Fanfic / Ghost Boy

Do you remember now, Turbo?...

Ghost Boy (now with a rewrite) is a Wreck-It Ralph fanfic by turbomun.

An amnesiac Turbo wakes up in Sugar Rush, learns that thirty years have passed between his last memory and now, and that Vanellope plans to make him a racer again. Things are rough; people give him weird looks, he feels as if they're hiding something from him, he's become a glitch and can't leave this new game, and oh yeah, he keeps having bizarre flashbacks and nightmares while a strange but familiar voice whispers in his head.

The fic is completed at nineteen chapters; there's also a short drabble collection taking place post-fic, as well as a dormant sequel, which can be found here and here. And now there's a revised version, too!

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This fic contains examples of:

• Affectionate Nickname / Insult of Endearment: "Vanny" and "Bo" are the nicknames, "Glitter-Graphics" and "Pajama Boy" are the insults.
  Vanellope: If you're gonna insult me, you should at least choose a less pretty name!
• All of the Other Reindeer: Even before he game-jumped, Turbo wasn't well-liked by the other characters in the arcade. It's implied that he started out as Innocently Insensitive, was mocked for his behavior, and grew more bitter over the years, ending up as a Jerk with a Heart of Gold by the beginning of the fic.
• Amnesiac Dissonance: Turbo has his bratty moments, but he's a lot nicer than he was in-movie. Partially subverted, as it turns out he'd been infected with malware that made his behavior a little more...extreme. With most of it gone, he's returned to his original personality.
• The Atoner: Guess
• Batman Gambit: In the final battle, Turbo deliberately gets King Candy angry enough to chase him and try to kill him with his own bare hands. When Candy leans over the ledge of a building to strangle Turbo, the latter uses his glitching ability to move at the last second, thus upsetting Candy's balance to send him plummeting to his death.
• Big Bad: The malware that attacked Turbo and mutated.
• Big Brother Instinct: Ralph has this for Vanellope, of course, and eventually for Turbo. Turbo develops this for Vanellope, too.
• Brainwashing for the Greater Good: Turns out that Turbo's Laser-Guided Amnesia was caused by the core four, and specifically Vanellope, wanting to help him but feeling that they couldn't do so without wiping his memory. The fact that he never asked for or consented to this, as well as the fact that everyone else withheld the truth from him, is a major source of conflict.
• Break the Cutie:
  • The plot appears to enjoy putting Turbo through every misery it can get away with.
  • Now project that onto a close sibling and you'll see what Vanellope goes through.
• Brick Joke: One of the early chapters mentions a quick gag about Turbo being bald under that helmet due to technical limitations. Vanellope spends quite some time joking about it later on when she finds out.
• Disney Death: Turbo appears to die at the same time King Candy does. Though it should be noted that this mostly comes from Turbo assuming that he's dying, since the fic is written from his perspective. The other characters don't necessarily think he's DOA; in fact, in the rewrite, they flat-out state that he never stopped breathing.
• Disney Villain Death
• Dramatic Irony: Presumably, if you're reading the fic you already know what happened during those thirty years that Turbo can't remember and no one wants to talk about.
• Earn Your Happy Ending
• Easily Forgiven: Downplayed. Everyone wants to forgive Turbo and give him a new life, but they can't help remember what he's done and be on edge about it. Some are better than others.
• Emotional Maturity Is Physical Maturity
• Enemy Within: The malware, to Turbo.
• Enemy Without
• Evil Makes You Ugly: It's pointed out the old malware-ridden Turbo looks a lot more gruesome than the teenage one.
• Fighting from the Inside: During the scene on the Rainbow Bridge, Turbo has to struggle against the malware when it takes control of his body, and ends up narrowly averting a Split-Personality Takeover.
• Flashback Nightmare: Turbo suffers from nightmares chronically throughout the fic; many are actually dreams of the time he spent as King Candy.
• Gollum Made Me Do It: Turbo and the malware before they split apart.
• Hearing Voices: Turbo keeps hearing someone giggling and whispering in his head. It turns out to be the remnants of King Candy...or rather, the malware.
• Jekyll & Hyde
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Though it's possibly justified, since Turbo is a video game program.
• Like Brother and Sister: Turbo and Vanellope
• Loophole Abuse: While searching for the escaped King Candy, Turbo uses his glitching ability to leave Sugar Rush. When a shocked Vanellope says that it's impossible, glitches can't leave their games, Turbo points out that technically, Sugar Rush isn't his game.
• Meaningful Echo: There's a few that harken back to the movie, mostly from the malware:
  • "Look at that, it's your little friend! Let's watch her die together, shall we?!" Possibly Lampshaded since the malware seems to be treating it like a joke.
  • "Welcome back to the boss level!"
  • And one from Turbo: "This is not what I wanted!" Like Ralph in the movie, he's lamenting the chain of misery that his actions have caused.
  • Several chararacters repeat the line "Glitches can't leave their games" until it takes on a whole new meaning.
  • In the original film, there's an argument between Ralph and Gene that leads to Ralph destroying the Nicelanders' cake. In the fic, a very similar exchange occurs between Turbo and the malware when they're grappling on the tower.
• Mind Virus: Apparently the malware works like this; it used Turbo's own post-Road-Blasters bitterness to manipulate him and convince him to take more...direct action.
• Mood Whiplash:
  • Vanellope helps Turbo get his glitching under control, she reteaches him to drive, at long last, brings him to the track for the Roster Race. It's a cheerful scene, Turbo is nervous but excited...and then he pays his racing fee.
    Announcer: KING CANDY!
  • Vanellope and Turbo having a playful argument/tickle-fight... that's swiftly interrupted by the malware taunting Turbo and then ripping itself out of him to have its own body. And everything goes downhill from there.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Turbo, predictably, due to subverted Amnesiac Dissonance.
• Retool: The revised version of the fic is this.
• Shapeshifter Swan Song:
  • Invoked when Turbo imagines the King Candy malware is trying to change form to avoid falling to his doom.
  • Also played straight when Turbo is finally told what happened after he stopped being King Candy. Apparently, he and the malware survived and took over another game, and our heroes went to stop him. Near the end of the battle, King Candy kept switching between that form, the new character, and...the real Turbo. It was the sight of a younger, more vulnerable and scared Turbo that made Vanellope want to help him and rewrite his code. The Retool's version of this scene is slightly different due to the Elvira subplot being removed but still fits the trope.
• Shout-Out: The malware tells Turbo, "CAN'T YOU SEE, YOU ARE ME!" That line originates from the "Confrontation" song in the Jekyll & Hyde musical.
• Start of Darkness: There's a few scenes depicting Turbo before he went From Nobody to Nightmare, but the biggest one that fits this trope is a flashback to the moment he decided to "Go Turbo."
• Synchronization: Since the malware is attached to Turbo's code, Felix speculates that deleting it would probably lead to both dying. This ultimately results in the Disney Death.
• Talking to Themself: Happens to Turbo whenever he speaks to King Candy/the malware, whose voice is only audible to Turbo. The most notable instances are during the confrontation on the Rainbow Bridge, and right before they split apart.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Played with. It's debatable whether or not Turbo could be considered sweet, but he was definitely a kid, and he definitely didn't start out as an evil mastermind.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Ralph gets called out by Calhoun after reducing Turbo to a sobbing wreck (no pun intended).
• Would Hurt a Child: The malware. Trying to shove Vanellope off the bridge while controlling Turbo, throwing Turbo around like a rag doll after getting its own body, and then trying to strangle Turbo to death with its bare hands. And that's only after it spent years driving Turbo insane and causing him emotional pain during the fic.
• Younger Than They Look: Zig-Zagged. Turbo's programmed age is fifteen, much to everyone's shock, and he does in fact look that age normally, but you wouldn't know that after all the modifications he'd performed on his own design to use the King Candy skin.

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