Sylveon looks between Ash and Gary, ears perking up. Then it sends out one of its ribbons, wrapping it firmly around first Ash’s wrist, then Gary’s.
“Come on, Syl, this again?” Ash sighs, giving the pokemon an exasperated look. “Knock it off.”
“What’s it doing?” Misty wonders.
“I dunno but it’s been doing it all afternoon!” Ash says, trying to disentangle himself.
“You know,” May says, coy. “Sylveon is eevee’s love evolution. They say it can sense when someone is in lo—“
“This is just its way of saying it likes us,” Gary interjects, sending May a withering look. “It does it to Chloe and Dawn too. It clearly remembers us from when it was an eevee. Isn’t that right, Sylveon?”
The white and pink pokemon rolls its eyes, turning its head away from the researcher in a clear dismissal.
“Yes, I can’t imagine what else Dawn and Chloe could possibly have in common with you two.” Misty smirks.
I remember one of my lit professors in college always looked ready to bang her head against the wall every time someone in class rambled on and on about how great it was that Elizabeth Bennet was such a "strong, independent woman," while acting like Pride and Prejudice was written in a time where modern feminist ideology made any kind of sense.
Like, yeah, it's great that you think she's badass for reading books and turning down an unpleasant engagement, but think about her actions in the context of her time. Refusing that engagement could have very well damned her entire family to homelessness, destitution, and (most likely) death.
18th century women weren't allowed TO OWN PROPERTY. You can count the types of employment they were allowed to have ON ONE HAND, and even then it was almost always prostitution. Once their father died, their house, money, belongings, social status, etc. would be given to his closest male relative and they would have to LEAVE.
The idea of a strong, independent woman who put her own pride above the literal survival of her entire family would not have been seen as a positive trait in the 18th century, and she was not intended to be a beloved protagonist. Jane Austen was appalled at how well Elizabeth's character was received, because she was meant to be a selfish, immature anti-heroine.
Context really does matter.
it drives me bonkers the way people don't know how to read classic books in context anymore. i just read a review of the picture of dorian gray that said "it pains me that the homosexual subtext is just that, a subtext, rather than a fully explored part of the narrative." and now i fully want to put my head through a table. first of all, we are so lucky in the 21st century to have an entire category of books that are able to loudly and lovingly declare their queerness that we've become blind to the idea that queerness can exist in a different language than our contemporary mode of communication. second it IS a fully explored part of the narrative! dorian gray IS a textually queer story, even removed from the context of its writing. it's the story of toxic queer relationships and attraction and dangerous scandals and the intertwining of late 19th century "uranianism" and misogyny. second of all, i'm sorry that oscar wilde didn't include 15k words of graphic gay sex with ao3-style tags in his 1890 novel that was literally used to convict him of indecent behaviour. get well soon, i guess...
In a shigegou divorce, I feel like Goh would keep Chloe in oldest friend solidarity, and Gary would keep Dawn because Poems.
But in a pallet divorce, Dawn would absolutely be Team Ash and text Gary passive-aggressive haikus on a daily basis. And Gary is far too competitive to not respond, so now they've been embroiled in a battle of wills and poetry for like six months, and Dawn is running out of synonyms for dickhead that don't exceed five syllables, send help.