As most of you know, I love Black 2 and White 2. In 2015, I did an epic Challenge Mode Nuzlocke on them, and it had some very difficult rules (no usages of Pokémon Centers that weren't straight, limited item purchasing, etcetera). I documented it on Marriland, (now Azurilland), and turned it into a story challenge, which I started documenting in late May. I really wanted to take my time with it and put lots of effort into it.
Throughout most of the game I was thoroughly enjoying it. My team was full of oddballs like Maractus, Grumpig, and even Muk, which had been a lot of fun to show they were awesome. Even after Ghetsis, where I had quite possibly the most inexcusable death I've had, I added a Clefairy to my team to replace it. After spending over two hours EV training it and catching it up with my team, it proved to be a very good team member against those on Route 23 and the first part of Victory Road, even with a -Sp Atk nature.
But then, come Victory Road, I beat those last two Veterans right before Hugh, and decided that instead of being a coward, I would fight more trainers. That Veteran killed the Clefable with a Skarmory that had +2 Attack, was faster, and scored a critical hit, killing it from 2/3. I decided not to train up another Pokémon, instead grabbing my under-leveled Swanna to leech off EXP. Then Hugh happened, and I lost my Grumpig and Maractus, those ALSO to critical hits - the former being OHKO'd by his Bouffalant, and the latter to his Serperior with +3 Attack after using Cotton Guard, which was preceded by two misses with Gunk Shot from the Muk. We won by the skin of our teeth.
After gathering and EV training replacements, one of them being a Druddigon, during training against an Audino that used Double-Edge, the Druddigon had half its health and the Audino used Double-Edge...which sure enough, scored a critical hit and killed the Druddigon. I refused to accept the death after what had just happened, I thought, no, I'm not accepting this. I just lost half my team, I did so much EV training, this is the last thing I deserve. People cheat in -Lockes all the time. It's no big deal. Right?
Nope.
Some people on Azurilland were extremely against it, and I was ready to say goodbye to it. But most of the people who had been supportive of the journey (and what I had done for so long) were still in favor, understanding that I wanted to still enjoy myself (which was hard enough after what had just happened). I continued posting the challenge in spite of what I had done, because they were alright with it. They saw the terrible massacre. And yet, even with all of that, after I was done posting it, the challenge was still declared a loss. I felt demoralized enough after the Hugh fight, then that was the icing on the cake. Come that point, I was left feeling awful about the challenge once again. It nearly broke me to the point where I very nearly gave up on forum documented challenges AGAIN.
The only good thing that came at the end was the Iris fight, which had my Samurott finishing off her Haxorus, and then dealing the final blow to her last Pokémon (Aggron). Other than that, I felt lousy about the challenge for basically throwing it and not taking it down properly after over half a year of work on it, especially after I persevered despite frustration and rage in the Platinum Wedlocke I did earlier that year (and my Black Personalocke for that matter)...and that I underestimated how seriously people take these rules.
If all of this had only happened after, say, two or three months it wouldn't have felt as painful. But after over half a year, and hours and hours and hours of work on it, I felt utterly broken. Almost everyone who's supported the works I've made on Azurilland has said I don't deserve to feel this way, but I really feel like I do.
I think the thing that really broke that adventure for me was before Victory Road, I was ready to call it my favorite Nuzlocke I had ever done...heck, one of my favorite playthroughs of any Pokémon game I had done. Then things just crumbled after I made several epic screw-ups in quick succession, some of which I don't even think I can call mistakes. The challenge was utterly magical until that point, only to completely collapse in a spectacular fashion faster than a rock falling off a skyscraper. Had I still had the Pokémon that I had lost in Victory Road, or even just the Maractus, things wouldn't quite have been as terrible. Even now, all of this is still beyond my craziest scope of comprehension.