Dawn Oceana

The mysteriousness of why any of the Theolia siblings would be in such a powerful position but still call out to Indriad like that has been one of the key sticking points for a Theolia theory of Madame X in the first place. While you have an alternative explanation for what Madame X was talking about in the intro, I think from just a writing perspective, we're not meant to ignore the connection between when Erin was furious at Indriad at the Library and when she calls out Indriad in the weird intro world. I think Karma can be ruled out too for meta reasons. The player is actually a good alternative answer - but while The Interceptor isn't phyiscally there. The Player is, but Rejuvenation has so far (wisely) avoided doing the Undertale and Earthbound thing of "You The Player In The Chair are lore important" and has instead created a metaphorical, in-universe player role. We do have an example of a Team Xen member talking to The Interceptor while they're not physically there (well sort of) - Kieran responding to Ren in the Easter Egg. But Kieran doesn't even try until he first sees a sign of some kinda Interceptin' going on. Nobody's actually unprompted started a conversation with the idea that The Interceptor would be around to hear it. Given Madame X is facing away from the camera at the time, and the context of the scene... I think she's just clearly speaking to Indriad. I don't think it's wishful thinking to suggest that she must really hate Indriad, because when does she ever show this much contempt to anyone else in the game? She's cold and dismissive talking about her mother, not angry. She treates Melanie similarly. Nobody else has gotten her this heated and angry. I think the conclusion that Madame X must be a Theolia is so clearly signalled in the writing, in terms of what the writing seems intended to say to us, that the question of "So why does she hate Indriad but respect her Father when she loses?" isn't a debunk, but rather, something we have to figure out as an additional mystery (if there are enough clues to actually figure it out). And in that sense, I think it must be that both Melanie and Madame X can treat the Yveltal as being different to Indriad. We don't actually disagree with this, I wasn't suggesting she actually cares about Kanon. She just seems to think that Kanon is part of her wincon. This is the biggest disagreement. Clear refers to "The Madame" and "The Master" interchangeably. I originally thought after Chapter 15 that their master must be someone totally other than Madame X, and then in the Renegade Chapter 0 I went "Oh, never mind". If there's lore that I've missed that explains this, or otherwise is so clear that it doesn't even need to explain this... well then it's something I've missed, and I'd really love to see it because it's probably big. I'll quote Clear directly. That's one. Then there's the other. Clear received orders to essentially do a welfare check on Talon, from her master. She makes it clear that this is specifically about Talon's welfare, because the only consequence of not talking to Talon is him dying. She makes it clear that even after getting what she admits is useful info from Talon, that she still thinks the focus on Talon is asinine. She makes it clear Madame X is the one focused on him, and the one ordering her to give him helpful pep talks like "Don't worry, everyone will die soon". She also identifies her Master as the one giving the order to check on Talon. The entire time, she thinks checking in on Talon has no practical purpose, so Madame X clearly hasn't had one to give her. From this I'm inferring that Madame X must be the Master because she's the one giving Clear these orders about Talon in the first place. Madame X is the one with the weird focus on Talon's welfare, despite Talon being doomed. And her motive specifically, seemingly has no practical relevance to the mission. Wouldn't it work just as well as a clue that says "Madame X cannot be from this universe"? It lines up very neatly with her mother being Taelia, and it's definitely clearly deliberate - you can even argue that Madame X's nihilistic attitude is exactly what Keta became after enough suffering, and you can even argue that Keta being given his own game is a sign saying "Pay attention to Keta!!!!". But, just as easily, I can say that Melanie invoking "Father" to mean Yveltal in Blacksteeple Castle is an incredibly obvious sign saying "Look how much like Madame X this is! Look, a Theolia just said 'Father' around an Yveltal, and this Theolia controls an Yveltal! Huh? Huh?" If it's not direct foreshadowing, then it must be a deliberate red herring. I don't think there's any accident here, or in terms of what conclusions players are meant to draw. The fact is, if Madame X is the Escapee, then anything we know about how her mother died from the main universe... doesn't apply. That includes Taelia's death too. Because it was a completely different death. And while the parallel universe would've been truly random if revealed at that point in the game, now that Kieran and Clear have established its existence (in an also kind of random way), I think it satisfies Knox 8, so to speak. Isn't the Zed piece the one to your right?

The problem is I don't think there's any option other than Madame X being a Theolia of some kind. If she's Nora, then Nora had to get Angiefied somehow. It's possible to poke holes in the "She must be a Theolia" thing by going: "Just because Melanie called on a 'Father' that appeared to be an Yveltal, which is confirmed to be Indriad in some way, doesn't mean that Madame X is referring to the same 'Father' when she gives her quote." "Madame X having an interest in Maria and being able to quote the exact line that Erin said to Maria has actually nothing to do with any personal connection to the two of them at the time that the line was first said." "Madame X's bond with Melia is something as yet completely unknown and nothing to do with any personal relationsihp to any part of Melia." These are all logically valid and can't actually be refuted decisively. I just don't think they pass the sniff test. From a writing perspective, Melanie's appearance seems like it has to be telling us something about Madame X and Melia for that matter. The clear callbacks to Madame X's fight are just too much to ignore. Likewise, 2 and 3 are possible, but like... the same thing applies. I invoke "Come on, man". I wouldn't if it wasn't for Chapter 12 and the Melanie thing, but I think that makes it unavoidable. As for the Zed thing, if the piece is actually Zetta, then Zed must be plot important enough to warrant mentioning and come down to Zetta through Melia. If it's actually possible to know anything about Zed, we can only know it through the name and vague plot relevance. Zygarde is the only thing I can come up with. Someone else has pointed out though that the description of the Zed piece much better describes Eizen - except for my part, it would mean 1) Zetta is weirdly missing despite Eden and Sharon being present on the Black/World Shatterer side of the board, and 2) What makes Eizen "defiled" the way Eden is - or the way Zetta could be? It's hard to even visually make out what the piece is, but it looks like it's broken off to me. Naturally, if it's Eizen, the logic of Melia being at all related to potential Zygarde hosts, is a complete waste of time. If Madame X is The Escapee, then she couldn't recognize The Interceptor no matter what, because she's from a different universe. Did this universe even have a Calamity? Would the A-gang have made it like 40 years into the future as like 18 year olds for Madame X to meet them all? Something else that was pointed out to me is that Maria actually does have genius feats, because she was doing Advanced Calculus at whatever age she was in Kugearen. But all the same, being a Leet Haxor is probably not enough to build KCE. I mean. Yeah, she did try. It doesn't make sense as far as we can tell, but it happened. Most things about Blacksteeple don't make any sense. That whole sequence after Madame X arrives is responsible for like half of them. Madame X could've easily been the one to save Melia instead of Nim, and then she didn't. They were actually going to die until Nim saved them. Either Madame X just needs Melia's body (plausible!), or it was just stupid. I don't think the Archetype was going to activate there... and I vaguely recall some suggestions that some preconditions had to be met before the Archetype could activate to save Melia at all, and I forget what they were or where this was even suggested, but why would Madame X want to fight against a freshly Arceused-Up Melia when that would make it possible for her to lose at all? The main thing that sequence says to me, that you can actually take away from it, is "Madame X doesn't care about Melia on a personal level", because overall it just doesn't make sense, but I think you can at least get that from it.

Humour me. "Madame X" is obviously the big ticket Da Mystery of the game, because her face is hidden from us and she's called Madame X, which is as "My name is a secret it's hidden woooooooooo" spooky name as it gets. This is despite the fact that actually, very rarely do any of the characters even care about who Madame X is under the mask, and there's even more pressing concerns like "What is Team Xen even trying to DO". Frankly, Madame X isn't even the most interesting character (I actually really dislike her first appearance lol), but even despite this she's STILL the big ticket mystery of the game. Despite this, there's a few things that we do know for sure about her. And I'm going to lead with something that some people try to find ways around, but I think there's just absolutely no way around it. Madame X is a Theolia sibling. Period. I do think we know this for sure. Madame X owns Blacksteeple Castle and an Yveltal. She addresses a mysterious "father" in Blacksteeple castle if her Yveltal loses. Melanie is basically Melia. She calls the same Yveltal, in Blacksteeple castle, "father". It's possible to say "Madame X was just referring to a completely different father", but like, no she wasn't. Let's be real. Can we be real here? I invoke the sacred right of a theorizer to say "Come on, man". Come on, man. This isn't the only evidence towards Madame X being a Theolia. She hates Indriad, as we see in literally the first 10 minutes of the game. She likes Maria and wants her to be safe - but can't save her... yet. So she tells her to be safe and wait. Where does her personal investment in those two come from if she's not one of the Theolia siblings? Madame X feels a mysterious "bond" with Melia, that allowed her to know deep down Melia wasn't really dead. Madame X mysteriously quoted Erin, exactly, to Maria. Erin said the "Don't you dare lose hope" lines to Maria, and the only people around to hear it were the Theolia siblings, Indriad, Anathea, annnnd... the Gardevoir I think. Except Alice and Allen and Maria were unconscious at the time, and also I think Alice and Allen had already been tossed into gen 2. So in reality, only FIVE people in ALL of Rejuvenation could've been reasonably said to have heard it. Madame X has a hatred of imprisonment, like on a visceral level. Madame X has an Yveltal in the first place. But Yveltal is Indriad, or at least Indriad is made up of an Yveltal and a Karma program stuffed together. Madame X must wear her armour. She told us this on the Pyramid. She was trying to trick us and pretend to be weak, but the part about wearing her armour was in the Important Yellow Text For When Things Are Really Really Important. We can assume it's true. Nastasia joined Team Xen because she was looking for her friend, which we know is Maria, and there's some implication I think of having even found her? Madame X basically believes existence is a cycle of suffering, which proves that Team Xen is actually a Buddhist Terrorist Cult who's simply following the Four Noble Truths but they replaced the Fourth one about "following the noble eightfold path" with "Just kill everyone until existence gets it right and stops being suffering". Madame X has a real investment in making history follow a certain path, and the power to do that because she has a Mysterious Artifact That Does it... that Melanie also has by the btw. Back in the Kugearen era, she saves Kanon from death, and forces the Interceptor to rewind their death to get it right. Here's something interesting. Madame X, in Chapter 12, is aware the Interceptor is the Interceptor. But she is not aware in Kugearen. Her speech is all about "What the fuck is so special about you?", and she implies strongly that this is something she's done over and over again. I have a suspicion she's basically savescumming until Team Xen wins using Time Travel, and that's necessary because she has to compete against Spacea and Tiempa trying to do the same thing to force the Interceptor onto a certain path Are we familiar with all of that? Good. Because here's something I've brought up before but I don't think people have really properly thought about, and I think it's the biggest clue to getting it right. Madame X made Clear, Kieran, and the Interceptor check up on Talon and make sure he's okay. Nobody ever really talks about this or thinks about it! And yet, isn't this the most out of character shit we've seen from Madame X ever? We know, because we can see in the future segments, that Madame X's plan is to kill everyone everywhere. Ren admits to M2 in his timeline that "Yeah maybe we'll all die but then we'll be reborn". The only people she's ever shown even an ounce of compassion for are Maria, and Pirate Valarie, and that was apparently just a visceral response to seeing people tied up. Everyone else she believes in Murder Forever. She was even disgusted by Melia reversing Melanie's corruption. So why does she have a soft spot for Talon? You know what else? Talon doesn't exist in previous versions of the game except as a totally offscreen character. That's actually an in universe fact. Talon becomes aware of it after Karma gets to him. So there can't even be an actual connection between Madame X and Talon that we could've seen in any of the actual timelines we've actually seen. And Clear actually gets pissed off about this. She basically says she can't understand why "The Master" - who I think by context with Clear, is clearly Madame X - is so invested in Talon. Madame X is well aware that Karma has infected Talon, so it's not about trying to find out about that. Clear becomes aware of it immediately. Clear suggests it's basically out of pure concern for Talon's welfare. Why? The fact is: Madame X, in this timeline, has never ever ever had the opportunity to know Talon ever, and it is in fact impossible since Talon confirms he didn't exist in previous iterations of Aevium. Despite this, Madame X not only knows about Talon, but cares about him? Well, you can only conclude one thing. Madame X isn't from this universe/timeline. I'm actually going to say she's from a fully parallel universe. Huh. Now wouldn't that be random? No, it wouldn't. I've said this before, but think about how Kieran and Clear are Xara and Jean, but from a parallel universe and as robots. Isn't that random? The answer is: No, it's actually vital and probably solves everything. Let's call this other universe the KCEverse, because Kieran, Clear, and Eden are from that universe... but they're not. In fact, neither Kieran, Clear, or Eden ever set foot in the KCEverse. Ever. They were built by somebody FROM the KCEverse. And they're quite clear that they're meant to be versions of the KCEverse's Xara and Jean. Let's call the person who escaped from the destroyed KCEverse The Escapee. Why? What's the point of that? I'm gonna answer that question with a question. What's the point of Madame X caring so much about Talon? Is there any connection between Talon, Xara, and Jean? We're told that the KCEverse was different, but the people were identical. That means that The Escapee (and Eden, for that matter) have versions of themselves in the universe we play. I've posted before about there probably being a big moonbase connection between Kieran and Clear and Variya and etc, but I kind of ended up dodging the ultimate question of who Madame X was, so I think now I can just come to a safe and definite conclusion - Madame X is the Escapee, who is the KCEverse's Erin. Madame X has to be a Theolia sibling. Madame X has to have a connection to the thing Erin explicitly said to Maria. Madame X hates Indriad. Madame X hates imprisonment - and you can infer from that she probably was imprisoned at some point, like, oh, I dunno, Erin? Erin hates Indriad to the point of calling herself The Devil. Got that? No? Let's get into it more deeply. Which of the Theolia siblings lived in Grand Dream City? Erin. Which of the Theolias could've had a chance to know and get attached to Xara, Jean, and Talon enough to care about them that much? Erin. Which of the Theolias could be smart enough to even conceive of getting Kieran, Clear and Eden built? Erin. And before anyone says "Saki could build them", not only is that subject to "Come on, man", it's been debunked by Zumi. Why would Madame X say exactly the same thing to Maria twice? Because they were two different versions of Erin saying it, one not being aware the other said it. Need more proof? When did Erin even debut in the games? 2017 was the release of V9, The City of Mystery. When has Madame X's identity been locked in from? Huh. What an odd coincidence! It's also 2017! Let's quote Zumi. Huh! Why only 2017? Now of course, it could be "Because everywhere else we spoke about it was on a completely different platform that doesn't have logs available"... but this sounds like Zumi went to some effort to confirm the date, and came up with 2017 in the end. See, 2017 is three years after Rejuvenation V1 first came out. It does imply that Madame X didn't have a real identity in those past versions (I believe it honestly). So, think about it - if she didn't, and you know you need a Big Reveal, what kind of Big Reveal for her identity might you come up with? How about "Melia's sister"? Oh, but you can't do that until you introduce a sister for Melia... and so you introduce Erin. Need more proof? Madame X must be a Theolia sibling, and yet people use the part where she said "My mother died trying to protect me" to prove that she wasn't - because Anathea definitely didn't die that way. But that was just the Anathea of the main universe. If Madame X is the escapee, then the fact that the main universe's Anathea died a different way wouldn't matter. There's another big objection. There's nobody that Erin hates more than Indriad, and yet when she loses, she says "Father, I have lost..." which seems to prove she still respects and answers to Indriad, right? No. Madame X still hates Indriad. She makes it clear in the literal first 10 minutes of the game. In fact, she makes it clear she's seen the same events with Maria happen over and over and over. In fact, is there anyone we're aware of that Madame X hates more than Indriad? Madame X has to be a Theolia sibling, but her memory of her mother's death doesn't match up with what we saw of Anathea's death at all. The conclusion is that she witnessed a totally different death than we did (or became aware of a different one), so she must be from another universe. I feel like that's just an unavoidable conclusion. I mean, the very first Maria and Indriad we meet are from a totally different world, because it's post Storm-9 but the Chrysalis manor is still there and hasn't been turned into the Chrisola Hotel yet (Notice how those two places have such similar names and tilesets and locations.) But then again, it may also be a weird pocket dimension, so, not necessarily conclusive. Need more proof? Let's talk about The Escapee. Is there anything else we can know about them? Yes. We found their house. Remember the Kugearen shack? The one with the Rift Matter journal? Let's take a look at it again. One of the things that stands out the most here are the weird, defaced effigies of Anju and Nymiera, but not Vivian. I've seen it suggested that Nymiera was the owner of this house, which honestly can make sense, because otherwise who made those effigies of the Aevium Fighters? Check that out on the blackboards on the house - we have the Garufa logo, and we have the Archetype drawn up. We also have a map of future Aevium, meaning that without a doubt, this house belongs to a Time Traveller. Then there's a journal, left deliberately for someone to find, to give them important information - which is really just a way to get them to do what the journal owner wants. Now, who, exactly, do we know of that constantly monitors this time period to try to get The Interceptor and their allies to do things they want? Spacea, Tiempa, and... umm... I'm forgetting someone... oh yeah, Madame X. By the way, interesting note: The journal owner speculates about whether it's even worth un-rifting Pokemon. I wonder who'd think of something like that? The presence of the angrily stabbed up Aevium Fighter effigies is interesting, but there's something in this house that's much, much, much more mysterious and important. There's a clue in here that's so big that you can't even press A on it, because if it had to offer any kind of description, it would give too much away. Look in the bottom left. Oh, that's odd. We have three sets of... odd, metallic bodies with empty faces, how interesting. And then spread around near them, on the table and on the table next to it, tools that indicate someone working on or building something. Huh. Where else are there three robots built by a mysterious traveller who seems to know everything important? What you can see on the table there are Kieran, Clear, and Eden. This house belonged to The Escapee. There's no doubt about it to me. It was in this house that Kieran, Clear and Eden were built. They were built by someone who understands the Archetype, knows about Garufa Inc, knows about the future, and was subtly manipulating the person they clearly wanted to come into the house to do things in exactly the way they wanted. There's another argument you could make though. Even if this is The Escapee's house, how do we know that The Escapee is Madame X? Kieran and Clear have always been cagey about whether they're part of Team Xen, but they haven't been cagey about answering to Madame X. They're clear on that. Clear calls her "The Master". Is there some second person out there who built Kieran, Clear and Eden but is not their master, and basically bequeathed them to Madame X instead? I'm gonna invoke my right to say "Come on, man." Need more proof? Well you should, because I actually haven't ruled something out - Madame X being either Maria or Melia. So let me address the Maria part - Nastasia joined Team Xen to find Maria. It sounds like recently she may have gotten closer than ever to finding Maria. Why would she need to find Maria if Maria is Madame X? On the one hand, it would be a really easy way to explain why Nastasia has so much trust in Madame X specifically, and it's always been a popular theory with good reason. It's very hard to discount. But does Maria fit the role of The Escapee? Would Maria have a weird, irrational attachment to Talon, Xara, and Jean, and whoever Eden was? Is Maria known for being Smart As Fuck? For hating Indriad more than anyone else? Let's not forget that in the beginning, Madame X says "How long are you going to torment this girl?" or something like that - she definitely refers to Maria as "this girl", as someone separate from herself. But the Maria theory is strong, and I can't really pretend it's not - but I also can't pretend it's nearly as strong as the Erin theory. But Melia's a different story. Melia was meant to go to Grand Dream City - a parallel Melia could've known Xara, Jean, and Talon. Except... we know what an evil Melia looks like, and it doesn't look like Madame X. Madame X is more like an E2 instead of an M2. And Melia isn't stupid, but I think we can confidently rule out her becoming an engineering genius because she told us outright how bad she is at math. Besides, there's a much more important question: Did Melia even exist in the KCEverse? The Melia part of the post Melia's identity isn't hard to solve. Actually, we know that she has to be the previous host of the Zygarde Entity who had the Zygarde part ripped out to be used as a capture device for Maria's soul after Maria died so that the Archetype and the Archetype user wouldn't be completely lost. Simple really! Let's go over the facts. Melia is Maria. Melia is NOT Maria. Melia asserts BOTH of these facts. At the end of Chapter 15, Melia was saying "Somehow I think I've always known I was Maria", and then that something inside of her was telling her "I am not Maria", like, literally in the same cutscene, right next to each other, she says both of these things. Is she stupid? The answer instead has to be "Both of these things have to be true". So how can you be Maria without being Maria? I'll get to that. Melia is 75 years old. Unlike the other Theolias, Melia's body can't handle the Archetype. She's the only one who can't. In fact, Maria can handle it, and doesn't get Genesis Syndrome. Melia can't handle it, and does get Genesis Syndrome. What age would Erin, Alice and Allen show if you threw them in the Garufa machine? Well, the Calamity happened when Maria was like, what, 5? 8? Relative to the present day in Aevium, it was about... 43-ish years ago or something? No matter what math you do, Melia's actual age makes her much older than any of the Theolia siblings. Even if every single year that Erin, Alice and Allen were in the Gen 2 world counted on the Garufa machine, they'd only get to maybe 59 at best. Hold up a sec though! I've been talking like there's four Theolia siblings, but there's actually a fifth - Zetta. Loosely, anyway. He presents himself like he's Melia's Secret Big Brother, but the most interesting thing about him is - like I've pointed out elsewhere - the New Game+ chessboard calls him The Descendant of Zed. Now, that Solosis's ass isn't descended from anyone called Zed, he's descended from Dittos and other Reuniclus-line Pokemon. So the way in which he's the descendant of Zed musn't come from him, but Melia. It's Melia who's the descendant of Zed. Great. Now who's Zed? There are absolutely no clues, whatsoever, outside of the name. But "Zed" is just how British English pronounces the letter "Z". And "Zetta" is just another variation on the letter "Z", but for people who've played TWEWY, which by the way, Zumi has confirmed Jan has played that if the trainer quotes in GDC didn't tip you off. You know what else is associated with the letter Z? Zygarde. Since Zetta is just a fucked up Solosis, that Solosis cannot be descended from Zed. The one descended from Zed is Melia. That means Melia is descended from the original Zygarde host. In fact, I think Melia was in some way an entity that was meant to be the Zygarde host, and had the Zygarde pulled out, so they could be a Maria host. I can't actually go into all of my reasoning here. But let me ask you this: Is Indriad Yveltal? Here are the two answers. Yes. He's the Yveltal. He had an Yveltal shoved into him. He was made to host the Yveltal. Melanie even calls the Yveltal father. No. He's not the Yveltal. He's just the thing that hosts the Yveltal. The Yveltal was the thing that was shoved into him. Even though he's still connected to the Yveltal and it's how he spies, and the Yveltal can be addressed as father. Indriad is actually the thing that's inside Angie that made her a "Theolia" in the first place, the thing that starts going "Essence", and he was somehow ripped out of the Yveltal. Both of these things are true. In fact, it's the only mechanism in the game by which both of these things can be true. Is Melia Maria? Yes. She has Maria's memories. She remembers Anathea talking to them. She says "Somehow I've always known I was Maria". She is absolutely Maria. No. She says "I am not Maria". She's just 'hosting' a captive Maria spirit, whereas previously she'd have hosted a Zygarde instead, and "been" the Zygarde, now she's 'hosting' Maria, which is why she can't handle the Archetype. Both of these things are true. Outside of being a host, what other way is there in the game for both of these things to be true? Oh, and by the way. Yveltal being liberated from Indriad is how Madame X can call it "Father" without a sense of complete shame. I just figured that out then. As a result - it's not clear that Melia would even be Melia in the KCEverse at all! Think about this. Why is it that Madame X apparently has a soft spot for people from Grand Dream City... but none at all for Melia? The moment she sees Melia in Blacksteeple, she tries to kill her. I mean, I kind of think that moment is just stupid, but when you all try to escape, she sends you all flying, and you're all going to literally die if Nim doesn't save the day. And yet Madame X of all people has sentimental feelings about Talon? How does that make sense? It's easy. KCEverse doesn't have a Melia. KCEverse Erin, The Escapee, did not grow up with a Melia. How on earth she got to Grand Dream from 43 years in the past is another question (one with many answers by the way, you think she couldn't become a teacher at Axis High if necessary?), but there's no doubt that she has no real sentimental attachments to Melia. But she does to Maria, and we know that for a fact. It's because Melia is just a vehicle to get to Maria. She doesn't see Melia as her sister at all because she knows what Melia actually is in the first place! And then let me ask you another question - why does Madame X's armour make her weaker? It's kind of interesting how obviously it's themed after that Gardevoir Erin grew up with, but what kind of power could a human have without the armour? Well, given that she's a Theolia sibling, it obviously has to have something to do with The Archetype. I basically buy the theory that it prevents Madame X from overlapping. And if she can be overlapped, it's because she's from outside of this timeline/universe, and so her duplicate must still be out there. And as far as I'm concerned, that rules out Maria, leaving in only Melia and Erin. And like it just is Erin. Come on. TL;DR Madame X is Erin, Melia is a weird Zygarde host that got made to host Maria instead.

Jan's been posting a lot about "V14 will be peak trust" and to be honest, I think I see it. This just feels right to me. The tone feels like it's hitting. The humour feels like it goes well with the tone. The pace feels like it's schmooving. The characters are working. The events have me interested. Clear's method actor monologuing could've gone totally wrong if the writing was just slightly too off, and it wasn't off, so it was actually good. Everything I didn't like was just a quibble.

Are you sure it's best to use the FRLG Kanto maps? With as kneedeep as I've been in Rejuvenation maps, modifying them is so much more painful compared to just starting a new map from scratch, and I wonder how something like this would work without more unique, expansive environments than what Kanto has to offer - and the visual style of Rejuv/Reborn as well. I would've had a much easier time of where I'm at right now if I'd just done Sheridan from scratch instead of trying to preserve parts of it - if you want to modify Kanto to fit this style, then I feel like you'll end up wanting to make some way bigger changes to the maps.

Umineko Witch Portrait for M2 for the Umineko homebrew game I'm running with the bestie.

Headcanon is headcanon. It can be very good headcanon, it can be well thought out, it can make perfect sense, but it's still headcanon until it's in the game. You have posted a lot of headcanon that makes sense, but it remains headcanon. Future installments could include more Aelita content related to this, but I also said they could as well. I don't want to say "This headcanon would make the game better and make more sense, and it could be valid depending on how you interpret lines in the game", and then act as though the headcanon is canon. I'm only interested in the actual canon. This is the follow up dialogue, for the record. Generally in the game, for just about every friendship interaction, the player's given the choice to be basically "more paragon" or "more renegade", and sometimes there's a third thing, but the bottom line is the choices are written in almost every encounter so that there's at least one for good characters and at least one for evil characters. Given that the one for the good character is obvious in this scene, "too speedy" is kind of left as being the one for the evil character, and Aelita's reaction makes the most sense in light of that. While a good quality headcanon could patch the disconnect here, I don't believe it was the actual intention at the point this was written, which is the thing I care about. If some writing is not in the game, but was planned to be in the game later, then I'd go "Oh, okay, well then that's valid foreshadowing". But if some writing shows up in the game but was never planned, it's more like a retcon, and it interests me a little bit less. I never actually saw the therapist portion. It's very good evidence that "the issue is not totally resolved for Aelita", which is good, and it's evidence that Jan is thinking about what things mean for the character, which is good, but what I'm not seeing is anything that even comes close to addressing my central squick on the issue, which is "Keta adopted and raised his wife", or literally any feelings Aelita has about that concept, even the slightest hint of discomfort. All of this stuff can be acknowleged and developed and etc, and that's all good, and I think almost every part of it could be expanded on greatly and weaved into Aelita's character more clearly and in creative ways in future instalments and I'd say "That's good writing", but none of it would address my central issue with it unless it acknowledges the fundamental weirdness of Keta's situation and Aelita's relationship to him, and until that's addressed, then my central issue with it is not. This is the big thing for me. Nothing else comes close.. But regarding the Aelita-centricitiy of Chapter 12, in v13 Aelita a) does not drive the action of the chapter based on her own actions. Rather, people react to her and say she needs to do things and she tags along as a participating audience member, b) is pushed to the side emotionally to focus on Melia's emotions, particularly about solving a Trolley Problem, c) given infinitely less screen time, and her emotional arc is clearly treated as the primary focus of the chapter, and the Aelita reveals as secondary. Even Vivian's suicide is about Melia's emotional arc, and then she has a second one about her relationship to the Stormchasers in the first place. I would like Chapter 12 more if it was more Aelita-centric, because I like Aelita a lot more than Melia. Melia drives the story of that arc with her own actions and choices and motives. She chooses to do things related to her problems. Aelita stands there and watches people solve problems about her, comments on Melia's arc which becomes the new focus, and then gets blipped out of reality, and then when she gets back everyone else has solved her problems, except there was something she didn't get told so she Rifts Out once she gets told it so people have to solve her problems again. This chapter is not Aelita-centric. Aelita is a backdrop. (This is one of the reasons Chapter 12 has been my least favourite.) Rejuvenation is a game where the writing used to be much worse, and now it's much (much, much) better. But even in it's much improved state, this lingering issue about Keta and Aelita's feelings towards him being seemingly untouched by this, even in a scene that focuses on her private feelings, is still present, and I wouldn't even have a clue on what should be done with it in the game. In order to acknowledge how much better the game is now, it requires acknowledging that what came before was not so good, and some parts are still not so good. This should probably be my last reply because you seem to be getting a lot more annoyed by this than I am.

This is exactly the thing I don't intend to do though. If the canonical writing of something isn't good, then I don't want to replace it with stuff that I just made up. While it would make sense to insert certain assumptions, I can't assume that some part of the story actually makes sense, as opposed to having been written badly. This goes especially for other worse plot holes in Rejuvenation (most of which were patched up in 13.5, although to my memory one particularly bad one remains, but almost everything else got swept up in the story improvements and instead of getting a little change, got a dramatic change. E.g. the bridge being out in Grand Dream, it's so so so so so so so so so so so much better.) It's not that I choose not to read into things, it's that I'm taking the game at face value and assuming what's written is the case. Generally you can tell when there's some sort of subtext, but Aelita's dialogue never suggests any subtext of "Um I'm still fucked up by this", especially when she actually interacts with the Royers. I think the "Too Speedy..." option, in other words, is just an option for players to be mean to Aelita to say that they're unhappy to see her back to normal so quickly, just like all the other player options that let you plus or minus your friendship with someone. It would be annoying in fact if an option that was meant to express concern about Aelita cost you friendship points from a gameplay perspective. Likewise, in terms of making assumptions, I wouldn't say I'm making an assumption about Taelia's memories - Aelita says she gets "one half", and then she gets "the other half". The obvious reading is she gets all of Taelia's memories. All would include All. It felt like the issue of what those memories could include was totally ignored, which only further made me dislike the whole "Aelita is Taelia" thing. It's up to the writers to make the canon material make sense or work a certain way, and if they haven't written it a certain way, then I'm not going to insert my own ideas to make it work how I want it to, or I won't be able to perceive the actual work. Regarding why it'd be impractical to fill in Aelita's story now - I don't agree. It would be impractical to do it in Chapter 16, maybe, except then again, Renegade is about to get a bunch of Aelita heavy segments and so a bunch of Aelita heavy flashbacks isn't out of the question. But really more importantly, Chapter 11-14's already gotten quite a lot of edits from 13.5, so who's to say more can't come? But I can think of plenty of ways that more Aelita content can be fit into future stuff, but writing wise Chapter 12 and 13 felt like they were communicating "Aelita has put a lid on this stuff and Sorted It Out and her feelings on it aren't that complicated now". I could invent a way that it wouldn't be as bad, but as far as I'm concerned, it's just what it looks like and what the writing tells me it is. And regarding why some characters got their time to shine because it was their moment - Chapter 12 is sold to us in the beginning as the Aelita chapter, and then it's not, and she's a side character in her own chapter. I think that whole chapter warranted as much Aelita focus as the other events warranted focus on those characters. The fallout about the fall of Blakeory Co is obviously important in the story, but the degree of focus and care put into the Saki segments wasn't required to sell the fallout - it was required to develop Saki. I just think the entire twist was a mistake. In past versions, Eldest even outright says "Keta was not your father, he was in fact, your husband" as a direct quote (which was wisely removed later), because the whole "Aelita is Taelia but also they're not" thing has been inconsistent over the years. It's an intensely uncomfortable concept that no character ever addresses directly, and even when we're directly inside Aelita's mind, her mind never contains even a hint of discomfort about the concept or resentment to Keta or anything like that, because I think everyone involved in the story would've felt that same discomfort Aelita had if they wrote it, and thought "Ooooh, that's too heavy for this game". And it probably is too heavy for this game (it felt wrong as fuck when Reborn started suggesting certain things about Lin). But it's too dissonant to leave that heaviness out, but to leave the actual event in. It's weird to go directly into Aelita's mind and there's no intense discomfort at this specific concept, even in the past when Eldest outright referred to it (unless it's in an even older version), but it would be even weirder to include the intense discomfort. In other words, there is no good solution except to not do the twist itself. Compare this to the Karma Files stuff, which is all good enough that you don't need to invent assumptions that protects the writing quality. You can just read it and go "This is good :)" and then it's good, because it's good. In some cases it's great. There's some confusing bits (Uhhh, shouldn't the Interceptor Effect actually be real? I genuinely can't think of a way for it to be false. Like Crescent says "I made it up", but logically it must be true), but compared to this kind of issue, they're all minor.

I can only go by the actual text in the game. While it would be better if this was the case, the game just said Aelita got one half of Taelia's memories, then the other half. When she got just half, I took that to mean "Ah, okay, well obviously this is so I can just naturally avoid the memories she'd have with Keta a-" and then she said "And then I got the other half also" and I was like. Oh. Okay. Likewise, I didn't read too much into the "too speedy" option because all it does is cause friendship loss with Aelita. While it would make sense and be good writing for Aelita to not actually be fully all resolved with this stuff, when the game doesn't actually express it in writing, I can't pretend it exists. Likewise, your reasons for why Aelita would forgive Keta so easily, or what would make sense with the memories she got back, and so on, would all make sense and be good writing... and they're not in the game. Aelita never even seems to have a hint of lingering resentment towards Keta, that she had to overcome, even in the Rift world the concept doesn't even come up. And this is after she's told us in the past her dad's an asshole (v13 Terajuma conversation). Likewise, while it would make sense if Aelita was just suppressing things, it's sure never expressed in the game. In contrast, Melia's Genesis Syndrome gets dealt with properly. The Blakeory family scandal and it's effect on Saki gets dealt with properly (better than most things in the game in fact). Erin's backstory gets dealt with properly whenever it comes up. But with Aelita, it's like the game isn't even aware of some of the implications of the story. On the one hand, Keta saw a lonely child who was the only living connection to his wife that remained and took her in. On the other hand, when I imagine the concept of "adopting your wife" and attempting to "raise your wife", I get a very bad feeling about it. I've often thought about "What would you even do in a situation like that, if it was you?", but I think even if I took in my wife-child out of grief and not thinking straight, eventually, the weirdness would make me ask Eldest to do it. Not that it wouldn't be weird for her, but there's never been any romantic implications for her.

This is both easier and harder than you think. The easy part is actually making the new crests and implementing them. Modding Rejuvenation is easier than a lot of people assume, it's the easiest thing to mod I've ever touched (but that all changes when we think about complex abilities like Aevian Parasect). The harder part is spreading them all through the game or otherwise coming up with a new concept for how to get crests. But the real hardest part is the fact that once you've crested 90% of pokemon, you're basically rebalancing the entire game, and you'll most likely end up with a situation where there's just a new top 10% of pokemon everyone uses and a new mostly useless 90%. If you're going to try to come up with unique crest gimmicks for each one, then even worse. Now on the other hand if you focus on like, the bottom 10% of uncrested, fully evolved Pokemon, then I think this becomes totally doable. It'll be easier to spread the good ideas out.

There are incredibly uncomfortable implications that were spelt out even more directly in past versions where Eldest used to say "Keta is not your father, he is, in fact, your husband." However, Aelita still does and always will regard Keta as her father. But, Aelita goes on a quest to regain all of Taelia's memories without exception... and that's going to include, like, actually conceiving a baby with her dad. Aelita being a reincarnation in some fashion of Vivian is not a bad idea, especially since we now know Vivian had Lore Important powers. The fact that along the path of reincarnation she met Keta and then warped back into a child and Keta was like "I guess I'll adopt my wife now" feels incredibly off in a way the story feels kind of afraid to confront the way it needs to be. Aelita reacts badly, and calls herself a freak, and tries to cope with the whole thing, but I feel like the actual trauma of the reveal would go way deeper than even what we see in the rift scene, and she gets over it too quickly, she forgives Keta too quickly for it to feel real, her feelings about Keta seem to return to uncomplicated positivity, nobody really acknowledges exactly why her situation is so fucked up. It feels like given how bad her reaction was, that this realization was buried in the game's story somewhere, and then just doesn't get dealt with because it's too weird, but then later events of getting Taelia's memories back make it weirder. I would say it's my least favourite reveal in Rejuvenation. In contrast, some of the best reveals and twists have just been really simple. Rhodea was Sandra in Hiyoshi - duh of course, they basically told us that when we first met her, how did I not see it coming? Then again the best one actually was really complicated, the one where Arceus has been dead for centuries and the entire world is a hacked together attempt to restore some kind of life - but okay, that's sick and way better than I was expecting, it makes every single part of the story better, it's a huge W. Aelita was both her dad's daughter and wife... not uhhhh what I was looking for.

To be hoenst, I don't think predicting what will happen with Rejuvenation characters is possible like at all. What I mean is that Rejuvenation has a genuinely completely unpredictable story. You can't predict the concept of the Interceptor, Variya, The Core, Nymeria and Indriad's origins, Alice and Allen being related to Melia and Erin, Ren just hanging out with us all even though he's Team Xen now (I'm still kind of ??? about that honestly), Aelita being literally Taelia, etc, at any point in the story. It's not really possible to guess what the future events of the story are going to be because they could be just about anything. It'll hopefully all make sense in hindsight, but that doesn't mean you can predict it in advance. It could turn out that even mainline Melia just goes full M2 and M2's all over the place, or it could turn out that Karma just disables her bad memories and experiences of tragedy and so she's just fine now, It could be that she experiences a tragedy and then is instantly warped to The Nice Universe Where Everything Is Good Forever for like 20 years and when we meet her again she's 40, and this was all part of a scheme to trick Indriad, it could be that Melia's already been swapped with a non-M2 alternate Melia, like say, Paradox Melia, it could be Melia is being secretly influenced by the Zygarde Entity, and I think none of these outcomes would shock me. I can probably come up with like 400 more. The type of tragedy that hits her should matter I'd think. I'd like the story more if your fears about her came to pass and went basically as you wrote, but I have no idea what to even think of expecting (Beyond a couple of theories I'm fairly sure of.) Right now, the fact that things are so unpredictable is a good thing because the surprise concepts are all either kind of cool or really cool (but they weren't always and I really really really really hate the Aelita/Taelia thing). But it also means that questions like this about supernaturally bound characters like Melia are kind of impossible, and if my theories about how the game will ultimately go are correct, it's kind of impossible for any character.

I don't think there's any way out of Madame X being Indriad's daughter in some fashion. That really only leaves her as possibly either Melia, Maria, Erin or Alice. Most people think that that one sprite of her shattered mask revealed she had black hair, and as we've seen, the Archetype is what makes you go Super Saiyan, so it would seem like she's a Theolia with the archetype suppressed somehow (Perhaps the reason she can't take off the armour is that it suppresses Genesis Syndrome by suppressing the Archetype? It would explain why she says if it wasn't for the armour, she'd have been able to beat you... even though she wasn't in any actual danger in that fight because it was a trap, it was still Declared In Yellow.) I think the only way it could be Nora is if Keta is actually Indriad somehow, and a) I don't buy that, and b) Come On. I guess I can't dismiss the idea completely out of hand, but still. We don't actually know what happened to Indriad after the fight, except that he somehow must have taken Angie prisoner and then possessed her, There is one other possibility, which is that there's more than one Madame X. Her identity might change with each Core Reset, or it might be different identities within each timeline. There's some minor evidence to this, and the last time I floated this idea, there was more evidence than I thought. It is possible to produce multiple Madame X armours after all. I assume you have to apply the Crimson Quartz and Black Prisms to the armour blanks to give them whatever the armour's powers are. I also think, for the record, Madame X is almost certainly from a past timeline. In fact, I think she may be one of the people who survives each world reset and world destruction, but maybe in the sense that one Madame X dies, and then someone from the currently dying world takes on the armour and becomes the new Madame X and goes on to the next timeline. And whoever she is, I think in her original timeline she went to Axis High, because she has an irrational attachment to Talon, Xara and Jean. Melia was always meant to go to Grand Dream, and tried to get into Axis High. Erin lived in Grand Dream, so easily could've gone in another timeline. I just don't see a way out of it being either a version of Melia or a version of Erin. And I count Maria as A Version Of Melia.

I am the one person in the world who was most excited for the Xennie girl hair update (I prefer the new one strongly).

As far as I can tell, only small parts of Xenoverse lore are even present. I couldn't even peep the Xenoverse starters like Trishout. There's Trey of course, but this is totally different from something that's basically Rejuvenation but with Not Pokemon in it - the game is totally different and its ties to Xenoverse are much more lowkey. An IP lawyer might advise that to be really safe, major stuff might need to change about how things look, about character names, etc, and that might mean that names like "Team Xen" or "Aevium" or "Melia" might have to change to get Nintendo off your back. (This is complete speculation, I'm not thinking of any specific past examples or anything, just the kinds of sacrifices that might need to be made). Xenoverse has gotten around it by focusing on a completely different section of their world to regular Xenoverse, and also looking nothing like Xenoverse. Rejuvenation would have to as well - partly because any for-sale products can't use Essentials anyway, which is part of the Essentials license. Of course if it can be done, I'm showing up for it, but it sounds hard and risky.

This used to bother me much more, but ever since 13.5, the stuff that doesn't feel like Pokemon has surpassed all the supposed-to-be-canonically-pokemon stuff that Nintendo has been putting out, so I'm content to see it as its own thing now. When I first started (with v13), there was a degree to which it bothered me, but by the time we get to things like then no matter how you feel about the game, you're probably past the "this doesn't feel like Pokemon" or "lmfao why is this in Pokemon" stuff, and just judging it on its own merits (that moment definitely succeeded for the record). 13.5 is just better than SV and Sw/Sh honestly. This is fine with me! It's my only actual interest! I can genuinely take or leave Pokemon mechanics at this point, the canon pokemon games and my continuous failure to advance in Pokemon Showdown have sapped my interest in that style of gameplay quite a bit, but it feels a little bit more fun in Rejuvenation (13.5). Honestly if you're not prepared to press A to get dialogue and get excited for next dialogue you probably just won't have interest in Rejuvenation. I judged the game for that a lot more in the past, but then the dialogue simply got much better overall, and the A pressing got much less, so now it's okay. Visual novel is kind of unfair though. The hallmark of visual novels is that the gameplay is just you press A to get dialogue, and nothing else. Sometimes you might get a little small extra. You press A a lot in Pokemon Rejuvenation, but not that much, and again, 13.5. The concept of some sort of Aeviumverse that's freed from the strictures of Nintendo IP and able to be like, sold on Steam or whatever would a) require consulting with a really good IP lawyer to shore things up so Nintendo can't accuse you of using Pokemon to promote an original product and get you that way, and b) be reasonably based. But uh, point a there is a pretty big obstacle. According to the former Pokemon Company top lawyer, one of the only things that made them come down on fangames while he was working there (so it won't explain things like Flora Sky) was the perception that the Pokemon IP was being used to make money - and he used a Kickstarter as an example. No way that Pokemon Company wouldn't see completing an entire Pokemon game, and then saying "Now here's just the non Pokemon bits" as being "using Pokemon IP to make money". It doesn't meant they'd come down on it, nor does it mean they'd succeed, but it does mean you'd want to get the professional opinion of an actual IP lawyer for how best to defend against it, ...I did say that I was fine with things not feeling like pokemon or being about battling, but actually the amount of "The battle didn't matter" in the story actually definitely bothers me so I guess in that respect I don't like it, but that's a totally separate issue.

I answered this one on the subreddit. Basically: The Interceptor can basically one shot everyone with End of Night, so you're only really going to beat them by overwhelming them or ambushing them. You also probably need to beat them twice, depending on how their remaining revives work. If it's before Christmas, you can still warn everyone about the Interceptor. Get to Sashila, find Damien (god knows you can't rely on his sister), and when you tell him he'll be like "I agree, killing the Interceptor sounds great!" because he just likes killing things. Next, you want Crescent, since she's the only other one who can Intercept as hard as the Interceptor, which is really a kind of ungodly level of power, and Damien is one of your only hopes for finding her. If you do manage to find her, Gothitelle can probably teleport M2 somewhere random long enough to have someone she trusts like Aelita explain the plan to her, and convince her to turn against the Interceptor. Crescent MIGHT be able to use her access to Zeight to remove the remaining Interceptor revives, or find a way to spawncamp the Interceptor before anyone else goes 404, or to counter the use of Interceptium-Z that and the Interceptor powerup that just annihilated the Puppet Master. If you're REALLY lucky, removing the Interceptor might allow you to form an Interceptor contract with Variya, but Crescent with 100% Interceptor power is probably better in terms of conducting the rest of the raid. Of course the other major problem is Kieran and Clear are probably spying on everything you do and can tip off the Interceptor at any point, AND can travel through time, and there's not much you can do to beat that. One of the only tools you have at your disposal there... First, you want a way to be able to sense Kieran and Clear's presence so you know if it's even safe to talk. An Alakazam should do the trick, so Lavender should be able to help if you can find her, it's probably one of the best allies you can have through this whole thing. This still might not be enough - once Kieran and Clear notice that Karma doesn't have any influence on you, they'll be on your ass and you won't even know. And even if you do know, if they already know about you, it might be too late. An Alakazam is a huge help too because if it can let you conduct conversations telepathically - which will keep Kieran and Clear from being able to tell, unless the Beeheeyem is strong enough to just break through the telepathic communication. At that point, there's not much fix for that - except to hope that Alakazam is just better, and senses Clear before Clear can do her Clear stuff. You DO have a way to travel through time, through the time crystals. But Kieran and Clear can stalk you to the past pretty easily. What you want to try to shake them off the trail or maybe escape the Interceptor for a while if things go crazy, is some time travel that DOESNT just take you to one exact destination. The only source of that: The Celebi at Sheridan Village. Eldest is gonna be your biggest ally here, and hopefully "The mystery red haired girl who ruined everything is coming for us" is enough to get her off your back. In summary: 1) Find Lavender first, because having an Alakazam on your side is an enormous help - they have a lot of power to sense people being around, and are just an enormous utility. 2) Secure the Sheridan Celebi's help so you have a Get out of Jail Free card 3) Inform Damien first about the Interceptor being a traitor because he's the most likely to be on your side 4) Locate Crescent, use your privileged information to prove you really are who you say you are and your information can be trusted. With both Crescent and Damien on side, convincing the rest of the Interceptor Gang should hopefully be much simpler. 5) Send out a scouting party to locate the Interceptor and M2. This is one of the riskiest parts, because the moment the Interceptor knows you're a problem... things are gonna be hard. 6) You want to get M2, so use Crescent's spesh Gothitelle to teleport her and Aelita somewhere disorienting, so M2 doesn't just instantly teleport back (Somewhere like the Nim dimension). If Aelita can't convince M2 then it's kind of Joever. 7) If possible, go to Zeight and remove the remaining Interceptor revives. If not possible, arrange to ambush the Interceptor immediately. This will instantly fail if Kieran or Clear has tipped the Interceptor off. It might still be possible to take a revive off the Interceptor, but you might lose a few people while you're at it - and you might not even be aware you've lost them. And that might mean you can't even use Celebi to do a time travel reset (Kieran and Clear could intercept that too). 8) If necessary, hunt the Interceptor to spawncamp them. They've often revived at pretty convenient locations though, so if they can revive, well, um, hopefully they don't go for you or Celebi first. 9) After killing the Interceptor, die to Xenpurgis. hopefully Crescent with 100% Interceptor power is going to be enough to finish the Raid. I'm assuming you get no help from Karma in the form of weird beasts or formes, and Karma isn't necessarily on your side anyway, except to stop the Interceptor overall - and I guess, ideally, World Shatterer (whoever she is). If Karma does provide like an Aelitabeast or something, then maybe that can help slow the Interceptor down, but it's definitely not gonna help with the Raid afterwards.

Okay sorry for my third post in this thread in like two days, but I uploaded my remix of the Rejuevnation theme to Youtube (with an updated, better mix than when I last posted it), including my cool in-game animated title screen and I just love the title screen honestly. Also additional memepost comic under the spoiler.

13.5 is so much better than v13 that it's not even close. Angie is also supposed to be easier. The story is much, much better (especially the new content), the graphics are better, new custom music, new locations, better early game (including goldenleaf and Gearen as a whole), new QoL features like a quest log - I vaguely recall Jan saying that he considered v13 unplayable compared to 13.5 and I 100000% agree. The save transfer point is actually the end of the entire main story, so if you wait until you get to there, you'd, well, miss everything basically. You would be missing a ton of vastly improved stuff, completely revamped GDC (also a lot better), but you would be able to get to the new *post* game content (which in my imo is the best stuff in the game). The balancing will be friendlier to you as well. There is some new stuff and improvements in the early game that are worth seeing (particularly around Mr. Luck), but if you don't feel like trudging through like 40 hours of Floria Island, there's also a password to get straight to Terajuma anyway with a different team for each player skin. Basically just do it

Honestly I'm really happy with how the Goldenleaf trial is turning out so far but there's a LOT still to be filled in, and one thing I really want to do but may be impossible without... ... Scripting. But of course it's a Phoenix Wright thing, so while there will definitely be witnesses, things will be unfairly rigged in Geara's favour because that's how Phoenix Wright works. But I am extremely happy with the way Aelita gets Geara in the end... at the moment and I might change my mind later. Also the tennis courts are part of Gearen Park, totally unrelated to the trial. I am trying to get a little Tennis Microgame thing working there and I will probably fail. Anyway speaking of brainrot ever since I learned the Xenpurgis was a Stakataka, I've had this in my head and I'm going to export it and make it everyone else's problem now.

In Rejuvenation specifically, unless this has changed in 13.5 and I just haven't reached it yet, the Rift Gyarados map had some map-level effect that reduced the pitch on it all playing BGM no matter what it was. 1) Is Aevium part of Poke-Europe? I recall something about it being close to Kalos or to Galar or something, I somehow got the idea it'd be near Iceland... which could mean Miera was literally, geographically, at Chernobyl. 2) 13.5's art direction looks tight, everything just seems to fit together so much better colour wise, it has this unique visual tone. Was that a huge amount of focused work or did it sort of just naturally happen? 3) We know Jan is The Writer, but how does it work? Is there like a script people paste into RMXP events? 3a) On that note, who writes or comes up with some of the really cool stuff we see like the Ch.12 pan from one floor of the ship to the other, or the camera moves for the Erin/Kanon ice fight? Or is Jan personally eventing half of these into RMXP? 4) Who snuck all those TWEWY references into the game? I kept doing this. 5) M2 6) How many unused/beta versions of custom tracks are there that we haven't heard? For example - Eizen's theme has this great, perfect melody that just fits, and I wonder if it's just popping in fully formed like magic or if its a struggle of constantly iterating different melodies/mixes, and a long paper trail of beta themes that we didn't hear that just never quite worked. (For me I feel like I kind of oscillate between either just nailing it the first time or in permanent "no the mix isn't quite right" hell.)

For the past few months I have been working on a major major overhaul mod called Rejuvenation: Abridged. The idea is exactly the same as something like DBZ Abridged or Yu Gi Oh Abridged, but also takes a lot of inspiration from things like the Tribunal Code Patch mod in Morrowind. In the course of creating this though, I've made about half a shitload of custom Rejuv assets, because I went from "Ooooh I can edit the dialogue!" to "I am going to completely redo Gearen, Sheridan, and Goldenwood and maybe Akuwa town and add completely new locations" and followed wherever the brainrot lead me. A bunch of clips from the mod (including the full on OP I made for it and other little showcases) is right here, on Youtube. I've deliberately excluded the bits my friends said were making them laugh genuinely out loud which was probably a bad idea but I am simply not reopening my video editor. Here are some things that AREN'T in the video. Unshown/Unfinsihed Phoenix Wright sprites for Aelita: Unshown/Unfinsihed Phoenix Wright sprites for Geara and Giratina: And here are a few of the remixed tracks. These tracks are subject to change via endless tinkering and mix adjustments by me and may not represent their exact finished versions. The remix of the Rejuvenation main theme (Now with animated title screen). Encounter! Team Xen Battle! - Vs Gearen Leader Verrothorn/Venam Battle! - Vs Sheridan Leader Keta Cross Examination 2024 Moderato Cross Examination 2024 Allegro Of these, my favourite is Keta's, which sounds like something just fairly normal in the beginning but really really kicks into gear - Although the track that's turned out the best is easily Kieran and Clear's theme, but that's not gonna be in the first version I release except maybe as an extremely secret theme. Neved's theme may turn out way better (The Xen Executives are each getting their own personalized themes but Neved's is even a little bit different to that. Zetta's theme is basically "done", but needs a better mix and maybe some adjustments to parts of the melody? It pays a lot of tribute to what-I-assume-is-his-namesake anyway). Also, I have the Cross Examination themes there - I've got an Objection theme and a Cornered theme (Pursuit ~ Intercepted!) too, but they're not ready yet. They're just Missing Something, but they'll be there. Bonus random screenshots: (Madame X's cape is hand animated in that not exactly finished cutscene - this is actually incredibly simple to do, because there's just a little trick to it when you use a silhouette! The cutscene is part of I really like the idea of but my god is it unfinished so I'm not posting it yet.