Anthropomorphic

Snowshoe Hare 

Character Portrait

Mia Culpa

In the eccentrically tilted tableau of Anthroxville, where norms are but mere suggestions and everything else is negotiable, a peculiar pulse reverberates. It belongs to the anthropomorphic snowshoe hare, Mia Culpa, whose very presence is a study in contrasts. For some, she’s the unsolicited punchline to an already tasteless joke, while for others, she’s the delightful dash of surprise in an otherwise bland concoction.

Mia can often be found lukring outside of The Knotted Knacker,  Erm Wotsischops' hub of indiscretions, not as an admirer of the fermented offerings, but as a connoisseur of a different breed of intoxication: the town's criminal elite. Likewise, she is regularly seen lingering by the offices of the ever-ambiguous Cactus Reus, it wasn't some civil disagreement she sought mediation for; it was the allure of law-defilers that captivated her.

“But what about the muggings, Mia?” She was asked when invited to explain her strange predilection on the primetime show, The Sniff Test, hosted by Felix Finicky-Snout, who had just so happened to have his watch and wallet yoinked that afternoon en route to the production studio. “The sluggings? The druggings? All the grifting, lifting, and shifting? To say nothing of the smash and grabs, the thrash and stabs, let alone the bash and nabs?” Mia shifted in her seat, visibly aroused by the question’s contents, before enquiring exactly what a "bash and nab" was. After having it explained that a bash and nab was when someone simply donates a couple of blows from a blunt instrument of their choosing – forehead included – and then, once the unfortunate soul on the receiving end is all duffed out, the aggressor makes off with their handbag, wallet, briefcase – whatever possessions they may have. Mia sucked her lips in contemplation and, squeezing her knees together, made a mental note of this salacious-sounding bash and nab, which had seemingly somehow flown under her radar for all these years.

In an opinion piece for Spencer Godwottery’s Well Magazine, Sheriff Bobby Lockjaw proposed a hypothesis: The unruly spiral of Anthroxville into chaos was, astonishingly, tethered to the captivating allure of Mia Culpa. Lockjaw suggested that the mere glimmer of capturing her affection — even if fleeting — propelled Anthroxville's most notorious into a royal rumble of outdoing one another. Criminal acts evolved from mere transgressions into grandiose displays of passion. A heist was no longer just a heist; it transformed into a poetic ode, a serenade to Mia's refined penchant for the rebellious.

The Sheriff, on the precipice of an obsession so intense it bordered on pathological, delved into legal tomes with unparalleled fervor, seeking a long-overlooked misdeed to pin on the little fizgig. The anthro snowshoe hare's dodgy romantic track record was, to him, proof enough of at least some kind of complicity. No question about it. Over the years, not only had the criminal-groupie been seen swinging on the arms of the likes of John Knuckle, Orville Stonker, Jackson Jiffy, Sid Blitzkrieg, Victor Wallop, Luther Popshot, Gilbert Jitterbug, Gideon Rumspringa, Roy Bibbowski, and even, Edison Upskirt (for reasons the Sheriff suspected being his criminally spicy food). Curiously, her choice in company always came on the heels of their latest criminal undertakings, as if the malefaction was a pre-requisite for her affections. Take, for example, the fraudulent au fait, Gregory Fromage, with whom Mia was seen flopping about with after....