The Critic

(Cue 'Glitchy' and 'SMG4' Logos)

It was another day in the disturbing world of SMG4's mushroom kingdom. The man himself was violently vibrating at his table whilst Among Us memes played out on his computer, and Mario was naked, humping a pile of spaghetti because what else would he be doing?

Toad meanwhile was outside in the middle of...Toad things. Arson? Yeah, arson.

When suddenly he got ran over by a hyper realistic car and got shot into the sky with a Wilhelm scream.

The door opened, and out stepped a typical GMOD character model wearing a top hat, and clutching a pencil and paper in one hand. With his other, he tweaked his bow tie. Then tweaked it again. Then rapidly tweaked it to the point it exploded.

"AH! Jesus Christ!" He screamed in shock, then managed to calm himself as he looked upon the castle. "Let's do this."

He was ragdolled towards the castle with extreme speed, kicking the door open and running inside, finding the fat Italian stretching his face in order to fit a plate of pasta into it.

"Excuse me, Mario I presume?" The figure asked.

"Oh hoo hoo! Hello!" Mario exclaimed as he switched back to his 64 model. "Wow! You sure got a lot uglier, delivery boy!"

The man's face was scrunched up a moment. "Do you know where I could find SMG4?"

"Oh, he's up in his hobo den." Mario explained.

The two of them then ragdolled up to the second floor, crashing into the wall and glitching out dangerously.

"Okay, WHY did we need to literally crash to get up here? Couldn't we have just walked?" He asked.

"Silly delivery boy! There's nothing wrong with throwing ourselves everywhere!" Mario's head fell off after saying that.

The man just held out his paper and scribbled onto it with wild strokes, before kicking the door open. "SMG4!"

Said creator gave off a hiss at the intruders. "Who are you? Can't you see I'm working on my masterpiece!?"

The guy looked at the screen to see several Nintendo models exploding before turning back to him. "My name is inconsequential as a one-off character. I am..." He held up the pencil with a sword sound effect. "A critic!"

Both Mario models gave a gasp of 'what!?'.

"Yes, and I am here to review your channels content." The critic declared.

The two Mario's looked shocked for a moment, then showed indifference. "Sure, whatever." SMG4 sighed. "I've read a LOT of YouTube comments over the years. I've grown numb to it at this point."

"Did I mention I was sent here by Susan Winklesnoot?"

SMG4's eyes bulged out in shock. "Susan Wigglebottom!?"

"Yes, that's what I said, Susan Willywonka." The critic said. "I've been sent by her to review your content and make sure that it is up to standard. And if not, you'll be cancelled!"

SMG4 screamed, but Mario just sat down and said: "Big deal, happens every other episode."

"For this purpose, I must look at your world in its entirety." Critic explained. "I will need you to come with me, SMG4."

"Uh...sure." He smiled nervously. "Mario, why don't you come too?"

"Mmmmm c'mon! This is your problem! Let me sit and be lazy!"

The critic then spoke up: "Actually as the...'main character', gross interpretation that you are-"

"Hey! Mario's face is sexy!"

"I'm gonna need you to come too."

"Mamaf*cker!"

The trio then collapsed their bones to get into the critics car and set off, flattening Toad once again on the way, before heading into generic GMOD city.

"So, uh, how's this going to work, then?" SMG4 gulped.

"Oh, I've read up on you, SMG4..." The critic darkly spoke. "We'll be reviewing your characters and plots. Seeing as your settings are just Frankenstein's monsters of maps and props."

"Hey! My Frankenstein's monster world resents that!" He argued.

"Can we stop for food?" Mario in the back asked.

"NO!" Both the two in front yelled.

They stopped in front of a totally-not-McDonald's-burger shop. Looking at the situation it seemed that Luigi and the Princess were enjoying the fact that they were not in the presence of the two Mario's in the car. Wario and Waluigi were dumpster diving.

"It seems you use a lot of Nintendo characters." Critic mused. "It's a wonder you haven't been hit with a cease and desist."

"I know, right?" He smiled. "I-I mean, that's how it started out, y'know? Kept with it ever since."

"...So what's that, then?" He pointed.

Saiko seemed to be the one at the drive-thru serving a monty mole, who was obviously ordering two number 9's, a number 9 large, a number 6 with extra dip, a number 7, two number 45's, one with cheese, and a large soda. Or he would have had Saiko not flown into a rage at that predictable joke and proceeded to viciously assault the minion.

"That sure is a clash of styles, isn't it?" Critic spoke oddly calmly considering Saiko had just whipped out the flamethrower and destroyed the framerate. "Even the three of us in this car feels off."

"That's GMOD in a nutshell." SMG4 shrugged. However this caused the critics eyes to eject from their skull and stab SMG4 right in the nipples, before retreating to their skull as he furiously wrote more on his notepad.

"Woo-hoo! Food!" Mario was occupied and trying to climb out the window, but his fat ass got him stuck.

"Moving on." The critic said.

"Waitwaitwait-!" Mario screamed, but was too late as the car took off, causing Mario to be clotheslined again...and again...and again...

"Uh, Mario's stuck in the window." SMG4 pointed out.

"I know." The critic said as he proceeded to drive closer to the sidewalk and hit Mario with more random objects.

By the time they slowed down, Mario's face was properly pancaked, crumpling back into the car.

"Ah, here's more-oh my god!" The critic suddenly gasped. "Such a horrifying sight!"

Bob was rapping in the middle of the street, much to the chagrin of all passersby, each of whom called out "Boo, you stink!" or other insults. Next to him, Fishy Boopkins was also trying his hand at singing...some generic anime song. Those who passed by him proceeded to writhe on the ground in pain.

"That's a usual reaction to them." Mario smiled, now seemingly recovered.

"No, not that." The critic groaned. "What is with your depiction of weebs, SMG4?"

"Oh, c'mon, I like anime too." SMG4 defended himself. "Nothing wrong with poking fun at yourself."

The trio all looked at the camera as canned laughter played.

"So you accept the fact that apparently you're a wimpy simpy sad little loner?"

"...Well you didn't need to phrase it like that..."

"Um...I-I can hear you...over there..." Boopkins squeaked.

"Good!" The critic screamed at him, before turning back to SMG4. "Actually, this is a good time to bring up another gripe I have." Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a rocket launcher and fired it at Bob.

"Ow, my ovaries!" He cried in a monotone amount of pain.

"You seem to have a habit of reusing voice clips." The critic stated.

"Now that's just preposterous! See, you've got me breaking out the big words, now!" SMG4 declared.

"Ooooooh, very scary." A cross-eyed Mario could not comprehend such speech.

"Thank you for proving my point, Mario." Critic nodded.

"I don't reuse voice clips!" SMG4 cried.

Just then there was an explosion, and several generic screams as Boopkins ran away in fear, whilst a retaliating Bowser stomped after him singing "IIIIIIII'm about to whip somebody's aaaaaaaaass."

The critic looked at SMG4.

"...They're good to have on hand, okay?" He mumbled.

The critic wrote down more whilst making Homer Simpson chainsaw noises, before they set off once again.

Eventually, they slowed down at an alleyway, where the citic stopped.

"Dear god..." He actually opened up the car and stepped out. "You poor soul..." This actually got the other two confused as they peered out at-

"Toast!" Toast Guy was lying on the ground, next to a sing that read: 'Will TOAST for TOAST'.

"Oh come on!" SMG4 yelled. "You just got on my case about using voice lines, and you're sad for him!?"

"When was the last time you used him?" The critic questioned as he gave the character a slice of toast, who faceplanted into it to devour it. "Or did Steve fill that role too well?"

"Dude, Toast Guy was painfully one-note." SMG4 sighed. "He had a good run, but there's not much else I can do with him."

"...That's your main character." Critic pointed to Mario, who was cross-eyed and crawling in circles whilst saying 'moving on the ground' and fantasizing about spaghetti.

"He's the 'Fits-all-role' type! The roles just have to be very, very large is all!" SMG4 cried.

"Hey! Shut up!" Mario yelled indignantly.

"In fact, all of your characters are very one note, given what we've seen." Critic pondered, as Toast Guy began taking off into the air, his power restored. "And if they're not, they're just there for convenience's sake. Right, Swagmaster and Chris?"

Suddenly Swagmaster and Chris were there.

"Holy shit, chris, how did we end up here? What kind of black magic is this?" Swagmaster questioned.

"Swag, just, just let me have my lunch one time, please." Chris replied.

"Oh, pull conveniences out of thin air, will you? Bitch, I invented that!" SMG4 challenged.

Suddenly, Tari and Meggy were there.

"Wait, how did I end up here?" Meggy questioned.

"I didn't do anything I swear!" Tari panicked.

"These two had character development!" SMG4 said, before flipping the critic the double bird and swinging his head around in a circle whilst a stereotypical gangster song played.

"Both of whom are from other sources." Critic rebuttled. "Tari from your other, story-based series, and Meggy from Splatoon...before you retconned that so that you could get another generic anime girl."

"You take that back!"

"Make me, palette change!"

The two leapt at each other and became embroiled in an epic slap battle, whilst all the summoned friends watched on in indifference.

"...Sorry, what's happening?" Meggy asked Mario.

"Iunno." Said red shrugged. "You guys wanna go get something to eat?"

"Sure, why not." Chris agreed, as all of them wandered off.

Eventually, the fighters broke away from each other.

"Something's up, here." SMG4 glared. "You know way too much for any plain-old Susan reviewer."

"Hmph. Sorry to disappoint, but this isn't another SMG3 scheme, if that's what you're wondering." The critic hissed. "I suppose I've stalled long enough. We're going to the final point for my review! And there, we'll settle this!"

"Bring it on, IGN-cell!" SMG4 yelled.

So the two of them climbed into the car, and shared a very awkward drive, both of their faces locked into one of displeasure.

"...Can I put the radio on?" SMG4 asked.

"Yeah, sure." The critic agreed as he put on the chicken nugget song.

Soon, the car slowed to a halt, and the two of them got out, but as they walked down, SMG4 stopped. "Wait...is this...?"

"Yes." The critic nodded. "This is it...the coast where the Anime Arc ended."

The map was the same as they had left it (obviously) the sun setting across the waves.

"This is the place where everything culminated." The critic spoke softly. "Character redesigns, character deaths...this is where such big things happened..."

The critic then turned to him. "But...SMG4...what were you thinking!?" He pointed at the creator. "You tried to have a big, emotional payoff! In THIS show! With THESE characters! Can you even comprehend what is wrong with that!?"

"What!?" SMG4 gasped. "You've got a problem with that!?"

"This is a meme comedy show, SMG4! You CANNOT have a genuine, big sad scene in something like this!" The critic shouted. "It's just wrong! It doesn't work! You cannot suddenly decide to become all serious and bring in themes like death after years of comedy!"

"I've been doing this for years! I wanted to try new things!" SMG4 countered. "I had to build this moment up as best I could whilst not diverging from the humour everybody loved from the show! And you know, what? I think I did pretty good!"

"But such an ending on top of so many other drastic changes!? You bit off more then you could chew, SMG4! You have Meta Runner for all that serious shit now! It should never have been brought into this show!"

"That's for fans to decide! If they don't like it, that's okay! Literally any other episode of SMG4 could work for them." He scowled. "Why do you even care anyway?"

"Because-!...Because..."

The critic sighed. "I'm tired of this charade..." He then lifted his hand, and took off his hat, tossing it away into a goomba and mercilessly killing it.

"Holy shit!" SMG4 gasped. "Wait...do I know you?"

"No, that wasn't a disguise. I just did that for dramatic effect." The man said. "But also, I'm not really a critic sent by Susan Wambusham. I'm actually...an old fan!"

"Say whaaaaat?" SMG4 said.

"It's true. I watched your content long ago." The fan spoke as they stared off at the sun. "I was a pretty humourless kid. Not even the best of YTP's could appeal to me. But your show...something about it just...tickled me pink. I watched all your episodes, the ssenmodnars, everything. It...helped me get through some rough times."

"...So is this where it all changed?" SMG4 questioned.

"I suppose." The fan admitted. "When you began introducing new characters...I wasn't sure if I liked it or not. I kept on watching, but that feeling never went away. And when the conclusion of the Anime Arc appeared...that's what drove me over the edge. I just...didn't like it. At all. I figured I had grown out of your show, so I abandoned it. But because of the lockdown, I found myself running out of things to watch, so I returned to this series...and found myself enjoying it again, for some reason. However, with the newer episodes, that feeling came back, and grew..."

"So instead of ranting about it on Twitter, I unhealthily bottled it up to the point I devised this entire scheme to force what I wanted to hear out of you. All of the faults of SMG4." The fan admitted. "I thought it might make me feel better, somehow. But, uh, not really. Now I just feel really sad. I don't think I even know what I want anymore."

"...I get that. It's a lot of change. I knew not everybody would like it." SMG4 admitted. "But its something I wanted to try, to experiment with, and I felt happier making it. You're not wrong for not liking it, that just means you have an opinion. Those old episodes will always be there for you, though."

SMG4 approached the fan and patted his shoulder. "The thing about a Frankenstein's monster is...you're bound to find at least one part you like."

"...I guess...that's fair." The fan admitted. "I'll just decide for myself which episodes I like and don't like, then just not watch the stuff I don't."

"That's the spirit!" SMG4 smiled. "So, uh...are you really a reviewer?"

"Well, yeah, actually. I just don't work for Susan."

"Woah, so could you review Meta Runner, maybe?"

"Oh, absolutely not. I'm really not a fan of shows like that."

"Oh..."

There was silence.

"I think I'd better make sure this story ends on a comedic note, otherwise I'll look pretty hypocritical." The fan admitted.

"So wait, what are you gonna do with all that stuff you wrote down?" SMG4 asked.

"Hmmm...oh, I know! I'll write a fanfiction out of it!"

"WHAT!?"

Suddenly several police cars spawned out of nowhere to the cry of "STOP RIGHT THERE!" and crashed into the two of them, turning into multiple explosions.