Project Chimera - The Attic Hypothesis
is a Fanfiction for the Pokémon franchise by Random Access Misery, better known on this site as the Aphid.
Atticus has lived in the same room his entire life. The facility is all he’s ever known. It isn’t that bad, really. He gets the morning and evening to himself, after all. But in the middle of the day, they come for him. The professors: Dogbane, Asphodel, Cypress, Nightshade, Heath, and many others. He calls them by their names. They call him 17c3.
Day after day, the scientists perform experiments on him. Horrible experiments that no human should ever be subjected to... except Atticus isn’t human. Not entirely. This has gone on for seventeen years with no end... until the day he almost drowned and had a bit of a meltdown. Dogbane feeling guilty and the others frustrated with a lack of progress, the professors did something they really shouldn’t have.
They gave him hope. And then, they tried to take it away. Needless to say, this did not work out well for them.
The Attic Hypothesis is ongoing, and is written by fellow troper the Aphid, so you know it’s gonna be terrible.
The Attic Hypothesis contains the following tropes:
- Abusive Parents: Professor Dogbane is the closest thing the recombinants have to a nice parent, and even is almost Hated by All.
- Adminisphere: The Board of Directors are a bit slow to get anything done.
- Antagonist in Mourning: Cypress after the death of his fiance.
- Bad Samaritan: Dogbane only recommended the room change so that he’d feel less guilty.
- Black Site: The facility is in a remote corner of a forest somewhere. The story doesn’t describe where; justified, since the protagonists don’t know either.
- Bright Is Not Good: Strongarm’s light grey skin is accentuated with yellow and magenta. Compare that to Drasil, whose color scheme is dark grey and blood red.
- The Bully: Asphodel. Even his name is evil.
- City with No Name: Actually, both the cities the recombinants visit are canon locations within the Pokeverse. It’s up to the reader to decipher based on the clues given.
- Comes Great Responsibility: Atticus had to grow up really fast when he broke the other recombinants out of their cells.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: The fight with Strongarm is a bit underwhelming. To be fair, he is just a Mook.
- Genius Bruiser: Drasil. Not really a genius, but fairly capable.
- Good Is Not Nice: The recombinants kill off any guards they encounter. To be fair, the guards would do the exact same... to most of the recombinants.
- Little Bit Beastly: All of the recombinants are human-Pokemon hybrids.
- My Master, Right or Wrong: The reason Dogbane works at the facility despite some conflict of interests.
- Next Sunday A.D.: The setting is intentionally ambiguous. Year two-thousand something.
- Only Shop in Town: Averted. In the video games, most towns only have one shop. The town Atticus and his friends visit has multiple, though they only go to one of them.
- Original Character: Every single one of the main characters so far. A few minor characters are canon to the Pokemon TV series.
- The Outside World: They were finally free. For now.
- Plucky Girl: Nina. All the more impressive considering her implied tragic backstory.
- Runaway Hideaway: A series of caves on the mountainside are the recombinants’ current home.
- Sealed Good in a Can: Ferrus. More a metaphorical can than a literal one.
- She Is Not My Girlfriend: We did not kiss!
- Tailor-Made Prison: Each cell is designed to hold a specific experiment. Guess what happens when one recombinant gets into another recombinants cell?
