*rollrollroll*

I'M NOT OBSESSED. But I've written two drabbles and now I have this bigger thing threatening.

So, in Tales of Symphonia, there are two parallel worlds which live in an introverted relationship: Mana can only flow to one of them at any given time, meaning there's always a "flourishing" world and a "declining" world. Both worlds have a Chosen One in every generation who, if the world is declining, goes on a journey of regeneration and, if successful, switches the alignment. Then their world prospers and the other world suffers, and then that world eventually succeeds in reversing the balance, ad infinitum.

There's a lot of journal RPs in the fandom where things are reversed: Tethe'alla declines and its Zelos is the one who goes on the world regeneration journey, instead of Colette, who canonically is the Chosen One from the declining Sylvarant.

I think it's bull. Zelos, raised in a declining world, wouldn't be the Zelos we know and love. Possibly more than anyone else in the entire cast, Zelos is a child of his surroundings. If he had been raised in other circumstances he would be a totally different person: not having been rich, pampered, beloved, revered, treated like a celebrity from birth, he wouldn't be the extravagant charming gorgeous playboy we're used to.

I want to do an AU. I want Zelos to do the journey. But I'm thinking of the game continuity up to the Tower of Salvation. In a continuity where the party reluctantly decides that if Colette has to die to regenerate the world, maybe Sylvarant is more important than Colette's life.


( This is the part where I write something. )