#Pokemon Starter Selfie

[myrling-art]

My favorite duck-artist on Tumblr (@modmad) is encouraging people to draw what your Pokémon-companion realistically would be, based on your childhood. What environment you grew up in, your personality, etc.

So here is young champ-in-the-making Myrling with her Spinarak called Therry (Theridion Grallator) and Joltik named Too-Ticky. 💚💛

I had a fascination with spiders as a kid and collected them for a "spider farm" that never really went anywhere. We lived in the middle of the woods where I would crawl around in the forest looking for 8-legged friends and I was blissfully unaware of the existence of tics. Somehow, I never got bitten by a tic, but I unwittingly carried plenty of them back home to my siblings and parents. ( '7')9

[modmad]

Kid Trainer Mod wants to show you her new best friend who was definitely not trying to raid her neighbour's torchic pen! aka me and the discord squad are having fun thinkin about what pokemon starters we would have most likely had: I chose nickit because we always have fox cubs playing in our back garden in spring, and I was a super active outdoorsy kid! probably acquired a galarian zigzagoon at some point too...

what is the pokemon you would be most LIKELY to have come across/have as your companion or starter? if you want to, draw it and tag it with #pokemon starter selfie (or just tell me in the replies), I'd really love to know!

[jellojolteon]

Saw the thing @ modmad was putting forth about what pokemon you'd realistically have as a first partner and had to jump on the will to draw while it was manifested lol I grew up on a few acres in an area that was mostly farming and mining and I loved helping my mom garden because we might find worms!!! There is not a shadow of a doubt in my mind that I'd have come across a few orthworms and wanted to be BFFs with the first particularly good-natured and patient (and small) one I found lol

Would have also been a lot of bugs and stuff because we had a small magikarp pond in the garden. The wild seismitoads would come lay their eggs in it. Bonus family purugly keeping watch just to make sure everyone was being nice to the 4-year-old

[yunisverse]

Spent the night talking with discord buds about what pokemon we'd likely have teamed up with based on our irl childhoods, and it reminded me of the apple tree in my first home's backyard. Not to mention my first dog was adopted at prime Pokemon Adventuring Age!

bonus

i wouldn't put it past baby!me to try eating a dragon to gain its powers

[lokisis]

One of the many snakes we owned (albino named Pineapple) and my pitbull Loki who passed in 2020. I got both of them around 5 years old 👍

[sanska]

Hoenn is full of water and great starter pokemon, but alas Sootopolis is only full of magikarp. Surely the strangers here for their last gym badge would let me keep my lunch money?

Found some time to quickly sketch this out for @modmad ‘s pokemon starter challenge :) mod if you see this I hope you know TPOH and Skip blew my mind when I read them (and still do) thanks for inspiring me to try and make my art more fun!

My dream starter would probably be a vulpix or lampent, but realistically? A pidove or magikarp, both of which are still fantastic pokemon! I went with magikarp because I recently found out the blind ol’ behemoth of a koi fish living in my grandma’s koi pond is still alive. It’s been hiding under some rocks for months.

Every other koi from my childhood has reached the end of their lifespan but not this old thing! That fish is older than me and I’m convinced it will outlive all of us. If it was a magikarp it would definitely be a gyarados by now.

[bionicboxes]

YOU'RE CHALLENGED BY.... some weirdo who's about to explain the entire fnaf lore to you.

Younger me's mask and outfit based loosely on sona from when i was like 14. Shuppet/Banette for my beloved stuffed animal I've had all my life and Porygon for me having very much grown up online, for better or worse!

[pencilmint]

I couldn't NOT hop onto the trend even tho I don't draw myself very often anymore.... in a heavy city area, and at about the age I would be getting a starter, I would probably have a lot of little bird pokémon!!

[artsy-sunny]

saw @modmad making a post about what starter pokemon you'd be most likely to actually have as a kid and that got me thinking about how i BEGGED my mom for a dog from ages 9 to 12 (and she would refuse) until my grandma actually decided to get me a dog that would end up mostly at her house (but she lived across the street so id just visit all the time) and that made me pick rockruff as a starter. the little rockruff i begged for until my grandma actually got one for me.

as a bonus i started thinking about how any pokemon id get as a kid would probably just be handed down to me by my grandma and they would all come from the garden she had in her backyard. so sunflora and yanma

[mickules]

Saw @modmad's post about your most likely childhood pokémon and that got me all nostalgic for this post I made waa~aay back in 2018 so I treated myself with a little re-draw!

In all honesty, a cat pokémon probably would have been more likely, but the truth is none of them really fit the vibe of the scraggly black and white south London strays we've always had so I've stuck with my favourite fat rat

Bless our various patient cats; I was absolutely that kid who picked up the sleepy cat and carried them around like a teddy bear whilst they complained about this heinous treatment.

[zambicarts]

Decided to jump on @modmad's pokemon challenge:

Despite being relatively suburban, we were a pretty close-to-nature household. We kept great big garden snails once, and being a dragon-obsessed child, I would have loved goomy!

The MASSIVE shiny mightyena represents my parents' old akita mix, a big yellow gal who's reaction to anyone or anything outside the family was "rip and tear."

[ducktr0ducin]

Saw the “realistic Pokémon starter” thingy and that got my brain rattling so-

I figure kid!me would have a Flabebe and a Driftloon, Flabebe because of a hibiscus tree in my old backyard (it’s also shiny cause my first shiny ever was in X and Y), and Driftloon because the neighborhood playground I would walk to (it’s really close to my house) is just a stones throw away from the back area of a cemetery-

May or may not have walked with some friends to check it out, and got chased back through the trees by some employee that was almost definitely not paid enough-

Also very quick bonus: Arcanine reminds me of my old golden retriever Fiki

[mangosundae]

Saw @modmad’s Pokémon challenge, so here’s baby me with my first Pokémon, inspired by a real photo of my childhood dog I just found. That was one profoundly patient boy. Tbh Stoutland would make more sense since I’m from the US, but my first dog was a lab-pit mix, and there’s not a lot of short-haired pokemon dogs except for, like, Houndoom. Or Granbull, I guess, but whatever. Anyway Bolthund has the more accurate face shape so that’s what we’re going with! Plus electric has always been my favorite type🤷‍♀️

(Now if we’re talking IDEAL childhood Pokemon, definitely Aerodactyl, cause I wanted to be a paleontologist growing up, and was obsessed with pterosaurs. But I don’t think my parents would’ve let one of those in the house.)

[laqueus]

saw @modmad's pokemon starter selfie game, and mustered up the spoons to draw!

when I was two years old, I decided that cats were my favourite animals, and asked my parents if we could get two cats (because I didn't want them to be lonely lol). and my parents were like "ERR.... WE'LL WAIT TILL YOU'RE THREE" and I remember internally accepting that as a delayed yes. anyway, they were good on their word, & when I did turn three my parents and I adopted bilbo & tamsin, a 8yo brother-sister pair of longhaired cats from a local rescue, and they were just the loveliest. so naturally, they'd be shaggy galarian meowths!

[entropic-introspection]

I actually grew up outside of city limits on ~2 acres of land, with a huge number of pets/animals around as a kid. So picking a starter out of all that is tricky!

I went with Oddish and Turtwig, because as a kid me and my siblings were weirdly obsessed with the little spring onions that grew wild in our yard, and every time we found a tortoise it was a time for celebration. The little guy would get some food and be in a terrarium for like half a day before we let them go again, nice and safe in some brush.

The Mudsdale is from growing up with 3 horses (because my parents were friends of friends of friends sort of thing), two bred for riding and one Belgian named Star. She was extremely easy going, so when we moved the horses from one pasture to another, our parents were okay with us “helping” by leading her. Obviously, when the 2 ton horse wants to eat grass, the kid that’s 60lbs when soaking wet isn’t going to do much to discourage her, but boy did I try.

[spectrumspace]

in response to modmad's post - kid pokemon trainer self with the pokemon i'd most realistically have gotten as a starter

i lived in the most suburban place imaginable, so it's a little hard to find an animal that isn't a bug or small bird or perhaps rodent, and the plant life is a bit too monocultured/lacking given the degree of development, but, uniquely, there's plenty of water around, and we did have a lake full of geese, ducks, and swans within walking distance. the elementary school playground had tons of waterfowl trudging about, and we even used to have a problem with a duck couple that'd try to nest in our pool. ducklett therefore feels appropriate!!