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weirdmarioenemies · 5 months

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Name: Blewbird Debut: Super Mario Bros. Wonder

Blewbird is weird. I mean, no duh, it's being featured on "Weird Mario Enemies," even if our blog title gets less and less fitting by the day, but I mean weirder than you'd realize by just looking at it at a glance. If you just take a quick glance at it, you might not think much of it -- just a stylized cartoon bluebird, reminiscent of The Artist Formerly Known As Twitter.

But then you look at it more closely, notice things like its black shell and brown shoes. How weirdly smooth its skin is, without even the suggestion of feathers. The fact it doesn't have wings at all. The fact these things burrow out of the ground.

Oh, and let's not forget the fact they shoot off their own beaks!

Yeah, let's not ignore the main hook of the enemy here! Blewbirds predominantly appear in the level Blewbird Roost, where they'll stand against walls and shoot out their beaks at Mario and Friends. Of course, usually their beaks end up sticking to walls across from them...

And unfurling into platforms! That's right! Blewbirds are an animal that evolved to create Platforming Challenges! Is this how they traverse all the open air in the caves they live in without wings? It's not like they can burrow everywhere!

So whatever Blewbirds are, I'm pretty sure they're not birds. Blewbirds are birds in the sense that jellyfish are fish. (A comparison I'm pretty sure I've made multiple times on the blog at this point.) But if they aren't birds, then what are they? Well, let's take another look at Blewbird without its beak...

Does it remind you of anything...?

Because it reminds me of Birdo, another character who's named after a bird for no particularly good reason whatsoever! Almost like it's all connected... But I mean, the similarities are hard to ignore -- the tube mouth optimized for shooting projectiles, the white underbelly, the weirdly smooth skin, heck, you could probably make the very bold argument that Blewbird's ponytail and Birdo's bow are connected somehow.

But wait! I'm not ending things right there, because Blewbird doesn't only have similarities to Birdo...

You see, Nintendo has connected the Birdos and Yoshis for a while now, as Mario's main Weird Dinosaur Characters, but there hasn't been an awful lot actually connecting them in-universe... until now?! For you see, I'm making the radical claim that Blewbirds are proof of a missing link species that connects the Yoshis and Birdos! Look at it! The tube mouth of Birdo. The shell and shoes of Yoshi. It's all so clear now!

Blewbirds aren't birds! They're some sort of weird dinosaur! Just like... just like... just like real birds. Hmm.

Maybe I need to rethink the point I was making with this post. Taxonomy is weird, guys.

*phone ringing*

Oh! Hold on, I need to answer that. Hello?

Hmmm... as a matter of fact, I think I am! I spent so much time talking about Yoshis and Birdos that I forgot to do this: *touches Wonder Flower to trigger Wonder Effect for the post*

During Blewbird Roost's Wonder Effect, Blewbirds will start blowing very large, very colorful bubbles! Your character can bounce on these bubbles to go *Pauline voice* ♪ High up in the sky~! ♪, but you need to be careful, since each bubble pops when you jump on it! The number of Blewbirds in the Blewbird Roost doesn't make that much of an issue, but in a Special World level where you're a Goomba who can hardly jump at all? Well... Good Luck!

That being said, this raises even more questions about Blewbird anatomy, because they blow these bubbles out of their beaks! You know, the ones they shoot off that, as far as I'm aware, aren't even part of their bodies? And in order to blow bubbles out of their beak, their mouth has been moved to the end of it! What is going on here?!

I'm not sure, but I can try to provide a relatable human analogy! Imagine if you put a Cone in your mouth, but someone nearby touched a Wonder Flower, so the Cone fused to your face and the mouth was at the end of the Cone, and you were very scared about this development so you tried to scream but only bubbles came out. We've all been there! And for the Blewbird, it's exactly like this. Hopefully now you understand!

#blewbird #weird mario enemies #super mario bros wonder #mod hooligon

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xenoredux · 3 years

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if you're still doing horse talk can we hear more about flutter ponies? also did you have anything in mind for seaponies?

Ye ask for horse talk, ye shall receive horse talk.

I’ll elaborate on seaponies first: I don’t actually have much lore planned for them and that is my greatest flaw. But seriously, I probably should develop my ideal version of them. They’re fun little guys.

If I had any lore surrounding them, I’d say they were the first subspecies of earth pony to climb out of the sea (and then promptly go back in once they realized how cold it was out in the open air) and that they’re not limited to a strictly seahorsey shape. The classic seapony body type would be the most prevalent, but by no means the only observable kind. There’s seaponies out there that look like clownfish and sting rays and stuff. They’d have their own equivalent to the Gloom Witches who’d be, like, a shitty little lobster man and his easily frustrated jellyfish minions. Once the landtrotters (Starwish ‘n Co.) gained their friendship, they’d be able to call on them whenever they’re in both water and distress.

So that’s about it for seaponies BUT I DO have a lot of a lot to say about flutter ponies (warning for horses becoming much ded):

Flutter Ponies are a subspecies of pegasus which are related to the even lesser-seen subspecies Winger Ponies, Breezies, and Changelings. Flutters are generally smaller then the average pony both in height and weight, which makes it easy for them to skirt by pony villages unseen. There is the same variation you'd find in any species - it's possible to find a "tall" or chubby flutter - but they're characterized primarily by their small stature and their round, short-muzzled faces.

The biggest difference between them and "normal" pegasi is that their wings resemble those of insects instead of avians. Different flutter pony wings come in different shapes and colors, and these seem dictated more by individuals' personalities then their genetics. i.e. you may find a flutter with ladybug wings, or dragonfly wings, or housefly wings.

Their wings are powerful enough to carry them great distances if they need to travel, but they're also fragile enough to tear if targeted, and the healing process for a torn wing is long and painful. This motivates flutters to protect their wings whenever they can, sometimes to the detriment of what they're doing. Many a flutter has abandoned ship because they instinctively wigged out over obtaining wing damage.

One of the reasons Whilderbee is such a novelty to the populace of Paradise Estates is because flutter ponies are reclusive, secretive animals by nature. They live far away not just from other ponies, but also each other. These guys are paranoid, truly the most easily spooked and horselike of the pony races given their anxieties. If any pony is going to "see ghosts" and bolt from something that isn't there, it'd be a flutter.

So shy are these guys that their family units are limited as well. The typical flutter pony's nuclear family is, at most, composed of 2 parents and their 1 child. Flutter ponies with numerous offspring are often considered "selfish" and "irrational" among their kind because more kids = more interaction with the outside world = greater likelihood of others intruding/invading/whatever. Flutter ponies value secrecy and despise vulnerability both inside and outside of their family units.

Part of this deep-seated paranoia is because of something that happened long ago. Flutter ponies have always separated themselves from other cultures, but they used to live together in herds (or flocks - take your pick) of their own. These flutter herds would be lead by someone who had shown themselves to be unusually brave and wise, and this pony (dubbed "The Royal" by the others) would determine what was best for their herdmates.

The largest flutter herd ever recorded, one lead by The Royal Morning Glory, was destroyed because of an invading goop referred to only as "the Smooze". Little is known about this substance or its origins, but what we do know is that Morning Glory made a mistake in determining how to resist it, and so her entire herd was swallowed up by it and destroyed.

When other flutter herds caught wind of this tragedy, even after the Smooze had disappeared they were all too shaken to remain in their previous living accommodations. They came to the conclusion that living in a herd was too dangerous. There's just too much room for human (equine?) error, and working together under some wise guy's delegation didn't prevent all the flutters lost that day from being eaten by sentient sludge. Unusually, the trauma of the event didn't bring the community together but instead drove them apart, and that's how they've lived ever since.

When you combine all this isolationism, ingroup shaming, and self-limiting fear, it's not hard to see why Whilderbee was frowned upon by her people. She's wildly outgoing by flutter standards, not to mention her cardinal sin of actively seeking communications with other creatures. Ever since she was a little kid she's been trying to buddy up with blewbirds and jackalopes and sparkledogs, and this quickly earned her a reputation as, well, a freak.

Flutters don't often interact with one another (if only because a lot of them are curmudgeonly) but word spreads fast among them. This is part of the reason why Beebee, despite her cultural upbringing, still actively gets involved with her friends. She learned her own form of emotional invulnerability, and that's making everyone too cheery and giggly to ask her why they saw her wiping her face of tears the other night.

As you can imagine, all this stuffiness makes flutter ponies a bit more hoity toity then you'd think a buncha forest-dwelling recluses would be. They often pressure their only children into behaving in a very put-together, boring manner so as not to invite the scrutiny of their nearest neighbor two woodlands over. Imperfection is weakness in their eyes.

They also don't do much to hide their distaste for other animal species, non-flutter ponies included. Most other animals are simply beyond their comprehension, but other pony species unnerve them because their ways are so unfamiliar. Like, what, they just have family gatherings and cry openly and own television sets? Inconceivable! Ugly! Wrong!

All this probably makes flutters sound like a bunch of miserably stoic fuddy duddies. In a sense they are given the sort of lives they've subjected themselves to, but still waters run deep. Flutter ponies are beyond powerful if you can get them to cooperate. When enough flutters get together and beat their wings with great speed - a phenomenon they used to call "flutter stutter" - they have the power to change the weather, move buildings, and overcome just about any tangible treachery.

Pony historians have written tales about how long forgotten herds of flutters once defeated great evils by joining forces and literally fluttering their enemies away. It's also been theorized that not utilizing this ability was the mistake that killed Morning Glory's herd as they'd surely have won against the Smooze had they used it. Sadly a flutter stutter hasn't happened in about as long as anyone can remember, and it'd be a difficult thing to orchestrate these days given, well, everything.

I can imagine if this were a real show, part of a major arc would be earning the flutters' trust, convincing them that being persnickety passive-aggressive assholes to each other is bad, and motivating them to unleash this long dormant power on a common enemy. Maybe by the end of it an exceptionally clever and altruistic flutter would be dubbed leader of a new trial community the flutters would tentatively propose, a matriarch of a new age flutter pony herd. She's probably have a name like Rosedust or something. Who knows?

#asks #my little pony #mlp #pony words #me writing mlp like ''the equines must be SAD and BASTARDLY until they learn to share and make friends''

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