Mazel tov!

After seven years as a couple (a few of them long-distance) and one near-breakup caused by a certain penguin's less-than-perfect performance as postmaster, Sir Tristan and Lady Faraday are officially engaged!

Unfortunately, I missed the proposal, because I was off playing a socially-challenged bishonen sorcerer in a game of Exalted.  But I'm told that it was incredibly romantic, and that Lady Faraday got down on three knees and everything.  Apparently they'd been talking about marriage for a while, but the proposal itself was a surprise for Sir Tristan.

There may or may not be pictures of this.  It's less than clear, because the engagement party was quite an event.  I got home while it was still going on; Magick was making cocktails and pretty much everyone was totally wasted except for him and, ironically, the happy couple (who do look really, really happy).  Lady Artemisia might have taken pictures, but she's looking like she might be out for a while.

Lady Faraday says that they haven't set a wedding date yet, but they're not intending to have a very long engagement, so probably it will be within the year.  They haven't decided whether to be married here or to go back home briefly so that their families can attend.

Poker Part III

When I left off the account of the poker game, Magick had just won big on a bluff, and nearly caused an International Incident in doing so when he refused to show his winning hand.  Rochester and Humphrey were  rather riled up.  Not only were their general appetites for winning whetted, but they now personally wanted to beat Magick.  As news of Magick's enigmatic victory spread around the north room, the audience for the poker match steadily grew.

The new players still had not worked out that victories are worth more if you keep the other players in the game for longer.  A few games after Magick's big victory, Rochester made the same mistake that Reggie had earlier.  He had two kings in his hand, and Reggie dealt another king on the turn.  Rochester prematurely went all in, causing all of the others to fold (except Humphrey, who had already folded).  He felt a bit vindicated, after that loss to Magick.

Remember how I said that the size of the peanut gallery was steadily increasing from the point of Magick's victory onward?  One of the newer arrivals was Gilly.  Gilly wasn't actually all that interested in the cards, but he'd worked out that the poker chips were worth something and decided to claim them all.  He's a rather mercenary little fellow, our Gilly.

It was growing pretty late now, and everyone could tell that the end of the game was drawing nearer.  Magick was dealt the queen and ten of spades, and decided to sit.  Reggie, with a pair of aces, decided to raise.  Humphrey and Rochester called; Humphrey had the ten and king of diamonds and Rochester the six and nine of diamonds.  Magick decided to go ahead and call too.

The turn produced the nine of spades, queen of hearts, and three of clubs.  This produced a holding pattern: Magick and Humphrey were looking at possible straights, but could still turn out to have dross, and Rochester now had a pair, but a low pair; Reggie's hand wasn't improved.  Then the flip yielded the eight of spades, which made things look better for Magick.  He bet six dollars; Reggie raised to ten.  The others stayed in.  Reggie's enthusiasm was significantly greater than his skill, and no one really believed Magick had anything.

Then the river prodcued the jack of spades.  Humphrey now had a straight - and Magick now had a straight flush.  He promptly went all in.

Had any of the others gone all in, everyone else probably would have folded, but no one trusted Magick.  Rochester in particular was grimly determined to stay in and force Magick out of the game. He had an even better hand this time, even though his hand wasn't particularly good.  Humphrey, with his straight, was seeing glory.  Reggie was just having fun.

So everyone went all in.

Here's a shot taken further out, so you can see just how much attention the poker game had attracted by this point in the evening.

Gilly, Barry, Desmond, Parsley, Seleucus... even Leprosy had come over by then, and Murchison was excited enough that he had moved in closer for a better view.

With everyone all in, of course, Magick had to show his hand.  He played it up for all it was worth, of course; he made a great show of trying not to seem reluctant while secretly being reluctant and managed to draw out the suspense for just long enough before revealing his straight flush.  The game was his.

Such excitement!  Rochester and Humphrey stared at each other in profound shock, while everyone else rushed to congratulate Magick, except for Desmond, who stayed to provide moral support to his fellow marine mammal.

It remains to be seen how many of them will ever again agree to play poker with Magick, of course.  Reggie probably would.  Humphrey and Rochester could go either way; they might want revenge, or they might be reluctant to try again.  As for the spectators, they all want to learn poker now, but possibly not against Magick, although they all want to know his secrets.  He, of course, says that these are things one learns for oneself.

I was pretty impressed, too.  There's just something about males who know how to play poker.

Poker Part II

When I left off my account of the poker game, Rochester, who had been on the verge of quitting, had decided that he liked poker after all, thanks to an exciting showdown victory over Sir Tristan.  All of the players were fully committed now: Magick and Sir Tristan are longtime poker aficionados, having played together since their kittenhood; Humphrey had won two early games and was convinced he was a natural; Reggie just likes games; and Rochester, the last holdout, was converted.

After another hour or so, Sir Tristan, who had recovered somewhat from his loss to Rochester, won a hand with a pair of aces over Rochester's nines and Humphrey's jacks.

Sir Tristan had now achieved a tidy profit.  Not a huge profit; he's too conservative a player to win dramatic splashy victories most of the time.  But he was coming out ahead, and that was what he'd been after, so he collected his winnings and politely withdrew from the match.  He doesn't always decide to leave poker games early like this, but he always does when he's playing with Magick.

The new players weren't sure why he'd quit when he had, but they didn't mind too much.  They were starting to get the hang of the game now, but they hadn't picked up on some of the subtleties yet.  So, for instance, two hands after Sir Tristan's departure, Reggie discovered that he had two pairs between his hand and the table: queens and sixes.  Delighted, he promptly went all in, causing everyone else to fold.  Reggie didn't realise that he'd have won more had he kept the others in the game for longer; he was too excited over his victory.  Here he is, showing everyone his cards.

There are different kinds of winners and losers.  There's the quiet and gracious type of winner, like Sir Tristan, for instance.  Other winners get very excited and exuberant.  Some of them make you want to slap them, and some of them don't.  Humphrey is the first kind of excited winner.  When Humphrey wins, he gloats and pats  himself on the back and generally makes a show of himself, so that the losers feel that much more annoyed that he won.  Reggie is an equally exuberant winner, but in a very different way.  He's utterly delighted when he wins, but he doesn't take his victory as a sign of superiority in any way.  There's something almost innocent in his display of enthusiasm, and it makes the other players happy for him.

By this point in the game, Magick had managed a few small victories, enough to keep him playing, but he was still behind the others in terms of chips.  A game or two after Reggie's victory, Magick was dealt a bad hand and decided it was time to have some fun.  Sir Tristan had left the game, after all.  For the sake of friendship, Magick refrains from having too much fun until Sir Tristan has left the table.  Not that he'd gone far.  He'd located Lady Faraday, who had now left the kittens to their fun, and the two of them had come back to watch.  Sir Tristan leaving the poker game is always Lady Faraday's cue to come watch.

Rochester, who had the first bet, had been dealt two queens, so he bet five dollars; everyone else called.  The turn produced the ace of spades, six of hearts, and four of diamonds.  Rochester again bet five dollars.  Magick, playing as though he held an ace, raised two dollars.  Humphrey folded - he only had the ten of hearts and nine of clubs - but the others called.

The flip produced the king of hearts.  Rochester again bet five dollars, with some trepidation.  Magick decided that he also had a king, and raised another five.  Reggie had the king of diamonds and junk; he went ahead and called, but he was rather nervous about it.  Rochester also called.

So it was down to the river, which turned up the nine of hearts.  Rochester prudently checked, upon which Magick went all in.  Reggie and Rochester were sufficiently dismayed by this show of confidence that they didn't want to go all in and folded.  And so Magick won - with the seven of clubs and two of hearts.

The others wanted to see his hand, of course.  Magick refused to tell.

By the point Rochester was getting rather hot under the collar.  He had had a genuinely good hand, and proceeded to show everyone.  But Magick, still keeping mum, quietly and rather enigmatically raked in his winnings.  Magick is very good at enigmatic.  He comes by it naturally, but he's not above making use of it.

Magick explained to Rochester that the rules of poker do not require any player to reveal his hand, even if he wins.  Rochester did not believe him and insisted he show his cards; met with Magick's continued refusal, he demanded to see the rule book.  Lady Faraday, who had been perched on the rule book, promptly opened the book to the correct page - without bothering to look it up - and pointed to the rule in question.  She has watched Magick play poker before.

Confronted with the official rule, Rochester had no choice but to lay off, but he kept grumbling about it under his breath.  Had this happened earlier in the game, when he was still unsure he liked it, he probably would have quit.  Lady Faraday has no patience with this attitude; she believes players should always be gracious.  Here she is regarding Rochester sternly while the others clean up after the last hand.  (Humphrey has the next deal.)  You can see Murchison watching carefully in the distance.  Magick's activities are of general professional interest to him.

I should mention here that Lady Faraday did not decline to join in the game because she doesn't know how to play poker, or even because she is too ladylike to play poker in mixed company.  Actually, she's a very good poker player. She is better than Sir Tristan, in fact, and Sir Tristan is pretty good.  But she refuses, on principle, to play poker with Magick.

The game wasn't over yet, mind.  Now Rochester wanted revenge, so to speak.  And so did Humphrey, because this particular victory of Magick's eclipsed his own so far.

Poker Part I

During the reception held in honour of Sir Angel Joe, Magick discovered that there were some poker chips lying around, and decided to ask whether anyone wanted to play a game of poker.  It turned out that the denizens of the Wild Republic had never actually played poker before, but a few of them were interested in learning how.  Reggie was pretty keen, and Rochester and Humphrey were interested too.  And, of course, Sir Tristan wanted to play.  Magick and Sir Tristan have been playing poker together since they were kittens at boarding school.  A desire to keep the kittens of the local chapter unaware of the game for a bit longer led Lady Faraday to teach them Yahtzee instead.

So here they are, getting ready to play.  They've all anted up.  Reggie really wanted to be the bank, and Sir Tristan volunteered to take charge of the rule book.  He also agreed to be the first dealer.  Laszlo, Mahler, and Desmond aren't playing, but they wanted to watch.

They played for a very long time, so we aren't going to show pictures of the entire game.  That would be excessive and often not interesting.  I'll just show you the highlights, and bits from the first few hands.

Here everyone is after the first deal.  Magick raised, Rochester called, Humphrey raised yet again.  Rochester and Sir Tristan prudently folded, but Magick and Reggie went ahead and called.

After the turn, essentially the same thing happened: Magick raised, Reggie called, Humphrey raised again, and the others called.  After the flip, Magick raised again, but this time Humphrey didn't raise further; he and Reggie just called.  Then came the river, and this time Magick folded.  Reggie raised, but then Humphrey raised again, and Reggie decided to fold.  So Humphrey won, and he was very pleased with himself.  Probably more pleased with himself than he needed to be; but hey, he was new at this.

The next game they played didn't force a showdown either.  This time, Magick raised again; Reggie and Humphrey called; and this time Sir Tristan raised.  Rochester promptly folded.  He was starting to be a bit unhappy; he wasn't really sold on the game.  Folding early isn't really all that exciting, especially when everyone else calls and continues playing.

Here's the state of the game after the turn. The four of diamonds, five of clubs, and ace of spades are all on the table.

Magick raised.  He raised rather a lot, in fact; he depleted his stack of chips at a much faster pace than any of the others.  Reggie folded, but the other two called.  Then the flip turned up the queen of spades.  Sir Tristan was pleased: he now had a pair of queens.

Sir Tristan is a very careful player: very good at assessing the game, but inclined to play conservatively.  Nevertheless, he's pretty good at working out if he has a better hand than his competitors, especially when most of them don't really know what they're doing, and it was very clear to him that no one else had anything nearly as good as a pair of queens.  Magick raised again, and Humphrey called, but Sir Tristan still felt confident enough that he went ahead and raised again, and then Magick folded.  Humphrey folded after the river, when it was clear that Sir Tristan had a good hand. 

The next game they played turned out to be very disappointing for poor Reggie.  After the deal, no one had a particularly good hand; Humphrey raised a bit, but Sir Tristan and Reggie decided to fold, and the others just called.  But then the deal happened, and Reggie suddenly became visibly disappointed.  He's a river otter; they're not really all that good at hiding their feelings.  Reggie was sort of wiggling all over the place with big sad eyes.  He didn't say what the problem was, but the others could guess.

Humphrey, still feeling rather over-confident thanks to his early win, over-raised after the turn.  Rochester decided to call just to keep playing, because he'd folded on every previous game and was becoming impatient.  Magick called as well.  They all bet five dollars on the flip.  No one really had much of anything, though.  Humphrey and Rochester both checked after the river; Magick raised, but only a small amount.  Humphrey then decided to raise by a large amount, which caused the others to fold.  He was pretty pleased with himself.

After Humphrey's win, Reggie revealed that he would have had a straight, had he stayed in the game.  The others were sympathetic.  Well, except for Humphrey.  Here you can see Humphrey gloating over his mound of chips while Reggie regards his would-be straight mournfully.

See the way Magick is positioned, with his cards under his paw?  That's his general gaming pose, apparently.  He's very suave even when he's losing, which he was doing rather markedly at this point.  Compare his piles of chips to Reggie's.

By the next hand, the players had very different attitudes towards the game.  Humphrey was now high on two big victories and was convinced that poker is the best game ever, and that he, Humphrey, was a poker king.  Reggie was feeling a bit down, although Magick and Sir Tristan both assured him that he had been correct to fold given the information he had available at the time; he wanted to keep playing, though, in case he had a good hand.  Magick was losing but seemed unfazed by it; when Humphrey made a cocky remark, Magick said that everyone has off nights.  Sir Tristan was doing moderately well and felt pretty good about it.  But Rochester was really not having a good time.  He didn't feel like he was playing a game at all, and he was ready to stop playing.  The others convinced him to try just one more hand, and he gave in grudgingly.

After the next deal, Humphrey and Magick both folded.  Sir Tristan raised, and the others stayed in the game, Rochester with a sort of grim look of determination: this was going to be his last hand and he was going to play it out, damnit.

The turn produced the queen of spades, the five of clubs, and the queen of diamonds, and this was good for everyone.  Sir Tristan, who was to go first, had a queen in his hand.  Rochester called; he didn't have anything just yet, but he had the beginnings of a possible flush.  And Reggie had two pairs, so he stayed in as well, really wanting to redeem himself.  The flip turned up the six of spades, and Rochester perked up a bit.  He was starting to feel like he was playing after all; he even raised Sir Tristan's bet.  Reggie folded at this point, but Sir Tristan called.  And the river turned up the eight of spades: Rochester had his flush.

This was the game's first showdown, so the new players were particularly thrilled.  After Sir Tristan's bet, Rochester went all in - and won.  He had had the two and king of spades.

Here you can see Mahler, Laszlo, and Magick admiring Rochester's winning hand.

Sir Tristan was gracious in defeat, and Rochester was (mostly) gracious in victory.  He decided that poker was a good game after all, and that was the end to his thoughts of quitting the game.

A Charming Tale of Friendship and Romance

Once upon a time, some years ago, a new class of students began their tenure at the most venerable and exclusive public boys' school in the Wild Parliamentary Monarchy.  Among the class were two young cats who could not possibly be more different.  One of them was the eldest son of an ocelot baronet; he was dutiful, responsible, and impeccably well-mannered for one so young.  The other was the eldest son of the eldest son of a panther marquess and clearly destined for a life of trouble, even at such a young age.  When their classmates started teasing the baronet's son for his overly proper mien, they fully expected the marquess's grandson to join in, but he surprised them by taking the baronet's side.  And so began the highly unlikely friendship of Tristan Rivers (Sir Tristan, upon the death of his father) and Ruthven Jet Shadewater, later Lord Ebonwood, known to his schoolmates as "Magick".

There are two key elements holding Sir Tristan and Magick together.  The first is that, despite their many differences in opinion and character, they have rather a lot more in common than one might at first suspect.  They were, for instance, easily the two most intelligent members of their class, which meant that they found each other much more interesting company than the rest of their classmates; they also had interests in many of the same areas, from the arts to politics and diplomacy.  The second important factor in their friendship was that they complemented each other very well in a number of ways.  Sir Tristan was responsible for ensuring that Magick did not slack off on his studies and performed at the level at which he was capable, while Magick ensured that Sir Tristan had a bit of fun.  In short, they balanced each other very nicely and were intelligent enough to appreciate it rather than fear it. 

 The greatest test of their friendship came about after they had left university and had begun their training for a career in diplomacy.  Among the other newbies was a formidably brilliant young serval named Lady Faraday Pebble-Stone, the daughter of an important earl.  She was clearly destined for greatness every bit as much as the boys were, and the three of them swiftly became the best of friends.

(Left to right: Sir Tristan, Lady Faraday, Lord Ebonwood.)

The next phase of this drama, of course, is entirely predictable, given knowledge of the general character of the particulars.  Females, especially intelligent females, were already one of Magick's great weaknesses, so he, predictably, began pursuing Lady Faraday.  Since females tend to have a corresponding weakness  for Magick, and Lady Faraday was quite definitely female, as well as already very fond of her two new friends, she was quite susceptible.  Sir Tristan was terribly in love with Lady Faraday himself, but elected not to compete with his best friend, not least because he had far less experience with females and suspected that, being quieter and less flamboyant than his friend, he was unlikely to be successful with any female Magick already had his eye on.

Nevertheless, the relationship between Magick and Lady Faraday did not last all long, as they swiftly discovered that they were not particularly compatible as romantic partners.  They decided to return to simply being friends and cheerfully explained to Sir Tristan (and others) that they were rather confused about the whole affair.  Everything went back to the way it had been before.

Sir Tristan, of course, was still desperately in love with Lady Faraday, but he was too conditioned by the expectations of behaviour for a gentleman of his class and station to actually tell her about it.  Eventually Magick realised what the score was and started trying to coax his friend into revealing his feelings for her.  Being a rake rather than a gentleman, Magick found the situation rather exasperating, especially as he was coming to suspect that Lady Faraday was in love with Sir Tristan herself, although she, of course, being a lady, was much too genteel to show it. 

After a number of conversations with Sir Tristan explaining that, as Lady Faraday was a lady, he really did need to make the first move (these conversations were tremendously frustrating for both parties), Magick accepted an assignment in India.  Since the other two were still posted locally, they started spending more and more time in each other's company.  Even then, they might well have gone on pining for each other oh-so-politely, except that Sir Tristan accidentally dropped one of his (highly embarrassing) sonnets praising the intelligence and wit and beauty and talent of Lady Faraday, and she found it.

Exactly what happened next has never been revealed by either party, both of them being immensely proper and private individuals, but they've been together ever since.

Sir Tristan and Lady Faraday are difficult to photograph together because of their characteristic poses, but we did our best.

After a while, Sir Tristan was posted to the Wild Republic, which forced him and Lady Faraday to carry on their romance long-distance.  They wrote each other letters every week, (rumour has it that Sir Tristan's letters often contain sonnets, while Lady Faraday prefers haiku).  Nevertheless, the situation was less than ideal, particularly given that the Wild Republic had made Plouie Postmaster General to keep him out of trouble.  Every now and then Plouie would happily present Sir Tristan with a bundle of six or so of his own letters to Lady Faraday.

But when their superiors decided that Sir Tristan's mission had been so successful that a full diplomatic delegation should be sent to the Wild Republic, the lovers finally found themselves reunited.  Lady Faraday requested to be included in the delegation; she now is sufficiently high-ranked that she has a measure of choice over her assignments, and this one is suited to her rank and talents as well as advantageous to her personal life.  Magick somehow found himself attached to the delegation as well.  Thus the trio of best friends has been reunited, to their considerable satisfaction.

And, of course, Sir Tristan and Magick are still the very best of friends.

That went well...

SIR TRISTAN IS SO HAPPY!

The Delegation from the Wild Parliamentary Monarchy Has Arrived

The long-awaited delegation from the Wild Parliamentary Monarchy is finally here!

They're kind of large, so they required two boxes, and of course Murphy's Law mandated that we were at house parties, so I had to go down to the post office to get them.  I'm rather proud that I managed to walk back with them unassisted, and even stop at the store to get milk.  The boxes weren't heavy, but they were decidedly cumbersome.

Seven delegates arrived in all.  They've yet to explain their respective positions, or (of course) reveal their names, but that will come.  Here's the list:

• An ermine.  The ermine is slightly confusing because he's labelled as belonging to the Wild Republic.  I assume this means he's a dual citizen; presumably one of his parents was from the WR and the other from the WPM, where he was raised.
• A serval.  She, of course, is Sir Tristan's much-missed girlfriend, and she's faced with the rather daunting prospect of being the only female in a sea of males.
• A lynx.  He is kind of huge; I think he's the largest animal we have so far.
• A capybara.  He's the only one we know something about: he's a doctor (being from the Amazon), and his name is Pedro.
• A snow owl.  Also rather large, but not as big as the lynx.  The penguins will be thrilled, or something.
• A white goat.  I'm glad he's medium-sized, because he's going to be living with lots of carnivores.  He's just about the only herbivore who is neither naturally armed nor known for speed.
• A black panther.  Sir Tristan's best friend from school.  He looks rather dangerous, and will need to be watched.  Murchison will be delighted to have something obvious to do.

More details to follow.  (For one thing, some of them, like Sir Tristan, probably have a title of some kind, but they haven't yet revealed them to me.)  At the moment, they're kind of jet-lagged, and also a bit confused from languishing at the post office for a few days, so I'm not introducing them to the animals in the main room until tomorrow.  (Yes, this has everything to do with Plouie.  No one should have to deal with Plouie while jet-lagged.)  They can stay in my room, where it's quieter; I'll just move Sir Tristan in here so that he can finally be reunited with his beloved.

Religion in the Wild Republic

AJD and I are both Jewish.  If this factoid led you to assume that the Wild Republic is essentially Jewish, you would be wrong.  Diversity is one of the hallmarks of the Wild Republic, and religion is no exception.

That's not to say that none of the animals are Jewish.  Desmond (the manatee) is very Jewish.  As a matter of fact, Desmond is currently studying to become a rabbi.  His studies aren't progressing as quickly as they could be, because his Wild Republic duties take up enough time that he's only a half-time studentt; he was a rabbinical student before he ever got here, and he still has a way to go.  I quite respect his ability to multi-task.  But Desmond is the sort of fellow who believes in doing many things and all of them well, so the dual vocation will probably work out for him in the end.

Some of the animals are of uncertain religious affiliations, by which I don't mean they're necessarily areligious, but that they don't talk about it.  Sleepyhead (the panda), for instance.  We haven't even been able to get his name, let alone his religious preferences.  Murchison (the Arctic fox) is another.  He's a consummate professional, and his profession happens to involve espionage, so he's pretty closed-mouthed about anything pertaining to his personal life.

Sir Tristan, of course, is a member of the Church of the Wild Parliamentary Monarchy, or "Church of WPM".  At least, he's nominally a member.  He seems to be the sort who enjoys elaborate liturgies but doesn't follow the Church's official stance on much of anything.  I'm not totally clear on the theological or social positions of the Church of WPM (it's not even clear to me whether they're Christians - as you'd assume from the name - or something else), but I'm given to understand that Sir Tristan's attitudes are very typical of its parishioners, so possibly the details don't really matter all that much.

Seleucus, on the other hand, is a bona fide hard-core Zoroastrian.  This is because he's a Bactrian camel.  Actually, he's not just any Bactrian camel; he's a royal Bactrian camel, and apparently the royal family takes their continued adherence to Zoroastrianism very seriously.  Heritage is very important to royal Bactrian camels.

Then there's the situation with the cats (with the exception of Sir Tristan).  They're all Buddhists. Three of them - Mahler, Flurry, and Rusty - are from Asia, so geographically speaking it makes sense that they'd be Buddhists, but Khamsin and the lion are African, and Cami's Mesoamerican, so given the general areal distribution of human Buddhists, one might expect they'd be something else.  Apparently, though, Buddhism spread like wildfire amongst felines of all types, so now they're all Buddhists wherever you go, outside the Wild Parliamentary Monarchy.  This seems rather improbable to me, given that, well, they're all carnivores, but there you are.  Apparently the doctrine of Feline Buddhism is extremely complicated.  Cami has tried several times to explain it to me, but I think you have to be a cat yourself to understand how it works.

One of the complicating factors is that many cats aren't only Buddhists; they're Buddhists plus something else.  Cami himself, for instance, is a Buddhist and a Jaguar Agnostic.  Jaguars, as you probably know, were considered sacred in Mesoamerica and South America, which put the jaguars in an odd position: they were being worshipped, but they weren't really clear on why, given that they didn't see themselves as divine and felt kind of weird about the whole thing.  Had they been lions or tigers, they probably would have just drank it up, but jaguars are both less full of their own consequence and a lot more given to philosophic speculations.  Rather than enjoy their perceived divinity, they developed a bit of theological insecurity, and this eventually led to a mass conclusion that they couldn't know whether gods existed or not.  I'm given to understand that this somehow made them more receptive to Buddhism, but again Buddhism didn't supersede the local agnostic movement.

Not all of the animals are averse to self-worship.  Take Tibby, for instance.  Don't let his name fool you: he's an imperial penguin, after all, and "Tibby" is short for "Tiberius Claudius Pingo".  Like the human Claudian emperors, the Claudian penguins are more than happy to see themselves as divine, and their religion is more or less identical to the pre-Christian emperor cult of the Roman empire, modulo the fact that all their divinities are penguins.  It's easy to forget about this; Tibby's a modest little chap, and pretty matter-of-fact about the whole divinity thing.  One does wonder if it contributes to his cheerful self-confidence, though.

Most of the other animals either adhere to the native faith of their species or mix it with a dash of the religion of the nearest human population.  I'll use the wolves (Alfredo and Beppe) as an example, both because there are two of them and because their theology is possibly the most complex of all.  Our wolves are Italian wolves, and their religion is a tangled mixture of the human polytheism of ancient Italy (before the emergence of the emperor cult) and the native lupine tribal beliefs, with a pinch of Catholicism thrown in for good measure.  We haven't really got a good grasp of how it works just yet, because we've had wolves here less than six months.

No discussion on this topic would be complete without explaining Plouie's take on theology.  Plouie believes in the Blue Penguin of Happiness.  We're not really quite sure if this is an Adelie penguin thing or something he came up with on his own after listening to us reading too many faery tales out loud, or some odd combination thereof, but whichever it is, he's quite earnest about it.  He even remembers it from one day to the next, which is really impressive by Plouie standards.  We don't have too many details about the Blue Penguin, but our working hypothesis is that it's some sort of Santa Claus/Easter Bunny/Tooth Faery figure.  Beyond that it's hard to tell.  Plouie's end of all of our attempted conversations on the subject consists primarily of "The Blue Penguin of Happiness!  The Blue Penguin of Happiness!", accompanied by increasingly fervent jumping up and down until he passes out.  It makes him pretty happy, though.

Romance in the Wild Republic; or I Am Slightly Pathetic

There's not much in the way of romance in our particular chapter of the Wild Republic.  This is partly because the denizens of our chapter are predominantly male (by which I actually mean that they're all male), and partly because I am not a furry, and therefore I'm not particularly inclined to speculate about the sex lives of my stuffed animals.  It just seems wrong.

This is not to say that there is no romance at all.  I mean, Skandar (the white tiger) and Sithri (the Siamese cat) have been together ever since I brought Sithri home four years ago, and they've barely come up for air since.  But their romance just sort of made sense to me.  Skandar's this tough, scrappy, bad-ass tiger, and Sithri's this pampered, blue-blooded, opera diva Siamese, and I just sort of knew they were made for each other.  It was all very Lady and the Tramp, and I've always loved that movie.

Also, I've always kind of suspected there was something going on between Casper and Seymour, but since Casper and Seymour are both highly reserved, private individuals, as well as consummate gentlemen, I've never been entirely sure, and it seemed impolite to ask.

But these four are all private citizens, not citizens of the Wild Republic.  There hasn't really been any romance in the Wild Republic proper.  Not here, anyway.  However, there have been two offstage romances, so to speak, and both of them have recently borne fruit.  I'll almost certainly devote an entire post to both of them at some point, so I won't go into any details now, but I should at least allude to their existence.

First, there is the tragic romance in Alfredo's past.  Alfredo is the leader of the local chapter of the Wild Republic, which is appropriate because he is an alpha wolf.  He's also a widower.  His wife, Laura, died tragically and heroically in the line of duty a few months before Alfredo was sent to us, and he's still grieving because they were very much in love.  Wolves are devoted to their mates that way.  He'll probably never love again.

I felt so guilty about doing this to Alfredo that I went to great lengths to reunite him with his son, Giuseppe, whom everyone calls Beppe.  Beppe arrived here exactly a week ago, having spent the last few months competing in some highly prestigious singing competitions.  He has his mother's eyes.  It's very sad.  But Alfredo is much happier now that his son is here.

The second romance involves Sir Tristan, the emissary from the Wild Parliamentary Monarchy.  See, he has a girlfriend - she's a serval - who is also highly ranked in the Wild Parliamentary Monarchy, and so when he was posted here about a year and a half ago, she couldn't come with him because she had an important job of her own to do.  They do write lots of letters to each other, which sometimes goes horribly awry because Plouie is still postmaster general.  Sir Tristan has missed her terribly.

But all will soon be well, because I felt almost as guilty about separating Sir Tristan from his beloved as I did about Laura's death.  In other words, the Wild Parliamentary Monarchy, delighted with the success of Sir Tristan's mission, has decided to send some of his colleagues to join him, and - hurrah! - Sir Tristan's girlfriend will be among them.  So they will be reunited before too long, and hopefully everything will be happy.

"Hopefully" is apropos, because of course she will be the only female member of the active set, and I'm not sure what this will do to the group dynamics, particularly among the adolescent cats.  Also, two of the other members of the new delegation are adult male felines. One of them is Sir Tristan's best friend, but the other is an unknown quantity, and I'm not sure what either of their relationships to her are like.  I hope there's no rivalry involved, genteel or otherwise, because I'd rather the romantic elements of my animals' lives remained low-key.

But yes, I worry so much about my stuffed animals not being happy enough that I shell out money to bring other animals in to make them happy.  I know.  You don't have to say it.