Marshtomp.

0:00What if I told you there's a Pokémon that almost nobody on earth has ever called their favorite.

0:04And you personally helped make sure of it, every single playthrough.

0:08This is Marshtomp, and its whole life is spent between two better-loved versions of itself.

0:11Before it, there's Mudkip, one of the most adored Pokémon the franchise ever made, a face so beloved the internet built a shrine of memes around it.

0:15After it comes Swampert, the powerhouse, the final form people still put on greatest-starter lists twenty years later.

0:19And in between them stand twenty levels of Marshtomp.

0:23Level 16 to level 36.

0:26The longest stretch in the entire line, and the longest stretch of your Hoenn journey.

0:30Now think honestly about how you spent those twenty levels.

0:34You weren't really training a Marshtomp.

0:38You were waiting for one to end.

0:41From the moment the evolution animation finished, some part of you was already watching the counter, doing the math to thirty six.

0:45And while you waited, this goofy-faced thing with the orange cheeks went to work.

0:49It carried you through the middle gyms.

0:53It handled the rivals, the endless routes, the entire heart of Hoenn, the hardest and least glamorous stretch of the whole game.

0:56Every big moment of your mid-journey had Marshtomp in it, and the whole time, the person it was fighting for was quietly wishing it looked different.

1:00And then, one day, it did.

1:04The counter hit 36, the screen lit up, and the version that had done all of that work was gone, replaced by the one everybody actually wanted.

1:08The Hall of Fame photo shows a Swampert.

1:11Mudkip got loved for existing.

1:15Swampert got loved for arriving.

1:19Marshtomp did the growing, and the credit went to what it grew into.

1:23There's a version of you this happened to as well.

1:26The awkward in-between years that nobody frames photos of, the you that did all the changing so the current you could take the bows.