And lastly, let's talk about two more main characters from my new story: Rusty and Jade.

Cooper "Rusty" Redtail is pure energy and paranoia. He talks fast, has a thousand theories about everything, and is a master at improvising gadgets with scrap. He's the comic relief, but his intelligence is real, he just can't focus on one thing for very long. His dynamic with his partner, Jade, is somewhat hilarious. He's "chaos", and she's "order".

He's always trying to impress her with crazy theories, and although she criticizes him, he knows she'd die for him. Yep, they are two good friends but are seen by the public as a couple because they have great chemistry, just like Nick Wilde and Judy Hopps in Zootopia, hahaha. I myself see them as a couple, even though they aren't really a couple X3

He wants to expose the system because he feels "excluded" for being a fox, which is an animal historically seen as deceitful and cheating. He wants to prove that the truth is stranger than fiction. He hates being called by his real name, Cooper, he doesn't like that name and prefers to be called by his nickname.

Furthermore, of all the characters, he's the cool and good-vibes one. I imagined him as a stereotypical stoner, I mean, he won't use drugs because the story I want to create will also be for children, but I imagined him having a personality and temperament very similar to Chicken Joe from Surf's Up or even Shaggy from the Scooby-Doo franchise.

As for his nickname, Rusty is a common nickname for red-furred animals. Redtail is straightforward and sounds like an old family name of spies or informants. His real name, Cooper, even though it's a name the fox hates, gives him a "gadgets guy" vibe.

And last but not least, we have the second female character in the group: Jade Purrington. Jade is calm, elegant and possesses a dry, acidic sense of humor. She's the mastermind behind the Savage Frequency podcast. While Rusty runs around, Jade sits analyzing data and finding holes in government speeches. She's skeptical and slow to trust anyone.

She's the first to distrust Jack Savage and Claire Warren when they show up. She acts as the group's "voice of reason", always reminding everyone of the real risks they're taking. Behind the cynicism, she's a fervent defender of freedom and hates seeing injustice towards younger animals. I imagined her having the same personality as Dana Scully from The X-Files: a pragmatic, very serious and rational girl, but also a loyal and very courageous friend.

I also imagined her having the same personality and temperament as Velma, another character from the Scooby-Doo franchise. Yeah, she's also intelligent, or rather, a typical nerd who uses logic to solve certain puzzles, which can make her a bit boring at times since Jade is so serious she doesn't joke around at work, while Velma insists on not believing in the supernatural even though she and her friends have faced real monsters and ghosts.

Furthermore, while Velma is theoretically an ugly girl who doesn't care much about beauty, Jade has a habit of not letting her hair grow for aesthetic reasons, since she suffered a trauma in her adolescence when she wanted to be very popular by befriending a group of mean and disgusting preppy girls who would later humiliate her at school in front of everyone.

Her name, Jade, refers to the intense green eyes of many cats. Her surname, Purrington, is a play on words with "Purring" and the surname "Harrington". It sounds elegant, yet modern, matching the vibe of the podcast. The artwork for this post was also done by my best friend, NOTG, and it's quite old since it was the second drawing he ever did for me. Yes, before, this fox and this cat were two characters from a discarded story, but now they're no longer random characters since they now have the chance to shine, lol.

And here is some more information about these two:

While Dash joined the group to help his best friend without knowing he was also the second villain of the story, Rusty and Jade didn't join just to help Jack and Claire prove their innocence or even out of "friendship", but out of ideology. They want to be the heroes who expose the biggest hoax of the century.

Since they have a conspiracy theory podcast set in the 2000s, likely recorded in a basement with amateur radio equipment and dial-up internet, their motivation must be the search for definitive proof. Their podcast, Savage Frequency, is constantly taken down by the main villain's government. Furthermore, they are constantly on the run from the "Communications Police".

They don't know Jack and Claire personally at first, but they knew the legend of the "Phantom Engineer" (the scientist who was the fake villain and was unintentionally killed by Claire). They spent years trying to discover who the man was who designed the original prototype of the tame collar. When Jack and Claire are framed for a crime they didn't commit and become fugitives, Rusty and Jade realize that the two secret agents are using the prototype chip. To them, the two aren't just spies, they are physical evidence that the government is lying.

The lynx and the rabbit are fugitives with nowhere to hide and no way to prove their innocence. However, the fox and the cat have the underground network of contacts and the equipment to transmit the truth to the world. They join the group because they know that if Jack and Claire are captured, the truth about "chemical freedom" dies with them. In other words, Rusty and Jade are nothing more than a "cheap copy" of Nibbles Maplestick from the movie Zootopia 2 lmfao. And yes, they will also be the comic relief of the story, just like Nibbles, haha!