#ag144

Folge 144 war auch gut. Ein weiterer guter Wettbewerb, obwohl das Finale wieder sehr lange gegen maike ging und dann hat sie es gewendet, aber das war nicht schlecht wie gegen Phantom oder so )erwähne ich immer)

Und Schiggy hat sich gut gemacht. War am Anfang nervös, aber durfte zuschauen und Maike hat es comfortet

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Ich fand auch deren Vorführung sehr gut. Besodners Jessie hat ja immer gute, schafft es aber nie weit. Jetzt wissen wir welchen Schmerz James immer ertragen muss. Runde von maike ging kurz, aber war perfekt. Kein Struggle oder so, sondern sehr selbstbewusst und so

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btw vorher noch in der Aula. ich finds lustig wie schnell Harley sich immer umstellt, sobald Maike in ertappt. Auch vom Voice Acting, weil er dann nichts mehr vorspielen muss. So von der einen auf die andere Sekunde

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Der Kampf war sehr unterhaltsam, weil keiner angegriffen hat, gab sogar gelbe Karte und dann hat harley nur rumgealbert mit Fadenschuss. War einseitig, aber schon lustig

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oh im fucking OBSESSED with harley's cotton spore/needle arm in ag144

mostly just because of what it represents and the execution of it like???

in terms of representation it’s really on brand for harley, contests aren’t as stupidly puritanical about conventionally attractive pokemon as showcases are but you still have a majority showing off cuteness/elegance while harley goes for menace because his pokemon are menacing and he’s a good coordinator who knows what he’s doing. so to have an appeal where cacturne makes something beautiful--in this case, the cotton spores which are elegant, feather-light, pretty to look at--and then mercilessly have cacturne destroy it is like... fucking emblematic of harley’s style. it’s literally a microcosm of him shattering the conventions of what it means to show off your pokemon’s talent. for a beautiful pokemon, their strength lies in that beauty. but this is a dark type, and its strength lies in destroying that beauty.

it also shows off the talents of both grass types and dark types. creation, growth, nurture... followed by underhanded, cruel, wicked onslaught.

execution wise it’s a fucking phenomenal appeal as well because (and this is a headcanon based on mere observation and having i love harley disease) it seems like harley’s trained cacturne specifically to respond to hand gestures like one would train a dog. this works best in the battle round because harley can command cacturne to use attacks without calling those attacks out, meaning his opponents have less time to react. BUT he also uses it here to his advantage--he calls out the cotton spore verbally, and then lets it linger in the air for a moment. anticipation builds in the audience as they wonder what is going to happen next, time passes so slowly its agonizing. and then rather than verbally commanding the needle arm, he snaps his fingers to signal cacturne to do it, meaning the audience has NO time to register whats about to happen and instead see the appeal combo as its happening in real time. this adds to the shock value and overall hit of the appeal!!!!!! it would not FEEL the same to the audience observing if harley were to do it traditionally.

this fucking appeal is so carefully crafted i think about it all the time... honestly i have SO much to say about the styles and best ofs of different coordinators so i just picked the first thing that came to mind but this one really fucking sticks with me. harley is so genuinely one of the best and most underrated (in universe) coordinators in the entire anime and he leans SO hard into his brand in a way that other characters really can’t or don’t. this is just one of his best moments i absolutely adore.

- honestly, a ton of jessie’s showcase performances in kalos, but i get especially salty about her coumarine show

it’s not even that i wanted jessie to win it, but the reception she received was so pointlessly negative. like, there was no reason for it to be so negative?? she could have just... lost by a few points and the story wouldn’t have changed, but they made it a total flop??

the challenge was pokemon styling and while the girls went for cutesy themes, jessie crafted what was essentially a halloween costume for pumpkaboo. jessie’s a coordinator so she’s using coordinator’s tactics here--you accentuate what your pokemon does best, and so she accentuated the menace of her ghost type. but kalos isn’t for coordinators, kalos is a Girls Only club of conventionally attractive pokemon to sit around looking pretty and conventionally attractive all day and fuck you if you want to try to push those standards or show off what makes your pokemon unique. no. cute and pretty only.

literally LOOK at this shit it is phenomenal???? 

HOW WAS THIS EVEN A CONTEST... BUT NO KALOS THE LAND OF NO JUDGES LET THE AUDIENCE DECIDE MOTHERFUCKING AESTHETIQUE ASS HIPSTER BLOGGER PREP ASS FRENCH FUCKING TWERPS

i really, really, really hate showcases.

- jessie also should have won her contest battle round against harley by technicality in saffron city. vivian giving BOTH of them yellow cards is the most foul shit i have ever seen. there is no reason jessie should have been penalized for harley’s actions or her responses or HAVING A WOBBUFFET. god im so mad.

basically harley refused to attack, locking them into stalemate. wobbuffet can’t attack unless first dealt damage, harley took advantage of this and gave saffron city the most boring contest battle ever, and for some reason both him AND jessie got punished for this??? i dont understand why the judges fucking let that fly liKE.... HOW WAS JESSIE SUPPOSED TO RESPOND!!!! HER POKEMON IS A WOBBUFFET!!! 

everything that happened after that was clever on harley’s part but the beginning of it makes me so fucking mad.

- i am a kalos league anti, but my reasons for it aren’t butthurt at ash losing a league or thinking XY is the best series or what have you. i am more than fine with ash losing leagues forever, actually! i mean, he’s my boy and i’m rooting for him, but to me leagues are just one way he can succeed and grow, they aren’t the be all end all of his character.

the lead-up to ash’s loss at the kalos league + how it ended was bad fucking writing! plain and simple. ash had a tried and true breakdown in kalos, one that had been building for the whole leg of the anime. he’s surrounded by friends who idolize him, sometimes to a fault, he’s partnered up in a new and strange way with a pokemon who has a history of deeming its trainers not worthy, and by the time he’s going for his eighth badge? ALL his rivals are surpassing him. sawyer started following in ash’s footsteps, and right before ash challenges snowpoint, sawyer beats him. ash is confronted dead on with the fact that in no time at all one of his rivals has surpassed him. like it was nothing. couple that with the fact that ash has NEVER won a battle against alain--alain comes out on top, every time. in the months leading up to the league, ash’s losses mount and mount and mount and he breaks down and runs away, something UNHEARD of from someone like him. the story frames it as though all these losses are the precursor to a triumph--that’s what you do in storytelling. you drag your protagonist down low, the lowest you can get them... and then, through hard work and true grit, you allow them to defeat the odds and overcome their struggles.

but kalos didn’t do that. kalos whittled ash down to nothing and then made him lose again to the person he’d been losing to for the entire anime. no matter how satisfying that battle with alain might have been, it wasn’t enough to make me feel like ash got the good ending he deserved in kalos. i am very happy for all that the alola league did to remedy his past losses... but i still do feel like we were robbed beyond belief.

my tinfoil hat headcanon of the day is that harley’s trained his pokemon (or at the very least just cacturne) to respond to nonverbal commands in battle.

in his debut episode there’s that scene where he’s pretty much brought may to her knees in despair, and in one of the lingering moments where he’s taunting her and laughing at her, cacturne moves on its own to attack bulbasaur. harley is offscreen for this, and he doesn’t call a command. we don’t really get much info on his cacturne’s personality other than that he’s fiercely protective of it and that it feels the same about him--but it’s certainly not disobedient. at first, i figured it took the initiative because it and harley are so in sync that it was pretty clearly able to understand that a sneak attack in a moment of confusion is what its trainer would want. but then i remembered one of harley’s later appeals--

in the saffron city contest, harley’s appeal is arguably one of my favourites he’s ever done. the coolest thing about it to me is how he signals the climax of it with nothing but a snap of his fingers, and likewise, iirc, the judges & audience marvel at it too. watching the first part of the appeal, even though he’s giving verbal commands, he’s also using his hands a lot, alongside them. which, like, in a non-fictional context, is 100% a thing? when you’re training a dog, a lot of the times you train them with a verbal command and a physical hand motion. the goal is usually to get them to respond to just the hand signal after you slowly phase the speech element out.

so what i’m saying is in retrospect i think harley’s at a place where he can just shoot a hand signal at cacturne and it’ll react accordingly. because that, in contests? that is so, so dirty. in any battle, but in contests especially. in the moment you call out an attack, you’re giving your opponent a split second to react before the attack actually launches--they have the same amount of reaction time as everyone else on the field, so they have time to counterattack. something like this, though? that’s between a trainer and their pokemon. there’s no way to counter what you don’t understand.