Icey

This is a page dedicated to my partner Pokemon, Icey the Empoleon. Icey was my starter Pokemon in Pokemon Diamond, my second Pokemon game; while I had a Squirtle as my first starter ever in Pokemon FireRed, Icey and I bonded like I have with no other Pokemon I've had in-game, and he's incredibly important to me.

It was so long ago that I don't have solid evidence for when I first met Icey, but when doing some math with game release dates, I think it is most likely that we met on my birthday in 2009, as Pokemon Diamond itself was a gift from a family member. This means that as of 2023, we've been together for 14 years; he's been part of my life longer than he hasn't!
And how young we were when we met also explains his misspelled name, which I've embraced at this point.

Icey has an adamant nature, and likes to relax. I feel like he's thus rather adamant about being able to relax; no one gets in the way of his downtime. His current moveset is Surf, Ice Beam, Dig, and Flash Cannon. I don't know his exact IVs, but according to the stats judge in Alpha Sapphire, he has "relatively superior potential" (121-150). His best IVs are tied in HP and Speed; based on his characteristic, this means that they're both at 29!

Icey's Regional Journey: Diamond (Sinnoh) → SoulSilver (Johto/Kanto) → Black (Unova) → Alpha Sapphire (Hoenn) ↔ Y (Kalos).

In 2010, we entered with Icey into a local battle competition! We didn't win even one battle, paired up first against a tough opponent with hail and freezing-based tactics, but it was still a wonderful experience to go and see so many others who liked Pokemon, and the Pokemon they had with them. And because of this event, I have evidence of his moveset from back then! At the time, he knew Surf, Waterfall, Hyper Beam, and Hydro Pump, and always held a Metronome to power up his Surf to maximum intensity. Alas, the strategy that works for sweeping the Elite Four does not, in fact, work for real trainers, a fact that we were not very aware of when we were young.

A picture of the original tournament sign-up sheet with Icey's information.

We went to that event more to have fun than to win; we weren't anything close to competitive battlers, and Icey was a Pokemon trained normally, not specially EV-trained for combat. Icey is much closer to a ribbon Pokemon! While some ribbons we definitely could have gotten, but didn't and now can't (such as ones only obtainable in Diamond, which he can't go back to), we're still proud of the collection that Icey has, showing his journey through multiple regions in the Pokemon world! Many of the ribbons he is missing are combat-focused, such as those for the Battle Tower and other facilities, which we have never had luck with.

A picture of Icey's in-game profile from Alpha Sapphire, displaying his ribbons.

The Contest Memory Ribbon has 6 ribbons in it; I don't remember what ribbons he actually obtained in Diamond, but I'm guessing that it was probably all 4 Beauty Ribbons and then the first 2 Cool Ribbons.

In early 2022, I got a plushie to represent him; while I had some other plushies and figures of Pokemon before, many had been gifts from others, and I hadn't ever gotten an Empoleon. I wasn't so sure about getting one for a while; many plushies, especially of complicated Pokemon and final evolutionary stages, are stiff, pokey, and not particularly huggable.

However, in 2021, Pokemon held a "Me & My Partner" campaign to advertise the Hoenn collection release of the "Pokemon fit" plushie collection (also known as "Sitting Cuties" in the US). The site that this campaign was featured on is unfortunately not live anymore (with this blog being the only live page detailing the text associated with this campaign), but, well, as an advertising campaign, it absolutely worked on me; the page featured pictures of people and their Pokemon partners in miniature plushie form, and a hashtag where people could submit more images of the sort. I fell in love with the little plushies, hand-sized Pokemon partners to carry with you (the idea of "Pokemon fit" is that they can fit in your palm, after all), and vowed that when the Sinnoh collection released, I would finally have Icey with me, physically.

He is very soft! (I made a little cape for him.)

To reflect his status as a contest Pokemon, I also made a little ribbon for him. While I don't remember what he specialized in before ORAS allowed for a Pokemon to excel in all categories, I think he'd be the type to focus on beauty, especially considering the type of moves he'd have at the time.

Icey's representative plushie wearing a Beauty Ribbon.

In March 2023, we found our childhood Pokewalker, which had been missing for about a decade. (The poor thing is horrendously scratched-up, but thankfully, it still works.) I realized that this was a way I could "take Icey around with me", in a way; while Icey himself could not jump back in time to SoulSilver and enter it, I prepared a replica to act in his place. While I know it isn't him in his entirety, I find joy in bringing my Pokewalker with me places and seeing him walking with me.

It reminds me how happy it makes me when I include Icey in my life somehow; I disconnected from Pokemon for a while after Sun and Moon came out, as I was completely uninterested in them and any game that followed until Legends Arceus. In that time, I got into other things, but Pokemon has something special about it, its simple nature and world that allows for many different kinds of play (competitive, shiny hunting, casual, etc), that other things tend to lack. I've missed old Pokemon games and their pixel style, and I'm thinking of running through contests and other activities with an Icey replica; things we can't do together anymore because Pokemon can't travel back to old games, but could still do together in spirit.

It is not that Empoleon is my favorite Pokemon, though I do love Water Types; I sometimes wish that I had a "less typical" partner, like some others who are extremely devoted to a Pokemon partner that is rarely shown or talked about (shoutout to Oswald the Delibird and Aquat the Wailord). At the same time, though, partnership isn't something that you can just intentionally spark into existence; if Icey wasn't Icey, Empoleon as he is, we wouldn't have this same bond that we have, and Icey can never be replaced.