I thought maybe it was just a phase I was in or just something my younger self got caught up in… but one of the 3 is more recent so it’s not just a passing fancy.
I’m sure the same would apply for all characters I like leaving a franchise or series at the end but there’ve been 3 specific characters, all female, I missed terribly when they went away at the end.
I loved the “Land Before Time” series to death as kid- although that love fell off a bit after they changed the voice cast in the 5th installment.
My favorite character only had ONE appearance in all of the 13 installments. Something I’m still a little bitter about. Chomper the baby TRex had 2 appearances… technically the only guest character to recur in the films but still!
And i honestly couldn’t say now why Ali was my favorite. But I liked her so much that I was sad at the end of part 4 when she and her family left. And I had recurring dreams about tracking down her voice actress just so I could say how much I loved her work in that one movie. I never found her in any of the dreams and in real life, Julianna Hansen only had that one acting credit. I still can’t believe that.
Next was Elora from the second Spyro game. I was still exhilarated when I beat the game the first time, I didn’t count on how much it’d hit me that she just disappeared from the overworld once you 100% the game.
Don’t know why that hit me so hard but I found myself drawing her to make myself feel better.
The saddest part was the epilogue book that says Spyro missed his chance with her… I thought they’d be cute together, why did they have to do that?
So of course I was thrilled she made a cameo in the post credits of the next game.
But fast forward years later with Reignited, she has a new look and new voice and I didn’t feel that same spark as I had for the older version. I still like her of course and it’s nice that she’s more of a love interest this time around but it’s not quite the same.
Finally Serena from Pokemon,
I loved her story arc because it felt like a page out of my own life. A random dream sparked my Pokemon fanfiction idea before I fell in love with my subject. The fact that Serena followed Ash because of her crush on him- I couldn’t help but relate. I loved all those cute amourship moments with them.
And yeah it was sad seeing my favorite season end, the end of any of the Pokemon seasons is a bit sad. But this one was more devastating.
I’d only seen this final episode twice. The second time which was a few years ago… I think I was more broken up about Serena going her own way than the season ending. It was extra emotional and I’m not sure why.
Plus, this was a few years ago. The other two were when I was 10 and maybe 14. So clearly it’s something I haven’t grown out of.
So now I’m trying to figure out if there’s some sort of pattern to this or I just form random lesbian crushes on certain characters. Elora being a faun and Ali being a brontosaurus also makes this a bit more complicated- if you want to go that route. I’m not.
Maybe it’s all in the voice and I have a thing for voices like Julianna Hansen and Melissa Disney (Elora). But Melissa was also the lead in “as told by ginger” and I liked her a lot but not to this degree.
Or maybe I felt a personal kinship with them and that’s the reason for it. Again, only 2 of the 3. Ali was super shy, just like I am. And Serena was shy and harboring a crush and was hesitant to share with her mom that she had a different dream than her. Things I can all relate to. But I had nothing in common with Elora.
Ali and Serena had a commonality where i preferred them as a love interest for another character or just preferred to them a regular female character in the cast. (Elora could almost fit this argument too except I never played the Legend of Spyro series with Cynder- although between the two I’d picked Elora even though she’s not a dragon like Spyro).
With land before time, Cera was always my least favorite character because she bullied Littlefoot in the original movie and challenged every decision he made. While no longer a bully who put him down, she was still the one character who didn’t want to go along with his plans.
Obviously it’s a kids series so there’s no romance involved but these were the same reasons why I didn’t like Misty in Pokemon. And this was before I found out about her rumored crush on him… if anything I made me feel more antagonistic toward her. He deserved better than the girl who was a bully and only followed him because of her stupid bike. But then you could make the same case for Helga from hey Arnold and I ship for the two of them despite her constant berating of him. I could explain that away for a few reasons but the main one is I understand why she does and she even expresses remorse for doing so. Misty never walked back a rude comment she made to Ash, at least not to him personally.
I’m sure I liked Serena because of her having the crush more than her being a better pairing than Misty but it became more about that later on.
Now that I think about it, I’m not sure if I would’ve picked up on Misty’s feelings if I hadn’t heard her song on the Pokemon soundtrack. And I wonder if I would’ve been more amiable toward her and open to her being a potential love interest if I picked up on that on my own. It was just thrown in my face and it occurred to me that maybe I like him and that’s why I reacted the way I did.
Also in general, I’m a main character girl and it’s a pet peeve when other characters pick on the main character or say they’re not good enough to achieve their goals. Cera putting down Littlefoot bothered me a lot but not nearly as much as Misty… where it felt like that was her one purpose on the show. Friends should be comfortable telling their friends when they’re getting ahead of themselves and need to rethink things but the way it always came off to me is “you’re being stupid, that’ll never work”. Sometimes she’s right but it’s more satisfying when he proves her wrong.
And of course I’ll admit when Ash makes mistakes. I’m just as annoyed as anyone else when he brings out a Pokemon who has a distinct type disadvantage in a fight. He makes it work sometimes but I’m always asking WHY? I don’t understand it but I don’t give him a hard time over it because he’ll either make it work or not. It would just be a little less annoying if he learned his lesson and made better choices going forward. But I’m fairly certain that he used Chikorita in 2 or 3 ill advised fights, like he didn’t learn from the mistake the previous time.
Ultimately this all became part of his training style. Going for unexpected matchups and using quirks in the battlefield to his advantage… when it works, it’s mind blowing and I love it. And it’s even sweeter when the people around him compliment him on it. Even without Serena, the Kalos series was my favorite because Ash had companions that took him seriously and admired him and he didn’t get a super swelled head about it. Not nearly as badly as when he was just starting out.
It’s crazy to think I’d been done with my fanfiction series for a couple years now, but the fact I’m his biggest cheerleader hasn’t changed at all. But I’d also been in his corner since I was 13, which is 2 thirds of my life. The kind of thing that never goes away.
I still haven’t written my retrospective with him leaving the series but I also haven’t seen the finale- but I’m also not in a hurry to see it because I know it’ll be emotional.
I gave up the series for a while when Veronica Taylor and the original cast left but i definitely cannot see the series going forward without him. I won’t do it.
I’m sure the same would apply for all characters I like leaving a franchise or series at the end but there’ve been 3 specific characters, all female, I missed terribly when they went away at the end.
I loved the “Land Before Time” series to death as kid- although that love fell off a bit after they changed the voice cast in the 5th installment.
My favorite character only had ONE appearance in all of the 13 installments. Something I’m still a little bitter about. Chomper the baby TRex had 2 appearances… technically the only guest character to recur in the films but still!
And i honestly couldn’t say now why Ali was my favorite. But I liked her so much that I was sad at the end of part 4 when she and her family left. And I had recurring dreams about tracking down her voice actress just so I could say how much I loved her work in that one movie. I never found her in any of the dreams and in real life, Julianna Hansen only had that one acting credit. I still can’t believe that.
Next was Elora from the second Spyro game. I was still exhilarated when I beat the game the first time, I didn’t count on how much it’d hit me that she just disappeared from the overworld once you 100% the game.
Don’t know why that hit me so hard but I found myself drawing her to make myself feel better.
The saddest part was the epilogue book that says Spyro missed his chance with her… I thought they’d be cute together, why did they have to do that?
So of course I was thrilled she made a cameo in the post credits of the next game.
But fast forward years later with Reignited, she has a new look and new voice and I didn’t feel that same spark as I had for the older version. I still like her of course and it’s nice that she’s more of a love interest this time around but it’s not quite the same.
Finally Serena from Pokemon,
I loved her story arc because it felt like a page out of my own life. A random dream sparked my Pokemon fanfiction idea before I fell in love with my subject. The fact that Serena followed Ash because of her crush on him- I couldn’t help but relate. I loved all those cute amourship moments with them.
And yeah it was sad seeing my favorite season end, the end of any of the Pokemon seasons is a bit sad. But this one was more devastating.
I’d only seen this final episode twice. The second time which was a few years ago… I think I was more broken up about Serena going her own way than the season ending. It was extra emotional and I’m not sure why.
Plus, this was a few years ago. The other two were when I was 10 and maybe 14. So clearly it’s something I haven’t grown out of.
So now I’m trying to figure out if there’s some sort of pattern to this or I just form random lesbian crushes on certain characters. Elora being a faun and Ali being a brontosaurus also makes this a bit more complicated- if you want to go that route. I’m not.
Maybe it’s all in the voice and I have a thing for voices like Julianna Hansen and Melissa Disney (Elora). But Melissa was also the lead in “as told by ginger” and I liked her a lot but not to this degree.
Or maybe I felt a personal kinship with them and that’s the reason for it. Again, only 2 of the 3. Ali was super shy, just like I am. And Serena was shy and harboring a crush and was hesitant to share with her mom that she had a different dream than her. Things I can all relate to. But I had nothing in common with Elora.
Ali and Serena had a commonality where i preferred them as a love interest for another character or just preferred to them a regular female character in the cast. (Elora could almost fit this argument too except I never played the Legend of Spyro series with Cynder- although between the two I’d picked Elora even though she’s not a dragon like Spyro).
With land before time, Cera was always my least favorite character because she bullied Littlefoot in the original movie and challenged every decision he made. While no longer a bully who put him down, she was still the one character who didn’t want to go along with his plans.
Obviously it’s a kids series so there’s no romance involved but these were the same reasons why I didn’t like Misty in Pokemon. And this was before I found out about her rumored crush on him… if anything I made me feel more antagonistic toward her. He deserved better than the girl who was a bully and only followed him because of her stupid bike. But then you could make the same case for Helga from hey Arnold and I ship for the two of them despite her constant berating of him. I could explain that away for a few reasons but the main one is I understand why she does and she even expresses remorse for doing so. Misty never walked back a rude comment she made to Ash, at least not to him personally.
I’m sure I liked Serena because of her having the crush more than her being a better pairing than Misty but it became more about that later on.
Now that I think about it, I’m not sure if I would’ve picked up on Misty’s feelings if I hadn’t heard her song on the Pokemon soundtrack. And I wonder if I would’ve been more amiable toward her and open to her being a potential love interest if I picked up on that on my own. It was just thrown in my face and it occurred to me that maybe I like him and that’s why I reacted the way I did.
Also in general, I’m a main character girl and it’s a pet peeve when other characters pick on the main character or say they’re not good enough to achieve their goals. Cera putting down Littlefoot bothered me a lot but not nearly as much as Misty… where it felt like that was her one purpose on the show. Friends should be comfortable telling their friends when they’re getting ahead of themselves and need to rethink things but the way it always came off to me is “you’re being stupid, that’ll never work”. Sometimes she’s right but it’s more satisfying when he proves her wrong.
And of course I’ll admit when Ash makes mistakes. I’m just as annoyed as anyone else when he brings out a Pokemon who has a distinct type disadvantage in a fight. He makes it work sometimes but I’m always asking WHY? I don’t understand it but I don’t give him a hard time over it because he’ll either make it work or not. It would just be a little less annoying if he learned his lesson and made better choices going forward. But I’m fairly certain that he used Chikorita in 2 or 3 ill advised fights, like he didn’t learn from the mistake the previous time.
Ultimately this all became part of his training style. Going for unexpected matchups and using quirks in the battlefield to his advantage… when it works, it’s mind blowing and I love it. And it’s even sweeter when the people around him compliment him on it. Even without Serena, the Kalos series was my favorite because Ash had companions that took him seriously and admired him and he didn’t get a super swelled head about it. Not nearly as badly as when he was just starting out.
It’s crazy to think I’d been done with my fanfiction series for a couple years now, but the fact I’m his biggest cheerleader hasn’t changed at all. But I’d also been in his corner since I was 13, which is 2 thirds of my life. The kind of thing that never goes away.
I still haven’t written my retrospective with him leaving the series but I also haven’t seen the finale- but I’m also not in a hurry to see it because I know it’ll be emotional.
I gave up the series for a while when Veronica Taylor and the original cast left but i definitely cannot see the series going forward without him. I won’t do it.
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