The 'Shroom:Issue 186/Palette Swap

Director's Notes
Written by:

Leaves may turn, the temperatures may cool, but mushrooms will grow no matter what- it's the September 'Shroom!

Crazy how things change month-to-month in my notes- last month I wrote I was struggling to really get into Xenoblade 3, and now I've fully sunk my teeth into it and am really enjoying it. The characters continue to make me smile, and I've even cried twice at this point, already beating the second game in terms of emotional impact. If you're on the fence about it, I highly recommend picking it up and trying it out. Yes, it's a bit of a slow start, but once it gets going, you won't want to get off!

I do have some sad news this month- Goombuigi has decided to step down from Super Mario Maker Showcase. Thank you for your amazing work, Goombuigi, we really enjoyed seeing all the levels you chose!

This issue has good stuff in it, so I won't keep you any longer in Director's Notes. See you next month!

Happy reading!

~FunkyK38

Section of the Month Section of the month results are here! Once again nabbing first place is, with Waluigi Time Comic! In second is 's final boss edition of World of Plight. Finally in third, we have 's Shmaluigi, Private Investigator. Many thanks to everyone who voted, and make sure to cast your votes for this month's issue as well!

Drawn and Pressed
Written by:





Debuting back in 1970, Broom-Hilda is a very old comic strip, where it's gone past its 50th anniversary, which is longer than the run of Peanuts at this point. While the comic strip started its run on 20th April 1970, it technically started on the day prior to that (19th April, a Sunday). You see, the comic that was published on that day was a comic of Broom-Hilda informing the readers that her strip will start tomorrow. This is why for many sites, the strip technically started then. One of the most interesting things that I have noticed with this comic strip is the main character: though the main character is a woman, she is characterised by flaws instead of virtues that many female characters are usually characterised by, and also because she is not conventionally beautiful and is as cartoonish as a standard male character, so much so that I didn't think that Broom-Hilda is a woman.



The idea for this comic strip is birthed by Elliot Caplin, who is the brother of popular Li'l Abner cartoonist, Al Capp. His comic strip pitch is just basically about "a witch named Broom-Hilda", no doubt a pun of a Germanic heroic legend character Brünnhilde. With this seemingly simple idea, he needed an artist to realise this idea to fruition. Harvey Kurtzman, a famous artist who worked on EC Comics and MAD Magazine, was the first to be tasked for this, but it did not pan out. Thanks to a connection of Caplin's colleague, Russell Myers was recommended by him to realise the dream of Caplin, and he was assigned to be the creative force behind the strip after Caplin found Myers' samples to be lovely. To make this clear, Caplin basically handles the business side of things, while Myers handle the creative side of things (therefore, the strip is completely credited to Myers), which indicates that in the world of comic strips, having good business sense is just as important as being good creatively, something with Jim Davis understands very well when he designed Garfield. The comic strip is considered an overnight success, and to this day, Myers is still working on the strip going into his 80's. The durability of this artist is admirable, and he's also very lucky that he's experienced a windfall in his career and living comfortably.



The main character of the comic strip, Broom-Hilda, is a 1500-year-old witch. Like a stereotypical witch and unlike modern portrayals of a witch, she is given the descriptions of hideousness, like having long and stringy hair, a wart on her big nose, being dumpy, and having green skin. Her attitude is as hideous as she looks, where she has a mean streak to complement her toughness. Of course, she had some displays of kindness every now and then. What I think is interesting about the character is how unconventionally female she is, because if it weren't for the flower on her hat, I didn't think of Broom-Hilda as a female character. Much like traditional witches, she does magical concoctions and flies on a broom, though she is not afraid to use her zapping powers to put offenders in their place. She also used to be the wife of Attila the Hun (first husband, in fact), though it should be noted that within the strips she has no luck with dating men in general. She used to be an alcoholic and a chain smoker, which were habits that she used to possess early in the strip's run and it's even featured in a Fabulous Funnies episode "Flying High", but as comic strip standards were improved, they were later dropped, which also applies to the drunken jester in Wizard of Id. One vice that appears to be retained is her gluttony. All in all, Broom-Hilda is a particularly well-developed character and it's not hard to see why the character remains consistent even after all the years.



Broom-Hilda is supported by a few other characters, most of them men. Irwin is a troll who is covered with hair, and what he lacks in intelligence, he makes up for it with a big heart. Gaylord is a bespectacled buzzard wearing spats, who by comparison is intelligent, but he's also egotistical and sarcastic. Moreover, he likes to play practical jokes (especially on Broom-Hilda). Grelber is a hidden figure in a log, whose face is only visible but his insults are piercing as he is malevolent. A couple of other characters include Wolfie and Big Lump, the former being a timid wolf that doesn't speak and the latter being a dinosaur that appeared in the early strip's run. Even then, the most-recurring characters were pared down to Irwin and Gaylord. That is, until the artist wanted to make kid jokes, which is why Nerwin was introduced as Irwin's nephew (the name is a portmanteau of "nerd" and "Irwin"), and he would be the most recurring fourth character. Nerwin has a propeller beanie to indicate his mischievous nature as a child, and indeed he is somewhat of a smart-aleck. Throughout the strip's run, there were certain characters that come and go, including Broom-Hilda's witch friends, Irwin's political uncle Harry, and a con couple Ferris Squink and Luwanda Lou. Flossie, Nerwin's classmate, is to my knowledge haven't been retired.



As a gag-based comic strip, present day events do not reflect within the events of the strip. In fact, Broom-Hilda's main form of residence seems to be in the woodlands, which has animals that the characters can communicate with. Activities are also done in the outdoors like watching television and sleeping, so Broom-Hilda doesn't even have a house to live in. This gives a good glimpse of the fantastical and somewhat surreal environments. Of course, the characters do interact with humans in places with many people, such as Broom-Hilda eating in a restaurant or Nerwin going to school. One rather amusing series of strips is about a dead cartoonist, which is in some ways meta like how stuck on the job the cartoonist is and how he does not have money, but I do not see it as being reflective of this cartoonist, well maybe the "being stuck on the job" might still qualify. In fact, according to the cartoonist, this comic strip has a huge amount of reserves, which is to say that were he to retire, there will still be new cartoons for at least a year.



While indeed a very old cartoon, I feel that it's still enjoyable, due to the strongly-characterised characters and the beautiful artwork. It's also not continuity-reliant, so a casual reader could jump into the strip to enjoy what it has to offer.

Broom-Hilda strips can be read at: https://www.gocomics.com/broomhilda

Thank you for reading.

Waluigi Time Comic
Drawn by:



Site Seeing
Written by:

Hello dear readers and welcome to Site Seeing, in which I'll go over some of the websites Nintendo releases to inform the public about their games and series! Today, as a… celebration of the removal of gacha from Mario Kart Tour, or at last part of it, we have the website of Mario Kart Tour!

Overview


Despite how big the money around this game is, this website is surprisingly small, indeed fitting more with being a mobile game than a triple-A video game. For the most part, this is a single page website, with subpages for a few topics.

When we first arrive on the website, we see a large hero image with group art of Mario and three Miis in different costumes driving around on a glove. The game's logo is displayed in the top left, and underneath the logo, a phone is shown in which a video with footage of the game plays. This phone overlaps slightly with the section directly underneath.

This next section first advertises that the game is now available, with buttons to the App Store and Google Play, for people to download it to their iOS or Android devices respectively. Then, in a box, we are instructed to register in-game, mentioning the need of a Nintendo Account for this purpose, and buttons about what to do if you do or do not have one. Below this box, a button for parents and guardians to click on is shown.

A small strip is dedicated to advertising the Gold Pass, which can be clicked to go to a subpage about it.

The next section is, in a way, actually two sections, in that we have a vertical division between those two. On the left side, we see a News section, which displays a Twitter feed and a button to their Twitter account. On the right side, we see two video thumbnails, clicking on which opens a YouTube player on top of the website, and underneath the videos is a button to a YouTube playlist.

Only then is it that we come to a section that introduces the game to us proper, starting by explaining the "tour" gimmick of courses based on real-world locations, showing a scrolling gallery of several courses (including a few that are not actually based on real-world locations), with Mario in a kart overlaid. Then, multiplayer is introduced, with a similar video thumbnail that opens a YouTube player as above. Finally, the collecting of drivers, karts, and gliders is introduced, with a gallery of screenshots that, somewhat, display this trait.

The last section is a mishmash of several things. First, it has a header with a button that goes to an "All-Cup Ranking" page, which shows rankings of the current and previous tours. Then, it has another few badges that go to the App Store and Google Play, and underneath that is another link to their Twitter page.

Now let's get into the couple of subpages.

The first one is more of a modal than a page, at least in a technical and behavioural sense. It is the info page for parents and guardians, and is a simple page with text and subheadings, and a few links to support pages for Nintendo Accounts and the respective platform's parental control support pages.

The first "real" subpage is about the Gold Pass. It opens up with a blurb about it being a subscription service, and displays an image of what it 'looks like' and images of Toad and Mario sitting among various presents and rubies. It then goes into more detail about a free trial and the pricing, and a few disclaimers. Then we get a list of perks that come with the Pass, including better gifts, Gold Races, golden badges, 200cc, and a doubling of the amount of points that can be gained in one day. The page then includes more smallprint, and a list of frequently asked questions.

Lastly, the All-Cup Ranking page. This page lists the current tour's rankings, as a list that, divided over five pages, shows a top 1000 of people with their names, selected badge, and score. At the top of the page, a button is present that goes to a list of previous cups, clicking on a tour then shows the same page with the scores of that tour. At the bottom of the page, an explanation is shown for where the points come from.

Design
Similar to the game itself, this website uses blue as its primary colour, with highlights in red and yellow. Most backgrounds are blue, with various patterns such as a diagonal checkerboard, diagonal lines, or checkerboard patterns with traffic symbols and signage within the squares. Further down on the main page and on the info page for guardians, a light grey background is instead used with a variety of in-game sponsors on it, not unlike the loading screen in Mario Kart 8. Sections are divided by white lines, and consecutive sections also have separate backgrounds for extra visual contrast.

There are several styles of buttons on this site. The more interesting one is shaped more or less after ? Blocks, without the question mark. Other buttons are simple rounded black buttons with a white border.

Interestingly, a lot of text on this site is actually displayed as images. This is unnecessary for text without effects, but some texts use special lighting and colouring effects that are hard or impossible to replicate in website coding. This extends to the numbers used on the ranking page, in which each digit and comma is its own image. Due to this, no font families are loaded by this site, instead falling back to a list of standard fonts that may be installed on our machines. The images do have an alt-text, which is shown if images fail to load.

Tech
This part may not be of interest to everyone, or may you even understand any of it. But it can be interesting to some people who are curious about some of the technology used to create this site.

In short, this website is built and rendered with Vue.js and NuxtJS, and is hosted on Google's Firebase platform.

To start off with Vue.js, this is a single-page application (SPA) framework. SPAs enable you to load a site or application once, and any subsequent pages or features you open will be available instantly, having already loaded and (usually) already being in your browser's memory. Vue.js itself is a framework that takes a lot of the workflow of managing and displaying data out of the developer's hands, allowing a dev to simply update an app's internal "state", and have the UI update as needed automatically. It also allows an app to be split in smaller reusable components. NuxtJS is a framework that is able to "prerender" a Vue.js app (called server side rendering, or SSR), which enables pages to be available immediately even if the JavaScript to make it interactive hasn't loaded yet, and in some cases not even requiring JS to be enabled by the user.

Firebase is a platform from Google that focuses on building and releasing apps, as well as hosting web applications and databases, similar to Amazon Web Services, which I have mentioned a few times before. The site is hosted here, and additionally uses Cloud Functions for getting ranking results.

Conclusion
This site is… okay, in my opinion. It looks nice, but it's surprisingly simple for how big the game and its economics are. There are a few technical things I am surprised by (such as how the guardians info modal works) and the abundance of images with just text on them, but the ranking for example is a thing that's a neat thing to have (even if a ranking doesn't add much here). Also, the date in the footer says 2019? Passable site, but not the greatest I've seen.

Been a while huh? Hosting a forum game sure takes its toll on one's ability to write for The 'Shroom, but I'm back now, and next month too! Hope to see you then, and thanks for reading!

World of Plight
Written by:

Magolor04726

I’ve been sitting at my computer for half an hour and I still have no idea what to say. The most powerful being in the universe has been defeated. He’s… gone. There’s not much else to say.

Except…

It felt almost too easy. All we had to do was unite. That’s all it took. The people of the world had to unite against evil, and yet I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. Maybe I’m just being paranoid. After everything that has happened, I think I should have a little peace of mind, but I can’t lose this nagging feeling that something is wrong.

In any case, I’m leaving the final entry to Princess Zelda, who will summarize recent events before Mario closes us out for good. Thank you all for reading, and it’s been a marvelous journey!

Zelda Life has returned to normal and peace has been restored to the land. All the Fighters who were injured, drained, or suffered in any way have been treated, including Ganondorf, Blood Falcon, and Black Shadow, who were found with the Fighters. Waluigi seemed to wager that the latter two had great power as well and kidnapped them with Fawful’s help.

Speaking of Waluigi, his heroics in Karkaton have helped the other Fighters realize that perhaps they need to treat their fellows who do not have the same rank as them with more respect, although Waluigi’s antics have certainly set him back on his goal of becoming a Fighter. He has been allowed to return though, and was even present at a recent fight that happened on Final Destination between Mario, Sora, King Dedede, and Ganondorf in celebration of the defeat of Azcron.

The Magic Master was revealed to be Master and Crazy Hand in disguise and Sakurai announced that he was the one who sent them undercover from the start, but only when he suspected that something greater was at play. They were even the ones who hid Mewtwo as he was writing his entry. They escorted him to a secret cave outside of a city somewhere and hid him until the proper time. They have been welcomed back as heroes and will surely continue to play great roles in the battles to come.

The remaining villains are being interrogated by Falon and the Intergalactic Police Protectors and it seems that those who had lost power to Azcron before have regained their strength and are well on their way to recovery. The only one unaccounted for is the android Metal Jaw, who will certainly be brought to justice soon.

Apart from that, all are accounted for and all mysteries have concluded. It has truly been an adventure for us all, and I will certainly be glad to get back to Hyrule for a little bit of rest later.

Mario

And there you have it. The end of our story, the rise and fall of Azcron. Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy.

You thought I was gone? Pitiful fools. You thought your little story would help you find me? Ha! You thought uniting against a common enemy would truly defeat me? Idiots, the lot of you. If you want your precious plumber back, come and find me.

If you can.

A.

OK, I’m getting this out as quick as I can, before I go help in the manhunt for Mario. That note was stuck in the back of a chair in Mario’s room with one of Metal Jaw’s fingers. This is not good. Beyond the fact that Nintendo’s poster boy went missing, I’m going to have to wait for all this to blow over before I can publish it, because, you know, I don’t want one of the baddies to get their mitts on this. Maybe it’ll be here next month, maybe it won’t.

Oop, I’m needed at the Smash Arena. All I can really say to sum this up is stay tuned!

Shmaluigi, Private Investigator
Written by:

Crunch Time: Part 2

After being hired by Waluigi Time to investigate sabotage in his cereal company, my brother Shmwario and I conducted a series of interviews with his employees. But with nothing conclusive, our eyes turned back to an unlikely place that seemed to be our best answer... Company president Shbig Changes, an artificial intelligence that, frankly, gives me the creeps.

We returned to Waluigi Time's office to have a word with the two of them, only to be stopped by Waluigi Time's secretary.

"Hold it, if you two want to see Waluigi Time you'll have to wait. He's in a meeting with the board of directors," the Birdo told us.

"He probably wouldn't mind if we just kinda barged in, right?" Shmwario asked.

"You know what, knowing him, probably not," she replied.

"You're going to try to pitch your Garlic Burrito Cereal idea to the board, aren't you?" I asked.

"...Maybe."

We quietly entered the board room, finding Waluigi Time and Shbig Changes amongst an interesting looking group of people. The meeting seemed to be pretty heated, and at the moment, a Sidestepper was verbally tearing into the cereal magnate.

"...and really, it was such a stupid move that anyone with half a brain should've stopped to consider the multitude of reasons why it would be a complete disaster when we're practically teetering on bankruptcy! I'll have you know that if you and that merchant didn't have so many shares in this company, I'd have you replaced as CEO in a heartbeat!"

"So, maybe starting a video game development arm of the company wasn't the best move financially," Waluigi Time conceded, leaning back in his chair and adjusting his mustache, "but just think of how cool it would be to open a box of Waluigi Time Cereal and find a CD-ROM for the Waluigi Time Cereal Game!"

"A lot of computers don't even come with CD drives anymore!"

"WHAT? Why didn't anyone tell me?!"

"Actually, I informed you when you first told me about the idea, and provided you with statistics as well, but you clearly weren't paying attention," Shbig said.

"I know we're interrupting, but are we interrupting?" Shmwario bellowed. Everyone suddenly turned to look at us in what was pretty much an instant reaction, though I can't say the reception was all that great. Only Waluigi Time looked happy to see us, the rest seemed neutral to our presence at best, and irritated that we were crashing their board meeting at worst. Not that I really blamed them.

"Uh, yeah, you are," snapped the Sidestepper. No pun intended.

"We should be done soon, if you two can hang tight I'll be right with you," Waluigi Time told us, "I don't care to keep this going much longer anyway..."

The board meeting wrapped up not too long after that. It was mostly just boring, if heated, business stuff, although there was a humorous incident where Waluigi Time tried to escape the meeting early by getting everyone to look at a non-existent plane outside the window. No one was fooled, my guess is that he's tried to pull things like that before. After everyone had cleared out and we were left alone with Waluigi Time and Shbig, we sat down to talk things over.

"Sorry about all that, whatcha got?" Waluigi Time asked.

"Well, we might have something, but what was the deal with that Sidestepper?" I asked.

"Oh, that's Mrs. Pincher. She doesn't really like how I run things... Actually, a lot of them don't," Waluigi Time said, "but you know, a lot of great artists were never appreciated in their time! So I figure I just have to wait until I kick the bucket and then have someone turn me into an AI like this guy so I can watch everyone finally appreciate me!"

"By all objective measures it really is surprising that we are still in business," Shbig said.

"You know, if you wanna make some money fast, you can make Garl-" Shmwario said, trying to shill for his idea again.

"Enough with the burrito thing! Ahem, so, we interviewed your employees, and none of them really came up as prime suspects. But we did start taking a closer look at that AI friend of yours," I said.

"What? Shbig wouldn't-" Waluigi Time began to say, before being interrupted by Shbig.

"Hold on, I am curious to see where this goes."

I was surprised by his reaction, but continued on. "Based on what your employees told us, the only one who should have unrestricted access to all areas of interest is yourself, Mr. Time, but you don't really seem like the self-sabotaging type... But Shbig Changes here would know everything about your comings and goings, and could easily get someone into your office to snag those keys. Furthermore, if he has the only remaining copy of the security footage, who knows what he could have done with it! If you wanted to shake things up around here, you'd have all the means to do so."

"An interesting theory... But unfortunately for you, an incorrect one. I am not programmed to participate in corporate sabotage," Shbig said, before glancing at Waluigi Time, "for better or worse."

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure of that one," Waluigi Time said, "and I trust him because I'm at least 83% sure he's not programmed to lie either! He's a great spin doctor, though."

"Best I can give you in the false information department is strategic withholding of information, I'm afraid."

The only thing I could do in response was to faceplant on the table.

"Don't worry about it bro, we'll come up with something else!" Shmwario said.

"Well, we don't have much of a choice," I said, lifting my head back up. "Could one of the board members be responsible, maybe?"

"If you care for my opinion, your original logic about the saboteur trying to replace management was fairly solid," Shbig said, "that could prove to be a beneficial lead to follow."

"I knew it!" Waluigi Time shouted, "Cornelius secretly bought enough shares to get someone on the board!"

Shbig merely sighed at Waluigi Time's statement.

"Well, since a lot of them don't seem too happy with things here, Shmaluigi doesn't think interviewing will be too helpful. They probably wouldn't know much about what the others are doing either... Unless they're in on it, but they're not going to snitch..."

"Perhaps this should be a lesson to you to keep your keys in a more secure location than an ordinary desk drawer," Shbig said to Waluigi Time, "something else I believe I already told you about."

"Hey, nothing happened until now! That has to count for something, right?" replied the cereal magnate, as he leaned so far back in his chair that I thought he was about to topple over.

Waluigi Time returned to his office to properly secure his keys, and we tagged along. But as he rummaged through his desk, it quickly became apparent that something was wrong.

"Um... They're, um, they're kind of, uh, gone," Waluigi Time said, stumbling over his words.

"How delightful," Shbig grumbled sarcastically.

"They were here earlier today, too... You know what, I'll just ask Robirda! No one comes in here without her knowing!" Waluigi Time said, poking his head back out into the waiting room. "Hey, Robirda, did you see who came in here after we left?"

"Mm, no, but I did have to step out for a bit while you were gone," she replied.

"Well, shoot."

"You could just seal the building and shake down everyone for keys!" Shmwario suggested.

"Nah, corporate policy doesn't allow us to do that after the... incident," Waluigi Time said.

"You know, this may not be such a bad thing. If someone stole the keys, that probably means they intend to strike again tonight, right? So maybe the two of us can do a little stakeout in the factory and see what comes up," I said. "Is there a specific entrance that they usually use?"

"Yes, they... Well, you know what, it's easier if I just show you," Shbig said, disappearing and displaying map of the factory on the screen. A small area in back was circled.

"Well, let's do this then!" Shmwario said.

"I'll call Chuck so he can get everything ready for you guys," Waluigi Time said before pulling out some papers, "oh, uh, also, I'll need you two to sign these liability waivers in case there's any accidents on company property."

Nothing puts more fear into an adult than mention of a liability waiver.

So there we were later that night, waiting in the darkness of the dormant cereal factory. There was something oddly eerie about it. During the day this place is probably bustling with people and filled with the whirring of machinery, but now, it was just nothing, almost as if it had been abandoned.

"What's takin' so long?" grumbled Shmwario.

"We've only been here for ten minutes..."

We waited for several hours, occasionally striking up idle conversation to pass the time.

"Hey, I gotta use the bathroom," Shmwario said before running off into the darkness of the factory. I hoped he had a map of the place...

A few minutes later, the door I had spent most of the night staring at finally creaked open. Great time to leave, bro. Nevertheless, I prepared myself as best as I could, and when the cloaked figure came through the door, I jumped them... and then got tossed back off. Unfortunately, I've never been all that great in a fight.

As I tried to get my bearings straight, the figure produced a large spiked ball and tossed it right at me! I was able to roll out of the way in time to avoid becoming a detective waffle, as the spike ball continued to roll ahead, barreling through the nearest wall. I still couldn't see them, but at this point it was pretty easy to deduce that this was a Spike. I didn't recall seeing any Spikes at the board meeting, so perhaps this was merely a hired goon?

I tried to get up again, but rather than pressing the attack, the Spike darted off and ran further into the factory.

"Stop, criminal scum!" I yelled, in a vain attempt to get them to stop running. Like that ever works.

I finally got back up and gave chase. The Spike already had a pretty good head start, but luckily, I'm the one with legs that are probably ten times as long. Though subduing them was probably going to be a difficult task, and something I didn't really want to think about right now. First things first!

But as I began to close in, I heard a familiar voice emerge from the darkness...

"OH YEAH, SHMWARIO TIME!"

The next thing I know, Shmwario came barreling out of nowhere and pinned the Spike to the ground with his shoulder! So, I guess it's a good thing I brought him along.

"Hey! Get off of me!"

Shmwario removed the Spike's cloak, confirming what I had already assumed at this point, and pulled a distinctive set of keys out of the pocket.

"Nice work, bro," I said.

"That's the great Shmwario at work for ya!" Shmwario said, beaming with pride.

"Seriously, can you get off me? I think you're crushing some important bones, or internal organs, or something?" groaned the Spike.

"Not until you tell us who you're working for!" Shmwario told him.

"Alright! Alright! Fine! It's Coolidge! Gwen Coolidge..."

"There was a Cooligan on the board, the name certainly tracks," I noted.

"Well let's get back to Waluigi Time and nab 'em!" Shmwario said before turning his attention back to the Spike and putting him in handcuffs, "You're under arrest for, err, illegal use of keys! You have the right to shut up and all that other stuff I don't have memorized!"

"You know, legally you don't even have the authority to do that," I said.

"Oh, well, uh, we'll just pretend you did it, alright?"

"Sure, whatever. Although maybe we should get this guy checked out at the hospital before we toss him in the slammer."

"Yes please..."

The next morning, we met back up with Waluigi Time and Shbig Changes to tell them our findings - and return his keys.

"Ms. Coolidge, eh? I wouldn't have expected her, there's a lot of loud people on the board and she's definitely not one of them," Waluigi Time said.

"So... if she doesn't talk much, does that mean she's giving you the... cold shoulder?" Shmwario joked with a stupid grin on his face. Waluigi Time chuckled, while Shbig and I just rolled our eyes.

"Well, I'll contact her and say we're having, uh, an emergency board meeting or something, then we can see what she has to say for herself," Waluigi Time decided.

Later that afternoon, Ms. Coolidge arrived for a supposed "emergency board meeting". We stayed out of the way to avoid suspicion, then followed her into the board room along with Mr. Chuck for extra security, just in case things got dicey.

"Oh, um, what's going on?" she said, surprised to see us entering.

"Well, I wasn't exactly honest with you," Waluigi Time told her, "there's no emergency board meeting, we need to talk about the recent events going on around here, if you catch my drift. Shmaluigi?"

"We caught the culprit last night in the factory. He's, well, he's doing some time in the hospital right now before he goes off to jail," I explained.

"Oh? Well, that's great, but, um, what's that have to do with me?" she asked. She tried to be stoic, but her tone of voice was beginning to give her away.

"We got him to crack," Shmwario said, "and he named you as the guy he was workin' for!"

"Everyone knows you can't trust Spikes..."

"We never said anything about him being a Spike," I countered.

Ms. Coolidge visibly became a lot more nervous. I had the feeling she was about to crack.

"...Okay, fine, you got me. I did it."

"Trying to get rid of me, eh?"

"You really don't know? Ha... I should've known you couldn't piece it together. Alright, I'll tell you. You remember back when the cereal industry was booming last year, of course? Everyone wanted a piece of the pie. I was one of them. South Pole Cereal. Remember that?"

"Erm, can't say I do?" Waluigi Time replied.

"Of course you wouldn't. I was just another one of the little guys, after all. Then things went bad, and everything came crashing down. So many of our businesses crumbled to dust. I saw things going bad. Sold everything while I still could. It was a loss, but it was something. Most of them weren't as lucky. You, of course, came through it. This purple fool who thinks MAYONNAISE belongs in CEREAL! Oh, everything's fine for you! Peaches and cream!! What a sick joke... So I took what I had, took some time to recover, and bought enough shares to get on the inside. I was going to take this garbage bin down! Guess I was too sloppy... But I don't regret anything.

"Okay, I don't really feel like listening to you anymore. Chuck, take her out of here."

"No problem, boss," Chuck said, effortlessly picking up the Cooligan and carrying her out over his shoulder.

"YOU'LL PAY WALUIGI TIME! SOMEDAY YOU'LL PAY!" she yelled as she was carried out by the Chargin' Chuck.

"So, that's that," I said.

"Um, should I feel a little guilty?" Waluigi Time asked, visibly rattled by the whole situation.

"Oh, you already know you shouldn't come to me for moral advice," Shbig mused. "I offer my most sincere thanks to you, detectives. At least now if everything collapses it will be our own doing."

"Yeah! Wait, what?" Waluigi Time said in a brief moment of celebration before realizing exactly what was said.

"So, about that Garlic Burrito Cereal idea..." Shmwario said, hopefully for the last time.

"We'll think about it," Waluigi Time replied.

Case closed.

The End

Thanks for reading another arc of Shmaluigi, Private Investigator! That's yet another one this year that's two parts, but I promise it's only been coincidence. Next month will be our annual Halloween special, or as annual as you can get for something that's only happened twice. I've got some guest writers lined up again, and some twists and turns that I bet you won't see coming! Hopefully I'll see you then, don't chicken out!

Luigi and Associates Detective Agency
Written by:

Issue #2.5: Chaos Control (Part 1.5)(I'M TRYING MY BEST OKAY)

Sonic stood in a stunned shock at the sight in front of him. He blinked twice and rubbed his eyes. There was absolutely no way this could be Arle, right..?

“What the-..?!” Sonic stuttered, “…Arle?!”

“That’s me~!” The young woman replied with a smug grin, “…hey, you’re that hedgehog guy! Speedy, right? Been a while. Psst. Meet me after work. 3PM. And don’t be late~!”

Sonic stared at Arle, blinking twice. “Uh- I- yeah. Sure. Can I, uh, can I order now..?”

Meanwhile, at one of the back tables, Luigi was trying to get reception on his terribly outdated phone while Yuri had a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

“Cmon…call, darn you,” Luigi muttered out.

It was then that Sonic slowly walked over, his muzzle pale, with slightly greasy food bags in hand.

“Oh, there you are,” said Yuri, “What took you so long?”

“Uh. Remember that Arle girl I was talkin’ about? Well, I found her.”

He looked back over to the counter, where Arle was serving another customer.

“Well, that’s good!” Luigi beamed.

Sonic winced, “Not really…”

“And why not?”

“You’ll find out today at 3…”

“That’s oddly specific.”

Sonic, Luigi, and Yuri were all committing the heinous crime of loitering, waiting for Arle to get off of work. She had said she’d be off at 3, right? So why was it taking so-

“Heeeyyyy~!”

-Oh. There she was.

“What took you so long?” Sonic jeered, tapping his foot impatiently.

“I am an agent of chaos~!” Arle explained, “I thrive off of this~!”

“The heck is she talking about?” Luigi questioned, his brow raised.

Sonic’s eyes widened, “It’s the chaos energy. From Chaos Town. Long…long story…”

LOOK I know this isn’t much but I had a lot to do this month, both on and off the forums.

Next month will be better, I promise. Be sure to look for something very special by WT.

Okay bye-