#44x n y is a glitch

[dispatches-from-the-lorecord]

Forrest’s jirachi has a history with the Voices

[February 4, 2023]

{Haji:}

This post came across my dash, and remind me to ramble about Jirachi :HYPERRACC:

But the long of it is we have a history with Jirachi that makes me wonder what it even IS in the TPP verse

{Mitzi:}

revo :WutFace:

{Haji:}

Oh yeah, including Dev powers if we include Revo :Keepo:

So if Forrest was given form or freedom or whatever with Jirachi's help, it's... Possibly plotting something

See, in my hc, Jirachi really doesn't like us. And by Us, I mean Voices because it has worked with Hosts before, it's just that it seems 9/10 Jirachi only ever comes with us under weird circumstances so it's a matter of the host getting its trust.

Unfortunately, only one host I think has managed to not break that trust, which again is why this thing doesn't like us :tppWowee:

(that host being Petra btw. Still under weird circumstances, but Petra is a girl who gets it because Glitchmancy)

I'm not sure what the relationship is with Marina, but I'm not so familiar with later Metro Sapphire lore

The point is, in my lore Jirachi itself is The Wish Maker, a shapeshifting Glitch of the highest rank (because in my lore the Glitches have a hierarchy. This goes all the way back to S2 lore when someone coined the term for the level of glitch possessing XD was a Corporal) maybe even up there with Phancero, possibly just below it

{Newbie:}

...this gives me a new way of looking at the whole Forrest-Jirachi dynamic, ngl

{Haji:}

Yeah which is why rereading that conversation on the archive post made me go "wait... AHHHHHH :HYPERRACC: "

The shapeshifting idea came up in RandY when we rescued "Yveltal" but it was randomized to Jirachi. We failed to catch it and when we tried again, the cutscene and battle apparently counted separately so it got re-randomized to Registeel. Most of us joked Jirachi was pissed and summoned a mech to come after Venus and she's just running around the corner chamber screaming while throwing Pokeballs behind her. Because it's a scripted battle, so if we ran away from it, the game was like "Yveltal wants you to fight!" And just starts the battle again so no escape, had to catch 😂

Then we had Wooper 1 where the lore was Santa's Delibird can make all your wishes come true because it's bag is apparently a void you can draw anything from. Then it turned out to be a glitch and we teased that's the source of Santa's magic because he glitched several times too like frozen flying animation, going invisible, opening holes in the wall ect. Rocket Boss Shawn said he wanted to use Delibird to summon endless Master Balls, which is more of a Missingno trait but whatever

And then Petra got her Jirachi through debug menu. Like I said, she kinda gets this thing in the way Santa did. Fun Glitchmancy to do (relative?) good in the world unlike what happened with Goomtha, Shawn, Lysander, and Venus shoved it in the box (because while Yveltal is scripted to join the party, somehow the randomizer broke that part I guess since we failed the cutscene battle. So there was no prompt to add it to the team). Auguste probably falls into that category too now since he was bffs with this thing and then it got killed and he got cursed so.... :KEKWhands:

And I laughed to imagine the Registeel Mars found when looking for Cobalion is actually Jirachi using it's mech again to tell the Voices to fuck off as the old man in the cave told us the legendary hiding there has a deep hatred of humans after all it's been through

ALL ANYONE WANTS IT FOR IS ITS POWER :HaunterFU:

Which... Not wrong. Even if the Voices would like to befriend it at some point this history cuts deep

{Newbie:}

i seem to recall reading about an encounter with jirachi in storm silver and how chat ended up choosing to wish for money instead of a battle to catch it :Kappa:

{Haji:}

This would not surprise me 😅

So yeah, Jirachi trying to help Forrest is interesting to me. Whether as a fellow glitch and it feels pity for the little one facing the cruel reality of how humans treat Glitches or it's because it feels a deeper connection with him and genuinely grants him a wish because he's deserving of it, this is... Well... Interesting for me to analyze further

also I need to see the new Pinocchio since I hear the depiction of Blue Fairy has an interesting interpretation

But what are your thoughts? :BegWan:

{Newbie:}

i mean, i put a lot of my thoughts in the fic i wrote. Forrest -- before he's Forrest -- is the glitch that sprang out from Quotes's bag and nearly killed her in Hoenn, the Voices lash out and toss him into the sea, Jirachi finds this glitch with remnant Voice-energy clinging to it and is like... "if this is an ally, the last thing i want is to abandon it. but if this is an enemy, i should probably have a countermeasure in place". so they turn Forrest into a human (defenseless, powerless on its own, the alternative was a Pokemon that could possibly run amok) and are like "ok, if you can prove you aren't dangerous, i can make you not a glitch. you've got x amount of time until that new body falls apart" and then dumps him in Unova

{Haji:}

I remember this :Burrito1:

{Newbie:}

jirachi shows up early in redux and replaces the bianca tutorial, so it like... seemed appropriate that it would be involved somehow

the fact that it took two separate attempts to catch jirachi gives me some Thoughts about forrest's whole potential-revenge arc. especially with the idea of glitches as corrupted casualties to destroyed worlds.

"you have too much anger in you," the wishmaker says, eyes critical.

forrest balls his fists. the Voices murmur uneasily in his head. "don't you think i have a right to be angry?"

"you do."

"then what's the issue?"

"i said you needed to prove yourself benign." jirachi coils its ribbons around its body, gaze still placid and bored. "you have yet to do that."

"that--"

"you have three months left until that body gives out on you. it seems you have your work cut out for you, host. until then."

there is a brilliant flash of light, bright as burning stardust. when forrest blinks the dots from his eyes, jirachi is gone, and the dreamyard is nothing but mist and empty space and stone walls that echo with the aftermath of an unrealized miracle

something like that, is how i imagine it going :RaccAttack:

{Haji:}

I have no idea why but I just had the random image of

~Three years earlier~

Hughr: [Making a wish on the wishing star. He's going through a bad time right now] Send me a friend who won't run away. Maybe you could send me an angel! The nicest angel you have...

~Cut to later with Quotes getting fucking murdered over here~

Uh.... He'll get there eventually :Keepo:

{Newbie:}

the other idea i'm now having is that Jirachi actually encouraged this and is trying to stoke a conflict between the hosts or something. maybe it thinks the Voices and their allies are getting too much power or something 🤔

{Haji:}

That I could definitely see

Like I said, this thing has NO reason to like us

oh shit, would that explain the PWT and why Forrest has to fight everyone?

{Newbie:}

jirachi teleports people who specifically have info on glitches and reality fuckery and drops them in forrest's path to stoke the fire

and then holds the whole "you're on a timer" thing over his head for even longer 🤔

{Haji:}

Forrest befriends them all, both confusing Jirachi and making it go "Well I guess that works too" because of the benign thing :tppLUL:

YOU LOSE, WISHMAKER

[krizste]

NAME/ 44X N Y |: Forrest, Forrest Xenos York TPP run host/ Volt White 2 Redux,

Glitch kid

[index post]

[dispatches-from-the-lorecord]

How old are these S9 kids anyway?

[January 31 - February 1, 2023]

{Haji:}

@Krizste psst since Stars has kind of become your boy, how old would say he is / was during the run? :RaccAttack:

{Krizste:}

he was always my boy, who do you think gave him that goofy hair? :Kappa:

{Haji:}

I currently have him at 17 just guessing his "real" counterpart to be at the older end of the host spectrum but Host Stars is usually so cute and nervous, I wondered if he's actually younger

{krizste:}

i have no

fucking

idea

:Keepo:

i guess around 14-15?

{Haji:}

Alrighty, that works too

{Krizste:}

hacker is def older in existence, but his appearance is a dice roll, lol

{Newbie:}

after having written for Hacker Stars a bit, i wanna place him as appearing in his early twenties at the oldest and being Frozen In Time thanks to hacker magic or whatever :Kappa:

{Haji:}

That's kind of what I'm thinking too.

But I wasn't sure about the host version

{Krizste:}

he sure acts like a jaded old man :Kappa:

{Newbie:}

he's Seen Some Shit :Kappa:

{Krizste:}

i love stars :Kappa: its a combo deal of trauma and depression and its lovely

{Haji:}

Okay, now for Quotes and Yuu

{Krizste:}

age? yus gotta be 17+

{Haji:}

Yeah ages

I'm so close like down to the last 6 :BegWan:

{Newbie:}

I think Yuu is about 17. That's Wes's canonical age according to Word of God

{Krizste:}

pjixdhfc i was judt giving him joker p5 age

{Haji:}

I mean, not wrong

{Newbie:}

Quotes has a flashback with her and Alex celebrating her 15th birthday in the past so she is at least 15 during RTHE

I personally place her at 16-17

{Haji:}

Good to know :SeemsGood:

{Newbie:}

She and Alex are implied to be around the same age and by the run's end he was talking about college

I put RTHE like a year before GrandCol so that would make her either the same age as or a year older than Yuu in my timeline :RaccAttack:

{Haji:}

Alrighty

Thanks :tppAYAYA:

{Krizste:}

haji making host dex?

{Haji:}

Just using the tentative timeline to plot out ages for my current "arc"

There's smaller arcs within it, but damn I realized everything being interconnected means it's from Ultra Sun on down

{Newbie:}

If you need ages for the other season9 hosts, I can't sleep rn :Kappa:

So I'm like... open to distraction

{Krizste:}

alright, the charitydual two, go

:Kappa:

my brain is saying ness age

whatever ness age is

{Brespawn:}

10

{Newbie:}

Ehhhh I'm breaking from the mold and making them like... 18? They're med students that got roped into the charity fundraiser as part of their program

Maybe 16 at the youngest if we go child geniuses :Kappa:

That's me anyway

{Krizste:}

maybe they do assistant nursing / apprenticeing

{Newbie:}

Could be, yeah

{Krizste:}

not a med genious job

{Newbie:}

Then again this is pokemon world where 10-year-olds venture out into the world without adult supervision so like

{Haji:}

I was about to say. Since when does Kanto seem to care about child labor? 😂

{Newbie:}

Idk

14 at the youngest, 18 at the oldest

Is my gut instinct

I feel like Barbie is older

{Krizste:}

speaking of that, i place forrest/hugh vw2r combo as some years older than 10 (dunno how many), as forrest specifically gets fucked over on the day of what was meant to be his pokemon journey starting

and spends an undefined ammount of time being hunted/etc in kanto, then moving, and then spening more time just being in school, then starting his poke journey

hugh would also be in the bucket of 'start poke journey late' due to fun family deaths and stolen pokemon! no wonder he was happy when startying with forrest

{Newbie:}

I think Forrest appears like 14 in human years. Glitch time? Heh. Glitches aren't bound by arbitrary laws of physics, much less temporality

I still go with the "he became a human" interpretation so age is uh. how does one track that exactly

When you are a pile of broken reality

{Krizste:}

ah cool cool

idk what im doin for forrest, he’s half half. his human side is whatever, 14? but glitch side is whatever. so- ohh ohh ohh.....

{Haji:}

Oh really? TPP doesn't matter but I thought he'd be closer to 15/16 like they are in game

{Newbie:}

I don't think there's an official age for Rosa or Nate in-game. Hilda/Hilbert are implied to be 14 in BW1 according to Word of God but that's it

{Krizste:}

tempraraly, forrest is both, yet neither 'glitch become human' / 'human become glitch'. human forrest lived human like life, basic temperarily forward and aging, at pokemon journey age, he got capowed top half glitch. but glitch forrest always existed , bc as u did say glitches do b outside the scope of temporality. glitch mode forrest is both very very young in human forward years if we count from the capow event, from that event, but is also incredibly ancient, as the worlds code itself

so its like lil 

human>>> ya boi <<<glitch

not

glitch>> half glitch 

human>> half human, etc

{Newbie:}

So... fusion dance

{Krizste:}

yeah

a getting smooshed in a collapsement of plasmic spacetime

{Newbie:}

Steven Universe, glitch style

Two beings coalesce into one

reverse Stars, if you will

Interesting

{Krizste:}

that actully feels like the most glitch thing to be

bc glitches need Stuff and Thinggs to make them be

they need Events, they need Items, they need Environment,

{Newbie:}

I still maintain Jirachi's involvement in Forrest's predicament... but you've given me a brain worm about Xavier now...

{Krizste:}

fuck! my xavier comic

{Newbie:}

Dammit I'm about to head back into XG Remix brainrot

Lmao

As for the others... I peg Xavier at 13, Tulio at like 11, and Terra roughly at 15(?) maybe :RaccAttack:

I'm still undecided about Terra

Run was too recent

Timeline still settling

Haji you now have ages for the season9 kids

Oh shit I forgot gigi

Uhhh

...I wanna say like 12? 13?

She and Lillie are the same age and Star is one year after SM, during which Lillie is 11, so like

12-13 seems safe

{Krizste:}

tulio so tiny

wait

what if this is homestuck scratch

scarlet tulio is 15

scratch happens

vio+ tulio is 10 and terra is 15

{Newbie:}

I personally subscribe to the idea that Tulio has graduated by now and is in another region. Maybe looking into how to help stop whatever the fuck is going wrong in Paldea

Or blissfully ignorant

Either works

{Haji:}

All I'll say at the moment is some of these ages are going to be ~approximate~ because I rounded everything to years and half years and the 6 months may have thrown me off. Also some are just going to look weird because of character circumstances 🤣

So like Xavier being a machine doesn't really age??? So I laugh at the idea of just 13s across the board

{Newbie:}

Aaaaaaanyway. The X-Factor, the creation of the artificial Subject XG000... I have Thoughts™️ and I still need to go to bed

I view him less as a machine and more an artificially-created human

Technically organic in genetic makeup... origins, not so much

...and now I'm thinking along the lines of glitch-fusion enhancement

{Haji:}

Gotta make this hard for me, huh? :Kappa:

{Newbie:}

Hey, my interpretation doesn't have to dictate your thingy

Whatever the word is

Compendium?

That's a word right

{Tranzi:}

forrest is just a teen

his age is teen (not 10) :Kappa:

{Haji:}

I guess with ScVi still fresh in my mind, I kind of thought he'd be more like the professor AI. A sort of animatronic made to fight but gained a level of sentience enough to say he doesn't want to do that. Really kind of funny because that's what I imagined in the first place, just now we might have some weird explanation to how such a machine could be made. He's much more primitive than the ScVi AI though, since they're made from technology not possible yet, but Cipher has always been super dubious in the TPP lore for pushing what's possible :HYPERRACC:

[dispatches-from-the-lorecord]

Yuu, the glitched-out shadow of Mt. Battle, and Forrest

[February 3, 2023]

{Newbie:}

good morning! who’s ready for a lore ramble? :HYPERRACC:

ok so. it kinda hit me last night when i was drafting up stuff for the tumblr. the origin of glitches as corrupted remnants of lost worlds. Forrest's vendetta in VW2Redux. the host battles.

the four heavenly kings.

now, the first three, it makes sense. Sky dealt with invisible "ghosts" in Storm Silver. Karma meddled with space-time thanks to the Red Chain. Stars has his origins as a duplicate of a prominent hacker. them all being in Unova makes sense, in the grand scheme of Forrest's arc.

but Yuu? what on earth does Yuu have in common with these three? and why is he the final opponent?

well, here's why:

i think Yuu figured out the origin of the glitches.

first off: in my GrandCol lore, i differentiate between Mt Memento (story mode Mt Battle) and Mt Battle (battle mode Mt Battle). Mt Memento is the "real" mountain in GrandCol!Orre, and Mt Battle exists in this sort of sub-reality state.

what i was originally going with: Mt Memento was sacred ground, but became corrupted, and ended up mass-spawning Shadow Pokemon (which existed prior to Cipher, and Cipher later figured out how to recreate the process). this is why countermeasures like the Time Flutes and the Relic Stone exist. Mt Memento was designated to be purified by ascetic Memento-using Pokemon. Mt Battle, meanwhile, is an echo of the pre-corrupted Mt Memento.

but. Shadow-ification has its origins in glitchstuff. and if the echoes of remnant timelines can result in glitches... does that extend to more than just living things?

what about... places?

let's say, perhaps, that battle mode!Mt Battle is in fact a pre-timeline-reset Mt Memento. a big fragment filled with displaced trainers and pokemon that got stuck on the walls of Orre's reality, overlapping Mt Memento, and is slowly rotting into glitchhood and bogging all of Orre down with it?

(Yuki--who i lore to be Quotes, and hyper-senstitive to glitchstuff after her multiple NDEs with glitches in RTHE--was always a bit unnerved by Mt Memento. it's because she could feel the Void pressing in closer and closer and closer...)

by the time GrandCol rolls around, the situation is becoming more dire. the matrix glitch? the crash at the Relic Stone? the walking glitch we managed to perform in Agate? yeah, that was Mt Battle. that was Mt Battle decaying further and further and further and the Void starting to seep in through reality’s seams.

(the Relic Stone sits right on the cusp of reality's fibers, like a stitch along a seam, a cornerstone to timelines. and through it, the decay was oozing into Agate Town, little by little.)

the Voices' goal, first and foremost, is to reach Ho-Oh and help Quotes revive her fallen team. but Ho-Oh returned to Orre because shit was going to go down. Ho-Oh doesn't usually revive the dead outside of very dire situations, but it'll make an exception if the Voices can beat back the glitch mountain slowly sinking into Orre’s foundations and threatening to capsize the entire region.

so they part reality like a curtain and arrive at this derelict, half-formed mountainous shape. they construct themselves a ramp using their reality bullshit powers and ascend to the top, trying to physically beat it back, trying to push it as far away from Orre as they can manage and hopefully detach it from the walls of reality before it can wear a hole.

"Do you want to take a break?" we were asked, constantly, during the trek. because the Voices had to stop and manifest another section of the path each time. if they could have marched through interrupted, they would have. but they had to stop at the end of every battle or else Yuu would have walked right off the edge into nothingness. and they had to win constantly or else they would be overwhelmed and forced to retreat for their own self-preservation.

at first, Yuu doesn't quite understand the minutiae of what's going on. he's not versed in glitches, or cosmic bullshit, and knows nothing about reset timelines. he does know that his job is to battle myriad opponents and trek up a mountain (hey, didn't we just do that??) in order to get Ho-oh's help. he doesn't ask the questions he should have before agreeing, which in hindsight wasn't the smartest decision...

now. Yuu is brash, and impulsive, and stubborn, and arrogant. but. he's not stupid. and he's not blind. and it isn't long before he realizes something is very, very wrong.

at first, the trainers he faced didn't seem too off. their coloration was a bit dull, and there was a tinny whine when they spoke, and a slight jerkiness in the way they moved, but they didn;t otherwise act out of the ordinary. these were the trainers at the lower levels who were still ignorant of their situation.

but the further up he went, the more wrong things became. the trainers start to more and more resemble the "shadow boys" we saw in Star. black, featureless humanoids save for glowing red eyes, mostly stable silhouettes, still capable of speech. their pokemon seem normal at first glance, but their moves are Wrong (Drill Run Kadabra, Triple Axel Altaria, etc.) and they don't quite move correctly, and those too become increasingly more and more warped in their proportions and movements the further up you go.

by the time Yuu reaches the top of Mt Battle, he's furiously interrogating the Voices.

the Voices struggle to give straight answers, or at the very least a satisfying one. so he goes through Mt Battle a second time to get his own (the Singles gauntlet). it's along the way that he learns about the resets, and Mt Battle's origins, and the people and pokemon that are slowly descending into glitchhood, and how he and his own team are only protected from the same fate because he’s the current host and the Voices can bullshit almost anything.

almost anything. even the Voices know better than to stay in the Void too long.

it's in the middle of Yuu arguing that they need to do something--what do you mean they're beyond help, they can't just leave these people here in this state, there has to be some way to save them--that the Voices yank him out. they did their job and detached the mountain from Orre's reality-walls and it's going to sink safely into the Void now. and when Yuu wakes up, he's at Mt Memento’s peak with Ho-Oh peering over him, and his head is silent for the first time in months.

Orre is stable again. Mt Memento is deemed purified. Ho-Oh keeps its promise and revives Quotes's fallen Pokemon. all is right.

...if only Yuu could let that be enough.

see. Yuu never wanted to be the hero. he was grudgingly forced into the whole "savior" role by the Voices. but... bring the Shadow Pokemon back into themselves, restoring their sense of selfhood... that felt good. and goddammit, he keeps thinking about the victims on the mountain, contorting into nonexistence, and...

the reality-reset that created Mt Battle was... recent. Yuu has no idea what to do with this information. he's in Alola, checking out the new league that Quotes told him about, when some grouchy ex-IP officer who smells like a Meowth pissed on his clothes mentions a "glitch-hunter" branch stationed in Unova.

and well... it's as good a place to start as any.

Yuu arrives in Unova--and then takes a detour at the PWT, because he's Yuu and he loves battling and he loves the spotlight. for some reason, the opponents he faces are vaguely familiar to him, their names flashing through his mind even though he's sure he's never seen them before...

(cough cough leftover Voice knowledge cough cough moving on)

and then on the final stage, he meets a kid with a very familiar aura humming around him--an invisible ripple in the air, and soft chattering you wouldn't hear unless you knew the sound of it all too well.

and too-bright eyes that remind Yuu of the shadow silhouettes and their luminous glares.

Forrest, as the new host introduces himself later, is glitch that got stuffed into a makeshift human body and is searching for a way to make this body permanent. he's very candid about it, probably because Yuu is an ex-host and has seen his own fair share of weirdness, and probably is less likely to be phased by such a confession. which, y'know, isn't incorrect.

but then Yuu has to go and wonder aloud, "So like... did you look like this before or...?"

Forrest furrows his brows. the Voice-aura around him undulates uneasily. "Huh?"

"Like..." Yuu gesticulates vaguely. "Before you, like, became--"

"I didn't look like anything before," Forrest cuts in, not unkindly.

"Yeah. But like. I meant before that."

"There is no before?"

"There had to have been."

"I don’t follow."

Yuu blinks, and shoves his hands into his pockets, and stares. "You don't know, do you."

"Know what?"

"Where they came from. The glitches. You."

"...What are you talking about."

Yuu massages his forehead, and curses the day the Voices crashed into his skull, because goddammit, they turned him into too much of a decent person to ignore the uneasy trepidation pooling in the kid's too-luminous eyes.

"Alright. You, uh. Might wanna sit down for this..."

[dispatches-from-the-lorecord]

Forrest, and why the Voices are fighting all their former hosts

[January 16, 2023]

{Mitzi:}

mitzilore update: am now pretty sure racc and vw2r are in the same universe. building the timeline from there

i'm... about 70% certain forrest's Deal is that he's coming back to the hosts' world to shove their hypocrises in their faces. i just don't know, like, any of the details of that

{Sol:}

"Developer intent" (basically just from me) was for VW2R to be our revenge against Unova after RB2 so uh

make of that detail what you will

{Trollkitten:}

Kek

But yeah, I can see eventually some of the friendlier glitches realize that the Voices are hardly on the moral high ground and really need to have their hubris answered for

Still... Forrest did fight an awful lot of former Hosts, so if that was his intention, he probably did a decent job of it

{Newbie:}

if VW2R and RaCC take place in the same universe... you mentioned before the idea of RaCC taking place in a "dream world". would that still be the case, and does that make VW2R part of the dream realm as well? :RaccAttack:

{Mitzi:}

it’s more that chacrys was definitely a dream, so that’s what i defaulted to for racc

racc, now… i think it’s where the voices (and their hosts, who are just voices off doing their own thing) materialised or whatever after they punched arceus in the face and rebooted the multiverse

teeny little protoworld, really no more than a potentiality nexus. fortunately the voices are omnipotent

the hosts start calling it the memoryworld. making it a monument to the old multiverse, and stuff

the voices just wait until they have enough of a map to do a pokemon journey, and then they do that

but after racc… they rapidly get bored

and so they go exploring

fast forward to vw2r, when the voices come crashing back into the memoryworld

riding a glitch, and screaming about how the hosts have fucked up

… don’t ask me how yet, but it’s got sth to do with the overarching plot of s9… whatever that is