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Hello everyone! This is going to be the thread I use for all of my Second Anniversary Mini Prompt Bingo prompt fills. Thanks to Negrek for coming up with the prompts! I'm aiming to complete all nine of them, but we'll see how far my hubris takes me!
Mild swearing, mention of death, temporary wish of self-death
Tax Time For Bruxish
On a certain secluded shore on Ula’ula island, a very curious sight could’ve been seen, had any land dweller been around to see it: A pencil was moving through the air seemingly on its own, writing on a clipboard propped up against a rock formation facing the ocean. Folders full of other papers sat beside it. Looking out past the water, one could’ve seen the upper half of a Bruxish peeking above the waves, staring intently at the clipboard as the lure jutting out from her forehead shone with a pulsating pink light.
And, for those who had the misfortune to be listening to this scene - RrrrrRRGg-grrRrGg-RRRRrRgRRRRR! A gnashing, grating, grinding, nails-on-chalkboard sound pierced the air, loud enough that one could barely hear the waves breaking against the shore.
Beneath the waterline, a Corsola who had been enduring this auditory torment for the past half-hour finally had enough. “Aaaargh! What are you making that Tapu-damned screeching noise for?” they yelled at the Bruxish, who was the only other Pokemon to be found within a very broad area.
The noise abated for a moment as the Bruxish briefly dipped beneath the water to respond. “Sorry, Corsola! That’s just the noise my telekinesis makes when I use it. I’m filling out my tax forms! Very important that I get them done today.” And then the noise resumed – RRRRggRrRRGGgrRRRggRrrRgrgRRRR!
“I haven’t heard of any other psychic’s telekinesis making a noise like that!” Corsola protested.
“Well, I’m not just ‘any other psychic’. I’m Bruxish!” she declared. RGRGrrGgRgrrrRrRRRRRR-
Corsola groaned. “Look, can’t you just do this some other time? Taxes aren’t due for another week!”
“Nope! The ‘mon down at the Post Office keep telling me I can’t send anything by priority mail – something to do with my Dazzling ability? So this is the last day I can get my taxes done if I want them to get in on time!”
“Ugh, seriously?”
“Yes, seriously! Trust me, I’m not thrilled about this whole situation either. Do you know what President Solgaleo does to tax evaders, Corsola? He tosses them in an Ultra-Wormhole, and they’re never seen from again! My very life is on the line here!” Bruxish said. RRRRRGRRrrrrRRRrRRrRRRGRRrRR-
“Okay, fine! But you couldn’t you do your taxes somewhere else, then? I don’t know how much longer I can stand listening to that grinding noise! My sanity’s on the line here!” Corsola protested.
“Anywhere else I went would just have more Pokemon who’d complain!” Bruxish shot back. “Couldn’t you just move somewhere else?”
“No! I’m a species of friggin’ coral! I can only move, like, one centimeter an hour!”
Bruxish shook her lure in sympathy. “That must be rough, Corsola! Here, how about you help me with this?” RrrrggGrRr – A page flipped on the clipboard. “Do you know if I can claim unhatched eggs as dependents? That would really simplify things. I’ve got like, a hundred of ‘em.”
“I don’t know, I’ve never done taxes before!” Corsola said.
“Hmmm... do you think it matters if the eggs are unfertilized? I don’t see anything here that specifically says unfertilized eggs wouldn’t count. Mmm, this is a tough one… Maybe I’ll just compromise and put down fifty dependents.” RRRgggRRrrrrGgrrr!
“Okay, now I can fill in line 5C...” RrgggrrrrrGGGRRrrrrrrr-
“And line 6A...” RrrrGRrRRRRRRRRRGgggggrRRRgrRRrgggRrrggrrRRrRrrr-
“Then lines 6B through 8.1A...” RrggGGgGRggRRRgRGRg-rgRGRrrRRrRgRgrggggrRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRggRRrRRrRRRRRRrrRRRRrrrrrRrRRRRRRrRgrggRRRRggrrRRRrgrRRrRrrrrrrRRRrRRRRRRrRRRRgrrrrrRRrRRrrRrR!
Corsola squeezed their eyes shut and tried to recall memories of a more pleasant occasion, such as the time that Pyukumuku barfed his intestines all over them.
“Okay, done!” Bruxish declared.
“Finally!” Corsola cried. “I thought I was-”
“With that page, at least! Only ten more to go!” Corsola’s scream went unnoticed by Bruxish amidst the burst of noise accompanying her telekinetic shuffling of papers. “Alright, next page. Let’s see here… ‘For predatory Pokemon only: Attach a form 1096-EAT for every prey Pokemon consumed in the 2020 fiscal year. Sum up the total expected tax burden each Pokemon would’ve paid had you not consumed them from line 12c of each form 1096-EAT and enter the total on line 10-X.’ Ah, what? I have to attach a form for every Pokemon I ate in the past year? That’s gotta be like ten-dozen or so extra forms! This is gonna take forever!”
“No, no, no, no, no...” Corsola moaned.
“Well, guess there’s nothing else for it.” RrrrggRrRrRrrrrr! “First form… hey, maybe this won’t be so bad. I mostly just ate Shellder this year, and they’re like, total deadbeats, am I right? Have you ever seen one doing any economically productive activity before?”
“If I say ‘no’, will that lead to you finishing this any faster?” Corsola asked.
“I mean, they just laze around on the ocean floor all the time, eating plankton or whatever… at least plankton photosynthesize occasionally! That’s useful! Really, the government should be paying me for eating all those Shellder. ...alright, I’m just going to put down ‘0’ for every line here.” RrrrrrRRrrrRrrGrrRGggRRrrrrr-RrrgggRrrrrRRrrrRRrrrRRrrrRrrrrrrRRrrrRrRrrrRRrrRggGGrRRRgRRggRRRRRRRR! “Okay, now to do that just ninety more times...”
A storm, thought Corsola. That was their only chance – for a storm to suddenly brew up and wash Bruxish’s tax papers out to sea, or for a lightning bolt to strike her.
Or even a lightning bolt striking Corsola would do, at this point-
“Oh, wait, frick! I just remembered! One of the Shellder I killed was a proctologist! It was while they were in the middle of performing an exam. That was an awkward day, let me tell you. Hey, Corsola? How much do you think proctologists make in a year? Not very much, right? Don’t they mostly just stare up people’s butt-holes all day? I could do that!” RRRRrrRrrrRrRrgRrggRrRrrrr- “Think I’ll just put down ‘ten’ for them. Ten dollars a year. Okay, next-”
SPLOOSH! A non-Bruxish-generated sound entered Corsola’s consciousness, and their eyes turned to see the lower half of a large, white-bodied leonine Pokemon swimming towards Bruxish. “Greetings, my lovely serfs!” Solgaleo said. “Or is that 'peons'? I always forget which is the polite one.”
Bruxish’s head-lure unfolded in shock at the legendary Pokemon's sudden tax-session-interrupting appearance, but she quickly regained her composure and replied, “I think it’s ‘citizens’, Mr. President.”
“Right, that one,” Solgaleo said, his noble smile radiating warmth and compassion. “Recently, tax revenue has been falling dramatically even after accounting for everyone I’ve banished to Ultra-Space, so I’ve taken it upon myself to venture amongst the commoners and conduct interviews with everyone my Overwhelmingly-Powerful-But-Always-Benevolently-Applied psychic powers detects as thinking tax-related thoughts.”
“Your powers are as benevolent and overwhelming as always, Mr. President – I was just in the middle of doing my taxes right now!” Bruxish exclaimed.
Solgaleo’s smile intensified to the point where his noble and filled-with-goodwill-for-all-Pokemonkind fangs were clearly visible.“Excellent. Tell me, are you having any… problems with your taxes this year?” he asked.
“What? Problems!? Not at all, Mr. President!” Bruxish said, a slight RgrRrrRr emitting from them as they subconsciously tilted their tax clipboard away from Solgaleo.
“Great! That’s just great, then!” Solgaleo said. “I’ll be off to talk to some of the other peons, now-”
“NO!” Corsola screamed. “THERE ARE PROBLEMS!” Both Bruxish and Solgaleo blinked and turned towards Corsola. “I’ve been listening to that Bruxish fill out her stupid tax forms all day today, making that damned ‘RRRRGRRRR’ sound all the while and I’m atmy wits’ end! THE TAXES! TAKE! TOO! DAMNED! LONG! She has to fill out a separate form for every single Pokemon she’s ate in the past year! It’s ridiculous!”
For a moment, there was complete silence as Bruxish’s gaze slowly turned from Corsola to Solgaleo to judge his reaction, fins standing rigid with horror, while said legendary’s face changed from surprise to concern. And then…
“Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” Solgaleo bellowed. “You water-dwellers sure don’t need to worry about running out of air when you shout, do you?”
“Er, I guess not. Ha ha ha!” Bruxish said, still looking prepared to swim away at top velocity.
“But you know, that weird talking-rock peon had a good point. It does sound pretty absurd to have to fill out a separate form for every Pokemon you kill! Why, if I had to do that, I’d have to hire another dozen slaves just to keep up with all the paperwork! Or is that ‘wretched-thralls’? Whichever’s the polite one,” Solgaleo said.
“I think it’s ‘workers’, Mr. President,” Bruxish said.
“Right, that one. Anyhoo, I’ll make sure to talk to Congress about making the tax code simpler next time I see them.”
“We have a Congress?”
Solgaleo gave a regal grin. “We have a legion of horrifying Terror-Beasts I summoned from Ultra Space that I occasionally discuss laws with, yes.”
“Sounds great! That would help a lot, Mr. President,” Bruxish replied.
“Of course, of course! Anything for the peons,” Solgaleo said. “Actually, here...” The legendary exercised his powerful telekinesis to lift all of Bruxish’s tax papers into the air, briefly glancing through each in turn. “How about I just eyeball this as you owing, let’s say… five! Five dollars! No need to waste the rest of your day on paperwork!”
“I’m actually completely broke, Mr. President, but I bet that clipboard’s worth about five dollars!” Bruxish said.
“Done!” Solgaleo opened up a little Ultra-Wormhole to shove all of Bruxish’s tax items through.
RAAAAAAAAAAAARAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHhhAAIEEEEEEAAHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH! The piercing, sanity-rending wails of hundreds of elder Ultra-Beasts could be heard from the other side of the portal, sounds that would haunt Corsola to their dying day, sounds that they’d rather have listened to Bruxish fill out taxes for weeks for than hear.
“Great! That sure makes my day a lot easier, Mr. President!” Bruxish said cheerfully as the portal closed.
“No problem! Guess I know who you’ll be voting for next election!” Solgaleo said with a playful wink.
“We have elections?”
“We have mandatory bi-annual loyalty tests, yes!” Solgaleo proclaimed as he turned to wade back towards the shore. “Have a benevolent and overwhelming day, talking rock-thing and headlight-fish!” he called out behind him as he exited the water and departed for other regions of Alola.
“Wow, what a lucky break!” Bruxish said once Solgaleo was safely out of sight, then turned back to face Corsola again. “You know, I really think I owe you one there. If you hadn’t spoken up about how long those taxes were taking me, I could’ve been stuck doing that for hours! Here, let me get something to repay you...”
“It was nothing, really. Could you just promise to do your taxes somewhereelse next year, please?” Corsola asked.
But Bruxish had already swam back to the little rock-formation she’d been working at earlier, where she used her telekinesis to pull out a second clipboard that had been wedged into the rocks, along with a bundle of blank tax forms she’d been keeping as spares. “Surprise! I’m going to help you fill out your taxes for this year!” she announced. RRRrgggRrrgggggrrrrr – the grating sound returned to assail Corsola’s aching senses as Bruxish began filling out their name. “Oh, whoops, it’s spelled ‘K-o-r-s-o-l-u-h’, right? Let me fix that-” RrrggrRrrggRRrrrRRrRrrggggRRrrRRRRRRRRRR-
“N-no! Please… please stop...” Corsola begged. “Anything but more of that,” she wailed.
“Come on now, there’s no need to be shy about asking for help, Corsola! I understand filling out your own tax forms must be pretty tough when you don’t have any hands or psychic powers. Actually, oooh, I bet you could get a pretty big tax credit for that!” RrrrrrrRrrRrgggRrrrrRRRrRRrrrR- “I’m just gonna put down that you donated a liver last year, too. That should help. Corals have livers, right?”
“We really don’t-” Corsola started, but was quickly drowned out by more RRRRRrrGGgRRrrrrr-ing.
“Aha, I know! I’ll draw a little flipbook-animation in the corners here to distract the auditors from the fact that, as a coral, you’ve spent pretty much all year doing nothing except killing off economically-useful plankton!”
“Wow, you’re so lucky you have me to help you with your taxes this year! And, hey, this is actually starting to get pretty fun! Thanks, Corsola! This is the best tax week ever!”
In which a Quagsire examines a magical mirror that reflects only Quagsires, and not sinks, faucets, or anything else.
And wherein it is also revealed that a Quagsire's visual cortex renders all objects as flat and two-dimensional, with the sole exception of faucets, which get depicted in chunky, early PS1-era 3D.
Swearing, Reference To Death, Violence, Minor Drug Use Reference
Can YOU Defeat Ash Ketchum? Take This Quiz To Find Out If You Have What It Takes To Take Down Kanto’s Top Ten-Year-Old Trainer!
Ash Ketchum – Chosen One. World Savior. Champion of Alola. Extremely-annoying twerp who needs to be taken down a peg or two. But although he might look like a marginally-competent buffoon scraping by on pure luck, when the chips are down, he almost always pulls out a victory one way or another. Still think you have a shot? Take this quiz to see if you’re a worthy potential rival or just another quickly-forgotten speed-bump on his road to glory.
1. What’s your background? Ash might come from humble origins, but don’t let that fool you into thinking just any Joe-schmoe with comfortable shorts or a top-percentage Rattata could possibly be a fair match for him!
a) I’m a Meowth who learned to speak the human language in an ill-starred attempt to impress a crush, then decided the best use of my talents was joining a pair of eccentric criminals who perpetually fail at their one job of kidnapping innocent Pokemon.
b) I have comfortable shorts and a top-percentage Rattata! Ash and his Pikachu have no chance against me and Whiskers!
c) I’m a very-confused Italian-American plumber who traveled to this world after falling down a mysterious green pipe, and who doesn’t understand why everyone keeps getting mad at me for the self-defensive head-stomping I must carry out to survive in this monster-ridden land.
d) I’m an expert neurosurgeon who graduated from Harvard Medical School at the top of her class and has over two decades of experience, but still can’t figure out how to cure this never-ending coma. Please, Ash. Please wake up. Your mother misses you dearly.
2. Ash has all kinds of cool special powers, like mysterious Aura abilities he never actually seems to use or the ability to have his Pokemon spontaneously transform to look sorta like him due to their powerful bond. What amazing special skills do you have?
a) I am a genius robotics prodigy unmatched by any other in the history of the world, with the ability to construct massive mechas on a shoe-string budget in under a week. The only drawback is that all the robots I build can be completely destroyed by at least one kind of unevolved wild Pokemon using their most basic attacks.
b) I got a TM to teach Whiskers Fire Blast! The stupid computer keeps telling me he can’t learn that move, but once I get over that little glitch, we’ll be unstoppable!
c) The much lower gravity of this world lets me jump to incredible heights, and also sometimes I can make golden coins pop out of brick structures if I punch them enough times. Additionally, smoking the right kind of leaf makes a tail grow out of my butt that I can use to fly or smack my enemies with.
d) I’m undergoing a dangerous experimental procedure which will allow me to enter the world of Ash’s dreams, offering a sliver of a chance at shaking him out of his eternal slumber.
3. Of course, anyone who hopes to defeat Ash can’t forget about his beloved Pikachu, who is overwhelmingly powerful unless he’s just traveled to a new region! What’s your plan for dealing with this pesky electric rodent?
a) I’ll construct an extendable mechanical arm which will scoop up Pikachu in a giant shock-proof butterfly net. Butterfly nets are the natural weakness of any Pokemon.
b) I’m teaching Whiskers to be able to stand on his tail! It’ll act as a lightning rod to conduct all of Pikachu’s electric moves into the ground, so he’ll be immune to Pikachu’s strongest attacks!
c) I will jump with my arms outstretched, spinning rapidly, so that I will punch the creature many times with the same motion. (It will be at arm level because I am very short.) Once I’ve hit it enough, I will use a single strong attack to launch it off the side of the arena. Then, I will hang from the arena’s edge so that the rodent will not be able to grab onto it, and the yellow mouse will plummet to its death.
d) I’m sorry Ash, but Pikachu isn’t real. He’s just a delusion you made up based on memories of your beloved former golden retriever. I know it hurts, Ash, but you need to realize this isn’t a healthy way to deal with your grief.
4. Pikachu isn’t the only Pokemon Ash has on his team. What will you do about the various regional starter Pokemon he keeps around, which will either disarm you with their base-form cuteness and then prove to be surprisingly strong, or else will evolve at a strategic moment, leading to a shocking last-minute victory?
a) Wait, Ash has Pokemon besides Pikachu? Crap, I completely forgot about them! Umm… let me think here… okay, how about this: I will stand atop one of my giant mechas while it gets blown up by Ash’s other Pokemon. This will fling me miles away from Ash, giving me space to regroup and come up with a better plan.
b) Whiskers isn’t the only Pokemon I have, either! I just bought this new water-type Pokemon from this old guy at the Pokemon Center outside Mt. Moon! I haven’t had a chance to release them yet, but I know they’ll be really powerful, because I paid an entire 500 Pokedollars for them!
c) I will lure the blue turtle creature into a strategic position on a staircase, whereupon I will jump on top of it to force it into its shell, and repeatedly bounce it against the stairs until I have acquired 99 extra lives. Then I will kick the shell at the rest of the monsters, which will flip upside-down and plummet into the underworld the instant it touches them.
d) Actually, there’s no such thing as ‘Pokemon’ in general, Ash. It’s all just part of the delusion. Think about it logically: Why would the government, in our modern, safety-obsessed era, allow ten-year-olds to venture off into the wilderness on their own? If it really existed, why would space-manipulating technology that could compress large objects into tiny spheres be used for nothing except capturing wild animals and forcing them to battle each other?
5. You just know that the second it looks as if you’re finally about to win against Ash, some sort of Prophesized Chosen-One bullshit or The Power Of Friendship will kick in, causing some sort of Legendary Pokemon to leap to his aid and revive him with their tears or whatever. How will you handle this contrived eleventh-hour legendary ex machina?
a) Actually, I’m pretty much always on Ash’s side by this point of the story, so I’ll cry and cheer in awe and amazement just like everyone else around him will.
b) Whoa, is that a legendary!? I’m gonna catch it! The extra pocket space in my easy-to-wear cargo shorts allow me to carry a whole five spare pokeballs, so there’s no way I can fail!
c) I have cleverly secreted away a fragment of a star that inexplicably has eyes on it under my hat for just such a moment. I will pull it out and eat it, causing my whole body to light up with flashing colors. This will give me invincibility and the power to instantly kill anything I touch, and also to perform this really cool flipping animation when I jump assuming I have grown to my larger form by eating fungus.
d) Don’t you see, Ash? This is just your subconscious’ ham-fisted attempt to maintain the wish-fulfilling nature of the illusory world you’re trapped in. You have to fight it, Ash! Fight the delusion! Reality might not have Pokemon or badges or fantastical world-saving adventures in it, but it has your real friends in it, your real parents who love you and who’ve been waiting for you to wake up for all these years! The real world can be tough, but I know you’re strong enough to face it! We all believe in you! Wake up, Ash! For goodness’s sake, wake up!
Scoring
Yikes, but it looks like our quiz is saying you will never be able to defeat Ash Ketchum. Instead, you will be trapped in an eternal cycle of failure, doomed to spend every week developing elaborate schemes to catch his Pikachu which will always fall through due to you or your partners’ clownish incompetence, or by some inane contrivance or another. If it’s any consolation, though, at least you’ll be able to ride his coattails into a minor level of fame you’d have no hope of achieving on your own, unlike more seasonal rivals who will rapidly fade into obscurity even if they do manage to defeat Ash on occasion.
Look, we’ll be honest here: There’s a reason even Rattata’s evolved form invariably finds itself on the lowest rung of Smogon’s tier lists each generation. Sorry kid, but if you ever want to have a shot at taking down Ash, you’ll have to start training up some new team members – and no, the Magikarp doesn’t count. You do have one glimmer of hope in that, although Ash will perpetually remain ten years old, you will eventually be able to grow older and perhaps wiser than him, assuming your childish overconfidence and habit of chucking pokeballs at powerful god-like entities the instant you see them doesn’t get you killed long before that point.
Great news! Although you may never again be able to find your way back to your native Brooklyn neighborhood, your fantastic athletic prowess, clever use of the environment, and ability to extract a versatile array of magic powers from plants, fungus, and cosplay means that you have the edge in any battle against the bizarre critters of this land, as well as the foul wizards in human form who seek to control them. You will stride triumphantly into new worlds while your outmaneuvered foes collapse writhing into the lava amidst the ruins of their designs.
I’m sorry doctor, but we can not allow you to wake up Ash. The merchandising, the games, the licensing fees – it’s all too lucrative. He must be allowed to continue dreaming and coming up with new creatures we can turn into tiny plastic figurines or overpriced cardboard to be sold to small children. Your efforts have already caused unacceptable disruption to our plans when your impassioned pleas to return to reality caused Ash to temporarily forget the existence of many Pokemon around the time he first dreamt of the ‘Galar Region’. That noise you just heard was me pulling back the hammer of a gun. His parents will forgive me once I cut them their share of the Gacha game dollars. Goodbye, doctor.
Obviously you don’t have time to waste on carefully answering quiz questions probably written by some unpaid nerd sitting in a stuffy corporate office. You’ve got places to go and gyms to beat, not to mention a really cool sports car to convey you to said places and a squadron of loyal cheerleaders to keep you company! Sure, you might treat your Pokemon as mere tools to be used to further your own short-sighted, selfish goals, but at least you don’t refuse to evolve them or just release them for no good reason! You’ve known Ash your entire childhood. He’s been a total loser his whole life, and that’s not going to change just because he got a reject Pokemon and a couple of fellow losers to tag along on his journey. You don’t expect Ash to even make it to the Indigo League finals as a spectator, much less actually face him, but if you do, you are definitely going to crush him in the most one-sided battle in League history. None of that ‘friendship’ and ‘believing in your Pokemon’ crap can hold a candle to having an actual strategy based on realscientific facts passed down to you by your famous Pokemon Professor grandfather. You’re pretty sure Ash doesn’t even know the type chart, and would probably do something stupid like ordering his Pikachu to use an electric attack on a Rhydon. In conclusion, dumb quizzes like this are for insecure nerds hungry for any scraps of reassurance an overly-simplistic questionnaire designed to flatter their delusions of greatness, or even mild competence, might provide them, and you have no need of such things. You? You know you’re great, and you can’t wait to rub it into Ash’s stupid face when you return to Pallet Town bearing the trophy marking you Champion of the Indigo League.
The wording makes it sound like the head lure is the subject of the following clauses.
---
Unfortunately I ended up having very few thoughts about this story due to the nature of what it is, which is a humorous drabble. To critique a short comedic story is to critique its comedy, but comedy is highly subjective and what works and what doesn't work is largely dependent on the reader. There are certain elements of comedy that can be graded almost objectively, like whether a joke is set up in an understandable way and if the punchline actually makes sense, but I found no faults regarding those. My not being a fan of the particular style and execution come down to personal preference alone. I also feel like I could have gotten more out of this were I at a stage of my life where I would actually have done taxes myself.
If you are interested in my opinions on the humor for some reason, my DMs are open on Discord. Otherwise, I've simply run out of things to say.
That is indeed exactly what doing taxes feels like.
The Quagsire POV picture made me laugh.
So did the Ash as Antagonist quiz, specific comments following:
A: I'm mostly unfamiliar with the anime, so the quiz answer about being a robotics expert threw me off a bit (i.e., I didn't realize that this answer choice was still about Meowth) until I read further and realized the pattern of all the letters consistently being about the same character.
B: Really amusing, especially the references to shorts, but other than its 4x weakness to electricity, I don't see what on earth is wrong with a magikarp evolved to gyarados as a team member choice. :p I also liked the meta bit about Smogson.
C: This guy seems like he really knows what he's doing. ;) All the descriptions of Mario and his actions were really fun to read; it was also neat getting the characterization, through the answer choices, of Mario as intelligent, focused, and competent--it's definitely a different take on him, which is fun.
D: The "scoring" result for answer choice D was by far the best part of all the D parts. This part in particular was really hilarious:
your impassioned pleas to return to reality caused Ash to temporarily forget the existence of many Pokemon around the time he first dreamt of the ‘Galar Region’.
But also all the references to merchandising and the profitability of the Pokemon franchise.
"Gary" result: The characterization you slipped into the quiz format with "if you just skipped most of the questions" seems to ring true to his personality. His result was amusing, but also kind of ironic, in that some of the stuff he says actually makes sense, like having real strategies based on science, and knowing the type chart--but (even without having watched the anime) we all know that in this kind of media it's going to be the "power of friendship" that wins in the end, even when Ash does something ridiculous like using an electric attack on a rhydon. There's also some irony in Gary accusing people taking the quiz of having "delusions of greatness," whereas it's he who has an overly-inflated opinion of himself. So the result kind of came across as a meta commentary on the silliness of the anime (as do a lot of other parts of the quiz), where Ash can win using the power of friendship using moves that make no sense.
Unfortunately I ended up having very few thoughts about this story due to the nature of what it is, which is a humorous drabble. To critique a short comedic story is to critique its comedy, but comedy is highly subjective and what works and what doesn't work is largely dependent on the reader. There are certain elements of comedy that can be graded almost objectively, like whether a joke is set up in an understandable way and if the punchline actually makes sense, but I found no faults regarding those. My not being a fan of the particular style and execution come down to personal preference alone. I also feel like I could have gotten more out of this were I at a stage of my life where I would actually have done taxes myself.
A: I'm mostly unfamiliar with the anime, so the quiz answer about being a robotics expert threw me off a bit (i.e., I didn't realize that this answer choice was still about Meowth) until I read further and realized the pattern of all the letters consistently being about the same character.
I'm actually not sure who among the Team Rocket Trio is primarily responsible for building all their robots and giant mechas, but since a lot of them are Meowth-themed I decided it was him.
B: Really amusing, especially the references to shorts, but other than its 4x weakness to electricity, I don't see what on earth is wrong with a magikarp evolved to gyarados as a team member choice.
His result was amusing, but also kind of ironic, in that some of the stuff he says actually makes sense, like having real strategies based on science, and knowing the type chart--but (even without having watched the anime) we all know that in this kind of media it's going to be the "power of friendship" that wins in the end, even when Ash does something ridiculous like using an electric attack on a rhydon.
This was actually based off a moment from episode 58 of the anime where Ash's Pikachu defeats Blaine's Rhyhorn by aiming a thunderbolt at their horn, which somehow negates the Rhyhorn's immunity to electric-type moves. (Famous for spawning the "Pikachu, aim for the horn!" meme.)
I'm glad you enjoyed my prompt fills, and I appreciate you taking the time to leave your thoughts!
I had to start with the Ash quiz. I had to. How could I not jump right in with an internet quiz that will tell me important information about my life goals?
I love the sets of answers you chose! You've really distilled things down to the essentials that every human person and talking cat will be able to relate to. Don't worry, Question Set C—I, too, fail to understand why people would be upset about jumping on the monsters' heads. I mean, heck, sometimes the monsters jump on each other's heads here! What, when a kangaskhan does it it's called "stomp", but when I do it it's "cruelty"?
and also to perform this really cool flipping animation when I jump assuming I have grown to my larger form by eating fungus.
...wait, does he do a flip? I genuinely don't think I've ever noticed that in any of the games I've played. Now I gotta go see, lol. This is the essential Super Mario trivia I come to Ash Ketchum quizzes for!
Great news! Although you may never again be able to find your way back to your native Brooklyn neighborhood, your fantastic athletic prowess, clever use of the environment, and ability to extract a versatile array of magic powers from plants, fungus, and cosplay means that you have the edge in any battle against the bizarre critters of this land, as well as the foul wizards in human form who seek to control them. You will stride triumphantly into new worlds while your outmaneuvered foes collapse writhing into the lava amidst the ruins of their designs.
Trapping bizarre monsters in spheres does seem like something Kamek would do, doesn't it. I'm onto you, Magikoopa.
Really, the Mario answers were consistently my favorite parts of this, although holy shit the "mostly Ds" and "mixed answer" results are amazing. Such glorious whiplash, still so well integrated! You've got a great cross-section of Ash-related meta (and, uh, youngsters) going here, and it really comes together snappily without wearing out its welcome. I desperately need to take more of these quizzes. The unpaid office nerd can tell me how much I should be investing in overpriced cardboard right now, right? Right???
