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Pity me, for I was unwell.... |
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People get into programmes for different reasons, but the story of how I came to be the Pokemon fan I am today is a bit of an odd one. It started back in the autumn of 1999 when Pokemon first came to Britain. I'd never heard of it before. Actually, that's not true - I'd found a message board about it a few months before but had misread the title and spent a while believing it was called 'Poke Man'.
I was well and truly corrected when Pokemon finally hit these shores. I turned my nose up at it at first. Pokemon? Pah! Kids stuff! When I was bored one Sunday morning I found the cartoon on and watched it, then made endless fun of it until the next week when I watched it again. The more I took the mickey out of it, the more I watched it. A month or so later I realised I was getting upset if I missed an episode. What??! Did this mean.... No, it couldn't. Surely. I wasn't.... getting into Pokemon, was I?! |
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I was. |
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Time went on. I watched it every week, bought a couple bits of merchandise, but I still wasn't a Pokemon obssessive. Come 14th April I went into hospital for an operation. I admit, I was nervous and to pass the time a huge number of Pokemon jokes seemed to be the order of the day. To make matters worse I was in Brockham ward, and after joking for a long time about Team Rocket operating on me I discovered the surgeon's name was James! I have no idea what happened while I was under anaestetic but all I know is I woke with the utter conviction I was going to be a Pokemon master and a sudden, inexplicable love for Pokemon. |
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I was allowed home later that day, but couldn't figure out why I felt so elated to be home in time for Pokemon. The next day I felt pretty lousy and spent the whole day surfing the net. For some reason I had a strong urge to draw Misty and tried hard to find a picture to go by, but for a subject like Pokemon with so many sites it was unbelievably hard to find what I wanted. Mid afternoon, I decided I was looking in the wrong places and started a different search. I hoped it would bring me Misty images. What it brought me instead was a topic I'd never thought of before. AAML....... |
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It started with fan fiction. One tiny site to begin with, which had some pretty good stuff, but the letters AAMRN were mentioned a lot and I became confused. It took a while to figure out they stood for Ash and Misty Romance Novel. Argh! No! Ash and Misty?! In LOVE?! Are you crazy?! I abandoned the computer later that afternoon but I couldn't get the thought of it out of my mind - or the thought of Pokemon. Later that evening I went back to the computer and read one of these so-called AAMRN's. I may not have really liked the idea but I could see where they were coming from. Then the next day when I found the AAML site I undrestood a whole lot clearer. |
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But my problem was that I soon got converted to anything I found. Any pairings I'd just been reading about seemed to make perfect sense, until I came across another.I also became frustrated there was so much I didn't know. People kept talking about Butch and Cassidy. Who the hell were they?! Who or what was Kenji?! And what do they mean by Satoshi and Kasumi?! It took the whole of Easter to piece things together. But with 2 episodes on Sky 1 every day, 8 per week on ITV and 3 Pokemon marathons on sky consisting of 8 or 10 episodes each, everything began to make much more sense... |
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Three months down the line I found myself smack-bang between leaving college and starting a new job, and facing an operation. I realised something unbelievable - I'd have time on my hands! Wow, that was something I hadn't seen in a while. Whatever could I do with that?! I'd wanted to set up my own website for a long time and slowly decided what sections to include. Pokemon had to be a priority, of course. But there were so many sites out there already and I knew I could never compete with them so I didn't even try, and made instead a light-hearted look at Pokemon and a guide to Pokemon on the net, the section which you're visiting right now. |
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But things change - and Miranda gets cocky.... and after making my first site I decided I wanted to make another. Enter Anyshippers, my Pokemon pairings website. After my endless fascination with Pokemon romance theories I decided to make a forum for all pairings, no matter how popular or rare. The site has been far more successful than I'd ever thought possible and is heading toward the 3000 hits mark after only 2 months so far of being up. Further to that, I made Cassidy Net - a site dedicated to my Pokemon heroine, the girl with the shooting star hair. |
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And here I am, months down the line, still a big fan of Pokemon and still looking at it in a twisted light! Which is clearly the best way to look at anything, of course. And having a lot of fun destroying the innocence of the show, too, which is what being a Pokemon fan is all about.... |
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Back to Pokemon Index |
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