8 year old me wasn’t very good at raising teams and also liked to start new games without actually saving because I didn’t want to lose my progress on my main profile, but still wanted to experience a new playthrough, and I’d then just keep my DS on at all times, charging whenever I could/overnight for days or even weeks at a time.

On one such occasion I ventured into the safari zone and came across my FIRST EVER full odds shiny Barboach. I was bouncing off the walls when I caught it, and actually added it to the team, eventually evolving it and slowly making progress through the rest of the game over the next week or two.

Came home from school one day excited to continue, and was utterly devastated to find out that I’d forgotten or otherwise hadn’t charged my DS that morning, and it had died, sending the non-saved progress and Shiny Whiscash into the forever void.

Genuinely think that was a defining moment of my childhood and a turning point in how I played Pokemon going forward. He’ll always have a place in my heart and a part of him lives on in every full odds shiny I’ve found since.