Thank you, Pokeau (A retrospective)

Today is June 8th – which means tomorrow is my birthday.
It’s not really an important date inside Pokeau itself (aside from being Pearl’s birthday), but with events like Artfight coming up, as well as the recent passing of Ultra Arc’s 2nd anniversary (which I missed due to… a whole cacophony of things), I figured I’d maybe write a retrospective. Since it’s been on my mind.

I’ve had… a lot of feelings, regarding Classic pokeau and Ultra Arc. And a lot of feelings being felt from other people.

For those unaware: 2 years ago, I was feeling heavily dissatisfied with what has now been differentiated as ‘classic’ pokeau – though at the time, this was just ‘pokeau’. While I had been sort of… losing my ‘spark’ of love for the series ever since the games made the jump to the switch, it was around the beginning of the PL:A era that the largest factor into my burnout with pokeau came to be… fandom bullshit!

Part of me says it’s pathetic to admit, but the exhausting attitudes and constant infighting over complete nothingburger issues, combined with the feeling of it being some kind of rat race and a constant craving of validation… it made me feel miserable to continue working on the love of my life. My best friend.
Pokeau was never meant to be palatable, and it never was even since it’s inception. It’s a world for me, and only me – a world that doesn’t need to appeal to others.

But…
When I was sort of… ‘peer pressured’ onto Twitter, it was like some kind of parasite. A parasite that constantly needed shallow, number-based affirmation; a parasite that would become spiteful and comparative. A parasite that sucked the joy out of something that’d been the apple of my eye for so, so long.
Because suddenly, pokeau wasn’t a world for me anymore. It was a world to be judged and perceived and pitted against others – the characters some kind of flat idols to battle against other OCs in a battle of who could be the most conventionally attractive.

And it sucked! It sucked so bad! I was miserable and I hated my art and my writing and no matter what anyone said, nothing would change.

Mariska and Hazel were meant to be one offs. Just a little pocket of a small alternative silly thing.
But…
It was with them I felt like I was given a breath of fresh air.

Even though it was suffocating me, pokeau as it was 2 years ago was all I had known. It felt outlandish for me to leave it, even if the toxicity of social media and fandom has poisoned the water supply.
So, when Hazel and Mariska and Ramiel’s adventures seemed to offer something completely different, something away from it all… I guess my subconscious took the chance to jump ship.

Since then, Ultra Arc has grown to be so much more than the single one-off arc that its original name would imply. It’s become my primary focus, and it brings me so much joy and fulfillment.
But…
Part of me is still guilty. Both on my behalf… and on behalf of others.

I talked about it a little bit in the 9th anniversary letter, but because classic pokeau had been the forefront of my mind for so many years… even just the thought of letting it be dormant is distressing. I’m afraid I’m going to lose it, and all the friends I’d made there. It’s distressing when I realize the staple characters who were practically my neighbors barely cross my mind.
I know that… a dormancy doesn’t have to be forever, and a hiatus doesn’t have to be indefinite. But there’s a nagging paranoia in my brain that keeps telling me, ‘what if it is over’. It’s not pleasant and I don’t like to think about it.

The other half is… a guilt on behalf of others, funnily enough. It seemed that, during its ‘prime’, I’d rarely get vocal positive feedback from anyone who wasn’t a friend… but now that classic pokeau is on hiatus, it seems to be all people can be excited about.
That, and I’ve had a few people voice their disdain about ultra arc taking the spotlight to my face. That they don’t like it, that it doesn’t make sense, that it’s not pokemon. That you’re the pokemon guy, shouldn’t you be doing pokemon stuff? I can only imagine how much worse things are being said behind my back by drama-bound cliques, but as long as that never reaches my ears, I couldn’t care less.

It’s frustrating.
I needed to take a break from classic pokeau because it’d become something that drained me, something I no longer felt the same joy with.
Ultra arc gave me that freedom again, a freedom I felt I’d lost.

I’m not sure when I’m going to feel ready to return to classic pokeau again, as I imagine the smoke will still need some time to clear.
But in the meantime, Mariska and Hazel and everyone else will keep me company;
And I’m sure Lune and Emmy will be waiting there for me when I come back home.