A/N: This should really be under Angst and Romance as well as Drama and Family (and who knows what else, really?) so if you don't like cheerful cartoon fandoms having the crap depressed out of them, then you know where the back button is. Anyway, I hope you like it.
A NOTE ABOUT THE COVER IMAGE: I was previously using the gorgeous picture by LittleTiger488, but then I discovered my (mediocre) ability to use Paint to create my own covers! So, despite my inability to draw, I decided to make my own. Which means that there are a LOT of people I owe credit to for this, since it was with their kind permission that I was able to use their work. In no apparent order:
1. The picture of the Warners (top): This was done by the immensely talented AyakoOtani, and I have never seen so lovely a picture of the adult Warners. The great thing is that, aside from the fact that I picture Wakko bigger and Yakko smaller, this is EXACTLY how I thought they'd grow up to look! Seriously, go look at the beautiful image in full at htt*p:/*/ayakootani*.deviant*art.*com/art*/Colored *-Sketch-Warner-Sibs-327469114
Just remove the asterisks and ogle its amazingness!
2. The font was taken from cooltext.*com, where you can design lots of fun logos and titles. I went with neon because I liked the showgirl sleaziness it implies, which is pretty fitting for the story.
3. The image of Minerva Mink came from MawsCM and can be found here: htt*p:/*/mawscm.*deviantart.*com/art*/More-Minerva *-Mink-246903827
4. Hello Nurse was done by crazedg: htt*p:/*/crazedg.*deviantart.*com/art*/Helloooo-Nu rse-284205047
5. Emily is kind of hard to see, sadly (this whole picture ended up smaller than I'd hoped), but I made her using a Princess Maker, which is REALLY fun to play with and can be found right here: htt*p:/*/ww*w.*dolldivine.*com/princess-maker.*php
I mean, it allows you to create a Disney princess that isn't rail-skinny; how could I resist? :)
Thank you so much to everyone who allowed me to use their work, and don't forget to check out their other stuff, because it's all excellent.
CHAPTER ONE: The Girls
"Ugh." There was a sharp thump and the door flew back on its hinges, smashing into the wall. A rectangle of watery light did little to illuminate an apartment that was too small and cluttered for a hamster to live in comfortably. Of course, a hamster didn't live there.
A mink did.
Well, a mink and her cat, Mister, who was curled up under the couch when the apartment's owner arrived. He knew by now that hiding was the best option when she got home from work, especially when it was late and she was in a foul mood. And at three in the morning, with her hair a mess that resembled a beehive, her dress falling off her shoulders and torn at the knee, and lipstick smeared in the fur around her mouth, Minerva Mink was one wolf-whistle away from homicide.
She slammed the door shut, cursing as her living room was drenched in blackness, and fumbled for the light. Once she could see her way to the couch, she collapsed onto it; Mister barely avoided being crushed under the furniture's broken springs, and once he was sure that Minerva wouldn't throw him across the room in a fit of mindless rage, leapt onto her lap and purred.
Her expression softened at her friend, and her fingers absently stroked his fur. "La da da da, da da dee," she sang in a whisper. "It's not pretty being me . . . ugh." She hated that damn song. Singing it every night in a dress that was becoming increasingly shiny in the seat and threadbare at the hem, in front of what felt like thousands of slobbering men . . . well, that killed any novelty the tune might have had. When she'd asked her boss if she could sing something, anything else, the woman had raised one perfect eyebrow and said, "The audience likes what you're doing. For now, you keep doing it. It's part of the job."
Minerva wasn't known for her brains, but she got the message, and she would learn to be okay with it. So she was a one-trick pony. There were worse things to be. Like unemployed.
The ten years since Animaniacs! ended had not been kind to Minerva Mink. "But really," she said to Mister, stroking his head, "have they been kind to anyone?" She tilted her head back and felt her hair crunch. With a groan, she raised a hand to it, feeling hairspray, a straw wrapper, and . . . "Ugh!" She pulled the rubbery object out of her hair, watching out of the corner of her eye as a string of milky fluid formed a tenuous bridge between her fur and the . . . the thing. She flung it into a nearby garbage can, hauling herself to her feet and staggering toward the bathroom. Once she felt like the worst of the scum was washed off, she made it to her bed and fell asleep.
Another day survived.
"Good morning, Dot!"
The impossibly cute Dot Warner (she'd given up on "Princess Angelina Contessa Louisa Francesca Banana-Fanna Bo Besca, The Third" unless she was trying to impress a guy; it was just too long) glanced up from one of the magazines that the waiting room staff had apparently decided people seeking therapy needed. This one was full of never-before-seen sex tips, a claim that she doubted but lacked the experience to dispute. "Yeah," she muttered when she saw who it was. "It's that time again, huh?"
As it did every time she heard that phrase, voices echoed in her head: "To watch me make bubbles with my spit?" "To do something cuuuuute?" She suppressed a smile, knowing that any sign of cheer would only encourage her psychologist and make her even more insufferable.
Mary Hartless beamed at her. "Why, yes it is! I see you're just as sunny as ever!" She giggled, a sound that reminded Dot of a horse's whinny, and led her into her office. Rifling through her papers, she added, "And how has your week been?"
She ignored her shrink's question, taking her time to look around. No matter how many weeks she was forced here, she could never quite get used to the room. Pictures of famous movie stars and clippings of articles that Mary had written coated the walls and even the ceiling; though this had once been Dr. Scratchansniff's office, any sign of the old man was long gone. Though she wouldn't dare say so to anyone else, she missed him. "And how many of your clients tried to kill you this week?" she asked instead, leaning back on the pink leather couch that was available for psychos like her. Where did one get a pink leather couch? Dot decided to steal it, knowing she'd spend the rest of their hour-long session idly making plans to get it into her car.
Mary flushed as pink as her couch. "That's not what I asked," she said, losing the exclamation points for once. The color of her cheeks indicated that the number of attempted murders was between two and five; the trouble with being a tabloid reporter with no respect for anyone else's privacy and then switching your career to movie-star shrink was that a lot of your tabloid victims were also your clients. It was a dangerous move, though Dot had to admit that at least she could still make use of her phony-cheerful voice.
Normally Dot was willing to play along with Mary Hartless's games, pretending to see butterflies in inkblots and car accidents in scribbles if it would make the hour go faster, but today she just wasn't in the mood. In fact, she was bored, and there was only one thing she could do about that. "My week's sucked!" she wailed. "I'm pregnant! By my father, which is so traumatic that I might need to spend years in this fluffy little room with you just to begin to heal! And I can't tell my brothers because they'll be furious!" She thought she might be laying it on a little thick, but she was known for overacting and couldn't help herself. "And I think I've opened a rift deep in my brain, because all of a sudden I burst into random fits of speaking Hebrew!" She didn't know a word of Hebrew, so she babbled nonsense for a few moments. "Oh no! It happened again!" she shrieked, pulling at her hair.
Mary was scribbling in her notebook feverishly, her eyes alight with excitement. "Dot, darling, you're making terrific progress! I think soon we'll discover the source of your insanity, and then you will begin to feel much better! Is there any more? Has your father always acted like this towards you?"
Dot couldn't believe what she was seeing. She'd never in a million years expected the woman to believe a word of that. "Shrinkie, darling, do you really not know bullshit when you see it?" she snapped, surprising herself into telling the truth. "I've never met my father, and you know that! It's on file. And you seriously thought that was Hebrew? How did you get a college degree?"
She looked down at her hands. "I didn't, exactly." She pointed to the framed Master's hanging behind her in a jerky, reluctant movement. "I made that on Photoshop."
Dot rolled her eyes and climbed to her feet. "I think you've just proved how useless this is," she said. An idea occurred to her, and a smile spread across her face. "Thanks, Shrinkie! I think I'll be able to convince Plotz to let me stop coming here once he realizes you're full of it!" She was positively glowing now, bouncing on the balls of her feet.
Mary blinked, startled by the rapid-fire mood swings. She picked up her notebook, which had fallen to the ground at some point during Dot's tirade, and began to write in slow, loopy letters. "'Bi . . . polar . . . disorder . . ." she muttered as she scrawled.
Dot laughed, feeling much better now that she knew she was out of here for good. "It's not bipolar anything," she said, giggling and striking a little pose. "It's just me." She picked up the pink leather couch with a grunt of effort and shoved it into her purse, which Wakko had designed for her twenty-first birthday earlier that week; it worked just like his Gag Bag, but instead of being old and dingy, it was blue with yellow flowers. At least one of her brothers knew the way to her heart, that was for sure. As she made her way to the door, the purse clunking heavily with each step, she added, "You know, Scratchy would never have fallen for that. He may have been a bit of an idiot, but he was still a pro."
Mary Hartless's eyes, which had dulled with embarrassment, burst into life again. "And how does that make you —"
The door slammed shut.
The Ink and Paint Club had been around since the 1940's, at least; it was a ToonTown Historical Monument, and still one of the most popular bars in California. Sure, some women muttered that it was nothing better than a strip joint, but — as any man would testify, with varying levels of disappointment — clothes always remained on, and the worst (or the best, depending on who you asked) that anyone could expect was a glimpse of upper thigh. All in all, it had a good reputation and very good business, especially once the star act became manager. To the average citizen, The Ink and Paint Club was the ideal evening destination.
Emily Irish wasn't an average citizen, but she was young, she was trusting, and more importantly, she was desperate. Sitting in the closet-sized space outside the manager's office, clutching a red backpack to her not-inconsiderable chest and feeling her belt cut into her even-less-inconsiderable stomach, she had the sweaty palms and shaky limbs of someone who was nearing the end of her rope.
"You've managed an interview, at least," she whispered to herself. "That's half the battle right there." She took out the flier and smoothed it on her lap. Female performers wanted, it read in pink cursive above a green phone number.
The door to the office opened, and the most gorgeous woman Emily had ever seen — and having been in plenty of Disney films, she'd seen her share — stuck her head out, a swath of red hair falling over one eye. "Miss Irish?" she said coolly.
Stunned, Emily struggled to her feet, throat dry and heart pounding. If I have to be as beautiful as her, I'm doomed, she thought to herself. Heck, if I have to be HALF as beautiful, I might as well walk out now.
She was ushered into the office and collapsed into the first chair she saw. The woman raised one eyebrow but said nothing, slinking to her desk and sitting behind it. "You are a miss, aren't you?"
Emily stared at her blankly. "A what?"
"A miss. Not a missus. Unmarried."
She swallowed. "Oh! Yes, I'm not married. I mean, no, I'm not married. And yes, I'm a miss. Obviously."
There was a moment of silence as both of them tried to figure out what the hell she'd said. Then the redhead nodded. "Good. I don't like to hire married women. It's nothing personal, but sometimes the husbands get jealous. I don't like scandal," she added with finality.
Emily shook her head so violently that her headband fell off, unleashing her black, springy hair to bounce all over the place. "No, ma'am —"
"Mrs. Rabbit."
"M-Mrs. Rabbit, me neither. I hate scandal. I loathe it. I have never been part of a scandal in my entire life."
Her interviewer was polite enough not to say, "I can tell," but Emily could tell that she was thinking it. "So you're a Disney character? Not a princess, I assume."
She flushed a bit, and Mrs. Rabbit wrote something on the pad in front of her. By craning her neck slightly, she could read the words, Nice coloring. Heartened, she said, "I'm a foil, Mrs. Rabbit. Usually a best friend."
"I see." She wrote something else, and this time her hand curled around so Emily couldn't read it. "Romantic interests?"
"About half the time."
She nodded, making another little note. A foil character was found most in Disney movies; commonly female, the character is drawn to be pretty, but not too, with a face that tended to scowl or blush with little effort. He or she is either the main (and more attractive) lead's best friend or minor rival. Either role could result in a love interest for the other romantic lead's best friend or rival, but that depended on the attractiveness of both parties and whether or not Disney felt like tying up all its loose ends. Being a sidekick was sometimes hard, because Disney all too often used animals to do the foil's work, but Emily was able to find jobs here and there. Besides, every movie (or more often, show on the Disney Channel) needed extras, and animators for Disney were talented and expensive. If you were a Disney toon, you pretty much had it made.
That is, until the corporation started making nothing but live-action films and television shows, shoddy in quality and polluted with humans. That was when the jobs became thin on the ground, and that was why Emily was here.
"Biggest role you had?" the woman (a plaque on her desk said, "Jessica Rabbit"; in her anxiety, she had missed it up until that point) asked.
She turned red again. "Sweet Lily," she said with some pride. "It was the movie I was drawn for. I was also in Mulan II. Princess Su."
"Really? I saw it, once, but I don't remember anyone like . . . you."
Just as Emily thought her face couldn't get any hotter, it seared at that comment. "I've gained a bit of weight since then."
"Did you have someone sing for you?"
"No," she said, indignant. Sure, her only lead role was some crappy Disney sequel that no one wanted to see, but she did her own singing! "Is all this really necessary?"
"Just trying to see what kind of talent you have," Jessica said with a shrug. She put her pen down and stared at Emily, her chin in her hand and her brows furrowed. Unsure what to do, she tried returning the gaze, but felt too self-conscious and dropped her eyes to the floor. After a few tense minutes, Jessica said, "Perhaps if we put you on a strict diet. . . . You aren't drawn like this, are you?"
"Well, not exactly." It was true that Emily's animators had given her a body type that could easily gain weight; like the incessant blushing and mood swings, it was standard foil formula. As a sidekick she'd be fat and funny, and if she was a rival, what better punishment than to balloon up at the end of the story? But unlike some unfortunate characters, she could be thin if she exercised and ate properly. The problem was that she enjoyed the finer things in life — like junk food and reading — which were not conducive to having a Venus-like physique. "But I'm not fat." Just a little plump. "Is it really such a problem?"
Jessica shrugged. "I don't know. I suppose we'll find out." She stood in a single fluid motion, holding out her hand. "You have a nice voice. Come in Monday at three and we'll see what else you're capable of."
"Thank you," Emily said weakly, looking like she was going to fall over any second. Once she'd made her shaky way out the door, Jessica picked up her desk phone and dialed.
"Helllllllllllo?" the phone quacked. She smiled at the cheeriness of her husband's voice.
"Roger, darling! I think I might have found another girl. Looks like a singer. On the chubby side, though."
"Congratulations, my beautiful snowflake, my flower of perfection and —" He cut himself off before his proclamations of love could get too ridiculous. It was an impressive show of restraint, but Jessica was a little disappointed. "But isn't that a . . . unique decision for you?"
She sighed, trying to blow the hair out of her face. "Most of the weight's upstairs, so it might not be a problem. And unique might not be a bad idea. I don't know if the audience is getting tired of identical, perfect chorus girls, but I am. She might liven things up." Her eyes narrowed. "However, I think I'll need to add at least two more chorus girls to the act just in case. Even things out. Maybe some more blondes."
"Whatever you do will be fantastic, my wonderful . . . ah, Jessica."
A smile graced her lips. "Of course it will be, dear." She picked up her pad and began studying her notes. Pretty eyes, she remembered, writing it down. "Isn't it always?"