Vemily

Vemily is the het ship between Emily and Victor Van Dort from the Corpse Bride fandom.

Canon
Victor needed some fresh air after practicing his vows with his arranged fiancée for three hours straight, managing to recite them perfectly in the woods and putting his ring on what he thought was a tree branch. However, the tree was actually what remained of an undead bride, who immediately accepted Victor as her husband by saying "I do". Victor however is terrified for his life and runs away from the undead woman, managing to get to the bridge just outside of town. But then the bride finds him, grabs him lovingly to be dragged away to her home.

Victor awakes in a lively bar attended exclusively by dead people, in company of his "wife". When he asks what the meaning of any of this is, a skeleton musician named Bonejangles tells him the story of the Corpse Bride through song, she was a lovely, wealthy maiden in life, who was told to wait in those very woods where Victor found her by the man of her dreams. However, the man killed her when she looked the other way and left her for dead. With her businesses in the mortal realm unfinished, she was still waiting for her "husband" to return, the Corpse Bride was unable to move on and remained there waiting in the woods. Victor admits that he does feel sorry for what happened to her, but he tells her that he's not supposed to be in the Land of the Dead, for he's still alive. Trying to find a way out by himself, he runs away from his "wife", only to find himself cornered on a cliff.

The bride uses this to get to know Victor a bit better, with Victor being reluctant to marry someone he doesn't even know the name of. His bride simply tells him that her name is Emily and that she brought him a wedding present. When Victor opens the present, he finds a pile of dog bones in the box, which assemble themselves into a skeletal dog, coming with a nametag reading "Scraps". Victor recognizes his childhood dog and now has proof that Emily truly loves him and wants to make him happy. Hoping to find a way out of the Land of the Dead, Victor brings up the possibility of Emily meeting his parents, to which he has to explain that his parents are still alive. Emily admits that this does pose a problem, but she suggest talking to their pastor Elder Gutknecht for a solution.

Gutknecht gives the "newlyweds" a temporary ticket to the Land of the Living by spilling a mixture of smoke on them, telling them that both of them have to return to the Land of the Dead should one of them say the codeword "Hopscotch". Back at the tree where Victor found Emily's corpse, Victor tells his "wife" that he's going to town to get his parents, with her having to sit exactly where she is now. In reality, Victor is actually trying to reconcile with Victoria Everglot, the fiancée he left standing at the altar, hoping to tell her that he didn't intend to abandon her. However, when Emily notes that Victor is taking far longer than expected, the maggot that's living in her head tells her that she should disobey him and look for him in town. Disguised with a shawl to hide her decomposing body, Emily finds Victor talking to another woman and is furious at him trying to "cheat" on her, with her saying the codeword and dragging Victor back into the Land of the Dead as he's kicking and screaming. Due to Victoria's concern over Victor being forced into a marriage with a corpse woman, word eventually gets out that Victor married a corpse, to general ridicule bringing shame to the Van Dort household and causing Victoria's family to rethink their idea of letting a Van Dort marry their daughter.

Back in the Land of the Dead, Emily questions why Victor wouldn't want to stay with her, picking a living girl instead of her. Victor tactlessly tells her that her being dead is the biggest problem, unintentionally breaking her heart even though it stopped beating a long time ago. Eventually, due to the Van Dort coachman Mayhew dying of cigar overdosis, Victor is told that his beloved Victoria had been married to Lord Barkis Bittern against her will. This causes Victor's feelings on his marriage to Emily to change, with Elder Gutknecht telling Emily that their marriage wasn't even legally binding in the first place: Emily was dead by the time she married Victor, so "death already did them part". To have the two of them properly marry each other, Victor and Emily have to return to the Land of the Living and Victor has to repeat his vows in front of witnesses, Emily has to return those vows and then Victor has to drink a cup of the strongest poison to be united with Emily in death. Victor accepts these conditions and the dead start preparing a huge wedding for the two as best as they can before rising again in the Land of the Living to move the celebrations there. Victor had already said his vows perfectly in front of all the dead witnesses, but when it is Emily's turn, she sees that Victoria had snuck into the church after hearing of the ceremony and stops Victor from drinking the poison. She tells Victor that she can't bring herself to break another woman's heart, but the happy reunion between Victor and Victoria is soon crashed by the arrival of Barkis Bittern.

Emily recognizes Barkis as the man who left her for dead and ran off with her money, with everyone realizing that he intended to do the same with Victoria before finding out that the Everglots are poor. With Barkis being so enraged at him being refused the dowry, he intends to kill anyone in the church who isn't already dead, so Victor has to fight him off with whatever tools he has at hand. But just as it seems that Barkis has Victor cornered, Emily puts herself between Victor and Barkis's sword, with the blade not even remotely phasing her. Emily having her scammer at swordpoint leads to him admitting defeat and drinking "wine" for the newlywedded couple, not noticing the bottle being marked as poison. Barkis also turns into a living corpse as he tries to do a quick getaway, with the witnesses noting that he's all theirs now and dragging him into the Land of the Dead to be punished for his crimes. Emily sincerely thanks Victor for lifting her curse, but when Victor insists on going through with his promise, Emily tells him that he already did. Victor then watches as Emily finally gets to move on as her body dissolves into a mass of moths.

Fanon
Vemily is one of two main ships in the Corpse Bride fandom, the other being its rival EverDort. Most shippers don't seem to care about their union being a fully happy resolution, indeed many point out that Victor going through with killing himself for Emily would've made everyone involved miserable. Some simply want Emily to be happy with the man she loves, believing her as deserving for something good happening in her unlife.

Fandom

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