#I’m going to hunt through my screenshots later to see if I saved anything relevant to this

[warden-melli]

I thought people could terastallize just with the tera orbs (discovered by Sada/Turo and distributed by the academy) more than the crater itself. Did I miss something?

Yeah nah, it’s mentioned in game that the phenomena is only possible in the Paldea region. I had figured it was a way to preemptively not have to include the gimmick in later titles lol. I don’t have any in game screenshots directly at hand to back this up, but this is from the offical pokemon website

Also Bulbapedia (shouldn’t be used as a primary source, but hey)

The orb was created from/draws its power from area Zero, and can be implied to function a little like a battery to transport the terastal energy outside of the crater. We know that it’s energy is depleted after being used and must be recharged by touching the terastal crystals, using a Pokémon centre (a game mechanic necessity for sure. It can be assumed they have a way to expose your tera orb to this energy in order to recharge it for you), or it can recharge naturally in area Zero itself.

I mean, with the lore as it is now I can see several ways the writers could go without completely disregarding the established requirements for this to be possible, but they (the writers/devs) are the ones who went out of their way to specifically establish that “Terastallization is only found in the Paldea region” in the first place, which is why I’m curious as to which way they’re gonna go to make it possible.

The easiest (and imho least satisfying) route they could take would be having certain pokemon (like the ones that have been revealed for the dlc) be able to recharge the orbs for us, as regardless of what the devs say, I’m not sure if actually terastallizing the Pokémon outside of Paldea is impossible or not (provided ”the orb does function as we think it does), but rather recharging it afterwards would appear to be the limiting factor. Regardless though I’m curious about which route they do decide to go with this, as it could open up the possibility for it to be included in future titles after all (although I still think that’s pretty unlikely)

But yeah, as far as I’m aware, and according to established lore at this time, the terastallization phenomenon is supposedly only found within the Paldea region

[vrainsrewatch]

episode 11 thoughts

me: i shouldn’t have too much to say about this episode, since it’ll be mostly dueling! me, 25 screenshots later: 

(see what i did there. i’m funny i promise)

a lot of the early episodes i’ve seen twice, or at least use regularly in amvs so i’m somewhat familiar with what happens in them. that is not the case for this particular episode, so even though i sort of remember the beats of it, i’d forgotten a lot of the juicy stuff.

like this.

i’ve seen people bring this scene up before, but it’s really interesting. AI don’t need to sleep, but does the existence of free will inside of them give them the option? sleep is something animals do because they have to. humans sleep way, way longer on average than most other predators, and while there’s certain animals that sleep upwards of 15 hours, those are mostly prey animals -- or at least, animals who don’t really hunt. sloths, koalas, etc.

people do, however, sleep sometimes when they don’t technically have to. people take naps when they’ve had a stressful day, or are staying up late for an event, or even to get through a class that bores them. does that make it an activity?? that one can choose to do?? it’s kind of a weird thought lol.

anyways though,

i don’t talk about emma too much, but she’s a pretty cool gal. she’s obviously incredibly intelligent, she’s an expert hacker, but i love her ability to put things together quickly. she’s an information broker and a bounty hunter, so it makes sense she’s good at putting clues together to form a conclusion fast. i just like that they bothered to have her think this one out so we get to see that, since she doesn’t get much screen time past this season.

i also had forgotten how often dr. kogami shows up in these episodes. for some reason, i only remembered him being here or there throughout the first season, up until rev vs pm round 3.

there’s people in the fandom who like to demonize revolver, mostly because of the tower i think, but honestly, he’s a respectful opponent. he really did not have to explain anything to playmaker -- at the moment, all revolver knows is he’s some dude going around kicking his lackeys asses in duels, and has an ignis attached to his duel disk. he doesn’t know he was a LI victim. he doesn’t have any reason to suspect that, as of right now, but he still goes out of his way to clear things up for yusaku. 

it’s an important aspect of his character that i think people who dislike him tend to forget, and like, you do you -- like and dislike whatever characters you want, i mean -- but you shouldn’t erase parts of them just because you’re not a fan.

anyways though,

it’s really interesting to me how revolver talks about free will. he’s more spiritual then i would’ve guessed, as we find out from his duel vs. soulburner in 115-116, but it shows here, too. 

the ignis have free will, but he thinks of them as below humans; creatures that will only cause harm. if they have free will, they have the choice to be good or bad, and yet he is so dead set in his thinking. he has all the pieces right there, but he just won’t put them together. and with his changes towards ai specifically and what he says to soulburner about flame in their duel, you have to wonder if it’s a willful ignorance.

however that follows up with:

which like, again shows how spiritual revolver actually is in some ways, which is interesting considering how rooted in science he is a lot of the time, but also,

the way he phrases this makes me deeply sad for him. i’ve talked a lot about revolver’s thoughts on his father already, so i won’t talk about it too much here when i’ve got so much else to cover, but really. he deserved an actual father, not an asshole who wrongfully put himself on a pedestal to be admired and worshiped.

i feel like the fandom is so used to the concept since it was introduced so early to us in the series, but seriously, this is kind of a crazy thing. despite how advanced den city is technologically, clearly this has still never been done before outside of the hanoi project. that is a lot to take in and process.

seriously. i don’t blame yusaku and everyone else for being so skeptical. it doesn’t sound possible to us, even though in the real world, it’s been something we’ve talked about since we started developing AI, basically. 

it brings so many moral questions to the table, too, because if something has free will, if something is able to think and live like us, would it be wrong to continue to make it do things that might be against its will? would it be wrong to delete the program, if it’s capable of forming connections with others?

moving on to something less serious, though:

everyone’s favorite meme scene LOL. seriously, this is so stupid and nerdy, i hate it and love it so much at the same time.

originally i wasn’t too fond of revolver’s first avatar, but it’s really grown on me tbh. not really relevant, but things like this actually made it grow on me lol.

next up though we get a flashback of yusaku’s backstory. at the current moment, we really have no context for these scenes, but they’re still shocking to look at in their own right:

and of course, we have little ryoken’s words of encouragement. 

not only do we find out why yusaku does the three things mantra, we also now have the clues that revolver was the one who told this to him, way back when, since we see him use the same tic in an earlier episode.

i’ll try to keep my thoughts on this brief, since i have a lot to say about this, so bear with me.

firstly, the last line. not only is it one of my favorite quotes in the whole series, as it’s simple, powerful, and holds meaning in my own life, but it reflects back on what i was saying about revolver having all the pieces but purposefully not putting them together about the ignis.

it’s a concept that’s hard to grasp at their young ages, and yet ryoken puts it eloquently and yusaku takes it to heart, turning those words into fuel to keep him going. 

three things to live, three things to go home, three things to defeat the enemy. 

these are not normal words of encouragement, and it’s very clearly intentional. this is something a child can cling to, which is exactly what yusaku does. he clings to it so much, even ten years later these are still the words he hears when he needs to get through something. even ten years later, he thinks of three things for everything he does.

ryoken wanted that child -- the one that he lured back to his father, the one that kept losing and kept screaming in pain -- to have a reason to fight back.

and boy, does yusaku fight back.

anyways though.

a lot of people, myself included, love the irony of this. the person he hates, the person he wants to save, the person he’s dueling right now, they are all the same. he is right in front of him, but he doesn’t know it. ah, it hurts so good lol.

a lot of people don’t consider ryoken to be captured, but i do. just not in the sense that yusaku is thinking of.

this is where everyone gets the confusion of firewall being his ace, and i mean like, i get it. but it’s the same way as like, salamangreat pyro phoenix or violet chimera are soulburner’s secondary aces, becaus heatleo is his true ace.

at least, imo. maybe i would’ve been wrong had firewall not been so overpowered it had to be axed from both the OCG and the TCG lmao. 

okay, but why? why just you, seemingly? i touched on the fact that it’s possible jin and spectre also have link sense, i think, but takeru doesn’t. miyu seemingly doesn’t -- or does she, with her ability to sense aqua on her chest during her coma? so really, it’s just takeru, then. why is he the odd one out, here? and was this a byproduct of the LI or were the children chosen on purpose because of this ability? was it something that just had to be awoken inside of them? 

g o d 

have you seen it before? were you even there when revolver took down cyberse????

anyways.

this is so cute. i love them. his little smile. but also, it’s interesting to note that he does this not believing ai has free will. i saw a few people complaining that yusaku’s attachment to roboppi (like the flashback of him petting her head like a dog or smth) was out of character, but it’s clearly not.

he clearly gets invested in the AI around him, probably because he knows he doesn’t have to worry about them hurting him or anything. it’s... sad :(

honestly, i wonder if revolver would’ve won this duel had he not been using his father’s strategy with fire prison. they’re very evenly matched in skill, so i wouldn’t really have been surprised.

this screenshot was just taken because CR called them varrets instead of rokkets but still changed the monster names to rokkets and when i first saw this episode i was like ??? ultra confused lmao.

i’m so glad the subtitles get more consistent as the series goes on. though i harp on CR a lot, i really am grateful they have the whole series and were able to simulcast it throughout it’s airing. 

anyways, that’s all for right now! i started watching this episode like, an hour and a half ago almost LOL so i’ve gotta get some stuff done before watching another. see y’all