The Thrill of Defeat, Part Six
"Just what?" she prompted.
I paused for a moment so that I could collect my thoughts. "It's just that...I
did something really irresponsible, Jessie. I...I
Jerry: (James) …took my eyes off Lickitung’s Pokéball for a few seconds…
Tom: (James) …neglected to make sure no one would sneak up on us first…
(Meowth) Well, I never expected to see dat.
(Ash) AAAAAAAH! Team Rocket… naked… Argh! I’m only eleven, guys, I’m too young to see that!
(Misty) You shouldn’t do that in front of a baby! *holds Togepi protectively*
(Pikachu) A_A
(.-_-.);;
hope you're not mad at me
for...."
"....For not using protection?" she said, finishing the thought for me. "Is that
why you're so upset?"
I buried my face in my hands, too embarrassed to meet her gaze. "Yes," I
muttered. "I...I even bought some condoms a couple weeks ago, but....I'm so
sorry, Jessie...."
Jessie cupped my chin in her hand and forced me to look back at her. "Don't be
sorry, James -- you don't have anything to worry about!"
"How can you say that, Jessie?!" I asked. "I feel like I let you down...like I
violated your trust by not being more responsible!"
Guardian’s Song: I am so relieved! I now know that I don’t write the most pedantic, stilted, boring dialogue in all of fanfiction! 8D
Tom: Y’ ain’t exactly comparin’ yerself t’ fanfiction anyone in their right mind would be readin’.
Guardian’s Song: *coughs* Uh, yes, that’s kind of the point…
Jessie smiled wistfully and shook her head. "It's okay, sweetie! Really! We've
never been with anybody else, so I know we don't have any diseases. And you
don't have to worry about getting me pregnant, either." With that, she rolled
off of me and reached into her backpack. After rooting around for a moment, she
produced a small, round box.
Jerry: (James) What is that?
(Jessie) Oh… a copy of the clock used to time events in this fic. See, we aren’t planned to get married for several years, much less have kids!
(James) *squints* What’s that entry about me gaining magic powers?
(Jessie) *squints at the clock* …Drat it all, James! Why do you get all the luck?
(Ash) *on the sidelines* *sourly* You guys are ones to talk. I’d probably have better luck if Cori Falls had just thrown me off a cliff the moment she went completely AU.
My eyes widened as I realized what she was holding. "You're on the pill?!"
Guardian’s Song: Okaaaaay! This suddenly explains a lot about Jessie’s strange behavior in Cori Falls’s fics! She must just have a rather hormone-sensitive brain, and she’s wonky in the head as a result…
She nodded. "James, when we admitted our feelings for each other, I knew that
you were the one I'd been saving myself for," she told me.
Guardian’s Song: (Jessie) Just a moment, I need to save again. Trainer JESSIE, Playtime APPROX. 17 YEARS, Pokémon collected ABOUT A DOZEN… Now saving, do not turn off the power…
"I knew that this was
going to happen eventually, so I wanted to be ready when it did. I got the
prescription a couple weeks ago."
I breathed a sigh of relief and collapsed onto my back. "Thank goodness...."
Jessie smiled and cuddled into me again. "So...you went and bought some condoms,
did you?" she chuckled.
I blushed. "Jessie, I'd be lying if I told you that I wasn't expecting sex when
we became a couple. I've wanted this for a long time." Tentatively, I placed a
hand on her shoulder. "But I hope you know that even if you'd refused me
tonight, I'd still be here for you, and I wouldn't have loved you any less. I'd
have gladly waited as long as it took until you were ready. And now that it has
happened, I hope you know that I'm not going anywhere -- I wouldn't have fallen
in love with you or given myself to you if I couldn't picture the two of us
together forever."
Guardian’s Song: …*covers face with hand* If I didn’t know what was coming up in a few fics, I’d be holding this up as an example of a fic with extremely flat, pedantic, preachy writing, OOCness, and carping about how abused the main characters are by fate, but with decent morals - unlike the Draco Trilogy. As it is, I honestly don’t know which is worse. If Cori Falls’s work and the Draco Trilogy were people, the Draco Trilogy would be a certifiable psychopath that probably has a body or two in its freezer, while Cori Falls’s work would be mentally disturbed but maintain decency so long as it kept on its medications - and the moment it went off of them, it would try to bludgeon the child next door to death on the grounds that he looked at it funny one day. (The Draco Trilogy would bludgeon that same child just because it was there.) …I suppose both are unspeakably bad in their own ways, but I never wished I could have a higher opinion of Cassandra Claire’s fanfiction. I wish I could have a higher opinion of Cori Falls’s, because she gets it right in some places… and then it all goes ridiculously, horribly wrong -
Jessie closed her hand over mine and gave it an affectionate squeeze. "Of course
I know that, James. Why do you think I said yes?" she whispered. "I've known for
a long time that you'd never use me for sex or pressure me into doing anything I
don't want to do.
Tom: (James) Er… and you wouldn’t pressure me into doing anything that I don’t want to do, right, Jessie?
(Jessie) Hmm… let me think about that…
That's why you're the one I chose!"
I couldn't help but smile.
"I still remember the time I had pneumonia, and you kept me alive by warming me
with your body heat," she continued.
Jerry: And your Pokémon had no body heat?
"You could've done whatever you wanted, but
you didn't take advantage of me. And that time we were taking a bath together
after escaping from Dark City -- you had another chance to do whatever you
wanted to me, but you didn't take it because you knew that I wasn't ready! Those
decisions took a lot of integrity to make, James -- that's one of the reasons I
fell in love with you...why I wanted you to be the one!"
Guardian’s Song: Oi, could you have more reasons that took place in canon? (But yes, this is all good… *sigh*)
I ran my fingers through her hair and touched my lips to hers. "How could I have
done any less? I love you, Jessie, and I just want you to be happy."
"I love you too, James," she replied. "And you do make me happy!"
Our lips met again, this time in a more passionate kiss. When it ended, we held
each other as close as we possibly could, and Jessie rested her head on my
chest. I smiled tenderly at her and planted another kiss on her forehead as she
listened to the beating of my heart and let it lull her to sleep.
@->->-
Once Jessie had fallen asleep, I looked back at the starry night sky and
reflected on what had happened tonight. And when I really stopped to think about
everything, it was kind of ironic -
Guardian’s Song: *wincing* Oh, bleep! She’s going to recap the entire fic in a preachy, pedantic way! That’s lower than I’ve ever sunk!
we'd made love because Jessie was upset
about our humiliating experience at Pokemon League, and she'd turned to me for
comfort!
Guardian’s Song: …So you only had sex because she was depressed? *checks* Oh, come off it, James - you had a long talk about your feelings, and only then did you two start kissing and getting horny. You could have consummated your relationship at any time. The way it’s written, it sounds rather creepy.
If we'd actually had a chance to compete in the games, or if we'd done
a better job of catching pokemon, the beautiful experience we'd just shared
might not have happened!
Jerry: (James) We might have had two Lickitungs! Or a whole army of them!
(Jessie) Shut up, James - I’m trying to sleep, and you’ll give me nightmares.
(James) *continuing* Imagine a Lickitung Instrumentality Project!
*long pause*
(Hypothetical Army of Reikitungs) *batter down AT Fields with their tongues* Lickiiiiiii…
*another long pause*
(Jessie) …That’s it, I’m never going to sleep again.
(Lickitung) *from inside Pokéball* Licki? Licki lick? (What’s an AT Field? Does it taste good?)
That seems to be the story of our lives -
Guardian’s Song: I meant “recap their entire lives”, apparently. *facepalm*
whenever things go wrong, Jessie and
I seek comfort in each other, and our relationship becomes that much stronger!
Guardian’s Song: Then, in all seriousness, you must have the strongest relationship in the history of humankind.
She'd even said that spending the rest of her life with me was a far better
aspiration than being a pokemon master!
Guardian’s Song: Okay, here’s the thing - put like that, I can imagine a member of Team Rocket saying that to the others. They’re eternal teammates, best friends, etc. so it makes sense. What got me, though, is that Jessie’s line here was originally that settling down to a life with James was a better dream than succeeding as a Pokémon Master, which is pandering to the line that women don’t really want careers, and will only find true happiness as wives and mothers - which angers and repels me for both ideological and personal reasons. This is as opposed to the friends-to-the-end line to which this version seems to be pandering, which is unisex and, though it preaches that successful careers are secondary to friendships, does not preclude successful careers. Note the difference.
So, maybe being "losers" isn't such a bad thing, after all!
Guardian’s Song: James, I see you have a long and successful career of writing “humanist” fiction ahead of you. Have fun fetishizing flaws, trying to see how ridiculously dismal and unpleasant you can make your story’s setting, and raking in money from your fanbase of ‘edgy’ young adults who think they are the first generation ever to be disillusioned and displeased with the world around them. If you do a good enough job of it, you’ll get your works to be required reading when some of those ‘edgy’ young adults grow up to be ‘edgy’ English teachers…
(…I, meanwhile, am trying for ‘curmudgeonly old coot whose analytical mind cannot understand other people’s sensitive feeeeeelings’. :B
But honestly, stories like that do get on my nerves. If I wanted extreme unpleasantness, unsympathetic characters, and endless whining about problems caused through the characters’ own stupidity, I’d just read the news.)
When all is said and
done, the love Jessie and I find in each other is so much more meaningful than
the twerps' victories in pokemon battles.
Jerry: And you can’t have both a good relationship and success in Pokémon battles?
There's not a doubt in my mind about
that.
As I laid there, holding Jessie in my arms and thinking about the wonderful
opportunity our latest "defeat" had given us,
Jerry: And you couldn’t have had something similar without the defeat? Couldn’t you have had victory celebrations?
I found my thoughts drifting back
to another time that defeat had been better than victory for us -- the Princess
Festival.
That had been about three months ago now, but I still remembered it like it was
yesterday. The exhausting shopping sprees, Jessie catching Lickitung,
Jerry: (James) Equaled only by my getting Victreebell back from Butch and Cassidy’s Daycare!
how
gorgeous she looked in her kimono at the beauty contest, how sad she became when
she told me and Meowth about her childhood and how she'd never had Princess
Dolls, how passionately Meowth and I cheered Jessie on in the tournament -- it
was all fresh in my mind's eye. But what stood out most was how Jessie reacted
when Meowth and I cheered her up after she'd lost the tournament....
@->->-
It was bad enough that Psyduck had a stroke of dumb luck and beat Lickitung in
the final round, but Misty blasting us out of the arena instead of being a
gracious winner only added insult to injury!
Guardian’s Song: Jessie, James, and Meowth are criminals who repeatedly attempted to rob Ash, Misty, and Brock of their Pokémon, scam entirely unrelated people out of their Pokémon, possessions, and so on and so forth, and generally caused havoc and mayhem to innocents wherever they go. That they have done some good things as well does not redeem them, because they promptly go straight back to criminal activities once their fits of goodness pass. Shouldn’t Cori Falls, when thinking about how mean and unfair it was for Our Heroes to always blast them off, realize that Jessie and James would likely have been cornered and arrested by an Officer Jenny at some point after their shenanigans if they weren’t soaring through the air to land somewhere far, far away? And with the sort of testimonials they’d be getting from all over the land (and, in later seasons, they would have been international criminals), not to mention from Ash, Misty, and Brock, they’d probably receive some spectacular sentences and be locked up effectively for life.
Besides - I can’t remember the episode very well, but wasn’t it Psyduck’s Confusion attack blasting them off? How in the world does that count as Misty blasting them off? Psyduck was completely out of her control! She hated that Pokémon! (If it was actually a Pokémon under Misty’s command - she was a twelve-year-old girl battling against her friend’s crazed stalkers who literally harassed them every few days (if I’m guessing the average time between episodes correctly). I find it perfectly understandable that she blasted them out of the arena.)
Jessie was by far the better
trainer,
Guardian’s Song: Cori Falls, let me tell you a bit about some fanon I have for the Resident Evil/Biohazard fandom.
Basically, one of the major villains hates another one to the point of near-psychosis (yes, Miss Falls, I thought this would sound familiar) because she absolutely smashed his record for being a brilliant young evil prodigy. During her short career, his abilities noticeably deteriorated because her existence shook him so badly; even long after her apparent death, his diary contains notes about how his current research will, basically, make her roll over in her grave. As such, fanon often has him insulting her massively to anyone who will listen, presumably in an attempt to bolster his shattered self-confidence.
My fanon, on the other hand, has him actually defending her abilities because, as he’ll snap at anyone, if she’s a pathetic excuse for a researcher and she beat him, what does that make him?! So, you see, it’s in his best interests to keep her reputation high until he’s surpassed her… at which point he can denigrate her abilities all he likes, of course.
Why do I bring this up? Well, if “the twerps” are poor Pokémon trainers and they beat the living daylights out of Team Rocket any time there’s a fight… how pathetic, exactly, are Team Rocket?
It would thus be best for you to exaggerate Ash, Misty, and Brock’s prowess, Miss Falls, so that you can say ‘Well, Team Rocket are actually really good Pokémon trainers, but the twerps are just amazing’. Call them idiot savants if you like, but set the bar high - because Team Rocket have to fit under it. Then, any defeat of “the twerps” would be most impressive, since Team Rocket would be vanquishing those who were established to be incredible opponents, rather than beating up upon a bunch of confused children… which is really how it comes off later. …Isn’t this an obvious principle?
and she deserved the dolls more than Misty did -- being defeated and
humiliated was the last thing that should've happened to her.
After our blast-off, Jessie told me and Meowth that she wanted to be alone for
awhile a while. Losing those dolls had broken her heart, and she was too proud to let us
see just how profoundly she'd been hurt. But when I looked into her tear-filled
eyes, I knew that I had to do something...anything to make her feel better.
And that was when I had a brilliant idea!
Tom: (James) I’ll show her that, even if those clothes do make her look fat, they make me look fatter! Isn’t that a brilliant idea, Meowth?
(Meowth) …I’ll just be ovia here writing your obituary, okay, James?
Once Jessie had taken her leave, Meowth and I went back to town and bought a set
of kimonos and a life-size display stand. I had to pay full price for everything
since I'm a man
Guardian’s Song: *brightly* Yes, I believe everything had been… half-off for women and girls in that episode? Right.
(and believe me, it had been rather expensive), but I knew that
it'd be worth every penny if I could make Jessie smile again.
On the way back from our shopping trip, Meowth and I saw Misty mailing her new
Princess Dolls back to the Cerulean Gym and gloating about how jealous her
sisters were going to be. The sight of it made my stomach turn -- that rotten
little bitch
Guardian’s Song: Swearing Count: |||| ||||
hadn't even deserved to win in the first place, and the only reason
she'd wanted the dolls was so she could lord it over her sisters!
Guardian’s Song: She’s TWELVE! Twelve, you moron! Maybe thirteen, AT BEST! Perhaps she could be excused for being a bit shallow and immature?! (As opposed to the seventeen-year-olds who are whining that nobody likes them because of their life of crime - yeah, funny about that.)
They may have
given Misty all of their broken hand-me-downs when she was little, but at least
she'd had dolls -- Jessie hadn't even been lucky enough to have that!
Guardian’s Song: Somehow, I don’t remember Jessie ever telling Misty that.
I tell
you, I wanted nothing more than to slap Misty across the face and tell her what
a spiteful brat she was when I saw how petty and selfish her reasons for wanting
the dolls were,
Guardian’s Song: You know, you could try telling her that she ought to be grateful for what she got, because some people didn’t even get that much. I repeat, she was twelve, and it probably didn’t even cross her mind that others had to go without. Heck, it’s a shonen show. If Misty had known, Jessie might have received an anonymous donation of the dolls afterwards. But she isn’t a psychic!
but I resisted the temptation -- I wasn't in the mood to get
into another fight with those twerps, and cheering Jessie up was more important
anyway.
Guardian’s Song: Maturity in a Cori Falls fic, folks! Appreciate it while it lasts, because when we go into the AU era, it will go straight out the window! (In favor of punching a twelve-year-old boy in the face repeatedly with brass knuckles, no less!)
When Meowth and I finally found Jessie again, she was sitting beneath a tree in
the park, crying her beautiful blue eyes out and lamenting yet another
disappointing Princess Day. But the day wasn't over yet, and I was determined to
give it a happy ending!
Quickly, Meowth and I dressed ourselves and Arbok and Weezing in the kimonos
we'd bought and set up the display stand. Once everything was ready, we went to
Jessie and offered to be her doll set for the rest of the day. When she saw me
dressed as the Emperor Doll, the tears of sorrow in her eyes became tears of
joy. Then, she dressed up Lickitung, put her Empress Doll kimono back on, and
joined us on the display stand.
As we all sat together, Jessie called me and the pokemon a bunch of living
dolls, and she even got a passerby to take our picture so that she could always
remember what we'd done for her! Even though we only sat on that display stand
for a little while, the memories of that wonderful experience would last a
lifetime...and it had even turned out to be a far better prize than the real
doll set!
Guardian’s Song: *applause*
*under her breath* Thank you, Cori Falls, we remember that from canon… but thank you for the bland recap anyway. It’s the thought that counts, I guess.
That night, as the festivities were coming to a close, I treated Jessie to
dinner at her favorite Japanese restaurant.
Jerry: Um, I’ve never heard of this “Japan”. Where is it? *pulls out map of Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, Sinnoh, Orre, and Unova* I don’t see any “Japan”… Is it a town? I’ve heard Lt. Surge is from some place called “America”. Is that in the same region?
Tom: Maybe ‘s a typo?
While we were eating, she told me
that she was glad she'd lost the tournament. She explained that if she'd won the
dolls, then I wouldn't have dressed up for her, and she'd have been robbed of
the greatest prize of all.
My heart skipped a beat as I listened to her -- my gesture meant more to Jessie
than the very thing she'd wanted since she was a child!
Guardian’s Song: y67u8ityh
*raises head from keyboard* Good gad, it’s like Midnight Sun’s constant explanation of what basic social cues mean! Yes, Miss Falls, we know what these things mean! We possess basic reading comprehension!