Code Red’s Art

Sorry I’m so late, I was doing other shit.

Zack was raised by two wizards who were absolutely insane. His mother was a textbook narcissist, and his father was her victim, but equally as bad.

They were both transphobic and wanted Zack to grow up to basically be a tradwife. They would insult him and call him things like a whore for hanging out with men, and a d-slur for dressing and acting masculine.

When Zack started HRT, his parents basically disowned him and cut off contact. Zack felt abandoned, but it was probably for the best. Luckily, he had been secretly seeing a QPR partner by the name of Clarisse, a woman from a similar situation, except she was cis and rather butch. They lived together for a while and went on adventures together.

One day, Zack and Clarisse were on an adventure where they encountered a group of hostile shadow folk, and they ended up killing Clarisse, causing Zack to spiral into hatred for shadow kind. She was all he had, and was taken from him after all. So much so, that when he moved to Pelican Town, he slaughtered countless shadow folk in the mines out of revenge. This version of Zack is what I like to call “pre-Krobus Zack”. An angry, sarcastic ball of hatred who pushed away anyone outside of the Adventurer’s Guild.

Krobus was very fearful of Zack for this reason, and avoided him at all costs. When Marlon caught wind of Zack’s genocidal tendencies, he felt the only way to stop it was to have him meet Krobus. Zack was confused by this. A friendly shadow? He didn’t know those existed. Curiosity got the better of him, and he eventually took the key and met the shadow down in the sewers.

Marlon had spoken to Krobus prior to their meeting, explaining to him Zack’s circumstances and how he probably just needed someone to not charge at him directly upon meeting him.

When Zack and Krobus met, they were both very awkward around each other, expecting the other to attack. Once they were comfortable neither would, they had a fruitful conversation about their upbringings. Suffice to say it was a success.

Eventually, Zack began to feel sick. He killed so many of this person’s kind out of sheer hatred and rage. There was nothing he could do to apologize or make it up to Krobus. But Krobus felt bad too, even though he didn’t do anything, and even if he did, Zack’s reaction was way out of proportion. His kind killed Zack’s only friend for seemingly no reason. They both apologized, knowing their apologies would mean nothing, but they still forgave each other.

One day, Zack gave Krobus a Void Ghost Pendant and asked him to live with him after learning from Marlon that that’s culturally what shadow folk do when they’re great friends. Krobus agreed.

As their friendship grew, Zack became happier and more humorous. This is what I refer to as “post-Krobus Zack”.

The boys + enby