Adopts Ahoy!

Thank you to my backers! You guys are awesome as always! I think I missed last month's thing entirely! Apologies for the screw-up! I guess I owe you all double thanks!

PARISHIONERS

Hippo Dippo

Sir FancySwank

Zaire Dann

BovineMage

Dr.Portal 455

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KarakuriCentral

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Unformed

Amancalleddominik

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FluffyWolf117

Vulpinator/Toonophile

Daylight Shadows

C. Archive

JustCallMeFaux

DONATORS

EkhonACT9

Martin Nilsson

Okay, let's start with the most important headline here. The big plate among the spinning set of plates I'm managing. I'm taking another stab at the whole 'Adoptables' thing. Basically, I recently discovered YCH.art. It's a site specifically meant for adopts and YCH auctions. I initially stumbled upon it because the once-in-a-blue-moon scenario occurred where I saw an adoptable I liked a lot, and threw a bid into the ring. I didn't win, but I'm sort of taking the discovery of the site as a sign to retry. Let's be honest, the Furaffinity attempt wasn't great to begin with.

So, I ressurected the three otter gals I never sold, and gave them all a revamp. I've also added a forth otter to the adopts. 'Tonee', the v-tuber/baby metal-style otter gal. I will link the new auction post on Furaff that goes into greater detail, as well as the direct links to each adopt below.

Adopt an Otter REVAMP!

https://www.furaffinity.net/view/60930063/

Angie Adopt - https://ych.art/auction/195728

Charlie Adopt - https://ych.art/auction/195734

Jules Adopt - https://ych.art/auction/195736

Tonee Adopt - https://ych.art/auction/195739

I'll quickly go over the rules here as well. The auctions will be live for a week. The minimum bid is 50 USD. It's unlikely any will hit 500 USD, but that is the cap. So anyone who pays that essentially secures the otter and ends the auction early. Included with each adoptable otter will be their base sheet (Fully Nude), An Outfit Sheet (Self explanatory;see auction pages), and both will have the logo info appended with text cementing the new owner. EG '(Otter) Belongs to (Winner); Illustrated by Wastedtime. Simple, no? That said, Happy bidding to those who are interested.

Next we....hmm...lemme check the list. I'm on the tail end of some commissions right now, and eager to get writing but there's a good chance that won't happen until June. I'm eager to get to working on a Kyuu from Beastars sticker to go along with the recent Juno and Sebun stickers respectively for my Etsy/Personal sale site. Since I was aiming to base all my spring content around sheep, and to a lesser extent rabbits, it seemed fitting. I have a rough outline for summer sticker set plans. Those of you missing Helluva Boss content will see it made up during that time. Cherubs and Hellhounds, that's all I'll say.

Comms I've got some I recently dropped, some very close to being wrapped up, and I've got a commed series looming on the horizon. Perhaps more than one. Again, if you like Helluva, specifically Stella, you will be eating good more than likely.

Lastly...oh man...I've got...let me see. 5 - 6 WIPs that are non-comms in various stages of completion, several of which were recently posted to my gallery partially finished. I'm kinda frontloading the Lanolin's Mom and Belphagor pics respectively to round out Sheepy Spring and to cover me for Milfy May. (Two birds with one stone with Lanolin's Mom Chamois) But I'd also like to give J'taime Mon Prince and the Horizontal Madison a full color treatment. With Belphagor and Chamois, to keep with the style they'll be considered finished after cell shading. But the other two are looking at full polish...I've also got some other ideas on deck as well that are gnawing at me to draw them.

Then there is of course rounding out the asks, which art school studies were going to replace once I finish pushing out the remaining asks. Unfortunately, I got stalled after the first week and wrapped up in all this other stuff. At the very least I'm aiming to wrap the asks before Z2. After that, I'll probably kill the site and shift any future idea asks to my gallery. (The host just upped the pricing, and with how infrequently asks are posted, and will be going forward, simply posting them on twitter or in my galleries is probably the better idea.) But I'll still pound out the remainder over the summer.

Last thing, I'll be sparing you personal life updates this time around, and instead tell you I'm considering going to Denfur again this year as a seller, and selling stickers and prints...I'm just... wishy-washy on the idea given previous experience and my situation at home. Part of me just feels like my focus should go to merch deals with established merch places. If you guys could spare some feedback that would be great, I'd love to hear some opinions.

Anyway, that's all for now! Again, check out the adoptables! Happy bidding!

-WT

Author Ask, Zootopia 2?

WT: Long answer...I dunno, I have a lot to say here and I have to organize my thoughts.

In terms of writing, no, there's no way I'm adapting 2 lore either retroactively or in an AU. I'm far too deep in my carefully crafted little corner of Zootopia to now try to make room for every retcon the official series makes...especially when Z+ already played fast and loose with that lore. Granted, part of that is the fact that Zootopia took nearly a decade to produce a sequel.  

From my standpoint as a writer, I feel like Zootopia itself needs some semblance of an outer animal kingdom. Look at something like Beastars, where nearly all life is sapient. Are predators only supposed to eat bugs? Is there nothing in the forests and wilds, no ecosystem save for plants and 'some' fish? What purpose does pest control via night Howler serve farming communities if that's the case? Is it just for bugs? If not, it seems like a war crime waiting to happen. It's nice to have some established... 'limitations' in world crafting, especially if it's something you didn't touch on at all early on and might have to work into the story by hook or by crook. The more you have to retcon large swaths of your world's foundations, the less invested people become. If anything can be changed at any point to facilitate a specific story, what's the point of getting engaged with the world at all? Having controls makes a world feel more real, more grounded, and thus easier to stay invested in.

Reptiles weren't even hinted at in Zootopia, not even a stray background lizard. Now I'm meant to believe they have reptiles right in the Canal District? Where were the seals in Tundra Town? None of them came out of the water at all? And why add any of them now? There were probably a million stories you could tell in the already-established setting as is, even restricting the characters to just Nick and Judy. But the first sequel and we're already adding an entirely different swath in the animal kingdom? Tell a story about hybrids, a story with a pred villian, some other crazy vast conspiracy for Nick and Judy to solve. At the very least if you want reptiles in, have Nick and Judy be forced to venture far out from Zoot to a nearly reptile-exclusive city to better excuse the lack of them in the first film.

But I'm nitpicking a 'children's film' here, so it's all invalid I'm sure. Cause kids are dumb, and don't deserve quality world-building or storytelling...even though Zoot's target audience is now adults or near adults because the sequel took so long to produce. While there were shortcomings in the first film, clearly, a lot of love went into the world-crafting. My art book shows that off in spades. Z+ didn't show the same level of care...and while one of the two guys who are essentially the fathers of the series is back in Z2, I don't see that world crafting improving all that much. Wreck-It Ralph 2 was like the Disney Emoji movie, and that had Byron on both too.

That's not even mentioning the steep decline in the quality of Disney films across the board since 2016. A dark cloud has descended on that studio, one that traded in skill and talent to fill quotas. One that prioritized emphasizing 'the message' over good storytelling. And the company hasn't backed away from that sentiment, it's only doubled down more aggressively each time, all the way up to the shareholders. So I don't expect a solid sequel to somehow crawl its way out from under being 'crafted for a modern audience'.

Lastly, and this is just a me thing, having been in the furry community this long, but Gary is going to (already has) caused a surge in awful fetish material. Between bondage and hypnosis, I'm gonna be blacklisting a lot of new content. That's what happens when you model a snake character after Sir Hiss or Kaa. I imagine it was purely meant as an homage, but man I'm not looking forward to the fallout. My poor eyes will never recover.

I do wonder how mammals and animals that have no comparable method of mobility compared to their four-limbed counterparts would even have evolved to a level of sapience when they can't operate most anything made for four limbers...let alone the lack of thumbs. The best I've seen that handled is Mr. Snake in the bad guys. Still, that was another reason I kept seals, manatees, and dolphins out of the 'technical mammals' pool. Just how 'accessible' can you make a city with that much of a difference not just in sizes, but levels of dexterity without bankrupting it? It's why I made Derrick Colton a 'handicapped' horse in the Vulpes fic. It was largely to explain away a horse photographer who is present at Judy's press conference that has solid traditional horse hooves for hands. As well as other aberrant mammals that may crop up.

Lastly, while I've slowed in terms of getting out my fics, (I intended to complete everything and move on before the sequel dropped.) The Val fic, and the Bellwether Legacy are meant to be the last fics in my series. (Aside from one-off revisits, and the scrapped Finnzelle story.) I didn't want to stay locked into Zootopia fic writing forever. I'd really like to make some of my own stuff. Original work I can maybe do more with than being limited by the restrictions writing a fanwork entails.

At the end of the day, Dawn Bellwether is the lynchpin to my little slice of Zootopia, and I don't own the rights to her. Never will, unless a series of wildly absurd events drop the rights to Zoot in my lap. I can recycle many of the characters around her you've grown to love, and perhaps even a pale reflection of Dawn herself with the right story to go along with her. But...I guess I don't want 'Wrote a killer villain redemption fanfic once' to be the total sum of my work.

God...that was a rant. I did warn about the 'long-version' didn't I? I'm sorry...just a lot to cover. I....overthink things way too much. Still, you go on and try to enjoy Z2. Maybe it'll be great...I've just always been a glass-half-empty kinda guy. Me, I'm probably not gonna see it. Even if Dawn gets a cameo. Lord knows they'll probably go for a 'silence of the lambs' restraints joke if she shows up.

-WT