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They're kinda leaning into it likely being the last stage of their journey, but we'll see how the battle for Laqua pans out. It feels like they're potentially teasing something happening to Terapagos now, and we did see a crystal shatter with it falling into the darkness + it as the pendant again in the new OP scenes they added.

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Just flipping thru TV channels in 1999, looking for something to watch, and just found it playing on the Kids WB afternoon block. (Also, my first ever anime!) Specifically, it was the episode where Ash caught Bulbasaur. Mom and dad got me Yellow and a GameBoy that Christmas, and it's been my main source of brainrot ever since 😂

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I was a Zutara fan back when I was, like, 12 (always liked protagonist x villain ships), and AmeLiko brings back those vibes, but I also like Orla x Mollie too.

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Ngl at first I was slightly disappointed when it was revealed that amethio couldn’t really remember his mother, but i’ve thought about it a lot and it really adds to the tragedy which is amethio’s life.

I have a feeling that whilst he can’t recall specific memories of her, he can recall the fact he was happy with her and can even see it in the photos in his home. He can ever so faintly recall what a happy family home is supposed to feel like and has spent years desperately trying to get it back.

And that just makes his current state all the more harrowing to me. His relationship with Crave is obviously very strained, to the point where he doesn’t even consider Crave having a hand in raising him. Crave doesn’t look at him, and prioritises his work over him… I think Amethio decided from a young age that chasing after his father’s love was a lost cause.

Which is what leads him directly to Gibeon. Gibeon is the only other blood relative that Amethio seems to be aware of. And whilst we’ve seen that Gibeon is very cold towards amethio, there is still the potential for amethio to attain some sort of love from his grandfather. Gibeon has expectations for him, meaning he is considering amethio as part of his life. It’s a completely conditional love, but that at least means that Amethio can obtain said love somehow. So he rationalises Gibeon’s lack of parental affection towards him as his own fault, because if he’s not receiving it then that’s just because he hasn’t worked hard enough to live up to Gibeon’s expectations. And if he someday can, he hopes he’ll finally regain that happy home life he once had…

Even if Amethio is able to make amends with Crave and maybe even Gibeon, I do hope that a lesson he learns in his arc is that your blood family doesn’t have to be your chosen family. Sure, he can reconcile with his blood family, but he doesn’t need to put all of his happiness stocks into them. I think he’s already starting to learn that through Zir and Conia, I hope he gets to make more friends as his arc continues because that poor boy deserves it!

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Pokemon Horizons has a very interesting plot compared to Ash's entire journey

Such has the relationship chart that connects both sides together

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If Friede's eyes reminded her of Gibeon, potential foreshadowing of some similarity between the two there and an idea what may happen to him in Laqua?

(It feels like the OP hints at something happening to him, I have the suspicion we'll somehow lose Friede there. I wonder if he'll get a big old dose of Laquium mist too. Potentially even due to Spinel, since he took an interest in Friede during their battle at the end of Arc 2, and they haven't really built on that yet.)

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Battle with Spinel. Link to video on Youtube

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Orla scolding Friede for wanting to fly the airship over the mountain was so funny.

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Lucius heroically runs away from a woman

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I like how Amethio's response to learning Liko's ancestry is "Yeah, kinda figured as much" 😂

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with ninja raihan theyre matchies now

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Y'know, now that I've seen the episode in full, with how they build the last few moments of this episode up in such a triumphant way, showing the cast's parents and everything, I do kinda worry about this being the last stretch of Horizons. Like, I do DOUBT it will be, since we still have almost two years until Gen10 and no clue what would fill the void till then, and it's likely that Zygarde will get some new form in ZA that they could advertise with Gibeon's Zygarde or they would show him with Complete since that'd be more of a final boss-worthy Pokemon than its 50% form, but there will be that nagging question in the back of my mind till those episodes air, that "What if I'm wrong here?" It's gonna be a bit stressful till then, but personally, I'm hoping they're building things up in that triumphant way, so it will hit HARDER when the RVT lose at Laqua.

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Thinking about amethio and Liko parallels in regard to his mother… If she is dead, which seems to be the case, then I think it adds even more fuel to the ominous shot of Friede in the op. I do think they’re going in the direction of amemom working for gibeon to fulfil his dream but then she died at some point so amethio picked up the will she’d been fulfilling. It’d be very fitting for her to have an amarouge, especially considering it feels like they’ve been saving it to give it to someone important to amethio. This would add an extra layer to the amethio-liko (and even roy) parallels as they’ve both looked up to someone whose main partner is a fire type. Also gender wise it makes sense I guess? The person Liko looks up to is a man, meanwhile the person amethio looks up to is a woman. You don’t really see stories where young male characters look up to female blood relatives so I’m really happy they’re going this direction. But if she is dead, it does add to the growing concern that Friede might end up sacrificing himself at the end of the arc, putting amethio and liko both in the same position of loosing the person they look up to (and amethio looks up to friede as well so he’ll have lost that person twice). This could even be a moment for them to bond over? If friede does sacrifice himself, Liko is absolutely not going to take it well in the slightest and will most definitely blame herself. Amethio knows what it’s like to lose someone, so maybe at that time he’ll be able to offer her the words she needs to hear…

Hopefully we learn more about her soon- at least a name drop and maybe a voice reveal if we’re lucky. Curious to see if Amethio’s reason for switching sides will be linked to her, maybe she discovered the same truth he’s about to and reached the same conclusion…

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The end of that episode was so upbeat- the rvts are definitely getting cooked at Rakua 💀

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Turns out that keepaway game Gouging Fire tested Liko and co. with was also a game it would play with Lucius.