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Tom Sewell

All Things Ashley

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6 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

ASHLEY ≠ ΚΑΛΛΙΣΤΙ

After consulting my pineal gland, I am confident that this is correct.*

Well, it's easy for you. You don't keep it inside you, you have it conveniently to hand in a jar.

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12 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

Tom, your theory sounds more like Elliot is the Apple of Discord, thst is, the one that everyone wants.

Excellent point, but Ashley is sure fertilizing that thar apple tree, ain't she?

BTW, in a fanfic I never got around to putting up, I toyed with the possibility that Ashley got Elliot pregnant, which froze his gender and kept him from going to the prom with her. But I gave Elliot a break--he'd just got his period.

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Given how Elliot and boy-Sarah were cuddled up together at Grace's birthday party, I find it quite believable that Elliot would be willing to have sex as a girl with a boy-Ashley. I can also imagine Elliot being so mentally focused on the risks of Ashley becoming pregnant that Elliot overlooks the risk of "herself" getting pregnant. I find your fanfic scenario thus to be  entirely plausible.

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2 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

Imagine Ashley trying to explain this to her family: "Mom, Dad?  I just found out I got my boyfriend pregnant..."

And for a little while, Ashley's dad will believe that the Ranma 1/2 mangas warped her mind.

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On 8/1/2016 at 8:35 AM, ijuin said:

I find it quite believable that Elliot would be willing to have sex as a girl with a boy-Ashley.

If Ashley asked, probably. Elliot would probably believe that his sex changes followed the pattern of Tedd's TG gun: That he couldn't get pregnant if he was female for less than 24 hours. Probably he could find out if that's true or not by reading his spellbook, but as we all know, Elliot doesn't check his spellbook very often

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On 8/1/2016 at 8:35 AM, ijuin said:

I find it quite believable that Elliot would be willing to have sex as a girl with a boy-Ashley.

If Ashley asked, probably. Elliot would probably believe that his sex changes followed the pattern of Tedd's TG gun: That he couldn't get pregnant if he was female for less than 24 hours. Probably he could find out if that's true or not by reading his spellbook, but as we all know, Elliot doesn't check his spellbook very often.

 

2 hours ago, Vorlonagent said:

"Mom, Dad?  I just found out I got my boyfriend pregnant..."

Oprah would come out of retirement to interview the family, even if Oprah doesn't exist in the Moperverse. If any human can jump to another universe, it would be Oprah.

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20 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

If Ashley asked, probably. Elliot would probably believe that his sex changes followed the pattern of Tedd's TG gun: That he couldn't get pregnant if he was female for less than 24 hours. Probably he could find out if that's true or not by reading his spellbook, but as we all know, Elliot doesn't check his spellbook very often

I'd like to think that he'd make a point of rereading that specific spell before agreeing...

... however, he is a doofus at times...

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33 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

I'd like to think that he'd make a point of rereading that specific spell before agreeing...

... however, he is a doofus at times...

This is the guy who had no idea what "exorbitant breadth" meant or what it had to do with Cheerleadra's chest....

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Ashley said she isn't Japanese, but she didn't know exactly what ethnicity she was.

Perhaps she is Japanese, but doesn't know it herself.

Picture it, late 1930's USA.

Despite the strong belief in Ostrich diplomacy that dominates American public opinion, many rational people see involvement in the World War as inevitable.  Ashley's grand parents hide their Japanese ancestry  Possibly by moving to a small city in the Midwest, changing their name, and claiming to be Chinese.

They know almost nothing about Chinese language and culture, but can't let their children be seen acting Japanese, so they end up saying nothing at all about their ancestry to their children.

When the war ends Ashley's grandparents feel alienated from their family in Japan, so the lie persists

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To the (very) limited extent that I can distinguish between Asian ethnicities by appearance, Ashley looks more southeast-asian or southern-Chinese to me. Possibly mixed with European.

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Is Ashley Doomed?

The recent confirmation of The Shive that Ashley is so darned Good she impresses Pandora isn't exactly a surprise to me. I've been an Ashley fan ever since her existance was revealed.

But...

When the story had been trending for a long time toward Susan and Elliot hooking up, why bring in Ashley? Just to shake things up? What is this, Sweet Valley High?

If you haven't noticed, Ashley pretty much fits in the same character niche as Sarah: A very nice girl who has no magic but wishes she did. So we are not talking about Archie Andrews moving on from Betty to Veronica, but from Betty to Betty. Ashley is clearly going to be drawn into Tedd's Wonderful World of Wierd Science, just like Sarah. If Ashley lives long enough, I can guarantee we are going to see a harem fantasy with Tedd, Grace, Sarah, and now Ashley, either in a "No, bad brain" panel or in the sketchbook.

It's already been demonstrated that Ashley going to be glued to Elliot and will follow him into danger. But without magic or even any martial-arts training, she's clearly outclassed. Sarah is pretty much the same; her spell leaves her body unresponsive and unknowing while she uses it, like Nanase using her fairy spell. But since she's not going with Elliot any more, Sarah isn't as likely to become a collateral casualty when Elliot gets into his next big fight.

Kind of like Sarah got to dodge a bullet without knowing it, yet...

Ashley being so improbably good has already created mixed feelings in Susan, and suspicion in Nanase. Once Ashley starts working with Tedd, I suspect Sarah will begin to get jealous. While Ashley isn't a prodigy like Nanase, Sarah is going to feel outclassed by Ashley's athleticism (kick a soccer ball to hit a flying griffin in the head?) and gracefulness (a ballerina, for #^@*'s sake!) and perhaps jealous of Ashley's growing relationship with Tedd--and Elliot, of course. Yes, I wasn't kidding when I said Ashley could be an Apple of Discord. Her being so good is going to make it worse.

I can see this arc ending with Adrian confirming that his mother's meddling has led to Ashley's death, finally convincing or forcing her to reset. Ashley as a sort of Deadly Goodness Grenade, and Pandora pulled the pin herself.

Whether or not The Shive will do it that way is doubtful. He's only shown the death of one person we can really sympathize with. But in the midst of the section he titled Bringing Back Silly, he showed Susan killing the vampire, and shows in the same page how badly that experience scarred Susan. Dark times can come amidst silliness in the Moperverse.

Quite a long time ago, I wrote some fanfiction where I killed off a several characters from the original series . I got some negative emails. I answered the most affecting one by saying that I thought it was right for my stories. If only extras or guest stars die, then they're just redshirts. And I still think it was right.

Of course, this was before the movie Misery came out. That might have given me pause.

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1 hour ago, Tom Sewell said:

Quite a long time ago, I wrote some fanfiction where I killed off a several characters from the original series . I got some negative emails. I answered the most affecting one by saying that I thought it was right for my stories. If only extras or guest stars die, then they're just redshirts. And I still think it was right.
 

It depends on the kind of story you are writing. Is there somehow a death quota to meet? I always felt that the flaw in TOS was not necessarily the fact that only Redshirts died but the fact that they had to die at all. It were as if the assumption was that the audience would not get that a situation was dangerous unless someone got killed.

I am a great opponent of death for death's own sake. If you kill off a character, do it for better reason than merely shock value. The worst character deaths are those where someone gets killed purely to shock the audience (as my late grandmother rather nastily put it, 'making a big boom to wake them up from being sound asleep') and then the effects or consequences never get examined or explored. No, if someone has to die, do it with great care and respect for the character and the consequences. And last but certainly not least, for the audience as well.

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56 minutes ago, The Old Hack said:

If you kill off a character, do it for better reason than merely shock value.

I agree. Star Trek's convention of killing a redshirt before the opening credits or a commercial break was above all else designed to make you want to stay tuned. That the body count in dramas these days is generally lower may have more to do with not wanting to pay for so many actors to expire in an episode than a quality improvement. It's less excusable in movies, and even less so in graphic or written fiction.

What I've saying here is that I have pretty good reasons for suspecting that the story of Ashley might not have a happy ending.

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I seriously doubt that Ashley will end up following Sarah's arc so closely.  She doesn't strike me as a lab rat.  She may happily use Tedd's watches or get zapped by the TFG, just like Nanase and Susan, but getting into the nuts and bolts of how it all works doesn't seem her style.

I would like to see a transformed Ashley and pink-haired "Bwuh" Elliot dancing to the mall music together.... :-)

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On 8/20/2016 at 5:27 PM, Tom Sewell said:

Is Ashley Doomed?

I don't see any of that, Sarah and Elliot didn't work out because of Elliot not only being passive in the relationship, but thinking of Sarah as a sister, plus their relationship was doomed from the start.

A Susan and Elliot relationship would similarly be doomed because of Susan's issues with physical contact and trusting men, while she believes that Elliot can't help but be good, there may be instances where she'll have doubts and it may strain the relationship, as it is, both of them have written off their feelings as just teenage hormones.

Ashley is not only just as if not more good than Elliot, but the fact that she was willing to jump right into the thick of things says a lot about her despite the lack of any magic abilities, she didn't know what Tara was capable of, and even when she encountered Voltaire, his "advise" didn't stop her either. I dunno how much manga other than Ranma 1/2 she's read but if she's into various manga and anime she could be like Greg in terms of being genre savvy enough to be of help like how she was with solving Nanase's issue with getting a fairy to Elliot.

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1 hour ago, Scotty said:

Sarah and Elliot didn't work out because of Elliot not only being passive in the relationship, but thinking of Sarah as a sister, plus their relationship was doomed from the start.

The linked scene isn't saying they're doomed, it just shows that Grace had figured out that Elliot was dating someone in his martial arts class, and was taking Sarah with him to break the bad news.  It did kinda break Sarah's heart until Nanase broke up with him and he went after Sarah.

I'm a little more worried about Grace thinking Elliot dating Ashley was happening too soon, but maybe her relaitonship senses aren't so perfect after all....

 

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1 hour ago, CritterKeeper said:

The linked scene isn't saying they're doomed, it just shows that Grace had figured out that Elliot was dating someone in his martial arts class, and was taking Sarah with him to break the bad news.  It did kinda break Sarah's heart until Nanase broke up with him and he went after Sarah.

I'm a little more worried about Grace thinking Elliot dating Ashley was happening too soon, but maybe her relaitonship senses aren't so perfect after all....

 

Grace could have also be basing the relationship being doomed on the types of people Sarah and Elliot are, like "these two feel different things about each other". Even if Elliot wasn't already dating Nanase at the time, he probably would have still tried to avoid Sarah's advances because of him not wanting to potentially ruin a lifelong friendship.

Grace could make this assumption because she had met both Sarah and Elliot. She hasn't met Ashley yet so she has no idea what to make of it, so it's understandable that she might be worried.

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Are Ashley's family nine-tailed foxes?

Yes, a pretty wild speculation...except maybe that:

  • Ashley's parents haven't told her much about her family origins
  • As soon as Pandora encountered Ashley, she was very surprised. Pandora. Surprised. Very. 
  • When asked by Pandora what she would most like to transform into, Ashley chose a fox form
  • Fox-spirits are shapechangers in Chinese, Korean, and Japanese folklore.
  • Nanase is the only person who's shown to be suspicious of Ashley. Nanase, who calls her double "fox". Whose family name means "fox." Whose family lineage boasts an apparently unbroken succession of ridiculously strong magic users. Whose family name is commonly used to indicate fox-spirits. Who better to smell out a fox-spirit than another fox-spirit?

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