#funny tho when I said ash IS my chosen name

[athetos]

Picked up my hold from the library and I handed over my metro pass instead of my library card, so I apologized and gave them the right one saying “they’re both pride themed so I get confused haha” and then as I was leaving the librarian said “oh by the way you don’t have to use your legal name in our system, we can change it if you’d like” which was very sweet and made my day because I’m so used to ppl assuming I’m just a cis girl “tomboy” and not nonbinary. And like if I was binary trans I would probably feel differently about being clocked but it’s a breath of fresh air even if it was pretty obvious. I work in an office where I can wear Keith haring shirts, a rainbow flag beanie, and have a dozen pins and patches across my vest and backpack with pride stuff and people still are shocked when I’m not cis or het like! So I respect you librarian.

[sage-nebula]

honestly? i was wondering how they was gonna handle rockruff since both evolutions seem to suit different aspects of ash's battle style and with rockruff's whole eagerness to evolve thing i was sure it was gon' happen. but to see them repeating the exclusive evolution all over again jus' makes me laugh tbh. well, the boy's happy no matter how it turned out cause he loves his doggo anyway so i dont see any room to complain. watchin ppl lose it will be pretty funny, tho.

I’m sorry this took me so long to reply; I was eating dinner and watching The Office earlier, haha.

Anyway, yeah---they did make it pretty clear that they wanted Rockruff to evolve since they gave him a thirst for battle and a desire for evolution. I maintain that they didn’t have to write him that way; when planning the saga, they could have given Ash’s rockruff a different character arc, one that didn’t require evolution. The Kalos saga was the first time Ash’s entire team ended up evolving to their final stages (aside from Pikachu of course, but that’s a given), so it’s not as if leaving some of Ash’s pokémon unevolved would have been a big deal. In fact, I have a feeling that Rowlet is going to stay a Rowlet for the duration of the saga, both because it seems to be the comic relief pokémon of Ash’s team (what with the backpack gag and all), and because of that concept art with Rowlet on Incineroar’s chest.

So they didn’t have to do this, but I agree: Once it became clear that Rockruff wanted to battle everyone all the time + evolve, the natural step is to have him evolve. I also agree that Rockruff seemed really torn between the two evolutions. On the one hand, Ash has always worked best with pokémon that are speedsters, even if not fragile. He has had slow ‘mon before, of course (he has a torkoal ffs), but in my opinion he battles best with agile pokémon, particularly since he tends to fly by the seat of his pants at times, and having pokémon that can adapt the second the plan needs to change works best for him. While midnight lycanroc isn’t slow, midday is absolutely faster, so it would make sense for Ash to have midday lycanroc, especially since Gladion already has midnight lycanroc for some midnight representation.

On the other hand, Rockruff is aggressive and wants to fight all the time, which is a character trait associated with midnight lycanroc. Additionally, Ash is good at winning over disobedient and prideful pokémon given all the experience he has (Charizard alone is experience enough to last him a lifetime, let’s be honest), so letting Ash work with a midnight lycanroc could have been interesting as well, even if it would be rehashing a plotline that we’ve already seen before (even if the anime wants to pretend that plotline never happened).

So yeah, there was evidence for it going both ways . . . but that said, can we really say we’re surprised they decided to take a third option?

Like I said before, this makes it so that Ash isn’t “choosing” one starter over another. Although Gladion is far from a villain, he’s not a primary character (as in, one we see all the time), so if Ash had midday then it would seem as if midday is better than midnight. On the other hand, if Ash picked midnight, then we’d hardly see midday at all and it’d be like midnight was superior. This is the same reason, I think, why Ash never had an eeveelution (and why Red had his espeon taken away from him in the HGSS remakes and all subsequent appearances); they don’t want to play favoritism out of fear of making kids feel bad for what they chose. And to be honest, I think that mentality is ridiculous considering the sheer number of pokémon that don’t get more than a Pokémon of the Day spotlight due to there not being enough space in the cast to equally showcase every character, but I can understand the thought process nonetheless. It’s one that has existed since the anime’s first planning stages, so it’s not as if this was new.

On top of that, though, giving Ash something Super Special Just For Him is also par for the course. I mean, it’s always been this way. He saw Ho-Oh at the end of his first day out on his journey, he was the Chosen One in the Shamouti Islands prophecy, he has aura powers, he received Ash-Greninja in Kalos. Giving him a super special and unique lycanroc evolution is practically expected at this point. Dusk lycanroc is nothing more than the another “you are the protagonist, and you are therefore special, here is your special protagonist thing” item to add to the list. Anyone acting as if this is different from Ash-Greninja is just being silly. 

So yeah, I just find it funny. I’m sure the Discourse™ will be over with in less than a week, as per usual, but it’ll be amusing while it lasts. I can say one thing: I’d much rather have dusk lycanroc Discourse™ than any Discourse™ from another fandom I could name but won’t. Seriously, the Pokémon fandom’s salt is far and away more preferable. Keep it coming, guys. Be saltier than the Dead Sea. I love it.