First Snow

Whoever made this was so blessed. Check out how perfect that leaf is for a violin!

Awesome job OP.

Please don't mind me asking I keep this for future reference.

Hollow Knight food concept art I’ve done this before, but I wanted to go into more depth on the processes and ingredients used

I’m slowly amassing the ingredients needed to bake a cake

Very well done analysis of Adaman.

Adaman the Symbol of Time

 p(An Analysis on the character design of Adaman from Pokemon Legends of Arceus and it’s relation to time and art history.)

A lot of the characters form PLA are similar in terms of design. The characters that do not follow the standard hoodies, tunics, guild jumpsuits ,and kimonos have a lot of interesting art history associated with them.  I love Adaman’s design in particular since he is literally a symbol of time. 

Well…isn’t this obvious since he is the Diamond Clan leader and associated with Dialga? Yes, but there is a lot more subtle aspects to his design that link him with a specific form or Japanese Art.  But let’s first look at the obvious references to Dialga .

In Adaman’s design they use a lot of blues and and silver that you can see shared with Dialga.  They also use the Diamond clan symbol that is shaped to look like Dialga’s chest gem repeatedly in the coat and accessories.  Adaman’s coat/jacket is most likely a nod to the Japanese Haori.  It is even tied with a fancy beaded Himo chord to keep it closed. If you look at the shoes you can see in the concept art that even the bottom of them are supposed to look like Dialga’s feet in their regular form and on the top of the shoe like the legendary Pokemon’s face.  All this information is very interesting and nice seeing how the character and the Pokemon are related even thematically.  

However, it’s crossed your mind (even briefly) that Adaman’s design is not directly one to one with Dialga. He isn’t a Dialga gijinka. There are elements and colors that Adaman uses that the legendary Pokemon does not.  We can brush it off as Adaman having a flair and his importance as a Diamond Clan leader to set him apart. But this is where it gets interesting. His outfit is generally just fashionable and we can choose to look at it like that on a surface level.  But if you look deeper you see a more symbolic meaning.

Adaman is Kintsugi . What is that? Kintsugi is a Japanese art technique that repairs pottery using lacquer and gold dust.  Adaman also has similar gold veins running through his clothing.  For someone who is so “put together” looking, why would you intentionally create jagged and uneven elements other than for aesthetic? This is because for my understanding, this is yet another way the character designer chose to express Adaman’s connection to time.

Kintsugi is a beautiful form of art and philosophy.  The idea is not to hide the cracks and flaws, but to turn it into something more beautiful and strong.  It represents the passage of time and a documentation of the harsh conditions in which we pass through. But ultimately it is a celebration of survival and growth.  It is also a metaphor for embracing your flaws and imperfections.

One translation defines the word  kintsugi as golden “golden seams”. So, Adaman is kind of a symbol of kintsugi pottery and philosophy.  The part about this design that confused me the most was his hair since it’s also not standard colored and is quite unique. But I realized that if we are equating him to pottery, the hair might be colored that way to imitate pottery glazes (the stuff they put on ceramics to give it color.)

On another interesting note, Adaman has lots of signs of past injury. We see this with the bandages on his arms and hands, the cut brow which is a remnant of injury and survival, and then the very intentional jagged gold claw marks on his back.  The back gold lines are sharp looking and contrast with the rest of the designs which is fluid and rounded.  It’s bringing attention to the marks.

Image sources: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6

We can interpret a lot from this design. It also raises many questions. The jagged golden marks and Adaman’s bandaged arms implies that he has been “damaged” or “broken” in some sense. This could be taken literally or symbolically. We don’t know what happened to him.  Maybe he was attacked by an alpha Pokemon and survived a severe injury that he now incorporates into this aesthetic as a way to show that he was able to come back from that.  Or maybe it’s referring to his leadership as a young Diamond Clan leader and the mistakes he made and had to learn from. 

So in conclusion. From what I can understand , if we were to wrap up all the motifs, Adaman’s design ultimately seems to just represent a passage of time. Breakage and repair are just proof of time passing and represent history and life. And I think that is really cool.  

These are all my speculations and none of it is canon you can disagree if you want. These are just things I have observed and made note of that I believe makes the character far more interesting and fleshed out.  There is a lot of deep and meaningful things you can pull from this if you want to expound further through fanart and fanfic.  

EDITS/NOTES:

So a lot of people asked if the arm and hand wraps are for fighting. They aren’t. In every form of fighting and martial arts that involves wrapping(taping) your knuckles, you wrap between each finger and around your knuckles several times to cushion them.  You do their for wrist stability, prevent injury, and joint restriction.  Failing to wrap your hands correctly will result in fractures, broken fingers and knuckles, and metal carpet boss.  Not only are Adaman’s knuckles exposed when he clenches his fists, there is no wrapping supporting his wrists on the left hand.  If he is wrapping them to fight, he is doing a very bad job at it.

I did research on this before writing the initial post and came to this conclusion, but I guess I’ll add it now for those that had questions.

Another interesting note is that the Diamond Clan symbol also looks like a stylized version of the characters for gold.  This same character also does appear in the work kintsugi.

Adaman’s name is interesting too since it’s not really a common name.  In fact, it seems to be a play on word “adamant” which usually refers to someone who is not willing to change their mind or opinion.  HOWEVER , Adamant is an archaic diamond found in Greek/Roman mythology.  It is a bit of a legendary diamond of sorts. The name is derived from the Greek word for diamond. “adámas”.

If you remember, in the Diamond and Pearl games you can use the “Adamant Orb” to increase the dragon/steel type moves of Dialga by 20% if they hold it. In Pokemon Legends Arceus you can get the “Adament Crystal from Adaman.  This can be used to switch Dialga between Origin and normal form.  

Also random interesting thought. The diamond clan settlement is located in the crimson mirelands. Out of the different areas, this one has the most ideal conditions to create pottery clay next to bodies of water (Lake valor) , the scarlet bog, and the mountainous areas surrounding the settlement. Very similar to the Mashiko and Hagi pottery villages in japan.

I've been using Tumblr for a while now and I STILL wonder why people rarely comment on posts.

Oh this caused a pause because I'm still writing fics with these characters.

1. Yes they have to fight, 2. Tell me who’s fighting who in the tags! (I’ll add the most ridiculous combos in a reblog)

I want everyone to know that this is me every time someone drops a comment on something I've written:

I laughed wayyyyy to hard at this.

Also, my brother's favorite joke to tell him that his favorite region is returning...well thank you OP!

Everyone: "Unova had a bunch of references to it recently and we had gen 4 games not long ago, next mainline game is gonna be in Unova!"

Also Everyone: "Gen 2 would be up for a new game soon after Let's Go did Kanto, and the whole Pokemon Present was FILLED with Johto related stuff. Next game will be Johto!"

Gamefreak:

BLURB:

Instead of Deepnest, the Knight went up through the City of Tears to escape. What would happen but being found and adopted by none other than the Watcher himself.

Tell me, what happens now? After all, the Knight has a twin in the White Palace down below....

Part 1 / Prologue:

https://www.tumblr.com/violetdawn001/738374720772292608/script-out-of-nowhere-you-came-needing-someone-to?source=share

Part 2 / Chapter 1:

https://www.tumblr.com/violetdawn001/739098346305781760/perfectly-not-fine-chapter-one?source=share

Part 3 / Chapter 2:

https://www.tumblr.com/violetdawn001/741443039477858304/perfectly-not-fine-chapter-2?source=share

Part 4 / Chapter 3:

https://www.tumblr.com/violetdawn001/743988423774371840/perfectly-not-fine-chapter-3?source=share

Has anyone considered that maybe the lack of glowing green is because Kai no longer has the Jade Pendents????

Or that maybe he's weakened after getting destroyed by Po???

Pt 2 to the smooze juice eyes, he did get his green eyes back but it was MAJORLY nerfed

I have over 300 images of him i am not doing mentally well rn hmu if you want more