>>50524369>Continuing in XY he's shown to be seriously and negatively impacted by the losses against Viola, Sawyer, and Wolfric, and to recover from them he had to be reminded of his own character by othersGod I fucking hated that they reused this shit melodrama in JN. So much so that I've autistically been thinking of a way to rewrite it since it finished.
It would've been FAR better if it was Riolu who was going through the crisis. Think about it, it was shown as combative and overconfident from it's birth immediately rushing off to fight opponents stronger than it. Under Ash it had a perfect win-streak, so it being broken, and in such a dominant way too, should've been devastating for it. Instead of Ash doubting his abilities when fighting a tentacle'd mon, Riolu should've been freaking the fuck out and ignoring Ash's orders in favor of panic attacking and keeping distance-maybe even make it a point that it's losing confidence in Ash as a trainer. Hell, the Flygon episode could've been changed to fit this. Instead of Pikachi being sent out to fight, it's Riolu instead (or, at the very least, Pikachu taken out of commission early due to SE attacks+Sandstorm confusion). Then, Riolu starts to fucking bite it too, before Raboot and Goh do the Draco Meteor stunt, and Riolu starts to realize that that kind of in-synch approach is what made him and Ash attain their first win-streak, and it's throwing it all away by disobeying him because of one bad loss. Then the finale is, after the Draco Meteor counter, it gets back up, and an attack from a now synched up Riolu and Ash could be the finishing blow.
