This Week’s Topics:
- Rundown Preamble Ramble: Natalie is Sexual Addicted
- Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond Leave Xbox Pt. 2 (AI Yourself to Despair)
- Saudi Arabi’s Plan to Destroy Fighting Games (♫Let it Rot, Let it Rot♫)
- Marvel MaXimum Collection Announced (Licensed Re-Release Compilations Drive Natalie NUTS!)
- Paramount Skydance Outbids Netflix, Securing Warner Bros. Discovery Ownership (Stupid Rich Fascists Keep Trying to Consolidate Everything)
- Pokémon Presents Rundown (Finally! Some Good Beef!)
Rundown Preamble Ramble:
Natalie is Sexual Addicted
…Okay let me explain the header image for this week’s Rundown, as this is weird even by MY standards.
The header image is an edited version of the album art for Medical Card by Helly Tree, a super obscure 2016 album that has been in my musical rotation for a few years. How did I find out about it? Well, I really liked the title theme of Crystal City and looked up the artist responsible for it. I think it’s a great album, being eerie, moody, enhanced by Helly Tree’s unique voice and intonation. Like many of my favorite albums, it sounds like it is from another world.
I like every track on Medical Card, but I have a special fondness for the track Addicted, which features a recurring lyric is “we are all sexual addicted, never had an answer, where is satisfaction.” I think the use of the phrase “sexual addicted” rather than “sexually addicted” is very funny, and have been thinking about it for a very long time. To this day, I still want to make a “parody” of it in a long-delayed project, but who knows when I’ll get around to that.
Medical Card is partially on YouTube and Soundcloud. It was originally available to download on Yandex, but it was taken offline at some point. So… here’s a copy I saved from years ago for anybody who is interested.
Anyway, content given, what do I mean by “Natalie is Sexual Addicted?” Well, I am currently focusing on my novel project, Verde’s Doohickey 2.0: Sensational Summer Romp – Act 3: Worldly Wonders. While writing, I am once again confronting the fact that some of my plotting can be very… repetitive. I’ve talked about this with regard to eating scenes last month, but I also throw in an utter deluge of sex scenes. I won’t bother listing them all out. All you need to know is that the project began with a sex scene and I had one chapter that featured eight sex scenes involving a total of 18 characters. But between the structure of this act, where every chapter is one super long chapter and one sensibly long chapter smooshed together, I have oodles of opportunities for characters to have sex.
Now, why do I do this? Well, I don’t do it for pure titillation. I do this because I am writing a TSF body swap novel, and those genres are kind of sexual in nature. TSF, Trans-Sexual Fantasy, has sex right in the name, and involves one’s sex (genital definition) (and secondary sexual characteristics) changing through fantastical means. If a character goes from girl to guy or vice versa, they are going to get curious about what changed in their pants and probably want to play around with them. With body swapping, along with its sisters of possession and skinsuit, the sexual connection is kind of obvious.
Sex is pretty much the most intimate sexual experience one can have with another person. It is using one’s body in a deeply personal and intimate way. In the context of a body swap or transformation story, the act of having sex is commonly seen as a character embracing things, whether they want to or not.
In VD2.0 though, sex’s purpose is a bit more complicated, as it is not a strictly linear or direct story. It is sprawling, overly large, and full of loose perspective-shifting tendrils that makes it harder for me to even qualify. It’s basically a lengthy summary of what a group of 20 people got up to after receiving transformation doohickeys during summer vacation, told from May 29 to August 15 with a chapter for almost every day.
I have the premise, eliminated conflicts like a recharge time, or even the need for direct connection with the transformation doohickey. I have established a sandbox for the story, which begs the question of what do people do? If I gave these twenty some odd characters their own doohickeys that swapped bodies and flipped their sexes, what would they do? What scrambles would they get up to? And how would they keep things interesting during a summer where most of them don’t have many responsibilities. As the type of writer that does not go outside often, this is a question that I find harder to imagine, in part due to a lack of references to call upon.
Most body swap stories are about characters being forced to acclimate to their new forms/lives and find some way to switch back. If they have a ready way to switch back, they usually intend on this being a temporary swap for various reasons. Experimentation, punishment, perversion, coercion, or for one character to sub in for the other as they do something they don’t want to. These are largely short-term storylines, rarely lasting more than a week, and if they go longer, it is typically not by mutual agreement between all parties.
This begs the question of how do you write a story where characters can and do swap bodies regularly, and what would they choose to do with this ability. …Beyond the initial “wow, look at this thing that breaks the laws of the world and lets me cum with different bits” factor. This is something I have struggled with, because it’s hard. So I need to come up with gimmicks, new things for characters to do, and to deny them freedom through commitments and obligations imposed upon them from the titular Verde.
In shaking up this bucket of ideas, I frequently go back to what pairings and structure can I have that leads to interesting sexual encounters. Because it is an intimate thing for characters to do, ways for them to make use of their bodies, and something often spurred specifically because of the “compatibility” of their minds and bodies.
For example, chapter one of Act III is about two former spouses having intercourse for the first time in over a decade, after one of them permanently rebuilt his body from scratch. (A 52-year-old Ukrainian woman wanted to be a hot blonde 22-year-old “White American” boy. It’s a long story that involves incestuous rape.) …And it is also about both of them embracing their “TransSex” forms, which is effectively their “TG” or “gender swap” selves, as they try to rekindle a relationship that has been dormant for 13 years. Well, it’s not 13 years for one of them, because he died and came back to life and— this was a bad example.
Okay, a better example is in the third chapter of Act III, where two overweight women borrow the bodies of a hot Black man and hot Hispanic woman. (It’s way more complicated than that, but I need to stay foked.) They go out to a famous local attraction, enjoy the sights, enjoy the act of being seen in these forms, and contrast it to the frustration felt by the people on the other end of their body swaps. Because these two women have had sex before— body swap sex and regular (offscreen) sex— it only made sense for them to partake in some sexual activity in these bodies.
So, I thought it would be fun for them to have a blowjob scene on a Ferris wheel. I did not decide this because I think it’s hot— it’s mostly funny— but because it is a way to make use of the setting and seems like something in-character for these two. They are both weird smut-peddling girls, and this gives me a chance to illustrate their relationship, show how their bonds play out when they are in a different pair of bodies.
I try to always give sex scenes a point or meaning like this, but looking at my outline for the rest of Act III, I feel that I am falling back on this element a bit too much. There are 15 chapters in Act III, and about 15 sex or masturbation scenes. In practical terms, the sex will be less than 10% of the novel— the foreplay is longer than the sex so far— but it’s still a lot! I still write my characters as kinky SOBs who are DTF so long as it’s not incestuous, and they get to wear different bodies.
This all being said, I wish tha I had more things for them to do. But because I have read and seen so many stories that pivoted to or fixated on sex, that is simply where my brain goes. I keep having characters swap bodies, talk, go places, eat, fuck, and party. Because with no conflict, with most of them not having a regular job, what the hell else am I supposed to do?
Akumako: “Have them get spooked by a singing purple dildo?”
I already did that, and it was hilarious! I know what I am doing for the rest of the Act, but it gets weird. With Act IV, I am definitely going to need to find new ways to keep things interesting. I might even need to reimagine how the characters view body swapped sex after the mid-point of their journey.
Akumako: “…Do you remember back when you avoided sex in your stories?”
Oh, we’re going into this? I guess we should, just to provide context.
In case anybody’s new here, I’m asexual, which in this context means I don’t want to have sex with anyone under any circumstances. I am also aromantic and not interested in any romantic relationships. However, like many asexual people, I am incredibly kinky, and spend a lot of my time in the world of the erotic and perverse. I follow dozens of artists who dabble in sexual imagery. I produce erotic novels and novellas when I feel like it. Hell, I have done so many pieces lauding erotic works that this entire site would probably be tagged by a puritanical crusader group, like the US government, if they knew what a blog was.
When it comes to actually doing masturbation stuff… I just lay down in my bed and masturbate to my thoughts, as I have described several times before. No toys, no material beyond what I just saw and have in my head. No phone because… I don’t get how people can comfortably masturbate using a phone.
Akumako: “Also, Natalie is only aroused by TF stuff. …And she only wants to write stuff that is TF or TF-adjacent. It’s really screwed up.”
You make it sound like I felt even a flake of arousal when I wrote Psycho Shatter 1988: Black Vice X Weiss Vice (2024). I did not. …Except for maybe the bodysuit scene. Someone getting into a bodysuit, knowing that they are stuck there for a whole-ass presidential term, if not longer, sacrificing their race and identity for humanity… that’s pretty hot. And cool. It’s hot-cool!
Akumako: “With that, we’re done here. Now get on with your Pokémon autism crap.”
I will, but first I have some other garbage to trek through first!
Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond Leave Xbox Pt. 2
(AI Yourself to Despair)
Starting off, I should build on the last minute story from the prior Rundown, where Phil Spencer stepped down as the CEO of Microsoft Gaming and that role was handed to Asha Sharma. An outsider to gaming in general who pivoted her career to AI a few years back. I was just giving my initial thoughts there. That this was bad news for Xbox, that Sharma would likely not have the background needed to run Xbox, and she was appointed to bring about the much anticipated end of Xbox. A bit brash, yet it’s a reaction formed from years of watching Microsoft biff what they had with Xbox and getting upset at seeing such a pillar of the games industry falter. However, since I wrote that up in like 40 minutes, I did not really get to the broader root of this problem and Microsoft’s greater goals.
In checking the general reception to this news, there was a lot of negativity and belief that this would be bad for Xbox, but I don’t think any were quite as succinct as Seamus Blackley, co-creator of the original Xbox. In an interview with GamesBeat, he did not hold back his punches, and cut straight to the point regarding Microsoft’s plans for Xbox, saying: “I expect that the new CEO, Asha Sharma, her job is going to be as a palliative care doctor who slides Xbox gently into the night.” Blackley later went on to say that Microsoft is led by people who believe that “AI will subsume games like it will subsume everything.” And that the tech industry has been looking at games as not a unique creative medium made of impossible challenges, but a thing to replace with “AI-driven software as a service.”
It’s surprising just how vehemently Blackley is against this pivot to AI, stating to the interviewer that the old ways of fixing problems no longer apply to the likes of Satya Nadella. Microsoft wants to fix everything with AI— actually everything— and thinks they can do that with Xbox.
Blackley also pointedly highlights how Spencer probably was the last line of defense for the old guard, saying: “The game that Phil had been playing for a long time, managing the beast so that he could continue to try to do the right thing for games, I think that finally just wore him out. It’s really hard to do that.” Which I think could be used to describe Spencer’s entire 12 years at Xbox. He had great aspirations at first, but was taking on a hard job, while being pulled in different directions by bigwigs at Microsoft who kept souring on the idea of Xbox.
Most of what else Blackley talks about in the interview is the games business. How it is a very difficult field for companies and successful individuals to break into, and while people can do it, it requires a lot of dedication. Blackley thinks Sharma could have this dedication if she applies herself and reaches out to other people who took on similar roles. That is true. If you learn from the best, you can achieve great things even if you’re a greenhorn. However, I also think Blackley was right to start off with such a dreary outlook. Once someone drinks their AI Flavor-Aid, they are not going to wake up until bodies start hitting the floor.
AI evangelists have sincere and ceaseless belief in AI as the thing that will change everything. To them, AI is final frontier for not only computing, not only technology, but humanity as a whole, the greatest invention yet. It’s the literal answer to every problem, despite the fact that this crap has proven itself to be unreliable, prohibitively expensive, and generally anti-human. AI is a tool for corporations to eliminate the “problem” of paying wages and workers, a tool to control information and media, and a service to sell to everybody for everything. AI is an irrational fixation, and everything I have seen about Sharma makes me out to be an irrational person who believes her own hype and ability, or at least her true mission.
Part of me hope that things go bad, fast, and Microsoft spins off their Xbox division. That way thousands of people’s livelihoods won’t be lost and hundreds of games won’t go into licensing hell. However, I also know that an entity that big going on the market is just going to be a prime target for an evil group with a net worth that exceeds their morals by a factor of millions. Like what happened with Saudi Arabia’s Electronic Arts, or what the Ellison family is trying to do with Warner Bros. Discovery. Hell, Elon Musk could probably buy it if he wants. It has X in the name twice, and that man loves his alt+88. (In White Supremacist circles, 88 means HH, which is short for Heil Hitler, and Elon Musk is a noted Hitler enjoyer.)
Regardless, Xbox still is not dead… but at this rate, it will be soon.
Saudi Arabi’s Plan to Destroy Fighting Games
(♫Let it Rot, Let it Rot♫)
So, something that I failed to notice when it happened was the sale of the Evolution Champion Series, better known as EVO. The fighting game tournament has had a fairly messy ownership situation over the past few years after former EVO CEO Joey Cuellar was exposed as a sex pest and the (online-only) 2020 event was canceled. First it was bought by an esports company by the name of RTS, Endeavor, or WME Group depending on who and when you asked. Then Sony owned a chunk of it for a few years, which I guess made sense, as they wanted to get more into competitive gaming, question mark. …But apparently in September 2025, the ownership changed, now being split between two new parties. NODWIN Gaming, an Indian esports venture, and Qiddiya City, a state-owned Saudi Arabian megacity project.
…I get the Indian esports company wanting to own EVO, but why is Saudi Arabia mucking up with fighting games? Well, because Saudi Arabia wants to own a major stake in the global entertainment industry, and they want to dominate the fields they own. They have been trying to creep their way into international sporting events over the past few years, as the normies love sports. At the same time, the Saudi Arabian government has been trying to sink their hooks deeper into gaming. They own a bunch of stock of many major game companies, own SNK, are likely going to own EA in a few months, and own Scopely, developers of Pokémon Go and Monopoly Go!
Saudi Arabia wants to be the face of sports gaming, so they are in the process of becoming the new owners of EA Sports FC. Similarly, they want to control esports, so they bought EVO. Circa September, how they planned on changing things was not clear, but this past week it became clear what their goals are. They want to expand operations rapidly, growing the convention from three tournaments a year in 2026 to ten in 2027.
They are expanding past Vegas, Japan, and Europe to include Singapore, Morocco, Brazil, China, Saudi Arabia, and Mexico along with a new Fighting Game World Championship tournament. With the FGWC being described as a competition where players must test their skills in multiple fighting games in order to become the world champion. Which… completely misunderstands how pro players play fighting games. They tend to stick to one game in order to master it. A multi-game super tournament was not something that anybody was asking for. It’s like having a tournament to who is the best sports team by having them compete in basketball, football, and… American football. A lot of skills can be transferred, yes, but there’s a reason why these athletes are different shapes.
As I said earlier, Saudi Arabia’s goal is to run the dominant face of fighting games around the world, to have EVO going on constantly, and to starve out the attention and mindshare of any smaller organizations. Even if it is a loss, even if it is not profitable, they want to be fighting games, for everybody to respect and cooperate with them.
This is bad for fighting games. This will lead to loads of controversy over the years, and will possibly fracture the community between Saudi shills and those who have principles. EVO will try to hold itself out as the biggest and most important name in fighting games, but if people just do not let it, then the scene will possibly whittle way. I do not think that will happen though, as think the bigger barrier to preventing this from being a success is… fighting games themselves.
Forgive me for this spicy take, but it is a true fact that fighting games are not mainstream. They are not widely played by people en masse, and are generally kept alive by a niche of players. Why is that? Why are they so niche when competitive gaming is booming? …Honestly, I think it is just that they are harder to play.
Fighting games cannot easily be played on keyboard and mouse, the control medium of choice for competitive games. They have complex inputs that you just don’t see with the lines of shooters or RTS titles. And… fighters feature a cocktail of competitive elements that don’t appeal to a sizable number of players. Fighting games are areas where one’s individual skill is tested, they require knowing about the kits of various characters, knowing HOW to perform their moves in terms of inputs, let alone timing.
They don’t emphasize the same type of route memorization and quick reflexes that are praised in the likes of Counter-Strike. They lack the ability to spread blame or provide support that you see in any team-based multiplayer game. Outside of Super Smash Bros., there are not many that are as widespread or beginner-friendly to onboard people, limiting the number of people who would try a fighting game. And the genre was on the decline during the golden era of competitive FPS and RTS titles. Fighting games were arcade staples during the 90s, went by the wayside during the 2000s, then came back in the early 2010s thanks in large part to Street Fighter IV (2009).
However, fighting games were fighting an uphill battle in terms of widespread online competitive play, as their online was a generally worse than any given any shooter or RTS. They required more precise inputs, but had worse netcode. It took years of rallying and drumming up support before netcode was widely improved, and by the time it was, the genre missed another cultural milestone.
Fighting games were recovering and slowly getting more accessible while other online games were soaring in popularity. The genre has never had anything even close to the scale of Call of Duty or Fortnite or League of Leggings to act as an approachable Juggernaut. Now, at this point, in this matured industry, I don’t think the genre can have its big breakthrough. I was hoping it would. I was basically listening to a bunch of dudes gassing themselves up to the idea for a decade. But that never happened.
Yes, fighting games have gotten bigger. They have made great use of the internet to make the community bigger than the disparate sects that were keeping non-Japanese communities alive during the aughts. However, after the failure of Riot Games’ dud that was 2XKO, a fighting game a decade in the making, I think it is not radical to say that fighting games will remain niche, and will never achieve the popularity of competitive shooters, RTS, or MOBA titles.
I would normally think this is a damn shame, but now that fighting games are being opted by an evil country, I am glad that they are niche. In fact, I almost hope this leads into another dark age of fighting games. Because it will hurt Saudi Arabia and drain the EVO name of any and all value.
Akumako: “…Natalie is the type of person who wants evil people to start shooting babies in the street, because then society will be FORCED to punish them.”
Marvel MaXimum Collection Announced
(Licensed Re-Release Compilations Drive Natalie NUTS!)
Earlier this year, after The Disney Afternoon Collection was announced for Switch 2 along with new games Goof Troop and Bonkers, I considered writing a Rundown segment. Specifically one about the ample opportunity for Disney to crank out licensed game collections. After thinking it over, I scrapped it, realizing that the segment would do little other than state that a corporation could profit more off of legacy IP and licenses.
…But then this subject just HAD to become relevant again, as Limited Run Games announced the Marvel MaXimum Collection. A retro game compilation spanning the following titles:
- X-Men: The Arcade Game (1992) – Konami
- Captain America and The Avengers (Arcade, Mega Drive, NES) – Data East and Mindscape
- Spider-Man/Venom: Maximum Carnage (SNES, Mega Drive) – Acclaim and LJN
- Venom/Spider-Man: Separation Anxiety (SNES, Mega Drive) – Acclaim
- Spider-Man/X-Men: Arcade’s Revenge (SNES, Mega Drive, Game Boy, Game Gear) – Acclaim and LJN and Flying Edge
- Silver Surfer (NES) – Mastertronic dba Arcadia Systems
…So, looking at this I have a couple of questions. Namely… why these games in particular. I think the answer is probably something mundane. For example, here’s my theory: Limited Run wanted to re-release X-Men: The Arcade Game, which was previously ported to consoles in 2010, but was kinda scuffed and had different voices. A marked downgrade when the VA work in the original was ICONIC.
…Arcade1Up also re-released the game, but who has the cash and space for an arcade game in this economy? Why throw in these other games? Probably because Disney née Marvel fully owned the licenses already, or they were pretty cheap. …But looking at these games, this just does not make any sense.
How licenses worked back then is something I don’t fully understand, but I’m assuming the rights were split between the publisher and IP owner while the developer was just a contractor. So to secure a re-release, the publisher or publisher’s successor would need to meet with the IP owner to form an agreement. If these agreements are being made, it’s typically best to make them as expansive as possible to reduce the legal costs and maximize the scale of your project to generate extra revenue. It’s mo’ money for the original publisher and mo’ money for the IP owner.
As such, I added the original publisher to the list of six games, and… this don’t make no sense! Captain America and The Avengers does not strike me as odd given how Data East’s rights holders will give their crap to anyone with $5 in their pocket or enough teeth for a quickie. Silver Surfer seems like a game that should have been left in licensing limbo after Masterstronic was melted into Virgin Interactive Entertainment. While the Acclaim and LJN stuff… just confuses me. LJN and Acclaim were notorious for their licensed games in the 80s and 90s, most of which were bad, but they were nostalgic properties for many, and were sometimes pretty alright.
Between these two entities— Acclaim bought LJN in 1990 and then trashed them in 1994, inheriting all of their assets— they made 15 Marvel games. Most of them are Spider-Man and X-Men with a few oddities, but it seems like the licensing for those would be fairly straightforward. Especially with the Acclaim namesake, and presumably rights, having been bought by a bunch of random investors who are wearing the face of a dead corporation. So why not make Marvel: The Acclaimed Collection? I dunno! I guess this SOMEHOW was easier!
…Wait, is this the MaXimum Collection, because it contains the X-Men arcade game and Maximum Carnage? What a stupid, stupid justification for a name that should only be used for a comprehensive collection. Don’t you DARE call yourself “maximum” unless you’re at least comparable in scale to Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection (2009). WHY DO IT LIKE THIS? WHY IS THIS THE BEST APPROACH? AAAAHHHHH!!!
As I said earlier, this is a Limited Run release, and these sorts of cheaper retro compilations have been their bread and butter as of late. I don’t particularly like them as re-releasers, but I think have a more sympathetic view of them than most. They are ultimately trying to bring back older games while netting some cost plus benefit from that so they can make money and take on bigger more intensive projects. …But I wish everything about them was better.
I wish their Carbon Engine was better, wish that they could add more flair to various re-releases, and wish that they could do higher quality stuff. They should be able to deliver something at least on par with what open source emulators are capable of. But they are also doing something. They are doing the dirty work of getting rights holders to license out properties for release on digital platforms. It is not the grander universal scale approach that I want, but we’ll not get that in an official manner.
I really wish we would get this, that, the other thing, and your mom’s [REDACTED], but there are too many factors going against this goal. The machinations of industry and the American legal system. The failures of Nintendo and Sony to maintain cross-platform digital libraries, effectively resetting them in 2012/2013. The long-standing stigma against emulation and preservation unless it bears profits. And even the mutating viewpoints within retro gaming community, where a growing influx of physical only CRT-humping dunderheads choose to focus on something fixed and dwindling. I just want all games of all eras to be available for everyone, digitally, via the internet, for like $15 or less a pop. But I may as well be asking for a moon.
Paramount Skydance Outbids Netflix, Securing Warner Bros. Discovery Ownership
(Stupid Rich Fascists Keep Trying to Consolidate Everything)
This is more of an obligatory segment, so I’ll make it quick.
A bidding war between Netflix and Paramount Skydance has been happening over the past few months, and that… just sucks. The idea of even further consolidation in American media is horrifying, but the generally preferred party was Netflix as, while they are capitalist jackasses, they are not controlled by Larry Ellison. With Ellison being an 81-year-old technofascist Trump ally, and co-founder of Oracle, with a lineage of heirs to continue his life’s dreams after his inevitable death.
Unfortunately, the power of heavy debt and infinite billionaire money, Paramount Skydance was able to outbid Netflix, and will now be in control of many American media institutions. CBS, CNN, HBO, Paramount, Warner Brothers, Discovery, everything involving DC Comics, and just an excessive amount of IPs. Ideally, there would be measures to prevent this level of consolidation— there are laws to prevent this— but corporate power has grown to demonic levels over the past few decades, and in America laws don’t affect the rich.
So, what should people do about this? Eh, same as usual. If shit gets opted by powerful figures who would love to make you a slave, divest from it. Cancel your damn streaming subscriptions. Don’t buy merch based on their IP. Learn how to torrent shit like a real internet user. Maybe just give up on these pillars of entertainment, because there are so many other things to watch or engage with. Ignore it if you can, copy it if you must, and if you spend money, you should feel gross about it. Because it is gross giving money and/or attention to the small sect of people who despise democracy, wish to control the masses in any way possible, and are generally anti-human.
Pokémon Presents Rundown
(Finally! Some Good Beef!)
Another year, another Pokémon Presents, and another opportunity to sift through mobile game ads before getting to the announcement most people are here for. It was early in the morning for me, so I just did banking while the trailers played, shaking my head at a portable vanity music player modeled after the original Game Boy and various mobile games and myriad other guff. Furthermore, I’m prepping this at the last minute, so I’ll be quick with things:
Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness (2005) was announced for Nintendo Switch Online in March 2026. Surprising, given how Pokémon Colosseum (2003) was also announced for NSO, but hasn’t released for it yet. I’d think you would want to release games in chronological order, and with the lesser game first (even though I like Colosseum more aesthetically), but what do I know?
Pokémon Home compatibility was announced for FireRed and LeafGreen, which makes sense, even if it’s a bit… pointless? You can get every Pokémon in those games through many other methods, where they are easier to train for competitive play. Well, unless you RNG manipulate, maybe.
The previously inaccessible Mega Garchomp Z was announced as a mystery gift update for owners of Pokémon Legends: Z-A – Mega Dimension. I guess this works, but I have to say I REALLY detest Pokémon’s continued reliance on Mystery Gift for what should be proper in-game updates. That way people will be able to access these bonuses after the servers are shut down, and not just in the allotted time when Nintendo allows players to access these features.
Pokémon Champions was slapped with an April 2026 release date. Which I’m sure will be good news for the genre of person who like to play Pokémon Showdown during class and desperately wants to feel the “thrill” of competition. Though, it is curiously only launching on Switch, with the mobile rollout delayed until later on in the year, likely due to technical and/or optimization reasons.
Pokémon Pokopia got one last showcase for the overlap of fans who want their Pokémon X Dragon Quest Builders type game. Good for them, but I know me, and I know I would try to create the closest approximation to communist brutalism if given these tool sets and view myself as a civil servant, not a friend.
However, the BIG announcement was obviously Pokémon Winds and Waves. We have already been treated to a deluge of early leaked information about the game, and the trailer shown… seem to align with most of it. The games are set in a Southeast Asian inspired tropical setting, and feature considerably upgraded visuals over what we saw in Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. However, I will say that these are the most similar looking mainline 3D entries on an aesthetic level.
X and Y were a clunky first step into 3D with human overworld graphics that don’t neatly align with any console generation. Sun and Moon were huge improvements, with people who looked like people, though they were compromised by their 240p internal resolution. Sword and Shield actually had quite good direction for its human characters and fixed environments, with detailed models and good color balance. While Scarlet and Violet changed the look of humans considerably and aimed for something more realistic, but with texture and shader work that I never found attractive. The series has been fighting to find a balance between making things look natural and maintaining the fact that Pokémon are sugary cotton candy cartoon characters, though I’ve mostly gotten used to it. After all, I enjoy things that look out of place and uncanny in moderation.
All of this is preamble to me saying that WIWA looks like it is directly build on the technical foundation of Scarlet and Violet. This is not a whole new look built on Pokémon Engine X per the original leaks, and looks to be more of an iterative upgrade. Human characters look similar, I’m sure there are animation overlaps, and the general look of the world is at least strongly reminiscent of some of the more contained areas of Scarlet and Violet.
That said, the level of detail throughout the world is dramatically increased, and the games look a lot better overall. Textures are higher quality, even if dirt still looks like… a dirt texture you zoom into when filming cinematics. Pokémon still have a slight desaturation to their appearance, though they still rightfully pop next to the dense grass and trees. The world is still expansive, i.e., open world, and is paired with Pokémon healing and mart hurts for ease of access.
Pokémon are implied to have more naturalistic positions in the environments, which was MY big problem with the world of Scarlet and Violet. The water physics and effects appear to have gotten a ground-up rebuild, and look FAR better. Some Pokémon have been given some subtle idle animations to make them feel more reactive, at least I believe they are new. And the battle system was not shown at ALL, which is not actually suspicious. This is how these games are just revealed as a rule.
Diving, however, was shown, allowing players to navigate the vibrant seafloor of this new region, and it looks pretty good. Lots of aquatic fauna, roaming fish-type Pokémon, and just enough light and color to prevent it from looking bland. My only worry about this is, well, mechanical. Because while a Water Pokémon is a staple on any good team, it’s hard to justify running two, and an area with only Water type is practically designed to endear controversy.
Like, we will NEVER stop seeing people complain about the deluge of Water types in the back half of the Hoenn games, and I don’t want to sit through more of that discourse. I’m not saying throw in every Water egg group Pokémon that’s not a water type like Skorupi, Klawf, Crabrawler, Inkay, Tadbulb, and Stunfisk underwater. That would not make sense. But something needs to be done.
Speaking of diving, I am assuming this focus informs the default designs of the protagonists, who are wearing wetsuits under their T-shirts and shorts, similar to Nate from Black 2 and White 2. I’ve honestly never understood this character design decision. Do people actually wear stuff like that IRL when going about their day-to-day business? Because it seems like it would be bothersome and make things worse. Even if the material is thin, they are still covering their entire body, they are still black and suck up heat from the tropical sun.
Overall, Winds and Waves look like Switch 2 games to me. They are games that could probably run on Switch 1 with enough compromises, but after Scarlet and Violet, I find them to be a whelming upgrade.
…Now to talk about the starters. Browt the Grass bird, Pombon he Fire Pomeranian, and Gecqua the aqua gecko.
Yep, they are all Pokémon, and will all assuredly go on to be lovable and marketable icons of the series for an entire generation, as starters ALWAYS do. And as always, people have begun to break them down, analyze them, and try to start fights with people over what gang or alliance they are part of. Why? Because humans are just predisposed to factionalism nowadays, and love creating walls for the penile thrill of vilifying the other.
Honestly, I hate design discourse, as it comes down to people just throwing around different opinions like they are a cudgel, and it just makes me want to throw them into mud. I don’t care if you dislike big heads on your Pokémon. We’ve had big-headed critters for over twenty years, so I don’t care if you still are holding onto an active dislike of a Pokémon that was revealed seven years ago.
You don’t need to like everything, there is a canyon of “it’s fine” between like and dislike, and unless you are trying to say something of substance about what you want to see… shut up. Every Pokémon is special, every one deserves love, every one is somebody’s favorite, every one has some value, and I respect people who can see the good in the bad way more than those who cannot. It’s not math, bitch, it’s design, ho.
However, the most surprising thing about the reveal of Pokémon Winds and Waves was the fact that it will skip the 2026 holiday season and will instead be released sometime in 2027.
The reason for this is pretty easy to intuit: Nintendo Game Freak, and The Pokémon Company don’t want a repeat of the negative cultural reception of Scarlet and Violet. The games sold incredibly well, but led to a groundswell of negativity about the brand writ large. They likely want to ensure the games are held up to a high standard of quality. We have previously seen this with the delay of PLZA, which was allegedly content complete for over a year before release, yet was held back for quality assurance and to ensure the game was as good as it could be. And, well, it helped, as PLZA was good.
Progress Report 2026-03-01
Considering the subject matter, some reference to this legendary AMV seemed necessary.
So, I was bored one night this week and decided to check out another Gregor Daniels story. While I have criticized his work before, I have a lot of respect for him as a TSF story factory as a man, and his works can easily be read in a single sitting. I checked out Swap Tales: The Mom Contract, as it was about a slacker son switching bodies, effectively, with his mother and working her accounting job. Two things I like, together at last. (God, I should write that CPA TSF Series concept sometime soon.) However, what completely took me out of the story is kind of crucial. Gregor Daniels does not know what the hell an accountant does.
Daniels’ understanding of what an accountant does seems to be limited to “use Word and Excel to make reports for people,” which is sometimes true. Every accountant uses Excel, but Excel is mostly a place to create work papers, reports, and keep track of information. Corporate accounting is typically done using corporate accounting software. QuickBooks is the best known version, but it’s sort of a jack of all trades and master of none. It’s an industry standard as it does everything well enough, though not what any big corporate clients would want to use. I’ve used stuff like Client Bookkeeping Solutions, Accounting CS, and I think some Sage-based program back in my intern days.
The point is that these are REAL accounting programs that accountants would use all days. To record deposits, write checks, log expenses, enter payroll, and generate reports as PDFs and Excel docs. If you take an accounting class that involves using accounting software, this is what you do.
Instead, the protagonist’s job seems to be making Excel reports based on various bits of information that he then uploads in some sort of workflow management tool. He gets assigned something, makes a thing in Excel, and then uploads it to the corporate server, marking the task as complete. Is that a thing accountants do? Yeah. But I cannot imagine an accountant who only does this as part of their job, without using accounting software. Now, sometimes you just need to make a report by hand, because the software’s reporting options SUCK. But that is just part of a larger job, and is not even strictly an accountant job.
I’m semi-sure that Daniels did not mean to make these characters accountants, but rather bookkeepers. They do not seem to be particularly high on the corporate ladder, seem to just process information, enter it, and deal with routine transactions. Generally, bookkeepers are not seen as real accountants, and a lot of their work can be and has been automated over the years. However, they are still absolutely vital. They are a necessary role for someone to assume in order to get the grips on day-to-day accounting, and necessary because someone needs to keep records. How else will you know who owes what, who hasn’t paid, and what each deposit and charge was for?
That alone would grind my gears, but The Mom Contract serves as another instance where Daniels seemingly forgets what year it is as he is writing his stories. While the year is not explicitly stated, it is heavily implied. There are references to modern web browsers, the idea of AI taking away people’s jobs is referenced, between Roku boxes, smartphones, and whatever else, this seems to take place in 2023.
Despite this however, the story engages in this trope where a young kid comes in and helps a middle-aged person with their computer issues. The protagonist helps his mother’s co-worker clean her desktop, improve her workflow, and shows her how to use Excel more efficiently. Now, I am familiar with this phenomenon, as I was the office intern working at a real estate firm in the mid 2010s, helping ladies in their fifties with computer problems. This was a thing that happened all the time. …The issue is that this story is set a decade too late.
The 45-year-old mother character would have been 22-years-old in 2000. She would have been a teenager during the computer boom of the late 90s. And it is stated that she has been working her computer job for 21 years. She should know how to use a computer properly and efficiently. I’m not saying this is impossible. Technological illiteracy affects all generations. But the idea that someone would get a computer job when they are 24, stagnate for 21 years, and not know how to clean their desktop is frankly absurd to me.
Similarly, I have to balk at the choice to make the protagonist, an inarguable Zoomer Zoomie, be the one who knows how to use Excel better than someone who has been a bookkeeper for as long as he has been alive. Is this possible? Sure! Is it likely? NO! In 2023 and around that point, there were loads of articles about how young people entering the workforce don’t know how to use a desktop computer or know how to use local office networks. So this just seems unrealistic!
If this story took place in 2013, this would all work. 34-year-olds are generally slower at picking up new skills than 24-year-olds, and are generally more complacent with inefficiencies. The mother’s generation would no longer be the first generation of digital natives. If she was born in the 60s, then she WOULD have done everything on adding machines and calculators before Besnik from IT popped a fat ass Gateway on her desk. But Daniels seemingly didn’t think about that. As someone who views years as a vital part of the world and culture of any story, this just boils my broth.
2026-02-22: Wrote 3,500 words for Segment 1 of VD2.0 CH 7-07, capping it off at 10,500 words. Because I am deranged! Started on Segment 1 of CH 7-10, got 3,800 words into things. Technically I reused like 100 words from an older project as a deliberate callback, because that is a thing writers do. 7K words ain’t nuthin’ to fuck wit, so I decided to call that a night. Also, started watching Re:Zero. It is good isekai so far!
2026-02-23: Stressful day, boss was throwing me around and making it hard for me to focus, and I wound up working later than I wanted to. Wrote 800 word Xbox bit at the top. Wrote 1,600 words for VD2.0 CH 7-10, but struggled to get into the groove because my mood was bad.
2026-02-24: I had better luck today. Wrote 1,100 word EVO bit. Wrote the next two parts of a segment for VD2.0 CH 7-10. 4,500 words. Still have one more to go before I can move on, but PROGRESS!
2026-02-25: NO PROGRESS! Was busy working from 11:00 to 23:00. Actually, longer than that as I started work when I woke up and had to do some allocation stuff for my side hustle. Managed to write 900 words for the Disney thing. Then I had to exercise, shower, and… I’m not going to START work on a creative venture after 1:00.
2026-02-26: Edited this fat bitch, wrote 600 words for the Paramount quicky, then went to bed. Also finally switched from FireFox to LibreWolf. Wolf arc is ON!
2026-02-27: Wrote 1,600 word segment for the Pokemon Presents, proofed it real quick, then went to work until 19:30. I was not in the mood for writing at the time, so I just wafted around with socialization, did my finances for the month (even though the month is not over) just to confirm that I made $6,000 in unrealized investments. Yay! Thanks gold! Cashies aren’t going uppies though, since I gave $500 to charity. Then finished off a segment of VD2.0 CH 7-10 with the final 1,500 words. Thank GRAPES!
2026-02-28: WAR! What is it good for? Building wealth. War is an incredibly good way to build wealth if you are in the right industry. And killing people. War is the best way to kill people too. Which is why technofasicists cum at the thought of war. It’s their chocolate and peanut butter. ANYWAY, was busy with morning chores and then had to work for almost six hours in the afternoon. This has been a 50+ hour week for me, and I expect to have like six more of those before I am DANGAN INTO FREE! Wrote 2,500 words for VD2.0 CH 7-13, the final part of this mini novella that is spread across nonconsecutive three chapters for CHRONOLOGY reasons.
Verde’s Doohickey 2.0 – Act III: Worldly Wonders
Progress Report
Current Word Count: 105,998
Estimated Word Count: 222,222
Words Edited: 0
Total Segments: 30
Segments Outlined: 30
Segments Drafted: 13
Segments Edited: 0
Header Images Made: 0
Days Until Deadline: 122