J was an early friend on FurryMUCK, and a fellow member of the Jihad To Destroy Barney, one of my significant Usenet involvements. We rapidly became fast friends, especially as Kit-Aroscuro idolized him. Kit-Aroscuro, later Kittel, was a arctic fox kit, whom I played from his ages 4-8. He began as a separate morph of Chiaroscuro's, but spun off into his own character in time.. he really was a different personality, not just Chiaroscuro in a new form as most of my morphs are, and that seemed fair.
Now, one day in early 1995, Jfox and Kit were talking, and Kit made the comment to J, "You're like a big bruddah to me Mister J." J promptly melted, and within a week from that.. Jfox, I, and
alice_in_texas had a discussion, and I was adopted into the Lyle clan. Jfox (aka Jaundice Foxglov Lyle) had been adopted by Alice and Larry_Lyle the month before, and suddenly, Chiaroscuro had a mum, dad, and brother. Not that the mongoose sprung from whole cloth.. his birth parents were back in the 10th century, though, where.. [origin story deleted for space].Larry/Lycanthrope was a pretty distant parent, though a friendly enough 'Dad'; The real core of the family was Alice, who went on.. a bit of an adopting spree. After me came Thistle, a scot Iguana lady and a sweet soul. She ended up marrying a wolf fellow, Soultaker.. in VR, then in RL as well. I got the chance to visit them in person once, excellent people with two great kids. Then came Jocasta, who ended up wed to Shades McKatt.. with whom I had the brother-in-law discussion one Anthrocon. The two of them had two kids, one of black fur and one of white, which made me a proud uncle indeed. I wish I could remember their names, though... been years. Oh, and I ought mention Zanzibarr, who was briefly married to Jfox..
Next sibling-wise came Milgrove and Axebard.. which seemed to be a point of ridiculous enlargement of the family; once we went past 4 siblings things got strained and tenuous, though Milgrove and Axebard were keen individuals. And then, the family sort of.. drifted off. once Thistle and Soultaker moved in together RL, they lost much of their yen for VR time. Milgrove @toaded, though still has a character about, a friend.. but not family. Larry.. became Laura, and.. uhm.. well. Jocasta drifted off.. and later, Axebard. The family's back to being just Jfox, Alice, and myself.. but, Alice and I do chat fairly rarely, and Jfox is on his 10th week of idle.. having made a pulling away from Furry, slowly, beforehand. I think he's just not getting out of FurryMUCK, and the fandom, what he used to. Of the family, he's the one I miss feeling that kinship the most, and I do wish we'd have the chance for family time again.
Mmm. Now, there's other relatives, at that; Those of you who have traipsed through Itza Castle have seen Chia'sPet and perhaps MicroChipper, who are.. somewhat-children of mine. You see, I was running a magical-technical experiment with my genetic code, and.. well, some mongoose DNA in a petri dish went kerboom, and fused with a computer on the desk and a fern in the corner. Thus, an herbi'goose and techni'goose. They're pets and not children, in my mind, but there is some of my genes running through 'em...
And, of course, we come to Chiaroscuro-of-FluffMUCK, who's been blessed with a long, stable marriage to Cantata, and four children: two wolf sons from her previous relationship, Fife and Drum, our mongoose daughter together Allegra, and our raccoon son Fresco. (We're an arts&music couple, through and through. I could also mention our name-change-morphs Rondo and Rayonnant...)
I believe that's all the family of a mongoose. For now, at least.
--Chiaroscuro