Titular character | Law enforcement | Reptile traffickers | The Motorvators | Stagart Studios | Other characters
Stagart Studios is a sound design company in Downtown Zootopia that provides post-production services to high-end broadcasting companies. Milo works here.
WARNING: All spoilers are unmarked. If you haven't read the story, continue reading at your own discretion.
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Dr. Jeremy Stagart
The chief executive officer of Stagart Studios and a re-recording mixer.
- Benevolent Boss: Contrary to Milo's initial preconceptions, Dr. Stagart is a cordial, polite and caring chief who is more than willing to consider Milo's application to fill in for Roestrom - this is best exemplified when instead of going right into work when speaking to Milo privately after the meeting, he asks him if he was okay after feeling ill.
- Crown of Horns: Being a red deer, he has an elaborate rack of antlers.
- Good Is Not Soft: Don't mistake his politeness for complacency: if you cross the line, he will remind you of it and will promptly punish you.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Seems to have this dynamic with veteran colleague Neil.
- Honest Corporate Executive: Squeaky-clean, respectful and cordial, his mind is on meritocracy and good results.
- Not That Kind of Doctor: Stagart's doctoral title implies a PhD in audiovisual arts - namely, sound design.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Being a Benevolent Boss and someone who is more than willing to push his workers to do more in order to do better, he absolutely qualifies.
- Sharp-Dressed Man: He's described as wearing a fine suit.
- Specs of Awesome: He uses reading glasses, but it doesn't downplay his no-nonsense attitude as a highly competent boss.
Neil Reinhardt
Overseer of the sound effects editing department, a veteran sound editor and close colleague to Stagart himself.
- Big Fun: Being a friendly, chipper rhinoceros, he surely qualifies.
- Big Ol' Eyebrows: Is described as having bushy eyebrows.
- Good Is Not Soft: Like Stagart, he won't tolerate breaking the rules, or bad behavior.
- Intergenerational Friendship: Implied to have this with Stagart.
- Nice Guy: For what little we see of him, he comes across as wholesome and polite.
- Stealth Pun: A rhino named "Reinhardt".
Melanie Rothschild
An employee at Stagart Studios, and the only one who is on friendly terms with Milo in the beginning.
- Deadpan Snarker: A little bit, and most of her sarcasm is directed at Xander.
- A Friend in Need: Upon hearing that Milo needs help for his recording trip to Outback Island, she immediately offers herself as a teammate.
- Genial Giraffe: Melanie is a textbook example, being calm, wholesome and friendly.
- Graceful Ladies Like Purple: She's shown to be quite fond of this color, wearing it on multiple occasions.
- Nice Girl: One of the most kind-hearted mammals in Stagart Studios.
- Only Friend: For a long while, Melanie was the only mammal in Stagart Studios who was nice to Milo.
- Platonic Life-Partners: She has a really close relationship with Milo. Nevertheless, it's completely platonic, as she (naturally) has no interest in rabbits.
- The Smurfette Principle: She isn't the only female worker at Stagart Studios, but she is the only one with nominal importance.
- Stealth Pun: Her last name is a play on an existing subspecies of giraffe.
- Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: As is par for the course when she's alongside Milo.
Terrence Xander
The Phooey Feline
A Stagart Studios employee who has a very big ego; it eventually becomes worse than just that.
- Attention Whore: There's almost nothing he wouldn't do to shove himself into the spotlight.
- Ax-Crazy: Normally, he stays calm and collected, but when his peace crumbles and he becomes hostile, he can go murderously berserk, and it's a frightening sight.
- Beard of Evil: His natural cheek fur and the small goatee-like patch of fur on his chin invoke this trope.
- Broken Pedestal: When Xander is outed as a software pirate and a liar, whatever respect anyone had for him disappears within an hour, and he's left disaffected and disarrayed.
- Can't Take Criticism: Observing how quick he was to clutch his pearls when Dallgren criticized him, he's very thin-skinned.
- Cats Are Mean: Or, more precisely for Xander, downright odious.
- Digging Yourself Deeper: It never occurs to him that what he's done is a serious breach of intellectual property rights, and that acting like it was a mistake doesn't help his case at all - he shouldn't have extracted sounds from a video-game, period.
- Dirty Coward: Has no qualms about physically assaulting and trying to kill a smaller, weaker Milo.
- Evil Counterpart: To Milo. While Milo is (at least initially) meek, submissive and risk-averse, Xander has an exaggerated sense of self-importance and condescendingly looks down upon others. Similarly, Milo is humble and divorces his ego from his job, whereas Xander desires praise, recognition and validation for his work. Finally, Milo proves himself to be very courageous with enough motivation and mature enough to not let his emotions take over him. Xander, for all his bluster, turns out to be nothing short of an impotent coward and an entitled brat.
- Evil Gloating: After he throws Milo's hard drives into the gator pond, he has a whole stack of internal monologue devoted to this. Suffice to say, it avails him nothing.
- Evil Is Hammy: He really chews the scenery in chapter 13, as he grows more and more unhinged in his demeanor.
- Evil Is Petty: Where to begin? He antagonizes Milo incessantly, goes out of his way to ruin his career, manipulates others into achieving his goals only to prop himself up as the one behind it all.
- Fake Ultimate Hero: He supposedly excels at his job, given how much he talks about his position. However, once his cards are revealed in chapter 9, all that he's amounted to is shown to be about being an overrated blowhard, a liar and a cheater.
- Glory Hound: With a capital G; Xander's sole concern is in acquiring accolades for important milestones that he hasn't earned.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Not only literally because he has green eyes, but because he developed a major superiority complex after noticing that most of the people he asked for help on his own projects were more talented and skilled than he'd ever be; this counts doubly for Milo, who had the temerity to call him out for it.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: It turns out that beneath his cool, smooth-talking facade, Xander has a very short fuse and blows up almost instantly when something about him is criticized.
- Hate Sink: "Profoundly unlikable" is his middle name, and with good reason; he shows next to no redeeming qualities, which helps readers relate to Milo more. Especially in chapter 14, where he not only tries to destroy Milo's recording session by disposing of his hard drives, but actually goes to assault him and even tries to kill him.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: He used pirated sound effects in order to finish his assignments in record time. It never occurred to him that this kind of behavior would bite him in the ass later.
- It's All About Me: Xander takes this behavior into narcissist territory.
- Jerkass: To an appalling degree; as soon as his first scene, he follows Milo around in order to rub his success into the rabbit's face, when he clearly isn't in the mood for hearing it. It's Milo's general inertia that stops him from calling him out on it. He takes it to a whole new level when he deliberately tries to sabotage Milo's attempt to get a chance to show his skill, showing that he's willing to walk over anyone to get what he wants. It escalates into outright evil when he opts to destroy Milo's Outback Island job out of envy and blind hatred instead of taking responsibility for his own misdeeds.
- Lack of Empathy: You're looking at someone who'd stoop so low as to willfully get his colleagues fired, ruin their jobs and even try and kill someone, without even a pinch of remorse.
- Laser-Guided Karma: It hits him like a brick several times; the first is when he's fired from Stagart Studios for software piracy, and the second when he's arrested for breaking into Milo's motel room.
- Manipulative Bastard: Given what's been said about him earlier, he uses more gullible people as a vessel to get his jobs done more easily, which no doubt requires charm.
- Miles Gloriosus: He's not nearly as skilled in sound design as he likes to let people on; most of the time, he had others do the brunt of the work for him.
- Moral Myopia: He takes offense to the fact that someone outed him as a software pirate and compromised his career, when he's done the same to anyone who wouldn't hold his hand on complex projects.
- Narcissist: Xander is an ego run amok: he has an insatiable lust for validation, an exaggerated sense of self-importance and a distinct Lack of Empathy for others.
- Never My Fault: Xander routinely blames others for his own mistakes, often to the point of lying to save face. Not that it always works, though.
- Obviously Evil: Take a very good look at the picture and tell us he isn't up to no good.
- Pride: This is his Fatal Flaw, and it brings about his demise.
- Psychopathic Manchild: When he doesn't have his way, he essentially behaves like this - throwing tantrums, screaming and whimpering.
- Psychotic Smirk: His picture says it all.
- Revenge Myopia: He wants "revenge" against Milo... because he had the temerity to challenge his sanctimonious and intolerant derision of him and because he was coincidentally outed as a software pirate after that.
- Sanity Slippage: He wasn't exactly psychologically sound, to begin with, but after he's fired, he goes completely off his rocker, even so far as to try and kill Milo.
- Slasher Smile: Said to sport a "maniacal grin" at the end of chapter 13, when he begins to plot to sabotage Milo's recording session.
- Smug Snake: He has an obnoxiously exaggerated sense of self-importance and is very quick to assume superiority over others.
- Sore Loser: He really doesn't have the guile to accept defeat when he sees it. He'll throw tantrums, foam at the mouth and even escalate to violence if he doesn't have his way.
- Starter Villain: He's the first character that sticks out as a major antagonist, up until his defeat in chapter 14.
- Stupid Evil: Given that he pirated sound effects from a video-game and used them in a studio project, and later resisted arrest even when the officer has announced themselves, he definitely doesn't let go of the Villain Ball.
Billy Bob Bevis & Hank Dallgren
Two employees of Stagart Studios who appear to be good friends.
- Alliterative Name: Billy Bob Bevis.
- Big Brother Instinct: Dallgren steps in front of Bevis to protect him from Xander, given that the latter is an unhinged narcissist and might attack anyone who challenges him.
- Big Guy, Little Guy: Dallgren and Bevis, respectively.
- Brutal Honesty: Dallgren is completely unapologetic when it comes to pointing out inaccuracies and mistakes, as seen when he talks to Xander. Then again, it's not his fault that the latter is an emotionally brittle narcissist.
- Deadpan Snarker: Dallgren is highly capable of making snide comments about the idiocy of others, especially Xander.
- Everyone Has Standards: Sure, they may be sycophantic to Xander in the beginning, but eventually, even they are appalled to learn how disingenuous, fraudulent and sleazy he really is.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Sure, they look like a pair of toadies to Xander at first, but when Xander's actions are brought to light at the board meeting, they immediately change their minds about him. Bevis is also genuinely concerned when he finds a sick Milo and gives him words of encouragement to get him back on track; Dallgren, on the other hand, steps in to defend Bevis from Xander in case the cat tried something.
- Non-Indicative Name: You'd think that Bevis would be a beaver due to his last name; instead, he's a muskrat.
- Those Two Guys: Bevis and Dallgren are usually seen together, talking together.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Sure, they seem to bicker and insult one another a lot, but it's very clear that their camaraderie is stronger than that.
Isabella
Stagart's secretary, and a sandcat by species.
- Cats Are Mean: Inverted; she's cordial and professional for the most part.
- Flat Character: Other than her secretary duty, she doesn't show much personality.
