A Bit of Demographics

Before I start writing about what specific animals are up to, I should probably try to explain who they are, and what their general living situation is like, even though this is markedly less interesting than a lot of the other things I could be talking about.  The first thing I should probably explain, for instance, is the general structure of the plush population.  They fall more or less neatly into a few different groups, in a conveniently hierarchical fashion.

The coarsest distinction is that between what one might label the "active" set and the "inactive" set.  The latter tend to stay more or less in the same position, while the former often change locations.  I could have called them the "bookcase" set and the "bed" set, because all of the members of the inactive set live on one of my bookshelves (I have even more books than I do plush animals - addictive personality, remember?), except that one of the members of the active set spends most of his time on top of one of my bookcases anyway, because he's a lemur and he prefers to be in a treelike environment.

Anyway.  The "inactive" set consists of two types of animals: animals who have lived with me since before I started officially collecting (some of them I've had for decades, others only a few years), and animals who are particularly small, with some overlap.  They're probably not going to figure prominently in these posts, because they're not spending much time interacting with the others, but I might write a bit about them now and then.

Members of the inactive set:

Those of long or longish tenure: Casper (tiger); Seymour (cougar); Sithri (Siamese cat); Skandar (white tiger)

Those of small stature: Amos (ferret); Chandra (snow leopard); Chaya (black jaguar); Dante (Tasmanian Devil); Henri (giraffe); the Snark (anteater); Suraj (cheetah); Zorri (skunk)

Those of long tenure and small stature: Silver (seal); Winslow (beluga whale); and another seal and chameleon who have never seen fit to reveal their names

The "active" set has more subdivisions, with the most basic one being membership in the Wild Republic.

This is actually really important, because it's potentially confusing, in that the term "Wild Republic" actually refers to two different things.  It's a particular line of plush animals that one frequently encounters in the gift shops of zoos and museums, and it has a great deal of variety and animals one is less likely to find in plush.  The majority of my animals - including the small members of the inactive set - are from this line.  When I use the term "Wild Republic", though, I'm usually going to be referring to a particular subset of the animals who associate with AJD and me, which includes most, but not all, of the active set, and which is comprised mostly, but not entirely, of animals from the Wild Republic line.

I have no idea if I have explained this coherently, but let's pretend I did.

So the active set basically amounts to three categories: the Wild Republic, AJD's teddy bear Butterfinger (who is too much a teddy bear to be a member of the Wild Republic, but who hangs out with them a lot), and Sir Tristan, the ocelot.  Sir Tristan is an ambassador from the Wild Parliamentary Monarchy who has been sent to our chapter of the Wild Republic to build good diplomatic relations.  [A year and a half ago, I decided I really wanted an ocelot, and the only potential vendor I found for plush ocelots is based in the UK.]

Now we're down to the Wild Republic itself, which is good.  The population of the Wild Republic essentially falls into five groups, although some of the members in each group have slightly special status.

The first group has exactly two members: the Fox, who has been AJD's companion longer than I've known him, and Seal, who has been with me even longer.  (Since I was three years old, to be precise; in fact, he was the first thing I ever bought with my own money.)  I should confess right away that Seal is not actually a seal, but a sea lion (see the previous parenthetical about how I was three at the time).  Be assured that the Fox is in fact a fox, a lovely red fox.

Seal and the Fox have special status.  They're both clearly very high-ranked in the Wild Republic, but the exact nature of their rank is unclear.  Seal spends his time in my room, in my bed, apart from the main body of the group, who are based in AJD's room; the Fox lives in AJD's room, of course, but he holds himself a bit aloof from the others.

The second group of creatures are the Elder Statesmen.  Some of them are rather curmudgeonly (but no less cuddly for it).  These guys hold high rank and are either retired from active duties or old enough that retirement is probably not too far in their futures.  The fact that we were fortunate enough to be gifted with so many high-ranked Wild Republicans suggests that ours is a very important chapter, although the Wild Republicans themselves are closed-mouthed about their ultimate purpose for being with us.   

The Elder Statesmen: Desmond (manatee), Humphrey (walrus), Laszlo (moose); Leprosy (platypus), Rochester (bison); and a new river otter who has yet to reveal his name

Then we have the general populace: younger animals who are very much involved in active duty and hoping, in some cases, to move up in the ranks.  Many of them are clearly destined for high rank.

The General Populace: Alfredo (wolf); Gus (glyptodon); Hrithik (ring-tailed lemur); Mimsy (woolly mammoth); Murchison (Arctic fox); Parsley (okapi); Seleucus (Bactrian camel)

A couple of these deserve further comment.  You will have noticed that two of them (Gus and Mimsy) sound suspiciously extinct.  This is one of those things it's better not to mention in their hearing; they're understandably quite sensitive about it.  Also, Hrithik, as mentioned above, spends most of his time on top of one of my bookcases rather than in AJD's room, but he's still very much a part of this set and visits the other room on occasion.  (He's there right now, as a matter of fact.)

One may think, with all of these high-ranked and upwardly-mobile citizens, that our chapter of the Wild Republic must be a very solemn place to be, but in fact it's a frequently chaotic mess, because of the fourth segment of the population: the young ones.  We have a rather large number of baby animals [the "Wild Republic's baby animals" sub-line is OMG so cute] and they're all carnivores and most of them have a lot of energy.  This is another sign that our chapter is an important one: they've sent us a lot of animals to learn from the valuable, experienced, talented older members.  In theory, anyway.  The younger ones often seem to spend most of their time getting on their elders' nerves.

The Young Ones: Beppe (wolf); Cami (black jaguar); Flurry (snow leopard); Khamsin (cheetah); Mahler (clouded leopard); Rusty (tiger); Tibby (emperor penguin); Vim (polar bear); a panda bear known only as "Sleepyhead"; and a new lion who has yet to reveal his name

A few of these deserve further comment too.  Mahler and Cami are significantly older than the others; Mahler's an adolescent and Cami's only slightly younger.  [They're not actually part of the "baby animals" line, but they seemed younger to us.]  Khamsin's a little older than he pretends, too, though he's younger than Mahler and Cami.  And Sleepyhead... ah, Sleepyhead.  I'll explain about him later; for the moment, suffice to say that he spends all his time in my room, sleeping. 

I said there were five segments of the population.  The fifth segment consists of a single individual, namely Plouie the Adelie penguin, who belongs in a category of his own because he is... exceptional, in many respects.  Plouie, as far as we've been able to determine, was packed off by his relatives because they wanted to get rid of him.  He is, in short, totally bat-shit insane and remarkably unintelligent to boot.  The ranking members of our local chapter upon his arrival (this was before our leader came) made him postmaster general in hopes of keeping him out of trouble, but he sort of spends most of his time vibrating.  He's only got two settings: max and overloaded.  I'll explain more about Plouie later, too.

There!  That wasn't confusing at all, was it?