I suppose the best thing I can do for today is to recount how I came to be a fan of Pokespe.
It all started when I was 9 years old. I was browsing through the kids’ section of a local Barnes and Noble, when a particular book caught my eye. It was the Best of Red collection of spe. I didn’t know anything about the manga at this point, and I only bought it with my limited allowance because I liked Pokémon and I thought the idea of a comic based on it was pretty cool. I read through the book, thought it was decent (though it had some plot holes (my small brain couldn’t figure out why there were flashbacks to events not in that particular book)), and put it down for a while.
About a year later, I was looking through he same section and came across the Best of Yellow collection. I remembered vaguely liking the first one, so I got this one as well. I was surprised to find that there was actual continuity with the first one I’d read, but with so much missing, I couldn’t really make the connection that there was an ongoing series.
Then, about five years after that, in a hotel room traveling with my high school baseball team, I lay awake surfing wikis about Pokémon. By random chance, I happened on the article for Yellow, and, remembering the books I’d read, I clicked on it. Almost immediately, I got caught by complete surprise when the article started referring to Yellow as “she” and “her.” The Best of collection had, for some odd reason, failed to include the biggest twist of the whole arc.
And that was all it took to get me hooked. After recovering from that initial surprise, I read through the summaries of the RGB and Yellow arcs, realizing everything I’d missed out on because I’d only seen the collections. That was also when I noticed that Red and Yellow seemed, from the summaries and screenshots, at least, to have a pretty good amount of connection to each other. I learned there was a name for that relationship, Specialshipping, and that’s how I fell in love with my otp.
Then, after a few years of browsing various fanfiction websites for Specialshipping content (I stand by it that I’ve read every Specialshipping fanfiction there is in existence), and finally getting around to reading the full RGBY stories, I found the Amino for Pokespe, joined, and decided to stake my claim in the community with my first Pokespe fanfiction, “Before Alola.” A while after that, I joined the Pokespe discord, affectionately referred to as “Specord,” and became an active member there as well. Finally, just a few months ago, I joined Tumblr for the sole purpose of further exploring the spe community.
And that’s pretty much everything up until now. I’m really looking into the future of this manga and my involvement in its community, especially since it has always been lurking in the corners of my life, even in my youth. I hope we can see my favorite character, Yellow, back in the manga soon (maybe for a Rainbow Rocket arc?), but if not, fanfiction is enough. I’m going to be beginning my most ambitious Pokespe project yet soon, and I really hope it will turn out well.
Mostly, though, I just hope this community will continue to grow and thrive, and that maybe some other little kid will stumble across a collection or volume of Pokespe in their local book store and come to be a fan, just like I did.
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