Ask Honey and Ada: The Bigger Badass?

 

Ask Wasty; The formation of the NMU

 

Wasty: The NMU was originally comprised of several different native and colonizing nation's claims. The colonizing nations primarily included Great Kitten, Mane, and Prance, and much of the land colonized largely had to be negotiated for from the local native tribes. Of course, not every one of these trade deals was exactly 'fair', and upon review the less than fair ones we're renegotiated or completely undone within the last century. However, a bulk of many of these negotiations would result in the local natives and settlers combining forces and living on the land together. They traded goods, taught each other various skills, and a large amount of the interaction was peaceful. Within a century settling in the new world, a great many of those living there had stopped distinguishing natives from settler descendants. Of course, this was largely helped along due to the romantic intermingling from both sides. Sure, species still mattered, but most had come to see the NMU as a new nation in and of itself, and that those who lived there, settlers and natives alike, were its citizens. Naturally, that mindset, coupled with aggressive taxation that only worsened with each decade from the settlers home countries, as well as Zootopia's own independence acting as inspiration, would inevitably lead to a full-scale revolution, one of which neither Kitten, Mane, or Prance were truly prepared to handle with such a slow overseas response time.

This is where events sort of coincide with our own America, the thirteen colonies, the Revolutionary War, and some of our famous figures from American and British history come into play. However, in the world of my Zootopia, the Revolutionary war is of a much bigger scale and sees not just Kitten cut off from the NMU, but Mane and Prance as well. At the end of said war of independence. about half of the NMU as we know it, (The Eastern half) was united under one largely democratic banner. Over the next few centuries, as exploration moved west, more nations and tribes would be brought into the fold of the NMU. However, it is only within the last twenty years that Canidea and Mexicat joined, effectively establishing the modern North Mammalian Union as mammals like Dawn and Vern would know it.

The government of the NMU is largely based off of America's own government system, with elements taken from the EU due to it being a multi-nation country. There is still a constitution, bill of rights, etcetera...however each of the regions in the NMU can have different laws and behave slightly differently. I've already briefly discussed the system in place in terms of senators, regional presidents, and then the president themselves in order to give some idea on how this system works in a previous ask, but the point is there is a big emphasis on the people of each region and each state feeling like they truly have a voice in their home country.

Ask the Author; CattlePunk AU

 

Wasty: I think I've said before that I've considered an AU where Dawn and Vern don't get separated as kids, and end up getting tithed shortly after high school. In that AU, both Dawn and Vern end up becoming officers of the North Meadowland's Police Department, essentially taking Zach and Vanna's place while Zach ends up a city cop and meets Vanna that way. So in a 'wild west meets cyber punk' setting, I could very easily see Dawn and Vern taking up the Sheriff and Deputy role, if the Sheriff position wasn't already held by Dorian. Of course, who is in what role is up to your imagination. This would be going off that AU to make it work. Otherwise, Dawn would have to take up the role of an Outlaw looking for redemption, which only Sheriff Vernon would be willing to give a chance to. 

I imagine Dawn and Vern wouldn't often go far from the town or city they are defending unless dragged along by someone like Judy or the other Hunters. I can't see them being super keen on going off-planet to settle something, and there's a could chance I'd make one of them prone to 'space-sickness' if that is indeed a thing.

Ask the Ruminerds; Hippos are Jerks too?

 Joel: Believe me, none of us are under any sort of delusions that Hippos were herbivores...or defenseless. Not after the whole 'Massetdler' fiasco.

Gus: While I know it's probably a case-by-case basis for each hippo, I can't help but admit Massetdlr made me think a hippo's diets largely consisted of pure garbage. I mean, he practically drained every vending machine we had in the store when he visited, and gobbled down the food without giving even the slightest indication he actually tasted it.

Vernon: Massetdlr? That's the fella y'all banned right?

Gus: Oh yeah, he still holds the prestigious position of being the first and only customer banned from my store to this very day.

Vernon: Is that cause he was a creeper? I remember y'all talkin' about him comin' on to Melly and Val a couple o' times.

Broomie: It would have been bad enough if that was all he did...Cervidwen's hooves that guy was an absolute nightmare.

Gus: Overly aggressive and childish when it came to any games other customers were willing to let him participate him. Always hogging the game system demo stations like he was in an eighties arcade and had a day's worth of quarters stacked on the machine panel. To top that all off he had a nasty habit of eavesdropping on games he wasn't invited to either.

Joel: Yeesh...I remember...Nothing like having a massive mammal looming over you to trigger that primal prey fight or flight response.

Vernon: *Chuckles* Prey aren't the only mammals who got a fight er' flight. Even ancient preds feared bigger mammals, and were sometimes hunted by other preds. And the gods know I felt that fear too when he was standin' behind me...just...breathin' loudly.

Joel: At least that's all he was doing. I had to listen to his horrible...lippy smacky slurpy noises as he decimated the mound of food he pulled from the candy and chip machines.

Broomie: Didn't he ruin your character sheet that day? He drooled on it right?

Joel: Dropped a massive plop of Hippo saliva right on it. Well, saliva mixed with chocolate chunks and powdered cheese...ugh...*shudders* At least I had a backup copy but 'mam, that sheet was totaled.

Gus: He also defaced a few of my displays with his...weird drawings. Seriously...there were so many things I tried to overlook because he was a big spender, but at the end of the day keeping him around just wasn't worth the stress.

Joel: Well that, and the fact he tried to pepper spray you.

Gus: Thankfully he missed my eyes, but I had to close the store for a whole day after that just to air it out.

Joel: Speaking of 'airing things out', do all hippos smell that rank, or had he just never heard of personal hygiene?

Vernon: Hoo yeah...hard to believe a mammal whose ancestors spent so much time in water could stink that badly...

Broomie: You know, I heard he got arrested recently. Actually looks like he's going to jail this time, granted I can't really remember why...

Gus: Finally, I knew his luck had to run out at some point. He always managed to get away with a slap on the wrist before. That said, it's surprising you don't remember what he did this time if it was so serious.

Broomie: I don't know why, I just know it was really bad. Bad enough that I think that my mind might be actively suppressing the memory in order to spare my sanity.

Ask Dawn, Vern, Nick, Judy and Wade; Are Zebras total jerks?

 

Vernon: Zebra's 'er jerks huh? Well...I'm gessin' if I had to spend my life wearin' a pelt that looked like some mammal gave me a 'dazzle paint' job, I'd have a chip on my shoulder too...

Dawn: *Snort* *Giggle* Puppy!

Nick: *Laughs* Damn, beat me to it. Granted I don't know what a "dazzle paint' job" is, but I'm sure I could have come up with a pretty decent substitution. Something more palatable to a general audience.

Vernon: It's somethin' they used to do to ships durin' The Great War, paintin' em like a crazy mess disoriented enemies from spottin' 'em.

Dawn: Did Dom tell you that?

Vernon: Hey, I know some history stuff! I mean...I mean I was a straight B student, and-.

Dawn: *flashes the wolf a dubious expression, a small smirk crossing her muzzle.* Puppy...

Vernon: Alright fine, it was Dom...

Dawn: Last 'wolf club' meeting?

Nick: Wolf club? You guys have a club now? I hope you have jackets...

Vernon: It's more of a...'er...wolf's night out. Kodi pushed fer me and Wade to be there, even iffin' I don't drink.

Nick: As if you and Dawn weren't already enough of a buzzkill, the whole 'I don't drink' adds a whole 'nother level.

Judy: Nick. Dial it back...

Vernon *Coughs* Anywho, I mean...I ain't got much experience with Zebra folk, especially when it comes to a herd's worth at a time. I vaguely knew a zebra in high school, but she was a total sweetheart...at least based on my few interactions with her. What about you Darlin'?

Dawn: Well, as most of our listeners are probably aware by now, I...didn't have much of a social life even in college. I mean, there were a few Zebras at college, but I never really interacted with them. And in terms of fights...I mean, unless a mammal was killed on campus during one, I didn't really hear about it. I was...more focused on keeping my head down and studying.

Nick: Again, you guys sure are party animals huh?

Judy: Nick. Behave.

Vernon: Well what about you guys? Y'all work for the ZPD right?

Nick: No, I'm actually a male stripper. This is just my favorite costume from my collection.

Judy: *Slaps paw to her muzzle in a desperate attempt to stifle her snicker.* N-Nick!

Vernon: Well I mean iffin' anyone one of us had an interaction like this with a herd o' Zebra, I figure it'd be some police officers. Wade?

Wade: I mean, not really Vernon. You don't exactly see a lot of...'Savannah mammals' living up in Tundra town. It's usually a little too cold fer 'em.

Dawn: What about Giselle?

Wade: Giselle is what y'all would call an outlier. She actually likes the cold, and adamantly refuses to be forced to live Savannah Central just because Downtown is pretty much the only place with Megafauna Housing.

Vernon: Well what about y'all Nick and Judy? Surely you got some stories.

Judy: Well, It probably isn't really safe to-.

Nick: Oh yeah, Zebras are total jerks, and that's putting it lightly.

Judy: NICK!

Nick: What, I'm just stating a fact.

Judy: That's speciest!

Nick: What? This is coming from a mammal who will freely admit that a lot of inner-city foxes tend to be domestic abusers or total alcoholics, there's no bias here. And considering how many 'zebra fights' we've had to break up, usually with two or three of them spending a night in jail, I'd say it's a fair assessment.

Judy: Ugh...We are going to be in so much trouble.

Vernon: So iffin' that's true, why do y'all think they 'er like that.

Nick: Well, most of the times we've had to deal with ornery herds of Zebra, they were usually at a nightclub, strip joint, or bar. I think grouping together kind of activates this sort of primal...territorial tic in them.

Judy: To be fair, a lot of pack or herd mammals have issues like that. It's why the term is called a 'pack mentality'.

Nick: Plus, it's usually an all-male group, and on the young side too, so the testosterone is surging. Couple that with the fact that they are usually drinking or on some 'blue moon' and you've got a bunch of rowdy stallions ready to start trouble with whatever mammal happens to glance their way.

Vernon: Blue moon?

Judy: It's a night howler-based recreational drug that's wormed its way onto the streets. It's really rife in seedy nightclubs and bars right now, which only amplifies problems like this.

Nick: *Chuckles*

Judy: What's so funny?

Nick: Sorry, I was just imagining a world where they never changed prison uniforms to that orange little number. Can you imagine a bunch of zebras in the old horizontal stripes get-up? *Laughs* Talk about a dazzle paint job, they'd look naked from a distance!

Judy: *Rolls her eyes*, And you wonder why your jokes got you banned from posting on the ZPD's official Critter?

Nick: Hey! That three-humped camel joke is a classic! It's not my fault Critter has no sense of humor!

Ask Dawn and Vern; Zootopia's Political Factions

 

Dawn: Well, the two largest and most prevalent political parties in the city are the "Pregressive Party", and the "Predtionalist Party"

Vernon: Me and Dawn both learn more towards Preygressive views on a lotta issues, but we do agree with some Preditionalist stuff too...so I guess that makes us centrist?

Dawn: I don't know if I can call myself a centrist, if only because I ran as a Preygressive during my Assistant Mayor years. *Giggles* I think that kinda marks me for life.

Vernon: *Chuckles* I don't think y'all gotta worry about that unless yer plannin' on runnin' again.

Dawn: Lamb Sakes no! At this point in my life, I think I'd rather go back to working at a Bug Burga with you than running for a political office again, if they'd even let me.

Vernon: S'pose we should explain the differences between the parties, right Lamb Chop?

Dawn: Oh, right. Got a little off track there. *Ahem* The major difference between Preygressives and Preditionalists, aside from the names being rather skewed toward either predators or prey, is that Preygressives tend to focus more on issues surrounding labor, worker's rights, and social programs. They tend to take more positions that they feel will help Zootopia as a whole, and push for 'adapting to a changing world' as they would say. If you want the party that championed accommodation to species of all diets and sizes throughout the city, that's the party you'd look to.

Vernon: Preditionalists are more about supportin' a mammal's individual rights over a collective sorta thing. They also tend to be about perservin' a lot of the constitutional rights bestowed on Zootopians since the city was founded, includin' defendin' free speech, (even if it is unsavory sometimes), 'er the right to bear arms. They are also some of the strongest advocates fer keepin' corporations paws tied behind their back, and keep them from tryin' to undo anything that would allow them to get their claws deeper into the political spectrum, which...admittedly don't extend to all of 'em *Cough* *cough* Lionheart. 

Dawn: *Snickering* Puppy. Remember, his lawyers are watching.

Vernon: Who's lawyers? *Chuckles* I didn't say 'nothin'...

Dawn: Puppy...

Vernon: Anyway...Preygressives 'er more soft on that as they often think that loosening some o' them restrictions will see these companies better help Zoot as a whole...of course whether the really believe that, 'er are just chompin' at the bit to be rollin' in corporate zbuck kickbacks well, that depends on the candidate.

Dawn: Generally speaking, Zootopia prefers to have one representative of each party in power at a time. And by that I mean, if the main ticket identifies as one party, their assistant Mayor tends to be selected from the opposite party. This is because...at least in theory, as it's believed that a Mayor and Assistant Mayor would obviously have a good working relationship, that the pair having differing positions would lead to a fairly decent rate of compromise, and thus make both parties happy. In my own case, Lionheart was running as a 'Preditionalist', whereas I was running under him as a 'Preygressive', and we were running against a party with the opposite ticket.

Vernon: That was...what, Miss Vicunia runnin' fer the preygressive, right? The llama lady?

Dawn: Right, and her Assistant Mayor Candidate was a Preditionalist. Martin Rubins.

Vernon: Wait, was that...he was the real tiny cat right? Like, he looked like a kitten?

Dawn: Yes, he's a rusty-spotted cat. Apparently, that's as big as they get...poor things.

Vernon: I can't believe they actually put him up as a candidate. Everyone probably thought he was just a kitten in a suit. Like Vicunia had adopted him just to drag around from event to event like a show animal.

Dawn: Puppy stop. *Snicker*, that's not...a very preygressive thing to say...

Vernon: Fer real, what were they thinkin'?

Dawn: I think they were hoping his cuteness would bolster mammals to vote, and overshadow the fact that he appeared inexperienced thanks to the fact that he looked quite young. Plus he wasn't the main candidate. But our campaign dashed any hope of that by fearmongering the prospect of him ever getting in the 'big chair'. Nobody liked the idea of someone that looked like like a kitten with his paw on the button.

Ask Delay; Starting tomorrow.

 Just a quick update, I was about for fairly long response asks deep and getting ready to post them when my Openoffice just...closed...No warning, no crash report. Despite having autosave on, it failed to save any of the new asks I had been working on. Needless to say I'm livid as I had spent the last two hours on them. I'm going to start over tomorrow, but for now I just...I can't re-write them. I'm too tired and pissed off.

-Wasty

Health Problems (Christmas Update Part 2)

 Before we begin, I'd like to start out with my usual Patreon shout-outs as is tradition at this point. And I wouldn't risk breaking tradition, especially during this time of year. Anyway, thank you guys so much for your continued support.

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Martin Nilsson

If there's one thing I hate talking about publically it's my health problems. This is for multiple reasons. Divulging that stuff makes me feel like I'm burdening others with my issues, which I hate. I also feel like I'm letting people down, as having to talk about this stuff publically is usually related to me already being behind in my work, or that I'm about to be, which makes me feel ashamed. But the nature of what I do, with the work and the Patreon means I have an obligation to discuss it when it directly impacts output regardless of how I feel. That said, it makes it worse for me that it feels like such 'health updates' have become 'every other week' deals for the last few months.

My health hasn't exactly been great since well before I took up the mantel of "Wasted Time's Erotic Experiments". It was something I had to learn to work around as best I could, and even at that, it didn't always go according to plan. I'd have flare-ups or sinus infections that would interrupt workflow for brief periods, but I tended to be able to work through them for the most part. Within the last few years, my health has deteriorated fairly incrementally. My joints getting worse, or brain fog making writing harder and harder to do, but it was still a rather slow creep. And while my downtime periods ended up longer, I'd still manage to work around them in the end.

However, during the last five months my health began to take a sharp nosedive, centering around my inability to catch my breath with moderate exertion, tripping all over myself, and feeling as though I'm gonna faint half the time, the situation has started to...basically become disabling. When I'm not suffering from these issues I'm unconscious, as my body can't seem to get enough sleep. At first, I believed I was suffering altitude sickness, but as the weeks and months went on with no actual improvement it became clear that wasn't the case, and by that point, my doctors were once again throwing up their hands in utter confusion. Like what I was already dealing with health-wise, I was becoming certain that it was yet another unnamed or weird condition that I would have to learn to live around despite how difficult it was to.

However, it was my heart doctor who would finally manage to put all the pieces together rather than simply treat my immediate symptoms, and discover exactly what has been going on for not just the last few months, but the last few years as well.

Aside from being formally diagnosed with "Chronic Lyme disease", which is something I was pretty sure I was dealing with, but no other docs suggested treating it again. I have also been diagnosed with something called Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, (Or POTS) for short. The basic rundown is that my body has circulation issues, and it's reached a point where my blood has a habit of pooling below the waist. I guess this means when I'm sitting and standing my heart has to work harder to pump blood up to the vitals above the waistline, which is responsible for my breathing problems, chest pain, fatigue, brain fog, coordination issues, and why I feel like fainting so often.

On top of that (And please don't take this as an Anti-vaxx thing, I recommend consulting your doc about whether a covid vaccination is doable for you.) I also apparently have developed some sort of...post-vaccination immune disorder? This is probably due to getting the shot with my immune system already compromised by Lyme.

Now the bad news is, this POTS condition is a lifelong thing. There is no cure. I will have this for the rest of my life, and apparently, it might have been brewing for a while and I simply never noticed it until my breathing got worse. (This would explain two years of ever-increasing brain fog.) It wouldn't surprise me, as I already have "Reynaud's Disease" which is another disorder that causes poor circulation.

However, the diagnosis isn't as grim as it seems. With a positive, hard diagnosis, not only do I feel....well, it's weird to feel happy do know what I'm dealing with? I guess the correct word would be 'vindicated'. But more importantly, these are treatable things. My heart Doctor is sending me to a specialist who he believes will want to place me on a longer regimen of very specific Lyme meds to oust the bulk of it from my body, and while POTS can't be cured, it can be managed with specific vitamin and other supplements regiments. The Lyme treatment should also help the covid shot side effect. For the first time in years, I have some semblance of a road map to go by. For the first time in a long time, I've got a sense of hope that I may actually be able to get better and get these things under control. To get my life back.

I'm supposed to meet with my specialist on Friday, so hopefully, I'll have an even clearer plan then.

Now, all that health preamble was essentially to better explain why I've been struggling to put out content, and been missing my ask blog days practically every other week as of late. I would like to say for sure that I know things will improve from here on out, but...honestly, I can't make a promise on that. I will say I'm hopeful however that within the next few weeks, and especially by the start of next year I'll begin to improve health-wise, and as such my art and fic output will increase along with it.

Now is the part where I usually go over my work road map, however...this time I'm not going to. I will say I intend to work on the "Savage Love" comic and get "The Family Vulpes" Chapter five out within about a month, but it would be foolish of me to give any kind of...more specific estimate considering my current circumstances.

All that said, I'd like to thank everyone who's stood by me through all of this stuff...especially the Patreon backers. Between the fire, and my health issues, and the myriad of other bullshit the last year has slung at me, having the support has really helped me hold on to some semblance of sanity. You guys mean the world to me.

I hope to have better news for the next "Monthly Update", and I want to believe that things will look even better by then. Thanks for understanding, and sorry for the "Wasty's myriad of medical Malady's Lore Dump".

-Wasty