#Especially since it's one of the few Kirby games I played as a kid | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

turtlemagnum · 2 years ago

Text

KOTOR and KOTOR2 main cast and their relations to video games

this is a mostly jokey, headcanon-y "what if" in regards to if video games existed as they do irl in the star wars universe. try not to think about it too hard, and this is also presupposing neutral/light side for the core cast because that's how i played the games and i don't have the constitution to actively choose bad things in video games

revan: in terms of raw skill, they're virtually unmatched. doesn't matter if it's a fighting game, a puzzle game, nor a grand strategy game, there's an extremely solid chance they'll kick your ass. they also get extremely competitive, impeccable shit-talking game that'll throw off all but the most stoic; but they also get angry in a very funny way on the rare times they do lose. one of the few mortals that can comprehend 5d chess with multiverse time travel. is a tier whore, mains one of the high tier anime swordfighters in smash (i think lucina?)

carth: you know those boomer dads that absolutely wrecked shit up in arcades back in the 70s and 80s, but anything past the NES or SNES they just... don't get? that's carth, if you put him in front of a pacman or galaga cabinet, he'd wreck shit up, but if you showed him a smash brother or a mario he'd just squint

bastilla: i feel like if she were a gamer at all, she'd probably be into platformers and life simulation games, maybe the occasional 2D JRPG if she's feeling especially spicy. would probably play the shit out of stardew valley or kirby, ya feel me? when playing smash, she'd specifically choose one of the prettyboy anime fighters. not because they're high tier, she's probably never heard of a tier list in her life, she just likes how they look

mission vao: extremely good at video games, especially for her age. probably the only one on the ebon hawk who even comes close to rivaling revan in terms of raw skill aside from the droids, but droids playing video games is cheating tbh. probably pretty omnivorous in terms of game taste, but probably leaning towards anything violent/fast paced, e.g. shooters like DOOM or smash bros. is the reason why the crew regularly plays mario party, and since she's mildly luckier than revan and has almost as much skill, she fairly regularly wrecks revan's ass. is also probably around the right age to get wayyy into minecraft tbh. game and watch main

juhani: gamer god reflexes, absolute jack shit for gamesense. if a game requires mashing, precise movements and the like, she's likely golden; but she's terrible at reading her opponent/things that require extensive forethought. overall, pretty good at fighting games and the like, though frankly i feel like she wouldn't be a huge gamer

jolee: while old, this man is a gamer god. he's like, skyrim grandma type guy, can play games normally for the most part despite being ancient. also probably tends towards single player open world games and extremely dense RPGs, this man will play morrowind and planescape: torment until he's dead and rotting. despite being great at RPGs and singleplayer shit, it's mostly because he knows how to minmax all the technical shit/knows the exploits and glitches and all that, in terms of raw gameplay (and thus, in multiplayer games), he leaves something to be desired. if you manage to talk him into playing smash, he specifically chooses mii gunner with the sans outfit just to annoy revan specifically, figures it doesn't matter if he chooses a bad character if he's gonna lose, so he might as well get a laugh out of it

canderous: this man will relentlessly bully you for playing video games, but if you coaxed him well enough you could probably get him to play something violent, like DOOM or GTA. once you've got him in, he'll most likely relent, but now you have to deal with this boomer son of a bitch yelling at kids in GTA online and blaring rip and tear while everyone else is trying to sleep

HK-47 and T3M4: both are roughly about as good as one another at games, which is to say that they're both goddamn AIs who can consistently perform frame perfect tricks and make every game into a live TAS. you have better odds against them in, say, chess, or perhaps even 5D chess with multiverse time travel. of course, they're not programmed to be good at video games, so any game they play they'd start off bad, but they learn startlingly quickly and playing against them is generally unfair enough to be extremely unfun. both also shittalk relentlessly, though T3 is a lot more vulgar, it's just that most of the crew can't speak binary. HK tries to be a bit more "refined" in his insults, while T3 is peak 13 year old on xbox live, except more eloquent and creative since he's still got an adult tier of intellect. one last remark is that HK isn't as good at thinking in the longterm as T3, so T3 kicks his shit in at grand strategy games like civ and the like

zaalbar: is it bigoted for me to assume this man has never touched a video game in his life? i don't think so, i feel like chewbacca would wreck han's ass at video games, so i don't think it's because he's a wookie. i think zaalbar is basically just a boomer

the exile: honestly about as good as revan at games, it's just that they're not as much of a tryhard. despite this, they have inhuman amounts of luck. so, essentially, they're the Fearesome Monarcke of mario party in terms of how often they win, but everyone still has a good time since they're a good sport about it. the exception is that whenever atton gets into his Gamer Rage, the exile knows exactly how to press his buttons and thinks it's funny. they generally have the most fun playing multiplayer games, especially co-op, so naturally they tend towards a lot of nintendo stuff (though, occasionally they get the urge to pubstomp in TF2 or some other shooter.... may the force have mercy on the poor souls who face them, for they have none to spare...) zelda main in smash

brianna: until meeting the exile, this girl has never touched a video game in her life. though, once she's acclimated, she's surprisingly good. especially likes fighting games/games where you can punch, for what i hope are obvious reasons. also loves to play multiplayer games with the exile, and while she can get a bit heated she definitely tends towards more zen levels of play. would main captain falcon in smash

kreia: refuses to play the exile's party games on principal, though if she thinks she can get away with it she'll absolutely fuck with atton's controller with the force. if she does play games, i think she'd lean towards singleplayer RPGs with good writing, especially if it permits amoral characters, so she'd probably love fallout: new vegas. also? hardcore PC gamer, if her computer skill is anything to go by

visas: also hadn't touched a game before meeting the exile, though due to her blindness, she's incapable of playing games without some manner of accessibility aid. but even if she wasn't blind, i feel like she'd be kinda bad at video games, though she'd absolutely enjoy spending quality time with the others (even if she wouldn't like to admit it). while not video games necessarily, i feel like the exile would probably get something like one of those chess boards where the pieces are designed to all be differentiated from texture alone, and she'd really appreciate the gesture

atton: peak toxic gamer boy, shit-talks relentlessly, gets really into it. would honestly be a bit too much for some people (read: kreia), but most of the crew think it's funny, albeit to varying degrees. in terms of gameplay skill, he'd probably be about average? but with anything to do with probability, he's a savant at crunching the numbers (playing pazaak). would honestly consider cheating in online multiplayer games, the rascal. man mains pikachu in smash, he tries to write himself off as a tier whore but he secretly just thinks the little guy's cute

bao dur: this man is a god gamer at puzzle and fighting games specifically. in tetris, he'll stack em up like you wouldn't believe, could honestly be a speedrunner. in something like tekken, not only would he be absurdly good in terms of raw gameplay, this man can read your inputs like a goddamn book. gets really competitive with brianna, probably has that thing where you absentmindedly play tetris in your head. also, war games are absolutely too much for him, i feel like he'd react to the battlefront games in the same way that ww2 veterans allegedly react to CoD

mical: this man plays the sims, cheesy old PC point and click adventure games, and nothing else. he's a master at the oregon trail, but if you were to put him into anything with more reactive gameplay he'd crumble to dust. still plays mario party with the exile and everyone else, and while he has fun, it's because he's with good friends, in terms of gameplay he'd look like he was throwing to an outside observer

G0-T0: you'd imagine he'd be like the other droids, but no. he's that nerd boy who's all like, "heh, this is simple, all i have to do are these elementary calculations" only to fall flat on his face, every time. bro can't even play chess. the only person who will lose to mical

hanharr: i have the least experience with him out of any KOTOR companion, due to my aforementioned lack of desire to intentionally be evil in video games. but, i feel like this man wouldn't touch a video game with a twenty yard pole, both out of a lack of desire and a lack of ability. again, trying not to be bigoted against wookies, i just feel like the two we see in the KOTOR games would specifically, as individuals, be bad at video games

mira: shooters, stealth games, and any combination of the two. would love the stealth parts of the MGS games, would play the shit out of the thief games, boomer shooters like half life etc. slightly better than atton at the exile's goddamn party games, which she relentlessly taunts him with. mains snake in smash, plays incredibly lame and spammy

0 notes

fruit-sauce · 3 years ago

Text

More headcanons I thought of since the last one

- Prince Fluff (gijinka, I don’t think puffballs can do this) knows how to do ariel silk so he has a tendency to just fall out of trees right next to people at eye level, scaring them as he dangles

- that does mean he hangs around with Taranza quite a bit.

-After the events of epic yarn, Fluff trained himself to properly use his whip to the point where fighting him is actually scary. He also uses it to grab things he needs, wether it be on the top shelf or just out of hands reach. He uses it so often that he’s able to grab a full cup without it spilling, very spiderman like.

-DDD is stupid good at rhythm games, mostly taiko no tatsujin; Meta enjoys shoot/beat ‘em ups and bullet hells; Kirby mainly plays puzzle games and platformers

-None of the main 4 Meta-Knights are cis. There is no way.

-The only plant that Kirby can keep alive are (maxim) tomato plants, he has tried branching out. It does not work.

-Morpho Knight makes their own teas, most are floral.

- Meta can’t drive. Legally or physically. Don’t let him drive anything, he is impatient and will always speed and crash. No, he can’t drive the Halberd either, that’s what Axe Knight is for

- All the star allies have a star somewhere on their uniforms/armor/clothing, very Steven Universe/crystal gem like, I thought it’d be cool

- DDD was definitely the type to make bad interior design decisions. Like, he would put a shirt on a hanger and put it on the wall or paint his walls that one bright aqua color that every kid painted their walls and/or have an eyesore of a wallpaper. Thank Nova for the dees.

Also, all the star allies, and just most of Kirby’s friends, are close with one another and will often train and spar together. This not only gives me the excuse to pair up random characters to do mundane stuff like shopping and hanging out, but also let’s me make random scenarios for the on and off battlefield:

- going back to Fluff, he typically tries to get his opponent’s weapons out of their hand, if they don’t have a weapon, oh well.

- Fluff also figured out that he could grab and throw people, this ended up in him accidentally grabbing Meta Knight’s leg as he was in the air and slamming him on the ground. There was already quite a crowd, so the silence was deafening. (Meta recovered quick and was very impressed).

- DDD found out that hitting the ground hard enough will disorientate people, he uses it frequently

- Ribbon is one to rush, making quick, fast, up-close movements

- Taranza lays webs everywhere he can, one wrong step and you’re wrapped up like a present

- Ribbon vs Susie = cowboy standoff

- Marx just tries to scare people out of bounds, he has no plans

- The animal friends and the mage sisters just enjoy having like 8 people on the field

- Bandana dee and Fluff like to play sandbox and simulator games (think slime rancher, stardew valley, job simulator, the sims, etc.) it’s very calming.

- Those born/made in the mirror and yarn dimensions don’t feel pain as strongly as others, especially out of their own dimensions. This does mean Fluff and Dark Meta have, on multiple occasions, have worked themselves to exhaustion, but they’re never by themselves when they get too tired, as stubborn as they both are that they don’t need help.

- Parasol, Sailor, and Bandana dee are all identical triplets, only in looks though, personality wise, very few similarities.

- When Dreamland was no longer yarn, Fluff hated the way grass and water felt. On the other hand, gooey, dark matter swordsman, 0, 02, etc, love the way grass feels

- Sailor dee is very good at sewing, if anyone on the Halberd has a tear in their clothes or wants something made, they go to Sailor. None of them know how to buy formal wear, Sailor makes all of it. Spear Knights likes to help.

- Queen Ripple, Prince Fluff, and DDD like to hang out. They don’t act all royally, they already do that all day, what usually happens is they get take out, crash on the couch of whoever’s castle is closest and gossip

- Gooey, Parasol Dee, and Nago sun bathe and nap together.

- Flamberge and Dark Meta are good at death metal screams, neither of them even listen to any genre of metal.

- Meta Knight is still in contact with Sword and Blade Knight, he makes sure to invite them whenever a big event is going on

100 notes · View notes

bedbellyandbeyond · 3 years ago

Photo

Word From The Wise

(Story Post)

“Syd? Syd!” “Stop, demon! Do not disturb them!” Dusty was jogging down the halls of the pink home trying to find the dragon. Köbi was desperately trying to keep up with him as he teleported occasionally along the way. The dragon was already overwhelmed enough and the last thing the angel needed was for a demon to come knocking and stirring up more trouble. “Syd!” Dusty stopped dead in his tracks outside of the dragon's bedroom and started knocking on the door. “I know you're in there! Smells like your potpourri…” “They could be asleep!” Köbi whispered sharply. “Sydryn's been really tired. Can't you call ahead?” “Shut up, angel. You only wish you knew Syd like I do,” Dusty spat. “They're probably just moping about something trivial…” “Well, I know that, but they need their space,” Köbi said. “And rest.” “They're playing Kirby in there,” Dusty said, tapping the door. “You can hear it.”

From inside, Sydryn rolled their eyes from behind their Nintendo system and sighed. “What do you want, Darathan?” Dusty flipped Köbi the bird and opened the door. He stepped inside, shut the door in Köbi’s face, and then addressed the dragon. “I need your help, Syd. You're the only one I can turn to.” Sydryn sat up in bed and their game down beside them. It had been a long time since the demon had seen the dragon so casual, dressed down in their pyjamas, long hair out and gathered on the pillows behind them. The size of their middle was somewhat muffled by the blankets but still ever growing. The dragon gazed upon the demon with heavy lidded eyes. “State your business.” Dusty frowned, leaning in the doorway. “State my business? You say that like we weren't married for thirteen years…” “We weren't.” “Right, but we might as well have been… We lived with each other that long,” Dusty said. “We might as well have been common-law. We had a child together.” “You had a child.” “Right, but would you tell the angel to ‘state his business'?” Dusty asked. “He's only been here a few months. You and I, we have history.” “Are you really so preoccupied with my wording?” Sydryn said. “If you know me so well, you'd know my verbiage. Now tell me what I owe this ‘pleasure’…” Dusty slunk over to Sydryn's bedside and sat down on the edge, squeezing his hands down between his knees in a guilty hunch. “Well. I got drunk and slept with Ruben and Dante on their wedding night, and now I'm worried I could be pregnant, and I went to APID to find you but there was only that human doctor and he knows nothing about demons, but you know me so I came here for your help…” Sydryn just stared at him. “You slept with Dante?” Dusty frowned, nodding. “And Ruben… Poor Yori had to sleep in his kids' room.” “So…you're worried you're pregnant,” Sydryn said. “Do you have any symptoms?” Dusty nodded. “My stomach has been in knots ever since the event… I can’t sleep well. I’m so tired all the time…” “Okay… Do you think there's even a chance you're not pregnant?” Sydryn huffed. Dusty pouted. “Well, I mean… I hope so… I'm not bonded like I was back then, and I thought I didn't have feelings for Dante anymore, and that's what did it last time…” “Right, but this time you had sex,” Sydryn said. “As I understand it, none of that matters towards conceiving a child when unprotected sex is involved.” Dusty started to tear up and put his head in his hands. “But I've had sex since then… I wouldn't allow myself to get pregnant. I can control that when I'm sober…” “But you weren't sober,” Sydryn reminded. “Though… As well as I know you as a person, I will admit I don't know that much about the function of a demon's reproductive system. I can't imagine I could be sure to know whether you are or are not pregnant without proper equipment. Especially so early.” Dusty sniffled. “So, you can't help me?” “Well, I can help you get into contact with someone who might be able to help you…” Sydryn said, leaning over to grab their phone from their nightstand. “But I'm not making any promises.” “Okay…” Sydryn took a moment to send a text and then picked up their game again. Before the title screen could load up however, their phone was already going off. They answered the call with a sigh. “Good afternoon… Yes…Yes, if you’re available. See you in a moment.” Dusty watched the phone conversation with intrigue then jumped a little when he felt the air shift. He recognised this feeling so well, the opening of a demon's portal. He didn't have much trust for other demons, so he got up and stood alert. At the end of the bed, a black fissure in space opened up and out poured the one and only Obsidian Dragon, a demon following closely behind. Sydryn recognised this companion from their last visit but Dusty had never met the tall, slender, and long ginger haired demon. “I'm so glad you messaged me, Auntie,” the dragon grinned, placing their hands on their hips, their progressing pregnancy jutting forward. “I was just thinking about you.” “Kardynkyr,” Sydryn said. They motioned to Dusty. “You remember Darathan.” “Of course.” Kardynkyr turned to Dusty and pinched his cheek like a dear grandparent. “The cute little demon I left in your care. A pink little birdy told me you've been up to no good. Love to hear it. How are you, my little monster?” Dusty blinked at them. “Um… Do I know you?” Kardynkyr was taken aback. “You don’t recognise me?” “Uh, sorry… Not really.” Kardynkyr stared at him blankly. “Steppenwolf concert, fourteen years ago. I was giving free tattoos to drunks in the parking lot. You were crying behind a Porta-Potty.” “Um… I vaguely remember…” Kardynkyr pouted. “What do you mean? I introduced you to my Auntie! This should be a core memory!” “I’m sorry… I was probably really high,” Dusty admitted. “You're watching too many cartoons, Kardynkyr,” Sydryn said. “Darathan, my nibling here commands a hoard of demons. If anyone knows demons better than me, it'd be them.” “You've got that right,” Kardynkyr concurred proudly. “I may not be a doctor, but I've been present for like hundreds of demon pregnancies. They won't stop knocking each other up, I swear… Ora, how many times have you knocked up Kobann?” The demon who'd tagged along thought for a moment. “Oh, maybe seven times.” “I'm sorry, you're an incubus?” Dusty asked, pointing out the tall but effeminate demon. “Yep,” Ora answered proudly. “Proud fem top.” “Ya see?” Kardynkyr grinned. “Demon pregnancy is our thing.” “So… Can you determine if I'm pregnant?” Dusty asked. Ora raised an eyebrow. “What, you don't know already?” “Should I?” Dusty asked. “Well sure,” Ora said. “Every time I've knocked up a succubus, they typically told me within, like, an hour.” “But I didn't know when I had my son,” Dusty said. “I didn't know until it was obvious.” “That's different,” Ora said. “If you had no reason to suspect you were pregnant, especially with a first pregnancy, then you wouldn't know. But if you're anticipating it, then you'd know for sure right away. If you're unsure, then you're certainly not pregnant.” Dusty shook his head. “I don't entirely understand…” Ora rolled their eyes. “It's pretty simple… You don't have to pee on a stick or anything. You're a demon.” They approached Dusty anyway and lifted his shirt. “Ooh. Hello, tiny waist… I want to knock you up myself.” “What are you…” “Hush.” Ora then wrapped their hands around Dusty's waist and pressed their thumbs into his stomach. After a moment, they gave Dusty's bellybutton a little kiss and pulled away. “Yeah, you're not pregnant.” “Really?” Dusty asked, wiping where the other demon had kissed him. “Yeah. Empty as fuck. You probably didn't even eat breakfast.” Dusty turned to Sydryn with glee and relief. “I'm not pregnant!” “If you want to change that, call me,” Ora teased. Dusty shot Ora a disgusted look. “No, thank you…” “Are you happy, Darathan?” Sydryn asked. “Can everyone leave my room now?” “Well, hold on,” Kardynkyr said. “Where's Red at? I want to pick on my creator.” “Probably eavesdropping with Köbi, I imagine,” Sydryn said, pointing to the door. “Wait, but what about my symptoms?” Dusty asked. “The nausea? Fatigue?” “Anxiety,” Sydryn stated. “Possibly depression. Have you been speaking to anyone about your mental health?” “No… Not really,” Dusty admitted. “So that's it, then? I suppose I'll leave you be.” “Dusty, stay a minute. You two…” Sydryn pointed to Ora and Kardynkyr. “Thank you for your assistance. Feel free to pester my sibling, but do leave my room.” “Got it.” Kardynkyr whispered something into Ora's ear and then suddenly they teleported away. Dusty and Syd then heard a loud gasp from just outside the door and they could easily deduce that the young dragon had surprised Seranan in the hallway. “Kardynkyr should occupy Seranan's nosy ears for a time…” Sydryn sighed. “Dusty. Do sit.” Dusty was pleased to sit back down in the bed with sit and went as far as to snuggle up to them. “What do you want to talk about?” Sydryn frowned down at the all too cozy demon but didn't move to move him. “You, particularly. It's been nearly a year since I let you out on your own, and several months since you've been unbound. How have you been fairing?” “Um… Well, I guess I was fine up until this little…hiccup,” Dusty said. “But it was a mistake, and I can put it behind me now… Grey has been opening up more. And I have a job and my own apartment.” “Have you made friends?” Sydryn asked. “Yes! Lino and Fay are my friends,” Dusty said. “You ex's brother and your boss?” “Well, yeah. But we're more than that.” Sydryn sighed. “After the unbinding, you were told you might feel a bit empty afterwards. You know, a little bit lacking direction… Do you think you've found that?” Dusty tilted his head. “Well… I don't know. I’m happy at my job and Grey is happy and doing well. I’d like to keep things that way.” “Hmmm…” Sydryn placed a hand on their stomach. “What do you think motivated your behaviour after the wedding?” Dusty blinked. “Alcohol.” Sydryn rolled their eyes. “Alcohol alone does not make you sleep with your ex and their partner. Be honest. Do you believe you still have feelings for Dante?” Dusty scoffed. “No… Of course not.” Sydryn raised an eyebrow. “Of course not? I see… Do you have feelings for Ruben, then?” Dusty hesitated this time. “…No.” Sydryn furrowed their brow. “I asked you to be honest.” Dusty grew flustered. “What do you mean? I can't have feelings for him! I barely know him!” “It's called infatuation,” Sydryn reminded. “Not to mention, you two had quite the little adventure together back at the dragon city…” “That was hardly anything,” Dusty insisted. “It didn't even get anywhere because Ruben was trying to stay sober.” A realisation set in, and he grabbed Syd's wrist. “Wait, Ruben was sober for nine years! That night would've been a disaster for him… I hope he's alright.” He started to pull out his phone. “Should I message him to see if he's okay?” Sydryn just shook their head as they watched the demon. “Darathan. He is a married man.” “I'm not in love with him, Syd!” Dusty snapped. “You're reading too far into this. And I should tell him I'm not pregnant. I owe him that relief.” Sydryn sighed. “Well, at least you seem to have recovered from the unbinding... But I do suggest you look elsewhere for future partnerships.” “I am, Syd,” Dusty said. “In fact, I’ve dated several people. I got Korsy once, you know? Pretty good catch if you ask me.” “The Korsgaard boy?” Sydryn pulled a face. “He's a whore, and there's all that baggage… You can do better.” “It was just the one night,” Dusty said. “But there were others.” “Sleeping around isn't dating,” Sydryn said. “What do you know?” Dusty huffed. “I bet you've never once been on a date in your life.” “Absolutely not. I couldn't even imagine attending one of those…” Sydryn huffed. “I mean, you might enjoy it… However, some alone time might also do you some good.” “Other than you, I've been alone all my life,” Dusty sighed. “I'm ready to find the right person. If that's even something a demon can have…” “Well, think of it this way,” Sydryn said, picking up their game again and switching it on. “I never thought any two dragons could love one another in any romantic capacity until two young dragons demonstrated just that. So, if two dragons can fall in love, I don't see why a demon can't find the same.” Dusty furrowed his brow and thought on that for a moment. Then he stared at Sydryn and sighed. “Syd?” “Yes?” “Have you ever been in love?” Sydryn paused. “…I'm not entirely sure.” Dusty eyes went wide. “Really? Who was it? A dragon?” “I'm not going to talk about this…” Sydryn said. “Was it a human?” “Don't be absurd,” Sydryn scoffed. “So, it was a dragon, then,” Dusty teased. “Were they cute?” Sydryn rolled their eyes and placed their game down on the nightstand. “Darathan. To summarise our conversation: You’re not pregnant, don't pursue Ruben, and speak to a trained professional about your anxiety and depression. Understood?” Dusty pouted but got up off the bed. “Got it. It's time for me to go. But I think you should speak to a trained professional too. You know I’m empathic, remember? I'm not the only one who needs help here.” Sydryn lifted their chin. “You're lucky I even let you get close enough to sense me.” “Oh please… You love me,” Dusty said before he teleported out. Sydryn sighed and draped a hand over their face, before whispering to themself. “What a mess you’ve gotten yourself into…”

#lore #Dusty #Sydryn #Köbi #Kardynkyr #Ora #nbpreg #ovipreg

71 notes · View notes

game-boy-pocket · 2 years ago

Text

Merry Christmas everyone.

The best gaming related christmas memory I have was the absolute haul that I received in 2002. I wanted a Gamecube and Sonic Adventure 2 Battle so badly, I would not shut up about it, and I managed to get exactly what I asked for...... as well as Metroid Prime... and a Gameboy Advance... and Kirby Nightmare in Dreamland... and Sonic Advance... And a case for my GBA... Plus a few non gaming gifts as well.

We normally have such low key Christmas. It was so mind-blowing to me. Especially since my mom knew so little about my interests. I never even mentioned Kirby or Metroid to her. Honestly, I wasn't interested in Metroid at the time, but Metroid Prime made a fan out of me. So not only was it a haul, but it felt uncharacteristically thoughtful as well.

Another memory was the day we got our N64. My brother peeked before our parents woke up. despite my pleas for him not to and spoiled the surprise, but we were thrilled nontheless. We were given our copy of Mario 64 to open first, and had to very poorly act stupid like "but father, this is a Nintendo 64 game, we don't have a Nintendo 64... doooo weee???" And they knew right away what we did, but couldn't stay mad. Also takes me back to getting Diddy Kong Racing instead of Mario Kart 64. My disappointment was immeasurable at the time, but in the end, I likely got a lot more out of that game than I would have out of Mario 64. That Adventure mode went a long way for me, a kid who generally prefers to play alone rather than playing multiplayer. Also, that same christmas, my brother got me this Bowser beanie doll. I still own it to this day and I kind of hang on to it as specific reminder of my brother. I told my dad about it on the phone, told him I wanted to get the other ones with my christmas money, he said "don't worry about those." I took that as to meaning "no you can't have those" and it bummed me out, but really, he just ordered them through Nintendo Power already. By pure coincidence, my brother got the one that wasn't offered in Nintendo Power, completing the set. Hah.

Christmas was also the day I learned the Super Nintendo existed at all. I loved me some Mario. But I wasn't old enough to actively follow Mario related news in magazines at all so I had no idea there was a NEW machine that could play Marios I haven't heard of before. So rather than excitement, I was mostly just confused when I watched my brother open it.

Those be all my gaming related Christmas memories... Merry Christmas everybody.

9 notes · View notes

purple-vixen · 4 years ago

Text

Batfamily & Games - Headcanon

A/N: Brace yourselves, this headcanon is HUGE (about 1.5k words). I’ve been playing a lot of games during quarantine and that’s what inspired me to write this. I mostly play on ps4, if you want to add me on psn, my ID is Vixtr0yer_ - Vix

• Ok, hear me out.

• Tim is definitely a JRPG guy.

• Used to play a lot of Final Fantasy back when he was a kid.

• And he still does.

• Tim is a completionist. He does every sidequest, maxes the skill tree and the characters' level, unlocks every weapon and collects EVERY. SINGLE. TROPHY.

• Another thing that he enjoys about JRPGs is analyzing his items, weapons and characters' abilities and stats to build the best strategy during battles, especially if the battles are turn-based.

• Although Final Fantasy holds a special place in his heart, Tim's favorite game is Persona 5.

• He went crazy over that game. After getting Persona 5, Tim locked himself in his room and would spend the entire day (and night, if he's not patrolling) playing Persona 5, only going outside to open the kitchen's fridge and bring a pack of Red Bull to his bedroom.

• After he beat Persona 5 and unlocked every ending, Tim went through an identity crisis.

• But then Persona 5 Royal was released and the cycle started all over again.

• Steph also enjoys RPGs, but she prefers action RPGs. Unlike Tim, Steph pays no mind to the numbers and statuses in items and weapons, she just equips the stuff that gives more damage and beats the crap out of the enemies until they die.

• Depending on the game, Steph can be very competitive, she lost count on the controllers she broke in a fit of rage after dying in Dark Souls and Bloodborne.

• Her favorite game is Skyrim because she loves using the funny mods.

• I have the feeling Cass is a retro-gamer. She doesn't lean to a specific game genre, she enjoys retro games in general.

• But if Cass had to pick a few favorite ones, they would be Earthbound and Kirby's Adventure.

• Cass also builds some AMAZING constructions in Minecraft.

• Barbara likes MOBA and MMO.

• She wouldn't consider herself addicted but she's been playing World of Warcraft since its release.

• If Barbara happens to be in a bad mood and sees some players being assholes, she goes there and hack their accounts.

• She also likes watching esports.

• Screw the Olympics, esports tournaments are her thing.

• Babs makes a big deal about League of Legends World Championship. LoLWC is like the event of the year for her.

• Her ritual is buying a family-size bag of nachos and soda to watch it on her TV every year.

• Barbara and Dick are the type of couple that has a 2 person gaming setup so that they can play together.

• Talking about Dick Grayson.

• He has two types of favorite videogames.

• One being story-driven games. Dick gets all invested in the plot to the point he feels catharsis.

• He cried playing Life is Strange.

• He always tries to get the happy ending and be nice to all the characters.

• If he ends up being accidentally rude or getting an ending he doesn't like, he reloads his save and picks another option or starts the game all over again.

• And don't get me started on his Stardew Valley playthrough.

• But when it comes to The Sims, Dick is a real psycho. He takes the ladder off the pool, locks the sims in a cubicle and stuff, has the extreme violence mod installed.

• After playing God of War, Dick started calling Damian by "Boy" with an extremely deep voice.

• In the beginning Damian shrugged it off but after one week he got fed up and started chasing after Dick with a sword and threatened to cut him to pieces if he called him "Boy" one more time.

• His other type of favorite games are games where he can goof around.

• He causes massive chaos in Goat Simulator and the Goose Game.

• Because of the Goose Game, Dick tried to convince Damian to convince Bruce to buy them a goose.

• It didn't work.

• Back when Jason was Robin, Bruce paid a lot of attention to the age ratings. If Jason asked Bruce to buy him a new game, Bruce would google the title of said game and based on Jason's age and the game's age rating, he would decide to buy it or not.

• "I said we're not buying Ratchet & Clank, Jason." Bruce says as he looks at the ESRB website through the batcomputer.

• "But it's rated 10!" A 13-year-old Jason protests.

• "Do you really think I'm going to allow you owning a game that has 'Quest for Booty' as its subtitle?"

• Still, that didn't stop Jason from playing the games he wanted to.

• Jason would save up money from his allowance and head to the arcade or secretly buy a new game and play it whenever Bruce wasn't at the Manor.

• Jason would mostly play FPS games. His favorite franchise ended up being Doom.

• Jason often trains while listening to the Doom soundtrack.

• Because the Doom soundtrack makes all of us Jason feel things. He also listens to the songs before patrolling because they hype him up to punch people.

• Don't lie to me, I know you feel the same way when you listen to the Doom soundtrack. Everyone does.

• There was that one time Jason ended up in a fist-fight over the last copy of Doom Eternal on the release date.

• Jason managed to get the last copy but ended up getting banned from GameStop.

• Also some guy recorded the GameStop fight and uploaded on Youtube an edit with one of those "When Doom music kicks in" memes that has "The Only Thing They Fear is You" playing in the background.

• The video got over 2 million views.

• Having kids does tire you out. By the time Bruce had Damian, he stopped caring about videogames' age rating and stuff.

• But still, Grand Theft Auto is STRICTLY FORBIDDEN in Wayne Manor.

• One person ends up getting away from this rule.

• Not because he's allowed to play it, he just doesn't care about that rule.

• And that person is… *drum roll*

• Alfred.

• Alfred had beat GTA V twice and he whoops other people's asses on GTA Online.

• Alfred is also an evil mastermind in Among Us. When he gets to be the impostor, Alfred always wins.

• Damian plays a lot of Fortnite.

• But not because he likes Fortnite, he thinks it's too ridiculous for his liking, especially the dances.

• Damian doesn't like playing Fortnite, but he likes playing Fortnite with Jon. It's Jon's favorite game and Jon gets very happy whenever he gets to play it with Damian. Damian, although not being a fan of Fortnite, ends up having fun too.

• Fun fact: When Damian found out Batman, Catwoman and even Joker and Ivy had their Fortnite skins, he got mad because they didn't make a Robin skin. He then started emailing Epic asking for one and saying that Robin deserved his own Fortnite skin.

• But Damian's favorite game turns out to be:

• Animal Crossing New Horizons.

• Because living on a paradise island full of animals is like his dream come true.

• Also Damian's favorite villager is Ozzie.

• He follows the "Can You Pet The Dog?" twitter account.

• The batkids tried to organize a family videogames night. But in literally E-V-E-R-Y family videogames night something wrong happened and at least one person ended up in the med bay.

• Dance Dance Revolution night: Duke slipped and sprained his ankle.

• Overcooked night: instead of helping to do the dishes right, Jason kept on being chaotic, he'd block the passages, put unnecessary ingredients on the countertop, slap the other cooks, anything he could do to troll them. They only got 1 star on a level and Steph threw a controller on Jason's head.

• Mario Kart night: Damian, first place. Tim, blue shell. That's all I have to say.

• Among Us: Everyone, literally EVERYONE started fighting and without any exception they all ended up in med bay. After that one, family videogames night was officially canceled. And Bruce had to organize a group therapy session for them.

• "They say I'm supposed to open up to people, but how the fuck am I supposed to open up to people when every time I trust someone they fucking STAB ME IN THE BACK?"

• "Jason, I was the impostor, I was supposed to stab people in the back."

• "I TRUSTED YOU, DICK, AND I WON'T EVER TRUST YOU AGAIN. YOU'RE NOT MY BROTHER ANYMORE, BITCH."

• Bruce strongly denies that he plays videogames. He says he's too old and he doesn't have time for that.

• Remember that aunt of yours who is already on level 900 in Candy Crush?

• Bruce is that aunt.

• He secretly has Candy Crush installed on his phone and whenever he's at Wayne Enterprises feeling bored, Bruce unlocks his phone and starts playing Candy Crush.

• There was that one time the bank called Bruce because they thought his credit card was cloned after a $200 purchase in App Store.

• But guess what?

• Yep, it was just Bruce fucking Wayne playing Candy Crush.

• He also managed to beat minesweeper more than once by the way.

129 notes · View notes

pastelaeqy · 4 years ago

Text

headcanon dump below. they probably aren’t super original but I :)

I also just wanna mention a thought I had: I suspect we will b seeing morpho knight in a main game storyline in the next game, since he was gonna appear in the Kirby GCN (I assume this means they had quite a bit of lore and stuff to go with him so they’ve had him prepared for a while). also consider: Kirby RtD was the replacement. The next few games where meta knight is fought, he has yellow eyes. Basically my theory is that they didn’t want to have two characters with white eyes (probably so there wasn’t any conflicting lore idk) so they just went and changed meta knight’s because they deemed that the most plausible option. this also could actually serve as more proof of morpho being much more important to the lore of the series, even aside from his supposed appearances as a butterfly. I bet he is gonna have something to do with the warp star (concept for Kirby GCN was that dedede stole Kirby’s warp star so morpho was somehow involved) - Most puffballs only have one or two abilities, or can broaden magic use through one ability (eg galacta Knight’s attacks, for example, are all used through the base sword ability however aren’t limited to that). - Kirby is unique as he has the copy ability (which counts as one ability in itself rather than hundreds). it’s an almost legendary ability with no other recorded holders. Special baby boy.

- Although puffballs do have to consume a lot of food to deal with being partly composed of potent magic (as well as using it), Kirby has to consume sooo much more. he’s not a glutton (as the books describe), he is just hungry almost all of the time because he’s always beating the shit out of eldritch beings. The novels annoyed me so much with this aspect of Kirby!!!!!! he’s not that shallow!!! baby boy is just trying to physically cope with being able to slap the shit out of cult gods!!!

- Kirby’s copy ability works by basically inhaling an object/opponent with a specific magic signature, then concentrating it into a strengthened version of that ability Kirby can then utilise (hence his “infinite power”). - Kirby can’t deal with immense amounts of magic for a long period of time, as it also uses his own magic/energy up in the process. This is why normal copy abilities are fine for an extended period of time, and the super copy abilities have a time limit on them. (This is also why he can’t just go inhale void termina or some shit bc he would probably end up imploding. it’s also why the crash ability is single use)

- The super abilities basically involve Kirby combining a small amount of his own energy with the magic signature of the ability, and then concentrating it, producing a much stronger version of the original ability. Kirby probably ended up putting in a much larger amount of his own energy when trying to defeat magolor. (Ultra sword go brr)

- Puffballs eventually get wings at some stage in their life. They usually get them after a few hundred years but they can appear early if conditions are bad enough. Kirby’s will probably be feathered. I think the lore of the series will benefit from having two pink puffballs with feathered wings. pls also note the halberd mode robobot armour has softer looking wings, and the visor Kirby has on the star allies sparkler has little wings on the side of it.

- Meta Knight and king dedede did eventually get over their rivalry with Kirby. The events of KRtD were definitely a big part of it, and by the end of it they were probably pretty good friends. They both realised Kirby was way too strong for either of them to beat, and did have Dreamland’s interests in mind. Since Kirby is also only a kid they also felt compelled to act more adult-like, rather than trying to beat the shit out of a child.

- After the events of KRtD, king dedede basically invited Kirby, mk, and bandee to the castle for an overnight stay, since everyone was exhausted by the end of the ordeal. Although breakfast the following morning was tense at first, Dedede basically explained he wanted to formally end any rivalry he had with Kirby, and encouraged meta knight to do the same.Meta Knight still secretly wanted to beat Kirby at least once but the events of both planet robobot and star allies probably ruined it for him

- King dedede is actually a fairly competent leader, despite mainly just being a representative for dreamland as a whole. It did take him a while to grow into his role, but after he let go of his rivalry with Kirby he really settled in. He’s generally pretty placid on most days, and plays a lot of board games with the dees.King dedede invites bandee, Kirby, and mk for morning tea/lunch every now and then. The castle kitchen usually has to prepare at very least a day in advance to accomodate Kirby’s appetite.

- Kirby isn’t allowed more than 3 cups of tea or half a cup of weak coffee. the first time ddd ever invited Kirby for tea he did not consider how Kirby would respond to any amount of caffeine.

- Kirby is probably closest with mk, especially since Kirby knows mk looks very similar to him. He doesn’t ask mk about it though, as he sees that’s a very personal question.

- Mk acts as more of a very uninvolved father figure/mentor, mainly since Kirby is pretty independent and can defend himself.

- He regularly trains Kirby with the sword ability. Meta Knight used to originally do this to try and memorise Kirby’s attack patterns given that they may fight again in the future, but, as mentioned before, doesn’t do this anymore. He feels guilty about it.

-Meta Knight taught Kirby how to read. Kirby is a fairly proficient reader, although he likes to read cooking books the most because of all the pictures.

-Kirby is good at cooking, even without the copy ability.

- Meta Knight owns what could be considered a small library. Kirby is allowed to borrow a book or two for about a week at a time. He is forbidden from the horror section due to the one time where he accidentally chose a particularly scary one and wouldn’t leave castle dedede for a week.

-Kirby doesn’t speak in poyo. I don’t have much else to say on this. -Kirby can be a little shit on very rare occasions. Dedede tried to prank Kirby once by getting him to eat a very very spicy curry. Unbeknownst to dedede at the time, Kirby has a very high heat tolerance, and would probably have to eat something more than 1 million on the Scoville scale to actually feel distress. Kirby noticed that it was unusually hot, and that dedede was watching him intently. He pretended it wasn’t spicy at all, then persuaded dedede to try it.

-Dedede does not have a heat tolerance anywhere near as high as Kirby’s.

#kirby #Kirby headcanon #meta knight #king dedede #bandana dee #kirby fanart #kirby art #galacta knight

256 notes · View notes

smashy-headcanons · 4 years ago

Note

Anything to say about the direct that's non-Smash related? Also there's been some things going around with tournaments, (first a projectile one, then a body one on the 19th) so the Tournament theory could come into play. (Submitted by Henry-Fan-Anon)

I'm hoping for a Kid Icarus Uprising port for the Switch. I doubt we're gonna get news on a sequel yet (since Sakurai's development team is focused on Smash), but I feel like KI:U would benefit from the Switch's controls.

I'd love news on the BotW sequel, especially since I'm almost done with BotW.

People have been "leaking" Diamond and Pearl remakes for the last few years so I'm not clinging too hard to the idea, but if they were announced? God I'd be so thrilled (as someone whose first Pokemon game was Platinum)

An actual home console Mario Kart that isn't just a rerelease. And I don't mean Home Tour, I want an actually solid Mario Kart game. Hell, you know what I want? Double Dash remake/sequel.

New Kirby game. HAL has been talking about a new mainline Kirby game and I want to see what that is.

Nintendo Online emulators for the Game & Watch (yes, I know it's not the same but still) and the Game Boy/Color/Advance.

Super Mario Party sequel with more unique ally dialogue and more boards.

Paper Mario HD Collection?? Maybe?

A new F-Zero game would be cool but I'm not getting my hopes up.

#ask #anonymous #not a headcanon #mine

25 notes · View notes

mysmashplaythroughs · 4 years ago

Text

Super Mario Advance Playthrough

Fighter: Princess Peach Toadstool.

Game: Super Mario Advance, Wii U virtual console (GBA). First Released on March 21st 2001.

Fighter Bio.

Princess Peach Toadstool, known as Princess Peach more commonly now is the crown Princess of the Mushroom Kingdom. She is famous and well liked both within her Kingdom and in a lot of locations outside of it. Peach’s role in the Mario series varies with her most common role often being kidnapped by Bowser, but other villains have also captured her before. Based on my estimate, I believe she has been kidnapped roughly 31 times so far in the games including all spin-offs. Sometimes these kidnappings take place before the game starts meaning she only appears in the ending, other times she’ll have a role in the game before it happens and sometimes it will be a short part of the game like for a single chapter in one of the RPGs. Often in that last example it relates to another one of her roles, being a playable character who is either a party member or optional character to play as, with her sometimes becoming playable after being rescued. In the cases where Peach is not kidnapped immediately, she’ll often tell Mario and the others what they need to do when a crisis is taking place, advising them where to head to next or setting them off at the start of the game on their quest. Being captured so often, one skill Peach seems to have picked up over the years is her ability to often stealthily slip around her captors, sometimes simply working out a way to send Mario assistance such as items and advice, and other times managing to spy on her captor’s plans. Often due to the location she’s being held in she is unable to fully escape from her captors however, or in some cases her sense of duty to her also captured people will make her not try to leave without them.

The Mario series doesn’t have a solid timeline, so a lot of this is just my own personal ideas, but unless a game is explicitly taking place in the past with Baby versions of the characters, I tend to just go by the order in which the games are released regarding character’s histories in the franchise, something possibly evidenced by a scene in Super Mario Sunshine where F.L.U.D.D. searches its databank and has data on Mario’s adventures prior to that game as past events. I also personally like to consider the Paper Mario series broadly canon to the Mario series as a whole so I will be including aspects from that here. Peach first met the Mario Bros and Bowser back when they were babies, with her first meeting with them being during the events of Yoshi’s Island DS. In this game Peach was one of the babies who the Yoshis are trying to help get home, with her ability when riding a Yoshi being to use her parasol which allows them to ride on high winds. The next appearance of Baby Princess Peach was during the Shroob invasion where her older self went back in time and was kidnapped by the Shroobs. Baby Bowser planned to kidnap Baby Peach, however he was interrupted first by the Baby Mario Bros and then by the invading Shroobs. Baby Princess Peach actually manages to not be kidnapped throughout the game instead remaining in the future Castle with a young Toadsworth who is her caretaker. Following these two events (excluding spinoffs with Baby Peach where she appears but there’s no story such as Mario Kart) the Mario Bros seemingly left the Mushroom Kingdom possibly for New Donk City. Despite their absence, Bowser didn’t attempt any more kidnapping plots for some time, possibly not until the Mario Bros returned to the Mushroom Kingdom following the events of Donkey Kong and Mario Bros. Super Mario Bros seems to be the first time Bowser successfully kidnapped Princess Peach taking over her Kingdom entirely until the Mario Bros managed to defeat him and save her. In the backstory to this game, Bowser apparently used magic to transform the people of the Mushroom Kingdom into various objects and then kidnapped the Princess to stop her from turning them back. It’s due to this as well as Peach’s abilities in some games that it seems she is capable of certain forms of magic, often of the healing variety. It is only rarely however Peach is shown to use these abilities.

When it comes to her personality, Peach was probably the earliest character in the series to have dialogue, with her having lines in the very first game and most others after, whereas other characters like Bowser would more often only have dialogue in the instruction book at most. In the very first game it was fairly basic with her simply thanking Mario or Luigi for saving her and offering them the chance to take on a new quest, which was a harder version of the game. Super Mario Bros 3 however had her show a bit more personality, with her making a joke to her saviour at the end of the adventure based on the infamous line Toad would tell the player in the original game, “Thank you Mario but our Princess is in another castle.” Before telling them she was just kidding. Peach’s personality varies a little from game to game, but usually the main aspects of it are that she’s kind, generous and when not captured is good at advising the others what needs to be done. Despite being fairly reliable, she can sometimes be somewhat whimsical, especially in spin-off games with her often enjoying frolicking and singing, and she can when pushed show a fairly strong angry side, with her either aggressively convincing a character such as Luigi to go and save his brother or reacting angrily to those who mock her. Finally, despite her longstanding friendship with Mario, she’s willing to tell him off if he’s getting too carried away, almost abandoning him and Bowser at one point when they start squabbling and she just wants to go home.

Friends: Princess Peach is fairly popular throughout the Mushroom Kingdom and beyond and as such a lot of characters know of her even if they haven’t met her before. Peach’s subjects seem to all adore her a lot with them often being depressed when she’s absent. Of her closer relationships, her closest arguably is with Mario, with him often rescuing her and sometimes her returning the favour. Their relationship tends to be teased sometimes as possibly romantic, but there are times Peach will find Mario a bit too overbearing. What is clear is that they trust each other entirely and when possible will often work together. Peach is close with Luigi also although not to the same degree as Mario, however she will still in some games treat Luigi the same way she does Mario in the ending when Luigi is the character being played as, such as giving him a kiss on the cheek. Later games have shown she extends this to anyone who helps her as a sign of gratitude, including Yoshi, Toad and Toadette. The next closest relationship Peach has is with Toadsworth her elderly steward who has taken care of her since she was a baby. Toadsworth often worries for the Princess’s safety and tries to accompany her whenever he can. Toad is Peach’s attendant and often fulfils Toadsworth’s role in his absence sticking by her side when possible. Toad is fiercely loyal to Peach despite his cowardice and will often try to help her out however he can.

Toadette is someone Peach gets along with, however the two don’t interact that often with Toadette often doing other roles to help Mario. Peach has a connection to the Yoshis due to them saving her with the other Star Children when she was a baby, however besides this there is only one instance of her ever riding Yoshi, which is in the ending of Super Mario World where she rides Yoshi on the journey back to his house after Bowser is defeated. Of the rest of the cast Peach seems to get along fairly well with most of them, with possibly her best friend being Princess Daisy who she often partners with in various sports and other games and the two will also act as friendly rivals when in competition with each other.

Enemies/Rivals: The relationship between Bowser and Peach seems to have developed over the years. Initially Bowser seemed to aim to capture Peach simply because she was the princess of the Kingdom he was invading and then because she could undo the magic he used to transform her citizens. Eventually however, Bowser seemed to develop an affinity for Peach, one which she does not reciprocate at all. Due to this, Bowser’s aim is always to kidnap Peach and try to convince her to marry him rather than just destroy her as with his other enemies. Bowser also at one point told his son Bowser Jr that Peach was his Mother, which led to her being shocked when Bowser Jr claimed this. Despite Junior revealing later on he knew Peach wasn’t his real Mother, he still referred to her as Mama and seems to like the idea of it, kidnapping Peach sometimes so she can be with Bowser. Although Peach does not get along with Bowser or his troops, she will work with them when needed, and in cases where Bowser helps against another enemy she is willing to do things such as send him a cake as thanks. Beyond this, Peach has had a few other enemies, often them being villains who kidnap her as part of their plan such as Sir Grodus or Cackletta. Peach has fought against a couple of villains herself including Count Bleck’s minions, Smithy’s Gang and Wart, leader of the 8 bits who invaded Subcon.

Crossovers with other Smash characters: Being from the Mario series, Princess Peach has had a fair few crossovers, although not as many as the Mario Bros themselves. Super Mario RPG had Peach playable as part of the party, and therefore she was also present when Samus made a cameo in the game. Link’s cameo in the game appears before Princess Peach joins the party, however they are still technically in the same game so I feel it’s still worth mentioning. Princess Peach similarly to Mario appears in the crowd for both the Megaton Punch minigame and Kirby’s Battle in the Boxing arena with King Dedede in Kirby Super Star and the remake Super Star Ultra. Princess Peach is a racer in Mario Kart 8, where there was a Mii costume for Captain Falcon, along with the Blue Falcon as a kart and two F-Zero tracks. In Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, there is also Link in both his Skyward Sword and Breath of the Wild incarnations as well as both default Inklings, two human Animal Crossing Villagers and Isabelle who are playable. Princess Peach is a character in the Game & Watch Gallery games and as such has crossed over with Mr. Game & Watch. In the NES version of Tetris, Pit appeared playing a harp alongside characters such as Princess Peach, Samus, Link and Donkey Kong. Princess Peach is a character in the Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games series therefore crossing over with Sonic. Pac-Man has crossed over with Princess Peach in the arcade Mario Kart GP series. Whilst Princess Peach has never directly crossed over with any of the Hero characters from Dragon Quest, many of the Fortune Street games have featured crossovers with the Dragon Quest and Mario series, with many other Dragon Quest characters interacting with her. Finally, and perhaps most notably is a game where Princess Peach has a direct cameo and Mario doesn’t. (There is however a character based on him) In all versions of Link’s Awakening a character named Catherine sends a photo of ‘herself’ to Mr. Write (a character who is a clear reference to Dr. Wright from the SNES SimCity game who is also an assist trophy in Super Smash Bros) with him showing Link the photo which is a picture of Princess Peach. In reality, Catherine is a goat living in Animal Village. Whilst normally I tend to not include pictures or outfits in other games as cameos (Peach’s dress and parasol appear in many other series such as Animal Crossing for example) I felt in this case it was justified as the photo is part of the actual sidequest regarding the character’s identity rather than just being a background cameo.

Why this game?

Princess Peach has been playable in a few games so I had quite a few to choose from, Super Mario 3D World was one contender with Peach playing somewhat similarly to how she does in Super Smash Bros, however she lacked something specific in this game that I went for with my final choice. The other two notable options, Super Paper Mario and Super Princess Peach which was her starring role both had her play in a somewhat more unique way to how she did in Super Smash Bros, with Perry the Parasol being a big part of her moveset in SPP, whilst in SPM Peach only had her Parasol lacking her floating jump. Super Mario Bros 2 was the first time Princess Peach was playable, and most of her moveset in Super Smash Bros originates from the game, with not only her being able to float for a short time when she jumps, but perhaps the most unique aspect from the game being her ability to pull out turnips to throw as weapons, something she only does in SMB2. It was for these reasons I decided to go with Super Mario Bros 2 in this case, especially as those other games will still be covered later down the line on my list. When it comes to the version of the game I chose, I went for the Super Mario Advance incarnation rather than the original NES or Allstars version, however I will detail that more in the next section overall.

My past with this game.

So this game is one of the select few specifically from my childhood. I had Super Mario Allstars on the SNES with this game on it, but also I had the NES version as well. With the NES version the main thing I remember is just having the box with the picture of Mario on the front. Similarly to other games then I never completed this one, however it was probably the Mario game I got the least far playing. I believe I would only ever get to 1-3 before usually not making it past the Phantos to face Mouser. For some time I mostly remembered the game but didn’t really revisit it, it wasn’t exactly in the same class as Super Mario Bros 3 or Super Mario World even if I did have some fond memories of it for being so different. Probably the most confusing thing with the game for me back then was related to the cartoon show. In the cartoon show, Bowser is depicted looking different to the games, with him being mostly green with a crown on his head as opposed to his look in the vast majority of other appearances with orange scales on his body and only his head green as well as lacking a crown. Wart, the antagonist of Super Mario Bros 2 however, was all green with a crown on his head. Due to this, I believed that the King Koopa on the cartoon show was actually Wart (which might not be that outlandish as the first version of the cartoon show was based on Super Mario Bros 2, so it was likely King Koopa was just an amalgamation of Bowser and Wart, although this is DIC so the possibility of them just screwing it up is always the most likely scenario) Another perhaps somewhat unique source of this was my Grandma when I’d visit her as a kid, who would have various games I could play with my Cousins, and one she had was a card game called Super Mario Bros Blockbusting Card Game. Of course, being a big fan of Mario then I would love getting this out, especially as the big cards had artwork of the various enemies, powerups and the Mario Bros. What was interesting was this also had artwork of Wart as well as Bowser, which therefore for me back then looked even more similar, so I just assumed Wart was the King Koopa from the cartoons and Bowser was from the games. What helped with this was there were a fair few of the bosses from Super Mario Bros 2 who were cards in the set.

It was only with magazines I believe that I gradually learnt that Wart was the antagonist of Super Mario Bros 2, and at first I believed this meant he was the villain from the cartoon show till I finally realised the cartoon show wasn’t really relevant to the games at all and King Koopa was meant to be Bowser. I also at this time learnt probably the other most notable aspect of this game, that it wasn’t the original Super Mario Bros 2. Despite having Super Mario Allstars, back then I didn’t exactly look at the Lost Levels as anything else other than a weird version of Super Mario Bros I couldn’t get anywhere on, and it was only later I learnt that that was the game in Japan that was SMB2 and the SMB2 I knew had been another game altogether, Doki Doki Panic. What’s interesting is I believe apparently Miyamoto was more involved in Doki Doki Panic than SMB2 (Lost Levels) overall, so it’s not as if the game becoming a Mario one was completely out of nowhere. It’s also very interesting that so many factors of this game, things like Peach’s movement, Luigi’s distinct character design, Toad being playable and perhaps the biggest one being various enemies such as Bob-ombs and Shy Guys became a huge part of the Super Mario Bros series, with Bob-ombs appearing in the following game SMB3 (Which meant in Japan these enemies somehow went from being in Doki Doki Panic to Super Mario Bros 3.) The reason for this apparently was that they believed the original SMB2 (Lost Levels) was too difficult really to sell outside of Japan, something that tends to be mocked now, but personally I think it makes for a more interesting and unique sequel so I’m kind of glad it happened. It’s also interesting to me that due to this, outside of Japan Super Mario Bros fits a slight pattern I noticed with a couple of franchises on NES, where the second game in the series would be quite different to the first, then the third would end up being more like the first game again but expanded. The Legend of Zelda had Zelda II Adventure of Link which had sidescrolling as a major gameplay element before A Link to the Past brought the series back to how it was in the original game, Castlevania 2 Simon’s Quest was a lot different to the first game, but Castlevania 3 Dracula’s Curse brought it back to the gameplay of the first game, and with SMB2 it was radically different to SMB, but then SMB3 brought it back to the style of the first game.

Another big part of my history with the game, as with a fair few franchises, goes back to my experiences on the early internet, specifically Newgrounds flash animations again. Back then, there was a flash animation at the time called Rise of the Mushroom Kingdom which I really enjoyed. It was bloody and involved Mario dying and Luigi setting out for revenge, fairly tame compared to a lot of stuff on Newgrounds then and with some really nice usage of sprites. It was the second flash movie in this series however that involved Mario setting off to face the real villain behind the events of the first movie (which turned out to have been a dream) Wart that really made me appreciate SMB2 more. At the time I was really getting into messing around with sprites and Games Factory, trying to make my own games, so this flash movie made me look a lot more into SMB2 and all the unique enemies in it, with the various bosses such as Mouser, Tryclyde and of course Birdo and Wart being characters I wanted to see more of. This all led me to finally properly play SMB2 and beat it some time after I had beaten SMB3.

For my final history with the game, it relates mostly to Super Mario Advance, the remake of Super Mario Bros 2 that launched the Game Boy Advance. It was traditional at that point to launch a new Nintendo console with a Mario game, a pattern that would be broken only a few months later with the release of the Gamecube (which instead had Luigi’s Mansion, and the Wii wouldn’t have a Mario series game at all at launch.) This game was the first in the Super Mario Advance series and it’s arguably the version that was changed the most from the original game, with a few changes to the levels such as new giant Shy Guys and a fair bit more voice acting with all the bosses getting lines they’d say when you met them. This is pure speculation I’ve had since then, but I feel like they possibly picked Super Mario Bros 2 as they felt it was the game that they could risk changing most, and also that they changed it the most of the series so as to show off what the GBA was capable of with the voices and sprites. I remember when the GBA was the current console, Super Mario Advance was the game I’d tend to see most often being shown off in stores, even sometime after other games had come out. Despite this, it was probably the last game in the Advance series I got, but I’d say out of the Mario Advance series it’s the game I’d most recommend instead of or alongside the original or Allstars version as it’s the more unique experience. It’s due to this that I chose Super Mario Advance as the version for my playthrough rather than the others.

My Smash Playthrough.

I have actually played through this game fairly recently from start to finish, for a character much further down my list so the game is somewhat fresh in my memory compared to other games I’ve written about so far here. For this playthrough as it was the game I chose for Princess Peach I played through the whole game solely as her. In comparison I’d say she’s one of the characters who I prefer playing as due mostly to her extremely useful floating ability, with her downside (being her power which means she’s unable to pull vegetables or pick up enemies as quickly and a slower running speed) not really feeling too much of a hassle in exchange. I want to focus on Peach mostly, but Mario as always is the all-rounder having no real weaknesses nor gimmicks that make him excel in any area, Luigi has the best jump but is a little slower and less powerful than Mario (this is also the game where he first had his scuttle jump) and finally Toad (the character I played through the game as recently) is the fastest and most powerful but has the lowest jump, often requiring you to charge up a super jump (done by crouching down until the character starts glowing) to reach higher platforms. The plot of the game is that Mario had a dream one night where he went up a staircase and found a mysterious door. Opening the door he saw a vast world before him and heard a voice telling him this land was Subcon and that the evil Wart is causing suffering there. The voice tells Mario that only he can save the land and to remember Wart hates vegetables before Mario wakes up. The next day, Mario, Luigi, Toad and Princess Peach go for a picnic, Mario tells them of the dream he had and they all say they had the same dream. During their picnic they see a cave and look inside it, finding a staircase leading up to the same door from the dream. When they open it, they are once again standing before Subcon, with them this time entering which is where the game starts.

Probably the most immediate point for most Mario players to notice when first playing this game is how it is very different when it comes to a lot of the standard Mario mechanics, granted when the game came out this was following only the original Super Mario Bros, so it wasn’t quite as unusual. Some aspects remain the same, such as the characters turning small when they have only one hit left, however unlike in other Mario games their health is restored by finding hearts, with any amount of hearts over one bringing them back to regular size. Mushrooms are in the game still, but this time finding one and picking it up gives the character an extra heart (as well as fully healing them) which means they’re a lot less common than in other Mario games. This game also lacks any sort of power-ups such as the Fire Flower, with the only alternate form being brief invincibility when touching a Star. I quite enjoy the main mechanic used to fight in this game, being picking up objects or enemies and throwing them at other enemies to defeat them, it provides a fun and fairly unique style of gameplay to the other games in the series and creates fairly basic puzzles in some cases where you’re required to build a small tower of mushroom blocks as an example to be able to reach a high platform. Possibly one of the most infamous aspects of this game are the keys that are sometimes required in stages to get through a locked door. You are required to carry the keys similarly to other objects to the door, however when holding the key, the evil Phanto Masks will relentlessly pursue you, and only stop either when you use the key on the door or drop the key. Despite their reputation and giving me some trouble as a kid, nowadays I barely find them a problem as just throwing the key ahead of you usually gets them off your back long enough to travel a fair distance before they pursue you again.

When it comes to difficulties I faced playing the game, it’s a fairly easy game, with only two sections I remember really causing me many problems both recently and back during this playthrough. The first is a stage where you’re travelling across the tops of whales in the ocean. The top of them is a fairly big platform, although the middle of the platform will sometimes have water spout out of their blowhole. Touching this water from the side will hurt you which can be somewhat annoying, however jumping on top of the water that’s spurting out provides a platform. Perhaps the most irritating part to me is when you’re required to use the whales tails as platforms, mostly as they are very small and it can be very easy to slip off of them, leading to an instant death. The second and probably most irritating situation in the game for me are parts featuring you digging through sand. In these parts of the level there are layers of sand that you can dig by pulling them similarly to how you pull vegetables out of the ground. The problem with these parts are the Shy Guys who constantly walk from left to right, and will fall down the layers of Sand you’ve removed. Due to how little room you have to manoeuvre when you get lower in the sand, picking the Shy Guys up and throwing them doesn’t really work, often with them catching on a layer above and instantly walking back into you taking off health. The way I describe this sounds like it’s a design issue but it’s more just hard to describe and really makes sense when playing, it’s not unfair or anything, it’s just these sections are the ones I tend to die most at and find the most tedious, possibly simply due to impatience when it comes down to it.

The stages aren’t really ground-breaking, but when compared to the stages in the original Super Mario Bros I feel they have a fair bit more variety. The themes for them are grassland, vertical waterfall stages, desert stages, underground caves and snow stages, with some of them simply being at night. I still find the stages do some interesting things however with them not seeming just like variations of each other but often having a few unique features to them that makes them stand out, for example the very first stage is a fairly basic grassland, but the end of it has you going into a cave to reach the top of some hills, then climbing into the clouds before facing the boss. The levels are longer than those in the original Super Mario Bros, however there are less of them, with each world only having 3 stages, and the last world, World 7 only having two. The game is somewhat challenging, it was probably the one I got the least far in of the Super Mario Bros games as a kid, but despite a couple of issues I find it fairly simple to play through now, especially with Peach.

The Bosses are probably the more interesting of the first three Super Mario Bros games with there being quite a few variations, although some are repeated a few times. This game was the debut of Birdo who appears in a few variations. The most basic battle with Pink Birdo has her shoot eggs from her mouth at you, which you have to grab from the air and throw back at her. Red Birdo shoots eggs also, but varies it with some fireballs, so you have to be careful which projectile you jump onto and which you just avoid. Green Birdo is the final variation shooting only fireballs, requiring you to grab other objects from around the room to throw instead of eggs to beat her. There is a fourth sort of variation exclusive to Super Mario Advance, being the Robo Birdo. This boss fires eggs also like Birdo, however the eggs are giant and it also has a charging attack which requires you to grab one of the chains hanging from the ceiling to avoid. Birdos are usually the bosses of the regular stages in Super Mario Bros 2, with the third stage of each world having a unique boss to fight, Robo Birdo being one of these unique bosses who replaces a repeated boss in the original versions of the game. There are a couple of unique appearances of Birdo in the game however which I find neat personally, one of which is a Pink Birdo who appears at the very start of stage 4-3. This Birdo will always respawn when defeated when you leave the area through a door and return again. The reason why is that the eggs she fires are actually meant to be used to ride across a large chasm to reach the rest of the level, which is probably one of my favourite little gimmicks in the game.

Mouser is the first main boss in the game, a Mouse with sunglasses who likes to throw bombs everywhere, naturally the way to beat him is to throw his bombs back at him. I remember finding this boss a little annoying mostly as he’s on a platform above you, and only gets effected by the bomb if it goes off where he’s standing. Due to his erratic movements this can be down to luck somewhat as to whether he’ll stand in the right spot when the bomb explodes, although it’s hardly a difficult battle overall. What’s probably most interesting to me about Mouser is that he is probably the boss who varies the most between versions of the game. In the original form of the game, Doki Doki Panic he appeared as a boss three times, with a green eared version in stage 3-3 and a white furred version in 5-3. Super Mario Bros 2 replaced the version in 5-3 with another boss, and then Super Mario Advance replaced the green eared version with Robo Birdo, but actually had a second boss battle with the regular Mouser replace a second boss battle with another character. Tryclyde is the next boss faced all versions of the game, being a three headed snake that shoots fireballs and has to have mushroom blocks thrown at it. Interestingly Tryclyde appears again as a boss in SMB2 but in Super Mario Advance it’s replaced in it’s second battle by Mouser. Another odd factor with Tryclyde is in Super Mario Bros 2 it is red, but in the remake for Mario All-Stars and Super Mario Advance it is instead green with red patterns on it’s back. It’s particularly odd in this case as some enemies, Cobrats who are single headed snakes that appear in the game remain red in all versions. Tryclyde is more of a challenging boss than Mouser and caused me perhaps a death or two but wasn’t that tough overall. The next boss is probably the one I had the most trouble with, Fryguy a living flame. Due to being a flame, touching Fry Guy at all causes damage, so you have to throw mushroom blocks at him. What makes this battle more difficult is that Fryguy moves around a fair bit, and hitting him with the mushroom blocks due to this without being hit yourself can be a lot more tricky. On top of this, when you beat the first phase of the boss fight, Fryguy then splits into four smaller versions that can be just as tricky to hit and all need to be extinguished in order to beat him. Fryguy is probably second only to Wart when it comes to how often I’d die to him, and I think in this playthrough actually killed me more than Wart did. Clawgrip the crab is the final of the standard bosses in the game, throwing boulders at you which have to be picked up and thrown back at him. I remember this battle being a little tricky as landing on the boulders properly could be tough, and approaching from the side at all would cause you damage, but overall he was less tough than Fryguy to me. Clawgrip replaced the white Mouser and was the only boss who wasn’t in Doki Doki Panic (besides Robo Birdo.) Every boss is voiced in this version of the game and I find them fun little voicelines overall that make them more memorable, with lines like Mouser going “Here, have some bombs!” or Birdo’s “This is as far as you go!”

The final two levels are the most difficult overall, not being as irritating to me as the digging through sand or whale sections earlier in the game, but more difficult stages overall than the others, with the first having you travelling across clouds with a lot of enemies and pits to overcome and the second being a big palace which is probably the biggest maze in the game. They are both however, probably my favourite levels in the game overall. I tend to have an affinity for cloud based sky stages and I find the palace a fitting final location. Wart is the final boss of the game and is fought in a room with the Dream Machine which he has been using possibly to create the various monsters that make up his army of bad dreams. The Dream Machine seems to perhaps possess some sort of sentience however, as in the final battle it starts shooting out vegetables which can be grabbed and thrown into Wart’s mouth to defeat him. Wart fights by shooting out bubbles and it is only when he opens his mouth to do so he can be hurt by throwing a vegetable in there, which was why at the start of the game Mario was told about Wart hating them as a hint. I remember having some trouble years ago with timing the vegetables so as to not get hit by the bubbles, but this time it went fairly smoothly and I beat Wart I think first time. With Wart defeated you go through to the next room and free the native inhabitants of Subcon from a jar, who celebrate Mario, Luigi, Toad and Peach defeating Wart and saving them before seeming to throw the defeated Wart out of the Palace. With this, the scene then switches to Mario in bed, revealing the whole game was a dream as cast credits for all of the enemies in the game go by, which in the original version of the game had a couple of mistakes such as Ostro, a minor enemy and Birdo’s names being swapped, which is corrected in this version. It’s a nice ending and for those who overanalyse these games like me, somewhat interesting as a few of the enemies who first appeared in this game such as Shy Guys and Snifits actually also appeared in Yoshi’s Island when Mario was a baby, so as this is part of a dream those memories might be related to them appearing in Wart’s army of bad dreams, although I know it’s probably nothing that deep overall. So overall, I enjoyed playing through this game, it’s not overly long or difficult and as a portable game back when it came out and the first example of what the GBA could do, it was very good overall I’d say.

Specific aspects about the game relating to Peach in Smash.

I’ve pretty much gone over the main aspects of Princess Peach in this game when it comes to Super Smash Bros, this game was the origin of Peach’s floating jump ability and her pulling turnips out of the ground to throw at enemies. In Super Smash Bros, very rarely Peach can pull other items out of the ground instead of a turnip, one of which being a Bob-omb, which is possible also in Super Mario Bros 2 where some of the tufts of grass when pulled will turn out to be a Bob-omb which has to be thrown away immediately or else it will explode on you. Other than this however, most of Peach’s other moves come from other games I will cover later, such as her frying pan being from Super Mario RPG, Tennis Racket and Golf Club from their respective sports series and Parasol from various other games. There’s nothing really to customise so that’s pretty much it for Peach’s appearance in this game.

Credits.

For information on this game including dates of releases I must give credit to Super Mario Wiki.

The screenshots in this post are taken by me using Miiverse before it shut down.

#Princess Peach #Princess Toadstool #Super Mario Bros #Super Mario Bros 2 #Super Mario Advance #Super Smash Bros #GBA #Wii U #Virtual Console #My Smash Playthrough #My Smash Playthroughs

7 notes · View notes

patagucci34 · 5 years ago

Text

Unbelievable

Warnings: some swearing and mentions of sex

Word count: 3000

Alex and I have a complicated relationship…we've known each other a long time. Our parents were friends when the Nylander's lived in DC, and because of that, we spent a lot of time together. After the Nylander's moved on from DC, we would see them a few times a year. Once Alex and I got older our relationship matured as well. We never dated because of the distance but whenever we got to see each other we had lots of fun together…

When I graduated high school, I moved to Chicago and attended Northwestern University. Alex and I kept in touch, when he played in Chicago we usually met up, and of course, over the summer we usually saw each other a few times. After graduation, I got a job and stayed in the city. I remember being at work and getting a call from Alex, which was kind of unusual. It was over the summer, and because I stayed in Chicago, we hadn't seen each other yet. I let the call go to voicemail and not a minute later I received a text from him,

hey, call me when you can.

That kind of text made me nervous coming from him, so I decided to text him back,

I'm at work, and I’ll call you when I get a break. Is everything okay?

I put my phone back down and went back to work while I waited for a response. A few minutes later, my phone buzzed and I picked it up to look at it.

Yes, just have some really exciting news XXX.

I rolled my eyes at his use of "kisses," most likely intentionally using three x's for its sexual meaning. Now he has me curious, but I tried my best to push him out of my mind so I could get work done undistracted.

Unfortunately, I didn't end up getting a chance to call Alex during the day, but when I got out, it was the first thing I did. It rang a few times before he picked up.

"Hey, babe." He said picking up the phone.

"Hi, Alex. So what's your exciting news?" I asked impatiently.

"Ah, always so impatient…" He teased.

"Alex, seriously, it's been killing me all day."

He chuckled before finally telling me the news, "I got traded to the Blackhawks."

"Oh, shit! That's awesome!!" I said excitedly. Although, I'm not exactly sure why he's so excited to tell me. Alex's reputation with women is no secret, and I'm sure he'll continue when he moves to a new city.

"I'm moving there at the beginning of August, but I'm coming in a few days to see the city. I'd love to see you."

"Yeah, of course, work has been busy this week, but just let me know when you have some free time."

"I will. See you soon, babe."

"Bye, Alex." I said and hung up. I sighed as I put my phone in my pocket and continued my walk home.

~~~~~

August approached very quickly. Seeing Alex when he came to visit was nice, but I started wondering what it would mean for our relationship. Would we hang more? Would we hang out less? Would it be hard to see him with other girls? Don't get me wrong, I knew what our arrangement consisted of, I definitely hung out with other guys too, we just have never been in close proximity since we were kids. To make matters worse, or better I guess, he was living with a teammate whose apartment was a five minute walk from mine.

Alex reached out the day he got here. I went over and helped him unpack some stuff and then we went and got dinner. He came over a little bit after, but figured he should probably stay with his teammate his first night here.

We didn't see each other much during training camp because he was so busy, but once or twice a week he would make time to come over. As the season officially started, he was coming over a few times a week, but not usually the weekends because I only assumed he was taking girls home he met out the clubs. That was the thing about us, I was never invited out, never invited to team stuff, which was fine, we aren't dating, but we are friends. We go to dinner sometimes but usually we just order in and have sex.

This arrangement went on for a few months before some things started to change. When Alex had first gotten here we had talked about what our relationship was. He had decided we were just "having fun." I was fine with that, I liked having my options open and would be lying if I said I was ready for a relationship.

However, one night, in mid-November, Alex had texted me asking if he could come over. His phrasing was different from his usual 'hang tonight?', so I was a little worried about what he wanted. When he got to my place, he was acting a little awkward. It took a while for him to finally spit out what he wanted. We were eating at the time and I almost did a spit take in response to his question.

"So, um, I need a favor." He asked softly.

"What kind of favor?"

"I need a date to a team event."

This was where I did my spit take. "I'm sorry, what?"

He looked taken aback at my response. He was at a loss for words so I kept going. "For months, you keep me away from all of that stuff, and now you want me to go because you can't find another date?"

"Oh come on, Y/N. It's not like that…I just, please. I need a date. You have to come."

"No way, you're the one who labeled this as 'just fun'. I don't have to do anything."

"But we're friends too. Please, Y/N. I'd really appreciate it."

"Why do you need a date anyway? I'm sure people go solo."

"Yeah, but it looks better."

I rolled my eyes. "Fine, but you owe me."

He smiled big and gave me a big hug and kiss. We finished eating and moved to the living room to watch some TV.

I was lost in my thoughts, this is the kind of stuff that I really wanted to avoid. Even though I'm okay with how our relationship is now, I'm worried about treading into those waters because I feel like I already have underlying feelings that I have been able to push deep down and I'm worried they will start to come up. I was interrupted from my thoughts by Alex waving a hand in front of my face.

"Hey, spacey, you there?"

"Yeah, sorry," I said coming back to reality.

"I think I'm gonna head out, thanks for dinner."

"Alright, I'll see you later."

I'm glad he left, I really wasn't in the mood to do anything, especially with him.

~~~~~

A few weeks went by, I went to the event with Alex and it wasn't as bad as I thought. He introduced me to everyone as an old family friend. I decided I was okay with that because hopefully it would help suppress feelings. I mostly just stayed by Alex's side that night, making conversation with some of the WAGs when the opportunity arose. A few of them pressed about the status of our "friendship." But luckily I was able to convince them we truly were just friends, which is what we are.

One Saturday night, I went out with a few friends from work. Unfortunately, they picked a club that the Blackhawks frequent. I was hoping since they lost their game that night, they wouldn't go out, but I knew that was wishful thinking. I was 4 vodka sodas deep, trying forget the stressful week at work. I had met a guy at the bar that had been occupying my time on the dance floor. We had been making out on and off and when he let go of my lips for a brief second I looked over and saw Alex staring us down. He looked angry, and that made me mad. I knew the look in his eyes, he was going to come over and interrupt us. Just a few minutes later, we were making out again, and I felt a hand grab my arm and pull me away. Sure enough, it was Alex.

"What the hell, man?" The guy said to Alex.

Alex ignored him and continued pulling me away. He walked us to a quieter corner by the bathrooms.

"What the hell, Alex. What are you doing?"

"You don't need to be dancing with him like that." He said with a dark look in his eyes.

"Oh really, and why not?"

"You don't know him, and he was looking at you funny."

"So what if I don't know him? You go home with random girls all the time." I said before walking away, however, I was stopped once again, by Alex grabbing my arm and pulling me back to him.

"That's different, I just don't want you dancing with him."

"I can do whatever I want, Alex. We're not dating." I said trying to shrug my arm out of his grip, but it only tightened. "Let me go."

"No."

"Alex."

"Y/N."

"What do you want from me?"

"I want you to not dance with that guy."

"Not gonna happen."

"Then I'm not gonna let go of your arm."

"You're being ridiculous."

Before he had time to retort, his teammate Kirby had come over.

"What's going on over here?"

We both looked over at him and I was able to get the first word in. "Nothing, I'm going home." I said finally being able to release myself from his grip. I stalked off to find my friends and tell them I was going home. I walked out front to wait outside for my Uber and I could feel the presence of the annoying blonde I had just escaped near me. I looked over to see him escorting a girl out the door and get into an Uber.

"Unbelievable," I muttered under my breath as I got into my Uber and went back to my apartment.

It had been a few days since our encounter in the club and I hadn't heard from him. I wasn't really surprised but I guess part of me was hoping he would reach out and apologize. That part of me never got the satisfaction because it took four weeks to finally hear from him.

A guy from work, Wyatt, asked me on a date, it went well. Although we were trying to take things slow, we were texting quite a bit and hanging out a lot, and I was starting too really like him. I was realizing that Alex had been holding me back in that department. When he was around, I wasn't allowing myself to explore relationships.

I'm not sure how Alex caught wind of my new friend, but I was sure to find out when he came banging on my door. It startled me, but when I looked through the peephole to see an upset Alex standing outside my door, I got angry.

I opened the door and he pushed right through me and started pacing around the apartment.

"What is your issue?" I asked.

"My issue? How come I have to find out you have a boyfriend through your friends?"

"Excuse me, what? 1. Why were you talking to my friends? 2. I don’t have a boyfriend, and 3. Why does it matter to you if I did? You haven't spoken to me in 4 weeks."

He didn't respond to me, instead got redder in the face when my phone dinged and he saw it was from Wyatt. My eyes widened when Alex grabbed my phone and started to unlock it. I went to grab it out of his hands but he stepped back and put it up higher in the air.

"Alex, give me phone back!"

He started down the hallway and I quickly followed, trying to grab for my phone. He picked up the pace and darted into my room. I tried to push on the door but he was too strong for me. The door latched and I heard the lock.

I started banging on the door, "Alex, stop! Open the door." I heard nothing so I kept banging. "Please, Alex. I really like him, don't mess this up for me."

A few seconds later, the door swung open and he handed my phone back with a triumphant look on his face.

My face fell when I saw the text that Alex has just sent to Wyatt. Hey, I'm so sorry but I can't keep talking to you, it’s just not the right time for me to start a relationship.

I looked up at Alex and couldn't stop a tear from falling.

"Why would you do that? You had no right to do that." I said with the tears starting to roll.

He looked guilty and at a loss for words.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know it would make you this upset."

"Get out," I said pointing at the door.

"Y/N, come on. I didn't think tha--"

"Stop. You don't get to barge in here, not after ignoring me for four weeks because of what you did at the club. You don't get to decide who I talk to, or hang out with. You made that very clear when you said we were just having fun, and you only reach out when you want to have sex."

He looked at me with sad eyes, wheels turning in his head as he's trying to figure out what to say. He opened and closed him mouth a few times before speaking up, "I'm sorry, y/n/n, I, I just, I guess, I don't know what to say."

"And yet you're still here." I looked between him and the door and after what seemed like hours, he nodded and walked towards the door. He turned the handle and paused looking back at me. I looked away and he walked out the door. The tears streamed down my face as I watched the door close. I went to my bedroom and cried myself to sleep.

Alex tried reaching out a few times in the week after that but I didn't respond to him. I had smoothed things over with Wyatt at work but figured maybe it wasn't a good time to explore a new relationship with all of this Alex garbage going on.

About two weeks after our fight, I heard a knock on the door. I looked through the peephole and saw Alex with take out in hand. I contemplated whether or not I was going to open the door.

"I see your shadow…" he called out. I sighed and opened the door.

"What?"

"Will you please talk to me, I brought Chinese," he said holding up the bags of food.

I stepped aside and let him walk by me. He walked to the kitchen and put the bags down and grabbed plates from the cabinet. He fixed us both a plate and brought them to the counter where we sat down and ate in silence. Once we were both finished he took our plates and put them in the sink. He came back over and sat down. We sat in silence for a little bit longer before he spoke up.

"I'm sorry, Y/N. I really am. I shouldn't have come over here and done that. Not after how I have been treating you. You're right, I had no right to do that." He paused to look at me, I looked down to my lap because I didn't know what to say, so he kept going. "I don't want you to be with other guys, it's selfish, I know. But I can't stand the thought of someone else getting to spend time with you. I never have been able to, that's why I kept you so separate. I didn't want to have to see or hear about you with other guys. I'm realizing now that that was unfair to you."

At this point, tears were rolling and I couldn't stop them. He has stopped what he was saying and wiped away some of tears. I didn't protest but I also wasn't sure what to think of all this. I think he sensed my hesitation and wrapped his arms around me in a tight hug. We stayed like that for a few minutes. "I'm not letting you go and we both know you don't want me to either."

I relaxed in his arms after he said that. He was rubbing circles in my back.

We had stayed like that for a while before I pulled away and wiped my face

"So, what does this all mean?" I asked.

"I guess we need to figure that out. I want you in my life, y/n/n. I can't imagine my life without. I truly am sorry that I have treated you so poorly. I want to make things right and I want this to work."

"What do you mean, you want this to work? You want what to work?"

"Us, I want you to be mine and I will be yours. I'm realizing it's what I have wanted for a long time, I'm just sorry it's taken me being a dick to realize…"

I looked into his eyes and could tell he meant everything that he was saying.

"So, what do you say? Can we do this?" he asked with a hopeful look in his eyes.

I smiled, "yeah, let's do this."

He smiled and wrapped me in a hug. We went to bed and just cuddled up with each other. I could hear his soft snores as drifted off to sleep, I smiled knowing I'd wake up and he'd be there, and we were finally happy together.

#alex nylander #alex nylander imagine #nhl imagines #nhl fanfiction

75 notes · View notes

radramblog · 4 years ago

Text

Pokemon Legendary Themes Ranked

I saw a video of a youtuber I like doing this tier list so I thought I’d get my own opinions in first so I’m not biased by theirs. This list is a little incomplete- there’s a few things I know are missing, most pointedly side game stuff, but I suppose they can’t win em all. Thus, here are my objectively factual opinions, no nostalgia bias here surely. Here’s a link to the list in case you want to do the same.

(Tiers are sorted in increasing quality right to left)

D Tier

Mewtwo (FRLG): Y’all know Articuno/Zapdos/Moltres also use this, right? It’s just a marginally more dramatic version of the regular wilds music, so it gets the fail from me.

Mew (Emerald): This is the same as the last one! Except it gets the edge because it is slightly higher pitched, and because it’s in a game where it’s not a remix of a song you’ve just heard dozens of times.

Mewtwo (XY): I just really dislike the soundfont XY uses for most of its themes. This sounds like a shitty youtube remix from the late 00s with like 300 views, and most of them are the same person who really likes the song for some reason. Am I just biased against the kanto wilds theme? Maybe.

Regis (Crown Tundra): Narrowly dodges being the worst Regis theme since the Platinum one exists (It’s not on this list though). I think a lot of the more recent versions of older themes suffer since they were designed with the lesser hardware in mind. It is a shame because I do really like some of the additions to the theme.

C Tier

Dynamax Legend (Crown Tundra): Mewtwo is already back for his last appearance on the list. It’s just a remix of the max raid theme, which I don’t really care for- especially after hearing it over and over and over again grinding Lairs for shinies.

Calyrex (Crown Tundra): This song being dramatic makes no sense in universe- the player knows this is the big legendary, but the character sure doesn’t- but it ultimately feels hollow. This is deliberate, since it’s actually just one half of another song.

Steeds (Crown Tundra): h o n s e theme is the other half of that song, and it’s the better half, but its still incomplete.

Aura Trio (X/Y) and Solgaleo/Lunala (S/M): These two get lumped together because I always get them conflated, which signifies to me that neither has made a strong impact. Listening to both again, I think I like the latter more, but it’s narrow.

Regis (ORAS): It’s just not the same without the horns. My gen 6 bias is showing, but I don’t really like the soundfont.

Deoxys (ORAS): similar to the Regis, this is held back by the soundfont (why the fuck is there an organ in this??) but also by the fact that at this point, the Deoxys theme just isn’t special anymore. And that’s kinda sad.

Calyrex 2 (Crown Tundra): The full version of this theme is much better, obviously, sounding suitably regal for the king of the tundra, but it overall lands at a meh. The percussion sounds like it’s trying to rip off the Weather Trio’s, which is a big no-no.

B Tier

Eternatus 1 (SwSh): We are now entering the songs I like zone. Eternatus 1 goes in a lot of different directions, and despite how 13-year-old me would balk at it I actually enjoy the dubsteppy bits of it. Sorry to disappoint you, you edgy fuck.

Ultra Beasts (SMUSUM): I don’t know why these are separated, they’re the same theme. I really like the UB theme, but the thing is it isn’t really a legendary theme- it had to be a bit less bombastic seeing as you can just encounter a bunch of these bad bois. And while it sounds suitably alien, I still think it doesn’t belong on this list.

Weather Trio (ORAS): Why is this listed as this, its just for Rayquaza. Extremely dramatic, but a retread of one of my S-tier picks (spoilers oops) and not different enough for the remaster to make it worth it.

Primals (ORAS): the same as the previous, but I do like this much better, what with the song “reverting” to the original every so often. This should probably be higher, but I don’t want to separate it from the “full” version.

Eternatus 2: It’s kind of a shame how little time you get to hear this, because it’s a big ol “you’re fucked” and that’s pretty great. There are bits of this that sound like they’re sampling Kirby Super Star, and I mean that in the nicest possible way.

Galar Birds (Crown Tundra): While I know everyone used to adore this one, I think the honeymoon phase is over for me at this point. I still like it, but at the end of the day it’s still a Kanto Wild remix.

Legendary (BWB2W2): This is really good! The way the tempo shifts around the song is a really nice touch, and that build section is excellent. Just a solid overall theme.

Tao Trio (BW): Reshiram and Zekrom’s themes are slightly different, but even Game Freak forgot that one. Kyurem’s is the same but where they have different SFX it just has dead air, which while fitting is a bit less good. I adore the beat this one has running, almost a throbbing bit going on there. Edit: Ok on relisten I’ve heard Kyurem’s a bit closer, and it’s a little different with some record skips, but they’re pretty unecessary imo.

Zacian/Zamazenta (SwSh): This is one I kinda wish was less dramatic, considering it’s not as oh shit as the situations their other themes have. I kinda hate the opening to this, but the rest of it makes up for it I suppose.

Eternatus 3: Yeah this is a Z/Z theme not an Eternatus theme let’s be real. A suitably triumphant third act to the climax of SwSh’s (lackluster) story. This is kinda just a banger, very much appropriate for the beatdown it accompanies.

Dialga/Palkia (DPPt): Closing the tier with a song that I actually love, but it’s occurred to me that it’s a little odd sitting next to some of these other ones. I mean, it’s mostly built around this very pretty little piano line, which makes it feel less weighty than the competition. It’s a classic, and hasn’t aged poorly or anything, but it’s less of a climax than I would expect. With that in mind, I shudder to think of what would happen to this in a potential remake.

A Tier

Mysterious Being (SwSh): This is getting carried here by that bass alone. The rest of it is ok I guess.

Arceus (DPPt): Ah, the track no one ever got to hear. I really love how sparse this is, being basically only percussion most of the way through. I think the Arceus event is something we should have actually gotten to experience, I’m pretty sure it would have blown little me’s mind.

Lugia (HGSS): HGSS, the games where every legendary got its own theme. Bring this back please, I’m begging here. I understand the reason this sounds the way it does is because it’s based on the Shadow Lugia theme from XD, but I haven’t played that one, so I can’t comment. I’m sure not complaining, though- considering Lugia’s other main appearance (in the movie, of course) I wasn’t expecting such a menacing theme.

Legendary (DPPt): For a “generic” theme (fucking Rotom gets this btw) this has a lot going for it. The animation that plays when you start a fight with this music is burned into my brain. It’s fast, it’s tense, and it sounds great.

Lake Trio (DPPt): Unlike Mysterious Being, while the bass slays here, it’s not alone carrying the song. This track was always my favourite out of Diamond and Pearl, and those games have a fucking great soundtrack, so.

Black/White Kyurem (B2W2): I really love that this is a remix of the (also very menacing) theme you hear when you boot the game up- you’ve heard a version of this while staring at the fucker, now here’s the real version for when you have to fight it. The references to the regular Tao Trio theme are well placed, but this more bombastic version sounds like Kyurem is here to fucking kill you, which to be fair, it kinda is.

Legendary Beasts (Crystal/HGSS): I’m lumping these together since, although HGSS gave each their own remix, they’re basically the same theme. This was the first Legendary music ever written for the series, and it still holds up really well. As for the HGSS remixes, I don’t think Entei’s slower rockier version works as well, but I really like the punchy percussion on Raikou’s version.

Regis (RSE): Hella bass and Hoenn Horns? What’s not to love? I do think the original version of this theme is by far the best one, being an ample payoff for the puzzle that was getting to it in the first place, and it makes hurling balls at the golem’s much more tolerable. I literally never caught Registeel as a kid so I could go back and listen to this whenever I wanted.

Tapus (SMUSUM): Again, why are these separated. Considering this game has literal aliens in it, the Tapu theme in SM is somehow the most messed up sounding one, but it works extremely well. The surprise vocalisations work really well with the… I’m hesitant to say tribal, but I don’t have another word for that vibe to be honest. It does feel like you’re doing a transgression with this song, which you are (why the fuck are you allowed to catch these things in universe lmao).

Ultra Necrozma (USUM): Probably the most climactic song in the entire franchise, and it makes sense- this isn’t just the climax of those games, but the finisher to the entire 3DS era of the series. The church organs, therefore, are pretty justified. This song sounds like a Big Deal, and the organ getting pretty jazzy when it gets to some of the less intense bits is a really nice little touch. And then the percussion picks up again and oh fuck here we goooooo. A fitting track for arguably one of the hardest fights in the entire franchise.

S Tier

Dusk Mane/Dawn Wings Necrozma (USUM): Haha oops I like this one more than Ultra. I think it’s just the unstoppable percussion that opens this that does it. I don’t think anyone who went in blind saw this moment in the games coming, and the intensity reflects this- its like a prelude to Ultra but it doesn’t have as much of a low point, with the onslaught of noise fitting the sheer OH FUCK that is seeing everyone’s favourite bag-dodger getting bodyjacked out of nowhere.

Weather Trio (RSE): Anyone who understands my bias is gonna understand this one. It’s almost entirely carried by nostalgia, but I just love this fucking song. Compared to some of the other things on this list, it feels nearly minimalistic, seeing as it’s pretty much just the drums, horns, and that bell, but that’s all it needs. It’s the first song in the series for a proper legendary, and it suits that fact.

Deoxys (FRLG/E): By contrast, the Deoxys theme is pushing that GBA soundfont to its absolute limit. You can hear some of the best of both the FRLG and RSE soundtracks in this song, with the Kanto percussion and the Hoenn horns both doing their part, but whatever instruments the rest of this is going for are absolutely not slouching either. It’s somewhat telling that the best soundtracks for FRLG romhacks (e.g. Clover) sound more like this than like the other themes in the game.

Ho-Oh (HGSS): Oh fuck is that a koto I love kotos. By contrast with Lugia, Ho-oh is a more relaxed track that takes a lot from traditional Japanese instruments, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t dramatic- far from it. The groove in this makes it sound like it comes from another series entirely, being so incredibly different from anything else the series had to offer at that point. That main riff is so fucking perfect, man.

Giratina (Platinum): I remember having my mind blown when I first heard this. Giratina went from the generic DP legendary music (which is obviously still good) to this chaotic energetic power play, and I was sold on Platinum immediately (like everything before XY, Platinum came out in Japan some months before in other countries, so I heard this well before the game dropped). This song has so many different lines, so many different builds, and yet none of them feel out of place. I almost feel like this song is what started me down the path that would lead to me being a prog fan. After the haunting ambience of the Distortion World, this sheer energy is such a shock to the system, and the climax of the song hits harder than any individual moment on any other song in the series. It’s my number 1 pick, and I love it to bits.

Thus, the full list is as follows. If you end up doing your own, link me up, I’d love to see how wrong you are your opinions.

#ramble #pokemon #music #lists #ill probably do this for other music in these games at some point

2 notes · View notes

gamersonthego · 5 years ago

Text

Matt Giguere’s Top 25 3DS Games

Nine years after a harsh release and changing landscape, the Nintendo 3DS ended up to be the little handheld that could. In a time when standalone handheld systems were out of vogue if they couldn’t multitask, Nintendo managed to release a beast of a portable device and packed it with some very impressive and unique technology such as glasses-free 3D and the wonderful StreetPass software. While it was not as powerful as the PlayStation Vita or ubiquitous as the iPhone, the 3DS managed to stand out and find its audience thanks to an expansive library that still has a slew of exclusives worth checking out today. Very few companies take risks on strange and sometimes impractical tech for the sake of video games, and in the case of the 3DS, I do not think we will see something this unique from a major gaming publisher in a long time.

1. Fire Emblem Awakening

Incredibly, this was to be the last Fire Emblem game in the long running turn-based strategy games, but the success of this one game has kept this franchise alive to this day. Yes, Awakening has caused many of the newer games to become light “dating-sims” that irk a lot of the fans, but the added side conversations give the characters and setting some much needed flavor. The game is loaded with strategic battles and some of the best maps in the series, and the only way to play it currently is on the 3DS. Highly recommended not only for the series, but certainly one of the must haves on the handheld.

2. Pocket Card Jockey

A gem of a card game that is also a horse racing game. I didn’t think the two would be a perfect match, yet the game’s simple idea of racing horses while you play a quick game of solitaire while riding as a jockey in a horse race. There is a fair amount of strategy involved, but there are also bonus abilities and items that can help turn the odds in your favor should you end up sorting a hand. The silliness is enough to check out this game on a whim while mastering it will sink hours of playtime once you’re hooked.

3. The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds

The follow up to one of (if not the) greatest Legend of Zelda games of all time. This 3DS exclusive, and semi-sequel to A Link to the Past, helped to usher back the original top-down, Adventure-style gameplay and not use a unique style of control (such as the touch screen movement and attacking in the Phantom Hourglass). A Link Between Worlds may be the same style of questing many fans have seen before, but there are new approaches to this game thanks to the new item system where you can rent mission critical gear for a certain dungeon and head straight there. No longer is there a straightforward path to saving Hyrule and Lorule (save for a slight intro dungeon). The freedom to tackle each dungeon in any order is very freeing and I hope Nintendo will return to this formula in a new instalment.

4. SteamWorld Heist

Image & Form struck gold with their breakout hit SteamWorld Dig and could have easily slapped together a direct sequel while the iron was hot. Instead, they decided to switch gears and go with an entirely different genre. This 2D-perspective turn-based strategy game helps build on the interesting setting of robots who inhabit the “SteamWorld-verse,” this time set in the outer reaches of space. Packed with plenty of scenarios that randomly generate levels, there is a ton of action strategy to be had in this downloadable game. If all you have is a 3DS to play games on, be sure to try this one.

5. Mario Golf: World Tour

For me, this is a return to form for the Mario sports line and easily the best since the heyday of Mario Golf on the Game Boy Color and Nintendo 64. While it doesn’t have the story mode of the GBC version, the control and overall feel of golfing hit all the right points of the Camelot format that the earlier games nailed. While the interface can be a bit obtuse at times, especially navigating the club house to just start a match, the golf itself has yet to be surpassed in the Mario Golf franchise.

6. Super Mario 3D Land

7. Shovel Knight

8. Pushmo

9. SteamWorld Dig 2

10. Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia

11. Super Smash Bros for 3DS

12. Space Harrier

13. Azure Striker Gunvolt 2

14. Metroid Samus Returns

15. WarioWare Gold

16. Kirby: Planet Robobot

17. SteamWorld Dig

18. Kid Icarus: Uprising

19. Crimson Shroud

20. Liberation Maiden

21. Kirby Triple Deluxe

22. Attack of the Friday Monsters! A Tokyo Tale

23. Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars

24. BOXBOY!

25. Adventure Time: Hey Ice King! Why’d you Steal our Garbage?!!

#matt giguere #3DS #nintendo

4 notes · View notes

tessatechaitea · 5 years ago

Text

The Invisibles #1

If I had to pretend to know anything about art, I'd say this cover represents how pop culture can kill. Or will blow your mind. Or feels dangerous but it's actually pretty safe because the pin is still in the grenade.

What the fuck do I know about art and why the fuck am I assuming this comic book is going to be about art anyway?! Just because Grant Morrison wrote it and I happen to think Grant Morrison has written some pretty smart comic books? Well, I'm pretty sure he's written some huge fucking turds too! It's just that I haven't read any of them that I remember. Apparently I've read a few issues of this but I don't really remember it. I don't like to tell people that I don't remember it when they talk about how great it was because that's admitting that 22 year old me wasn't a discerning critic of his entertainment. At least I also can't remember the truly garbage comic books I was reading in 1994 as well! So it's possible I read this and thought, "I'm so smart because I understand what's happening!" Now I'm terrified to read it because I'm absolutely certain I'll think, "What the hell is going on in this comic book? I'm such a stupid asshole!" Oh boy. This comic book is forty pages long. Get ready for a review that explicates the first fifteen pages thoroughly while also digressing twelve separate times before quickly summarizing the last twenty-five pages so I can go play some Apex.

I can't say for certain this is a shot at Ann Nocenti but, thankfully, I can say it's definitely not a shot at me!

This guy is Elfayed. He's retrieved a mummified scarab from the desert believing it might be a sign for the mysterious bald man with too many face piercings and the endeavor he's currently on. Which is a mystery because Grant Morrison isn't going to let the reader understand the comic book on the first page! Sheesh! The second page doesn't help explain things but it does place the word "synchronicity" burning in my brain like a buzzing, blinking neon sign.

Get it? Mummified beetle. Dead Beatles. Boy throwing a Molotov cocktail. Pop culture and violence. I think I intuitively understand this comic book so 70% of the rest of what I say will be dick jokes.

The kid throwing the explosive is one of three members of a gang called the Croxteth Posse. Every youth in Britain joins a gang no matter how stupid and lame they are. It just proves how hard they are even if they never throw one Molotov cocktail or ever even get their genitals touched. The gang members run off into the night, past some "King Mob" graffiti which will be important later, yelling, "We are the boys! We are the boys!" Is that a thing lame youth gangs in London did in the 80s and 90s? Because I remember Lister and his posse saying that shit about being the boys of the Dwarf when they thought they were acting hard on some adventure that probably involved Lister fucking a future version of himself. The Croxteth gang are from Liverpool because Croxteth is a suburb of Liverpool. It shows how imaginative these youths are. I bet there are at least fifty different Croxteth Posses bumbling about at night destroying things. The bald guys name is Gideon (and possibly King Mob. Unless the antagonist is King Mob. I should probably keep reading to find out) and he's both young and old at the same time. He's probably some kind of spirit of the zeitgeist or something, Grant Morrison's Jenny Sparks. He's looking for a new recruit for his own gang since something happened to John-A-Dreams. He might have just died of old age because Gideon's other acquaintance, Edith, is now 95 years old and sulking in her mortality. He wants her to contact somebody named Tom to let him know he thinks he found their new recruit. I think it's probably the anarchist kid because I know how stories work. I'm starting to think maybe The Invisibles are a bit like the Upright Citizens Brigade. Their only enemy is the status quo. Their only friend is chaos. Except there will be less skits with people wearing giant papier-mâché cat heads and more ultra-violence. The arsonist kid's name is McGowan and he's smarter than he acts, according to his teacher who gives him the old "you're not fulfilling your potential and your friends are just dragging you down" speech. But what kind of an anarchist would McGowan be if he gave a shit about what his teacher thinks of him? Oh, that's right! He'd be a good anarchist if he really gave a shit and a bad anarchist if he didn't give a shit but he let the teacher's words affect him anyway. That's how anarchy works, right? The problem with anarchy is that it needs a few rules to make it work well but you can't enforce any rules or else you're not living an anarchic lifestyle. Here's my definition of anarchy from Places & Predators, my roller playing game: a philosophy where anybody can do anything they want without worrying about some stupid guard putting an axe in their head. But they have to worry about everyone else putting an axe in their head all the time because there are no guards. I should probably read The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin instead of all these stupid Han Solo and Lando Calrissian adventure books.

Oh, well McGowan's mother withholds love and affection and blames him for all the ills in her life. I suppose I can now forgive him for torching the school library, right?

McGowan heads out to sit in the cold and watch John Lennon have a conversation with Stuart Sutcliffe. They joke about being dead and it's funny because they are dead. Stuart even says he wants to die young which is doubly funny because he does. Ha ha! McGowan doesn't laugh because maybe he doesn't find gallows humor funny. But some weird creature that speaks some German does laugh. He's all, "Ha ha! They're going to die young! Oh ho ho! Such jolly fun! Now join with me, you dumb kid." He also says some German stuff that I can't make sense of because I don't speak German and I don't want to ask the Non-Certified Spouse what it means. I could use Google but I'm being extra lazy right now. McGowan tells the weird German tourist to fuck off because he doesn't care about anything. But you know what kind of people actually care a lot about everything? The kind who need to tell everybody that they don't care about anything. Only people whose feelings are super hurt say stuff like that. And maybe serial killers. Later McGowan decides to prove he doesn't care by suggesting he and his friends blow up the school. Not because he cares how they think they know everything and they want him to be just like them and all adults lack affection and sincerity. No, he just wants to blow it up because he doesn't give a shit about nothing, man. The scene switches to the bald guy who might be King Mob on an LSD trip. It's nothing like taking LSD but I'll pretend it's all metaphor and analogy and spiritual nonsense. In his trip, he sees a gigantic head of John Lennon. Mostly because the whole trip was to summon this head. It's a double page spread of psychedelic images and nonsense mixed with Beatles lyrics and album titles. Strange that Morrison fails to translate an acid trip involving The Beatles when The Beatles themselves have a song that I think most feels like and describes an acid trip. No, it's not "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"; it's "Strawberry Fields." If I had to state what my favorite Beatles song was right now, I'd say "Strawberry Fields" even though Magical Mystery Tour might be my least favorite (later) album (although now that I type it, I remember it contained "Penny Lane" and "The Fool on the Hill" and "All You Need is Love" and I guess I was wrong about Magical Mystery Tour being my least favorite album). I added the later because their early pop shit doesn't really resonate with me. I don't think I appreciate their music until after they've met Doctor Robert. Just listened to "Strawberry Fields" and now I'm crying. Fucking great song. While trying to burn down the school, McGowan is caught be his teacher. He gives his teacher a brutal beating and then answers a question he refused to answer in class, just to show he's both smart and violent.

McGowan's arrested and Hugh Laurie sentences him to hard juvenile labor.

I was speaking of acid earlier and I'd like to recommend the documentary on Netflix called Have a Good Trip, especially to people who have never done acid. It's enlightening. You might think that my favorite part was one of the crazier bits about hallucinations or one of the stories about how something odd always happens when on acid (it totally does) but I think my favorite bit is when the musician from Bikini Kill, Kathleen Hanna, tells the story about how acid made her realize that you didn't have to cross the street along the legs of the two triangles comprising the square intersection but can just cross along the hypotenuse. It's not that the idea is mind blowing or even close to an "A-ha!" shower thought; it's just that's the kind of mundane thought that seems like a fucking magic revelation when you're on acid. It's the epitome of the acid experience. LSD makes the mundane profound which is way more exciting than you might think. If you've never done acid, you might have fucked off to the comment section just now to point out that the universe is a wonderful and magical and profound place even without acid. And I fucking agree. But LSD makes everything profound. Every single thing you see or think combines with the fabric of the universe and it all becomes staring at the stars and wondering how it all fucking fits together. But you don't need space or infinity or philosophy; you just need LSD, a stapler, a bottle of water, and a Jack Kirby comic book from the early 70s. Dane McGowan is sentenced to ten weeks in a juvenile facility called Harmony House. It's where violent teenage boys aren't taught to stop being violent; it's where they're taught to use their violence to benefit the government! At least that's my guess. I like to pretend I know what's happening in the comic book as I write the review and then later I delete the wrong assumptions I made and replace them with lies to make me look like a Grandmaster Comic Book Reviewer! Actually, that last sentence was a lie. Normally if I get something wrong, I just write "Oops!" later and then tell readers to forget the terrible mistake I made.

This is the plot to every young adult dystopian book ever written: "Society says conformity is good. But one young spunky individual with weird hair won't submit and will save the world!"

Sometimes I feel the only people touched by stories about the individual refusing to be a sheep of the status quo are people who tend to be sheep of the status quo. To rely identify with the hero in one of these stories, the reader needs to have though of themselves as part of the status quo and felt the need to participate in some activity that would prove that they weren't. Instead of, you know, just being themselves and never actually giving their place in society a second thought. I find odd people who are inspired by a story that tells the reader to be themselves. How is that inspiring unless you never really knew that was an option? And how could you fucking not know it?! But then again, Heathers is one of my all-time favorite movies and I suppose that's got a similar message about being oneself. But it also has murder and some seriously great lines of dialogue and Christian Slater blowing himself to bits.

Oh, remember where I mentioned this comic book was basically screaming "synchronicity" at me and that I understood it on an instinctual level after page two? Grandmaster Comic Book Reader!

The leader of The Invisibles (man, I wish the comic book would just tell me that the bald guy with piercings is actually King Mob already) decides to infiltrate Harmony House to make sure their soon-to-be new recruit, McGowan, is doing okay. I'm sure he'll find he's fine because he's not buying into the whole "be a soldier of the status quo" bullshit being fed to the young boys at the institution. It's easy to be against a Headmaster who thinks arguments like "Liberals love freedom but do they want people to be so free that they can steal their VCRs." But will he be able to stand up against the techno-brainwashing and the influence of the mystical creature running things from behind the scenes?! Probably but only with help from the Upright Citizens Brigade. I mean The Invisibles.

It's surreal that this is the way we thought of controlling the populace in the 90s: turn them into content sheep without any anger or frustration. And yet the exact opposite of that is true: control them by making them angry and frustrated at as many lies and half-truths as you can.

The big twist reveal isn't that the boys' brains are cut up and messed with; it's that the boys genitals are removed as well. Yeesh! Now I'm angry and frustrated! I'm totally against this Harmony House bullshit. Is this actually happening red states?! Horrific! King Mob (yes, they finally reveal that's the bald guy's name) rescues Dane from Harmony House while shooting a bunch of people (including the Headmaster) and blowing the building to bits. It's a good thing we learned the real antagonist was some dick-eating creature called the King of Chains. Dane McGowan isn't ready to join The Invisibles which King Mob was ready for. He had a tarot reading earlier that said the kid was going to have to be put through the wringer first. So he leaves the kid in London and disappears, just so we all know why they're called The Invisibles. I guess Batman is a member? The Invisibles #1 Rating: B+. This issue was forty pages long and it felt like it used every page to move the story along. It's insane that that's one of the greatest compliments I can give a comic book. Way too many writers just fill their scripts with nonsense because they don't have a real plan for their story. I know everybody espouses the idea that a good comic book story should teach the reader something new about the character. But unless learning that Superman can punch something harder than he previously thought he could, or Batman is super resilient and can take a ton of punishment for five issues before rising to the occasion through pure force of will, most comic book writers really don't put a lot of thought into themes. Sure, sure. This sort of feels like the mystic super hero version of Catcher in the Rye which might be why I stopped purchasing it after six issues. Although it's just as likely that I stopped purchasing it at six issues because my infrequent visits to the comic book store made me miss Issue #7 and I just gave up on it. It's not bad and it's put together well and as a young 48 year old who thinks the man can go fuck himself, I'm totally into it's message about being a unique individual! Anarchy rules!

#The Invisibles #Grant Morrison #Steve Yeowell

2 notes · View notes