#like we COULD give everyone the supportive happy rival experience a la may and grace or whatever but that's just not the SAME
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torchickentacos · 2 days ago
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The pokemon anime subreddit fascinates and frustrates me on equally deep levels
#smiling and blinking innocently. long tags ahead :) being normal :)🌸☀️☘️✌️💐#i'm such a 'minding my own business' person in fandom. i feel like my usual reaction to seeing takes I disagree with is#'well. people probably hate some of my takes so whatever'. perhaps even the ones i'm about to share#but. man.#it's like a portal to 2010 forum discourse but goh and serena are there this time.#deeply fascinated by the repetition of old ship wars too????#what do you mean we're still having legitimate 'but drew and gary are mean' discourse 😭#i mean by all means they should keep arguing because mostly i'm just glad that the wider pokeani sphere remembers drew at all#but that being said i wonder what kind of rivalry these people would have wanted instead?????#because there's other rivalries we could point to where they weren't air-quotes 'mean'. but we have those and people ignore them lol#because they're-imo- usually less engaging and dynamic. except for dawn and zoey who have never done anything wrong in their lives.#like we COULD give everyone the supportive happy rival experience a la may and grace or whatever but that's just not the SAME#and augh. taking psychic damage and trying to be normal but that's the THINGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG OKAY#are Gary and Drew needlessly mean in early episodes? yeah lmao. i'm not arguing on that. they suck ❤️ completely insufferable.#b u t#there's that line. right. the line where it slowly slides into backhanded compliments too and giving that motivation-#-for their rival to work harder and the fact that they want that reaction and attention from this one person so badly.#like shipping aside I really do think that the friction of the Gary/Ash and May/Drew rivalries is what made them GOOD.#and yeah sometimes it was out of line but also that's just how the dub is as a whole tbh. they just said whatever shit they could 😭#AND BACK TO THE BEING NICE THING. Ash and May both got growth from their nice rivalries but not what they got from Gary/Drew.#it's different types of growth and lessons and they needed both kinds from different sources. I'd argue the rougher rivalries taught more?#regardless of your opinions on the characters themselves you can't deny that Gary/Paul/Drew/Harley/etc- the rivals that pushed A&M-#had the biggest impact on their growth over the rivals that didn't push. note that 'friends' and 'rivals' are different categories for this#I'm pitting. like. gary and paul against morrison and ritchie and not against dawn or pikachu or brock or whatever. different convo.#but it was growth out of spite to be better than the jackass rival at first and then that CHANGED INTO MUTUAL BETTERMENT#AND WANTING TO BE BETTER ✨FOR✨ AND ✨WITH✨ THEIR RIVAL. OKAY. (re: gary and drew specifically)#and as a result of all of this. drew and gary did get better to be fair!#well gary did kind of just start picking on goh instead gjkhsdkfj (joking) but ykwim.#DAMN IT I'M OUT OF ROOM AND IT DELETED A WHOLE ASS PART 2 THAT I HAD TYPED OUT#fine. i'll make this its own post at some point because i yearn to yap on about it
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