What is this? Tzin writing? Could it be?

I felt like this piece deserved a short story to go along with it. 3,200 words. Not much, but better than nothing.

Enjoy a story about a fit-to-fat Nick Wilde!

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“What’s up guys? Your favorite hustler fox is back online!”

Even despite the noise cancelling feature on the streaming app, it was impossible to prevent the microphone from picking up the loud creaking coming from the ergonomic and overtaxed gamer chair. It had seen better days. And not too long ago. Only about a year back, the vulpine who was now wedged between those tight armrests, had been just as lithe and spry as any other of his kin. His body used to be rail thin. Nothing but skin and bones.

Judy made sure to point that out every opportunity she had. Almost in a yearnful way. As if she wished things were different. How oblivious had he been back then? How foolish of him! It all was so clear in hindsight.

“Glad to see you all joining in! I hope you are ready to see this fox make a pig of himself! I’m feeling particularly hungry today!”

Nick smiled at the camera patting his belly, knowing full well that on the other side, there were avid viewers transfixed by the sight of his portly figure. He was not lying either. Just that morning, he had what most people would call a vast breakfast, but lately, such a spread just didn’t cut it anymore, and lunch just couldn’t arrive earlier. He had placed an order from the nearest fast food joint and delivery had been received at the door by a tail-wagging 500-pound fox. Minutes later he finally managed to catch his breath, sit in his gamer chair, and start recording. By then, the overpowering smell of condiments and enticing food was eliciting a cacophony of savage growls and gurgles from his midsection. He had barely uttered five sentences and he was already giving a true spectacle!

The colossal fox leaned forward, reaching in towards the desk in front of him, beyond the edges of the frame, hoisting up a large greasy laden paper bag, with a familiar logo on its side. Not only was it a familiar sight throughout the corners of the city and in nearly every food court, but also a recurring sponsor in the fox’s increasingly frequent streams. The act of retrieving the bag caused his shirt to bunch up, and stretch out, seriously testing the structural integrity of those buttons. Earlier that day when he had first fastened the garment across his ponderous paunch, Nick realized that a wardrobe update might be (yet again) overdue… Especially if he wanted to do it while still wearing clothes that somewhat fit, instead of half-tattered pieces of fabric like what happened not a month prior.

Of course, the chat was loving the sight. The diamond shaped gaps, out of which tan fur and flab poked out, were now a perennial sight in the livestream, much like increasing serving sizes and unabashed feats of gluttony. Nick had started this as a joke. The ZPD was going through a rough patch in terms of public image, and the board had suggested that officers should make livestreams that would show that the police are “normal citizens”. So, they were encouraged to talk about their day-to-day, their days at the Academy, and about “the top 10 street rules no one tells you”.

Nick was not a fan. It all seemed like extra work on top of his normal duties as an officer. Plus, he didn’t have the patience to record and edit those listicle videos, not to mention doing all the research and validating of sources. Pffft! He was no journalist! He was absolutely NOT going to do it!

But just as he was devising a way to skip out on what Bogo called a “mandatory assignment”, Judy came in and challenged him. She proudly said, with that smug bunny grin plastered across her dumb bunny face, that she would easily have more subscribers than he would. WHAT? The nerve of that carrot-eater!! To think that someone could out-charisma the most charismatic hustler in all of Zootopia was ludicrous. Not. A. Chance.

This was on! They shook on it. Loser had to take winner out to dinner.

They both started their channels on the same day. And six months later, they would compare who had a greater following base. Sheer and objective numbers. That was it.

It was tough. Tougher than the fox had thought. He tought that with his natural charm, people would start subscribing to his channel in droves. But perhaps he had underestimated the art of making online content. After all, who would have thought that being a successful streamer takes a lot more than charisma and a ring light…

Sike!

Just kidding!

It was easier than cutting butter with a hot knife.

And the fox made sure to rub it on the bunny’s face. It was not his fault that the food at the all-you-can-eat buffet tasted way better when he didn’t have to pay for it. And what a feast it was! He really went all out to cash in that victory! He must have put on about a full pound or two from the absurd piles of greasy morsels that he had loaded onto a dozen plates over the course of the evening, and just as many rounds of dessert! What? Gideon is not the only fox enthusiastic about pies.

Being a proud fox, he’d never admit it. But were he to be completely honest, for the first few months he was at a loss with his video uploads. He just could not draw an audience. He was quite confident that the dozen views he got the first month were mostly from his mom replaying his videos over and over again. Meanwhile the OG metermaid was racking up views like no one’s business, sharing her experience as a newcomer in Zootopia. Always so wholesome. Of course, people would click. He was being humiliated.

And this required some drastic measures. Measures that called for the closest he had to a celebrity: Gazelle…’s biggest fan: Benjamin Clawhauser. The cheetah was no celebrity, but he had his own modest gaming channel and he had gained quite a bit of popularity over time. For him this “mandatory assignment” was a walk (or perhaps a waddle) in the park. So naturally, Nick asked him for advice. And boy did he deliver! The front desk fluffball practically became his multimedia guru! And doing his own due diligence, the fox started to see a pattern in the cheetah’s channel. The videos that got the greatest view counts were, oddly enough, the videos where he ordered out from a popular fast food place, and he would do a food reviews in between bouts of playing the latest open-world adventure game.

Thus, Nick asked Clawhauser to boost his channel numbers by making a collab video. That had been one of the smartest moves he could have made because soon, with people subscribing by the hundreds! After a single appearance on the cheetah’s channel, he was finally catching up with Judy. And he only had to sit down and punch some buttons on the controller while chasing after the cheetah’s much fitter on-line avatar. Sure, the snacking had gone a bit overboard during the gaming session, but certainly nothing that he couldn’t handle with a few criminal pursuits around Tundratown. A mild case of bloating was but an afterthought when it meant erasing that smug face off his bunny partner.

What the fox didn’t realize at the time was that it was a slippery slope. The wave of new followers encouraged the fox to livestream more often. Livestreaming necessarily involved snacks. Snacks lead to unwitting binges. Binges that manifested as extra padding around the fox. And more fox attracted more views, perpetuating the cycle. Not that Nick noticed at first. He was too busy watching Judy scramble to generate more carefully thought-out videos with elaborate messages and factually accurate information. Meanwhile the fox would merrily order out an increasing volume of fast food, and start a spontaneous livestream, and just harness his natural charm to woo and wow his viewers. It was as if he was born to do this.

No plan is flawless. Mid-recording of a low-key gaming session, Nick leaned back to stretch his stiff back (after hours of playing… and evidently snacking), when he felt the constricting pressure of his iconic Hawaiian shirt mount to unfamiliar levels. The garment had always fit loosely around the vulpine, flowing around him underscoring his suave and nonchalant air. But today that was not the case. The shirt felt more like a latex glove. And as his lumbar vertebrae arched, the apex of his abdomen overwhelmed the tension of the centermost button of the shirt, instantaneously turning it into a ballistic projectile, which impacted against a picture of the day he joined the ZPD.

The fox in the picture looked different than his reflection on the monitor. It wasn’t age. It wasn’t just the clothes. It was his girth. The screen of the computer had been turned off, so he could see himself in all of his post-meal glory. Now that his belly had won the fight for space against his shirt, a gap the size of a credit card spilled forward, adding further tension to the buttons above and below the furry expanse. The surface, curved outwards, rising and falling to the tune of his breath.

His inquisitive paw gave it a cursory pinch. It was taut from his recent Taco Tuesday Tradition, but on top of that there was an undeniable layer of softness. A feature that up to that point, was completely foreign to the fox. He became enthralled. His paw scurried to his side, finally acknowledging the heft that bunched right over his trousers. That would explain why it took him ten minutes that morning trying to zip up and fasten those rascals! Could it be? Was this what people called a love handle? Nah… it couldn’t be. Only fat animals have those, and Nick was… Nick… just Nick. Right? He was a sly fox. His other paw —which up to that point had been holding half of a chocolate bar— promptly stuffed it into his maw and went ahead to validate the finding on his left side. Sure enough, a sizeable amount of pudge was spilling over the waistband of his almost comically undersized pants.

A muffin top alright.

The discovery process unraveled further: his right hand wandered upward to his chest. The flatness that he was accustomed to was met with an unexpected and bountiful curved landscape: he could actually cup his chest and feel the heft of his incipient moob. When had this happened? His left hand remained in his lap, observing how his midsection hung lower, not quite spilling over his waistband, but certainly progressing in that direction with no signs of stopping. His thighs were wide, meaty, thick. Was this why Officer Delgato had started calling him “Big Guy”? He stared at his reflection on the screen. Those cheeks were definitely a new development over the last few months. And touching them made them feel even more real. They obscured his formerly defined jawline, which now sported a clear double chin, no matter how far up he extended his neck. Was this where all those midnight snacks were going?

And yet…

It felt good. It felt good to be ahead in their own pointless competition. It felt good to be winning with the minimum effort, just by being lazy and indulging in mountains of snacks. It felt good to be soft. It felt good to be big. It felt good to be Nick.

Nick wanted more.

And Nick got more.

“Ugh! I’m staaaaarving! Let’s see what we have in bag number one!” Back in the present, the pachyderm-sized fox rummaged through the paper bag. He finally pulled out a heavy-looking bundle wrapped in paper. The object was roughly the size of his head, though nowadays it was hard to tell given how his cheeks and chin spilled and merged onto his non-existent neck. Nick performatively peeled away the paper to reveal a double-decker burger which seemed to have a glazed doughnut mistakenly stuffed between the buns. But that was no mistake. That was Nick’s creation. His very own special. And in this livestream, he could proudly announce that the burger joint had honored him not only with his very own menu item, but also with a permanent place in his Hall of Fame! Never had being sponsored felt so good!

“Okay chat! Starting with a banger! Here it is, The Deluxe Bacon Double Thicc Nick! Let’s see if it lives up to its name.” And with that, the fox started digging into the massive pile of ingredients haphazardly stacked between two perfectly broiled sesame buns. His jaw pressed against his massive tire of flab, actively fighting for space. It was a sight to behold, but certainly not the only part of his body drawing attention. Not by a long shot. His shoulders were broad and stocky in appearance but far softer and more malleable compared to those from Chief Bogo. His arms had grown alongside his body, accumulating adipose almost at an alarming rate. He had gotten rid of his weight set several months ago, and he found it amusing that now, he almost felt like he had an integrated set of dumbbells weighing down on his biceps every time he brought a treat to his unappeasable snout. Except, this set of weighs where of his own creation… and far better for hugging and cuddling.

And even further down, his chest and abdomen also sported their own excess of fox… foxcess, one could say. Proper fully fledged moobs were sagging down his chest, sloping down under his bingo wings and around to meet back with the thick rolls in his back. He knew because that was a particularly tough place to reach with his loofah when he took a shower. An extendable handle helped a lot, though. And of course, those rolls continued down his back in growing succession, with the widest being probably as thick as the burger he was now wolfing down. They wrapped around his sides and spilled into his beachball-sized gut. Even with Clawhauser being significantly taller than him, the vulpine could now proudly claim that he had the bigger midsection. And if the trends continued as they had in the past few months, he would be the heavier of the two officers in a mere couple of months.

By some miracle, he had managed to maintain his Hawaiian shirt aesthetic… perhaps in part because they happened to be a popular piece of clothing in Big & Tall stores. And even when buying in the pachyderm section, he had started inching closer towards he coveted Medium-hippo size. Nick had grown more than familiar with the feeling of buttons being tested by his expanding girth. He reveled in the thought of being the grim reaper of those little round disks. Each day he did his best to send them flying across the room. And he had a good feeling about today. His shirt was already feeling fur-tight this morning when he managed to fasten it across his burgeoning torso. The writing was on the wall. Three large paper bags absolutely stuffed with food spelled doom for all clasps, seams, and zippers valiantly fighting the losing battle to contain his prodigious proportions.

Having left Clawhauser eating his dust, metaphorically speaking, Francine and officers Higgins were the next goalposts for Nick. He was far from done growing. He had bid farewell to his hind paws months ago. They now belonged to the remote realm of beyond the apex of his belly. He could only imagine how big his legs had gotten by how they jiggled and jostled every time he had to make his way to the kitchen or to the front door to receive a delivery. They had to be wide because he could feel them rubbing together when he had to awkwardly waddle even a couple of steps. And he also knew his hips had grown from their former svelte size just by how they tended to get caught on regular doorframes. The fox had soon learned to angle himself sideways to prevent some embarrassing shenanigans resulting from his weight. He had enough with the teasing he got at work and the endless name-calling at home from Judy.

That dumb bunny.

It had been her plan all along. She was the one who talked to Bogo about the importance of improving the image of the police among the public. It was her who backed the implementation by all officers. She knew Nick could not possibly resist a pointless popularity competition. And she knew the fox would ask for help to his cheetah friend. She had carefully plotted for the fox to end up stuffing himself silly on camera for everyone to watch, and to learn to love it. It was as if she knew him better than the fox knew himself. What she hadn’t expected was the resounding success and the rate at which the vulpine ballooned with blubber! But that only made it even more enjoyable. She was more than happy to pay for the buffet once she lost their little contest. She had won a far better prize: a gluttonous fox who now was committed to expanding his audience just as much as his waistline.

Nick only caught up with her scheme when he realized she had stopped making videos herself, and instead, had become a diligent provider of snacks during his livestreams. But even after he realized the whole gimmick, he played dumb. He was getting food for free, and all he needed to do was to stream several times per week and absolutely stuff himself beyond capacity. Why would he stop? And after the contest was over, he never even brought up the idea of ending his thriving side hustle. Even less so when weeks later, the offer for a paid sponsorship by his favorite burger place showed up in his e-mail. He took it. Hook, line and sinker.

And to be honest he could not be sure that this had also been orchestrated by that dumb bunny.

Come to think of it… she was starting to look rather curvy. One might say bountiful. Well-fed. With a soft fuzzy paunch that, back in her Academy days, it most definitely wasn’t there. It made sense. He had seen her steal more than her fair share of sweet potato fries and occasional bites of his gargantuan meals. Being so close to an absolute glutton ought to rub off on even the most diligent metermaid.

He hadn’t said anything about it, but Nick would be lying if he said he didn’t like this sudden turn of events. The weight looked good on her. She carried it well. To the point where it made the fox wonder how well she’d look with a hundred pounds more… and perhaps then some. But that would have to wait.

Perhaps he’d have to think of a plan of his own to fatten the rabbit.

But he couldn’t do such a thing on an empty stomach. It was time to feed the fox.

The chat, much like his clothes, was bursting at the seams.

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Nick Wilde © Disney

Artwork and story © yours truly,  dragontzin