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starstruckodysseys · 7 months ago

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you and me and the worlds in between

(or: ash has been nineteen a while. mia has been nineteen before, and she will be again, and again, and again.)

The end of the world comes in waves, because a single, all encompassing ending would be too satisfying.

Ash floats over the Atlantic Ocean, racing circles around a statue-esque Mia, whose dark hair flows in the wind the debris brings with it. Her perfect, dark skin is marred by ash - actual ash, not Ashleigh Schneider, who can only hope to touch her in such a way - and the bags under her eyes are such a deep purple they almost look black. She stares, unblinking, at the ocean before them, the water drying up and rocks falling around them, like mini meteors. They’re not strong enough to be anything terrifying, just a more concussive form of hail.

Ash has been nineteen a long time, long enough to have seen this play out before. They’ve watched empires fall and cities crumble to dust and the earth itself end and start back up again, like a movie being put on fast forward. It still leaves a bitter, coppery taste in their mouth every time.

They pause their gentle flapping to settle down next to Mia, and though she hardly spares them a glance, she brushes her hand against theirs, tilts her head toward them in silent acknowledgment. Ash has grown past the need for recognition, reciprocation. They’re content to sit in silence, to watch the world fall around them. It’s a strange place for a first date. Lucky them it isn’t their first.

Mia has been nineteen before, and she’ll be nineteen again, and again, and again. Ash has seen this before, too, watched the cycle repeat and repeat like a skipping CD player. They harness the weight of the world on their back and grin like it’s the first time they’ve been here.

Mia winces as a particularly large piece of rock crumbles down into the ocean. What's left of it, at least. She drags the toe of her boot across the dampened sand, drawing meaningless little lines in the grains.

“How come you chose to come out here?” She asks. There’s no judgment in her tone, only a monotone sort of curiosity.

Ash shrugs. “I wanted to see if it was still here, I guess.”

Here is a rotting, abandoned old beach house, one their parents used to own centuries ago. It hasn’t been kept up with - there’s mold in most of the closet corners, a bird’s nest in the rafters of the open living room, decaying blankets strung across clotheslines that can hardly hold their weight anymore. But it’s theirs, in a sense. The only rock they’ve had in their eternal life.

They don’t know why they’d asked Mia to come with them, though it’s not as if she’s any safer at home than with them. To be fair, her “home” is an empty apartment with a dad who hardly recognizes his daughter, and they don’t even know if it’s still standing. It might be better for her if it weren’t.

Another rock falls down, this one leaving a burnt out crater in the ground, scorch marks visible in its wake. Ash leans over, brushes a piece of dust off of Mia’s denim jacket, and stands up, dusting off their own ratty jeans. She looks up at them, finally, blue eyes meeting green.

“We should go,” they say by way of explanation. “It’s not- I don’t think it’s safe here.”

It’s not safe anywhere, and they both know that. Mia still takes their hand, and the only thing Ash notices as she uses it is leverage is how warm her palm is in theirs. She doesn’t pull away once she’s standing up. Ash isn’t quite sure what to do about it.

They swallow. “You ever wanted to see Pompeii?”

“I mean,” Mia hesitates. “Sure? I thought it was destroyed, though?”

“So is everything else,” Ash says with a shrug. “Are you coming or not?”

It’s a rhetorical question more than anything, because they already know the answer. Mia scoffs out a laugh, some semblance of a smile on her face, and Ash bites their cheek to stifle a grin.

For some odd reason, her hand is still in theirs. That’s alright, it just makes it easier for them to fly her away, up and over crumbling cities and fallen communities, evaporated oceans and broken bridges. The world sits in disarray, suspended in discord, dissonant tones coming together to create disaster. It’s almost beautiful, in a horrible sort of way. Ash has seen creation form in the rubble of chaos enough times to stop worrying about how they get there. They quite literally cannot die - you stop worrying about a lot of things once that happens.

Their hair, dark brown and matted and barely held back anymore by their headband, flows freely behind them. Mia manages to look as elegant as ever, even thousands of feet off the ground. She glances over to them, smiles faintly and fondly, and Ash feels the familiar sensation of their stomach swooping to the point it feels like they’re falling.

Mia’s life is tragedy in B minor - Elle had told them about music terms once, decades ago, huddled together on a piano bench in an era where their love was frowned upon, giggling like the schoolgirls walking down the sidewalk outside the speakeasy. It had been one of the first times Ash had met her. They’ve met countless variations now, of course, Janie and Lizbet and Allison and Ginny and Lila and hundreds upon thousands of others. She’s been nineteen a while. She doesn’t usually get very far past that.

She never remembers them. They’ve stopped expecting her to.

Pompeii is beautiful in a way that maybe only Ash can appreciate. After the second time you watch the world end, it kind of gets predictable, repetitious, redundant. So they’ve begun to pay attention to the details, focus on the smaller picture while they still can. It’ll be there, in some version, when they begin again, but for now they have a girl in her final hours beside them and they’ll be damned if they don’t make the time count.

They lead her down cobblestone pathways, through arches and columns overgrown with moss, to sit at the water’s edge. It’s more peaceful than the ocean, rippling calmly around them. The sun shines down on them, warm and comforting, almost like a blanket. For now, they’re content to sit in this peaceful moment. Mia leans her head on Ash’s shoulder, and they stare out at the volcano looming in front of them and ignore the sheen of tears that clouds their vision, internally blaming it on their glasses and heat flow and a million other things that aren’t the case.

Naturally, this is when the volcano erupts.

The sky turns blood red, which feels a little too on the nose for Ash’s liking. They don’t get to focus on that for very long, though, because smoke and ash fill the air, quickly followed by lava, boiling hot and angry. Ash can’t tell if it’s the smoke or the sulfur stench burning their lungs as they stand up as fast as possible. Mia moves to follow them, but she’s only human and can hardly move as fast as they can. They reach behind them to grab her.

They’ve never been fast enough to save her before. Why should they start now?

Her hands graze theirs for hardly a second, but when they turn around she’s lost to the haze surrounding them, caught in the sea of ash - actual ash, again, because Ashleigh’s never been the one to catch her. They’ve tried, of course, but nature has a plan and when there’s a will there’s a way, so they’ve learned what is meant to happen and done their best to prevent it every time, yet to no avail. They don’t know why they keep trying.

Yes, they do, and their reason is a girl who builds walls around her that only Ash has ever tried to knock down, who acts like she never cares until someone actually asks, who has lived and lived and lived and still manages to draw the short end of the stick every time. She’s one of the only things that’s remained consistent in their long life. They wonder if she knows that, sometimes, when she gets a certain kind of glimmer in her eye when she looks at them.

As they frantically float their way through the clouds of smoke, likely burning their lungs, but they’ve dealt with worse, they eventually catch up to the coughing and choking ahead of them. A moth drawn to a flame; they always have been, always hyper aware of her presence.

“Mia?” They call out hesitantly.

“Ash,” Mia chokes out, and when the smoke clears she’s crawling on her forearms toward them, her legs dragging behind her. “Ashleigh! I-” she coughs, “I lo-

“I know,” Ash soothes, because they’ve seen this film a thousand times. A lump forms in the back of their throat as they float down next to her. “I know.”

The funny thing about loss is that it never really gets easier the more it happens.

Two days after Ash turned nineteen, they fell ill. Deathly ill, everyone said, the healers and the scientists and even the gods, according to their parents. It led to them being bedridden for days that turned to weeks that turned to months. They’d accepted that they were going to die, in all honesty. So had Austin, yet he refused to leave their side anyway.

They couldn’t leave him alone, he said, though the tears clogged his throat so much they could hardly make out the words. They’re his other half, the one to understand him in the huge, cruel world.

Ash had squeezed his hand and apologized and danced around the words stuck behind their teeth.

They’d been more sure of dying than anything else in their life, which is why it had been such a shock when their mother came home, one day, a vial of pale red liquid in her hand. Drink, she’d said, and they had. Why shouldn’t they? Nothing else had worked, yes, and they had lost hope months ago, but their mother and their brother looked at them with hopeful, pleading eyes, and so they sipped the whole thing until it was gone.

To no one’s surprise - or at least, not their own, though they’re sure everyone else was less shocked and more hopeless by this point - nothing happened, the same as everything else they’d tried. But they slowly started to feel better, if better could mean not actively dying, and through some miracle, Ash had lived.

…And lived. And lived. And just kept on living, somehow, and it wasn’t until Austin was getting into his thirties - they’d always had good genes - that he noticed the two of them weren’t mirror images of each other anymore. Ash had felt older, but when they looked in the mirror they hadn’t changed a bit, not a wrinkle or graying hair in sight.

Their mother had unfortunately been gone for years by that point, but their father was still around to explain the potion of immortality she had been instructed to give to Ash.

It had been great, at first, not having to worry about dying - from old age, at least, because the thing they don’t tell you about immortality is that it doesn’t make you invulnerable. But then they’d sat by and watched as everyone they’d ever loved died practically before their eyes. Their mother, of course, was first, and then their father, and then, in a moment they try to forget as much as they try to remember, because it was their last with him, Austin. A piece of them died, that day, because he truly had been their other half, their rock in the storming ocean of life.

They’d found Mia - Eve, at the time - near the river in town, years and years down the line. It wasn’t love at first sight, but her long skirt billowed in the wind and her long, dark hair flowed behind her, and Ash had felt a certain kind of magnetic pull they couldn’t ignore.

It was the first time they’d met, but it certainly wasn’t the last. The world had ended and restarted over and over, but they kept finding their way back to one another, as if they were tied by some sort of string of fate. And, through it all, Ash kept on falling in love, helpless to the whims of whatever powers rested above them.

They’ve lost her countless times - she only stays nineteen for so long, after all. Maybe this time, though, they don’t have to.

Ash reaches out a hand toward the girl they swore their life to years ago, a smile on their face.

#guys i’m insane #wrote this for my creative writing class but tbh i kind of love it so. you can also have it #okay it’s actually like. kind of rushed pacing wise BUT it’s not really about the climax anyway #it’s more about the love story #reese’s pieces #reese’s ocs #this isn’t canon to their lore i just needed characters #love to put my ocs in an au #writers on tumblr #spilled ink

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childofsardior · 2 months ago

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What? Iggy's Headcanon from my AU? Here we gooo!

↓↓↓ Read it all below! ↓↓↓

General Info:

Full name: Ignatius Koopa. Iggy was the very first victim of his mother’s realization that she was giving her children long names that could be easily shortened in popular Human's Dimension musicians. Since she already gave Lemmy and Roy longer names, she continued the trend of searching for something that could be compressed into Iggy to mention Iggy Pop. An old Latin name was the only thing she found. By the way, Iggy doesn't mind. He claims that, in reality, Ignatius sounds perfect for a mad scientist, but he's saving his full name for the time he'll be a famous and acclaimed researcher and inventor.

Gender and pronouns: Pronouns are he/him. He claims that "gender is way too complex to be compressed by a single label and even with a one-year-long accurate explanation about how I'm feeling right now could not bring justice to a person's fluidity during the time". If Lemmy asked him to bring a flag for a hypothetical Mushroom Pride, Iggy would probably take the Agender flag with him, even if it's just an "arid and inaccurate simplification and oversimplified approximation of the Koopas and other sentient creatures' complex nature".

Sexuality: He's aro/ace. Again, Iggy's love for accurate explanations will lead him to claim that, of course, one's sexuality is a lot more complex than a single word and the (potentially fluid) result of a mix of innate and cultural factors, educational background, personal experience(s), and even more. But he actually adopted these labels since he found out they are very convenient to quickly describe his lack of attraction - at least, physical and romantic - towards other people, especially if someone is trying to flirt with him and he's like "Oh no". Despite what his siblings think, tho, he would not refuse the idea of a platonic relationship in the (distant) future... if he'll ever find a genius brain that could match his love for science, of course.

Age: He's currently 16 (in calendar years), sharing his age with Roy and Wendy since their eggs were from the same clutch and hatched just a few hours away from each other. He's the one that hatched in the middle, the day after Roy and the day before Wendy. As Royal Koopas mature faster than Humans and such, Iggy could be compared to a 18/19 y.old Human. Just like Ludwig, tho, Iggy has always been even more precocious, being very intelligent and smart since he was a tiny hatchling - but curiously enough he didn't learn how to speak until 1.5 years old, later than all his siblings.

Species: Tarrasquin (also known as "Royal Koopas" or "Dragon-Turtles") - that happens to be a powerful and rare species related both to Koopas and Dragons. The lack of horns at a young age and the number of spikes on the shell may point to the subspecies known as Plains/Field Tarrasquin, while some other details could suggest a "mix" with the Vulcanic bloodline. In addition, all the Koopalings seem to share an innate inclination toward magic and some other unusual details never found before in Tarrasquins, such as tail feathers or natural armors protecting the limbs, along with peculiar tiny gem-like scales scattered around their bodies in different patterns.

Physical appearance: Iggy is a yellow-scaled Tarrasquin with some green accents scattered around his whole body, especially on his head and limbs. On his shoulders and joints, he got some harder, spikier scales. He has long, straight acid-green hair, and blue eyes with the iris detached from the pupils for an unknown mutation. Iggy's Royal Fangs follows a lateral quartet and curved pattern, a slightly rarer variant of the straight quartet one. Some tiny spikes sprouted recently on the top of his tail. He's the tallest among his siblings, and not only thanks to his usual hairstyle - even his green shell is oval-shaped instead of round. He's also very slim, and he looks quite frail for a dragon-turtle. Iggy is actually the most delicate of the family, talking about his resilience and health, and the fact that his body is incapable of digesting meat in the right way doesn't help it.

Personality: Iggy's known as the mad genius of the Royal Family, acting crazy all the time and all. If you meet him in person for the first time, you'll probably agree with the rumors. He often talks by himself, laughs crazily even during dangerous situations, and will always tell you what he's honestly thinking without even pondering his words. He's also easily excited and tends to act hyperactively while he's among other people, while sometimes becoming extremely annoying and even childish when he's hanging out with his siblings. But Iggy's crazed facade is just one side of the coin of his whole personality. He mostly adopts (unconsciously) his extremely mad behavior when he finds himself in new social situations, or between his whole bunch of siblings as a sort of coping mechanism to fight an overwhelming social anxiety. In his comfort zone - usually shared with Lemmy - he'll show a more tranquil and nerdy side, full of curiosity and random facts about whatever he's researching this month. He's also extremely clever and intelligent, mostly in a scientific and inventive way - always thinking about his next projects and mechanical inventions - but somehow a bit naive and usually not very wise. At the same time, he can't really understand most of the things that do not fall into his interests - he can't understand sports, he can't understand politics, he can't understand why Wendy likes so much spending hours at SPAs receiving massages from strangers?? - and nobody can really insult or joke with him, Iggy just won't acknowledge why you're trying to offend him, and will just laugh in response. On the other hand, he actually likes to joke by himself or about his rivals, and even insult his opponents in his own way, leading his siblings to believe he just pretends to not understand how irony works. Most of the time, you will find Iggy content about his next great idea, or way too busy working on his next super-duper-cool machine to worry about life at all, but from time to time even the most clever of the family gets blue. Sometimes he just feels lonely, especially during these days in which he suddenly finds it hard to communicate with others - and he will probably spend them working alone in his labs, talking to himself or even in a deep, thinking silence. He also strongly dislikes being touched without warning, an exception made only for Lemmy, and some days he will just... need a pause from social overstimulation. All of this usually leads to Iggy being one of the most reclusive brothers in the group. In these cases, he prefers to spend time with the weirdest insects in his terrariums or with his Chain Chomp pet instead of being around people. Last but not least, Iggy can usually manage his stress and anxiety when it's about people - he will just go somewhere more comfortable and quiet, be that his room or a lonely tower - but something that really breaks him down is losing or breaking his eyeglasses. It's probably one of the only times you can see him really panic or even cry in fear with wet eyes if that happens during a fight or at a bad moment in general.

Hobbies and passions: Iggy's passions are just a few, but he's extremely dedicated (and hyperfixed) about them. Mechanical arts, absurd weaponry and machines, and futuristic inventions are the first things he's usually focused on, but he loves doing his own research about uncommon flora and faunas, cataloging new animals and plants in his book and PCs. He even "collects" some of them in terrariums and pots, occasionally experimenting with some of his bugs' poison or some weird plant's leaves and lymph. He's also very into videogames since he could put his hands on one, and he's currently the second-best hardcore player of the whole house, just after Ludwig - but recently, Iggy's slowly overcoming him. It's not rare for the two "house geniuses" to compete or even resolve a conflict with a serious match of "Super Smash Siblings", and Iggy is the first one his siblings will ask for help to complete a hard level - since nobody wants to ask Ludwig for help unless it's the only solution left. Aside from video gaming only, Iggy's quite into programming, modding and even hacking. He usually assembles his own and his siblings' PCs and will crack all the games Larry wants in his free time, and while he's not programming some new AI for his latest robotic experiment, he will also spend some decent time on obscure science-related sub-Red.dot, as well on specific sites such as digibutter.nerr, talking with other nerds all around the world exchanging info and nerdy hacks.

Relationships:

With his siblings: Iggy can prove to be a very annoying company, and this is why not all of his sibs like to hang out with him, especially among the older. His younger brothers, instead, are often looking for him for help, to request him some new inventions or hack for their Swiitch or even to ask him to get some new movies and videogames in not-so-legal-ways. His very best pal is Lemmy and they often spend lots and lots of time together, but Iggy has a good relationship with Junior, Larry and Morton, too.

Now, for each relationship with the siblings:

Ludwig: They are rivals, always contending for the title of the real "family genius". But while Iggy just casually claims to be clever and able to do some cool stuff, Ludwig is extremely convinced of his own words and will get quite jealous when Iggy surpasses him - so it's more a very serious rivalry only from Ludwig's POV, while Iggy would be cool about the statement "there are two big-brained Koopas in this house" (three, if you count Wendy in it, but she doesn't have time for this childish type of squabbles). But even if Ludwig doesn't want to admit it, Iggy was the one who inspired him to discover some interest in projecting blueprints for his own war machines and such, and they do work together from time to time when the necessity asks for both points of view. Iggy is also the only one in the family that calls his blue-shelled brother"Luddy", and Ludwig hates it.

Lemmy: Saying that Iggy and Lemmy are best friends would be reductive. They are basically twin-coded (even if Lemmy is a year and half older than Iggy) and probably the two form the strongest bond inside the whole bunch of Royal Koopa siblings. Since they were hatchlings they spent most of their time together. As kids they played together all day, they started to prank others together, they went on "adventures" together... they even tried out various dye colors for their hair together, always trying to match, and until puberty, they were both short enough to be easily mistaken for actual twins at a first glance - except made for Iggy's need for eyeglasses. Then, things started to change a bit. Iggy's growth sprout surprised everyone, and put a big difference between him and Lemmy's absurd shortness; at a certain point, Iggy started to look for his own identity, stopped dyeing his hair and looked for a peculiar hairstyle instead. Their passions differentiated a lot during their teen years, leaving both siblings with less to share. But even if Lemmy was (and secretly still is) afraid of this at first, in the end their bond didn't weaken. They are still both a little weird in their own ways, and they both follow their interests without caring about what others could think of them. They constantly support each other to the point they can finish each other's sentences, and they also confide only to each other. Iggy is actually a good listener to Lemmy's concerns, knowing them so well, and vice-versa. They would end up being the type of siblings that will just go to live together reaching adulthood... if it wasn't for Lemmy's visceral intolerance for the jungle's humidity and Iggy's impossibility of tolerating very cold climates.

Roy: Iggy is a bit afraid of Roy. Being the frail, nerdy one, Iggy has been an easy target for the family's pink-headed bully since he was a kid. If something in Iggy's inventions goes wrong during a mission, Roy will just beat him up without questions out of anger. They do not interact much, and the green-shelled Royal Koopa tries to simply avoid his one-day-older brother when he can.

Wendy: As with Roy, Iggy and Wendy do not interact much, unless forced by the circumstances. Roy and Wendy acting as twins since they were newborns and excluding him on purpose doesn't help. Wendy finds Iggy too frivolous and weird for her liking, and Iggy doesn't understand any of Wendy's hobbies, passions and tastes in general. Wendy would spend all her savings on new clothing and accessories...? "Why would you need them? We are dragon-turtles, not Humans! We do not *need* clothing!" Wendy would spend a whole day at her favorite SPA, letting strangers touch her with massages, wearing weird masks made of food and even taking Mud Baths?? "Is she crazy? Why would anyone like to be touched or even "beaten" on purpose? And wasn't she the super-clean one that hated dirt in all its form??" On the brighter side, Wendy, as opposed to Roy, never bullied Iggy for his behaviors when he was younger.

Morton: The two spend some nice time together, especially since Iggy started his "let's teach grammar and spelling to our big, dark-scaled bro!". Iggy's the only one who is actively trying to help Morton with his speech issue, and every week they are learning new conjunctions, verbs and words - Iggy's ultimate goal is to prove to his other siblings that Morton is not "just a dumb head" as they sometimes claim - even if they are not doing too much progresses by now. Iggy also allows Morton to keep him company during field research and asks for his help from time to time when he needs to assemble big and heavy pieces, counting on Morton's innate strength. Morton is also allowed to assist him during his "I need some silence, please" working moments, as long as he stays silent. Iggy is also trying to teach him how to catalog weird rocks, but Morton just seems to enjoy the pure act of collecting them and putting them in nice places around his room.

Larry: Iggy and Larry have a decent relationship overhaul. Larry LOVES Iggy, especially when he needs something. Iggy feels quite proud of it, feeling a bit like Ludwig in "big, responsible bro mode". They usually spend time playing videogames together or thinking about unofficial mods to apply to the boring Mushroom Kingdom's videogames (for example, modding their own stylized models in the game to be able to play as themselves instead of as a boring plumber in some popular platforms). Aside from that, Larry and Iggy's other interests don't match much, but Iggy is one of the few who can tolerate the younger for the most time.

Bowser Junior: The two have a good relationship, mostly because Junior loves Iggy's crazy "Bahahaha!"-style laugh and most of all his inventions - the Koopa Heir is even approaching the absurd world of (fantasy) mechanic thanks to Iggy, and is trying to learn how to do some projects himself. He always asks Iggy for some new upgrades to his Junior Clown Car, new pirated Swiitch games (when King Bowser refuses to buy him more), new cool toys (such as the Mechakoopas, that Iggy originally created as toys for tiny Larry and Junior) and some times even for super giant mecha to use against the annoying Mario Brothers. Iggy is also surprisingly protective of Bowser Junior when they are on missions together, maybe because the youngest of the family unconsciously remembers Iggy when he was small and frail himself, in need of Lemmy's protection.

* * *

With King Bowser: Iggy has a decent relationship with his adoptive father and King of the Koopas. He *does* see him as a parental figure, even if he doesn't often agree with his plans and can't really understand the way the King reasons. Bowser will frequently ask Iggy to create new anti-Mario weapons, for Iggy's pleasure, but aside from that the two don't interact very much - especially since Iggy is extremely honest with his opinions and Bowser doesn't really like when someone is questioning his Royal Authority. Iggy is also (currently) the only one who likes to jokingly call Bowser "daddy" or "royal daddy", something everyone in the family dislikes a lot.

With his Mother (OC): During the years the siblings used to live with their mother, Iggy was the curious boy of the house. He was always finding new things to show his mother, from funny-shaped leaves to colorful feathers to new books full of dinosaurs. He was a bit reclusive and shy too as a child, and their mother had to step in and protect him from Roy's arrogance or after a fight with Ludwig, a role that Lemmy took themselves when they started to be old enough. Being his mother and Iggy both a bit autistic and filled with social anxiety, too, they could easily understand each other about how stressful it was to stay among strangers and how stressful overstimulation could get.

With Charlie (his Chain Chomp): Iggy has a Chain Chomp pet named "Charlie". It is not the first one he gets, but it's actually the first one he is being responsible for. When he was younger, he had other Chain Chomp pets (he really likes them) but was too childish and irresponsible to properly take care of them, usually leading to the poor magical creatures to run away at some point. In recent years, tho, he's getting better at pet-sitting and caring, and Charlie seems grateful for that: he's probably the happier, more satisfied, polished, well-fed Chain Chomp of the whole Kingdom, and it's extremely loyal to Iggy - and Iggy only. Charlie would bite anyone that gets too close, except for Lemmy whom it now trusts enough to let him ride its back from time to time.

With the Mario Bros., Princess Peach and Mushroom Kingdom: Iggy doesn't really care about conquering, but he is very much interested in studying native creatures and plants of each Kingdom. During peacetime, he would gladly attend some nerd conventions in the Mushroom Kingdom, and he would literally love to meet Professor E.Gadd in person... if the Princess didn't blacklist him from entering the borders as she did with almost all the Royal Family and the Koopa Troop. Now Iggy would need to request a special permit weeks in advance with a lot of boring bureaucracy to fill and a valid motive to stay in the Kingdom for two days maximum, so... he doesn't really like the Princess for this reason. While with the Mario Bros., Iggy would usually be excited to see them - they are, after all, perfect punching balls for his newest battle machines, and his Chain Chomp loves running after them - but he actually dislikes them a lot since they broke his glasses once years ago, during one of their first fights.

Peculiarities & co.

Right-Handed: Iggy is naturally right-handed. Looking at Ludwig's confidence in using both hands for a long time, he tried to train himself to use his left hand as well, for a while... but then he just gave up, finding it too hard and tedious.

Senses: Iggy's biggest weakness, physically speaking, is probably related to his poor sight. Without his special glasses, he is almost blind - he hatched with a severe visual impairment and during his first years of life it just went worse. When he was around 3, his mother was lucky enough to meet a Magikoopa glassmaker who worked with special lenses and Iggy was able to see decently for the first time in his life. When he was later adopted at the castle, the royal eye doctor took him under his supervision. When Iggy was around 10, he started working on his own, personalized pair of eyeglasses, mixing actual glassmaking science with some Magikoopa's cultural knowledge and a tiny bit of adaptive magic to create the "Perfect Iggy's Glasses" (after a lot of trials and fails and prototypes); his last version mixes the best glass from the Sand Kingdom with some strengthen magic from the Red Robes' Magikoopa Order to make them unbreakable... after the various incidents during the years.

Autism: Iggy falls under the autism spectrum, with many traits close to IRL Asperger Syndrome to be more precise - (NOTE: I am sure a "SMB world" equivalent exists with a nicer name, I just don't know one yet-). To be honest, Iggy always suspected it way before being actually diagnosed with it by the Castle's doctors. He's mostly fine with it, accepting his autistic traits as part of his own uniqueness - and, if you ask him, as a part of his genius, too - but sometimes he would gladly take a break from it... especially when overwhelmed by too much noise or when stressed by social interactions. Iggy is also very much convinced that almost everyone in his family has some (sometimes prominent) autistic traits, but the others are not so willing to take tests or talk with doctors to find out, so we will probably never know for sure.

Vegetarian: Iggy is MOSTLY vegetarian. Not by choice, but thanks to his body being very bad at processing meat, for some reasons. "Mostly", because he actually *could* eat very small amounts of meat/fish from time to time without getting sick, but it happens so rarely that he usually even forgets about it. Luckily for him, he loves all types of vegetables, eats lots of fruit and likes eggs A LOT (probably his favorite meal after carrots and turnips); not very fond of dairy products, but he eats them during the week, and will probably only eat vegetables and fruit related cakes. Will also try to get as much protein as he can from legumes, but since Tarrasquins are considered mainly carnivores, he often needs nutritional supplements.

Fire: All the Koopalings have a peculiar "fire"; when fire-breathing, they all will breathe fire of the same color as their shells. Iggy's fire is currently the weakest of the whole family, but it tends to create a lot of green, urticant smoke that makes it hard to see. It's not too useful in actual fights, but can work as a great distraction in need of a quick escape from a bad situation.

Random Facts:

He's a germophobe, and will sanitize his tools, hands and workspace every time he starts and finishes working in his labs.

Iggy is not having a *real* shower in almost 3.5 years. Instead, he perfectly polishes himself from any type of dirt using his own invention, the "Sonic Shower Sound Waver Filth Remover". He also uses a special gel made by himself to treat and keep his hair up every morning.

Iggy doesn't have many friends, especially IRL. But he sometimes finds himself in a group chat or nerdy forums with the same people for enough time, and he'll start addressing them as his "online pals" or "online weirdos".

One of his "online weirdos" is a guy named Francis and obsessed with butterflies. They never saw each other in person nor via webcam, but Francis claims he's a Chameleon and has the hugest collections of comics, manga, action figures, and video games of all his other nerdy pals, probably of his whole dimension, too.

One day Iggy and Larry decided to create a videogame together with an easy game maker on PC. Larry wanted to be the protagonist, but couldn't decide about a genre for the game. It ended up looking like a horror-action-but-also-dating-sim game with a cooler and older version of Larry fighting horrible un-deads while also trying to flirt with the cute ones. It was meant as an inside joke between the two brothers and they got bored after three days. One year later, tho, Iggy secretly started to work on it again out of boredom and actually finished "developing" it, even publishing it on an obscure forum of free-to-play games. It now exists in the world under the name of "Larry Koopa: Zombie Heartbreaker".

Francis, Iggy's Chameleon online pal, is the only person who completed said game 100%. Iggy sent him an exclusive physical copy as a joke after learning about this.

Larry won't like finding out his game has been "published" without his consent - and most of all, for free. He will force Iggy to work on a sequel with an even cooler and adult version of Larry as the protagonist in the future, known as "Larry Koopa the Heartbreaker and The Revenge of the Dry Bones Queen". They will get royalties from that one, this time.

Some years ago Iggy started gifting tiny plants for every birthday he attends - usually, his siblings'. They can be flowers, succulent plants, carnivorous plants and even the equivalent of the SMB world of... weed (probably, some tiny variant of Wonder Flowers... we'll call it "Wonder Weed" lel) - but the vulcanic climate and his siblings' negligence will let the poor plants dry in a few days. Roy is the only one who is still happily cultivating his tiny Wonder Weed pots after three years.

Recently Iggy found out about TTRPG games; he tried to involve his sibs in it, convincing Lemmy and Ludwig at first, Roy after a while and Larry just recently. Iggy is currently mastering his first campaign of Thousand Years & Doors, with a party made of Ludwig (High Elf, Wizard), Lemmy (Firbolg, Druid), Roy (Half-Orc, Barbarian) and Larry (Dragonborn, Bard). Junior wants to play with them but knowing his bratty attitude they send him away claiming the game is for "Larry's age and up" only.

Despite this, they are regretting letting Larry play, too. He's the classic "I only use Vicious Mockery! I'll destroy all my enemies INSULTING their parents and siblings and cousins in a *magical" way! Can I try to open the door exploding it with a bad joke?". Iggy is at least grateful that Larry is still too young, naive and not very into *adult jokes* yet, because as a deeply asexual Game Master he couldn't bear the even more stereotypical.... "18+ annoying bard attitude" (if you know a bit of IRL D&D classes stereotypes, you got what I mean.)

One of Iggy's biggest pet peeves revolves around "adult *spicy* jokes", especially when too explicit. He can't stand them. He hates them with all his heart and spirit. He just cringes so much hearing them that he would prefer sinking into the ground and disappearing instead.

He doesn't like bunnies much - herbivorous animals in general make him nervous, especially small ones. Maybe this is due to Roy always joking about Iggy looking like a carrot and that he could be in serious danger among a rabbit warren…

He's probably the only one in the family who, despite his name and all, can't sing or play any instrument. Ludwig could play a whole orchestra by himself and even more, Lemmy can play the electric guitar & bass, Roy can play the drums and the violin, Wendy can sing and loves to, Morton can kinda play the bass drum and has perfect timing with the triangle, Larry is learning how to play the electric keyboard and the Otamatone and is quite good at mixing and remixing music from his PC... and even Junior is starting to learn something about the transverse flute and the piano.

Once, Iggy tried to work on his own AI that could "create" music for him, of course using others' works as a "base" to train it. His siblings - especially Ludwig - basically threatened Iggy of unaliving him in response. "Go on. Try to put my music inside that bot. Then you'll enjoy eternity as a Dry Iggy, I can assure you". -Lud

Rumors say that Iggy can instead dance quite well (in his own unique style), and even perform a perfect moonwalk. But nobody knows for sure...

His IQ score beats Ludwig's by a few points. Iggy is extremely satisfied by it, while Ludwig is trying to forget this information every day of his life.

When he was a kid, he created a "Time Machine" way before Professor E.Gadd himself. Iggy really wanted to see dinosaurs, and traveled "back in time" to observe them in their natural habitat. Then one way during his dino-watching, a random dude dressed with modern clothing passed by selling some "Yoshi-to-Fungi" dictionary, and Iggy understood that his "Time Machine" was actually working as a "quite normal, quite boring" teleporter to the Dinosaur Islands instead.

Bowser seized the opportunity using the fast-travel to get his army there, trying to conquest the Islands. But Mario was having a vacantion there and... it... didn't end well.

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