ok, so here's how it went:
I planned to catch a piplup, bidoof, and zubat before gym 1. bidoof because why not?
I chose my starter piplup, bought a bunch of pokeballs, and caught a bidoof.
the bidoof was actually relatively good, at least tackle gets STAB. bubble just sucks.
ok, so I went north, beat a really strong bidoof (areas I'm not supposed to be untill later gym 1 FTW) and went into the cave where zubat are found.
my first encounter was... a shiny geodude
obviously, I caught it, and since I already had 3 pokemon, I couldn't get the zubat. oh well.
so I grinded untill about level 7, beat the rival, grinded untill about level 10, and beat the gym
Gym 1:

well, after the gym, I healed, and helped dawn with team rocket. I taught geodude and bidoof rock smash right before gym 1 so they could have a supereffective move, so I was good
I caught a budew! I was in a new area
I decided to catch a starly also. now I have a piplup, bidoof, shiny geodude, budew, and starly.
I evolved the piplup! woo! prinplup!
I kept grinding... the galactic building is hard
I reset when I finally got to the leader so her zubat wouldn't toxic mu geodude. never had liked her purugly, either, and most likely never will.
"pants" galactic base done...
I headed north. why not?
I tried to catch a wurmple
wing attack was an OHKO, so I knocked it out. starly evolved into staravia, though, so it wasn't a total loss.
I kept getting budew and cascoon. it took about 10 tries to get a wurmple again. it has a 30% chance, why did it take so long?
by sheer luck... it evolved into silcoon. yay!
then it evolved into beautifly at level 13. that was close! one level higher, and it wouldn't have learned gust
I demolished everything with gust until it fainted... then I used wing attack
the gym was the same. woo!
Gym 2:



