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(request) DELETE SMOGON NOW [decision pending]

The tournament arc is a tale as old as time: competing to determine the best player is perhaps the foundation of this very website and one of Pokemon's main pillars of gameplay, with the ultimate goal in the campaign of becoming the Champion. With the recent release of Pokemon Champions on mobile devices rendering Link Battles more accessible and palatable to those without unrestricted access to a web browser, even those restricted to Pokemon.com can independently develop the attitudes of competitive Pokemon, from the highs of hype moments to the lows of lamenting about blind luck and having an "unfortunate" series.

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(EDIT: This ban just happened midway through writing this post, by the way, so some images may be outdated.)

If the expression of forum posts are considered to be a form of art imitating life, then perhaps life can be witnessed imitating that same art in the process, as a homegrown community forms its first tournament with no experience and expectations, and another banning stains the streets of Pokemon Square.

This is a (slightly abridged) story of the first Official Pokemon Forums unofficial Pokemon Champions Singles tournament, held on July 29, 2026.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25227/today-is-the-forums-champions-single-battle-tournament/p1
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But first, let's take a step back with how this tournament got started, and opinions of Champions as a whole.


Plans for a Forums Tournament originated in April soon after the Switch release of Champions, ideated by fineasmatei.
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/23514/forums-champion-tournament/p1
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Many players were limited by the lack of team options and requirement of having a Switch at the time on short notice.
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The Forums Tournament would be attempted again in April a couple of days later, but fizzled out due to lack of activity and timezone scheduling confusion.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/23579/forums-champions-tournament-1/p1
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The Tournament would eventually be revived thanks to it being summer break in the Northern Hemisphere.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us...try-the-pokemon-champions-tournament-again/p1
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To sum a 10-page thread and then some up, the Tournament found its participants, and the decision was made to host a Singles and Doubles tournament on two separate days this week, with some votes in between.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25205/pokemon-forums-champions-tournament-day-vote/p1
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25219/pokemon-champions-tournament-which-day-is-which-battle/p1
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Meanwhile, heated opinions on the ingame Champions ladder were rising in the shadows.
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25175/champions-got-smelly-jobless-players#latest
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This post is probably going to run into the image limit if I cover the whole 30+ page tournament as well, so I'll just preview some of the tournament's fallouts.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25227/today-is-the-forums-champions-single-battle-tournament/p33
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25230/can-someone-stop-momoscarada-bad-attitude/p1
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To be continued.
 
So this might just be on my side, but the Pokemon Forums grey font for dates/reactions seems to have gotten darker between posts, and also in the middle of my post above. I think this is a poor change because those used to be minor UI elements and now they look as dark as everything else, and also a bit blurrier at a glance. But I suppose you could say it is a sign that the black wind howls, bringing upon the reemergence of Lavos incarnate.

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Anyway, you're probably wondering how we got here.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25227/today-is-the-forums-champions-single-battle-tournament/p1
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The once proud 33-page thread has fallen to 31 pages (~20 posts removed), but I have archived an old state of the thread to refer to if necessary to compare what the Mods have seen fit to remove in the meantime. The main differences will be the state of the Banned user's avatar, as well as oshoBug recently switching to an avatar of Gligar in the present for a reason that will be evident soon.

Like all dramatic tournaments, we start off with some surprise entrants the day of, starting with Shadow_Sylveon being the first entrant to check in outside of Hades.
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Ironically, Momoscarada had foretold his own doom for participating in this folly, yet fate swayed to enable it.

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Hades proposes a tournament matchup similar to double elimination but not really because loser's bracket sends you to the Shadow realm.

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The planned tournament matchups would be decided by an impartial judge.

Keep this in mind for later.

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You could probably fulfill that requirement with a round robin tournament.



At 7PM UTC and 10 pages into the thread, the tournament would officially begin in earnest.
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The first match of the first round would be Hades vs. UZ. Now I wasn't present to spectate and so we can only speculate how the battles and teams were composed based on forum posts as it happened live, which may leave most of this tournament as a epistolary mystery to be puzzled out between the lines. I also do not follow the Champions meta very closely, but neither does the Pokemon.com forums, probably.

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Pokemon sighted: Sylveon, Palafin, Sneasler, (Mega) Banette. There is also a Scorching Sands user and a STAB Hex user who I assume is Mega Banette because that somehow makes the most sense.

I will assume UnovanZorua brought Palafin and Sneasler, because I don't think Hades plays meta and also he would be the type to use a convoluted combo like Hex Banette.

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The second match would be an unplanned divergence between Shadow_Sylveon and CopoTurkey, going against the initially planned matchups.

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We have even less detail here, with the battle ending in a forfeit seemingly after an OHKO from Mega Steelix.

From there, Momoscarada would end up battling oshoBug instead, as the last two participants left to fight.
Little did they know that a few flukes of nature would cause an unforeseen sweardown of proportions the Pokemon forums wouldn't really have much reaction towards.

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As unexpectedly as he had entered, Shadow_Sylveon exited the tournament first.
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With UnovanZorua, CopoTurkey, and oshoBug presumably winning their bouts, they would be left to fight in a round robin fashion.
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However, in the shadow of oshoBug's victory, it would be revealed that they had made use of Evasion, the Forbidden Strategy, assembling a combination of Snow Warning + Aurora Veil Alolan Ninetales into Sand Stream Dragon Dance Tyranitar + Sand Veil/Bright Powder Gliscor.
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Unfortunately, the depths of losing to this strategy of literal blind luck would be too much for Momoscarada to bear.

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Here we have our first instance of a deleted post:
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The Mods also left this quoted version up.

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"Shut up." was removed.
Unfortunately for Hades, this would turn out not to be all jokes.

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I didn't even realize UZ was fighting Osho at this point, but it seems to have just incited Momoscarada more.
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This one was left up with some incredible juxtaposition.
I am also amending my judgment of UnovanZorua's meta tactics.

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The Pokemon Forums discover that screens are a healthy part of the meta.

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Another deleted post that has been preserved in a quote.

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With that, oshoBug became the Champion of Champions after two wins in Round 2, and Momoscarada would not be happy with the result.
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I feel like this is a case of a glass pot throwing glass stones at a glass kettle in a glass house.

UnovanZorua would take second place in the runners-up match.

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The Mods saw fit to remove this petty "Loud Lie buzzer" post between the above two posts.
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PikaCarter2025 is pretty well informed for joining earlier within the month of July and having 5 stars already.

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Okay, I have to wonder, did he not realize the more obvious alternative portmanteau with Espeon there? These syllables don't glide smoothly at all as is, and it's probably an indecipherable insult out of context. Heck, you could even swap Charizard and Espeon around and it could also work better. Eh, whatever.

NOTE: I hit the image limit here so this is currently a post in progress.
EDIT: It's about done now.
EDIT 2: Added a note at the End of the Tournament if you saw this post after EDIT 1.

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The rest goes as it did in the above post's page 33/tournament spoilers.

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And neither by will or by choice would he partake in another Official Pokemon Forums tournament again.

Perhaps it goes to show that competition can bring out the best and worst in bringing people together.

Hopefully the Friday Doubles tournament will go more smoothly. With any luck it won't even be worth posting about.
 
Last edited:
Official Pokemon Forums history may have just been made with the first recorded unbanning in all of recorded history.

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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/profile/Momoscarada

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PikaCarter seems to be speculating that this may be a bug, and I guess we won't know unless the man logs in again, but so far the evidence is that their account doesn't show up as banned and their profile is viewable.

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And just for comparison's sake, Joey is still banned.

In terms of other moderator activity, Hades seems to have gotten a thread deleted for speculating on what crimes Pokemon would commit:
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25324/no-criminal-pokemon/p1
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Apparently threads about hypothetical criminal activity are a no-go for the Pokemon Forums audience.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us...a-new-gadget-for-team-rocket-what-would-it-be
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25298/theyre-under-arrest-who-do-you-free/p1
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25269/religeon-pokemon-trainers#latest
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I'm surprised CopoTurkey didn't capitalize Him.

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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/12656/when-do-you-think-we-will-get-gen-3-profile-pics/p1
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25236/when-will-we-get-gen-3-profile-pics-the-sequel#latest
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us...ts-the-first-thing-that-comes-to-your-mind/p1
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25278/sword-and-shield-looked-amazing/p1
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25280/how-do-you-pronounce-raquaza/p1
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25245/if-the-forums-built-one-thing-together-what-should-it-be#latest
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25334/theres-a-traitor-among-us-who-is-the-most-suspicious/p1
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Meanwhile, last month the Vanilla Forums took down their abandoned public open source repository because of AI exposure and their former developer called them out for it.
https://open.vanillaforums.com/discussion/39625/vanilla-open-source-update
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25287/champions-opt-out-of-megas#latest
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RED ALERT RED ALERT RED ALERT RED ALERT RED ALERT

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25477/flags-are-back/p1
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After 2 months of absence, Flags (the report function) have returned to the official Pokemon.com forums, functioning just as they did before with the capability to either react with a Spam or Abuse flag or write up a formal Report. The former has been regarded as a very controversial move with no reasoning from the Mods to justify their decision of taking back their prior decision.

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The people of Pokemon Square have been petitioning the Mods in protest:
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/activity

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Additionally, a new Mod has recently joined the pantheon:
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/profile/Mod_Netirene
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I don't even think Netirene is a word, unlike most of the other Mod names like Bee or Nova or Ginger.

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The people have also been covering various songs in a text-based non-vocal format.
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I actually tried this and the capitalization did make a difference. I never would have noticed myself.

discussions:
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Discussions:
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Meanwhile, some deep dark thoughts have been hitting Pokemon Square.
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25384/imagine-if/p1
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I think that's called Nuzlocke syndrome.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25313/the-world-is-forever-changed/p1
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Well, he did win an election, but I don't know if that counts as changing the world yet.

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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us...-ninetales-got-outsped-by-focus-sash-garchomp
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Rock Tomb reduces Speed, not a bug.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25395/what-do-you-think/p1
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So I personally took this as "what if you never existed to begin with", but everyone else is talking about "what if you disappeared from the forums" which I think is a less interesting question but more realistic hypothetical. Eventually any post may be one's last and you would never know for sure if they may come back.

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Notice how Hades is tagging and encouraging the people that are still here and not the people that are actually inactive, aside from using fineasmatei as an example of someone else who would notice being gone. Could you call this survivorship bias?

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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25440/where-do-you-go-for-news-on-all-things-pokemon/p1
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If you have not heard of either of those two names like me, they are Pokemon-centric YouTube channels.

Here is the """news""" on Fundores's page:
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And here are the latest news videos YoKevDog has released:
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If you had to make me pick between these two, I would prefer Kevdog's news because he at least seems to be less clickbait, though he seems to be putting it out mostly in the YouTube shorts format, which I do not comprehend mostly due to their inability to navigate through a video without redirecting to the regular video format. At the least I can say that the first YouTube short is a still of him mentioning that Pokemon XP will have a news announcement and speculating about it being RSE, which is slightly better than just putting a blatantly fake Switch 2 box mockup like Fundores.

Fortunately there are better long-form, text-based, source-citing options out there on the Internet, at least for the time being.

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If MajorBrendan were still with us he would have some words about leak culture.

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pink/chez said:
The moment I'm forced to switch from smogon to the official Pokemon Forum is the moment I stop breathing oxygen
Click to expand...
Click to collapse...

Well you may not be on Smogon anymore for now, but fortunately you haven't been forced to switch to the official Pokemon Forums yet, so may you fare thee well.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25630/which-pokemon-would-be-autistic/p1
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25607/whats-pikachus-baby-form/p1
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25486/there-will-be-an-emerald-2-switch-port#latest
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25506/what-pokemon-can-drive-a-2010-toyota-corolla/p1
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Now this is a throwback to the forklift questions of old.

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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25599/which-eeveelution-would-be-the-most-evil-irl/p1
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25488/pokemon-bank-is-shutting-down/p1
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I can't say I ever got to transfer Pokemon from Gen 3 to 4 or Gen 4 to 5 myself.
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The people have taken to the Feedback Center to protest this controversial move.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25503/discontinuing-pokemon-bank-is-a-mistake/p1
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25592/grumption/p1
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25629/which-pokemon-would-be-that-one-weird-neighbor/p1
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Last edited:
With the end of another World Championships upon us, the winning team used for the official Pokemon Forums Singles Tournament has been revealed.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25227/today-is-the-forums-champions-single-battle-tournament/p34
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The next tournament may make use of asynchronous scheduling technology.
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25712/prediction-for-worlds/p1
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25705/pokemon-xp-championships-watch-party/p1
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25727/what-do-you-think-about-bots-beating-humans-at-pokemon/p1
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Here's what the official Pokemon forums has to say on the (editorialized) matter of bots as a nonvocal majority not represented on Smogon.
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us...eek-2-did-tarragon-technically-catfish-naveen
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25639/multiple-countries-in-1-game#latest
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25651/in-app-purchases-name-change#latest
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us...t-masculine-characters-and-real-rivals#latest
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I think Bruno is mostly memorable for saying "Hoo hah" and having a bad team composition for Gen 1 standards.

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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25568/are-move-proc-chances-working-correctly#latest
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25793/what-ability-do-you-think-mega-golisopod-will-get
1788484926756.png

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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25738/if-you-got-to-choose-the-pokemon-mascot-what-would-you-pick/p1
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It might just be me being overly suspicious here, but this brand new Moderator Mod_MrsSparkle feels potentially botlike.

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Not just because of using curly/smart quotes and italics which is a sign of not writing in the native forum textbox because italics seemingly default to bold, but also in the manner of getting overly detailed about a hypothetical about Tinkaton violence that doesn't actually reflect how mascots work in real life, and a little bit of staccato prose at the end. I don't know, we'll see if they post any more after lurking for a month.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/profile/102702/Mod_MrsSparkle
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25785/are-arithmetic-calculators-allowed-at-competitions#latest
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25708/omg-guys-i-need-help/p1
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I was going to say something about people begging for grade curves, but then I realized there's also something to be said about pinging your local forum Moderator for help on your Math test. It's more likely than you think.

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This is actually pretty solid advice to start off answering a question with no specifics given.

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I'm separating this into its own section because it marks the first actual example of a math question and also giving people a chance to solve before reading ahead. The answer may surprise you, but I encourage you to think about what the underlying problem may have been, based on all the clues given so far.

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I was wondering if they were just expecting him to simplify the fraction and do some fine estimations of 1/8, but I believe another likely outcome is that crayZender may have just have misinterpreted the question entirely.

See, if you google "0.1 divided by 0.0805", you get some people asking for answers online:
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The image results also come with the source of this dividing decimals workbook from Math-Drills.com:
https://math-drills.com/decimal/decimals_division_various_various_001.php
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So it may just be that crayZender or whoever assigned the question didn't understand the direction of the long division sign, which might explain how he got a 4/10 on his math test while being the best grade in the class. But that's just a theory because I've never seen a technical math course myself.

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Mathy said:
if only we had a mod who could do math...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse...
Couldn’t be me

(no literally, for those unfamiliar with the phoopes lore, I started out college as a math major and I proceeded to fail out before coming back and finishing up getting my psych degree)

(the only reason I’m not overcome with a blinding jealous rage when I talk to Mathy is because I respect Furret)
 
With the advent of a new Nintendo Direct comes the opportunity to nicely bookend one setup thread with another one, right after Touhou 6: New Classic and Old Classic ended up releasing that day.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us...ke-announced-in-todays-9-9-nintendo-direct/p1
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I assume he meant "og".

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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25916/hi-i-am-joan
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25909/what-makes-yall-post-something/p1
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This is a question I ask myself every time I wonder if it's worth going on posting, and I've mostly settled on the idea that if I don't then who will.

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Oh yeah, for context, they call threads 'posts', so I might have misinterpreted the point of this thread-- I mean post.

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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us...mon-to-put-in-a-soup-and-eat-which-one#latest
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25802/lets-go#latest
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25573/favorite-branch-of-competitive-pokemon/p1
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My favourite Competitive Pokemon is probably Wigglytuff, though since they gave it to Piplup I guess that's my favourite Pokemon that happens to have Competitive.

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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25882/pokemon-champions-random-battles-gamemode#latest
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Random Battles have not appeared in an official game yet but Challenge Cup has.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25883/does-anybody-wants-to-join-my-pokemon/p1
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Being comprised of the souls of 108 official Pokemon forums users (and Mods) is certainly a cruel and unusual punishment I wouldn't wish on a Spiritomb.

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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25822/favorite-forums-user/p1
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Lastly, on this day 1 year ago in 2025, Hades "Hernandez" 0918 joined the official Pokemon Forums and has since become the top of the posting/points leaderboard with a massive 26,752 posts or about 73 posts per day.

Which says a lot considering all the other algorithmic alternatives like twitter or AI chatbot roleplaying he could have been spending that time on, so I suppose this may be the biggest success story of the Pokemon forums so far in terms of opportunity cost.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/profile/Hades0918
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At first I thought this was kind of like one of those hyper-specific shirt design memes but I'm not sure what to think now.
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Well, they do say the grass is always greener on the other side.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25908/cheers-to-a-year-peeps/p1
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EDIT:

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25901/i-eat-the-ribs/p4
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I think this is Joey Ange-posting again.
 
Last edited:
doipy hooves said:
I think this is Joey Ange-posting again.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse...
It turns out the Mods got to Judgmentmaker very soon and purged him with a ban, so page 4 of this thread is now conspicuously empty and his search results say "1-6 of 6" with none showing.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25901/i-eat-the-ribs/p4
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Whether this is a sign of the Mods having the tools to proactively detect Joey or are following this thread, I am still uncertain on, but either way it seems his presence hinting towards him being himself is not welcomed.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25964/how-to-identify-a-larper/p1
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How to identify a larping larper: has to ask how to identify a larper so they can larp about other people larping.

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How to identify an official Pokemon Forums larper: Has not actually visited the official Pokemon Forums thinking it has shut down and their information dates to secondhand mentions of one day in 2023.

How to identify an official Pokemon Forums LARPer: Writing about the Pokemon Forums in character as if it was a real fictional setting, not to be confused with a Pokemon Forums RPer who roleplays non-forum settings on the Pokemon Forums instead.

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I think the difference between LARPing and using your imagination is having actual costumes and actions in-person and also following some rules to keep up a coherent story.

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I guess BSDuck is right in the way that there are apparently "larping channels" now that pretend to be famous YouTubers but that's a step too far from the original term for my liking to just call it copying a celebrity, which I guess you could attribute to the current year of 2026.

Incidentally wiktionary has quotations of the "new" definition of larper from 2022.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/LARPer
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Well, maybe I was describing official Pokemon forums tourists earlier instead of Pokemon forums larpers, because I can't imagine anyone trying to pretend to be a Pokemon Forums regular for some kind of agenda when they're not actually one.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25938/i-was-playing-a-certain-video-game#latest
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25927/i-have-a-theory-that-might-be-true/p1
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So I believe this thread used to be in the Italian forums despite saying Hola, but it got moved to the English forums.
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25946/hola-i-come-from-an-alternate-reality
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Yeah, PikaCarter has implied this was Italian.

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Incidentally, the Italian Pokemon Square only has one thread in it.
https://community.pokemon.com/it-it/categories/piazza-pokémon
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25966/it-is-i-csgoose/p1
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25923/should-winds-waves-have-voice-acting/p1
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25953/ninjabear-is-back/p1
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Well I don't want to jump the gun here but after like four bouts of alts and imposters, we don't necessarily know if this is the real NinjaBear saying he is back.

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I'm pretty sure we last saw NinjaBear less than 8 months ago (which is now January 2026, man).

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I know I'm the one just bringing up imposters here but I really can't imagine someone wanting to pretend to be NinjaBear and take on his reputation of being a thief (in minecraft).

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I think communicating out of forums in-universe should count as metagaming.

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I don't know what this other PokeMom situation is but it seems like there are many largely inactive PokeMoms that may or may not be typos of Pokemon.
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I don't think the other Voltareon was dealt with at all.

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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25977/what-made-you-come-to-the-forums-and-why-did-you-stick-around/p1
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I guess this ended up being family larping.

Speaking of people coming and returning, Dedenne/Azumarill avatar returned after 2 years and got the 2nd and 3rd anniversary badges back to back.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/profile/16927/Dedenne90524
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So far, only 248 people have obtained the Third Anniversary badge, meaning they logged into the forums at least once after 3 years.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/badge/anniversary-3
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Meanwhile the 2nd Anniversary badge has 881 users which is pretty decent retention if you're already stuck around for 2 years.
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/badge/anniversary-2
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/badge/anniversary
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The first anniversary badge is up to 2249 people.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us...-pokemon-app-does-that-makes-you-smile#latest
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EDIT: It also seems since last update, they removed post numbers on threads for some reason, which is pretty hindering for keeping track of what was posted when.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25977/what-made-you-come-to-the-forums-and-why-did-you-stick-around/p3

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Last edited:
doipy hooves said:
EDIT: It also seems since last update, they removed post numbers on threads for some reason, which is pretty hindering for keeping track of what was posted when.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse...
Good news: The post numbers are back and it was not just on my end.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25980/please-bring-back-post-numbers-on-posts
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Bad news: The official Pokemon forums removed the notifications and profile icon from the header of the site, only while viewing a thread.

So if you're looking at the forum listing, you would see this (and normally this would be how it looks everywhere):
1789515542277.png


But now inside a thread, it just looks like this:
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This is pretty inconvenient to open multiple notifications in succession with.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us...-no-longer-see-my-notifications-or-profile/p1
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Something else I just noticed is that user profile cards don't show up anymore within posts.

Normally this popup is what would show up when you click someone's avatar (shown in the discussions page), but now when you click on an avatar within a thread, it just links to the profile page directly. I can't really depict this unless I record a gif but that's what happens now.
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Anyway I'm short on material on short notice, so this will be another potpourri type post.

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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25975/ceruledge/p1
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us...tilize-mega-evolved-pokemon-why-or-why-not/p1
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Gen Alpha? That can't be right. You have to be 13 to join the official Pokemon Forums.

...

So I had to look up Gen Alpha's age range to double check and they start from 2010 at the earliest. I don't know where I'm going with this, but I think I've been calling the Pokemon Forums users zoomers and Gen Z because I just associate people being young on the internet with late gen Z being younger than me yet on a completely different side of the Internet, but now Gen Alphas are overlapping with me at the same age I was active on forums and stuff. I guess I should have seen this coming after seeing last post with multiple people asking for their parents' permission to join the official Pokemon Forums (which I did not do to join the Pokemon Forums), but it didn't really sink in until just now.

I also found out that Gen Beta has already started with people being born in 2025. Thinking about people who weren't even born when this thread was made is a bit too forward thinking for me.

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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25974/how-many-games#latest
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25996/qot-idea-swap-mega-and-regional-variant-skins#latest
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While we're at it, maybe we should be able to swap out Pokemon models for any other models so you can use your favourite design regardless of stats.



https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25995/who-s-your-least-favorite-pokemon-character/p1
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/profile/Hades0918
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Last edited:
Today is September 17, 2026. Unfortunately I lack the fortune for a Switch 2 so the next best thing is weaving the collective knowledge of the official Pokemon Forums.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/26061/new-thing-in-search-bar#latest
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I noticed the existence of Articles as well recently but I also saw it earlier on the Vanilla Forums so didn't think much of it.

As implied by the search parameter, articles are for knowledge bases.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/search?domain=knowledge&scope=site&source=community
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And if you go to the hidden URL https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/kb, you can see what the knowledge of the Pokemon Forums amounts to:

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But even without official support for knowledge bases, I think the people of the Pokemon Forums can put their heads together to think big.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/26056/have-yall-ever-woundered#latest
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Maybe people should be woundering a little more critically about where they are getting their information or if it is appealing/inflaming their preconceived notions.

The moon landing conspiracy was not something I was expecting to overlap with the Pokemon Forums but I guess it's something off the bucket list. Honestly I half-expect this to get removed by the Mods.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/26058/about-angry-eddie#latest
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I got nothing. Let's move on.

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Actually a pretty food thread idea though the title is kind of a bait and switch.

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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us...andomly-on-social-media-after-releases#latest
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/26035/if-you-would-be-mod-for-one-day/p1
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I'm pretty sure that is how approval works right now aside from the message explaining what was wrong.

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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/26067/wsp-guys#latest
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us...e-you-uncomfortable-when-you-got-older#latest
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/26021/which-team-archetype-is-best-in-champions#latest
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/26066/thoughts-on-munna-musharna#latest
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This may be the first ever Munna fan I've seen because of playing SWSH rather than BW.


https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/26046/your-romantic-partner-vs-your-pokemon-partner-which-do-you-save/p1

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I have a lot of issues with the worldbuilding of this hypothetical because I don't think I could be living very happily in a world where giant entities from unexpected voids force people into moral dilemmas on the regular to begin with. It would sound like a mythology or simulated world where unrealistic fantasy creatures and also Pokemon exist.

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EDIT:
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This is probably the most accurate food name in the spirit of the thread title.
 
Last edited:
Divine Retribution said:
Can you break character for a minute and explain to me why exactly you do this? Like I seriously don't understand what you get out of doing this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse...
I believe I've genuinely answered this question a few times before but I would describe it as the same reasoning that news sites/social media were originally screenshotting the official Pokemon Forums in July 2023 (with inaccurate coverage), and why other sites like Miiverse have so many joke posts preserved through screenshots as the only remaining records of a platform that no longer exists. It serves as an official representation of the franchise that continues to be advertised and updated so it's interesting how they choose to manage it, like whenever the official Pokemon Twitter gets hacked to advertise crypto (https://www.polygon.com/pokemon-account-hacked-crypto-memecoin-scam/).

doipy hooves said:
Mostly because it's the official Pokemon.com forums and so its state of upkeep directly reflects on the franchise, which is why it got so much news attention in 2023 due to the shitposters treating the forum itself like a zoo by posting threads designed for attracting attention, both mostly leaving it behind once it was no longer trendy to do so. I believe that spirit and the history of the forums beyond that is important to preserve due to the fact that no one else will.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse...

doipy hooves said:
I think it's an important part of official Pokemon history that they still seems to be pushing as a thing, and it would be a shame if it was all deleted one day with no records other than that day in 2023 when people still think it closed afterwards. It has a particular miiverse/yahoo answers energy to it.
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Divine Retribution said:
Can you break character for a minute and explain to me why exactly you do this? Like I seriously don't understand what you get out of doing this.
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i pay doipy with the occasional like which due to it's relative scarcity is worth approximately 2300 USD when sold on the black market. i would assume that's the primary reason but they might also have a cover reason such as "[serving] as an official representation of the [Pokemon] franchise" to hide this fact.
 
[in-character]

So lately the mailbag has been relatively active on the topic of why I do this. And perhaps the reason the above post exists to ask me that is due to a lack of understanding and hopefully an attempt to learn more about an other human perspective out there. I imagine the same could be said of most posters, though not all. Sometimes it's more comforting to believe some inane thought is from a spambot who lacks passion or personal touch, or at least for some sort of gain. Sometimes it takes time to sit on something and think in hindsight.

ste not your doll said:
booooo
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Why is this post here? Could it be a criticism of the 2023 OP and the proposal to delete Smogon now, the official Pokemon Forums, or the posts and recent discussions of today? Probably none of the above. The user currently known as "ste not your doll" probably just drove by to hit 100 posts for the purpose of requesting a name change a few days later, and temporarylight will probably not even see this post unprompted, reacting not for the content of a post but because of the user that posted it. Maybe my cynical read is the wrong one, but there's not much else to read into a 1 word drive-by post unlike the other 3 users replying above making some form of engagement.

In some ways, human beings seem to have developed an inclination towards adventure and the unknown. We can use machines to swim in the depths, drive at massive speeds, and fly even further beyond. And humans still lived for thousands of years building up history to reach this point even before these conveniences expanded our world. Sometimes accidents might happen to risk the immediate loss of life within these unnatural circumstances, but these days it's just treated as a matter of fact. Ultimately, I can only believe everything happens for a reason.

[/in-character]

In the time since last update, the Notifications icon has still not returned to thread pages, and also there is apparently an official Sonic (the hedgehog) discord, which seems to be following a similar cycle in the sense that it went from announced to flooded and "shut down" in the public view, but has apparently settled down for the most part with strict moderation/filters in practice. I still feel forums are my preferred platform, even if they suffer at the hands of scrapers these days.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/26297/pokemon-tvs-sub-titles-need-to-be-human-checked
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Over in the Italian forums, a request for new profile pictures (the second thread in Piazza Pokemon) received a response from Mod_Jack a day later saying they would pass it on, which is more that can be said of the English Mods so far.
https://community.pokemon.com/it-it/discussion/26028/piu-foto-profilo#latest
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/26111/angry-eddie#latest
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/26073/we-as-pokemon-fans/p1
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/26139/a-strange-craving/p1
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These hypothetical tradeoffs are getting stranger. I'm not even sure if he means a computer virus or a sickness virus.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us...manent-change-to-the-forums-what-do-you-do/p1
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I'm glad Mod_MrsSparkle apparently isn't in charge of forum design.

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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/26181/let-s-improve#latest
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I don't think anything failed to load here. I think the suggestion was just that Pokemon TCG Pocket can be improved somewhat.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/25953/ninjabear-is-back/p9
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Restarting accounts is cool unless you're Joey.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/26193/it-has-happened/p1
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/badge/anniversary-5
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Apparently KeliosFR has this too, notable for having a custom avatar.

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retoion actually earned the badge a bit after the actual join date.
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I am SMHing my head at this SMH name.
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/26302/mega-gallade-should-keep-sharpness-when-it-mega-evolves#latest
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/26323/how-do-i-catch-not-easy-to-catch-pokemon-more-easily#latest
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/26219/music-popularity-question/p1
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us...at-new-nova-ui-thing-is-so-frustrating#latest
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/26136/grumble-grumble-ai-grumble-grumble/p1
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/26383/what-harry-potter-house-are-you/p1
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The specific quiz linked is an unofficial vibe coded website that doesn't make much of a secret that it's AI powered.



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(big Vulpix menu sprite)

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So this is rather impromptu but just a couple hours ago, I was informed from bdt2002's post in the "Memes You Made" thread that Ruby/Sapphire were apparently supposed to release today on October 8th, which is already not looking like a good outlook depending on your timezone. I had not heard much about this, which probably says more about myself than the general state of online rumours and news coverage, because I had even missed an official Pokemon.com Forums thread with a vague title on the matter collecting all the news articles about it, so I figure I may as well judge for myself before the day passes.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/26303/did-you-hear/p1
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No, I did not hear.

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I have no experience with indy100.com (apparently it is British) but I have gathered this rumour came from Light88 on the twitter.

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So far his latest post is an apology for posting that information so I guess it's not happening, but I'll go through the rest of the sources anyway.
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Somehow Vice got it technically more wrong than indy100, because Vice only mentions the Switch 2 and not Switch 1 despite running off the same source.
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The imdb news is actually just aggregating an article from otakukart.
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This article had fact-checking standards?

https://otakukart.com/editorial-standards/
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I don't know how they can justify this article's existence because it's literally about an unverified rumour from an anonymous social media account.

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He posted the same indy100 link again.
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That is also the same vice link.
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The mynintendonews article actually cites a different "Japanese" poster, though this guy posted after Light88 did originally so I think pokesoku was just copying Light.
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This gamerant article doesn't even mention the date October 8 because it was published on August 12.

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It also claims that RS runs on Unreal Engine for some reason.

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This might just be me, but when I read "last February" in the current year I take that to mean February 2025 (past year), not this current February of 2026. Like if I said "last September" right now you would probably assume I mean September 2025 and not the last month that just passed.

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This screenrant article is also from August 2026, but I rank it lower than gamerant because they used some romhack picture, and also screenrant is supposed to be the movie version of gamerant from what I can tell so they're just doubling up on articles. Why even have two different sites at that point if they're going to say the same thing? Double the clicks, I guess.

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My limit is that I'm not watching video content because I think it'll taint my watch history.
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I don't even know what evidence he's referring to.

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When you think about it, at least when I post about other peoples' posts, they're about things that have actually happened. These news sites are just in it for the clicks and exposure, though unlike me you could say they actually have something to gain here.
 
Last edited:
With the recent upheaval of the Internet as of late, one might have wondered how the official Pokemon Forums have responded.

Unfortunately this was not a priority I had to check on in the time between the PHP announcement/leaks on October 20 and before the PHP patch publicly dropped around October 21 10AM ET*, but judging from certain post timestamps I do not believe Pokemon.com went down for maintenance in that timeframe, and I haven't seen any discussions on the Vanilla Forums either.

*https://thephp.foundation/blog/2026/10/21/todays-php-security-release-and-how-were-strengthening-php-security/

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/26580/random-user-appreciation-day/p2
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(Also, at least since I wrote the last update, the stars/rank indicator has been moved from the right of "Posts" to below user badges.)

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Now on the homepage, one can notice the official Pokemon Forums banner and rules notification is now showing up in broken HTML, which may either be a sign that the Pokemon Forums admins have changed something or the whole thing is compromised and no one has realized yet.

Judging from public reception to the Pokemon Forums, I do feel like it would be pretty rare for people to remember it, no less try to hack it.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/26597/farzadss#latest
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Aside from the security/test posters which have resurged lately, that'd do it.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/26568/why-it-negative-lol#latest
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I assume a negative score on an idea comes from being flagged.
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The tester's idea thread seems to have been deleted.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/26526/which-is-your-favt-pokemon/p1
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test3456 also made some threads but is now banned, despite Mod participation in those threads.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/26388/pokemon-is-great
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/26477/pokemon-is-best
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In other news, Pokemon Unite is reportedly planning its end of service according to Pokemon Forums user Lygars reporting on the words of notorious leaker ElChicoEevee.
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Unite has had a long history of cutting corners with events, removing features like having multiple movesets and currencies, and ranked rewards.
https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/26465/eevee-festival-thoughts#latest
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Also as shown earlier, a new user-driven event called "Random User Appreciation Day" has been going on over the past month. The general idea is that the thread host picks a "random" "user" in the OP and everyone "appreciates" them for the "day", kind of like The Well except not really. Usually the random user just happens to be an active one which people have plenty to talk about including themselves, but now it's gone on for so long that we've gotten to the point of true randomness and forced appreciation for the sake of it.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/26611/random-user-appreciation-day#latest
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Joto_league has made 1 post about not being able to sign into Pokemon Unite.
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The other most notable random user appreciation day thread was the time someone else tried making a thread that wasn't scheduled and filling in for the original OP who did not post that day.

https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/26257/random-user-appreciation-day-no-6/p1
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In my opinion I feel like a daily series of threads where all the OP contributes is naming a user could honestly be performed by anyone. Maybe it would make more sense for the chosen user to select the next random user, or perhaps by some kind of poll or public selection.

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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/26360/the-move-upper-hand-needs-a-hand#latest
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/26493/disgusting#latest
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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us...gave-a-poison-type-pokemon-an-antidote#latest

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https://community.pokemon.com/en-us/discussion/26600/make-an-off-topic-forum#latest
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At this rate the official Pokemon Forums are looking more like the official non-Pokemon forums, I say in an off-topic section of an unofficial Pokemon forum talking about official Pokemon content.
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