Ash and Serena's Chemistry (my Amour rant)
Mar 14, 2021 6:14:07 GMT
IceArceus, NovaStorm, and 2 more like this
Post by JohtoFesta on Mar 14, 2021 6:14:07 GMT
Anytime someone brings up Amourshipping, I always think about how lacking Ash and Serena's friendship was. You could blame the writers for this...but even so, Ash and Serena have just about zero in common, besides a general liking of Pokémon. Ash and Dawn, on the other hand, had everything in common. Their chemistry was apparent in Every. Single. Episode. Even pointless filler episodes. Even upon her return in BW. It was amazing! That is why, for me personally, Pearlshipping will always beat Amour by a landslide.
Ok, I can see how on paper Ash and Serena would seem like they were good for each other; they're both kind, good-hearted, share the same values about justice, they hardly ever argued (actually, a result of them not having any chemistry, or normal friendship interactions for that matter🙄)...
But let's look at how they work together in practice: They're terrible! Not to mention, boring. Even when Ash and Serena hung out together alone, they barely talked to each other. The 1st time, Ash ditched her. The 2nd time, Ash was trying to have fun but couldn't quite connect with her. He was even smart enough to deduce -> she's a girly-girl -> would probably like looking at clothes -> and pointed out some girly boutique shop to her! Meanwhile, Serena was distracted thinking about her future. Like, hello Serena! This is what you wanted! Wake up! I mean, even from Serena's side, they aren't good for each other. You can't date someone you have nothing in common with. She just puts Ash on a pedestal. Almost like a young girl would with a guy who's way older than her and out of reach...or something. Just talk to him! See, but that's the thing. They don't have that much to say to each other.
Except for some surface encouragement, there wasn't much else to their relationship. They just didn't click. I honestly thought it was pretty awkward. Especially considering they traveled together for so long. When you take that into account, it's even worse. Serena had all that time to get to know Ash better (and vice versa), but their relationship (i'm just talking about friendship, not amourshipping) went nowhere because she was too busy admiring him from afar and/or they had nothing in common. A huge chunk of the problem lies in the fact that Serena is not a battler. She isn't all that interested in it (except when she's watching Ash battle because...Ash). Ash is all about battling. It is his whole life. It's basically how he connects with most people. Heck, the last thing he did with Serena was to have a battle with her, cuz he was trying to connect with her, encourage her, and teach her one last lesson. That was nice and all. Cute. But not in a way that won points for Amour or made me want to ship them. (It was mainly cute for me because it showed a wiser, more experienced Ash being his kind self, doing his best to encourage someone, even when he had nothing in common with them.) Anyway, looking at Ash and Dawn by comparison, their last battle was all about establishing that they were equals. Even Cynthia, the totally awesome Sinnoh champion!, commented on their equivalent battling capabilities. And Ash was impressed enough with Dawn to exclaim that she and her Cyndaquil made him "nervous." Come on, if Ash - Mr. Battling Machine - is gonna have a girlfriend, she'd have to be just as into battling as he is. And Dawn just happens to be the Pokegirl who battled the most, even competing in non-Contest competitions. And again, Ash was always impressed with her battling skills, even going so far as to copy them and use them in his own battles. (Heck, he was impressed with her before he even met her: learning how she saved his Pikachu and defeated TRio). Lol, Serena's got nothing on Dawn!
Another comparison: he was WAY more invested in Dawn and her dream (heck, Iris and May too. they had WAY better chemistry as well. But most of all Dawn) than he was with anything Serena did. To the point, Clemont was the one who seemed more invested in Serena; i.e. cooking a special dinner for her after she made it into the Master Class, getting nervous for her at every Showcase, worrying about her when she lost in her very first competition(<- while Ash just said some generic line about, "Serena's strong, she'll be fine!" When clearly she wasn't: breaking down into tears and chopping her hair off! Talk about out of touch, Satoshi!) I just felt like Ash was this distant mentor-figure and idealized crush to Serena. He gave her generic encouragement on the level he could; and she, being head-over-heels-in-love with him, hung on his every word and embraced everything he would tell her. But she didn't have hardly anything to bring to the relationship in return. It was all very one-sided. Sure, they tried to give her that one episode where she snapped him out of his depression. But it was honestly really lame. Her behavior was also kinda manipulative. And again, out of touch. It was all about her whining, "give me back the real Ash!" *tantrum* Instead of a mature talk. Notice she was focused on herself. Pretty selfish attitude imo. I also think Ash would have snapped out of it on his own eventually cuz well, that's Ash for you. It honestly still disgusts me that Serena didn't apologize for her behavior in that episode. Instead, Ash thanks her - she gets rewarded for it.
Then we have Dawn, who went to the trouble of putting on a comedy act for him when he was depressed in that one DP episode. No manipulative tantrum. No self-centered whining. Just a friendly, selfless gesture.
So yeah, I just think thoseAmourshipping moments encounters in XY121 and XY138 further hammered home how out of touch Ash and Serena were, and how terrible Amourshipping is in practice.
The other problem, and from a meta perspective, is that the writers were too focused on shallow 'hints' and ship bait, instead of actually developing Ash and Serena's friendship in a healthy way. This is what pisses me off about Amourshipping and Amourshippers. It's all so shallow. I honestly felt like the writers were pushing Amour so hard with shallow things like Serena constantly blushing or getting jealous, or Ash grabbing her hand and crap like that; while at the same time making it very clear Ash wasn't the least bit interested in her (even on a friendship level!). Because status quo must be maintained. We all knew Amour would never be two-sided. We all knew Ash would stay his oblivious self. The writers knew all this as well, but did their best to shove Amour in our faces. Not because they were interested in actually giving Ash a love interest, but because they wanted to bait gullible viewers in. And it worked. Now Amour is one of the most toxic shipping fandoms out there. And Serena's character is only remembered for her crush on Ash. All the people whining for her return just want more Amourshipping moments. They don't care about her development. At least, a huge chunk of them are like this. It's really sad. I actually like Serena and wouldn't mind seeing her return (waaaay in the future tho). I hate seeing people overlook her real character in favor of Amourshipping. And I HATE seeing Amourshippers argue that, "Serena is the prettiest Pokegirl! She's the best for Ash!" No. That's so incredibly shallow and dumb. Like, are you guys actually 5 year olds? Are we in Kindergarten? I mean, I actually agree that Serena is the prettiest Pokegirl. But that doesn't mean she's the best girl for Ash!🙄 Even characters of the day (i.e. Anabel, and especially Angie!) who crushed on Ash had better relationship development and chemistry with him than Serena did for her entire XY/XYZ run. And I doubt this will change, no matter how many times she returns in the future, because it would have changed already if it was gonna. God, even Miette's mini-crush on him was cuter and more entertaining!
Again, I'm not saying all this because I hate Serena. I actually used to. A lot! But I got over it once I considered her character and development solely in regards to her dream as a Pokémon Performer. She actually has a nice little character arc that works for the rather short XY series.
So yeah, just felt like expressing my annoyance with it all. Sorry, not sorry. I just think Amourshipping sucks. But hey, at least it's notAbuseshipping Pokeshipping.
Ok, I can see how on paper Ash and Serena would seem like they were good for each other; they're both kind, good-hearted, share the same values about justice, they hardly ever argued (actually, a result of them not having any chemistry, or normal friendship interactions for that matter🙄)...
But let's look at how they work together in practice: They're terrible! Not to mention, boring. Even when Ash and Serena hung out together alone, they barely talked to each other. The 1st time, Ash ditched her. The 2nd time, Ash was trying to have fun but couldn't quite connect with her. He was even smart enough to deduce -> she's a girly-girl -> would probably like looking at clothes -> and pointed out some girly boutique shop to her! Meanwhile, Serena was distracted thinking about her future. Like, hello Serena! This is what you wanted! Wake up! I mean, even from Serena's side, they aren't good for each other. You can't date someone you have nothing in common with. She just puts Ash on a pedestal. Almost like a young girl would with a guy who's way older than her and out of reach...or something. Just talk to him! See, but that's the thing. They don't have that much to say to each other.
Except for some surface encouragement, there wasn't much else to their relationship. They just didn't click. I honestly thought it was pretty awkward. Especially considering they traveled together for so long. When you take that into account, it's even worse. Serena had all that time to get to know Ash better (and vice versa), but their relationship (i'm just talking about friendship, not amourshipping) went nowhere because she was too busy admiring him from afar and/or they had nothing in common. A huge chunk of the problem lies in the fact that Serena is not a battler. She isn't all that interested in it (except when she's watching Ash battle because...Ash). Ash is all about battling. It is his whole life. It's basically how he connects with most people. Heck, the last thing he did with Serena was to have a battle with her, cuz he was trying to connect with her, encourage her, and teach her one last lesson. That was nice and all. Cute. But not in a way that won points for Amour or made me want to ship them. (It was mainly cute for me because it showed a wiser, more experienced Ash being his kind self, doing his best to encourage someone, even when he had nothing in common with them.) Anyway, looking at Ash and Dawn by comparison, their last battle was all about establishing that they were equals. Even Cynthia, the totally awesome Sinnoh champion!, commented on their equivalent battling capabilities. And Ash was impressed enough with Dawn to exclaim that she and her Cyndaquil made him "nervous." Come on, if Ash - Mr. Battling Machine - is gonna have a girlfriend, she'd have to be just as into battling as he is. And Dawn just happens to be the Pokegirl who battled the most, even competing in non-Contest competitions. And again, Ash was always impressed with her battling skills, even going so far as to copy them and use them in his own battles. (Heck, he was impressed with her before he even met her: learning how she saved his Pikachu and defeated TRio). Lol, Serena's got nothing on Dawn!
Another comparison: he was WAY more invested in Dawn and her dream (heck, Iris and May too. they had WAY better chemistry as well. But most of all Dawn) than he was with anything Serena did. To the point, Clemont was the one who seemed more invested in Serena; i.e. cooking a special dinner for her after she made it into the Master Class, getting nervous for her at every Showcase, worrying about her when she lost in her very first competition(<- while Ash just said some generic line about, "Serena's strong, she'll be fine!" When clearly she wasn't: breaking down into tears and chopping her hair off! Talk about out of touch, Satoshi!) I just felt like Ash was this distant mentor-figure and idealized crush to Serena. He gave her generic encouragement on the level he could; and she, being head-over-heels-in-love with him, hung on his every word and embraced everything he would tell her. But she didn't have hardly anything to bring to the relationship in return. It was all very one-sided. Sure, they tried to give her that one episode where she snapped him out of his depression. But it was honestly really lame. Her behavior was also kinda manipulative. And again, out of touch. It was all about her whining, "give me back the real Ash!" *tantrum* Instead of a mature talk. Notice she was focused on herself. Pretty selfish attitude imo. I also think Ash would have snapped out of it on his own eventually cuz well, that's Ash for you. It honestly still disgusts me that Serena didn't apologize for her behavior in that episode. Instead, Ash thanks her - she gets rewarded for it.
Then we have Dawn, who went to the trouble of putting on a comedy act for him when he was depressed in that one DP episode. No manipulative tantrum. No self-centered whining. Just a friendly, selfless gesture.So yeah, I just think those
The other problem, and from a meta perspective, is that the writers were too focused on shallow 'hints' and ship bait, instead of actually developing Ash and Serena's friendship in a healthy way. This is what pisses me off about Amourshipping and Amourshippers. It's all so shallow. I honestly felt like the writers were pushing Amour so hard with shallow things like Serena constantly blushing or getting jealous, or Ash grabbing her hand and crap like that; while at the same time making it very clear Ash wasn't the least bit interested in her (even on a friendship level!). Because status quo must be maintained. We all knew Amour would never be two-sided. We all knew Ash would stay his oblivious self. The writers knew all this as well, but did their best to shove Amour in our faces. Not because they were interested in actually giving Ash a love interest, but because they wanted to bait gullible viewers in. And it worked. Now Amour is one of the most toxic shipping fandoms out there. And Serena's character is only remembered for her crush on Ash. All the people whining for her return just want more Amourshipping moments. They don't care about her development. At least, a huge chunk of them are like this. It's really sad. I actually like Serena and wouldn't mind seeing her return (waaaay in the future tho). I hate seeing people overlook her real character in favor of Amourshipping. And I HATE seeing Amourshippers argue that, "Serena is the prettiest Pokegirl! She's the best for Ash!" No. That's so incredibly shallow and dumb. Like, are you guys actually 5 year olds? Are we in Kindergarten? I mean, I actually agree that Serena is the prettiest Pokegirl. But that doesn't mean she's the best girl for Ash!🙄 Even characters of the day (i.e. Anabel, and especially Angie!) who crushed on Ash had better relationship development and chemistry with him than Serena did for her entire XY/XYZ run. And I doubt this will change, no matter how many times she returns in the future, because it would have changed already if it was gonna. God, even Miette's mini-crush on him was cuter and more entertaining!
Again, I'm not saying all this because I hate Serena. I actually used to. A lot! But I got over it once I considered her character and development solely in regards to her dream as a Pokémon Performer. She actually has a nice little character arc that works for the rather short XY series.
So yeah, just felt like expressing my annoyance with it all. Sorry, not sorry. I just think Amourshipping sucks. But hey, at least it's not
need a break from that. I cannot express how much more I appreciate fan-translations of anything now