When The Stars Align

See Pokemon got really big when I was really little but cause I moved around a lot I didn’t really get into it like it was in the background. Like I saw Pokemon episodes out of context as a kid when nothing else was on but a lot of it was like really vague memories. It’s sorta like how I saw out of context ATLA stuff as a kid and watched the horrid movie but didn’t sit down and watch ATLA in full until like a few years ago but I knew sorta it would’ve been my personality if I got into it properly as a kid.

I also didn’t get into video games until I was like 10ish or so when my dad got me a DSi when he got my brother a Wii so I never grew up with a GBA cause my mom said “oh that stuff is for boys” when sorta remember I wanted a Polly pocket game on it but I didn’t make it a big deal cause I could just play on the Polly pocket website anyways

I do remember tho when I was little around when HGSS came out (I assume) I went to Disney for the first time in the Epcot section they had a Pokemon store or something in the Japan area and really wanted a Phanpy plush but my mom said “Pokemon was for boys” but got it for my brother and we shared it but we lost it lol

I also remember when I was a little kid and made my YouTube account that I had Lyra as my profile picture despite not knowing who she was or where she was from. (I assume this was when I was 9 or 10 when YouTube let you customize your own page without necessarily having a YouTube account) I just saw this girl and her big Dino and thought she was cute!

After that encounter I sorta got more interested in Pokemon since it popped up everywhere but that same trip I lost my DSi so I didn’t play BW or BW2 even tho I made Unova my personality thanks to giving the BW anime a chance (my favorite was Gothita)

After that I think in middle school 7th grade I was part of anime club and the girl leading anime club had a day where she talked about pokemon and she specifically talked about pokemon XY and I still remember one of her selling points was “you can sit EVERYWHERE now” and I’m like hmm good point. I got my 3DS with Nintendogs to replace my DSi and it had all my DSi games playable but XY was the first non Imagine game I asked my mom for Christmas. I remember her bringing up again “Pokemon is for boys tho” and me telling her that there’s customization in this game so it’s no different than imagine fashion.

So I got XY for Christmas! It took me almost a year to beat it (as per tradition with a lot of Pokemon games in the future) but it was the real first game I beat by myself (the first game I beat was Super Mario Galaxy 2 but with my brother) and I loved Serena but I didn’t make it my personality yet. I think around this time SSB for the 3DS came out or something around that time but I remember seeing the Serena and Calem trophies and going wait I know them :D

I think that’s when I went to the SSB4 detour of reading fanfics in my 3DS but being interested in the ones that had Pokemon characters in it, particularly Red. While this was all happening I think ORAS was happening as well or at least the announcement! I heard of the new Pokemon game coming out and I’m like oh I should get that one too! I barely knew anything about the Pokemon world aside from XY and SSB4 so I wanted to learn more (I thought watching the SSB brawl cutscenes was complementary lore). I saw the horde of “I heard you like mudkips” meme so I decided as a joke to draw Brendan and May surrounded by mudkips! This would be my first piece of Pokemon fanart! Also what made me want to choose Mudkip despite not knowing what a Mudkip was! It was no Fennekin but it made me like water starters a lot lol.

After that I told my mom to get Alpha Sapphire for Christmas! Cause it had a giant whale in the cover and I love marine animals! I didn’t beat ORAS until the following April/May but after I beat ORAS I became obsessed with pokemon and lore. The Zinnia post story made me want to reach all of these things out and I was obsessed. I started thinking about “what if Calem and Serena were part of the Battle Chateau and they bought more trainers in” since I liked doing double battles with Brendan and I found out the PWT was a thing and I was like I HAD to get Unova it’s my destiny.

The thing is tho ORAS was a fairly controversial game around that time. And Gen 6 as a whole a lot of people (understandably) found it underwhelming. So instead of saying “I like ORAS cause it’s my second Pokemon game” teenaged me sorta lied around the internet claiming to have nostalgia for RSE cause she was that self conscious about not having played RSE when everyone else had LMFAOOOOOOOOO so you can like surf a lot of my old posts on here saying “Brendan was my waifu since I was like 2” and it’s like no he wasn’t you had a massive embarassing crush on him when you were 14 own up to it bitch!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You didn’t even know English until you were like in 3rd grade 🙄

But yeah after ORAS I sorta aimed to play at least one Pokemon game every year! I then played BW and BW2 in 2015 when no new game was released and then SM in 2016 and then Pt and HGSS in 2017 with USUM and then skipped LGPE and then played SWSH in 2019 and then so on and so forth! I could only afford 1-2 games per year so then I read the manga as a replacement for the games which is all well and good until you realize the manga fucking sucks after BW whoops (but didn’t know that cause BW2 was on and off hiatus for YEARS) but yeah I became a pokespe artist for a while until Black came out of the light stone (my favorite character btw other than Platina) and I finally had no contractual obligation to keep up with pokespe (lol)

Oh yeah during the break no Pokemon game came out this is when Pokemon Go was released and also twitch plays Pokemon so I was excited to see that happen live

But yeah my Pokemon journey has been like full of a lot of different things and happenings that combine together. I used to regret for the longest time starting in Gen 6 cause that’s when a lot of my irl friends grew disinterested in Pokemon (duh it’s middle school ofc they were) so I didn’t really have much people to talk to about my new hyperfixation and to justify me liking pokemon when I was a teenager without the nostalgia of the past I kept lying saying I had nostalgia when I didn’t. But I guess PLZA sorta made me… really happy to start at gen 6.

Like Gen 6 introduced Protag Rivals right? So it gave me the philosophy that not a lot of people have of all the protags naturally coexisting. Even in games like SM where Elio and Selene are the same person/role I decided to make them siblings and rewrote the game in my mind to fit that (also helps there was a lot of Alola Red fanart that made Leaf his sister to join them in Alola)

As well alola red and blue are another thing! Without Alola showing people aging I wouldn’t have started my timeskip project! The prospect of timelines and multiverses to me is cause I joined at the time I did! And I’m really grateful for that!

But yeah that’s my little ramble about Pokemon! Or at the very least my experience with it! I’m pretty sure there’s a lot more coincidences that led me to be curious about Pokemon like seeing @/kianamaiart’s mlp x Pokemon art and going YEAH THE PROTAG GIRLS ARE LIKE THE MANE 6 HUH maybe u should hop on or how I somehow have a very vivid memory of watching the Jirachi movie without knowing who Jirachi was but yeah!

I’ve been drawing Pokemon for more 11 years now… it’s the thing that helped me learn how to draw humans as a MLP artist who didn’t know anatomy. It’s the thing that I found comfort towards during the highs and lows of my life. I’ve made so many friends through it and met many others cause of it. Without Pokemon I am not sure what my life would be like right now. It sounds really silly how a game/generation that was so many people’s dropping point was my starting line but playing PLZA made me realize how much this franchise means alot to me.