Prognostic

here’s a big old reference sheet for the blueberry!! 

this is how i draw him, along with some notes on details and the like. 

detailed bio under the cut:

I always had this feeling he hadn’t had the best life.

I have the same problem with timpani as i do with bow,,, i can’t decide on one design

although it is true that he lost his mind after losing timpani and he ended up saving all worlds after being reunited with her, it still needs to be kept in mind that blumiere is still the main antagonist of super paper mario at the end of the day. i mean he literally tries to destroy all worlds for most of the game–sure, he felt regretful towards the notion, particularly nearing the mid point to the end of the game, but he was still trying to regardless. not to mention one of carson’s stories states that blumiere played upon o’chunks’s shame and depression after being betrayed by his advisors in the war to enlist him as a minion, and this is a rather darker side of bleck that’s kind of looked over.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to realize how dark his whole intentions were. His backstory is greatly sympathetic and he does seem to not be a complete monster, but it is indeed true that what his plan was is akin to mass genocide. I hate using such a dark comparison...but he acts almost like a suicidal bomber: “if my life sucks then I’m taking everyone with me”.

It’s difficult, because he’s been one of my favorite characters in a story for a long time, but realizing this makes it a bit hard to find him sympathetic. But like tribeofdarkness said, perhaps it is this morally grey nature that makes him perhaps the most realistically dark portrayal of a villain within a happy-go-lucky Mario game. And maybe, the most haunting, as he represents what a real person could turn into.

I’ve often wondered what exactly pushed him to such a drastic scheme. In some ways, it might seem he’s a a horribly selfish man. And perhaps he is quite flawed...but it some ways he’s shown to be a kind person, even when he’s being wicked. Another point of sympathy is the fact he suffered such a great loss, being the death of his love, and no less, that she was murdered by his own father: I do think a person would be very much traumatized and broken from such an experience.

And yet, it is certainly no excuse for what he did. For one death, he tried to murder—no, erase—everyone and everything from existence. For someone who was described as loving the world very much (as described by Nastasia), this is a complete and extremely disturbing change.

This design is really amazing!

He exudes such personality! I can just feel that cold dignified yet cruel air from him...

ah, thank you…! that was a lot to read in one day, i’m glad you liked it so much! 

one of the fun things about spm is how little information you actually get, because it gives everyone so much freedom to put the puzzle pieces together however they like. mario only gets a brief encounter with this world and these characters, and the player is left to imagine what life would be like in this other faraway world. probably my favorite thing about this fandom is how everyone lets their imagination run wild and pulls all these distant threads together like a big conspiracy theory wall. and every combination is dramatically different.

ohohohooooo….

i know the two of them are old (or at least merlon is), so that “hard to get” sort of romance might be acceptable for the two of them. but garson says merlon pestered and pestered this poor woman until she broke down and gave him a near-impossible challenge. like, that’s her biggest dish. either she wanted him to prove himself, or she wanted him to fail and leave her the hell alone already. 

it could easily be the former! but i also know that merlon had only one sprig of parsley left on his plate, clearly intending to eat it- and even though he had to get up and leave for a real, legitimate emergency- she didn’t give him a freebie. and when he did start leaving her alone, she didn’t start pestering him! i don’t recall any mention of her helping him out or anything like that. 

since i went back through the game script to make notes for my comic, i’ve noticed that merlon is kinda sketchy in several ways, actually… did you notice pixl creation was banned? when merlon made tippi, he broke a serious law? merlon said it was the only way to save timpani… but did you notice that flipside has access to a variety of healing methods, including life shrooms?

Alright, so, here’s an art trade I did with @spmcomic ! I had a ton of fun drawing and messing around a bit with their version of the crew! And i think I’m starting to get the hang of drawing backgrounds too! Thank you so much for doing this art trade with me! 

I really like Dimentio, especially! Very unnerving! And quite different form the usual look. He’s got more of a mystical mage vibe...and a Kefka-esque sadism lurking beneath somewhere.

ah yes! The Canon Ship.

i mean, clearly they’re into each other, and willing to commit no matter the cost. that’s a good start. the memory cutscenes were very cute and painted a stark contrast to the gang’s shenanigans. the only friction we see these two experience is external pressure from blumiere’s father. 

the two of them are so gushy haha. with the way blumiere searches for timpani you would think they’d been in love forever, but the last time they spoke to each other they were out staring at the stars and being just as sappy as if they’d started dating a week ago. if they are able to be that absorbed in each other after that much time, even as they are dealing with serious outside problems (the conflict between the two communities, blumiere’s father lurking, their plan to leave), then i think the two of them could weather pretty much anything. 

however! however. timpani is horrified by the way blumiere responds to her disappearance, when they finally meet again. it is not romantic. it is absolutely brutal. knowing she’s the one thing standing between blumiere being sweet and silly, and blumiere letting everything die around him, orchestrating the beginning of that process himself, probably shook her up hard! he doesn’t even come around at her pep talk, so here we see she’s not even able to stand between the blumiere she likes and the desperately sad life-destroying depression hiding in there. he isn’t able to pick himself up until he sees that nastasia, o’chunks, and mimi still believe in him. that’s when the pure hearts reappear.

so like, obviously the two of them can’t weather pretty much anything, even if they still deeply and truly love each other. and they shouldn’t! you can’t get by with just one person in your life. and i don’t think the two of them have learned that lesson by the end of the game, if they even are still alive. 

and… timpani is willing to confront people (she slams mr. l pretty hard, obliterating him on the spot, and she goes back-and-forth with bowser a couple times if i remember correctly). blumiere is noooooot (delegating any and all punishments to nastasia, having some kind of mental breakdown the minute tippi challenges him in the sammer kingdom). if they got into any argument, alone together, especially about the events of the game, blumiere would cave in on himself! not because he should counter timpani’s points, or defend himself- but because he doesn’t bring up when he’s unhappy before it becomes a disaster. neither of them would have anywhere to go, if they were alone in that world at the end, to figure out how to articulate themselves better. blumiere is not a very functional or stable person, and it’s unfair to timpani to expect her to help him every single time he needs it, even if he is capable of supporting her in return. he can’t be expected to support her every single time she needs it, either.

they can’t be each other’s entire world because no one can be each other’s entire world. they would be just fine, if they had an outside friend circle, or any kind of social circle at all. it comes down to that. they can be very happy together with that one change.

the relationship is a little different in “filling the void” because blue is not a functional or stable person right out the gate. they have a lot of fun together every day, in small doses, but blue was raised with 0 social skills. timpani notices pretty much right away that she would never be able to go to him with problems that weren’t extremely simple to understand or needed more than some reassurance. timpani herself, on the other hand, has a lot of energy at all times and despite everything still misjudges his ability to be a “good” person. when he doesn’t know any better, she get stuck on how he could *not* know any better. 

these problems aren’t serious in the beginning because they spend most of their day away from each other. keeps things simple. but if they had escaped, and run away together- these would be terrible problems within a few months at most. blue does not have a lot of luck interacting with humans during his travels, so if he was with timpani, it would mean the two of them would spend a lot of time alone together, and even when not alone, they would not have any other friends. they might have more luck than he and nastasia did, but i imagine they would still spend a lot of time drifting from town to town, only staying as long as they could stand feeling “tolerated but not accepted.” and then, a few years in, blue’s illness would start manifesting noticeable symptoms- the zoning out, the memory loss. timpani wouldn’t know what to do with that! 

I never thought about their relationship in this way. It’s very realistic. Very heart-breaking and raw, but very well thought out, considering what both their psychological characterizations could be. I can see both Blu and Tippi showing these traits in game.

She looks a bit mystical and gypsy-ish