What are your favorite animals?

Such a simple question, and like all the other simple questions so far, I’m digging in deeper. Favorite animals (thankfully plural) now versus in the past. What I learned about them that made me like them in the first place.

To start, I never really knew much about specific animals, so I couldn’t say for any particular reason why I liked polar bears. I just did, but that is, I assume, a very common thing for kids to do. I could be wrong, though. Aside from our pet cats, I liked polar bears through most of elementary school.

After polar bears I don’t think I ever really had favorite animals, at least none that I can recall. Throughout middle and high school I was engrossed in playing video games and reading the occasional book. Somewhere in there I ended up reading The Pearls of Lutra by Brian Jacques, which followed several different kinds of animals including some otters. At the time I didn’t think much of it, but it was my first book from Brian Jacques which made it more memorable to me than the handful I read later on.

I mentioned the book earlier because I think it helped sew the seed for my eventually liking otters as a favorite. Although I never really went out of my way to learn about them, I learned more about them over time, watched little clips and videos, and they grew on me. So much so that I made my first Pathfinder character have a sea otter as a familiar.

Well, those are all REAL animals. My favorite mythical ones are definitely dragons (I know, shocker) and phoenixes. Maybe I’ll discuss those later.