My posts about Days are (let's be honest) a bit of a cluttered mess. This should make it easier to find specific ones. Everything is tagged #days if you just want to scroll through all of them.

(Below a cut now that it's gotten quite long)

My finished pictures for the @tf-bigbang '25 event.

A murder mystery with an intrepid young lawyer called Phoenix Wright Trialfeather, investigating Airachnid's murder and Knock Out as the primary suspect! An fun take on Transformers in an Ace Attorney plot.

Story by Bremmatron33 https://archiveofourown.org/works/73757831

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers: Prime Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Bumblebee & Knock Out (Transformers), Bulkhead & Knock Out (Transformers) Characters: Knock Out (Transformers), Bumblebee (Transformers), Bulkhead (Transformers) Additional Tags: Post-War Summary:

Whenever you start an adventure, it's clear that Mario does this all the time. He might need a rundown of the new area he's adventuring in, game-specific fight mechanics, and an introduction to the people/villains, but he knows how to take on any level of quest. It's basically his job at this point.

It also makes sense that civilian types (eg Toads) would ask him for help. If you've ended up in a situation and require help, are you more likely to ask an exhausted haunted determined 12-year-old to help you move your car out of a ditch, or are you going to ask an adult who dresses like he does odd-jobs for a living? (You might have to ask the 12-year-old eventually if no one else shows up, but you're not going to ask them the second they appear.)

And further to that, Mario and Luigi are the people the kid characters (eg Connie and Arc from Brothership) look to when things go wrong. If you're a jrpg-type 12-year-old whose hometown has just been burned down and you're ready to swear revenge on the guys who did it, Mario will show up, listen to your sob story and then help you (whether that's finding a safe place with safe people for you to stay at while he defeats the bad guys, or protecting you on your journey to get closure).

They're adults, often silly adults, but still adults. And I appreciate that.

I'm going with it probably being my favourite so far - if only because I don't have to play on a tiny handheld! 10/10

In all seriousness, I appreciated the story's simple message, not having to do fiddly platforming with both brothers (though Luigi could do with brushing up on his skills a bit), the combat being easy (enough that even though I was horribly under-levelled I usually beat bosses on the first attempt), the animation (you feel those hits land), and the general premise.

I think it was a bit of a slow start, but it's probably a lot of people's first M&L game, and I also feel like I could go back and play the previous games and find that they're just as slow to begin with too.

It dropped the making fun of Luigi bit that was a series staple, but I think that was probably wise, especially in a story about the power of friendship. Luigi got his time to shine, even though it felt a little at Mario's expense (it felt like Mario was the player character and Luigi was an NPC a lot of the time outside of combat, so Mario got to do less of his own character volition, if that makes sense).

I like what they did with Bowser, and especially Junior's arc. I don't think I was surprised by any of the major plot twists, but I think that was probably more of a sign of me knowing the genre than bad writing.

Going to get more spoilery now.

Splitting up this ask so I can put the spoilery bits under the cut now that I've finally finished Brothership.

I'm not a professional in any way, so I don't know if it would be legit PTSD, a mild form of it, or something else entirely. But Peach definitely has some hangups and behavioural changes from being kidnapped a lot of times.

I tried to mostly match the genre/vibes of the Mario games* when writing Days, so if Peach (or anyone else) has PTSD then it's on the milder side. She also has an excellent support network on top of that. Whatever steps she needs to take to work on dealing with her PTSD she has taken/is taking already.

(*There are genuine wtf moments in some Mario games, the ones coming to mind currently are the Shunned Guy and Soggy Guy from Color Splash, but it's still kid horror)

He's definitely slept with other women after meeting Peach - at the very least Junior happened a few years after the first kidnapping.

It'll depend on how often she's been kidnapped. I imagine early on Peach will have tried to escape a fair amount, but as time goes on and it becomes more of a routine thing, she doesn't bother as often. Game plots dictate that she can't beat Bowser or escape once she's already kidnapped, so she might as well focus her time and efforts elsewhere so that she doesn't spend all her time locked in her room or the dungeons.

(Which is why in Days, Luigi practically has the run of the entire castle. Yes, the contract says that Bowser can't shove him in a cell the whole time, but him being free to wander isn't really questioned by anyone either.)

So, to answer the actual question, I think she spends a lot of time socialising with the staff (she's a social person and she doesn't blame Bowser's people for Bowser's choices), trying to find good books to read (her tastes do not match Bowser's tastes and it's fifty-fifty if the library needs rebuilt after every kidnapping), possibly a bit of sports practice on the away team's home turf, and a little bit using the opportunity to force herself to take a break from active princessing.

Not every day is like this, but I could see Peach deciding to spend her second or third day of kidnapping on pure relaxation that she wouldn't quite manage to take in her own kingdom:

Sometimes a fic just grabs you by the throat and you have to make something for it.

Not really, no. I don't tend to specify characters' sexualities unless it comes up as a plot point/is discussed somewhere.

If I had to decide, I'd say Luigi is solidly bi (that's what his mention of separate sexual encounters with a man and a woman in Day 69 was meant to imply) while Bowser is much more straight leaning (he's not going for men unless it's a very special case, he didn't really look outside of women* until he had a 'bet it'd feel nice to touch Luigi' moment). I'd probably make Mario and Peach basically het (with Mario being the more comfortable out of the two with the idea that he could be into people the same gender as him, since Days!Peach has a lot of royal upbringing baggage that means she just doesn't think of things like that a huge amount when it comes to herself).

There wasn't a different ending planned because I'm not a writer who plans out everything before I start. Eg, when I posted Day 20 I didn't have more than a few short interactions written up for Day 30 (though I had more of Day 21, while Day 27 was barely a vague idea of a post-ending bonus scene). It took the first trailer - not the one the bowuigi crowd lost their minds over - for me to get the bare bones of the rest of Days finally hashed out. A lot of plot details only make themselves known as I'm writing.

I don't think there ever would've been an ending that didn't involve the contract breaking and Luigi leaving temporarily. But that early into writing (with only Day 1 written), I had no idea how the contract would end up being broken. As soon as Mario showed up in Day 20 it was obvious to me that he'd have to be the one to do most of the legwork, but before that there was a chance it could've been Luigi somehow - or even Bowser himself!

I think I decided against Peach signing her name because Luigi and Bowser's relationship wasn't at a point where it could withstand that. Yes, by then Bowser's aware that he likes Luigi and would be pretty interested in something more intimate and long-term, and yes, Luigi's starting to subconsciously fall for Bowser and find comfort within the castle, however, it's still incredibly fragile.

If given the strings-free choice of Peach or Luigi, Day ~20!Bowser is picking Peach every time*. It's the week of living with both of them (and forcibly being disallowed from flirting with Peach) that helps Luigi get the final leg up there. Luigi is engaged with castle stuff and reciprocating (even if only unintentionally) and Peach... isn't. Don't underestimate how attractive being wanted can be.

*(ok, he's probably going to make at least one play for both, but even that will be a Peach and-Luigi rather than Peach-and-Luigi, if that makes sense, and he'll pivot to just focusing on Peach pretty quick, especially if his flirting towards Luigi is now getting him zapped)

And on Luigi's side, he'd just push down familiar jealousy and disappointment. He's used to being overlooked in favour of someone better. He's not going to fight for feelings he doesn't even know he has.

Getting much more speculative now. If Peach had signed her name then that would've freed up Luigi to find the contract breaker and that side of the plot would've been wrapped up way quicker (Mario&Luigi working together get things done faster than Mario having to recruit a party of misfits). Which means that the final battle with the Capods would've been more of a focus (which means I would've had to have written more actual fight scenes and things were taking long enough as it was!) and I probably would've had the characters converge again during that. Have Bowser and his army show up for the final fight (kinda like him showing up in Day 20, but on a bigger scale).

And in order to make the endgame Bowser/Luigi stick, there would have to be... something happen there. I was pretty determined to stay with Luigi's pov the entire time (yes, Day 16 gave us some Bowser insight, but that was posted post-ending and I tend to prefer sticking with one pov and the restrictions involved with that) so we wouldn't have known what had been going on with Bowser while Luigi was adventuring.

Though, it could be that the act of Luigi asking Bowser enough questions to fill the audience in reminds Bowser that 'oh yeah, I like this guy', with Luigi having a similar 'oh thank goodness, I feel safer with Bowser around... wait, since when has that been the case?!' and that's when Bowser would make his move.

It would probably feel more rebound-y than (I'm hoping!) Day 30 came across, given that there's been a more recent, more successful attempt at Peach (~5 days of being magically married is the closest Bowser's ever gotten - even if it's purely to save a friend, it's still voluntary on her end and that's a win for him). But a relationship start is a relationship start, so that might've been it!