EVERYONE: Giovanni, At Last, We See Each Other Plain

[Welkamo]

So yesterday, I heard news that August 1 is Giovanni's birthday. In the spirit of not wanting Giovanni to steal my Pokémon wanting to celebrate this special day, I started a one shot at, like, midnight. After getting some sleep (good move on my part), I finished it and edited it. I've written one shots in a single day before, but this is the first time I'm publishing one (it was a bit of a writing exercise to see if I could write a one shot that was at least mildly entertaining in a limited amount of time. Also, it was a nice break from my two ongoing series). It's very short (less than 500 words) and nonsensical, but feedback is most certainly welcome.

There is some very moderate violence, but no blood or anything, just a few punches.

-

A man and his Nidoking walked into the Pewter City Gym, and when Brock saw the man, his body and soul filled with dread.

“Hello, Brock,” Giovanni said.

Brock backed up against the wall as Nidoking approached him. He took out his precious Onix’s Pokéball, but Nidoking knocked it away. With another punch, Nidoking sent Brock to the floor. Brock looked up at the menacing Pokémon. His fate was sealed.

“Don’t try to resist,” Giovanni hissed. “You know Ground types are super effective against Rock types.”

“Haven’t you caused enough suffering? Why return? Why, out of all the Gyms in Kanto, must you invade mine?"

Giovanni walked closer.

“Brock, do you know what day it is today?”

“What?!”

“Do you know what day it is today?”

Brock flinched at Giovanni's tone and began to tremble.

“Au-August 1?”

“And what makes that day special?”

“It’s the-the first day of the month?”

“It’s my birthday.”

-

The party was held in Lance’s kitchen.

The perimeter was blockaded by Team Rocket grunts and Zubats. Streamers and balloons covered the walls. The Kanto and Johto League members, among a few other notable figures from the two regions, nervously gathered around the table, wearing party hats. Giovanni sat in front of a store bought vanilla cake. In that strange, clearish, red icing, the phrase “Happy Birthday Giovanni” was messily written.

Blue blew a party horn before everyone—in all twelve major keys, all twelve minor keys, countless different rhythms, and several subtly different tempos—began to sing:

“Happy birthday to you
“Happy birthday to you
“Happy birthday Giovanni
“Happy birthday to you.”

“I wish for all the Pokémon,” Giovanni said before blowing out the candles.

One candle still flickered. Giovanni smashed it with his fist. POUND! Cake on everyone’s faces. Giovanni smiled. All of the candles were out.

“Now my wish will come true.”

“We all heard what your wish is,” Lance said. “It won’t come true now.”

Giovanni threw what was left of the cake into Lance’s face.

“I want my presents,” Giovanni demanded.

“I got you a phone,” Bruno said.

Giovanni took the iPhone XYZ Mega Ultra Z Max Plus 4 and stared at it. He threw it across the room. The whole room went silent as he stood up.

“I wanted a Samsung Galaxy. This is the worst birthday ever—”

“I got you Airpods.”

Sabrina stepped forward with a box wrapped in purple paper. Giovanni opened the box. It was filled to the brim with Airpods like it was a box of rocks. How Sabrina had gotten so many Airpods was a mystery. It didn't matter. Giovanni was happy. He even smiled for the first time that day.

“This is the best birthday ever. Thanks, everyone.”

“Can we go home now?” Bugsy asked. “We’ve been here for seven hours, and I need to get ready for my soccer game.”

 

[InfiniteBakuphoon]

Hello again, @more than a torchic! I’m once again here for the February reviewing challenge. You remember how I mentioned in that last review how out of all of the one-shots you‘ve written here, there was only one of them that didn’t get any reviews? Well, I soon realized that statement wasn’t entirely accurate after all! I found two others (besides the one that you just posted today, haha) that could use some love: one being a GracefulShipping one-shot, and the other being this one. Given the current time crunch that I’ve found myself in to get my third February reviewing challenge entry in before the deadline and the fact that this one was the shortest out of the two, well… let’s get started!

Now, if there’s anything that reading this fic has enlightened me to in regards to the art of writing, it’s the importance of presentation, often in very surprising ways! Anything from the medium (on paper or online?) to the font used (Times New Roman or Comic Sans MS?) to even the summary and author’s notes can change everything when it comes to your readers’ overall impression of the story itself. Where am I going with all of this, exactly? Well, my favorite part of the entire fic happened to be the introductory curb-stomp battle encounter between Giovanni and Brock, with the whole entirely random bait-and-switch at the end tickling somewhere deep in my funny bone for reasons that I can’t really explain (“Do you know what day it is?” “T-The day that I die!? The d-day that Team Rocket takes over the world!? The day that—” “IT’S MY BIRTHDAAAY!!!”). It’s exactly as nonsensical as you promise that things will be in your author’s note, in a good way!

Unfortunately, there’s one big problem here: the very fact that you mention how nonsensical everything’s going to be ends up spoiling the entire premise of the story! After all, once the reader’s made aware that this is going to be a mostly comedic story, that pretty much immediately kills any tension in the encounter between Giovanni and Brock, and by extension also the foundation of that critical bait-and-switch moment at the end. After all, in a comedy, such a supposedly intense scene probably isn’t going to end the way that readers would normally expect it to, right? So they’ll be expecting a twist, then, rather than being sucker-punched by it in a way that’s more befitting of the story’s utterly wacky and irreverent tone. That said, I myself was able to somewhat avert this because I somewhat forgot about the author’s note once I began reading it for the first time. Meanwhile, once I realized the anticlimax caused by your author’s note, I mentally tuned it out during successive reads, which allowed the scene to keep some — but not all — of its tension for me, and thus also allowed me to more fully appreciate the humor of the situation. That said, there’s no guarantee that all of your readers will approach your story in exactly the same way, which means that there’s always a chance that the story’s big comedic moment might fall completely flat for them.

Now, things are a bit tricky as to how to address this if you happen to be very attached to how you “present” your stories. Personally, I’d change the author’s note into an afterword and move it to the very bottom of the page after the story ends, with the beginning of the page instead going straight to the story itself. That way, the only thing that even has a chance of hinting at the story’s twist is the obligatory content warning section (which, in this case, doesn’t actually spoil anything at all).

As for the second half, I’ll be frank in saying that I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as I did the first half, as it relies a lot more on zany, madcap humor versus the more ironic humor featured earlier, and the latter simply appeals to me more than the former does. That said, there’s still plenty to enjoy here once you turn your brain off and “roll with it”, so to speak, which becomes very easy to do once it becomes clear that this isn’t really everyone’s favorite diabolical mastermind’s birthday that we’re celebrating here, but rather a super-irreverent cartoon version of him who’s more concerned about getting the latest phones and AirPods than getting rare and powerful Pokémon, haha. I even found the quick, unceremonious “cut” to this scene, marked by that single short scene-setting sentence, to be absolutely hilarious as a kind of “after-punchline” to the whole “IT’S MY BIRTHDAAAY!!!” twist. That said, I would’ve wished to see more reactions from the “good guys” in the room in ways that better reflect each of their unique personalities, rather than the broad-strokes decorations that they kind of end up being here with most of the focus being given to Giovanni’s outrageous, canon-violating behavior instead.

I think that pretty much covers everything. This is a fun little fic here, albeit an imperfectly executed one as far as sheer storytelling goes. Not that it absolutely matters that much with a story as absolutely insane as this one, as I suspect that the sheer madness of it all might be appealing enough by itself for many readers. In any case, not bad for a day’s work, haha!

 

[silurica]

Hewwo, Torchic! You probably know from Bulbacord's writing chat that I had ~unexpected family outing~ today and thought I may not be able to post a review. Well, after posting that, I saw this on the Workshop's first page. The perfect cookie for me to chew on in today's schedule.

Crackfic my... it's not my anything actually I don't read them as much as I used to in my teens. This was written in a day and I think it shows in how much it reads like a spur-of-the-moment shitpost. Then again, that's just how some crackfics roll, isn't it? Hm.

I said shitpost because of how the characters vaguely resemble their canon characterization, but in nonsensical ways. This applies esspecially to Giovanni, who without doubt is the star of the show in this blessed day. I love the sheer energy of Giovanni walking into the nearest gym and in the most threatening manner possible be like, I want my birthday party NAU >:O

Oh, Lance, we already knew what the ambitious boss of Team Rocket is like. The lad deserves that cake to the face for that response. Although I have to say I'm impressed by how his kitchen apparently is big enough for the entire set of Kanto and Johto gym leaders and more.

I'm not sure if I should be concerned about Sabrina's box of Airpods. Truly a mystery of the ages. Wanna bet she got them from Silph Co., and you know what they said about corporations? They probably deserved it. (Looks at Silph again) Maybe. Probably.

 

[columboisreal]

Interesting that it was held in Lance's kitchen, what is wrong with Giovanni's kitchen? Just curious, that's all...
Anyway, it sounds like he had a lovely party! I think it's funny that he was so determined to have a big party, that he even invited his enemies. That made me laugh, Giovanni is sometimes evil in a chaotic way, and I gotta appreciate that.
Oh, just one more thing, did Bugsy make it to his soccer game?

 

[Welkamo]

Oh, just one more thing, did Bugsy make it to his soccer game?

No