my crestfall arc
art by SilO_1010
✦ Crestfall Academy
i have a full playlist of my time at the academy you can check out here
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the server
founded in 1990 by ukeru kaeru's great-grandfather, croak kent, now passed down to ukeru kaeru, crestfall academy stands as a prestigious institution fgor exceptional trainers. its halls welcome those whose journeys unfold before an audience beyond the academy ground, turning trials, battles and triumphs into shared spectacles. official website
like many people in the modern century (or maybe just my age) ((or just me)) i yearn for large-scale minecraft servers to play on with friends and from march 21, 2026 to april 11, 2026, i had the opportunity to participate in my friend's cobblemon server - Crestfall Academy. as mentioned, it is a cobblemon server that plays on an academic setting with players attending school, learning the ways of cobblemon battling and forming bonds with other student (not me though, i don't like talking to people and i think i spent most of my time circling the map).
it truly wasn't school unless we had classes, a culture festival, and due to the timing of the server, a special april fools event. we even had specific rewards for certain achievements throughout the course of the server. there were also many events in the server - elegance, dominion, unity, valor, and mastery in addition to the final closing ceremony. i'll be for real though, i only participated in a handful so in a way, i don't think my pov is the best to watch - in fact, i think i spent half of my time exploring the skies and fishing as per usual.
this server was actually linked to another one i joined couple months further back, which is why in some vods, names of certain characters may appear. you can find those vods here - super briefly, it was a homestead server that was a bit heavier on the roleplay, however, i usually logged in when less people were online and played the role of a hermit-like fisherman that lived on the border of the town. i just love fishing.
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building the campus & the start of crestfall
i kind of lied when i said i started playing on the server on march 21 - i was actually invited much earlier to help with the set up of the server.
honestly speaking, i don't think i'm that much of a builder since i don't think i have that great of an eye for aesthetics - and if anything, i think my minecraft playstyle is more of a i-will-dick-around-and-hope-someone-else-will-make-sure-we-survive and a pick-flowers kind of style. regardless, i was given the opportunity to decorate the outdoor spaces. you can watch back the vods, but a lot of the pathing, the grassy areas and even some of the additional exterior decoration was thanks to yours truly.
one major event i participated in was the elegance trial, which was decorating the dorm. from the generic tower inside of the forest to the large treehouse with a hidden secret in its base. while i do not understand the mechanics of create, i'm really happy other house members did - i really had fun with the zipline that transported everyone between trees. it was a fun challenge that involved building and my thought process with the design of the dorm was to incorporate the cobblemon types that our dorm was limited to; which you'll see in the next part.
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artwork by Tsuhita
a new member of the verdalis house - an embarrassing character profile (sort of)
Empathetic, intuitive, adaptable, and wise. Verdalis students are driven by understanding of nature, of others, and of the mind. They prioritize harmony, learning, and quiet resilience. House Verdalis teaches that true power grows slowly but deeply. verdalis was limited to the following cobblemon types: water, grass, bug & psychic.
before joining the server, participants had to take what was basically a personality quiz that sorted them into houses kinda like in harry potter but if i mentioned that, it would be game over for me (but also to preface, i don't know anything about harry potter either lol) and to the shock and surprise of no one, i had ended up in the house that had many awesome people that were a little on the eccentric side i think i was the house freak though.
verdalis was definitely a peaceful house - personally, i didn't sense any bad blood between any of the members and more often than not, we would be planning inner-house gatherings. i think the highlight of my time on the server was getting a gambling addiction and spending time with everyone on the slots in the main school lobby. i also think i didn't have any additional bad blood against a lot of people in the server, i even had the opportunity to bug some of them for a house tour prior to the culture festival that occurred on the second week of the server.
while i wasn't too heavy on the roleplay, i was definitely trying to play the cobblemon maniac who adored many ugly-cute cobblemon. in the end, my final team consisted of a kingdra, empoleon, gollisopod, lilligant, feraligatr and a metagross; even though i was not an active battler, i could not ask for a better team than them. heart hands emoji.
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the school life & closing ceremony
despite all the niceties of the minecraft server and the fact i really did enjoy myself on the server, i would be lying if i said everything was smooth-sailing; it's very true that the server's stability was shoddy at times - since it was a first large event, i really can't fault it at all, would anyone know how stressful it would be not just on admin but also technologically speaking. not to mention, my pc (read: laptop) is not the best, so i wasn't too surprised with how laggy it was especially at the beginning of the server when everyone started joining. it's also very true that people would not always get along and tensions would be higher due to the competitive nature of the server itself; i for one, would know since it was my first time meeting some people on the server in-game, i could imagine for some people, it would be like that.
the cultural festival that occurred during the second week lasted over the span of two days with the first day consisting of a dorm check, a relay race and a beauty contest with the second day consisting of two types of battle tournaments and a fishing tourney which you know for a fact i participated in heavy. as mentioned, i did bug a lot of people for a dorm tour because i knew for a fact that during the festival proper, i would lag heavy with the amount of players that would be logged in. i also did participate in the beauty contest and was heavily relying on a role as someone who created cobblemon outfits - i will say that i totally forgot that this would rely heavy in a resource pack i wasn't too sure if everyone had toggled on, but just so you know, i really did have such a dapper wooper. come the second day, i only participated in the fishing tourney and despite best efforts, i did end up second place because of my smaller blastoise. i will say i think i had the most fun with the challenge as i always had fun with the fishing mechanic in minecraft - i'm really a gambling addict lol.
finally, with the end of crestfall came the closing ceremony in which i accidentally spent 6 hours on the server being too early to the ceremony that would've started in the evening. i spent most of my time dicking around in the end. as someone who really wasn't actively participating in other larger-scale events, i was really surprised to learn that it was house verdalis that won the overall event by the skin of our necks (it's probably not heard very well on the vod, but it's under about 10 points between the number 1 and number 2 houses in terms of points).
despite everything and the many ups and downs the server experienced, i had so much fun streaming and playing minecraft with the other students of crestfall; i would not trade the experience of it all for anything.
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