Bowsette cried.

She couldn’t stop crying, but you know what? That was fine! She was just so... so.... HAPPY.

Never in a million years did she ever think she’d be invited to one of these parties. They always excluded her, and that was always. She practically always crashed those parties, sabotaging them and ruining things for all the people having fun. No matter how many kart racing tournaments she won, or tennis matches she smashed, or dance competitions she completed in a frenzy, or friendly fighting tournaments she dominated, nobody ever let her join in on these parties, not ever.

Mario, Peach, Bowsette, and Goombella had met up with friends like Donkey Kong, Luigi, Wario, and Boo at the Isle Delfino airport and took a short boat trip over to Megafruit Paradise, where a new party board had recently been constructed. It was a beautiful island filled with, well, very large fruit, and just the right amount of fun party-ability.

Pom Pom, Boom Boom’s betrothed who Bowsette once, uh, interacted with more than she’d like to remember, was also here, in a surprise, though Boom Boom was nowhere to be found. It was awkward, and for once she would have liked to pretend she was a different person, but her dual identity had been international news to practically everyone except for the isolated communities in Bowser’s Kingdom itself, so she was forced to make small talk with her and pretend everything was just spiffy between them.

Everyone seemed to be taking Bowsette’s.... well, Bowsette herself pretty well. On a private secluded island they didn’t have to worry about hiding her away, but they also didn’t seem to mind the fact that she was presenting herself as a full-fledged female now. Even Wario was hitting on her by showing her his boogers and all that disgusting stuff he had never done when she was “just Bowser.”

It was really just a fun atmosphere, nothing holding them back but themselves. It was a great place to recover after all. She suspected that the fact she had become a smoking hot half-human instead of giant hulking muscle Koopa might have played into the way everyone was so much more ready to accept her, but she didn’t feel like analyzing the dynamics of appearance and prejudice right now because she was... PARTYING!

Finally... here she was. Holding a dice block in her hands, bawling her eyes out because of how much she’d looked forward to this opportunity all her life but only received it now, at this very moment. Wow. Holy wow.

She tossed that block! And it landed on a 2!

She actually got to move two spaces ahead! Bowsette got to move two spaces ahead! Wow!

After a while of playing this party game with absolute ferocity, destroying everyone in every minigame and clawing her way towards all the stars, she was at the top, number one on the charts. She had seven stars, a boon compared to the number two player Donkey Kong, who had only three. Peach still hadn’t gotten a single one, as much as Bowsette was rooting for her. Mario and Goombella were too busy flirting to get much done, but they had still both gotten one.

She reached a Toad who congratulated her and asked for twenty coins for a star. Again? Come on. You guys have to be rich by now, surely. “You know what? I’ll take that off your hands for free,” Bowsette said.

“Uh, no, twenty coins please,” the Toad said.

“You drive a hard bargain. Thirteen?”

“Do you... have twenty coins, ma’am?”

Bowsette grumbled and handed over the stuff. Yay, star number eight!

The game went on a little bit longer, and she realized that everyone was starting to... look at her. By her twelfth star, she came to the conclusion that winning was not actually the main goal of these parties, and that she was probably taking this a little bit too seriously...

But she was so far ahead that she was never going to lose now... Oh no! THIS was why nobody wanted to invite her to parties, wasn’t it? Noooooooo.....

She cried again as she threw the dice block, but it was now because she realized, in her hubris, she had become her own worst enemy, just like always, ruining everything because of her dumbness.

But luck saw it a different way. She had rolled a one, a perfect number to move right into....

CHANCE TIME!

“Yo yo yo yo yo!!!!” Tumble, a weird looking dude with a giant dice on his head said as he zoomed over to Bowsette’s location. Three blocks appeared behind her and began rotating rapidly.

“I’ve... I’ve never gotten chance time before!!”

“And now you get to do it!” Tumble shouted with a squeaky glee. “Hit those blocks to determine who’s gonna get what.”

Maybe this could be the way she’d even things out. She would give all her stars to Peach and then she’d be in the back of the pack. Oh yeah. Let’s do this...

Block 1.... BOWSETTE. It was a modified Bowser symbol with a little crown added on top. Probably the best they could do on such short notice.

To add some suspense, she walked over next to go to the third block to see who the recipient would be.

Block 3... PEACH.

YEAH. LET’S GET THIS.

Block 2.....

.....

................

...............................

5 coins.

Peach was laughing, but it was all Bowsette could do to keep from crying about how badly she had ruined her chance there.

Still, she kept playing, intentionally losing minigames without making it look obvious (like falling over when she was wearing the very heavy Penguin Suit or not winding up her Mecha Fly Guy enough).

But.. even so... She still had a hundred and twenty coins when she stumbled upon the next Toad.

“Hey! Twenty coins for a star?” the Toad shouted with enthused excitement.

“Uh, actually... no thanks,” Bowsette said.

“Wait... what?”

“I have the option to say no, right?”

“I... GUESS so? Nobody’s ever... done it?”

“Well, that’s why I, Lordess Bowsette, Terror of the Fifteen Seas, Chomper of Megafruit, am special! I refuse any and all extra advantages that come my way!” She slapped her hand against her chest as a prideful gesture and then realized that that really hurt.

“Uh okay, then. See you around,” the Toad said.

Yep, that went well.

When it was Luigi’s turn, and he was deliberating for ten minutes on whether or not to use his Skeleton Key, Peach came over to Bowsette and grimaced. “What are you doing...?”

“What do you mean?”

She folded her arms. “You know exactly what I mean. You suddenly stopped playing and everyone is noticing. It’s kind of... rude.”

“I mean... Uh... no I didn’t?” Bowsette lied. “Oh, okay, fine, I thought maybe I was taking it a little too seriously, because I got so far ahead of everyone...”

Peach giggled. “Oh wow, you really HAVEN’T done one of these parties before, have you? Everyone knows the winner is only ever decided at the final couple turns with all the bonus stars and special events.”

“Eh? Really?”

“You’ll see.”

They entered the final stretch of turns, ad lo and behold, chaos ensued. Wario stole two stars from Bowsette with the Boos he had been storing all this time; Luigi finally used his Skeleton Key and went through a secret gateway that turned out to be housing a secret star; Mario used a Genie Lamp to warp over to the star, and then as soon as he received one, the next star space popped up right next to him!

Bowsette was now in a dead heat with the others. Ten stars, compared to the eight that Mario had, the eight Wario had, and the six Goombella had. DK was still stuck in an enclosed area where he had to roll into a Happening ? Space to get out, but his luck was not very high these days.

In all of this, though, Peach still only had two stars! What the heck, dude?

She thought very long and hard about challenging Peach to a duel with her Dueling Glove, betting a bunch of stars, and then losing, but that would come at the risk of accidentally wining, and then making her dear old friend look even worse. And Peach would be annoyed if she threw it, anyway.

So she decided to let the final turn play out like it would, and rolled her final dice block, chucking it onto the ground, where she got... a six.

She walked along the mpa, and landed right on...

A Bowser Space.

It was time for her to crash this party and bring some chaos!

Wait... Huh?

Nothing happened. Normally, she was supposed to appear in front of the player and say some nasty stuff and then do some mean thing. But with her being the player herself, it didn’t seem to... register.

Instead, the only thing that poofed into existence was the Bowser Roulette, another chance-like instance where something extremely interesting could happen. Bowser Revolution, which reflected in an ironic way the way Bowsette overthrew Morton Koopa all those years ago to balance out the power structure in Dark Land, only to become an autocratic leader herself, was the best option. It evened out everyone’s star and coin counts, which would make the rest of the game rely entirely on bonus stars, which were always a complete mystery up until the last second! Oh, or Bowser’s Multiplying Toads, where she would transport a fake Toad on the board that would hand you a Ztar!

Or better yet...

She spun the roulette wheel and let it fall where she desired. Yeah, it was all supposedly luck, but she had it rigged years and years ago to land on the one she wanted based on the strength of her spin, not that anyone else knew that. Otherwise, that 100 Star Present option would actually mean something, and that wasn’t happening.

And there it landed... on... Bowser’s Appearing Act! Now Bowser was set to transport somewhere on the map, roll three dice blocks, and steal all the stars in her way. But Bowsette, being an actual player on the board... had other plans.

She rolled the dice blocks, which were also rigged, as was the deal with these party sabotages, and walked right over to a very special Happening ? Space. There, a giant Scuttlebug swooped down and stole a star! She rolled another dice, landed on another Happening ? Space, and confronted a particularly angry Magikoopa who handed her three Ztars.

That’s what she was looking for. Ztars! Yes!

One more Happening ? Space on her final roll and she confronted a Wiggler who made her pay ten coins to pass over a bridge. That... wasn’t too interesting. Whatever.

At the end, now Bowsette had only six stars, far away from the lead. Everything was perfect now; Mario or someone could win just like that.

Tumble came back to the party at the end and danced around the place for a bit. “So... how’d you all do?!?!?!”

“It was fun!” Mario shouted.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah!” Luigi exclaimed.

“I’m a winner,” Peach said.

DK grunted incomprehensibly. He totally knew how to speak, so Bowsette was a bit confused.

“Okay, so here’s the bonus stars..... Let’s go! For the winner of the most minigames... Mario!”

Mario stepped forward and took a star.

“And, a very special award... We’re converting all Ztars... into two stars!!!!”

So... Bowsette got... six stars more instead of losing stars... oops.

Now she had thirteen again.

“And for the player who landed on the most Happening ? Spaces... Bowsette! You get a new star!!!!!! Congratulations!!!”

Yay... fourteen stars. Amazing.

“Finally, our last award... the player with the most coins gets... all their coins converted into stars at ten coins per star! Peach, come get it!”

Peach stepped forward, and cashed in her eye-popping three hundred coins for a spectacular total of thirty stars. “You win!!!!!!!!!!” Tumble screamed

“Yeah, Peach is the winner!”

Geez. Bowsette wanted to eat her hat right now, if she had a hat.

These parties were the dumbest thing ever, as it turned out.