#also rurus are very small owls

[aria-ashryver]

Its one of those rare nights when everything is quiet, save for the owls sitting alone in the midnight hush.

It's so calm here without the wind. The world is rendered colourles, but the city lights seem to hold a thousand colours. I forget that nights can even be this still.

It's nice just sitting alone in the quiet sometimes.

[atomicpomegranate]

New Zealand references in Nona the Ninth

Soooo I am now completely obsessed with the Locked Tomb series!!

As a resident of New Zealand, I was absolutely delighted to see all the kiwi references in there. I am guessing that most people would not have gotten a lot of the them, so I attempted to explain as many as I can below, including with visual guides and links. These references also help us pin down some details about John and the gang.

Hella spoilers for Nona the Ninth below!

John 20:8

These refer to Otago University in Dunedin and Auckland University in Auckland. I went to Otago. Maybe I crossed paths with John himself!! I am a millennial as well, after all.

The iconic Otago Uni clocktower building situated next to the Leith river. If John graduated from Otago, he would have a photo of himself in his gown with the clocktower in the background. Everybody does it.

Location of the facility (same as the facility as Canaan house or no??):

Greytown is an unremarkable tiny town in the Wairarapa. It’s located in the bottom of the North Island and is about an hour’s drive from my house.

A freezing works refers to a place where animals are frozen in preparation for getting shipped off to various places and eaten. A typical NZ freezing works looks like this one that I found on google maps:

That’s a lot to cover with cattle parts!

John 5:20

MoD is the Ministry of Defence. NZ doesn’t really have a military to speak of, but somehow people still have careers in it.

Phrases in Te Reo Maori (a language of the indigenous people of New Zealand).

kia kaha = be strong

kia maia = be brave

They are things you would say to someone who is going through a tough time.

John 15:23

Possibly implies that John is of Maori descent. He might look something like Taika Waititi with golden eyes, given the history teacher description. Maori TV is a local on-demand TV channel.

Macca’s = MacDonald’s

ute = pick-up truck or large SUV, short for “utility vehicle”

morepork = an owl found in New Zealand, also known as the ruru

Possums are an invasive species from Australia and are almost universally hated in New Zealand because they have no natural predators here and destroy native forests. They make all kinds of unholy noises.

John 8:1

wop-wops = middle of nowhere countryside

Parachute was an annual Christian music festival that ran from 1992 to 2014. The drinking age in New Zealand is 18, so that puts some limits on John’s age. The earliest he was born is 1976 (assuming 17 years old in 1992). The latest he was born was the late 1990s. If he was 17 in 2014, then he was born in 1997, but he may well have attended when he was younger than that, so it could be up to the year 2000. it’s overwhelmingly likely that he is a millennial, but there is a small chance that he is actually gen Z.

Some of my friends from high school might have met him at Parachute. Who knows!

Hamilton, city of the future! It’s a city a bit south of Auckland. It’s a place.

A great deal of the New Zealand countryside is farmland. Mostly cows and sheep. More cows than sheep these days, I think. You can see the cattle from areal photos in google maps. Here is an example from the Wairarapa, near Greytown:

John 5:1

NCEA Level 2 is the equivalent of 11th grade in the US. This implies that P-- did not finish high school and is a swipe at her low level of education. I should note that a lot of people in NZ do not finish high school, and instead leave school to learn trades or just work. It’s not considered shameful, but someone with a PhD (like John) may very well look down on someone who didn’t finish high school.

John 3:20

Trans-Tasman refers to Australia and New Zealand. The Tasman Sea is between them. Australia supports the cryo can project, yay!

John 9:22

Porirua is a town in the greater Wellington region and it is home to the Royal New Zealand Police College. One of my family members worked there for a time. Maybe he met P--!

I can just about get Porirua (northwest) and Greytown (northeast) visible on the same map:

John 1:20

Mince pies are a kiwi classic. These days, they are more goo than meat, but are a regular delicacy available at petrol stations, 24 hour convenience stores, and the frozen food section of the supermarket.

There is way more meat in the photo than that pie will have in real life. False advertising!!

If you are a kiwi, it is 100% culturally acceptable to trash Australians at every opportunity.

That’s all I’ve got!

But wait, there’s more! I only saw this post after I had compiled everything. It contains a bunch of other references and explanations that I didn’t cover, so please check it out of you haven’t seen it already!

[rising-above-stars]

aaaaa your reblog reminded me: i love kakapos so much that i did an entire presentation on them in high school but i didn't know about takahē until recently, are there any other cool new zealand animals that you like??

yo, that's so cool! And yes! I love all our birds but here are some favourites. This might end up as a long-ish post.

The first bird owns my entire heart but is unfortunately extinct, and that is the Huia. I was told about them because my aunt uses huia imagery a lot in her art and I did an art study on them. Traditionally, they were used a lot in Maori cultur such as their tail feathers held great significance as symbols of friendship and respect. They were also used as accessories. However, I believe they quickly became extinct after Europeans arrived due to deforestation and over-hunting. Owning part of a huia bird became a high fashionable demand (I could have this wrong), and female huia beaks were set in gold as broaches.

(Male huia in the front, female huia at the back)

Closely related to huia is the Kōkako. "In Māori myth, the kōkako filled its wattles with water and brought it to Maui as he fought the sun. Maui rewarded the bird by making its legs long and slender, enabling it to bound through the forest with ease." (Department of Conservation). I just think they're really neat.

Fantail (or pīwakawaka) aren't necessarily native but they're very common. I love them and they low-key remind me of fairies for reasons I can't quite explain.

Kākā and Kea are part of the same family. Kākā are large parrots and they're pretty neat and live more in forests, keas are little shits but super intelligent and are alpine birds. You often hear stories of keas picking at rubber seals on cars or windscreen wipers.

(L: Kākā R: Kea)

I cannot make a post about New Zealand animals without mentioning the kiwi. There are about 5 species, I think: Brown Kiwi, Great spotted kiwi/roroa, Little spotted kiwi, Rowi, and Tokoeka. When I was a kid, I needed to have music or something to fall asleep and one of the cassette tapes my parents used to play had a story called 'how the kiwi lost its wings'. To sum up, the Tāne (atua/got of forests and birds) asked the birds for volunteers to live on the forest floors to eat the bugs or something. The kiwi was the only one to volunteer after all the other birds refused. So Tāne shrunk the kiwis wings and made their beak longer.

(Image is of the little spotted kiwi)

Morepork/ruru! These are owls and they're super cool! Occasionally, I'll hear one or two at night. They're very common and one of the only birds on this list that isn't under immediate threat of extinction.

Pūkeko are swamphens. When I was a kid, I learnt about takahe before I learnt about Pūkeko, so when I first saw one I got excited and called it a takahe. But they're quite common, my siblings and I would make a game of counting how many Pūkekos we see on the way to/from our grandparents. As swamphens, they're usually wetland birds. But due to the loss of habitats, they've adapted to other environments such as paddocks and croplands. But they're primarily swamp birds.

I would see wax-eye/tauhou birds a lot in the back gardens. They're small olive green birds with a white ring around their eyes. Their name in te reo (tauhou) translates to 'stranger' or more literally, 'new arrival'.

Tūī are another favourite. These guys are honey eaters, typically eating from flowers. They're also songbirds and can mimic songs. They're quite common as well, and have a very distinctive call. You often hear them before you see them.

I think there's a limit of 10 photos so I can't add anymore but there's also the New Zealand Wood Pigeon, or Kererū. These guys are gorgeous too. They also mainly eat fruits and flowers. I don't know if this is correct, but I think I remember someone saying that these birds sometimes get drunk off of the fruits or flowers they eat. They were historically a major food source for Māori, and we're considered a taonga (treasure).

And I guess these count as birds since one species won the New Zealand Bird of the Year in 2021, but we have two species of bats! The long-tail bat and the short-tail bat.

Also Tuataras! According to the DoC (Department of Conservation) website, "Tuatara are a rare reptile found only in New Zealand. They are the last survivors of an order of reptiles that thrived in the age of the dinosaurs." I just think they're super neat.

[goatguns]

the Summer Projects

I have these 8 somewhat cursed projects that have been haunting me for too long and i'm going to try getting some prototypes and pilots out for them this year. Here they are in yet another fun list

GATE/SOUP

Started out as a flash game project but was technically Haxe Flixel?? development hell, its a point and click puzzle adventure game like the Myst series but with a hand drawn artstyle (or stylised 3D?? still need to experiment more on that one). Has particular inspirations from Riven, Myst III, and The Witness (and some Gmod maps)

SUNFLOWERS

Sunflowers started out early last year as a 3D third person platformer movement study with a clean artstyle, and was inspired by this song. I'm thinking it'll be made with UE4 C++ but that might end up being completely stupid, we'll see when i restart making prototypes for it.

KILLING KINGS

This is a super vague idea where I have the main character design (a robot with clothing that pulls reference from old catholic aesthetics) but is otherwise just a small pile of isolated 2d animated scenarios in my head. Inspirations include the Saga series of comics and the Castlevania netflix series but that's about all i've got for it so far.

KDRK

KDRK is easily the oldest project on the list (going on 6 years!!). I've struggled to create words to describe its genre but so far i've got low science fantasy. its like the empire strikes back director said "it's a fairytale", i feel like most things about it dont quite make sense but they're fun and look cool. I have tried to get a coherent story in place for it but nothing has quite stuck, so it's a far larger pile of some isolated some not scenarios and lots of intros set to music. My inspirations for it are all over the place

SOUL

Soul is a comic book i've been working on with one of my friends Anton, i'd say it's also a low science fantasy but it leans more to fantasy but it's also modern but not?? originally it was pulling from "traditional fantasy" tropes but as i've learnt more about where those come from i've been trying to push it in new directions.

RURU

Ruru is one of my first year uni projects that I did with two friends Paris and Hunter. It's a 90s retro-futuristic world, which is quite hard to pinpoint but it's set in NZ which helps. It was inspired by a big album of photos of Wellington from 1993 and 1994, and models of owls without any feathers. Another science fantasy type deal but originally it was leaning on Simon Stalenhag's paintings, but as they've been done to death by everyone copying them I've been in the process of revising it into something more individual and based more on our own experiences.

KOI

Koi (originally Koiboi) is a 2D/3D animated short I made last year for an animation assessment. It had a Koi inspired character hurrying into a hover Fiat and zooming off through a birch forest. It was mostly to test out a hybrid blender workflow and it worked pretty well in the end! I want to extend upon it because it was very fun to work in.

AZOLLA

Azolla is a VFX project I did last year aswell at the same time as Koi, it's a couple million particles reacting to this live song and it looked pretty cool!! I ran out of time to do anything more than 6 seconds worth but I really want to expand upon it because it's fun, took heavy inspo from Gantz Graf and a bunch of other cool particle work

I'll make a separate post and tags for all of these eventually, will post as I go

[runathepianist]

A Quick Checklist on Self Exploration

Hello everyone! Today I’m going to write down some of a quick checklist of my own self exploration based on question provided by ELE on this twitter link! (https://twitter.com/xlittle_ele/status/1275847156629475328) 

I will write things here in order not to spam your Twitter Timeline too much.

1. First of all, introduce yourself! What’s your name? My name is Runa. People usually call me by that name, but some others call me Ruru, Na-chan, some call me by the name of Xiao Wei and some other more.

2. Where are you from? From this universe; specifically, my mother’s womb. 

3. Do you have any hobbies? If so, which one? I have plenty of things that I could call as my hobbies.  I do music, specifically piano, but lately I’m trying out some other instrument as well, like kalimba/ ukulele. I like to write stories/ letters to friends/ daily journal, I like to re-arranged my room when I got the mood and time to do it, I love to watch some movies/ series and read stories/ manga as well. 

4. If you could travel anywhere in the world, where will you go? Hhm...Lemme see...I think I would love to go to Tasmania.  I personally loves to go to those minor places that people are not really put an eye to. Rather than going to those mainstream places. Partially, I want to go to Tasmania ever since I watch a Singapore drama series [Sudden] and part of the scenery in that series was taken at Tasmania. It makes me want to go there and visit the real place someday.

5. Do you believe in love at the first sight? Hmm...Not really, actually. Maybe because I’m a person who usually fall in love after I have interacted with the person for quite some time. Maybe because I rarely deeply attracted with how someone’s physical looks, but more into the personality they have within them.

6. What’s your favourite song at the moment? If you don’t have one, what’s the last song you listened to? I’m listening to quite a lot of Hiroyuki Sawano’s composed OST songs these days lately and also currently re-listen to Rachmaninoff piano concerto in C minor. 

7. What’s your favourite food? A lot (?) But mostly I love those salty food rather than sweet stuffs.  

8. What’s the first thing you think of when you wake up in the morning? It is either I’m trying to remember about the dream I dream of last night, or I feel grateful that I’m still be able to stay alive today. Sometimes, I could think of some random stuffs that suddenly struck me when I’m awake in the morning.

9. Do you believe in soulmates? Not really, but I believe that people are attracting people with the same/ similar frequencies with them, so if I want to see how my future soulmates is, I just need to mirror on myself and see how I’m living my life so far and how’s my true personality is. 

10. What do you want to become in the future? A wonderful lady artist (musician) for myself, wife for my husband and an awesome mother of two or three. 

11. What’s your favorite book? Kate DiCamillo’s The miraculous journey of Edward Tulane All poetry books by Lang Leav Le petite prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery Steal like an artist  - Austin Kleon 

12. Favorite Season? Hmm...Spring time?

13. What’s the best memory you have with your friends? Hmm..Actually I couldn’t really recall any. Maybe there was, but I’m a forgetful person, really. 

14. What’s your biggest dream? To have a peaceful and healthy (both physically and mentally) life with my beloved family and dearest people. 15. If you could change one thing about yourself, what it’ll be? I wonder...Maybe my cowardness? 

16. What’s your favorite movie? Hmm...There are a lot too, but lemme spell out some that I could still remember the title. It’s kinda hard to name, since I’m usually more into series than movie. The Devil wears prada, Up in the air, Habibie & Ainun, Yes Man, How to train your dragon 1 & 2,  Finding Mr. Right.

17. Do you have a crush on someone? Hmm...I currently have a fiance. Does this count as one?

18. If you knew you were gonna die tomorrow, what will you do? Write a letter and prepare parting gift for everyone. Have a good talk and convey everything that I would love to tell to my beloved dearest people surround me. 

19. Do you feel proud of yourself? Yes I do

20. What do you think is your safe place? Y’know, that place/ thing that helps you feel better when you need it the most? Bathroom, because it gives you privacy though you are surrounded by people. I mean, it’s rare to see other people following you into bathroom right? So the sense of personal space is there in the bathroom. At least, for me personally. 

21. Do you believe in ghosts? I believe it exist in terms of frequencies. This universe is filled by various frequencies and they are unseen, but you could sometimes feel it. That’s how I define feelings, and ghosts. 

22. Do you miss someone? I miss myself, sometimes, and some people that have passed away, sometimes.

23. Do you have any pets? What are their names? I used to have hedgehogs, but I don’t have any with me now after their death.

24. Are you a night person or a morning one? I could say I’m a night owl. Morning doesn’t really work well for me. 

25. Are you part of the LGBT community? Nope, but I’m okay with being friend with people who are part of the LGBT community.

26. What’s your favorite video game? Hmm...Those old games, like Fatal Frame series, La pucelle, phantom brave, disgaea, some otome games like amnesia series/ hakuoki. 

27. What’s the reason you wake up every morning? Life goes on, so yeah.

28. Do you look up to someone? Hmm...it’s a yes and a no. 

29. What’s something you’ve wanted to try for a while, but haven’t done it yet? Go somewhere far away, enjoy tranquility and the nature, alone. 

30. What’s the meaning of life for you? It’s an endless journey of finding oneself and spreading positivity and love to people surround us. 

31. Do you play any instruments?  I play mostly piano and those instruments within the same family like keyboard, electone, pianika, etc. Side: I tried ukulele, kalimba, recorder, etc.

32. What’s the most annoying thing you had to deal with? The battle within myself,  How to deal with the society surrounds me. 

33. How would you define “art”? Wabisabi - the beauty in imperfection.

34. Do you think you’re a different person now because of quarantine and everything that happened in the world? Not really, but I do find out how lazy I actually am after this quarantine.  How I am really a jak-of-all-trades; well, it just some self-exploration,  but to say that I’m a different person now? Nah, no! I’m still me. 

35. Name one thing you hate that others love? Those material related stuffs.

36. What do you think that happens after we die? My soul with emerge with this universe and my physical body will blend into one to the soil. I will become frequencies and when the right moment comes, I will be born again in this universe in a different form.

37. Do you have any regrets? I do, but I don’t want to dwell into things in the past too much as there is no way we could change the past, but I’m striving to change now to change the future instead.

38. Love or being loved? Being loved is awesome. 

39. What’s the best advice someone has ever given to you? Marriage is not about love, because love won’t last for years,  but please keep enhancing yourself to be the best version of yourself and never forget to build consciousness within yourself. Based on that, you support each other, appreciate each other and trust each other as couple.  (Advice given by Nichiren Daishonin Buddha to his disciple, Shijo Kingo)

I really like this a lot when I stumble on this, and apparently it’s one of advice that I took dearly within my heart until now as a guidance.

40. What are you afraid of? When I make my family upset/ something bad happen to them

41. Describe yourself in 5 words Simplicated Jack of all trades

42. How’s your relationship with your parents/ siblings? Very good. We never really have any toxic relationship with each other though of course we are all not perfect and there are things that we should work on for each of us. 

43. Would you rather live in a big city or in a small town? Hmm...A small town that is able to travel to a big city for a travel distance less than an hour by train. I miss my time spent when I was in Diemen. It was a nice small city near Amsterdam. 

44. Have you ever been on a relationship? Yes

45. What’s the happiest memory that comes to your mind right now? I’m actually pretty sleepy and zombie mode right now, so I couldn’t think off any specific moment, but I think most of moments in my life is a bit bitter with lots of sweetness on it, so yeah! Those moments spent with my family are the best.

46. Do you easily trust others? Nope. I usually have minus trust with other people other than my own core family. Even I couldn’t trust my extended family too much. 

47. Have you ever dyed your hair? Nope, but I usually try some wigs instead. 

48. What’s the first thing you notice when you meet someone new? Of course, it’s physical appearance (though I should say I don’t put much attention on physical thing) since it’s the first thing that we could see with bare eyes.

49. If you could only listen to one album for the rest of your life, which one it’ll be?  I’ll just pick one from KOKIA album. I love her so much. Any album could do, but maybe I’ll choose the best collection album since it contains more songs there LMAO

50. Tag someone to remind them how much you love and care about them... Hmm..I will tag my sister perhaps XD The other family members of mine don’t have twitter.

51. What was your favourite toy when you were a kid? Dolls? I forgot. ahahaha. 

52. What’s your biggest pet peeve? When people in society only judge people based on material possession they have rather than by their hearts. It annoys me so much when I encounter one.

53. If you could change one thing in the world to make it a better place, what will you do? I don’t have any idea right now. Writer’s block.

54. Have you ever got involved with drugs/ alcohol? Nope. Never.

55. What do you think is your aesthetic? Hmm... All of me?

56. Do you enjoy traveling? Yes, but sometimes not really since traveling is tiring, but it’s good to see a different scenery once in a while. 

57. What’s your favorite show? Hmm...I don’t really have one maybe? Is anime consider as show? I don’t think so huh.

58. Are you into witchcraft? Nope.

59. What would be your ideal gift? Hmm...I never really have any specific desire in life, but usually I love letterset/ notebook/ fluffy stuffs/ tea/ coffee/ any aesthetic/ vintage stuffs around. I usually treasure more intangible things than tangible one, so yea. 

60. Do you think you’re a good person? It depends on how you define a good person is.

61. Are you more of an introvert or an extrovert? I’m introvert.

62. Have you ever gone to a concert? Yes, I did. Some classical concert and Kingdom Heart orchestra tour concert. 

63. How will your ideal first date be? When there is no drama occurs and compatibility is there, ah, with good food and tea as well.

64. Do you think there’s life in others planets? Mayhap. Why not? I’m open to any possibilities.

65. What do you do when you feel sad? I play/ listen to music, watch something, write something, take a good shower with favorite scented soap.

66. If you could travel back in time to another century, which one will you pick? Hmm....The year where I’m born. 

67. Do you often remember your dreams? Yes, I do!

68. Name one thing you hate about your country I don’t really have one.

69. If you won the lottery, what will you do with all the money? I’ll buy a house for myself (and my future family) and another one to build a public library/ an orphanage. 

70. Any guilty pleasure? Quite a lot, actually. 

[pokemaniacal]

Rowlet, Dartrix and Decidueye

Bloody hell, if I don’t hurry this up they’re going to announce another damn generation before I’m done with this one; we’re already expecting whatever this bull$#!t is supposed to be and I’ve got eighty whole Pokémon to evaluate in the next couple of months, as well as talking about Team Skull and the Aether Foundation, and Hau, and maybe Lillie too, and whoever I decide counts as the Champion, not to mention answering the neverending tide of ridiculous banal questions that keep pouring out of my goddamn inbox (obviously, gentle reader, I’m not talking about any questions you might have submitted, which are of course consistently insightful and thought provoking; it’s all those other bastards that are the problem).

I’M FINE

Let’s talk about Rowlet.

If you pay any attention whatsoever to this blog for any length of time, one of the first things you discover is that I like Grass-types.  The Grass-type has been my go-to starter for my first playthrough (and most subsequent playthroughs) of every generation since the first.  Rowlet’s fate was bound to mine by destiny long before I ever laid eyes on him.  And I’m basically okay with this.  Rowlet isn’t really in contention to unseat Bulbasaur and Turtwig as my favourite starter Pokémon, but he’s fine.  He’s easy and fun to use in a playthrough, we’ve never had a birdlike Grass-type before, it doesn’t hurt that he’s just objectively adorable, and in abandoning his Flying-type Decidueye becomes the very first Ghost-type starter Pokémon ever, which is neat.  Rowlet and Dartrix are clearly barn owls, with the barn owl’s distinctive pale heart-shaped face, whereas Decidueye is maybe more of a hawk owl, although I wouldn’t read too much into that.  Comparisons to Hoothoot and Noctowl, who seem to be horned owls, are in order, as one of my usual criteria for evaluating new Pokémon is “is this actually new?” and I think the answer there is… probably???  Part of the problem there is that Hoothoot actually has a much more clearly-defined and interesting “personality” than Noctowl, with his heavily stylised cuckoo-clock aesthetic and metronome-like rocking from side to side (actually though, as long as we’re here, why doesn’t Hoothoot get Metronome?  I mean, I get that Metronome was still super-exclusive when Hoothoot was introduced, but they gave it to Snubbull and Chansey as an egg move).  Noctowl is kinda just a big owl that does owl things.  Rowlet, Dartrix and Decidueye are a bit deeper than that, which I generally tend to think is good.  Decidueye’s arrows and archery are an odd touch, but as with Talonflame, you can link birds and arrows conceptually via feathered fletching, so that makes sense.  What might not immediately makes sense to some of us is the switch from Flying to Ghost when Dartrix evolves, and this gives me an excuse to begin one of my patented Bull$#!t Lore Digressions™, so let’s learn some more about owls.

Owls are associated with the spirit world in several different and unrelated cultures, and there are some pretty good reasons for this.  Owls are night hunters, but more than that, they’re silent hunters – owls’ feathers are softer and smoother-edged than those of other birds, so the flapping of their wings is much more difficult to hear, giving them a ghostly, ethereal quality.  Also, like many nocturnal animals, their eyes reflect light and seem to glow in the dark in a disconcertingly eerie manner.  Not for nothing are owls omens of death in sub-Saharan Africa, of sickness and bad luck in the native cultures of the American southwest, or of catastrophe in ancient Rome.  In ancient Greece, of course – mainly in Athens – owls had a more ambivalent role as the sacred birds of Athena and symbols of wisdom (an association that persists today and gives us Noctowl’s famous intellect and minor psychic abilities).  Even there, though, the sinister scops owl was seen as a creature of the underworld, and the owl’s reputation for knowledge subsequently made it the familiar of witches and warlocks in mediaeval Europe.  In New Zealand, where I come from, the small brown hawk owl known as the morepork or ruru is believed to be an oracle of the future in Maori culture, its different cries portending either good fortune or disaster.  Finally, and perhaps most relevant for us today, on several of the islands of Hawai’i a species of short-eared owl called a pueo is one of the more common shapes known to be taken by ’aumākua, the spirits of a family’s honoured ancestors, who return to serve as guardians and as a link to the spirit world (sharks, lizards and turtles are also common; families must show respect and deference to all animals of a similar form to their ’aumākua).  An owl Pokémon thus becomes an intermediary between this world and the next, a sort of warrior-shaman that protects its trainer from spiritual threats using powers of its own that are more than a little dark and sinister (we see a similar theme with Hoothoot in the anime, where he has the unique power to force hidden Ghost-types to reveal themselves with Foresight).

This “mystic guardian” aesthetic is conspicuously undercut by what Rowlet and Dartrix seem to be doing, because they have more of a “dapper gentleman” style in play – consider the Pokédex line that describes Dartrix as “a bit of a dandy” obsessed with keeping his wings groomed, or their leafy bow-ties (in Decidueye, that evolves into something more like a brooch or the clasp of a cloak, which has a more mediaeval-fantasy feel to it).  It feels like a very odd fit for the direction that Decidueye moves in.  If you had just given me Rowlet and Dartrix, and told me to come up with ideas for a final evolution, I might, after substantial umm-and-ahh-ing, have pitched a kind of James-Bond-esque super-spy-in-a-tuxedo concept.  That seems like a more natural continuation, but easily could have turned out looking rather stupid without some very clever way of unifying the design elements (and if there’s anything this blog should teach us, it’s that I’m not quite that clever).  The self-important “dandy” aesthetic, after a bit of thought, is oddly reminiscent to me of the vain, professorial Owl from Winnie-the-Pooh, genuinely wise (…relatively speaking) but perhaps just as much concerned with the appearance of wisdom as with wisdom itself, and eager to look the part of the sober, intellectual scholar of the arcane.  Decidueye’s own description from the Pokédex tells us that this wise Pokémon is nonetheless easily startled and flustered (try slapping him awake in PokéRefresh and you’ll see what they’re getting at).  It’s still incongruous with Decidueye as mystic archer and night hunter, but it is at least giving me a common aesthetic thread to follow through all three evolutionary stages, something that’s quite important for a starter Pokémon to maintain.  Which is enough for the purposes of this review, I think.

Stats-wise, Decidueye seems to be built as a mixed attacker, with strong offensive skills, but isn’t very fast.  That doesn’t bode particularly well, since he can’t really afford to not max his speed in training, leaving less to split between attack and special attack.  There’s a passable physical movepool here, which includes Leaf Blade, Brave Bird, Sucker Punch, U-Turn, and… I guess Steel Wing if, like, you really hate Alolan Ninetales or something?  There’s also Decidueye’s signature move, Spirit Shackle, which has several advantages.  It’s a reliable Ghost-type physical attack, which a) is a rare sort of attack for anyone to have access to, and b) is something Decidueye clearly needs, c) it traps its target in play with Decidueye (unless the target is a Normal-type or Ghost-type, or has some escape mechanism), limiting your opponent’s options, and d) it fires a spiritual arrow that nails the target’s soul to the ground, which is super badass.  This move is easily Decidueye’s biggest edge; you want to use him to set up critical moments where you can switch and your opponent can’t, then pressure their weak points with one of Decidueye’s teammates, or try to Swords Dance while they’re off balance.  Leaf Blade and Spirit Shackle are actually a pretty solid combination; neither Grass nor Ghost gets a lot of super-effective hits, but Ghost has strong neutral coverage, so basically you’re resisted by all the Normal/Flying birds and a bunch of Dark dual-types.  Sucker Punch is mostly redundant with Spirit Shackle in terms of type coverage, but it’s also Decidueye’s only priority move, and he’s fairly slow and doesn’t have any speed buffs, so at least considering it is sort of obligatory (just remember that it only works on targets preparing a direct attack, so be careful using it against support Pokémon).  U-Turn is just generally a good move, because the free switch-out gives you a lot of flexibility in responding to your opponent’s actions (and especially switches), and it covers your ass against Dark-types, whom Decidueye tends to have trouble with.  Trapping something with Spirit Shackle and then bouncing out with U-Turn is a decent little combo, if you like that sort of thing.  Brave Bird adds a bit more of a sting than Decidueye’s other options, but lacks their utility.  Some combination of four of these, or three plus Swords Dance, should probably be the default go-to.  Decidueye’s kit lends itself to switching in and out a lot, and he doesn’t really have the speed to try and sweep a significant chunk of an enemy team, so I’d be more inclined to slap a Choice item on him than bank on Swords Dance, but to each their own.

Decidueye’s special attack stat is pretty solid, so in theory you can use that to mix things up a bit.  Unfortunately, basically his only worthwhile special attacks are Shadow Ball and Energy Ball/Grass Knot, and if you cut Spirit Shackle for Shadow Ball then you’ve sort of forsaken one of the most compelling reasons to use Decidueye in the first place.  That’s not quite the end of the story; you might be gunning specifically for some big chunky physical tank with a Grass weakness like Hippowdon, who gets stung much harder by Grass Knot than by Leaf Blade even with minimal special attack training on Decidueye’s part.  Also, most human opponents are going to assume Decidueye is a physical attacker, so if you can grab him a free turn to set up with Nasty Plot (which he also learns), you might just be able to catch someone with their pants down.  I’m not sure this is particularly a good plan, and again I’m not encouraged by the fact that he essentially has no third special attack, but the possibility theoretically exists.  Decidueye does have a support movepool of sorts, but you can probably find better Pokémon for any conceivable support role he might try to fill.  Like, Baton Pass is there as an egg move (via Togetic or Oricorio), and again, Decidueye does get both Swords Dance and Nasty Plot, so he has perfectly sound options for using it, but he just looks so unlike my idea of what a Baton Passer ought to be (poor speed, average defences) that my mind sort of recoils from the notion.  Alternatively you could try to ply Roost and Light Screen with some HP training into some kind of weird tanky Decidueye – give up trying to outrun things, since he’s slow anyway, and focus on your defences.  Just don’t tell anyone it was my idea.

As well as a signature move, Decidueye has a unique ability; it’s his hidden ability and isn’t currently obtainable, but I think we’ll probably get it eventually, so we ought to talk about it before we finish up.  This ability is Long Reach, which lets Decidueye treat his “contact” attacks as ranged instead, bypassing enemy effects like Static, Rough Skin, Beak Blast’s retributive burn, and so on.  This… ehhh, I’m not really sure what this is for.  I mean, I understand conceptually why Decidueye has this: he’s an archer, so he should be able to make what would normally be close-range attacks from a distance.  But that aspect of the design is already expressed by his signature move, and by the fact that he can use ranged special attacks effectively.  Most contact effects aren’t that big a deal, most Pokémon that get them have better abilities to choose from, and even when they’re likely to turn up, Decidueye would often prefer Spirit Shackle to Leaf Blade anyway.  I think Long Reach would probably give Decidueye an extra edge against… Wigglytuff, Electrode, Parasect, Bewear, Stunfisk, and (lord help us) Delcatty.  Being able to one-shot Bewear with Brave Bird after a Swords Dance is not nothing, but I suspect the more general Grass-type damage bonus from Overgrow would probably still be more useful, even once Long Reach becomes available.

So, all in all, this is a decent start to generation VII.  Rowlet, Dartrix and Decidueye are nothing amazing; they have a couple of conflicting ideas in their design, and other than Spirit Shackle there’s not a whole lot to be impressed by in their skillset.  They’re still interesting, though; as fighters they are at the very least passable, with an interesting niche courtesy of that neat little signature move, and I cannot stress enough that pinning a foe in place by the shadow is a very cool gimmick.  I got my cool new Grass-type starter, all is right with the world, and I can now review the rest of the seventh generation joyfully and optimistically, without a hint of malice or discontent in my heart.

…well, I mean, I can try, anyway.