#I bet he was rude to a black person got called a racist for it so now he's got to prove other people are more racist than him
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The Reason Dead in America Doesn't Work for Me
I know that this is the autism brain in me and not necessarily a rational argument that other people will have or even care about, and I don't think anyone is going to see this or care, but what is this platform good for if not shouting into the void?
There are a lot of things wrong with Dead in America, and if I got into the whole 'British White Dude talking about American Racism without understanding nuance or being particularly aware of British Racism' thing...well, I think I'd lose it again. Other people have talked about it more eloquently than I ever could.
So instead, let's talk about the feelings I'm having and the in universe reason that Dead in America feels...wrong to me. This isn't something a person who's starting with Dead in America might pick up on, but it lives rent free in my head and I haven't seen anyone else talk about it.
The world John is in isn't his world. Rather, the SOUL in John's body is from a different universe's John Constantine.
To be fair, if you're not reading the trade of the 2019 run, you might also not have read the Halloween special in which the apocalypse created by Tim Hunter (from Books of Magic) is happening and John gets Chas and his taxi exploded, but it's kind of important to the rest of the story, so I'm glad it was included in the trade. Kind of wish it was included as the first issue of the run. The trade also includes the issue of how John gets a cell phone with an angel trapped inside it, but that's less important.
Let me explain.
Basically, Tim Hunter is an extremely powerful magic user who punched a hole into the multiverse. John is an extremely powerful magic user who, as we all know, REALLY does NOT want to die. The apocalypse is happening, Zatanna is dying, Tefe is dying, John just sacrificed Chas and is dying. So, when a future version of him appears that seems happy and says 'hey, babe, just promise me that you'll give me your soul and I'll heal you up and send you somewhere you're needed' John says yes.
Why does older him want his soul? Fuck if John knows. Future John makes it sound like a con on the universe, and John's into that shit. 'Keep it in the family'.
Remember that line.
He wakes up in a universe where he's been in Ravenscar for years, the only visible scar on him we see is the deal he made with himself. The burn on his hand.
This is a universe (I suspect) where he didn't sell his soul to get rid of his cancer. What would be the point of punting him here if Future John would have to figure out how to get the soul away from the demons who may or may not still have a claim to it.
More to the point, I think this is a universe where Future John was supposed to have a measure of control over the happenings. Let me explain. We see this in Scrubbing Up Part 2 when John talks to Clarice.
(If you don't know who Clarice and Map are, they're from the original run and they're fantastic, but they're also magic people who've worked with John in the past.)
There's a prophesy that says a hungry void is murdering whichever magi it could not first consume, you say? A void like a tulpa, perhaps? An abomination under parliament? You mean the tulpa of Albion that Future John creates?
Why do I think these things are specifically Future John's doing?
Because the story says so.
Back in the 2019 Halloween special, John starts to lose his memories of the multiverse, his lives, his loves. He starts to CUT THEM OFF because they cannot coexist with this world that is so much more limited in scope.
John regularly complains in this run that the CGI shit is 'not his scene' which Future John scoffs at. Of course it's his scene, that's where he's at now, and while people like to forget about it, it was his thing in the original run too once he'd passed through a few hands.
The 90s were a hell of a drug for the comic book industry, I'm just saying.
Side tangent, this would have been an AMAZING jumping off point for newer readers. You literally don't need to know anything because he's been in a drug induced haze for a decade and doesn't remember his old life. A good writer could use this and have John be trying to parse through his memories and figure out what's real, what's not, and what the other him wanted.
Anyway, back to Future John's motives.
'You don't have to be afraid. I'll fix you up. Set you down where this unholy fucktangle didn't reach yet. Somewhere you're needed.'
Emphasis is something that should be important in a comic (Unless you're Frank Miller, I guess). In particular, Future John says 'where this unholy fucktangle didn't reach yet'. 'This unholy fucktangle'. Not 'this unholy fucktangle'.
Meaning there's a place that's already made and ready for John. A place his future self has chosen.
Where, exactly?
'Somewhere you're needed'.
Not 'somewhere peaceful' or 'somewhere exciting' or even 'somewhere familiar'.
No, 'somewhere you're needed'.
And the first thing after the issue of John getting his magical cell phone, what's the first real thing that happens to John that's not a mundanity?
Noah happens.
Noah, who was supposed to be hunting down Clarice (An OLD WOMAN IN A CAR WITH A BODYGUARD) and somehow convinces his friend and partner in crime that actually John is the person they are supposed to be kidnapping.
Noah has no clue why he decided to bring a man who looks anywhere between his 40's to 70's depending on the issue, but John does not look like a five foot tall brunette in a designer dress with a sleek car and a bodyguard, does he?
So, why would Noah do that? Why would Isa go along with it?
This time, this place, this universe was chosen for a reason.
Man, wouldn't it be interesting if John was here because of Noah?
Future John says 'I'm going to send you somewhere you're needed', John wakes up and pretty quickly gets himself attacked by his own son (we can argue about how long based on hair growth since there are not any dates given, but I digress).
His son who has a mother in a coma that hasn't woken up in seven years. His son who has a grandmother no one ever sees, names, or mentions again after the single issue she's first mentioned in. His son who is disabled because of magic and monsters and demon shit. His son who is so angry and yet so, so kind (No, I am not over the fact that he held the hand of his mother's would-be murderer as she died and offered her comfort despite her being an angry, bitter racist).
His son who WILL be killed by his own hands (even if those hands are a future alternate version of him or a tulpa of himself that he created) if John doesn't do what he's told.
His son, who was willing to walk back into the place where his only friend we ever see was mutilated in front of him, because John needed him.
His son who needed him not for his magic but because he was John.
What a perfect carrot. What a perfect stick.
Talk about 'keeping it in the family', eh?
WHAT DOES ANY OF THIS HAVE TO DO WITH DEAD IN AMERICA?!
Valid question! So valid! So real! This is a tangent that really in my opinion highlights why Dead in America doesn't work.
What does any of this rambling about John Constantine Hellblazer 2019 have to do with Hellblazer: Dead in America?
Nothing.
And that's the problem.
Look, I get that comic runs often don't have much to do with the previous runs, but Hellblazer has always been strongest when the stories built on one another. When there was a transition. And it was written by the same writer, as a continuation of his previous run.
Dead in America feels like someone who's got a vague idea and a bone to pick. 'Look at how racist the Americans are!'
I'm not going to go into too deep of a dive on this one, but I do have a serious question that highlights why Dead in America doesn't work.
What does John Constantine have to do with American racism?
Is there prejudice against non-Americans who are white in the US? Sure, but that's not the story being told. What does this story have to say about racism? That it's bad, that poor white Americans are stupid and racist, and rich white Americans are evil and racist.
WHY IS A BRITISH WRITER WORKING ON A BRITISH CHARACTER HEADING THIS CONVERSATION?!
AND WHY IS DC LETTING HIM KEEP DOING IT SO BADLY?!
There are good pieces of Dead in America, but they're just that, pieces. This story does not work as a standalone, it does not work in relation to anything that came before it, it does not work as a Hellblazer story, it does not work as a John Constantine story.
And it completely forgets EVERYTHING that came before it BY THE SAME WRITER! Did Si Spurrier forget that HE IS THE ONE WHO SENT JOHN INTO ANOTHER UNIVERSE?! WHY ARE WE SEEING PEOPLE FROM THE MAIN DCU WHEN WE ARE SUPPOSED TO BE IN A UNIVERSE WHERE JOHN IS ALONE WITH NO SUPPORT BECAUSE HE FUCKING KILLED THEM ALL IN PREPARATION?!?! THAT'S A MAJOR POINT OF THE PREVIOUS RUN, THAT THE FUTURE VERSION OF HIM HAS KILLED/CHASED OFF ANYONE LEFT BEHIND WHO MIGHT BE ABLE TO KEEP JOHN ALIVE! HOW THE FUCK IS ETRIGAN AROUND WHEN I'M CERTAIN FUTURE JOHN IS THE REASON CHAS DIED OF CANCER?!
And don't tell me 'oh, Future John's a tulpa, he couldn't have done that!'. HE COULD HAVE BECAUSE HE FUCKING DID ALREADY! BEING A TULPA DOESN'T NEGATE EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED IN THIS RUN!!!
WHY DID WE GET THIS INSTEAD OF AN ACTUAL CONTINUATION OF THE STORYLINE THAT WAS CANCELED ON HIM?!
Fuck, I WANT to be positive about the things I like. I'm so in love with the 2019 run that I went out and bought the entire original Hellblazer in both physical and digital formats, after years of not really reading comic books anymore just so I could make sure I really understood John Constantine as a character. I know Spurrier can write better than this because he did it five years ago.
I'm still buying the comics because I don't want Constantine to become another character DC pulls out for crossovers and to die and be resurrected as so many other characters are, but FUCK I really hope that someone considers a different writer before continuing forward or at least some better guidelines, because Dead in America is disappointing.
#John Constantine feelings#Lore Vents their Spleen#Dead in America ramblings#It sucks that we'll never get the story of John teaching his son magic#Or trying to protect him from John's past#We'll never see John struggling with his place in Noah's life as a father or a caretaker or even as a mentor#It seems like a lot of my feelings about DiA boil down to 'why is John in America talking about American Racism?'#and 'why isn't Noah a bigger part of these stories when the narrative so clearly puts him in a position of importance?'#If you want to talk about racism in America why isn't Noah a more important character in the story?#You know since he's the one experiencing the racism?#Instead we just get pages and pages of some white guy's feelings about how 'Brits aren't racist! Look at how racist AMERICANS are!'#Brexit and the pandemic really got under Spurrier's skin didn't it?#I bet he was rude to a black person got called a racist for it so now he's got to prove other people are more racist than him
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Ok please if you don’t mind saying - who is Stuart semple and what did he do? I’m so confused. Like I recognise the name and I think he might the an artist or something but I have no idea
He is indeed an artist! He’s a English multidisciplinary fine artist best known for his ongoing beef with English sculptor Anish Kapoor over the 2016 exclusive licensing on the process to make Vantablack colour coating, which meant Kapoor was the only artist allowed to use it. Then Stuart Semple made Pinkest Pink pigment and said it was available to everyone but Anish Kapoor, and there was a big blowup which there’s a lot of documentation of - it was very memed.
Since then, Semple has made a bunch more pigments, most of them with the available-to-everyone-but-Anish-Kapoor disclaimer, and the beef periodically flares up, although I will say as time goes on it seems to me to have got increasingly one-sided given that Kapoor has pretty much wandered off.
(I’ve used several of his colours, btw. Pinkest Pink is pretty good. Blackest Black, his attempt to make the blackest possible paint (as opposed to Vantablack which is a nanofibre coating) I was pretty disappointed in, I’ve honestly had better light capture from mid-range art shop paints. His other pigments vary in quality - some I really liked, some I was meh on, but I think Blackest Black is the only one I was actively unimpressed by)
Anyway. Where I come in is much less exciting.
A few months ago I reblogged a post on Tumblr asking about Semple from a discourse tag (my reblog did not tag or @ anyone), and I made a glib comment where I said (very truthfully) that while I thought he was pretty decent at pigments, both his paintings and his online persona came across pretty adolescent to me.
so it turns out Stuart Semple is an inveterate name searcher (hi Stuart if you’re reading this!)
(Side note: I actually should have guessed this from 2019 Twitter when he saw and commented on an untagged thread I wrote about him and Kapoor’s beef (which was because I’d seen an article in which Kapoor, a British-Asian man, said that the racist Prevent strategy was liable to drive young British-Asian men into the arms of terrorist groups by making it clear their country hates them reblogged on Semple’s account with a caption claiming Anish Kapoor was pro-terrorism, which, while tongue-in-cheek, isn’t a neutral statement for a white person to make about an Asian person and was a pretty phenomenally bad-faith reading of Kapoor’s actual words) and in my thread I pretty much said that when the story had broken, I, like everybody else, had found it very funny and been firmly on side with Semple’s bit, but I felt that a) after a couple of years it really wasn’t very relevant any more and it had started to feel less like Fighting The Power and more like bullying the amount of Semple’s web presence was devoted to talking about Anish Kapoor; b) that it was a shame that Anish Kapoor was increasingly only known as The Vantablack Guy given that I really like a lot of his work and c) that continuing to frame a Jewish person of colour as the Face of the Artistic Elite was a bit weird given how overwhelmingly white the high-end art world is. but I digress. Semple responded to that thread, I don’t really remember what he said, it wasn’t an acrimonious response but it was a bit Oh I Didn’t Do Anything To Tag You?)
so anyway he found my reblog and commented saying ehhh I don’t remember, something along the lines of not feeling like I was being very kind and that he was trying his best. also I think he said I had accused him of being racist? which again the actual Tumblr post literally just said I thought his art and persona came across as juvenile and I think in the tags? I mentioned that I thought it was time for him to step off the Kapoor beef.
then he screencapped my post, including my profile picture and username, and posted it on all his socials with a kind of :( people are so mean on Tumblr :( caption and um
idk if you know this about Being A Public Persona With Tens Of Thousands of Followers but. if you post someone’s identity and say ‘I do not like what this person is doing’ it. can get messy fast.
uh I don’t follow Stuart Semple (see the original post I made) but he commented to make sure I knew he’d posted my post on Instagram and “all my followers like your wig :)” which. according to my partner who did go and look at the time, the Instagram comments were largely about how I was an ugly non-passing trans woman aka “man in a wig” which. throw the whole suitcase out. There were a good few days where I got a lot of angry anons, ranging from ‘stop bullying Stuart Semple!!!!!’ to ‘die in a ditch graphically’ to ‘how can you claim to have opinions on art when You Are On Tumblr’ (I have been a freelance illustrator for 7 years and I have a Masters in art and design) to ‘your art sucks and you’re fat and ugly’ and my personal favourite ‘how can u be cis and use she/her pronouns you dumb snowflake’
(within that furore was a whole branch where someone was like ‘sex worker huh bet you’re bad at it’ and I was like ‘yep! that’s why I don’t do it any more! it’s hard work and it involves a lot of self-promotion and customer skills which I don’t like and am not good at!’ and this was a Whole Thing where they kept trying to insult me (much like today’s anon) about my supposed failures as a Slut Who Is Bad At Sex and I kept going like ‘ok but here’s how that just. doesn’t make sense in reference to what sex work actually is so like, ok?’)
and Stuart Semple and I were also having a conversation which, depending on your perspective I would call his attitude either conciliatory or passive-aggressive, there was a lot of ‘me and my followers would never say rude things about you :) keep up the art kiddo :)’ and being charitable I would say he was trying to be nice while being angry, and to avoid escalating (but with the added context I got later about the wig comment, I think that interpretation of his behaviour maybe. has some cracks?) and ultimately he took down the posts, we had a brief conversation about keeping pet reptiles (apparently he has a lizard) and we left it on, if not good terms, at least peaceable ones.
however I still periodically get messages about it from angry Semple stans. and I’m not sure the argument was resolved, in that I still very much think it’s fair to make criticism, including quite harsh criticism (which I’m not sure ‘adolescent’ is), on art which is put out for public display and enjoyment, and that it isn’t a personal attack to post a criticism of someone’s public-facing work and statements on social media unless you actively target it towards them (for example, @ ing them), and Semple still thinks there’s no difference between a random blog with under a thousand followers criticising a public figure’s work and a public figure with 100k followers on most platforms criticising that blog (out of context - he clipped out the post I was reblogging from and my explanatory tags, and looking at my blog you may notice that 90% of my nuance is in the tags) while giving his followers all the information to find said blog.
(also as multiple people have remarked. if you want to say it’s an unfair criticism to call your online presence immature, being a middle-aged artist who as far as I can tell has a net worth over a million who spends your time name searching yourself in order to get mad at untagged mild criticism from strangers on the internet and share it on all your socials for your followers to join you in Being Big Mad is uhhhhhhh. it uh. it’s not like. not super thin-skinned and immature)
(also also I just googled his net worth and unsurprisingly I can’t find a source on it I’d consider reliable, but I did find multiple articles about him getting in trouble for breach of contract and nonpayment for gallery employees, including two accusations of him writing a big defensive blog post then changing it after a few hours to a very short post saying I LOVE YOU so like idk how true that is but it does seem. consistent with the above interactions.)
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More black people in robot fiction please!! My god, what I've been missing out on! What with: primarily, the Purpose of robot fiction; secondarily, the development of a world in which robots exist; and thirdly, black people existing in movies. Detective Del Spooner being a robot-racist is a fun spin cause he's black, but...come on man, you ain't tryna tell me racism's over because we invented a slave class. Like Harry Domin indirectly stated - as long as we are different, we will hate each other for being different. Robots are similar even if not identical, and thus do not - even cannot - hate each other. Y'all coulda kept the Elijah Bailey vibe...Lije wasn't too thrilled about robots, but he accepted them as part of the world and kept his dislike for them harmless and professional. Like Eddie Valiant with toons. Man, Roger Rabbit's a good movie.
Will Smith got his fuсkin Converse All-Stars and his sweet potato pie and he out to solve some murders! He's even got a god damn guitar wall in his little apartment. Bet your аss he don't play one of them in the movie. EVEN BETTER,, THE FIRST WHITE PERSON TO SPEAK IN THIS MOVIE (though he be the hologram of the dead roboticist, Alfred Lanning), IN HIS FIRST EVER LINE, CALLS DETECTIVE DEL SPOONER "son". YES! THAT IS WHAT I CALL...UH...well it's not exactly racial subtext, but also that's exactly what it is. R. Sammy and everything. I wish they'd've gone a little further with the "robot" designation used as a method of...not dehumanization because they're not living or humans, but...devaluing? It is obvious that Giskard Reventlov is a robot, so it is considered rude to distinguish him from other Aurorans with that R., whereas the Earthmen delight in devaluing their machines by insisting on that R, denying them last names, giving them names like "Sammy", and calling them "boy"...sound familiar? Anyways that's how it is in the novels, I wish it were the same here.
Del Spooner thinks a robot can do crime even though no robots have ever done crimes. He thinks this because he is prejudiced. This is the weakest facet of the movie. He's prejudiced because one time he and another car got shoved off a bridge into the water, and a passing NS-4 saved him but not the little girl in the other car. They say it's about percentages, and it is, but the robot should still have been positronically affected by not being able to save Sarah as well. Like those poor Solarians who couldn't save Dr. Delmarre. It should at the very least exhibit some cognitive dysfunction as a result of not being physically able to obey such a strong Law.
I think if a robot can commit a crime then the First Law must be strengthened. The definition of "harming a human being" would need to be expanded. It would lead to slight issues like Herbie and might make robots less useful, but the point of the Laws is to promote safety over usefulness. I am glad then to see that no robot who obeys the Laws has ever committed any crime.
Anyways Del's a cop with a "documented history of savage violence against robots" man come on, grow up. Get some god dаmn therapy
Aight so they put the Laws onscreen before the movie fully starts, but then Del asks Dr. Calvin some very basic questions genuinely and it's like...Del man how you live in this world and you don't know how the Laws relate to and conflict with each other?? I know USR is still in its relatively early days, but come on! Well, he's the type to endanger himself, his passenger, and every other motorist by taking manual control of a self-driving car. Spoon's the type of guy who opens the front door of a house that ain't his, LEAVES it open, and then gets spooked when the wind slams it shut. That's why he hates robots, man. He's just that kind of guy...the entitlement combined with the proud humanism.
They shoulda subtitled this movie "Will Smith Does Millions Of Dollars Worth Of Property Damage" bro even before the NS-5s start attacking him he's blowing their positronic brains out...man those things ain't cheap! Or maybe they are! I don't know! Del's grandma can't seem to afford one, but they're mass produced and their creator Alfred Lanning wanted robots in every household. Bet he'd love Solaria
On one hand I understand and agree with Del's reluctance to talk around what is in this film possibly corporate spyware. On the other hand the anticorporate subtext in this movie kinda muddles the whole robot racism thing. Like yeah I'd be polite to FedEx NS-4 but I'd also shoot down Amazon drones with a BB gun so
#robot thoughts#robots#robot#detective del spooner#del spooner#i robot#i robot (2004)#rur#r.u.r.#rossum's universal robots#harry domin#robot novels#elijah bailey#lije bailey#more to follow#solaria#giskard reventlov#r. sammy#will smith
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Superhero Au Chapter 3: Gyrus
One hundred and eighty two days until space. Gyrus marked his calendar like he did every morning. That was exactly six months. Just six months and he would be out in space, ready to face the unknown. His heart did a giddy flip at the thought.
Of course it also meant he had six months to finish his final project and pass all his classes, but Gyrus tried not to think about it that way. He was an optimist after all.
He ambled over to the fridge, and decided to have some leftover Mandu to celebrate. The Mandu was missing. That can’t be right. He’d only gotten it yesterday...he pushed food around in his fridge but couldn’t find it. Had he accidentally thrown it out? He would never do that, right? He glanced in the trash but there was no Mandu to be seen. It had well and truely vanished.
Gyrus allowed himself a brief period of mourning as the cool of the fridge washed over him.
Then he shook his head and grabbed an apple. ‘It’s a healthier snack,’ he told himself. ‘Better to keep in shape.’ His stomach whined in disagreement.
He walked over to the couch. Everything seemed...slightly off. Like someone had moved all the furniture to the left. The throw blanket was neatly folded over the back, when he’d left it folded over the armrest...hadn’t he? The remote was on top of his school books, and he never put there unless he watched tv later in the day...
Gyrus marched over to the door, the wild thought of Mandu thieves racing through his head. The lock was secure and unharmed. There were no scratch marks on the wall or floor as signs of forced entry. He checked both the knob and the key hole. Nothing. The only way someone had gotten in here was with a key. But Gyrus had them both, one in his wallet and one hidden in his locker at the lab. The only other person was...
No, no. That was rediculous. Don had not come back from his trip purely to break into his tenants’ homes and eat their Mandu. He was just being paranoid.
He flipped on the tv to the morning news. The mayor was making a speech again...something about reporters being more careful of danger, blah blah, Simple...Gyrus sat up with a jolt. The news anchors were talking about Simple, while a clip of him yelling at the reporters played. How had he missed this? It must have happened after he went to bed.
He opened his phone to a site called Simple Watch, and scrolled up. Looks like a late night diner had been attacked by jellies. Simple had fought them off single handed, until the police had shown up and tried to assist. Not that Simple had been to happy with that, as they had nearly hit him too. Gyrus frowned.
“...All I’m saying is that people need to be more causious.” The voice from the tv filtered through to Gyrus’s ears. “We know nothing about him save for how dangerous he is. He has powers no one can explain, can inexplicably kill creatures our police can’t, and he’s clearly not from here.” Bile rose in Gyrus’s throat as the news anchor continued talking, “And now with how he’s threatening the press... he’s obviously unhinged.”
Gyrus turned the tv off with a click, a foul taste in his mouth. He tried to take another bite of the apple but found it didn’t help. He chucked the apple at the trashcan. “Stupid apple,” he muttered to himself. “Stupid news, stupid racist reporters.” He shoved his books into his bag and relished the loud thud they made as they collided. “What does he know anyway?” He twisted the key in his lock with extra force to make it shriek. “I bet he’s never even met Simple.”
He’d never met him, that had to be it. He wouldn’t be so paranoid if he had. Sure, Simple tended to come off as rude and angry...and he really didn’t seem good with people...but he was still putting himself in danger to try and fight monsters that no one else could. He didn’t have to, but he did.
In his mind’s eye, Gyrus saw the great purple jelly looming above him, its six great eyes fixed on him as it opened it vacumous maw full of sharp teeth. He’d kicked out desperately, but it did nothing to stop the beast. All at once he’d known he would die here, eaten whole by a monster straight out of a video game.
Then all at once something sharp and blue had cut through it, bisecting the monster and embedding itself in the wall behind Gyrus. Sticky goo had rained down on him, but Gyrus hadn’t cared, to thrilled to be alive.
He’d looked up, and for the first time realized the blue thing was actually two blue things: a sword, and a man. The man was tall, far taller than Gyrus even as he stood half bent over from the momentum of the kill. Their eyes met.
In all the books he’d read, people had always romanticised how they felt when they saw there rescuer. How noble and brave they’d looked. But Gyrus didn’t see any of that. To him, Simple had only looked scared. Scared and confused and so, so tired.
The mayor had come up behind him, and spoke, startling Simple, who had instantly put himself between Gyrus and the sound, fists ready even if his sword was still stuck in the wall. ‘So this is what the hero of the game looks like,’ Gyrus had thought. ‘Scared and tired and still ready to fight.’
Mayor and Simple were still in discussion, and other people were crowding around. But Simple still glanced back at him, anxious and concerned, and Gyrus felt something warm bubble up in his stomach.
Everyone had clapped when Simple introduced himself. But Gyrus made sure he was loudest.
A ping from his phone jolted him out of his thoughts. He glanced down to see a new post from Simple Watch. It had a photo encaptioned: Simple eats breakfast, and clearly shot out someone’s top story window. Simple sat on the roof of an apartment complex, eating something round and soft... Gyrus squinted st the grainy photo...was that Mandu?
Simple liked Mandu. The corner of Gyrus’s mouth twitched. Looks like things were looking up.
———————————————————————
The lab was dark when Gyrus arrived. Not that he minded. He was used to being the first one in. He absently flipped on the lights as he walked down the hall. The lights flickered as they turned on, dimmer then usual, washing out all the color in the room.
Gyrus shivered. It seemed...colder down here. Maybe he’d need to ask the professor about fixing heating later. His footsteps echoed down the hall, the only sound in the stillness. Combined with the dim and the cold, it seemed...eerie.
And as he walked down he got the strangest sensation that he was not alone. That was preposterous of course, and even as he swung around to see nothing did he know he was being foolish. Bur he couldn’t help it. Because everytime he turned back around he could swear he saw something flicker in the shadows just out of his sight.
Gyrus quickly ducked into the locker room and shut the door. The warm glow seeped into the corners and relaxed him. Nothing in here. He changed in to protective gear absently, noting his house key still tucked away inside.
He paused at the door leading out to the labs. The handle was frozen. Metal icy to the touch as the water in the air had condenced to ice. That wasn’t a good sign. Not good at all.
Gyrus mentally ran through all of the projects inside as he hurriedly stuffed himself in one of the biohazard suits from the rack. ‘Mary’s was mechanic...Philmon’s involved nitrogen he he was way to careful to let it out like this...and of course his had nothing to do with ice at all...’
‘The professor,’ Gyrus thought to himself as he screwed on his helmet. ‘It must be the professor’s secret project. The one he won’t show us yet.’
Gyrus threw open the door and barged in, ready to save whatever he could. The inside was far, far colder than the hall had been. It felt like stepping in to a freezer. Gyrus held his flashlight high and looked around wildly.
The room was much like how he’d left it. Seperate stations all set up, each with their own equitment and inventions casting a maze of strange shadows on the floor. But something was off, he realized. Papers were scattered at odd positons on the floor. Valuable equitment was knocked haphazardly on the desks. Someone had been in here.
Or Something.
Gyrus began to move forward slowly, swinging his flashlight in every direction as he walked. Nothing moved. The air sat unnaturally still, amplifying each quiet step Gyrus took, each slight shuffle of his biohazard suit rubbing against itself as he raised the flashlight to peak around corners.
The mess seemed to leave a trail, with the worst of the damage leading down to the left wall, where the professor kept his secret project. Gyrus crept towards the strange contraption, its shiny black form almost indistinguishable in the darkness, but for the curve of its spherical head jutting out. A sharp, jagged grey line crossed the black in what Gyrus knew was just an entry point, but in the dark it leered like the maw of a monster. Above it the red glowing ports glared like eyes into the stillness.
Gyrus reached out a trembling, gloved hand, half expecting to feel the give of a jelly monster or the rough matting of fur. But the object beneath his fingers is firm. He slides it along, admiring for a second how smooth it must be, and stops. For the feeling seeping through the layers of the biosuit is not coldness, but warmth. Its hot to the touch, like a fire or a blanket, he’s to wrapped up in protective gesr to tell. But then what...
A cold shiver runs down his spine. He turns flashlight raised high to see a figure across the room, looming over his desk. He screams and the figure turns, its empty red eyes fixated on him. It gives an inhuman screech and Gyrus is terrified, so scared he fears he may never move again.
Then he sees what lies below the creatures skeletal, shadowy hands.
An anger fills Gyrus like he’s never known before at the sight of his final project in the monster’s grip. With fury and terror of someone who knows there future was about to be wripped away, he threw the nearest object at the monster’s head. “That’s mine!” He snarls.
The object, his flashlight, passes harmlessly through thr creature’s head. But Gyrus doen’t stop moving. He yanks a wrench out an throws it too, throwing anything he could reach. He stalks forward and even though it should be pitch black he can still see from the light of the green glowing...something.
The creature simply looks at him, and then it is gone. No fleeing or charging, it was simply there one second and gone the next.
All at once Gyrus feels tired, tired like he’s never felt before. He takes one more staggering step to his desk, before he collapses against it. His last though before he slips into unconsciousness is a silent plea to see the top of his desk, to see his project...
The professor finds him, passed out in a biosuit in the ruined lab. He is pressing with his questions, but accepts what Gyrus says at face value, something wrong in the lab, an intruder...
Gyrus leaves out the part about the monster with red eyes, not sure if it was real, or what his mind infused over a simple ski mask and goggles in his fear.
They are lucky, the police tell them when they arrive. Aside from the mess not much seems to be broken or stolen. Considering what happened, it could have been a lot worse.
‘Lucky huh,’ Gyrus thought dully as he sat wrapped in a shock blanket. ‘Wouldn’t that be nice.’
Only one thing in the whole lab was missing, and no matter how they search it could not be found. It was a small object, plane and boring. But it meant more to Gyrus than anything in the world.
His final project: the black box.
#room of swords gyrus#ros gyrus#room of swords kodya#ros kodya#ros don#superhero au#room of swords shadows#kodya#gyrus#room of swords#room of swords fanfic
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for the record I'm not actually upset over the comments people are making. I've been doing the internet fight thing for 15 years. but here's an anecdote.
a couple years ago when Discourse™ first got its start, I saw a post. it said "saying 'my dude' is antiblack racist because it's just a watered down way of saying 'my n*gga'" except he actually said the word because op was black. and I was like. what the fuck am I reading. I check the notes and he's all like "if you're white you're not allowed to disagree with me". I'm like wha. granted there were a bunch of people who had said "I'm black and you're an idiot" and it died out and lo and behold if I say my dude I don't get crucified by black people so it's clearly not racist.
then a meme surfaced. you start ranting and raving in a really long sentence or something that's usually directed towards people who do or say bigoted things and then ending it with a comma and a soccermom name, KAREN. it was used pretty much everywhere by everyone. but then one strangely peculiar thing happened.
people started sending anonymous suicide baits to people who used that meme, because "that meme was created by black people so it's culturally appropriating black culture to use that meme if you're white". including one trans kid who was like 14, living in an abusive and homophobic household. he used it in a vent post. and in the notes at least three people were harassing him about it. he deleted his blog. I worry he might have killed himself.
the people who were sending the messages were in their early to mid 20s. to a 14 year old kid. because he used a black created meme. to vent about his abusive household. I shouldn't have to explain how fucked up that is.
anyway I'd come to his defense and made a post about how it's ridiculous to cyberbully a child because he used a meme he didn't have the license to use. and tumblr flipped out. I had hundreds of messages from people calling me a nazi. yeah sure a disabled mentally ill queer trans leftist is totally a nazi. right. they said I was racist, they said I was homophobic to gay black people, they said that I was a liar who fabricated that story I told earlier about that kid because by the time people were asking for receipts the post was deleted. I got suicide baited, threatened, the whole shebang.
I didn't care. I was just irritated by the huge influx of messages. it was an inconvenience. after the life I lead, mean words on the internet from a spineless coward hiding behind the veil of anonymity are water off a duck's back. yes I might use fuckin profanity or italicized fonts or CAPITAL LETTERS for emphasis, but it's because I'm a wordsmith. language is an art form. a keyboard is my brush. I'm proud of my ability to harness the english language and twist and contort it to my own specifications. I can use it for great good, in helping people through tough times with inspiring words that incite courage, for great funny, in jokes that might take some thinking and context to really understand (especially puns), for great sexy (talking dirty basically but only with certain people and when the time is right), or for insulting people. anyone who knows me knows that I'm a good person and that the only people who ever know what it's like to receive a tongue lashing are the ones who fucking deserve it. not the people who see a single text post taken out of context as a basis to judge my entire character on. but I enjoy it. I enjoy using words as weapons on the battlefield of discourse. it's because I'm good at it. beyond the abilities of most opponents which is unfortunate because it just sails right over their heads most of the time but still, my fellow intelligent company is able to grasp the meanings and intentions of both sides. I excel at this. and the fact that I don't take things personally (I'll certainly pretend to when it'll gain me the advantage) is just icing on the cake.
there is just one problem though.
I'm autistic and possess hyperempathy.
"what does that have to do with this?"
see, here's the thing. if some random person makes an offhand comment intended as a joke but didn't really have the "correct" amount of blatant humor injected into it, and you are the type of person to then go to them and tell them they'd be better off dead, they're just a retard who should stop posting, nobody cares about them, whatever, you are NOT the type of person to think "hmm this person's only 14, maybe I should reconsider the choice to send them a death threat" or "oh hey this person has depression, perhaps I'll remove that suicide bait part and replace it with rainbow lollipops and unicorn stickers :3". you don't give a fuck about all that. you just wanna reap destruction and watch the world burn. you wouldn't give a fuck if that kid commits suicide because you don't have any compassion or empathy. if you would send the kind of shit you sent me to anyone, and I had the chance to meet you in person, I'd make you swallow your own teeth.
these anons don't care how old I am. they don't care what my mental state is. they don't care about any of that shit. they only care about inflicting pain, deserved or not, and all over dumb shitposts. over "lmao if you break up over mario kart you're kind of immature and should work on your relationship skills :P". over saying Karen at the end of your sentence. over greeting a friend with "my dude". over liking steven universe. it doesn't matter what the topic of the day is. any excuse will do to go for the proverbial jugular.
the existence of these people is what pisses me off more than the actual things that they say. how dare you exist. how dare you spread hate. how dare you not be a paragon of human decency. if someone says something racist or homophobic or antisemitic or misogynistic or body shaming or pro fascist or bootlicking or genocidal or anything contributing directly to harmful actions towards people based on their demographics rather than the choices that they make, fuck 'em. you lost my compassion for you. you're a piece of old chewing gum under a table. you're a little chunk of dookie that didn't get flushed. you're a moldy apricot pit at the bottom of an unlined trash can. you made a conscious choice to be a bad person. if you are a literal nazi, I'd remove your bones and then put them back in the wrong places without any anesthetic. if you are bigoted because society brainwashed you, I'd call you character into question and point out your hypocrisy. if you made a dumb joke on a shitpost I'd just scroll past because I'm not gonna waste my time on you. but if you would tell a kid to kill themself, you bet your ass I'll tear into you like hungry wolves into a deer carcass with zero remorse or sense of your own feewings. if you want me to care about the feelings of terrible people, you have another thing coming. if they would hurt people who don't deserve it, they're on the shit list.
and I refuse to be told that I'm a bad person because of that. severe, yes. ruthless, maybe. evil? that's pushing it a lot. a little unhinged? I've not been hinged since I was 3 years old. an asshole? I vehemently disagree considering the people i'm rude to are themselves assholes; this isn't some edgy friedrich nietsche quote taken out of context. merciless? okay I'll give you that. but a bad person? fuck that and fuck you.
you don't get to judge my character because I'm ~mean~ to dickheads.
in fact I'm somehow more pissed off at those people than the people sending the shitty messages in the first place. lashing out I can understand because that was me once upon a time. but passive neutrality under guise as absolute good? you're attacking the reaction. you're centrists attacking antifa. you're part of the problem. especially when you use sneaky tactics that take advantage of good nature, "heyyyyy buddy, let's talk about your anger issues, are you okaaaaaay, taaaaalk to me, you need to apologize to the people who want you dead because you were mean to them and that means you deserve it". literal cult tactics. evil. actual legitimate active performed evil. or just an ignorant misguided fool that thinks he's the dalai lama. but... pride is a deadly sin after all.
anyway tl;dr i don't give a shit about the actual things you say to me. the only thing that pisses me off is the fact that you'd say those things to another person completely unprovoked, no matter who that person is.
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okay so i started working at jimmy johns in early febuary of this year. i needed a job rlly bad and money desperately, just something to keep me afloat and to afford food. what i experienced...i was not at all prepared for lmao. i was sexually harassed, verbally harassed, had my hours fucked with, had management and even the owners of the company who could give a fuck less about their employees, had to deal with my fellow coworkers AND managers being on k2 and other drugs, and the final fucking straw which was getting my tip money stolen from me OUT OF THE SAFE BY A MANAGER. i started working as a delivery driver. which was INCREDIBLY stress inducing at first bc i worked at the one right downtown. i had to deal with
i started working as a delivery driver. which was INCREDIBLY stress inducing at first bc i worked at the one right downtown. i had to deal with
traffic, pedestrians NOT LOOKING WHERE THE FUCK THEY WERE GOING DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MANY PPL I ALMOST KILLED CAUSE /THEY/ DID NOT LOOK, we have ‘parking police’ and i legit got about 15-20 tickets during my time there bc that asshole was out for blood and anytime he saw my car, even if i wasnt parked illegally (oh did i mention we had like 3 parking spots all on the street and all with a 2 hour limit (: ) or hadnt been parked in a spot for the full 2 hours. so there was that.
see when i first started everything was fine. we had good employees who worked hard and did what they had to do. they were all stoners, but whatever i could care less about that. SO. our assistant manager, he was a mess. racist, homophobic, rude, loud. the worst. we would do dabs out in his car (yeah i know but i worked at a fucking jimmy johns) and he would just say the most questionable shit. i remember this one time he saw my phone background was a pic of me and my bf and was like ‘oh you like black guys? what’s your sex like? i bet it’s really good’ and im not gonna go into too much detail here, bc it upset me and its racist, but he kept going and said some REALLY creepy shit i was like wtf and told him to never speak to me like that again or i would report him for sexual harassment (side note: one time he thought i did report him for sexual harassment and was like “who are you gonna buy weed from now?” LITERALLY ANYONE YOU PIECE OF SHIT.) he would always be like “DAMN THICK’ whenever i would bend over and do everything. I TOLD MY MANAGER AT THE TIME. she didn’t do anything. AND the owners of the franchise definitely knew bc like...there’s cameras and they can hear everything we say? but no one did fucking anything. and i needed the money bad so i had to stay. of course i told him off constantly. he was white and always saying the n word. just a piece of fucking shit.
i think the happiest day of my life was when he FINALLY got fired. my manager had to go to another city for a week and help out that jimmy johns bc i guess ALL the employees and managers did a walk out (yeah this happens at all the jimmy johns owned locally in my area i wish i was kidding) and left his inept ass in charge. it took him 5 mins to make sandwiches (FREAKY FAST hello????) he was just a poor manager. but THEN he started using k2 again. and he was a zombie. there was no point of him even being there bc like he would just go to the back of the store and just stand in front of the freezer door staring for like 10-15 mins at a time.i was a driver and didnt know how to make sandwiches yet and this bitch seriously was just standing there cracked out of his mind on k2 in FRONT of customers (and i will say our customers were SO nice at least) takking phone calls slurring his words. it was embarrassing. i rememeber i had 2 customers who had waited almost a HALF HOUR for ONE sandwich bc i was having a panic attack and losing my fucking mind trying to make their sandwiches while he was in his truck getting high and refusing to come in. one of the customers actually gave me a tip and told me i was doing great and the other one was like ‘im so sorry this is happening to you, that guy is fucked up’. anyway, he passed out on k2 in his truck one night and got the cops called on him and got banned from the property :) i still saw him from time to time and he looked disgusting & miserable and it made me so happy.
mostly we just had grown ass employees, fucking 30 year olds, just acting like children. always on drugs. i had one coworker pretend to slap my ass and i called him out and he was like ‘it’s a joke im not apologizing’. people would try to take deliveries from me. AND LET ME JUST SAY, not even to fucking brag even slighly but i was the best worker there my entire time there bc regardless of where im working i am giving my 100% every day and no one else there would. but ppl always tried to step over me and did not respect me. we had one coworker who had 3 felonies and one day like 4-5 cops came to our store to tell us to call the cops the next time he showed up for work (surprise surprise he fled bc they took an hour to get to the store despite the fact we were literally like not even 4 blocks from the police station) and he was always high on k2. forever late. day after day no call no show. he had his friend get hired on who would go down to subway and talk shit about subway in his uniform??? lmao and subway called us one day and was like ‘can yall not?’ he also threatened to burn down the store and then my manager (who was always on a power trip if we’re being honest) purposefully withheld his paycheck to fuck with him, because he was fucking with her, so we dealt with him WAY longer than we should have?
then this one bitch that became manager, SOMEHOW, we were seriously always that desperate for staff and we hire anyone bc the managers are overworked af and just want to take the load off. anyway, SHE was always high on k2 as well. and she would always overshare rlly traumatic personal things from her life to me and all the customers and its like....girl we dont wanna hear that pls try and get some help. she was not currently being abused, i wanna specify. she was talking about things from her past. i sympathized with her but like im a victim of dv too lmao i dont wanna see your bruises without being asked first. and then i remember one day i left my money bag there (i kept my tips in it and had like $37 in there or something) and this bitch who was making MORE MONEY THAN ME seriously fucking went into the safe (we caught her on camera lmao) and stole that money out of my bag and left a few bills to make it seem less suspicious i guess??? lied about it to my face? then quit bc she ‘wasnt gonna sit there and be accused of something i didnt do’ like ok lmao
then to top it all off at one point my old manager just stopped giving a fuck and the store went to shit and we got complaint after complaint and she started being so rude to all of her staff, including myself (and we were like besties so i was devastated) and she cut my hours when she was submitting our work times for the checks because i would clock in early to help out....LIKE SHE ASKED? and it was just everything i said to her...her response was just the most rude and hateful voice and just....it was so rude. i cried every single day after work. she eventually got replaced and then quit
but then this new manager, whom i loved, was very depressed and just had a lot wrong with him mentally but he was still very....drama starting and attention seeking. he would talk about suicide nonstop 24/7 and not to be callous but it just made me so uncomfortable and triggered me so much? they did overwork him and i will attest and agree to that and he had a lot on his shoulders but he couldve gone to mcdonalds literally any day and gotten a job with better hours, better pay, and better benefits. i kept telling him over and over to leave bc he had so much managerial experience he couldve been hired anywhere! all resteraunts down here are perpetually hiring, especially for managers! i would know bc i was looking for another job lmao. but he’d text me every night saying things like ‘well lets hope i drink myself to death’ ‘suicide is painless’ etc. and it was just......VERY uncomfortable for me, as someone who has attempted suicide and still struggles with ideation from time to time lmao it was just the most triggering environment ever
like idk how i lasted that long but i worked my ass off, saved up my money, have a good paying job and im trying my best to forget this entire experience (honestly i did have some good times) but i really dont....think i can lmao
ON A POSTIVE NOTE: we had some of the kindest and most caring customers ive ever had in my life. i was shocked. but the amount of times i had a shitty customer in my entire time there i can count on one hand lmao like....even when they were shitty they were like ‘im sorry i know yall work hard and everything’ like i miss my customers SO MUCH because we actually had relationships with them and shit and ugh god. if the customers were shitty tho i would never have kept this job lmfao
i stayed at this job simply bc i made enough money for rent and my bills perfectly and it was one of the few jobs where i was paid an hourly wage + tips. and i wanted my next job to be a job in my field. that’s why i stuck around so long, it took some time to do that.
so yeah theres my mess i love anyone who read this and you can have my first born and be the beneficiary to my life insurance when i die
#tw: racism#tw: sexism#tw: suicide#tw: drugs#idk...what else to warn y'all about. just know this is a fucking#mess#i mean these arent horrific mentions of any of these things but i dont wanna trigger anyone unintentionally#better safe than sorry with tws
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old art of mine, been redoing stuff and stuff. I’ll post some of the old stuff with the new stuff. I have saved drawings all over my room and computer.
Surface life
Image 1; Red walked into his favorite bar for a much needed drink and finds a new face. Sitting on the bar stole was a woman, drinking shots left and right. She pause for a moment. pulls out a hand full of crushed $20′s and slams them on the bar table.
“6 more, please and thank you.” a little loader then what was intended. Chillby turned his head.
Chillby look at her and sighed, “....As I said before, I cant leave so many drinks on the bar top....but i will take your money. ”Chillby smiled and took the money and began making her drink.
“ugh fine, just easier to line them up and drink it with out waiting for the next one.” She said in a drunk whisper. She lean back a bit and closed her eyes.
Red sat down on his stole. The bar was slow tonight, a few customers here and there. Even a few humans in the far back table. Which is rare, but if they have the cash Chillby will gladly take it. As long as their not starting trouble. This being a monster bar and all. You get the Dumbest humans making the Stupidest comments. Some raciest some borderline looking for a fight.
Chillby walks by and passes the woman her drink and walks up to Red, giving him his mustered without even asking.
“Hehe Thanks Chillby, been just die-en for a drink.” Red smiles and starts to drink. He hears a small snort from the woman two seats across from him. Her free hand holding her face head turned away, blocking his view of her. Chillby saying nothing walks off to attended to other customers. Clearly not in the mood tonight. Red smiles. He will leave Chillby be for now. He found a new distraction for the night.
He eyed the woman, dirty blond hair. She was a little on the short side. 5′2 or 5′3 maybe, but every human is short compared to him. She had on a gray button top with no sleeves, and a large magenta colored sweater that started at her upper arms going well over her hands and ending along her hips. To him it looked like on of those sweater dresses. Or it could be on XXXL sweater, either way she looked good. Her legs were long and curvy, covered in black knee high socks. Red whistled to himself. ‘Nice’. He is a leg man, and those are some nice legs. Head still turned away from him but now looking at her drink. He seen a few good looking human woman. Though none would give him the time of day. Which is no skin off his nose. He-he!. But this Chick looked different, body wise. She gave off the feeling, ‘ I don’t care. Leave me to my drink. Don’t bother me. ’ type of feeling. Not in a real rude way either. Also there was something about her. Something that he couldn’t put his finger on about her. She seem different from the humans across the bar. If anything she seem more similar to Monsters then human.
Come to think about it’s not the first time he had this same feel before with a human. Walking down the street he would past someone and not really paying much attention think it was a Monster but then turn and see a human. He shrugged it off and go about his way. Another time would be when he and Boss was shopping in a isle of can goods there was a spill. Chill Sauce, I think. Boss yelled that there was filth in the Isle. 3 seconds we both felt something, magic in the air. Boss thought it was an attack and was preparing his own attack so was he. We turned to see a human Employee run over and pause she said, “what spill?”. Boss pointed to where the spill was and there was none. The next Isle over someone yell back, ”Sorry!”.... but how did they get to the spill past us to the next Isle over?. We went to the next Isle and saw two humans talking, a Man scolding a child about being more careful when holding glass jars. Boss walked off making a comment on at least these humans have cleaning standers. Red followed thinking nothing of it after that.
Taking a big gulp of is mustered, Red looked at the woman finishing off her 2 out of 3 colorful shots. taping the last 1 with her finger. He decided. he wanted her attention. He didn’t know why. Maybe to see if her face matches the body he was admiring from two seats over. Getting up he walked over and sat down in the stole next to her. She somewhat laugh at the not intended pun earlier. Maybe that will get her attention now.
“Hey, haven’t see ya here before. I would buy you a drink but it looks like ya got it. Looks like 2 down and 4 to go.” Red says finishing the rest of mustered. She turned her head and looked at Red. ”Sorry had to ‘mustered’ up the courage to ask.” Hmm not bad. Not bad at all. Round face, full pink lips, pale skin, and her eyes. Icy blue eyes with a hint of violet. Her eyes looked relaxed could be drunk.
“..... Ha-ha, 6 down and 4 more to go yes. 1 more if your still interested in buying me a drink.” Maybe not drunk. She didn’t seem drunk if anything, just tipsy.
This went on for about 30 minutes. Puns flying and a little flirting here and there. Red had down 4 mustered bottles and she finished off her 4. He got her the drink he promised. Red found he was have a good time. She appeared to be have a good time as well. At some point they were interrupted by the humans at the table. Making rude comments about Monsters and Magic.
“ Hey Monster Stick to your own Kind.” one of human males yell out. His face clearly disgusted at there display. Which to be far was just talking. Nothing more.
Red was getting ready to tell him to shove it but was cut off. “I don’t think he should he has been great company. Plus if u have a issue here’s a tissue.” The woman he had been talking to tossed a balled up tissue there way. The turn back to Red as if nothing happened. “By the way you never introduce yourself.” she said to Red with a laid back smile. She was right I never did. Lets fix that. he he.
“ Ha!, your right. The name Sans, Sans the Skeleton but you sweetheart can call me Red.” Smiling Wide, Red put out his hand for a handshake. Her hand held his. He noted that her hands were small and warm. Cute.
“ Well Red nice to finally know the name of the person i have been talking to for half an hour. My name is -”
“ Hey what’s your problem you into Monsters or some shit!.” The same human called out. “ Bet she is one of those types. yea? Like’s the danger thrill right!” Getting everyone attention in the bar. though there was only just them, Red and her at the bar and a 2 humans at a both by the door and a Monster bear looking out the window from his seat.Oh and Chillby not looking happy. “ If you looking for fun tonight just come on over. We will give you what your looking for.” He pulled up his shirt. showing off his broad chest. His Buddy's cheered.
“ Your safe will use. We have what you need, Skin for one!.” the male to his right call out show off this arms. The other was cheering his friends on recording with his phone. All 3 looked looked to be in there 20ish. All of them Drunk.
“Pf-ft hah hah haa!, who comes to a monster bar and is racist and ignorant of the people around them.” She turns her head to them looking bored. Her smile gone and eyes narrowed. “ You know what......there is a lesson here. Its people like you who get on my nerves. You say stupid things to get a rise out people. Thinking that if they do something I got friends, that got my back.” She sipped her drink and leaned on her other elbow. “ Whats wrong? can’t hold your own? Have to show how ‘manly’ you are by insulting others? or Show off what ‘little’ you have?” Clearly not interested in the their display. “if anything it’s cowardly. and I hate cowards.”
Red was a little taken a back. Chillby was just about to walk over and most likely throw them out. When there was a feeling of magic in the air like an magic attack was readying, but it was off it felt more like magic tension or-
“Chicken Shit...” She said pointing a finger at the first offender who made the first rude comment who started this. Magic came from her finger. Orange and Purple magic shot from her finger out it to the human male. There was a flash then a poof. In his place was a....
“..........bak bak”
“Dude! What the Fuk!!” said his buddy to the left
“ He’s a Chicken!!, A fuckin Chicken!!!. The other said dropping his phone.
Chillby, Sans, The Bear Monster and the other 2 Humans starred eyes and eyes light wide. Some Shocked that a now chicken is where a man once stood.
“ Not a chicken really but a rooster. I was going for Chicken ‘Shit’ but I’m a little more then tipsy. But I got results.” She got up and went to the door after downing the her last drink.
“Hey! What the fuck lesson is there to learn.!. Your braking the law using magic us normal Humans. Fucking Mages!” He scream looking at his now chicken friend.
“....Oh right the lesson. Um mm, don’t mess with People and keep your opinion to yourself. Plus this is a magic zone. Where I can use magic. Anyway he will change back in few.” She made it to the door then paused. “ Almost forgot.” She turned to Red and smiled and said, “ The names Yvette.” She left.
Tada!!! old art with story. The next image is just trying out faces for the sans and pap’s. The other image will have a story later on. Ill post it next maybe.....^w^/ Hope my spelling and storytelling is understandable.
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The last chapter before I move to study in UK~ Thank you for reading this series! Have a magical time! And for a heads up, this chapter is... weird...
Clawhauser: Previously on Zoomorphia, Judy and Nick made a huge discovery! Bolt the silver chrome wolf is in fact a robot!... Doing a recap sequence alone is kinda awkward-
Bolt: I’ll gladly lend you a paw~
Clawhauser: Jeepers! Who are you?
Bolt: It’s me, Bolt the silver wolf~
Clawhauser: But you’re white!... It came out wrong.
Bolt: Oh, this white fur? It’s a part of my disguise. Anyway, I tricked a Savage dealer to fall into my trap. I’m so close to capturing her but Hybrid butted in; thus, I ended up killing her instead. And since those two insisted on arresting me..., we got into a fight. Frankly, I wasn’t hurt when they teleport-attacked around but boy, it sure made me dizzy.
Clawhauser: Wow!
Bolt: Hey Cheeto Puff! It was very rude of you calling me like that. I find that racist!
Clawhauser: I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to call you wh-
Bolt: No! Not that! I meant when you refered to me as a ‘robot’.
Clawhauser: Eh? What you really are then?
Bolt: Well, technically, I am an android, I guess.
Clawhauser: Isn’t android a robot looking like a huma-
Bolt: Cut! Cut! We’re not supposed to say the species that never existed.
Clawhauser: Oops, my bad, err, chapter 14!
Fanfiction.net
.-.. . - .----. ... / -.-. --- -. - .. -. ..- .
In the morning at the Zootopia Police Department,
“So, Hopps takes sick leave today?” Chief Bogo the Cape Buffalo was talking in front of the briefing room, laying eyes on his fox officer, who was wearing light green Hawaiian shirt, dark indigo necktie with red-and-blue stripes and khaki pants instead of his police uniform.
“That’s correct~ In fact, she must be sleeping like a log on her bed as we’re speaking.” Nick Wilde the red fox replied his superior in a joking tone.
Clawhauser the cheetah and several other officers were standing around. He could not help but notice a slightly swollen stomach of his normally slender fox friend.
“What’s with the...?” He pointed at Nick’s belly, trying not to offend him since the chubby cheetah like himself might have no right to criticize someone else’s weight.
“This?” Nick pulled the front of his Hawaiian shirt forward a bit. “Honestly, I’m feeling a little under weather today, so I’d like to also take sick leave~” He relinquished his grip.
Clawhauser supposed that Nick misunderstood him referring to his casual shirt.
“More like taking leave to look after Hopps~” Officer Higgins the hippopotamus poked fun at Nick while others laughed. The smirking fox then gave him a shrug.
“Noted, but just so you know, we’re handling lots of work right now. Make sure you come back soon, okay?” Bogo accepted their requests.
“Yes, sir! Thank you, sir~” Nick gave a mock salute.
“The rest of you get in there already. Roll call gonna start soon.” Bogo pointed his thumb to the briefing room’s door.
Other officers entered the room as they were told, except for Clawhauser. He stared at Nick leaving the station, having an inkling of his action.
As soon as the fox stepped out the door, his smirk turning to a frown, he clutched his growling stomach and covered his drooling mouth.
Ever since the most recent battle with Bolt the silver wolf, Nick had been feeling starving.
His hunger was driving him insane although he had eaten everything in sight. He even cleared out the fridge in his apartment by himself on previous night, which should make him full, but still starvation was haunting him.
His stomach was rumbling as his mouth was watering.
The more he thought of his dear bunny friend, Judy, the hungrier he got. That scared him a lot.
Nick then decided to head out to downtown.
.--. .-. .. -. -.-. .. .--. .- .-.. / .- .--. .--. . - .. - . …
“Open up wide” Mittens, sitting on a table inside a motorhome, asked Bolt.
“Aaa” The shirtless alaskan tundra wolf, seated on an oversized couch, opened his mouth wide.
“Pink tongue, salmon pink gums, you look pretty healthy, Not!” The thin black wildcat slapped him with a giant paper fan.
On the surface, inside his mouth looked pretty normal. However, what appearing to be his tongue, his teeth and his gums were in fact engineered devices to imitate real organs.
“Stop fooling around!” She poked Bolt’s chin with the fan to shut his mouth. “Open up! For real this time” She subsequently drew it back.
Bolt, pleased to tease Mittens, brushed the white fur on his chest, revealing a zipper in center of chest, and unfastened the zipper.
As he was pulling open the fake skin across his chest cavity, she checked his insides which were mechanisms and an running engine.
“Cooling fans seem working fine.” She said while looking at two spinning small fans in left and right side chest. She then focused at the engine in the middle by paying attention to its noise, multiple small cylinders running like a heart beating fast. “Engine runs properly. Nothing to worry about~”
When Bolt zipped up his chest, “On second thought, I’d better check the switch lever in your right arm.” Mittens jumped to the right of him.
“That’s enough.” Bored of body check-up, he hopped off the couch, leaving the wildcat sighing.
“I’ve been wondering. Whose guitar is that?” He headed for a guitar leaning against a built in chest of drawers.
“It belongs to professor.” Rhino the tan lemming in a T-shirt tucked into jeans said. He was lying lazily in a pillow on the other couch opposite to the one Mittens was standing on. This pillow clearly was way bigger than him.
“Has he ever played it?” Bolt questioned.
“No idea. It has always been placed there. It’s more like a furniture by now.” Rhino rolled over to lie on his belly.
“Where is he anyway?” Bolt picked the guitar up. Its size was slightly small for a 6-feet wolf but he could go with it.
“Going out to run errands as al-...” While Rhino was answering, he along with Mittens was astonished by Bolt, who had never laid his paws on any instruments before ever since both the lemming and the wildcat first met the wolf, tuning guitar strings skillfully.
“...-ways...” Rhino eventually finished his sentence before Bolt started play guitar.
Played melodies called lyrics to his friends’ minds.
When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires will come to you
“Guys, did you install music software or something into me?”
“No” Mittens and Rhino answered Bolt in unison.
Even Bolt seemed surprised by his skill. He recalled no playing-an-instrument stuff within his one-year memory, unable to remember anything prior. However, all the musical knowledge came into his head.
.. ... / .... . / .--- ..- ... - / -- .- -.-. .... .. -. .
Clawhauser, not having an afternoon shift on that day, strolled around downtown in a jungle green polo shirt and a pair of cello trousers. He intended to visit Judy after he found a right gift for her.
Afterwards, he stopped in front of an all-you-can-eat restaurant where he used to eat. Just thinking about seafood, fried chickens, roasted crickets and pizzas which they served made his mouth water.
“No! Benjamin Clawhauser! Focus on looking for a gift for Judy.” Suppressing his own increased appetite, Clawhauser walked away from the restaurant.
While passing the mouth of the close by alley, he heard a noise of someone throwing up inside the alley. He turned to see the red fox with the dark auburn tip of the tail wearing the familiar light green Hawaiian shirt.
“Nick!?” Clawhauser rushed to his friend who apparently threw up into a trash can.
Nick wiped his mouth with the back of the right paw before turning to meet Clawhauser’s eye. “Oh hi bud, sorry for unpleasant sight” He did not look so good.
“What happens? Food poisoning?” The cheetah fidgeted.
“Just overeating” The quite bloated fox stepped back from the trash can staggeringly.
Clawhauser moved hastily to hold Nick’s shoulder, scared of him tripping over. “Let me take you to your apartment.” The cheetah gave the fox assistance to stand steadily.
“My place is too far away.” Nick was suffering from nausea. His stomach was really uncomfortable.
“I gonna call Judy.” Clawhauser brought out his phone, intending to call her for help since she was Nick’s partner and they two were really close.
“Don’t!... Not her… Please” Nick clung to Clawhauser’s shirt.
The cheetah felt at a loss. “What should we do?”
“I got an idea.” Pulling his phone out, Nick made a phone call.
A little longer than a few minutes later,
After hearing knocks on the door, “Coming! Man, you should give me a heads up earlier than that. It’s not like I would prepare my room-” The small fennec fox with bold voice went to open his apartment door.
“-but I need to prepare my mind to handle a guest-... Who’s this guy?” He was surprised to see a plump spotted big cat helping the familiar red fox stay upright at his front door, “And have you gained some weight?” even more surprised to see his former partner-in-crime looking rounder than usual.
“Sorry to bother you, pal.” Nick came into the room while Clawhauser had to bow his head to avoid his head hitting the room’s ceiling.
The apartment where Finnick the fennec fox, Nick Wilde’s former partner-in-crime, lived was supposed to be for medium-to-large mammal customers.
However, the particular room which the large-eared sandy fennec fox stayed is in an attic and it has a low ceiling, too low for apartment’s regular customers.
“Benjamin Clawhauser, nice to meet you.” The cheetah bent down and offered his right paw to the way smaller mammal.
“Call me Finnick. Bet you are Wilde’s co-worker, huh?” He shook paws with Clawhauser, who then made an shocked expression, which “Why the… face?” confused the fennec fox.
“O-oh sorry. My bad.” Clawhauser apologized, “I didn’t expect you’d have such a… distinctive voice.” drawing his paw back.
“You're not the first person to tell me that.”
“Your place is...” Clawhauser could not help but think that the room was too cramped.
“Small?” Finnick placed his paw on the top of his head and then raised his paw up, implying that the room had plenty of space for a small guy such as him.
“I didn’t mean to offend you! I just thought this apartment is for large mammals since I found some wandering around on the first floor.”
“You’re not wrong. This place is actually for big guys but this room ceiling is too low, so I haggled my way to cheap rent.” Finnick said proudly.
Clawhauser only nodded with a puzzled face in response.
“But still, cuz the doorknob was a little too high, I moved it down.”
The cheetah recalled when he along with Nick arrived at the door, he noted that the doorknob was strangely low.
“At least you don’t have to worry about upstairs neighbors.” Clawhauser mentioned a positive aspect in a hesitating voice.
“Heck yeah~ Make yourself at home. That fox already did.” Finnick pointed at Nick heading to a fridge.
“Have something to eat?” Nick asked, opening the fridge.
“Chilled pizza. Want me to... heat it up?” Finnick goggled at the red fox’s sticking out belly.
“I don’t think he can eat anymore. He’s just-” Clawhauser was going to tell Finnick about what happened with Nick but he was then interrupted by the sound of ripping cardboard.
Evidently, Nick got his paws on the chilled silkworm pupa pizza, claws tearing the packaging box apart. “Don’t bother” He began to guzzle the cold yeasted flatbread with dry tasteless tomato sauce and cheese. In addition to that, its crust looked so tough it must to chew, yet Nick munched it vigorously.
The way he acted indeed scared his friends.
Despite feeling stuffed, Nick was… “I’m little hungry.”... suffering from a ravenous appetite.
Soon after he finished the pizza, he, wobbling drowsily, was slipping into a food coma.
Both Clawhauser and Finnick hurried to help Nick, checking on him.
“Go ahead and take him to my sofa.” Finnick said.
Since the roomer gave the permission, the cheetah took the bellied-out red fox to a sectional sofa, laying him on the long seating part. During the time, the fennec fox distanced himself from others before sending a text message.
Nick spent quite some time lying on the sofa with his arm across his forehead. No matter how uncomfortable he felt or how taut his stomach was, his hunger did not lessen in the slightest. On the contrary, it rose whenever he thought of Judy, her face, her voice, her soft fur, her warm personality, et cetera, including her scent.
He missed her fragrant lavender scent. The more he thought about it, the stronger it became as if it was really there.
He could smell her scent growing clearer.
His ears perked up when there were loud and continuous knocks on the room door. Finnick went to open the door quickly.
“Nick!!”
Nick heard a sharp bawl from a doe rabbit; hence, he raised his head, propping himself up on one elbow, to look past his bloated stomach. He saw his friend and partner, Judy Hopps the gray doe in her casual outfit holding a paper bag, at the doorway.
“Judy?” Stunned, he could not believe his eyes. She was really in his sight. Clawhauser was also surprised what brought her here. In truth, Finnick reached out to her secretly.
“Oh Nick, are you hurt?” Judy, looking so worried, approached Nick hastily.
Nick had not recovered from the abnormal hungriness. He did not know what he should do. He felt scared as she was just a few inches away.
Don’t come near me Judy. Please! Nick was screaming internally. If you get any closer, I’m gonna…
Suddenly, Nick stretched his arms out and caught Judy. Seeing that, Clawhauser, remembering that Nick told him not to call her, interpreted that Nick might lose control of himself and harm her; therefore, he was about to help Judy.
However, Finnick stopped him, wondering why the fennec fox was holding him back but that allowed the cheetah to look what was actually happening.
Nick pulled Judy close, hugging her firmly and fondly on the sofa. Next, he shoved his snout into the fur on her head between her ears.
“Are you feeling okay now?” Nick asked tenderly.
“M-mhm” Despite being puzzled, Judy accepted his hug, dropping the bag in her paw to the floor, and hugged him in return.
“What a relief” He breathed in the bunny’s lavender scent. After many hours of fear and anxiety, he finally calmed down, feeling peace of mind.
Judy stayed in Nick’s embrace for a while before breaking apart from the hug. “My parents sent me a pie made with blueberries from our farm.” She bent downwards from the sofa to pick a pie box in the paper bag up.
“It may be messed up a little bit. That’s the postal service for you~” She laughed off, shifting her eyes around.
“Want some?” Opening the box, she presented a blueberry pie to the fox in front of her. Its top crust had cracks here and there but overall, the pie still looked delicious.
“I’d love to, Carrots, but one more bite, I’ll probably burst.” Nick poked his own distended belly.
“I’ll make sure I will save you slices. Benjamin! Finnick! Have some!” Judy called others two.
Everybody gathered at the sofa. The bunny, the cheetah and the fennec fox were sharing some slices of the pie. When the fox saw that the blueberry pie stained on the cheek of his rabbit friend, he “On second thought, one bite won’t hurt.” spoke to her.
She giggled, “Glutton fox, I knew you can’t pass on blueberry.” about to feed him a small dessert bite with a fork.
All of a sudden, Judy was licked on her cheek by Nick. His wet tongue touched her stained cheek fur. The startled doe could feel tingling sensation from her face running through all over her body.
Startled as well, the tod budged away “I’m sorry! I have no idea what came over me.” and apologized.
Meanwhile, Clawhauser did not appear less astounded than the duo. On the other hand, Finnick just seemed amused.
“It’s...” The blushing bunny raised one paw to her face, “It’s not a problem.” not wiping her cheek, just touching the spot Nick licked.
Both stared each other as if they were frozen to the spot. As for Clawhauser, he merely sat still, gazing Nick and Judy back and forth.
Out of the blue, a phone dinging sound broke the silence, frightening the police officers in civilian clothing.
Finnick brought his smartphone out of the trouser side pocket to check a recent notification. “Savages are in the nearby area.”
Due to existence of Savages the monsters, an application was launched by a government agency to install for free. The app served a purpose of warning about the appearance of Savages in neighboring areas.
“Got it.” Judy jumped down the sofa and charged to the door.
“I don’t think I can go. My tummy’s heavy.” Nick said, staying on the sofa as before.
“Good luck, Judy!” Clawhauser wished her well.
She waved her paw goodbye while leaving the room.
.-.. ..- ... - / .- -. -.. / .... ..- -. --. . .-.
“Those are normal Savages, aren’t they?” Rhino quizzed.
In the motorhome, he and Mittens were viewing live CCTV camera footage which she hacked, while Bolt was observing the Savages from a rooftop of one building in Zootopia’s downtown.
A large long purplish-pink horned sturdy purple bovine monster, covering in exoskeleton with the same color as the horns, and a pair of winged small purple mice were running wild on the street as the fully geared SCU agents tried to taking control of the situation, escorting mammals in the area to a safe place.
These monsters were clearly far from looking normal but what Rhino meant by ‘normal’ was they likely were not among those peculiar monsters following commands or being for sale.
Bolt turned to look down on the ground. “There she comes~” He spotted Judy Hopps from the distance.
“Bolt, stand by.” Mittens communicated with him through their private wireless communication system.
After that, the wolf rolled up his right jacket sleeve and brush fur on underside of his forearm, going to transform in order to be ready to assist Hybrid. A few seconds later, he still remained in his alaskan tundra wolf disguise.
“What’s wrong?” Mittens asked, questioning why he had not transformed yet.
“My zipper got stuck.” Bolt struggled to pull his zipper as it was stuck like he said. Since the zipper would not open, he was unable to pull the lever switch to on. In the other word, he could not transform at that time.
“I don’t wanna say i told you so but i told you so.” Mittens caused Bolt to remember when he refused her to check his arm.
“Let Hybrid go it alone today.” Bolt decided to take a back seat, being only an observer.
At the same time, some of the SCU agents on the ground were dealing with the bull Savage. A burst of bullets peppered it but many bullets deflected off its exoskeleton.
“The cover of this one is too tough!” Wolford the timber wolf agent, ex-police officer, yelled while firing an automatic rifle at the monster.
Meanwhile, several agents, sticking together, swung their long-barrelled firearms like baseball bats to ward off the two swooping winged mice. They would not dare shoot bullets up, afraid of accidentally injuring mammals on the buildings.
“Keep them busy!” Maximus the white stallion gave a command to his subordinates as he and some other agents were occupied with a task of guarding citizens.
At that point in time, hiding behind a corner of a building, “Ready?” Judy talked to her phone, wearing her transformation belt, MidniDriver.
“Hang on” Nick on the other end of the phone line put his transformation device on. Its belt automatically wrapped around his expanded waistline so tight that he “Oof” felt a sharp pain in his stomach faintly. He then proceeded to the next step, pulling the silver syringe on the left of his device. “DRAW BLOOD”
When blood of the fox was teleported to Judy’s syringe, she pushed it “INJECT” before announcing “Transform”. Not hesitantly, she twisted back the handle sticking out on the right of her device. “IGNITE”
With Nick’s mind transferred into Judy’s body, the duo united as one armored rabbit with fox’s features, Hybrid Hustler form.
“Oh my tod! Feeling so much better!” Nick rejoiced when he no longer felt uncomfortable in his stomach.
“Let’s roll.” Judy, together with Nick as the flamingo red hero, rushed to the scene.
The left paw pressing the syringe “ACTIVATE”, Hybrid sprinted with a great speed towards agents who were having a rodent problem. The armored mammal jumped up and clawed the flying Savages in the air.
One dodged Hybrid’s sharp claw in time, whereas the other one’s tail was cut off. Purple steam gushed out from its wound before the wound was closed by its rapid healing.
Right afterwards, the armored mammal landed on the ground amid the astonished agents.
Bull Savage’s instinct alerted it of Hybrid the armored mammal, then screamed at it to attack the recently arrived threat. The Bull Savage, ignoring SCU agents who were shooting at it, sped towards the doe rabbit with fluffy fox tail.
“Hybrid!?” Maximus seemed surprised although he was supposed to expect the armored mammal to show up in the fight.
The mammals, standing around Hybrid, saw the intimidating bovine monster coming their way, thereby scattering.
Hybrid side rolled to avoid being butted. When the bull Savage almost ran past the small bunny figure, the armored mammal “ACTIVATE” activated an enhanced strength, twisted the body while jumping to create spinning motion and then kicked the monster in its flank.
The kick sent the bovine monster reeling sideways. However, its exoskeleton remained intact.
“That bull’s sure tougher than I thought.” Nick commented when he caught sight of neither crack nor scratch on external skeleton of the Savage.
“We gotta try again.” Judy dashed to get the bull monster from its behind.
“Carrots, it’s not a good idea to-” Nick was about to stop her along with Hybrid ’s body from advancing towards the sturdy Savage’s rear but it was too late.
Hybrid under Judy’s control had already leapt to it. At once, the bovine monster bucked aggressively. Its back hoof hit Hybrid in midair, sending the united duo flying backward.
“-approach a bull from behind...” Nick said as Hybrid fell on the ground.
Like always, it did not hurt, still it was a bummer that a simple fight strategy backfired in public.
“Noted” Judy responded unimpressedly.
Shortly afterwards, the flying mouse Savage s dived towards Hybrid. Promptly, a few agents hastily opened fire on the rodent monsters. The purple mouse which still had its tail was shot down on the spot, while the tailless one merely got grazed by the bullets.
The surviving winged mouse, flapping its wings furiously, attacked the armored mammal lying on the back. Accordingly, Hybrid blocked its biting and scratching with both arms.
And suddenly, the bull Savage bellowed, its purple skin turning purplish pink, its exoskeleton bursting apart because of the expanded muscles. It subsequently leapt, plunged and spun around madly.
“This is bad! Bolt! Do something!” Rhino, watching the hacked cctv, shouted into a mic.
“Quick! Switch to another form!” Mittens ordered loudly.
“I can’t! I told you my zipper is stuck!” He tried hard to unzip his right arm, yet failed to do so.
The going berserk purplish-pink Savage abruptly hurtled to a nanny goat and her kid whom a wild boar SCU agent was escorting to somewhere safe.
Seeing that, the united duo concentrated, looking for an opportunity to finish the mouse right in Hybrid’s face, and then seized the winged rodent monster, crushing it in the paws.
Throwing aside the vaporizing lifeless body of the purple mouse with a pair of wings, Hybrid stood up hurriedly. Nick and Judy, sharing the vision, got a glimpse of the boar hugging the goat mom and her kid in order to use himself as a meat-shield protecting them from the raging bull.
Consequently, Hybrid hit the syringe “ACTIVATE”, rashly teleporting to block the way of the Savage that was lowering its head, preparing to ram any mammals in its way. The armored mammal emerged out of thin air to confront the bovine monster face to face.
..-. . .- ... - / --- -. / ..-. . .- .-.
At Finnick’s apartment, he and Clawhauser were getting to know each other more.
The cheetah was amazed by the fennec fox’s real age and the fact that he had known the truth about Hybrid for quite a period of time longer than the cheetah had. For the small canine, he found that the big cat was such good company, especially when it comes to gossiping about the bunny fox duo.
Out of the blue, Nick’s unconscious body, supposed to stay still on the sofa, started to writhe. Clawhauser and Finnick dropped their conversation and hurried to check their friend.
“Wh-What’s happening here!?” Clawhauser panicked.
“Never seen him acting like this before.” Finnick only remembered that whenever the two unite as Hybrid, Nick’s mindless body would appear in a deep sleep.
“Is Nick gonna be alright!?”
“Dude! I’m as clueless as you are!”
..-. . .- .-. / ... - .-. .. -.- .
The boar agent shut his eyes tight, preparing himself to get severely hurt, opened his eyes when the expected pain did not arrive. He saw the raging bull monster was stopped by Hybrid who turned back on him together with the nanny goat and her kid.
Directly after activating the instant transmission ability, physical power of Hybrid Hustler form considerably drops momentarily. To put it simply, in a brief moment, Hybrid becomes much more vulnerable than usual.
At that moment, Hybrid was gored by the bull Savage, the tip of one horn stabbing the armored mammal’s stomach.
The bovine monster, head being forced to be low to the ground, could neither pull its horns back nor move forth because Hybrid was grabbing the stabbing horn and a head of the monster firmly, Hybrid’s foot claws digging deep in the ground.
SCU agents in the area including Maximus became completely speechless.
Hybrid then slowly raised one leg. The leg was stretched up straight, tip of the foot pointing at the sky. The duo as one twisted the handle back “CRITICAL BREAK” before Hybrid brought the leg downward forcefully.
The flamingo red heel struck the purplish pink head of the bull monster. Tip of its horn got pulled out of the armored mammal stomach in the process.
The earth shook when the axe kicking foot hit the Savage so hard that its head sank into the ground.
Shocked, the SCU agents gazed at Hybrid whose paw was covering a fresh stomach wound that was releasing purple steam. They did not know what to do in that situation. Some of them even thought that this was a great chance to catch the armored combination of rabbit and fox. On the other hand, it would be too cruel to do such a thing.
“Come on, guys! Hurry!” Maximus took a step, heading towards Hybrid.
“Is it right to arrest them now…?” Wolford questioned, believing his boss must be thinking about capturing the armored hero.
“Do I look like a idiot to you!? First and foremost, we have to save wounded mammals no matter who they are.” He continued getting closer to Hybrid, “Call an ambulance.” commanding his subordinates.
“Hybrid, please come with us. You need serious medical treatment.” He spoke to the armored mammal.
“Sorry” The voice that came out was female, not a playful male voice SCU agents normally heard, which confused Maximus greatly.
“Gotta dash” Nick quickly took charge of the body, then “ACTIVATE” escaped the scene by instant transmission.
The united duo popped up behind the corner of one building, peeking at Maximus ordering the agents to confirm the civilians’ safety in the area and search for Hybrid. The armored walk a few step unsteadily prior to falling to knees, covering the hole in stomach with both paws.
Judy was fully aware that if she and Nick stayed together as Hybrid any longer in this stage, Nick’s real body would be affected as well and receive a vital injury. She therefore moved Hybrid’s left paw to the silver syringe with intention to detransform.
“Stop thinking it, Judy.” Nick swiftly moved Hybrid’s right paw to hold the left paw back.
“If we detransform now, you will definitely suffer too much damage to endure!” He said, worried about his dear bunny partner.
“You’re right, Nick...”
The left arm which Judy was controlling became less tense.
“Let’s figure a solution together, partner.” She sounded genuine.
Nick, glad that she understood him, loosened the hold on the left arm.
Seizing the moment, Judy pulled the silver syringe.
The very next thing Nick perceived was that he, waking up, returned to his body.
“Nick!” Both Clawhauser and Finnick grew relieved after watching their fox friend writhing for a short period of time.
However, their relief switched back to worry again when they saw that Nick’s expression was full of fear and anxiety.
“Judy! Judy!” The unnerving fox got up in a hurry. The one and only thought in his mind was to save his friend, his partner, his bunny.
But he forgot the important thing...
After detransformation, Nick normally experienced fatigue and this time was no exception. He collapsed on Finnick’s apartment floor, “Judy… Judy...” roughly crawling on the floor as he was calling to her.
Meanwhile, Judy the doe rabbit, kneeling on the ground, successfully detransformed. She clutched her stomach, her face expressing extreme exhaustion mixed with agony.
“It’s called a hustle, sweetheart.” Judy said weakly before she flopped down while drifting out of consciousness.
- --- / -... . / -.-. --- -. - .. -. ..- . -..
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ayy its ya girl c! i’ve done up a little draft with the slight changes that were made now that we’re living in the moden au!! please read more for ... more.
DESMOND SAYRE
monty might not love social media and technological advances but they changed his life. his family still sucked, always grasping for power and rejecting change, but at least he didn’t feel as alone... not when he could text his friends and get immediate answers back from them. not having the time to dwell and sink in self pity really helped him.
ya boy also didn’t have to live his life thinking something was wrong with him bc he wasn’t sexually attracted to people like he was supposed to. he had access to google, he learned what asexuality and the spectrum was, and he knew more about himself and didn’t have to just ... not know. i think this made him sleep around less, get to know people a bit more, and while he’s still not an open kind of guy he didn’t really date much. it did however mean he stayed with laurel way longer than he should have... put up with way more crazy than he would have in the past.
he has instagram but never posts. seriously, he has one post from a year ago. he does like things though and is always commenting on posts. sometimes nice, sometimes not. he doesn’t have facebook, twitter, youtube, or snapchat. he thinks the snapchat filters are dumb and ruin perfectly good pictures. he also hates selfies and thinks they’re dumb. why does he even have insta? it’s probably the only way to stay up to date on hogwarts gossip.
i do think because everything online can be so negative, and escalate so quickly, monty never would have came out and admitted that he was bisexual/demisexual except to the people he’s told in canon. it’s still something he plans on taking to his grave and obliviating out of anyone who knew. the gay shame is real. get a grip boy.
i think he’s definitely got the aesthetic of like... the guy with gauges in his ears, maybe he has his eyebrow pierced, and he definitely still has the nipple piercing. i think he probably has more tattoos, exclusively wears leather jackets, combat boots, and ripped jeans, and wears a lot of plain colored shirts or black shirts. he still loves black. he will always love black. he wears a lot of it.
he hasn’t appropriated a lot of muggle culture into his day to day. i feel like he only got a phone in the last year and is awful at remembering to check it. it’s probably an older model too because he didn’t care what they gave him and it’s slate grey with no case because he lives on the edge. yolo. he doesn’t have any muggle cars or anything like that but he definitely has a netflix account and television because why not. his favorite show would probably be something like the good place.
ya boy still flunked out of hogwarts because that’s just how his life goes. he’s repeating his final year and you bet ya ass people tweeted about THAT for awhile. we love vague tweeting.
PHOENIX VASQUEZ
phoenix’s childhood is still relatively the same; he was adopted by the vasquez family. however, adopting wasn’t as easy as it had been back in the day because lycanthropy wasn’t as frowned upon in this decade as it would have been before. while people didn’t love it, it wasn’t something that meant no other family was interested, or other people weren’t willing to bend red tape. which means nix didn’t move around as much as a kid because his parents were able to keep working at their jobs in the states!! they only moved to the UK when he was fifteen as his grandmother was sick. so basically he moved to and started going to hogwarts in year 5 instead of year 1.
personality wise, nix is very similar. he’s still very awkward, very quiet, and is a genuinely nice person to everyone he meets. he’s more often about his lycanthropy as his parents never begged him to keep it a secret and it’s not uncommon for him to be making werewolf jokes at his own expense. he thinks it’s funny.
technology!! nix loves snapchat. he’s not huge on technology bc he’s kind of a hipster -- he still uses ballpoint pens and notebooks, doesn’t own a computer and only has a dinky phone that texts and calls. no data. he can only use snapchat when he’s near a wifi hotspot so you’ll sometimes see him getting frustrated with his phone when it starts buffering and flopping. he DOES borrow a friend’s computer to upload podcasts though because he’s a podcaster!!! he has a podcast called ‘howlcast’ and he does reviews of mainstream media depictions of werewolves and compares them to the reality. he also interviews lycanthropy specialists, advocates, and famous lycanthropes to talk about the werewolf experience. he kind of loves it?? he puts out an episode a week and does a Q&A on twitter straight after the episode goes up for any fans of the podcast.
nix doesn’t have a luxury broom or any of those fancy toys that the rich kids usually sport. he likes his regular ‘ol magical broomstick and doesn’t think a suped up car is something that he needs in his life. he good.
modern 2018 phoenix also died his hair a bluey teal color! he thought it was fun and tbh he is living his best life.
LAUREL DIAN
laurel’s family aspire to be the kardashians. they have a b level reality show, think something on tlc so they have their little cult following that laurel l o v e s. she loves the attention and loves the perks that come with it.
her aesthetic is probably like.. forever 21 / hipster / hippe chick. she wears a lot of crop tops, high waisted skirts, floral prints, lace, etc. everything .. and i mean everything ... is accentuated with red lipstick. that’s her aesthetic x 100. she has an iphone with a bedazzled phone case and probably drives a really compact car. her broom would be luxury too and she’s definitely on tinder select looking for cute boys (or girls) to bring home with her.
as for social media.. she has her hand in a lot of different platforms. she prefers facebook over most of the other ones. she also loves pinterest and is always pinning home decor ideas, cooking ideas, etc. she’s a feminist and sjw when it comes to twitter. it’s not uncommon to see her beefing with someone on twitter because they’re trolling or being rude/racist/sexist/etc. she loves tearing people a new asshole when they decide to spread their hate online. fuck off trolly boys.
she’s been in two high profile relationships in her life. the first was with monty sayre and that was a fucking nightmare. a lot of their relationship was caught on screen and its cringey whenever people tweet her pictures of monty and his new fiancee, or share photos of the two of them from when they were together. she might have dumped him but that doesn’t mean that she wants to be reminded of it all the time
she still works with dragons and they are frequently featured on her instagram, snapchat, and on the show. some of them even have their own little cult followings. its weird but kind of beautiful,
PIPPA CARSTAIRS
pippa being born in the 2000′s is the best thing that ever happened to her. truly. britney? christina? pink? oh my god she’s living. she loves pop music, loves concerts, and has a passion for professional cheerleading bc it's a legitimate sport now y’all! it’s her dream to be a professional cheerleader. maybe in the magical world if quidditch has them now?? we just dont know.
her aesthetic is blair waldorf chic. maybe a little more revealing. she definitely still wears heels, ignores dress codes, and always has her hair straightened perfectly. she is very very good with makeup -- think contouring and all that jazz. she looks like a million bucks literlly every day. it’s incredible.
pippa has a luxury car. i’m thinking it’s probably an suv?? she definitely would want something bigger and not your typical girly girl car. i’m thinking a black cadillac escalade. she doesn’t have a broom bc she still hates flying and heights. fuck that shit. as for technology, she’s got it all -- snapchat, twitter, instagram, youtube, etc.�� she also definitely has a youtube channel dedicated to beauty tutorials and has thousands of dedicated viewers. she’s done everything from contouring, costume make-up, etc. her channel is especially popular around halloween as she does a special called ‘the twelve days of pippaween’ where she does different costume makeup every day for 12 days. her most popular to date is ursula from the little mermaid! she also definitely has the latest iphone, macbook, etc, and it’s probably all rose gold. she’s a rose gold girl.
currently in the middle of an instagram war with her ex boyfriend. they’re both shady as fuck with their vague posting on finstas and it’s mESSY. we love a good mess!!!!! (this good be a good wanted connection if someone wanted to be her messy ex for the AU!!)
ALARIC ROWLE
i feel like wizards having access to technology changed things significantly for rowle. he was able to track down his birth father’s parents much easier and probably moved back to the UK when he was much younger. he definitely learned more about the war and was drawn into anyone whose narrative reflected what he wanted to hear -- that his parents were martyrs and that the dark lord had been in the right the whole time.
he definitely kept dueling. when his hand acted up, i think he would have been so desperate to fix it that he would have given into muggle medicines and treatments. he probably wears a splint on his wrist and his wandwork isn’t AS quick as it could be but he’s still one of the top duelists in the country. seriously, ya boy was good. him getting to continue being awesome might make him less of a douche. maybe. he definitely competes bc glory and loves every minute of it. a rowle who is less grumpy and super cocky? we stan.
he’s definitely a reddit troll. i feel like there’s a death eaters subreddit or something and he basically lives there and talks to other death eater sympathizers, former, or whatever, and slowly await the return of the ‘great days’. think alt right but .. y’know magical.. ugly.
he still teaches dada bc initially he needed money to pay off some wicked crazy medical bills for all the specialists and acupuncture and weird shit he did to fix his hands. even with the money he earns when he’s duelling, he’s in debt up to his ears.
i think he still has the scars that marr his face though bc as much as he will use splints or salves on his hands he is not gonna fucking undergo plastic surgery in the muggle world. he’d rather choke.
ANSEM WARBECK
ansem warbeck deserves social media. he is living his best life. he is definitely the guy who is constantly using ‘find my iphone’ bc he lost it, has a cracked screen because he forgot to buy the shatterproof screen protector, and changes his netflix password weekly bc he can never remember what it was. he’s also the snapchat king. i’d say he has 100+ streaks with as many people as he can convince to keep it up and he sends angry snaps when you ruin his streaks. they’re like his babies. one time he was running a fever and still managed to make streaks. there’s no excuse.
he still works as a curse breaker but i feel like he’s really like... stepped up gringott’s social media game. i feel like he took it upon himself to get them an instagram and is always uploading picture of whatever ‘cool’ treasure they can find. griphook keeps telling him they’re going to get robbed if he doesn’t stop bragging but ansem never listens.
the warbeck family is probably one of the few that have not acclimated to the technological changes at all. they won’t have anything to do with electricity, social media, or anything of the sort and look down on people that do. so ansem with his luxury brooms and his waffle iron are basically sacreligious to his family and his mom always cries whenever he talks about these things. it’s a whole Thing and just reinforces that arson is the best and ansem is the Worst.
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Snape, Dumbledore, and when the end narrative is counter-moral
I’m reposting here, with minor edits, a (long, sorry) comment I made under a super rich discussion on the abuse Snape suffered. My main thesis is that Rowling uses narrative and symbolic cues to paint characters as positive or negative, especially in the first book, but then subverts these alignments with several plotlines. This is not resolved in a satisfying way in the end, with a reversal to black-and-white morality based on redemption, undermining the more subtle developments of the mid-series. *** I think all of those analyses [about Snape’s victimhood] are absolutely fascinating and pretty spot on, but there is one thing that gets glossed upon in all of those replies. This a work of fiction shaped by narrative processes that are meant to manipulate our emotions into feeling a certain way. Most of the disagreements I see in fandom, and the conflicted emotions people have within themselves regarding Snape, usually boil down to this. I’m taking most of my analysis from Margrethe Bruune Vaage’s book The antihero in American Television (she’s my PhD supervisor and a total badass, I love her). Most of the arguments can be used for literature too, but for the specific narratological points, I would refer to Dorrit Cohn’s Transparent Minds, Representing consciousness in fiction. I- How do we form moral judgements? Jonathan Haidt and Joshua Greene speak of a “dual process” of moral judgement. The first one is rational: one weighs the pros and cons, the various outcomes, the validity or impact of a certain course of action, and passes a judgement. The second is intuitive: it’s a quick-and-dirty process, through which we intuit a positive or negative value to an action based on subconscious, or at least not causal, connections. See it as a shortcut of sorts: if you hear someone raise their voice in anger at an old person, your first intuition would be distaste. You do not make the conscious reasoning “this person is vulnerable and disoriented, therefore one should use patience and not violence in order to interact with them”. You’re like “wow, that’s mean”. Rational judgements can, with time, transform themselves into intuitive judgements. For example, someone might weigh the pros and cons of eating meat, decide to become, vegetarian, and stick to it. Years down the line, the very thought of eating a steak could be repulsive for that person, without needing to rework through the rational judgement all over again every time. II- How does that apply to fiction? Fiction deactivates, or at least, tunes down, the rational part of our moral judgement values, encouraging us to use intuitive judgement, which can be relatively easily influenced by narrative methods. Basically, when you’re reading or watching a work of fiction, you put your reasoning mind on hold and you buy into the moral undertones of the work you’re reading. Which is why people actually root for Walter White, or Dexter, etc. Bruune Vaage calls it “fictional relief”: the fiction relieves you of the burden of making rational judgements because it doesn’t really matter, and so the things one might find reprehensible in real life can be justified in the fictional world (such as stealing, or killing). Depending on the work, killers and thieves can be the most moral people around (ex Game of Thrones). Sometimes, our rational judgement kicks in, and we find ourself torn by our feelings. This is what makes anti heroes so compelling. We KNOW that selling meths to kids is not a moral course of action, but we still appreciate seeing it. III- Which brings me to Harry Potter: The first few books try very hard to present Snape as a repugnant character. “Repugnant” is related to disgust, which is an intuitive form of judgement. Snape is dark, dirty (greasy hair), unpleasant and rude, and harassing the people he was supposed to be caring for. Dumbledore on the other hand, is presented as a positive, comforting figure. Sweet, excentric grandpa, who supports and comforts Harry and the trio. He gives them information, sets them on their tasks, and generally moves the narrative forward by empowering the (very young!) protagonists. This pattern is very effective, and, it’s a children’s book. We don’t expect subversion of these tropes at all. Repugnant = BAD, Comforting = GOOD. Even the sounds of their names evoke contrasting reactions.The performances in the film reinforce these impressions. As the narrative progresses, we learn more things about the backstory and past actions of Snape and Dumbledore. We learn them as the trio does, so it comes after the first impressions we had, and progressively. In HPAPS, people accuse Harry of being biased against Snape because he’s mean. This subversion is progressive and subtle. First it is revealed that Snape was not trying to steal the stone. Then, several books later, it is revealed that he is a member of the Order of the Phoenix. To complicate matters, we also learn that he HAD been a Death Eater, but had repented for .. dubious moral reasons (selfish, regarding the one person he loved). We also learn that Harry’s dad was arrogant and a bully, but that he did change, that his mother used to be a friend of Snape, but stopped when he got radicalized by an extreme racist cult. We learn that Dumbledore had used Harry while knowing he had to die. I’m trying here to present things in the most morally neutral way possible, but it is almost impossible. At the end of the series, both Dumbledore and Snape have sacrificed themselves for the Cause, and proved their alignment towards the Good. A lot of “do they end justify the means?” arguments have been made, but I won’t get into that. My point is: at the end, the two most prevalent adult figures in Harry’s life, polarized from the beginning, ended up being a lot more ambiguous and morally grey that what was suggested at the beginning. The characters are rich, and the tension between moral alignment, likeability, and perspective (we see things from Harry’s PoV, mostly) are absolutely fascinating. I love it! It produces a lot of rich discussion (like the ones above). But ... IV- Where, IMO, Rowling failed: A lot of these discussions happen because people have turned their rational moral judgement back on. At no point does the narrative condemn Dumbledore for the creepy, irresponsible things he’s done. Ultimately, the narrative redeems Snape, by having Harry name his child after him and Dumbledore. “the two bravest men I knew” is a very dubious line. The end of the last book returns to the morally obvious distinctions of the first few books, despite the fact that the narrative, the trio, AND the readers, had grown up. Our rational judgements tell us that Dumbledore and Snape were part of the Good Guys. That Dumbledore was friendly and supportive of the protagonists, while Snape was rude and emotionally violent. Dumbledore, despite his abusive behaviour, remains likeable all along (there’s a plot arc in which Harry learns the bad things Dumbledore has done, but still decides to see him as a positive figure -- after all, it’s LOYALTY that helped Harry in the Chamber of Secrets). Dumbledore’s abuse of Harry is never really discussed, let alone the very real abuse he conducted against Snape, or Lupin. None of what has been written above is touched upon AT ALL in the books or movie. All of this is (very valid) rational extrapolation from the facts we get in the books. Snape is never really presented as likeable, but he and Harry share a touching moment when he dies, and Harry seems to (IMO, unbelievably) forgive him years of abuse and degradation. Rowling seems to think that the resolution of a conflict implies the disappearance of its consequences. Snape redeemed himself by making the moral choice, so he’s forgiven. The trio defeated Voldemort, and so “all was well”. The narrative tries to make us feel something that most of us are reluctant to feel. The “fictional relief” is not enough to make us buy into the smoothed out morality of the epilogue. V- How I think it should have ended: I think fighting with the good guys does not make one not be an abuser (Snape), and being likeable while fighting for the good guys does not make you not be an abuser (Dumbledore). Both in their ways were shitty people that had a positive impact on the world, and a mixed (at best) impact on Harry. It would have been much richer and complex if, for example, the wizarding world had recognized the heroism of Dumbledore and Snape by giving them posthumous titles or honours. I can buy into the fact that Harry could still have positive feelings about Dumbledore because I totally believe he was groomed into loyalty from a young age, and that in itself would be an interesting aspect if it was brought forward by one of the other characters (my bet would be Hermione, she’s always had perspective, or Ron, as he has a very strong sense of familial support and morality). Similarly, imagine if Snape had been celebrated, and the trio (plus Neville, and most of the Hogwart students) had expressed doubt, or at least mixed feelings towards it. I’ve had feelings of antipathy for people who had done far less egregious things to me than Snape did to the students. Hostility and enmity do not vanish after having been present for years, with cause, just because you understand, rationally, that a person was actually on the right side of history. Imagine a scene in which the trio learn that Snape and Dumbledore are going to be celebrated with a new special Wizarding medals. Harry understands for Dumbledore, but Ron/Hermione point out all the dubious things he’s done. Then all agree that Snape shouldn’t be celebrated. Our own history is full of very morally dubious people who still get celebrated: (Churchill, Ghandi, Nelson ...), while others, much more deserving, get forgotten, like McGonagall (a woman), Hagrid (mixed-race), or Dobby (an elf). This could have been a really deep and interesting ending, leaving open all the moral ambiguities created by the later books and films, and putting the character’s perspective better in focus, while allowing our own interpretation of the events.
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About those racist lines in Shadowhunters
I’ve been seeing a lot of fans in the shadowhunters tag complain over the increase of sexist and racist remarks in season two (the most recent line of dialogue had Izzy use „stay, good doggy” when addressing a werewolf – a clearly racism remark due to the “downworlders are the minorities” metaphor the show employs). Like other people in the fandom, I find that increase disturbing and frustrating, because very little in season one prepared us for this casual racism and sexism that we are seeing.
But I also find it all incredibly realistic.
Now, I need to ask you to bear with me here, and at the same time, I need to put up a disclaimer that there’s a huge chance I’m overanalyzing and the writers probably didn’t see it the way I’m about to present it. Very few creators pay such attention to details, and shadowhunters writers and producers are definitely not among them (look no further than the flashbacks castings case if you need evidence).
Here’s a thing: season 1 events took 19 days (according to interviews). That’s three weeks, most of which was spent outside the institute and/or away from a lot of shadowhunters. Three weeks is not enough to learn about someone else’s culture in anything but broad strokes. We didn’t learn much about Idris and the shadowhunters culture outside of “must.kill.demons.” and “clave is the governing body the institutes fall under”. But in that time, we did learn that shadowhunters view themselves as superior to downworlders because of their angelic blood (as opposed to demon blood that downworlders have). Shadowhunters see downworlders as “less” because of that and employ a number of discriminatory tactics to make sure downworlders know who’s in charge.
Calling a person “warlock” or “vampire” is stripping that person of their individuality, equating their whole existence to that of the downworld race they belong to. It’s like calling a black guy a “thug”. It’s dehumanizing, which is the first thing one does to justify violence against somebody: you make them less than you, so you can tell yourself they deserve it, and that you’re not a bad person for violating them. That’s racism. If you don’t see it, you’re probably white. Congrats on your privilege.
Now, you might recall that in the Malec episode from season 1, the writers changed the homophobic shadowhunter society, took the homophobia out and replaced it with racism. Alec’s parents didn’t care he kissed a guy in front of everyone, it’s the warlock part they had a problem with. Luke has been thrown out and lost all support from his friends and family not because he had a misfortune to associate with a guy who decided to kill a lot of people, but because he got turned into a werewolf – Hodge and the Lightwood parents also associated with Valentine, but notice how they weren’t banished (de-runed). Werewolf Luke lost everything.
Now, you can’t tell me that this kind of deeply ingrained prejudice against downworlders wouldn’t come with a set of micro-aggressions, negative stereotypes and a variety of phrases and vocabulary that were (consciously or not) passed down to the younger generation. And if you’re taught from the early years that shadowhunters are superior to everyone (from the poor little mundane who can’t wipe their noses let alone protect themselves from demons to downworlders who are tainted with demon blood and victims to their own base instincts) and the only time you interact with mundane and downworlders is when you are fighting with demons, or imposing the law on downworlders or during any other interaction that is far from a friendly one, you have nowhere and no one to teach you otherwise.
People are hurt and offended that the writers had Izzy use racist language because she’s a woman and a Latina and had a relationship with Meliorn and is friends with Magnus and Simon.
Me? Frankly, I’m surprised we didn’t get more of that sooner!
We had Alec be dismissive, rude and offensive towards mundane in season one. We had Alec make a suggestive comment about Izzy’s relationship with Meliorn as if having sex with a Seelie was somehow kinky in on itself.
Saying that Izzy wouldn’t use racist language and other micro-aggressions towards a downworlder because of hers and her brother’s relationships with specific individual downworlders is like saying “I can’t be racist! Some of my best friends are black!”
We’re talking about growing up in a very racist, conservative environment where the knowledge that would expose the younger generation to outside perspectives is highly regulated if not outright banned. Hodge is not allowed to talk about the Circle and everything they did (and all the crimes and wrongness committed by the Circle on downworlders) unless he wants to endure incredible amount of pain. I’m betting a lot that both Lightwood siblings start with the “my best friend is black!” mentality in season one. Meliorn is cool and Magnus is awesome, but they are outliers. They are the exceptions and Luke used to be a shadowhunters. They are allowed their humanity, but we can’t be sure about all those other downworlders…
Those other downworlders like Camille, who turned Simon without consent. Like Raphael who is mean and threatens Simon all the time. Like Gretel, and Alaric and Gretel’s godfather.
It hasn’t been a year for these characters. It has been THREE WEEKS since they started being exposed to the notion that downworlders should not be painted with the same brush and that the shadowhunters are not superior angel warriors who can do no wrong. You cannot get rid of all the things you’ve been taught in three weeks. I’ve been exposed to different perspectives and what racism, sexist and LGBTQ discrimination looks like and how to recognize it in my own behavior for over a decade now and I still make mistakes and bite my tongue when I realize my first reaction could come off as offensive.
Do I wish the show wouldn’t have this problematic dialogue and set up? Yes. But at the same time, given the narrative we were presented with since season one, I’m surprised we haven’t seen more of that.
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A Full Timeline of Iggy Azalea's Beefs, From Azealia Banks to Halsey
A Full Timeline of Iggy Azalea's Beefs, From Azealia Banks to Halsey
Although she hasn’t released an album in three years, Iggy Azalea’s name hasn’t been forgotten. Known for causing controversy — usually having to do with racial appropriation — the Australian rapper has beefed with everyone from Azealia Banks to Snoop Dogg.
We put together a complete history of all of her celebrity feuds from 2011 all the way up to Azalea’s latest beef with Halsey. Check out the timeline below.
September 9, 2011
Days before the release of her debut mixtape Ignorant Art Iggy releases a video for her song “D.R.U.G.S.” In the video she sings over the beat of Kendrick Lamar’s ‘Look Out for Detox’, “When the relay starts, Im a runaway slave… Master, hitting on the past gotta spit it like a pastor.” This is an allusion to the lyric from his song, “When the relay starts, I’m a runaway slave.”
September 13, 2011
Iggy begins one sided beef with Kreayshawn on Twitter. She later responded and retweeted more negative statements.
October 9, 2011
Iggy claims that getting booed offstage at Canal Room in New York was the driving force for her career. After the show, she took to Twitter to address the alleged female haters. “It was kinda awkward cause this girl stood in the front row my entire set screaming ‘your pussy suckssss!!!’ ! Lol #whyyoumad.” The video from the show that night tells a different story however or a particularly happy crowd with only one male booing her at the 6:26 mark.
October 19, 2011
In a tweet that was later deleted Azealia Banks wrote, “how sexy is iggy azalea?? it’s kind of ridiculous … *tugs collar to let out steam*.” Starting out as a girl crush the feud with Banks will become one of Azalea’s worst.
October 20, 2011
Azealia Banks tweeted, “once wrote a song called ‘Barbie Shit,’ but nicki minaj blew up like the week after so i took it down, lololz. i felt corny. Also wrote a song called P-U-$-$-Y before Iggy Azalea.” Iggy responded with, “its NEVER been about who did it first… its ALWAYS been about who did it better.” Banks retweeted Iggy’s insult and wrote back, “i know right?? lmfaooo. haha.” And the beef begins.
In an interview not long after the tweet, Iggy reflects on the tweet claiming Banks said, “I’m next level, I had a song about being a Barbie before Nicki Minaj had a song about being a Barbie. Here’s the link to my song. And fuck Iggy Azalea, I had a song called ‘Pussy’ before she ever did. Here’s a link to my song. It’s better.” …essentially nothing like the original tweet.
October 21, 2011
Notorious for picking fights with anyone from Kedrick Lamar to Zayn Malik, Azealia Banks subtweets about Iggy. “I smell beef.”
December 2, 2011
When someone tweeted “Iggy Azelia Banks iz weird” Banks was fast to respond with “We’re two COMPLETELY different people hun. :-.” Iggy did not respond.
December 9, 2011
Iggy announces her new album’s title, The New Classic. Possibly directed toward Banks.
December 19, 2011
A$AP Rocky and Banks are spotted holding hands in New York. This puts fuel in the fire with Banks who grew up with A$AP and his crew in Harlem.
January 13, 2012
Iggy responds to claims about feud with Banks, “I have no deal with her. I don’t know her personally. I said it about Kreayshawn, too. If I don’t know you personally, how could I have a problem with you? What would I have a problem about? I don’t know that person … I don’t know you. I truly don’t understand it. I just keep making my own music, and I’m deaf to that. What is there to say? Nothing.”
January 17, 2012
Azealia Banks tweets, “Iggy Azalea’s hair looks really great in her new video. How long do you all reckon that hair is? 40″ in?”
January 18, 2012
Azealia Banks reportedly signs to Universal.
January 27, 2012
Iggy told Billboard that she signed to Interscope saying, “I’m super happy about it.” She made statements about other labels, mentioning Def Jam specifically, claiming they would’ve made her their “guinea pig.” She later claimed that Jimmy Iovine called her “the new Tupac.” She later tweeted, “Get used to me + jimmy [Iovine] smashing shit, cause thats the plan.” Keep in mind Interscope Records is owned by Universal, this will be relevant later.
January 31, 2012
Azealia Banks tweets, “You can never be a young BLACK girl enjoying her life and having fun. There’s always some shady, dishonest cracker looking to assassinate your character. No offense to anyone.” and later, “Ok. i apologize to anyone who was offended by that tweet. I shouldn’t generalize my personal issues. forgive me.” and later, “Why am i being criminalized for being myself?”
February 7, 2012
Iggy is the first female to be featured on the cover of XXL magazine for their Freshman List. Azealia was not having any of it, tweeting, “Iggy Azalea on the XXL freshman list is all wrong. How can you endorse a white woman who called herself a ‘runaway slave master’? Sorry guys, I’m pro black girl. I’m not anti white girl, but I’m also not here for any1 outside of my culture trying to trivialize very serious aspects of it.”
Iggy later tweets “You can’t block my blessings! Today I’m celebrating! Get with it or kick rocks!”
March 2, 2012
Azealia Banks announces she’s signed to Interscope/Polydor, take a guess who is also coincidentally signed to the label.
March 10, 2012
On DJ Drama’s radio show in Atlanta Iggy is asked about Azealia’s reaction to the XXL cover, “This is my day and it’s my achievement.” She said, “You have to work to have your own achievements, with all due respect.” TI who is now Iggy’s boss adds “Strategically if she really cares about a freshmen cover maybe she could hope that she’ll suck enough to get shelved and then next year when the freshmen cover comes back around, maybe she’ll still be a freshman.”
March 12, 2012
Iggy writes an open letter apologizing for her “runaway slave-master” lyric “It was a tacky and careless thing to say and if you are offended, I am sorry. Sometimes we get so caught up in our art and creating or trying to push boundaries, we don’t stop to think how others may be hurt by it. In this situation, I am guilty of doing that and I regret not thinking things through more.”
March 25, 2012
Azealia Bank’s releases alleged dis track about Iggy called “Fuck Up the Fun.”
March 27, 2012
Iggy’s then-suspected boyfriend A$AP Rocky says, “They got to cut it out. That’s some bullshit. Iggy is not racist. Trust me. Trust me. That’s petty for Azealia because … don’t pick on her cause she white. That’s a low blow.”
May 18, 2012
Rumors of Iggy being dropped by Interscope surface. Iggy claims that she was never on Interscope just manged by them despite a tweet on February 7 2012 that says “im managed and signed to Interscope.” Many had suspicions that Azealia was behind it.
April 23, 2013
Iggy shares the news of signing to Def Jam on Twitter. Take a look at a January 27, 2012 Billboard interview where she claimed Def Jam would’ve made her their “guinea pig.”
June 18, 2013
Iggy is questioned by radio host Sway Calloway about possible plastic surgery. She responds with, “Yes, eyelashes are real. I’ve heard a bunch of crazy things: that it’s my underpants. I heard I have implants, I hear all kinds of crazy stuff. It’s my flesh. It’s my butt.”
June 2013
Fans begin to uncover old racist Tweets and Iggy receives massive backlash. She claims that it is unfair because she was able to “joke” but because of her celebrity she is no longer able to. See a few of the tweets below:
September 13, 2013
When asked about using a “black voice” in an interview for the cover of Complex she responded with, “If you’re mad about it and you’re a black person then start a rap career and give it a go, too. I’m not taking anyone’s spot, so make yourself a mixtape. Or maybe if you’re black, start singing like a country singer and be a white person. I don’t know. Why is it such a big deal?”
May 15, 2014
Tyler the Creator is asked on 106 & Park which female artists he’d sleep with. When prompted about Iggy he says, “She stinks. She got shots in her thump. I want real booty. You feel me?” Iggy later tweeted, “Tyler the creator is beyond immature. I’ve always believed you had something more to offer the world, Shame to see you be so rude,” she said. “People that make enemies and talk shit about ppl they’ve never even said hi to trip me out. I see it all the time… Strange world.” Iggy’s then-boyfriend Nick Yong also had something to say: “If ppl dnt hate then it want be [email protected] smell good to me”. Tyler apologized in his typical fashion with: “SUCCESSFUL, TROLL SUCCESSFUL, IGGY I DIDNT MEAN TO HURT YOUR FEELINGS.”
June 6, 2014
Iggy criticizes Lorde in an interview with Billboard for her collaborative performance with the surviving members of Nirvana at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony. Iggy said, “Nothing against her, but I think when you’re doing a tribute to someone that’s dead, generally it should be the person’s peer,” Azalea commented. “Lorde is not Kurt Cobain’s peer. No matter if she killed the performance or not, I just don’t think it’s appropriate.” Lorde responded with: “I enjoyed it. I had a good time. That’s all that mattered.” Iggy later apologized on Twitter, “I consider lorde my very talented friend. I find it ironic 2 girls tell the media theyre full of shit & weeks later supposedly I dislike her.”
May 26, 2014
Love & Hip Hop star K. Michelle tweets, “How can you be from another country and rap like you’re from Memphis, TN?”
June 29, 2014
In Nicki Minaj’s acceptance speech for Best Female Artist at the BETs she allegedly took shots at Iggy who had been criticized for suspicion of using ghost writers. Minaj said, “What I want the world to know about Nicki Minaj is when you hear Nicki Minaj spit, Nicki Minaj wrote it.”
July 3, 2014
Iggy responded to the speech in a screenshot of a letter from her notes page on Instagram. She wrote: “I have to say the general explosion of pettiness online in the last few days is hard to ignore and honestly…lame. If I had won the BET award, that would’ve been great but it wasn’t my year and I don’t mind – so you shouldn’t either. Generally speaking, I’m unbothered by anything that ‘happened’ at the BET Awards and just feel worn out by everyone trying to make me have wars with people all the time. Anyone who wishes me well is welcome in my life, and those who don’t can’t get any more of my time. I hate to see everyone exhausting themselves on my behalf over things that I’m still not 100 percent sure even exist and don’t matter. Just let it go.” Nicki later backtracked and responded with “The media puts words in my mouth all the time and this is no different. I will always take a stance on women writing b/c I believe in us!” on Twitter. “
July 9 2014
In the wake of the BET Awards, Madd Mary releases direct dis track, “Eff Iggy.” Notable lines include: “Ignorant, impudent child of wealth and white privilege who benefits from the oppressive agenda of white supremacists,” “You just too damn afraid to engage in intelligent conversation about misappropriation of hip-hop,” “Prejudiced trash, send you back to Aussie land strapped for cash.”
July 10 2014
Allegedly Iggy posted a photo of her, Drake, TI and B.O.B captioned “Me and Ma Nigg’s.” Public Enemy’s Chuck D tweeted, “a new straight path to slavery Here comes a endorsed sanctioned CORPlantation artist with A line straight out of 1853.” After it was discovered that she never captioned the photo that Chuck D wrote: “True or not the IGGY thing is a reality when you call yourself with the slaveass term that was branded on skin & today marketed, sht happens.”
September 24 2014
In an interview Rah Digga calls Iggy out, “Don’t come to America and try to convince me that you’re Gangsta Boo … Personally, I don’t consider [Iggy] Hip Hop. I listen to her album. Everything that I hear on there is everything but that. And I feel like Hip Hop is Hip Hop.” Iggy responded to the comment on Twitter with, “I honestly don’t really mind if I’m described as rap or pop. My passion is purely making music and entertaining.”
October 12 2014
A photo of Azalea without makeup went viral and Snoop Dogg even joined in. He posted this photo on his Instagram and the feud began.
Iggy responded to the Instagram with a string of tweets calling him out for being two faced and about how her bodyguard “stopped the fire truck that saved your friends life in canada when he almost burnt down the hotel.” Shortly after, TMZ ran a story about Iggy being “fuming mad over Snoop’s insta slam.” The two went back and forth with Azalea tweeting her feelings while Snoop continued to post memes on his Instagram clearly not bothered by the incident.
October 12, 2014
Iggy and her friend are followed into a grocery store by paparazzi. Clearly extremely angry her friend spits on the pap. The photographer going on to call the spit assault because he may contract AIDS or Ebola Iggy says, “Okay, I hope you have Ebola. I hope you die. You’re a fucking cunt.” The fight continues and Iggy even tried to ram him with her shopping cart calling the grocery store a “private place.”
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October 15 2014
After a call from Iggy’s manager TI, Snoop squashed the beef in a video.
October 27 2014
Snoop is asked by a paparazzi if he will ever collaborate with Iggy. He responds singing the chorus of “IDFWU.”
November 18 2014
Eminem releases a dis track about Iggy where he jokes about raping her. Iggy responds in a tweet saying, “im bored of the old men threatening young women as entertainment trend and much more interested in the young women getting $ trend. zzzz.”
December 3 2014
Unlike the majority of the members of the hip-hop community, Iggy is absent at protests supporting the Black Lives Matter movement and does not speak on the issue of police killings of unarmed black men. Azealia Banks is the first to call her out on it, “its funny to see people Like Igloo Australia silent when these things happen… Black Culture is cool, but black issues sure aren’t huh?” Iggy subtweets, “we’ve all read the script 49584068408540 billion times now, find a new game plan.”
December 5 2014
Iggy is nominated for Record of the Year, Best New Artist, Best Pop/Duo Performance, and Best Rap Album for the 2015 Grammys.
December 18 2014
Azealia Banks calls out Iggy during a Hot 97 interview for appropriating black culture as well as discussing race relations in America eloquently.
December 19 2014
Iggy goes on a Twitter spree. “Special msg for banks:” she tweeted, “There are many black artists succeeding in all genres. The reason you haven’t is because of your piss poor attitude.” She went on to call Banks a “bigot.”
December 20 2014
Q-Tip tweeted attempted to enlighten Iggy in a string of tweets one of them read “@IZZYAZELEA Hip-hop is a artistic and socio-political movement/culture that sprang from the disparate ghettos of NY in the early 70’s.” He goes on to discuss how the connection between hip-hop, social and political issues will never be detached. Iggy did not respond.
An anonymous hacking group claimed that they would leak rumored sex tape pictures if Iggy did not apologize for her actions. They wrote, “You are guilty of misappropriating black culture, insulting peaceful protesters, and making light of Eric Garner’s death”. Their account was then suspended.
December 22 2014
Iggy chimes in in a string of tweets stating, “i find it patronizing to assume i have no knowledge of something I’m influenced by, but I’ve also grown up with strangers assuming that.” She goes on to say, “how you feel about me blending musical genres together doesn’t bother me, no one is making you support or buy pop rap albums.”
January 30 2015
Iggy has another Twitter freak out over some unapproved shots for her upcoming shoe line in collaboration with Steve Madden. One of the tweets read, “Tainted with these God awful images that Steve madden took appon themselves to create and share without my knowledge. Gross gross gross.” She later apologized on Instagram claiming she loves the company and “artists clash sometimes.”
February 8 2015
Probably the most random of all of her feuds… Papa Johns Pizza! Apparently her delivery man sent her personal phone number around so she tweeted at the chain and they responded lightheartedly and Iggy was not having it. “I don’t think data breach is funny.” She continued, “I expect you to contact me to explain how you are going to rectify your breach of my personal information in a satisfactory and professional way or lawsuit will be filed.”
February 18 2015
After returning home from vacation to see people criticizing her body in paparazzi photos Iggy announces that she will no longer run her social media accounts.
June 29 2015
Iggy called out Britney Spears and her team for their lack of promotion for the duos collaboration on “Pretty Girls”. She tweeted, “its difficult to send a song up the charts without additional promo and tv performance etc. unfortunately I’m just featured”. Britney responded on Instagram posting a photo that read “DONT LET IDIOTS RUIN YOUR DAY.”
August 10 2015
ComicBook NOW! tweeted ‘The Last Airbender’ is to movies what Iggy Azaelia is to music.’ Of course Iggy could not help herself and responded with “think its another one of those jokes only middle aged men who get boners over comic book movies understand.”
September 16 2015
In a Hot 97 interview, TI said that he no longer speaks to his former protégé Iggy. He says he walked away from the relationship after Q-Tip tried to teach Iggy about cultural appropriation in hip-hop music and her response was not ideal. Iggy responded by saying, “I don’t think the radio is the right place to talk about personal issues.”
October 12 2015
When Rita Ora named Iggy as a potential collaborator for a Lady Marmalade remake Azalea quickly shut her down tweeting, “Please leave me out of the whole Lady Marmalade conversation. I have nothing to do with ritas ideas & agree it should be left alone. Thanks.”
November 29 2015
Erykah Badu hosts the Soul Train Music Awards and throws shade at Azalea during her opening monolog. She pretends to receive a phone call when when she answers it says, “Uh yes? Who is this? Iggy Azalea? Yeah, hey. Oh, no, no, no, no, you can come, ’cause what you doin’ is definitely not rap.” The audience seemed to love the joke but Iggy once again took to Twitter posting, “We are days from 2016, but i came online today and saw its still cool to try and discredit my 2014 accomplishments. LOL, fucking hell.”
December 4 2015
Badu responds to Azalea linking to her tweet and writing, “Well that’ll be the LAST time I send an uber for you! I can guaran DAMN tee you THAT.”
Jan 22 2016
In his song “White Privilege II” Macklemore calls out himself, Iggy, and other for cultural appropriation. He raps, “The culture was never your to make better. You’re Miley, you’re Elvis, you’re Iggy Azalea.” Iggy, very upset by the fact that old friend Macklemore did not even warn her about using her name in the song, tweeted, “he shouldnt have spent the last 3 yrs having friendly convos and taking pictures together at events etc if those were his feelings.”
Brooklyn hip-hop artist Talib Kewli was bothered by Iggy’s reaction to the reference. He tweeted, “The [email protected] Macklemore song was a diss to her, instead of actually listening, is proof of her privilege. Fuck Iggy Azalea.” The two continued to beef back and forth on Twitter with Iggy posting, “still tweeting i see? I thought this was about macklamore? rap is global now and it has sub-styles. pop-rap is part of that.” No apology has been made.
March 2 2016
After Iggy spoke poorly about Azealia Banks in an Elle cover interview, Banks calls out Iggy’s recent plastic surgery saying, “Mentioning me is the only thing that will get you attention. Because ur music and nose job are trash.”
March 30 2016
D’Angelo Rusell posts a video of Iggy’s finance Nick Young openly implying that he was cheating on her. Iggy sarcastically tweeted, “hmmm i see D Angelo Russell is trending… I actually liked his film. Thanks bro.”
June 9 2016
Iggy announces breakup with fiancé Nick Young, “Unfortunately although I love Nick and have tried and tried to rebuild my trust in him,” Azalea wrote on Instagram, “it’s become apparent in the last few weeks I am unable to. I genuinely wish Nick the best. It’s never easy to part ways with the person you planned you’re [sic] entire future with, but futures can be rewritten and as of today mine is a blank page.” Young had a less kind response simply tweeting, “Single.”
June 30 2016
It shortly after came out that Young’s ex-girlfriend Keonna Green is pregnant with their second child together. In a string of tweets, Iggy detailed her feelings on the incident. One read, “I broke up with Nick because I found out he had brought other women into our home while I was away and caught them on the security footage.” While another said, “I find it baffling anyone would make the choice to bring a child into the world under these circumstances + want attention and $ for it.”
June 19 2017
Addressing Iggy as “Igloo” Azealia Banks jokes about a possible collaboration on her new song, “What if… Igloo [Iggy] was on Anna Wintour.” Iggy took this as a peacetime gesture and posted videos on her Snapchat about squashing their beef.
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June 22 2017
In an unrelated interview, Halsey has some not so nice things to say about Azalea. “There’s a lot of people I wouldn’t put on my record” she said. “Iggy Azalea— absolutely not. She had a complete disregard for black culture. Fucking moron. I watched her career dissolve and it fascinated me.”
Iggy responded on an Australian talk show saying, “I thought it was a bit of a strange thing to throw that out there, but she’s young and I hope she learns maybe to be a bit less judgmental when she’s kind of in the same shoes.”
This article originally appeared on Billboard.
https://tunecollective.com/2017/07/01/full-timeline-iggy-azaleas-beefs-azealia-banks-halsey/
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