now that i'm semi-working on Lusamine's museum post i was going to make a plurk about all the things that are super silly about Aether Paradise starting with how it's called a VLFS (very large floating structure)
IGNORING THAT......i still think Secret Lab A and Secret Lab B are really funny names for horrible locations where bad things happen (like enabling the player to read Faba's self-help blog)
klsjf;klhg you're right and you should say it...half the time i'm like "Lusamine's dumb Nihilego neurotoxin thing is a child-friendly allegory for substance abuse and how it can rip families apart" and the other half i'm like ahahaha delicious delicious lava lamp yolk
Silvie
: that's basically...exactly what Aether is isn't it kslgj;lkh....interestingly there's also a throwaway line from an Aether grunt where they talk about how they're rehabilitating and rehoming Pokemon that were "liberated" by Team Plasma. i feel like Pokemon Company somehow knew we'd be making the comparison lol
between this, her having a Pikachu (classic starter Pokemon), her having like a ton of Key Items related to legendary Pokemon...i like to think she is a Pokemon protagonist character gone wrong
god Mohn is SO funny....i have a very clear memory of being at a friend's house and explaining Lusamine and Mohn's whole tragic backstory and literally crying laughing while explaining Poke Pelago
also Kibi wait please expound on Mohn dumping Lusamine. DID HE HAVE HIS MEMORIES BACK?! DID HE SAY LISTEN...YOU GET TO KISS JELLYFISH AND I GET TO CARESS BEANS...ITS BETTER THIS WAY ?!?!
ok so in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon (which are alternate universe retellings of the original Sun and Moon games) there are some minor story and character motivation changes made for...reasons unknown. one difference is that Mohn and Lusamine actually get to reunite post-game in Ultra, while they didn't get to in vanilla Sun and Moon
Mohn still has amnesia and doesn't recognize her at all; he's just visiting Aether Paradise for funsies and runs into her and she's like HELLO???? ???? ??????
she is post-some character development at this point (in Ultra, she acknowledges that she was a terrible mother and vows to put distance between herself and her kids so they can have happy lives free of her trying to control them) so they just sort of...awkwardly talk about Pokemon conversation and then Lusamine lets him go
Gladion watches this happen but doesn't interfere and asks her something like "are you sure about leaving things like that?" and Lusamine says she's fine with it because Mohn seems happy as he is
and it's supposed to be a growth moment for her because like...thinking about other people for a change and learning to let things go? but also like.....MOHN PLEASE PAY YOUR CHILD SUPPORT
if you think to visit Aether around the end of Ultra you also get a lot of extra just Lusamine Is Depressed dialogue. like she spends a huge amount of time just standing around lamenting how terrible a person she is and how she doesn't know what to do with herself now that she knows how terrible she is. they wrote that dialogue FOR ME
i think i even found that secret book that talks about how a "Professor Mohn" disappeared during an Aether experiment...but i had forgotten his fucking name because he's a generational gimmick NPC
oh my god there was someone who frequented the Lusamine tag who i swear for like 5 YEARS after SM was released was convinced that they were related and not married
i had a Mohn version of that "this ugly son of a bitch is fucking super hot chicks and basically you are stupid" meme saved somewhere but now i can't find it and i'm distraught
THAT IS A WEIRD ELEMENT YEAH. new alt headcanon though. Maybe instead of being like that already,, Mohns hair was styled like that by Lusamine and he kept it. just woke up like man...idfk why my hair is like this but it's the beans knees!
i knew someone who headcanoned that Lusamine would completely redo her entire style periodically so she's actually the one who made herself look like him after he got beaned by the universe
now im just thinking about how lillie looks suspiciously like nihilego. was that ever actually explained. did lusamine just fashion her in the form of her beloved
i think Lillie's resemblance to Nihilego was entirely just due to Pokemon Company trying to push the "the human cast are all Ultra Beasts in disguise" red herring prior to release
they also threw out a tidbit of lore saying that "Nihilego has been shown acting like a young girl" and also that Nihilego is capable of some level of shape-shifting....neither of which wound up being relevant or implemented in the actual games
everyone thought the games would be about an alien invasion which...wasn't entirely wrong? but i am convinced Pokemon Company did this on purpose to throw everyone off
i think the fact that Lusamine more closely resembles Pheromosa than Nihilego is the biggest wrench in the "Lusamine purposefully dressed Lillie up like Nihilego" fanon
this whole thing is also extremely funny because Lusamine's resemblance to Pheromosa is SO STRONG that there is no way it wasn't done on purpose...but in canon she assumedly knows like nothing about it??? or at least doesn't care about it much
people have also pointed out that Lusamine's fused form with Nihilego bears a suspiciously strong resemblance to Necrozma of all things and Necrozma's role in Ultra showed that it is also capable of fusing with other things so i have to wonder if like SM's whole story got reworked at some point?
Wicke: why
Lusamine: he was like 95% of my impulse control