Ink City/Recap/S3/E6 Back to the Wall

Thanks to Discord's City-wide costume-changing, Yakko Warner took a brief, unexpected vacation from Ink City. He returned with a fresh perspective, a videotape... and knowledge that something might happen to his little sister if they weren't careful. Something involving the Fourth Wall.

Too bad he didn't see fit to share that little tidbit with Dot. After one argument too many -- and after overhearing Yakko discussing the Wall with Professor Layton -- she decides to take a vacation of her own, seeing whatever there is to be seen along the City's borders.

Rather than take the trip alone, she turns it into a 'girl's night out', convincing Ichigo to come along with her. Leaving behind a simple note for her brothers, she sets out with her best friend for the mountains that recently appeared on the outskirts of the city.

As they travel, Ichigo starts wondering about the nature of the world they've been stranded in. Could there be other towns out there, just as isolated as Ink City...? And the mountains themselves -- at least some of them were brought along by new arrivals. Could that be a sign that the city's pull is getting stronger? She also asks about her friend's home, hoping to learn more about her. Dot's answers are a bit evasive, however... Since as far as Ichi knows, she's fellow royalty. Fortunately, it's not hard for her to distract the little cousin by getting her talking about her home in the Great Cosmos.

Meanwhile, Yakko decides to get revenge on his sister for ditching them in typical Warner fashion. Mainly, Trolling via the communicator. A few mysterious birdcalls and frog croaks coming from seemingly nowhere lead Dot to think Wakko's to blame, and she calls to confront him. Ichigo, however, jumps to all the wrong conclusions -- the only reason she can think of for him to keep going through Dot's stuff? Is to borrow her skirts. When his siblings prove completely unhelpful in convincing her otherwise, he ends up smashing his communicator.

But he gets his revenge the next morning, when Yakko lets him in on another comm prank: mainly, giving the girls an early wake-up call right as the sun rises. In the style of The Lion King. Needless to say, Dot is not pleased, and mallets them right through the communicator before giving them an earful and hanging up.

When they reach the mountains ranging around the city, Dot's original plans fall apart in the face of the sheer, unscaleable cliffside. Ichigo, however, falls back on familiar instincts -- after all, she rolls up and over much larger obstacles back home all the time! All she'd need is plenty of stuff to build her ball up to size... and the forest looks quite promising for such purposes, with all its trees. Thus, the duo make their way towards the woods... and when they reach it, Dot decides to get a little payback by giving Yakko a call and letting him see just where they are.

For his part, Yakko isn't just sitting idle -- no, he'd decided to check out what he and Saft thought was the Autobot base... only to discover it belonged to the Decepticons instead. Dot's call catches them in the middle of a chase scene, and she's not very pleased to learn he's off getting into trouble while she's away.

Meanwhile, a winged pig trots out of the forest, attracted by the smell of the girls' snacks. Ichigo isn't too happy when it helps itself to their food; the Mayor, however, is relieved when he comes across them. After all, the pig's actually the Anthropomorphic Personification of Discord's powers, which he'd rather keep the draconequus from reclaiming.

Distracted by what's happening at their campsite -- and unable to resist the chance to snark at the Mayor's incompetence -- Yakko forgets about the whole 'running away' gig until Soundwave catches up with him. Seeing the Decepticon snatch up her brother makes Dot freak out and run to get Ichi -- only she runs into the Mayor's makeshift cage instead, freeing the pig and letting it scramble off into the woods. The Mayor follows, with Ichigo and Dot right behind him, headed right for the Wall.

By working together, the girls seem to succeed where the Mayor keeps failing: Ichigo lures it closer with a cookie, then Dot lassoes the beast. But this backfires when its struggles to escape fling them both headlong into the Wall -- and both are promptly overwhelmed by images and sensations neither one understands. Dot sees, while Ichigo witnesses. Both are swiftly reduced to tears, leaving the Mayor with a strangely satisified-looking pig and a couple of sobbing girls. At a loss at how to handle this, he calls in his sister to do the comforting and take them back to the City.

After she drops them off back at the Water Tower, Wakko finds himself with an inconsolable sister and no idea where his brother is. Fortunately, Soundwave merely dropped Yakko off, and he runs into Crmsn while making his way home. The shadowwalker takes him there, and the Warner siblings tearfully reunite, with Ichigo looking on and feeling very left out.

Unfortunately, she's not the only one watching. Despite his tentative treaty with Yakko, Trevor Goodchild is spying on the Tower. Ichigo spots him and goes off, flying over and calling him out. Trevor reacts fairly calmly to her accusations... up until she decides to fly right into his trenchcoat to see what he's hiding. Dot winds up holding her back -- and then, when Trevor refuses to shut up already and leave, knocks him out of the park with a home run hit.

Heading back into the Tower (where Rigby's completely unprepared for the incoming Drama Bomb), Dot tries to shut herself off from the rest of the world. Not that her siblings and friends are about to let her, mind. She'd dragged painful confessions out of Yakko before; now it was his turn to do the same. After considerable effort, they get her to reveal precisely what she saw... or, at least, enough to severely jar Yakko. Learning can do that to a guy. However, he dismisses it as something unreal, something that didn't actually happen and therefore unimportant. While Dot isn't entirely convinced, his reassuring her does help immensely. Ichigo's turn in the hotseat ultimately gets delayed, however, as they're simply too exhausted to go through even more trauma.

The next morning, Crmsn surprises everyone with a breakfast feast. (Of course, that requires he fend off Wakko's attempts to eat everything before the others wake up first...) Though the mood is much lighter at first, things take a sudden downturn when his laughter turns to coughing, and Crmsn finds himself in the spotlight. His attempts to deflect their questions fall on stubborn ears, and eventually he reveals just why he doesn't want to share what's wrong: he's dying from lung cancer. And while Death Is Cheap in Ink City, he isn't sure whether he'd come back healed, merely in a better state... or on the verge of death, locked into a vicious cycle.

Needless to say, his newfound adopted family isn't having any of that, and vows to find some way of fixing the problem. Crmsn isn't so sure they'll be able to find a permanent solution, but is touched by their concern anyway.

This Event includes examples of (YMMV Tropes are located here):
"Dot: WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON YOU, YOU'RE GOING TO REGRET EVER JUMPING OFF THE PAGE, YAKKO I WISH YOU HAD A MIDDLE NAME WARNER!!!!!!!!'"
 * All There in the Manual: Dot's visions from the Wall are from, which occured in LaboCanon and were not canonical to the main storyline... until now.
 * Batter Up: Dot's handy-dandy Trevor disposal method.
 * Break The Cuties
 * Brutal Honesty: Ichigo doesn't see anything wrong with telling the Mayor why they were checking out the forest. She's also confused when he doesn't think her plan to roll up the mountains is the BEST PLAN EVER.
 * Catapult Awakening: Hearing "Circle of Life" blared out of nowhere startles Ichigo enough she shoots straight into the air, still in her sleeping bag.
 * Charm Point: Referenced by Ichigo after hearing Wakko never takes his Nice Hat off.
 * Cross Dresser: When Dot accuses Wakko of going through her pack, Ichi innocently asks if he wanted to borrow some of her skirts. The resulting conversation leads to him malleting his communicator.
 * Cue the Sun: NAAAAAATS INGONYAMA BAGITHIIII BABA!
 * Emoticon: A series of these appear in the headers over Ichigo's posts, depicting her reaction to the wake-up call.
 * Engineered Public Confession: Ichigo's been replaying Rigby's broadcast for various newcomers in order to show them "the REAL Trevor". When Trevor blows off her dismissive comment about 'New Bregna' being meaningless, she replays the part of his conversation with Rigby where he mentions it. Loudly.
 * Extreme Omnivore: The pig, who eats a box of cookies -- box included.
 * This causes Crmsn's initial attempts to draw Wakko out to fail, as he doesn't care what sort of decoys he sets out for him.
 * Four Is Death: Dot's reaction to being overwhelmed by is four posts long.
 * Fourth Wall
 * Full Name Ultimatum:

"Dot: So long as we don't run into any wolves or woodsmen, you're fine!"
 * Girls' Night Out Episode
 * Hypocritical Humor: Yakko getting upset at Dot for going somewhere dangerous... while he and Saft were busy checking out the Decepticon Base.
 * Incurable Cough of Death: Crmsn, unfortunately, has one.
 * Innocent Inaccurate: Played darkly when Ichigo doesn't fully comprehend what the Wall shows her and interprets it as something arguably much worse.
 * Innocent Innuendo: When Ichigo brings up how her Royal Uncle provided them with katamari, Dot couldn't resist trotting out the Double Entendres. Ichigo, completely unaware, rolled straight into this.
 * Knight of Cerebus: The camping trip was very light-hearted and cheerful, up until someone cued the flying pig of chaos incarnate.
 * Little Dead Riding Hood: While preparing for the trip, Ichigo picks out a red cloak, which Dot Lampshades:


 * No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Twice over; the girls' attempt to catch the Discord power pig leads them directly to the Wall, and Ichi trying to catch her friend results in her getting knocked into it as well.
 * No Volume Control: When Ichigo replays Trevor's mention of his plans for Ink City, she does so loudly.
 * Not Me This Time: No, Wakko actually hadn't done anything to Dot's backpack...
 * Offhand Backmallet: Rigby isn't very helpful when the others are trying to get Dot to talk. Wakko handles the problem via bitchmallet.
 * Pet the Dog: It says a lot about the Mayor's Character Development that he doesn't take the easy route to transport the girls back (that being ) and calls in his sister instead.
 * The Power of Love: Downplayed when the Painted Lady invokes it, changing her form to emit feelings of love and comfort when she reaches the girls.
 * Reaching Between the Lines: Dot mallets her brothers over the communicator.
 * Right Behind Me: Soundwave pulls this on Yakko.
 * Rule of Three: After the crossdresser confusion, Dot collapses from laughter three times in rapid succession.
 * Snowball Lie: Dot finds herself having to keep expanding upon what she's told Ichi about her past as a princess.
 * Speak in Unison: Dot and Ichigo have a tendency to say almost the exact same thing at the same time.
 * Suspiciously Apropos Music: Yakko deliberately invokes this by matching up "The Circle of Life" with the sunrise -- and it pays off when Ichi launches herself into the air from shock, then lands during the line "From the day we arrived on the planet..."
 * Sustained Misunderstanding: Wakko's attempts to convince Ichi he's not a crossdresser run up against this. His siblings do not help.
 * Sweet Tooth: While Dot at least brought hot dogs, Ichigo loaded up on candy and cookies... because she knew Dot was bringing other food along.
 * Talking Is a Free Action: Yeah, Yakko and Saft were in the middle of a chase scene when Dot called. Doesn't stop him from chatting with her, especially when the chance comes up to insult the Mayor.
 * Team Dad: Crmsn takes this role for the Warners and their honorary psuedo-siblings Rigby and Ichigo.
 * That Liar Lies: Ichigo repeatedly harps on the fact that Trevor's a lying liar who does nothing but lie.
 * Troll: All the Warner sibs get their turn both as troller and target.
 * Underground Bird: Hearing bird calls without any birds in sight? Maybe they're underground looking for worms!
 * When All You Have Is A Katamari: Though Ichi doesn't even have a katamari when they reach the mountains, she starts constructing a plan around coming back with one.
 * Worth It: Dot may not have gotten the answers she wanted when she first called her brothers, but decided the interesting discussion they had instead was a fair trade-off.
 * Similarly, her brothers decided any punishment they'd recieve for their early morning wake-up call would be completely worth it.
 * You See, I'm Dying: Which is why Crmsn wanted to avoid telling them in the first place: How do you gently break the news that you're going to die?