Hey! My name’s Destiny, and I guess I’ve landed here. Should be an interesting time!
🩵 I’m a Christian (my favorite verse is Romans 5:8!) looking to make lo-fi music using my church’s hymnbook. Despite school going on, we’ll see if this seed grows… 👀
🩵 On the topic of music, I play the violin, and adore classical music + EPIC: The Musical and Hamilton!
🩵 I LOVE reading and writing! My favorite book series are Six of Crows, Strange the Dreamer, and a lot others that you may ask me about!!! (Don’t hesitate about asking about my writing works either :3)
🩵 I draw whenever I have the time- which I regrettably don’t have a lot of right now, but I’m looking forward to making art in the foreseeable future!
🩵 Games I love: Sky:CotL, Rain World, UT/DR, CRK, and who else remembers Prodigy?
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(Rain World) complete-ish story analysis of The Watcher
The Watcher is a contentious DLC, but it’s also got the richest story Rain World has ever told. This long ass post dissects The Watcher’s narrative with a specific focus on its central question:
When the world beneath your feet cracks and crumbles, will you hold on to all you once knew? Or dive into the unknown?
This post goes through the main story and picks out important elements to form an overarching reading of the whole DLC. It also doubles as a general recap to make sense of The Watcher’s more cryptic storybeats, but it’ll overall be a lot less confusing if you’ve played the whole thing yourself.
⚠️ SPOILERS FOR THE WHOLE DLC (v1.5 CONTENT!) ⚠️
Nothing lasts forever. It all decays, crumbles, disappears. Let me re-frame that core question: in the face of great upheaval, will you cling to a dying past? Or embrace the future, and become something new?
Think about this question as you read. It will tie things together.
Spinning Top: childhood lost
Formation of the “watcher” identity in intro
And through the middle of it all, a lonely lost slugcat trying their best to outlast the ravages of a warped world.
Watcher’s story begins with their childhood getting cut short. An unknown slugcat attacks their family. Watcher’s parent and sibling run up to fight the attacker, but Watcher cowers behind a tree, too scared to act.
The unknown slugcat likely killed their targets. But Watcher, who lived due to their fear, learns a violent lesson: to survive, you must distance yourself and hide. Watcher is taught a survival mechanism that involves inaction; passively observing their world—hence the name, “Watcher”.
As a result of the reclusiveness beaten into them by nature, Watcher is lost and lonely. It’s implied that they yearn to return to a safe home with companions, so when they meet Spinning Top, an attachment to the Echo quickly forms.
Spinning Top wanders into Watcher’s reality
Typically, an Echo is a terminally aloof being. They barely pay slugcats any mind, only using them as an audience for the Echo’s strange musings, and then send the rodents off with a small gift.
Spinning Top, the Echo of a child, shares that same deeply detached personality. When Watcher first meets them, they jeer at how funny it is that Watcher excretes, and how the slugcat will eventually meet the same sorry fate as their own shit. Spinning Top is so divorced from corporeal existence that it’s the most interesting thing they see in Watcher.
But Watcher is not deterred. Spinning Top is a potential companion and friend, and despite the Echo’s jaded and strange nature, they embody a spark of childlike kindness that appeals to Watcher. Spinning Top makes an effort to genuinely talk to Watcher despite the latter not having the gift of communication, and Spinning Top’s gifts are greater than Karma, as they attune the slugcat to the ripples that constitute the countless realities of the world.
Watcher resists detachment and searches for their companion
Eventually, Spinning Top pulls Watcher into a complete mess of strands, connected together not by gates but by tears in reality. Here, Watcher is lost. Each world offers a completely unique threat: burning fire, flaying winds, churning floods, and ruthless swarms. None of these places offer Watcher the familiarity or safety of a home. When they do return to the closest thing to home—the base game regions—Watcher finds them consumed by corruption. Watcher will never find any anchor of comfort here.
And as Watcher’s control over the ripples grows, their capacity for detachment becomes even stronger. They begin to actively tear apart the fabric of reality around them, drifting randomly through worlds at their own will. The nature of their camouflage is revealed to be Ripplespace, a layer of reality where Watcher is truly, truly alone. If anything, Watcher’s powers only enable their detached, evasive, and fearful tendencies even further. Why shouldn’t they just resign themselves to hiding in a corner of Ripplespace forever?
In spite of this development, Watcher pushes against their passivity. Spinning Top acts as a sort of anchor against the madness of the strands, a familiar friend who offers kindness. Long ago, Watcher froze in the face of peril. But now, every time Spinning Top disappears, Watcher follows and follows. They no longer simply survive and observe, but actively take risks and explore. And by utilizing the same listless powers as their friend to achieve this, Watcher comes to understand how their struggles overlap and empathizes with Spinning Top.
Spinning Top’s dream - left behind
When Watcher reaches maximum Ripple, they dream of a void. Suddenly, their old family passes by them, happily running up to a great golden light in the distance. Watcher briefly chases after, but like the violent memory from long ago, they freeze in their steps. Their family is gone, and Watcher is alone again.
When Watcher relives their tragic past, their family is quickly followed by hordes upon hordes of slugcats, all darting into the light. This foreshadows Spinning Top’s own struggle, a child whose entire species ascended while they alone remain. Watcher’s ripple powers seem to deepen their empathy, manifesting an impossibly accurate picture of their companion’s pain.
The children move onward
Watcher’s journey to find Spinning Top also begins to affect the Echo as well. The presence of a companion reminds Spinning Top of their long-lost “creche days” among mothers, fathers, and fellow children. Eventually, Watcher even joins them in the lonely plane of Ripplespace, and it is this that prompts Spinning Top to face their past.
In their former bedroom, Spinning Top reveals a sorrowful hypocrisy. They find corporeal life to be an undignified soup of proteins and acids, and yet they endlessly yearn for the warmth and comfort of their childhood. Spinning Top is scared to let go of it all. None of their loved ones stayed behind as fellow ghosts, and the only individuals who did were other aloof, afraid ghosts. Spinning Top is no exception.
One child learns that they’ve stagnated for far too long, and they must move onto whatever comes next. Spinning Top accepts the unknown, and disappears into the white door of ascension.
The other child learns that it’s okay to take action; to embrace the childlike joy and curiosity that they’ve beaten down for so long in order to survive. Watcher dives into Spinning Top’s toys, and old scars begin to heal.
Both children learn to grow and mature. They do not languish in the grief of the past, and accept the hurdle of change that they must bring on their own.
Prince: twisted regression
What if Watcher went the other way? Instead of maturing, what if they clung even more desperately to their old desires?
The Rot is easily the most potent symbol within the story of The Watcher. This section is the longest.
The unfortunate mess
Nothing lasts forever. It is an indiscriminate, all-encompassing fact of life that everything eventually declines and dies. The Rot is the most pure form of this idea: it is a mindless mass that consumes everything it touches. “After a point it’s all like this”, Spinning Top states when in a rotted basegame region.
Watcher’s story develops on this in a very interesting way, where a certain strand of the Rot has evolved and become sentient. The Sentient Rot is capable of spreading across the ripples and consuming the entire world, but most notably it is spread specifically via the actions of other characters. Spinning Top accidentally carries it into the basegame map because they are childish and reckless, and Watcher intentionally spreads it hoping that it will help them reconnect with their past (something to be discussed in more detail soon).
The Sentient Rot holds the “living memory” of the things it consumes, allowing it to “protect” the past—or at least a twisted version of it. As such, Sentient Rot infestation becomes a symbol for a character who is “stagnating”. Instead of accepting losses or looking to the future, they remain attached to old desires and woes. As time passes, these desires become harder to obtain, and slowly destroy the individual who clings tight. This self-destruction is the Sentient Rot consuming their surroundings.
Consider how Watcher’s exploration through the basegame map is quickly consumed by the Sentient Rot. With this in mind, Watcher getting sent across the ripples by Spinning Top becomes a blessing in disguise. Even though the sudden change brought great confusion and commotion, it was their only escape from the infestation. If Watcher was given the option to stick around, they would’ve literally been devoured by their desire to return to the past (that is, their family & home). The whole prologue is a fairly literal depiction of Watcher’s core question: hold onto the past, or dive into the unknown?
Additionally, the Sentient Rot also does not disappear when Watcher hides in Ripplespace, because the rot of stagnation is a fundamental struggle. Watcher can hide from outside dangers in their bubble of isolation, but it’s not enough to escape the festering from within.
The birth of Prince
After performing a wrong warp, Watcher eventually ends up in Outer Rim. No region identifies with the concept of decay quite like the rim. Physically, it’s at the edge of the world. Temporally, at the edge of time. All life, all development is gone. This is the perfect place for the Sentient Rot to fester, which begins to ironically grow a great tree in the bowl of a starcatcher to the west.
Watcher climbs up this tree, named The Throne. When Watcher reaches the top, they are given a Karma Flower that allows them to leave, at the foot of a giant Rot bulb. Whatever thread they escape into is then infested with Sentient Rot. If Watcher returns, they’ll find another flower, and a new path, and a chilling, painful voice. The entity inside the Rot bulb, having suddenly gained a sense of self, now speaks to Watcher, describing how it evolved from a mindless mass to an enlightened, singular individual. And then, when fed enough, the bulb hatches.
Prince, having just been born from the Rot of all things, is too naive to give any weight to the concepts of suffering or conflict. They view Watcher as their savior for “feeding” The Throne and helping bring Prince to life. They dote over Watcher, laughing and cheering even if the slugcat pelts them with rocks and spears. The Throne even grows an entire shelter to cater to Watcher’s needs.
Prince’s dream - Watcher is enticed by rotten comforts
After Watcher meets Prince, they experience another dream. They wake up in a dark sea and swim toward a light, surfacing into a warm forest identical to the one they grew up in. Visually, the sequence reflects Prince’s ascension into a singular individual with a supposedly higher purpose, now able to perceive a world they love and crave.
However, the presentation of the dream shows that Prince strikes a sinister emotional chord with Watcher. The slugcat feels alone and lost, but Prince is an adoring companion who offers a familiar home, not unlike the tree that was ripped away from them. In Watcher’s eyes, The Throne is an opportunity to return to how everything once was. No longer wandering, no longer alone. Would it really be so bad if Watcher strengthens this bond, and helps their new friend flourish?
Watcher spreads the infestation to every pocket of reality that they can reach. By desperately striving to secure a friend and reunite with the past, they have ravaged their whole world. But what do they have to show for it?
Prince, the oxymoron
Prince leads an oxymoronic existence. On one hand, Prince believes they are an “evolved” or “mature” individual. Like the iterator(s) that the Sentient Rot has consumed, Prince tasks themselves with ending the cycle. However, they consider themselves “something new”. They are allegedly aware of how the iterators failed, and they believe that they are more capable of actually succeeding than the iterators ever will be.
This is where Prince’s naivete creates a critical misjudgement. Despite having a technically “evolved” form, Prince seeks to achieve their lofty goal via the most regressive, basal method possible: consume everything, across all spacetime. The iterators sought to create a path for all life, no matter how simple, to grow and improve spiritually. Prince effectively seeks a devolved form of the task by dragging the world down into a primal state of being, driven solely by hunger.
Prince’s most dire mistake, however, is that they want to secure a perfect, unchanging state where everything can be preserved. In their words, “a living memory of all life, forever!”. Nothing lasts forever, not even the horseman of death itself. So when Watcher spreads the Sentient Rot further across the ripples, Prince’s kingdom eventually loses control of itself—and like a balloon popping, Karma Flowers erupt from the Rot. Prince is paralyzed, and their dominion ends with a whimper.
Watcher is tragically left in a worse position than when they started. They chose a path of stagnation: after indulging in companionship and comfort that was too good to be true, they ended up alone in a rotten wasteland of their own making.
Weaver: learning adulthood
Even if the Sentient Rot has infested every region and effloresced, Watcher can continue. It is possible for them to rebound, and follow a greater path.
Watcher stumbles upon a godly mentor
When Watcher tears open their own warps, it catches the attention of another entity. Returning to the region, Watcher finds the warp closed by The Weaver. They are a booming, godly figure who seeks to restore order to reality. Upon their meeting, Weaver thunders forth a strange metaphor to Watcher:
CONSIDER: A droplet of rain pierces the still water. A ripple, A ring, ever expanding.
Within the cosmos, Watcher’s life expands outward like the ripples of a droplet: in every direction there is a different parallel self, a new possibility of Watcher’s existence.
CONSIDER: Movement along the circumference of a ring. From one eye a loop, from one eye a spiral, from one eye the motion of a line.
The cycle is driven by movement along the ring of a ripple. This experience is deeply personal, and it can be perceived in completely different ways. The previous species never came to a consensus on how it worked, after all.
CONSIDER: A second drop. A thousandth. A multiplex of rings, spirals, interacting in countless ways. A froth. A seeth. An effervescence of disruption!
Every single living being has their own droplet, their own ripples, and these countless instances of life intermingle and tangle to create reality itself.
NOW: An understanding. A path. A purpose. Movement along the line, from distant to origin. From spiral to loop. From loop to point. An understanding!
Weaver teaches Watcher about a new path; a higher calling than flitting across strands. Watcher can escape the impending ruin of decay by seeking ascension. Somehow, Watcher can unravel their ripples, pulling them back into the starting position of the droplet, and this will unite their alternative selves into one. Watcher can ascend.
For a normal slugcat, their alternative selves are separated by different physical bodies. By rising their Karma and entering the Void Sea, a slugcat will dissolve their physical body, allowing for all those selves to individually reunite as one at their metaphysical origin point - The Egg.
Watcher’s situation is more complicated. Spinning Top gifted godlike powers to Watcher, but the slugcat is also supernaturally blocked from pursuing ascension. Watcher’s ripples are all tangled by the warps that cross between them, which keeps the slugcat trapped in this not-corporeal, not-incorporeal state.
Watcher grows, and their scars heal
Through their meetings, Weaver passes down their divine gifts onto Watcher. The slugcat gains the ability to banish the Sentient Rot, seal all warps they travel through, and cleanly warp without creating a tear. And for every warp Watcher sews shut, Weaver assists them by sewing another warp of their own.
Consider how the metaphor of ripples connects to the world map; a big tangled ball with the Daemon “droplet” at the center. Watcher’s world map is quite literally an extension of their own self (or more accurately, selves). Watcher is marked by a great deal of trauma and struggle, which twisted and tangled their world into one full of tears in reality. Weaver is effectively a mentor figure who teaches Watcher to both help the world around them whilst healing themselves, which comes in the form of dispelling the Sentient Rot and closing the warps.
After all the warps have been closed, Watcher is transported to... the beginning of time, possibly? The specifics aren’t too important. Here, they find the Weaver, who gives their final teaching to the slugcat:
Two big, beady eyes.
The specific meaning of this reveal is extremely open, but I see it as Weaver trying to convey the similarity between Watcher and Weaver, as the two characters’ eyes are nearly identical. In spite of the immense difference in size, powers, and metaphysical knowledge, Watcher has begun to close the gap. It is possible for a little slugcat to achieve the very same radiance.
And then, Weaver is gone.
Ascension: growing up
In computing, a “daemon” is a background process which lies dormant when not in use. Within the region of Daemon, Watcher can find three pillars which correspond to each of the main characters. The left pillar awakens when Spinning Top departs from the world. The right pillar awakens when Prince is born. The central pillar awakens when all of the warps are closed. Awakening all three pillars causes Daemon to initiate the final act of this story.
When considering the requirements to awaken Daemon, and the events that soon follow, it is implied that the function of Daemon is to unlock Watcher’s metaphysical evolution—the daemon drives ascension.
Watcher gains closure
Movement along the line, from distant to origin. Weaver's teachings become reality. Watcher is torn to the beginning of their journey in Hydroponics, and then Outskirts, and then to the endpoints of their three companions. Spinning Top and Weaver are gone; they accomplished what they wanted and moved on.
Prince’s conclusion is particularly special. Watcher meets Prince in a crumbling, sloughed Throne. Prince is happy to see their friend one final time, and grants them a parting gift: the mark of communication. Prince proclaims that they are more similar to the iterators than they once thought.
Prince granted enlightenment to Watcher. This act is plainly antithetical to Prince’s old ideology of embracing animalistic chaos, but there is beauty to this contrast. Prince was once the epitome of “spiritual immaturity”, and they were gravely punished by the universe for this. But even an individual like Prince can mature and develop, rising from that state of ultimate failure. Now, Prince sits among a bed of Karma Flowers, in harmony rather than conflict.
Finally, Watcher is returned to the tree of their childhood. Overall, this sequence is akin to Watcher gaining closure on their old life, as they approach the cusp of what lies beyond.
The truth of the ripples
In this final sequence, the underlying fabric of reality is revealed to us: the ripples and cycles are caused by rings of countless selves, which orbit throughout the cosmos. These rings are managed by the Daemon monoliths, which are the proverbial “droplet” in Weaver’s teachings.
Earlier, Watcher set the stage for evolution, and now their awakened Daemon performs its function. It rearranges their ripples into equilibrium, making them all truly parallel. Every single one of Watcher’s selves are now in the caves of Depths, on a united path to ascension.
The Choice
As every single instance of Watcher dives into the sea, they are no longer bound to the limits of the cycle. Watcher could ascend, transforming into something new, or they could cling to the decaying old world and haunt it as a ghost.
Watcher is offered a choice: will they hold on to all they once knew? Or dive into the unknown?
Watcher embraces the unknown. In the beginning of the story, Watcher’s childhood was ripped away from them. Here, they choose to leave—and enter adulthood. They ascend, evolving into a young god.
Closing remarks
Watcher's world crumbles around them. Their family dies, their old lands are consumed by Rot, and they are spat out all over the earth. Transformation is thrust upon them.
Watcher can refuse to acknowledge their new existence. They can attempt to "freeze" the progression of the world with the Sentient Rot, but the world simply continues along, now damaged. Ultimately, their best choice is to accept that things have changed, and to look toward the future. By doing this, Watcher helps a friend along their own journey of self-acceptance. They mend the world around them, mend themselves, and eventually evolve into something greater, something that they truly desired.
Through the pain and the confusion, they embrace the unknown.
Thanks for reading! There's a lot of finer details within The Watcher that have their own analytical juices and wonders, but I wanted to only focus on the broad-strokes elements here.
Watcher has a whole lot of pretty crazy lore that simply didn’t fit into this post. Why are worms such an important physiology to this world? Why do I think all ascended beings become Void Worms? What’s the deal with the Elder Ripplespawn? What about stardust? What in the world is a Bone Shaker? I might make another big post like this, specifically about my favorite details and theories.
(Rain World) complete-ish story analysis of The Watcher
The Watcher is a contentious DLC, but it’s also got the richest story Rain World has ever told. This long ass post dissects The Watcher’s narrative with a specific focus on its central question:
When the world beneath your feet cracks and crumbles, will you hold on to all you once knew? Or dive into the unknown?
This post goes through the main story and picks out important elements to form an overarching reading of the whole DLC. It also doubles as a general recap to make sense of The Watcher’s more cryptic storybeats, but it’ll overall be a lot less confusing if you’ve played the whole thing yourself.
⚠️ SPOILERS FOR THE WHOLE DLC (v1.5 CONTENT!) ⚠️
Nothing lasts forever. It all decays, crumbles, disappears. Let me re-frame that core question: in the face of great upheaval, will you cling to a dying past? Or embrace the future, and become something new?
Think about this question as you read. It will tie things together.
Spinning Top: childhood lost
Formation of the “watcher” identity in intro
And through the middle of it all, a lonely lost slugcat trying their best to outlast the ravages of a warped world.
Watcher’s story begins with their childhood getting cut short. An unknown slugcat attacks their family. Watcher’s parent and sibling run up to fight the attacker, but Watcher cowers behind a tree, too scared to act.
The unknown slugcat likely killed their targets. But Watcher, who lived due to their fear, learns a violent lesson: to survive, you must distance yourself and hide. Watcher is taught a survival mechanism that involves inaction; passively observing their world—hence the name, “Watcher”.
As a result of the reclusiveness beaten into them by nature, Watcher is lost and lonely. It’s implied that they yearn to return to a safe home with companions, so when they meet Spinning Top, an attachment to the Echo quickly forms.
Spinning Top wanders into Watcher’s reality
Typically, an Echo is a terminally aloof being. They barely pay slugcats any mind, only using them as an audience for the Echo’s strange musings, and then send the rodents off with a small gift.
Spinning Top, the Echo of a child, shares that same deeply detached personality. When Watcher first meets them, they jeer at how funny it is that Watcher excretes, and how the slugcat will eventually meet the same sorry fate as their own shit. Spinning Top is so divorced from corporeal existence that it’s the most interesting thing they see in Watcher.
But Watcher is not deterred. Spinning Top is a potential companion and friend, and despite the Echo’s jaded and strange nature, they embody a spark of childlike kindness that appeals to Watcher. Spinning Top makes an effort to genuinely talk to Watcher despite the latter not having the gift of communication, and Spinning Top’s gifts are greater than Karma, as they attune the slugcat to the ripples that constitute the countless realities of the world.
Watcher resists detachment and searches for their companion
Eventually, Spinning Top pulls Watcher into a complete mess of strands, connected together not by gates but by tears in reality. Here, Watcher is lost. Each world offers a completely unique threat: burning fire, flaying winds, churning floods, and ruthless swarms. None of these places offer Watcher the familiarity or safety of a home. When they do return to the closest thing to home—the base game regions—Watcher finds them consumed by corruption. Watcher will never find any anchor of comfort here.
And as Watcher’s control over the ripples grows, their capacity for detachment becomes even stronger. They begin to actively tear apart the fabric of reality around them, drifting randomly through worlds at their own will. The nature of their camouflage is revealed to be Ripplespace, a layer of reality where Watcher is truly, truly alone. If anything, Watcher’s powers only enable their detached, evasive, and fearful tendencies even further. Why shouldn’t they just resign themselves to hiding in a corner of Ripplespace forever?
In spite of this development, Watcher pushes against their passivity. Spinning Top acts as a sort of anchor against the madness of the strands, a familiar friend who offers kindness. Long ago, Watcher froze in the face of peril. But now, every time Spinning Top disappears, Watcher follows and follows. They no longer simply survive and observe, but actively take risks and explore. And by utilizing the same listless powers as their friend to achieve this, Watcher comes to understand how their struggles overlap and empathizes with Spinning Top.
Spinning Top’s dream - left behind
When Watcher reaches maximum Ripple, they dream of a void. Suddenly, their old family passes by them, happily running up to a great golden light in the distance. Watcher briefly chases after, but like the violent memory from long ago, they freeze in their steps. Their family is gone, and Watcher is alone again.
When Watcher relives their tragic past, their family is quickly followed by hordes upon hordes of slugcats, all darting into the light. This foreshadows Spinning Top’s own struggle, a child whose entire species ascended while they alone remain. Watcher’s ripple powers seem to deepen their empathy, manifesting an impossibly accurate picture of their companion’s pain.
The children move onward
Watcher’s journey to find Spinning Top also begins to affect the Echo as well. The presence of a companion reminds Spinning Top of their long-lost “creche days” among mothers, fathers, and fellow children. Eventually, Watcher even joins them in the lonely plane of Ripplespace, and it is this that prompts Spinning Top to face their past.
In their former bedroom, Spinning Top reveals a sorrowful hypocrisy. They find corporeal life to be an undignified soup of proteins and acids, and yet they endlessly yearn for the warmth and comfort of their childhood. Spinning Top is scared to let go of it all. None of their loved ones stayed behind as fellow ghosts, and the only individuals who did were other aloof, afraid ghosts. Spinning Top is no exception.
One child learns that they’ve stagnated for far too long, and they must move onto whatever comes next. Spinning Top accepts the unknown, and disappears into the white door of ascension.
The other child learns that it’s okay to take action; to embrace the childlike joy and curiosity that they’ve beaten down for so long in order to survive. Watcher dives into Spinning Top’s toys, and old scars begin to heal.
Both children learn to grow and mature. They do not languish in the grief of the past, and accept the hurdle of change that they must bring on their own.
Prince: twisted regression
What if Watcher went the other way? Instead of maturing, what if they clung even more desperately to their old desires?
The Rot is easily the most potent symbol within the story of The Watcher. This section is the longest.
The unfortunate mess
Nothing lasts forever. It is an indiscriminate, all-encompassing fact of life that everything eventually declines and dies. The Rot is the most pure form of this idea: it is a mindless mass that consumes everything it touches. “After a point it’s all like this”, Spinning Top states when in a rotted basegame region.
Watcher’s story develops on this in a very interesting way, where a certain strand of the Rot has evolved and become sentient. The Sentient Rot is capable of spreading across the ripples and consuming the entire world, but most notably it is spread specifically via the actions of other characters. Spinning Top accidentally carries it into the basegame map because they are childish and reckless, and Watcher intentionally spreads it hoping that it will help them reconnect with their past (something to be discussed in more detail soon).
The Sentient Rot holds the “living memory” of the things it consumes, allowing it to “protect” the past—or at least a twisted version of it. As such, Sentient Rot infestation becomes a symbol for a character who is “stagnating”. Instead of accepting losses or looking to the future, they remain attached to old desires and woes. As time passes, these desires become harder to obtain, and slowly destroy the individual who clings tight. This self-destruction is the Sentient Rot consuming their surroundings.
Consider how Watcher’s exploration through the basegame map is quickly consumed by the Sentient Rot. With this in mind, Watcher getting sent across the ripples by Spinning Top becomes a blessing in disguise. Even though the sudden change brought great confusion and commotion, it was their only escape from the infestation. If Watcher was given the option to stick around, they would’ve literally been devoured by their desire to return to the past (that is, their family & home). The whole prologue is a fairly literal depiction of Watcher’s core question: hold onto the past, or dive into the unknown?
Additionally, the Sentient Rot also does not disappear when Watcher hides in Ripplespace, because the rot of stagnation is a fundamental struggle. Watcher can hide from outside dangers in their bubble of isolation, but it’s not enough to escape the festering from within.
The birth of Prince
After performing a wrong warp, Watcher eventually ends up in Outer Rim. No region identifies with the concept of decay quite like the rim. Physically, it’s at the edge of the world. Temporally, at the edge of time. All life, all development is gone. This is the perfect place for the Sentient Rot to fester, which begins to ironically grow a great tree in the bowl of a starcatcher to the west.
Watcher climbs up this tree, named The Throne. When Watcher reaches the top, they are given a Karma Flower that allows them to leave, at the foot of a giant Rot bulb. Whatever thread they escape into is then infested with Sentient Rot. If Watcher returns, they’ll find another flower, and a new path, and a chilling, painful voice. The entity inside the Rot bulb, having suddenly gained a sense of self, now speaks to Watcher, describing how it evolved from a mindless mass to an enlightened, singular individual. And then, when fed enough, the bulb hatches.
Prince, having just been born from the Rot of all things, is too naive to give any weight to the concepts of suffering or conflict. They view Watcher as their savior for “feeding” The Throne and helping bring Prince to life. They dote over Watcher, laughing and cheering even if the slugcat pelts them with rocks and spears. The Throne even grows an entire shelter to cater to Watcher’s needs.
Prince’s dream - Watcher is enticed by rotten comforts
After Watcher meets Prince, they experience another dream. They wake up in a dark sea and swim toward a light, surfacing into a warm forest identical to the one they grew up in. Visually, the sequence reflects Prince’s ascension into a singular individual with a supposedly higher purpose, now able to perceive a world they love and crave.
However, the presentation of the dream shows that Prince strikes a sinister emotional chord with Watcher. The slugcat feels alone and lost, but Prince is an adoring companion who offers a familiar home, not unlike the tree that was ripped away from them. In Watcher’s eyes, The Throne is an opportunity to return to how everything once was. No longer wandering, no longer alone. Would it really be so bad if Watcher strengthens this bond, and helps their new friend flourish?
Watcher spreads the infestation to every pocket of reality that they can reach. By desperately striving to secure a friend and reunite with the past, they have ravaged their whole world. But what do they have to show for it?
Prince, the oxymoron
Prince leads an oxymoronic existence. On one hand, Prince believes they are an “evolved” or “mature” individual. Like the iterator(s) that the Sentient Rot has consumed, Prince tasks themselves with ending the cycle. However, they consider themselves “something new”. They are allegedly aware of how the iterators failed, and they believe that they are more capable of actually succeeding than the iterators ever will be.
This is where Prince’s naivete creates a critical misjudgement. Despite having a technically “evolved” form, Prince seeks to achieve their lofty goal via the most regressive, basal method possible: consume everything, across all spacetime. The iterators sought to create a path for all life, no matter how simple, to grow and improve spiritually. Prince effectively seeks a devolved form of the task by dragging the world down into a primal state of being, driven solely by hunger.
Prince’s most dire mistake, however, is that they want to secure a perfect, unchanging state where everything can be preserved. In their words, “a living memory of all life, forever!”. Nothing lasts forever, not even the horseman of death itself. So when Watcher spreads the Sentient Rot further across the ripples, Prince’s kingdom eventually loses control of itself—and like a balloon popping, Karma Flowers erupt from the Rot. Prince is paralyzed, and their dominion ends with a whimper.
Watcher is tragically left in a worse position than when they started. They chose a path of stagnation: after indulging in companionship and comfort that was too good to be true, they ended up alone in a rotten wasteland of their own making.
Weaver: learning adulthood
Even if the Sentient Rot has infested every region and effloresced, Watcher can continue. It is possible for them to rebound, and follow a greater path.
Watcher stumbles upon a godly mentor
When Watcher tears open their own warps, it catches the attention of another entity. Returning to the region, Watcher finds the warp closed by The Weaver. They are a booming, godly figure who seeks to restore order to reality. Upon their meeting, Weaver thunders forth a strange metaphor to Watcher:
CONSIDER: A droplet of rain pierces the still water. A ripple, A ring, ever expanding.
Within the cosmos, Watcher’s life expands outward like the ripples of a droplet: in every direction there is a different parallel self, a new possibility of Watcher’s existence.
CONSIDER: Movement along the circumference of a ring. From one eye a loop, from one eye a spiral, from one eye the motion of a line.
The cycle is driven by movement along the ring of a ripple. This experience is deeply personal, and it can be perceived in completely different ways. The previous species never came to a consensus on how it worked, after all.
CONSIDER: A second drop. A thousandth. A multiplex of rings, spirals, interacting in countless ways. A froth. A seeth. An effervescence of disruption!
Every single living being has their own droplet, their own ripples, and these countless instances of life intermingle and tangle to create reality itself.
NOW: An understanding. A path. A purpose. Movement along the line, from distant to origin. From spiral to loop. From loop to point. An understanding!
Weaver teaches Watcher about a new path; a higher calling than flitting across strands. Watcher can escape the impending ruin of decay by seeking ascension. Somehow, Watcher can unravel their ripples, pulling them back into the starting position of the droplet, and this will unite their alternative selves into one. Watcher can ascend.
For a normal slugcat, their alternative selves are separated by different physical bodies. By rising their Karma and entering the Void Sea, a slugcat will dissolve their physical body, allowing for all those selves to individually reunite as one at their metaphysical origin point - The Egg.
Watcher’s situation is more complicated. Spinning Top gifted godlike powers to Watcher, but the slugcat is also supernaturally blocked from pursuing ascension. Watcher’s ripples are all tangled by the warps that cross between them, which keeps the slugcat trapped in this not-corporeal, not-incorporeal state.
Watcher grows, and their scars heal
Through their meetings, Weaver passes down their divine gifts onto Watcher. The slugcat gains the ability to banish the Sentient Rot, seal all warps they travel through, and cleanly warp without creating a tear. And for every warp Watcher sews shut, Weaver assists them by sewing another warp of their own.
Consider how the metaphor of ripples connects to the world map; a big tangled ball with the Daemon “droplet” at the center. Watcher’s world map is quite literally an extension of their own self (or more accurately, selves). Watcher is marked by a great deal of trauma and struggle, which twisted and tangled their world into one full of tears in reality. Weaver is effectively a mentor figure who teaches Watcher to both help the world around them whilst healing themselves, which comes in the form of dispelling the Sentient Rot and closing the warps.
After all the warps have been closed, Watcher is transported to... the beginning of time, possibly? The specifics aren’t too important. Here, they find the Weaver, who gives their final teaching to the slugcat:
Two big, beady eyes.
The specific meaning of this reveal is extremely open, but I see it as Weaver trying to convey the similarity between Watcher and Weaver, as the two characters’ eyes are nearly identical. In spite of the immense difference in size, powers, and metaphysical knowledge, Watcher has begun to close the gap. It is possible for a little slugcat to achieve the very same radiance.
And then, Weaver is gone.
Ascension: growing up
In computing, a “daemon” is a background process which lies dormant when not in use. Within the region of Daemon, Watcher can find three pillars which correspond to each of the main characters. The left pillar awakens when Spinning Top departs from the world. The right pillar awakens when Prince is born. The central pillar awakens when all of the warps are closed. Awakening all three pillars causes Daemon to initiate the final act of this story.
When considering the requirements to awaken Daemon, and the events that soon follow, it is implied that the function of Daemon is to unlock Watcher’s metaphysical evolution—the daemon drives ascension.
Watcher gains closure
Movement along the line, from distant to origin. Weaver's teachings become reality. Watcher is torn to the beginning of their journey in Hydroponics, and then Outskirts, and then to the endpoints of their three companions. Spinning Top and Weaver are gone; they accomplished what they wanted and moved on.
Prince’s conclusion is particularly special. Watcher meets Prince in a crumbling, sloughed Throne. Prince is happy to see their friend one final time, and grants them a parting gift: the mark of communication. Prince proclaims that they are more similar to the iterators than they once thought.
Prince granted enlightenment to Watcher. This act is plainly antithetical to Prince’s old ideology of embracing animalistic chaos, but there is beauty to this contrast. Prince was once the epitome of “spiritual immaturity”, and they were gravely punished by the universe for this. But even an individual like Prince can mature and develop, rising from that state of ultimate failure. Now, Prince sits among a bed of Karma Flowers, in harmony rather than conflict.
Finally, Watcher is returned to the tree of their childhood. Overall, this sequence is akin to Watcher gaining closure on their old life, as they approach the cusp of what lies beyond.
The truth of the ripples
In this final sequence, the underlying fabric of reality is revealed to us: the ripples and cycles are caused by rings of countless selves, which orbit throughout the cosmos. These rings are managed by the Daemon monoliths, which are the proverbial “droplet” in Weaver’s teachings.
Earlier, Watcher set the stage for evolution, and now their awakened Daemon performs its function. It rearranges their ripples into equilibrium, making them all truly parallel. Every single one of Watcher’s selves are now in the caves of Depths, on a united path to ascension.
The Choice
As every single instance of Watcher dives into the sea, they are no longer bound to the limits of the cycle. Watcher could ascend, transforming into something new, or they could cling to the decaying old world and haunt it as a ghost.
Watcher is offered a choice: will they hold on to all they once knew? Or dive into the unknown?
Watcher embraces the unknown. In the beginning of the story, Watcher’s childhood was ripped away from them. Here, they choose to leave—and enter adulthood. They ascend, evolving into a young god.
Closing remarks
Watcher's world crumbles around them. Their family dies, their old lands are consumed by Rot, and they are spat out all over the earth. Transformation is thrust upon them.
Watcher can refuse to acknowledge their new existence. They can attempt to "freeze" the progression of the world with the Sentient Rot, but the world simply continues along, now damaged. Ultimately, their best choice is to accept that things have changed, and to look toward the future. By doing this, Watcher helps a friend along their own journey of self-acceptance. They mend the world around them, mend themselves, and eventually evolve into something greater, something that they truly desired.
Through the pain and the confusion, they embrace the unknown.
Thanks for reading! There's a lot of finer details within The Watcher that have their own analytical juices and wonders, but I wanted to only focus on the broad-strokes elements here.
Watcher has a whole lot of pretty crazy lore that simply didn’t fit into this post. Why are worms such an important physiology to this world? Why do I think all ascended beings become Void Worms? What’s the deal with the Elder Ripplespawn? What about stardust? What in the world is a Bone Shaker? I might make another big post like this, specifically about my favorite details and theories.
so fucking humbling to be like “no I like that character a normal amount” and then you can literally feel your heart rate spike at a mention of them like a dog that just heard the word “treat”
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Taken some time off to destress from being busy. I’ll get back to my deity rambles in a moment, butttttt
Philippine birds anyone? c:
So many birdsssss…
Returning to the Konsteneta thing,
There’s lore now for these floating islands in Konsteneta’s sky, which is where most of the birds live.
In my doomed yuri story, a lot of these families (bird species) fall into water due to uh Kasay’s island falling into bleh (and I now have a solid , concrete reason why that happens!! Yahh!!). Not all birds die as some become bound to other pieces of land like in the island archipelago south of where they fell and the coasts of the Great Continent.
I will say, I also have grown fond of Alapaap haha she’s lore relevant now!!
Amihan, Alapaap, and Lihangin, whose odd one out BAHAHAH they’re all now the most lore relevant in my world whether they like it or not
Writing a work involving the The Fair Folk (with a fae mc) and wanted some advice on making my mc feel more... Alien?
My mc himself is a satyr, partially anyway, and looks like a typical one without any horns. After he is elevated though I planned for him to be more goat-like, fur everywhere instead of just the lower half, his nose and eyes being changed.
There are other details I was considering adding to make him more strange/weird. Smelling of mulled wine, predatory teeth, maybe extra eyes or strange natural symbol looking patterns.
In my personal opinion, while giving the character a strange and alien appearance is fun, it doesn't do a whole lot to make your character feel very alien beyond a certain point. I've noticed that a lot of fantasy and scifi stories deal with characters who are supposed to be strange and frightening and different, and while their appearance certainly is startling… their behavior and ways of thinking are very human.
A far more effective and reaching strategy is to build non-human ways of thinking into their very cognition and perception. Some of this could be based on their sensory perception. How might a being interact with the world if they can see radio waves, or work with an extra fourth spatial dimension orthagonal to the other three we usually know, or can literally taste music the way we taste chemical substances? Or some differences could be cultural, such as associating circles of mushrooms with the risk of human incursion on one's domain, or a long tradition of treating an entire race of beings as somehow less than insects over the course of several thousands of years and then finding it difficult to see them as anything else.
Other ways to make characters seem more alien could involve their biology beyond perception. For example, one thing this blog has explored before is the concept of food. If you didn't need to eat food in order to survive, and wouldn't really feel hunger from not eating unless you'd somehow gotten used to the activity and miss it, how would that affect your entire society and culture over time? For humans, so much of our cultures and philosophies and traditions originate from the things that keep us alive, such as eating food and not starving to death in a ditch somewhere without shelter or community. If you dig deep enough, almost everything is related to it in some distant way. So how might a culture that does not require sustenance for survival evolve over time?
Another rather important one is morality. The trope "Blue and Orange Morality" describes moral frameworks that are so utterly alien to the human experience that they simply cannot be layered onto our frameworks of good or evil, lawful or chaotic, and the like. These frameworks usually have plenty of logical coherence to them, it's just that its stemming from entirely different values and premises that are inherently not human. Typically such characters would find human morality as baffling, weird, or appalling as we find theirs. This is one of the trickier techniques to use as unfortunately most writers (that we know of) tend to be human, which rather limits our experience in alien moral frameworks. It takes practice.
Defamiliarization is also a delightfully fun and helpful tool to use in situations like these. The best example is when you have a non-human character coming into contact with the human world filled with many human things. This trick involves describing ordinary human objects or behaviors or places through the eyes of someone who has absolutely no idea what they are or how to deal with it. Of course, inversely the same thing applies when we have humans stepping into non-human places or interacting with non-human beings and objects… but we typically call that cosmic or eldritch horror (or a merging of the two, which I refuse to give Lovecraft the satisfaction of associating him with the concept) because it's very useful for causing both character and reader great unease (though it does appear rather freely in fantasy and science fiction in a wide range of forms). But the important thing that this trick can teach you, aside from improving your descriptive writing and providing an immediate alien viewpoint, is to imagine a character's life without the thing they are currently unfamiliar with and attempting to describe. How would not having even the barest concept of whatever mundane thing it is change every single aspect of their lives? What do they have instead? How does that change their whole worldview in subtle and obvious ways?
Some writers give themselves rules or limitations. What is this character allowed to do, not allowed to do, how are they to react to this specific thing or circumstance or concept, etc etc. And then without ever telling the reader that such rules exist they follow them to the letter whenever the character is being written in a scene.
While it very much is possible to get carried away with this if you're not careful, taking the time to build up the details of how your character understands, perceives, and interacts with the world around them can be extremely effective in making them feel more alien and otherworldly. Even if in your actual story you never explain all the differences or point all of them out, as long as you keep them in mind while you write the character then they'll almost certainly still show up in countless hidden ways that build up to a very alien feeling.
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Lisuga was the silver-bodied grandchild of Kaptan the Skyfather, known for her teasing and creative nature. Unlike her brothers, she did not join the Heavenly Rebellion out of arrogance or malice; instead, she attempted to intervene and calm her grandfather’s divine rage.
Tragically, in his blind fury, Kaptan accidentally struck the intervening Lisuga with a bolt of lightning, blasting her silver frame into a thousand pieces. These fragments were scattered across the firmament to become the Stars, while her siblings’ remains were transformed into the earth, sun, and moon.
Abilities Granted
Burst into Starlight: Once per scene, when you would take damage or are taken out, you can instead shatter into silver sparks and reappear anywhere within the area, negating all Hits from that attack.
Quicksilver Thinking: You are cheeky and crafty. Once per scene, you can cobble together a tool or weapon from available materials that has (Wits roll) uses before falling apart. However, it must incorporate silver or some other metal.
Like Putty in Mine: You can easily mold and sculpt silver as if it were soft clay. Once a session, you can mold silver to have a quality it doesn’t ordinarily have, such as turning it into fine thread or molten liquid.
All Over the Place: You can split yourself into (Heart roll) Pieces for the scene. Your main mass becomes immobile, but each Piece has a fragment of your consciousness. Each Piece can float and move slowly and has all your available sensations. You can reform anytime, as long as your Pieces are relatively near.
A Piece of Me: You can give a Piece of yourself to an ally or other creature. They will gain a Connection to you for as long as they have it, and you will always know their emotional state and where they are in relation to you.
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