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HIT LIST CHAPTER THIRTY TWO, PART THREE
Oct. 21st, 2013 12:11 pm- Bwaugh, I had to come home early today from volunteering at the elementary school library where my mom works. My stomach feels terrible. Mom says a stomach bug is going around and I probably caught it from the kids. Dangit, I hope it was just the bao buns I ate instead, I have stuff to do tomorrow!
- Speaking of the elementary school, they have a "Pet Wall of Fame" this month where kids and teachers can put up pictures of their pets. I am going to use it to make a monument to my recently deceased rodents: Scurvy, Jabez, Justin, and Jenner!
- Thanks to everyone who offered suggestions on my writing dilemma! I'll have to hit y'all up for advice more often!
- So, we all know that MOAD was the first therian and the first vampire, and her therian type was a saber-toothed cat. What I have been trying to make an explanation for for ages is how the therianthropy virus mutated from that to wolves, tigers, foxes, etc.
Finally, I figured out an answer that works for me: The virus didn't mutate and spread on its own to different species just by chance. MOAD hand-picked each species herself and did some kind of specific, deliberate magic only she was capable of to create the first set of therians for that species. That's why there haven't been any more new species periodically popping up since she's been asleep, and it's also why it's confined mostly to large mammalian carnivores; she purposefully picked them because she thought that they'd be the most likely to survive and thrive, or because, like Anita, she just liked those, especially since she was one herself.
I stand by my theory that the swanmanes were NOT one of the groups that she made. I think they're more related to merfolk and/or fairies. The werecobras might have been an experiment in which she tried to merge her therian-creating powers with naga rather than with humans, and what came out is a mixture of therian and naga traits: They're mortal like therians, and can infect others like therians, but, like naga, are also hereditary.
Now, what other group is both infectious and hereditary? Tigers! And how do I explain that? Actually, Vittorio already did the job for me in Skin Trade.
"How do you think the clans began? Do you actually believe the stories of tigers mating with humans and having offspring? No, fairy tales. They were all survivors of different strains of tiger. They have convinced themselves they are better because they breed true, but they have forgotten their own truth. They were once as you (Anita) are, nothing more."
In other words, the clans came from groups of weretigers who banded together based on what color they were infected with, and then having babies with each other over and over with that secret "borrow the beast while she's pregnant" technique until it became a hereditary trait. Which, I must give credit to LKH, explains why the tigers work like this when no other therian group (except snakes) does. It doesn't really explain at all why survivors are always orange, though, so I'm going to try, and to work it in with my theory on how MOAD individually created each therian group.
Alright. So MOAD makes her first batch of tigers, and they're all orange because that's the default/dominant for tigers, and I don't see her caring enough to go out of her way to make one for each rarer color morph. And they work just like all the other therians. And now and then, someone who turned has an animal form with one of the unusual color morphs, just like how the black panther more turns up now and then with the wereleopards. So the unusual morph types all band up like Vittorio said, and use their secret breeding technique to have weretiger babies of their respective colors, eventually forming the clans. But when they infect someone instead of reproducing with each other, it's the default orange again. I think this is because the color morphs are inherently recessive traits, so it takes two of that type to make a baby of that color. They're all also pretty equally recessive, which is why when two tigers of different colors morph, the baby will generally be of one or the other type rather than phenotypically mixed like Domino and Ethan, as we learned in Hit List. But since orange is dominant, when an alternate color morph infects someone, the coloration defaults to that. I know that doesn't exactly make sense since we're talking about infection rather than breeding, but this is really the best I can do with what LKH has given me (especially since Bullet and Kiss the Dead claim that your animal color depends on what the animal color of the person who infected you looks like...)
And where the fuck does the elemental-powers shit come in? Um...I'll get back to this in more detail, but for now I'm going to say hereditary witches in each clan that had lots of babies.
ETA: Considering that these 'powers' are supposed to have only been held by the clans looong ago and are nonexistent today (until Anita has sex with you and ~activates~ it apparently *eyeroll*) I'm more inclined to say that it's just a cultural legend among them and not real, especially if we have not actually seen it happen. I know that her sex with Alex in an earlier book also is supposed to have given him the pyrokinesis of the red tiger line, but since I didn't read that one, I don't know if we ever actually saw that or not, or if someone just told Anita after the fact. Anita also *claims* to Bibiana in Bullet that Crispin can now give static shocks to people after having sex with her, but it's yet to be shown onscreen. But I don't fucking trust Anita just telling Bibiana it has with Crispin, Anita lies all the time and of course she'd lie to Bibi to be all NAH NAH MY WHITE TIGER HAS ELECTRICITY POWERS WITH ME, HE DIDN'T WITH YOU!
As for the last type of group, those who are hereditary-only and not infectious, that's the swanmanes (notice how they're never referred to as wereswans in the text? FURTHER PROOF THEY'RE NOT RELATED TO WERES AT ALL) and the weredogs. I've already stated my theory on swan shifters in this post, and as for the dogs, I don't believe MOAD created them herself personally like the others, but I do think they are related to the other weres, because I think humans used magic and selective breeding to create them from werewolves. They couldn't just make a therian species out of any type of animal they pleased like MOAD, they didn't have that power, but they did figure out a way to modify what she had already done. The reason they were only able to do it with wolves? It was the only one they knew how to do, the only one they had any mundane precedent already for, since they had already made regular dogs out of regular wolves; no one has ever made a species of domestic cat out of selectively breeding lions. So they were able to make it safe (non-infectious, rid of all the 'dangerous instincts' werewolves have that are supposedly from their animal side, etc), useful (they are noted to be family guardians in canon), and controllable (not tied to the moon, aforementioned lack of so-called-wolf-instincts, etc.) Because if there is one thing humans are good at, it's taking shit from nature and making it work for us!
( HIT LIST CHAPTER THIRTY TWO, PART THREE )
- Speaking of the elementary school, they have a "Pet Wall of Fame" this month where kids and teachers can put up pictures of their pets. I am going to use it to make a monument to my recently deceased rodents: Scurvy, Jabez, Justin, and Jenner!
- Thanks to everyone who offered suggestions on my writing dilemma! I'll have to hit y'all up for advice more often!
- So, we all know that MOAD was the first therian and the first vampire, and her therian type was a saber-toothed cat. What I have been trying to make an explanation for for ages is how the therianthropy virus mutated from that to wolves, tigers, foxes, etc.
Finally, I figured out an answer that works for me: The virus didn't mutate and spread on its own to different species just by chance. MOAD hand-picked each species herself and did some kind of specific, deliberate magic only she was capable of to create the first set of therians for that species. That's why there haven't been any more new species periodically popping up since she's been asleep, and it's also why it's confined mostly to large mammalian carnivores; she purposefully picked them because she thought that they'd be the most likely to survive and thrive, or because, like Anita, she just liked those, especially since she was one herself.
I stand by my theory that the swanmanes were NOT one of the groups that she made. I think they're more related to merfolk and/or fairies. The werecobras might have been an experiment in which she tried to merge her therian-creating powers with naga rather than with humans, and what came out is a mixture of therian and naga traits: They're mortal like therians, and can infect others like therians, but, like naga, are also hereditary.
Now, what other group is both infectious and hereditary? Tigers! And how do I explain that? Actually, Vittorio already did the job for me in Skin Trade.
"How do you think the clans began? Do you actually believe the stories of tigers mating with humans and having offspring? No, fairy tales. They were all survivors of different strains of tiger. They have convinced themselves they are better because they breed true, but they have forgotten their own truth. They were once as you (Anita) are, nothing more."
In other words, the clans came from groups of weretigers who banded together based on what color they were infected with, and then having babies with each other over and over with that secret "borrow the beast while she's pregnant" technique until it became a hereditary trait. Which, I must give credit to LKH, explains why the tigers work like this when no other therian group (except snakes) does. It doesn't really explain at all why survivors are always orange, though, so I'm going to try, and to work it in with my theory on how MOAD individually created each therian group.
Alright. So MOAD makes her first batch of tigers, and they're all orange because that's the default/dominant for tigers, and I don't see her caring enough to go out of her way to make one for each rarer color morph. And they work just like all the other therians. And now and then, someone who turned has an animal form with one of the unusual color morphs, just like how the black panther more turns up now and then with the wereleopards. So the unusual morph types all band up like Vittorio said, and use their secret breeding technique to have weretiger babies of their respective colors, eventually forming the clans. But when they infect someone instead of reproducing with each other, it's the default orange again. I think this is because the color morphs are inherently recessive traits, so it takes two of that type to make a baby of that color. They're all also pretty equally recessive, which is why when two tigers of different colors morph, the baby will generally be of one or the other type rather than phenotypically mixed like Domino and Ethan, as we learned in Hit List. But since orange is dominant, when an alternate color morph infects someone, the coloration defaults to that. I know that doesn't exactly make sense since we're talking about infection rather than breeding, but this is really the best I can do with what LKH has given me (especially since Bullet and Kiss the Dead claim that your animal color depends on what the animal color of the person who infected you looks like...)
And where the fuck does the elemental-powers shit come in? Um...I'll get back to this in more detail, but for now I'm going to say hereditary witches in each clan that had lots of babies.
ETA: Considering that these 'powers' are supposed to have only been held by the clans looong ago and are nonexistent today (until Anita has sex with you and ~activates~ it apparently *eyeroll*) I'm more inclined to say that it's just a cultural legend among them and not real, especially if we have not actually seen it happen. I know that her sex with Alex in an earlier book also is supposed to have given him the pyrokinesis of the red tiger line, but since I didn't read that one, I don't know if we ever actually saw that or not, or if someone just told Anita after the fact. Anita also *claims* to Bibiana in Bullet that Crispin can now give static shocks to people after having sex with her, but it's yet to be shown onscreen. But I don't fucking trust Anita just telling Bibiana it has with Crispin, Anita lies all the time and of course she'd lie to Bibi to be all NAH NAH MY WHITE TIGER HAS ELECTRICITY POWERS WITH ME, HE DIDN'T WITH YOU!
As for the last type of group, those who are hereditary-only and not infectious, that's the swanmanes (notice how they're never referred to as wereswans in the text? FURTHER PROOF THEY'RE NOT RELATED TO WERES AT ALL) and the weredogs. I've already stated my theory on swan shifters in this post, and as for the dogs, I don't believe MOAD created them herself personally like the others, but I do think they are related to the other weres, because I think humans used magic and selective breeding to create them from werewolves. They couldn't just make a therian species out of any type of animal they pleased like MOAD, they didn't have that power, but they did figure out a way to modify what she had already done. The reason they were only able to do it with wolves? It was the only one they knew how to do, the only one they had any mundane precedent already for, since they had already made regular dogs out of regular wolves; no one has ever made a species of domestic cat out of selectively breeding lions. So they were able to make it safe (non-infectious, rid of all the 'dangerous instincts' werewolves have that are supposedly from their animal side, etc), useful (they are noted to be family guardians in canon), and controllable (not tied to the moon, aforementioned lack of so-called-wolf-instincts, etc.) Because if there is one thing humans are good at, it's taking shit from nature and making it work for us!
( HIT LIST CHAPTER THIRTY TWO, PART THREE )
