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Why did you join?

Why did you join 'Charms, and/or how did you find out about it?

For me, I was Googleing (is that how it's spelled?) "Pokémon trainer maker" and one of the ones that came up was the trainer card maker on this site. I clicked it and it didn't work because I didn't have an account yet. I looked at the top and it said "online creative Pokémon community" and I thought it sounded fun, so I made an account.
And here I am.
 

The Snom Prince

Previously The Exorciser
I saw a video where someone stole a Trainer card from here I typed in the URL and made a few cards I saw it was an RP site and I wanted to start RPing so I joined the rest is history
 
So, way back when I was like, 11 or something (2007 if you're wondering), I got really into Pokemon role play on these forums called Pokemon Journey Online. I just got super attached to the community, and all of the role plays I was involved in. So I was utterly devastated when I went to log in one day and found that the site no longer existed. It had just been wiped off the internet for no reason I was aware of. So in some desperate attempt to get into contact with anyone from PJO, I signed up here, remembering how like everyone used the Trainer Card Maker from 'charms for their characters, and hoping someone would notice the same name and get curious.

Believe it or not this insane plan actually worked. I got contacted by one of the old members, and directed to the forums that he and a friend intended to be a replacement. It was pretty fun for a while, but eventually I just drifted away due to the very small community there losing interest in Pokemon and getting into fandoms I wasn't interested in. So yeah, I think I might have one of the weirdest joining stories around.
 
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About five years ago I got on my computer to do some role play. I had a google doc I always wrote on with some online friends, which i met playing Roblox. Every day i checked to see if someone added something, and then i added something of my own. One day i got home and realized that nothing had been added, no big deal. But then, it happened again the next day. I checked every day for almost an entire month and nothing happened. I realized my friends were gone and i needed to find somewhere else to role play.

For about a year I jumped around different sites trying to find something I liked. I tried about twenty sites, staying for a month at the longest, but still didn't find a nice community i liked. i finally just gave up looking. I thought that maybe there weren't any good sites for role play.

Then, about two years ago I was talking about writing with my friends at lunch. I brought up Pokemon role play and I heard one of my friends mention Pokecharms. I never heard of that so i decided to give it a try. I looked it up on google and saw a trainer card maker and role play section. When I got on i instantly loved the community here. I started my first role play and loved it. I eventually stopped role playing so much and didn't come on the website for a while, but I came back and made a new account last September. That's pretty much all i remember about how i got onto Pokecharms.
 
So uh, I joined the site a veeeery long time ago.

Around 9 years ago, in 2008. I was initially dragged in by the trainer card generator - I became really interested in the forums after lurking for a while, and really liked the idea of becoming part of a community. I stopped visiting charms around late 2014.

I come back every so often to see how things are doing, and see if there are people on the chat. I suppose since I made a post it might be a good idea to stick around for once!
 

Shiny Motley

2016 Singles Football
I remember I was doing a lot of site jumping a looong while back: I believe I was following various affiliated links between different Pokemon sites, and I somehow ended up on 'Charms that way. I didn't think much of it at the time, though, but that's the first time I had any sort of contact with the site.

Then, I found myself back to this very site in a similar fashion, and I decided to poke around on some of the links on the sidebar. Which led me to the TCM. And I had so much fun playing around with that, oh dear lord, you have no idea how thrilled I was. I've always been a sucker for doll makers and avatar makers, but the TCM was... somewhat different. I wasn't dressing up a character so much as I was making a virtual ID card of a sort. And it was Pokemon! The card backgrounds, though few and limited at the time, were super cool, but what really got me were the trainer sprites.

With a bit more digging, I found the trainer sprite submission thread. And.... well, I had no clue how forums worked. All I knew was how to make an account on a website, and I thought the submission thread was the only thing I could really use as a member of the site. So 100% of my first two weeks of the site was me making a fool of myself, posting stupid things, acting pretty immature, but somehow never outfight breaking any rules (or rather, never got warned for any rulebreaking I might have done, unlike some of my other friends who have gotten warned and even banned during my first year here. I was just another face in the crowd of n00bs, after all.) Then I discovered the other bits of the site and forums, though I continued to act n00bishly for another good while. THEN I found the IRC chatroom, and became the resident football courtesy of former-admin Nemesis. And now... I guess the rest of history?

tl;dr found 'Charms by link hopping, joined because of the TCM and spriter community, stayed because the rest of the community was pretty goddamn awesome as well.
 

Psycho Monkey

Member of the Literary Elite Four
You people expect me to remember something I did almost a decade ago? Very well, I will try. I don't recall how I found Charms, I probably just stumbled here one day when doing some other silly shenanigans. What I do know is that I investigated the place thoroughly, decided I really liked the number and variety of PRPs we had here, and then unlike most people read all the rules on the site just to make sure I knew what I was getting into before making my account.

Over the course of a few months I joined quite a few RPs where I met a number of my current friends before finally branching out to other areas of the forums. I took particular interest in the General Writing area where members posted their fan fics, poetry, or other creative writings as this was long before the advent of the Corner. It only took me a little over a year of first joining before I posted The Rise of Team Neos and I'm still only half way through the bloody thing! XD Eventually that same year I discovered Chat, got to real talk here with everyone, and that pretty much sealed it. I'm stuck here for life now and wouldn't have it any other way! Not even the destruction of Pokecharms nearly seven years ago was enough to deter me or anyone else from coming back because we obviously rebuilt everything from the ground up to be bigger and better than it once was. That's when you know you have an awesome community!
 
I looked up pokemon roleplay since i was bored at that time and didn't know what to do.
Nearly exactly the same with me. I'd recently abandoned a crappy forum, and was looking for a good roleplaying forum. Since I like Pokémon, that's what I looked up. And it lead me to this amazing dimension of madness :)
 
Pretty much the same reason as you lol. I found the "Trainer card maker" on this site and I needed an account to save the ones I made. And of course, I am a fan of Pokémon after all.
 
I started rewatching the first anime and I found myself getting pulled into the pokemon fad all over again. I've rped some in the past and I thought it would be fun to put my trainer oc to use, so I just googled pokemon roleplay. Turns out I've mostly just been using the site as an artistic outlet rather than starting up any roleplaying just yet. Eventually I will though!
 

Magpie

Feathered Overseer
Staff member
Moderator
I've been a member since March 2008. I'd stopped playing Pokemon after Gold and Silver and pretty much forgotten about it. For some reason though, the adverts for the new handheld caught my attention (The DS looked so cool) and I saw that a new pokemon game had just come out (Diamond and Pearl). I bought a DS and Diamond, and fell in love with Pokemon all over again. I wanted to complete my 'Dex, and to do it I'd need to find other people who played. None of my friends played so I decided to look online to see if there were any online trade opportunities...

I'm not sure how I ended up on 'charms. I think I was looking for the other Starter Pokemon and while searching I found a link to someone's trading thread on here. I'm kicking myself that I can't remember their name, it was something like Wez I think :V I did some trading and got to know a few members here and I stuck around. I've not been around lately, mostly due to that terrible distraction called life. The last couple of years has been pretty up and down, with health and various things (I have a mortgage to pay now!) But I'm hoping that the drama is done with and I can slowly get myself back to being around more like the good old days xD
 
Now, my Backstory isnt super funny, but merely finding the TCM. Now I had saw it one YouTube and so I quickly went to check it out. Once I had arrived, I noticed RolePlaying. Now, at the time, I had been curious about Roleplaying, but never attempted on Facebook, because it was (and still is) a scrambled mess. The organization and rules caught my eye and I joined.

Not crazy or funny but it's what happened.
 
I've been here since 2015, which isn't too long. Basically I started seeing Trainer Cards online and decided I wanted to make some. I made an account purely just to make Trainer Cards (as did so many of the inactive people here), but @Doodle Bab liked one of them and followed me. It was then that I learned that there was an actual community to get involved so I tried it out.

I have asperger's syndrome (which makes it hard for me to socially interact), so it was really hard to make friends in real life. But for some reason I can talk better on a keyboard than I can with my own mouth and I was able to express who I really was on the site and made lots of friends, the first ones being @TooBlue12, @Karli and @Doodle Bab. I made such good friends that the Charms community became my second family. I was hooked and I've been here ever since.
 
I saw someone on Youtube make a Trainer Card video, and I wanted to make Trainer Cards, so I made an account. At first I only made Trainer Cards, and didn't really use it for anything else, but then I noticed all the RP's and art that people make on this website, and I wanted to be part of that too. So...yeah, now I'm here.
 

Linkachu

Hero of Pizza
Staff member
Administrator
I've been a member of Pokecharms since the website was (re)created, but I've been part of the community for even longer than that!

Wellll back in the day, @Doctor Oak created a website called Nintendo Gamer. Because my good friend @StellarWind Elsydeon became one of the staff members on Nintendo Gamer, I decided to join the community too and helped out however I could. Over time (and through PRPing/my obsessive posting on the forums) I befriended Doctor Oak as well, and when Nintendo Gamer was reborn as Pokecharms I was made a member of the admin team. ^^

So, yeah. I didn't strictly join Charms, I was just already here to begin with. 8D
 
I was strolling through Youtube as I found a Trainer card video where the source seemed interesting to me. I decided to copy the link, and I came here. I didn't make a account until the next day. I'm not sure why I was so pumped to join, but it maybe had to do something with all the interesting things this website has. And now I actually feel glad for joining!
 
I found it like many others because of the trainer card maker, but that isn't why I decided to linger and learn more about the site and eventually join.
I stumbled upon news section and read about the review on Pokemon Art Academy and other things such as current pokemon events. I would even frequently look through the creative corner and admire all the neat art. I checked up on the site almost daily and never joined for about a year I think. That was until July 20th of 2015 when I finally got the guts to join and try to become a part of the community of pokecharms as well. I am glad I did and will never regret doing so thanks to all the friends I have made on this site.
 

Rinoa Heartilly

Mother of Meltans
I landed in the chatroom first and came to really love the regulars there. Eventually, I joined the forums to make my presence here more official. Since then, I've made friends with most of those regulars and I really can't imagine my life being without this place and the people I have met along the way. People like Gad and Lyn are more family to me than friends. Love 'em all. (: ♥
 

Shiny Motley

2016 Singles Football
I joined because I saw this community of spriters on the site and wanted to be a part of that. They were very encouraging and friendly with me, though many of them weren't really the brightest people and the lot of us got into quite a bit of trouble. How I managed to avoid getting any official warnings at the time even I don't know.

I stayed because even after that group of spriters disappeared, I'd made a lot of other friends here and found a real community of people who cared for each other. Yes, we joke around a lot. We tease each other. Oftentimes we even disagree with each other. But at the end of the day, we can agree to disagree and still come together as a community, as friends, hell, as family, even. Love this place ♥
 
Like many others, I came here to check out the TCM. After lurking for a few days I joined. At the time I didn't know where I wanted to be in terms of gaming. Microsoft was beginning to piss me off and I got sick of the general gaming scene. I wanted to just have fun. So I guess I created an account to help me get back to my gaming roots- to just have fun.

I'm not great at drawing and I've never really done RP or written anything substantial, but I like seeing what you guys put up. But I mainly like the BSing about Pokemon in general.
 
I came here because I saw there were plenty of artistic individuals here, and that some were taking requests. So I thought "why not?" And here I am.
 
I think I was looking for pokemon Crystal remakes and it lead me to this site. I think it was when I was first starting high school. I was Sweet Smoochum on here. I rejoined once the survor changed. I'm glad Gold and Silver were remade. Those games are the best. If it wasn't for being a spriter, I'd never get sick of the games.
 
Well, I was remembering back when I used to be a part of a Roleplaying site where you'd do practically the same thing you do on this site, make a charachter, get it approved, and RP away.
Eventually, I lost interest in that site, as it was dying and the topics didn't jump out at me, I guess. Come a year later, and I have an urge to start RPing yet again, so I (not even joking) search "Good Roleplaying Websites" XD. One of the first to pop up was Charms, and so I checked it out. Within I'd say, an hour or two I was already in love with it, and I hadn't even discovered anything but the Trainer Card Maker and the RP forums.
What really got me into the community aspect of it all was when @Hollow Omega, @smarticuno, and @Zoda left very nice welcoming messages on my profile, which really helped me feel more comfortable on the site.
So... I'd like to think it was the overwhlemingly positive and happy community that really helped me into sticking around on Charms for as long as I have. So thanks!
 
Somewhere in 2015 or 2016, a girl who just wanted mental help went around looking for somewhere to pretend that she wasn't herself. (Roleplaying)

I found cool sites I am still a part of to this day. Some I just went off on indefinitely, but some I stayed in. Every single day after I finished my work, I got on my laptop and logged onto my favorite sites. It was great. Good times. I did find help for a while.

I found Charms through a Youtube section detailing a very expansive trainer card maker and a roleplaying forum. I went around looking for it - wollah, DaVioletElite was born. (Now in the present day its DaVioletAce, hah) I introduced myself, made a few statuses in which I said I was hungry, and promptly fell in love. All the fandoms I was currently in had at least a few RPs. Sure, I made a few self-inserts, but my roleplaying improved. I found a wonderful community where I was respected and accepted. I call them "The Golden Years". Honestly, Pokecharms has honestly gotten better. Though my obsession with Pokemon lessened but slightly, I am still indebted to this site and all that it has done for me.

Wait, did you actually take the time to finish this? Thanks! This was really bland, though.
 
Hmmm.. I do recall finding someone's Pokemon art online and thinking: Holy- So I followed the link to the site and found 'Charms! I was intrigued, but left it at that. Then I stumbled upon this site once more after looking for a Trainer Card Maker, and finally thought: Okay, this site looks pretty cool, so why not check it out? And therefore I fell in love with the community and site, and here we are! :D
 

Anomaletix

Previously Keet
Someone shared a Pokemon Trainer Card on a discord server, and it looked pretty cool. I asked where it was made and he said here. I made some, then I made an account.
 

donald.duck

Previously funguy
same as you @Splashfur. i was at a party and wanted to show everybody i could make their ideal pokemon team, so googled 'pokemon trainer maker'. this site came up and i made my cards and left. about a month later i revisited this site and was like, "people do art here?" now i love drawing so i wanted to post art too so i made an account and now im here.
 
@GalacticDeg Showed me a story he made here, then talked about role playing here and said I could join. I didn’t want to at first, but I thought about it and eventually came. I joined one of his roleplays and got experienced, then went on to make my own and join many more. He helped to get me into the site and I even made my first art here.
 
I don't remember too much on how I joined. I was only 11 and at that time I was probably hard to handle with online (I remember raging at people in a heated argument somehow), but anyways, I'd found the Trainer Card Maker whilst on my laptop, and would occasionally use it.

One day, on holiday, I was bored waiting for everyone else to finish their meal so I was allowed on my I-Pad, and decided to sign up and join. I didn't really use my account much and I can't remember what I did use my account for, but it existed. Probably 1 1/2 - 2 years later, I decided to make a roleplay on here, as I couldn't find anywhere else where I could do a Pokemon Roleplay.

After that, I started to join more roleplays and became to use Pokecharms more, and more and now here I am. Checking the website nearly every few hours.
 

Yoshi Star Shine

Previously Moo Moo
Similar to the original poster, but I did not make an account becouse "you needed one" you don't need an account to make trainer cards, I made mine much later due to somthing...
 
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