Every now and again, I do something outrageous to take my mind off of the world, and with Nationals right around the corner, a little break from competitive pokemon is good for the sanity. This week, I chose to take a break from pokemon with, well, pokemon. No muscles strained here, clearly.
I saw
this on Reddit today, and my heart went out to this little kid. In case the link breaks down when someone unearths my embarrassing secret diary years later, I'll paste the text of that link below:
I'm the older sister (20) of a 9 year old. I played Pokemon Blue and Gold in my childhood and loved it. When my brother was growing up, he loved to play with my Pokemon cards and also played my old Gameboy Pocket Pokemon games too.
So I bought Pokemon White for my brother last year for his 8th birthday. He loved it. He trained his beloved party to level 80s on his own and proudly took them to school to battle. He was so excited when the Victini special event came and got me to get one for him at the local game shop.
A few weeks ago he lost his game after going to church. He usually kept the game in his DS case located in his bag, but when he returned home he couldn't find it. He managed to find it again...2 weeks later...lying out in the front garden area in the grass. It had been raining for the past two weeks. We suspect that one of the kids there stole the game and hid it there (this same kid was over at our house a few weeks back and tried to steal some of my brother's toys).
We started up the game and sadly...it was all gone. All that effort my brother put into training his Pokemon for a year and a half. I would have been pretty devastated if I lost all my Pokemon in my old gameboy games.
His party consisted of Samurott (Blueberry), Victini (Orange), Musharna (Ham), Zebstrika (Eclair), Lilligant (Melon) and Zekrom (Pancake). They will be missed :(
Looking back, I wouldn't even be going to Nationals, or even playing pokemon at all for that matter, if it wasn't for the community being so good to me. I've had some drama here and there, but I've had some friends I wouldn't trade for the world, too. Suleski, Gabby, Danny, Luke, Travis, Stephen, Kevin, the whole lot. So, against my better judgment, I blew off some of my last few moments of training time and decided to recreate this little guy's team.
After blowing off a considerable amount of work today, I finished the team and posted
this on reddit:
For those who weren't on Reddit when this was happening,
here's the original thread.
Long story short, I read the story of the poor 9 year old who had his game erased by a few not so nice boys, and my heart went out to him. After spending all day on it, I recreated the team described in the story from scratch, with verification
here.The only problem is that sugarcreamtea hasn't responded yet - perhaps she doesn't go on Reddit too often. The username info implies she used a throwaway, as that was the only post. She hasn't been online since. So I figured I'd start my own thread, to double the chances of her finding her way back here on a casual perusal of r/pokemon.
That being said, here's where you guys come in: if anyone knows who this person is, please tell her I'd like to make her little brother's pain go away by giving him back his erased pokemon. I'm also giving him a Jirachi, aka the wish pokemon, and telling him the story of how a Jirachi can grant wishes once every thousand years (see BW pokedex), and that I chose to use my Jirachi's wish granting power on him to bring back his lost comrades. This bullied boy needs to know just how special he is, and more importantly how the pokemon community takes care of each other. With any luck, this will make a lover of pokemon for a lifetime. :)
Note: if you know who this is, just contact her for me and direct her back to Reddit. I do not want to know names, outside-of-reddit contact info, or anything personal that would endanger her privacy if shared publicly. Thanks guys for all your support.
So sugarcreamtea, if you do see this, reply here or PM me! All of reddit's good thoughts go out to your little brother, and we all want to see a smile on his face again.
The woman got back to me within the hour, after a shit ton of people bumped me to the 3rd hottest link on the pokemon subreddit. I don't know much about this mysterious girl, but she works in a hospital, which was why she didn't respond right away (this was sent via a private message). But, all that's left to do is trade her the pokemon I made, and her little brother can get his pokemon career back on track. She told me she was very greatful for what I had done, and that she knows her brother will be ecstatic.
Days like this, I try to remember that it's love of the game that makes me play and sometimes win, not winning that makes me love the game. Whatever happens in Nationals will be just fine, because at the end of the day my love for pokemon isn't going anywhere.
-Didroy