>>57103173Unironically, a fan of the fandom here.
I dropped off the mainline Pokemon bandwagon around Gen 5, and have not really gotten back into it since. Didn't get a 3DS until around 2016 to play Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate, but even then I did not feel a great urge to get back into Pokemon until sometime during 2017/2018. Even then, the mainline content on offer was underwhelming for me then, and even more so now with how Pokemon has developed. It is not bad on a strictly "objective" measure, but I have a number of pet peeves and creative differences in how Pokemon has shifted and changed since 2013. Be it story, lore, the Pokemon designs themselves, the gimmicks, or how the companies behind Pokemon have become... Dickish to say the least, the only thing that draws me back in is the stuff fans produce. Even then, that comes with an asterisk attached due to the fandom majority inevitably incorporating those elements that break my personal immersion.
But the core of Pokemon, that magical world, those wonderful creatures that made it feel alive? That unexplored horizon still yet to come? It draws me in still. Pokemon has sunk its talons far too deep into me for me to be rid of the urge to explore it for long. I just do so by writing my own little copefics, filtering for the good stuff that I like, and indulging in the occasional fan game here and there. Me personally, I have since taken off to try and create my own iteration of the Pokemon world here and there.
Exploring different concepts and iterating on things like type shifting, localized environmental variants more detailed than just the regional forms, poking back on old concepts and breathing new life into them, giving a few mons the spotlight they otherwise have yet to gain, that sort of thing. I cannot say my output is perfect, but it fills the void enough for me to be content. I can at least say I have given those old reimagingings of at least one of the Galar starters new life, if nothing else.
