Hello everyone, as of today I am stepping down from VGC Leader on Smogon (for good this time, if any of you remember the previous attempt, more on that later). It's been about 5 years of being involved with this community and unfortunately the time has come for me to make space for more active and motivated contributors than myself. I would like to thank the great leaders of this section that have come before me, Netherious yuki Sapphire, building this section up from literally nothing with y'all over the years really meant the world to me.
At the moment, no one will be taking my place, and I leave the section in the trusty hands of Radio Free C-Side and RauSakura who have been doing incredible work and will continue to excel in my absence.
This isn't quite goodbye, I do plan to stick around and help out a little as a mod over in the DOU section and you will absolutely see me managing Classics PL again, but I think my time as a contributor to Smogon VGC is up. Thanks everyone for allowing me this chance at redemption and the space to build something incredible.
At the moment, no one will be taking my place, and I leave the section in the trusty hands of Radio Free C-Side and RauSakura who have been doing incredible work and will continue to excel in my absence.
In the spring of 2020 I thought I was done with Pokemon for good. I was a shithead teenager who constantly tried to stir the pot and instigate things, and after a string of incidents I deleted my twitter and discord and decided to just do other stuff during the peak of the covid lockdown. I found my way back into Pokemon after qualifying for one of the players cups over the summer and somehow found myself on Smogon after that. Fitting on the site was really weird at first and I definitely bounced around communities for a while, but I never felt more like I belonged somewhere than being able to contribute and make a difference in the VGC section. In 2021 we introduced the Smogon major, started VGCPL, and got analyses running with a real bare-bones team of contributors. Turning around five years later and seeing us hosting NPA, an 'official' Smogon VGC tournament put on by our great tournaments team, an oldgens ladder and circuit, and a beast of a C&C team just blows my mind. I am so happy to be a part of it.
When I stepped down from VGC Leader at the start of 2023, it was a mix of wanting to distance myself from Pokemon and some poor decisions causing me a lot of stress. Later that year I fell in love with contributing again with the rise of DPP Doubles OU and the oldgens analysis project that I worked on with all my friends from the Chirch. After reigniting my passion for contributing, I decided to rejoin Smogon VGC and was made a mod again on January 1st of 2024. Later that year I was repromoted to leader.
I had an excellent time contributing again, but my motivation took a hit for two pretty big reasons around the end of last year. The first was that I lost my former best friend who was an active user of the site, and I won't get too into the details there, but I was very seriously considering hanging it all up then and there. I decided to stick around and just minimize my only presence outside of the site, and thankfully no one here seemed to really mind or even understood what I was going through. The second was that I just got exponentially busier in my personal life in the past six months. Graduating college and landing a job was really the nail in the coffin on top of all the other good things that have been happening to me, but now with my free time being much more limited than it was in the past few years, it's hard to justify spending that time here. I also think that getting top 32 at worlds and 9-0ing SCL left me with a lot of personal satisfaction with Pokemon, and I've been able to detach from the hobby pretty easily this year while focusing on other things. No one quits, but it's just not something I've been making time for recently, and I think that's why it's finally time to hang it up here.
When I stepped down from VGC Leader at the start of 2023, it was a mix of wanting to distance myself from Pokemon and some poor decisions causing me a lot of stress. Later that year I fell in love with contributing again with the rise of DPP Doubles OU and the oldgens analysis project that I worked on with all my friends from the Chirch. After reigniting my passion for contributing, I decided to rejoin Smogon VGC and was made a mod again on January 1st of 2024. Later that year I was repromoted to leader.
I had an excellent time contributing again, but my motivation took a hit for two pretty big reasons around the end of last year. The first was that I lost my former best friend who was an active user of the site, and I won't get too into the details there, but I was very seriously considering hanging it all up then and there. I decided to stick around and just minimize my only presence outside of the site, and thankfully no one here seemed to really mind or even understood what I was going through. The second was that I just got exponentially busier in my personal life in the past six months. Graduating college and landing a job was really the nail in the coffin on top of all the other good things that have been happening to me, but now with my free time being much more limited than it was in the past few years, it's hard to justify spending that time here. I also think that getting top 32 at worlds and 9-0ing SCL left me with a lot of personal satisfaction with Pokemon, and I've been able to detach from the hobby pretty easily this year while focusing on other things. No one quits, but it's just not something I've been making time for recently, and I think that's why it's finally time to hang it up here.
This isn't quite goodbye, I do plan to stick around and help out a little as a mod over in the DOU section and you will absolutely see me managing Classics PL again, but I think my time as a contributor to Smogon VGC is up. Thanks everyone for allowing me this chance at redemption and the space to build something incredible.
