Growing Up With Pokemon

As my 18th birthday is just around the corner I want to take some time to reflect on my history with Pokemon.

    I of course used to watch the Pokemon anime, what little kid in my generation hadn't? But it never was something I really sought out until I learned about the card game. Initially I only had my next door neighbor and his cards to play with and if memory serves we had a rule set closer to Yugioh than the official game but nevertheless I loved it and when I got a ton of his cards when he was "too cool for Pokemon anymore" I was excited. There were a lot of cards but among them my favorite had to be the Turtwig family, probably because it was the only set that I had all the cards for. I still didn't know the rules though I do remember playing with the cards as if they were regular toys and -much to my current self's annoyance- bend the cards up so that the picture came off the ground.

    Eventually I did learn the rules though I came up with a few rule sets myself before hand, and I roped as many people into playing as possible into playing though I found my sister, Madison, to be the most fun to play with. Every time we went somewhere overnight I made sure Madison had her cards so we could play. I even managed to find a book about the game written for parents and I was so excited to finally have my parents play but, try as I might, I could never get them to read it. It probably didn't help that my Mom thought that the anime was annoying and that I practically had to beg her to allow me to watch Zoroark; Master of Illusion when it came out.

Over time our games improved as we started getting better cards, I focused on Grass and Ground types with high attack powers and Madison focused on Pokemon SP, especially the ever annoying Ambipom SP. I found the Pokemon website including its great big Pokedex which got me understandably excited. I poured over as many of those two to three sentence entries and loved every bit of it. It really helped me feel like the Pokemon world was a real and lived in world all its own. This was further supported when I saw the premiere of the Black and White series. Seeing all these new Pokemon, most of which I had never seen before, living and loving the world they lived in. As a twelve year old boy I sat in wonder just seeing this world that I only knew through cards, and a website come alive.

It was a few years later that I discovered the video game through my best friend who had a copy of Pokemon Diamond, yes that copy I talk about so much on this blog. I played on my friend's save for a few days beating it in that time with the team he had made but I had made my own with nicknames and everything. I eventually bought the game from him and I reset the game determined to make new friends with a starter of my choosing. I can't tell you what resonated so much with me about that game. Maybe it was the world or sense of adventure. Maybe it was the battling and sense of accomplishment after a successful battle. Maybe it was the Pokemon, creatures that I captured and felt it was my duty to protect, especially since I didn't have a pet IRL until a few years ago. And it was all that to various degrees but I think that the most important aspect of it was that this game was my adventure. I'm one of those people that puts their real name in when asking for character names so I was really drawn into this world because of that habit. Everywhere I went it was "Hey it's Jacob," "Jacob we need your help." "Jacob you're the greatest Pokemon trainer ever."

I can't express enough how much I love this game. It's part of the reason I am who I am today and I know that may seem silly to anyone who hasn't played one of the games but my early teens were a time of confusion and fear of the unknown but having a game like Pokemon, that you can play on a portable device so you can play it anywhere was really important to me. It was a world I knew enough about to not get scared of but a world with enough unknowns that it was an adventure plain and simple.

Since then a lot has happened. I've met other people who love the game including the first and so far only girl I've ever been in love with. I've bought new cards and got my other sisters to play. I've gotten Pokemon X and had a lot of adventures there (maybe soon I'll make a post about my best stories in these games.) I've found youtubers, pinteresters, and tumberers, who love the series as much as I do. And of course I've started this blog, originally a school project, and my first post here? My top Ten Favorite Pokemon Megas.

Why did I write this? Well I'm reaching a milestone in my life and I want to honor something that has helped me get through the years, one that is also reaching a new milestone this year. I look around and see so many people who love something but are two embarrassed to express their love for it for fear of being made fun of. I find this sad. I just want to say this: never be ashamed of something that you love, especially something responsible for making you. We only get a short time on this Earth and we should spend it not leaving in fear of rejection but being bold about whatever you love and never compromising your love just because someone says it's "stupid" or "childish." If anything that person is the stupid and childish one.

With that I must leave you guys. Thank you all so much for your support and I'll be seeing you around as an official adult.

photo from e621.net which I am just realizing might actually be a furry site 0_0