I'm pretty sure I know what Pokémon I am. Somewhere in the Slowpoke/Bulbasaur range? Kinda stout, kinda cute. On the slower side—but good Pokés all around. I also know enough to know that I'm not like my favorite Pokemon, Gengar, but would happily play as any of that evolutionary line. While I don't necessarily think I embody their spirits, if I got them on a quiz I would be OK with that.
I've taken many "which Pokémon are you?" quizzes over the years, and I've even subjected myself to one of those popular slot-machine-style instagram filters. (I got Exeggutor. Not the worst result for random chance). And that's why I know that Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Rescue Team DX's quiz, which asks you eight questions to determine what Pokémon you are, is total bullshit.
Skitty? Freaking Skitty? Absolutely not.
My very first go around in Mystery Dungeon's opening, I was sad to learn that of the hundreds of Pokémon available, you could only be one of 16 in this game, and none of them are Slowpoke. When I got Skitty, an atrocious cat thing that I never liked (Meowth gang 4 lyfe), I immediately decided to retake the quiz. My wife sent me this horoscope meme to make me feel better.
The second time around, I noticed there were a few different questions, which instantly raised a red flag. How could this quiz be accurate when the questions it was throwing at me were random? I decided the only way to get an accurate reading was to document every question (and result) for a total of 50 attempts, and then put them in a spreadsheet.
What follows are some of my thoughts as I gathered this information.
Attempt 4: Mudkip
I really don't like Mudkip. Yes, it's cute enough, and its funny little muttonchop fins are endearing enough, but I've been on the internet for way too long. Ever since that old "I heard you leik Mudkips" incident, I haven't been able to separate this seemingly sweet and calm Pokémon from an Old Meme. It's not Mudkip's fault, but no, I don't like Mudkips.
Attempt 10: Mudkip
Hey, remember how I said I don't like Mudkip? Well, 5 out of the last 10 results were Mudkip with the Calm nature. Natures are the way this game sums up the personality type of each Pokémon, and so far Mudkips have all been Calm. I'm now past doubting the quiz—and onto doubting myself. Is there something I've been missing out on for holding this long standing grudge against Mudkip? Could this cute water starter be my true Pokésoul?
Attempt 12: Mudkip
OK, this is getting ridiculous. I was asked to "Grab any finger on your left hand." How is this indicative of anything personality related? The quiz is rigged! I'm a pretty calm person, or at least I can be. Underneath, I'm usually a raw nerve of a dozen different anxieties, but I think most people might call me calm. Maybe there's something to this quiz? Still don't understand how grabbing a finger has any bearing on that.
Attempt 23: Bulbasaur
A new twist emerges: it seems that your nature isn't necessarily correlated to the Pokémon you get. When we did this quiz on Waypoint Radio for Rob, he got the "Hardy" nature, but was a Pikachu. On this attempt, I got Hardy, and it was paired with Bulbasaur, the Pokémon that I think I embody the most in this game. Maybe it was all random?
Attempt 24: Mudkip
Another Calm Mudkip. If this is random, then the universe decided to mess with me.
Attempt 29: Psyduck
There's a question in here that asks how you would talk to your country's leader. There was no option for telling him to fuck off, so I picked the next closest thing: "WHATEVER!!!" I expect the game will get the wrong impression of me from this answer.
Attempt 41: Cubone
It's been five quizzes since I last saw a Mudkip. I'd come to expect them more often than that, so I was surprised when I got the "lonely" nature for the first time. Was I missing Mudkip now? Did I yearn for the sense of stability that came from getting the same result over and over?
Attempt 50: Cyndaquil
At the end of this little experiment, I've gotten every Pokémon possible on this quiz save one. But there's some clear outliers. I got Cyndaquil and Bulbasaur five times each, but the 15 times I got Mudkip stuck out like a sore thumb. That's when I thought back to the image my wife sent me, and remembered that in Astrology you don't just have one sign, but multiple. As it turns out, people are complicated!
I asked Astrology Editor and fellow Pokémon fan Sara David about the difference between your sun sign and your rising sign. Could I possibly have multiple Pokémon that make up a fuller image of my inner self?
Your sun sign (which is the horoscope sign most people are familiar with and read their horoscopes for) represents your will, identity, and ego. It best describes your overarching personality and the values that drive you, while your rising sign is more about the way you express yourself and come across to others. Our astrologer Annabel calls your rising sign "the mask" you wear and present to the world, that more closely correlates to your appearance and external personality."
Finally, something that makes sense to me. Maybe Mudkip is just my rising sign, and Bulbasaur is my sun sign! The game kept giving me Mudkip because that's the mask I was presenting when answering the game's questions! I was really a Bulbasaur, like I always knew!
Content with that justification, I chose Bulbasaur, at which point I learned that you also choose your partner in this game. The whole experiment, and all this hemming and hawing seemed to coalesce in this choice, a final distillation of the answer the game had been given me over and over. I chose Mudkip because I felt bad for betraying that part of myself, for hiding from some nugget of my truth to the point that I concocted this ridiculous experiment.
Yes, these two will do just fine.
Maybe someday I would even come to actually like Mudkip. For now, I'm good with just taking the step of associating with one. Knowing yourself is a lifelong process, and this game helped me take another tiny step forward, so for that I'm grateful.
This article originally appeared on VICE US.
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