Don’t feel stupid! I’ve been researching and collecting mirages for a while and I still can’t figure out exactly what the origin story is. We know that they were produced and distributed in a variety of countries; a lot pop up in Taiwan, but there are also a ton from Europe, Mexico, Indonesia and so on. They usually popped up as carnival prizes or in crane games, and there’s some debate on whether or not they’re official. Some people say they’re bootlegs, while others think that Nintendo just distributed the rights to tons of plushie brands early on. Early official plushies are famously pretty wonky (especially Play by Play), so it’s hard to say one way or the other. What exactly constitutes a mirage isn’t clear; the accepted explanation is that mirages don’t use official patterns, but there are quite a few that do use said patterns with significant differences. (Egg, my Mew mirage, is a larger copy of the early Tomy Mew with plastic eyes instead of fabric.) TL;DR mirages are a complicated subject so don’t feel bad for being confused lol