>>34568876During Kanto/Orange the writers did play around with the idea of Ash/Misty together, for the simple reason that the anime was originally planned to end after one year. Most kids shows have a romance between it's main characters, and back then they had no idea the anime would be a hit and go on for decades.
That's why when Johto started all the shipping stopped because they knew it wasn't going to go anywhere and the show was going to go on for years. They gave Misty's crush one last hurrah in her goodbye episode and then they were done with it.
It was basically all the kids/pokeshippers/autists who grew up with the early seasons as kids that obsessed over it and couldn't let it go so they trolled pokemon forums for decades about Misty returning or how they hated all the other female companions. Of course these last 15 years of Misty staying gone permanently and 6+ new female companions later made it obvious how dumb these people really were.
