#it's just so weird. when people in the comments are like oh bowser's just as bad.

[agabus]

i know i am a bowser simp but really sometimes i think about how everyone in mariolore is supposedly ~equally flawed~ but bowser's thing is that he gets mad sometimes. local man gets upset, expresses negative emotions about it. guy who has anger management issues and if we're being real probably a personality disorder uses self control to the best of his ability but still flips out sometimes in a world without dbt and meds.

[leefi]

The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere Read-through | Part 1: Chapters 1-14

Part 1: 1-14 | Part 2: 14-22 | Part 3: 22-34 | Part 4: 34-64 | Part 5: 64-80 | Part 6: 81-90 | Part 7: 90-100 | Part 8: 100-127 (caught up here)

Hi!!!! I've been reading through this webnovel after seeing @ot3's pitch for it and started writing down some thoughts on the characters and worldbuilding and imminent murdering. This story is very, very long and I only reacted up to about chapter 33, so most of my thoughts will involve the worldbuilding and less the murder mystery aspect -- so if you're looking for theorizing you won't find much of that here. Since I'll be continuing eventually, I wanted to post what I did make note of to revisit later!

Most of these are not marked by chapter/section because I was lazy and I'm not sure how easy it will be to follow as a result, but everything is chronological.

everyone here is hijabi mashallah

The visual I'm getting of the solar system/local system/dimension they inhabit is kind of a blend of steampunk and fantasy and uhh some secret third thing. With the walls of their "universe" painted in that puella dollhouse witch lair style. Does the sun bounce around like a screensaver. Does it orbit their earth or is it on a fixed axis flung out into “space”? Does “space” even exist anymore? I’m assuming they’re in an enclosed area that they've created. Do they actively use arcane resources to keep objects (ie star and planets) sustaining themselves, or have they made them self sufficient?

everyone is so mean to Ptolema leave her alone what the fuckk let a bimbo live i want to kill you all you’re so annoying. Ptolema I WOULD be your friend and not ask all these weird ass questions. and we would hold hands and skip and giggle

Yes shes an airhead nepo baby but you guys could try doing anything other than snickering and rolling your eyes whenever she says stupid shit. If she starts arguing back about government war crimes during the Revolution or something then you have my blessing to beat her ass!

I HATE kamsurepa i HATE her i HAYE Her and her stupid ass name

Ran and Su have no chemistry its insane that theyre always hanging out every conversation is like uhhh (awkward silence) (rude comment from Ran) *Su voice* wow she gets me so well. every time they talk im like what the fuck just happened.

Su’s internal narration is too self aware for me. it’s like she talks like she knows she’s a character? or something. it's self-deprecating in a very bizarre way

im sorry i don’t know if i can continue with this. i know too many med students irl and these characters are literally pissing me off. compliments to the author for realism you knocked it out of the park

Oh, thank you very much!" Kam said, reverting back to her smiley-diplomatic form for a moment before stepping away from the counter and continuing as she handed us the cards. "...as far as it seems to me, the desire to reproduce is essentially an immature form of pursuing life-extension - this idea that you'll 'live on through your children' that's patently pseudo-mysticism justifying what is ultimately an animal instinct." ⬇️ I’m going to grab her ginger head and swing her around like bowser in mario 64. SHUT UPPPPP SHUT UP please tell me shes the one that dies

You know," I mused idly, my eyes wandering. "I think this is actually the fourth glass ceiling I've seen today." "Mm, it's true that you don't see a lot of women working in Aetheromancy," ⬇️ I know this is a small nitpick but aren’t we really far into the future why do they keep using terms like this 😭 gendered stuff like this still exists billions? trillions? of years into the future?

Why has the disco elysium skill tree randomly started talking to su. Is this her future self nagging her. Is she pulling a han sooyoung. when do we get to the various utsushikome ego deaths

"prosognostic overlap"…do ppl repeat faces? Are most people cloned at this point? What triggered the need for cloning surely medicine is advanced enough that childbirth or test tube babies are feasible? Can bodies be cloned and reinhabited to inhibit aging? Is there some disturbing psychological element to seeing someone with the same face as you? Does it make your brain short circuit? Kam mentioned having children earlier which I assume means people still give birth or have test tube babies, so i don’t know if it’s the result of cloning…but it does sound like a sameface sort of thing. What else would it be if not that though?

Actually, if they’ve figured out teleportation (whatever it was called when they went up the aetherbridge) - let's say they can atomize a body and reforming it elsewhere (though we don't know for sure yet, could also be a fold in spacetime) - transferring consciousness to an empty clone of yourself (and therefore effectively doing away with aging or death wholesale) sounds a lot more efficient and technologically practical than maintaining an organic system that naturally decays. Why keep on finding ways to push the human body past its limits when you could simply transfer a person to a new, identical vessel?

I feel like the key to immortality isn’t maintaining an organic body, which naturally tends towards systems of entropy (being a biological thing, entropy=decay), but rather delineating and separating human consciousness from its host and replicating its original environment perfectly. I’m not talking about making a copy of consciousness, which is just glorified cloning - I’m talking about *transferring* a consciousness.

You could almost call dementia itself the mind's tendency towards its own kind of entropy?

Though if you transfer a consciousness to a younger body, the dementia issue could still potentially remain. Depends on if it the author sees it as a solely physical phenomena (atrophy/buildup of inhibitors of the brain) or there's some metaphysical anomaly about amassing too many memories/"existing" too long in general

The way spellwork is described is really cool and feels super believable. Optimizing multiple concurrent spells into one “function” is intricate and sophisticated, and you have to dedicate a lot of brainpower to doing the math in your head. It’s like they’re coding the real world. I love the way lurina describes this it's awesome.

[bahamutgames]

The AFTERTHOUGHTS Movie

Movie: The Super Mario Bros. Movie (April 5th, 2023)

Console: Fuckin' uuuuuuuh.... DVD player....

I wanted to do this when the movie launched but thought to myself "oh I could write my thoughts up in a twitter thread who cares what I think about mario bleh bleh bleh" so I didn't bother. But like 5 months have passed since I first saw the movie. I've watched it about 4-5 times now and I STILL haven't written up my thoughts. So no, clearly I CANNOT write my feelings up in a twitter thread. And YEAH, no one cares what I think about Mario I'm very aware of that. But FUCK YOU I'm gonna tell you why I think this movie is actually amazing!

I've been seeing some people talk about it lately but most comments I see about it nowadays are a little negative. And a lot of the sentiment around this movie before launch was negative. I was in this boat too prior to the first trailer coming out. But I gotta be honest, no, like. I really really REALLY like this movie. And I just gotta gush about it a little bit.

EVEN FOR A MOVIE (which I'll probably never do this again until maybe Sonic 3 comes out lol) THIS IS NOT A REVIEW! This is just me throwing up my thoughts on the movie now that I've watched it like 200000 times.

MARIO MOVIE SPOILERS AHEAD!! IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IT YET WATCH IT I SWEAR TO GOD WATCH IT IT'S GOOD!!!

Opening

So, some of you may know, some of you may not. I used to be a big Mario fan. I've mentioned it in the past on twitter and such but this series used to be my LIFE. I'm not kidding. I was obsessed with it for YEARS, since I was child. I loved studying it and brainstorming headcannon and thinking about it and learning about it and just talking about lore stuff with people from the series. And I'll be honest, while lately I'm kinda still into it here and there, I haven't been super into it that intensely in a long while. For a lot of reasons. So I was very hesitant on the Mario movie. I wasn't sure if I was gonna like it. But I went in DAY 1 to see this movie. I had faith, I had to see how it would go.

And when I left that theater I was BLOWN AWAY. I LOVED IT!! I went and I saw it again about a week later. And I STILL LOVED IT! I bought it on DVD and rewatched it 2-3 more times with the rest of my family and I STILL LOVED IT EVERY TIME! It's not perfect by any means but in this chaotic write up I hope I can explain why it hit me so hard as a returning Mario fan. To get it out of the way, I'm gonna open up with my problems with it and then go into the praise.

Stuff I didn't like

So again, I do have some complaints so I'd like to start there just to get them out of the way. First up, I still have a problem with some voice actors. For the most part, they're all pretty good. I think Chris Pratt is better than the trailers would have you believe (which I fucking called I knew they were picking his worst lines for the trailer) and I was pleasantly surprised with how good Seth Rogan was for DK. Bowser, Toad, Luigi, they were all great! But dude Cranky's voice SUCKS so bad. I hate it. And I liked Peach but I wasn't in love with the voice? But not as bad as Cranky lmao.

And the pacing IS weird. This is a big issue I've seen a lot of people complain about and it's totally fair. It's not well paced. I think it's better on rewatches, but it's not perfect by any means. Like they jump back and forth between Mushroom Kingdom and Dark Land so much but at the same time Luigi just kind of isn't in it enough? It's very weird. And I feel like it progresses a little oddly between the different areas. But ultimately again, it's fine it's not as bad as people say even though it is weird.

And of course, the issue of removed music. I think that pretty much all the copywritten songs used in the movie were the wrong choice when the remixes that were absolutely superior were available. 'I Need A Hero' works for sure, I didn't mind that. But 'Take On Me' is SO out of place especially when they had a fantastic DKC remix to use for that! THANK GOD they actually used the Starman theme cause it would've ruined what was otherwise one of my favorite Mario scenes ever (we'll get to it).

Also, like, Toad is just toadally dropped by the end of the movie. He barely speaks towards the end and it's a shame cause I LOVED Toad in this movie! He absolutely deserved more attention in the second act of the movie. Thankfully he still shows up even though he barely gets to participate (did he even fight in the final battle? I hope he did)

And I have some other nitpicks. No Toadsworth L. Not enough powerups get used. Again, not enough Luigi.... Why is Lumalee in it? I assume it's to build up to something in the sequel. But still. Odd. BUT other than that? Man I just gotta sing the praises. There's so much positive to talk about.

Stuff I liked

OKAY! There's a lot I gotta compliment with this movie. For some basic stuff. It looks LOVELY! I love everyone's design! Mario and Luigi are so cute, Toad easily could've been creepy but they make them work fantastically, DK looks cute, BOWSER IS AMAZING! Peach looks a little odd but I still think she's very beautiful to me! And the environments are super stunning. The Mushroom Kingdom looks great, Dark Land looks fantastic, Rainbow Road looked SO GORGEOUS! And the music is AMAZING! So many cues from so many different games and themes. The basic Mario themes, Bowser's various themes, Galaxy stuff, there's even a cut SMRPG song apparently!? The music is amazing and relistening to it now it's blowing me out of the water all over again!

I know it's gonna sound like I'm overhyping it or exaggerating. But this movie is SUPER good with how it handles the source material. It's pretty much exactly what I would want out of a Mario movie at least in terms of how the world is presented. The shots of Mario overlooking the Mushroom Kingdom on the big shroom is AMAZING. All the hills and mushrooms and floating blocks. I adore the way it takes game mechanics like power ups and floating blocks and puts them into a non-game setting in a way that works SO well. In a way I've always envisioned the world to work myself. I LOVE seeing blocks as naturally occurring things in the Mario world. I love when Mario first appears in the world and you see Biddybuds walking around, you see Cheepcheep swimming, you see even a fucking Bramball walking exactly how it does in the games but like, it's not in a game! It's alive! They took how these creatures act and put them in a living world exactly how they would be! It's amazing! They even managed to take traditional Mario levels like the Cheepcheep bridges and turn them into a real area you could visibly see yourself walking in! It's not just in a video game it looks and breathes like it's real! Does this make any sense? I'm blown away by how they put game stuff into it but it doesn't feel like game stuff, it feels how this game stuff would feel irl. I love how they explain the powerups, I didn't think they'd even touch the Super Mushroom! But the idea it makes it you taller and gives you super human jumping is GENIUS! That's perfect! I hadn't even seriously considered how the growing and shrinking works, but this movie does it perfectly!

I think the best example I can give about this is the scene where they are camping in a field of fire flowers. This scene is genuinely amazing to me. This is a setting I've always DREAMED of seeing in a Mario game. But it's just not exactly something you'd ever get to see in a Mario game, but this movie does it. I LOVE seeing the power ups being naturally occurring in nature. Naturally occurring Fire Flowers are something I LOVE thinking about in my own head canon. They look so gorgeous in this movie and the whole scene looks so amazing. I love seeing Peach grab one and the slow transformation sequence and how they turn that into a practical thing and how Peach uses the Fire Flower not as a video game weapon or item, but just as a simple tool to start a campfire. I don't know if I'm describing it well enough but this is stuff I've always DREAMED about the Mario universe working like if you lived there. But somehow this movie just GETS IT. Naturally occurring floating blocks, powerups growing in nature, enemies existing in nature as animals! It's perfect!

And even the crossover between the "real" and "mushroom" worlds are done SO well! I am a pretty staunch "Mario was BORN in the Mushroom World and there is no Real World" kinda guy but this movie brings it back PERFECTLY. I love seeing Mario and Luigi as kind of losers? It's not an angle you ever really see with them, not that I need to have a sad NSMB game where Mario and Luigi are losers, of course lmao. But still it's neat! And seeing them living a normal life is cool! It's something we've gotten from previous Mario projects but never really with the games or something that follows the games so faithfully. But I adored seeing this side of their lives in a way that usually I'm not super die hard into as "canon"? If that makes sense? But I LOVED seeing the Mario family. I audibly GASPED when they showed up!! LIKE WHAT!? OFFICIAL MARIO MOM AND DAD FACE REVEAL!?!? I NEVER WOULD'VE SAW THIS COMING AND I DON'T THINK PEOPLE APPRECIATE HOW INSANE IT IS TO SEE MARIO RELATIVES IN 2023!!! THAT'S NUTS I NEVER THOUGHT THAT WAS GONNA HAPPEN BUT AGAIN THIS MOVIE DOES THE IMPOSSIBLE! And this movie made me really appreciate the whole "real world vs mushroom world" concept in a way I never have before. While I still prefer the idea Mario was born in the Mushroom world I think there's a really good "You Could Wear the Mask" element that comes from him being from the real world. Which is cool! It makes Mario an everyman the same way Spiderman is. Which I like!

And even the characters themselves I think they're all handled super well. Mario being super brave and standing up for himself, but still folding when he's approached by his father. It's interesting, again, something that could never be tackled with a version of Mario in the past. I love how kind Luigi was and how he's cowardly but still has moments of strength. And he's his own person not a Mario clone. And I love how much brotherly love the two genuinely show for each other. It's something you only really get to see in the RPGs and Luigi's Mansion honestly. I love that Princess Peach was still cute and high femme but totally kicked ass and at no point in the movie did they go like "BWAH!? A GIRL DOING BOY THINGS??? HUH?" NO! They just let Peach be a bad ass! I loved it! I loved DK being a showboating super jock type guy who also wants to impress his dad. It's probably not something I ever would've thought to do for DK but it's SO good and it makes such an interesting parallel between Mario and him. I LOVED Mario and DK's rivalry. I wasn't expecting DK to become a main teammate so that was WONDERFUL to see. When they work together in the eel and when they get to the Mushroom Kingdom and when they still bicker and argue I love it it's so cute it's such a good way to interpret this dynamic! And Bowser is done SO well I love how utterly psychotic he is. The way they handle how much he hates Mario without EVER MEETING HIM is so perfectly done! And I love that they don't pull any punches. He's ruthless and cruel like how Bowser is. And they don't waste any time trying to redeem him or make him seem like "oh well he's just a big softie :(" NO, HE'S A MANIPULATIVE FREAK! I'm so glad they actually beat the shit out of him! They make him scary and big and imposing and they take him down! It's SO wonderfully done!

But without a doubt, my favorite part of the movie is the finale. It's straight up amazing. It gives me chills just thinking about it. The whole finale where they end up back in the real world might be one of my favorite Super Mario scenes across the entire franchise. Where Bowser beats the shit out of Mario and sends him running away scared into a pizza parlor. It's scary it's not something you usually see. And when Mario is cowering while Bowser calls him a loser, it's interesting, again you don't usually see this lack of confidence in Mario. He's genuinely bruised and banged up. Like, he has physical damage on him. Not just "OH I'M SHORT NOW!" Damage, but REAL painful injuries you can physically see. Again, this isn't something I'd probably want in a Mario game but for a movie it's daring, it's crazy they were allowed to do it. It's unique. This type of edgy stuff is something I LONG to see in the Mario series in some way and it finally happened. And the whole part where the ad they made at the start plays glitched out and gives Mario the newfound confidence he needs. It's beautiful again it gives me chills. And he gets back up and fights it's so cool. THIS IS THE MARIO I LOVE, AND IT'S JUST SO INTERESTING TO SEE THAT PERSONALITY CHALLENGED! It's a similar reason I love the Sonic movies so far, he's different he's more childish he's not always 100% on his game like in the games. It's cool to see them do these things with these characters. But then, the best part. Is when Luigi takes a stand and saves Mario from Bowser's breath. "As long as we're together, everything will be okay" it's beautiful. I'm actually getting a little emotional writing it up. It's perfect. Mario and Luigi are a TEAM. They are a DUO, I WANT TO SEE THEM WORK TOGETHER TO FIGHT! AND THEY DO! I LOVE WHEN BOWSER TRIES TO KICK THEM AND THEY STAND TALL WHILE THE ROAD BREAKS BEHIND THEM!! SEEING THEM KICK THE SHIT OUT OF THE WHOLE KOOPA TROOP WITH THE STARMAN THEME PLAYING IS GENUINELY BREATHTAKING I LOVE THIS WHOLE FUCKING FINALE! AND SEEING THEM SWING BOWSER AROUND AND THEN STOMP HIM THROUGH THE FLAMES IS SO COOL! IT'S AN AMAZING FINALE THAT'S DONE SO RIGHT WITH SO MANY LITTLE CHARACTER BEATS BETWEEN MARIO AND LUIGI AND EVEN BOWSER JUST SO PERFECTLY I'M UTTERLY BLOWN AWAY BY HOW GOOD THIS FINALE IS!

I just fucking love this movie man. Sure it is a lot of references, it's not perfect, but it's a genuinely good Mario movie. And more than that, I'd go as far as to say it is a genuinely good movie straight up. I don't watch a lot of them, but I've seen enough to say I love this movie as a movie.

Responding to Criticisms

I've seen some criticisms of the movie I'd like to address. Some of these are from friends, so if you see something you said here PLEASE do not take it as an insult! No hard feelings what so ever I just wanna give my two cents! Please understand it is COMPLETELY fine to have not liked this movie, but in the same vein it's totally okay for me to give my peace on what I think about other people's toughts.

For one, a big one, "it's just an hour of Mario references." Yeah? I mean kinda. But a lot of those references are just... World building or the Mario world as it is? Like... Were you mad when the Chaos Emeralds showed up in Sonic 2? That's a reference, but it's a part of the world. In my opinion I think most of the big references are in the background anyway, so it's okay if they're laid on a little thick. Plus, again, a lot of the references are just to how the Mario world would work. Plus there's a TON of original stuff and original interpretation on these concepts.

"Ah it's just a kids movie there's nothing interesting in it" Again I could not agree less. Sure it is a kids movie. But there's still some good themes in it, some fantastic concepts and interpretations on the characters. Some kinda edgy stuff in it. iirc they actually say stuff like "Hell Hound" and Kill and stuff you wouldn't expect from a Mario thing. And again, you see Mario bruised up! THAT'S CRAZY!! DOES NO ONE ELSE THINK THAT'S NUTS!?

"It's probably canon so it's not doing anything interesting" I'm sorry, no. For a fanbase that's so intense on Mario lore and going insane any time Mario isn't some sort of bible lore heavy series. I think people are seriously overlooking fascinating elements and mysteries present in this movie. Such as how do the real world and the mushroom world relate? How are they combined after the first movie? Where does Peach come from? Where did the star come from? What's gonna happen with Bowser going forward? This movie, while following the Mario world closer than say, the Sonic movies. It is absolutely doing its own thing. And I'm sure more and more unique things will come from future sequels. It's an interesting movie in of itself.

"Princess Peach is so bad in it" I don't agree! I don't think she's perfect but again she's a total bad ass while still wearing cute dresses and being high femme like I said. And like I said, they never are like "WOW GIRLS CAN'T DO BOY STUFF HOW SHE DO THAT!?" They just let it happen, they just let Peach be cool. But also it's neat to see her doing princess stuff and they still show her having weakness, I LOVE when Bowser manipulates her by torturing toad (that's such a fucked sentence) because it shows she really cares and she has to make hard choices but she still fights through them! And again, it's not like she's the only competent character. She lived in that world I would hope she's better at it than Mario lmao. But the other characters absolutely hold their own and are just as strong as she is! She's works perfectly.

"Bowser doesn't even know Mario why does he hate him?" That's the idea! I can't find the post now but someone explained it SO well! The whole concept is that he has this idea of Mario built up in his head. Bowser is totally delusional. Peach not loving him has NOTHING to do with Mario and everything to do with Bowser being a psycho! And again in my opinion that is such a good interpretation of the character and even Mario and Bowser's relationship!

"It's not as good as the live action Mario Movie" This is a matter of opinion of course but I gotta be honest. This movie is way better. And I want to make it clear: I LOVE the live action Mario Movie. I liked it before you did. I'm gonna be up my own ass about this one cause I know it's true cause for YEARS y'all were saying it sucked until suddenly it became popular to like it out of nowhere. I ran a President Koopa RP tumblr for a while and had seen the movie multiple times before it became the cool thing everyone liked. And while I still love that movie, I just gotta say as a Mario fan I appreciate how this one handles Mario and Luigi's relationships more and I appreciate the more close to canon look at the world. Live Action Mario is certainly more unique, but doesn't fill me with the same sense of child like wonder that makes me feel like the Mario franchise still has magic worth holding onto even nowadays.

But again, this is all a matter of opinion. You are ABSOLUTELY allowed to not like this movie. That's fine. But similarly, I should be allowed to absolutely gush about how amazing the movie was to me and how much it means to me as a Mario fan who had their whole life changed by this series.

Final Thoughts

Man.

That was a lot. I can't contain myself sometimes. But I'm glad I finally got to at least in some way gush about this movie. Cause I really did love it and writing my thoughts on it really makes me wanna watch it again. So I probably will this weekend as a birthday gift to myself.

I find it a little difficult to be so plainly honest about Mario things I love. For multiple reasons. I think this fanbase is a little poisoned. And I feel like being genuine and enjoying what you like about the series can be kind of met fairly negatively a lot of the times. And again with how teetering-tottering I am with my love of the series lately it can only make it more difficult. So I hope I don't come off as annoying about this movie. But Mario whether I like it or not means a lot to me and I have a lot to say about this movie.

I had a friend tell me I couldn't possibly give a non-biased take on the movie. And maybe that's fair. But honestly I don't think it's entirely fair to write off why I love the movie because of that. I genuinely love this movie, not only as a Mario fan but just as a casual movie watcher. I thought it was good. And yeah maybe I wouldn't like it as much if I wasn't so insane about the series for so long. But I do genuinely hope you can understand after seeing all this why it means so much to me and why I think people are being a little unfair to it. I genuinely think it's being nitpicked too hard. It's a truly incredible Mario experience that I loved.

From the way game mechanics are translated to a living world, to the way characters are reinterpreted, to yeah, even just the little references. I flipped when a small part of the Luigi's Mansion theme played, so what? I like Mario, man. So what!?

So yeah. I'm sure I could say more but I'm getting a little embarrassed. So I think I'll wrap it up now.

===

Thanks for reading, if you somehow actually made it through that whole ramble. You are an absolute hero. I waiting a long time to talk about this (still not as long as I took to talk about Sonic 2 though lmao) but I hope in any small way I could convey why this movie really hit home for me in a way I honestly didn't think it could.

I'm genuinely interested to see where the Mario movies go from here and I'll gladly watch them all. I'll be there day 1 to watch the sequel, the DKC movie, the Luigi's Mansion movie. I don't care if it makes me a sheep you've got me hook line and sinker. I'm so blown away by how well it got the series down and I cannot wait to see where it goes from here.

Thank you again for putting up with my insane ramblings. Please follow me on twitter if you wanna... idk see me be a crazy person more.

That's all from me, go out and watch a movie that really makes you emotional!

[justsomeclintasha]

“Thanks for going on a run with me, Nat.”

“Not sure if it counts as going with you when I can’t keep the same pace.”

“There’s not many people that could. But it was nice to have someone to get smoothies with after.”

Clint looks up as Natasha and Steve walk in the kitchen, both sporting identical Captain America baseball caps. She sips from her nearly empty cup. Steve tosses his in the trash.

“I desperately need a shower. Same time tomorrow?”

“Sounds good.”

He leaves, and Natasha grabs a piece of leftover toast from Clint’s plate.

“So uh, what’s with the hats?”

“Captain America! He’s my favorite avenger.”

“I’m an avenger!”

Natasha just laughs, leaning down to kiss his cheek before disappearing down the hallway.

XXXXX

Clint walks in the living room to find Nat and Bucky curled up on the couch, wearing matching Winter Soldier lounge pants of all things. He drops in the chair across from them.

“Not fair, Natalia,” Bucky says with a scowl, his character, Toad, spinning in circles from the banana on the track.

“There are no friends in Mario Kart,” she reminds him, nudging his flesh arm. He grins.

“Is that so?”

“What are you-?” She lets out an undignified squeak as he shoves her off the couch, laughing. On screen Bowser crashes into a wall and she loses the lead.

“Bucky!“

“I’m winning this one!”

“Oh no you’re not!“ Of all the avengers, she’s become the most competitive in the game. She settles back against his leg, resigned to sitting on the floor, and smirks as Bowser pulls out a blue shell.

“No, no, no- Natasha!”

“Better luck next time.”

XXXXX

Summer nights mean dinner on the patio, and it’s Steve’s turn to grill. He flips the burgers, trying to show off a little, and drops one on the ground. They make extra for a reason.

Natasha claims her usual seat next to Clint. Despite the warm air, she always runs cold. He frowns. This time it’s an Iron Man hoodie. He decides he’s not going to say anything.

“You okay?”

“Need a beer. You want one?”

“Yeah, please.”

He brings one for everyone, twisting the cap off for her before handing it over. She rolls her eyes. They both know she could do it herself. Secretly, she finds it charming.

“Come on, Steve, I’m starving.”

“Yeah, I bet you had a really hard day hiding in the lab.”

“Says the one who got her ass kicked in Mario Kart by a guy with one arm.”

“Hey!”

“Sorry, mom,” Tony says, smirking at Steve. Bucky laughs along with the rest of them. Tony pays for the comment, though. Steve makes sure to serve him last. Clint is just a little bit happy about it.

XXXXX

“Okay spill.”

“What?”

“You’re being weird.”

“I am not,” Clint insists. They’ve finally retreated to the quiet of their room. She’s sitting on the bed, a book in her lap, and he’s stretched out next to her.

“Clint.”

“Why do you keep wearing clothes from all the hot guys in the tower?” he blurts out before he can stop himself. She raises an eyebrow. “Whatever, it doesn’t matter.”

Cranky now, he rolls to face the wall.

“Hey.”

“No. Let me be crabby in peace.”

“Just look for a minute.”

Reluctantly, he rolls over, becoming slightly more interested as she slips off her pajama shorts. Underneath she’s wearing Hawkeye underwear. They’re not sexy- in fact, they’re obnoxious purple boy shorts with targets on them. He can’t help but burst out laughing.

“What the hell are those?”

“You like them?”

“They’re the ugliest things I’ve ever seen. I love them.”

Still laughing, he moves closer, and she pulls him down for a teasing kiss.

“Think you can hit the bullseye?”

“That’s awful, Nat. That’s so bad. Almost as bad as those underwear. Maybe you should take them off.”

“Oh and that wasn’t bad?”

“Is it working?”

“It might be.”

[oomox]

like listen I'm a casual mario games player and I dont know the like, deep lore or anything, but daisy is the fucking coolest. how are people gonna be like “oh she’s so useless and boring she’s just a clone of peach” when they LITERALLY changed her entire appearance and personality after her first video game appearance so that she WOULDN’T be a clone of peach anymore?? that one game in which she was a clone of peach came out in 1989, I have never played it, and im certain that most people who hate daisy have also never played it. so it should not be relevant. her appearances in recent games in which she’s shunted to appearing as different peach skins isn’t a comment on her character, that’s a comment on the fact that Nintendo fucking KNOWS daisy is widely hated and they wanna sell games obv so they don’t feature her prominently. as to how their personalities differ, just compare these two descriptions of their characters from the wiki:

Princess Peach is shown to be a sweet, kind, and optimistic person, while also being classy and sociable, with more and more portrayals further displaying her as clever and adventurous. She has a warm heart and often acts unselfishly, putting her friends, loved ones, and citizens ahead of herself, and apologizes excessively for getting into trouble and requiring Mario to rescue her. She even shows concern and compassion towards her enemies frequently; she saves Mimi in Super Paper Mario, despite the girl's constant antagonism of the princess, and in the same game and other games, her pure and noble characteristics are often shown in different ways[...].

(x)

Daisy is portrayed as a tomboy with an extroverted personality and a tough demeanor. She can be described as spunky, energetic, loud, cheerful, and confident. [...] She also has a sassy side, often regarded for her wittiness and attitude. Unlike Peach, Daisy is not as proper or poised as she would be based on her appearance and status as royalty; such as standing with her hands on her hips, exhibiting hotheadedness in defeat, showboating in victory, and showing off to get her way. [...] She likes to go shopping and dine at fine restaurants, but gladly passes up such enjoyments to train instead.

(x) (emphasis mine)

and people will still be like “there’s no reason for her to exist/nintendo should retire her” as if reducing the number of female characters in a video game franchise where they’re already few and far between is a good idea 🙄 so here’s some reasons to stan daisy for clear skin:

one of her main character traits is her sportiness, and it’s so important to see that in a girl character who also doesn’t abandon her femininity. hear me out. daisy often has special fighting abilities that other characters don’t, and is a technical character on sports games. (I started liking her from playing mario kart wii, in which she is literally one of the most powerful and stat-boosted characters.) often when female characters are physically strong (seen as a masculine trait) they’re not allowed to like typically feminine things like dresses, jewellery, and shopping. not daisy. daisy wears dresses and jewellery and loves to shop, but she also wears racing suits and sportswear and is extremely skilled at an incredible number of sports. she’s competitive and ambitious (more traits often seen as masculine) yet still allowed to be flirty and feminine. her whole theme is florals, an extremely feminine symbol, and in some games, she even attacks her enemies with flower petals. that is so fucking dope. that said to me, as an impressionable kid, that you could be strong and competitive and sporty and at the same time be interested in fashion and shopping and flowers. it said to me that I could have both masculine and feminine elements to me, that I didnt have to choose. things are definitely improving in this area lately, but gender roles were and are so narrowly defined and then forced onto kids. look at any toy store and note the extreme differences between “girl toys” and “boy toys” -- they even gender the kinder surprise eggs now for chrissakes. so having a character who loves both traditionally masculine and traditionally feminine things is pretty important, not only for impressionable kids but for adults, most of whom are complex and do like both masculine and feminine things, and want a character to relate to. 

she’s unapologetically confident, which is just so inspiring to see. daisy was doing the radical self-confidence thing way before it became a trend lately. (that's not me dunking on the trend, I love it and hope it endures, im just pointing it out.) her soundbites when she wins are my favourite -- she says things like “yeah, I’m the best!” and “yes, I rule!” which I know some people interpret as arrogant, but sometimes you just gotta hype yourself up, you know? she also has a high opinion of her physical appearance, referring to herself as “the fairest in the land” in one mario party game. again, the impressionable kids point -- they need a character who is self affirming and has a high opinion of herself so they can emulate that. shit, I know a lot of adults who need that too. lots of self esteem issues start in childhood, and having a character who normalizes loving yourself wholly and in different aspects of yourself could help counter that.

she’s also fucking funny. she's assertive. she bitch-slapped bowser into the stratosphere. she’s a legend. princess daisy is everything I want to be and nintendo fans need to get over whatever weird grudge they have against her (probably just misogyny, but thats another essay-length post) so we can get her back in new nintendo games. we need her now more than ever.

[tanakavox]

Look into the mutiverse chapter 4

Thanks again to ExiledDarkness for writing the charcters reaction for this chapter. Please go check out his stuff. And if your wondering where Qrow came from, We forgot to add a scene for Qrow and didn't feel like going back.

This chapter is based of the Youtuber SomecallmeJohnny and his review of Super Mario 64. I had to cut it short because my laptod was acting up again and google docs was acting wonky, parts of the fic getting erased. Rest assure for the Somecallmejohnny fans, I won't just do his reviews. I have plans to do Super gaming bros reaction as well. And for those who don't know Johnny, go check him! Enjoy the reaction.

The screen lights up again and shows Jaune wearing a cap and hoodie and sitting on a bright red couch. He had a bit of stubble on his face and he was currently holding a controller in his hand as he turned on a device known as the N64.

"Oh? Jaune looks good with stubble." Blake comments. Everyone looks at Jaune and then back to the one on the screen. They all nodded in agreement.

"It's a go time! Super Mario 64!" He said in a high pitched voice with a bad accent.

The Jaune on the screen sighed seemingly tired. "Lady and Gents welcome back to the Super Mario marathon, And just like with Ocarina of time, this is a game that haunted me during the N64 lifetime. Jaune looked the the N64 sitting on his dresser and continued. "It was like the console itself was actively mocking me like: "Hey Jauney? How about you ditch that playstation and try me out instead?" The blonde's eyes lit up in anger. "Well I didn't have a job in 1996 you sensitive prick!" Jaune snapped at the console.

Everyone blinked at the sudden anger. Ruby turned towards JNPR and asked, "Are you okay Jaune?"

Jaune, still frozen from the sudden burst of anger from his other self, snaps back to reality and nods at the question. "Yeah, I think I understand what's happening here. But I'll stay quiet until I know for sure."

Jaune turned toward the screen and went on like nothing happened. "Last time I gave Mario attention, I was focused on what made the Italian "Plumber—"" He said with quotation marks. "—the video game icon he is today. Now we're gonna do it again only in 3d."

Jaune turned to his audience and smiled. "You guys ready for another Super Mario marathon?"

"Aha!" Jaune says as he slammed his closed fist on his hand. "This is me doing video games!"

Ren paused at hearing this information. "Then that explains the sudden burst of anger then." Nora and Jaune nod while the rest of the audience looks on confusedly.

RWBY look at each other before Yang hesitantly asks, "So why did he get so angry?"

Jaune laughs before scratching the back of his head. "I like video games but I hate it when I can't progress further into the game. Sometimes I get really into it, I guess."

"Here we go, Super Mario 64, the 64 being figureded to the console and not the 64 game in the series, Mario's first 3d game, and a launch title for the N64. It was highly praised and hailed as the 3d version of what Super Mario bros on the NES did for platemors at the time, Mario 64 did the same. But I came into the 64 train late, So I don't have what you call: Super Mario 64 memories. In fact my first 3d Mario game was the next game we'll be looking at: Super Mario Sunshine on the GameCube. Jaune's expression darkened as he smiled hurmlousy. "But that can wait. Oh it can wait." The tone of his voice was bitter and venomous.

Everyone laughed now knowing the context of Jaune's anger towards video games.

"Alright booting the game up and the first thing you see is Mario's head. You know to really hammer in that this is Mario's first 3d adventure. You can even fuck around with the face a bit but it doesn't really effect the game it's just there for fun.

We're also greeted by Mario's new voice, provided by Charles Margent. Shockingly this isn't his debut as the Jumpman, that was in Mario Fundamental, a Pc game released a year before. Pretty sure no one heard of it before someone did a document on it.

"This idea of a floating Mario head, perhaps more infamously in Mario teaches typing two. A floating deformed head pop on the screen.

"Hey? Are you ready for Mario type?" It asked.

"Mother of God." Jaune deadpan in horror.

"Despite the new voice, Mario doesn't speak much. It's mostly hiyas woohoos throughout the game. And he only speaks a full phase when he completes a goal or he falls asleep on the job. It shows the red clad mario on the ground sleeping.

"Ha spatgai, Ha ravioli." The plumber mutters in his sleep.

Nora drools over the names of food. They sound pretty good right now.

"Charles as Mario is so absorbed into my head I can't imagine anyone else doing the role. It's not like the acting is amazing or anything, he's been voicing Mario for nearly 20 years at this point. If Charles stepped out of the role for any reason, the next guy would just try to simulate Charles' voice.

"It's weird that way," Ren piped up, "No matter what happens people are going to remember the original no matter how much the new one tries to be the old one.

"Hear hear ninja boy" Qrow cheered a bit and took a swig of his beer.

"Okay nearly forgot that I was looking at a video game, Sorry about that. Well let's look at that plot shall we?"

"I'm curious to hear about the kind of story this game might have," Ozpin said as he crosses his legs.

"Boswer kidnaps Princess Peach, Mario must go save her, now that didn't take long now did it?"

Ozpin blinked and sat back in his seat, a bit disappointed.

"I'll let it slide this time since they probably wanted to keep it safe for the first game in 3d. Hell, the menu theme is the main theme for the series."

Qrow snorts. "Fair enough. I guess you can't expect these guys to be that ballsy."

The entire game is set in Peach's castle. Boswer has taken the power star, which I believe gives the castle power? Jaune shrugged. I dunno what they do, it's not really explain and getting more powerstar allows you to get into more levels, and that's the name of the game here. Bowser had set up routine courses in painting.

"The courses tend to varies but nothing here gets too crazy like other Mario games. It's not until late game you go to more odd place like in a clocktower or riding rainbow.

"The game's openness is the first thing you'll take note of in Mario 64. You can start a mission with a hint on what to do,but there is nothing stopping you from just doing a different mission and grabbing the star despite not being the mission you clicked on.

There are a handful of expectations like racing against against Koopa the quick who not gonna show up unless you chose his mission, but most of the time you can go at it on your own pace. Eh, I didn't wanna fight King Bo-mb yet, I want free the chain chomp and get the star there. I could take down King twop, or I could do a well place jump and get this unrelated power star. And that's where a lot of Mario's replay value comes in, not just getting the power star but how you get them.

"Oh, this game sounds fun! I should get it if we ever get out of here." Nora exclaimed.

"With what money Nora?" Jaune asked. Nora looked at Jaune with a wide smile. "No." Jaune deadpan. Nora pouted at his response and turned to Ren with a wide smile.

"No Nora. And do not ask Weiss either." Ren said with his eyes still on the screen and Nora pouted again.

Peach's castle acts as a hub world, the place you're exploring and using to get to other stages to get more power stars. But in order to duke it out with Bowser, you need to get a certain amount of power stars to access the level. As a guy who doesn't care for hub worlds I don't mind Peach's castle. The levels aren't too far apart and there are things you can do in the castle that can help you increase your star count. Like a secret race track that gives you two stars if you're fast enough, or an underwater level that contains an easy to get star. It challenges you in a way that makes it still feel like a Mario game.

"It sounds pretty easy at first glance, but I can understand how annoying it can become if you mess up at least once or twice." Jaune says. Ruby, Nora, and even Ren nod in agreement.

The biggest change to the formula was the jump to 3d, like with Ocarina of Time. He still has to break boxes, stomp on enemies, the works but this game gave the man a few extra moves to go along with the change to 3d. The analog stick is used to move Mario, the further you tilled it the faster he moves, instead of the run button we knew from the past game. Mario still has the jumps he's famous for, but pressing the jump button can allow Mario to reach the heights he's never seen until this game without a power up. He can crouch and crawl but I've only used this a total of once. But you standstill and jump you can do a backflip, and if you crouch and run you can do a long jump which I love using so much and because you can do some real fancy shit with it, and it makes Mario move faster to boot. If you snap the anlong back and jump he can do a somersault and if you jump towards a wall, Mario can wall jump as well.

Nora makes a face at the detailed review. "All these moves and stuff sound annoying. Why can't games be as simple like they are now?!"

Ren sighs and begins to explain but Qrow cuts in. "It's because of games like these were like test models that you get to play the good quality games you have now. I remember playing Soaring Ninja back when he was literally unplayable and useless. Now look at him!"

Ruby and Yang gasp, Soaring Ninja was unplayable?

"I wouldn't be surprised if this move came from the gameboy version of Donkey kong. That remake has a fucklord of levels and a handstand jump for Mario. He still takes damage if he falls too far, so he's just a pale imitation. Jaune had Mario wall jump a wall to prove a point. "The Mario I know could fall from any height and take no dam-" Jaune cut himself off his eyes widening when he heard Mario grunt in pain and his health go down a bit. "WHAT THE FUCK! He took damage from a large height! Mario! What's the meaning of this?" He asked in bewilderment, looking at the floating Mario head from earlier."

"Oh nice computer you have here. Can I have it?" the Mario head asked

"No!" Jaune exclaimed.

Everyone's eyes widened at the scene. Ozpin checked his mug with scrutiny to see if he was still drinking the right drink. Looked normal enough.

"Peach's castle has 120 power stars in the castle, but you only need 70 of them to beat the game." Jaune had a strained smile on his face as he continued. But where the fun in just getting 70 power star and beating the game that way, it not like getting all the star is that time com- for fuck sakes yes it is!"

"Let's just get one thing clear, I fucking depise the 100 coin misson. It's as simple as it sounds, grab 100 coins and then grab the star that appears over your head. Lather rinse repeat, for all 15 courses. In a game that usually has you go to once place and grab the star, collecting these coins brings the game to grueling crawl. Mario 64 doesn't have a checkpoint system. It doesn't bother me much. The levels are usually small and with Mario's new moves getting the Power star is not only comartable, it's also pretty fucking fun. And then their these." That venomous tone from before came back. The screen showcased the blue coins that have appeared throughout most of the video so far.

"Aw it's one of those games! The type that needs you to waste your time actually going through all of what the game has planned for you before you get to the final boss! What a rip off!" Qrow exclaims, tossing his hands in the air. Jaune agrees, crossing his arms and trying not to join in on the rage.

"No amount of looking of cute puppies. can cotain the amount of rage i have when I fuck up these mission with a impeferct jump or when a enemey hits me from behind. It's not always a painful process, but sucks so hard cause the coins are either place so far part or because they're so goddamn scarce! "Gotta kill those enemies before the coins blink away and scatter when they spawn. These blue coins are 5 regular coin a piece but you gotta get them before they blink away and you only got one shot! Was there area I didnt search, an enemy I skipped, I did I fuck up somewhere since I only have 64 coins after look around what feels like for fucking ever?!

"And try not get the last coin in a dangerous area or impossible to backtrack to. The star will always appear right above Mario's head, so make sure it's a safe locati-GODDAMN!"

The star had appeared in a caged area that Mario couldn't reach.

Everyone laughed at the other Jaune's misery. The Arf viewing the screen feels relieved that he himself isn't on the receiving end. Or was he?

"Couldn't just tell the star to come to you Mario?" Jaune asked the Mario head on his computer.

"When a moon hits your eye, like a big pizza pie, that's amore!" Mario began to sing and Jaune facepalm when he didn't get answered. "When an eel lunges out…

"UNGAI?!" Jaune jumping up. A eel appeared and let out a roar and Jaune wasn't in his chair anymore, It being left spinning by how fast he booked it.

"That's amore!" Mario finished singing and chuckled. Get it? Amore eel? I said funny.

"Fuck you!" Jaune said from somewhere in the house.

All the immature audience members fell out of their seats in laughter while the more mature chuckled at the scene.

At the end of the day, I really shouldn't be going for all the Power star, and that's more of a technical issue, but I'm gonna bitch anyway. But despite the age, this game is still a treat to play even today. This has been Somecallmejohnny, and you guys have a Good Day.

Nora stretches and yawns. "Well, that was a nice one. Funny too! I wonder what's next?"

The end

[trashyswitch]

The Superior Security Guard

Mike Schmidt and Jeremy Bond over the fact that both of them worked part-time for a week, at a Pizzeria run by Freddy Fazbear Entertainment.

I was inspired by a friend to try branching away from the Afton's this time. So, I spent around 3 hours looking up other FNAF characters' statistics and stuff...

Let's just say: The Five Night's at Freddy's Franchise is even MORE CONFUSING THAN EVER!

But, I can't change that. So, I'm choosing to take advantage of a Fanon headcannon! (Mike and Jeremy are best friends)

DISCLAIMER: A bit of mild language.

Jeremy and Mike met each other during Jeremy's work week at Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria. When Jeremy was leaving Wednesday morning at 6AM, Jeremy had walked out the door to find a man standing outside, staring at the new pizzeria joint. Recognizing the security outfit from his own experience, Mike asked Jeremy about the job and brought up his own experiences. So, instead of sleeping the day away (Which was his original plan), Jeremy invited Mike to go buy a soda with him.

Before they knew it, they became quick friends.

Over the years, they leaned on each other to mentally deal with their weird, and eventually quite terrifying, job experiences. When the company was hit with missing/murder charges, Jeremy and Mike talked each other through the terrifying nightmare, that was child murderers in animatronic costumes/children being stuffed in the animatronic robots. Once in a while, to cope with the experiences and make light of it, they would make silly jokes while they talked.

One day, Jeremy and Mike were walking around Mike's neighborhood, each holding a take-out cup of coffee. It was somewhat peaceful just walking on the sidewalks, listening to the spring birds singing and watching them fly from tree to tree.

"Hey Mike?" Jeremy called calmly.

"Yeah?" Jeremy replied.

"Which animatronic was your favorite when you were younger?" Mike asked.

Jeremy chuckled. "You seriously don't remember? I've told you so many times! It was Chica." Jeremy replied.

"Why though?" Mike asked.

"I don't know. I like yellow, and Chica's a yellow chicken. Plus, she's the one that holds the cute, pink cupcake!" Jeremy explained.

"Oh yeah, I forgot about that cupcake. I think it was actually named something...something that started with a C. Carly?" Mike attempted.

"Maybe?...No, Carl! That was its name! Carl!" Jeremy replied. "Oh! and the other reason I liked Chica, was because she was the only girl animatronic." Jeremy explained.

Mike laughed at the last remark. "Chica wasn't the only girl. There was Bonnie-"

"Bonnie was a male! He just...had a lot of 'robot make-up'." Jeremy replied, making quotation marks with his fingers. "Bonnie, playing his bright red electric guitar, looking like a drag queen back then." Jeremy joked, playing the air guitar to add to the humor.

"Wait, really? I don't really remember that part." Mike reacted.

"I'm just over-exaggerating a little bit." Jeremy mentioned.

"Alright...Since Chica was the only girl animatronic, did that influence your decision on which robot was deemed your favorite?" Mike asked.

Jeremy's eyes widened. He looked away quickly, as to not raise suspicion. "...What are you implying if it did?" Jeremy asked.

"Oh nothing." Mike replied, shutting his mouth with a smug look.

"You know what? No! We're having this conversation! What were you suggesting?" Jeremy asked.

"Oh I don't know...Have you heard of the term...'Furry' before?" Mike hinted.

Jeremy's jaw dropped. How DARE he?!

"Dude!" Jeremy yelled, lightly pushing him with a smile on his face. "What is wrong with you! I am NOT a furry! And I am CERTAINLY not in love with those creepy, toy-looking robots." Jeremy argued.

"Okay, okay. I believe you." Mike said, still wearing his smug look. Jeremy narrowed his eyes suspiciously.

"Something tells me you don't..." Jeremy suspected.

Mike raised his eyebrows. "Are you suggesting I SHOULDN'T believe you?" Mike asked.

"Wha-NO, I'M saying that your freaking eyebrows were telling me a different story!" Jeremy reacted.

"Oh...were they now?" Mike asked in a smug voice, before making waves with both his eyebrows.

Jeremy chuckled in both amusement and frustration. "Do you want a punch to the face?" Jeremy warned.

"Oh please!" Mike exclaimed, pinching Jeremy's bicep muscles with his right arm. "Where's the muscle? I don't feel any muscle." Mike joked.

"I may not have arm muscles, but I can skill kick your ass!" Jeremy shot back.

"How? You kinda need arms, in order to do any sort of fighting..." Mike mentioned.

"How about this: Let's stick a pin into this conversation, and open it back up when we get to your house. Alright?" Jeremy suggested.

Mike rolled his eyes with a smile, but nodded in agreement. "Okay. The conversation's been pinned." Mike replied.

The boys decided to take a side road, to head back to Mike's house. After another 10 minutes or so of walking, they finally arrived back to Mike's house. Mike and Jeremy walked up the driveway, and up the stairs to the door. Mike pulled out his keys and unlocked the door. After removing the key and opening it up, both men walked into the house and closed the door behind them. Unbeknownst to Mike, Jeremy had already been spending the 10 minute walk trying to come up with a plan. By the time they reached the house, Jeremy was ready.

"Okay. I'm pulling the pin out. Let's figure out who can beat the other in a match." Mike decided.

Jeremy walked towards each other. They cracked their knuckles as they stood, getting ready to fight each other. In the background, energetic music played to intensify the moment. Both men readied themselves, and waited for the countdown.

3!

2! Both men clicked the 2 button...

1!

GO!

And, they're off! Both men managed to get the extra boost, and were zooming down the raceway. The selected track for this game, was Luigi Circuit. Though Mike managed to completely miss the question mark power ups, Jeremy successfully got a power up! On the top left side of Jeremy's screen, the cube spun, revealing all the power ups he could get. He ended up getting a banana!

"Aw, come on! Banana's suck! Whatever." Jeremy commented, before clicking the button to get Luigi to throw the banana.

As you probably would've guessed by now: The boys were playing Mario Kart Wii for their competition! Whoever got at least 2 wins against their opponent, was deemed the winner.

"What?! Bowser, get outta here!" Jeremy shouted at the CPU who just passed him.

Mike (King Boo) quickly began to catch up, thanks to the speed boosts littered all over the track. Mike passed baby daily, Wario and Birdo, quickly putting him in 4th place.

Soon, both men passed the finish line again. Lap 2! Both men managed to get a power up each, this time! Mike got a shrinking power up, while Jeremy got a red shell!

Mike activated his power up almost immediately.

"Hey! Who made everyone small?!" Jeremy asked. Suddenly, as if the game was deliberately answering his question, a large King Boo drove past the tiny Luigi.

"Aww! Look at the wittle tiny Luigi." Mike teased.

Jeremy smirked and waited for his character to grow bigger again. Once his character grew back to his normal size, Luigi threw the red shell at King Boo.

"Suck on that, Mike!" Jeremy yelled.

"Ha! Says the character with the ghost vacuum." Mike replied with a smug face.

"I- HEY!" Jeremy yelled, elbowing Mike in the arm.

"Oh, you wanna play THAT game, huh?" Mike asked, elbowing Jeremy back.

"Yeah! Fight me bro!" Jeremy yelled.

Mike shrugged his shoulders. "You asked for it..." Mike replied before tackling the man down.

"Mike! Get off me! OHOHOW! YOUR ELBOWS ARE JABBING INTO ME!" Jeremy shouted, attempting to push Mike off him.

As Jeremy tried to push at him, Jeremy accidentally squeezed his side while he was pushing against it with his hand. This caused a sudden jolt and a short spurt of laughter to leave his mouth. Jeremy paused his actions for a split second, and looked at Mike with a smug, suspicious glare. "What are you laughing at? Is squishing me considered funny to you?" Jeremy asked.

"Kinda, yeah. Your body is just so tiny and squish-able!" Mike teased, squeezing Jeremy's side.

"Dohohon't you eheven tryhyhy tihihicklihihing me, you bahahahastahahard!" Jeremy warned through his giggles, before giving Mike a few squeezes and pokes back.

"AAAAH! Nohohohoho! Quihihit thahahat! Dohohon't yohohohou eheheven ahahahattempt ihihit! I am much bigger, and stronger than you. I could RUIN YOU-" Mike warned. Unfortunately for Mike, Jeremy moved his fingers up to his bottom ribs, and began tweaking and digging into them. "AAAHAHAHAHAHAHA! AAAH! NO! JEREMY! PLEHEHEHEHEHEHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Mike bursted out, falling beside his friend.

"I think you keep on forgetting what tiny people are capable of. I can climb all over you and destroy you!" Jeremy mentioned as he jumped onto his best friend to dig his fingers into the farthest side of Mike's ribs.

"DAHAHAHAHAMIHIHIHIT! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Mike shouted, pausing his squirming to just let out all the laughter in his lungs. Jeremy's smile began to grow wider as he tickled him. Jeremy just adored Mike's laugh! It was so bubbly and fun to hear. There had been times in his life where Mike would laugh out loud for a good 5 minutes, and Jeremy would just be over the moon to hear his laugh. It was really contagious, and usually made Jeremy laugh along with him. When they first met, Jeremy would use as many stupid or funny jokes on him, just to hear Mike's laugh. It was kind of silly in a way. Is it normal to appreciate a person's laugh that much? Or is it weird? Jeremy wasn't really sure. So, the best thing Jeremy decided to do with it, was to just enjoy the laughter for as long as it lasted. Jeremy had drifted off into a daydream amidst the fight. He was so deep into the trance, that he didn't even realize what was going on in front of him!

Meanwhile, Mike had decided to take advantage of Jeremy's dreamy state, to tickle him back.

Suddenly, Jeremy knocked himself out of dreamland with his own bout of laughter! By the time Jeremy found out what was going on, Jeremy was giggling and laughing under Mike's wiggly fingers.

"Hehehehehehehe! Mihihihike! Cohohohome ohohohon!" Jeremy giggled.

"What do you mean 'come on'? You were the one who lost his concentration in the middle of beating me! I'm just getting my revenge now." Mike teased.

"Ihihihi dihihidn't mehehehehean tohohoho!" Jeremy mentioned.

"Well obviously, you didn't. I don't think you could've controlled it! But, I'm still gonna make you regret it." Mike replied with a wink.

Mike shoved his hands into Jeremy's armpits next. Jeremy gasped and squealed before rolling into a fit full of laughter. "NAHAHAHAT THEHEHEHERE! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! PLEHEHEHEASE! IHIT'S TOHOHO MUHUHUHUCH! HAHAHAHAHAHA!" Jeremy shouted.

"Hahaha! This is awesome! Now, how would you feel if I just..." Mike asked, drifting off as he lifted Jeremy's arm above his head.

"Nonononono! Don't you even TRY TO DOTHATPLE-EEEEEAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! NAHAHAHAHAHAHAHOHOHOHOHO!" Jeremy screamed.

Mike jumped and retreated his hands out of pure panic. "I'm not killing you! I swear, I'm not killing you!" Mike reacted, putting his hands up in arrest.

"Yohohohou wehehere clohohohose..." Jeremy warned.

"Oh really? Well, now I wanna tickle you more." Mike reacted before shoving his fingers into Jeremy's armpits again.

"WAHAHAHAHAIT! NO! MIKE PLEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEASE!" Jeremy shouted.

"Please? Please what? Please tickle you more? Gladly!" Mike replied smugly as he lifted Jeremy's arm up and wiggled his fingers on Jeremy's exposed armpit.

"MIKE! PLEASE, I'M BEGGING YOHOHOHOU! DOHOHOHOHOHOHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Jeremy shouted before dissolving into endless hysterical laughter.

Mike began to giggle along with Jeremy. He was enjoying this way too much...But, who cares? Mike certainly didn't! He liked bringing Jeremy down to just a puddle of laughter. Normally, that involved a really good story. Today though, it was achieved through simple play-fighting.

After another minute of tickling his armpits, Mike brought his hands down to his sides again, to let him breath more. Jeremy happily took in as much air as he could, and allowed himself to still giggle through the tickly squeezes on his sides. It was a more comfortable laughing pace. It felt better to laugh lightly, than to laugh hysterically.

So, Jeremy decided to get Mike laughing as well. Jeremy ran his fingers around Mike's sides for a bit. When he felt curious, Jeremy reached his hand under Mike's shirt and discovered something new: Mike's pretty ticklish on his belly! Specifically, his belly button! Jeremy gladly took advantage of it, and listened to Mike's inner music, that was his laughter.

"Hehehehehehehe! Dohohohon't yohohohou dahahahare! Yohohou'll rehehehegrehehet ihihit...GAHAHAHAHAHA! JEHEHEREMY NOHOHOHOHO!" Mike laughed joyfully.

Jeremy's smirk began to widen, as he swirled his finger inside Mike's belly button. "Is someone a little ticky-ticky-ticky-ticklish?" Jeremy teased.

Mike's face almost immediately began to glow a red hue. "SHUHUHUT UHUHUHUHUP!" Mike spat.

Jeremy gasped. "Is Mike a little flustered? Is Mikey-Wikey getting flustered from the ticky-ticky's on his belly button?" Jeremy teased, treating him like a toddler.

Mike was slowly going insane. Teasing his belly button?! Talking to him like a TODDLER?! UH...NO THANK YOU! MIKE IS AN ADULT, THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

"Quihihihit teheheheasihihing mehehehe! Ihihi'm nahahahat a chihihihihild!" Mike shot back at Jeremy. Before Jeremy could do anything else, Mike had grabbed Jeremy's upper arms and pulled him down onto Mike's lap! Mike sat up and flipped Jeremy over onto his back, before experimentally digging his fingers into Jeremy's ribs.

"NAHAHAHAHAHA! OHOHOHOH, YOHOHOHOHOU SUHUHUHUHUCK SOHOHOHOHO BAHAHAHAHAD!" Jeremy shouted.

"Wow! You're entire upper body is ticklish! And not just a little ticklish, but SUPER ticklish! We'd better make sure no animatronics find out about this." Mike suggested.

"WHAHAHAHAHAT?! WHAHAHAT AHAHARE YOHOHOU TAHAHAHAHALKIHIHING ABOHOHOHOUT?!" Jeremy asked through his hysterical laughter.

"Didn't you hear? The animatronics are able to scan kids and make comments on certain objects and decorations now. For example: the patterns on your shirt!" Mike explained, poking the stomach underneath Jeremy's shirt.

Jeremy's eyes visibly widened, as he bit his lip.

"One of them might scan your body up and down, up and down, up and down..." Mike teased, pointing his index finger at Jeremy as he raised and lowered it to imitate the scanning. "-And they may find out some pretty interesting information:" Mike added as he lowered his hand down to Jeremy's stomach. Next, Mike focused his eyes on a specific tickle spot before lifting his head up and leaning his head in towards Jeremy's head.

"Mr. Security Guard?" Mike asked, in a silly Freddy voice that somewhat resembled Goofy's voice. "You have some very sensitive spots on your body. Are you ticklish?" Mike (Freddy) asked. Despite the small bits of nervous panic going through Jeremy's head, his body began betraying him by instinctively making him smile and giggle like a complete goof. So, Mike began poking, squeezing, and wiggling his fingers on Jeremy's stomach, ribs, and sides.

"DOHOHOHOHON'T! IHIHIHIT'S NAHAHAHAT FUHUHUHUNNY! IHIHIHIHIT'S CREHEHEHEHEHEPPY!" Jeremy yelled back.

Mike smirked and resorted to his Freddy Fazbear voice again. "Don't worry! I'm not gonna kill ya. I'm just gonna tickle you a little!" Mike replied as he skittered his fingers higher up on Jeremy's ribs. "What's that saying again?...Oh yeah! Coochy-Coochy-Coo!" Mike teased in his Freddy voice.

Next, Mike left his right hand at his ribs, and brought his left hand down to his belly again. Jeremy's laughter turned into cackles rather quickly. "Hey kids! Look! This security guard is very ticklish!" Mike (Freddy) exclaimed. "Next thing you know, children are gonna come running over and cheer excitedly as they watch a security guard get tickled!" Mike reenacted. "They'll giggle at the security guard stuck in Freddy's tickle trap, and they'll even give their own little pokes as well!" Mike reenacted further, adding in little pokes everywhere he could reach to add to the silliness. "It will be such a giggly mess, that someone may have to turn the machine off!" Mike added.

Immediately after that part, Mike stopped his fingers and pulled them away from him. Jeremy just flopped himself onto the floor, breathing in as much air as he could.

Jeremy was just about done for. He couldn't even IMAGINE such an embarrassing thought! "Next thing you know: You're getting laid off by your supervisor for 'being too ticklish'. Like you can control that, of course..." Mike concluded. Jeremy rolled his eyes, but giggled at the silly conclusion.

"Shuhuhut uhuhup...Yohohou wohohouldn't behe ahahahable to suhurvihihihive either..." Jeremy replied.

"Mm...Maybe not...Maybe yes, though..." Mike replied.

Mike only continued to giggle as he laid there on the ground. Looking around the room, Jeremy couldn't help but notice the flashing Wii remotes. Looking up at the TV, Jeremy noticed that the TV was still on! The Race statistics were playing on the screen as well! Jeremy looked down the list of places, and looked at the statistics on the bottom:

[11th | Luigi | DNF | +0 | 0pts]

[12th | King Boo| DNF | +0 | 0pts]

Well...So much for THAT challenge...

[sometimesiwriteangst]

So I spent like six hours just reading through all this and it's just awesome. Um, I'd like to see more of Logan living with the Dark Sides and maybe Virgil still lives there too, because he still likes the others even though he just wants to be accepted by the core sides and all, so conflicted feelings and maybe Loceit? With a demisexual Deceit? Also it's weird but maybe a queerplatonic relationship between Remus and Virgil and Dee with an aroace Remus? And more abusive Patton? Have a good day!

(I got carried away and now you have 1,600 words of this-)

When Logan asks to stay with the dark sides, he doesn’t really expect to be told he can. He doesn’t expect Deceit to smile and ask if he wants help moving things over. He doesn’t expect Remus to pop up and ask if he wants the guest room or to share. He doesn’t expect Virgil to ask what he’s doing, and show no judgement in wanting to live there for a bit.

“Why would I judge?” Virgil asks, “don’t tell Patton, but, I still live there. I have a room here, but I use the room at theirs.”

“He’s with us a lot,” Remus says, “he’s our cute little buttercup!”

“Ugh, I told you not to call me that,” Virgil complains, “Deceit, make him call me something normal.”

“Sure thing, buttercup.”

“See what I have to put up with?”

Logan ends up taking the guest room, which is…much cleaner than he expected. And very nicely put together. In fact, he can’t help but notice how similar the layout is to his room…

He decides to ignore it for now.

“If you need anything, just let us know,” Virgil tells him, “I suggest asking me or Deceit. Remus sometimes takes requests…literally…but in a bad way…like a genie.”

“I see…” Logan smiles, “thank you, Virgil.”

Life settles down normally. Virgil is away during the day, but Deceit and Remus are always happy to spend time with Logan. Logan discovers Remus is an expert chess player, so long as he doesn’t eat the pieces, and that Deceit is hardcore at Risk. In fact, Logan’s pretty sure Deceit was a military leader in a past life, because he completely dominates the board within twenty minutes.

Video games are apparently popular – when Virgil spends the day with them they go nuts over it. At first, Logan just watches, seeing how…normal it is. Deceit and Remus bicker over who gets to be Bowser, and Virgil and Remus shoot nicknames at each other until Virgil asks Deceit for help. At which point Remus blatantly cheats.

They play Just Dance, and Logan is absolutely fascinated by the way Deceit moves. The liar gets into it, which Logan is more than a little impressed by. And if it’s oddly attractive…well, who cares? He can look.

“You seem happy with them,” Logan says to Virgil one night as he helps with the dishes, “why don’t you act like it back with Patton and Roman?”

Virgil hesitates. “…I just don’t want to be rejected, that’s all,” he says quietly, “and by the way, Patton wants to know when you’ll be back.”

Logan shrugs, says he doesn’t know. The more time he spends with the Dark Sides, the more he loves it, loves them.

“Do you mean it when you make all those…sexual references?” he asks Remus one day after Remus spends ten minutes making suggestive comments to Deceit.

“Oh no, not at all! I just like saying them!”

“He’s asexual,” Deceit clarifies.

“Dee, you forgot the aromantic part!”

“And aromantic.”

That’s how Logan finds out about Virgil and Remus’ relationship, which the pair define as “very much not romantic”. And how he finds out Deceit’s part of it as well.

He secretly feels jealous about it, but pushes it away. They were happy, and he really had no business intruding on their relationship.

Except that Virgil hugs him every evening, and Remus gives him a (surprisingly healthy and well cooked) breakfast each morning, along with asking whatever strange question he’s come up with that day.

(“Say, Logan, how big is a penguin’s butthole?”)

And Deceit smiles at him every time he sees him, and asks to sit by him whenever he’s curled up on the sofa, and if Logan didn’t like him before, he does now.

The peace comes to a halt when Virgil returns with bruises on his arms.

“What happened?” Logan asks, concerned and distraught.

Remus holds Virgil close whilst Deceit seems to look right through them.

“I’ll go talk to him,” he hears Deceit say quietly, stroking Virgil’s hair gently, “he can’t do this to you.”

“What if he hurts you?” Virgil whispers back, “please, he’s really angry…”

“I’ll be fine.”

Deceit is gone for four hours.

In the mean time Logan and Remus look after Virgil, giving him tea, wrapping blankets around him and gently reassuring him of his safety. Logan doesn’t understand what’s going on, but he still wants to help. And by the time Deceit returns he’s coaxed the pair into sleeping.

Deceit looks tired, and half collapses onto the floor, just lying there, spread out and breathing deeply.

“Are you okay?” Logan asks, even though it feels stupid to ask, and he crouches beside him, “what happened?”

Deceit glances at Logan, and bites his lip. “You don’t want to know.”

“I do. I want to help. What’s going on?”

“You…You can help.” Deceit grits his teeth as he lies.

“You don’t know that,” Logan says quickly, “come on, just tell me.”

Deceit sighs, then slowly sits upright.

“Fine. Here’s the gist of it. Our dearest Patton doesn’t like us Dark Sides. He hurts Remus and I, and used to hurt Virgil. Virgil was finally accepted, so it stopped for him. And now you’re here Patton is taking out his feelings on him.”

“I…I’m sorry…I never…I never meant to-”

Deceit’s eyes widen, the snake realising how it sounded.

“Oh no…no, Logan, none of us blame you!” he pulls Logan close to him, wrapping his arms around tightly, “no, it’s not your fault – we all love you being here – it’s Patton that’s the problem, not you, never you…”

“…I should be comforting you,” Logan says quietly.

“Then comfort me. I want to cuddle.”

And so they do, Logan trailing his hand over Deceit gently, massaging sore areas gently and listening to him sigh, shuffling closer until he’s flush against Logan.

“This feels nice,” Deceit admits, the truth coming slow and steady from him.

“Yes, massages are good for injuries and tense muscles, so it would,” Logan nods as he talks, about to explain how it works.

“No, I mean – oh I hate telling the truth – I mean, this. Being close to you, having you massage me. I really like it.”

And Logan blushes, clearing his throat and assuring Deceit he’s up for it at any time.

“…Would you…this is a bad time…would you also be up for…being my boyfriend?” Deceit is hesitant, clearly expecting a rejection that he doesn’t get.

Deceit tells Virgil and Remus eagerly once they’ve recovered, and Remus’ first response is to question if this means Logan’s joining their queerplatonic relationship.

“I’m cool with that,” Virgil says, and so it falls to Logan, who hesitates before nodding.

“If you’ll have me, then yes. Absolutely.”

The only thing that makes the new relationship dynamic difficult is Patton’s insistence that Logan rejoin the light sides.

“Thomas, your logical side has been with Deceit and Remus,” Patton says when Logan is summoned.

“Don’t speak bad about my boyfriend and partner,” is Logan’s response.

When they sink out he finds himself being pulled to the light side area, which is painful. He hits the ground, having not intended to sink in there, and Patton looks down on him.

“You can’t date them,” he says, “if you do, it’s them who are going to suffer.”

“You’re a coward,” Logan replies, standing up, “if it’s me causing the problem, pick your fight with me.”

He sees Patton hesitate.

“Just admit it, Patton. You’ll pick on them because you find it easy. You can hit Virgil and he’s too afraid to hit back. You can hurt Remus and if he fights back you’ll pin the blame on him. You hurt Deceit and if he tells anyone then it’s his fault,” Logan hisses, “you’re a coward. Either pick on me or don’t bother, because you will regret hurting the people I love.”

He sinks out following this, and is immediately pulled into cuddles with his loved ones.

Later that night he finds Deceit still awake, on the sofa long after the other two have fallen asleep.

“What’s wrong?” Logan asks him.

“…Roman said he heard you wanted to have sex with me,” Deceit admits, “…but Logan, I don’t…I don’t…”

“Well, he heard wrong. I never said that,” Logan states, knowing for a fact he’s never said or implied that, and sits beside his lover, “besides. If you don’t want that, then that’s fine.”

Deceit glances at Logan and smiles weakly. “I was worried you wouldn’t like finding out I was demi,” he says quietly.

“I have absolutely no problem with it,” is Logan’s response, and Deceit just has to kiss him for it.

Over time Roman starts joining them, quiet and not half as extra as he usually is. But his brother accepts him whole heartedly, even if the two insist on having duels and hitting each other with their weapons. And over time this is enough for Roman to come out of the shell he was in and start talking about everything that’s brought him there.

(Patton. Logan thinks it’s always been Patton.)

Logan is wary of Patton whenever they cross paths. He’s seen the marks down Deceit’s back, he’s heard Remus waking up screaming, and he’s been there when Virgil has broken down in tears. He sees Roman hesitate in joining in activities, hears Roman’s confession that he’s afraid of being considered a “dark side”.

“Don’t worry,” is what Virgil has to say about that, “there’s a lot of us now. Safety in numbers.”

There is, but most importantly, there’s peace in numbers, love in numbers, and Logan thinks this chaotic family is going to be okay.

[sa-gt-tarrius]

G/T Prompts, part 8

Prompts were found here.

***

“Do you ever feel like you don’t belong?”

The question caught Mario off guard. It was nightfall now; the brightest of the stars were just starting to appear in the sky. Peach and Mario managed to escape from the Darklands thanks to the magic parasol. Once they were far enough away from the Koopa squads they snuck out with, they made an undetected break for freedom. They even managed to trek all the way to the Waterlands, which was the region between Peach and Bowser’s domains.

The pair decided to camp on a quiet beach by the shore until morning, and the two had remained silent for a few hours until Peach asked her sudden question. Mario turned away from the fire, putting down the stick he was using to prod the embers. “What do you mean?”

“I mean… like you’re different from everyone else. Do you ever feel that way?”

Mario smiled forcefully. “Around here? Usually.”

Peach bit her lip. She’d completely forgotten that Mario was five inches tall. “Right... of course you do. Stupid question.”

Mario laughed, not bothered by the comment. “It was easier to fit in back home,” he sighed. “I had lots of people my size there.”

“Back home,” Peach repeated, locking onto that phrase. “Mario… you never told me where you’re from.”

Mario blinked. “I’m from Brooklyn.”

“Where’s that?”

“It’s in New York.”

“Is that a kingdom?”

Mario grinned in reply. “No, it’s a state. We don’t have kingdoms back home. We don’t have princesses or anything like that. We have a president, though.”

“Oh.” Peach frowned for a moment before speaking again. “How is a president different from a monarch?”

“Eh, I’ll explain another time,” Mario muttered. “It’s complicated. Like you said, politics are always confusing.”

They both laughed, then fell quiet again. The sound of rolling water was the only thing breaking the immeasurable silence. Peach craned her neck up to look at the stars, avoiding eye contact with Mario. 

“What about you?” Mario finally asked, unable to stand the awkward quietness. “Do you ever feel different?”

It took a moment for Peach to reply. “Sometimes,” she said after a bit of hesitation. “I’m not sure why... I have so many supportive friends. But I can’t help but feel like I’m out of place somehow... Like I’m the odd one out.”

Mario shrugged halfheartedly. “Well... you're a bit of an offshoot from those mushroom guys. I get why you’d feel different.”

“I’m not that weird looking,” Peach huffed, crossing her arms, “...am I?”

“No, no, no!” Mario planted his hand onto his face. “I’m sorry. I just mean… you’re the only human I’ve seen around here. I thought maybe that’s what you meant when you said you felt different from everyone else.”

“...Human?” At that, Peach grinned. She even let out a small chortle. “Mario, don’t be silly. Do I look like a human to you?”

“Uh, yes?” 

Peach huffed. She leaned back into the grass, resting on her elbows. “Well, that’s just ridiculous. Humans been extinct for years now.” She yawned deeply, oblivious to the look of horror slowly crossing Mario’s face. “It’s a shame, too... I’ve always wanted to meet one.”

“B—but…” Mario struggled to form a sentence in his shocked stupor. “But humans aren’t extinct! I’m a human! You’re a human!”

“No, I’m not. I’m a Toad.”

“But you look nothing like one!” he cried in exasperation. Upon hearing his sudden outburst, Peach immediately looked offended and hurt. Realizing what he said, Mario backpedalled his words. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant—”

“I know I look odd,” Peach grumbled, her eyebrows furrowing. “I’m reminded all the time. You certainly don’t have to point it out.”

"I—"

"I don't wish to speak about this anymore. Let's drop the subject."

Mario fell silent. He’d have to ask about all this later, when Peach wasn’t upset with him. "...Okay."

[variabels]

Fictober19 #2 Babysitting the Koopalings

A/N: What you need to know for this chapter is that R.O.B. married Marth’s iPhone because Roy set them up one year ago.

Prompt number:  2  “Just follow me, I know the area.”

Fandom (AU if applicable): Super Smash Bros

Rating: T because of the implications at the end.

Warnings/Tags: R.O.B. overheating

Words: I forgot to count

Ships: R.O.B. x Marth’s iPhone, Palu and Bayo are Kirby and Joker’s moms

R.O.B.’s life had been going through many changes lately. It had gotten married to its beautiful wife, Marth’s iPhone. They had been living a happily wed life but something was missing. The one thing that most married couples strive for, kids.

The robot did not want to disappoint its wife when it came to child-raising. It wanted to be prepared for the most troublesome kids imaginable. But it didn’t have much money.

The robot was a decent fighter but there were many fighters that were way more talented than it. R.O.B. didn’t have the money to pay for anything a child needed. Heck, it didn’t have the money to adopt one.

It would take so much time to raise enough money with the results it was having in tournaments. The poor robot had no way to become a top tier fighter in the blink of an eye. Even if by some miracle it did become top tier, it would still lack any knowledge of child-raising.

R.O.B. decided it needed advice. It could not give up, it needed to make its wife happy. The robot went around the Smash Mansion asking fighters for advice. After consulting all the parents in Smash, it came to the conclusion that a part-time job as a babysitter would help it gain money and learn how to raise a child.

---

If R.O.B. had been programmed to feel excitement, it would be feeling it right now. It was time for its first job as a babysitter.

The robot knocked on the door eager for it to be opened. It could hear footsteps of someone running and the door was quickly opened. The robot was met with a huge smile for one second before it turned into a frown.

“Dad, R.O.B. knocked,” Roy Koopa stomped his way back to the sofa.

“Oh, just in time!” Bowser smiled as he let the robot into the Koopalings’ apartment, “The children are all waiting.”

The robot followed Bowser into the living room. The apartment was quite spacious and nicely decorated. There were photos of all the Koopalings on the wall alongside badly illustrated drawings. R.O.B. couldn’t help but imagined what its living room would look when it had kids.

“Kids, R.O.B. is here,” Bowser announced to his children, “He’ll be babysitting you.”

“But he’s a robot,” Wendy protested, “How can he play fashionista with me?”

“Aw, Roy had me all hyped up for nothing,” Bowser Jr. pouted, “He made us all think big Roy would babysit us.”

“Wait, Roy’s not babysitting?” Roy yelled in shock as he made his way towards the door, “That’s it, I’m leaving!”

“I’m sure you’ll all have lots of fun,” Bowser reassured his kids, “If any of you leave or misbehave, you’ll all be punished. Have fun!”

Once Boswer left, R.O.B. knew it had a lot of pressure on it. The most likely scenario would be for the koopalings to misbehave. R.O.B. could sense that they didn’t like it, it needed to gain their trust and respect if it wanted to avoid having problems with Bowser later on.

---

“No!” Wendy yelled, “You can’t walk like that Iggy! You’re ruining my fashion show!”

“That’s not true!”

R.O.B. had no idea what to do. How did you stop two kids from fighting? It’s actually quite easy.

“So, we’ll be allowed to play on iPads all night?” Iggy asked.

R.O.B. nodded which made the two koopalings grin. They had always wanted to stay awake all night and now they could. Babysitters were awesome.

---

Lemmy, Larry and Morton wanted to do nothing but eat chips. Naturally, R.O.B., being a robot, had absolutely no knowledge of the fact that chips weren’t exactly healthy. He took all the koopalings to town to buy them whatever they wanted.

R.O.B. had spent way too much money on the eight mischievous kids. He needed to make sure Bowser paid him a lot.

“We need more chips!” Larry told the robot, “It’s unhealthy for kids to not eat chips.”

“Yeah!” Lemmy smiled, “We read it on a YouTube comment so it must be true.”

“These with lots of sugar and fat will do!” Morton grinned, “They’re the healthiest!”

Kirby and Joker just happened to be walking by with Palutena and got really excited.

“Mom?” Joker asked as he made puppy eyes, “Can we have some chips?”

“No. We have chips at home.”

“They’re apple chips!”

“Healthy and delicious.”

“Fuck you!” Kirby pouted, “Bayo’s a better mother than you. At least, she’s willing to try to get me whatever I want.”

"Actually, I know a place with the most healthy chips in the world," Joker lied.

"You do?" Palutena asked full of interest.

"Yeah! Just follow me, I know the area."

---

R.O.B. took the koopalings back to the mansion where most of them were satisfied with eating chips and playing on their iPads all day. However, Roy, Ludvig and Bowser Jr. had other plans.

“Playing on iPads is so boring,” Ludvig snickered, “Let’s sneak out!”

The three brothers quietly exited their apartment and ran all around the mansion causing chaos. They were running into people and pranking everyone. They were about to prank the inklings when Roy saw his idol, lord and savior, big Roy speaking to some loser called Ike.

The pink koopa ran towards him but by the time he reached them, big Roy had left after yelling and throwing a box on Ike. Little Roy picked it up and looked at it.

He saw a small letter written on it. He couldn’t read most of it because Ike’s handwriting was crap but he could make out a bit.

“To our boy, Roy,” Roy read out loud, “Something, something. I hope you like this gift, you’ve earned it! Remember to be careful.”

“Roy, why did you run off?” Ludvig asked, “What’s that?”

“I think it’s a present for me from Ike. Roy must have gotten angry at Ike for giving it to him instead of me!”

Roy opened the box and found things in it. He didn’t know what those things were. Neither did Ludvig but they both had an amazing idea. Bowser Jr. wasn’t sure why his brothers were looking at him with such intensity. It was like they were trying to prank him.

---

“R.O.B.!” Bowser Jr. yelled, “I need your help!”

R.O.B. rushed to the koopaling not knowing what to expect. The robot was surprised to see him stuck in what appeared to be a weird type of balloon. R.O.B. started overheating as it couldn’t handle another situation of not knowing what to do.

“Hi, I’m back!” Bowser greeted full of joy before seeing the scene unfolding in front of him, “Why’s my son stuck in a… Um… Balloon?”

“It was Ike!” Roy spoke up as he showed the box and letter he had taken earlier, “He got this gift for me.”

“Um… Yeah… I think I’m going to leave for the night. I’ll pay you extra, R.O.B.”

R.O.B. was so overjoyed that it had done a seemingly good job that it started overheating once again. It was going to be a great parent. Now it just needed Marth’s iPhone’s parents’ blessings.

[ahntravels]

Day два.

Day 2. Woke up and completely forgot I was in St. Petersburg for a moment. My bed at home is  a queen, and the bed at this hotel is for a tiny person (in fact, I think my bed at ND was larger...) Anyway, I rolled over as per usual, and completely rolled off the bed. 

I never would have thought, in my wildest dreams, I would one day wake up in Russia. Here’s to just pulling the trigger and making it happen. 

Today, as mentioned yesterday, is Hermitage day. I didn’t know what exactly to expect, except all blogs mentioned to a) buy your ticket in advance (online) and b) get there early. The museum opens at 10, and I had planned on getting there at 10, except halfway through the 20 minute walk I realized I forgot my wallet and visa so I had to go walk back to the hotel and then walk back again, basically adding another 30 minutes to my trip. I arrived around 10:30.

I will say, walking up to the Winter Palace (Hermitage) was surreal. It’s HUGE. 

Below is the arch you walk through which reveals the mammoth Palace

I’ve seen Buckingham Palace in London and Versailles in Paris. I will say that they are NOTHING compared to the Hermitage Museum in terms of shear size. It’s kind of crazy that those arches completely conceal the Palace until you start to walk through it. Then you see like...part of the Palace, but it’s not until you walk through the arch that there is this instantaneous reveal. Included in the reveal is the shock of just seeing the Palace in full + the huge size of it spanning your vision across the X-axis + all the blue sky and empty space that just silences you for a moment. 

SIDE NOTE: For whatever stupid, immature reason, every time I think of the “reveal”, I think of that scene from Mario 64 when you’re running towards a photo of the Princess and it turns out to be Bowser. No, I’m not drunk, don’t ask me why I think of these things at the most random times. And yes, I did spend 15 minutes searching for this photo collage. 

Anyway. I am sure the Winter Palace is GORGEOUS during winter. The acoustics of the space when it’s covered in snow must be like...next level. I’m sure St. Petersburg during the winter is amazing. 

If you want a history lesson on the Hermitage, the Hermitage website has a great timeline. Again, as with the other blogs, I’m not going to be going into detail about images of the place or the history of the pieces exhibited. So many other blogs have done it so much better and I’m not going to butcher that. I’ll just mention a few things that stuck out to me, and you can Google around and figure it out.

I will say that if you do visit, I can offer a couple of tips you may want to follow.

1) The map. The map is confusing but not. You’ll just find yourself getting annoyed because, when you know where you are going, the gaggle of tourists and tourist groups will spin you around and suddenly you forget which way is which. Because the museum is HUGE (I saw maybe 1/8th of the museum in 4-5 hours?) you have to prioritize what to see. Keep in mind that, as time elapses, the museum becomes more and more inundated with the dreaded tourist groups, basically making your chances of getting a clear photo of anything nill. 

2) Tourists (a.k.a. the “Boos”). See the map below. The Hermitage has 3 floors. Below is a floor plan of probably the most popular floor, thanks to Mr. da Vinci and many of the decorative palace rooms (amongst other exhibits):

The good thing is that the map kind of pulls out the most famous exhibits and shows you what room they are in. This makes your job of figuring out where you need to go to cross out those items from your bucket list easy. The bad part: The enemy (a.k.a. tourists groups a.k.a. “boos”) also know where these pieces are and are racing as well to find them. The good news: the boos are with tourist groups and have to wait until the tour guide guides them to the room with the exhibit. So, you have time to beat them to it and snag the photo if you are quick. 

Just like in Mario, as time progresses and you aren’t being proactive, more and more of these guys are going to flood the Museum and follow you and clog up the exhibits. So, how do you win? I suggest getting to the museum first thing, then IMMEDIATELY source those famous exhibits, get your photos, then start at the beginning. Most of the tourists are going to be spending a large portion of their time taking photos of the great hall, which leaves you time to sneak past. Case in point:

The line to da Vinci. It was actually way worse a bit earlier when I came around again. I managed to get there early enough and snagged a decent photo:

In general, just like Versailles, the rooms are huge and ornate and absolutely beautiful. I was standing by a window, looking out into the courtyard from what was probably a ballroom in the palace, and thought to myself who else, years ago, was gazing forlornly (or with happiness, or deep in thought) out this same window.

I think that is the most magical part about these palace museums: people LIVED here. People also died here, were executed, fell in love, gave birth, went mad. And when you see relics of those like ridiculous looking Russian uniforms or weird trinkets from decades past, you have to remember that, no, these weren’t fashioned after film props, but film props fashioned after the real living thing. And the real living thing from 100+ years ago is right in front of you. 

It’s pretty spectacular. 

Oh, so this was exciting: The were having a temporary exhibit, and it was REMBRANDT!! Mike! I’m sure you have seen most of these because they sourced the pieces from the Leiden collection...maybe you have seen some of these at the Frick?

Anyway, there was NO PHOTOGRAPHY so I couldn’t really snag photos of pieces specifically. 

I did find myself in a Jean-Baptiste while lost in the French wing:

I didn’t and couldn’t wander the halls for the full 4-5 hours straight. I took a couple of breaks, grabbing a coffee at the cafe for 15 minutes before trying again. I do suggest you break up your visit to the Hermitage into two days; it really is the only way to not feel like your brain is going to explode. 

Afterwards, I took a walk outside by the water behind the Palace. 

Gratuitous selfie. That’ll be two hundred rubles. 

At this point, I had about 2.5 hours to kill before I needed to make my way to the Mariinsky Theater for the performance. So, I did what anyone should do, and that is wander around and picked up a snack to munch on (sorry, no photo of munchies).

There were people painting on the lawn, and I meant to come back and scope out the progress, but became distracted so I didn’t. I did manage to view a live performance (there are performers EVERYWHERE) and I’ll have to post in a separate blog entry because I still can’t figure out how to take the video from my phone and stick it here. 

I stopped at a progressive burger joint (in terms of menu options) for my “snack” (I didn’t eat breakfast despite my large leftovers still sitting in the refrigerator) and ate one of these guys sans burger sauce:

It’s essentially a falafal burger with cucumbers and halved grape tomatoes inside. The bun was my least favorite part (larger in circumference than the patty, which drives me INSANE) so I ditched it angrily. The bun and the burger should be the same size, and the patty should be thicker than each half of the bun. If the top bun is thicker than the patty, the bun is trash. BESIDES THAT ISSUE, the patty was actually really flavorful, and the veggies were (surprise!) slightly pickled. I wasn’t a huge fan of the background of dill I tasted, but that’s fine. The lunch hit the spot and I felt alive again. 

I know, call me a hypocrite for yelling about wasting food and here I am ditching a perfectly good bun. Well, arguably it wasn’t perfectly good, but I did take a bite and decided I much preferred the insides. Whatever. To quote Trump, “Who cares, we won!”

ASHLEY SIDE NOTE: It’s actually been great being overseas, because I have been shielded from all the US politics. However, I did catch a headline today and I mistakenly checked out Trump’s interview and wow...glad I am over here.

Eventually, I made my way to the theater via Uber (there is no Lyft here, and taxis are a little...shady. And slow. And expensive). I will have to comment on Russian driving (or, driving in Russia):

1) It’s nuts. Nuttier than cabbies and NYC driving. Nuttier than driving in France. Probably not nuttier than driving in Vietnam or other places where you are competing with scooters and cars, but it’s still pretty nutty.

2) However, I noticed that they do one thing correctly and without anger that we don’t do in America, and that is merging. In Russia, they utilize the “zipper merge” technique quite patiently and diligently, which, after taking 3 Ubers and cursing under my breath at the “assholes” who merged at the last minute, I realized that this was common and drivers didn’t sweat it. 

“Those apparently rude drivers are putting more of the roadway to use and thus helping speed things along, in much the same way water flows faster through a funnel than through a straw.”

3) There is no bus lane or real lanes in general (I mean, there are lines painted in the road but people disregard them) and cars are just weaving in and out, trying to avoid buses, bikers, etc. And everyone drives stick, so it can get a little rough at times.

Anyway, I manged to get to the theater at the nick of time (traffic is TERRIBLE) and had decent balcony seating:

The Mariiinsky Theater isn’t huge, but the acoustics are really good. The ballet itself was really interesting. Interesting in the sense that this performance, in terms of skill, seemed to be this mix of gracefulness and like...cirque du soleil. I haven’t seen many ballets, but the ones I have seen did not showcase these magnificent bouts of exaggerated athleticism as performed by these dancers (i.e. 360 degree turns ad infinitum, Labron Jamesesque slam dunk vertical leaps, etc). Don’t get me wrong; these dancers are incredible and it was fun to watch them exhibit their unrelenting strength. However, I felt, where the narrative fell short, the shock and awe carried it through.

 I have to be honest and say that I’m not the type to sit through a long, dry opera or ballet, so Le Corsaire broke through any of that fear and was much appreciated. Given we are in the world of #metoo, the plot didn’t really adhere to the moral standard (the narrative is much about the selling of women as slaves, that people of the Middle Eastern ethnicity is less than smart, etc). Yeah, not the best message. However, despite the immature and possibly offensive plot, the artistry was really good...the backgrounds and costumes were beautiful, and the music was moving. I really liked the duo in Act II...I believe it’s the Adagio, but I will have to go back through the soundtrack to figure it out. 

Afterwards, I ate a really light and late dinner and came back to the hotel where I am writing this. It’s past midnight, and I am officially 63 years old!*

Tomorrow, I think i will visit the Faberge museum, then the Anna Akhamatova Museum, then a food market called  the Kuznechny Market where I will try to buy some caviar, THEN bday dinner, then I need to hit the hay because I have a 6AM train out of Russia and into Estonia. I am really feeling sad that my stay in Russia is ending, but excited to see two more countries. 

Until tomorrow!

*I told the waiter today was my birthday, and he said, “Congratulations”. What a curious response. I suppose living is a task, and becoming a year older is like a life promotion.  

[cosmosogler]

hi. fifteen minutes late getting started, but i caught up on some lecture notes.

i was getting ready for bed and then i spent like 25 minutes in the bathroom, which was really what i wanted to do with my evening, so i wasn’t even in bed until after 11:50. it took forever to fall asleep, but i guess i managed it, because i don’t remember the end of the bedtime story. i didn’t even try to get up until 8:20.

i’m really struggling with not being able to clearly remember my dreams whenever i try to. i guess it’s always been like that but i feel like there’s a common thread shared between all the dreams i’ve been having and i can’t figure out what it is and it’s bothering me.

today was a holiday (at least, the school was closed) so i put on some sweat pants. these ones have fantastic pockets that can actually hold my keys. i would wear them more, if it didn’t also feel like i was wearing pajamas all day.

i called the vet around 10 to let him know snoopy’s doing fine, eating and drinking and using her litterboxes. i then continued doing nothing for more time. i did some logic puzzles. eventually i made some “brunch” and got my lunch box ready. then i had a stomachache from brunch so i sat impatiently and waited to feel good enough to bike over to campus. i had the hiccups at that point but biking and panting seemed to help with that.

because biking was exhausting, yet again. you’d think after doing it like 40 times and also doing all that extra stuff all the time would make it easier. i am starting to actually believe that i am not going to get into any better shape than this.

so i got to campus just before 12 and then i talked to harrison for a while and took a little bit to get settled. i watered our plants and arranged my materials across my desk and an unused desk in my actual office, instead of suzanne’s office. now that i have tons of crap to do all the time my desk(s) has become a good base of operations while i take smaller projects over to suzanne’s office to work on one thing at a time if i want to be around people.

suzanne was in today, as well as harrison and ioannis. taylor came in later. that was it as far as students go. our classical teacher also was in for a while. he watched me struggle to unlock the side door to the building for a minute since we got in at the same time.

i made two grading rubrics, which gets me caught up to the current week, and arranged my labs that i need to grade. six and then i’ll be caught up. i was gonna grade today too but... i hung out for a while instead. 

after a work session harrison came in so i ate some snacks and talked with him for like... an hour and a half. eventually we got into sharing some photos. he said i am very, very good at photography. i smiled and told him i had thousands of videos on an external hard drive back at home because they don’t fit on my computer. and thousands of photos on my computer currently. 

i should clean out that folder sometime. i think there are some duplicates and some very blurry photos haha.

he shared some of his stuff. he was in europe for a year apparently and saw some really excellent castles that he took pictures of. i showed him my sedona area photos and a few phone pictures i took around flagstaff. at one point i mentioned that i took a painting class so then i guess i had to show him my paintings. 

at that point we had ended up in my art folder and he probably saw a whole bunch of thumbnails... he was like “photos, paintings, drawings... what aren’t you good at” and i didn’t know how to respond to that. i showed him some of my pencil work too but he had run out of what he called “unique responses” so he mostly ended up just saying “ok” a lot. to be fair i had shown him a ton of pictures... the “ok”s were nerve wracking but he didn’t seem to lose interest and he didn’t walk away so i just kept going. 

eventually i said “no more!!! leave!!! i need to cry for fifteen minutes” and he laughed and asked if he was that bad. i said no i just feel nervous sharing my art. he said “five minutes then.” i scooped up my laptop and my notebooks and went over to suzanne’s office to work on quantum. 

while i was working in there taylor, i think, mentioned that he’d had one of my students in his class during a make-up period. i think it was him; suzanne was also in the room (also near the doorway) and commenting on it so my memory is a little confused. taylor said that this student absolutely loved me as a teacher and basically only had good things to say. 

i didn’t know how to react to that either!!! i blushed and trailed off and looked at my desk and suzanne laughed. 

i don’t know what’s with all the positivity lately. between the symposium and the art and the teaching... i dunno. it’s overwhelming. it’s not that i’m angry that people like me and my work, it’s just... confusing. it’s like trying to hold wet soap in your hands in the shower except with thoughts. 

someone: compliments me

me: 

so yeah, that was really disorienting. i’m... glad my students like me. even though i mess up and get turned around a lot. i’m really invested in their success. i want them to like and respect physics as much as i do. because it’s a good way to feel.

according to suzanne i make a lot of the same mistakes that her fiance jake makes. (we also take notes the exact same way. i like when he sends me his notes because they are the easiest to follow out of the whole class.) mistakes as in, stuff that wastes time, i guess. making comments on everyone’s lab reports to help them do better next time. that kind of thing.

i finished a whole quantum assignment!!! i reached my goal for the day! the “bare minimum.” that’s something to take a deep breath about though. everything i do after that is stuff i don’t have to do tomorrow now.

i took some stuff home, hoping to do more work. i left just before 7 i think. i got home and poked in the corner store to buy a candy bar and made myself a banana smoothie for dinner. i didn’t explode the blender this time.

i was a lot more careful with the amount of ice, you see.

after that i finally filled in a maintenance request for the weird spots that have appeared on my wall. they were on two walls now. oh and i paid my tuition fees and sent some paperwork to my graduate advisor from the drc just to make sure everyone has everything they need. between the tuition fees and snoopy’s vet bill though i’m not sure how much money i’m gonna have for food this week. i might need to be careful. i’ve gotten better about how much stuff i am buying in one go though. haven’t overfilled my bags in two weeks now.

i just found out that i get 1 cent of interest on my savings account every month. nice.

i bummed around on youtube for a while and then realized that steven universe just aired like five new episodes. so i watched all those for an hour or so. i took some baby steps toward getting invested in the story again at least. peridot is always a delight. 

today i realized that i don’t really have a lot in common with my classmates, like, outside interest wise. none of them draw. they haven’t played any of my favorite games. only suzanne even remembers a bunch of tv shows i talk about. or when i make archaic references to floppy disks or whatever. only taylor has seen steven universe or jojo or homestuck and he’s kinda hard to talk to about it. harrison seemed like he didn’t know how to react to card crusher when i showed the video to him. i’m the main punster in the office. i haven’t been able to get anyone else to agree to thai food for dinner.

ehhh. it’s kinda lonely. and we don’t have time to get into each others’ interests, really. i mentioned we didn’t get to play any melee this week because keegan has gone out of town for the weekend. i’d meant to practice some short hops and stuff to try to keep up with him but i just ended up not having time. harrison said he wanted to practice too. i mean i’m never going to win with bowser anyway but it’s good to have those mechanics available to me.

at least it encourages keegan to branch out a bit so it’s not just fox beating up bowser or the ice climbers or luigi or samus every time we play. 

in a way it makes things easier. staying kinda, emotionally closed off, not having to share how much i love this stuff. talking about my art with harrison, and showing him even my best work, did give me a mild panic attack for a little while. mostly just shaking and tearing up, i pulled it together by the time i sat down to work on quantum 5-10 minutes later.

i do feel like i want to dig a hole in the ground and hide in it until people forget about me again though. 

so... yeah. that’s about it, i guess, unless i am laying in bed and realize i forgot to talk about something 45 minutes from now. i am still having trouble eating. mostly positive things happened today so i am not sure what to say in my “positivity” section here. i feel kinda conflicted about sharing my art with harrison, but mostly just confused about this stuff. i don’t know how to deal with this stuff any more. i’m used to even my fandom-related art getting complete silence haha.

[crossroadsdimension]

World Collision -- Chapter 13

Rescue Mission: The Plumber

Flare-Up’s words hung over everyone else with a grimness that Myra didn’t like the feeling of. It caused her to pace around the wall of the chamber they were in, small and cramped as it was, forcing others to move out of her way – except for Luthor and Brainiac, who she walked around because of their computer equipment.

A hand reached out of a shadow as Myra passed it, grabbing her shoulder, and Pitch stepped in front of her.

“And what do you think pacing is going to help?” He raised an eyebrow, looking down at her.

Myra pulled back sharply, startled by his appearance. “I-I don’t know! I just…I just feel like I need to move, do something, but I don’t want to go out there and get caught, either….” She trailed off, uncertain as she shifted from one foot to the other nervously. “It’s just…we’ve got a time limit now? I’m not…I’m not sure what that’s going to mean for us.”

“You and Flare-Up have good heads on your shoulders; you’ll figure something out.” Pitch gave a sneering smile. “Although, your fear is most delicious.”

“Pitch, don’t pull a Darkrai!” Flare-Up called sharply as she came over.

Pitch pulled away. “I would never.” His voice was smooth, but there was something else in it, too. Myra wasn’t able to figure out what it was, because Pitch pulled into the shadows again and didn’t say anything else.

Flare-Up looked at Myra. “You, Luigi and Seeker are heading out. They know the lay of the land here, and have some ideas concerning where the others might be found.”

“Y-you’re not coming with us?” Myra asked in surprise.

“Someone has to stay and make sure the base is well defended while the other is away.” Flare-Up’s gaze sharpened. “Seeker and I agreed to switch off on that position. He’s waiting for you by the pipe.”

Myra hesitated, then nodded and moved over to the pipe, where Seeker and Luigi were already standing.

“We’re going to check out a few places we know to be old haunts for the people we’re looking for,” Seeker explained. “Are you ready?”

“I-I guess. Who are we looking for?”

“My brother,” Luigi said. He adjusted the green cap on his head.

“And anyone else who would have allied with him,” Seeker added. “Mostly, we’re looking for Yoshi. If Daisy or Rosalina are mixed up in this, either we’ll meet them along the way or another group can find them and rescue them when we come back. There’s no guarantee that we’ll be able to find them right away, if this area is the largest of the ones we could possibly run into out here.” He slipped into the pipe, ducking his head a little as he called back, “Come on! We don’t have all day!”

Luigi promptly jumped into the pipe after him, and Myra quickly followed.

The land above was just as they had left it when Myra, Flare-Up, Luigi, Crystal, Peach, and Bowser had dove down into the pipe moments ago. The fact that their caravan of trucks was still sitting right outside was something that made Myra nervous.

“Shouldn’t we be…hiding these?” Myra quickened her pace as they moved out of the courtyard and through the mushroom-themed town that surrounded the castle. “I mean, they could notice that they’re still out here.”

“Flare and Luthor are working on an idea,” Seeker replied. “They’ll be gone by the time we get back.”

Myra looked back at the circle of trucks as they disappeared from her sight behind a building. “If you say so…”

“You seem like a bit of a worry wart, Myra; relax.” Seeker looked back at Myra. “Being nervous can help to keep you on your toes, but I think you’re pushing the line at least a little.”

Myra gulped. “S-sorry. It’s just…this world looks so weird, it’s hard not to be nervous.”

Luigi frowned at her disapprovingly, causing Myra to duck her head.

“I can get that, but there are stranger worlds out there than this one,” Seeker replied. “Trust me, there are just some things that I didn’t quite believe when I saw them at first. You get used to it after a while, though.”

Myra hesitated at that, then nodded a little. “I-if you say so. So, where are we going first?”

“Well, Yoshi’s probably where the rest of his kind are usually found, which is usually an island.” Seeker inclined his head in thought. “If Bowser’s Castle and Peach’s Castle ended up getting merged together, I wouldn’t be surprised if Yoshi’s Island ended up becoming merged with another part of the landscape. We’re gonna have to find it first, though, and that might be a bit tricky, depending on how big this place is.”

“So, we’re going to be out here for a while?” They stepped out of the mushroom town, and Myra looked around nervously at the open plain they’d stepped onto. “Out in the open? I don’t like this.”

“I don’t like it, either, but there are some things that we just can’t avoid right now.” Seeker looked over at Luigi. “Do you have a vague idea about Yoshi Island’s location?”

“Hmmm.” Luigi tapped his chin, then nodded. “It’s this way!”

Luigi started to trek towards a rather dark-looking forest that was just off the path. Myra swore for a moment that she saw him hesitate before shaking his head and moving forward with his head held high.

Seeker shrugged and followed after him. “Come on, Myra. We don’t have all day.”

“R-right!”

The group stepped into the dark woods and were instantly in more shadows than the clouded sky usually left them in. Myra stayed as close to Seeker as she could in order to not to lose him as a result of the darkness.

“There must be something wrong with these woods,” Seeker commented. “No forest in the Mushroom Kingdom can be this naturally dark.”

“Ah…” Luigi looked back at them with a somewhat nervous expression. “That…depends. Are-a you talking about the one with-a Alien Shrooms still hiding in it or-a ones that are-a just overgrown jungles?”

“…There are Alien Shrooms still living in the Mushroom Kingdom,” Seeker said flatly.

Luigi nodded. “Oh yeah.”

“What are those?” Myra asked cautiously. “A-are we gonna run into them or—“

“I don’t think so,” Luigi replied quickly, the movement barely seen in the dark woods. Maybe a little too quickly, but Myra wasn’t going to think on that now. “They-a don’t like to interact with the rest of us very much. We won’t find them.”

“You saying that makes me think we will,” Seeker muttered. “I’d rather not get Shroomified by one of those things.”

“What?” Myra let out a squeak of alarm.

“Don’t worry about it, Myra; we’ve got other problems to worry about.”

Luigi nodded quickly again. “Yeah! Come on – we still have to find Yoshi!”

They quickened their pace on the barely-seeable path, Myra keeping as close to Seeker as she possibly could in order not to lose him or Luigi. He didn’t seem to mind it very much, so she kept doing it as they moved forward.

“S-so, what does Yoshi look like?” Myra asked. “Is he a human?”

“Yoshi’s….” Seeker trailed off. “Well, he’s not human, but he is a person. My family call him a dinosaur, but he’s not really even that.”

“Yoshi is a Yoshi,” Luigi said matter-of-factly.

Myra frowned. “That doesn’t tell me a lot….”

Luigi shrugged.

“Yoshi are hard to explain,” Seeker said. “If we see one, I’ll make sure to point him out. Just watch out for a lizard-looking creature with a large head and maybe some spotted eggs bouncing behind him. It sounds weird, I know, but that’s pretty much the only way I can describe it.”

Myra’s frown deepened, but she didn’t try to press him for more answers. It was obvious she wasn’t going to be able to get any from Seeker if he wasn’t sure how to describe what a “Yoshi” looked like.

“…Do they all have the name “Yoshi’?”

“Well, it’s the only word they can say, so it’s really the only one that they answer to.” Seeker shrugged. “The one we’re looking for is green, if that helps.”

Myra blinked. So they came in different colors, too. She hoped that Seeker and Luigi would know the one they were looking for on sight, at least.

The path they were following started to widen a little as gray light started to filter through the trees. Then they stepped into a large clearing with no trees above their heads and –

“That is not supposed to be here,” Seeker said flatly.

Myra blinked a couple times, then frowned as she looked over the large, mechanical-looking building that took up about half of the already-large clearing. “What…what is it?”

“A factory is my guess. Whether or not it’s one of Bowser’s or someone else’s remains to be seen.” Seeker cracked his knuckles. “And it looks like it’s still running, so we probably have to trash it in case the Dark Arms are using it.”

“Do you think they could be using it to make – to make MindTech?” Myra asked. She swallowed nervously, not liking the idea that had just popped into her head.

“Maybe. We’ll have to be on our guard if that is what they’re using this place for.” Seeker started towards the large, metal doors that were right front of the large metal building. “Come on, you two.”

Luigi immediately started after Seeker, causing Myra to hesitate only for a moment before she was forced to run after them in order to keep up.

“I bet I can shut it down,” Luigi commented as they came up in front of the doors. “Maybe we can use it.”

“Maybe. We’ll have to see what it is that’s waiting for us inside.” Seeker looked over at Myra, then back at the door and pulled back a fist. Bright blue fire suddenly covered his arm, and he slammed it forward.

The resulting loud CLANG! from his fist colliding with the metal caused Myra to jump back in surprise. Her eyes only widened when she saw that Seeker’s fist had left a large dent in the doors, with a crack in the seam where the doors met.

Seeker slipped his hands into the cracks and started straining against the metal. There was a low creaking sound as the doors slowly opened under Seeker’s hands.

“How did you do that?!” Myra looked between the dented door and Seeker. “Do you have some kind of fire power that…that makes you stronger?”

Seeker laughed. “Not quite. What you saw was actually my Aura.”

“Aura?”

“My own life force, basically. It works like how your and my sister’s power works.” Seeker motioned to the open factory doors with his head. “I’d go over the specifics, but we’ve got a factory to investigate and not very much time to do it. Maybe I can fill you in on the details of my powers later.”

Myra nodded as Seeker stepped through the thin entrance he’d made and into the factory interior. Luigi scrambled through after him, leaving Myra the last one to slip through and into the building.

She stopped short as soon as she got just inside the entrance.

“U-uh…” Myra gulped as she looked up. “Wh-what is that thing?”

“Looks like a mecha of some kind.” Seeker put his hands on his hips as he looked up at the large, mechanical, human-looking thing that was standing in front of them. The painted-on outfit it had looked similar to Luigi’s, except there was red instead of green. “There’s something about the design of the overall thing that looks really familiar, but I can’t quite place where I’ve—“

The dark eyes on the giant mecha suddenly lit up a bright, angry red, causing Myra to take a hesitant step back. Seeker instantly put up his fists as Luigi hesitantly did the same.

“I’ve fought things bigger than this.” Seeker looked at Myra and Luigi. “Let’s do this!”

The mecha started to move, slowly lifting up a large boot and slamming it down into the ground in front of them. A metal hand was raised, clenched, and brought down in a fist over the three of them.

Luigi and Myra shrieked as they scrambled out of the way; Seeker merely leapt to the side in order to avoid the attack, which left a large dent in the floor as the fist was raised.

“There’s someone piloting this thing!” Seeker yelled as the fist started to come down again. He moved away from Myra and Luigi, and the fist followed, trying to come down on him as he leapt out from under it at the last second. “The cockpit is up in the head, right between the eyes!”

“I knew it!” Luigi looked up at the head with wide eyes as Myra’s hands started sparking with purple flames. She didn’t know what she could do right at this point, but if there was something she could do with her powers, she was going to take the opportunity as soon as she saw it. “I’ve seen this design before!”

“You have?” Myra looked over at Luigi in confusion, blinking at the fact that his voice had somehow lost its accent.

Luigi nodded quickly. “I….I’ve built something like that b-before. B-but it didn’t look like this! It’s gotta be—“ He cut himself off with a shriek as another fist started to come down in their direction, and Myra and Luigi split in different directions as the fist came down in the floor.

“Less talking and more thinking!” Seeker called. “We need to find this thing’s weakness and get through to the guy in the cockpit! Luigi, do you think you can get up there?”

“M-maybe?” Luigi squeaked. “This one looks a little better armored than mine was!”

“Everything’s gotta have a weakness, right?” Myra responded. “Maybe it’s that thing’s eyes?”

“Do you think you can get an attack up there?” Seeker rolled to dodge another fist.

“I can try!” Myra’s hands were covered in more purple flames, and she quickly melded them together into a sphere. The movement was a lot more fluid now.

The head of the mecha turned sharply to look at Myra, causing her to jump at the sudden movement. “U-uh—“

“Move it!” Luigi yelped as a fist came down at double the speed on their heads. They barely managed to get out of the way before it crashed down with enough force to cause the floor to buckle and bounce Luigi and Myra into the air. “That was close!”

It quickly turned into an improvised game of Whack-A-Mole, with the three humans scurrying around down below as the mecha continued to pound the ground in an attempt to squash them into a horrid, flat mess on the factory floor.

“I-I can’t hit it running like—“

Pew!

Myra cut herself off in surprise as a bright blue, perfect sphere of energy suddenly shot up the arm of the mecha and slammed through the mecha’s left eye.

“Someone get up there!” Seeker yelled. “I’ll keep the mecha distracted down here. Climb up one of its arms as best you can!”

“Okey-dokey!” Luigi called back.

The ground shook as the mecha slammed a fist into the ground near them, and Luigi instantly started climbing up the metal fist and shimmying up the metal arm like he had been training for this moment his entire life.

Myra looked down at the sphere of fire she was still holding in her hands as Seeker turned his attention to the other fist, jumping back every time it landed and leaping forward again to dent it with Aura-covered fists before it moved up into the air again.

She looked back up at the face again, then poured more energy into the sphere in her hands as the arm Luigi was crawling up moved the fist above her head.

“Myra, move!” Seeker yelled.

“Eat this!” Myra threw the sphere of purple flames – now twice as big as her head – up at the face of the mecha as Luigi reached the metal thing’s shoulder.

The flames connected with the face of the giant mechanical thing and exploded out over its nose. A good portion of it went in through the broken eye, causing the fist that was going to slam down on Myra to stop just long enough for her to notice it above her head and scramble out from under it as quickly as she could.

“Good shot,” Seeker complimented as the fist he was pummeling started to spark. “What were you hoping to do with that?”

“I-I’m not sure?” Myra looked at the fist that hand landed on the floor next to her nervously. “Distract it?”

Neither one of the fists moved as Luigi scrambled around the neck of the mecha’s head and reached the open eye socket with an acrobatic ease that Myra was sure she’d never be able to master.

“Well, it looks like you did something,” Seeker acknowledged. He jumped up on the sparking fist and started to make his way up the arm. “Come on; we should get up there and back Luigi up.”

Myra swallowed nervously, then nodded and started to climb up the other, still-intact fist. “Why were you attacking the mecha down here when you could have thrown another attack up there?”

“It’s good to take out the weapons as well as the head of the thing,” Seeker replied. “I’ve played a lot of video games where you have to weaken the thing before you can really destroy it; I know what I’m doing.”

Myra frowned, wondering at Seeker’s logic. “Video games?”

“Yeah. I guess that doesn’t ring much of a bell, huh?” Seeker reached the mecha’s shoulder moments before Myra reached it on the other side. He reached over, grabbed the lip of the eye that he’d smashed, then swung himself into the chamber that was inside the head.

Myra remained perched on her shoulder of the mecha, looking worriedly at the opening into the mecha as the light in the still-intact red eye flickered and died. She considered scrambling over like Luigi had, but making her way up the metal arm had been difficult. It was slippery and there hadn’t been very many handholds, and she didn’t want to end up falling off the mecha’s chest and getting hurt.

She was starting to consider sliding back down the arm when a loud, bawling shout came from inside the head: “MARIO!”

“M-mama mia,” groaned another voice.

Myra blinked in confusion. It sounded like Luigi’s, but a little bit deeper.

The metal sculpted to look like an ear suddenly jolted outward, making Myra stiffen and grab onto the metal shoulder underneath her a little more tightly.

Seeker pushed the ear aside like a door and looked down. “Hey, Myra.”

Myra looked up in confusion, but took his offered hand and let him pull her up into the chamber that was inside the head.

She blinked in confusion when she saw Luigi bawling over a rather portly man wearing a similar outfit to the one that had been painted onto the mecha. The rest of the chamber – aside from the minimal walking space between the “ears” and a chair in the middle – was filled wall-to-wall with machinery.

Something about it sent a chill down her spine, but she wasn’t sure why.

“Luigi, Luigi, I’m okay.” The man tapped one of Luigi’s arms, tugging at the green sleeves a little.

“I-I know!” Luigi continued sobbing. “I-I-I’m s-s-so ha-ha-happy!”

The other chuckled weakly.

“Um….” Myra looked at Seeker in helpless confusion.

“That’s Luigi’s brother, Mario,” Seeker explained. “The two of them are pretty famous around here as the heroes of the Mushroom Kingdom. Just…give him a minute. Luigi will recover himself.”

“But…Flare-Up said we didn’t have time,” Myra pointed out. “Don’t we still have to find that Yoshi guy you were telling me about?”

“Yoshi?” Mario turned his head to look over at them, confused for a moment before recognition sparked his eyes. “Ah! He is down here!” He rapped a hand against the metal floor below him.

Luigi stopped bawling and sniffed loudly. “H-he is?”

“Mm!” Mario nodded and rose to his feet before jumping up and slamming down into the metal. The square under his feet suddenly gave out, and Mario jumped in mid-air in order to prevent himself from falling down into the hole. “He’s-a just been running down there – Yoshi!”

Something clanked below them, and a green head came up, a glazed expression in the eyes. Seeker was behind him in an instant, hands glowing with a blue fire that he slammed into the back of the creature’s neck.

The creature – Yoshi – froze as something sparked on the back of his neck, and he would have fallen back in except that Luigi and Mario grabbed him and pulled him up out of the hole with little effort.

“Now that we’ve got that settled, we’d better get back to base,” Seeker said. “Finding you was a lot easier than I’d been expecting it to be, Mario, but I’m glad we managed to find you when we did.”

“I’m-a glad, too,” Mario said, nodding. He looked over at Myra. “And who is this?”

“I-I’m Myra,” Myra replied. “Um…nice to meet you?”

Mario smiled brightly, his expression making Myra want to giggle a little at the smile and mustache combination. “Nice to meet you! Thank you for helping Seeker!”

“Come on; we’ve got a lot to fill you in on.” Seeker started for the open door. “A lot’s happened since we got involved in this mess, and you’re definitely going to want to know what’s what.”

“Mm! Let’s-a go!”

Luigi promptly started bawling again.

[league-of-light]

LoLCommenter - Nicknames

Its that time of the week again folks, time for your dearly beloved LoLcommenter to comment on things. This week, we will be focusing on nicknames, that’s right, nicknames. The names in chat change too often and quite frankly, suck. We need Elite nicknames for our Elite League of Light. No talk about nealing this week folks, so lets jump right in. (I bolded all the nicknames to make reading this easier because I love you guys)

Sam and Will- this is a special duo nickname for our leagues lovely cuple. They both got sick exploring the great American west, shows that they care. I like to call them Chunks and Bile. Sam is chunks because shes got spunk, hot takes and even hotter shits. Will is Bile cuz he is abrasive but a nessecary part of our league needed to function, emphasis on the fun. Keep it up you too, youll go far.

Dylan- Ill be honest, I dont like this guy, not one bit. So hes not getting a nickname, but a Knickname. Cuz the knicks are fucking awful. I call him Phlinello. Truly  an abomination like out cocomissioner her. He’s an idiot like Phil Jackson, obsessed with random shapes, Lin, former knick player and current pussy. You cant kill them with kindess folks, just doesnt work and those dreads are awful. And ello from Mello cuz hes a diva like Mello.

Phil – My boy Phil. I love this guy. The content creator, pussy eater, Mcfadden’s happy hour getter. This guy has it all. The man the myth the legend. Phil’s nickname is easy, he is Uber Eats cuz he eats in ubers and splits his pants. If he can use his levarage as a walking Mcfaddens ad and get an Uber sponsorship, he will truly cement himself in league infamy.

Bowers – In my last column I called Bowers Bowser, and I think its fitting. He big, hes intimidating, he breathes fire, but at the end of the day he’s generally just annoying and unable to accomplish anything meaningful. Nuff’ said.

Jason – Jason was not too happy with my takes last week and he let us know it. I dont mind that people hate my content, its just my job to keep you all informed and this league together. Jason is The First Amendment. He has every rite to to hate my content, give his wrong opinions and let everyone know that. But much like people who go on about the Firstt Amedment, no one gives a shit and wish you would envoke your right to remain silent instead.

Nico- I have been informed that Nico plays Dungeons and Dragons with a few other memebers of our league. I dont know shit about that nerdy stuff, and quite frankly, sounds like some weird sex shit. Keep your whips and chains to yourself Dungeon Master and keep the sex pure; lights off, missionary position for the pure purpose of procreation.

Walsh – I said Walsh was the quiet one, and he doesn’t talk a lot, but I have something more creative than that. Walsh is the heartbeat of the league, doesn’t say much, focuses on the football when he does, but his shtick as the quiet guy is kinda annoying so he is The Tell-Tale Heart. Wish I could make him go away but at the end of the day we need Walsh to keep the blood of football flowing.

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Evan – all Evan does is ask questions and complain. So im not even going to put in the creative effort to think of a good name, he is just Bitch. Stop complaining about everything and read chat once in a while you loser. Oh and get a job too, bitch.

Arielle- Arielle only ever talks about her tv and movie deals like I talked about last week and Blake Bortles. Bortles this, bortles that, movie premiere this and Im on tv that. There is nothing wrong with being famous folks, cuz Im famous and its great, but dont shove it in everyone’s face. She is The Jaguar, cuz she is obsessed with them and thinks shes cool, but in the end no one cares about a glorified house cat.

Harnsowl – Harnsowl is some sort of Asain, and I dont like him so Im going to assume north Korean. He always talks to our Glorious Leader Dylan, but otherwise is quiet and very rarely very rowdy. So his nickname is Pyongyang. Much like the capital city of North Korea, often desolate and full of dispair, but occasianly full of screaming lunatics obsessed with their Glorious Leader.

Andy – Andy is easy. A liberal, a lawyer, a shit take haver. He is the emobidment of the Social Justice Warrior. I dont actually know what that means folks, but Andy also plays dungeon and dragons and Im sure its liberal sex act. Dont fight this man or he will try and smite you with his Social Justice Sword. I dont want to know where that sword goes.

I hope you enjoyed this weeks takes and new nicknames, cuz if you dont you fucking suck. As an added bonus here are this weeks Lotto Numbers. [24] [44] [43] [33] [34] [44] [52] [11] [31] [43] [23].