So, Malymar did a WONDERFULWAT flashback of her pokemon experiences, but of COURSE I want to best it XD or, at least, I want to give my own.
It started, with an Oddish card.
It was around 2nd and 3nd grade when Pokemon REALLY got going. I was a kid who was overly obsessed with Dragon Ball Z, and for some reason my ring of friends at that point didn’t really do DBZ. But EVERYONE did Pokemon. So during our school-wide sale, where each class sold something in particular and if we got enough money we were able to pick out a book from the book orders we got. We all worked hard that second grade, and so we got our free book. For many of my mates, that was a “how-to draw pokemon” book. And thus, our badly drawn Charizards and Pikachus began.
I believe it might’ve been that Christmas I got a game boy color, and of course, Pokémon red AND blue. Pretty sure I played blue first, and fell in love with that little blue squirrel thing we call Squirtle. Its tiny dot eyed bushy tailed self really made me love Pokemon.
His designs changed over time, but not my love for him. I started watching the anime, I drew Pikachu to the best of my ability a lot, and I worked hard to make my squirtle, Shellshock, a Blastoise. And the card game was introduced to me of course, but I had no cards of my own. Yet.
I would then get to 3rd grade, new school, new life. I branched off into two leagues of people, those before school and those at daycare. At school, I was the new kid with no friends and thus, school wasn’t really any fun. But I did begin daycare. This was pretty big for my Pokemon life. The first day I was introduced, a much older kid who was only visiting his former daycare lady (and my new one of course), taught me the MissingNO. Code. I also had to become friends with the people at daycare. There weren’t many of us, but thankfully we all liked pokemon, and I quickly got to be on pretty good terms with people such as Roy and R.J. , where we constantly traded and battled.
Daycare isn’t anything like school however. With no games being allowed in school, I only had my drawing books and paper to keep with me. I envied others who could draw Dragon Ball Z better than I, and formed pacts with some of the other kids so they would teach me how to draw Pikachu perfectly. Those kids were not really friends of mine, but they did teach me of my own determination. I wanted to be the best, and even if it meant drawing dbz and pokemon, I wanted to stick them in my own locker so when other kids saw me put up my backpack, they’d be like “oh wow!” instead of some other people. Even now, in an art room full of artists, I’m constantly thinking that. Im a little more modest than I used to be around people however, at daycare I would purposely draw to BEST others (turned out even though Roy goes on to be a uber athlete at his high school, he was actually a jack of all trades in his younger years and my biggest rival. Even in gold and silver, my rivals name was Roy.)
On the playground and bus canopy finally did I obtain the start to my TCG collection. While seeing many people with cards, I had none of my own and
WANTED very badly a deck. But it always starts with one, and that one, was a potion. XD you expected oddish didn’t you! Well yes MY FIRST card was a potion, a BENT IN HALF potion I found on the concrete in the bus canopy waiting for daycare. But it still didn’t get me a deck, only did a week later did I find the BENT IN HALF oddish card, then a bent in the corner bellsprout, and finally my own cards. Now, I didn’t get to spend a lot of money on pokemon cards. Hardly any. When I did, it was a water/fighting deck, this is why I have insane amounts of fighting and water pokemon and like nothing else. I had to learn my lesson quickly that with cards, I had no luck. EVEN NOW 4 packs later still no lugia half. little steven? Four out of the six rare rotom cards. -.-“ Either way, I played through red and blue, then gold and silver, and even ruby and sapphire, till things went sour.
Yay. Jirachi came out. I had no vendetta against the thing beforehand, believe me. It was a new pokemon, and in P.E. that day with the kid who had the mysterious and new thing. Put it on my game? Heck yes! And I lent him my prized ruby, where both my sapphire pokemon AND ruby pokemon were on. I had a lot. I didnt really hate hoenn all that much before it happened. But he lost my file. Okay, I was pissed. Then he said he couldn’t even GET jirachi on there! Mini-rage mode. And then he hacked my game to a spot where my pokemon were so weak I couldn’t beat WILD pokemon. I had to delete it all. I had nothing. My sceptile, my blaziken, the latios bros, secret base and info wiped, my linoone, gardevoir, swallow and a bunch of other pokes I cant rmr, it was all gone. People in daycare weren’t exactly playing anymore. I didn’t have friends at the time going into middle school who hardcore played it. So, Pokemon was put aside for things like kingdom hearts and my own drawing. My gameboy would constantly be lent to another girl in science class so she could play. Emerald came out, and for the first time in pokemon history, I didn’t buy it.
However, it was soon after that I was thrown in an 8th grade art class, and being in 7th grade, I had no friends. But, I met Felix, an 8th grader who I guess was considered not that popular in his own class. He didn’t really do much work, but he talked to me, and he knew pokemon. It surprised me, his knowledge of pokemon and my own clashing. He had gotten leafgreen and I didn’t though, and I still wasn’t convinced I wanted to do pokemon anymore. So I borrowed it, and of course, training a shellshock, using his Zeus (a Zapdos, left)
It was awesome. There were new islands, the game was fun again. And so that year I also bought leafgreen, ran through it, and the ending summer of 8th grade came firered. With Felix gone, I could not thank him for getting me back on track, but I didn’t stop playing. Turned out that a certain annoying asian boy we call Ian happened to like pokemon as well, and suddenly he wasn’t so annoying anymore. I would keep moving to meet others who shared pokemon, Malymar, Ricardo, and others who while not RAVING about it, do love it like Exit and Ashly. And I play through heartgold remembering the little tricks, the battles at chuck e cheese, the dunsparce hate, playing who I was then as how I am now.
Lastly. I’ve never got them all. Not 493, not 151. Similar to my own life, I have a certain set of pokes I train, and they are my team. ASH, despite not being a great role model in terms of the game, does really become the best with a small amount of pokes (then trades it all in to do another season but that’s another story), and so theres a fair amount of inspiration we draw from wanting to be the best.
So I keep on keepin on.
~Kayton
