#Pool vanellope

[monster-mkd-bruh]

TW:blood

a little sketch scene that inspired by @ randomalistic 's amazing mv.

(i dont really @ cause I'm afraid of disturbing I'm so sorry about that orz)

And thanks for the advice of my dear friend slimö_ that about adding scanning line on it, and Zecic translated the whole song on Netease Music😌

[pulcinonostalgico]

Stupid headcanons! - Fix-It Felix Jr.

Since I was bored, I imagined how various WIR characters would behave on social media / in group chats. Enjoy it!

Ralph

How he would behave on social media - His social profile would have very few photos (probably only a couple taken by Vanellope and posted by her), and in general he would interact little because he is a bit of a boomer and finds it difficult to use "new technological means".

He would often watch videos of demolitions and construction sites but his sweet side would lead him to cry in front of sentimental videos / posts.

How he would behave in a group chat - Even in this case he would send a few messages, which would consist, most of the time, of a simple emoji (always the same, a bit like when dads reply with 👍🏻). Sometimes he would write everything in CAPS LOCK, not because he is angry, but because he would simply turn it on by accident and not know how to remove it.

Ralph would always be very kind and friendly in a group chat, however Gene would always come along and break the fuck and start an argument between the two. Of course, Felix would try to moderate the discussion, failing miserably.

Felix

How he would behave on social media - Felix would definitely post a lot of photos with Tamora. Photos of the wedding, but in general of the two of them together.

He would also watch videos of construction sites, but in particular videos of renovations or tutorials / DIY. He would probably also watch videos of guys building a pool out of mud. Of course he would get lost watching cute kitten / doggy videos for hours and his feed probably also offers him videos of Rhea Ripley since he loves mommies.

How he would behave in a group chat - Felix would always be so sweet. He would send cute, cuddly texts and probably 'good morning' pictures every morning. He would always use great punctuation and abuse emojis and hearts.

[thornedclover]

favorite character poll game!

tagged by @michiganstray, love you bb! 🩷

rules: make a pool with 5 of your all-time favorite characters & then tag 5 people to do the same. see which character is everyone's favorite!

...let's go! (i have more favs but i have to play by the rules XP)

tagging: @ortegalvr, @miathebiweeb, @ashen-char, @comet-forgot-you, @calumikey & anyone else who wants to join in! 🩷

[thelonelyperson2025]

Vanellope floating in her baby boat In the pool with floaties on

[sparklermun]

Hello there everyone! Welcome to the first night of the ninth annual Wreck-it Ralph Pin Post Month!

Tonight we're starting big with the DS, Wreck-it Ralph, Awkward Moments Series, Wreck-it Ralph pin, LR.

This pin features a few awkward moments from the Wreck-it Ralph movie, as well as one that can be considered a little more heartwarming. The first being a moment between Ralph and Vanellope in one of the earliest periods of their friendship. The second being that awkward moment Ralph found himself trapped in sweets, just seconds before Wynnchell walked up to arrest the unfortunate wrecker. Then finally that moment when Ralph found himself not only in a pool of mud, but chocolate mud which of course he likes even less then the regular stuff. Each of these comedic moments are cleverly contained in a clapperboard with the words "Awkward Moments" on the nameplate. While being shown using a two-sided slider gimmick combined with the common pin on pin design.

Honestly the second moment is definitely the one I would call the most awkward. I've definitely turned away with a chuckle hiding behind my hand during this moment in the movie. I also believe that these were good points in the movie chosen for this pin, as while each of them can be considered awkward in their own ways. But they're from brief yet memorable points for fans of the film. The only part of this pin that I would improve upon is Wynnchell, as without his chocolate glaze he seems a little plain. It certainly does add to the awkwardness of the pin, though I don't believe that was what the artists were thinking of when designing this pin.

[0perfectimperfections0]

Hi fellow doll, I hope you're doing fine. I've been quite busy lately, college and life in general have been kicking my ass, so I was forced to take a step back from social media for a while to try to contain the chaos.

Firstly, I'd like to share a fun fact with you! I don't know if you're aware but did you know that Lou's Mansion has a Pool? You can see it more clearly in the Mansion's Concept Designs/Art on this site:

•https://www.claytonstillwell.com/ugly-dolls#23

However, the real reason for this ask is to present a possible answer/theory in regards to how the doll-sized phones came to be in the world of your stories (you can tell this is still related to our chat on Wattpad).

Recently, I came across the images you're seeing on Pinterest. They're Wide/Aerial Views of the Institute of Perfection and one thing that immediately stood out to me is that Giant Eye-Catching Dome behind the TV.

I mean what's its purpose, why is it even there to begin with and what's inside of it? I've been thinking about this for a while and would like to hear your thoughts about it as well, if you're willing to share them.

By any chance, have you seen the movie Wreck-it Ralph? There was a part where the villain enters the code of the game he's in and I think the Dome's purpose could follow a similar, if not equal, vein.

Now that I think about it, Lou and Vanellope's circunstances are almost identical, trapped in the same place for years without the option to leave, simply because of who they are and the traits they were born with, but didn't choose to have.

Sorry, I let my mind run on tangent there for a while, it wanders frequently which makes it hard to keep track of my line of thought.

To circle back to the main topic of discussion, what if the Dome is a Central Station of the Institute, like a Panel or Center for Command Control (or Command Control Center)? CCC for short? Ok, I'll stop trying to be funny...

Perhaps it could be a subroutine of the factory's software, a program linked to its network and wifi that contains all guidelines and rules that govern the Institute and must be followed and executed to keep it functional - a blueprint if you will - and is in charge of all commands, protocols, activities and operations being compiled and run by its machinery, such as the doll-scanner, the robots, the washing machine, the recycling, the Gauntlet plus the mechanical baby and dog and the Portal, just to name a few.

This means that it'd also take care of overseeing the integrity and performance of said machinery as well as its maintenance. It'd even be responsible for generating clouds and the artificial weather because apparently weather is still a thing, even though the Institute is inside of a factory.

I wonder if this subroutine would be run by an AI or simply an intelligent system/computer program. This world's version of Siri? 🤣

Or maybe I'm greatly exaggerating its function/letting my imagination run wild and it literally only gives Electricity for TV and Institute. Where was I going with this? /were we again?

Morever, it could be a storage unit that contains all collected, analysed and reviewed data regarding the inhabitants of the Institute and their responses, physical or emotional, to certain pre-determined stimuli.

It could also have a list of the factory's Perfection Standards: what consists/constitutes a Perfect Doll / product, its traits...

what can go to the market and which flaws/imperfections can't be ignored/overlooked and have to go to the recycling immediately, kinda like separating fruit/food

To sum up, it's the Institute's "rulebook", but instead of being specifically made for the prototype, it's more expansive and focuses on the Institute as a whole.

After the events of the movie, dolls with engineer role job created phones with recicled parts dangerous/turned the recycling into a good thing/while recycling was turned of and parts are human sized, plenty to spare and create phone since dolls come back now, have free time to assemble the parts and construct them and connected them to the signals/frequency emitted by the dome or they hack/steal or find out the password/'hijack' the signals🤣, use it to make them connect with each other but can't enter the dome without proper authorizations/permissions

Fun fact #2: Lou animatronic, would be a hipocrite if he called the Uglydolls "Ugly" has never seen a Mirror before

•https://www.indigobluepencil.com/ugly

Scroll almost to the middle (pre-planned concepts: dome by TV and washing machine, Big baby, Lou, Mandy, Tuesday and Kitty, Victoria, Perfection Council/of Dolls=board of investors directors reference)

•https://www.scottfassett.com/uglydolls-gallery

Had to restart Two Times... I hope you found this ask both entertaining and informative. Hopefully it'll give you Inspiration for your stories...

Okay, I had to do quite a bit of research and asked someone who knows a lot more about computers than I do.

So, I do agree that the dome has an electronic purpose. It really surprises me that STX animated an entire dome within the Institute and literally spoke nothing of it or what's inside of it. Like, seriously, it's huge and can't just be empty on the inside.

My theory, after some research, is that the inside of the dome is essentially a hard drive computer tower. For you younger folk who weren't raised in a 90's home, here's what I'm talking about:

These things right here used to be what would get hooked up to older Dell/Windows computers. The ones that weighed, like, 50 pounds and took up an entire desk.

Instead of a dvd player (which I didn't get one until maybe 8 years old) I would stick my Kidz Bop cd or movie into that slot at the top and watch the movie on the computer with Video Player.

Count your blessings.

But this is what I believe is inside that dome. These things are what holds the CPU (central processing unit), GPU (graphic processing unit), and stores the memory, data, audio, and everything of the computer.

@natalie-the-writer and I have a running fanon that the company is older. The technology is older, the building is older, and everything is set in a pretty retro time period. So, this hard drive tower is connected to those bulky take-up-all-the-space-on-the-desk-computers.

The GPU in this system is also what control the day/night cycle in the Institute and the weather. It essentially simulates a troposphere and an environment that makes the dolls comfortable and prepared for the Big World.

The CPU is how the data is transferred. Info from the robots is controlled and processed, the Individualization scanners are monitored, the portal is opened and closed, the TV runs, and the holographic tutorials Moxy and her friends see in the beginning are kept on, all of it.

It basically functions as the brain of the Institute, but the sole controller and monitor of it is the CEO (Greyson Everett).

I also like to think that Lou's microchip (another fanon thought between Natalie and I) is also monitored via this hard drive tower. Any information that Lou learns and processes is sent into separate files on the computers back in the company building.

This is why in my Shell-Shock series, when Lou's emotions go south, the Institute begins to get windy when he's hyperventilating or rains when he cries. The ground trembles when he has body tremors and the lights flicker when his powers are used. He is literally connected to the whole Institute because his microchip and its data accidentally grow and manifest themselves into the files of the other Institute functions. His programming basically goes rogue and infects the Institute system like a virus.

I'm veering toward the explanation that results in Lou being the first successful form of Artificial Intelligence. But, for the moment, he is basically acting like a virus and it's not until he learns to control this new system he's connected to that it stops becoming a deadly thing.

[doodleloopsy]

*on the topic of Stone Mountain, GA*

"there's people in the ro–"(Me, in mild awe)

"they're confederates, fuck them." (Dad, immediately)

*Dragon Ball*

"Broly's a Chad." (Bro1)

"oh, he's a certified Chad." (Me)

"he's not a Chad. he's abused." (Bro2)

*on the topic of Disney Speedstorm*

"now hold on. you can make Mike Wazowski all round but his lil girlfriend has corners on her snakes." (Me)

"Vanellope, that is not your cart–" (Me)

"what the frick is this???" (Bro1)

"I'm gonna refresh your soul." (Bro1)

"my soul? I don't think my soul needs to be refreshed, I just got it from dry cleaning." (Me)

"you wanna grow woMEN??? PUT IT IN THE GLASS!!!" (Mom)

"well frankly, I don't give a dAmn. NUT BUSH!!!" (Dad)

"THINK FAST, CHUCKLE NUTS!" *snipes Bro1 in the face with a Frisbee* (Bro2)

"I don't hallucinate. unlike you, I'm straight😃👍🏿" (Bro1)

"I've been confined by the shackles of....MILK." (Bro1)

"wanna watch a movie about drugs and racism?" *shows Zootopia* (Bro1)

"I am but a simple youth.😌" (Bro1)

"are we qualified for such Popery?" (Bro1)

"Bruno never got married, he hid in the walls with his rats." (Me)

"maybe he got married to one of his rats." (Bro1)

"what's the difference between iron and cast iron?" (Bro2)

"iron that's been cast into a shape." (Me)

"..so Iron Man is Cast Iron Man." (Bro2)

"......" (Me)

"you can in fact be bland and spicy." (Me)

"imma tell you like I tell the personification of Europe; salt is not a spice." (Me)

*on the topic of Mr. Salt and Mrs. Pepper's spice kids*

"they didn't sanitize the gene pool." (Bro1)

"Don was a recluse, he hid in holes in the ground like an ostrich. Tiny was also a recluse but she hide in a hole in a tree...like the Lorax." (Me)

[starsweepers]

      SHE HAD MEANT IT TEASINGLY when referencing the failed similarity - of course it was quite obvious that storm wasn’t much like sonic.  other than the joke of speed, the two creatures fell flat in comparisons after that; hence the comment on her side.  still, dawn faltered in engaged confidence with vanellope’s response, hoping she hadn’t come off as DEMEANING in the end of what had been said.  sometimes her bubbly, talkative nature had a way of coming off too strong for others to handle, and the brunette had yet to learn when to reel herself in.  despite everything warm regarding her, it only made it more difficult for her to occasionally make friends of her fellow peers.

            the other reason being the more blatant one.  it wasn’t often that others wanted to w a i t around for dawn to quite literally keep up with adventures.

      “same.”  much quieter, almost thoughtful.  hands twisted around themselves, glancing to her legs splayed and her poles nearby.  how cool would it be to move so speedy…  or even to move normal.  a thought she tried not to dwell on, but it would always be an invasive one at times.  impossible to go through each day without just wondering, if even for a moment.

                    momentary lapse of sorrow was swiftly relinquished as storm was off again.  the child tilted her head as she sorted through some of her internal ponderings.  dawn was w e l l aware as to how blessed she was.  to live in a family that could get her a support canine, that had multiple other pets, a massive house with plenty of beds and a pool and things to play with… two older siblings - one adopted - and two loving and engaged parents.  there were a number of things she was sometimes took for granted, being familiar with it all, only to recollect in moments like this that others weren’t so lucky.

         storm was a black blur, but this time as he retrieved the ball, he bopped it around with his nose some in order to scurry after it along the ground with slobbery excitement.  dawn’s chest bubbled with delighted giggles at the sight.

                   “well, then you can just come and play with storm whenever you like!  or our other pets.  we’ve got a couple so if you like cats, we got those, too!  they don’t do fetch, but they like their feather toys and chasing this little mouse on a string toy we got.  it’s pretty funny to watch them!”

“Ah, Sonic’s a bit more blue than him, too. It wasn’t a perfect match.”

Vanellope shrugged aside the comparison. Not that Dawn’s point wasn’t valid; but she was used to people ignoring or outright not caring for her game-themed nicknames. Analysing whether it fit well or not was a new one for her… and truthfully not something that she ever gave much thought to before using them on a whim.

“’s still impressive, though. Wish I could move as fast as him.”

She could be a speedy little thing in her own right too, when she set her mind to it. But even so, she had a feeling that Storm would leave her in the dust any day, if it ever came down to a race.

Speaking of fast, here he came right back all at once. The small girl bounced excitedly in place; for a moment she thought he might be about to bowl her straight over - and honestly? there were worse ways to go down than that - but he stopped sharply before her. Guess that was part of his assistance dog training, she supposed, learning not to run small kids down.

And he was ready for round two… Vanellope scooped up the ball again, ignoring the way it was slightly slobbery now, raised it ready to throw. A slightly mischievous glint flashed through the child’s eyes as the idea of teasing him with a fake-throw occurred to her, but she held that thought to herself for the current moment. Maybe later; for now she was just enjoying seeing him run.

Her gaze trailed back as her new friend spoke, postponing the throw for a moment. A chuckle escaped the raven-haired girl, albeit a slightly wistful one.

“Yeah, it’s a nice thought, but I don’t see that happening as long as I’m in Mr. Bill’s house. I think I already drive ‘im up the wall when it’s just me; having a dog around too would probably cost him what little hair he has left!”

That response given, she let the ball fly again, spinning its way down the schoolyard once more.

[a-monsters-love]

Hi!! I know this is super dramatic but I was wondering if you’d be willing to write some ✨angst✨ Maybe Todoroki, Hawks, Bakugo Midoriya (take your pick if that’s too many) reacting to their s/o taking a particularly bad hit for them? Enough to knock them out of a fight. If you needed an idea for a quirk, maybe a short burst teleportation quirk? Just an idea! Thanks for taking the time to read this! 🖤

Oh man, I love drama but let’s see if I know how to write angst, and I LOVE THAT QUIRK IDEA. I had a similar idea for a fic that’s been pinned until I get ✨inspiration✨ aND HERE WE ARE. Also thank you so much for the request and for being so polite 💛

The idea I had was inspired by Vanellope von Schweetz from Wreck-It-Ralph, like a glitch quirk. I’m gonna make the 1-A boys pro hero’s for this because it’s so much more work to do it while they’re still in school, I’m cutting Izuku cause I can’t see anything but crying or our feral child in the latest update and oh man it hurts too much.

These are a fraction shorter than I would’ve liked them to be however i wrote them on my phone so they looked longer lmao

——————

[Master List]

Todoroki Shoto:

Hours. It’s been hours since this fight had begun, or so it felt like. You were panting heavily, Shoto watched you stand your ground firmly. You took a deep meditative breath, you smiled softly at him and glitched. You appeared on a window ledge behind the steel villain and went in to distract him while Shoto went to work. He looked around and noticed you were cornering the villain where less civilians were around. The villain turned as if to attack you but made a quick action to attack Shoto off guard, you glitched towards your husband to stop the steel needles from impacting him. “(Y/N)!” He screamed, your hand was so close but the world went black.

Shoto watched as several thick steel needles pierced through your body, you smiled softly at him and you eyes closed before you hit the ground. Tears sizzled before they could run down his cheeks, he saw red and froze the villain quickly. He didn’t care about the repercussions, he didn’t care what would happen, all he wanted was for you to be alive at the end of the day.

He sat there with you in his arms as blood pooled around the two of you staining your respective uniforms. A medic removed you from his arms and he followed silently. He didn’t say anything in the ambulance, he didn’t say anything while you were in surgery, he didn’t say anything as you were transferred to a hospital room.

Days that passed turned into weeks before you opened your eyes, when you did you see his bi-colored hair as he slept snuggled into your arm leaned onto your hospital bed. You smiled softly and pet his hair with you opposing hand, a deep breath leaves you. Shoto stirs and rubs his eyes as he sits up, his left side lights aflame as his emotions run wild. “Hey.” You said, your voice was scratchy and muffled from the oxygen mask.

“Hey.” His voice shook as sat up, he clutched your hand in his and squeezed it lightly. “(Y/N)-  I- you can’t…” His words hitched in his throat.

You sighed and smiled softly again, “I’m sorry, Sho.” Tears left your eyes, you couldn’t imagine how he must feel. “My body just-“ Moved on its own, you chuckled softly at the thought.

He chuckled getting the point of what you were going to say, he kissed your forehead softly. “Try not to do that again…” He nearly whispered the words, you could felt him shaking. You couldn’t promise you wouldn’t do it again, but you could promise to try.

Takami Keigo (Hawks):

You didn’t know how he could flirt while fighting, at first sure it was cute and sure you love him but, “Hawks! Is this really the time?” You tried not to hiss at him blushing in embarrassment and frustration.

He gave his award winning smile, “Of course, Angel! How else am I supposed to keep up morale?” You snorted at his comment and rolled your eyes.

“Focus, Birdy.” You jumped out of the way before colliding with cement being thrown at you. You glitched towards the villain before he could touch the ground again, as soon as you reformed in front of him your stomach felt hot. You coughed up blood and looked down. You materialized into the villains knife, looking back at your boyfriend a tear streamed down your cheek. “Focus…” Your voice was almost a whisper as your body fell towards the earth.

“DOVE!” His cry was almost a screech. Keigo’s eyes narrowed as he sent the last of his feathers towards you to soften your landing. “THAT’S ENOUGH.” He charged towards the villain but your words echoed in his mind ‘focus’. Hawks retrieved his longest feathers that now dripped with your blood, he saw red but kept hearing your words. He made quick work incapacitating the villain before rushing to find you. You’d already been taken into an ambulance and ushered off to the emergency room.

Keigo paced enough to wear a trench into the ground while you were in surgery. He let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding as the surgery sign turned off. He was told to rest by a nurse but refused until he saw you.

You slept for a few days before waking up, when you did he was staring at you wide eyed. He was surprised to see you awake but gods was he relieved. He wore what one might consider pajamas, his sweatpants were pulled up to his knees, his shirt and sweater were disheveled. He had dark heavy bags under his eyes the indicated he wasn’t handling you being out very well. “Angel..” He spoke softly.

You smiled and winced painfully as you adjusted, Keigo stood quickly to help you adjust the lift in the bed. “Hey Birdy..” You coughed out, “You look like hell.”

He rubbed his face and snorted, “Dove. Is this really the time?” He was grateful you could make jokes even while on deaths doorsteps.

You smirked, “How else am I supposed to keep up the morale?” You teased, quoting his comment the day of the fight. You both chuckled softly before silent set in. “I’m sorry Kei, I should’ve been paying more attention.” Your hand grazed over your newest scar.

Keigo goes to say something with a smile but it quickly drops, he looks at his  hands as they shake. “I… I don’t know what I would’ve done with out you…” He glances up at you with misty eyes. “Don’t scare me like that, (Y/N)…”

Guilt sets in your stomach as tears well in your own eyes, “I didn’t mean to-“ You reached out your arms and he climbed into the hospital bed beside you. You pet his hair until he fell asleep, you both knew this was part of being a hero but this was the last thing you wanted.

Bakugo Katsuki:

Just once, just once you’d like to have a normal date with your boyfriend. Sure, you’re both hero’s and sure, it’s not like villains had a schedule you could follow and plan around. Fuck, just once you’d love if King Murder Explosion himself would just let other hero’s handle things themselves.

You glitched around the street collecting and moving civilians, “Ground Zero, the western street is clear!” You shout up to him.

A smirk grows on his lips as he follows your lead, blasting the villain to the street you cleared. You start clearing the surrounding streets as you knew how your boyfriend was, blasty boi couldn’t avoid making a bigger mess than needed. “COME ON! SCARED?” He chided with the villain, edging him on.

The oversized criminal threw an empty car towards Katsuki who blasted it to the ground. Things being thrown and blasted back and fourth continued for a moment when you heard a cry for help. A child, you thought. You look back at the two fighting and glitched towards the sound, you teleported between rubble slowly finding your way to them. “Hey… it’s gonna be alright.” You said in a hushed toned as you found their little hand, glitching them into your arms. “Hey- Hi kiddo, I’m here now.” You pet their hair as the sobbed silently, trekking back to safety.

You could only glitch one person at a time safely, the last thing you needed was to glitch a possibly injured child into having a seizure. “(Y/N)!” You heard Katsuki shout, “LOOK OUT!!” He howled, you looked back too slow and glitched the child to safety.

By the time your quirk confirmed they had materialized safely you were struck in the head with a large chunk on concrete. Everything was dizzying and then black, “Suki..” You mumbled as you hit the ground.

The next explosion was loud, aggressive. Katsuki hadn’t seen that much rage since high school. After everything that happened and then meeting you, you the woman he wanted to marry, gods he saw red. He debilitated the villain in a series of large blasts, bellowing for medics who arrived at the scene. He screamed at them to hurry up and help you, screamed until he was sure it was burned in their brains before fizzling.

The world had never seemed so silent, everything ached. Everything was dull and lifeless as he waited for you to wake up. They claimed you’d be fine, Recovery Girl had come to see you. Now was just a waiting game, Katauki’s patience was thin but he’d wait for you for the rest of his life.

You woke that evening to quiet bickering, you can hear Katsuki on the phone. You assumed it was Kirishima, you smirked thinking about how much your boyfriend has calmed down in the passed years. “No, I couldn’t ask her! You really think I had the time? We’re in the fuCKING HOSPITAL!” He hissed.

You hummed, “..Suki?” You ask, he disconnects the line as soon as he heard your voice and walks over to your bed.

“Why didn’t you teleport to safety?” He jeered.

You sigh and look at the ceiling, “I had a child with me, I couldn’t.” You rubbed your eyes and looked at him. His gaze softened and he sat down.

He sighed and pressed his face into both of his palms, “Today was supposed to be fucking special, I always fuck this shit up.” You hummed in curiosity, a blush crept up his ears.

“Everyday is special with you, Suki. Stop being so hard on yourself.” You chuckle softly.

He looks up and rests his chin on one of his hands, the other reaches into his jacket pocket. He pulled out a small velvety box, “That’s not what I meant...” He huffed and handed you the box.

You sat up awkwardly and took the box, opening it to see a ring set. It was simple but it fit the two of you, tears bubbles up in your eyes. “Katsuki-“ Your voice hitched in your throat and he slouched back in his seat while ruffling his hair. “Of course, oh my god-“ The two of you chuckled and you reached out for him to come closer, you pressed your lips to his for a chaste kiss. “So, who’s idea was it to make you do all the extra frivolousness?” You snort at him and he shot up.

He growled slightly ruffling his hair aggressively, “I KNEW YOU DIDN’T NEED ALL THAT SHIT.” You burst into laughter and groaned at the ache in your head, maybe you could get a day from him to go on a date.

[violethowler]

Death and Separation: Emerging Trends in Pop Culture Franchises

Warning: The following essay contains ending and character death  spoilers for Voltron: Legendary Defender,  How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World, Game of Thrones, and everything released under the Disney umbrella since January 2017. That includes Marvel, Star Wars, and vanilla Disney movies, both animated and live action. 

I’ve noticed a pattern in the last couple of years of media consumption. 

Since 2017, there has been a string of major releases by major companies or networks that featured story decisions that proved controversial with audiences. Now, such things on their own aren’t really a big deal because for the most part there’s always going to be some fans who aren’t satisfied with how a story turned out, regardless of their reasons. 

But what I’m noticing is that there is a pattern to which elements fans are criticizing and why. 

As I became aware of this trend I started looking back at media released in the last few years and noticing that many of these stories were featuring the same plot elements, whether they worked for the story or not: 

One common point I noticed is how many of these franchises have taken morally complicated characters that were popular with audiences, and permanently killed them off in ways which a lot of people have found narratively unsatisfying: 

In Star Wars: Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker, Ben Solo manages to achieve his redemption and turn back to the light after all prior supplementary material showed how Snoke preyed on his feelings of abandonment to groom him into joining the dark side. After being redeemed, his contribution to the story’s climax is being thrown into a pit, where he stays until after Palpatineis defeated, and upon climbing out finds the girl he loves dead. Ben then uses the force to heal Rey and restore her to life, only to immediately kick the bucket himself, after which point the narrative ceases to acknowledge him in any way. 

Loki and his brother Thor reconcile at the end of 2017’s Thor: Ragnarok, only for the film’s post credits scene to herald their encounter with Loki’s former “employer” Thanos. The next time audiences see Loki in the opening minutes of Avengers: Infinity War, he’s strangled to death on-screen by Thanos following a failed assassination attempt before the film’s title card has even appeared. Despite theories that he had faked his death and would return in Avengers: Endgame, the only versions of Loki to appear in the finale of the Infinity Saga are past versions from alternate timelines, with only the characters dusted during Infinity War being brought back to life. 

Gamora escapes from her abusive father figure Thanos in the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie and spends subsequent films building a life for herself outside of Thanos’ toxic influence, with the sequel focusing on her repairing her relationship with her sister Nebula. After being captured by Thanos and forced to bring him to the Soul Stone, Thanos flings her off a cliff to her death when he learns that obtaining the Soul Stone will require him to sacrifice someone he loves, and awakens in a pool of water with the stone in his hand. Despite theories she would be brought back to life in Avengers: Endgame, but like Loki, the only versions of Gamora to appear were from alternate timelines that lacked the dead version’s character development.

Black Widow’s defining character trait across the Infinity Saga has been her desire to eliminate “the red in her ledger” to atone for the things she did when the Red Room had raised her to be an assassin. In Avengers: Endgame, Black Widow sacrifices herself to obtain the Soul Stone in the past to give her close friend Clint Barton a second chance to come back from the brutal path of vengeance the death of his family had set him on, in the same way that he had given her a second chance to build a better life for herself when they first met. 

In Voltron: Legendary Defender’s third season, Prince Lotor is introduced as a morally ambiguous figure with unclear motives. When forced on the run by his tyrannical father, he forms an alliance with the Paladins of Voltron and eventually develops a romance with Princess Allura. In the sixth season, Lotor is accused of mass murder of the survivors of Allura’s destroyed planet and their alliance falls apart. Lotor insists that his intentions for peace are genuine, but his efforts to explain himself fall on deaf ears, and after a battle, is left for dead in the Quintessence Field. The second episode of the final seasons fills in the details of his abusive childhood while showing that despite what he’d suffered, he was genuine in his desire for peace. Seasons 6 through 8 are sprinkled with hints that Lotor was innocent of the crimes he was accused of, but despite Season 8 Episode 6 Genesis depicting him being still alive after four years in the Quintessence Field, the audience is treated to an image of his melted corpse four episodes later, while his abusive mother searches alternate realities for a better version of him.

The first seven seasons of Game of Thrones depict Daenerys Targaryen as someone from an abusive family who was nevertheless determined to rise above her turbulent upbringing and make the world a better place. Over the course of the eighth and final season, her new allies disrespect her, her lover repeatedly betrays her trust, and her advisers not only question her mental stability but immediately attempt to undermine her campaign as soon as a male heir to the throne from her bloodline is presented to them. When her trusted confidant is murdered in the penultimate episode, she snaps and burns large swaths of the capitol to the ground with dragon fire. In the series finale, her remaining advisers convince her lover to kill her for the good of the realm, and her destructive rage is presented as who she always was.  

In the narrative of these characters’ stories, some of these fit with the themes of that character’s story arc. Black Widow sacrificing herself makes sense because of the symmetry with what we know of her backstory. Clint Barton gave her a second chance and guided her back from the dark path she was on when they first met, and in Avengers: Endgame, she returns the favor. Her death, while upsetting to many fans for different reasons, fits within the context of her personal narrative arc from across the last decade of Marvel movies. 

While Daenerys turning into a Mad Queen like her father would still be disappointing to fans hoping to see her disprove the “madness is in the blood” ideas about her family, it wouldn’t have come entirely out of nowhere. The hints that she had the potential to go down that path were there, even if many hoped it would only remain potential. One of the biggest issues is how Season 8 portrayed her descent into madness. Her cruelty towards King’s Landing is treated not as the rage of someone who has been pushed too far, but that this is who she always was. 

Meanwhile Ben Solo’s death came suddenly and abruptly after repeated narrative fakeouts that he came back from. The previous films, novels, and comics had built him up as a victim of abuse and set up audiences to anticipate him breaking free of the Dark Side and finding a happy ending, likely while working to atone for his actions as Kylo Ren. But despite his actor having been promised that Ben Solo’s story would not end the same way that Darth Vader’s did, that was exactly what happened: with the redeemed villain dying to save a person they loved. 

The context may differ, but there is a visible pattern of major genre franchises in the last year taking this type of complicated character and either killing them off when they’re finally in a good place mentally and emotionally, or in the case of Lotor and Daenerys, striping away their happiness to force them into the role of a one-dimensional tyrant and then killing them off. Lotor’s case is even more egregious because there were unanswered questions and inconsistencies surrounding his alleged crimes that after his death were never explained.  

While I doubt the creators of any of these titles set out to intentionally hurt people who identified with these characters, their narrative choices still send very damaging messages. 

These character’s backstories involve them either intentionally or unintentionally set up to fail by the people around them. Where most characters begin with a blank slate, theirs was already written in with expectations, pressure, violence, condemnation, control, manipulation, and/or outright subjugation. Fans young and old find them relatable because of similar rough pasts or trauma, often because or in spite of their grey moral compasses. This type of character resonates with audiences because they represent what it means to be human -  to struggle, to make mistakes, and to have the ability to atone for them in the end. 

Except in recent stories they don’t ever get that chance. Seeing Ben Solo and Lotor and Daenerys and Loki denied a chance at a happy ending tells people who identify with them that they will never find happiness. That their struggle toward the light is doomed to fail and will only end in death. 

And that isn’t the only divisive trend that’s been observed in recent years. Since 2018, there have been sequels and series finales where the characters whose bond was the core of the story go their separate ways either after the conflict has been resolved or as the means to resolve the conflict: 

In the series finale of Star Wars: Rebels, audience viewpoint character Ezra Bridger forces Grand Admiral Thrawn’s Star Destroyer fleet into hyperspace to protect the capital city of his planet Lothal from orbital bombardment. This separates him from his Found Family, and due to their commitments to the rebellion it isn’t until several years later that they set out to find him and bring him home. 

During the course of Ralph Breaks the Internet: Wreck-it Ralph 2, Vanellope von Schweetz becomes enamored with the virtual world of the internet, having grown tired of the routine of her life in the arcade in the five years since the original movie. Ralph’s desire for life to stay the same and his insecurities over losing his best friend drive the plot of the movie, and the conflict is resolved when Ralph learns to let go of his insecurities and respect Vanellope’s wishes. Ralph returns to the arcade while Vanellope remains on the internet, though they stay in touch via video chat.

The series finale of Voltron: Legendary Defender depicts the surviving paladins going their separate ways after the war ends, only meeting up once a year for a memorial dinner to honor Allura’s sacrifice. Lance is depicted with the markings of Allura’s people branded on his face, grieving her as he spends his days working on his family’s farm. Keith returns to the stars to restructure the Blade of Marmora into a peacetime organization. Hunk becomes a galactic chef, while Pidge returns to Earth to build robots at the Garrison. A year after the series, Shiro retires from the job he loves and marries one of the men on the bridge crew for the Atlas. 

In order to protect the dragons of Berk from Grimmel the dragon hunter, Hiccup must send Toothless away so that the Night Fury can lead the Berkian dragons to the safety of the Hidden World. Year later Hiccan and Astrid take their children to the entrance of the Hidden World where they reunite with their dragon friends and their children. 

In order to defeat Thanos and his army, Iron Man uses the Infinity Stones to snap Thanos’ legions out of existence at the cost of his own life. Following Tony’s funeral, Captain America returns the Stones to their original timeline before settling down in an alternate timeline to live a peaceful life with Peggy Carter in the 1940s. After reaching old age, Steve returns to his original timeline and passes the mantle of Captain America on to Sam Wilson along with the repaired shield. Thor abdicates the throne of New Asgard to Valkyrie before setting off to the stars with the Guardians of the Galaxy. Hawkeye returns to the quiet farm life with his wife and children, and the remaining heroes all go their separate ways. 

After the death of Daenerys in the series finale of Game of Thrones, the Westerosi nobility decided to form an elected monarchy, choosing Bran Stark as the next king of the Seven Kingdoms. Sansa returns to Winterfell, where she becomes Queen of the North, while Jon Snow is “exiled” beyond the wall, and Arya sets sail to explore lands west of Westeros. 

In Toy Story 4, Woody is feeling pushed to the side as Bonny plays with him less than she does the other toys. After getting lost on a road trip, Woody is reunited with his lost love, Bo Peep, who has been living alone scavenging from humans rather than being played with by a single child. After rescuing Bonnie’s new toy Forky, Woody and Bo race to get everyone back to the RV before Bonny’s family leaves. Before boarding the RV, Woody ultimately decides to stay with Bo, and he parts ways with the rest of Andy’s toys as the film ends. 

After the previous film was about Maleficent becoming a surrogate mother figure to Aurora, the sequel, Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, is about Maleficent learning to let her daughter grow up and leave the nest. After Queen Ingrid’s crusade against the fairies is thwarted, Maleficent gives her blessing for Aurora’s marriage to Phillip and lets her adopted daughter go. Maleficent returns to the Moors with the promise that she will return when Aurora and Phillip have a child of their own. 

In the course of uncovering and making amends for their bigoted grandfather’s actions against the Northuldra people, Elsa and Anna learn that the rumored fifth spirit that bridges the mortal and the supernatural is actually them and their bond. After breaking the curse on the Enchanted Forest, Elsa abdicated her throne and remains in the forest to continue exploring the full extent of her powers while Anna takes the throne. Thanks to the magic of the other elemental spirits, the sisters remain in constant contact, with Elsa returning to Arendelle for regular visits. 

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker establishes that Ben Solo and Rey are a dyad in the Force - literal soulmates. At the end of the movie, Rey sacrifices her life to destroy Palpatine, and after climbing up from the pit he was tossed into, Ben uses the Force to heal Rey’s wounds and bring her back to life, at which point he immediately dies. After a victory celebration with the Resistance, Rey travels to Tatooine and is last seen burying Luke and Leia’s lightsabers in the sands outside the farm where Luke grew up. 

As with the trend of killing off morally complicated characters, some of these examples work within the context of the film. 

Motherhood was an important element of Maleficent’s arc across the two live action films, and learning to let her daughter leave the nest is a classic lesson in a parental figure’s character arc. 

Hiccup and Toothless parting ways fits with the How To Train Your Dragon series’ focus on protecting the dragons and the animal conservation message that comes with that. 

Ezra being separated from his found family at the end of Rebels was a way to maintain Luke Skywalker’s status as the only Jedi working for the rebellion in the original movies without permanently killing Ezra off, and the show’s writers left the door open for a potential sequel focused on Sabine following his trail to bring him home. 

Other examples, however, do not align with the themes of their respective franchises. 

Game of Thrones spent several seasons focusing on the surviving Stark children as they find their way back to each other. Sending them all in different directions at the end feels disappointing and pointless after they had finally been reunited in the previous season. 

The Paladins of Voltron finding their own careers after the war that take them to different parts of the galaxy but still making the effort to consistently stay in contact makes sense in theory, but with the death of Allura it comes across as if her passing broke the team apart. 

While the original Avengers going their separate ways to let a new generation of heroes step into the limelight seems like an organic conclusion to the Infinity Saga, Captain America’s ending in particular feels like a regression. His character arc across his previous solo films has been about moving forward, and Endgame concludes with him literally going backward. 

It’s been common for fan complaints over these story elements to be directed mainly at the people directly responsible for making each project - the showrunners, the movie directors, the script writers…… But I couldn’t help but notice just how many of these examples for both trends fell under the Disney umbrella.

And then I remembered that Infinity War, Endgame, and The Rise of Skywalker all had reshoots done at some point in the production process. 

It really makes me wonder how much of these disliked story decisions were really the individual directors’ and showrunners’ decisions and how much were mandated by someone higher up the ladder. And I can’t help but notice the demographics of the people in charge of these companies and the people affected by them. 

The demographics of fans that enjoy morally complicated characters and want them to have a happy ending, that enjoy stories where the the characters who bonded over the course of the story stay together after their mutual goal is achieved, are from what I’ve observed predominantly made up of women, LGBTQ+ people, disabled people, nonwhite people, and people with mental illnesses. 

And most of the people in charge of these story decisions are cis, straight, neurotypipcal, able-bodied white men. The CEO of Disney... The showrunners of Game of Thrones….. Voltron’s a little more complicated because while Dreamworks made the show they didn’t own the franchise, but the Voltron IP owner is a straight white male.  

These stories are controlled by straight white men, and the audiences that have the biggest negative reactions to these story decisions are women, LGBTQ+ people, and POC. 

Companies may talk about having more diversity on camera and behind the camera, but the people at the top of the corporate hierarchy - the ones with the money and therefore the ultimate control over what gets released to the public - are for the most part the same demographic as they've always been.

And all of these show finales and movies have been released within the last four years, as fandom spaces and American public discourse in general have become increasingly polarized into a black and white mentality with no room for nuance. Where someone can only be either a perfect ally or an offensive oppressor. This trend in killing off morally complicated characters in ways that don’t always work for their character arc has also coincided with the rise of fandom’s pearl clutching over moral purity and whether a villain or anti villain “deserves” a redemption arc. 

Your first instinct will probably be to dismiss what I’m suggesting, insisting that these are just shows and movies and that they don’t matter. That it’s Not That DeepTM. But more often than not the media we consume is a reflection of the world around us. And we are seeing a pattern that as fandom becomes increasingly obsessed with purity and enforces a “one strike and you’re a monster” mentality, the major franchises of pop culture are producing stories where people who aren’t clear-cut Pure Good Heroes or Pure Evil Villains die. 

Also, dismissing people’s thoughts about the social messages of a movie or show, insisting that we’re wrong for saying that something doesn’t fit with the story so far, is part of the problem. Having critics and other fans praising the stories we feel hurt by and dismissing our criticisms as, for example, whiny shippers mad that our favorite pairings didn’t happen, has a very stifling, damaging effect. It tells us over and over again that this is the way that stories are supposed to be, and that there is something weird, broken, wrong with us for not being satisfied with stories that break up the Found Family or kill off your morally messed up fave regardless of whether it actually makes sense for the story. 

It leaves us isolated and alienated from wider fandom discussions because we’re told it again and again until we internalize it that we’re in the wrong. That people just don’t want to make the kinds of stories we want to see. That we’re paranoid for suspecting that there is a pattern when we see this happen over and over. But it’s clear from the way that some creators have acted - going from excitedly promoting their work to complete silence after the initial disappointment over the finale - that there are creators who want to tell those kinds of stories, but they are being silenced. They are being forced to change the stories they wanted to tell because someone in charge didn’t like that kind of story, and because of their NDAs are forced to either keep silent, or lie and take credit for decisions that weren’t theirs. 

It’s easy to dismiss these story decisions as a coincidence. To believe that all of these creators made similar decisions on their own. That they just fucked up a beautiful story on their own with no intervention from someone higher up the corporate ladder. It’s a comforting option. It makes us feel like our criticisms have an impact. Because the alternative? That creators can and have been forced to change their stories because the person at the top doesn’t think that it’ll sell well if it doesn’t cater to the demographic they consider most important? That’s terrifying. 

[milkshakekitty]

Ok so since I don't want to emotionally scar my friends again I'm putting a warning here

Because this is much, much worse than the sad Van doodles

You've been warned

I'm not very good at writing angst at all, but this idea hit me like a truck and I had to write it

I hate this and I hate myself :)

Did I uh- did I mention there’s a character death in this? There...is

The waiting room was cold.

Vanellope shivered, despite Felix's warm arm around her and the hoodie she wore every day.

The soft teal fabric was usually a comfort in times of distress, but now it did nothing to make her feel better.

It felt like they'd been sitting in this freezing, sterile waiting room forever, just sitting uselessly on these stupid, uncomfortable chairs while they did...whatever it was they were doing to Ralph.

That was what scared her the most.

She didn't know what was happening. She had no clue what those terrible doctors were doing to her favorite person in the world.

He was her Ralph.

He was her papa.

And it wasn't fair that they got to take him away from her.

He was all Vanellope had, and just like that, they took him.

She didn't notice the moisture begin to pool in her eyes until she felt something drip onto her hand.

"H-huh?"

Vanellope looked down at the first drop for a stunned moment, but it was soon joined by a second, and a third.

And a fourth and a fifth, and after that she lost count, her vision too blurry to see anything anymore.

"Oh Vanny," Felix whispered, looking like he was teetering on the verge of tears himself.

She didn't notice the arm around her vanish, but she did notice when she was lifted out of her seat and into someone's arms.

But she didn't care. It didn't matter.

King could've just picked her up for all she cared.

Nothing in the world mattered to her right then except Ralph.

She immediately buried her face in the handyman's chest, her little hands clutching fistfuls of his shirt.

Felix exchanged a heartbroken look with his wife, who put her arm around him much like he had for Vanellope before.

"It's...it's gonna be ok, Vanny," he choked, barely believing himself but forcing the words out.

He patted her back in what he hoped would be a comforting gesture, wishing he could stop the little girl's hot tears soaking his shirt and seeping right into his heart.

Felix shushed her, feeling the guilt immediately stab him every time he lied and said it's alright or Ralph's gonna be ok or we'll see him soon. Because he could say that as much as he wanted. But that didn't make it true, as much as he wished it did.

But just as he started to tell her that it was ok for what felt like the thousandth time, a man in a white coat came out of a set of double doors and up to Felix.

Wordlessly he stood up, gently settling Vanellope in his wife's arms as he took a deep breath, leaving to go talk to the doctor.

The little girl looked up at Calhoun.

"Tammy?" she asked, her voice small.

"Yeah kid?"

"Am I...having a nightmare?"

Calhoun wanted to be able to say she was. She wanted to be able to tell Vanellope that yes, she was having the worst nightmare of her life. She wanted to tell her that she would wake up soon, and when she did Ralph would be there, safe and well. And she could crawl up into his bed and snuggle up right by his side and everything would be ok.

But she couldn't, and that hurt more than she imagined anything could.

"No," she whispered, unable to lie to the child, "you're not having a nightmare."

You're living one, she thought, shutting her eyes tight so she wouldn't have to see those watery, pleading eyes anymore.

"Ok," she said simply.

But Calhoun opened her eyes when she felt the little girl climb off her lap and start running to Felix.

"Vanellope!" she cried, running after her, but she couldn't catch her before she reached the two men and overheard the worst two words she could ever imagine.

"...he's gone."

The child stopped in her tracks, her blood running cold.

Vanellope felt like she was being crushed by some unseen force.

A million thoughts began racing through her head, thoughts no nine-year-old should ever have to think.

But she banished them, shaking her head fervently.

"N-no. You're wrong," she told the men, who had realized her presence too late.

"Vanny honey," Felix tried with all his might to stop his tears, "He's- he's telling the truth."

"No!" she cried, frantically looking around as if Ralph would appear if she denied it enough times.

"R-Ralph's fine! He's ok! He's g-gotta be!"

"Kid," Calhoun placed a hand on her shoulder, looking as if even she was finding it hard to hold it together.

"No!" she recoiled from the touch.

"He- he can't be!" she looked pleadingly up at the doctor.

"He's ok, right? My p-papa's ok?"

The doctor looked into her distraught eyes, but he couldn't lie to her.

He shook his head somberly.

"But you took him! You w-were supposed to fix him!"

"Vanellope-"

"No!" she wailed, "They took him aw-way from me!"

The man took his leave then. Nothing he could say could take away her pain. After all, she was right. He had taken her papa away from her.

After he left she tried to go through the double doors herself, to prove them all wrong. Ralph was alright, he had to be. If she could just walk through those doors he'd be there, he'd be fine. He'd give her that crooked smile and open his arms for her and hold her until all of this went away.

But when she pulled the door handle...

nothing happened.

The door was locked.

The stupid door was locked.

This stupid, stupid horrible door was the only thing separating her from Ralph, and if she could just get it open he'd be ok.

Vanellope hit the door, beating her tiny fists against it with all her might, until they began to ache.

Because all this pain wouldn't matter when she finally got past it, when she saw Ralph's smiling, alive face on the other side.

They were wrong, all of them. She had to show them.

This couldn't happen to her Ralph, her hero.

It just couldn't.

She didn't know how long she'd been desperately trying to get the door open. She could've been at it for hours, or for seconds. Nothing mattered to her.

Nothing except Ralph.

She couldn't feel the pain in her hands anymore, or the tears still streaming down her face.

But all of a sudden she did feel a set of arms wrap around her torso, picking her up effortlessly.

Vanellope cried out, immediately starting to struggle in the sergeant's hold.

"N-noOoOo!" she howled, trying to wriggle out of Calhoun's arms.

"Kid stop!" the woman snapped, despite her own tears.

"He's gone," she whispered hoarsely.

She shook her head again.

"No. He's-he's not," she whimpered, even as realization began to dawn on her.

Now it was Calhoun's turn to shake her head.

"P-please Tammy," she stuttered, "he can't be-"

"I'm sorry, Vanellope," she held the little girl tightly to her chest.

"No, please-" she reached for the doors, even as she was being led away from them.

If she let them take her away from those doors it would all be real.

She'd never see Ralph smile at her again, or hear his terrible jokes, or have to pretend to like his burnt pie, even while she fed it to Buttercream when he wasn't looking.

They'd never get to go to the arcade together, or laugh at dumb movies, or build pigloos, or prank Gene.

He'd never ruffle her hair, or give her a bear hug, or tuck her in at night, or let her sleep with him when there was a thunderstorm.

Ever again.

"Please Tammy, please!" Vanellope sobbed, trying desperately to grip the door's handles, holding onto the last bit of hope that maybe, just maybe, there would be a chance to do all of those things again, if she could just open the door.

But she wasn't strong enough, and just like that, the handle was ripped away from her.

Just like Ralph.

Vanellope let out a scream, the most heartbroken howl Felix and Calhoun had ever heard, one that would haunt them forever.

"I want my papa!"

[sanderssidesfanfiction]

We’ll Carry On - Chapter Twenty Six

We’ll Carry On Tag

General Content Warnings: Sympathetic Deceit Sanders, Substance Abuse, Abandonment, Minor Character Death, Transphobia, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Dissociation, Bullying, Homophobia

October 5th, 2009

“I saw a dog at school today,” Jessica said idly as her parents drove her home.

“Oh?” her mom asked.

“Yeah,” she said. “It was huge! Like, at least two and a half feet tall. Suzie said that her family breeds dogs for money. I thought that was kinda cool.”

Her dad grumbled. “We’re not getting a dog,” he muttered.

Jessica blinked. “I didn’t say that I wanted one. I don’t want a dog. I just thought it was cool that you can get money for raising dogs.”

Her dad glanced back at her. “Don’t come to me saying that you want one of those mutts. All they do is make noise and trouble,” he declared.

Jessica nodded, although she wondered why her dad was so against the thought of dogs.

June 13th, 2019

Logan kept the money in his wallet, and resisted the urge to fidget and adjust his sports bra. He looked enough like a guy to pass to strangers on the street, and he wasn’t even nervous about being called “Miss” for once. No, he was nervous because he, Roman, Patton, Virgil, and Dee had pooled their allowances together and saved for months to get a dog. And today was the day they were walking through the parking lot to the shelter.

“You have the fifty dollars for the adoption fee?” Roman asked for the umpteenth time.

“Yes,” Logan said.

“And the money for the food when we go to the pet store after?” Patton pestered.

“Yes,” Logan repeated.

“And the extra money for a bed and treats?” Virgil pressed.

“Yes! Brothers, I have the money. It’s not like it could have gone anywhere from my wallet on the way from home to here,” Logan said, thoroughly exasperated.

Dee tugged on the bottom of Logan’s shirt, and Logan looked down, quirking an eyebrow.

“Do you know what kind of dog you want?” Dee asked, signs somewhat timid.

“Hey, this dog is for you guys. I’m pitching in the money for the food because you needed it,” Logan said softly. “I’m not picky about what kind of dog we get so long as it can’t knock me down when I’m coming home from school.”

Dee nodded. “But what kind of dog do you want?” he asked, grinning.

Logan rolled his eyes at Dee’s antics and said, “I read up on good emotional support dog breeds. Pitbulls were on the list, as well as labradors, golden retrievers, and Cavalier King Charles Spaniels. Though why they need such a long name is beyond me.”

They walked into the shelter and Logan was assaulted with the sounds of dogs barking, the smell of wet animal fur, and he saw more than a few kids running around with small animals on leashes. He walked with the rest of their rag-tag group up to the counter, where a young woman who couldn’t be any more than five years older than Logan himself was sitting. “Can I help you?” she asked cheerfully.

Remy and Emile looked to the boys, and every last one of them looked to Logan. He rolled his eyes. “We’re here because we’d like to adopt a dog,” he informed her.

“Certainly!” the woman said. “Follow me, I’ll show you the dogs up for adoption.”

Roman, Patton, and Virgil eagerly followed the woman, while Logan and Dee hung back a little bit but stuck with the group. They were led to a back room where dozens of dogs were all barking and approaching the gates keeping them inside. Dee immediately looked overwhelmed, and Virgil shuffled closer to Patton at the sudden onslaught of noise. “Do you know what kind of dog you’re looking for?” the woman asked over the barking.

“No, we didn’t have a specific breed in mind,” Logan shouted back. “But we were hoping for an adult dog, preferably already house trained.”

The woman nodded. “All the puppies are at the front, so you’ll want to head farther back.”

Logan nodded and moved further in, looking at all the dogs. Dee held his hand and Logan rubbed his thumb over Dee’s knuckles. “See any you like?” he asked his youngest brother.

Dee looked around, clearly nervous. Not that Logan blamed him, some of these dogs were almost as tall as Dee was.

“Should we look further back for a smaller dog?” Roman offered.

Patton and Virgil readily agreed, and they all moved further into the hall. Back here, the dogs were barking less. Dee felt a little more comfortable and moved further away from Logan, to look at the dogs closer. There were a few bigger ones, but none of his brothers seemed interested in a dog that could bowl them over. Even Roman, tall as he was, could be flattened by an over-excited retriever. And no one wanted that.

Patton and Virgil started talking when Virgil paused in looking, and they immediately headed over to one of the kennels with a small dog with large brown ears. Roman followed and actually cooed at the dog he saw. “Logan, Dee, get over here! This dog is adorable!”

Logan followed their footsteps and saw the dog that enchanted them so much. It was clearly a spaniel mix, sitting at the door to the kennel, patiently wagging its tail. Dee cautiously stepped toward the kennel door and held his hand out, and the dog took an experimental sniff before it licked Dee’s hand. Dee’s eyes widened comically wide. Logan knew that every last one of his brothers were smitten with this one. Not that he didn’t understand why.

The dog had a brown fur all over its face, save for a white stripe going down from the forehead to around the muzzle. It had a mottled mix of brown and white fur all over its body, and it had yet once to bark. Logan crouched down next to Dee, reading the small sign on the cage. The dog was a spaniel mix, and her name was Vanellope. “Hello, Vanellope,” Logan said to her.

Vanellope barked back, once.

“Vanellope? Like the Disney character?” Roman asked.

“I would assume so,” Logan said with a shrug. “Although I can’t say for certain, as I wasn’t the one to name her.” He pointed at the sign.

Roman took a closer look at it and made a huh noise. “Cool. One girl in an all-guy house, though, that’ll be something for her.”

“I think she’ll live,” Logan said drily. He waved the woman over and asked, “Do you guys want to see any of the others, or are we getting Vanellope?”

Roman said, “No, I’m good,” as Patton and Virgil cried out that they couldn’t leave Vanellope here.

Everyone looked at Dee and he cleared his throat a couple times, before his voice came out in a trembling, “I want Vanellope.”

Logan nodded and turned to the young woman. “I think we’ve made our decision,” he said, flashing her a grin. “My brothers can be very...particular, and they’ve made their choice.”

“They made a good choice,” she said, pulling out a key and unlocking Vanellope’s kennel. “Vanellope is a very calm dog. She’s just over two years, so she’s got a good seven years left minimum, provided you take good care of her.”

Vanellope walked out of the cage and started licking Dee’s hand, and he looked so overwhelmed with love that there were tears in his eyes. “You okay, Dee?” Logan asked.

Hesitatingly, with shaking hands, Dee signed, “I love her.”

“Yeah?” Logan asked with a laugh. “I’d say she loves you, too.”

Dee sniffled and nodded. Dad and Ami were looking on with equal mixes of amusement and fondness. “Can we buy leashes and other supplies here as well?” he asked.

“You can get basic supplies, yes,” the woman said. “If you need dog food, though, you’ll have better luck at the pet store.”

“That’s our next stop,” Logan said. “But we didn’t know what kind of dog we’d get, so we’ll need at least a leash.”

The woman nodded. “A leash and a collar will cost about fifteen dollars for the cheapest ones we have. They should last a couple months, though, provided she doesn’t chew through the leash.”

“What about the more durable ones?” Logan asked, pulling out his wallet and counting their money. “We can afford up to thirty dollars for a stronger leash and collar. Everything else is the adoption fee, a bed, and food and toys.”

“You’re very put together,” the woman complimented.

Logan smiled at the praise. “I’m the oldest of five. I have to be.”

The woman laughed. “If your brothers want to continue playing with her, I can help you with the papers while they get acquainted?”

Logan nodded and she led him to a back room, where he chose a light green leash and collar, both of them easily adjustable in length and sat down with the woman, signing all the papers where he could. When he needed a guardian’s signature, being a minor, Dad came in and finished what needed to be signed. He shooed Logan away, back to his brothers. “You’re going to want to make sure she’s on the leash before they leave with her,” he teased.

“Right,” Logan said, walking back out, where the others were still playing with Vanellope.

“Vanellope,” Logan said, walking over and putting the collar around her neck, “Welcome to the Picani family.”

As if she understood what was going on, Vanellope started wiggling happily, tail wagging at close to lightspeed. Logan made sure the leash was secure and played with her ears. “You’re gonna love it with us,” he said definitively.

Dee was crying again and Roman had an arm wrapped around him. Patton was crying a little too, and Virgil was beaming. Logan begrudgingly smiled as Vanellope walked into his lap. “You’re annoyingly cute,” he informed her.

She barked once, continuing to wiggle.

Roman looked at Logan. “Is she ours?” he asked.

Logan nodded once. “She’s ours as soon as Dad signs the last of the papers.”

“She’s yours,” Dad said, walking out of the back office.

Roman threw his hands up in victory, and Patton hugged Vanellope, who was still wagging her tail. Dee just bounced happily from where he sat, and Virgil had one of those rare, genuinely happy, anxiety-free smiles on. Logan grabbed Vanellope’s leash and said, “Let’s go to the pet store, get her a bed and some food and toys, sound good?”

All the boys nodded and stood. Logan didn’t miss the proud looks Dad and Ami were sharing, but he didn’t let the other boys know about it. This was something all of them were proud of. If they wanted to be proud of their sons for taking it on themselves to get what they wanted, well, who was Logan to stop them? This was something they deserved to be proud of.

As they left the shelter, Vanellope seemed to get even more excited, bouncing and looking around, sniffing everything within the range of her leash. When everyone got in the minivan, Vanellope sat on Logan’s lap on the way to the pet store. And while he internally lamented that he would probably need to invest in a lint roller to deal with dog fur, he couldn’t help the smile that crossed his face as Vanellope saw fit to start licking his face. She was truly annoyingly cute.

They got to the pet store and made quick work of finding the food, a bed, and a crate. They spent more time on the toys, and looked into the different treats Vanellope might want. She was well behaved, rarely barking at anything, and Logan was impressed with her previous owner. Clearly, she had either taken obedience classes or the owner was very good at training dogs themselves.

Dee was constantly crouching down to Vanellope and petting her, mumbling “Good dog,” under his breath over and over. Vanellope seemed to like it.

Roman whispered to Logan, “Is that the echolalia thing or is it Dee just getting really attached really fast?”

Logan glanced at Dee, still wearing his “villain gloves” and playing with their new companion. “Something tells me it’s both,” he told Roman.

Roman nodded. “Hey, Dee?” he asked.

Dee looked up.

“Is ‘good dog’ a good repeat phrase?” Roman asked.

Dee nodded, and Roman grinned. “Is it okay if I say it with you?”

Again, Dee nodded, smiling a little himself. “Good dog,” he said softly.

Roman laughed and said, “Good dog!” right back.

The two continued saying it over and over until Logan was cracking a smile and Patton and Virgil were giggling themselves. They continued through the buying of supplies, and on the car ride back home, and once they were back at their place, Roman helped take Vanellope off her leash, saying, “Welcome home, Vanellope. You’re a good dog.”

[askdawnandvern]

WT: I'm not sure if this is aimed at me, or the characters as I have answered Disney questions like this with both and to be honest it all starts to smear together...especially with Tumblr's awful archive system. That said, I suppose I'll take the reins on this one.

Does the 'person you least suspect' villian count as a concept? Because it should come as no surprise to you guys I'm kind of exhausted of that trope already. If i wasn't...hell this blog and story series probably wouldn't exist. But I mean twist villians, or black and white villiany can be kinda boring. While I haven't seen Wreck it Ralph 2, I can applaud it for going a different route for an 'antagonist', but based on my knowledge of the rest of the film, the whole thing didn't mesh well anyway. My biggest problem when it comes to concepts for stories and worlds is not exactly the concepts themselves, but when they are kind of wasted or squandered. Wreck-it Ralph makes for another good example here because you have this vast pool of video game-related content to pull from, and yet the sequel is built largely around the internet aspect of it. I also kind of fear a Zootopia sequel won't do much to explore the world that much deeper so much as kind of keep the focus on Nick and Judy. Not that it's necessarily bad, but I mean in terms of worlds that could have had a series devoted to them on Disney Plus or Television, I would have thought Zootopia would have been a better choice than say Monster Inc or The Lion King. There could be a lot of different types of mammal's lives and habitats to imagine and explore, but nope, no show. And no news on Z2 either. Oh, I also really hate “Will they, won't they” show plots. Like two characters in the show, the people keep hinting at getting together but then keep having them say no, or whatever stuff like that. The most recent example I can think of is Aggretsuko, a show that I generally love aside from the 'Retsuko x Hiada' teasing. It's boring, and been done to death, and the longer stuff like that goes on in a show “See; Futurama” The more it starts to actively detract from enjoying the series. Just put them together, and start having episodes about the troubles of building a stable relationship, or scrap it and have them pursue other characters.

I don't really have any songs I hat in the Disney collection, but I've never been a big musical guy. So it's more indifference aside from a few specific songs like 'Be Prepared', 'Shiny' or any of the “Nightmare Before Christmas” stuff.

Characters...hmm...I keep coming back to god damn wreck it ralph for some reason, but I hate Vanellope. That might be more because I hate Sarah Silverman though. Also, Olaf from Frozen, because he really wasn't needed. Although the same argument could be made for Hans. Neither of them made the film any better. In fact, the first frozen was a good example of a film that had an antagonist in more so the events, and didn't need an actual 'antagonist', but I guess somebody thought they needed to cram one in somewhere.

I could probably go on forever, but this paragraph is already dense enough. Hope that was what you were looking for.

[thelonelyperson2025]

Vanellope On her Safety Seat Kids boat with Safety on in the pool on a Rainy Day

[yourfaveiscripplepunk]

Vanellope Von Schweetz (Wreck-it Ralph) is Cripplepunk

[image description: an animated young girl with her black hair in a ponytail tied up with a pink ribbon, she is wearing a green hoodie, a dark plaid skirt, with leggings where one leg is green and white diagonal stripes and the other side is white, red, and green horizontal stripes. She is wearing black boots and has bits of candy in her hair. She is standing in a land of candy, there is a pool of something green and sweet behind her with gumdrops floating, there are chocolate sticks in the background and the bottom of a giant candy cane. We can also see a cake like hill in the background. End.]

Vanellope Von Schweetz is a character from an arcade game named Sugar Rush which exists in the Wreck-It Ralph universe. Unlike the other characters, she has an issue called “the glitch”, she glitches in her movements and speech, where she flags different colours and turns into television static. Within the world created in the film, this makes her disabled. In the beginning of the movie, she is subjugated for this, and they do not allow her to race. She keeps fighting for the ability to however, and in the end, with the help of Ralph is able to. This is clearly a metaphor for ableism. Once she can race, she appears in the game for children to choose, with her glitch being her superpower, and what makes her a fan favourite. We see in the sequel film, Wreck-It Ralph 2, that her glitching gets worse when she’s stressed, like many disabilities. What it correlates to specifically in our world is up to interpretation, I personally see it as Cerebal Palsy. Vanellope Von Schweetz is a rebellious girl who never gives up on her dreams, which is the epitome of punk. Vanellope Von Schweetz is cripplepunk.

[make-it-mavis]

Cousin-in-Law (part 1)

Wreck-it Ralph fic ('Mavis Lives' AU) 6006 words Drama Characters: Make-it Mavis, Felix, Calhoun, (Ralph and Vani briefly) Content Warnings: dirty jokes/language, brief violent imagery

Premise: Turbo died, Mavis survived. She was sentenced to life imprisonment in her old game. Felix and Calhoun are engaged to be wed, and Mavis is none-too-pleased about it. Following one of her chaotic whims, she decides to crash their date night and properly meet her cousin-in-law to be.

------------------------------------------------------------

It was late summer, with 2013 well underway. Gamers young and old were still braving the Californian August heat to come play their days away, bleeding quarters in Litwak’s inviting air conditioning. But there was a finality to it. Soon, September would rear its inevitable head, and with a large portion of the customers occupied with school and homework, daytime business would slow down, attracting mostly adults hoping to get some kid-free arcade time. Sprites who worked the arcade games had divided feelings on the season changing. Some preferred the kids, the hustle and bustle, the full work days. Others liked the quieter adults, the vacation from mayhem, the chance to relax a bit. Some honestly did not care either way.

For the most part, Make-it Mavis was in the third column. No longer being involved in gameplay at all, it hardly made a difference to her day-to-day. Slower business only really meant that her cousin, Fix-it Felix Jr., might have had more time between gamers to visit with her, which was both good and bad in its own right.

Really, as the year crawled on, her thoughts only turned more to the approach of November, and with it, the anniversary of her life crumbling around her.

Now imprisoned in her original game, a life sentence for a life of crime and cruelty, she made an effort to hang onto the last companionship she had. She and Felix might have been very different and not always seen eye to eye, but she believed he was the last sprite alive, or at least, the only one she could see anymore, who really loved her. Several times in her thirty years, life had made a point of teaching her not to take that for granted. While she may not have been ready to fully open her heart to someone again, she could at least spend time with him.

So, on a Thursday night, just a couple hours after the arcade closed, Mavis sat with Felix at a quaint, round table in his brightly lit, yellow apartment that barely seemed different from when she last saw it in the 90’s. They each had a plate of delicious cherry pie taken from a quarter-empty tin in the middle of the table, although Mavis had barely touched hers, and Felix had around half left, having slowed down to be polite. They had been talking -- that is, Felix had been talking. In their visits, Mavis had preferred to listen, only piping in now and again. There just seemed so little to say. They had lived in two worlds completely apart from each other for fifteen years, so they both had plenty of stories to tell. But at least Felix’s stories were not supremely awkward for Mavis to hear. She could not have said the same for the other way around.

Besides, any distraction from the grief was a good one. Even if he did tend to ramble.

“But, as it turns out,” he said to her, taking a moment to eat a single cherry, “as it turns out -- my toolbox? It was buried in Duck Hunt the entire time.” His brows raised and his fingers spread out a bit, putting extra oomph behind the underwhelming reveal.

“No way,” she flatly humored him, still managing a half-smile.

“I know,” he said, sharply gesturing at nothing. “By golly, I never would’a found it if Ralph didn’t confess. Needless to say, I unfortunately had to have Mr. Peepers banned--”

“Aw.”

“Yes,” he sighed, delicately picking up his cup of coffee with both hands. “But at least our ducks have felt a whole lot safer since. I don’t think they’ve ever forgiven Ralph for letting a dog in.”

Mavis would have liked to point out that the Dev-forsaken wrecking ball did not deserve forgiveness in any form, but she bit it back. There was no point.

Felix sipped his coffee and gingerly placed it back down on its coaster. “Anyhow, Mavy,” he lightly clapped his hands on his lap. “If you’d like to finish that pie, now’s the time. My lady-love will be arriving shortly.”

She smiled vacantly. Yes, his lady-love. His freshly caught towering beast of a woman. Tamora Calhoun, protagonist of the game where those metal insectoid hellspawn came from. Mavis would still have a life, if Calhoun’s game was never plugged in. Mavis was not a fan.

To make things even better, she would soon be her cousin-in-law.

“Loud n’ clear,” she sighed lowly. In one fell swoop, she took the piece of pie in her hand and shoved the entirety of it in her mouth, only missing a few crumbs and smears of syrup. As she swallowed parts whole and chewed the rest, she looked to Felix, who was now the one wearing a vacant smile.

“Is it good?” he asked quietly, passing her a napkin. She took it and wiped the mess from her mouth.

“Mm,” she grunted through a dangerously full mouth. “So good.”

She then stood, gulping down the contents of her mouth and straightening her clothes. “Well, I guess I’ll be takin’ my leave,” she drew her brush from its golden holster and stepped towards the window. Felix got up and strode over.

“Thank you for coming, as always, Mavy dear,” he sang, a real smile on his face.

Having trouble accepting the smile, she let her gaze wander from him. Still, she found enough manners in herself to smile back, at least a bit. “Yeah, yeah,” she muttered. “Thanks for the pie. As always.”

“You take care of yourself, now,” he instructed. “Take it easy.”

“Felix, chill. I’ll be fine,” she said, hinting with a couple scoots toward the window. “Worry about your fiance, yeah?”

His smile showed a hint of uneasiness. “Of course,” he mumbled. There was a brief pause, and Mavis knew very well that this would have been the point where he hugged her. But by some miracle, he had learned to respect her boundaries. 

He, of course, did not know that she had overcome her touch aversion as Pyrite. But for whatever reason, hugging him was still hard, so she would reveal that fact to him later.

In lieu of a hug, she lightly punched him in the shoulder. He flinched a bit and rubbed it, but took the gesture with a strained grin. As she sat on the window sill, she nodded to him. “Seeya, Felix.”

“Bye-bye Mavy,” he waved a tiny bit. Just then, there was a knock at the door. He leapt up like a spring, suddenly fully beaming. “Oh! That’ll be her! I hate to shoo you off, Mavy, but--”

“I’m out,” she rolled her eyes as she swung her legs around to dangle them outside the window, off the height of Niceland that once seemed so tall, but after visiting the royal chambers of the candy castle so many times, it barely seemed a foot off the ground.

That was when an unsavory sound reached her ears, and movement caught her eye. Down below, on the massive expanse of bricks, rubble, and garbage, Wreck-it Ralph and his new friend Vanellope Von Schweetz were goofing off. It looked like they were rooting through the trash, pulling up random items and showing each other or throwing them at each other. They looked to be having a hell of a good time, as Ralph got up and started chasing the kid around with a big fistful of garbage. There were flashes of blue as she glitched and dodged. Their laughter and shouts seemed to echo through the whole game.

Mavis’ knuckles turned white as her fingers curled into claws under the windowsill. Deep, visceral hatred shook her insides, and instantly, she felt sick. It was their fault. It was all their fault. Almost nightly, she dreamed of taking revenge for the life they brutally murdered. She dreamed of the twig-like snap of that glitch’s puny neck, of letting that hulking ape bleed out slowly, feeling the warmth of his blood pooling at her feet.

Those dreams soothed like nothing else.

But, seeing as Sugar Rush needed a ruler, and seeing as Ralph could not die in his game, and seeing how being in the same vicinity as them, but unable to act, felt like psychological torture…

Felix’s voice called from inside the apartment, proddingly, “Goodbye, now, cousin-o’-mine!”

Impulse took over.

“Y’know what?” she said sharply, turning to crawl back inside. Felix had frozen just a few feet from the door. Mavis smiled with her eyes. “I’ll stay.”

“Wh-Wh-Wh-” he stammered, looking at her like she suddenly transformed. Mavis had no doubt that he secretly wanted her to leave so that he could have alone time with his ‘lady-love’ -- a perfectly reasonable thing to want. But he would just have to wait.

“I just figure it’s time I meet my future cousin-in-law,” she stepped fully into the apartment again, holstering her brush. Then she paused, and shrugged, aiming right for his weak spot. “Y’know, unless… you don’t want me here.”

There was another knock. Felix screamed a bit inside his mouth.

“No, no, that sounds fine and dandy, Mavy,” he said, rushed, through gritted teeth. He then elected to not keep his love waiting, and bound over to open the door. Mavis rested a hand on the back of her previous chair, quietly observing the exchange.

The woman was so damn tall, she had to duck her head a bit to see inside. Of course, her eyes were immediately on Felix, who opened his arms enthusiastically.

“Hello, Tammy-darlin’!”

Calhoun smiled and crouched, letting her shortstack fiance hop into her arms for a tight squeeze. “Hiya sweetums,” she purred. The two pulled apart enough to share a quick peck on the lips, and Mavis audibly cringed under her breath. There was something so wrong about seeing anyone kiss her cousin. She had never even taken into account that he could ever have been in love. Not that he did not deserve it. There was just a grossness to it.

When they separated, Calhoun stepped into the apartment as she stood. Somehow, she still managed to avoid seeing Mavis. Felix was, apparently, just too captivating. Mavis shook her head.

As Felix closed the door, Calhoun asked him, “So, how’d your day go?”

“Uhhh, well,” he smiled nervously, obviously in anticipation of the awkward meeting about to happen. Her head tilted a bit as he looked up at her, wide-eyed, and then his eyes darted over to Mavis. Calhoun followed his gaze. Once she saw Mavis, she stood a bit straighter, merely looking confused.

“Oh.”

Mavis flashed her a split-second smile. Calhoun gave her a small nod, and glanced down to Felix questioningly.

“Tammy, my dear,” Felix began, voice a bit wobbly, “you know my cousin, Mavis.”

Calhoun glanced at her again, and lifted a hand briefly. “Hey, Mavis.”

“Hey,” she nodded back.

The couple then began muttering to each other. Mavis could not fully hear them (her ears not being what they used to be, having worked with fireworks and explosions her whole life), but she gathered that Calhoun wanted to know what was up, and Felix explained that his cousin wanted to meet her. She did not seem to think it was a good idea, for reasons Mavis could not hear, but Felix reassured her.

Mavis yawned.

Finally, the two fully faced her. Felix prompted Mavis with shaky hope in his voice, “C’mon Mavy, come meet your… cousin-in-law!”

“Future cousin-in-law,” Mavis muttered. Calhoun squinted at that just the tiniest bit.

“I’m not gonna bite ya, kid,” Calhoun said, putting her hands on her hips.

“‘Kid,’” she gave a falsely sweet smile. “I’m thirty years old. How old are you, again? Ten months?”

The snark did not quite break the skin on the toughened military woman. She frowned, but her brows raised, and she nodded slowly. “Uh huh…” she said deeply, looking down at Felix, who looked like he could have started shaking. “You sure you two are related?”

Growing tired of being spoken of as if she were not there, Mavis quickly painted feathers on her heels and rose up to be at eye-level with Calhoun. Even if this woman had not played a part in the destruction of her life, she never liked meeting anyone at hip-level, or having them crouch down to talk to her, as if she really were some kind of kid. She was a grown-ass woman and would meet everyone eye-to-eye.

She floated over to hover at arm’s length from Calhoun and really get a good look at her. The first time Mavis saw her, she had been staring down the barrel of her oversized gun. Calhoun was, after all, the first to find her slinking around the reaches of Sugar Rush a couple weeks after the incident, during a routine patrol to make sure all the Cybugs were really gone. Since then, Mavis had made a point of avoiding her, of avoiding even seeing her. She just triggered some truly terrible memories. However, seeing her outside of her armor was just a little different. That night, she looked… pretty normal. White tank, camo cargo pants, shiny dog tags. She looked… almost approachable, even with her formidably muscled frame.

Mavis stared into her warm brown eyes that were partially obscured by her messy, yet somehow perfect blonde hair. Calhoun met her gaze with no ounce of fear, no nerves. There was a challenging look in there somewhere, and Mavis met it readily.

Smirking a bit at Mavis’ floating and its obvious intention, Calhoun extended her hand between them.

“Sergeant Tamora Calhoun,” she said in that gruff voice of hers.

Mavis paused, staring at her hand for a moment before locking eyes with her again, stone-faced.

“Oh,” Felix piped in quietly. “Tammy, dear, Mavy really doesn’t like touch--”

Cutting him off, Mavis clasped Calhoun’s hand tightly, and felt a firm squeeze grind the bones in her hand in return. “Make-it Mavis,” she smiled flatly, shaking her hand. “Formerly known as Pyrite, who was formerly known as Make-it Mavis.”

“Pleasure,” Calhoun smiled with her teeth. Mavis noticed that she was not letting go, and decided that she would not let go, either. As their handshake carried on an inappropriate length of time, she noticed the cold touch of metal in her hand. Calhoun was wearing an engagement ring -- simple, elegant, with small diamonds laid into the band. Mavis would have expected Felix to get her a ring with a diamond the size of a skating rink, but she supposed that would be impractical under armor.

A quick glance at Felix revealed that his jaw was slack, staring at the effortless skin-to-skin contact she was making. She snickered at him. 

Once the handshake really had gone on for a frighteningly long while, Felix threw his hands up and exclaimed, “OH, mercy me, the pie’s gettin’ cold! C’mon you two, let’s chow down!”

After just another moment of intense eye contact and painful squeezing, they moved to pull away from each other. But, to Mavis’ surprise, Calhoun actually caught her hand for one last second, turning it over to look at it.

It would have been hard to miss the abnormalities on Mavis’ left hand. Fairly young-looking, horizontal pink scars scored her hand and palm, slicing rows that disappeared up into her sleeve. Most notably, out of her fingers that were also speckled with smaller cuts, the last knuckle of her ring finger was missing, cut off in the middle of the second digit. 

Acid simmered in Mavis’ stomach as she yanked her hand away, but she gave Calhoun nothing more than a sharp look of warning. She saw Calhoun’s eyes narrow before she turned away to approach the table.

As they continued to eye each other, Felix had somehow already cut each of them a slice of pie, and he was nervously babbling to himself.

“One for you, dear-- and one for you, dear-- Oh, seems it really has gone cold, I can go microwave-- Ooh, no, wait, I should get some ice cream to go with-- Oh, no, that’s right, I’m out of ice cream-- Oh, but I’m certain Mary will have some and be happy to share. I should go see-- Oop, nope, nope, I should definitely not do that…”

“Honey,” Calhoun reached to touch his shoulder and gently direct him into his seat. “Sit. You’re fussing.”

Felix smiled nervously and shifted around in his seat, trying to settle in. “Oh, I’m sorry, dear, it’s just that I’m…” he clasped his hands together on the table, “...so excited… for my fiance to be meeting my… lovely cousin properly… I’m… so happy…”

A dreadfully awkward silence fell over the three of them as they ate their pie. Mavis sort of relished in it. She was still unsure of her motive as far as staying went, but at the very least, inflicting an uncomfortable situation on Calhoun was enjoyable.

“So!” Felix piped in, startling them both. “Did you two see that sunshine comin’ in today? Oh, it was gorgeous, but talk about blinding! I gotta tell you, it’s a good thing the gamers were tellin’ me where to go, because golly, I could not see a thing!”

Calhoun grunted. “That’s nice, dear. Too bad for me, I don’t see any of that through the first person shooter.”

“Yeah, Felix,” Mavis jabbed, meaning to mock Calhoun’s tone. “Don’t you know anything about Hero’s Booty?”

Calhoun shot her an unimpressed look. “Duty.”

Mavis cocked her head. “Doodie? Please, Tammy-dear, we’re eating.”

Before Calhoun could react, Felix interrupted with loud, anxious laughter. “HA-Ha-ha--!! Oh, Mavy, what a kidder you are!”

“I’m not kiddin’,” she smiled, pointing at him with her fork. “I think she’s gonna ruin your appetite.”

There was a clang as Calhoun put her fork down on her plate. She placed her elbows on the table and laced her hands together in front of her chin, looking at Mavis the way a parent would look at a difficult child.

“So, Mavis,” she said calmly, “why don’t you tell me about yourself. What’d you do before becoming a murderer and stealing Sugar Rush so you could crush a child’s dreams?”

Picking up her cold, nearly full coffee, she only took a second to consider that. “Buffs, mostly.”

Felix whined.

Calhoun squinted. “...Buffs.”

After taking a sip and being weirdly delighted at how gross the cold coffee was, she continued, “Yeah. Buffs, booze. Vandalism. Petty theft. Destruction of stolen property. I used to play music as a job. I liked dancing. I really liked sex. Rough sex. Quite often in public places. I was really into masochism -- for a long time, my favorite thing was getting choked--”

“HAha--!!” Felix interrupted with a horrified, wobbly laugh.

Mavis looked at Calhoun. She was still just squinting through her bangs, and Mavis could not have been sure what reaction was coming. She was surprised to see her burst into barking laughter. She slapped the table hard, rattling their plates as she leaned back in her chair.

“Felix,” she said, grinning at him. “You didn’t tell me she’s funny.”

For a second, Mavis gave her cousin a sharp look. “You didn’t?” 

Felix flinched, and Mavis fully processed what Calhoun said. She looked at her, raising a challenging brow. “Y’think I’m joking?”

“Oh, no, I believe you,” she scoffed. “It’s just that you’re sayin’ all that to try n’ shock me, or make me think you’re some kinda grisled old badass, but all that’s coming out of such a pretty little face. It’s like having a kitten tell me its shanked five guys. It’s just funny.”

Mavis could feel her hackles rising, but she put on a lovely smile anyways, and batted her lashes. “You really think I’m pretty?”

“Yeah,” Calhoun leaned forward again, her voice flat and sarcastic. “You’re drop-dead gorgeous.”

“In that case, why don’t we go splay out on one of the picnic benches and I can find a few more ways to make you laugh?”

Calhoun sputtered and wheezed, once again giving the table a good slap. “Oh, wow,” she chuckled, before looking at Felix, who looked built purely out of anxiety. “I like her.”

“You could say that to me,” Mavis muttered quietly behind her teeth, not loud enough for them to hear. They were still looking at each other, smiling sweetly, the anxiety on Felix’s face being soothed just a bit. Something awful churned around in her insides, and it only spiked when Calhoun reached over to tweak his cheek slightly. The amount of love shared between them was truly palpable, and it was more than she could bear. A horrid hybrid of grief and jealousy rose up in her throat.

“Speakin’ of looks bein’ deceiving,” she said loudly, snapping them out of their gross staring contest and leaning her elbows on the table to mimic Calhoun’s previous position, “what is the deal with you two, huh?!”

Calhoun spoke, “Uh--”

“I mean, we got this skyscraper of a woman here sniffin’ around a guy nearly a third of her size -- what’s the problem, sweetheart? Not up to giraffe beauty standards, so you gotta go around beggin’ field mice for a piece of action?”

That got her. The sergeant snapped to attention, straightening up, her eyes hostile. “...You sure you wanna do this, pint-size?”

Mavis just laughed insincerely and turned to Felix, who was trying to find a subtle way to wave his hands in a ‘STOP’ motion. “And you! C’mon, man, what the hell? A sergeant from an FPS who shoots bugs all day? I have literally seen you cry over accidentally stepping on a butterfly. Is it ‘cause she’s hot?”

“M-Mavy--”

“Come to think of it, that marriage does seem to be comin’ up quick, don’t it?” she hissed a laugh. “You’ve known each other, what, ten months-- Oh! Wouldn’t ya believe it! That’s just about as long as you’ve been plugged in, ain’t it, Tamora?”

Calhoun’s fist was clenching the blue tablecloth hard, her eyes practically on fire. A nasty grin grew on Mavis’ face. It was just as she thought -- the otherwise steely sergeant was a bit touchy when it came to her relationship with Felix.

She was almost completely sure that Calhoun would not hurt her, because hurting her would hurt Felix. With nothing to lose but teeth, she decided to continue to push that theory.

“What, you get plugged in, and right outta the code space, you’re on the hunt for some shrimp dick? Or did ya just hop on the first guy who was nice to ya? You ain’t even a year into the world, n’ still, here you are, engaged?” Sick grin still wide, she looked to Felix and pointed towards his fiance. “You really gonna sweep a gal up before she even knows what marriage is?”

Calhoun reacted quicker than Mavis had thought. She leapt to her feet, her massive frame nearly tipping over the table, sending Mavis’ fork tumbling to the floor. Her stance was poised forward, ready to reach over and grab the offending little shit, but Felix sprang out of his seat and braced his hand against her hip.

“Tammy,” he said hushed and quickly, “Tammy, darling, it’s alright. It’s okay. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know. Please, sit down.”

Mavis, of course, did not know what it was that she supposedly did not know. Although she was curious, it came completely from a place of nosiness. No part of her really cared.

“Aw, now look what you’ve done to my fork,” Mavis scolded Calhoun boredly.

Calhoun remained standing, but bent over the table to lean one outstretched arm against it. The table was far too low for it to be an intimidating gesture, but she owned it anyway. With a deep breath and a testy smile, she pointed one finger at Mavis. “Okay, pipsqueak,” she growled. “You’d best take a hike right about now, if you know what’s good for you.”

Mavis held Calhoun’s burning gaze for a few long moments, emanating nothing but spite. Beside the sergeant stood her cousin, watching her with clasped hands and pleading eyes that just begged her to comply. But, over the time of her life, she had made an art of letting Felix down. 

She feigned a yawn. “Y’know what? Nah.”

“No?”

“Nah,” she shrugged as she tilted her chair back to cross her dirty shoes on the side of the table. Putting her hands behind her head, she said, “This my game. In Hero’s Booby you can try to boss me around all you like, but in here, you can’t make me do boo.”

Felix gasped.

“I don’t feel like leavin’,” she continued. “We were havin’ a conversation, weren’t we? Like, I get why this gal rushed into the marriage, y’know, bein’ a lovestruck ignorant dumbass, but you, Felix? Ain’t you grown outta that crap yet? Or-- or, no, I get it. I get it. You’ve always been a wait-until-marriage kinda guy. You’re just real eager to get into her armor, huh? Which, I mean, really? Look at you two, how good could it possibly be? Are y’all even gonna feel anythin’ when you consummate, or is it gonna be like tossin’ a hotdog down a hallway?”

That just tore it. In a blink, Calhoun lunged and roughly seized Mavis’ collar.

“Woah--!!” Mavis yelped a bit as she was yanked out of her seat with more force than she was expecting. Felix shouted in protest, but before he could take any action, Calhoun had dragged Mavis right across the tabletop, knocking all of its contents to the floor, to hold her right up close and try to pierce through her skull with a single look. Feet dangling high off the floor as Calhoun held her at eye-level, a smile slowly crept onto Mavis’ face once again. Maybe Calhoun really was going to hit her. If so, she could not help but look forward to it.

The two were grinding their teeth, ready to rip into each other at any second.

“TAMORA!!”

Felix’s raised voice smacked them both in the side of the head. They paused, and both heads turned to look at him. He was standing close by, red in the face, breathing hard, body shaking, looking and sounding ready to cry. He shouted again in a volume he saved only for dire emergencies, “DON’T HURT HER! PLEASE! SHE’S MY FAMILY!”

Calhoun stared at him, and her shoulders relaxed a bit as her expression turned apologetic… at least to Felix. Mavis, however, knew she had hit the nail on the head. The big, scary sergeant could not harm a hair on her head, not so long as she loved Felix. This was a delicious fact, one that would no doubt serve her well.

“Tch,” Mavis scoffed a bit, singing in a hushed voice, “trouble in paradise…”

“AND YOU!!”

Mavis startled. She never liked it when Felix really got shouting. It was weirdly eerie.

He stomped over, pointing a trembling finger, his voice still high and frightful. “Can you just-- just-- ju-- sh-- sch-- SHUT UP FOR ONCE?! THERE! THERE, I SAID IT!”

The women said together, “Wow.”

“And look! Look what your fighting’s done!” He stepped back and gestured widely to the gore of their cherry pie dessert, splattered over the carpet, oozing out from under overturned plates. What was left of their coffee spread wide, dark stains across the floor, and the tablecloth and placemats were almost entirely tossed off the table. “The pie! The carpet! Our EVENING!”

Weirdly enough, Mavis actually did feel kind of bad. The pie did not deserve that. Neither did Felix, really. She had long since retired from intentionally causing her cousin genuine distress. Calhoun, however, seemed to have never even been in the business at all.

Calhoun let go of Mavis’ collar, but instead of dropping to the floor, she elected to continue floating in place. She watched as the other woman crouched next to the very distressed Felix, her aggression dying down as she whispered what must have been apologies and reassurance. Felix was slowly soothed, taking deep, steadying breaths as he held both her hands.

Even if she did feel bad, Mavis was not stable enough to ignore her deeply-rooted nature. Folding her arms and crossing her legs, she cleared her throat.

Calhoun did not look at her, not fully. She merely turned her head towards her shoulder for a moment, and growled, “Just go. Get out.”

“Hello-o?” Mavis sang. “We were havin’ an altercation, here?”

Turning a little more this time, Calhoun barked, “I said, get out!”

Felix leaned to peer around Calhoun at Mavis. He looked a little calmer, but no less red. “Mavis, it’s okay,” he said softly, but insistently. “We’ll talk later, I promise. We just need a little space right now.”

Mavis’ muscles seemed to go rigid just from pure stubbornness and spite. She hardly felt like she could have moved, even if she wanted to. So, she just let her eyes fall nearly shut, and replied, “If ya want me gone, get rid of me.”

It did not take Calhoun any convincing. In a blink, she was upright again, and she stormed back to yank Mavis by the shirt again and drag her through the air to the window. “I can’t believe--” Calhoun hissed under her breath, before fully growling, “What is your major malfunction?!”

Mavis grunted as she was shoved backwards towards the window, but she braced her hands and feet inside, shaking as she pushed against the strong hand of the sergeant trying to force her back through the gap. “My malfunction?!”

“YES!” Calhoun yelled with a hard shove. “Your PROBLEM! What is your PROBLEM!?”

Mavis could almost physically feel a sharp sting inside her as the frayed cloth holding everything back was punctured. As things began to tumble out, the hole only expanded, and she could feel everything about to crash down at once. It was not going to be pretty.

At least there was a chance Calhoun would be buried in the landslide.

“My problem?” Mavis hissed breathlessly through a quivering, joyless smile. “My problem?! You wanna know what my problem is?!”

“YES! Enlighten me!”

“My problem,” she spat, volume growing, “is that I should be at home, eatin’ dessert n’ makin’ eyes with MY partner right now, but I can’t, because thanks to YOUR game, I can never go home again, and my partner is dead! He’s DEAD! I had to watch one of YOUR monsters EAT him, and turn him into-- into a-- a--”

Trying to access the thought, horrible pain spiked through her head and red static crackled through her ears and vision. She really was falling apart, so much that her body was having trouble keeping her pixels together. The glitching grew so intense that her senses were all but gone. Eyes squeezed shut, she fought hard to push her voice from her throat, until it burst out in furious screams that she could barely hear.

“--a NIGHTMARE!! And he died! He burned up in that Dev-forsaken volcano! And-- and YOU--”

She hoped she was looking at Calhoun. She could not tell anymore.

“My problem with YOU, is that every time I see you, I hear him scream, and-- and I hear the-- the METAL, and I see him turning into-- and-- and I think of those BUGS and EVERYTHING they took away from me-- but here you are! Muscling in on the only family I have left, as if you didn’t take enough of my life already! And I’m supposed to be fine with this?! I’m supposed to be civil?! You’re askin’ what’s wrong with me-- YOU’RE what’s wrong with me! You n’ your MONSTERS that murdered the man I’ve loved for THIRTY YEARS!”

Finally, her words ran dry. Her heart was pounding painfully against her ribs, and she could feel herself shaking from the core. Slowly, the painful red static that numbed her senses began to fade, and she could hear… silence.

Vision back online, she found herself sitting on the floor under the window. Calhoun’s boots had backed up a few paces. Looking up at her, squinting at the overhead light, she saw a peculiar look on the sergeant’s face. She looked… shaken. But not exactly the sort of shaken she might have expected. There was shock in her eyes that did not feel right.

Body hot, head pounding, Mavis merely stared up at her, waiting for a response and trying to steady her breathing.

When Calhoun finally spoke up, her voice was raw, low… almost horrified. “He turned?”

Mavis swallowed. “...Yeah. He turned.”

“And…” she pointed a bit, “you saw it?”

“Yes.”

“And you were…” Calhoun’s eyes grew distant, and her voice shrank, “...in love with him.”

Mavis’ heart felt full of rattling gravel. After a harsh, painfully hot sigh, she said, “Okay, what the hell? Why don’t you know all this? Didn’t anybody tell you?”

After a moment’s pause, her gaze drifted over to Felix. Mavis could not see his face from where she sat, as it was obscured by the table, but she saw his feet flinch a bit.

Calhoun said quietly, “No. Nobody told me any of this.”

To Mavis’ surprise, Calhoun then turned and strode quickly towards the door. Shakily pushing to her feet, Mavis held onto the back of what was Felix’s chair and watched as he chased after her, spilling apologies.

“Tammy, Tammy, wait,” he pleaded, eventually grabbing a hold of her hand as she stood by the door. “Darling, I’m sorry, I-- I was going to tell you, I just didn’t want-- I-- I was waiting for the right--”

Calhoun sighed and crouched, pushing a finger to Felix’s lips. She spoke quietly, but Mavis managed to hear her say, “I know. It’s okay. We’ll talk about this later, I promise.”

She stood again, gently nudging Felix away from the door. As she opened it and walked through, she said, “I just need some time to think.”

The door closed, her boots clopped down the hallway, and she was gone.

Felix did not move from where he stood. Mavis could tell he was wringing his hands slowly, thoughtfully, anxiously. She frowned. With Calhoun gone, all she had left to look at was how much crap they had just dragged him through. For a moment, she wondered how she ever managed to be so routinely cruel to her sweet cousin… but she knew that her cruelty never exactly went away. It changed shape and moved on to new victims, but as much as Mavis was meant to entertain and enliven… she was also meant to torment and terrorize.

At least Felix was out of her cross-hairs. 

She crossed the room, carefully stepping over the gruesome mess of food on the floor. She approached Felix, and when he did not turn around, she gingerly placed a hand on his shoulder. He startled and turned quickly.

Before he could speak, Mavis said as softly as she could, “I ruined your night on purpose. I’m sorry.”

Taken aback by her hard-earned ability to apologize, Felix said nothing.

She continued, “Let me help you clean the floor.”

That shocked him even more. His face twisted up a bit. “...Really?”

“Yeah,” she half-smiled. “I know. I’m nice, sometimes.”

Felix half-sighed, half-chuckled, shaking his head. “Golly, Mavy… Thirty years and I’m still askin’ what I’m ever gonna do with you.”

“Well, for starters, you can show me how to clean a carpet,” she shrugged. “I don’t clean messes. I make ‘em… a lot.”

“Well okay,” he reached to give her shoulder an affectionate squeeze before softly trodding towards the kitchen. “I’ll get you some tissues, too.”

Her face screwed up. “Tissues?”

With a hand on the kitchen door, Felix merely gave her a kind, rueful glance over his shoulder before going in. After a moment of gear turning, she figured it out. Swiping her fingers over her cheek, she found them soaked. She sighed.

Of course she had been crying.