To Reclaim My Title - Villain SMG4 AU

Chapter 4 - New Hobby

SMG3 had never felt more alone. Then again, he hadn't really felt not alone throughout the time he's currently existed, but ever since he graduated from Memewarts, this lonely feeling had only gotten more intense. At least at Memewarts, he was around some people who he was forced to interact with, but now he was in his own shithole apartment in the Mushroom Capitol city with no friends or anyone who really enjoyed talking to him. He spent most of his days just watching T.V. or YouTube videos, but a lot of them were horrible quality and just weren't funny. He was fully aware that if he just took a step outside and went for a walk, the sun and movement would probably benefit his mental health at least a little bit, but he didn't want to be reminded of the sad reality that nobody liked him. No real energy to do anything else with his time either, especially now that he had no real goal after graduating, minus the psychology homework (he was still taking the online classes for his degree), but with literally nothing else in his life to do, it barely took up any time in his day to complete the work. Yep, textbook depression symptoms, but SMG3 couldn't tell what was worse, the fact that he recognized all the symptoms and was fully aware of what he was doing, or the fact that he still didn't do anything to improve his life.

This day was no different than the others. Same food, same couch, same laptop, same routine. SMG3 laid back on the couch with his laptop resting on his stomach with YouTube pulled up, scrolling through the most popular videos as of right now and some other new releases, but nothing looked interesting. 'Damnit. It's all the same, nothing here is new. This is literally just my life now.' He thought to himself. When was the last time he even spoke out loud? Or laughed? Or cried? Or anything really? Wait, that name looked familiar. SMG3 snapped back to reality when he saw a familiar username under the brightly colored thumbnail.

"SMG4?" His voice sounded pained, but that was probably because he hadn't spoken for a while and probably needed some water. Regardless, he was right. "super mario 64 bloopers: Bowser the unhappy fat turtle," made by supermarioglitchy4. Is that what their names stood for? The thumbnail had the red hat guy who looked similar to himself and SMG4 was in front of the giant spiky turtle guy he met on his first day of... well, existing really. There was some text in front of them, which was some of the dialogue. It looked like it was horrible quality from a shitty polygon video game, but it was from someone he'd met in person before, so maybe it was worth a watch.

The video was about Mario, the red hat guy, being a horrible person to Bowser, the giant turtle, and Bowser getting sad about it, then Mario trying to cheer him up and getting rejected before Bowser drives away, then realizes that despite everything, he still views Mario as a friend, so they become friends again after Bowser gets hit by a train. Everything was very low quality, from the visuals to the dialogue covering the entire screen at times, but that tied in with all the stupid jokes made SMG3 completely crack up. He'd never laughed harder in his life. If he knew just how funny Mario was, he probably would have tried to befriend him. Unless he wasn't the one writing the jokes. Mario and Bowser were the actors, but how much of this was improv? Regardless, SMG3 thought this video was brilliant.

"Oh my god, I completely forgot that SMG4 likes to make videos, I wonder what else he's made?" SMG3 clicked on the channel name and found even more videos which all looked to be of similar quality to the one he just watched. He spent a few hours watching every single one that he saw on SMG4's channel, including the ones where he started to introduce himself as a character, almost every single one made him laugh the whole time. It was a nice change of pace, a nice break from his sad reality. Unfortunately, SMG4 hadn't made many videos, so it really didn't take long to binge-watch all of them. Now the sad reality was back.

'Damnit. I want more of these, but I've already watched all of them. How long do these even take to make? I wonder...' He searched up and downloaded things to try and make his own SM64 blooper videos. An SM64 emulator, video editing software, would he also need some voice clips? For once, he even got up and took his laptop over to the table so he could sit upright and have an easier time working. He'd have to learn and get used to these programs first, but SMG3 had nothing but time on his hands, so he immediately set out to work. Many hours and a few cups of coffee later, he finally finished his first video.

The video was titled 'SM64 Bloopers: Mario's Dream House.' It started with Mario in the castle with Toad, complaining about how much he hated the small house he shared with Luigi. Toad told him to fuck off and go buy another one. Mario says he has -5739207 coins in his bank account so that won't work. Toad tells Mario to just build one then. Mario goes off and looks all around the SM64 world to try and find anywhere that looks vaguely house-like and ends up at the wooden cabin in the snow level, but the large penguin inside gets angry at Mario for breaking and entering. He had to find three mystical items to be allowed to take the house for himself and then cut to him burning it to the ground. He found the castle that he started at and said "Oh yeah, I'm here a lot. I practically live here." It had a crappy 'Teh End :D" as an end card.

"That was... so much fun! All that work for something this enjoyable was totally worth it! I've gotta post it now!" SMG3 immediately started the uploading process and left his laptop on as he went to get his usual dinner: instant noodles. He sat back down with his cup and watched as the progress bar got to 100 and uploaded onto his own channel, simply titled SMG3.

In the morning, SMG3 made some coffee and sat down to check how his video had done. The video made a couple of hundred views and got a few likes, which was a lot for SMG3, and even one comment saying "this kinda reminds me of SMG4, his videos have a similar format." SMG3 sipped his coffee.

'Huh, I guess that makes sense. I only made this because of SMG4's videos. Speaking of, I definitely wanna make some more too, I have some more ideas.' He replied to the comment saying "that's where i got inpritation from, so thanks :D" He leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms. "Alright, time to make another video! I've got some more ideas!"

For the next few months, SMG3 continued to make SM64 blooper videos. It was the one thing he could look forward to working on every day, an actual goal to keep himself busy and get up in the morning for, (even though he could technically work from his bed). They were more story-based than silly, but still had that simple memery and stupidity as a big part of the humor. He continued to keep updated with SMG4's videos and use them as inspiration for his own and also discovered more SM64 blooper creators along the way. SMG4 was still his favorite to watch though. One day though, SMG4 uploaded a video that particularly caught SMG3 off guard...

Artist's Note: That took significantly less time than the last chapter did to upload, but I actually started working on Chapter 4 shortly after I uploaded Chapter 3. The reason I didn't upload it as soon as I finished was actually that I hadn't made the chapter cover just yet, and I like having the chapter covers to sort of preview what you're about to read, or at least summarize it without spoilers for the end of the chapter. Chapter 5 is currently being worked on as well, so look out for that soon!