#how am i into like the biggest franchises ever

[tinukis]

FINALLY SHOWING OFF MY COLLECTION !!! i finally reorganized a little bit buuut it still feels incomplete... anyway!! it's a mix of one piece and pokemon... ft other things but mostly one piece

FIRST SHELF:

again, mostly pokemon and one piece. i've been collecting pokemon plushies/merch in general since 2018. and to be completely honest with you, i feel like my life didnt start until 2018. i have no recollection of anything at least irl before 2018... i have a bunch of pokemon plushies still that arent even on here or theyre just hiding from sight! (like behind gladion is a steven stone plushie nfmshd) OH AND I HAD MY GLADION AND MIKO PLUSHIE MADE !! i just drew it and then gave the designs to a manufacturer :3 my next goal is to make another two but with their alt outfits this time :D

also on the top shelf, other than the action figures and plushies, are artbooks! for original sun/moon, usum, scarlet/violet, and it's hard to see but artbooks for the great ace attorney/dai gyakuten saiban as well !! also the gladion acrylic standee blends in well with wano zoro jfkdhjd omg do yall think gladion could do a closet cosplay of zoro (miko got him to do it <3)

also im not rlly big on pop funkos, theyre just gifts <3

AND TWO BINDERS OF POKEMON CARDS... i dont play i just collect them bc i like pretty art

SO UM. SECOND SHELF. one shelf dedicated to zolu, asl, and ace and sabo :3 behind the zolu figures are tiny plushies of them and rubber straps but well, its hard to see em </3

i got into one piece since like. early september and now i have an entire display dedicated to one piece 😭 + other things like persona lol

feat my pokemon boxes and unboxed one piece figures. ofc, this isnt Everything i have but it's Mostly everything

the last two things i'll show and the second post wont be posted until i update my stuff more

so heres my poorly made luffy cutout that was literally made with sweat and tears... in fact i startwd this project like a WEEK after starting one piece 😭😭😭 thats how you know i was strapped in for life

and my corkboard!! some cool one piece works and the wano zolu sc :3 it's really cool to have these things hfmhdjd

the ace print, frobin charms, rubber pins, and stickers i just pinned on are stuff i got from a con. everything else from jp mercari !!

tbh, the sealed gladion acrylic standee is like my most prized treasure... not that i dropped hundreds on it but i got it for a lot cheaper compared to the other sealed ones online :'D + his postcards too are one of my most prized possessions... i wonder who my favorite pokemon character is

honestly idk what to fill the empty space in with but i wanna balance out this corkboard with pkmn and OP so maybe i'll try to hunt for more pkmn stuff

this is all i'll share for now but the next post will show my two ita bags that i have :0 !!! and my comically large arcanine plushie that i named ace 😁🫶

[front-facing-pokemon]

[starkwlkr]

happy life, happy wife | hugh jackman

an: “you attract what you fear” GUYS IM SO SCARED OF A 55 YEAR OLD AUSTRALIAN 😭 definitely thinking about making marvel actress!reader x hugh an actual series… i have ideas

marvel actress!reader

Deadpool & Wolverine Press tour - Hot Ones

Hugh felt like he was going to die. Each wing was getting hotter and hotter, but immediately when he heard his wife’s name he forgot all about the spice.

“Hugh, your wife is part of the Avengers, how does it feel having your wife be part of such a huge franchise? Have you two talked about a potential team up with the X-men and the Avengers?” Sean asked.

“My wife . . . Oh god, I think I’m crying-”

“I can’t tell if you’re legitimately dying or completely in love with your wife.” Ryan told Hugh.

“Wait . . I am completely in love with my wife and I would legitimately die for her.” Hugh gasped as he rearranged Ryan’s words.

“Is that in the contract she made you sign when you married her? ‘I vow to die for you’. My contract said I had to give all my money to my kids and wife.” Ryan said.

“No, she’s amazing, um, if I start talking about her I think I might go on for hours,” he laughed. “Our kids do want to see their parents fighting the bad guys together. We would love to team up, maybe it could happen.” Hugh smiled.

“The entire movie would be them making out and her beating the shit out of you. I’d pay to see that.” Ryan added.

•••

Comic Con 2024

Like RDJ, your last Marvel movie had been Avengers: Endgame. After being in ten mcu films, it was time to say goodbye to your character.

But that was in 2019.

At this years comic con, you were back. The cast of Deadpool & Wolverine had taken the stage and showed their appreciation for the fans. After their panel, it was time to announce Marvel’s upcoming projects. Kevin Feige announced the Fantastic Four, Thunderbolts, Captain America 4, and finally the new Avengers movies, which everyone was extremely excited about.

After showing the title card for the upcoming Avengers film, Kevin turned to the audience.

“Something people have been asking, as of late, is who the heck is going to direct these two movies?” The audience clapped.

From the side of the stage, you were nervous. What if the fans didn’t like the idea of you directing the next two Avengers films? Your worrying caused Hugh to come to your rescue.

“Hey, they loved you as an Avenger, they will love you even more.” Hugh kissed your forehead. “If anyone says anything about this decision, they have me to deal with.”

You laughed at his words. “I really love you so much.”

“Love you too, bub.” Hugh was about to kiss you when Ryan cut in.

“I really love us too. I convinced half of the people here that we’re a throuple.” He said in the most serious tone ever.

Kevin announced you as the director. Your doubt of the fans not liking the announcement was proven wrong when you walked the stairs to the stage and stood next to Kevin. They cheered when they saw you were back.

As you said a few words, thanking Marvel, Kevin and the fans, you were being recorded by Hugh, who was being recorded by Ryan.

“That’s my wife!” Hugh cheered from backstage, holding his phone in his hand.

“She’s Marvel Jesus now, holy shit!”

•••

WIRED autocomplete interview

“Is Hugh Jackman married?”

“Yes, to me, Y/n, probably to half the population,” Ryan answered. “He’s Australia’s biggest slut.”

“All the times, I proposed.” Hugh laughed. “But yes, I am married and I love my wife very much. She’s stuck with me forever.” He lifted his hand to show off the wedding band.

“Funny, because she texted me right now. Her and Blake are in the courthouse getting married. So Deadpool three was actually made so our wives could divorce us and marry each other.”

[missmaymay13]

complete mess - w.smith

⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻

w.smith x fem!oc | 3k

masterlist

⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻

The rink is cold. Not just the kind that stings your nose and cheeks—this cold is bone-deep. Lonely. The kind that settles in your chest and makes your heart feel hollow.

Will leans against the boards during warmups, his stick clutched loosely in one gloved hand. The San Jose Sharks crest weighs heavy on his chest tonight, heavier than it ever has. He should be proud—rookie year, NHL dream realized, playing on the biggest stage in the world.

But all he feels is empty.

Because when he glances up at the stands, he knows she's not there.

She used to be. Every game. Every practice, when she could swing it. Always in that same hoodie—his hoodie—her coffee clasped in both hands like it was the only thing keeping her warm. Or grounded.

April Murray. The girl who knew him before all of this. Who sat with him through draft night, who helped him pick out his first apartment, who walked him through his first panic attack when the pressure of being Will Smith, top pick, future of the franchise became too much to breathe through.

And he let her go.

No—he pushed her away.

He doesn't even remember when it started. Maybe it was after the third game of the season when the headlines started turning. Promising, but inconsistent. Maybe it was when the media began comparing him to players he'd grown up idolizing, asking why he wasn't already there yet. Maybe it was the fourth night in a row he stayed late watching film, trying to be everything for a team that didn't even know how to support him back.

He started canceling plans. Ignoring her texts. Tuning her out when she tried to talk to him about anything not hockey. He blamed it on stress, on timing. On things she couldn't understand.

But she did understand. She always did.

And eventually, she stopped trying.

"Will, I'm not asking you to give it up," she'd said once, quiet and careful. "I just need to know that I still matter to you. That we still matter."

He'd scoffed. Cold. Tired. Empty. "I don't have time for this right now, April."

"Right. You never do."

She didn't cry. Not in front of him.

She just left.

He thought she'd come back. She always had before.

But this time—she didn't.

It's been three weeks since she moved out. Since she left her key on the counter and didn't say goodbye.

And Will? He hasn't scored a point since.

The team says it's a slump. A rough patch. The media calls it nerves. Rookie inconsistency. But Will knows what it really is.

He's a mess without her. A complete f*cking mess.

The kind that can't be taped over or fixed in the weight room. The kind that doesn't go away with a win.

She was the only thing keeping him grounded, keeping him human. And he treated her like a footnote to his career.

Now he's skating on autopilot. Eating alone. Sleeping in a bed that feels too big and too cold. Going home to a condo that still smells like her shampoo and can't be aired out, no matter how many windows he opens.

After the game, he sits in the locker room long after the others have cleared out. His head in his hands, the sharp scent of sweat and gear clawing at his throat.

His phone is on the bench beside him. A message unsent. It's been there for days.

"I'm sorry. I miss you. I don't know who I am without you."

He doesn't send it. Because it's too little, too late.

And maybe she's already moved on.

⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻

Will used to call her his "safe zone." Not to her face—he didn't know how to say that kind of thing back then. But she was. Every time the weight of being Will Smith, the phenom, got too heavy, he'd end up at her off-campus apartment. No questions. No lectures. Just soft music playing from her speaker, ramen on the stove, and her voice cutting through the noise like sunlight through blinds.

It didn't matter that she had three midterms the next day. Or that she'd been pulling double shifts at the campus bookstore just to make rent. When Will called—she answered.

Always.

The first time he cried in front of her, he was sitting on her tiny futon, head in his hands, the pressure of the Frozen Four and NHL scouts looming over his shoulders like ghosts.

"I'm not ready," he'd said. "Everyone thinks I'm ready, but I'm not. I don't even know who I am without hockey."

April didn't try to fix it. She didn't tell him he was wrong or feed him the same lines his coaches did. She just crawled in beside him and pulled his head into her lap, running her fingers through his curls until the shaking in his chest finally stopped.

"You're still Will," she whispered. "You're still mine."

And for that night, it was enough.

She missed her sister's wedding to fly to Denver for the Hockey East semifinals. She called in sick to her internship when he had food poisoning and was throwing up between classes. She sat in hospital waiting rooms when he got concussed freshman year—even though no one would tell her if she was "family."

She was. She always had been. She just never needed the title.

And what did he do when he finally made it?

He forgot.

He let the weight of the NHL chew up his time and spit out his patience. She became background noise—until one day, she was gone, and the silence was deafening.

Now he walks through his condo like a ghost, brushing past memories like cobwebs. Her hoodie still hangs on the coat rack. Her mug is still on the counter. The photos are still framed on the mantle—Boston, Denver, Nashville.

She was always there.

Until she wasn't.

⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻

The worst part wasn't that Will forgot their anniversary. Or that he left the pasta she made untouched on the counter three nights in a row. It wasn't even that he stopped texting goodnight.

The worst part was how he used to care.

Back then, it was little things.

Him dropping off coffee before her 8 a.m. class. Reminding her to eat during midterms. Crawling onto her dorm bed with his laptop open just so she wouldn't feel so alone during late-night study marathons.

"I'll quiz you," he'd offer, head on her stomach, eyes fluttering half-shut from practice. "Just don't make me read the long-ass definitions."

She'd laugh. Toss a pen at his forehead. He'd grin like she hung the stars.

That Will—the one who saw her, who wanted to take care of her too—that's the one she fell in love with.

But the version she followed to San Jose? The one that let hockey consume him? That Will barely remembered she existed.

⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻

She tried to be understanding. God, did she try.

He was under pressure. Rookie year. Big expectations. So she didn't say anything when the late practices turned into full nights at the rink. Didn't complain when he forgot to call. Didn't show him the tears after another solo dinner eaten over the sink.

She told herself it was just a phase.

He loved her. He was just overwhelmed.

So she picked up the pieces. Of him. Of their life. Of herself.

Every rescheduled date, every night he stumbled in hours after midnight with nothing but apologies and excuses—she forgave.

She was fighting her own battles too. Online school had been brutal. Isolation made it worse. Her professors didn't care that she lived on Pacific Time. Her friends were all back in Boston. She'd built a whole life there—one she gave up for him.

But she didn't tell him. He already had too much on his plate.

So she swallowed the words every day until they burned holes in her chest.

Then one day, the letter came.

She almost didn't open it—thought it might be another bill or course notice. But her hands shook as she peeled it open.

"Congratulations. You have fulfilled all requirements for graduation..."

She reread it six times. Finished. Done. Four years of work in two and a half. Through COVID. Through relocations. Through loneliness.

She looked around their apartment—no, his apartment—and realized he didn't even know she'd been close. Hadn't asked. Hadn't cared.

The excitement turned bitter in her mouth.

So she did what she never thought she would. She packed a bag. Called the one person she knew would understand.

Grace.

Will's sister picked her up from the airport that night.

Neither of them spoke for the first five minutes of the drive. Then Grace reached over and took her hand.

"You should've told me sooner."

April's voice cracked. "I didn't want to make you pick sides."

"I would've picked you anyway."

April didn't leave a note. She didn't need to.

He wouldn't have read it.

And to this day, she knows he still doesn't understand.

He knows he pushed her away—knows he f*cked up—but he doesn't know what day it was. Doesn't know the meaning it held. Doesn't know that he missed her biggest moment—because he never thought to ask.

⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻

The air was crisp. Familiar. Healing.

April stood in her cap and gown, surrounded by the people who mattered. Grace. Her old roommates. Her professors. People who saw her, celebrated her, even when she wasn't holding anyone else up.

They took a photo.

Grace posted it later that night.

"Proudest sister moment. Congrats to April for finishing her degree in record time. You're everything and more."

April's smile in that photo was real.

She never saw Will's reaction.

But Grace did.

And she never took the post down.

⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻

Will wasn't even looking at Grace's Instagram when it happened.

One of the rookies was scrolling beside him on the team plane, laughing about some TikTok when he paused and went, "Yo, isn't this your sister?"

Will looked over.

And there it was.

April. In a cap and gown. Grinning, radiant, unrecognizable—in the worst way.

"Congrats to April for finishing her degree in record time."

The words blurred.

Four years. Two and a half. She never told him.

He didn't even know she'd finished.

Didn't know the day she left was the day she got that letter.

Didn't know anything.

His stomach twisted into knots.

And worse—Grace knew. His own sister knew and never said a word.

The next few days, Will couldn't get the image out of his head.

She looked so proud. So sure of herself.

So gone.

His hands shook every time he picked up his phone, hovered over her name. But he never hit send.

When Grace and the family came to San Jose for a home game, it started civil.

Until it wasn't.

It was after dinner. Everyone had gone back to the hotel except Will and Grace. The air was stiff, sharp with unsaid things. Grace stood at the window, arms folded, jaw tight.

Will broke first.

"You couldn't tell me?" His voice cracked. "You let me find out on fcking Instagram*?"

Grace turned slowly, face hard. "You didn't exactly ask."

"Are you serious right now?" he snapped. "She graduated, Grace. I didn't even know she was close!"

"And whose fault is that?"

His hands clenched. "You knew. You picked her up from the airport and didn't say a word. That's—" he choked, voice rising, "—that's a betrayal."

Grace's eyes burned. "No, Will. You betrayed her."

The silence cracked like glass.

"You think I wanted to keep it from you?" she spat. "I had to pick up her pieces because you left her so f*cking shattered she couldn't breathe without crying."

Will staggered back like she'd punched him. "Grace—"

"She used to be everything to you," Grace pushed forward, voice shaking. "She gave up her life, her school, her friends—for you. She didn't ask for much, Will. Just to be seen. Just to feel like she still mattered."

"She did matter," Will argued, weakly.

Grace laughed, bitter and cold. "Then why didn't you act like it?"

He couldn't answer.

"She didn't tell you how hard school was getting," she continued, relentless. "She didn't tell you how alone she felt. You stopped asking. You stopped caring. She cooked you dinners you never touched. She sat alone in your apartment every night waiting for you to come home—hoping you'd remember she existed."

Will turned away, chest heaving, blinking hard against the sting in his eyes.

Grace wasn't done.

"She left on the day she got her graduation letter. You didn't notice. You didn't text. You didn't even call."

He swallowed the lump in his throat. "I didn't know—"

"Exactly," Grace snapped. "That's the problem. You didn't know. You didn't even try to know."

Will dropped into a chair, like the weight finally hit him. Hard.

"She won't go near a rink," Grace added, quieter now. "Not even to watch me coach. She says it makes her sick. You make her sick."

Will stared down at the floor.

"She loved you so much, Will. And you broke her."

The room buzzed with silence. A silence full of anger. Of grief. Of truth.

Will couldn't breathe. Couldn't think. The guilt closed around his chest like a noose.

He wanted to scream. Cry. Take it all back.

But the past didn't give do-overs.

That night, he didn't sleep. He sat in the dark of his condo, scrolling through old photos, old texts, old videos.

April in Boston. April on the beach. April half-asleep in his hoodie, laughing at something he'd said off-camera.

He didn't even know that version of her anymore.

And she sure as hell didn't know this version of him.

He was a complete mess. Without her. Because of her. Because of him.

⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻

Three Years Later

The Boston air smelled like old memories. Like the streets they used to walk, fingers laced between them. Like the rain that had soaked their jackets on late-night campus runs. Like the laughter that once echoed through the Smiths' home when everything still felt whole.

Will was back, older now. Calmer. The NHL didn't rattle him anymore. He'd weathered the pressure, the slumps, the spotlight. But no matter how far he came in his career, he never quite got over her.

He didn't even try.

He never fell in love again. How could he, when no one else even came close?

Grace's engagement party was loud—too many people packed into their childhood home, voices overlapping, champagne flutes clinking. Everyone was glowing, buzzing with joy.

Everyone except Will.

His chest had been tight the entire night, breath caught just under his ribs. Because she was here.

April.

She hadn't changed—at least not in the ways that mattered. Still graceful without trying, still holding herself with that quiet strength. But she was sharper around the edges now. More careful with her smiles. Especially when they were aimed at him.

She didn't look at him the way she used to.

He spent half the night trying to catch her eye. Half the night staring at the empty spot next to him at the dinner table where she should've been. Where she used to always be.

And the other half? He spent wondering if she hated him.

He caught glimpses of her—drifting between rooms, helping Grace in the kitchen, laughing softly with people he didn't recognize. But every time he inched closer, she slipped away. Like a ghost. Like muscle memory.

He almost gave up.

Until he saw her again—alone—in the kitchen.

She was restocking a bowl of crackers, hands moving mechanically, a furrow in her brow like she was willing herself to focus on anything but the memories pressed into these walls.

And then she froze.

She didn't need to look. She felt him.

Will stood in the doorway, hands shoved in his pockets, voice barely above a whisper.

"Can we talk?"

She didn't answer right away. He thought she might say no. Thought she might walk past him the same way she had all night.

But finally, she gave a small nod. Reluctant. Steady. And without a word, they climbed the stairs—like muscle memory.

His childhood room looked exactly the same.

Posters on the wall. Hockey trophies collecting dust. The twin bed still creaking under the weight of too many conversations never finished.

April sat on the edge, hands resting in her lap. Will sat across from her, just barely touching the opposite end of the mattress. The space between them felt like a chasm.

He couldn't look at her at first.

Couldn't even breathe.

He wanted to say so many things—had rehearsed them in the mirror, in hotel rooms, on empty plane rides across the country. But now, nothing came out.

Until—

"Congratulations," he said quietly. "I never got to say it to you. Not on the day. Not in person. But... I want you to know I'm so proud of you. I was then. I still am now."

April's eyes flicked up. Just barely.

He kept going.

"I don't know how I f*cked up so much that I let the one thing that was always so good to me slip away. But god, April. I'm so sorry. You didn't deserve any of that."

His voice cracked.

"You were always there. Always. And I—I took that for granted. I let the game chew me up and spit me out and I just... I let you disappear without ever realizing what I was losing. And by the time I did���it was too late."

He finally looked up. She was watching him.

Tears welled in her eyes, but she didn't cry. Not yet.

"I replay that year in my head all the time," he whispered. "And I think about everything I missed. Everything I should've seen. The way you kept trying. The way you kept choosing me. And I didn't even see how much it cost you to do that."

His hands trembled in his lap.

"I should've asked. I should've noticed. And I didn't. I didn't even know you graduated until I saw it on Grace's f*cking Instagram. And I should've been there. For that. For all of it."

The silence between them buzzed.

Then April's voice, soft but sure:

"It's okay, Will."

He blinked.

She was staring at her hands. Then she looked up.

"I used to think it would never stop hurting. That what you did—what you didn't do—would follow me forever." She paused. Swallowed. "But I grew up too. And I see it differently now. We were young. You were drowning. And I was too scared to admit that I was, too."

She looked down again, her thumbs rubbing circles over each other.

"You hurt me. A lot. But... I know you didn't mean to."

They stayed like that for a long moment.

Then slowly, like gravity pulled them together, they leaned forward. Their foreheads touched, eyes closed. Breathing in the moment. The years. The ache.

His voice came out like wind through a cracked window—shaky, fragile, but certain.

"I still love you so much, April. I never stopped. And I'm sorry I did that to you."

He felt her inhale, felt her hands twitch against her thighs. Then:

"I still love you too, Will."

It wasn't loud. It wasn't dramatic. It didn't need to be.

Because even after all this time— Even after all the distance— They were still in sync.

[messrsrarchives]

i think another thing worth adding to all the conversations is that my existence as a trans person in this fandom is not a form of protest. (under the cut because it's long)

i think it's easy to fall into the mindset that being in this space as someone from a community jkr has harmed is protest in and of itself. or that merely engaging with queer stories is an act of protest - "jkr would hateee what we write!", "jkr already hates me so-" etc etc but that doesn't alleviate the harm caused. that doesn't change the fact that all of this is relevance and promotion of her universe (esp over on tt) so,,, what actually is your act of protest?

i think it's important to recognise that jkr doesn't know us. she doesn't know me, she doesn't know you, she doesn't look at this space and consider the demographic of it (outside of potential promotions), she simply sees a group of people engaging with her works that could potentially be drawn back into profitting her (again, promotions - thinking here about the official HP tiktok queerbaiting). in her own words, when asked how she felt about losing a community from engaging, she replied: "i read my most recent royalty check and find that the pain goes away pretty quickly".

me existing as a trans person - both inside and outside of this space - is not a form of protest, it's just existing. my heart beating and continuing to beat throughoit everything is not an act of protest, it's me living.

me being trans is not a protest.

everything else? everything i do rather than everything i am? that's the protest.

it's just,,, coming off the back of all the tiktoks being made (which btw, endlessly thankful. sucks that now is the time but it's never Too Late to start talking about it and i'm thankful to everyone who has shouldered some of the weight over the last few days) i'm seeing a lot of comments like "but so many of the creators in this space are trans!!! how do we STILL have an issue with transphobi-"

because outside of being a cool sticker to show your inclusion and diversity, the vast majority of people don't care. because outside of going "hey look, we uplift trans people by making them popular", no one really considers us.

when you argue about headcanons, when you argue about "proper cosplays", when you post your videos of the studios whilst following us, when you do so many thingssss, you don't consider how it affects us. or, when we use our voices, if it's not about a headcanon or a fic? we're ignored.

for example, you'll argue about fem sirius but when we say "hey, maybe debating what makes a man a Proper Man is harmful", you roll your eyes and go "yeah but,,,,, he's meant to be MACHO MANLY 😡☝🏻" and i'm left watching people debate whether wearing makeup makes me - a real life trans man - less of a man. you'll argue that it makes wolfstar straight and i turn to my real life cis male boyfriend and ask if he's ever wanted me to Look Normal, or if anyone has ever questioned his "boyfriend", and he'll shake his head and ask why i'm worried, and i have to bring up a Fictional Wizard.

we're used as almost an act of protest by the fandom on tiktok??? used a lot as a "look at how trans inclusive this fandom is!" but when trans people say how they're treated and made to feel? the biggest concern is if this will affect their content.

existing as or engaging in something that jkr would hate is not an act of protest if that protest starts and ends with fictional characters. if that same inclusion and strive for representation and inclusion is not reflected with the issues that affect these creators you use as signposts for inclusion, then it's not an act of protest.

jkr doesn't care that you read trans regulus or that a trans person in this space has 300k followers, she cares if you're going to giving her money or not - so what are You doing to prove to Us that you won't?

engaging with queer media isn't an act of protest if you turn a blind eye to the creator of the franchise whilst she harms queer people. and it's not an act of protest if you ignore those that Do speak about it, because it's affecting the content you want.

my existence here isn't the protest. me being in this space as a trans person? that changes nothing. everything else i do is the protest. not my identity, but the fight to protect it.

[weirdmarioenemies]

Name: Neo Bowser City (aka Koopa City in PAL regions)

Debut: Mario Kart 7

Do you ever think of all the weird locations we only ever see in Mario Kart games? Despite being the biggest of all of Mario's spin-off franchises, when you really get down to it, remarkably few Mario Kart courses are actually based on established Mario locations!

It's not none, there's the occasional Donut Plains and Tick-Tock Clock and Airship Fortress, but most of the courses are these weird one-off locations we never see outside the context of that specific racetrack.

But have you ever taken a moment to step back and like, think of the Lore Implications of some of these places?

Like okay! Bowser just owns this whole dang cyberpunk city and we only ever see it in the context of Kart Racing! How messed up is that?!

One day Mario and Friends were looking for new places to race, and Bowser must have said something like "Gwah-hah-hah! I bet you puny punks could NEVER beat me in a race in my cyberpunk metropolis!" and right then and there it was established that Bowser owns a cyberpunk metropolis. Neo Bowser City is a city that exists in the Super Mario World and aside from returning in other Mario Kart games, it hasn't been acknowledged before or since.

Neo Bowser City first appeared in Mario Kart 7, as the third course in the Star Cup. Despite its flashy visuals, it actually doesn't really have a whole lot going on. It's a difficult track with some tight turns made more difficult by the rain making things more slippery, but besides that it doesn't really have any of the Wacky Obstacles that define so many Mario Kart courses.

Then it returned in Mario Kart 8 looking more gorgeous than ever! The bright colors really pop out, and the whole track is just oozing with detail that really emphasizes the scale of this city!

But like, the emphasized scale really only further raises the question of where this exists in the Mario World. Clearly, the fact that Bowser is plastered all over the billboards and the fact it's named "Neo Bowser City" helps us deduce that this city probably belongs to Bowser. Is this located in Bowser's Kingdom? Just how big is Bowser's Kingdom? And why does he own so many separate castles?

Maybe Neo Bowser City exists in the future? Is this a bad timeline? I mean, Mario Kart is allowed to have time-travel shenanigans. There's a Splatoon battle arena and that exists thousands of years in the future so sure, dust off Mario's Time Machine and head to the bad future where Bowser wins. Should've pressed that New Super Mario Bros. big yellow P-Switch!

I asked my friend Mod Chikako for their input and their theory is that Neo Bowser City isn't the future of Mario's world, but of our world. Clearly Bowser just couldn't take Wreck-It-Ralph losing the Oscar vote!

But in that case I guess it's a cooler cyberpunk future than the one we're living in right now. Corporate monopolies that run mass-surveillance with little government intervention due to their extreme wealth giving them extensive political power? No thank you! Neo Bowser City has bright neon colors, and flying cars! If I'm going to live in a dystopia, I want it to be a fun one. The only advertisements I want to see plastered everywhere are ones advertising Bowser!

Boo! That's the bad guy! Thumbs down!

The course returns again in that pitiful mobile game with another redesign, this time letting us see his Coney Island Disco Palace off in the distance. Does Bowser live in his Neo City? Is this worldbuilding we've been missing out on for decades, finally answered by a kart racer? Is this the capital city of Bowser's Kingdom? Am I once again falling victim to my perpetual hubris of overthinking the Mario franchise?

Really, I can't offer too much in terms of wacky fan theories, because I'm still thinking about this location existing in the first place. I'd love to know the Lore and worldbuilding here, but I guess the nature of Mario's canon is that it doesn't need to be over-analyzed. Bowser simply owns a cyberpunk metropolis, we'll only ever see it in the context of kart racing, and maybe that's okay.

Of course, this post wouldn't be complete if I didn't mention Dinohattan from the 1993 Super Mario Bros. Movie, which we've barely talked about on this blog somehow. You see, when the meteor hit, some of the dinosaurs escaped into a parallel timeline where they then evolved into humans, and then they built Dinohattan instead of Manhattan. Get it? Yeah, that movie is all sorts of bonkers. I wouldn't say it's very good, but I kinda love it. I'd recommend checking it out, if only to see a vastly different take on Mario than you'd be used to.

Anyway I bring this up because it's a completely separate instance of a version of Bowser building a large cyberpunk metropolis, and it actually predates Neo Bowser City! Do you think they could be connected? Are Dinohattan and Neo Bowser City one and the same...?

[acquired-stardust]

Game Spotlight #18: Pokemon Yellow (1998)

Hi everybody, this is Larsa from Acquired Stardust here with a spotlight of my own this time. This time around we'll be discussing a game that truly means a lot to me and surely many of you. Needless to say this new year has already been a stressful one for me and probably for you too, so after some reflection I thought it would be healthy to channel that with more frequent writing so we can share more cool stuff with all of you more often.

And so thank you for reading so far. Today we're talking about a game that came out over 26 years ago - please join me for a nostalgic stroll through a Pokemon Yellow spotlight together!

This series truly needs no introduction and it is one that anybody reading this has surely played themselves. Pokemon in many respects is arguably the most important series that I have ever played and on a personal level revisiting these cozy games is always a good time. I have had my own personal journey with this incredible series in my formative years and it's safe to say that if it weren't for Pokemon reaching out to me in my childhood my life would surely not be the same.

Before we go much further I'd like to give a shoutout to my partner (and fellow Acquired-Stardust contributor) Ash for having already written about Pokemon Blue with their own spotlight, which you can read by clicking HERE. There is so much to write about when it comes to Pokemon and our own personal experiences with the series. I feel like there's just so much to the story of this series. Since Ash already covered Pokemon Blue pretty thoroughly I wanted to take the time to talk a bit about the rise of prominence the series had in the later 1990s rather than just strictly just writing about Pokemon Yellow as a video game, and I think this spotlight serves as a companion piece to Ash's.

It's safe to say that Pokemon is now among the elite group of the biggest video game franchises in the world when it comes to outreach and cultural impact over the past three decades. However there was once upon a time where we hadn't heard of Pokemon quite yet and some of us may remember the day we first came in contact with the franchise in one of it's many forms. To that end I would like to share with you a story from my childhood about my first time interacting with the Pokemon franchise and how it ended up being such a big deal to me.

Indeed it was November of 1998, a week before Thanksgiving in the United States, and my family invited their friends over who happened to have two kids that were around my age. The oldest sibling was two years older than me and had just been given a Gameboy as an early Christmas gift in October along with a copy of Pokemon Blue. Finding this out was the very first time that I had ever heard of Pokemon in my life and for good reason as the first video games in the series had only just released in North America two months beforehand. He excitedly showed me his Gameboy with the aforementioned game and told me "check this Pokemon game out with me. This is one of the coolest game ever!". He would have no idea just how right he was because I still play the game to this day and here I am still talking about it.

Right away my first impression was that my mind was blown by the sights and sounds coming out of the handheld console. For me this was my first experience up-close with a handheld gaming console and therefore the first time seeing a Gameboy game in action. Eventually he handed me the Gameboy and let me try out the game for myself along with a warning - I might not make it too far due to my age and reading ability which was true because at the time I was very young to the point that I hadn't even started going to school yet and had a fairly low reading level.

Getting to play Pokemon Blue for the very first time was like suddenly being able to cast a continuous magic spell that conjured incredible blurs of pixels in the palm of my hand. It wasn't long before I was picking Bulbasaur to be my original starting partner. After that I choice I was simply haphazardly mashing the confirm button and running around the map not really understanding much of what was being said in the game. Eventually the session would come to an end and I would wipe out time somewhere in Viridian Forest battling against a Bug Catcher trainer. I was a little devastated after the defeat because Bulbasaur fainted from the encounter and that must have meant that I messed the game up. Well it wouldn't be long before we decided to stop playing and we all left the house to go have a McDonalds lunch. I remember idly eating fries and thinking about how bad I was to let my pokemon lose in a battle. I felt seriously bad about the whole thing with Bulbasaur and how he had to get taken to the Pokemon Center to get healed back to fighting shape. Even though it was just a video game, what happened in it had made me feel some pretty real and complicated feelings. Thankfully a cheeseburger served as a good enough pick-me-up in those simpler times.

Well the experience still stuck with me afterward and it wasn't long before I was begging my parents to buy me a Gameboy and copy of Pokemon Blue. I needed to work hard to be able to read the text to become a better trainer for my poor Bulbasaur's sake and do a better of caring for them. I made a promise to my parents that I would learn to read English faster before being enrolled in school with the help of Pokemon because the games had lots of words for me to learn right away. Thankfully they eventually saw the merit in the game as a learning tool for me which led to them agreeing and they made my Christmas wish come true. This choice my parents made out of love for me sent me on the path of loving to read from an early age and fostered my passion for video games. What started as passion sparked thanks to Pokemon Blue would turn into a wider love for video games as an artform which would become a snowball effect helping lead to this blog. Funny how events in life work sometimes, huh? It's because of video games that I even met my partner, Ash. I felt it was necessary to share this story with you to set the stage for my experience with the main subject of this spotlight, Pokemon Yellow!

Yes it is about time that I talked about Pokemon Yellow with you, otherwise known as "Pokémon Yellow Version: Special Pikachu Edition" according to the North American box art. This was a special game in my opinion that I like to think of it as being truly a product of its own time. It would originally see a release in September of 1998 in Japan and then would be localized for the overseas markets the following year. By the time Pokemon Yellow would see an international release it had became clear to everybody that the Pokemon franchise was a global phenomena. In fact Pokemon Yellow was not even the first revised release among gen 1 titles, but it was yet another chance for the developers to touch up the original versions again with a different perspective this time as a result of all this attention and acclaim that the series had gotten and I imagine things would in a sense have been different for the developers at Game Freak as the series popularity was no longer in question and more advanced handheld technology was at their disposal for this title.

Nintendo being the company they were knew there was a ton of money to be made with the IP and prepared with an international marketing blitz. Eventually this would come to fruition as "Pokemania" had blossomed in full effect globally starting in 1998. As a child of the early 1990s how mainstream the series became in such a short amount of time cannot be understated in an age without the internet being as integrated in our lives like it is today. I can recall how much Pokemon felt like it took the world by storm seemingly completely out of nowhere. The franchise became so immediately popular that my peers frequently brought their Gameboy consoles and trading cards wherever they went. Furthermore it wasn't unusual for my youth soccer team to stick around for extra time after games to trade and battle via link cables (remember these?) with the opposing team in 1999. The "Pokemania" was everywhere and to be a child of the 90s meant you were likely swept up by it - the wildly successful video game releases, the popular anime series, and even a physical collectible trading card game along with an overwhelming merchandise had all hit the scene and taken off like wildfire. It didn't take

By the time that Pokemon Yellow version would be released the following year of 1999 in the United States of America. It wasn't long after Pokemon Yellow was released in North America that I would be lucky enough to own it, thanks to my parents. I even remember owning and reading what had been released of the Pokémon Adventures manga series initially the following year of 2000. Another first in my life thanks to the influence of "Pokemania" because the series would be the first manga that I read in my life. Things like this in my formative years helped shaped my interests in media form any years to come. I must give a big thanks to my mother for buying it for me from a bookstore at the local mall. Outside of the products there was many news stories with confused anchors and talking heads on television being forced to cover stories about this new global phenomena that had broken out from Japan. These factors all together gave me the feeling this wasn't just a flash in the pan these pocket sized creatures would be here to stay. Maybe unsurprisingly given how much of a runaway success "Pocket Monsters" had became around the globe a new mascot-themed release entered development as soon as the Japanese version of Pokemon Blue was finished.

Pokemon Yellow was envisioned as a way to capitalize on the series' wide spread popularity by more closely relating the adventures in the anime to the adventures players could have in the games. The beloved Pokemon anime which was animated by Oriental Light and Magic would serve as a guide for the many changes that would be made in this new Yellow version.

As an aside, fast forwarding to many years later, thanks to the massive "Gigaleak" event of 2020 we learned that Pokemon Yellow was at an early stage not the sole title in the early development process, as another game is mentioned in the source code. This leads to the speculation that Yellow may have originally planned to have been released alongside a companion title known as "Pokemon Pink" which many have come to speculate would have starred Clefairy, the originally-planned mascot for the series. We could assume that perhaps Clefairy would have been the mascot of this scrapped game. The original fairy of Pokemon was both the correct color which fit the theming it was also the original starter of pokemon trainer Red in the earlier mentioned Pokemon Adventures manga.

For whatever reason this game was not created and maybe given the infancy of the series at the time this was the correct choice in the end. It's possible that perhaps the changes brought in Yellow wouldn't have been seen as significant enough another round of paired versions and would have damaged the reputation that the franchise was rapidly amassing globally. In the end we got one game that acted as the ultimate first generation title, which started a concept that most generation of mainlines titles would revisit in one form or another. But I digress.

As you start Pokemon Yellow you are greeted with a new elaborate opening animation starring the de-facto face of the franchise to this day, Pikachu. Once you make your way to the 'new game' option this will all seem very familiar with a new twist. More colors, and actually a fair amount of them compared too! Professor Oak and Pallet Town were now in different colors than in the previous gen 1 titles giving a breath of fresh air to the experience for returning players. Yellow featured many new sprites inspired by the Pokemon anime designs and colors which assisted to make them feel more alive. Worth noting for about the new graphical advancement compared to the previous games, Pokemon Yellow was merely a Gameboy game with pre-programmed colors rather than a full-fledged Gameboy Color title. We wouldn't find out how good Pokemon would really look on the Gameboy Color until shortly after with the Generation 2 titles starting with the next mainline games, Pokemon Gold & Silver.

Ultimately compared to a native Gameboy Color game Pokemon Yellow's use of colors were extremely limited but the end result still looks so good in my opinion. I find the graphics of this version has a lot of its own unique charm and that many of these sprites would be the best a handful of Pokemon would look for years to come in my opinion. The sound effects and music are also basically still the same in this version compared to the previous version which is okay with me. I always found the 'gen 1' sounds to be a treat for the ears and the musical tracks still resonate strongly with me today. As your journey goes further and wider you will come to realize each town now has their own unique color palettes in an attempt to resemble their namesakes, yet another nice touch in this version.

This sort of thing made the region of Kanto feel more vibrant than it had ever been up to this point in these early games. The locales across Kanto in the English localization of Pokemon had more simplistic names that didn't communicate as much of the subtle ideas as their original Japanese namesakes. This sort of simplicity in the English localization focusing on the color theming from the Japanese names ended up being a fitting choice in its own ways for Yellow Version as the game introduced fitting color palettes to these locations from the hushed greys of Pewter City to the deep purple of Lavender Town for example. This change adds so much more personality to the game's locales and for me personally this blew my mind as a kid playing my first time.

As a pokemon trainer the goal of your adventure is the same as it ever was to choose your starter pokemon and travel across Kanto obtaining eight Gym Leader badges to earn the right to take on the Pokemon League Challenge. The key difference being that for this game you do not select your very first starter partner from a trio like previously. Instead, you are given a Pikachu as your starting companion just like the title and boxart suggest. Professor Oak has selected your starting pokemon for you on this adventure with you being given no choice in the matter. This particular Pikachu is much like their anime counterpart because they refuse to stay in their pokeball, and they absolutely refuse to evolve with a thunderstone. The developers wanted the story of the adventure to more closely resemble the anime and for players to feel more related to the journey Ash Ketchum goes through in the game, and as you get deeper into the game you will even encounter anime-favorite Team Rocket members Jessie, James, and Meowth, with the trio showing up as trainers you encounter through the game among the sea of Rocket Grunts. There are some minor differences here and there that are neat for fans of the anime.

This mandated starter however can be a problem for the fans of Raichu because you will not find any wild Pikachu in this game making that particular electric type impossible to obtain outside of trade methods. This fact really is a shame because me and Ash (my partner and fellow Acquired-Stardust contributor, not Ketchum!) absolutely adore Raichu for being downright adorable. Likewise there are other missing pokemon that aren't able to be found in this game without use of the link-cable functionally such as Jynx, Magmar, and Electabuzz just to name the most notable examples.

On the bright side for those that are fans of Bulbasaur, Squirtle, and Charmander line of pokemon you will be able to find all three of these fan favorites later on in your journey making this the first Pokemon game where you can get three "starter pokemon" without the necessity of trading whatsoever which is pretty incredible. Meanwhile since the tradition of a fire type, water type, and grass type starter pokemon isn't upheld in this title that means plenty more things are different too. Your rival no longer is able to outright immediately counter your starter with an opposing type with an advantage in battle like they would prefer to do as standard procedure for these games. Instead they will have to make due with the adorable normal type, Eevee. I'm happy to report that we still get our own partner Eevee in Celadon City much like in Red and Blue.

Anyway, your rival challenges you to a battle and after the result you will find out more about your new little yellow mouse buddy. As a result of this Pikachu having a strong independent personality as long as you have them as part of your party they won't spend the journey resting in their Pokeball which as was tradition, they instead decide to follow your every move on foot. To go along with the mentioned detail about Pikachu's personality this game features an early version of the happiness mechanic later expanded on in later Pokemon titles, meaning the more you depend on Pikachu for battles and show care for them by keeping them healthy the friendlier they will become with you, their current status indicated by animated portrait bubbles over their heads that will pop up as you interact with them and they make appropriate sounds derived from voice actress Ikue Otani from the anime.

Another immediate difference with Pokemon Yellow were the new health bars. For the first time health bars now came in different colors representing remaining health thresholds. This was a great quality of life change that assisted the players with more information over how battles were going and when it might me more ideal to go for a catch attempt on a wild pokemon. For battles themselves mechanically more or less the battle mechanics of Pokemon Yellow worked virtually identically to Pokemon Blue. Speaking of battles, Game Freak was aware of some of pain points that may be introduced by forcing Pikachu as the sole starter pokemon and tweaked the early game accordingly in various ways. One of the most obvious changes is how encounters are changed, with some pokemon that were version exclusive being featured in this game for example allowing players to catch previous Pokemon Red version-exclusive fighting type Mankey on Route 22.

Once a player caught a Mankey and raised it up several levels they could easily deal with the upcoming rock type gym battle. Another impactful early game change is the Nidoran line of pokemon learning Double Kick much earlier at level 10 rather than at level 43 near the end-game which gave you another super effective attack to take down the first gym leader.

Another nice quality of life change were the changes to moves some Pokemon can learn like Pikachu being able to learn the powerful thunderbolt naturally through leveling rather than having to use the single use valuable TM to learn said powerful move for battle, but for sure my favorite moveset adjustment is that Charizard is finally able to learn Fly which was long overdue. This may come as a surprise to those that didn't play these earlier titles when they were new but the idea of Charizard in Pokemon not being able to learn "Fly" was always a ridiculous one, and Pokemon Yellow did the fire breathing winged lizard justice when they corrected that absurdity.

However even with these generous changes many consider Pokemon Yellow to still be still the hardest official version of the original generation due to how some key encounters have been adjusted. One such way would be the gym leaders having teams to closer resemble what they use in the anime, different move-sets, and in some cases the levels of their pokemon being raised which all makes for more difficult encounters. The same applies to The Elite Four who are noticeably stronger than they were previously, making the last part of the game a more challenging gauntlet and earning the rite into the Hall of Fame all the more triumphant.

Somewhere in the vicinity of Fushica City you will find a brand new location called the "Sea House". It is here you will find a new mini game called Pikachu's Beach which you will be able to play if your faithful companion knows how to do the move Surf that is. Yes to play Pikachu's Beach you need a "Surfing Pikachu", so the question is how do you get one? Anyone familiar with the yellow mouse would know that Pikachu does not learn how to Surf through leveling up and you cannot teach it Surf via HM usage in the game either. So what gives? Yeah that's right, Pikachu does not natively learn the move through any legit method found in the game which means to play this particular minigame back in the day you must have either transferred a Pikachu into your cart of Pokemon Yellow that had learned the move "Surf" which was only obtainable through methods outside of the game, such as time limited events largely exclusive to Japan, or mailing your copy of Pokemon Yellow to Nintendo Power and then waiting for them to mail you the game back with a Pikachu that knew "Surf".

There is actually one last (non-cheating) method which was to fight for it in Nintendo 64's Pokemon Stadium (utilizing a peripheral that allowed you to plug your copy of the game into the system and play it on a television, itself mind blowing), and this way to earn surf for your Pikachu wouldn't be an easy one. You had to go through a higher difficulty battle challenge with your team from Pokemon Yellow and be sure to use Pikachu in every battle while winning. Like this method of obtaining the "Surfing Pikachu" is pretty extreme for an unlock in a handheld game isn't it? I have to say that the Pokemon Stadium method was an absolute time sink and requires so much potential additional financial cost of a player it is simply downright unfair that the developers ever entertained the idea in retrospect. This was all so much to ask of players and should have been a new feature for all players who bought Pokemon Yellow in the first place though of course this is all in hindsight. If you couldn't tell this was part of the game that I did not get to experience when I was younger just something that I read about in gaming magazines at the time. Maybe I have given this part more words than it deserves because it's really not all that big of a deal looking back at it.

Moving along now your reward for obtaining a "Surfing Pikachu" regardless of how you obtained it is a rather simple albeit addictive mini-game called "Pikachu's Beach". This minigame would see you control Pikachu while it surfed waves on a totally radical surfboard. I mean it was the 90s, so the only other thing that would have been more 90s coded is if Pikachu could hop on a skateboard to grind some rails in Saffron City. As far as the minigame goes I have never been that good at it myself though I still appreciate the cute sprite work we got from it all the same. I will add in closing about the "Surf House" that the now-discontinued 3DS Virtual Console version of Pokemon Yellow let everyone experience the minigame without getting a surfing Pikachu which is the way it should have been in the first place. By the way this whole debacle was the first time that I personally knew somebody who decided to use a Gameshark to cut corners in a game which is pretty remarkable in retrospect and I can't say that I blame them.

There is one more new feature of Pokemon Yellow that comes to mind to discuss that was a bit of a novelty. This title was the first Pokemon game with compatibility with the Gameboy Printer accessory. If a player of Pokemon Yellow has a Gameboy Color, the Gameboy Color link cable, and a Gameboy Printer would then be able to use some new features exclusive to this game among the first generation titles. The new printer feature would allow you to do things such as printing out copies of your high score you achieved on the "Pikachu's Beach" minigame, Pokedex entries, and even a stat summery sheet for any Pokemon in your party. Maybe the most notable thing to do with the printer is to print out a copy of your complete "Pokemon Diploma" which is available as a reward for obtaining all 151 Pokemon in the game. The tiny diploma in question was a huge flex at my soccer games. Beware for any of this to work it requires a specific sort of link cable for the console and printer to link up together.

In a sense, contemporary criticisms of Pokemon Yellow were not wrong. It didn't really add much over its predecessors in strict content terms or even do much to remedy the buggy mess that the first generation of Pokemon games was (I write while holding a fondness in my heart for the many ways generation one was broken). It is worth mentioning however that this game fixed the "Old Man Glitch" which players could use to encounter the infamous "MissingNo." glitch. The upcoming second generation titles of Pokemon Gold and Silver which would be arguably the biggest set of uncompromising advancements the series would ever see from one generation to the next. Overall this end-of-a-generation title pales in comparison to later attempts at a compilation title like Pokemon Crystal or Pokemon Emerald which improved their generations in more tangible ways. Even the graphical overhaul of Yellow Version feels half baked because many of the Pokemon were still stuck with the same back sprites in battle which for many of the original pokemon look like unrecognizable deformed blurs from the player trainer's point of view from behind.

As for the positives so many of the differences listed earlier in this piece are rather small arguably but to me majority of them added up and help create a unique, worthwhile experience. I don't think a change has to be significant in scale to have a big impact on a player in return. Following the game's release its defining feature after the game was released which stuck out to everybody years later was your companion Pikachu following you on the over-world. This just felt right for the series after-all we want to be on an adventure with our companions and to many they are as much our partners as they are family. The idea of a partner pokemon of your choosing following your trainer around the world would turn into the regular fan request for the series for years to come. However this feature wouldn't see a return in the handheld games until over a decade later on the DS with the fantastic Heart Gold/Soul Silver remakes of the second generation Pokemon games.

One could look at Pokemon Yellow cynically as did several game critics of the time and say it was an unambitious video game merely developed to further extract money from a young rabid fanbase with parents who will have to shell out more money for their child's new obsession. Indeed it is easy to look at Pokemon Yellow as a mere stopgap before the upcoming releases of the more technologically advanced upcoming titles on the horizon. For what it is worth the game blew me away as a young child at the time I was part of the target audience the developers were surely aiming to impress at the time, and none of the (not without merit) criticism stopped countless people including myself from falling in love with the game and having very fond memories of it that will last a lifetime. For many of us Pokemon fans the upcoming Gameboy Color games wouldn't replace the older games at all and it wasn't uncommon to concurrently play both generations.

As time passed eventually we would see the first generation of games remade for the Gameboy Advance in the form of FireRed and LeafGreen where Kanto got revisited for the first time. Closer to more recent times when The Pokemon Company and Nintendo looked to revisit the Kanto region yet again for Nintendo Switch to capitalize on the popularity explosion of Pokemon Go, and we saw the creators GameFreak look to Pokemon Yellow for some inspiration when creating Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu and Let's Go Eevee. These games turned out to be effectively abridged remakes of Pokemon Yellow with the intention catering to newcomers and many old players who had maybe fallen out of the series over the years. For the more dedicated players of the series these games were a considered a disappointment compared to the potential of a more expanded modern remake of the original generation of games. Maybe one day we will have another chance to revisit the Kanto region in a modern title but in the meantime we will always have the original games waiting for us.

In conclusion I must say Pokemon Yellow has a special place in my heart and I greatly enjoyed my recent revisiting of it for the purpose of writing this spotlight, and personally Pokemon Yellow is the way I would recommend anybody to experience the first generation of Pokemon for the first time. I think the idea of combining the first generation of games with the anime to create this interesting cocktail was a stroke of genius that has allowed the game to age very well with the enduring popularity of the anime. No matter how long Pokemon continues we can always look back at the roots of the series and find joy whether you are a veteran player or a first time player. Pokemon Yellow is a game any fan of the franchise should try for themselves if they haven't yet already. I cherish this game deeply and I'm confident in saying that many of you reading this likely cherish it too.

A gem hidden among the stones, Pokemon Yellow is undoubtedly stardust.

-- Larsa

[soulprompts]

THE SURPRISING HERO ( A PROMPT LIST! )

hello my beloveds!!! an absolutely incredible nonnie sent in a request for prompts based on the idea of someone becoming a vital part of saving the world through unanticipated events, and i hope i managed to achieve what they wanted in this list! basically i got a tonne of inspiration from comic book movies and the more fantastical vibes of high fantasy franchises, and i was going to make these more amusing, but i think there's something so hard-hitting about the concept of being thrust into greatness and heroism when you feel you aren't ready for it! anyway! enjoy, and as always: DO NOT ADD TO OR EDIT THIS LIST, AND DO NOT CLAIM AS YOUR OWN!

FROM THE UNEXPECTED HERO:

“ i’m not supposed to be here. i’m not like the rest of you; i’m not special, or blessed, or gifted. i’m just… me. “

“ you’ve got to be joking! i can’t save the world! i’m just an ordinary person! “

“ it’s funny. all these years, i’ve wanted so badly to see the world. now… i think i’ve never wanted anything so much as to go back home. “

“ so that’s it, then? i’m just supposed to sacrifice everything to save the world, all because some ancient prophecy says so? “

“ i still can’t quite believe we were doing laundry yesterday. now our biggest chore is traveling across the world to save it. “

“ i miss home. i miss how safe and boring and fine it all was. i never would’ve wanted adventures if i thought they’d be as scary and dangerous as this. “

“ they’re right to be angry, you know. everyone has a purpose here; i’m only joining you all because of some insane twist of fate. “

“ surprised? don’t worry, so was i. i don’t think it’s a normal occurrence for people like me to be part of massive quests like this. “

“ look. i’m not the chosen one, alright? i don’t want any part in any prophecy or ancient dictation. i just want to live an ordinary, safe, boring life. “

“ you think i don’t acknowledge what’s happening?! every mistake i make has costs, and those costs are often the lives of innocent people! “

“ you know, last year my idea of a grand adventure was going up the mountains for a picnic with my friends. funny how fast things change, isn’t it? “

“ i’m not a hero! i don’t know how to fight! heroes are special and unique and trained, and i’m none of those things. “

“ everyone looks at me like i’ve got the answers, but i don’t. i was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. “

“ you ever stop to question the solidity of this prophecy? because if the wording is that vague that it could name me as the savior of the world, then maybe we ought to revise it. “

“ this is stupid! putting the fate of the universe on some million-year-old prophecy! “

“ i’m not what you think i am. i’m not a hero. i’m sorry, i know you want me to be one, but… i’m just not. “

“ so you’re telling me, because i happened to overhear some weird out of context conversation, that the safety of the world relies entirely on me? “

“ don’t you see how daft this whole thing is?! i’ve got to save the world now because i happened to take a wrong turn on my way home! “

“ why can’t i just give you guys what i found, and you can go and rescue the world yourselves? “

“ i want to clarify that i’m not a coward. okay? i’m not running away from this. but i’m not exactly save-the-world material. so thank you for the opportunity, but… i think i’ll stay at home. “

TO THE UNEXPECTED HERO:

“ i get it, you know. it’s a huge responsibility for someone who’s only just realized what’s at stake. “

“ the others think i’m utterly mad for even considering you for this task. but the fact is, you’re the only person i genuinely believe to be capable of fixing this mess. “

“ would you like to know the mark of a true hero? it’s courage. not an absence of fear, not an ignorance of it, but rather, the choice to persevere in spite of it. you’re still here. that makes you one of the bravest people on the planet. “

“ don’t let anyone else tell you what you are and aren’t capable of. everything happens for a reason, and it wasn’t dumb luck that put you in our path. “

“ i don’t believe in prophecies, personally. i think the universe is far too chaotic for them to survive thousands of years. but i do believe that you being here is not a coincidence. “

“ fate only accounts for part of what happens in our lives. the rest of it is all choices. and despite how scared and inexperienced you are… you’ve chosen to stay. that tells me an awful lot about you. “

“ how selfish can you be?! running away from this destiny, this task! the world will fall into darkness if you don’t step up, and here you are, hiding from your fate like a coward! “

“ you need to learn to ignore the opinions of others if you’re going to stand a chance at doing this. this is the cost of being a hero. people will judge, not based on truth, but on a limited perspective. “

“ don’t be stupid. we’re not special or talented either; i was trained from childhood, i can fight men twice my size, but that’s not the mark of a hero. “

“ if you like, i could teach you how to fight? you may find it useful. even if it’s just to comfort yourself against these ridiculous self-doubts. “

“ heroes aren’t always massive muscle types. the inventor of new defense measures against attacks, or someone who discovered a cure for a disease, or perhaps someone clever enough to use new fuel sources in the winter… heroism isn’t always found in warzones, you know. “

“ fine. don’t do it for the fate of the world. do it for your family. your friends. do it for the ones you’ll return to once we settle this for good. save this world, not for the world itself, but for the ones you love, so that they may live on. “

“ you should know some things. most people, if you somehow perform outside of the very specific expectations they have for you, will be very quick and harsh in their judgment. it’s not something one can avoid. but you can learn to rise above those critics. remember. they don’t know the real you. “

" fear is normal. okay? we all fear things. the real killer is when you try to fight that fear. you're no lesser a hero for fearing things. expect it. accept it. embrace it. and once it's with you, work with it to fight even more. "

" you keep saying you're not a hero. tell me. what exactly is it that you believe a hero to be? "

" people make the error of assuming heroes to be golden, flawless, immaculate in both thought and strategy. it's never the case. heroes are the most flawed of all. that's what makes us admire them so. "

[waitmyturtles]

SOME GOOD SHOWS THAT I LIKED IN 2023! (AND SOME THAT I DIDN'T)

I watched A LOT of stuff that did not originally air in 2023 by dint of my Old GMMTV Challenge. This list is inclusive of this recognition!

THE BEST SHOW I WATCHED THIS YEAR: HE'S COMING TO ME

I have no other words: this is my favorite Thai BL of all time. Perfect length, perfect plot, perfect celebration of Thai culture, perfect acting, the greatest coming out scene of all time, the BEST of the best BL moms. Perfection.

THE OTHER BEST SHOW I WATCHED THIS YEAR: BAD BUDDY

I don't even want to think about how many words I've written on Bad Buddy this year, but they're well deserved for this REMARKABLE show. I've got a thing for shows by Aof Noppharnach that feature Ohm Pawat, what can I say!

THE MOST INFLUENTIAL SHOW(S) I WATCHED THIS YEAR: LOVE SICK AND SOTUS

The influence of Love Sick and SOTUS can be seen in SO MANY Thai BLs, even through today. Without having watched these two shows to start my OGMMTVC project, I wouldn't have the context for what later shows like Bad Buddy and Theory of Love were commenting on by way of their content and structures. Love Sick in particular was a HELL of a lift -- but I am damn glad I watched it, and I certainly feel nostalgia for it today.

Honorable mentions of influential pieces that had impacts on Thai BLs: Love of Siam and Dew the Movie

MY OTHER FAVORITE OLD SHOWS I WATCHED: UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN AND THEORY OF LOVE

BANGERS!!!

If New Siwaj ever tops Until We Meet Again, I'll fly to Bangkok and give him a gold medal. That long-ass show, 17 EPISODES, I WANTED MORE! OhmFluke's chemistry was great, the story delved SO deeply into historical homophobia and how culture and acceptance changes over time -- scrumptious. Theory of Love, man, the way this show ate up implicit compassion bias and gave it right back to us. I loved it. KHAI FOREVER!

THE BEST SHOW I WATCHED THAT ACTUALLY AIRED IN 2023: MOONLIGHT CHICKEN

Not only was Moonlight Chicken my first real live fandom experience on Tumblr, it was a hell of an amazing show, incorporating so much of what I love particularly about Thai BLs, and how many Thai BLs do not shy away from celebrating Asian cultural touchpoints. From exploring Jim's internalized homophobia by way of his rural upbringing, to juxtaposing Pattaya's spiritual symbols with growing development that upends older strains of local culture, Moonlight Chicken offered a lovely commentary on what it means to be queer in an ever-changing Thailand.

THE OTHER BEST SHOW I WATCHED THAT ACTUALLY AIRED IN 2023: WHAT DID YOU EAT YESTERDAY?/KINOU NANI TABETA? SEASON 2

BRILLIANTLY ACTED by literally the best actors in the Asian BL game: we are blessed that Nishijima Hidetoshi and Uchino Seiyou have given so much to this franchise. It's hard to write about this show because it's so perfect -- it needs no extraneous words. Plot, pacing, acting, character development, gratuitous food shots. It has it all.

THE OTHER OTHER BEST SHOW I WATCHED THAT ACTUALLY AIRED IN 2023: I CANNOT REACH YOU

Just like Bad Buddy looked at Thai BL tropes in the eye and said, "over my Nong Nao," I Cannot Reach You asked Japanese BLs about the efficacy of almost every trope we've gotten used to, and questioned them with efficiency. The biggest shocker for me? REAL COMMUNICATION, encouraged by the CIPHER, Hosaka, that allowed the two lead protagonists to confirm their love and understand each other. It was straightforward and FUCKING GOOD.

A SHOW THAT AIRED IN 2023 THAT I HAVEN'T WRITTEN ABOUT YET, THAT I NEED TO REWATCH IN CHRONOLOGY, THAT ALSO DID SOME TROPE/GENRE ASS-KICKING THAT I'M STILL THINKING ABOUT: LA PLUIE

La Pluie was FEARLESS. The show had a LOT to say about romance and soulmates not being as much of a realistic thing as content-makers... and, frankly, majority society would like us to think. La Pluie made its characters WORK for love and understanding, and had us viewers face our implicit biases about how romantic content should and could work. I watched this show out of order of the OGMMTVC watchlist to see it it was one of the best of the year, and it certainly is. I'm planning a deep rewatch for early 2024 to pen my words on it.

A SHOW THAT ALMOST TOPPED MY 2023 LIST BUT GOT DOCKED BECAUSE I ENDED UP LIKING THE NOVEL A LOT BETTER: I FEEL YOU LINGER IN THE AIR

@neuroticbookworm and @lurkingshan know that I flipped THA FUCK out over this show -- FABULOUSLY acted by Nonkul Chanon and Bright Rapheephong, FABULOUS cinematography, great story up until the end of the series. My fangirling led me to read the original novel by Violet Rain, and -- I found out that Jom was a lot more damn sassy than we got in the show! Tee Bundit's penchant for sadness won. This is not to dock the show, but the novel had more than enough material to carry the series through without repeating themes in the end. So it fell on my 2023 list, womp womp. BUT I STILL LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS SHOW, DON'T GET ME WRONG.

TWO SHOWS THAT I'M SUPER GLAD I CAUGHT UP WITH WHILE THEY WERE AIRING: THE EIGHTH SENSE AND BE MY FAVORITE

Be My Favorite looked at Krist Perawat's checkered past as a BL idol and said: we are going to examine this and make an honest BL out of inspiration from it. It wasn't a perfect show, the time travel shit didn't end up adding up in the end, BUT -- excellent acting from two GMMTV VETS made up for those tangles, and I loved the contextual philosophical references throughout the series. The Eighth Sense looked at the tug-of-war that Korean BLs have with K-dramas and their tropes and said, actually? We will have these dudes full-frontal kiss, and placed that energy against commentaries on mental health, both topics that Korea hasn't quite embraced as quickly as other countries.

HONORABLE MENTIONS OF OTHER AWESOME SHOWS THAT MAY OR MAY NOT HAVE AIRED IN 2023

Make It Right, Our Dating Sim, Dark Blue Kiss, Gay OK Bangkok, Dirty Laundry, 10 Years Ticket, I Told Sunset About You, I Promised You the Moon, 3 Will Be Free, Lovely Writer (underrated?!), Our Skyy 2 x Bad Buddy x A Tale of Thousand Stars (UNDERRATED!), and Manner of Death.

And the shows that are airing that I know will stay with me well into 2024: Last Twilight and Cherry Magic Thailand.

I had fun!

WHAT ELSE, WHAT ELSE: THE "NO" SHOWS: THE PROMISE AND STEP BY STEP

I'm not even hyperlinking my thoughts on these shows, nor gifting them with gifs. Insert Bugs Bunny NOOOOOO gif here! We got Man Trisanu, though.

THE SHOW I WAS THE MOST OBVIOUSLY DISAPPOINTED BY: ONLY FRIENDS

Despite my passionate disappointment for this show and how it ended: in the context of the OGMMTVC, Only Friends is still an incredibly important inclusion to the list. Some amazing Tumblr bloggers offered commentary that the bias against sex that OF contained within the show was actually importantly and culturally contextual to the still-conservative state of acceptance that Thailand is currently in (here and here for more reading).

Only Friends reminded us that despite any kind of marketing that we here on Tumblr, as a majority non-Thai audience, may receive about a Thai show -- that we are still not fully plugged into the non-verbal expectations of what a show like OF could promise to do, and to be okay when it doesn't reach those heights. In light of the seemingly pro-sex marketing blasts that previewed the series before its airing, OF ultimately seemed to want to take casual sex, chew it up, and spit it out. There might be reasons why that happened that we just don't know about as outsiders to Thailand. But as an Asian-American viewer that was hoping for neutral -- and maybe even supportive -- commentary on single folks having casual sex without judgement, OF did not deliver for me.

I'm ending the year reading Dr. Thomas Baudinette's book, Boys Love Media in Thailand, the first book-length ethnographic study on the impact of BL on queerness, media, and more in Thailand and across Asia. Baudinette comes from the world of Japanese queer media studies -- as someone who came to Thai BLs this year from Japanese BLs, I appreciate his trajectory. It's clearly a necessity for me to read this book in the context of the OGMMTVC, to understand how Thai BLs have changed over time, and to understand the incredibly larger impact of heterosexual/heteronormative media and themes on Thai media as a whole, as larger and larger swaths of Thai, Asian, and international societies welcome and watch BLs with open arms.

All of this feeds into my ever-growing body of knowledge about the impact of Thai BLs, both in Thailand and across Asia, as Baudinette writes about, and how these shows have and are developed/developing over time. It's been an AMAZING YEAR of watching old and new dramas for me, and I'm looking forward to seeing how the genre grows even more in 2024.

I also made AMAZING FRIENDS on Tumblr -- y'all know who you are! What a year of growth and discovery for me: this has been a fabulous experience, and I'm looking forward to even more growth in the new year!

[marriso1]

i genuinely become the worlds biggest crashout at the mention of the Dursleys it’s not even a joke anymore. Despite reading for first book twice and the movie numerous times i genuinely still get so heated when reading or watching through their segments. I feel like each year of my annual winter hp movie marathon i catch myself getting angrier and angrier during their scenes…. Like wdym “no meals for a week” WHAT THE FUCKKKK????? I know the Dursleys abuse is broached quite a bit but it isn’t as much as it should’ve been. They ligit starved him and isolated him in tiny spaces for days and it’s barely brought up in the franchise itself like at all. Then when he’s finally able to get his own room despite the Dursleys very well having such a space for him the entire time he went without it, there’s bars on his windows and he’s fed through a cat flap?? Like what?? I hate the fact no adult genuinely helped him. If you’re having to send food to a kid during a summer, listen to his remarks about the Dursleys never giving a shit, and take in jokes centered around being beaten and not do anything or even just talk to harry about it is insane.

My room is not a safe space the moment those movies are put on. I am genuinely cursing the tv out as if these monsters were in its place instead. Minerva had literally warned albus about how despicable that fucking family was BEFORE they had a kid to abuse and he STILL left harry in there. He never got to talk about the abuse he went through, any stable guardian he had fucking died, and he was never saved from that house until literal war had broke. out.

Imagine overhearing the other kid residing in your household whine over presents when you’re unsure on whether or not you’ll be getting fed over the next week. Harry didn’t even get fucking presents.

imagine receiving absolutely no form of love or support from anyone for the first eleven years of living.

i’m not even the type to get emotional over tv shows anymore but this shit makes me so fucking sad bro.

he had no idea anyone had even liked him let alone loved him

I hate it when people try and pity petunia or flat out excuse her actions. I do not give a flying fuck about her backstory when talking about the decisions she made as an aunt. I understand the loss of a sister is devestating. i understand how much a child being pushed in do you can negatively affect you and your family. None of that will ever justify what she had done and let happen to Harry under that roof. She abused him and neglected him herself while allowing her husband to do the exact same. Harry didn’t even ask to be born, let alone reside under her roof.

[yakopi]

MAWS and Batman

I have been finally watching My Adventures with Superman and I love it. It really hits that fundemental idea that Clark Kent is someone who genuinely wants to help out of the goodness of his heart. Just a home town boy raised with morals who thinks he is just like any other man even with his many powers.

When watching, however, anybody with some knowledge of the DC would notice the references to Gotham/Batman.

So I went snooping and found out that the showrunner already said that the Batman will never appear, so no twink Batman in the future.

That is sad, because I like the Batman franchise, however I also think that in a time where everything superhero related has to connect to a bigger shared continuum, sometimes just keeping focused on one franchise and with maybe some references that could come handy in a crossover movie/special is also fine.

However, that does not mean that we not allowed to make up our own ideas how Batman in the MAWS could have been.

Personally I am of the opinion that Batman would not be as yassified as he could have been, if only to provide contrast to the Batfamily's biggest twink that nobody can twink against: Nightwing.

So I would make Batman a slightly tired, mid-thirty-ish guy who already has adopted several children, with his oldest being Nightwing who is at most in his early twenties at.

And if the Superfriends ever go to Gotham, they would primarily deal with Nightwing and sometimes the other kids he is in charge of that day bc Batman is doing other things in the background.

Like going to a ballet recital for his daughter. Or going to buy a Wonder Woman costume to his son. Or trying to parent his son out of a caffeine addiction. Or buying his son ANOTHER pet. Or getting some new processors for his family friend. Or being threatened with violence by his cousin if he did not take a nap. Or being threatened with with violence by his date if he would stand her up again. Or having his high tech suit stolen and getting it back (cue a scene where Batman in a old costume that has those outside underwear designs and bright yellow colours chasing what is clearly two children in a more modern Batman suit.) etc.

And from long time crimefighting family Clark can learn about delegating responsibilities, a healthy work-life balance and much more that they have learned through trial and error.

Have a rough idea how Nightwing (and Batman) would look like in my mind.

Anyways, Batman in MAWS could have been neat, but I suppose I will have to take my more light-hearted Batfam shenanigans from the Webtoon instead.

Have a nice day, and if you have not seen My Adventures with Superman or Batman: Way and/or read Batman: Wayne Family Adventures, please do. They are great.

[james-stark-the-writer]

alright. now seated for David F. Sandberg's Shazam! (2019). i am definitely excited to go into this having now seen Lights Out (good movie, if a little standard, his letterboxd review for it makes me laugh) and his Annabelle movie (it sucked, i'm sorry, David, but that wasn't really you, the script was just godawful) and some of his shorts on YouTube (i do love how accessible filmmaking is now btw, genuinely fucking cool that a filmmaker making horror shorts on YouTube could end up making one feature film and go on to make a movie in one of the biggest horror franchises and then a superhero movie for one of the biggest superhero franchises, like i'm genuinely so proud of David), excited to see what he does with it. i remember really enjoying this movie when i saw it in theaters, and thinking it was the best thing in the DC would ever make (until i saw Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) so, i'm excited to see how it holds up! especially now that i've seen every movie preceding it.

also, does make me laugh that this is now the second movie in a row where DC has hired a horror filmmaker (James Wan's Aquaman was fucking amazing, genuinely incredible himbo cinema) to make a superhero movie and both of these movies are like some of the best shit DC has funded.

[its-the-rules]

intro post! 𖦹

figured it's time for one of these lol

—

i'm jill! (though this is subject to change ... not sure how okay i am with my name atm lol sorry)

18, any pronouns, no preference really

just into a lot of horror; frequently used tags will be at the bottom :)

my biggest interest is the saw franchise (as well as leigh whannell films in general), and has been for quite a while, so expect a lot of sawposting....

i really like meeting people with similar interests!! i don’t bite!! (not that i think i’m intimidating, LOL)

i both create fanart and write fanfiction, but i've never really shared any of either. been considering it though, so here's my ao3 in case that ever happens :)

[astoundingbeyondbelief]

Kaiju Week in Review (January 14-20, 2024)

Ultraman Blazar's finale aired on Friday. It was a solid capper to what's easily the best entry in the Ultra Series since I was an undergrad, full of heart and pyrotechnics. There were a few major loose ends—Captain Gento is better at keeping secrets than most hosts—which I'm hoping the movie, due in late February, will address. If you're looking for a place to start with the long-running franchise, it would be one of my first recommendations. Great effects, great cast, tons of new kaiju, and a blend of novelty (lots of focus on the tensions between the defense team and the larger monster-fighting organization; a host who's in charge of said defense team) and returning to form (Blazar yowls plenty but is an Ultra of few words; the power-ups and goofy weapons are kept to a minimum). And even if you don't want to commit to a whole show, episode 22, focusing on a hapless salesman of kaiju insurance, is a must-see for any fan of the genre. There seem to be no worlds left to conquer at Tsuburaya for lead director Kiyotaka Taguchi, so as I've been saying since around 2015: Toho, are you paying attention?

Godzilla Minus One/Minus Color, the regraded black and white version of Godzilla Minus One, is coming to North American theaters for one week starting January 26. Toho's yanking both versions from theaters after February 1—puzzling considering that the film is likely going to be nominated for the Best Visual Effects Oscar tomorrow. Takashi Yamazaki led a Godzilla delegation to the Academy's visual effects "bakeoff", in which voters watch highlights from the ten shortlisted films and their VFX teams explain their work. IndieWire reports that Yamazaki's presentation drew the most applause, describing Minus One as the "potential frontrunner." The Hollywood Reporter likes its chances too. Nominations will be announced starting at 8:30 AM EST. The Creator seems to be its biggest competition.

Godzilla Minus One also recently cleared $50 million at the U.S. box office, in the process passing the first Demon Slayer as the highest-grossing Japanese-language film ever released in the U.S. Some outlets are reporting that it's the highest-grossing Japanese film ever released here, which isn't accurate; the English-dubbed Pokémon: The First Movie made almost $86 million back in 1999. (And I think it's plausible that something like Rodan or Godzilla vs. Megalon would be the champ if you figured out how much they grossed and adjusted for inflation.)

Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong #4 brought Godzilla and Tiamat to Atlantis, forcing Aquaman to release the Kraken to defend his city. Incredibly, this is the third Kraken associated with the Monsterverse, after Na Kika (called Kraken when it was introduced in the King of the Monsters novelization) and the main antagonist of the Skull Island cartoon. I'm guessing it's going to have a shorter lifespan than either of them though.

In other Godzilla comic news, IDW will be putting out another intriguing one-shot in May, titled Godzilla: Mechagodzilla 50th Anniversary. Past comics from the publisher have included multiple Mechagodzilla models, but this one seems to be going above and beyond. Rich Douek is writing; Andrew Lee Griffith is illustrating. The logline:

For 50 years, the King of the Monsters, Godzilla, has gone toe to toe with its robotic doppelgänger, Mechagodzilla! As an intrepid reporter profiles the history of Mechagodzilla and its creator before the launch of the newest model, he finds himself entangled in a much deeper conspiracy. A decades-spanning adventure celebrating the mechanical monster's milestone!

One of master kaiju illustrator Shinji Nishikawa's books will receive an English translation courtesy of Titan Books. Awkwardly titled Godzilla: The Encyclopedia of Godzilla, the Japanese edition included over 100 full-bodied illustrations of various Godzilla series kaiju and analyses of their designs (alongside plenty of Nishikawa's trademark chibis). I'm sold, suffice to say.

Ryo Momota, director of the short tokusatsu film Revive! Smile Rock Giant God, has put the whole thing on YouTube with English subtitles for your amusement. It posits that a real rock formation outside of Tamano City will come to life to help its citizens in their hour of need. Very low-budget.

Kaiju Brooklyn is a one-day con that began filling a longtime void for East Coast kaiju fans last year. Here's the first major piece of news about their June 1 event: they'll be screening The Return of Godzilla outdoors at day's end. Consider me highly tempted.

Kaiju United has a new, wide-ranging interview with Barry Goldberg, webmaster of the legendary Barry's Temple of Godzilla. That fan site was my first window into the wider world of Godzilla in the early 2000s, and it's only been updated a few times since, so I was pretty interested to read how its creator was doing. Don't get your hopes up for a revival: he's still a Godzilla fan (loved Minus One, Shin not so much), but has moved on to other things. Great insights from a Big Name Fan who stayed humble.

[deusvervewrites]

I am bored and in the mood to bother you about it. What's the problem with how Overpowered is used? (Not by anon specifically, and keeping in mind I say Warframe lets you be overpowered as an excellent gameplay mechanic.)

There are a few problems with an Overpowered character, but what bothers me more is the people who use the term incorrectly.

Warframe does not let you be Overpowered. Warframe is a Power Fantasy. Both Warframe and Dynasty Warriors and the like feature individual super-badasses mowing down thousands of nameless mooks, but progress isn't made that way. It's made by fighting people on approximately the same level. In DW, that's named enemy units who can fight as well as you can. In Warframe, that's mostly done in big story moments. And no gun you have in Warframe is big enough to stop Praghasa or The Man in the Wall.

Generally, the term Overpowered in fiction is applied to works with some form of power system, for reasons I feel should be obvious, but technically the idea exists in other genres. A phone trivializes being stuck in the middle of nowhere with a slasher villain, which is why the phone signal always goes out. A single Xenomorph can slaughter a small crew of civilians, but Aliens had way more of them because the protagonists were now trained soldiers. (Also there was some social commentary but that's less important to the topic at hand)

But in gameplay terms, Overpowered refers to a strategy or game piece--something that the player can use to interact with gameplay systems, ranging from cards to characters to powers to weapons--that is objectively better than alternatives. It doesn't even have to be by much. Let's say your game has two weapons in it, a sword that deals 2 damage, and a sword that deals 3. Assuming that enemies have more than four health, there is literally no reason to ever use the sword that deals 2 damage because it is objectively worse. Thus, the 3-damage sword is Overpowered because it has forced everyone to use it.

But why would a game developer introduce an objectively better weapon? Power Creep. This is another gameplay and game design term that got thrown at fictional power systems for some reason. Power Creep is when developers make new game pieces that are better than old ones. Any game that goes on long enough will have Power Creep simply because of the number of new game pieces introduced, because human brain like it when number go up, but a good designer knows to limit Power Creep as much as possible. Why? Because Power Creep invalidates previous content, and people don't like it when the devs take their stuff away. Instead, most designers try to progress sideways. New gear and strategies are introduced, but are roughly on-par with what came before.

What does this have to do with fictional power systems? Well, authors often feel as though escalation is the best way to raise narrative tension. Introducing a new bad guy who's like the old bad guy, But Stronger, is an easy way for an author to raise the stakes. The problem with this method is that it's unsustainable. It turns everything into a numbers game. Whoever has the biggest number wins. In essence, every arc is, "Bad Guy arrives and trounces Hero. Hero then gets stronger and has a rematch and wins." You can write a story that way, it's how Dragon Ball works, but after a while, the numbers become meaningless. People have been leveling this complaint at the Dragon Ball franchise for years now, even before Super started and those criticisms really got going.

Authors have gotten around this in a few ways, such as giving the Stronger Bad Guy an exploitable weakness, or giving their major antagonists unique gimmicks instead of higher stats, but that's getting off-topic.

Can you see the difference here? A character's power level is oftentimes very different from how overpowered items and strategies work in games. Goku isn't Overpowered because he's the strongest protagonist, he's Overpowered because he's so strong that none of the other characters ever get to do anything. Both Super and GT tried to fix this, Super by making Vegeta also do things and GT by making Goku a kid. Unfortunately, neither of these are great solutions since Super put a bandaid on the problem and GT did it in a really stupid way that should've been easily fixed if the plot didn't mandate that it wasn't. A better solution was used by Super later on in their Tournament of Power arc because, and I need you to follow me on this one, characters who were not Goku or Vegeta got to participate. Shocking I know.

The flaw in an overpowered character is in poor story structure, poor planning, and underutilizing the cast. Not how strong they actually are. Koro-Sensei from Assassination Classroom is the Unkillable Teacher, but the show is about how E Class rallies and grow as people, plus a lot of social commentary, so the fact that their assassination attempts fail doesn't matter as much.

And that's why I'm so furious that when you look up advice for writing power systems, the only argument they have for putting a limitation on your power system is that "an overpowered character isn't realistic."

I want to write a story about people who can magically make someone's head explode, Janet! I don't give a fuck about realism!

You know who gets it? Of course you do. I'm talking about the author when it comes to power systems. Brandon Sanderson. More specifically, his Second Law of Magic Systems: Limitations Are More Interesting Than Powers.

If anyone can blow up a mountain, who cares? But if your characters can only use their special moves when certain conditions are met, then suddenly the fight becomes a race to meet your conditions first. And that has tension! Drama! You know, that thing stories are supposed to have!

[blackhakumen]

What The Ships Say About You Part 3

Luigi X Daisy X Lilith: Okay, so remember in Luigi X Daisy in the first part where I said Daisy would write a 10-page long essay about how loved and appericate Luigi truly is and "Men. Getting. Pegged" or whatever? Yeah, this implies in here as well.......But what if we add a fucking succubus into the mix lmao

Luigi X Cloud: Just when you thought the Luigi Love Train is over, you later decided to have an angsty twink pin over him as well. Now you may two reasons for doing this: Either A., you figured a loner and a timid, shy man would make for an interesting, potentially cute pairing or B., you're starting to get real tired of constantly seeing these two get paired up with their mortal enemies pop up on your feeds

Dedede X Morrigan: You just want King Dedede to be happy and get himself laid. And really, who wouldn't?

Ludwig X Kumatora: Either you're a huge Beauty and the Beast fan or you find these two characters underrated and cool in their own right, to the point where you're only shipping them just for the hell of it.

Alucard X Maria (SOTN): You are a firm believer in the inherent eroticism of ancient gothic vampire stories.

Felicia X Jon Taiban: Your ideal date involves watching a glamorous broadway show starring werewolves and singing catwomen.

Futaba X Yusuke: Your ideal date involves sketching a scene from a shoenn anime with every bit off detail, frame by frame.

Ryuji X Haru: Your ideal date involves rocking out to hard-core metal music while sitting in the comfort of your luxurious home, enjoying a freshly hot cup of tea.

Sae X Tae: You've always been a slut for workplace romance and hot women in general.

Justicykes: You either think Dual Destinies is one of the best titles in the Ace Attorney franchise or you just like seeing a normal guy with choirs of steel getting thwarted constantly by a energetic redhead.

Feenie X Iris: Behind all the lies and deception, you still find this to be one of the most wholesome ships this series has to offer. Either that or you're completely heterosexual.

Trucy X Wocky: You're a sucker for the cinnamon roll and delinquent pairing. And it all started with that one Arvil Lavigne song that somehow got stuck in your head. (He was a punk.and she do ballet, what more can I sayyy?~)

Hajime X Ibuki: This is basically the same joke as Justicykes only this time you may now have a thing for punk rock girls. Who can't sing.

Fuyuhiko X Peko: You just want these two to finally be happy and live a peaceful life. And really, who would- What the hell am I saying? OF COURSE WE WANT THAT SHIT-

Rouge X Gambit: You are a firm believer in the inherent eroticism of Southern Hospitality. That and you're a 90's X-Men fan.

Fox X Krystal: You used to be invested a ship that not only jumpstarted you into becoming a furry, but also made you want to become a story writer solely to try and rewrite a story of a game you disliked over the years ('Cough' 'Cough' Star Fox Command 'Cough' 'Cough')

Robert X Yuri: Your ideal date is pigging out in the most expensive restaurant ever known to men.

Kazuya X Jun: You are a firm believer in the inherent eroticism of trying to "fix" someone for whatever reason other than you being into evil, demonic guys with a tragic backstory.

JinHwoaXiao: You tried to decide if you want an angst bad boy or rebellious delinquent for a boyfriend only to end up going with both of them instead or you just saw that one Park and Rec meme years ago and figured...."Yeah that is definitely these three idiots in a nutshell."

Espio X Silver X Blaze: This is kinda similar to JinHwoaXiao joke but you find this pairing way less angsty in comparison surprisingly enough

Rentarou's Family: .....Yeah, you're definitely into Poly Ships. That and you now firmly believe that Rentarou Aijou is the biggest Chad in all of fiction.

@bestpony666

@tampire

@meme-boys-blog