#Spm merloo

[camprell-art]

Hii! Really love your art! Your designs for the mario characters are super lovely. I was wondering tho, what drives your dimentio? Why does he, like, destroy nearly every kingdom he comes across? Why does he want to become king of all worlds when he doesn't seem to mind the 'subservient' role?

Hope you're having a wonderful day!

Okay so, this probably will get extremely long ksajhd

Dimentio is unconsciously reenacting what the Pixl Queen, or his sister Shadoo, did. After getting driven to madness by being resurrected in a vessel with the Dark Prognosticus, she brainwashed every Pixl, formed an army and tried to destroy the Ancients for their selfishness and supposed egocentrism, so she is technically destroying a kingdom.

I never worked much in the time-line of events, but before all of that happened, Dimentio and his mother Illuminata died, because Merloo, the father and great magician, was researching the Dark Prognosticus and one day he tries a spell and everything goes wrong.

A recurring theme in the family story is how everyone of them had a tragedy, the father gets obsessed with the Dark Prognosticus and kills both his wife and son in an accident, the mother dies protecting the son, the son is cursed with immortality by being bound to the book, and the sister gets ill because of the dark energy the house had, dies, is brought back, dies again, now by her brother's own hands, gets cursed and also locked away in the Pits.

You can say that Shadoo and Dimentio are the ones who suffered the most, and depending on how you see it, yeah they are, but imagine living the rest of your life thinking that you ruined everything, like, EVERYTHING, because a book was "that" important. That's why Merloo ends up helping with the Light Prognosticus, but also completely alone, as if you see in the game, he's the only sage who, apparently, has no descendants.

Before I forget, Pixl Queen Shadoo had the DP, when Dimentio "kills" her, he takes it, tries to protect it from evil, but reads it in morbid curiosity of what is written there, people steal it from him and then he starts getting insane, just like Bleck. ^v^

In conclusion, Dimentio is traumatized, but instead of having a chance to really think about his past and not commit any crimes, he has the DP talking in his head and leaving every other memory to the side, which is why he has kind of an amnesia and why he knows roughly where the thing is. In other words, the book makes you go crazy, and after living so many years and so many deaths I think that the person is very likely to just go apeshit after some point.

Ah, and about the thing with being a servant and wanting to be king at the same time, I don't take what he said in that part too literally, because I do believe that his motivation was to make a perfect world without all the rotten evil people in it, that would explain why he doesn't like the Count, Dimentio may know he's bad too, but he's being bad for a greater or purer reason. The role of servant is mostly just a strategy to be seen as someone who is vulnerable and eager to please, a perfect lie to hide the strings he's holding.

I hope this is a good answer to your question! As always I think that I gave more useless information than a direct response. akjsdh

Have a nice day, or night, wherever you are! :)

Edit: Thank you so much for all the compliments!!! Dumb Camprell was so focused on trying to explain the shitshow that is his fanlore that he forgot completely about what you said first!! But know that it's always one of the best things to see in an ask! :3

[gracebethartacc]

dimentio got his priorities straight

[oddity-art-blog]

This post is sponsored by: The Tribe of Ancients

((Version without text:))

[artgletic]

Dimentio in an ancient-style fit (Mermentio? Mertio?) + 12th pixl

in my lore post, i talk about how i think dimentio was merloo’s mentor. I like to imagine he was very lowkey and his presence was lost to time, deliberately overshadowed by his student. He mentored merloo so as to get him to write the light prognosticus as a means of countering the dark one and creating a vulnerability in the prophecy for him to exploit later in the events of SPM. I additionally talk about dimentio's mask originating with the dead pixl who died during the events of the pixl war. these are just designs going off ideas from that post

Design notes under cut

-ancients have this really obvious gendered way of dressing, and i wanted dimentio to blur those lines, hence giving him the robes and headpiece of a man but the face veil and headpiece adornments of a woman. hes slaying

-speaking of facial decorations, dimentio isnt wearing his mask yet here. I hc he only starts wearing it around when he starts interacting with bleck (along with the jester fit as a whole)

-i decided to turf the stripes on his fit since it made him look too much like the dimentio we know as opposed to an ancient, as well as there was no ancients with similar patterning.

-to be real dimentio’s canon design is already very reminiscent of an ancient, particularly in the context of the rest of SPM’s designs and how crazy they can get. The basic shape of his hat already looks like a plausible ancient headpiece (like a combination of merlimbis and merlight), and merlumina has similar decal placements on her headpiece. theres also centre brooch that male ancients wear; dimentio’s diamond is similar. They both even have yellow eyes.

-the only real differences are dimentio’s leg and hands, both of which are monochrome and lined with white instead of black, almost emphasizing that they do not ‘fit’ the rest of the look or were added on unnaturally.

-his mask is also monochrome but not lined with white. My reason for this is since I think his mask is what remains of his old pixl, it’s not alien with respect to the ancients (hence not being lined with white), but not an authentic part of him (hence being monochrome)

[lizadale]

[mochilorddrakeinferno]

Re: Merlimbis

So I posted about this elsewhere a while ago, but I'm thinking about it again. Every other one of the Sages has something substantial to them that goes beneath the surface and has bizarre implications. Merlight worked with the Tribe of Darkness to create Flopside and was probably the one to pass down the (technically illegal) notes on Pixl-making that Merlon later used to save Timpani's life. Merlumina was apparently the wholesale leader of the entire Tribe of Ancients and helped out substantially with every other Sage's contributions on top of being powerful and passionate enough that her romances threatened WORLDS somehow. Merloo... hoo boy, where to even START on him? Having future vision in the Japanese version, very likely being the one of the Light Prognosticus's writers to have read the Dark one in order to make it, probably BEING Dimentio, the list goes on. All that's not even getting into the weird stuff. But then there's Merlimbis. Loving and caring person, ancestor of Merlee and Merluvlee, co-created the Purity Heart with Merlumina, and... that's it, as far as I can tell? She helped make the vessel for the most powerful, undying force in existence, but she doesn't have ANY weird mysteries or associations? It's just weird. If anybody has more I missed on Merlimbis, I'd be very interested to know more!

[spewpurr]

Another Nintendo character is an ancient being with floating green rings and eye motifs. I have to wonder if there’s, like, some kind of very specific reference material both characters were inspired by? Maybe some sort of Japanese folktale, or…?

[mochilorddrakeinferno]

(I had another version of this post and had it get eaten, this is probably going to be a slightly rougher version of that older post, sorry in advance for the draft-speak jaggedness!) Okay, so. I see your point and from a surface level it definitely looks pretty strange that despite on paper (heh) having basically the same stated goals, Bleck and Dimentio are treated so differently by the narrative. But, when you look more closely at the lore, not only do you start to see why it makes sense and what separates their actions, but how deeply important it is to their respective characters. Let's start with Bleck. He has by far the most to go into for the sake of this discussion. Before we start, I should clarify I'm FAR from a Bleck apologist. To say he did nothing wrong is to ignore most of what makes him fascinating, and betray the very core idea of his character. I will, however, say a lot less is his fault than common story analyses suggest. And we see this even in the moment that the man named Count Bleck first comes to be. When Blumiere unseals the Dark Prognosticus and opens it, there is a key difference in the Japanese version. The English script has him tell the book to command him, and then he becomes Count Bleck. But in the original Japanese, as more directly translated by the great AUselessMage, this scene reads quite differently.

He goes to the dark book of prophecies seeking specifically its history rather than its prophecies, and mentions a world without Timpani only in a context more akin to not being worth living in for himself. It is not until the Dark Prognosticus has already thoroughly corrupted his mind that he begins to enact the prophecy. But the reason he sought it out in the first place, from all indication, was simply to find where Timpani had been taken and if he could still save her. Now, knowing what he should have about the risks of opening the book, this was still an extraordinarily reckless and selfish thing to do. But the book very clearly takes control of his mind. I don't think it's debatable that when he erased his homeworld, he was... not himself. For one thing, it takes all of five seconds after opening the book for him to adopt the Bleck identity. Destroying all worlds and carrying out the DP's foul work is not something Blumiere ever would have done of his own accord. But the despair he felt at the loss of Timpani, the fury at his father, the desperation that would drive him to open the book, and the traumatic nature of the entire situation was such a smorgasbord of darkness and suffering in his heart that the Dark Prognosticus could seize control and make a destroyer of him nigh-effortlessly. And yet, as we see throughout the game, the Dark Prognosticus's extent of control over Count Bleck is variable. There are moments where he acts as "the chosen executor of the Dark Prognosticus" completely, but also flashes of something else. In the original Japanese script, he did not manipulate O' Chunks into joining him. Rather, he saved O' Chunks's life, and after he repeatedly begged Bleck to join him, he acquiesced. The love between Bleck and his minions is emphasized throughout the entire game, and we know it is not a ruse or deliberate betrayal from a willing actor, because the love between them is what revives the Pure Hearts the first time around! That tells us that love is not only powerful, but true. Even as Count Bleck, even under the influence of the Prognosticus, he saved lives and gave meaning and love to those who were lost. That was not a lie. The Count Bleck who did that for them, who found earnest amusement in their antics, and whose love for them was what allowed the defeat of Super Dimentio, is a fundamentally different version of himself than the heartless Champion of Destruction, and they knew that. His minions fought alongside him because they truly believed that he would create a better world without all the evils that had hurt them. (Note: What exactly "better worlds" consist of is still not their call to make, and even if they only intended to let evil people STAY dead, that still qualifies as super ultra mass murder at best, so the minions ain't off the hook either here.) When they look back, his minions speak of the better worlds he would have wanted them to strive for, and they do not seem betrayed that his plans would indeed have killed them all had they succeeded, and there is good reason for that. He was not the one who betrayed them. The Champion of Destruction is not the man they remember. One could argue that Bleck did not fight hard enough from within to combat the Dark Prognosticus in a meaningful way until the end, but at the same time it seems very likely that he was in fact still fighting, that pieces of his true self shone through in his interactions with his minions. [The rest of this is too long, it made the post break, so I'm going to reblog this AGAIN for the second half. Sorry about that!]

Blumiere and Dimentio are the same person and I’m tired of the plot trying to pretend theyre not.

Y’all I love this game and all but why were Mimi and Chunks not only still loyal to Blumiere but also said not one bad thing about him after finding out he was going to kill them despite the fact they were trying to help him this whole time and were the only mfs that cared about him- but Dimentio did the exact same thing and they hit him with a car

Like this is a genuine question I’ve been a fan for over a decade and I’m still like huh😭 about their logic. “We won’t let dimentio get away with this!” Or whatever she said- MIMI SWEETHEART BLECK DID THE EXACT SAME THING

Like if Bleck wanted to die whatever but it would’ve done so much for his character if he was like “hey the people who genuinely care for me and are trying to help me destroy everything and think they’re going to be spared? Huh! maybe I should actually spare them and create a new world for them but I still croak” unless he couldn’t create dimensions at all and was lying? But didn’t Dimentio do it with only the power of the chaos heart or am I stupid. So could Bleck have done it too? Idk maybe we could’ve had a scene where like “hey dimentio master of dimensions LOL I was kidding btw I cant do shit. Make a world for y’all whatever but I’m gonna die” and I’m pretty sure dimentio would’ve been like alright (lying, still wants a world just for him) but idk. Anyways Nintendo having Count Bleck still trying to kill his minions after everything they did for him really messed up his character and went against the writers intentions of trying to make Bleck a tragic villain but Dimentio purely evil and accidentally made them the EXACT SAME person and I just wish they could’ve handled it better because his arc could’ve been nearly perfect.

Not ONLYYY that, but he wanted to kill all worlds because he lost Timpani. Yet. There she is. Right there. And he KNOWS THAT. YET. HE KEEPS FIGHTING. KNOWING THAT IF HE WINS THE WOMAN HE WAS TRYING TO END LIFE FOR BECAUSE SHE DIED IS ALIVE AND HES JUST GOING TO ACTUALLY KILL HER. But then after they beat the shit out of him he says “kill me and stop the void- if you’re alive, it gives me peace” WHY DIDNT YOU SAY THAT THE SECOND SHE FLEW INTO THE ROOM. Maybe he was in a state of madness. But idk I’ve never seen anyone else talk about it

“But dappledpaintbrush, at least Bleck had the motivation of his one true love dying and Dimentio was just a bitch” *twitches finger back and forth while going AH, AH, AH, AH, AH* We have the very high possibility of Dimentio’s whole family fucking dying and his sister turning into like a demon according to Carson. So in game canon there is a POSSIBILITY (cause that story can be interpreted a lot of ways) that BOTH of them had tragic backstories that POSSIBLY was BOTH of their motivations to destroy all worlds. Yet Blumiere gets treated like a poor little meow meow by the characters and the clown doesn’t. Then again I don’t think the clown ever talked about it. Maybe it’s just my own experience, but I feel like the writing still tried to push the narrative that Bleck is less terrible than Dimentio.

And hey let’s say Dimentio is only a descendant of the Pixl Creator and he’s doing this for no reason other than for lols. Both of them STILL tried to destroy all worlds and only Bleck had a change of heart after Tippi returned… yet still tried to enable the Void after finding out she’s alive? Both of them lied to, betrayed, and tried to MURDER their ENTIRE TEAM. Earlier, I said “(the writers) trying to make Bleck a tragic villain but Dimentio purely evil and accidentally made them the EXACT SAME person” and this can go two ways- the first option, or making both of them tragic characters. If the writers genuinely thought this through and genuinely wanted us to pry into the lore to conclude Dimentio and Bleck are not that different, sending one to his dream world with his dream girl and the other to actual super mario hell doesn’t help their intention

And Blumiere is such an amazing concept for a character and he STILL IS, but wow the writers could’ve done so much more. Even a cutscene of him deciding the spare the minions could’ve meant SO MUCH and it really sucks nothing ever happened. With or without the “both had a tragic backstory” interpretation, there isn’t much that puts a clear line between Dimentio and Bleck’s characters. The game tries to make us think the line is there, but it really isn’t. At least not in my own interpretation of the writing. Idk lol. End of rant

[camprell-art]

Happy Family

[gracebethartacc]

that epic moment when ancients

Might color these later but for now WOA CONCEPT DESIGNS BE UPON YE

[mochilorddrakeinferno]

Definitely seems to check out. The similarity of name to Merloo is also interesting. I wonder what the break in Merloo's name that he has but Madame Clairvoya doesn't is supposed to mean, though...

Is it possible that Madame Clairvoya from Luigi’s Mansion is actually a Shaman from Super Mario RPG?

I’m sure many of you are familiar with the Shamans from Super Mario RPG, which went on to play a major role in Paper Mario, Paper Mario: the Thousand Year Door and Super Paper Mario. These odd folk are are depicted as magicians and fortune tellers. Many use Crystal Balls to predict the future and guide Mario on his adventures, usually by reading the Stars.

In Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, we received some elaboration on who these Shamans are:

About Merlon on the east side of Rogueport and Merluvlee underground... Ol' Wonky hears they're from a strange tribe that names people by profession. So, for example, if someone did the same work as Merlon, they'd have the same name... So there could be Merlons all over. Don't you find that strange? Wonky does!

[Source: Wonky, Info guy, Non-player character in Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, October 2004]

Meanwhile in Super Paper Mario, Shamans became the focus of the game, where they are revealed to be the descendants of the Tribe of Ancients, a people who had magic powerful enough to predict the distant future and transfer spirits of the dead into “Thinking Tools” called Pixls.

So yeah, ever heard of an advanced civilization called the Tribe of Ancients? They were, like, a thousand times smarter than you or me.

[Source: Garson, Owner of The Underwhere, Non-player character in Super Paper Mario, April 2007]

So yeah, you meet Merlon and Merlee yet? They're descendants of the Ancients and distantly related to each other, I hear.

[Source: Garson, Owner of The Underwhere, Non-player character in Super Paper Mario, April 2007]

So do you know how the Pixls came to be? A powerful magician among the Ancients created them about 3,000 years ago. He did it by transferring a spirit into a vessel he created for that purpose. He's said to have created 12 Pixls like this before he passed away. But his apprentices kept researching Pixls after his game ended... They learned to create many more Pixls based on his original 12. These Pixls became widely used as 'thinking tools' for the grateful Ancients. Through the work of many Pixls, the Ancients prospered as they never had before.

[Source: Carson, Owner of The Overthere, Non-player character in Super Paper Mario, April 2007]

In Luigi’s Mansion, Madame Clairvoya is a fortune teller who uses a Crystal Ball to read Mario’s items and guide Luigi. Her senses from reading the Crystal Ball are incredibly similar to those of the Shamans, with both seeing locations and people from the present or near future within their Crystal Balls and interpreting what they see into advice for the heroes. It’s also stated that Madame Clairvoya can see nearly 49 days into the future thanks to her close connection to the spirit world.

Madame Clairvoya actually wears similar clothing to many Shamans, particularly Shaman women, such as long robes, a headscarf and a veil covering her mouth. While the Shamans have largely been covered by shadows throughout their appearances thanks to their outfits, they are described as humans several times in Super Paper Mario, which aligns with Madame Clairvoya’s clearly human appearance.

Madame Merlar from Paper Mario and Merlumina from Super Paper Mario both return as ghosts long after their deaths and continue to serve as helpful guides, as is the case with Madame Clairvoya.

Madame Clairvoya also describes the Crystal Ball she uses as a "symbol of [her] clan”. This clan could very well be the Tribe of Ancients, whose descendants are shown to consistently use Crystal Balls to perform their work.

Finally - and this is what really got me to consider this possibility in the first place - the Japanese name of every member of the Tribe of Ancients and their descendants follows the same naming conventions, with all of their names being a play-on-words with the addition of the endings "ēru", "āru" or simply "ru", originating from the Japanese name of the Shaman species in Super Mario RPG, "Supēru". This also applies to Madame Clairvoya, whose Japanese name is “Madamu Miēru”.

What do you guys think? Could Madame Clairvoya actually be a descendant of the Ancients? If so, this is certainly a very interesting connection from Luigi’s Mansion back to Super Mario RPG and Paper Mario, though it wouldn’t be the first!

[rattlebear25]

Headcanon Timeline Past SPM (31/12/23 UPDATE)

• So my Headcanon version of Dimentio was the son of the Phanto King and Queen in Unknown Realm. Him and his Sister Dimania had a more arrogant and dictatorship behaviour unlike their parents. Dimentio was really affectionate to his mother while the Dimania was really connected to her father. Suddenly, Bonechill appeared trying to conquer the Overthere, hurting Dimentio and his mother. The mother was deeply injured and died while Dimentio was slighty damaged. Dimania went ill after her mommy's death and her father did everything to bring her back. He saved her and Dimentio thanks to his magician powers but his sons were mentally destroyed by the tragic event, developing a sort of PTS Disorder. All of these events happen simultaneously at Ancient's leadership on the whole universe. Phantos are normally the ones who control and own the keys of the doors that separate the Normal Life Realm from the Afterlife one (the Underwhere, Overthere.) When Dimentio and Dimania became adult and their father died, Dimi ruled as the King of Phantos while his sister like a Deputy Chief. They wanted more power so they discovered from an old dark book (the Dark Prognosticus) the existence of the Chaos Heart that can be brought alive by a forced union bewteen a monster and a princess. This Heart function is like a Big Crunch and the Chaos Heart's owner can redesign the Universe from zero. So Dimania and her brother team up to get the Chaos Heart but first they have to destroy the Pure Hearts, that can destroy the Chaos Heart forever. So Dimentio created a fake identity for himself called Dimen and tried to woo Merlumina, one of the Ancients who own the Pure Hearts. So he marriaged her and can have access to Secret Chambers to destroy the Pure Hearts. But Dimania betrayed her brother to get the power and the leadership of the universe just for herself. So he tried to manipulate her showing that the Ancients' creations (Pixls) can make her more stronger than the Chaos Heart. Dimania abused of the Pixls' powers becoming the Pixl Queen but the Ancients killed her in time and her ambitious goal failed. Her rests became Shadoo. Dimentio was exiled by the Ancient Church after the leader Merloo discovered his plans.

• The Tribe Ancients old generation died and the descendants splitted in two different bloodlines. The Pure one took the Light Prognosticus wrote by Merloo while the Dark Bloodline, commanded by a young Nolrem (Noirebert's father and Blumiere's grandpa) took the Dark Prognosticus (the dark book readed by Dimentio). Since this the story goes like Canon Super Paper Mario.

I was inspired by the Carson's stories in the game but i don't think they are completely canon. They are theories, nothing confirmed about them.

Maybe i will do short comics of this stuff of 3 shots for each page idk bye

[pixies-and-poets]

I have some SPM questions for you 🥰❤️🧡💛💚💙💜💟🖤

1. Who is your favorite Pixel, why?

2. Who is your favorite Ancient? (Merlumina, Merloo, Merlight, etc.)

3. Favorite level?

4. Why would you live in Flopside rather than Flipside? Would you ever visit me in Flipside if you found out about the Flip-floppery? 🤣

5. If you could visit any level, which level, and why?

6. Who in the game do you think would be your bestie?

I have a zillion more, but I'll save for another day 😘

1. Ok so, aside from Tippi because that's too easy lol (she's actually an important role model character for me!) I'd have to say I really like Thudley. It's silly but I just love his face, and the whole girth obsession gets me laughing every time (especially if you're playing as Bowser). I think of him every time I read or hear (or write) the word "girth".

I mean look at this guy, how can you not love him.

2. If we're only talking about actual Ancients and not their still-living descendants, then... Merlumina's unnamed sister who delivered the pure heart to the first King Sammer and fell in love with him. They had 100 kids which is presumably why the king now keeps 100 guardian warriors traditionally. And I mean damn girl!!! (I actually love Sammer's Kingdom and even the whole silly challenge, and the Sammer Guys and all their names, so... thanks to her)

3. Probably the Underwhere; I enjoy Greek mythology and love the concept of the Mario world having an underworld like this. The aesthetics and music are amazing and evocative, the "family trees" in the background in particular. Technically 3-4 (Fort Francis) is my favorite level for its humor and references, but the Underwhere is the best location.

4. Flopside just fits my vibes better... It's a more melancholy and laid-back place, and it feels like Flopside residents are usually the less successful ones, or the ones that have had a somewhat harder life, between them and their Flipside counterparts. I always feel like I am a less "successful" version of the person I could have been if I'd made different choices or magically didn't have to deal with my Brain Problems or the heart condition I was born with which robs me of a lot of energy. Nevertheless, I am pretty happy with my own life these days, even if the Flipside version of me (Yentruoc) went on to be a famous author and children's book illustrator like I once dreamed about. (I do like Flipside too though so of course I'd visit!)

5. I would visit Castle Bleck if that was an option; I want to see what it would feel like to exist in such an oppressively dark and colorless place, but I do think it's aesthetically fascinating and beautiful in its own way as well. Since I love the Bleck crew, their existence in the castle has captured my imagination for almost 16 years now! So I would love to see what it's actually like where they dwelt, and how accurate my imaginings were. I've doubtless thought about it more than any other place in the game so it would be mind-blowing to actually go there. But if that's not an option.... Well, I love Sammer's Kingdom like I said before, and it seems fun lol

6. I like to think I'd get along with Nastasia and we could commiserate on secretary type stuff.... Honestly I feel like Squirps captures the chaotic energy of myself and a lot of my friends but he's also a kid so it would be weird if he was my actual bestie lol. But I would happily babysit him any time. If he kept a similar personality into adulthood, we would totally hang out and yell excitedly about things and eat chocolate and give things weird names. Ok what I'm figuring out is that I may just have the personality of a kid LOL

[mochilorddrakeinferno]

SPM Theory: Merloo is Merlee's Ancestor (and possibly Bestovius's as well):

Argument 1: Merloo's window in the Mirror Hall features a representation of the Sun, and Merlee's Japanese name and magic are both drawn from the Sun. This same symbol is also seen on the doors of Merlee and Merluvlee's locations in Flip/Flopside. Argument 2: In Merlee's Mansion, one of the pictures seen in the hallway depicts an eye symbol also seen in Merloo's window, providing another symbological connection between the two figures. Argument 3: Merluvlee possesses the ability to see into the future, something which Merloo was also capable of. Merlee also mentions that her ancestors have prophesied supplementary details to the Light Prognosticus regarding the four heroes. Argument 4: Also pictured in Merlee's Mansion are Merluvlee, who is known to be a relative of hers, and Bestovius. This may suggest that Merlee and Bestovius share an ancestor. Bestovius is noted as a master of dimensional magic, an area of expertise that Merloo shares, so if they do share an ancestor, that ancestor being Merloo would explain those parallels. Argument 5: In the Flipside Pit of 100 Trials, a presumed ancestor of Merlee who was trusted to guard the Yellow Pure Heart is depicted. As this Merlee ancestor who lived contemporary to Merlimbis is very similar in appearance to the Merlee of the current day, the likely candidate for the other ancestor would be the one who closest resembles her. Merloo, whose hair style and color are the closest to Merlee's among the Sages, fits best in this regard. Graphic created by the fantastic General Donitsky:

[mochilorddrakeinferno]

I have a few objections with the two points of inference mentioned, but this is still a really great model!

Geneaology of the Tribe of Ancients

Link to other version because tumblr compression is bad: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/323691187582009347/1145104935860588728/image.png

A family tree I put together of all the confirmed members of the Tribe of Ancients from Super Paper Mario, as well as the Tribe of Darkness, which split off at some point in the past. Most of this is explicitly confirmed in-game, with the only true inferences being regarding the Tribe of Darkness.

I put it here that the Tribe of Darkness was founded by the man who defeated the Pixl Queen and is said to have hidden the Dark Prognosticus. The Tribe of Darkness is similarly said to have hidden the book and in the present it is generally considered hidden by "someone".

The other point of inference is the defeater of the Pixl Queen being a descendant of the son of the magician who made the Pixls in the first place. This is based on the fact that this son is said to have survived an accident that was otherwise fatal, and a point is made to mention his ultimate fate is mysterious, indicating there is more significance to it.

[darkclouud9]

I think of all 256 spm cards the Floro Cragnien is the weirdest why does it need a card

I understand the floro sapien... but.

????

this gets a card and not Cyrrus or Yebbi, Blubbi, Rebbi, or END BOSS OR SHADOO???? starting out I kept doing Shadoo because I thought she had a card but NO it's Dark Mario and Dark Luigi and Dark Peach and Dark Bowser instead, HER TRANSFORMATIONS but not herself 😭😭 why'd they do her like that :(

Howzit and Notso aren't cards, kept thinking they were, same with D-Men for some reason, Squirpina could've made an interesting card, or other ancients like Merloo, Merlimbus, Merlumina's sister/King Sammer's wife, etc

oh and Lava Bubble is an interesting card BECAUSE IT ONLY APPEARS IN THE UNDERWHERE (to my knowledge) whereas so do the D-Men, but they're so much more common

I just hate the D-Men okay, all because of that kne that makes you go all the way up the Underwhere Road massive staircase a second time :/

for some of the enemies I had to think of levels to search for enemies that appeared there but my gosh 7-1 would've been great to search through, because the characters/enemies that appear there are plentiful

you meet Luvbi and Queen Jaydes, see underhand, frost piranhas (which would remind you of the other piranha plant variants) and dull bones (that would remind you of their variants)

I always remembered Luvbi n Jaydes, but the other two........... commonly forgotten :I