Expanded Notes & Updates

What's This?

Hii, this is just my more personal piss lore rambling section.

WHAT'S NEW?!

Jun 26, 2024

HIIII OMG IT'S BEEN SO LONG LMAO!! As I've talked about on my main website, I'm working on a big update over there which has consumed my attention when it comes to coding for months now. But as I promised a minute ago now, I decided to bring over some of the new CSS from G-G 2.0 to this site and I finally did!

The main things visible are that borders and text are now smaller, and the font was switched back to Rockwell from Generic Serif cause, IDK it's kinda neat. One day I may find a more fitting font, but none of the obvious choices (those used in Kirby or Nintendo media) really sat with me. That's a small but IMO impactful change just on the face of it, BUT YOU HAVE NO IDE HOW MUCH CLEANER THE HTML LOOKS LMAO! It's fucking gorgeous on this end compared to before. On G-G 2.0 I did rewrite everything from scratch with the original site as reference, but due to the smaller scale of this site I did just realign things with my new precedent. When 2.0 does finally come out, I'll probably go into far more depth over there on what I've changed, but I'll just say for now - semantic tags as wrappers will save your life.

Feb 27, 2024

For no reason in particular I was motivated to write out my headcanon Marx backstory, it was very easy as he's been one of my most developed headcanon characters since... 2019, I developed him before even Galacta believe it or not!

Like Galacta, he means a lot to me, and though I don't think just this part related to the game represents all of why, it'll give context for when I do eventually waffle about him in AUs and the like. And I do think I make him personally intriguing enough on his own, a lot of people associate Marx with the ancients and Magolor and huge worldbuilding ideas, but as much as I love that (obviously) it's also very fun just to write about the happenings of Popstarians. Next to Marx is even some fun stuff about Mr. Shine and Mr. Bright, Kirby bosses from Adventure and Dream Land 2 I'm pretty sure no one but me cares about lol.

There's also a new ramble for What's Cookin W/ Headcanon ^_^.

Dec 2, 2023

In November I saw a post about fanon that made me start reconsidering some of my own writing decisions, specifically pertaining to how I characterize Meta Knight and Kirby's relationship. I put a lot of emphasis on it in my headcanon cause I put a lot on all of Kirby's species lore, but I decided to reexamine this as a baseline to put what I was writing between half of the main 4 characters into perspective. The product of those musings were going to be posted on Tumblr, but I found them a bit too niche and critical so they can be found in Game Opinions now instead!

In more impactful news, in a sudden bout of energy I decided to finish the Chaos Magic explanations! Very happy with them despite the holes. They're incredibly fun to write as I basically make it up as I go trying to make sure I can find a consistency between everything. The Dream Magic section was the most perplexing, as much as I portray it as a common and even basic magic in the headcanon, its very vague in canon appearances. Unlike Heart which could easily be extracted as everything from Kirby, or Dark and Soul really only being connected to a few characters each, Dream is ALL over the place. Next in line is the general Kirby Cosmology and some Popstar world-building. I'm not going to touch much about Ancient History till a new game or I finish my Big Book of Ancient History.

I also redid the description for Baseball AU as I'm trying to find a good medium between properly contextualizing my wildest AU but not being too wordy and well... embarrassing. Don't want to skimp on authenticity in presenting it, but y'all didn't need to know ALL that just from the overview.

Oct 1, 2023

Added a description for Morpho Knight in the General Lore - Kirby's Species section. As well as an outline for the Morpho and Galacta Timeline section. I'm still working on a lot more juicy GK lore.

This is technically for What's Cookin, but I recently bought a big fat book on ancient history I'd had my eyes on forever, and I'm excited to dive into it for help with writing stuff for the Galacta RPG >:3c. That's all.

Sept 3, 2023

Fleshed out the Baseball AU section in AUs. I know I said I'd focus on canon stuff but I was struck by inspiration. Plus it's really all stuff I'd had established before, I was just shy to share it (kicks the dirt coyly).

I said in my last update that BBAU does take up a lot of brainspace for me. When I'm not thinking about canon stuff to do (which happens a lot in between releases) I go to it. It helps me get new perspective on my stuff. I get embarrassed about talking about it cause well... look at it, it's very niche and touchy. But it is my dedicated humans AU and houses some of my best writing like, ever really lol.

There's a big healthy helpin of normal headcanon news in What's Cookin' W/ Headcanon today though ^_^.

Jul 2, 2023

Very small, but I added bits of lore to the Chaos Magic section on Heart Magic and it's relationship with Dark Magic. You can read more about it in the What's Cookin' W/ Headcanon section.

I also changed the layout of the main pages a tad. I wanted a sticky effect on the navigation dividers so that they would be underneath the title one, but once you started scrolling it wouldn't leave your sight. But, CSS is a devil's coding language and I could not get it to work for the life of me. So I went with the more static approach of just having the navigation bar stuck to the side. I'm a little disappointed I couldn't get the cool effect I wanted to work, but in a utilitarian sense it gets the job done perfectly. Oh and I also learned how to decorate scrollbars :3c, I like how they look on the navigation dividers.

May 7, 2023

All of it currently, lol

What Is She Cooking?...

W/ The Doc Currently:

Right now I've taken over everything from the Lore Doc I want to, and I'm either working on redoing old stuff, or fleshing out what's only been notes before into full sections. Here are my priorities right now, in appearance order. (List will be updated as I go).

May 14, 2023

W/ Kirby Headcanon In General:

May 2, 2024

HELLO! It's been a minute, mostly cause of nothin much new to say besides that essay on Kirby and Meta Knight. It was more just a reexamination of my course than like, anything major - I'm still writing my silly voidspawn family lore all the time lol.

But on the topic of re-examinations! I am currently replaying Kirby's Return to Dreamland (2011) on my Twitch account! Midday streams during the week, the worst time for viewers but the only time for me lol. And I am doing this primarily for myself, because for the anniversary of the 2023 remake, I wanted to go in and finally digest all the lore for realsies. My first Game Opinions essay here is about the remakes lore implications, and I still have yet to get over them. But I am willing to try. For the sake of my sanity and my headcanon.

Despite not being ready yet, I have been making lots of cool invisible progress on the Galacta RPG, and the further and further in I get to it ofc, the more piss lore that accumulates. Not just making up OCs and politics, but other groups and institutions of the Ancients era besides just Halcandra yknow! It's always been a daunting task because it reaches totally outside the bounds of canon by making up a new name and face, but I am out of named peoples to fill important roles in my headcanon backstory. Those mostly being the other stars of Halcandra's galaxy/solar system (I also have cosmology lore that those are interchangeable in Kirby space but it doesnt matter rn).

But as of recently, mainly due to RTDL DX, I've lost a lot of my patience and respect for canon's idea of the Ancients, so I've been more willing to take things into my own hands - EXCEPT FOR ONE THING!!!

Kirby since RTDL has started to posit itself as a multiverse, something I acknowledge by do not mess with in my headcanon because I see no compelling narrative utility for it. But that changed recently when I watched She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2017)! The show itself is pretty alright, but it peaked to me when it was revealed that a legend about a fallen hero who "took away the stars" was a mythological explanation of an event where an alien came to the home planet to prevent it from being used as a geo-weapon in intergalactic wars, so she moved it into a pocket dimension - the lack of stars being the view of a dead sky in a barren dimension. IT WAS SO FUCKING COOL TO ME!!!

The sci-fantasy trope of starting at that high fantasy level and then escalating violently into that cosmic scope when shit hits the fan is IT for me, and its what I love about Kirby so much because it does that with an even more unassuming and fluffy fantasy setting, but can also do a very sweet and comforting take on space while balancing the impact of that escalation! But either way, the most important part is How That Used Dimension-Hopping!

The purpose of the multiverse set-up and execution was for one very important plot-beat - to isolate the story completely and utterly from its larger scope and stakes until the final plotline. This is genius, and reminds me of a piece of lore I remember from RTDL where it said Halcandra stood alone in its own dimension, or something like that. Which I never understood the utility of until this, it could be used as a motivator for their incredible reach and use of inter-dimensional magic. If they were a people formed in a barren dimension, it makes sense they would seek to expand and would be forced to learn such extreme technologies and magics to do so! It is a very interesting set-up, and I really don't understand why canon has never indicated it, except that it's a completely unintentional assumption...

The Kirby multiverse is way more complicated and stupid for reasons that are and aren't the current teams faults, and I often feel like scrapping the idea cause there are easier ways to collect the franchise universe. Hell, even the idea of Halcandra being desperate for exploration still works if I assume they're in a barren pocket of the nigh-infinite space of one universe rather than in a dimensional pocket. It just works as one dimension to me. But I will be taking how She-Ra used this idea into context while going back over the text of RTDL and the remake.

Depending on how I come out of this marathon, it may mean big moves forwards in my Halcandra lore - either re-examining a lot of my pre-conceptions OR leaning further into the Piss Lore. But one thing I'll for sure consider real hard no matter the path, is the idea of that isolation and its impact on Halcandra and on Galacta (my beloved and 2nd favorite character in all of fiction). With how important stars are to all voidspawn there is some really intriguing symbolic and literal stuff I can write into his motives with a hypothetical starless Halcandran sky.

Sept 2, 2023

Well this time there was an honest to god ~2 month gap lol. And I don't even really have that much to show for it TBH. Well at least not on the doc itself when it comes to headcanon. There's that stuff on BBAU but that's not exactly what this section is about. But there is something I've been MEANING to talk about that I finally have the chance to now teehee...

Similar to BBAU, there is musing about making a Dreamcast game based on it, for no other reason than amusing my aesthetic and nostalgic sensibilities. But I have another Kirby fangame idea based on the same aesthetics! An RPG about Galacta Knight!

In 2020 I played FF7, and then early 2021, FF9, and I adore both those games so much now. Something that specifically grabbed me was the visual language of the games. Working with such limited graphics and processing power, there's a distinctive style to the game, defined by using miniatures of the characters acting with limited affects against pre-rendered backgrounds. Ever since FF7 this visual language has really stuck with me and I adore it soooooooooooo much, and so I want to replicate it!

Technically Dreamcast is a bit late to emulate the stylings of FF7 and 9, they were PS1 games, and the Dreamcast is a lot more powerful than the PS1. Technically it should resemble FF10 (which I also adore) more, and while that is also a style I adore and would have no qualms giving attention to as well. I am so far from the level of sophistication of that game it's craaayzay. I've only been working seriously with 3D models for a lil over half a year at this point? The best I can do is something like late 5th generation models, and even then I still need to get a lot more sophisticated with those. With BBAU I was very specifically going for cheap/early Dreamcast game, as the vision for it was based on a dream where Inigo ran around Station Square from SA1, and right now that's the vision for the Galacta RPG. I have also mused making it DSi or 3DS, but that's not important rn.

NOW WHAT THE FUCK WOULD THIS RPG ACTUALLY BE ABOUT? Well, it's basically all written out on this site already, but what's fun about taking all that piss lore and turning it into a coherent plot is story structuring! Right now the idea is a bit ambitious, but basically it's that the game would be divided up into different sections of Galacta's life where he felt he deeply changed as a person. When he was a monster hunter as a child, when he was an infantryman, and when he was a commander as a young adult, when he became a knight, when he became the hero of yore, and when he slowly became the fearsome legend of the strongest warrior in the galaxy. A major theme of my Galacta's life is struggling with a sense of self, he lived so long that he felt like he lived multiple, staring over with new people or constantly changing perspective. And by the end it was a chaotic mix of all these perspectives, countless anxieties and aspirations and complexes, that led him to decide to become that Galactic Crisis.

I love this outline, though like I said, it's rather ambitious. Galacta's life is sprawling and long as hell, and has soo many details that would be hard to pack in one game. And then this is basically about 6. Which is actually why I've opted to nickname this Galacta Knight Super Star Ultra - in reference to his debut title and it's unique structure. Even if it's not something I would ever finish, contextualizing Galacta's piss lore like that has helped me develop it a ton. It's something I didn't really have before like I did for Knirby AU and BBAU which were always thought of as a web-comic or web-series format. But Galacta's life was always a bit too complex for that, plus, unlike those two, GK's lore is conducive to an action-adventure game and isn't just slice of life. Like there's battles and drama and shit, I would LIKE to see Galacta in an epic video game, unlike with BBAU and Knirby which are just for chill character exploration time.

The only definitive outline I have for this so far, besides the broad idea, is that of the first section of Galacta's life - his time as a monster hunter. This idea for this one was super easy, as this entire headcanon about his childhood was inspired by Kirby Clash, so thus that is the gameplay style it mimics. Basically Galacta walks around his hometown helping folks and fighting monsters as quests for them, there are main area bosses linked to a plot with one of the important characters from his childhood, and a mix of character interactions and battles help Galacta become stronger. Something that I didn't go into with the outline on this page are how important a bunch of people Galacta met throughout his life are to the story. Like Kirby, Galacta draws a lot of strength and growth from those he's met and loves, and something nice about an RPG over a normal platformer is the oppurtunity to give them lots of dialogue :3. Though the farther I go the more trouble I have balancing character moments and action because of this structure. Makes me feel like everything needs to end with a boss fight, but really those big moments are often followed by lots of settling in before the next time-skip... I'll figure it out.

Even just that first section is all too much to write about, so under Galacta Knight's section on the Timeline Page, I may make an extra one for stuff about the RPG idea. Which also reminds me that in general I need to start adding pictures to this mini-site... But that means I need to make dedicated artwork, and boy am I not good at doing that. SOON!

Jul 2, 2023

That 2 month gap is intimidating, but really it was only a month after the last update that I made the change to the Heart and Dark Magic Lore. I was just very slow updating the site heh...

So to make up for that I'll talk extra about the silliness that brought me to adding those 3 extra paragraphs. It had to do with Galacta as his backstory is the biggest meatiest chunk of headcanon writing in all of my stuff. Makes sense since the Ancients are so important and I tied him to them. A strategic ploy to have all the reasons to make up piss lore.

Basically, it was another one of the million little war stories that make up Galacta's life. It's very fun to add magic to these in interesting ways to flesh out not only the system but how it impacts people. A big part of this is that magic is heavily gate-kept by the Halcandran aristocracy in my headcanon, even in the military only knights learn it, and even that is usually only Elemental Magic like healing spells through Earth Magic. Like in modern day Kirby, most people's attempts to wield the Chaos Magics goes very wrong due to the lack of available knowledge. OFC in modern times this is because those precious records and secrets kept by the Halcandrans, with the last great tomes lost either to ruins or scavengers, but in the past it was a similar situation, just that things had to be stolen from well-guarded schools.

Anyone else being able to wield Chaos Magic is a big deal, and any non-Halcandran power who happens to get their hands on even a taste of it is very eager to use it, likely against the Halcandrans. So we're brought to this scenario where a Dark Mage allied with one of Halcandra's enemies has a wonderful idea - use the corrupting power of Dark Magic to turn their greatest warrior against them! They set up a trap and capture Galacta and try to turn him into a mindless beast that will fight for them, but OFC it's not that easy lol.

Because I think of my headcanon in terms of gijinkas 99% of the time and that I love cool monster designs, instead of Galacta just being changed into like some colorswap like most Kirby bosses do, he gets turned into a sphinx - half man half winged-lion thing, it's a perfect beast form for my gijinka of him. He gets turned into this because the Mage specifically tried to tap into the pure fury and rage in his heart, so that he would forget about his connections and could be trained to do their bidding.

Now the fun thing about a sphinx, is that they're known for their wisdom rather than being wild monsters, and that's what that form for him represents. The spell did not work completely, unbeknownst to those idiots, Galacta is a stellar psychic angel thing, whatever weak and incomplete spell that Mage scrounged from stolen might have worked on a weaker mind, but not Galacta's. So though it did work to warp his mind a little and transform his body, he was still very aware of himself and his captors' intentions. So another fun thing these people had know way of knowing, is that Galacta Knight is very autistic about animals from his days as a monster hunter. He could pretend to be a lion monster long enough for them to think he was ready to be deployed and then easily turn on them. And with the fun new claws they gave him, he could pay them back in kind <3.

So this story then ends with Galacta slaughtering all his enemies as he's great at and returning to the Halcandran side to have the spell reversed. When I was thinking about how they would determine and treat the curse, it struck me that I never fully considered how Heart and Dark Magic neutralized each other. Ever since I learned that Chaos Magic wasn't a dichotomy, I've wanted to steer away from positing that "Heart Good, Dark Bad", it's where I came up with the dynamic that Heart spells are boons based on 'positive' emotions, and Dark spells were curses based on 'negative' emotions. Which made the schools of magic more neutral, but left some holes.

That mainly being, that a lot of stuff related to Galacta stopped making sense. If Galacta was emboldened by fury when on his rampage, how was that different from him being manipulated here? How could 'negative' emotions lead to a Heart Magic like effect? Was it just because Galacta is Heart Matter so he breaks those rules? Eh, I didn't like that, so I made the system a bit more fluid:

It's not about the type of emotion you're experiencing, but how it is twisted that determines which Chaos Magic it is. Any emotion can be turned into a boost by Heart Magic and cultivating it's productive aspects of it, and any emotion can be turned into a curse by Dark Magic and cultivating the and destructive. Galacta as Heart Matter internally took his own fury and betrayal and used it to strengthen himself and become effectively invincible. All the Dark Mages (soon to be Jamba Cult) did was come at those emotions from a different angle and morph it into a curse.

I really like this distinction! It works even better to make the schools of magic more neutral to me, it's not even about the emotions at all, just about how you utilize them. It makes the current state of the Jamba even more ironic as well, because they don't understand their magic isn't even about all that edgy anger and vengeance stuff, it's literally just a spiritual tool they're misusing on themselves.

The idea still needs workshopping, but also I am still diligently waiting for the games themselves to make what they will of the sort of magic system and mythology they're setting up. With Morpho and Elfilis taking some spotlight in the last game seemingly representing the Soul and Dream half of the quartet, I wonder if it will get more focus as such from now on. No more assuming everything in Kirby is "Heart Good, Dark Bad."

Besides that month old mental exercise, I haven't been up to much with canon. I have taken a small break from the ancient civilization research to focus on stuff for Baseball AU, which is a personal love of mine. Kirby and this AU's Meta Knight, Inigo, are from Mexico cause the 4Kids anime dub making Meta hispanic was a galaxy brained move. So I was doing a lot of research on Mexican History, specifically relating to demographics and the history of the Mexican Revolution of 1910, which this Inigo lived through as a child actually. Even though it's not specifically for canon, reading history is always great source of inspiration for writing fantasy, and I'll probably incorporate a great deal of what I'm learning about Mexican history into parts of Meta Knight's backstory. It's deeply interesting, and plays very well into Meta Knight's character.

Very often I spend as much time developing Baseball AU as I do canon, it's just that canon has a headstart and takes priority WHEN there is new stuff to go over. I would like to talk about Baseball AU more because of this ^_^, it's just that it's very niche and personal so explaining it is awkward. The ancient history research for Galacta is still on the docket, there's something big I'll talk about someday with that :3c.

May 14, 2023

In news for this week, I had started thinking about the Four Heroes of Yore a lot and I decided to quickly run-down everything I knew about them. I realized that like, wow we really know nothing about these people except that Galacta is very most likely one of them, and there really isn't another character who meets his standards of implication yknow. Then on top of that I realized OMG I'VE STILL BEEN WRONG ABOUT VOID TERMINA ALL THIS TIME!!

So for background, a bit over a year ago I learned about the infamous missing sentence from KSA's Astral Birth Void pause screen saying that it can reincarnate as Heart/Dream/Soul/Dark matter.

"Dream, Dark, Soul, Heart... With Chaos and Potential completely gathered within these types of matter, he is born as the creator of the origin."
-Vs True Destroyer God Ende Nil (Astral Birth Void) [@DSGiratina translation]

Yknow just the most fundemental sentence in Kirby lore that was deleted in the English version. Before then I had thought of Kirby's species as a dichotomy of Dark and Heart, but now I understood there was more going on which informed all my magic lore and made Morpho a voidspawn in my HC.

But here's the issue. I didn't read the whole thing:

"There were as many “Nil” flying about freely as there were other skies. Seeing him shine like a star, ancient people described him in a book of riddles. Dream, Dark, Soul, Heart... With Chaos and Potential completely gathered within these types of matter, he is born as the creator of the origin. The being that will be described in a new book, Is it a Destroyer God, or perhaps, a Star Ally...!?"
-Vs True Destroyer God Ende Nil (Astral Birth Void) [@DSGiratina translation]

If you've read through my lore (and noticed the highlights lol) you'll see the big ole issue of the fact ASTRAL VOID IS NOT ONE BEING like in the English!

"Void exists in all dimensions, but his shining form in another dimension inspired the ancients to transcribe his mysteries in sacred texts."
-Vs Void Termina, True Destroyer of Worlds (Phase 2, Soul Melter EX) [Kirby Star Allies]

LIKE I GUESS YOU CAN READ THAT AS VOID (PLURAL), BUT THAT WASN'T MY THOUGHT! And the Japanese could be interpreted less literally as just saying "there were a shitton of Astral Voids". Anyways, Astral Void being one singular being from which all the others of Kirby's species spawned was very central, and now I need to rethink some core stuff, but luckily most of the extra details can still be in place.

This didn't freak me out as much as the 4 matters thing, because that was like a really fundamental thematic aspect of the species that I now needed to write around. This is more functional. And in the end, it actually better encapsulates a theme of the species, which is their relation to stars. If wherever the Four Heroes of Yore fought the original Void Termina was just swarming with a bunch of these shining unborn beings, it'd be like a nebula of weird inter-dimensional baby things. And I adore that idea. It also makes the idea Void Termina being a false idol even more obvious, its not even that it came from a weird anomalous creature, its just one of a species of them born LITERALLY out of chaos, with no driving being or anything.

Nevertheless, I have re-writting to do. On top of all the other stuff about Halcandra and their mythology and their magic systems. The life of an insane Kirby fan who makes hyper detailed headcanon based on lore analysis is hard! And at the same time I kinda wanna solidify more specifics about the Heroes of Yore, though I want to keep it loose because they feel important enough that we MIGHT get more heavy details about them later.

I was gonna spend time talking about WHY I was thinking about the Heroes of Yore more specifically... but I'll save that for another time* :3c, this rant is already grossly long.

May 7, 2023

So ofc I'm trying to work on the main stuff always, the timeline, main character backstories, explaining magic and so and so... But in all honesty I have JUST been thinking about Galacta for months lol. And with Galacta, I've been thinking dangerously hard about Halcandra. As someone who had a lot of headcanon related to Halcandra and Galacta, you can imagine how... underwhelmed I was by RTDL DX and what it offered us about the Ancients... But oh well. It's not stopping me from what I've actually been spending my energy on, ANCIENT HISTORY RESEARCH!!!

YESS, I've been reading lots and lots about Ancient West Asia for inspiration on stuff about Halcandra! It's made me realize the reason why I love that star so much is just because I'm such a history nerd and I just love adding insane amounts of details to this interesting piece of Kirby lore. Sadly it seems like canon isn't as into it as I am but oh well.

This started when I wanted to get inspiration for Magolor's outfit cause y'know, HE WAS FROM HALCANDRA LAST I'D CHECKED. And I decided that since Halcandra had a (beyond) desert climate, and in my HC was always warmer, I should start using West Asian dress as inspiration rather than generic Graeco-Roman and Medieval European influence! So I immediately realized how hard that would be because of orientalism, so I decided to find a non-white academic source and ended up reading half a book. Then I decided I should just read books more. And I've read 2 whole ones on Ancient Mesopotamia so far and I'm about to move to Persia, which is I think gonna be the biggest source of influence for ancient Halcandra.

By the time I got to Ancient Mesopotamia I'd already gone through RTDL DX and got the memo, but I decided I kindaaa dont care if my interpretation of Halcandra is off cause of Magolor. Like I really don't, I'm gonna get into that later lol.

SO BASICALLY! I've mostly been researching Ancient West Asian societies for inspiration on Ancient Halcandra's culture and history and I'm having a blast.

Game Opinions...

Fanon and "MetaDad":
How I And Others Interpret Meta Knight And His Relationship With Kirby

Within popular Kirby fanon, there is the concept of "MetaDad" that often goes hand in hand with the ship of Meta Knight/Dedede, but also very much has history as it's own distinct thing from it. It's the belief that Kirby and Meta Knight have, are working on, or should build a sort of familial paternal or simply mentor bond with each other. Recently I saw a post pretty rightfully criticizing the fanon due to many portrayals of it flattening the characters of Kirby and Meta Knight into the trope, which is pretty much what most fanon does. I am not a big fan of being faithful to fanons for this reason, but examining that critique did make me reflect on my own headcanon, as "MetaDad" did heavily influence it.

For a while now I've seen Meta Knight in game canon as being as close with Kirby as he is to the rest of the Dreamland Quartet - ever friendly and respectful of each others abilities despite some latent grudges over past defeats - but with an extra layer of growing familial bond due to both being the same species and therefore a little drawn to each other. But on some reflection, I realized that was pretty biased. The games close to equal emphasis on Kirby's relationship with both Meta Knight and King Dedede, and in a way even more on Dedede as he's the more staple antagonist. Besides MetaDad, this bias comes from me just personally liking Meta more, as well as a big emphasis I've placed on the lore of Kirby's species, as Kirby Star Allies being my first game primed me to a bit. The thematic depth created by the parallels between Kirby and Void inspired me greatly, and since I've been projecting that onto other facets of canon even though it was really only a one-off narrative exploration.

Nevertheless, a lot of my headcanon since day 1 of interacting with this series lore has been about this in relationship to the characters: what it feels like to be part of a rare and powerful species, the sense of growing alienation as you both blend in and stand out from every other one around you, what it feels like to so rarely see yourself directly reflected in another, and what sorts of emotions and attachments that breeds. For my interpretation of Meta Knight, this took an approach common to fanon MetaDad and not to dissimilar to the portrayal of him and Kirby in the Right Back At Ya anime - a major source of borrowed characterization for Meta Knight as I'll get into. But while in the Kirby anime this was a more utilitarian and distant, "I must use this prophecy child to end a war", my Meta is more, "Oh my lord, another person just like me! I would never forgive myself for passing up this opportunity for connection..."

But then Meta Knight only knows how to communicate through mysteriously challenging others to duels to the deficit of all other obligations, and thus 20 years of hilarity ensue. Much of which involves Meta's growing envy over seeing someone so much younger than him show up his flaws so easily, before he gets his shit together and stops antagonizing a child.

ROOTS OF META KNIGHT AND "METADAD"

A very important facet of this interpretation comes from Meta Knight's consistent inability to get his shit together. Fandom MetaDad, borrowing from the very utilitarian motivations the anime's Meta Knight has for keeping Kirby under his wing, sometimes portrays Kirby and Meta Knight's relationship as continuously based solely on their shared background/species, which in the anime is the product of Kirby being written as a much younger and more passive character. That works in its own context, but the games are a wildly different canon, most importantly with a completely different and far more active and complex Kirby. In Meta Knight's debut in Kirby's Adventure, the game is clearly making a case that Meta Knight's initial interest in Kirby was due to shared species. The choice to have him help and challenge you builds up the mystery of motivation for him, and once you experience the first of many mask breaking's to end the battle, it becomes a very clear visual answer of "Meta Knight is related to Kirby somehow, and he's interested in testing his strength more than anything". Which is what the anime and a lot of fans I feel stop at, but there is a lot more of Meta Knight's character in the games, and little of it from then on focuses on that initial hook.

His very next major appearance seemingly drops and fascination with the connection even though it gave itself plenty of room to in Revenge of Meta Knight's dialogue-heavy story. Instead, it focuses on a new motivation for Meta Knight in his hatred of Dreamland's "laziness"/"corruption"*. There was a great analysis I read once of Revenge that explained how the plot beats of Dyna Blade, the Wheelie, and the Helpers in the credits was to show that Kirby fought Meta Knight's invasion with the collective resistance of Dreamland. It was Star Allies before Star Allies in a way, even pitting Kirby up against someone implied to be his own for stronger parallel. This character-defining sub-game puts Kirby and Meta Knight's respective Hero of Friendship and Lone Swordsman characterization in stark contrast, and even if it no longer reinforces the idea of their vague kinship, it is building upon it by paralleling them. Meta Knight is seemingly an outsider to Dreamland with his striking dark appearance and hatred of the local culture, but Kirby on the other hand is completely embracing of the country, its people, and its lifestyle, which raises questions about why he is so different despite once again being shown to bear Kirby's face. This is where the headcanon becomes even more fun to build on, because it connects the initial hook with a more fleshed out character personality that makes it easy to start intertwining them and exploring what that connection really means to Meta Knight and Kirby.

*The former is the English which seems to refer to Dreamland's general populace, but the latter original Japanese would seemingly specify leadership and therefore King Dedede, something I've taken as him and Dedede having bad blood after the events of Adventure where he clearly was more interested in Kirby than the Star Rod - but that's more headcanon so I digress.

But in the end, the core of this is still simply Meta Knight's own character flaws of inwardness compared to Kirby's outgoing and collaborative approach to adventuring. Very similar to something I already discussed about how King Dedede's Revenge of the King parallels Revenge of Meta Knight, but with Dedede's ego still eclipsing his ability to rule competently. This is the part of the three's relationship that defines them most to this day, as Meta Knight's connection to Kirby is rarely built upon besides the mask breaking motif and moments that could be read as motivated by kinship (as I and others often do), but are more likely aspects of his general character arc. The importance of that arc and specifically the wedge it creates between Meta Knight and Kirby is very important, and as interesting as their kinship is, it really isn't anything without this conflict and characterization. Kirby isn't the helpless child of the anime, but his own hero with strengths that both Meta Knight and the fandom mistakenly overlook.

CHARACTER GROWTH FROM THE LONE SWORDSMAN

As I said, there is good reason to criticize Fanon, as it often takes the surface of interesting dynamics and then thoughtlessly sands off its nuances and intrigue into something more generic and dare I say "wholesome". Wholesome, not in the surprisingly passionate written tradition of the series which strives to be positive even while lightly exploring flawed characters and moral greys, but the one in which characters have very little conflicts with each other and just melt into a family dynamic with no resistance. But I often avoid trying to wail too much on this kind of fanon, because there is often a far more pervasive and aggressive kind that I find more annoying for its dissonant machismo.

On the complete opposite end of the fanon spectrum, are people who discount MetaDad in order to treat them more or less like bitter rivals and nothing else. Once again borrowing primarily from his early characterization, but with more emphasis on the coldness in his anime appearance and his negative traits in Revenge, these people actively deny the idea of a strong bond between Kirby and Meta Knight in favor of positing their relationship as being entirely based on Meta Knight's thirst for power and love of dueling. Once again this is a disservice to the characters and themes of Kirby, it's a bit silly to ignore the sunshine, friendship, and rainbows angle of the series that does not at all see Kirby as just raw strength, but his power to bring people together. He and Meta Knight obviously clash ideologically in a way that wouldn't equate to them instantly becoming besties, but that doesn't mean they (or more specifically Kirby) wouldn't try to bond outside of fighting. Which they already have.

Kirby and Meta Knight have canonically been on good terms since Return to Dream Land where he is shown to easily get along with the rest of the characters outside fighting, this was part of a subtle bend back towards a more antihero approach in his character ever since the end of Revenge really. Ever since RtDL set the precedent for the new era of characterization, Meta Knight has been willing to help Kirby without hesitation, judgment, or hostility, and even ensured his safety after the defeated Haltmann in Robobot. It's one of the clearest arcs in the series of the growing allyship between Kirby and older enemies, and one that surpasses Meta's own whims or Kirby's utility to him. Which for Kirby - whom will deem completely un-apologetic and still scheming villains to be his friend - makes Meta Knight his friend. Even if Meta Knight wouldn't return that in exact words, the bond is, or at least is becoming, mutual. Why wouldn't it be with how pervasive redemptions and exploration of past antagonists has been to Kirby since the days of Dedede and Gooey?

Kirby is not a series about bitter rivalries or the power-scaling of warriors, it's about the powers of connection, understanding, and redemption, which makes that framing of Kirby and Meta Knight's relationship as silly as the frictionless adoption seen in MetaDad. One of the greatest strengths of Meta Knight's characterization is that he hasn't changed much in outwards demeanor, but has nonetheless been fully accepted by the series and characters as he is. With very little hint of malice of disingenuousness from him, which is oddly unique for a character like him. In a lot of lighthearted kid's series like Kirby, a dark brooding character is either seen as perpetually full of themselves or needs a complete personality rework, but Meta is consistently just a guy who is Like That, and can become a friend who is Like That. Assuming he is not Like That, or that he is too Like That to be compatible with Kirby's and others' acceptance and friendship is oddly immature, and turns a very simple and sweet character into a much flatter one.

META KNIGHT IN CANON

The fact that Kirby is a story-light kids platformer series means that the non-main character roles are between "Idle NPC", "Interchangeable Player 2", and "Boss", which is what mostly clouds Meta Knight's characterization as someone who is naturally a fighter. It can be difficult to place your finger on a character like that, and for all the series' noble attempts to balance this, the obstruction of character that comes from this medium has directed many fans to take cues from the anime. Even I do this from time to time for finer details, but it's generally a bad practice in the fanon that people do without understanding of the at-odds traits of both canons and the context they exist in. The active and complex protagonist of Kirby in the games cannot be effectively exchanged for the passive child the anime wrote for plot elasticity, nor can the dynamic personality of Meta Knight and his place in the games' rogues gallery be flattened into the static and stoic supporting role created to help with the anime's world-building and pacing. And the games have never really leaned into these choices either.

The Meta Knight in the games is just most engaging as a boss and antagonistic force, but the series has consistently gone out of its way to paint him as being more complex and even heroic, than that. In Adventure and Revenge of MK he was chivalrous to the last, and in the latter showed well-meaning ideology and great respect for those under him, even as he lost his temper. Since then a mix of misdirection, miscommunication, possession, and good ole friendly sparring have been used to handle the balance of aggression and redemption. Which works to make Meta Knight not villainous, but still more hostile than you would be led to believe by his non-enemy roles, in which he's a rather reserved character. This duality can cause a bit of whiplash at times, but is usually consistent in that, which makes him compelling and entertaining in its own way. This was somewhat present in his anime appearance between distant mentor and badass swordsman roles he played, but the games truly make it something else in a way only really possible in a medium where characters have to flip between interactive action set-piece and supporting background character.

Taking inspiration from the preceding games for his more character arc and world-building focused writing, Kumazaki retrofitted Meta Knight into a bumpy redemption arc from mysterious antagonist turned well-intentioned villain to friend starting in RtDL. Even at his most belligerent in recent memory, that being Kirby Fighters 2, that bitterness was for the sake of strengthening his bond with King Dedede - of showing how much he is progressing from that cold loner persona while still being himself. He's not going to 180 into skipping through the fields and making friendship bracelets with anyone, but he is more emotionally engaged with atleast one of his allies now. I'd personally really love to see more games like KF2 that are lighthearted but have great insight into the character's relationship arcs with eachother.

I try not to take spin-offs at face value when it comes to canon and series direction, but I believe KF2 was meant to be the grand hurrah for the last genuine antagonist between Meta Knight and King Dedede towards Kirby. Even in Triple Deluxe and Kirby Planet Robobot before, King Dedede and Meta Knight's respective new ally roles were based mainly on being forced into acting with Kirby for the plot, without the kind of fluff that makes the most of the affection in the dynamics. But in Kirby and the Forgotten Land, the hub world alone does wonders to make the entire Dreamland Quartet feel like more than just an adventuring party, but like pals who enjoy each other's presence even when things are calm. It's a level of simple characterization that hasn't been seen since the cutscenes of RtDL that set these arcs onto their courses, and the kind that people would previously go to the anime for. I'm excited to see more stuff like this going forward in the main games.

The mainline games have always been written with high levels of care, a good deal of which surrounded Meta Knight under Sakurai's direction, and now under that of Kumazaki. Meta Knight was always written to be mysterious and harder to understand than the plain vanity of King Dedede or the evils of Nightmare and Dark Matter, and he is wonderfully complex as he is simple - like much of the ethos of Kirby's games. It's a shame to see that care and complexity often go unappreciated because of the lack of appeal the more subtle and tricky character writing worked into these games uses, as opposed to the more straight-forwards approach found in places like the anime or Meta's one narrated villain appearance. But even Revenge of MK is just one piece of a larger history of writing that goes to waste when not taken in the full context of the game canon. Hopefully as series traditions and structure gets shaken up in the new era, the team can find more ways to put that history in the spotlight.

CONCLUSION

So basically: Meta Knight and Kirby are canonically friends. Not much more and not much less. Though at first Meta Knight may have taken interest in Kirby as a rival due to some connection - either by species or family - their dynamic would grow more on their underlying personalities and philosophies. Because of Meta Knight's problems communicating with or relying on others as opposed to Kirby's openness and altruism, their relationship would be defined by confusing signals of respect, care, and rivalry, but would mellow out eventually. Meta Knight now easily putting protecting others above his whims or grudges. Sword-fighting and honing his skills may be his life, but he's learned how to set those aside from time to time and enjoy peace, having come a long way from his actions in Revenge of MK. He's still a growing character, but a lot of this progress is undoubtedly owed to Kirby, who's presence as a natural friend and leader easily brings people together. Whether Kirby treats Meta Knight with any sort of special attention due to being part of the Quartet, one of his oldest and strongest rivals, or having some odd connection to him, is where it starts becoming up to interpretation.

Mine and others' fascination with he and Kirby having familial relationships is definitely something coming from us and less the games. The subtext surrounding Kirby and Meta being related isn't explored much outside of Adventure, and really not even the anime goes as far as saying anything about an explicit shared species or familial bond. But this analysis of canon is not to bash people's headcanon, that would just be petty and cruel. Fanon as a concept has it's issues, but headcanon in and of itself is very constructive, and people have plenty of reasons to indulge in it from serious expansion of canon themes to random ideas and comforts. As you can tell most of my headcanon comes from the place of the former otherwise why the fuck else would I have talked so long about canon, but it's very much from the second as well. The emphasis I place on Kirby's dynamics with Meta's as well as other characters implied to be his kin despite what I've explained, is because it just means a lot to me. I feel I have a lot to say about it even if canon doesn't.

Many other people feel similar to this about different things to differing degrees, for me this is an obsessive creative project, to some it's just a fun imaginative exercise. If I wanna write about identity-related alienation and complicated emotions that arise from those few whom you relate to, that's cool. Same if someone wants to write a cute found family or a bitter shounen-style rivalry. But I do believe people would get more out of those exercises if they gave better care to analyzing the material they're starting from. Using the themes you care about to analyze the source material rather than just lifting the characters out of their contexts and into pre-made molds contributes to a less dull and safe creative exercise for them and environment for fandom in general.

My fondness for Kirby is because I found it to be a series that encourages that analysis greatly through it's strong use of fairy-tale like tropes and presentation to create engaging and memorable characters and concepts. It was really refreshing coming from a lot of series like it that simply do not care as much about these aspects, and I feel it's worth paying respect to Kirby's canon for this.

RTDL DX, The Implications...

So there's this very very funny line in the remake of Kirby's Return to Dreamland (2011) for the Nintendo Wii. There's this guy, you might know him, his name's Magolor, and he's from this planet called Halcandra in an other dimension. In the original game he is heavily implied to actually be native to the planet despite being a liar. His origin being a lie is certainly a possibility, but due to no glaring inconsistencies between that statement he made about himself and reality, it was very safe to assume that was one of the truths he told about himself. Now, the funny line in the remake, is an admission that he is in fact, not from Halcandra.

"One last thing. I may have told you a teeny, tiny, itsy-bitsy lie. Sorry about that. Aw, don't give me that look. I guess it may have been several lies...but who's counting, right? Anyway, the truth is...I'm not really from Halcandra. Have you seen the place? It's a dusty mess!"

HI-LARIOUS twist, I know! But here's the issue with this line... for a Kirby Lore MasterTM like me, this line obliterates a lot of core information we had established about Halcandra and Magolor as a character. Which, I don't know if you can tell from how I've written my headcanon, is really important to me. And I'm gonna discuss why on those two fronts, starting with character.

MAGOLOR'S CHARACTER

Magolor was the first villain for a core Kirby game to be written under Kumazaki as director. From the fact that he claims to write all the in-game text and is always the one offering story explanations and interviews (and that the series didn't have characters following this archetype before), we can assume he effectively wrote this character. Following Magolor, Kirby villains followed a model. You had Sectonia, a corrupt evil queen obsessed with vanity whom you learn was once sweet and insecure but was corrupted by a mirror gifted to her by a friend; Haltmann, an evil CEO of a parasitic galactic corporation that was once an inventor who lost himself in his work after a family tragedy and was had his mind eroded by technology he couldn't control; and Hyness, the leader of a doomsday cult with a blood feud whom was once a caring leader but grew insane trying to harness inherently corrupting magic. The villain of KatFL, Elfilis, also fits this pattern somewhat, but I'll leave them for later. I want the pattern of tragedy just to be clear to everyone here.

So with the assumption that Magolor was from Halcandra - that which was text and very reasonable subtext - his backstory also fits into this model as well as with other themes of the game. In RTDL when you meet Magolor he is dressed in regal, ethereal blues, whites, and golds, he's riding in this marvelous futuristic space boat, and he tells you of his marvelous, treasure-rich home in a far off dimension. Then, you make it there and it's an absolute hellscape. Rivers of lava, scorched earth, scrapyard ruins, murder dragons - LITERALLY a hellscape. But that doesn't mean Magolor was lying completely. Those scrapyard ruins are obviously remnants of what was ONCE an advanced, industrious society, and once you defeat the murder dragon it was wearing an ancient artifact upon its head. So what we have, are the desolate ruins of the great society that did once build Magolor's Lor Starcutter, and was likely ruled by great kings wearing the magical crown atop Landia's head. Hey, why is Magolor grabbing that-

By the time Magolor betrays you and makes clear his stealing of the Lor Starcutter, plot to steal the Master Crown, and general and lack of morality, there's a very interesting picture you can paint of this world and character. Magolor lives in the ruins of what was once a great, noble, and flourishing civilization, and wanted to use its treasures to rule over everything. He's miserable, downtrodden, and likely lives somewhere cutthroat and deadly, and of course living on Halcandra and getting a peak at the splendor it once held as exemplified by the Starcutter would make one ambitious. Hence his motivation to become powerful as well as his lack of morals. And how after spending time with Kirby and becoming his friend after all is said and done, he could have a change of heart - he was just lonely.

A tale that is in line with how this series treats its villains thematically. There are rarely absolutely evil people in this series, but there are forces of darkness and corruption literally and metaphorically, that can bring out the worst in people. For Magolor it was the allure of the Master Crown promising him such a better life, for Sectonia it was vanity, for Haltmann it was technology, and for Hyness it was a false idol of destruction. It's one of my favorite themes in this series, especially one that could so easily rest on its laurels with one-dimensional bosses that just serve a mechanical role. These characters are just that little bit deeper and have something to say, or at least a character you can think about.

Which is why the removal of Magolor's origins upsets me. It's not that it contradicts this narrative in my head, I'm used to canon doing this and correcting myself in turn, it's that it offers less in return. Magolor is now established to have always been a traveler of the cosmos who happened upon Halcandra and still fell for its treasures in a similar way as assumed, but without a clear idea of WHERE he's from it's hard to understand his motivations. For example, why is he such a duplicitous person just from being alone? Like I said, Kirby doesn't seem to work under the implication that people are just evil for no reason in this world. If he was from Halcandra there is a strong narrative about how horrible that place is which can then be directed at him, but now there's just nothing. It's stated that his life-long dream was to build amusement parks, which is a note that helps us understand his fascination with Halcandra and the Lor, but says nothing about his power-hungry nature. There's a vacuum here besides just "lonliness makes you evil" which then still has a lot less thematic strength in the story.

When I tried to talk about this a bit on Tumblr, someone replied to my concerns about this vacuum saying that what we could do is assume that wherever Magolor was from before was what caused him to have such loose morals and a thirst for power. But that's genuinely a reach now (no offense to that dude, their hc sounded awesome and I'm happy to talk to anyone on this lmao). That is making fans do way too much assuming, and assuming something that could just be right-below-the-surface subtext if he was still from Halcandra. Assuming that is making fans do work to actually give a character depth; not hinting at established depth, but lacking it. And I genuinely question the intention behind this twist beyond just Being A Twist for the remake. It's a destructive twist more than it establishes anything new or interesting about Magolor's relationship with the planet to me.

It does establish that he had to fall in love with it in it's state beyond just being native there and being forced with it's legacy, and I think that's also a super interesting background! But it still doesn't have the motivational strength of the older idea. It's weird too, because this was Kumazaki's first villain, so I would assume any retcons would end up making a character feel more in line with the moral complexity shown for characters like Haltmann and Hyness. But instead this character seems to have regressed to a just naturally evil little wizard. He's still helped with the power of friendship and all, but it just feels a bit shallower without a good tragic kick behind it. Any series can say that friendship makes mean people better as easily as it can say blowing them up makes rainbows. But the fact Kirby was willing to be a bit dark with what messed up it's characters is what made them compelling to see redeemed.

HALCANDRA AND THE ANCIENTS

I love Halcandra so much, it is my favorite place in all of Kirby canon and I think it is so compelling narratively. It and the Forgotten Land which share a very clear theme of being forgotten civilizations with a story to tell just through their design, as it is with ruins. Now why is a place like Shiver Star not also my favorite? Because it doesn't have thematic weight. Shiver Star was a level introduced before the modern Kirby mythos came to be and hasn't been revisited since, so it's kinda just a piece of frozen rock with old stuff on it. It doesn't tie into anything, not even the plot of it's own game.

And I want it to be clear that that connection and narrative weight is what interests me in Kirby lore. When it has something to say and connects stuff together. Which is why, learning that Halcandra is not related to the main villain of the game anymore is disheartening. Magolor and Halcandra had a reciprocal relationship when it came to analyzing both. Like I said, Magolor's motives and anti-social traits could be seen as products of the crappy life he lived and the greater past he lived in the shadow of. And from that you could assume that Halcandra is a placed cursed to desolation likely because of people like Magolor.

What were likely once bustling cities are now these mechanical junkyards crawling with eternally running machinery and rogue robots. What was probably once a majestic mountainscape is now flowing with lava and scorched plants. And atop this is a dragon guarding the planets treasures and keeping a crown of corruption in check atop its head. Especially when compared in post to the Forgotten Land, peacefully abandoned and left to nature, you get the picture of an industrious civilization that must have brought some horrible end upon itself, and the central mcguffin of the game seems to give a good clue.

Now I will admit that what follows is purely headcanon and no longer analysis (there's a big difference between those), but its still part of the Kirby fan experience in my opinion. Kumazaki has said multiple times that he thinks letting fans come to their own conclusions is central, and my complaint now is that the new writing has taken away a big chunk of information pertaining to that.

Magolor being native to the planet gave us brain fodder for what species lived on the planet, their relationship with its current state, their relationship with its past, and a peak at what what the PEOPLE of Ancient Halcandra were like rather than just their creations. And to me it painted an interesting picture not just of a civilization fallen to hubris, but potentially one still suffering from that said vice as they continue pillaging their ruins and idealizing a past they likely don't have the full picture of. That being an idea inspired by how Magolor wielding the Master Crown for domination seems to be exactly why it was kept away from others. As well as broader themes in Kirby about how living in past regrets and vices only leads to self-destruction.

Smaller details like Halcandra's prior climate, mythology, economy, culture, etc. can be greatly extrapolated just from having one (1) single character deeply attached to it and it's identity as a planet of ancient ruins. And now, that side is gone. And actually, now it's basically confirmed that nothing LIVES on Halcandra's surface anymore. Which I won't lie, is also compellingly dystopian, but I want my peaks into the past DAMNIT! Forgotten Land did this beautifully through how the animals interacted with the planet peacefully because of not being concerned about the splendor of ruins. I want to see the opposite with Halcandra still being full of the ancients' descendants, its more compelling to me!

Unlike the Forgotten Land, Halcandrans as people are very important to the Kirby mythos. The People of the Forgotten Land are strongly established to be a concept more than a block with strong agency. They are what created or became the Ancients we know, so they still in the end point to them. And why they left so many artifacts and why so many people are obsessed with them, and why they have a tendency to explode into eldritch goo is a serious thread of the the world. Even without Magolor, the fact that one of their most direct and important mcguffins is a corrupt crown also raises a lot of interesting implications about them. Implications that this twist gave us less material to work with. Just less, and nothing really new.

WRITING & STORY QUALITY

With Magolor's character I said this change seems like an entire step backwards in character depth, and for the worldbuilding I think it removed a key to better understanding a central location and time of the Kirby mythos that gave it narrative weight. Which are very much just sort of opinions, but I'd like to point to something that is concrete and striking to me. That being the pause screens of the bosses of Magolor Epilogue.

They are very dry. Pretty much every single one just establishes that the boss was made of evil elements and is collecting pieces of the mcguffin for a boss. That's not surprising for normal Kirby bosses, not even really for EX mode bosses which are often still given narratively bland descriptions if they aren't story important. But this isn't any EX mode, it's an entire epilogue about the villain of the game going through a major character arc. And this management of story resources just feels weird. The bosses don't even really have anything to do with Magolor and his arc, maybe the Grand Doomer, but definitely none of the elemental bosses. Heroes in Another Dimension had a much better place for its bosses, their very existence establishing how the Jamba Hearts work, and with Meta Knight and Dedede specifically talking about their emotions or how they got possessed.

It's filler, filler that could have been spent creating fun connections between Magolor and the bosses he had to fight. There is that all of the bosses being mirrors of the ones Kirby fought reeks of cosmic punishment for Magolor, and maybe the fact that they are busy work of bosses is meant to be even more salt in the wounds, but even the original bosses at least get to be parts of Popstar. I just kinda have higher expectations for Kirby worldbuilding, especially when giving itself so little time to tell such a crucial story. Magolor Epilogue is a bonus mode, but this is definitely also the most this series was ever resting on its mystery and story as a selling point.

And for me with all that build up, details about Halcandra, the place the games plot revolved around, were expected. It didn't fail to deliver, the way that I've talked about the Master Crown being interesting were expanded upon greatly with the final boss, but it was still secondary to me. And a big part of that would be because of the main character of the game now lacking a meaningful connection to this history and drama besides just being a Guy Who Showed Up. Thinking about how Taranza had to face his friend and lover whom he had a part in destroying, Susie had to tear apart the machine and father she fought through hell to return to, Hyness getting sealed in and having to rid himself of the magic he devoted his life too... does Magolor facing this crown feel as deep without further connection than it possessing him once?

I've refrained a bit from talking about Elfilis as a villain because they do actually have a bit of this problem too. Elfilis before being captured has no motive or origin for being a planet destroyer, and it's something that only sticks out to me now after Magolor. In my opinion, that's because there is still a clear and central tragedy to their story with Forgo and it's imprisonment. And like all the other final confrontations I brought up, Elfilin eventually has to face that immoral being he once was, and the disgusting evil, bitter half of his former heart. An incredibly resonant plot beat I could write way too much about, but what's important is that long-standing, thoroughly built-up to and thought-out connection between characters and their pasts that define these villains. Something that is just missing in Magolor's confrontation with the crown, unless you want to count the decade between the remakes as build-up.

Magolor Epilogue did deliver on a lot though. For one it was fun as hell and a good challenge. And despite its wasting of small moments (and big moments...), it solidly delivered on giving Magolor a character arc and an interesting tale of what happened to him between defeat and befriending. But I've just seen this series be more graceful with worldbuilding AND characters, in the last game for chrissake. That was a full game and this was a bonus mode, but it was a major selling point for a full-price remake. But now looking back on Elfilis from this Magolor twist, I have to admit I'm a bit paranoid about the writing quality of the series. Elfilis, Forgo, and Elfilin as well as the entirety Forgotten Land made up for that missing detail of Elfilis' motivation tenfold, but it's still a missing detail, and one that is missing here now without backup. I won't point fingers or create theories, cause I see this as a hiccup more than a warning, but it stings a little on a very admittedly personal level just because I LOVE HALCANDRA!! And there was a certain favorite character ever of mine who missed an opportunity to be important because of the less thought out writing I see present in this remake.

MY HEADCANON

Good or bad writing, I have to contend with the new lore. I've always been very proud of the themes I believe this series to employ, so even when I find myself being wrong or contradicted, even if I'm a bit bitter about being wrong, I bounce back cause I see the new trajectory. I took a while to sit back, breathe, and see if my objection to the new lore and the Epilogue was just this knee-jerk reaction, and I just found that it wasn't. All of this is based on a good 3 months of thinking about this, and even when I see new and interesting ideas that can be gleamed from this, I don't see that trajectory.

I've always wanted to be open to course correction, and no matter how in-depth and overly detailed my headcanon is, it's born from a love of canon and analysis of it. But right now, until Kumazaki gives me better details to work with than Magolor is just comically evil cause he was alone, I'm not changing my stuff. I'll continue thinking on it and how it might be meant to be read, or how to take the interesting ideas it spawns and connect that with my headcanon, but I just don't vibe with how destructive the new lore is.

Which means, that for now nothing written is really going to change. I need a really, REALLY good reason to rewrite my Galacta Knight and Ancient Halcandra headcanon. Like, a game explaining it good. I want my headcanon to be obliterated! But so that it can be layed over with new more interesting and fleshed out ideas, not for a twist for twists sake.