#merlee spm

[starferret]

Um so I've been really into the Ancients recently-

I think the Shaman characters are super cool looking so I wanted to give them cool designs/translate them into my style (I love you mirror tool) I’ve also been doing way too much research into their lore and society

The main Flipside/Flopside gang

The old guys from Lineland

The Four Sages

The Merlee depicted in the mural in the Pit

A character I made for a thing I'm writing (based on that unused character in the game)

And Bonus!! The TTYD guys (including Dazzle cuz I think he's a Shaman too)

[pumpkiinns]

The Bashful Ghost

[camprell-art]

:) Fucking finally

Have this too:

[caecaesclubhouse]

Decided to draw TTYD/SPM characters OTHER than Vivian, Doopliss, Dimentio, or Mimi for a change 💖

[ohmaerieme]

tosses these doodles to the ground like i would a small handful of duck feed at a pond

[paperpeachy]

missus world wide web 🕸️

[peculiar-bleckfucker]

This is a threat.

[indigosfindings]

replaying super paper mario, sporadic thoughts post-chapter 2:

very easy so far--& although ttyd was also easy, spm's gameplay is sadly substantially less rich thab ttyd's was

having said that the game design in spm is! unrelentingly charming!! the use of platforming as a framework for a varied stream of stage styles (straightforward levels, dungeons, towns, the entire 2-3 Situation) is creative in a way that imo predicts the sort of things the mario maker community later ended up making. chapter 2's set pieces in particular are extremely quirky (the rooms with traps, the rubee thing, the mazelike basement, the merlee game show lmao)

few platformers have boss fights that feel like genuine Combat, so that's pretty cool

i will confess that as a First Dungeon, yold ruins doesnt have half the sauce of hooktail castle--it's much more linear in layout, with far less of that zelda-y "explore & comprehend the space" principle that made ttyd's dungeons hit

in a similar vein, it's kind of crazy how tippi has like a fraction of the personality that goombella had. it's a bit sad for the character doing the vast majority of the talking to just.... not really have any opinions on anything

the momentum of the chapters likewise means very few npcs ever get to stick out. like, even the "first town crotchety old mayor" character was a total one-and-done, one dialogue and you never have a reason to speak to him again (mostly just speaks to the game structure, which is as mentioned a bold enough exercise that i feel i cant really fault it for that)

bringing up a menu to use items In A Platforming Context is not at all natural to me, so im finding myself just not really using them

this game is a masterclass in visual design imo. the npcs & enemies & pixls being made of primitives that reconfigure themselves into different shapes really elevates the interplay of 2d & 3d, the backgrounds/environments are extremely aesthetically satisfying (the Mathmosphere in lineland, the optical illusion in the sky in gloam valley, all of castle bleck), & i love how the constant "digital/tech" motif (eg the "dragging selection boxes to flip/teleport", the trees & shrubs looking like something youd make in ms paint, etc) is an ingenious progression of paper mario's core aesthetic design

dimentio is so fun

i ADOOOORE nastasia

the inter-chapter dialogue flashbacks are surprisingly earnest? for such a tongue-in-cheek game where almost every line of dialogue contains a joke of some kind, those exchanges feel humourless & sincere. that probably contributes to the Space the game occupies in all of our memories lol

likewise it was really interesting how peach's "escape" sequence after chapter 1 was (while, again, still extremely sardonic) aesthetically & narratively framed with such a sense of Hopelessness. that's not to say like "woahh this mario game is 10x darker than you thought!!!!", more that it's just not a space the series commonly ventures into

the Ancients stuff is being leaned into extremely hard lol. ttyd mostly teases at that kind of "mysterious rpg lore" thing peripherally (the riddle tower inscriptions, grifty, etc) so it's interesting how spm puts it front & centre in contrast, without ever sacrificing the sense of mystique

this game really highlights how interesting the wiimote is as a controller--pressing the A button while holding it sideways (ie removing your left thumb from the direction input to press a button) is something that i cant think of any other controller doing, & it projects onto that button a really interesting sense of, like, Valence

it's the kind of game that seems to beg for one of thsoe posts like "things that ACTUALLY HAPPEN in _____"

[celestialpaperhaze]

Now that more people have played TTYD, I wanted to compare and contrast a few things between that game and Super Paper Mario. In particular, this post will focus on...

PARTNERS AND SIDE CHARACTERS!

The Thousand-Year Door really shines with its partners and side characters, in part because every chapter allows one of these side characters to be a protagonist. This also ties into the "each chapter has its own subplot" idea that SPM lacks, at least in the beginning.

! SPOILERS FOR THE THOUSAND YEAR DOOR !

(and minor spoilers for Super Paper Mario)

Chapter 1 allows Koops to have a mini-arc where he’s avenging his father. Even though his father turns out to be alive, this adventure to defeat Hooktail marks an important development in his character that leads him to continue traveling with Mario. In SPM, while the first chapter does drop a few key pieces of information on the Ancients, there's not really a clear subplot or side character to follow.

Chapter 2 starts out with Punio and his desire to rescue his sister, and branches out (heheh) into the Punies trying to defend their home. Meanwhile in SPM, there's a bit of a sub-plot with Mimi and Merlee that places them both in the spotlight, but that's mostly it. If the chapter had given a little more attention to the other prisoners of Mimi's debt scheme, then maybe it could've come close to establishing the environment in the same manner as TTYD.

Chapter 3 kind of puts the entire cast of the Glitz Pit in the limelight, since you don’t really know who’s who until nearing the end. I can’t really argue that it makes Jolene the protagonist because that reveal comes only once the chapter ends--but after you realize Jolene's role in the mystery of the Glitz Pit, it becomes clear that she is a key protagonist in chapter 3, and the revival of Prince Mush serves as the completion of her arc. Again, chapter 3 of SPM could've pulled this off by giving characters like Carrie some more involvement in defeating Francis; after all, she was a victim of his weirdness too, right?

After playing the first three chapters of TTYD, you begin to feel more invested in the plot of the game. However, the first three chapters of SPM are weaker in terms of establishing interest, which is largely why many people who first played the game didn't stick with it past this point. However, around chapter four, the tides begin to turn!

Chapter 4 of TTYD follows the people of Twilight Town, as you are immediately introduced to the plight of their pig curse. However, after the first battle with Doopliss, the chapter places Vivian in the spotlight. Vivian becomes the protagonist in this chapter as she finally learns to overcome her fear of her sisters and fight for what she believes in. Chapter 4 of SPM actually has Squirps as a side-protagonist, so it comes pretty close to matching TTYD's pattern here.

Chapter 5 puts Flavio in the spotlight. He is...quite the personality! He's a flamboyant, arrogant coward who's given a Brave Moment during the climax of the chapter. In SPM, we have the conflict of the Cragnons and Floro Sapiens in the forefront of the chapter, which helps better establish the world of chapter 5.

Chapter 6, being all about solving mysteries, puts your partnership with Pennington in the spotlight, thus making The Penguin With the Improbably Large Brain a protagonist of the chapter. In SPM, chapter 6 focuses on the Sammer Guys as their world is on the verge of erasure.

Chapter 7 puts the main plot of the Thousand-Year Door back in focus, so there's not much of a sub-plot. However, you could still argue that TEC is made into a protagonist for this chapter, given his act of sacrifice at the end. And of course, Super Paper Mario has Luvbi as a protagonist, and her arc with Jaydes and Grambi as a sub-plot of sorts.

In chapter 8 for both games, all the strings tie together and the focus is placed primarily on the climax and conclusion of the main plot! For SPM, this includes focuses on each villain in turn (O'Chunks, then Mimi, then Dimentio, then Count Bleck and, to a lesser extent, Nastasia).

Because TTYD's writing allows you to be close with all of the partners and side characters you meet, parting with them at the end feels like a real goodbye. Even though you know you can just reload your save file, you still have the sense that you'll miss these people and this world you've gotten to know so well.

Despite all my love for the game, I do have mixed feelings on how effectively SPM pulls this off. I think they definitely give enough attention to the game's main cast to make the players curious about them after completing the main story, but I don't feel that this sense carries over to all of the side characters and worlds from throughout the game. I'm still fond of the characters in Super Paper Mario, of course, but it's not in the same "I feel I experienced something with them" kind of way that the Thousand-Year Door does so well.

TL;DR - Each chapter in The Thousand-Year Door gives some side character a chance to serve as that chapter’s protagonist, which helps better establish the characters and worlds in that game. However, Super Paper Mario does not do this to the same extent, especially in the earlier chapters, which I believe is part of the reason many people found SPM less engaging than TTYD when it first released.

[year2000electronics]

Since we're sharing personal SPM stories, I think I'll throw my hat in the ring. I beat the quiz to figure out the real Merlee, not by paying attention to the answers or anything like that, but by getting REALLY close to the screen to see which Merlee had flies hovering around her. I noticed that Merlee had flies around her when she came out of the toilet, but the quiz show's brighter colors plus my old CRT TV made seeing the flies harder then when they were against the regular bathroom colors. So I just got as close as I could to the screen to see the tiny black dots instead of literally any other solution.

OH YOU POOR SOUL.

[ask-bleck-s-team]

heya hows the team doing? Anything interesting happening? (either post or during spm)

[POST SPM]

Mimi : "I'm good ! Now i'm actually working as a maid for Merlee.

I don't really care about the job but the dress is SO cute ! "

O'chunks : " 'm good , 've been helpin' ol' lads 'round town to make up fer th' bad things i did ( during spm) "

Nastasia : "I'm fine , i've kept a normal life after what happened ( attempt at destroying all worlds w/ the team ) . It's what he would have wanted. "

~MEANWHILE , IN THE UNDERWHERE~

*Dimentio rambling in his cell*

D-man : " This guy's a pain in the @ss "

[loki-valeska]

I'm gonna be posting height charts for the next couple of days while I work on finishing my other SPM project and further work on le comic. These are mostly for color pallets, and keeping the heights consistent for said comic. 

Here's the Heroes to start with

Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, and Bowser are smaller than the rest of the cast. There's a reason for this; 1. Making them look close to canon, while being comparable to the rest of the cast's heights, made them look like mascot costumes. 2. I wanted them to look highly canon compared to the normal residents of the SPM world. This was done to make them seem more like outsiders and foreign to this world. 

Merlon's design was initially made on a whim while making another piece, but luckily I felt I didn't need to alter much. Most of his shape language stayed intact during the style transition. 

Merlee's design is one I really like. I wanted to incorporate design elements from her past incarnations of the Paper Mario Games. Like the hair tuft, and moon. 

If anyone has questions about other design choices, I will happily answer them. 

[camprell-art]

Maybe tomorrow this will be done

[kingdomeromega0816]

This is my take on Mimi from the Nintendo Wii game titled Super Paper Mario. I have been planning to make an 11-Part Mario/(Crossover) Fanfic featuring the Mario characters. It will include characters like "Geno the Legendary Star-Spirit", which was the first character I submitted to DeviantArt and "Mimi... Terror of Gloam Valley".

The Origin Story of Mimi/(Amelia) from my Fanfic-

1. The Good Hearted Amelia finds The Cursed Item Block

2. Amelia becomes a Literal Monster and meets The Count

(If you want to know the 3rd and 4th Parts of Mimi's Origin Story, just visit my DeviantArt page called "unarpan0816".

(This is a longer read, so take breaks if needed.)

1. The Good Hearted Amelia finds The Cursed Item Block:

Now I will go into the origins of the version of Mimi pictured above who from my fan-canon. She was a girl of Beanish decent, (just like Prince Peasley, Fawful and Cackletta from the Mario and Luigi games), who was originally good. Amelia came from an impoverished family in the Bean Bean Kingdom who scavenged for rubies from a cavern to help her family financially.

One day, Amelia found a suspicious-looking mechanical item block in the cavern, that provided her with a seemingly endless rubies as she jumped to hit the item block. Unfortunately, Amelia was not aware that the item block was cursed, the item block at first had two closed eyes that merged into one big red eye, it grew teeth and captured Amelia's head without severing it.

The item block morphed into the shape of her head, Amelia woke up and felt different. She felt more spiteful, greedier and empty inside, she now has a new evil-personality. She eventually took all the rubies from the cavern and her family for herself, she betrayed and abandoned her impoverished family.

2. Amelia becomes a Literal Monster and meets The Count:

Three days later, she woke up to discover she was a freakish giant mechanical spider, evil-personality Amelia went into a tantrum because she lost her pleasant form from the cursed block and attacked a village. Later, Amelia sneezed and somehow switched back to her original good-personality, but was still a giant spider. She began to cry with remorse, knowing she betrayed her family, attacked a village, was a giant spider and could not be her original self anymore. She sneezed again and had her evil-personality back, she went to attack another town.

After she destroyed that town, she came across Count Bleck, who was impressed by Amelia's potential. He gave her the powers of shape-shifting and invincibility, Amelia was able to change back into her original form, she was grateful to Count Bleck and decided to be a minion of his. Count Bleck gave her the nickname "Mimi" and from then on the evil-personality wanted to always keep Mimi as her name. Mimi decided to always stay away from dust due to how it would make her sneeze and she did not want switch back to her original good-personality ever again.

Mimi began to buy more expensive clothes, she pretended to be a princess and dated Prince Peasley for a short time, only to steal part of his family's wealth. She eventually took over Merlee's Mansion in Gloam Valley, (Gloam Valley is in the Muda Kingdom of Sarasaland in my fan-canon and not in a 2D dimension.) She eventually encounters Mario and Peach as it is known in SPM.

(All (except for Amelia) are not my characters, Mimi belongs to Intelligent Systems and Nintendo. Mario, Peach and Iggy Koopa belong to Nintendo).

[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: