• Welcome to Thousand Roads! You're welcome to view discussions or read our stories without registering, but you'll need an account to join in our events, interact with other members, or post one of your own fics. Why not become a member of our community? We'd love to have you!

    Join now!

Crack Theories

IFBench

Rescue Team Member
Location
Pokemon Paradise
Partners
  1. chikorita-saltriv
  2. bench-gen
  3. charmander
  4. snivy
  5. treecko
  6. tropius
  7. arctozolt
  8. wartortle
A thread for making silly theories about other people's fanfics.

For example:

Jade's mom from The Legendarian Chronicles is an undercover Team Rocket member.

Have fun!
 

Persephone

Infinite Screms
Pronouns
her/hers
Partners
  1. mawile
  2. vulpix-alola
Persephone Unravels Spring

Kanto and Johto share a league. It wouldn’t make sense for their to be an overlap of typings. Chris’s dad used to be a fire-type gym leader. Until he died. Or so he wants you to think. But who else is a fire-type Gym Leader? Blaine. Blaine, who must have only become a gym leader very recently, despite being old. Blaine, who has the key to Cinnabar Mansion and has probably been involved in some shady shit around Mewtwo. So clearly, Chris’s dad faked his death when he needed more time to work on his top secret angsty ultimate life form clone. Or wanted to protect his family, take your pick. Blaine has a mustache and glasses and is a scientist - this will be important later.

Now, let’s go back to Chris. One of Chris’s Pokémon is spiky and very fast. He also hates water. And is named Sonic. According to the Sonic The Hedgehog Bible, Dr. Eggman was both very lanky and a father figure to Sonic before he got merged with a hard boiled egg. Sonic the Jolteon is more or less a sibling to his trainer. Making Chris’s supposedly dead dead like a father figure to him. And what’s Chris’s dad doing? Working on something that sounds a lot like Shadow the Hedgehog. Between the glasses, stature, and facial hair, Blaine is only one hard boiled egg merge away from being Dr. Eggman. And up in Cerulean Bill - who OSJ went out of her way to make canon - is working on a way to merge people and Pokemon.

Chris’s dad is Blaine, who will become Dr. Eggman, because Spring is secretly a Sonic prequel fic.

tl;dr Sonic either is a god or Sonic could kill God, and I do not care if there is a difference.
 

kintsugi

golden scars | pfp by sun
Location
the warmth of summer in the songs you write
Pronouns
she/her
Partners
  1. silvally-grass
  2. lapras
  3. golurk
  4. booper-kintsugi
  5. meloetta-kint-muse
  6. meloetta-kint-dancer
  7. murkrow
  8. yveltal
radical Dragon’s Dance theory; bear with me:



I think Wataru and that weird Lance guy they replace him with in the later chapters might be the same person????
 

Persephone

Infinite Screms
Pronouns
her/hers
Partners
  1. mawile
  2. vulpix-alola
radical Dragon’s Dance theory; bear with me:



I think Wataru and that weird Lance guy they replace him with in the later chapters might be the same person????

I said it in chat, but I guess it bears repeating: Lance is European and Wataru is Japanese. If he was both he would be Chris. Chris worships Sonic. Wataru worships dragons. Sonic is not a dragon. Wataru and Lance cannot be the same person.
 

kintsugi

golden scars | pfp by sun
Location
the warmth of summer in the songs you write
Pronouns
she/her
Partners
  1. silvally-grass
  2. lapras
  3. golurk
  4. booper-kintsugi
  5. meloetta-kint-muse
  6. meloetta-kint-dancer
  7. murkrow
  8. yveltal

Pen

the cat is mightier than the pen
Staff
Partners
  1. dratini
  2. dratini-pen
  3. dratini-pen2
radical Dragon’s Dance theory; bear with me:
I know this is a crack thread, but some things are just too silly.


anyway


Continental Divide's Big Plot Twist

Continental Divides . . . a tale of starcrossed lovers, intrigue, betrayal, and of course, coffee. Or is it?? Well, yes it is, but all is not as it seems. OSJ is writing noir, and there are some secrets hiding right under the characters' noses. (Not that that's hard. Because, you know. The bandanas.)

First, let's talk about Checkov's swablu. That's not a throw-away worldbuilding detail. Someone's got Steven Stone under surveillance. Someone is particularly interested by what he's doing in coffeeshops. Or, who he's doing? We'll come back to that.

Speaking of coffee. Let's dive into the heart of the matter. Mark and his mysterious "stovetop espresso maker." Does this make sense for an on-the-go criminal, used to sneaking out of town in the dead of night, with only the essentials? No. It's an oddity—a glaring clue to the reader. If we do a cursory google:

stainless steel.png

Hmmmm.

1606761788927.png

Hmmmmmmmmmm.

Very interesting. But what could Mark's connection to Steven Stone be? And why doesn't he seem to remember it . . .


It is known that Mark wears a trenchcoat. Who else do we know that wears a trenchcoat??

1606761875726.png

That's right! Mark is actually a secret agent for Interpol, sent to infiltrate and bring down MGMA. How is that possible, you ask? Isn't Mark a true-hearted MGMA supporter in his internal monologue? Yes, yes he is. That's where Orwell comes in. OSJ's made very sure we're aware that Mark and Orwell have a close psychic connection. That's not a throw-away detail. When Mark signed on for the MGMA mission, Orwell wiped his mind. Sometimes we see hints emerge. In chapter nine, Mark thinks, No, I've still got a job to do here. His justifications for that spontaneous thought are weak, because he doesn't know what his "job" really is.

But it's not just his job that he's forgotten. Mark's also forgotten the love of his life: Steven Stone, the man who gave him the moka pot.

And Steven has forgotten him too. Remember the swablu trainer? Oh yeah, it's all coming back. Steven also suffers from a mindwipe. How did it happen? How about the giant psychic hulk that keeps him constant company? That's right, his very own shiny metagross. Clonk-clonk m*therf*ckers. But why? There's only one clear culprit—Steven's father, aghast that his son fell into a relationship with a lowly interpol agent. He's determined to keep our boys apart.

Mark's going to get his memories back. But when he does, he'll find that Steven's forgotten him. Can a love marked by a moka pot prevail? Guess we'll have to stay tuned and find out . . .
 

kintsugi

golden scars | pfp by sun
Location
the warmth of summer in the songs you write
Pronouns
she/her
Partners
  1. silvally-grass
  2. lapras
  3. golurk
  4. booper-kintsugi
  5. meloetta-kint-muse
  6. meloetta-kint-dancer
  7. murkrow
  8. yveltal
alright alright, buckle in. major Salvage endgame spoilers ahead.

unknown.png

I can say, and I cannot be stopped.

---

Who is the Child??

I. BACKGROUND AND MOTIVATION

You might look at this title and immediately think, kintsugi, there's an entire canon-adjacent fic of backstory for the child or kintsugi, we literally see the child's backstory in chapter—! To which I say, bear with me.

We must begin by looking at the easter eggs scattered through Negrek's TR thread, primarily these two:
unknown.png

An astute reader might notice that February 28 was many Fridays ago. However, we can also prove this mathematically:
unknown.png

A simple python script can then perform the necessary math to determine if 276 is equivalent to 7:
unknown.png

Since it is not, we must instead turn to Negrek's other written work, including:
unknown.png

This post was reviewed by my peers, and by that I mean I pasted it with no context into random DM's, which basically counts. Of note is "we really don't understand" and "best thing is to assume and behave as if the worst is true"—luckily, we can certainly deliver on both of these.

The obvious conclusion is that these chapters are being delayed in the hopes of forestalling the worst shitpost, so that we cannot ascertain the child's true identity. However, a copy of Negrek's work does remain on a little-known, ad-riddled website known as "fanfiction.net", to which we must (regrettably) turn in order to conduct the rest of our analysis.

II. TITULAR ANALYSIS
The first clue is, of course, before our very eyes. We must examine the fic's title, "Salvage", and its rating, "E" (for "Evidently not for Everyone"). Rearranging the letters in the word "salvage E" reveals the phrase save algae. But what does this mean?

This question is answered by examining which pokemon appear over the course of Negrek's work—charizard and blastoise appear in both Salvage and in Legends. An uncreative reader would attribute this to the fact that fics set in Kanto will often have character overlap. An aspiring genius would understand Negrek's hidden meaning in neglecting to include venusaur: the progression between bulbs (bulbasaur), ivy (ivysaur), and algae is undeniably clear. For those of us who did not study biology in undergrad and for whom this progression may be difficult, this video essay can shed some light.

But we must ask ourselves, "how can we save algae?" From the missing venusaur, we can see secondary typing and conclude that we must save algae with poison. The obvious conclusion, of course, is eutrophication, which is often caused by phosphates, commonly abbreviated PO4.

But what is the PO4?

To answer this question, we must look deeper.

III. METATEXTUAL ANALYSIS
Perhaps we are better served looking at metatextual elements, such as Negrek's writeup "On the Origin of Ash Betrayal Fics". Two quotes in particular stand out:
They're very popular right now, and all follow the same basic formula: Ash is betrayed by his friends and traveling companions, goes off by himself to do some solo training, then busts back on the tournament scene as a much more powerful trainer, usually with some new love interests in tow, all this to show that those losers had only been holding him back all along.
It's also unusual in having a very regimented story structure: there's the betrayal, the retreat into training, the tournament that catalyzes Ash's return. There are other elements that are common in Ash betrayal stories, including aura and/or psychic powers, legendary pokémon, and a wide variety of shippings, but the plots all follow a very similar arc.
Studying the child's arc, in which they are betrayed by their friend and traveling companions, go off by themself to do some solo training, then bust back onto the tournament scene alongside a much more powerful trainer, with a new love interest in the form of Eskar, we can see that there is clearly no overlap between the child and betrayed!Ash. Salvage is notably bereft of psychic powers, legendary pokemon, and boats.

This is on some levels a relief, as it means our analysis must instead go even deeper.

IV. VISUAL ANALYSIS
Due to a strange glitch in FFN's formatting that converted the entire fic to second-person, we know very little about the child's appearance. One might assume from the lack of scenes in which the child stares at a mirror and observes their appearance that the child is a vampire; however, this is incorrect, as the child never once expresses a craving for human flesh.

However, a little-known, one-off character refers to the child as "Cordierite-eyes", which allows us to infer that the child's eyes are blue. Once more, a foolish reader might assume that this is meant to imply some relation to Mew; however, anyone who has read this far is clearly not a foolish reader.

Observant readers will immediately understand that "blue" can refer to nothing else other than "the exact color of a USPS mail box". Mailboxes contain letters, which, like the child, are awkward conversation partners and utterly baffle the Great Nathaniel Morgan. And so we can return to the question posed in section (II) and realize we were once again asking incorrect questions: instead of "what is the PO4", we must ask, "who is the PO for?"

IV. WHO IS THE PO FOR?
Our next clue is in the form of Captain Rubina Roth, who is obviously not an expy of Voltron or anything, but is instead a clear reference to this graduate of the Köln International School of Design. Following the GPS coordinates to this location reveals 50.921648, 6.963303; an apparent dead end. Following Robina Roth and even Robin A. Roth leads us to similar dead ends in Bukarest and Virginia.

However, what other red-themed globe trotters do we know? The answer is obvious: Carmen Sandiego, which recently received an animated reboot from Fox on Netflix. Visiting the official Carmen Sandiego website reveals a program in which children can write goal-setting letters for themselves, learning skills such as "self-management, responsible decision-making, relationship skills, social awareness, and self-awareness". The skills themselves only have tangential relevance to the child, but the number is far more important: "child" has five letters, and there are five goals here—this is a clear reference.

With this piece of the puzzle confirmed, we can move on to our final conclusion.

V. OUR FINAL CONCLUSION
"She wants me to go to the plateau so I can talk with my brother. I need his help."
Unfortunately there is absolutely nothing in the text to suggest who the child's brother is; we can only assume that they have one.

What other characters have brothers? The number is surprisingly small. Carmen Sandiego is famously an only child. Ash Ketchum canonically only has one sibling, a sister. With all available options explored, we must return to our central thread: who is the PO for?

Only one franchise is famous for its delivery of letters: Super Smash Brothers Ultimate.
One is obviously drawn to the Pokemon-themed reveals—particularly tempting is the addition of Team Rocket, or TR, an acronym of minimal importance to this disussion.

However, if one is to accidentally leave the video playing, the true answer reveals itself in the form of the very next fighter, who has blue eyes and at least three bones, is a reincarnated child, has a brother, is friends with a squid, and (like Carmen Sandiego) is created by Fox.
Sans_screenshot_before_battle.gif

This may be confusing to some readers, but this is not in fact a direct copy of the child's conversation with Absol from chapter 31 but is in fact from a relatively unpopular game, Undertale.

The ultimate test, of course, is to study the author commentary on this theory.
unknown.png

damn.
 
Last edited:

Negrek

Play the Rain
Staff
Sans Undertale was Sans Salvage all along? It sounds like a brilliant idea! After all, who could resist that alliteration?

I was excited to see kintsugi at work in this post. Would she be able to crack the code? Would she reveal the story's deepest secrets at last?

1024.jpg


It looked like she was really following the breadcrumbs up until...

We must examine the fic's title, "Salvage", and its rating, "E" (for "Evidently not for Everyone").
Tragically, Salvage is not and has never been rated "E." This sort of overreach is unfortunately common in textual analysis, where the reader twists the facts of the work in order to make . While this tendency is wholly absent from the rest of kintsugi's brilliant analysis, this one slip does end up leading her astray.

However, kintsugi was right to pick up on the fact that the story's rating is of great significance, an extraordinary leap no reader has made before! Since so much has already been revealed in this post, I'll throw you all a bone and reveal the true secret lurking therein. The story is, of course, rated "M." And it was published November 1st, 11/1. Clearly the number 1 has deep symbolic meaning for this story. And what happens when you subtract combine one with "M?" Well, if you add one, consider which letter comes next in the alphabet. Or consider the result visually. What happens when you subtract 1 from M?

n_conspiracy.png


Discuss.

Mailboxes contain letters, which, like the child, are awkward conversation partners and utterly baffle the Great Nathaniel Morgan.
Also, yes, good, please do take any and every opportunity to drag Nate.
[/quote]
 

Starlight Aurate

Ad Jesum per Mariam | pfp by kintsugi
Location
Route 123
Partners
  1. mightyena
  2. psyduck
Interesting. My recent interactions with Pen has made me realize that she is not all that she seems.

The Truth Behind "Starfall"

So a few weeks ago I took a gander at Pen's "Starfall" at her request. This seemed like an innocent story until I read closely into the Honchkrow named 'Kabiyo.' As I read, I realized "hmmmm this draws striking parallels to that Irish goddess 'Macha' featured in that one kids' film 'Song of the Sea'."

Now you're thinking "Starlight, no one here knows Irish mythology except you" but HOL UP:

Pen.JPG

So Pen is clearly no stranger to Irish Mythology after all and knew what she was going after when she wrote Macha 'Kabiyo'. And Macha was a goddess of fertility, land, WAR, and kingship. So TRULY Kabiyo was NOT a Honchkrow at all, but was actually an owl who wanted to steal all emotions from the world so that there would be no more negativity and her plot was thwarted by a young child. Think that's the end, and that this was all a simple story about how a Honchkrow was actually an owl goddess? Well, that certainly makes sense given that Alu only welcomes Kabiyo becomes he believes himself to be a god!

BUT NO

Recently on the discord I left this cryptic message:

star bright.JPG

In this poem, there is a subtle reference to "Starlight," which Pen very astutely ascertained was an illusion to myself all along. She realized I like things with stars and so discreetly named the one-shot "Starfall" even though there was nothing about stars in that thread--it was clickbait for people who want stars and I read all the way until the end, waiting for a star to show up.

And JUST THIS MORNING she left this unsettling message:
review swap.JPG
Suicunes Choice.JPG

Now there are two big questions that come to mind:
1. Why did she request a review swap for a story she knows isn't ready yet?
2. Why did she request a review for a story she knows already has many?
3. The synopsis of the Suicune's Choice includes all of my favorite things--for her to know that I love Hoenn, religion, science, and tea, she must have done some digging into my personal life because I have never publicly divulged those details about myself.

All the puzzle pieces clearly fall into place: Pen wrote a story not-about-stars with a clickbait title, told me that she read Irish Mythology, and requested a review swap so I would go review this story BUT these events did not happen in chronological order. And if they didn't happen in chronological order, there is only one explanation: Pen is a time traveler.
 

IFBench

Rescue Team Member
Location
Pokemon Paradise
Partners
  1. chikorita-saltriv
  2. bench-gen
  3. charmander
  4. snivy
  5. treecko
  6. tropius
  7. arctozolt
  8. wartortle
Namo is secretly a Spike Chunsoft employee and Hands of Creation is going to be the next PMD.
 

Pen

the cat is mightier than the pen
Staff
Partners
  1. dratini
  2. dratini-pen
  3. dratini-pen2
Cracking the Code: the envy of eden edition

the envy of eden is without question a sublime literary work. But the text’s true genius lies not just in the prose but in the meaning encoded within that prose. In this analysis I will crack the envy of eden code.

Already the cries of “But surely it’s a coincidence! The author couldn’t have intended all that!” rise to meet my ears. I offer two points in rebuttal.

Firstly, the author “kintsugi” is a highly advanced intellect. See exhibits A-C.

brain 1.png
brain 2.png
brain 3.png
Secondly, the author is obsessed with formulas. See exhibits D-H.

formulas 1.png
formulas 2.png
formulas 3.png
formulas 4.png
formulas 5.png

The first clue to the codes is found in the table of contents. The chapters run from i to xviii. In other words, eighteen. 18, only the most significant number in Hebrew, meaning “life” when the Gematria cipher is used. Could Gematria be the key to cracking the meaning behind the envy of eden?

In Gematria cipher, N = 50 and Hilda = 53. If we add up all the chapters using Gematria we get 13568. What happens if we divide this number by Hilda? We get 256 ie 2^(2^3). But the envy of eden runs backwards. So let’s try out 3^(2^2) = 81. And correcting for the reversal, we get . . . 18 again. Very interesting.

Of course, the end (59) can hardly be counted, can it? What happens if we take it out? 13568-59 gives us 13509. If we divide that by N (50) we get 270.18 . . . Clearly we’re on the right track here. Let’s hold onto that 270. It may be significant later.

Now take the first ie last chapter on its own. end = 59. If we remove N, what does that give us? 9 ie half of eighteen or half of life—half of the tao dragon. Incredible.

But it doesn’t stop there. In "nondeterministic" the author dangles an important clue. The narrator speaks only in units of six. The narrator is part of the klink line. The klink line has the pokedex numbers 599, 600, 601. When combined—1800.

The name Spur is 586 in Gematria. That’s not suggesting anything, but after all, it is a human-given name. What if we divided by six, Spur’s preferred unit of measurement? We get 97.6666. The sixes are a signal to press on. 9*7= 63. And 6*3 = . . . 18. Wow.

Let’s keep digging. The fic is titled the envy of eden. That’s a quote from the song The Beekeeper by Dessa. The Beekeeper Dessa has a Gematria value of 1350. Hm, that seems familiar. If we divide it by N (50) we get 27, echoing the 270 we got earlier.

Remember that Hilda is 53, or 5*3 = 15. If we multiply Hilda (15) by Life (18) what do we get but . . . 270 again.

What could the 270’s significance be? 270 is the dex number for Lotad, whose height is 1’8. 18?!! And in chapter i, N is called the “leaf-haired one.” The answer is startlingly clear. When N splits the two worlds, he winds up in the pokemon world . . .


. . . in the form of a lotad.


That's all for now from my first foray into this exciting numerical world. I encourage fellow edenists to try their hand at decoding. I tremble to think what insights await us next.

And if they didn't happen in chronological order, there is only one explanation: Pen is a time traveler.
I can neither confirm nor deny.
 

Attachments

  • formulas 1.png
    formulas 1.png
    9.1 KB · Views: 0
Last edited:

Starlight Aurate

Ad Jesum per Mariam | pfp by kintsugi
Location
Route 123
Partners
  1. mightyena
  2. psyduck
No after reading all 37 chapters of Salvage I am 67% positive that I have it figured out:

Nate is actually Mew, the child's mother. You might think Nate acts a bit harsh to the child, but he's teaching him discipline under the old concept of "misery builds character." Harsh, you say? Well, let's break it down:

"Misery" sound like "Mercy," and Latin for "mercy" is "misericordiae." "Miseri"="misery," and "cor"="heart," and "iae"="move." Thus, the term "mercy" literally means "a heart moved by another's misery." By teaching the child misery, Nate is teaching the child to have a heart that cares others, and by extension, trains his own heart to be moved by another's misery.

This further espouses the concept of "reconciliation," both of which Nate and the child need to do with their past and current situations. This can be done by simply breaking the word down to its Latin roots once again: "Re"="again," "con"="with," "cilia"="lashes," thus "reconciliation," means "again with the lashes" or "to look at again." Nate and the child need to look at each other, to come to terms with their identities and their relationships with each other to fully embrace who they are.

Why else would he hang around on the child's journeys? Why else does he do whatever the child wants? Why does Nate endure such beatings, torture, trauma, and then allow the child to do what he could to heal him? It's the love of a mother that pulls Nate through. So yes, with Mew being found, Salvage could have ended about 20 chapters ago but it's continuing. Why? Well, Negrek gives the answer herself right here:

Also, yes, good, please do take any and every opportunity to drag Nate.
 

Negrek

Play the Rain
Staff
The first clue to the codes is found in the table of contents. The chapters run from i to xviii. In other words, eighteen. 18, only the most significant number in Hebrew, meaning “life” when the Gematria cipher is used. Could Gematria be the key to cracking the meaning behind the envy of eden?
An intriguing analysis... Clearly the number 18 has great significance in the envy of eden. I take issue with your conclusion, though. After all, the number 18 is deeply important to the Pokémon franchise as a whole, being the number of known pokémon types. And considering what you know of kintsugi... what else does it correspond to? The number of silvally forms, nnaturally. And with eighteen chapters, all that remains is for the sharp-eyed to spot the silvally that must surely be hiding in each. Silvally-grass gardening with friends, silvally-rock accidentally crushing a certain hydreigon (look they were aiming for Ghetsis okay), silvally-dragon organizing Plasma's open mic nights... Look, we all know who must really be driving the plot here, right?

Meanwhile, I LOVE the idea of Nate actually being Mew, haha. That would legitimately be the best twist. And would work well with the story's themes, honestly, as you've laid out here. Love this post.

By teaching the child misery, Nate is teaching the child to have a heart that cares others, and by extension, trains his own heart to be moved by another's misery.
And I unironically love this, too. :P
 

kintsugi

golden scars | pfp by sun
Location
the warmth of summer in the songs you write
Pronouns
she/her
Partners
  1. silvally-grass
  2. lapras
  3. golurk
  4. booper-kintsugi
  5. meloetta-kint-muse
  6. meloetta-kint-dancer
  7. murkrow
  8. yveltal
Tragically, Salvage is not and has never been rated "E." This sort of overreach is unfortunately common in textual analysis, where the reader twists the facts of the work in order to make . While this tendency is wholly absent from the rest of kintsugi's brilliant analysis, this one slip does end up leading her astray.
You see Negrek, I was merely following the breadcrumbs you had so clearly laid out for us:

What you gained was power, and a purpose to turn it towards.
to ... turn it towards???

unknown.png

:think:

---

And with eighteen chapters, all that remains is for the sharp-eyed to spot the silvally that must surely be hiding in each. Silvally-grass gardening with friends, silvally-rock accidentally crushing a certain hydreigon (look they were aiming for Ghetsis okay), silvally-dragon organizing Plasma's open mic nights... Look, we all know who must really be driving the plot here, right?
I love this unironically because I was this close to picking the actual secret plot-driver as my companion lmao.
 

kintsugi

golden scars | pfp by sun
Location
the warmth of summer in the songs you write
Pronouns
she/her
Partners
  1. silvally-grass
  2. lapras
  3. golurk
  4. booper-kintsugi
  5. meloetta-kint-muse
  6. meloetta-kint-dancer
  7. murkrow
  8. yveltal
After the completely undisputed success of my last theory, I'm back for more.

To save you any unnecessary suspense:
Dragon's Dance Takes Place on a Round Earth

I know, I know, I can already hear the hordes of angry comments--kint, we've seen you through a lot, but a round earth? that's simply too far--and I know, it's 2020 and it's pretty out of style to make fun of round-earthers these days now that the whole controversy has been cleared up. But I've been reading and re-reading Dragon's Dance and I simply cannot deny that the clues are there. Round planets are also becoming common venues of study in fiction, such as The Little Prince, Harry Potter, and Freakonomics. Pen's notable literary inspirations such as Pratchett commonly write on magical versions of our earth orientation (see: Discworld), but could Pen be combining the fictional venue of pokemon with a fictional planet layout as well? I believe the answer is yes.

The first clue is delightfully subtle, and I wouldn't have noticed it if not for Love's most recent review.
Mr. Inushi flopped his arm dismissively. "A screeching metal box on wheels that conveys goods and people from place to place. They're dumb things, trains, need the tracks to be laid down for them to get anywhere. Haven't caught on here yet, by Ho-oh's grace. Plenty of the blasted things over in Kanto, though."
Trains? Screeching? That'd be a ridiculous concept ... unless the ground below their rails was uneven, or even ... curved ...

And Mr. Inushi, although seemingly a throwaway character who shows Wataru kindness in his transition to a braver and rounder world, does seem to be the crux at which this all unravels:
And as for Wataru . . . he knew he'd have to travel if he wanted to get strong, find more and better 'trainers' to battle. But staring at Mr. Inushi's big map left him lost and directionless.
And it's quite obvious that a map would leave you feeling directionless if your world were actually round--imagine projecting a sphere onto a planar surface? Ridiculous. However, both of these could be chalked up to mere happenstance, references to poor infrastructure in Kanto or some sort of metaphor for Wataru not yet knowing who he wants to be or where he wants to go ... and yet, the pile of evidence only grows.
Mr. Inushi's flat-footed expression
Flat ... footed? That does seem to be quite the strange, especially in tandem with the map. But as Wataru struggles to learn and understand the world around him, perhaps the most obvious place that he's failed to look is the ground beneath his feet, and perhaps there are some around him who guard the secrets. After all, looking at the kanji for Inushi, いぬし , we can identify いぬ as meaning "to set beyond the (western) horizon"--but how could anything possibly go beyond the western horizon without simply falling off into the endless void beyond???

But Inushi isn't the only person whose mannerisms call out what this fictional planet is missing:
She had a short, flat face with a pugnacious chin and watchful gray eyes, but her most striking feature was the thick black braid that snaked endlessly down her back.
"We concede," Hunter said flatly
"Sleep spore," Hunter said flatly.
Is Hunter, the quasi-antagonist of chapters 5 part 1 & 2 (or chapters 6 & 7, depending on your preferred numbering convention), speaking flatly because not showing emotion is part of her character, or is it because she's trying to warn Wataru? We obviously can only speculate this early in the fic, but there are some compelling easter eggs, such as this one, where Hunter gazes into their sky. One can only interpret this as a wistful longing for what she knows is missing--the flat vault of the heavens above her.
He fell silent for a moment, looking thoughtfully up at the starry sky.

Speaking of skies, there are certainly some strange mannerisms from Wataru's point of view as well:
It was hard to keep count of the time or of his spins, but when Wataru finally stumbled outside, the sun was low in the sky and he had only a very few coins left.
Sun low in the sky? That's surely impossible from his vantage point, unless there were some sort of fictional curvature in the earth to allow part of the surface to obscure the sunlight from him. The fact that Wataru can't keep track of his time or his spins is also a clever double entendre, pointing to the fact that a fictionally-round planet would need to have rotation, likely around a large fixed mass such as a star, and that such rotation could be used to track time.
The miniryu's scales, which should have been the cool blue of a cloudless sky, were a muddied grey.
A frigid blast of air hit Wataru's face as he pushed outside, but the dark sky seemed clear
But the landscape remained hushed around him, and the sky clear.
And again we see repeated references to a "clear sky", but that would surely be impossible from a flat vantage point, as the entire sky would be visible from any point on the earth's surface, and therefore it would be statistically impossible for the sky to be clear at all times--unless, of course, there were a fictional curvature to obscure portions of the sky at some points, allowing it to appear clear even if there were clouds over other portions of the earth.

And surely, here:
He even fancied he could glimpse the sea in the distance, where the gray roof of the sky bent into blue.
Wataru claims to see the sky bending into the sea--sheer impossibility and a ridiculous visual metaphor, unless he lived on a round planet.

Wataru looked from the machines to the false silver sky, feeling small and lost and terribly alone.
Note the subtle clue in "false sky".

The conclusion across all of these is obvious: several characters have memories of a true earth, and some even make reference to it, but they are all constrained to a round earth. Perhaps the most monumental clue of all is given in the most recent chapter:
“What sun rises from blue to orange, and never sinks?” Katsura asks suddenly, with an airy wave of his hand.

The inane riddles are yet another one of Katsura’s less-than-charming tendencies. Most of them are homebrewn, and impossible to answer sensibly, even if you’d been inclined to that sort of childish wordplay to begin with. Although—

“A sun that’s a dragonite,” you answer.

Katsura’s bushy eyebrows lift in surprise.
This is a clear callback to Okido's riddle in the chapter 2 (or chapter 2, depending on your preferred naming convention)--in which an elderly man poses a riddle to a young, ambitious viewpoint character, and the younger character poses that a dragonite is the solution to the riddle. It should be noted that canonically, Wataru's answer to Okido's riddle is incorrect (Lugia's paradox is obviously solved via time travel); we, unlike Katsura, should not be surprised that Giovanni answers incorrectly here as well. A sun that never sinks would have to be a fixed-place star (the star reference is also reinforced by the colors blue and orange), orbited instead by a planet--for those unfamiliar with the theory, this would mean that to those on the surface of the planet, the sun would appear to rise and set, but its true movement would be trivial.

But where would this take Wataru now? There are surely tons of explorative and worldbuilding opportunities for such a fantastic concept, but I believe Pen has cleverly foreshadowed the story's final arc in the very first paragraphs:
Wataru palmed a smooth, flat stone and rolled it from hand to hand. The sky had darkened to a dim orange as the late afternoon sun dipped behind the hills. A few streaks of light still struck the lake, which glinted like a silver plate in the middle of the valley.
[...]
Wataru felt the weight of the stone one last time, then lobbed it across the water. It skipped twice before it sank. He watched as the circles danced out.
(again, note the reference to the sun dipping behind the hills--an impossible occurrence on a non-round Earth)
The narrative progression here is striking: Wataru palms the flat stone that symbolizes the true layout of the planet. He notes the orange color of the sky--there could be a strange parallel here between that and the dex entry for Dragonite, which is said to circle the "globe" at quick speeds; it should not be forgotten that dragonite are not present in this story and instead appear to have been replaced with an alternate evolution known as kairyu. Then, Wataru observes that the lake is like a plate--another reference to the true layout of the planet, before casting the flat stone away. Wataru's name means to navigate, to cross over--but it is a name he casts aside when he chooses to join Team Rocket. Wataru has spent this story learning that true power is not in the form of physical strength, but in knowledge--such as the knowledge that his planet is round even when it shouldn't be.

Why else would Wataru be so interested in Team Rocket, whose ties to spacecraft cannot be ignored, if not to learn the truth?
 

Pen

the cat is mightier than the pen
Staff
Partners
  1. dratini
  2. dratini-pen
  3. dratini-pen2
Why else would Wataru be so interested in Team Rocket, whose ties to spacecraft cannot be ignored, if not to learn the truth?
Some very insightful analysis here. But can you use your tremendous analytic skills to answer the most important question who is kintsugi??
 

Pen

the cat is mightier than the pen
Staff
Partners
  1. dratini
  2. dratini-pen
  3. dratini-pen2
WHY BROKEN THINGS IS A VERY BAD STORY THAT YOU SHOULD CEASE READING AT ONCE

Broken Things is a very bad, very sad story about horrible people who betray a beautiful and smart icefox. Don't let this story fool you into thinking the icefox will ever find love and happiness and belonging. She won't.

The chapter titles spell it all out. Since Pix is the only character who matters, the only chapter titles that matter are the ones that belong to Pix.

First up is Firemane. Firemane is very bad. Mane rhymes with 'pain.' It also rhymes with 'in vain' and 'won't remain.' Fire rhymes with LIAR. Firemane lived up to her name.

Through the City of Fire. Cuicatl claims she's different. But she tells Pix she loves her in a chapter with the word 'fire.' Again, fire rhymes with LIAR. Cuicatl is just like Firemane.

Someday You Will Learn. Learn rhymes with SPURN and TURN. Someday, Cuicatl will TURN on Pix and SPURN her.

Six. Six rhymes with Pix. Six is a lie, and Pix is the one who will be betrayed.

Ancestor Stories. Now @Persephone is trying to be sneaky. She's realized we're on to her. She wants us to think Cuicatl cares now. But if you only look at the important letters, Ancestor Stories spells TREASON. That's right. Cuicatl is STILL planning to turn on Pix. She's just learned to hide it better.

The worst part? Look at Cuicatl's chapter, Worlds That Never Were. Never were.

N eve r w e r e.

EEVEE. HIDING RIGHT IN PLAIN SIGHT. CUICATL IS GOING TO BETRAY PIX BECAUSE OF AN EEVEE.

In conclusion, you should stop reading this very bad story right now.
 

Flyg0n

Flygon connoisseur
Pronouns
She/her
Partners
  1. flygon
  2. swampert
  3. ho-oh
  4. crobat
  5. orbeetle
  6. joltik
  7. salandit
  8. tyrantrum
I've got one, this is about LC. @Chibi Pika It's very simple, so obvious. And I don't think anyone has said it yet, which is shocking. granted, I've only read up to chapter 8, but I know without a doubt I am right.

Are you ready??????

Stalker is secretly Lugia in human form. Both are described as having blue eyes. And Stalker is a shadowy figure, while Lugia is first seen as a shadowy figure in the ocean after Jade jumps in. The connection is obvious. Need I say more?

I won't. It's clear as day to me.
 

kintsugi

golden scars | pfp by sun
Location
the warmth of summer in the songs you write
Pronouns
she/her
Partners
  1. silvally-grass
  2. lapras
  3. golurk
  4. booper-kintsugi
  5. meloetta-kint-muse
  6. meloetta-kint-dancer
  7. murkrow
  8. yveltal
What happens when you subtract 1 from M?
Nate is actually Mew, the child's mother. You might think Nate acts a bit harsh to the child, but he's teaching him discipline under the old concept of "misery builds character." Harsh, you say? Well, let's break it down:
it all ends here.

unknown.png
 
Top Bottom