This is really touching. Thank you.
Again, I like being honest with all of you. I value this community a lot and that's always been the case. I... I just have some worries on my end. People like Psycho and KCChief have literally been supportive since the very beginning when I made the Geno support thread on Nsider in 2005. They were there during "Operation: Star of Heaven" and helped create the 128 page portfolio (half English, half (half assed) Japanese) I took to Nintendo of Japan in the summer of 2006. (Also, no, I didn't go to Japan for the sole sake of Geno. It was a high school graduation gift to myself using 2 years of restaurant tips and the timing was serendipitous and we got a wild hare up our asses and decided to go for broke when Sakurai announced the Brawl poll at E3 06). It was exhilarating going online while I was in hotels in Osaka, Kyoto, and Tokyo and giving the Geno fanbase updates and seeing other websites and fanbases gush about it and saying things like "dude, this guy flew to Japan to get Geno in Smash; how can we top that?" People were inspired... By me. Weird little (abnormally tall) me. I felt like I was making a difference.
When I came back, suddenly tons of people cared about what I had to say. Suddenly people were taking Geno seriously as a character. People listened to my theories and even defended me. I never really had that before. Of course, Geno wasn't in Brawl in the end. I looked like a fool and all the lengthy theories I had seemingly turned to dust. Again, I was back to being a weird guy who was excitable and felt like a crazy person who screams at traffic from the sidewalk. You can go back and look at my posts from that time period and see, no, I didn't handle very well (or maturely) but could anyone really blame me? Of course, the fall out caused me to be a bitter ******* during Smash 4. The Geno fanbase was still going but I found myself scolding fans for their optimistism like
@kiteinthesky and even PapaGenos before he became a monolith in the Smash fanbase. I was kind of a **** and I'm sorry...
Of course, in my heart of hearts, I still wanted Geno. Geno the kitten and now the 5 year old cat is a literally a daily reminder of how much not only this but this fanbase means to me and how I don't want to let anybody down. So, the Geno Mii costume came out for Smash 4 and it was somewhat of a relief. It was some degree of acknowledgement after years of work so it was better than nothing. Psycho even messaged me to ask if I was okay and I've kept the message on my wall to remind myself of what a stand-up guy he is and how he kept the Geno fanbase going when I bowed out and tried to bury myself in self loathing. A little bit of time passed and then the Nintendo World column by Sakurai came out in early 2016.
I was blown away... Sakurai liked Geno?! Sakurai acknowledged his fanbase?! Sakurai not only strongly considered Geno for Brawl but actually tried to get him in?!?! My theories were right... All of them... I wasn't crazy... I think I actually cried reading that article because all the hurt and blame and loathing I had felt for making Geno "a meme" just sort of evaporated. Sakurai had heard us. It hadn't been a total waste of time...
Fast forward and I think you all know my story for Ultimate. More drum banging. Seven Squares. Grinch. Sabi. Meeting the NoA source. Brave. Learning about Banjo 2 months in advance. Mii costume missing. Additional DLC announcement. It's been a wild ride and I'm happy to have gone on it with all of you. Just... Thank you. Thank you for listening to me and giving me a place online that I can call home and have been able to for nearly half my life. It's no small exaggeration that it means the world to me and, whatever, the outcome, I'm just happy to have gone through it with all of you. Thank you.