#i know this directly contradicts my ‘volo misreading the signs’ theory but i think it fits the vibe better to

[shiftperception]

alternate take on legends protagonist, started as a self insert but I want to make them their own thing:

-Unhinged!! They don’t want to destroy the world per say, but becoming god? Harnessing the power of creation? Jokes on you they’re into that shit! You see the rift incident wasn’t a total accident on their part. Sure, they stumbled into it. But one does not simply spend their time creeping around spear pillar if they’re not looking for rifts to stumble into. Much like Volo they’ve been tailing arceus and the creation trio for years. Heard reports of strange activity, went to investigate. Oops I fell into the rift whatever shall I do~?

-Aside from Kamado’s general suspicions the village folk never truly question their intense fascination with pokemon, especially of the legendary variety. So easily impressed by their skill and quick to fall into praising their dedication to research and the Galaxy Team’s cause. They’re 100% a closet mad scientist, but it’s so cute how the professor and that sweet survey corp kid call them a hero! They don’t have the heart to ruin the fun! And of course free (not really) lodging is also a plus.

-Let’s 👏🏻 Get 👏🏻 Meta 👏🏻 !! I don’t wanna get into territory that implies a real ass person is interacting with what (to them) are literal game characters. Cause there’s a ship here and despite uhh everything I’m not that far gone. plz understand this. but plz also understand my whole point is to go wild with reality bending shenanigans. Case in point: This person is the only one who can read unown. Volo wasted hours of his life staring at inscriptions in ruins taking notes, cross referencing every language in recorded history getting absolutely nowhere. Because unown are english letters. The pokemon world has its own letters, they don’t look like unown.

-Occasionally slip in their vocab. People brush it off as them being from the future. In the thing I just wrote they go “at sp- The temple.” Ah shit it’s not called spear pillar yet. Call the lustrous globe and adamant crystal “orbs.” that’s future stuff. but then there’s other stuff. “Unown the pokemon. You’ve never heard of them? Little floating eyes, alphabet soup. Code of the world? Not ringing any bells?” *details their venture into a space time distortion* “Great haul this time! Grabbed a bunch of RGB shards too.” Think Narnia, Wizard of Oz, classic fantasy/fairy tale stuff y’know? MC is transported to a magical world. Which for the purpose of this AU is a very real alternate reality. Look the fourth wall and I have a history ok... I know what I’m doing. part of my hyperfixation is the excitement of getting to use my Thing™️ in a pokemon fic.

-The way they talk like a modern person in my time loop shitpost/ficlet is gonna be on purpose too. It’d sound pretty weird to talk like that in meiji period japan I think, and this character would know that. They’d edit their voice and dial it back a lot around... basically everyone. Except Volo. They get fellow mad scientist vibes from Volo and drop their guard for him quite noticeably. Especially after the time he accused the rift of spitting them out to get in his way and looked straight up, where their homeworld beyond the sky would be. If I were there now... he might’ve looked right into my eyes. They see him and think: He knows I don’t belong here, and that he doesn’t belong either. We’re the same! Mayhaps we can not belong together??

-Zero self preservation. Rushes into fights with creatures in the wilderness without hesitation, sees portals tear open the sky and bounces excitedly. “I almost wanna let Volo reset the universe just to see what would happen” wait crap don’t show your hand “but giratina would kill me before I got the chance so- anyway.” nailed it. People ask if they have a death wish. The truth is... they should’ve been dead yesterday. Maybe, in a way, they have died. Many times. Mauled by an ursaring in the woods, drowned, fallen off cliffs, fallen from the sky itself. But every time they “die,” they see it. Them. The code of the world. A sea of eyes drifting and swirling, arranging themselves into strange patterns. Singing an odd lilting melody. There are words they recognize, but the sentence structure is all wrong and the context the words are used in doesn’t make sense. It’s like a foreign language. A language within a language. coding class is kicking my ass And then they wake up. Back at base camp like nothing ever happened. It seems you were rescued. By what? Arceus? Maybe. But somehow... it doesn’t feel like arceus. Arceus has plans. Stories with predetermined endings. Plans that have no room for mine, they never did. No love for those who dare mess with the code of its perfect world. But the code itself? It holds no attachments. It cares not for wrong or right, fate, outcomes. It faces us only with openness. Acceptance. Arceus only cares for us when we play by its rules. Why strive for its approval when the eyes see us void of judgment ha gettit . Tell me Volo, if we could speak to them in a way they’d understand would they care whether or not we bear the name “almighty Sinnoh?” The eyes are pure possibility. If we could speak to them... in their view, what’s the difference between arceus and us? Quit your job. Join my unown farm. Fuck I have too many words I’m dying squirtle