The Winter Court of the Insane, Philosophical Ladybug

It's really confusing when characters can frustrate you so much and yet you can have sympathy for them.

It seems like all three Team Rocket members get chances to both be real jerks and to be nice. I suppose that's realistic, good and bad qualities, but it's frustrating both as a writer and as a fan. It makes it hard to know how to write for them. It also makes hard to understand why I even like them, considering that the bad traits tend to press all the wrong buttons for me.

While Jessie is definitely the most abusive, James and Meowth can be that way too. I hate it when James or Jessie beats up on Meowth. But I don't like when Meowth scratches them just because they've said something he thinks is stupid. I can't decide whether James always had an abusive streak or if he just picked it up from Jessie, but it upsets me whenever he hurts a Pokemon. The only time I felt slightly more forgiving for that was in Pokemon Shipwreck, since they were all half-crazed and starved being stuck on that raft after nearly dying and finding out Magikarp was pretty much useless for everything just pushed him over the edge. And even at that, I was still upset.

Anyway, since I just can't stand abusive behavior in a character, I wonder if I should even try to write James as being a relatively nice person. Yet canon supports that side of things too, in many episodes. And he is overall less abusive than Jessie. Usually he's the punching bag. I wonder if James beats up on Meowth and occasionally other Pokemon to let off his frustration over Jessie abusing him. (That, and maybe also, he's trying to look tougher than she might think he is.) He doesn't dare strike her, and he hardly ever verbally expresses how upset he is at being abused, so maybe going after something smaller than him is his solution. That's sadly realistic. And it doesn't make me feel much better about the situation, but it is something to ponder.

Of course, with Jessie one assumes her rotten early life is why she's so abusive. And then canon sometimes shows that she does care about James and Meowth. But I still don't like it, and since she's the most abusive I can't deny I've always had thoughts that maybe James should get away from her. But that's too sad because they're a team and a weird family. I feel the same about characters such as Kaoru on Rurouni Kenshin. I just can't seem to like her, yet since she's part of the team and the characters love her in spite of her abuse, I wouldn't want to split up the team.

I wonder if the abusiveness goes away for all three of them as the show goes on. That would certainly be one plus about the later stuff. It's hard to picture James in some of those later episodes as being that way. But then you have to deal with things like Noodles Roamin' Off, which I found really OOC, at least in Jessie abandoning James and telling him to go back to Jessiebelle.

Then, back to earlier ventures, you have things like Meowth nearly being abandoned when he's sick in The Problem With Paras, yet on the other hand, James and Jessie helping Meowth in Go West, Young Meowth or worrying about Meowth in Meowth Rules! (And Meowth abandoning them in the latter, yet feeling bad about it, unlike them in the Paras episode.) The characterization just seems so inconsistent. One episode they're ready to abandon each other. The next, they're worrying about each other. What are you supposed to do with characters like that?! How do you write for them?! I would like to just think about the things that made me like them and still make me like them, namely, when they show their good sides. But it's hard to ignore these traits that I detest so much. In fact, it's impossible. And it makes me wonder if I should give up the whole idea of even trying to tell these stories. I feel like the characters aren't worth my time or my love. Yet the part of me that still cares about them and the good that's in them wants to tell these stories. Usually when I get upset like this, I try to watch one of the episodes where I really liked them and it helps.

I really think that my story needs more content and should be fleshed out more and maybe deal with these problems more than it did. Yet it's hard to know exactly how to approach them in detail. I had the spirit pointing out to James that he was making excuses for Jessie and that's something abuse victims often do. And Jessie later acknowledges that she isn't very nice sometimes and she doesn't like the part of herself that hurts James and Meowth, but that's about as far as it went. Well, that and her later saying she'll try to be a better person. I should probably also acknowledge more that James and Meowth have been abusive at times too. I wasn't thinking about that as much until this week.

And I am aware that the show is largely slapstick humor with the abuse and the blasting off, yadda yadda, but I've never been able to approach things like that as being normal, even if it apparently is in the verse. A few people complained in the past that I was taking the blasting off too seriously, but a lot of Team Rocket fans feel similar to me on that point. And abuse, honestly, should never be played for laughs. I liked how Holy Matrimony! showed that it really wasn't funny at all and that yes, Jessiebelle was worse than Jessie, abuse-wise. I just wish it would have made Jessie shape up seeing what Jessiebelle was like.

Another problem with fleshing things out in the story is that I was trying to save most of the fleshing out for the big story, if I'm able to put it together. I didn't have too much of a hurt/comfort scene for that reason too. But I'm sure I could do better than I did.

I'm also mostly done with my Pokemon episodes. I crave more, yet I wonder whether to get into the Johto seasons or not. By Johto, any episodes with team-ups or other nice Team Rocket moments always seemed to end with cheap betrayals. That seriously bugged me, especially since it didn't tend to happen in the first two seasons (A Chansey Operation being an exception). Ignorance is Blissey is different, but it's so heartbreaking, gah. Probably Jessie's finest moment, though. And I finally saw the second movie again (and own it at last) and find it the pinnacle of Pokemon entertainment, just as before. I'd forgotten Jessie and James and Meowth were so prominent all the way through it, and their sacrifice was just the icing on the cake. It's hard to think of things going back to the status quo after that amazing movie. I like to think of it being more meaningful than that.

Then I also keep worrying about the big fic and the sacrifice bit again. I think I figured out, maybe, what that Megaman fan's problem with sacrifice stories was. If so, it's also a problem I have. I think I ranted once about the movie Paratroop Command and how it seemed to bring out the idea that the bad luck main character was only good at being a hero if he died. I hated that. I don't want it to look like I'm bringing out a similar idea in this fic. I was hoping to do a scene at some point with Father Joe (yes, I really did that thing with bringing in the Invaders priest) talking to James and telling him he has the potential to be a hero. But if I do that, having the sacrifice bit really might look like I'm saying he can only be a hero if he dies for something instead of living for something. If I could just figure out a way so it won't look like that....