#ninesecretsteps

[everyone-with-a-para]

(5/5) alright! arc four! once all the alola stuff wraps up, cole+my guy are...still fired from aether, not that they'd want to be associated with aether now anyway. so it's time to develop a new research angle, and This time it's working with professor burnet to develop a way for them to safely traverse the ultra wormholes that nebby can create. and where does the first one drop them but hisui, over 100 years in the past! and initially they're just. out in the wilderness. and they're not stuck as long as they have nebby, so they could leave, but they want to explore a bit instead of just dipping out because they can't see any signs of civilization. so they do a little wandering+luckily, instead of getting Attacked by anything, they run into the pearl clan's favourite warden: ingo! this ingo is distinctly different from my other para of him; this one has been living in hisui for like. At least ten years. maybe closer to 15. and he only vaguely remembers his home+has basically resigned himself to the fact that he's never gonna see anything even remotely close to it again...until he runs into this little group of very-obviously-modern travellers+is like Oh My God. he pretty much assumes the lot of them are fallers right away+starts fussing immediately, trying to orient them+get them somewhere safe, while THEY'RE all looking at each other like "is it just me or is that a unovan railway uniform. where the hell are we?"

either way, things get cleared up+ingo is...somewhat disappointed to discover that they're not in the same situation as him, but also relieved because good lord nobody deserves that. and they tell him "well we're gonna stay here for a little for research because this place has got pokemon we've never even HEARD of, but when we go we could try+see if we can get you back home." initially ingo declines because he has Duties here, but he *does* accompany them when they go on research because he knows the land better+doesn't want this group of kids (read: roughly 17-25 year olds) dying in the wilderness. and it's during this, while watching everybody Be A Family from the distance, that it occurs to him "ohhh i see. I Miss Having A Family. Badly." and it's not just having a family, it's also having Anyone who really understands him. as much as he's settled into hisuian culture, he's still an outsider from another time. so when it comes time for everyone to pack up+leave for real, he decides (with a bit of regret) to abandon his post as a warden+come with. part of it is the temptation of being able to actually Go Home, but it's also because everybody else has genuinely grown on him+he doesn't want to lose anybody he feels close to again. Found Family Complete. for now at least.

...and THAT'S the story as it stands! this could go a few different directions; right now i'm playing omega ruby+depending on how much i end up thinking about it everybody could end up getting plunked in hoenn. there's also obviously if, how, and when an emmet/ingo reunion happens but nothing concrete has been worked out for that. i'm trying not to go "oh my god this is fucking long" for the 70 millionth time because you DID say you were interested so um. thank you for reading. i REALLY hope this all sends in proper order+tumblr doesn't eat any of these asks lmao but if it does i can resend any of them. again: literally had to draft this in a word doc. can you believe this is the Short version of all this. i swear to god this is meant to be more truncated. i'm not even going into the symbolism of everyone's pokemon teams or anything. did you know genesect is here? fucking genesect has been here the whole time

@ninesecretsteps

Ingo mention Ingo mention Ingo mention!!!! (Can you tell I love him?)

Oogh I put Ingo in Hisui for 5-7 years depending on how I feel but people who do 10+ make me incredibly sad

My Ingo has very similar complicated feelings about his Duties and life he's made in Hisui vs the want to go home when Akari convinces (threatens) Arceus to let them. He very almost decides not to leave. It also doesn't help that he has no memories other than a flash of Emmet's face and the vague knowledge of a fire type pokemon. He's afraid of what he'll find or what he won't find because he just doesn't know whereas Hisui is Known and Predictable (and he's autistic) but also also Hisui never felt like Home. He's always been an outsider no matter how much of the clan eventually accepted him

My Ingo and Emmet do get a reunion and I daydream it a lot

Genesect:🧍

Thank you for sharing!!! I enjoyed reading these immensely!!!

[everyone-with-a-para]

(4/5) not long after learning about all this, cole is like "hey...we *do* have an in with aether...surely a pokemon conservation organization would have some info on this, right?" but instead of asking somebody about it like a normal person he just. Goes through their facilities+ends up reading a bunch of shit that's *supposed* to be classified. and while he's doing that, he ends up getting caught by one of the higher ups (who may or may not know *exactly* who he is, because there are ex-plasma grunts working for aether), who's like "oh you want to know more about ultra space huh? how about you go collect cosmog for us+then we'll talk" which makes cole go [connecting dots in his head] "...i am not doing that." so he gets Fired as Hell lol (as if he ever did anything at aether in the first place but you get it). and while he+my guy are trying to negotiate whether or not they should leave alola if aether isn't employing them anymore, team skull (which is under aether's thumb, like the games) steals nebby back from lillie, and they pretty much get a call from kukui that's like "hey would you mind helping us out here. :(" they proceed to get the full details+when lillie says she thinks nebby got taken to aether paradise, my guy+cole are like [looking at each other] Um. and lillie pretty much Begs them to help her out. and she's a nice enough kid, and nobody who cares about her can do anything for her, so Lillie Has Joined The Party! the whole next bit happens pretty similarly to how the games happen; lusamine disappears into ultra space using nebby's power+lillie resolves to become her own person+save both nebby+her mother...except this time she's got my guy+cole helping her. much like what happened with cole+my guy to begin with, she ends up getting close with the two of them kind of by accident, and by the time this is all over (with nebby fully evolved into lunala+lusamine taken out of commission), she realizes that they've been better to her than her own mother ever was+decides to travel with them as a researcher too. The Found Family Expands.

@ninesecretsteps

Colress after getting fired for not doing his job after spending the entire time "employed" there not doing his job: :0

New family member!!

[everyone-with-a-para]

(3/5) ARC THREE OF FOUR! alolan arc! this one is arguably the Most plot-heavy of any of the arcs because instead of the games' story happening in the background it's right up front this time. so my guy+cole are pretty much siblings by this point, and sycamore hooks them up with the aether foundation to fund their research in alola. however cole is still kind of pissed off about being compared to lysandre+thinks that sycamore is trying to "keep him in line" to assuage some of his own guilt, and he doesn't agree with the idea that he needs to be controlled, so he refuses to Actually work as an employee of aether. initially this is just pettiness but he will thank GOD for this later. not long after settling down in alola, cole+my guy run into professor kukui because pokemon researchers just gravitate to each other i guess, with lillie working as his assistant. she's about 16/17 as opposed to 11 like she is in the games for reference. naturally, they end up learning about her cosmog, nebby, and they're like HOLY SHIT WHAT IS THAT because cosmog is unknown to poke-biology at large. and lillie is a little horrified at the question because she's obviously been trying to keep it under wraps but kukui tells her "they're just researchers it's cool" (he doesn't know about the aether connection because cole is actively ignoring it himself) and they get the whole "this thing is from another dimension we don't know what the hell it is" rundown. now *this* is something interesting.

@ninesecretsteps

Cosmog is just a little guy :D

Quill play the Alola games challenge like I've been planning to for at least a year

It's true actually researchers do gravitate to each other. My older sibling is a chemist I have seen in practice. It's like autistic people and lgbt people

[everyone-with-a-para]

(2/5) ALSO beginning is the kalos arc. the second they get to kalos, cole rolls up to sycamore labs like "hey i'm back. don't read the news right now. Can we crash on your couch." and sycamore is honestly just thrilled to see him back, so he gives him back his job+tells him to stay as long as he likes. cole kind of assumes this means sycamore doesn't know about The Everything but he 100% does...he's just a huge pushover who can't (or won't) be confrontational with people he cares about. this is soon to become verrry relevant, because sycamore is dating who else but LYSANDRE, leader of team flare. they're a terrible couple who should not be together, but that's not really cole+my guy's business, so they go on conducting their (more well-adjusted+ethical this time) research+bonding while the actual plot of the x+y games happens just slightly out of frame behind them. eventually All That comes to a head, and with lysandre disposed of (dead in death ray explosion. you know how it is), sycamore feels. Terrible. he kind of has this personal responsibility complex; first he failed to keep his protege from becoming the leader of an Evil Team, and THEN he failed to keep his boyfriend from going straight off the deep end+trying to kill Everybody On Earth. it's only by dumb luck that cole didn't end up exactly the same as lysandre, in his eyes. eventually he breaks+tells cole about this, and cole is...insulted by the comparison, mostly. as much as being involved in team plasma was an objectively Bad thing to do, cole's circumstances were a far cry from lysandre's omnicidality. he also resents the idea of being anything like a guy who deliberately took advantage of others for his own gain, because if anything, *he* was the one being taken advantage of, on account of ghetsis being ghetsis. sycamore didn't know that bit until Just Now+is obviously horrified at how the comparison comes off in this light+he's like "Oh mon dieu i am so fucking le sorry" and says that to make it up to cole, he'll either personally fund his research or hook him up with somebody who can, wherever he wants to take it next (because staying in kalos is Not looking appealing right now.) and wouldn't you know it, there's some interesting reports coming out of alola...

@ninesecretsteps

Sycamore get better taste in men challenge

Also Sycamore learn to confront people challenge (I am a hypocrite bc I am exactly the same it's a problem)

Hm I wonder what's happening in Alola.... /s

[everyone-with-a-para]

(1/5) OKAY. same guy again. i have returned for realsies this time. warning you again that i said this would be long and IT IS so by all means feel free to like. stick all these asks under a readmore so as to not annihilate everyone's dashes 😭 but with that said: so i said nanobotsverse has four arcs but it's more like four+a half, with the "and a half" one being backstory before my guy officially enters the picture+the plot gets going for real. you could call this bit "arc zero." it starts in kalos prior to the events of both bw2+xy. so you got colress, and in nanobotsverse he's actually a student/assistant of professor sycamore's (who will come back+be an actual character in the second arc), but he's...not satisfied with the work. you know how The Power Of Friendship is super important in pokemon? yeah well nanobotsverse colress is *just* as schizoid as i am+therefore has trouble bonding with his pokemon, or Any living thing, and kind of doesn't understand the concept+feels like his research is going nowhere. so after enough frustration he's like "fuck it i'm going home" and goes back to unova because that's where he's originally from. when he gets there, he winds up running into ghetsis who's been looking for a new Main Guy to recruit for the New team plasma+is like "oh fuck yes it's a mentally ill guy for me" the second he sees him. cole gets a job offer+while he thinks ghetsis has horrible rancid vibes, he DOES need work right now+likes the prospect of being able to study pokemon without the impediment of societal standards for pokemon/trainer connection. and Ethics. he also was in kalos for the whole plot of b+w and missed the whole thing with n, so he doesn't know Just how fucked up ghetsis is.

this is where the unova arc starts proper. cole runs into my guy while doing "research" (challenging random trainers to random battles as if it will enlighten him on what it means to connect with a pokemon)+my guy pretty much says "hey is your plasma research thing like. hiring." because he's new to the region and he, too, needs a job. cole, having orders to not refuse any potential recruits, is like "...sssssure" and from then on out the two of them are Associated. it will quickly become more than begrudging but right now they're kind of just coworkers. and "right now" will last at most a couple weeks, until one day ghetsis just gets attacked by his hydreigon and Dies. because he's a terrible trainer+of course the thing would snap. which is awesome tbh, but also makes cole the For-Real-Undisputed-Number-One Leader Of Team Plasma. because he doesn't actually have any connection to team plasma's real motives or ideals, much less any desire to stick around if he's not getting paid, He Does Not Want This. so he panics, disbands the whole team, and packs up his shit to run back to kalos. this makes my guy go HEY HOLY SHIT WAIT+he tags along because he hasn't got any connections anywhere else+would *also* love to not be involved with the ongoing fallout. cole is confused that he isn't more annoyed by this. The Found Family Begins.

@ninesecretsteps

Last time I tried to put all asks under a read more tumblr went kaput so it's gonna have to be one at a time

In this day and age you can't be blamed for working for the villain side bc you need a job /j

I think about Ghetsis' hydreigon a lot....

Yeah that sounds like some good found family origin

[everyone-with-a-para]

okay hi hello this is the pokemon anon from the other day :] i took yesterday to finish setting up a page for my paras on the aforementioned sideblog to go with the tags so i could have that ready. url over there is ninesecretsteps...not Technically a madd blog (mostly i intended it to be for szpd) but i did say i might drop the url SO i might as well. but Anyway, i didn't come here to self-promote, i CAME here to properly elaborate on my paracosms!

the First paracosm is the one for b+w and it started up in june 2022! (its "official" birthday is june 2nd because that's when i first wrote something down about it.) and when i say "b+w" i ACTUALLY mean it's focused on The Battle Subway Specifically. this one isn't super plot-heavy+is more about little character interactions. the plot, such as it is, is basically that My Guy (believe the proper term for this would be "paraself" idk i'm still new here. my little self-insert guy) is more or less the third subway boss twin. triplet. ish. he's an adopted younger sibling+works on the trains as a junior boss; running less advanced battle lines+filling in for his brothers when necessary. unova's favourite nepotism baby (joke). this one's got some variations that mostly hinge on 1. If and 2. How pl:a happens on account of the whole spacetime. Thing. but on the whole it's mostly silly sibling interaction stuff. what if trains were real, etc

the SECOND one. this is the bighuge one. it's called nanobotsverse, after the song nanobots by they might be giants because that's the song that first made me start thinking of it+it just kind of stuck (the story itself actually contains zero robots, nano or otherwise), and its "official" birthday is january 6th, 2023 :] the basic plot is: what if bw2's team plasma accidentally imploded on itself early (ie, before the actual plot of the games can take place), and its (former) acting leader has to take his research Elsewhere. much character development ensues as the following games' plots keep attempting to happen to him while he's mostly just trying to do his job+avoid getting into any more trouble. and also my guy is there again. i was going to do a proper overview of each arc BUT i realized if i did it would be. Unfathomably long. ridiculously long, even when trying to put it shortly. for reference, i started drafting all this in a word doc+there are over 1000 words of writing+i still haven't finished+have also been at this for hours now. once this is in+you've seen it, if you're still interested in reading a bunch of long as hell asks i'll finish that+prrrobably send it in as an ask per arc (so about 4-6 asks depending on how it works out. maybe i'll bundle them+make it more like 2-3 if it doesn't feel like too much.) Thank You for reading, btw, because This ask is long as-is

Same hat!!!!!!! My pokemon paracosm focuses on the subway bosses!!!!! Mine specifically focuses on the relationships between the paras post-Ingo's return from Hisui and his and Emmet's trauma recovery

I'd love the receive the infodumps from your document it sounds really interesting

@ninesecretsteps