Where Are The Dedicated Mario Forums?

Let me, as a salty seadog with ketchup and mustard, tell you, I've seen my fair share of Mario forums/fora. And one thing was common between all of them: they aren't exclusively Mario-based. Which, with surprising inevitability, leads to most of the posts being in the "General" category. The community and the random interests of the members overtake the point of the forum almost entirely. Everywhere you look, you see insipid insider jokes, "forum games" where you have to guess the seconds digits of your post, "have you guys read Twilight?" questions, and other waste of bandwidth that has NO PLACE IN A MARIO FORUM.

Maybe you remember digibutter.nerr. In the beginning, most of the members had in-character roles straight out of SPM, it was a splendid delight to read the dialogue between various Pixls, and the posts were superbly insightful. A few months later, people grew tired of the act, and the Nerrmaster, Francis, started adding increasingly senseless bauble-like features that had all the value of a $1 "can that explodes when you open it" prank gift. Finally, the site became what it is now: an amorphous blob of gaming news and discussion indistinguishable from any of the other identical forums online. R.I.P. A Good Idea.

Why do the Mario Wiki forum, the TMK Fungi Forums, and similar Mario site message boards even HAVE general sections? How is that productive? If I want something unrelated to the topic at hand, I search the Internet to find a place where my request is relevant. Also, there are so many places to be "general and random" that it almost hurts. The biggest downfall of not restricting the gamut of discussion is that the users get so familiar with each other that they'd rather talk about their pets or school or even, Rosalina forbid, sports. Imagine what would happen if all scientists at a conference were to gossip about their colleagues rather than do what they're gathered for - chaos and destruction.

Maybe some others share my opinion. This is why I'd like to propose a pitch for a Waluigious forum - one whose mission is the fostering of intelligent Mario discussion - and if enough people agree, this could become a reality one day. However, let me warn you, some of the ideas are rather harsh and may infringe your sense of justice and democracy.

Name: Club Waluigious (♣Γ for short)
Manifesto: To provide a place for all Mario fans to share their thoughts and theories on the Mario universe, a place unmarred by trolling, topic diversion, and inter-user drama, a place for people who are mature and serious about their fandom.
Forum Guidelines: There are no user ranks, no post counts, no karma stats, no achievements, no knick-knacks, no pictures in signatures, and equal respect for everybody. Punishment for trolling, spam, flaming is a swift, prompt ban. Senseless posts will be challenged, then the poster contacted, then, if the poster doesn't comply, the poster banned and the posts deleted. Users are discouraged to start talking about themselves at length. We didn't come to listen about your life! In-joke building? Off-topic? "I'm leaving" drama? Warning, then ban.

This might sound like some sort of totalitarian regime, but control is needed to achieve quality. And when all the noobs are gone and the reliable folks remain, a community can be built. Back in the history of the Internet, there were these so-called Usenet newsgroups - at least before Eternal September. While it is impossible to achieve pre-ES quality anywhere on the Net, Club Waluigious would strive to at least be free of superficial stupidity the rest of the Web is so full of. A forum with no barriers to enter, but a high standard to stay.

Appealing and commendable or appalling and catastrophic? You can also vote on a poll in the sidebar!

Lemmy Express My Gratitude

This has recently been posted on Lemmy's Land. For those who don't know Lemmy's Land: it might just be the best Mario fan site ever. It is not dedicated to facts or to needless collections of official art, links to videos of people playing the SMB theme on a Rube Goldberg machine, news announcements or whatever little morsel of info Miyamoto dropped casually at lunch; it is fandom at its purest, fiction, art, caption contests, you name it. Lemmy's Land is perfectly in-universe, enough so, in fact, to almost be part of the Marioverse itself... at least in my eyes.

As I read Lemmy's announcement, I was by no means surprised. This person has been running one of the biggest Mario fan projects single-handedly for eleven years, and never once complained or missed an update without a good reason. Compare Waluigious which has been online since August 2007 and has had 5+ hiatuses accounting for about 90% of the time since, while being written by "three" (at least per the credits) people. Lemmy's work is monumental, it is mindbendingly huge, it almost defies comprehension. Yet, in all those years of hard labor, Lemmy never dropped the role of the actual Koopaling, always staying in character... of course, the day must have come at some point.

The "Bowser Jr. is Ludwig" thing is silly. Instead of just dismissing it with "Well, I was wrong" or "This was a joke" or "I didn't actually claim that", Lemmy always came up with new things to defend his theory, to stay in-character... this is genuine commitment, this is nerdiness I look up to with tears and sparkles in my eyes. Lemmy is someone not only every Mario fan, but every aficionado of any fictional work PERIOD should strive to be like.

Now here's something that resonated very strongly with me:
Some of you may not be able to remember a time when this site did not exist.
Lemmy's Land was literally the first website I have ever laid my eyes upon. It was my inspiration to become a Mario writer. Being a ridiculously over-the-top Mario fan is what gave my life meaning in the first place... in a way, everything that happened before me playing Super Mario 64 was another life. It's not me.

You might roll your eyes at me getting all sentimental over this, but I am sure everyone has their own first Mario moment that they remember as fondly. I only hope that Lemmy will never stop, that the Land will continue to have more Scribbles with Mario crying for cheese, to have those old MIDIs on each page, to have that color scheme to remind us of our Mario past... well into the Mario future. Lemmy, you rock. If more people were like you, the Earth would be a better place.

I still laugh at "Do not disturb any hard-working construction Troopas. Or the lazy ones either." every time.

A Clarification

Heh, someone thought Waluigious was eligible for Small Name Big Ego on the incredible TVTropes wiki. Of course, there's no such thing as bad publicity, so it's not devastating, but just for the few people who might read this and take this seriously:

The guys at the Super Mario fan blog Waluigious. These guys are actually willing to bash good Mario games like Super Mario Sunshine, Yoshis Safari, and Super Mario Land. And I wouldn't mind it so much if not for the fact that the guy insists his flaming opinion on the original Super Mario Kart be accepted as the truth, and anyone who disagrees with him is an idiot. 

Hmmm. I would rephrase that last statement - everyone who takes me that seriously is an idiot. How many times do I have to contradict myself, say "I'm just an inconsequential, coocoo-crazy nerd", and remind people that my view is skewed to get them to stop assuming that I want to be objective and neutral? Yes, I hate SML, SMK, Yoshi's Safari, the sports games, and above all, Sonic, but THAT'S THE VERY GIMMICK, PEOPLE! I'm not "a true gamer", that would imply that I know good games from bad ones - I don't. I like Mario games, maybe Kirby and some Zelda ones, and that's it.

Waluigious is a caricature of a Mario fan, it's about completely overdoing it, it's not about being fair, sane, or logical - were I any of these, I wouldn't be writing it. If you want someone whose opinions are flexible, visit some of the other fan blogs out there... I'd point you to Coin Heaven, but it's in the Overthere now, as are 99% of other projects in the same direction. Try DS Ultimate.

Bottom line: we're all just trying to have fun, right? And if you disagree, keep in mind that I'm very likely more pathetic than you and that you're just as entitled to your view as I am to mine, or probably more. I may have a small name, but my ego is smaller. Just ask my psychiatrist.

Left 4 Desert 2

Oh, what a punny title. Anyway, upon replaying NSMB for the umpteenth time, I imposed a challenge upon myself to not use the "left" direction on the D-pad. In the olden days of SMB1, you could play through the whole game like this, more or less, but with NSMB's up-type fortresses and all-around-the-block-type ghost houses, it's pretty much impossible, just like it is unfeasible to get all stars in SM64 without pressing A. A fun part of the challenge, however, is to try to count the minimum amount of Left-presses to beat a certain level or world.
So far, the world I found to be the best-suited for people who never look back is the Desert, World 2.

In fact, I managed to only have to press (and hold for a few seconds) the forbidden direction twice in the span of the regular playthrough of the world (2-1, 2-2, 2-3, 2-4, 2-Tower, 2-5, 2-6, 2-Castle) - maybe you can try it, too, and figure out a way to use even less. Back in the day, I would have never believed in a zero-star Bowser in the Sky, or Link's Awakening beaten in four minutes, but now it's yesterday's bearded hat news. And as time progresses, people will find more glitches, more ways to cheat the flags and break sequences, until we have a TAS of the first Shy Guy in SMB2 glitching into the vial containing the Subcons, or seam-exploiting to get into Corona Mountain from... Delfino Airstrip. 

A Tear Shed For Effort Past

The SMA3: Yoshi's Island homepage.

Isn't it terribly tragic? The time when the amount of effort put into Nintendo's 'ficial game minisites was actually on a human-care level and not motivated by the most maleficent money-making machinations is long gone. Gone are the days of quizzes with adorable descriptions of levels and bosses, gone are the custom ambient sounds, gone is the briskly clean humor sparkling from the sentences of every pop-up. Gone are the wallpapers that aren't just promotional art resized and rotated to create the flimsy illusion of life behind these void, all-purpose poses. Instead, we get this.

Video overload, cut-and-paste music from the game, video overkill, bland copywriting, video overwhelm, blatant marketing permeating every word, and did I mention video overburden? There's not the faintest trace of original content to be smelled. The Iwata Asks features are the only redeeming part of Nintendo's treatment of this game - and while they are both informative and delightful to read, they are something the CEO did in his spare time, not actual work put into providing the game with an official source worth a darn. This trend is frightening - the trend of encapsulating the universe of the game into the game itself, treating the manifold worlds inside as a mere piece of software, a compact disc, outside of it. This is killing the imagination, killing the reality of the game, it imposed a big fat "THIS IS MADE UP" stamp on Mario and everything he represents.

Mario does not end where his games end, Mario transcends the cartridges, the CDs, the ROMs, Mario is a concept rather than an element of the rigid framework of bytes making up the program. Mario leaps out of the screen, into the minds and hearts of the players, Mario's universe is to be extended inside our imagination, the games are merely a weak projection of what Mario is. This all gets crushed by everything but the screen screaming that the game is a game at you, that the characters you love are strings of bits, without a soul, with their actions' consequences plotted by a few guys in Kyoto, your control being just the rattling of loose variables inside the code, ultimately affecting nothing. And when you're done, there's no Mario, no Luigi, no Bowser, no anything, just a sucker who paid $40+ to look at a screen and press buttons for a few hours.

Nintendo needs to return to the old ways. No profit will save them if the characters lose what made them alive.

Koopaling Preferences

The Koopalings are everyone's favourite band of underused characters, subjects of gigatons of fan fiction, and the perfect fanbait for the Original Mario Freak Generation (OMFG). Their inclusion in NSMB Wii made old nerds worldwide explode into six flagpole-fireworks of joy, and contributed to its soaring software sales. But were the men (and Wendy) themselves treated fairly? Did they receive the fortresses and castles in lands that they would have liked most?

Larry, as the youngest of the bunch - not counting Bowser "Special Treatment" Junior - gets Grass Land Mushroom Plains again. That seems reasonable given that he did get the same a similar level way back in SMB3... however, there's evidence that Larry might not be too fond of having to be the first one, looking at what he used in Yoshi's Safari: a yellow submarine. Maybe he really wanted the water levels - but Bowser always kept him where it's safe (Bowser's Valley in SMW because Bowser could literally see him from his window). Also, there's "Larry Koopa: Zombie Heartbreaker", a game Francis has on his shopping list, that might imply that Larry hiding something sinister behind that cute Banjo-Kazooie-eyed face.

Next comes Roy, who seems to always get something different - Sky Land in SMB3, Forest of Illusion in SMW, and now the desert world. Why the desert world? Wasn't Morton the resident desert fan? Roy seems to like the sky - having had the boss role in Float Castle in Yoshi's Safari using a hot-air balloon - so the desert would be quite displeasing to him. Maybe there have been problems with his bullying of the others and they conspired to give Ludwig the sky world.

Lemmy's a Koopaling with a clear preference for icy areas - and seems to have gotten his way in NSMB Wii, too. Quite strange how he manages to balance on a ball on ice, but then again, it's implied that he is a Grand Master of Equilibrium - in MLSS, among other places. The look in those eyes ain't strabismus - it's the ancient art of dynamic polyfocal vision. However, he gets trounced by Mr. Video and Ruiji no matter how balanced he is.

Another one with an even better history of getting what she wants is Wendy - her reign always expands over some kind of island or water-rich terrain - even in Yoshi's Safari, where she could have been unbeatable if not for the genius move of including a flying anvil in the battle. This goes hand in hand with her portrayal in the cartoons, where tantrums would get her everything she wanted. A shame you can't get any hair by crying, baldy.

Iggy, however, is not that fortunate - being thrown everywhere from Giant Land to Yoshi's Island to the Grand Bridge in, you guessed it, Yoshi's Safari... and having the dubious honors of having both a teeny-tiny cameo in Super Mario Sunshine and not having his own hotel in Hotel Mario. I would have wanted to see an Iggy's... Iggy's what, to think of it? What's his speciality? It's implied that he can build machines, but it's also implied in NSMB that he's ludicrously goofy. It seems like he's a wildcard, a filler. Maybe they shipped him to Toxic Forest because his new hairdo was reminiscent of a tree.

Morton (Jr.) (as opposed to the popular fanon Morton Sr., Bowser's father) is heavy. That's about all of the characterization we get of him from the games, and his Big Mouth version is just too far removed from it to be applicable anywhere. There seems to be a balance between him having flat lands (Desert Land, Donut Plains) and mountainous regions (Spirit Mountain, Stone Head Mountains (who comes up with these names? (nested parentheses á la LISP!))), so do whatever you want, Morty. Star on your face, you big disgrace, throwin' your weight all over the place.

Finally, we have Ludwig von Koopa. Normally, he is informed to like music and machinery (somehow reflected in his Cheese Bridge and Pipe Land placements), but as NSMB Wii shows us, he also learned to imitate a Yoshi's Flutter Jump! Impressive going from shaking the floor to hovering in the air. How this has anything to do with his established persona, though, is beyond logic - but at least he's again the last one, like in the Koopalings' first appearance, as the oldest of them.

Not everyone is happy this time around, it seems... here's my suggestion: move Roy to the sky world, Ludwig to the mountain world (he can work on the Bullet Blasters, at least) and Morton to the desert world. Maybe let Iggy and Larry battle it out over the forest world. They can do a tilting lava platform deathmatch. Give Lemmy an electrified ball and rubber shoes. Make Kamek actually use the spells on the Koopalings, not the arenas. Drop Bowser Jr. into a lava pit. Include more levels. Don't make a sequel to Super Mario Galaxy, do something original instead. Fire Artoon. Make a game with Waluigi as the main character.

Hello Yello and Boo-Bye

Those Paper Mario "Friend Get" images - such adorable style, such vibrant colors. They remind us of a simpler time, when having a playable, hero-side Goomba was considered groundbreaking. But one of these pieces has always confused the hacks out of me.

Am I the only one who thinks Bow is sucking on her appendage in this picture?

Fact: Bow is not simply covering her mouth like she is wont to do every 10 seconds of her dialogue. First, she doesn't use her fancy fan, second, her mouth is obviously open. In my opinion, it's stretched out over her Boo extremity (Flipper? Nub? Pseudopod?) in a fashion reminiscent of thumb-sucking. What the artist may have shot for could have been a hush-type gesture, but then the lips should have been much closer together.

Another interesting tidbit about this - Bow's picture is the only one where the partner performs his or her C-Down ability without looking like their actual in-game sprite used for that ability. Bow's expression upon usage of the transparency move is absolutely neutral in the field, in fact, she just hovers over Mario at a slight angle and wiggles her ghost tail. Could the drawer have expressed his dislike of the character by having her appear stupid? Or is this all part of a larger conspiracy? Gwah hee haha, indeed.

Also, is Bow pronounced like the noun or the verb? Probably the noun.