#kind of shippy i guess

[scumtumbl]

first meeting

[everotten]

the girl next door and the creature that lives down the street

[sludgekludge]

can you give us the rundown on your vaggie/lute thing? i dont think you ever ended up posted it but ive always been curious

i did Not post it bc the post i wrote out made me sound like an insane person. moreso. than usual. this also unfortunately made me sound like an insane person.

this is all very much personal opinion over overt critique i think. though i would still call adam/lute a Bad choice, narrative wise.

the gist is i think vaggie/lute have infinitely more interesting potential than adam/lute (which is the direction you can tell it's going from day 1) not even in a 'aww i like tis ship!' sense just in a. idk story sense.

if lute/vaggie were some kind of weird toxic yuri, vaggie being left behind as violently as she was and lute's pure vitriol towards her makes more sense imo? as is it just makes lute feel cartoonishly evil. why would she even do that, over adam? does she even have that authority? why would she even be following vaggie in the first place...is she really the type who'd spare someone that makes (what she perceives to be) an unforgiveable decision? like...really, would she let vaggie live.

primarily what comes to mind i guess is that i think there was a lot of interesting (and imo thematically relevant) potential for that kind of relationship between the two of them. vaggie being someone who was forced out of an abusive poisonous environment, and then finding growth and love amongst the people she had been manipulated to look down upon is already kind of canon i guess but i think lute, with the context of vaggie being some kind of potential romantic interest of some kind, having to come down and witness that this person she has such history with is not only happier, but happier with someone who isn't lute when she's in what lute perceives to be the worst possible position. because i'd imagine lute cannot imagine anything lower than being in hell. i'm sure she would perceive sparing a demon as a personal betrayal, if a loved one did it. anyway would that not be compelling. i don't think lute would regulate those feelings well lol. esp if we want to tack on 'her bestie was literally permamurdered to death and vaggie is actively affiliated with the side that did it' like. come on. right. do you understand. grabbing you. do you understand-

i guess ultimately i find it wasted potential to not set up something between the much more emotionally charged dynamic between lute and vaggie (esp as their current animosity feels kind of meaningless to me. why is lute so cartoonishly evil. what was their relationship before vaggie got goofed) over some kind of one sided pining between a confident woman like lute and a man who was never even very nice to her

tl;dr: vaggie and lute being two confident strong fighters and lute being drawn to that only to reject her vehemently when vaggie shows compassion and then grapple with lingering feelings watching her almost-ex become happier without her would be crazy yuri and yet

[sholmeser]

another thing that bugs me is how people consistently portray kazuma as fucking hating baroks guts post-canon which he just? wouldn’t? and i feel like this is kind of obvious after this scene following court.

obviously barok’s actions have hurt kazuma in an irreversible way. they hurt him so deeply that it fundamentally changed his life alongside him as a person, and that isn’t something that just goes away in one afternoon. but kazuma is mature enough to accept the fact that when genshin was convicted barok was in an incredibly emotional, state that was easily-exploitable, and that is just what stronghart did: he twisted barok’s actions to fall in like exactly like he wanted them to while barok was none the wiser. he can’t be blamed for that, but his actions did result in the death of the most important person in kazuma’s life. and while he can’t blame barok for rashness during an understandably very turbulent time for him (this would be so fucking hypocritical because 2-5 trial was. you know. [gestures vaguely] That), he is allowed to be angry at the fact that barok’s conviction led to his father’s death. that’s completely fair. but it doesn’t mean he still hates barok the way that he used to.

i think this interpretation stems from kazuma’s attitude during the trial, because a lot of people will immediately equate emotional instability to outright immaturity. the trial was obviously incredibly difficult for…basically everyone involved, in many different ways (barok, yuujin, daley, and even ryuunosuke), but it very clearly affected kazuma the hardest. he was a fucking mess during the proceedings. which, again, is completely understandable: his entire worldview has quite literally been flipped on its head. his entire reason for living was destroying barok and avenging his father and he suddenly doesn’t have that anymore and he has to deal with the fact that this man who he hates so much never did anything wrong. he has to accept the fact that his father was supposed to make it home and just barely didn’t. and he understandably flips out because! again! this is an incredible amount of information to process! and he does act very immaturely more than once during the trial! and ryuunsouke calls him out on this! because he is quite literally having a mental breakdown! but after the fact! when all is said and done! HE DOES NOT HATE BAROK THE WAY SOME OF YOU THINK HE DOES!!!! because while he showed immaturity during the trial that does not mean he really is like that, and that’s why ryuunosuke’s final line here is so important: he’s immediately able to recognize this change in kazuma because he’s been changed so fundamentally over the course of just a few short hours. but he remains a rational person at his core

[kingdomoftyto]

Reading GF fic is such a trip because one minute it'll be like "the brothers have a heart-to-heart about how they've wronged each other" and the next it's like "everyone is saved from a chupacabra attack by the princess of the manatees" and then sometimes it's like "here's some weird nightmare alien porn" before eventually the looming mystery gets solved like:

(And sometimes all of these things are from a single fic series)

[longagoitwastuesday]

Kind of endearing that despite their obvious strained dynamic Utahime and Gojo trust each other

[ssaalexblake]

idk, we Could look at the plot with La’an and alt!Kirk as the blatantly stated exploration of whom La’an would be without being part of a legacy that includes mass murder and genocide, horror and pain. We could examine her character to try and see where the trauma from the Noonien-Singh legacy meets and ends with the trauma of her past with the gorn, because they both exist her history but it’s not immediately clear where the line is. La’an without a legacy shadowing her was still La’an, but she was more open and forward and relished the chance to be somebody who doesn’t have to explain herself just because of her name, because of what somebody else did in her past, indicating that it’s not necessarily the death of loved ones that is closing her off to other people but rather more related to her name. 

We could take it as the exploration of Kirk as a character and how he relates to his brother and father in the prime universe in context with how he gave his life to make a universe where Sam lives still (among other things), showing that for all he has golden child syndrome in prime!universe that he truly and genuinely Loves his brother enough to die for him, just as La’an’s brother loved her enough to die for her. 

The plot with La’an and Kirk in the past, and the fact that La’an bonded with him so quickly and outright admitted to him that the reason for this was that he did not live in a timeline where he even knew her name, let alone judged her for it, says Oodles about her as a person and her relationship to her lineage in a very deft way that could not have been done with any of the characters we see every week. We Know Kirk’s a flirt, and at the time he was a flirt who was expecting to cease to exist in a few mere hours time, it’s really not surprising he took a chance with the beautiful and frustrating woman he’s found himself with. 

That La’an participated in that kiss, which wasn’t even a big old make out session, it was a reasonably chaste kiss for an on the lips thing, actually tells us things about her and her willingness to engage without the chains of a legacy. That she then went on to call him her friend Afterwards while in distress at losing him tells us that, yes, she thought of him as a friend from this and that losing him and what he gave her (freedom) has hurt her deeply. 

That she went home, checked the timeline was fixed, and that seeing him made her cry, the intermingling of her grief at losing Jim her friend and all that he offered her in his ignorance. The Prime!Jim Kirk cannot give her what this alternate version did, that he is gone, dead, doesn’t exist, and that she is grieving. And yet she now has to know him still, and speak to him, and talk to his identical mirror, as if she never knew what he did for her in a world that doesn’t exist and never will again. 

or we could just write it off as having no storytelling merit i guess. 

[misscrazyfangirl321]

Hey how romantic can I make this platonic fic without making it romantic. Asking for a friend. 

[bragganhyl]

on the note of something i recently rambled about

[raeathnos]

Sketchy dump!

Trying to get better at drawing humans/humanoid creatures by sketching shippy art of my two ocs. Bonus- updated ref sheet wips :P

This is Sky-Shifter (left, bottom) and Night-Stalker (right, top) two of the main characters from the webcomic I want to eventually do. They’re both half-demons, hence the human and feral forms.

Humanoid forms above, feral below.

I’m a messy sketcher, I’m sorry guys Dx

[distant--shadow]

very much not a post about Cole, yes I brought up a question of theirs that got answered but that was in another post as an example of poor question selection and how it felt shitty in context of "hey I'm gonna give all of this attention to this last question" and getting that, which was lame (maybe I'm out of touch here, I'm not in any big servers or cliques, I'm not aware of the role the glasses play as a "lightning rod" still, as u say, or that it was still relevant. to me it has been made pretty clear (as Laura said) in campaign that she needs them but doesn't have them (I couldn't care less if people chose to make their own art with her wearing them, I'm aware of what making choices u enjoy for ur own fanart is), therefore my frustration on that getting asked. you have picked a post out of a few I made and q's I answered that would give this context (and how I'm more frustrated by the show as a whole as well as general fandom behaviour) . the most tasteless question by far was about gendering the future kids, that is what I'm annoyed at when I'm talking about needing your own headcanons confirmed, idk who made it and I didn't put much thought into paying attention to names behind them because at the end of the day I was just noting the overall quality of questions, I'm not gonna change my opinion on the question based on the person behind it. I also think it will always be valid to critique media you care about and also quesiton the behaviours of people that share space with you(as u are with me rn) (so yes I see u people saying "lol get over the term girlfailure, we got bigger issues going on in the world" then a moment later being like "omg cr fandom has so much casual misogyny" like yeah, you're partaking in casual misogny babe. yes I'm aware people disagree with this. this is my blog, I'm a person with opinions) I have since spoken to people who submitted questions, none of which got answered and people admit they sent both more in depth and lighthearted ones. yes from that I can conclude that the issue lies more with the curation, but it doesn't change the fact that I feel frustrated, and I had said that yes Laura is probably just picking out anything that looks like a quesiton in a quickly moving chat, u can see how she deflated when getting far enough through some of them.

once again, this whole post jumping into Cole defense is just showing that you're also agitated by something in the moment without the actual context you're "having to assume" and that's fair, but it's arguably just as reactionary as what you're saying I did. yes, I think the fandom behaviour needs to be different if it's going to have this much impact on the actual content of a show, that's the main thing here, I don't like the feeling of being catered or pandered to if this is what they think fans want to see, yes maybe a lot of this is me being reactive to that feeling. it's a blog. I'm sharing my opinions in the moment. I want others to see that despite the fact I make a fuck tonne of shipping art, I don't actually want that being lip-serviced like those are my needs during the sparse oppurtunities that we get for deeper character answers.

also, to end, to finish off this post with the tags "#the fires ya'll #kyle just lost his fucking house" like what???! OK????!!! do you feel righteous now? you don't think i 100% support them taking all the time off they need tor recover from this? that I'm not sympathetic? you really saying hey excuse you, don't be a bully, fires have happened? when the person I'm apparently targeting from your post is not cast or crew? (or in california, as far as I'm aware) like what? that's the "unkind" thing to say right there, I get that things are super rough and Laura is recovering from a lost voice because of everything going on. maybe they didn't need to rush it, maybe that doesn't change the fact they still recorded and chose the questions they did? I don't think many fans were thinking "oh i'll ask baby questions because there have been fires." I'm not gonna go into this any more but, super super lame behaviour.

I shouldn't be surprised by the fireside chat being the state it was, seeing as I don't follow any CR themed blogs myself or really go into the tags because I find it frustrating but still, the bleed over of fanon is depressing and a lot of you are showing your asses in terms of how you don't actually gaf about the characters or the story the players have chosen to tell.

I love my au's, I love my headcanons, I love my not quite canon ships, but they're for me and the people who chose to enjoy them if they want to. and what makes creating those things more fulfilling is trying to really be true to the character it's about, otherwise just go play with OCs

this will be my last salty post on the matter (guess we'll see) but man, the timing? all of this crazy shit is going on, it is well established that the audience is frustrated with how little downtime we've had with these characters and getting to see those long rest bonds we got to enjoy with previous campaigns, 4SD is over, and that's what you wanna ask about? it's selfish, honestly.

[puttersmile]

Allister's Job

Can't think of a more interesting title, but here is some more headcanon. Eventually Allister finds steady work at Bobby's place, the Bear & Biscuits. So Picky's nagging does pay off! I think working at a bar would work well for his personality (or my guess on his personality). I think he'd be into people watching.

I wanted to write a one shot for it but somehow it turned into a weird 2nd person fic that isn't even shippy or romantic. Not sure how I feel about it but I'll post it anyway instead of deleting it like it probably should be.

Laid Back Worker

You step into Bear & Biscuits, the cozy bakery turned bar where the aroma of freshly baked goods mingles with the faint tang of cider and spirits. The place feels like a warm hug on a cold night, the kind of spot that makes you want to linger. A few regulars are seated at the tables, chatting and laughing softly, but the bar area is empty. 

You slide onto one of the stools, the firm surface is comforting  after a long day on your feet. The sound of the door closing behind you barely registers as you glance at the drink menu scrawled in cheerful chalk on a hanging board. 

The holiday specials catch your eye—mulled wine, spiced rum, hot chocolate, and something called the “Bear’s Winter Hug.” But there’s no bartender in sight. You wait for a moment, scanning the room. The low hum of conversation fills the background, but the bar itself is oddly quiet.

All you hear are the muffled shuffle of feet, accompanied by the sound of clinking glasses. Just as you consider calling out, a sharp voice cuts through the room. 

“Allister! Quit daydreaming and get to work already!” 

A tall, green gator shuffles out from the back, his posture is low, his eyes half-lidded. He scratches his head as he ambles over to the bar, his slouch making him seem even more laid-back than usual.

“Oh. Hey.  Think I recognize you. You’re one of Picky’s other friends, right?” He gives you a lazy grin, leaning against the counter.  “Didn’t notice you walk in... Guess you’re in the right place for a drink, huh?”

He grabs a towel and starts wiping the already-clean bar top, a halfhearted effort that makes you smirk. You ask what he recommends.

Allister glances over his shoulder at the shelves lined with bottles, barely bothering to focus. 

“Well, if you want my professional opinion—which I’m guessing you do—I’d go with the Winter Hug. Ms. Bearhug says it’s ‘hearty and festive,’ which I think just means it’s got enough kick to keep you warm all night.” He smirks.

“But if you’re not feeling adventurous, we’ve got plenty of plain ol’ whiskey. Your call.” The laid-back charm is hard to resist, and you laugh as you make your choice.

As Allister begins to mix your drink with a casual ease, you glance around the room.  So is this place a bakery? And a bar? Not exactly a usual combo.

Allister snorts, pausing mid-pour. “Oh, it’s all Ms. Bearhug's brainchild. She inherited this place from her family. It used to just be a bakery, but she wanted to mix things up—literally. She figured drinks would bring in the evening crowd, and honestly? She wasn’t wrong.” He shrugs, his grin widening. 

“Though between you and me, I think she just likes bossing me around.” 

He finishes the drink and slides it over to you with an impressive spin.  “And before you ask—yes, I do all the drink stuff, and she handles the baking. Not a bad setup, really. I get to stay out of the kitchen, and she doesn’t yell at me as much.” 

Just then, the door to the back swings open again, and Bobby Bearhug steps into view. Her red fur is dusted with flour, and she looks every bit the part of a baker who’s been up since dawn. Despite her exhaustion, there’s a sharpness in her eyes that makes it clear she’s paying attention to everything. 

“Allister, if you’re going to waste time, at least make sure our guest has everything they need. Are you good over here?” she asks, looking at you with a warm yet slightly pensive smile.  You nod, Allister is doing a great job.  Bobby raises an eyebrow at him, clearly skeptical. 

“Well, that’s good to know. Let me know if he starts slacking.” Allister chuckles, unbothered. “Slacking? Me? Never.”

As the night goes on, the bar fills with a soft buzz of conversation and laughter. Allister tells you stories about some of the more eccentric regulars, his jokes making even the boring parts of life sound entertaining. Bobby pops in and out, delivering trays of her famous bear claw pastries and checking on everyone, her presence adding a warmth to the room that goes beyond the fire crackling in the corner. 

At one point, Allister leans back against the counter, eyeing the dwindling crowd. “You know,” he says, “Bobby acts like she’s all business, but this place? It’s her heart. She loves seeing people come together here. I think she loves it more than sleep.”

Bobby overhears and smacks him lightly with a towel as she passes. “Stop telling critters my secrets, Allister. And refill their drink while you’re at it!”

As Bobby returns to the kitchen, Allister grins with a casual shrug. “See what I have to deal with?”

[burningcheese-merchant]

Thoughts on the latest trailer of CRK aka "Shadow stop you're embarrassing yourself-"

Shippy answer:

Non-shippy answer:

I actually really enjoy the aesthetics of the Spire of Truth and of the Beast-Yeast chapter as whole. Might just be my brain turning off when I see the colors though lol (blue is my favorite color)

Gonna provide a controversial factoid about myself: I did not like Shadow Milk's voice when I first heard it all the way back when. It grated on my fucking nerves. But he sounds way better now for some reason (might still put the Japanese audio back on though tbh. I never cared for the English voice cast outside of a handful of characters and only turned English on for Burning Spice because godDAMN. Plus a lot of characters share voices with anime characters I love. Pitaya is Uzui Tengen/the Sound Hashira from Demon Slayer, for example)

Idk why anyone is getting their hopes up about Devsis changing the story formula up in any meaningful way lol. They most certainly will not. They said they would change things for Ovenbreak and then never did so (fuck the way Story Mode is now, fuck them for leaving it like that). You all need to start expecting less from them because they care about money (which they have been hemhorraging for ages now. They are unironically in massive debt rn. You know why Shadow is here? Because people will pay to unlock him and max him out lol) first and foremost, not the story or anything else. It's why the writing is so mediocre half the time lol

Guess everyone feels vindicated about the theorized connection between Shadow and the magic academy, huh? Haha

Did big bro have a fucking beard in that one portrait? Gandalf looking ass

Ngl I really loved that "dark" look Pure Vanilla had in that one shot. Whether that's his "corrupted" form or something else entirely, I'm not sure, but he looks cool and I hope we can have it as a skin regardless

Candy Apple is adorable, no idea what purpose she'll serve though

Hope Shadow is Magic like I predicted 1000 years ago

Not really happy White Lily and the Gingerbrave gang are there. Kind of hope they get sidelined. The latter especially. I know they're the "main" characters but they just drag down every scene they're in imo, I really do not care about them at all

Not looking forward to arena meta getting trashed again. I hate this shit so much

Seething @ Burning Spice not getting a countdown while Mystic Redditor and Walmart Bill Cipher do

Last two points don't really pertain to the trailer but uhhhhhhhhhh insert excuse here

[jaded-ghoster]

SPOILERS FOR MHA 431!!! my thoughts on the epilogue (the roughly translated leaks of it, anyway) are as follows:

Of course he’s fucking dead, and thank god he is? Would you rather he lie there paralyzed for the rest of his, teetering on brain dead, life? rip my man but lets be real

Ochako is beautiful god bless her

I still don’t exactly see MHA as a shippy manga, and so even with the ending i’m not seeing it as a “oh my god they’re gonna get married and have kids,” im seeing it as a look into the future. They’re gonna put themselves, and each other, first for once. They’re gonna spend more time with each other because they were such close friends and they haven’t had a chance until now to really settle down! And if they do end up together (which the blushing kinda implies they might dabble in) then good for them and that’s fucking adorable

Since when does a canon ship stop anyone from writing a gay fanfic? live and let live

I’m actively killing myself over Deku not forming an agency with Bakugo

perhaps that’s counterproductive to my former point

HAHAHAHAHAHA HE’S FIFTEENTH HAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA

there’s no way iida can beat him this is straight rage bait im sorry iida stans, i guess he does win in terms of chivalry though

WHERE THE FUCK IS AIZAWA? but no news is good news to me, i bet he’s thriving

I personally thought the idea of Toga pushing her to live her life to the fullest and not let old guilt hold her down was really beautiful, but I definitely wanted more for my girl than that. but tbh that’s not the epilogue’s fault if she was set up to die since a while ago

Bakugo isn’t married stop being delusional about a couple pixels on his finger

I don’t think the leaks are fake, that’s kind of extreme of any leaker to do, and the definition of fake also does not extend to Horikoshi’s assistants working on it. Not to me, anyway. However, if they are fake, that’s about to be the funniest fucking thing in 2024

Um I didn’t really pay attention to the rest #haveMyBabiesMirko

[akirakirxaa]

Y'ALL please do this music is how I get inspired and I have a literal writing playlist that has like three hundred songs on it that I listen to for said inspiration.

Ask game! Have your followers send you a number, then go to your favorite playlist/album/whatever and press shuffle and skip that many times, and then write a little mini fic based on the song you get!

[echidnapower]

Now that Ash's series is over, how do you feel about the decision to write Misty out of the main cast at the end of Johto in 2002? As we know besides brief cameos and the last few eps of MPM, she really did stay off the show for 20 years, 6 series, and somewhere over 850+ or something episodes. Once Hoenn started and May was introduced, the writers likely decided sometime in 2003 they weren't going to bring misty back to the cast (her cameos with Togetic aired this year), and then that was basically it.

I always assumed the writers would have brought Misty back like how the Brock/Tracey switch was reversed after Orange, but I guess May became too popular it convinced the writers they had no reason to bring Misty back to the cast. So they slowly started phasing her out over AG as her cameos/specials started to dwindle, then by the time we got into 2005/2006 she got her final episode for over a decade. Then by the time DP started and they decided to bring Dawn in, that was basically it. They brought in a second new female companion for a second full gen, and Misty didn't get to appear in DP at all.

People tend to forget that long before the modern pokemon era (XY, SM, Journey's, etc), the writers seem to already decide back in the early 2000's from 2002-2010 during the Hoenn/DP era that they weren't going to bring Misty back full time. And as we know, they didn't. It's just kind of ironic to me when you stop to realize how long ago that was, 2002 was the beginning of the millenium, it over 22 years ago now, and Misty left at Gen 2 of the franchise whereas Ash's series went through Gen 8. She basically was only there for like 20% of Ash's series, and missed 80% of the anime.

Do you believe the writers were in the right to remove her? Since you write fanfics with Misty staying, did her departure shock you or did you think the anime couldn't go on without her? In the end I guess it doesn't matter now, but it says a lot so many original fans decided to continue to watch without her year after year.

Well as someone who considers Misty "best girl" I would never condone the decision to have Misty leave the group. What I will say though is that it was clear to me that the writers for the anime back in those early days had no idea what to do with Misty since her "goal" as it were was to become a water-Pokemon Master, but they never took any steps to have Misty actually try to BECOME that. She was playing a support role for Ash and that I feel like was an extreme disservice to her character.

What we did get though was an evolution of her personality over time, as she became less violent with her actions and started seeing Ash more as an equal rather than someone who needed her coaching to become a good trainer, and in that change, the ship started to solidify for me. There were plenty of "shippy moments" during Indigo, but the more Ash grew as a trainer the more it felt like there was room for their relationship to grow.

By the end of her tenure, it was clear to everyone (or me at least) that the very thought of leaving Ash to go take over the gym because of her irresponsible sisters was a source of emotional pain for her. In her mind, Ash wasn't just some brat that stole her bike, he had become her very best friend and (depending on how you choose to interpret it) she'd fallen in love with his passion and devotion to Pokémon, because that's what made him stand out from all the other trainers out there. The lengths he was willing to go to in order to make sure that his Pokémon became the best they could possibly be and the love that he showed them, it even trickled over to his human friends as well, which of course included her.

And even with all the other girls that came along after Misty's departure, you could tell that there was a special bond between her and Ash that was never replicated with anyone else. In my mind, Serena kissing Ash before she left isn't the most impactful scene in the anime, it's the fact that Ash shed tears over Misty leaving because he knew how much he was going to miss her. To my knowledge, aside from her and Brock, Ash didn't cry over anyone else's departure. It was always "until we meet again" and then off he went on his new journey. Even Serena didn't get a tear from Ash over saying goodbye. That honor falls only to Misty (and Brock).

All this being a long-winded explanation for what makes their relationship so special, I'll address the other part of the question. Do I think the writers were right to remove her? Of course not. I think they should have given Misty something to do rather than just stand there with Togepi and cheer Ash on, and in an anime where character growth coincided with aging (yes, aging as in getting older and more mature, something Pokémon is notoriously allergic to), eventually Misty would've had to be given something to do. Their solution I suppose was to give Misty a new goal, one that was separate from her travels with Ash. I don't like it, but I get it.

May and Dawn were the main characters for the next two generations of games and they were made into coordinators so that they wouldn't overlap with Ash's goals. Contests weren't available in B/W I don't think so having Ash travel with Hilda would've been redundant, so they gave Iris to Ash since she was the most...rambunctious character in those games, and Cilan took on the Brock role now that he was finally off pursuing his new path. Back to the old dynamic but it wasn't the same. Iris wasn't Misty, and neither was any of the other girls he went with, Serena included. That BOND just wasn't there. The closest one who got there IMO was Dawn, and ironically aside from Misty herself, I think Dawn got the most returns to the anime out of all the Pokegirls.

I started writing my story over a decade ago with the mindset of "fixing" the anime, by putting Misty back where she wanted to be all along, but now by aging them up a few years (which is what they should have been in the first place) I opened the door for Ash to actually see Misty as more than a friend, paying off all those little moments they'd previously shared where Misty caught his attention when they were traveling together and he saw her as more than just "Misty," she was also "girl" which bizarrely Ash understood better early on in the show and forgot later on somehow with any other male/female interactions. I made Ash and Misty finally get together, strengthening their bond even more as now the titles boyfriend and girlfriend make it so that Ash AND Misty get something out of the relationship. She hasn't done much in the way of training for herself, I'll admit, but the way I write her, Misty doesn't just stand there and support Ash, she's his go-to for companionship, a partner he can count on when the going gets tough, more than the others. She's put on a pedestal as someone special to him, which she already was but now the role is more defined. And Misty now gets to be a big sister to Dawn as their relationship has grown throughout my story. Dawn looks up to Misty now, seeing her as someone she also can turn to when she's struggling with something. Ash is her mentor with training, but in a world where human interactions are more than just "Let's battle," Dawn needs someone to help her navigate those turbulent waters, and that's big sister Misty.

I rambled for a long time and for that I apologize. The anime could and did go on without Misty, and other characters who took her place have their own roles and their own merits. I won't take that away from them. But Misty is special I believe because there's just that bond that is difficult to define in words between her and Ash. They can push each other to their limits unlike any other characters in the show can, and undoubtedly Ash sees her as his very best human friend aside from Brock. If the anime had allowed him to age and grow, there's no doubt in my mind that they would have gotten together anyway, because a bond like that can't be broken by distance. If anything, it would just inevitably bring them together again.