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  • Cheetah Fluff :therian:CheetahFluff@nyan.network
    Jul 5, 2026, 6:27 PM
    Like imagine. He goes up on stage to do the straight jacket escape. He's done it in practice a dozen times, but he's up there in front of everyone now, and the pressure hits. He's never done it in front of the scrutinizing eyes of strangers who expect a show. Indeed, he's never entertained! It's more of a shock than he was expecting, and here he is: in front of hundreds of people, in a spotlight, wrapped up like a swaddled infant. At least an infant doesn't have padlocks on its blanket. Frozen, blanking, noticing they're noticing, but he still can't process the weight of their combined expectations. His fur stands on end.

    It's been too long to seem natural anymore, but he begs their pardon as casually as he can and shoulders on to begin the trick. He can feel the glances they're giving each other. He tries moving his arm in that way that starts the path to freedom, but his muscles are too tense. All he manages is a pathetic jerk of the elbow, and again, and again. Now he feels their eyebrows raising: doubt. The loss of control over the crowd, a showman's doom. The show's manager is hunched low to the side of the stage, yelling quietly as he can at a stagehand to do something, anything. Our cheetah magician is sweating bullets, trying harder and harder to move his arm, but it just won't budge! Harder, try harder!

    By the time the cane sneaks from the curtain to pull him away, he's been twisting and thrashing for a full two minutes. The crowd is in almost as much pain as he is. He knows he won't get out on his own; he's a butterfly trapped in his coccoon. His career is too. He stops, and the cane holds still in the air around his neck, before...

    YOINK!

    (1/5)
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  • Cheetah Fluff :therian:CheetahFluff@nyan.network
    Jul 5, 2026, 7:25 PM
    The manager's man carries him away. He can hear the next show starting, a comedian. Too far away to hear the words, he can make out an easy but apologetic tone, and the crowd's laughter. It's over. His new handler, an ox, pauses, lifts a hoof-tipped set of fingers to massage his brow and sighs. Our cheetah is currently flopped at the belly over this man's forearm like a bag of flour. The ox continues to the back, tosses the cat out of the building, and shuts the door. Again, he hears the crowd's laughter - likely not directed at him anymore, but the comedian's own well-rehearsed act, but it fills him with shame all the same.

    He hears the lock turn behind him.

    The next morning, he still hasn't freed himself. He shambles over to the coffee joint around the corner. A night of futile wiggling in a back alley has left him hungry, tired, and sad, and the concrete weight of his shame has settled into his legs (hence the shambling). While he doesn't see anyone inside, at least the lights are on for the 5 a.m. shift, and the sign on the door reads "Come on in! We're: Open." He can get coffee, a donut, and maybe get help to call a friend for a ride back to town and... maybe a pair of scissors. He approaches the glass doors and nudges into them to try and open them up. They don't open up. He looks down - they're pull doors from this side.

    He cringes in agony and pushes again, and a third time, a little harder and then harder still. There has to be some way of opening these doors without the use of hands! A slam this time, and the glass panes rattle on their hinges, loudly. He kicks, another rattle. The failure of the night before is still fresh on his mind, and here he is again: failing to even open a door because of the stupid, ill-advised stunt he chose to attempt! He stopped. He could be more clever than this, and anger wouldn't get him amywhere. He was a magician, or an aspiring and maybe failed one anyway, but he knew he could be clever.

    (2/5)
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  • Cheetah Fluff :therian:CheetahFluff@nyan.network
    Jul 5, 2026, 7:26 PM
    The gorilla walked to the back room and donned her apron for the 5 a.m. shift, and said hey to her colleague-turned-buddy the aligator. Gator was a good guy, always getting here a few minutes early to turn the lights on and warm up the friers for the first batch of the day. She just needed to get the ingredients from the fridge and start mixing the-

    BANG!

    The two of them shot upright. BANG! They glanced at each other. Gorilla's eyebrows tensed into a furrow, and gator nodded. Maybe some poor soul going into withdrawal, maybe a robbery, maybe a flock of pigeons that didn't understand glass again. Those were pretty loud bangs, maybe a flock of geese. The city had appropriate services for each situation, and all they had to do once they knew the situation was call. The only way to know was to check.

    Gator peeked around the door, and gorilla looked through the serving window that led donuts to the counter. And what to their wondering eyes did appear, but a cheetah. In a straight jacket. Biting the door handle.

    (3/5)
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  • Cheetah Fluff :therian:CheetahFluff@nyan.network
    Jul 5, 2026, 7:34 PM
    From there you can guess what happens next. The asylum gets a call, sends over a driver and a couple of big guys, and no amount of pleading about magic tricks and comedians and donuts would sound sane enough to convince them things weren't as they seemed.

    A few hours in a padded cell will get anyone wanting to move around a little. Here we see a cheetah, desiring his exercise of choice.

    (4/5)
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  • Cheetah Fluff :therian:CheetahFluff@nyan.network
    Jul 5, 2026, 7:34 PM
    Anyway so thats what was going through my head when I was drawing this, and why he is absolutely the feeblest dipshit.

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