The Yows

The Yows is the slash ship between Wreck-It Ralph and Fix-It Felix from the Wreck-It Ralph fandom.

Fix-It Felix Jr.
The story for the game shows that Ralph was an outsider, leaving peacefully in the woods, until a construction company tore them down to make way for an apartment building. Ralph was furious that his home was destroyed, so he started taking his anger out on the residents of the building, the Nicelanders. Those end up calling Fix-It Felix Jr., the handyman with a magic hammer passed down from his father that can fix anything it touches. Felix uses his magic hammer to fix all the doors and windows Ralph had broken, while evading Ralph angrily tossing bricks down. Should Felix succeed in fixing all the windows, the residents would carry Ralph to the roof and Ralph would be punished by being tossed into the mud, while Felix would be rewarded with a hero medal and a kiss from a female Nicelander.

Wreck-It Ralph (2012)
30 years of being stopped by Felix and tossed down the roof by the Nicelanders had made Ralph incredibly jaded and depressed. Every night, he would be forced to live in a dump filled with bricks, with only the garbage the Nicelanders threw out to eat. Ralph does not hate Felix at all, it's part of the job for him to toss bricks at him and wreck the building he works at, but he can't help but feel jealous of Felix getting to live in a nice apartment and being rewarded with pies baked by the Nicelanders every single night, simply because Felix was programmed as the hero, while Ralph was intended to be the villain.

Ralph had turned down invitations to the "Bad Guy Anon", a support group for villains, he managed to ignore his feelings up until the 30th anniversary of Fix-It Felix Jr., with Felix having neglected to invite Ralph, despite being such an important part of the game. After talking to the other villains, Ralph felt confident enough to go the anniversary party uninvited. When Felix opens the door for him, Ralph's mere presence immediately causes a scene, with Gene the leader of the Nicelanders telling Felix to find a way to get rid of him. As Felix steps out to chat with Ralph, Ralph plays dumb and refuses to confront Felix directly. Felix asks him why he came here, with Ralph telling Felix that he heard the party had cake, admitting that he never had one since nobody throws out cakes. Felix takes pity on Ralph and can't bring himself to kick him out, so he invites him in, to the chagrin of all the other guests. Though Ralph is trying his best to keep up a good act, just by standing up does he cause the ceiling to give in and Felix to be hit with a brick and fall to the floor, dead. Felix was lucky that he was in his own game and quickly gets back up and changes the subject to the anniversary cake. Though the cake acknowledges Ralph, his figurine is not flattering and the flavor of his "apartment" (the dirt he gets thrown into every game) is chocolate, which he hates. Ralph argues that he should be allowed to take Felix's place on the cake, but Gene tells Ralph that he doesn't deserve it, since he didn't earn a medal like Felix did. The argument escalates to the point where Ralph smashes the cake, with Felix being unable to do anything but watch. Gene tells him that he can have the entire apartment building should he get his own medal, which Ralph takes to heart and leaves.

The next day, Fix-It Felix Jr. is booted up and played, but Ralph is nowhere to be found. Felix tries to keep up the act, but he and the Nicelanders quickly realize that Ralph is not coming. The girl playing the game reports it as broken, which causes the owner of the arcade to label the game as Out of Order, causing panic across the board within the game. As the coast is clear and Felix and the Nicelanders find out that they only have so much time to get Ralph back before the game gets unplugged for repair (which would reset the world, but also wipe out anyone who doesn't leave in time), Felix tells everyone to calm down and says that Ralph is probably just at Tapper's like usual and will be back any minute. However, when they see the cable train come by and assume its Ralph coming back, they are surprised to see Q-bert instead. Since Felix speaks "Q-bertese", he asks Q-bert about Ralph, with Q-bert telling him that he saw Ralph enter Hero's Duty. Felix assumes the worst and thinks that Ralph "went Turbo" and volunteers to travel to Hero's Duty by himself to get him back.

Upon arriving at Hero's Duty, Felix gets shot at by the locals being mistaken for a Cy-Bug enemy, but quickly manages to get the attention of Sergeant Calhoun, asking her if she or any of her men had seen Ralph. Since Ralph was going undercover as an NPC soldier, they cannot confirm that they had seen him, but Ralph quickly makes his presence in the game known when he accidentally hijacks a spaceship while being attacked by an infant Cy-Bug, with Felix seeing Ralph in the cockpit as he breezes by. The spaceship gets flung out of Hero's Duty and into Sugar Rush, which the Surge Protector confirms when Calhoun leaves her game and asks him about it. Felix ends up accompanying Calhoun on her journey to Sugar Rush, arguing that it is his responsibility to get Ralph out of the mess he made, since he is meant to fix everything Ralph breaks. But when Felix makes advances towards Calhoun, she tells him to leave and Felix is forced to continue his search for Ralph on his own. Arriving at King Candy's castle, he asks the King's subordinate Sour Bill if he had seen Ralph, which Sour Bill confirms. However, Felix's joy at having found a clue for Ralph's whereabouts doesn't last, as Sour Bill tells him that they should've locked Ralph up when they had the chance. In the end, Felix ends up imprisoned in King Candy's "Fungeon" purely for being associated with Ralph.

As Ralph returns to Fix-It Felix Jr. with his Hero Medal in hand, he finds nobody but Gene remained, everyone else evacuated while Felix went to look for Ralph. However, he also finds out new information about his friend Vanellope, and when he returns to Sugar Rush, he interrogates Sour Bill and finds out that both Vanellope and Felix are imprisoned in the Fungeon. He takes the pieces of Vanellope's cart he destroyed earlier with him and breaks into the Fungeon to free Felix. Though Felix is happy to see Ralph and initially tackles him into a hug, he also takes out his anger at him when he tells him just how badly he has messed up. Ralph takes the blame, but also asks Felix to fix Vanellope's cart for him, which Felix gladly does. After breaking Vanellope out, she drives both Ralph and Felix to the racetrack, Ralph tells both of them that should Vanellope cross the finish line, everything will be restored. However, after Vanellope enters the race, with both Ralph and Felix cheering her on, Calhoun storms in and attacks Ralph for bringing a Cy-Bug into Sugar Rush. Ralph thought the Cy-Bug died in the acid, until he sees an entire swarm attacking the area and helps Felix and Calhoun evacuate Sugar Rush. However, Vanellope and King Candy are still in the race, with King Candy being devoured by a Cy-Bug, while Vanellope is close to crossing the finish line. Before she could do so, Ralph and Felix rush in to rescue her and Ralph tries to pull her out of the game, but her nature as a glitch means that she can't leave the game. So Ralph realizes that it's up to him to create a Beacon to kill all the Cy-Bugs, by mixing Mentos into the Cola volcano and telling Felix and Calhoun to protect Vanellope while he's gone. However, Felix and Calhoun end up fighting off the Cy-Bugs, while Vanellope saves Ralph from being incinerated by the smoldering Cola. As all the Cy-Bugs die, Felix fixes the race track for Vanellope and Ralph pushes her cart across the finish line. Vanellope ends up restoring Sugar Rush back to its former glory and Vanellope and Ralph exchange insults of endearment as Felix panics at the arcade being opened and telling Ralph to hurry back to their own game.

In the end, Ralph had come to accept his role as the bad guy in Felix's game, since now he has found new purpose as Vanellope's friend. Felix ends up helping Ralph by building homes for him and the gameless Q-Bert character Ralph brought in for the bonus level. In turn, Ralph was happy to be Felix's best man for his wedding with Calhoun and freely admits that he shed tears for them.

Fanon
The Yows is a very well-liked and popular ship in the fandom, for their bromance and providing a rather unconventional take on a "Hero/Villain" dynamic. Many appreciate that the writers made it clear that Felix deserves all the praise he gets, when they could've just as easily written him to be a gloryhound and jerk to Ralph.

On AO3, The Yows is the second most popular ship for the tag, along with being Ralph's most popular ship and Felix's second (after Hero's Cuties).

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