#kiryn's adventures in writing

[asiryn]

at this point, i can’t tell if i’m writing two poly gladion/ash/clemont/gary fics, or if it’s all still gonna be just the one, original red string of fate au fic 🤷‍♀️

(see, this right here is a perfect example of why i typically don’t write things out of order....but since this fic was going to be the height of indulgence anyway, and i was wrestling with my brain as it essentially whined about wanting to get to the Good Stuff already, i kinda just threw my hands in the air and was like, okay fuck it i guess!! we’re skipping straight to ash being a gay disaster over gladion with no foundation or buildup!!)

(on a more serious note, i think i’m ultimately going to treat this “section” of the fic that i’ve been writing as being like a writing exercise, to get into the flow of writing ash and his feelings for gladion (his feelings for gary and clemont are still present and there, but they’re more in the background for now. but so far, the plan is still to endgame the poly ship), and then i’ll excise the bits of writing that i actually really do like (i’m currently in the middle of writing a scene between ash and pikachu that i actually adore) into the Actual Fic, and rework everything else until it’s actually coherent (bc rn it’s more of a stream of consciousness Mess), but there’s still a chance that this will end up completely diverging past the original plot of the fic. you never know with that demon brain of mine >_>)

and you know what, have an excerpt behind the cut, bc apparently the standard operating procedure currently is still Why The Fuck Not (plus, i need to get better about....well, everything to do with my writing. try to be more consistent and write in general. maybe i need to talk about my writing more here, and give myself some more accountability or something. who knows.)

(again, the excerpt is a convo between ash and pikachu, and it’s focused mostly around trustedpartner, with vague references to pallet and diode, more in the background):

Thankfully, no one seems to think Ash is too weird around Gladion (or at least, he’s just being his usual brand of weird), and so Gladion himself probably has less reason to think that Ash is too weird or intense.

(Though Lillie sometimes will give him a thoughtful look after he’s managed to peel his eyes away from Gladion, which is entirely too terrifying to contemplate.)

Pikachu is definitely judging him though.

“I want to punch his lips with my lips,” Ash mutters. Gary’s terrible meme humor, enabled by far too many of his friends, is starting to show its influence, and he owes Gary just a regular punch, for the unending stream of memes that now has its own dedicated chat thread.

Pikachu gives him a Look, and he doesn’t need to make a sound for his disapproval, of both Gary’s encroaching terrible meme humor and Ash’s current life choices, to be clear.

It’s not that Pikachu doesn’t approve of Gladion; he likes Gladion just fine, and has already voiced his blessing of any kind of relationship between his beloved trainer and the other boy.

But Pikachu is also a Pokemon, and since Pokemon don’t typically have monogamous “relationships” like humans do, he therefore doesn’t see any kind of issue with being in several relationships at once. Pikachu also thinks that, instead of just moping and whining about Gladion, Ash should actually Do Something.

“I can’t just kiss him!” Ash says in response to Pikachu’s Look.

Pikachu gives Ash another, even more judgmental, Look.

“No, seriously!” Ash insists. “C’mon, Pikachu, you know better than anyone about how awful I felt about Serena surprise-kissing me. I can’t do that to Gladion.”

Pikachu sighs, deigns to give him a soothing pat, and says, “Pika pika cha, ka chuu.”

Translation: Then talk to him, and ask.

Ash groans. “You’re no help.”

Pikachu’s Look is now Supremely Unimpressed. “Pi pi ka, kachuu pika,” he says flatly.

Translation: This is why you’ve never had a boyfriend.

Ash pouts at his Pokemon partner. “That’s not fair,” he grumbles. (At least, not entirely.) “Gary and I both agreed that we’d be better off trying to see if we can maintain a long-distance friendship before we even tried dating. And with Clemont…there was the whole thing with Serena, and there was never a good time for it.”

Pikachu mutters his doubt about there never being a good time for talking to Clemont, but his (translated) response to the rest is, “Not only did both you and Gary agree that it’s fine for you both to date other people, he’s already told you to go for it with Gladion. You’re not in a different region to him, and Serena isn’t here. Gladion’s nice, and he likes you. So just Do Something already.”

“Likes me as a friend,” Ash mumbles.

“Kachu ka,” Pikachu grumbles. (“Hopeless.”)

[asiryn]

Healing Vision Headcanons: Olette/Xion/Namine/Sora/Riku Edition

will be putting this behind a cut for the length. will contain a bit of kh3 spoilers behind the cut. refer to this post for background knowledge about this verse.

as indicated by the title, this post will all be about that ship, and the subset ships of olette/namine, xion/namine, xion/olette, sora/riku, and sora/namine.  

- namette, namishi, xiolette, soriku, and sonami will all be romantic ships

- olette/sora, olette/riku, xion/sora, rikushi, and namiku will all be more on the queerplatonic end of the spectrum

- sora is pan; riku is gay; olette is a lesbian; xion is a lesbian demisexual; namine is a demiromantic ace

- xion is intersex, but i’m still deciding between her either being a trans girl or nonbinary; i’m similarly undecided about namine, tho for her i’m deciding between bigender or nonbinary

- originally in the HV, soriku and namixiolette were going remain separate. but then i played kh3, and my sonami feels were really reawakened with a vengeance; when i went to look up fanfic for the ship, i was distressed to see that the majority of them were all alternative CoM angst endings---there was pretty much no fluff, none where sora and namine just got to be happy together. so---i’m being the change that i want to see in the world :3

- many years ago now (o.o ...god saying that makes me feel old), i wrote an olette/namine fanfic, which essentially details how i think they could have met in the canon verse, and even now it’s still essentially my headcanon. this is a bit of a spoiler for the end of that fic, but namine ends up having to wipe herself from olette’s memory. in the HV, when olette sees namine again for the first time after kh3, all her memories come back, and she remembers her again

- xion and namine bond over their similar experiences of being forgotten by the ppl they cared about

- part of the reason that xion and namine are drawn to olette is bc, compared to most of the ppl they’ve known, she’s so simple and uncomplicated; she’s warm, genuine, honest, easygoing, affectionate, and compassionate, and so she’s like a breath of fresh air to them

- sora’s feelings for riku have been present for a long time, though before the events of the series, he was a bit oblivious to the true, romantic nature of those feelings, mostly bc he just didn’t really dwell on it that much. all he knew was that riku was his favorite person to be around, and he was content w/ that

- but as they grew older, and especially as riku hit puberty, riku’s relationships with both sora and kairi started to take a downward swing. riku started getting very jealous of sora and kairi’s relationship, bc he was realizing that he was in love with sora, and wanted all of sora’s attention to himself, especially romantically. but riku was also experiencing an incredible amount of internalized homophobia, and he started lashing out at sora, which drove sora into spending more time with kairi

- riku’s parents were extremely homophobic, and so riku grew up knowing from a pretty young age that he was in love w/ sora, and also that those feelings were Wrong, but no matter how much he tried to ignore them, they never went away. and as he grew up, riku knew perfectly well that his parents would kick him out, at best, if they found out he was gay, and so he grew up with a crippling fear of abandonment, and he especially became terrified of losing sora too (riku attempting to share a paopu fruit w/ sora was partially motivated as a way to ensure that sora would never abandon him)

- ftr, when sora and riku are finally together and are going to go home after kh3, they discuss how they want to handle their relationship, and when riku finally reveals his parents’ emotional abuse, sora refuses to let riku go back to living w/ them. so first they come out to sora’s mom, who’s supportive and agrees to let riku live w/ them from now on, and then after they pack up riku’s belongings, they come out to riku’s parents and the community on their own terms (bc after everything they’ve been through, they refuse to be ashamed about this, and they know that word would travel fast anyway); riku’s parents react as expected, but at this point, riku’s done giving a shit about them, and so he moves in w/ sora 

- (this is the beginning of hikari becoming the pioneer of what i call the gaywakening of destiny islands; she’s on a one-woman crusade to bring about queer education, rights, and pride, and it is 50% her being determined to be the most supportive parent in all the known universe, and 50% her being passive-aggressive as fuck towards riku’s parents. but the details of her crusade will be for another post XP)

- by the beginning of kh1, sora was starting to feel more flashes of attraction to riku. when riku first attempted to share a paopu fruit w/ him, sora kind of panicked, and thought that riku was just teasing him, and so sora tossed it away (riku of course took this as a total rejection)

- the next day, when riku brought up the idea of sharing a paopu fruit w/ kairi, was when sora’s confusion over his feelings really started. bc of general compulsory heterosexuality, and bc destiny islands was a more conservative community and thus had a lot of casual homophobia, sora never much questioned the assumption that boys and girls could only date each other (not that he had really given dating much thought before then, either). and w/ the assumption that strong relationships between boys and girls always ended up as romances, sora started wondering if his feelings towards kairi were romantic, and whether he did want to share a paopu fruit w/ her. complicating this was the fact that he really didn’t like the idea of riku sharing a paopu fruit w/ her, though he didn’t quite understand why, combined w/ the fact that he hated feeling like he was only ever second best to riku

- all of riku’s anguish came to a boiling and breaking point in kh1, as riku perceived all of sora’s actions as him choosing to abandon riku, just like he’d always feared. at this point, riku felt that he needed to be needed and necessary, and his whole identity was built on the idea that his friends needed him to be their strong protector, and he couldn’t really cope w/ the idea of sora not needing him after all; he latched onto saving kairi bc she really did need help

- as the series went on, sora became more fixated on the idea of kairi; she came to sort of represent the home that he missed so much. and w/ everyone else just assuming that it was So Obvious that sora was in love w/ kairi, he went along w/ that assumption too. upon his reunions w/ kairi and riku in twtnw at the end of kh2, and the wildly different emotions they each had inspired in him, sora began to realize the truth of his feelings, but he was still mostly in denial. when they were all home for a brief bit before the mark of mastery exams, sora was being confronted w/ the fact that his ideal of both kairi and Being Home weren’t matching up w/ the reality and things were awkward between them, but sora tried to tell himself that it was just bc they still needed more time

- all of this was even further compounded by the fact that sora fell in love w/ namine during re:com, and tho he couldn’t recall the memories of her, his feelings for her were still there, along with the aching sense that he had forgotten something important. seeing namine again at the end of kh2 really sparked and stirred up his feelings again, but sora had no context to understand them (how could he be in love w/ someone that he didn’t even know?). he kind of tried to convince himself that these feelings were for kairi, but he knew that they weren’t really

- obvs, after kh3, sora remembers (and thanks) namine; the circumstances of this aren’t fully fleshed out. partially it’s bc it’s tied in with my indecision about in what way i should alter the canon scenes of kairi being fridged. on one hand, bc i feel that the whole affair of kairi dying was entirely superfluous, i could tweak it so that she never dies. on the other hand, i could go with kairi ‘dying’ in the battle, but in a more heroic self-sacrificial way (maybe she took a hit meant for sora or someone else), and then there being an actual story arc where sora and riku go and save her. it would essentially involve them collecting the pieces of her and putting her back together (like sora did for himself in the final world), but with more...effort involved. and in said story arc, there could be an event that triggers sora into remembering namine, or something to that effect.  

- again, undecided if i want to change the canon paopu fruit scene into being a sorikai friendship moment instead, or if i’ll keep the canon version, but with the reading that it happened bc sora and kairi were both still suffering from compulsory heterosexuality, and still trying to force themselves into believing that they liked each other romantically; if i go with the saving kairi story arc, it would be the latter option

- continuing on with ‘saving kairi’ story arc, in this version, when sora and riku go off to save her together (on a meta-textual level, it’d be a way for their story to come full circle: they’re back where they started, but they’re going to do it right this time; instead of having petty fights with each other over who gets to save kairi, they’ll save her together), sora still would have been in denial about the true nature of his feelings for riku. but travelling together with him, and actually spending time with riku after being apart for so long, sora will start to understand his feelings better

- riku of course already knows that he’s deeply in love with sora and is pining, but he’s trying to keep his distance, bc sora and kairi are ‘together’ now (and mostly riku is just resolved that he won’t let his jealousy get the better of him this time, and he’s determined to be the best and most supportive friend that he can be)

- romantic moments and almost kisses keep happening anyway, but riku tries to tell himself that he’s imagining things and reading too much into it, while sora struggles with acceptance of his true feelings

- even still, sora and riku won’t actually get together until after sora and kairi have some sort of conversation where they finally talk through everything and can admit that they only love each other as friends, and they finally put to rest their attempts to force romantic feelings for each other

- after coming to an understanding with kairi, sora will then seek out to riku finally talk things out with him and to confess his true feelings (and there’ll be a lot of happy tears, probably)

- even tho sora might be a bit hesitant to potentially rock the boat this early in his new relationship w/ riku, in the interests of honesty and full disclosure, and having by this point remembered namine and had all those feelings come rushing back to the forefront, sora will quietly confess to riku that he thinks he might be in love with namine too

- to sora’s surprise, riku’s quiet for a moment, but then tells him that he’s honestly not really surprised, as he’s always thought that a lot more went down between sora and namine in castle oblivion than namine tried to let on; at this point, riku reminds sora that he spent the majority of a year w/ namine while she was trying to fix his memories, and he remembered her heartbreak and anguish as she essentially worked to erase herself from sora’s memories, tho she tried to conceal her pain

- riku remembers this as being one of the big turning points for him as a person, bc instead of being jealous about namine being in love w/ sora too, he just empathized w/ her instead, and thought that they were/would be suffering the same pain of being in unrequited love w/ sora, as he thought they’d both have to watch sora be in love w/ kairi

- while sora and riku are off saving kairi, and incidentally saving namine as well, during that time, xion and olette are meeting and getting to know each other as friends

- xion and olette may have already started going on a few dates by the time sora and riku get back w/ kairi, and namine is given her own body again; sora and riku get together not long after they get back

- at first, namine is more focused on forming friendships; during this time, the person she becomes closest to is xion, bc again, they can both empathize w/ each other a lot

- during this time, sora and namine are trying to keep their promise of being friends for real this time, but it’s not quite working out bc they’re both kinda pining for each other

- all the while, namine is coming to terms w/ her asexuality, and she’s also starting to fall for xion especially, but also olette; namine tends to experience a lot of insecurity and anxiety, and she becomes terrified of possibly ruining her friendship w/ xion, and so ends up confiding in her all of her angst. xion assures her that she’s not ruining anything, and that she’s interested in namine as well, but admits that she doesn’t really know what she’s doing either, and suggests that they consult w/ olette, who’s pretty much the relationship expert

- olette is the one who helps namine understand her asexuality, and suggests the polyamory option; xion and olette have an allosexual relationship, while their relationship w/ namine is purely ace

- meanwhile, riku can’t stand seeing sora be unhappy, and so he goes to consult w/ olette, and together they arrange for all five of them to sit down and hash everything out, w/ the end result being that sora and namine will also be dating; their relationship is also purely ace, and sora’s w/ riku is allosexual

- after kh3, axel and saix effectively adopt roxas and xion, and they’re all living in twilight town now

- sora and riku are of course living w/ sora’s mom on destiny islands, and namine was adopted by kairi’s dad, and so now she’s living w/ kairi (at first namine was afraid of kairi being mad at her for dating sora, but kairi’s perfectly fine w/ it)

- if the ‘saving kairi’ story arc didn’t happen, then during the amount of time that it would have taken for sora and riku to save her, that time was instead sora and kairi attempting to date each other; when they realized that the relationship wasn’t working for them and neither of them were happy, they finally gave up on being in denial and called it quits. during that time, riku and namine were pining for sora, while in this version, namixiolette fell for each other at around the same time and pace (instead of it being xiolette first, and then namine coming into the relationship later)

- after sokai stopped dating, the ot5 getting together went down pretty much in the same way as in the ‘saving kairi’ story arc

- is it perhaps excessive that namine has two girlfriends, a boyfriend, and a queerplatonic partner? imo, she’s been alone and isolated for far too long, so i’m giving her all the love that she deserves (and she’ll also have ALL the friends; a few of the ones she’s closest to being kairi and terra)

- every one of the ot5 ships will just be full of softness and gentleness 

- sora and olette.....are just gonna be such BROS to each other (in general, olette is just cultivating her butch lesbian #aesthetic these days). she’ll be like this w/ roxas too, but they’ll just constantly be playing video games and skateboarding; xion’ll be getting in on this too

- okay, so xion and riku’s relationship. during Days, when xion was absorbing sora and his memories, she did experience and kinda channel sora’s feelings for riku (and for his part, riku felt something of an echo of sora from her). so while she doesn’t experience those feelings for herself anymore, she still remembers the echo of it, and so things are a bit awkward between them at first (also riku still feels guilty about essentially coercing xion and roxas into dying). eventually they do find common ground and settle into a comfortable friendship (also, xion experienced the same thing in regards to kairi)

- for sora, he had a similar problem w/ xion, in that he experienced a lot of roxas’s feelings towards her (tho that was mostly the pain of losing her), so he still remembers the echoes of those emotions. but again, he ends up really becoming bros w/ her and olette

- olette and riku probably took the longest to really bond, tho they eventually did bc they discovered they liked doing little crafts together

- being both introverts, riku and namine find a lot of solace in each other when they just need some quiet time; olette and sora are both extroverts, w/ xion being somewhere in the middle

- olette does have some playful flirting going on w/ kairi, but it’s never anything serious. xion and kairi like sparring w/ their keyblades together

- if the five of them ever moved in together, it’d probably be in either twilight town or destiny islands. there’d be at least 3 bedrooms (one for if someone needed some alone time, one for cuddles, and one for activities that would not involve namine)

- the more likely option is that soriku and xiolette would each have their own houses/apartments (in destiny islands and twilight town, respectively), and namine would bounce back and forth between them. both places would have at least 2 bedrooms each

- soriku’s place is probably more of a cottage that’s closer to the seaside than the center of the mainland, while xiolette’s place is an apartment. namine has rooms set aside for her in both places, and her belongings are scattered between them. big things like her easels for paintings and canvases and things like that are at soriku’s cottage, which has more space than xiolette’s apartment, etc. 

- sora, riku, and xion are all officially keyblade wielders/masters, so that’s pretty much their occupations. olette is probably going to be attending university soon, and namine will probably go to art school (probably just for the experience more than anything else)

- tbh, idk what olette would be studying at university. maybe business management and/or marketing, bc she found she really liked working at scrooge’s bistro and wants to take over it someday? maybe she wants to open her own small business. maybe it’s a sports scholarship. fashion or graphic design? idkkk

okay, i think that’ll be enough for this post. if i have more headcanons about this ship, i’ll be making another post for them, bc this one is already probably far too long XDD

[asiryn]

tbh, the Healing Vision is way too massive to be conveyed in a single post. so i think what i’m going to do is break it down into a bunch of smaller sections. each one would probably focus on a single ship at a time, and probably talk about the thought process behind it, how i think they would have gotten together in this verse, maybe a few other thoughts about the ship in general, etc. and maybe there’d be a few other kinds of posts scattered in there, like providing some background for the destiny trio’s parents (sora’s mom is the most well-developed of them, tbh), or notes on how some canon scenes would be different or reinterpreted in this verse. i also have an entire 3 page word doc dedicated to a headcanon about terra being genderfluid that i could post, and i could also talk about the other characters’ queer identities. 

and really, even if no one else cares about any of this (and if you don’t want to see any more about it, i’d recommend blacklisting the tag “the kh post canon healing vision”), i think i should make this series of posts mostly for my own sake. it’d help me be more organized, and i could also stop scrolling through a 50+ page word doc just to find the one section that i need. 

[asiryn]

hmm.......

bc i seem to endlessly compare catra’s arc to others in different stories.....the parallel this reminds me of is zuko’s, at the end of s2/beginning of s3, when he sides with azula and goes back to the fire nation, and actually achieves what he’s wanted this whole time, to be accepted back into his family and nation---only to eventually find out that having it isn’t what he’d thought it’d be, and that it didn’t complete him and make him happy like he’d thought it would. so, i’m guessing that’s the same path catra’s on rn, where she’s finally achieved the power she’s always wanted......but i doubt that it’s truly going to give her the satisfaction and contentment that she thinks it will

[asiryn]

...........and............it’s already immediately going downhill, with this fantasy epic suddenly having a baseball game.......

also......have they not realized they’ve roped team rocket into this play? or do they just really not care??

[asiryn]

By the way, I forgot to mention it before, but I’ve started writing again, and have posted the first 2 chapters of my new fanfic, which is a collection of KH ficlets for Femslash February, featuring all kinds of different couples! (The plan is for there to be two ficlets each for 11 ships.)

Gonna try posting the link, so go check it out if you’re interested!

(I think the link is working? Let me know if not!)

[asiryn]

as an example for what i’m talking about, when it comes to repeating exposition:

Sophocles: I just had my first major breakthrough discovery at the Sophocles laboratory!

in the very next scene, Kiawe: So you two, had any breakthroughs at the Sophocles laboratory?

Sophocles: A major breakthrough!

this particular one isn’t the worst i’ve experienced (all the exposition about the Pancake race in “Racing to a Big Event!” was probably the worst), but there’s definitely a pattern, and it’s one i’m not really a big fan of. ://

[asiryn]

as you can see, i’ve been super behind on XY (&Z), so while i knew a few things in advance, there were some things that i didn’t know about

tbh, i didn’t expect serena to turn down palermo’s offer. i mean, i knew she’d be splitting off from ash (and probably clemont too), but i didn’t know for what ahead of time. 

and really, i’m actually proud of her for her reasoning, and i do think contests in hoenn will be a great thing from her. serena was talking about how if she went with palermo she’d be too dependent on her, and tbh, i think that’s what’s happened, most especially in the beginning, with serena being too dependent on ash, both in-universe and on a character-structure level. i mean, every “PokeGirl” has something, some trait or personality, etc, that sets them apart and distinguishes them from the other Girls, but with serena? most of her “unique” features were all about her relationship to ash. that they’d met as children, and she is now canonically the PokeGirl who met him first and has known him the longest; she has a canonical crush on ash; the only reason she set out on a pokemon journey at all was bc she wanted to find ash, and perhaps moreso than any of the other Girls, she’s taken so much blatant inspiration from him.

again, this inspiration/positivity/constantly gushing about each other is something ALL of the XY gang do with each other constantly, and other Girls have taken inspiration from ash in the past (dawn probably the most blatant one of this before XY). and there’s nothing wrong with these things individually, but when most of your character’s foundation is based around another character, particularly a female character revolving around a male character? it gets kind of Yikes. 

this isn’t me hating on serena, or saying that there is nothing else to her character, bc that’s definitely not true. it’s just that i feel there were some....worrying foundations for her character, and i think it can’t really be refuted that serena has mostly been dependent on ash for a lot of the time in the series. 

this is a long-winded way of me saying that i think serena travelling in hoenn, and without ash, is a very good idea. i think working towards some self-reliance would do wonders for serena, as would getting some more actual battle experience in contest battles. really, at the end of the day, what i want is for serena to be a fully-realized character in her own right, and i’ve always felt that she deserved better than to bound to a crush that was never going to be allowed to be returned and to be left behind and heart-broken. so her taking initiative, and charting her own course without any input from ash? that’s brilliant, and i think it’s a really good note to end on for serena’s character. and this whole thing in her turning down palermo fits very well with her character that was established in the beginning, and that’s that she’s always been a bit rebellious (towards authority figures, at least)

so far, so good with these XY conclusion episodes. 2 more left to go! *fingers crossed*

[asiryn]

i think one of the things that’s standing out to me about XY (&Z), and that’s a bit different from the other seasons/series, are the care and attention the writers pay to certain little scenes and moments

like, during the kalos league arc, when there was that brief scene of sawyer crying, and struggling between his disappointment at losing and desire to be a supportive friend. i felt that was a very effective and powerful moment (it reminded me a bit of morrison during AG, and his conflict of not wanting to hurt ash in the hoenn league). 

and just now in this episode, there’s two scenes involving grace. one in which meyer tells her about how great serena is, and as he’s listing off these things she does, grace is surprised, bc serena’s changed, and she’s watching the different way serena interacts with ash and clemont. and then later, there’s a moment between mother and daughter where serena talks through her insecurities about the future. they were just really well done, well-written scenes, and i’m really glad they were included. these two in particular really do show how serena’s grown over the series, and to see the potential of how much more she can accomplish even if we won’t get to see them. 

again, not to say that other seasons/series didn’t have these, but i feel there’s.....idk, a level of consistency and polish to XY’s that really makes it stand out to me. i’ve really grown to love all of these characters and this....dynamic of inspiration and positivity they’ve had going on with each other, and while ash and serena were favored a bit more by the writers, i felt that each character, even bonnie, all had substantial character growth over the series, and more fairly distributed focus. 

(as a counter example, for most of brock’s time in the show, he didn’t actually get any real character growth or development until DP, where they sparingly sprinkled in foreshadowing of his eventual switch in career, but his own realization of it was rushed into one of the last episodes of DP; same case with misty (who didn’t get focused character growth until Pokemon Chronicles), tracey, max, and iris and cilan (tho these last two were due to the writing being hindered by status quo syndrome, and thus there was not much of a serialized narrative in BW (i.e. something happens, but then it’s never mentioned again and everything’s back to the way it was in the first place by the start of the next episode), and also that rushed pile of fail at the end))

the point is, XY felt much more even-handed, and had a very serialized narrative (maybe that’s the shonen showing through), and thus as a whole was much more consistent than the earlier seasons.

(this is not to say that AG and DP didn’t innovate, bc they did; May was the first character to get a goal (contests) that she could progress forward on alongside ash, as opposed to the vaguely defined goals of “best breeder”, “water pokemon master”, and “dragon master”; and Dawn built even further upon what may started, and DP was almost evenly split between her and ash. it’s just that XY did this for ALL of the characters, and if not tangible goals like ash and serena, then clemont and bonnie both experienced a lot of self-growth (clemont in particular; bonnie’s development mainly kicked in for XY&Z))

anyway, this post is getting away from me. the point is, i love the writing in XY, and i’m really hoping they finish this off strong (and don’t completely choke at the last minute like BW did >.> NO I AM NEVER OVER THE WRITERS JUST KICKING IRIS AND CILAN OFF TO JOHTO OUT OF FUCKING NOWHERE >:(  ....ahem.)

[asiryn]

oh my god.......this is an even worse trainwreck than i could have ever anticipated......how could you possibly remember the new “lines”.....??

[asiryn]

hey, want me to make a game out of the repeating exposition? :D

if i have to suffer, i’m taking y’all down with me

(after a round of everyone repeating the name “Alola Sunrise”)

Ash: What’s Alola Sunrise?

Mallow: It’s an accessory shop for Melemele Island girls and super popular!

Rotom Dex: An accessory shop....

Ash: ....for Melemele Island girls

Me, softly, staring into the abyss: .....why this

(i’m not actually going write down or necessarily point out every instance of repeating exposition. i was actually going to make a post about the fact that, apparently carrying on from my last point about rotom dex’s bullshit statistics, the episode is also going down the stereotypical road of, “the girls enjoy shopping and the guys hate it”, but then the ep gave me the double whammy of the repeating exposition too. it’s the gift that keeps on giving, i guess. >.>)

[asiryn]

man, this really is just the never-ending gauntlet of everybody showing up and pitching in and getting moments of awesome. 

i’m really digging this so far, it’s very satisfying. i feel like the writing team put more focus on the main villain arc this time around (plus have what seems to be more episodes devoted to it than ever before), and are having very good pacing to the whole thing, and it’s really showing. there’s this....polish to this arc that i feel earlier gens were missing from their villain arcs (looking at you especially, AG).

BW started off pretty strong too, but then ended incredibly poorly (with both the villain arc AND the whole series to boot). so, here’s hoping that XY&Z can keep it up and stick the landing