Is actually so chilling. Everything Pawbert says to Nick is deeply terrifying.
“But with snake bites you…go fast. You’ll see.”
“She’s gone Nick, just get it over with.”
“You’re done. Know when to quit.”
And finally,
“Leave it! You’re gonna kill us both. It’s not worth dying for.”
The ONLY thing Nick does through this narration is fight. The ONLY words he says are “Where is she?” “JUDY!” and “Agree to disagree.” That is the entirety of everything Nick had to say to Pawbert. At no point does he try to converse, talk him out of anything, question, trick, bargain, rationalize, nothing. And all Pawbert knows Nick as is That Fox Whose Entire Reason For Living Is Judy Hopps.
It’s chilling because Pawbert knows that telling Nick that Judy is dead is going to destroy him, and he believes that it’s enough to let him cave and give into death entirely. He sincerely believes that Nick’s entire purpose for self-preservation is to keep Judy alive and if she’s gone, he might as well be, too. And he’s not even entirely wrong. Pawbert’s final plea, the complete 180° turn, “it’s not worth dying for,” isn’t “keeping her alive isn’t worth dying for,” it’s “YOU CANNOT SAVE HER, STOP FIGHTING, YOU HAVE NO REASON TO LIVE, SHE IS DEAD.”
But Nick saw her lifeless body. He heard she was dead and he SAW she was gone. And all he could think was, “If there’s even a fraction of a chance she’ll be okay, I can die knowing I did everything I possibly could to protect her.” The pure desperation in his eyes as he fights for that pen, not even sure if it’ll work, but fighting to do EVERYTHING he POSSIBLY can to save her. Even if he’s already SEEN that she’s dead. Which he has.
And then suddenly he’s looking her in the eyes and crying.
The slow-mo and pacing make it hard to grasp how fast it all happened, but he saw her, DEAD, and within sixty seconds he thought he was dead too, and then suddenly he was staring her in the eyes and panting. And all he could hear in his head was
overheard in the coffee shop from a middle aged gay man to his (female) friend: “are you embarrassed? about being foolish? please manage yourself better in this situation. this man is not behaving as if he is interested in you.”
“he’s evil. like jeff bezos. Do you understand.” and she’s just nodding with eyes downcast in shame
saying “thats a dracula”: inaccurate because Dracula is a specific person, funny because we all know that Dracula is a vampire but by choosing to refer to any vampire as “a dracula” we imply that we are familiar with dracula but not familiar with vampires
saying “thats a nosferatu”: accurate because nosferatu is not nosferatu’s name
people saying “don’t use your full government name for your ao3”, “create different emails for work and personal use” but personally I think it’s both sad and dystopian how capitalism/companies/even schools think they have the rights to cross your personal boundaries and insert themselves into your personal life. like, I get it, safety wise, why checking digital footprints can be important sometimes. but a gay fanfiction is not a fucking threat that could ever cause anybody harm. it’s funny (not really, it’s still sad and dystopian) how they now think they can control your personal life and prevent you from having hobbies
Dude holy shit. That’s actually insane. I had to read it twice to understand: She didn’t actually send it to the Uni, they cyberstalked her and found it themselves. Any school you apply to should not have the right to reject your application because of some fanfic you wrote. If it were hate speech, I’d understand maybe a little bit more because it’s still cyberstalking and still would have been made when she was a minor, but still, she was young when she wrote that fic. Yeah, I get “Digital Footprint,” but harmless pieces of media should not affect it. This reminds me of that “Girl gets suspended from school for buying rainbow cake because the school was homophobic” story.
20 / 20
