I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS SO MUCH LARISSA
I adore the visuals - it feels like you're submerged in water the moment you visit the shrine, and aaaah those Gyarados scales... The lovely big font, whatever it is that you did with the boxes (drop-shadow? idk), the animation when you hover over links.
"I didn't play this one and Gyarados isn't in it. Why is this page here?" wtf
OMG LARISSA I WAS SITTING IN A PUBLIC TRANSPORT THINGY TWO WEEKS AGO and some guys were talking about whether or not Gyarados was dragon type lmao. I really love what you wrote about Dratini and dragon types being special in Gen I. ;_; <3 Gosh those last paragraphs on the Red page are so touching.
"On my 50th run through the Elite Four, Gyarados hit Level 100." wtf wtf wtf
The cute 2005 trainer card image is so adorbs... ;_;
THE POKEMON AMIE GIF
(Also lmao at you ruining games for yourself.)
I really really love the merging of past Larissa and present Larissa in this shrine, and the blending of conversational humour and thoughtful musings as well as the analysis of gameplay elements, and the evolution of the video game series as a whole.
I especially like how broad the shrine is when it comes to conveying an
experience. You don't shy away from drawing comparisons to other games in the series, or mentioning other Pokémon (including how Gyarados fits into your teams, or the Milotic comparison), and on each page, I feel like there's as much ex-ante as well as ex-post opinions of yours to read about.
Two points that were particularly impressive to me in this regard were the way you explained the choice of Gyarados as a story-related shiny Pokémon in Gen II, and Mega Gyarado's dark type: You offer both an "obvious" explanation (Gyarados' shiny sprite is gorgeous, which isn't the case with all shiny counterparts; Gyarados' Pokédex entries in their entirety make Gyarados' a feared Pokémon that isn't well-liked by the people inhabiting that world) as well as a mechanical explanation pertaining to gameplay (shininess was first introduced in Gen II and Gyarados was used to showcase it; the balancing in relation to fairy/dragon types).
It seems like you called up a lot of very old memories when writing this shrine, and that's... something I consider very beautiful and touching. It's also impressive that you still have all that save data. All of this makes the shrine as much about Pokémon as it is about your individual Pokémon experience and your video game experience as a whole, considering your history with Pokémon and the note on which you ended the Gen III remake page. The entire site is personal and informative both, switching back and forth, and it is very easy and entertaining to read.
Thanks for making this shrine and sharing it with us, Larissa. I think it's a prime example of just how personal a shrine can be (while still being very informative), even if the source material, by shrining standards, consists mostly of factual content. <3