I am at a loss for words. I did NOT expect to find a shiny while playing through this game. I just wanted to beat it real quick and make it hunting viable.
While going through the magma cavern, I ran into a shiny Geodude! My 3rd ever random shiny in 3rd gen and 5th random shiny overall. It was really cool to see this coming across the screen because I've had animations on this entire playthrough. The sparkles were finished before geodude's animation was finished. I've never seen this before because I always hunt with animations off in emerald to save time.
Luckily it didn't immediately cross my mind that geodudes have self destruct at this level, otherwise I would've been pretty high strung, like I'm catching a safari shiny. Because that's really what this was. After every breakout there was a 1/4 chance that I'd fail the shiny.