I scream and things magically exist somehow

For main: Eriisaam

[eriisaam]

What if I offer... A sneaky peek of a thing.

Is she remotely done? Hell no.

Did it take more than one attempt? Yes, and more than I'll admit to.

Was it worth messing around with for over a year? Eh. Kinda?

Is she going to continue to haunt me in the back of my thoughts while jugging other wips down the pipeline? Absolutely. 🥲

[eriisaam]

Fuck it. Go my naked idiots.

[eriisaam]

Next up, Hrid! Based on a Draw This in your Style prompt where you can find the original here. (Give the original some love too!)

It was also totes in my plans all along to set him loose on White Day! No it wasn't, but let me have this plz plz plz.

[eriisaam]

May I offer tidings of sprite-rat in these trying times?

[eriisaam]

As a compromise of overthinking and having a ton of stuff come up to not be able to commit to proper ref sheets the way I wanted, a prompt came up about major hairstyle changes, and this is an IOU of sorts in lieu of the ref sheets: Hair style refs.

They may not be as all-encompassing as I hoped, but it did some parts get me to draw out visuals on certain hairstyle changes that would've taken me a bit longer to get to otherwise, and other parts ease into drawing all seven summoners in their more updated designs to get used to them for later ideas I had in store for them.

This ended up being what sucked me into my Suddenly Stagnant Hole for a good while, (and you can probably immediately guess which one of them took the most time, Ephrel...) but! It's also the first time introducing and drawing out newcomer Mahiro on top of the original six! Worth it.

[eriisaam]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Out now: Hopeless Sucker for Love Chapter 1 - Where Everything Fell Into Place Rating: Mature Major warnings: Graphic depictions of violence (more than canon typical), self-harm and implied self-harm, detailed blood, gore, and violence, body horror, mutilation, eye trauma and gouging, loss and heavy damage of limbs, cosmic horror, body horror Other tags: Isekai, OCs, canon divergence (Other tags/warnings pending)

Series: Fire Emblem Heroes, Fates, Warriors, Sucker for Love

Relationships: Ryoma x Summoner (Erin) (more/future changes pending)

After performing the rite of summoning, Commander Anna not only called upon a summoner hailing from the Worlds upon Worlds of the Outer Cosmos, fresh from the brink of death, but the Order of Heroes quickly found themselves making fast allies of the Hoshidans among others, in spite of the stresses and horrors that followed. What began as a mutual friendship between The Order assisting Hoshido and vice versa soon became more than any of them bargained for, as the wheels of fate derailed, even more parties are involved beyond their existing feuds against Embla and Nohr, and a deeper secret behind the summoner and Ryoma's immediate attention for her is gradually unearthed.

[eriisaam]

A thing that came up on bluesky. (With apologies to Tom.)

[eriisaam]

For a Draw This In Your Style meme, this time featuring Hodr!

This was based on the original prompt for this piece over on bluesky, so please give the OG some love too!

[eriisaam]

When Lyon was found, his soul was in a state just barely clinging to existence. All that was left of him was just enough to manifest only a tiny remnant of him: one of his eyes. The rest of him had been devoured, piece by piece, over the course of the time spent captive under Fomortiis's possession.

Still, this remnant of him was just enough to be found by Spectabilis, and just enough to cling onto a wish he thought would be his last, no matter how impossible.

He wanted to live. He wanted his life back again. Before Fomortiis took his body, before he stripped his life away piece by tattered piece.

He wanted to be him again.

Instead of leaving the remnant of a soul to fizzle out in a dying dream, Spectabilis amplified his voice instead, just enough for Sparrow and Robin to find him, and just enough for the two to weigh their options in trying to fulfill that wish.

Inspired by a past incident, Sparrow's digimon scattered across the net slums of the digital world in an attempt to gather as much remnant data as they could, with the goal in mind to cobble together a temporary body to at least buy the wayward soul some more time.

It was a crude solution. It was also proven in the past to be a depressingly short one, even in a fully realized state. Nevertheless, it gave Lyon a form that filled in the blanks of what his soul otherwise lacked.

But the concerns remained. Would it be possible to give him a proper body? One that could fully sustain himself? Even so, how? Would it have been more merciful to end his suffering and put him out of his misery instead, even in spite of the digimon's efforts?

Time continued to tick over how long Lyon had left.

[eriisaam]

Space Piss Bun...

They've been blasting off to space-piss fun... 🚀🐇💫

[eriisaam]

Rough concept sketches that I thought would be quick, then turned out not-so-quick due to reasons.

With Kyo, he's a walk back from an older concept where he was definitely Valla themed originally earlier on, but this time he's significantly more colorful and splashed more elements than just pure Adrift-themed. Even now I'm torn whether or not to switch up a few things, but it's more or less a general idea of his wedding alt.

Erin in the otherhand is a brand new addition and completely overhauled from past ideas of her wedding alt by comparison. An earlier idea was she didn't actually have the undershirt under her suit, but I second-guessed whether or not that would actually be all that practical with how far open either sides of her suit's coat was. She also has aspects of the different crests of her supports sprinkled in, and demonstrated another key aspect in her redesign I wanted to show: That she regains her semi-older design of having straighter ends to her hair in more formal alts (unless she gets damaged in battle) while her hair is more messier and jagged in her OG/other rougher alts (as she's already presumably sustained damage). This is due to Camilla taking her off to the side to fuss over and fix the ends of her hair in more fancier alts as a bonding moment while conceding she's too battle-worn in other alts to maintain said look every alt like before.

[eriisaam]

Gift for @vickyt-mv (Thank you so much for being patient with me fam 🙏💖) promised for sacrificing votes in Sharena's honor last CYOL, and Sharena going on to win.

Classy Virion in as classy a style as he deserves just for him (read: Tiddies nearly out, abs definitely out, and ready for business. Totes classy business I'm sure.)

[eriisaam]

The passing of the royal torch

Or how Teru's ex passed the torch of Honorary Loud And Stinky Bastard Husband to Takumi in the nerdiest way possible. Cuz Teru's type is apparently huge dorks.

(Cuz I need to vent, so I may as well vent in the form of more OC lore. And this may as well be my contribution to Maid Day while I recover from stuffs preventing me from drawing in a pinch. orz)

Let's talk a walk back through memory lane with Pokemon XY's Battle Chateau: 'Show your strength via your title!' as they say.

To catch everyone up to speed so we're all on the same page, the Battle Chateau is a prominent location in Kalos just off yonder to 'ye olde lake bridge you've probably drove a billion miles up and down while hatching a metric fuckton of eggs from the nearby daycare at, if you weren't driving circles otherwise in Lumiose'.

The Battle Chateau is a place where trainers rotate in and out for anything from social gatherings in an arguably pretty upper-class hangout place, to catching glimpses of famous local celebrities to meet and hang out with them in person (from otherwise only meeting them for the duration of league business), and more importantly, for the purpose of doing battle for fame, glory, and some degree of profit. Many of the people participating are loaded as all hell, often awarding trainers who defeat them with all manner of high-resale treasures like golden nuggets, strings of pearls, comet shards, star pieces, bags of stardust, stuff of that sort. It's a fairly lucrative place for those craving stronger and more involved battles than just doing it the insiders-in-the-know way of hitting Lumiose's many cafes and loading up on their food through careful battle metering and then making it big on the secondhand resale market of a lot of the gifts there instead.

In Golden Fates canon, the Chateau operates in a way that blurs aspects of both the game's and anime's canon of it, so if you hear something and go 'wait, I thought it went like...", that's from the opposite end of the two. (Give or take a few liberties for this AU otherwise.)

When you join as an honorary member of the Battle Chateau, you are given a title. For the sake of consistency, I'll assume one variant of the title unless necessary later on, but know there's usually three different variants of each title and rank a member of the Battle Chateau can interchangeably use as they best prefer, which is listed lower down. The titles are NOT gender-locked, though understandably, people may be inclined to certain specific variants based on their comfort or preference on the grounds of such. Put a pin on this for later.

You become either a knight, or a baron, depending on your overall rank at the time in regards to the leagues proper. If you're far enough along in the pokemon league as it is, it's fully possible and outright common for many trainers just entering the chateau to already start at baron right out the gate, but a knight can prove their battle prowess merits in spite of their lacking or nonexistent presence in the leagues, and upgrade from knight to baron in kind.

When a guest either starts or upgrades into baron, they get a commemorative royal cape, and will then earn a new cape additionally of different colors as their title upgrades to a new rank.

In order from lowest to highest rank in the Battle Chateu, you have:

The knight, which has no cape, though trainers may either earn, or be encouraged, to wear fancy get-up to be especially immersed in the overly fancy atmosphere of the chateau itself (Yes, this pic in particular of Takumi is relevant, put a pin on it)...

Baron, who are signified with white capes, Viscount, who are signified with blue capes, Earl, who are signified with green capes, Marquis, who are signified with gold capes...

Duke, who are signified with red capes...

And finally the Grand Duke, who are signified with purple capes, and are the highest rank of the entire establishment.

In order to rank up, you need to participate in duels (willingly. You can't just force people on the spot, they have to be in on it too mind.), aka, both you and the other party have to challenge each other to pokemon battles, where your victory means you gain points to rack up toward your ranking. You get more points based on the rank of the other party, where knights are worth 1, barons are worth 2, and so on. However, you're only allowed to challenge up to your rank, but are welcome to challenge below your rank otherwise (with the exception of barons and knights being allowed to challenge one another as equals despite knight technically ranking under baron), meaning it has to involve the higher-ranked one of the two parties to make the challenge for super mismatched battles to go through. The idea is to keep things fair and leave it to the lower-ranked of the two to decide whether or not it's worth the risk taking up an open offer for a higher challenge without letting some noob just speedrun the entire damn event singling out dukes and duchesses on-sight to skip rank otherwise, which is why you'll get cases like everyone chomping at the bit of a grand duke's or grand duchess's invitation to battle, meanwhile the knight and baron have to slowly climb up rank together one stage at a time.

On top of that, in order to officially rank up and be bestowed the new title (and decals to go with), you must complete an initiation battle with a willing participant of the rank you're about to enter, and win that battle, in order to officially rank up yourself (this can be re-tried with different members so long as there's someone of that rank who is willing to do this with).

In short, the rank-ups and point thresholds look a bit something like this:

Knight / Dame / Partisan - started as this if your league rank is too low or you don't participate in league at all

Baron / Baroness / Baronum - Earn 3 points as Knight/Dame/Partisan OR Started at this if you have at least 3 league badges

Viscount / Viscountess / Viscountum - Earn 5 points as Baron/Baroness/Baronum

Earl / Countess / Lairdship - Earn 30 points as Viscount/Viscountess/Viscountum

Marquis / Marchioness / Marquem - Earn 100 points as Earl/Countess/Lairdship

Duke / Duchess / Dukum - Earn 300 points as Marquis/Marchioness/Marquem

Grand Duke / Grand Duchess / Grand Dukum - Earn 1000 points as Duke/Duchess/Dukum

Incidentally? These are NOT accumulative. You MUST earn all of these points per each tier, and the points you earned previously (although certainly can be redeemed for other goodies) don't roll over into your next rank up, which is separately counted up to Grand Duke. Meaning you must go the whole 5, 30, 100, 300, 1000, and work your way up to that damn title.

In terms of social status, the Battle Chateau is particularly famous as a fun bragging rights place and get-together: Completely optional for those simply getting by on the leagues, but immersive and fun otherwise for those willing to work a little to get a fancy title and fairly high social status.

On top of that, different ranks unlock different new services (they still retain access to services unlocked at earlier ranks of course), including the writs, which are written contract commands for which you can make an open invitation blanket-signalling or otherwise blanket-applying to any other participant a user of a writ invokes, including a more public open-invite for people to jump the cue to challenge you, an invitation to get a particularly stronger challenge for better rewards, or even an active invitation to duel a specific member. The specific writs include:

The Writ of Invitation - which mass-invites multiple trainers in general with a wish to challenge you, usually for people who want to grind those points in earnest in particular.

The Writ of Challenge - which mass-invites trainers to bring stronger and higher meta-tier caliber pokemon to challenge you, for the chance of more enticing rewards.

And the Writ of Action - which calls out a more specific member that's at your rank or the immediate rank above (for instance a Duke challenging a Grand Duke), or below your rank otherwise, and invites them to a more personal, more direct battle with that trainer to accept at their discretion. (If you're a Grand Duke, the world is pretty much your oyster at that point.)

With the exception of the Writ of Action, the Writ of Invitation and Challenge have higher ranking colors of writs to emphasize the urgency and yield a much stronger command. The main drawback is writs are expensive as balls, and higher potent writs, up to and including the Writ of Action in totality, is an exceptionally expensive-as-balls command to invoke, so it's not only a matter of careful planning, but a HUGE flex of just how deep that trainer's pockets are to invoke them in the first place.

The social status aspect mentioned earlier comes up quite a bit even here, as the gym leaders of Kalos are all typically at Marquis level, the elite four of the same region are all typically Duke level, and the champion of the region and popular socialite actress and model, Diantha, is a pretty famous example of a Grand Duchess ranked member.

So, naturally, given so many pretty big names are also participating in this stuff, a lot of trainers far and wide would gather in here and climb up the ranks in hoping to see the gym leaders, the elite four, and especially the champion, but especially trainers who either want to get a more personal glimpse of them, or who want to meet them at all in lieu of reaching them naturally through the leagues.

In their earlier and younger days as more active trainers, Kyo and Teru were also no exception.

Back when the two were much more active climbing ranks in the leagues, both of them, among their friends (and general traveling party) at the time, also were members of the Battle Chateau themselves at the time. It was around the time the grassroots were starting in what inspired the group to settle their eventual business of Papilon in what would eventually be a part of Lumiose, but in the early days of planning and setting up, all of them rotated in and out of Battle Chateau at the peak of their pokemon trainer journeys, out of which Teru and especially Kyo took off.

Then Papilon's growing pains were settling in, the trainers traveled abroad less between either adding more to Papilon's initial business or going to other regions for inspo sake on what else they can do to freshen Papilon up with and diversify their menu, and then you know the rest one fateful touchdown later in Hoenn when Tylon (mistaken for Team Rocket at the time) completely wrecked all their shit in and fractured a lot of the group, while Kyo and Teru were isekai'd and spirited off and thereafter distracted by their summoner duties since.

And then between Teru being in for a very long and steadily-maintained recovery plan of being some parts bedridden and other parts chronically ill, and both of them having massive issues being able to remain as functional pokemon trainers (but Kyo in particular nowhere near bouncing back as quickly or seamlessly like Teru did in pokemon use) due to both of their crippling triggers being anywhere near pokemon centers henceforth, their respective backgrounds in the Battle Chateau continued to get pushed further back in either of their minds for every successive book's worth of bullshit that comes up to attack Zenith (but especially Askr and Embla) with, and the rest was a distant faded memory.

-

Or at least it was, until it was eventually unearthed like ancient fossils over time, once both Kyo and Teru continued to move on, grow, meet new people, grow attached to said people, and then get more involved with said people's lives in pretty significant political ways.

So of the six summoners, to recap their support situations...

-

Erin has no political background, and Lif is in a tentative position sorting between Gustav, Henriette, and both Alfonse and Sharena (should the latter two choose, he and Erin can act as the defacto rulers after Gustav and Henriette to free up duties to let Alfonse and Sharena continue their active roles as Order of Heroes, but if they take up active rulership instead, priorities default to either of them rather than him).

Hrid (like Gunnthra) didn't take up the throne of Nifl, as the current queen and his mother, Eliva, is still active queen of Nifl, so who rules Nifl after her between either him or Gunnthra isn't necessary to press on just yet.

Ryoma is king of Hoshido while Camilla is actively queen-consort, meanwhile Erin is appointed as Summoner of Hoshido otherwise (in parallel to Teru as her counterpart) as decreed by Corrin (Corrin is NOT her support to be clear, but she's close in a friend-familial way to both Erin and Teru among others) to ensure Ryoma and Xander stay on track maintaining Nohr and Hoshido's peace.

-

Sparrow and Ephrel also have no political background (Ephrel's background as part of an underground hacking group with some powerful hackers they can call favors from, notwithstanding,), meanwhile barring Robin, the key political standouts include Lyon and Chrom.

Out of the two, Robin gives Chrom the ability to resume rulership over his world's Yilisse (since Chrom's original world was completely destroyed sans him and Ephrel), and Chrom, rather than pick a spouse at random, pretty much designated ALL of them to be his lord-consorts, though Robin and Lyon are usually the most active between Robin's experience with where his Yilisse left off and Lyon's experience as an actual ruler otherwise.

While Lyon technically has stakes in his proper country otherwise in Grado, the problem comes in not just Grado's REALLY bad state of affairs last it was left following his initial death, but being a whole landmine of triggers of where to even begin with that in regards to requiring him to finally face the Renais twins at the very least. Whatever moves he makes toward Grado are subtle and uncredited (or credited to Yilisstol generally), and that's only with very careful navigating on Robin's and Ephrel's parts to even get there if Sparrow doesn't otherwise rotate duties with them.

-

And then there's Eclair, who as you all know by now, he very technically has claims of being an Asgardian god, son of the war god Thorr and all the bragging rights and pitfalls that title bestows (mostly the pitfalls...), which leaves Kyo and Teru to sort out.

Now in regards to Kyo (since he's with Eclair too), the original thought was he and Kaze are the only ones without titles at all (unless you consider both Kaze and Saizo being the direct sons of the head of the clan Saizo the Fourth as a title, but even then it was Kaze's brother Saizo (the fifth) who took the title officially), Lifonse, in a similar move as Lif, stepped down his claim of Askr in totality (but is even farther removed from both Side A and Side B Askrs in comparison to Lif's arrangement), and Kamui similarly stepped down his ties to Valla, Hoshido, or Nohr in favor of Corrin in a similar manner as Azura (since his original world was abandoned, and this world's Corrin is the current ruler of Valla while Xander and Ryoma are current rulers of Nohr and Hoshido otherwise, so while he serves assistance to Corrin, he doesn't lay any claim otherwise even with Corrin's willingness to share roles).

That leaves Cronos as the only active ruler of the zoanthrope kingdom of his own world, which is completely dwarfed by basically all of Corrin's familys' countries, and so small that his series didn't even give it an official name.

-

Meanwhile, rounding out Teru, finally, there's the aforementioned Xander who is current king of Nohr, Takumi as king-consort since he has the most rulership experience in a mirror as Camilla was on Ryoma's side, and the aforementioned Gunnthra is currently on standby (like mentioned similarly as Hrid's doing) given Eliva is the current active ruler of Nifl, and she otherwise rotates queen-consort roles whenever Takumi branches out elsewhere in the meantime.

Neither Reinhardt nor Tethys have royal titles, and Teru was originally thought not to have any either, though Reinhardt in particular had also been rather humble of his title otherwise as General of Gelbritter (Friege) and being otherwise a possible reincarnation of the legendary Thrud. Though, in light of Xander primarily alternating between either accepting Corrin's decree of Teru being Summoner of Nohr, or his king-consort, or otherwise rotating that offer to Takumi or Gunnthra instead, should it be decided that Gunnthra is to rule Nifl instead, Reinhardt and Tethys are thought to best assist as her consorts in that case, given Teru's and especially Takumi's direct experience of Nohr and Hoshido otherwise being better aids with Xander.

-

So catching up with all of that, let's walk back to Kyo and Teru.

Like mentioned before, it was originally thought the two had no titles. They were, after all, pretty regular people with pretty mundane lives, they were otherwise co-owners of a pretty hip restaurant, but summoners otherwise, and up to the point royal titles came up in heavy discussion, neither remotely alluded or suggested otherwise that wouldn't otherwise be awarded as consort rights from one of their other supports.

So it came as a big surprise, and point of confusion then, when between both of their support circles being much more invested in the World of Pokemon and their past as trainers, on top of certain supports being rather heavily teased with the promise of juicy intel for a price by that world's Anna (yes, turns out, the outer worlds each have their own Annas as well), supports like Takumi and Kamui both shared the same brain cell and bit the bullet and paid the troll tolls for the World of Pokemon's Anna to give them the shocking discovery that Teru and Kyo are both members of nobility, albeit skewing the full context that these titles came from the Battle Chateau, and have different connotations as fellow dukes in the pokemon world (but especially that particular chateau) compared to, say, the duchy of Grannvale, Lord Sigurd.

More, the subject of both their pasts as trainers is a painful and tricky subject to navigate. After all, both of them were still reeling from their traumatic experiences of both being kidnapped, tortured with cruel experiments, and transformed into powerful shapeshifters at the cost of lasting, rippling trauma.

Teru only somewhat eased back in his more passive uses of his pokemon for the betterment of Nohr's ecosystem to stimulate it catching up to Hoshido's for the long term, yet in more intimate moments, his supports knows well how violently reactive he gets, and how much he has to hold back, at being approached or physically touched the wrong way. Even some of his pokemon still have lasting scars of his other incidents he had to bounce back from on top of the initial kidnapping, chief among them his signature pokemon in his shaymin, Papri.

Kyo, meanwhile, traded being way better off physically with being way worse off in regards to utilizing his pokemon for more than transport or glorified-pet sake, and he had a much harsher time and a far stronger panic reaction to anything lab-like or pokemon-center-like that even with Erin among others assisting in taking over healing duties (as in she'll borrow both their pokemon and take them to heal at the centers in their place, usually accompanied by Lif doing it), Kyo was a lot slower to accept this arrangement, and even with it, still pointedly fought his own battles or still relied on his own body and powers while avoiding pokemon battles entirely and/or dipping into his on-hand supplies out of force of habit otherwise, and gets antsy whenever his supports try to do pokemon battles in his place (particularly the pokemon Kamui and Lifonse inherited from their previous (dead) Kyo).

The supports DID eventually sort out that their titles are more of a show of their battle prowess and strength than ruling influence, but even then, both of them suddenly being confronted with some variation of "WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME YOU'RE A DUKE?!" only for them to STILL walk away with overestimating their titles, it's like having the equivalent of those paper crowns from Burger King and having your Arthurian-sort-of displaced-time-period royal himbo-spouse be like:

"Ah yes, forgive me for not recognizing your full title sooner, Lord-King of Burg."

-

So we're all caught up on what Battle Chateau is and does, everyone's titles, and Teru and Kyo having them.

"What does it have to do with this little dipshit?"

So like I said in the past, Kyo and Teru both hail from the World of Pokemon as former trainers. Teru still somewhat embraces the role slowly, carefully, and in spurts, meanwhile Kyo toes the line of zoanthrope-adjacent in focusing significantly more on his own shapeshifting powers instead, give or take occasionally bringing his pokemon out as transport, pets, emotional support, and very little else.

Occasionally, Teru and Kyo have also colluded with summoners of other worlds, other sets of monsters, and swapped hands with them, notably including Sparrow and Ephrel (who hail each from a World of Steel interconnected with the Digital World and primarily both handle digimon likewise), or eventual summoners like Mahiro (who has strong connections with the Palapagos Islands and had prior connections to the World of Discs, so has equal dealings with (Palworld) pals and (Monster Rancher) monsters respectively), with Teru and Sparrow in particular being frequent traders of one another for various purposes, leading to eventual byproducts of these trades like Takumi's eventual digimon partner in Pikachu/Piki (a patamon).

Of Teru's supports, Takumi is equal amounts the one who is the stinkiest bastard about whining and bitching about having no interest in monsters of any sorts and being widely unimpressed by babysitting the aforementioned patamon at first (to a point he named it "Pikachu" in a very "pikachu, patachu, whatever I don't give a shit" way), but then very suspiciously is also one of the most involved out of Teru's supports in being surprisingly the most versed in absorbing info on monster care with all the enthusiasm his siblings compare with his handrearing of kinshi, especially when Hinoka and especially Ryoma had their hands tied way too much with other things to be nearly as involved or willing to handrear monsters, so Takumi ate that shit up as an expert-in-the-making as a thing he can lay claim on that neither of his older siblings are nearly as versed in (and eventually it softened his heart to the monsters too, like the aforementioned "Pikachu" eventually being properly nicknamed "Piki" as he warmed up to him more... when Leo isn't otherwise nicknaming him Piggy for being a little shit of his own too. Which Takumi has equally yelled at Leo over, just as he's also occasionally used the nickname himself too when Piki misbehaves.)

So, needless to say, when a lot of the other supports are either also too busy to really deep dive into pokemon like Takumi can, or noticeably modestly backed off into the sidelines and were much more quiet keeping up after all in favor of letting Takumi shine instead, Takumi actually heard Teru out more about how the chateau works, what his title meant in full, and the past experiences Teru reminisced on, back when he and Kyo used to climb up the ranks together back when they were a couple, only for Teru to slow down over time in favor of refocusing on the restaurant, in sharp contrast to Kyo being much more engaged in the challenge in spite of the monotony of so many battles the highest title of all would call for, and so Teru stopped at 492 points of the requisite 1,000 to hit Grand Dukedom, meanwhile Kyo blew the point requirement out the water, defeated Champion Diantha, and earned his title as Grand Duke by comparison, prior to The Incident and then both retiring as summoners.

As much as the hype of having his title blown out of proportion did get to Teru enough to share interest in potentially finishing out the rest of his point requirements to complete that final hurdle, and he was especially egged on by his supports, unfortunately, there was only so much wishful thinking could do for him.

After all, of the two, he was left in a very precarious state health-wise. Either so sickly and weak he'd collapse on the spot, or his stability would potentially put him at risk. While he had a better handling on the latter thanks to everyone's efforts to let him actually heal and recover from his past incidents and traumas, unfortunately, in practice bouts between his pokemon and the budding team Takumi tried his hand to raise, Teru couldn't reliably endure the physical strain it took to take up trainer duties between actually making it to the chateau, and actually staying lucid enough without collapsing to stay alert and attentive enough to command his pokemon properly, even with mitigation attempts from his supports shadowing him, to him leaning on physical aids or seats, or taking long breaks in between practice bouts.

His pokemon might be capable, but he himself wasn't. A few battles, maybe, but roughly 508 battles, even in rotating week-long shifts, already made his eyes glaze over even back when he was way healthier and stronger, let alone now.

But there was a generous loophole to how the chateau works. After all, it was moreso for fun and games than a super heavily-regulated thing, so there were leeways to how the titles and ranks worked.

It's a fairly regular occurrence for trainers of all walks of life to take up the mantle of pokemon training as either competitive battlers, or casual battlers, even when they were too young to technically qualify as certified trainers (so they couldn't participate in the leagues yet if under 10, the minimum age requirement, but with supervision there's been regular cases of toddlers outright borrowing the pokemon of their older family for battle), and/or cases of other trainers whose journeys were spent in tandem with a close companion, a caretaker, or even a ward who battles in their stead if not in tandem with them.

Therefore, it was not entirely unheard of for case-by-case instances to crop up where a title earned by one trainer had been loaned out or outright bestowed on another, or someone earning the title in honor of a different trainer they're battling in place for, provided they fulfill certain requirements based on what's specifically going on between either parties.

With Takumi's insistence to investigate this, between some parts genuinely feeling inspired to help nudge Teru past that long-forgotten finish line when Teru couldn't handle it alone, and other parts sticking it to Ryoma, Hinoka and Leo otherwise, he convinced Teru to be willing to negotiate with the organizers behind the chateau on allowing Takumi to assist in battling in Teru's stead to help him reach Grand Duke.

Unfortunately, given Takumi was a complete nobody in regards to his history (NO league history whatsoever, no known background with pokemon that can be actually documented and cited in the World of Pokemon proper, and he's trying to man a fledgling team, meanwhile claiming he'll take charge of another trainer of a sharply wide skill and experience gap from him), his initial chances weren't very optimistic, but they were willing to allow him to resume Teru's prior progress toward Great Dukedom with an initial 492 point start as Duke, but only under the condition that Takumi reaches the title of duke on his own merits first.

So armed with appropriate modern-esque butler attire, a ragtag bunch of pokemon misfits, and a dream, to his credit, he did a damn good job climbing the ranks on his own merits.

Granted, he had to carefully manage his team in between Order of Heroes duties and otherwise, and he had to pick up things in rotation between whoever's available and avoiding paying for the writs cuz 'nuts to all that' to their prices, but he gradually ascended the ranks on his own accord as supports, family, and friends rotated in and out of looking on, and eventually, Takumi managed to reach the title of duke while finally picking up the rest of the pace of where Teru left off so long ago.

And much like what Teru gave up originally on, it was a massive time and repetition slog, and he hated every moment of it while loudly making it VERY known how much he hated it for all of Askr and Hoshido to hear. (Whether they liked to or not.)

But damned if he didn't do it, and after careful navigation and battle prowess, he hit the 1,000 mark, and qualified for the one final battle he needed to make it all count.

And there lies the problem, but not for the reasons Takumi prepared for.

Remember: You not only need to meet the point requirements, but you also needed to battle someone of the rank you're trying to upgrade to. In his case: A Grand Duke/Duchess/Dukum.

The problem? A LOT of Grand Dukes fell out of the circuit entirely, due to either being too busy elsewhere, retiring (officially or otherwise) once the glow of reaching said title fell off in favor of more recent and higher prestiges to pursue (like the leagues, or various tournaments, or stuff of that sort), or a concerning amount of them just up and disappeared entirely, fate unknown (...like a certain mass exodus from a certain sudden shutdown. For example.)

So between famous cases like Diantha being way too busy to entertain a battle with him (she's a full time model, actress, and already juggles a lot between being a famous celebrity and the region's champion, cut her a break), and many other cases being flat out gone in some form or fashion, there isn't actually a grand duke available for Takumi to battle, and given how high a bar prior grand dukes already set battle-wise, it wasn't in the spirit of the facility staff to measure up to step in their place.

BUT! Fortunately for Duke Taco Truck, that's not where his claim to fame ends.

Soon after finding out Takumi got softlocked out of honoring Teru's legacy, and seeing how crushed Takumi got in falling just shy of the finish line no matter how proud his supports (Teru especially) were of him reaching as far as he had for a complete newbie to an entire world of battle beasties, just when Takumi was nearly ready to throw in the towel and accept maybe that's as far as he could go, like it or not, he ends up getting a notice.

A trainer sent him an invitation back to the Battle Chateau, and challenged him to a personal battle, via the Writ of Action.

A Grand Dukum returned, out of retirement, specifically to single out and challenge him.

And after hauling the fastest of ass all the way from Shirasagi to Askr to grab Teru and drag him through Campfrier, then well back up to the chateau, he was finally met with the last battle he had to do, after a long and miserable slog of chain battles leading up.

He was not only met up there by familiar faces like Corrin and Kamui, Erin and Ryoma, etc, on the opposite end of the battlefield, but the return of the once-retired Grand Dukum, Kyo.

Despite his discomforts of battling with pokemon again, and despite thinking he wouldn't be able to handle risking his pokemon in battle again, Kyo was working on his own internal battles in easing back into the once familiar thrills and joys of battling he used to have before Tylon shit all over it.

He noticed Takumi's entire struggles, at first because Kamui would keep tabs of it and then word-vomit all over him about it, then he himself taking notice of his own accord, and while he still has his own issues to deal with post-battle, the combined effort Takumi demonstrated to follow the same challenges he once did, only for all the other grand dukes to drop the ball, he worked his way back into being just enough ok with battling again long enough to help Takumi across the finish line, and he practically dragged Erin with him to help give him peace of mind for the parts of the battle he still couldn't cope with (the heal-trip afterwards).

This in itself already surprised Teru plenty. Takumi getting this far, his ex actually working himself up in the interim meanwhile to do this for him over some dumb title, being in the chateau at all, it was a lot already to take in.

And then Takumi ups the ante by using all his hoarded up winnings to throw down a Black Writ of Challenge (black being the highest and most expensive color-ranking, bear in mind,) in direct response. If Kyo was going to go through this in direct spite of his discomforts, just for them, Takumi wanted him to go all-out then.

Which Takumi near-instantly regretted mid-start of the battle upon fully taking in Kyo's team, and having practically invited Kyo to bring in big guns like a mega-evolved pokemon, his gigantamaxed starter, and a fucking crown-sword zacian (who he knew from prior knowledge was mysteriously 'banned' from participating in most tournaments period from Kamui), and pretty much put Takumi through the whole nine yards of every battle gimmick across the gens in one battle. He'd help Takumi try for the title, but by the gods of all nine realms and then some was Takumi gonna work for it.

The 'OH SHIT's to follow were loud and frequent, to say the least.

But in spite of very quickly Fucking Around, he just barely avoided Finding Out, and while it was up in the air how much Kyo went all-out and how much was him still holding back somewhat, especially at the very last instant, Takumi did end up defeating Kyo by the skin of his teeth, right in front of his family and Teru no less, and retroactively pushed Teru up to Grand Duke with matching capes to go with him of it.

And then he continued the time-honored-tradition-now of all other Grand Dukes that came before him held, and fucked right out of that chateau immediately after getting that title two-fold, cuz after 9000 battles, and getting nearly ran over by Angry Dergcopter, Sniper Gecko, Swordy Murder Dog, and roughly four gens worth of battle gimmicks, he only had just enough pokemon-related spoons to be absolutely insufferable to Leo about his new Grand Dukedom for a good chunk of a month, and very little battle-drive in him otherwise after. (Fair play to him too.)

[eriisaam]

Based on some parts warmup doodle and other parts an art meme chain that happened over on Bluesky: Draw a pokemon (but with your non-dominant hand.)

So all of you now get an espurr. But the espurr went through the horrors. (The horrors is my non-art hand.)

[eriisaam]

Nihility

Some more lore to pass through some nerves with, but lately I've been running through some thoughts about the concept of Nihility from a place of a species, and how it ties with two key figures who would best represent it, and how it reflects back to their rivals, only to wonder how further and deeper it can go even beyond those two, if it were pushed further by World of a Golden Fate's unique branch-offs from canon FEH's events.

It'll also go over a character I've on-again-off-again kept mentioning and teasing about in passing, but while I was hoping to bring her up in more detail (her and her rival that is) when I actually drew either of the two out proper, I suppose coming this far, it wouldn't hurt to just go ahead into details of her anyways, and walk back more on her when her design is actually publishable.

So... Nihility. What it is in terms of Golden Fates, how it was introduced from the transition from FEH canon to Golden Fates, how others got roped in, and a bit more details about a certain pair of Bloody Roar OCs: Gaia and Pandora.

With apologies for not having proper art to go with, here's a bunch more official art pieces together to get my points across in the meantime once again.

-

To explain Nihility, let's walk back to who introduced the idea in the first place: Ginnungagap.

In the canon series of events, she's introduced as the direct opposing force to Freyja, and indeed is the most antagonistic to her in particular. Yet she has a rivalry with her that stems - not from a grudge, or even drawn from any particular emotion at all - but a conscious goal and role of opposing Freyja as a seen equal and opposite. Technically speaking, Ginnungagap was given the official title of "Ruler of Nihility", though defined otherwise as the Ruler of the realm of Nothingness. The envoy where things cease to exist and dreams, thoughts, and emotions erode into a complete void-like end.

But in terms of how she translates into World of a Golden Fate, the thoughts I had in mind instead shift a few things around: What if instead of a ruler of Nihility, she's nihility as a species, rather than the embodiment god of it. And what if, instead, her rulership was as the Nihility of Nothingness, to which all Nihility assume a certain specific domain they lord over proper. Like in the same way the vanir are a species, but different members have different domains they rule over: Freyr as the Lord of Dreams, Freyja as the Lord of Nightmares, Njordr, the Lord of the Sea, Nerthuz, the Lord of the Lands, and Gaia, the Lord of Beasts.

At first, the initial thoughts I had were originally true specifically to Ginnungagap and Pandora (who by extension, represents the unborn, albeit in ways far more substantial than the two examples of unborn otherwise: Xion and Nagi), and initially, the thought was whether or not they and this AU's variation of Gullveig were all perhaps examples of nihility whom resulted from the corruption of specific ars.

After all, Ginnungagap is presented to us initially as the equal opposite opposing force to Freyja, meanwhile from what this AU inherited and made free real estate of in regards to Gaia and the unborn, Pandora - the rawest embodiment of the unborn as a whole, is also her direct opposite, and both tie heavily together into lore I more or less built from the ground up from them when Gaia's lore otherwise was... well... a mess. (if combining her together with the vanir wasn't already an indicator of how much she went rogue for this AU as it is. orz) Even Gullveig - in the absence of the events that were supposed to lead up to a canon-proper Gullveig - tied heavily with the use of Njordr's ar, as had Pandora's point of conflict of having ruined Gaia's ar, so there's some plausibility that Ginnungagap is a manifestation of something potentially tainting Freyja's ar likewise, perhaps in the initial glitches of restoring her to life with Thorr and Loki's powers in accordance with their contract to Plumeria and Triandra.

Then again, this doesn't line up with other examples of nihility who lean well into the idea of what a nihility as a species member is, but doesn't have the ar manipulation to back why they would exist with that in mind, and for World of a Golden Fate: Freyja didn't actually die (fall into a coma or otherwise), and thus Plumeria and Triandra in this AU never contracted with Thorr or Loki either (nor did Lif or Thrasir, for that matter, due to the AU's massive derailings of what exactly happened with Book III, and that's a subject we'll get into later on next in itself).

For instance, another really good example of a creature that shares similar properties to nihility, besides Ginnungagap, Pandora, or an afterimage of sorts of what should've been Gullveig, is Necrozma, except Necrozma, due to Sol and Hilo's lore, has more in common with Askr and especially Embla than with any of the vanir we know of, and so far, no other god outside of the vanir made any indicator they themselves had ars of their own.

So, if it's not due to ar necessarily (as much as it was a key component to three of the four nihilities we know of for now), the other thread all four share in common is that all four of them have elements not just reflecting at least one of the worlds (nine realms, inner worlds (within the fire emblem universe) or the outer worlds (crossover worlds) otherwise), but all but Gullveig is said to have origins of being originally from another plane of existence, with Gullveig at least having a very similar motif in the form of a different timeloop, rather than necessarily from a different part of the cosmos.

So, let's break them down individually. Starting with Gunngagap first while we're here.

Whether related to Ephrel's connections to their ties to the digital world, or pure coincidence, she holds a lot of similarities to a lot of digimon's ancient and modern enemies, and it doesn't help that two immediate cases are outerworldly in nature, and not technically digimon in themselves.

The first examples include the kenzoku, who were often talked about at length every time Ephrel's backstory comes up, and are an ancient enemy to the digimon's ancestors, the kemonogami, back when they operated on more yokai-esque roles and rules before their heavy integration with the wide web in the present day.

The other being the eaters, a much more modern threat, who are very similarly said to have originated from another realm, before data (eater bits) were created in attempts to recreate them, they went rogue and tried to find ways to slip into the Digital World starting with the EDEN Network, and proceeded to wreck so much shit that they put a not significant amount of people into EDEN Syndrome induced comas - a condition in which the victim's physical body completely shuts down and disconnects from their now-digitized and trapped consciousness, wills, and effectively their souls, and which either digimon can then hijack the bodies of victims, or souls can potentially fizzle out from the strain of their disconnect and distorted states, or be outright killed on sight by rogue digimon or eaters otherwise.

Incidentally? It's victims of EDEN syndrome and how digimon attempted to mitigate and assist victims to stabilize them for a time that became the basis of what Sparrow and Robin later invoked in trying to save Lyon, before a proper body could be restored for him with Xerneas and Kyo later, so there's that.

Gunnagagap's unnervingly apt knowledge of the World of Steel, her rather uncanny resemblance to certain infamous virus type digimon like chrysalimon (pictured above), and her similarities to eaters, all leave it up for Freyja's nerves to haunt her on how much Gunnagagap is based on nightmares more firmly rooted to her prized general alfr in Ephrel, and how much of it might be that she's actually kin with an even worse threat that already wrecked havoc on digimon kind (and by extension their World of Steel) multiples times before...

-

Out of the four, Gullveig is the biggest outlier here: She's the only one who originated within the nine realms of Zenith directly, rather than borrows themes heavily from the other worlds (if we believe Gunnagagap has origins related to the above eaters and/or kenzoku, or something similar). She's also the only one not attributed to being from another outer dimension, another part of space, or is otherwise outerworldly in regards to what can feasibly exist (divine or otherwise) within Zenith, and she was by and large created by Njordr originally through the raw concept of the golden serpents themselves, then how they translate once imbued in a host, first via Heidr as we saw chronologically in the loop FEH shows, then walking you through the How We Got Heres of how that would lead to the end result of Gullveig within Seidr.

The problem with Gullveig, however, is that in Golden Fate: Heidr never came to be, and Gullveig never came to pass like canon. The cycle hadn't actually began in Golden Fate's timeline, and it was a rare instance of a timeline where Njordr had to plan the grass roots of said plan, rather than maintain the bootstrap paradox timeloop of an existing plan that's ongoing. More, because of noticing rather quickly of Eclair's impressively powerful form as a king cobra esque beast in his fully-realized god form, Njordr was a bit too heavy-handed trying and failing to force Eclair together in seizing Seidr's immediate fixation on him as lending well to his plan, and ended up driving the two further apart long enough for Gullveig's after-image of sorts to wind up outing his entire plan outright.

This Gullveig, rather than be a time manipulator, became Gullveig: The Nihility of Emptiness. As an image of what could've and should've been, now devoid of all sense of purpose with the severed ties of her golden serpents, she is listless and wayward while trapped in the prison of her own mind in a constant state of losing her hope, feeling numb to the purpose of her life and would-be connections, and with not being a technical part of Seidr this time, a further loss in a sense of who she even is.

This Gullveig is the one that the Order of Heroes confronted with, and in a long story snipped very short: Eclair took a similar approach to her as Chrom did to Mirage Grima in converting them into Tangie, and that Gullveig more directly was reborn and reconstructed into a rare Heidr variant who is not directly attached to Seidr or a summoner like typical.

-

To explain Pandora and Gaia, let's walk back a bit on Gaia first.

Gaia, in the Golden Fates AU, is a vanir who is the daughter of Nerthuz and neice of Njordr, thus making her Freyja and Freyr's cousin. In the same way Freyja was originally known as Eitr, Gaia was originally known as Gna, before assuming the role of Gaia upon retreating into the World of Beasts, where, out of inspiration from Ashunera's similar actions in creating the zunanma - the ancient ancestors and precursors to what would've been the beorc and laguz in the World of Radiance - made a similar precursor species who, like the zunanma, similarly led to the split between humans and zoanthropes, and (more unfortunately) similar conflicts between the two species.

Ashera's attempts to quell their feuds with her power was so great that she nearly flooded the damn things out of existence, and what followed was a long slippery slope that ended with Ashunera splitting into Ashera and Yune, the zunanma being nigh entirely extinct and almost forgotten about when beorc and laguz had otherwise made up the entirety of Tellius by then, and what little was known of the zunanma by that point was heavily muddled in distorted or outright lost history in the present day of Tellius.

Not too far off from her idol, although Gaia hadn't quite reached the point of completely losing herself so badly as to split herself into parts, nor did she drown the earlier ancestors of the zoanthropes out of existence, she still heavily struggled in the face of earlier turmoils and tribulations in the World of Beasts, and still suffered significant disconnect with the zoanthropes and humans alike (and similarly, the zoanthropes by and large knew her far more and better than the humans, and only a select few knew more than just in passing and brief snippets), where her own aftermath led her to heavily isolate herself in a remote pocket realm adjacent to the rest of the World of Beasts, various tribes heavily associated with her having conflicting ideas of who she is and her history.

The general idea (as inherited by canon) being she's the creator of all life, the embodiment of the process of natural selection as a constant, self-balancing and self-regulating force, and she is equally the creator of granting zoanthropes their immense gifts and powers and a genetic trigger of sorts to easily have humans make the leap into zoanthropy (which Tylon compounded the issue of heavily manipulating, and not coincidentally, a not-insignificant amount of the cast are not naturally born zoanthropes, but the result of heavy experimentation, and the same kind of experiments Teru and Kyo underwent), the creator of her own destructive and volatile force of the unborn, and can be summed up as 'equally the cause of all of the world's tomfuckery as much as she's the solution to them likewise (and the former far outweighs the latter half the time)'.

Also not exactly helping her case, the unborn as a whole in themselves are a highly parasitic, outerworldly species, and collectively with the form of Pandora, they make up in totality the Nihility of Unexistence. The embodiment of things lost in time and through this aforementioned 'natural selection', the things that should've existed, but glitches in their fates suddenly caused them to cease to be, and the beings who shouldn't exist yet, but defy fate to try to force themselves into some form of being prematurely. They were collectively attributed and blamed on Gaia for their creation or allowance to exist, and it isn't helped that when they aren't otherwise forcing their existence into the physical plane in the form of heavily twisting an existing life form into a vague semblance of their image, they're otherwise uncharacteristically highly demonic-looking and immediately set apart from the otherwise animalistic based species of shapeshifters.

Pictured above, for instance, Stun, an insect zoanthrope who is already a whole mess and a half in himself in terms of why he doesn't look remotely human even in his humanoid form, and next to that is an example of what would've possibly happened (in a bad end in BR3) had he been infected and taken over by an unborn.

There were also two other examples of proper 'unborn zoanthropes' who further demonstrate the former being a fully-realized unborn (completely synced as its own host in the form of Xion), and compare and contrast an instance where the sync was incomplete between unborn and host (in the form of Nagi, who due to this is called 'the spurious (the copy)' due to this). There's a reason for Nagi's incomplete state, but to get to that would require walking back to what this has anything to do with Gaia and ar.

In short: When the unborn congealed together enough to make the personification of Pandora, zoanthropes like Mana were technically right to say Gaia created them, but in the same way that is like saying the Black Goat of the Woods Rhok'zan created The Thousand to be the way they were in turning on and exploiting her under the whims of her soured relationship with Buck.

In a similar manner not far off from the way Njordr could willfully corrupt his ar to create the core of the golden serpents, and then that spiraled into the creation of Gullveig, Gaia, under the pressure and grief of the turmoils of the world, had her ar partially corrupt in her despair, just enough for the unborn to come into existence, form Pandora, and for Pandora to slay what would've been Ryoho's ancestor in Neorxena, and then infest her body, thus corrupting Gaia's ar even further in her grief.

Gaia primarily used her ar to strengthen her destined guardians to heightened levels, and allow her to heal and restore others to life, much as Freyja was similarly capable of doing in protecting and restoring Plumeria, Triandra and Spectabilis, then later power up the former two in their awakened alts. Except now with her ar corrupted, any attempt on her part to make or restore the life of another would now immediately corrupt them with the same power and properties of the unborn, and this is what led to her creating cases like Nagi, whom she was able to save from the brink of death, only to realize in her horror she turned her into a partial unborn in the process, and thus made her just as vulnerable as Xion to Pandora's whims.

Worse, a detail that neither Mana and Ryoho, nor the ninetails, yatagarasu, and the shijin knew, that only Gaia's retainers knew, was that Neorxena, on top of being the progenitor of Gaia's guardian dragons, was also Gaia's lover, and Pandora exploited the hell out of Gaia's inability to strike Pandora down so long as she inhabited and wore Neorxena's body to use against her, especially when attempts to try to force Gaia to strike her down would just worsen the corruption of her ar, and strengthen Pandora in the process. It was also further not helped that much like Nifl's love for her late partner not exactly translating seamlessly to the present day Nifl royals, the love Gaia had in Neorxena wasn't exactly shared between the latest examples of dragon zoanthropes in Ryoho or Yato, and Pandora's exploitation of Neorxena's power also caused rippling effects in random surges of various zoanthropes (but especially dragon and mythic ones) to suffer signs eerily similar to that of degeneration that regularly plagued dragon-based beasts throughout the inner worlds likewise.

For the most part, it had to take Gaia sucking in her pride and relenting to asking for Freyja's help, once the Order of Heroes not only followed Fang's, Yugo's and Cronos's leads to eventually flush her out through Nagi, but her retainers in Hofvarpnir, Hamskerpir, and Gardrofa, and once not only they got past her horrendously ill feelings of Freyja's alfrs, but Freyja herself when Ephrel showed their hand of their ability to call in enough favors to get Freyja to show up at all. (Which wasn't helped, since the last time the two met, and indeed a huge chunk of why Gaia was in a whole ass other world in the outer worlds to begin with, is directly related to what happened that caused such a massive wipe-out of most other vanirs besides their immediate families, and indeed Gaia's ill feelings against Freyja translated to basically any insect-based beast she meets, including the aforementioned alfr and Stun).

Gaia's ar being in the fritz also contributed to her abilities being limited outside the 'unborn will immediately fuck shit up if you revive people with it' handicap. For instance, here's Gaia's powers as channeled through Mana, and the resulting seal.

By comparison, here's her mother doing the same thing, bearing in mind Nerthuz's ar is fully intact, as channeled through Kiran.

-

Which finally brings us to Necrozma, both individually and as a species as a whole.

In terms of canon, the most famous legend of the necrozma line was the Pillager of Light, The Blinding One, and also the Nihility of Absence. The absorber of the warmth of light and life around it, all absorbed into a singular blinding light to illuminate the sheer darkness of the drained world around it. Gone was once the natural radiance of the world, where only one beacon of light now reigns supreme. These were properties incredibly reminiscent to the rather volatile ways Askr's powers over light and Embla's powers over darkness behaved not just in clashing with each other, but whenever one is exposed to the intensities of the other's element. It's also Necrozma's heavy resemblance to Embla in particular that made the idea of nihilities being ar based completely collapse on itself, due to Embla not being of the vanir.

Sol and Hilo, in their triumphs and tragedies to protect Askr, Embla, and their earlier nations at a heavy and brutal cost, both went to retreat back into Alola and establish the Trial of Alola Aina. Both would become the progenitors of this sacred rite for eventual trainers of the present day to earn the right at the blessings of the tapus to share their connections (in the form of separate instances of the tapus themselves, based on which of the trials they completed respectively), but only Sol went on to survive just long enough to leave their marks in history, before passing away in time as well.

This history was heavily overshadowed, however, where while the most ancient and early examples of z-crystals were mutated heroic crystals left over from both of their summoner days, what remained of, and continued to stockpile the present day crystals nowadays was the result of The Blinding One escaping Ultra Megalopolis after leaving the city largely in a state of eternal darkness (...which Teru grimmly picked up on the similarities of Nohr's current state being very uncannily similar...), only to be immediately attacked by the Aolan ancients to predate Sol and Hilo's time, the attacks of which caused the Blinding One's body to fracture in several places in the form of crystals that had since splintered off, turned into ore deposits, and led to The Blinding One having their history widely rewritten to scathing degrees thereafter, until their eventual vindication once defeated in their ultimate form, and passified by their mutual cooperation with a cosmog they originally came at odds with.

In fact, so brilliant were the cooperation of these two pokemon, that it set the groundwork for vindicating necrozmas on a species wide basis thereafter, and many even relenting to renaming The Blinding One to a much more respectable The Radiant One (when it wasn't otherwise made so that The Blinding One set it apart from an eventual legendary figure also called The Radiant One, in a prominent shiny rayquaza otherwise).

Necrozmas, as a whole, became better understood of their mutual symbiotic relationships with cosmogs, and especially their much later evolutionary stages in solgaleo and lunalas, that trainers who were capable enough to capture necrozmas were much better prepared to adjust to a necrozma's needs for absorption of light to sustain themselves without damaging the environment otherwise in the process.

Compared to Gunnagagap, Gullveig, or Pandora, The Nihility Necrozma was one of the rare few instances of a nihility who adapted well to cohabitating the environment it would integrate into, without having to suffer a dramatic transformation prior (like Gullveig into Heidr).

[eriisaam]

Traveler Among Dreams, and the stored memories at the highest point of Nifl

Fuck it. Bird Yuri Time.

Warnings to bear in mind before proceeding: There's death, self-harm, animal-adjacent cruelty, and other dark elements of the sort, so proceed with caution.

---

I mentioned this in the past in other areas, but it was in places more closed off, so I'm parsing through it again to add it to here too. On this episode of "Shit I wish I could draw, but I'm too swamped, so hope you like words instead": Let's talk about one of the ancient summoners, Jarem.

I sprinkled and made (sort-of-outdated) references in the past about the ancient summoners from time to time (particularly Hiru, Sol, and Hilo in particular, where I proceeded to mispell and mix up Sol and Hilo's role and that mistake ended up sticking ever since, oops,) but here's another one with a bit more backstory figured out and sorted to add to the pile. I might add some flavor pics as well just to carry on my points, but believe me this is something I wanna draw out more and flesh out visually in the future, but for now, bare with me.

So... Jarem. Not just a Feh OC, but a Bloody Roar OC as well. Whereas Eclair and Kyo flirted with their ties to Bloody Roar in the form of the former outright summoning a hero from that world (dubbed the World of Beasts) in Cronos (who also doubles as one of the first examples that wasn't a summoner who came from an outer world), and Kyo has heavier themes in connection to that world to set him apart from Teru being a bit more focused on both of their shared Pokemon backgrounds, Jarem is a summoner directly hailing from the World of Beasts proper, and is an actual zoanthrope, rather than simply sharing the elements of a zoanthrope like Teru or especially Kyo do.

She is also directly related to Reiji, although their relations are heavily far apart, spanning potentially centuries, where she is a raven zoanthrope, and directly related to the Yatagarasu, but in a way far and away predating her eventual descendant. Both of them have similar beast forms in appearance (seen above is Reiji and his crow form to compare, hers wouldn't be too terribly far off from that idea), but both have vastly different personalities and morals from one another. Jarem would've been a bit more willing to stay on course in doing what she thought was best, even if her actions held far more rippling impact in a part of Zenith than her own home, meanwhile come BR4, Reiji nearly tore the Yatagarasu a new hole, particularly killing off his own father and leader of the group in his debut.

Before explaining what kind of legacy she left behind, a point of clarity should also be noted about her support and beloved one that also reflects back on this AU's Hrid, Gunnthra, Fjorm and Ylgr, among other royal Niflians: They're also beast units, and are closely related yet somewhat removed from Tellian herons. In their case, they're regarded as the cranes.

A quick run-down of the difference and why that is: In this AU, in a time just before what would've been the Serenes Massacre in Tellius would've occurred, a huge amount of herons were suddenly isekai'd and spirited away into Zenith, many of whom, due to this, have dodged their would-be terrible fate in their original homelands in the Serenes Forest. The circumstances of why this mass summoning occurred is still unknown (either due to just being really difficult to pry out answers in general due to the secrecy of this part of history by and large, and/or because said history didn't survive the test of time in general), but the end result is many of them were thought dead in Tellius proper, meanwhile in actuality a lot of them were transported into what would've been the bedrock of the kingdom of Nifl instead.

So, this resulted in the god of that realm, Nifl, taking in these wayward herons under her wings figuratively and at first literally during the long and tedious adjustment period of having a bunch of forest-dwelling birds suddenly adjust to said forest being intensely cold, especially when it was soon discovered that the herons couldn't actually return back home even if they wanted to (and it wasn't realized if this was due to magic differing from a summoner's power, if this was a safety measure in regards to not sending them immediately back to the deaths that awaited them, or something else going on).

Time passed, the herons adjusted to the harsh winters of the snow-filled lands, and it took a dramatic change in not just their way of life and culture, but even directly impacted their beast forms, where, much like the above potential differences of what makes a raven and crow zoanthrope stand out from one another, but a Tellian heron and a Nifilian crane also have differences in the way some features changed (their crest and tail feathers differ, Nifilians have more gradiant tonings to their wings, etc), but some key details of the herons were lost over the course of generations that caused even modern day remains of the Tellian heron to (with great sadness) acknowledge that though the cranes are of their kin, they're too set apart to necessarily consider the herons no longer endangered (they for the most part gradually lost their ability to speak or understand the old tongues of the heron's ancient language, and they either follow different hymns, or their ability to sing isn't necessarily a guarantee outside of Niflian royalties, and their galdrars are much more in tune with Nifl than with the goddess Ashunera (be it as-is or as either Ashera or Yune respectively), and some pessimistic bird laguz in-the-know of cranes even outright considering them having 'lost their ability to connect with the goddess' in the process).

What adds more to what makes the realization that herons technically continued to exist, albeit evolved into the more-removed cranes in another world and kingdom, is the secrecy that Niflians were even cranes in the first place. Earlier on, cranes developed courting habits both among themselves, and their potential loved ones, that modern day people (but especially summoners into folktales) would compare to that of the swan people, selkies, or especially The Grateful Crane. They are prone to incredible shows of dedication to people they end up devoting themselves to, both in gratitude of a deep debt, or to show the depths of their proclaimed love, where they would go as far as make trinkets with jewelry hardened and formed from their powers over ice and wind, or make fine, beautiful bolts of silk woven from their own feathers, and then present these gifts of silk and jewelry in gratitude and tokens of love. The same devotion and self-sacrifice displayed by the modern day Niflian royals was a facet of similar shows of gifts from self sacrifice in other areas.

Unfortunately, this also was heavily exploited to dangerous degrees: These jewels and silks were highly sought after and command an incredible price in the markets. The seedier and greedier would often exploit the gentle and vulnerable hearts of a naive crane to overwork them to the point of dangerous self-harm and overstress to exploit their magic for their jewels, or the hastily ripped feathers to weave into the bolts of cloth. Others took it a step further to straight up hunt the cranes outright to then utterly ruin their corpses for their own gains directly, and that grim practice was a turning point to why Nifl as a whole began becoming secretive of being cranes, continuing well into the present where the idea of Niflians being bird beasts was dismissed as a fairytale and remained a carefully guarded secret except as cautious reveals among personal birds since.

This is why, then, tales like Summoner Jarem eventually became a hugely guarded secret among Niflian history by extension, because to explain Jarem would also need to explain this secret, especially as Jarem's support and devoted lover was Niflian herself: A beloved member of royalty, and the ancestor to Fjorm and her family: Lady Leiptr.

And if that name sounds immediately familiar to the FE side of people reading this, put a pin on that, we'll get to that.

In a time when Nifl and Muspell weren't quite as at war with one another, Jarem was originally a summoner who served under the role of Muspell's summoner. In fact in the same way that Nifl has a subtle tongue-in-cheek reference to their crane motifs and roots as heron laguz through their prominent white feather motifs, Muspell carried a similar motif in honor of Jarem's raven zoanthrope roots through similar black-feather decals of their own (though Muspellians often mistakingly call her a 'tengu' rather than a raven, and the term 'zoanthrope' didn't quite stay, so you'll hardly hear a Muspellian specifically call her that in the same way Jotuns don't use 'x-antibody' to describe the souped up variants of their jotunaquilmon eagles and have a more native term for their power likewise). That being said, confirming such with either modern-day civilians might be too muddied in history for it to be common knowledge even without the secretive factor, especially in light of the modern day warfare of either nations that made these details in history even more lost to time.

The problem, however, was that whereas the nations of Nifl and Muspell were in tentative peace with one another, and in a time where it wasn't quite that farfetched to believe that a member of Niflian royalty would court the summoner of a later-opposing nation's like Muspell, the gods themselves unfortunately were still as volatile to one another as ever, and there was only so much their respective nations can do to maintain this peaceful stance with one another when their own patron gods were fighting viciously and racking up body counts in collateral damage while doing so.

In desperation, Leiptr, in a move not far off from what Gunnthra would do centuries later, performed the Rite of Dreams, and connected with Jarem, and this was what was believed to be the basis of where their relationship kickstarted. It was through their combined efforts that the nations were able to quell both gods out of their feuding and back into dormancy once more (Muspell moreso than Nifl, she might be a cankerous stick-in-the-mud but she wasn't exactly being violent by nature or on purpose of the two so much as self-defense), and throughout these ordeals, at some point Leiptr courted Jarem with the traditional tidings of jewels she crafted from magic, and silks she weaved by hand from her own feathers, and both fell in love.

Unfortunately, just before both gods were officially dormant, and the nations could actually enjoy their hard-fought peace, Jarem was stricken with a mysterious illness, and later eventually succumbed to it.

Even into the modern day, nobody knew for sure what kind of illness it was, how Jarem contracted it, or the circumstances and whether or not it was specific to her, be it as a summoner, or as a zoanthrope otherwise (that being said, the abundance of summoners that came after Jarem had rather swiftly put to rest of it being a summoner-focused issue). While there were hushed whispers of doubt and speculation if it was really natural causes (as bad luck and bad timing as it may) that would claim Jarem's life, history would repeat itself in the inner worlds eventually that lended to the natural-causes side of the debate (for instance, what would've potentially claimed Ninian's life with a similar illness in her own world of origin, if she were to remain with Eliwood, and seeing as how Ninian was a manakete, and that issue was rooted to her being such, this gave much more credence of this being a zoanthrope-focused illness at the time).

But it wasn't until the present day, when Eclair summoned Cronos by chance - the prince of zoanthropes and another bird-based one no less - that him lacking any signs or symptoms of a potential terminal illness from his long term exposure and eventual stay throughout Zenith, or similarly every other zoanthrope after him also lacking any similar signs, that this reignited concerns and suspicions all over again that Jarem was magically assassinated at the time, and the revelation coming far too late for her or Leiptr to seek justice in either of their lifetimes.

Instead, the best they could hope for long before they knew it, was that it was Jarem's summoning that started a connection with the World of Beasts to the rest of Zenith in the first place, and it was that established connection in place that made it possible for Eclair to connect to it and call Cronos through, and with him, the truth of Jarem's circumstances. (Even if it also came at the price of Loki similarly exploiting it with Uranus among others, but that's another story in itself.) Or at least, this was what was initially pieced together, until a god of the World of Beasts, Gaia, was eventually sought after by the Order of Heroes further on into the present day, and her discovery uncovered she had more in common with Freyja and Freyr than previously thought (which is another post of its own to get into her about).

Unfortunately, this isn't quite about the long overdue justice sought, but another part of what happened immediately after Jarem's death.

Mentioned before, Leiptr and Jarem held a connection through how the two met in the first place: Their shared connection via the Rite of Dreams.

Jarem's death immediately alerted the lord of the dead, Hel, while that dream connection and its sudden severing alerted one of the two lords of dreams, Freyja.

When a summoner dies, it's a Very Big Deal, and is something both had reasons to capitalize on and seize that summoner power for themselves. So both fought bitterly and viciously, and in the chaos of the two gods clashing, Leiptr sensed the battle, sensed further of Jarem's presence as the prize both were fighting bitterly to claim, and so the Niflian princess rushed to the ends of the earth to try to save her lover from the both of them.

But, as you can imagine, her odds of succeeding were stacked against her: A simple little bird against a God of Death and God of Nightmares respectively.

She didn't stand a remote chance against one, let alone both at the same time. Yet she still tried anyways, even when she stood a snowflake's chance in hell through it. Still begging for Jarem to be returned to her, even as a broken mess of feathers, bones, blood and tears.

But her willingness to sacrifice herself for even the chance to reunite with Jarem again, in spite of such hopeless odds, was more than enough to sway Freyr to get involved too. He joined forces with Freyja long enough to overpower Hel and seize victory over Jarem's soul, but then just as swiftly stood against Freyja to disallow her from claiming Jarem for herself. Though this would later sow the seeds to what manifested in her behavior with Ephrel centuries later (namely her intense possessiveness over them, her willingness to patch them back together after their death, and her sudden and swift volatile attitude towards Chrom when he tried to reclaim them similarly from her), for now, Freyja relented reluctantly over claim over Jarem in favor of surrendering her for Freyr to claim instead.

With both Jarem and Leiptr in his hands, what fate he gave the two isn't clear, due to this part being up to MANY different interpretations, some romanticized and others turning darker and grief fueled, depending on the whims of the Niflian who passed this tale along.

Some claimed that Freyr, out of pity and remorse, brought Leiptr from the brink of death, and Jarem fully back to life, so that the two could live out their hard-sought peace back between Nifl and Muspell to the end of their days.

Other cynics claim instead, that Jarem was completely and utterly destroyed in front of Leiptr in her attempts to rescue her, and in her dying breath, was killed by both of the warring gods, dying with the knowledge of her failures, and left as a grim reminder to Freyr to become what prefaced his and Freyja's gradual rift between one another.

Others still tried to strike a balance of both extremes: Perhaps Freyr brought them to life to live the rest of their days in spirit in the world of dreams, when he could neither bring Jarem back to life in full, nor do more than let Leiptr pass peacefully, when the extent of the damage done to her physical body by then was too far gone for him to save her through. Maybe, he otherwise gave Leiptr the illusion of such in her last dying dream before her body would've given out.

Regardless of the specifics, both were sent back to the kingdom of Nifl to handle.

For sure, what is certain of the tale is that both existed at some point, even if Niflians had to keep separate records to obscure their hidden roots as cranes while doing it. Both of them were buried together in the highest peak of Nifl, and in such a way that peak was named after the fallen princess. Centuries later, a chunk of the ores from the deposits at that peak, and the jewels crafted from the royals at the time, came together in the form of a lance that was crafted and named after said peak, and would later go on to be inherited into the present day, first by Hrid, and then passed on to Fjorm ever since.

Zoanthropes by and large, as an extension of cranes being obscured from history, would also be carefully hidden away and guarded (at first on purpose, then by accident over time), so at best, only Niflians and Muspellians knew about them in advance, until Surtr saw to it to fuck up his own kingdom so badly that most Muspellians don't even know about them either anymore. It wouldn't be until the eventual summoning of Cronos into the service of the Order of Heroes that zoanthropes would come up again, but only after it was pried out of him after his initial secrecy of the species, and the notes taken from how he differed from the function of other more native beast types in Zenith and the inner worlds otherwise. The sudden rise of zoanthropes to follow him would eventually give rise to a walk-back of what history could be found of Jarem, after so long of nearly only being known as a summoner often associated with the World of Dreams, rather than the deeper depths of her associations with Nifl, Muspell, and the Yatagarasu otherwise, eventually being honored in the form of the Winged Summoner, who shares said iconography after her, along with her then-title of The Forgotten One.

But Jarem's and Leiptr's legacy as individuals were not entirely lost either. The present day summoners would go on to build legends, but in the parts of Zenith left in a distorted state of time within intermittent tempests, there was a masked warrior who was able to travel between worlds with the ease of a summoner, but occasionally 'glitches' with the after image of someone vaguely resembling him: An alfr with a vague resemblance to the Fairy of Longing Dreams, but whose powers stem from dreams over nightmares. Sometimes, she would appear alone, and other times, with a bird of some sort, not native to any part of Zenith. It was like a glimpse of a time farther ahead, and revealed perhaps the Masked Knight Marth is a being born from a team effort of powers who shaped him into being...

Oh. Right. And him too I guess.

[eriisaam]

...Not gonna lie, the faggin/wrist-fin-dragon is making it very tempting to make a Grima version of that.

...My backlog and budget says otherwise. But! Imagine...

[eriisaam]

Hastily sketched give or take delays cuz power went out:

You see my vision, right?