#like if ANYONE had angst over Ash's dad being gone i think it was Delia more than Ash

[sage-nebula]

Ketchum Family Appreciation

Delia Ketchum is, for all intents and purposes, a single mother who raised her son, Ash, all by herself. Of course Professor Oak probably helped here or there when he could, but he had his own family (and career) to take care of. So, since Ash’s dad fucked off to god knows where, Delia was left to raise her rambunctious little boy all by herself. And she did. She did that.

According to Shudo Takeshi’s novelizations, Delia was eighteen when Ash was born. So not only is she a single mother, but she’s a single mother from a teen pregnancy. I don’t know about you, but I would not have been able to raise a child by myself when I was eighteen, but Delia did. She. Did. That. 

Also according to Shudo’s novelizations, Delia runs a restaurant in Pallet Town. And not only does she run a restaurant in Pallet Town, but she actively works to make Pallet Town a better place by not serving alcohol after a certain time so as to cut down on domestic violence:  --- Delia spoke brightly, “Anyway, four kids left Pallet Town on a journey that day. I'm glad for them.” “I ain't.” A middle aged man at the end of the table spoke up; he was eating the onion soup Delia held pride in. “Our kid ain't on a journey.” Everyone in the shop looked at the man. “Our kid is a runaway. No idea why but he just didn't want to stay in the house.” On the same day as Ash, three other boys also left Pallet Town. Each of those children with their own reasons. Clap! Delia clapped her hands together. “Anyway, we should be happy for the kids on their journeys! Everyone, cheers! It's all on the house tonight!” Normally, you'd expect to bring out the booze at this point, but Delia was different. She didn't want her customers going home drunk and getting into fights with their wives. And so what she served to her customers before they left was cocoa au lait . . . chocolate mixed with milk.

And from that same part of the novelization, it’s revealed that she is happy that Ash is on his journey, but she is always eager to hear from him, even if it’s just a phone call: --- When the customers left, Delia cleaned out their cups, locked the shop, went upstairs to her bedroom, changed into her pajamas and noticed the blinking light on the answering machine by her bedside. Delia pressed the button. Ash's voice played. “Mom . . . I made it through Viridian Forest. Next is Pewter City . . . Mom, I'm sure you're busy, so I'll leave it at that. I'll contact you again later when I've got time.” . . . Call any time you're free . . . And if I'm free, I'll be sure to answer . . . Delia was pleased. She was able to sleep peacefully tonight. . . . So, Pewter City . . . Delia's husband (that’s Ash’s father) and Delia's father (that's Ash's grandpa), had never made any contact. “All I wanted . . . was to be contacted . . .” Delia whispered.

Delia studied under Professor Oak, alongside Spencer Hale. She was a trainer in her own right before she gave up what she was pursuing to raise Ash instead, hence the restaurant she opened (in the novelizations, at least---to be fair, we don’t see the restaurant in the anime, but I like to think it exists, because otherwise, where does their income come from??). Although her dreams were put on hold for her child, however, she doesn’t seem to resent Ash for it in the slightest. Rather, she loves him dearly, and always encourages him to pursue his dreams.

And how much does she love him? Despite how she sometimes seems more excited to see Pikachu than to see him (and how she doesn’t worry when Team Rocket kidnaps him), Delia:

Gathers a small group of people to greet Ash after he gets Pikachu, waving a banner and cheering him on. It’s a smaller crowd than what Gary had, but Delia must have gathered them in a hurry.

Gathered people for a viewing party when Ash was in the Kanto League.

Went to the Kanto stadium herself to see him battle.

When she heard that the epicenter of the apocalypse was in the Orange Islands, where Ash was, she jumped in a helicopter to go there to find him, despite not knowing which island he was on, or if he was involved (which, I mean, he was, but still), all because she was worried. She then made him promise to try to save the world closer to home next time, because “you’re my whole world.”

She makes his new clothes for him whenever he’s about to go off on a new journey.

Although she would of course love to spend more time with him, she still always encourages him to go on his journey again because she knows it’s important to him and she wants him to live his dreams.

And it’s not just one-sided. Ash is 150% a mama’s boy. The fact that he, a ten-year-old boy who uses the pronoun “ore” in the original Japanese, still calls her mama is clue enough of that, but he also:

Constantly hopes that he can make her proud, and often gives her shout-outs whenever he’s interviewed (he had weird, uncharacteristic camera shyness in Kalos, but like, in the Indigo League he was all, “HEY MOM LOOK AT ME I’M ON TV!!!!” when he was interviewed there, haha).

Very seriously considers whether he can save the world closer to home next time when she asks him to in the second movie, and---with grave seriousness---says that he will try. (He fails, but look, he didn’t say he would succeed, he said he would try.)

She was on the Queen of Hearts card in one of the AG endings, right along with Misty (two most important ladies in his life, natch)

Never fails to talk up her cooking, is always very excited to introduce her to his friends. Yeah, sure, maybe he doesn’t like it when his mom tells his friends how messy his room is, but otherwise he’s always very excited to show off his mama to his friends.

When Delia asks him where he gets his reckless streak from, he beams and proudly says, “I guess I get it from you.”  And let’s not forget the biggest one of all:

Went on a roaring rampage of revenge in the third movie when Entei kidnapped her. The boy literally chased after Entei, and when that failed, he stormed the castle and straight up picked a fight with a legendary pokémon to get his mother back. Say what you will about the dub, but I can say that in the dub version Veronica Taylor really sold the rage every time she had to be all, “Where’s my mother” at Entei. 

Basically, what I’m getting at here is that the Ketchums love each other very much. Outside of extended family that we don’t hear about, or family friends such as the Oaks and the Hales, they’re all each other had for family for the first ten years of Ash’s life. Delia was a teen mom (at least according to the novelizations, but look at how young she is; it’s not hard to believe), and a single teen mom at that, but she did her absolute best to raise Ash, and she did a damn good job. That boy did not want for love a single day in his life. And although Ash is as rowdy a boy as they come, you can tell he loves his mom with every fiber of his heart and hasn’t really felt like his life has been missing anything (aside from a equally as rowdy electric mouse, but he came along in due time ♥). And I think that, as much as we as a fandom have enjoyed angst about Ash’s missing dad over the years, we should remember that Ash has a mom who has always cherished him, has never stopped cherishing him, and will always, always be there for him, just as she always has in the past. And that likewise, Ash cherishes his mom with all his heart, and if you asked him if his life felt like it was missing something because his mom was all he had growing up, he’d look at you like you were crazy, and maybe even get a little offended. The Ketchum family may be small, but it’s not the size of a family that matters. A kid can have two parents and still be neglected. Hell, a kid could have four parents (through divorce + remarriages) and still be neglected. Just because Ash only had one parent doesn’t mean he was missing out on anything. Not when that one parent he had was Delia Ketchum.

I think they did just fine.

[sage-nebula]

34, 35, 38, and 47 with pokeshipping?

Sure thing!

34.) Who would wear “if lost return to…” t-shirt/ Who would wear “I am…” t-shirt?

Let’s be honest: If they were going to wear these shirts, Ash would definitely need the “If lost, return to Misty” shirt, and Misty would need the “I’m Misty” shirt. However …

Ash would be Offended™ at the idea that these shirts are even necessary, because a.) he is a perfectly capable trainer (and soon to be Pokémon Master) and doesn’t need to be babysat / watched over / “returned” to anyone, b.) he doesn’t get lost, Misty gets them lost and she does it all the freaking time—

And that’s when Misty would get heated because oh, really Ash, really, you’re really going to try to pull that one? You’re going to pull that one when you’re so directionally impaired that “you couldn’t find your way out of a mirror!” (That’s a direct quote from canon, btw—or at least dub canon, not sure what the line was in the original.)

“Well, you BREAK mirrors!” (And that was his canonical reply.)

At this point, Misty is so heated that she says, FINE, she doesn’t want the “I’m Misty” shirt that Brock and Tracey had tried to give her anyway, she instead needs one that says “KEEP HIM” because that more accurately conveys how she feels!

Of course, now Ash is Even More Offended™ at the fact that Misty doesn’t even want him (like, he doesn’t need to be “returned” to her and he is way better about not getting lost than she is, but why doesn’t she want him??), and because he’s Even More Offended™ but has no idea on how to sort through these feelings, what they mean, or what he’s supposed to do with them, he just says pretty loudly that, fine, yeah, that sounds GREAT, and he’s going to get a shirt that says “KEEP HER” because that conveys how HE feels!!

So they both end up wearing shirts that just say “KEEP HIM” and “KEEP HER” and make no sense, and they’re standing apart from each other, fuming, while Pikachu dejectedly tries to get them to make up over it, and Brock and Tracey—both of whom, it should be noted, started this whole mess (and really, Brock has no room to talk because he’s equally as responsible for getting them lost for 75% of Kanto as either Ash or Misty are)—just look at each other for a moment before discreetly sticking signs on their backs that read: “I’m Ash; if lost, return to Misty” and “I’m Misty; if lost, return to Ash.” 

(After both Ash and Misty have gone to sleep for the night, Brock—on Tracey’s suggestion—sews those messages onto the backs of the shirts.)

35.) Who goes overboard on the holidays?

It’s a little bit of both!

Misty gets really excited to celebrate holidays in special ways because she didn’t have too much of that growing up. Since her sisters were always kind of big sister bullies (I don’t agree with how fandom sometimes portrays them as horribly abusive for angst purposes, because it’s clear that Misty wasn’t treated like Cinderella, but they did bully her and even do in canon and that’s not really arguable), Misty often felt left out of celebrations growing up, or else she was picked on by her sisters and that soured things. So when she’s with Ash (whether during their journeys or later on in life, in adulthood), she gets excited at the prospect of being able to genuinely celebrate and tends to get really into it. She likes to dress up in holiday-appropriate clothes, partake in traditions, get special gifts, et cetera. She plans weeks in advance because she’s so excited she can hardly stand it.

Ash is much less of a planner, and tends to forget about holidays until they smack him in the face, mostly because in his childhood Delia was always the one to do all the planning (and thus he never really had to think about it). But when the holiday does smack him in the face, he also gets really excited about it, because he loves holidays. I mean, Ash loves reasons to celebrate and party in general; he’s very big on having fun and goofing off with people he likes / loves, and holidays give him a good excuse to do that. So when the holidays come around, although he forgets and procrastinates and sometimes has to scramble for gifts at the last second, he tends to get very into it and is always very excited to partake in whatever holiday tradition, even if it includes wearing ugly sweaters. (And you might think, “Really?” but remember that outfit he wore in “March of the Exeggutor Squad” when he and Brock first arrived at the carnival. This little number here:

Ash razzes Misty for her fashion sense at a couple different points throughout the series (most notably in “Pokémon Fashion Flash” and a little later in this episode, because although the dub dialogue is “that’s a real cute outfit, Misty” and, in text form only, that might seem like a compliment, he’s smirking and Veronica Taylor’s delivery is sarcastic; he’s teasing her), but he really has no right after that disaster. Even Pikachu was too embarrassed to be seen with him, jfc.

So yeah, he would get really into it, too. No question.)

38.) Who likes to star gaze?

Both … but for slightly different reasons.

Ash likes to look at the stars as he falls asleep outside, and it’s for this reason that—on nice nights—he prefers to sleep outside rather than finding a Pokémon Center to crash in. Looking at the stars as he falls asleep calms him, but in a weird way it also excites him. It makes him think about how massive the world is, about how much there is to explore, about how much adventure he still has to go on. He really wants to be a Pokémon Master, and part of him is impatient for that, but a larger part of him isn’t upset that his journey is continuing for the foreseeable future. He has wanted this for as long as he can remember. And when he looks up at the stars, and sees the billions of them in the sky, it reminds him of how small his little patch of earth is, and how much world there is out there, and how much there still is for him to do. That makes him happy, and makes it easier for him to fall asleep.

Misty, on the other hand, likes to look at the stars because she thinks that the idea of stars and cosmos is somewhat romantic. Like, there are romantic clichés about stargazing, but it’s a bit more than just that. That might be part of it, but Misty also thinks about the fact that everyone is under the same sky. In a different part of the world it’s daytime, so those people aren’t seeing the stars, but later they will. The sky connects people, even more than the sea does (though she won’t admit that part out loud), and so when she looks at the stars she likes to think that people she cares about, people that aren’t with her right then, are looking at them, too. When traveling with Ash, she wonders if her sisters are looking up at the night sky. When she’s back at the Gym, she wonders if Ash is. Regardless of where she is, she wonders if her parents are alive, and if they are, if they’re looking at the stars, too. (I headcanon that they disappeared in a ship accident and are presumed dead, but when Misty is ten, she still holds out hope that they’ll come home someday. Brock’s dad did, right? So it shouldn’t be impossible for hers.)

So they both like stargazing, but their thoughts are in different places when they do.

47.) Who has the more complex coffee order?

Misty, but this is more because Ash doesn’t drink coffee (outside of one specific AU I have where he ends up picking up the habit due to the specific set of circumstances he’s in / company he has). Misty tends to like things like frappuccinos and other frozen coffees, and likes to experiment around with flavors and the like. Ash doesn’t get it; he thinks that the coffee taste is too strong no matter what she does to it, and doesn’t get why she likes it, and just … just doesn’t understand at all, and so when they go to a coffee shop he usually just gets hot chocolate or something. (Which, in all honesty, is fine, because that boy does not need caffeine.) So Misty wins this round, but mostly because Ash isn’t participating.