#mpm

I did art!

Commissioned @xylveon700 a while ago to pick a scene from my 'Missing Parts of Me' fic and this is the wonderful result!

Was a lot of fun coloring this, Xyl captured the expressions so perfectly! ☺️

Dash of the Niko/Rob/Dash trio was the one person of that group who decided to use a Strong Sphere on her Swanna, and you can tell her motive wasn't malice but insecurity and the thief that compares. She was the only one of them who outright failed her Tera Training and had to revoke the right to use Terastal, whereas Niko and Rob got Tera Orbs to keep and use. She's desperate to keep up with them as she doesn't have Terastal and can't win against them which gives her insecurity, so she's resorting to this as a means to "catch up" and get on the level of her friends who she sees as ahead of her.

The Explorers are the ones promoting it under Spinel, with Coral and Sidian being in the public spotlight and gaining public admiration from the masses. Those two do want to be seen as valued and respected, as they've shown multiple times before, and they take on these publicity stunts because it gives them an opportunity to have a good public image and feel admired by the masses. But a positive public image isn't going to override underlying insecurity and lack of faith in who you are on the inside. I think Coral and Sidian may have that insecurity inside them because of their desire to keep the public image they have forged: Liko called them out and said they didn't need Strong Spheres, as she knows full well they're strong enough without them, having met and battled them several times before, but they did it anyway because they needed to maintain a public image and look good to the masses who adore them, and resorted to this to defeat her and Roy in front of the public crowds and reinforce their admiration instead of having the crowds lose respect for them. Chalce even said as much that their job at present is to present themselves as ideal and admirable Trainers to the public. But external admiration cannot balance out internal insecurity or overcome it.

Spinel is the architect of the public image the Explorers have built, using Exceed's good reputation from its time under Gibeon in order to prop himself up and present himself as a good public figure to the masses. He's obviously insecure, and his heinous behavior is driven by his need for external validation and desire to feel relevant and accomplished. Even Amethio, who is now MIA and has gone rogue beforehand, was originally defined by his insecurity. He was eager to prove himself worthy of his grandfather Gibeon's legacy and earn his approval but never felt secure in his place in Gibeon's life and circle. Whenever he battled Friede early on, there was always a disconnect: Amethio was insecure and trying to prove himself, while Friede was confident in himself and just wanted to have fun battling a strong opponent. Amethio saw this disconnect and got frustrated with Friede not taking him seriously and got even more frustrated when Friede unleashed his trump card (Terastal) and one-shotted him, realizing Friede could've always effortlessly stomped him in their battles if he wanted to, but chose to play around for fun instead of taking the easy (and boring) way out.

Insecurity also defined the TRio before the Explorers. Jessie, James, and Meowth were motivated by a desire for validation, not necessarily by the public but by Giovanni.

But public image in general versus faith in who you are on the inside has definitely manifested before this. While it was in a less villainous or antagonistic contest, Leon in Journeys was portrayed as an undefeated Champion, and given the nature of the Galar League in the games and the World Coronation Series in the anime as a public sports event, Leon was definitely under a lot of pressure to maintain a public image as an ideal and "the greatest Champion of all" to the masses and make sure that image stayed intact, and in doing so he lost sight of why he came to love battling in the first place. What he told Ash in Episode 100 of Journeys during their time in the Wild Area made it clear that his duty to maintain an impeccable public image as the mighty Champion who has never lost was a source of anxiety and fear for him.

Ash ended up being the one who defeated him, but his strength even as a rising star was that he's someone who's so unabashedly himself. He never really asked for positive public recognition. He just ended up naturally earning admiration from people, whether small scale or worldwide, through his actions as an expression of the core values he represents: a guy who loves Pokemon with his whole heart. He started out in Indigo League as an underdog who was perceived as clumsy and incompetent, with no one having high expectations for him, thinking he wouldn't make it very far, but his undying love for Pokemon not only inspired loyalty from his own Pokemon but respect from others in unconventional ways. He got half his Kanto badges unconventionally, but they were pretty much always because he showed his strength in his character, saving the day through his actions, even if he was unconventional and even as an experienced battler later on inherently contrarian and out-of-the-box. He pushed through merciless external disrespect through persistence and staying true to his core values, which ultimately proved to be his strength. His friendship with Goh in Journeys was rooted in how much they had in common but also that shared unabashed ability to be themselves around each other, even if they weren't accepted by others for their shared weirdness. Even against Leon, his bonds with his Pokemon and thinking out of the box was one thing, but in the end it was his sheer passion and his unabashed true self that pushed through, so much so that in the end even Leon awakened his true passion and Sonia saw the Leon she knew: not the undefeated Champion putting on a show for the masses, but the passionate Pokemon lover who was fiercely determined to give it his all in a battle against a tough opponent he was on even ground with.

Ash is someone who has been through varying external perceptions over the course of his time, from being seen as a joke of a Trainer who wasn't going to make it very far, to a renowned and respected World Champion and Monarch, but by the end Ash being a much more humble person clearly didn't care much for the publicity his victory against Leon gave him: he was just glad to have been able to surmount such an incredible opponent as a personal testament to his strength. Because what matters isn't how other people see you. What matters is you know who you are inside and embrace it. In MPM that showed. When he reunited with Misty, the two have long since surpassed their original misfit loser label, Ash now the World Monarch and Misty one of Kanto's finest Gym Leaders, and yet they started throwing quips at each other again like old times. They even had a low stakes battle over a trivial matter and Ash lost, but he took it in stride because he's just glad to have fun with his bestie. And then when he, Misty, and Brock have a bunch of fans gathering around them, Ash most of all thanks to his World Champion status (but Misty and Brock also highly revered), he was pretty humble about it and took it in stride. He's honored that people respect him, but he doesn't take too much investment in it. In the end, his resolution and answer to what being a Pokemon Master means is an embodiment of the strength of knowing who you are inside and owning it: He may be seen outwardly as a World Champion, but inwardly, he's an adventurer who loves Pokemon with all his heart. That's who he is, who he always has been, and always will be. And no matter where he is in his career or journey, nothing will change that core essence of who he is.

It's still early for Liko and her friends on this quest of theirs to clear the Rising Volt Tacklers' name and get back their truth, but that core essence is definitely one they're inheriting. Liko's first step was her proudly admitting to being a Rising Volt Tackler to her classmates, even knowing of the group's tarnished reputation. Her inner defiance is more understated than Ash's, given her outwardly softer personality, but just as strong. She's Liko of the Rising Volt Tacklers, and that title is an expression of who she is and what she believes in, which is that she's an adventurer who loves Pokemon and will fight fiercely to protect them. If that means being publicly branded as an outlaw and a terrorist and in turn becoming a fugitive, so be it. Even if the world doesn't trust her, she can prove her good character and compassion through her actions, which she did with Nyabiko and can do again and again as she pleases. It doesn't matter if the world fears her or hates her, she fights for what she believes in, even if that means being compassionate one moment, cruel and ruthless the next in a flip of a dime. Because she knows her core values and who she is inside, and she owns it. Her friends Roy and Dot share her defiance and self-confidence as fellow RVTs, and Uruto has proven a worthy addition to their squad because he shares that same defiant spirit and faith in his own strength and who he is, even if he's louder and more abrasive about it.

That kind of defiance and faith in who you are inside is going to be a major strength in Liko's favor as she gets stronger, even if she's still got a ways to go. While the Explorers are trying to keep up a positive public image, insecurity will inevitably lead that image to fall apart. Meanwhile Liko's path is becoming one where she knows she's a public enemy, but doesn't care, and she doesn't need to say anything to contest it. She lets her actions do the speaking as an expression of who she is inside: someone who's fiercely devoted to Pokemon and their well-being. Sometimes that means people, even if it's just a few, will trust her, sometimes that means she'll be feared and seen as a villain, but either way that's okay. As long as she's got loyal friends like Roy, Dot, and Uruto, she doesn't need external validation to prove her worth. She may have a divisive public image even long term, but the core essence of who she is inside will never waver, and she's gonna abide by that no matter what.

The funny thing is that it feels so unrelated to most of what actual hockey is. The plus side is possibly getting more people into real hockey, which I'm always in favor of!

I have for sure gotten more into hockey... gotten into at all period bc of the show. I preciate your answer!

I will always see it as a sex thing, as a metaphor, as men PLOWING into eachother. But it's cool af. I love how fast it is. It makes me think of what Romans would watch gladiators for back in the day but with cheetos sponsorships.

She did not.

What she wanted was for me to come out to breakfast with her.

Except breakfast was a half-truth.

If I'd known we weren't merely going out for breakfast, I would've put the chicken in the fridge before I let her leave the drive.

I ended up at the museum.

And frankly, I'm not even mad.

It was.......fucking incredible.

The last time I went to the Milwaukee Public Museum, I was in middle school. So about......ohgawd nearly twenty years or so ago. 😫 I'm anciiieeeeeennnnnnntttttttttttt!!!!!

The last time I went to the museum--I don't know if you're familiar with the MPM: They used to have an entire floor devoted to different model rooms of mostly white European cultures that used to be kind of the cultural core of Milwaukee.

When we went today, out of three floors of fully, exclusively exhibits, two of them were fully anthropology. Like. Maybe a third of a floor was dedicated to mostly insects, and then specimens, and maybe a third of a floor was dedicated to just exclusively animals. The African exhibits were a mix of some animals, some human-animal relationships, and then tons of culture. There was a huuuuuuggggeeeeee variety of Asian cultures displayed--a ton of Chinese and Japanese, but also some Indian and Korean and then a smattering of less well-known Asian cultures. Japan used to have like, one of those display rooms.

It was so fucking exciting to see sooooooooooooo many artifacts actually out on display rather than not even knowing that they were boxed away somewhere.

Even fucking better!! I fucking died a nerdy death at the display of historical wet and dry specimens and drawers of insects and rocks. It was so amazing to see the history of science and preservation on clear display for the public to see, I wanted to shake something and mostly ended up taking out my excitement on my coat.

My sister wanted me to stop taking pictures of "everything".