#fandom-communities

#fandom-communities

Lego has announced a new Lego Ideas contest that will see one fan's Pokémon card build turned into a real set. The so-called 'Pokémon Trading Card Game Challenge' is all about fans submitting designs for Lego sets of between 400 and 2500 pieces that recreate an original 'dynamic' Pokémon TCG card.

"We never quite figured out how to make Rec Room a sustainably profitable business, and our costs always ended up overwhelming the revenue we brought in."

I don't feel out of place like this. It's like a family reunion. I love the creativity that's always been here, said Tameka Hendon, who has been attending since 2019. She said her friend handmade her customized cosplay, which features a motorized rotating ballerina in the wig, and was inspired by Queen Charlotte's Swan wig in Bridgerton.

In recent years, players have moved their hobby to pubs and cafés, transforming these third places into gaming spaces for a few hours. Dedicated gaming venues and series have also sprung up around Portland, inviting seasoned grognards and shiny newbies alike to the table.

Humans have disappeared and their Pokémon have been left behind, trying to make the remains of the old civilization into one that they can live in and sustain by themselves. Throughout this process, these Pokémon talk about how much they miss their human partners, and the information we can glean from the notes and letters we find lying around is that a climate crisis forced them to evacuate the planet and leave the Pokémon in a massive PC server for their safety.

Katsucon, which describes itself as 'for multicultural enthusiasts,' takes place each year in the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland, just outside of DC, and has been running in some form since 1995. It's one of the smaller, more intimate events on the cosplay calendar, but still pulls in guests like My Hero Academia's Justin Briner and Date a Live's Michelle Rojas.

Leaked images show what could be Lenovo's next gaming laptop: the Legion Go Fold. According to the leaks, the Go Fold can be used as either a very awkward-looking Steam Deck-like handheld gaming PC, complete with controllers on either side, or you can fold it up into a few different configurations, including a laptop mode.

Fandom is first and foremost a community. It has a shared lexicon that includes in-jokes and rapidly evolving language that would be difficult to keep up with from the outside. Like any community, it has norms and values and standards of behavior. Fandom is also a marginalized community.

In the Bundesliga, the obvious starting point is Borussia Dortmund. Their Yellow Wall is iconic, the atmosphere incredible, and the tradition undeniable. Yet the nonstop "underdog versus Bayern Munich" narrative can feel exhausting. You respect the passion, but the moral-victory energy after narrow losses? That can grate. Then there's Schalke 04. Even during seasons when Schalke aren't competing near the top, the anti-Bayern Munich sentiment never fades. Maybe it's regional pride, maybe it's history,

The Chaos Communication Congress is an annual convention held by the Chaos Computer Club in Hamburg, Germany. Root gave a presentation there alongside journalists Eva Hoffmann and Christian Fuchs which concluded with the hacker deleting the servers of white supremacist sites WhiteDate, WhiteChild, and WhiteDeal live on stage. As TechCrunch lays out, these three sites are dedicated to racist match making, racist egg and sperm donations, and a racist labor marketplace. White people use these sites to make sure they only link up with other white people.

Meet Neuro-sama, a cutesy AI-powered character which is now the top streamer on Twitch by active subscriber-count, according to Twitch Tracker. At the time of writing, Nuero-sama - streaming via the Twitch channel Vedal987 - has 165,268 paid active subscribers, well above the second-highest channel, the human-ran Jynxzi. On Twitch, each paid subscriber is valued at $5 a month, some of which is split with Twitch. According to an estimate by Dextero, that means Neuro-sama is raking in at least $400,000 a month just from subscriptions - and that's on top of random viewer donations, sponsorships, and ad revenue.

TPK, a combo brewery and gaming space that opened in 2023, eases entry for newcomers and provides a soft landing for the socially rusty. "Especially coming out of the pandemic, we had a lot of people in their mid-30s [who] were like, 'I have no way to connect with anyone,'" says Elliott Kaplan, TPK's CEO and one of its three founders. "Well, we'll throw you at a table. All the social interactions will be overseen by a GM."

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I wish this was a one-off blip in my regimented friendship schedule, but all through 2025 I played the world's slowest game of message tennis. I'd invite a pal for dinner, only for the world to turn, the seasons pass, grey hairs gather at my temples, before a date was finally locked in. This sentiment seems to be common among my circle.

Plenty of Pokémon fans and engineers have created working Pokédexes complete with image recognition to let you scan toys and art to identify your favorite monsters . BigRig Creates and Mr. Volt have taken this a step further, creating what they're calling the "World's Smartest" Pokédex, capable of not only recognizing Pokémon, but giving you data about them from the games, acting as a voice assistant, and much more.

Or maybe it's a magic arm, whether that's newly-acquired pitching prospect Brandon Sproat or Tread lefty Drew Rom. I fully expect both to shove, especially against the Cubs. MLB Pipeline has the 25-year-old Sproat at No. 6 in Milwaukee's system, and he should break camp with the big club after logging just under 21 innings over four starts for the Mets last year.

You may know the story by now: Rachel Reid began posting what would become Heated Rivalryon the fan-fiction site Archive of Our Own, one chapter at a time. Eventually, the Halifax-based author reportedly removed the posts, reworked the book, submitted it to publishers, and sold it in 2019 to Carina Press, a digital-first imprint at Harlequin. While the first book in her "Game Changers" series found a solid fan base among romance readers, no one expected just how many more would join them.

30 years ago chronicled a generational conflict between an old-timey pull-string doll and a fancy new one with buttons. The two toys learned to get along. This week a trailer for showing both toys enacting a against tablets. While I agree on the potential detriments of excessive screen-time, it is telling how the creators and intended audience now identify less with the kid playing with toys and more with the adult who just spent all of dinner hearing about ' butlerian jihad looksmaxxing.'

There's something different about the "Heated Rivalry" online fandom from what I typically see - something strange brewing in the feeds, something I haven't seen in a long time, or maybe ever. It's easy for a topic to suddenly take over my Instagram Reels or TikTok feeds - those algorithms seem so sensitive that interacting with just a handful of posts on a topic can instantly send you down a rabbit hole.

The official "KPop Demon Hunters" Roblox experience is keeping fans of the franchise engaged with an update that includes the Saja Boys and other assets from the popular film.

Since its reveal in December, Highguard has a strange few weeks. Being the big reveal at the end of the Game Awards, which reportedly the company didn't pay for, got it a lot of eyeballs, but also a lot of scrutiny. People tend to expect some big new sequel or long-awaited project to cap off host Geoff Keighley's annual award and trailer showcase. Instead, Geoff showcased a free-to-play online shooter that, too many online, looked too similar to many other games already out there.

Resident Evil Requiem launches next month, and to start building momentum for the game, Capcom will broadcast a new look at it today. If you're interested in checking out new content for the survival-horror adventure, here's a closer look at how you can tune in for it. When does the Resident Evil Showcase start? The Resident Evil Showcase will kick off at 2 PM PT / 5 PM ET today, January 15. Outside of the US, you can catch it at the following times: