Damn, why the hell didn't this get posted and be shown to be available for reading when I, well, posted it the first time, anyway?
Really, what the fuck was up with that shit?
Anyway, here's what was supposed to show up before.
Another chance for a story, and my second "Zootopia" one, no less.
While I'm ordinarily a hardcore, dark story kind of guy, as anyone and everyone who's read my fanfics only too well knows, I decided that this time around, I would make a story concerning feelings, love and acceptance.
Now, in this story, Nick and Judy, after falling in love, know that they both need and want to do a lot.
After much of it is done, including Nick introducing Judy to his family, Judy is taking her turn in terms of family introductions.
Problem is, that unlike Nick's parents, who were very hospitable and welcoming to her, the Hopps seniors, and all of her siblings, for that matter, act the precise opposite way towards Nick, despite how the fox does every little thing he can think of to fit in, make the visit go beautifully, what have you.
Once he's had enough of this hostility and maltreatment, he leaves Judy's home angrily, and after Judy makes it clear that they need to see where he went and persuade him to give it another try, he, without knowing this, sees his reflection in a lake he's made his way to and sings a very sad song concerning how Judy's family views him exactly the way that she doesn't and how he believes that means their previously smoothly progressing love is not to last, and doesn't know how he'll give her the bad news he does not want to give her at all, but believes he has no choice but to.
How are things going to turn out?
Let's see, shall we?
THINGS TO NOTE:
This story takes place six months or so after the events of "Zootopia".
The song I'm having Nick sing is a lyrically modified version of "Reflection" from the 1998 Disney film "Mulan".
I own none of the characters, since they belong to "Zootopia", and I don't own the song "Reflection", either, as it belongs to "Mulan".
Nick's Reflection
Having developed feelings for each other that went beyond the confidant partner ones they had following being the first cops of their respective species, Nick and Judy were doing a lot after revealing said feelings to one another.
One of which was, albeit after a great deal else following when they made it clear they had fallen for one another, going to visit Judy's family.
Now, the previous one of these kinds of things, namely Judy coming to visit Nick's family, couldn't have gone any better at all.
Nick's parents took an immediate liking to the rabbit and vice versa, Judy loved how this was further proof that the myth that foxes were so evil and untrustworthy was just that…a myth, and one that seriously needed to be dispelled, as well, and so, so much else that caused it to be one hell of a perfect visit.
Believing that it would be much the same with her family and thus feeling confident that it would be a twofer in terms of their going forward with their feelings for each other, Judy was only too excited about introducing Nick to her parents and siblings.
And, while half of Nick had a bad feeling about it, the other half was just as optimistic, confident and eager about it as Judy was.
Unfortunately, the latter half of him was not to last, as just moments after Judy's car was parked and they stepped out of it in front of her home in Bunnyburrow, Judy's parents and siblings came out to greet her the instant they learned she had arrived, with this joy being diminished by their sight of Nick, and here's how it went immediately thereafter.
"FOOOOOOOOOOOOOXXXXXXX!" they all cried out in both fear and unison, and Nick said: "Hey! HEY! It's okay! I'm Judy's partner and confidant! My name is Nick. Nick Wilde."
"Nick Wilde, is it?" Stu asked in a blatantly hostile tone of voice. "Stay where you are. I will be right with you."
He wasted no time in laying into Judy, and Bonnie followed suit, during which time Judy's siblings ran away and hid from Nick, who just sighed and rolled his eyes, hoping that they would come around to him as the visit went on.
They didn't.
Nick tried every possible idea that he could think of whenever he thought of it, though he made sure said idea always went hand-in-hand with the current circumstances.
His suggestions were all rejected, his attempts to get along, fit in and be a good friend all failed and Judy was really unhappy(read: exasperated)about how her family was treating him.
At one point, Stu even shocked both Judy and Nick, since they were both present at the time, when he called the latter a mindless savage with no feelings at all.
Nick, true to form, made sure that he would not know that he got to him, even though it understandably hit him hard, and to say that Judy was astounded and appalled at this would be understating the truth.
After a while, a hurt and angry Nick had reached his limit and said: "That does it! I am clearly as welcome here as a swarm of mosquitoes, and there's no way I can do anything to make things any better at all! Judy, I am very sorry that you had to see and hear all of this, but I've reached my breaking point and am getting hearts out of here! I wish it were otherwise, as I love you just as much as you love me, and I wanted this to work, but your family won't have it, and they never will! Goodbye!"
He stormed out of Judy's home and went very far away, it being none too long until he was out of sight, and after a shocked(to the point of being stilled and speechless)Judy watched in aghast, taken aback silence, she then became capable of movement and speaking again as she went white with blood-boiling rage while turning towards her parents.
You wouldn't believe the vicious, relentless, unbridled, explosive and ruthless verbal pummeling she gave them, and when she switched her focus to her siblings, also tearing into them with her livid words like there was no tomorrow, they, to her surprise, actually were showing sudden regret for the disgusting way they had treated Nick alongside Stu and Bonnie, and, as their sorriness and repentance settled in, they quickly joined Judy in blasting Stu and Bonnie mercilessly, something that Judy was most pleased about.
"And now, DEAR, BELOVED mother and father," Judy spat, "we are going to find Nick, you are going to apologize to him and help me and the others here alike convince him to come back to us and let the previously excellent path he was going along with me become that way again and then you are going to do everything that you possibly can to make it up to him! Yeah, my siblings will do so, as well, but not nearly to the extent that you will, because that's how great an extent you have to do it!"
She looked to Bonnie, and then asked her mother: "You were baking a blueberry pie just moments before Nick snapped and took off, weren't you? Well, Nick REALLY loves blueberries, so that sort of treat would be a dream come true for him! That ought to be a nice start, don't you think?"
The thunderous, booming, refusing to take "no" for an answer tone of voice she was expressing throughout her entire demanding performance forced her parents to accept that they had no choice, nor any say in the matter.
And so it was that Judy would lead everyone to try and find where Nick went, but now we go see where he went for ourselves.
That was in an area of a small forest just outside of its trees which was near a lake, one that was just below what part of that piece of land he was present at, on his knees and with his arms to his sides.
Looking down at his reflection in the said lake, a sad, morose Nick was silent for a time, but then he began to sing the following words.
Look at me.
To them, I'm only just a predator, never anything more.
Can it be I shouldn't be Judy's love?
If so, then it is sadly inevitable that I'd break her poor little heart.
Who's that monster I see that looks right back at me?
Why is my reflection someone I am not?
Acceptance is what I'd never get, as I've tried so hard to prove trustworthy, but I'm still decried.
How I wish that it didn't have to come to this, but it's clear her family hates me.
On this day, I've learned that they will only see darkness in me, and simply nothing else.
They only see a beast who wants them as a feast.
Can't they see that I'm perfectly civilized?
They just don't understand that us foxes are not bad.
But I clearly must accept what they see inside.
They just see someone who wants to eat them alive.
Unbeknownst to Nick, the entire Hopps family had been watching this whole time, as Judy had managed to get them to where Nick was upon finding his footprints while they followed her lead after she demanded they help her find him.
Indeed, just a second after they found him, though from afar, he began singing what he did, and now all of these rabbits were crying, Judy not least of all, but her parents came in a close second and third.
Nick hung his head, closed his eyes and started to cry, as well, but after a few moments he suddenly heard Judy's voice.
"Nick?"
He opened his eyes to see the rabbit who was easily as sad as he was looking up at him, as well as her almost as sad family doing much the same, saying: "Judy?"
"Yeah, it's me." Judy replied. "Me and my family, that is. I was furious at my parents for the way that they treated you, both before and after my siblings realized how unfair they'd also been, became sorry and then were furious at mother and father dearest, as well. So I demanded that we all look for you, though my siblings were quicker to comply than my parents were. And it's a good thing you walked where you did, because otherwise there wouldn't have been any tracks to follow."
"Well, you found me…" Nick said, and then Stu asked: "We…we hurt you that much?"
"Hurt me?" Nick asked with biting sarcasm. "How could you have? After all, I'm just a mindless savage with no feelings at all. You said it yourself."
Stu sighed and said: "Okay, I deserved that. But really, Nick, we shouldn't have judged you before we knew you."
"The fact that our children followed Judy in being angry with us despite previously acting like that towards you themselves makes that perfectly clear." Bonnie added.
"You felt sudden regret?" Nick asked, opening his eyes widely in surprise, and one of Judy's siblings spoke for them all with the words: "Yeah, we didn't know what we were thinking at all. You only wanted to be a good guest and make this important night for Judy go accordingly. I guess that just didn't register with us for a while, but when it did, we sure got angry at mom and dad following how sorry we were."
"Which was very vital to how it was agreed we'd look for you, Nick." Judy put in. "I thank all of you for backing me up…"
She looked to her siblings with the first half of the latter sentence, and then continued it when she looked at her parents and said: "…and if you two haven't accepted the truth about Nick and his kind after all of this, then I'm absolutely ashamed to be your daughter."
"We have, we have! Honest!" Stu spoke quickly, and Bonnie said: "Listen, Nick, I really do speak for both my husband and myself when I say that we shouldn't have been so mean and hideous towards you when all you wished to do was make this work and make Judy's future bright and Judy herself happy and optimistic about said future in the process."
"The irony is," added Stu, "that if we still acted as awfully towards you as we did prior to your having had enough and leaving, it might have actually led to others wondering if us bunnies are really as cute and loving and sweet as they believe and, given the injustice towards foxes that is starting to die down, being made to believe foxes got a worse raw deal than they thought previously, which is quite a statement, to be sure!"
"Will you come back with us, Nick? I was actually making a blueberry pie just before you were pushed to your snapping point, and after all that's happened, you deserve a special treat like that. Blueberries are your favorite, aren't they?"
"As a matter of fact, they are!" Nick replied, suddenly smiling for the first time since he'd first arrived at Judy's home.
Judy's face lit up, and so did those of all the other bunnies, with Nick now returning and so glad that he was finally being accepted like he should have been from the start, and make no mistake, Nick and Judy's future was truly going to go uphill from there, starting with how the fox would enjoy his ideal kind of treat, which he more than deserved, considering his undeserved ordeals of before.
THE END
Quite the emotional story, don't you think?
Ratings and reviews, please!