Well, when I was in 1st grade, people started passing around Pokemon cards. That's how it began for me, and how it was for many years. I was given a Staryu the first day of 1st Grade, and I gained interest quickly. For Christmas that year, I asked for at least 20 packs of Pokemon cards, and the "Essential Handbook" at the time. I had thought that there were only the original 151 Pokemon at the time, but I soon found out that there were about 650! (This was in the era of Unova.) My first "official" Pokemon card was a holo Accelgor, and I still have it to this day.
So for the next couple years, I collected a lot of Pokemon cards. Memorized all of the Pokemon, (when I was young I memorized everything, Pokemon, flags, countries, birthdays, states, cities, etc.
My first experience with the Pokemon video game was with my friend, Leonard. He had a copy of Pokemon X, had just beaten the first gym, and had a Level 100 Mew. He let me play around with his game. He was in Lumiose City at the time. Then I did one of the worst things you could possibly do to somebody's save file, but it was understandable as I just a little curious kid. I, umm, released his Mew. He got really upset, like you would, and I said he could just put in the code for another Mew. Now, we all know this isn't true, but I sure thought it was.
Then on my birthday, I was given a 3DS by my parents. Before this, my only video game was with a Leapster Explorer, (if anyone else had one of those let me know lol,) It game with a demo of Mario Tennis Open, but I didn't care about that. So I looked up if there were any Pokemon games on the 3DS, and recently, Pokemon X and Y had come out. I was like, hey I should have known that.
When I was younger, my grandpa would give me $50 on my birthday to spend on anything I wanted. That year, I asked to go to the local GameStop, and see if they had a copy of the recent Pokemon games. Of course, they did, I picked Pokemon X, and I took it home.
I put 600 hours in that game while only being able to play for 5 hours a week. I loved the game so much. I chose Fennekin as my starter, named it Firefox, and went on my way. (I would always choose the Fire type starter because I thought to myself that it was super effective against the early game Grass & Bug Types.) During my playthrough, I found a Random Shiny Hawlucha. I thought the colors of it were amazing, but I didn't really understand what it was. I tried to weaken it, and ended up killing it. I really wish I would have caught it.
I beat Diantha in a month exactly. It was practically the first video game I'd ever played. After that, it took me 3 months to get a complete National Dex with all of the Mythicals. I remember having a Weepinbell in the GTS asking for a Mew for a whole MONTH... and then I actually got one lol. My last Pokemon was Clefable, because I could not find a freaking Moon Stone. I caught my first shiny Pokemon, a Pancham in the Friend Safari, at some point. Unfortunately, I traded it away for a different shiny.
A few months after my birthday, my younger brother had his. He asked for Pokemon Omega Ruby, which was hot off the presses. As we only had one DS he used mine. That Christmas, he got a 2DS. As the years followed, we would get each pair of Pokemon games, with him getting one, and me getting the other. I got Moon, he got Sun. I got UM, he got US. I purchased a slightly used copy of Black 2, and later a brand new copy of Diamond. Nintendo Switch Releases, and I get one for Christmas. My brother gets LGP, and I am not interested in the game at the time. I got Sword, he got Shield, although we both played both of them.
Now, to the point of the question. As I started trying to fill the National Dex of Pokemon X as a little kid, I start surfing the internet for Pokemon knowledge. One day, at my grandparents house, I stumbled upon this wonderful site. I loved looking at the pages of every Pokemon, and at the bottom of every page, were the questions. Those were my favorite. I loved reading people's questions about each specific Pokemon. Certain usernames got ingrained in my head, like Swampert, Speed Freak, Xblade, sumwun, and trachy, with the cat in the hot dog grav. Everytime I came to my grandparents house I would read through every Pokemon's questions. It took me years to figure out there was an actual forum, (I didn't understand these sorts of things.) I asked my grandpa many times to make an account, but for some reason it just didn't work. I don't know why, but it was definitely better for this site, this site did not need a tiny little Waluigi on his high horse trying to tell adults what they do and don't know about Pokemon. Eventually, early last year I made an account for myself. Back then I probably would have named myself DJ Master or something like that.
My favorite question on this site was the one about Wobbuffet's tail. I still have my original team, which was Delphox, Steelix, Lucario, Lapras, Talonflame, and Xerneas. To this day I still complete the Pokedex of every Pokemon game I get my hands on. I can credit this site for most of my information on the game of Pokemon.
Nowadays, I play Pokemon mostly on the side. I enjoy playing Blaze Black 2 from time to time, trying to complete the National Pokedex. I don't play video games much anymore, I try to focus on athletics, but I still love sharing Pokemon knowledge. Thanks for the fun this site has given me!
