It was a calm Friday afternoon in the Mushroom Kingdom, SMG4 was sitting comfortably at his computer, watching a few hilarious meme videos. He'd just seen the trailer for the new Super Mario Bros movie that was coming soon and he was hyped, video game movies, especially animated ones, had never looked so amazing before.
When that film dropped, he was going to start working on a video related to it and SMG4 couldn't wait. Whatever happened in the film when it released in the Spring, it was going to be special.
However, while it wouldn't top Splatoon 3 and when SMG4 had made that long-awaited video related to it, the movie was going to be the best. The meme man took his time to pause one of the latest memes that had cropped up on Twitter to look over his production notes for WoTFI 2022, the grand finale of the Lawsuit Arc.
SMG4 couldn't wait to finish it, then he and the gang could move on to more adventures until they were finally ready to do another story arc. He looked at himself in a mirror on the wall, grinning confidently and filled with eagerness.
Just then, someone banged on the door and the banging became more frantic.
'Oh great.' The meme man thought, 'Don't tell me someone from Nintendo's coming to complain about somethin', what did I do this time?'
He stood up and put his computer in hibernation mode, preserving his open windows. SMG4 walked down the foyer towards the door as it rattled on the hinges, the banging intensified and a few seconds later...
WHAM!
A panicked Mario raced into the room, eyes shaking with terror and full of tears. He ran towards his identical friend, yelping in fear, and dropped to his knees while hugging SMG4 very tightly until he could feel constricted by the plumber's hug.
"NO!" Mario wailed, "SMG4, NO!"
"What's going on now, Mario?" SMG4 said with disbelief, "What happened this time?"
"Just heard... You plan to reboot SMG4 series... plan to drop Mario and the others... You can't do that; we've been together for-a so long. It's-a not right..."
SMG4 looked at Mario with a raised eyebrow, unable to believe what he was hearing. Where did Mario hear these rumors and how could he be so stupid enough to believe them in the first place to a point where he would come barging into SMG4's room in a full-blown panic, interrupting the meme man's meme time to beg with him not to do something that he wasn't going to do anyway?
Mario pulled back, holding his shaking gloved hands together, tears running down his face. "SMG4, please!" Mario begged, "Please don't-a reboot the show and-a get rid of-a Mario and his-a friends after what we've-a been through for-a so long. I beg you, UWU! Please don't, please don't..."
'Seriously, Mario?' SMG4 thought, more annoyed than ever.
"I mean so much to you, I'm-a your avatar..." Mario wailed, "You can't go on without Mario, how could you do this to-a me after all of-a the adventures we've-a shared together... NO!"
"Mario, who said I was going to reboot and drop you from the show?" SMG4 demanded.
The plumber stopped crying, looking at SMG4 with surprise, even with more tears rolling down his face. "Did you just-a say that you're not going to reboot the SMG4 series and-a you're keeping Mario and his friends...?" The fat Italian asked.
"C'mon, buddy..." SMG4 smiled and hugged Mario, "I don't know where you heard that rumor, but that is not happening. I'm not giving up on you and your friends any time soon. There is absolutely no way we are rebooting the show, those people are out of their minds. The SMG4 show is an Australian-made parody series, protected by the fair use parody law. So, what happened?"
"Mario was in-a Mushroom Town, looking for some yummy spaghetti, then he heard some Inklings wearing SMG4 t-shirts talking about-a the show..." Mario explained as he stood up, wiping a few tears from his face, "I listened in, then one of them said something about you rebooting..."
"Aha, I knew it!" SMG4 clicked his fingers, "And where did that gossip start?"
"One of the Squidwards said something one of their friends on-a Reddit suggesting you rebooting-a the series to have-a less Mario characters..."
"So that's where this drama came from!" SMG4 exclaimed, "Mario, don't worry about what you hear from people who know other people on social media when they talk about stuff like that, that can cause trouble and there are some folks who end up believing that stuff and cause some kind of panic."
Mario hugged SMG4 again, thanking him for the assurance that he would not change the series to be less Mario-related after a decade of wacky adventures and over-the-top stories based on many of their endeavors they had together. SMG4 was glad he assured Mario, but now he had to take to social media and start debunking and deconfirming those insane rumors. People needed to stop.
Plus, the meme man just couldn't believe that a mentally-challenged, spaghetti-loving Italian man would suddenly freak out over simple but misled gossip. After all, Mario was a grown man.
"We cool now?" SMG4 asked the plumber.
"Mario's okay..." Mario assured him.
"Great, now I could use your help, we got some bad gossip to take care of online."
SMG4 fist-bumped his zany best friend and, with Mario at his side, the meme man headed to his computer and the duo got to work. The first social media outlet they wasted no time in taking to was Twitter, the most important outlet online.
In Inkopolis, a grey-haired Inkling boy was tweeting his friends a funny SMG4 meme showing the meme man riding a funny-looking frog and enjoying himself. Then his notifications chimed, indicating that a new tweet had just come up. Inkerton125 aka Ike Ink-Sink, clicked on the notifications and found a new tweet done by none other than SMG4 himself.
The tweet showed a picture of Mario and SMG4 glaring at the screen in an almost furious manner and above the picture, the words read: 'Rumors are not cool, we are not planning a reboot.'
Inkerton125 was mind-blown, he clicked the retweet button and began texting his friends, eager to tell them what was afoot. Across Inkopolis, more online Inkling users received a tweet from SMG4, one after another, telling them that the reboot rumors were not right to spread since they weren't true.
Soon, from Inkopolis to other regions in the Mushroom Kingdom and to Bowser's Castle, across Twitter and Facebook, Instagram and Discord, SMG4 had told almost every single social media user that those reboot rumors that were circulating were not true and neither was it right to go around saying stuff like that. By the end of the day, the buzz soon settled.
In his room, SMG4 and Mario high-fived, knowing they were fine. Who cared about rumors when facts were more fun? However, speculation was fun as well as long as you accepted the truth...
The End
