1. Yes they have to fight, 2. Tell me who’s fighting who in the tags! (I’ll add the most ridiculous combos in a reblog)
INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE dir. Steven Spielberg
spin this list of all of the pokemon. you are now that pokemon.
Training in the mountains of Mulvera you'll discover one of the regional forms of Mulvera, Mulveran Riolu! Mulveran Riolu are solitary, and prefer to practice their techniques away from others deep in the mountains. Those who disturb their sessions are found days later on trails, drained of their energy. OUR FIRST MULVERAN FORM, I am excited to show you these ones. Mulveran Lucario may also hold a very special secret that ties into the lore and the gimmick of the region.
Mulveran Riolu is based on anti-heroes and one Addison Brody @rhythmicmultimuse knows more about her than I do lol but you're gonna see more of this once I get the first Gym leader out to y'all.
i like how this one turned out a lot
addendums: cult classic tv overlaps with early supernatural seasons somewhat, i am aware, just choose based on the cultural context in which you read your first fic.
for weeaboo crew i was thinking of examples like hetalia, black butler, soul eater, etc--popular anime absolutely included but the distinction is that people who were into dragon ball weren't necessarily going to anime club every week and making deviantart stamps about yaoi, but people into ouran high school host club ABSOLUTELY were.
homestuck is in its own category because homestuck changed fandom forever at a critical time which just happened to be when i was growing up in fandom. harry potter, lotr, star wars, and twilight are in their own categories because they were such multimedia juggernauts they had entire archives dedicated solely and only to their fic that spanned multiple franchise reboots (books -> movies -> extended universes). (i acknowledge star trek technically would fit under this but at the time culturally it had more overlap with other cult classic tv fandoms.)
honorable mentions that didn't make it to the list because i had to pick-and-choose with the 12 answer limit: the final fantasy franchise (axed because i am not familiar enough with the fic scene to know if it was as iconic of a gateway drug as, like, naruto or twilight or star wars fic), a general YA lit category (YA lit outside of twilight only went mainstream slightly after this time period), the MCU (i have a hate boner for the MCU), a broader "american superhero comics" category (this would be valid as an option but i don't have the space)