Vim

Vim is the mushroom life force of the Toad species. Without their vim, Toads cannot live. Although vital to the survival of the Toad species, vim has not played an important role in Mario's adventures; at least not until Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time. In this game, the extraterrestrial Shroobs conquered the Mushroom Kingdom of the past. During the invasion, many Toads were abducted so their vim could be extracted and converted into fuel for the Shroobs' flying saucers.

Captured Toads were taken to the Toadwood Forest and attached to special bio-engineered trees. These trees could actually suck the vim out of Toads, slowly killing the mushroom people. A Toad drained of vim would die and be discarded so that another Toad's vim could be drained. Once drained, the vim would then travel through the roots of the trees to the Vim Factory located in the middle of the forest. A giant tree sat in the middle of the factory, absorbing the vim and sending the solution through pipes to another area of the factory. The pipes led to the lair of Swiggler, a bio-mechanical Wiggler that had the ability to convert vim into fuel for Shroob Saucers with special chemicals located inside its body. Once converted, flying saucers would attach to Swiggler, transferring the fuel into the ships.

Fortunately, Mario, Luigi, Baby Mario and Baby Luigi put an end to this sick operation by destroying the Shroobs, the giant vim-sucking tree, and the hideous Swiggler inside the Vim Factory.

Whether the Toads were able to have their vim returned to them at the end of Mario and Luigi's adventure is unknown. Toadiko, a Toad from the future, had her vim removed from her, and was never seen to be rescued or brought back to the present, but neither was her counterpart Toadbert, who was definitely alive at the end of the game.

Vim, when extracted from Toads, resembles a green liquid with transparent images of sad Toad spirits.

It is unknown if vim is unique to Toads or if it exists in all fungus-based species, like Goombas, Amanitas and even the Shroobs themselves. It is also possible that other species, such as Koopa Troopas, contain vim; and even humans might have it, considering that the word "vim" is merely a word for "liveliness".