CelestialPaperHaze | She/Her | Writer & Gamer | I am a young adult Iβve written a lot of stuff on AO3! Favorite fandoms: Paper Mario, Mother 3, VTSOM
I have no idea how to use this app, so I probably wonβt be on it often. But, while Iβm here, I might as well link some other stuff.
Hereβs my AO3 page, where Iβ¦write stuff!
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
My pride and joy is this series I wrote called The New Void that serves as a crossover between Super Paper Mario and PM:TOK (the Origami King). In retrospect I wish Iβd had tumblr while I was writing this story because I had a LOT to say. But hey, maybe I still have things to sayβ¦?
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
I also now have an Origami King Discord server!!! I hope to keep it active.
For fans of Paper Mario: The Origami King! | 63 members
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aka the game that served as half of the inspiration for my longest fanfic ever and also inspired me to make my first and only public Discord server because I needed to know there were still fans of it out there
I recently updated a fic that I'd originally posted THREE WHOLE YEARS AGO, so I wanted to yap about that a little bit, and how it pertains to some of the more...ambiguous Super Paper Mario lore.
The fic in question is one I wrote called "Prognosticus". But before that fic, there was The New Void, my golden child...
The New Void was a crossover I wrote combining Super Paper Mario lore with The Origami King lore. At a certain point nearing the middle of the story, I added a part summarizing SPM's lore regarding the "master magician" who created the Pixls.
For memory's sake, here's some of the canonical lore:
So yeah, ever heard of the Dark Prognosticus? Everything that'll happen in the future is written down in this book. The author and the source of his knowledge are still a total mystery, though.
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.
It turned out that the Pixl Queen was actually the very first Pixl ever created... The master magician had made her after studying the Dark Prognosticus.
'The spirit within the Pixl Queen was not a demon, but rather a human⦠The master magician had a beautiful wife, a son, and a daughter. But he lost his wife and son in an accident. Soon after, his daughter caught a terrible illness, and her short game ended.' Perhaps he transferred her spirit to a Pixl vessel?
The way I chose to interpret the canonical lore at the time was this:
the Dark Prognosticus, Chaos Heart, and Void are all connected by the same magical energy: Love Power of Chaos (as the Chaos Heart is named in the Japanese script), which is love in its most corrupt, hollow form.
the writer of the Dark Prognosticus had been using the book as a cursed dream journal of sorts, writing down his visions of the future, which he had developed due to prolonged proximity to this magical energy that consequently seeped its way onto the page.
he would go on to create the Pixls as a means of trying to prevent these calamities from coming about (which would of course backfire terribly).
as for the lore regarding the later loss of his family, I decided the book would have a level of sentience--that is, its link to his former master, whose soul (or what's left of it) resides inside the Chaos Heart
his master created the Chaos Heart by channeling his own Love Power of Chaos into it, and did so because his sole desire is for the worlds to end.
(ack I still have a hard time keeping all of this lore straight...)
In short, I created a dynamic wherein the master is the creator of the Chaos Heart, and the apprentice is the writer of the Dark Prognosticus. Furthermore, the master wishes for the destruction of all worlds, while his apprentice dreads such a horrific fate and wishes to prevent it.
(By the way, "creator" is a term I use lightly...he may have created the container, but The Void was always there, even before he was able to access its energy.)
The master shows up in The New Void as FΓΌrst, and is still very much obsessed with ending the worlds, for reasons I'll refrain from possibly spoiling, but that have to do with an immense feeling of isolation/disconnection from the world.
As part of this series, I wrote a story called "Prognosticus" which shows the master's obsession with his work, and him gifting his apprentice the (at the time unnamed) Dark Prognosticus. This was meant to explore their dynamic a bit while also alluding to the canonical lore we've all grown to recognize...
In the three years that have passed since then, I've developed these "OCs" a LOT more, though it still follows the canonical template: cursed book -> magician doomed to tragedy -> Pixls are created -> more bad stuff happens. Still, I've stopped myself from posting about them too much, because I feel like the line between "canon-compliant OCs" and "OCs merely inspired by canon" is pretty thin. In some aspects, I feel the lore has expanded so much I'm not even entirely confident if I can consider it SPM fiction, or just original fiction built on a foundation provided to me by the game's canon.
In other words, I sure do be overthinking...
But I decided to update the "Prognosticus" fic three years later to show the opposite side of what I showed in chapter 1.
Chapter 1 was about the start of the Dark Prognosticus, but it was also about the unbalanced bond between master and apprentice. A selfish master, consumed primarily by his obsession, and a naive apprentice, loyal to his master by duty. Chapter 2 takes place years later, and while it's somewhat about the origin of the Chaos Heart, it's mostly about how this bond has changed. The apprentice no longer has such blind faith and trust in his master, and the master views his apprentice as a means to an end, something that is made blatantly clearer now that the apprentice no longer sees him through a rose-colored lens.
Whether or not people in the fandom will be interested in reading this, I can't really say, but it sure is interesting to me, so here's the work in its entirety!
Prognosticus (4662 words) by CelestialPaperHaze
Chapters: 2/2
Fandom: Super Paper Mario (Game), Paper Mario Series (Video Games), Super Mario & Related Fandoms
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Original Characters
Additional Tags: Pre-Canon, SPM lore, Headcanon, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, it was 3am help me, Magic, Dark Magic, The Void, funny thatβs a tag but it probably refers to something else lol, we know what it means, Foreshadowing, Original Characters - Freeform
Series: Part 4 of The New Void
Summary:
A negligent master. A haunted apprentice. A dark book.
Taking some liberties on SPM lore!
Contains New Void continuity/spoilers, but to keep it really simple for new readers: this is a story about the guy who wrote the Dark Prognosticus (apprentice) and the guy who made the Chaos Heart (master).
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Hello SPM fandom, have I posted about this song before? It's so Chaos Heart coded, especially in the last minute or so, and in my head it has become the single most accurate song to embody what the Chaos Heart represents (other than its designated songs in the game's OST).
Puppets learn to pull strings,
And cut down the user's lead
If we imagine the Chaos Heart as an artifact which influences its user, then you could view the Chaos Heart as the puppet pulling strings in this analogy. A person (such as Count Bleck) claims it for what they believe is their own destructive aim, but the object's one goal is to bring about Chaos, destruction, and it merely uses whoever takes hold of it to ultimately reach this goal.
I am dark matter
Your road to ruin
I am dark matter
I'm your undoing
The Chaos Heart might not be dark matter exactly, but it is at the very least dark energy of some kind. In fact, because it's called "Love Power of Chaos" in the Japanese version, I feel it's generally safe to assume the Chaos Heart embodies a kind of hollowness, or a love that's hollow at its center, hence why an absurd arranged marriage was what brought it into being. And of course, the Chaos Heart paints the road to ruin for everyone, so that part's a given.
Bring me your soul, bring me your hate
In my name you will create
Bring me your fear, bring me your pain
You will destroy in my name
This!!! The contrast of the voice saying to both create and to destroy, like the idea of creation is a false promise and all that will be brought about is destruction. The demand of bringing it your hate/fear/pain, as if it feeds off of that negativity, amplifies it, and that's where it gets its power. Sounds kind of familiar, doesn't it?
Now admittedly, in part because of my own headcanons regarding the Chaos Heart (and maybe an OC or two), I tend to view the Chaos Heart in a bit more of a personified manner, which I'm sure not everyone does, but it's another part of why this song fits so well in my opinion! If the Chaos Heart had a voice, these lyrics would be it.
Do I think it's concerning that my three favorite video game fandoms (VTSOM, (Super) Paper Mario, and Mother 3) all share important dates in April? Yes...slightly...
Here's why I think people who are NOT a fan of Mother 3 should show some love to this guy:
Number one: Just look at him. He could really use it.
Number two: Darn near everyone who's ever played video games knows about Nabstablook from Undertale. You know, the ghost whose whole gimmick is that they are deeply depressed and not really up to fighting you? Well would you believe it if I told you that Negative Man did it first? Yes, this little yellow guy from Mother 3. You know what Mother 3 is? The game after Mother 2. You know what Mother 2 is? EARTHBOUND. You know what Earthbound is? The game that was notably one of the biggest inspirations behind Undertale. I'm not just a raving lunatic the connection is there!
Number three: Negative Man.
(This is what I sound like when I talk about Mother 3 to my friends.)
(nowthatit'sproperlythe20thinmytimezone) HAPPY 20TH ANNIVERSARY to the most devastating boss fight of all time!!!
I wanted to talk about Mother 3 more today but my mind went blank- I always want to talk about my favorite games when they're brought up, but I'm bad at starting the conversations π
So I'll just say that Mother 3 is very dear to me, and despite being a fan of Super Paper Mario I can safely say this game holds the number 1 spot for most emotional story I've ever experienced in a video game, and number 1 game to make me cry when listening to the music and remembering the times that it played. Not only that but there are so many layers to this game that I feel like I could replay it over and over (and indeed I am due for a replay...) and enjoy it every time.
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By far, one of my favorite scenes in Super Paper Mario, is when Tippi gets so pissed off you won't put on the space helmet that she not only leaves you to die from your tomfoolery, but basically in turn decides you're so stupid that she'd rather let the worlds end than try to reason with you any longer ππ
Tippi you can't just LEAVE him!! What's Merlon gonna say when you come back without the hero of prophecy?
Merlon: Hey Tippi where is Mario...you know, the guy who's supposed to save us all from...being wiped from existence...
Tippi: oh yeah he's an idiot so I left him in space
Merlon: TIPPI WHAT THE HELL NOW WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE
Tippi: hey man he wouldn't put on the helmet Β―\_(γ)_/Β―
Guess she went from "while your brain still works..." to "this guy clearly doesn't have one."
(For the purposes of this bit I only mentioned Mario but I know Peach is also part of the team at this point...and yet they only have one fishbowl...ah, sweet video game logic...)
But yeah, I find it especially funny how this scene (optionally) comes after the end of chapter 3, where Tippi is SO grateful that you went out of your way to rescue her. I feel like that scene is where she really starts to warm up to the heroes, so the fact you can get this one not long after is just hilarious.
In the interest of continuing to celebrate #10daysofSPM, this post will be going over some of my ideas of where the Bleck gang ends up post-canon!
This post will be referencing a few of my Ao3 works, namely The New Void and Moving Day! Spoilers for those works abound!
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Nastasia
Nastasia has the hardest time of them all after the Count is gone. Without his orders to follow, she's left to process everything that she's been through. How does it change a person, to not only love a man who would never have loved you back, but to also watch this man slowly become the antithesis of who he used to be--and then, at the very end, to catch a glimpse of the man you knew before, and then, for him to be gone?
Most of my post-canon explorations of Nastasia are focused on this idea that she would not only miss the Count, but would look for a trace of him somewhere, anywhere, to make up for the closure she never got.
In my Moving Day fic, she returns to Castle Bleck and finds his room, left in a state of emptiness and disarray. She cleans it up, as a way of honoring him and reflecting the way he changed in the end.
In The New Void, she struggles to let go of the Count and holds onto the Dark Prognosticus, as it's all she has left of him. Mimi ends up getting wrapped up in that too, but I'll get to that in a bit...
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O'Chunks
O'Chunks is unfortunately not a character I've explored much, but I think of all of them he'd actually have the easiest time coping with the Count being gone. Given his background as a soldier who lost everything, well, he's dealt with loss before. I think he'd want to honor the Count's memory, but would also be grateful for still having Mimi and Nastasia around. Depending on whether you believe the Nastasia x O'Chunks implication, he might even be extra dedicated to helping Nastasia through the loss.
In The New Void, he's actually a bit upset with Nastasia for keeping the Dark Prognosticus, I think because he knew it's not what the Count would've wanted, and because he knew it wasn't good for Nastasia to hold onto the past like that. He ends up leaving, but they set out to find him again, and he eventually rejoins them with open arms.
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Mimi
Mimi is in my opinion the saddest instance of post-canon angst from the crew. She's very kid-like, and it's easy to see the Bleck gang as having been a family to her. With the loss of the Count, I think she feels this found family structure has become destabilized. If she can lose the Count so easily, who's to say she couldn't lose O'Chunks and Nastasia in some way too? This idea comes from her speculated origin in canon of having been a failed Pixl experiment. I think this hints she was probably abandoned before having been found by the Count and recruited onto the team.
In The New Void, when it's just her and Nastasia, she tries to protect Nastasia's secret, even though she doesn't agree with Nastasia's possession of the book either. She feels alone because O'Chunks has left and Nastasia is so consumed by the past that it doesn't feel like she's around for Mimi at all. Mimi even starts to miss Dimentio, despite his prior torment of her. This is because to her, she isn't just sad because the Count has disappeared. She misses the way her family used to be...some days go by where she thinks she'd do almost anything to just go back to those days, even for a moment.
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Dimentio
Dimentio is in the Underwhere post-canon. End of analysis.
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Okay fine, Dimentio for real
I feel like Dimentio is the most open to interpretation among the fandom, but for me I've interpreted him as being pretty sociopathic. He doesn't exactly miss the others in the way most people would, he misses how much fun he had teasing them and getting reactions out of them.
However, my headcanons also make it so he doesn't really REMEMBER them, as once he's in the Underwhere he becomes a Shayde and is subjected to slowly losing his memories and sense of self. When he does recover his identity, he only very briefly reflects on the idea that THEY might miss HIM, which is just a little odd of a concept to him. How could someone who he deliberately tormented genuinely miss him? That's all to say, I think he could've learned a lot from them, in a different time perhaps, and under wildly different circumstances.
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Luigi (he counts right?)
He doesn't really remember his time as Mr. L, so I think for him it's more of a detached sort of familiarity that makes him turn less of a blind eye to the way the minions are each struggling with the Count's absence.
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Count Bleck Blumiere
And of course, you can't discount the Count himself! After all, they were a found family put together by him. I wholeheartedly believe in the idea that Blumiere and Timpani end up in their own little dimension together after canon. However, for whatever reason, this dimension is virtually cut off from the rest of the worlds. There's no way of contacting anyone outside of it.
Blumiere has a lot of time now to reflect on everything he did as Count Bleck. This includes reflecting on his behavior with the minions, and reflecting on the fact that he wasn't the only one going through a hard time back then. Given this awareness, it's natural he'd want to go back and apologize, try to right his wrongs--only, he's completely powerless to do so. So he thinks about them, he worries about them, he hopes that they're doing okay.
In The New Void, he's told about Nastasia's possession of the Dark Prognosticus by...Olivia from PMTOK??!?!? Yeah so, he's not exactly happy to hear this, and feels a mix of disappointment that Nastasia is still holding on, as well as guilt because he blames himself for it.
One could only imagine how different things would be if the family could reunite once more...
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And that's it, those are my post-canon Bleck gang headcanons! If you'd like to see more, I'd recommend reading the works that I referenced a bajillion times in this post, as those are where I explored these ideas the most. Thank you for reading, and happy #10daysofSPM!
Seems like this is a thing going around, so in honor of 10 days of SPM...well, I haven't written anything new for SPM lately, but here's a few older things that you can read (or reread!). I've temporarily made them readable without an Ao3 account too, so feel free to pass them around!
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SILLY THINGS
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Monopoly! (1420 words) by CelestialPaperHaze
βAm I the only person who ISNβT cheating?β
That got a laugh from Dimentio. βNot cheating, you say? Well well, that is interesting~!β
βWhat?β Mimi challenged. βWhatβs interesting?β
βHere we go,β Nastasia sighed.
SUMMARY: The Bleck gang plays a game.
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Count Bleck Has Entered The Chat (5899 words) by CelestialPaperHaze
2:38 am
count bleck created a group chat
count bleck added nastasia to the chat
count bleck added book to the chat
count bleck: :D
SUMMARY: Count Bleck and Nastasia meet the rest of the minions via group chat. Shenanigans ensue.
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Stall (4212 words) by CelestialPaperHaze
βWhat happened?β Timpani asked him.
βOβChunksβ friend is a meat-headed fool is what happened.β
βNo similes, so he must be upset,β Blumiere murmured.
Dimentioβs smile resurfaced, looking more crazed than usual. βAh haβ¦ah ha haβ¦AH HA HA HA HA HA! Upset? Of course not! Iβ¦I am calm, like a bird in theβ¦in theβ¦β He didnβt finish. It didnβt seem like he could.
βOH CRAP HE BROKE DIMENTIO!β Mimi cried.
SUMMARY: O'Chunks is late to meet someone. Looks like it's up to his found-family to stall.
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ANGSTY THINGS
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Memory 3 by CelestialPaperHaze
He tried to meet her eyes but she wouldnβt look at him. βIβmβ¦β Blumiere saw her squeeze her eyes shut and felt a quiet hum of indignationβnot only had his father inflicted physical pain on her, but his actions (whatever they had been) were causing her emotional turmoil as well. βIβm just an ordinary girl,β she went on. βNo matter how much I love you, we must part.β
SUMMARY: Memory 3, rewritten.
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Moving Day (1980 words) by CelestialPaperHaze
Nastasia stood shivering in an imagined breeze, almost too afraid to go into the dark castle, to walk again through its halls.
βNassy!β Nastasia turned to the entrance, to the short green girl standing in the doorway, looking at her expectantly. βYou cominβ?β
βUm, yeah...β
Nastasia gave the castleβs exterior one last long look before venturing inside.
SUMMARY: Itβs been a while since the Void almost destroyed all worlds. Now that itβs over, Count Bleckβs three remaining minions return to Castle Bleck to retrieve the things they left behind and tie up some loose ends.
(A post-canon fic focused on how the Count's minions deal with the aftermath of his vanishing. Although it's mostly Nastasia focused, for obvious reasons...)
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Everything You've Ever Wanted, Together (1260 words) by CelestialPaperHaze
Her voice penetrates the thoughts swimming around in his head. βHow do you feel?β she asks tenderly.
His breath quickens, his heart races, his body grows warm and his eyes fill with tears when they meet hers again.
She is real. This is real.
SUMMARY: Count Bleck and Lady Timpani properly reunite. A post-credits scene.
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I might also try and make a post discussing my post-canon headcanons for the Bleck gang, so stay tuned for that!
#10daysofSPM sounds so much fun!!! ok i have nothing new BUT! BUT!!! here are some old fics i have written about SPM, in case you havent' seen them yet (or want to reread!)
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two feet apart and miles betweenΒ byΒ rarsneezes
βIs thatβ¦?β Bowser begins.
βIt canβt beβ¦β Peach says, but she doesnβt sound sure.
βHmm?β Tippi asks, not understanding.
βL- Luigi?β Mario whispers, taking a step towards his brother.
you ever get mad that canon just like pretends they can't recognize Mr. L and so you write 2k fixing that
2.2k words | posted 22 Feb 2020
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a tangled mess of knots, I confessΒ byΒ rarsneezes
Look. If there's anything Luigi knows about his brother, it's that Mario's not real big on talking about the horrible things that happened. Which means, when Luigi's got a hole in a memory from when Dimentio grabbed him for the last time, he has to ask SOMEONE about it, and he knows Mario's not going to answer.
And so... he goes and asks Bowser?? It works.
Super Paper Mario Was Fucked Up
3k words | posted 05 Jan 2022
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...and that's all that's specifically about SPM, i guess!!
but honestly my entire body of mario fanfic (check them all out here) is just variations upon "wow the paper mario games were kinda fucked up" and "mario is coping poorly with having to fight his loved ones, possessed. like SO poorly"
swear i did, i tried, i swear i did - SSBB, Mario coping re: Shadow Peach, 900 words
that was something - SSBB, the mario cast re: why do the WORLDS keep ENDING what was WRONG with 2007?!?! 1.5k words
Super Mario and the Terrible, Horrible, Very Bad Week - ToK rewrite where Mario spends the whole time with Bowser, and copes poorly with the Peach thing. Bowsario agenda. 5 chapters. 13k.
Bowser's Fury but Junior asks Peach for help instead of Mario - gee i wonder why Junior might realize Mario might not want to fight a possessed Bowser. 800 words.
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I didn't have the time to plan anything special, so instead I'll post this little look-back to my first ever (public) (paper) Mario fanfic...
WHICH WAS FOUR YEARS AGO OH MY GOD???
Ah yes, Super Paper Mario crossing over with the Origami King, now where have I seen that before........ I wrote this before my multi-chapter though, in fact this was largely where the idea came from...
On the same day, I also posted a story with Mario angst and that perhaps would've been a better story to spotlight for Mar10 day, but eh, it is what it is.
This little one-shot was inspired by the fact that the dialogue between Count Bleck and Tippi before that boss fight would probably seem REALLY confusing to someone in universe who had not pieced together their true identities. In fact, did Mario ever get formally clued in on Tippi's past, beyond what Merlon told him, or did he just? Find out? Right then? Anyway, it also just fit to have Olivia be the slightly-endearingly-oblivious one because she can be like that (it's one of the things I like about her!)
Anyway yeah I'm that person who brings up Paper Mario in any conversation about Mario and I've just done it today. You're welcome.
