#as some collective members of the fandom when youre just speakinf in good faith

[multiscales]

The automatic association of not liking the way Gou is incorporated in the series with racism and homophobia is such a ludicrous statement. People come with many legit criticisms about the start of the new series but all you people have to respond to this is "hurrr durrr the implications!!!" as if ignoring every shortcoming (and that includes Ash) of PM2019 wasn't enough, you people have to go back to your delusional generalizations. Can't people just happen not to like the feel of this series ?

Woah there anon, just because I reblog a post doesn’t mean I agree with everything said, more or less that I can empathize with the heart of what’s been spoken. That being said I admittedly do get some implicitely subtle vibes from Pokémon fandom sometimes when it comes to characters and certain things. I’m not necessarily generalizing all criticisms of Gou or any characters as being malicious just that I can see where the posters who feel this way are coming from. Truth be told I’m not shocked. If you went on Bulbagarden or were active there you would know how much of a hot mess Gou/Go discussions are. BMFG has been getting flack for not shutting down this nonsense for a while, for example did you know they had a whole thread in which Gou/Go was labeled as a “Psycho / Sociopath.”

It took a constant ring of fighting and complaining to get it shutdown, forget Gou/Go but you want to be a bit more mindful in 2020 of throwing out labels like that. It did not shine a favorable light on Bulbagarden considering I’ve seen people on various sites discussing this. I can agree with the portion of whether justified or not, I’m kind of sick of the overly belligerent vitriol aimed at brown/dark-skinned characters as being THE WORST because of writing. Mallow/Mao seem to be everyone’s punching bag last series for being “useless” or “worthless.” I’ve seen post around bombarding Mallow with labels like that get dozens of likes and replies on BMFG. I’ve seen Iris for example get called by the N-word, “bitch,” “ugly,” “witch,” “animal,” seen her empathetic talent likened to “voodoo” (ew....) I’m of Native and African descent, it’s not hard for me to see the micro aggressions and think certain things.

As for Gou/Go I’ve see him referred to by transphobic names many a time than I care to admit. He’s not exactly the most “fanservice-y” male character (receding hairline, brown, prominent forehead, eyelashes). So I do think in general people are less tolerant of the actions of these characters than say “Serena” or “Hikari” or their good ole’ boy and hero Ash Ketchum. So I do have my feels about passive micro aggressions that are easier to get on board with about certain characters than others. Especially among pale-PokeGirl and Satoshi-fans (I say as a lover of various blonde, blue-eyes white girl characters like Korrina) That being said I’m not boxing all criticisms of Gou off as shady, I have my criticisms of his character and goal (inconsequential, not enough substance, kind of meh at times) but it does feel a bit overdone at times. There’s also the shipping implications I see with certain characters who are “nice” to Satoshi and “good waifus” to him versus ones like Koharu who are “mean, cold bitches” for “ignoring him” so I can understand why people side eye Gou hate as homophobia too.

Honestly, I can see why people are sick of it. Female characters shouldn’t have to act like “nice, well mannered waifus” to be treated decently by the fandom. Characters like Gou should be able to make mistakes without seeing so much demonization compared to characters like Paul/Shinji. The fandom needs to watch its language sometimes when it comes to what is said about characters like this because when you feel the need to constantly call characters by certain names it’s going to be hard for fans especially teen and young adult ones to not side eye you. Especially in a fandom like this one that doesn’t exactly hide its love of “waifus” and “lolis” and shipping (usually using Satoshi as a fandom bike). You do you man, but I’m just saying be self aware.

Kind of funny since I feel like one of the more bigger critics of certain aspects of PM from time to times so the idea I don’t want anyone to say anything bad abo it this series feels very tipsy turvy. When it comes right down to it we live in an age where people pay attention to stuff like this and I kind of don’t blame anyone for looking at certain patterns of behavior (I did myself as a child watching BW *Iris getting called N-word/B*tch once again on a YouTube video for example or her being othered and excluded from PokeGirl art/conversation/appreciation*) Hell even the fandom had a whole ass controversy about ambiguously brown-skinned character Nessa (the fandom certainly showed much of its antiblackness). Honestly, I really don’t think most people criticizing these characters are this way but like I said I do see why people side eye fandoms with this crap and I do see why it can get exhausting especially when it’s person attacks about appearance or gender or buzzwords like “bitch” or some mental health-related thing.