Your headcanons

More a dumb theory, but the Illumination film will be used as an opportunity to bring back this enemy
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By way of reused Minion model in a plane.
 
Shhhhhh, you'll give them ideas...

What even is that, though? And where is it from?
 
Kinda crazy but whatever.
Toadette is an evil dictator who is trying to overthrow Peach. Bowser Jr. is know head of the Koopas. Luigi has given up on adventuring to start a ghost busting company. Toadswoth has died of cancer. And Lakitus are actually the angels of dead mushroom people.
 
Toadette has almost attempted to murder Blue Toad (see New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe), though it just seems Blue Toad was just busy depositing money at a bank.
 
The Mario & Sonic games take place on an alternate world where the Olympics mean everything and everybody devotes all their time and effort towards them and is generally a nice and peaceful place.
 
Kidnappings happen because Bowser gets bored easily between parties, races, and sporting events. They're usually generally harmless (1-Ups aplenty all around), with a few exceptions. One example is when he broke the universe.
 
You didn't actually.

But to answer your question I always looked at 1-ups as something that only existed as a gameplay mechanic and not an actual thing that exists in universe.