both at their best. and a desert at its best doesn't look like a forest at its best. they're each beautiful in their own way.

no commentary. just raw dogging this meme. 500+ comments in an hour. they dgaf