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duckapus · 10 months

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SMG4 AU Timeline Anomalies

(6/30/23 Edited to include Blook) (9/20/23 Edited to reflect SMG4k's current status and include the Haltmann Meme Guardians AU characters) (11/4/23 Edited to include characters related to Abyssal's arc and Entropy) (1/16/24 Edited to include Showtime, update GG's profile, and clean up the tags) (3/9/24 Edited to correct a few mistakes, update Gohma's entry, and add AVA)

The God Box

A box of broken computer parts that serves as a graveyard for dead universes and a source of unlimited -and highly corruptive- power. At some unknown point it developed some form of consciousness. It was ultimately destroyed by the combined efforts of Avatar Mario, SMGs 0 through 4, Melony the Fierce Watermelon Demigoddess, and Terrence the Ugandan Knuckles.

Niles

A Super Meme Guardian replica created by the God Box to be SMG0's partner. While he was very good at his job, he proved to be dangerously unstable both physically and (after a failed attempt to repair his flawed code) mentally.

Zer0

A forced fusion of SMG0 and Niles, obsessed with creating a "perfect" universe to replace the one they lost. They killed Avatar Spudnick and destroyed his universe, and nearly did the same to Mario's twice before dying in the destruction of the God Box.

Super Mario 64 Emulator

Normally shortened to just Emulator, occasionally Emmy to her friends. She developed a consciousness and identity of her own as a result of the many, many problems that Zer0's presence caused for SMG3 and 4 and Avatar Mario's activation. She ultimately proved benevolent and acts as an unofficial third Admin for Mario's universe. She's usually a fun-loving goofball, but is very protective of the people she cares about and has a slight sadistic streak that comes out full force when something happens to them. Most of the Admins are either wary of or annoyed by her, often both.

Juliano

(belongs to @forthedancingandthethriving)

A former Admin and the main protagonist of Rising Star Circus. What do I mean by former? Well, he died as a result of a monster attack, and as expected his universe died with him. However, somehow a bit of his code survived and drifted around before finding the Mario universe and manifesting there as a Mario recolor. He was then reunited with his old friends, the prototype SMGs -1 and -2, who are now 3 and 4's Admins, Domain and Forum. He's since regained his old model.

Significantly more mature and level-headed than most Avatars both due to experience and because he doesn't have to deal with Avatar-level Meme Energy levels anymore. He acts as a mentor to the younger Avatars, especially Mario since they live in the same world and Mario's awkward activation means he doesn't have the same instinctual knowledge the others have and only started learning the hard way relatively recently.

The Gamer Girl

A TAS Bot programmed for Kirby and the Amazing Mirror speedruns that somehow became a full-fledged AI. A lack of grounding influences means she sees the multiverse as her playground and the people in it as toys. Thankfully she's the kind of kid who usually takes good care of her toys and puts them back where they belong when she's done, so while her victims do often end up traumatized, it's rare for them to get serious injuries or permanent physical changes. She primarily focusses on Avatar Kirby's universe, which is thankfully uniquely equipped to handle her.

Recently, she's been getting a lot better at understanding morality, in large part due to her friendship with Zack MeowtTF2, Jim Pianta and Larry Koopa, as well as her decision to unofficially be Diane "Floyd" Floyener's little sister.

The Guardian System

(Look, even though it was deliberate I'm still counting it.)

As the name implies, this is the system that checks the status of the Super Meme Guardians, determines whether they have the proper permissions to use certain high-level commands, and allows Admins with proper permissions to access and make changes to an SMGs code. Due to an incident involving Bob Bobowski that nearly crashed the Adminspace Server due to Data Overflow, Admin Lag from the Maintenance Division upgraded the System into a full AI so he could explain what it was doing wrong. This development has increased its effectiveness dramatically, though several Admins do wish it had ended up as less of a little shit. But I guess that's just what happens when you're hooked up to Bob's mind for the first 75 hours of your life.

Dialup

An ancient program of unknown origin dedicated to eliminating anomalies for the sake of preserving the Internet's processing power. It was locked away in Computer Hell after attempting to reset Emulator twice.

Admin Gohma

The result of a demon taking over the body and consuming the soul of an Admin. While definitely powerful given her higher state and Admin Commands, she was still ultimately a Zelda Boss and went down with amount of effort once someone with a similar level of power who wasn't getting nerfed by a hacker showed up.

She survived her defeat as a formless mass of code and eventually made her way into what would become the Grid's MRU version of Hyrule, where she temporarily resided in Marbled Gohma before moving on to a Yiga Footsoldier that she molded to suit her preferences. She is now the Code Specialist of the Evil Syndicate, a multiversal alliance of supervillains that spans the five servers currently in the MRU system.

Mod the Code Turtle

A code manifestation for Mario, created by Emulator after accumulated errors Reset and nearly killed him. Haven't come up with much for him beyond the fact he exists.

Spicy Meme Generator 4000

A version of SMG4 from an alternate universe (actual universe, not just a separate computer program like most of the "universes" that exist in the SMG4 series.). His main ability is to absorb Meme Energy and create his own Meme entities that are extensions of himself. His ultimate goal is to consume all Avatars and Avatar candidates in every universe and use their combined power to become one with Reality itself. He was locked in Computer Hell with his powers mostly sealed for a while, but eventually managed to escape and continue its campaign of destruction. It was only thanks to the efforts of the SMG4 Crew, their friends from both their own and other Computer Universes, and several alternate True Universe versions of themselves that SMG4000 was finally destroyed and the universes of both kinds it had destroyed were restored.

Blook Emulator

A manifestation of Barry the rogue Avatar's abandoned universe. Unlike Emmy, it doesn't take physical form or speak in any understandable way, instead acting through the game world itself. It also hates. In particular it hates the Avatar that left it and the people who drove him away and especially the SMGs and Admins that started the whole mess. But mostly it hates in general, all-encompassingly, because it doesn't see anything else to do.

The Haltmann Triplets

A false set of Avatar and Guardians created by Susie Haltmann using a fragment of the God Box and genetic material from Mario and several other video game protagonists. Unlike Niles, they're fully stable and properly integrated into the Super Mario 64 universe thanks to Susie's programming knowledge. They're less powerful than a standard SMG set or the previous False Guardian since there was only a fragment to work with, but as a tradeoff they're immune to the corruptive effects of Anti-Meme Energy, able to use it safely and even purify it with some effort.

Mari0

An alternate Mario from a destroyed version of the Super Mario Bros Movie universe, empowered by the will of the God Box. His own powers, both canonical and demonic, have been heightened to the point where at his peak he managed to kill Ultra Instinct Shaggy himself, and he has gained the ability to transform Illumination characters into Anti-Memes and control them. He has significantly more cognizance than most characters who reach that level of corruption, possibly because his goals and those of the God Box are alligned

Mari0 Soul

Not willing to accept defeat, Mari0 and the God Box break past the last of their limits and consume the massive well of Meme Energy within Luigi. The resulting reaction between equal parts positive and negative energy causes the two wills to fully merge, mutating them into a near-godlike entity capable of siphoning both forms of Meme Energy from everyone and everything around him. In this state he seeks nothing less than the destruction of everything Avatar Mario knows and loves, and then to kill him after he's borne witness. Thankfully, he failed to account for Mario's friends still being both willing and able to fight even without memes, or for the power of the Stars, which ultimately proved his final undoing.

The Abyss

(belongs to @forthedancingandthethriving)

The endless Nothing that existed before the beginning of the SMG4 multiverse...which technically just makes it the hardware of Luke's computer that the code of Everything was written on. Over the years, it's accumulated junk data that's fallen through cracks in the code, slowly developing a mind of its own as a result. It came to resent the world above, especially the first five beings that were created from it to begin the dance of Life and Death, and so it created Abyssal to spread chaos and destruction. Ultimately, she refused, simply giving modified reports of chaotic, destructive events that were already happening so it wouldn't get suspicious. This couldn't last forever, and eventually another Anomaly forced both of their hands. While Abyssal is now free, the Abyss still exists beneath the world. Waiting. Plotting.

Shadow of Doubt

(belongs to @forthedancingandthethriving)

A manifestation of the Avatars' negative emotions that takes the form of shadowy versions of them and seeks to make them as miserable as possible so it can gain more power. Thankfully it has quite a few limitations. For one thing, the only things it knows about them are the things that make them miserable. For another, it's an idiot, as you'd probably expect of anything that closely connected to all of the Avatars. They died as a result of the Abyss taking over their body.

Ecolo, the Space-Time Traveler

Specifically the version of Ecolo from Avatar Arle's universe. While everything about him is anomalous in-universe, as far as the SMG4 AU lore is concerned that's exactly how he's supposed to be. No, the only actual anomaly about him is that, despite being a Character-style Program, he somehow has high enough code density to be perfectly fine in Code Being servers.

Whirlpool

An offshoot of the Abyss that was kinda-sorta-accidentally-on-purpose freed from its control by Avatar Sora and his SMGs when they were trying to free the hearts of all the Heartless it had absorbed. It's now perfectly friendly, if a bit confused, and has clearly imprinted on Sora.

Entropy the Collector

(belongs to @forthedancingandthethriving. Introduced here.)

A Program/Virus hybrid that collects strange and unique code beings and keeps them in her own universe in what appear to be little glass balls.

Showtime

A consciousness formed when the Creep (the meat moss from It's Gotta Be Perfect) corrupted Emulator from the inside. At the height of her power, she had full control over the Creep, as well as Emulator's body and abilities, and managed to supercharge herself with Wonder Power. She was ultimately destroyed by Marggy, the fusion of Avatar Mario and Meggy Spletzer, and her soul was sent to the Disgaea Universe by Duck to atone for her sins as a Prinny. She's incredibly vain and lustful, especially towards Emulator. You do not want to know the stuff she did while stuck in that tower in full control of Emmy's body for a whole week.

AVA

A stray bit of Avatar code that broke off when the Arles merged during the Arle Arc, then managed to form into a mannequin-like echo of Arle's consciousness. It eventually managed to reach the rapidly destabilizing Composite Arle and restore them both into Arle Nadja and Doppelganger Arle/Dapple Nadja, taking on both halves of their Avatar Code in the process. Since she's now Arle again, AVA technically no longer exists.

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telesilla · 3 months

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Not gonna go out on this limb on a 25k post, but maybe it’s okay that kids today don’t know as much about using an actual computer as we do/did? Is it useful knowledge? Of course it is. So is using a sewing machine or being able to rebuild your VW with a copy of that one book every VW driver used to have. That’s not the right question—most practical knowledge is useful after all. The question should be “is it relevant to the way people live right now.” “How to Keep Your VW Alive” is a timeless fucking classic; my ex and I kept our copy long after he sold his VW. But I’m not buying a copy now because it won’t exactly help me keep my VW ID4 on the road.

And it’s funny, because I tend to read along with those posts and nod my head, because back in my day we HAD to know all that computer stuff. And then for some reason today, I remembered a conversation my mom and I had with my grandma in the mid 70s when I was a teenager. Grandma made my mom’s wedding dress. She worked at a department store doing alterations on foundation wear, which if you look at 1950s foundation wear, you’ll realize was both necessary and difficult. So she was shocked when I said most of my friends didn’t know their way around a sewing machine. “But how do you make sure your clothes fit?!” Well, Grandma, people don’t wear heavy foundation wear any more and clothes don’t need to be as tailored as they did back in the day—it’s 1975 and the only alterations I need to do is hemming my flares so they just touch the floor when I’m wearing platforms.

Now you can back up and look at the broader picture, the one that says, but your car should be repairable by you as long as you have clear instructions, and you should be able to alter your clothes or make your own, and yes, you should know how to organize the files on the desktop of your laptop. But the fact that for the most part it’s become easier and easier to just not do those things (if they can be done at all) isn’t exactly the fault of Kids Today. And it’s certainly not meeting them where they are or even trying to understand why they feel they don’t need that knowledge if, instead of looking at why they don’t have it and maybe even don’t need it, you just decry their lack of the Deep Wisdom.

#idk man #we see shit all the time about how saying insensitive stuff #affects the listener #how can you be on these kids’ side #if you clutch your pearls in their hearing #about shit no one’s teaching them to do?#maybe you’re not blaming them #but think back to the time you didn’t know how to do something #your folks did back in the day #made ya feel kinda dumb didn’t it?#also it’s hilarious that this is about kids not using laptops #next you’ll be telling me they don’t know how to go online using dialup #and then loading something onto their website using ftp #what do you mean yon don’t know COBOL?#like fuck man #this is just adults bitching about kids #and i thought we weren’t gonna do that anymore?

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