#iterator off the string

[niftukkun]

fanart for a scene in @nerdydowntherabbithole 's Taking Life As Is on AO3 !! a scene early on in the fanfic that sounded so cool it gripped me with inspiration, where a vulture swoops down and gets fucking got by a leviathan while our dear protagonists look on in horror of the beautiful brutality of mother nature happening right in front of them! dont you love it when you leave your rotting corpse behind and immediately get hit with the existential horror of almost dying and the primal fear of seeing something that much bigger than you and realising your fragility when you were once a godlike being above such lowly thoughts and struggles? anyway.

some details and thoughts !! :

-just before this scene, sugar (survivor's name in this fic) hunted and ate a salamander, so i included it in this here drawin too !! hell yeah esoteric fic-accurate details -(pro tip for any artists out there; if you want to push something into the background, gradient overlays are your friend. also, dont forget to check your values. outline your characters if they aren't popping out of the background enough) -in other, not fic-accurate detail,, moon's dress and marks. i think in the fic, moon's dress is more like,, an actual dress with sleeves and such. but also like, i do what i want and i want something thats barely a dress so i can show off my anatomy/mechanical bits art skills. i dont care if its not canon compliant im calling rule of cool -whoops i forgor the wires uhh shit nevermind it would cover the cool bits anyway whatever -also, while i am proud of the vulture and leviathan, they both used reference. like, i sketched them out yeah, but also the sketch was mostly done by staring at a reference the whole time and overlaying it on the canvas as needed when the drawing looked a little too off. so if you look at this and think 'aw man this guys too good at drawing i could never draw a vulture/leviathan/background/whateverthefuck like that' youre wrong. use references and get better at art by referencing references -shoutout to the miraheze wiki btw for supplying most of my references for this. fandom wiki could never

this fic holds a special place in my heart. like, i dont agree with it on a lot of things (how the cycle works, time between slugcat campaigns, how rot works, etc), but its very internally consistent and i like how all the characters are written. i really do like how, despite all the bickering, the iterators really do care for each other and love each other. i like that the blame isn't pushed just to pebbles, the acknowledgement of there being a lot of nuance and complications in the whole situation. i like the worldbuilding, nsh's wetland-esque biome, srs's gleaming glass beaches, the different interesting fauna/flora, slugcat society worldbuilding, the fucking trains hell yes trains.

most of all though, i love the authors dedication to getting a happy ending. no one left behind. all the iterators in the local group are getting freed (except for innocence but thats a different thing) all the slugcats are alive and doing well (even artificer's kids!!). and even though the fic throws the characters around, bad things happen, steps backward are taken,,, there is almost a palatable message that no matter what, things will be okay. artificer did bad and its acknowledged with visible consequences (scavenger temple route, which mightve made things so much easier on the route to nsh) but she still gets her kids back. hunter had her rot cured and even got some sick new upgrades but still struggles with overexertion and moments of weakness. both pebbles and moon have ptsd from the rot and the rain respectively and its handled reasonably well, not even mentioning the survivors guilt and learned helplessness on nsh and the whole,, guilt from causing this whole fiasco and the feeling of it being all their fault from srs,,,, , ,,,

i dont know. i just really like how dedicated the fic is to showing the realistic consequences of the unforgiving and brutal world of rain world and weaving it into a story of forgiveness and freedom. there are struggles but the heroes will still win and get to go home happy. its cathartic. i love it a lot.

[lembowe]

congrats on the new drawing tablet :DDD do. do you think you could draw some lilypad 👉🏻👈🏻 theyre my babies and i love them so much

anyways i love ur art !!!!! it’s so soft and colourful :D

hello !! hi i usually dont ship moon but damn is the lilypad propaganda strong hehe >:D this was intended to just be a sketch but here we are lol

[rotten-machinery]

off the string speculative biology + gameplay water storage mechanic

[himahimac]

silly OTS thoughts,,,

[skybristle]

rbs > likes

not the only ghost in these walls

[druidshollow]

dunes mayonnaise madness

[tanzdoesthings]

INK RUN DRY reference sheet! includes both on and off string!

fathoms is SO TINY-

[maya-the-surreal-soldier]

Frostbite of feathers!!! Mah babyyyyy!!!

I have finished four of my Iterator oc Sheets, im working on assembling the lore fore them so its at least undestanable, shes the first to be done fully, others are coming soon!!

[localceilingdevil]

off string designs for visceral growths. puppets actually built for moving around!!!

myths is technically already an "off string model" so i won't draw her design :p but here's the others

since they can't function without their neurons they have tiny ones inside of their body!!! i could go on about the functions. thinking about this stuff is so interesting to me.

rambles below the cut

ok so uhm the main thing i had to keep in mind with their off string design was mobility. OBVIOUSLY. their legs are built the way they are for the sake of traversing through harsh, bumpy and uneven terrain (for a multitude of purposes. i think in general their ancients would just want them to be mobile for important meetings and even in case of emergencies! ancients thinking about the future that DOESN'T involve mass ascension ... unheard of) and have springs based off the "prototype"'s (myths.) feet to absorb impact when falling. fields especially has a special ability to jump higher from the added mechanisms he has in his legs :]

their feet are talon-like for the sake of grip and their legs are generally very agile despite their chunky design! with multiple joints that allow for flexibility. their hips are also built to allow their legs to stretch to the side and whatnot. they're just very flexible in general.

now for my favorite part!!! the jelly-like substance that each of their puppets has acts as their "blood". despite being considered iterator blood it isn't fluid, and is comparable to the texture of the silicone from a breast implant—doesn't spill, is a great regulator for heat, and prevents any possible damage to their innards !!! the ancients figured that they'd need their neurons to function properly sooo they just shrunk down copies of their data into tinier neurons and just. filled em up with them. the neurons float around freely inside of them.

i also think that their cores are somewhere inside their torsos like a real heart, protected by the silicone. they also have a bunch of wires and functions inside that require frequent coolant so they probably have a bottle for it somewhere along their back that can be taken out at any given moment.

i think that's all i have to ramble about so far. they're so neat and fun to think about and ough. they're just like their superstructures fr fr <333 I'll probably yap more later but for now that's all

[maryymaruu]

Drawing digitally is not going very well, it's been rough the past few days, so back to pencil and paper we go-

Take an out of context SOTU being sad-

[xenomorphicdna]

On the string propaganda

Heeellll yeah

Bestie is an entire PLACE

I look at those guys and let me tell you the soul of that thing ain't just in the puppet, it's in all the neurons carrying the thoughts and emotions, it's in the power rails that serve as the heart. All the memories in the memory conflux and all the numbers we see flicker across displays, the flux condensers, the puppet; a little avatar.

No way these massive machines see life the same way we do. They have their own experiences and senses and things they hold dear. A world we can't imagine, a way of living we couldn't even comprehend.

I could never tear an iterator apart to be just a puppet. Who am I to decide how's life supposed to be enjoyed or perceived?

You treat your creechurs however you want- I ain't gonna dictate that. But damn, hearing the thrums and buzzes of the linear systems rail? They are alive with so much power, these mechanical beasts are exactly what they should be.

[himahimac]

quick addition to my off-the-string thoughts from here

[skybristle]

rbs > likes

FINALLY got around to this good god. hes still kind of annoying to draw but i couldn't take away her prettyboy swag. if you're gonna say "isnt this probably wildly impractical" yeah it is but at least she cut down on the super flowy ribbons and shit... somewhat. And she can actually walk! Yay!

[druidshollow]

At the brink of death, Three Rosaries hears a divine voice and is given new hope for survival.

short one! mostly i just wanted to test what the void sea's dialogue should be like hehe hope u like it. its sorta ugly but thats okay

[tanzdoesthings]

it is a beautiful day and you are a horrible iterator

@druidshollow I PICKED A RANDOM LOW-ISH NUMBER SO IF SOMEONE ELSE ALREADY HAS THAT IT CAN CHANGE LMAO

[maya-the-surreal-soldier]

Second iterator up! Lordsy my boiiii

Two nore to go so far (there are actually six more, but only two finished currently)