Morton's Basics

Important Terms

Certain terms get tossed around a lot in Lemmy's Land, and if you don't know what they are you could be at a loss. Here I've compiled a list of the most important places, items, and LL terms you're likely to see. I have tried to keep this list short so it's easy to memorize. Just read it a few times and learn. For information on characters, check Morton's Bios or Lemmy's List of Baddies.

Banned: Term applied to a tourist who has been tossed from Lemmy's Land. Banned tourists lose all their Koopaling votes and may never submit again, and Lemmy will ignore all their Emails unless he feels a response is necessary. Trust me, you don't want to get yourself banned. Fortunately, Lemmy is not in the business of banning people, and only four tourists have been banned thus far.

The Big Five: The five most important sections of Lemmy's Land: Fun Fiction, Scribbles, Interviews, Art Museum, and Funnies (in order of their creation, not of their importance). Despite the collective name, some of these aren't actually the largest sections on the site, but whatcha gonna do? Lemmy's just crazy like that.

Coin: Sometimes called gold coins, these fund Mario's endeavors. In the games he suddenly gets "extra lives" when he collects enough of these, but in Lemmy's Land we can actually buy stuff. Yes, us too; Koopas love coins! They first appeared in Super Mario Bros.

DAD: The first Koopa, now viewed among many Koopas as a god of sorts. You know, as in "Oh my DAD!!!" Koopas who worship DAD are known as Familikoopas.

Dark Land: Home of the Koopas, and the only Koopa-infested area they rightly own. Well, we probably stole it from someone way back when, but it's so hot and full of lava that no one's really complaining. Except us, since we're stuck with it.

Dinosaur Land: Smaller and less advanced than the more commonly seen Mushroom Kingdom, this area was featured in Super Mario World. It's close enough to the Mushroom Kingdom to be reached by hot air balloon. This landmass includes Yoshi's Island, Donut Plains, the Vanilla Dome, the Twin Bridges, the Forest of Illusion, Chocolate Island, and the Valley of Bowser, and also has paths to Star Road and the Special Zone.

Doomship: Flying ship of evil featured in Super Mario Bros. 3. It should go without saying that they belong to the Koopas. In the game these were actually called Airships, but in the Mario Cartoons they were called doomships and that's the term that stuck in Lemmy's Land, mostly thanks to Lemmy, who likes the latter name better.

Feedback Form: Found at the end of every full-page submission - that means Fun Fiction, Mysteries, Scribbles, Interviews, CDs, Art Museum, Drawing Board, Funnies, Reviews, Game Guides, and Madlibs. If you fill it out, the author of said submission will receive a copy of your comments via Email. Lemmy will also receive a copy, so don't write anything you wouldn't want to tell him... or if you do, don't be an idiot and fill in your name or Email address. This is the easiest way to nominate a submission for Little Lemmy's Land, so be on the lookout for this form if you think a submission is in the top ten percent for its section. Feedback forms on Database-tied pages no longer allow you to withhold your name, so watch what you say, all right?

Fire Flower: Mario can throw fireballs after he finds this. Not good for Koopas. First seen in Super Mario Bros.

Keep: Stemming from Super Mario RPG, this is another name for Bowser's castle. You'll also see it referred to as Koopa Castle, Koopa Kastle, and the Koopas' castle, or even just Bowser's castle. I know, no consistancy whatsoever...

Koopa Troop: Refers to Bowser, his kids, and his entire forces; the bad guys. Sometimes called the Koopa Clan or, if the author thinks he's especially clever, Koopa Klan. Or possibly just the Koopas.

Koopaling: A term used to refer to one of Bowser's kids, this was occassionally used in the Mario cartoons but has been used much more so in Lemmy's Land. Bowser's offspring may also be called Koopa Kids, although this terrm is now also used in the Mario Party series to refer to a group of characters that resemble a small Bowser.

Koopaling Vote: Sort of like Lemmy's Land's currency. Tourists can earn them by getting their submissions posted, answering Quizzies, or doing other things. They support said tourist's favorite Koopaling(s) and also play into becoming a Super Koopa. Once a tourist becomes a Super Koopa, Koopaling votes serve little purpose, but people still seem to like them. Real currency would be transferable; you can't trade votes to other tourists for services.

LL: Short for Lemmy's Land, the site you're visiting right now!

LLL: Short for Little Lemmy's Land, a section that contains the top ten percent of submissions from many of the other sections. When Lemmy is feeling especially lazy, he may write L3 instead. Inclusion and placement in LLL is determined solely by positive votes to the "Does this submission belong in Little Lemmy's Land?" question, with the submissions with the most votes being ranked highest. If two submissions have the same number of votes, the one that received its last vote first gets priority. Negative votes do not affect the LLL tally. Positive votes are nearly always accepted, but will be rejected if the voter does not supply a name and may be dismissed if other elements of the feedback form (1/10 score, comments, a "sure" or "ok" instead of a "yes" response for LLL) suggest that the voter may not actually believe the submission in question is one of the best in its section.

Magic Wand: Koopalings often hold these weapons, even though we were supposed to have lost them during Super Mario Bros. 3, when we had stolen them from the seven kings of the Mushroom Kingdom. They can shoot beams and do pretty much whatever else the author might happen to decide.

Mario Gang: Generally refers to the good guys relevant to the story in which this term appears. If there are no context clues, it probably refers to Mario, Luigi, Peach, Toad (the stars of Super Mario Bros. 2 and the first two cartoon series), and possibly Yoshi.

Mushroom: First seen in Super Mario Bros, this fungus increases Mario's strength when he eats it. In the games this meant he got larger and was able to take an extra hit, but in stories Mario just generally becomes more powerful. Its full name is Super Mushroom, but most tourists are too lazy to write that extra word. Plus, they're not that super anyway.

Mushroom Kingdom: First featured in Super Mario Bros. 3, this contains the seven lands: Grass Land, Desert Land, Water Land, Giant Land, Sky Land, Ice Land, and Pipe Land. The game's eighth world, Dark Land, is not part of the Mushroom Kingdom. Funny how the kingdom is bigger than the whole world (see next entry).

Mushroom World: Technically the area just around Peach's Castle, where the events of Super Mario Bros. took place; it is located within Grass Land, of Super Mario Bros. 3 fame. However, the term is more commonly used to refer to the Mushroom Kingdom or even Plit as a whole. Think of it more as "the place where Mario beats up the Koopas". Unfortunately.

Mushroomer: Another name for one of Toad's look-a-likes. Sometimes called Mushroom People. Or just Toads.

Netfirms: The name of the server that hosts Lemmy's Land. If something goes wrong with the site, especially on the forum, Lemmy will probably blame this mysterious entity. He may be right, but you probably shouldn't let him off the hook. On rare occassions you may also hear the name Sirkain, a backup server which once held such sections as Lemmy's CDs and Lemmy's Funnies. Those sections are on Netfirms now because the main host became powerful enough, and because Sirkain is tragically unreliable. Lemmy was lucky enough to be given essentially unlimited space and bandwidth on Sirkain, though, so try not to think of it too unkindly. You never know if it will come into play again some day.

Official Character: A person that appeared in any official Mario media, whether it be a game, book, cartoon, comic, or movie. Such media has to be Nintendo licensed, and so rarely if ever applies to fan fiction. Fan fiction is a medium, of course, but your characters can't become official that way. The alternative to official character is the unofficial character, which is anyone you include in a submission that isn't, well, an official character. This means anyone you pulled from some other source, like another game, a TV show, or a movie, as well as anyone you made up yourself. A subsect of unofficial character is the author insertion, which is adding in a character with the same name as the author. When the author isn't billing himself as a Mario character himself, this is generally frowned upon moreso than the standard unofficial character, but if you write well and are persuasive, you could certainly sneak one in.

Peach's Castle: The good guys' stronghold... or, as I like to call it, weakhold. If you've played Super Mario RPG, Super Mario 64, or Paper Mario, you've seen it. Peach seems to be big on redecorating, though. You might never know the castle was the same in those three games if I hadn't just told you so.

Plit: Name of the planet Mario's games take place on (except for Mario is Missing and Mario's Time Machine, which take place on Earth aka the Real World, and Smithy's factory from Mario RPG, which is in another dimension). Plit includes the Mushroom Kingdom, Dinosaur Land, Sarasaland, all those other areas from Super Mario RPG, and much more. The adventures shown in the games hardly span the entire planet.

Sarasaland: Much smaller than the Mushroom Kingdom, this is Daisy's land from the relatively little-known Super Mario Land. It's pretty far away from the Mushroom Kingdom, which is why Mario had to fly there. Too bad he didn't crash and burn.

Star: First appearing in Super Mario. Bros, this shining star with eyes grants Mario temporary invincibility when he touches it. Or, barring that, it could be something he's searching for in order to complete a quest because they hold great and mysterious powers especially in large numbers. Both of these things are good reasons for him to find them. The invincibility-granting kind may also be called a Starman (its original but longer name), while the collectible and mysterious ones can also be called Power Stars. Other notable star-shaped things include the Star Road Pieces, Star Spirits, Beanstar, Cobalt Star, Shine Sprites, and Crystal Stars. While initially something of a bonus item in the early platformers, in more recent titles Stars have become extremely significant, and rank up there with Mushrooms and Koopa-kind as the pre-eminant symbols of the Mario series.

Submission: Anything sent to Lemmy. Well, not anything. I mean, just a regular old Email isn't really a submission. But if there was a story or a picture attached to that Email, that would be a submission. Unless, of course, you tell Lemmy in said Email that you don't want said submission posted, in which case it's something for Lemmy to look at but not really a submission at all. Uh... I think I'm confused. It all seemed so simple a minute ago...

Super Koopa: A tourist who has gone above and beyond, and as such has earned certain privileges. Among these privileges is the ability to see most submissions a week before other tourists can. The conditions for becoming a Super Koopa have changed over the years, but right now tourists must earn 25 Koopaling votes and prove to Lemmy that their submissions have improved the site. Don't worry too much about the "prove" part, Lemmy is pretty lenient about it. The term Super Koopa also refers to a caped Koopa from Mario World; check for context clues to decide in which way the phrase is being used.

Tourist: Anyone who has ever visited Lemmy's Land... that means you, unless someone has stolen this page and placed it on their site. The term was coined because Lemmy's Land was originally envisioned as a park of some sort that people might visit while on vacation.

Warp Pipe: Sometimes just called pipes, these will take whoever enters them to another location. They're usually closed circuits, meaning a given pipe will always lead to the same place. They tend not to be labeled, though, so taking them can be risky. For unknown reasons there are also many pipes scattered around the Mushroom Kingdom that are not warps and don't seem to serve any purpose other than to house Piranha Plants and break up flat terrain. First featured in Super Mario Bros. There may also be other ways to warp around the Mushroom Kingdom and Plit, but I ain't saying nothin'.

? Block: These floating blocks were first seen in Super Mario Bros. They tend to hold useful items and are bound to appear just where we don't want them. I can't tell you how many times Mario has gotten out of a jam thanks to these. Meanwhile, they're just too darn confusing! Never mind the question of how they can float, but how should they be pronounced? Whenver I read the name in my head I think of it as "Q Block", but saying it aloud, it's definitely "Question Mark Block". What a mystery. Some games include ! Blocks which function pretty much the same way except they have a ! on them instead of a ?.  Nobody likes those, though. And I never call them Bang Blocks.

Do you like talking as much as I do? Email me!
Go back to Morton's Basics.
Go back to Lemmy's Land.