I want to ask you all a question. Do you remember what one of your earliest memories playing a video game was? Right now your probably thinking of either playing a video game console that a family member like a cousin or older relative had or the first video game console you ever owned or maybe even just seeing an arcade machine at some public place. Those examples tend to be pretty interchangeable I find.

For me though it’s definitely when I got my PlayStation 2, the very first video game console I ever owned, for Christmas back in 2000. And with that console not only did I also get Crash Bandicoot 3 and Spyro 3 since the PlayStation 2 was backwards compatible with PlayStation 1 games but also a demo disk containing previews of upcoming games at the time. And there were only really three games from that disk I remember that well. Jak and Daxter, Devil May Cry because of course I’d remember that and Klonoa 2 (which side note can I just say how fucking stupid it is that the original PlayStation 2 version of Klonoa 2 costs as much as it does second hand on Ebay when not only is it over 20 years old at this point but you can literally buy an enhanced version of both it and the first game for modern systems and around the same price of $70 AUD? I mean that’s not as bad as some second-hand games can sometimes go where they can reach into the 100’s for but still.) All of these demos on this disk, they were all different kinds of games of different styles and different tones and different genres, and I had no idea what any of them were going to be like until I played them. And I loved that! Not knowing what I was getting into, that sense of the unknown, was exciting to childhood me.

I still remember when I originally played that Klonoa 2 demo as a child. That dark and stormy first level with that music in the background contrasted with the almost marketable plushie like character designs only for the other playable level in this demo being this bright waterpark where your going down a water slide on a floating surfboard. I loved it and am still kicking myself over how it took me over 20 years to play the full version of this game and it wasn’t even the original release either.

And that wasn’t even the only Demo disk for the Playstation 2 I had. You see my parents actually got a subscription to a PlayStation Magazine for me during the 2000's and every issue they would come attached with a playable demo disk. And I had a lot of these which meant even if I wouldn’t get to play the full versions of these games until much later in my life for various reasons, (other games that were more interesting to me/was a child and didn’t have my own money/was literally at the mercy of my parents bank account) I still had the opportunity to play a short snipit of a lot of different kinds of games. Zone of the Enders, Prince of Persia The Sands of Time, the original God of War, fucking Dog’s Life! And Dog’s Life wasn’t a very good game to begin with! But guess what? Even though Dog’s Life is one of the games I admit I’m glad I never sought out the full version of it was still something I had never tried before then. Same with almost every other game on these disks I played. Some I would eventually get the full versions of and others I wouldn’t until I got much, much older. Or maybe not at all!

And then we have games where my parents just got me them as a surprise gift, ones that I had no idea existed until that point nor did I have any expectations prior to playing them like with Scaler or Super Paper Mario. And that’s what I loved about playing new games, trying something new! Trying something different! Experiencing something new and unique!

And that love for trying unknown, different, and unique experiences, that never left! It has remained as I grew into a teenager and then into an adult. Only difference is that now I have more access to the internet which… okay to be honest that’s been just as much of a curse as it has been a blessing because of how much toxicity, cancer and negativity I’ve sadly had to put up with over the years not to mention all the people who are so thin skinned they see everything as an attack on them because “THIS PERSION SAID SOMETHING I DON’T AGREE WITH! THIS PERSON POSTED SOMETHING I DON’T LIKE! THIS PERSON IS SAYING OR POSTING STUFF THAT ISN’T EVEN DIRECTED AT ME PERSONALLY! I’M UNDER ATTACK! PERSONAL ATTACK! I’M UNDER ATTACK!!!” but it has also opened up a lot more opportunities for new games for me.

“Oh, Nintendo is making a new third person shooter IP about human squid hybrids who use their own ink for their weapons? That could be interesting. What’s that? The people who made Sly Cooper and Infamous are making a new open world game based in feudal Japan about a samurai who’s forced to break his own code of honour to fight back agents the invading Mongols? That could be neat! Come again? The people who made Skullgirls are trying their hand at a RPG action platformer hybrid? Yeah, I’d be into trying that!”

And I am super happy for that because in my honest opinion, trying new kinds of games and new kinds of experiences is way, WAY better and way more important than just playing only one game or one kind of game for most of your life. Think about it, if I had played nothing but Classic Crash Bandicoot and Spyro then I might of never gotten into the Prince of Perisa games. If I had stuck to only playing Assassin’s Creed once I got into that series and it was the only thing I ever played then I doubt I would of given the Shantae series a try or fallen in love with it as much as I am now. If I had just stuck purely to the Tekken series for my fighting game fix then would I still of been willing to try the Soul Calibur series out? Seriously, imagen playing nothing but Call of Duty or Minecraft for over a decade and nothing else just because they are super popular franchises and in the formers case get yearly releases. How boring would it get to just play the same franchise for years on end where very little actually changes when there’s so many games getting released that you might find yourself enjoying if you gave them a chance?

And I think this is a really important mindset to have because more often than not I’ve seen more and more people saying stuff like “gaming isn’t good anymore” or “gaming isn’t fun anymore” or whatever other sayings people are going on about in terms of modern gaming being bad. Meanwhile, they say this while also playing only one or two kinds of games because it get’s them the most views on there YouTube channel and the most ad revenue and never having tried anything else to find the gold in the mound of shit. And obvious this isn’t me trying to defend the industry as it is now because there are A LOT of issues with it right now and a lot of trends that just make me want to commit nefarious deeds anytime they come up. From shit like live service, battle passes, microtransactions, re-releases of old games that somehow look worse than the original even though these releases are running on objectively better hard where. But in my experience in the past four years alone I have played more games that I have enjoyed the hell out of than I have games where I haven’t. Hades, No Straight Roads, Ghost of Tsushima, Animal Crossing New Horizons, Hi Fi Rush, and that’s just new types of experiences two or in the case of Animal Crossing one I haven’t gone through for a long time. If I included new games that belonged to franchises I was already into anyway like Ratchet and Clank, Super Mario and all that I’d be here for longer.

In fact, it feels like the only new releases people even get excited about anymore are just re-releases or remasters of older games they likely have already played anyway. And re-releases just on there own are one of those things where my opinion on it largely depends on the context. From the perspective of someone who might of never played that game before then yeah, it’s great that those games can find a new audience especially since many games I have played for the first time have been via a re-released version. Double so if those original copies cost way, WAY to much second hand to begin with. From the perspective of someone who’s asking for those re-release even though they already have those original versions and have the means to still play them nowadays if they want, really? Is this really all you want from gaming anymore? Just remasters and re-releases of games you already played and still own? Nothing new? Nothing different?

Seriously, for as much as I love the Nintendo Switch one thing I have never been a fan of is how in the first couple of years of its life 80% of its first party library just felt like ports of Wii U games I either already owned like Mario Kart 8 and Pokken Tournament or could of saved money and gotten on my Wii U since I was finally making my own money around 2017 when the Switch launched. Sure, it wasn’t ALL Wii U ports as one of my favourite 3D Mario games would come out on this thing it’s launch year but I have recently gotten to the point where I have actually been asking myself “What was the point of me even getting this thing at launch if you’re just going to make most of its library port a bunch of games on a system I have already owned since 2012?” It's purely a personal thing of course since it's still great more people can play this games and I usually do try to look at it from that perspective when I can. I mean if there’s one thing I will give the Switch ports of certain Wii U games is that in the case of stuff like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Hyrule Warriors Definitive Edition they are actually the better versions of those games to play thanks to the gameplay tweaks and more content. Even with that though I still find it really wired that some people will be so quick to praise and actually ask for more ports on the Switch but then turn around and make fun of the PlayStation 5 for its ports even though the number of ports on that thing really isn’t as high as some people will make out.

I fucking hate console war bull shit so much.

But let’s say for the sake of argument that you’re not as interested in trying something outside of your comfort zone. Which is a perfectly understandable thing to be thinking and despite thinking that trying new games is important, trying to force people to play certain games is about as tolerable as the elitists who think that you should be playing every single game ever on its hardest setting because they think you’re not a “rEaL gAmEr” if you play God of War 2018 or Ragnarock on “Give Me Story" Difficulty. However, even then, wouldn’t you agree that long running franchises that have been around for decades should still try new things anyway?

In fact, I actually have a lot of respect for games that aren’t afraid to dip their toes into new avenues or shake up their formula a little bit. That is actually why Breath of the Wild is ranked so highly for me as one of my top 3 favourite Zelda games. Up to that point the series had been using the Link to the Past/Ocarina of Time formula for so long that this felt like a massive breath of fresh air. I mean even excluding main series we got stuff like the Dynasty Warriors crossover Hyrule Warriors plus it's sequel Age of Calamity and the Crypt of the Necrodancer crossover Cadence of Hyrule which were two completely different experiences from the typical Zelda fair yet could still serve as a great way for people like myself who absolutely love the Zelda series to try something new. Hell, even Assassin’s Creed Origins is a game in another long running series I love that I have a lot of respect for because of how it was willing to shake things up gameplay wise considering how the franchise was more or less suffering from over saturation at that point. Granted, I think that particular issue wouldn’t of even existed if Ubisoft didn’t try to push for yearly releases and actually gave there dev teams time to finish developing their games back when they did do yearly releases but my point still stands. And the Super Smash Bros series alone has done a lot for my interest in certain games, not just from the fact that it’s a cross over series with multiple different kinds of franchises but also thanks to stuff like the trophies pre Ultimate because of how they actually had descriptions for the characters or items and for Brawl and Wii U in particular, playable demos of those characters games of origins. I don’t think I’d even have an interest in some of the games that I do if it wasn’t for Smash Bros.

And sure, obviously you aren’t going to enjoy every new thing you play. That would be stupid to assume you should like something just because it’s different. I’ve played so many games in the past 20+ years of me playing games and while they all obviously weren’t the best, some even being shit like The Sniper 2 which is genuinely the worst game I own in my collection, I’m still happy that I am able to try as many different kinds of games as I have. And I think more people should try new games or franchises because even if you don’t end up liking them at least you were willing to give them a try. Just please, if you do dislike certain games you try, don’t say shit like “Ugg, I don’t understand how anyone can like this kind of game” or “WHY does this game have so much hype around it” and actually at least be respectful towards the people who do like it for the love of Palutena!

So, this new Super Mario game is just titled Super Mario 64? After the console it’s on? Okay. #RIPMario

OMFG, just got done 100%ing Super Mario 64. It was not worth it. 100 lives for a game we have already completed is such a lame reward. #MarioIsDead

Star Fox 64’s plot is literally just the first games plot but with “better graphics.” There is no reason to waste your time or money on this one. How lazy, I will not be buying anymore of your games from this point on. #BoycottNintendo

Why does Nintendo keep trying to make Mario work as an RPG LMAO? Mario is a platformer, stop trying to do “new” things with this series and give us what we want. #MarioIsDead #BoycottNintendo

So… Zelda for most of Ocarina of Time is disguised as a male ninja named Shiek? Keep your agenda out of my Zelda. #RIPZelda #NotMyPrincessZelda

Can you believe Nintendo thought they could get away with making a new Zelda game that just reuses a majority of assets from Ocarina of Time? #ZeldaIsDead #BoycottNintendo

So… We still don’t have a new Metroid game on the Nintendo 64? Okay. #MetroidIsDead #RIPMetroid

What the hell is with the art style in Paper Mario? Who seriously though a paper craft art style was a good idea? Who is this game even marketed for? Kids? #RIPMario

They seriously gave Donkey Kongs sidekick Diddy his own racing game but not include Donkey Kong? Why? #NotMyDonkeyKongSpinoff

Can you believe Sony is seriously trying to compete with Nintendo by releasing the PlayStation? They are doomed! They won’t last.

And the award for the most annoying character in all of fiction goes to Navi the Fairy! LMFAO, thanks for wasting everyone’s time Nintendo. #RIPZelda

Three Mario Party games but only one Mario Kart game? Really? For shame Nintendo. #MarioKartIsDead

Superman 64 is proof that the gaming industry is dead and it’s only a matter of time before the industry crashes. #GamingIsntGoodAnymore

Did you guys see the new advertisement for Paper Mario? Jesus fucking Christ, we get it Nintendo! Everything in this game is paper! You are not clever with your “free demo” ad. #RIPMario

Nice writing @ShigeroMyamoto. Seal Link in the sacred realm for 7 years until he becomes and adult while Hyrule goes to Hell. #RIPZelda

So, Pokemon is only a recent franchise and yet Nintendo still made Pickahu and Jigglypuff playable in Smash? Maybe give the Pokemon franchise a few more years until it becomes much older next time. #SmashIsDeadOnArival

I can’t believe Square Soft thought it was a good idea to jump ship and develop their games for the PlayStation instead of staying loyal to Nintendo. Sorry Square, I will not be buying anymore of your games now anymore. #BoycottSquaresoft

Ocarina of Time is a prequel to Link to the Past? Lol, I can’t wait to see plot twists that were already spoiled in another game. #RIPZelda

Serious question, why does Bowser keep trying to kidnap Princess Peach all the time? Is he in love with her? Does he want to eat her? Maybe put some more thought into your backstories Nintendo. #MarioIsDead

Lol, Megaman 64 was so mediocre that they literally stuck it’s sequel on the Playstation 1. They should of just kept the series as a Platformer and not experimented with it. #MegamanIsDead

So, the sentient bombs have a king now? And Bowser isn’t there king? Is Nintendo trying to make the Mario lore complicated? #RIPMario

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. OMG, YOSHIS STORY IS SO KIDDY! NO ONES GOING TO PLAY THIS! WHO’S THE TARGET AUDIENCE? BABIES? #RIPYoshi

Holy shit! Did you really have to go that dark for the final boss for Kirby 64? Who was this games target audience? Edgelords? #RIPKirby

Who the fuck are Captain Falcon and Ness? No one cares about F Zero or Earthbound. Listen to your fanbase more Sakarui and add in characters we need next time. #SuperSmashBros

So… Where does Mario Party 2 fit into the official Mario timeline? And who are the cannon winners for each map? Maybe put more thought into your continuity Nintendo. #MarioParty2

Way to gaslight everyone into thinking the Nintendo 64 is an inferior console by having your ports be the only ones with full motion video while we get stuck with still slides. #BoycottSony

Why don’t more games on the Nintendo 64 have voice acting like Star Fox 64? If that game can have it what’s other series excuse?

Your telling me that the King of Hyrule couldn’t tell the very obviously evil looking Gannondorf was evil and going to betray him? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA OKAY! #RIPZelda

Holy shit! If you’re playing as Mario in Mario Tennis, then the referee gets swapped out for a colour swapped Mario. That is so pathetic and lazy of the devs. #RIPMario

Umm, why are there characters from other James Bond movies playable in Goldeneye’s multiplayer mode? Way to break the cannon Rare. #BoycottRare

Good God, Conker’s Bad Fur Day is so immature and gross and trying way to hard that the developers should be ashamed of themselves. #BoycottRare

Why can I not play my old SNES cartridges on my Nintendo 64? It’s a cartridge-based system, there is no excuse. #BoycottNintendo

Wow, only four dungeons in Majora’s Mask? No one’s going to even remember this game at that length. #RIPZelda

Why is Resident Evil 2 the only game in this series on the Nintendo 64? There is no excuse for this! #BoycottCapcom

Nintendo 64? More like NintenDONT 64! #BoycottNintendo #NintendoIsDead

This may just be a result of it being like 7 in the morning when I considered writing this, me experimenting with custom home menu backgrounds for my hacked 3DS, me using a custom theme for Discord that turns it into a Windows 98 desktop or all three of those things combined on top Nintendo announcing that they are going to be sharing details about the Switch 2 in the next fiscal year whatever the hell that means but I’m kinda hoping the Switch 2 has better menus than the Switch.

That’s probably like what a lot of people are hoping for though right? A console home menu that has a lot more personality to the one we’ve been stuck with for the past 7 years on the Nintendo Switch. So it might surprise you to know I’m only kinda hoping for it. And let me explain. The home menu for any video game console, weather it’s old or new, has been something I have never been overly concerned with considering the whole reason I or anyone else plays on video game consoles in the first place is to play video games (Or watch something on Youtube or streaming or whatever you use your console for) and I have never understood why the menu of a console is such a make or break deal for some people considering how little you actually spend in a console home menu compared to being in game. It’s one of those things people tend to make out to be a bigger deal than it actually is. Seriously, some of you people would NOT survive the Playstation 2 or Nintendo 64 era where those consoles instantly load into whatever game’s inside them, double so for the N64 since there’s no grand console start up sequence like the Playstation or anything.

Even with that said though, I won’t deny that I do still like a good home menu all the same. It’s one of those things that add’s a little more personality to a console and even if you aren’t using the console for playing games and are using it for watching a movie or show, like I’ve been using my systems for a lot more recently, even just starting them up can be fun. Especially the ones that let you add a little bit of personalisation to your system to make it feel more you I guess.

Seriously, this is the base home menu for both the Playstation Portable and Playstation 3.

They are both similar in there menu designs but both can be customized to your liking.

I've been using my own pics I've gotten as commisions for my home background for these things...

but there were a bunch of unique themes for the systems as well that you could get from the PSN store or even as rewards from certain games.

I don’t have any for my Playstation Portable but I got a bunch for my PS3 back in the day and I loved using them especially the ones that change the sound effects for certain ones. I use to have a Prince of Persia one two but sadly I can’t find it anywhere on the PSN store to re-download it.

Same with the 3DS, even just the base menu has a lot of personality since your able to move around all the different icons and create your own folders for certain games and apps.

(And of course, here’s a home menu using one of my comms if your interested. I have to put a lot of effort in for some of these let's just say.)

And back when the eShop for the 3DS was still a thing I’m pretty sure I brought more home menus for my system than I did actual games from the eShop.

Seriously, before I swapped to using commissioned pics for my systems the Xenoblade Chronicles home menu for the 3DS was one of my personal favourites. Just the shot of the Mechonis in the background with the Manado Blade in the ground paired with the beautiful title theme just made for one of the most relaxing home themes on any system I’ve played.

Which brings me to the Nintendo Switch.

Just an incredibly basic home menu, only two options for backgrounds being basic white or black, no sort of personalisation of any kind and the option to create custom folders for our games wasn’t added until a few years later. Yeah, it’s a prime case of over simplification to me. It’s one of those things about the Nintendo Switch I’ve always been conflicted on. Well, this and also the fact that the quality of some third party games is inconsistent at best and many of the first party games released in the first couple of years of it’s life were just ports of Wii U games I either already owned or could of saved money and brought the Wii U version instead since I was starting to make my own money by the time I owned a Switch (seriously, I will never understand how yall will crap on the Playstation 5 for its port which it isn’t nearly as over saturated with as you make it out but then turn around and praise this thing for its arguably larger number of ports!) On one hand I still stand by what I said earlier in that the Home Menu of the Nintendo Switch is not some make or break deal when I’m going to be spending most of my time in game on these things but on the other hand, I do still miss the option to make my console just feel like my own little personal device. And who know, maybe with the Switch 2 allegedly being a lot more powerful than the Switch 1 we could get better home menus. It won’t be a massive deal break if there’s not but I’d still kinda like it.

I don’t know, I guess I just miss that option to make newer consoles feel more personalized but even if it doesn’t come back I’m still as excited for the Switch 2 and the details we will be getting on it. Just please don’t have the library for the first couple of years be ports of games I’ve already owned on a previous console again for the love of Palutena!

What is one of the main things I tend to do a decent bit? And I mean other than sharing art that I commission or request artists to do for me. If you answered “Calling people out on their stupidity” then you’d be close because, well that sort of stuff needs to be called out anyway, but that actual answer I was looking for is joke around a lot. I often make satirical posts, crack a few jokes every now and then, poke fun at a bunch of shit and in the past 4 years alone I’ve been actively going out of my way to try and do something for April Fools day every year. I am a jokester. I grew up on a decent bit of media that knew to lighten up and have fun with its story every now and then. I even wanted to be a comedian at one point growing up. (Yeah, I wanted to be A LOT of thing as a child.) And for the most part people have been able to tell I’m joking.

… Notice that I said “for the most part.” This is because sadly, not everyone has been able to get most of what I say IS in fact a joke. It doesn’t happen often but when it does, it’s usually enough to make me groan, roll my eyes and question why I even try to make people laugh anyway. But what do you expect from people in today’s age anyway? This is not an issue exclusive to just me, that would be incredibly entitled and selfish of me to pretend like my jokes are the only ones that people over react to. This is an issue that’s been persistent on the internet for years now! I mean we got people who took the “THEY FLY NOW!?!?” scene from Rise of Skywalker, a scene that was made to get a chuckle out of the audience, WAY to seriously and try way too hard to dissect the scene about how the First Order having jetpack troops isn’t that new. Or how about that one meme that was made about a year after the Nintendo Switch came out poking fun at how many of the major games that been released for the thing were either ports of Wii U games or were very similar to games on the Wii U and not a few days after that meme, someone made a whole 10 min video complaining about what was basically a joke! Overreacting to meaningless and dumb shit or misinterpreting what’s said on the internet.

Sure, you don’t have to find every single joke you find the internet funny. I don’t, in fact one of my least favourite jokes from the last few years has been that stupid “PS5 has no games” joke that uses Linken Park’s In The End as a template and have even voiced my dislike for it recently but it’s not like I’m over-reacting to it or anything. I usually just ignore it and move on. The times I have gotten people taking my stuff overly seriously really should be par for the course for me at this point as much as I wish they were not. So, just for the hell of it, here’s some of the times people have taken what have been obvious jokes of mine way to seriously. And I will admit that this journal was slightly inspired by PolarSaurusRex’s video on people who took his memes two seriously so credit to him and his video.

Top 10 Most Over-rated Games Ever

I wanted to start this off with probably one of my favourite examples of someone not getting an obvious joke. For April Fool day back in 2022 I decided to make a list of the Top 10 Most Over-rated Games Ever. Out of all the April Fools day jokes I’ve ever done this one was probably the one I had the most fun doing for a few reasons.

1; I actually REALLY hate calling something “over-rated.” Anytime I’ve ever seen someone call one thing or another overrated they always have some of the most fickle justifications for saying it. Such as saying that people only like the thing because it’s popular or saying that something else similar to it is better or that it’s aged horribly (which isn’t a completely unfair thing to say as there are plenty of games that HAVE aged horribly but that’s really not a good reason to say something is over-rated to me.) So, it seemed perfect for an April Fools day joke. Me making fun of a phrase I can’t stand by playing an over exaggerated characterchure.

2; This was actually my top 10 favourite games of all time, but I was just talking about them from the perspective of someone who absolutely hated them! Something that really should have been obvious to anyone who has been following me for a long time especially considering I put Devil May Cry at number one on this list which is a game I have gone on record on multiple occasions before and after this joke that is my absolute favourite game of all time and put Shantae and the Pirates Curse at number 2 on this list despite how much the character means to me to the point where I ship my self insert with her. Well, someone didn’t get the hint.

Now this is an amusing comment for me to get not just because I’ve said in the past that Shantae and the Pirates Curse is another one of my favourite games of all but also because just one look at my gallery would tell you that I do have a love for Shantae. At the time I wrote this April Fools day joke I had gotten TEN commissions relating to the Shantae series and if you wanna count comms of Thayla since she is a Shantae OC of mine then that total would be raised to 13! At least three of them were of Shantae herself and at the time this was written I was having a Shantae X Helluva Boss based comm being worked on for me two of Verosika dressed as Shantae based of the fact they shared a voice actress.

The worst part? The person who commented this actually had been following me for years now! I mean obviously I’m blacking out the names of the comments I show here because I don’t want people to go after them since this isn’t intended as a personal attack on anyone and I’m just poking fun at people not being able to get a joke but still, they should of known that this was an April Fools day joke. Especially since a few months before this, back when I was regularly doing game reviews, I did a review on Pirates Curse where not only did I praise it for a lot of reasons but also went into the more personal side of why this was one of my favourite games ever thanks to some of the shit that was going on in my personal life like it being my final year of High School when I first played it and my mother breaking up with her boyfriend forcing us to move and even without the context of how much this series means to me as a whole, the way I talked about Pirates Curse in this post should have been the first indicator I wasn’t meaning ANY of what I was saying. Seriously, read this whole section I wrote on Pirates Curse. Does this sound like something I’d write and mean?

Everything Wrong With BellmoTheGreat Vol 2

Speaking of obvious April Fools day jokes… kinda. Okay to be technical for a second this post itself wasn’t an April Fools day joke but rather it WAS a sequel to something I made as an April Fools day joke. I’ve mentioned this in the past but one of my favourite channels back in the mid 2010’s was Cinema Sins as well a lot of the channels that followed their style because I genuinely found those videos funny. I don’t anymore! And for good reason two! Even with that said, there was one video of Cinema Sins I actually loved the most from them, there Everything Wrong With video on… THEMSELVES! On June 8th 2013 they made a video poking fun at themselves and it was genuinely a pretty funny video to me. (Well except for the “the books don’t matter” part at least.) It was a self-deprecating video poking fun at themselves and honestly, having a laugh towards yourself is kind of fun at times. And then they made a sequel in 2019 which was a passive aggressive response to all the criticism they had gained over the years and wasn’t as funny.

So, for April Fools in 2021 I decided to do a similar sort of journal but on myself poking fun at myself. And then in late 2023, out of boredom I decided “You know what? It could be fun to do another one like that just for the hell of it.” So I did. And despite it not being an April Fools day joke this time around it was still pretty obvious I was making this for the sake of harmlessly poking fun at myself.

It was not obvious to this guy though.

Yeah, other than him not getting this journal was sarcasm I really don’t know how I’m even meant to interpret this one because the grammar is all over the place. No full stops and The Only Words That Are Capitalized Don’t Even Need To Be Capitalized In The First Place. There’s not understanding an obvious joke, and then there’s this. Like, how do you even react to this one?

Seriously, what did I do wrong with this one? Did I NOT make it obvious enough that this was a joke? Was it two on the nose? I will admit, looking back, some of the stuff I wrote poking fun at myself might of been a bit on the nose but this was never really meant to be a serious thing anyway.

Again, this was just something I decided to do one day out of boredom and something I did out of fun. Kinda like this whole journal actually lol. Of course it was going to be goofy and silly! It’s kind of a shame I literally have to spell this out for some people.

Hitler Reacts to the Fallout 4 Trailer

So I wanted to end this one on a bit of an ancient joke of mine. I’ve been wanting to talk about this part of my life for a long time now so here it is. There was a point in time where I use to make Hitler Rants parodies. I found other videos people did of this kind of thing funny and wanted to try my hand at my own. And for a majority of 2015 I did just that alongside doing stuff with my Pony OC’s using pre made bases. They were honestly really fun and I had a blast doing them. Granted a lot of my stuff wouldn’t get a WHOLE lot of views especially considering I was working with Windows Movie Maker (and still am for some of my memes) but occasionally I would get a few things that surpassed 1000 views. However, there was one video in particular of mine that really took off and surprised even me with how much attention it got. My video of Hitler Reacting to the Fallout 4 trailer.

For context, the trailer had JUST come out around this time so hype for Fallout 4 was at its peak. And well, I happened to have a friend who really liked the Fallout franchise. And when I told him I was working on a video of Hitler and the gang reacting to the trailer, he was more than willing to help. He wrote some of the dialogue, we got to work putting it together and soon I uploaded to Youtube for 27,000+ people to watch. And it did quite well to my surprise. I mean it’s not my most viewed video on my channel anymore, that honour goes to my video of the French dub of the Hazbin Hotel Pilot but only when Alastor speaks which not only has 642k views at the time of me writing this but I somehow STILL get comments on even 3 years latter but I was still pleasantly surprised with the attention my Fallout 4 Trailer video got.

What also came to my surprise was some of the comments I got on this video...

Yeah, despite the fact that this was a parody video and was a style of parody video that had been around for quite a long time now, I got quite a few comments of people not understanding that it was a joke. It was mainly because of this part of the video here which was one of the things my friend helped write.

And I’m gonna be honest, up to this point I’ve been treating most of the comments I’ve gotten on the previous jokes in a joking manner but this one? … Okay well I still am but forgive me for getting serious here and vent for a moment because I have A LOT to say relating to this.

1; I, as in me the person writing this, NEVER said that I think Fallout 3 had a better plot than New Vegas. That was the characters in the video saying that. Yes, what some characters can say in any work of fiction, parody or otherwise, CAN be influenced by the creators’ personal views but not EVERY bit of art is like that. Some people just want to create something for the hell of it and this was one of them. I wanted to create this just because I wanted to and it does NOT represent my actual thoughts on the Fallout series. I mean, are we really going to pretend like there is some super deep reason as to why 2B in NieR Automata looks the way she does when Yoko Taro has already stated the reason for her design is because he said “I just like drawing girls?” This is what bothers me about media criticism nowadays. You can’t just accept that something it being made the way it is because the creator thought it’d be fun or cool. You have to look deep into that thing and come up with a bunch of conspiracy theories about it. And for the record, I love New Vegas! I really do!

2; Did I mention yet that that line wasn’t even written by me and was written by my friend who was a much bigger Fallout fan than me at the time? Because this line was written by my friend yet most of these comments were directed at me personally. I even say I had help making this video in the description and when you have multiple people working on the same project often with different ideas it can show.

3; Even if I didn’t love New Vegas as much as I do now and I really did prefer 3 or even 4 over it, would that really matter? No seriously, would it? I’ll give you a hint. No. No it would not! In fact, there are plenty of reasons why someone might prefer 3 or 4 over New Vegas. 3’s story feels a lot more personal since it’s about finding your dad, they might prefer the more run down and end of days atmosphere of 3 over the Wild West inspired one of New Vegas, they might prefer the companions you can get in 3 over the ones in New Vegas, maybe they just like the side quests more, maybe they might like how you can actually customize the theme of your player home, the weapons, the characters, the fact that you can continue playing the game even after the final main story mission. Yeah, you need the Broken Steel DLC to even do that but considering the Game of the Year edition of Fallout 3 is super cheep online nowadays anyway and comes with all of the DLC pre-installed unless you are seeking out the base game release without the DLC almost everyone’s gonna have that. And that would be okay if those reasons are why one prefers 3, because we all have a little thing you might of heard of called opinions and personal taste!

This is something I hate about fandom. Not just the Fallout fandom in particular but EVERY fandom and community on the internet. Your always expected to think like a hive mind and the moment you have any sort of different opinion or open up about enjoying something that’s not as well loved you get made fun off or told by people in extensive detail about how the thing your enjoying is “objectively” bad and never let you just enjoy what you enjoy or try to gatekeep people or say that your “not a real fan.” And it’s annoying. Like actually, really annoying! Oh what’s that? Someone is enjoying a game/movie/episode you don’t personally like? And they have their own perfectly valid reasons for liking it even though you don’t like it yourself? Who gives a shit? They like it, you don’t! You’re a grown adult! Get over it! Let people enjoy things. It’s embarrassing you have to act like this.

I fucking hate the internet sometimes if you couldn’t tell.

There are probably more examples of times people have taken my jokes seriously, I’ve been fucking around for years at this point on sites like this, but I just wanted to talk about some of the ones that live rent free in my mind because hot dam do I love poking fun at people who get angry over nothing. I just can’t wait to see what joke of mine people decided to take two seriously next. Or maybe those kinds of people will stumble upon this and realize that most of what I say can be a joke sometimes. God, one can only hope!

So, there was a post I saw on Twitter last night that was poking fun of some of the sillier complaints people have about Disney Star Wars and the post contained screenshots of posts from Ticktok complaining about how certain factions, the Empire in particular, had been depicted in Star Wars media recently and these shots contained a bunch of fickle arguments such as “where is the war in Star Wars” as if people don’t understand that war isn’t all just big explosions and screaming “FOR QUEEN AND COUNTRY” at the top of your lungs. You know, it was the stereotypical “Disney Star Wars bad” kinda stuff you’d expect to see at this point. However, there were two particular screen shots in this post that bothered me the most. This shot from opening of The Force Awakens where the First Order assaults the village on Jakku which ends with them all being executed, and another shot from one of the recent episodes of The Bad Batch showing that the Empire has started experimenting on kids with that same episode also showing Cad Bane kidnapping a literal baby.

And these complaints, they got to me. Like they actually got to me and not in a good way. Because ignoring the fact that the sequel trilogy actively goes out of it’s way to show the audience that the First Order is A LOT more brutal than the Empire anyway and this opening assault is a great way of showing that and this wasn’t even the first time in cannon that Cad Bane had kidnaped children, they were acting like the Empire being as evil as it is is a new thing. No it is not! This is the same group of people who killed Luke’s aunt and uncle, blew up an entire planet, tortured Princess Leia for information and would of killed her two if Luke, Han and Chewbacca didn’t show up to save her, Darth Vader killed some of his own men just because they fucked up at their job, blackmailed Lando into luring our heroes into a trap and set up a shield generator on a planet they likely didn’t ask the consent of the local Ewoks beforehand. And let’s not forget the Galactic Empire is also being led by a man who manipulated his best solider from childhood, planned a mass genocide on a group of what’s basically Space Samurai wizards and any Jedi that DID survive often ended up working for this new regime to basically hunt down and kill any Jedi who survived Order 66 and let’s not forget Palpatine basically lied his way into power. The Empire experimenting on children in The Bad Batch is no different from how they acted in the past BEFORE Disney brought the rights to this franchise!

However, this post of the Star Wars fanbase just being the Star Wars fanbase also highlights a bigger issue that extends to all works of fiction. Apparently, we can’t have villains in fiction who are irredeemable assholes that do some really horrible shit anymore. And I really have to wonder, do you people NOT know some of the really horrible shit villains have done in fiction over the years. Do you also know that some of them also have no real motivation to do half the shit they do other than “just cause” or because of “insanity?” This really isn’t a new thing or anything!

Don’t believe me? How about we bring up Green Goblin from the first Sam Rami Spider-Man film? This is a villain who literally becomes a villain though a science experiment gone wrong leading to him going insane and he actively takes joy in the horrible stuff he does. Does he have a reason to continue doing evil shit after killing off the Oscorp executives who screw him over at one point? No. Is he still a joy to watch on screen? Yes!

Or how about Risky Boots from the Shantae series. Does she have any deep or personal or sympathetic reason as to why she does half the shit she does in this series, including kidnapping Shantae’s Uncle, stealing her genie magic out of her, inverting Shantae’s Genie Magic to turn her evil or helping the Empress Siren just for the sake of a ship? As far as we know, no! She just really likes being a pirate and stealing shit save for the one time in the series she had no choice but to work with Shantae to stop the Pirate Master. And that’s fine! Because she’s still an incredibly entertaining villain.

Or what about Bowser from the Super Mario franchise. Does he have any detailed reasons as to why he constantly goes after Princess Peach? No! And yes, there is the Super Mario Bros Movie where he wants to marry Peach but that’s a different cannon altogether anyway.

And what about Commander Tartar from Splatoon 2 Octo Expansion who wanted to commit mass genocide on the entire Inkling and Octoling race just because he wasn’t happy with how they had become the new dominant species on earth and wanted to replace them with a new race?

“But Bellmo, we need our villains to be sympathetic otherwise what’s the point of half the stuff they do.” No no no. You can NOT just sit here and tell me making a villain Sympathetic instantly makes that character likable or justifys half the shit they do. Because even the ones who are do some pretty horrible stuff.

Don’t believe me still? How about Magneto in the X-Men movies? Now one look at this guy and you might think that he has a noble goal. He wants mutants to be respected and the X-Men universe mutants are seen as freaks or monsters. Well guess what, Magneto does some pretty awful shit in these films just for that goal. In the original X-Men he was more than willing to sacrifice Rouge, who casual reminder is ALSO a mutant, just to turn a bunch of people into Mutants despite the fact that we see before this point that it does NOT end well if a normal person get’s forcibly turned into a Mutant. X-2 despite helping to stop a plot to wipe out all mutant on the earth he then ends up turning that plan on its head and try’s to have all non mutants wiped out instead. Last Stand he rally’s a bunch of mutants to his side because of a recent “cure” for mutations and his plan is to literally go to the source of the cure, who is a literal child, and probably kill him two. And that’s not even counting some of the stuff he does in the First-Class saga such as being more than willing to blow up American and Russian boats with mislles, thinking the best way to stop the apocalyptic future we see in Day’s of Future Past is to kill Mystic because her actions in the 70’s lead to what happened and willingly working for Apocalypse because he has nothing left anymore. Yeah, I don’t care how much of an activist for mutant rights Magneto is, if I was a mutant I’d be going straight to the school run by the telepath in a wheelchair. Which is ironic for me to say considering Magneto is arguably one of the best parts of these movies. He’s incredibly well acted and his dialogue with other characters is great to listen two.

“But Gannondorf is a sympathetic villain in Zelda Wind Waker. He had good reason for doing what he did.” Yeah, a sympathetic villain who lied his way into the Hylian Royal family and plunged Hyrule and the Sacred Realm into chaos. And that’s just in the Adult Timeline. Don’t even get me started on how he basically used Zant to try and take over Hyrule again in the Child Timeline or how he actually kills OOT Link in the Downfall timeline.

Look, the point I’m trying to get across with all this rambling is that I don’t get why villains acting like villains is such a shocking thing to people nowadays. What, are we going to complain about Heroes being Heroes next? Villains doing villainous shit isn’t a brand new thing nor do they all have to be sympathy to justify the shit they do either. But then again, we live in an age where media literacy is deader than my hopes for that Sands of Time remake to be finished. I know I said this already a while ago but I swear to God, I will NEVER forgive what a lot of overly critical Youtubers from the 2010’s into now have done to an entire generations ability to consume media.

The title of this journal isn’t a joke. I have seriously started to lose my passion that I once had for writing.

I’m sure by now a lot of you have noticed I haven’t been writing any stories of any kind. Or at least anything substantial. You could say that those two stories I have shared about those really awkward plays I saw as a child or the only time I’ve ever actually gotten to play on a real Gamecube while in hospital count as stories but those are more just me retelling events form my past that have stuck with me. And there’s a good reason I haven’t been writing a lot. I’ve HAVE tried to write proper stories. About my OC’s, about fictional characters I like, but I always never get very far into it and sometimes just stop entirely or get distracted by other things I have more fun doing. And there’s a good reason for THAT two. I just haven’t been enjoying writing as much. It’s one of those things I have slowly been coming to terms with a lot recently. In fact the only long form things I’ve even managed to get written up the past few months have both been satirical and if you couldn’t tell from how I wrote those, my way of venting about how modern critics are obsessed with hyperbole and being overly angry and also poking fun at that “Nintendo has FORGOTTEN about Super Mario” video because nothing say’s Nintendo has “””forgotten””” a property like releasing so many games in that franchise in the Switches now almost 7 year life cycle.

To give you an idea of just how bad this has been, the last story about one of my OC’s I wrote was back in April of last year. It was a parody of the Peaches song from the Super Mario Bros movie but sung from the perspective of my girl Mikaela and she was singing about Nessa from Pokemon Sword and Shield as I do have the two in a relationship and loved that part from the film. And before that the last proper full story I wrote was in September of 2022 of Tom Nook from Animal Crossing finally being fed up with some people not paying off their loans at all and taking action tasking my sona Michael with collecting the debt from one of those residents who originally started as a joke OC I made for an April Fools day joke. That’s a pretty big gap to have as someone who is a writer which is actually why I originally tried experimenting with Micro Stories at first since they were only about like two or three paragraphs long and didn’t take much effort out of me. But even those I started to fall out of wanting to do.

So why have I stopped having a passion for something I use to love doing ever since I first started on DA? Well, it’s not for one single reason but actually a couple.

1; I’ve started to find it boring! No matter what I want to write, no matter how much I love the idea and no matter how much free time I end up getting so that I can do a lot of writing, usually about like 5 or 10 mins in I get board of writing and more often than not I end up thinking to myself “I would honestly rather be playing video games or watching a show I’ve been meaning to watch.” Plus, I can only write “this character said this” or describe what someone looks like or is wearing so much before I get bored.

2; Written work is something I’ve always struggled with anyway. I grew up on TV and video games and very little written stuff which might sound ironic coming from me but it’s true. I once tried reading one of the Harry Potter books as a child and I got one chapter in before thinking to myself “I’d honestly rather be watching the movie that’s based off this book.” Hell, I even tried reading the in game books in Skyrim but when I did I would always go “I’m spending my time in this game doing THIS instead of going on an epic and exciting quest?” The only time as a child I’ve ever read a book all the way though that wasn’t one of those ones that only had like two short paragraphs on each page and was like 15 pages long was in 2009 when a friend let me read an old Choose Your Own Adventure styled Super Mario book but that only because it was on a school trip, we were on a long train ride that took several hours and we weren’t allowed to bring our handheld games systems with us so there was practically nothing else to do. It’s a problem I have been trying to fix for many years and sometimes I do read stories on DA when I get the chance, but written works just always been something I’ve struggled with even as a child.

I mentioned before that this is an issue that my passion for this has been dwindling for a while and I’ve tried to find ways to get around this. At first it was writing little short stories to attach to my pics. I was mainly inspired to do this by the likes of other’s like IncredibleIntruder who like me is into hypnosis and especially belly dancing but also puts little short stories in the descriptions of the stuff he commissions and uploads to his page and still continues to do so to this day. I HAD experimented with this kind of stuff before coming across there content but it wasn't until I started seeing some of there commissions I really started to take my stories for my pics seriously. And I’d continue to do this for a lot of my commissions as well. Even if it was a pic the artist didn’t give me permission to upload like with that Symbiote Shantae and Rottytops pic I’d still write a story for it! And eventually, I just only wrote up a short synopsis of what happened in leading up to what we see in a pic in its description because I wasn’t having any fun with these stories anymore. Which again, sucks that I feel that way because I do think about this stuff a lot. Especially the pics based around my self insert sona, something I’m extremely proud to have created, because the whole reason that exists was born of decades of me having a hyper active imagination and always imagining myself actually in the worlds of the games I play, especially ones that let you play as customized characters such as Wii Sports Resort or Mario Kart Wii, and making up my own little Kingdom Hearts styled crossover universe but wasn’t just relegated to stuff belonging to a single property… And also the lore not being a headache to get used to.

For example, the pic of my sona becoming an Ankha Drone I had this whole story planned out while it was getting worked on of them walking into Ankha suddenly in their home on their island with two other Ankha Drones and would be the ones converting my sona into one of them. Then there’s the one of them in the coils of Naga Shantae which would have been right after an encounter with Risky Boots and both my sona and Shantae being very exhausted and Shantae offering some nice and snug coil hugs until we were both ready to head home. And the Techno Drone pic where the story would of involved them knowing about SuperTechno (the artist of that pic who’s sona turns characters into fembots) hypnotizing ladies into being his Fembots while still extending it to males, not being aware of the fact that many of the Fembots in Techno’s army were kidnapped, asking if he could allow himself to be a drone with one of the main reasons he wants this and allows himself to be hypnotized a fair bit is because of not having the best mental state, something I obviously am implying I sometimes have and this was my way of projecting onto them. Similarly, the Ashour Drone pic I got of my sona was going to have a story of them finding Shantae as an Ashour Drone and confused on why she’s the way she is which leads him back to Ammer (again, artist of that pic and who’s sona is a freelance hypnotist hypnotising willing people into being his Ashour Drones) and after looking into him and his drones a bit more offering to be one of his Ashour Drones for a similar reason to the Techno Drone one. Even my most recent pic of my Genie AU sona with Urbosa I tried to write a whole story of her originally finding the lamp and the two of them exchanging some dialogue before using hypnosis on her to influence her wish for a massage.

And yes, this applies to Mikaela pics as well. The collab I got with Violet Scales featuring both our OC’s I wanted to write a story of Mikaela stumbling upon a snake basket housing Jermisha during one of Mikaela’s erotic photoshoots as an explanation as to why she was already dressed in bedlah to begin with. The pic of Naga Mikaela mummified I wanted to write a story of her trying to surprise attack Eliza from Skullgirls to potentially add to her harem but backfiring and resulting in Naga Mikaela mummified by Eliza and coupled with some taunting from the 1000 year old Egyptian Vampire followed by her telling the Naga that she’s going to make a great display peace for her place. Even the pic of Naga Mikaela with Sharah I considered writing a story about her finding Sharah’s ring and putting it on not knowing that there was a cute genie girl inside and that’s how they met.

Hell, even writing this I struggled with doing and the only reason I pushed though was because it felt wrong to not have any new full-length stories without giving an explanation on why. Now at this point I’m sure a lot of you would be saying “Oh there’s an easy solution for this. Just use something like ChatBotGT or some other AI program to do the stories for you! Does all the work and gives you more time to do other things.” But I hope you NEVER fucking said that because telling me to use a style of generative content, which is notorious for being built of stealing other people’s work and passing it off as something ‘original’ just to get over my own lost desire to write is fucking stupid! Honestly, I think the better and more healthy option for me is to just stick with what I’ve been doing for the last few pics. Short descriptions and a brief summery that still add’s lore to my characters if needed. That might disappoint a lot of you who followed me solely for the writing but let me ask you this. What do you think is more important? Me forcing myself to slog though writing a story I’m not having fun writing and even if I do finish it my reaction will be more of a “thank God that’s over” reaction than any sort of positive one or doing shorter stuff that doesn’t take as much time to do and I know most people probably don’t even read anyway (sadly) so I can focus on what I enjoy more?

In fairness I knew this would happen eventually, because how many stories have you heard of creators who have lost their drive and motivation for what they enjoy doing? Need an example? How about Hideo Kojima who didn’t even want to work on Metal Gear Solid 4 originally because he just didn’t have the same passion for this franchise as he did once and the only reason he even agreed to work on 4 in the end was because of all the death threats he got from fans? Or how we almost got a new Jak and Daxter game in between the release of Uncharted 2 and The Last of Us but it ended up being cancelled because no one at Naughty Dog felt any motivation to make a new Jak game and they literally went “Are we really doing this because we want to or because of marketing reasons?” Or how about Geroge Lucas having to put up with so much hate and harassment from Star Wars fans though out the 2000’s just because of how he was telling the story that he created to the point where it just wasn’t fun for him anymore and gladly sold the franchise to Disney when offered without a second thought. (And before any revisionist historians try to comment “umm, no actually! That’s not it! Your just being a Disney apologist!” Clearly you don’t remember what George Lucas said in an interview one time before months before the Disney buy out. “Why would I make any more, when everybody yells at you all the time and says what a horrible person you are” anyone?)

So yeah, I’m sorry if this is sad news to anyone. But because I lack the passion I once had you really shouldn’t expect any new long stories for a good long while.

Hi.

If you’re reading this then that means you have shown interest in becoming a critic! Are you tired of reviews that are purely based on the writers’ opinions and back their views up with “logic?” Do you hate seeing people have fun with a game or movie you otherwise don’t enjoy? Do you just like ruining other people’s fun in general? Then by reading this well detailed guide in a few minutes you two will become a skilled and competent critic able to review and criticise anything on the face of the earth. All you need to do is follow these easy steps and soon you will be on your way to becoming a super smart and super famous critic.

Step 1: You can’t like ANYTHING!

The first step to being a critic nowadays is that you can not like a single thing. EVER! You MUST hate everything! You can’t show any positivity towards anything that releases nowadays even if that thing ends up being good anyway. When everyone else is enjoying themselves with the newest Sonic game that just released, it’s up to you to rise up and complain that Sonic was never good and that he should of stayed in the 90’s where he belongs! Oh and also throw in some random line about how Sonic had a rough transition to 3D and how he doesn’t work in 3D.

This is because every bit of entertainment that releases nowadays isn’t good anyway and we need to remind people of that! Things were so much better in the 80’s where games were much shorter and had way more bullshit in them to make you keep playing. “But what if I play or watch something new that comes out nowadays and I do end up liking it?” Oh, that’s easy, just don’t talk about it! After all, you need to keep up appearances. And don’t bother talking about indie projects either, they aren’t worth your time. “But my friend told me Ultrakill is a really fun arena shooter with a lot of content that makes it worth playing as well as super satisfying gameplay and that it’s well worth the…” IT’S NOT WORTH YOUR TIME!

Step 2: Learn what the term “Hyperbole” means and use it. CONSTALLY!

Okay, this is one of the most important steps you gotta learn people. Hyperbole is your friend! If you’re not being hyperbolic in your reviews then your not doing your job! You can’t just say stuff like “Ehh, this wasn’t for me/I didn’t really like this as much as I wish I did/maybe I’ll like the next one more.” NO! You GOTTA ramp it up! Exaggerate to high Hell and back! Say stuff like “WORST MOVIE/GAME EVER! THIS MOVIE/GAME IS A COMPLEATE FAILURE! IT RUINED THE FRANCHSIE! IT’S TARNASHING THE LEGACY OF THIS FRANCHSIE! IT KILLED MY CHILDHOOD! IT TOOK ME TO BRAZIL TO RAPE ME AND THEN DOXXED MY HOME ADRESSE AND SAID IT WAS GOING TO DO THE SAME TO MY FAMILY!” Does this seem a little extreme to say about something you don’t like? No, not at all! It’s completely justified, and you’ll be taken more seriously as long as you remember to use hyperbole as much as you can!

Step 3: Everything is woke now! And that’s bad!

So, you may be reading this and wondering to yourself “What is woke?” Well in case you really have been living under a rock allow me to define it in simple terms! It’s when creators shove some kind of politics down our throat that we never asked for! A person of colour being in a film? That’s woke! A female character being a badass? That’s also woke! Two characters of the same sex being in a relationship? That’s also just as woke! This is woke! That is woke! EVERYTHING is woke! EVERYTHING is political and you have to point it out even if it seems like there’s no real political motivation to the stuff you’re pointing out! If someone says your stretching, then you have a right to defend yourself by saying that they are defending that stories wokeness!

And remember, when talking about wokeness always remember to take a jab at Disney Star Wars as they have shoved there wokeness into the franchise and destroyed it entirely and also remember to ignore the fact that your talking about a franchise that literally has the word “wars” in it, George Lucas has admitted that he based the battle of Endor in Return of the Jedi of the Vietnam war and if A New Hope was released today we’d get a bunch of people complaining about the scene where C-3PO and R2-D2 get kicked out of the cantina because “we don’t serve there kind here.”

Step 4: Make your reviews an hour long!

“Wait, an hour long?” I hear you asking. “That seems a little long. Why not 10 minutes? Or 30? You know, long enough to get the point across?” And to that I say your not thinking big enough! Dragging out your videos to an hour or more long will guarantee you get your points across and ensure the ad revenue you make is worth it. Hell, why stop at just 1 hour!? Why not 2? Or 3? OR 8 HOURS!? Talk about absolutely EVERYTHING in a bit of fiction! What’s that? Journey only takes an hour beat and is a game where your meant to come to your own conclusion about what it’s about or what you think it might be about? Oh no no no, you need to drag it out into a 3-hour long essay about how it’s about the concept of death and have an hour-long intro talking about how no other games up to this point have even come close to what Journey archives and only barely scratched the surface. Speaking of…

Step 5: Over analyse EVERYTHING!

This one is self-explanatory. Look deeply into absolutely everything that you can even if the conclusion you’re coming to is a massive stretch. Take the Mortal Kombat character D'vorah for example. A character who kills of major characters in the story yet get’s away with it every time. Now, why would she do this? Is it because she’s super smart as a result of her being a collection of various bugs controlling a humanoid shell? Could it be because she’ll do anything for her hives survival including playing both sides and betraying everyone so much it would make Revolver Ocelot blush?... If, you know, Ocelot was into Anthro bug ladies. NOPE! It’s because someone on the dev team loves this character with a passion and just wants to piss of the fanbase by using her to kill off popular characters… For some reason. Yes, that is DEFINENTLLY the reason why D’Vorah get’s so much love from Netherrealm.

Step 6: You are ALWAYS right!

You might think that as a critic who’s job it is to criticise other people’s work for a living that other people have a right to criticise you for when you make a mistake. Except no, they don’t! The calm and reasonable and level-headed guy who backs his arguments up with logic will always, ALWAYS be wrong compared to you, the man who’s angry 24/7 and doesn’t like anything. Because that is a WAY healthier way to live!

Step 7: Make shit up!

Finally, when all else fails and you can’t think of anything else the best thing you can do is just make random shit up! Lie, spread rumours, feed into the bullshit machine, say that this game/movie/show/whatever is going to bomb and not make any money because you think no one will be interested in it and keep yourself that little bubble of yours because if you say something enough times then it will become true. And when something does come out and your proven wrong and people do end up enjoying the thing you spent the last few months trash talking because your own personal bias got in the way and you refuse to go outside your little bubble you live in just say those people have no taste or that they are being paid off or that they live in their own bubble!

And that’s it! That is the guide! As long as you remember to follow these easy steps then you will be sure to get over a million subscribers on your Youtube channel. As well as never being happy, never being fun, never being able to enjoy anything and always putting others down. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to go make a 24 hour long essay about how Super Mario RPG Remake is an insult to the original SNES classic and bully the people who are enjoying it while supporting harassment of the people who worked on the game all for that sweet sweet Youtube money! Thanks for reading and don’t forget to like and follow!

The Nintendo Gamecube. Weather you love it or… oh who am I kidding yall love this thing like it’s the son you never had, it’s hard to deny that it wasn’t exactly the most successful console in the 2000’s. Especially when it was competing with the Motion Dew powered alien box that has Halo on it and what might as well be Genghis Khan if he was a video game console with how much of the world the Playstation 2 conquered. Crazy to think the original model that sold the most units wasn’t even its final form!

And yet despite it being arguably one of the worst selling consoles of that era if you ask anyone nowadays, especially the die-hard Nintendo fans who grew up in this era, they will say it was one of Nintendo’s best systems ever and that it had some of the best games ever! And yet, I never owned growing up. Which is kind of ironic when you really think about it considering the amount of franchises I really love that happen to be Nintendo franchises or in cases like the Shantae series, started life on a Nintendo series. Crazy to think that almost wasn’t the case when you remember the first game was originally planned for the PS1. In fact, there’s only ever been one time in my entire life where I’ve ever been able to play on a real life, authentic Gamecube. And the circumstances for how I ended up playing it are, well they were not the best circumstances. Sit down, let me tell you the story of the ONE and ONLY time I’ve ever gotten a chance to play on the purple lunchbox that is the Gamecube.

So a little bit of background. I like to think I was largely a PlayStation child growing up in the 2000’s and I’m pretty sure I might have even mentioned this in the past. Well, that’s only half true. Growing up I had an equal amount of both PlayStation and Nintendo system. I had a PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable and a PlayStation 3 on the Sony side of things while on the Nintendo side I had a Gameboy Advanced, DS and Wii with practically nothing from Microsoft’s side in my possession. In fact, I wouldn’t even own an Xbox system until after I had grown up and got the Xbox One in 2015 when I was 18 years old. So why did I not have a Gamecube growing up? Well, several reasons.

1. … What’s a Gamecube? Yeah, I didn’t even know the Gamecube was a thing back when it was new! In fact, I wouldn’t even properly know of its existence until around like 2005. Now I don’t know how it was exactly that I found out it was a thing, but I do remember it was because I was just randomly browsing the internet one day since we had just gotten internet set up in our house. All this time I thought there was only PlayStation 2 and Xbox meanwhile this tiny box that shared the same colour as Grimace was also a thing.

It was around this time though that I remembered something. A few years prior I was with my Dad and we were visiting a friend of his and he had a son. A son who turned on his TV to play a video game console with a startup screen different to what I was use to. Yeah, do I even need to say it? I actually HAD seen a Gamecube in real life this whole time and I just didn’t know it. I didn’t get to play it though because we were only there for like five minuets and Dad had some important stuff to do.

2. Do you really think my parents would get me a second home console when I already had a PlayStation 2? And many of the third-party games that were released on the Gamecube were also on the PlayStation 2? My parents were not super strict, I mean my mother got me a Nintendo Wii AND PlayStation 3 in the later half of the decade for Palutena’s sake, but there was no way BellmoTheChild was getting his hands on another home console anytime soon.

Do you wanna know a hilarious part about that second point though? One of the multiplatform games I did own was the Futurama video game and on that game, you could actually watch a trailer for it and at the end it advertised all the systems it was available and one of them was the Gamecube. That version never ended up getting released so… sorry Gamecube owners who were also Futurama fans!

Now I knew that Nintendo was a thing for a while now at that point. In fact, some of my earliest gaming memories was actually playing Mario Kart 64 at a friend’s place who sadly moved away to another state in 2010 but did have a Nintendo 64 with them. So did my uncle who let me play Super Mario 64 which I stupidly thought was referencing the year it came out in. Why did I use to think that? Am I stupid? The sad thing about the time I properly found out the Gamecube was a thing is that by the time I did, the Nintendo Wii was only about like a year from being released. And by that point I pretty much just stopped caring about the thing. I had no reason to care about it.

That was, until 2006. Not long ago my parents had divorced and I was at my father’s waiting for my mother to pick me up. So, to kill time I played outside. Just minding my own business running around when suddenly, I feel over and landed on my elbow and broke my humerus! Yeah it, it was quite painful. And yes, before you ask, that IS an actual bone in the human body. Look it up if you don’t believe me. And I was in a lot of pain two, so I had to be rushed to the hospital and stay the night.

The next morning, I wasn’t able to leave yet as we had to wait for some results or something so to keep me occupied the doctors rolled in a TV to play with. And I think you can tell what was plugged into that TV. A Nintendo Gamecube!

There it was! The system I had only just recently heard of and thought I’d never get to play was sitting right there in front of me. Waiting to be played. And of course, I played it. Because what the Hell else was I meant to do while stuck in a hospital bed? I don’t remember every game they had to play there but there are two in particular I do remember. Luigi’s Mansion and SpongeBob SquarePants Lights Camera Pants. And guess which one I spent the most time playing that morning? Lui… Yup it was SpongeBob SquarePants! Because why the hell would the kid who loves SpongeBob pass up this opportunity?

Okay but in all seriousness, I DID also try Luigi’s Mansion as well but it was on a save file that was already in progress, I had no idea what I was even meant to do and just got frustrated and swapped to SpongeBob. I would go on to play the Gamecube for the rest of the morning until we were able to leave. But leave more so because we got told that the doctors would have to preform a surgery on me to heal my arm which my mom was agents because she thought it’d be scary for me and eventually my arm just healed on its own.

And that’s it! That is the only time I’ve ever gotten to play a real-life Nintendo Gamecube. I wasn’t kidding when I said earlier that the circumstances for me playing it were not the best. A year after that I got my Nintendo Wii for Christmas which WAS compatible with Gamecube games but was never able to find any games for sale since most game stores I went to were no longer selling them. As I got older though I started to learn a lot more about the Nintendo Gamecube and its library games and all it had to offer.

And once I started to gain this much knowledge of it and went into my teenage years and then later my adult years where I noticed more people online were singing it’s praises as well as how more people in general were willing to say that the Gamecube was a good console… I honestly didn’t care that I didn’t own one. And no, it wasn’t because I had a Wii which was backwards compatible with Gamecube games. Again, I never brought any Gamecube games for it due to not actively looking for them. I don’t even use my Wii anymore after I got my Wii U which is compatible with original Wii games. Hell, it wasn’t even because I had no interest in collecting old gaming systems or anything. In fact, around the time of me writing this my PlayStation Vita I brought with my birthday money came in since it was the only PlayStation system I didn’t own yet and I am absolutely loving it so far.

No, the real reason I didn’t have any actual interest in owning a Gamecube is because of several factors.

1. Many of the more well-known games that were originally released on it ended up getting re-releases later on and they were all on systems I actually DID have! From Zelda Twilight Princess having a duel release on both the Gamecube and the Wii to the first two Pikmin games getting re-released on the Wii, Metroid Prime getting versions for both the Wii AND Switch, Zelda Wind Waker getting a HD port on Wii U which also added in the Swift Sali to make traveling across the Great Sea much less tedious, Luigi’s Mansion which got a 3DS remake to the remake of Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door coming out on the Switch soon. Yeah, not everything that was on the Gamecube would get this lucky but pretty much most of the well-known ones did or are.

2. Have you seen how expensive Gamecube games cost second hand? Alright, let’s just rip this bandage off right now. If you have any interest in buying a Nintendo Gamecube now you are, for lack of a better term, fucked! Not just because of the system itself but also because of the games! The actual games themselves go for way, WAY too much second hand! These games can cost upwards of close to or even over $100 on sites like ebay. In fact, I went to a convention a few years ago after COVID restrictions started to be eased and one of the stalls there was selling some old Nintendo games and you wanna know how much Super Smash Bros Melee cost? $120! Fucking… why!? And then you got stuff like Metal Gear Solid The Twin Snakes which on ebay costs $230. Let me just remind you that The Twin Snakes is widely considered to be the weaker version of Metal Gear Solid 1 yet somehow it costs 2x more than a copy of the original PS1 version! Then you got the original version of Metroid Prime which costs just as much used as the newer remastered version on Switch does!

This is something that has always bothered me about older first party Nintendo games. People who sell them second hand always, ALWAYS charge WAY too much for them! Not just Gamecube games either but also stuff like old Nintendo 64 games as well which can also go for over $100 used. I went into my local Cash Converters a few months ago and they had on display a copy of Mario Party 2 for $195, Pokemon Stadium for $295 and Metroid for $430!!! And yeah, I can understand why some games can be harder to get your hands on nowadays compared to others as there can be several factors that play into it such as how available they were on release or how many copies were made as well as if that game has ever gotten a re-release on modern systems or not but my fucking God good luck getting older Nintendo games for a reasonable price if you don’t feel like spending $60 a year on Nintendo Switch Online plus the expansion for whatever reason. Points like this are why I am such a defender of emulation. Which actually brings me to the last reason I have no real interest in getting a real Gamecube now.

3. Gamecube emulation is super easy to set up and do! You probably knew I was going to bring this up eventually. Playing Gamecube games on an emulator is pretty much the only way I’ve been able to play some of the exclusive games I’ve been able to that don’t involve having to starve myself. I used to play these primarily on Dolphin but ever since I hacked my Wii U I’ve been playing these games on Nintendont which is a Gamecube emulator for Wii U since it’s the closest I may ever get to playing an actual Gamecube again because of how the Wii U is built of off the Wii which itself was already built of off the Gamecube.

And in response to the comments I’m bound to get saying “eMuLaTiOn Is PiRaCy! YoU sHoUlD bE pLaYiNg On AcTuAl HaRdWaRe!” Number 1; shut up! Please! You people give me the same tired reaction I get when I see Helluva Boss haters complain that the show “only has one joke and it’s swearing” and coming off as if they have never actually watched the show they are criticising and are just saying that for the sake of that un funny meme. Go ahead, tell me I’m wrong about that one! Number 2; Many of the games I and a lot of others do emulate are ones that aren’t officially sold anymore and even if you do have the money to spend on a $230 used copy of Wario World NONE of the money you spend would be going to the people who made the game anyway! And let me tell you, I am NOT spending that much on a game I otherwise love for that reason alone!

Also, this isn’t actually related to my reason for not being interested in getting a real Gamecube but I wanna bring it up because I don’t know when I’ll get a better chance two, the controller. I’m… I’m sorry, I’m not the biggest fan of this thing but it’s purely because of how it looks. I’ve used the special Super Smash Bros Ultimate Gamecube controller that was released along side the game back in 2018 and it honestly feels great to use. Not even just with Smash but with other select games on the Switch. No, my reason for not loving the controller is purely it’s design! It’s not as bad as the Nintendo 64 controller, nothing is gonna top THAT thing in how ugly it is, but it’s still not the most pleasant thing to me.

-It only has three shoulder buttons compared to the four on the PS2 controller and despite the L and R buttons feeling like they should be pressure sensitive a whole generation before the PS3 and Xbox 360 they aren’t.

-There’s no Select button and you only got the Start button.

-While the left analogue stick is actually really good and I’d argue one of the best ones Nintendo has ever made the C stick on the other hand? Oh boy. It has NO REASON to be as stubby as it is especially when you consider that most games use it primarily for camera control anyway.

-Oh and can someone explain to me what in Hade’s name they were thinking when it came to the face buttons? Why is the A button so big and in the centre while the B button is so small with the X and Y buttons being so awkwardly shaped on the top?

Again, actually using the controller isn’t that bad and it feels fine. But if someone told me that this was there least favourite controller ever because of its design I can’t say I would blame them. AND THAT’S THE THING THAT SUPRISES ME! People say this is one of the BEST controller ever! And I have to ask, why? I mean it’s great that people love using it but I think I’m going to stick to my special gold Wii classic controller that came with my copy of the Wii remake of Goldeneye thanks. It doesn’t look like a miss mash of buttons and it works just as fine when I use it with Nintendont.

And… that’s pretty much it! That is my Gamecube story. How I learnt about it, how I even got to play it and why that will probably be the only time I ever get to play a real one because fuck selling those games at a reasonable prince am I right?! This… went on for longer than I admit I anticipated… I can’t think of a good way to end this……… Hey did you know that despite his hatred for it being a big part of his character now Batman back in some of his really early comics never actually had a problem with guns and even used them regularly?

-The fact that both this and the original journal were inspired by Cinema’s Sins. Specifically, there videos on Everything Wrong With… THEMSELVES! Because no movie, or person, is without sin. +1

-And speaking of Cinema Sins because I really can’t think of a better time to bring this up, I actually use to love them! Not just them but any other channel that was basically just Cinema Sins but for gaming. You know, ones like Dartigan, Charrii5, GCN, those sorts of people. Normally I’m all for people enjoying what they want but me liking these channels in particular was a sin. +2

-There’s a lot of reasons I stopped watching these channels, from the constant scene manipulation to playing dumb to make things look like they don’t make sense to repeating sins to making bad pop culture references that aren’t sins of what they were sinning to acting like “the books don’t matter” to constantly contradicting themselves (they will sin a movie/game for not explaining anything but then turn around and sin it FOR explaining two much) or in the case of stuff like Cinema Sins Harry Potter videos saying some REALLY creepy stuff like “Hermine isn’t old enough to be hot yet.” (Yes, they ACTUALLY said that in almost all their HP videos, go watch them if you don’t believe me) to thinking they can get away with it because they write themselves of as “satire” as if satire can’t still be criticised and those channels STILL putting actual criticisms in there videos. +3

-That being said, I haven’t been watching channels like Th3Birdman and others like him that do Everything Wrong With videos on Everything Wrong With videos and well, this journal IS an Everything Wrong With on myself so… I guess I can’t really escape this type of content. +4

-I’m still white! But not so white that I don’t know what New Growth means. +5

-I’m 27 years old but I have more than 22 years of gaming experience. Hey, some of us don’t just come out of the womb knowing how to hold a controller. Sometimes we wait until we get a Playstation 2 for Christmas of 2000 before we do. +6

-I was a Playstation kid for most of the 2000’s. Yes, I did have a Gameboy Advanced, Wii and DS but most of my time was spent on either my Playstation 2, Playstation 3 or Playstation Portable. +7

-I had a Playstation 3 over an Xbox 360 and I am not ashamed of that! +8

-I once played a train conductor in my High Schools performance of Goodnight Mister Tom in the beginning of the performance where Willie’s mother sends him off to live with Tom on the train despite that opening never once happening in the original book our play was based on. Trust me, we had to read the book in school, I know! +9

-One time I was asked to help sell beer at a local footy game despite not liking either football or beer. +10

-Also, I’m an Australian who doesn’t enjoy or watch the footy. Yes, that’s a sin! +11

-Inkling Michael exists! +12

-Inkling Michael: Hey screw you! I’m beautiful! Take a sin off for me! -11

-Shiver is my favourite Splatoon girl behind Marina. Yeah you heard me Frye fans who get salty that Shiver has won almost every Splatfest in Splatoon 3 so far! +12

-Hate makes me stronger. Actually, hate makes ALL of us stronger! No really, what a lot of people don’t realize it that prior to dislikes being removed from Youtube they still technically counted as likes and leaving negative comments on a post was usually enough to get that post trending. Hate really does make us all stronger! We are all collectively like the Sith in a Star Wars movie. +13

-The reason review scores don’t have any value to me is actually because it’s pointless to give a score to something that will be subjective to everyone who experiences that! +14

-Same with arguing over what game “deserves” Game of the Year. To me Game of the Year is nothing more than a meaningless title that holds no real value yet everyone is always so determined to lable what they think is the best game of that year period ignoring the fact that again, we all have different tastes and what you consider to be Game of the Year won’t be someone else’s favourite. There’s a good reason I stopped taking this saying very seriously after the 2020 Game Awards where everyone collectively overreacted to The Last of Us Part 2 winning. +15

-I went to my local Pizza Hut once, got sick and had to go to the bathroom and then a few days later the place closed down. I didn’t even put in a complaint or anything, it just happened! So yeah, to everyone in my town who’s sad over that you can blame me for it, kinda. +16

-I have Autism. And despite what some people still think it doesn’t make you stupid. But I still have it so… +17

-Those who think I don’t read any of the source material a game is based on are going to be even more disappointed when I tell them… yeah actually your right. Most of the time at least. +18

-No actually, can I just take this opportunity to vent for a second about something? The books DO fucking matter! The Witcher games would not exist if the books didn’t exist. The Batman Arkham games would not exist if the Batman comics did not exist! Every single Star Wars game ever would not exist if the Star Wars movies didn’t exist! The Simpsons Hit and Run would not exist if the Simpsons Show didn’t exist! Kingdom Hearts would not exist if Disney didn’t! This isn’t really a sin on myself or anything, I just wanted to vent about this because people genuinely think that the source material something is based on “doesn’t matter” or that they need to consult a book just to understand it while also ignoring that these adaptations are just that! Adaptations of already existing stories and characters! And even then, most adaptations you don’t ALWAYS have to consult a book thanks to a little thing you might have heard of called “show don’t tell!” Jesus Fucking Christ, media literacy really IS dead if people say that the books “don’t matter!”

-Prior to Sony removing the option to share videos and clips to Twitter via PS5 I had to censor my swear words even though I don’t have any problem with swear words. Why? Because Sony made it so that it stops you from sharing anything if your post includes a swear. I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve had to do this! +19

-I’ve managed to piss off both Star Wars fans and Pokemon fans even though I love both those things. +20

-I’ve gotten 2 pics of my sona hypnotized and coiled by Kaa but not one pic of me with Miia or Alice. +21

-I don’t understand Roman Numerals. Or at least I don’t understand ones up to VI. +22

-You can usually tell just how much of a franchsie I actually know just based on how I write some of the descriptions to my commissions.

“Junko from Danganropa in an interesting suit designed around the funny bear man from the same series.” HIS NAME IS FUCKING MONOKUMO YOU UNCULTURED SWINE! +23

-Somehow some of the best friends I’ve made in the past 5 years have been artists, some of whom I’ve commissioned several times, yet the most I’ve ever done in terms of actual art is a couple of sketches done on my 3DS that I did in like five minutes. +24

-Someone once tried to insult me on Facebook by calling me a Trump Supporter even though A) They were replying to a comment I made that had nothing to do with Donald Trump, B) I’m not even American and C) Fuck Donald Trump! +25

-Yeah no, I still don’t like Spec Ops The Line. Sorry! +125

-I tweet like a normal weirdo which is clearly an act. +126

-I actually, unironically enjoy Sonic and The Black Knight! It’s a pain to play sometimes if you’re playing this on actual hardware like I do because of the motion controls but I actually have fun with this game. I haven’t played Sonic and the Secret Rings yet but I’m willing to bet I’d enjoy that two. And not just because one of the characters in it is an admittedly really cute genie girl. +127

-Everyone thinks I have a massive love for Shantae which… yeah, I do! Obviously, I’ve made that pretty clear in the past, but in reality, EVERYONE has a massive love for Shantae. +128

-The only Paper Mario game I’ve ever played and have still played was Super Paper Mario. +129

-The Nohrian path in Fire Emblem Fates will forever be superior to the Hoshidens. And let me stop you right there, it’s NOT purely because of Camilla! She’s only a bonus reason. +120

-I once sold my Wii U copies of Mario Kart 8 and Pokken Tournament just because I was getting the Switch versions. Yes, that IS a sin because why the fuck would I do that as someone who’s a Wii U defender! (I DID get those versions back eventually though.) +131

-I have WAY to many games that I’ve brought but have never played! Tearaway, all the Little Big Planet games, the first two Infamous games, Astral Chain, Tokyo Mirage Sessions, Zombi U, the list goes on. +132

-I actually enjoy Detroit: Become Human and Heavy Rain. I still yet to finish Beyond Two Souls and Fahrenheit though. +133

-I’ve failed the Wrong Side of the Tracks mission in Grand Theft Auto San Andreas so much at this point that I can’t even be bothered to do that mission the legitimate way anymore! I always just park the bike on a specific roof, get off and jump onto the train to bust some caps in those gangsters’ asses. +134

-I’m sort of still a brony. Not as much as I use to be in the mid 2010’s but I still have a love for this show. +135

-I still believe that the haters of something can be way, WAY worse than the people who enjoy a thing. There’s a dam good reason I was proud to be a brony for most of the 2010s. +136

-I only got into Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared because of Red Guy. He is my spirit animal! +137

-I was enjoying Little Which Academia up to the point where I was spoiled about a pretty big plot twist around one of the characters via a meme! While I was six episodes in! I have yet to continue watching it because of that meme! +138

-I’ve never made a video game therefor I should probably just shut the fuck up. +139

Sin Total: 139

Sentence: Dante makes it into a Smash Game! (But it’s the 2013 reboot Dante!)

You know what? I feel like telling you all a story. A story from my childhood. One that has stayed with me for almost two decades now… And NOT for the right reasons either!

When I was a child and still in Primary School for a couple of years towards the end of the 2000’s there was this theatre group that would always come to a neighbouring town near our school. They didn’t come to the town where my school was because well, it was a really, REALLY small town that only had a school, a pub, general store, a couple of houses, a silo and a football field. And every time they did come our school would always go there to see them preform. Specifically, the three times we did go and see them they did re-enactments a few Disney movies and every year was a new movie.

Or at least, I assumed it was Disney movies they were re-creating because yes, I was one of THOSE kids growing up who wasn’t aware that pretty much every animated film by Disney (excluding those made by Pixar) were adaptations of already existing stories. Adaptations which at times would play pretty lossy goosy with how closely they followed the source material. Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was an adaptation of an old Grimmdark fairy tale from Germany in 1812 just simply called Snow White. Yeah, it’s JUST called Snow White. I honestly didn’t know the Seven Dwarfs were not even referenced in the original stories title until I looked it up. Hercules was an adaptation of the story of the 12 Labors of Heracles from Greek Mythology. Yes people, it’s actually meant to be said as Heracles! NOT Hercules! Heracles is the original Greek name while Hercules is the name the Romans gave the character back when they were all “Hippity Hoppity, your country, people and culture are now our property!” And Aladdin is an adaptation of the folktale of the same name from the Book of the One Thousand and One Arabian Nights. The fact I didn’t pick up on that as a child is even more egregious considering the title and choice lyrics of the very first song you hear in Disney’s Aladdin.

I bring these three stories up in particular not because there are some people who STILL don’t realize most Disney movies are just lifted from other sources (although that is part of the reason I guess) but also because these three plays we saw were retellings of these stories. I always thought that these plays were based of the Disney retellings though since aside from the Hercules one using the Roman name of the character it also depicted Hades as the villain despite the fact that not only was he NOT a villain in the story of Heracles but he was actually a pretty neutral God. That being said, instead of the climax being how it is in Disney’s version where Hercules is willing to sacrifice himself to save Meg only to be ascended to Godhood as he does, this play it just ends with a generic sword fight of Zeus vs Hades with Zeus being beaten and Hercules coming in last second to save his daddy. His daddy who will likely go on to breed with many, many, many, many, MANY more women around Greece. And I hope you aren’t expecting me to go over everything in these plays because I don’t remember a lot about them. I mean I did see these was I was between 10-13 so not everything from these performances is well remembered. However, stuff like how the Hercules play ended is one of the reasons why I’ve only just been recently thinking it might have been the groups own take on these classic stories instead of being recreations of the Disney versions.

No, the reason I personally remember these plays is because of how pandering they were! How do I mean? Well, a couple of main reasons. First one being, the pop culture references! Now again, I was only a child when I originally saw these, so I don’t remember everything from them but the way they tried to pander to us I do. One of these plays, I don’t remember if it was the Hercules or Aladdin one specifically though I vaguely remember it being the Hercules one, but… Hades was a gamer! No really, there was actually a point in this play where Megura talks about how Hades has regularly gotten a six star wanted level on Grand Theft Auto followed by Zeus walking in and Meg going “BUSTED” as an obvious reference  to getting busted in GTA. Putting aside the fact that out of all the games they could have referenced they picked the one that most of the kids in my class were not allowed to play remember that generic sword fight ending I mentioned earlier? Yeah, you want to know what they had blasting in the background of that fight? Duel of the Fates from the Star Wars prequels. Was I super into both of those things growing up? Yes! Yes I was! Did that make the attempts to pander to us any less painful to put up with? No. No it did not!

Now some may be thinking of stopping and telling me “But wait, isn’t one of the most popular characters in any Disney movie, the Genie from Aladdin, also a pop culture referencing machine?” Yes but Genie is usually let off the hook by most people, myself included, for several reasons. Like with some early Simpsons episodes most of the references are pretty obscure and reference stuff that’s pretty old or that older audiences would get and even if you do get them the film isn’t shoving those references down your throat anyway. Plus, Robin William’s performance as the Genie is so entertaining to watch just on it’s own anyway and is regarded as one of the best performances in the film! There’s a good reason some people were hesitant to Will Smith playing the character in the live action remake.

But the pop culture references were not as bad as the OTHER reason I remember from these plays for the wrong reason. Because these plays also had music numbers. And instead of doing covers of classic Disney songs they instead did parody versions of random popular songs from around when we saw these plays. You know where I’m going with these, they were just as painful as the pop culture references. You could argue that they couldn’t do covers of the Disney songs but I mean, have you seen the amount of covers of those songs are up on Youtube? The one I remember the most was during the Aladdin play where Jafar suddenly started singing a parody of Kanye Wests Stronger only he was singing about his plan to over throw Sultan Vinegar and how “I need the lamp now!” Oh yeah, I forgot to mention but what I just called the Sultan just now wasn’t a joke I just made up on the spot either, THAT WAS ACTUALLY WHAT HE WAS CALLED IN THE PLAY! SULTAN VINIGER! EVEN THOUGH THE SUTAN IN BOTH THE ORIGINAL AND DISNEY VERSION OF ALADDIN (at least according to the Disney Wiki) HAS A NAME AND IT’S SULTAN HAMED BOBBOLONIS II OF AGRABAH! And that’s not even counting how these plays end either because after the final scene all the actors decide to get out onto the stage and sing a cover of Reach of the Stars by S Club 7 which, okay yeah that’s a good song but did every one of these need to end on that song? You know how some people give modern animated films crap for ending on a dance party ending? Yeah, this was that but in real life!

The worst part about these plays however is only a day or two after we saw these plays our teacher would actually play for us the Disney versions of these movies and I seriously can not tell you how much better these were to watch compared to those plays! They were actually fun and didn’t make me want to do something very illegal just from watching it! Many people often give Disney shit for the live action remakes they do of there classic films which feel like they are solely being made just to cater to people who hate animation as a medium. And while I am by no means defending them especially as someone who loves animation himself, these plays were no better than what Disney has been trying the past decade.

So yeah, that’s just a little story from my past I’ve had on my mind a lot lately and thought I’d share.