#mostly wanted to clear up the potential misconception of where the ship spawned from

[jayyydez]

This is slightly aimed at anon, and for that, I'm sorry I'm using your reply as the space for this, Ink.

But Bowuigi as a ship existed well before the recent Mario movie. I know it existed somewhere in the time span in 2018-2019, because that's when I first got invested, though from my understanding, it was around even before then. It gained a little traction after someone made a goofy comic with Bowser and Luigi, and then someone else wrote a fic that ended up becoming quite popular.

So as far as not understanding how fans saw that two second clip and decided to ship them, that makes sense, because the two second clip is not what started the ship. And even before the movie's release, there was only a short clip of the scene BEFORE Bowser said to kill Luigi and toss him around. The joke is that while we knew the scene itself was likely to be more threatening, the way it looked in the trailer was framed a little differently. It had the same kind of tension as those scenes where there's a sword fight and one opponent tilts the other's chin up by putting the flat of their blade under their jaw.

So for a lot of people, the trailer specifically made them go "Oh? There's some tension there?" But a lot of us cringed at seeing how they characterized Bowser in the movie, because he was a lot crueler and less adorkable than he'd been painted in some games.

Some people have done excellent work with toying with the circumstances of the movie's events and going from there, and really playing with the concept of redemption for Bowser. But the movie verse IS a lot harder to justify as them seeing anything in one another because of how things played out.

The trailer was more so an introduction to the idea for some people, and for those of us that had been part of the ship and it's community for a while beforehand, we were mostly just excited to see animated material of those two characters that could even be remotaly interpreted as romantic/ sexual tension. Fuel for the fire, if you will. The trailer was what gave the ship popularity, though a lot of us were disappointed when we saw the context in the movie, which was flinging Luigi like a ragdoll, threatening to kill him, smacking Mario around etc

Overall, the point I'm trying to make is that the ship did not arise from the movie itself. It was around LONG before the Mario movie, and fan content is largely the reason many people ship it. Based on the content in the movie, I definitely understand how the ship seems like it's not one you'd want to delve into, especially if content from that era onward is all you've been aware of.

A lot of Bowuigi content is genuinely very wholesome, but it's often based on game lore and interactions and fancontent. Some people have often played with some mature themes, and there are always people, in every fandom and nearly every ship, that has ways of handling and exploring ships and dynamics that require readers to mind the tags.

If Bowuigi isn't the ship for you, that's okay. There are ships that I understand the appeal of, but just personally don't like or can't get behind. Not everything will be everyone's cup of tea. There's not anything being done in the Bowuigi ships and content that I haven't seen done elsewhere in other fandoms and ships though, so it's definitely not just a Bowuigi thing. Darker content is what some people want to write, whatever their reasons may be for it, and they look for dynamics that allow them something to work with and room to expand on in that way.

If looking at some of that darker content makes you question if people know what healthy, loving relationships look like, it's very likely a healthy, loving relationship is not what they are trying to explore. It being unhealthy or manipulative or codependent or even toxic may be what they are trying to represent. Writing perfect, happy situations where everything goes right don't often make for good storytelling. Conflict and working through issues and development do.

If you run across content that feels unsettling to you, don't engage with it. If Bowuigi as a whole feels that way to you, then we understand if you don't want to engage. However, completely dark content is not representative of any fandom, and neither is completely, perfectly wholesome content. It varies from fandom to fandom and ship to ship what those ratios look like. So yes, Bowuigi as a ship can look a little weird, but no more than some other ships I've seen.

Is it bad that I'm not on board with the bowuigi ship? I don't understand how people saw the Mario movie and said "ah yes, that is a gay dragon and a gay man" based off of one part and ignored the part where Bowser threatened to kill Luigi just to get at Mario, almost put him and others into lava, and worst of all, absolutely beat the crap out of his brother and almost roasted him to death- if it's outside of the super mario bros movie universe (bc I kinda see it as it's own timeline), then yeah I can see the appeal, but putting it in context of the movie's universe, it's a little weird to me

See...I find it difficult to voice my opinions about ships because I simply fear any backlash.

There is a wholesome side to the Bowigi ship (which is mostly Luigi meeting and being dad to the Koopalings from what I've found - and it's sweet!).

What I don't like is the side of the Bowigi ship that has the (how do I put this...) disturbed individuals. Amongst the sea of Bowigi fics, more often than not, there's some really unsettling content. I won't list the stuff that comes up in these fics, but it's all dangerously dark and distressing. It honestly makes me very concerned for the individuals who wrote them; are they just trolling? Or do they really not understand what a healthy loving relationship is?

Overall, yes to me the Bowigi ship is a bit weird. But it's really the disturbing side that I get peeved with.

In another universe like the games yeah - but the movie verse is just not suited for it.