hope is illumination

Hey everyone,

Mod Cleo here, and I’ve come to make an announcement.

No, not that one.

Rockynfriends started as “dailyrocketchu” back on June 2nd, 2017. At the time, I was friends with someone on Tumblr who ran a Mewtwo blog. I was running a whole Mario fanfic site at the time, so I’d created a Tumblr account and I reached out to them to see if they wanted to collaborate. They told me that I should try my hand at Pokemon blogging. I replied that I didn’t really know how to draw, and would not feel qualified to run an ask blog. They replied that I should give it a whack, and that I’d figure out what I wanted to do along the way.

I was studying cinematography and filmmaking then, so I was used to having a camera. I realized I needed a character who would be capable of multiple expressions, without me having to draw all of them. I searched my brain for Pokemon that had been represented in a physical form many times so that I’d be able to take advantage of those expressions, and of course, settled on Pikachu, the ubiquitous Pokemon mascot. Plushie acquired, character design figured.

But how to make him unique?

It’s hard to believe, but at the time I really didn’t know anyone had created Team Rocket Pikachu OCs. I wasn’t a part of fandom culture growing up due to living in a fairly conservative household and really only having one pop culture passion. So I thought I was doing something unique-ish by introducing Rocky, a Pikachu in Team Rocket who I planned to portray as a bumbling goofball villain, utterly failing at actual mischief.

That lasted two weeks, before @sometimesampharos, in conjunction with @adventuresquadharmony, made me realize that Rocky really shone when he was a clueless sweetheart, rather than an ill-meaning comedic relief.

I taught myself more editing and photography techniques, interacting with other blogs and inviting asks. My first photos were done on a flip phone because yes, I really WAS that behind the times. I was always limited by the fact I couldn’t draw other folks’ PokeOCs, and I do think that this probably meant some blogs ignored Rocky, but at the same time he managed to develop some close friends, and as he became closer to characters, I began to befriend their mods. Cynthia and Cassiopeia joined the team, and they helped round out his personality with their own unique attributes. I had a small cast of developing characters and the beginnings of a story.

One day, after a particularly discouraging interaction where I was dismissed for my lack of illustrative capacity, I received a contact from @duskffyart. They wanted to collaborate. I couldn’t believe my luck, and frankly, I still can’t. I not only found someone who could illustrate the emotions and situations I had imagined, but who could temper my wackier ideas and introduce ideas of their own. Rocky became more fleshed out still, and gained a little brother, as his friends became his family. All the while the Pokeblog community continued to evolve (ha) and while some blogs went away, others remained, and still others befriended Rocky all over again. We wrote a long, complex narrative, and eventually did a reboot that, in retrospect, signaled the beginning of the end, though we didn’t know it yet.

A lot happened in my life since Rocky became a part of it. I’ve found out I’m actually a woman. I’ve traveled to several countries, found a new career, lost friends, gained friends. I’ve started a Twitch channel, bought a house and a car, and finished college with flying colors. I lost my dad to a heart attack, underwent betrayal from people with religious affiliations, grappled with the effects of a pandemic that’s STILL ongoing, struggled with self-loathing and insecurity, and more than once, wondered if my life was really doing any good for anyone.

If you told me when I started this blog what life had in store, I would not have believed you. But Rocky, Cass, Cynthia, and Riley have all, in some measure, been there for me through all of it. They mean a lot to me, but lately I’ve felt that I’m going through the motions.

That’s not because of metrics, by the way. Rocky never broke 750 followers at any point. I’m told that’s a small audience -- and yet some of the kindness that it showed to me is impossible to forget. No, my exhaustion comes down to the fact that the story has been mostly written, but thanks to circumstances beyond anyone’s control, life has not allowed us to execute on it.

If Rocky and his family did anything for anyone reading this, I hope it was good. In a way, we’re one of the last ‘old guard’ Pokemon blogs, and I realize that shutting off means we’re one page closer to the end of a whole chapter in this community.

It’s been a serious privilege to do this. I don’t discount for a moment the absolute joy I’ve felt at times working on this, and my co-mod is a delight to work with. I look forward to continuing our collaboration on other things.

I’m also not saying that the gang will never come back...but if they do, it’s unlikely to be on this blog. I think they’d deserve a fresh place to begin.

The goal was always to make people smile. If you’re reading this, thanks for making it to the end. I know I get verbose. No words are going to be enough to really say how much this all means to me, and it’s not easy admitting I need to move on. But I hope to look back on this fondly as the longest continuing project, besides my self, of course, that I’ve ever worked on, and I hope that, even if it was just for a few seconds every couple of days, that we brought a little extra light into your life.

Finally, a quiet place to enjoy your sandwich alone.