Amare

I am so sorry for how long this took. It's been really hectic around here, and there was a death in my family recently, so a lot of things got sidelined and I'm trying to get back on top of things. It's been a lot. I mean, with these devs, never say never, lmao. And since we recently got confirmation that they're keeping on even without Doctor Caz at the helm, I think we're in for a fun ride no matter what happens. See, it's entirely possible that we've already had the major split- either with the 'side with Nova or Shiv' decision or the 'save Scarlett/let Scarlett die' decision. I know the repercussions from both haven't been enormously significant so far (aside from the obvious, in the latter's case), but they might come back to haunt us soon. Or things might get rewritten here and there to make them more significant. Yeah, I think the insinuation was that Aurora's regaining what Nova took from her? Or maybe Nova just has to keep shanking a twin for power every so often. Canon will probably clarify that for us eventually. We'll add 'desecrating historical sites' to Waldenhall's rap sheet. I'm sure Reeve would be horrified if he knew. I hope your brain didn't get Jarredsploded. The prospect is terrifying. Or Garret decided to take a short cut and it turns out the short cut didn't exist and whoops, we've crashed into Arcanius. Half of it is Darkrai saying things along the line of 'I'm an eternal being, I was actually alive at that time, don't question me' and Aurora saying 'You're a stagnant, unchanging being, let someone whose brain can actually withstand the idea of a new concept do the commenting'. The terrifying bits are when they actually agree. Shiv's going to turn into The Stig at this rate. Some say he only ever eats mangos, and he developed the ability to teleport by frightening baby Slowpoke. But all we know is... he's called Shiv. (In all seriousness, yes, I'm sure canon will tell us in time.) Atlas has his Fire Pokemon on hand to keep him from melting. Azura has a mon for using Icy Wind on her, though it often melts and she winds up getting rained on. Damien just stays inside with the air-con on, like a normal person. Grave-bothering, assistant dimensional researcher, unofficial member of the local law and order, attempted Darkrai-wrangler, and person who has to deal with the Gym Leaders when they're all arguing. Yeah, Perfection, Nova or Darkrai would be my guess. Maybe Cresselia, if we're right about her being significant.

Sorry for the delay, it's been a very hectic week. I agree, there's definitely a lot of potential re: story splits. I do think the story will likely have multiple endings, but probably only four or five, like Rejuv- even if there's potential for like twenty endings, I doubt the devs would go with that. Honestly, Aurora's lucky that Nova's powers are waning/failing, or I wouldn't put it past Nova to use her powers to screw with Aurora's head just for the sake of it. I think the 'crime' part is pretty implicit with Lilith, LMAO. They love our tears. They taste like candy. Arson, desecration of historical objects/a historical site and offending historians worldwide. The bastard. I don't think my brain can handle the Jarred, but let me know how it goes for you. That's how E7 starts: the protagonist, Garret and Emily managed to get lost because Garret screwed up somehow. We immediately have to prevent them from strangling each other. I feel like the drafts would either be full of snarky notes where they're criticising each other's writing, or just full of arguments about the most minor details. And by God, if the devs don't tell us we'll make it up ourselves. I bet that one Elite Four who likes Fire-types (Damien?) likes to walk around outside in full regalia just to show how tough/immune he is, while Azura calls him a freak. *reluctantly adds 'grave-botherer' to my resume* There's always the possibility that Shiv's trying to get as much information possible while feeding the Foxes/Crescent/God knows who else disinformation. He seems like that kind of sneaky.

Hmmm. Speaking of outcomes, I wonder, do you by any chance happen to recall any mention of how many endings Desolation might have? I know Rejuvenation will have four, and Reborn had the postgame split. Since (IIRC) Deso will only have ten episodes, maybe the devs might have mentioned it? It's true that people can survive a lot of stabbing, especially if Aurora didn't manage to hit anything vital. (Or for all we know, Nova had a mon using Heal Pulse on her somewhere.) But I actually really like your idea that Darkrai was somehow responsible. Not sure if it could actually heal Nova, but maybe it used some kind of illusion power on Aurora so she thought she stabbed/killed Nova, but didn't actually do it? I agree that Darkrai would get a bit miffed if one of its pawns shanked another, so it would have a vested interest in making sure that didn't happen. Those are fantastic ideas, but I'll add another one- maybe it's with Lilith, to get her on our side. If we prove we know enough about Perfection, it might convince her that we can be trusted/we're an ally that's worth sticking with. Somewhere, the devs are plotting which character to make us love before giving them a depressing fate (or making a new character entirely). They want us to suffer. True, the priests are absolutely a good potential source of information. And Waldenhall definitely needs to lay off on the arson of priceless historical sites, once was bad enough. (I would punch him myself for that, if I could.) Oh, God. Speaking of Jarred, today I discovered that not only did some mad lad make a dating sim of him ( , the same mad lad made a mod of Deso where everything is Jarred ( Maps are awesome. Everyone loves maps. I'd totally be down for a detailed Ayrith map. (Someone call Talon, lmao.) Darkrai winds up as Aurora's research assistant. They co-author numerous papers on the history of Ayrith. They make a surprisingly good, but utterly terrifying combination. Somewhere, Shiv is laughing at us for thinking we could understand him and his origins. I forgot about the League being on a volcano, actually. I thought it was a mountain? I'm going to have to comb over every tombstone in the game, aren't I... True... Aurora does seem like the most likely option there... or maybe Shiv's just playing the Foxes too?

We salute you for your service. You are doing a great and valiant job. (I also love extra dialogue, I just feel this compulsion to make sure that the characters get as good a deal as possible.) Hmmm. I wonder, maybe Nova really is immortal... she and the twins are already Special, so maybe they're not entirely human? (Maybe this is when the X-Men all turn up, lmao.) Yeah, it does seem that the first insight was about the Dreamscape/Darkrai and the second is about Perfection. As to what the latter might be for... well, my best bet is another check, but as for what, I don't know. Maybe we'll have to prove a falsehood or show that we know more about Perfection than what someone else says? More brainwashing is certainly possible, given who we're dealing with... It would be pretty hilarious, though. Everyone just sits there looking awkwardly at each other, and then Ava finally says "I think we have a problem." The fandom's probably going to riot if Hardy gets a bad ending, especially after what happened to Tristan, lmao. I don't think the journal's author was outright lying, but I'm betting that they were embellishing or deliberately downplaying things. I imagine we'll eventually get some more accurate sources, whether it's from Lilith, Waldenhall, the priests or somewhere else, so that should be interesting. It's just going to be non-stop complaining from all of them afterwards, lol. God, I want there to be a reference to Majora at least once, kid or no kid. It'd just be funny. On that note, we haven't been shown a really extensive map of Ayrith yet, have we? Like, I know we've seen one that shows the major islands, but not the minor ones, right? So we don't know just how many islands there could be? I doubt that the player would accept Darkrai on their team, but I could see Shiv or Aurora doing so in order to lord it over Darkrai. A fabricated memory would be really interesting, especially since I could see multiple candidates: parents who wanted to get rid of them, parents who wanted to keep them safe, someone who knew what they could do and wanted to put them somewhere where they couldn't do too much damage... or maybe one of them brainwashed the other two and then themselves for some reason. It's possible, is all I'm saying. To me, 'Hydreilius' sounds like 'hydraulics', so... IDK, maybe waterworks? I mean, at least it gives him something to think about other than 'my life was a lie and this place sucks'? Now there's an idea... those tombstones really are food for thought. Hmmm... calling it 'Twin Negotiation' implies to me that both twins were involved, but I do see how that could work...

I always feel too bad to actually do things like that- I felt like a massive douche letting Scarlett die just so I could see what the dialogue was like immediately after her death, and then going back and saving her. So... Nova makes a recovery? Here I thought Aurora straight up killed her... Yeah, it did surprise me that we were getting not just new insight, but also additions to the old one. I'm not really sure why we'd get new insight into a check we already did at this point, unless... IDK, Darkrai quizzes us again? We get brainwashed? Next episode, Scarlett starts a Society For People Who Tried To Sacrifice Themselves. It gets bigger and bigger as the episodes roll on. They have the most awkward meetings in history. (In all seriousness, I do agree about Scarlett.) On the one hand, it could be a tragic commentary about how sometimes, people who do bad things only did them because they didn't have a choice- they needed to help someone who wasn't getting help through the normal means, and at root, they're just like you and me. ...or the devs just wanted to kick us in the emotions a few times. *shrug* Yeah, that's a good point. Admittedly, there's a pretty high chance that whoever wrote the journal wasn't exactly a reliable narrator- they could have been embellishing, making stuff up, or leaving out stuff to make themselves look better. But assuming they *were* telling the truth, I think things are going to get very bad soon. (I will say, if the next part of the game has the player's journey suddenly derailed by a plague of horribly mutated and incredibly strong people and Pokemon, which they accidentally caused, it's going to be an incredibly novel experience.) Maybe we just need to lock Garret in a room with Rosetta and Aaron to watch over him. It's not like they're doing much at this point... The player is... Eden! And Majira! And Majira's secret kid, Majora (and their mask)! And Lilith's long-lost sister! And Amelia and Ava's secret cousin! And Kuiki, who went back in time to save himself! All at the same time! The protagonist's real secret weapon is the Big Sad Puppy Dog Eyes. Nobody can say no. Given the existence of Ruby, Bronze and Bountilia Islands, there's probably a surplus of tiny little islands that Legendaries could be hiding in. (Or, the Dreamscape, of course.) I don't know that we will obtain Darkrai... given that it's the big bad of the game, it seems more likely that we'll kill, banish or imprison it somewhere. We might get *a* Darkrai, but I don't think it'll be *the* Darkrai. As for your points: 1. Excellent point. I wonder, did Aurora or Shiv accidentally kill or banish their parents, like that one kid in the Twilight Zone? 2. Ooh, now there's a thought. Arcanius really does sound like it'll be full of plot. 3. Maybe... IDK, the Dreamscape Fragments are called that because they were literally dreamed up? They're not actually real, hence why they didn't work when collected? 4. See, I'm guessing that Darkrai was looking for dreamers the whole time, so once one developed/manifested/whatever, he'd yoink them into his clutches as soon as he could. 5. I don't recall that one, remind me? 6. That really would be good. Nice idea.

Well, shit, I knew I forgot to do something. Sorry. Happy new year to everyone reading this. I agree, I feel like V7 is when they're really going to start hitting us with the consequences. (Speaking of consequences, I can't remember if I already asked or not, but do you have any idea what happens in V6 if you don't save Nova? I don't think anyone posted videos or anything like that.) It does feel like the Visinite Current thing is going to turn into a Big Thing, so if anyone's going to make a sacrifice, stupid or otherwise, that sounds like a likely place for it. We'll probably have to find another key item or something... or maybe touching the Perfection serum will have something to do with it? It lets us sense something we can use to talk someone down? Yeah, honestly, looking at the heroes, if you asked 'Which of these people would not sacrifice themselves', I feel like the only real answer would be the MC because if the MC dies, we don't have a game. (Well, at the very least, one can assume that they wouldn't stay dead.) But yeah, it does feel like morale will be gone if anyone sacrifices themself. Hell, even if someone only gets badly hurt and not dead, it'd be a blow to morale. I'm also hoping that Hardy and Zoroark don't die, mainly because I can see how this would be an incredibly tragic end to his story and he really doesn't deserve that. Oh, shit, I never thought of that- the player/Waldenhall being patient zero. For all we know, even if they're not, the player having had contact with the Perfection serum might have a similar effect. The only person it's had an effect on so far is Garret, so we should probably keep an eye on him in case weird stuff starts happening. Given how much they've been hinting at the player's past, I'm guessing some Big Revelations are incoming. True, we'll have to politely ask about it, I'm sure they'll share. /s I could definitely buy the other Swords of Justice being protectors of something, and I could also buy them turning up in future Ranger quests. Problem is that the beasts and birds seem like they'd be found in similar places- like, Raikou could absolutely show up in Visinite Current, but it seems like an equally good place to find Zapdos, you know? We call in the protagonist of Rejuvenation so we can borrow their Snag Machine. Everyone watches in amazed horror as Darkrai goes down to a single Poke Ball. No, no, it turns out that Serenity *was* Arceus all along. It's the equivalent of those fairy tales where someone gets given a secret test of character by a disguised fairy. Otherwise, the Regis turning up in the caves would be cool. I could see a Marshadow hiding in the Dreamscape too, seems like a good place for the little munchkin.

Honestly, I will be very surprised if the devs don't try to torture us with Tristan at some point in the future. I mean, that's what fan favourites are for, right? I feel like we'd be most likely to see significant consequences for Scarlett in the next episode and onwards, because that's when we need all hands on deck, y'know? Without Scarlett, not only is the team down a member, but Connor doesn't have the stabilising influence, which means he's probably going to do something stupid. I agree that Lilith does definitely seem like the most obvious candidate because she's in the worst situation, but outside of the Darkrai Gang... hmmm. I can see Garret making a dumb/heroic sacrifice to save Eden, or Reeve making a dumb/heroic sacrifice to stop Waldenhall and redeem himself along the way. Or possibly Emily dying to destroy morale? Not sure. Otherwise, my other bet would be Hardy, either to redeem himself or because he's realised that his situation is so pointless that there's no point in continuing. That's actually a really, really good point: I can see Waldenhall, Amelia or someone else who knew about Perfection and had less scruples than Reeve intentionally distributing artificial Perfection or spreading word of how to attain it in order to get more test subjects, or to wreak havoc over Ayrith, or just to slow the protagonists down. It'd be like Pokerus: everyone would want it to make their Pokemon stronger, even if it wasn't proven to be safe. And if the potential effects of humans reaching Perfection were known, I bet a lot of people would take it in a flash. I suppose, since Lilith never attained Perfection with her Umbreon, there's no reason why it wouldn't stay Perfected if she died before it. If she had, then yeah, it might lose Perfection, but that's a whole other scenario... Oooh, protagonist-specific text, now there's an idea... Rejuvenation's been doing some great protagonist characterisation in the later episodes, I'd be hyped for some like it in Desolation. I'm not sure where else we might find legendaries in Desolation- at least, where we've seen so far. Any ideas? We'll have to add it to the very long personalised list of reasons to kick Darkrai's ass. It's getting really long at this point...

Yeah, it's definitely a game that invites speculation, there's just so much to talk about. Honestly, given how popular Tristan is, I'd be surprised if that's the last we see of him, even if he does only get brought back as a nightmare. AFAIK, the fandom's basically adopted him as Desolation's resident poor little meow meow so I think we'll likely see *something* of him again. Future deaths is actually a really, really interesting topic to speculate on. So far (compared to Reborn and Rejuvenation at least) Desolation's actually been pretty conservative with the amount of characters that have been killed off, and it gives you the chance to save a couple. (Which actually leads to a really interesting question: I wonder if in future episodes, there'll be some situation or reveal that makes it so that letting Scarlett or Nova die might actually have been a good choice?) But if you look at it, the common factor is that they've all been working for Darkrai, either directly or indirectly, so it looks like the most likely victims are Nova, Lilith, Shiv, or the inevitable character who's been working for Darkrai the whole time and we never knew. Now that we mention it, getting to Darkroot finally is going to be really interesting for the sole reason that it's basically the closest thing the MC has to a hometown. Hopefully we'll find out more about the MC there, even if it's just 'how's the shrimp allergy going' or 'Is your least favourite colour still grey'. Actually, Darkrai pulling a 'do not adjust your TV set' to announce its takeover of the world would kind of be hilarious. (Especially if it turns out that it's just because Aurora always wanted to be a TV personality.) It would be kind of hilarious if the MC just wound up changing history by sheer accident. They fell on a time travel device, politely asked some angry-looking people to calm down and whoops, they just ended a war. Oh, we're definitely in for tough battles no matter what, but hopefully we'll get through them. And I'll be rooting for your success too. That's the next episode: everyone goes to Teila Resort to undergo rest, relaxation, spa treatments, and group therapy. They return to Ayrith with the whole group having received a total glow up. Dragon would be really cool too! And maybe we'll find Palkia and/or Dialga in the Grid sometime in the future. That's actually a really good question, and I don't know. (I would have happily adopted any of Tristan's mons, but the game had to kick us in the collective dick...)

(Look at us, we've hit three pages, lmao) Oh, shit, that gauntlet is a fantastic idea. I mean, AFAIK there's nothing we can do to save Tristan, but I wouldn't be surprised if there winds up being more people we can save/let die at later points. Yeah, I could buy Booker turning up later on the other islands. (Although it would be very interesting if it turned out that Booker and Tristan were the same entity or something. IDK how that would work, it would just be cool.) That would also be hilarious. Team Anti-Assist exist to get kicked around. There is so much potential for awkward conversations in Desolation, it's hilarious. It's almost like the world is set up to only let the MC go to certain places... nah. Queer Eye For The Darkrai, coming to Cellia! Ryder is like a one-man slapstick show. He's a menace to society, it's hilarious. Yep, that's the one thing Booker and Aurora can agree on. Next episode has them teaming up to hunt Waldenhall down for crimes against books. Hmmm... well, we've already had time travel once in this game. Maybe the MC will accidentally turn out to be the trainer who ended the war? Sounds like they'd make a great distraction, though. (Well, 'great' in the sense of 'enormous'.) Yeah, if we face a gauntlet like that, I'm probably going to give up, there's only so much I can handle. Perfection Umbreon/Mega Mightyena were bad enough. Next episode: Connor gets therapy. The Grid field might give Psychic types a boost? Otherwise, I don't really know. Given the technology aspect, maybe Steel as well? Booker or Nova do sound like the most likely ideas, but there's just no way to tell. :(

I'm not sure if the player could bring Tristan back... or at least, bring him back *properly*. Aurora and/or Shiv might have the power, but I don't know if they knew him well enough to get 100% Tristan and not, like 75% Tristan. The player has the memories, but not the power. Might need all three? (I definitely think we can expect to see Darkrai haunting us with Tristan and anyone else we lose in the future, though.) Does Booker have an Ayrith equivalent? Have we met him/heard about him? Did Darkrai make him up? I genuinely can't remember. Haha, instead of the Foxes it's Team Anti-Assist. No making life better for formerly-brainwashed villagers allowed! See, all of those are great ideas, but there's also room for the world's most awkward conversation about brothers. "My big bro's such a dork, he takes everything so seriously and he got mad at me for being late and he kept trying to date Rosetta even though she turned him down all the time." "...my brother ignored me for most of my life, and then after I left home and got into trouble, he threw me in here as a punishment. And then once I looked old enough that nobody would believe me if I said we were related, he let me out... but then he came back and threw me in here again." "...uh." Signs, tiny ponds that anyone older than three could step over, Psyducks with headaches, chairs, the world's thinnest trees... The Docks falling under Rosetta's purview does make sense, I guess. But the rest of Cellia certainly deserves to get spruced up. I'm just imagining Cedric falling into a state of despair at the fact that he probably got picked right out of school to go on this mission, he's been preparing for ages, this mission could make or break everything not just for him, but for Ayrith... and he wound up having to work with Ryder. (In another room, Ryder trips on his perfectly-tied shoelaces and knocks himself silly on a bench.) Honestly, I'd murder Waldenhall for torching the labs if I had a chance. That was *pure history* he burned. I barely remember anything about the wars in Ayrith, but it's possible that they could have been fighting over Perfection, or using Perfection. I mean, knowing what the PULSE mons did to Reborn, I bet a Perfected mon could do a hell of a lot of damage if it wanted. Oh, Lord, I hope that's not what we get. Some of the battles are already bad enough. Probably with a whole lot of fighting, honestly. I agree, Connor is probably never going to stop being a jerk, but everyone might be able to file a couple of the rough edges off him. Maybe. A Grid field... well, very purple. And starry. Not sure what the effects would be, though. Maybe the promise was to Booker or something?

Well, now that you mention it, Tristan returning isn't actually out of the cards. After all, if Darkrai made him up in the first place, there's no reason why Darkrai can't bring him back. (Knowing Darkrai, Tristan will only get brought back to torment/torture/taunt the player.) Whether he'll get a fabulous new outfit in the process is entirely up to the devs. Oh God yes, Booker is that guy who leaves bitchy comments on everything the twins post and makes really sarcastic memes, while everyone else is like 'Hey, man, they're saving us, lay off them'. And I bet there's a whole bunch of people wondering why a guy as normal as Jarred refuses to wear clothes. Or we just help out like the Goldenwood renovations in Rejuvenation, where it was just 'catch mons to give to the person in charge, then fight off some elite Team Xen guys'. If he did get tossed into the Grid again, then there's a non-zero chance that next episode, we wind up dealing with Kuiki holding Eden hostage... or trying to... or Eden becomes his sidekick. Or maybe we just have to battle Kuiki to get to Eden. Yeah, I absolutely expect there to be a lot of comments about Kuiki from the villagers, next ep. Ledges, small fences, doors that aren't locked but that we can't open, tiny gaps that we should be able to jump over but can't, train tracks... God, yes. It seems kinda weird that the Docks, an industrial area with no Gym Leader, look better than two of the actual districts with resident Gym Leaders. Yep, the best reason to anticipate episode 7: name reveals! Oh, God, Ryder. Yeah, Ryder/Cedric is prime sitcom material. Next ep, the player, Ryder and Cedric wind up in an impromptu buddy-cop thing in their investigations. By the end of it, Cedric is wondering if it's legal to murder someone for incompetence. That is an excellent point and I will do my best not to push myself. (Also, I see what you did there re not rushing perfection. *rimshot*) Yeah, if anyone wants to give fan art of Perfection Legendaries a shot, I am right behind them. It would be kind of hilarious if Aurora decided to become an amateur historian and kept questioning Darkrai and the entity on things that happened hundreds of years ago. Then she finds out that Waldenhall burned down a building full of journals, books and other items from hundreds of years ago, many of which had survived intact (or mostly intact) and decides that she has to murder him because it's the only reasonable response. (And yes, more Aurora/Shiv sibling moments would be wonderful.) Perfected works fine, thank you :) And it would definitely be intriguing if Darkrai was somehow the ancestor or cause of the known Perfected Pokemon. That's a very intriguing thought... ...oh God, even if it can only bolster mons of the same type, can you imagine a battle against Perfection Darkrai and boosted Mega Mightyena? Actually, it begins with Reukra and co coming in all 'Hey, did somebody say Perfection, that's kind of our thing...?' The *least* the MC deserves at this point is all the cocktails they want. Even if it ends with the MC passed out in a corner and losing relationship points because they threw up on Ava's shoes. I agree that Scarlett probably won't be enough by herself. The best friends that Connor has are basically Scarlett, the MC and Ava... maybe all of them together (plus Emily, if she stops bullying him for five minutes) can do it? The lake guardians could be a possibility. Otherwise, the only other vaguely-associated mon I can think of would be Hoopa, but there's been no sign of Hoopa in the game yet. I don't believe it was, so it might come up later.

Dark blue could work. Maybe green? He'd look nice in green, I think. Next episode, we're introduced to the Dreamscape's internet, where Shiv makes memes about how much it sucks to have cool reality warping powers when everyone else is stuck in permanent mediocrity, jk, it's awesome, and Aurora makes videos about why her campaign to take over the whole Dreamscape should succeed. Everyone else is posting memes about how boring the whole place is and there's nothing to do except have existential crises and worry about the imminent collapse of civilisation. In all seriousness, since we're going to be (well, I say we, I doubt the player is doing that much of the actual work) renovating the village, if Keegan/Kuiki does come up again, it'll likely be there. Like, it occurs to me that we're *assuming* that Kuiki's dead, but for all we know, the tombstone with his name on it was just Shiv being dramatic about how the brother he knew is dead, and Kuiki got shipped off somewhere (or maybe Shiv locked him somewhere in the Dreamscape). Not to mention, none of the villagers have a clue what happened to him, only that he vanished. For all they know, he could come back at any moment. So they may well have a lot to say about him. Being the protagonist sucks sometimes. They're subject to the most random hindrances. That's going to be my head canon too. Maybe in the good ending she teams up with Aaron to make Cellia North over entirely. I do hope we get an actual name for the Grand Rogue. And yeah, I think Desolation needs more sitcom moments. There's a lot of potential there. Those guys are going to have the weirdest conversations when they're looking at the village. "So is there a reason why all your houses have huge cracks in the floor that nobody bothered fixing?" "Yeah, the guy who was mind-controlling us didn't want us to have nice things." "OK, and why were you using fire as your light source in a cave with little ventilation?" "I think the oxygen deprivation helped him control us." "What about the town hall with a giant pit in the middle?" "Oh, our leader liked to kill everyone he couldn't mind control or didn't want to keep around by having them fight a Donphan unarmed." "What the actual fuck." I appreciate your faith in me. I'll do my best, though it might take a while. Hmmm, Perfection Lugia... now there's a thought. Actually, now that you mention it, I'm surprised there hasn't been a ton of speculative fan art about what various Perfection legendaries would look like. (Admittedly, it's easy for me to say that, since I can't draw.) See, the two of them teaming up and not liking it could also be hilarious, because then we could get scenes of Aurora and Shiv standing around awkwardly while Darkrai and the entity throw petulant jabs at each other about stuff that happened hundreds of years ago. After a while, Aurora leans over to Shiv and says 'Wow, and I thought overhearing Keegan yelling at you for ignoring him all the time was bad', and Shiv tells her to shut up. Maybe it's not that Perfection has an inherent link to Darkrai. Maybe it's that *the Fragment* has a link to Darkrai. Darkrai used to be Perfect (there has to be a better term for having achieved Perfection, this is clunky) and it isn't now. So maybe the Fragment is part of Darkrai, or used to be part of Darkrai? Maybe Waldenhall finds the Fragment and then he gets mutated into a half-human half-Darkrai abomination and then it turns out we were in Insurgence all along- Oooh, there is so much potential there... even if Umbreon can only buff other Psychic/Dark types, that'd be worth it. (Bring on the Malamar!) Or maybe, would a Perfection Pokemon buff other Perfection Pokemon? It's like that Rejuvenation (I can't remember if it was Reborn or Rejuvenation, one of them) where early in the game, you get offered a free trip to Hoenn and if you take it, you just get a game over screen telling you that the player spent the rest of their life relaxing while everyone else suffered. Here, the MC just nopes out to the new resort and gets a free tan and cocktails for defeating Kuiki. Actually, the question of how much Scarlett can do for him right now is a really good one, given that IIRC, at the end of E6 she's worried about him and he doesn't seem to be listening to her or anyone. And in the timeline where Scarlett dies, it could honestly go either way- maybe he decides to become a better person for her, maybe he doubles down on the douchery because of his pain and anger.

Sorry for the wait, I completely lost track of the days. Next up is Darkrai and its pawns giving people makeovers. They teach Tristan how to wear colours that aren't brown. Reeve is the guest consultant. For all we know, Darkrai dreamed up the manor for its kids. Comes with free electricity, hot water and a library, but no internet or they'd just get distracted. God forbid Shiv find his purpose making memes on Rotomblr, or Aurora begin her life's work of making videos where she tears down scientific theories on MewTube. (I'd say something about Keegan, but nobody cares about Keegan, let's be real.) Ah, yes, the plight of our hero. We can take down terrorist gangs, overcome Darkrai's brainwashing, help hundreds of people all over Ayrith and teleport around the Dreamscape, but we can't get around some potted plants. It's such a tragedy. Yeah, those are all good ideas. Could be anything, but the construction material is a worthy thought. (Maybe Aurora's into construction and architecture on the side?) I really hope if we do get the team-up, that the devs make it like a sitcom road trip. It just seems like prime comedy material, especially if Sera comes along as well and she and the Grand Rogue spend the whole time bitching at each other about things from the old days. "You never apologised for drinking my coffee!" "Yeah, well, you never paid me back for lunch that one time!" I mean, now that you mention it, 'not intended for gladiatorial combat against a Donphan' is both accurate and extremely hilarious as a criterion. I can just imagine the poor villagers having to specify that to the baffled construction workers. Well, it's not chapter 4 that's the problem, it's the second interlude after it. As it turns out, awkward conversations that neither participant wants to have are not my forte. See, now I'm thinking about other Perfection Legendaries. I guess we're lucky that Teams Aqua and Magma didn't have access to Perfection- Origin Groudon and Kyogre were bad enough, I can only imagine what Perfection Groudon and Kyogre could do. That's a really good point, actually. I think a lot of us assumed that the mirror entity is Darkrai's trainer, but that doesn't mean they'll be best friends even if that is the case. Maybe the mirror entity will think Darkrai's a failure, or Darkrai will throw a tantrum and be like 'I don't need you, I can do it by myself' and storm off. Yeah, there's just so many possibilities for what the Fragment could be. I guess I assumed the game's icon was meant to be the thing around Darkrai's neck? But it also looks kind of like a crown. Maybe the Fragment looks like a crown? (The Fragment being part of a Perfection Pokemon's body would also be cool. I wonder if being around Lilith's Umbreon can make Pokemon stronger?) If it's a duel of illusions I can see the MC just walking away and going 'Nope.' That's how the plot ends, everyone realises that they were all Foxes and don't have anything to fight about, and then it's just a lot of awkward apologies. And hopefully he has Scarlett on hand to help de-douche him a bit. (God, he needs it.)

The phrase 'Queer Eye For The Darkrai' jumped into my head and I'm even more convinced that I'm going to Hell. Yeah, there's a ton of options. Short of them being actual dreams brought to life or something, I think it's safe to say that there's some weird shit going on with them. (Dumb theory: they're the dream-children of Darkrai and Cresselia.) And the house is another question- why is there just a random empty manor on a mountain, conveniently empty for three parentless kids to live in? Even better, the other person who warned us about Elliot- Jarred. We have to team up with the Grand Rogue, who's a dick, and Jarred, who's Jarred, to somehow find the orb. (And then Jarred will probably try to backstab us so he can get Lugia back.) Keneph Beach (and the Caves) could really use a spruce up, that's for sure. Especially the Caves, given that all the homes were really primitive and the floors were cracked. (And they really needed some light sources.) Thanks, I'm glad you like it :) Hopefully as long as we don't go full Inception, we should be fine. (Emphasis on should.) I guess the problem is that we really don't have any idea what Perfection Darkrai is capable of. Lilith's Perfection Umbreon is certainly tough, but any Perfection Legendary would be a nightmare, and Darkrai... I guess it could do anything with nightmares, huh... It's like a giant jigsaw puzzle. We're throwing pieces into the spaces we don't have, and once E7 comes out, we'll know where more of the pieces go, even if we got some of the earlier ones in the wrong places. Actually, you might have a point about Garret. He didn't know anything about Perfection and AFAIK doesn't have any special powers, but the entity said something to Waldenhall about 'the fate of all your kind'. If it was talking about humanity, I can see the entity targeting people around the player to mess with them, and Garret was one of the first on the scene... That is a really, really good question. Maybe they moved regions to stay hidden, or they lost their Perfection, or they're actually the priests at the Kanzen Temple. It seems likely that the writer is the entity. Maybe the entity is the Fragment itself, come to life? Or the writer merged with the Fragment to become the entity? Honestly, the Fragment thing always seemed kinda off to me because AFAIK, Perfection isn't meant to be something tangible, so how can there be a fragment of it? Was it meant to be, like, a preserved part of a Perfection Pokemon's body or something? I mean, if they're both Perfected, then probably Darkrai by way of being a legendary. If Darkrai isn't, then probably Zoroark. Everyone's a Fox! Rosetta's a Fox, Connor's a Fox, we're both Foxes... Redcliff does have its own arena, so it seems like a good place for a Leader. It's got the Lab, too, and I can see the powers that be (well, they don't exist in Ayrith, but still) wanting a Leader there to handle the Keneph Village situation, at least until the player got there.

So basically, Darkrai just needs some decorating classes and the entire plot of Desolation could be avoided. I vaguely remember something about fifteen years in there, but I don't recall if that's fifteen years since Majira went missing, or since Elliot joined, or what. If we're assuming the twins are somewhere around their thirties (well, I am at least), they could definitely have been causing trouble for Majira. And God knows a couple of superpowered teenagers with no real leash is the definition of a nightmare. (pun not intended) That being said, the twins turning out to be immortal does seem like a plausible idea- I've been wondering about them for a while. Their diaries said it's always been them and Keegan, but how did they take care of themselves as kids with no adults? Were they abandoned as teenagers, are they amnesiacs, what gives? That's a good point, I can see Majira wanting his successor to be able to play nicely with others. (Speaking of playing nicely with others, am I the only one who suspects that the next instalment of the Elliot sidequest will involve us teaming up with the Grand Rogue?) E7's new plot: Darkrai takes decorating classes and teams up with Emily to renovate Blackview. (Also, from what we've been shown, I think it'll be a bit of both- we get side quests helping to build the resort, but I imagine the whole thing won't be finished until a certain point in the story.) Yeah, those definitely seem like the most likely locations to me as well. Hope you enjoy it :) It seems likely to me that it tries to influence people through dreams- after all, Darkrai couldn't get back into Ayrith until the end of E5, so it's not like it could just appear in front of people and mind-whammy them. Getting them through their dreams seems like the most logical way for it to happen, especially if it did it really slowly and subtly, so they didn't even realise it at first. Honestly, given that Darkrai has Shiv and Aurora, hopefully it can't actually soup their powers up, or the protagonists are going to be in a world of trouble. It would genuinely be hilarious if the entity was just like 'Yeah, I like silver more than gold, it's not that big a deal'. True, but if she was obsessing over her parents' deaths, she might have disregarded it. And yeah, this is just speculation, unless the devs walk in and hand us a bunch of answers on a platter, which somehow I don't think is going to happen any time soon. :( Yeah, Lilith does seem like an obvious target, even if all the entity does is profoundly mock her for not attaining Perfection with Umbreon. You've lost me with Garret, though- why him? I went back and rewatched that bit. This is purely conjecture, but I have a theory that the writer wasn't one of the original settlers, they came in slightly later- either in the second wave or maybe a child of one of the settlers. I came up with a timeline, that's probably wrong in places, but it goes kind of like this: 1. The original settlers come to Arcanius and make some kind of settlement/base camp. 2. They fall out, fight each other and some if not all of them attain Perfection. 3. They wind up resolving things (at least, some of them do) and go back to settling Arcanius. 4. The writer and a group of others discover the Perfection Fragment somewhere. The writer attains true Perfection; the others attain some kind of subpar/artificial Perfection. 5. There's some kind of big argument amongst everyone, presumably over what to do with the Fragment. The writer, who advocated studying it/reproducing its effects, is banished, and the others who attained Perfection come with them. 6. The group flees to the area that would become Fairbale Town with the Fragment and make their haven. 7. Despite all their attempts, everyone dies except the writer and their Pokemon. The bit I haven't got figured out is that apparently the writer had already tried this once, and it ended with everyone except them dying of artificial Perfection. To me, the bit about Arcanius' purity sounds like a reference to settling/industrialisation- the writer was angry that the other settlers were felling trees, clearing ground and so on to build on the land and farm. (Of course, it could be something else entirely.) Or it could just be that the writer thought that nobody should live on Arcanius full stop, even if they didn't clear any land to do it. That would make a hilarious amount of sense- how do you defeat an illusion? With a better illusion! And who can do the best illusions? Perfection Zoroark! *jazz hands* Yeah, E7 has the writers troll us by having Delica turn out to be a Fox or something. But you're right, if Delica isn't the last Leader, we don't know who is, and it feels weird for Arcanius to only have one Leader. Oh God yeah, we're excelling at our jobs, heh.

I wouldn't be surprised if Darkrai missed Ayrith. The Dreamscape is pretty drab compared to it, and even if Darkrai did create the Dreamscape to have its own place to play God, I bet it'd get pretty boring after a while. If the Dreamscape was meant to be a refuge, maybe it's stopped serving that purpose once everyone seeking Darkrai died or forgot about it. I guess it really depends on how much Majira might have known about the twins or anyone else. The timeline's pretty vague on how old Majira was, how long ago he vanished, and so on, so it's possible that he just might never have heard about them. Yeah, I can buy there being a puzzle, or maybe some kind of gauntlet battle. After all, even the MC hasn't found all the keys themselves- I remember Sera finding one. So maybe it's a test in case someone got the keys without really doing any searching themselves. Crime does seem like the obvious answer, especially since the Rangers lost their base. But I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out that there was something else to it. Maybe all Majira needed was to get Adrienn over to renovate Blackview. I fully expect there to be more Pieces on Arcanius in the future, given how big the island is... maybe there's another Piece on Cellia and nobody's managed to figure out how to find it yet? Part 3 just went up today :) I wonder, can Darkrai influence people through their dreams? I'm probably not phrasing this properly, but like... instead of just straight up brainwashing them, can it slowly, subtly change their minds and the way they think, using dreams as a way to get into their heads? This is probably wrong, but since Darkrai is such a powerful dream manipulator, is it possible that being controlled by Darkrai can enhance the abilities someone already has? That being controlled souped up the twins' powers, maybe kept the ones Nova stole from Aurora going? ...yeah, I'm probably wrong. I recall the mirror entity referring to Perfection as something like 'a crown of brilliant, blinding silver'. Not sure why it would be silver and not gold, but if Perfection has something to do with Cresselia, I guess it could be like moonlight? And since the statues hold lanterns, maybe it'll be a puzzle about following the lights or something? That actually makes perfect (pun not intended) sense. I wonder, when Lilith wrote after Umbreon achieved Perfection that it had become moody, was this really a change in personality, or was it just the first time she'd realised it? Although, I guess it could also be that their bond wasn't that strong because Lilith was prioritising her quest for answers/revenge re: her parents' deaths, which Umbreon may not have prioritised? (I guess it depends on when/where Lilith got Umbreon and how well it knew her parents.) Yeah, I'm also inclined to say that the mirror entity is the former resident of the Settler's Ruins. And yeah, Reeve said that whoever the entity is, their Pokemon must not have ascended with them, which is why they're still stuck partially on this plane. I guess there's no reason why, if the mirror entity isn't Darkrai's trainer, they couldn't have known Darkrai and its trainer regardless. Maybe Darkrai's trainer was another settler? The entity certainly wanted to keep Perfection all to itself. I guess Lilith wouldn't be a problem because only her Umbreon achieved Perfection. Reeve never got there and doesn't seem to want Perfection for himself, but Waldenhall sure does, so it makes sense that the entity would target him over either of the other two (or Garret, just because he went into the Ruins). The MC, on the other hand, gets special status by way of being the MC. So I could buy that maybe the entity went after the settler for trying to take what it saw as theirs. I would actually not be at all surprised if Darkrai, the entity, the twins or both started screwing with the MC by making them hallucinate, see and hear the wrong things. It'd really throw everything out of whack if the MC can't trust their own senses. And it's not like Nova can help, since she's lost her power. (God, it'd be screwed up if the heroic way to deal with the evil!twins is to have Nova steal their powers again.) I think my brain did screw with me on that one. It also occurred to me that we just assumed that Delica is a Gym Leader even though all we know about her is that she has something to do with imports from Astraciel. Might have jumped the gun a bit. I feel like part of our job as fans is to overthink everything, LMAO. ;)

That's actually a really good question. I can't imagine that creating the Dreamscape would have been at all easy, so I doubt that Darkrai did it on a whim. My best guess on a whim is that it was created either as a playground (i.e. where Darkrai could do whatever it wanted whenever it wanted) or as a refuge, somewhere it could go where nobody else could. I feel like there's definitely more to it, though. Maybe Darkrai made the Dreamscape because it could, only to wind up imprisoned there. Oh, that's a great point. Maybe it's both? Maybe the threats of old are Darkrai and its trainer, and Majira set the whole Rest thing up as a puzzle, so only the person best equipped to defeat Darkrai could release Cresselia, not some dipshit with no clue? Just... eyes. So many eyes. Like a Spiritomb made of eyes. I'm willing to bet that A, there's a lot more underground in Cellia than we've seen, and B, there might be more Pieces on Arcanius in the future. I agree that it does seem like we're running out of colours, but as long as we don't wind up with a Taupe Piece and a Puce Piece, we should be good. Thank you, I'm very glad you enjoyed it. Part Four is nearly done, and once that's done I'll post Three. That's all very possible. I wonder, how much influence *can* a dreamer have? Like, the most the player can do is teleport, but if Aurora could turn a shrub into a Turtwig, is it possible that she and Shiv could make up whole towns? New people? New areas? I went and checked on Patreon, the alt art shows a bit more so it's clear that the wings are of the angel statues. As for the rest... I'm not sure. The gold looks like decoration to me, but the cracks... with the ones in the alt art, I'm inclined to say that it's meant to be symbolic. Possibly a loss of faith, whether it's in some kind of deity or in somebody Reeve trusted (aka Waldenhall)? Otherwise, the gold could be something like kintsugi? I mean, I figured Reeve just dyed the whole city purple 'cause it's his favourite colour. As for the rest, I feel like there's two options here: one, the statues are part of some big puzzle where we have to run around and tag certain statues in an order to open something. Or, two, the statues are used by the Council to spy on people somehow. (Or Reeve is just really religious, who knew?) Initially, I thought the Grid experiments were just for better mobility, like how Aaron talked about with the portal in the North base. But you're right, I think you're on to something with the 'reach Perfection' idea. It's possible that maybe some old documents got mistranslated or misunderstood, and they thought it was a place you could reach, not a whole other plane. But yeah, the mirror entity really does seem like a fallen angel. (Wild guess: it's future!Waldenhall, stuck in a time loop.) The more I think about it, the more I wonder about it- Lilith's Umbreon ascended, but (as far as we know), she didn't, so how could the entity ascend while its Pokemon didn't? I know the current theory is that the mirror entity is Darkrai's trainer, but it was stated that the entity's Pokemon didn't ascend, whereas we know that Darkrai *did* ascend once. So is the mirror entity what's left of the person who wrote all those journals in the ruins? Did they screw around with Perfection and *really* screw it up? Hell, for all we know, the mirror entity is Majira and his Pokemon is in the Rest. I would actually buy Jarred being an alien, LMAO. As for the other question, I'm still holding out for a post-game ending where the MC of Reborn walks in, walks up to Shiv and punches him in the face without saying a word. Everyone else is like 'WTF' but Shiv recognises them and says "Yeah, I deserved that", whereupon the MC nods and walks out, and someone asks why the hell the Champion of Reborn just punched Shiv in the face. Yeah, it definitely seems like they know each other. If the entity can do more of its weird tricks, we could be in for a really fun time. I tried looking, but I didn't find anything despite distinctly remembering Reeve talking about her. Either I didn't look hard enough or my mind's playing tricks on me. I can see Lilith doing a 'travel all over the region to get stronger' journey. And yeah, Delica might know something. It's entirely possible that it's just a cool symbol and we're way overthinking it, but honestly, overthinking it's part of the fun. I love speculating about this stuff.

Replies ^21: OK, so that makes me wonder: when did Darkrai make the Dreamscape? Did he make it back when he'd still had his Perfection form? Is the increased number of dreamers in Ayrith a response to the Dreamscape's existence? Yeah, Cresselia could well be trapped in her own Dreamscape, or something. Or maybe she's in the depths of the Grid. (Maybe Eden's going to ride out of the Grid on Cresselia's back, they attain Perfection and kick Darkrai/Waldenhall's asses?) I can see Dark/Ghost Perfection Darkrai, but maybe it'll become a total abomination and wind up as Dark/Dragon or Dark/Fire or something, who knows. And it'll have like sixty eyes and five wings or something. Maybe the Pieces will lead us to Cresselia? I definitely think there's more to the East Sewers than we think (which, given that they canonically contained a Crescent hideout, is saying something). And the North Sewers led to that cave system, so maybe there's more caves beneath Cellia. I think we might be on to something here... They're on AO3, you can see what I've got so far here. I've been thinking about posting it in the art thread, but I'm not sure if fic is eligible, and also the first few chapters get really dark and later chapters get really smutty. (And dark.) I hope you enjoy it! Yeah, Sera and Aderyn would be good. And Dan/Lucas would be adorable in a 'these two dumbasses should hook up' way. Like, I guess you could say Odis is the counterpart to Addenfall, but it's not really much of a counterpart... Hmm. Maybe we'll get something like that bit in Reborn where the PC gets swallowed by a black hole, winds up in the void and sees weird shit going on. (Technically we kind of already did before the big Darkrai fight, so maybe we'll get a longer reprise?) It's also a pretty interesting thing to have scattered all over a city. Statues, fine, but why so many angel statues? Did Reeve put them in specifically, or did someone in the Council put them in? Otherwise, I'm not sure. Maybe the entity in the mirror is like a fallen angel or something, who knows? It turns out the whole game was a giant crossover with Insurgence and nobody in Ayrith is human. Surprise! *jazz hands* I feel like there's some real potential there. Darkrai may do dreams and not illusions as such, but he's been able to fuck with the player before, with the whole Tristan thing. For all we know, he could start trying to drive the player insane- Ava nearly died in the lava, and depending on the player's actions Scarlett could have died in Blackview, so Darkrai could throw apparitions of dead Ava and dead Scarlett at us- or he could just start sending the player awful nightmares. Oh God no, not another Darkness Field Perfection Umbreon battle, please... I can't remember where Reeve talks about Delica, so I can't recall what exactly he said about her. I might try again at another time. But for all we know, she's another fashionista scientist, lmao. IIRC, Garret said that Lilith's from Cellia, but it's possible that she was born somewhere else and moved to Cellia as a child, or that she deliberately left Cellia to train. That is a good find. And it makes a lot of sense, too. (And yeah, it's one of the reasons why I love this game so much, there's always so much more to discover and talk about.)

Replies 19^: Now I can't remember, was it explicitly stated that Darkrai created the Dreamscape, or is that just what we all assumed? And yeah, why are there so many dreamers in Ayrith? I feel like there's two answers to that question that suggest themselves: 1, catch the mon, stick it in a box and leave it there. 2, the mon basically hibernates somewhere safe, but not with a telling name like 'Fullmoon Island', somewhere like a cave in a mountain range that's normally impassable. (Or, now that I think about it, the mon hides somewhere like the Dreamscape. Maybe Cresselia made her own version, with Pokemon blackjack and hookers?) I'll take a guess that Perfection Cresselia is strong against Dark somehow. We don't know if Perfection Darkrai will be another type, but it would make sense for Perfection Cresselia to be Fairy. I imagine the schools in Cellia South aren't exactly renowned for academical excellence, sadly. I think the Dreamscape would be classed as a lucid dream, but whether it's a nightmare or not really depends on how the dreamer sees it. As for finding Cresselia in Cellia, that's a very interesting idea. Maybe there's a gateway in the East Sewers or something? Or maybe she's in the sky above Cellia. Honestly, it feels like a miracle that I've got as far as I have. I've got three chapters published and the next one is almost as long as all of them put together. I could also see Ava/Scarlett, and for some reason Aderyn/Sera just jumped into my head. Ava/Reeve could be really interesting, it feels like those two have some history. Now I'm starting to wonder if we'll find places in Ayrith that resemble/approximate areas in the Dreamscape, like the cave and the lake. I feel like there must be some kind of equivalent in the real world. It does feel like there's a lot more to darkness than we think. I wouldn't be surprised if we wind up encountering cults that worship darkness and light as sacred to Darkrai and Cresselia. As for the title art, that's a really good point. The Waldenhall/Reeve thing is obvious, but the triangles really are very reminiscent of the Darkness Field, and as for the wings... they look kind of like the ones of the statues that are all over Cellia East, but I don't know if that's what they're meant to represent. Some sort of angel reference? I actually like that theory a lot. After all, IIRC we never learned where the Settlers originated from, and with the Grid being a thing, who's to say that they didn't come from another dimension or something? Oh daaaaaamn, I never even thought of that. But given how big a decision it was, I'd be lying if I said I'm not wondering if future episodes will have dead!Scarlett show up. Double oh daaaaamn, I didn't think of that either. I guess I assumed that Reeve and Delica had mutual fashion interests, but maybe she does study Perfection. In that case, could she have some kind of link to Lilith? Is Delica Lilith's secret identity? Somewhere in Ayrith, there's a trainer who beat the Leaders, got through the Elite Four and got swept by Shiv's Aipom. They never showed their face in public again.

Yeah, that's what I meant, I phrased it wrong.

Short version: the people in the league didn't exist in real life. The whole thing was made up by Ame, who role-played as the various leaders and eventually brought in friends to help because it became huge. If you get into the secret room in Reborn and ask Cass to talk to Ame, she fills you in a bit more. There's also this post here: https://amethystblack.tumblr.com/post/688556649350414336/big-fat-spoilers-ahead-for-the-dev-room-at-the-end

Replies ^17: That does make a lot of sense. I have to wonder, how big is the Dreamscape in total? Between the twins and Nova, they populated it with a ton of people. IIRC, Nova said that all of the inhabitants of the Dreamscape are people like her and the twins, dreamers who Darkrai discarded, but can there really be that many people in Ayrith with dream powers? I know we've seen a few people around stuck in the dream, and Rosetta mentioned that she'd heard of people who'd been in Odis and woke up, but if everyone in the Dreamscape is a dreamer, shouldn't half of Ayrith be in a coma? Is it possible that at least some of the Dreamscape residents are actually figments/created by Darkrai, like Tristan was? Assuming that we'll be seeing at least one more settlement, it just doesn't add up. I feel like it would make a lot of sense for Cresselia to have some kind of vital role in the endgame. For all we know, maybe there's another church/cult/whatever who worship her. Or maybe Darkrai had his agents lock her away, who knows? Maybe Lilith's looking for her? Knowing the devs, they're going to make it extra painful. Like giving us a gauntlet battle where everyone has a new Mega or something. Those are all really good ideas. I wonder what Perfection Cresselia would look like? ...maybe, if we're a settler, is Perfection Cresselia our Pokemon? For all we know, she thinks we're dead? Or something along those lines? Maybe Darkrai chased her out of Ayrith... Holy shit, I never thought of that. Now I'm wondering something- Crescent's original goal was to put everyone in an awesome dream world, but why would anyone go to Darkrai for that, given that Darkrai's entire schtick is nightmares? It's not like that's a secret, either- everyone knows that Darkrai causes nightmares. So I'm wondering, what if Crescent's original goal was to try to get Cresselia to put everyone into the dream, but they got taken over by Nova, and Darkrai got them to change the goal a little or something? And Cresselia being in the Wildwoods would definitely make everything a lot more interesting. You're right, I don't think regular Cresselia would have the power to take out Darkrai. But if the player winds up getting Cresselia and she attains Perfection, that'd be a whole other thing entirely. Maybe we'll be alongside Cresselia, Perfection Darkrai and their trainer bearing down on us, and then boom, time to get nasty. I mean, I've been writing a fanfic that revolves around Reeve/Garret, Garret/Rosetta and Rosetta/Reeve, and that's just the start of it. Otherwise, I feel like Emily/Rosetta has potential. And I think a big part of the fandom ships MC/Tristan. Have you got anything in mind? I know we've been asking what Perfection really is, but now I think we need to be asking what darkness really is. Because while 'the absence of light' is obviously part of it, it seems to be wound up in emotions and lots of other things. It's surprisingly complex. It also seems to be wound up with Perfection, so for all we know there's an extensive mythos around all of it. ...or we've been way overthinking things.¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It's true, with the Wildwood we could be getting anything from somewhere populated by evil faeries, to haunted by ghosts, to haunted by ghost trees, and so on. It'll be really interesting to find out what's in there. I definitely think design traits between Perfection Pokemon is something to look out for. I swear, if turns out that the Dreamscape was like the inverse reality of Ayrith all along, I'm going to throw something. Delica or whatever her name is could be a lot of things, but I'l go with Poison or Bug as well. Kairo, I'm inclined to say Ground (I would have said Rock but that's Azura.)

1: Damn Atlases. Holding the weight of our frustration on their shoulders. But yeah, it's going to be really interesting when we finally meet the Elite Four/Three/π, unless they all turn out to be holograms or something. I feel like with this game, you *could* have them having the kind of personalities you'd expect from their reputations- Azura as an ice queen/stately noblewoman, Atlas as a noble hero, Damon as a bad boy- or maybe they'll all turn out to be frat kids or something. Replies ^15: I'd put Amelia in her twenties. Maybe somewhere between 22-28? Yeah, I feel like Mesprit showing up is definitely going to lead into something bigger. And with the whole Dreamscape plot in E6, we're not done by any means. Maybe Azelf or Uxie will show up in the Dark Zone, who knows? We definitely need all hands on deck, and I bet Reeve will enter the fray at the most appropriate moment, aka whenever he'd look the most stylish and/or save all our asses. I suppose the question is, if Lilith *isn't* at Astraciel, where would she go and what's her intentions? Does she want to bring down Amelia and reclaim the Foxes? Does she want to destroy the Foxes? Does she want to join us? Is she building a Darkrai Death Ray? I do not know. Oh God, not another gauntlet. Or hypnotised battle. But you're right, Deso has been pretty nice to us so far, which probably means it's going to stop being nice to us shortly. Or maybe I'm just paranoid. I just realised something. Darkrai and darkness are a major part of this game, but nobody ever mentioned Cresselia. You'd think Darkrai's counterpart would be something everyone would be all over, but I don't think there's even been a line about her in the game. So where is she, and what happened to her? Did Darkrai lock her away somewhere, or try to wipe her from everyone's memories? Is Cresselia what Lilith's looking for? Do all the Pieces summon her if you put them together? Yeah, we've kind of spiralled a bit. Hopefully we're an enjoyable read at any rate. We could start speculating on various characters' relationships if we want the devs to have more fun? That's definitely true. Does darkness feed off emotions? Does emotional turmoil lead to darkness? We know Perfection allegedly stems from being in an unwinnable situation with impossible odds, but there must have been a bunch of people in situations like that whose Pokemon didn't attain Perfection, so what makes Lilith different? Was it that she was in the presence of someone who was under the influence/affected by a Legendary? Was it that she was feeling the right cocktail of emotions to attain Perfection? I feel like there's an interesting line of thought there... It's probably full of Oricorio, or militant Flabebe, or Vileplume or something. Or maybe the field's actually haunted. Who knows? The new Megas and Perfection forms are really good. I can't wait to see what Perfection Darkrai looks like. I wonder how Perfection forms for the other Eeveelutions would look? There's also the fact that Darkrai's spent a ton of time in the Dreamscape, which screws with your mind at the best of times. It's entirely possible that Darkrai has some problems telling the Dreamscape apart from reality. I definitely agree that those four NPCs have some kind of importance. I'm not sure what, but they're suspicious. We should probably keep an eye on them. I guess the difference is that we had every reason to believe that Tristan was the Leader, while we've been explicitly told that Jarred is no longer the leader. But it's possible that we might fight him for a badge anyway, I guess. I'm guessing the Astraciel leader is next, then Ava, then Vera, then Kairo. This is a long shot and I'm probably not remembering properly, but I recall there being a mention of someone who I think was called Delia in Astraciel Town who Reeve is on good terms with, I think she's the Astraciel leader. And no, we haven't been told much about Vera except that she's the Dragon-type leader and only appeared on TV once.

I've also been quite busy, sorry. 1. Ah, that makes sense. (Now that you mention it, the Atlas mechs in Mass Effect were a bit of a bitch to fight, generally.) But I do look forward to meeting the Elite Four... three... three plus Ditto... in person. Replies ^13: Yeah, she says 'the boy, Hardy', so he's definitely under 20 (although as someone who is also 30, anyone younger than about 28 is a child to me). I'm definitely looking forward to learning more about Ayrith and the lore. It also occurs to me that the Serenity/Kanzen Temple plot might somehow tie into the Dreamscape's plot with the temples and the weird shit in there. Not sure how, but it's a possibility. I'm also hoping that Reeve joins us for a few reasons- for one, I want him to be like Radomus from Reborn and be able to change outfits to whatever fits the situation. For two, I feel like a bunch of strong Psychic Pokemon could really be helpful. For three, throwing Reeve against Waldenhall would add a really interesting dynamic to the whole thing. And for four, I don't know how much Reeve can do for the team back at his lab. He'd probably be a lot more help out in the field. Good point with the scene of Lilith in the field. It occurs to me, we've (including the characters) all been assuming that we'll find Lilith on Arcanius, but with that clip of her in the field, who's to say that she hasn't been and gone already? For all we know, we'll have to track her all over Ayrith. (Maybe the Pieces are going to form some kind of Lilith-detector?) And it would be pretty poetic if the key to defeating Darkrai was to use Perfection against him. God, if we wind up having to do another Reborn where completing a quest requires ending a battle on a certain stage of the field, I'm leaving. I'm not doing that shit again. Honestly, if Connor does have to battle on the Darkness Field, he deserves it. But yeah, it feels like Darkness as a whole holds a lot of significance, so maybe that's what we should be looking at. I feel like there's a non-zero chance that the devs read this thread and either laugh at what we come up with, take notes, update each other on how many rabbit holes we've fallen down, or pick bits to add into the game. In which case we should probably prepare for an agonising Elite Four lineup where they all turn out to be Dittos working for the Foxes. That's definitely a good catch. I wonder, would any match against someone Darkrai is controlling be on the Darkness Field by default? I noticed that too. Maybe Shiv's secretly into the protagonist? /jk The only thing we really know about the field is that it's full of flowers and presumably wasn't on Amaria Island (and probably couldn't be on Cellia). I feel like Astraciel Forest is the most likely place, given all the stuff we've heard about it. God, yes. Especially since we've got all the new Mega Evolutions, and AFAIK, no two Trainers have used the same one. So I imagine everyone's either going to be packing a Perfection mon or a new Mega mon. Yeah, that would make sense if Darkrai just figured the protagonist must be dead. I suppose there's also the question of how long it's been- maybe Darkrai forgot the particulars? That's an excellent question. Maybe we'll discover 'our' old Pokemon is still alive somewhere. That would be awesome! IIRC, Ava has Cradily, Meganium and I think Tropius (if that hasn't been changed), but any of those would be a good choice for a new Mega.

1. OK, I gotta ask. Why are you skeptic of people named Atlas in video games? Replies ^11: I think the protagonist is meant to be in their late teens... well, at the very least, they *look* like they could be in their late teens, maybe early twenties at the most. But yeah, given that this is a Pokemon fan game, they could be 100 years old, or reincarnated, or an android. You never know. And yeah, between the wiki and what was put on the tumblr, it's a bit hard to find concrete information. (But yeah, Hardy being inspired by Azura would be adorable, even if they turn out to not be related.) I remember Lilith calling Hardy a boy- I think Lilith's meant to be about thirty, so I'm guessing Hardy's somewhere between 15-17, definitely not over 19. I feel like Lilith is a really interesting case of... I'm having trouble thinking of the word, but like... ambiguous morality? Like, yeah, she's nice and reasonable and opposed to the villain and has a sympathetic backstory, but she's also the leader of a crime gang who does terrible things. She supposedly did terrible things in the past, but we don't know if any of that actually happened, but she's still responsible for terrible things in the present. She's a good demonstration of how it's not all black and white. We had a lot of Shiv trying to fight off Darkrai's orders during e6. I'm guessing that by this point, he's either thrown off Darkrai's control or succumbed fully, but as to which one... no clue. We'll have to find out the hard way. Yeah, I'm guessing that the Serenity subplot is going to become a lot more important in e7, now that we're on Arcanius and heading to the Temple. It might even integrate with the main plot, who knows. I agree that there's probably something else Reeve can do. As to what... no clue. Get a message to Lilith, or the Elite Four? Distract Waldenhall? Turn up on Arcanius as the world's most fashionable explorer? Who knows? Technically, I guess we don't actually know *what* Lilith is looking for. IIRC, all she said is something like 'Where all this started' and that it's somewhere on Arcanius. Maybe it's where she met Nova, or maybe it's where she met Waldenhall, or maybe it's something else entirely. I went back and checked. When you fight Lilith, you start on... I think it's stage 3 of the Darkness Field, and the intro text is something like 'In an endless sea of darkness, any glimmer of hope fades away'. That's pretty... flowery? Esoteric? for field text. But at the same time, it *does* seem to tie into the whole Perfection thing- the only known Perfection Pokemon are all Dark-types, the whole needing to face unbeatable odds to attain Perfection, and so on. But it also works with Last Resort, tying into it- being in a situation so bad that there's no hope and you literally have to go back to the last resort. (I have no idea if this actually leads up to anything, if it's just a cool Easter egg, or if we're coming up with stuff the devs never thought of, but it is pretty fun.) Yeah, thanks, Connor. God. But that is a good point- maybe it's the Darkness Field, or maybe it's the literal field. If we assume Umbreon attaining Perfection happened somewhere on Arcanius, that could have something to do with it, since there's supposed to be mystical energies and stuff. Or maybe it's that the field is where Lilith caught her Eevee? Shhh, don't give the devs ideas! Oh, who am I kidding, like the Elite Four *won't* be agonising. Even if one of them's a Ditto. Maybe everyone's related somehow. We're all cousins. In all seriousness, I agree that Darkrai didn't seem to recognise us, but it's possible that he was playing dumb in front of the twins or something. Or maybe being an amnesiac and possibly going by a different name made him think we had to be someone else who just looked like the original person?