Kouhai: The Story

I thought the best way to introduce myself was to give my Pokémon life story, so that's what I'll do! Let's get right to it.

The Beginning:
Back when I was about 9 years old, I was in a RadioShack store with my mother and sister, looking aroud for cool-looking games to entertain my time with. My eyes had caught the sight of Pokémon Emerald, a game I recognized by knowing my neighbor had a Pokémon Ruby. Since he was older, he was obviously cooler and wiser so I wanted to be like him and have a Pokémon game too. I begged my mother to get the game for me, and after about a half hour of surround sound begging, she got me the game, and I was a happy kid. I immediately started playing, getting familiar with the Pokémon and learning more about the universe this game took place in. Hoenn seemed like a second home by the time I got really into it, and I loved that game more than anything.

It's pretty interesting, looking back, at how little I actually knew about Pokémon. Though of course I thought I knew quite a lot

My interest grew, I was getting through every part of the game, and the more I played, the more I loved the small but fun puzzles (mostly the Regi-trio) and I learned so many new things. Oddly enough, I feel Pokémon taught me to be thicker skinned so I wouldn't be so sensitive to things, though life occurances are still a thing. I ended up getting Mystery Dungeon: Blue Rescue Team and Diamond soon afterward. Yes, I cried at the end of Blue Rescue Team. I was young and heavily invested, okay?

Learning the Lore and the Competitive Side:
Through Diamond I learned a massive amount of Pokémon-lore in-game and found more resources online to supplement this. Learning the lore and the meaning behind all these funny characters gave the game more value to me, and even more so I was able to figure out how to start playing competitively through learning about the VGC (though it wasn't called that back then) playstyle.

I felt that I was accumulating a lot of interesting and good information about the game, and that I'd be really good at battling. After all, I had most legendaries and beat the games I had without much difficulty.

So in essence, through the lore of Pokémon I learned about the amazing competitive scene, though through a very small lense. I would later develop this to a real competitive side and grow as a plyer and person after that.

Developing the Competitive Edge:
After getting copies of Platinum, SoulSilver, and HeartGold, I had learned a ton about competitive Pokémon and started to really get into team building and theoretical battling. I made at least 5 teams a day for a straight year I loved it so much. I was lucky enough to get a copy of a cumulative Pokédex for HeartGold and SoulSilver, the second in the series that had the entire Pokédex. That is where my knowledge of Pokémon and their competitive value skyrocketed, as well as using Bulbapedia and Serebii.

Around the time that SoulSilver and HeartGold were running out of breath for GameFreak, I had become obsessed with VGC, and wanted to play in a real tournament. Not an imaginary one I envisioned myself going to. That's where Black and White came in.

Becoming a Competitive Battler:
A long wait for Black and White's release was rewarded with easier EV-training (something I learned about one month before the release of Generation V), all-new Pokémon, tons of invaluable moves, and amazing selection for VGC battles. Back in 2011, VGC only allowed Unova Pokémon.

I beat the game in a few hours and got right to training, since I finally found some friends that knew how to competitively play. Pokémon became a mini-sport to me at this point. Countless hours spent on this game, never stopping to take a break from learning every playstyle that I could find in Black and White. Eventually I found a team I never lost with against my friends (Thundurus, Terrakion, Amoonguss, Chandelure, Reuniclus, and Conkeldurr). I loved that team and I loved playing with it.

Little did I know that a year later, in the 2012 to 2013 season, I'd be playing in a regional and national tournament. That sent me over the moon, and in both tournaments I got 4-3 and 5-4 as my win-loss record. Pretty awesome for a first-timer, in my opinion. It's also in that year that I discovered Smogon and PokemonShowdown!. I mostly played battles in VGC to easily test teams, on both the main server and the late Nugget Bridge server. When VGC got its own room on PokemonShowdown!, I was frequenting the simulator almost every day. That's where my online scene started.

The New Beginning:
PokemonShowdown! was a weird place to me and most of it didn't make much sense. But, I ended up getting into OU Monotype before Smogon made it a "real other meta". I joined a league on the Frost server and we ended up becoming one of the best leagues around, and of all time (again, personal opinion). The Mauve League was a great way to get new friends, and I indeed made them. I went from Gym Leader (steel type) to becoming Frontier Brain. I defeated almost every challenger I faced, only letting a handful get past me and keeping my gym, even after 12 tries by people to overthrow me! However, the league owner vanished into thin air one day and the league crumbled without anyone as roomowner to run the league. Sadly, the other league members I rarely see if ever anymore.

Though this is also where I began my quest as a server owner and admin. I owned and hosted my own server for about a month, but it was just to connect with some new people. Push came to shove, and I ended up removing the server over a dispute with a troll.

Making a Name on PokemonShowdown!:
On PokemonShowdown!, I have done so many things. I ran a Pokémon VGC League (RIP March 2014) and began making a real name for myself. The VGC League I ran became the 3rd most popular on Frost, and I extended my influence by helping other league owners, making a league alliance (League Allied Forces, a play on the Shinobi Allied Forces name from Naruto) and became a co-owner of many other leagues. The VGC League had influence on over 35 leagues across 5 servers of PokemonShowdown!, and it was extremely successful for a few weeks before leagues started collapsing due to owners leaving or breaking off into multiple leagues. However, I still made a league server for the VGC League, and I got some pretty awesome perks from it.

After being denied by Nugget Bridge to host a server for them (by this time theirs became replaced with the VGC room that is currently on the main server), I approached Eggy Emporium with the same offer. They accepted the offer, and the server quickly became the 3rd most populous one on PokemonShowdown! for 3 weeks straight. However, numbers declined as server bugs and issues arose, and I honestly wasn't too good at managing yet. The server and the Eggy Emporium communities split, and we became a new group on our own.

Other PokemonShowdown admins and owners heard about me and constantly came to my server, asking for help or wanting to have some of my server code, and I ended up becoming admin of 7 servers at once one time. This helped me grow as a staff member and admin, and I became pretty good at it. Coding, however, I was still pretty terrible at. Still I got a pretty big name as ToxicPoison and C0i (c zero i) throughout PokemonShowdown!.

I ended up working with coding a lot and figuring out how things worked so I could better run a server and help others. I later realized it was a passion to manage and code, and I'm actually applying to college for these things. (Fun fact: Pokémon changed my life!) By this time I became known as Kouhai, a recent name change for me.

On one of my last servers there, however, I found out about a place called PokeBattle: a new simulator for Pokémon battling.

The Discovery of a Gem:
PokeBattle quickly caught my attention and my new obsession. I loved the idea behind it, as it worked similar to how I built my teams, basing Pokémon off of relative value. Though at first I absolutely sucked at battling there.

Within 8 days of being there and being active in the community, I got promoted to driver (+ on there) and placed on the programming team. After 5 more days of that and helping out around the simulator, I was promoted to moderator (% on there). I still hold the record for shortest promotion times

I pulled long shifts, battled my heart out, and became the moderating guy I am today, though I love a fresh start still (that's one of the reasons I came here!). Time passed and PokeBattle became less and less popular for programming and tiering issues, but it's still around. Not long ago I became admin (@) of PokeBattle, and now I'm one of three members that decide the big things in PokeBattle. I'm very proud of it.

Becoming Part of Lake Valor:
Here is where I am now, looking into this computer screen, spending over an hour writing a single post pouring my Pokémon life story. Took a long time, but now is where it comes to a close. I'm really excited to be joining this community (I love the layout of the forums) and I'm looking forward to helping the community however I can!

If you have any questions, feel free to ask! Bite isn't in my movepool, so don't be alarmed.

 

Thank you! I usually get situated pretty quickly, so I'm not too worried about getting confused Although I will say I fell in love with this forum layout... I want to see the code for it and see its inner workings like you wouldn't believe

Thank you! I actually found out about Lake Valor by stumbling upon the PokemonShowdown! server, and I'm loving the forums so far I'll probably contact one of the administrators offering my coding help with Lake Valor's PokemonShowdown! server in case they ever need it. Not that it looks like they will XD