#crown tundra spoilers

[anura-island]

Some of the swsh graphics are impeccable... Rushed or not, the animators put their souls into it

#nintendo #pokeblogging #pokeblr #pokemon #pokémon #calyrex #spectrier #pokemon swsh #pokemon sword and shield #pokemon sword #crown tundra spoilers #crown tundra

[danielnelsen]

finally playing the sword & shield dlc (yes i’m a little late to the party lmao) and woooow crown tundra is so much more enjoyable than isle of armour

#maybe it’s just because i’m stuck in the stage of leveling kubfoo and the only other thing to do in the meantime is the diglett quest #hey you know what would be fun for the players? spotting a dozen sight variations on the ground in a sandstorm!!! #also the dynamax lair thing in crown tundra?????? VERY FUN and basically just free legendaries #they just tell you where to find giratina and you do 4 fights and don’t have to worry about catch rates?? #tbf i did lose again kyurem but then you can just retry at any time and it doesn’t cost you ANYTHING #i also really like the fact that they give you pokemon to choose. takes a lot of the stress out of it for me #ANYWAY so it’s rough having to choose legendary forms #i wanna go with the darker type for everything all the time lmao #like i’m gonna get the ghost horsie. but i’m still trying to decide for urshifu #i think i might actually go with water. but dark is cool 😭😭😭 #tbf i can just use a different switch profile to get the other one and then transfer it but it’s not the same yknow. only one is my choice #anyway idk. i’m having fun. i played for like 8 hrs straight yesterday OOPS #trying to work out the regi puzzles tho….regirock was very obviously an everstone but i’ll have to think abt the others #(NO SPOILERS IM DOING IT MYSELF) #and then i have to choose electric vs dragon right? fml #i’ll probably go electric because my strongest pokemon are more dragons #but i know regieleki is the competitive choice and more ppl take it so i feel bad for regidrago lmaooooo #whatever that’s a choice for later. the only choice i have to make right now is where to plant my carrots and im going with ghost for that #IM GOING GHOST GUYS #personal

[onetoomanyyy]

// minor spoilers for the scarvio epilogue dlc!!

okay, so Penny is actually Peony’s daughter??

this was theorized for a while bc they’re both from Galar, named after peonies, and Penny says her dad is super loud and gives her “stupid” nicknames. But it just got confirmed when she tells her dad not to call the trip to Kitakami an “Adven-tour”. That’s Peony everybody

This also means that by extension, Peonia is her sister and Rose is her uncle

Now, Peonia is probably around 15-16 in the Crown Tundra and scarvio take place around a year or two after swsh. Penny is likely around 15 in scarvio so therefore, Peonia is probably abt two years older than Penny (she DEFINITELY helped Penny dye her hair for the first time)

This also means Penny is related to (to an extent) Bede so this makes an Ortega and Bede fight actually plausible,,, don’t want to think about how that would go

We can assume Penny’s natural hair color is blonde or black, but I kinda prefer black bc otherwise she looks nothing like her father

But I’m gonna chock that up to genes being unpredictable, even though in Pokémon relatives are usually super obvious

Imagine Penny coming home after Operation Star and, not really wanting to talk about what she’s been doing, asks her family what’s been going on, and Peonia immediately goes “Uncle Rose got arrested for summoning the Darkest Day”

#pokémon #pokémon scarlet and violet #penny pokemon #peony pokemon #pokémon swsh #pokemon sv #pokémon dlc #mochi mayhem #pokemon scarlet and violet #toomanyrambles

[ae-neon]

Okay I'm a blabber, I cave, I wanna talk about the rewrite with y'all

Spoilers for the REWRITE, obv, but if you do read through, please let me know what you think (good or bad, I won't be hurt I promise)

*please note that fae are not immortal in the rewrite and each current HL is either the child or grandchild of the ruler who was alive during the War

*also, pre- Amarantha's rule, the Courts were ruled by Kings and Queens, during her rule they call themselves HLs but their heirs are still called Princes and Princesses

*if I use the word Aspect and you either can't remember or have never seen me explain the REWRITE lore, just know it's basically a magical saint kinda

I'll add the map at the end because I'm shy and because it's very chaotic - no one is surprised, just know that I can't draw lol

Seasonal Courts

Spring

Spring has two rivers that start on each end of the continent, Lixus and Neda, and they intercept and form an island. This site is holy to the Spring Court and it's where they hold Rites like Calanmai

Tamlin is the only son of Prince Lachlan and Lady Roisin.

(his brothers don't exist in this, sorry)

During the build up to the War, the elderly King Iain didn't want to pick a side but when Lachlan saw that Jurian was basically at their border, he challenged his father to an ancient Spring Rite in the form of a duel and won

Lachlan bargained with Amarantha because he believed her to be an Aspect, giving up a drop of his power, and relinquishing his title.

Tamlin did not share his father's beliefs.

Spring remains the only court in open rebellion.

Autumn

During the war Autumn was ruled by King Sebastian Vanserra

He died in battle defending the humans but Autumn suffered severe casualties, their armies were in disarray and the King's heir was just shy of adulthood

So an upstart lower noble and a brilliant tactician named Beron stepped in, rallied the armies to retreat, convinced Princess Delphine to bargain with Amarantha (certain they couldn't win against her) and became regent

Delphine would bear 5 sons though only 3 are still alive: Eris, Marcel and Lucien

She holds court for the nobility from Vancour, the Forest House, while Marcel oversees things like trade from the city of Ambreville.

Beron and Eris are both UtM

Summer

Summer and the UnderSea share the Isle of Adriata as a capital

During the war it was ruled by Queen Ceto who gave birth to the twins, Proteus and Nereus.

When Proteus realised and admitted he couldn't bow to Amarantha, even to save his people, he gave up his crown and became a commoner.

Prince Nereus fathered the twins, Cresseida and Varian but when he died, the power did not come to them

Instead it went to a young, half-merling man. The son of Proteus.

Winter

The young king of Winter went against his queen-mother's advice and bargained with Amarantha but while her son was away, Queen Aurora sunk the heart of the Court under the ice and turned the surface into a desolate tundra, leaving only the boarders habitable by anyone not born to Winter

The stubborn young king erected a city called Konigshaven and ruled from there

UtM, Winter is represented by the knight, Kallias who maintains that there is no way to force the hidden Court to the surface as no one is strong enough to challenge Queen Aurora

In reality, Aurora has been dead for decades and it is her granddaughter, High Lady Viviane who maintains the Frost

Kallias fought and won the honour to be her (secret) champion

*both Tarquin and Viviane have white hair because they are half merling but the trait is not universal in their courts

Lmao, sorry, I really can't draw so this is all I could do to visualise what I'm saying. This is half the map of Prythian on one A4 page

Ignore the mortal lands for now 💀

#a grave of thorns and roses #acotar : the rewrite

[doubleddenden]

According to people who got to play Indigo Disk early LEGALLY after being invited by Nintendo/TPC, we know a few things

Spoilers below but nothing story related, just mechanics, difficulty, visuals, and performance.

Positive:

1. The difficulty is apparently very high and there's a reason they want you to beat the rest of the story first.

To elaborate, someone mentioned trainers with level 80 and HIGHER pokemon- keep in mind only a small handful of trainers- such as Red or Barry- have had pokemon anywhere NEAR that level.

Second, it seems that Double Battles take a big priority, which is interesting because we only had a handful in Rime's gym prior.

Third, opponents will apparently use items and Competetive strategies- think like the Elite Four in BDSP that full use of items and creative movesets or battles in Colosseum that make use of specific strategies- in their case things like swapping Slaking's ability or explosion and earthquake with a levitating Misdreavus.

All of this sounds like it's meant to replicate competitive play to some extent- which makes sense, given BBA is meant for the best of the best battlers. On a personal note, this excites me, because it sounds like we'll finally have to use strategy, and I'm somewhat hopeful after Teal Mask's spike of difficulty towards the end.

Continuing on:

2. We apparently have access to 4 new uniforms akin to N/U Academy- probably expected but it's good to have confirmation.

3. Graphics apparently APPEAR improved- at least, if I understand correctly, various people who played have at least complimented the textures and colors.

4. Music is interesting :)

5. The Terarium is apparently a tad bigger than Kitakami but not as big as Paldea.

The bad:

There's still problems with performance, to nobody's surprise, and this was even pointed out by Serebii himself. It's something that should be pointed out, because we're now a year after release and have dlc, and still have slow downs and performance drops. Of course, they probably won't fix that. After all, once ID drops, they'll probably wrap things up and move production to the next project.

I'm not gonna sugar coat it. I'm excited for the good, increasingly frustrated with the bad and I just feel embarrassed. I can hope that maybe there will be some slight stability patch like they did to make PC loading better, but I highly doubt it'll be the performance overhaul the majority of us want.

But from what good there is, I do look forward to that. Despite performance somehow being worse in Teal Mask than base game, I actually did enjoy it and was pleasantly surprised by its difficulty spikes, and like Crown Tundra to IoA, this sounds like more of the good.

#pokemon #pokemon indigo disk #indigo disk #pokemon scarlet and violet

[the-unknown-void]

Watch Pokemon Legends A-Z eventually disprove everything I say here but oh well, thought I'd share anyway- POKEMON LORE THEORY/HEADCANON!!

Spoilers? Not really, only if you really want to exclusively discover historical events lore FROM within the games.. Which this applies to mainly gen 6-8.. There's a cornflake of gen 9 lore.

30,000 years ago:

Eternatus comes down on the Crown Tundra in Galar, inside a meteor. Eternatus is weak and stays there slumbering. Not much changes about Galar except obviously the crater made by it.

Unspecified time between 30,000 & 3,000 years: A war is waged in the Kalos Region

3,000 years ago:

AZ's Floette is killed in the war in the Kalos region

AZ uses special crystals(tera crystals) from the Paldea region to construct the ultimate weapon, infused with the life force of other pokemon to power it and bring his Floette back to life and granting himself immortality in the process.. but then wanted revenge on those who killed his floette.

the ultimate weapon is detonated for destruction this time, wiping out ANYTHING in its radius, sending shock waves through the earth- massive earthquakes and access amounts of energy released across the land

this energy is passed all the way across the sea and into Galar, being immediately absorbed by the sleeping Eternatus

this causes Eternatus to awaken and go haywire. It starts releasing the newly obtained energy into the land, causing wild Pokemon to grow huge & powerful (dynamax), this is the darkest day

Debris(Pieces of the Ultimate Weapon) are scattered across Kalos, these will become Mega-stones, they are a lot like the Tera crystals of Paldea but infused with power from the pokemon sacrificed for it.

2 young warriors of Galar who are partners to young Zacian & Zamazenta, seek to stop the Darkest Day to end its destruction as giant Pokemon graze their kingdom- with their sword & shield, Zamazenta & Zacian are able to negate Eternatus' power to defeat it, sending it back to its slumber in the the crater from where it came.

these 2 warriors are crowned kings for their heroic actions

However this does not remove the energy released into the earth, and Galar now has its phenomenon that'll become known as "dynamax power". Energy from the ultimate weapon that had been corrupted by Eternatus.

the war in Kalos is promptly ended because almost everything is DEAD

Unspecified time after this:

People of Galar will learn control & even use this energy for their own. Keeping the energy more stable by letting it be absorbed for use as electricity. Although this does very slowly burn away the energy.. and one day it could still run out

AZ's brother buries the ultimate weapon to prevent it from being used again

these strange powerful stones scattered across Kalos will be discovered and polished, then used by trainers in battle as "mega evolution". And slowly start being distributed to other regions(like Hoenn) for use..

And that's my take! The thing with tera crystals being used to make the ultimate weapon might seem like a reach and yeah- it is, I just REALLY wanted all three of these elements to be related in some way and initially was gonna say the crater in Paldea was somehow caused by the weapon but then discovered I guess the crater was canonically created MILLIONS OF YEARS AGO so.. decided to go the other way. And the thing with eternatus absorbing the energy is just cuz nothing I found explicitly says Eternatus had caused dynamax energy in the region since it first fell on Earth..

Btw Eternatus is also an ultra-beast, but z-crystals don't have any relation to these events as they are canonically shards from Necrozma.

There's probably a million little plot-holes to this but ya know.. it's all in good fun :D I think it's neat anyway.

#pokemon #pokemon xy #pokemon sword & shield #pokemon scarlet and violet #pokemon swsh #pokemon sv #pokemon theory #headcanons #pokemon headcanons #theories #and the void stared back #rambling #pokemon lore

[incorrect-hermits]

ended up watching the tango stream yesterday instead of MCC because I missed the start of MCC due to prior engagements taking longer than expected, and then Tango went live and I decided “MCC can wait, I wanna hear more about the murder dungeon”

so I just watched/listened to tango’s entire stream and just about finished the Pokémon DLC as well.

Pokémon teal mask DLC spoilers under the cut!

it’s fun, definitely an improvement over the Isle of Armor and the Crown Tundra, especially in difficulty, I had a few pokemon almost faint despite my lvl 100 team lol, though I do think they definitely should’ve given all the trainers full ev spreads (if they did I didn’t realize it) and more items than just focus sash, and pretty much the only boss mons I had even slight difficulty with were the souped-up versions of the loyal three, and that was mostly due to not knowing their second typing, I knew of the poison typing but not the other ones.

Hospitality is a really powerful ability, the competitive players are gonna love the sinistea line.

oooooh and apparently Dipplin will evolve in the second half of the DLC, eviolite works on it, unless it’s a bug which would be very odd.

also! Blueberry Academy is in UNOVA!!! i crave unova content, for the train men and also bc it’s a cool region and I wanna see how they remake it in updated graphics!

#snow speaks #snow plays pokemon

[drizzileiscool]

i think I have an idea for a character that azure could probably meet in the crown tundra and become an important character later on

(possible spoilers under the cut)

ok. all I've worked out is that it's gonna be a hattrem. this hattrem is extremely kind but also very shy and might possibly help azure get over her fear of humans. this hattrem also might get caught by azure's unnamed human friend, but it will be allowed to roam freely outside of its ball whenever it wants to and it will often visit azure

#not drizzile #ooc #possible azure spoilers

[chtozaepta]

I love your OCs with the horns and tails! And all of your non human OCs, if you want could you maybe say a bit about their characters and the world they live in? Only if you want to (also I'm obsessed with your art, you really are a pillar of shaperaverse fan community on Tumblr)

Oooooh this gonna be lömg!

First of all, thank you I’m glad you like them :> These are characters from an original comic I’m about to post (the first chapter is almost ready), but this race does not appear in the main plot for some time, so I can say a few things without spoiling anything. I know it’s not a very original design, I mean, duh, who doesn’t have horns and tails right 🌚 So anyway, these guys are called yáve, and they are like… feral elves in a way. They live in forests/tundras in big clans and build funky colorful térems, mostly out of wood bc permafrost.

They looove all things colorful and worship the spirits of nature. The huge pink moth/dragon/reindeer guy? That’s one of them.

His/her name is Menerik and he/she is essentially a god(ess) of Northern Lights, the Moon, madness and magic. He/she is very coherently genderfluid, the gender depending on the moon faze. During the full moon she is a female entity, and when it’s a crescent he is considered male. On the new moon it is forbidden to speak of him. Fun fact - this also is reflected in their language, based on Russian, where a word for “moon” is feminine, and “crescent” is masculine). Since Menerik is a he for the most time, that’s what I would usually call him.

Most yave are mortal, their lifespan being close to humans, but there are two ways for them to achieve a sort of immortality. First is joining the Circle of Memories, an order that keeps their knowledge, culture and traditions and become essentially immortal through a ritual, and another way is becoming a mage and learning the ways to prolong life through contact with spirits. Any yave who starts learning magic is introduced to the spirits on the thinner layer of reality and give up their birth name, color and gender. Their new name they choose themselves, their new color is given by the spirits, and from the moment they start learning magic they are all non-binary, body and soul. All this “immortality” tho is really just a longer life, because they can still be killed, fall sick or get cursed, so there is hardly anyone older than 200 years there. There are rumors about mages over a thousand years old, but that’s spoiler territory)

Some stuff here is *very loosely* based on siberian shaman practices, some names and words borrowed from siberian folklore.

Some of the yave characters I’ve drawn so far:

There’s Chanava, the purple witch with blue horns, around 20 years or so; they will probably appear in the comic. They are a mage, and also joined the Circle, but neither have given them immortality or enough power. Not that they are desperate, just very curious.

Aravellane, their uuum king? Tsar? Prince? Whatever. The one in the crown and a blue fur coal a few posts earlier. A mage, but prefers he/him; he has a blade that can make whatever cut without killing you. Some say, he cut his own heart out with it once to stop feeling sad feelz, and the heart ran away, because he treated it terribly. Since then, an endless winter covered his part of land, and if it weren’t for the mages and trade of diamonds they mine, they’d all be very much fucked.

Myándush, the head of the Circle of Memories. Öld, woise, mistürios, all that. Speaks in riddles. Has a beef with Aravelle, though why, no one can tell.

Ryt’kheo - dabbles in magic, but is not officially introduced to the spirits. Makes airboats, which is basically a boat with a magic sail that can get it into air. The sails he weaves from wool and puts in threads of Menerik’s mane. He is considered one of the coolest craftsmen among the yavi, and everyone wants a flying boat, so he is always very fucking tired and 100% done. Random fact - a “Ryt’kheo” is not a name, it really means “Unnamed”. It is used to address someone who has already given up their name but have not yet taken a new one.

Harrahaye - Ryt’kheo’s brother, not much to say about him except that he is a pain in the ass. I’m still fleshing out their characters, so there you go x)

There is another one, who is more or less complete, but they will appear in the comic and are quite important, so all the info will be there 😌✨

#oc #ayrreamyrre #yave #Menerik

[mala-sadas]

SwSh 32 and 33 Synopsis

So, the scanlation team’s been busy with irl stuff and we haven’t been able to release scanlations of swsh chapters for a couple of months. I feel bad about it, so I figured I could at least share a synopsis of the past two chapters so we’re all kind of on the same page before chapter 34 comes out. Under the cut, so you can avoid spoilers if you’d rather wait and read it for yourself.

Chapter 32

Bede, Marnie, and Hop are on the train to the Crown Tundra when they’re approached by Peonia, who begs for their help because someone is chasing after her. The rivals each give her a piece of clothing for her to use to disguise herself just in time for Peony to walk into their train car. He asks them if they’ve seen Nia and Hop says she’s in the next car, so he moves on. After he leaves, Nia explains that she wanted to go explore the Max Lair, but her dad invited himself along. He put together his own plan for an adventure that they could do together, but she’s not interested in it. Bede wishes he could go on an adventure with Chairman Rose like that, so when Peony returns to the car looking for Nia, Bede rips off her disguise, earning him an intense side-eye from Hop. Peony leaves with his daughter, and Marnie muses that she feels bad for her.

Upon arriving in the Crown Tundra, the rivals run into Peony and Nia again, and Marnie makes a request of Peony: if one of them beats him in a battle, he has to let Nia explore the tundra freely. He accepts the challenge, and Bede volunteers to fight, but Marnie says he’ll just lose on purpose. So, she sends out her Morgrem to face his Copperajah, and they start to battle.

Meanwhile, over at the Master Dojo, the residents of the dojo are shocked to discover that Schilly and Marvin aren’t new students. They apologize for jumping to conclusions, and Schilly explains what they’re looking for. Mustard recognizes the name Soudo, but Sou – who’s peeking on the conversation – gestures for Mustard not to reveal him. Honey invites them to treat the dojo like their second home, while Mustard asks Schilly to take care of Kubfu. She declines, however, since she already has six Pokémon. So, Mustard calls out to Sou and tells him to take care of Kubfu instead. Sou reluctantly reveals himself, side-eying Mustard, who grins and throws up peace signs.

Schilly and Marvin are delighted to have found Sou already, and Schilly starts planning for their next steps – finding the rusted weapons and an antidote for the Gym Leaders’ poison. However, Sou is still reluctant to come with her. He apologizes for preventing them from protecting the region, and Schilly dismisses his behavior as an effect of the poison. However, Sou reminds her that he gets hyperfocused when it comes to gear, being unable to see anything beyond what he wants to do, so he probably would’ve done the same thing even without the poison. Schilly says that she knows that he gets tunnel vision when it comes to gear, she’s seen him do it, but she never said anything about his behavior – even if it was something she didn’t like him doing – because she didn’t want to make him unhappy. So, as his friend, she apologizes for not speaking up when she thought he was doing something bad. Sou starts to argue with her, but Mustard interrupts, reminding them that their goal is to calm Eternatus and restore peace to Galar, and they can save the self-reflection for afterwards.

Checking her tablet, Schilly notices that she has a message from Oleana – one of the ingredients they need for the antidote to Eternatus’s poison is “sap harvested on a foggy morning” from the Isle of Armor, so she’d like them to acquire some. Hyde comments that there was nectar in the antidote they gave to Sou, but Marvin says that’s different from sap. Klara suggests that they can find the sap in the Forest of Focus, and Avery volunteers to use his psychic powers to search for where to find the sap.

Chapter 33

The chapter begins with Avery showing off his telekinesis to throw a Poké Ball. However, Klara, Schilly, and Marvin aren’t impressed, wounding Avery’s pride. Sou thinks the power has its applications, though, and demonstrates this by having everyone try to catch an Abra sitting in the grass a long way away. Only Avery’s telekinetically thrown Poké Ball travels far enough to catch the Abra. Sou points out that being able to catch or battle a Pokémon from any distance is a useful skill, which makes Avery incredibly happy. With that demonstration of his abilities over, Avery says they should rest for the night, and pray there’s fog in the morning.

Upon returning to the dojo, Sou’s long hair gets caught in the front door, leading Schilly to decide they need to do something about it. Since there’s no salon on the island, Klara volunteers to style Sou’s hair for him. Klara styles his hair into a bun, which Schilly is so impressed with that she asks Klara to do it for her, too. While Schilly is getting her hair done, Mustard offers them outfits to suit their new hairstyles – dojo uniforms to wear while they’re on the island. He offers a uniform to Marvin, too, but Marvin declines.

Meanwhile, in the Crown Tundra, Marnie is getting flattened by Peony because of the type disadvantage, which Nia and Bede are lowkey judging her for. However, she reveals that she was waiting for Morgrem to gain enough experience to evolve into Grimmsnarl, allowing it to throw off Copperajah’s attack and defeat it with Hammer Arm. Peony accepts his defeat and allows Nia to head off to the Max Lair, and she promises to come back and hang with him once she’s done. Peony comments that after seeing how happy she is, he’s glad he lost, but he laments that the exploration tour he planned for the two of them is gonna go to waste. Bede volunteers to do the tour with him in her place, and Hop reminds him that they have an important mission to do. However, Marnie says that it’d be a good idea to go with him on the tour, since they don’t know anything about the tundra or where to start searching, and this tour gives them an excuse to explore the whole tundra. Bede claims that that was his thinking all along, and Hop is skeptical but agrees to join them. Peony says that they can join him until Nia returns, and they head to Freezington, along the way receiving a message from Schilly that she found Sou.

The next morning, Sou and Schilly show off their new haircuts and outfits, and they head out to the Forest of Focus with Marvin, Avery, Klara, and Kubfu. Along the way, Schilly reports that she sent her Vikavolt Drone to scout for the rusted weapons, but it hasn’t found anything yet. To their delight, the forest is foggy when they arrive, and Schilly asks Avery to locate the tree they can get the sap from. As he stalls to hide the fact that he was bluffing when he said he knew how to find the sap, he gets jumped by a swarm of Poison-type Pokémon running out of the forest. Sou and Schilly start fighting them off, and Kubfu joins in. However, Klara jumps in to stop the fighting, getting punched in the face by Kubfu for her trouble. Klara explains that the wild Pokémon probably weren’t trying to attack them, they were running away from something that’s not good for them. Schilly surmises that it might be what they’re looking for, so she uses her Vikavolt Drone to scan the area and figure out where the Pokémon were coming from. Meanwhile, Kubfu starts moping because it got carried away and messed up, and Klara and Avery empathize. Schilly leads the gang into the forest, and they observe that a bunch of poisoned Pokémon are heading the same way. The Pokémon are licking a particular tree, so Schilly scans the sap on the tree and has Klara send the data to Miss Poison. Upon getting confirmation that this is the sap they’re looking for, Schilly uses her Vikavolt Drone to extract the sap from the tree. However, as soon as she takes the filled bottle of sap out of the drone, Kubfu leaps up and steals it from her…

#that vikavolt drone really just does whatever the plot needs it to do huh #pokespe #pokemon special #pokemon adventures #swsh chapter #pokespe swsh

[paradizetobefound]

Okay so I am trying to posit what separates demons from humans in arknights without (idk, I think there are people who know more) having proper idea wtf ak demons are.

DISCLAIMER: demons from tundra and from the south are not discussed there at length or on their own.

So there was this one piece of dialogue in Vigilo event, the difference between machine and human being "obsession". And I had a sudden thought about how this conversation could also map on the demon question.

We know very little about actual demons and what constitutes a "demon". But we have few implications, and there are creatures that seem "demon". Like Kaschei. Phantom troupe itself feels "demonic". And there are mentions here and there of witchcraft and of how it seems to affect the user.

But before we talk about the theory about demons and their relation to humans we shall talk a little about arts, and more specifically, witchcraft since it seems for some reason to have more dramatic manifestation. The second reason is how, at least within european thought, "witchcraft" is historically tied to demons, who are, in fact, a source of witchcraft. (we can talk about how more traditional practices were frequently proclaimed witchcraft under Christianity, though note that this is a shaky argument since while european culture is one of influences within Arknights, it is but one). But the connection is there.

First is the Wight King, who has a very colourful description of him. And this is said to be a consequence of his art practices. We don't have a proper explanation of differences between witchcraft and "normal" arts but still, it is fairly interesting how a "goat" ended up undergoing changes specifically due to witchcraft (something generally associated with the traditional Sarkaz), something that puts under certain question some things about Sarkaz-kind. Regarding the Sarkaz kind, who are frequently derided as "demons" (despite the setting having actual demons whatever they are supposed to be), we know that Kazdel has witchcraft still as a significant aspect of their culture (regarding other lands, one can wonder what "witchcraft" practices could have existed there in the past, idk if it was brought up anywhere) and... it seems to have a rather dramatic synergy with the bloodlines.

While in some ways Sarkaz could be argued as "different groups of people lumped together" and are stated to not having been a properly unified kind, a rather significant aspect of Sarkaz culture is the inherent tie with the Sarkaz Crown (Civilight Eterna). So I think a point I am going to make still stands. Bloodlines have their witchcraft they specialize in, and their inner culture, even some physiological traits (in case of vampires!!) are seemingly reflecting their arts and their psychology.

The vampires would be a good example to dissect as we have a) good representation b) Midnight vs Closure. See, the hypothesis I am about to make is "Vampires manifest more clearly pronounced "vampire" traits as they increase usage, intensity and potency of their blood arts". Exhibit a. Closure is a "Prince" and yet, due to her disintirest in vampire things, she likely doesn't use the arts much. She also shows little bloodlust. Exact status of Midnight as a Vampire is ambiguous but we have little indication of him being "deep" in vampire arts, though he seems to use a little of it in his skin art. Both of them are Vampire Sarkaz who seem to come from very different origins but both share traits of little bloodlust and not going deep down blood arts path. Warfarin meanwhile employs her blood arts (as we can recognize it being a case of her using vampire arts based on observation of vampire arts in chapter 9 and also, it being likely) with much more readiness and she is clearly very interested in blood. And finally, if we examine events in chapter 9, we can notice a further evidence to blood arts boosting bloodlust in a specific scene where Warfarin meets *spoiler*. the king of vampires can easily trigger her bloodlust with his own arts which may also give some implications about how inter-sarkaz connections work So, it is in fact possible that while sarkaz clans gradually grew "more in tune" with their preferred arts as they specialized in them over generations, the preferred arts also may be directly tied to either manifesting or developing specific traits.

To lesser degree we can also observe how Mudrock interacts with soil and also the entire deal with "cannibalism" (for all the issues the whole matter has) and Patriot's background (see his flashback).

Now this particular thesis is... not exactly on the most solid ground. But I think there may be enough food for thought here to post it so, carrying on.

Next are the Blades. The little Kal'tsit's dialogue says us is actually one of the core foundations of the entire theory. We know the bit used to create an Imperial blade comes from actual demons for one. But you see, when Kelsey talks about Blades, she implies a) the way the demon flesh changes not just body but also the mind of the host b) the effect may be considered as growing stronger over time. Now, the narrative links the fanaticism of blades with them gradually loosing their humanity in a manner that seems to suggest as if the demon bit actively interacts with the matter of ideas and ideologies, as if it parasitizes on the thought... wait, it does remind of something.

Originium. Canon information is such: originium stores massive amounts of energy and also, information (more specifically, it may store information of its consumed victims), with stones all but said to create a form of network between themselves, that almost constitutes a collective evil rock mind. Pretty much any cases where it is implied that an "entity" is originium-born, it was almost always single-mindedly obsessed with a certain "something" (and also frequently violent). Easy examples being Ifrit's demon (who is obsessed with burning things down), the voices in Ptilo's head (literally appear after she connects her brain to originium) that are rampant and agressive. Nightmare (in who's profile it is stated that personality disorders like this are one of possible symptoms of oripathy) who is... Nightmare. All of them are "emotional" and all of them are fixated. Less obvious example is Mephisto's bird form, which also seems to be stuck in its own song, hiding away from hurt. Even less obvious example is Rosmontis' brother, who may be the true form of her arts (as per what we get from her profile) and, surprise, after being killed in an experiment (all about creating a living arts-using war machine) with his consciousness "transfered", little we can glimpse about him seems to revolve around his sister remaining "safe". We can talk about it more (like what's up with the Frozen monstrosity and FrostNova) but it is already too long.

From this pespective another argument to be made is how originium's tendency to accumulate information like this and how it may be forming its "cognition" can be taken as "originium is parazitizing on the souls of living things". (kinda puts on the opposite scale of seaborn who are explicitly a rejection of "ego" and of "imagination", so kinda like, idk, if we go for bible metaphors, originium is all about fallout of eating a fruit of knowledge and seaborn are all about rejecting the very notion of tasting a fruit of knowledge and thus remaining "pure" and "undying".)

We have observed that witchcraft, or rather nature of a given witchcraft seems to steer the wielder towards embodying it more. We have observed what seems to be a direct parallel between arts and demons and originium and how it all in the end ties to "emotion", survival, and also, to certain degree, to thought and congnition.

So, the point I am trying to make is that, if humans differ from machines in how humans possess capacity for "obsession", we can argue that it also gives us an answer to what is fundamental to demons in arknights settings, that if humans have obsession, then demons is when "obsession" may as well be all that remains.

There are things I am not quite satisfied here as to the overall thesis, but I hope it makes sense.

#arknights #ramblings #arknights theories #ak theories #arknights spoilers #arknights ramblings

[nukenai]

sorry this is just gonna be me talking a bit about my experience playing live a live vs how i feel about something that’s been dear to my soul since i was 5 years old (pokemon). Slight LAL spoilers I guess lmao.

The big word I can use to describe Live A Live is REFRESHING. Me, personally, I am such a fan of sprite work. I love sprites. Black and White I think are the most visually appealing Pokemon games. I really can’t even say I minded the XY style... I think ORAS really, really benefited from how beautiful it was, and I’m glad I was able to see Hoenn remade in 3D. The experience is unmatched.

But.

I think that the switch to 3D models loses a lot of style. I think it loses a lot of, let’s say class. I played a bit of the FF4 remake and ooh, boy. I get it. I get why they want to switch to 3D models. But I can’t even express how overjoyed I am that they did NOT do that with Live A Live. They didn’t go with chunky, clunky, ugly polygonal chibis or even worse, realistically proportioned 3D models. I can’t IMAGINE what a nightmare that would’ve been.

Instead they took a game that was sprites, and made it nicer sprites. They made the backgrounds deep and detailed. Extremely fucking cool. I remember being excited when I saw Octopath - but I don’t like JRPGs, and I have to be honest, I do NOT like the art style of Octopath. Every trailer I saw for that game... my big thought was WHERE ARE THE FUCKING COLORS? That’s even a complaint I have about the official art for LAL’s cast... I kind of hate it all. I hate the desaturation.

But LAL itself, the actual game, HOLY hell! I played Prehistory first which was a fine chapter, I’m pretty neutral on it but it was so COLORFUL! VIBRANT! Then I played Edo Japan which was darker, because it is night time. But I found myself constantly stopping, and saying, out loud, “Wow, this game is beautiful”. I tweeted some screenshots with that as a caption, which was the first LAL tweet I made that Tokita-san faved and retweeted.

This was the view that first made me really go, “Wow”.

I used to edit sprites when I was a kid. I couldn’t draw, but I loved editing Pokemon trainers into my OCs. With the switch to 3D models, I was dead in the water. I couldn’t do shit! It kinda sucked. I cried when I got to play with my Pokemon in Pokemon Amie. But for all we gained with the 3D models, I feel like we lost a lot, too. Legends Arceus is exempt from this discussion as it is a shining beauty of a game and I adore it. JUST WISH I COULD HEAR THE FUCKING MUSIC.

This is a disorganized rant but basically, I’m just saying I’m so happy that there is a market for games like Live A Live to be remade, to look like how they were always dreamed up to be. And that doesn’t mean 3D models, it doesn’t mean HD. Sometimes it just means a coat of love, and that so much feels like what this game got.

Recent Pokemon games don’t feel like that to me. I didn’t hate Sword and Shield, but boy, are they ugly and bland. Not once did I ever say “wow” or even FEEL any sort of awe or joy at the environments. The Eternatus fight was not impressive and I hated the entire plot of that game. The Crown Tundra DLC was ok because I got horses. But the whole place was just so fucking ugly. I don’t just blame the UK for that either. Shit was unfinished and looked like garbage.

Scarlet and Violet are giving me the same feeling. I’m not excited. The environments look maybe better, but I feel no style. I don’t feel love. It looks like everything else, but maybe slightly worse. It’s all the same. I also felt like that seeing every fucking Square game in the Direct today. Shit all looks the same, I can’t tell any of it apart.

But I see Live A Live, and it even looks so different from Octopath. My only memories of it, and from the sequel’s trailer today, are washed out browns and bronzes and dust and blah. But just look at the screenshot up there. It’s supposed to be night time and there’s purples. Reds. Oboromaru’s motif color is purple and it’s washed throughout the entire chapter. The insides of the castle are lit with candles and you can feel that.

And that’s just one chapter. Damn. I fucking hated the Middle Ages chapter but I can still say it’s beautiful. I enjoyed dipshitting around in the Dominion of Hate for a while, GRINDING UP MASARU’S FUCKIN LEVEL 2 ASS, cause the place was still so pretty despite it all. I felt welcome in that game and like it was happy to have me. Even if I’m some fake fan who didn’t play the original and had only heard of it, and only had a couple songs on my ipod because Yoko composed them.

Idk man. I’ve just got a ton of thoughts. It’s been a really, really long time since a game deeply affected me like Live A Live has. Legends Arceus having a couple bangers and also having Ingo in it is not the same. I loved that game but it didn’t hit me in my soul like Live A Live has. I’m hoping this game will stick with me and be at the front of my heart for the rest of my life.

And I want more people to enjoy it, too.

Anyways look at these fucking sick-ass sprites of Edgelord of Dark Oersted they fucking rock

#just little ranty thoughts of mine #on artstyles and style in general #nothing really profound or poignant here

[mrslittletall]

Pokemon recently took over my life again-obsessing over Legends Arceus and even finally completing the Galar Pokedex in Sword :,) Opinions on Pokemon Sword or the Recent Legends game?

Yes, I noticed that you reblogged a lot of Submas on your blog ^^ By the way, I still don't know why tumblr is so obsessed with the Submas twins?! What did I miss? Was that already like this back in 2011? Okay, so opinions! I am long time Pokémon fan and I can find the good in every main line game, but Sword and Shield were the most disappointing to me so far. I have a HUGE post somewhere on my blog that I made after I played through them and put my issues down. It is mostly that the world felt very boring and the wild zone wasn't thought through to the end. However, the DLC absolved some of my critiques, especially the Crown Tundra. I love legendary hunting and Crown Tundra is ALL about legendary hunting and god, did I love the story about Calyrex or what is its English name. While I am not too fond of the shared EXP share, while playing Shining Pearl I noticed that you can just raise... more than six Pokémon thanks to the readily available box whereever you are, so I tried a second run in Shield (bug only) where I do this as well and see if I don't overlevel. I still think that SwSh was a bit too on the easy side, especially after the absolute nightmare that was Ultra Moon/Ultra Sun. I just hope that Scarlet and Violet will get a bit back to what I think made Pokémon great and that was clever world design mostly in my book. They go Open World though, so let's see what they do with it... Now to Pokémon Legends Arceus. I don't like the story of it too much (the Isekai plot is dumb imo), but I love the game itself. I loved the focus of doing something different and that different was catching and observing Pokémon. I love that you have to throw the ball yourself and I got really good at it. Also the Hisuian forms look so good! I love that we got so many love for Pokémon that aren't Kanto, but it hurts me to think that the hisuian forms died out... like hisuian sneasler had to evolve into a dark/ice type, probably because of Braviary. And the Hisuianz Zorua isn't even around anymore, so even becoming a ghost didn't save the poor thing. I think the battles are a bit of a let down in this game. It is clear that they weren'T the focus of the game. No abilities, no held items and you use EVs simply by giving them rocks. Complexity is missing and the wild Pokémon are so insanely strong that they even let a Pokémon faint that is 20 levels higher. Now, what I liked about PLA are the characters! The wardens are adorable, I love Adaman and Irida, I love Professor Laventon and I loved to see everyone's ancestors! Just one look at Volo and I was like "Cynthiaaaaa!" and I just love that Volo is the bad guy here and Cylenne is the good guy despite being Cyrus' ancestors, whoops, spoilers I guess. Anyway, I hope that Legends Arceus isn't the last one of these games they make. Seeing how a region got to where it is now and how it looked so long ago was amazing and I want to see more of that. Give me that with Hoenn or Unova or Kalos please!

#ask answered #thx for the ask #pokémon #pokémon legends arceus spoilers

[bluefuecoco]

Epilogue spoilers kinda

current headcanon is that Penny's dad is the player character from swsh, who modeled all his dadisms off of Peony from the crown tundra dlc because he's the only good dad he's ever seen, and now Penny suffers from ultra-mega-Adven-tours

[deuterosapiens]

So, Kitakami PokéDex completion. These things are always fun when you don't have friends to facilitate trade evolutions, right?

So, anyway, in honor of having obtained every member of the Kitakami 'Dex in Teal Mask, a list of high-and low-lights.

Spoilers for Pokémon whose presence might be a surprise to other players.

So, regarding the story here. It's fine, charming. Carmine grew on me, and Kiernen uh... yeah. About that kid. He's one bad day from tossing you into the ocean and wearing your face as a mask. I await his development in Indigo Disk. Otherwise, the story of Ogerpon and the Loyalty Trio is simple, reminds me of a light Ghibli film.

So, three stars. It doesn't beat Area Zero's whole Annihilation/Roadside Picnic thing, but that's a preference.

My baby, by belovèd Basculegion is back! And I guess, Ursaluna. Yay! It's a murder-Bear. (Note to self: take creepy murder-Bear photos in Area Zone, for Jeff VanderMeer related reasons)

So, let's look at a list of Pokémon that can, shall I politely say, bite my shiny metal ass. They are species that posed some problem to me in some form or another. And yes, some of them were entirely User Error. Skill issues. Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn.

In no particular order:

Politoed. Trade evolutions are inherently evil. Trade with item evolutions more-or-less guarantee that no one on Earth is Surprise Trading them away. I mean, luckily this thing can appear in Tera Raids (like a number of Kitakami Stage 3 Pokémon), but for some reason this thing just refused to Spawn, making it the actual worst for me.

Shiftry. Why are Leaf Stones so hard to find without paying for them?

Milotic. You see, some beautiful, beautiful human Surprise Traded a Feebas, which meant that I was the lucky bastard who did not have to go looking for one. Which was short-lived joy, as it turns out that Prism Scales are the Devil. Luckily, Milotic can appear in Tera Raids, so it's just a tedious matter of re-rolling until Fish. Still one of my last catches because TEDIOUS.

Fezendipiti. So, yeah. No. I could have ran False Swipe or something, but I wasn't thinking. Roost was a problem, to say the least.

I did however luck out with a few excellent Surprise Trades, and decent enough Tera Raids. Golem wasn't an issue. Trevenant can appear in the Wild, and a non-zero percentage of my Raids coincidentally were Basculegion, so I did not have to deal with the weird evolution requirements.

I've been a bit indecisive, to say the least, on whether the cost of the DLC is worth it. With Teal Mask, I'm still horribly on the fence. Perhaps when Indigo Disk launches, I'll have gotten over that. DLC in Nintendo franchises tends to follow this odd two-part model lately, of Part One focusing on Gameplay Features, and Part Two on Story Expansion.

I liked Crown Tundra a helluva lot more than Isle of Armor, so for this, we will see.

#pokemon dlc #teal mask #long post

[staticevent]

one flew east, one flew west, one flew over the horse’s nest

#pokemon #swsh #crown tundra #galarian articuno #galarian zapdos #galarian moltres #boy the galar bird designs are real neat #crown tundra spoilers #'but zapdos r-' its just a reference to a 500 y/o nursery rhyme hush #also painting is hard but I'm Trying #photoset #doodle