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Bandit's Belt

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Bandit's Belt is a fanfic of Bluey, written by The Home Blue.

It focuses on Chilli developing a new variation on brain cancer, which causes the victims to go insane and then die, and so the rest of the Heelers have to deal with the aftermath of Chilli's insanity and death, while romance is possibly on the horizon for Bandit and Brandy.

It has developed a somewhat infamous reputation in the fandom for being such a Dark Fic.


Bandit's Belt provides examples of:

  • Abusive Parents:
    • Due to brain cancer, Chilli becomes very aggressive, and yells at Bluey and threatens Bingo with a knife. Even before that, Chilli resented Bingo for being born from the adultery between her husband Bandit and her sister Brandy.
    • Bandit occasionally slips into this when he gets angry at his daughters, tries to belt Bluey and initially disapproves of Bluey's boyfriend Mackenzie.
    • Mackenzie’s dad (who's called Richard here) hits his son after finding the latter drinking wine.
    • Mort blames Brandy for her mother's death, hits her and tells her she should have died instead.
    • Wendy gives Judo extreme punishments like hitting her with a ruler and making her swallow a pepper whole, and her dad used to do similar things before he divorced Wendy.
    • Wendy’s parents, Reginald and Victoria, used to beat her up when she was a kid.
  • Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal:
    • The Japanese dog wears glasses.
    • Marcus (not Honey’s dad) wears a tie.
    • In the past, Brandy had a crush on a bespectacled Great Dane.
    • Joshua wears sunglasses.
    • At age sixteen, Judo wears earrings and a hair tie.
  • Accidental Misnaming:
    • Due to having bitten her tongue in half, Chilli mispronounces her family members’ names as Bwandit (Bandit), Buey (Bluey), Stwipe (Stripe), Mubbin (Muffin), Kwis (Chris), Bandy (Brandy), and Murt (Mort).
    • Muffin calls Brandy “Bwandy”, Bluey “Buwey”, Chilli “Chiwi”, and Bandit “Bwandit”.
  • Adaptational Angst Upgrade:
    • Killing off Chilli means that Bandit is now a widower and the Heeler sisters are motherless.
    • While Brandy was undoubtedly sad about her mother being dead (and about her implied struggles conceiving), there was no indication in canon that it gave her a severe phobia or led to familial struggles with Mort.
    • Wendy almost gets choked to death, and she apparently had a delusional grandfather. She also had abusive parents.
    • Bingo may be kind of sensitive in canon, but she was never ostracised for having bitten anybody.
    • Socks and Trixie die, leaving Stripe and Muffin bereft.
  • Adaptational Explanation:
    • The story elaborates that Judo’s parents are divorced.
    • It explains when exactly Chilli’s mother died – seven years ago when Chilli was pregnant with Bluey. It also explains how she died; a saltwater crocodile ate her.
    • It explains that the reason Socks acted like a real dog at age one was due to “a rare condition”.
    • It explains that the miscarriage mentioned behind the scenes was Chilli’s first baby.
    • Stripe is explained to be two years younger than Bandit.
    • It explains why Brandy felt awkward about Bingo looking like her in "Onesises" — Bandit cheated on Chilli with Brandy to produce Bingo.
  • Adaptational Friendship:
    • Dougie and Bingo meet and end up making friends.
    • Nana Chris and Doreen are written as being friends.
  • Adaptational Jerkass:
    • Mort is a nice grandfather in canon, but here, he blames Brandy for his wife’s (her mother’s) death.
    • Mackenzie’s dad is just a normal dad in canon, but in the story, he belts his son.
    • Wendy gives her daughter Judo extreme punishments like hitting her with a ruler and making her count rice grains. She also dumps her milkshake on Stripe’s head instead of simply saying no to him when he flirts with her as children.
    • While Brandy is one of the nicest characters in the present, in the past, she tried to have sex with Stripe despite knowing he was married and him not liking it. She also slept with Bandit while he was married to Chilli.
  • Adaptational Relationship Overhaul:
    • Bandit and Brandy are just siblings-in-law in canon, but here they’re in love, and eventually a couple.
    • In canon, Bingo likes Brandy, but here, Bingo hates Brandy because she thinks she’s replacing Chilli.
    • Rad is stated to have once had a Precocious Crush on Doreen, while in canon, they don’t interact at all.
    • In canon, Stripe and Wendy are just acquaintances, whereas here, he used to be in love with her when he was a kid and then they became rivals due to him ruining her ballet performance. Then, they end up dating.
    • Canonically, Chilli loves Bingo. Here, she hates her guts because she was an adultery baby.
    • Bluey and Mackenzie are just good friends with a couple Ship Tease moments in canon, while here, they're eventually a couple.
    • Bingo and Dougie never interact in canon, whereas here, they're friends, and eventually a couple.
  • Affair? Blame the Bastard: Chilli resented Bingo because Bingo was conceived when Bandit cheated on Chilli with Brandy.
  • Affectionate Gesture to the Head: Bandit pets Judo’s head for saving Socks.
  • Affectionate Nickname: When Bluey and Mackenzie are sixteen and start dating, they call each other “pookie” and “honeybun”.
  • Affection-Hating Kid:
    • When Marcus and Theresa kiss and flirt, the children cringe.
    • Played with for Bandit when he was twelve – he has had a crush before, but he also thinks his brothers are being disgusting gushing about their respective crushes.
  • Age Lift: Not initially, but by Chapter 16, the story skips forward three years, making Bluey and her friends ten years old and Bingo eight. Later, Bingo turns nine, and even later, she ages into a teenager, then a young woman.
  • Agony of the Feet:
    • Trixie runs over Bandit’s foot in her wheelchair.
    • When the younger Wendy is being the servant, her feet hurt from walking too much.
  • Alcohol Hic: Bluey gets the hiccups when she gets drunk on wine.
  • Alcoholic Parent: Stripe (who’s the father of Muffin) starts getting black-out drunk all the time after his wife and his other daughter Socks die.
  • Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: Bandit once accidentally burned down Rad’s kitchen because he was drunk.
  • Alliterative Name:
    • The doctor’s name is Shaun Shepherd.
    • The character who Chilli kills was named Rot Rottweiler.
  • Alliterative Title: Bandit’s Belt.
  • All Periods Are PMS: Subverted – when Chilli gets angry at Bandit and swears at him, he thinks her problem is “a women’s thing”, but it’s brain cancer instead.
  • Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: Conversed when Shaun points out that some blue, purple, and pink toy emus are not accurate. Later, Bluey wins a pink koala plushie and Bluey watches a TV show about a blue cat.
  • Anchovies Are Abhorrent: Zigzagged. It’s considered weird by the other characters that Chilli likes anchovies. However, when her daughters begin to eat the anchovy pizza, Bluey decides it isn’t so bad.
  • Appetite Equals Health: Chilli’s brain cancer causes her to eat less, making her lose weight.
  • An Arm and a Leg: Chilli tears Rot’s arm off due to being insane from brain tumours.
  • Artistic License – Medicine: The doctor says that there’s no cure for cancer, and the tumours remain in the body even if the cancer goes into remission. In actuality, half of all cancers can be treated, most often with chemotherapy, and a patient who still has tumours is not considered recovered.
  • Ass Shove: Apparently, Socks once pooped and tried to “shove it back”.
  • Atomic F-Bomb:
    • Bandit yells, “FFFFFFFUUUUUUCCCKKKKK” when venting about his wife having life-threatening cancer.
    • Later, he yells, “SHIT!” when the grill explodes.
    • Wendy yells, “FUCK!” when she dies in a video game.
    • Shaun yells, “FUCK!” when he has to shoot Marissa to death.
  • Babysitting Episode: There’s one arc where the Heeler sisters are being babysat by Brandy while Bandit is on a business trip, and Muffin and Socks are babysat by Wendy while Trixie is in the hospital and Stripe is processing her injuries.
  • Baffled by Own Biology: When Bluey develops Single Malt Vision after drinking wine, she thinks there really are three Mackenzies.
  • Bathroom Search Excuse: When Bandit goes to bury Chilli’s severed hand, he lies that he has to pee.
  • Beach Episode: The aptly-named title “Beach” focuses on the Heelers, plus Marcus and his family, having a beach trip.
  • Beat Still, My Heart: During a flashback to Brandy's past, when Katherine (the name given to Brandy and Chilli's deceased mother) is ripped to pieces and devoured by a crocodile, Katherine's heart lands on Brandy's lap and is described as "still beating".
  • Big "NO!":
    • Bandit yells, “NO” when he learns Chilli’s cancer is life-threatening.
    • Bingo shouts, “DAD! NOOOOO!” when Bandit is about to belt Bluey.
    • Wendy yells, “NOOOO!” when Bandit is trying to kill her.
    • In the joke chapter, Judo yells, “NNNOOO!” when her demonic “sibling” picks her up.
    • Bingo says, “NO!” when Bandit and Brandy reveal that they’re engaged.
    • Brandy yells, “NO!” when Chilli tells her to get an abortion in a flashback because Brandy's pregnancy was the result of Bandit's affair with her.
    • Bluey and Bingo scream "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" in the final chapter when Bandit and Brandy perish in an exploding building.
  • Big "OMG!":
    • Bingo yells, “OH MY GOD!” after self-harming.
    • Brandy yells, “OH MY GO-!” when she learns Bingo and Dougie are planning on dating.
  • Big "WHAT?!":
    • Bandit yells, “WHAT?!” when he realises that Wendy thought he killed the girls.
    • Bluey yells, “WHAT?!” when she learns that Mort hit Brandy.
    • Stripe yells, “WHAT?!” when he learns that Muffin got her first period, then later she does when she learns it will happen once a month.
  • Big Word Shout:
    • Muffin and Socks shout out, “PIZZA!” when they hear they will be getting some.
    • Bingo yells, “HOW!?” when Dougie beats her at tic-tac-toe ten times.
    • She then yells, “TOYS!” when she sees a toy store.
  • Big "YES!": Bandit and Brandy yell, “YYYYYEEEESSSSSSSSS!” after watching a villain on TV die.
  • Birthday Episode:
    • In the chapter “Birthday”, Bingo turns nine.
    • Downplayed for “Dates”, where one of the several dates is on Bingo’s fifteenth birthday.
  • Bizarre Beverage Use: A younger Wendy rejects Stripe’s advances by dumping a milkshake on him.
  • Blowing a Raspberry:
    • In Bingo’s dream, she blows a raspberry at a dinosaur.
    • The girls blow raspberries at Bandit during Tug of War.
    • Bingo blows a raspberry at Judo for thinking Dougie is her boyfriend.
    • Dougie blows a raspberry at Bingo to taunt her while they’re racing on horses, then later she blows one back.
  • Boyfriend-Blocking Dad: Bandit disapproves of his ten-year-old daughter Bluey sleeping in the same room or pretending to be the wife of a boy named Mackenzie as he doesn’t want them to start dating. Then, when they do start dating as teens, he hates it at first, though he does warm up to it.
  • Brainy Baby: In the joke chapter, Wendy coughs up Judo’s baby sister, who says, “Mama!” right away.
  • "Brave the Ride" Plot: Downplayed – it’s not the whole plot, but just one chapter. Brandy is afraid to go on a crocodile-themed ride, not because it’s a ride but because she’s afraid of crocodiles (because her mother was eaten by one). Yet she eventually becomes brave enough to ride on it anyway to cheer her niece Bingo up.
  • Bring My Brown Pants:
    • Brandy wets herself out of fear when she sees a crocodile.
    • Another dog wets herself upon seeing one of the patients of the strange cancer.
    • Socks wets herself when Trixie goes psycho.
  • Buffy Speak: Bandit calls a spinner a “spinny thing”.
  • Bully Magnet: As a teenager, Bingo often gets food thrown at her at school.
  • "Burly Detective" Syndrome: Characters are occasionally referred to by breed or age instead of name.
  • But Liquor Is Quicker: As it turns out, Brandy is actually Bingo’s mother, and she was conceived because Bandit cheated on Chilli when he and Brandy were both drunk.
  • But You Were There, and You, and You: The dinosaur in Bingo’s dream has Bandit’s colours.
  • Calling Your Actions: During a game of house, Bluey and Junior say, “Fake throw!” and “Fake slap!”.
  • Cactus Cushion: Discussed when Bluey is playing at being a woman angry with her husband and says she’d rather sit on a cactus for years than date him again.
  • Chain of Harm: When Wendy was a preteen, her parents used to beat her. When she grew up, she’d occasionally do the same to her daughter Judo, along with other extreme punishments like making her count rice grains.
  • Character Exaggeration: In canon, Stripe is implied to be drunk in two episodes ("Verandah Santa" and "The Sign"), and both were at parties, which is a pretty normal time for someone to get drunk. Here, he’s a straight-up alcoholic until he goes sober.
  • Childhood Friend Romance: Bluey and Mackenzie, and then Bingo and Dougie, start dating as teenagers.
  • Chocolate of Romance: When he was a teenager, Rad used to send Doreen, on whom he had an unrequited crush, chocolate.
  • Comfort Food:
    • Trixie gives Bingo ice cream to cheer her up after treating her wound with hydrogen peroxide.
    • Due to not liking dark chocolate, Brandy only accepts it “to calm herself down” as Bingo is getting stitches.
    • The reason Muffin is fat at age twelve is because she eats too much as part of her grief for her mother and sister.
  • Comically Missing the Point: When Brandy is mad at Bandit for mentioning a time when she got her period in a swimming pool, she tells him off for bringing up her “shitting” blood in the pool. Bandit replies, “Brandy, you didn’t shit blood, it came out of ya thing”.
  • Contrived Coincidence:
    • Theresa, the woman who’s staying next door to where the Heelers are staying on a vacation to America, and Rot, the man who Chilli killed when she went feral, just so happen to be siblings-in-law.
    • Maria, another woman the Heelers meet in America, just so happens to be the mother of the girl who was run over.
  • Cope by Pretending: Bandit tries to cope with his wife Chilli’s death by hugging a pillow and pretending it’s her.
  • Corporal Punishment:
    • Richard slaps Mackenzie as punishment for drinking wine.
    • Wendy punishes Judo for smoking by hitting her on the head with a ruler.
  • Cover Innocent Eyes and Ears: Bandit covers his kids’ eyes when Theresa and Marcus start doing heavy petting.
  • Crashing Dreams: Bandit accidentally chews on Bingo in his sleep, so she dreams about being chewed on by a dinosaur that looks like him.
  • Creepy Child: Due to being shaken up by her mother’s death, Bingo (who starts out at age five and eventually ages to eight) develops a creepy liking for the taste and smell of blood, becomes eerily interested in guns, and even tries to kill Socks out of anger.
  • Cringe Comedy: Bandit embarrasses Brandy in a supermarket by mentioning a time when she leaked menstrual blood in a pool.
  • Crush Blush:
    • Brandy starts blushing around Bandit when she develops feelings for him.
    • Junior blushes when he realises he likes Bluey.
    • Mackenzie blushes at age sixteen when he and Bluey become a couple.
    • The teenage Bingo blushes in her dream where she’s dating Dougie.
    • Dougie blushes when he starts dating Bingo.
  • Dark Fic: The fanfic involves Chilli getting brain cancer and attacking her family before dying, Bingo developing a bloodlust that leads to her becoming a pariah, several other deaths including of children, and Trixie going insane and killing her own daughter Socks.
  • Death Fic: Chilli ends up dying from a combination of brain cancer and being shot (because she was attacking people and killed someone) by Bandit about a third of the way through the story.
  • Death Glare:
    • Bandit scowls at Wendy for being nosy and because earlier she wrongly thought he cut Bingo’s throat.
    • Bluey and Bingo scowl at Bandit for pushing them in the water.
    • Bandit scowls at Mackenzie for saying that Bingo is just like Chilli because they are both biters.
    • Bingo gives Bandit the evils for being in love with Brandy, since she doesn’t want a “new mum”.
    • Chris scowls at Stripe when she fears he’s become a drug salesboy.
    • Wendy scowls at Stripe for pushing her into a pool, then later when arguing with him over smoking and drinking.
    • Bingo scowls at Bandit for wanting to marry Brandy, then for cheating on Chilli.
  • Death of a Child:
    • Shaun’s daughter Miranda died when she was just nine months old.
    • Maria's teenage daughter is fatally run over by a truck.
    • Socks is killed when she is only five years old.
    • Eight-year-old Marissa gets the new cancer variant and is shot to death.
    • Bandit and Brandy's unborn baby dies along with Brandy when the latter is infected with the cancer and has to be put down by Bandit in the final chapter.
  • Deceased Parents Are the Best: Before being eaten by a crocodile, Katherine was a supportive mother to Chilli and Brandy and tried to get Brandy over her ex-boyfriend.
  • Department of Redundancy Department: Bingo is at one point described as “exhausted and tired”.
  • Determined Expression: Stripe is described as looking determined when he mentions getting revenge on Wendy.
  • Disabled in the Adaptation:
    • Chilli attacks Trixie in the pelvis, leaving Trixie unable to walk.
    • The shock of Chilli’s cancer and death results in Bandit developing schizophrenia.
  • Disappeared Dad:
    • Shaun’s son-in-law died of lung cancer, leaving his kids without a father.
    • Rot, the Rottweiler who Chilli killed, turns out to have had a daughter.
    • Eventually, Chilli and Brandy's father Mort kills himself with a knife.
  • Disowned Sibling: When Chilli discovers that Bandit cheated on her with Brandy, she says that Brandy isn’t her sister any longer.
  • Does Not Like Spam:
    • Brandy doesn’t like dark chocolate.
    • Even at age fourteen, Dougie doesn’t like coffee.
  • Dog Stereotype:
    • Theresa, a woman who previously bit someone, is a Rottweiler.
    • A flashback shows a bully who’s a pitbull, and then Bingo is also bullied by a pitbull.
  • Don't Make Me Take My Belt Off!: Richard threatens to belt Mackenzie as punishment for drinking wine, which inspires Bandit to belt Bluey for the same reason, though Bingo stops him.
  • Do Not Taunt Cthulhu: In Bingo’s dream, a dinosaur chews on her after she calls it a “big blue meanie”.
  • Doomed New Clothes: Hazel the teenage waitress spills booze on Wendy’s expensive dress. She does think she will be able to wash it out, but that it would be hard.
  • Dope Slap: Bandit slaps Stripe because he thinks his revenge plan (dumping garbage on Wendy because she dumped a milkshake on him) is stupid.
  • Downer Ending: By the end of the story, the psychosis-inducing cancer has become an epidemic, and has taken down Chris, Bob, Bandit, and Brandy, the latter of whom was pregnant no less. Not only that, but Bluey and Bingo had to watch Bandit and Brandy being euthanised.
  • Dramatic Irony:
    • Wendy mourns over the Heeler girls when we the readers know that they’re not dead.
    • After it’s revealed that Brandy is shaken up by nightmares, Bluey thinks it’s because she and Bingo always win at Freeze Dance.
    • Maria thinks Bingo is sick when she throws up, when the readers already know that she’s instead deeply troubled.
  • Dramatic Thunder: The scene where Trixie is revealed to have the same cancer Chilli had takes place in a thunderstorm.
  • Driven to Suicide:
    • One dog shoots herself in the brain because her husband was killed.
    • Mort eventually kills himself with a knife.
  • Drowning My Sorrows:
    • Shaun chugs whiskey to deal with his son-in-law dying of lung cancer.
    • Stripe gets very drunk on wine out of grief for his sister-in-law and shock from finding out his wife can no longer walk, then becomes an alcoholic when his wife and one of his daughters dies.
    • Bandit drinks two bottles of wine after learning that Chilli has seven brain tumours.
    • Brandy used to drink a lot after her breakup with her ex-boyfriend.
  • Drunk Driver: Stripe drives to the funeral while very drunk on wine.
  • Dumb Struck:
    • Bingo finds herself unable to speak for a few hours after being attacked by Chilli.
    • Socks stops talking after Chilli attacks Trixie’s crotch with a broken bottle and tries to force-feed the same bottle to Socks. Even three years later, she’s still not talking.
  • Ear Ache: When Bingo tries to kill Socks, she fights back by slicing a piece off Bingo’s ear.
  • Edible Theme Naming: In addition to the canon characters Chilli and Muffin, there’s also two police dogs named Berry and HoneyCake, Rad and Frisky’s son Almond, and Trixie's middle name is revealed to be IceCream.
  • Egg Sitting: At one point, Bluey and Mackenzie are assigned to look after an egg like a baby, which Bluey names Samantha. Mackenzie thinks she is taking the assignment way too seriously and that Samantha is a bad name.
  • Entertainment Above Their Age: At twelve, Muffin plays a video game whose age rating is above her age.
  • Erotic Dream: Downplayed when Bandit dreams that he’s married to Brandy, while she dreams about marrying him, then later Bingo dreams about dating Dougie.
  • "Eureka!" Moment: When Bandit is remembering a time when Mort had a heart attack and Brandy medicated him, he then decides to have Brandy babysit Bluey, Bingo, and Muffin.
  • Exhausted Eye Bags: Mackenzie is described as having eye bags when he’s sleepy.
  • Exiled to the Couch: Chilli makes Bandit sleep on the couch as punishment for squashing her during Twister.
  • Extreme Omnivore:
    • Socks apparently ate her own poop the previous year.
    • Bingo starts to enjoy the taste of blood due to being in shock after Chilli dies.
    • When Trixie loses it from cancer, she eats a cat.
  • Eye Scream:
    • Bingo gets a black eye as a result of Bandit hitting her reflexively after she bites him at one point.
    • Chilli rips out HoneyCake’s eye.
    • When Wendy was eight, one of her parents gave her a black eye for losing a ballet show.
    • When Trixie gets cancer, she gets stabbed in the eye.
    • A character in Muffin’s video game has his eyes gouged.
  • Face–Heel Turn: When Wendy was a baby, her parents Victoria and Reginald were loving and happy, but when she was about five, they changed and became abusive.
  • Face Your Fears: Despite being scared of crocodiles, Brandy brings herself to ride a crocodile-themed ride anyway to cheer up Bingo.
  • Faint in Shock:
    • Bandit passes out from shock when Chilli dies.
    • In Bingo’s dream, she passes out from infatuation with Dougie.
  • Family Relationship Switcheroo:
    • Theresa initially appears to be Hilda’s mother, but then it turns out that she is her aunt and raised her since Hilda’s mother (Theresa’s sister) died when Hilda was a baby. This also makes her “brother” Junior her cousin, and her “father” Marcus her uncle by marriage.
    • Later, it turns out that Brandy is actually Bingo’s biological mother, but Bandit is still her father making Chilli her aunt and Bluey her half-sister and half-cousin.
  • Fan-Created Offspring: Rad and Frisky have a six-year-old son named Almond nine years from the show’s timeline.
  • Feeling the Baby Kick:
    • When Brandy is wondering how she could have gotten pregnant, she feels the baby kicking in her.
    • When she gets pregnant again, Bluey and Bingo feel her belly.
  • Fingore:
    • At one point, Chilli cuts her finger on a knife when cutting carrots.
    • Later, Dougie cuts his finger while playing with Bingo, which is bad news since Bingo has mad cravings for blood.
  • First Kiss:
    • After Brandy and Bandit get together, they kiss during a dance.
    • Dougie asks Bingo to date by kissing her.
  • First Period Panic: When Muffin gets her period, she is shocked and confused and doesn’t realise it will happen once a month.
  • Flashback: We see several scenes set in the past, such as Shaun’s son-in-law and daughter dying ten years ago, and how Brandy and Bandit met.
  • Flipping the Bird: Rad flips off Bandit in the past for calling him weird for crushing on Doreen.
  • Food as Bribe: Trixie bribes Bluey with ice cream into telling her how Bingo’s neck got injured.
  • The Food Poisoning Incident: Discussed when Bingo throws up from a traumatic memory, and Maria doesn’t realise why and wonders if the pizza Bingo ate gave her food poisoning.
  • Force Feeding: When Bingo’s vegetarianism leads her to lose weight and develop a protein deficiency, Dougie tries forcing meat down her throat.
  • Freudian Excuse: When she was a preteen, Wendy was rude and bratty, but it was because her parents would beat her.
  • Freudian Slip: At one point, Bluey accidentally calls Brandy “Mum” due to missing the dead Chilli.
  • Full-Name Ultimatum:
    • Wendy yells, “Muffin Cupcake Heeler!” when she sees Muffin playing the video game she’s not allowed to play.
    • Stripe addresses Wendy as “Wendy Angelica Chow Chow” during an argument.
  • Furry Reminder:
    • The characters sometimes wag their tails.
    • Bandit once dreams about chewing on a bone.
    • A bloodhound works on the police force as a body examiner because bloodhounds are good sniffers.
    • Played for drama when Chilli starts barking and running on all fours because her brain cancer has driven her insane, then later Trixie does too.
    • Bluey barks when she’s angry at her friends, causing them to think she has cancer.
    • Played for drama again when Bingo bites Socks and it’s revealed that “biters” are taken very seriously, so Bingo is punished by being put in a muzzle.
    • When the Heelers get caught in the rain, they shake themselves dry.
    • Stripe puts his tail between his legs when he feels bashful, then later so does Mackenzie, then Bingo.
    • Played for drama once more when Bingo stops eating meat because it reminds her of the corpse of a teenage dog that ran into the middle of the road, and got run over during a physical altercation she and Bingo were having: Bingo's health declines because dogs are biologically required to eat meat.
  • Gamer Chick: Muffin takes up a video game when she turns twelve, then introduces it to Wendy.
  • Get Out!:
    • Bandit yells at Brandy to leave when feeling guilty for cheating on Chilli with her.
    • Brandy yells at Bluey to leave when she makes a scene at the Christmas party.
  • Gleeful and Grumpy Pairing: The police dogs are Berry, who is surly, takes his job seriously, and finds HoneyCake irritating, and HoneyCake, who is chatty and excitable and enjoys her job.
  • Glowing Eyes of Doom: The severe brain cancer that makes the victims insane and murderous causes the patients’ eyes to glow.
  • Go to Your Room!: Bandit sends Bingo to her room when she tries to stop him from belting Bluey.
  • Gratuitous Spanish: Maria uses random Spanish words like “gracias” and “por favor”.
  • Green-Eyed Monster: Brandy in the past was jealous of Chilli, partly because Brandy had feelings for Bandit, and partly because Brandy was lonely in general and wanted kids despite being infertile.
  • Grief Makes You Crazy: After Chilli dies of a new sort of brain cancer, leaving her widower Bandit and her two daughters Bluey and Bingo to grieve. While Bluey grieves relatively normally, Bandit and Bingo end up traumatized and crazy.
  • Groin Attack:
    • Chilli attacks Trixie in the crotch with a broken bottle, resulting in her pelvis being broken.
    • In Brandy’s nightmare, Chilli bites her in the crotch.
    • The fight that led to Theresa becoming a biter also involved a different woman (then girl) kicking and punching Marcus in the crotch.
    • In a flashback, when Brandy was just getting over her ex-boyfriend Hank, she draws him being stabbed in the nethers.
    • When the crocodile ate Katherine, it did it crotch-first.
    • Wendy kicks Stripe in the nuts for ruining her show. Later, she accidentally throws a ball at his bits.
  • Grossout Fakeout:
    • During a game of house, Bingo pretends to urinate.
    • Muffin pretends she is about to throw up when pretending to be sick.
  • Growling Gut:
    • Played for Drama – Bluey’s stomach growls because she’s been neglecting eating due to grief.
    • Later, Mackenzie’s stomach grumbles, but he’s just hungry for mundane reasons.
    • Bingo’s stomach rumbles when she is about to throw up from her medicine.
    • When Bingo is fourteen, her stomach grumbles from meat hankerings since she’s gone vegetarian.
    • Marissa’s stomach grumbles from hunger.
    • Dougie’s stomach growls when he’s making food.
    • Muffin’s stomach growls when she anticipates eating with her friends.
    • Stripe’s stomach growls when he’s waiting in the restaurant.
  • Guilt-Induced Nightmare:
    • Bandit has a nightmare about Chilli telling him off for killing her (in self-defense).
    • He later has a nightmare about her yelling at him for replacing her with Brandy after marrying her, since he has begun to develop feelings for her.
  • Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Marcus (an anthropomorphic dog) wears trunks to the beach.
  • Headache of Doom: When Trixie gets the same cancer Chilli had, one of the first symptoms is severe headaches.
  • Healthy Eating Fanatic:
    • Wendy berates the Heeler sisters for eating cheese chips, saying that it’s “junk food” and will make their thighs and behinds bigger, then she says that she hates pizza as she again fears it will make her thighs big. As a kid, she also buys low-fat chips and diet soda.
    • When Indy is Egg Sitting, she doesn’t let her egg baby “eat” dairy or sugar.
  • Heartbreak and Ice Cream: Wendy eats ice cream when trying to deal with both the withdrawal from quitting smoking and the guilt from thinking it was her fault Chilli died.
  • Her Code Name Was "Mary Sue": When Bingo is adapting her traumatic experiences into a story, she writes herself as a princess.
  • His Name Really Is "Barkeep": The busker’s name is revealed to be literally Busker.
  • Hold Your Hippogriffs: Rad tells Stripe, who’d been rejected, “There’s plenty more dogs in the sea”.
  • Honorary Aunt:
    • Brandy lets Muffin call her Aunty Brandy even though they’re not technically aunt and niece.
    • Later, Wendy lets Muffin call her Aunt Wendy.
  • Hypocritical Humour: When Bandit was twelve, he hoped he never fell in love. Rad points out that he had a crush the previous year.
  • I Do Not Like Green Eggs and Ham: Bluey hates the idea of anchovy pizza, but decides it isn’t so bad when she eats some.
  • I Don't Think That's Such a Good Idea:
    • When Mackenzie and Bluey start drinking wine, Bingo is dubious as they’re not allowed to.
    • When the younger Stripe admits to his brothers that he wants to dump garbage on Wendy as revenge for her dumping a milkshake on him, Bandit calls it a stupid idea.
  • Ignorant About Fire: Bandit accidentally starts a fire from leaving the grill on for too long.
  • Ignoring by Singing: When Stripe expresses his worries about Wendy’s smoking habit, she covers her ears and sings.
  • I Have No Son!: Wendy’s parents disowned her when she was young.
  • I'm a Humanitarian: After going insane from brain cancer, Trixie starts eating other dogs, then later so does Cujo, then Chris eats Bob.
  • I'm Cold... So Cold...: Downplayed – Bingo feels cold when she gets a severe stomach wound in the fight with Trixie, but it doesn’t kill her.
  • Imperiled in Pregnancy: In the final chapter, Brandy has to escape the hospital to escape the dogs infected with the cancer while pregnant with her and Bandit’s child. Unfortunately, neither she or the baby make it out alive as she's infected with the cancer, forcing Bandit to euthanize her.
  • Inevitably Broken Rule:
    • Bingo is punished for biting by being put in a muzzle and she’s only allowed to take it off when eating. But she takes it off when not eating, making her get punished by having to wear it for six years instead of the usual two.
    • Muffin plays a video game Stripe and Wendy banned her from playing.
  • Infertility Intolerance:
    • Brandy has a medical condition which means she struggles to conceive, which leads to her having a hard time finding love, with her ex-boyfriends not wanting to have a partner who most likely won't be able to have kids with them.
    • Junior says he has a friend who's adopted because his mother can't have kids, which leads to domestic squabbles with the father calling the mother a "sock" for her inability to have kids.
  • In the Dreaming Stage of Grief: When Socks first dies, Muffin initially thinks she just had a nightmare.
  • Injured Limb Episode: There’s an arc where Bingo breaks her arm after falling off a swing.
  • Innocent Awkward Question:
    • Because Bandit was the one to give Bingo a black eye, she is put on the spot when Muffin asks, “What’s wrong with your eye?”. Similarly, Brandy is taken aback when Bingo asks what happened to her arm, since Chilli attacked Brandy.
    • When Bluey (who is a bit older by now but still only ten) asks what a whore is after hearing Brandy say the word, Bandit is taken aback.
    • Junior says that his friend Adrian is adopted because his mother can’t have kids, so his father calls his wife a “sock”. So Bluey asks her infertile Aunt Brandy if she is a “sock”, hurting Brandy’s feelings.
    • Bingo is punished with a muzzle after biting Socks and Judo, but Hilda thinks it’s just an accessory, so she asks her how she got her “mask thing”. When Bingo explains she hates it, Hilda asks why she doesn’t just take it off, which makes Bingo feel awkward.
  • Innocent Inaccurate:
    • Muffin doesn’t cry when Chilli dies, since she doesn’t know what death is.
    • Bingo bites Socks and Judo and so is muzzled, which is standard protocol for “biters” in-universe. A little boy, Marcus Jr., doesn’t understand and thinks she’s just wearing a “cool mask”.
  • Innocently Insensitive:
    • At one point, the girls try to throw Brandy in the river, not realising that her fear of crocodiles extends to a fear of bodies of water.
    • Bingo pretends to be a wolf with Lila, not realising that it scares her too much for her to enjoy it.
  • Innocent Swearing: Chilli tells Bandit to “piss off”, and then Bluey repeats it to Muffin, not knowing what it means.
  • Insistent Terminology: Chilli insists on referring to her dispute with Bandit as an “argument” and not “squabbling” despite those essentially meaning the same thing.
  • Instantly Proven Wrong: When a younger Stripe is admiring a photo of Wendy, Bandit says, “It’s not like she’s gonna walk through the door”, and then she immediately does.
  • Intentional Mess Making: A younger Wendy turns down Stripe’s flirting by dumping a milkshake onto him, so he retaliates by dumping shark meat onto her.
  • In Vino Veritas: Bluey tells Mackenzie about her mother having cancer after they both get drunk.
  • I Want My Mommy!:
    • After almost being killed by a crocodile, a triggered Brandy screams "NO, NO, MOMMY, NO, PLEASE, I'M SORRY, I'M SORRY, I COULDN'T DO ANYTHING!" before Bandit calms her down. In the flashback within the same chapter, Brandy yells "MOMMY, MOMMYYYYYYY!" after witnessing her mother get eaten by a crocodile.
    • Socks screams out "MOMMY!" before Trixie, who's become feral from the cancer, kills her.
    • Mackenzie says, “Mommy” to himself when he sees that Bandit is mad at him.
    • Bluey and Bingo scream "DAD, MUM!" when Bandit and Brandy die in an exploding building.
  • I Was Having Such a Nice Dream: In the past, Rad doesn’t like Stripe waking up because he was dreaming about being married, ostensibly to Doreen.
  • I Wished You Were Dead: Chilli has brain cancer, which makes her lash out aggressively at Bingo, so Bingo hopes that Chilli dies. She immediately becomes regretful when she learns that Chilli’s cancer is terminal, though, and feels even worse when Chilli does die.
  • Joke and Receive: When Wendy is complaining about having to clean the wine out of her fur, Stripe jokingly suggests she go bald. She does.
  • Just Friends:
    • Bandit and Brandy have feelings for each other, but initially they want to ignore those feelings and just be friends since Bandit doesn’t want to replace Chilli. However, they later end up together anyway.
    • Bingo and Dougie start off as friends, but then both start crushing on each other but are Twice Shy. However, they then start dating.
  • Kids Raiding the Wine Cabinet: Mackenzie, who is only about six or seven, steals some of his father’s wine and shares it with his school friend Bluey and her little sister Bingo.
  • Lady Looks Like a Dude: Mackenzie thinks Bluey “looks like a guy”. Later, she hits Junior when he tells her she looks like a man, even though he’s just pretending to be her angry husband in a game of house.
  • Law of Inverse Fertility: Brandy’s ex-boyfriend broke up with her because he wanted kids but she was infertile. Then, the two times she does get pregnant, the first is from having adulterous sex with Bandit and the second time, she dies before the baby can be born.
  • Lethal Chef: Conversed where Bluey and Junior roleplay as a married couple and Junior claims that Bluey is a horrible cook.
  • Lies to Children: Wendy doesn’t admit to Judo that Bandit choked her, and just says that he “said mean things” to her.
  • Literal Ass-Kicking: Bandit once apparently kicked Mackenzie in the derriere when angry.
  • A Lizard Named "Liz": One Rottweiler is named Rot.
  • Look Both Ways: Bingo fights back against a teenage dog harassing her, causing the teenager to run into the middle of a road and be fatally run over.
  • The Lost Lenore:
    • Bandit is left a grieving widower after Chilli dies, even talking to her preserved hand.
    • When Trixie died, it drove Stripe to drink.
  • Lost Toy Grievance: Played for drama – Bingo has a plushie that resembles her dead mother, so when Socks tears it up, Bingo becomes so angry that she wants to kill Socks.
  • Loud Gulp: Snickers’s father gulps in fear when Bandit tells him off.
  • Mama Bear: When Bandit chokes Wendy, her main concern is that he may do the same to her daughter Judo, and she only agrees to forgive him if he promises never to harm Judo.
  • Meaningful Name: Bingo was so named because her parents played bingo on the night she was conceived.
  • Mirthless Laughter: Mackenzie laughs nervously when he sees that Bandit is unhappy with him.
  • Missing Mom:
    • Chilli, the mother of Bluey and Bingo, ends up dying from being shot in self-defense due to being driven crazy from brain cancer.
    • Defied when the only thing that stops Bandit from killing Wendy is because he doesn’t want Judo to lose her mother.
    • The Rottweiler who shot herself to death turns out to have had a daughter.
    • Dougie’s mother Miranda eventually gets killed by Trixie.
    • Trixie eventually gets shot to death, leaving Muffin without a mother.
    • At the end, Brandy, who is revealed to be the mother of Bingo, and is the stepmother of Bluey, gets the cancer and is euthanised.
  • A Mistake Is Born: Bingo’s conception is seen as a black mark because she was born as a result of Bandit cheating on Chilli with Brandy.
  • Mistaken for Murderer: When Wendy sees a bag of rotten fish that has some of Bluey and Bingo’s fur in it, she thinks Bandit killed them.
  • Mistaken for Undead: When Bingo was wounded by Trixie, Dougie thought she was dead, so when she came back, he thought she was a ghost.
  • Mister Seahorse: Exaggerated in the joke chapter, where Fido gets pregnant with dectuplets.
  • Morning Sickness: What tipped Maria off that she was pregnant was that she started throwing up.
  • Must Have Nicotine: Wendy smokes after witnessing Chilli going insane.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: Bingo is wracked with guilt after trying to bite Socks to death.
  • My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Bandit thinks it is odd that HoneyCake is nice, as he thinks mastiffs are supposed to be hostile.
  • Named by the Adaptation:
    • Mackenzie’s father is named Richard here and Dougie’s mother is Miranda, after their voice actors.
    • Chilli’s dead mother is named Katherine.
  • Nasal Trauma:
    • Mort socks Brandy in the nose.
    • Bandit accidentally socks himself in the nose.
    • Before killing Socks, Trixie rips her nose off.
  • Nature Tinkling:
    • Played for drama – Bingo nearly gets attacked by a cougar after relieving herself in the woods.
    • Discussed when Bandit goes to bury Chilli's severed hand in the woods, and pretends that he just needs to pee.
  • Never Smile at a Crocodile:
  • Never Trust a Title: While Bandit does try to belt Bluey at one point, his belt is by no means a major part of the story.
  • Nightmare Sequence:
    • Bingo dreams that she’s married, but her husband gets eaten by a dinosaur after revealing that he cheated on her, and then she nearly gets eaten by the dinosaur herself.
    • Later, she has a nightmare about Chilli attacking her, as a side effect of the pills she’s been taking.
  • Nocturnal Emission: Bandit has a wet dream after sharing a bed with Brandy for the first time.
  • Obligatory Swearing: This fanfic has many swear words, including “fuck”, and even “cunt”. “Bitch” is also used, despite the fact that the characters are anthropomorphic dogs.
  • Offing the Offspring:
    • Discussed when Wendy wrongly thinks Bandit killed his daughters Bluey and Bingo after seeing a trash bag full of their fur and rotten meat that’s actually fish meat.
    • In Brandy’s nightmare, Chilli decapitates Bingo.
    • When Trixie goes crazy, she ends up killing Socks.
  • Off with His Head!: In Brandy’s nightmare, Chilli bites Bingo’s head off.
  • Only Friend: Judo refers to Bluey as her only friend.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
    • One symptom of Chilli’s brain cancer is her being insanely angry and hating people she previously loved.
    • When Bandit realises that Chilli is dying, he becomes melancholic, concerning Bluey as he’s usually cheerful.
    • Bingo wears an eyepatch to cover her black eye and claims she’s just playing pirates, which concerns Bluey as Bingo normally doesn’t like to play pirates.
    • When the Heeler sisters are grieving Chilli, they don’t want to play despite usually being playful, and Bingo doesn’t even want to play with Lila despite them being best friends.
  • Original Character: Several characters were made up for this story, such as Tobias (Dougie’s father), Shaun (a troubled doctor), and Maria (a friendly dog who the Heelers meet on vacation).
  • Outliving One's Offspring:
    • Chilli dies while her father Mort is still alive.
    • Maria’s daughter gets hit by a truck and dies, leaving her alive.
    • Socks is killed by a cancer-infected Trixie while her father Stripe lives on.
  • Out of Character: A minor one, but Bingo apparently doesn’t like to play pirates, whereas one episode of the show has her happily playing pirates with her sister and friend.
  • Out-of-Context Eavesdropping: Bluey overhears Brandy and Bandit yelling at the TV and thinks they’re arguing.
  • Out Sick: Theresa tried to invite two friends to a concert, but they both got sick, so she gives them away to Bandit and Brandy.
  • Ow, My Body Part!: Bandit says, “My head!” when hungover.
  • Painful Rhyme: When Bandit says that “thick thighs save lives”, he and Stripe argue over whether that rhymes.
  • Pain to the Ass: When Stripe first appears, he has a rash on his hiney.
  • Papa Wolf: Stripe gets very angry and yells at Bandit when Bingo bites Stripe’s daughter Socks.
  • Past Experience Nightmare: After Chilli attacks Brandy, she starts having nightmares about being clawed to death by Chilli.
  • Patient Zero: Eventually, Chilli’s cancer becomes a plague, with her being the first patient.
  • Pink Girl, Blue Boy: The Heeler girls name a blue toy emu Shaun and a pink one Miranda.
  • Plagued by Nightmares: Since Chilli’s death, Bandit has weekly nightmares about her killing the girls or berating him for having feelings for Brandy.
  • Platonic Declaration of Love: Bingo and Bandit say, “I love you” to each other at bedtime. Justified, since they are father and daughter.
  • Platonic Kissing: Several characters kiss their relatives on the cheek, such as Brandy to Mort and Bandit to Bingo.
  • Playing House: Bluey and Junior roleplay as a married couple who argue a lot, inspired by Junior’s friends, who have parents that argue a lot.
  • Playing Sick: When Muffin wants to avoid seeing Judo, she pretends that something she ate disagreed with her.
  • Pooping Where You Shouldn't: Due to her “feral disorder” she had last year, Socks pooped on the furniture.
  • Post-Treatment Lollipop: Bingo is given a lollipop after being given stitches and then after her arm is treated.
  • Prank Call: Bandit and Brandy drunkenly prank-call Stripe (pretending to be a mistress), Mort (making a “ligma balls” joke), and Chris (making an “is your refrigerator running?” joke).
  • Precocious Crush: When he was a teenager, Rad had a crush on Doreen (his mother’s friend).
  • Puppy-Dog Eyes: The girls use their “please face” when begging Brandy to let them ride in Mort’s canoe.
  • Puppy Love:
    • When Bluey is ten years old, she admits that she gets “tingly” when she plays with Mackenzie.
    • Junior gets a crush on Bluey.
    • When Stripe was ten, he had a crush on Wendy.
  • Put Off Their Food: When Bingo sees a teen get fatally run over, it ruins her appetite for meat.
  • Quaking with Fear:
    • Socks shakes in fear after Chilli lashes out at her and tries to make her eat broken glass.
    • The younger Wendy shakes in fear when Stripe threatens to tell her parents that she broke a portrait.
    • One dog shakes in fear upon seeing an infected dog.
    • The soldiers shake in fear upon seeing the infected Nana Chris.
  • Rain, Rain, Go Away: The story begins with the various families trying to wait out a rainy day.
  • Related Differently in the Adaptation: Canonically, Bingo is Chilli’s daughter and Brandy’s niece. Here, through a Family Relationship Switcheroo, it turns out to be the other way around, which also makes Bluey her cousin instead of sister.
  • Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated: When Trixie wounds Bingo and sends her to the hospital, Dougie thinks she’s dead.
  • Revenge: Zigzagged – When Stripe was ten, Wendy dumped a milkshake onto him, so he wants to get revenge by dumping rotten shark meat onto her. However, he begins debating with himself over whether he should actually do it, yet he eventually does but regrets it.
  • Rich Bitch: As a child, Wendy was the daughter of a wealthy couple who lived in a mansion, and she was rude, dumping her milkshake on Stripe instead of simply saying no when he asked her out and using him as a footstool. Coincidentally, she’s also literally a female dog.
  • Right for the Wrong Reasons: When Wendy discovers that Bingo lied about how she got the cut on her neck, she concludes that Bandit cut her. She’s right that someone did, but it was Chilli, not Bandit.
  • Rouge Angles of Satin: “Dies” is misspelled as “does”, “wine” as “whine”, “milk” as “mill”, “concert” as “concrete”, “scar” as “scare”, “dessert” as “desert”, and “thought” as “though”.
  • Rule of Pool: When Wendy was a kid, her parents had a pool, and Stripe pushes her into it.
  • Running Gag: There keeps being mentions of Trixie having mistaken broccoli for a fruit in the past.
  • Running on All Fours: Chilli runs on all fours when her brain tumours send her crazy, then later, the same thing happens with Trixie.
  • Sanity Slippage:
    • Chilli’s brain cancer makes her very aggressive, and eventually sends her insane so she behaves like a real aggressive dog.
    • When Chilli dies, Bingo goes into shock and starts enjoying the taste of blood and hallucinating her mother. By the time she’s fourteen, however, she gets her sanity back.
    • Later, Trixie also gets brain cancer and goes insane in the same way Chilli did, and still later, so do Chris and Brandy.
  • Say My Name:
    • Stripe yells, “SOCKS!” after she gets attacked by Chilli.
    • Wendy shouts Bluey and Bingo’s names when she wrongly thinks Bandit killed them.
    • Berry yells, “ROT!” when Chilli kills Rot.
    • Bandit yells, “WENDY!” when he’s angry at her for thinking he killed his daughters.
    • Brandy shouts, “BLUEY!” when Bluey pretends to hurt her knee.
    • When Bluey, Bingo, and Muffin finally see each other after three years, they shout each other’s names. Then, Muffin yells, “AUNT BRANDY!”.
    • Stripe yells, “SOCKS!” when she screams.
    • Bluey yells, “BINGO!” when she sees that part of Bingo’s ear has been sliced off and she’s attacking Socks.
    • Brandy shouts, “BANDIT!” when he angrily picks up Mackenzie.
    • Dougie’s mother yells, “DOUGIE!” when she sees him playing with Bingo, who in this story is erratic and violent.
    • Bluey yells, “MACKENZIE!” after he spits a mouthful of chocolate milk in her face.
    • In Bingo’s nightmare, Chilli yells, “BINGO!” and then when Bingo screams, so does Bluey.
    • Bluey yells, “AUNT BRANDY!” when she shows up at Bingo’s birthday party.
    • Brandy, Bandit, and Bluey yell, “BINGO!” when they can’t find her on a nature walk.
    • Bingo yells, “BLUEY!” when Bluey slaps Junior.
    • Brandy yells, “BANDIT!” when he splashes her.
    • Wendy says, “JUDO!” when Judo comes home after going on a hike without telling her.
  • Screaming Birth: Discussed when Bingo screams as her broken arm is being treated, and several others mistake it for a woman giving birth.
  • Screams Like a Little Girl: Stripe apparently screams like a girl on rollercoasters.
  • Self-Harm: Bingo bites herself in the hand out of guilt because she wished Chilli would die and then Chilli did die.
  • Serious Work, Comedic Scene: It’s a Dark Fic, but there are still occasional jokes:
    • There’s a joke about Bandit accidentally biting Bingo in his sleep because he was dreaming about a bone.
    • There’s a goofy scene of the Heeler sisters and Wendy pretending to joust.
    • One gag involves Bandit mentioning Socks when she was one, and her habit of pooping in the wrong place.
    • There’s a gag involving Bandit farting to wake up his daughters.
    • One joke chapter was made for April Fool’s, that involves Bandit knocking up Brandy, Wendy, Janelle, and even Fido (who gets pregnant with dectuplets) and then vomiting up their babies.
    • In the supermarket, Bluey, Mackenzie, Bandit, and Brandy goof around and tease one another.
  • Share Phrase: Characters often tell one another to “piss off” when they’re in a state of high emotion.
  • Shell-Shocked Veteran: Wendy’s grandfather was a PTSD-afflicted Vietnam vet.
  • Shoot the Dog:
    • A literal example – Bandit is forced to shoot Chilli to death after she becomes a crazy killer due to her brain cancer.
    • He is then forced to kill a crocodile, despite them being a protected species, because it wanted to kill Brandy.
    • Then, the police are forced to shoot Trixie to death after she gets the same condition as Chilli, and then Shaun has to shoot Marissa to death for the same reasons.
  • Shout-Out:
    • Wendy reads a book called “Game of Bones”.
    • Bluey, Junior, and Bingo watch a movie that’s clearly based off Bee Movie.
    • Almond plays a video game with “blocks” where you play as “a square man named Steve”, referencing Minecraft.
    • Characters commonly sing, "I Won't Back Down" by Tom Petty, most notably Bandit before he has to kill Brandy because she's infected with the cancer.
  • Single Malt Vision: When Bluey drinks wine, she sees three of Mackenzie.
  • Single Tear:
    • Bingo cries one tear when she realises Chilli is dying.
    • Wendy cries one tear when she thinks the Heeler girls are dead, then again when she remembers being choked by Bandit.
    • Brandy cries one tear when consoling Bingo, then again when Bluey accidentally calls her “Mum”.
    • Theresa cries one tear when grieving her sister.
    • Junior cries one tear when Bluey hits him.
    • Bandit cries one tear when he buries Chilli’s severed hand.
    • Marissa cries one tear when she’s afraid of an angry Bingo.
    • Shaun cries one tear when he’s forced to kill Nana Chris.
  • Sleep Deprivation:
    • Chilli’s brain cancer is causing her to become extremely thirsty, to the point where she keeps having to wake up in the night for water, which wears her out.
    • Due to the stress of their mother attacking Bingo, the Heeler girls end up having a sleepless night and are too tired to play the next day.
    • Bandit ends up having a sleepless night when he learns Chilli has cancer.
    • At one point, Mackenzie has a sleepless night and falls asleep on the couch the next day.
    • When Bluey calls Brandy “mama”, Bingo is about to snap at her, but is too tired from staying up late the night before, so she just falls asleep instead.
    • Shaun and Annie have to stay up late from their jobs.
    • Stripe is a bit tired at the beginning of “Withdrawal” because of his insomnia.
  • Slut-Shaming: Brandy keeps being called a “slut” or a “whore” by other characters, later revealed to be because she once tried to have sex with Stripe against his will, and because Bandit cheated on Chilli with her.
  • Smoking Is Cool: Played for drama – Judo, who is ten years old in the story, tries to smoke to look cool but then she chokes and while Wendy is distracted helping Judo, Bingo, who Wendy was initially watching, breaks her arm.
  • Speak in Unison:
    • Muffin and Socks yell, “PIZZA!” in unison.
    • Marcus Jr. and Hilda say, “Sorry, Dad” in unison when apologising to Marcus Sr. for being rude.
    • HoneyCake’s kids greet Bandit in unison.
  • Stab the Salad: At one point, Bingo chases Lila with constricted pupils and barks (which especially looks creepy because when Chilli barked, it signified that she was losing her mind). Then, however, it turns out that they are just playing a game involving pretending to be a wolf.
  • Staircase Tumble: Discussed when Bingo lies that her black eye (actually given to her by Bandit) is from falling down the stairs.
  • Stock Animal Name: One of the dogs is named Scout.
  • Stress Vomit:
    • Bingo throws up when she realises that the teenage dog who was run over and killed during a fight between the two of them is the daughter of Maria.
    • Socks throws up when she sees the dogs Trixie killed.
  • Sweet Tooth: Dougie would rather drink a sugary drink at the cafe than coffee.
  • Tantrum Throwing:
    • Bandit throws pizza on the ground after hearing that Chilli has seven brain tumours.
    • Then he throws a dish on the floor when he’s angry at Bingo.
  • Tears of Fear:
    • Some of the people on the rides at Crazy World cry in fear.
    • When Bingo pretends to be a wolf, she scares Lila to tears.
    • Marissa cries a Single Tear when she’s afraid of Bingo.
  • Tears of Joy:
    • Bandit cries happily when he sees his daughters again after coming back from his business trip.
    • In her dream, Bingo cries when Chilli comes back to life.
    • Brandy cries happily during the wedding.
  • Tears of Remorse: Wendy cries when feeling guilty for accidentally starting off a chain reaction that led to Chilli killing another dog.
  • Tempting Fate: When Bluey is sixteen, she is sure nobody will walk in on her and Mackenzie snogging, but then Bingo does walk in.
  • There Is Only One Bed: Due to the lack of spare beds, Muffin has to share a bed with Bingo when visiting her and Bluey. Bingo and Muffin don’t mind because they’re just little girls, and they’re cousins.
  • Through a Face Full of Fur: Sometimes, the characters blush despite being dogs.
    • At one point, Bandit’s face turns red.
    • Brandy blushes in Bandit’s romantic dream about her and then later starts blushing around him in reality.
    • Wendy blushes in the past when inviting Stripe to the concert.
    • As teenagers, Mackenzie blushes while snogging Bluey and Dougie blushes when considering the possibility of dating Bingo.
    • Later, Bingo blushes in her dream when she realises she’s engaged to Dougie.
    • Stripe’s face turns red when he gets asked to dance, then he and Wendy both blush when the crowd chants, “KISS!” at them.
  • Throw the Dog a Bone: All of the characters have rotten luck, but sometimes they get their lucky break:
    • Bluey and Bingo obtain various toys and they get to play games with their relatives sometimes.
    • Bluey begins talking to Mackenzie again after isolating herself from her friends due to grief, then later as teenagers she starts dating him.
    • There is hope that Trixie’s pelvis will heal and she’ll regain her ability to walk.
    • Bandit buries the hatchet with Wendy, and later Stripe.
    • Bingo makes friends with Dougie and later starts dating him, and Brandy fixes her doll after Socks rips it up. She also eventually gets her muzzle removed and resolves her eating issues.
    • Bandit and Brandy eventually get together.
    • Maria is nice to Bingo despite knowing that she is a biter.
    • After Trixie dies, Stripe and Wendy start dating, meaning Muffin gets to stay home alone and play with her friends.
  • Toilet Humour:
    • When Brandy says she regrets everything, Bluey responds with “I regret not washing my hands when I went to the bathroom”.
    • At one point, Bandit wakes the girls up by farting.
    • Bluey, Mackenzie, and Brandy tease Bandit by telling him he has a dirty butt.
  • Toilet Seat Divorce: Junior apparently has a friend named Daniel, whose parents got a divorce over a game of Monopoly gone awry.
  • Tongue-Out Insult: Bandit sticks out his tongue at Brandy to playfully mock her during a game of Tug-of-War.
  • Tongue Trauma: Chilli, frantic from her brain cancer, accidentally bites her tongue in half.
  • The Tooth Hurts: Chilli knocks out Socks’s tooth with a bottle due to being crazy from brain cancer.
  • Too Unhappy to Be Hungry:
    • When Chilli dies, the girls go into a funk and barely eat, leading to them losing weight.
    • Muffin loses her appetite for some ice cream when thinking about her dead mother.
  • The Topic of Cancer: Chilli’s cancer causes psychotic breaks, and everyone is shaken up when they learn the disease is cancer. Eventually, she dies from it, then later, several other characters go insane and die from the same cancer, including Trixie, Chris, Brandy, and Bandit.
  • Tough Love: Trixie treats Bingo’s wound with hydrogen peroxide, despite it being painful, because it’s the best way to treat it.
  • Troubled Toy Breaker:
    • Bingo is grieving her mother Chilli and self-harms by biting her arm. Then, she bites a chunk out of her doll’s arm to make them the same.
    • When Socks sees the plushie, she shreds it to pieces as “revenge” for Chilli assaulting her before her death.
  • Trying Not to Cry:
    • Bandit struggles not to cry in front of Chris.
    • Judo tries not to cry when having her photo taken after being hugged by Bingo and Dougie.
    • Wendy struggles not to cry when saying goodbye to Judo.
  • Twice Shy: When they get to be fourteen, Bingo and Dougie develop crushes on each other, but neither thinks the other would want to date them, Bingo because she is a “biter”, and Dougie because he is deaf.
  • Twister Game Hijinks: At the beginning, Bandit and Chilli are playing Twister and he ends up landing on her and making her angry.
  • Twitchy Eye:
    • Brandy’s eye twitches in fear when she sees a crocodile-themed ride, because she’s afraid of crocodiles since one ate her mother.
    • Bandit’s eye twitches in anger when he hears that Bingo scared Lila, then again when Bingo accuses him of hating her.
    • Bingo’s eyes twitch when she’s feeling guilty over a dog she was fighting with ending up dying from being run over.
    • Bandit’s eyes twitch when he realises Theresa is the sister-in-law of the dog Chilli killed.
    • Bingo’s eyes twitch when Bluey calls Brandy “mama”.
    • Stripe’s eyes twitch in anger when Wendy treats him like a slave and takes his water away from him.
    • Bingo’s eye twitches when she’s tempted to eat meat after turning vegetarian.
    • Her eye twitches again when Brandy and Bandit reveal they want to get married.
    • Shaun’s eye twitches when Marissa gets infected.
    • Bandit’s left eye twitches when Bluey cusses him out.
  • Ultra Super Death Gore Fest Chainsawer 3000: At age twelve, Muffin plays a very gory video game where she plays as a homicidal Greek god.
  • The Un-Favourite:
    • Chilli loves Bluey but hates Bingo. Later revealed to be because Bingo was the result of Bandit cheating on Chilli with Brandy.
    • Brandy is the Unfavourite between her and Chilli, with Mort even wishing that Brandy died instead of his wife.
  • Unusual Euphemism: “Shiitake mushrooms” is used as an exclamation at one point.
  • Urine Trouble: Conversed – Bingo, during a game of house, pretends to be a cat who pees on the floor.
  • Vacation Episode: At one point, the Heelers and Brandy go on a trip to America.
  • Vegetarian Carnivore: Deconstructed. Bingo stops eating meat after her obsession with tasting blood goes too far, but then it causes her to lose too much weight, ostensibly because she is a dog.
  • Water Guns and Balloons: Theresa and her family play with squirt guns at the beach.
  • Weather Report Opening:
    • The fanfic begins on a rainy day.
    • The chapter “Six” begins with “It was a bright and sunny day”.
  • Weight Woe:
    • Trixie is apparently insecure about having gained weight.
    • Theresa takes antidepressants after her sister dies, but they make her very hungry, which makes her gain weight, to her dismay.
  • Wedding Episode: The aptly-named chapter “Wedding” focuses on Bandit and Brandy getting married.
  • We Named the Monkey "Jack": Bandit names the pet fish after himself, his wife, and his relatives.
  • Whole Episode Flashback: “Past”, and the majority of “Showtime”, take place in 1991 and focus on a ten-year-old Stripe’s rivalry with Wendy.
  • Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?:
    • Played for drama – Brandy is afraid of bodies of water and crocodiles, and by extension alligators, because her mother was eaten by a saltwater crocodile.
    • Played for drama again when it is revealed that Chilli’s attack on Socks and Trixie made them both terrified of Red Heelers.
  • Wouldn't Hit a Girl: Exploited – in a flashback, a mean girl punches Marcus and doesn’t allow him to hit back because she says it’s wrong for a boy to hit a girl.
  • Would Rather Suffer: Conversed. Bluey, when Playing House and pretending to be a wife who hates her husband, says that she’d rather sit on a cactus for as long as they’ve been together than go out on a date with him.
  • You Are Fat:
    • When Bandit lands on Chilli during a game of Twister, she claims he needs to lose weight.
    • When Bluey, still reeling from watching her mother attack Bingo, is trying to get Muffin to go away, she calls her an “overweight nutbag” and a “fat bean”.
    • When Socks spills the beans about Chilli hurting Bingo, Chilli has another mood swing and calls Trixie a “fat cunt” as well as a "fat bitch", and even accuses her of being so food-obsessed that she named her child after a dessert. Chilli also calls Nana a "fat bastard", a "beached whale" and a "a fat sac of lard that was sentient".
    • Apparently, Junior’s friend Jamal has a father who calls his mother fat a lot.
    • When Muffin is a chubby preteen, Wendy tells her she’s on a diet and chubby.
    • When Wendy eats ice cream before dinner, Muffin tells her not to and says she’s getting fat.
  • You Are Grounded!:
    • Bandit grounds the teenage Bluey for dating Mackenzie behind his back.
    • Marissa’s mother grounds her for straying in the store.
  • Your Makeup Is Running: Hazel the waitress spills some wine on Wendy, making her mascara run.
  • You Must Be This Tall to Ride: Lila is apparently too short to ride one of the rides in Crazy World.
  • You Should Have Died Instead: Mort tells Brandy that he wishes she had died instead of his wife/her mum.

 
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Bingo

As it turns out, Bingo is biologically the daughter of Brandy, not Chilli.

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