The Eon Academy [S.S. Wishmaker Side-Story]

[[Desolate Divine]]

Okay, well, apologies for the double-post.

As promised, here are my thoughts about the second season of The Eon Academy. In short, I loved it, and am very excited to see what comes next!

No need for an apology on the double post! I do believe that PXR doesn’t have an outright ban on double posts as long as there is substance to each, compared to making double posts that really should just be edited into one.

I mentioned earlier that Justin is my favorite character this season, and the big contributing factor to that is that he has grown out of the role of Chris’s sidekick to someone with his own accomplishments and ambitions. His desire to become a police officer, his relationship with Candice, and, of course, his capture and taming of Regieleki are all things which have helped him make an impact, but more than that it feels as though he is displaying his thoughts more frequently than he was able to during Season One. Justin went from being the student least deserving of the Eon Academy to a deserving poster child and an inspiration for other campers (with the most impressive introduction from Jon to the new campers), and Jon’s nephew, to boot! His growth had a lot of effects on the other characters, changing the dynamic of his relationships with Chris, Dylan, Jon, and Abbee most notably. The explanation of Justin’s battle style was wonderful (as were all of Jon’s analyses), but it made me think that I would love to see more of this. I wish that there was some more of that present in the animated series or other fictional works. Battling style seems like such a great and underutilized tool of characterization.

Honestly, at the time I wrote this, Justin was my favourite character. I think during Season 1, Abbee or Charlotte were my favourite, with Justin taking the crown in Season 2. Seasons 3, 4 and 5, it changes again, which honestly, I am actually quite happy with, in that I feel like it shows each of those characters is getting an appropriate amount of focus and development at some point or another. Curious to see if you can pick who my favourites are in those seasons.

What was concerning as I wrote Justin’s arc, was figuring out how to work he and Candice’s relationship, balancing the fact that honestly, there isn’t anything wrong with it (in that despite there being romantic interest and nothing illegal happening), but similar dynamics can realistically be used to groom and harm people (and I hate saying this as a ministry worker, but the sad reality is that youth ministries can show examples of that), and I didn’t want to celebrate or normalise the age gap and their respective ages too much if that makes sense? It was a delicate balance of making it clear the relationship was appropriate because of the circumstances, and that if those circumstances were different, it may not be.

Part of it I think is also the fact that Justin was among the most insecure in Season 1, but managed to hide it far more than the others, so by the time that insecurity blew up in his face, it blew up hard. And since basically hitting rock bottom, he is now able to see the bigger picture a bit. Like, “who cares if my friends know I like Candice. I’ve been in far more humiliating situations”.

Speaking of Chris, he got some good developments over this season as well. Starting off the season with his rivalry with Charlotte getting stuck in a rut was an interesting concept, and I was waiting for them to get advice from Jon and Steven with their own long-running rivalry. Chris catching feelings for Abbee also was a curveball in this season. I thought that him and Charlotte would gravitate towards each other, but now that looks like it has gone up in smoke. Throughout the season, I kept a chart going in my head that I dubbed the “lust dodecahedron” and actually thought about making it into a graphic. The foreshadowing of his catching Lugia with the “what number am I thinking of” game paid off faster than I thought it would, and it will be fun to see if a baby Lugia will let Chris show a more tender side. Along with his new Bagon and Deino as well, Chris will be coming back next season with a much different team.

You’re perceptive about Chris and Charlotte being the obvious pairing. Even in world, the others thought it would be Chris and Charlotte. The thing is that both have a varying lack of maturity (Chris moreso, but Charlotte when it comes to her relationship with Chris) that causes both to intentionally ignore the idea of romance between them. Chris does this subconsciously, and Charlotte forces herself to (in a similar way that if you hound a young child about having a crush on someone for long enough, if they eventually do develop one as an adult, they’d be more likely to try and make themselves think otherwise). And at the same time, one of Chris’ strengths (which shows more often in further seasons) is his ability to know his own natural tendencies and compensate before they happen (which is similar to Justin but I’d say Justin is more likely to change as a person so that they aren’t tendencies anymore). I think for Chris, he wants to become more mature and show some growth, but the difference between himself and Justin is that he doesn’t know practically how to do it, whilst still being true to himself. And for Chris, Abbee is the only one younger than him, but naturally is the sort of person (at this point) he would want to be more like inter-personally speaking, and shocking Chris even more, is the fact that when he is around Abbee, he wants to improve as a person, not for the sake of meeting society's standards and pleasing people, but genuinely grow.

Ah yes, love polygons. The bread and butter of drama….

This next bit, I am putting in spoilers, as I want you to have the option to know as it may prevent some disappointment in further seasons:

Spoiler:

Lugia’s growth is largely off screen, with the main gag being that when Chris battles interns for the first time in a while, it has grown a shocking amount.

Salamence is completely underutilised, as honestly, I just got too used to using Chris’ Season 2 team plus Lugia. He relies that heavily on Charizard, Garchomp, Dragonite and Lugia, that Ninetales is only used when a plan relies on a specific of Ninetales’ abilities or movepool.

Chris’ Hydreigon get used, however not until Season 5 sadly, for the same reason. Honestly, Justin is the only other character who doesn’t undergo a roster change. The others all do, and these changes are far more utilised, even as soon as Season 3, however Chris doesn’t until Season 5 sadly. This is due to my own tendency to forget about the Pokemon and focus more on human development. This is especially true when you consider the fact that:

Spoiler:

The rental Pokemon are hardly used outside of passing references. Season 3 had a focus which took most of the limelight, and Season 4 was Spiritwater. Season 5 is focusing more so on wrapping up loose ends, and getting some final development of characters before their time at the Academy comes to a close, and because of this, the rental Pokemon are hardly included.

Also, good pick on the number game. Did you notice anything else ;) ?

Despite the changes over the break, the students largely are able to get back into their old routines. Chris and Justin get back to bantering right away and Charlotte and Abbee renew their mutually supportive relationship quickly as well. There are enough hiccoughs from the interim, and over the course of the season, which alter the relationships, but it captures the sheer comfort of reuniting with camp friends even after a long time away. It did feel a little strange at first that Chris and Justin did not invite Dylan to play video games with them (even after Dylan stepped in after Justin got his nose broken), but it helped to illustrate Dylan as a separate creature from the rest of the interns. It is something which will be interesting to see develop in future seasons. Is Dylan’s isolation due to his older age, and will it be mended as more interns cross the threshold into adulthood?

Dylan seemed more like a staff member than one of the group during this season, which is not a bad thing and it added a different dynamic to the group. Dylan’s maturity comes out throughout the story in little ways, such as his insight into Jon’s battling style during the first chapter and his working with Alyssa to help Jon keep his cool during the second epilogue. Because of that maturity, it hurt that he initially kept his investigation into Charlotte’s bad dreams secret from Jon. While Dylan was forgiven, it still struck me as a betrayal of trust to use Jon’s Pokémon and have Latios keep the secret as well from a surrogate sibling and parent figure. It will be interesting to see how he continues to grow and develop. Dylan’s ambition for changing the culture around raising pokémon is a bold one and I would love to see how much he can pull off. What does he think about Team Plasma? It would be interesting to see this story take a measured look at Plasma’s goals and methods. I thought that things might get desperate against for the interns to try and use the recently-caught Hydreigon against Deoxys but (un)fortunately it didn’t come to that. If Dylan can pull off taming that wild Hydreigon, it would be a more impressive feat than Justin’s taming Regieleki in my book!

You’ve hit the nail on the head. At this point, Dylan is more-so one of the adults (and more of an adult than Jon can be at times…) than one of the kids. This dynamic doesn’t really change his relationship with Abbee, as in my mind, that was established whilst Dylan was still in a vulnerable place, and whilst his time living with Jon and Alyssa, and growing from a near silent child-of-abuse to a young professional who is making strides as an adult has changed his relationships with others, the closeness he has with Abbee was well and truly cemented from their last summer. It also helped (even if it ended awkwardly) that he had spent a bit of time with Abbee between Seasons 1 and 2. And whilst Dylan does chalk the fact that he struggles with Chris the most down to jealousy of what he sees between Chris and Abbee, fact is, that Chris is the second youngest, and other than Abbee, furthest from him in age.

Actually, for reference:
-Jon: 29/02/88
-Dylan: 23/08/00
-Justin: 19/11/01
-Charlotte: 24/04/02
-Chris: 29/10/02
-Abbee: 26/01/03

S.S. Wishmaker: 2017
Season 1: 2018
Season 2: 2019
Season 3: 2020
Season 4 (Spiritwater): 2021
Season 5: 2022

In this season, Charlotte and Dylan start confiding in eachother, and part of that is that Charlotte, despite being nearly two years younger than him, showed a level of maturity the summer before as well, and additionally, is growing up a lot. But you’ve made a prediction that will come through, and is one I am quite proud of: Dylan’s friendship with the others shifts as each of them grow into adulthood.

In terms of the videogames, I think part of it was that Chris was going to be playing in their room, and Justin figured “If he’s going to be keeping me awake, I may as well have some fun”.

RE Dylan’s keeping secrets from Jon, one thing that comes to mind is that Dylan (as he mentioned to Abbee about when Jon’s dad visited) has now seen Jon less as a myth, or superman type figure (that the others, despite knowing Jon personally still see him as) and seen just how human he is. From memory, I think he chose to keep it secret from Jon because he knew that Jon would want to do something about it, but also had other things to worry about in terms of keeping the Academy running with so many students, and figured if he could handle it without giving Jon more to worry about, he’d rather do that. This dynamic of Dylan looking out for Jon, almost to a fault, continues for a while.

I thought that Abbee shone most in this season through her relationships with other characters. Her friendship with Jack Mason seemed to develop very naturally, and it felt like a real treat to get these two well-developed characters interacting with one another. If Justin had my favorite of Jon’s analyses, Abbee had my favorite battle between an intern and a camper. Rose had a great team of quirky pokémon, and it was really fun to watch the lessons Jon taught play out.

Charlotte turned out to be my least favorite character from this season, a shocking fall from the last season. This was not because she was a bad character, necessarily, but rather because she did not seem to be so much of an actor as a reactor to a lot of the events and situations going on around her. Compelling things were happening, with Deoxys and relationships, but it felt as though Charlotte lacked the initiative this season.

Abbee’s plans for the future were very intentional, as I didn’t want to fall into the trap of Abbee’s character just being “the nice girl whose dad died out of nowhere”, and at the same time, not overlooking the effect that has on her. Honestly, this was difficult to work, as Abbee’s personality is somewhat based on a friend of mine, similar in how warm and welcoming she is, and her ability to get along with anyone. The reason it was difficult is that a few months after I wrote the episode in which Abbee loses her dad, this friend of mine went through a very similar experience, her dad having a severe stroke out of nowhere and passing away. As such, I was very intentional about making sure that Abbee as a character was well developed, in a way, to make sure that I am not dishonouring my friend by accidentally using what was effectively the worst day of her life, as a cheap narrative device, you know?

In terms of Charlotte, I think the reason for that is that I try to be very intentional about not letting a singular character hog the lime-light in a single season. Sometimes happens anyway (for example, I think that in Season 3, Charlotte and Justin do tend to be more reactors, and Season 4, Jon takes centre stage), but I think with Charlotte’s nightmares being a recurring plot device to set up Deoxys, I tried to make sure the others were more involved outside of that so that Charlotte didn’t steal the spotlight from them.

It is exciting to see the Eon Academy developing into a real educational institution, the efforts of the Minister of Defense notwithstanding. The new facilities at the start of the summer certainly got built quickly. When will it get a pool? Regarding the curriculum, it is great to see Dylan take to the role of a teacher and develop his lesson plans and pedagogy. The addition of rental pokémon should be a great boon for the academy as well, and maybe will help some less experienced or well-traveled trainers to get more out of the academy. Jon’s teaching the campers how to defeat their absent team leaders also provided a great look at what the new campers are learning, and I think that he could partner more with the interns to illuminate other concepts, such as using Chris to teach about the benefits and challenges of using a team centered around a single type of Pokémon. After everything which happened this season, especially in the epilogues, I have to ask when self-defence is getting added to the curriculum.

The Eon Academy is on an island, so I think a pool may be a bit excessive xD

If you like the idea of seeing the students as teachers, Season 5 uses that more, and I know Chris at one point is able to teach quite a valuable lesson using his own experience as a battler! So get keen! As for self defence, that is sort of handled; Jon is aware that he is still a polarising figure, and given that almost everyone saw what he did to Lance, and now the fact he has straight up killed a man in self defence (with Latios killing a Pokemon as well), I think that Jon, to some, would be considered a good teacher of self defence, but to others, would not be appropriate, given his own history of violence. What he does do for this however, is explained as early as Season 1, Episode 2:

Spoiler:

Double Battles.

Whilst Charlotte had asked why they were having that be a major theme, seeing as 90% of competitive matches were one on one battles, Jon raised a few points. Firstly, that he was wanting to break the predispositions they had to battling, and get them thinking outside the box, battling with their entire team, not just the Pokemon on the field, and double battles were a good start to that. Once they understood how to come up with tactics based on two Pokemon on the field, they could then start thinking about how their Pokemon on and off the field can work together at their best. The other point he raised was that with most competitive matches, outside of Gym Battles and Elite Four Challenges, there was no hard and fast single battle rule, and if both trainers consented to it, a double battle could be conducted instead, and because they were so rare and dynamic, audiences loved them. All it takes is someone to propose a double battle for the crowd to go wild, and if someone cares too much about saving face, they might accept the challenge, giving themself a disadvantage if they weren’t practised in them, though Jon didn’t recommend using that tactic too often. Jon also mentioned that he tries to teach skills that are used outside of the competitive scene, and should the young trainers ever find themselves in a life-or-death situation, knowing how to battle well with multiple Pokemon, or alongside another trainer, could be the difference between seeing next Christmas and not…

Jon knows that should be have a class dedicated to self defence, he’d have parents accusing him of training their children to have their Pokemon snap necks, and additionally, he is also aware that whilst he has a solid handle on his five original students, as more come in, he doesn’t know how they will use that sort of teaching. So instead, he teaches concepts that are definitely relevant to competitive battling, but will also give them a better chance of defending themselves if they need to.

You also put a lot of fun ideas into this season, some of which I would love to see expanded upon or revisited. Dividing the campers up into teams offers potential for some Hogwarts-style team spirit, and the capture the flag game between Chris and Charlotte’s teams also had potential for fun. I thought that we would see more of the new students, and while there were a few nice moments, especially around the intern and camper battles, but this was not yet fulfilled. It would have been challenging to pull off introducing and incorporating a lot of new characters into an already expansive main cast, so I much prefer that it not be attempted yet than it be attempted to early and fail. This meant that there was no big finale to the summer (aside from Deoxys, of course), and the end of the season (not counting the epilogues) felt anti-climactic. The Pokémon characters also could have gotten some more screentime, as I mentioned already. The legendary pokémon got some good moments with Latios training as a spy and Victini insisting on going toe-to-toe with Deoxys. It turns out that Rayquaza can learn V-Create, so that would be an exciting scene of Victini teaching the big green guy his signature attack. Outside of these examples, and the taming of Chris’s new Lugia, as well, the Pokémon as characters were not really present. There were missed opportunities like where Chris could have brought out one of his Pokémon to keep him company while keeping watch in the Whirl Islands that passed. I won’t belabor the point, but it is something that I noticed.

You hit the nail on the head about the new students. Honestly, this was the only season where I even preplanned the students, using RNG to determine their gender, their home region, and various generators to come up with names. As the Academy grows in popularity and more students come each year, fewer are referenced more than once, the main exception being Rose Drake, largely due to her being a relative of Jon and Alyssa’s, but also the bond she has with Abbee in particular (as well as Dylan, who lives at the Academy and would see Rose if her family visits for holidays). That being said, these students to play roles in plot points, such as a Season 5 episode about a cabin of rowdy boys and all the staff make a bet to see who can get them to quieten down at night the quickest.

Funnily enough, some of the points you’re making about opportunities for Pokemon to be included are times where I figured it made sense for them not to be included. For example, Chris wouldn’t have risked his Pokemon making a noise and giving him away if he were on watch. And additionally, should someone come whilst he was on watch, he’d risk being spotted, or giving away their element of surprise if a Pokeball flash was seen by returning the Pokemon, or the Pokemon making noise as they ran back. That being said I will be the first to admit that there are so many opportunities to include Pokemon, that I unintentionally miss due to focusing too much on the humans.

Writing-wise, I think that the variety of situations and genres that this season touched on highlights your talents as a writer. The courtroom drama and the tension in the second and first epilogues respectively were wonderful, as were the science-fiction, travelogue, and slice of life educational institution elements. Each change in genre was telegraphed well and transition between them seemed relatively seamless to my eyes. There were little touches like Candice picking Justin’s old room during her stay at the Academy, and the foreshadowing of trouble in Meteor Falls were both appreciated. The effect used for Deoxys’ alien speech, while cool, was also a huge headache to try and decipher!

I’m glad to hear that! Because honestly, I don’t particularly know what genre I would give this outside of plain drama. However even then, I feel like whilst it does rely on characters own conflict both internally and with one-another, and situations where there is no clear right or wrong way forward, it doesn’t dial it up enough on things such as romance compared to most other dramas. I wouldn’t call it action, as most of the battles in this scenario are low stakes, and there are chapters where the action is not the main focus, but instead the characters. Maybe Slice of Life? However too much happens that is outside of their ordinary for it to be slice of life in my opinion. It’s hard!

Yeah Deoxys’ alien speech was an example of struggling to translate the story in my head to the medium. Honestly, when I write, I’m writing more so how I’d see this playing out as a movie or TV series. Hell, if I were to suddenly become rich enough that I could throw large sums of money at whatever I want, I’d do what I can to legally get this animated professionally, just because that is the vision I write from. To the point where (and I know that it’s practically impossible) I have in my notes, voice actors I’d want for each of the characters, and for one season in particular, the OP I’d use. All this to say; my initial vision that I put to writing is of a TV series, and in a TV series you can use audio manipulation to show something is being said, but not understood by the characters. And whilst I could have omitted letters or replaced with symbols, I found the website to distort the text, and realised that was likely my closest bet for matching the vision.

And for reference:
Jon Drake: Steve Blum (Spike Spiegel of Cowboy Bebop)
Alyssa Drake: Britt Baron (Tifa Lockhart of Final Fantasy VII Remake)
Abbee Strauss: Erica Lindbeck (Kaori Miyazono of Your Lie In April)
Charlotte Jones: Michelle Ruff (Sinon of Sword Art Online)
Christopher Kingswood: Vic Mignogna (Edward Elcric of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood)
Justin Collins: Brandon McInnis (Finral Roulacase of Black Clover)
Dylan Squier: Griffin Burns (Jinta Yadomi of Anohana)

A bloke can dream…

There were a few world-building moments which I thought were worth noting. The example of Abbee and Victini communicating psychically while delivering a false order verbally should be a game-changer. Calling moves is now an antiquated way of battling, and I hope that Jon will work more to pass on his philosophy of the pokémon trainer as a coach rather than a director, in part as a counter to this kind of deception. Candice’s career advice to Abbee about becoming a gym leader and the timeline that she lays out for accomplishing that goal seems to be the premise for a great story in and of itself. Lastly, $90 for a Master Ball in Chapter Ten seems unbelievably cheap!

And one last question, is Alyssa Drake related to the Hoenn Elite Four member?

I’m glad you liked the order discrepancy tactic! It gets used a bit going forward! And you’ll also be glad to know that Candice and Abbee’s conversation doesn’t get forgotten (as mentioned in Epilogue 1).

Yeah, one world building thing I changed is the availability of Master Balls. They are definitely more available, though they would have been transferred from the Department Store. But in terms of price, I wanted to make them expensive enough that people would not just buy them all the time, but not too expensive that they aren’t accessible. The mentality was that chances are an Ultra Ball or a Great Ball will honestly be okay, it may just take a couple of throws, but trainers who can afford it might carry one Master Ball, for that one that they just can’t let get away.

Good question, but no, in world, Drake is the Elite Four members first name. Honestly I had forgotten about him when I wrote up their characters for S.S. Wishmaker, and at that point I think I had established Jon having completed the eight Hoenn Gyms but not doing the Elite Four, but hadn't established they actually lived in Hoenn until Jon first tells the Diamond Ladies of the plan to cover up Shadowcraft.

Favorite Lines

1. “I’m glad you couldn’t wait.” – Candice
2. “Chris, I would go swimming with Justin’s Regieleki before I let you drive this thing…” – Dylan
3. “If her first word is f**k, both you and Jon will have me to answer to…” – Alyssa

Now, onto Season Three!

All three are great! I had a hunch the first would be there, and had completely forgotten about the second. The third, I knew was somewhere but now I have seen this, remember that it is from when the acquisition order arrives.

Season 3 is a personal favourite of mine! As much as I am enjoying Season 5, Season 3 is just that little bit more special to me, so enjoy!