Life wasn't easy for Jhi Jhi, who just shortened her full name to Jiji. She was aware that she made her own difficulties. She was a leopard gecko, hatched in the reptilian island nation of Pawaii. Her passion was to become a massage therapist, and she lived through a difficult political time in her country. Larger reptiles were being restricted from travel and were mandated to wear collars that limited their bite strength and how far they could open their snouts, or else face an electric shock.
Such mandates were made by the "Lizard" party, a numerous and loud group of small reptiles that spread a campaign of fear and hatred across Pawaii. Jiji did not agree with their views, as she knew many kind "Snappers", as large reptiles were called. She thought it unfair especially that several snakes she knew had to wear the collars whereas other, smaller snakes were exempt.
Finally though, the Lizard party made a grave error in restricting travel to Zootopia, who at the time was governed by Vince Mousawitz of the new-age party. To send a message, Vince restricted travel to Pawaii and encouraged other areas to follow suit, and surprisingly enough, they did. Pawaii's prosperity largely consisted of tourism and trade, and their economy threatened to buckle under the sanctions. This gave rise to a more moderate political party, the Snappers, and they managed to end the oppression wrought against them.
This suited Jiji just fine, as she loved mammals. She loved the interesting softness and textures and patterns of their fur. In fact, her peers often made fun of her for this, calling her a "mammalphile" and the like. Jiji eventually dreamed of moving to Zootpia, where she knew "anyone could be anything".
That turned out to be more of a slogan, really.
She moved in next-door to Nick and Judy Wilde-Hopps, and became fast friends with the two. The first worry was when she lost her tail after it was stepped on in a crowded street and no one moved to help her, but rather reacted with shock. The only sympathy came from the Wilde-Hopps family. Though her tail grew back, a regrown tail wasn't seen as an attractive feature for a leopard gecko to have.
Rather than be a massage therapist, she found the only job she could get was at a restaurant that wanted to employ genuine Pawaiians, of which there were precious few in Zootopia. Jiji was rather popular there, and work became almost a safe haven for her.
It seemed like ninety percent of Zootopia didn't even know what Jiji was. She was often disparagingly called a "lizard" by mammals, and many had little patience for her mediocre mammalian reading skills or her idiosyncrasies when she was talking in mammalian.
Though leopard geckos were known for their resting face being a smile, Jiji had to admit to the Wilde-Hopps that on occasion she no longer felt like smiling. She loved mammals, and Zootopia, but she was finding the love wasn't returning to her. She felt almost panicked when Nick and Judy eventually had to move out of their Aardvark Rise apartment due to changing life circumstances, but she still had Larry Wilde-Hopps living there, and he was a steadfast friend for her.
Eventually, she got a part time job at a massage parlor that had several different types of "exotic" paw, claw, and hoof massages on offer. It was barely even a job, as Jiji's hands were in so low demand that she actually had to be called in to work. She did love massaging though, and enjoyed her waitress job well enough, so she took her happiness where she could find it.
With a lot of love and hope in her heart, Jiji often dreamed about being in a relationship with a raccoon, red panda, or some sort of other animal with interesting fur patterns. Reality set down hard on her though, when even as she added her information to a bunch of dating services, she was thrown a lot of hateful messages for daring to be a reptile that asked for a mammal mate. She did find an interested raccoon once, but quickly found out that just because a male had an interest in reptiles, didn't mean he was a kind mammal. She quickly abandoned the online dating scene and deleted her profiles, wishing no more hateful messages.
A few years after she had given up on a relationship, she found her smile tended to wane more and more, even on her jobs, though it did kick back up when she could see any of the Wilde-Hopps. She was finally an official citizen of Zootopia, not that any mammal really cared about that. Jiji began to notice a striped polecat named Frederick Vault who began to ask for massages from her and only her. He was somewhat shy and asked a lot of questions about Jiji and Pawaii. She in return didn't get much from him other than that he was a marine biologist.
As it turned out, Frederick, or just "Freddie", found Jiji attractive, especially her reptilian-accented voice. Jiji had to admit Freddie was nice too, especially his black and white striped fur which she inwardly found incredibly appealing. Freddie eventually moved in with Jiji into her apartment. There was no provision for a mammal and reptile to get married, but nevertheless, both were happy. Freddie had to admit though, that when it was time for her to shed her skin, that made him feel quite uncomfortable. She did look much more colorful right after, though.
Freddie took business trips to Pawaii for his research on occasion, and he even more occasionally got to take Jiji with him to go scuba diving in Pawaii's waters. Because of this, Jiji had to make sure that she kept an eye on the political scene of Pawaii, which seemed just as volatile as the one in Zootopia, with it's growing unrest against predator/prey relationships.
After awhile of being in power, the Snappers had started to put on airs and one notorious figure even tried to get "revenge" against the Lizard party by trying to put reproductive limits on smaller reptiles, claiming they were overpopulating Pawaii. This made Jiji uneasy; she found politics repugnant, and wished that people would just live their lives in peace without disturbing others. The Lizard party came back into power when the Snappers' proposals were defeated, and Jiji hoped she wouldn't live to see another distressing political event in Pawaii.
Despite her aversion to politics, Jiji often found herself reading about them anyway, trying to keep appraised of the situations in Pawaii, Zootopia, and even Bunnyburrow. Bunnyburrow was seeing a strong push by the new-age party to get many bunnies "fixed". Jiji always found herself more interested, however, in the more personal stories she could find in the Bunnyburrow family, especially about the Hopps. It turned out that her friend Judy had quite a large family, and she loved learning about them.