#i didn't know those people actually exist

[splinterofpandora]

Batman is dead.

I know it sounds vulgar.

Oh, you didn't like one comic book and now the character doesn't exist for you. Come on, we go through this every day! Stop clowning, you're not Joker!

But they actually did it in 2023. A year later, I realized exactly what happened. And I think I know how to change it. Hold on, because I'm going to tell you who Bruce Wayne was, and why death was good for him.

Chapter one. This is where the story begins.

Ok, we all know that. The alley. The boy next to his parents' bodies. No one hears his tears. A promise by the bedside. The training. Criminals are a superstitious cowardly lot. The Bat.

We rarely talk about Thomas and Martha because it was never their story. It was the story of a boy who found the meaning of life...no, at this stage, of existence...in fighting Evil. It was 1940s. The early years of The Dark Knight, in terms of plot, emphasized the common person's ability to overcome challenges and help those who cannot defend themselves. At first, the reader saw a “cool and intimidating” costume. The vigilante in action.

However, diving into the text we find that this Frightening Guardian is very...soft. He stays and tends to the victims of crime. Doesn't let people get discouraged. He is feared by criminals. He doesn't mind much that the police can do it either. But he's not an enemy of the society.

Later, Robin shows up. Alfred. Batwoman. Batgirl. The League...

But Batman remains their friend too. And so does Bruce Wayne, who...started life in the 1950s.

Chapter Two. Creating Identity.

Until about the early 70's(I'm using decades for simplicity, the actual timeline is a bit different) Batman's adventures explored the big issues people care about - corruption, war, crime. The wrapping of this was removed from reality. Took the form of evil clowns, spies in funny costumes, even aliens. Comics didn't want to pour complex things over our heads in their purest form.

But the important thoughts, the problems themselves and their possible solutions, along with the dreams of Mankind (flying cars, new discoveries in medicine, exploring the world), have always been the theme of the issue. For this reason, most of the dialog was directed at external things. The characters showed themselves through their actions.

We saw that Bruce can truly doubt, worry, and do crazy things. But he always cares about his young partner and wants to give him the best of what he himself has. Often in his interactions with Dick, Wayne shows pride in his son, his support. Many times he even risked Batman's life to save Grayson. And yes, the idea of separating man and suit, outside of formalities, didn't exist back then.

The idea of a billionaire wasn't a big deal yet, and 99% of the problems were solved by the masked vigilante, while the rich guy was a good cover for gathering information, which he did in the first issues.

Comics and media(audio, animated series, books) that recall this period especially emphasize the moment of complete father-son trust. As the point of supreme discovery of Bruce Wayne's mind. He wants to see a world where people are friends with each other. Openness. Sincerity. Idealism without drifting into absurdity. This is the Bruce Wayne of DC's first 30 years.

Chapter Three. Flowers are better than batarangs.

It's ironic, but with the visual darkness (relative to earlier works), 1970's Knight was the perfect middle ground between Bruce and Batman. The conflict of concepts was not yet seen from the angle of falling into darkness, but made many, not always consciously, afraid of their own protector.

My words should not be taken too literally. Gotham loved him. He openly cooperated with the police. Easily walked through the door of people's homes if invited. However, he could also be tough on crime and move like a shadow. That was troubling. But Batman doesn't cross the line. He's too kind. Everyone knows that.

Bruce is finally the man we know. Playful and frivolous, but the rich who loves beneficial initiatives for the city and its residents by day. And caped crusader by night.

He adores his children, starts many foundations and even a detective agency to help those in need and make police work easier. At the same time, Bruce's personal life is also going well. The authors are constantly looking for the man to be the love of his life, and the idea of retirement with the possibility of helping the world in some other way, without the cape, is increasingly glimpsed in stories about a possible future.

Unfortunately, the picture limit does not allow the narrator to continue his never ending battle, and so he will continue in the next post!

P.S. That and other themed post can be found under BrightKnightUpcoming tag.

[burningcheese-merchant]

Hopefully this'll make you feel better but, the two halves of the souljam of change(aka, abundance and destruction) both decide, "ya know what, our wielders need a heir" and just. Create one from nothing

"Create an heir from nothing" is a very unique and interesting way to say "BS and GC fucked all night every night until the doctor gave them the good news" sorry. Couldn't help it. I'm gutter trash at heart, forgive me

It's funny that you phrase it as though the Lights of Abundance and Destruction made a conscious decision wrt the creation/conception of the children, because that actually kind of did happen lol. It's been shown multiple times in canon that the Soul Jams are sentient (maybe even fully sapient, like actual people) and have even been seen having full-on conversations with their owners (the Ancients, anyway). Knowing this, I thought of incorporating this bit of lore into the kids' own backstories

There's a certain part I can't explain atm, because it involves really important aspects of the kids' characters/story arcs that I'm not ready to talk about yet. What I CAN say is that BS and GC decided together ahead of time that they wanted kids, which the Soul Jams were/are obviously privy to. And when the time came to make those kids (whichever way you choose to interpret that, the Cookie Run way or the human way lol), the Soul Jams wanted to be of service to their masters and thus took action on their behalf

And so, the Soul Jams willingly surrendered portions of their power to the children. Both of them, both times. Abundance and Destruction reunited as they were always meant to, but under different circumstances than was ever expected. And because they became one within totally new and different people, they didn't appear in them as either Abundance OR Destruction and instead manifested as different aspects of Change entirely. In this way, they can wholly belong to the children and no one else. Unique, but still a product of their parents' union. Still little heralds of Change, like mom and dad

(Important note: neither BS nor GC were aware of this. The Souls Jams acted entirely of their own accord and never said anything about it. They didn't know until the kids were born and they both had... that aura. The one all the Soul Jam wielders have. They both thought they were going insane until all the others came to visit them/meet the babies and confirmed they sensed it, too. A peek into their minds/souls (from both PV and SM) confirmed that they do, indeed, have Soul Jams of their own, much to everyone's shock. Now, not only are there 12 Soul Jams and not 10, but a) that godlike power now rests in the hands of literal children, and b) it wasn't created and given to them by the Witches. These Soul Jams are 100% brand new and came to exist through... unforeseen and unorthodox methods. They don't even exist the same way as the others; they're not gemstones you can touch and hold, they're legitimately only visible within their souls. They weren't given actual, physical pieces of Abundance and Destruction, their souls were imbued with their power. So they can't be seen nor taken away, unless you take their souls themselves away...)

[xsoldier]

A big part was that a majority of the progress of the early 2000s to 2010 mattered to ACTUAL PEOPLE, whereas post-financial crisis, the progress started to focus solely on corporations' economic growth — whilst the enshittification of technology actively eroded away the progress that had been made for people.

That contributed to the growing class divide & inability to influence the world in a meaningful way, because the bigger corporations swallowed everything up, and transformed everything into a resource to serve ITS needs, rather than existing to address the needs of actual human beings.

Ex: Blockbuster won't get videos from everywhere, and runs out of what you want to watch? Netflix will mail you the DVDs for anything you can think of, and then eventually it's streaming so you don't even need that if you have good internet! It's addressing a need for actual people. Until that shift meant it was just a subscription service that only randomly had something you wanted to see, and would slowly but surely ratchet up its prices no matter how much less it was offering, because you didn't have any other legal options to watch & their content and participate in a collective social activity.

Even when I graduated from high school in 2004 — The stagnation of things like social security being estimated to be non-existed when I hit retirement age & the escalating impossibility to own a home still existed. There was a VERY cautious optimism of that being fixed, but none of us were holding our breaths — mainly because as Millennials we were being scapegoated for killing the economy of every conceivable business ever, while those in power ignored that what they were doing was fundamentally unsustainable.

We all work for companies that treat us like nothing but fuel to make their stock prices go up, and VERY few of us ever get to share in what the increase of that value means, on TOP of not making a meaningful difference while the rest of progress was a stagnation even when things were still getting a bit better in some places, with the flip side being how shit like school shootings were turned into a status quo because special interest groups were so powerful, your individual voice meant nothing at work or in government, and social media was the only place where that playing field was leveled between corporate, media, & political figureheads and everyday people… for a time.

That's why that particular string of nihilism & hopelessness is most often apathy rather than rage, as well as why it was so easy to find people tired of being blamed for fucking up everything all the time, point them at a scapegoat, and use that false empowerment to fuel far-right political fury like MAGA while the liberals & Democrats just clung to the status quo that was still failing everyone because they'd rather bask in the satisfaction of being right than risk what it'd take to actually be effective. (Not just an American problem either, but that's the perspective I know it best from).

Late-stage capitalism morphing into the far worse techno feudalism, whilst the Internet itself turned into a corporate dystopia YEARS ago from the once wild-west interconnected web of human experience that it was back then before Apps homogenized everything into locked down silos of control, where they'll siphon away anything you give, and you have no money to fight off something that massive in court, and seldom any tools to find fairness otherwise.

While most millennials don't have that active rage, we HATE that Gen Z wasn't given a better world. Sure it's got neat things, but we loathe the ways it's failed us both and prevented us from doing a damn thing. …and that's also why the second a Medical Insurance CEO got shot… everybody realized that it's a class thing and we got to see JUST how different it is when something happens to one of them vs. our friends getting murdered in schools & clubs for YEARS.

We didn't like the status quo back then, but it was still moving. We hate the present even more because it's regressing as the powerful are playing in a facade of a promised future, while going about it with all the myopic incompetence of every early-2000s power-hungry web admin with the morals of the most repugnant internet troll, and fucking over anyone below them with impunity. So let me say from experience:

When given power, those people will never care. They will never change, because they got there by being the way they are on purpose. Don't tolerate it. Don't normalize it. Don't play fair against them, because they're not. Play to win.

Remember that it's not an age thing, and it's barely a political thing because those lines VANISH when the real problem gets exposed. It's a class thing of corporate wealth trying to make themselves into gods who feed off of everyone else, and there's no low they won't sink to to take more however they can, and no matter how many of our lives it costs.

am taking perverse pleasure in reminding people it's 2025. that's a star trek year. silly little science fiction number. except it's happening, and DANG ain't it underwhelming!

[slickricklj]

Jill Valentine + Chris Redfield - When you know, you know.

Bonus:

[electroniccollectiondonut]

I have not been in this fandom long enough to reasonably judge others' takes however. "EPIC fans are so silly to characterize odysseus as feeling guilty for his actions don't you know he's a war criminal" is definitely a wild one. like first of all to each their own so settle down and let people enjoy things ok. and secondly making choices with a bad outcome, even knowingly and deliberately, does not exclude the possibility of feeling bad about it later. in fact it makes for a much more in depth character because then you get to explore what he does or doesn't feel guilt over, and why, and if that guilt ever edges into regret or not.

[hasufin]

He's right, but also in a very small way wrong.

I've been in companies where they did this kind of slashing. And it doesn't exactly go the way you think.

Large-scale layoffs prey on the fact that most people are basically decent, caring, honorable beings.

See, the thing is, there's not exactly a Set Amount Of Work a person can do in a day. Because humans don't exist in days. We exist in seconds, weeks, months, and years.

Can I work now? Yes. I can work for another hour. And another one after that. I can work for eight hours.

I can work for ten-hour days. I can work for 60 or 80 hour weeks. I can even work for 100-hour weeks. For a while.

And that's what's going to happen at the SSA. Because the people who work there are, in fact, dedicated civil servants who know that if the checks don't go out people will suffer. Musk is going to cut the SSA, and the people who are left will work harder. Because, unlike Musk, those civil servants actually care about the American people.

And all the MAGATs will crow about how we didn't need those gubmint people, and now everyone who is left has to "work for a living". And they will laugh and laugh when they hear about how overworked those people are, because MAGATs are cruel, terrible people who think it's funny when other people suffer.

But that's what happens when a decently-staffed organization is decimated. Because the people who do the work actually care.

And I don't know. I hate to say it, but the people who are left are going to have to just let the system fail. I don't think there will be any other solution, I don't think MAGATs will give a fuck until the very moment it hurts them personally.

Elon Musk is breaking Social Security.

System collapse and interruption of benefits are all manufactured by Musk. Disgusting.

America needs to void Musk now.

[epickiya722]

I like some fanon things, too, but sometimes fanon just ain't it.

[nexus-nebulae]

another childhood bucket list item obtained: i finally have a snuggie

[newpotatomash]

It's so fucking ironic when little shits start pelting the comment section in fics that are clearly tagged with "pedophilia" and "dead dove do not eat" and similar words.

Long fucking rant under the cut-

What is it with these people and being unable to just fucking click the back button? It isn't even my fanfiction, but these people just scream everything between "Go to therapy" and "kill yourself" as if they actually wish for people to deal with whatever might cause an issue in their life??? They fucking don't. They just want to scream at strangers to die while they write "UwU dead dove do not eat" fanfics themselves that include murder and violent fantasies of a fictional character.

But it's fine when they do it because nobody involved is underage as if that makes their stupid fucking rules about thought-crimes any less violent.

Why is it always the same people who insist they love dark media?? Either you're fine with MADE UP ACTS or you're not. You can't just fucking pick and choose and decide that you're the authority of "acceptable" violence that someone thought up in their heads.

I am extremely fickle when it comes to media that involves vaginal sex, and that is my responsibility to curate, which is why I fucking??? Don't??? Walk right into a fanfic that's been tagged with those exact tags and blame the author.

I saw someone going something like, "No sane person would read this. I can only imagine a very impressionable child stumbled upon it and saw it, which breaks my heart ngl"

IF AN IMPRESSIONABLE CHILD STARTS TICKING BOXES FOR A VERY SPECIFIC TYPE OF FANFIC, AND THEY THEN PROCEED TO READ IT, HOW THE HELL IS THAT THE AUTHORS FAULT. we're one goddamn step away from blaming murder on video games here.

These fucking people think that wishing death upon others for writing a piece of fiction is any better than a 14 year old reading said piece of fiction and going, "Whoa. Weird." And then leaving the website because they realized that pretending to be 18+ was a bad idea.

I am in awe over the internet.

The amount of times I see the word "degenerate" on a day is completely bonkers and I wish sites weren't so fucking scared of porn. We're just competing in some fucked up moral olympics and nobody is winning except the advertisers who cry snot at a site allowing 18+ content. I love ao3 so much.

I hate that if I wish to post smutty drawings I have to use twitter? I won't suddenly start using a site like furaffinity when I don't draw anything that would count as furry.

I hate the internet for taking away the immeasurable joy it is to bond with people who just want to play dolls (write fanfics or draw fanart, make oc stuff, all that) with me. I've met some of my best friends online that I've sent and received gifts from over the span of 5, 10, 15 years.

I remember writing an abundance of shotacon fics, and knowing it was an acquired taste, but never seeing the kind of moral-policing we have now. (I know it existed. Of course) Hell, I remember people just saying that Enzai was an amazing anime because to them, it was a given that a yaoi anime would include kids and rape and false imprisonment?? It was the fucking wild west and it's like people saw this and went "Hey... We should start tagging things."

But instead of continuing to have fun with their fictional writings and tagging topics in the stories, we just escalated into "We have a pedophilia tag but people will wish death upon you."

How do these people survive in day-to-day life in actual conversation? Do they start arguing and calling a 15 year old who has a crush on their 14 year old friend a pedophile? Do they start berating young women because they named their boyfriend "daddy" in their phonebook? Why are they like this???

I miss fanfiction.net and livejournal so much when the biggest concern was figuring out what topic I'd discuss while I pretended to speak to characters from Yugioh and yelling "I don't own any of these characters". I miss it so much. It made my life better. I found community, I made friends. I wonder what kind of friends people nowadays will make 15 years from now.

Shout out to my buddies from ffnet who are still following me because you know exactly who you are

[piningpercussionist]

literally my favorite blog on tumblr. Ur perfect at being Kim Pine and I love the little notes it the tags :3

(^ this is me at you rn)

Thank you so much <333 it seriously means the world to me that people love/like my Kim stuff. AND to know that some of yall actually read my silly little notes

I try to keep her as in character as I can, and I feel I have been largely successful, for the most part. I feel like she comes fairly naturally to me- I only occasionally hit snags,, but usually that's just because I'm high or something and am overcome with the desire to Maximize The Silly shfgkjshjld She's so serious though, usually. I love her <3 I love getting to be her for The People

[bisonofyesterday]

I've been reading a lot of conspiracy theories lately for fun and it's wild, sure, a glimpse into the mind of an insane person, but honestly it does kinda get boring after a while once you recognize all of the tropes

It's a real thing that happens and it was a fear for me at first but now? I genuinely don't get how "conspiracy reading for fun" could act as a pipeline to being a conspiracy theorist, like are you stupid?? Were you already susceptible to this brand of thought??? Literally all of these are either odd interpretations of economics, wishful thinking, reboots of antisemitism, or just plain regular bullshit, and like it's really easy to see that, like all of this is dumb, people who believe this are dumb, it's absurd

Fantastic fiction though, these could be good books or games or movies, and like that's what they are and that's their primary audience, people who want to pretend they're the protagonist of a movie, of a grand plot, every bad thing doesn't just happen or are perpetrated some random disturbed people! It's an organized movement at the top of everything responsible for every bad thing ever to keep us in line! It can be a kind of anti-religion in that sense, malevolent gods are better than none

There HAS to be gods at the top of it all, who put ridiculous references to themselves in everything and monolithically control the entire world, because if no one is in control, then that'd be terrifying

[braveburned]

the way I interpreted hw2 is — following the thought initially put forward by ruin that princess quest is the canon ending of sb, hw2 takes place concurrently with ruin ( if slightly before by like, the ending of hw2 and the beginning of ruin overlap ) where gregory is the protagonist and the gameplay is him and vanessa trying to put an end to glitchtrap for good who in turn sets the mimic free as one final fuck you ( and likely the hope that the mimic would .... y'know, mimic afton and thus continue to carry on his eternal existence of fear and misery )

[frozcnlight]

The young woman was about to answer to Garth, but her sister's question took more priority to her, as it caused her to think how to explain everything that had happened. Stubbornly, her eyes were fixated on the wooden surface of the table, then went to the flowers that stood neatly in a vase. She had found quite the interest in decorating the litle amount of rooms she called her home ever since and the currency here wasn't too difficult to understand actually - at least from what she had noticed so far. Thinking of this, she really should look into getting a job soon, huh? But how did one do that in a time where E-Mails and computers didn't even exist as a word yet? If there wouldn't be people around, Miran was sure she'd sink her head to the table in frustration. But not wanting to worry her sister or getting judged by the young man who was a complete stranger, she held her head high as if this thought hadn't crossed her mind. She was good in holding some things in - it was a necessary skill to survive her work (and the family).

"I guess I was just very lucky.", nevertheless she laughed nervously and gave away that she definitely hid the story behind her survival or where she had been. She wouldn't talk about it any time soon - she feared that she might traumatize her sister, "I've been in this cottage for a long time now and mainly focused on understanding this world - and trying to cook. Well, that had definitely gone wrong more often than not.".

Just thinking about the amount of burnt food she had to eat in the last few days made her want to really cry. How had nobody ever warned her of the difficulties?! It wasn't even like she couldn't look up recipes or such - there was nothing where she could look anything up neither! It was mostly just a moment of 'throw in whatever seems to fit together and see what comes out.'. Funnily most of those things didn't fit together in taste for some reason - or she just did it wrong.

Clearing her throat, Miran tried to change the topic by focusing back on Garth, "It's been some time now... I must be honest, I am somewhat disoriented about how long we have been seperated, because in my first few days I too tried to simply survive.". She tried to laugh, "But that's just natural, isn't it? Losing your home all of the sudden is a really scary experience after all and you don't know for a moment what to do, where to go and who to trust. You're just on your own...".

"Such troubles sound rather serious to me". He took a small sip from his tea, taking note of the quality, when he also took in the fact that this woman wasn't from around here, it impressed him all that more. It seemed as though he'd learned at least a little about her so far - she knew her teas, though judging by the weird face that Strelitzia was pulling, the same may not be said for fruit tea. "Allow me", he said, reaching across the table to take Strelitzia's cup, resting his hand over the top for a few seconds, before handing it back over, "Here, how does it taste now?". Strelitzia gazed from her cup to Miran, to Garth, hesitating for a few seconds before picking the cup back up and taking a cautious sip, gasping at the sweet taste, "Oh! That's yummy! How did you do that!?" "Let's just say I've had a few years to learn", he smiled, glad that the little girl was looking a little more relaxed finally. He was aware that his questioning may have been worrying her, as she'd been the one to let so much slip in the first place, and as much as he wished to continue playing with Miran, he didn't wish to upset either of them either.

"I understand. Homesickness can be rather severe even for the strongest of us", he spoke as though he understood such things, but the closest thing to a 'home' he had was his library, "I'm sorry if I drew up any such feelings. I've travelled beyond this nation and have never heard of such a place though...I couldn't quite help but be curious".

But, if he wished to learn more then it would be wish to perhaps drop the subject for now, another small sip of his tea taken as he relaxed against the back of the chair. How long had the elder sister been here? Outsiders where usually treated with nothing but suspicion, but she seemed to have settled in rather well, from the little that he could tell anyway.

Strelitzia sipped quietly on her drink, smiling lightly as she felt Miran's fingers run through her hair. She hadn't realised just how much she'd missed such a kind gesture, her eyes lifting to meet Miran's, trying to understand the reason as to why she was lying to the kind man that had saved her. Was it wrong to tell the truth of where they had come from? Had she been wrong to tell Garth as much as she had? She'd simply been so relieved at being rescued, at finding someone friendly, that she'd rambled away to him for almost two days now.

"Well, I don't know for how long you two were apart from, but I was taking care of her for the last two days roughly. She was rather tired from her adventures in the woods. It was lucky I was nearby...I would hate to imagine what would have happened, especially if her Divine Protection wasn't reacting as it should". Garth gave the younger sister a soft smile, hoping to help calm her further. It wasn't too hard to pick up on how nervous she was.

Still, it was difficult to accept that this was where the conversation about another world had ended, his thirst for new knowledge rather difficult to hold back, a curse and a blessing, but to press too hard was of course only asking for either walls to be placed in his way or suspicion on his shoulders. He had to wonder which may be the most inconvenient.

"Miran?", Strelitzia spoke up as the silence continued to settle around them, "...where have you been? How...how did you survive?"

[heloflor]

Something random I find interesting about Bowser is how his “modern” personality was actually there very early on, but it took forever for it to become a thing in the games.

(Tl;Dr is basically the last paragraph)

Like, when the first Super Mario Bros came out, Bowser was shown as a conqueror, destroying the Mushroom Kingdom and turning its inhabitant into blocks just because he could, only kidnapping Peach because she had magic that could counter his. All in all, he was nothing more than a monster.

But then one year later came the 1986 anime movie “The Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach”, and for this movie, Bowser was completely revamped. Suddenly he became a hopeless romantic who kidnaps Peach to marry her, tries to comfort her at two instances which shows some level of being genuine in his feelings, and is a bit of a dumbass at times. It’s actually pretty funny to see the contrast between Bowser in this movie having done terrible actions (which we see through Mario and Luigi’s quest) but then when the focus is on him, he’s kind of adorable actually. Also there’s that post credit scene with him working where the brothers used to early on that shows him as nice.

And the funny thing is, that new side of Bowser that this anime brought actually stuck around…in everything except the games. In the following games (Mario Bros 2 Lost Levels, 3 and Mario World), Bowser is still the same monster who’s destroying things and kidnapping Peach for the heck of it. But outside of the games, we see that softer/goofier side of him shine. Or at the very least, in instances where he’s still pretty horrible/doesn't show that softer side, his motivation remains to marry Peach instead of going back to him wanting power first and foremost. And even then his defeats have some comedy to it.

It’s especially visible with Mario World and how, while the game doesn’t expand on him, there’s an interactive anime where he mentions wanting to marry Peach, and the Manga Super Mario Kun version of this game shows him to be a lot like in the 1986 movie, at least in his first appearance (I only found the first few chapters of this comic translated in english so I don’t know how he acts past that scene where he gives Peach an oversized ring; wouldn’t recommend those mangas btw, unless you like absurd humor with a plot that goes nowhere and wastes your time on stupid stuff). Same for the “Super Mario Adventures” comic where’s he’s yet again both a softie and a moron.

And outside of Mario World, there’s also a commercial for the very first Super Mario Bros with Bowser giving Mario flowers with no evil intention to it, or those three very badly made retelling of stories with Mario characters, two of which have Bowser wanting to marry Peach (for those wondering how the hell did I know about this compilation, I found a reaction to the 86 anime and the channel also had a reaction to those, so it was through sheer luck ¯\_(ツ)_/¯).

So overall, Bowser being more comedic and endearing through being an idiot + having romantic feelings had been a thing since pretty much the beginning, Nintendo just took a while to put it into the games. And even then, from my understanding, the first show of Bowser’s softer side was in the RPGs, with Super Mario RPG having him as part of the team and Paper Mario 64 apparently being the first time his crush on Peach was put into a game (for context I know very little of both of these games so I don’t know exactly how they portray Bowser, I just know RPG has a crying sprite + he’s a team member and Paper has him crushing on Peach). So it basically took a good decade for it to become his game personality.

(Note that him becoming a playable character as early as the first Mario Kart and remaining playable in most sport games could also be a sign of Nintendo wanting him to be seen as less threatening, but those games don’t exactly have a story to truly showcase it so I wouldn’t exactly take them into account)

As for the mainline games, we had to wait even longer to see that side of him, up until Super Mario Sunshine in the early 2000s. And funnily enough, Nintendo has ever since been much more open about taking Bowser a lot less seriously in mainline games (Mario Galaxy ends with the group waking up at Peach’s castle and Bowser seems rather chill in that moment, New Bros Wii and U have funny cutscenes at the end, same for 3D Land, New Bros 2, his losing animation on his car + him in the credits in 3D World, and Mario Odyssey also ends on a comedic note for him).

And since I’m talking Sunshine which showcases his softer side through his kid, that’s also a good show of how long it took for him to be like that in the games. Bowser had been a father since Super Mario Bros 3 with the introduction of the Koopalings, yet neither this game nor Mario World show the kids interacting with their dad. We had to wait until New Bros Wii for that to happen in a mainline game (the ending cutscene). And while I wasn’t born back in the 90s so I can’t fully back up this claim, from what I’ve seen Bowser in general mainly interacted with the Koopalings outside of the games, like with the Adventures comic (tho even then it’s minimal) and the US cartoons which focus on him as a dad.

So yeah, all-in-all, I find it interesting how Nintendo had clearly always seen Bowser as more of a comedic character, mostly through being a hopeless romantic and a dumbass with a soft edge despite his horrible actions, but for the longest time they put this wish to the side. It wasn’t until the RPGs that this side of Bowser came out, and it took even longer for it to become a thing in the mainline games. And while of course this makes sense given Nintendo is known for not having stories in Mario games, meaning there’s no point in making Bowser anything more than the bad guy, it’s still funny how, the second they gave Bowser that comedic edge in one mainline game, it was the push they needed to run with it and never look back. As a result, nowadays, even in the instances where Bowser is at his most dangerous/intimidating like Galaxy, Bowser’s Fury or the 2023 Movie, there’s always still at least one moment where he’s not taken that seriously.

(Last second addition : I guess it is worth pointing out how Bowser being less threatening started with his romantic feelings, with his role as a father not being that important; but nowadays it's sort of the opposite with him being a parent first and foremost while his feelings for Peach, though still very much core to his character, take a bit of a backseat at times, or at least him having Junior and parenting him is brought up more often than his desire to be with Peach)

[captain-amadeus]

peak sorcerer x steward content

[marklikely]

i think as time goes on itll be easier to like the beatles as long as we keep up the trend of younger people not liking them.