Hooded Pitohui's Shroom Thread

Fake News

Shop Scout

Issue 131: Northwinds Mart
Issue 132: Psycho Kamek
Issue 133: Hino Mart
Issue 134: Tangerino Grill
Issue 135: Luigi's Balloon World
Issue 136: Marrymore Wedding Chapel
Issue 137: Golden Pyramid
Issue 138: Chet Rippo
Issue 139: Gadd Science, Incorporated
Issue 140: Lakitu Info Center
Issue 141: Broque Monsieur

Selling Out

Issue 138: Selling Out VIII: Twilit Abode

News Flush

Issue 168: Local Warlord Corrupts City Institutions Through Bribery
Issue 170: Meat Shortage After Wolves Slaughter Farmer Revin's Flock
Issue 179: Mysterious Warrior from the East Conquers all Opponents in Depon


Mushroom Tribune/The Koopa Times (Co-writer)

Issue 168: Title Match Mired in Controversy
Issue 169: Shroobs are Identified as an Invasive Species: Experts Disagree on Solution
Issue 170: Sports World Shocked as Glitz Pit Champion Signs with Mushroom Kingdom Smackdown
Issue 171: Mario Claims to Paint Masterpieces; Visiting Artist Claims Otherwise
Issue 172: Medical World Shocked After Dr. Goomba Stack Revealed to be three Goombas in a Labcoat
Issue 174: Toll Booths on Toad's Turnpike Enrage Drivers
Issue 175: Mushroom Kingdom Hero Accused of Plagiarism
Issue 177: Kremling Kruiser Claims Victory in Toad Town Chase
Issue 178: Gamblers Rejoice Following Narrow Referendum Victory
Issue 179: Striking Whomps Delay Planned Invasion
Issue 180: Calls For Banning of Babies in Mario Kart Grow After Triforce Cup Incident

Going Wild

Issue 172: Piranha Plant (Isle Delfino)
Issue 178: Boss Bass

Fun Stuff

Director's Notes
Issue 161
Issue 170
Issue 173

Palette Swap

Mario's Boombox

Issue 124: Just 3 Days by Mandopony
Issue 125: Pokémon University by Random Encounters
Issue 127: Selections for Halloween
Issue 129: A Musical Retrospective on the Wii U
Issue 131: Dawn of the Third Day by Nathan Sharp
Issue 133: Waltz of the Forest
Issue 135: My Year
Issue 137: Ashley's Song
Issue 139: Selections for Halloween II: Survival Horror (feat. The Living Tombstone and DAGames)
Issue 141: Ultimate Super Smash Bros. Rap
Issue 143: Pokémon Love Song
Issue:143 TeraCMusic
Issue 147: Adrisaurus
Issue 149: Super Mario Hyadain
Issue 153: DK Rap covers
Issue 155: FamilyJules
Issue 160: Assorted Dr. Mario-related songs
Issue 165: Juno Songs
Issue 171: Deathly Loneliness Attacks

Shmaluigi, Private Investigator
Termination Notice: Part 1 (Guest Writer)
Termination Notice: Part 2 (Guest Writer)

Pipe Plaza

The 'Shroom Recap (Co-writer, wrote the user feature)
Issue 137: Edofenrir
Issue 140: Superchao
Issue 142: The Pyro Guy
Issue 144: Palki47
Issue 152: Stooben Rooben
Issue 156: MrConcreteDonkey

Forum Update
Issue 170
Issue 171
Issue 172
Issue 177
Issue 178
Issue 179
Issue 180

Poll Committee Discussion
Issue 141
Issue 144
Issue 166 (Co-Writer)
Issue 180

A Forum History Module
Issue 168

Other
Interviewee in Issue 150's Interview

Critic Corner

Rising Sun Reviews
Issue 145: Sword Art Online Alternative Gun Gale Online
Issue 151: Spice and Wolf


Strategy Wing

Pitohui's Pokémon Academy
Issue 180: Dragalge

Director's Note
Issue 139
Issue 140
Issue 141
Issue 142
Issue 143
Issue 144
Issue 145
Issue 146
Issue 147
Issue 148
Issue 149
Issue 150
Issue 151
Issue 152
Issue 153
Issue 154
Issue 155
Issue 156
Issue 157
Issue 158
Issue 159
Issue 160
Issue 161
Issue 160
Issue 161
Issue 162
Issue 163
Issue 164
Issue 165
Issue 166
Issue 167
Issue 168
Issue 169
Issue 170
Issue 171
Issue 172
Issue 173
Issue 175
Issue 176
Issue 177
Issue 178
Issue 179

Other

Awards Reflections
Issue 138: 2018 Awards Reflections

Directorial Address
Issue 154
Issue 166

Director's Notes
Issue 155
Issue 155
Issue 155
Issue 178

A bit late, but I'm here for the KG, so why not update this now.
https://www.mariowiki.com/The_%27Shroom:Issue_127/Palette_Swap#Mario.27s_Boombox - October 2017

So, I wanted to also take a moment to talk a bit about where this section is going. I'm very pleased to have the opportunity to bring this section back, and I certainly would like to emulate the high-quality work which Walkazo put into making this wonderful section in the first place.

Looking back on my three sections so far, I've realized that, while I like them, I don't quite feel that they're hitting my standards of quality. The two biggest issues I see are wordiness and inexperience with wiki coding (these things ought to have at least one picture, just to make it look nice). So, into the next year, you'll see me working to address those two issues. The wall of text approach, in particular, is something I'm planning on changing. I should be able to introduce a song, keep some brief analysis, and wrap it up in far fewer words than I currently do. It's not that the details are bad; I just know I could be more concise.

Anyway, thank you all for reading what I've done so far. It's a constant work-in-progress but I've loved having this opportunity. December will have a very similar feel to the previous articles (because I'm working on a backlog and won't have time to redo it), but you all will see improvements coming in 2018. I'll find my voice as a Shroom Writer, and hopefully deliver a more enjoyable section to you wonderful readers.

I'm still updating this thread; it's not completely dead.

Actually, this month I'm excited to announce that I've taken on some expanded roles. I'm now writing Shop Scout, in character as that famous merchant we all love to hate - Flavio. Since this doesn't require as much research and work as Mario's Boombox, I've made this a monthly section. I'm sure I have room to improve, so please let me know if you have any comments or criticism.

Second, though it isn't an actual section, I want to point out that I'm helping out Raregold in creating images for his new section - Selling Out. Go check it out under Fake News; it's worth a read.

Finally, I want to offer a little reflection on Mario's Boombox. This month, I aimed for the conciseness I promised you earlier. I also now have images in both of my sections, and, while I'm still learning a bit of coding for them, you can expect them to be part of my sections in the future. Actually, I hit many of my goals with this month's section, but there was still a link I messed up on. Expect that to get better in the future.

Finally, I do want to note that I have some new songs and artists prepared for Mario's Boombox in the coming months. I know I've featured a song by this month's artist before, but I couldn't help go for the sappy romantic song for Valentine's day. That said, it can be hard work finding videogame inspired songs, so there may be the occasional repeat of an artist, of course with a different song. That's no admission of defeat, though; I love digging up new songs for the section and plan to do so for the foreseeable future.

As always, the OP has links to everything (and one ugly banner and one decent banner), so check out what I have to offer, and please give me suggestions, comments, criticism, and questions. Have a wonderful day!

Well, here we are. As usual, I wanted to give you all some updates on my thoughts for my sections. That said, I'm actually going to begin with a bit of personal reflection, so skip down to the last section of this post if you just want the juicy details on my Shop Scout and Mario's Boombox. Or, if you have a suggestion for either section, just skip down and post it. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

So, I already mentioned elsewhere how I drew inspiration from Edo for March 2018 Shop Scout elsewhere, so, since I'm on that train of thought, I wanted to do some personal reflection (but trust me, it's relevant to me as a Shroom Writer, so I'm attaching it to this post). I started visiting the Wiki in around 2007-2008, and for the first few years, I really just browsed the Wiki. That said, I eventually started becoming interested enough in the community to start checking out The 'Shroom and such. So, in late 2009 and early 2010, I started reading the paper, but I still wasn't super interested in the community. I was young, and it just seemed like good entertainment. In 2010, though, there was a section that really changed that. Edo's Fake Game articles on World of Mushroom way back in May of 2010 and June of 2010 got me hooked on the community. I was so interested in who these people were that Edo drew upon as characters, who Edo himself was, and what kind of community could produce stories like that. From there on, I became pretty invested in this community, becoming a near-constant lurking who was always trying to keep up to date with what's going on and who's who (though, as Perch knows from a few conversations with me, my memory has a few big holes in it and I missed quite a few things). I've seen plenty of people, some better-behaved then others, and have really come to respect and (in some cases) look up to many people here. Especially Edo and Walkazo, who were just absolutely my idols for years. I finally worked up the courage to finally join this place about two years ago, but lurker habits die hard. Just this time last year, I was still too nervous to really contribute to anything; never did I think last April that I would have joined a Killing Game and start writing for The 'Shroom. Yet, here I am, and I'm so happy to finally be giving something back to this community who gave me so much over all these years. I'm following in the footsteps of so many great people, and I'm so happy to be doing so.

Whew, almost done with this personal reflection stuff. Before I finish, though, I want to thank a few people. First, I want to thank Raregold, who has always been a great friend and a source of confidence who pushes me to finally jump into activities. Second, I want to thank Meta Knight, who was always willing to answer my questions over these past few years. LB actually did a lot of small things that helped me feel welcome here over the past year, so a thank you to him as well. Of course, I could go on and on with people to thank, but I'll wrap up by just thanking everyone who has made positive contributions to this community over the years!

Alright, so on to the actual sections. As I noted elsewhere, I'm really glad to see the more narrative-drive Shop Scout was well-received. I do think it makes the section more entertaining, so I'll try to incorporate more of that into future Shop Scout sections.

I'd say there's been some pretty good improvement with Boombox and Shop Scout over these past few months. On technical issues, I'd say they're pretty well set. No messed-up coding this month, so that's good. I've gotten to the point where they have regular images, too. I think I've found a nice way to make Boombox more concise than when I started, so hopefully that's made it a bit easier of a read.

With technical issues out of the way, my focus for the next few months is improving the writing. I want to get to the point where the sections feel like they have a consistent voice. Just looking over their history, I've realized that the tone and structure has jumped and shifted a lot, and I don't want that. I want readers to have a generally good idea of what to expect from the sections, so I'm going to be thinking about how to standardize the structure and tone of the sections (with allowances to fit their individuals topic, of course). I want Boombox to be semi-formal, because, on one hand, I want to make sure I do a good job of clearly showing off the song's strength through a somewhat professional discussion, but I also want to capture the fact that I'm sharing these songs because I just think they're pretty fun. With Shop Scout, I'm going to try to work on weaving more entertaining narratives into the section, and also be sure that I'm also writing in character. I mean, I've been working off of four-year old memories from my last TTYD playthrough, so perhaps its time that I go back and double-check that I'm accurately capturing the character of Flavio.

To summarize, I'm going to work on creating a more consistent tone and structure for Shop Scout and Mario's Boombox in the future. As always, I look forward to your feedback and suggestions. Do you all have any songs about our Plumber in Green for June? I've got a few ideas up my sleeve, but, if you have a Luigi-centric song, please be sure to share it with me!

Until next time, hopefully I'm providing you with some quality content!

I normally only update this thread when Boombox comes out, but, I have thoughts to put down this month, so, let's break tradition.

The great thing about writing on a backlog is that, by the time the article comes out, you've already identified a number of problems with your writing that you want to improve. With Shop Scout this month, I want to assure you that this is not going to be the standard length going forward; it ended up being longer than I wanted it to this month.

In all honesty, I had aimed to set up a bit of a twist, if you will. (Oh, don't read further if you haven't read my section this month yet.) I wanted to focus on the steak, but then have the real juice of the story be the antics in the kitchen. I don't feel like there was enough payoff to the setup and I feel like it takes an unreasonably long time to get there considering what little payoff there is. I don't know exactly what went wrong, but that's the guidelines as to how I feel. I should have made the story have a greater payoff and it should have come faster than it did. I'm also not fond of the introductory paragraph. It feels, ah, too wordy and unnecessary. I didn't really intend to set up a story arc as much as to provide an in-story reason for visiting the Tangerino Grill and, down the line, Marrymore Wedding Chapel. I probably could have done so in fewer, less repetitive words. I mean, I basically repeat myself later in the article. Ah well, there's always room for improvement next time. Still, I hope you enjoy this month's Shop Scout.

It's probably not good form to laugh at your own jokes, but for some reason I really enjoy this line from this month's article:

Luigi will-a-shine next month in Luigi's Boombox and Shop Scout. In other words, I'll be working on revising my two sections for the June issue. I'm feeling pretty good about Mario's Boombox for next month; I think I've found a better way to pay tribute to artists than I have in the past by making sure readers get a better sampling of their musical works and a clearer description of what makers their music unique. Hopefully you all enjoy.

Oh, and a big thanks to Perch, who let me resubmit Shop Scout when I realized I didn't like the image used in the version I wrote initially.

Hey, it’s been a bit since I’ve updated this thread, hasn’t it? Well, to be honest, I don’t have much to say in regards to Shop Scout or Mario’s Boombox, other than the fact that I’m still always open to suggestions, comments, and criticisms.

Oh, and Raregold and I are working on something new, so be looking forward to that potentially in the near future. I've also been working slowly to put together a backlog of articles for Pocket Handbook in Strategy Wing, albeit, I haven't gotten very far, so it might be awhile. I'd very much like to contribute something to that team, but I need to make sure I can actually fit the work into my schedule before I commit, so, we shall see.

Of course, there’s one other thing of mine in The ‘Shroom this month, an art contest entry. It’s technically an Awards activity, but it’s also in The ‘Shroom, so I figure I’ll talk about it a bit here. You can find the entry here or here. As always, I’d appreciate any feedback I receive on it, but there’s also a few things that I thought had the potential to come up that I wanted to clear out right away:

Why go with the Polandball theme?
Well, to put it bluntly, I wanted to draw something but I can’t draw. Now, admittedly, I haven’t practiced or put in the hours upon hours of dedicated work required to learn to do so. That said, Polandball is an amateur medium. I mean, it’s hand-drawn MS Paint comics, and while some comic artists do produce really beautiful, hiqh-quality art, it’s also generally considered fine to have fairly poor art.
Didn’t you break the Polandball rules by using the circle and line tools?
Yes, as a matter of fact, I probably broke a few rules of drawing Polandball. Nevertheless, I attempted to work as faithfully as I could to both Polandball (Kazakhstan is a rectangle, for example) and The Thousand Year Door (the battle Bingo icons, for example). My hope is that keen fans of both can recognize little details to make them smile, as well as some of the subtler jokes (looking at you, Bolivia). Even though I used some tools to help me draw straight lines and circles, everything in the comic is still hand-drawn (digitally, albeit). In other words, everything in the comic didn't exist until I drew it for the comic. That said, I worked by creating everything asset individually, then putting them together in comic form, then adding a few extra details as needed. If you, for whatever inconceivable reason, would like to use any of the assets I created for the comic, send me a message and I'll be more than happy to give it to you to use.
Why didn’t you draw any of the other chapters from TTYD?
You know, I did have ideas prepared for the other chapters, but time constraints and a few other issues meant that I decided it best to settle for what you see. If you really want to know about some of the scrapped ideas, you can ask and I’d be more than happy to tell you about them. There’s also some content that changed, too. I originally had Malaysia and Singapore as General White and Goldbob, but changed them to better fit with Mayor Finland, for example.
Goldbob never actually goes to the Fahr Outpost.
True, but I wanted him there, so I bent things a bit.
Bolivia’s flag is wrong!
Yes and no, depending on what you mean. I didn’t use the State flag of Bolivia, but I did use its Civil Flag. Also, speaking of Bolivia, please go read about the Bolivian Navy. You won’t be disappointed.
Where is Ireland in that scene where the Maastricht countries are talking?
I must admit… I somehow forgot to put a quip from Ireland in. Northern Ireland is there as a part of the UK, but the Republic of Ireland is absent. I don’t know how I overlooked it when I put that panel together, and I apologize profusely.
You’ve never heard a Scottish person speak in your life, have you?
Yeah, my Scottish accent in the panel where Scotland speaks is pretty bad…
Your quality control must be horrible, because you didn’t capitalize the word “days” in “Three [D]ays with Taipei.”
I’m so sorry LTQ, I have failed you. Yeah, again, I let that one slip through the cracks. I do feel bad about it, and I offer my apologies.

I've got to say, putting together this piece was extremely fun. It's not very much, especially compared to the other amazing entries in the contest (go look at them!), but I enjoyed the process and am quite proud of the product. My only regret, honestly, might be not making the "Title Screen" fancier and not drawing the ship in Chapter Five as the S.S. Flavion.

Anyhow, that’s it for now. I can expand on more as it comes up. Thank you to those of you reading my sections and viewing my other work! I hope you look forward to my Awards Presentations on the 17th of August. I’ve got two of my own I’m working on, but I’m also collaborating with my partner Raregold and the wonderful Smash artist and newly minted 3D modeler Koops on two others. It’s a pleasure to contribute something, so I hope it turns out well.

Oh, and also, my favorite reaction:

Nabber said:

Pitohui im suing you for making me read the phrase "want to sniff my louisiana"

Click to expand...

What can I say? It's hot, moist, and putrid...