#can you tell lysandre is kind of one of my favorite characters

[pokemonmadness]

need to talk about this my brain is itchy (aka moth spends the better part of their day psychoanalyzing a fictional character alongside their ocs)

So, I wanna do a post about one of my older sets of Pokemon OCs, but weirdly enough I want to talk about the specific dynamic between these characters and the canon character they're associated with. Plus this may brink more on being headcanons so to speak, so, there's that too.

One of the first sets of Pokemon OCs I came up with was Andy and Ellie/Eloise (Ellie used to have a different name but I ignore that anymore lmao) -- something similar goes with Noel because he used to be wayyy different. But, they're some of my earlier Pokemon OCs, all meant to be related to Lysandre, via being his family.

Now this could all brink too on how old Lysandre is. Personally, I kind of imagine him to be in his early-mid 40s. But, the way it goes is that Lysandre and Noel had two kids more on accident than anything, not having planned to have them. Andy is around 18, Ellie is around 20. I can infodump more about them later, but it's always gotten me interested in a certain aspect: what if Lysandre was a parent, and how would that effect his partner and/or his kids?

Looking at Lysandre as a person, he's complex. He's two-sided, wanting to come off as being very personable, very charitable, very humble. One of the good people of the world. And has he done some good in his life? Sure. But beneath that surface is a man who's obsessed with perfection, obsessed with what is truly just a subjective concept, of perfection and ugliness. But, to him that doesn't matter. He's experienced first hand the greediness of humanity, and it's something that was bad enough to where he felt this obsessive need to then want to cleanse the world of its impurities. But in reality, that didn't truly matter. To him the only worthy ones are those who agree with him, in essence. The ones who follow him, or who give up their lives for him. (Though he also sees something in the player in X and Y, and asks if you want to join him.) But, there's one thing specific about his character that I find fascinating. He doesn't seem like he's fully in control of himself sometimes. There are times where it seems like he's having an internal struggle, does he truly want to go through with what he wants to do? He doesn't like the idea of having to kill the Pokemon to get what he wants. One could argue that perhaps there's something deeper about him, maybe the battle between a different part of him versus who he is now. Who knows? Lysandre's past, outside of him being a scientist, isn't very much known. This is a bit of word vomit, so, I apologize if it is inaccurate or it doesn't make sense. And, me bringing up him not being in control is not to diminish the bad things he has done or that he's attempted to do. (Also, technically I could bring up Alain, but unfortunately I don't remember about him or the anime all too well. Though, there is an older thread talking about the dynamic between Lysandre and Alain, and the potential emotional abuse that occurred, at the end of the post.)

But then, you get into the idea of that, but as a parent. You take Alain's situation, and you could potentially use that to help see this. Going back to Andy and Ellie, it's important to know too the relationship that'd be between Lysandre and Noel. The two had met when they were much younger, somewhere around their later teens, and after a few years, they dated, and had Ellie. (I feel it is necessary to not Noel is a transgender man, and came out when Andy and Ellie were young children.) Andy was born two years after Ellie, but their parents weren't married. When they did get married, that's when their relationship completely splintered. They needed to just split up for a while, they needed to take a break. They would divorce not long later, maybe a half year after. Noel offered to take both the kids, to take a load off of Lysandre, but he decided to try to help, by taking one of the kids. Split custody to a degree, but Noel was still open to taking Andy in, as they're the one who went with Lysandre when Noel and Ellie moved back to Snowbelle City. (Wherever Lysandre currently lives, I'm not sure.) All of this to then get into the dynamic of Lysandre as a father, of being raised by him.

Andy, between the time they were a young child (say around 6) up until they were 18, lived with Lysandre. Think of it like this, to the outside world, what did they have to complain about? They got anything they wanted, any games, clothes, et cetera. To the outside world, Andy was lucky, getting to be the child of one of Kalos's most prominent men. Thing is the two did have a good relationship when Andy was a child. But after the divorce, that's when things slowly began souring. Lysandre grew distant, becoming more absorbed with his work, and slowly starting to steep himself in his hatred towards humanity. Andy was starting to grow up, they became a teen, they did as any teen did in challenging their father, and beginning to argue with him. Not out of malice per se, but, that's just what happens during adolescence. In their case there was some frustration tied into it too, with never feeling good enough. All their accomplishments, awards, are put aside, just because Lysandre is working late. Because they are not more important than his ultimate goal. They grow reclusive and angry, hiding in their room for the most part (outside of taking care of the Pokemon around the house or making food, or cleaning), and disliking when other people are around. They dislike Team Flare and its scientists, they dislike Malva, and even for a point in time they disliked Professor Sycamore. (That I may get into more in the post I make about Andy, Ellie, and Noel, but to preface it some they hated how Augustine sort of blindly followed Lysandre. They do eventually start apprenticing under the professor though.)

Now another question could come into play here: where was Noel? He was there the whole time. He didn't have the ability to gain full custody of Andy again, but he also didn't want to completely disrupt their life with school and whatnot. Instead, he would let Andy stay over for extended periods, having Ellie's bedroom have a bunk bed for the siblings when Andy was over. He accommodated for them. And they tried to further do that when he learned about how Lysandre had been acting. Again, he was powerless, but he was also very tricky. Though then again Lysandre wouldn't have noticed because of work, or thinking Andy was just in their bedroom because of how much they isolated themself. So, he didn't worry all that much.

Lysandre did have his times where he seemed more remorseful, or in agreement with Andy, yes. But for the most part, the two were always at odds. And this all made Andy deteriorate mentally. (Side note here too, genetically speaking, while Andy looks more like a combo of Lysandre and Noel, or like a flower that exhibits signs of incomplete dominance, they inherited a lot of Lysandre's personality traits, as well as his mental illnesses, and other physical issues which I just imagine to be stomach problems. Don't ask I already cursed someone with this knowledge. Sorry Kat /lh) In that note, they do already have Lysandre's mental problems; bipolar depression and OCD being the most prominent, as well as delusions from BD, which I also believe Lys has to deal with. But, as time went on, there was more and more that got added to this. But, that's when we get into Andy finding out about Lysandre's ultimate plan.

Imagine finding out what your father has been doing, since you were a child, was something leading to doomsday was leading to something you ultimately would not be apart of, because you despise what your father has become, what he is doing. When Andy found out about the plan to activate the Ultimate Weapon, and to wipe out all he does not deem to be worthy. The ugliness in the world. In reality that just means to wipe out all but Team Flare. You are a teen still, and you find all of this out. Of course this caused issues for Andy. It caused stress, and fear. More mental health problems developed, paranoia and BPD. Because what they realized in all of that too was that there was no room for them in this new world. They were Lysandre's child, sure, But, they were not a part of Team Flare, did not like what they were doing, and strongly disagreed with their father. The same could be said for Noel and Ellie as well. And this caused them to panic.

A question I can hear already is, what about Ellie? I haven't mentioned her relationship with Lysandre, because they barely have one with him. Again she was raised by Noel, not by Lysandre. She seldom interacted with him, and when she did, it was awkward in nature. And as time went on it got even more awkward, especially as Andy was telling her and their other dad about what was going on. If anything this just made things more awkward. Unlike Andy, she doesn't really look up to Lysandre. She knows he's her father but she doesn't want to pursue things like he does, she isn't a scientist but she is personable. She has the better traits Lys has, the sociability and intelligence. But, she doesn't want to pursue life like how he does, and in fact spends a lot of her time at home with Noel to help him get around. And she doesn't mind doing that. She isn't chasing any big dreams, she's living in the moment when she's allowed to.

Now what about Noel? How did he feel about all of this, seeing how his ex-husband has not only apparently gone off the deep end, or been doing do for the last several years, but the child he trusted Lysandre to raise has a bunch of issues now thanks to their father's problems. So, there are times he's close to wringing Lys's neck. But at the same time, he gets emotional about it, angry at himself almost, feeling like there was more he could have done to prevent this, even if again he was powerless. He misses the man he fell in love with, and wants him back, but he truly does hate the man he became.

The thing is too, deep down, all Andy ever wanted was for their father to see the error in his ways, to understand he couldn't change the world on a whim, that this was genocide. The pleaded with him, all they wanted was their papa back. All they wanted was to look back and to see their father, not a complete stranger. And all of that in the end took a horrid effect on their mental health. They did start healing over time, yes. But they still find themself constantly conflicted. If Lysandre dies, they wonder if that's truly what they wanted. But if he doesn't die, they still struggle with the idea of him still being out and about, if he's not put into prison that is. As ambiguous as it is, they find themself with more questions than answers in the end.

And how Lysandre would feel would be a mystery. Because there is a chance where he would regret what he did, where he would wish he could go back and make things normal, if that's truly what he wanted. To be normal again, to feel normal again. But there's the chance too that he only regrets his plans not working, because it just means he'll be seen as a pariah or someone who's mentally unstable. He isn't in control anymore, and feels scorned because of it. He made too many mistakes in the end. Even thinking about this could be subjective, wondering about it and our answers could be subjective.

Could I keep yammering about this? Yes. I genuinely could. I don't know why I'm yammering about this specifically, but, oh well. I'll probably post a more in depth analysis of Andy, Ellie, and Noel later on, but content wise I'm going to leave it at this, only adding a couple notes. If anything I mentioned above mental illness wise is at all inaccurate I apologize, even if it was just the names of particular disorders. Also, this isn't anything to demonize Lysandre or mental illness, I just think he's a really fascinating character. I think the same with a majority of the villainous Pokemon bosses, but lately I've been a bit hyperfixated on Kalos. (That, and Galar.) I know it's obvious I'm not demonizing anything, it's just something I'd like to re-iterate. If you'd like to ask anything about this feel free too, or if you'd like to figure out why I posted this, your guess is mine but maybe I'll have an explanation. (also I just like to infodump hehe)

(I'll also still link the post regarding Alain that I mentioned above if you'd like to give it a read, it's interesting to see.)

[insecateur]

hi hi hi! fellow transmasc here!

Do you actually headcannon Lysandre / Sycamore as being transgender? I've seen it going around on social media a bit and I was curious about your opinion on it :) (sorry if this is a lame ask)

THIS IS NOT A LAME ASK AT ALL !!! please never worry about sending me asks... i sometimes will take a little bit to reply for busy or timezone reasons but i do not mind getting them. i actually enjoy getting them a lot this was like the one thing i missed the most from no longer being on tumblr 💔

to answer your question..!! i don't know if i would say i headcanon them as transgender as like, a general rule (as in i think of them as transgender as like. their default state when i envision them in my mind's eye) but i do love and cherish the idea of them being transgender!! i have drawn both of them in trans pride stuff in the past and i've even written augustine as transgender once although it was in porn so .

i am sometimes... i guess "wary" of stuff where augustine is trans and lysandre is cis and it has this kind of . oh augustine is smaller and lysandre is manlier so obviously this is the way this makes sense vibe to it HOWEVER. i realize that for some people it's more of a "projecting on the character who looks more like me/who i like more" thing. so i don't begrudge anyone for it although i do wish there was more trans lysandre in the world... (and especially more t4t prfr tbh.)

wait actually this is making me realize i haven't talked about me being professionally diagnosed with lysandregender here ?! at least i don't think so. okay so when i went to see a gender therapist in order to start transitioning the guy was asking me random questions i think it was at our second appointment. and he was like "do you collect anything" and i, FOR SOME GODFORSAKEN REASON, decided to tell him i collected merch of my favorite pokémon character lysandre. and then i was like "actually, i'm wearing a shirt with him on it right now" and i lifted up my hoodie so he could see my lysandre shirt. i don't remember the exact conversation that followed but basically he looked right through me and went "this is about your Gender." and i was like "this is definitely about my Gender." and this is how i was professionally diagnosed with lysandregender

i do genuinely think i have a lot of Gender Feelings tied to lysandre which is also why i like the idea of him being trans, although for a long time it felt too self-indulgent so i kind of refused to partake in it fully. thankfully for everybody i no longer feel a sense of shame about anything so we all live in a post-trans lysandre world now

my favorite thing about them being Gender is that augustine is actually exclusively a "feminine" name in french, and lysandre is gender neutral so both men and women can be called lysandre, although it's rarer for women (kind of like the opposite of "camille") so i think they should both be allowed to trans their genders as much as they want. that is my wish,

[thekuraning]

34 and 50!

what are your current obsessions?

34 - Time I succeeded

DAMN well ok uhhhh I was top 10 internationally during the DigiCon 2022 vital lab raid!! But I can't prove it since the app shut down. I was proud of that one, though!

My favorite lasting success that I can prove is the first time I finished a longfic, which was called Slowpoke Tails and Koffing Fumes that I posted to FFnet. It's... not very good!! In fact, reading it now I cringe a lot! But it's my favorite because in a time when my life was very rocky and very close to uhhh aliven't-ing, it was a goal I set for myself that kept me keeping on. It's very silly!! And maybe has a few edgelordy moments, but mostly just silly! I am very proud of this shiny little trash bag!

50 - current obsessions

*knocks politely on your door* Excuse me, do you have a moment to talk about our lord and savior, Guzmamore? *wedges my foot inside so you can't close it* listen i was skeptical too ok I was SO SKEPTICAL ok so last april??? I was just hanging around on pinterest, as you do, when I stumbled across this art by Alcka (who is an absolutely lovely artist btw and they have more guzmamore art) and let me tell you something my friend it ACTIVATED something in me and i am about to go on a very long rambling rant about this so im gonna put it under the cut ok??

SO LISSEN OKAY JUST LISSEN im crying im sobbing I used to have a Team Rocket!Sycamore RP blog back in 2013/14ish and I used to play Guzma briefly in Wild Encounters and I thought I had packaged them up and put them in the closet under the shoes but I saw that one piece of art (WHICH SYCAMORE TECHNCIALLY IS NOT EVEN IN!!!) and I became absolutely F E R A L about them overnight like it was supposed to be silly it was supposed to be hahaha and then like a one shot where they kept running into each other on Melemele and went on a silly little date but YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND I HAVE SO MANY FEELINGS ABOUT THEM SO MANY

Because as silly as it WAS once I started writing Turning Point I started kind of like finding this vibe between them??

Like on the one hand you have Guzma who has problems with authority and mommy issues and probably daddy issues too who makes a point not to rely on other people but will fall in line for anyone who gives him a pat on the head

On the other hand you have Augustine whose best friend/lover just died catastrophically but not only that who betrayed him and stabbed him in the back so thoroughly and also he had to give you a medal and a parade for getting lysandre killed like Augustine too has issues no matter what backstory you give him just based on XY alone if the man did not start with issues the man has developed issues

And like to make matters WORSE the headcanons I developed for them completely separately during the times I played either of them ALSO kind of started to vibe? idk idk just each of their dispositions like augustine being a feral little freak and guzma being kind of sturdy and down-to-earth when he's not a seething mess they just started to balance each other out and suddenly i had a finished fic and i couldn't get them out of my head and now somehow i have 4 more long fics in planning mode for these two idiots i just hhhHHHHHHH i cant get over them i love them too much the rarest of my pairs

also i have recently become obsessed with the idea of making pokemon character muppets

[owls-den]

Hiii I'm back with another rant about XY this time! I finished it some time ago with my friend and oh my god I have THINGS to say

Ash you need to stop putting your life in danger needlessly ASH PLEASE STEP AWAY FROM DRIFFLOON RAVIN-

Yup the XY trio is incredible, I love them s o m u c h!! Tierno is definitively my new favorite character!

I got to Alain. Oh man, what a precious edgy man 💙 Like he is SO going through his edgy phase and it SHOWSSS come on sweetyyyy are you cold with your big, pokemon coordinated scarf ?? (what a dork) Also with my friend we decided that we'd hc Alain as Sycamore's nephew and, either way, I can see that the professor had an influence on Alain's... Fashion choice (looks at their VERY LOW OPENING PURPLE SHIRTS COVER THEM UP YOU SL-)

Speaking of which!! Sycamore!!! My love!! Love his japanese voice and I'm SOOOO happy he has such an "important" role in the story of the anime!! He's literally one of my favorite character outside of the BW series. I care about him too much. I just wish we had seen him interact with Lysandre more.

Lysandre going "The professor would be in danger if we told him. He needs to be protected" to Alain like oh my god Lysandre. Just go home and kiss your husband on the forehead already sheesh

They're totally married/fiancé. I'm looking super hard at Lysandre's keystone ring... Or at least, that's what I'd say IF THE ANIME DIDN'T MAKE THEM MEET FOR THE FIRST TIME WHEN MANON'S CHESPIN WAS SICK!! Like WHA- So basically, Lysandre has the worst kind of parasocial relationship with Sycamore, got it.

I love how Sycamore has like NO REAL reaction to Lysandre's actions (because he doesn't care much about him in the anime) meanwhile in our rp server we made the PWI one of the most heartwrenching event ever for him.

The Serena arc was a bit quickly ended in my opinion. But I still liked seeing her rivals coming in to tell her to win for them. That was neat.

My opinion hasn't changed: I think Amourshipping is very onesided. Again, no shade to the shippers, it's really cute! But man, Ash really is not interested in the slightest and they don't even TRY to have the shippy moment. Serena is about to dance with Ash? Nope music stops! Serena is going on a date with Ash? Nope he ditches her halfway through and it highlights how different they are.

OhmygodthescenewithAshsickohmygodanimatorswha- WHY DOES HE MENTION IRON TAIL AT THAT MOMENT I'M GOING TO PASS OUT

At some point, I told my friend "this is a bye bye butterfree moment" (I use it to refer to Ash letting go of a pokemon) and things were emotional in the episode AND THEN tons of butterfly pokemons arrived on screen and my friend told me "Bye bye butterfree" and I very much SCREAMED. Nebel if you're reading this, shut up you're not funny stop I was in tears how dare you do this to be ;-;

Clemont finding someone he's interested in and who's interested back but Bonnie being >:O about it was... Something

Monsieur Pierre my beloved 💙

Manon is the best!! I see her and my wounds are healed instantly. I liked her friendship with Alain a LOT (L-lysandre telling Alain he has a small gf I just CANT I'm convinced Lysandre has no concept of age difference. Everyone is categorized by if they're smaller or taller than him. Spoiler alert: the latter never happens because AZ doesn't exist in this anime)

Sawyer is neat :)) Little man. Made me wonder if EXP is an ACTUAL thing IN universe or just a belief...

STEVEN STONE KISSING HIS KEYSTONE TO MEGA EVOLVE I'M 💀

Sycamore has both the best and worst fashion choices. Man is both the sexiest and unsexiest man alive. Like he's such a goofy tall guy but he can also be suave and then you'll just see him slip like a doofus with his rollerskates while his Bulbasaur tries to help him walk like a newborn Deerling LIKE HELP-

WHY DOES ZYGARDE HAVE THIS VOICE 💀💀💀 IT'S SO FUNNY I CAN'T

I was >:(( but then I heard Bonnie sing a song to Puni-chan and I went :DD

And then I was :DD and the finale hit REALLY HARD and I :'(((((

No fr, I actually cried during the finale. The cool thing about the fact that there was so much filler was that... I got SUPER ATTACHED TO EVERYONE!! So when they got into REAL danger, my god... It HIT. Especially Bonnie trying to reason with Zygarde and the "death" of Citroid. So much raw emotion.

Team Rocket being heroes and recording the whole PWI is honestly so them... They're so bad at being evil but they're so good at being good... Especially good for my soul. Also man THEIR EDITING SKILLS HAHA

I liked the "Ash brooding arc" after his defeat against the 8th gym leader. Idk, I feel like it was well set up. It wasn't like JUST the defeat but tons of stuff piling up!

Ash getting so far in the league was nice! Though the league REALLY went fast. Though we all know that was because it wasn't the ACTUAL finale of the series and the real one is just that cool!

My heart fucking stopped when Lysandre let himself fall from the Prismatic Tower. Like. I genuinely couldn't believe pokemon had done that. They did brush it off quickly and he came back but oh my god that was STILL very impactful.

Ok so, Ash and Serena's kiss. Damn, couldn't she have been a bit more obvious BEFORE? 'tis ok I get it, I'm merely joking. It' s just very funny to me that Clemont had more of a reaction to it than Ash did. ONCE AGAIN SORRY-

Clemont and Ash having a redo of their first match ❤️ boy best friends

Greninja leaving is... Understandable. Pretty op. Go forth and protect Kalos little rockstar!

I still don't get the random ninja village in the middle of Kalos but sure? I guess every single regions are just inspired from the countries but are also mixed with Japan? Ig?

I think that's it! I already started Sun and Moon and I adore the series, it's just soooo cute and therapeutic and slice of lifey euveirbzofjzifj

Anyways! My overall thoughts on XY is that WOAH it REALLY turns around in XYZ! It was sorta boring, but still ok, in XY but XYZ is genuinely a pretty awesome pokemon series!!

As for the movies, I watched all of them.

The first one really has for highlight the thieves. Like the rest of it is... Eh... But I really loved the two thieves ending up together :)) I'm sure they stole those clothes/rings!

The second one was... It kinda looked like a child walked into the animation studio and took their figurines of the legendaries and just clashed them together and the director said GENIUS!!! I do think the grandpa had a badass design but like they lost me at "Ash and his friends decided to take a break ***in the desert***" like *excuse me*. H-how- d-does the studio think France is right next to the United Arab Emirates (if I am not mistaken the city is VERY HEAVILY inspired by Dubai though I might just be dumb). Idk how to feel about the charadesigns and everything, not really my place to judge considering it's not my culture though I did think the designs were REALLY clashing with Ash and co. It kinda felt like they walked into an entirely new region that was not very refined. The highlight of the movie for me was to watch Groudon sink into the water, struggling to stay in and then he HAD TO WALK ALL THE WAY HOME! Like DAMN OOPA ! GIVE THE MAN A DAMN LIFT!! Ah, and of course Oopa going "Ponstaa" when trying to say "Pokemon Masutaa". I was in tears because I am an immature man-child.

Finally the last movie with Volcanion was... Genuinely awesome actually! A new form of mega evolution was introduced (forced), the city's design was honestly super fun, Volcanion's relationship with Magearna was cute af, Volcanion in general was awesome (god poor Ash) and LOTS OF DRAMA HAPPENED! YESSSS!

Anyyywaysss I guess that's my point of view for all the content of Pokemon XY(Z) hahaha!

Damn that was a LONG RANT. See y'all for another one soon!

[pkmnsdarkqueen]

ship bias

Send ‘Ship Bias’ and I will share up to 5 Ships I have a bias for for my muse!

-Original ask open-

So last time I did tropes now Imma do what ya’ll were likely assuming this ask is for, and go for characters. 

In no particular order. 

1. Lysandre-Everyone has that one ship that either started as a joke, or was kind of one of those,”eh wonder what would happen if,” and then that idea turned into,”oh no.....oh I find this too cute.” and this is that ship for me. There’s so many different scenarios where weirdly enough they’d get along. My favorite thing about it is it’s not one of those he saved her or she saved him it’s one of those that honestly they’d be able to help each other grow as people. Most interpretations of Lysandre he’s disgusted by humanity’s selfishness, and Karen WAS one of those people. So she’s living proof for him that people can change. Meanwhile Karen is horribly accustomed to not fitting in with the fancy upper class and that they look down on her, Lysandre shows that there are upper class who care and he has the compassion to help her with her confidence in that. They both have seen awful parts of humanity but it makes them appreciate the other that much more because they found ‘a good one’, and they’re both so used to having to keep it together all the time they found someone who recognizes that’s impossible to do and both of them have the ability to be strong for both of them when the other needs some time to be weak. It’s just really cute ok, and they can have a very healthy relationship which I feel they would both benefit from.

2. Giovanni-I know everyone ships with Gio and one villain after another, really? Now admittedly this one isn’t too fleshed out like Lys and Karen, and some ways this isn’t even about them this is about everyone in Karen’s life reacting to this mess. Koga, would heckin lose his mind. Silver instant panic. Will, questioning her sanity. Blue, laughing so hard. I really don’t know fully how Gio and Karen would work cause I haven’t interacted with too many Gio’s but I do imagine it’d work a bit like either cat and mouse with the two if he was still in Rocket except they keep bamboozling each other, or after Rocket and maybe Karen steadily pulling him away from the crime world like,”you really want to go back to that?” “yes.” “Do you really want to lose another chance with your son?” “....” “That’s what I thought tough guy.” and then them having to deal with liking each other but having to hide him from the public.

3. Looker-Ok so this has been done a bit before, and I still love it. They definitely would do well in the enemies to lovers category. Just Looker annoyed that she keeps messing with his missions meanwhile he’s messing with hers and she’s trying to keep it secret from him. Just their playful dynamic with each other being mutually impressed by each other’s skills though they don’t want to admit it because if they did they’d have to admit something good about the other after they’ve spent so long in this weird competition they made for each other, and are both like,”.....Shit.”

4. Lance-Her default crush generally for rp purposes, and it fits. I mean Karen looks up to the guy, and has a crazy amount of respect for him considering that he helped her so much when she transitioned into the elite 4 role. He also was one of the few who believed that she was able to grow as a person which she is immensely thankful for. However due to her being such a jerk to him in her early days angry at everything she strongly believes that he would never want anything to do with hr in a romantic sense. Meanwhile he does kind of like her, but is so bad at romance he doesn’t know what to do about it. So they’re just awkwardly here, and it’s painful for everyone to watch. 

5. Shauntal-Yes a gal did make the list! Look I haven’t had Karen interact with any Shauntel so I can’t tell you much on how this would work but I think it’s cute big tough girl gets swept away by shy book nerd, Karen secretly has read every romance novel that Shauntal has ever written because she’s a romance nerd. It’s heckin cute!

[fantasyresident]

My Favorite Characters and Moments In The History Of The Pokemon Games

Throughout all of the Pokemon games that I have had the blessing to play (I finish any ones I get to play), there have been many moments and characters that I have loved experiencing and recalling to this day, and as Pokemon Sword and Shield’s release draws sooner (a game which will surely add more of these to the list), I’d like to go down memory lane and share some of my favorite characters and moments in Pokemon history. (NOTE: I never got to play Black and White or their sequels, so I will unfortunately not be discussing them. I REALLY want to play them but never got around to buying them.)

8. Lance, Pokemon Silver

This guy was a very enjoyable character for me and reflecting on his legacy in the game is beyond nostalgic, it quite frankly warms my heart a bit. He’s the symbol of the kind, symbiotic relationship between Pokemon and people, and he is a legitimately selfless, righteous trainer that is so pure and inspiring. He cares so much for the lives of Pokemon that he felt sorry for having to make the Electrode faint in the Mahogany Town Team Rocket hideout. His Dragonite reflects this personality and that is why I’ve come to love that Pokemon so much. As if I needed another reason to love him, his pure kindness set the game’s rival, Silver, on the path to becoming a better person. 

7. Delta Episode, Zinnia, Aster, and the Draconids (ORAS)

I really enjoyed this extra episode for the ORAS games because it added some pretty great lore to the original game that wasn’t originally eluded to much if at all. Zinnia and Aster are a heartwarming pair that made the episode even more enjoyable with their rich characters. When Aster occasionally cries out to Zinnia as “mum” it just got me every time. Additionally, I thought the story of the Draconids was really cool and enhanced my love for Rayquaza.

6. “Silver” Pokemon Silver/Soul Silver

At first, I really didn’t like this rival. He was cruel, distant, and didn’t care for Pokemon. But when I learned of his backstory involving Giovanni abandoning him because of his defeat by Red, it became clear why he turned out the way he did. He was the son of a criminal and never knew what “love” was, therefore he treated his Pokemon like he was treated. Because Giovanni stressed the importance of winning in Pokemon battles and having strong Pokemon, that’s why Silver desired the same thing. But when he learns from Lance how powerful love is, he finally begins to understand and starts to treat his Pokemon with care. Knowing that he was legitimately happy after Professor Elm allowed him to keep his Pokemon that he stole just unveils how much of a good person Silver was buried underneath his inherited resentment of everyone and everything caused by Giovanni. He’s an example of how we may all go down a dark path in life, but we can always be saved by love.

5. Wally, Pokemon ORAS

Wally was a character who started out with little, but gained so much through his courage. He was a sick child who, despite his circumstances, wanted to become a good trainer. It was inspiring to see his growth throughout the game and to fight him for the last time with a mature group of Pokemon who have grown alongside him is a great feeling to experience for anyone who loved this character.

4. Lysandre and Floette, Pokemon X/Y

Pokemon X and Y were phenomenal with their giant leap in storytelling, and Team Flare was just great. I felt for them so much and Lysandre was no exception. When his story was revealed and he had his emotional moment with Floette, I remember tearing up the entire time because of how beautiful the scene was. Lysandre is this big intimidating guy from a criminal organization like Team Rocket, yet he has this deep love for a Pokemon like Floette. This is a twist in the story that I not only appreciated, but my heart bled for.

3. Lusamine, Pokemon Sun and Moon

Lusamine’s character was so intriguing, so I don’t understand the complaints about her one bit. Sure she had an extremely dark twist to her character development, but does that mean we Pokemon fans are too young to take it? The themes Sun and Moon expressed were so mature and done in an equally mature manner. Her eventual insanity felt so deep and intense, but it also felt real and emotional as well. She will always be a character I look back on as one of the most detailed characters in Pokemon history. Words cannot describe how I feel about this wonderfully written character.

2. Lily, Pokemon Sun and Moon

Yes, another entry for Sun and Moon, and not the last. Lily, much like her mother Lusamine (spoiler alert) is a very deep well-written and well developed character. Seeing her change her perspective and become emotionally stronger, yet still hold on to her values of not fighting with her Pokemon partners is extremely touching and worth all the time. Some people may call her a “Mary Sue” or weak, but the fact that we have a character who refuses to fight with Pokemon because of her deep love and appreciation of them is something incorporated so refreshingly in this game that perfectly eclipses the dark tone of the game. Also, the way she bravely stands up to her mother is so impactful and inspiring that pride just rushes through me when I see that scene, not to mention, it also makes the tears build up due to its emotional intensity. And yeah, her reaction to Lusamine’s near-death experience is crushing.

1. Gladion, Pokemon Sun and Moon

A character who is very underrated in my opinion. Gladion, despite how deep of a character both Lily and Lusamine was, is even deeper. His origins of being a part of Aether Paradise with his mother hellbent on destroying Alola with the Ultra Beasts is beyond interesting, and the fact that he aspired to go against even his own mother to save the world is ambitious to say the very least. He joined Team Skull only to get stronger and release Type:Null from its metal constraint and never cared for their goals, but still acted like he was a hard-to-get rival of the game, hiding his true feelings and personality from the player. Seeing how much Gladion cares for repairing his family and protecting his sister (which the game eludes to there being child abuse between Lusamine and Lily) is always heartwarming and endearing. Gladion is just an amazingly constructed character hands down.

If I didn’t cover any that you liked, feel free to tell me. Remember, I regrettably did not play Pokemon BW or B2W2 so that is the ONLY reason why those games didn’t make it on this list. I’m sure they would have since I hear the themes of those games are also very mature. Maybe sometime I can get around to playing those games. But for now, Peace Love and Pokemon everyone!

[oppressiveliberator]

romance headcanons.

→  repost, do not reblog.

((FOREWARNING I do mention a protag ship as well as an incest ship, but aside one or two other implications it only comes up once I think. Also this is a fucking mess so it’s under a cut. Someday I’ll write concisely but today is not that day!))

name: Ghetsis Harmonia Gropius nickname:  Ghetsis; G-Cis; Lord Ghetsis; [Holy] Father gender: Male romantic orientation: Debateable. Gray-Aromantic? May not experience romantic attraction, but enjoys or will get into relationships to some degree. Will definitely indulge someone’s feelings for fun. preferred pet names: Lord. Master. Sir. Father. Basically, if it’s a dominance-expressing petname, he’s good with it. Depending on who it’s from something like ‘dear’ could also be acceptable.

relationship status: Single, but has or has had repeated partners and hookups. May be or have had been married in some verses? favorite canon ship(s): Canon as in officially shown or implied?  The closest we’d have is probably Ghetsis/Zinzolin lmao. . . . favorite non-canon ship(s) so far:  I mean I ship more or less anything as long as it’s interesting/has potential and my muse wants to roll with it but.  I fuckin love me some Ghetsis/Hilda. Ghetsis/Zinzolin, Giovanni/Ghetsis, Lysandre/Ghetsis, a hard to explain one but I like the concept of like Ghetsis/Reader, not in that I’m the ‘reader’ but that the reader is a ‘fan’, grunt, etc, so I guess Ghetsis/ghetsis fandom, and I have a real big ‘guilty’(read: i enjoy it and it’s harmless fiction so i don’t really feel that guilty, but people will definitely be real unhappy to hear it but fuck it it’s not like I’m forcing it on anybody) love for Ghetsis/N or other members of his family.  But Ghetsis goes well with like everybody tbh depending on what you’re after.  opinion on true love: Ghetsis finds that romantic feelings are, in general, for weaker persons.  True love is self-love, and letting yourself love or enjoy as many others as you’d like.  Of course, true love directed at him isn’t shameful or pathetic at all, and if he finds himself attached to somebody. . .well, he’ll admit to feeling weak for them, but it’s not something that makes him in any way less perfect.

opinion on love at first sight: You’ll love him at first sight. How weak do you have to be to just see somebody and be romantically infatuated with them?  You don’t even know anything about them.  Pathetic.  You’re going to get yourself into trouble, silly pet! 

how ‘romantic’ are they?: MMMMMMM Ghetsis is. . .willing to be romantic and would probably enjoy doing so because it makes him feel impressive.  Plus, pleasing a partner or object of affection increases the likelihood they’ll be attached to him, and thus he can benefit off of or use them for longer. . . .  So if you mean like in terms of reasoning, uh, he’s not super prone to thinking about other people more than himself at all. .. but in terms of actions and what he’ll be willing to do, he’s gonna be a big show-off and treat you real nice and spoil you.

ideal physical traits: Smaller and/or physically weaker than him. Feminine, especially with long hair, especially girls with long hair.  Shapely/curvy girls are good.  Healthy, strong, but weaker than him--strong enough to put up a fight, maybe. Expressive--shows a lot of emotion and reacts openly. Traditionally attractive, especially in a feminine way? I imagine he’s oddly attracted to people he can identify as having similar features to himself. . .not sure if that’s narcissism or something else entirely.   But, to be honest, he’s not too picky--he’ll act like he is, and he’ll certainly talk like he is, but. . .so far he isn’t. female: No specifics

male: No specifics ideal personality traits: Intelligent. Submissive.  Expressive.  Eager to please. Interesting. Fighty. Honestly, he’s attracted to people who’re either easy to use or hard to get.  Depends on how hard he wants to work for it.  To an extent, materialistic--being easily won over with expensive things and fancy dates.  Clingy. Loyal. Faithful. Lost. Exploitable.

unattractive physical traits: In general he’s more attracted to traditionally attractive people, so if you’re traditionally unattractive, he’s fairly likely to be offput by it? Unhealthy, unclean, generally not caring about your appearance at all? But he remains not too picky.  If you’re unattractive in some way, it just makes him look better--and gives him something to hold over you.  So he won’t be too bothered by it unless you’re, like, disgusting in some way he doesn’t want to put up with.

unattractive personality traits:  If you aren’t obedient, subservient, willing and/or wanting to see him as your superior, try and dominate him (and not have anything worth him letting you do so for,) etc. . .well, you’ll have lower chances.  Unintelligent(and yet, you’d be so much easier to mess with if you were. . .)  Gossipy, bad at keeping secrets(bragging is okay, telling the world his plans is not--it’s okay if you tell him about what other people do, though, that’s fine.)  Bossy, although he’s willing to put up with some of this. . .it’s hard to say, because he’s interested in people who’re subservient to him or express a lot of interest in him, but also in people he’d have to chase/who he’d have to struggle to have. . .but if you intend to get in the way of his plans or you’re uninteresting(and not physically appealing or you don’t have anything to offer/for him to gain, if you try and, like, overthrow him or take command of him without him seeing benefit to it(for example, RR!Giovanni is allowed to dominate and order him around because Ghetsis wants him to feel in charge to better take advantage of him) then you’re gonna have a harder time getting his interest.

ideal date: He loves to spoil a motherfucker.  Fancy restaurants, shows, trips, whatever you’d like as long as he won’t hate it himself.  Also, spending time at his castle, lavishing him--uh, you in attention and affection, parading you around, evangelizing and liberating Pokémon together, things that mean he gets to show off. . .he’d probably like an escape room if you were competent enough not to infuriate him through the whole process. Although, in his current, fragile, sickly, weakened state. . .the idea of something simple like a walk outside, going to a park, something lowkey seems especially nice. . .but also if you just stay in and hang out, that’s good too.  He’s not so open with it, but since he’s not in his usual position of power, he’s a lot happier than he lets on if you’re just. . .with him.

do they have a type?: Weak-willed men and spunky women.  Or something like that lol.  People he can gain something from. People he can’t have?  He may have incestuous personality disorder????  i have it in my head that he’s somewhat attracted to his own family due to having this understanding of historical royal families intermingling to keep their bloodlines ‘pure’.  But it’s not an active part of the blog character, like you’d probably never find out if I hadn’t said it just now, yeah?  

average relationship length: Until he gets bored or you outlive your usefulness or you break up with him when you realize he’s abusing you.  So, like, hookups are regular, but if they don’t count. . .a few months to a year.  But it’s probably not exclusive.  On his end.  If you’re fucking somebody else and finds out rather than you just telling him. . .he probably won’t be too pleased about it.

preferred non-sexual intimacy:  Worship him. Obey him. Being leaned against. Being held onto. Putting an arm around you or on your lower back or near your neck as if leading you or showing possessiveness of you. Being kissed.  Petting on the hair and back and so on.  Whispering. Leaving marks.  Things that make you respond, especially if they fluster you.

commitment level: You belong to him now. You are his until he's no longer interested.  It likely won’t be an exclusive ordeal, but you’re stuck with him until he decides otherwise.  Even if you leave him, expect him to pursue unless you have reason to believe he’s lost interest.  Then again, choosing to leave may spark his interest in chasing you. . . .

opinion of public affection: Public affection is an expression of his ownership of you and of your affection towards and desire of him.  It’s good shit.  He’s into it.  Expect surprise kisses, his arm around you, holding your hand if he’s able, close proximity and disregard of your personal space, pulling you into his lap, him openly referring to you as being his or with him. . . .

past relationships?: He’s definitely had plenty.  I say he and Zinzolin definitely had some kind of D/s shit going on.  I’m open to other preestablishments too, if they can be explained in some way.

tagged by: everybody’s doing it, so I stole it from everyone tagging: Do things I would do, like steal memes.  But not things that I would do like accidentally use the ‘post’ keyboard shortcut before you even finished clearing the formatting of the post.  Don’t do that.

[sydchan]

Evil team leaders for the ship meme?

What stands out from this is I like villian/protag ships too much and also that I like subordinates pining for their bosses.

Giovanni- My NOTP for themNot a NoTP, but I’ve never understood the appeal of Cyrus/Giovanni.  I honestly can’t even see them getting along as acquaintances. - My BROTP for themI don’t see him as particularly close enough with anyone to consider him having a bro.  Giovanni/Archer years down the line could be interesting if Giovanni came to view him as an equal.  I can at least see them as drinking buddies who commonly meet to exchange information.  - My OTP for them I don’t ship him strongly enough with anyone to consider this an OTP, and it’s certainly not my OTP for Red, but Red/Giovanni is the ship involving Giovanni I’d be most interested in seeing content for (and actually considered for a bad end alternative ship in the omegaverse AU). - My second choice pairing for themDelia/Giovanni is interesting as well, since I like the theory of Giovanni as Ash’s father. - My fluffy pairing for themGiovanni and fluff?  Unlikely.  Maybe Ariana/Giovanni since at least they’re mutually on board with the criminal lifestyle. - My angsty pairing for themAll the ships I like with Giovanni are angsty, but I also dig Archer/Giovanni as Archer forever pining for his boss. - My favorite poly ship for themBad end AU of Lance/Ethan/Giovanni I brought up in a post once.- My weirdest pairing for themHonestly the above is pretty weird, but I’m gonna say Ethan/Giovanni for how Silver would factor in to that.  Not that this one is a serious ship.

Maxie- My NOTP for themNone that come to mind - My BROTP for themI like the idea of Maxie/Tabitha becoming good friends after the events of ORAS.- My OTP for themMaxie/Archie all the way. - My second choice pairing for themI use to kinda like May/Maxie, but only pre-remake Maxie. Maxie is a character where it’s kinda Archie or bust. - My fluffy pairing for themORAS Maxie/Archie.- My angsty pairing for themPre-remake RS Archie/Maxie. Also Maxie/Courtney as one-sided on Courtney’s part, but it’s less angsty than other boss/subordinate ships since she gets over it easily. - My favorite poly ship for themNone?  Unless you count alternant dimension shenanigans with their RS and ORAS versions. - My weirdest pairing for themMay/Maxie by default, since Archie/Maxie is mainstream.

Archie- My NOTP for themNone that come to mind.  - My BROTP for themArchie and both of his admins, but I have a slight preference for Shelly/Archie as true bros over Matt/Archie due to the childhood best friends thing (but really they’re the BroT3).- My OTP for themArchie/Maxie.  - My second choice pairing for themMaybe pre-remake Shelly/Archie?  I’ve seen some cute art for it anyway.  It’s really Maxie or bust though. - My fluffy pairing for themSame as above, ORAS Maxie/Archie- My angsty pairing for themPre-remake RS Archie/Maxie.  I tend to view Archie as having it worse than Maxie in this version of things, since I headcanon RS Maxie as a lot crueler than ORAS Maxie. - My favorite poly ship for themEither version of Archie with both RS Maxie and ORAS Maxie. I’d say living the dream, but it could possibly a nightmare scenario depending. - My weirdest pairing for themNone, I’m very ride or die for Hardenshipping

Cyrus - My NOTP for them Like I mentioned above, I’ve never understood the appeal of Giovanni/Cyrus (and it seems to be the most prominent ship for Cyrus for whatever reason)- My BROTP for themI can’t picture him having a true bro, but post-game in a redemption scenario where he’s managing to recover, I do like the idea of him becoming somewhat friends with both Cynthia and Lucas (more Cynthia)- My OTP for them I’m way too fond of Cyrus/Saturn for the angst- My second choice pairing for themMaybe Cyrus/Dawn with Dawn as the protag?  This pairing is less serious.    - My fluffy pairing for themCyrus and fluff?  Are there any fluffy ships with Cyrus? I was kind of able to make Cyrus/Saturn fluffy in my next gen AU, but only after years of angst. - My angsty pairing for themAs I’ve mentioned, Cyrus/Saturn, but any ship with Cyrus is angst. - My favorite poly ship for themMaybe Cyrus/Saturn/Archer in an AU where I ran with the idea of Cyrus as asexual and borderline aromantic, so Archer is there to fulfill Saturn’s other needs (not that I can see this working long-term, or Archer and Cyrus getting along at all).- My weirdest pairing for themCyrus/anyone, since as much as a part of me feels any ship involving him is doomed to fail, I ignore this and try anyway.

Ghetsis- My NOTP for them  None because I like all the terrible ships involving Ghetsis- My BROTP for themI honestly can’t see him with any friends?  Pre-SuMo, I found him and Colress as an evil duo sort of amusing. SuMo changed my perception of Colress enough that I wonder what that guy was doing teaming up with Ghetsis. - My OTP for them Any awful one-sided angst ship with him. Honorable mention goes to Ghetsis/Cress since it was the one I made canon in my next gen au - My second choice pairing for themI don’t think I’ve ever seen content of it, but Hilbert/Ghetsis is another angst ship I want to see more of, particularly in how N would react to the whole thing. - My fluffy pairing for themMaybe Colress/Ghetsis? If only because it’s the only ship that’s not overwhelmingly awful for the other half.- My angsty pairing for themN/Ghetsis because of all the horrible potential around it- My favorite poly ship for themMaybe Ghetsis with Cress, Chili, and Cilan?  They’re the Shadow Triad in my headcanon, so why not take advantage of all of three at once.  Or Ghetsis/N/Hilbert for maximum angst points in some kind of Team Plasma wins AU. - My weirdest pairing for themGhetsis/Cress since even going with the idea of him as a member of the Shadow Triad, it’s still pretty out there.

Lysandre- My NOTP for themNone.  - My BROTP for themLysandre/Sycamore.  Since in my own hearcanons, Lysandre really did view him as his dear, closest friend. - My OTP for them I’m a weak fool who gets caught up in my own AUs, so Calem/Lysandre. It’s telling that whenever I think of alternative storylines, I pair Calem with Lysandre and not Tierno, despite that being the endgame ship I went with. - My second choice pairing for themLysandre/Sycamore since I do really like this ship as well - My fluffy pairing for themLysandre/Sycamore has the easiest time ending up fluffy. But in general, Lysandre doesn’t go well with fluff. - My angsty pairing for themLysandre/Alain. Alain was a little too eager to please in those anime episodes and it gave me ideas. - My favorite poly ship for themLysandre/Calem/Sycamore.  I’ve actually thought about this one extensively as the route things could have gone had Lysandre lived. - My weirdest pairing for themCalem/Lysandre since I’ve seen a very minimal amount of content for them (and believe me, I’ve searched for it)

Guzma- My NOTP for themNone.  - My BROTP for themGuzma/Plumeria.- My OTP for themDue to pixiv giving me the idea, Elio/Guzma (or Sun/Guzma depending on what you want to call the male protag)- My second choice pairing for themGuzma/Lusamine was my preferred ship when I first played the game due to that angst potential. - My fluffy pairing for themGuzma/Elio actually ends up being pretty fluffy overall, due to the SuMo protags being good at warding off angst- My angsty pairing for themGuzma/Lusamine.  I have a really hard time seeing it ever working out long term (plus I feel it’s very one-sided on Guzma’s part), but the idea of Lusamine reciprocating to play with him is good angst potential. - My favorite poly ship for themThis isn’t a serious ship, but since Sun and Elio end up being two characters in my AU (since one is a Faller from the USUM timeline), Sun/Guzma/Elio as the ultimate hot twin fantasy would be amusing. - My weirdest pairing for themGuzma/Elio because talk about out of nowhere.

Lusamine- My NOTP for themWhile it probably makes me seem like a hypocrite since I was all for it with Ghetsis, I don’t care for her with either of her kids.  - My BROTP for themLusamine/Wicke.  There’s a reason I hearcanon Wicke being the main one to take care of Lillie and Gladion once Lusamine started to deteriorate - My OTP for them Lusamine/Guzma is the ship I like the best involving Lusamine. - My second choice pairing for themLusamine/Mohn is good too and it’s sort of sweet how her going down the wrong path started from her trying to save him. - My fluffy pairing for themLusamine/Mohn (not that they don’t have their share of angst).- My angsty pairing for themLusamine/Guzma (since this pair is nothing but angst).- My favorite poly ship for themMaybe Lusamine/Wicke/Mohn?  None is the real answer.- My weirdest pairing for themNone, mainly since I don’t have many ships for her.

[jolteonjordansh]

Thoughts on “The Redemption”

Let’s get this over with.

Remember how I wasn’t very interested in the first episode “The Adventure” and how I felt it didn’t really do anything? Remember how I said “The Old Chateau” was a waste of space and that it was my least favorite episode?

Chuck that all out the window. Because this episode managed to outdo both of those in terms of purpose and entertainment.

I’ll be upfront now: If you don’t know already, I hold a lot against XY’s story, so I am honestly biased here and have been pretty biased when talking about the XY episodes of Generations. To give myself credit, I applauded what “The Beauty Eternal” did right. Additionally, despite some of its flaws, I still really liked “The Investigation” as I really liked XY’s postgame. “The Redemption” unfortunately pretty much takes the elements of XY’s story that upset me the most for an episode.

And I say “takes” in a very literal sense. This episode does nothing to differentiate itself from the original source material other than moving AZ’s plot dump from one point of the story to another. And even this is done even worse than in the games. As much as the exposition dump of AZ’s past bothers me, it makes sense that AZ is retelling it because it’s his story (insert “This is my story” joke here) and it’s from 3,000 years ago. No one else is going to know of it or remember it in such detail. Here, it’s just some standard mother telling this tale to her daughter--or rather, the daughter recollecting her mother telling her said tale--as if it’s an everyday bedtime story. Also, the daughter looks eerily like Serena, as if this episode needed to remind me of other awful elements that XY provided.

The fact that this episode does nothing new is probably the worst thing about it. You are not missing out on anything by skipping this episode, and you gain nothing from watching it. They do nothing new with AZ and his story when there is so much more that could be done with it. It is literally taken straight from the game, down to the style of the flashback. And considering this miniseries is advertised to be about “discovering the untold stories” of Pokémon, I expected something original out of this.

Unless I missed something, each episode did something to try to differentiate itself from the original source material. Team Rocket was actually investigated by Looker. We got different perspectives of Team Magma’s pursuit for Groudon and the awakening of Primal Kyogre. There was closure given on Cyrus’ fate of staying in the Distortion World forever (even if I felt the way it was handled was out of character, it at least did something different). The N and Ghetsis confrontation from B2W2 actually had Hilbert return to the fight with Zekrom. All of these climactic events did something new or had a different take of how these stories happened. None of that happens in “The Redemption”. This is no different from either playing the game yourself or hell, watching a Let’s Play. Ooh wait, the animation is a little better and there’s voice acting! Wowee!

Before I continue down ramble road, let me honestly critique the other elements of this episode. The animation is alright, and it does mimic the style of AZ’s exposition in the game pretty well. But... this is kind of a problem in and of itself. While I get it’s a stylistic choice and respect how closely they follow it, it’s because of this that a lot of the animation ends up looking really choppy. Again, I understand it’s a stylistic choice, but after seeing seventeen other episodes of this series with overall really good animation, it’s... kind of disappointing to have the last episode amount to this for about 2/3rds of its duration.

The voice acting is fine and standard. The mother and daughter barely say anything (except for the mother being the storyteller here) so there’s not a lot for me to critique on. Laura Post sounds like a mom. The voice actor of the daughter sounds like a little girl. For Keith Silverstein... I really don’t know whether to say he’s wasted on AZ or not. He voice acts fine as usual. His voice works. But Keith Silverstein is such a good actor and AZ is such a... boring and unfulfilling character. I mean, I’m glad AZ has a good actor rather than a really terrible one, but I just feel so mixed on the whole thing. I think literally the only highlight of this short is getting to hear “It’s been 3,000 years” voiced. But honestly? It’s not because the line has emotional impact like it’s supposed to. It’s because it became borderline meme-status so it’s hilarious to hear it spoken outloud so professionally.

The music is fine; again, nothing is really wrong with it. But it honestly doesn’t sound much different from the compositions in the games. Maybe it’s just because I really haven’t played XY enough or listened to its soundtrack a lot, but I just kind of know songs as “Oh, this is the flashback song” and “Oh, this is that song that plays when Floette comes back”. You know, this could have easily called for an actual officially voiced version of Kiseki, but I guess the episode still couldn’t be bothered to do anything original like that.

I really can’t comment on the story much at all other than saying it’s exactly like it is in the games. Nothing is different and nothing new is done when Generations has mostly done a good job with that in other episodes. I’m not sure if executive meddling was done and the production team were told to change nothing about AZ’s backstory or take any liberties with it, but it’s such a shame that it’s left that way. You know how they could have made this interesting? If this whole backstory AZ was actually shown from his perspective, not by yet another storytime session. It would have not only made the episode a lot more personal, but could have actually made AZ easier to empathize with. I can’t say I would have actually done so, but I would have appreciated the effort in them trying. You know the saying “Show, don’t tell”? That’s extremely applicable here.

But honestly, there’s something else that bothers me about this episode too. And it’s not even just this episode, but about XY as a whole and AZ as a character. This episode is titled “The Redemption”, and AZ has always been presented as a character I should feel sorry for. Can someone answer me, honestly, why I should feel sorry for him? And in all seriousness, what has he really done to redeem himself? He didn’t do anything to stop Lysandre from using the Ultimate Weapon that he created. If anything, he helped him get away with it. He hasn’t done anything in his 3,000 years of wandering around to try to make up for the thousands of lives he took away and all of the misery he caused. I guess we could argue he’s dealt with the burden of having eternal life for actual centuries, but he doesn’t even do anything with all of that time and we don’t get to see how he suffers in that time to really sympathize for him either. He has. Just. Been. Moping around. For 3,000 years. And he didn’t do anything in-game or in this episode to redeem himself. All he has done is feel sorry for himself in those 3,000 years. He has a single battle with Calem, continues feeling sorry for himself even afterwards, and then Floette just comes back. There’s no redemption going on here, and yet he still gets exactly what he wanted. I know I poked fun at “The Beauty Eternal”’s title, but this one is practically a flat-out lie.

I’ve had a discussion with friends before, and you know what? As terrible as Lysandre is, AZ has a vibe of a villain himself. He killed thousands for one Pokémon he cared about, not thinking of how it would make others or even Floette feel. And then when someone else arrives to basically do the same thing he did (and it’s supposedly one of his blood relatives, no less), he lets them get away with it. He does nothing to prevent it from happening. It’s clearly unintentional, but it still makes him out to be a really terrible person, and not in the “a terrible person makes a good character” way.

I know a lot of these thoughts lies in with my thoughts about XY as a whole, but part of that problem lies in with the episode carrying over a lot of XY’s flaws and doing nothing new with them. I know I sound like a broken record by now, but my opinion of the original material isn’t going to change just by putting it in the form of animation, and animation that does little to do something interesting no less. So naturally, my opinion of what was in the game is going to transfer here since that’s all that was brought in.

Whereas my complaint with “The Investigation” is that it doesn’t inform the audience enough, the problem with “The Redemption” is that it ironically informs too much. It spends all of its time recapping on what happened in the games and not enough doing its own thing. And that’s a pretty bizarre mistake to make.

That’s about as much as I have to say about “The Redemption”, but how do I feel about Pokémon Generations as a whole? It unfortunately suffers drawbacks in what it is: a miniseries consisting of episodes that are five minutes in length at most. Because of that, it doesn’t get to focus on things that Pokémon is known for, like Pokémon battles, raising and some of the Pokémon themselves. But at the same time I get that it’s meant to be story-focused. For what it is, I honestly think it’s good. Maybe not great, but good. If TPCi could actually invest in a full-blown series in this style with more screentime, a continuous, focused story and have more action, I think tons of people would eat it up and love it. But unfortunately, I think little things like Pokémon Generations and Pokémon Origins are as much as we’ll ever get of that kind of material.

It honestly feels like Pokémon Generations is a response to people’s reactions to Pokémon Origins. A lot of people liked it, but wanted more and for it to cover more generations. TPCi basically said “Okay, have more... in the span of five minute episodes.” It kinda sucks, but I’ll take Pokémon Generations for what it is: It’s pure fanservice. It’s not really anything of a lot of substance. But you know what? I enjoyed it for that. I came in watching knowing it would basically be that. I just really, really wish we could get this kind of thing on a bigger scope and with even greater care put into it. Well, we can all dream a little, can’t we?

It was hard to finish this off, especially towards the end, but I’m glad I’m done talking about this for now. If such a thing like Generations ever happens again, I’d love to cover it like this once more. But that seems like a pretty big if for now. I only wish Generations could have ended on a way more positive note for me, but... That’s just how it is. We all have opinions and this is just mine. And if you made it this far, I hope you got some enjoyment out of reading mine.

[sage-nebula]

em-exceeds-change-zearu replied to your post:

same mood. I want to see Alan in squishy pokeani 2020 style but after they handled korrina episode...it wasnt bad but it wasn't super impressive either so im just kinda...waves hands

I haven’t seen the Korrina episode yet, so I don’t have any opinions on that specifically. My main feelings have to do with how they ended Alan’s story (and by extension Manon’s), and to a lesser extent how they’re handling Ash now and what I think that could mean for Alan’s return.

I’m sure you’re familiar with my gripes re: Alan’s ending, but to summarize them again here: XYZ044 showed us that Alan was traumatized and depressed to the point of dissociating even when at a table filled with friends and family and having thoughts that sounded a whole lot (to older / experienced viewers) like suicidal ideation as a result of Lysandre’s abuse and manipulation. Ash makes Alan promise to battle him again someday, and while Ash makes that promise with a lot of people, in this particular case the way Ash phrased it and the general anxiety and fear he showed as he phrased it (as well as Alan’s reaction to it) made it sound like he was giving Alan a reason to keep living, something to look forward to. It was really beautiful, and I felt a big, needed step toward the healing and recuperation he was bound to receive at the lab since Sycamore had told him that he was needed there . . .

. . . only for him to take the “start from zero” approach like Ash’s other companions and immediately fuck off into the wilderness in search of Mega Stones again, Manon at his side. This was phrased as him picking up the work he was doing before Lysandre picked him up, but it’s also continuing the work he was doing for Lysandre, in a way, since Lysandre had him going after Mega Stones in addition to collecting Mega Evolution energy. (Notably, the Mega Stone he finds in TSME 1 is Gyaradosite, and we all know who ended up using that.) More importantly than that, though, is that Alan’s trauma seems to be magically gone. He’s magically all better. He’s “starting from zero” (whatever that means) and so he’s all better. He’s not needed at the lab anymore, apparently, nor in Lumiose, despite everything that happened. Nope, it’s fine to have him just fuck off into a cave somewhere. That’s cool.

As you can tell with my tone, that’s not cool for me. XYZ044 set up a beautiful ending for him, but the actual last episode he appears in (I think it’s XYZ046? I can’t remember) throws that out the window. It’s obvious that the writers wanted to wrap up his story in a neat bow while showing Just How Influential Ash is by having Alan copy his words (even though Ash already had a positive influence by giving Alan a reason to look forward to the future ffs), but in doing so they completely disrespected Alan’s character and his story, and to this day I remain salty about it. Given that, I really don’t trust how they’d depict him if he showed up again, particularly considering that I’m absolutely positive they wouldn’t give his battle with Ash the emotional weight it deserves given that they tried to throw that weight out the window immediately after introducing it.

(As a side note, I also remain upset at how he’s traveling with Manon again specifically, and not just because her stans / the shippers were particularly obnoxious back in 2016. I’m upset by it because it’s not good for Manon, either, with regards to her independence as a trainer. Manon became wholly reliant on Alan protecting her, never once attempting to battle herself outside of the time she captured Flabébé (RIP) in TSME 1, and while she did have that heroic moment in TSME 3 where she dragged Alan’s unconscious body off the ice, that still wasn’t an attempt on her part to battle. In fact, while Hari-san did assist Mega Metagross in fending off attacks that were headed toward Manon and Alan, that wasn’t on Manon’s orders. She never told Hari-san to protect her. In TSME 4, when Alan brings up the very real danger he finds himself in as a result of his work, Manon dismisses it and says that it’s fine because he’ll protect her. He tries to argue back by saying that she’s depending on him too much, and she again talks over him and ignores it. The thing is, she does depend on him too much. For someone who claims to want to be a strong trainer, she never trains nor battles and instead just takes cover whenever Alan himself does. Setting aside the very real issues with how Manon consistently overrides Alan’s consent and how that itself is an issue with them traveling together considering that she never apologized for that (because it takes two to fight and Manon crying in TSME 4 doesn’t change the fact that the fight that led to her crying was due to her pushing and pushing and pushing and not taking no for an answer until he snapped), Manon doesn’t ever take responsibilities for herself as a trainer. She depends on Alan to do the battling for her, tells Hari-san to “leave her alone” in a strange place instead of putting him in his pokéball (which leads to him helping Squishy escape / becoming comatose), et cetera. And while it’s not wrong for Alan to protect her given how inexperienced she is (though it is wrong to deny him a choice in whether he will or not by tagging along without his consent), it’s not doing her any favors to continue the habit of depending on him if she truly wants to be a trainer. She needs to learn and grow on her own, and so having her travel with Alan again not only rewards her for overriding his boundaries and consent so many times (see, just keep pushing and cry some and you’ll get what you want in the end!), but it also doesn’t give her the opportunity she needs to stand on her own two feet to grow as a trainer, like she’d have if she resumed her original journey on her own, rather than tagging along on Alan’s. This was a much longer side note than I wanted it to be originally, but I feel it’s all worth saying so I’m saying it anyway.)

All of that aside, though, the way Ash is being handled in the new series gives me another layer of concern, in that I feel like he’s being handled super powerful pokémon with the express purpose of being able to steamroller anything in his path. With the exception of Riolu (who is a literal baby) and arguably Galar Farfetch’d (who is still Stage 1), the new pokémon that Ash has acquired in this series are super powerful from the outset, either because their species as a whole is powerful and they’re in the final form of it (Dragonite) or because they were previously trained up to the final form and he just got to inherit them (Gengar). People are upset that Ash didn’t capture Sobble, but they’re missing the fact that Ash is acquiring pokémon that are going to give him an edge in every battle, presumably to satisfy those in the audience who care about nothing other than to see Ash win. Farfetch’d will undoubtedly become Sirfetch’d (something that gives it a battle edge over Gou’s Kanto Farfetch’d, and you don’t see any Gou fans upset that he got the competitively useless one), and Riolu is bound to become Lucario. Ash is being handed a team that will make it “understandable” when he defeats Leon at the end of the series, in a way that makes it honestly seem that the only reason he is here at all is to placate those who are only interested in the anime to see him win and to help Gou grow as a trainer (since he does have moments of mentoring Gou). 

And if you’re wondering how this relates to Alan . . . I feel like, if Alan comes back, he’ll come back solely to battle and lose to Ash. And while I’m not one of those people that feels that MY FAVE MUST ALWAYS WIN EVER (TSME 3 is my favorite of the TSME episodes and Alan nearly dies in that one), not only do I feel that their promise to battle again won’t be treated as the lifeline it was in XYZ044, but I also feel that Ash would only win in order to make him seem like The Most Powerful Trainer Ever to placate his stans, particularly those that to this day remain bitter about the Kalos League. (Yes, there are still people bitching about it four years later. Unsurprisingly these are usually people who don’t understand basically anything about battling, but I digress.) And considering how much emotional weight was given to their future battle in XYZ044—that it was about giving Alan something to look forward to in the future, a reason to feel like living to that future was worth it—having it reduced down to something to Make Ash Look Cool and Apologize For The Kalos League (which doesn’t need an apology) would be really upsetting to me. It’s not about who wins or loses, but about why the battle is taking place and the emotional significance of it. And I really don’t trust the PokéAni to pull that off.

So with all that said, should Alan come back, I actually don’t want him and Ash to battle yet, and I’d rather Manon be on her own journey elsewhere so that she can gain that much needed independence. But I can’t see them bringing Alan back and not having him and Ash battle, so at the end of it I’m just kind of left like

[sage-nebula]

I choose Alan!

First impression:

I first became aware of Alan because someone posted a screencap of the end of one of the Ash and Alan episodes where the narrator was like, “but little did they know that the world is slowly sliding toward destruction” and the person captioned it with, “Not again, Alan” and I was like, “what do you mean ‘again’?!” So my first impression of him was that he had somehow ended the world at some previous point, and that made me go watch all the TSME episodes. (Of course, he didn’t, but this wouldn’t be the PokéAni fandom if it didn’t unjustly blame him for everything.)

Impression now:

HE’S MY VALIANT DRAGON SON AND I’LL DEFEND HIM ‘TIL MY DYING DAY.

Favorite moment:

Part of me wants to say the moment where he finally finds his voice and is able to stand up to Lysandre, given that Lysandre was his abuser and that was such a powerful moment for him.

But the more indulgent side of me says that it was the moment where he spent all of .01 seconds before he threw himself out of an aircraft, swinging down by rope in a piece of stunning animation, to go out on the ice and save Lizardon in TSME 3. Good god that was incredible.

Idea for a story:

Let’s see … in my Works in Progress folder I currently have:

- The sixth chapter of To Devour the Sun (he’s not actually in that chapter, but the story focuses on him primarily, and he’s mentioned a lot).

- Lizardon’s origin story, which is from Alan’s point-of-view and details how he found and hatched Lizardon’s egg.

- A fic where Alan, age eleven, gives a presentation at the annual League funding science conference (it has a more official name than that, I don’t remember) because Sycamore is too sick to do so, and if they don’t attend and do a good job at the conference, the lab will lose its funding. Note that Sycamore does not send Alan; Alan sends himself by enlisting Gabrielle (Sycamore’s garchomp) to cut the cord to Sycamore’s alarm clock.

- A fic where Alan, having newly become Champion, gives a speech / answers questions at his induction ceremony pertaining to what happened in the Flare arc and what his plans are for the future, showing how far he’s come in his recovery.

- A fic in my Immortality AU where Alan and Ash time travel thanks to Celebi shenanigans and interact with Sycamore during XY(&Z). Or at least, this used to be in my WIPs folder, but it was lost when my folder was mysteriously deleted a while ago, RIP. Anyway, I still have a bit of it saved in a draft, so you can have a snippet of it since all the rest was deleted:

“Alan, you can have Lizardon fly you down, can’t you?” Augustine asked, and he smiled as Alan looked over at him, eyes wide. “I saw on television that he had evolved. He should be able to carry you—maybe both of you, depending?”

Alan bit his lip, holding Augustine’s gaze for just a moment before he shook his head and turned away, facing the waterfall’s edge again. “No. I can’t call on Lizardon right now.”

Augustine frowned, his heart skipping an unpleasant beat in his chest. “Why not? Steven said he had healed after the incident in Hoenn. Was he wrong?”

“Steven?” Alan looked back, his brow scrunched in confusion, but before Augustine could answer the confusion cleared and he shook his head. “Oh, yeah—no, he was right. Lizardon recovered from that just fine.”

“Then why can’t he carry you?” Augustine asked. Alan didn’t answer, and instead shoved his hands into his coat pockets and started walking along the edge of the waterfall, down the slope that led along the bank. Ash cast a frown Augustine’s way before he turned and started to follow Alan. Augustine stared after the pair of them for a second—since when had Alan ever just walked away in the middle of a conversation like that?—before he started after himself, a knot of stress building in his chest. “Alan, what’s wrong with Lizardon?”

“Nothing’s wrong with Lizardon,” Alan said, and though he raised his voice to be heard, he didn’t look back. “Come on, there should be another path down over here.”

- A much longer fic involving an organization named Panacea that wants to take over the world, and is doing so by challenging each region’s Champion—and, further, is doing so by challenging them with people who have specifically trained to challenge them. In particular the starting fic had Alan’s antagonist, a woman named Florence, showing up in Isolé Village (where he lived the first five miserable years of his life), and Alan has to go there to chase her out. He encounters the villagers who “raised” him for the first time in seventeen years, and it goes … mmh. It goes.

And probably others, but I can’t remember them right now.

Unpopular opinion:

Oh boy, where do I begin.

- Alan deserved to win the League, full stop. I love Ash, but had Greninja beaten Lizardon it would have been the strongest show of plot armor imaginable. Mega Charizard X outclasses Battle Bond Greninja in every way, especially when ‘Zard X has Thunder Punch which, no, cannot be blocked by Water Shuriken, that is nonsense.

- Alan was not remotely responsible for what happened to Hari-san. Hari-san was able to wander off and become comatose due to Manon’s negligence as a trainer. That was in no way his fault and the fact that no one took the time to tell him that he doesn’t have to blame himself for everything is a crime.

- For that matter, Alan had every single right in the world to decide not to travel with Manon anymore, especially since she never asked to come with him in the first place, and instead just kept stalking him and ignoring his “no” until he gave in. Manon continuously ran roughshod over Alan’s boundaries, ignored his consent, argued with him when he explained his feelings in a way that completely ignored those feelings, and ultimately just had no respect for him as a person, instead only thinking about herself and what she got from their partnership (i.e. talking about how much she can learn and grow, saying she’ll get through danger as long as he protects her, et cetera). Frankly, the fact that it took so long for Alan to actually yell at her just goes to show how nice of a person he is. If it were me, I would have yelled like that back in TSME 1 (instead of just calling her annoying and continuously ditching her like he did).

- To that end, I think that Alan and Manon’s relationship as it is at the end of the series is pretty unhealthy, since Manon never once apologized or learned from any of her behavior (thus she stayed pretty static / will no doubt keep making the same mistakes again and again), and Alan now feels as if he can’t do anything that will upset her because that will make him a Horrible Awful Person Who’s Ruining Her Life. And I mean, we kind of already see this happen; in XYZ045, Alan does try to tell her that he doesn’t want to dance (and he looks seriously panicked and uncomfortable about it), but everyone, including Sycamore in a move that really disappointed me, pressures him to do it anyway. And what ends up happening? He gives in, and he’s not smiling during the dance scene, either. Honestly, that scene triggered me really badly because it brought up memories of times when my own boundaries and consent were completely railroaded—where I was explicitly told that what I wanted didn’t matter—and the resulting panic attack was so bad I got sick and had to bring it up with my therapist. Anyway, while I prefer to write their relationship post-canon as being healthy (at least with regards to Alan not giving into all of Manon’s whims), as it is in canon it has the potential to be so bad, and we’ve already seen that. It’s gross.

- To that end, imagining them romantically is also gross. I think it speaks to the heteronormativity of this fandom that they look at a fifteen-year-old boy and a ten-year-old girl (particularly one who acts like she’s eight) and think, “Hm, yes, this is true romantic love.” The maturity gap between them is palpable. Manon huffs and throws tantrums like a little kid. Alan has to watch over and take care of and protect her. Setting aside that their behavior is much more similar to that of siblings, the fact remains that they met at a stage in their lives where Manon looks to Alan for guidance and protection and Alan, however reluctantly, offers that. This sets the stage for how their relationship will continue to grow and develop. Speaking from experience, Alan’s not going to look at her one day and see a romantic interest. He’s going to still think of her as a kid. And again, I’m speaking from experience here; I know that my nephew is now almost eighteen years old, but when I think of him, I still imagine him as he was when he was a small child. I have step-cousins who are not blood related to me at all that I’ve known since they were small children, and it always blows my mind when I’m reminded that they’re now graduating high school and going off to college. I still think of them as kids, and Alan would be the same way with Manon. And even if one wanted to argue that wouldn’t stop Manon from having a precocious crush on Alan—and I agree, it wouldn’t—that doesn’t mean that Alan would (or should!) return her feelings. Again, she acts like (and in-universe is often compared to) Bonnie. She’s less mature than Ash, Serena, and Clemont, who are supposed to be her age contemporaries. Thinking that Alan would view her romantically makes him out to be really very gross, and I find it extraordinarily insulting to his character. (And again, in this case, even if you age them up it won’t work, because they met at a time when Alan had to be a caretaker for Manon. That makes it squicky.)

And before anyone comes at me — age gaps are NOT inherently bad. My own parents have a sixteen year age difference between them, so believe me, I’m NOT against age gaps as a whole. But when and how you meet (as in the context of your meeting) is important. My parents met when one was forty-six and the other was thirty. They were both adults, they had both been married and divorced before, they met on equal footing. Alan and Manon have not met at an equal footing, and they’ve met at very important developmental stages in their lives. Again, maturity is a HUGE part of it, because it’s the maturity gap that’s squickier than the age gap. If Manon had the maturity of, say, Ash I could see arguing for it, but as it stands she acts far more like Bonnie, and it’s squicky. This ship is a NOTP for me for so many reasons (including the above mentioned how Manon continuously ignores Alan’s consent and runs over his boundaries), and this is certainly one of them.

And last but not least: I know this is all blunt and harsh. I know this. But listen: In the past, when I’ve tiptoed around my feelings (either by writing very vague tags in a blank post that did not mention either Manon OR the ship by name), I’ve received hate for it. I’ve had people vagueblog me, I’ve had people send me rude messages, and I’ve had people yell at and block me for daring to politely voice my own opinions on my own posts when they brought the subject up (i.e. I made the post about something different entirely, they brought up Manon, I tried to state my opinion politely, they got mad and blocked me). So if tiptoeing around the situation and being diplomatic gets me hate anyway, why bother? I’ll be honest about how I feel, and how I feel is that I hate this ship, I think Manon should have been made to take responsibility for her behavior in canon, and her stans have made it incredibly hard for me to like her at all considering how they vilify Alan (or else just reduce him to her trophy boyfriend), constantly excuse everything she does, and resort to vagueblogging, rude messages, and yelling when they encounter anyone who doesn’t like her, no matter how polite or diplomatic they are about it. I still treat her fairly in the fics I write (i.e. I don’t vilify her, I write her as being successful in the future, et cetera), but at this point I’m done pretending outside of fic that this fandom hasn’t ruined her for me, because they absolutely have.

- I don’t think he should have immediately left on a journey again at the end of the series. I think he should have stayed at the lab instead, especially since Sycamore said that Alan was needed there. Alan should have stayed at the lab to rest, heal, and recover, and then later he should have taken the Champion challenge. That he was sent out on a journey again was super lazy writing.

- I also think that he should have been able to keep the Mega Stone and Key Stone, but repurposed into pendants by Sycamore, to give Alan a true fresh start and remove any taint that might have been on them. But that’s less important than all of the above.

Favorite relationship:

It’s a very close tie between his relationships with Lizardon and Sycamore, and an honorary mention to his relationship with Ash.

Alan and Lizardon are platonic soulmates and I love everything about their relationship. I love how Alan moves closer to Lizardon whenever he’s feeling nervous or anxious. I love how they talk to each other, and how Alan perfectly understands what Lizardon’s saying even when they just exchange looks. I love how Alan was willing to risk his life to protect Lizardon without a single thought. I love how Lizardon similarly shielded Alan during the Flare crisis to prevent him from getting hurt. I love how they respect each other so much, to the point where, in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scene, Alan extends his hand toward Lizardon but waits until Lizardon moves in for petting and cuddling right after they win the League. Alan doesn’t just pet Lizardon, he waits for permission before he pets and cuddles Lizardon. Alan respects consent and boundaries, and doesn’t consider himself entitled to Lizardon cuddles just because he’s Lizardon’s trainer (sorry, partner). 

Alan and Sycamore also so incredibly sweet, and it’s a shame we didn’t get to see more of them in canon. Sycamore is Alan’s dad in everything but blood, and there’s so much in the show to point to this … and yet somehow, not enough. But I love how supportive Sycamore is of Alan, how understanding and loving he is, and likewise how Alan will do anything to protect Sycamore, given how Sycamore saved him when he was young. They’re precious.

Finally, honorable mention is to Alan and Ash, because they helped each other so much during Kalos and I honestly love the relationship they had. So many people are tied up in the “rivalry” that was hardly that, and it saddens me so much because they’re missing such quality content. Ash managed to make Alan smile, laugh, and feel excitement and happiness at a time when he was so critically depressed that he couldn’t. Post-canon, he gave Alan a reason to keep living, which Alan says himself saved him. (He also is the one who inspired Alan to fight back at the start of the Flare crisis, on Prism Tower.) Meanwhile, Alan was someone it was okay for Ash to lose against. Ash was put on such a pedestal throughout Kalos that losing was practically deemed unacceptable, and gave him a whole damn crisis around the Snowbelle City time. But Alan and Ash met when Alan and Lizardon were a pair of Big Damn Heroes (the light of the dawn behind them and everything) saving Pikachu from Team Rocket (and protecting Ash from their attacks!). From the get-go it was acknowledged that Alan was so strong that, if Ash lost against him, it was fine. It wasn’t seen as “shocking” like when Ash lost to Shouta. Alan was someone that Ash could just have fun battling against, without something serious riding on it. They have a natural comfort around each other, familiarity like you’d expect best friends to have. I really love their relationship, too.

Favorite headcanon:

Pretty much everything in all of my post-canon fics, haha, but I’m really attached to the matching pendants I gave Alan and Lizardon for their Key Stone and Mega Stone, respectively. (Or rather, that I had Sycamore give Alan and Lizardon, haha. But same thing, really.)

[sydchan]

Pokémon Champions for the ship meme?

Green Oak- My NOTP for themNone, I’m fine with all the ships I’ve seen with Green. - My BROTP for themWhile they’re OTP as well, Red/Green is my BroTP ship for Green.- My OTP for them Red/Green all the way!- My second choice pairing for themI’m super ride or die for Namelessshipping, so it’s very hard to seriously consider alternative ships. Green/Leaf is cute as well, plus there’s always AUs with her as the protag so she’d be the one with the dynamic Red/Green have that I like so much. - My fluffy pairing for themRed/Green by default.  While they also have a lot of good angst potential (particularly earlier on in their relationship), I tend to view them as fluffy once they resolve things. - My angsty pairing for themThis isn’t a serious ship of mine, but Ethan/Green going with the idea Green’s attraction to Ethan is due to his resemblance to Red. - My favorite poly ship for themI’ve seen some cute content for Red/Green/Leaf. - My weirdest pairing for themEthan/Green isn’t that odd, but it’s less mainstream than the others.

Red- My NOTP for themNone, all the ships I’ve seen for Red are fine. - My BROTP for themRed/Pikachu!  Like I mentioned above, Green/Red is BroTP as well- My OTP for them Red/Green or bust- My second choice pairing for themI mentioned this in the ask about Giovanni, and while I don’t feel super strongly about this ship, Giovanni/Red was the only other ship I considered in my next gen AU for bad end/angst potential. - My fluffy pairing for themWhile they have their angst, Red/Green ends up being the fluffier ship as things progress. - My angsty pairing for themRed/Giovanni since I can really only see if taking place in a bad end AU. Team Rocket Wins or something. - My favorite poly ship for themRed/Green/Leaf- My weirdest pairing for themRed/Giovanni

Lance- My NOTP for themThis is gonna sound super hypocritical, but I actually don’t care for Lance/Silver.  Lance/Clair as well, due to them being cousins and preferring their relationship as more sibling-like.  - My BROTP for themI actually headcanon Bruno/Lance as really good friends. Even in AU settings, Bruno is the one I tend to throw in as Lance’s main confidant. - My OTP for them Lance/Ethan to an absurd level.  The ship I’ll be forever shook by how much I came to like. - My second choice pairing for themWhile I’m blaming good fanart for this one, I think Lance/Yellow could be interesting. - My fluffy pairing for themDiscounting all the nonsense I put them through, Lance/Ethan is my fluffy ship. - My angsty pairing for themCounting all the nonsense I put them through, Lance/Ethan is my angsty ship. They’re the be-all/end-all ship so they get both sides of it. - My favorite poly ship for themI want to say Lance/Ethan/Silver with the idea that Ethan is openly with both of them, but I just can’t see it.  So I guess angst route with Lance/Ethan/dubious-third-party-antagonist. - My weirdest pairing for themWhile pixiv would lead me to believe Lance/Ethan actually has some amount of popularity, I’ve almost never seen this ship in the western fandom.  So Lance/Ethan

Steven (already did him so I’ll skip)

Wallace- My NOTP for themI only bring this up since I’ve seen it in doujins, but Wallace/Lisia (if you can’t tell, incest ships are generally the ships I don’t care for, the only exceptions being for angst/drama potential). - My BROTP for themI mentioned this in Steven’s, but whenever I don’t ship them, I really like the idea of Steven/Wallace as best friends (although this is true even when I do ship them). - My OTP for them Steven/Wallace - My second choice pairing for themThis is mainly due to fanart, but Wallace/Winona seems interesting.  Particularly with pre-remake RS Wallace. - My fluffy pairing for themSteven/Wallace - My angsty pairing for themI don’t ship Wallace with anyone else strongly enough to have an opinion on this, so I guess Wallace/Steven if Steven ends up with someone else.  But Wallace also doesn’t seem like the type to pine forever, so he’d wish Steven the best, remain his supportive friend, and move on. - My favorite poly ship for themI’ve mentioned the ship involving Alain, but Steven/Brendan/Wallace would be interesting as well. - My weirdest pairing for themThey’re really just old contest-rivals in my headcanon, but since all good rivals get shipped together, Wallace/Tucker.

Cynthia- My NOTP for themNone. - My BROTP for themThere’s not one character I see as her true bro. She’s someone I picture as very skilled at getting along with others, but never has that one true friend she can always fall back on.  If I had to choose, maybe Lucian/Cynthia?  He’s at least the one I see her staying in the most contact with once she steps down from being Champion- My OTP for them Cynthia is one of the character that while I really like her, I’ve never strongly shipped her with anyone. Maybe Cynthia/Dawn if I had to choose. - My second choice pairing for themCheryl/Cynthia. I’ve actually given thought to making this one canon in my next gen AU. - My fluffy pairing for themCheryl/Cynthia- My angsty pairing for themMaybe Lucian/Cynthia?  Since I tend to picture it either being one-sided on Lucian’s part or just ending badly. - My favorite poly ship for themRiley/Dawn/Cynthia- My weirdest pairing for themCheryl/Cynthia since it was spawned by seeing one (1) piece of good fanart.

Alder- My NOTP for themNone, but it’s also rare to find content of Alder in general.  - My BROTP for themDoes this wandering hermit have friends?  I honestly can’t think of any characters he interacts with enough. - My OTP for them None, but if I really had to choose, Ghetsis/Alder might be interesting to explore from the angle that they have history with each other due to being rivals in their teens. - My second choice pairing for themI can’t even say I like this pairing, but I guess Cheren/Alder?  If only because it’s clearly a bad decision, so it might be interesting to explore (it’s also the only other ship involving Alder I can recall seeing content for). - My fluffy pairing for themAlder/his late wife (before the dying thing)- My angsty pairing for themBoth of the above, but I guess Alder/Ghetsis moreso since it’s Ghetsis- My favorite poly ship for themMaybe some kind of weird love triangle turned temporary truce in a scenario involving Ghetsis/Alder/N’s late mother???  None is the true answer- My weirdest pairing for themAlder/anyone. He’s just not that shippable.

Iris- My NOTP for themI have no issues with people shipping this, but I just don’t see the appeal of Cilan/Iris.  It has a lot of cute fanart, I just don’t see the chemistry. - My BROTP for themShe’s another character I see easily getting along with others, but not having that one true bro (other than Axew in the anime). Maybe Iris/Shannon (that girl who’s her childhood friend in the anime). - My OTP for them I don’t strongly ship Iris with anyone, but Iris/Shannon would be my top choice. - My second choice pairing for them. Benga/Iris is cute as well- My fluffy pairing for themBianca/Iris- My angsty pairing for themIris/Shannon since guess who often dies when I do anything with this ship in aus (hint: not Iris) - My favorite poly ship for themBenga/Iris/Shannon (actually, this might be the way to go. OT3 in the next gen au)- My weirdest pairing for themAll of the above ships seem equally weird. Maybe Benga/Iris since they never canonly interact.

Diantha - My NOTP for themNone. - My BROTP for themDiantha/Siebold.  I headcanon that Diantha is pretty good at endearing herself to most people she meets, but of her Elite Four, gets along with Siebold surprisingly well. Diantha/Sycamore is a close second for BroTP.  - My OTP for them Malva/Diantha for that good hero/villian dynamic- My second choice pairing for themI don’t have a second ship for Diantha.  Cynthia/Diantha is fine, but since I don’t really ship Cynthia in general, I’m neutral toward this ship.  But if I had to choose, it’d be ship #2. - My fluffy pairing for themAs my only ship for her, Malva/Diantha gets to be the fluff pairing. - My angsty pairing for themMalva/Diantha has good angst potential for obvious reasons. I honestly see them as a mix of both fluff and angst, moving from angst to fluff as the relationship develops. - My favorite poly ship for themI feel like it would be a train wreck, but Malva/Diantha/Lysandre could be interesting. - My weirdest pairing for themMalva/Diantha by default as my only ship for her, but since it only exists due to headcanons, I suppose it does count.

Sun/Elio (I debated whether he should count but Bulbapedia lists him and I like talking about the protags so…)- My NOTP for themNone. Since even though I prefer the idea of Sun and Moon as twins, I’m fine seeing them shipped since who knows how they’re related canonly. - My BROTP for themSun/Hau with Sun/Lillie as a close second- My OTP for them It was close with the next ship, but Gladion/Sun barely wins. - My second choice pairing for themGuzma/Sun.  I find this pairing more interesting to work with than the above ship, but ship them about equally. - My fluffy pairing for themGuzma/Sun.  While they certainly clash more than Gladion/Sun, they’re really not an angsty ship.  Plus as I mentioned with Guzma, Sun is his fluff ship. - My angsty pairing for themGladion/Sun. Shouldn’t this be reversed with the above, you might ask, but I tend to put Gladion/Sun through worse scenarios, so they’re the angsty ship by default. - My favorite poly ship for themGladion/Sun/Hau- My weirdest pairing for themGuzma/Sun for sure

[sage-nebula]

1 12 and 31 for Alan please!

He’s only the best character ever created on this godforsaken planet, so of course. ♥

1.) What does their bedroom look like?

Okay, so …

To start with, the walls are a soft, pale blue-grey—like this color, roundabouts. The ceiling and carpet are both white, albeit slightly different shades. The carpet is more of a creamy white, whereas the ceiling is standard-ceiling-paint white. Throughout the years the carpet has managed to stay nice and plush, which Alan himself considers a feat due to how many times he has tromped through his room with his shoes on when he has needed to rush up there to get something pretty quick, but then again, he’s always been good about keeping it vacuumed and cleaned. (He has kind of had to be, given all the pokémon that have been in there over the years. Pokémon dander gets everywhere, all the time, and vigilant vacuuming is a must.) If you’re standing in the doorway, there’s a double-paned window (like this) on the back wall. (In the future, when Lizardon is a charizard, Alan will sometimes use this window to climb up onto the roof, to sit with Lizardon up there, or else take off from the roof onto a morning flight. It’s a very easy window to climb out of, though in all honesty Sycamore wishes he wouldn’t climb up onto the roof, because please Alan, scaling buildings is dangerous.)

From the viewpoint of the doorway (and the door is a nice solid wood and opens inward), Alan’s bed—a twin-size captain’s bed—is parallel to the back wall and pushed up against it. The frame is dark wood (think like mahogany) and the headboard is up against the left wall. Like most captain’s beds, the headboard has little shelves built into it, onto which Alan has put various things over the years (books he’s in the midst of reading, an alarm clock, his PokéNav Plus in later years while it charges at night, et cetera). Also like most captain’s beds, Alan’s bed has drawers built into the bottom of it, into which various things are stored that don’t fit anywhere else. His comforter and pillowcases are in a monochrome plaid pattern (something like this) while his sheets are white, and there is an orange cushion on the bed that Lizardon used to favor as a charmander (even if he always ended up sleeping on Alan’s stomach by the end of the night). There’s also a light blue, very plush blanket on the bed. This was Alan’s favorite blanket as a small child, but it became Lizardon’s blanket after he hatched (largely in part due to Alan lining the incubator with the blanket after he brought Lizardon’s egg home, thinking that it would be better if the egg was comfortable in the incubator, instead of just rattling around in there).

At the foot of the bed (and beneath the window) is a black mesh clothes hamper. On the other side of the clothes hamper (and thus the other side of the window) is a bookcase that stretches floor to ceiling. The bookcase is wood (a lighter wood than the bed—maybe like cherry wood, pictured here) and is crammed full of books. The books have three different sorting systems: The top shelves (so like, the three shelves closest to the ceiling) are reserved for textbooks and other academically oriented books. The bottom shelves are reserved for fiction and other entertainment books. The middle shelves, meanwhile, are reserved for books that he reads or references most frequently, regardless of whether they’re fiction or non-fiction. All books are sorted alphabetically by title. This organizational system would probably make it hard for most people to find what they’re looking for, but it’s very easy for Alan.

Immediately to the left of the door is the dresser, which is made of very similar looking wood to the bookcase and has about six drawers. On the other side of the dresser is Alan’s desk, which is similarly pushed up against the wall. It, too, is wood (though of a wood closer in color to his bed), and has a matching chair to go with it. The chair actually tilts backward naturally (almost like a rocking chair, though still in the style of a desk chair), which is nice, since that prevents Alan from accidentally crashing backward onto the floor with how often he likes to tilt his chair back while working. The desk has cabinets built into the top of it, above the actual working surface, and the cabinets are where Alan often sticks sticky notes with To-Do Lists and other notes to himself. He has a laptop on his desk, along with various research journals (both old and new), and a framed photograph of Gabrielle holding a newly hatched Lizardon up for all of the other pokémon at the lab to see, Lion King-style. This photograph is on the back right corner of the desk, facing the chair. 

Alan’s closet is built into the left wall, on the other side of the desk. It has two sliding doors (both painted white), and is a double-sized closet, albeit not walk-in. While most of his clothes are in his dresser, coats and nice shirts are hung up in the closet. You know, to keep them nice and neat.

Finally, while Alan’s ceiling is white, he does have a projector that he uses to project the image of a starry night sky onto the ceiling. He has had this since he was a child, and Sycamore got it for him to help him fall asleep at night.

12.) Favorite book genre?

Alan does enjoy learning, so he likes non-fiction books about pokémon (of course), as well as different areas and different cultures in the world (though he prefers if these are written by locals / people from those cultures, so that they’re authentic). He also likes books that detail various myths and legends of different cultures around the world, because even if these books are often speculation based on archaeological findings, he finds them really interesting and hopes to perhaps experience some of his own someday. (And then the events of TSME and the Flare arc happen, and inside he’s just like, “… not like that.”)

When it comes to fiction, Alan enjoys both fantasy and sci-fi. When it comes to fantasy he often prefers modern fantasy, or futuristic fantasy (though that leans more into sci-fi), but he likes classical fantasy as well. For instance, he likes The Neverending Story (the book, specifically, not the movies), and enjoyed reading that one aloud to Lizardon (who quickly claimed it as his favorite book). Alan was about the same age as the main characters when he read it, and he felt a certain kinship with Atreyu. He has also read and enjoyed the Harry Potter books, and as far as sci-fi goes, the Pokémorphs series. He’s not a fan of realistic fiction, regardless of who the audience is, because he finds it somewhat boring. Why read about people living normal lives when he can read about people having adventures? That’s far more interesting, in his opinion.

31.) Most prized possession?

There are three answers to this!

So, his first ever most prized possession was his first lab coat. When Sycamore first unofficially adopted Alan he took him clothes shopping soon after bringing him home (because while he had clothes from the village, many of them were ill-fitting, and they were all rather drab and boring, in Sycamore’s opinion; he wanted to get him better clothes), and while Alan was thankful for all the clothes he got, while they were shopping he asked if he could get a coat like Sycamore’s. Unfortunately, Sycamore had to tell him no that day; they just didn’t make lab coats in his size. Alan was disappointed, but he understood, and didn’t say anything more on the subject. Some months later (and I’m undecided at present if it was a Festival de la Vie present, or if it was a gift for Alan’s sixth birthday, which would have been almost an entire year later) Sycamore gave Alan his first-ever lab coat as a gift. He had it specially tailored so that it would be a legitimate lab coat (and not just a play / costume one), with a hood built in besides, so that Alan could pull the hood up if he felt overwhelmed by things around him, or shy in the presence of Sophie / other visitors to the lab, et cetera. Alan was thrilled (and smiled the first real, bright smile Sycamore ever saw from him, at that—won his heart for real and forever in the process), and that lab coat became his first ever most treasured possession. Of course, he was five / six, and so he outgrew that one and had to have new ones made over the years, but nonetheless, he loves his future lab coats, too. It’s just that his first lab coat was the first one he really cherished (and the one that held truly special significance to him, as a small child), and he did his damnedest to wear it everywhere. (He didn’t take his lab coat with him on his journey, though, because lab coats aren’t really suited for long travel, and they get dirty very easily. The clothes we see him wearing in canon are much better suited for traveling.)

His second most prized possession—and the one we see him with most often in the present day—is his scarf. His scarf was sent to him by Sycamore as a thirteenth birthday present, and he honestly treasures it. He treasures it not just because it was a gift from Sycamore, but also because he genuinely loves it. He thinks it looks awesome, it’s super soft, and super warm. It’s basically perfect, in his eyes. He wears it everywhere, even when he’s not traveling, or even when he’s on a vacation in the hot island region of Alola. Miss him with that “it’s too hot” nonsense. Heat doesn’t bother him. He’s wearing the scarf regardless.

Last—but not least—is yet another gift from Sycamore (and this one is pure headcanon, but as far as my post-canon fics go, it’s canon and true for all of them). After the Flare crisis ended, Sycamore wanted to “re-brand,” so to speak, the Key Stone and Charizardite X. Before they were “gifts” from Lysandre, embedded in a heavy metal collar and Mega Ring. That gave them a negative connotation, one that Alan made pretty clear he wanted nothing to do with. Sycamore wanted to make them more positive for Alan and Lizardon both, and so he had the Key Stone fixed into a silver half-moon pendant for Alan, and the Charizardite X fixed into a gold half-sun pendant for Lizardon. Here’s an illustration of them wearing the necklaces (drawn by my lovely friend TRS) for reference. Sycamore’s intention worked; that half-moon pendant is absolutely Alan’s newest most treasured possession (perhaps even more than his scarf now, to be honest, given that his pendant fits to make a perfect circle with Lizardon’s—though he still treasures the scarf quite a lot). He won’t take it off for anything. You’d honestly have to force it off him, and that’s no easy feat unless you knock him out first.