The good times and the bad...

[Drago]

Isn't it funny? Since stumbling upon a miniature guide for Red & Blue I found attached to a larger gaming magazine back in 1998, I've been a fan of Pokemon. And though it'll never hold that magic grasp it had on me way back then, I remember with fondness the days when it did.

That being said, I'd like to hear what everyone's best and worst memories were as a Pokefan!

High Points...
Back in the days when it was cool to be a fan and all the kids were into it, heading to the shopping mall and standing in that massive line back in 1999 to collect my very own Mew was something special. One of those Mews went on to a prosperous career as one of the members of my Yellow team. Think it's level 98 now. The other would wallow in mediocrity on my Blue version, where I reduced it to an HM slave. Pretty crappy decision.

The absolutely brilliant days when I was writing up my own Poke-fanfiction, back before I even knew what fanfiction was - the first where my friends and I got turned into Pokemon (the premise was simple. We were talking about how much we liked Pokemon and one of my friends was like 'I wish we were Pokemon...' - and then we were. lmao). In retrospect, I think my self-portrait wasn't as badass as it should have been. I was a Vulpix, for one thing. The fic I wrote next was a few different friends and I, except we were trainers instead of Pogeys. I famously stole an entire battle from this story and planted it in Minty Thrill, slightly updated and brushed up.

Pokemon fan sites were so exciting back in the day. I can't remember the exact name of the site I frequented in the earliest days, something like the Pokemon Centre or some such... One site I found of course led me to where I am today - some eight years and 2,386 posts later...

Low Points...
Probably back in year 8ish when a bunch of pricks stole some of my cards. I mean, what the hell man, they were year 11 or something and I was just a kid - they looked through 'em, passed 'em between each other, and by the time I had them back, I was without most of the new Jungle series cards mom had sent me. Hopefully karma has paid them back some by now.

Another low point for me was the embarrassment I felt during the climactic scene in the first Pokemon movie where Ash is turned to stone and everyone... cries. I mean, dude. I was embarrassed to be there.

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

I don't know if these ones count, just some Pokemon-related things happened in my life.

Best memories:

- You probably guessed, the event described in Zak's signature. I was about to jump out of an attic window but then remembered Pokemon was on TV next Saturday and didn't jump.

- The first time I caught my favourite Pokemon Articuno in Pokemon Red. Or in fact, it wasn't the first time in a sense, I had caught it in a ROM, but this time it was for real. Anyway, it was a strange day. It was freezing cold outside and I had to walk twice to a shop located in my town's center, two kilometers away from where I lived. But finally that night, I got Articuno.

- I got two Mews from Australia. I sent my Red to a TPMer named ILikePokemon;P and he put them there.

Worst memories:

- When they began showing Hoenn episodes in Finland. I had Pokemon-related hallucinations back there and what's more, the season itself was a huge disappointment to me. I remembered Hanada Tattsu and others praising Hoenn in Pokemon Anime Forum but in my opinion it was either too exaggerating or too simple.

[Jeff]

Best memories:

-That moment on Christmas Day, 1998 when, like I mentioned several times before here, I played my new Red version for the first time because I was bored. I had no interest in pokemon before that, my mom only got the game for me (and blue for my brother) because she had heard good things about the pokemon games from other moms. After playing for a little while, I learned what the hype was about.
-The Summer of '99. Trading cards with the neighbor kids under the big tree in their front yard, making up our own pokemon, swapping cheats with a kid that my mom used to watch (most of the cheats he told me were fake, but he was also the one that told me that Mewtwo was in Cerulean Cave).
-Learning about Gold and Silver for the first time, and buying magazines on all things pokemon
-Going on pokemon.com for the first time, then searching for pokemon sites and discovering TPM, and watching the countdown to the GS release
-Getting modded here in recognition of my efforts to help bring back TPM's main site

Bad Memories:
-Being made fun of for being "too obsessed" with something that was an "old fad". The real embarrassing thing was that kids younger than me would make fun of me for it, some of them were the very kids I used to trade cards with. Luckily, noone cares anymore if I'm a pokemon fan or not.

[Austrian ViceMaster Alex]

Best memories:

Ah, how could I forget. The Pokémon Championship 2000 in Vienna. It was part of the annual summer events held for children. I wasn't quite a child anymore but I was a huge Pokémon fan for over a year so of course I joined this eight-round-elimination tournament. There were three in fact (for Pokémon up to level 5, level 50 and level 100). I signed up for the level 100 tournament, picked starting no. 222 (out of 256 participents) and made it all the way to the finals. I think the event took 5 or 6 hours. I remember me and my friend actually went for dinner between rounds 1 and 2 cause the break was so long. My friend participated as well and when we met in round 5 we squared off with our worst Pokémon resulting in an epic duel between Nidoking and Nidoqueen. The final was held on a huge stage in front of hundreds of Pokémon fans (and their annoyed parents). I got my ass handed to me by some 12 year old ... but it was still great fun and something I'll always remember.

Worst memories:

Late 2001 when the fad had faded for me. I thought I'd never pick up a Pokémon game again and train some Pokémon properly. I still got each Pokémon game after that but rushed through them and never touched them again. That is, until 2007 when for some reason I got a bit obsessed with the game again. Now me and above friend duel on Pokémon Battle Revolution again once every blue moon. But things were never as exciting again as eight years ago.

[DarkestLight]

I have alot. So I'll do the top 4 of each.

Best Memories. Note: None rank higher than one another, They're just in chronological order

1) First obtaining Red: I didn't even know about Pokemon til a friend of mine told me to watch the Anime. My first Episode was when they were fighting a Hypno for some reason. It was in the first season , That's I'm sure of, and maybe they were dueling someone in Silph..I dun remember exactly. I thought it was hilarious.

A few days later, I went to playtest Sega's new system (Dreamcast <3!!!) and earned 50 bucks afterward. My friend and I ran to the video game store before it closed and I decided to jump out on a limb and get Pokemon Red, since he was buying Blue. The rest...well he hates every day of his life after showing me this wonderful game.

2) 1999: The year where Pokemon swept my high school. Everyone played it, from cool kids to hot chicks. I was actually number 1 in my school Tournament wise, though I had NO concept of strategy. I'm talking Razor Leaf-Solarbeam-Leech Seed-Poison Powder-Bulbasaur no strategy here. It was a great time with my Game Boy Color, pwning kids old and young in hallways, running to class, playing under our desks..man. I'd kill to be in 11th/12th grade again just for that.

3) Making/Selling fake Pokemon cards: Oh yes, I'm a hustler, hustler. I figured out how to make those coveted Pokemon cards, and was at Kinkos every day during the summer of 09-then sold cards til around 2pm, then hung out with my friends around the City.Once expansion packs came out I realized that wasn't gonna be worth it, that and vendors were really starting to push out us fakemon sellers.

4) Pokemon Guild My love for Pokemon got me online, and before long I joined a Pokemon Guild. It was based in AOL first, but soon was mostly AIM supported, and the friends I made there are well, friends for life. One of them was the reason I even perused TPM at one point and now look :D! t was great, Chat room RP's of all sorts of magnitude. That was back when I could create storylines at the drop of a hat. Speed Spars, Poketrivia Oh. I miss those days soo much.

Worst Moments:

1) 2001: For all intensive purposes, Pokemon was dead to my friends (except online...) I was in a rough rough year of college, and then someone breaks into my dorm room and steals my laptop (later recovered, dumbass couldn't figure out the password, so leaves it) and winds up breaking my Game Boy AND Pokemon Silver in the process (which wasn't even mine,I was helping out someone with their game) I don't think I touched Pokemon anytime that year afterward.

2) Netbattle: I got on there after hearing it was a great simulator. Oh man, I never been so pwned in my life. I realized I knew nothing about this game, and started from scratch, reading about all these moves I though you could and would NEVER put on Pokemon. Honestly, I remember saying. "Why the hell would I put Solarbeam on a Houndoom?"

After I saw how well it worked in GSC days...I was instantly so upset with myself I replayed Gold again just to learn this thing called...the metagame...

3) 2004: My college days were ending, and while Pokemon was still strong online, ...wait, what year did R/S come out? Cause that's the next time I played...so if 04 is wrong I shall switch it. Think it was 03...anyway. R/S came out. Spring Break was here. My friends in College all left for some random place. I stayed behind (I was a Resident Technical Assistant and opted to stick around for Break.)

I locked myself in my college room and played R/S.

Totally oblivious to the fact that no one knew I was in the dorm for an entire week. I had barely enough food, and when I finally emerged Saturday night-the few RA's around were like "WHAT THE HELL YOU WERE IN YOUR ROOM? PLAYING POKEMON?"

Yeah that spread like wildfire around campus. Not cool being laughed at by like a third of campus..but it actually came back to help me in the end...

I don't have a fourth..but I'm sure I will...someday.

[Mikachu Yukitatsu]

One more low point. Two Kanto eppies and the whole Orange League were skipped in Finland. They still haven't showed it, as far as I know. I knew enough about Pokemon back in 2001 to notice it, I had joined TPM the same autumn and had like 150 posts!! I was waiting for "Friends To The End" after seeing "Friend Or Foe Alike" last week but the first Johto episode was what I got.

[PancaKe]

Best

- Playing my first game of pokemon. Ah, I got it on rom, that was given to me on a floppy disk by a friend in 1998. I still remember the feeling I got. It was amazing. Oh I'm so nerdy.

- Joining the pokemon club. In year 5, my friends had a pokemon club and you had to pass a test to get in. Making it was so great.

- Saving up and buying my pokemon gameboy colour. My dad's response was "You wont even like pokemon in 10 years." I sure showed him =)

- Writing pokemon fanfiction. Best moments ever. Sure I started in dark terrible cliche'd fanfics, but we were all 12 at the time and we thought they were fantastic! But just having a bunch of people actually enjoy what I wrote was amazing.


Worst

- I met my first online stalker/predator in the pokemasters chat room. Yeah.

- I dated a guy I met online at tpm. Bad decision on my part.

- Resigning from mod. What was i thinking?!

- Getting hacked and disappering for like, two years. I had lost internet at my house; and then when I tried to come back my password and account wouldnt work!!! :( So sad!