Bevodon

Man who will post once and probably never again

[bevodon]

Why you’re here

This is as Moonless is on its mission to capture Uxie and bring them to the distortion world.

plus, I have decided on a few points of lore mentioned previously, if anyone is still curious.

I indeed have decided to cut a lot of the legendaries for my AU. Those past Sinnoh do not exist, and neither do regions past Sinnoh - though most of the regular Pokémon from there remain untouched. To compensate, the regions are significantly larger and more varied in climate, to allow for said other Pokémon to continue existing.

Also, mega moonless will indeed exist. While I have decided to also lower the power of the major (box) legends, I have not made them weak enough that it would make sense for moonless to be taking them on unassisted.

Though, mega evolution works differently than in canon as well and does not require a trainer bond, though that helps. Mega evolution does, however, require strong will/emotion/desire to activate as well as a mega stone.

The mega stones themselves….originally, they were said to be created by Xerneas and Yveltal, however, those two don’t exist here. I don’t like the meteor explanation either, and ZA further muddled things for me. So, their origin in my AU is that they are formed by the energy of Pokémon who died with great want for something. They can also be created by extremely powerful Pokémon, such as Arceus and the creation trio, as they have a lot of will and life-force to use - they can create them without dying.

[bevodon]

I hope we get official artwork of Mega Darkrai too! I’m curious as to what were your favourite parts of its characterization? And might you make use of him in your AU?

Here’s some of my own thoughts below if you’re interested in some rambling (fair warning, it’s quite wordy and critical of some aspects of modern Pokemon games!):

From what I’ve seen of DLC cutscenes on YouTube (since I’m not planning on purchasing the DLC, or most modern mainline Pokemon games in general…), I like that Darkrai’s situation continues to align with how the other mainline games describe it, as a Pokemon that doesn’t intend to harm others and is misunderstood. I felt bad for its situation, how even when it tries to isolate itself it STILL ends up causing problems for everyone around it, including itself…and how it both wants people to stay away from it, but also can’t keep from begging for help as it deals with a horrible and traumatic nightmare of its very own. :( I wish the game had done more with its ability to talk and its characterization in general. I found it anticlimactic how we don’t see it again (at least outside of typical gameplay, should we choose to add it to our active team) once we capture it, and we are just given an exposition textdump after that. I would have loved even just one cutscene afterward that shows us letting it come out of the Pokeball and letting it coping with what happened, or even allowing us to actually comfort it ourselves…

I feel Pokemon are too often not treated as interesting characters in their own right, even when they actually already have a lot of potential. For instance, I’m not fully aware of how they handle Eternal Floette’s grief after a certain main human character’s death in the base game, but chances are they don’t do much with that solely because most Pokemon don’t talk, so the humans do talking and the expositing of things, like Pokemon feelings, that Game Freak do not seem to want to spend resources into showing/animating decently, an inversion of the basic storytelling rule of show, don’t tell. Most of the development effort goes into coding and animating the Pokémon’s battles and moves rather than giving them fun and cool and interesting stuff to do in things such as cutscenes.

For example, I don’t know if you’ve seen the very end of the DLC, so mild spoilers ahead, but I thought that Rayquaza’s after-capture scene was very anticlimactic in regards to the Pokemon itself, even though we get more decent closure there than we do with Darkrai’s arc. Rayquaza, who is out of his Pokeball in the ending dialogue scene, is just in his idle animation the whole time, just floating in the sky and not doing anything for the most part. It also looks kinda goofy when it opens its mouth, at least to me. They don’t take advantage of having such a majestic and rare beast out and about, and often centre the camera away from him, whom I find should be literally the most interesting character to gander at in that scene. The human characters do get to TALK about the Pokemon though and go through character development. I guess Pokemon games still continue to deliver in character if you’re really into the human drama presented, but as someone who loves the Pokemon themselves and am eager to know their biologies and personalities inside out and getting awed and inspired by them (and making friends with them!), as well as being someone who grew up on the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games (wherein humans do not inhabit the world of these games, allowing the Pokemon to talk and take the spotlight as characters full of personality and charm), it still disappoints me.

In short, I am definitely one of those people who thinks Pokemon took a downgrade when it transitioned into 3D, as it lost not only charm but the excuses with sprite work and limited hardware resources it could use previously to justify why certain features were not super expansive or in depth. Pokemon hasn’t evolved to match expectations other 3D RPGs are filling, like even some amount of voice acting (even the side game, New Pokemon Snap, has voice acting and far more extensive animations, for goodness sake, and that came out in 2021!) and better writing and gameplay in general (they have taken some steps forward, but then there’s things like the Dexit situation and having to pay extra for Pokemon Home to hold your Pokemon hostage…but I will say Legends Arceus looks really fun and sounds super interesting, much more than BDSP)…but profits indicate they don’t need to and can get by with crunching their poor developers and raking in all the profits that come with such a tight schedule and almost constant releases that fuels all aspects of the brand (TCG, anime, and so on) and marketing. :( At least we have fanmade content to help us get what we want out of Pokemon, and the potential to make it ourselves and realize our own visions in a time when tools needed for things like digital art, writing, ROM hacking, and making Pokemon Essentials fangames are more easier and accessible than ever before!

I’ve also only seen a few select clips/lines of dialogue from the DLC, and I like Darkrai’s role in it largely for the same reasons you gave! My favorite aspect of it is the uncontrollable, dangerous nature of its power contrasting with its kinder (or just neutral, depending on the game) personality. That along with its loneliness/isolation. I want to give it the world. Unfortunately, the games only allow me to give it a snack and a bubble bath.

I also like that it can speak in this game, of course (also, the legs are in game for once!). I like it’s clunky human speech in its movie and it’s dialogue in the DLC (the small snippets I’ve seen). The fact that Darkrai has so many human aspects in its speech and design but is obviously not human at all is what makes it cool to me. In my AU, Darkrai was actually made with human DNA as it’s base, which is why it doesn’t do too well with pokespeak.

Of course, as you said, calling it ‘characterization’ might be a stretch, lol. I agree that the games could do a lot more with the pokemon as characters. Wdym i just go catch giratina in a cave after the volo fight and there is zero indication it has any feelings about this at all? This is especially jarring considering how heavily Pokémon characterization carries the anime and movies. I know those are likely completely separate developmental teams, but damn, it can’t be that hard. I’ve seen randomly generated characters with more depth than Pokémon - surely implementing something like whatever clangen has going on isn’t that grueling? There’s not a whole lot of excuse for it.

I also feel there is a lack of non-combat things to do with Pokémon in general. Best we get is giving them baths or having picknicks with them, which is fun, but doesn’t have enough substance for me. Sometimes I wish for a Pokémon game that really focuses on the care and keeping of the mons, team building/bonding, and their interactions with each other. It would be cool to actually have to earn a mon’s trust/respect, help them overcome challenges, etc. like we see in the anime.

Im not yet sure if I’ll be making use of mega Darkrai in my AU. Darkrai is probably a very powerful/skilled fighter considering it’s been hated and attacked its entire life, but considering Giratina’s lofty plans a power-up would be…almost necessary for its success in Sinnoh, the land of Pokémon So Powerful I Wish They Didn’t Exist.

Though, I might just generally downscale legendary power and remove a large portion of them for the AU instead, in which case mega rai wouldn’t be necessary. I don’t like having the legends as untouchable beasts because it’s just such a large a gap between them and regular mons that the fact they need help from regular mons seems hard to believe. And there’s so many of them! I haven’t made a decision on this yet, though. Opinions appreciated!

[bevodon]

Didn’t like mega rai at first but it has grown on me. Especially with how it is characterized in the story. I may have to buy the game after all.

[bevodon]

Thanks for sharing your design with us and making an account just for that! That takes courage. I think Darkrai looks very nice! I’d like to know more about your OC if you ever feel like sharing!

Okay, I’d like to share since you asked kindly.

This is not super fleshed out, just the basic premise so far. Still quite long. I’m unsure how to make this a collapsible post or if Tumblr does that automatically?

In my AU, humans and pokemon were separated into two different worlds/realms due to intense human/pokemon conflict and Giratina’s hatred of humankind.  This is mainly to protect humans and nip legendary conflicts in the bud. 

Additionally, the legendaries are a more cohesive ‘pantheon’ with group decision making and shared rules/laws. 

One law is that the bridge between the human and pokemon realms cannot be rebuilt.  Travel to the human realm is forbidden to all but Arceus.  

Before the separation, though, things were different. 

Moonless (Darkrai) cannot control its nightmarish powers, and while it was not treated poorly by other legendaries, it was largely excluded and even at times banned from engaging with the pantheon/legendary discussions/voting due to it accidentally hurting other legendaries (mew nearly croaked in their sleep and it made everyone else shit their pants). 

Cresselia and it did not interact much.  Moonless was Giratina’s only creation (and giratina was subsequently banned from creating pokemon because it fucked up Moonless pretty bad), and Cresselia was essentially only made to counteract its negative effects on the world and stop it should it be malicious - since Moonless ended up being quite a kind pokemon, Cresselia diverged from her purpose and just doddled around elsewhere.  She did not like being tied to/around Moonless because it felt suffocating/like an unwanted obligation.

Additionally, it was well-known that Moonless was created by Giratina as a sort of ‘dark servant’ meant to torment and punish mankind for ‘stealing’ Arceus’ attention, and if it had been created as intended it would have almost certainly been a malicious pokemon.

Due to this and how extremely poorly it is treated by mortals (regularly attacked/hunted/despised etc) it was incredibly lonely, self loathing and pretty desperate.  

Until one day, it met its first and only real friend, an old human, Lee.  Lee suffered from blindness in his old age, and thus was not afraid of Moonless upon first meeting, unable to recognize it as the feared monster it was.

Over time, Lee taught Moonless human speech.  Moonless can manage short, simple sentences (like the alamos town Darkrai), and cannot utilize pokespeak, though it can understand it with some difficulty.

The two became inseparable, even when Lee realized his companion wasn’t quite a safe ‘mon to be around.  He didn’t care, citing the fact that he had no-one else to miss him if Moonless killed him on accident.  

Then, after a large-scale massacre of a human city by pokemon (orchestrated by Giratina in a fit of irrational rage), the human and pokemon realms were separated, along with Moonless and Lee. Moonless could not accept this turn of events, but had no way of changing it.  Giratina, though, had the means and motive to.  

Giratina offered Moonless the opportunity to travel to the human world secretly through the distortion world if Moonless did its bidding in exchange.  Moonless accepted this, essentially becoming Giratina’s servant/killer in the pokemon world for it to enact its revenge while maintaining innocence in Arceus’ eyes. Moonless just does whatever Giratina tells it to, no matter how gruesome.

Moonless only partially regrets the deal.  Though it feels awful about hurting others, it feels it was always meant to be that way, that it was inevitable due to its circumstances of birth.  It is worth it as long as it gets to see Lee, anyways.

Most other legendaries assume Moonless finally lost its marbles due to isolation, which isn’t exactly wrong, and also believe it was just inevitable/in its nature.  Cresselia is steadfastly ignoring the fact that this is what she was made to deal with.  

Heatran has been killed by Giratina/Moonless’ hand and many sinnohian pokemon have died as a result of eternal nightmares, especially those of high religious standing or authority.  Uxie has been kidnapped and is currently being held in the distortion world.  Giratina intends to use Moonless to kidnap the remaining lake guardians and create the red chain to use against Arceus. It’s mainly doing this to regain attention, much like Volo (who doesn’t exist in this AU).

Of course there would be hero Pokémon somewhere here, but I have not written them yet.

Moonless can appear as a human in the human world, courtesy of Giratina so that its presence isn’t noticed by Arceus, but I have not drawn this yet either.

I like talking about things like this. Thank you for asking. Maybe I will post more. No guarantees.

[bevodon]

Guh

Guh