I guess this isn't really a topic, but compared to what your expectations were last year about pearlshipping at about this time with Sinnoh coming to an end, how did things turn out for you?
Let's see, checking Bulbapedia, Dawn's Grand Festival was just starting up around this time last year. Hm, my expectations were for Dawn to lose the GF (no surprise there, although at least it wasn't to a newly introduced trainer), although her winning the Grand Festival would've been nice, but given how well protagonists do in this anime, not very likely.
While we'd all love to see Dawn hang around (and there are at least several quite nice pieces of fanart depicting Ash and Dawn in the player character's clothes from Black/White, so she could pull off at least a modified version of that outfit), we all knew her time was almost over. I think my expectations were for Dawn to cheer for Ash to the very end at least and have a nice send-off, and we mostly got that. Her departure wasn't quite as nice as I had expected (for instance you'd think Buneary would be more broken up about not seeing Pikachu anymore, rather than Piplup), but at least Dawn was thinking of going with Ash to visit Kanto before something else came up.
Too bad the thirteenth movie turned out to be one of the weaker ones, although after how well the DP trilogy of movies turned out, I guess one junk movie isn't that big of a missed opportunity, although I had hoped the last movie with Dawn in it would've been better.
Although after Sinnoh ended we did get a Dawn special, which was quite surprising, I don't think we had seen any specials with former cast members since... Pokemon Chronicle which focused on Kanto and Johto? No Pearlshipping hints during the special unfortunately, but at least we saw her one more time after Sinnoh was over, so who knows. Following the trend of the previous girls, she should show up at one point during Unova, but I'm kind of worried with how Best Wishes has also been a bit of a bigger reboot than normal (the region is farther away, and also Ash is an even bigger idiot than normal at the beginning of a series).
I'm not expecting any more Dawn appearances, but then we did get that Dawn special, so you never know. Although BW is also moving along at a pretty quick pace too, with Ash already winning three badges in less than a year, without any contest arcs to slow down the series anymore either. It hasn't been quite a full year since Dawn left, but I still miss her presence on the show (and not entirely a fan of BW's different style either).
Huh, in May last year I was looking forward to the finale of both Ash and Dawn's Sinnoh journeys. Sadly both ended predictably (in defeat, although at least both made it up there quite high), but both supported each other to the end. Now, Pearlshipping-wise, the best one can hope for is Dawn's eventual cameo, let's hope they don't break that tradition. But at least it was a fun last year of Sinnoh. And I was hoping they would go out with a high five, and they did, ah it was such a beautiful farewell.