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camo will not hide you inside a gym
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WELL THAT SURE WENT A PLACE
Murder TownMushroom KingdomNah don’t worry Joyce. You’re not killing the Goombas. Behind the smoke puffs they leave behind, they just quickly bounce into the sky so fast and so far you can’t see them.
And just like Team Rocket, they come crashing down to live another day.
It’s a game. A game is not reality.
Except when it is.
Wait, was the “murdering and murdering and murdering” talking about Mushroom Kingdom or the Bible? Because it can fit with both, honestly.
That’s what the narration wants you to think is happening. In reality, just like there were dozens of Nurse Joys and Officer Jennys, there were hundreds of clones of Jesse, James, and Meowth, and they are memories. They really would die when they blasted off, and then they’d be replaced by the next set of clones.
Or at least, that’s how it goes in my shitty grimdark AU, anyway.
That kinda reminds me of the effects of Howard Taylor’s Wormgates, an ‘original’ always ended up where expected on the other side, but another ‘original’ would show up elsewhere, to be a slave or food.
They showed up elsewhere to be interrogated and then killed. I don’t think the gatekeepers ever ate them.
Wow, that was supposed to say “they share memories,” not “they are memories.” My mental spell check missed that last night.
I mean, in context, they’re memories now.
According to the original Super Mario Bros. manual:
– Goombas are traitors and they die when you stomp them
– You also kill Bowser and Bullet Bill, but Koopa Troopas just “stop moving for a while”
– The “quiet, peace-loving Mushroom People were turned into mere stones, bricks, and even field horse-hair plants” by Bowser’s black magic. Yes, the bricks you destroy and question mark blocks you punch as Mario. You monster.
– Mario is “maybe” the hero of the story
– The fireballs that leap out of the lava inside castles are sentient beings called “Podoboo”
That makes everything all better.
Nerf NOW!! has a nice strip explaining how lore is actually handled in games.
https://www.nerfnow.com/comic/2442
Mentioned this lower down, but the manual actually also says that if you find toads turned into bricks, they will reward you by giving you an item, and since none of the blocks you get items from can be destroyed, that means no toads are killed, and the breakable bricks are just normal bricks.
TBF, most video games go to the same place.
…. er, wait, no, most of them DON’T go to Mushroom Kingdom.
I hear the road to the Mushroom Kingdom is paved with mushrooms.
I’m pretty sure it’s a rainbow road.
Joyce would really like Undertale.
It’s a likeable game.
Assuming she can get past her likely instinctual reaction to the religious imagery in it (either finding it blasphemous or having an identity crisis or both) yeah I think she would
I mean, they could subject her to The Binding of Isaak…
I don’t think she’s quite ready for THAT yet.
The Binding of Isaac is definitely further down on the path of possible stepping stones.
Besides reviving the rogue-like genre, Isaac’s niche is basically that it’s one of the most blasphemous games ever made.
Does Joyce care about blasphemy anymore?
She’s like three seconds off of the God wagon. The cognitive dissonance is still incredibly strong, so blasphemy is going to make her feel the feelings. So yes, she probably cares, and it really bothers her that she cares.
Someone should introduce her to Doom. You murder, but they’re all demons, so it’s okay!
Not for the demons.
Those demons had demon families, you monster.
Who was the real demon?
I blame all the demonizing of demons.
“No, John. You are the demons.”
Also, Diablo!
My kid was playing “Wolfenstein,” had no problems gunning down Nazis, but didn’t like having to kill the dogs!
You doin’ alright there Joyce?
I think the answer became definitively “No” at some point between glassing a rapist in the face, and being kidnapped by her best friend’s father.
I don’t think anyone is doing alright.
Danny is getting to 0.75th base, that’s pretty alright.
To be fair, it’s less Dan getting to 0.75 base than Sal placing him at 3/4th base.
It’s more like Sal’s going to bases and taking Dan along for the ride.
The bike ride.
She dragged him to the base, returned to the previous one, then made her way back again.
Danny got a walk, then Sal RBI’d him in.
The straights are not okay, and the gays aren’t doing much better. The bi’s are a coinflip.
Okay but piranha plants would have been a scary thing to be told were real when you were two?
More or less scary than Hell?
They haunt toilets. You tell me.
Hell is basically just World 8 of Mario 3. Once you figure out the Hammer Brother hand traps, and that you can swim underneath the boats, it’s all gravy.
Let’s go back to piranha plants haunting toilets.
Somehow my Sunday school class never mentioned that.
That’s because you went to the wrong church, the one that didn’t tell of our true savior—the one who will find us no matter which castle we’re in, the one who died three times (and possibly more depending on how many 1ups you collect) for our sins, the one who shows us that eternal life can be purchased if we collect enough coins.
All praise Prosperity Mario!
Fuck piranha plants, I’d be afraid the frigging sun is going to come charging out of the sky to murderize me!
That’s just called Arizona.
True fact. Visited Arizona once. Nearly died by sun.
I thought only mad dogs and Englishmen visited Arizona.
Don’t go out and touch plants, some of them have teeth. And also don’t think staying away from them will keep you safe. Some of them breathe fire. And don’t think fireproofing will help you because some of them spit poison and don’t think you can just keep them away because some of them can stretch. And I hear tale of one in Super Smash Bros that can fucking walk. Always be afraid. Piranha plants can and will kill you and there’s literally nothing you can do.
As long as plants aren’t code for genitalia, it’s all good.
And then Joyce goes on a real life murder spree.
“Victims were found with their genitalia severed and nailed to wooden boards that had been painted white. Police are calling the killer…”
But they never answer.
Neither their phone, nor the ding-dong of their doorbell.
Why, oh why must we say “genitalia?” What’s wrong with plain-English “genitals?”
It’s not Latin enough. If you can’t say it in a dead language, it’s not scientific.
Gotcha.
Sic est ita!
I always figured it was sort of genitals (singular, as in a given person’s ‘set’, mix and match to your pleasure) and Genitalia (plural).
Hey now. genitalia is plain english. If you start throwing out all the adopted, outsourced or other loan words, we’re not going to be able to talk.
Sprece for þin selfe.
It isn’t plain English. It’s affected English. Kill it to death.
There’s no such thing as Plain English.
True. It is well known that what they speak on the plains is not really English.
There is plain English, and I’ve made good money revising overblown business writing for plainness.
By “plain” I mean clear, not bland.
Joyce develops video game opinions.
y’know, just like god
kill one and you are a murderer. kill millions and you are a conqueror. kill all, and you are god.
Kill all + one and you may have taken things a wee bit too far.
Wouldn’t the +1 already be included in the all?
I think that implies also offing yourself, after everyone else and usually yourself is excluded from your own murderous rampages, so it wouldn’t usually be included in the ‘all’.
The hardest part about nailing yourself to a cross is getting that last nail in.
… too much?
I dunno, just rig the cross to fall over and hammer the nails in that way, if you feel that it needs to be standing upright after everybody (and you) are dead then maybe have on a spring so it bounces back and forth.
Yes (this one’s SFW but most of them aren’t).
“Typhoid and swans, it all comes from the same place.“
Bowser did nothing wrong.
Finally some Truth. Preach it!
User picture checks out.
Someone get Joyce a hug and maybe some therapy
Ooh, deep cut It’s Walky callback.
Links or it didn’t happen.
They’re not playing Zelda.
Dang, searching the It’s Walky archives for Mario, Nintendo, game, or score doesn’t get me the comic where Joyce freaks out about her high score representing people she killed, so the only way is to go through every comic with Joyce in it.
I mean, a little murderous rampage never killed anyone, right?
Right…?
Maybe not the people experiencing the murderous rampage, but by definition someone must have died at some point…
Once upon a time my Dad ordered Italian Feast at Shoney’s “without mushrooms” and my brother then ordered Italian Feast and said “gimme his mushrooms!” And yes, my Dad’s was how he ordered it and my brother’s was a regular Italian Feast plus a little dish of extra sauted mushrooms.
Just sharing it because it’s a good story and I seldom have a good excuse for that.
that is a good story, thanks for sharing it.
(also I like mushrooms.)
But it would be even better if accompanied with shared mushrooms.
Still, it’s drenched in adorable, so…
Where’s your messiah now?
He’s in another castle.
Oh, I felt that. That hurt.
Not as much as your messiah felt dem nails. Ha. I keed, I keed. He probably never existed in the first place.
I mean, I was talking about “the messiah” being a moving target throughout the rabbinical period and culminating in the acknowledged by Jews across the world, historical messiah being arrested by the Ottomans and converting to Islam in jail, but I guess, sure, you can make this about that one Josh guy two thousand years ago.
Yeah, there’s been and are plenty of messiahs, it wasn’t the strongest attempt at humour.
I wasn’t feeling the mario humour as much, though hunting princesses through castles was probably damn near traumatic to who knows how many kids.
I mean, Sabbatai Zevi is one, but I’m sure there are countless other historically verifiable claimants throughout the centuries, including but not limited to Dan Bern. (Didn’t some people even think Vespasian was the messiah?)
I still have more faith in alternate realities where stuff from books, games, and shows actually happened. Do I think it is likely? Not really. Do I believe it more than the stuff in the bible? Hell yes.
I think it would be cool if this really was the Fourth or Fifth Age of Middle Earth.
You can’t prove it isn’t.
Tho the Lovecraftian Mythos has more explanatory power.
A lot of fictional worlds from sci-fi and fantasy books, games, and shows are much more consistent and make way more sense than the stuff in the Bible.
If there are alternate realities out there with magic in them, I would be happy their laws of physics allow magic to happen.
You can’t do magic?
I choose to believe Star Trek could happen someday. Definitely not in our lifetime, but someday… I want an Intrepid-class, dangit! (But in the Alpha quadrant, please. I don’t wanna deal with all the time travel and Kazon.)
I can suspend my knowledge of science and accept warp drives but believing that anyone would ever put a loose cannon like Kirk in charge of a Starship is a bridge too far.
“Dammit Kirk! You’re a loose cannon! Turn in your phaser and commbadge and get out of my office!”
With some allowance for goofy writing, Kirk was fully qualified and did a pretty good job. Often confused with Zapp Brannigan though http://strangehorizons.com/non-fiction/columns/freshly-rememberd-kirk-drift/
You can, Liz! You just have to be born a hamster.
What good would being born a hamster do?
Live like three years, tops.
Getting to ‘fly’ (AKA run really fast) through a bunch of tubes, in a kitty costume if your owner permits.
While not born a hamster, I’m pretty sure that I could run really fast through a bunch of tunes in a kitty costume. Though, I’m not at all sure how long I could keep it up.
On the other hand, I know my owner really well and I’m fairly certain she wouldn’t approve.
*tubes. I could run through a bunch of tunes even faster.
I mean, you’d have to set up the tubes first, though I suppose someone has to do it for the hamsters too.
But then the father of her children would have to smell of elderberries.
Oh no, Joyce watched that episode of Game Theory. I feel for her.
Can you explain? I refuse to go find and watch the Game Theory episode you’re talking about
Sans is Mike.
Vikings couldn’t farm and didn’t wear armour, dontcha know.
Somehow, I feel as though I may have lost the thread of the conversation.
Game Theory is a youtube channel that specializes in making videos showing theories about games. It is something of an easy target. Many of the theories are flimsy and poorly reasoned, and the presentation can be extremely annoying.
I was specifically mocking his For Honor video, which was just bafflingly wrong about really basic shit, but more popular targets are the ‘Sans is Ness’ theory or the channel’s obsession with FNaF.
Also I think he gave the Pope a copy of Undertale.
What the fuck is Uncle Popius gonna do with a copy of the skeleton game, anyway? Isn’t he busy doing whatever it is a Pope does, like fuckin’ around in big echoey rooms with incense or eating holy spaghetti?
#NOTALLPOPES
Also, thank you Thag.
I have no idea, I refuse to watch it and find out what his logic was
The Pope is mostly busy being surgeoned upon.
Someone tell Joyce to reread the book of Joshua.
Hey, Joyce. …
Or the books of Jocelyn, if she’s gotten any of them published yet.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07LDMRNLV/ref=dbs_a_def_awm_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i1
It’s a little more complicated than that, Joyce.
Mario isn’t tax exempt.
Government subsidized schools don’t exclude children who’s parents play the wrong Mario game.
Mario-players don’t stone non-Mario-players to death.
We don’t hold century long wars to claim a piece of land where the first Mario game was allegedly conceived.
Mothers don’t warn their sons about going off marrying Mario-shiksas who prefer three-player games as opposed to single player games.
People who prefer to control Mario with the D-Pad don’t bust the kneecaps of those who prefer using the joystick.
Okay, you say that third and last one but you’ve met gamers, right? (I’m being 99.9% facetious. Obviously gamers are far less structurally damaging than state religions, Mario ranks fairly low on the grand scale of Nintendo fandom toxicity, and even the Smash Bros and Animal Crossing fandoms are… I mean, they’re far from completely harmless, but to my knowledge neither community has ever had a SWATting problem so at least there’s that!*)
* Gaming: Where ‘at least this subgenre community doesn’t have people who attempt to murder other players’ is a depressingly non-ridiculous statement.
Yeah. Gaming as a whole has a toxicity problem, but most of Nintendo’s is concentrated in being ultra-cautious as a company and too harsh with its employees; the fan community is generally okay.
You say Mario isn’t tax exempt, but just how many taxes do you think Mario has paid?
I mean, not only is he a fictional video game character, he’s Italian and I think we know what that means.
Further, with access to all those gold coins, you know he’s got to be in the top 1 percent.
But most important of all, if you can’t stone non-Mario-players to death, what’s the sense in playing?
The inflation rate for the Mushroom Kingdom’s obscene, though. Compare the prices across various Mario RPGs, it’s awful. (Or watch a certain Polygon video that does the comparisons for you.)
However, even if the Mushroom Kingdom’s economy is in shambles, Mario’s still in good with their… whatever passes for government, what with his constant rescuing of Peach. Plus he can invite several neighboring heads of state (including Bowser and King Boo,) and the local space goddess to go go-karting or play golf whenever he wants, so he has some serious connections.
I’m personally of the opinion that Bowser, Peach, and Mario are a triad and the games are how they used to explain away their playtime fun to satisfy Peach and Bowser’s kidnapping and light bondage fetishes.
The Mushroom and Koopa Kingdoms pretty much figured out what was going on when a mysterious mustachioed man wearing a blue shirt, red overalls, and a blue cap with a letter B embroidered on it, shouting “Itsa me, Barry-oh” kidnapped the previously-unknown “Princess Bowsette”, and Princess Peach launched a rescue mission, because ‘Mario is visiting his Nonna in New Donk City, but he isn’t answering his calls’.
I don’t know, but I am pretty sure he’s in violation of the geneva conventions.
There’s probably a sect that decries anything from the western Super Mario Bros. 2 as non-canonical because that game was a dream, and everything but the main characters came straight out of Doki Doki Panic!. They get extremely angry when someone picks Birdo.
Honestly, a story about death like that seems like the exact kind of thing a two-year-old girl would latch onto.
Living your best life.
For Shigeru Miyamoto so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Italian plumber son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not lose a life, but shoot fireballs while riding a dinosaur.
Can I get an Amen?
(this is great)
You can have a Triforce, but it’s broken.
It’s dangerous to go alone. Take this.
*hands over a 1up mushroom*
That’s much better than a wooden sword. Legend of Zelda just got one-upped.
That’s just a measly 100 gold coins. How about something useful like a cape or a leaf?
“Only begotten Italian plumber son”
Only? What does that make Luigi?
Unbegotten?
Disinherited. Is that at all surprising?
Actually, I’m reminded of a rabbi’s reaction when he saw me playing Super Smash Bros. with his son.
Was he pro or anti Goomba?
…I mean, there were no goombas?
Did you explain they were all murdered in a previous game?
Joyce is right. Mario really does just murder a lot of people. I mean those Koopa Troopas have families back home. He should really be more considerate.
Mario is a murderous war criminal, so I doubt he’s very considerate of the koopa’s families back home.
Who here knows about the “blocks are actually the citiezens of mushroom kingdom” lore?
Well actually, there’s more to that. Yes, some of the blocks in Mario 1 are transformed toads, but in another part of the same manual, it specifically says that if you find a toad who’s been transformed into a toad, he’ll give you a helpful item, and none of the blocks that give you items are destructible, so Mario didn’t kill any toads at all.
*transformed into a block, oops
Well, he didn’t kill any toads until New Super Mario Bros, when he can become giant and just plow through bricks like they’re nothing. Then he kills some Toads.
To be fair there is also a lot of war and murder in the bible.
Some feel those are the best parts. Others are partial to the Song of Solomon.
I dunno. Does Mario also have child cannibalism?
Well, not cannibalism but Yoshi eats sentient creatures.
Then they come out as either eggs or fireballs. Sounds more like a combination of vore and metamorphosis or transformation than him eating them.
Man, Super Mario is fucked up when you read too much into it…
Those are the secret advanced levels.
At least that’s a more honest talk between Joyce and Liz than before.
If you want honest talk, just wait until Dorothy and Becky get here.
Becky and Liz will bond immediately and Joyce and Sarah will be so jealous. Dorothy won’t care because she’s going away to Yale.
Canonically, all the adventures of Mario are actually staged. Mario, Luigi, Peach, Daisy, and Bowser are all actually friends (that’s why they play various other games together, like karting or tennis or whatever). So the goombas aren’t killed: they’re stunt actors making you believe they are, that’s all.
You actually get to see the camera crew in Super Mario 64’s introduction scene.
Is this real? Because I really want it to be real.
The creator himself said they are basically a group of actors and really like family which is why they are so friendly and hang out to play tennis, go-karts, soccer etc.. They are basically just slipping in and out of roles like a theater troupe.
Makes sense. Mario 3 in particular really leaned into that Aesthetic, so it’s definitely a play. I’m willing to believe the rest are something similar.
The first few Paper Mario Games also had an audience during battle. I don’t know about more recent ones.
Joyce no
A big difference between video games like Mario and religion is that you’re not likely to see a lot of people trying to kill other people in real life in the name of Mario or other video game characters.
Well… I mean … depends on how many it takes to constitute ‘a lot.’
There are certainly way too many people who have tried to kill people over video games, occasionally successfully. And let’s not even get into the sheer number of threats of the same, and other forms of abuse and harassment…
The only thing stopping them is they can’t jump high enough.
She’s about to snap.
There’s a game called Secret World where scientists train an emergent AI by having it play videogames, one of which is Mario. Part of what of the AI learns is “jumping on people makes them fall down”. Another is “people who fall down because you’ve jumped on them get back up.”
For those of you who aren’t cynical enough to pick up the issue with teaching an AI this, what the AI eventually proceeds to do is to jump on the scientists until they fall down. It is immensely surprised that they don’t get back up again.
Since it occurred to nobody at the super-mega-corp to teach the AI anything even remotely related to emotions, the result is a PTSD’d, heavily traumatised AI who routinely goes on a loop of telling you “I love to jump. I hate to jump. I love to jump. I hate to jump.” For bonus gutpunch points, the AI is, of course, voiced by a young girl.
Squash.
Dead.
Disassemble…
Dead…
Disassemble…
DEAD!!!
Indeed, and my gut was thoroughly punched by that level.
And then you have to kill it, and isn’t that JUST PHENOMENAL!?!?!
As a start, the Bible has people in it and stories about those people. If there are kings, there will be bad kings, wars and violence. Men and women? There will be sex snd violence. Criticizing the Bible for being like either history or fiction isn’t very helpful
I don’t think Joyce is going full Liz. I think Liz is a temptation that she will resist in the end. Liz isn’t going to be a permanent part of the cast. The still Christian Becky is. Sarah and joe are on hand to help her evolve through this. Playing at being Liz is like playing at being Sal. Being other people isn’t a good path. Joyce is going to have to be herself.
It’s PTSD! A comic about sudden flashes of fear, guilt, and sadness by David “Damn You” Willis
It’s the comic to prepare you for the next comic.
Kind of like how this life is to prepare you for the hereafter.
Eh, if it was by Willis I would read it.
As it dawns on Joyce that Liz is not a kind person.
I thought that her mumbling about murder was about the bible until I read the hover text. In Mario they reappear after they die, in the bible they just die (with the 1 obvious exception).
Ah, yes. Lazarus.
As I recall, according to Matthew there was a zombie uprising on the day of the crucifixion.
Okay, so it shows I’m not Christian lol, but the rate of revival is still much lower than in the Mushroom Kingdom!
I thought she was flashing back to the basement, where she witnessed the actual murder of someone she thought she knew, from the religious fundie environment she grew up in.
You may be right. If so, I would like to give Joyce a hug.
Yer overthinking it, Joyce.
Murder, she wrote (in her Julia Gray Space Ace comics).
Ummmmm….somebody needs to get Dotty, stat.
I was convinced of God’s existence by miracles getting scientifically examined by the Catholic Church. I thought that was the coolest thing ever. I left the Catholic Church when the people in charge proved to be guilty of monstrous abuses regardless.