Positivity – Pinkie's Paradise

Starting Up: SMILE-Force

The Internet can be a dark place! With battles about what is wrong with our fandoms constantly being fought. Constantly we end up looking what is currently wrong with the world, other people or even the stuff we love. This made me find my voice and try to make the internet a more positive place! Some of my recent posts have done very well in terms of response proving that people like me are out there who would love to see the Internet as a more positive place! And since I had magical girls on the brain.. I came up with…..SMILE-Force.

What is SMILE-Force

About six months ago I joined up with the Otaku Warriors of Liberty and Self-respect. The OWLS as they call themselves. An internet based gathering of people who promote equality across the fandom. A message I still very much can get behind. However I noticed I still was unfulfilled. There was a thing I craved for on the internet even more so than equality. That need was positivity. So I decided to start my own little group thingy all by lonesome! A brand people can pick up and drop as they please. The SMILE-Force. A name based on magical girl tropes. Now you might wonder.. since SMILE is written in all caps? Does it mean anything? Well yes and no! No as in.. I settled on the name Smile-Force BEFORE making it an acronym. It is meant to force or a group that brings happiness to people but the name is also based on forcing a smile. Not giving in to all the negativity and trying to keep the mood in a room light and nice. Lately I have been telling you all to keep smiling so it felt like a great fit.

A loving heart always smiles!

SMILE stands for Super Merry Incredible Loving Entertainers. Which symbolises the people I want to join me in my fight for positivity. I am searching for people who LOVE games, anime, movies even beyond like lifestyle in general. No matter what you do or how you do it, as long as you do it with a positive angle and desire to make the internet a brighter place. It is an acronym for those incredible people who dare to stand up and say, despite negative reviews or negative community reception I like these people, this game, this anime or even this fandom. It’s for the the people who can look at a failed product and smile.. not thinking how they are going to bring the company that made it down.. but instead think of all the great things said company had given before. No matter if people are youtubers, bloggers, podcasters or even twitter and instagram accounts. It is a force that is inclusive without bias as long as we keep smiling! Current member count 1.. so I know for sure I at least try to keep smiling.

Unlock your own Henshin trough the power of smiles!

What does SMILE-Force do?

This little ,none official, thing of mine is currently seeking members to take up the moniker of a positivity emissaries. I of course take up the Badge of Positive Pink! What do I do? I try to keep promoting positivity across the web and create an actual happy place. Now WordPress is already pretty positive but if we band together we would be able to achieve so much more.
So what will we ask of members… nothing really! It’s all optional.. because positivity should always come from the heart and not from duty! A blog tour of one.. is kind of lame.. and since I will pick up this fight no matter if people join me or not I have chosen a different approach from the OWLS themed months. At any time, any member wants they can make a SMILE post. Celebrating Positivity about something. It can always be anything as long as it’s bright, happy and positive. Something you want other people to be positive about or even where you are defending that is bad in the popular opinion. As far as we, can we try to promote each others SMILE posts and just help each other out..without going through huge amounts of work. Each month I will check who made a SMILE post and put all SMILE posts together as I check out who are our “Sunshine Stars”.. the chosen warriors who fought for positivity that month. Later on some other members might do the round up post if they so desire. So .. all in all it’s much more of a way to get your regular content fitting our message shouted out.. as something you need to do work for.

***Our Sunshine Stars are not commited at all! But they Smile when they sleep! So that is good enough!***

As soon as I get members there will be a twitter chat or discord chat because.. that is what you do these days! Participation in these is usually pretty low but the channel will mostly be focussed on helping each other be inspired. Together we look at stuff that gets a negative reception.. for example that whole lawsuit and unrest in the voice acting scene surrounding dragon ball z, the release of that warcraft fail or that baby collecting game not being very awesome. We discuss of someone is willing to counter that negativity by for example writing a post on how good the Dragon Ball Dub is or by highlighting Kojima’s great masterpieces.. or glancing back on our beloved first experiences with the warcraft games. Again.. nothing mandatory.. we just seek to help each other find some content and create lovely positive pieces that still have some relevance. Good for the internet, good for you.. good for SMILE Force. If I get people to join a discord I shall also add some fun games.

***Being A Sunshine Star is FUN! Just look at the smile on this guy!***

How is SMILE-Force themed?

If you had not noticed yet by my terminology and the logo.. or me simply stating it earlier. SMILE-Force is magical girl themed. In a post talking about my hopes and dreams for 2020 I figured I would give it a Ninja theme.. based on south park’s Good Time with Weapons Episode. Yet I realised that this did not fit for a number of reasons. South Park is a show that mostly ridicules obsessions and holds shows us a mirror of what we have become. It is reflective in nature. SMILE-Force is not about that. It is simply about joy, regardless if it is politically correct, hated by the media or if you have an (un)healthy obsession with a particular anime or game. SMILE-Force is a reactive initiative if anything. Ninja’s furthermore tend not to be seen and that again is kind of against brand. SMILE-Force is about having your own opinion, (focussing on the positive ones of course) and showing your positive feelings towards the world despite the toxicity out there. So all in all, we got an idea that is very open and present. Very positive focussing on elements such as friendship, love and nostalgia yet it is also about fighting of negativity.. as such the Magical Girl/Boy style came to mind.

***What I see whenever I close my eyes!***

The fictional backstory about SMILE-Force goes as follows.(Yes I made this up for fun) Almost each year on earth around the 12th of August a celestial event called the Perseids takes place. About each minute.. somewhere a shooting star can be seen. Some of these meteors crash on earth only leaving behind a stone made of pure positivity. Keeping a warm tinted shine these stones are called the Sunshine Stones and they allow certain online entertainers with a big and warm heart to transform into Magical Warriors now as the Sunshine Stars. These Merry folks are drawn together to form a band of positivity unlike the world has ever seen. SMILE-Force. This group will soon be needed because from the depths of the wonderful internet the forces of negativity have risen again. Creating a world where one can no longer be happy and has to search fault in everything. Forming monsters on the internet.. influencers who make us want to destroy that which we love by changing the public in monsters that feast on negativity. These monsters and their spawn are called Nancies. It is up to smile force to fight the Nancy army and make the internet Smile once again. Because without smiles the magic of that place ..and thus the entire world.. will soon be lost.

How can you join SMILE-Force?

Do you want to dare yourself to be more positive at times, are you looking for a fun place to hang out and socialise with awesome people.. who are practically forced to think positively about you as well.. because of who we are? Do you want to be unapologetically be positive about things..and blame it on me for putting you in my cult? Do you write lots of positive stuff and think.. sure I will display that logo thingy somewhere? Free shout out. Do you want people to smile more?! Well those are all good reasons to join! I do not have cookies, I do not pay..but I also do not ask a lot of you, just be positive once in a while and get a cool little shoutout. Will that change in the future? Probably not.. . if anything I will add a “choose your commitment level” on top. Like how most Magical Girls can only transform once but some can use a fanny pack to grow wings and become even more powerful. No required amount of posts needed a year.. just be positive somewhere..sometime. Oh and display the logo somewhere that would be neat.

***Again.. it is a work in progress! But for now it is this!***

Signing up for Smile Force is as simple as sending me a Private Message throughout whatever way is most convenient for you. Because I want you to do it smiling!

So a private message on twitter can be send by visiting my wonderfully pink twitter

https://twitter.com/PokemonPinkie

Or send me an email at pinkiesparadiseblog@gmail.com

Please note : Do Not use my contact form! Due to all the blogs I follow, some which post 12 posts per day … I simply can’t maintain that one I do not know how to reroute the contact form to another email address. I am trying to fix this but I do not know how. So for now the message will be lost if you use the form.. so please use the methods I provided in this post! Or ask me in again in the comments.

***This is how my WordPress registration email looks like!***

Do I have any demands for you? Not really! I strongly prefer you are over 18 (not a requirement but I want to be able to have a normal mature talk with members). You should really have a positive voice on the internet, (Websites like Gloomy Drawings of me and my goth single mother… might not fit the brand) and you just need to have an open mind.
Just becaue we love something doesn’t mean others have to. SMILE-Force knows and respects that. There will be true positivity no toxic positivity. (So no “Shield Hero” is the greatest and everyone who disagrees should die” “positivity”) If you can do that there is nothing stopping you so sign up today and make the internet smile again!

Preview Sutorandopinki: Pinkie’s Very own Manga

I felt like doing something different today and so I played around a bit in Photoshop. Even if I am not using any original art, I managed to “collage” my way into a concept for a Manga. It is Called. Suturandopinki: I stranded in Paradise now I have to save the internet with smiles. Today I want to give you a preview.

Plot Summary

A young woman is shipwrecked..hearing the mysterious voice of a woman she calls Bean the girl wakes up on a tropical Island. Soon she befriends a beach ball and a duck who tell her all about the evil lord Shikamettsura, who is trying to destroy all the happiness of the way bigger.. and much more crowded “Internet Island. Since the evil Lord banishes everything happy.. and it ends up on the island of the girl she decides to build a resort with i, which the citizens of internet Island can visit to experience happiness still. Now a thorn in Shikamettsura’s sight, the woman nicknamed Pinkie and her friends have to discover the magical power of smiles to face the dark minions and to keep happiness alive.

The plot is obviously based on my website and what it stands for. Taking inspiration from both elements of my real life and my blogging life and topping it with anime sauce and plenty of renames. It might feature spoofs of other bloggers, youtube personalities and other things. All in good spirit of course. My wordpress journey.. the imaginative Manga retelling is what this will be.

Art

As I am not an artist this is all repurposed art I found elsewhere. Most characters will be done in a simple and easily to mimic style and I will make sure to not include detailed OCs or art in it. I will try to stick to to chibi maker characters and basic art as much as possible. Should you want your OC feature in this feel free to ask. I do not claim any of this art as my own I simply wish to express myself in a way that might be enjoyable for my readers as well as be fun for me to make. Again everything I do I try to do in good spirit and to have fun.

Release Schedule

When will I release it? I am not yet sure! I think I will release it on my blog in ten page episodes as each page does take a long time for me to make. So it will be done when it is done and I will work on it whenever I feel inspired. So you will all just have to wait and see when it will be released….surprise! To get you in the spirit a bit however I have a three page .. and title page preview for you all. Like any Manga you read from Right to left.Enjoy the preview! And remember to keep smiling!

Preview

Making the Internet a Happier Place : The Super Happy Love Award

Each week on the Internet it’s something people are chasing with torches and pitchforks. Whether it is burning someone’s career for a horrible tweet of 10 years ago, or trying to ruin a game company for making the first actually bad game in their career. Nowadays we even want to corporately murder companies for not producing AS good of an anime or AS good of a game as their prequel ones. In fact if they are not better and improved in EVERY single way and if it does not have EVERY similar feature the BEST of their genre have to offer, it means they are 0/10. If you like something that isn’t perfect you are an idiot as well. Well I say enough! I do not want to live in such a world and I am fighting back! For every skull shaped cloud of hate they will release, I will release a muffin topped with a cotton candy cloud with shimmer sprinkles of love! And I need your help! Enter The Super Happy Love Award

It’s time to heal the internet, for to long has our safe space been a feeding ground teaching us to be as negative as possible. With this blog tag we start making a vaccine! We show that passion can be genuine! We give love to those who deserve it and praise the ones that have done something important for us. The ones we love , even when fictional, are oftenly only human after all. With this blog tag I want to spread love for all the fandoms and united fans in positivity again! No longer will we shake our heads and say “this isn’t the <insert fandom> that we used to know.. they destroyed our beloved. NO! We stand together and join forces and turn this into “Remember the time that <insert fandom> did this amazing thing! I LOVE IT!. How will we do it? With this blog tag? How does it work? Well here are the rules.

Happy Little Rules

This is a fairly simple blog-tag , even though it has a BIT more rules than most others. Why?! You will see… teehee!

Thank the one who tagged you and if at all please tag the original post as well. This is my first blog tag and a bit of a passion project so I would like to see where it spreads! Oh and use Super-Happy-Love as a tag!
Display the Super Happy Love Logo in your post Share the rules!
Choose a minimum of 2 out of these 6 prompts to answer in this blog! More is always allowed! These six prompts are as follows!
– Tell about a person you love, this can be a friend, partner but also a celebrity or even youtuber who means a lot to you. As long as they once took breath on this earthly realm you are allowed to pick them… Tell us why you love them.
– Write something about a fandom or franchise you love. It can be your favorite game series or about just about anything that is bigger than just a single product! Tell us why you live this so much!
– Tell us something about a character that you love. Do you have a Waifu, a Husbando, maybe a mentor or someone who taught you a valuable lesson. Tell us why you love them.
– Tell us something about a piece of music that you love. Does a anime intro mean a lot to you? Did you have a special memory to a pop song, like your first dance at your wedding? Maybe a piece of video game music? If you love it, you should tell us why!
– Show us why you love a piece of media so much! A Book, A Game, A Anime, A Movie maybe even a random piece of fan art, you are free to pick as long as you can show us why you love it.
– Write something about yourself that you love! For those who like a challenge, there is a hard mode in this blog prompt as well. Tell us why you love a certain aspect of yourself
Put on your rose tinted glasses. For once you are allowed to gush about the things that you love without having to balance it out with negatives so that you seem objective. In fact your are actively encouraged not to bring negativity into this tag. So no “Nowadays.. <topic> is poopoo but back in my days.. .it was great. Just say it was great! Love is blind after all!
Tag 6 bloggers you love so they can take on this challenge as well.
Everyone who comments something lovely about your post ALSO gets nominated. (Should they so choose)

Why does the number six appear so often? It’s the number of Venus, goddess of love. So please try to respect the number of nominees if at all possible. Since I created this tag I shall answer all questions.

Tell us something about a person you love

There are so many people I love, but I guess this spot has got to go to my best friend. Let’s call her Bean. She will get why and she is a small sprout! Bean and I have only met a little over two years ago but in this time she became incredibly important to me. I had a rough time when I met Bean. Struggling with my identity and my friends where moving away. She is a person I could very deeply connect with. While I have plenty of friends I can talk deeply with I have had little geek friends who could associate with my mindset. If I felt sad it was either.. let’s go to a big party a drink the pain away or let’s go to the sauna to relax. Bean and me go hunting pokemon together, we have a quick lunch and gossip, we watch pokémon movies together or a hilariously bad horror movie. With Bean I never have to pretend to be someone else or more mature, with Bean I can make jokes without having the fear that she would not understand.

Before the age of Bean I went out drinking with normie friends and a female friend got a major burn on a friend. I shouted..ooooh you don’t need a burn heal you need a full restore. I found that so funny myself that I nearly peed myself. My friends however almost hurt themself in confusion. Bean is different though! Bean gets me, she would laugh at this stupid joke.. probably even harder than me as she adores little memes and has this delightfully silly sense of humor. With Bean I can weeb out and yell Nani and Kawaii! She understands what those means and is more inclined to buy me the thing as a gift! If I yell Kawaii around my normal friends they think I bit my tongue! Bean also treats me to lunch a lot and I am very grateful for those! She is an amazing friend I can really connect with like no other!

Write something about a franchise you love

I doubt this will come as a surprise but I love Pokémon! I love everything about it. Ever since those magical first steps on 6 december 1999 the games have never let me go. Even before that the anime warmed my heart. I cried the entire day at the Bye Bye Butterfree episode and when it looked like Ash was giving up Pikachu I cried again. I was so proud when I beat the pokemon league in my first game , and I showed everyone my amazing Parasect and was amazed finding out they had a Golem. I have traveled across the lands searching far and wide and I thank game freak for everything they have done for me. Without them I would not have been the same.. or as strong of a person.

Pokémon made me more sociable, it showed me the power of a fanbase and how despite our differences we can be united through love. I swooned over a sylveon plush with people I do not know and we both ended up encouraging getting one. I met new people, who accepted me, I played adventures I never thought I would. I was introduced to my love for trading card games trough this and I had my first mini LARP. On top of bucket list is visiting the pokémon café in Tokyo and have a Mew Fluffy Marshmallow Drink , as well as spending a lot of my money there on cute plates and adorable dishes. Maybe I will never have the money but at least it gave me a dream. Something to chase after. The franchise is the reason that I am part of this wonderful online community that is called WordPress! And now I can fight to make the internet a more happy place! With my pokémon buddies by my side!

Tell us something about a character that you love

There are plenty of characters I loved and I already talked about a fair amount of them. Since I do want to offer something new it’s time to talk about another fictional character that I absolutely adore. That character might seem like a very weird one to adore so much but she deserves every bit of my love and more. That character first appeared in the Lego Movie as part of Emmett’s crew and the oddball Leader of cloud Cuckoo Land her unique and pink design immediately inspired me. She fights for positivity and smiles and does so in her completely unique way. Throughout the entire movie she has the most cartoony depiction, changing colours and even shapes based on her emotions and thusly appears to be very open. Her fight for positivity make her a perfect character as the one to be loved in this first Super Happy Love Award post.

Unikitty also has her own cartoon show simply named Unikitty in which we get more of the lovable cat unicorn to love. We see a character that has her cheeks change based on what emotion she feels, never really hiding what you feel. We see a character that serves as an inspiration for anyone who isn’t standard. It is okay to be you, no matter what you are, no matter how different you are. We see other characters attempt this but none are as surreal as Unikitty. She loves parties, sparkly things, positivity , cute things and cheering people up. She dislikes her arch nemesis Master Frown, unfriendly individuals, negativity and candy corn! So .. while I have difficulty relating to most human characters I have no issue relating to this rainbow, colour changing unicorn cat thing made out of legos… I love it!

Tell us something about a piece of music you love

Now I could talk about Ducktales the moon theme again but I will not. I will talk about another piece of game music. I am going to talk about A Hat in Time : New Adventure. This song came to me in a time I was suffering some gaming fatigue. Yet within minutes after playing Hat in Time, I felt that old magic I should feel as a gamer again. New Adventure to me signifies that feeling. So to me it’s a song about the magic of gaming. About finding your inner child and playing. We become Hat Kid.. a platform hero who also likes to play around and have fun. This song is all about having fun.

The theme is also remixed into other tracks of the game, like You Are All Bad Guys phase 3, in a way it is hat kid’s theme without being named as such. It’s a song about the innocence and loving fun. For that reason I used this as the theme also as the personal theme for my Eldritch OC Luma. In a contemporary fantasy campaign my group has to raise an Eldritch Baby and keep her safe from the evil forces of R’lyeh since she is the only one who can destroy the breaches between Earth and the realm of chaos beyond time and space. I made new friends with this campaign and love writing it and hosting sessions every day. It is so much fun and I love role playing the character of Luma. Each time I get to play her theme a smile appears on my face and the worries of the day wash away.

Show us why you you love a piece of media so much.

I could cheap out and write something about my favorite pokémon game but honestly I love so much of them I would not know where to start. Like I already told you I would one day love to own an original NES with a copy of Ducktales.. or even have a ducktales cartridge made as an art piece on my wall. Another game I have strong memories about like that is the Nintendo 64 version of smash. I used to play this one with my little sister in a fairly unconventional way. We would play mostly with Kirby and and Pikachu.. her being Pikachu and me being the pink blob that Sakurai blessed us with. We would play tiny sketches. For example.. Pikachu is traveling to his vacation by Great Fox on the Sector Z stage. Kirby tries to engage in conversation and make a friend while Pikachu wants to be left alone. They end up fighting , Kirby still thinking this is play.

Each time we would play a new sort of sketch and come up with a new tiny adventure. Everytime we would get out of school we would start of with this like a little ritual. After that homework and if we finished it we would meet again in front of the tv. If we finished homework early we would play a few more matches before our shows would start. One of my favorite sketches we did was Mario and Luigi having a Moustache contest. Where they argue who had the more beautiful moustache. Loser had to shave of their moustache. It was all so silly but it was one of the closest memories I have with my sister. It was one of few things that fully could bring us together and often mom would come watch and bring us some crips, a nice little family moment all made possible through a video game.

Write something about yourself that you love

So this is the hardest part to talk about but here we go. I love the little child in myself. For a thirty three year old I might not be the maturest woman of my age. I still love unicorns, I talk to imaginary creatures and I often pretend to be a princess. and I sometimes play with plushies for a bit. Last night I failed a picture Captcha because I had to select two specific pictures and I felt bad for the other picture that looked cuter so I clicked it as well. It deserved a click. If someone talks about harming a imaginary creature or talks bad about a cutie I still feel for it because maybe in some alternate reality those things can still hear us. Maybe we have not discovered yet that there are other forms of intelligence that we just not comprehend. So I even try to treat my plushies nice.. just in case.

Of course I can face reality and lose that magic to appear more as a coherent person. I could look at a game that I dislike and think it’s just a stupid piece of plastic. Yet in my world maybe to some extend it has some feelings. Maybe a developer who worked really hard just wished with all their might that someone would love that thing they made and that by saying kind words I could make them a little bit happier as well. I mean I will always be honest, if you ask me for my opinion you will get MY opinion.. and not a lie fabricated to please you, but I also think there is no need to be unnecessarily harsh to things… because you never know! Maybe sometime it will come alive! Maybe to a certain extend our mind set can influence the world if we are more positive. Maybe I am naive for liking something even if it’s not the best thing ever and that I just enjoy playing with it. Yet it is a thing that also allows me to love live and appreciate little things. By thinking just a bit like a kid, we can add some shine to things they do deserve but from adults rarely get.

Six Bloggers I love

Now it is time for the nominees. Here nominated six bloggers we love or we love to take on this challenge. Some kind words for those bloggers are in order I think.

A girl and her anime:

She nominated me for my first blog tag, so I figured it would be fitting to nominate her for my first blog tag.

Fred from A Natural:

Someone who made me more positive about myself and helped me find more love for myself. I think he deserves to spread the love around.

Irina from Drunken Anime Blog

Was there ever any doubt? I know she is really busy and doesn’t have a lot of spare time, but I feel that this blog tag is right up her alley!

Foovay’s Cauldron

Foovay has expressed very positive reactions to my aspirations to make this blog tag a thing so I really feel she deserves a nomination.

Megan a Geeky Gal

I tag Megan a lot but that is because I really love her writing style, I have seen her take on many blog tags across the web. Might as well make her set complete with this new one!

K at the movies

Finally I nominated Kat from K at the movies. It is said that K can defeat me in combat but as the ancient old phrase goes. Make love .. not war! This blog tag gets K a chance to live by that motto.

And remember, if you are not tagged but you love my blog and leave a nice comment you ARE nominated! It’s in the rules!

It’s time to D-D-D-Duel already? OWLS Tour: Visions

Welcome my sweet island guests. It’s time for me to spread my wings again and take you on a little flight tour. It’s gonna be a hoot! That’s right it’s another OWLS Tour. By now you have read the prompt plenty of times in other OWLS post plus it feels really wrong to wish you a happy new year this late in the year. I always wish you a happy life and happy days. Prompt or no prompt though in the month January we talk about visions. How is the future depicted in our favorite anime, manga, movie? How do we see ourselves in the future?

This is what the Otaku Warriors of Liberty and Self Respect discussed this month. To read more about them click on the cute owls cocktail! To me the future can be uncertain and waiting for it can feel keep quite bad . Perhaps something you really want is locked behind “the future”. In the future people might be more accepting of who you are. In the future I might get healthier. When we envision the future it always seems very far away. We might not live to see those moments we envision. It might be not for us. Yet one anime we all know is kind of becoming living proof that sometimes the future isn’t as far off as it may seem and it shows us we might have a big role to play in realising it.

Pegasus Wings

When we first saw Yu-Gi-Oh appear in the early zero’s we never would have believed that we could ever play Yu-Gi-Oh like in that show Plenty of us thought ‘wouldn’t it be cool if one day we could duel like that?’ A lot of people still think do. What plenty of people do not realise is that that future is basically already here. I shall highlight a few technologies that we deemed impossible or stuff in the far far future but that is here already.I would like to begin where it all began. The Duelist Kingdom.

Yes I know there is a season zero but that is something I choose to omit. When Maximillion Pegasus created the Duel Monsters card game it wasn’t much more than the tradable card game we see played in our own world championships. Just some guys playing cards. To earn more money… and to gain all the millenium items in an evil plot … he had to make it a bit more spectacular. So the big holographic machines in the first season came to be. Back in 2001 this seemed like some star wars level of sci fi. Yet in 2017 a group of geeks like us . but waaaay smarter than me personally, managed to created some very impressive hologram table that basically puts Pegasus ones to shame.In fact one bigwig of Namco was so impressed that he joined the team to ready it for gaming purposes mostly for the arcade.Dragon Ball Heroes shows us we can already make cards interact with arcade cabinets very well. So already what seemed like it would be ages away is right around the corner.

The theme of future being closer than we might think is present throughout the series as well. Virtually every Yu-gi-oh character grows up way faster, after an unforseen event . Yu-gi learns from a maturer version of himself, only to find out he surpasses him way faster than he would have thought. Yuki/Jaden has to merge with Yubel which makes him a much more mature character. Yusei had to grow up fast to survive in Satellite and we see Yuma grow from a bumbling fool into a hero that saves the world mere days after disovering Astral. Yusaku lives roughly 10 years into our future, showing us that the noble creators have seen how close we are of having his world in reality. Yet also he was captured and shaped into a grown up faster than would have been normal. Yuya is the one I missed out on but he lost his father and had to step up….sooner than expected. Sometimes the future is closer than you think, for good OR for bad.

When we talk about the future we tend to envision it at a fixed point in time. We imagine where we will be in 10 years, we don’t imagine where we will be when we have a lucky windfall. Yet progress is like a snowball. The further it goes the larger it gets the faster it moves. This means that the future is often not 10 years away but only a series of discoveries. A chain of events once set in motion becoming a fast moving force. Whether you are waiting for your favorite trading card game to become reality or the acceptance of your subgroup becoming widespread. we do not need years..we need events and people starting the motions. While it may seem like a waiting game, in our own way we are the architects to the future.

Kaiba is real

Why are WE the architects of the future? Who is WE anyway? Well with we in this case I mean us geeks. I think geeks have a significant impact on the future. Wether we just buy 7 versions of Skyrim and support Todd coming up with new ways to play it, or if we actively imagine the idea of a star wars droid coming to live. All of us geeks do something on a nearly daily basis that is an absolute requirement to make the future happen faster. That key elements all geeks have in common is that we prefer to enter fantasy worlds on a daily basis. As such our imagination is significant larger than that of those who, let’s saysit in the gym everyday and binge Just Tattoo of Us. While normies contribute in their own way , I think in shaping the future we take a more crucial role. They however serve as the control that keeps us in check. To realise the future I think we need 3 sorts of people. We need a Yugi Muto, we need a Maximillion Pegasus and we need a Seto Kaiba.

(“***Where’s Yugi Boy in this picture?” “Pinkie was to lazy to edit him in he is right below”)***

For this comparison let’s take Battle City Dueling as their future becoming real. Yugi serves the role as the believer of an idea, the one who fantasises, the “nerd” if you will. Yugi is like us. This is shown throughout the show as well, Yugi is being picked on, a telltale sign of being geeky unfortunately, or at the very least how we are depicted. Yet the spiky haired protagonist is also the one who believes in his cards. He sees them as his friends.He trusts them. Talks to them. Like I talk to my pokémon! In fact basically the entire world they live in is geeky. People would rather watch these complex duels than people trying to take a ball across a field.

Every single duelist practicing their pro sport has some sort of geeky hobby or connection. Weevil collects bugs, rex collects fossils and is into archeology and stuff. Bones is crazy about zombies. Even the Bear Grylls of their world Mako Tsunami is heavily into the children’s card game. Every single duelist who has a connection to their deck is a geek in one shape way or form. Duelist Kingdom even shows this in Yugi’s style of thinking when he destroys the moon. That’s some video game logic style thinking right there. Troughout the entire world everyone is in love with the cards in their deck and has a connection to the fantastical creatures.. Let’s compare this one with star wars fan and also the writers who come up with the story
Then there is Joey and Tristan.,, not sure where they fit. .

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***Joey is a weird duelist, his deck is basicly gambling and stuff he took from other players…..I guess he is ad D&D geek***)

Next we need the realist. Someone who sees these people’s needs and gives them what they want….sort off. The people that give us the semblance of an idea we try to achieve. Pegasus fills this role in the yu-gi-oh world. He creates a card game that pleases everyone. From a Chad that uses his machine cards to power trip. to a woman who lives out her sexual fantasies through her harpy cards. From the boy pretending to be an Esper to a tomb keeper of ancient egypt. No matter who you are, there is always a deck for you. You will have to spend a fortune on packs though. Pegasus showed that people that play this sport, want to live their fantasy and that there in fact is profit and glory to be had in making these fantasies as real as possible.

In the real world the game companies fill this function. With current technologies they want to provide something for people either to make a point or to gain a few bucks. The toy companies selling you a fake lightsaber so you can pretend to be a Jedi would also be in here. In a way even the OWLS are part of this category of people. We see xenophobia, alienation, exclusion towards people who don’t have to be shunned or degraded in any way. We see a world where we unite trough our fandoms and with what means we have right now we try to get the message out. Our blogs are the toys we can pretend with that the world is already a great place, we can offer an escape from the harsh reality that we aren’t there yet..
Even though Pegasus could not make his world’s shared fantasy fully real, nor can we reshape the world simply trough blogs and youtube, we inspire the risk taker, the visionaries, to go above and beyond.

**(Such a fitting card.. either we crash and burn .. or we jump to the future!**)

Kaiba is the final person we need to bring the future alive. We need a dreamer to come up with an idea, a realist to show this idea is not just a whim and a visionary to actually bring the future alive. Usually the visionary is at least in some shape way or form part of the dreamers as well. Most visionaries are at least somewhat geeky. Like Kaiba they have a love for that idea of the future as well. Kaiba is crazy enough to build a dueling system that works everywhere just because he is in love with the game so much he wants to be able to play it anywhere. Well that and to proof that he is the true king of games.

He loves his cards so much that he builds jet’s shaped like his favorite cards. He hosts tournaments so people can see other people duel and he even pays for a school that inspires people to choose a profession in the world of duel monsters. He doesn’t even own Industrial Illusion’s which make the cards. He just sells the hardware. Yet Kaiba Corp did not start out making what is effectively that world’s most popular console. It started as a weapons company led by his adoptive father. It took courage, bravery and a belief in a different future to make Battle City happen. He also had to scheme his father out of his market shares to make it possible.

Our world has exactly that same type of visionairs. Maybe they are not as edgy as the rival of Yugi but who knows. Elon Musk might have long white trench coats with studs all across in his wardrobe. I bet he’d love to shape his drilling machines like his favorite kaiju or pokémon..with some luck he might one day even make a Gurren. He might conference call with other car CEO’s when he works for Tesla and be like “I am gonna destroy you Audi’ and then people finally will realise I am the king of cars. I can totally see him making a jet for himself shaped like a dragon as well…or something else he really likes. Back to my point, we have visionaries, Elon Musk is our Kaiba and we have other people like him. These people will take huge risks to bring the future of tomorrow into today but nearly all these visionaries are rather unpredictable so again.. the future may be just around the corner.

***(Elon summons Blue Eyes without tribute because.. screw the rules… he has money)***

Get your game on

Yu-gi-oh to me is a great metaphor for how close the future is. Plenty of season show us how the past, present and sometimes future are interwoven. We create our own future! Like how Atem was able to stop Zork. He was able to summon the egyptian gods because he had learned their names in the the future. So by simply imagining things we take huge steps in making them become real. For many transgender, the progress of physically becoming yourself might seem painstakingly slow and far away in the future but by simply knowing you signed up you already give of a signal to the world. I am ready! I need this. Doctors and Visionaries will see this and see more and more people desire to be their true self. This will allow our world’s Kaibas to invent new techniques, better techniques and allows our Maximillions (the plural thing on a surname and Pegasus is kinda tricky) to get who process more streamlined. Dare to take that step even if it seems to take ages! People get information and inspiration from your courage.

The same can be said for tolerance towards whatever niche you may belong to. Show that desire, show the wish and even if it is not you if plenty people wish together some visionary WILL stand up and bring the future sooner than you might expect. Yet be wary, do not splinter yourself off to much. Our voices must be heard and for that we must join together. Do not demand rights for you! Inspire courage towards your niche, towards your desire and do not fight alone. Do not ask for a pink lightsaber that hums like the darksaber, while a regular lightsaber hasn’t even been invented yet. In Yu-gi-oh you will have to optimise your hand, you can not go for an Exodia Strategy if you don’t have enough card drawing power. Win some games first to get the proper cards and THEN go for the endgame. We can skim of years but not ages. If we ask for to much our visionary will not arrived and the future will just stay the future.

***(The future is within our reach, the future of the futre is never in reach)***

Let’s compare two Yu-gi-oh seasons that are very close to each other for example. Yu-gi-oh 5d’s and Yu-gi-oh Zexal. Say we wish one of them should become real, we still have to wish Zexal becomes real first, no matter how much we would like to play a children’s card game on motorcycles. Yuma’s duel disk comes with special glasses that show him the holograms. Basically Yuma’s Yu-Gi-Oh already exists in the form of augmented reality. The graphics aren’t good enough and the computers are just not strong enough to create the full effect. However this is a matter of years. In fact if we look back at that VR-Table I posted above.. it’s possible now most likely.. just not economically viable. We just need the tiniest push and we are in the realm of Zexal (minus the magic eyes and weird energy sources). Yu-gi-oh can happen now! Yet we can’t really expect the technology to be fitted in vehicles yet, let alone to gain a city that will reroute all traffic because people are playing a card game (okay the worldbuilding of 5d’s might be somewhat bad).

The future seems far away at times but it is our imagination what draws it in closer. Our imagination drives others, or even ourselves to invent stuff like it. A lot of Star Trek things, people would never expect to be real yet most off the ‘secondary’ technology has become real. We have view screens, we have virtual reality close to their holodeck, we can 3d print objects, we can communicate like them etc. With Yu-Gi-Oh we already can duel in virtual reality like Playmaker does in Vrains, although we REALLY need to debug it still. In fairness those who made it didn’t make it officially so there is that..It’s kind of a mod-like thing so imagine what an official product could do. We can kinda duel like Yuma in augmented reality as well. Sure there is no duel disk yet that shoots computer driven hologram-projecting robot, so there is still some way to go but that is a rather negative angle. The vision is becoming more and more real. Things do actually change! We are improving, we are ready to duel! However ..like in any dystopian sci-fi vision of the future we also always want to much.

When envisioning the future it’s never bad to think big, to look very far ahead but is also not very satisfying. I could look at at those augmented reality games held at the world championships of yu-gi-oh and go like…. NOPE that is not the future yet. Yet when it will finally arrive I will be surprised and ill prepared. I haven’t build a cool deck yet.. because that other stuff wasn’t worth it. I could also nod and smile as we move in the right direction. Start buying my Yu-gi-oh cards, because I know that it will come soon. I could have fun with the yanky vr simulations or the wooden augmented reality knowing I helped it grow.

I could focus on the intollerance I encounter, when flirting with other girls or when I say I do not want childeren or that I consider myself somewhat asexual and be like “jeez the future isn’t here yet I still feel unaccepted because there are still ignorant people.” Yet I could also feel happy because of the positive reactions I do get, the positive reaction Nikkietutorials shows the world is becoming more and more tolerant. The latter is such more pleasant to do. While I DO look towards my desired future at the horizon, I also embrace everything that passes by. That way the future is not just a vision. It will be a journey!

Other OWL Posts (Click to visit to them)

Healing from the past – Megan – Nerd Rambles

Spiderverse – Matt- Matt in the Hat

Idolmaster Side M – Takuto – Takuto’s Anime Café

Visions of a Brighter Future – Aria – The Animanga Spellbook

Vision for a Better Tommorow- Naja- Blerdy Otome

The Vision of Escaflowne – Fred- Au Natural

BTS Music – Crimson – Cute Boys Central

Akira- Dale – That Baka Blog

Vision of Slice of Life Anime – Scott – Mechanical Anime Reviews
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Star Trek The Nex Generation – Matt – Matt Doyle Media
(article goes live on 31/01 Untill then click here)