#TY AGAIN thinking hard abt jacred a lot all the time

[splattermouth]

Actually, I've more questions: you mentioned that Volo and Val eventually got to collecting the plates— what exactly got the ball rolling with that? Was it related to the spooky plate, or was it something else?

And how did those two collecting the plates interfere with the overall mission of the kids that Arceus sent?

What exactly does Missingno do to a person that it possesses? Like, how does it affect the very essence of their being and then some? (This is kind of a self-indulgent question, you don't have to answer if you don't want to since I also have a Missingno oc and went into detail for that bc I love existentialism)

I think them trying to collect the plates was something they were always trying to do. (And by always, I mean once Val breaks down and admits to Volo he thinks Arceus sent him to Hisui. Volo might have already been plate hunting by this point, knowing they had Some ties to Arceus, but I don’t think he’d met Giratina just yet. Val falls months/maybe half a year before the rift opens up over Mount Coronet after all. Sorry the timeline for all these different events is still screwy and nebulous, I’m still piecing things together myself lol)

And I’m also not sure how much the kids interfere atm honestly! Rei and Akari, friends from another time, both take the role of the player character, but I don’t think Val would encounter them all that much to have a strong opinion on them. He thinks they’re normal sweet kids, not like they did anything wrong being sent here. Volo interacts with them the usual amount, nothing out of the ordinary. 

Because of that, I don’t think the confrontation with Volo at Spear Pillar happens either, at least not traditionally. Like I think Rei and Akari are the ones to close the rift and calm Dialga/Palkia, but I don’t think any Volo postgame happens with them. I think that’s a Val and Volo thing. You could interpret that as Missingno’s presence altering the current timeline and throwing the plot into whack, and that’s a fun thought, but idk. I think it’s more just Val ends up having to deal with Volo’s delusions instead of the kids. Like atm, I think Rei and Akari’s presence is mostly fuel for Volo’s gradually degrading morals. 

AND AAH I’ve actually just recently talked about what Missingno IS and how it works in relation to The Horror That Came to Hisui here!

But long story short, Missingno are either scrapped ‘content’ or mutations/aberrations that occur through spacetime distortions and tears. Dialga and Palkia generally clean up these holes in reality pretty quick, but not always quick enough to prevent anomalies from settling in. 

Missingno thrive in corrupted environments. The young and fresh, carefully crafted world Arceus is currently watching over is built so there is no room and no way for It's old, unfinished, generally broken creations such as Missingno to thrive. But Arceus is not a Perfect god, and It has not built a Perfect world, and with a suitable host, a Missingno can get a foot in the door. The longer it stays with a host, the more powerful it gets, and the harder it is to dispel. Like how the longer you hold onto and use glitches and glitch pokemon in game, the more at risk you are for the whole experience to fall apart.

Anyway, Missingno doesn’t necessarily Possess a person (even though i technically say that a lot it doesnt it doesnt im sorry i misled you im pedantic), it more steadily Fuses with a person. The Missingno’s personality and ideals become one with the host’s, and in most cases, an entirely new ‘being’ is made. In Val and Missingno’s case: Jacred. Jacred is gleeful and fun-loving and unwittingly cruel, but also very much still loves Volo like Val loved him. And in knowing Volo’s desire to understand the universe around him and his place in it, Jacred will routinely show Volo things he did not at all ever want to know about the world he inhabits. It’s fun. Jacred really did say ‘know the unknowable, boy’ <3

Physically, Missingno naturally warps and distorts the body in odd ways. Smiles and eyes can seem too big, limbs and necks appear stretched, skin sometimes seems prehensile? Skin that shifts and ripples and ‘moves’ on its own. A host's movements sometimes come with afterimages. Colors and lighting on the host can appear unnatural, too bright or too dull. Physical contact with the host brings slight, but still sharp static sensations. Sometimes portions of the body seem to ‘bleed’ and blur together. All of these distortions happen randomly, and all for split seconds at a time. Blink and you miss it occurrences. Making those nearby wonder if any of what they saw was even real. If Missingno is corrupting the host or simply ones own vision.

And again, the longer Missingno remains in it’s host, the more it fuses with them- the more frequent and extreme the distortions become, the more it’s able to affect the environment around it and the people and pokemon that inhabit it.

I distinctly remember reading a comment on some video about pokemon glitches, and it described how when a glitch pokemon did enough damage to its opponent, the sprite of said opponent would look like it’d just been ‘shattered’, and i think abt that a Lot in relation to Jacred tbh. I will not elaborate on what that could possibly mean for Jacred OR for Volo.