Interspecies Romance at its grimmest.
Zootopia: Death Becomes You
is a fanfic that takes place over a year after the events of the movie. Judy and Nick are now detectives in the ZPD (Zootopia Police Department) and are slowly taking the next step in their relationship by traveling to Judy's home at the Burrows to meet her parents. Amidst the rocky start to a potential budding romance, a new scourge has come to Zootopia in the form of new city immigrants. Crime shoots up and a great conspiracy is revealed that could shake the very foundations of everything Judy Hopps believes in.
A running trend with all Darkflamewolf's fanfics, this is also an adult-oriented story complete with graphic lemon scenes and excessively descriptive action/violence/gore. The story is presented with a dual timeline similar to the film Memento, where the story is presented achronologically. It addresses topics such as interspecies (read: interracial) relationships, ideological immigrant fanaticism, government corruption and carries on Zootopia's theme of prejudice.
Cover art courtesy of Kastraz.
Tropes Become You:
- Amnesia Danger: The title to chapter 6; although it is already known that Judy has sporadic amnesia when she wakes up from her five year long coma, what isn't known until the end of the chapter is that she is literally the only mammal left alive who knows anything about how to fight back against the bats effectively. And then she's recruited to go on a raiding mission to Sahara Square in hopes she'll somehow remember this.
- Anatomically Impossible: The title to chapter 7; invoked literally when Judy and Nick try to have sex. His penis is too big to fit without causing pain so he eventually stops for fear of hurting Judy. The size difference makes things difficult as well.
- Artistic License – Biology: In chapter 16 where Judy and Nick finally have sex. There is a scene where she notices a bulge in her stomach coming from Nick's penis which is completely not how vaginas work. Second, the knot getting stuck in Judy is probably not realistic since a rabbit's vagina is not designed in the same way as a canid's. It seems these descriptions were mainly done for the Rule of Cool than anything based on reality.
- Broken Pedestal: The title to chapter 21; Judy is the star jewel of Zootopia and the public face of the ZPD. This is brutally shattered by a physical attack by citizens on Judy incited by a libelous newspaper article. Combined with circumstances unfairly damning her, making it look like she released Rouge, she is now considered a loose cannon by Bogo and is suspended without pay.
- Enemy Mine: The title to chapter 12; Judy recalls a tip given to her by Rouge that leads her directly to Dawn Bellwether. Knowing she has the potential information to help contain or at least placate the bats, Judy convinces Nick to help set Dawn free from prison. As a result, the trio have a very tumultuous relationship for the entire duration of their journey together.
- Everyone Can See It: The title to chapter 3; the "relationship" between Judy and Nick.
- Interspecies Romance: The title to chapter 16; Nick and Judy.
- His Greatest Failure: The title to chapter 15; in the beginning of the chapter, Bogo admits to his follies as a parent to his daughter Arriane and how his actions ultimately led to her death. Taken a bit further to the overall narrative at large, it could also apply to Judy Hopps and keeping specific secrets from her which led to her abandoning Zootopia completely and leaving the ZPD a second and final time.
- Mercy Kill: The title to chapter 10. Jack is forced to kill a captured Swinton.
- Noodle Incident: Apparently, Nick has used Oates as a mount before.
- Parents as People: The title to chapter 11; reflects Judy's inability to connect with her daughter, feeling so preoccupied in figuring out what's happened to the world and how she's supposed to fix it by remember some crucial piece of information everyone claims she has. Compound onto the fact she is hopeless as a parent, unsure of how best to talk or deal with Nala, since having a grown child thrust onto you after a five year coma threw her for a loop.
- Reality Ensues: The title to chapter 1; what is presented to the reader as the current situation with Judy and Nick complete with her being able to single-handedly bring down a polar bear and finally invite her partner to meet her parents seems too good to be true and is found to be either a dream or memory when she wakes up from a five year coma and finds herself in the true reality.
- Slept Through the Apocalypse: The title to chapter 4; Judy was in a coma for five years, during which vampiric bats have completely taken over Zootopia..
- Swallowed Whole: A rather grotesque vore scene at the end of chapter 14 has a mob boss named Big Ray bargain a deal with Jack Savage for safe passage through the Nocturnal District and out of Zootopia. However, his condition to allow this of Jack is to enjoy a little pred-play fun with Judy. After much debate, she agrees to be swallowed whole on the terms she'll be returned safely after a few minutes. Things do not go as planned.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: The title to chapter 14; the hostile dynamic between Judy, Nick and Dawn Bellwether. The three of them parted on less than pleasant terms and having to work together is most likely not a prospect any of them enjoy. Nick and Dawn bicker and snap at each other constantly while Judy tries to play the mediator. To a lesser degree, it could also apply to the uneasy pairing of Mai and Jack Savage as they travel to the Nocturnal District.
- They Know That We Know: The title to chapter 18; applies to both arcs in this chapter. The conversation between Oates and Judy where both know he is the killer yet dance around the subject and the conversation between Nick and Skye where both know he's making lies up on the spot yet not calling him out directly on it.
- Thicker Than Water: The title to chapter 19; A small scene in the chapter goes over the hypothetical topic Nick brings up where if Judy had a choice between family and the world, that she'd choose family. As much foreshadowing as this is, Nick is confronted with his own dad in old Zootopia and is forced to make decisions in the same vein.
- Unwitting Pawn: The title to chapter 5; Judy is being played at having sympathy for the bats, to the point she decides to propose a blood bank idea to help provide food for the major influx of bat immigrants. This entire time, she was marked by Rouge since their first meeting and influenced in setting up Zootopia's downfall.
- Trigger Memory: The title to chapter 8; this applies to several instances within the chapter. The first being the death of Nick's mother, Gloria. Her death caused him to recall his father and their escape to the Zootopia we know now. The second is Bogo's complete slip in composure when Judy sets him off unknowningly into full parental mode and accidently calls her by his daughter's name. The third and final is literally Judy watching Jack Savage pull the trigger on his gun three times to take down a lion and two bats that causes her to remember just who exactly Jack is.
- Two Lines, No Waiting: The story uses this device to flash back and forth between past and present timelines.
- White Sheep: The title to chapter 2; it's Nick in the context of the bats.
