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Of otters and men

This is the bit where my work colleagues would probably tell you to run away.

If you wander off to do a websearch for the word `furry', you're certain to encounter a number of sites describing Furry Fandom, a very broad grouping which currently seems to include anyone who's read Watership Down once or twice and thought it was good, all the way up to people who believe themselves to be wolves born to parents of the wrong species, and who try to work that out in every area of their lives, apart from using the internet, taking advantage of advances in medical science, getting well-paid jobs in California's computer industry, etc.

My interest probably sits around the middle of the camp.

I'm interested in mammals, particularly carnivores, particularly mustelids (the weasel family). I used to be wildly interested in foxes, learning all the different species, their latin names, some of their behaviours and locales, until one Christmas day, just after I'd been asked to set the table with the good silver. I found myself gazing at the wall of the dining room, not thinking of awfully much, when suddenly my enthusiasm for all things vulpine was removed - exactly as if someone had pulled my brain's Nintendo cartridge - and replaced with an equal focus on otters and other weasels.

I enjoy cartoons (who doesn't) and I'm likely to be more sympathetic to a mediocre comic strip which involves talking animals than to one just involving humans. I particularly like ones where the animals talk, even talk with the humans, but they're still treated like animals: flea collars, eating from a bowl, etc. These include The Grizzwells, Get Fuzzy, Citizen Dog, Safe Havens, Over the Hedge, Kevin and Kell, and of course, Buckles, and Calvin and Hobbes. Other stories which have anthropomorphic animals which in are also fun, although some are just humans in funny animal costumes. That couldn't be said of Flo in Freefall. I read The Class Menagerie less frequently than I could, but I read Ozy and Millie when it comes out. The most comprehensive link I can give you is http://www.belfry.com, which lists all the above, and more.

I roleplay a character on FurryMuck. Warwick is a seriously oversized (10') Common River Otter (Lutra lutra) who currently wanders around either in a white winter coat, or doing a sort of maltese otter impression, in metallic gold fur. Aren't you glad I'm safely here, behind my text editor, and will never know you visited my site? I tend to view Warwick as a sort of general pet. He's obviously exposing some deep need of mine to be paid attention to - he normally wanders around soliciting attention from people. He doesn't talk unless I think it'd be funny in a given situation (or unless I can't be bothered composing text into the passive voice), he doesn't like being fed things (although he's happy to steal food), and he doesn't do the clothing bit, because he's not an anthropomorphic otter. (He's a theriomorph. Look it up. :)

Warwick likes: shiny things, slippy things, shiny slippy things, pretty dragons, kangaroos, other weasels, birdy things.

Warwick dislikes: vampires.

I like (mudding): good spelling, good grammar, and a healthy vocabulary.

I dislike (mudding): characters with arbitrary wings glued onto their shoulders.

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