here we worship His Majesty

a sideblog where I am free to yap about Bowser

[bowsers-apprentice]

A Masterpost for our Convenience

Hello! I'm an archivist of Bowser's Castle, and my job is to record personal observations on the king himself. ...Except he doesn't really know I exist. Or that I'm an archivist. I'm actually a cleaning servant with access to places I shouldn't. I record what I can on my own time, from a neutral perspective.

I also know how to dimension hop and time travel, so I can record things about different versions of Bowser at any age. Hopefully nobody catches me. Ever. For that purpose, I'll be staying completely anonymous. Just call me 'The Apprentice'.

Trans Bowser AU (an AU where bowser is trans. totally not the reason I started posting on this blog)

I want to give catch-all warnings for the following tags, as they will talk about child abuse, trauma, distressing mental health issues, including suicidal ideation, depression, and BPD. As I add more things to the queue I am realizing that some of it is very triggering. It’s not for the faint of heart. Feel free to block the tags if you feel you need to for your own well-being. The following are not connected to the trans bowser au.

The Great Bowser Backstory I never shared (tag— title says it all)

My Major in Bowser Psychology (talks about his mental state/mental health)

The Mario Story Trapped in my Head (what it sounds like, will probably be the tamest tag of these three)

[bowsers-apprentice]

My prediction for the Super Mario Galaxy movie direct:

We open with Bowser escaping, sneaking out of a garage. Confidently, there’s a minivan right there, with an open trunk and an open suitcase in said trunk. Bowser climbs up and hides in the suitcase. The car’s owner ends up driving away. Bowser starts talking to himself, and the driver responds, thinking Bowser is some voice (and not the King of the Koopas). Bowser lies about his name so she doesn’t know.

Cut to Mario and Luigi, sitting in bed watching the news. They’re hearing about a story of [bowser’s fake name] who keeps talking to children. They furiously jump out of bed and run out of the room.

…this was a dream I had after waking up at 5am and going back to sleep. It also included a shot of Bowser with prosthetic robot-ish feet (and an eyepatch), Bowser Jr. in space, and a Peach-themed spaceship flying through space. Because we tuned in eight minutes in and had to reverse through what was already there (we were watching on an old television).

I thought it’d be funny to post this, and when the direct comes out, we can laugh about how wrong this will be.

[bowsers-apprentice]

Man I had a dream about the Mario Galaxy Movie last night, and I had to remember this morning it wasn’t real.

In the dream, Illumination released a clip of Bowser and Bowser Jr. reuniting. Sort of. Bowser was back to his normal size and in his castle. But how they got together isn’t important. What is importantly was how sweet that reuniting was. And how well animated and detailed it was; great job on that, brain. They were smiling, squishing their noses together— Bowser was holding Junior. I wish I remember what they said to each other, but I just know that they talked, and it was cute. Bowser even kissed Junior on the cheek. In the dream, I wanted to show everyone. I’m disappointed that this isn’t real.

Then we fast-forwarded to the actual movie’s release, and I was in the theater watching it, and apparently the plot is Mario and Luigi kidnapping Bowser back after Junior rescues him. The kidnapper became the kidnapped.

Man I really hope their reunion is sweet. Even if it’s just brief— do what you did with Mario and Luigi in the first movie, Illumination. That was so good and it was just ten seconds or so.

[piraticoctopus]

Bowser tries to keep up his reputation as a menacing villain but in reality he’s just a huge fricking dork.

[bowsers-apprentice]

He clicks his damn little heels. That’s it, I’m kidnapping him.

[bowsers-apprentice]

I know this is supposed to be a joke, perhaps a lighthearted jab at how some fanartists like to draw Bowser, but after giving it an inkling of thought, this moment actually makes me feel bad for him.

How I've interpreted & overthought this, is that Bowser has fallen victim to toxic masculine beauty standards. This painting of a more idealized version of him, with human proportions and a more humanoid muscular structure, makes me think that he's insecure of how he doesn't measure up to those standards. Particularly in how it ties to Peach's opinion on him. Maybe it's not that he really wants to look like this, but maybe this is how he wants to be for the sake of having Peach's love and approval. She's enamored with him in the painting, but definitely not in real life. The painting suggests that one of the many things he may falsely blame, is his own appearance.

This insecurity might also be part of what makes him snap at Mario the way he does, because not only is this something he undoubtedly worked hard on, but Mario is (in his mind) telling him that he 'fought to achieve those standards' (even in a fake setting) and it's still not enough. He'll never be enough, and that hurts.

Maybe what gets me is the image that I structured from this, of him looking at this painting, at this exaggeration of himself, and mourning the fact that he can't look the way he feels he needs to for the sake of society's (particularly Peach's) acceptance. Body issues are a bitch.

I prefer Bowser just the way he is, and I do not like this 'hot' route that is sometimes taken for him. He's perfectly handsome all on his own, no humanoid bells and whistles required.

If you like it, there's nothing wrong with that; you don't need to feel bad. I'm just digging for angst wherever I can find. I exist to put this Koopa through hell.

[bowsers-apprentice]

Some of my favorite screenshots of Bowser from the Galaxy trailer. Feel free to swipe em.

[mearchy]

my favorite genre of fictional character is like "i am terrifying to almost everyone, i'm very good at killing, i can endure anything, i've become exceptionally good at playing into my reputation, and if you try to give me positive social interaction i will react with confusion and cower in a corner like an abused animal. and i may try to shoot you. but there is also a chance i may imprint on you like a feral dog receiving its first loving touch! good luck."

[bowsers-apprentice]

Character Development

[bowsers-apprentice]

Whenever I write Bowser in a different universe from the regular AU, I always tend to give him a generalized anxiety disorder to make up for his lack of childhood trauma PTSD.

[bowsers-apprentice]

It’s a great thing that the movie says that Bowser is horrible at flirting and awkward at romance. Because that means that me being horrible at writing flirting and being awkward at writing romance will go completely unnoticed.

[bowsers-apprentice]

I want to propose an idea for Bowser that I haven’t seen anyone else do— smoke coming out of his nose and/or mouth as a sign of fear.

This seems to be always used as a means to portray his anger. And that makes sense, I’m not saying it’s wrong (I do it too), but I think it is also a good way to show when he’s afraid. Consider the fight-or-flight response; in a dangerous situation, the body preps itself to either run far away or face the threat head on. Bowser’s fire breath would be a part of that— it’s one of his body’s natural weapons, and it would need to be ready in a crisis should the situation call for it. Roasting a threat is pretty useful, eh?

Additionally, given how our fight-or-flight responses can activate at inappropriate times, this could happen to Bowser as well. He’s stuck in a nerve-wracking, but maybe ultimately harmless situation? Smoke comes out of his nose. And as proud as he is, it would be pretty annoying to him to have such an obvious involuntary sign of fear. He probably would try to play it off as anger, ironically enough. I bet most of the other characters wouldn’t even clock the meaning behind it without other signs backing fear up (though, you could have someone special know otherwise).

I think there’s a lot of space to play with this, should anyone want to capitalize on it. I’d love to see this in the wild.

[weevmo]

Noticed my tumblr is blowing up a little bit rn; so eh, hi newcomers!!

Glad you guys enjoy my arts, here's a snoot boop.

[winstein-nin]

The Closest Enemy of Them All

Mario's quote is based on the Mario Press Conference (video here, with the timestamp where Mario said the exact same thing), which is brilliant because (unpopular opinion) I love it when Mario talks a lot, because he's a joy to listen to.

Thank you for reading.

[bowsers-apprentice]

I don’t know if anyone other than me has thought of this, but if you think about it Bowser actually would have a blind spot under his snout. He certainly can’t see through it, and it’d definitely make viewing anything by his feet (or short people like Mario) require a bit more effort. I wager the best way to get what this looks like is to put your own hands under your eyes, flat so they extend out from your face, and so your fingertips touch. It provides a bit of a different perspective.

(but I do live under a rock so maybe this is widespread knowledge and I’m just oblivious)

[pianokantzart]

I feel like movie!Bowser is going to go on his "Gru" arc in the second movie, while still staying the main villain of the movies.

As in Bowser Jr is only there to impress Peach but he grows on him. And he denies it at first before accepting that.

That actually might be a pretty good middle ground between the absolute monster that is movieverse Bowser, and the loving father in the videogames.

Bowser starts out distant and neglectful, but as Junior carries out his plan to take over the universe, Bowser begins to bond with him over it. When the plan starts failing thanks to the efforts of Mario and Co., Bowser Jr. gets stressed that he’s going to lose his father’s love after working so hard to “earn it,” when the truth is Bowser– now that he’s actually spent time with his kid– has finally found something he cares about more than universal domination.

[pixiedustandfairypowers]

There's a pretty crucial distinction between Gru and Bowser though. Gru adopted the girls as a small part of his plan to steal the shrink ray and ultimately the moon, but now he's suddenly in a situation where after he got what he wanted, now he has to deal with a trio of kids. Those kids also did not want any part in helping him steal the moon.

Bowser though... Junior is his biological son but was absent for the first movie, which to me suggests that Bowser probably doesn't think he's ready, so he left his kid at home probably so that he can study to be a worthy successor. Also, a Bowser Junior never really has his own agenda either, everything he does is to support his dad so I highly doubt he'd be the main antagonist since he never was that in any of the games.

[bowsers-apprentice]

My thought has always been that Junior will stage a rescue for Bowser. He wants to make him proud— what better way to do that than to charge in airships blazing in a grand rescue?

[bowsers-apprentice]

Concept art of a variant of the Koopa black eye scales dimorphism— a headcanon of mine based on the “eyelashes” of female Koopas like Wendy and Koopie Koo. They can look like eyelashes, but I thought it would be interesting if they came in a variety of patterns.

I used Bowser for this because he’s a) an actual reference I can use, b) my favorite, and c) I’ve written stuff where he’s trans because I can, so this is what his pattern is in those stories.

(I don’t draw much at all, please be kind. if I ever color this, I'll update the picture. big if though)