So why do you have so many stuffed animals, anyway?
It's a collection: I collect non-canonical stuffed animals, by which I mean "things that aren't teddy bears or dogs or whatever." Some of them are less non-canonical than others, of course.
How long have you been collecting them?
This collection got started about four years ago. I had a lot of stuffed animals when I was a kid, but that wasn't really an official collection, and most of it was got rid of a long time ago. A few of the animals I have now are survivors from my childhood, though: Seal (who was the first thing I ever bought with my own money), Casper and Seymour, and some of the members of the Mini Republic.
Where do you get your animals? Do you go looking for particular animals, or do you just take what you find?
A bit of both. Most of them come from gift shops at museums and zoos; those are both really good places to find unusual stuffed animals. In those cases, I just take what I find there. I prefer doing it that way because you can pick which animal you want. All of the animals of a certain type are very slightly different, and that can be the difference between an okay specimen and a really cute one (and it affects how you conceive of their personality, too). The trick, which I learned from my mother, is to look at their faces.
But, of course, sometimes I decide that there's a specific animal I really want, and you can't count on being able to find them in the wild, so to speak. And it's not like I go to zoos and museums that often. So in those cases, I look for them online. Also, a few of the animals were presents from other people. That's how I ended up with Gus, Gilly, and Gyork. (The fact that their names all begin with "g" is a coincidence.)
Where do you get your ideas?
It's all character-driven - that is to say, most of it comes from the animals themselves. They have personalities that suggest themselves to you from the beginning - cf. above about faces - and then stuff just sort of comes to us. Almost everything about the animals originated in improv, either mine or AJD's, and then once we've established something as canon, it takes on a life of its own. We're not above deciding it would be awesome if the kittens played football or if there were a poker game; but we always used what we've established so far as the basis for everything. None of the animals ever behaves in a way that doesn't make sense for their character.
You don't really think your stuffed animals are real, do you?
This is not a well-defined question. What is real, anyway? Each of us lives in several different layers of reality simultaneously; we just don't usually think about it all that much, if we think about it at all. I happen to think life is more enjoyable when one exploits this fact.
The majority of the animals are the products of a line called the Wild Republic, which is a clever play on the term wild kingdom to refer to the fact that the company is American. AJD was the one who had the idea that this meant a specific organisation. So the default now is that all the animals belong to the Wild Republic, but some of them don't fit into it for some reason. The main groups are:
The Wild Republic: the default group. There has to be a specific reason for us to decide an animal belongs to a different group. Not all of them are made by the Wild Republic, and not all Wild Republic animals belong to it.
The Ice Age: a subgroup of the Wild Republic, comprised of ice age creatures. They're under the protection of the Wild Republic. These animals are all extinct, and they're sensitive about it, so don't mention it to them.
The Wild Parliamentary Monarchy: all animals who come from the UK. There's a wonderful stuffed animal website based in the UK called Interfauna, and I've acquired a few animals from there. Some of them (e.g. Angel Joe) are technically made by the Wild Republic manufacturer, but if I ordered them from Interfauna, they get classed in here.
The Mini Republic: all small stuffed animals. Some of them are the products of the Wild Republic too; that company makes animals in multiple sizes.
The Wild Mythic Federation: all mythical creatures. We have only one who hangs around.
The Wild Cryptic Confederacy: all cryptic creatures. Again, we have only one of them.
Is the Wild Republic based on anything in particular? What about the Wild Parliamentary Monarchy?
Loosely, in both cases. The Wild Republic is loosely based on the United States. The Wild Parliamentary Monarchy is loosely based on Regency-era Great Britain, only with gender equality. The Wild Fascist Dictatorship (the sworn enemy of the Wild Parliamentary Monarchy) is loosely based on Franco-era Spain, or Turkmenistan under Turkmenbashi.
Why so many guy animals? What's with that?
Well, see, when I think "stuffed animal", I think, "cuddly!" And I'm a heterosexual girl, so when I think "cuddly" I think "boys!" That's about all there is to it.
But you're not a furry?
Hell no.
Which of the animals is your favourite?
Hmm, well, it depends on what you mean. There are some animals who get a lot more facetime in the blog because, for whatever reason, they inspire more stories. Gilly, Magick, Plouie, the kittens, and Zebulon, for instance, seem to get more mention than a lot of the others, so you could say that they're my favourites with respect to this blog. But if you mean my personal favourite, then the answer is basically "whichever one I happen to be holding at the moment", because I'm very fond of all of them. That said, I have a particular soft spot for Seal, and another for Magick.
Yeah, what's the deal with you and Magick, anyway?
I have a special fondness for him for two reasons: black panthers are my very favourite animal, and this particular black panther specimen lent himself well to embodying everything I find hottest about historical romance heroes. The second part is not entirely separate from the first, but not an immediate consequence of it either: it happened to be the case that the best plush black panther available is made by Interfauna, and since the Wild Parliamentary Monarchy is quasi-Regency England (cf. above), someone needed to be a maverick romance hero type, and the black panther was the obvious choice because he looks dangerous.
In canon, of course, the story is that we'd totally run off together, except that I'm not a furry and Magick prefers his women to have more than one pair of breasts.
You talk about some of the animals more than others; do the others just not have as many interesting properties?
Actually, no. All of them have some interesting quirks; it's just that some of them are less easy to make into mini-stories than others. Take Laszlo, for instance. He's a world-class tap dancing moose. Did you know that? You didn't! It's just that there's not much of anywhere to go from that. Whereas, the kittens and Plouie can be relied upon to do weird and crazy adorable things on a fairly reguular basis, so they get more page time than Laszlo does.
Do you know what's going to happen to each of your animals?
AJD and I talk sometimes about 'X will probably end up...', but not seriously. Some things are clearly going to happen, but we don't think or talk about them in much detail. It's clear, for instance, that Alfredo will be promoted to a high position eventually, and that Tibby's going to end up having an exemplary storied career in something, and that Lady Faraday is destined to go down in history books as one of her country's greatest diplomats, and that she and Sir Tristan are going to get married and see if it's possible to generate a bunch of servalots - but none of this is likely to ever get worked out.
I do, however, know exactly what Magick's future has in store for him, and it's awesome. But it's a secret. I told AJD about it, but I'll never post it on the blog.
Are we ever going to meet Reggie's nephew Barmy, or Winidavefred the badger?
Yeah, go on and taunt me with my weakness. I can take it.
So there are two kinds of characters that I don't have animals for and that exist outside the realm of daily interaction. There are random relatives of canonical characters who are made up solely to give existing characters more texture, and then there are characters I mention once who grab my imagination and insist that they must become characters. You'll never see the former; there's a good chance you'll eventually see the latter. Most of the time when I'm seized with the need to acquire a specific character (rather than a specific type of animal) it's because I feel kind of bad about separating that off-screen character from the canonical character linked to it. Beppe is here because I felt bad about killing off poor Alfredo's wife; Lady Faraday is here because I felt guilty about giving Sir Tristan a girlfriend and then making him pine away for her. Reggie's nephew Barmy, Rebus's older brother Robulus, and Navarre's two sisters are just background colour; they're unlikely to ever materialise. Angel Joe's partner-in-crime, Winidavefred the badger, is another story. I've been wanting to bring him here ever since I made him up.
What about Ebenezer Popcorn?
You can imagine what kind of mess introducing an insane evil dictator sheep to this bunch would cause, right?
Aww, you must be a really sweet and snuggly person, right?
Not particularly, no. I'm a moody quasi-Goth with the overall temperament of a feral cat. But everyone is multi-faceted.
What does your boyfriend think about all these stuffed animals?
It's yet to become an issue. When I started this blog, AJD and I were still together, and (obviously) he thinks it's a lot of fun. I haven't had a boyfriend since we broke up.
So what is the deal with your chupacabra, anyway?
Everything I know about the chupacabra has been posted on this blog. If I ever learn more about it, like where the hell it came from, I'll tell you.
Who is Team Malagasy, and what's the deal with them?
Team Malagasy is Hrithik and Zebulon, both primates from Madagascar. Despite being part of the Wild Republic, Hrithik remains a staunch Malagasy patriot. Zebulon is less obviously patriotic, but seems happy enough to reminisce about his homeland for Hrithik's sake. As for what they're up to, though... we're not sure. At first we weren't even sure they were up to anything... but now we're getting suspicious.
Where do you get their names?
In the process of naming the animals, we sometimes end up working out onomastic traditions for different species. Emperor penguins, for instance, follow the old-style Roman onomastic customs; lions have their own particular pattern that is vaguely reminiscent of the Roman tradition but clearly their own. We really, really try to avoid themes and odd constraints, because it makes coming up with a good name all the more difficult; but sometimes they materialise anyway. So, for instance, apparently polar bears all have names that are either English nouns formed from oblique forms of Latin nouns or strange variations thereof. Bovines have this weird fascination with New York and are always named accordingly. And the cats. Oh dear God the cats. The cats all have to have nature-themed names. This is because I got three Mini Republic cats and gave them Sanskrit nature names, and then a while later got a few more cats who also lent themselves to nature names... and now I'm stuck with this pattern, and not all of them are easy. This is particularly true of the Wild Parliamentary cats, who not only have to have nature-themed names, but also have to have names that sound vaguely British and aristocratic.
What kind of name is Plouie?
It's Welsh. Well... it's New South Welsh. Or... Newer Souther Welsh. It comes from ap Louie, meaning 'son of Louie', analogous to Pugh (ap Hugh) or Pritchard (ap Richard) and cognate with MacRobert 'son of Robert' and all those other Scots/Irish names starting with M(a)c-.
If you were stranded on a desert island and you could have only three of your animals, which three would they be?
Hmm. Magick, because he's a) brilliant and b) dangerous; he could keep the bears away and think of ways to escape from the island. Humphrey, because he's familiar with the sea and might be able to intercept a boat. And Hrithik, because he has a) awesome super meditation powers and b) good tree-climbing skills.
Are you aware that you use a lot of parentheticals?
Of course. It's the way I think: everything has footnotes, even the footnotes themselves.
