I (21F) live with two roommates. One of them, Kayla (22F), is honestly great most of the time—we split chores, rent, all that stuff pretty fairly. She’s a little eccentric, which is totally fine. Like, she collects weird stuff—antique dolls, dead butterflies, bones (not human, don’t worry). Her room is like a cross between a museum and a haunted thrift store, but that’s her space, so whatever.

The issue started last week when she came home from her weekend trip with a full-sized taxidermy fox. Like… an actual fox. Standing up. With a little vest on. She said she got it from an oddities convention and that she “connected” with it emotionally. She named him “Arthur.”

She set Arthur up on a table in the shared living room, right next to the TV. I honestly thought it was a joke at first, but nope—she lit a little candle next to it and said it “calms her spirit.”

I tried to be chill. I really did. But the thing creeps me out. It’s not just the dead glassy eyes—it’s that I’ll be eating cereal and suddenly feel like I’m being watched by a dead woodland creature in formalwear. I asked if she could maybe keep it in her room instead. She got super upset and said that was “emotionally isolating Arthur,” and that he needs to be in a communal space so he “feels part of the home.”

I told her, respectfully, that Arthur is stuffed and probably isn’t experiencing emotional abandonment. She called me insensitive, said I clearly have no understanding of neurodivergence, and accused me of “taxidermy-shaming.”

Now our other roommate is stuck in the middle, and the living room still has this weird Victorian energy I didn’t ask for. I feel bad, but also... it’s a dead fox in a vest.

So… AITAH?