#because then they play as mario and luigi

[cuchufletapl]

how to speak (modern AU)

Triple drabble for Edling Week 2024. Day 5: beauty / kismet / triumph / horizon.

@edling-week

AO3

They spend the last days of June togther, but they don’t do any of their previously planned stuff. Sprawled on the sofa, they play Mario Kart, not bringing the matter up, the fan whirring at top speed. Ed loses with a blue shell yell of rage, and Ling’s Princess Peach crosses the finish line laughing.

“Rematch?” Ed offers, but Ling declines.

They leave the controllers between the cushions and get out to the veranda. Summer is plucking out the few flowers left in the unkempt garden. I don’t know how to do this, says one of them. I don’t either, says the other. It’d be nice if things didn’t have to be this way, but c’est la vie.

Ling is leaving the day after tomorrow. His exchange studies program only lasts one year.

“Are you done packing?” Ed asks, crouching on the grass, shredding a poppy.

“I’ll start tonight.”

“And what if you run out of time, moron.”

“Hey.” A friendly tap with his foot. “You can’t speak like that to the 150cc podium king.”

“Only three out of five times!”

Ling laughs. The cicadas get frightened and quiet down when they hear him, and the sudden absence of their song falls over the boys like a heat wave blanket. Sighing, Ed stops pretending to be so terribly annoyed at losing on the Wii and stands up. He sticks his hands in his pockets, all nonchalance.

“You know that place Al talks about sometimes?”

“Where he took Mei on their first date?”

“The river pools with the tiny waterfalls, yeah. It’s pretty beautiful. And you can jump into the water from like eight meters high.”

“Mm-hm?”

“When you come back, I’ll take you.”

Ling smiles and takes one of Ed’s hands out of his pocket to interlace their fingers.

“Deal.”

[shartfinz]

Nintendo if you bring super paper Mario back I'll fix Mr. L's hands in this drawing just for you

[beebfreeb]

One of the most heart-wrenching things that've ever happened to me occurred while trying to research the Super Paper Mario art style.

"Ohh what a beautiful and interesting art style! It is very distinctive! I wonder if anyone else has tried or wanted to try breaking it down and replicating it?" Obliviously, I typed in Super Paper Mario Art Style into my search bar... only to find many people calling it ugly and saying they hate it.

This simply could not be... permanent damage was done to my artistic soul.

No joy? No whimsy in this world? No love of computer graphics? Of a certain era of clipart? Of the art that was born from the computer and is difficult to replicate without one? Of the art made when this was something new and fascinating? No love for something unique?

Super Paper Mario don't listen to all those haters I love your geometric art style influenced by what shapes are easily drawn on a computer and the smooth mechanical interpolation within your animations. I love you. Also the music is banger.

[mutedeclipse]

Obsessed with the idea of zokket gently reaching out and holding eck's mouth shut with his massive fucking hand. A mildly bothered and hushed:

"Quiet, ego. Your drivel is tanking our efficiency."

[pianokantzart]

Princess Daisy's capabilities as a ruler being disregarded because she's loud, hotheaded and emotional, leading her to be perceived by many as immature and impulsive.

Luigi's capabilities as a hero being disregarded because he's awkward, nervous and emotional, leading him to be perceived by many as weak and pathetic.

Both of them recognizing the value inherent in each other's feelings while simultaneously seeing the strength and potential in one another that they are unable to see in themselves. Do you feel me?

[pownicmania5000]

Inferiority complex

[impossiblefeat]

Long post of Espio's dialogue in the Mario & Sonic at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games:

[chillisreal]

FIRST ONE

me and my sister played some 3D world earlier, and I was thinking a lot about it while listening to a song called you and me and i just, yeah

Mario n luigi, the brothers ever.

[fullmoonfireball]

slutshaming him!!!!!!

[itsamenickname]

So about a month ago, I finally got around to playing a video game called Ib on the Nintendo Switch (if you have not played it yet, I seriously recommend it because it is a really good game).  Now, while Ib did inspire the final chapter of To Break the Bonds Within Two Kingdoms, I also recently thought of a fun story idea that combines Ib’s game plot with the Mario characters we all know and love (i.e., Luigi, Bowser, and King Boo).

One note before I talk about the story, I do want to mention that the Luigi’s Mansion series does not occur in this timeline. I’ll go over this more later, but I wanted to make this note now to give you guys a little heads up.

Okay, now let’s get the ball rolling! :) (Story’s under cut because you know this is going to be a long one.)

*****************

The story starts off with Mario and Luigi arriving at a brand new art gallery in the Mushroom Kingdom. Not long after they enter the gallery, Peach comes over to greet them and she and Mario have a conversation with Luigi quietly listening. After a few minutes, Mario, Peach, and Luigi would suddenly hear children screaming. The three humans would turn and see Bowser attempting to calm down the Koopalings and Jr. Upon seeing Bowser, Mario would start to get annoyed (because he doesn’t trust Bowser at all), but since Bowser and Peach had sign a peace treaty 2-3 months ago, Peach tries to reassure Mario that Bowser’s not here to cause anyone any trouble. Like them, Bowser and his children just want to enjoy the art gallery. While Mario and Peach are talking, Luigi just…quietly watches Bowser.  Eventually, Mario and Peach move on to another part of the gallery, but Luigi doesn’t notice this. Once Mario and Peach are gone, Bowser looks up with an annoyed expression and sees Luigi staring at him. Luigi, suddenly feeling scared, looks away and runs off to catch up with Mario and Peach.

Instead of finding Mario and Peach though, Luigi eventually finds a particular painting called, “Fabricated Kingdom”. While Luigi’s looking at the painting, the lights would suddenly flicker on and off. Scared by the flickering lights, Luigi starts searching for Mario and Peach. However, there’s one issue.

Everyone in the gallery is gone.

Mario. Peach. Bowser. The Koopalings and Jr. They all just…disappeared.

After searching around the gallery for a bit, Luigi would eventually come back to the “Fabricated Kingdom” painting. However, what’s different about the painting is that the frame is now gone. Confused by the change, Luigi slowly walks up to the painting, but when he gets close enough, the painting suddenly sucks Luigi up, leaving the art gallery completely empty.

So here, I want to point out the significance of roses. In Ib, roses are very important in that they are the player’s health meter. In this story idea, roses would play this same role. Now at first, Luigi doesn’t realize this observation, but when an enemy attacks him and he sees that his blue rose has less petals than before, that’s when Luigi discovers that he and his rose are connected and that he needs to protect his rose at all cost.

So after Luigi progresses through multiple areas and solves multiple puzzles, he eventually finds an unconscious Bowser. Luigi starts searching around and finds an orange rose that has only one petal left. After putting Bowser’s rose in a vase (which restores a rose’s health), Luigi goes back to Bowser. When Bowser wakes up, he looks around the room and asks out loud, “Where the hell am I?” He soon notices Luigi standing in front of him, which would cause Bowser to get annoyed because he’s stuck with “Green Mario”. Without saying a word, Luigi holds out the orange rose to Bowser, which causes Bowser to ask, “What the hell are you giving me this for?” Here, Luigi tells the story of how he found Bowser unconscious and also found the badly damaged orange rose. Luigi would then explain to Bowser how they (Luigi and Bowser) and their respective roses are connected to one another and that they need to protect their roses at all cost. Without saying a word, Bowser begrudgingly accepts the orange rose from Luigi and stares at it for a bit. Now, since he doesn’t initially believe Luigi (since he is his enemy after all), Bowser plucks a petal from his rose. However, immediately after doing this, Bowser lets out an, “Ow!” and drops his rose from the sudden pain he kind of inflected on himself. Realizing that Luigi is telling the truth, Bowser picks up his rose and looks around the room. After considering his options, Bowser tells Luigi that as much as he hates the idea, in order for them to get back to Jr, the Koopalings, Mario, and Peach, they need to work together. While he's nervous about the idea, Luigi does agree to the idea of teaming up with Bowser.

Now here is where this story pretty much aligns with Ib (at least area/puzzles wise). As they travel through the different areas (and solve more puzzles), one thing starts to change: Bowser’s opinion of Luigi. Now for years, Bowser did not like Luigi all that much (since he’s the younger brother of his arch-nemesis). But after getting to know Luigi while finding an exit to this hellish gallery? Bowser doesn’t mind Luigi all that much. Heck, Bowser could even consider Luigi as…a friend.

But then King Boo (in human form) comes into the picture. 

So as I mention earlier on in this post, the Luigi’s Mansion series does not occur in this timeline (like at all). The reason? The LM series already establishes Luigi and King Boo’s bad relationship. In this idea, I want King Boo to have the ability to trick Luigi and Bowser into trusting him (so that he can have a chance leave the art gallery and become a real person).

However, there’s one flaw to King Boo’s plan. 

Bowser.

You see, when Luigi and Bowser first meet King Boo in the Violet Area, Bowser gets…an uneasy feeling. He doesn’t know why, but from the purple gleam in King Boo’s eyes to the black rose King Boo is holding, Bowser just does not trust King Boo.

But somehow, King Boo was able to convince Luigi and Bowser to let him join them in finding an exit to the gallery.

So after traversing through more areas and solving few more puzzles, Bowser would eventually get separated from King Boo and Luigi. While trying to find a way to get back to Luigi and King Boo, Bowser finds a book. However, this book is different from all the other books in the hellish gallery because it includes a picture of a painting that looks exactly like King Boo. As soon as Bowser realizes that King Boo is actually a painting from a gallery, King Boo (while still with Luigi) starts to get shivers down his spine. He doesn’t know how to explain it, but somehow, he knows that Bowser discovered his secret, so King Boo starts to get…desperate. By this, I mean that the only thing King Boo can focus on is finding any way to get out of the gallery with Luigi. It eventually gets to the point where King Boo considers killing Luigi (because he doesn’t want Luigi to find out about his secret), but Bowser is able to save Luigi in time. Once King Boo is knocked unconscious, Bowser explains to Luigi that King Boo is not human (since I see King Boo as a human in this idea) but rather one of the gallery’s paintings. Bowser also tells Luigi that it’s dangerous to stay with King Boo and that they need to find the exit quickly.

So because Ib has 7 different endings, this is where different things start to branch off. However, I will mention the general ideas for the 3 most important endings:

Together, Forever: In Ib, the twist of this ending is that Luigi loses his rose (after King Boo pushes him and Bowser into a Haunted Box) and King Boo (in his ghost form because I’m evil like that) somehow gets ahold of Luigi’s rose. After Bowser demands King Boo to give Luigi’s rose back, King Boo asks if Bowser wants to trade his rose for Luigi’s rose. Before Luigi can respond, Bowser accepts the deal and trades his rose in exchange for Luigi’s rose. This causes King Boo to leave the room and pluck all the rose petals from Bowser’s rose. With Bowser now dead, King Boo can finally escape the gallery and become a real human. The best part? Once Luigi goes back to the real world, (by finding the “Fabricated Kingdom” painting and jumping into it) he won’t remember King Boo, so King Boo (in his human form) can be with Luigi forever.

Memory’s Crannies: In Ib, this ending kind of centers around the fact that Luigi was able to find his rose after King Boo pushed him and Bowser in the Haunted Box. Once Luigi finds his rose and Bowser, they both eventually find a room that holds King Boo’s empty painting. As Luigi and Bowser walk towards the empty painting, King Boo suddenly comes in the room and demands them to leave. Seeing as there’s no other option, Luigi and Bowser rush to King Boo’s painting and Bowser burns it with his fire breath. Since this action kills King Boo, Luigi and Bowser are able to search for the exit without any danger. Eventually, Luigi and Bowser find the “Fabricated Kingdom” painting. However, after they jump into the painting and arrive back to the regular gallery (with Mario, Jr, etc.), Luigi and Bowser forget everything that happened in the cursed gallery (e.g., they don’t remember their friendship/potential romance, King Boo, etc.).

Promise of Reunion: So this is the ending where the Bowuigi stuff would come into play. The events for this ending are similar to the events in Memory’s Crannies. However, the main difference between this ending and Memory’s Crannies is that after King Boo dies, Bowser decides to put one of his spiked collars on Luigi’s wrist. When Luigi asks Bowser why he did this, Bowser tells him (which a smile), “Think of it as a memento.” Eventually, Luigi and Bowser find and jump into the “Fabricated Kingdom” painting. Now at first, Luigi and Bowser don’t remember what happened. However, Luigi eventually notices that he’s wearing one of Bowser’s spiked collars. Confused and scared by this, Luigi finds Bowser in the regular art gallery and tries to give the spiked collar back. Bowser, at first, gets mad at Luigi (for presumably stealing his spiked collar somehow), but he soon stops in his tracks when he starts to remember everything that happened in the cursed gallery. Bowser then looks at Luigi (who also somehow remembered the events of the cursed gallery) with a smile and tells him to keep the spiked collar as a memento. Luigi starts to turn as red as Bowser's hair, which earns a laugh from Bowser. Bowser eventually asks Luigi if he wants to go out for dinner tomorrow, to which Luigi responds with a “Yes.” 

[radarsteddybear]

Wait, wait, wait, I want to play THAT game!

Sounds serious.

Awww, poor Luigi… (I was kind of surprised when he didn’t come along to Rogueport at the start of the game.)

Awww (wait…Mario….are you sleeping??? And Koops, too? Jeez, show some respect!)

Priorities.

That sounds like a fantastic basis for an adventure, actually.

You go, Luigi!

Best of luck to you! (Also, can I come? The Pudding Continent sounds fantastic!)

But I...thought you were going to...never mind.

[shartfinz]

jayvik is SO doomed that I am mildly afraid of them

[scoringeffects]

nuge plays as mario and connor plays as luigi 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

[musical-attorney]

Strong women in power v.s pathetic men

[pianokantzart]

I've heard it’s taking 50+ hours to 100%

Some people are saying 60, someone reached 70 (apparently, but there's no proof for this one), but most around 50

Very good.

[smokszyvverstar]

Its my birthday so i drew my favourite characters throwing me a party because I can

Big thanks to all the amazing friends i made during being 9 + 10.

Now I need to think of a new meme for being 22