#slice of life stuff before my next art update | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

fountainpenguin · 3 years

Text

It’s an Update

Hello, Riddle here! I know I’ve been pretty quiet on Tumblr lately. Here’s an update on my situation:

I will definitely post more fanfic updates soon. I’ve picked at drafts, but haven’t posted anything lately. Here are the reasons why:

I got a new IRL job. It’s a good fit for me, but I have less free time than I used to, of course. It’s a job that involves writing lots of articles on a variety of topics, and I enjoy how every day is a little different

Most of my free time for the last year has gone towards my mod work at the Creature-Crossing ARPG, and to my personal CC writing. I’ve been working on new activities over there (my recent favorite being our seasonal familiar shows... I won first place in the summer show!) and I have a lot of plot plans that are coming together now. If you ever want to see my original characters and read my CC writing, you can find my character directory HERE and my Table of Contents HERE.

Once November 1st hits, I won’t be preparing for the release of any more CC activities or events. All future activity or event releases will be overseen by the other mods, and I’ll simply be someone they can ask for extra help if needed. This is a big change for a mod who spent the last 12 months working on new releases, and will give me back some of the free time my IRL job will eat

The Creature-Crossing admin (my boss) greenlit my request to bring an assistant on the mod team who will specifically help me with a lot of my behind-the-scenes work, such as data entry and organization. I’ve never had another mod who specifically helps me with the back end duties before, so that will be awesome. I will need to spend some time training them, but once they are official, that will take some of my workload off and allow me more free time for this blog and personal writing time.

===

Fanfic updates you can expect to see soon:

- Reedfilter Rules

- Frayed Knots

- Origin of the Pixies

- Debut of Factor It In, my Kid Math-centric “WordGirl” fanfic (Subtitled “Tales of a third-grade superhero in training”)... Yes I am still in love with this idiot boy, expect lots of doodle pages soon

- The 130 Prompts project is on a slow-burn writing schedule... I’ll write for it when I want to, but I mostly want to focus on Origin and Knots this year.

Further info below the cut. There is more info about non-Fairly OddParents ‘fics in here too (under “non-FOP fanfics”), so if you’re looking forward to Mario World or “WordGirl” ‘fics from me, give this a click so you know what’s coming!

So, what does this update mean for your fanfics?

They’ll be active again soon! I’ve been picking at them behind the scenes, trying to build up a buffer. In an ideal world, I would love to release a new chapter for SOMETHING every Friday. I doubt this will be possible, but it’s something I would love to work towards in the future. Realistically, you can probably expect some kind of fanfic update once every two Fridays (two updates per month).

There might be some Fridays where posting an update is not possible. Instead, I’ll make a post about what progress I made instead. In the past, I often overworked myself to get a chapter out in time for my old deadline. I will not be doing that anymore, but will instead hold myself to a goal of “Make progress on something every week.”

In the best ideal world, I would love to post one FOP fanfic update per week and one non-FOP fanfic update per week. This is not likely to happen for a long, long time, but that would be the dream.

Here are the things I most likely worked on if there is no fanfic update:

- A fanfic chapter draft that needs more time

- A sideblog profile

- A Toyhouse profile for personal characters

- IRL work or mod work may have kept me busy this week

- Creature-Crossing writing... I will try to prioritize my fanfics more, but my CC writing is still important to me and I will be working on it in a lot of my free time too. At the moment, I have a hard deadline of December 14th that I need to meet if I want to release huge plot drama on the day that it happens in canon. I’ve been building up to this for a long time, so I’m really excited about that.

I currently have summer or autumn 2022 planned as the “finale” for the majority of my plot to explode. I will be hosting a member-run event in Creature-Crossing that will last for two months, so a lot of my time from January until the event’s release will be spent doing event prep. Once the event ends, my story content will mostly be a “return to slice of life.” Stories will be more casual one-offs as characters grow, live their lives, and start their own families. Hitting seasonal deadlines for plot will no longer be so important. I’ll be giving Creature-Crossing work less attention after that, and much more attention to my fanfics.

- I may not have a fanfic chapter out each week, but I WILL post a note every Friday to let you know what I have been doing with my time. You’ll see me around. Feel free to send Asks and talk!

===

What non-FOP fanfics would you like to work on?

For literal years, I’ve been claiming I want to post Mario World fanfics. This is still something I want to do. I tag Mario World posts as “mushrooms and more.” I’ve already done a lot of worldbuilding, I have thousands of words of content written for this fandom... I just haven’t posted any of it. I hope to do this soon.

- “WordGirl” fanfics are prioritized over Mario World fanfics. After I finish my first “WordGirl” multi-chapter, I will probably be ready to post my Mario World ‘fics. I may possibly post some Mario World one-shots in between other fanfic updates. Might take another year or more before I touch Mario stuff unless there’s high interest in seeing it sooner?

I also really want to write some WordGirl ‘fics and get more involved with the fandom community. I’ve been building headcanons and lore for this show ever since I was a kid, and I have multiple ‘fics for this fandom that I want to write.

- “AlgoRhythm” is a ‘fic I have already posted on FFN and AO3, about WordGirl introducing Kid Math to the villains in town

- 28 Cities is a ‘fic I started about Rhyme and Reason before they arrived in Fair City. I put it on hiatus since it didn’t seem like anyone was interested, but I’m willing to post more for it if there is interest in it now that years have passed and I’ve gotten more followers who like WordGirl. I have a lot of worldbuilding and plot I never shared for it

- Factor It In is a ‘fic I’ve been working for a while that parallels the official show from the moment Kid Math arrives in town. It focuses on Rex’s struggle to adjust to this world as a child coming into his superpowers for the first time (Y’know, the whole “superheroes don’t have powers when they’re on their home planets” thing), his struggle to adapt to the social world of a non-logical planet, and Becky’s struggle to help him become accustomed to Earth and learn to share it with her as well. If the episode “Kid Math” was a full-length novel about Rex’s arrival and character development, that’s what this story is. This is the highest priority of all my non-FOP ‘fics... I’ve had a cover image made for 6 months and even though I tried setting it aside, I’ve always been super inspired to write for it. If I felt like it would be a good idea to commit to weekly updates alongside my FOP updates, I would, haha.

- I have two one-shot WIPs called “Squishy Feelings” and “A Little Ambiguity”, one of them focusing on Becky and Rex talking about the events of “Rhyme and Reason” and what it means for Rex’s secret identity, and the latter being a future ‘fic showing WordGirl and Kid Math dealing with life 10 to 15 years down the road. I’ll probably post the latter, not sure yet on the former.

- If desired, I may make a WordGirl specific sideblog where I post lore, answer Asks, post character profiles [smaller than my FOP sideblog ones], and mention fanfic updates. If you would be interested in this, feel free to send me an Ask requesting I do this. If there’s not interest, I’ll just keep my WordGirl stuff on the main blog.

- I’d like to get more involved in the WordGirl community, so I’ll probably post more content and reblog more art and headcanons

I also have a handful of miscellaneous ideas I might follow through with. I’d like to write at least one “TUFF Puppy” fanfic so I can say I did. In a perfect world I would like to finish the two “Danny Phantom” and “Bunsen Is a Beast” fanfics I started because... I just kind of want to dip my toe in each of the Hartman shows once since I already went through all the effort of worldbuilding for them to make them canon in a single Hartman show universe. “ChalkZone” is another show I adore and might touch someday (You may recall I have a full outline planned for an FOP/ChalkZone crossover ‘fic called “Dust to Dust”).

Will I write all of these things? Maybe not. I have no idea if I want to spend the next 10+ years writing fanfics, or if I’ll simply be done with all misc. fanfics immediately once I decide to be done with my main ‘fics. I definitely intend to write for a few more years and finish my main ‘fics, but I might not go through with some less popular side ‘fics if life is getting busy for me.

===

What is the posting schedule for FOP ‘fics?

Reedfilter Rules, Frayed Knots, Origin of the Pixies, the 130 Prompts project, and “Come What May” are all high priority FOP writings. I will swap between them depending on my mood that week.

Here are some other ‘fics I want to work on.

- If you like, you can send me Asks requesting I work on a specific story above the rest. I will try to prioritize whichever stories interest you guys most.

Snips and Snails is a ‘fic I started and posted the first chapter for years ago. I’m not sure when I will get back to it, as I ran into some writer’s block. It’s still on tentative hiatus for now..... Possibly forever, though I hope it isn’t forever since it’s only supposed to be, like, five more chapters.

Pink and Gray is on official hiatus. I actually have a lot written for it, but I know it’s a little weird to put so much time and energy into Gary and Betty content when... well, let’s be honest: they’re my niche favorites and most of you probably don’t care. So, I am lifting my usual “no spoilers” policy from my Ask Box. If you would like to ask about my Gary and Betty backstory headcanons, feel free. I will tag my replies as “ridwriting spoilers” for anyone who wants to blacklist the tag, and spoilers will be hidden under a Read More line.

I’d like to return to this story someday because there are tons of things I like about it (ranging from Betty’s secret tattoos to Gary’s plot drama with his mom to the background drama between Talon and Anti-Cosmo, but I always feel immense pressure to make it extra cool to make up for the fact these are weird side characters, so... it’s officially at the bottom of the priority pile. Once Talon shows up in Frayed Knots and readers understand who he is and why he exists, I’ll consider coming back to it.

Identity Theft is a story about Foop and his time in the alternate dimension he was flung into following the episode “Playdate of Doom.” To put it short, Foop was abused by alternate versions of his parents in this dimension and he witnessed some pretty intense stuff, including the death of the alt version of himself who existed in that reality. The trauma he experienced resulted in his alternate personality, Hiccup. Foop himself has very few memories of what happened, as Hiccup has all of those memories. This story is canon in my works, and it is regularly referred to during the 130 Prompts as part of Foop’s backstory. It’s my highest priority side story to work on.

Along the Cherry Lane is a 20-chapter work focusing on the lives of the main human cast from age 11 to age 30, with one chapter showing a snippet of their lives each year. You see Timmy raising Tommy and Tammy in this ‘fic, and it ends with them receiving godparents. Since the 130 Prompts don’t give humans much attention, this ‘fic does. You’ll probably see it debut two years from now, closer to when the 130 Prompts is ready to talk more about humans.

If this becomes a popular ‘fic of mine, I’ll probably write a sequel or continue it past Chapter 30 and write about Tammy and Tommy living with fairies, but I won’t if there’s no interest in that.

Little Imperfections is a Pixie AU ‘fic of mine about what life would be like in a universe where the Fairies are even more like insects than I play them as during my main works (where I already play them as semi-similar to insects). In this world, the Head Pixie is a figurehead whose duty is to reproduce for the sake of the colony and do nothing else, and he’s bored out of his mind until he befriends Sanderson, who introduces him to music. It’s extremely self-indulgent and silly because I like Pixies.

Francis is a multi-chapter ‘fic about bully Francis’s life getting yet another fairy godparent in a long string of memory wipes and godparents. It takes place during the canon series, and when you see an “orange fairy” mentioned in some of my writings, it’s usually referring to this fairy. His name is Rover and I occasionally post art of him. I feel like I can’t truly call myself an FOP fanfic writer until I actually write about a godkid and their godparents, haha...

Hawthorn Haven is a side ‘fic that will be posted towards the end of the 130 Prompts, as it veers off from the prompts in its own self-contained multi-chapter story. It will be approximately the length of “Baby, You’re a Rich Man.”

Acacia Arcadia is a far-past ‘fic detailing the fall of the ancient fae, the imprisonment of the nature spirits, the rise and fall of the chimera nation, the fall of the Martian genies, and the early days of the cloudlands. This is close to the bottom of the priority pile... It’s something I spend time on for personal reference to ensure accuracy in my other ‘fics, but it’s probably not what you guys came here to read.

AA has a bunch of characters in it that you might vaguely recognize, such as Ezekiel Whimsifinado, Evadne, Ione, Two Feathers, Rho, and Sablewood (If you’re astute, you might recall cloudland legends and landmarks in modern day that refer back to these characters). There are also a lot of characters who were reincarnated as Anti-Fairies, in accordance to traditional Anti-Fairy beliefs; Foop for example exists as a main character in one of his past lives, and you’ll see a hint dropped about each of his lives in the first chapter of Identity Theft. My tentative plan is to use Foop’s past lives as my central characters, following the events of each part of the timeline until he gets killed and reincarnates at a later point of the timeline.

I also keep some one-shots in a file I call Mixed Nuts and I may possibly post them someday (they’re mostly just one-shots of main cast characters I do to get a feel for their personalities, I have some Wanda and Cupid in here). @zachbrightside and I are also working on a collab ‘fic called Like a House On Fire that shows more of Timmy and Chloe’s lives during Season 10 (especially around the time of “Which Is Wish?”) No news on a release date for that yet.

As I’ve said before, once all my other FOP works are complete, I will write Devil’s Backbone, which is my far-future ‘fic and the finale of my FOP writing. I do not plan to write any more FOP content after that story is finished, as I expect to have all other FOP projects done by then.

- Devil’s Backbone is a finale 'fic, so all worldbuilding from all stories is fair game to blend together, and it’s highly recommended you read everything else first. This story has been outlined since 2016, and it might not be published for another 10 years... Who knows! But it’s something I always work towards as a concrete endgame goal.

- If something serious comes up in my life and I officially decide I don’t want to write this story, I will post the outline for it. The link to this draft is included with all the other Google Docs links I have in a far-future queued post unveiling my WIPs in case I unexpectedly die and you still want to know how my stories would have gone, so you’ll get access to this story eventually even if I die young. Yes, share access is turned on for them all and I do take extra careful measures to be sure that post doesn’t get posted early skldfj

===

What is the plan for the main blog?

Every Friday, I will post either a fanfic chapter or a progress update. You can blacklist the tag “ridlife” if you do not want to see the progress updates on your dashboard. Fanfic updates will not have the “ridlife” tag, so you will not be blocking them.

During the rest of the week, I might post doodles, reblogs, or general comments. Basically... you’ll see the blog become active again. Feel free to send in Asks about my worldbuilding and thoughts on fanfic characters.

@fountainpenguin is my personal blog, so you will see non-fandom things on here sometimes

@riddledeep is my FOP-exclusive sideblog. It contains all my lore notes and goes into a ton of depth, more than my fanfics give in one breath

===

What does this mean for the Riddledeep sideblog?

I really want to go back and edit those character profiles that were posted early by mistake. The reason they were queued is because if I turned them into drafts, they would have been buried all the way at the beginning of my draft collection, and I have many, many drafts saved. There are no page numbers to navigate quickly through the draft collection, so I would have to click through each page one by one if I ever wanted to look at them. I hated doing this, which is why I kept my posts queued.

I was regularly updating the queue deadlines, trying to keep things in the order I wanted to post them in, but Tumblr made a change to the way drafts are dated and it kept throwing off my system. My inability to remember when my queued things would post combined with my busy schedule led to some profiles being posted early and incomplete. I want to fix these.

Over a year ago, my good friend Vulpix150 helped me finalize my designs for the Aos Sí and Daoine Sith. I’ve been sitting on that art in secret for a while, and at some point I plan to post it on the sideblog and talk more about that lore.

Updating fanfics is my higher priority (and it was the priority my followers voted for when I asked you to send votes to my Ask Box a while back). So, I will usually spend my free time working on fanfics unless I need a break from them and want to work on sideblog profiles instead. Thank you for your patience!

===

TL;DR

I’m posting fanfics again soon. I’m going to take a more relaxed approach to posting them. I’m going to post more of what I want to post and what I feel motivated to post, not always a main ‘fic update. If I’m not “feeling it” when working on a draft, then I’ll set it aside for a while unless I know my followers and readers have high interest in the next chapter of that story. I always write for me first, but if I know there are other people who care a lot about a story, then of course I want to write it for you too!

I’m going to embrace my decade-long love for WordGirl and post more ‘fics and art or this fandom. I’ve always been a little shy about doing this, but I’m ready to make it an official fandom on my main blog (unless there are lots of requests for WordGirl things to be contained in their own sideblog). I will be posting the first chapter for a ‘fic called Factor It In very soon. Love my easily frustrated alien kiddos having a long day.

I am working on Creature-Crossing stuff too, and will be especially busy in November and December. Updates will be slow for a few months, but I hope to find my groove and a good pace soon.

Each Friday, I will post either a fanfic update or a mention of what I am working on. I will be checking in on Tumblr regularly. Feel free to talk! I much prefer you send messages to my Ask Box, not my private messenger, please <3

===

Is there a specific story of mine you like and want more updates for?

Asks and reviews help me know which ‘fics people are enjoying. I plan to keep writing ‘fics no matter what, but I definitely give more time to the ‘fics that get more attention (and I have been spending so much time writing for Creature-Crossing because that’s where the attention was coming from)

It’s easy to stay motivated and get the next part of a story out soon if I know that people like it. It’s always harder if you feel like people are silently judging you and ignoring your posts. So, let me know what you’re interested in. And if you only leave Likes or Favorites instead of asks and reviews, that’s okay too! Thank you for interacting anyway and enjoying my work.

Thanks for reading!

#WordGirl #Factor It In #Kid Math #FAIRIES!#ridlife #riddleverse mention #ridwriting #Mushrooms and more #Satirical vocab alien child show #Frayed Knots #130 Prompts #Origin of the Pixies #Pink and Gray #Acacia Arcadia #Devil's Backbone #Hawthorn Haven #Along the Cherry Lane

10 notes · View notes

sharpace · 2 years

Text

UPDATE

Hello, all! So a few updates for you all -

First, I’m reaching the end of my queue of prepared pieces so there’s going to be a dip in quality stuff while I work on them again.

Second, I put up a little poll on Twitter on what to develop next and majority went to creating Gamer!AU comics! So I’m working on small slice of life comics which is, admittedly, a genre I’ve wanted to do for a while and ho ho this sort of fell in my lap. Comics do take some time though and I’m planning on making a bunch at once quickly to spread out and give myself lead for the larger comics I have on the list. I’m also thinking of having them have an early release on my Ko-fi for $5 and then release them to the public a week later. Trying something new!! Bare with me!

Third, in the meantime before those comics start rolling out, I’m going to keep posting doodles and the illustrative pieces/tiny comics I’ve had pinned for a while to help hold fast. This year I’m trying to do better about spreading content out so I don’t burrow myself away for months at a time before resurfacing and posting everything at once.

And then work is going to be pretty busy in April so the queue will be most important! So you’ll likely see me “present” but not really around until late at night.

And also THANK YOU!! Holy moly I was not expecting everyone to love Gamer!AU as much as I am. It’s like I set up my cozy little home to relax and unwind from the world and then had a few people go “Oh hey, can I come in? It’s raining over here too.” Of course! Everyone is welcome! And now it’s a tavern party. I’m so so grateful for all the wonderful fan art, headcanons, and fan fics I’m getting. Have FUN and keep having FUN!

Thanks everyone!!!

#update

6 notes · View notes

petrichxxr · 3 years

Text

fateful coincidence [2] | l.jh

A/N: here I am yet again wondering if people still read the things I write... I started this series a year ago (I think) and finally have gotten around to updating it...

Word Count: 12,552

Genre: chaebol/heir!au, supernatural elements/deal with the devil, slice of life, romance (slow burn/soulmates)

Warnings: reader (fem) x lee jooheon (monsta x) pairing, mature/suggestive themes, language

Summary: Lee Jooheon is a well-known heir to a global hotel conglomerate, and is next in line to take over the family business. You’re a journalist, aspiring for more, but barely managing to pay your own bills at the end of the month. The two of you are from entirely different worlds, yet fate somehow tangles your threads, and Jooheon seems to know an intriguing amount more about you than he lets on.

You’re forgetting things.

Like pockets of memory, it starts off small. Miniscule things throughout the day that slowly progress into more important issues. There are holes, you reach in and grasp for something that you know should be there, but nothing comes out. It’s an irritating feeling—to know that something is misplaced, forgotten, but to be unable to identify what it is. It feels as if it’s only gotten worse since the night of the hotel opening, but a part of you is suddenly aware that it’s been going on for much longer than that.

It’s only after the event, waking up the next day with the taste of alcohol lingering, that you wonder how serious your memory displacement might be—because you realize, waking up, that it’s not even the alcohol that’s making you forget. Yet despite that, you still push everything down. You lock it and the dashing Lee Jooheon away in the depths of your mind, forcefully making yourself forget this one thing. You didn’t have the time to keep constantly turning his words over in your head, attempting to sort through the shrouded mystery that they presented. Not just that, but he was from a completely separate world—even if you allowed yourself time to do just that, he was still untouchable.

Plus, you didn’t want to relive every single detail as you described the event to Kihyun. There were some important factors that could be conveniently left out—he had refused to talk to you for almost three days, annoyed you’d hung up on him and given him the cold shoulder that day. Despite having a job to do. But you were just as irritated in his behavior and lack of thoughtfulness the day of the event when you’d called out of work. He hadn’t bothered to check on you at all, and you had needed to get to your job. It was as simple as that, but he’d taken it out of proportion and was being childish.

His childish behavior had dropped after the three days—after he seemed satisfied he’d gotten whatever point he was attempting to make (there was none) across, and after you got some decent recognition from Minhyuk due to the article you’d written. You tried not to consider the fact that it could have been some of Jooheon’s doing that the piece was performing so well, another thought you pushed out of your mind and locked away.

After the hype of everything between the event and article died down, your daily routine fell back into place. Kihyun was back to his normal blunt best friend act, Minhyuk was as bossy as ever and overworked you, and your daily headaches returned.

The daily headaches. You wonder if it has anything to do with your missing pockets of memory.

“Are you forgetting anything?” Kihyun’s voice suddenly breaks through the slight throbbing just beyond your skull, silencing the thoughts that were just about to make everything worse.

You glance up from your suitcase to see him entering your room, eyes scanning over the piece of paper you’d typed up. A gray cloud of fluff, fondly known to be your cat Silas, expertly weaves his way through Kihyun’s feet. Whenever he did that to you, you’d trip and fall—yet for some reason, he and Kihyun had it down to an art. No matter how much Kihyun multitasked, he was always used to the feline being just underfoot.

Silas breaks apart from Kihyun and trots across your bedroom to you. “Hey, bub.” Smiling, you reach out and give the cat a few chin scratches. Looking up to Kihyun, you add, “I don’t think so. You’ve taken care of him before though, so it shouldn’t be too difficult.”

Kihyun frowns. “Not for this extended length of time, though. Does he get separation anxiety?”

“With how much I work and am away from home, anyway? Doubtful. But who knows, he may miss my presence. Just sleep over here. I have food that’ll go bad and you still have a roommate.”

“True. Hyungwon just sleeps, anyway. It’s not like he’ll really notice I’m gone.” Kihyun lowers the paper of instructions for caring for the flat and Silas while you’re gone on your trip, eyeing you. “Are you going to get that checked out, by the way?”

You practically scramble to lower your hands from your neck, realizing Kihyun had spotted you attempting to massage away some of the pain throbbing at the base of your nape. He was always so watchful, it was almost annoying. You understood the headaches were something to be concerned over, but he didn’t have to nitpick so much.

“It’s not really a work trip, nor a leisure trip. I’ll see if I have time.”

“Still, you’ll be visiting home while you’re there. You may as well fit in a doctor’s appointment,” Kihyun pointed out, giving the paper in his hand a small wave. “Plus, you’re there a little over a week. Family matters to take care of or not, you’ll have plenty of time. Make sure to get some rest, too. Maybe you just need some decent sleep.”

You sigh. “Yes, mother, I’ll try to.”

The sound of Kihyun’s scoff immediately follows, along with his footsteps. Silas, who had been sprawled out on the floor this entire time, scurries away at the sudden weight reverberating across the floor that startles him out of his catnap.

“Anyway, did you forget anything?” Kihyun asks once more, eyeing your open suitcase in front of you.

You glance back at your suitcase, a little haphazard with the contents but sorted and all together nonetheless—you just had to figure out how to make everything fit between your checked and carry on baggage—and shake your head. “No, I think I’m good. If I do forget anything, at least I’m going home. There’s usually spare stuff available, or I can just buy it if it’s something small.”

Kihyun frowns. “You were literally just complaining a few weeks ago about having to spend money on a dress, and now you’re saying you can just buy what you need.”

“Well, I figure if I forget anything, it’ll be something cheap like shampoo,” you cut him a look, rolling your eyes. Not a gown, you want to say. “Anyway, let’s get some sleep. Flight leaves at two in the morning, and I’m sure that’s going to be a lovely time waking up for the both of us.”

If possible, Kihyun’s frown deepens. As quickly as you possibly can without making any mistakes, you finish organizing your belongings between the luggage and close everything up, creating a pile to easily collect upon your departure. Kihyun bids a soft goodnight and makes his way back to the makeshift bed he’d created in your living room. You were already dreading the sixteen hour time difference and having to reset your internal clock for your visit to the States. At least all Kihyun had to do was wake up at an almost-unholy hour of the night to drop you off at the airport, then return to home and bed. You hoped sleep would come easily to you on the plane—because as the lights in your apartment are shut off and you close your eyes, the pounding of your headache seems to increase and rear its ugly head in full force—making sleep almost impossible for the five or six hours ahead of you.

—

Sleep comes, at some point—though not easily. But as long as it took to come, it ends in an even shorter amount of time. When you finally do fall asleep, it feels as though only a few moments pass before your alarm begins to go off. You groan, your head still pounding, and roll over to bury yourself further under your covers. The blaring song of your alarm does nothing to ease the throbbing within your skull, and you wonder how you’re supposed to get into an airplane and make the trip. Will the climb in altitude make your head hurt worse?

It’s Kihyun’s groaning from the other room, followed by his annoyed stomps—that finally wakes you. He silences your phone alarm before abruptly pulling your covers off you, making you groan again.

“Wake up,” Kihyun orders, and you feel your shoulder shoved at. “You don’t want to be late.”

“I don’t want to be at all…” Comes your sleepily mumbled reply.

“We are not having an existential crisis at twelve in the morning. Get up. I will not hesitate to drag you out of bed,” Kihyun warns. “And your apartment floors are wood.”

Letting out a sigh, you push yourself into a sitting position. Giving your eyes a rub, applying a slight pressure in hopes to ward away the throbbing headache, you drop your hands then blink a few times and allow your sight to adjust to the darkness of your bedroom.

“You still have a headache?” You see Kihyun frown in the dark.

“Why are you surprised? It’s a constant thing nowadays,” you sigh once more, pushing yourself to the edge of the bed. “Plus, it took forever to fall asleep. I’ll just sleep on the plane, though. Do you mind packing the car and I’ll get ready?”

You don’t really wait for Kihyun to answer, knowing he’ll do so anyway without you having asked, moving around to collect the clothes you’d set out the evening before and heading to the bathroom. One of Kihyun’s pet peeves was being tardy, and while you lived close enough to the airport that it wasn’t a huge deal to leave a little later—it had been Kihyun’s idea to at least get there an hour and a half earlier than your flight. Which honestly made sense on any normal occasion, but the airport was sure to be a bit on the dead side considering the time of night.

It doesn’t take you long to get ready. Your warm morning shower does nothing to ease the tension in your head—a last ditch effort you had hoped might work. By the time you’ve finished a very shortened version of your morning routine brushing your teeth, drying your hair, and applying your facial care—Kihyun already has the car packed and is pouring some food into Silas’ bowl, before pulling a hoodie on and getting ready himself. You gather the last of your toiletry items that need to be packed, and when the two of you head downstairs and you bid your farewell to your beloved feline, you stuff your toiletry bag into the top zipper of your luggage.

Kihyun was right to urge you to leave earlier rather than later. Despite the distance to the airport, there’s a decent amount of midnight traffic due to it being a weekend. You close your eyes as he drives, the blinding city and street lights glaring against the glass window of the car and burning your pupils and head. Kihyun’s smooth operation of the vehicle makes it easy to doze off a couple of times before you arrive. While the traffic may have been on the heavier side, you still make it early, and with plenty of time to spare.

“Make sure to tell me when you land,” Kihyun orders as he helps pull your bags out of the trunk of the car.

“I will.” You’d be sure not to have a repeat of the hotel opening night, where he hadn’t checked in on you when you’d called out, and out of spite you hadn’t bothered to reach out to him. “Make sure you send me plenty of photos of Silas while I’m gone.”

“He’ll be fine, he’s a cat.”

You jut out your bottom lip into a pout. “That’s not what I said.”

Kihyun scoffs, but reaches up to pat your head gently. “I’ll send you photos. Please try to see if you can get into a doctor while you’re there.”

“You’re going to keep pushing that, aren’t you?”

“As much as I possibly can,” Kihyun lowers his hand to give you a one-armed hug. “I’m going to miss pestering you. I don’t think we’ve been separated for a week since we met in college.”

“You could just say you’re going to miss me like a normal person would.”

“There’s no fun in that though.” Kihyun grins down at you, before nodding towards the entrance to your gate.

Giving a small wave, you gather your luggage and head inside. In total, it takes about thirty minutes to get your bag checked, get yourself checked in for your flight, and to go through security. Just as you’d suspected, the airport is practically dead at this hour and the lines are nonexistent. However, the traffic had been enough to make a dent in the time, and you thankfully don’t have long to wait before they start calling for your gate to board. There’s exactly enough time to grab a quick pastry from a nearby coffee shop that happened to be open before making your way onto the plane when your seat section is called.

You board the plane, stow your carryon in the overhead compartment, and then claim your seat and fasten your seatbelt. Having flown before, you stick your earbuds in your ears—figuring you’ll listen to the flight attendants’ usual spiel when the time came—but more eager to make yourself comfortable and attempt some more sleep as quickly and as soon as possible. Especially since you’d been lucky enough to snag an unclaimed window seat. This meant you were tucked away in your own little back corner, hopefully left alone for the sixteen hours ahead by whoever decided to take up being your seat partner.

Hopefully left alone was too much along the lines of wishful thinking.

As you stare out the window, watching workers move about below in the dark as they load and prep the plane for takeoff—you suddenly feel an uncomfortable tug on the cord of your earbud, before it’s pulled straight from your ear. You can’t help but grimace, feeling the bud tug at one of your many piercings.

“What the hell—”

Just as you speak up, a voice that’s all too familiar asks, simultaneously, “What are you listening to?”

You blanch as you turn in your seat, coming face to face with none other than Lee Jooheon. He quirks a brow at you, tilting his head to the side as he inserts your stolen earbud into his own ear. You can just barely make out the dimple impressions on his cheeks, his mouth pressed into something along the lines of a smile suppressing an amused smirk.

“How—” The word falls from your lips, empty and confused. How, what? You wonder. How did he get here? How was he on the same flight as you? How did he recognize you? Not that you’d chosen to sit too far towards the back, honestly—anyone walking into the plane after just boarding could easily recognize a familiar face with an empty seat next to them. You liked sitting toward the front-middle of planes when traveling; apparently, in this case, that was your downfall.

“Business trip,” Jooheon just shrugs, replying simply. “Why didn’t you ever text me that night?”

You turn away from him, pursing your lips. Text him? You briefly remembered him handing you a business card, though couldn’t remember where it had slipped off to—too many drinks made it difficult to keep track of something that small. He’d only asked for you to notify him you got home safe, anyway, so what was the big deal? His bodyguard that had escorted you home surely passed that bit of info along to him.

Had he—a possible multimillion dollar heir—really expected you to text him, unannounced? And why would he expect such a thing?

Copying his shrug, you glance away from him. “I lost your business card.”

It wasn’t a lie. As much as you wanted to admit, it was easy to forget the business card and it’s whereabouts. It was easy to forget the possibility of texting him as he’d asked. With the alcohol that had coursed through you, it was easy to forget that entire night. That was something that would probably irk him if you did choose to admit it. However, what wasn’t easy to forget were his words that randomly popped into your mind and turned over in your head, playing like a broken record—Do you really not remember me?

That, on the contrary, was something that irked you.

What was there to remember? Had you really forgotten something? It was a question that burned into your mind, day and night, even when you attempted to suppress all thoughts of him. You tried not to allow yourself to think of the events of that day, or him. While the former was fairly easy, there was something about Jooheon himself that made the latter next to impossible. There was no way for you to fight off the burning curiosity he’d created, as much as you tried. You could forget everything but him and his mysterious words.

“Well, we can fix that,” Jooheon’s reply doesn’t miss a beat. Before you even have a chance to react to his words, you feel your unlocked phone slip through your fingers and out of your grasp.

“H-Hey—”

But Jooheon is paying no mind to your protest, and you watch as he swipes out of the Spotify app on your phone to open the dialing screen. His fingers glide across your screen as he inputs his number. He even goes a step further as to open your messages and start a new text to himself—ensuring he also had your number.

As he hands your phone back to you, you frown, feeling your jaw tense. You glance down at the screen briefly, which he’d returned to your playlist, before looking back up at him. What would he do if you blatantly deleted his phone number? A part of you felt spiteful enough to do so just for the mere fact that he had taken your phone without asking and entered his number. It’s fine, I’ll just delete his number after the flight, you decide. Even if he has my number, I can just block him.

Whatever kind of coincidence this was—it was just that. A coincidence. Nothing more would amount after this. It was rather unlucky you were stuck here for sixteen hours with the given circumstances, but you reminded yourself that this wouldn’t be happening again, and to just suffer through it for now. But there was a small part of you that wasn’t quite convinced it was merely just a coincidence, like you hoped… his words from the hotel opening night, like a broken record, continued to replay in your mind. You couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something missing. Something you really had forgotten.

“I like this song,” Jooheon comments off-hand, and you only hum in response, finally turning away. It would be an understatement to say you weren’t really in the mood to engage him. Maybe he’d only spoken up and said that because you’d been staring for so long, taking your gaze the wrong way. Luckily, he doesn’t seem to be completely lacking in common sense. Jooheon doesn’t push for more of a reply out of you, allowing the two of you to sit in silence as the rest of the flight occupants take their seats.

It’s almost more unnerving to sit next to Jooheon without saying anything. During the hotel night, before things had gotten weird with what he’d muttered, you two had been able to freely talk without much difficulty. There was something about his energy that made it almost comfortable, yet invigorating, to be in his presence at that time. But now the invigoration has twisted and warped into an unnerving feeling. For the most part, you feel on edge—yet there’s still a high energy, a curiosity, that sparks between you. While the flight attendants review the usual plane and flying regulations, you find yourself glancing at Jooheon. The music still plays between the two of you, having not reclaimed your earbud and he having not offered to return it.

Despite your better judgement, you’re aware of the way that the wire of the headphones rests against his shoulders, and how in normal, casual clothes—he’s actually quite broad. It’s something you feel like you should have noticed when he was dressed to the nines in a suit, yet so many suit jackets have padding you weren’t actually sure you would have trusted it. But in the simple hoodie he was wearing, you can see the breadth of his shoulders, and you’re positive it’s not because it’s oversized. He looks so simple, the outfit rounded together with some black sweatpants and a white shirt peeking out from underneath the hooded sweatshirt. So simple, and so unlike an heir or someone of his financial status. You try to ignore the fact that your brain keeps yelling at you that he looks good. It’s not important right now—or right ever, actually. Why did your mind feel the need to supply such an observation?

You’re about to pull your gaze away from your attention on Jooheon, when you notice something as you do so—where his hand lays on the armrest, his finger taps incessantly. The tapping seems to pick up speed, even becoming more sporadic, as you feel the plane beneath you pick up speed with the takeoff. For a moment, you lose yourself in the background noise of his tapping—the tiny sound overtaking your senses and demanding your focus, a rhythmic and hypnotic thing. Don’t worry about him, you tell yourself. But there’s a part of your mind that is just too curious.

“Are you okay?” You suddenly ask, dragging your eyes away from his fingers. The action seems to feel as though it takes slower than it should.

“Huh?” Jooheon blinks at you in surprise, having not expected you to acknowledge him for the rest of the flight. It’s then that he realizes what he’s doing, and he stills his hand. “Yeah, fine.”

But when you glance down, you notice the way he grips the armrest instead—forcing his muscles to be still. You think he might start vibrating with the anxiety.

“Are you sure?”

Jooheon nods, though the action is terse. “I just don’t like flying.”

“Don’t you have to do it a lot, though?” You ask, surprised. He was the heir to an international hotel chain. Wasn’t he meant to do a lot of flying? Plus, he could be considered a businessman… the idea of him not liking flying and being used to planes confuses you.

“I—” Jooheon starts, though his words are immediately cut off as the plane picks up, pulling itself off the ground as it officially takes off. Jooheon intakes his breath sharply, the takeoff pushing both of you back against your seats. It’s not a rough takeoff, per se, but you’d definitely had smoother.

Despite that, Jooheon isn’t handling it well. Something within you pulls toward him—an innate need to protect that you can't quite explain. It’s like a little tiny flame, you feel it stir within you and you can’t help but want to feed it. The combination of his intake of breath, and the way his jaw clenches when he closes his eyes, causes you to reach out without thinking—practically prying his hand off the armrest to take hold of it.

You wrap your hand around his, giving a reassuring squeeze.

Jooheon is surprised by the contact—enough so he stills for a moment, opening his eyes to peer down at your hands in curiosity—before he’s caught by surprise by something else. It’s in that moment that your hand folds around his, skin touching skin and your warmth flooding into his system through shared palms—entwining itself around every nerve—that everything stills. The sensation of everything within him simply quieting—the black, reverberating anxiety that shook at his core like a thunderous stormcloud, and the way his stomach twisted with nausea at every jerky movement the plane made. But it wasn’t just that, it was everything from that to standard stresses, a whirlwind of things that needed to be done for work, and the tormenting voices he often had to deal with within his own mind—they all just silence at your touch.

He finds his gaze locked on your hands, confused and curious all at the same time. He’d never had this happen before. Was this something that was supposed to happen? Even if he wanted to, Jooheon feels as though he’s unable to pull away from the warmth there. Like your palms are magnetized, connected, and something he shouldn’t pull apart. There was a warmth just beneath his hand, where his skin met your skin, that he could feel building like a little fire. But instead of overtaking everything in the way that a wildfire might, Jooheon finds the warmth to be soothing. Comforting, like a warm drink that fills you up—or perhaps closer to the sensation of sinking into the warm water of a bathtub. The silence within him is a welcome sensation that he’d personally like to drown himself in, if only to escape reality for just a little bit and stay suspended where he was in that strange sensation of lulled time.

For you, the skin to skin contact with Jooheon is scalding. You immediately feel that electricity you’d felt the night of the hotel opening shoot across every nerve in your body like a cosmos, the tiny flame you’d been curious about flare up with a vengeance. The heat that floods through your system at his contact in places you’d never even imagined—the pit of your stomach, the cavity of your chest, the back of your throat, is parching and suffocating and entirely overwhelming. It overtakes you in such a way that you feel your chest seize up, like you can’t breathe. But for some reason, you hang on to him. You wonder if you’ll start shaking from the sudden pressure that feels as though it’s been placed on your body, hyper-aware of the contact of him.

Yet, for some reason you don’t have the answer to, nor the mind or focus to think about—despite the way his skin contact is scalding, the nerves in your body ignited and burning from his touch—you still find yourself reaching out to him during the flight. It’s almost like it’s instinctual, though you aren’t quite sure how that would even be possible. Every time you notice Jooheon tense or become physically uncomfortable, the incessant tapping of his fingertips against the arm of the seat picking back up—you reach out to him. Your touch stills the anxiety from pouring out of his body in a physical form. It always happens when there’s turbulence, Jooheon seemingly seizing up every time the plane acts up in any way. You find it an odd fear or worry to have, considering he should be someone accustomed to flying so much, but you suppose people don’t get to pick and choose what it is that they’re afraid of.

For a good majority of the flight, Jooheon opts to leave you alone. As much as he has questions and curiosities, and a need to hear your voice, he doesn’t want to push his luck. Every time your hand finds his whenever the turbulence of the plane gets to be too much for him—everything within him stills after a shock of electricity passes through his system from your touch. It’s like that single strike flashes through his system, piercing through every bit of thick, smoky anxiety in its wake. But beyond that touch, Jooheon doesn’t ask or prompt for much more. And as the turbulence settles the longer the sixteen-hour flight drags on, the less Jooheon feels your touch that acts as a solid comfort to him. Instead, he relies more on the music the two of you listen to together. You never ask for the earbud back, and the cord of the shared headphones acts as the main thing linking you together the more time passes.

Jooheon only pushes his luck a little bit every time food or snacks come around. He takes these moments to chat with the stewardess, asking some questions, and pulling you into the conversation with ease. It’s then that you find yourself stuck in small chats with him as he passes you snacks, drinks, or your meal. Luckily, it’s easy conversation that—for the most part—doesn’t push any boundaries, and always has something to do with the food being passed around. Questions like, How does that taste? What’s your favorite food? And barters to trade snacks. They’re interactions that don’t require much of a thought process otherwise, just meaningless words to fill the silence and help pass the time. While most of your interactions with him up until that point had been begrudging, to put kindly, Jooheon couldn’t help but be surprised at how receptive you could actually be.

In between conversation, you spend the flight trying to get some shut-eye in, as you had originally planned—to no avail. You aren’t sure if it’s the presence of Jooheon being so close to you, his flying anxiety, or the sensation and sounds that came with flying that make it difficult to find sleep. From the corner of his eyes, you’re unaware of Jooheon watching you nod off every now and again, unable to ignore the way your head starts to bob or fall back against the seat suddenly. At these times, you barely manage to catch just a few fleeting moments of rest, something you couldn’t quite place your finger on always stirring you back awake.

It’s during one of these brief moments when you stir back awake that you notice Jooheon working on a tablet. At first, you think nothing of it, wanting to go back to sleep—even though you’re almost certain it’s impossible at this point—but, then it dawns on you that Jooheon is focused and quiet, and most importantly: Working, and not bothering you. As much as you hated to admit it, you’d become accustomed to Jooheon pestering you every time you moved even an inch. His silence almost disturbed you.

You blink a few times, blearily at first, refocusing your gaze and quietly straightening in your seat to peek a glance at the tablet. It sits in Jooheon’s lap, propped against one of his knees that he has raised and crossed over the other leg, where he drags the stylus against the screen, moving a specific item back and forth across the piece he’s working on. You can’t tell if he’s being erratic or indecisive. For a moment, though, you stare—studying what you assume to be some sort of pamphlet being put together for a hotel—before a yawn overtakes you.

When the yawn subsides, you shift in your seat, leaning closer to Jooheon. You give his elbow a nudge on the arm rest as you peer further over his shoulder at the tablet. “There’s too much white space.”

You bite your lip to keep from laughing when Jooheon startles in surprise at your sudden intrusion into his space—having thought you were asleep still—letting a curse in Korean slip from his mouth under his breath. Cute, you can’t help but think, offering up a sheepish smile as if to apologize when Jooheon turns his head to stare you down, his eyes screaming offense. Jooheon lets out a small sigh, turning away and lifting a hand up to pat his chest and clear his throat—attempting to settle a heart that had almost tried to jump out of his chest.

“I can’t get this layout to work,” Jooheon says as he returns his attention to the tablet in front of him.

You reach over the armrest, and over his arm which holds the tablet, pointing at the screen as you speak. “You should resize these things, and then move this font here, and this image here. You could also do an overlay with a neutral color to offset the layers of this.”

As you point to what you’re talking about, careful not to touch the tablet and accidentally move something, Jooheon watchings your index finger carefully. You don’t notice the way his brows knit in focus, hanging on every word you say and carefully listening to you. You also don’t notice the way that, as you speak, he’ll find himself losing focus for just a split second to allow his eyes to flicker to your face—so close to his as you lean over the armrest—taking a fleeting moment to admire the way you seem so serious and concentrated, your eyes alight with determined focus. Jooheon glances away from you, and back down to the tablet as you speak, feeling the corners of his lips twitch with amusement. This is what you liked doing. It was the part of your job that you liked, and he could tell. A stark contrast to the night of the hotel opening, which just seemed stressful and forced on you.

It’s Jooheon’s turn to shift in his seat, leaning closer to you as he pulls his arm back and puts the tablet on the armrest between the two of you. You feel yourself freeze slightly at the proximity, having been so focused on what you were telling him. He lifts his hand, holding out the stylus to you. You blink, glancing at him and meeting his gaze—brief enough that it makes your chest clench—before glancing at the stylus.

“What?”

“I’m not going to retain any of what you just said. I got a bit of it. You take over.”

“You… want me?” You blink in surprise, glancing at the screen of the tablet, and at him again. “This seems important though. It’s for your work, I could mess it up—”

Jooheon scoffs. “Please, if anything—I’m the one that’ll mess it up. You’re the journalism major here, I’d say you’re much more qualified.”

“Then why are you doing this?” You ask, relenting and taking the stylus from Jooheon.

“We acquired a hotel in Los Angeles a few months back that’s been undergoing renovation—for the line of hotels I introduced at the grand opening the other night. The one in Seoul was built from the ground up, but we’ve slowly been expanding and we took a historic hotel and made it our own,” Jooheon explains, watching as you finally touch the stylus tip to the tablet and begin to work. “Anyway, long explanation shorter—the opening for that and the reintroduction of the new management is soon, but we recently lost our marketing manager. We haven’t been able to find someone else to hire, and we’ve got deadlines to reach. I’ve been trying to help out by taking over half of the job duties from the general manager.”

“That’s very… responsible of you.”

“Well, this whole chain is my responsibility,” Jooheon muses. “So, yeah. But also my best friend is the GM and his ass is getting kicked. Neither of us are any good at this, we’re just good at the business portion of it.”

The conversation falls off there, Jooheon realizing you’re focusing. Hearing he and his general manager were struggling made you feel more pressure, and you can’t help but mentally chastise yourself for stepping in and helping, despite how clearly he had been struggling. Luckily, Jooheon stays close to you as he watches you work, leaning against the armrest. You try not to focus too much on the way your shoulders touch, or the way his scent flows into your space as he delegates a little, giving you technical hotel terminology to include and add in as the pamphlet comes to life on the tablet screen and the white space that had been taking up the majority of the screen before slowly melts away. When he challenges something you do, he allows for you to explain your reasoning behind it and listens carefully as you do so. You find yourself surprised at how well he listens, and how easily it is to compromise with him on certain things.

You two spend a couple of hours working away at the project together before determining it’s finished, Jooheon and yourself both pleased with the outcome. Jooheon is smiling with enough force that his dimples show on his cheeks, and you can’t help but find yourself smiling along with him—his happiness infectious; you’re happy he’s happy, and you’re happy to have helped. Yet even with the happiness, you find your eyes stinging because of staring at a bright screen for so long, and are acutely aware of your beloved ever-present migraine rearing its ugly head even more than it had at the start of the flight. Jooheon takes note of the way you lift a hand to pinch your nose, attempting to suppress the pain throbbing from your skull.

“Get some sleep. I won’t bother you anymore,” Jooheon comments, lifting the tablet up briefly to give it a small wave. “Thanks for your help though.”

“No problem,” you mumble, suppressing yawn. His thank you catches you off-guard, enough so that you lower your hand from the bridge of your nose to blink at him a couple of times. But he’s not paying attention, turning away from you to put the tablet back into a carry-on he’d had stowed underneath the seat ahead of him. You shift in your seat—away from the position which had you closer to him—attempting to make yourself comfortable again as you close your eyes.

Sleep seems like a fever dream to you. Something you’re aware that you’re receiving, but never feeling quite satisfied from it. As if it’s there, but simultaneously not; all a figment of your imagination. You begin to doze almost immediately after closing your eyes, the migraine practically pushing you to do so, because keeping your eyes open hurt too much. The intensity of the migraine doesn’t relent, though, which has you dozing and waking just as you had before you’d begun helping Jooheon with his work. Just as before, you find yourself going in and out of consciousness, nodding off and startling awake when your head begins to bob or tip too far. You sleep in increments—none of it restful.

Jooheon is aware of your restlessness next to him, but he’d promised not to bother you—and he has to remind himself of that. But the way your head tips and bobs makes him feel anxious for you. Especially because he could briefly recall a mention of a constant headache the night of the hotel opening, and he couldn’t help but wonder if the reason sleep wasn’t coming to you easily was because of that. Had you been serious about it? You had a dry sense of humor, which he found quite amusing, but it had him often wondering if what you said was the truth or not at certain times—and did a decent job to keep him on his toes as he attempted to figure out whether you were being serious at times.

He gives in to listening to himself constantly telling himself that he had said he wouldn't bother you, though, after too much time passes watching your head nod as sleep attempts to overtake you. That has got to be uncomfortable on the neck… he thinks to himself, completely giving in when he watches your head fall forward a bit too far. Jooheon reaches out to catch your head, guiding it gently toward his shoulder. As he does so, he sinks lower in his seat just a bit, so your head can rest more comfortably against him. He’s a little disappointed to find that the instant calm and quiet that had overtaken him earlier during the turbulence from your touch doesn’t envelop him warmly again—he is, however, surprised to find that after a few moments pass, you shift in your seat closer to him. When Jooheon glances at you after feeling the movement, he finds you still asleep—thankfully—slumping to the side to lean towards him more comfortably, snuggling against his shoulder.

The way you nuzzle against him has him tensing in surprise—a heat pooling in the pit of his stomach. The action from you and the heat he feels overtake him with a sudden ferocity are familiar. Too familiar. A type of hunger he’d rather not put a name to.

No, Lee Jooheon. Not right now. He clenches his jaw, glancing away from you and swallowing roughly, feeling parched suddenly. It was strange how different actions elicited different reactions, his body responding in such stark contrast to each. As Jooheon turns away, he carefully lifts his hood up and over his head, closing his eyes.

He should sleep, too. There was still quite a bit of flight left.

—

You’re met with silence when you finally wake.

The plane is bustling and alive, a quiet hum of sound that reverberates through the cabin as people speak in hushed tones and get ready for their landing. These sounds all come to you, slowly seeping into your consciousness. Before your body fully wakes—before you begin to tense your muscles and stretch, and a yawn overtakes you while your eyes crack open—your mind wakes first. And you notice something that seems a little off.

Everything is silent.

Your headache is completely gone.

You stay still for a moment, reveling in the odd silence, though your mind is reeling as to why the migraines which had been plaguing you for months were just suddenly gone. The cavity of your skull where your mind rests feels empty, but in an oddly good way. What had changed? What had happened? Was it the ascension in the plane to a higher altitude? Was that even something that could stop chronic migraines?

It almost felt too good to be true, considering your migraines also came hand-in-hand with your pockets of disappearing memory. For all that to just suddenly stop felt too good to be true.

Furrowing your brows, you squeeze your eyes closed tighter. You want to stay here—suspended in silence and the darkness behind your eyelids—forever. There was no ache just beyond your temple that caused nausea; the pain so bad sometimes you felt like you might pass out. There was no ache behind your eyes that typically brought about the stinging sensation of tears, and made the glaring brightness of any sort of light hurt. There was nothing. There was just silence. No thoughts, no suffocating pressure, no pain.

“Are you awake now?” Abruptly, Jooheon’s not-so-welcome, yet familiar, voice breaks through your silence.

Begrudgingly, you open your eyes, blinking a few times to readjust to the light. And then, you blink again, realizing the tilted angle at which you’re resting.

“Sleep well?” The hint of amusement in Jooheon’s voice has you jolting upright—and off his shoulder, where you’d been resting your head. You take a moment to stare ahead, refusing to meet Jooheon’s curious gaze that you can feel burning into you. Silently, you swallow down your nervousness and glance to your side, avoiding his gaze for a moment to stare at his shoulder—your makeshift pillow for who knows how long—then you lift your eyes to meet his.

Without prompting vocally again, Jooheon simply raises an eyebrow.

You almost hate to admit you did sleep well, considering the push and pull you kept experiencing towards Jooheon. There were too many unanswered questions about him, too many things that made you curious and worried at the same time. He was too mysterious. Admitting something like this to him almost felt like you were placing a playing card right in his hand. There was a small part of you that wondered if his presence had anything to do with it, but you immediately pushed that thought out of your mind, writing it off as absolutely absurd. You barely knew him, how would he have any sort of effect on you such as that?

Letting out a sigh, you nod finally in answer.

Jooheon takes the silent answer with a small nod of his own, turning away to gather his belongings which had been at his feet to begin putting in the backpack he had, before pushing it back under the seat before him. “That’s good, you looked like you needed some decent rest.”

“Apparently so. My headache—or rather, migraine—is gone.”

When Jooheon straightens in his seat, he turns to look at you again. “You mentioned once you had a constant headache. Was it that bad?”

You nod. “It would vary. Sometimes it was a headache, sometimes a migraine. Anywhere from manageable to incapacitating, but always constant. It’s been going on for almost three months now, I think?”

“That long?” Jooheon’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise, and the corners of his lips immediately follow in the opposite direction, pulling down into a frown. “You mentioned during our first meeting you were stressed, but that sounds like something more than just stress. Have you been to a doctor?”

“Please, finding the time is too difficult. Don’t start nagging me like Kihyun.” Out of habit, the borderline pushiness of his words has you reaching up to pinch the bridge of your nose. There’s no headache there to attempt to subside—which has your hand just as quickly falling down from your face. You frown at your palm, studying it. The habit had been built on stress, and as stressful as Jooheon’s miniscule attempt to nag had been, there was no physical representation of that stress like usual.

Maybe Kihyun is the problem, you muse to yourself. He did have a tendency to nag to the extreme. Almost like a mother.

“I’m starting to think Kihyun might be on to something,” Jooheon grumbles from next to you, causing you to lift your gaze from your hand. “You seem to be stubborn, you need someone to nag you, it seems like. You should find the time. Three months almost certainly implies there’s some sort of underlying health concern.”

“My headache is still gone, don’t ruin the moment. If you keep it up, it’s almost certainly going to come back.”

With a scoff, you look away from him and nestle back into your seat. As you do so, an announcement over the intercom notifies everyone aboard the plane of the oncoming landing. Instructions to start preparing for landing by putting away and stowing all belongings follows, and the stewardess over the speaker ends the announcement by asking everyone to return to their seats and begin buckling up.

“Fine. I won’t ruin this moment. But I can’t promise for any future moments,” Jooheon declares. When you glance at him in surprise, he looks over at you with a small dimpled smirk. You end up rolling your eyes—rolling your gaze away from him. How the heck was he so annoying, yet somehow charming?

As if someone hears the word charming cross through your mind—the plane hits a bit of turbulence just before it begins to tip to the side, turning to make a circle to land. It’s a very slight maneuver, almost unnoticeable. In fact, you were so accustomed to flying that you really wouldn’t have noticed it yourself, if not for the fact that Jooheon, next to you, was visibly tensing as he had earlier. His hand, lying on the armrest between you, grips the edge so hard the skin pulls taught and translucent over his knuckles.

Even Jooheon’s unusual fear and his reaction to it, something you had become accustomed to during the flight, was somehow charming.

Wordlessly, you reach out, pushing your hand beneath his where it grips the armrest. It takes a bit of urging before he feels your fingertips pushing against the base of his palm near his wrist, attempting to push your way underneath. When Jooheon does, he glances at you in surprise, lifting his hand just enough for you to slip yours beneath to take hold of him as you had before.

When your palms connect, fingers wrapping around his and him returning the gesture, that scalding feeling from before returns. You knew you’d be burned, touching him—yet for some reason, as you had so many times through the flight already—it was a risk you were willing to take. That same electricity that you’d felt before, and felt from the night of the hotel opening, shoots up your arm from where your palms connect and shoots across every nerve in your body again. This time, though, it feels so much stronger—and now you wonder if the clarity of your migraine being gone is a good thing, or a bad thing. Without the heavy, leaden fog that rests over your mind with the migraine, you’re suddenly aware and feel everything. So much so that the contact this time and the reaction your body has to him makes you flinch in surprise, though very subtly.

Jooheon, of course, takes silent note—his eyes never not watching you curiously.

That electric fire that swarms through you happens in such a brief amount of time that it takes you a few moments of staring at your hand, connected with Jooheon’s, to realize that it at some point quiets down to something more akin to a simmer. Warm, and somehow pleasant. Something like sitting in a window, where sun filters through, your eyes closed against the sunlight that warms the glass and warms you.

You really had to be going crazy, you think. Jooheon was handsome but there was no way you were attracted to him—right?

Meanwhile, the same warmth floods through Jooheon, euphoric and soothing. He draws his eyes away from you, clenching his jaw and trying not to physically react to the fuzzy feeling that overtakes him, filling him up yet again. The welcome silence of everything stopping within him returns. If he isn’t careful, he’s sure he might let out a sigh of contentment that would give everything away. And so, he clenches his jaw a little tighter, pursing his lips.

“You’re going to break the poor armrest,” you say, past a knot that forms in your throat. Your throat feels dry, seizing up again. You feel awkward just holding his hand—especially as you try to make sense of the sudden fire that had built up just as it had before, before slowly dying down into something more manageable. This time, it wasn’t as suffocating. Yet you still felt somehow nervous and small next to him, that unnerving edginess he causes settling over you again. Your body was starting to feel as though it was experiencing whiplash.

A little over sixteen hours spent in his presence was starting to confuse you. Were you still irked by him, yet somehow intrigued? Or were you actually starting to soften up to him? You had to admit that his mysterious riddled words and overly generous actions had made you immediately throw up a wall… but he hadn’t been that bad during this flight. He’d been much more normal, still as charming, but besides taking your phone for himself—he hadn’t pushed any boundaries or said anything weird.

“You’d rather I break your hand, then?” Jooheon retorts good-naturedly, which has you suddenly snorting out a small laugh.

“Please don’t actually break it. I need to return to work after this trip.”

“What are you on this trip for, anyway?” Jooheon wonders, and when you look at him with a frown, he shrugs. “I told you what I’m going to LA for.”

“Family reasons.”

“A vacation, then?”

You shake your head, grimacing at the thought of what awaits you when you land. Although Jooheon has made the flight a little more bearable, despite everything you thought about him prior, a small part of you wishes you hadn’t even boarded the plane back in Seoul. Knowing what you were walking into when the plane landed—you wished for everything that, somehow, you wouldn’t have to. If only you hadn’t been pressured into taking this trip. You wanted to stay suspended here, with your migraine gone and a bit of peace from everything in life and just spend some time not thinking. Not thinking about work, not thinking about family, and not thinking about how much pain you were constantly in. Kihyun had told you to get your migraine checked out while you were near your family doctor, but you wondered when you’d have time for that—wondered how long this peace from the head pain would last. Which is why you wanted to keep it, for as long as possible. It was so nice to have some silence and a break from it all. Soon, you’d be walking back into more pain. Unwillingly so, but that was the outcome, nonetheless.

“It’s not going to feel like a vacation.” Comes your answer, just as the plane lands. It’s at that moment that Jooheon squeezes your hand, the impact of the plane hitting the runway jostling everyone inside just a bit. But there’s something in the way that he gives the squeeze—almost reassuring instead of to comfort himself—that has you staring at your hands, yet again, in silent curiosity.

Jooheon keeps holding your hand up until the plane reaches a complete stop once it pulls up to the jetway. It’s only then that he relinquishes his hold, and the both of you silently gather up the belongings which you’d brought as carry on items onto the plane. Other passengers begin to do the same, standing in their rows and slowly beginning to exit the plane. Jooheon, once he has everything in his backpack he’d brought with him, soon stands in the row you share, turning to glance over his shoulder. As you finish gathering your things into the backpack you’d brought on the plane with you after claiming it from the overhead bin, you look up at him—noticing him searching.

You peek over the top edge of your seat just as Jooheon appears to have found who he was looking for, giving a curt nod of acknowledgement. “I’ll meet you outside,” he says, nodding over his shoulder to signal when they exit the plane. You squint, studying the people, before your eyebrows shoot up in surprise, instantly recognizing the larger built man a few aisles back from you who seems to nod a reply to Jooheon.

“He was here too?” You blurt out, without thinking, memories immediately flashing back to the night you’d been drunk and that man had taken you home. You grimace, sinking down in your seat a bit and hoping he doesn’t see you.

Your outburst causes Jooheon to glance down at you in surprise, lips twitching in amusement at your reaction and the way you attempt to hide yourself. “Of course. Hoseok’s my bodyguard. And kind of an assistant, since he keeps track of all my schedules.”

“Why’d you sit with me instead of the person you came on this trip with?”

Jooheon shrugs. “You’re much more interesting. Plus, I see him every day.”

You frown, but before you can reply, Jooheon reaches down behind you where you sit, backpack on, and gives the hook strap on your bag a tug, urging you to your feet. The two aisles ahead of you move to make their exit, marking it as your turn next. Jooheon turns away as you stand, stepping out of the aisle—and his next action catches you by surprise. He steps out enough to block others from cutting out and ahead, nodding for you to go first. Blinking in surprise, you almost trip as you rush out of the aisle so as to not hold up the line, feeling Jooheon keep close behind you as he follows.

You don’t realize until you’re off the plane that Jooheon has an ulterior motive by letting you exit first. As soon as you’ve cleared the bridge connecting the plane to the terminal gate, and have stepped out into the waiting area, Jooheon steps forward from behind you and slips his hand into your own. He takes a firm hold, tugging you along as he leads you off.

“Hey!” Surprised, you stumble after him, having not even had a chance to figure out what your next step after arrival would be—you’d traveled back in time, and it was almost nine o’clock at night on a Friday in Los Angeles. You needed to figure out a form of transportation home, first and foremost, before things started to close down. “J-Jooheon!”

The sound of his name slows his pace down, and Jooheon glances over his shoulder at you with a quirked brow—but he doesn’t stop walking. “That’s the second time you’ve said my name.”

You frown, staring at him. Had he been counting such a thing? You hadn’t really been aware you’d said his name so little… but you had been avidly avoiding the use of it. You didn’t want to give him too much power by using his name. It was better, you thought, to just keep him as a stranger. That’s what you’d thought the night of the opening ceremony and the nights following where he’d constantly tormented the gaping hole in your memory. Unfortunately, he’d pushed past that boundary line already—something you were well aware of. Lee Jooheon was more like an acquaintance now, and as much as you hated it—it was too late to turn back.

“We’re going to go get food,” he announces when you don’t say anything to his statement, turning away from you to keep leading you on.

You give your hand a tug, attempting to pull it back to yourself. “We don’t need to, though—”

“Nonsense, I’m starving. The plane meals weren't that filling.” Jooheon glances over his shoulder at you again. “And like I said, you’re much more interesting to spend time with. I’m not done doing so yet—as soon as you leave this airport, who knows when I’ll see you again, or if you’ll even use that phone number I put in your cell? LA’s a much bigger city than Seoul, we might not cross paths at all while we’re here.”

“Why does that matter?” You grumble. You wanted to keep things at the acquaintance level.

Jooheon shrugs. “Matters to me. But please, just indulge me for a bit. I’m stuck here for at least a week having to do work. I might not get to see anything outside of a hotel for the entire time.”

You sigh, but give up trying to pull your hand back to you. Jooheon doesn’t free you of his grasp until you’re being seated. As you stop outside the restaurant he’s chosen, you can’t help but stare up at the sign on the wall for the Mexican food eatery, grimacing. Jooheon catches the face you make as you sit across from him—and when your eyes meet as you take your seat, and you realize he’d seen you make the face, you let out another sigh.

“Did we really have to eat here? Airport food is so expensive.”

“It’s quick and convenient. Plus, I’m paying.”

“What?” You shake your head. You already owed him, you didn’t want more added on. “No, definitely not.”

“You’re indulging me, so I’ll be the one to handle the bill.” Jooheon reaches across the table, tapping the menu that had been set down in front of you by the waiter before they had disappeared. After doing so, Jooheon pulls his phone out of his pocket and busies himself with it.

You purse your lips, scanning the limited menu options. The downside to airport food, besides the price, was how little there was to choose from. That being said, it made making a final decision a lot easier and faster. When the waiter comes back around—the two of you being among the very few people sitting to eat at that time of night—you both place your order with ease.

Just as the waiter leaves, Jooheon’s phone rings. He glances at the phone face to see who’s calling, before answering in Korean. While the voice on the other end of the line speaks, you decide to pull your own phone out of your bag that you’d brought with you. Having been dragged away by Jooheon, you hadn’t had a chance to turn your phone off airplane mode. You do so, and then wait for the onslaught of messages to pour through.

“Hey,” Jooheon says from across the table. You glance up from your phone to look at him, just as your finger pushes the little slider to turn airplane mode off. “What does your luggage look like?”

For a moment, you just stare at Jooheon, confused.

“It’s Hoseok, he’s at baggage claim.”

“Oh.” The word falls from your lips slowly as his words settle into your mind, realization dawning on you. That’s right—you’d been dragged away so fast you’d also forgotten about your checked luggage that you had to pick up. “Uh, it’s a larger black suitcase. I have a yellow ribbon tied to it.”

Jooheon nods, repeating the information to Hoseok. As he does so, you overhear him follow up by telling his bodyguard-assistant that the two of you are eating, and apologizing profusely for running off. It’s clear from the tone the conversation takes that Jooheon isn’t going to be let off easy, despite being the boss. You zone out, then, instead returning your focus back to your own phone. But the screen contents are empty when you tap the screen to wake the phone from sleep, unlocking it.

The lack of any sort of notification causes you to frown. Of course, it was past nine now, so you doubted anyone here that was waiting for you to arrive actually cared about you arriving. This entire trip had been a guilt trip, and was an inconvenience for you. You were sure drama would start as soon as you arrived home. It was likely no one had even stayed up to greet you, so why would anyone bother to check and see if your flight had gone well? There had been minimal communication leading up to your departure, anyway.

Doing the math in your head, you count back, figure that it’s a little after one in the afternoon back in Korea. The fact that there was no message from Kihyun, either, was a little deterring—considering it was a weekend in the middle of the afternoon. But then you remembered he had asked you to call him when you landed. Mentally chastising yourself, you open your text messages and send him a quick text, letting him know you’ve landed and were grabbing some food, and would call him a little later.

“You okay?” Jooheon asks, now off the phone. He’d been sitting there quietly for a few moments, watching your expression turn increasingly sour.

Hearing his voice, you startle in surprise—having not even realized he’d gone silent. You fumble with your phone, locking it quickly—slightly guiltily—and pull your gaze back up to him. Not long ago, you’d been trying to get out of eating with him and slip away as fast as you possibly could. But, now you realize it didn’t really matter. It wasn’t like you had anywhere to go.

“Yeah, fine,” you mumble sheepishly.

Jooheon clicks his tongue, reaching for the glass of water the waiter had set on the table when seating the two of you. “That’s a lie,” he says, before taking a drink. “But I won’t press.”

Before you can react to that, wondering how Jooheon would know such a thing was a lie, your waiter returns with your food. The way you can feel your expression instantly lighten on your face, your stomach growling in response to the delectable scent—you realize that’s how Jooheon had known you were lying. Thinking about what you were returning home too had dampened your mood enough that it was visible on your face. But the smell of the expensive, yet delicious-looking, airport food had lightened it back up.

Jooheon smiles softly, watching you, amused at how easily food motivated you seemed to be. He gives a quiet thanks to the waiter before joining you, taking a bite of the tacos that had been ordered. The two of you eat in silence, for the most part. The only questions Jooheon asks are if you like the food, just as he had done on the plane, and how long you’ll be in Los Angeles for. Neither answer illicit much of a further reaction from him, or push him to speak more—and so you finish your shared meal together quite quickly—and thankfully before things get awkward with the staff as the restaurant nears closing time.

You wait by the entrance while Jooheon finishes up paying. As he turns away from the counter, he sticks the receipt he was given in his wallet, before shoving that into the pocket of his sweatpants, walking over to meet you. You offer up a smile as he stops next to you.

“Thanks for the food.” “Thank you for eating with me,” Jooheon replies, returning your smile. He can’t help but take note of how soft, and slightly shy, the way your lips appear to be turned up on your face. It’s cute. Before much more can be said, his phone goes off in his pocket.

The sound makes you a bit jealous, and you watch as Jooheon pulls the device out and studies the name on the screen. He lets out a very long sigh before he answers the phone—and you’re almost surprised it’s in Korean, again.

“I just finished eating,” you hear Jooheon say, and you turn away as he speaks on the phone.

As you do so, you blink, catching sight of something—or rather, someone—peculiar.

“Daniel?” The name falls from your lips with confusion, but with a raised-enough voice that the owner of the name—the person walking towards you—lifts their head in answer, confirming your suspicion.

Jooheon, standing behind you, hears your voice not only against his ears—but he also hears it echo within his phone receiver, as well. Blinking in confusion, he pulls his cell phone away from his ear just enough to stare at it, surprised and confused, before turning around slowly. Jooheon looks at you, first, then lifts his gaze up to see what you’re staring at with such a surprised expression.

“Changkyun.”

You glance over your shoulder at Jooheon, hearing a name fall from his lips that isn’t a question—but rather, a statement. Seeing where Jooheon is staring, you look back.

Daniel—or Changkyun—stops dead in his tracks where he’s walking, the cell phone he’s holding to his ear frozen there. He stares, dumbfounded, looking between you and Jooheon. After a few moments, your name falls from his lips in surprise—out of breath and nostalgic, the familiarity of it hits you like a wave. And then, his next word that follows has you blanching in surprise, looking once again back over your shoulder at Jooheon.

“Uh, hi, Boss.”

Jooheon purses his lips, lowering his phone from his ear and hanging up the call. He shoves the device back into his pocket. “You’re late.”

“S-sorry, you know how LA traffic is.”

“You two know each other?” You blurt, suddenly, just as Daniel nears the two of you, slowly coming to a stop.

“I want to ask the same thing.” As he speaks, Jooheon quirks a brow at you.

“Actually,” Changkyun clears his throat. “Same.”

“This is the best friend-general manager that I was telling you about on the flight, for our LA location,” Jooheon explains, before nodding in your direction. “And she’s my favorite small-time journalist in Seoul.”

Favorite small-time journalist. The words ring in your head, and you’re suddenly propelled back to weeks ago when you had found yourself wondering if Jooheon had a hand in how well your article had been doing. You purse your lips, but decide not to say anything.

It’s Changkyun’s turn to quirk a brow, but you’re too busy turning the rest of Jooheon’s words over in your head to react. It takes a moment before your eyes suddenly widen. Your head snaps up in the direction of Daniel, eyebrows shooting up in surprise and mouth falling open. “You?! A general manager?!”

“Wow, the lack of faith in your incredulous reaction is a testament to your faith in me,” Changkyun mutters, tone dripping with sarcasm. All you do is shake your head, still in disbelief, before looking back at Jooheon.

“We went to high school together,” you reply simply. “And middle school, actually. We’ve been friends since then.”

“Speaking of, why are you back? Are you here for—” Before Changkyun can finish his sentence, you loudly cut him off.

“Oh! Look! Hoseok has the luggage!” And before waiting for either of the men next to you to react, you push past Daniel in a rush, heading towards Jooheon’s bodyguard. Changkyun blinks, surprised, meeting Jooheon’s eyes before looking over his shoulder at you. Jooheon simply shrugs, following after you a little more slowly.

“How are you getting home?” Jooheon asks as he catches back up to you, watching as Hoseok relinquishes your luggage back to your own possession.

You give Hoseok a small thanks, turning back. “I’m just going to call an Uber or Lyft.”

Jooheon frowns, before looking at Changkyun. “How close are you two?”

“Uh… close, I guess? Our families know each other, and we keep in touch, albeit inconsistently because of work.”

“Perfect. Let her borrow your car.”

In unison, you and Changkyun both blurt out, “What?”

“It’s late, and it’s safer. We can just get the Uber. This way you can just head home,” Jooheon explains, matter-of-factly. “And if you two went to school together and your families are familiar with each other, I’m sure you know where to pick your car up.”

“Hey,” you mutter, scowling at Jooheon. “That’s not really for you to decide—”

Changkyun sighs, waving you off. “It’s fine, it’s not a big deal. He has the right idea. You live like twenty minutes away from here, anyway.”

You frown, wanting to argue further—but you feel Jooheon’s intense gaze on you and figure it probably won’t get you very far. But to just make that decision on his own, without asking… you cut Jooheon a look of annoyance before turning your attention back to Changkyun as he fishes his car keys out of his pocket, pulling the car key off and taking the remaining keys on the ring. He hands it over to you, briefly explaining he’d left the car in the loading port after convincing the attendant outside that he’d only be a short amount of time, urging you should likely go soon so as to not result in his car being towed. You nod, thanking him and giving him a quick hug, before turning to Jooheon.

Lifting Changkyun’s car key menacingly, you glare. “Don’t you dare use this as an excuse to see me and come with him and pick the car up, got it? I appreciate your concern and I’ll accept it this time—but I’m not happy about it.”

And before he can answer, you gather your things and turn on your heel, heading away. You hear Jooheon let out an audible laugh as he watches your retreating figure. He smiles, watching you leave, and waits until you’re out of earshot before turning to Changkyun.

“High school friends, huh? What a coincidence.”

“That’s the girl you’ve been bugging me about?” Changkyun crosses his arms, frowning. “If so, I don’t think coincidence even begins to cover it.”

Jooheon tilts his head to the side, curious.

“She’s the one, right? The failed contract you mentioned?” Changkyun prompts, before letting out a bitter chuckle as Jooheon nods. He shakes his head, reaching up to rub the back of his neck. “Ha… I can’t even be surprised, with the divorce and all…”

“Divorce?” Jooheon echoes.

Changkyun frowns. “My statement that she dodged earlier. Why she’s back here… her parents are getting a divorce. Long time coming, honestly, and she probably got dragged back into it. There’s… a lot in that household that’s worth escaping, to be honest. Which makes sense why she sought you out.”

“If it makes so much sense, then why’d the contract fail?”

“Do you really not know?” Changkyun wonders, quirking an eyebrow as he levels his gaze with Jooheon’s.

“I’m not here to play guessing games, Changkyun,” Jooheon mutters. “It just happened to be convenient that you showed up to see who I was referring to, and coincidence that you know her and we were on the same flight. But I’ve been venting all this to you for the past few months because I’m at an utter loss as to why the contract would have failed. I’m not all-knowing, despite what people may think. Now that you’ve seen her, I’m assuming you have an answer. So, spill.”

Changkyun smirks, stepping forward to place a hand on Jooheon’s shoulder. “My Lordship… that girl is your soulmate.”

Soulmate.

Before the word even processes, Jooheon is scoffing, to which Changkyun tsks.

“You were human at one point, too. We all have one. Even you, the King of Hell,” Changkyun chastises. “I’m guessing you probably can’t see it, or you would’ve caught on much sooner—but her aura, it reads totally differently when she’s next to you in comparison to when she was walking away. It’s quite interesting to see this in person, I’ve only ever heard of it happening a few times through sources.”

Jooheon frowns, studying Changkyun’s face for any sign of a lie. Soulmate. Another person with which one had a natural affinity and deeper connection toward. The connection was often instantaneous and natural—and strong enough that one would feel themselves drawn to that other person in every single way while simultaneously bringing about a sense of peace and calm. Jooheon wanted to scoff again. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in them. He’d seen the magic at work for others. But, for himself?

And yet, so many things made sense. His anxiety eased when near you. The entire plane trip, everything had been calm. A sort of calm he’d never experienced before. Just as much as things had been calm, though, every touch had set ablaze his nerve endings. He hadn’t experienced such a nervousness in someone else’s presence in years.

What an ironic twist of fate this had to be—the universe was definitely playing games with him, now. He was well aware he’d pissed off many higher powers over the years… but to do this to him? Send him his own soulmate, on a silver platter, begging to make a contract with the Devil? Begging for release? Begging to forget?

To forget…

Jooheon blinks, realization dawning on him—the migraines you’d mentioned. He lets out an audible groan, lifting a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. Of course that would be a side effect. While he had never had a contract fail in the past, unless a soul really wasn’t set on release—a broken contract could amount to many side effects, some more serious than others. In most cases, Jooheon had witnessed the failed cases simply go insane. But since your request had been so definite and simple, it made sense that it would backfire with a physical manifestation like this.

That’s why she doesn’t remember me.

“Changkyun, I need a drink,” Jooheon mutters, brushing past both him and Hoseok. The two share a look, and Changkyun stares after Jooheon in confusion, before trailing after in a hurry.

#jooheon fanfic #monsta x fanfic #mx fanfic #jooheon scenarios

17 notes · View notes

bettsfic · 3 years

Text

february pinned: the real & the ideal

in this month’s edition of my lowkey writing-related newsletter, in addition to my writing-related post roundup and consultation availability, i have short story recommendations for you and an essay on the nature of reality in fiction!

if you want to receive my lowkey writing-related newsletter directly, you can subscribe here.

in other news, i finished two fics this month:

digging for orchids (hualian, 43k, explicit, fake marriage au)

let ruin end here (hualian, 8k, mature, neighbors au)

full newsletter below the cut, or you can read it here.

oof,

what a month. january is already a rough time. throwing in a pandemic, a coup, and an economic revolution spearheaded by reddit just seems unfair. as for me personally, the spring semester came at me fast and even though it’s only week 2, i am already buried in grading. which i realize is my fault, considering i’m the one who assigned homework.

so after hearing your feedback, i thought i’d make this newsletter even more writing-related by writing more about writing. this month i’ll start off by talking about the nature of reality in fiction in a segment i call “been thinkin a lot about.” more on that below.

new resource

i’ve compiled a folder of PDFs of the short stories i teach most often, which is to say, the stories i like enough to re-read every semester. most of them are literary fiction but a few veer into fantasy, sci fi, and horror.

i know before the MFA, i didn’t really know what a short story was. like i knew, abstractly, the concept of a short story (it is as it sounds), but i could only list a couple i’d ever read as an adult, and i hadn’t read anything that had been published in the last decade. i remember wondering why i was even being asked to care about short stories. who writes short stories? who reads them? apparently, a lot of people. short storyists are a lot like fanwriters in that they make no money and when you talk about your writing in public, people give you that “why would anyone waste their time with that?” look.

so here’s why i was asked to care about short stories: a good short story gives you the entirety of a world in a very condensed space. moreover, it can sometimes leave you as satisfied as a novel in a fraction of the reading time. all the stories i’ve compiled here are ones that stuck with me, that i find myself recommending over and over to writers who want a good example of developing character, or weird narration, or establishing stakes.

if you’re a writer considering publication or an MFA in creative writing, i highly recommend familiarizing yourself with short stories, if for no other reason than to get the feel for them so you can write some of your own. if you can get a few short story publications under your belt, it’ll be easier to open doors when you’re ready to query agents for a novel. also, short stories make a great writing sample for grad programs, workshops, fellowships, residencies, and grant funding.

if you want to check out more short stories but have no idea where to start, the 2020 best american short stories just dropped in november, or if you want a cheaper one, used copies of 2019 and earlier are available on thriftbooks. if you want an overview of the history of the (american) short story, there’s also the best american short stories of the century. fair warning, though, while it’s more diverse than expected, it’s still a bit heavy on dead-white-dude writing.

content warning: the stories in the above-linked folder may depict instances of sexual assault, suicide, and/or abuse. i have not labeled them individually with warnings but i hope to soon, as well as provide a catalog with summaries.

i’m also still working on my essay and novel recs. more to come on that hopefully next month.

writing-related posts

how i quit my banking job to do a creative writing MFA

how i learned to read faster/stop subvocalizing

how to write when you have no time or energy to write

my experience writing fic in small/dead fandoms (aka fics that will probably not get any traffic)

how to describe facial expressions

how to ask for help from your professors

how to navigate tenses during flashbacks

how to separate yourself from your work

how (and why you might want to) write a shitty first draft

why you should consider making the climax the inciting incident

for a complete list of my writing-related posts, check out this masterdoc (which i still need to update it with the past few months’ posts).

stuff i’m into rn

i’m about halfway through the rhetoric of fiction by wayne c. booth which has more or less become my narrative bible. it’s a little dated (1961) but it tackles banal writing adages that are somehow still believed, like “show don’t tell” and whatnot, and breaks them down with amazing insight, clarity, and research. it’s a bit of a dense text so i’m only reading a few pages a day, i think the first time i’ve ever let myself read something so intentionally slowly. now i’m kind of obsessed with doing things slowly. reading slowly, writing slowly, cooking slowly. i even drive slowly, because it’s so rare to go anywhere at all, and i want to enjoy it. also, it’s very snowy where i am. also also, the battery died in my car this month and i really have to make it a point to drive more often.

february availability

i have 2 openings for initial writing consultations in february! if you’re interested, please fill out this google form.

you can learn more about my services on my carrd.

been thinkin a lot about

compulsory reality in fiction. many of us have probably received feedback along the lines of, or thought to ourselves as we read, “that’s not realistic.” many of us believe, consciously or not, that fiction that is more “realistic” is inherently better than fiction that is less “realistic.” for some of us, real means a saturation of details, the clear depiction of the surfaces of things. reality is found in the rendering thereof; if you can “see” it, it’s real. for others of us, it might be the development of complex characters and their growth across a narrative. and for yet others, reality is subtlety, or misery, or the idea of “slice of life,” a term i don’t think means anything, because aren’t all stories a slice of a character’s life? what would a story that’s not a slice of life look like? you’d either have to take away the “slice” part and render a whole life, which is impossible, or you’d have to take away the “life” part and create a dead story, which may be possible, but why would you want to? even if you wrote a story about a rock, the rock would be brought to life by virtue of being written about.

anyway. i think the word “real” is a shitty word for the same reason “slice of life” is a shitty phrase: everything is real and therefore nothing cannot be real. slices of life are all we know because we are alive and cannot truly perceive not being alive; reality is also all we know, and any depictions beyond reality are thus made real because they have been depicted.

so the “goal” for fiction to be “realistic” seems to me to be a false one. all fiction is real because it exists and no fiction can be truly real because it’s only a facsimile of reality. not to get all “this is not a pipe” but writing is just making squiggles, and we as a community of English-knowers agree that certain squiggles correspond to certain sounds, and certain sounds together make words which conjure meanings. and words put together into sentences into paragraphs conjure even more complicated meanings. and when those paragraphs are woven into narrative we create yet more and more complicated meaning.

every time you write anything — a text message, an email, a tweet, a fanfic — you are taking the infinite abstraction of your own cognition, narrowing it into a single concept, and representing that concept with patterns in the form of sounds represented by letters and given meaning with words, so that the infinite abstraction of your own conscience can be fractionally witnessed by the infinite abstraction of someone else’s. and even though we can’t definitively prove for ourselves that any other thing possesses a consciousness, writing shows us the shape of someone else’s mind, and tells us we are not alone.

and yet we still expect writing to be “real.”

have you ever read a story where a character sneezed? like just, a description of a sneeze for the sake of it, with no purpose or function in the plot? if not, is it because our characters aren’t real enough to sneeze, or because the sneeze isn’t relevant to their plight? what would a written sneeze look like, and why would somebody want to write it? moreover, why would somebody want to read it? that leads me to wonder, do we depict reality in the service of narrative, or narrative in the service of reality? in other words, do we write to portray reality (sans sneezing), or do we depict reality to constrain our writing, the way one might request bumpers when bowling so as not to fall in the gutters?

i’ve never read an artful rendition of a character pissing or shitting, either, even when those things are related to a character’s plight and circumstance — stories involving long road trips, living in the woods, being kidnapped. the only exception i can think of is when those things are eroticized (we do not kinkshame here in this lkwrnl), the same way it’s rare to find detailed sex writing that isn’t for the purpose of reader arousal. are there just some things about the nature of being human that are too intimate, too complex, or too boring to write?

once i wrote a murder that takes place in a small fictional midwestern town in the 90s (for the ~aesthetic), and it went uninvestigated by said town’s police force. early readers repeatedly commented along the lines of, “that’s not realistic.” and i thought, no, if anything, the incompetence of police is too realistic for the heightened reality i’m trying to render. have you ever heard of a cop solving a murder that didn’t come with an obvious suspect or immediately found evidence? i haven’t. that doesn’t mean those cases don’t exist, but i definitely think they’re less likely than mass media has us believe, and the average small-town police force has far less motivation (and possibly training) to solve crimes than we think.

i started working on the above-mentioned novel in 2016, and my goal was to depict a reality that hovers above the surface of plausibility. in this novel, which is based on macbeth, a preteen girl, mercy, becomes jealous of the love her best friend elisa shows to her father. mercy decides to get her older and very unstable brother to kill him. naturally the deed goes awry, but it does occur, and the cleanup is far messier than anticipated.

is it plausible for a 12 year old girl to plot and execute the murder of her best friend’s father? no. is that what this book is about? yes. a book about a 12 year old girl who has a perfectly healthy relationship with her best friend and who has no feelings toward her bff’s father one way or another is probably far more “realistic,” but that’s not the book i’d want to read and certainly not the one i want to write. my goal of a heightened reality is what henry james calls the intensity of illusion, the thing that allows a reader, through the witness of one’s distilled cognition into language, to exit physical, knowable reality, and enter a new and unknown reality. and isn’t climbing to that higher place, that intensity of illusion, the purpose of fiction? if it’s not, what is?

the best feedback i got on the aforementioned murder scene was from one of my professors, who, of the perfect calm of all children involved, said, “they just shot a guy. at least one of them would be freaking out.”

he was totally right, but it opened up a lot of questions for me. by what standard did he reach that conclusion? was it something in the chapter itself, was it his personal understanding of the work of narrative, or was it the logical conclusion of the slim plausibility of the scenario? moreover, where did i come up with the idea that all of my preteen characters would commit a murder and proceed to be very chill about it? if an implausible scenario begs the expectation of emotional distress, would it be more compelling to buy into that expectation or deviate from it? is it even my obligation to be compelling when i can never have a cogent grasp of the personal tastes of my audience?

that brings me to what appears to be reality’s opposite: idealism, the state those of us who write fanfic are often trying to achieve. we’re working in an entire genre of ideals, of happily ever afters, of hurt that is always followed by comfort, of glossily rendered sex during which everyone orgasms and no one has to pee afterward. we fix broken texts and continue incomplete ones. sometimes, we want to make existing things better, deeper, more complicated. but all the time, we want to make a text more than what it is.

some see this process, this drive for the ideal, as antithetical to realism, and i think that’s part of the reason fanfiction and other idealistic genres (romance, etc.) get a bad name — the assumption that more real (which for some means more miserable) is better, and therefore its opposite, the ideal, is worse. for them, i have this quote from vladimir nabokov:

For me a work of fiction exists only insofar as it affords me what I shall bluntly call aesthetic bliss, that is a sense of being somehow, somewhere, connected with other states of being where art (curiosity, tenderness, kindness, ecstasy) is the norm.

the ideal, aesthetic bliss, the intensity of illusion. these are all phrases that boil down to the same thing: you the writer get to define the constraints of your own reality. you get to choose if your world even complies with the known laws of physics. and if it doesn’t, you get to choose which ones to break, and why to break them. you get to choose if your stories take place in a real house in a real town on a real day. if you wrote a story that takes place on september 11, 2001, would the events of that story be shaped by the events of that actual day, or are you writing a better world where 9/11 doesn’t happen? consider the consequences of both: why might you want to write reality? why might you want to write ideality? how do these things shape your identity and goals as a writer?

no matter where a work falls on the real-ideal spectrum, you have to accept that prose itself will only ever be a verisimilitude of reality and therefore an interpretation of it, one that might be interpreted differently by a reader. in writing and everything else, you can never have complete control over what others perceive. it’s like giving someone cash as a gift. they might buy themselves something nice with it, or they might spend it on groceries. the point is, eventually we all have to let go of our realities.

#lkwrnl #pinned

25 notes · View notes

viroro-kun · 3 years

Text

My Review of the Pokémon Sun & Moon Anime (2019)

[The following post is a repost of a thread originally published on Reddit in November 17th, 2019, titled “My final review of the Pokémon Sun & Moon Anime”, which I’m sharing here again for archival purposes. I may eventually do a new one and this post is meant to only reflect my thoughts at the time. It will also not be updated with later information to keep it consistent with the original] About two weeks ago, the Sun & Moon series of the Pokémon Anime concluded after a run of three years, ending up as what's probably one of the most controversial entries of the show, with fans either loving it as a fresh take on the series or disliking it for several issues that cropped up over time. Now, after reviewing the series for the length of the aforementioned three years and at the eve of the beginning of the newer series, I'd like to pass my personal, final judgement of the Alolan series. Now, first of all, I think a preamble is necessary: all of what I will explain is my opinion and nothing else, and this isn't meant to be senseless bashing of the Sun & Moon series, either. I treasure striving to be objective and analytical above all else, and while I of course can't claim mine will be an absolutely perfect and objectively correct review, I will do my best to share my thoughts on the matter, while explaining why I feel this specific way.Secondly, I'd like to address an argument I've occasionally seen brought up, that due to Sun & Moon's seeming focus on comedy and slice of life it's not possible to compare it to previous seasons. And while that may apply for some specific choices it made, I don't believe that's the case: it was still set in a new region of the Pokémon world, still had Ash undertake the local region-wide challenge, still had a structure involving unimportant self-contained episodes (which we could call 'filler' in an useful but technically inaccurate definition) surrounding the plot-based ones, and still ended up with a League at a climax for it all. Therefore, at least on a structural and plot standpoint, there are enough commonalities to make a comparison possible, and that's where I plan to dig in particular to explain my stance.

Before I move to the meat of it, however, I want to spend some words of praise for some things I feel this series did right or at least deserves some compliments for, overall. First of all, I think that Sun & Moon does great in mantaining a chill, comfy atmosphere which to a degree makes it stand out from previous seasons, and I understand why this was appealing for some previous fans of the series. Most of the cast is pretty likable on the whole with particular props to Ash's Alolan Pokémon team managing to mantain lots of expressivity in all situations, and the series has a decent willingness to explore some concepts previous seasons only lightly touched on. The show also foregoes a lot typical Team Rocket shenanigans for different kinds of plots, making it great for people who find their usage stale and played out by now, and the simplified art style allowed for some pretty good sequences both in battle and out. At its best, the series can produce some of the best moments of this Anime as a whole, and it was at least the first series to let go of some limitations that were just weighting the show down at this point. While I think several of these pros also have indirect cons attached to them (especially in terms of tone and character usage), these are all things I feel need to be pointed out in positive for the series.With that said, I'd like to begin my proper dissection of the Pokémon Sun & Moon Anime.

Pokémon Sun & Moon - A Pokémon Anime in an Identity Crisis

1. Plot Pacing and Development: The Problem of the Stationary Setting and the "Happy Bubble"

Everyone who has heard of the Sun & Moon Anime is probably aware of its biggest break from tradition: rather than being an adventure series, this entry in the long-running Pokémon series decided to take place in a single location with occasional detours by having Ash enroll in the Pokémon School, shifting the general tone of the series towards a more slice of life approach. This had a significant effect on how the story developed, but in my opinion, if there's a fundamental issue of the Sun & Moon series, it's probably this one. Because rather than committing to the change, the writers appeared to want to have their cake and eat it too.

Specifically, adventure series and slice of life have radically opposed mission statements: for the first, progression and rising action are an important, consistent story engine moving the plot forward; the second is instead far more laidback, focused more on enjoying the moment and offering low stakes and drama more often than not, especially Sun & Moon's chosen brand of it that's closer to a sit-com than a proper slice of life. Pretty much, adventure series have a degree of development in them, while slice of life is defined by the lack of said development.

Now, I'm not saying Pokémon characters were always amazing examples of character development, or that every series prior was well-written. But the structure itself was sound, as you had Ash embarked in a defined goal of winning the League as part of his vague dream to become a Pokémon Master, having filler adventures on the way, but always undertaking rising action from the first to last Gym and occasional rivals, until the climax of the journey at the League (and in Kalos' case, the Team Flare arc). We see Ash, and occasionally his friends, actively train, fight or improve on the path to their goals, while the narration itself always reminds us of what the current major objective is. Even when the episode doesn't actually contribute to the larger story, the viewer always has a reassurance that the next objective will be reached eventually.

The structure of Sun & Moon, by comparison, is inherently more passive more often than not, as you have Ash and the others waiting for the plot to happen to them. Instead of having Ash actively seek a new challenge, you see him sitting down and wait for something specific to make him go and progress, and so does everyone else, with only rare exceptions. The characters are effectively static until the plot decides to move them, and while this could superficially resemble the previous structure (as both have a progression that could be defined as arbitrary), the Sun & Moon series barely, if ever, reassured the viewer to still remember the goals it set up, or even what the next one to come is.

Now, inherently, the characters being passive recipients of plot isn't a bad thing, it's just how slice of life stories tend to work. The problem of Sun & Moon, however, was that beyond the vague and SoL-friendly concept of Ash at the Pokémon School they still had Ash pursue the Island Trials (and in fact, he's impressed by the concept of mastering Z-Moves before he even enrolls in the school), which gave the show a problem: it wanted to be a chill story focusing more on small time hijinks than big adventures, while still taking on a structure that demanded to follow the rules of an adventure series, creating an inherent contradiction.

What I mean is that, since the Island Trials were still part of Ash's stay in Alola, the show was still supposed to abide to the rising action leading to a climax, giving the show a direction that it had to fulfill by its end rather than have an open premise with occasional plotlines (example: GeGeGe no Kitaro, where the open premise is 'Kitaro deals with evil Yokai' with every other longer plotline spinning from there). It's something that pretty much prevents the viewer from fully enjoying the more quiet romps, because in the mind of a viewer expecting progression, these are just a diversion over the more important goal Ash has in the region. Now, in fairness to Sun & Moon, the show seemed aware of the tension and made sure to tie each Trial Ash did into either school trips or wanting to get specific Crystals, but beyond making it seem like Ash didn't care much for something he claimed he wasn't interested in (especially with wanderlust being a previously estabilished character trait of his), this ran into another big issue of Sun & Moon: rather than a sense of rising action, pretty much every Island Trial Ash did was narratively unrelated to each other, especially once it was revealed that Ash didn't need to complete any of them to access the Alola League, in contrast with how every badge was important and necessary in previous regions.

This specific issue wasn't however unique to Ash, but rather a persistent problem in pretty much every element and story arc of the series: be it Ash's quest, Guzma's struggles, Rowlet's rivalry with Hau's Dartrix/Decidueye, Lycanroc's rage issues, Lillie's goal to be able to touch every Pokémon again, the Necrozma and Aether arcs to even the Alola League and anything in between, almost all of them had only the bare minimum of buildup and either ended as soon as they got teased or happened to be sidelined for a large amount of episodes before they got their due focus, if not both at once. While some of these arcs ranged from alright to pretty great (Litten's pre-capture arc dealing with Stoutland's passing, or the Guzma-related segments of the Alola League), there are quire a few (chiefly Necrozma) that were ruined by a combination of lacking setup work and the feeling that, simply put, nothing mattered that much. Sure, the arcs could be mentioned here and there, and some can set up things for the future (like how Aether leads to the Ultra Guardians), but on the whole, the arcs are effectively done-in-one in terms of lasting impact. Unlike how in previous shows you could've had stuff like Ash's and Dawn's intertwined journeys, here you have Stoutland lose relevance in terms of influence to Litten as soon as he dies, where save for Stoutland brief cameo as a spirit on Poni Island his storyline got shifted in the unrelated rivalry with Kukui's Incineroar.

This last example, in particular, brings up another of the big issues of Sun & Moon, one that can be divided in three parts: plot pacing, plot segregation, and the "happy bubble".

In regards to plot pacing, one of the most notorious problems brought up for this series is the fact that, to put it simply, each plotpoint will only progress when the show decided they have to, which led to things like Lillie going almost an entire real time year between getting her Z-Crystal and then her Z-Ring, or Ash doing absolutely nothing about his Lycanroc's raging issues for getting dirty for close to thirty episodes before they happened again in the Ula'Ula arc, during which neither character gave any hints of even thinking about these lingering elements in any way even if it was clear setup to be followed on. This, coupled with the aforementioned lack of a constant reminder of the next destination, just made for a frustrating waiting game in terms of the next major point of progression.

A related issue is the plot segregation, or specifically, how each major arc is effectively removed from the others, from Kiawe and Sophocles' occasional focus episodes to more important stuff like Lillie's Pokémon phobia, her and Gladion's later interest in finding their father, Lana's desire to create a balloon to explore the ocean with, Ash's Island Trials, and so on. It made these characters feel like they exist in their own separate paths, never to intersect, something the evolution episode in the Poni Island arc somewhat exemplifies since Sophocles' and Lana's efforts happen on completely distinct plotlines and locations. As I explained above this also happens with major arcs, like how the Necrozma arc's only contribution to the wider narrative was sending Poipole home (and given its later offscreen evolution and power up, one could make a case the arc had a negative impact on the series). The segregation also had the effect of having the plot act like something flat out doesn’t exist unless it has been directly showcased, leading to such goofiness as Kukui's best friend Molayne not being invited at his wedding in spite of being Sophocles' cousin, or how absolutely no one was in Poni Island during the Manalo Festival buildup. A good example of the difference, I feel, is this: in previous series, we could've had Serena relate to Ash with her Master Class loss at a significant point of his character arc during the Winding Woods episode; in this one, Mallow only revealed her mother issues after Lillie's entire arc revolving around her mother was resolved, with the two never comparing notes. The closest we get is Ash relating to Lana for his problems with Lycanroc using Continental Crush in Ida's first episode and Lillie trying to help out Ash during his fallout with Rotom, both of which refer to things that happened to them either mostly offscreen or entirely there.

The plot segregation was, in particular, noticeable with the decision to associate three of Ash's Alolan Pokémon (Torracat, Dusk Lycanroc and Rowlet) to specific characters as rivals, with the Pokémon driving the rivalry rather than Ash himself (who had otherwise rather civil, mostly friendly interactions with Kukui, Gladion and Hau). On paper, this should've guaranteed that every Pokémon had their moment to shine, but effectively, it meant that each of them were restricted to mostly their specific rival in terms of focus post-Aether. Lycanroc got Olivia's Grand Trial, the Ula'Ula arc to itself and then the rivalry with Gladion's Midnight Lycanroc, but no other significant usages; Rowlet got roles in the first two Grand Trials, but then spent almost one hundred episodes before its second focus episode, and beyond his friendship with Meltan it only got Hau's battle and a part against Kukui to itself; Torracat was the one absolutely done dirty here, as beyond the Stoutland appearence in Poni Island and the Totem Lurantis battle pre-Aether, all his following focus moments rely on the rivalry with Kukui's Incineroar, with only occasional minor scuffles to its name and a bit of the Guzma battle to its name. That would already be bad enough, but the fact that until the League there's no battle that requires Ash to involve more than two Pokémon (with most of them requiring him only one), Ash's team never actually gets to act as a team until the very final battle of the series, furthering the lacking sense of cohesiveness. Year two of the series was particularly bad in this sense, as most major battles were fought with either Pikachu or Lycanroc while Torracat and Rowlet barely did much.

And lastly, one persistent result of both the plot pacing and the plot segregation was a phenomenon I like to refer to as the "happy bubble," or the tendency of the Sun & Moon series to confine major conflicts and bad moments for the characters only to their specific focus episodes. In previous shows, you could have moments of self-doubt or worry linger even outside dedicated episodes (Dawn's depression for her losing streak, Ash's rivalry with Paul affecting him, and his increasing worries in the latter part of XY being clear examples), but due to Sun & Moon's commitment to fun times before everything else, it means the characters aren't allowed to have any conflict or moments of darkness to later conquer unless they're the focus, and even then resolving them quickly. See how bubbly Lillie is even when she's scared of Pokémon unless the episode is specifically about her, how she never even thought about her father until Gladion reminded her, how Ash's confidence and his relationship with Lycanroc are only focused on in Ula'Ula and then never again, and most noticeably the fact Mallow's dead mother was treated as something that tore her for years but it was only ever directly dealt with in one episode, to the point she's the only family member on Bulbapedia listed under characters of the day. The problem of this bubble is that it pretty much makes it hard to invest in the emotional struggles of these characters because they end up feeling like throwaway moments which are then functionally forgotten, with no sense of constant growth. Characters get their moments, the audience gets invested, and then it's forgotten, with only few and far-in-between moments of exception, and that's another thing making each conflict feel segregated from each other.

If I could sum up everything in one sentence, I'd say this: Sun & Moon is composed by a myriad of pieces, some excellent, some average, some awful and everything in between, that all exist mostly in a vacuum. I'll return to this topic in a bit, as there's another important aspect to touch first.

2. Characters and Their Development: Too Many, Too Little, Too Late

Another aspect of Sun & Moon that's often brought up is the decision to have a main cast of six counting Ash, with the game Trial Captains Mallow, Lana, Kiawe and Sophocles alongside plot-important character Lillie turned into Ash's classmates. These characters have been as much a point of praise as they were of criticism, with some fans absolutely loving this group while others couldn't absolutely stand them. I feel the best way to tackle this is to first list how I feel each character was handled in terms of planning and development, before going into their relationships and the rest of the cast, starting with the humans and then going through Ash's Pokémon before closing on Ash himself. I will say to start with, however, that none of these characters is inherently unlikable the way they started as, and most of their later issues came solely from their handling down the line or flaws in how they were approached.

2.1) The companions

Among the companions, Sophocles was probably the one that made the poorer first impressions, as beyond sharing the same type specialty, his game background as an inventor and his Anime presentation as a programmer that sometimes built things gave him a number of unfair comparisons with Clemont, not helped at all by an introduction episode that ranks among the worst ones of this group. That said, I feel by the end he actually ended up being one of the best characters of the group in spite of heavily scattered focus, for one major reason: he's one of the few characters of this group to have a consistent character growth that plays in his dream and that's easily noticeable as the story unfolds. Early on, he starts as the timid, insecure kid that gets easily scared of the dark and needs people and Pokémon's support over everything, but between his first few episodes and the later clarification of his interest in space, it's clear that his development was actually aimed towards him growing into a more independent and confident person and trainer. He goes from being unable to tell his friends that he's not actually leaving Alola after a misunderstanding and only getting his second Pokémon as a gift from Ash to slowly take an interest in rising Charjabug, first with a race and then by evolving it, then deciding to gain a Z-Crystal and a Z-Ring, learning to use it, and ultimately take part in the League in spite of knowing to not be on the same level of his friends, yet still putting his all, with a nice interlude where he takes things into his own hands during the Celesteela mission, and with the race he does to gain his Z-Crystal leading him to confront and surpass his fear of the dark. While still pretty scattered and sidelined, I feel he's a character that's been developed well-enough and that in his post-series aim is actively working towards his dream in a new but productive way by visiting Mossdeep City's Space Center, and definitely my favorite of the Alolan kids as he clearly developed into a better person by the end through a straightforward, traceable progression.

Lana is probably up there with Sophocles in terms of being one of the best characters of this group, and I'd go as far as saying she's probably the best non-Coordinator/Performer Pokégirl out there. While Sophocles ranks high due to getting good personal development, Lana ranks high because, while on paper her dream of creating a big balloon to explore the ocean with is simple and a tad silly, it is something she puts clear effort into and that she never loses track of through the whole series, even with a fairly noticeable void of attention in the mid-series stretch. Between being the first of the non-Kiawe classmates to get a Z-Ring and a Z-Crystal, learning how to use Hydro Vortex, then evolving Popplio to Brionne and then Primarina (while dealing with a Kyogre along the way) while also getting Oceanic Operetta, she's consistently focused on her improvement, and always the best female battler of the bunch. The only thing that really penalizes her is that while her dream is technically achieved, she ultimately gets Oceanic Operetta with offscreen training and they never make a point to highlight that as a big moment, and while her skill development is solid, she remains exactly the same character throughout the series from the first and last episode. An entertaining character for sure, but one that just gets stronger and not much else. Still, she's easily one of the best female leads this series ever had, and a good example of how to make a non-Coordinator-esque female character work well after the pitfalls Misty and Iris fell into.

Kiawe is not far from them, with a pretty solid run slightly marred by a few issues. Specifically, he's probably the best battler of this group that isn't Ash, but he's distinctly characterized as having two "modes" as a character: either the serious, spiritual follower of Alolan traditions, or the one that started popping out more often later in the series where he's an overreacting ham to rival Cilan. I personally feel Kiawe's better moments tends to come from the first mode, not only because he stands out better in a funny sense by being the straight-laced guy in a cast of wacky people, but also because he's the best character to explore the more spiritual angle of Alola, the element that truly makes the region stand out compared to previous ones featured in the series. Unfortunately, beyond the fact the slice of life romps tended to favor his wacky angle more than the serious one, Kiawe is penalized by not quite having a true arc to develop through: he wants to become a stronger trainer and claims so, but all his episodes ultimately end up involving unrelated matters: he catches his Marowak, learns to use a Z-Move with him later on, and ends up getting his Charizard back into working shape after he undertakes Fini's trial to save Ash, but while each of these are overall good showings and he's probably got the best League run of the cast in terms of prowess and skill, they tend to remain isolated instances. It also doesn't help that while his hot-blooded rivalry with Ash can be fairly entertaining and it's teased from episode 2, it ultimately culminates into an underwhelming showdown in the penultimate episode that barely feels like an afterthought. I'd hardly call him a bad character and he still does pretty well even with his issues, but one that could've been handled better on the whole.

A far different story is Lillie, a character that, I feel, suffered from several different issues all at once. To address the elephant in the living room first, let it be said that while they share traits, Anime Lillie and Game Lillie end up being fairly different characters by the end, and while I think Game Lillie is probably one of the best creations of GameFreak, my opinion on her Anime self couldn't be more different, and it's not due to straight comparisons between each other. Now, Lillie doesn't actually start badly: the fact that she has a phobia of touching Pokémon from an unknown source at first actually gave her a nice direction as a character in a way similar yet different from Lana, but it didn't take long for Lillie's major issue to show itself: things happen to her rather than her working towards stuff proactively, and the majority of the time her struggles are resolved by feeling sad or believing really hard with extremely few exceptions. This started already before the Aether arc, where while her episodes were good, they all relied on the exact same formula of Lillie unable to touch Pokémon, being unable to do so and feeling sad about it until she can in a spur-of-the-moment situation, which started to make her episodes feel stale.

The Aether arc seemed to finally change things as it heavily revolved around Lillie, but to anticipate some things I'll delve into more detail later, the changed circumstances ended up weakening both the conflict and her character, making her come across as too unlikable. But beyond that issue, the problem of the Aether arc is that it ensured that Lillie was completely healed of her phobia due to the actions of others rather than herself, which killed off all her character potential and left her with nothing to do for the rest of the series (while the conflict with her mother was completely brushed under the rug after this arc introduced and hastily attempted to resolve it). Sure, she 'grew stronger', and got a Z-Ring and Z-Crystal, but the majority of important things of the Mohn arc were actually dealt with by Gladion, while her own help ended up amounting to still, once more, feeling really hard rather than active work. But the biggest problem of her character is that all of her major achievements derived from either someone else (Silvally healing her phobia by saving her, Gladion actually defeating Totem Kommo-o, her Z-Ring being borrowed from her father, Gladion finding Mohn's Zoroark) or facilitated by outside assistance (her one victory in the League's Battle Royale coming from effectively killstealing a Salamence Kiawe weakened, her battle with Tyranitar having the assistance of a Totem Sandshrew) which made it hard to think she earned her development or truly grow stronger when she ultimately always ended up relying on someone else, especially given her tendency to never act unless prodded (see how she seemed perfectly fine not touching Pokémon for years until Mallow and Ash actively tried to get her to do it, nor try to learn why she has the phobia in the first place, nor thinking about where her father may be). This, alongside the tendency of the series to play up game moments like the Lillie and Solgaleo moment or her change in dress and hairstyle to show her resolve while sapping all the meaning they had in the source material and the habit of the characters to praise Lillie for anything she does no matter how minor or trivial, ultimately made her a character that was borderline insufferable to follow, especially for the classmate pushed as the most important beyond Ash.

The worst of all main characters, however, is without a doubt Mallow. While I have several issues with Lillie's handling as a character, at least her faults come with how the show decided to approach her, while I feel by contrast Mallow was only allowed breadcrumbs of just about anything, something already shown by how she had to wait until episode 18 for her first true focus episode. Back in the earliest episodes I thought her interest in making Aina the most popular restaurant in Alola could've given her a drive as a character similar to the one Lana and at the time Lillie had, only for the story to be content with leaving her where she is. Between the fact her Bounsweet evolved twice in ways that were respectively too sudden and rather unrelated to her and the habit of her focus episodes past her first to focus away from her more than on her (having to share screentime with her brother 'Ulu and Oranguru, specifically), it felt like she was added to the cast because they had to, and while the last year of Sun & Moon tried to put a patch on the problem by giving her emotional moments with her mother and her League match with Lana, said patches had the effect of not feeling very genuine since her mother, as I mentioned above, only really figured in one episode, while Mallow suddenly being afraid of Tsareena getting hurt when she fought in Ultra Space and in other instances just fine just feels like an awkward attempt at giving her an emotional moment that doesn't gel with her characterization too well. If we add onto it that she only mastered her Z-Move during the League itself, her Z-Crystal was gained just by making a burger, and the Shaymin she cared for after meeting her mother effectively did nothing afterwards until its deal was resolved at the last possible second during the final credits of the series because 'Ulu found some Gracidea with no input from Mallow proper, Mallow ended up feeling like the most mishandled characters of this crew, whose character and development felt more like isolated moments than anything cohesive.

The Pokémon of the cast outside of the major ones don't really warrant much talk, the best of the bunch being Kiawe's Marowak for his vibrant personality and good feats, while everyone else ranges from pretty much not too focused on (Turtonator, Charizard, Tsareena, Togedemaru), useful for development but otherwise kinda dull more often than not (Primarina, Vikavolt, Snowy), cute but pointless in spite of heavy buildup (Sandy), and pretty much useless (Shaymin, Magearna outside of being a McGuffin), mostly getting occasional cute moments than anything substantial or productive for their trainers.

2.2) Ash's Pokémon

Beyond the classmates, there's the matter of Ash's Pokémon as well, and I'd like to spend a few words on the Rotomdex. On the whole, he was never the most important character, but I'd say the best way to describe him is that he's a likable character that happened to star in some rather poor episodes: while his overreactions could get annoying sometimes, for the most part he was likable enough, and his existence ensured that Ash would lose his oft-criticized trait to scan Pokémon he already saw that made him come across as dumb, and some of his moments and hobbies made him pretty endearing. His only real problem is that his focus episodes usually tended to focus on rather stupid plots aimed only to comedy, and while three of them are at least arguable, his last true focus episode happened to be one of the worst episodes of the series due to how out-of-character Ash acted under the possibility of Rotom leaving. None of the issues of these episodes were Rotom's fault, but as a minor character, it was somewhat unfortunate for him to receive such a short end of the stick focus-wise.

Going back to Ash's actual Pokémon, beyond the eternal Pikachu, I'd say the one most worth of consideration overall is Torracat (or Incineroar, but he never fought under the form), both in terms of praise and criticism. I say so because, before his capture, Litten seemed to be given unusually large focus, including being the first of Ash's Alolan Pokémon to debut and appearing for several episodes even between his major pre-capture arc, which being among the most tragic and involved capture circumstances seemed to point towards Torracat being the 'ace Pokémon' of the region, only for things to change once Lycanroc entered the picture. To put it simply, Torracat has some rather solid episodes and a personality that very much matches Ash's own, but he often feels like he's only given breadcrumbs of focus. Between only taking part in one minor trial and no Grand Trials, not getting his own associated Z-Crystal until right before the League and having it used only twice counting the test run of it, and his rivalry battle being the only one in the Alola League to happen in the middle of a match rather than at the end of it (which lead to a rather goofy division of him getting declared winner and then fainting after evolving just so it couldn't technically be considered a tie even if it functionally was to preserve his triumph), it feels like the poor Pokémon is never given enough of his due, and while I enjoy his drive to surpass Kukui's Incineroar and especially the way the plotline was figuratively used throughout the Ash VS Kukui battle, it just seems like Torracat is always last in priority in terms of Ash's Pokémon, which makes even his good moments feel like afterthought even with nice bits like his relationship with Lycanroc, especially with how, as touching and well-executed as it was, Stoutland's effect on Torracat is forgotten as soon as it happens, between Fire Fang being mastered exactly one episode later and Stoutland himself only being brought back twice, once as a thought by Ash and only in the second with Stoutland meeting Torracat again in Poni Island, mostly for the purpose of teaching him another move. So, in my opinion, Torracat is a case of a conceptually solid-enough character, that's however penalized both by how little the narrative gave him focus, and the fact that his arc with Stoutland and his later rivalry with Incineroar are pretty much unrelated (for why I consider this a flaw, consider that fellow Fire starter Infernape was able to have a memorably tragic backstory that did dovetail into his major rivalry perfectly, so just asking for a degree of connection isn't outside the realm of what this show can do).

And then there's Lycanroc, the Pokémon that the series wants us to consider the regional ace, which had several issues associated with him. To put this simply, I feel like he was a much better character as a Rockruff than he was after his evolution, mostly for being the perfect mix of adorable, focused, and having actually pronounced rage issues that occasionally popped up but were treated completely seriously, alongside having a pretty good showing in the Olivia battle as a rare final bout to completely not involve Z-Moves in a period where their usage was starting to become excessive. However, after the evolution (which is treated as a rare, one-of-a-kind event due to Rockruff evolving during a rare green flash yet is never actually remarked on beyond very occasional comments that he looks odd that are never treated as much), his handling changes for the worst, specifically for two of his rather ace-worthy moments: its rage form arc, and the way his rivalry with Gladion's Dusk Lycanroc was handled. The first is overall the biggest issue, because it's also symbolic of Sun & Moon's tonal issues since his major challenge to overcome as a Pokémon is the fact that, whenever his fur gets dirty, he goes on murderous rampages, always after acting goofily shocked in a way intended to be humorous, creating a whiplash effect that doesn't make clear how the viewer should find the scene given it first asks us to laugh at Lycanroc and then to be scared of him. This is also only introduced once in the middle of the Aether arc and then never revisited until the Ula'Ula arc, where it's ultimately solved by Ash bringing back memories of how Rockruff used to act about getting dirty that happened completely offscreen, only for the writers to then milk the drama some more two episodes later by now handling the rage mode completely seriously in terms of reactions and using actual rage as the trigger instead of just specifically the fur, in an episode that ultimately relied on Ash not trusting his Pokémon (when he was already somewhat out-of-character by being scared by Lycanroc's rampage after he was willing to hug his blazing Chimchar to calm him down back in Sinnoh). It's all handled in an extremely brief arc and then never again, feeling like an arc that takes elements from both the Infernape and Ash-Greninja arcs while missing the slow buildup and non-regressive development that made those two arcs work (and I'll elaborate more on it in a bit). Beyond this, his rivalry with Gladion's Lycanroc suffers of being extremely sidelined in spite of being the 'major' rivalry of the series: while the two Pokémon did fight three times, the first time was interrupted by Team Rocket (something they stopped doing for major rival battles for quite a while beforehand), the second relying on some very weird resilience by Midnight Lycanroc by not only tanking completely Dusk Lycanroc's Splintered Stormshards to seemingly no damage but also snapping out of confusion to deliver a finishing Z-Move of his own, and the third relying on a battle that was overall not too bad, but felt more like a mid-series squabble than Ash's victory at the Alola League (which is then completely outclassed in spectacle by Ash VS Kukui). Dusk Lycanroc's rivalry isn't actually too bad, but considering how Gladion's Lycanroc is the only major opponent Ash's ace got to fight post-evolution outside the Ula'Ula arc, Kukui's Pokémon (none of which he defeated) and occasional training bout, it did restrict a lot of his feats and ended up with him feeling more like an okay Pokémon than the powerhouse the writing wanted him to seem like. Coupled with a lackluster personal arc, this makes him closer to the Krookodile tier of 'possible aces' than one of the major ones like Charizard or Infernape.

And then we get to Rowlet, the last of the major Alolan four counting Pikachu, and probably the most problematic of the bunch. Much like Torracat and Lycanroc, Rowlet isn't inherently a bad Pokémon, with the first episodes neatly estabilishing two things: yes, he is dopey and loves to sleep a bit too much, but he's also a serious and competent fighter in battle that never fails to impress, making sure that neither side ultimately hurt or diminished the other. His problem is ultimately revolving around two things: he's spent a long time out of focus, and his later focus didn't exactly paint him in a good light. The first is probably the major issue at hand: while both Rowlet and Torracat were heavily sidelined midway into the series, Torracat did at least get a few token episodes to himself, while Rowlet's first real focus episode after his capture one only really comes almost one hundred episodes later. While in the early series this was mitigated by having Rowlet take part in two minor trials and two Grand Trials, this focus is all but forgotten by the second year of the series, with Rowlet reduced to solely a gag Pokémon whose greatest achievement ended up being learning Razor Leaf by sitting on a magical tree. This had the adverse effect of making his gag tries, which previously only showed either in minor matches or not during serious parts of battle, to slowly become more and more prominent. The other issue is that Rowlet had without a doubt the weakest rivalry set up and buildup of the three major Pokémon Ash obtained in Alola, as Hau and his Dartrix only appear in one episode before the League and two of the three battles Ash had with Hau involved major, non-strategy related writing contrivancies to reach the desired outcome (Ash slipping his Grassium-Z and getting distracted to fetch it for Rowlet to lose for the first one; Rowlet's Decidueye hoodie tanking a Z-Move, the overturned loss, and the sudden learning of a Feather Dance that doesn't act like the one Rowlet was trying to master for Rowlet to win in the final one). The way Rowlet acted in the Ash VS Hau battle is kinda emblematic of this, as the oft-debated overturned loss moment involved him falling asleep in the middle a match he was supposedly fired up for just for the sake of a joke and nothing else; regardless of how one wants to justify it, it doesn't change that such a thing never happened before in the series, and it ultimately involved Rowlet betraying the trust Ash put in him just for a scene the writers deemed funny, in what was supposed to be his finest hour (while Rowlet fell asleep in the Hala Grand Trial, it was only after his part of the match ended). Considering also that two of the moves Rowlet learned required the help of his adoptive flock without as much input from Ash and he ultimately ate an Everstone just for a variation of Seed Bomb that turned out to be more a liability than asset throughout the series, not even a cute relationship with Meltan and the fact that he won his last important matches of the series makes up for some of the worst excesses of tonal imbalance and inability to let jokes go in a context that absolutely have no space for his brand of incompetence-based humor.

With the major Alola captures gone, there's just the other two latecomer to discuss, and I'd like to start with Poipole/Naganadel, specifically because he's probably one of the worst handled Pokémon Ash ever owned. While the second year of Sun & Moon had several issues, none are as glaring as Poipole being the major Pokémon of the period, only to not actually do much of actually important. Starting with the fact that Ash only bonds with Poipole by proxy to begin with since Poipole interacts with and loves Pikachu before Ash even actually enters the picture, Poipole's biggest contributions to the series afterwards are acting silly for the majority of episodes and never actually getting involved in serious fights beyond one small bout with the Team Skull trio (which is estabilished as even more pathetic than the Team Rocket trio), making the fact that Ash captured him feel like a waste, especially when his focus episodes dealing more with his emotional side end up being just two, and ultimately not doing much of helpful during the Necrozma arc except leaving at the end in what at the time felt like a rather permanent farewell (as he was stuck in another dimension rather than somewhere Ash can readily access). Now, if Poipole's story ended there, he would've been odd but not too bad all things considered, but the problem comes from the fact that Poipole eventually returned right at the end of the series for no adequately explained in-universe reason during an unrelated Guzzlord attack, not only evolved but also presented as a competent and useful battler in spite of the fact none of it happened either onscreen or by Ash's efforts (unlike how Gliscor and Goodra, Pokémon in similar situations, did prove their worth onscreen before being put aside for a time), making this turn come across as an undeserved boost for Ash just so he could have six Pokémon, alongside removing the beauty of the permanent farewell Ash had with Poipole because the sheer coincidence of Naganadel's arrival and then his departure means that they may as well see each other again in the future. Among Ash's Pokémon in Alola, Naganadel is probably the crowning example of the series wanting its cake and eat it too in terms of wanting to be cute and fun and then rushing to make battles matter without the required buildup.

Meltan shares a lot of issues with Poipole, but overall to a lesser degree, mostly because his biggest problem is just coming way too late in the series and, much like Poipole, he only really bonds with Ash by proxy due to starting to like Rowlet first. Much like Lycanroc, his existence is supposedly important as a new discovery but this trait of his is barely called to attention, and coming too late in the series he only gets a few battles to his name with his contributions mostly amounting to gags rather than skill and serious fighting, alongside having the dubious honor of being the only Pokémon of Ash's Alola team to never use Z-Moves in spite of Ash fetching a Steelium-Z as a result of his final Grand Trial for no other reason than the out-of-universe one that Melmetal has never been in a game where you could use Z-Moves. Adding to the fact that Meltan only evolved right before the League finals for reasons outside Ash's guidance or influence conveniently before the last match for the victory, only to give indirect help at best and then winning a battle against a Pokémon with no feats, it's hard to consider Meltan's power boost earned and even harder to tell if he even had a significant power boost to begin with considering how little feats we have for both him in particular and Alola battles in general. All in all, a Pokémon that's been more shortserved by how late he came than actually any inherent issues.

2.3) Ash, Pikachu, and the Team Rocket trio

And with all those characters breached, we have to move on to the Sun & Moon take on Ash himself, which is, to put it simply, rather complicated to discuss. Another one of Sun & Moon's biggest talking points was the decision to amp up Ash's typical childishness to higher degrees than usual, with even his voice actress Rica Matsumoto confirming in an interview for the next series that she was explicitly instructed to play Ash as younger than usual for the Alolan series. Now, yet again, Ash having a goofier and more relaxed personality is neither unprecedented (as he was always silly to a degree, even in XY) nor inherently bad, and the problems mostly came from how the series decided to handle him later. One good thing at the start was that the take this series seemed to go for was Ash being a battle shonen-esque hero stuck in the wrong genre, with his typical behavior clashing with the more relaxed nature of the setting, which actually worked well in ensuring he didn't feel reset while fitting the new mission statement of the series. The problems really came up with how, ultimately, Ash became the series' biggest target of butt monkey-related humor (with the rest of the cast either being treated far more seriously or only occasionally being given the same treatment) and his initial competence in battling lead the way to an overabundance of 'silly regular kid'-related humor with even battles treated as mostly laughing matters, something later battles and important matches overturned to a degree that started to make Ash's handling feel arbitrary.

And arbitrary is the best way to describe Ash in this series: he can either be as good a trainer and master planner as he always was (Ash VS Olivia, Ash VS Misty, Ash VS Kukui), a heroic young man willing to go to good lengths for people he cares for (Tapu Koko rematch, most of the Guzzlord arc) while being scared and intimidated by his own Pokémon (Ula'Ula arc), a regular kid screwing up on daily tasks and willing to cheat his homework (Sophocles' early focus eps, the open school episode), a whiny little kid (the Stoutland treasure hunt episode, the Rotom farewell episode), a surprisingly thoughtful and serious boy (Stoutland's death episode, Minior episode) and everything in between, with the changes being so jarring that it feels less like this show is attempting a nuanced take on Ash and more like the show is simply not caring to stick to any portrayal depending on what the episode requires, especially when as I said above the entire premise of the show hinges on Ash not falling for his typical wanderlust (which is the inability to sit still for long and explore the world, so 'school and daily life adventures' doesn't cut it) without ever adequately explaining how, and seeming strangely uninterested in looking for new chances to grow stronger unless they happen to come his way. Arbitrary is also a great way to describe his impact on both his friends and the region, where in spite of appearing in every single episode, it often feels like Ash is irrelevant to his own show: he has nothing to do with either of Lillie's family deals, nor Sophocles' growing independency beyond occasional sidelines support and kickstarting it indirectly with the Charjabug gift, he barely did anything to support Lana's achievements beyond being there when they happened, his rivalry with Kiawe was nice but ultimately wasn't given his due, and Mallow and him barely got to have significant interactions throughout the story. Most of his rivalries in the region were carried more by his Pokémon than himself as he only shared amicable relationships with all of his supposed rivals with no real competitivity at their core (aside from Kiawe, which as mentioned was done dirty), and even when he got to be a hero it was either as part of an effort by everyone (Necrozma arc, both Guzzlord instances, technically most Ultra Guardians episodes), relying on questionably justified plot devices (Aether arc, and once again the Necrozma arc), or ultimately moving the focus away from him and his influence when you'd think the story would do the opposite (Guzma's parts in the Alola League). Adding onto that that the amount of times his Pokémon gained moves in the heat of the moment without training (a series staple that previous series tried to downplay with more onscreen training) and how his Pokémon ended up learning moves more for the actions of someone other than him than because he helped them, and Ash's handling in this region really adds up to strangely inconsequential, which is particularly bad considering how the League tried to go the other way, making his eventual achievement at the end feel hollow in the face of lacking buildup in the region and the several boosts and narrative aids he got to get there.

There's also the elephant in the living room that is Ash's development. Early in Sun & Moon I've seen people claim this series was more about Ash developing as a human being than as a trainer, which would be true... if not for the fact stuff like Ash doing chores was also alluded to and shown in previous series like AG and DP, and that during the Alola League (which should be the culmination of the series) none of it is actually remotely involved except for Ash talking of his love for the region during the final attack, while it never actually showed in previous matches (even against Guzma, which should be where this should come up given Ash's declaration at the start of it, the narrative wants us to stay in Guzma's head instead). The 'love for the region' thing also seems weird to bring up to me considering he actually spent less time exploring the region and more being holed up in one city with very occasional detours, with most of the plots ensuing around him being the sort of thing you'd see in "filler" episodes (like taking part in some competitions, taking part in a play, etc). It feels more like the series wants us to pretend the typical filler hijinks now are part of character growth rather than being just small adventures for fun. If we consider that learning to love the region, then Ash didn't really do much of different from previous series beyond sitting still this time around. And ultimately, the fact that Ash is back to adventuring now in a similar way to previous series means that if Ash ends up winning a League again in the future (which is not unlikely now that the ceiling was broken through), none of the reasons given to make his stay in Alola significant would really age well. The only arc that I feel actively tried to develop Ash as a trainer was Ula'Ula, and that still relied on some very significant moments of out-of-character behavior from Ash.

2.4) Relationships, and Everyone Else

I think at this point one recurring issue has cropped up: specifically, there are so many supposedly important characters that none of them truly got their due in terms of focus, either having to be satisfied with a number of focus episodes that barely amount to an arc or with their involvement into things reduced to just their specific deals and barely little else, especially with how this was the first series to not have all of Ash's friends necessarily involved in every episode. I feel this had a pretty adverse effect on the series' dynamics, as the already diluted interactions between the cast due to the large group ended up being even less focused on given that not all the characters were always there. As a result, we barely know stuff like Mallow's or Sophocles' relationship, or Lillie's and Kiawe's, and so on, with their own relationships to each other mostly falling into basic friendship (the ones with Ash in particular mostly falling into respect, friendliness and occasional snark at his expense), with only a few like Kiawe's competitiveness with Ash or Lana and Mallow being revealed halfway in as childhood friends having particular focus, otherwise being content with splitting the cast into 'the boys' group' and 'the girls' group' whenever they needed focused attention, and the rare occasions where the characters had some interactions. For the most part, perhaps emblematically of this series, characters mostly shared moments rather than actual relationships.

All that's left to discuss in this area is the rest of the cast, and let it be said... for a series supposedly about exploring the people of Alola, the majority of the non-main cast ranges from forgettable to rather dull, especially once we move to the lesser recurring characters. Lusamine's reduction to an overworked mother who only gets involved in matters explicitly tied to her children and occasionally the Ultra Guardians missions was a rather noticeable waste of an interesting game character, and while Kukui does have a nice presence and good usage throughout the series, the same can't quite be said of his wife Burnet, who beyond some good presence in the Aether arc and minor bits of exposition when dealing with Ultra Beasts (and in particular Necrozma) is effectively sidelined in housewife position for most of the series as Ash's 'second mother' (a position that, unlike Kukui who actively acts the part, mostly seems to come from cooking for him and being married post-Aether) with most of her funny moments coming from being a Royal Mask fangirl. Wicke has very little going for her, while Faba is probably one of Sun & Moon's worst misfires in that, after making his villainy far worse than his game self, the story acts like he should be forgiven while never actually learning his lesson, in spite of the show telling us he caused trauma to Lillie for years and how most of his contributions to anything end up boiling to minor help at best, and attempting to cheat his way to what he wants (the League) at worst. It's a horrible lessons for kids to have, and I'm not sure what the writers had in mind with this aside from keeping him around because the games' more snively and heinous Faba (even accounting for his more evil USUM iteration) also did.

Then we have the Kahuna, which are for the most part okay bit characters (even if Olivia's take was pretty weird, coming from her game self), with Nanu as the obvious standout even between the issues of the Ula'Ula arc as a jerk trainer with a point that doesn't really get 'taught his place', close enough to his game characterization, and Hapu having a decent track to development in the Poni arc (even if much like Olivia, it sacrificed her game characterization along the way). The other Trial Captains not part of the main cast run the gamut between nice to see but not particularly deep (Acerola, to a degree Ilima) and pretty much borderline pointless (Mina). Ash's rivals are a similar deal, with Hau being nice but having not too much to himself with how late he enters the series, while Gladion is an alright character whose rivalry with Ash mostly suffers of being a tad vanilla: they're on friendly terms, are strong, and like to battle each other, but beyond that Ash doesn't have much of a reason to be a rival (something even Alain had by being interested in facing Ash even if he was as separate otherwise), like the student-teacher relationship Sawyer had, or the foil status Paul shared with him, or simply being an old friend he wanted to surpass the way Gary was. Their lack of connection alongside the fact that Gladion would barely think about him unless the plot required him to only contributed to them feeling a tad distant from each other, and why their final bout at the League felt for many viewers just 'okay' rather than the earned culmination of their relationship.

And then there are the lower tier recurring characters, ostensibly Sun & Moon's selling point as, unlike previous series, only rarely did the series happen to introduce 'characters of the day' that never came back afterwards. The biggest problem is that, ultimately, all of these lower tier characters are still as flat as the characters of the day of yesteryear: in spite of appearing several times, all we know of Anela the old lady is that she used to be a dancer and likes Litten/Torracat a lot, Ulu is pretty much an even more flanderized Brock that seldom pops up, Anna the reporter mostly stuck to that role, most of the parents and relative of the classmates that weren't Lillie's remained minor characters with little of note to themselves, and so on. The only noticeable recurring guys among the bunch are probably the Skull trio (which mostly acted as a second rate Team Rocket while was even less recurring than they were in this region) and Viren as a recurring antagonist, mostly for being the kind of villain you usually saw punished at the end of the series in previous series (like Dolan the Pokémon merchant) except made recurring in spite of being arrested in his previous appearence, with no real explanation beyond 'kids' show logic'. Even supposedly important characters like Ida and Horatio mostly remain rather regular mentors and rivals with not much else to them, and are unlikely to stick to anyone but the most diehard fans. There are of course some good characters among this bunch, especially the borderline characters of the day like two-episode-wonders Dia and the Kanto weaboos in the Malie City arc, but overall, if Alola truly wanted to make this a lived in and more developed region than previous series, its inhabitants didn't give this aim any real favors, in my opinion.

3. A Dissection of the Series: What Went Wrong, How, and Why

With the biggest parts of important elements of the series analyzed, I'd like to use this final part of the review for some extra analysis of how the series went down and why, in my opinion, it ended up changing for the worse as it went along, since there's one important thing to point out: Sun & Moon, conceptually and fundamentally, wasn't a bad series. But what it does have is, beyond some big flaws, several small ones that continously added up.

Now, let's start to dissect everything, dividing everything by their year of airing.

3.1) Year One: Beginnings, Akala Island, Aether Foundation

When I say that, I have to start with saying that my opinion of Sun & Moon wasn't initially this negative, and in fact, the first twenty-to-forty episodes were actually pretty nice: while the setup is slightly different than usual and humor is definitely prevalent (in particular the oft-mentioned 'funny faces', which would go on to become one of the defining elements of this iteration, far more than any prior series), there's a steady influx of plot-important episodes, development and setup for the future to help making the series a breezy watch, with each slice of life romp feeling either productive or simply fun diversions. Among the good things estabilished here that stand out as good even at the end of the series there's definitely the spiritual angle of Alola, an angle that whenever explored truly does make the region feel different than previous ones and like Ash is effectively experiencing something he never did before, and with stuff like the first trial and Grand Trial alongside Litten's capture arc and Gladion's introduction help keeping ther pace going even in the absence of a more overarching goal in the League. Now, this stretch is hardly perfect, considering that it already shows several cracks that later expanded: Ash only decides to move to the Island Challenge when he happens to remember about it in episode 9; a lot of battles end way too quick and barely get focus except for Trial and Grand Trial (which still have a somewhat lethargic pace); Gladion's decent rival setup is ruined by an unnecessary Team Rocket attack; some Idiot Plots and empty episodes that are just dull to watch happen; certain setups and developments are rushed to the finish way too fast; and, most importantly, the removal of Trial Captains from the lore and Team Skull as a consistent presence beyond occasional moments ended up removing tentpole parts of Alola's nature in the games that the show barely fills adequately, and it opens the door to call anything the show wants a trial, no matter how unrelated to battling it is, giving a feeling that the Island Challenge is hapzardly put together. But, during these early episodes, the problems are negligible or made up for, and even nowadays, I'd heartily reccomend everything up to Stoutland's death as legitimately good.

The first crack, overall, comes from the Akala arc. At the time of its airing, it looked to be a breath of fresh air as it finally moved away from Melemele Island after a rather noticeable dip in plot important events for more filler-y hijinks, and due to prior experience with the series, it was easy to assume the cast would've remained there for a while. However, that didn't end up happening, the arc ending mere episodes after it began, after rushing through equivalents of the three in-game trials (with Ash only effectively taking part in the Grass Trial from the games while Kiawe and Lana ended up gaining his Marowak and her Z-Ring and Waterium-Z instead) until it culminated in Olivia's Grand Trial, with one extra episode dealing with evolution-related issues for Lycanroc culminating into Dusk Lycanroc. This arc already started on a bad note by only allowing Ash one of the in-game trials for a Z-Crystal, which while to a degree understandable on the reasoning of wanting him to only have Z-Crystals he'd effectively use and the seeming decision at the time to not have overlapping Z-Crystals among the main cast, ended up solidifying the 'whatever counts' feeling of the Anime Island Challenge, and a first proper episode that seemed to relish into making Ash into an even larger butt monkey than usual, including him crying like a baby upon losing in a way that would've been immature for his OS self. Kiawe's episode was the standout of this batch, as it focused on him confronting an opponent he couldn't beat and with Ash giving him support into improving, estabilishing a good challenge to overcome in a way that had become rare for the series and was good to see again. Lana's own Trial wasn't bad either, but suffered of having more challenge put into it during the fishing part than the battling part, and Ash's Grass Trial being a battle that suffered of both misplaced comedy (an example of tone imbalance I'll address more later) and an opponent that barely even moved in Totem Lurantis. Olivia's Grand Trial was also probably one of the best battles to come out of Sun & Moon, putting a focus on strategy even in an extremely slow battle and with a more-than-decent finish, with the only blemish being that Rockruff's signs of evolving only really come one episode before they develop further into him evolving, and the already-mentioned problem of Dusk Lycanroc being supposedly a new discovery that nobody paid much attention to, after which we moved back to Melemele to resume the rhythm of seeming slice of life (with at least three episodes of good importance and one nominally important).

After another brief stretch, we moved briefly to Kanto for an arc that was ultimately just nostalgic fluff for old fans bringing back Misty and Brock, which was nice even if transparently OS-pandering (to the point Misty's Azurill and even Tracey were not even as much as mentioned during the episodes), with the only really important contributions to the series beyond two cool fights in the second episode was the first mention of the Alola Pokémon League (with Kukui being reminded he'll need badges, something he seemed to not pay much attention to later) and Misty and Brock getting a promise of a visit to Alola that didn't really do much for the series beyond further fluff. After this, however, we finally moved to one of the first truly major arcs of the series: the Aether Foundation arc, or, in my opinion, where the series really started to fall apart.

At first, the arrival of the Aether arc seemed to be rather promising, seemingly keeping the slice of life nature of the series but starting to delve into the elements of the games for what people presumed to be a slow burn to a payoff loosely covering the game events. Except... that's not really what happened. Instead, this entire arc turned into about a dozen of episodes harshly abridging the entire villain arc of the games and cutting everything they couldn't fit, while seemingly following the conflicting mission statements of making the arc as loosely close to the games as possible while trying to be as different from them as possible, and this was clear from the very beginning, with the introduction of Lusamine as an overbearing mother with none of the deviousness of her game counterpart. This, however, isn't necessarily a problem as the Anime has often rewritten game characters before, but what the problem is is the fact they changed the conflict of Lillie dealing with the emotional abuse Lusamine inflicted upon her into Lillie simply being annoyed at being treated as a child and, most importantly, being annoyed at how her mother evolved her own Clefairy, something Clefairy itself didn't have a problem with, that makes her come across as a spoiled brat and losing most sympathy (especially when no one but maybe Burnet reprimand her for her callous behavior), especially when Lusamine is treated as legitimately loving her and just being too busy rather than having any malice. The problem is also that, throughout the arc, the only one blaming Lusamine for never wondering how did Lillie develop her phobia of Pokémon is Gladion, while true to form Lillie doesn't seem to hold her mother accountable for it, and in fact, only wants to uncover the truth after Nebby teleports her near Type: Null by sheer coincidence, reverting her development from her focus episodes. Nebby is another big issue, as its ownership moved from Lillie to Ash for no reason other than giving him a reason to be involved in what would've otherwise been 'the Aether family show', yet the episode wants to still play into the game by implying Lillie and Nebby have a special relationship when they share their moment.

What I feel was the biggest issue of this specific arc, however, was shuffling the actively villainous role of the plot towards Faba, where he actually manages to be menacing for a brief while before the show decides to fully portray him as a silly villain hard to take seriously (including a magical girl routine to activate an Ultra Wormhole-creating machine) even as he's responsible for Lillie's trauma in his attempt to make Lusamine happy and finding an Ultra Beast for her and tried to wipe out Lillie's memories when she seemed to be able to reveal what happened. In the midst of a sea of confusing plot holes by adaptation (why was Type: Null fitted with the mask when as Silvally he did exactly what he was asked to do and Lusamine seems unaware it even exists? Where did the RKS System ROMs come from? Why the heck did a random Solgaleo and Lunala entrust their child to Ash to begin with?), the biggest problem of this arc comes from how, in Faba's aborted attempt to wipe out Lillie's memories, Silvally's attempt to save her reminds her of what really happened when she developed her phobia (a mere two episodes after it was revealed what caused it), giving her back the ability to touch all Pokémon again, making her previous attempts to do so feel retroactively pointless and only there to milk viewer sympathy for when she lost the ability to again, alongside ensuring to keep her development path directionless after this episode barely one third of the way into the series.

The biggest problem after this, however, comes from Faba's subsequent plan that ends up with Lusamine defending her children from a Nihilego and ending up dragged into Ultra Space due to her act of selflessness, with Lillie, Gladion, and subsequently everyone else moving on to Poni Island to rescue her. Along the way, Lillie changes into what the games called her 'Z-Powered Form', which in the games symbolized her moving away from her mother's shadow, while here it means... pretty much nothing, voiding it of its significance and making it come across as either a game-pandering move or something just done because the source material did it. Another significant issue of this stretch is Ash's upgrade of his Z-Ring into a Z-Power Ring, under the absolutely important reasoning of his Solgalium-Z not fitting in his regular Z-Ring. Meaning that Ash needed a magical, seemingly important ritual to obtain something whose usefulness boils down to borderline cosmetic reasons, especially as we later see Z-Power Rings doled out regularly like they're nothing important (including one to Team Rocket and Gladion's regular Z-Ring turning into a Z-Power Ring with no one remarking about it), which is probably one of the most blatant cases of marketing dictating plot flow in the history of this series.

We then moved on to the final battle, which was admittedly decent enough beyond some strange issues of power creep (like Sophocles one-shotting Lusamine's Milotic) and some occasional bits of tonal imbalance (Teether Dance hula in the middle of a serious mission by Sophocles, Mallow and Lana), but was marred by two issues of significance: one was the decision of having Lillie's big moment with her mother possessed by Nihilego involve her giving a speech of how she hates her and how she allowed herself to be possessed by an Ultra Beast for how self-absorbed she is, which while definitely meant to come across as "the mother I respect would never fall for it" has the problem of Lillie and Lusamine never getting a softer reconciliation before this moment (with said softer reconciliation seemingly happening offscreen after everything was over, which we never heard of until almost episode one hundred), which just further makes Lillie unlikable. The other problem is the grand debut of 10,000,000 Volt Thunderbolt, a move that was only used three times that was either poorly explained or never actually received an explanation depending on how you interpret the part where it's employed in the very last major battle of the series, completely out of nowhere except for perhaps Ash's Electrium-Z shining briefly a lot of episodes ago, which was never fully explained, as is the fact Ash's Pikashunium-Z reverted after use.

And thus, after a wedding between the four-times-dated Kukui and Burnet and with Nebby deciding to leave for no adequately explained reason, with Lusamine estabilishing a task force for Ultra Beasts which involves the classmates and Lillie in the closest thing this series gave them to an onscreen reconciliation, after an arc where Lillie supposedly grew... things returned to be for the most part exactly like they were in previous episodes, almost like this arc never happened, including Lillie reverting to her regular clothes. Pretty much, this supposedly character-focused arc ended up coming across as ultimately not so important, especially when Lillie's personality remained roughly the same with the only real problems she developed from being the ones this arc itself introduced, except for now being able to touch every Pokémon.

Things seemed to just return to normal, even if this was just a prelude towards the structure of the series completely collapsing on itself.

3.2) Year Two: Ultra Guardians, Ula'Ula Island, Necrozma

Year two is the one to which I, personally, trace most of the problems of the Sun & Moon series, as the major focus of the series throughout this period ended up being the 'Ultra Guardians', a Sentai-esque team formed by the main cast under Aether Foundation supervision tasked with dealing with Ultra Beasts, and the biggest problem of this arc is that it really wasn't an arc so much as it was a loose connection of monster of the weeks plots that occasionally was brought up outside of them, but was otherwise completely separate from everything not just in terms of structure, but also in tone, as a parody Sentai with barely threatening monsters clashed heavily both with wanting to be a chill slice of life Anime and with wanting to be a battle-based Pokémon Anime. It's an arc that never fully gelled with everything else (the only I'd save being Celesteela, a good Sophocles episode and a rare character-driven Ultra Guardians romp) and ultimately ended on a pitiful note with a rather dull episode with no real oomph to it, but ended up taking the 'main arc' position and leaving the rest of the series pretty much directionless, with several major arcs stalled and, beyond Lillie obtaining her Icium-Z and an Ice Stone that then disappeared completely, Torracat and Steenee evolving, and the Ula'Ula arc for Lycanroc, and Poipole leading to Necrozma, pretty much little of major happened. Teams remained frozen, and development seemed to hit a dead end, beyond officially introducing the Masked Royal.

Between the Ilima episodes (which felt like a waste considering his main purpose at the League ended up being effectively jobbing to Guzma) and the beginning of the Ula'Ula arc proper, the viewers and the students were properly acquainted with the idea of Alola soon getting a Pokémon League, with both Ash and Kiawe expressing interest in it. This didn't send any weird looks yet, as Kiawe was estabilished as the other major battler and to have taken the trials, but this was in hindsight an important omen of things to come. In the meantime, however, Ash departed for Ula'Ula in what turned out to be a solo arc, and one that started up promising only to run into big issues along the way.

I already mentioned part of it when talking of Lycanroc, but the problem of the Ula'Ula arc is that it works on the assumption that Ash would be scared of Lycanroc's rage issues to the point of not acting, with Tapu Bulu's training giving them a moment to surpass those issues that, even with Rowlet suddenly learning Razor Leaf by sitting on a magical tree, could've even worked if it wasn't for the fact that to calm down Lycanroc and reaffirm his trust in him Ash ended up involving a flashback to Rockruff that we never saw before, making the whole affair come across as insincere. After an interlude where Ash undertook a 'Trial' that was technically the in-game Ghost one but was effectively a phony one involving Team Rocket (just furthering the 'whatever goes' sense of the Anime Island Challenge) that resulted in no Z-Crystal, the debut Electroweb, and a strange appearence of 10,000,000 Volt Thunderbolt again in spite of the whole thing being a relatively down to earth affair even with Team Rocket about to win with Mimikyu's Z-Move, this arc reached its conclusion with Ash VS Nanu, a battle that's been in equal part praised and mocked, and which I had a friend describe in the most accurate way as a well-written and interesting battle... for anyone but Ash Ketchum.

Seeing a battle taking on a more psychological bent with Nanu toying with Ash and trying to force him to give in to Lycanroc's rage mode is an admitedly interesting choice and Nanu is absolutely the best part of this battle for it, but the problem is that this requires the assumption that Ash would unconsciously not trust his Pokémon after they put the rage mode under control with trust to begin with, alongside the battle being rather visually boring and with a 1 VS 3 set up that makes it more seem like Nanu is weak than Ash being strong (especially with Tapu Bulu tossing in a Sitrus Berry mid-match). This is supposed to be Ash's big development moment as a trainer in Alola, but it requires Ash to have a regressive mindset that doesn't fit how far he's come (something Sun & Moon does in quite a few things big and small, like completely forgetting Jennies and Joys are families of clones after the Kanto episodes) and, much like the Aether arc before it, begins and ends in the few episodes it takes to happen, I already covered Poipole's issue in his character dissection, so I'd like to move on to the most important part of this year: the Necrozma arc, which among the major arcs of the Sun & Moon series it's probably the most irrelevant. Coming in after only minimal foreshadowing (including a fairly interesting hint of a connection between Nanu and Giovanni that the show never really dealt with adequately), this arc was effectively as standalone as it gets, involving events that were only briefly mentioned after it (Rotom depositing the data of Necrozma in the Stufful episode, Naganadel's return, the stadium where the League was held being called Manalo Stadium), and that tried to make a big dangerous deal without actually having much happening: beyond the biggest damage of the episode being adults feeling comedically down as a result of absorbed energy, the introduction of an Elite squad of Team Rocket led by Giovanni's secretary Matori (here revamped as a Team Rocket trio hater in spite of originally being the one reccomending them to Giovanni in DP's last episode) that ultimately did nothing significant except maybe causing injuries to Nebby that wasn't clear if they happened or not with how stiff the animation was, the baffling and unexplained return of Nebby alongside an out-of-nowhere Lunala, and a general sense of big deal where nothing much of dangerous for the cast happened (and that bafflingly replaced the Ultra Recon Squad and Ultra Megalopolis with a talking Naganadel and a generic quarry that achieved effectively the same purpose), this arc ended up feeling like a snoozefest that only resulted in Poipole staying behind in his now healed world in an overall beautifully permanent-feeling farewell, except that, in the light of future events, this choice felt like one that effectively harmed the show in the long run. Also, with Matsui being the headwriter, one might think resolving the arc with everyone sharing their energy borders on self-plagiarism considering she was also the headwriter of Dragon Ball GT, which had a similar climax (itself inherited from Dragon Ball Z).

Thankfully, even if this year was really not the greatest, the following one brought as much improvements as it did other problems to deal with.

3.3) Year Three: Poni Island, Hints of Mohn, Alola Pokémon League

The third year of Sun & Moon did not start on a good note, as after the Necrozma arc the show ended up on a shortage of things to look forward to, with several arcs still stalled and only the still no show Guzma and the League left to check out. During this period, perhaps to lead into Let's Go marketing, we started getting some shorts at the end of each episode dealing with an Eevee getting to Alola, which everyone assumed would eventually go to Ash, only to unexpectedly go to Lana in a move that made some fans sour. Sandy didn't end up doing much else but being cute and possibly allowing Lana's arc to resume by giving her another cute Pokémon to hold in Popplio's stead, but that was it for a while alongside Hau's debut as a character, in an episode infamous for being at the same time an okay rival introduction where Ash lost a fight by fetching his Z-Crystal and getting distracted to take it back, and where Rowlet ate an Everstone for a move that turned out to be more trouble than it was worth.

Beyond Misty and Brock visiting an Alola (which involved an episode where Brock's womanizing gag was blown even further than ever before) and an actually pretty decent arc starring Ash tossed into a post-apocalyptic alternate Alola to deal with Guzzlord in a rare instance of an Ultra Beast being presented as an actual force of destruction, the show finally started to move again with the Poni arc, or as some people called it 'the ultimate development arc', as the focus of this arc seemed to be the opposite of Ula'Ula being an Ash solo act by putting the focus back on the neglected companions, giving them either a new character direction, Z-Crystals evolutions, new Pokémon or in Ash's case his final Grand Trial, all tied together by Hapu opening up to the crew after starting standoffish and distant. Overall, Poni isn't on paper a bad arc, and there are quite a few episodes that are actually pretty good (Kiawe's trial among them for sure), but cramming all this development on the same island one after the other only had the effect of feeling jarring (unlike how Akala was not only still early enough, but only gave significant new things to Ash, Kiawe and Lana), most noticeably by cramming two completely separate evolution plots in the same episode in a move that slightly hurt both of them (Sophocles' feeling a tad impersonal, while Lana's lost the actual training part of it), Shaymin was effectively even more irrelevant than Sandy in the series, the Mohn arc estabilished here had some problems I'll get into soon, and the Hapu Grand Trial ending up as one of the worst 'Gym battles'-like matches Ash ever fought by utilizing the same strategy to victory as the extremely derided Brock battle by dousing Mudsdale and using an Electric attack on it, only adding the patch that 'it was just like Soak' even if no Pikachu can access that move. Ultimately, a well-intentioned arc that felt a bit too little, too late, and came at the expense of Ash's own focus before his final Grand Trial (to the point unlike the previous islands he didn't even do any unofficial trials before this one).

Following this, the next major episode (excluding a two-parter introducing Ash's Meltan that arguably ran one episode too long) was one that was both long awaited and caused some issues and improvements for the series going forward: Guzma's debut episode, alongside the formal announcement to the world of the Alola Pokémon League... and more specifically, the fact that it would be open to everyone with no requirements whatsoever, on the justification that it's not important who wins. Now, I've seen way too many debates on the topic, so I'll put it simply: regardless of if you think an open League is a good idea or not, it does mean that the various trials and Grand Trials Ash took on lost a lot of their meaning since they became self-sustained achievements that don't mean much outside their bubble if Ash didn't need to do any of them to enter the League, and this structure did cause several problems that lowered the general quality of the Alola League for a decent part of its length. When Guzma is being painted as the bad guy for considering the League just a schoolyard fight between weaklings, the viewers shouldn't be inclined to agree with him.

Another big issue of this decision is that, otherwise, it caused the structure of the series to come under scrutiny: before, and usually, since Ash is the only character taking part in the League, it's only his growth in skill that is under scrutiny, and everyone else is free to be as strong or as weak as necessary, but opening the door to everyone to join in also meant that everyone in the series came under scrutiny, and to put it simply characters like Mallow just weren't made to be involved in it even under the guise of a League for fun, something that showed in the actual execution of the Alola League and that I'll get to in a bit.

The episode after this one started the further estabilishment of the Mohn arc, and let me just say... this arc is, on the whole, probably the most disappointing of the various arcs of Sun & Moon, and that's saying something after everything I explained so far. Specifically, the biggest purpose of this arc was for the Aether family to find out about the whereabouts of the seemingly dead patriarch of the family, and supposedly show Lillie as being 'strong' after the events of the Aether arc, but in actual concept, it was just a convenient way for her to get a Z-Ring after conveniently ignoring the possibility for almost one real life year, getting it 'on loan' for almost getting a Z-Move to work in spite of everyone else requiring to pass a real trial to get theirs, and with her contributions effectively ending up still needing Gladion's help and amounting, once more, mostly to feeling sad to catch audience sympathy, while Gladion gets a Zoroark to be only used in one round of the League. But the worst part of all is that this arc, to put it simply, doesn't end. After Magearna finally wakes up and we get the not explained reveal that it knows where Mohn is, the Aether family embarks on a journey to find him... only for the series to end at that point. After spending six months teasing this storyline, just leaving it hanging like this is poor storytelling, and even with the justification that Pokémon 2019's world-hopping premise would mean the new show can end it for Sun & Moon, the series shouldn't have to rely on another one to resolve its own plots, especially one on which supposedly significant moments of the late series hinged on.

The rest of the series, however, does gain something from the open League premise, and that something is a consistent direction by having everyone get boosts in preparation for the League, which at the very least leads to some alright moments for Sophocles that play nicely in his arc and the technical resolution of Lana's arc, among a sea of strangely persistent legendary appearences that only got more and more contrived as the series went on considering they were entirely separate from each other, even the ones that led to ultimately good episodes (like the one where a Celebi led to Ash and Torracat meeting a young Professor Kukui), since it felt like a move to ensure attention that was wholly unnecessary to the story being told. But over time, everything came to a close with the start of the Alola Pokémon League, probably the most talked about arc of Sun & Moon, for good or ill.

The Alola League is unique in several aspects, both in terms of the Sun & Moon series and the Anime as a whole: for the former, it's a battle-focused arc in a region that didn't want battling to be the focus as the climax of it; for the latter, it's the longest League arc in the series' history. clocking at roughly sixteen episodes. Being a tournament arc, you'd think such a good length would benefit it, but the way the series decided to execute things left a lot to be desired, most specifically because Sun & Moon has a very mixed track record in terms of battles and for the decision to show every battle of the tournament even if just partially. There is a lot that could be said about this arc, but I'll try to aim for the big ones first: for starters, beginning the League by reducing the contestants to just sixteen using a Battle Royale was a rather poor choice, as not only that's a format that allows characters to reach high positions by just surviving rather than being strong (as seen by how James got to the Top 16 even if he explicitly didn't face anyone), but confining it to just one episode meant that pretty much every battle of it was reduced to just a series of one-hit KOs from every major characters, with all of them ultimately surviving. After that, another problem was how a lot of the early rounds of the arc ended up averaging between okay to poor battles, with the dubious honor of having Ash's first battle being completely for laughs against Faba, the only character beyond Jessie and James to get one in this League in spite of being the eventual winner. I already mentioned the specifics of Mallow's attempt to quit her match coming out of nowhere from a character standpoint and the issues of Ash VS Hau, so I'll just say that Lillie's battle against Gladion was okay but done dirty for what was supposed to be a huge moment for her in terms of development, and that Sophocles', Lana's (sans Mallow's) and Kiawe's battles ended up being okay to great on the whole. However, the fact that the first two rounds of the League only used one Pokémon each didn't help the sense of escalation at all, nor the sense of Guzma being correct in describing this League as 'a schoolyard fight between weaklings'.

From the Semifinals onward, the League improves in quality due to only good battlers remaining, though it does run into problems of a different sort: Guzma, which was built up as the major threat of the League with Ash vowing to stop him due to what Alola did to him, is not only dealt with in the penultimate round rather than in the finals, but in a battle that makes that statement ring a tad hollow since the perspective we follow during the fight isn't Ash's, but rather Guzma's, shedding some light into his confidence issues and his Golisopod's habit to use Emergency Exit whenever scared (which beyond being only halfway foreshadowed, also ends up with the bad side-effect of giving Ash a free win through Torracat, turning Ash VS Guzma into a 2 VS 1 in Ash's favor), but effectively making Ash interchangeable as a result. It's a good fight with some nice moments, but it just makes his build up as possibly ruining the League for everyone ring hollow when his presence didn't seem to ruin the League for anyone in any way, and the threat wasn't even considered worthy of the finals. Kiawe VS Gladion, by contrast, is mostly a good fight with not much else to it. However, one thing that starts to be noticeable in this part of the League is the sheer reluctance of the show to start any matches before the halfway mark or close to it, padding the airtime as much as possible with not always necessary scenes and stretching the battles along two episodes even when not necessary.

The finals having three Pokémon each meant that Ash VS Gladion ended up having a bit more meat to it in terms of battling, but Ash once again ended up getting another boost in the form of Meltan's evolution into a supposedly powerful mythical Pokémon, which would already be bad since he shouldn't be getting these kinds of boosts at the very final stage of this story (and yes, just to be clear, Kingler's deal was poor writing back in OS as well) but also comes after a gag battle rigged in his favor, a battle that required several contrivancies on his side to be won with Rowlet, and another battle with a facilitated victory in Guzma, making it feel like Ash ended up getting into each of these matches with the writing rigged on his side. The Gladion battle has some fairly good moments both from a character and battling perspective, but between the unearned evolution right before it and just the way they built up to things, Ash's victory here ended up not really feeling as impressive as you'd think this first League Conference victory should be, all things considered. A battle that just ends up as 'okay' rather than the amazing it should've been.

However, after a somewhat dull interlude involving a Guzzlord attack that's probably comprised of more stock footage than action just so Naganadel can come in to make number, we moved on to Ash VS Kukui, probably one of the best battles of this series. That said, while it is pretty good and better written than the majority of them, especially in terms of how Torracat is handling for its first three episodes, it is knocked down by being an exhibition match, meaning that beyond 'fun' and offering a good fight, Ash doesn't need to win this battle (unlike how every other major battle at this stage usually comes with adequate stakes), and most importantly how Tapu Koko forced his way in in place of Kukui's last Pokémon (after Kukui allowed Naganadel in on the pretense of being part of the family, ignoring that three-to-four of Kukui's Pokémon in this match were never seen before and his supposed Pelipper was completely excluded just because the local deity wanted some fighting), which given how Koko wasn't part of this particular equation comes across as scrunching two battles to save time. It also doesn't help that then Tapu Koko interrupts the match again just to allow Kukui and Ash to use Z-Moves again, with Ash ending up using 10,000,000 Volt Thunderbolt for the final time while praising the region, which while making for a cool finisher it ultimately makes Ash's supposed aim to master Z-Moves to defeat Tapu Koko resolved in a poor way when he only won using the Z-Crystal he never actually trained to use and that only conveniently showed up whenever it needed. Accounting for yet another boost in the form of Naganadel's return, this battle is ultimately marred once again like most of the League by the writing apparently wanting him to win at all costs and look good while doing so, strategy and skill be damned along the way.

After this followed two episodes of closure, that had some good moments (especially in regards to the Team Rocket trio) but ultimately involved a lot of contrived instances (like an Ultra Wormhole for Naganadel to return home coming just above Kukui's house) or poorly executed moments, most importantly the completely offscreen adventure of Ash and Nebby in Ultra Space, the way Mimikyu decided to let go of his killer instinct towards Pikachu, and most importantly the fact that Ash decided to leave his Alolan team behind for reasons the viewer wasn't made privy to, and which ended up having negative implications for either the Alolan team or the previous Pokémon depending on how you read it.

And that's ultimately how Sun & Moon ended up feeling for me, with several small issues that kept adding up, until the show just couldn't handle them anymore.

3.4) The Problem of Themes and Other Technical Issues

Before to move on the closing statement, I'd like to quickly address something I've often seen brought up in Sun & Moon's defense, generally its themes justifying a lot of what it does alongside exploring the region of Alola by having Ash live there. Usually, the biggest themes I see brought up about this is that Sun & Moon is about family and meeting a world and learning from it... but while the first might have some merit, the second is very much what the show has always been about, arguably moreso than Sun & Moon has been since Ash actively travelled to meet said world rather than wait until the world came knocking at his door, and there were a lot of family-oriented moments in previous series, be they siblings or relatives. I'm sure there are other, different themes that one could bring up here, perhaps some that are indeed unique to the Sun & Moon series, but there's something important to say about themes: no matter how good the message you want to spread or explore is, if the narrative has issues, you can't excuse them on the pretense of themes, especially if it starts to be applied to every single imperfection one finds in a story. Themes are embellishments that make stories better, not substitutes for good writing.

And in terms of narrative issues, Sun & Moon has, in my opinion, quite a few of them, not just the ones I explained in the first paragraph but also some important ones involving both the way episodes are written, and how battles were handled, including the way the generational gimmicks were used. In regards the way the episodes are written, there's the fact that several of them end up involving a strange structure where the plot doesn't actually begin until the halfway mark, and while this may perhaps help with a slow pace and relaxed atmosphere, it does have the side effect of making quite a few of them feel dull to watch, especially older fans used to the rhythms of the series before this iteration.

Bigger, and most pressing, are the problems of battle writing this season ran into, which go deeper than just the absolute downgrade in battle presentation, but go straight into how the battles were written. One noticeable thing that feeds into how slow the battles ended up being is the fact that commentary became just as commonplace as it used to be in the earliest series, constantly breaking the action on a regular basis rather than letting the scenes flow more often than not. Beyond that, the biggest problem is that, more often than not, the battles aren't decided by skill or strategy (though there are occasional skill-based bouts), but rather who feels a bigger drive to win or happens to fire their Z-Move last, which coupled with the removal of most of the minor battles that could go either way to mostly focus on the big ones that have to absolutely be resolved a certain way, leading to such gems as the already mentioned battle with Hau where an otherwise good Ash ended up slipping his Z-Crystal just so he could be distracted and lose due to it, or one where Gladion managed to completely tank a Z-Move only to reply by his own, out of nowhere new Dragon-type Z-Move. It made battles dull to follow more often than not, especially with battles often falling more on shows of strength or exchanges of moves with no real rhyme and reason rather than giving the impression that the trainers had any real plan behind their orders (Ash constantly falling back on relying on an incompletely learned move in Ash VS Hau being a particularly blatant case of it showing).

And relatedly, another major issue of the series overall is the way it choose to handle Z-Moves. Compared to Mega Evolution being a fairly consistent 'have the stones + have the bond = Mega Evolution' in the previous show, Z-Moves depend on several factors, from getting the pose right to having a correct amount of focus and bond with the Pokémon to if the Pokémon used them before, and as a result, the entire idea of mastering Z-Moves feels wholly inconsistent: sometimes you can have characters with perfect relationships with their Pokémon completely failing at using their Z-Moves, sometimes characters like Mallow that first chided others for not getting the Grassium-Z pose right and then ended up unable to master Bloom Doom well until the League match, sometimes you can have characters that get Z-Moves right with Pokémon they never even saw before, and everything in between. It feels extremely arbitrary, and makes 'mastering Z-Moves' feel less down to the characters' agency and more down to whether the writers feel like having them master them or not.

But, if I may say, the real biggest problem of the series is that, simply put, it often raises questions it never manages to answer satisfactorily, just creating a situations were things are left so vague everyone has to either remain confused at what happened or supplant it with their own headcanons. Counting just some of the important questions: Why did Ash choose to go to school instead of a typical journey? Why was Tapu Koko so interested in Ash? Why did Ash receive Nebby from that Solgaleo and Lunala? Why did Nebby leave at the end of his arc? Why do Giovanni and Nanu know each other so personally? Where did that Lunala come from? What's the deal with Dusk Lycanroc and Meltan? Why does the Pikashunium-Z manifest? Why did Naganadel return? Why does Magearna know Mohn's location?

I have no clue. And frankly, I'm not sure if Sun & Moon knows, either.

4. Conclusions

And with this, I reached the end of this long dissection. It probably got pretty ranty, and it may sound excessive considering this is all the result of overanalyzing what's ultimately a kids' show, but I think I covered most of everything I wanted to. So, in the end, with so much said, what are my final impressions of Sun & Moon? Well, I'd say the amount of fun you'll have with it will depend exactly from what you want of it.

In spite of all my critiques, I'm fairly aware of how people just looking for a good time to cheer themselves up with occasionally emotional moments will find definitely stuff to like. Less critical-minded viewers will also definitely find something for everyone in there, and perhaps enjoy what the series has to offer. My personal opinion is that, ultimately, at its best Sun & Moon can be one of the best entries of the Pokémon Anime, while at its worst, it can be even worse than entries like the Best Wishes series. And as someone who likes consistency in terms of what a series has to offer, I found Sun & Moon a quite irritating watch to do, and probably my second least favorite entry of the series even with its good moments.

Overall regardless of which opinion you will have ended this read in, I hope you found my thoughts interesting to read about, and whatever opinion you hold of the Sun & Moon series, I respect it, and, in case you enjoyed it more than I did, I'm glad you did.

As for me, I officially consider the Gen VII Anime a closed book. With the new series starting soon enough, I'm optimistic that things will only look up from there. Not just for me, but for every other watcher as well.

So, regardless of what the future may hold for this show, I'm looking forward to continue my journey reviewing it with all of you, hoping in better stories to be told.

#anipoke #pokeani #viroreviews #archival post #sun & moon #series review #long post

9 notes · View notes

dafukdidiwatch · 3 years

Text

2021 Housekeeping

Hey guys. Sorry for this blog being like, dead for all of December. A lot of holiday stuff happened and I just got sidetracked with all of that. That aside, I figured since this is the start of a new year I should go over some of the stuff I did throughout 2020. This is strictly dealing with things that I personally did for this blog. I want to keep this a safe-space and not deal with the crap that went on this year, for both you guys and me.

It’s all under the “Keep Reading” because this post is long as hell

Dafuking Films:

For a first attempt I think this went pretty well. 32/52 isn’t that bad, given how I have a real bad habit of just dropping things and never returning to them. Plus with the actual quarantine going on, watching a bunch of different movies people suggested to me was a lot of fun. Some were fantastic and enjoyable. Some people just really wanted me to suffer. But still, good times were had by all. I still have the list of movies that people suggested to me from last year, so I’m still gonna try to go through them all. Maybe twice a month instead of weekly so I won’t burn myself out like before. Regardless, I had fun, so I’m going to continue this.

Website:

Just to get this out of the way. Website was a valiant attempt. Didn’t really give a shit nor cared about the uptake. I Tried. I got tired updating it. If I was going to use it 100% then I would just move from Tumblr to There, which I won’t since all of my good shit is here. So I’m gonna move on.

Newvember:

This was a great idea. I had so much fun doing Newvember. No worries, no commitment. Just reading random shit with no pressure to maybe add them to my already overflowing list of blogs. It also helped me figure out what works and what doesn’t in terms of blogging.

Comic strips comics don’t really work well for me. I mean, the only good things to blog is just the last 2 panels, so I’m sort of only blogging the punchline which ruins the joke if people want to read it themselves. So stuff like Dominic Deegan and Sluggy Freelance probably won’t fly unless they somehow turn into page-format in the future.

Novels and Webnovels are flipping hard for me to figure out on just the logistics on how to blog. Do I give like a page summary on what I read like with The Wandering Inn? Or just do screenshots of the lines to react to like with Detective Pony and A Practical Guide To Evil? I am still working that out so I might not do much written stuff until I find a groove I like.

Interactive Comics get a toss up. I think Homestuck sort of spoiled me a bit here. I’m so used to how Homestuck works that I’m instinctively comparing other interactive comics to it even though I very read an Interactive comic while it was actually interactive. Stuff like Ruby and Awful Hospital unfortunately already has a high bar to jump over just because I like/used to the Homestuck format.

For the liveblogs themselves now that I have time away from them:Dark Science got a cool Cyberpunk vibe to it with a mix of magic-maybe. So it would be cool to read, but probably won’t continue it until the longer blogs like Girl Genius and Order of the Stick get caught up/finished first. Poppy O’Possum is just cute and honestly refreshing to have the main character be a hard-working mom. How to Be a Werewolf is a slowburn of how werewolves work, which I am always a sucker for how lore works. But I don’t really remember too much else from it so I might not revisit it given how I’m not too invested in it. Granted the same can be said for the prologue of Girl Genius and we saw how THAT went. Dominic Deegan is 90s fantasy slice of life, but with like some way old comedy jokes that I can just hear the ba-dum-tsst every punchline. So, yeah that one’s gonna drop. Practical Guide to Evil is a really cool read and I always like fantasy rpg style settings. I like the idea of Titles giving power and having the protagonists be the necessary evil. But again, I have to figure out how to webnovels. Awful Hospital has interesting art, but it isn’t really clicking with me too much so I’m probably gonna drop it. Sluggy Freelance is just wild. Part of it is the random plot things like having asshole rabbits and sci-fi references. Other part is me just saying random shit like how Dirk Strider is living his offshoot life in this comic. Fun read, but I don’t think the strip comics are good liveblog stuff. So will probably drop. A Better Place ABSOLUTELY Slaps. I was down with that since the first comic. Will 100% continue with that (when I get enough space). Blindsprings has an interesting 1800s steampunk magic vibe and I do like the theme of idealization vs reality. Check Please is cute. I’m A Spider is a fun isakai with a cool twist of being reborn as a monster. Not Drunk Enough is just terrifying. Both with the horror and alcohol poisoning.

Basically: A Better Place will definitely be revisited. Poppy, Check Please, Blindsprings, and I’m a Spider will probably be revisited for just short quick sessions. Not Drunk Enough and Dark Science might come back if/when I am finished with longer series.

Either way, I like doing Newvember. So I am going to initiate Ju-New-ne to be the next New-Blog month. So this WILL happen again.

Schedule:

Yeah I believe my time of doing daily blogging sessions is over. It worked well for 2019, but that time is basically over. I probably will try to go for twice a week if I can. It sounds fair enough for content.

Videos:

I am NOT giving up on my Undertale videos. There is more coming. I just got stalled because I lost my art stylus for drawing the thumbnails. I swear to Jegus I am going to Post the entire thing!!! I Shan’t Give Up!!!

Homestuck:

So early 2020 is the time, where after 2 full years I finished reading Homestuck. It was, honestly, a wild ride and wild time. My literal presence on this blog was shaped because of Homestuck from the asks to videos to discord. It was just, good. Nice. Like looking back through a memory book with warm feelings. Having it end the way it did was good, especially with when it ended. I might make posts on how I view the characters overall, maybe make a Final Epilogue Troll Rank/Fav Rank. I will work on that.

And from that, I think that a year is probably long enough for me to revisit Homestuck again. Pesterquest, Epilogue, HS’2, whatever is the next sequel. Hell maybe Problem Sleuth and see what the hell all those references were about. The goal is to be caught up in a bunch of other comics first. Like, gonna gun for 3-5. Once I get caught up (or close to it) then I will return into Hussie’s orange arms once again.

Anyway, that’s a surprise for anyone who actually bothers to read to the end of this. Happy New Year everyone.

#dafukblog #meta #2020 #newvember

14 notes · View notes

closer-stars · 4 years

Text

Late Night Lines

Member: Hongjoong Genre: Slice of life, slightly romantic Requested? Yes, based on a prompt I had reblogged months back Word count: take a guess my dude Content: Late night talks in the studio. Take it as you will. Just late night things that don’t always make sense. Note: Writing again after that fashion edit. yay. Hope it’s okay though since it’s been a while since I wrote a proper fic. I need to write more stuff outside the entertainment industry for real. Slowly getting through my reqs yay.

Another late night in the studio. At least you weren’t going to spend the next few hours dancing. Tonight, you had to stay in the studio to solidify the song for their upcoming comeback. Hongjoong had invited you to the studio, asking to get him some coffee on the way with the promise of paying you back.

“I can’t believe you’re here at this time.” You say as you enter the studio, hands occupied by his request of coffee and some other added stuff.

Hongjoong, whose eyes were still focused on the screen, hums in return. “I’d say the same to you.” You hear the song gradually come together and it was amazing how fast he works.

You settle the bags on the coffee table, keeping your distance from the screen. “I brought the coffee you asked from that coffee shop-- you’re lucky it’s on the way from my place, jeez. Also, bought some food from that restaurant you always bring us to when it’s your turn to pick.” As you talk, you set up the food on the table, just to let it cool down.

This causes him to spin in his chair, greeted by the sight of the food and his coffee and you settling yourself on the couch. This was definitely not something he expected. “Wait, but you didn’t have to..” He mumbles, scratching the back of his head. It’s not that he didn’t want it, in fact he appreciates it, it just was beyond what he had asked.

“I did though. The branch is closing soon so i figured to get you a quick meal cause when’s the next time you’ll be able to visit them?”

That has him look at you directly. Various emotions were going through him: thankful that you thought of doing so, wistful that his favorite was closing, and was that sentimentality? He’s been visiting that place since he was a trainee. It carries so much memories for him. It sucks also that you had a point. He made a mental note to spare some time tomorrow to visit before they close. The song has ended by the time he was out of his thoughts. He brings it back to the beginning but makes sure it doesn’t play again. Hongjoong has learned early on that when he takes a break, he really takes a break. The meal you brought is definitely a sign for him to take his mind off his work even for a while. So he sits across you, reaching for the utensils. “Are you going to eat with me?” He asks.

“Do you want me to?”

“There’s two pairs of chopsticks here and I’m pretty sure the lady in the restaurant knows you by face so yes.”

You slide down the couch and onto the floor of his studio, accepting the chopsticks. The next few minutes is spent in silence, often commenting on the food. He manages to make ssam, small enough to fit in your jaw. “Ah.” You reach out for it but he pulls back. He laughs at the face you make. “I’m here trying to feed you, so say ah.” He states. It’s only then that you relent and open your mouth to receive the beef wrap. “Simon, Sssamon Dominic~” He jokes as you chew carefully. He’s lucky one hand was occupied with the chopsticks while the other was busy covering your stuffed cheeks out of politeness otherwise you would’ve flipped him off.

It takes a while for the two of you to finish your meal. You look through the bag to make sure nothing was forgotten. “Oh right, bought you some sweets to match with the coffee just in case.” You say as you hand him a few macarons from the shop. “And no, you don’t need to pay me back for this. Let’s just get productive tonight okay?” You ask, sipping your own iced americano.

He takes one piece and his coffee, smiling his gratitude. “Who knew you’d be this protective and caring?” He teases as he takes a sip. He takes his rightful seat in front of the computer and goes back to working. You on the other hand walk around the studio with your earphones in, going through the segments you and Yujin have planned based on his first draft and the concept the creative team has told you.

Time passes by quietly between you two. Music plays on his end with the occasional clicking of his mouse, notes from his midi and some humming from him.

“You know, I remember what you wore on the first day.” Hongjoong pipes up, eyes still trained on the screen that displays the various layers of sound. Ironic really when all you hear now is silence and his voice as you had pulled out your earphones after his words.

“What?”

“Your first day working with BB Trippin and us, I still remember it.” He clarifies. To you, it may have not been much. Hell, you don’t even remember what you wore that day. All you remember is you had to wear something comfortable for a possibly long day in a studio. So he continues, “You were in a white shirt, even had the logo of the brand on the left side of your chest. Your cargo pants were sagging slightly too.” This causes you to look at him weirdly at such an odd comment. He feels the weight of your gaze on him and he shrugs. “You had the smart idea of putting your water bottle in one pocket and your phone and powerbank in the other.”

Your cheeks burn at his comment. “I can’t believe you still remember that. I barely remember what I ate last week, much less wore.” You mumble. “How do even remember this?”

“One, you were new to BBT and it was your first time working with us. Two, who even puts their water bottle in their pocket?” He teases you, as he glances at you from the corner of his eye. You note the apples of his cheeks becoming evident, even if he tried to keep himself from smiling, it was obvious from how his cheeks glow against the monitor.

“In my defense, those pants were top tier, deep pockets where i can practically store my entire training bag into it?" You remember when you had to retire that pair to sleep wear. Mixed feelings of happiness to being able to wear it still and sadness from not being able to use it for dancing and being on the go. “What even brought this up?”

He leans back on his chair at your question. Was he that obvious? It’s not like he can hide himself properly from people he works with closely. “I guess the restaurant closing got me in my thoughts.” He admits, sitting up for a moment to take a bite out of the macaron. Blueberry and chocolate.

“I’m listening if you want me to.” While you’re conflicted about having such personal relationships with idols beyond platonic, some members of BBT have raised the idea to you. Since then, it’s been a recurring thought.

The mouse clicking has stopped this time, and he busies himself with his coffee. “Third, while I don’t believe in love at first sight, you definitely had a strong impression on me.”

Your own features unreadable as the words sink in. Many questions run through your head but two words come out instead. “I did?”

At your question, he hums in affirmation. “Hard not to, you were a wild card that day.” He then proceeds to mimic you to the best of his abilities. “’Hello, it’s nice to meet all of you.’” He says in a softer voice and it makes your bottom lip jut out. “Then the dance class starts and you suddenly become strict and dominating. I don’t think even hyung expected you to be able to project your voice that loud over the music. Since then really, you would pop into my mind often.”

You didn’t want to admit it but you also remember what he wore that day: black long sleeves, dark green sweats and a beanie. His shoes were scrawled upon with things you couldn’t make out without staring. You remember how he looked so exasperated with some of his members that miraculously still had energy to joke around. You wonder also what was the point of him telling you all of these. If you were reading too into it, or if you understood him loud and clear.

“And now here we are, working on the next comeback promotions.” The male finishes as he runs his free hand through his hair. Time really passes by too fast for him. While he loves what he does now, a small part of him wishes to slow down and experience life like the rest of his peers.

A part of him hopes you got what he was trying to say. He wasn’t the best at expressing his emotions unfortunately. He always was better at expressing his feelings through his art. He’s already made a few songs of how his feelings are for you but still too shy to have you listen to them. He shifts the topic.

“Hey, can you check this one out?” Hongjoong asks as he calls for your attention. He pulls up a chair for you to sit next to him. “I know what our creative team already said and while everything’s still in the works... I need your thoughts.” He explains.

You take your seat next to him, covering your eyes first as you get the first listen to the updated version so far. As you stay focused on the music, he takes this time to study your features and he finds himself enchanted by you and your passion. He notices your fingers moving to the parts that already have choreography, stopping midway when the tempo switches. But he snaps out of his own thoughts and instead pays attention to your reaction as the song progresses. By the time the song finishes, he had finished his macaron and you had opened your eyes again.

“Okay I can see where you’re going with this. The lyrics is already approved?” You ask before proceeding with your thoughts to which he says yes. The rest of the night is spent conceptualizing the ideas that swarm your head after listening to it. It’s occasionally hindered with Hongjoong clarifying the ideas and imagery you see for the choreography.

It’s already early morning when the two of you manage to solidify the concept, ideas and messages that the boys would like to send. The two of you too sleepy to continue that you decide to call it a day. “Did you keep note of everything?” Hongjoong asks through a yawn.

“Saved it all on my phone.” You say, you could feel the caffeine wearing out soon. “Can you send me the lyrics soon? Just so I can talk to the rest of BBT of this so that we can make the next segments.” You had picked up all the bags that had your trash, including some of the snacks Hongjoong has munched on.

He mumbles a yes as he waits for the monitor to shut down. “See you whenever.” He says under his breath. His bed back in the dorms sound so much more tempting than the couch here. When he looks at your general direction, he’s noticed that you’ve left already and it’s then that he lets out a sigh. So while he’s in the last in the studio, he looks through his notebook with all the lyrics to send to you. Without giving it a proper look, he takes a photo of his lyrics and sends it to you. He then keeps his notebook in his bag, shutting off the rest of the lights as he heads home.

[ Hongjoong ] : lyrics.jpg

You didn’t expect Hongjoong to send it so soon but you suppose he’d rather get it finished instead of having to stress over it when he wakes up. After sending a thumbs up emoji to notify that you’ve received it, you open the photo. Nothing could’ve prepared you for what your eyes saw. This is definitely not the words you heard earlier, this carried more weight, and seemed to be more romantic? It sounded like it.

[ You ] : can you send it again? i think you sent me a different song..

If your hunch was right, this is probably why he had told you those things earlier. You made another note to talk to him when possible about this. Because while he has made his feelings rather evident to you, you have yet to make yours evident to him. You keep your phone in your pocket as you head home.

Maybe working with them has made you read between the lines more than needed.

#hongjoong scenarios #yay cliff hangers #hongjoong fluff #just late night things that don't always make sense #ateez scenarios #my writings #ateez fluff

34 notes · View notes

coffeeandcalligraphy · 4 years

Text

Wicked Child | Feeding Habits #2

Hey People of Earth!

I’m back with another writing update for Feeding Habits (Moth Work #2) at last!

A few things since the last update: this project is 100% going to be a novel and also has a title (Feeding Habits)!

Chapter two has been sort of strange to write as I actually had written a majority of it before starting over after realizing the events I’d written needed to happen later. This is why it’s taken me a while to update on this book, but I’ve finally completed the chapter and am now here to share it with y’all!

Here’s a scene breakdown of this chapter, which is probably the longest chapter I’ve written in years (6300 words). Buckle up, this update is THICC. TW: lots of religious content in this one.

Scene A:

We go through Lonan’s lonely morning routine (lol) that’s interrupted by Anya, a neighbour he vaguely recognizes. She’s there to take him up to her apartment to paint her kitchen as her husband is away and can’t do it, a plan he was not aware of! (Eliza’s voluntold him to hopefully distract him from wanting to help his friend which is outlined in update #1).

Scene B:

Anya dips before the scene starts to grab some extra supplies to make Lonan some sourdough so Lonan is tasked with watching her young son Joey while he tapes up the baseboards. This is where the “wicked child” aspect of this chapter comes in as he compares the wickedness he feels he and others in his life possess to the full innocence of Joey.

Scene C:

Anya gets back from running errands and at first, seems to be a *chill mom* but as she and Lonan interact more, we get to see that something isn’t fully right with her. From some observation, Lonan finally figures out Anya’s husband is actually dead and she’s struggling with grief.

Scene D:

Lonan is back in his apartment, filling up his bathroom sink. We know from Moth Work that one of Lonan’s hobbies is holding his breath underwater, and he does this in this scene to think. In the middle of this ritual, Eliza gets home and speaks to him as she unwinds, reading rather cryptic notes from fortune cookies she’s brought home with takeout.

Scene E:

Unbeknownst to her, Lonan’s not staying for dinner as Anya invited him to her place as a thank you! However this news doesn't break well and the two bicker until they’re both successfully upset.

Scene F:

Instead of going to Anya’s for dinner, Lonan finds himself at a church confessional. He stumbles through reconciliation in a bit of a haze and eventually heads outside where a concerned mother and her two kids ask if something’s wrong. His thoughts from scene D overwhelm him and he eventually sort of gives himself up to the moment in a bit of a chokehold with the sun.

Though this chapter took a while, I’m happy with the threads I introduced and really got to see Lonan’s mind at this point in time--a sort of lonely state of living. There’s also a lot of religion related stuff in this chapter which is always interesting to write as someone who grew up Catholic, and I was surprised at how pertinent these themes are in this book.

Excerpts:

Here’s the opening bit:

The next morning, Eliza leaves two energy shots on the counter for him, along with a slice of sourdough she bought from the bakery across the street. Both sit on a breakfast tray, room temperature from sitting out too long, icebergs of ginger floating along the glass’s surface, butter on the bread gone pallid and spongy. Next to it, she’s left a note, as she usually does: green casserole in the fridge, running low on OJ.

Lonan retrieves the television remote from the nook between the knife block and flicks the TV to life as he drinks the first shot. Gingerroot—and this morning, a new addition, carrot stems—mush against his incisors, and he swallows just as the TV brightens to an image of some amphibian, a leafy looking treefrog. The crank of their calls bulge like each red eye, the familiar husk of narration outlining the workings of mating. Lonan scoops up the second shot with his pinky and the saucer of sourdough with his index finger and thumb, takes both to the couch where he sits.

Classic Lonan (TM) interaction:

He’s mid chewing the stale crust when he opens the door, expecting a package delivery, an unaddressed sympathy card. Instead, a woman stands in the door, her hair damp and smelling like the coconut salve Eliza rubs onto her kneecaps. He recognizes her face in a fleeting, neighbour-like way, someone he might’ve held the door open for, or let step off the elevator first.

“Breakfast?” She points to the crumb stuck to the corner of his mouth.

Lonan swallows the remainder of the sourdough quickly, combing off the crumb with a shallow smile.

“Sourdough.”

“Did you make it yourself?”

“It’s probably from the back of our medicine cabinet.”

The woman laughs at this, though he’s not fully meant for it to be a joke.

Apparently a new motif in this book is the word stunning that both serves as a descriptor for something magnificent/dazzling and the process of subduing an animal (love being heavy handed about this lmao):

She peers at their half-bloody kitchen wall. “You’re doing red?”

“Eliza’s vegetarian.” At the woman’s blank stare, he turns to look at the wall, examining each plane of his throat as hot embarrassment makes him red like the paint. “Her favourite colour. We’re trying something new. Avant garde.” All things he’s heard Eliza say.

“That’s unique. Very. So unique,” she says, adding, “It’s so kind of you to offer some help while you’re in the middle of painting your own kitchen. When Eliza told me about your offer, I danced in my living room. Is that weird? I danced because I’m going to have a green kitchen—a green one.”

Lonan nods, and steps farther back into the apartment, toward the stack of paint rollers, one of many rolls of tape. “Of course,” he says.

“It makes you feel alive,” the woman says. He forgets what she’s referring to, doesn’t know her name, only vague details like the jeweled bangles she wears on one wrist, the shiny cast of hair gel stirruped around her curls, her teeth, white, like the canines of a wolf. But she doesn’t seem to notice, a starriness in her gaze as she says, “The paint. The green. It’s stunning. Isn’t it?”

Anya’s initial dialogue is some of my favourite I’ve written. Probably because of the moon mention lol. Also Joey’s just chillin and I love him for that!!

The woman’s name is Anya, and she lives three floors up. He finds this out at the same time he finds out Eliza offered to paint her kitchen on his behalf, though what Anya says sounds more like “When Eliza told me you’d paint the wall, I could’ve—what is that saying? I could’ve jumped over the moon. I would’ve. The entire thing. All its phases.”

Anya’s got a toddler named Joey. He’s turning two next month, a little boy with a curly halo for hair, two dimples Lonan sees whenever he glances up from his tape-job of the baseboards. Joey eats apple slices dipped in almond butter and watches cartoons with both feet propped onto the couch cushion, too short to dangle down. Ever so often, he laughs, a shimmery sound, like the inside of a snow globe. Lonan half-watches him, as Anya’s asked—He’s good, don’t stress—if he cries, he wants you to turn up the TV—because she’s out of bread flour and insists on making Lonan two loaves of sourdough.

Some Joey:

“Joey’s good, isn’t he?” she asks, her fingers curving around the tape company’s logo. Lonan inhales. Anya smells like Eliza sometimes does, vaguely floral, like jasmine, or cherry blossoms. “Children are little blessings. Powerful little blessings.”

Of course, he should say. There’s no other way to describe a child—he’s a blissful little thing, his only purpose to keep his feet in his two-inch socks, to stare wistfully at a television like it’s telling his fortune in a language of pictures. Of course a child is a blessing—soft cheeks like the belly of bread dough, pinchable, kissable, thumbable, hands dipped into glittery tempera paint and fingers that make chicken scratches that will never be anything but art. Of course, he should say. He knows that, he should say. But Lonan’s vision fuzzes. He sees little of the TV colours projected on the walls like a hypnotic, technicolour exorcism; he doesn’t remember what it’s like to be that small, what it’s like to have his hands expand right in front of him, like seedlings.

Here’s the title drop ft. a rewritten Bible verse (Revelation 21:8):

He wants to believe children are always powerful little blessings that stay good. He doesn’t know why he doubts her. Joey is just this—a blessing on her couch, smiling at a screen because it’s all he needs to do. But he knows better, knows the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable exist, where they all live, and how they all start—as little blessings. He’s met murderers, liars, sorcerers in the shape of his father, sisters, mothers, all the wicked things that emerge from their second deaths unscathed. He doesn’t know what makes a child wicked. If he is one. If he’s been one. How many wicked children he knows.

Eliza hasn’t returned any of Lonan’s phone calls since he tried dialling somewhere between the first and last half of the wall. It’s obvious Anya knows he wasn’t aware of the plan, which is why every few minutes, she states new reasons for her forgetfulness with the time. “Eliza ran into me in the hallway, and I’m so bad at hallways,” she said, while rolling the dough between her knuckles. “So many turns.” Brushing her benchtop with more flour: “Time as a mother is such a commodity. It’s like, what’s the down payment for five minutes alone? But Joey’s worth it. Joey’s always worth it. He’s just magnificent. Can’t stay away from magnificence.”

More interactions I adore:

“You want some OJ?”

Lonan looks up from the paint blankly, focusing on Anya in an embarrassingly slow haze. “What?”

Anya reaches over to the fridge and tugs on its stainless-steel handle. It gives with a haunted sound, a subtle sort of groaning, and emerges with a glass bottle of orange juice.

“OJ,” she says, and shakes the bottle so the liquid froths.

“Oh,” he says. Green casserole in the fridge. Running low on OJ. “We’re low on that.”

Okay sorry but I’m so in love with Anya and Lonan’s interactions lol:

“Where are you from again?” She undoes her apron from the back with one hand. It falls, a lilac clump, onto the tile, and she leaves it there, only nudging it slightly with her toe.

Her eyes are golden too. Everything in her apartment. Even the silver parts are somehow gold. How much she could pawn off for eyes like those, like individual buttons of solid gold. Anya squints, and there the gold goes, focusing on him until she leans forward and plucks a strand of hair from his jaw. It sags with green paint, and before he blinks, she’s clipped it with a pair of kitchen shears.

“You got some paint on you.”

“Oregon,” he says. “Boston. New York.”

“What?”

“You asked where I’m from.”

Anya pockets his hair. He’s sure it’s a subconscious tick—she hasn’t even realized—but still, he wonders what she’ll do with it. If she’ll send it somewhere to get scanned, bagged, tested. How much you can find out about someone with just a nib of hair.

“That’s a lot of places,” she says. “You’re basically transcontinental.”

From her pocket, Anya’s hand twitches. He wonders what she’s doing, if she’s touching the hair, or flaking off its paint, or simply flattening out her pocket.

“Are you going to clone me?” He gestures to her pocket.

Anya doesn’t look.

“I could.”

“Why?”

“You paint walls fast. You’ve got nice hair.”

“Do you collect hair?”

“Just from the people I like.”

We get to see Anya unravel a little here as she and Lonan share a drink:

He’s always been good at watching. This is what he does as Anya pulls a miniature bottle of a deep amber liquid from her fridge along with the orange juice, mixing them together so what he pushes toward him smells like ammonia. She drinks half, an easiness as she swallows, and then slides the glass to him.

He leaves it there for a while. He watches Joey, how he claps when more animals show up on screen and gets quiet during the wrangle of commercials. He’s gold just like his mother, with a gap tooth that matches the man’s who grins in every photo hung neatly on the walls. A face he doesn’t remember, not even in the hazy slots he reserves for what he remembers working the hardware store. No evidence of him anywhere else, the shoes on the front mat only women’s heels or child-sized sneakers. One hook that holds one set of keys. Only the photographs.

“Where is your husband right now?” he asks. One wine glass in the sink. One coffee mug. One saucer.

“Businessman. Very busy.”

“I don’t remember him coming into the store.”

Anya takes another sip of the orange juice even though it’s Lonan’s turn to drink. Anya looks at Joey, a desperate fondness that answers Lonan’s question for him. She looks at him like she’s searching for the face of the man in the pictures, searching because she hasn’t seen it in years.

Anya really unravelling:

Anya’s face is bloated and red, a soreness in her eyes like she needs to blink but can’t. Lonan instinctually reaches for her hand, and it’s then that he notices it—two wedding bands on her ring finger. Her fingertips jolt him, but her palms are warm, the skin there taut, like she’s been clutching it for years.

“I thought the wall would help. Green means new life. Doesn’t it? I read that in a magazine. That it brings new life, I mean. New beginnings. New, new, new.”

Lonan getting existential ft. the first Harrison mention so far tho I’ll probably cut it because I want it to be a little more impactful and also half of this makes no sense oops:

His father is a dead man. Just like Anya’s husband is a dead man. Lonan knows so many dead men. Some that matter more than others, some names he revisits sometimes at the graveyard when Eliza thinks he’s out to run an errand as innocent as replacing a bad container of cottage cheese. He knows of men who are dead but still living, like Harrison’s father who no longer exists as a person in his dimension, but a corpse, hanging around in unnecessary things like a last name, an eye colour. Beyond men, he knows of many other dead things: dead pets, dead street names, dead countries, dead houseplants, dead first ladies.

He knows what a dead father does, what a dead heart does, that these things are meant to die—an inevitable thing; a sort of giving up of flesh, burying, toiling into new soil.

This is basically a monologue:

Lonan is in love with Eliza. He always has been. He always will be. There is nothing better than being in love with Eliza. There is nothing wrong with being in love with Eliza. There is no reason to not be in love with Eliza. Eliza is intelligent. Eliza is driven. Eliza is sensitive. Eliza tries to listen. Eliza knows how to take care of him. Eliza knows how to spell words like zolpidem, wears lipstick in the shade Very Vermillion and is delighted when it rubs onto her teeth. Eliza is lucky. Eliza is hypnotic. Eliza is a holy woman, a sacred woman, a careful woman, a wicked woman.

Lonan gulps water. Too much to keep himself controlled; he sputters, splatters the mirror. He hooks his fingers over his waterline, tugging until water falls out. He paces, chews his palms like Anya did, and steadies himself slowly from the counter to the tile. He is a wicked child. Eliza is a wicked child. Everyone he knows—all wicked children.

“Accept what comes to you each day,” Eliza says, which means she’s opened three of four of the cookies. “That’s truthful. That’s raw. That’s all you need to do.”

Some Eliza dialogue I like in reply to Lonan’s statement that he can’t do things since she bars him from driving:

“You don’t need a car to do things, Lonan.” She stirs her bowl of congee, the plastic spoon scraping against the Styrofoam. “You need hobbies. Like cross stitch. Pickling. Painting neighbours’ walls.”

Lonan and Eliza being Lonan and Eliza:

Lonan secures his fingers around the tin of madeleines and shifts once more, only for her to mimic his movement. They dance like this for a moment—his shuffle left matched by her shuffle left, his step up matched by her own. More of her mascara has smudged from where she unclumped her lashes, a lazy slash of colour like a samurai belt. Even their stares match each other—as he bores through her with a nimble focus like it’ll move her somehow, she does the same.

Here’s a line I like:

As she reddens, he adds this to his list of synonyms for baptism: to tame.

Here’s an excerpt featuring self indulgence and proof I miss Harrison:

The confessional smells rank, like rotting paper and expired cologne, all of its corners seedy with overuse. Scratches mar the fabric he rests his elbows on, like someone clawed into it while reliving their sins, track marks on the floor from a rainy day. He can’t imagine anyone else but him in this small box, caged in by the lattice, mumbling incoherent sins to the priest he hasn’t even committed. Stealing a set of glass eyeballs from a garage sale. Forgetting his wedding anniversary. Missing Easter Sunday mass to go whale watching. He doesn’t sign himself at the right times or speak at the right times or thank the priest at the right times. He lies when he’s asked if he’s lied since his last confession. He mentions nothing of drinking with Anya, of not saving the sheep or the bunnies even though he knew the outcome of their lives without finishing the program. Of being a wicked child, of knowing wicked children, of not knowing the difference between wickedness and innocence, and which one he learned first. He says his name is Luka. He works at a law firm. He’s married to a Harriet, a seamstress or a stock broker or an antiques trader—he doesn’t know. He likes golfing, parcheesi, drinking martinis on yachts. He’s never overindulged, he’s loyal to his woman, he wants three kids and a house with finished floors and no neighbours. He’s a good father, a gentle father, a careful father, no wickedness, just an empty shell of goodness, like a father should be. His father is retired, and visits him on weekends—they play checkers, paint birdhouses, keep a distance but toast with spirits he can’t pronounce. Everything is good—it’s all good, all good. That’s not a sin, the priest should say but they laugh—it’s good to be good. Children are good, marriage is good, fathers are good, everything an iteration of good. By the time his confession is over and he’s well on his way out of the church mumbling I am heartily sorry, he believes his lies are true—he’s absolved into someone new, Luka married to Harriet, three kids, an empty shell, dreamily stumbling through a house with finished floors that’s actually just the sidewalk until a woman passing by with a two small children has to help him sit on the curb.

This image gives me Forever & Ever More by Nothing But Thieves vibes (music video was def inspo):

She asks if he needs something to drink, if he needs someone to call, and emerges with a half-empty bottle of sparkling water and a cell phone. She asks what’s wrong with his eye, and he doesn’t know what’s wrong with anything—with eyes, with children, with sins, with confessions, with baptisms, with orange juice, with madeleines, with wickedness, with practicing how long he can breathe underwater because he knows it’s possible just like walking on it.

One of the children, hair pulled into two plaits secured with pearlescent butterfly bobbles, pokes at her mother and asks if he’s crazy. Her mother shushes her at the same time her older sister shows him a cool trick she learned with a toy convertible. Its wheels whir. Lonan gasps. The girl says, “Even crazy people think I’m gifted,” and wheels the car again. People stop to watch. Church bells gong an elegy he’s sure he’s heard before. The woman’s sparkling water dribbles from his mouth and dampens his dress shirt. Sun eclipses his face and eats at his throat like a parasite, like it knows all the unclean things about him, a watcher, an eyeball, a scorching little thing that bullets through his neck like the tooth of a wolf. The woman shushes her children and asks if he’s got a health problem, a drug problem, any problem, and he could say yes to all three but instead keeps repeating I am heartily sorry, I am heartily sorry. And when she does call someone, no one he knows, he leans against the cool pavement, cranes his neck to the sky, and parts his lips so the sunlight fills his mouth.

So that’s it for this update! I haven’t really been drafting lately, but I hope I can get more of this written because I love sharing!

--Rachel

#writing #amwriting #writeblr #writerblr #writingupdates #mothwork #feedinghabits #fostered

45 notes · View notes