#comparing it to last new years shows decent progress i think

[teamfreewill2pointo]

I know you did this analysis a few months ago, but now with the cons in progress and the ones that wouldn't have Jared having already happened, do you notice a difference in the amount of audience in the ones where he was and the ones he wasn't? At first it seemed so to me. But we had two cons where I heard comments from the actors about how crowded it was. And one had Jared and the other didn't.

So the problem is that I have ADHD which means I get bored with topics, but also I realized that I needed to control for more variables and get a lot more data.

For example, I predicted that Columbus would do better than SF regardless of if Jared showed up. Why? At the cons, they'll ask how many new timers and at least half if not more of the audience raises their hands.

If it's a new city in a place with a lot of Supernatural fans, then you'll get a high turn out and Ohio is definitely a place with a lot of Supernatural fans.

A lot of these first timers find out about the conventions through local media and, if it's the first one for their city, they aren't going to care as much which specific guests will attend as long as at least one lead is there.

Conversely, if a new city has a low turn out, it may not be because of Jared absent, but because of a low marketing reach or interest in Supernatural. Therefore, I don't think you can use new cities to accurately judge the Jared effect.

At SFcon, which is a well established con, the audience dropped by probably a half, definitely 1/3, but then a lot of us knew we could do other cons with Jared. That's a con where I think you can measure how much the con suffered by not having Jared attend. So we should only be looking at cons where Jared is added in or didn't attend this year.

But if you look at, say Seattle, Jared was added rather late, so that doesn't show how many would've showed up had he been added earlier. If I had known earlier, I would've switched SF for Seattle, but by the time Seattle was announced, I didn't have the ability. In the summer, a lot of people have vacation plans, so you'll want something that's announced ahead of time by at least 3 months.

Also, at SFcon, JDM dropped as well, so you can't say that Jared alone was the reason it dropped so dramatically from last year. If JDM had been there, I suspect it would be closer to Burbank.

So you'll need cons where Jared attended last year, but didn't this year: SFcon

Or cons where Jared was added with a decent amount of time: Charlotte, DC, Orlando

[Please let me know if I'm missing any!]

The problem with cons where Jared was added in was that I'll need data from other cons/other years at that con that show how many more seats were bought in comparable time spans. I would have to grab screenshots from a lot of other cons and calculate how many seats are sold first month, second month, etc, and then compare that to the Jared added on cons in order to ascertain if there's a difference between a natural increase versus people joining just because of Jared.

I'm not spending my time doing that. If someone wants to grab that data for me, I'd be happy to run the numbers, but that's a lot of work and my ADHD brain has already moved onto other more interesting data sets.

More than all that, having attended both Burbank and SFcon, there were a lot of Jared fans at both! At SFcon, there were a lot of people running around with these large red pins that said Team Moose. There were people wearing Jared/Sam shirts and he got votes close to Dean and Castiel despite fewer fans there relative to the other two.

I think it's safe to say that SFcon isn't returning because Jared wasn't there, but a sample size of 1 is not a good sample size. That may reflect the people of Bay Area more than the Supernatural con fandom as a whole.

[I'm also struck by now many men and families with small children attend the SFcon as compared to the other cons]

One interesting thing is that this shows that many of our filmers are more likely to be Jared leaning fans. It also proves to me that Jensen/Misha fans are not more likely to attend Friday/Sat. There used to be this claim by Jared antis that Jared fans were terrible to the other cast members and only showed up on Sunday.

At both Burbank/SF, the turn out for question asking and Fri/Sat panels was embarrassingly low and there were times when no one went up to ask a question.

Sunday was absolutely packed at SFcon compared to the other two days. Lots of empty seats earlier. I also noticed that there was a greater percentage of new people on Friday and Sat compared to Sunday. It was about 1/2 new on Sat and 1/3 new on Sunday.

I think that it's more a reflection of the GA than fans of particular actors.

For example, I noticed at SFcon a lot of people saying, "Who's that????" in regards to some con staples like Adam Rose and Jason Manns. I was with people who had to be reminded who Kim and Bri were. They also didn't remember the golem episode, but when I pulled up photos of Adam Rose and they saw him in a construction vest, they recognized him. So I think the low turn out is less people actively disliking other guests, but people who genuinely don't know them.

[otakween]

Digimon Adventure 02: Tag Tamers - Final Thoughts

This game was great, but my experience was slightly negatively affected by the lack of information on it. The one walkthrough I was able to find really did me dirty lol.

Anyways, I stand by my previous statement that the Wonderswan games deserve more love. I think they're definitely the best of the Adventure/02 era.

Notes:

-Okay, time to vent a little. I used this walkthrough and whoever wrote it was just flat out wrong about a bunch of stuff. They made me believe I had to go WAY harder than I needed to with fusing digimon (a very slow and tedious process if you want a lot of jogress points). They then led me to believe I had to beat the 2nd to last dungeon 10 times to get 10 pieces of a digimental...that ended up being not true at all, so I beat that dungeon 10 times for no reason lol. In the walkthrough they went into the final battle with a bunch of OP digimon with like a zillion jogress points. I went in with a bunch of weenie hut jr. digimon and was fine. Most misleading walkthrough I've ever followed! If I hadn't followed its advice, I probably would have finished this game a week ago. Luckily, I did find some YouTube Let's Plays and some tumblr posts that set me straight.

-Once I figured out how things worked I realized this game is a little too easy. As soon as you get a stun ability, you're basically unstoppable, even withweaker digimon on your team. If you manage to stun all 3 digimon on the enemy team, you automatically win. You don't even need to touch their HP! That's crazy and I've never seen a game do that before...felt like I was cheating.

-I thought it was a little weird how many dungeons in this game used baby or in training level digimon. Like I would expect that from the first dungeon but they were still showing up like mid-way through! Again, not much of a challenge.

-The variety of digimon was good and I liked the inclusion of fusion, but I wish fusion was a little more straightforward/predictable. Without any guide I was just gambling every time. The worst of it is that you have to raise your digimon from baby-level every time you fuse, which really held me back from progressing the game.

-Techniques were really confusing compared to the first game. Whereas in game 1 my digimon would gain new abilities constantly, it seemed like the only way digimon would gain abilities would be to fuse them and start from scratch. I would use the digivice to befriend powerful, mega-level digimon, but their abilities would be so trash that doing that was completely pointless. (I think you need to fuse digimon like 100+ times to get a decent mega which would take ages).

-The ending "puzzle" was just batshit. You have to defeat Millenniumon as Ryo and Ken using the same number of turns. Of course, the game doesn't tell you that at all. It just gives you a door with a number on it and goes "~oooh, what could it meeeean?~" Well, I wouldn't have figured out in a zillion years what it meant if it wasn't for a random post on tumblr. Walkthrough dude didn't figure it out because he thought it was something else that unlocked the door and a let's player I watched just seem to unlock it out of dumb luck (he defeated Millenniumon in 2 turns with Ryo and then Ken). My number was 10 by the way...this was before I was aware of the stun ability's OP-ness

-The game dramatically ends with Ken becoming the Digimon Emperor. I guess if you didn't see the anime that would be kinda a "wtf" downer ending. Wormmon tries to keep it positive by saying "I know he'll be good again someday!" It's definitely sequel bait (although I'm not sure exactly where the next game fits).

-I never really learned what some of the stats meant in this game. Defense is "PP" but I have no idea what that stands for. There's also "Y?" Which I think has something to do with a digimon's age?? I don't know why old games had to be like ";) we'll never tell" instead of just explaining things.

-This was a very relaxing game to play YouTube videos or music over, perfect for weeknights. It was very light on story, so I didn't need to pay much attention.

-I wish they did more with armor evolution. I kept buying/equipping armor but it never seemed to do much. Veemon was the only one I could really get to armor evolve via one of his attacks. Definitely missing something there...

I give this game a 7.5 out of 10. The lost points are for all of the confusion I endured lol.

[wither-rose-circus]

To me its not about phil & scott being good builders its about how no one but them and sneeg have the dedication to like even be on the server for fun, like dsmp is the lore focused one and they barely show for that at all and dont really plan for that at all either (see: ranboos death, wilburs death, november 16th where techno had to push for everything to do with him) like i just have no faith that theyd do anything (like ranboo doesnt upload, wilbur barely uploads, phil rarely uploads, tommy doesnt do series etc)

I think that’s a pretty defeatist mentality honestly

Servers lose steam, projects die out. The Dream SMP has been running for over a year and a half now. That’s pretty long for a server all things considered. SMP Live lasted less than a year, SMP Earth lasted less than a year, Hermitcraft seasons don’t last much longer than a year, hell Mindcrack (the original SMP YouTube series) had seasons that only lasted about a year each.

The problem with comparing the possibility of new servers to the Dream SMP is the fact that you’re comparing it to a server that’s been running for over a year now. That’s not really fair. Like, if you’ve ever watched a Hermitcraft season in full, you’ll see that things just sort of slowly die off until all CCs have agreed they’re finished, or bored, and want to move on. It’s not fair to say the CCs won’t be committed to a new series because they’ve been letting this old one die off when it’s already been active for a perfectly acceptable amount of time. Most open ended Minecraft series don’t have neat or tidy endings, even ones with plots. The progression of the Dream SMP isn’t unnatural, hell, it’s not even unusual. It was created to fill the void made by covid, and now that things have started opening up again, the CCs got busy with other things they couldn’t do before. Right now they’re clearly figuring out how to balance that with content on the server, but in its initial heyday? (I’d say from about August 2020 to February or March 2021, but particularly spiking between September and December 2020) The Dream SMP was very active from most Origins members. The fact that it has plans to continue that are being processed at all is a decent feat for a YouTube SMP series. It’s not well planned, mind you, but I admire the fact that so many general members are still keeping the server itself alive this far into it, especially given the fact that nobody started out with any goals.

Ranboo, Wilbur, and Phil don’t upload much youtube content because they’re primarily streamers. That’s their focus. If Wilbur wants to get back into producing YouTube content with this new series then good for him! I wish him luck! But none of them are inactive with content, just inactive on YouTube. The fact that Wilbur said he wants to make Origins a YouTube series doesn’t even mean anyone else does.

Anyway, all this to say: I don’t agree with the idea that the DSMP members can’t commit to series. A decent amount of them spent like 8 months doing almost nothing but the Dream SMP, I can’t blame any of them for falling out with it. Outside of that and the first Origins, I tend to see people cite Cogchamp and 30 Days as examples of the members lacking dedication, but that’s really only two examples (I’ll give you three if you want to include Tubbo’s Big Dig SMP). I don’t think any of them lack the drive to commit to a series, I think they just lacked a plan of action for those few servers (something they had for the Dream SMP and will have for Origins) and didn’t know where else to go with them.

(I personally don’t even think you can properly count 30 Days as an example. It was a hardcore series and like half of the members just died a couple days in, those were the rules of the game. It was discontinued because basically everyone in the already very small cast weren’t allowed to play anymore after dying.)

[bangtan]

BTS's Suga Reflects on His New Solo Mixtape as Agust D on D-2

In the past four years, a lot has changed for South Korean star Min Yoon-gi, known to millions of fans as the idol Suga of K-pop group BTS, and to followers of his rap career as the artist Agust D. In 2016, BTS were making progress towards superstardom, an upstart septet in the K-pop universe who were just beginning to release the record-breaking projects they’re now known for. That was also the year Min released his first solo mixtape, Agust D, a surprisingly raw and honest set of tracks that saw him facing down demons of mental health and embracing his rap bravado over raw hip-hop beats.

Four years later, he’s at it again—this time surprise-releasing his second solo mixtape, D-2, on May 22 after a week of cryptic teasers shared over social media. It’s a strange time around the world, and the K-pop industry and performers worldwide are not excluded; right now, BTS should have been in the middle of a victory-lap world tour, reaping the rewards of the February release of Map of the Soul: 7. (This weekend would have marked their performances at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium.) Instead, Suga and his six groupmates are all stuck in one place, like many of us—for perhaps the longest consistent stretch of their careers yet.

TIME connected with Suga ahead of the release of D-2 to discuss the complex themes and inspirations of his new work, from the reflective lyrics of “Moonlight” to the critical eye of RM-assisted “Strange.” His answers, translated into English here, offer a glimpse of an artist who has always been keenly aware of his presence on the public stage and reticent to over-explain himself, instead letting the work talk for him. “What’s good is good,” the motto he expressed to TIME, is an ethos that has often driven his persona: a humble, easy-going star—with plenty to say if you take the time to listen closely.

He’s not the only BTS member to release a solo project: RM and J-Hope have also shared their independent statements. But he is the only one who adopts an alter ego when he goes it alone. “I can show a more raw side to myself,” he explains of his Agust D persona. And of his goal: “It’s more that I made the music I wanted to make, rather than fixating on attempting something new.” Even before the D-2 release, fans made sure his project was trending on social media. That’s the story of BTS, and Agust D—low-key as he is—is inevitably swept up in it.

TIME: You’ve now spent seven years as part of BTS, and your last solo mixtape came out back in 2016. Time, change, and growth are on your mind in this mixtape, particularly in the first track “Moonlight.” As you reflect over the past few years, what’s changed to you?

MIN: My life is the same. My ways of work and day-to-day patterns haven’t changed much. Perhaps my position within the music industry? From a musician’s perspective, a change could be that I’ve had pretty decent outcome with BTS albums or with other external works. Personally, I have become more mature compared to 2016.

Songs like “Daechwita” include Korean traditions both in lyrics and in musical form, using pansori storytelling and Kkwaenggwari percussion. Why is it important to you to continue to include Korean musical influences in your music?

The theme “Daechwita” was already on my mind when I first started working on this track, so I sampled the sound of a real “Daechwita.” The first thought I had was that I wanted to sample the music that is played during the ceremonial walk of the King, so naturally, Korean elements ended up being an essential component to the track as well as the music video.

You’ve collaborated with a wide range of artists this year, appearing on Halsey’s album, putting out a new single with IU, and now bringing in voices like MAX, NiiHWa, Kim Jong-wan and RM for your own project. What makes a collaboration work successfully for you?

I’m grateful that everybody had good things to say about my music, especially Kim Jong-wan of NELL who told me he enjoyed listening to my first mixtape from 2016. My work philosophy is “what’s good is good,” so I think I’m pretty good at leveling with each individual’s standards.

What’s the difference between Agust D the solo rapper and Suga the BTS member? What remains the same?

The difference is that there is a lot more that I can openly express and that I can show a more raw side to myself [with Agust D]. What’s similar is that both sing of dreams and hope.

On “Strange,” you express concerns about certain aspects of society, and the loneliness that can come from having a different opinion. Do you think it’s important for public figures like you to challenge norms and raise questions about how we live?

I just throw the question mark; it’s up to each individual to decide. In my personal opinion, it’s often better for those who have such influence on others to be wary of loudly voicing their biased views.

Trap, hip-hop, rock, pop and R&B all appear on this mixtape, often in the same songs. This mixing of styles is a signature of BTS, and was present on your first mixtape as well. It’s also become normal across the global pop landscape. As a producer, how have you tried to innovate or try something new on this mixtape?

It’s more that I made the music I wanted to make, rather than fixating on attempting something new. I’m not too picky on genre or crossovers between them. What’s good is good, and it’s up to the listeners to judge. I just do what I want to do.

Is there anything else you’d like listeners to know about this project, your experience creating it, and how you’re managing with the unexpected changes of this spring?

It’s good to know that it’s fine when things go in an unintended direction, because you can always start over again. Keep calm, take the next-best option and move forward.

Source

[magicman111]

A Moth to a Flame - Chapter One

Marcy watched the sun slowly set on Newtopia as she’d done many an evening before. The sharp squawks of the gulls rang through the orange sky. She looked quite the forlorn figure standing by the hotel entrance, the gentle evening breeze that ruffled her cloak underscoring her solitude.

Her eyes remained fixated in the same direction her friend had taken off, maybe in some fleeting fool’s hope she’d change her mind and come sprinting back right into her arms.

Not a chance, Marbles.

Anne was long gone by now. Hopefully, she’d caught up with the Plantars’ fwagon before they reached the city gate. Judging by how quickly she booked it, the odds were in her favor. That girl didn’t make varsity back home for nothing.

Marcy only hoped those sweet, simple frogs knew just how lucky they were to have someone like Anne in their lives.

Sighing, her head lowered, she licked her wounds slowly.

Really? That easy, huh?  

Could Anne have made it any more obvious that she wanted to get out of there faster than she did? After they’d been apart for so long, and for a family of farmer frogs whom she’d known for what? Months?

No, don’t do that, she pulled herself up. It wasn’t right for her to be mad at the Plantars. This wasn’t their fault. Sprig and Polly were a barrel of fun at the slumber party, providing you disregarded their life-threatening encounter with the jelly-fish ghosts. Hop Pop, meanwhile, reminded her so much of her own grandpa it was uncanny. They were sweet, decent folk who’d taken Anne in and kept her safe all this time. It was just...

Her lips twisted into a bitter frown. How else was she supposed to feel but a little rejected?

However, was she really allowed to complain when holding her tongue was so normalised for her by this point? Marcy was a people pleaser, she understood that much about herself. Anytime Anne and Sasha got into an argument, she was there to keep the peace and everyone happy. So if Anna-Banana wanted to spend more time with her bumpkin frog family than her literal best friend since preschool, who was she to say no?

The story with her folks wasn’t all that different either. When they pressured her to keep up her studies, up to and including PSAT prep despite it being years away, she did as she was told like a good girl to make them proud, and they were. She hoped they were.

Goodness knows what they must be thinking right now—

Nope nope nope! Don’t go there, don’t go there.

She’d already lost too much sleep at night ruminating over the unspeakable pain she’d most surely put them through, it was the last thing she needed right now. She tried to do the logical thing and focus on the positives instead. That usually worked.

Anne wouldn’t be away for too long. They’d be together again as soon as Hop Pop’s contacts returned the Box to Wartwood and then it was off to the first of the three temples to get those gems recharged. Once that side quest was done and dusted, it was a simple matter of finding Sasha and making their way home.

Looking down, she caught herself wringing her hands.

Home.

That sure was the plan.

I mean... what else are we supposed to do?

“Always sad to see someone go, isn’t it?”

Marcy quickly wiped her eyes and glanced over her shoulder to greet the towering form of King Andrias.

Almost instantly, her mood perked up a notch. He was the one person whom she trusted, more than anyone else in all of Amphibia. Ever since she first landed outside the city walls, he took her under his wings and ensured her smooth transition into this brave new world.

Andrias was without doubt one of the kindest and wisest people Marcy could have ever hoped to meet. He was a true listener, and there were very few you could say that about, her parents included. How often had he been there to lend both an understanding ear and sage advice over games of flipwart?

Games she won more often than not, she wasn’t humble enough not to brag.

It was also he who sent Marcy on the daring missions that would eventually make her the hero of Newtopian society she was today. All because he recognised the value of her talents beyond passing an exam or helping her friends with their homework. No other 13-year-old had their own solid gold statue adorning a city bridge.

She owed this king a debt she couldn’t possibly repay, but one he was far too altruistic in nature to demand.

Then, why did he look so... solemn?

“Come along, Marcy. We need to talk.”

Maybe it was his serious tone of voice or those specific choice of words, but they made the hair on the back of Marcy’s neck stand on end. In an almost pavlovian manner, she corrected her posture and she held her chin erect.

Shoving whatever remaining conflicted thoughts aside, she silently followed Andrias back to the castle like a pilot fish tailing its great white. She was so puny next to this tremendous salamander, he could crush her with a single blow of his fist if he so chose. Not that a gentle, goofy giant like Andrias would even dream of doing such a thing.

So when he was dead serious, Marcy knew better to zip it, listen, and do as instructed.

Their quiet journey took them all the way back to the castle and into the royal throne room, a place she was all too familiar with by now. To enter this hallowed hall was a privilege bestowed only to a select few. For Marcy, it was where she had her morning debriefs over bugachinos.

Instead of going straight up to the throne for their pow wow as she anticipated, Andrias guided her down a small passageway to their left.

When they made their way up to the statue of what Marcy recognised as one of his ancestors, one of the great rulers of Amphibia, they came to a stop. Andrias then gazed down at her with the most serious look she’d seen him give anyone.

“Marcy, before we go any further,” he spoke sternly, “I need to be absolutely crystal clear about something. Okay?”

“Y-Yes, Andrias?” Marcy asked, shivering a little. She did not like being pulled out of her comfort zone, not like this.

“You’re about to enter the most secret place in all of Newtopia,” he continued, now down on one knee and his hand hovering over her shoulder, as close as they could be to eye level. “What I’m going to show you... I need you to swear you won’t share with another living soul. Not to Anne, not to Lady Olivia, no one. Do you understand? I can’t emphasise this enough, Marcy.”

“Of course,” she answered earnestly, trying to sound more confident. “You know you can always trust me, Andrias.”

A ghost of that warm, fatherly smile returned to his big blue countenance.

“Trust is a hard thing to come by, kid, and you’ve gone above and beyond to earn mine. It’s just that I’m not exaggerating here when I say this is a big one.”

Marcy simply placed one hand over his huge index, the other over her heart.

She smiled back at him sweetly, genuinely, “I promise.”

“Very well.”

Nodding in approval, Adrias rose. He reached out, pushing a luminous coral torch upwards.

It didn’t take an encyclopedic knowledge of ‘Creatures & Caverns’ for Marcy to predict that the statue was going to shift to the left next, revealing the spiralling staircase leading to Frog knows where. She probably should’ve been more surprised, but come on, it wasn’t exactly the first secret passage she’d come across in this castle lately. 

“Follow me,” was all Andrias said, before he pulled off the same coral torch, then proceeded down the stairs without another word. Marcy followed obediently, unable to ignore the unnerving chill that was now travelling up her spine.

Was it... always this cold around here?

Something about all this just felt so unsettling compared to last time. She couldn’t really explain why; she knew she was safe with Andrias and that he wouldn’t do anything to intentionally put her in harm’s way. It was a gut feeling and that sort of thing bugged a rational person like her to no end.

She tried to take her mind off it by hazarding her best guess as to precisely what he was going to show her. Either she did that or started getting all worked up dwelling on Anne again, which she’d rather not at the moment.

Another secret library, perhaps? Probably not, though she wouldn’t be at all disappointed if it was. Maybe there were forbidden texts about the dark arts hidden away down there. Magic users were incredibly rare in Amphibia these days—Marcy had already searched far and wide—so might this be her chance?

Oh, how the very idea of being able to cast actual magic excited her. Being Chief Ranger of the Knight Guard was a great honor and nothing to sneeze at, but to be a powerful sorceress, one who could communicate with spirits, raise the dead, shuffle the orifices on her enemy’s faces—

Okay, rein those snails in, Mar-Mar.

Her musings were interrupted by a strange noise emanating from below. At first she figured it was just her imagination, but the further they continued their descent, the clearer it became.

It sounded an awful lot like beeping. Yes, that was it. A progressively growing cacophony of bleeps, bloops and chirps, the kind she’d expect to hear from a high-tech supercomputer. Something absolutely alien in a world like Amphibia, she and her friends excluded.

Before Marcy could ask Andrias if he heard it too, she was distracted by the emergence of an orange glow chasing away the darkness below. It was a warm, almost heavenly light that conjured the mental image of a crackling fireplace on Christmas morning, protecting you from the snowstorm outside.

The chill in her spine had by now spread to the crown of her head and the tips of her toes. Her throat tightened up. Beads of cold sweat dripped down her forehead.

What the... Marcy could not say a word, only think.

There was something down there. Something greater than any library, however inconceivable that sounded. Whether it was good or bad was irrelevant to her at that moment.

It called her.

The duo finally reached the foot of the staircase and entered the sacred sanctum.

Marcy’s jaw dropped.

“Woah.”

There were no shelves of books. No ancient Amphibian artifacts. There weren’t even any walls that she could make out from where she stood. Just an apparently endless sea of darkness encompassing a large round platform from which both the enticing glow and the lowkey din of beeps originated.

Marcy resumed taking Andrias’ lead as they stepped out onto the platform, the clink-clank of their boots confirming her assumption it was made of metal. The whole thing appeared more at home on an alien spaceship than in the dungeons of a castle.

Upon arriving at its centre, Andrias knelt down on both knees and, much to Marcy’s curiosity, removed his crown and set it down on the floor. She took the hint by following suit.

Any lingering fears melted away the more she basked herself in the radiance. It was as if the beams were steadily pouring into her body, clearing up her headspace, reducing any tension in her body. She recalled a favored memory from when she was five-years-old, when she and Anne spent a whole summer afternoon by the beach. How the tides would come in and out without fail, washing away the ruins of their sandcastles, the seaweed, one of Anne’s sandles and the teeny tiny baby seahorse they rescued.

Like a nice blank canvas.

Was this a private place of worship? Not according to her expansive studies of Amphibian anthropology. Or maybe it was a place for Andrias to meditate away from the hustle and bustle of the rest of the castle. Seemed a skosh excessive if that was the case.

“Truly captivating, I know.”

Andrais’ baritone brought Marcy back down to earth. She straightened up and tried to refocus herself. They were down here for an important reason, at least she believed they were.

“One can spend hours down here,” Andrias boomed ominously. “Adrift in their own thoughts and... dreams.” The light cast his face in a rather unnerving shadow as he stared ahead into the void. “But I’m sure you know I haven’t brought you here to show off my retreat from the world.” He took a long, deep breath, like he was mentally steeling himself for what he said next, “As much as it pains me to say it, I’m afraid I haven’t been entirely truthful with you, Marcy.”

He produced from his sleeve what appeared at first glance to be two giant pieces of parchment and unfolded them neatly on the metal surface. A closer inspection told Marcy they were in fact pages torn from an exceptionally large book. Judging not only by the size, but the font and format as well, she easily pieced together its origin.

“Are these...?”

“From the book we “found” in the wing?” Andrias chuckled mirthlessly. “Yes. Still kinda surprised you didn’t pick up there were pages missing, but that's not important right now. Please, read.”

The platform provided ideal reading light. Marcy’s ability to read at a 12th Grade level meant she cruised through the text and finished within minutes.

She read it once, then twice. A third and fourth time just to make sure her eyes weren’t deceiving her.

Her bottom began to tremble.

No... Nononono, this... this can’t be right. I-It’s impossible! How in the world can it...?!

No amount of curative rays could unfreeze the blood in her veins. The metaphorical pistons in her brain were firing on full cylinders in a vain attempt to digest this earth-shattering information. For a split second, she thought she was going to pass out.

Desperate, she turned to the stone-faced Andrias to plead for some kind of answer, but she found no words with which to speak. All the personal growth and development that made her Newtopia’s champion had been stripped of her and she was reduced to nothing more than a helpless lost toddler.

A comforting set of giant digits placed themselves under her chin, the same way a father would do for his daughter.

“All this time, I’ve been testing you,” Andrias told her, his voice full of pride. “The games of flipwart, the missions, the “secret library”, even the barbari-ant colony I had lured to the city. I was watching you, studying your every action. With each challenge I issued, you excelled my expectations. You’re an exceptionally talented human being, Marcy, truly worthy of the name ‘Wu’.”

Even if these words were meant to serve as comfort or encouragement, they had only the opposite effect for Marcy. Tears were leaking out the corners of her eyes.

She mustered only a pitiful whimper, “I-I don’t understand.”

“Don’t worry, kiddo,” he promised, “you will soon enough. He’s so excited to meet you.”

“... He?”

Lifting his mighty hand in the air, he thrusted it into the nothingness facing them. Marcy instinctively followed its direction.

“Marcy Wu,” Andrias’ thundering voice resonated throughout the sanctuary, “allow me to introduce you... to my master.”

No sooner had he finished, the whole world started to tremble at Marcy’s knees, throwing her off her balance. A rumbling, mechanical ROAR struck her ears so loud she had to cover them to protect the drums from rupture. Yet despite this sensory assault, she somehow forced her eyes to stay wide open. She needed to face whatever was coming.

Marcy gazed into the abyss.

And the abyss gazed back with all thirteen of its eyes.

Terror. Pure mounting terror overwhelmed every cell of her being. Her pupils shrunk to the size of pinpricks. If her mouth stretched any wider, her jaw risked snapping clean off its hinges.

Everything around her faded into black. Andrias, the platform and its glow, the beeping, all vanished into the ether. All now that existed were herself and those colossal demonic eyes plucked from the deepest recesses of her nightmares, their leer burrowing into her very soul.

Marcy wanted to scream until she coughed up her lungs. Moreso, she just wanted to wake up. This was all a dream, it had to be. A lucid dream that had gone on for far too long. She and her friends weren’t in another dimension inhabited by talking frogs, such a notion was a scientific absurdity. She sure as heck wasn’t a ranger in some anthropomorphic newt army.

Any moment now, her wizard kitty alarm would ring and she’d wake up in her soft, cozy bed. Dad would have left for work by now, planting a goodbye kiss on her sleeping forehead as he did every morning since she was little. Mom would be already making her her favorite congee rice and youtiao for breakfast. Then she would begin the process of packing up her room for the big move to Oregon like a good girl.

Yes, she would even happily do that. Anything to bring an end to this ordeal!

Shhhh

Her train of thought screeched to a sudden halt.

Marcy

It’s gonna be okay

And just like that, as if those were the five magic words required, everything was fine again. No more panic, no more existential terror. Her heart rate lowered to a steady, non-life threatening level.

The tide had risen up and washed Marcy’s mind clean.

Like a nice blank canvas.

What quickly followed was an epiphany of sorts.

There was nothing for her to fear. Once she accepted that fact, the warm sensation from before returned greater than ever, engulfing her in what could only be described as a spiritual hug. She could feel the pair of hands, tender as her own mother’s, caressing her face and flicking away her tears. They even ruffled her raven hair in the same playful manner.

Come to me, daughter of Wu

Let me get a good look at you

Marcy obeyed. Getting down on all fours, she crawled across the nonexistent ground—the laws of physics evidently had no place here—until her face and the eyes’ chief pupil were within inches of each other.

Fresh tears, now ones of ecstasy, trickled down her cheeks and evaporated in the pulsating heat.

“You’re beautiful.”

I know

We’ve gotta lot to talk about, Marcy

And I have a feeling...

You and I are gonna become the best of friends

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Never Too Late 3

Warnings: noncon sexual acts (later in series)

This is dark!Steve Rogers and explicit. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: You’re turning forty and life seems to be forging ahead on its one way track, that is until you meet Steve Rogers.

Note: Figure I’d give this a quick update :)

Thank you. Love you guys!

As always, if you can, please leave some feedback, like and reblog <3

Series Masterlist

After you saved Steve’s number to your phone, his first text was unexpected. Just as you finished your dinner, your cell buzzed and you read his message. ‘Hope you’re having a great night.’ You had given him your number so you could run together, you hadn’t expected anything else. ‘Thanks. You too.’ The reply was simple. Courteous but short. Perhaps he would get the hint.

But he texted again. ‘Another mission tomorrow. Enjoy your run. Be back in a few days.’ You felt awkward and uncertain. How did you respond to that? You supposed you were friends but there was a barrier there still. Not like your other friends; old friends, now. The same humour tossed back and forth wasn’t there. You felt a sense of formality; of expectation. He was Captain America. You couldn’t share your dark anecdotes with him.

‘Good luck.’ You replied. He sent a smiley in return. You left it at that and plugged in your phone across the room. You didn’t want to worry about him. You had one more day off before you were once again back to work. A day to yourself. Not that you ever spent much of your time anything but alone.

Sunday came and went. Laundry, tidying, chores. All that after another run around the park. Your muscles were loosening up and you felt decent. No more frozen pizzas but greens and baked chicken. You were changing, a little at a time, but it was something.

The next day, even after your morning exercise, you arrived at work enlivened. You had to admit that Steve’s gift had come in handy. You didn’t have to fumble with your phone for the time or even to check your messages. It was all on your wrists; your steps, your heart rate, your alarms.  

Even so, you still felt a pang of guilt looking at it. He was too nice. Yet you wouldn’t let your mind wander far when you asked why. He had told you. Friends; running buddies. Simple as that. Maybe it was a novelty for him to meet someone who wasn’t entirely starstruck or to have someone who wasn’t in the same line of work as him. Or maybe he was secretly laughing at the old woman and her scuffed sneakers.

And there were other changes. Not just the physical adrenaline of your new habit. You felt a little less suffocated by the window around your counter, a little less annoyed by your eclectic co-workers, a little less bogged down at the end of the day. You started tracking your meals on the watch app, too.

The days ticked off easier and the mornings were less groggy. New York was brighter even as August came to an end. Forty wasn’t so bad. You wouldn’t let it be. You couldn’t. You’d wasted enough time.

Steve returned the following Sunday. A whole week away. You were surprised as he caught you a block before the park.

“Must’ve been quite the mission,” You remarked as you passed under the archway which led to the park. 

“It… was,” He said hesitantly. “Look at you.”

“What?” You glanced over.

“Nothing, you just look… happier,” He replied. “And you’re moving a lot better. Forty looks good on you.”

You rolled your eyes.

“And the watch,” He added.

“Yeah, it’s… thank you. It’s really helpful.” You ceded.

“Another few weeks and I won’t be able to keep up with you,” He jibed.

“Don’t patronize me,” You said.

“Serious.” He insisted. “You know it’s okay to be proud of yourself. Progress is always progress. No matter how small it seems.”

“You ever think of being a life coach?” You said. “You could really make a buck off the suckers who buy into that stuff.”

“Life coach?” He repeated. “I never heard of that.”

“Oh, you know, they get paid to give you a smiley face sticker for waking up every day,” You said. “Wait, I think they call themselves accountability consultants, these days. Sounds more like my mother.”

He laughed as you headed up the incline.

“Am I that inspiring?” He asked.

“Not the word I’d use,” You said.

“You think I’m bad but this is me in easy mode,” He said. “You haven’t seen me in Captain mode.”

“Captain mode?” You snickered. “Sounds awful.”

“So I’ve heard.” He said as he stopped. You skidded and spun back to him. “Drop and give me twenty, soldier.”

“What?” You shook your head. “Come on, Steve.”

“Not until I see twenty,” He said. You weren’t sure if he was kidding. You laughed. “Captain mode.” He got closer. “Hands shoulder width apart,” He commanded. “Knees straight.”

You stared at him as your chest flurried. You blinked and his hands went to his hips.

“I can’t-- Steve.” You said.

“You can’t or you won’t,” He challenged. 

You grimaced and checked your watch. You weren’t even halfway done your run. You got down slowly to the ground, cheeks burning, and got into position. You lifted yourself shakily and grunted out, “One.”

“That’s it.” He stepped around you. “Two. Three.” He counted for you and swung a foot over you and stood above you. “Four.” He bent and grabbed your waist. “Don’t bend your knees. Five. Six.” He guided you. “Keep your form. Seven. Eight…”

Your arms thrummed and you dropped to your chest entirely at fourteen. You were out of breath already and embarrassed. He came around you and knelt in front of you.

“Only six more.”

“Steve,” You panted. “Stop.” You pushed yourself up and sat on your knees. 

“You’re just gonna give up?” He asked.

“Please,” You got up and wavered on your feet. “I… I can’t.”

You turned away from him and started walking. You dusted off your hands and regained your breath. He followed only as you broke into a jog. He caught up easily.

“You only get better by doing it,” He said.

You were silent. Humiliated. You had felt so good, so ahead of the game and he had pulled you right back. Reminded you of your age, of your weakness. And you had let him.

“How old are you? One hundred and what?” You gasped. “I don’t see any grey. Nothing. I’d killed to look like you ten years ago, let alone today. Don’t act like you know. You don’t. Another ten years and you still won’t feel like I do.” You sniffed back your anger. “You don’t know how lucky you are or how easy you have it.”

“I was just trying to… help. To push you.” He said. “To show you what you’re capable of.”

“All you’ve shown me is what I can’t do,” You sneered. “As if I didn’t already know.”

You continued on in silence. He languished in the anger radiating off of you as you dwelled in humiliation. One step forward, two steps back.

📱

Steve apologized again before you parted. Once more over a text. And again the next morning. You just wanted to forget it and you said as much.

Your run was quieter that day. You had work on your mind. You could tell Steve felt bad. You did too. You were taking your insecurities out on him. He hadn’t done it with bad intent but it still felt like it. It still felt entirely degrading to stand beside him in stark contrast to vitality. He was a beacon and you were a burnt wick.

You left him with as few words as the day before and returned home to shower before you caught the train. The same counter, the same co-workers, the same ticking clock staring back at you, the same disgruntled New Yorkers.

As you clocked out for your lunch, Deanna stopped you. Her usual starbucks monstrosity in hand.

“You’ve got a visitor.” She said. “Front desk.”

You sputtered out your confused curiosity and grabbed your lunch from the break room fridge. The last time someone came to see you, it had been your mother. She wanted your thoughts on your nephew’s birthday party. She had quickly grown frustrated with your suggestions and subsequent indifference to her obstinacy.

But it wasn’t your mother. Steve stood by the round desk where applicants were dolled out forms and their papers were reviewed before the moved onto you. You approached and your grasp tightened on your lunch bag.

“What are you doing here?” You asked.

“I wanted to apologize.”

“Again?” You peered over at the girl at the circular desk. You waved Steve away from her and led him out to the shared lobby. “I’m not mad at you, okay? I’m mad at myself. I shouldn’t have reacted like that.”

“I shouldn’t have pushed you. You obviously weren’t comfortable with that and I should’ve known better.” He said. “Can I make it up to you?”

“You don’t need to.” You replied.

“Well, maybe you don’t think I do but I think so,” He said. “There’s a pizzeria by my place. I thought a slice would be good for a cheat day.”

“It’s Monday,” You said.

“And? One slice.” He caught your eye. “Please.”

“One slice.” You checked your watch. “And the last twenty minutes of my break.”

“It’s all yours, sorry,” He raised his hands. “I’ll meet you after work. Here.”

“Fine,” You nodded. “See ya then.”

“With bells on.” He smiled but made no move to leave.

You turned away first and felt him watching you as you passed back through the door. You glanced back as you neared the desk. He was still there, staring at you. You quickly continued past the front desk and back through the waiting room. Your cynicism was getting the best of you.

📱

As promised, Steve was waiting for you. You’d almost forgot as he spooked you in the lobby. You let him hail a cab and were thankful for the leather seat. You were exhausted and you weren’t halfway through the week.

The pizza place was small but smelled delicious. You ordered a slice with veggies and Steve got triple meat. You sat at a round table by the window and opened the bottle of water.

“How was your day?” He asked.

“Same old,” You swallowed your first bite. “Not very exciting work. Nothing compared to fighting bad guys.”

“You don’t like it?” He prodded.

“It’s work. It’s definitely not my dream. Not that I really ever had one.” You took another bite to shut yourself up.

“You never tried anything else?”

“Well, I worked retail before. And I was a waitress.” You took a drink of water. “Art degrees might as well be painted over. Ironically.”

“You have an art degree?”

“Buried somewhere.” You said.

“Oh yeah? You paint?” He leaned on the table.

“Sometimes… not much,” You confessed. “Doodles mostly.”

“But… you could sell your art.”

“For pennies,” You countered.

“You never know? And it could be a second hobby. Something you love.”

“Well, with art, you have to have something to say. There’s a point in your life when your voice becomes futile and then you just are too tired to talk above the crowd.” You shrugged. “Anything I have to say has been said before.”

“You don’t know that.”

“What do you care if I paint?” You challenged.

“Well, I think you should do what makes you happy. Not just what you should do or have to do.” He said.

“So you save the world because it’s what makes you happy?”

“Well, in a way, but I do other things. I draw, no degree in that but I do it. I run, not so fun to you but it clears my head. I build things.” He bent his crust and dropped it. “And I do new things that I end up hating and sometimes I end up loving. But if I didn’t try, I wouldn’t know.”

You swallowed and wiped your mouth.

“Maybe that’s why your Captain America and I’m not.” You said as you crumpled your napkin up. “You have a serum that can turn art into money?”

[someone-worth-racing-for]

Hi! After watching the unboxed video I have a little prompt about lando boxing: Carlos discovers it by watching the video and then asks Lando why he started now and Lando goes all insecure because he thinks Carlos is really good at boxing and he never dared to do it in front of him because he's just learning so he waited for him to leave the team, then Carlos offers him some boxing lessons so he can improve faster because that's TOTALLY his motivation and not pining his favourite person down

Hey, anonym! 🙋🏼‍♀️

Thanks for your great request - I just couldn’t resist to write some sweet, little story to it 😉

I hope you will love it 🥰

Lando had just let himself fallen down onto his couch to watch his new favourite Netflix show, when his phone did ring. He was a little annoyed about who was distracting him, while he leaned forward to catch it from the small table in front of him, but his annoyance quickly faded away, when he saw the caller ID on the display.

“Qué pasa, Chili?” He answered his friend’s FaceTime call with his usual already cheeky smile on his lips. “Cabrón!” It came instantly in a reproachful voice from the older one, he did only use when Lando had done something wrong, once again.

Quickly Lando thought with widened eyes about what he might have done wrong this time, but even after thinking about it for moments, he really wasn’t aware of any guilt at all.

“What is it? I haven’t done anything, I promise. At least I’m not aware of it now.” Lando told the Spaniard, while he placed his palm on top of his chest in a gesture of honesty.

“Sure you have, cabrón. Why have you never said anything to me?” It came from the other line, and if Lando was serious, his ex-teammate looked a little hurt, when not even offended. Damn, he must have really done something wrong then, but he still didn’t know what yet.

“I really don’t get it, tell me! Why do you look at me like that?” The younger one replied abashed, being already a little nervous, when not even scared, because he really seemed to have hurt his friend this time.

Carlos sighted into the phone, following he even rolled his eyes about his unknown, before he finally enlightened him “I’m talking about your boxing. Why have you never told me so? Why do you have started now, after I’m gone? You know, I have always wanted to like to box with you together all the time, but you always refused.”

Shocked and perplexed, Lando looked at his phone display, while he got all hot and also a cold shiver ran down the length of his suddenly so sweating back at the same time. “I.. Why.. How.. Who has told you so?” The young Brit stammered unsure and uncomfortable with being caught.

“No one told me so, I was a little bored and when I have got the notification for the newest unboxed, I have thought to give it a try and watch it and there I saw you boxing together with Jon. Especially because the two of us would have been able to already do so together over the last season, warming up together.”

Lando could hear the disappointment out of his friend’s words and he probably also felt betrayed, because the younger one was exactly aware about that big wish of the Spaniard. A wish he had wanted to make come true, but not like that at all.

“Charlie must have edited the video, because I have told Henrik to not use those scenes. I.. I have even actually already started with it by the end of last season, but I first wanted to get good or at least better in it, before I will tell you, so I won’t make myself a complete fool out of it. That’s why I have also always refused, because I know how good you are and I didn’t want to look all stupid once again, which I have still managed anyway to do so now.”

Lando finally told his friend the truth all insecure, while he fidgeted with the sleeve of his hoodie and he could also feel his cheeks getting blushed. “Oh, cabrón. Stop looking that way, it wasn’t my intention to scold you. I was just a little hurt and maybe also jealous, because I have thought you were doing that on purpose and you have actually never wanted to box with me together.”

“That’s actually why I have even started doing it, because I have wanted to box with you together as well, but only when I would have been good enough for it, so you won’t laugh at me.” Lando told his friend with a small voice, trying to avoid his eyes, before his lips formed a small pout.

“Oh, no. Please, stop pouting, cabrón. I feel so bad now, please. It’s okay, I forgive you, but I would have never laughed at you or would have made fun about you during your first boxing lessons. Do you really think I was already a pro, when I have started doing it back then? Definitely not, ask Rupert. So please, stop being sad, cabrón. I’m sorry for the harsh way I have spoken to you before, I really haven't meant it like that at all.”

Lando knew, that Carlos really hadn't meant any harm, he could actually even understand him. He would have probably reacted the same way, if he had found out about that the Spaniard did play COD on his PC without ever telling him so, after he had pleaded him to give it a try, so they could play together and so spend also more time together, already so many times.

“It’s alright. I should have already told you so a while ago. Jon says I’m not doing that bad, but maybe he only says so because I’m a loser. I don’t know.” Unsure Lando shrugged his shoulders, because he had actually only wanted to make his friend happy with learning how to box and one day he would have showed him his skills and Carlos would have been all happy and thrilled about it. At least he was dreaming about that scenario at night.

“I bet you are doing well, cabrón. At least from what I have seen in the video, you are making a decent job.” Carlos motivated him like already so many times, before they began to talk for the next twenty minutes about how it had all started, his training and progress, before the Spaniard told him about how everything had started by him years ago.

Lando had already completely forgotten about that he had actually wanted to watch his show, when Carlos’ expression suddenly changed abruptly and he looked with widened eyes and a big smile at him, before he suggested “What do you think about me coming over to the UK to go boxing with you together tomorrow? Please, say yes. I’m so bored here in Italy and I only have to back to the factory on Thursday anyway.”

Lando just couldn’t say no to those puppy eyes Carlos was showing him, also when he first hesitated, because talking about it was one thing, but really showing the older one what he was already able to do another one. “Alright. But you should better get prepared for getting your ass beaten, Sainzy.”

Carlos’ plane did land in the late morning in London. Lando picked him up from the airport, before the two friends went for lunch and did a little shopping tour together. Latest when they were on their way to Lando’s favourite gym, he became quieter than usual, maybe also a little afraid about that Carlos could still make fun of him in his boxing gloves, looking still so out of place.

And even though he knew, that the Spaniard had noticed his discomfort, he still pretended like he hadn’t got the change in his mood at all. In general, Lando didn’t like to go to train with Carlos together, because compared to his ex-teammates well-trained and well-proportioned manly body, his own body still looked like one of a teenager’s, who was still waiting for his growth spurt.

And at the same time, it made him feel pretty hot and his heart began to race, every time he watched those muscles of his friend flinch, to see his sun-kissed skin and asking himself, how the rest of him had to look like. He just always got too distracted, when they went to the gym together.

Carlos was once again one of the best friends Lando ever had, when he didn’t note anything about his slim figure or when he pulled on his white boxing gloves. He kept a straight face and kept professional, while the young Brit was shaking from nervousness, because he really didn’t want to look like a fool, even when the two of them were all alone in this part of the gym.

But all his worries and fears were for nothing, because Carlos didn’t laugh at him for just one time, the totally contrary even. He tried to motive him, with telling him how well he did and how surprised he was about his skills already now. After the first few minutes boxing, Lando put his nervousness finally aside and just had fun.

He was happy about spending time together with Carlos, which was so rare with not being in the same team any more. He just tried to enjoy every second of it, enjoying his friend’s present, while he caused him to smile constantly like always.

When it was Carlos turn, he showed the younger one some of his own skills, what he could make better or what had helped him back then when he had started. By now Lando didn’t even know any more why he had been so worried before.

Carlos would have never laughed at him or would have made fun of him, never. For that he was too kind in protecting and the older one was also aware about that his ex-teammate needed to hear something like that to improve. Some nice encouraging words to develop.

Like already so many times before, Lando had got lost while watching those strong arms hitting him as hard as they could, taking in those firm muscles flinch by the contact, while he eyed his focused, sweaty face all closely, and the younger one finally got unfocused for one brief moment, where Carlos almost hit him by his shoulder.

Lando jumped in shock, which caused the Spaniard to not hit his target and he began to sway forward. Carlos really tried to get his balance back, but it was already too late, when he fell forward right into Lando’s arms and because the young Brit wasn’t strong enough to steady his friend and so save them both, they fell together and landed on the ground.

At least the older one somehow still managed to catch himself and avoided falling with his full body weight onto his friend underneath him. With his hands on each side of Lando’s head, he supported himself, while he looked down at him with sweat pearls on his forehead and still breathing rapidly through his mouth.

After the shock, the two friends began to smile at each other and also giggled about the situation they were in, before Lando told the older one all cheekily “This right here looks actually familiar to me.”

He meant the last time Carlos was pining him onto the floor, back in Japan at the bowling alley. It still made his heart race, while he thought back to it. How close they had been that evening, how much his body had reacted to the contact with being literally underneath him and feeling his body weight on top of him.

But his heart was racing even more now, with being even closer to each other than back then. Lando could feel his breath against his own sweaty skin, this time half of Carlos’ body was indeed laying on top of him, even their middles pressed against each other and the younger one could feel how hot he began to feel suddenly. The centre of the heat inside his body was definitely his middle, but still his cheeks blushed like they were on fire as well.

“Yeah, to me as well, cabrón. But this one right here is new.” Carlos breathed while he already leaned even closer down to his face and before Lando could even realize what beautiful things were going on here, he could already feel the Spaniard’s full lips against his own, pinning him now the whole way down onto the floor. And Lando just let him.

[kaorimiyazonotl]

Life After 2020

Life as we know it evolved and changed in more ways than one, and that's normal. The word “normal” is a word that people use to describe the usual occurrences of our world. It’s our daily routine. That’s being human. People tend to say that “the world keeps evolving,” and so far it has been evolving very quickly. With each passing day of 2021, people were supposed to be finding ways to recover for the chaotic year of 2020, where everyone suffered greatly in one way or another. This year we’ve been on a tipsy road covered in cracks.

At first it was just another year of masks, social distancing, and online learning for teachers and students. March marked one year. Some people thought 2021 might be the year where everything slowed down and all our worries disappeared. The truth is people’s daily worries don’t go away that easily. We are not cruising through 2021 like we thought we would. Which made me question whether or not the world itself will go back to normal.

People have probably heard that “2020 was such a tough year.” Well, that’s the past, the present is now. According to every news article, television, and social media network 2020 is happening again. Only this time students and teachers haven’t gone back online. The world has been divided like a great battle against one another and it’s been going on for a year and a half. I understand that this is and continues to be a part of our world, but when will we stop wearing masks?

Over the summer I went to New Mexico and the word normal popped into my head. I remembered the days where life was at least decent and you could see a smile on someone’s face. But when August came around it was like 2020 all over again, back to wearing masks. A mask covers everything, from smiles to frowns. Nowadays the only way we can tell someone’s expression is by taking our masks off or looking into each others’ eyes.

In the beginning of 2021 things remained practically the same, stores were closing, dine in restaurants weren’t available still and the continuation to keep our masks on once you’ve entered a place were still intact. So nothing new was really happening except what the news was showing us. But progress was happening, just not not big enough to see but small enough to notice. Still as the saying goes “we’re in the same boat” or “you are not alone” everyone had to face the same thing that was happening. It’s very cliche to hear since people have used that saying before, nevertheless it’s true since everyone went through something just as similar.

We probably all were “in the same boat” last year, but everyone’s method of coping is different. People don’t suddenly recover, it’s a step-by-step process that takes a while. That’s just how things are. Still, the question remains: Will life go back to normal? Will we be able to handle the new changes in the world?

First off; there is no such thing as normal, it is just a word used to describe something plain or to describe a person who dresses or acts like everybody else. I’m asking if life will go back to the way it used to be. There are possibilities to anything, about the way we think, might know, and what we’re searching for. So, we might not even know the whole truth to this question.

According to health experts say that for normalcy to return “. . .the country needs to reach herd immunity...The more people are vaccinated, the less likely the virus will spread.” ( What will the end of the COVID pandemic look like? - WHYY). So that could be our saving grace, if that ends up happening. But what if there are people who don’t want to get vaccinated? What will experts say then? People have their own beliefs and some will do what they think is right.

But other people say differently, that the “normal life” isn’t back yet, and it doesn’t appear “normal will be coming back fully this fall,” says writer Jim Geraghty (Is 'Normal' COVID-19 Life for Americans Going to Return by 2022?). Well, it depends on the people and where they stand.

I know that where I stand I have my own beliefs and opinions. I still have much to learn, however, I should at least have the capability of knowing right from wrong. That’s the meaning of existence, people think they know right from wrong based on what they believe in. As teenager’s we think we might know, but we’re still learning. Our parents may tell us what our beliefs are but we choose where we stand between certain beliefs. We also know that because we want freedom we can’t just do as we please.

In the real world, we have tons of responsibilities. If there are teens who are easily influenced, it’s going to be tough for them. Life itself is like taking a big test, it’s to see if young adults are capable of being independent, responsible, and capable of working well with others. From the article What will the end of the COVID pandemic look like? - WHYY, Gretchen Chapman, a psychology professor at Carnegie Mellon University, thinks that “it’s the responsibility of health experts to guide people about which activities are safe and which aren’t as more and more people are vaccinated.” What exactly do people think that belief or theory will lead to? Why follow sheep when we can be the shepherd?

Throughout school, we were taught to “be a leader, not a follower.” But not everyone is perfect so how do we know? From our perspective of things, we can only tell by what our beliefs are and how strong they are. But health experts also say that “It’s not certain what percentage of the population needs to be vaccinated...But many medical experts estimate that it’s 70% to 80%.” ( What will the end of the COVID pandemic look like? - WHYY) It is uncertain that maybe by fall things should go smoothly if we follow what they think is true.

If things go upwards then by 2022 things “should be normal, or at least whatever qualifies as normal post-pandemic...The virus will still exist, but one possibility is that it will be less likely to make people severely ill and that it will [be] like the flu..but the virus wouldn’t rage out of control again,” Writer Joe Pinsker put in the articleThe Most Likely Timeline for Life to Return to Normal - The Atlantic

So as of next year, there is a hypothetical theory that “normalcy” to the world won’t be showing up until next year? And will the virus be contained this time? Well, this is just a simple theory. As I have said things change all around us, what if it’ll take multiple years to recover? How will we know if what they say isn’t true at all? There are so many unknown questions that everyone has and we don’t even have the answers to most of those questions.

Students at my school have their own beliefs about whether or not the world will go back to normal. Most students had the same answer but everyone I interviewed had a strong opinion on the question asked. Some students said, “look at the facts,” “Once everyone is [or gets] vaccinated things should be okay.” But my most favorite would be from a student who had pointed out that “Once you progress there is no going back.” In my honest opinion it is true, life keeps going forward, yesterday was the past, today is the present and tomorrow is the future.

Every student compared how the world was and what it could or could not turn out to be by relating it to history. It “repeats itself..things that have stopped for a while they always have a way to resume back to normal. Like when the black plague happened [or] when the Spanish flu [happened]..it never went away [but] it took so long for life to go back to normal.”

Particularly speaking, there is a possibility that it may take years or more for life to return to normal. Normalcy does take a while to recover, it may take more than just months and like people always say “life isn't easy.” But those are students who referred life back to history and stated that it took years for them to handle the situation.

Students who said yes to the world returning to normal, most of them all replied the same. “People will get vaccinated,” “We should be vaccinated,” “the more people get vaccinated” or “Because we already have a vaccine.” They think that being vaccinated will turn things around, that’s what they hope for, they believe if people get the vaccine we should go back to normal. But you can’t force people to do what you think is right. That’s not how the world works, we are all entitled to our own opinion.

A student whose a junior, had said “I think covid, being here won't change anything even if people do get vaccinated.” That might be true some students said that covid will be around for a long time now and it’s not going to go away, not that easily. “We barely go back down and go back up.” If the roller coaster continues there’s no telling if what the students have said is true. It may take years to get back on track. Normalcy is just a word used to describe anything, but there is no such thing as normal, to begin with. I think that there is a fifty-fifty percent chance that there will be major changes in the future. There are a ton of possibilities to anything and everything.

[miraculoustails]

So, as a fan of Winx Club, I was super excited when the trailer for Fate came out. Soon after, someone pointed out Techna was missing and Flora was replaced with her white cousin (coughwhitewashingcough). I quickly realized this would be another Voltron or Riverdale. I watched the series so I could know everywhere it got wrong, and hopefully enjoy it some. So here’s my review of Fate (may contain some spoilers of Fate, but definitely of WC)

Bloom. Let’s start with all that’s wrong with her. Bloom is supposed to be confident, but slightly unsure. Fate!Bloom is extremely insecure and miserable. She’s always doing something super “edgy” and “breaking the rules”. From the way the first season has gone, it doesn’t even look like she’ll be a princess. She’s just labeled as “super powerful changeling”. Which is another thing. Her parents. They’re supposed to be her super supportive adoptive family who ADOPTED HER. Instead, her parent’s REAL child died of a heart condition, and they unknowingly raised Bloom all these years. They didn’t even raise her well, as they were super super abusive. Yet she still loves them and it’s never adressed how abusive and disgusting their actions were. Instead it’s just “complicated”.

Aisha’s just. Yikes. They made her into a goody two shoes bookworm. While i’m not sure how exactly, something just feels wrong and racist about it. I could just be leaping because of the previous whitewashing racism. She’s also super jealous of Bloom for her progress in magic, and it’s just. Never adressed. She’s super helpful and will break any rules in the first like two episodes then she suddenly becomes rigid rule addict out of nowhere.

Tella, aka “Flora’s cousin” is SO annoying. They made her into this awkward fat girl and constantly make fat-phobic jokes. It’s shown as bad, but also in a way, it’s not. There’s another character that’s queer and the only way his queerness is talked about is homophobic jokes by Riven. Side note, Riven is an asshole but jfc they went WAY too far with his dick-ness. He’s practically a bad guy. But anyways, Tella. The fact she’s a whitewashed Flora already makes me hate the character, but she’s always whining. She’s constantly bullied, and she stands up for herself but she also likes it??? Which is wrong in so many ways.

Musa. She’s supposed to be a sound fairy, but they made her into a “useless mind fairy” called an empath. She can feel everyone’s feelings and cant turn off the power. Which makes no sense because every other fairy can turn it on/off. They just couldnt think of something to make her power difficult to use (they wanna be edgy). She’s also a huge jerk to Tella the first episode, which is understandable, but still. Winx Musa is supposed to be a lot more tolerant.

And last, but certainly very far from least. Stella. Stella is absolutely ruined. The show is supposed to start off with her saving Bloom, in the human world, from a witch-made monster. But it starts with Bloom going to school after she was just. Found. By the headmistress. And Stella’s a complete bitch, trying to get her killed. Stella’s abusive and toxic, and suddenly gets a “redemption arc” where she goes “sorry for being absolutely horrible. It’s mommy issues. Not my fault :((( im so broken” and everyone just pretends nothing happened. Not to mention she’s fucking Sky, and don’t get me started. Sky’s not even supposed to know her.

Which leads me to Sky and the specialists. Sky’s all like “oh i shouldnt keep fucking Stella but she needs me. But also, hot new freshman looking fine （´≝◞⊖◟≝｀)”. And he’s repeatedly talking about how “broken he is” and how he wants to “fix everything so he doesnt have to think about his brokenness” and he’s just “a fixer” (aka weirdo speech by jughead). As for the specialists, they’re supposed to be at a whole seperate school. But for the sake of throwing in early romance and sex plots, they made it different sections of alfea, yet having a “headmaster” for the specialists that’s still not The Headmaster??? Not to mention, as far as i remember, fairies were all female and specialists all male, which does have some sexist connotations, but now they’re both co-ed and im not sure how i feel about that.

Now, as for the show as a whole. The plot is try-hard. It has it’s enjoyable moments but bloom isn’t supposed to care so much on her past. She does care, but that’s supposed to be so it leads her to clash with the witches. At first, it seemed like there was a witch school like there should be, but now it’s a village that was destroyed years ago?? So it’s quite confusing what’s going on with the witches. There’s a completely seperate enemy, possibly made by the witches though. In Fate, everyone knows truths about Bloom’s past, but it’s hidden. Meanwhile in WC, no one knows she’s a princess or how she ended up in the human world. Im pretty sure fairies in the human world are supposed to be semi-normal, (harry potter wizards/witches kinda thing). However, in Fate, there hasnt been a fairy in the human world in ages. In an effort to avoid major spoilers, i’ll just say. The drama with Rosalind is so stupid and cringy. Also the shock factor in the last episode, which is supposed to show you how she really is evil, it was unnecessary. It made me feel nauseous and shocked in a very bad way. Shows are growing this habit of having dramatic twists where something graphic suddenly happens with no warning, but the problem is that there’s no warning. It’s bad enough even when there is awarning, but it’s still intense for even mentally healthy people. Very damaging to those of us who have mental disorders.

I could have so much more to say on how disappointed I am, as an adult who grew up watching winx club, but im very tired and honestly, i could go on forever. All in all, as it’s own show, Fate is not bad, even enjoyable once you get into it. But as a Winx Club remake, it crushes my dreams and breaks my heart. It stomps all over my childhood and what was dear to me. I think i will continue watching it if more seasons come out, but there’s very little i enjoy about the show. It’s nearly impossible to enjoy if im comparing it to Winx Club, but a decent amount easier if i watch it with comparisons. If were to rate it, i’d probably say it’s 2/5. 2.5 if im being generous. I’m just very disappointed in this reboot, and wish they had made it more accurately, rather than trying so hard to appeal to young adults.

[travel-hopefully]

A collective post of everything I watched on Netflix in 2020

I finally found the watch history function on Netflix which I wanted in order to reminisce over the TV/film I watched over the last year, including the good and the bad. I’ve included a little round-up of my thoughts for each, as lockdown has got me with plenty of time on my hands. If anyone has watched any of the below feel free to give me a message- happy to discuss anything!

Travelers (season 3) - this was an unforgettable show with some great characters and definitely put me through hell (in a good way), I am a David x Marcy shipper for sure!

IT Crowd (season 4 & 5) - my favourite comedy show ever, and I mean the UK version

Explained (random episodes) - interesting bite-sized episodes on a variety of topics

Sherlock (season 3 & 4) - it kinda went downhill from season 4...and doesn’t help that there is no season 5 in sight

Unforgettable - must be pretty forgettable cause I couldn’t remember watching, a typical revenge plot romp I think

The Mind, Explained - same as for Explained above, except more pyshcological

You (season 2) - binge-worthy! I love to hate Joe Goldberg.

Don’t F**k with Cats - wow, this was disturbing but so gripping.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle - geniunely a good remake and rather amusing

Sex, Explained - as for Explained but a little more intriguing ;)

The Stranger (season 1) - full of suspense and a good binge watch but ultimately full of plot holes with an unsatisfying conclusion

Gavin & Stacey (season 3) - a classic which I only started watching in 2019

Sex Education (all of it) - comedy gold!

Unbelievable (limited series) - very harrowing, an emotional rollercoaster based on a real-life rape case

Atypical (all of it) - light-hearted and fun to binge

The Sinner (season 1) - it was okay... wasn’t spectacular compared to other similar dramas I’ve seen

Love Is Blind (season 1) - cringey but satisfying

In the Shadow of the Moon - I hardly remember this one :)

Dunkirk - a stand-out historical movie

The Stepfather - typical killer stepfather plot but rather enjoyable

The Super - an interesting premise, but not that super

Saw VI - all gore not much plot

Doctor Who (random episodes) - no words needed :D

Louis Theroux and Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends (random episodes) - I love his style of interviewing - what a man!

The Revenant - a lot of... well, not much

Nightcrawler - it was decent, but something was missing which I couldn’t put my finger on

How To Get Away With Murder (seasons 1-5) - probably my biggest new watch of the year, a rollercoaster of suspense, drama and murder, another season to go...

Ocean’s Eleven - fun but cheesey

Blumhouse’s Truth or Dare - creepy faces and an interesting ending

Eli - it started one way then went another, I wasn’t convinced

Star Trek (2009) - I couldn’t really get into this one...

In the Tall Grass - a lot of running around in grass

Bloodride (season 1) - i loved this, a quirky idea, i binged it

Apostle - intense, a satisfying religious cult horror

The Platform - great idea, not sure on the ending

What Keeps You Alive - what happened in this one again?

History 101 - didn’t watch many episodes :P

The Prodigy - a decent child possession horror

Into the Night (season 1) - really enjoyed this, a highlight of the year for me, hoping for a season 2

It - pretty chilling and creepy, but a tad cheesey

Jurassic World and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom - the first one has a brilliant dinosaur fight scene, the second one has too many plot holes and inconsistencies to take seriously

Knowing - a Nicholas Cage sci-fi/apocalpytic classic, pretty decent

Stranger Things (random episodes) - i tried to get my bf into the show but sadly he still isn’t much of a TV fan

Miranda (random episodes) - such fun!

Black Mirror (seasons 1 & 2) - another one i introduced the bf to, i got a bit further with him on this one, the very first episode being the highlight

The Last House on the Left - a decent remake, but nothing outstanding

Dark (season 3) - this, my friends, is one of the greatest shows of all time. want a timey-wimey story where everything is connected and has an amazingly satisfying conclusion? this is the show for you!

The Silence - a bad ‘A Quiet Place’

Geostorm - i’m a fan of disaster movies but this one wasn’t in the same league as some of the greats

Panic Room - a mum and kid hides in the panic room when a group of thugs break into the house, it was enjoyable but not all that memorable

Prisoners - a very long film with some enjoyable parts but overall unsatisfying

Girl on the Third Floor - it was okay, i can’t remember much of it

The Woods (season 1) - another Harlan Coben adaptation- not as good as ‘Safe’ or ‘The Stranger’ but still a gripping thriller

Time Trap - a fun time-travel film with some interesting turns of events

72 Dangerous/Cutest Animals (random episodes) - just ‘cause i love animals

Slasher (all of it) - some very gory deaths, especially in season 3. quite disturbing but keeps the suspense up throughout.

2012 - a guilty pleasure of mine, realistic or not

Kingsman: The Secret Service - a fun spy film, will be looking to watch the second one soon

Blackfish - this was harrowing, it really made me think, but overall i’m on the side of tilikum

Unsolved Mysteries (season 1 & 2) - watching some of these my jaw dropped, love theorising on this kind of stuff

Down to Earth with Zac Efron (season 1) - Zac is great in this, he seems so chill and literally ‘down to earth’

The Call - I love this film, seen it 3 times now

Contagion - very relatable right now, interesting to see the parallels with todays situation

Next in Fashion (season 1) - i didn’t get too far with this, i found it a little superficial

Searching - another of those internet web-cam based films. decent but not memorable.

Non-stop - another Nicholas Cage classic, this time a suspense thriller

Freaks - as the title suggests this one was rather weird, i didn’t quite gel with it

The Perfection - wow, that was an experience. definitely memorable, even if some characters make questionable decisions...

Extraction - not usually a fan of action-type thrillers, but i actually enjoyed this one, plus it has Chris Hemsworth in it!

Line of Duty (season 2) - full of suspense, a great build-up in the first 5 episodes, but the way they tied it up really grated on me 

Insidious - watched this one with my sister. a genuinely good horror film on rewatch with an amazing cliff-hanger

A Quiet Place - another one watched with my sister. labelled a horror but its more sci-fi, either way its a classic. bring on the second film!

The Dark Tower - disappointing mostly.

Gladiator - i’d never seen this before and now i understand the hype- what an epic movie!

Criminal UK (season 2) - didn’t disappoint following the exceptional first season

Venom - a fun comedic marvel film, definitely need to watch more from Marvel in the next year- i need an order to watch them in as don’t know where to start

Our Planet (season 1) - chill David Attenborough to put on in the background

The Equalizer - a great action revenge thriller plot with a badass Denzel

Merlin (random episodes) - who doesn’t love a trip down memory lane with some nostalgic bbc merlin?

A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) - pretty scary remake

The Witcher (season 1) - rewatched in order to familiarise myself again before season 2 - i didn’t realise how funny the show was until this time round, gotta love Jaskier!

American Murder: The Family Next Door - this was haunting

The Haunting of Bly Manor - phenomenal, emotional, creepy, heartbreaking - i much preferred it to Hill House

Abducted in Plain Sight - seriously, how naive are the parents in this? i could have a rant for hours about this!

The End of the F***ing World (seasons 1 & 2) - very bingeable, Alyssa makes me laugh too much, i love how relatable the show is

Fractured - didn’t expect much from this consipiracy-type film but it kept me guessing right till the end

The Ripper (limited series) - very intriguing, but the mysogyny in this was shocking

Inconceivable - a typical mother looking for her baby revenge plot but still entertaining

The Midnight Sky - i’d heard rave reviews for this but was disappointed by a lacklustre plot which was sacrificed for award-winning cinematography

Killer Women with Piers Morgan (season 2) - a pyschological interview series which looks into the mind of murderers, rather interesting

May the Devil Take You - scarier and jumpier than i thought it would be!

So 2020 obviously gave me a lot of time to watch a s**t load of stuff and looking back at it i feel like i got a decent amount of my watch-list ticked off! And obviously this is not including shows watched on other media so there’s that too (a special shout-out to the William Hartnell era of Doctor Who which I watched this year on BritBox). In all, 2020 has definitely introduced me to a few new fandoms and progressed my love for others. 

[hale-13]

Violation of Order

By Hale13

For the Summer of Whump Day 14 - Hair Grabbing

Peter settled earlier than anyone else he knew and he could only attribute it to one person. Since then, he and Zara had a hard time being more than a few feet away from each other - he needed her close to protect her from ever going through that again.

Words: 2151, Chapters: 1/1 (Complete), Language: English

Fandoms: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)

Rating: Gen

Relationships: Peter Parker & Tony Stark

Characters: Peter Parker, Ned Leeds, Tony Stark

TW: Non-Consensual Touching, Implied Sexual Assault, Panic Attacks

Daemon AU

Read on AO3 or below the line break.

Contrary to what popular scientific and psychological research would imply, Peter settled early.

Zara had always enjoyed shifting, bouncing between fifteen to twenty forms a day to whatever suited her fancy in the moment and taking great pleasure in trying every fantastical creature she and Peter could dream up. Peter was always one of the smallest of his peers so she liked to be big and intimidating compared to those around him.

Well, until his parents died.

After that Zara tended to prefer small and agile creatures, animals that could hide in Peter’s pockets or the hood of his jacket – where they could get skin to skin contact. Snakes that could coil around his arms, birds that could nest in his ratty hair, ferrets that could curl up around his neck and tickle his chin. Peter didn’t mind the extra comfort, he and Zara were always extremely close but they couldn’t stand to be more than a few feet from each other after he came to live with May and Ben.

Skip’s daemon had been a wolf – an odd sight in New York – and had held Zara tight in her jaws to get Peter to comply.

Zara had screamed and cried and shifted and clawed at the other daemon to get away resulting in Skip gripping her tightly in one fist and tossing her into the wall. Peter and Zara had screamed in unison at the unwelcome touch and had been stunned enough for Skip to get what he wanted.

When Zara settled into an opossum later that night they had cried together for their lost childhoods. For growing up too quickly. For knowing that it was probably going to happen again and feeling helpless to stop it. Sen and Lotte, May and Ben’s daemons had cuddled and groomed Zara the next day, trying to offer what comfort they could while May and Ben tried to get through to Peter. It wasn’t until months later that Zara finally spoke up on Peter’s behalf to save them.

Peter’s been through a lot in his life but the only thing that came close to have his soul manhandled was the Bite and Ben’s subsequent death.

At the single Easter Mass May had taken him too in his early years living with his aunt and uncle, the priest had described death as beautiful – the entry into the next life. The dust from the deceased’s daemon a shower of blessings on the ones they loved. The dust from Lotte, a beautiful yellow lab, was the least beautiful thing Peter had ever seen as it mixed with the blood coating the ground and settled into his and Zara’s hair. The sight of it washing off and down the drain later was even worse.

Peter’s main goal as Spider-Man became protecting others from having to experience something similar.

“Peter!” Ned said, pulling Peter out of his wandering and back into the present. His macaw daemon, Veerle, was flaring her scarlet plumage and adjusting her wings to balance better on his best friend’s shoulder and trying to peer into Peter’s hood where Zara had been snoozing through the last of his classes. “Did you hear anything I said?”

“Uh… yeah of course!” Peter cringed at the obvious lie in his voice and glared at Veerle who snickered at him. Ned just rolled his eyes.

“I was saying we should meet up tomorrow afternoon to get a head start on that project from Harrington. I can’t take the stress of procrastinating again,” Ned told him dramatically, elbowing him lightly in the side as they exited the doors to Midtown and started walking in the direction of Ned’s house.

“It’s not due for a month,” Peter pointed out, shivering as Zara shifted in his hood, wrapping her tail around his neck and propping her head up to rest on his shoulder with a yawn.

“That’s what you said last time,” she pointed out and Peter flicked her on the nose with a scoff of betrayal, ignoring his friend’s laughing. “Hey!”

“Whose side are you on here huh?” He asked in mock anger before breaking out in a smile. It had been a while since he and Ned had had the opportunity to hang out as just the four of them – too long in fact. Peter was excited for the weekend that they had planned; a pizza and movie marathon of some classic Sci-if and now, assumingely, some homework. Whatever, they were still going to have a great time. All Peter needed to do was a quick evening patrol and he was done for the weekend.

“Ned,” Zara answered, rubbing her nose dramatically with a paw. Peter rolled his eyes at her as he started scoping for a good alley to change in that was close to Ned’s house, spotting a good one not too far ahead.

“I shouldn’t be more than a couple of hours and then I can get started on my part,” Peter promised Ned as he made his way to the alley. “I promise this time.”

“I’ve heard that before,” Ned said with an eye roll, his face a little pinched but still indulgent. “Try not to get stabbed this time.”

“No promises,” Peter muttered as they parted. Not that he would tell Ned if he did get injured anyway; he kept a pretty decent first aid kit with him at all times and he felt pretty confident that he could hide any injury from his friend until it completely healed. The alley he ducked into was empty except for the couple beaten dumpsters that Peter hid behind to change into his suit, offering his open back for Zara to climb into. Patrolling with her wasn’t always the easiest but they had settled into a rhythm for the most part.

Firing a web, Peter took off into Queens, hoping for a relaxing afternoon.

————————————————

It was nearing eleven when Ned sent his obligatory ‘I told you so’ text complete with eye roll emoji that Peter left on read just for the principal of the thing. It had been a busy Friday evening and had only just started to slow down enough for Peter and Zara to take a breather – he was thankful May was working tonight so he wouldn’t get caught inevitably breaking his curfew.

“I think we’re done,” Zara told him with a yawn, her head poked out the top of his book bag and looking over his shoulder as Peter leisurely swung from web to web heading, vaguely, toward home.

He hummed. “One more quick scan,” he compromised and Zara grumbled a little but didn’t protest when he said “Got anything for me K?”

“Sure thing Peter,” Karen’s chirpy voice replied. “An emergency call was just placed two blocks away for a possible mugging in progress.”

“Throw it up on the screen for me,” Peter said, hopping off the roof he was perched on and swinging toward the blinking red dot on his HUD as quickly as he could. Zara sighed from his backpack and kept her head poked out to observe. Muggings weren’t (normally) that big of a deal so she didn’t really hide in the bag as much for those – unless it started to get really hairy.

“That’s all I have! I promise I don’t have anything else!” A man’s voice yelled, the timbre trembling and terrified as Peter swung onto the scene. The victim couldn’t have been much older than Peter and he and his robin daemon were pressed as tightly to the dirty brick wall as they could get, trying to stay away from the mugger brandishing a knife and his corgi daemon – growling and snarling between his legs.

“Lovely evening right gentlemen?” Peter quipped as he dropped to the ground in a crouch a few feet away. “Perfect time to get into a little larceny am I right?”

“This doesn’t involve you Spider-Man,” the mugger said, turning to face Peter instead, his daemon showing her teeth. Zara, head still poked out of his backpack, hissed loudly in return and scuttled up to sit on Peter’s shoulder, anchoring herself with her tail around his neck and digging her sharp little claws into his suit.

“You know,” Peter told him conversationally, standing and trying to telepathically communicate to the victim to make his escape out the other end of the alley. “That’s what they all say but I just can’t seem to mind my own business,” he shrugged as if to say ‘oh well’ and took a step closer. The victim had started edging out of the alley so Peter needed to keep up with the distraction until he was safe. “Now how’s about you put the knife away and I’ll web you to the wall and we all leave here friends?”

The mugger scoffed and turned to look at his victim with a ‘can you believe this guy’ expression on his face before it darkened at the sight of his escaping prey.”Hey!” He yelled, turning fully and reaching out to grab the man – knife raising threateningly. Peter, in an act of desperation, jumped in between them causing the man to grab onto Zara by the scruff of the neck instead.

Peter nearly dropped to the ground under the pain of feeling someone grabbing onto his bare soul and Zara screamed and hissed in the man’s grip, finally biting him on the wrist so he dropped her to the ground, some of her course hair still stuck to his palm and flaking off in pieces. Looking horrified and sick himself, the man took off with his corgi daemon whimpering at his heels leaving Peter alone.

Peter let out a sob, his skin still crawling, and curled up into a tight ball. The last time anyone had touched Zara had been Skip when he had… when he…

“Your heart rate has reached unacceptable levels,” Karen’s clear voice cut through. “Mr. Stark is on his way.”

Peter gasped in response (he couldn’t breathe, why couldn’t he breathe?) and reached out blindly for where Zara was curled up and trembling a few feet away, scooping her into his chest and pressing his masked face into the fur of her side.

“Peter Mr. Stark is three minutes out but you need to control your breathing,” Karen told him gently. “Please follow the prompts on the screen – in for four, hold seven, out eight.”

Peter couldn’t even breathe in for one second let alone four but he tried to follow Karen’s directions – having Zara back in his arms where he could run his fingers through her hair and try to get rid of the unwanted touch that he could still feel phantom echos of helped some but not enough. By the time Tony landed with Silon in his arms a few minutes later Peter hadn’t really managed to improve his mental state by much.

“Oh Pete,” Tony said sadly, stepping out of the suit and kneeling down in front of Peter. “I’m so sorry kiddo.” Peter just let out a loud sob in response but didn’t protest Tony pulling his mask carefully over his head and running calloused fingers through his hair. Silon, Tony’s large serval daemon, cautiously curled over Peter to begin nuzzling Zara, his purr sounding comforting but sad.

“He touched her,” Peter forced out, nearly gagging as he said it, fresh tears spilling down his cheeks for Tony to rub away with his thumbs. “He grabbed her.”

“I know buddy, I saw,” Tony confirmed, levering Peter up to sit cross-legged with his back to the wall and Zara coiled in his lap. “I know there’s nothing I can say that will help but I’ve got Happy on the way. We’re going back to the Tower and we’re going to watch Star Wars and you’re going to cuddle with her okay? It’ll help.”

Peter nodded erratically, gripping Zara tighter for a moment and then releasing her when she reached out one of her paws to Silon. He let her climb onto his back and grip onto him with all four limbs and tail, craning his neck back to groom her gently. “The last person to touch her was… it was… I didn’t want…”

“I know Petey,” Tony told him as he pulled him in for a firm hug that Peter was quick to reciprocate, clinging onto his mentor just as tightly as Zara was to Silon. “I know buddy, just let it out.”

There were some things that Tony Stark could fix – Peter could trust him to try to fix just about any problem he was presented with – but Peter knew that this would be one of those things that would be cracked inside of him forever. Something that no one besides Peter and Zara could work on and something that would always haunt them. But, sitting there with his mentor in one of the dirty alleys of Queens, Peter thought he could feel it mending.

[kaqeyamas]

♡ —  folklore plots.

okay so, i just wanted to take a moment to make sure it’s known that these plots aren’t direct interpretations of the songs on taylor’s new album. they’re just ideas that i came up with based on little pieces of each song, or while listening to it!

The 1

give me a plot where muse a & muse b are exes. their relationship was actually pretty decent, despite muse b never showing enough attention or affection, hence why even after a year or two of being separated, muse a is still hung up on the other, and kind of searching for them in every new relationship and behind every corner. they were convinced they were the one, and seeing them again certainly hasn’t made that feeling go away at all??

Cardigan 

“but i know you, dancing in your levi’s, drunk under a streetlight” and i’m just picturing this pair of friends who have always kind of gotten into trouble, who were absolutely the type in high school to sneak out to get drunk and wander around town together, whether it lead to drunkenly adventuring the sidewalks of random streets in town, drinking and dancing along the way, or finding themselves at the local lake with half a bottle as they talk about everything and anything under the moon. they were literally like... night owls and that’s when their friendship really existed?? and maybe as adults, they haven’t seen each other in ages and when they do all of these old memories come back like “wow i was never that happy with anyone else??”

The Last Great American Dynasty 

toxic toxic toxic. these two bring out the absolute worst in one another, but one thing is certain -- the only way they were ever going to escape was if one of them died. muse a comes from money, and lives as such. expensive drinks, and infidelity. muse b is made into a monster in the town’s eyes, because they know of their partner’s cheating and they’re rightfully angry and upset, but they stick it out, because the money is too good to pass up on. it’s messy, and they’re constantly fighting, but when things are good? they’re so good. almost good enough to forget the bad. 

Exile 

muse a was growing restless in a relationship that felt like it was going nowhere, and muse b was oblivious to it, until it was too late. now muse a has a new partner, and muse b can’t stand it. but neither of them can truly shake the idea that they’re meant to be together -- muse b just needs to do something about it.

My Tears Ricochet 

i’m just not writing this one out because i honestly can’t think of anything that’s not super toxic, and that’s not my cup of tea. (TLGAD already is pushing it; sorry y’all!)

Mirrorball 

muse a has never truly felt like they fit in anywhere, until muse b shows up. they aren’t exactly sure what it is about them, but just being around them makes muse a want to be somebody completely new. whoever muse b would be interested in. making jokes to get noticed. wearing flashy outfits to keep their attention. but, at the end of the day, muse b thinks they’re perfect just as they are. this has super soft vibes and i’ll accept nothing less. 

Seven 

picture this -- they’re seven years old, and next door neighbors. fighting off monsters and building forts in their living rooms. their parents think they’re going to end up getting married when they’re older, and that probably would have been true, if muse b hadn’t switched schools senior year. fast forward ten years, and they run into muse a in their home town and every good memory comes flooding back because best friend love never dies.

August 

this is nothing more than a summer fling. (or is it??) muse a and muse b get to spend three months together, wrapped in the sheets and enjoying the sunshine together. making memories and ignoring the reality that they couldn’t last once the season ended (maybe one of them had to go back home in august) but they made those three months count in every moment. smiles and love songs and fall came in and stole it all away. (make it angstier by saying this fling only happened because muse b had broken up with their significant other before the fling started but by august, they want them back, leaving muse a heartbroken)

This is Me Trying 

muse a and muse b were head over heels. madly in love, and destined for it all. the big house, the happy family, wedding bells and all. until one drunken night, muse b makes the mistake of cheating on their partner. but they know they fucked up, and they’re not about to let the worst mistake they’ve ever made ruin the best thing in their life. they won’t go down without a fight, and if it takes apologizing for the rest of their life, they’d do it, just to get muse a back. lots of angst, and super sad. honestly?? i want this to make me cry.

Illicit Affairs 

make my whole life and give me a cheating plot. but not the kind of cheating plot that’s built on toxicity and mindless decisions!!! muse a is married and unhappy with somebody that doesn’t treat them right. maybe it’s abusive, maybe it’s just empty and the passion isn’t there? cue muse b, who lives down the street and has always made a point to wave and smile when they spot muse a outside, and their friendship builds to the point of sleeping together on accident. but it’s not a one time thing, or meaningless. they fall into bed because when they’re together, it’s the first time muse a has felt alive in ages, and suddenly they’re in a whirlwind romance, sneaking around to hook up and share little moments together. muse a feels guilty and shameful, muse b hates putting them in this position but is too attached to stop, and they both know that muse a’s marriage is going to implode if they get caught. -- but that’s not enough for them to give up. (make it interesting -- let them get caught?? END THE MARRIAGE!! give me angst.)

Invisible String 

you guessed it. this is a soul mates plot, and i’m not even sorry. muse a and muse b have never truly met, but their lives have always overlapped. whether it’s crossing one another in the grocery store, or sitting in a resturant at the tables that face one another. sitting in the same movie theater on opposite ends, or accidentally getting one another’s coffee at the local starbucks. after too many run ins, it’s impossible to ignore the similarities and the coincidences, and they decide to spend an evening together, getting to know one another -- and to nobody’s surprise -- they’re a perfect fit. muse a gets all of muse b’s jokes, and muse b likes all of muse a’s “flaws” and they’re just as dopey and gross as you’re probably imagining. 

Mad Woman

i’m not writing this one either.

Epiphany 

this one could go either way, and it’s entirely up to you and what fits your characters/what you feel most comfortable writing! muse a is either a soldier, or a healthcare worker. either way, they’ve both been through a lot, and seen more loss than any person should. but in a seemingly bleak world, muse b exists. the reason muse a works so hard. whether it’s somebody to come home from, after being overseas (if muse a is in the army!) or squeezing in time between doubles after a four car pile up came into the hospital (if muse a is a healthcare worker!), muse b is there to hold them, and remind them that there are good things left in the world and they’re just so healthy. 

Betty 

i’m just here to hurt myself at this point, but !!! give me a couple that everyone thought would make it. years together, and completely wrapped up in one another. they’ve been dating since high school, and now they’re about to enter their last year of college. muse a went back home for the summer, while muse b stayed at their apartment near campus. they stayed in touch, but as the summer progressed, muse b heard from muse a less and less, only to find out that muse a had spent the summer with somebody back home. when muse a finds out, they end things, but immediately regret it -- even if they won’t admit it. they’re just praying that muse b will come to their senses and come back. meanwhile, muse b is just trying to find the courage to face them, knowing that they only made this mistake because they were young, and thought they were bored of the “same old thing” even though it turns out nothing could ever compare to muse a. suddenly they’re at muse a’s front door in the middle of the night, knowing and hoping that they’ll get the love of their life back. (will muse b actually accept, despite how much they miss them? or will they slam the door?? will it be awkward if they get back together? will the trust ever come back??)

Peace 

muse a has always struggled with money, but when they fell in love with muse b, they swore they’d do whatever they could to provide the best life for them. but words don’t pay the bills. no matter how hard they work, it feels like they’re always struggling to keep their heads above the water. while the late fees build up, however, there’s no denying that their relationship is based on the purest love. the kind of love that leaves a person speechless. muse a would do anything for muse b, and vice versa. muse a constantly feels as though the other deserves better, because they want to give them more. give them everything, and they just can’t. but they don’t realize that for muse b, their love is enough. 

Hoax 

alright, so... this one’s not healthy. but, i’m writing it anyways because i’m in love with this idea?? SO muse a and muse b have been on and off for years. they’re always finding ways to hurt each other, whether it’s flashing their newest fling in the other’s face during the breaks, or picking fights for fun when they’re still together. when it’s bad, it’s so bad. but when it’s good, it’s so good, in ways that only make sense to one another, because no matter how many people they sleep with or relationships they break, they always find their way back to one another, convinced that there’s not a single person that understands them the way they do. they’d rather be angry and fight than be without one another. no matter how many times they call it quits, their hearts belong to each other and nobody can even begin to compare. make this more interesting by developing growth!! make them realize it’s not healthy! make them realize what they want, and that they have to work to have it! sacrifices and affection! real love! not just passionate sex and pillow talk secrets. not just years of history, but the effort to make it work because wasting times on their silly game just isn’t working anymore!

[viroro-kun]

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.

[rawsanma]

In Memoriam of "Shin Evangelion: Curse"

*The following article contains a full spoiler for "Evangelion 3.0+1.0".*

I sat together with a person who was not in birth when EOE was released, and after watching the film we talked a bit and thought about the people who passed away without ever seeing this. I understand that fans from the old series and those who came from the new series may have very different perceptions of Shin-Eva. So I'd like to first correct a few things I said in my first impressions.

It may be somewhere between an honorable movie and a mediocre movie in general, but as Evangelion, it's garbage.

After about halfway through the two hours and thirty-five minutes, I started to look at my watch again and again. The double ending, which is both a personal novel and a product, was a fleeting fantasy, and the two songs "One Last Kiss" and "beautiful world (da capo ver.)" were not used effectively in relation to the story, only being played in the staff roll.

When I saw the first 10 minutes of the movie that was released last year, I thought that perhaps Paris was chosen as the setting for the story of "humanity fighting together in the face of destruction" or "the expansion of the Eva world (not G Gundam, but G Eva!)", but that was not the case at all. He just wanted to depict the battle using the Eiffel Tower as a FATALITY,　I realized that he hadn't made a single millimeter of progress since when he asked Hayao Miyazaki if I could film only this action scene of Her Highness Kushana in the re-animation of Nausicaa, he was scolded, "That's why you're no good!"

At the beginning of the film, they try to carefully describe the things behind the scenes that were not told in Eva Q.  The third Ayanami like the TV version is the main character, and they go on and on about living in the countryside, copying "My Neighbor Totoro". The large family of our parent's home that we go back to during the summer vacation is presented as an image of happiness in life and a decent human being. It is also connected to Gendou's narrative during the Human Instrumentality Project but isn't it too Showa-era and too simple a solution? I am interested in how the young fans who are children of nuclear families who left their large families in the countryside and moved to the city saw the too sudden depiction of "life in the countryside". It was almost a gag to see Ayanami walking around in a plug suit which is a sexual orientation that has manifested itself after Space Battleship Yamato, in the images of pre and post-war farming villages depicted by recent NHK morning dramas. The director, influenced by his wife, must have been immersed in the LOHAS and vegan lifestyle as a fashion statement, which is only possible because he is an urbanite with too much stuff and too much money. As for this theme, it has already been presented in the watermelon field scene in the second film, and it is merely a re-presentation of the same theme in a diluted form.

I've pointed out before that Eva Q is "a crack in reality because of the loss of reality to rely on. "It's rude not to eat what you're served!", Shinji was scolded by Touji's father, who looked like a subversion of Hayao Miyazaki's work (Gedo Senki!). I have a simple question, how can the interior of a house become so old and wretched after only 14 years? How can a community of people of all ages be formed in just 14 years?　There was a line that implied that Touji had killed someone for the village, and it is possible that the director had extremely beautified the "Showa era" as a sanctuary where people who are hurt and regret their committing murder during the war as a soldier live nearby, and when he opened the last drawer after using up all the materials, he found the image of the original landscape of his childhood.

Misato and Kaji's child, which is only described for a few minutes, is also abrupt, and I don't feel that it is more than a plot device for the purpose of staging the reconciliation with Shinji later on. Some people seem to be moved by the fact that "behind Misato's cold attitude towards Shinji in Q, there was such a conflict in her mind," but it's the opposite. All the answers are just excuses after wasting nine years of work. Even if the wounds healed and treated with a gentle "I'm sorry," after being beaten severely by a raging DV husband, the fact of the beating would not disappear, and the wife would feel nothing but fear at the sudden change in her husband. To a situation that he had set to minus 100, he spent 2 hours and 35 minutes gradually pouring water drawn from other places and past works to bring it back to zero...I've never seen such a horrible match pump. Well, now that I'm writing this, I'm thinking that I've seen this before.

The relationship between Eva Q and Shin Eva is very similar to the relationship between "The Last Jedi" and "The rise of Skywalker" in Star Wars. In a self-absorbed rampage of conjecture that did not listen to the opinions of others, the historical stage of the series that had been built up was turned into a mess, and then the destroyed story was carefully built up again from the ground using unnecessary length, and only the shape of the story was created to end it without being disgraceful, and every scene that tries to make things more exciting is a copy of past work. As for Star Wars, since 8 and 9 were directed by different directors, I was able to settle my feelings of resentment towards Ryan and gratitude towards Abrams, respectively, but as for Evangelion, the director looks like a child who has been proud to clean up his own mess and have his female cronies praise and pat him on the head. Moreover, what kind of sympathy do you expect when you are told to "I'll make amends" for the mere act of wiping your ass after defecating, in a cool, Showa-era chivalrous tone?

In this film, as a recovery from Q and a summary of new Eva, there are elements throughout the story that critics can easily relate to the old Eva. “Oh, I can talk about this in connection with that!” This is what gives them a good impression and it has nothing to do with how the old fans perceive it. The director seems to have a dedicated person in charge of communicating and negotiating with the outside, but now he wants the critics to communicate with the fans about Shin-Eva. As long as he doesn't speak for himself, he can correct their interpretations later based on the "misunderstandings" of the people in between himself and his fans. This is a very Japanese-style system of surmising feelings, a system of authority that is formed when only a limited number of cronies are informed of the true intentions of the president. If I talk about it in too much detail, right-winged Yakuza will show up very soon, so to make it short, it is an indigenous control structure unique to Japan that originated from the "Mikado behind the bamboo blind". This time the director was very conscious of that, and I was able to see that Eva, who was a challenger, has become an authority that does not tolerate any criticism.

And what fan from the past could enjoy watching the endless battle scenes after Shinji returns to Wunder in the middle of the film? One after another, the sister ships of Wunder appear--there's almost no difference in appearance, but Ritsuko is able to guess their names the moment they appear. Right after the line "I'm pretty sure there's a fourth ship," the fourth ship comes crashing upon them from underneath, with no intention other than to make us laugh, right? As well as the repeated tenseless bombardment fight with no description of damage no matter how many artillery shells are hit, and it's quite painful being poured Asuka and Mari's Me-Strong Battles which are already enough by the time of Q, continuously down my throat like a goose with a funnel in its mouth. There's no way to synchronize my feelings with the screen, and it just creates an atmosphere as if the story is going on with the unattractive super-robot action that I pointed out in Q. It's no use pointing out, but the repair and supply problems of Wille side in a world where the industry has been destroyed were shown in the farming village part, though it was inadequate. But those of NERV side, an organization of only a man and an old man, was completely thrown away.

The last part of the story about the Human Instrumentality Project is like a fanzine where Gendou, Asuka, Kaworu, and Rei are lined up in a row and complemented in turn and then dismissed, whereas EOE was a total complement through Shinji. The director has tried to upgrade his framework by borrowing them from EOE and has failed miserably. Someone who has created works by putting his emotion and flair into a copy has dabbled in copying his own work. As a result, he had to confront his own sensibilities from when he was young and had to compare the old and the new by his old audience. Frankly speaking, only the techniques have been traced, the sound and the screen have become gorgeous, but the emotion and the sense have deteriorated. The face of the giant Ayanami that was replaced with a live-action one -- probably based on the face acting of Shinji's voice actor, and the "untested ordeal" of her tweet means this -- appears in the background like a gold folding screen in the high sand at a Japanese wedding reception. You're getting tired of all this, and you're not making it seriously, are you? The battle between Eva Unit01 and Eva Unit13 in Tokyo-III, which I expressed my anxiety about before the film's release, is a scene where the company's CG team can't produce what the director expects and he is so frustrated that he has the same mindset as in the final two episodes of the TV version, "I'd rather get a minus than a red", and after that, it became like a gag scene, including Eva fights in Misato's apartment and Shinji's school classroom, as if he was staged them in desperation. The side-shooting screenshot of the little Wunder charging at the head of the giant Ayanami is a picture of ”Cho Aniki (Japanese STG)” itself, and it's also meant to be funny, right? It's a series of loose, sloppy, and tenseless scenes that can't be compared to EOE.

What the hell have the CG team been doing for the past nine years, getting paid with no progress and making Eva look like an outdated piece of crap? Didn't anyone have the chivalrous spirit of the Showa era like "Don't embarrass our boss!"? Don't be so relieved when you get the green light! The director has just given up on you! There were a few scenes where the person at the top of the editing and collage, who has been making the coolest pictures, was not given as much good material as he used to be and seemed to make desperate staging in a way that he would never have given the green light in the past. It's been more than 10 years since Xapa was established, but I guess they don't have enough talent to meet the director's vision. Perhaps because of this, the conclusion of the film is exactly the same as the old one, that the director has no choice but to use his personal feelings to finish Eva, but the film ends up being a self-imitation of "Sincerely Yours". It is sad to see a person who "surpasses the original by putting his heart and soul into the copy" start to copy his own past works on the big screen of the theater, because he has become a big name in the animation world after reaching the age of 60, and there are no others left to be copied. However, right after "Komm, süsser Tod" started playing in the old movie, the scene where the titles of each episode and the reverse side of Cels were played in succession was projected on the wall of the studio using a projector -- the title of the new movie was added.  It made me mad and thought, "Don't touch my EOE with the dirty hands of the merchant.  I'll kill you."

The last things that the man who "transfers his own life onto films" presented in his costly self-published private novel were a naked confession of his own mental history up to the point where he met his wife, which he temporarily entrusted to Gendou, and the words "I think I loved you" and "I loved you" exchanged between himself and the former lover who could not be together and themselves who had separate spouses, just a reckoning of the muddled love affair that existed behind the scenes of EOE. I half-jokingly said that the distance between the director and Asuka's voice actor was important for the end of Eva, but it turned out to be true in a different way. During the recording session, Asuka's voice actor was told by the director, "I'm glad Miyamura is Asuka," which sent chills down my spine as it conveyed the horror of a creator who doesn't hide everything about his life and relationships and uses them to create his works.

In the scene where Shinji says "I liked you too" to the adult Asuka, who is wearing a tight latex suit and drawn in a more realistic character design (making us aware of the cosplay by Asuka's voice actor), while she is lying on the EOE beach, I thought "You guys should do this in a coffee shop or something between recording sessions! Don't make us watch middle-aged man and woman having unpleasant conversations on the big screen of the theater!", I almost screamed out. I think that's the scary part, the director's one-sided love for Asuka's voice actor is falsified by having the character say that she liked him, as if it was a mutual love. The director's statement at the beginning of the pamphlet says that he started working on the sequel right after Evangelion 2.0 without hesitation, using the worldview of "Q". I'm not trying to quote the line "You can change the reality you don't like by getting on Eva.", but it's not as if he's trying to cover up the fact, but he really believes that using his strong imagery, and it made me feel a bit chilly that there was no one around to correct his misconceptions.

At the end of Human Instrumentality Project, I wondered if the fact that a senior member of the movie industry had praised the shooting of EOE by flipping Cels over as a "tremendous deconstruction" was still fresh in his mind. This time, too, it was postponed after postponement, and even though the makings have been done in time, he showed the other side of the production with line drawings and roughs. The reason it was so innovative was that it was the first time anyone had tried it then, and now, 25 years later, it's just a rut. It's disgusting that everyone is praising the master's strange drawing habit and saying, "Oh yeah, that's it, that's it." As I've said before, it's like "defecating in a sixty-nine," which was successful because the first partner happened to be a scatologist. The expression of EOE was sharp and ”Rock’n’‐roll”, but Shin-Eva's "fun of anime images" has gone into the realm of traditional art, like slow "Gagaku".

The director hadn't decided who Mari Makinami was for a long time -- he was so indifferent to her that he threw the actor's acting plan to a sub-director -- but with Shin-Eva, he's changed her into an equal to Moyoco Anno, his wife. In other words, the flashy battle in the middle of the film, which is unimportant to many viewers, is revealed to have been a very pleasant pretend play for the director, in which he has his former love and his current wife fight on his favorite robots. Once again, we are shown the director's so-what-attitude, which has not progressed even a millimeter since "I'm an asshole," and which he can complete his work only by masturbation. So it's no wonder that they couldn't depict the extremely simple catharsis of Shinji's great success with Eva Unit01, which is what most of the old fans want. Because a robot with a pathetic old man on board can't get an erection due to impotence, let alone masturbation!　Oops, excuse me, sir.

And as I said before, it's time to realize that the English language has become so popular in Japan that it's become lame. You use Infinity, Another, Additional, Advanced, Commodity, and Imaginary, just because it sounds cool to you, right?　Everyone criticized the naming "Final Impact", but I never thought I'd see the time when I'd faint from the lack of taste and coolness in Evangelion, such as Another Impact, Additional Impact.

And the ending, with the wedding report in a live-action aerial shot of the director's hometown, newbie fans are screaming that it is like, "They're doing a very positive version of the old "Return to Reality!". But I felt it was too empty and cynical because it was intended to be read that way by the director. It depicts only the elation of marriage, and the pain of getting along with a partner and his or her family with different values is cut off (well, maybe Q was expressing the hardship of married life......). But isn't the emotional weight of a marriage report much higher when you meet your partner's parents?　The fact that he ended the movie by showing his own hometown instead of his wife's hometown leaves me with the impression that he's definitively an egotistical geek through and through. "You may have graduated from a good university and are making good money in the city, but if you're not married and don't have children, aren't you somehow humanly flawed?" After 25 years, Evangelion, which was such a forward-thinking Sci-Fi, is now completely in sync with the earthly ethics of Showa-era's farmers and farm horses. "I got married and it saved my life. I don't know about you, but why don't you try?" You can think what you want, but if you want to convey it as a message of salvation, you have to express it in the content of your work, not in your own talk.

I've been married for 20 years, I have two children, both of whom are about to reach the age of adulthood, I've paid off the mortgage on my home, and I'm finally at the end of raising my children, but all of that is just an outer shell of a social skin that has nothing to do with my true nature or where my soul is! There's no connection between what kind of life an individual lives in the real world and the Sci-Fi sense of wonder, in fact, there shouldn't be any connection! If you're a science fiction fan, take a page from the great Arthur C. Clarke! I was a nerd with a negative value of 100, but when I got married, I gradually poured the "common-sense values" of the Showa era into myself, and now I'm a true man with no negative value? Don't write such pathetic fiction proudly! Listen, what you presented to the audience at the end was the same thing that someone would say to you, "You seedless stallion!" It's the same kind of unethical and vulgar message that you shouldn't be giving! The old Eva became a classic of Japanimation, and no one was able to properly scold you, or you keep away those who tried, and the result of this is directly reflected in the ending of Shin Eva!　You've reached your 60th birthday and you only have such poor social common sense, damn it!

I'm sorry, I was so excited that I lost my control a little bit, just a little bit. I think the director is relying a little too much on his wife, who is ultimately a stranger on, to be his laison d'etre (lol). If they were to break up in the future, it would certainly be the soil for the next Eva, the content and development of which is completely predictable, but that is no longer my concern. I wonder if his wife doesn't like the fact that he's mentally dependent on her like this, and that it's being shown on screens all over the country. If it were me, I'd be furious, but since she's a creator, I guess she understands how he feels. Ignoring the other person's feelings and continuing to force what he believes to be love on her, thinking that it will make her happy, seems to me that there has been no progress at all since the way he treated his girlfriend 25 years ago. The person I want to hear from the most right now is not the self-proclaimed Eva fans who are looking at each other from the side and giving positive feedback in celebration of the final episode, but his wife. If the director had a child, he would not have been able to distinguish between his own ego and that of the child, and would have doted on his child, making a documentary film about his or her growth, but would most likely have turned into a controlling and poisonous parent in his or her adolescence. And he animated his feelings for his child who was rebelling against him, without the child's permission, considering it as a one-sided redemption for the child, and the child who was exposed to the whole country about their home life would have distanced from his father more and more.

In the end, Evangelion did not become a product like Gundam, but rather a robot animation that was the director's weird personal novel. The repeated use of the word "job" in the film has stuck in my mind, but in order for the studio to survive, it had to make Evangelion a product in this new series, and I'm sure that was the initial motivation behind the production of these new films. Your real "job" was to make Evangelion the same as Gundam, to protect the people who came to you because they loved Evangelion. Years from now, I can see a future where Xapa will be like Ghibli, behead the staff and continue as a copyright management company. The director, who didn't want to be embarrassed as a creator by a new challenge adopted the safe way -- I can't believe that I have to use the word "safe" for Evangelion -- to end the new series that relied on EOE only for himself, not for the future of the people who came to admire him. That's what Shin Evangelion is all about.

The good part? The fact that he didn't bring Shin Ultraman trailer at the end of the film makes me think he has grown up a bit. If you're declaring "Farewell, All Evangelions" with the intention of hurting, disappointing, and disinterested old fans like me, then your malice is unfathomable, and that's quite a feat. Brilliantly, your intentions have permanently killed a part of me that used to be an Eva fan.

As horrifying as it is to imagine, it must have crossed the director's mind to reschedule the film and set a new release date for March 11. The only reason he didn't do so is not that he has grown up to be a sensible adult, but rather because the idea of linking Evangelion 3.0 with the Great East Japan Earthquake was a fact that is too painful for him to make it public.

Ten years ago today, many lives were lost and Evangelion was destroyed.

This fact will never disappear, no matter how much the director denies and covers up with the "true" history. If there is any mission left for me as a fan, it is to continue to pass on this fact to future generations as a storyteller. It is a huge loss for Japanese fiction that the end of the great Evangelion has become a self-recovery work of the great failure of the reboot affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake, and that the potential of the great Evangelion has been consumed by the self-defense of someone who cannot admit his own mistakes, and I sincerely regret it. Shin Evangelion will be forever cursed by the dead, who yearn to see the sequel of Evangelion 2.0, and the living, who yearn to see the sequel of Evangelion 2.0.

This curse will be completed when it spreads, arrives, and is burned by the powers that be as a false history. I pray that my thoughts will reach him!

[mhaccunoval]

dude, could you give me movie recommendations then??

mainly i said i should stop giving recommendations because my movie tastes and opinions are Wack sbshjsbjhsbs but i will make an exception <3

i mostly just scoured my letterboxd (@/eroscalling ;] ) for movies i’ve really liked in the past year or two so sorry if you’ve seen some sbshjsbsh a lot of brain worms here sbsjhbshs

❥ freaked (1993)

it was inevitable that something alex winter and/or keanu reeves would show up on here but HERE ME OUT !!! you may think to yourself in the first ten minutes that ‘WOW this is terrible’ and you’d be right because the comedy IS awful except. it’s SO awful you have to laugh. and THEN it gets better from there, i swear. there’s the dichotomy within ricky over being himself AND a monster, some found family, and a happy (yet still hilarious) ending to it all. it’s quite insanity inducing 

[actual description: child star ricky coogan is interviewed on the story of him flying out to a small country in south america to help promote a fertilizer that’s been banned in the US, only to end up at a desolate freak show with his two companions (one new, one old) and have to find a means of escape after a mad scientist has turned them into attractions themselves]

———

❥ private romeo (2011)

another one i’ve been kinda back on my bullshit about sbshjsbsh but it’s SO good !!! i’m sure there are other gay romeo & juliet adaptations out there but this one is just. amazing and sets itself apart from all of the others. seth numrich and matt doyle’s acting and chemistry? IMMACULATE !!! pretty early on the dialogue switches from modern speech to recitation of lines from the play but everyone’s body language and interpersonal relationships with one another really SELL the plot and help you understand it, even if the words are a bit difficult for the average person to comprehend (also it was the film yassen and i got together because of so sbshjbshs)

[actual description: one weekend, the higher ranking officers and a few top qualified students at a military academy go on a training retreat, leaving a decent sized group of students at the academy unsupervised and with their copies of romeo & juliet they’re beginning to read in their english/literature class; as the weekend progresses, two students, sam and glenn, begin to realize that their feelings for each other have bloomed and progressed, causing them to do their best to stay together]

———

❥ the personal history of david copperfield (2019)

I JUST THINK THIS MOVIE (and dev patel) IS NEAT !!! i have no basis on how it compares to other adaptations or the book but i reallyyyy like this one as it is !!!  i think the dynamic transitions in the timeline and the coloring work REALLY well in moving the plot forward and making every character, or at least every event in david’s life, very unique and stand out from each other. and i LOVE the cast... love the inclusion of at least a Few actors of color and just the way everyone plays off each other... it’s just so wholesome and the adventure really grips you every second

[actual description: following the publishing of his book, autobiographer david copperfield reads it aloud in front of a theatre audience, detailing the shenanigans and relationships he’s grown up with and how they’ve affected, creating the person that he is today]

——— 

❥ billy elliot (2000)

everyone say thank you to young jamie bell for your rights. yeah no this movie is SO heart-clenching AND heartfelt... at first you’re just like ‘yeah, you know, this is alright’ but then it punches you in the feels... just... billy’s journey to find something he’s passionate about and actively pursuing that passion... his relationship with michael and his family... the general atmosphere created by the hardships at the time and how they reflect on the elliotts’ home life... the only reason i haven’t gotten around to rewatching it is because i know it will make me SOB...

[actual description: young billy elliott is the son of a miner in northern england during the mid 80s, dealing with how the miners’ strikes his father and brother are partaking in are affecting their financial situation while simultaneously coming to terms with a small interest in ballet and trying to chase that interest, in spite of what his father and society have to say about it]

———

❥ the half of it (2020)

yes another gay film and another coming of age film <3 what of it <3 it’s so good and unconvential though... it’s not your typical nerdy girl and jock get together at ALL— spoiler: it’s no where close to even being a plot point. paul and ellie’s friendship is !!! so beautiful though !!! there’s so much trust and platonic love there !!! and also !!! a chinese MC which, as we all know, is very rare in hollywood, especially under uh ellie’s ‘circumstances’... it’s yet another heart-clencher and is just very feel good...

[actual description: realizing he has a crush on one of the most popular girls in school, young paul turns to the girl in his grade who everyone pays to write their essays for them, as he’s not the most eloquent writer himself, and asks if she’ll help him write his crush love letters to win her affection; ellie is at first reluctant, but eventually realizes the money could help keep her and her father afloat, finding some feelings of her own along the way]

———

❥ the farewell (2019)

i was going to stop at five but i couldn’t decide between this or the half of it so you get both !!! the farewell is soooo sweet and tear-jerking... you get a real sense of the main family’s bond and love for each other, as well as a bit of a culture shock if, like me, you’re a westerner who doesn’t know the full extent of the intricacies of chinese families and the culture in general. every character is unique and dynamic, each having wonderful portrayals of their individual flaws and reactions to every step of the journey that they’re going through. not to mention, i would assume a lot of first gen / children of immigrants can really relate to billi’s experience of basically having two halves of herself, the american side and the chinese side, and the struggles that come from being thrown into that situation... it’s just... Perfect

[actual description: billi is a young woman in her 20s who is having trouble managing her life, only to have to put it on hold when her parents reluctantly tell her that her grandmother has been diagnosed with lung cancer and that the family is going to come together in case this is their last opportunity to; the twist is that they all must keep it a secret from the grandmother that she is even sick, which is a secret billi has a hard time keeping]

[twiniverse]

How much do you draw for day? Asking because your art got much better (not to say the previous drawings were bad). Conglatu-freaking-rations.

TLDR; I only draw for the comic and my commissions/Patron Requests, and the following is a long, drawn out, rambling answer about how I don’t put as much effort into my comics as I’m capable of and also a small chronicle of where I started and why I’m making such quick progress.

Firstly I want to thank you for the compliment! I tend to not like comments like this because people compare my earliest pages to my latest ones and I’ll get to why I don’t appreciate that so much in a minute, but I do think I’m improving, and I can actually show that improvement now! Look at this glow up: (heck I didn’t even draw Steven in this first one lmao)

So, as for your question, honestly, I’m a terrible person to look to for being a good artist role model, because I never draw. I only draw for the comic and my Patreon requests (and the few commissions I get) and for the comic? Well, I don’t put out my best work for that. I draw at 100%, I only do one terrible sketch, and then lineart the finals directly over that. I don’t do warm up sketches. I just don’t draw.

Part of the reason I’m getting so much better is that I used to draw. I used to draw every day, constantly, so so much, every day, every year, until 2012. Then I hit a rough patch and I just stopped altogether. I actually didn’t start drawing again until I started Twiniverse! So, I took a 7 year break from drawing. I do not recommend this. I’m re-learning everything I knew, and it’s going quicker than it would take someone who’s new to drawing altogether, but it’s still a rough process!

So I’m already aware I’m kind of rambling but I really want to be clear, there’s three reasons the earliest pages of Twiniverse suck: I took a 7 year break, I never tried to make the pages look halfway decent- they only took about 30 minutes or less per page!!!, and I was starting with an entirely new style to me. Back when I was doing art regularly, I was strictly an anime artist. I had to re-learn how to draw and re-learn in SU style!

This was one of my last (and most complex drawings ever) pieces that I did back in 2012 before I quit:

And while there’s obviously some issues with it, I think it was pretty darn good. Compare it to my first Steven Universe style stuff, after a 7 year break? I definitely lost a good amount of progress that I’m only now gaining back by working on this comic.

Also, like, hooray for comics? Even if I’m not drawing every day, comics are an amazing way to learn how to draw more quickly. Even if I never put my best effort into my comics (I sure as hell didn’t at the beginning, and honestly while I’m doing better now you can tell I’m not doing my best) I’m still learning to get better with things like... poses and hands and stuff. So like, I prefer people to compare pieces I’m actually trying on (like, compare the banner to the Tapas cover!) but it is true that the comics are getting better as I get more comfortable with the Steven Universe Style.

FINALLY, I have to give a big thank you to some of my other artist friends. Particularly @thechekhov and @trapdoornumberthree because when I really get stuck with a pose, or I really need help with hands, or I just want a fresh eye to look at something I think is kind of weird, they and other friends will help me with those things. Having someone look at your work, sometimes redlining what looks weird to them, and just in general offering feedback about your layouts or whatever, can make so much difference as opposed to flying blind. If you look carefully, you will actually be able to see a pretty big improvement in my art just from Cry in the Dark to Mirror Gem, and I can tell you exactly where that happened. In Cry in the Dark, Chekhov helped me with two panels I was really struggling with- the panels where Ronaldo asks “Nora” about being able to see, followed immediately by a scream. And having Chekhov’s sketch to work off of made something click in my brain about how I was drawing faces and expressions. When Mirror Gem comes out on Monday, I guarantee you’ll see some pretty good progress in the expressions category. Having friends makes all the difference in the world!

So... in conclusion... yeah, I’m improving! And thank you so much for noticing! But it’s not because of drawing every day, it’s because I’m making a comic, because I had somewhat of a decent artistic background to start with but I’m just starting over with a new style, and because I have some great friends helping out =)