Commenter Lliira is doing her own sporkings of Danse Macabre!
http://lliira.dreamwidth.org/This one goes out to Anita and her 'noble' attempt at bisexuality! Even if hers didn't get quite this...in your face. Or rather, her face.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7n39RzgVNP8I feel a distinguishment has to be made that LKH has failed to make. That is the distinguishment regarding the term "animal to call" since it can mean two things and sometimes they overlap and it's really confusing.
The first way that "animal to call" is used refers to a specific animal species that a Master vampire can summon and control. If the Master vampire is powerful enough, this may extend to the therian counterparts of the animal (if there is one), though more powerful therians may be able to fight this. For instance, Nikolaos could call rats and thus wererats as well, though she could not control Rafael because he was too powerful. These people and animals are not bound to the vampire calling them in any way, and their free will is only lost when the vampire is controlling them, not permanently. It's roughly the same as when a vampire temporarily rolls or hypnotizes a human.
The second way the term "animal to call" is used is to refer to the therian version of a Master vampire's human servant. It's exactly what a human servant is: Bound to the vampire forever by their very life force, meaning the therian or human is immortal and ageless like the vampire but also that if one dies the other may as well, and that the therian or human is subject to the will of the vampire Master. Unlike Brides such as Nicky, they can still have thoughts and opinions in disagreement with their Master, and can even try to fight against them, though a portion of their free will is still gone, just not all of it.
So far, we have only seen therian servants in the possession of vampires whose animal to call as a species matches the species of said therian servant. For instance, Jean-Claude calls wolves and werewolves, and Richard is his specific wolf to call. We've never seen a vampire who could call snakes with a therian servant that was a werefox, nor a vampire Master with no animal species to call who had a werelion servant. Note that this does not mean that these scenarios definitely couldn't happen though, as it's never been stated that they can't/that only a vampire who calls a certain animal can have a wereanimal of that type for his or her servant.
Obviously, this gets confusing as fuck, so I propose that until LKH makes up a separate term for an individual therian who is a human servant we use a fanon one: Therian Servant. At one roleplay, the term Animal Servant was used instead, but I find that pretty demeaning to the therians to refer to them as animals. Granted, Anitaverse vampires do treat therians in very demeaning ways, but this is for our reference, not theirs. So instead of saying "Okay, Anita's animal to call is tigers, and her tigers to call are Domino, Cynric, etc." we would say "Anita's animal to call is tigers, and her therian servants are Domino, Cynric, etc." Makes a lot more sense, y/n? If yes, then that's what I'm gonna call them during sporkings from now on (same as how I use the words therianthropy and therians even though LKLH doesn't)
Some more notes on this for people who are newer to the series, using my new and improved fan-terminology:
- A triumvirate is the bonding of a Master vampire, their Human Servant, and their Therian Servant altogether. It is very, very rare, and we have only seen two besides the ones Anita is involved with, one of which belonged to Padma, a Council Vampire, showing just what a serious level of power it takes.
- A vampire having both a human and a therian servant outside of a triumvirate has never been shown, and I believe it was stated to not be possible.
- Anita is in two triumvirates, despite this being stated as impossible.
- One of her triumvirates is the normal vampire/human/therian type, consisting of her, Richard, and Jean-Claude, but the other one (Anita/Damian/Nathaniel), though it is also made up of that same combination, is radically different: Rather than Anita being the Human Servant to a Master vampire, Damian is the Vampire Servant (the first and only known ever to exist *eyeroll*) to Anita as his Master necromancer, and Nathaniel as her Therian Servant, not Damian's. Naturally this is the first and only triumvirate of its kind.
- Anita is also unique in her ability to have multiple Therian Servants, one to match each of her inner beasts. Not only has no vampire been shown to be able to posess a therian and human servant at the same time outside a triumvirate, they have also never been shown to be able to have two Human Servants or two Therian Servants at once, let alone the hoard Anita has. It has been stated in canon that vampire can only have one human servant at one time (and cannot un-make one that they already have) and presumably it is the same for Therian Servants...unless the Master in question is, of course Anita.
- Just what Master of Tigers means is vague. Clearly it means something beyond just being able to call tigers as an animal to call (since Anita and other vampires like Max Bellici have already been shown to be able to do that and it's nothing special) but just what hasn't been established. My theory is that it will basically bind all the tigers worldwide to her as if they were her Therian Servants (or even Brides) in terms of her being able to take their free will and life force, but without binding her life force to all of them as with a Bride or Therian Servant (meaning she doesn't have to worry if one of them dies, etc.) Again, this is just my theory, since it's never been made explicit what being Master of Tigers actually is except that it's clearly different from just having tigers as your animal to call.
And now...
( BULLET, CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN, PART ONE )