gladion "microwaved by dog" pokespecial (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
familyproblem) wrote2022-10-17 04:29 pm
familyproblem) wrote2022-10-17 04:29 pmMeta and etcetera
Info about in-game things, headcanons, bits of writing in RP continuity, whatever.
familyproblem) wrote2022-10-17 04:29 pm
october event post-network-post
His memories are gone. He talks like he used to, but he stops and asks if he's met Gladion before. He says he has a wife and children somewhere, but he can't remember their names, and if only he could get off this island then maybe...
His memories are gone. In the strange logic of the dream, Gladion knows exactly what he doesn't know; Father, it's me, and your daughter's name is Lillie, and mother's name is Lusamine, and we need to go back to them is what he thinks, but he can't say it out loud, because he doesn't remember. Where is Silvally?, he thinks, but he can't wonder that without the memory.
First, he needs to find Someone. Then he'll be able to do something about this. Without it he's trapped - but what did it look like, what did it sound like -
Later, when he's awake and when he's sure he's alone:
You're so much like your father, he's heard.
It's time to start hoping that when they find Mohn, his reunion with Lillie is as graceful as the twins' was. That the hope outweighs the burden, for her, of being the last to remember. That Kukui and Burnet take good care of her, and Moon comes back to visit, and her Pokemon become as powerful as she dreamed of -
That Silvally will warm to another trainer, Lillie or Moon or maybe Dulse or hell it could be Ryuki or the delivery boy or anyone as long as they're good to Silvally, as long as it can hold its head high and shine by their side -
That neither of them will hate him for leaving them alone, for having one job, one thing he did right after screwing up over and over because he'd kept turning away from it, which was be there for someone, be Silvally's friend and Lillie's brother, and going and failing at that too.]
Fuck.
[He's so much like his father.]
Multiversal Museum exhibit
(1) Entryway
The circular exhibit space is divided into three hallways. The first, to your left, opens onto a life-size model of a natural setting, painted in tropical greens and blues and brightly lit. The second, to your right, opens into a more standard "museum" space, full of display cases and also brightly lit. The third, straight ahead, has dark walls and a dark floor.
(2) Mahalo Trail
This very small room is done up - mostly with painted walls - to look like the last leg of a mountain trail, culminating in a doorway carved into a cliffside. A faint natural ambience plays - in the distance, birds are calling, a woodpecker(?) periodically drums on a tree trunk, and a breeze tumbles through the foliage.
(3) Land Spirits' Altar
The lighting in this room is low, and fake tree trunks slither up the painted walls. The pathway continues straight ahead through another door, but to the left, the replica of an altar looms. You could walk up the steps, if you wish. The silence here is heavy.
(4) About Alola's Guardian Deities
If you turn away from the altar, on the other side of the walkway you'll find a label rail mounted below four figures painted on the wall:
The label rail names each of them; each nameplate is placed beside a photograph of a human being with a creature companion. In the center, between the second and third, is a longer informative blurb.
Kahuna Hala (&) ⌾ Kahuna Olivia (&) ⌾ Kahuna Nanu (&) ⌾ Kahuna Hapu (&)
Four Pokémon worshiped for centuries as guardian deities of the Alolan islands.
Their hearts are as the whims of nature, with no special regard for humans or for Pokémon.
Theirs is the authority to declare sacred ground - to strike down offenders - to bestow light.
No appointed island kahuna may serve without their blessing.
(5) Akala Outskirts
Another door into the altar room and small room painted to look like an outdoor area, like on the other side. The walls in this one feature an ocean view, and the ambience includes the distant sound of crashing waves to match.
(6) Living with Pokémon
The right-side hall leads into a warmly lit chamber with more typical museum stuff, divided roughly into four clusters of display cases and signage. The first section is titled Living with Pokémon, according to the sign, and includes artifacts from Alola:
- A harness used to ride Mantine, with photographs of people doing just that
- A small diorama of the Malie City Recycling Plant, with descriptions of how Grimer and Muk break down and consume solid waste
- ...Beans...?
- There's a sign about recent innovations in computerized devices that can be inhabited by Rotom for user support and advanced information management, but the spot reserved for an artifact just has a card in it saying the exhibit is being worked on.
(7) Pokémon TrainingMostly a gallery of photos taken mid-battle, in a variety of settings, from casual scuffles and orderly professional matches to intense free-for-alls with wild Pokémon. In some, the trainers crouch, stand, or pace on the edges of the field; in others, they run close beside their Pokémon, ducking around projectiles...
Labels tout the refinement of a Pokémon's natural abilities and realization of latent ones. There's also some signage about Pokémon species that are known to evolve most reliably when they bond closely to a trainer.
(7) A Statue......
This statue of a Pokémon is life-sized: big enough to climb up on its back. If you wanted to.
(9) Pokémon Research
Advances in science and technology have taught us more about the world we share than ever before. What will we learn next?
A photo gallery of various researchers and science professionals observing wild Pokémon, working with friendly ones, examining fossils, posing with maps and diagrams, and so on. Nerd stuff.
(10) Today's Challenges
Three signboards along the back wall are dedicated to brief summaries of conflicts between humans and Pokémon in the modern world:
- Land development leading to habitat destruction and displacement of Pokémon
- Invasive species introduced by human actions, with the example given of Alolan Rattata and Yungoos
- Use and abuse of Pokémon as weapons in power struggles and ideological conflicts around the world (no specific names named...)
- Retaliation against human overreach, with the example given of the destruction and condemnation of a village on Ula'ula Island by Tapu Bulu after a supermarket was built on sacred ground
(11) AlolaIn the center of the low-lit hallway, a single central light shines down on a pedestal bearing a scale model of the Alolan islands.
(12) WARNING: DIMENSIONAL RESEARCH IN PROGRESS
So declares the sign on the door, along with Authorized personnel only beyond this point. PPE required.
If you ignore the sign and go through the door, you'll find a small room done up to look like a lab in clean greys and whites. At the end of the room is a platform, and on the platform is...well. It's supposed to be a crack in the air itself; in reality, it's cloth strips over another doorway, with the illusion painted onto it. The lights in here flicker unsteadily; the ambience includes eerie crackling and sparking, like the aftermath of something breaking.
Go through the "wormhole", and...
(13) Ultra Wormhole
...There's a lift behind it. It's probably not up to modern safety codes, but it works. Board and push a button, and it'll take you down one level. The lower floor is very, very dark.
(14) Ultra Megalopolis
The lower room is the same size and shape as the upper floor. Most of the space is taken up by a waist-height table, and that table is occupied by a scale model of a city. At the center of the city is a tower, and the tower is the only source of light in the whole room.
The city's buildings are odd, crystalline figures that reflect the light, helping to spread it around a little.
(15) Friendly Beasts
There's a button on the wall. Press it, and from somewhere behind you, a video will be projected on the wall; a weird little creature zips down from the ceiling and does a few loops across the wall, burbling cheerfully as it appears to examine you. Then it flies away again and vanishes.
(16) Dangerous Beasts
There's another button on the wall. Press it, and a different video is projected; an eerie burbling plays, first sounding distant, then a lot closer. Then, out of the darkness, undulating tentacles reach for you, glassy surfaces glinting in the sparse light...
Something seems to startle it, and it jerks away, then floats up like a jellyfish and vanishes.
(17) The Blinding One
A third button on the wall has text above and below it.
Above: A cautionary tale
Below: WARNING: Bright lights
Press it, and a longer, grander animation begins to play.
Gift Shop!
Setting knowledge/viewpoint tracking
OCTOBER 2022
Elias/E+L is a piece of shit. Just, generally.
Convo with Atem introduces the idea that Felfri is a territorial dispute. Gladion is :unsure:.
Time in the caves also soured him to the Fog god on the basis of she says creepy shit and the disinhibition stuff is just yeah no. Where are the gods of "being a decent and well-adjusted person".
Dick's post reveals Elias is creepy on the other side of the portal too.
Mukuro gave him another perspective on the Fog god that's still not at all personally appealing but much more sympathetic. He understands abstractly that what she does is good for some people but is concerned with his own situation first and foremost right now; his major grievance is that even if he hadn't become "less free" by virtue of his mother being here too, being parted from Silvally is not an acceptable cost for being "freed" from Aether Paradise bullshit, and his obligations to Lillie specifically are not something he wanted or needed to be "freed" of. Once he cools off, he's still mad about that, but he does think of the Fog god as a god of "freedom", where "freedom" sometimes means "disruption, chaos, destruction of bonds, abandonment" and sometimes means "release from restrictions, new chances, etc".
Giorno's post about the Day/Night priests added some new info, basically cementing Gladion's opinion that Elias/E+L is a piece of shit and just some kind of fucked up entity that isn't really a god in any sentimental sense. A very weird anon post ticks him off and he fails to communicate what he's thinking/feeling, which is mostly distress at how humankind doesn't seem to have any allies in this world, but sublimated through arguments about things.
Fog influence over the last few days of the event blasts his brain and he hates it. He's not sure if he thinks of it as still being "freedom" ie "being completely the fuck out of control" or if he thinks of it as a controlling influence in itself.
Elias is just straight up a brainwasher though.
Post-event way too tired to talk god issues. They're both fucked up news at 11.
About monsters
Monsters are in a weird limbo of not being fundamentally different from humans/whatever-you-originally-were but also being a distinct class of being. In Gladion's eyes, they're human-adjacent.
Various bullshit on the network, specifically, makes him think that they kind of magnify human flaws due to being fucking jacked and also immortal. Further Pokemon-brain badfeelings about how fucked up things get when humans are unchecked.
NOVEMBER 2022
Someone who absolutely cannot shut up posts asking about people who had an okay time in Felfri. <RiverInEgypt> has a good brain. <sharpdistance>...almost talks too much but it's good introspection BUT y'all need Pokemon so badly. So so badly
Weird anon hours talking about depowering the gods. Some talk about the Day and Night gods reminds him he needs to do some research of his own on the backstory. Some discussion of sealing either the gods or their power in an object, which is a familiar concept. Talk of power vacuums makes him think of the Necrozma lore. Some allusions to the fog itself being power make him wonder if the Fog god is supposed to be the source of the Fog-power or just the person who currently has the most of it.
Someone talks about turning the gods human and y'all need Pokemon so so badly he wonders if this is why big deal legendary Pokemon have summoning and/or control rituals/devices sometimes, if it's not just that humans can help them now and then but that being that powerful means you need to be anchored now and then just...period. They also talk about the wastelands: there's the concept of "cast off power" (in the wastelands) turning "mean", also the Fog god abandoning the monsters she made before the war which HAHA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. This whole thread is important.
Advice about cold-weather clothing. <Eb7#9> is like the best person online.
How to handle needing to kill people, deciding who to kill. Lots of people going after "bad people". Food (ugh) for thought.
Monster guide supplement and discussion of people's experiences as different monsters. People ask the witch for temporary changes like it's...not a world-shaking thing.
Things Gladion has probably told/talked to Mukuro about offscreen, at work (Nov/Dec 2022)
- The existence of Ultra Space and the fact that he was already aware of other worlds that run on weird rules. He's not sure what to make of where this world sits relative to all that. He feels like his insight is probably not that valuable, considering how many people with their own insight have been here for years and not figured it out.
- Casual mention of his Pokemon team: first was an artificial Pokemon called a Porygon, who is not super emotive at first but very sweet/curious/eager to please once you get to know it, most recent was actually a wolf-like Pokemon called a Lycanroc which is the evolved form of Rockruff if she's ever met Junior.
- Semi-casual mentions of Silvally, who he calls his partner, who is the Pokemon he took with him when he ran away. Silvally was "volatile" at first; Gladion describes this situation pretty gently, he also calls it "not knowing its own strength" and "defensive" and "easily agitated by certain things". He has also indicated how big Silvally is, how fast it can run, and how easily it can demolish furniture (and that it's unintentionally responsible for tearing the shit out of everything he wore back home). He also just generally talks about Silvally in a very fond way that indicates a high degree of intelligence, like it's a big animal but also a friend with complex thoughts and concerns.
- The fact that he has never really had friends his own age. He mostly interacted with adults, growing up. Mukuro's met his mother; their family is well-off, involved in Business and Research, he's had to dress and act Little Kid Fancy quite a lot, it was that kind of environment. He's close to his sister and to his Pokemon but, like, his peers here kind of baffle him. He doesn't super want to get into this as a topic but it's something he admits to once.
- General status of his CR network. Nothing super personal to them, mainly names and faces of people he knows plus how likable/trustworthy he finds them, and sometimes the thing about them he worries about most.
- Gladion is kind of a bleeding heart (WOW YEAH NO KIDDING?) but can buckle down and take sides when he needs to, which he doesn't think is always a good thing because he's convinced himself stuff was necessary before when it super wasn't, and he also doesn't want to act like his mother does. BUT anyways the point is, he too values his inner circle and when shit hits the fan in Ryslig he ultimately wants to be reliable for at least those people and create a sense of security.
- Speaking of which, he's been keeping notes on the whole "desperate times make desperate people" aspect of Ryslig and understands/agrees wholeheartedly with Mukuro's stances about, like, monster community being good.
- He will admit that he gets uneasy about the idea of monsters having to separate themselves from humans, but he's mostly just sitting with that because it's obviously a homeworld feelings thing and he doesn't understand Ryslig well enough to make any big declarations about how things should work.
- General vibe from scattered comments across different conversations: the topic of people having their personality or consciousness fucked with, even if it seems to be for the better (maybe even especially if that?), Freaks Gladion The Fuck Out. This is the source of a decent amount of his apprehension about being a monster.
NATTENSFEST PRESENTS 2022
For Ingo: A bowl made from a small conch-like seashell, with a nacrous interior. Purchased from Merain craftswomen at the Night Market.
For Emmet: A bag of tokens for the Insert Coin arcade and a small assortment of fancy hot cocoa mixes.
For both of them: A 3000-piece jigsaw puzzle.
For Lion: An abundantly fluffy knit winter hat, with a tall shape that accommodates horse ears pretty nicely. Also a nice-smelling wreath, formed by shaping the branches themselves rather than wiring them together. Nymph tricks!!! Also also, a high-power, waterproof flashlight? No explanation is given.
For Akira: A nice wool blanket and a decent-quality multitool. Also a nice-smelling wreath, formed by shaping the branches themselves rather than wiring them together. Nymph tricks!!!
For Mukuro: An assortment of savory seasoning blends, mostly intended for meat. Completely free of garlic, onion, and other canine-unfriendly substances. (There is a little ingredient list booklet included.) Also a nice-smelling wreath, formed by shaping the branches themselves rather than wiring them together. Nymph tricks!!!
For Junior: A chicken plushie with long, dangly limbs that might whip around satisfyingly if you shook the hell out of it. Also, a postcard bearing a photo of Midday and Midnight Lycanroc next to each other.
For Beat: A bag of candied fruits and fancy nuts. Also, several other postcards from Gladion's museum exhibit, with photos of other Alolan Pokemon in their natural habitats.
For Chie: An unusually long scarf, dark green with brown and yellow accents (in combination they look sort of gold). He mentions upon delivery that he figured that, with the extra length, she could drape and wrap it however she needs to to keep all her shoulders warm.
For Triffany: A bag of candied fruits.
Assorted generic gifts:
All of his Kit-TEA-Kat Cafe coworkers get a little bag of candied fruits. They're left on the break room table with names on tags. There's no "From" label but it's Gladion's handwriting.
RECEIVED GIFTS:
Chie: A nice warm knit hat, green with yellow stripes.
Ingo: A sturdy knife with a wooden handle carved to resemble Silvally's face.
Triffany: A quilted blanket.
Emmet: A poinsettia, some snacks, and a gift card to shop for clothes with. Also a bow for Silvplushie.
Sparkling (Secret Santa): A cake and a silver-and-gold scarf with animals on it.
Beat: A very sweet note and a graffiti-style illustration of Gladion and his Midday Lycanroc.
The Loredump.
The explanation is actually accompanied by the pendant Gladion has been wearing around, usually under his shirt/sweater, which he received from the Nattenskatt and had explained back then as just "something from home". Inside, there is a photo, which you can see if you look right away...or wait for the part in the letter where he prompts you to look at it.
This letter is...several sheets of paper long! The writing style is kind of stilted and formal (not verbose, though), not at all conversational, but good for clarity maybe?
monster guide entry - draft
I still look more or less like myself. It hasn't given me any strong day-to-day instinct changes, and humans generally seem less spooked by me than they do by a lot of other monster types. The plant sense is useful and you get a "free" hobby out of the deal, if you have any interest in gardening.
What do you dislike about being this monster?
[Left blank for now.]
What is something unique to you about being this monster?
I've only met three other nymphs, but some of us seem to gain tree-like traits and become less mobile. I seem to be adapted for climbing.
I also retained a lot of my human tissue, as if I fused with the plant parts instead of turning into a plant person completely.
What types of creatures or beings influenced your monster form?
Just plants. I don't know if I have the features of any specific plant species, besides the mosses and other small plants growing on me, which are their own thing. Possibly arboreal epiphytes? My hair is grass, though. It's a mix of things.
Some aspects of my anatomy are common in grass-type Pokemon, a category of plant or plant-bearing creatures from my world, but that could be "convergent evolution" rather than influence because I don't actually resemble any specific Pokemon.
What is it like to feed as this monster?
[Left blank for now.]
What are some notable physical features you have as this monster, and what do you like or dislike about them?
Everything is green.
I have a plant-tissue structure in my back that sort of
[Blank space.]
Prehensile back-mounted vines. They do not retract and they were a massive pain to get used to when they first grew. I have much better control over them now, but they still take up a lot of space even when coiled and they're the feature most likely to freak a human out.
What are some notable mental changes you have as this monster, and what do you like or dislike about them?
[Left blank for now.]
Would you become this monster again?
It's better than shade and that's the only other thing I've (partially) been.
Would you become this monster for good?
N/a
2/5/23 first feeding
He is ready for it. When an unfamiliar, gnawing sensation strikes, he has a list prepared.
First: put the meat in the fridge to thaw. He did that when he woke up.
Second: at first sign of possible hunger, take directly to patch. Leave note on fridge.
There's a patch of soil out in the woods that's soft enough to dig down into. He's practiced the route there and back, and left markers on trees to point the way. None of that should be necessary if he's in his right mind, but that isn't something he can guarantee.
The note is also pre-prepared. It will tell Ingo and Emmet (though he shouldn't be out in the sunlight anymore, even if he does recover swiftly) where he is, why he's there, and what he won't resent them for doing if things go wrong.
With what was once most of a person's body in his backpack, Gladion slips out onto the balcony, drops to the ground, and crosses the tree line dividing yard from forest.
And then, something changes. [cw WHAT DO I CW THIS EXACTLY? not gory just kinda existential and dissociative]
[These woods are becoming familiar to him, slowly. As a place, and as a presence - a neighbor, perhaps a friend in the making, with habits to learn and to learn from. A community, with beginnings and ends tangled up in itself. A battlefield, where some fall and the victors feed.
That's how natural places work - it takes an enormous inflow of resources to pretend at saving everyone, plus some deception on the side. Without an arbiter to pick favorites and unfavorites and to declare the cost worthy and forgiven, the scales fall even and the carnage spreads itself across everything and everyone. A place like this leaves you free to take on exactly as much as you can carry: one life in the arms of another.
He leads himself to the patch of soft earth, and unwraps his lunch.
His cost is red and wet.
Time slows. Time stops.
He can't eat this.
But he's hungry.
But he can't eat this.
But time won't move again until he does.
When finally he falls through forever, he lands somewhere under the topsoil, staring up from a world inverted. Bones and fur and other slow-rotting things dot the humus like stars; death is life, black and teeming, and beyond the leaf litter lies the deathless lifeless wasteland of nitrogen gas and its mix-ins and the fluid-gold flow of sunlight.
His human part, projecting strange and lonely into that abyss, pries holes into the living world and fills them with red and wet salvage.
The greatest surprise and comfort is that when he grows to reach for it, to pull it under molecule by molecule, he's not at all alone. His scraps feed the teeming world. It's almost disappointing to have to deny his tablemates some of the meat and feed his human part up there in the emptiness, but he feels his hunger in two places, so it seems important to try to sate it in both. It's the only way to avoid a frenzy, after all.
Time stretches. Time crawls.
He and the soil chew it all down to nothing.]
[And then,]
Oh.
[Oh.
Oh...
What the fuck?]
september 2023 au event
Lusamine and Mohn's disagreements over the Aether Foundation's growth simmer down and eventually resolve, with their kids not really being privy to any of it. When Sun's great-grandfather dies, Mohn is there to make sure the island passes into Sun's keeping - and to support the boy in realizing the old man's vision for it. Plans to build Aether Paradise as a truly free-floating structure slowly come together. In the meantime, Lillie and Gladion grow up with both their parents in a manor on Melemele Island...taking frequent trips with their father to a tiny island to the south, where a boy and his clowder of Meowth live.
Gladion's first partner Pokemon is a Houndour he meets on that very island.
Meanwhile, Mohn continues to lead the Foundation's research into Ultra Wormholes. Without Faba's ambitions taking the wheel, the Foundation joins hands with the International Police to investigate the Ultra Beasts. Type: Null is created a few years "behind schedule" due to Aether Paradise's delayed construction. When a 14-year-old Gladion learns of the project's outcome, he appeals to his father to give the creature another chance, and takes on the task of raising it under Mohn and Faba's supervision in the very facility where it was created, instead of on his own out of a motel room.
Personality Changes
Gladion is relatively well-adjusted! He had a much more emotionally stable life. Lusamine didn't go supervillain but she's still Lusamine, so as Gladion gets older and more independent, they've had some conflict. With Mohn around and the family still living on Melemele, though, that conflict doesn't completely dominate his life.
His main frustration (before coming to Ryslig) is that he wants to be his own person with his own accomplishments, not just That Kid From The Aether Foundation. Until he met Null, his best attempt at that was sneaking off to participate in the Battle Royal. Word got back to his family after he'd only been in a few matches, though.
He's still, in general, a moody and cynical teenager who's a bit sensitive about his self-image. He's far less mistrustful and cautious than he is in canon, doesn't have nearly as much experience dealing with crisis situations, and is much more talkative.
Ryslig AU History
Changes in Felfri: The general arc is the same: he still rescues Ingo from E+L's infirmary and eventually joins the Fog to have the chips removed, though he's generally less cool under pressure and a little more reliant on Ingo after they leave. When he spots Lusamine and runs after her, she yells at him a bit. This is really upsetting! His first priority in life, besides getting by, is figuring out what the hell is wrong with his mother.
November, December, January: Very close friends with Akira, learns a lot of life skills from him. ---