#The Peach & Kamek relationship is important to me... She and Bowser grew up together and he's Bowser's nanny

[fountainpenguin]

Hello! This isn't trying to pressure you or anything, I'm just genuinely curious and wanted to know about your plans for Mario content (since I know you've wanted to do that for a while). Any fun worldbuilding you'd like to share? :)

Thanks for the Ask!

Man, I wrote Mario world stuff ages ago that I completely forgot about... I had a 100 Prompts series and I think I got into the 30s before it stopped. I had tons of worldbuilding for Cackletta and Fawful specifically since they were my favorites :)

I do still keep my [current] Mario drafts around, but unfortunately I'm not sure when I'll post them... I'm never satisfied. I like the canon worldbuilding the way it is and it Does Not Translate very well into my writing style. I've tried for years, but it just... doesn't.

My Mario stuff is "okay," but it just feels very "meh" to me. I think I'll get there someday if I'm willing to work on it, but I'm not able to do that right now. I HAVE actually thought about it and I might post the occasional one-shot, but I'm not sure yet. My worldbuilding is still all over the place and it's very messy and I'm not in love with it.

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One of my stories is called "Political Machines" and it's about how the name "Mario Kart" came to be; it's Peach POV and delves into the culture of racing Yoshis back before karts came around. I like the idea of it a lot, but it's extremely info-dumpy and I've been struggling with it for years. I think I need to write something else first, but I haven't figured out what. Here's a scene from that:

I also love how savage Peach is skdflj:

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I also have two Bowser stories (a one-shot called "1-Down" which is Kamek POV and covers the deaths of Bowser's parents, which I LOVE but can't make it hit right) and a very loose draft for a story called Carapace Rex which is a Bowser backstory 'fic. Here's a good scene from the former:

I do miss this 'fic... I really like how extreme Bowser is despite how badly bullied he is by his abusive mom; he's vicious to her and I love that.

tbh it's actually really nice and maybe I'm overthinking it. I'd love to finish it; I just can't get the emotions right.

That said, I might take another whack at it soon and post when I'm done fiddling since I've already seen how I'll fiddle with it for years if I don't commit to a date /shrug. It's definitely one of the stories that ever was... It's just not hitting the emotions I need it to.

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I LOVE the opening lines to Carapace Rex (not sharing for major "1-Down" spoiler reasons), but I probably won't write the latter since it's been almost 6 years since I started it back in 2018. Getting older, hoping to publish original work, and starting a new long 'fic wouldn't be a good idea (Dog's Life draft started in early 2022 and Factor in 2018; I'm just wrapping up existing projects for now, but Carapace was always super vague so I don't really want to get into it). I might turn it into a one-shot though since I really love the voice in it.

-> The concept behind Carapace was that Koopas were predators of Toads... I actually reskinned the intro for Carapace into a piece of original content I used in my advanced creative writing class in college, then reskinned it again as the backstory for my OC Courtney the snow leopard, then reskinned it again to be the original project I took to a writer's conference this year...

I'm dying to do something original with predators and prey, but I've had a lot of talks with agents and editors and professional authors and we agreed it's not the right time for this content. To make a long story short, I'd either have to strip the fantasy politics out and de-age the characters so it's "animal people middle grade" or I'd have to age up the characters and push the adult angle and I... I don't know how I feel about my public author persona being "adult furry content"...... that's not what I want; I just want wolf kids hunting in the woods for their coming of age and growing up in this post-war world of fantasy politics and ceremonies... sob. The publishing world has categories though and you have to play by the rules.

Maybe someday... but I have a weird relationship with Carapace because of that, because I'm in LOVE with the scenes from it but I'd hate to use them in Mario fanfic when I'd like to use them in original work. Tsk-tsk. Maybe someday once I've already gotten my foot in the door. I'm keeping this project on the backburner as something I might self-publish but I've talked to a lot of people and I'd rather get something published traditionally and try to build my author platform before I invest, because self-pub is... expensive.

Honestly right now Dog's Life is giving me my "we're way too young to be carrying the weight of this many interspecies politics on our shoulders" fix, so at least I have that <3

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I also have an 8-chapter 'fic called "Out of You" which is about Kamek trying to raise the Koopalings (and Junior). I'll probably scrap most of that and rehash it as something else; I don't think there's much worth saving...? I'll have to think about it.

But here's my favorite WIP scene from it, ft. Ludwig and Peach:

:)

Potential's good, fun is good... Just need to find the right kind of worldbuilding that satisfies me. I'd originally hoped to post Mario stuff before the movie came out in April, but I just never got around to it. Maybe someday? It just doesn't feel right, though, and I can't invest my energy in something I'm not in love with.

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That's all I have to say right now; I don't want to say too much about my worldbuilding since it's still super messy. I have ideas about what would be "cool" or "interesting" but I just... don't love those ideas enough to make them part of "my take" on the world. There is a fine line between "Riddle's usual magical realism writing style" and "At this point it's an AU." I think I need to cull back the crazy ideas and stick closer to canon.

Is that "boring" and "uncreative"? Eh, I think that's just where my passion lies; I write fanfics because I love the media, and if I didn't love it, I wouldn't be writing fanfics. When I write, I want to continue writing the worldbuilding that I love, which means basing it closely on the media. I guess I'll always be canon compliant at heart even in a fandom where I'm okay with writing AUs, ha ha.

Maybe I'll dig up some of my really old one-shots from that 100 prompts project, clean them up a little, and post some of them. I know there were some Baby Bowser and Doopliss pieces in there. Might be a nice icebreaker.