#world of retro pop culture

[witchy-vibes1983]

[cinematicwasteland]

[clobberbox]

“It takes two people to run a concert: one back stage, and one out front. One man alone cannot do this.”

Check out our EXCELLENT new 60’s psychedelic tie dye shirt design inspired by one of the most iconic movies of the 90’s - WAYNE’S WORLD 2!

Great gifts for music and movie lovers. 

WAYNESTOCK tees are available to buy online in a range of colors, here.

[toruandmidori]

Shop our collection of t-shirts inspired by the undisputed best movie franchise of the 90’s - WAYNE’S WORLD!

Featuring references and logos from the movie including The Gasworks nightclub, WPIG - the home of Handsome Dan! and of course Stan Mikita’s donuts. A most excellent munch post. 

Great gifts for fans of cult classic movies.

Shop the full range here, individual links below: 

THE GASWORKS

STAN MIKITA’S DONUTS

WPIG

[salgiudici]

[disease]

"UNTITLED" // 2007 YOSHITOMO NARA 奈良 美智 [coloured pencil on coloured paper | 16 ½ x 11 5/8"]

With her short cropped hair, dark green dress and rebellious energy, the girl in Untitled (2007) emits the youthful defiance that has come to typify works by Yoshitomo Nara. [...]

"He is widely celebrated for his paintings and coloured pencil drawings of juvenile, cartoonish characters with large gazing eyes and endearing personalities. They inhabit imagined and insouciant paper worlds, brandish absurd objects and props—knives, sprouts, cigarettes, and electric guitars—and express a wide range of capricious, childlike emotion. Stern and somewhat sulky, our subject hovers in indeterminate space. She stands upon a Japanese flag with her small feet positioned perfectly over its crimson sun. Emblazoned around her miniature figure are the words ‘Up Yours!’, and, ‘All the Nations!’. As an advocate of peace, questions of nationhood, conflict and world politics weave through Nara’s art in such pithy phrases and symbols. Exhibited at the Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga—the first show of the artist’s work in Spain in 2007-2008—the present work was one of twenty coloured pencil drawings hung along the final wall of the gallery.

Born in 1959 in Japan’s rural Aomori Prefecture, Nara’s youth was marked by his country’s rapid post-war economic development and an influx of Western pop-culture, from Disney animation to punk and rock and roll. The artist expresses heartfelt nostalgia for the retro media—record-sleeves and comic books—that offered escapism from an otherwise solitary childhood. ‘Of course if you think back to the ’70s,’ he says, ‘information moved very differently. There was no Internet obviously and even the release date of albums in Japan could be delayed as much as six months … I would just sit there, listen to the music, look at the art on the cover and I think I really developed my imagination through that’ (N. Hegert, ‘Interview with Yoshitomo Nara,’ Artslant, 18 September 2010). This sensitivity to the worn, tactile quality of objects is triumphant in his art today and distinguishes him from the likes of Takashi Murakami and his Superflat movement. Untitled bears the enlivening traces of artist’s hand, present in the rough ‘outside-the-line’ scribbles that imply the girl’s messy hair. Bracketed with Nara’s unfiltered, handwritten text, the image feels distinctly personal, like a secret note exchanged between friends.

As early as his time at Aichi Prefectural University of Fine Arts in the 1980s, Nara began to draw onto envelopes, cardboard, and scraps of found paper. He continued these explorations at the prestigious Kunstakademie Düsseldorf where, under the tutorship of German Neo-Expressionist painter A. R. Penck, he was encouraged to work fluidly between painting and drawing. ‘I [loved] to draw every day and the scrawled sketches, never shown to anybody, started piling up’, Nara has said. ‘Like journal entries reflecting the events of each day, they sometimes intersected [with] memories from the past. My little everyday world became a trigger for the imagination, and I learned to develop and capture the imagery that arose’ (Y. Nara, ‘Nobody’s Fool’, in N. Miyamura and S. Suzuki (eds.), Yoshitomo Nara: The Complete Works, Volume 1: Paintings, Sculptures, Editions, Photographs 1984-2010, San Francisco 2011, p. 43). Mischievous, cute, and quietly ferocious, the present work attests to the enduring appeal of Nara’s little rebels." — via Christie's

[desifleabag]

Hello beautiful people out here!

I am Deepali. I am from Pune, Maharashtra. I am 21 years old (shaadi ki umar)

Desi fleabag? Because I relate the most with that specific character. Horny, messy, vulnerable, and crazy all the time but also considerate, expressive, and kind. I am a desi version of her.

🎀What I like? I like to dance, sing, journal, write poems and stories, and doom scroll all the time

📍Professional side of me

I did my bachelor's in philosophy. I have been working in an organization for quite a long time. I am a content writer. I am a writer/poet. I am an open mic performer. I have performed at esteemed platforms like tapeatale, poemsindia, kommune, and many more. I am a psychology and sociology student too. I am a co-facilitator and youth lead in different schools through my organization. I have worked on poetry anthology books.

The most important part of my life is being a poet or a writer. It's been a decade since I started writing, and professionally, it's been two years. My poetry and stories revolve around different and unique topics like mental health, family dynamics, feminism, societal norms and culture, romance, life intricacies, friendship, etc. I love being a poet and telling people stories about me and the world because I believe poetry is everywhere. I have a blog called Sip and Sofa Stories where I share the most wholesome blogs and fun-to-read stories.

Not much of a reader, but I like reading poetry by Sylvia Plath and more female writers.

💌 Movies and songs? I am a die-hard fan of Bollywood. I listen to 2000s Bollywood and retro songs. No one can challenge me the way I vibe on these songs and dance. My childhood is memorable because of Sunidhi Chauhan, Lata Mangeshkar, Kishore Kumar, RD Burman, Asha Bhosle, Sonu Nigam, Shaan, Arijit Singh, and many more artists. I also listen to Kpop, pop, indie type of music on days when I am dissociating at the fullest. Hold my clutcher, I am a Swiftie and Lana Del Rey fan too, bitch.

I love Bollywood movies, and I am yet to discover more Western movies. I have a bunch of comfort movies like Ye Jawani Hai Dewaani, Piku, Om Shaanti Om, etc.

🪕 My aesthetic type? A combination of Geet and Piku and a little bit of Poo vibe sometimes. But I love desi clothes. Kurti, jhumkas, bindi, bangles, oh god I love being a woman.

Interesting facts about me :

🌸I have three tattoos on my body (Crescent moon, "you're on your own kid" title, "grateful"). I love getting tattoos!!

🥃Loneliness who? I go to bars, cafes, and parks alone because why not. I fear no god.

💛I never was in a relationship, just some hardcore crushes who crushed my soul.

❤️‍🩹I have been in therapy for almost three years and on and off on meds. GAD (generalized anxiety disorder) gang assemble!

😶‍🌫️I love and hate spending time on LinkedIn. Girl boss era.

💬I write poetry about my crushes and defame my ex-friends. They know it very well! Lol.

I am a hopeless romantic and a professional delusional person. I will cook the best scenarios in my head and write about them. I romanticize life on another level though there are 156 rupees in my bank account by going to aesthetic cafes.

:¨ ·.· ¨:

`· . ୨୧⭒๋࣭ ⭑ 𝛢𝑛𝑑 𝑤ℎ𝘰'𝑠 𝑔𝘰𝑛𝑛𝑎 𝑘𝑖𝑠𝑠 𝘵ℎ𝑒 𝑏𝑟𝘰𝑤𝑛 ℎ𝑎𝑖𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑔𝑖𝑟𝑙𝑠,𝑊ℎ𝘰'𝑠 𝑔𝘰𝑛𝑛𝑎 𝑤𝑖𝑝𝑒 𝑎𝑤𝑎𝑦 𝘵ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 𝘵𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑠? ⊹ ‧₊˚

🖇To connect with me

𖹭 kavitavali.deepali to read my poems and stories on instagram

𖹭 sip and sofa stories blog. I write monthly blogs

Thankyou for reading my long ass introduction! Flying kiss tumhai💋

[calder]

originally written for zetans/bts

Zetans were designed by Adam Adamowicz for Fallout 3, inspired by the UFO lore from previous Fallout media. Like protectrons, the design of Zetans strongly evokes "Martian"-adjacent pulp science fiction films of the 20th century.

This is likely why their suits in Fallout 3 resemble tinfoil. The sci-fi trend of greys in shiny suits may have been inspired by a story related to the legend of Roswell, wherein the government allegedly confiscated a sheet-like alien metal from a farmer. In supposed photographs of the material, it resembles tinfoil.

The Fallout 4 revision of the Zetan design gives them a bulky harness with a large, rigid metal base for their helmets, and an apparent respiratory apparatus on the neck. The design closely resembles the uniforms worn by martian soldiers in the 1996 film Mars Attacks!, which is itself a retro pastiche of pulpy alien B-movies.

The name Zetans is based on Zeta Reticulans, a designation commonly used by sincere extraterrestrial theorists for "short greys," the stereotypical stock aliens typically invoked in pop culture depictions. Most people who report being abducted by aliens identify or describe their tormentors as short greys.

The modern conception of flying saucers primarily emerged in America in the wake of World War II. Early sightings were strongly correlated with sites of nuclear experimentation or nuclear power. These reports were celebrated among science fiction enthusiasts, who began forming "flying saucer clubs" as early as the 1930s.

The topic of aliens saw an explosion of popular interest after the 1947 Roswell Incident, when nationwide media published sensational reports of a flying saucer having supposedly crashed in New Mexico. The legend of the "Men in Black" may stem from unconfirmed reports of government agents intimidating civilians in the wake of the Roswell Incident.

The conception of Men in Black as disguised aliens was codified and popularized by the 1975 book The Mothman Prophecies. In Fallout 76, the Emissary is a character who fits the description of a Man in Black. The Emissary holds a key to one of the domes at Black Mountain Ordnance Works, which is based on the "TNT Area" north of Point Pleasant where the Mothman was first seen. There were many reported sightings of Mothman and UFOs at that site throughout 1967. Conspiratorial Mothman-UFO folklore often asserts the dome-vaults of the TNT Area to contain government secrets, which is thoroughly reflected in the game.

The popularization of the short grey abduction scenario is often attributed to the story of Betty and Barney Hill, who reported being abducted in 1961, and provided vivid, evocative testimonies under hypnotic regression. They also drew star maps which were likened to Zeta Reticuli, hence the name Zeta Reticulans. Skeptics criticize hypnotic regression as a technique and hold that the supposed star maps do not meaningfully depict Zeta Reticuli.

Theorists (conspiratorial, Fortean, and skeptical alike) often connect the modern alien abduction scenario to historic reports of supernatural encounters, especially European fairies, and other similarly-psychedelic "trickster" beings throughout the history of folklore.

i should continue this some time. there's a lot more to say.

[youremyheaven]

Vedic Astrology Observations

Uttarashada natives often have very mongoose like features (esp face shape) since mongoose is its yoni animal. Often times these natives have a very small head.

Jessica Parker Kennedy is an Uttarashada Moon

Jennie is UA sun & Jane Levy is UA moon. Notice how they both have a similar eye shape and tapered chin.

2. Punarvasu girlies have such doll like faces. Punarvasu is considered the most feminine nakshatra and I think that impacts the physiognomy of its natives, giving them very cute, dainty, hyper feminine features.

Isabella Moner & Billie Lourd are both Punarvasu sun

Both Karina & Miranda Kerr are Punarvasu moon

3. Hasta Moon women are celebrated for their femininity in the world of entertainment. Since Hasta is ruled by the Moon, these natives are endowed with pleasant demeanour and natural vibrancy.

Dita Von Teese, who is known for emulating a hyper feminine 1930s starlet glamour, has Hasta sun & mercury (her moon is in another feminine nak of Mrigashira while her Ketu resides in yet another feminine nak of Punarvasu)

Bae Suzy, who is known as "First Love of the Nation" in South Korea, because her youthfulness and innocence reminds people of their "first love" has Hasta sun.

A lot of Bollywood actresses have big 3 Hasta placements, Katrina Kaif, Kriti Sanon, Tamanna Bhatia and Tara Sutaria are all Hasta moon.

(I'll probably make a separate post about this but these women fit North Indian beauty standards and Moon dominant women are always considered the North Indian ideal)

(Notice how all of them have slightly thin long noses and big-ish foreheads and an elongated eye shape?)

Anne Hathaway, Emma Stone, Ariana Grande, Kate Winslet, Karlie Kloss, Anya Chalotra, Lili Reinhart, Kristen Bell, Isabelle Adjani are all Hasta moons and most of them are known for their grace and elegance, while others are known for their girl next door persona.

4. Uttarashada & Purvashada natives are drawn to grandness, luxury and big gestures. In music, I've noticed how many musicians who make music that synthesizes and integrates many diverse sounds, genres and perhaps cultural influences often have Uttarashada placements.

Ryuichi Sakamoto, who often mixed electronic music with African, Chinese, Indian (and many others) music and was known for his "East Meets West" style had Uttarashada sun.

Daft Punk, the French electronic music duo is also known for mixing funk, synth pop, techno, disco and other genres with electronic music. The duo consists of Thomas Bangalter, who has Purvashada Sun, Uttaradhada Mercury & Venus, and Guy Manuel de Homem Christo has Uttarashada Venus.

Cher, who was also known for working across genres has Purvashada moon.

Damon Albarn, who created the virtual band Gorillaz has Uttarashada moon.

Bjork who is known for her unique music has Purvashada Venus

5. A lot of musicians who have a robotic/virtual reality/futuristic concept often have Uttara bhadrapada, Punarvasu and Revati placements.

Guy from Daft Punk is UBP rising with Punarvasu saturn.

Damon Albarn who created the virtual band Gorillaz has UBP sun, Revati saturn amatyakaraka.

Grimes, known for her aliencore, cyberpunk sound/aesthetic has UBP sun

6. Punarvasu natives often make very airy,soft, gentle, "glam" music. They're often very synth heavy and very inspired by 80s esque retro pop. Kali Uchis who has Punarvasu sun, Dua Lipa, Chaka Khan and Mariah Carey who have Punarvasu moon are good examples.

(Notice how even these pictures radiate a very similar glittery, retro glam aesthetic)

[bettyfrommars]

She/her :: over 30 :: Queer :: dimestore darling

Hi I love you, I'm an Aquarius with a Libra moon and I have no idea what I’m doing here. My requests and asks are OPEN and I love hearing from you. I'm always excited to get goofy over any thots, headcanons, or if you just want to chat, as long as you are over 18.

AU's are my favorite thing, I'm obsessed with 70's & 80's fashion/decor, and my writing is inspired by Twin Peaks, The Twilight Zone, Universal Monsters, retro pop culture, the supernatural, and magic realism. I drive a '74 Chevy, I'm an aspiring old cat lady, and I'm very friendly so don't be shy.

Blurbs & Headcanons

Completed Series:

Death Becomes Us - a vampire!Eddie True Blood au

I'm on Fire - a biker!eddie SOA au

New:

mechanic!Eddie - a secret, mutual work crush

Employee of the Month - Eddie Munson meet-cute

Birthday boy - young Eddie and Wayne

Call From a Payphone at the End of the World - Eddie Munson fic

Pick Your Poison blurbs

Currently in progress:

Ring of Fire - a biker!steve story

Dirty Metal Summer - a Dirty Dancing au based around music

Stop the World - reader gets "lost" in a place with Eddie

Nightmare Factory - Eddie has a crush on you, but the only way he can communicate is through your nightmares

If you would like to show me support: Ko-fi

ao3 MORE:

Eddie Munson

Steve Harrington

Monsters and Nightmares

_________________________________________

[kaiakaevents]

Crimson Clover Week From February 7th to 14th. [2025]

PROMPTS.

1. Medieval Fantasy / Urban Fantasy*.

2. Legacy / Moon.

3. Flowers / Jewels.

4. Movies [AU] / City Pop*.

5. Immortality / Necromancy.

6. Famous AU / Partners in Crime.

7. Valentine's Day / Bad Luck.

Explanation of [*]

Urban fantasy is a genre that mixes fantasy elements, such as magic or supernatural creatures (vampires, wizards, fairies), with modern or urban settings. Unlike medieval fantasy, where everything happens in an ancient world full of castles, urban fantasy takes place in contemporary cities, such as New York or London. In these types of stories, magic coexists with technology and everyday life, sometimes in a secret or hidden way. A good example of urban fantasy would be Harry Potter when wizards live in London and use magic while others don't notice. City pop is a musical genre that emerged in Japan in the late 1970s and rose to popularity in the 1980s. It is a mix of pop, funk, jazz, disco and soft rock, creating a fresh and relaxed sound, inspired by urban life and the modern lifestyle of that time, especially related to big cities and the idea of ​​enjoying luxury and leisure. Visually, city pop is associated with a retro aesthetic that reflects 80s culture, bright colors, neon lights, sports cars, cityscapes, beaches and fashion from that decade. The images evoke a nostalgic feeling, like eternal summer, in an atmosphere of urban glamour.

RULES.

You can include other couples, but the main focus should always be Akako x Kaito.

Platonic fanworks are welcome.

Don't forget to put the corresponding tags and warnings on your works.

You are free to interpret the instructions as you want, you don't have to take it completely literally.

You can mix all the themes, not do some, do all of them or do just one, it doesn't matter, we accept any contribution for the AkaKai community.

We will be working with the following tags: #CrimsonWeek2025 #CrimsonWeek #AkaKaiWeek and #AkaKaiWeek2025.

You can send a message or write in the comments if you have any doubts or questions! It's always a pleasure to help.

[witchy-vibes1983]

[cinematicwasteland]

[natsuki-bakery]

⁎˚ ఎ Ranfren Agere Headcanons ໒ ˚⁎

caregiver nyen with sebastian? or just sebastian agere hcs

•When regressed, Sebastian exhibits an intense fascination with old technology or retro gadgets. He might be drawn to vintage video game consoles or outdated computer systems, reflecting a childlike wonder and curiosity about technology

•When feeling particularly small and scared, Sebastian might express his fears about Nyen to a trusted figure ( especially Luther ) , seeking reassurance that Nyen won’t hurt him. Hearing that Nyen won’t, and that they actually care in their own way, might slowly ease his fears

•Sebastian becomes more playful and energetic, seeking Randal’s attention for fun activities. He might challenge Randal to retro video games, engage in silly pranks, or ask him to participate in imaginative play

•Quirky Humor : His sense of humor becomes more playful and whimsical, embracing slapstick or childish jokes. He might engage in humorous antics that fit his character’s style but with a more innocent twist, like playful pranks or silly puns

•Sebastian regresses by creating elaborate imaginary worlds or scenarios, much like children do during playtime. He might pretend to be a hero in an epic adventure or create elaborate stories with his friends, blending his adult experiences with childlike imagination

•His regressed state could involve a renewed obsession with collecting items, such as rare comic books, collectible figures, or nostalgic memorabilia !

•Sebastian often asks innocent, sometimes naïve questions about Nyen’s behavior when he’s regressed. He might ask others why Nyen is so angry or why they act the way they do, trying to make sense of it in a childlike way

•Comfort Food : During his regressed phases, Sebastian craves comfort foods associated with his childhood, like specific snacks or meals. He might express strong opinions about the best candy or the ultimate cereal, reflecting a nostalgic attachment to these foods

•The six buttons on his black shirt are a source of fascination when Sebastian is regressed. He might button and unbutton them repeatedly or just trace their outline with his fingers, finding the repetitive motion soothing

•Little Sebastian often touches or adjusts his white ruffle collar when he’s feeling anxious. It acts almost like a security blanket, giving him something familiar to hold onto in moments of insecurity

•Regressed Sebastian might display a heightened sense of vulnerability and trust. He could lean more heavily on his friends for emotional support, showing a need for reassurance and guidance in a more innocent manner

•He frequently references or quotes from pop culture of past decades, showing his childlike engagement with media he grew up with. This could involve discussing old TV shows, movies, or music with a sense of nostalgia

•His regressed state might lead to awkward or innocent interactions with the more eccentric characters in the Ivory household. He could display a mix of confusion and genuine curiosity, trying to relate to their odd behavior while maintaining his own sense of normalcy

If you're in the basic criteria , are DSMP fans, vivziep0p fans , h0tel/h3lluva b0ss fans, Owl h0use fans, St4r butterfly fans, Ghibli fans, ddlg/abdl blogs, nsfw/k!nk blogs, anti-agere blogs, or anti Christians/Christianity blogs : just dont interact !

[cursedvibes]

Man, it's crazy how many little titbits we're learning about Kenjaku's everyday life recently. That's what I was always looking for. We still don't know something like their favourite food/colour, but we do know that they: travel frequently around the world, play (retro) video games, know the pain of struggling to get good wifi, visit (internet) cafès, watch stand-up comedy shows at least since the 90s, read shonen manga, like to go to the movies, like to play with bubbles.

It isn't that surprising because Kenjaku had the chance to naturally grow with society unlike the reincarnated sorcerers, but it's still fascinating to see how connected they stay to new innovations and even pop culture. Very different from Tengen who could technically do the same, but chooses to isolate herself. No wonder she calls Kenjaku a child.

[acquired-stardust]

Game Spotlight #17: Telenet Music Box (1989)

Acquired Stardust is back with another spotlight! Need something to read to get your mind of recent world events? Been hunting for some new music to listen to? Do you just like learning about cool obscure stuff? Join Ash for a look at one of the most obscure things as of yet featured on the blog in 1989's Telenet Music Box for the PC88!

When thinking about the history of video games, many people of a certain age conjure to mind a beginning marked by the boom that Nintendo's NES (known in Japan as the Famicom) brought to the world. Fewer people will be overly familiar with Atari's platforms or their competitors, and fewer still will likely have heard about the infamous crash of the American video game industry in 1983 beyond being able to regurgitate myths of Howard Scott Warshaw's adaptation of E.T. the Extraterrestrial (1983) bearing supposed direct responsibility.

This pop history approach becoming so normalized to people is frustrating but understandable because it's all around us. Being inundated with countless YouTubers and streamers professing a love for retro games has inadvertently created a narrative that video game history is a straight line through mainstream smash hit consoles and this couldn't be further from the truth - there is a whole world before and around the NES that has gone largely unexplored, particularly in the west, and odds are if you've spent much time on Tumblr you're probably passingly familiar with the subject of this spotlight.

Japan has finally begun to more widely adopt PC gaming (in part due to the phenomenon that is vtubing), with an absolute explosion in market share in the past decade. What you might not know is that Japan actually has a pretty rich history of PC gaming that really blossomed in the 80s and 90s with several hardware manufacturers such as NEC and ASCII offering options that would give the world some early looks at teams and individuals that would come to define the medium going forward.

One such game changer (no pun intended) is Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear debuting in 1987 with its definitive version on MSX PCs and getting an incredible sequel that puts the NES-exclusive Snake's Revenge to shame, and another Kojima title would go on to define the NEC PC98 in popular consciousness with classic sexy adventure Policenauts easily being the most memorable title which would subsequently be ported and updated several times for home consoles such as the Sega Saturn and Sony Playstation.

You may be familiar with the PC98 as screenshots from its many games are popular around Tumblr, most often featuring gloriously mid-late 90s anime girls rendered in stunning pixel art that feels like it exists somewhere out of time as things isolated from their origin as video game screenshots. Having been on Tumblr for over a decade (and the internet at large for even longer), it's my observation that the rediscovery of and appreciation for this retro anime aesthetic (and its later PC98 permutation) was really born here on Tumblr before spreading to other platforms to the point that you've probably seen at least one shot cross your dashboard before. But for this spotlight we're going even further back to the predecessor of the PC98, the PC88.

NEC's PC88 was released in the early 80s and most models featured a whopping 62 KB of RAM (in comparison to the NES's 2 KB) and many later models featured Yamaha sound chips which resulted in games often being visually and aurally significantly more impressive than you would see in home consoles at the time, in some cases lightyears ahead of the NES particularly in regards to music which is a pretty great thing for the sake of this spotlight. The games themselves were also quite varied in content from everything to the kawaii and comedic to erotic and even plenty of horror, with many standout games more accurately reflecting wider Japanese pop culture of the era than what you'd see on the comparatively sterile NES.

This wild west, edgy punk rock software library that goes part and parcel with Japan's nascent PC gaming scene is one of the coolest elements of going back to explore it. You never really know what you're in for, and you might be surprised (or even disgusted) with some of the unique experiences the platform has to offer. Many of these games (and those on the successor PC98) are completely untranslated and Japanese comprehension helps their enjoyment greatly and while often simple enough to enjoy without it that aspect has certainly contributed to their enigma in the west.

There are a lot of factors that have made PC88 and PC98 fandom and emulation not as glamorous as that of home consoles and some of that is due to limitations of the hardware in how it handles scrolling screens, with a noticeable chug as games scroll. Another factor is the compounding nature of its flaws and obscurity meaning emulators themselves are in Japanese and a bit tricky to figure out how to handle, old PCs infamously lacking a lot of user friendly features we take for granted today.

One such surprise is Telenet Music Box, a collection of then-prominent publisher Telenet Japan's biggest games' music. It's barely even a game and more a piece of software fit for a museum, with minimal activity limited to browsing game albums (a total of 13), choosing songs to listen to and creating custom playlists. Each of the 13 game albums is showcased with beautiful splash art and accompanied by a tracker for the keyboard as well as titles for each song and a timer for the length of songs.

Included in the mix is an impressive slate of Telenet Japan's games that showcase the depth and variety of the PC88's library such as Mugen Senshi Valis and even an early alternate manifestation of Shin Megami Tensei as a top-down dungeon crawler reminiscent of Gauntlet. Each of Telenet Music Box's 13 albums have their standout tracks, with some from Luxor and Final Zone being among our favorites.

Telenet Music Box is not a wholly unique concept and several other similar games were released for the platform (as well as the PC98), but it is an exceptionally clever one who's usefulness is perhaps all the more apparent now almost 40 years removed from its release, serving as a fantastic introductory course to a little understood part of video game history. It's a fantastic time capsule and with plenty to offer listeners of its roughly 3 hour runtime well beyond its value as virtual archaeology worth excavating.

Perhaps its most valuable asset is its ability to highlight the true nature of history. History is not a static thing with a start and an end but rather a living breathing thing that touches our everyday lives. Rare is it that anything begins or ends from nothing, with things instead in a constant state of evolution even when rising from the ashes of something else. One particular example of this is in Wolf Team's Final Zone (which features hilarious commentary in its opening scene that I'm not sure how made it past management - do look it up if you can) and Mugen Senshi Valis, the latter of which having been extremely popular in its time, spawning tons of ports and several sequels, with the team behind it eventually morphing into Namco's Tales Studio, responsible for some of the most beloved JRPGs of all time such as Tales of Symphonia and Tales of Vesperia.

While PC88 emulation can be frustrating to work out or find files for, an unforeseen strength of Telenet Music Box's concept of 'game as an album' is how much easier its discoverability is in recent years compared to the more traditional video games it shares a platform with, being far more easy to interface with and experience than the games it itself chronicles, and it can be found on YouTube in its entirety for your listening pleasure alongside plenty of other PC88 soundtracks. I invite you to dip your toes into this little-known scene and hope you come out of it with appreciation for the wide world of games outside what may be familiar to you, and maybe even some new favorite tracks.

A gem hidden among the stones, Telenet Music Box is undoubtedly stardust.

- Ash