#they look like a bunny and are usually a duo with Lopmon who is (?) a bunny-like Digi

[galehowl]

I still don't get it, is Terriermon supposed to be a little dog or a bunny. It's been years and I'm still confused

[whatisthisnonsense]

Continuing where we left off here, so we’re not cluttering Sarah’s pretty art (bless u @yunisverse ), did you know canonically Digimon are emotion eaters? “But Lea!”, you say. “That was in SAVERS, not Adventure!” Wasn’t it though? 

Think about it-- while they’re not necessarily feeding off it in the sense of sustenance, the digimon in Adventure all digivolve during a big influx of some form of emotion by their chosen child, usually related to the crest but not always (pants-shitting terror at Kuwagamon, for example). Normal, natural digivolution is usually a very long process of gathering energy and strength, with higher levels often taking decades if not hundreds or thousands of years (unless you suck, in which case you’re turning into a Numemon. Yes, that’s also canon.), so obviously the digimon MUST be feeding on something for those short bursts of energy, and since having the digimon feast upon their attached digidestined’s soul or lifespan is what we call bad, the natural source must be emotion. Following that thread, we see other digidestined in 02 (which I’m not going to go into for most of the lore it introduced because it is One Whole Yike, but Adventure itself introduced the concept that all you had to do to be a valid partner candidate is see a digimon and therefore this is valid) who ostensibly have the same bond as our actual Destiny’s Children without the Destiny bit, and we actively see Willis/Wallace/That Kid With The Two Bunny Digimon have his digimon digivolve. While Lopmon/Kokomon was out of his control for the most part and could arguably have been severed from the connection, Terriermon clearly wasn’t and also usually responded to emotion. As such, we can assume that this is a trait of all partner digivolutions. Why, then, are the Crests needed? Well, we find out they’re a bit of a magic feather, however they all still involve an emotion or state of being which the child exemplifies (besides Light, though that could be as in “the light in your heart that never goes out” IE Determination and Light just happened to sound more mystic and was also literally its attribute anyway, like how Honesty/Responsibility is Water and Sincerity/Purity is Plants) (Knowledge also isn’t a state of being or emotion, but the way they use the word I’m reasonably certain what they actually mean is WISDOM, which means Izzy in a state of being wise is what triggers it, not just him being a nerd). I would like to suggest, thusly, that the Crests show the emotion or mental state the digidestined represented by it has in abundance and thus what their digimon use to rocket up the digivolution ladder in ways faster and stronger than even normal human/digimon partnerships. The Crest associated with our hypothetical ninth duo? Kindness. Now, stay with me here. Allow my work-weary, sleep-deprived ass to switch from essay to narrative for a moment. Consider, if you will; Wizardmon has always been alone. Since he’s a chosen partner, Gennai dropped him when he was hit much like Gatomon, but velocity and angle meant he still hatched far away from her. He turned to magic for answers as to why he was left all alone when most are born and cared for in Primary Village, and he got good of it-- amazingly good, astoundingly good, impossibly wonderously G O O D  at magic-- but he never found his answers. Eventually, he gives up, assuming he was simply not worth the effort. That perhaps, his presence was a mistake. He wanders, looking for obscure magic but no longer having any purpose to it, aching for something he doesn’t understand nor believes exist. He says he passed through unremarked, but in many places you’ll hear tell of a quiet, soft-spoken digimon who repaired something with the snap of his fingers. Sometimes a wall, sometimes reviving a well, sometimes even bringing another digimon back from a hideous illness. But he was always gone the next day. If anyone could ask him, he’d shrug it off; it wasn’t something special, he thought. It just seemed cruel to leave things as they were, and while he’s many unpleasant things, he’d like to think he’s not cruel. (He is kind, he is so kind, but he can’t fathom it without anyone else around him, and no one nor place can hold him against that unknown longing in his programming, so it passes by him without note.) Of course, between his idle wandering and his constantly giving and giving and giving of his magical energy without much time to recover, he eventually pushes himself past exhaustion and falls out of the sky on one otherwise unremarkable day.  Those of you who’ve watched Adventure, of course, should recognize this as the event that caused him to meet Gatomon, and remember how absolutely baffled he was by her kindness-- he was already spreading himself thin, but he never had it returned to him mostly because he never stayed anywhere long enough for it-- and how fast he was to pledge undying loyalty for said shred of kindness. And this is true still, for he is still almost desperately loyal to her, but there is something else. Even when she truly forgets everything for the monster (ha) Myotismon turned her into, he can still see that longing for something she doesn’t know or understand in her eyes, and something in his chest tightens a little. It’s kinship, but he doesn’t recognize it-- he doesn’t have time, given how fast he parses the legends and figures out what she must be, as when he does that he out of hand assumes he could never be associated. Even so, they lessen eachother’s loneliness, and for a while that’s enough. Wizardmon does his best to play dumb, glide beneath the safety of contempt, and manages some tiny victories against the Dark Army’s, as after all he is never on Myotismon’s side. Some in-training digimon slipping out of the dungeon here, some misinformation there. In the end, however, he is mostly trying to give Gatomon the shot at a better life he is so certain she deserves, so every so often he has to get his hands dirty. It’s okay, though, really. It doesn’t matter what becomes of him, as long as she gets out. (Even so, when he’s forced to play evil minion to the hilt he tries his best to simply confuse or trick his target so he can leave them alive and unharmed, and if he can’t he does his damndest to make it quick. To do otherwise seems cruel, and he would still like to think he isn’t that at least.) As we all know, eventually seven dumbass kids with seven dumbass digimon who happen to also be the Digidestined turn up and Myotismon sets his plan in motion. Most of his minions just terrorize the town, but as ever Wizardmon is sneaky. He keeps his head down, and blends in, drawing children in and keeping an eye on Gatomon to see where and who she is most drawn to. He is being rather underhanded, he thinks, even though getting this gaggle of human children to watch in wonder and laugh isn’t actually necessary for his guise. He refuses to do otherwise, though. It doesn’t seem right. Naturally, Gatomon narrows what child is hers down without even realizing, but his own “patrol” draws in her and there is an almost uncomfortable snap in him as for a moment that ache, that eternal lonliness, is gone and-- no no, she just caught him flatfooted. He’s distracted and wasn’t expecting a compliment, particularly not one from someone clearly much older than the younglings he’s entertaining manipulating. The Tokyo arc is the same, but extended-- more red herrings and more time to convince Gatomon to remember that she is better than Myotismon’s lapcat, as well as scenes with Wizardmon and Minnie showing them drawing closer, albeit with Wizardmon’s denial or deflection on the subject pretty much even through his almost-death. Ah, yes. You didn’t think we kept most of that scene, did you? Of course Wizardmon gives his life for Gatomon-- by this point, it’s all he has left to give. It’s all he’s ever had to give, really. But remember how his body is still present in the show after his suppossed death? Well, that’s because he’s not quite dead yet; merely passed out. Minnie pulls him away and gets him to a relatively safe part of the building before he comes to again. He is defintely in the PROCESS of dying, though, but they refuse to let the kids know. It would be kinder for the kids not to see, at least for the moment, and thus the duo both lie through their teeth. And yet, when the kids leave to talk about what lies ahead next, Minnie turns and does her best to stop the digital hole in his chest from bleeding. He’s going to be fine, she tells him. It’s another lie, he thinks, but ah. “You’re...too kind...” There’s a faint glow from her pocket and for a moment his world is white and then he’s much more alive and terribly small. I’m gonna glaze over the rest of the Tokyo arc because we really need to get to the point in this fucking novel but I really need you to imagine a distressed Mokumon trying to wriggle out of Minnie’s arms as she tries to get him to fucking REST and then later him as a Candlemon accidentally setting the blankets he was tucked into on fire. Got that in your head? Good! Now let’s just--

There we go, see you in 02 asshole, moving on to the Dark Masters Ahem, anyway, as the group journeys through the reconfigured Digital World to forcibly scrub the influence of the Dark Masters away, Wizardmon slowly becomes a bit less aloof and a bit more on the awkward side. He’s gotten what he wanted-- Gatomon’s happy-- and he has a purpose, but that purpose doesn’t seem like something he should have, nor this group somewhere he should be. Nevermind he doesn’t really know how to handle a group out of his aloofness or various deceptions. And yet, ever so slowly, he begins to warm, and soften. Until that day in the desert. Minnie catches a lone and frightened younger digimon in the corner of her eye and diverts immediately to help it. The children and their partners are on board, of course, but before anyone can move, a Scorpiomon pops up and starts heading right for the young lady. The children shout, but Wizardmon can’t make out the words-- he’s already moving as fast as he can, even as he watches Minnie quickly turn to the younger digimon she found and hide them under a crevice, smiling before she moves away where it can’t see whatever happens. Even as she turns, pale and trying not to look frightened and moving AWAY from the kids a little so as to keep the arachnoid’s attention. Even as one of its legs connects with her cheek and knocks her away. That gentleness she was showing and his outrage and need to protect merges and twists and surges in a fountain of warmth in his chest, and he skids to a stop in front of her. Digivolving feels more like a soft blanket of darkness than anything resembling a change-- he barely even notices his limbs stretching or his clothing shift until it’s over and he’s...he’s... Myotismon. Minnie has the Crest of Kindness and he has turned into what is, objectively, the cruelest digimon to ever exist. Being Adventure the priority is Jokes, thus the immediate asking to tag out, but after this he is even more aloof than he was before, and not looking anyone in the eye. He is crushed, and once again come to the answer he always has for why he is why he is-- if he was ever meant to be here, then something must be wrong with him, and more likely he was never meant to be here at all. How interesting, do you think, it would be that it is not the Digidestined who has the huge, dramatic issue to confront, but the digimon? TL;DR, Don’t Blame You, essentially the jumping point for this whole narrative is, in a subversion to the usual “kid has to accept thing about self to slowly begin to heal from trauma and unlock potential”, essentially WIZARDMON is the one who has to learn here; the two-fold moral that he is allowed to ACCEPT Kindness and not just constantly give, and that the fact he is dark and spooky-- the fact his ultimate is the same as the mon who hurt him and the others-- does not make him less good or kind. And it only took about five novels to get here, amazing. If only I had this much energy for my actual writing.