#Fuck Kamado all my homies hate Kamado

[nebsisdead]

DAY 3 OF REWRITING DEMON SLAYER

Zenitsu is gone. I couldn't find a way to make his character good or even worthwhile so he's gone.

I'm just gonna use Asuhina as a replacement.

I don't enjoy erasing the main cast but Zenitsu is insufferable. Give me a break here.

Tanjiro has a lot more personality. He's less of a cardboard cut out now. He gets angry at points and isn't just all smiles all the time.

One of the biggest changes is that Nezuk8 can now talk.

She still can't come out in daylight so she is in the box. But sometimes she will put on a sunhat with alot of blockage and get around that way.

I've pretty much overhauled the entire breathing system. There's alot of bullshit i have to fix.

And I somehow have to fix the abysmal timeline and how NOBODY MENTIONS WORLD WAR FUCKING ONE!?!?!

I got alot of work to do

[pokemenlovingmen]

Okay!! I was able to counter act the links being funky in my app by opening your blog in my mobile browser!!!! so I was able to read your rules n stuff so now I can finally request (yusss!!! also, I saw the "ingo,,, again" under the PLA characters you write for and it made me think "ingo 2,,, electric boogaloo" heheheh. also yeah fuck kamado, all my homies hate kamado)

okay, could I please request a lil drabble (if you only do hc's thats fine of course! I just couldnt find it clearly if you only do hc's) of Adaman taking care of a reader who is on bed rest and healing? the exact stuff of how and what is up to you, for me its more so the comfort and caring side, not so much the angst side (so like, nothing thats like "omg reader was near death" pls?). gender of the reader I dont mind, just do what youre most comfortable with and yee!! thank youuuu

Hi you’ve been such a kind supporter I’m sorry it took me so long to get to you!! And yeah. Fuck Kamado. That exile would have been my villain origin story if the game gave me more agency, I swear to god.

And conversely, we love Adaman. They put him in pokemas and my quality of life has improved significantly <3

Oh and I’m sorry about the lack of clarity of what I do! I do only HCs, but at the level of detail I can’t stop myself from including, they’re kinda like a weird fusion between drabble and headcanons.

Healing Takes Time — Adaman x M!Reader

💎 — Hisui is a dangerous place and injuries ranging from minor to severe are all too common. So Adaman’s not exactly a stranger to presiding over loved ones on bed rest.

💎 — Doesn’t mean he’s good at it, though.

💎 — Mai reminds him that the slow passage of time is just as important as things that happen in the quick, efficient manner that he prefers as well. It’s not a slight from Mighty Dialga being displeased, it’s just the nature of time. But he can’t just stand around when it comes to your health! Yes, rest takes time, he’s aware, but all this waiting feels the same as doing nothing to him.

💎 — Mai basically has to keep him away from you constantly because he’s always fretting over you, which is definitely sweet of him even if it’s not exactly helpful, but it is funny to watch the cartoonish shenanigans of Mai trying to constantly shoo Adaman away from the medical tent.

💎 — Even if what you’re recovering from isn’t serious, you’d never be able to guess that from how he behaves.

💎 — He essentially becomes your primary nurse and seldom lets you out of his sight if he can help it (thanks to Mai being the reasonable one, he usually can’t).

💎 — Once things calm down though, after the first two or three days when your recovery progress is becoming quite apparent, he’s less frazzled and more willing to leave you be. He just can’t help that impatience winning out, though, sometimes.

💎 — He’ll be there to help you with maintaining yourself while you rest, sitting beside your futon while you recover, brushing your hair so you don’t have to, keeping a fresh cold compress on you at all times if the problem is that you’re sick and feverish, changing your bandages if it’s an injury, all that.

💎 — If you’re okay with it, he’ll also happily bring his Leafeon to see you for some good old fashioned grass-type aromatherapy. I know Leafeon can’t actually learn the move aromatherapy, but it’s clearly made of plants and must have some kind of floral/herbal smell.

💎 — And since we know he is a house husband in the making guy with an interest in cooking, you bet he’ll be bringing you all manner of home-cooked meals.

💎 — He’s so dutiful, oftentimes he doesn’t go back to his own tent for the night and will instead fall asleep on the cold floor next to your futon.

💎 — Adaman is very sure to keep you abreast of all goings-on in the clan, usually nothing much of interest, but he does uncharacteristically bring you all sorts of gossip. It’s not that he likes to gossip, but while you’re bedridden he can’t think of much to entertain you with so this is what he’s settled on. And also he probably would like to vent his multitude of frustrations with Melli specifically because you just know 3/5 instances of drama involve some kind of category 5 Melli moment.

💎 — Once you start to recover and leave your bedridden state, he’s still just as present as he was before.

💎 — If it was an injury he’s always making sure you’re not overexerting yourself, and if it’s something that happened to your legs, he’s volunteering to help you walk around so you don’t put too much pressure on the injury.

💎 — For illness he’ll always be on your case about taking whatever medicines/remedies you were instructed to, because your recovery has already taken ages (to him) already, and he’s not sure he can bear seeing you sick for much longer.

💎 — Regardless of the reason you’re bedridden, he’ll always give you a kiss on the forehead when he enters the tent and before he leaves—though if you’re sick, he musters the self control to wait. Ideally he can keep that up, but he might get a little impatient… oh well. He needs to remind you how much he loves you, and if he ends up getting what you have, he knows you’ll care for him just as dutifully as he did you.

[salsa-di-pomodoro]

HEY IS ANYONE INTERESTED IN A GOD TIER REUNION FIC I JUST READ?????? WARNING THERE IS A VERY ANGSTY PREMISE BUT ITS HANDLED IN A VERY FLUFFY WAY STARTING ALMOST AT THE BEGINNING

HERE IT IS!!!!!! SECOND CHAPTER COMES WHEN THE AUTHOR DECIDES. IF THE AUTHOR HAS A TUMBLR PLEASE HELP ME FIND THEM SO I CAN TAG THIS WONDERFUL PERSON

[the-scoreboard]

Ayo what the fuck. Kamado can go suck it I did nothing wrong why TF am I being yeeted outta the galaxy team. He’s a lil stuck up bish that’s what he is.

[sage-nebula]

I have Volo Brainrot™ at present, and I really want to talk about what makes him such an interesting character to me, but I can’t talk about any of that without talking about the colonialization apologia / propaganda present all throughout Legends Arceus, so you know what, let’s just go ahead and do that now instead of waiting for me to get to it in my review. It would be easier to just link this post in the review anyway, particularly for those who don’t want to read a review that’s something like sixty pages long.

All of that said though, before we get into this: I AM NOT SAYING that this is a bad game or that you can’t enjoy it. I myself have enjoyed it a lot (my review score is going to be 7.5/10), and I really, really, really hope that we get future games in this style. I also enjoy many of the characters in the game, too. But that said, the story is Yikes on many different levels, and I think that’s worth talking about. You can enjoy things while being critical of them—or at least, I can. I love Pokémon with all my heart, and that includes calling out its flaws when it has them, which is what I’m doing now. So please note that I’m not saying you can’t love this game, because I myself do love it! But I am going to talk about the serious issues with the story, and if that’s discussion you don’t want to partake in, then turn away now.

Huge spoiler warning for ALL of Pokémon Legends: Arceus, including and ESPECIALLY the postgame. You’ve been warned.

Okay, so first, let’s talk a little bit about the history of Japan, and their colonization of the northern part of the island (and the surrounding smaller islands) and their oppression of the Ainu people. I’m not even going to remotely begin to pretend to be an expert on this topic. I am not Japanese, nor am I Ainu, and I strongly encourage everyone to seek out sources from people who are of Japanese and especially Ainu descent on this topic if you want to know more. I’m just going to give a very brief overview of the things I’ve learned from my own research, but again, I’m not an expert and I’m not pretending to be, so don’t quote me on this. (Although if you’re quoting a tumblr post in your academic papers . . . oh honey, no.)

So.

The two main groups of people in this little history lesson are the Yamato Japanese and the Ainu. “Yamato Japanese” refers to the people that most people think of today when they hear “Japanese”; these are the East Asian people who were indigenous to the main part of the island of Japan, particularly in the middle and the southern regions. Ainu, meanwhile, refers to an ethnically diverse group of people who were indigenous to the northern part of the island (known today as Hokkaido), as well as several of the smaller islands in the periphery of the main island. The Ainu people were established there before the Yamato Japanese decided to move north to further the Empire of Japan, and in fact there are many historical records which show the Empire of Japan interacting with the Ainu people to establish things like trades, treaties, etc. The Ainu had their own culture, their own language, their own religion. That was their land, they were their own sovereign nation.

And then . . . they weren’t.

Again, I’m going to give only a very brief overview, especially since I’m not an expert in the subject. But essentially, the Japanese Empire decided that it wanted to conquer what would later become known as Hokkaido, as well as the surrounding peripheral islands. If you’ve watched the meme-spawning video “History of Japan”, you will remember this as the part where the narrator goes, “. . . and they conquered the north finally, got that squared away.” Well, as can be expected, there was more to it than that. 

In the late 1700s - early 1800s, the Empire of Japan took its first steps toward conquering Hokkaido and forcibly assimilating / oppressing the Ainu people by conquering the southern part of Hokkaido. The Ainu still controlled the northernmost part of their territory and they and other indigenous groups (because I believe there were others too) still controlled the periphery islands—but the Japanese shogunate took full control over the southern part of the territory. And while this would be bad enough on its own, the Empire did not stop there. Because they viewed the Ainu as “beneath” them, as “barbarous”, they engaged in practices such as abducting Ainu women and raping / forcibly marrying them to Japanese men (to “better assimilate” them), and arresting Ainu men to force them to work in indentured servitude for years, sometimes a decade or more. These were only a few of the practices enacted to weaken the Ainu people, stamp out their culture, and drop their population.

And it gets worse.

In the mid- to late-1800s, the Empire of Japan fully annexed Hokkaido and the surrounding smaller islands. In 1899 specifically, the Japanese government passed laws which labeled the Ainu people as “former aborigines” and granted them Japanese citizenship status . . . which might sound good on paper until you realize that it stripped them of their rights as indigenous people (something that was not fixed until 2019). In many cases, Ainu people had their land forcibly taken from them and given to Yamato Japanese settlers, and it was made illegal for them to practice their religious and cultural customs, speak their language, and hunt and gather, so that they would instead assimilate into Japanese culture, language, and customs. And even though the Ainu had their status as indigenous people restored in 2019, not only is it far too late and the damage has been done (the Ainu language is nearly extinct), but a year later in 2020 the former prime minister said that Japan is the only country to have “. . . lasted for as long as 2,000 years with one language, one ethnic group, one dynasty.” So even after the Ainu had their status as an indigenous group restored . . . it was still being ignored by the government, even a year later. Which isn’t surprising, but it is depressing considering how much the Ainu population has dwindled due to the colonization and imperialism, how many of their practices have been lost, how their language is only spoken by a handful of native speakers now, etc.

So, what does all of this have to do with Pokémon?

As anyone who has played the games or is a fan of Pokémon knows, the region of Sinnoh is the PokéWorld version of Hokkaido. And as such, Hisui—which is the version of Sinnoh that we get to explore in Legends Arceus—is a version of ancient Hokkaido . . . or, as it was known before it was annexed, Ezo. In other words, not only did Game Freak base Sinnoh on Hokkaido, but when they decided to make a game about its ancient past, they included the fact that Hokkaido wasn’t always named Hokkaido by making it so that Sinnoh wasn’t always named Sinnoh. So if you’re wondering why the region was called Hisui instead of Sinnoh in Legends . . . that’s why.

Anyway, knowing that Sinnoh = PokéHokkaido obviously raised a lot of questions with regards to how Legends—a game which takes place back in the feudal era—would handle the question of indigenous people. Obviously, Japan has a very brutal history of imperialism and colonization with regards to Hokkaido and the Ainu people (and other places as well such as Korea, but this is specifically about Hokkaido / the Ainu). But at the same time, Pokémon is a game series for children which, while it has included heavy topics such as genocide and child abuse in the past, still tends to make its stories easily digestible and not too heavy for the children involved. Also, this is a Japanese game made by a Japanese company, and even now in the year of our Pokélord 2022 the treatment of the Ainu by the Japanese government and, I’d wager, many Japanese media companies isn’t exceptional. (Although there are many Japanese people with Ainu ancestry due to the aforementioned abductions and rapes, as well as Ainu people encouraging the interracial marriages in hopes that their offspring wouldn’t be as discriminated against if they were part Japanese . . . it’s a whole thing that, again, I’m not an expert on and am not really qualified to discuss.) So, would they just avoid it altogether by having everyone in the game be indigenous to the region?

Unfortunately . . . no.

To get this out of the way before anything else: The issue is not that we have an isekai protagonist from the future / our world / wherever. (I think they’re meant to be from the future of the PokéWorld, but I think it’s left open enough so that you can have them be from wherever you want.) It’s standard PokéFair for the protagonist to be exceptionally special, and if they are from future!Sinnoh, one could headcanon that they’re descended from the actual indigenous peoples of Hisui (so the Diamond Clan, Pearl Clan, or Ginkgo Group), so it’s not quite the pro-colonization propaganda it might otherwise be. While of course it would have been preferable to have our protagonist just straight up be from one of the clans (or maybe from like, a third clan formed by people who left those two clans because they were tired of the fighting and wanted a Third Option or something similar), the isekai aspect of the story isn’t the part I take issue with. Instead, the face of the colonization apologia in Legends Arceus is this face right here:

Words cannot describe how much I hate this insecure, ignorant little man.

This man is Kamado, the commander of Galaxy Team and de facto leader of Jubilife Village, a village that is full of no one but colonizers from outside the Hisui region. Kamado, and those who came with him, decided to come to Hisui to start a new life “free of war and strife,” and Kamado in particular aims to do that no matter what the cost is—including if that cost is, as he says later in the story, exterminating pokémon that he feels pose a threat. The game tries to handwave this by giving him a sad backstory about how pokémon razed his home village back in whatever region he came from (I would assume Kanto personally), but not only are we not told whether those pokémon were ever provoked or not, but it still doesn’t excuse Kamado’s shitty behavior toward the pokémon in the Hisui region who are minding their own business, or, most importantly, the indigenous peoples of Hisui whom he looks down upon, which the narrative never once takes him to task for doing so.

Let’s look at the Diamond and Pearl Clans for a moment, shall we?

The Diamond and Pearl Clans are, I believe, meant to be the PokéWorld version of the Ainu. While they lack the characteristic physical features of the Ainu people from back then (e.g. the women don’t have mouth tattoos, the men don’t have beards), their cultural practices revolving around their close relationships with pokémon and the Noble Pokémon that they worship and serve speaks very much to the religious practices that the Ainu practiced before the Empire of Japan made it illegal for them to do so. Specifically, the Ainu were largely animists; they believed that everything had a spirit or soul, but in particular several of the gods they worshiped took animal forms, and as a result those animals held high reverence among the Ainu people. So for example, Kim-un-kamuy was known as the “god of mountains” and was often seen as a bear; Rep-un-kamuy was the “god of the sea”, and was sometimes depicted as an orca. 

How does this relate back to Pokémon?

Well, as stated, not only do the Diamond and Pearl clans live among pokémon, but if you look at the Noble Pokémon which hold the highest importance in their clan, you’ll see that many of them hearken back to animals that held high importance in the Ainu religious traditions. Ursaluna is the most obvious, being a giant bear. But Basculegion is a giant salmon, and salmon were a staple in the Ainu diet (not to mention that they had a god of the sea / fishing / marine life as well). Deer were another animal which were very important to Ainu survival, and Wyrdeer is another Noble Pokémon. Obviously some like Electrode and Kleavor don’t have direct analogues, but there are still enough that do that make it so that this had to be intentional. Particularly considering how the Diamond and Pearl Clans are very close to pokémon whereas the colonizers are not, and the difference in the Ainu people’s animist beliefs versus the Yamato Japanese’s Shinto or Buddhist beliefs, and the fact that the Clans were, you know, already there whereas the Galaxy Team came from other regions . . . yes, I think it’s safe to say that the Diamond and Pearl clans are stand-ins for the Ainu people. (The Ginkgo Guild might be as well, though it’s harder to say because we don’t exactly know where they came from to my knowledge, or if Volo was even actually one of them for real. But more on that later on.)

Now, to be fair, most of the colonizers in Jubilife don’t seem to have any issues with the Diamond and Pearl Clans. And yes, they are colonizers and not immigrants because if they were immigrants, they would have made an attempt to live with the Diamond and Pearl Clans. It’s not as if they would have been turned away; Ingo fell out of the sky and the Pearl Clan not only took him in, but made him a Warden. Instead, the Galaxy Team has chosen to create a village of their own, with their own culture and inventions, and Kamado is pushing his own values and beliefs onto the Clans. They have created a colony, they are colonizing, they are colonizers. There’s no getting around it.

But as I said, most of them don’t seem to have an issue with the Clans. Arezu is able to become the hairdresser’s apprentice with no problem. Rei / Akari is willing to help Mai when she requests assistance at the start of the game. For the most part, the colonizers don’t seem to look down on the Clans . . . but Kamado absolutely does, and the worst part is that the game rewards him for his ignorant behavior.

First, let’s take a look at their history pre-game.

The Diamond and Pearl Clans have been at odds with each other for a long time, because they each believe that the other Clan is worshiping a false “almighty Sinnoh,” the god they believe created their world and rules over all of time (Diamond) or space (Pearl). Obviously, they’re both a little bit wrong in that they’re actually worshiping Dialga and Palkia respectively and just don’t know it, but whatever, that’s not the point. The point is, these are deeply held and highly valued religious beliefs for these Clans, beliefs that guide their people, beliefs that inform how they interact with pokémon and the world around them. And how does Kamado respond to these beliefs?

He refers to it with sarcastic scare-quotes.

Now, to be entirely fair to him, he does refer to almighty Sinnoh without the sarcastic scare-quotes in the previous line. But even so, referring to almighty Sinnoh with scare-quotes even once shows a disparaging attitude toward the beliefs of the Clans (especially since the context of this line is Kamado questioning Warden Melli’s assertion that the frenzy state was a gift from almighty Sinnoh to strengthen the nobles of the Clans). While it makes sense that Kamado wouldn’t have the same religious beliefs as the Clans given that he comes from a different region altogether, there’s a difference between not holding the same religious beliefs as another group, and disparaging their beliefs. Kamado isn’t showing respect here, and the fact that no one in the Clans was present for this conversation doesn’t matter. It’s clear that he doesn’t think very highly of their beliefs or practices, and while that makes sense considering how close they are with pokémon and how much Kamado himself dislikes / fears pokémon, it still doesn’t make it okay. And, more importantly, given the context of the way the Yamato Japanese colonizers treated the Ainu people and their beliefs (and forbade them from practicing those beliefs after they fully conquered the territory), it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

But that said, it does get worse than this.

At multiple points in the game, Adaman and Irida (the leaders of the Diamond and Pearl Clans respectively) meet in Kamado’s office to discuss the ongoing situation surrounding the frenzied Noble pokémon. And during one of these meetings, we get the following:

I’m going to be honest: When I got to this part in my playthrough, I had to actually turn my Switch off for a bit and set it down because I was so appalled.

Read the dialogue again, and take note of who is saying each line. Kamado blatantly states that he and the other Jubilife colonizers came to Hisui to create a home for themselves (again, to colonize the land, not to actually join the peoples who already lived there and respect their way of life). Adaman then says that Kamado “[put in work] to get [the Diamond and Pearl Clans] to treat one another as equals and keep [them] from fighting.” 

I don’t know about the rest of you, but to me this reeks of “the civilized colonizer had to stop the barbarians from killing each other over petty squabbles.” And considering how the Yamato Japanese viewed the Ainu as uncivilized, as lesser, as beneath them? To say this isn’t a good look is an understatement. Particularly considering the fact that both Clans were just a little bit wrong about who they were worshiping (since neither was worshiping Arceus, the actual Creator of All), and the fact that Adaman and Irida both at different points in the endgame acknowledge this, this all amounts to, “the poor ignorant savages just didn’t know any better and needed the civilized wise colonizers to come in and set them straight.” It’s nasty. And considering how the Ainu people are still suffering to this day because of the imperialism and colonization (which the Japanese government tried to sweep under the rug by calling it a “redistributing of resources and unused land” or something like that), it makes it even more vile. (In other words, a story that is pro-colonization and pro-imperialism would be bad enough, but considering the historical context? Yikes.)

But still, it still gets worse! Because later on in the story, Kamado—due to his fear of the protagonist’s bond with their pokémon and therefore their overall collective strength—decides to banish the protagonist from the village. The protagonist then goes to the Diamond and Pearl Clans for help, both of whom say they cannot openly assist the protagonist because it would piss off Kamado. And I have to say, I found that to be appalling. Kamado is a colonizer. Kamado has no right to do anything in this land. He certainly shouldn’t have the right to raise an army to go hunt down a pokémon atop Mount Coronet, regardless of whether that pokémon is on the other side of a rift or not. Yet both Adaman and Irida—and, as a result, their wardens and the rest of the clan—kowtow to what he wants. Oh sure, they try to argue with him on your behalf when you’re being exiled, but ultimately they’re afraid of angering him, of going against his word. Kamado’s word is law. And considering he’s a colonizer and they’re the indigenous people, the fact that they’re shown to so easily bend to his will . . . while on the one hand it explains how Hisui changes to Sinnoh (and in the postgame, Kamado is the one who suggests this name change, which makes sense given that he’s the driving force of imperialism in this land and it was the Japanese government who changed the name from Ezo to Hokkaido, but still, gross), it’s still infuriating. Neither Adaman nor Irida, nor anyone else native to Hisui, should have to listen to Kamado’s colonizing ass. But they do, because this game’s story is full to the brim of colonization propaganda and imperialist apologia. There’s no way to get around it, that’s what the bulk of the story is unfortunately about. (And it really didn’t have to be this way, colonizers didn’t have to play a part even if the protagonist was isekai’d in from another time period / world, as I already explained. That they chose to do this is just . . . yikes.)

With all of that said . . . let’s talk about Volo, shall we?

For most of the game, Volo is a friendly merchant from the Ginkgo Guild who is very interested in the myths and legends of Hisui, much like his eventual descendant (reincarnation??) Cynthia will be. In the postgame, we learn that he is also completely off his shits and wants to, for reasons that are never explained to us beyond “I was sad once”, completely destroy and remake the world using Arceus’ power, similar to Cyrus. Now, while the bad writing surrounding his motivation is frustrating (because again, we never really learn what his true motivation is for wanting to remake the world; at least with Cyrus we knew it was because he thought humans sucked for having emotions, but with Volo we never get anything beyond “I was sad once and was like ‘why am I in a world that’s mean to me’" and that’s just not a concrete motivation), I feel like we can extrapolate what could have been his motivation if this game was better written and not so dedicated to being colonization apologia.

During one of his postgame rants, Volo says this:

Volo is one of Hisui’s indigenous people, despite not belonging to either the Diamond or the Pearl Clans.

Now, I mentioned earlier that I think that the Ginkgo Guild are also indigenous to Hisui, although I don’t think this is ever explicitly stated. There is a location in the Cobalt Coastlands that bears the Ginkgo name, and Volo says that he has the blood of the “ancient Sinnoh people,” indicating that he (or at least his heritage) is indigenous to this land, even if the other indigenous peoples don’t refer to themselves as the Sinnoh people (although they do refer to their god as “almighty Sinnoh” for the majority of the game, so). While it’s unclear if Volo is actually a member of the Ginkgo Guild, or if he’s just pretending because being a merchant is an easy way to gather information, he still plays the part well enough that he fools pretty much everyone into believing that he’s one of them, with Cogita even questioning him when he talks about the Guild as if he’s not one of their members (which is why it’s unclear whether he’s one of them or not). Regardless of whether the Ginkgo Guild is indigenous, though, I think it’s pretty clear that Volo himself still is; he says he has the blood of the ancient Sinnoh people in his veins, he has those strong ties to this land and (he feels) to his god, to Arceus. Volo being indigenous is undeniable.

So with that in mind . . . aside from “I was sad once and thought that sucked so I WANT TO DESTROY THE ENTIRE WORLD,” I think that a more believable motivation for Volo would be, “I want to remake the world so the colonizers never came here,” or something similar.

Think about it: It’s mentioned time and time and time again throughout the game that the Galaxy Team’s influence on Hisui is changing the culture of the continent at a rapid pace. Whenever you visit her outside of mandated story visits, Cogita mentions that with the arrival of Galaxy Team, the human voices in the region are growing louder. Both the Diamond and Pearl Clans are kowtowing to Kamado. They’re starting to move toward assimilating into Jubilife Culture, what with Arezu moving into the village, their open approval of pokéballs, etc. And while Volo does use pokéballs as well (and gives you the hint to smack pokémon in the back with them for better captures), we also know that he does still have a good relationship with his own pokémon given that he’s able to evolve his Togepi all the way, which requires high friendship. More importantly though, Volo is interested in history and culture that was lost; maybe it isn’t just wanting to change the fact that colonizers ever came to take Hisui, but also wanting to bring back the cultural traditions that have already been lost to time, to make it so that the ancient Sinnoh people aren’t so ancient anymore. Maybe Volo’s motivations aren’t that he was sad once, but that he mourns for a culture, for a people who have been lost, and wants to bring that culture to life again, to reshape the world so that it was never lost in the first place. And while it’s not my place to say because I am not a member of any indigenous culture that has been stampeded over by imperialism, I feel that if an indigenous person saw a chance to rewrite history so that their culture wasn’t railroaded over by imperialism . . . they would be tempted to take that chance. And I think that it would be wrong to call them a villain for doing so.

Ultimately, I feel that this bit here is the final nail in the coffin for the imperialism apologia in this game’s story. Because Kamado, the very face of colonizing imperialism, is “redeemed” and seen as a “good guy” after he bows to the player for beating him in battle, claiming that he now sees the error of his ways and will listen to them (when really all he’s doing is admitting that he really cannot beat the player in battle, saying “might makes right,” and ultimately just being an ignorant, colonizing coward). But Volo, someone who in his final rant is stated to be one of the indigenous people of the land, is not redeemed, and instead leaves declaring that one day he will conquer Arceus and use it to reshape the world. The colonizer who should have been the villain is seen as a Good Guy After All, while the indigenous person who wanted to remake the world for vague reasons (because perhaps they didn’t want to even question the colonization happening?) is seen as the definite villain who teamed up with PokéSatan in an attempt to conquer PokéGod.

And I just have to say, I think that’s a really bad look.

[dittolicous]

we need more Kamado bashing fics. like I get the dude was traumatized n shit but. fuck em. he was an asshat and his lil "apology" means jack considering only like 5 people saw it, while we basically get paraded out of town in disgrace. I'll forgive Kamado when he strips butt naked and begs my forgiveness in the middle of town. Fu Kamado all my homies hate Kamado.

[crypticallylies]

fuck commander kamado!!! all my homies hate commander kamado