Charleston Rat

Charleston artwork by Grion Wolffox

Charleston Rat, also known as Charleston the Pearly Rat or mononymously as Charleston, is a British fursuiter and dancer who lives in Wales, United Kingdown.

Fandom involvement

Although Charleston’s been a furry at heart his whole life, he didn’t join the furry fandom until December 2014 when he created his fursona and Fur Affinity account. Since then, he’s probably best known in the fandom for his fursuit dances, presenting on TigerTails Radio, and the Facts About the Furry Fandom series on YouTube.

Fursona and Original Characters

Charleston Rat’s primary fursona is one he shares his name with. He is a 6ft tall, anthropomorphic, brown rat with medium-blue eyes.

Charleston has been illustrated wearing various outfits since his inception. However, his default costume includes a black waistcoat and flat cap, both of which are decorated with mother-of-pearl buttons, a red bow tie, and a wooden cane with a crook handle.

In a short story he wrote in 2015, Charleston explained that his fursona was born as a sewer rat, then treated and experimented on as a lab rat, before being raised as a pet rat. The short story also explains that Charleston is named after the dance style, and is somewhere in his 40s in rat-years.

The pearly rat

Both Charleston's outfit and the “pearly” in his name are inspired by the Pearly Kings and Queens of London (AKA “Pearlies”), who wear three-piece suits decorated with mother-of-pearl buttons. He discovered about them from watching a performance on Strictly Come Dancing that was heavily inspired by the Pearlies.

Like with traditional Pearlies, the symbols on Charleston’s waistcoat have specific meanings. The chain that travels out of one breast pocket, around the back of his neck, and into the other breast pocket represents the community of the furry fandom. Along the bottom section of his waistcoat, the scissors represent the craftsmanship of the fandom, and the jester hats represent the entertainment. The eight rules on his flat–cap are also reminiscent of the Union Flag, although this is more coincidental.

OCs

Although he doesn’t use them as frequently as he does with his rat fursona, Charleston has two other OCs. One is a silver-coated werewolf puppy named Overett, and the other is an old English sheepdog named Snuffles (formerly Shaggy). Snuffles has yet to have any artwork made of him.

Fursuit

Fursuit photos of Charleston from Fur the More 2020

Charleston’s only fursuit is the one one of his main fursona. He made it himself with neither a sewing machine nor prior fabric crafting experience. When he made it, it cost him just over £240 and took him just under eight months to complete between March and October 2016. The waistcoat and hat are sewn with 960 buttons. His fursuit also includes a stuffing-filled bodysuit which gives him his short legs and haunches.

Dance competitions

Photo of Charleston dancing at Fur the More 2022 by Lingling Fennec

Charleston’s competed in the dance competition at every major furry convention he’s attended so far.

His dance style is mainly based on the Charleston but also incorporates elements from various other ballroom styles. These include jive, foxtrot, waltz, quickstep, Lindy Hop, and American Smooth. When the music allows for it, he also incorporates tap, street, hip-hop, contemporary, and sign language (depending on the convention location, ASL or BSL) into his routines.

His dances are also notable for his cane twirls and being performed in a suit with a low crotch/haunches.

Year	Convention	Song	Rank (if known)	External link to video	Notes
2017	Fur the 'More, VA, USA	“Bei mir bist du Schein” (2012) by Ilhama ft. DJ OGB	3rd	YouTube	Charleston’s first ever competitive fursuit dance.
2018	Fur the 'More, VA, USA	“Pencil Full of Lead” (2009) by Paolo Nutini	Honourable mention	YouTube	When being introduced for the 2018 FTM dance competition, the presenter said that Charleston placed 2nd place in 2017. This is incorrect and Charleston actually placed 3rd in 2017.
2019	Just Fur the Weekend, Bristol, UK	“Out of Our Heads” (2018) by Take That	1st (out of four competitors)	YouTube	Even though JFTW has never officially been discontinued, there’s never been an event since the 2020 convention was canceled. Also, the website is OOS and the Twitter/X account hasn’t had a post since 2022. This effectively makes Charleston the last-ever winner of the JFTW dance competition.
2020	Fur the 'More, VA, USA	“Box of Secrets” (2010) by Zarif ft. Mz Bratt		YouTube	Charleston’s close friend, Shadow Bandit, passed away three weeks before FTM 2020. Therefore, Charleston decided to dance in his honor.
2022	Fur the 'More, VA, USA	“I Don’t Feel Hate” (2021) by Jendrik	2nd	YouTube
2023	Fur the 'More, VA, USA	“The Man I Love” (1994) by Kate Bush		YouTube	Charleston's first (and so far, only) competitive slow-dance.
2024	ScotiaCon, Glasgow, UK	“Call Me Maybe” (2016) by Postmodern Jukebox ft. Von Smithmple	11th	YouTube

Furry work

Although Charleston’s more of a graphic designer than an artist, he’s still created more traditionally furry artwork in the past including commissioned work. He’s also written several stories (inc, screenplays, and NaNoWriMo manuscripts), many of which are furry to some extent.

Facts About the Furry Fandom

Facts About the Furry Fandom title card

Debatably, Charleston’s most successful furry project is Facts About the Furry Fandom. He had the idea to make an infographic giving bitesize information about the fandom after graduating from university. The initial idea was for the infographic to be printed/static, but as he gathered more information, he realized it would be more effective to present it using motion graphics.

Between seven and eight months of researching and animating, he published the first video of the same name in August 2017. It wasn’t until December of that year that the video went viral. On the 12^th December 2017, the video had the most views it had for a single day at 27,923 views. Since being uploaded, the video has had over 615,000 views.

Charleston has since released three sequels to his initial video. The first two were More Facts About the Furry Fandom (2018) and Facts About Furry Meetups and Conventions (2021).

The third sequel was Facts About Fursuits & Fursuiting (March 2023). Unlike all prior videos in the series, FAF&F was completed almost entirely with field research. This was achieved via an online survey Charleston conducted over two months between October and November 2021. Exactly 518 furries took part in the main portion of the survey, 325 of whom were fursuiters. Those who took part were allowed to enter a prize draw for 250 USD. The winner was announced in November 2021.

Presenting on TigerTails Radio

Charleston has a minor presenting role on TigerTails Radio. His first appearance on the show was in February 2023, during a live interview on the show about his then-upcoming Facts About Fursuits & Fursuiting video. Otherwise, he remained a regular audience member instead.

However, he submitted images created via Dall-E for a weekly mini-game where the audience and crew had to guess what the prompt into Dall-E was. This led to his first presenting appearance in April of the same year, which he’s stuck to since.

Art DiRator at Aberacon

Charleston volunteers as the official Art DiRator for Aberacon, expected to be the first beachside furmeet in the South Wales region. He designed the original logo for the event, and his primary responsibilities were maintaining brand consistency and designing various things for the event including the program and the the website.

Other furry work

Good Furry Award emblem

Charleston was a case study in Furry Nation, written by Joe Strike. His part of the book talks about how his fursona was invented, how he created his fursuit, and his early furry interests which included The Wild Thornberrys and Animorphs.

Charleston designed the original emblem for the Good Furry Award. He also designed the original cover for The Furry Book, although this has since been scrapped due to a falling out between himself and the author.

Furry interests

Charleston has a strong interest in animal transformations, with most of his favorite art in the fandom being transformation–based. As a child, he used to invent stories in his head where he would transform into another species and play with his animal friends. Occasionally, Charleston also enjoys TF–based RP.

Charleston is also an avid supporter of greymuzzles. Most of his closest friends in the fandom are furries at least a decade older than him, and he celebrated becoming one himself (i.e., becoming a 30-year-old) with a tiki-themed BBQ party.

Trivia

Media

Charleston has an expansive taste in cinema. Like most furries, he enjoys animated movies (mainly those by Disney and Pixar) and movies starring anthropomorphic animals. However, he has also expressed interest in other kinds of movies, including Indian cinema and words directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

Despite the jazz-influenced and old–fashioned music he dances to in fursuit, Charleston has an eclectic taste in music. Pentatonix is his favourite group, although he also enjoys music from (but not limited to) Nina Simone, Britney Spears and Postmodern Jukebox. He is also a Whovian and a fan of the Eurovision Song Contest.

Hobbies

World Rat Day art with Shavian by Charleston

Charleston has a keen interest in linguistics. Although he’s not successfully learned to communicate in a second language, he has studied how many different languages work. He can also read and write in Shavian, which isn’t technically a language but rather an alternative writing system that was designed to be exclusively used for English.

Charleston also has an interest in hypnotism.

Ethical concerns

Although Charleston isn’t a full–time environmentalist, he does make active efforts to reduce his impact on the environment. These include walking and cycling, recycling, getting his energy from renewable sources, and adopting a pescatarian diet.

Charleston is also outspoken about [[W:Disability rights movement|disability rights and representation]. In November 2020, he published a dissertation about the representation of disabled characters in film and television.

Health

Charleston is on the autism spectrum. When he was a toddler, he was diagnosed as having High Functioning Autism. However, he would likely be re-diagnosed as Asperger’s these days.

Although Charleston’s never officially been diagnosed as athematic. he does carry an inhaler with him at all times and often uses it during bouts of breathlessness.

COVID-19 and mental breakdown

WSPD video thumbnail

Charleston experienced a mental breakdown during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Alongside working as a key worker during that time, Charleston particularly struggled with COVID-shaming, the disruption to his routine, and paranoia about people who would be inadvertently harmed by the lockdown. On 27^th July 2021, Charleston published a 9,000-word essay detailing his struggles during the pandemic.

On September 10, 2022 (World Suicide Prevention Day), Charleston published a 30-minute video on his YouTube channel where he publicly announced that he’d attempted to take his own life when lockdown first began in the UK. He talked about the events before and during lockdown that caused him to become depressed, how he wanted COVID-19 to take his life for him, the help he received afterward, and encouraged anyone experiencing suicidal ideation to open up about their feelings.

Throughout lockdown, Charleston encouraged people to use positive reinforcement as a means of encouraging people to adhere to lockdown restrictions. He has openly talked about his dislike for terms like “COVIDIOT” and “new normal”, and he continues to have a glossary of articles about COVID-shaming as the pinned journal on his FA.

Raised in an anti-vaxx household, Charleston had formerly expressed hesitancy towards vaccines. However, he has changed his mind about vaccines since 2020. He’s had the main two doses of Pfizer (because he’s a key worker, he was able to get them earlier than most in his generation) as well as a booster each year, and has written multiple journals on his Fur Affinity encouraging people to get vaccinated against the disease.

Charleston had his first positive test result in November 2021. However, he was relatively un-symptomatic then, and the test is most likely a false-positive. Charleston’s first positive test result with symptoms was on Easter Sunday 2022, one day after his partner’s first positive test with symptoms. Both Charleston and his partner have since made full physical recoveries.

External links

• Charleston Rat on Fur Affinity
• Charleston Rat on X
• Charleston Rat on BlueSky
• Charleston Rat on YouTube
• Aberacon home page