with all of the ribbons successfully obtained, it was time to get the shiny leaf crown in soulsilver for the little award and bask in the glory of neverhappy's unholy amount of ribbons... FORTY.
i found myself tearing up honestly when i got that award. i suppose neverhappy was finally able to achieve happiness unlike her name and her owner's original intentions, and i truly do feel extremely close to her now despite her just being a bundle of numbers and data. my mental health was struggling during a lot of this, as it has been for two months, and i often worked on this while dealing with flashbacks from my PTSD. she was there for me as i was trying to grow as a person, and i was there to help her grow as well.
these text boxes also made me emotional while trying to get the leaves for that crown. something about "NeverHappy suddenly danced in happiness!" feels poetic to me, and i wanted to keep it here on the last page as an image to leave off on.
i've gotten all the ribbons on pokemon in gen 3 before, but i wasn't expecting gen 4 to be as arduous as it was. currently, i think this is the pokemon challenge i am most proud of out of everything i have done in the past. i had to use a mixture of techniques with rng, ACE, literally five of my pokemon games, multiple DSes and a GBA, and spend a lot of time grinding battles, contests... it was a lot but i am very happy i did it and every time i look at neverhappy i feel, well, happy. this also forced me to interact with gen 4 in a deep way i had never been able to experience, and i appreciate ribbon mastering in general for that.
neverhappy will remain on my gen 4 games and assist other pokemon on their ribbon master journeys eventually, but for now i think i will throw her onto my copy of battle revolution and do some 3d battles with her. by god she deserves it lmao
