HOME | DD

Description
Anyone who knows me knows that I love Advanceshipping, and one of my favorite things to do is find similarities between Ash and May, because there are a lot. Earlier today, I was thinking about two similar shots of them looking down with their eyes hidden from view, depressed, and thinking about how someone made an edit years ago that put them together.

Then it hit me that the similarities went even deeper than that.

Both of these shots come after our heroes suffer a crushing defeat at the hand of one of their rivals: May gets wiped out by Solidad in the Kanto Grand Festival, and Ash gets utterly curb-stomped by Paul in their full battle at Lake Acuity. In both cases, they gave it their best shot, and yet their rival was able to counter anything they threw their way. After the battles, they both keep it together long enough to thank their Pokemon for their hard work before looking down, and for the next few scenes, their eyes aren't shown; the next shot is from behind them as they look at their rival. Not long after, we get a shot of them walking alone down a pathway, still looking down. Lastly, in an episode some time after these battles, we get a shot of them looking depressed as they contemplate their losses.

While there's plenty of visual similarity between each of these shots, they also both lead them to a similar conclusion: they need to change. May comes to realize that her battle style greatly resembles Ash's own style, which isn't suited for contests, and decides to step out of her mentor's shadow and head off on her own so she can create her own style. Ash, on the other hand, realizes that he needs to refine his battle style into something more strategic and that he and his Pokemon need to work even harder to get strong enough to finally beat Paul. Both of these decisions ultimately change them for the better and help them grow stronger. When May returns for the Wallace Cup, her new style allows her to show the world what the Princess of Hoenn can do: she manages to make it all the way to the finals, defeating a future Top Coordinator (Zoey) in the process, and loses to Dawn only by the narrowest of margins. When Ash faces Paul in the Sinnoh League, he manages to hold his own and ultimately out-gambits Paul, leading to a spectacular victory that's still regarded as one of his greatest.

I know I'm probably stretching this, and aside from the top two shots, these are hardly 1:1 comparisons. But hey, it's still fun to find stuff like this, not to mention it's been ages since I uploaded an Advanceshipping deviation (fanfics notwithstanding).

Description
Anyone who knows me knows that I love Advanceshipping, and one of my favorite things to do is find similarities between Ash and May, because there are a lot. Earlier today, I was thinking about two similar shots of them looking down with their eyes hidden from view, depressed, and thinking about how someone made an edit years ago that put them together.

Then it hit me that the similarities went even deeper than that.

Both of these shots come after our heroes suffer a crushing defeat at the hand of one of their rivals: May gets wiped out by Solidad in the Kanto Grand Festival, and Ash gets utterly curb-stomped by Paul in their full battle at Lake Acuity. In both cases, they gave it their best shot, and yet their rival was able to counter anything they threw their way. After the battles, they both keep it together long enough to thank their Pokemon for their hard work before looking down, and for the next few scenes, their eyes aren't shown; the next shot is from behind them as they look at their rival. Not long after, we get a shot of them walking alone down a pathway, still looking down. Lastly, in an episode some time after these battles, we get a shot of them looking depressed as they contemplate their losses.

While there's plenty of visual similarity between each of these shots, they also both lead them to a similar conclusion: they need to change. May comes to realize that her battle style greatly resembles Ash's own style, which isn't suited for contests, and decides to step out of her mentor's shadow and head off on her own so she can create her own style. Ash, on the other hand, realizes that he needs to refine his battle style into something more strategic and that he and his Pokemon need to work even harder to get strong enough to finally beat Paul. Both of these decisions ultimately change them for the better and help them grow stronger. When May returns for the Wallace Cup, her new style allows her to show the world what the Princess of Hoenn can do: she manages to make it all the way to the finals, defeating a future Top Coordinator (Zoey) in the process, and loses to Dawn only by the narrowest of margins. When Ash faces Paul in the Sinnoh League, he manages to hold his own and ultimately out-gambits Paul, leading to a spectacular victory that's still regarded as one of his greatest.

I know I'm probably stretching this, and aside from the top two shots, these are hardly 1:1 comparisons. But hey, it's still fun to find stuff like this, not to mention it's been ages since I uploaded an Advanceshipping deviation (fanfics notwithstanding).