The Quest for the Legends

Uh, the Creator/Preserver/Destroyer thing is actually inspired by Hindu mythology, which literally has Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver and Shiva the Destroyer. And the creatures from Norse mythology that Xerneas, Yveltal and Zygarde are believed to be based on are not actually associated with life, death or order to my knowledge (they're actually very minor characters) - I'm pretty sure that part is all Game Freak's imagination. So no, definitely no connection.

I did laugh when Y talked about Yveltal draining the power of Pokémon over a thousand years, though.

Huh, apparently I have some unanswered questions here. I guess they're unlikely to be seen, but I might as well answer them anyway.

After all this time, and given that you've practically finished the ILCOE (which I think is a damn good version), do you still plan to continue with the IALCOTN?

I'll have to see how embarrassing I find the IALCOTN by the time I've finished the ILCOE. I might rewrite those chapters again. But I'm likely to continue rewriting it in some form. (Probably not very fast, though.)

Anyway, so someone is going to have to say it: how bout dat Yveltal having a near exact description of The Destroyer (the exception being, of course, the backlash The Destroyer causes and only draining other legendaries)?

It was pretty amusing. I'm glad Yveltal didn't come about until now, though, because at a certain stage in the fic's creation I would have actually made the Destroyer be Yveltal, and that would have been so much less interesting than what I actually ended up with.

Morphic question: how (as in, with what toppings) do Dave and Mia eat their hot dogs?

Dave gets one with everything. Mia only really wants the actual hotdog, and initially she'd get it with no toppings at all (and leave most of the bun), but Dave has attempted to get her to appreciate the combination of flavors that is the real point of a hotdog, and though she doesn't really see the point, she doesn't care so long as the hotdog is in there somewhere. So by now, depending on her mood, she sometimes orders it bare and sometimes with seemingly random combinations of toppings just because. Dave has stopped trying to convince her the toppings matter.

Well, it turns out the reason for the lack of Pokémon in northwest Ouen was that Chalenor's skull was buried there - the Effect was supposed to be his power drainage affecting even non-legendary Pokémon when they were close enough. When you made me realize the ILCOE didn't have the power drainage effect there, I thought that screwed me over. But then I actually came up with something I like even better explaining why things are the way they are in the ILCOE: mortal Pokémon adapted and evolved to resist the Destroyer's power drainage ability, while the immortal legendaries by their very nature were unable to do the same. By now, mortal Pokémon still feel uneasy if they're in Chalenor's presence for a significant length of time, and that's why Pokémon stay away from this part of the region - they just don't like the place, though they couldn't quite tell you why - but it doesn't actually drain their power.

I like that even better because it adds a great additional layer to Arceus's attempt to punish the legendaries for their arrogance. He knew the mortals would evolve to resist it, and that was the point: the exact qualities that made the legendaries consider the mortals beneath them, their awesome power and their immortality, are exactly what makes them continue to be vulnerable while the mortals adapt.

It still more or less works with the IALCOTN Effect, though; it'd just mean the mortals evolved to resist it up to a point, but when they're that close the pull is still too strong.

In case anyone's following the Quest Blog and not my Tumblr: somebody got me to dig up the creation myth that I told you all in 2007 that I'd be posting as an extra with the final chapter. It is a hokey attempt at mythical writing last edited in 2008, but if you're curious, you can read it here!

I think you mentioned in a previous chapter commentary that Chaletwo jumping forward in time to only be visible a few minutes every year isn't going to work, considering it is established (in this chapter) that he would be leaving the time he's "anchored" to, and as the War approaches he should get pulled back to the right time. If we follow on the idea that Chaletwo consistently jumps forward in time to appear for a few minutes, the way I would envision this happening is that as he gets further and further in the future toward the War, he gets his power drained ("prematurely" because he's only "existed" for 5000 minutes or whatever, I would think), and then eventually bounces back to 5000 minutes after his creation. This is how I see it as working - feel free to correct me if you have a different version! But if I assume this is accurate then my question is, so is Chaletwo just incredibly weak for the remainder of his existence until he "catches up" with the War later on? I know this is all moot because that's not going to be how Chaletwo operates in the next revision but it is something I thought of recently that I was curious about.

If Chaletwo did this, then his power would be drained as if he never time-traveled at all, through the anchor. He'd still be at the power level he would be at after 5000 minutes in his own time. He wouldn't bounce back until he's lived the full nearly 1000 years.

1) without Mewtwo-guy changing your idea for what happens to Mewtwo and affecting everything else, do you have any idea of where the story might have gone after that?

This either happened after or probably had no influence on the Mitch-is-Chalenor reveal, so that would probably still have happened. I'm also pretty sure I'd been planning the ending with Mewtwo^2 being out long prior to this. So, as things were headed at that stage, we'd probably have had an ending where they just fight and take down Mewtwo^2 (well, I might still have ended up with Mark helping him resist, don't think that'd have been related), and Mitch joins them and turns out to be possessed by the ghost of Chalenor. But that'd just kind of be it. The Destroyer would be random giant pterodactyl or something. Nothing of note would have happened before the last War, and Mew's words would have been truthful.

2) you mentioned the mechanics of how Pokeballs and soul gems work regarding the War, but when it came to how it would work now that Chalenor's dead you said what you thought Mew would think, but not what you would think would happen. Any ideas on that front?

I said that maybe it would have, and that's what I'm inclined towards - Arceus's design actually being flawed is part of the point here, and if there was a real possibility of everyone escaping the War under these circumstances, I think that has a nice punch to it, both because of that and because of Mew's fierce motivated denial of the possibility. But, you know, if for some reason I later came up with something better, I'd do that.