Thoughtful and patient, you’re driven by an insatiable curiosity and deep-rooted desire to understand the world around you. You love to learn, explore, and discover, and you approach problems with careful consideration of every possible angle before making any quick decisions. You’re happiest reading a book or telling campfire stories with a group of friends. While your easy-going nature keeps you from making irrational or dangerous choices, you can sometimes be so stubborn that you miss the forest for the trees.
I see some new faces in my followers list, so I thought it would be worth mentioning that I’m gradually becoming as busy as the real Professor Elm and don’t really have the time to be coming on here.
I’m sure I mentioned it somewhere in my rules that this blog is low activity anyway, but I’m afraid this blog will fall by the wayside as I’ve also recently picked up a new hobby. My weekends are completely booked with practice two days in a row now, and with my Japanese teachers growing more dependent on asking me to make lessons for them now, I don’t really have the time to even log in to lurk every now and then.
That’s why I thought it would be worth mentioning that it won’t hurt my feelings at all if you want to unfollow this blog, as I don’t really expect to be making new content on here. I’m not scrapping Professor Elm by any means, and he will be making appearances elsewhere, but this blog will be in a permanent state of hiatus unless something motivates me to come back and channel his energy. Like maybe annoying a certain mentor...
A wild concept: instead of sending praise to your friends step out of your circle for once and send it to someone who doesn´t already know you love them. Click the heart on art that has zero likes. Leave a nice comment on someone´s ooc post. Reblog a promo that doesn´t fit your “aesthetic”. Give someone a shot whose muse is out of your orbit but who seems super-dedicated. There are a lot of underappreciated blogs who deserve some kindness. Be the person who gives a little. It doesn´t take much.
Attempted something a little different again. Wanting to mostly break from black lines recently. Not so sure how well I did, but I spent an absurd amount of time on this. Too much time not to post.
I recently found one of my favorite Totodile plush of all time (the Walky Mascot plush released to promote the HGSS games). I was pretty stoked the other day when I got it since I’ve been searching for it for the past 5 years or so. And just now while I was cleaning, I moved it from its temporary spot to a more permanent place to display it in my collection. I couldn’t help but cry thinking about something as I stared at it sitting inside one of my Pokemon tote bags hanging along my wall.
I’m old enough to have been with Pokemon since the very beginning. I watched the anime when it first came to the US, I got my first Pokemon card from a friend and even started collecting those for a while (along with every piece of Pokemon merch I could find). I was especially big on ordering the latest Pokemon book from Scholastic (the ones that were mostly written by Tracey West) and even got shamed by one of my elementary school teachers for reading them up to sixth grade. (But that’s another story!)
Despite my self-proclaimed Pokemon Master title for everything I knew and collected related to Pokemon, for the longest time, I was not at all aware that handheld Pokemon games existed. (I suspect my dad knew about them and hid their existence from me since I did have a Nintendo 64 and the games for them, but they were very expensive at the time.) Not until the GBA rolled around that I finally got to try the newest games that were out: Pokemon Silver and Crystal, and that’s the time I got to really feel what every other kid was experiencing - going out on your own adventure together with your Pokemon the way Ash did in the show.
To be honest, my first starter Pokemon wasn’t Totodile but Cyndaquil. I loved the little fire porcupine, but I admit I chose him because I thought burning everything down with fire moves would be the most effective way to win battles. (I was a kid, what do you expect? Didn’t everyone go through a pyromaniac phase? Just me? ...) I really loved those games and clocked over 800 hours on Crystal alone, which is why I strongly suspect that it was my first game, and not Silver. But then, I clocked quite a few hours on Silver as well, maybe 400? So it makes me wonder why I would spend that much time on it if I already went through Crystal.
Anyway, fast forward to gen 4, the generation of advanced technology with touch screens in the introduction of the DS models. I remember being adamantly against wanting one because I didn’t like the idea of using a touch screen. It was this time the Sinnoh games were introduced first, and I remember not feeling pumped about the games just because I knew I wouldn’t own a DS. Then when HGSS came out, I felt conflicted and realized I actually wanted a DS all along. I was just trying to cope with not having one by telling myself it was silly to own one, when in fact I knew I just couldn’t get one because money was tight.
It was really hard going through that gen as a young adult because many older fans had lost interest. Pokemon was seen as a kids’ thing and nothing more. It was easy to form the same attitude, so it was around this time I had the least interest in Pokemon - at least spending-wise. It’s a time I really regret missing because so much cool merch came out during that time (particularly in Japan) including the Walky Pokemon promotion.
When XY and the 3DS were introduced, I finally had the finances to afford getting back into the games again, and I finally got to play Heart Gold for the first time. I went with Totodile as my starter that time around because although Cyndaquil was my first, I remember being quite fond of Ash’s Totodile. He was a real fun-loving dude, and to me, he seemed to represent the spirit of a Pokemon trainer’s childhood. It was the first time I played not for winning or getting (one particular Pokemon) stronger, but for personal enjoyment and feeling like I’m actually bonding with my Pokemon (and the Pokewalker device really helped to make it feel that way).
That’s why it makes my day when I find out one of my kids love Pokemon. JHS students tend to ‘grow out of it’ because Pokemon is really aimed at ES kids. Sometimes they just don’t want to be teased for being too childish for liking something when they’re in that transitional stage of their lives when they’re growing up. That’s why I make sure each one of my kids knows how much I love Pokemon. I might not be very cool myself, but if an adult doesn’t think something is childish, then they won’t feel embarrassed about liking it. And honestly, I noticed many of my energetic students love Pokemon. There’s gotta be a pattern there!
sometimes you try your hardest but didn’t get what you want, and that’s okay - thank you for trying and working hard for it; you’re amazing for making it this far and i’m so proud of you, now please take some time to rest and heal, no matter how long, because you deserve it
I just want to write pure, wholesome father/son scenes that cause you to shed tears from pure happiness...
but instead I get Giovanni who just wants to put his son in his place for showing him disrespect and no matter how many times I bang on Professor Elm's door to ask him to deliver the wholesomeness, he says he's busy atm and to check back later D:>
“Now listen here! A friendly sparring match is one thing--even a heated match between rivals is perfectly healthy--but threatening others with uncalled for attacks isn’t something a licensed Pokemon trainer should do. Even worse is berating trainers much younger than you to initiate such attacks when you have the authority and experience to guide them down a proper path.”
“Now I’m not a referee, but I won’t stand for such disrespectful battling! NOT WITH MY CHILDREN YOU DON’T!”
