The Firework Princess

Hahaha, I should just lie and say I was drunk when I drew this.

Truthfully what happened is that in light of Wreck-It Ralph's awesomeness, I've been hounding *Tell-Me-Lies to brainstorm with me the idea of Mickey and Minnie having their own long-running, classic save-the-princess video game series. Minnie is princess of the kingdom of fireworks where it's almost always night or twilight but never dark, because it is always twinkling and shining with the lights of millions of fireworks, fairy lights, lanterns, and their equivalent of a bajillion Christmas lights strung around everything. Mickey starts out in this humble series as being a regular joe who keeps the lights lit, nbd, but his time comes to shine when (oh who could have seen it coming) Princess Minnie is kidnapped by an Evil Guy Who Does Things, a Bowser/Ganondorf type, you know the drill.

You play as Mickey, who in his basic form has various forms of attacks related to his profession, including flash bombs, firecrackers, that long stick thingy you use to light lanterns way up high, and idk, perhaps he'll throw a lantern at you if you really tick him off. Strapped to his back is the mandolin that Princess Minnie gave him, which you the player play whenever Mickey comes across a summoning stone. Summoning stones bring forth Minnie's spirit to lend you a hand in either getting you past certain obstacles or doing special combo attacks to finish off a boss. So Minnie isn't exactly playing go fish in the badguy's castle, she's also your guardian angel.

Another hallmark of the series is that in each level, you don a special, magical form of armor in order to battle whatever each level has to throw at you, depending on the level's theme (Minnie's dress is different too for when you summon her). I imagine in the original 8-bit game there'd probably be like four levels all based on the elements that are just hard and long as nuts, but for each installment of the series the levels get crazier and crazier and more creative (not to mention better graphics!). And then of course in other games you get more instruments to play, cool new toys...and in pretty much every game if you need transportation you go to Captain Churchmouse, you get gadgets from Doc Static, and you get special subquest missions from Chief O'Hara. And of course the rest of the gang makes regular appearances too. I'm sure Pluto fights at your side sometimes, as he would be the Yoshi to Mickey's Mario. Sometimes you team up with Goofy, Donald, or Horace.

But the real story, within the games, is that no matter how many times Mickey rescues Minnie, talks to Minnie, gets a little reward from Minnie, he doesn't get to tell her his feelings or truly be her guy because it's not written in the code (she likes him too but there is a similar problem). Because of prudish game developers, Mickey is burdened with wanting something he can't have in canon.

Until, in some probably early 2000s game with sweet graphics, the Evil Guy Who Does Things probably screws with the code himself, and just before Mickey sets everything back to order, he finally takes advantage of the situation and sweeps Minnie off her feet to her delight. This happens after the game has already gone out, and the creators end up not recalling the game and the unintentional ending because it gets a hugely positive response. Thus, in future games, Mickey and Minnie are dating, and eventually there is your obligatory Crashed Wedding premise for a later game. And in the last game they live happily ever after, yay~

Also, as if all of this weren't enough, it's eventually revealed that Mickey's a prince himself from a kingdom that looks like one big freaking rave party with glowsticks and black lights and strobe lights and music with crazy bass, so he gets to add those kind of powers to his arsenal and be princely sometimes too.

Aaaaaaaaand yeah. This drawing needs to go to my scraps soon. xD

Thanks as usual, *Tell-Me-Lies, for inventing crazy awesome concepts with me~!