Feather 12 [Video]

[usedfeatherdance]

[ Not that January 1st was actually Joshua's birthday instead of just being a handy date to roll up his age one more year, but Joshua couldn't help the feeling that somehow Johto had hatched his shiny new egg into a... well, shiny new male fox, of all things, this day on purpose.

It probably could only have been more on the mark if the thing had been some combination of grey, blue, and/or purple. ]

Since this isn't exactly the first time it seems everyone spontaneously obtained an egg all at once, I'm going to ask a different question. Do we have any idea what determines which Pokemon we each receive?

[ And if anyone happens to be in Cianwood, Joshua can be found towards the outskirts of the city, sitting sideways on an Absol, Espeon on shoulder and a newly hatched golden Vulpix on his lap, all four of them watching as a Luxray happily bounds about on the sand and knocks out any Pokemon it scares up with its antics. ]

Comments

[usedfeatherdance]

No ghosts, either?

[friendyousohard]

Not outside of campfire stories.

[usedfeatherdance]

... Well, I'm at a loss. And here I was under the impression they were cleverly selected to relate to ourselves somehow.

[friendyousohard]

Maybe whatever force is behind it just got lazy with mine. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm grateful and I'm sure it'll make a great addition to my team, but as to your theory... [She shrugs.] I'm afraid I'm living counter-evidence.

[usedfeatherdance]

There seems to be far too many options for them to simply have run out of potential choices. Maybe there's some ironic twist of fate you've yet to become aware of.

[friendyousohard]

... Given the typing of the Pokemon in question, that's a rather ominous thought.

[usedfeatherdance]

Ah, but there's always many ways of interpreting these things. It's not necessarily the worst possibility.

[friendyousohard]

True. It's just where my mind went first.

... Well, I don't mind the Pokemon it chose for me. I'm fine with a Golett. Figuring out the reasoning behind it can come when I start understanding whatever force is choosing these a bit better.

[usedfeatherdance]

I'm not sure we have much of an idea what that is at this point.

[friendyousohard]

Which is the entire problem, really. I mean, I can make a few guesses, but that's exactly what they are. Wild hypotheses about things I have no concrete information about.

[usedfeatherdance]

Care to share them? There's no harm in speculation.

[friendyousohard]

True enough, if you're interested. Are you aware of the legends relating to the Sinnoh region?

[usedfeatherdance]

Not particularly. Go on.

[friendyousohard]

Sinnoh is a region up in the north, too far away for us to likely ever go there without a concerted effort. There are many legends related to it, though everything I've found was in Ecruteak, and thus is secondhand. That's not the point, though.

Among those legends, there are two that catch my attention. The first is a group of three, not entirely dissimilar to the three beasts of Johto but on a far grander scale. One is probably irrelevant, but the other two... they're said to control time and space.

[usedfeatherdance]

... Time and space. [ There's a couple seconds while he mulls that over. ] If two of a set of three have that sort of power, I can't imagine the third being irrelevant. Do you have any more information?

[friendyousohard]

Very little. The time pokemon is supposedly named Dialga, the space one is named Palkia. The third is called Giratina, but information about it is... virtually impossible to find. All I can locate is scattered references to a "distorted world" or "reverse world", which Giratina either rules or is, somehow. Supposedly it always remains there, and it emerging into this world is a calamity... or is a response to a calamity, again it's not really clear. I'm not even sure the people who wrote down the legends knew.

There are also hints that Giratina rebelled against an even greater Pokemon, some sort of beast with a thousand arms which emerged from an egg out of nothingness, then shaped the world. Sort of a Pokemon creator diety. I only ever found one text that mentioned this creature, and it was old, faded, and nearly impossible to read. I honestly don't even know if I have the description right, and even if I do, it's a creation myth. It's probably not literally accurate. But if that being does exist...

[usedfeatherdance]

If it does exist, it's not too much of a stretch to imagine it might be able to do nearly anything. After all, after forming a world, dumping a few hundred eggs around would be easy...

But it's suspicious that you only found one text of it. Even if it's the legend of a different region, people tend to be fascinated by creation myths. It certainly doesn't lend it much credibility.

[friendyousohard]

Well, they are legends. The three beasts may actually exist, but they can't all be true, right?

[... Right?]

[usedfeatherdance]

Considering that little incident we had last month, I personally hesitate to disregard anything here simply based on its contents.

I'd think it's more the lack of documentation that would make it unlikely than anything else.

[friendyousohard]

... Fair enough.

Maybe there just... isn't anything to document. Maybe that particular one hasn't ever done anything since.

[usedfeatherdance]

Even still, why only one book? Surely it would be the sort of thing more people would like to know about. Even if it only did one thing, wouldn't you find the same story in multiple places?

[friendyousohard]

That I can't answer. Then again, the text I found was so old... maybe there were other ones once, and that's just the only surviving one, at least in any of the Johto libraries I've seen.

[usedfeatherdance]

Have you found any conflicting stories? Any other creation myths?

[friendyousohard]

Not a single one. None of the other legends I've seen are really on that level. Impressive, yes, but not creation myths.

[usedfeatherdance]

...

Don't you find it strange that those are absent? People are always searching for an explanation of why things are the way they are, and how they got to be that way. If they can't discover it, they usually invent an explanation themselves...