by Michelle Drozdick

Dear Mario,

It’s been magical for you these last few decades, hasn’t it? Innovation after innovation, smash hit after smash hit. You’ve done a lot for us, and we appreciate it. Because of you, our home is one of the most famous video game settings of all time. You kept it going even in the uncertainty of the 90s, when you helped us successfully make the scary jump from 2D to 3D. Hell, you put Nintendo on the map and you still put out quality content year after year (Hotel Mario notwithstanding).

We’re grateful to you, we really are. Which is why what we’re about to say is so difficult.

We are ready to throttle you.

We are, and not in that cutesy “eyes popping out like a game cutscene” kind of throttling.

We genuinely want to throttle you.

Do you have any idea the amount of damage you cause simply by existing? Any time you step out your door, have you thought about the chaos you leave in your wake for an average Mushroom Kingdom citizen to deal with? Every time you go out for a stroll it becomes a bloodbath for us–to our bodies AND to our 401Ks.

You absolute fool, did you just think that those giant, clearly man-and-or-monster-made [?] boxes hovering around areas of high monster population density might be an integral part of our social structure? Did you just think we wander aimlessly back and forth our entire existence? Do you really think that little of us?

For God’s sake, you mustachioed fever dream of a buffoon, those were our banks. They were until you raided them on your quest to save the princess, never thinking about who put them there or whether they were yours to begin with.

We have mortgages and bills and student loans to pay, Mario. We have homes and lives and a hankering for spaghetti now and then, just like you. We have children and friends and hopes and dreams–hopes and dreams that vanish every time your head slams against the bottom of the very [?] block we’ve been taught to trust.

Have you just not noticed the state our public infrastructure is in because of your little coin-grabbing adventures? Have you just not noticed how many bottomless pits litter our picturesque landscape? There are two massive ones in World 1-1 alone, and that’s the safest part of the entire kingdom! We had bridges once, but we can’t maintain or replace them because SOMEONE keeps using “rescuing the princess” as a reason to get away with raiding our funds. How many times can one princess get kidnapped, Mario? We’re not idiots.

And don’t give me your trickle down crap again. We know what you’re doing with our coins. Can’t be cheap to fund those go kart races on Rainbow Road, literally in OUTER SPACE, can it? Or those massive life-sized board games you seem so obsessed with. Or all those trips to the Olympics with Sonic–along with the wild after parties.

We’ve tried to talk to you, but any time we approach the violence begins. Sure, it’s easy to claim after the fact that it was just an angry pack of Goombas that attacked, and sir, we may be Goombas and we may be angry, but we most certainly did not attack first.

We all know it.

I once saw you stomp on a peacefully protesting Koopa and hurl its shell at its own family. The ensuing collision of father against son, of daughter against mother, was adorably cartoony, as we live in an E-rated world, but the agony in their eyes… I’ll never forget it.

You sorry excuse for an 8-bit character.

We’re the Goombas and the Koopas of Mushroom Kingdom, and you singlehandedly destroyed our economic system… and our innocence.

Bowser is about to be the least of your troubles.

Yours Truly,
The Citizens of Mushroom Kingdom