"Poison has a Stick" may be the best idea for a joystick mod ever

Let me profess that I literally know next to nothing about joystick modification. In fact, I'm not much of a fighting game fan in general, though I am known to rock a pretty solid Lee in Tekken and Arc Systems Works is always on my radar for their sleek titles (I'm looking at you, BlazBlue Continuum Shift Extend Vita). In fact, I can honestly say that I've never played more than 5 minutes of a Street Fighter game (or Final Fight, for that matter), and as such I know next to nothing about the intriguing, pink-haired character known as Poison who will be making an appearance in the roster of Street Fighter X Tekken... Except for the fact that she is famous for being a transgendered female character. Which I think is thoroughly awesome, if you had any doubts.

Long-time games writer shidoshi (who you may know as @pikoeri) echoes my sentiments – he even got the chance to interview Yoshinori Ono about Poison, and he refrained from any of the usual snide remarks that most so-called games "journalists" make when talking about her. I highly suggest checking the interview out if you haven't seen it already.

But now you must allow me to get right into the meat of this post: the beautiful Poison-themed joystick mod shidoshi has created, aptly named "Poison has a Stick":

Beautiful, is it not? I'd play a fighter with that joystick any day of the week. For clarification on the little innuendo you may have picked up on regarding the interesting placement of the joystick, here are shidoshi's thoughts in his own words:

"[...] This stick wasn’t made with the intention of making fun of the character Poison or her “is or isn’t she transgender” status, nor was it done simple for some sort of cheap “it’s a trap” connection. I mean, of course—the design was absolutely done in good fun and with a lot of humor—but it was done in celebration of the character of Poison, not in mocking her or what she is." (source)

Now excuse me while I go brush up on my fighting skills so I can justify a snazzy joystick purchase – it's just too bad this one's one of a kind!

UPDATE: shidoshi posted over on his Twitter this amazing picture of none other than Yoshinori Ono holding the aforementioned joystick at a Street Fighter X Tekken event! How awesome is that?

What you should know about Poison

A certain character has come to my attention that I had otherwise never heard of, and her name is Poison. Apparently there's a lot of buzz about whether she may have originally been a he. So, in light of the recent announcements regarding the new characters in Street Fighter X Tekken at last week's Comic Con, I decided to do some research on this surprisingly controversial character.

So here's the deal with Poison, as far as I know: She first appeared in Final Fight but has also been featured in Street Fighter III, along with a number of other Capcom games, and seems to be pretty popular, probably at least partially due to the controversy surrounding her. Even so, it has been a number of years since she's made an appearance, so the news that she will be in Street Fighter X Tekken, along with her cohorts Roxy and Hugo (correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not sure whether or not Roxy and Hugo are playable), is generating a lot of excitement.

Poison as she appears in 'Street Fighter X Tekken'

Apparently, back when Poison was created for Final Fight's release in Japan, she was strictly a female character, but due to fears that Americans wouldn't take to well to the big, burly men of Final Fight beating up a chick, they decided it would be a better idea to make her transgendered. To make things even more confusing, though, it seems like Capcom themselves treat her gender differently in Japan and America. Check out this quote from Street Fighter IV producer Yoshinori Ono: "Let's set the record straight: in North America, Poison is officially a post-op transsexual. But in Japan, she simply tucks her business away to look female."

Basically, I think it's safe to say that she's the Birdo of the Capcom universe.

Regardless of how we choose to define Poison, she certainly is an interesting addition to Street Fighter X Tekken, and I have to say I am really excited for the game's impending release. I think we should all take the advice of this lovely comic, brought to my attention by GayGamer.net, and just accept Poison for what she is, rather than get hung up about how we should label her. And without further ado, here is the main reason I wrote up this whole post in the first place (click on the image for a larger view):