Anthropomorphic

Doberman Character

Portrait

Graffen Gruntsqueeze

In the anfractuous alleyways of Anthroxville, time is not just a dimension, but a currency, minted from the toil of the deep-rooted institution of wagery. This city, a febrile clockwork of perpetual motion, throbs with the heartbeat of a thousand timecards, each tick a step, each tock a milestone in the grand parade of the wage-trade. It's a mercantile carnival of peons, plebs, and perdition, where the enwaged masses – colloquially dubbed “Tickers” (with an extra hard ‘r’) – find themselves tethered to the relentless pendulum of productivity, their worth measured by the heft of their output rather than the content of their character. 

In this societal hierarchy, the tickers navigate a world of stark contrasts, excluded from the polished front doors of prosperity, they are funneled through side entries, less their swivel-eyed presence disturb the gaiety of the "Fritters" such as Tiffany Tarradiddle, Gloria Widdershins, Quentin Marmalade, and Dinero Cashmoney, and their opulent world. These latter, so named for their lavish expenditure of time, aided by the ingenuity of such figures as Fabia Dinkplop, exist in a parallel realm of leisure and extravagance. Signs barring tickers blare in brazen lettering across select establishments, a blatant proclamation of exclusion:

No Tickers

No Tossers

No Orville Stonkers

Yet, in the throes of this systemic stratification, the tickers have carved out a space of their own. Amongst themselves, they've softened the harsh edges of their moniker, adopting the term "Tickas" with a soft ‘a’ of lilted affection. This subtle act of reclamation has given rise to a lexicon of camaraderie, a shared dialect within the underbelly of the city's labor force. Expressions like "What's good, my ticka?" ripple through their ranks, a greeting that carries the weight of shared hardships. "Ticka, please," has become a common refrain, as has "Tickas be trippin’," serving a nod to the absurdity of their plight within the unforgiving gears of Anthroxville's clockwork society.

Presiding over this absurd bazaar of billable hours as one of the most renowned wage-traders in Anthroxville, is the anthropomorphic doberman, Graffen Gruntsqueeze. It's easy to hate the rich, but Graffen has the true courage to hate the poor. His time-management empire, Pulse Profits, Inc., sets out to do just that, serving as an epitome of this temporal trade—a monolithic tribute to the commodification of hours, a mausoleum where each minute is entombed within the vaults of profit and loss. Here, in this business built on the ledgers of life, the tickers are but entries, their existence reduced to quantifiable digits, their aspirations condensed into footnotes in an account book that never balances in their favor. Reaping what it has not sown from the fields of others' toils, Pulse Profits seems to be involved in just about every facet of ticker life, from headhunting, graduate-scheming, and reference-checking, to clock manufacturing, name-badge production, and performance-reviewing. They are even in the business of tracking down rogue tickers who go AWOL and attempt to escape for a better life by fleeing their office or factory floor during lunch breaks. 

Occasionally, the pressure cooker of this environment reaches a critical point, leading the odd wagie to snap under the strain and go completely postal. These moments of duress manifest in outbursts where the pent-up despair is misdirected, not at the fritters who orchestrate their toil, but at their own kind. Team leaders, area managers – fellow tickers entrenched just a rung or two above – become the victims of these bezerk meltdowns. 

Unlike these wretched specimen, time is Graffen’s to waste, and waste it he does – perpetually late, out of both principle and spite, especially if the occasion calls for a ticker's attendance. His watch, a gleaming anchor on his wrist, serves not to tell the time, but to tell tickers that they were, invariably, running out of it. "God damn tickerrrs," he'll sneer with a contemptuous curl of the lip, observing them scurry about in their frenzied routines. "Why's it always them?" Graffen's disdain was not borne from bog-standard bigotry, but rather, from an intimate understanding of their psyche, a knowledge gleaned not just from his vantage point in the industry, but from his own origins. He was, after all, born of the same stock – a truth he carried like a hidden scar.

His father's story was a somber chapter in the anthro doberman's familial legacy, a tale of broken dreams and unfulfilled potential. Slogger, the elder Gruntsqueeze, once a formidable arm-wrestler with aspirations that reached far beyond the drudgery of wagery, had his dreams tethered by the relentless demands of his labor. His formidable strength, capable of rivaling the likes of renowned contenders such as Julian Jodhpur, Roy Bibbowski, and Yankel Plunker, never found its moment in the spotlight, as he simply couldn’t get the time off to compete. Instead, it was expended in the thankless toil of ditch-digging; his extra shifts and overtime sinking him deeper into the mire of ever more digging, rather than paving a path to emancipation. The poignant image of his father, hunched over, panting, caked in mud, and utterly defeated, was etched into Graffen's memory—a stark emblem of the futility of their struggle. Slogger's words, heavy with exhaustion and regret, still echoed in Graffen's ears: "I did what I could to get out of wagery, son. I didn't make it. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Now it's your turn. Anyway, I best be getting back to me shovel."

The eventual unraveling of his father's spirit, who finally cuckooed not long after, was a turning point for Graffen, fueling his resolve to escape the fate that had claimed his progenitor, and forever distance himself from its clutches. "Hello officer, I’d like to report a group of tickers loitering on my property. Yes, I recognize them—they're my gardeners. Yet, the sun sits high and they've not even started on the weeds," he once...