Afterword

So here we are, once again.

Eighteen months and seventy-eight thousand words later, Silverlite has finished. This, most likely, marks my last foray into the series of pokemon. This venture began roughly four years ago, and here is where it ends. Since this is time for reflections, I'd wager it wouldn't be a terrible idea to do so.

Plans changed, and so did Silverlite. Upon writing down the first words, I expected this to morph into a more free-style adventure plot, with some battle scenes here and there (sorely missed from my previous work). Instead, it turned into something completely different, as all revisionists would tell you. Dawn was supposed to travel to gather her team, fight through the Sinnoh league, reconcile her relationships along the way, then mature into her feelings. Instead, I conjured a saga of angst, conspiracies, betrayals, blood, and death. I look back now and wonder how did it all happen. Did my attempt at adding tension to the story diluted its original intentions? Did Charon's early demise foreshadowed my subconscious desire to create something far more solemn? Did the battle scenes I coughed up demanded higher stakes? Did I finally figured out, after Chokehold's conclusion, that I hated writing about love?

I wouldn't say that I'm averted to writing scenes of closeness. However, my attempt to retain the T rating (horribly miscategorised, I'd be the first to say) across the board had certainly stifled my desire to portray anything of a more intimate nature. The passages of mutual duality crafted in my mind never settled into something that would fit the setting of which I bound myself. As such, I was forced to settle into an exchange of understanding and care, and leave the rest to the readers. Most people who read slash fan fiction already knew what they wanted to see, and I'll let it work itself out.

An interesting dynamic, which I have admittedly never dealt with before, was the fact that the protagonist was a sixteen-year-old girl. Such a fine piece of detail for which I had, and hated, to watch. It's the background for this highschool-tier drama, emotional outbursts, and general irrationality, and I can't say I enjoyed working with it. A fine experience as it may be, the carelessness with which I handled the age issue left me wanting. She also cried a lot. I didn't notice it on the way forward; but upon looking back, it became quite apparent. I have never written a character with such an outward display of emotions, and perhaps never again.

My approach this time had changed drastically. I actually, at one point, tried to legitimately incorporate plot points and characters of the game. I have to credit Game Freak for the kind of intricacies they managed to maintain here. The fourth generation pokemon games were, in my sincerest opinion, unmatchable in terms of themes, conciseness, and pacing. It was such a blessing to work with a base material which didn't actively tried to hamper my efforts (I'm looking at you ActiBlizz). Every turn I found a minor character which I had forgotten about, and turned them into cogs in this cranky wheel, trudging along. Roseanne, Cheryl, Bebe, etc. are all very overlooked NPCs, but a goldmine of undiscovered personalities for me to shape however I want. I regret to say not all of them received a satisfying conclusion, but alas. This time, I didn't have to invent any personal creations, except for Penny's cameo, and that's good. It's in fact quite hopeful, if only Pokemon Platinum didn't end eight years ago and I haven't had to suffer through what Game Freak had made since then.

On a different note: I sit now in this slightly uncomfortable chair, under this wildly insufferable weather, and say that writing pokemon battles had to be one of the most challenging aspects of this experience. Techniques, movements, and appearances are all extremely visual mediums, and condensing them into words was a daunting task. It's easy to see I took a very liberal approach in portraying the battle mechanics of the game. It made sense as a mechanic, but as a narrative point it was a nightmare. To expect everyone to play by the rules was ludicrous in any context, and such the rules didn't get brought up that often. Fights here are a lot more hand-waving and intimidation than actually damage and statistics. That is, of course, until the main villain was burnt alive inside a column of infernal hellfire, but I digress.

I somewhat regret how little time the main couple got to spend together. I understood that the story was primarily about rediscovery and responsibility, and how writing PG-13 hand-holding was never something I intended to do. In the end, it felt like an unsatisfying payoff, from my point of view. They struggled through all this hardship, and we never even get to see them be properly happy. Not all stories have happy ends, but mine do, on this site at least, and thus justice needs delivering. Perhaps I'll make a special exception, just this once, and write a postscript one day.

This marks the fifth conclusion of a series which I had written. I thought doing this more often would alleviate the strange emptiness at the end, but perhaps not. The velocity which random thoughts escapes my brain and into my keyboard still hasn't been put to check, and can be seen in various dead end plot points which riddled the story. It can even be seen in this afterword right here, and I fear there will never be a point where I can be contained. This is why there are editors, I suppose.

This is where my rambling concludes. The past day has set an all-time record for my view count, and I am undoubtedly grateful. It's unclear how committed I am to doing work of this nature moving forward, but at least I'll always have this peace of mind.

Cheers,

LightRedemption