"You're saying all I need to do is...apologize to him?"
"Sì."
Bowser sighed. "And what if he doesn't forgive me?"
"He might not."
Bowser sat back in the nearest chair, resting his head in his hands. "You're not making this any easier."
"Look, Bowser." Luigi sat down across from him, placing two dinner plates between them on the table. "Junior adores you. Yeah, he's not obligated to forgive you. But he misses you, and he's upset about it, and if you apologized—"
"Would that even do anything?"
Luigi grabbed the koopa's hand, or rather as much of it as he could. "It'll show him that you're trying to fix things. That you care."
"Hey, Junior? Can I come talk to you for a bit?"
Junior nodded, his eyes shifting to the ground in front of him. Luigi walked over and sat next to the younger koopa, holding his hand for support.
Bowser cleared his throat, looking over at Luigi as if looking for a cue, or some sort of reassurance. Luigi wished he could be with both of them, but since he had to pick his battles, he figured the Koopa King himself could talk to his son on his own.
"I have something...important to tell you."
"Yeah, dad?"
Luigi held his breath, waiting to hear the apology Bowser had practiced with him for over an hour prior.
"We won't be kidnapping the princess anymore."
Luigi didn't know what to think. Of course, it was everything he could've wanted. But, they had planned on breaking the news to Junior later. He wasn't sure how this would pan out.
Junior's eyes widened as he instinctively squeezed Luigi's hand, his claws lightly digging into Luigi's skin. "What? But-but that's all we've been working for! It's-it's—" his voice faded to almost a whisper, but Luigi and Bowser could hear it just fine. "It's the reason you're gone so often. It was all for nothing?"
Luigi hated hearing the way Junior's voice cracked, and he could tell Bowser felt the same way. "Son, I..."
Junior buried his head against Luigi's shoulder, and Luigi could feel the gentle trickle of tears drip onto his shirt. "Hey, hey, hear him out for a moment, okay?" Luigi whispered as soothingly as he could. "I think your dad has something else to add."
Bowser cleared his throat again, unable to meet either of their eyes. "I always thought you, the koopalings, you all needed another parental figure. The princess was the perfect candidate. But now, I think that Luigi here will do just fine."
Luigi was glad Bowser was still looking away, just so he wouldn't see the smile warming his face.
"And plus—" Bowser's voice was a low, gentle rumble as he spoke. "With all that out of the way, now I have more time to spend with my boy. If, of course, he wants to."
Junior glanced up at his father, at his warm smile and open arms, and tentatively asked, "You promise?"
"On the universe and beyond."
Junior jumped up, running over to give his father a crushing hug. Bowser's face softened as he held onto his son as if at any moment he could lose him. It didn't take long for Luigi to be swept into the hug as well, both koopas being incredibly mindful with their spikes and shells.
He loved them. He knew it before, but it was even stronger now. More tangible, in their gentle claws and careful spikes and joy.
Oh, how he loved them. He just hoped his friends would be able to love them too.
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probably time for this story i guess but when i was a kid there was a summer that my brother was really into making smoothies and milkshakes. part of this was that we didn't have AC and couldn't afford to run fans all day so it was kind of important to get good at making Cool Down Concoctions.
we also had a patch of mint, and he had two impressionable little sisters who had the attitude of "fuck it, might as well."
at one point, for fun, this 16 year old boy with a dream in his eye and scientific fervor in heart just wanted to see how far one could push the idea of "vanilla mint smoothie". how much vanilla extract and how much mint can go into a blender before it truly is inedible.
the answer is 3 cups of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup milk alternative, and about 50 sprigs (not leaves, whole spring) of mint. add ice and the courage of a child. idk, it was summer and we were bored.
the word i would use to describe the feeling of drinking it would maybe be "violent" or perhaps, like. "triangular." my nose felt pristine. inhaling following the first sip was like trying to sculpt a new face. i was ensconced in a mesh of horror. it was something beyond taste. for years after, i assumed those commercials that said "this is how it feels to chew five gum" were referencing the exact experience of this singular viscous smoothie.
what's worse is that we knew our mother would hate that we wasted so much vanilla extract. so we had to make it worth it. we had to actually finish the drink. it wasn't "wasting" it if we actually drank it, right? we huddled around outside in the blistering sun, gagging and passing around a single green potion, shivering with disgust. each sip was transcendent, but in a sort of non-euclidean way. i think this is where i lost my binary gender. it eroded certain parts of me in an acidic gut ecology collapse.
here's the thing about love and trust: the next day my brother made a different shake, and i drank it without complaint. it's been like 15 years. he's now a genuinely skilled cook. sometimes one of the three of us will fuck up in the kitchen or find something horrible or make a terrible smoothie mistake and then we pass it to each other, single potion bottle, and we say try it it's delicious. it always smells disgusting. and then, cerimonious, we drink it together. because that's what family does.
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Need a the Waynes Lived AU where Martha’s a vampire. She snuck in a Wayne Gala for a potential late night snack, but Thomas thought she was a socialite.
“So, what do you do?”
“I drain people of their life sources.”
“Oh, you’re a CEO too?”
She can’t drink Thomas’ blood because he smokes too much, the baggy eyes indicate long nights spent on his feet during surgery, which means it’ll taste bitter, and she saw him drown 10 whiskey shots in one go.
It’s a taste thing, nothing against him.
He is, how ever, very handsome, and she decided she’ll be his house cat for the time being. Fast forward two years later and they have a vampire cherub of a baby named Bruce.
Babies usually don’t come out with fangs and tiny bat wings, so, yeah. His wife’s a vampire. Cool.
“How come I’ve never seen your wife outside during the daytime, Tom??”
“How come I’ve never seen you mind your own fucking business?”
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To illustrate this post by @mayahawkse I would like to visualize to you the difference:
A post in 2023:
A post in 2014:
A zoom out of the same post:
This is what a community looks like.
See how in 2023 almost all of the reblogs come from the OP, from their few hours/days in the tag search. Meanwhile in 2014 the % of reblogs from OP is insignificant, because most of the reblogs come from the reblogs within the fandom, within the micro-communities formed there. You didn't need to rely on tags, or search, or being featured. Because the community took care of you, made sure to pass the work between themselves and onto their blog and exposed their followers to it. It kept works alive for years.
It's not JUST the reblog/like ratio that causing this issue, it's the type of interaction people have. They're content with scrolling and liking the search engine, instead of actually having a reblogging relationship with other blogs in their community.
Anyways, if you want to see more content you like, the only true way to make it happen is to reblog it. Likes do not forward content in no way but making OP feel nice. Reblogs on the other hand make content eternal. They make it relevant, they make it exist outside of a fickle tumblr search that hardly works on the best of days.
If you want more of something, reblog it.
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