#darkners

I have a few plans for regular darkners and recruits for new areas. THE STILL SEA doesn't have any traditional darkners patrolling the ice, so instead I'll share two from THE NECROPOLIS:

The Boo-Hoo-Quets

One may hear the melancholic sobs of this darkner choing across the stone halls of the Necropolis. These darkners will often assail passerbys with mournful tales of the deceased, threatening to lower their spirits or drown them in their tears. To RECRUIT these darkners, one must commiserate in their sorrow by telling tales of their own deceased friends and fellows. Be warned, any attempts to dry their tears or accelerate their grieving will cause them to fly into a rage, making them far more dangerous for a time

Digging clan (Trowelle)

Well, as the title says, in this challenge I've created some Darkners that could have fit into the Dark Worlds from chapters 1 to 4, taking into account the atmosphere and some details.

Let's begin with:

Chapter 1

Since the theme is board games and some school stuff, I started thinking about what item wasn't represented here. That's when I thought of dominoes and I merged it with a Dalmatian.

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Chapter 2

The theme here is related to technology and the Internet, so for this Darkner I took some things from the past and, like the previous one, I merged them together.

Those computers in the library appear to be the old ones with Windows XP. I know because I had one of those in the past, before modern computers started coming out.

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Chapter 3

The theme of this Dark World is television channels and things from the personal life of Kris and their family.

I chose ICE-E because I imagine it must be something like a giant brand of anything. With a restaurant, toys, some other kind of resources, maybe even a TV series and a movie, right?

Kris doesn't seem to like anime, so I guess maybe they preferred watching cartoons or something like that.

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Chapter 4

The last Dark World had religious elements, so I opted for this type of amulet medal that hangs on doors or walls.

My mom has one of those.

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Well, challenge completed.

I'll continue this in a second part, when the three remaining chapters are finished.

Okay, let's analyze each one now:

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This is the first one we saw before all this.

More dialogue for those who still have Tenna in Castle Town.

SAY HELLO TO MY LITTLE FRIEND!!! *shots the dog somewhere*

"Pom gets Wi-Fi"?

Now let's get to the most important one:

I KNEW IT!!! 😁

I knew these things would become something very special and that we would need them for something very important in the future!

In two of my theories I mentioned two possible uses we could give to the crystals once Seam turn them into a "Pure Crystal", but I think I'm going to delve deeper into the subject now.

I'm also going to share some thoughts I just had because of this:

Many possibilities, but it seems we just got the key to solve this...?

...

Let's move on to the other dialogues.

So Susie saw "Child's Play" huh? Although I don't think Kris will like it much because of the plot and the irony of our situation with them.

I mean *cof cof*

Also, Asriel is afraid of horror movies? *smirk* Sorry, but I couldn't help laughing. It's kind of silly. 😆

Noelle is more tolerable than him, even though she gets scared by everything. I suppose he's more into fantasy movies like "Harry Potter", "Narnia" or "Lord of the Rings".

Ooohh, did they play some music and Kris and Dess were singing along with swear words? Is that why their moms got mad? 🤭

I'd love to see that in a flashback, it sounds funny and adorable.

Awww, Kris dear. 🙁

Even if this kid smelled like fruit salad, I think Susie would still recognize them without any doubt.

I feel bad for them. Their insecurities are hitting them hard.

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This said, i do not think that he is a drawing, but rather an initially blank piece of paper shaped into the role of The Prince by the grand fountain and shaped further into Ralsei by the fun gang themselves.

It's notable that ralsei's design changes throughout chapter 1, from the ambiguous (and notably sphere-headed in the frame of the legend where light shines on his face) Prince Of The Dark into a kind of archetypical Final Fantasy Dark Mage and then into Ralsei. And these sprites do not fit into each other! each indicates a *transformation* of The Prince's apparent shape, from a vague outline of a prophecised hero to an RPG party member into the design that toby initially conceived for him.

This, of course, makes sense. The relationship between a darkner's clothes and their body is (as demonstrated by lancer) not so definite as with a lightner. Since darkners are sentient illusions, logically nothing would actually exist under the clothes. A being who exists solely through perception is not going to have more of a body than can be perceived. It then follows that Ralsei's initial cloaked, prophecy shaped form is his initial shape. A blank page, unmarked.

Only through his friendship with the fun gang is he able to form a proper sense of who he is as a person, and thus take on forms that express personhood. If his page was already marked with an image then this surely would not be necessary. He would be more formed but also in turn more static.

This might raise questions of why Ralsei gets to be a character while the rest of the papers in the closet are relegated to scenery, but i think the obvious answer is just that dark fountains are arbitrary about how the shadows of various things are adapted into darkners. The storage closet (containing papers, shelves, dust, mold and a box of chalk) simply does not have enough in it to feasibly use anything else for the role. (well, maybe the chalk, but that would be quite an unwieldy Third Hero!) Looking for a hard logic behind how dark fountains determine what to make into a character darkner and what to make into an object is futile because they operate on narrative and perceptual logic rather than impartial mechanics. (and the apparent distinction between darkners and dark world objects and items is constantly demonstrated to be thin to the point of irrelevance, not just by jevil and spamton but by lancer and rouxls. (it should also be noted how winglade is a weapon in the knight's perception and a foe in susie's perception. a pen is a blade that asserts power on the world to the knight which makes with blackened knife and a source of distress to the teenager who struggles with reading and writing, how interesting!))

The nature of fountains aside, if Ralsei is taken to be a piece of paper, then that adds a whole new dimension to when Susie leaves a mark of her own blood staining his cheek. While the blood stain itself probably won't stay on his character design, this marks the end of chapter 4 as a moment that defines part of who he is forever.

Darkner concepts for fun not sure I'll do something with them, I kinda had something in mind for a sort of mini story, but it's still too vague, so they'll probably stay sitting in my mind for a while lol but I thought I'd share anyways! EDIT: I'll write here what I wrote because it's too small there lol

If dark worlds and darkners can exist before a fountain is made, then it might be possible for them to go to the Light World.