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cheswirls · 5 years

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tether notes 1/3

long overdue, sry abt that.

pt. 1

why is there no change to the mines after 15+ years of destroying an environment?

i modeled the sinnoh region of tether almost exclusively on the hokkaido region of japan. from the layout of cities like sapporo, abashiri, and muroran, to geography like lake saroma northeast of veilstone and the hidaka mountain range for lower mt coronet, and especially, to the isolationism. i kept it trie to pokemon in the fact that sinnoh has no railways, unlike its real-life counterpart, which has plenty for traversing its vastness. a big part of hokkaido is how empty it is.

[on that note, though i mention both, i used muroran photography to model veilstone instead of abashiri, as its a proper port town. not super significant, jsu thought i’d bring it up, since muroran is sandgem’s counterpart.]

hokkaido is vastly underpopulated in ratio to its size. its mostly due to climate, and nature. things are far less technologized there. outside of sapporo, you won’t find very many glowing billboards and fancy casinos and active nightlife. you have to ride a train for hours to reach the next big town. the mountain range cuts the northern region in half.

when compared to this, little villages out in the middle of the wilds are far more isolated than towns. especially when they’re remnants of indigenous tribes. it’s sad, but it’s pretty standard process in the world nowadays -governments don’t care about the native people much. it’s prevalent in the united states, and if you’ve ever read commentary from fma’s mangaka arakawa, you’ll know the same is true for japan. the ainu are isolated to hokkaido. they aren’t looked after much.

so, even though it’s been a direct result of oreburgh’s mines’ negative effects, it’s still a matter of most of the sinnoh region not even knowing the village existed, and even if they did, not paying it mind. the wilds of sinnoh are difficult to traverse, and it’s more logical to take a boat to your destined city instead of traversing through them. that’s why so many of the big towns in sinnoh are located on a shore. for others, like jubilife and hearthome, there are airports that cater to people. and, for real life hokkaido, there are the trains.

i really wrote abt the mining incident in reference to bangladesh. in hokkaido, once all the prevalent mines started having accidents, the japanese government was quick to shut them down. in other eastern countries, especially bangladesh, the government is notorious for doing nothing abt the insane amounts of river pollution caused by factory waste. writing the river scene was heartbreaking, but learning about the trash rivers that prevail in countries with vast amounts of pollution, of the ones that run stark orange with mining waste, that was more difficult than anything i’d written for tether.

so it comes down to being a mix of two things. one, sinnoh’s government viewing the production of the mine and the money it brings over the safety of the nature that surrounds it. and, two, no one noticing the damage anyway. it’s not like it ever affected oreburgh. or, maybe it did, but they installed the fresh-air vents to keep the mines clean, like the changes made in pokemon platinum suggest? the oreburgh mines are the sinnoh region’s majority of energy, after all (you can argue for sunyshore, but i’d say solar power only stretches so far from the source) so even if there’s a scuffle of it here or there, keeping it active is important.

also. my take of the pokemon world has always been a little gritty. so there’s that.

why hancock as champion?

i ask myself this question everyday. i don’t even like boa. why did i include her, if in name only? what was i thinking? oh well. it’s already been done.

[side note, again. if boa’s in charge of sinnoh, considering her, erm, personality, is it hard to believe nothing was ever done abt the mine pollution? aka does she care abt anyone but herself hm hm ]

pt 2.

i introduce a pokemon known as driftzel rather early on. it’s luffy’s, and it’s an in-progress pokemon, a concept i thought would be interesting to use. you can see what driftzel looks like here. it also links to the blog i got the idea from. instead of it being like a natural evolution, though, the idea in tether is more of a middle evolution for pokemon with two lines. so, there aren’t any for three-line evolutions. i was originally going to introduce ricaru, an evolution between riolu and lucario, but i moved away from that idea somewhere around writing part 4.

herbalist!law is the solution i came up with in lieu of him being a doctor. i had so much fun with the berries. when i was doing my maps for each part of tether, i had separate maps marking out the locations of berries in the games and which ones law collects along the journey to veilstone.

hearthome is the only city i didn’t base on a real world counterpart. i think because i had too much to work with already. the cathedral, the contest hall, the gym. all the architecture. the poffin house. i didn’t wanna change anything abt hearthome, and more importantly, i wanted to portray part of japan’s hospitality here, too. it does extend all the way to hokkaido, yes. people are nice, and friendly, and happy to have travelers, just as depicted in all the games.

yes, all of ace’s pokemon are named after spade pirates. except for isuka, because i couldn’t resist. yes, striker is a spade pirate, it was his ship.

[in reference to the night walk between hearthome and solaceon] remember to bring a compass, when you’re in a region with a giant magnetic mountain range at its center, because it will be a lifesaver.

Law can see how uneasy Luffy still is, but as they walk further from the coast, he eases up, so he chooses not to ask

^ in platinum, the opposite shore houses the hallowed tower where you can encounter spiritomb. sensing the presence of an evil spirit leaves luffy on edge, thus their dodge to avoid it.

why are lunar wings, an event-only item, brought up in hearthome?

you’re right. lunar wing is a rare dppt item, and you can only get it after encountering cresselia on fullmoon island. my inspiration came from an episode of the dp anime, where a stall in canalave was selling the feathers as homage to the game event. actually, to go further, the same thing happened in the darkrai movie, which is where i got most of the insp. especially for the charms made out of them -look at the picture here!! i figured, with the sinnoh region i was depicting being a place of mostly friendly and peaceful pokemon, cresselia was more generous with her feathers. they make for popular items, and if they work in keeping the bad dreams away, whats the harm? plus, they’re in hearthome, a hotbed for tourists and foreign activity, because they’d sell best there. a good luck souvenir from sinnoh? sign me up.

but they are still lunar wings, and they do work, as shown with chimchar. i really wanted a piece of practical merchandise i could show off, and once i got the idea for chimchar’s introduction, i tweaked the hearthome scene to include the feathers. if you pay attention, though, you’ll note that law no longer has restless sleep after luffy’s secured a lunar wing.

the solaceon ruins was a place i wanted to explore so badly, but it just didn’t make sense within the continuity of the story, especially when i decided to go the northern route and introduce tsuru out of the fog. my original ideas were split between that, and law/lu cutting through the mountainous area of the ruins as a shortcut to veilstone. i was really captivated with exploring the uncharted areas of sinnoh’s map, and i think at this point i had established enough, so i decided they would stay on paved routes this time. but! i did want to bring it up, which is where carmel comes in.

in the games, there are houses on the outskirts of solaceon, nestled between the trees, and very close to the ruins. there’s one house where a little boy will give you ball capsule stickers. that’s the basis for mother carmel’s house. she lives there with anana, the first of the captive granddaughters to be introduced.

anana is creepy in canon. you can’t die that. i used carmel’s canon portrayal to match, and then the scene becomes a match of who’s creepier -the ruins or this old lady? the atmosphere around the ruins is weird. there are unknown there, so the space is distorted. it’s an old place. it’s quite possibly connected to giratina and the distortion world, since there are unknown present. it’s supposed to be eerie and strange and off-putting. it’s supposed to feel like a place where a wandering child can disappear into quite easily. though, maybe carmel’s just inattentive.

The trees out here are tall, towering over them in shades of deep green and dull orange, a byproduct left over from spring’s bloom

i mention orange trees in a section of the woods just past solaceon. they’re not orange from fall, though, they’re naturally so. oran trees! any off-colored trees mentioned -assume they’re berry trees. also another berry thing i had fun with, deciding which was a bushel and which was a plant and which was a huge tree.

i had way too much fun depicting the fog forest. i actually listened to a lot of pkmn soundtrack while writing tether, and for this part, this santalune forest remix was on constant replay. getting turned around, not being able to see your map, hearing the sounds and calls of wild pokemon, and then getting so lost in it that you begin to hear what isn’t there. not being able to see in front of you, barely able to dodge attacks and sabotage from wild pokemon, and feeling like youre going insane from myriads of different tunes clashing together. the road between solaceon and the dragon tamer’s house is terrifying, and i wanted to use this to depict the dangers of traveling in the pokemon world. though most sinnoh pokemon thus far had been shown to have good intentions, it can’t be said about every pokemon.

not to mention the big drop you have before the bridge, right when you get out of the fog! not really even out of it, as it sticks around near the dragon tamer’s house. could you imagine encountering something like that in real life? imagine how many accidents there would be.

so i had a bit of trouble in deciding if i wanted to use tsuru or not. this was fairly early on in wano, and i knew i wanted to use tama, but who to pair her up with for grandmother/daughter matches was iffy. looking back at my list, i had lots of other picks for the dragon elder. gloriosa, shakky, kureha, rouge, gerth, even! carmel, too, at one point was a pick, since i planned this part out early on into the story. i actually had marine tsuru on the list as well! in the end, i think i decided on wano tsuru bc of all the dragon tie-ins thus far. if i were to go back, now, i think i might change it to toki and hiyori, possibly. or, tsuru and hiyori. not that i dont love tama, though, i do.

i had a small list of grandkids, too, depending on who was the grandmother. anana, rebecca, tama, marguerite, and a few choices for marine tsuru (the standout was, apparently, isuka. then i repurposed the name for ace’s talonflame. tashigi was another pick, but in the end in wanted little girls.) at another point i thought about hiluluk and chopper, and had another grandfather/son combo that i can’t remember anymore. those were scrapped early on, since i wanted all girls. i also thought abt chimney and kokoro, but i wanted them on a more coastal city, to mirror water 7.

there were two things i really wanted to happen in tether. one was a pokemon joining a team. and another was an evolution. part 2 fulfills one of those w chimchar, the pokemon i always wanted luffy to have, and the one i never knew i needed him to earn. also, giving pokemon their own personalities is really cute.

also, just before this scene, i take a skip, marking the second time an indefinite amount of time has passed between scenes. i realized while writing the time through mt coronet that i was writing more passively than actively, and this was speeding up things more than i liked. it’s why i took a break and depicted hearthome for a couple days, so that things were happening more in the moment. still, i hope at this point it’s gotten across that it’s taken a long time to travel to veilstone. moving across the entire region is a long journey, after all.

introducting aura, a movie concept.

so. aura was the main reason i wanted tether to take place in the sinnoh region. it’s actually mentioned in the games once, and that’s from riley, one of the sinnoh quartet, on iron island. in the movie where the concept is introduced, it’s brought with a lucario, another region. in the anime, riley has an active role in aura. but, for those who’ve just played the games, or know next to nothing abt pokemon, i tried to explain my best in-story.

aura takes the place of conquerors haki in this pokemon verse, basically. you’re born with the sensitivity to it, so it’s not something just everyone can unlock. it’s rare, and it’s widely unknown. like law says, in sinnoh it’s considered an old myth. outside of sinnoh, it’s hardly known at all. so finding others to learn from is difficult. most people go their whole lives without even knowing what it is, just considering it natural luck that they can perceive things than others cannot. luffy meeting shanks, and learning that they both are sensitive to aura, is an incredible thing. having someone to teach you how to manipulate aura rare, and pretty amazing, when you think of the chances. but luffy and shanks live in different regions, and luffy has his own life. it’s been a long time, training, and as he expresses in part 2, he’s still not as far as he wants to be.

aura guardians, what shanks is, are almost unheard of. with great power comes great responsibility. and with great power comes the desire to obtain it. aura guardians are secret for a reason -if someone found out a person had an incredible power, and had the desire to, would they not seek it out for themselves? even to other aura users, revealing themselves wasn’t wise. protect yourself first. it’s a motto you’ll see come into play later.

with that said, and with one of the last things luffy mentions in part 2: could that have something to do with why shanks has gone missing?

#tether #im writing pt3 notes today #when i finish ill post them and pt3 to ffn

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