I'm sorry for being absent for these past few weeks everyone. Some unexpected RL drama occurred towards the end of last month that caused my dad to not let me online for quite a while, but RN, I'm just glad that I (kinda) got to submit this blog in time for the 4th anniversary of me joining Paint.

Anyway, as I just mentioned it has now been 4 years since I first joined Paint back in 2019, and both Paint and I have been through a lot over these past few years, both good and bad.

Just a few days after I wrote last year's anniversary blog my mother passed away, and this single tragedy has sent me and (what's left of) my family on a downward spiral that we have yet to recover from, if we ever do.

Those here who have experienced similar losses will undoubtedly understand that this event has completely overshadowed everything else that has happened in my life over this past year, but this blog is supposed to be an uplifting blog celebrating everything good that has happened during my 4th year here on Paint, and so I will not dwell on this subject.

The best thing to happen to me this past year would most certainly be being given blogmin and pollmin privileges last July, something that was only possible thanks to the overwhelming support that I had received from y'all, especially from my good friend Siling-La.

Although my complicated RL situation has obviously severely limited my ability to do so, being able to ensure that people's blogs and polls get featured in a timely manner (sometimes less than a minute after they've been submitted) whenever I'm able to get online is something that I truly enjoy being able to do, and if/when I am able to get online regularly in the future like the rest of y'all, y'all can expect this to become the norm.
(Hopefully that will happen sometime soon.)

Aside from being made a blogmin and pollmin, there were a number of other good things that happened to me online over the course of this past year.

Although it ultimately didn't happen due to various complications regarding scheduling and timezones among other things, I was FINALLY able to attempt to hold that Pokémon Showdown tournament that I had been wanting to hold since 2019, and provided that I can find more Pokémon players here who are both willing and able to participate, and work out a time and date that works for everyone (or more likely, almost everyone) involved, I plan on attempting to hold one sometime this year as well.

I was also able to (sort of) revive the Member Appreciation Day celebrations last year, and I am quite confident that I'll be able to ensure that this year's Member Appreciation Day will be far more impressive than any since 2019's, especially since I plan on getting a much earlier start this year, lol!
(The chatroom event last year would've actually happened if it weren't for me trying to get everything together at the last minute, BTW.)

Although I didn't submit nearly as many new featured blogs as I would've liked to last year, I am quite proud of the ones that I did submit (especially that one I wrote about Zinnia) and I have countless other unfinished and unsubmitted blogs that I was able to make some serious progress on last year, and hopefully I will be able to finish working on most or all of them this year, so that I can FINALLY submit them here for y'all to be able to enjoy reading.

Although I wasn't able to accomplish all of the goals that I had set for myself this past year (and believe me when I say that I had set quite a few), those that I was to achieve were of great personal significance to me, and along with everything that I was able to figure out last year, it should be able to pave the way for this next year to be one of the best ones of my life, in spite of my mother's death.
(Only time will tell, though.)

Anyway, although I kept my personal goals to myself last year, I decided I'd share some of them with y'all this year, so that y'all have somewhat of an idea of what you can (hopefully) look forward to from me this year.

[Spoiler=Joashu's Goals for his 5th Year on Paint]1. FINALLY submit my MoD (Master of Death) spinoff story "Saltwater Wishin'!", which I had originally written (on paper IRL) for a story contest back in 2021, but was never able to actually submit here.
(There'll be a lot of typing involved, lol!)

2. FINALLY finish my rewrite of MoD Chapter I, and begin the (incredibly complicated) process of trying to turn MoD into a tabletop and/or chatroom playable RPG, so that everyone here can play through Helena Dusklight's story as a game rather than just reading it if they wish.

3. Work on reviving all of my groups here on Paint, as well as a number of other inactive groups that I am a member of, such as Siling-La's Bible Group.

4. Revive Banjo's 2views interview series.

5. Revive the song trades in Mimi's RD: The Sequel group.

6. Update my strength-based Pokémon tiering system to include all of the new Pokémon added in Gen 9, and make it far easier for other Pokémon players interested in using it to actually be able to do so, both on Pokémon Showdown or in the actual handheld and console games.

7. Successfully hold a Pokémon Showdown tournament for y'all here on Paint sometime this year.

8. Achieve a very high ranking in some battle format on Pokémon Showdown (probably Gen 6 OU, Gen 7 OU, or one of the NatDex formats), in order to prove myself as a "Pokémon Grandmaster".

9. Work on reviving and improving my Ryuusei no Tami Discord server, and make it consistently more active than the (apparently unofficial) SDKPaint Community Discord server.

10. Actually be active on the (unofficial)
3DSPaint Guilded server.

11. Submit at least 12 completely new featured blogs here on Paint this year, preferably more.

12. Revive my (accidentally deleted) BB thread "Ideas for Future Pokémon Games".

13. Copy most or all of my blogs here on Paint over to Social Cu.be.

14. Upload at least 12 new images to E-shuushuu this year, preferably more.

15. Finish at least 1 new drawing and upload it here on Paint.

16. Re-revive the SDK Quilt.

17. Successfully hold a Member Appreciation Day chatroom event like the one held back in 2019, and get at least 10 people here (as opposed to 4 like last year) to leave messages of gratitude to other community members.

18. Revive Dsi gamer's Unofficial DSI Paint Server.

19. Cause at least 5 more people from here on Paint to also join Social Cu.be, preferably more.

20. Be WAY more active over on Social Cu.be, and catch up on everything that I haven't yet read on the status page there.[/Spoiler]

While I seriously doubt that I will be able to achieve all of these goals over the course of the next year, it is possible, and I am quite optimistic that I (with plenty of help from y'all here) will be able to achieve at least half of them, and I will most certainly be quite happy even if I am only able to do that.

There are obviously plenty of personal goals that I need to achieve IRL as well (such as fixing my still broken O2DS and DS Lite, as well as plenty of more serious things), but given the chaotic and unpredictable nature of my RL situation, I am not going to include those things in this blog.
(Just know that I have a list of my RL goals for this year, as well.)

Anyway, although this year on Paint didn't turn out quite as great as I had hoped it would've, it was still a dramatic improvement over my 3rd year on Paint as far as what I was able to accomplish here, and one way or another, I am looking forward to being WAY more active here than I have been able to be in the past this year.

Happy (belated) Easter, Passover, and Ramadan everyone, and God bless!

[Spoiler=P.S.]Due to some unfortunate RL drama (which I am not going to get into) and my O2DS still being nonfunctional, I was unable to purchase any of the games that I had wanted to from the Nintendo eShop before it was completely shut down last month.

I read in this helpful blog by Rlad116 that there is still a way to get games that were available through the eShop on a 3DS/2DS, but my question is this: can the Pokémon caught in the versions of Pokémon games (specifically in Pokémon Crystal Version, Pokémon Yellow Version, Pokémon Blue Version, and Pokémon Crystal Version) acquired through this method be transferred to Pokémon Bank (or in this case of Pokémon Dream Radar directly into Black/White Version 2) like those caught in the legitimate eShop versions of these games can?
(I figured that I may as well ask that here, since it has been stressing the living heck outta me for over a month now.)

Hopefully they can, as I was looking forward to transferring Pokémon from the eShop games to the modern core series games, and this was actually my primary reason for wanting the eShop games.
(Although I'd obviously enjoy playing the original GB and GBC games again regardless.)[/Spoiler]