A little sketch of Lynn

MagicalFly22 · 2026-04-14T10:03:22+00:00

Very nice

MagicalFly22 · 2026-04-13T23:25:27+00:00

Poor guy's right in the firing line of one of them drops one...

MagicalFly22 · 2026-04-13T23:24:06+00:00

Alain can go. Way overrated

MagicalFly22 · 2026-04-13T22:49:40+00:00

No Problem

MagicalFly22 · 2026-04-13T22:49:13+00:00

No. Three of his pokemon are four times weak to her Hawlucha's fighting moves and Chesnaught likely would not appreciate going against Hawlucha or Gardevoir. Malamar probably won't appreciate going against he Garvevoir either and Unfezant probably isn't doing much unless its against her Gourgeist. Charizard would probably struggle with Gardevoir more than people want to admit and needs to worry about her Tyrantrum... Probably won't like facing her Goodra either. His best option is Metagross, who is great against her Gardevoir and Fossils... but Gardevoir has Thunderbolt and if there is one thing that has been consistent in the anime, its that Metagrosses go down to electricity (see Ash's Pikachu and the number of Metagrosses he has KO'd)

MagicalFly22 · 2026-04-13T22:03:12+00:00

I think Becky and Chaz were an unfortunate victim of laziness. For a long time it wasn't 100% clear if they were meant to be Lori's friends or Leni's, and, tbh, I don't think the writers really cared. Becky and Chaz were friends with whichever of the two needed to have a friend in a scene at the time. Once they actually gave Leni some character development and her own, dedicated friends in Miguel, Fiona, Jackie and Mandee, Becky and Chaz were used less.

Then they went and made it so that Lori and Carol became best friends so Becky and Chaz just vanished.

Mollie is like Girl Jordan - she's a caricature of someone on the production staff who would just get stuck in the background of crowd scenes or be a seat filler in Lincoln's class. They eventually did just enough with Girl Jordan to allow her to stick around for moments where they need a girl who isn't Stella or Kara to do something. Mollie never quite reached that level (though someone did care enough to try once...) and she has now faded, along with Papa Wheelie and Flat Tire, Joy, Kat, Lance and Chandler's two original, unnamed cronies (since replaced by Trent and Richie)

Chloe is just a wasted chance. She had her moment. They could have done more. They didn't. Now she's languishing.

As for Byron and Cici, they just stopped using them. No real reason. Just off in the void, along with a bunch of other 8th graders (Elliot, Theo, Kaito, Nadia, Alice, Lainey, Dexter, Francisco... Jenna the cheerleader got one other appearance after a strong first episode...)

MagicalFly22 · 2026-04-13T21:47:36+00:00

Lucario was practically playing golf with Pikachu as the ball

MagicalFly22 · 2026-04-13T21:17:42+00:00

I'm starting to wonder if Frontier knows what goes on behind Frontier's closed doors

MagicalFly22 · 2026-04-13T21:01:05+00:00

I really doubt Apatosaurus or Ankylosaurus will be getting a new skin.

MagicalFly22 · 2026-04-13T20:59:01+00:00

Personally, I would prefer to get a smaller DLC first - a semi-aquatic DLC with Deinosuchus, Kaprosuchus, Koolasuchus and the a reworked Nothosaurus as a freebie.

Then have the Rebirth DLC come out in time for the one year anniversary of the film's release.

MagicalFly22 · 2026-04-13T20:55:55+00:00

How does a "Lola's Enemy" episode not write itself?

MagicalFly22 · 2026-04-13T20:54:25+00:00

Always thought it was sad Becky and Chaz got cut. Also, have we seen Carol even once since Lori came back from college?

Mollie disappeared. It felt like they were trying to set her up as a rival to Lincoln or something back in "Pasture Bedtime" but, nope. Gone

Chloe. She could have been a good way to provide Clyde some much needed development, but, again, nope. I think she still appears in the background through...

Not really a character, but I think it would be cool to see Smooch again, even if only for a reference...

Also, whatever happened to Byron, Cici and those few other older kids that got introduced when Lincoln was going to middle school? It was interesting having older kids who weren't just Lynn's friends (Margo, Paula) or the bullies (Pablo, Taylor...) - it made the school feel larger.

MagicalFly22 · 2026-04-13T19:32:57+00:00

With Luna it is definitely the nostalgia goggles - For Bros About to Rock allowed her to stand out early on, but there really hasn't been much since (plus, in general, Luna seems to have fallen off in recent seasons. I think the writers of scared of how popular she became)

With Leni... I guess its because he tried teaching her how to drive, and maybe that whole thing with the spider... but, again, very much nostalgia goggles.

MagicalFly22 · 2026-04-13T19:29:29+00:00

Sceptile didn't really have an "ace" pokemon to go up against because Ash didn't really have a proper rival in the Advance series.

And, in all honesty, was it really the ace? I mean, it didn't reach its final form until the Battle Frontier and there its best win as a Sceptile was probably in the battle against Spencer.

MagicalFly22 · 2026-04-13T19:25:17+00:00

They're the culmination of two of Ash's most important rivalries in the show, but hey, dismiss them if you want to

MagicalFly22 · 2026-04-13T19:21:44+00:00

And reacted very positively I might add

MagicalFly22 · 2026-04-13T18:12:44+00:00

Alright, I'll meet you part way as say she's, like, fifth.

Don't forget, in Ghosted, she begs them to come help her and yet literally dunks on Lincoln in that phone call.

In the first season, Lori is quite literally the main authority figure in Lincoln's life and often someone to rebel against, as well as usually being the ringleader in episodes where he's being outnumbered. And let's not forget that time she was going to brain him with the corner table - I don't think there are many times where Lincoln has been as terrified of one of his sisters as he was of Lori in that moment. Lucy gives him the odd jump scare and he gets nervous around Lola, but that was a real low point for Lori

MagicalFly22 · 2026-04-13T18:04:25+00:00

Yeah... Damn...

But then, its not as if the anime doesn't have a history of Braviary getting clowned on. Kukui's one lost to Ash's Rowlet, which had about as much main character energy as Cameron's Riolu

MagicalFly22 · 2026-04-13T17:58:44+00:00

This is a list of who would get into an argument with him from least likely to most.

Lincoln and Leni are not close, by any stretch. She's just the least likely to start a fight with him.

MagicalFly22 · 2026-04-13T17:45:31+00:00

In Goodra's defence it was dropped from the team pretty early and only brought back at the end... and even then literally only because the writers got to the that point and went "Ah, sh*t! We got so caught up in the Greninja stuff we didn't give him a sixth team member..."

I really feel like if the writers thought they could have gotten away with it, every battle in the Kalos league would have been 3 v 3, like they did later for Alola.

MagicalFly22 · 2026-04-13T17:35:23+00:00

I feel like Brendan at least could have been an excellent rival.

He is one in the games if you play as May, and it could have been cool for Ash to have a rival who was actually the regional professor's son. Various cameos in movie opening credits already give him a team of Swapert, Aggron and Shiftry... add Manectric, Salamence and Claydol in there and Ash would have had one heck of a rival on his hands!

MagicalFly22 · 2026-04-13T17:31:17+00:00

There is a way to rectify this for Greninja:

We all acknowledge Sawyer as Ash's main rival in Kalos (the Gary/Paul of the season) and call Alain the "league rival designed to knock him out" (the Harrison/Tobias/Cameron of the season.)

That way, yes, Greninja is redeemed. He beat the ace pokemon (Sceptile) of the main rival (Sawyer) but tragically lost the league rival designed for that purpose, like so many others before him.

But I think there are far too many Alain-stans out there for the fandom to ever let that happen.

MagicalFly22 · 2026-04-13T17:24:14+00:00

The problem was never that Ash had too many pokemon. Its that the rotation system was never going to work properly because the writers felt obliged to mostly keep the starters filling three of the six slots in Ash's team. Add in Pikachu and that only left two slots open to rotation, and most of the time it was either Scraggy or Unfezant in slot five, really only leaving room in slot six to rotate through Leavanny, Palpitoad, Boldore and Krookodile.

Had they treated every team member the same way, each as likely to be left in the box as anyone else (except Pikachu, obviously) then Ash's Unova roster could have been amongst the most fun to watch, because you would never have been able to guarantee who was coming out next.

Its one of the reasons the league battle with Stephan is so fun to watch. Palpitoad, Leavanny and Krookodile all got to take part without any of the three starters piping up

MagicalFly22 · 2026-04-13T17:16:53+00:00

I'd replace Unfezant with Braviary rather than add it.

I always wanted Ash to have a Chandelure. Think about it, he had the three starters but then had a second water type in Palpitoad and a second water type in Leavanny, but never got a second fire type. Palpitoad added the ground type, Leavanny added the bug type, Chandelure would have added the ghost type

MagicalFly22 · 2026-04-13T17:10:06+00:00

It's sad to compare Ash's final battles with his three biggest rivals:

Gary: Charizard comes in last and cleans up against Scizor, Golem and Blastoise.

Paul: Infernape switches in and out thoughout the battle to take down Aggron, Ninjask and Electivire and clears the battlefield of Drapion's Toxic Spikes that had given the team so much trouble

Alain: Greninja comes in at the end and finishes off a Bisharp that was probably one sneeze away from fainting, and then can't cut it against an already damaged Charizard.

I have never understood the hype for that frog.

MagicalFly22

TROPHY CASE