Alcryst and Sommie

Alcryst and Sommie
Name	Alcryst and Sommie
Description	Alcryst (bottom) and Sommie (top), from Fire Emblem Engage
Location	-987, -188
Area	854 pixels
Atlas ID	2712

Alcryst (bottom) and Sommie (top), from Fire Emblem Engage. Alcryst is the second prince of Brodia, on the continent of Elyos. He suffers from low self-esteem despite his talents, yet is fiercely protective and supportive of his friends and allies. He wields a bow in the game.

Sommie is a little dog-like creature who serves as a guardian spirit of the Somniel, a floating island that the Divine Dragons Alear and Lumera can access alongside those invited by them.

r/place 2023

Creation

The project was started by a group of friends on Sunday, July 23rd at 04:10 GMT. User wiggle used Alcryst's in-game sprite combined with the limited palette to create a template, that would slowly be built upon. User hopewish reached out to the Discord server "The Alcryst Nation" for defense at the same time, to try to make the character last out for longer.

User Kayarine in that same Discord reached out to the Discord server of the Fire Emblem subreddit (r/fireemblem) at 10:30 GMT, as an extra means of defense.

The textual reference to the subreddit was added around the same time as the Fourth Extension, at 18:00 GMT.

User herbification then used the updated palette to give a makeover to the character, still mostly using his in-game sprite as reference. The template that would be used was created at 19:20 GMT.

The trans flag slowly appeared at the time, and the group decided to let it pass through as long as it didn't cover Alcryst or the letters. The rest of the pride flags on the left (top to bottom: Genderfluid, Bisexual, Aromantic, Asexual, Lesbian and Polysexual) were added shortly after, with the condition of not extending beyond the letters.

The idea of adding Sommie on the top space grew on the team after a bit of defense and recoloring, with the condition to not touch the frog build. User Ilu_Icey created the pixel template that would be used for that purpose at 21:00 GMT, and Sommie was completed at 22:53 GMT as a collaboration between the original friend group and the Alcryst Nation Discord server.

On Monday, July 24th at 05:41 GMT, a rainbow pride flag was added as a background to Sommie.

At around 18:30 GMT, the Non-Binary flag was moved from below the rainbow flag to the bottom right corner. The Graysexual flag was added in between it and the part of Trans flag to the right of Alcryst. An unknown flag, then the Male Gay flag were added on top way later.

A small change to Alcryst's skin tone was done following the palette gaining more colors as a result of the Sixth Expansion, at 18:00 GMT.

Finally, on Tuesday, July 25th at 05:00 GMT, three Amongi were added to the right of Sommie. They are meant to represent, from top to bottom, Citrinne (Alcryst's cousin and one of his two retainers), Lapis (Alcryst's other retainer) and Diamant (Alcryst's older brother and the Crown Prince of Brodia). A small red-and-blue heart, meant to represent Alear, was added in the blank space to the bottom left of Sommie at 11:00 GMT.

Alliances and Conflicts

Some attacks were done on Alcryst's sprite itself, mostly by user u/timerrabest. Some others were done on Sommie's art as well.

Most of the time, however, flags were the target. Either they were extended as a way to cover other parts of the art, or some communities attempted to attack and cover them. The rainbow flag behind Sommie was a privileged target for that second type.

An alliance was formed with r/BlackMIDI as their art was created on the left of Alcryst.

A tacit alliance was also formed with the people behind the frog artwork above Sommie, allowing a line of defense between it and Dogecoin. This allowed Sommie to keep the tip of his ears even when the frog art got extended one pixel down, while there have been some minor conflicts about that part. This sadly could not save the frog from a bot attack shortly before the grayscale event.

Final result

Both Alcryst and Sommie lasted until the grayscaling, when they ended up being almost immediately erased in the F of the final "FUCK SPEZ".

With Alfonse in the Gacha Alliance and Feh the Owl appearing on the canvas, they were the only representation of Fire Emblem on r/place 2023.