Yoshi to Mario: 'I thought we were friends'

It was a heartbreaking moment, the first time we were ever forced to jump off Yoshi's back to save our own selfish skin in Super Mario World. We reached for him over the edge of the platform, watching as he fell further and further away until he was nothing more than a tiny green dot in the distance. In hysterics, we yelled out to him, Last-of-the-Mohicans style, "I will find you!"

After the thousandth time we nonchalantly discarded Yoshi, though, leaving an imprint of our boot on his dinosaur nose as we leaped to higher ground, we'd been too desensitized by his many sacrifices to regret any one particular death. Sometimes, we even celebrated it: "That's what you get, you little jerk. That's what you get for making us chase you around and lose our feather."

But this faux motivational poster, spotted at Aeropause, calls our attention back to the cruelty and sadness of the technique. Seeing those teary eyes and outstretched arms is killing us inside. It's all made worse by Mario's refusal to even turn around and acknowledge his friend's ill-fated demise. The Koopa Paratroopa flying away in the background is clearly upset with the whole scene. We wouldn't be surprised if the event haunted him for the rest of his life, eventually leading him to alcohol and drug abuse.

[Via Aeropause]