#lastly

I don't even care what your identity is or whats your excuse. Using a term meant to be self empowering to trans men and used to express our trans joy as another means to belittle us, and to tacitly or actively contribute to the infantilization we face, is so out of line.

Because you calling us "boys" in a negative way is infantilizing, and it is participating in, contributing to, and normalizing attitudes inherently coming from specific transphobic prejudice about us.

"T-boy" is a title a trans man* gets to choose to describe himself, and it is not a word every trans guy uses. It's not something others have a right to call him without his consent. Exactly because being called a 'boy' gets used as a tool to infantilize us. Not everyone is comfortable with it, and that's their right.

But "T-boy" is a term which refuses that minimizing of our personhood, it's joyful, playful, it brings us together to celebrate who we are with the language we choose regardless. On our terms, with our meaning. Celebration even in the face of a world that tries to instill us with unimaginable amounts of shame. That celebration and refutation of shame is literally what pride is about.

Recentering the connotation of "T-boy" to deliberately belittle or look down on us spits directly in face of its meaning and the importance it has for the trans men who identify with it. It disregards the very context of the title at all.

I see queer people do it so casually, roll their eyes and call a trans man they don't like a "T-boy" or talk shit about certain kinds of "T-boys" and it drives me nuts, because the transphobia against trans men is so normalized. But this IS transphobia. You are contributing to infantilizing us, and you are misusing our term and changing its connotation to be just another avenue of shaming us, which is exactly what the title is used to push back against.

Literally just don't do it, I understand some people don't recognize the issue, and casual microaggressions will go unnoticed, or easily dismissed, but if you do hear me here- just don't do it. It's not hard. If you see someone else doing it, explain why it isn't okay.

If you have even a drop of desire to support trans men and transmasculine people, please listen to us and understand that this isn't cool. What attitudes it normalizes, what your participation and your complacency says to the trans men around you. In your life, in your community.

You need to realize how every time you're okay with "T-boy" being uttered with disgust, dismissal, or mockery just how extremely loudly it announces you are not a safe person for trans men/transmascs to be around.

With that in mind, what changes or additions would you make to either the Original Series (Johto in particular) or the Diamond & Pearl series to end Ash's story in Gen 2 at the earliest or Gen 4 at the latest?

Honestly I think ending in Johto as it was (just make AshvsGary the final and we're good) would have been great. Sure we wouldn't have "good trainer Ash" from Sinnoh or Kalos, nor the emotionally mature Ash of Alola; but Johto Ash felt like a very good growth from the brat he was in Kanto (specially for the 90s)

Also winning in Johto, that it's kinda of an extention of Kanto, down to sharing an elite four; would have felt like the ideal redemption for Ash (not to mention Brock and Misty were still both there to see his growth and all)

If I were to say to change something would be to just GIVE MISTY LAPRAS INSTEAD (in the orange saga)!!! Kanto-Johto sucks bad in the treatment of anyone other than Ash and the more I look at that pokemon under Ash the more I hate it. Misty never did anything with her water specialist goal! And are you telling me that Misty would not be insanely protective of that big water baby??? Misty has a theme song in japanese ABOUT LAPRAS???! how did they mess that up that badly?

Also, giving Lapras to Misty and perhaps including a small arc of her helping it trust humans while having Ash earning Charizard's trust happening side by side would have been SO GOOD.

I get it that having Ash earn it's trust was good setup for Charizard later but still STILL! It would have been a great moment to let Misty do something other than holding that stupid Togepi :T (Brock had more attention than her with the Vulpix plotline later!!)

Maybe we could still have Ash bonding with Lapras while Misty took care of the most complicated stuff like food, medicine and have Ash let her have the Lapras in the end despite everything cause "you know about it a lot more than me" or something. Good chara growth for Ash in doing that for Misty of all people and would also add into their ship if they were supposed to be endgame to match a potential finale. And would add another parallel to Charizard since Brock was wayyy more invested when they met it as Charmander and Ash got it anyway.

(we could even have Togepi evolve at the goodbye because of the overall happiness Misty and Lapras felt at the later's freedom or something)

Also, everyone loves to call out BW for not taking advantage of the timeskip from BWgames to BW2 but the OG anime also didn't do SHIT with the timeskip from RBG to GS and I think that would have been cool to see. Specially in context to Brock and Misty and idk maybe see Misty in special develop a bigger interest on actually becoming the Cerulean gym leader after all; while we could have more mentions of Forrest becoming a gym leader too (with perhaps him sending some pokes to Brock to raise, teach new moves, stuff like that! Kinda like he did with Suzie's Vulpix but expanded)

Having characters like Gary and Ritchie pop up more often (Johto had so many fillers that could have just been about recurring characters in general) would help a lot too. Specially I would have loved a proper Ritchie vs Ash battle so Ritchie himself could be like "you've grown a lot" ;w;

Also, Casey and Sakura should have been in the league and it would have been really nice if they had committed to the "Mentor Ash" thingie with Casey in specific. There are hints there, but it could have been much more interesting (specially if she did end up in the league but lost too soon and Ash supported her because he knows how that feels or even sort of "fought for her" afterwards. Adding that layer of "battling for the people around me and not only for the win" thingie)

Now DP.. welp. I'm bias :v

While Sinnoh itself is totally not an important place for Ash, characters like Dawn (who helped in his goal) and Infernape (who showed us how much he grew as trainer and person), the connection to the lake deities, and the very deliberate parallels to the OG series make up for it so I would be ecstatic if he won the league there aoheduiabs

Fixing DP would be just fixing plot points that piss me off in particular. Like, make the summer camp arc actually have some sort of meaning??? That was so inconsequential and it piss me off how that lasted 4 plus the 5th fatphobic TR episodes.

@/silvermeww proposed the idea of upgrading Angie into an actual trainer (and therefore league rival) and I agree with that notion! Pokemon has a disturbing lack of trainer girls and an even more disturbing lack of girls in leagues, so having Angie take this role would have been super cool she could even replace Conway for me :3c and would make that arc hold more weight.

Not release Ambipom and fix Togekiss capture.

I.. I just hate how Dawn got Togekiss so so so so much. And the reminder that Ambipom got thanosed to make room for that bird makes it worse. There was a filler with an "evil" Togepi 50 episodes prior that could have gone for Dawn and become Togekiss and that would have been 100% better than the Salvia BS episode. Do the Togebo from Pokespe thing but with Dawn! That would be hilarious ashdiioasda

Ambipom could have gone play Ping Pong for all I care, but I do wish they had brought her back to the Grand Festival (at the very least for the appeals -show how far she and Dawn have come from their first appeal together QAQ-, or even just to watch it)

Ash winning against Paul with Infernape would not be too bad since that was the season that set up the Champions league (aka elite four) and therefore Pikachu would totally have his time against Cynthia (despite the buildup with InfernapexGarchomp.. maybe treat Spiritomb as her "true" ace?). It would totally be an Alola league then Kukui kinda deal. God, we could even do the Volo thing and give her Giratina as a treat /j

Also please Torterra should have his redemption arc in the Champion league! He could have a rematch against Bertha's Hippowdon!!! And Infernape vs Infernape in Ash vs Flint! Buizel rematch against Lucian's Bronzong!

Gosh… DP had some good set ups between the elite four and Ash's mons uh.

Anyway!

I also would love to have more of this (couldn't find EN Subs so PT it is):

Translation: It's the first time he (Ash) gets on the best four.

Brock's pride in Ash after his battle with Tobias makes me so emotional QAQ

I really would have loved to see more of that, more of Brock seeing Ash growing and seeing him become someone who doesn't need his big bro taking care of him anymore (maybe could've expanded to things like taking care of pokemon or mundane chores too).

Speaking of Brock, I would have loved more Brock and Paul interactions since it was pretty obvious Paul saw a lot of Reggie in Brock. And I would have loved if that relationship could have helped Paul grow rather than the "oh no i lost. I am a better person now" approach that we got in the league lmao

Still onto Paul, I would have liked if his actions held more weight too. Is peak cinema when Ash takes over ordering Chimchar in the tag team tournament but I would have liked if Paul acting like that had ended in his disqualification (thus giving the two bells to Ash from the get-go). Like.. that was pretty much him forfeiting? And like, he was abusing Chimchar! He should have suffered consequences for it at least ONCE!

Gosh, imagine a plot point where one of the gym leaders refuse to take Paul's challenge because of how he treats his pokemon? And have him realize that not everyone is going to just let him do whatever he wants? It would have been nice. Crasher Wake (who is one of the most forgetable Sinnoh leaders -at least for me) would have been perfect for such a plot point.