Random stuff I think about

Here were the hardest and easiest levels to get platinum on(for me)

Hardest:

1-stormy ascent

2-the lab

3-generator room

4-jaws of darkness

5-high road

Easiest:

1-hog wild

2-lights out

3-jungle rollers

4-bolder dash

5-rolling stones

Ssj2 gohan

Gogeta love,for once…

So I was scrolling on twitter as one does when looking for the most …intelligent takes, and people have been bringing up discourse around this scene again from XYZ of Serena throwing snowballs at Ash; and of course leave it to the fandom to misinterpret the hell out of this scene and then extrapolate from their botched interpretation they have and then come to conclusions that stray so far away from the original scenes intention. Im gonna try and debunk as many of these talking points as I can,just the main ones I see online at least.

So first the context behind this scene, Ash has lost against wolfric which by this point is about his third loss,greninja and Ash have both left the Pokemon center and have been gone for almost a day,and Serena worries obviously,and goes to look for him.

Serena then finds Ash in the forest and goes to comfort him by try to relate to him through their similar experiences with losing. Ash then lashes out at her for no reason and Serena retorts by asking Ash to talk to her and Ash just brushes her off and tells her to go away. In response to this Serena throws snowballs at him and tells Ash thats not the Ash she knows and reminds him of his core characteristics.

I think where people get caught up is the part where Serena tells Ash that he’s not acting like the Ash she knows and people have been framing it as Serena gaslighting him on some level and telling him how he’s supposed to act because she has an "idealized" version of him in her mind that she expects him to always act like. The argument kinda hinges on the idea that Xy’s characterization of Ash being more heroic and less bratty and combative is not who Ash really is and that since this is the "first" time he’s been really down,so Serena has a "fake" idea of Ash. Whats flawed about this argument is that it’s a bit dishonest with its framing,like one of Ash and Serena’s first interactions is Ash at a weak spot mentally. At the beginning of Xy Ash has just lost to viola and is struggling with his training against Alexa and counting his recent loss in the unova league where he placed worse than before,so if you take all that into account Ash was having a hard time similar to this,it’s not the exact same situation as in the snowbelle arc but it’s very similar. Serena when first giving Ash his handkerchief back reminds Ash of there time in camp which reminds him of his core self. I think Serena was trying to go for a similar approach here by reminding Ash that he’s being uncharacteristically a wimp. Shes not saying that he NEEDS to act a certain way,but that he’s has the tools to bounce back from this loss in a more healthy way. Ash was pushing away all the people that care about him and isolating himself which is that exact opposite thing that gave him and greninja the ability to tap into the battle bond in the first place. Serena has seen him bounce back from losses and by reminding him of his core character he’ll be able to come back from this loss which in the end works.

I don’t like how some people online have tried to frame this scene as Serena being just as if not the only one in the wrong in this. People think that just cause she has a crush on him that she has formed a "fake/idealized" version of him that she’s basically gaslighting which as I just explained isn’t really the case. Sure Serena probably on some level sees Ash with rose tinted glasses,but I doubt it’s not the level people try and make it out to be,like it’s not like shes actively favoring Ash over like clemont or Bonnie,she just as a crush and thats fine😭. Serena’s opening line probably wasn’t the best as telling someone like in that state you now how they feel,even if it’s true it shifts the focus on her rather than Ash,but Ash’s equally cringe response was not warranted like at all either . I think a lot of these arguments also hinge on downplaying Serena’s POV and giving Ash all the benefits of doubt and then will act like there explanations are also justifications,but newsflash you can’t just treat people bad because you’re in a bad spot mentally.

Also how people throw around the term "depressed" to describe Ash is very misleading,Ash is not clinically depressed he’s just very upset. So when people try and use cringe arguments like,"well Serena shouldn’t have thrown snowballs at a depressed person" and it’s like relax y’all acting like they had rock in em or something and Ash has survived worse and was fine.

Another thing people look over is that Serena is explicitly sorry for anything she did. This shows that Serena was being accountable for any wrongdoing she might have done. This also proves that Serena doesn’t have an idealized version of Ash because if she did I doubt someone like that would have any remorse or accountability for what they may have said or did.

People always like to try and criticize Serena for being not confrontational enough with Ash,but then the one time she’s explicitly confrontational with him y’all have a problem,interesting…

So to end this: Ash is by in large the one in the wrong,Serena doesn’t have an idealized version of him in her mind,and it worked out in the end,Ash and greninja reconnected and mastered the battle bond so you can thank Serena for that.

My guy trunks!!

So I guess for context I made a Reddit post about this video months back and I recently reread that post and re watched this video and I think there’s some things I could’ve said better and clarified so here I go again I guess.

So probably my biggest gripe with this video that carries over from my Reddit post is that the discussion around Serena’s actual character. Granted this isn’t really the main focus of the video but it’s still something I think is worth discussing. The way Serena’s character is discussed in this video is very surface level and strips Serena’s arc and story of any nuance and condenses into vague bullet points that don’t do her character justice at all even going so far to say that she’s a highlight of may and dawns writing. This one obviously bugs me personally as Im a fan of Serena,but it’s also rubs me the wrong way as he’s presented this video as this video to end all Serena videos as the description of the video is literally "this is the only good Serena video" you’d think with a claim like that there would be some actual deeper level thought put into discussing her story arc but unfortunately no. To be more specific and give examples is that this idea that Serena becomes less important after the master class ends. This is obviously not true as Serena’s was the catalyst that allowed ash and greninja to master the battle bond technique and her help with professor sycamore and Mairin save chespin during the team flare arc which you could also say is a representation of her new goal after she lost in the master class.Im not expecting everyone to have this complete and total understanding of Serena’s character or arc but again if that’s how you’re going to present your video than Im going to hold to that higher standard to at least do your due diligence and not oversimplify or dumb down her story arc.

The next contention I have with this video is the way amourshipping is discussed. I feel like the way amourshipping or ash and Serena’s relationship is discussed in this is again very surface level and leaves out important details. He makes claims like Serena and ash don’t have any equality or vulnerability with each other. This is can be disproven by scenes like ash and Serena’s talk back when ash hurt his foot in the summer camp arc as Serena opens up about not having a goal and that being a struggle for her with ash offering helpfull advice. Also his whole dismissive approach when talking about ash showing not reciprocation towards Serena. I’ve talked about this type of point before, the whole amourshipping is one sided thing but to simplify it basically Because of Ash’s more grounded characterization in Xy he’s obviously shown to be oblivious but his actual feeling are kept ambiguous therefore certain scenes it’s possible to interpret them as some level of reciprocation the caveat being that those specific scenes can be left up to interpretation by the viewer. So to dismiss arguments of any reciprocation it seems unnecessarily close minded. He goes so far to say Ash is effective an asexual character which I understand on some level that perspective but unfortunately there’s almost no evidence to support this and we’ve seen ash be into girls in the past which funnily enough he brings up but just brushes it off. The whole framing he has when it comes to amourshipping,framing it as just a gag and nothing else really,also bugged me. He’s right in the fact that Serena gets teased for her crush and that sometimes the romance can be used for a joke but as it’s being framed in this video would have you think that amourshipping is just a gag neglecting the fact the amourshipping plays a bigger role in the narrative specifically pro tainting to Serena’s growth. I’ve made a amourshipping analysis on my blog in the past so I’m not going to crazy in depth on amourshipping and it’s role in Serena’s development,but just know that amourshipping serves as this external representation of her confidence growth throughout the series.

Something I can find common ground with this video is that I do agree on the fact that the aspect that makes Serena’s so beloved is mostly because of amourshipping. Because of this you tend to get people in the fandom that don’t really give much of a shit about Serena’s development or character but only care about the romance. Because of this it creates this feeling that most of Serena’s love is artificial and transactional as people only seem to care about the romance. My best counter to this is that people aren’t necessarily mad that their OTP didn’t become canon but are more upset that all this build up was not paid off. The thing is when you put stock into two characters and this idea that they should be in a relationship which is something that was actively pushed by the narrative it feels cheap that nothing ever came of it in the end. Now we could have a dialogue about if it was realistic to have these expectations for the Pokemon anime which I would probably concede that it probably isn’t, but this kinda ties into a pervious point about hype cycles which to put it simply it basically when a fandom gets so caught up in the hype or excitement of something that it starts to cloud there judgment and them being able to realize the reality of the situation. He makes the argument that Xy fans specifically amourshippers fell into this which is why a bunch of writers ending up getting harassed on twitter by a loud minority of these people.

Something I think this video does get right about Serena is disproving the claim about Serena’s character being sexist or trying to push patriarch which I think this video does a pretty good job at doing.

Another thing I’ll give credit to is that this video is pretty informational when it comes to the BTS stuff. I specifically think it does a good job of "rehumanizing"the writers and staff on the Pokemon anime giving this one particular writer Akemi amode (sorry if I butchered that) some spot light and even I learned something which is cool. But this is important as fandoms sometimes tend to start depersonalizing some of these people who work on these shows and even start to act like that know better then these professional writers so I thought that was worthy of pointing out.

Another little thing is despite this dudes feelings on amourshipping and Serena he threw us Serena fans and amourshippers a bone at the end leaving it on a somewhat positive note.

Overall I still think this video is decent,it’s got pretty good production quality and there are some decently compelling arguments made,but I feel as though this video over sells it’s self a bit. Trying to proclaim that this is the only good Serena video is very bold to say the least and is something most wouldn’t agree with including myself and the condescension could also be toned down a bit too. If you want some ball knowledge on Serena’s actual character I suggest watching this three part series that was reuploaded back on YouTube a few mouths back where this guy goes heavily in depth on Serena’s character,also some where in my blog there’s a link to a blog post that also goes into much greater depth on Serena’s arc that is worth a read imo.

Life of Pablo has really grown on me lately