paper mario thousand year door

You should play it. It's one of the best games on the Gamecube.

totally agree ;w;

Awesome! Let me know what you think!

Theres remake on switch

I am confuse, why people say vivian is a transgender?

ugh..nvm..found my answer...

In the original Japanese version of the game and some translations, Vivian is depicted as transgender, identifying as female despite other characters asserting that she is male, but in the English version, she is simply portrayed as a female[1].

source : http://www.mariowiki.com/vivian

thanks anyway XD *hugs*

No problem. Glad you got the answer. =)

Adorable avatar, by the way! I like it a lot!

meep! thanks chu #>w<#

but wasn't birdo made by Japanese devs too? i mean she first appeared in super mario bros. 2

The difference is, references to Birdo being transgendered were not removed in the US version.

Yeah but is that the fault of Nintendo or the localizers? She is trans in every iteration except german and English.

Well, yeah. That's why I clarified "Nintendo of America," as opposed to Nintendo as a whole.

Yeah, it has to be said.

I'm glad you agree. ;w;

Oh gosh Vivian, I always had her in my team end game, she's sooo good, and I love her character! =) It always upsets me that they cut out the fact that she was trans in the american version, I want the japanese translation for real. >w>

Also just wanted to say, I think you did a wonderful job on the characters, Ryu! =)

I do too. And thank you. That truly means a lot to me. More than I can say. ;w;

People need to realize that Japan is kinda behind on social issues like this. Writers write based on the culture they're immersed in. It's a big reason why every place on TV seems like LA (I think there's a trope about that actually.)

Regardless, Nintendo is an international corporation and NOA should be more proactive about things like this. Hmm. Now I have to wonder what the general thoughts were about LGBT as a society was when Thousand Year Door was released. You have me thinking now.

To be fair, I don't think Nintendo is anti-LGBT. But what I DO think is that they bend over backwards to appeal to right-wing nutjob parental watchdog groups, when really they should tell them to drop dead.

At the end of the day they care less about activism and more about money, and that’s not a bad thing! They are a company, so it would probably cost more to say fuck them than to just say sure and be able to distribute it.

Look, I get it. You're hot off of the comments section of some Youtube channel that believes all of the LGBT people are taking over the world or something. But keeping a character consistent between regions isn't some kind of activist stance.

This picture is several years old and was just a passing observation I made. And while I think I jumped the gun on a bit of it, my intent was just to make an amusing observation, not cause a riot. I'm really not that concerned with politics in the media or anything like that. If it's there, fine. If not, fine. I don't think politics are inherently good OR bad in media. It's just another method of communication.

That being said, I don't understand why this one little half-decade-old submission seems to be this huge, world-shifting event for you, ENTIRELY because it implies that maybe some people are dicks toward transpeople sometimes.

BELIEVE me, my problems with Nintendo go far, FAR past a couple of old games being a bit inconsistent. Suing people, throwing out cease and desist letters, shutting down their own Splatoon streams because competitors supported Melee... THESE are the actual important things. A couple of trans characters doesn't even make the top 10 of shitty things about Nintendo.

Indeed. Though my Mushroom kingdom/mario game OC is half fire bro Koopa and birdo.

Ah I forgot all about this. Vivian was such a great character too. It would totally make sense that her sisters would bully, err, him into being a girl or something XD

Well, the thing is, I don't think Nintendo acknowledges that Birdo is transgender. The only information that Birdo ever was transgender was in the manual of the first game he/she came out in. I'm pretty sure Nintendo just wants to title Birdo a weird bird girl thing now.

I completely agree though, it would've been great for kids to be introduced to the topic in such a clean and simple way at a young age...

I don't dress up girly or anything but I'm transgender kinda like Vivian I guess.

Her sisters didn't bully her into being a girl. They bully her because she is born male and yet considers herself one of the sisters.

Also, Nintendo of America has made multiple references to Birdo's gender.

Oh wow XD not what I expected. Makes it even sadder =c

You must be fun at parties.

Err... what?

Well, in some kind of consolation, in Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga Birdo is in it, and in the Japanese version is male and expresses his love for another male character. But in the localized version Birdo is made into a full female.

But yeah, it really sucks how they do this. I prefer the "is male but identifies as female" Vivian.

Also you forgot to respond directly to Raeloraz's comment just above.

Fixed, thanks.

No problem.
But yeah, I love knowing that Vivian is a male, makes me like him more. >w>

She's transgender, not male.

I know, but you get what I am saying. =P
Biologically male.

Why can't Birdo get their own game sometime? No mention of gender at all, just Birdo being heroic and stuff. One of the power ups could turn them into the green fireball spitting version, it's great.

That WOULD be kind of interesting!

I agree with Ryusuta, because giving Birdo her own video game would allow for a character development.

But- But- But-
I have ALWAYS placed Vivian as my favorite!
She still has the top spot tied up between her and Goombella for ALL of my Paper Mario partners!

Same. <3

I don't think its that much of a double standard since I believe they have Birdo considered as a woman outside of Japan after Super Mario Bros 2.

Birdo was never trans, the American manual for SMB2 claimed she's a crossdresser, which is not the same thing, and she hasn't been one of the enemies in over 25 years. Vivian, meanwhile, was only suggested to be trans, with the Japanese version actually having some classic insensitivity on Goombella's part with her "correcting" herself to call Vivian a guy {because Japan isn't a progressive country and until recently preferred to think of trans women as delusional men playing pretend}, and in some countries she was outright stated to be, while in America they were just worried about conservative watchdog parents bitching them out and making slam pieces over it.

The US text did absolutely describe Birdo as transgendered, just in a kinda messed-up way. The exact quote:

"He thinks he is a girl and he spits eggs from his mouth. He'd rather be called 'birdetta.'[sic]"

It was this single paragraph that caused all of these annoying issues for so bloody long.

See also: Poison from Street Fighter/Final Fight. In ALL of those cases, the companies involved take the bullshit route of trying to have it both ways, splitting the canon by region. It's annoying and frustrating to say the least.

Well with Poison it was that they changed her mid-development because they figured someone might complain about Cody beating on women, and unprogressive 1980s Japan being what it was, they figured having Cody beat up a trans woman is okay because "they're actually men". Then the company flip-flopped on their position about what she is over and over until Ono finally said "she's whatever you want" despite clearly intending her to be trans worldwide, all while her own creator continues considering her a cis woman in Japan and trans everywhere else.

I don't think nintendo of America had any malevolent intentions by hiding Vivian transgenderism in the english translation of thousand years doors. There was a lot of controversies the first time around with birdo, at a point they even tried to pass birdo as a female too. Nintendo of America is a huge company that doesn't like to take risks, that's all.
By the way Birdo is still consider a female in most english translations, EXEPT in the english manual of Super mario bros 2 where it's stated that "He thinks he's a girl and shoots eggs from his mouth."
But if you look for every others descriptions in game it's either a female (mario RPGs) or his sex is "undetermined" (Super smash bros serie, mario party serie ,mario kart serie)
So no nintendo of america isn't TARGETING the transgender community by presenting them in a bad light, as a joke or an enemy. This is just paranoia.

But I definitely agree that it's a shame that Vivian isn't presented as a transgender in Thousand year door, cause it really adds up to her character.
In english her sisters are picking on her calling her "ugly" instead of "a boy". Wich never really sounded right.

I definitely don't think it's a targeted/malicious thing; I just genuinely think Nintendo don't really consider transgendered people as "a thing." I feel like to that culture is more of an abstract concept that isn't worth serious thought.

Of course, this issue has become a LOT more heated in the years since I first made it, so I think it's a challenging subject to even discuss these days with any sort of nuance. The current zeitgeist seems to be that trannies are crazy, subhuman people that are single-handedly plotting the destruction of America and should be sectioned. It's not been a particularly enjoyable couple of years and it has me pessimistic about discourse between people in general in the future.

I definitely appreciate your comment on this! I hope you enjoyed this picture and will enjoy my future work just as much!

Oh yeah I didn't see you made this so long ago.
But here, this is the paranoia I was refering to.
Nobody is thinking that trannies are crazy or "subhuman", at least nobody I know is thinking like that.
And even I, who isn't supportive at all of the current gender theory, I Still have respect for trans people.

For me the bottom line is, Nintendo is just trying to avoid controversies because they don't want to have any political view oozing out of their games. I can understand that.
And seeing how traditional media is constantly trying to blame video games for every problem in america (or europe) I can understand wyh nintendo of america isn't taking any risks.

Look at the chat/comments of a GDQ run featuring a transperson and tell me that no one's thinking that again. Or any news report about transpeople. I want to be clear that I'm not saying they should be silenced. I'm just saying that a lot of people get a LOT of support for anti-trans comments. It's very popular to think ill of transpeople.

See also: Jordan Peterson.

But I know well Jordan peterson I have seen a lot of his video and I agree with him on several levels.
First off I don't like the separation of sex and gender, I just think it's paradoxal of all things. And I don't follow the theory of John Money, cause I think he is responsible for the death of David reimer and his brother.

I think that the idea of prefered pronouns is a form of "manipulation" too, it's a way to scoot the political view of the person in front of view and I think it's not how opinions should be discuss.

More over Peterson doesn't hate trans...He just don't call them by their prefered pronouns because as a psychologist he doesn't think that he is helping them. I'm not saying that he is right, it's just a mental health professional and i respect his method, I mean he didn't caused the death of twins because he make them dry hump when they were infant (Jon money did that).
Peterson didn't even care that much about this matter until a LAW passed that FORCE teachers to use students prefered pronouns.

And then for the reports on trans aggression, well I live in a country where the problem isn't the same, but not so long ago, a news flash was depicting a trans woman(male to female) getting harass violently while in a manifestation.
The news station interviewed the victim and depicted her in a favorable light (it was a manifestation in paris against Bouteflika if you want to look it up)..So no i don't agree with you on this one.

for the comments on GDQ....who cares? I mean if the guy is fat the comment section will be full of fat jokes, if it's a girl gamer the comment will be full of misogynist jokes, if the guy's black the comment section will be full of racists jokes...and if the guy is a trans well here comes the transphobic comments.

People are stupid/violent no matter what you are there is no way to escape it. It's one of the reason why that whole ordeal upsets me a little bit too, From my experience in this world you have to grow a really tough skin so that you don't get offended and crush by others.

Then it's only my opinion, I'm not trans so I don't know how it is when you are in this situation.

When it comes to GDQ comments, it's really not like that, though. I've yet to see black, girl, or fat gamers receive anywhere NEAR the same level of verbal thrashing for being any of those things. And yes, I'm aware you can just ignore them. That wasn't the point, the point was that you were saying it wasn't happening and that's different. I would 100% be willing to do a side-by-side comparison of the comments with any fat, girl, or black runner you'd like to put up. BY FAR, trans runners are the most verbally abused for what they are. It's not even a contest. Again, I'm not saying this speech needs to be regulated. What I'm saying is that I'm not going to pretend it isn't happening.

When it comes to Peterson, I think it's splitting hairs to say "Oh, he doesn't HATE transpeople, he just thinks everything about them is wrong and bad." That's like saying a Klan member doesn't "hate" black people; they'd just prefer them to be somewhere else. I don't buy it. At best, I would say that he is willfully ignorant and deliberately misleading people on factual information (such as supposed "pro-trans" laws that he CONSTANTLY LIES ABOUT and have NOTHING to do with what he claims them to be, such as the one you mentioned). But that is about as charitable as I am willing to be toward him.

I would agree that preferred pronouns are a courtesy rather than a right, but I strongly disagree that having them is a form of manipulation, anymore than getting a legal name change (through marriage or any other non-trans reason) and asking someone to call you by that name instead. They don't HAVE to do it (it's a courtesy), but I'd consider someone a gigantic asshole (or at best, misguided) if they went out of their way not to do so.

I'm not pretending abuse is not happening...As I tell you, it's happening against everybody. Maybe trans get more shit on GDQ, i wouldn't know i didn't watched much, maybe it's that particular channel. Cause if you watch youtube channel actually run by trans or crossdressers (like contrapoint) there is no transphobic comments, I really think it depends of the community watching the video.

Peterson never said that transpeople where "bad" you did. Peterson thinks they are delusionals. How is this hating?
thinking that someone is doing something wrong doesn't mean that you hate him.
I don't smoke I think it 's a harmful habit but I don't hate smokers....

Maybe I am projecting my own vision on Peterson cause his speech resonate with mine, and maybe our intentions are drastically different I can't tell, I don't know personally the guy.

I'm fully aware that the guy can be a scoundrel, I mean controversy is his way to make money. He got into thet Bill C 16 shit to drag the attention on him.
And it worked. The guy pushed his political agenda, showed the bad side of the young leftist that easily got overwhelmed by their emotions (that's why having thicker skin is important) and he sold books and polished his name in the same time....
But who isn't a crook when it comes to money these days?

And as long as misgendering someone can offend someone at the point of upsetting them deeply, it's psychological manipulation. Cause you HAVE use te correct pronoun ,according to a lot of leftist it's far from being just a courtesy. I mean I'm really far from all this shit cause in france pronouns don't work the same way. But I saw the Gamestop trans incident where the clerk at the hsop is just confused and helpless(I'm not talking about Chris chan there i'm talking about the white trans rapper that doesn't look remotely like a woman) I saw the Ben Shapiro interview where he get theatened by a transwoman cause he willingly misgendered her (don't get me wrong shapiro is a dick but still he got actually threatened for misgendering someone and people on the set still side with the trans if this isn't manipulation I don't know what is).

I didn't really wanted to go out on a rant, and I don't expect to aggressively change your mind, I'm not steven crowder lol and I really believe that the truth is somewhere in between our two opposite visions.

I'm not saying other people aren't verbally abused, either. I was saying the amount is somewhat disproportionate.

Again, I think that it's splitting hairs to say that he thinks transpeople are delusional and shouldn't be treated the way they wish to be treated... but doesn't hate them. But I agree that yes, greed is likely his motivation rather than genuine outrage. He's capitalizing on a market that wants to believe the things he says.

I think if people try hard enough, they can get offended by just about anything. So no worries on that. For what it's worth, you've not offended me personally. I am, in fact, happy to talk about this at length, because I feel you're coming into this conversation in good faith. As long as someone is in a conversation and wants to have a real talk, then I respect the hell out of them. =)

I also definitely know what you mean about not wanting to be on a rant. This was one of the few pieces I've ever done that really touched on real-life issues of this kind, and it was quite awhile ago.

That said, I don't think our viewpoints are as opposite as you might think they are. Sure, I think Jordan Peterson is a manipulative asshole that can piss up a rope for all I care, but that doesn't mean I consider everyone who says something bad about transpeople to be at that same level. Most of it is honest misunderstanding; often stemming from a sort of "transpeople are taking over the world and it's against the law to be mean to them!" hysteria that seems to be going around. To me, the best I can do is try to correct that misinformation and be as positive as an example as I can be. I won't get people on my side by getting offended over innocent misunderstandings.

I’ve read this entire conversation and now I want to start watching Jordan Peterson. Thanks for the recommendation sobecks.

Good for you. I'm sure he'll tell you what you want to hear.

By the way, if you want to learn more about the ridiculous trans-hysteria that resulted from the C-16 bill, check out this video Logicked did. He was addressing Armoured Skeptic in it, but since Skeptic was parroting a ton of Peterson's lies about it, it applies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd95T66YjSQ

tl;dw: In a nutshell, NO, C-16 won't force people to use certain pronouns. All it says is that you can't legally discriminate against them based on being trans. It means you can't stop them from getting a house or a job simply because they don't like what is in their pants. It does NOT say you have to called the person "ze" and cater to their every whim.

This aged, but they confirmed on switch release of mario paper ttyd https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1.....66093791543515

Oh, I'm aware. I'm considering doing a follow-up soon. =)

Also, FUCK Libs of TikTok with a rusty spoon.

🥳