Author's notes:

During this stressful year, the one positive thing to come out of all this, is that it has given me an opportunity to start writing again. Animaniacs is back and I see this community is coming alive again, so I am feeling inspired. I pretty much wrote this whole story already, I'm just editing the last few chapters at the moment, may take awhile – cause I still have work, even in my isolated cave – but rest assure, it is finished and has an ending, just needs some polishing.

Even though it has a Mature rating, this is NOT an incest story, I cannot stress that enough. I originally wanted to give it a Teen rating, because it would get more traffic and wouldn't be associated with that particular genre, but I realized that it's dealing with a heavy subject matter and needs an M rating.

Full summary:

On a quiet night in 2018, the Warner's are all cozied up in their pajama's, as they read over their new scripts and contracts for the reboot. While both brothers are excited about their sketches and songs, their baby sister is…less so. Don't get her wrong, Dot wants to do the reboot, but she doesn't like what the writers wrote for her. And she can't hide her disappointment for long. [Sibling bonding story]

It was happening.

Everyone seemed happy.

Yakko was going tell all his lame puns and political satire he had been working on since 2004 and while he loved to make his siblings laugh, he loved it even more when he made other people angry.

Wakko was going to eat like a king while working. Craft services would provide him with five-star meals everyday they were on set, a rarity for a someone who had a fixed income from his monthly checks.

And Dot...

Well, she...she was going to be cute, of course.

Yep.

She was going to be cute.

Huh.

It had only been a few hours since they all stepped out of the meeting with the studio executives at Warner Brothers. With fresh contracts and script treatments in their hands, the siblings were expected to read it, review it, and make any changes to it by the end of the week. If they didn't sign it, the studio warned them that further negotiations and/or creating new contracts could take up to six months, since they had other projects they were working on. They said Animaniacs wasn't that much of a priority at the moment.

Uh-huh, sure.

But nevertheless, while the studio did give them a week to look it over, the Warner's knew they were expected to give them an answer much sooner.

The studio had an unwritten rule: the real deadline was always earlier; to be on time was to be late.

While at first, the siblings were all excited - bouncing around the lot and annoying their favorite tour guides who were just trying to get through another studio tour – Yakko and Wakko continued to stay excited, while Dot…didn't. Not after she started reading her script treatment. Line after line was activities involving makeup, dolls, candles, rainbows, glitter, lollipops, etc.

It wasn't so much that she was doing cute and girly stuff, it was that she was only doing cute and girly stuff. While she was the youngest, she was older than the writers were making her out to be. She was written as if she was a five-year-old who just followed her brothers around and gave occasional support. She would setup jokes, just so her brothers could deliver the punchline, but rarely was she given the punchline. Even the jokes the writers did give her were outdated.

How many times can one make the joke that Cinderella probably wasn't the only woman in the kingdom to wear a size 4 ½. Even the Cinderella sequels made fun of that – and that was by Disney themselves. Disney! The writers could do better than stealing jokes from their mortal enemy…or er, annoying competitor at the very least.

They were even going to make a sequel to her original "I'm Cute" song, cleverly named…"I'm Cute: 2 Cute, 2 Furious".

She internally screamed when she read that title; how many seconds did it take for some hack to come up with that? Was "I'm Cute 2: Electric Boogaloo" taken?

The reboot would have fresh jokes, but the studio didn't want to completely change everything. And in the original show, she was cute. Yeah, yeah, she did other stuff...but none of that was in the script treatment she was holding in her hand.

Did the studio executives and writers just not bother to research the show a little more? Did they just read a few fan sites, watched a couple of clips on YouTube, and were so obsessed with Yakko and Wakko, that they forgot Dot existed? And that she would just be fine with whatever material they gave for her? Why? Because she was the youngest? Have they met her?!

She was written to be the show's token girl; there to exist, just so girls could watch the show and feel like they were being represented. 'Cause girls would never watch a show without a girl in it. Right?

She was cute, period. Her trait was set for her perpetual animated life.

Hooray.

So, there she was, reading the script on the couch as she was snuggled up in an old oversize Tiny Toons t-shirt that she got back in the day from her friend Babs.

She looked over to Yakko, who looked like a proper gentleman, sitting on the far side of the couch in his Hugh Hefner robe, wearing his 'adult' glasses and making notes here and there on his contract. He was just missing a cigar pipe and the look would be complete.

Yakko was the one who made the major decisions around the tower. Although, they were all technically kids, it was only in cartoon years. Unless toons were generally written to have the maturity of a toddler, all toons did age, but only mentally, really. It was just their physical body that was stuck in time. Some cartoons aged very slowly over a period of decades, while others could age as fast as humans. And Yakko was in the latter group.

So, to Wakko and Dot - and to the studio itself - Yakko was an adult, even though on paper, he was listed as a sixteen year old, and had been that way for decades (the producers made his character fourteen on the show, so he wouldn't appear too close to adulthood for the pre-teens). He dated, drove a car, had a savings account - with actual money in it. Yep, he did ALL the adult things that either Wakko or Dot couldn't do or didn't want to.

Yakko was the reason this reboot was happening in the first place. For years, he pestered the studio for a reboot. If Full House can do it, why not Animaniacs? And after years of failing to make the DCEU as profitable as Marvel…the studio knew it was time to bring in the reboots for an easy cash grab.

So, it was Yakko who made all this happen. Had he stopped nagging the studio years ago, they would have forgotten that they were housing three unused toons in their water tower. Well, actually no, the studio wouldn't forget about the Warner's – as they didn't exactly hide their presence nor were always quiet, well behaved creatures – but still, they would have forgotten about the Animaniacs reboot idea if not for Yakko.

Dot then turned her head to Wakko, who was sitting on the floor, wearing a matching Dwight Schrute pj t-shirt and matching bottoms. He was drawing on his contract, outlining a picture of a kid dropping his ice cream on the ground. Although he was goofing off at the moment, she had seen him read a page or two before – and he never read paperwork, so she knew he was serious about doing the show.

So, Dot understood that she would probably have to take the part she was given; she didn't want to jeopardize the whole show just to sooth her ego. And she didn't want to disappoint her brothers either. Her brothers seemed pleased with their scripts and contracts, so she knew she was the odd man out – or rather, the odd woman out.

After Wakko was finished coloring in the ice cream – and the kid's tears – he picked up the paper and opened his mouth. Just as he was about to eat the paper, a hand snatched it from his fingers.

"Hey! No eating the delicate paper that will make us rich," Yakko scolded.

"I wasn't going to eat the whole thing, just the tiny part where I drew," Wakko said, trying to defend his actions.

"No, have actual food, you know how your digestion is when you eat non-edible things."

"But I need practice for the reboot; it's been a while since I've ingested whole objects."

"That's right, save it for the rehearsals! At least you'll be getting paid to spend a night on the toilet. I presume you are done reading it then?"

"Yeah. There's just so many pages. Blah, blah, I eat some food, more blah, blah, I become an anime. Blah, blah. I get to act like a dog a few times! I get the gist; I'm fine with it."

Yakko looked over Wakko's contract and his script treatment to make sure he didn't miss anything.

"I just want my dinner," Wakko said.

Without looking up, Yakko pointed towards the dining table, "You literally have a giant sundae in the kitchen that you haven't touched, melting as we speak."

"Oh right."

Wakko looked over to where the triple chocolate chip ice cream, with sprinkles and a single carrot on top – his vegetable serving – was sitting. And as fast as he could, he hurried over to the table and gobbled the sundae up in one bite. Thankfully, just the sundae and not the bowl it sat in, as per Yakko's request.

Yakko smiled at the wild display. On the show, they exaggerated Wakko's appetite; sure, he did eat a lot in real life, due to an abnormally high metabolism, but he at least had table manners and ate like a normal toon. However, whenever he got excited, he would eat a whole dish in one bite. So, the eldest Warner was going to cut him some slack and not berate him for his lack of manners…just this one time. Yakko looked down at the drawing.

"Hey, this isn't half bad," he said. "we should add a clause that says you can draw a shadow or something and get an extra grand for it. Might as well milk them for all their worth."

"Eh, it would cut into rehearsals," Wakko said.

"You're right," Yakko said with sarcasm while rolling his eyes. "I forgot how hard you work, swallowing inanimate objects and all."

"Tell me about it, it's not as easy as it looks."

Yakko glanced over to his sister, expecting her to roll her eyes along with him, but instead he saw her quietly staring at her script treatment, lost in thought.

"Dot?" he prompted, lowering her contract so he could see her face. "Ha' penny for your thoughts?" That line never got old to him.

"Huh?" she asked, snapping her back to reality.

"You're studying that contract as if it's going to give you a pop quiz at the end."

"I'm just reading it."

"And…? Anything good yet? I heard there is a plot twist at the end and - spoilers – it turns out the butler did it!" he waited for a reaction, but she barely made a sound. "Okay…what's the matter? You ignored my ha' penny joke. Nobody ignores the ha' penny joke. You either groan or shake your head in disgust."

"What? Nothing, I'm just reading it and it's really long," she said, as she tried to hide her emotions and forced herself to smile.

There were no small roles, just small actors, she reminded herself.

"They probably want an answer by tomorrow, so I'm just reading the fine print," she said.

"She's lying! Nobody reads the fine print!" Wakko shouted from the kitchen. He started to make a sandwich – as the ice cream was just his first course. Again, he had a very high metabolism.

She glared at Wakko; it always infuriated her whenever he would accuse her of lying - and even if she was - it was none of his business, he was just being a little tattletale, trying to stir up trouble. "I am not!" she argued back, crossing her arms.

"Are too!"

She stood up on the couch, "You want to come over here and say it to my face!—"

"—A-ba-ba-bah, let's not start," Yakko interrupted, rubbing his forehead.

When the studio green lit the show, Yakko made it a rule that whenever they would argue about something and he would say stop, they would stop and drop it. He knew the added stress of the reboot would have on his sibs, and it would only increase their fighting (and also fights with him as well). He wanted to do the reboot, he had begged the studio for years to do it and he knew his siblings wanted to do the reboot even more than he did.

But still...he didn't want it to go to their heads.

It was easy to keep the peace between everyone for 20 years – they literally had all day to hash it out if an argument got too heated. But pretty soon, they would be on schedules and would have to behave somewhat decently to the cast and crew. There would be fresh talent that weren't accustomed to the Warner's crazy antics on set, which was tolerable – though annoying – back in the day, but now…the studio expected at least a little professionalism.

"Save the arguments for the cameras. Now then," Yakko said, before turning to Dot who sat back down on the couch. He took his glasses off, "there's no rush, the studio does not expect an answer by tomorrow—"

"That's what they always say, but—"

"—Thank you Wakko, for the input!" Yakko shouted, before going back to his 'older brother' voice. "But really, Warner Brothers is desperate at the moment. I know, I know, they said that they were busy with other projects…but, uhhhhhh, that was just to put the pressure on us to sign quickly. Don't fall for it. They did not expect Disney/Marvel to be well...as successful as they were. Now Disney owns half of all creative intellectual property. And now, the studio is trying to catch up with the DCEU. And, uhhhhhh…it's not going as well for them. We can take as much time as we want." He perked up his face to look all innocent, showing off his puppy-dog eyes and pouting his lips. "After all, we're the darlings of the studio."

Wakko rolled his eyes, "Really? We're the 'darlings' of the studio?"—his sandwich was a foot tall, but he continued to add more turkey slices and different cheeses as he talked—"Then how come our monthly residual checks from them isn't higher?"

"Our?" Dot snapped, she wished Wakko would stop antagonizing her and stay out of conversations she had with Yakko, her oldest brother. "My allowance is perfectly fine. I spend mine on reasonable things. You're the one who is always—"

"—clothes from the Michael Kors store aren't reasonable—"

She stood back up on her toes, shouting across the room, "—having lobster three times a week isn't—"

"—if I want lobster that is none of your business—"

"Hey guys," Yakko said, but they couldn't hear him.

"—food is the most important thing in the world—" Wakko continued.

"—so is changing your clothes everyday—"

"—not from your Project Runway friends—"

"—Hey! You don't get to badmouth Heidi Klum to me—"

"—I can badmouth whomever I want, especially some hoity-toity people—"

"—they know fashion, unlike some people—"

The eldest's headache was getting worst, "Guys, seriously please stop—"

"—you're ALSO the one who buys very expensive vegan food—" Wakko said.

"—to try to save the animals! God knows, you eat enough meat for the both of us—"

"—oh here we go again with your vegetarianism or veganism or whatever—"

"—no, I wasn't, YOU'RE the one who brought it up—"

"Stop shouting please!" Yakko's voice was starting to raise a few octaves. He stood up and position himself in the middle of the room.

"—why are you always in people's business—" Wakko said.

"—hey, you're the one who criticize me first!—" Dot said back.

"—guys—"

"—no I wasn't—"

"—yes, you were—"

"—guys—"

"—oh here we go again, sweet innocent Dot: a girl who always has some cause to protest about, who's NEVER in the wrong—"

"—guuuuuys—"

"—and ignorant Wakko: a boy who doesn't stand for anything, but himsel—"

"—NOW STOP!" Yakko bellowed at them, putting his hands up as his face turned a shade of red. Both siblings froze; they knew not to push it when he used the 'angry directors' voice, as they called it. They were silent for a few uncomfortable seconds; the only thing that they could hear was the leaky faucet in the kitchen sink.

Drip…drop…drip…drop.

Finally, with both of them knowing the only way they could end the silence without a lecture from their brother was to say in unison, "Sorry Yakko."

"And?" he asked, crossing his arms. There was a pause, before they both faced each other.

"Sorry Dot—"

"—Sorry Wakko."

Dot sat back down on the couch while Wakko continued putting mustard on his sandwich, both trying to forget about the argument and what the other person said.

"There," Yakko said, pushing his anger aside as his face turned back to its original color. He put his glasses back on, grabbed Dot's contract, and said in his 'older brother' voice, "So, what's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," Dot said, but this time she couldn't hide it as well since she was just scolded by him.

"Mmmhmm. You've started two fights with Wakko in less than one minute. A new record. Very impressive. So, something's wrong."

"I did not start—" Yakko narrowed his eyes at her before she could finish that sentence. "Never mind."

"Good answer."

Yakko began reading her contract. After getting more than halfway through, nothing unusual stood out to him, so he turned to the script treatments.

"What's wrong?" Yakko asked again. "You're being paid the same as us; you're going to perform 50% of the songs yourself, while Wakko and I would just be your backup; and you're going to wear sooooo many different types costumes, some of them – which I'm told – we can keep…and if I wasn't told that, then we'll keep them anyway," he added a note on the contract. "You won't have to shop for new clothes for a few months…er, I hope."

"No, those are fine. It's not that…" Dot said under her breath while looking down at the floor. She knew she couldn't keep up the act anymore, but she really didn't want to say what was truly bothering her.

Not in front of him.

"So, then it's…?" Yakko trailed off, hoping she would finish the sentence.

"I don't want to complain, I want to perform again, no matter what."

"Uh no, quite the contraire, sis. Look at me," Yakko said, he grabbed her chin so she wouldn't look down and he could see her eyes as he spoke. "We're not beggars, not anymore, we can ask for what we want and we will get it. We're not show dogs; we call the shots, you understand? Now, I'm not saying you will walk in there and act like a prima donna – you know better than that – but you will not go in there and act like we'll starve tomorrow and take whatever it is they offer. Do not do something just because you want to make everyone happy. Make sure you're happy first. Otherwise, what's the point in doing this reboot? Money? We have our checks; we are set for life if we don't do this show."

"But I want to do the show," she said.

He smiled, "And you will, we all will. But if we're not happy, that's okay, we have all the time in the world until our contracts are just right. Heck, the show might not even air until 2025, but that's no time at all for us. The studio will still want us then, but they need us now. So, I'm telling you, don't act like a beggar, you're not."

"I mean, begging is actually a good look for her," Wakko quipped. "With all the 'pwetty pwease' stuff."

Yakko shot him a quick look that screamed 'try me' and Wakko went back to making his sandwich.

"Really, it's nothing Yakko," Dot reluctantly told him.

"If it's nothing, then it will be an easy fix, right?" Yakko said, raising his eyebrows. She moved her head away. "You want the moon - heck, you want Mars - I'll go to NASA tomorrow and get a rocket for you!"

"Just tell us already! I'm dying with anticipation over here!" Wakko's voice echoed through the walls.

She looked down at the floor, trying to ignore her other brother. Yakko scooch a little closer to her, placing a hand on her shoulder.

"Is it because there are too many songs?" he asked.

"Yes—I mean no. I mean…" she sighed, well, maybe she can tell them a little bit about what's bothering her. "Most of the songs are about being cute, making fun of princesses – both from Disney and in real life – and I'm just tired of that."

"But you still like fashion and dressing up?" Yakko asked.

"Yeah, I do like all that, but…the script treatment is all…well…too 1993 for me. I'm not doing anything else other than being a supporting role for you two; just existing so I can show off my 'girly' interests without so much as a witty punchline that I deliver myself. I am cast as the token girl—"

"—You're not the token girl!" Yakko interrupted. He was not going to let her go down that rabbit hole and take a wrong turn at Albuquerque. "You understand that. You're our sister…who just so happens to be a girl—"

"Uh-huh," she muttered, not convinced.

"Hey, sometimes I don't even think I am a boy myself!" Wakko shouted once again, as he was putting the final touches on his three-foot sandwich.

The recipe was given to him by Shaggy and Scooby who worked a few doors down (both of whom also had very fast metabolism), and it consisted of four types of meats, six types of cheeses, and one tomato, somewhere in the middle. That was his other vegetable serving for the night (or fruit, if Wakko wanted to be technical).

Wakko continued. "I sometimes think I am an ostrich or a dog that doesn't talk, like Pluto!"

"You see!" Yakko said. "I'm the eldest who's a boy, you're the youngest – who happens to be a girl – and Wakko is the strangest who may or may not be part ostrich, I don't know, I'm still waiting for the test results."

But Dot still sat there, unmoved by his speech. She was just very still.

"And if you don't want to sing a bunch of songs about being 'cute', that's fine. We can cut some of them out. How many 'cute' songs are there?" Yakko asked as he looked at her script treatments.

"Five."

"Five!? By the second song, people would be gagging up their breakfast from all the sugar."

"Uh-huh," she agreed.

He started crossing things out with his pen as he turned each page.

"Nope. No. No…That's okay, that's okay…Yep, okay. Hmmm, maybe…if we change this part. Okay…da da da da…only ONE cute song and…oh…my…god…" he said, pausing to read the scene descriptions and dialogue. The content was perfectly fine for a kid's show...but, it wasn't her.

"Do you see the problem now?" she asked, crossing her arms.

"I do; all of your songs are still tied to the solo sketches you will do about being cute/doing girly things. And even when the three of us do a sketch together, you are to be 'busy with putting on makeup', 'continually looking at herself in the mirror', and 'always seeking attention from others with her looks'."

The realization suddenly hit him. So that's what this was about.

"Oh," he said, as his ears lowered.

He had read the script treatment an hour ago, but he really didn't think anything more about her role or those descriptions until she pointed it out. And now he felt stupid for not seeing it earlier. His cheerful attitude was gone.

He took his glasses off as he softly whispered, "Oh, Dot…I'm sorry. I didn't realized...they…they really want you to be the token girl."

"I TOLD YOU!" she cried out. She stood up and just let it all out.

She tried to keep it together, she tried to be the good girl, she tried to be the sensible sibling, but when she saw the look on his face, she knew he understood. And just like that, she unleashed all her built-up rage she had been feeling for…well…for quite some time, no longer holding back.

"It's 2018! I can still look nice AND also care about the environment! I can care about humanitarian causes that face the world! I can do both, but I am still subjected to the 'girl does girl things' trope." she said, waving her arms as she spoke.

She paced around whole tower, never stopping to take a quick breather; she went from the living room to their bedrooms, to the kitchen, to the little office, and then back again to the living room.

"There's not even a Dot's Poetry Corner!" she railed. "The one sketch I was able to write by myself and it's gone!"

"Hey! I liked those sketches!" Wakko said, lying on the kitchen table, his belly slowly digesting his second dinner for the night. "It's an injustice to leave them out!"

"Exactly!" Dot exclaimed, pointing at him. "We need more educational songs here. I didn't get one during the original run, it was always you two or us three, never one that I performed myself."

"Technically it was usually Yakko…" Wakko added.

"Okay, we can ask them to change a few sketches," Yakko said softy, marking it down on her treatment. "Now Dot…"

She continued to preach on, even if it was to nobody.

"…we need to spark inspiration to the next generation of girls, and we can't accomplish that if we have FIVE songs about how cute they are..."

"Oh, she's getting on her soap box again," Wakko quipped to his brother as he rolled his eyes. "Should I actually get the soap box from her room or…?"

Yakko ignored him. "Maybe a few songs about your hobbies," he pleaded with her. "Maybe sketches about the things you care about instead? Dot, there's no need to blow up; I hear ya, loud and clear. Now come sit by me and we can work this out as adults…"

"…it's just mind-boggling that after twenty or so years living on the lot, the studio wants ME to be the attentive younger sister who doesn't have a mind of her own nor a joke to tell herself…"

"To be fair, I still eat a lot," Wakko said, trying to play devil's advocate. "And Yakko still talks too much; they're just working with what they know."

"…have they been paying attention to what gets ratings these days?!..."

"Dot, focus please, we'll change it, I promise," Yakko interjected, trying to snap her out of it. "Just come over here, calm down, and we'll brainstorm a few ideas…"

"…they're trying to make us like the new Powerpuff Girls or Teen Titans Go! All cute, with no vinegar..."

"Shoot me if they do!" Wakko cried out.

"Wakko, you're not helping!" Yakko shouted. "Dot, you know I won't let that happen; Warner Brothers isn't going to screw over the Warner brothers and sis—"

"…have they been reading the news? To sing a song about how 'cute' or 'pretty' you look is to target yourself…"

She tightened her fist.

"People will think it's an open invitation to sneak up on you and grab you by your arm, because 'you're just perfect for this role that we're running auditions for today, because you're soooo pretty'…but they're lying! And you KNOW they're lying..."

She looked towards the tower door.

"Dot?!" Yakko called out.

"...and after you say 'no' in a dozen ways, he grabs you…" she shouted and pointed at the door. "And he goes and-and-and puts his grubby little fingers…on ME! Saying the whole time, that I was just 'playing hard to get' and he wanted to 'cut to the chase'! All while I'm screaming! And nobody – in this GOD FORSAKEN studio with downright shitty security – could hear ME!"

Silence.

Drip…drop…drip…drop.

Realizing what she just said – and what she admitted to out loud – she threw a hand over her mouth.

She continued to look at the giant door in front of her.

The door was an exit.

A way out.

An escape from this particular scene.

She wondered if it was better to just run through it and to continue on, instead of turning around…to face her brothers.