gonnawreckit | 100m: I'm gonna wreck it! [Action]

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100m: I'm gonna wreck it! [Action]

[Action (1)]

[This nine-foot tall, barefoot giant of a man finds himself waking up in any old house or apartment, maybe even in the forest. Completely oblivious to the pink wings on his back for now, he instead comes to attention and begins looking around in confusion.]

What? Where's... No! I can't have been taken to another game. I... I was right there! I was gonna save- I... [And his voice goes soft.] Vanellope...

[His eyes are close for a moment, mournfully. When they open, they're filled with hurt anger. And his unusually massive fists are soon put to work... wrecking his immediate surroundings in an angry tantrum, while he shouts loudly. He could keep going until there's nothing left. He will hold himself back from hurting actual people, but he will at least shove aside those who get in his way at emotional heights.]

[Action 2]

[Later on, after being calmed from his tantrum, Ralph trudges through town, defeated and feeling ashamed. First day in a new game and already he's been playing the bad guy. So he makes his way through the item and clothing shops, finding one item in the former which gives him a strong, bittersweet feeling, and then he makes his way out of the village. He only stops at Good Spirits for a round of root beers, trying to keep to himself. That evening, with a sack of bricks over his shoulder, he seeks a nice stump to sleep against, in between bouts of the freezing rain.]

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[He huffs and slumps in his seat. Then he puffs himself up before he starts to ramble.]

Alright, sister! You wanna know? Let me walk you through my dreams as they happened. My first dream? Was to be the good guy. A hero. After 30 years of having to act like the bad guy and then get treated like the bad guy after hours, I was sick of it. I wanted respect, I wanted to be able to go to parties and eat cake and hang out in the penthouse and not sleep in garbage! You think that's easy? You think it's so simple? It's not!

[He slams a fist on the table, hard enough to shake it.]

You need a medal to prove you're a hero. Bad guys don't win medals and they never should. I left my game, and I sneaked into another game to get a medal. It worked, in a way! I got the medal. I thought I was so smart, I thought I was a hero already. But then I wound up falling into another game and losing my medal, and it only got worse from there. Oh, and to skip ahead a bit? When I went back to the game, I did get to stay in the penthouse with my medal. Except that the game was out of order because not only had I been gone for too long, but my game's hero went missing trying to find me to fix up my mess!

[To her credit, Rapunzel does sit and listen to his whole rant, even if she looks a bit startled when he hits the table. She doesn't interrupt him though, intent on hearing him out.

All this about needing medals to be a hero...maybe it was a cultural thing. But she didn't believe it, and she had to try.]

There's nothing wrong with being a good person. [She asserts.] Even if people think you're a bad one. But you don't need a medal to be a hero. You just need to do the right things.

Maybe you're right. [A grunt.] Except that doing these "right things"? They've only become wrong. Because that's all bad guys can do. Let me tell you about what happened in the game where I lost my medal. Sugar Rush. A game for kart racing that's full of all kinds of candy. This... [His face softens as he remembers her.] this kid, she took my medal and used it to enter a race because she didn't want to be just a glitch anymore...

[She tries to follow along. Even if references to things like 'kar racing' go completely over her head.

But she gets the feeling there's something fundamental she needs to figure out before he proceeds.]

A glitch?

Right. A glitch is... a part of the game that doesn't work right. When the code's messed up. It makes the character... fizz in and out. Glitches are problems for games, because... because it can make people think the game is broken if they see one. So a glitch can get a game unplugged. [His face droops, as if reliving something horrible.] And... and it's the worst for a glitch, because... they can't leave the game. No matter how hard you try, you can't get a glitch outsider of her game. She'd... go with the rest of the game.

[Still a bit hazy, but she understands...mostly.]

So...so why did she want to be in the race so badly? [It must have been a lot to take his medal like that. It sounded pretty important to him.]

She... she was kind of like me in a way. I was tired of being treated like a bad guy. She was tired of being treated like a glitch. All the other people in her game... they shunned her and made fun of her for being a glitch. She lived alone in some garbage at the Diet Cola Mountain. So she took my medal and used it to enter the race because she... she believed in herself. That she'd win and gamers would want to play as her even if she had a glitch. Dumb kid. Got me believing that, too. [He shakes his head.] There's more to it than that, but I didn't find out until later.

So did she race? Did she win?

[Because she has a bad feeling about this. But she wants to know.]

She did race. And she... she never made it to the finish line. [He shakes his head before continuing.] Thing is... the kid convinced me to make a kart for her, and she loved it even though it was a piece of junk. At first, I thought we really had a chance. That she could be a race, and I'd get my medal back. That's when King Candy came knocking - he told me all the horrible things that could happen from a glitch being in the game. That it could cost her her life. And he gave me back my medal. So I did what... what looked like the right thing. I wrecked her kart.

You...you wrecked her kart?

[After helping her make it? And believing that she could win? Even if he doesn't say that, she knows it.]

...But you were just trying to do what was best for her. So that doesn't make you bad.

She called me a bad guy. And I felt it more than anything. [He says plainly.] Then I slowly found out the truth. Vanellope wasn't supposed to be a glitch. She was the star of the game. It was King Candy who ruined everything, he broke her code which made her all glitchy, so that he could take over. Because... he was really a different character, Turbo, who was just hungry for glory. And if she won the race? It would restore her true. She really... would have been a racer again. I... I tried to make things right, but things... they didn't go so well.

[After he found out the truth, he tried to make things right? Then of course he was a good guy. That was plain sight to her! She would have to make him see that.

But...that doesn't sound promising.]

They didn't?

[He shakes his head and is quiet for a moment before going on.]

At first? Things were going so well. I managed to get Felix, he fixed up the kid's kart. Freed the brat herself and got see her race. [A nostalgic smile crosses his face.] She really was amazing. She beat King Candy and... she was gonna win. But I messed it up again. When I came here, from the game where I first won a medal? I didn't know that I brought something horrible with me. A Cy-bug. They can multiply forever and destroy entire games. So they were destroying Sugar Rush. And they got the finish line. There... there wasn't really a way to save the game. And the kid, Vanellope, she... was still a glitch.

[She tries to keep calm, but her expression does turn slightly panicked.]

So...so what happened? She didn't...?

I'm gonna give it to you straight, kid. I don't know. I tried to get her out, but it... couldn't work. There was only one way to stop the Cy-bugs. That was with a beacon. It'd draw them all in and destroy them. At the last moment... I thought of a way to start a beacon and went off on my own. To set off a... volcano of exploding soda. And before I knew it, I... was here.

[...And she finds that pretty much the worst possible cliffhanger. She deflates, settling back into her seat and worrying at her bottom lip. She can't even imagine how that must feel. To not even know if things were going to be okay.]

I'm sure everything works out fine, Ralph.

You don't know that.

Maybe I don't. [Her voice is quieter, but meaningful.] But I also know that beating yourself up about it isn't going to make things better.

[He bites into a doughnut fiercely.]

I don't care about making things better. It's too late. Game over.

Well, that's not true at all! Look, you're here now! That means it isn't the end. There's living here, too, you know! And here matters.

["It's okay. Go without me."]

I can live, yeah. And it'll matter. I'll keep on wrecking everything I get my hands on. So I'm better off on my own.

[She just met him, but she's already certain about one thing.]

Now, that's not true at all.

What do you know?

[And he slides his seat out.]

You're out of doughnuts, Goldie.

[Huff. Oh no you don't. She knows he's trying to make an exit, but Rapunzel just doesn't roll with that.]

You just told me a lot more about you than I think you realize. [A sigh.] I might be out of doughnuts, but why don't you sleep here tonight? There's open apartments on this floor.

[He's still for a moment, considering this. He hasn't known anyone this nice since the kid. Unlike anyone, she actually... freely invited him to something, then sat him down and heard him out. But he doesn't want to wreck this.]

That sounds like too much trouble for you to handle, sister. I'm done wrecking young girl's lives, okay? I just need my stump and my bricks. That's all I've ever deserved - I mean needed, in the past.

100m: I'm gonna wreck it! [Action]

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