I feel inclined to write "excuse me for being sapppy but..." - but actually I have nothing to be excused from. It's a stock phrase - one of those phrases you pick up from uh, somewhere - and honestly I think everyone needs to ditch stock phrases in favor of knowing what words mean and actually saying what they mean. Anyway - you like that I'm starting this with a tangent? There will be many of those - let's get into it.

I've been thinking lots about Pokemon* lately and how much it means to me. Pokemon was one of my most influential medias, in terms of artstyle inspiration as well as in terms of like, a media I grew up with that shaped my worldview, inspired me. If not for Pokemon I would probably not value friendship, my stuffies (which are also my friends), animals, the ecosystem, and exploring as much as I do. Yeah I've grown a lot since my seperation from Pokemon - I'll get to that seperation - but I also feel like it laid some kind of foundation for how I perceive the world to this day, and I'm struggling without it.

*I speak English and use an English keyb so uh I can't easily type the E with the diacritic so I'm just not going to type that E

Few medias really clicked with me like Pokemon - and I mean Pokemon was doing everything it could as a show/game/tcg/toy/manga/etc as it could to appeal to as many people as possible - but the thing is i have The Tism™ (autism not astigmatism) and I was very into it. I guess most kids like lots of things, and I did too, but Pokemon was probably one of my big 3 - Pokemon, Sonic, and Kirby - and I can't understate how much it meant to me as a kid and does to this day. As a young kid I really did feel "🎵 we all live in a pokemon world 🎵"

But it's not like I always kept up with the series. I had that "that's for babies" phase that (most) people grow out of sooner or later. I feel like I grew out of it pretty quickly. In fact, I really only missed one generation of Pokemon, one region with its related show and game(s, actually there was two this time around). And like 3 years later, in my senior year of high school I played and loved Pokemon X, the next game. Later - while I didn't watch it all on Cartoon Network like I did with the older anime seasons - I watched the Pokemon XY(&Z) anime and LOVED IT. More than any other part of the anime. My nostalgia for the original and advanced anime series(es?) were totally beat out by this new show! And this time I watched in Japanese with subtitles so the voice acting was actually good!

Then, coincidentally not that long after I finished up the anime, the next generation games came out! Pokemon Sun and Moon! I got Pokemon Moon, admittedly not really caring much for the box art legendary (that's the cool marketable pokemon you're gauranteed to get, which determine which of the two games you want) and had a... pretty good time with it. A lot of the Pokemon in this generation are amazing, and so are the locales*. And the story it told was exactly the story I needed to experience at that point in my life, being a burgeoning adult breaking away from their abusive parents (although my story doesn't have a happy ending) ... but the entire thing is totally and needlessly corralled. You almost never ever get to just do what you want. Sure, the older Pokemon games had tons of roadblocks and the non-linearity was mostly an illusion, but this time you really felt that non-linearity, that control. I mean, maybe there was a point to it - considering the story is about a controlling parent and all - but feeling the game force you around just sucked. I kinda forget at this point, but I think it left me feeling like I have to explore each area super slowly to avoid running into the next part where they force you to go do this one thing. Because I just didn't want that.

*There is something to be said about how it's based on Hawai'i and Hawai'i deserves independance from the American Emprire and how travels to Hawai'i are kinda a colonizer fantasy, but i guess it's not bad to visit if you're respectful

And I haven't even mentioned like, how the structure of the game is different from previous cause there aren't gym badges - there's Z crystals - and I don't really think they ever explain how many there are so you don't really get an impression of how far you are into the game and how close you are the unlocking the Pokemon League, and well you don't even know if the game has a Pokemon League or not until "surprise!" I guess they make one on the spot just for you. Oh yeah and about Z-Crystals ... I don't like them. They're this games new "thing" - a trend which would continue that I feel drastically decreased the enjoyability of the games overall. Basically you get a crystal and it lets you use a super move once per battle. It's not that interesting or well thought out or meaningful and it's just a cheap flashy thing to market. And I actually kind of loved Mega Evolution, Pokemon X&Y's cheap flashy marketable thing, but they did in fact make that meaningful.

(let's take a breather) (inhale) (exhale) (drink a sippy of wawa unless you have to get up to do get water then don't leave me please read this please *crying and sobbing*)

Pokemon Sun & Moon still have mega evolution in them, but they don't actually introduce any more mega evolutions! :( It's a shame and it made me feel like each game was just going to have this new cheap flashy thing which gets thrown away in the next generation. And sure enough, in Pokemon Sword and Shield (the next generation's game) there was gigantamaxing (or something like that I don't care that much what it's technically called) instead, which is really just mega evolutions & z moves combined... but like done in a way which abandons both prior features. And, unfortunately, that's not the only thing this game was abandoning. It also abandoned tons of old Pokemon. This was a thing some of my past friends had contemplated, in the past.

"What if there's just too many Pokemon?"
"Some Pkmn are poorly thought out; maybe they could ditch some of them."
Stuff like that. But I was always kinda against the idea - even if I thought Swoobat and those construction worker Pokemon suck.

Actually, people realized they quietly dropped the National Dex - an unlockable Pokedex (pokemon encyclopedia) upgrade that let's you see entries for not just the game's regional Pokemon, but every Pkmn ever - from Sun & Moon, but I didn't think much of it.

Anyway, this removal of past Pokemon really felt like a betrayal for long-time fans. What happened to "Gotta Catch 'Em All"? Was that just over. Well, you could have every Pokemon in the mobile storage app but ... you couldn't bring your favorite Pokemon into the new game. And that would be how it works going forward.

And that's not to mention how this new game visually, even though it was on a new console, just looked ... cheap ... and lazy. I guess what I'm getting at through my poorly worded rambling is that I knew the Pokemon games were just not going to be as good as they used to be, and I mean I was always a bigger fan of the show than the games, but the games are the core of what Pokemon is, and the show (and other stuff) is influenced by each game's thoughtfulness or lack thereof. Game Freak - the dev studio behind the games - had already put out statements basically saying "yeah kids these days don't want to play real games anymore, just mobile shit 🙄" and "actly yeah we don't really care anymore and we're just pushing out games for money now*". Look it up. (Or don't since you prolly don't care.) Anyway it was clear the games and related media stuff just weren't going to be as good as they used to be. And honestly it's a shame.

*Supposedly that money is going to other Game Freak game dev projects and I think this was somehow supposed to be an advertisement for those other games (whatever they are; nobody has ever really cared about other GF shit) but it just seems like a bad thing to admit

The Pokemon series started to rely heavily on nostalgia (they have since X&Y) and as everyone knows (I hope), when a corporate product (including obvs media properties but not limited to that) starts putting on the nostalgia and doing nostalgia marketing, it's to keep old fans attached to a product that has declined in quality. I could've fell for that nostalgia and bought one of the two Sword & Shield games, but fortunately after getting over my FOMO (really gays once you /do/ miss out on something you realize it's not that bad and FOMO loses its power over you) I realized the Switch - Nintendo's at the time new console was - uh bad. (And I'm not going to waste your time explaining or justifying my position.)

I didn't think much of it at the time, but I really did just let Pokemon go, just like that. Even with less thought than when I let Pokemon go the first time, in my shitty teenager phase, before picking it up again. Though this time, I know it's over.

But I'm left with tons of nostalgia and an unfulfilled autistic interest in a series I'm never going to keep up with again. I really am sad about it. Waaaaahhhh!!! (that's me crying, silly style) (do not confuse my silliness with insincerity please)

I'm left feeling like "now what?", with this hole in my heart where Pkmn used to be. Like uh, I think almost 3 years ago now, I said I was gonna stream Pokemon Gold - the one classic game I barely played and barely remember (even if I of course know all the Pokemon) - and I do still hope (not really plan) to get around to that eventually. And, I've been thinking about maybe reading some of the Pokemon Adventures manga - I almost did but a lot of the chapters/volumes are missing online? it's strange. I did a few nostalgic doodles (today as of writing, not sure when this'll go up online) and it kind of makes me feel... hopeful but uncertain. I really enjoyed those drawings and - to tell you the truth - I always wanted to make a Pokemon fangame, but nowadays I have this "death to all corporate media franchises" philosophy that stops me from pursuing that - plus I have a lot on my plate (that I'll probably never finish and give up on) already. And I have a complete total of zero good ideas for Pokemon (like the creatures). And I could make a derivative not-Pkmn game but Casette Beasts already exits (I haven't played it yet tho)

..........................
(this is a pause and me feeling sad and empty)

I don't have a conclusion. I guess I'm greiving. And in my whole life I've never felt a conclusion to grief.