a-sporking-rat

MAGIC RATS: Last night I took Sid out of his cage. When I went to return him, Sam was in his cage instead! But her cage door was closed! I had no idea how she did that, until I found out that she and Blatz had chewed a hole in the plastic part of their cage. I patched it up, but I thought I had a magic Houdini rat there for about an hour!

FAN THEORY 1: So remember how I said either JC is not a sourdre de sang or else he's keeping his bloodline powers damn well hidden from Anita, given we've seen neither hide nor hair of them? Subtle_shades said she had a crack theory that his bloodline power was stealing the powers of other vampires and I was like WAIT THAT'S NOT CRACKY AT ALL, THAT MAKES SENSE! We know Anita got the ardeur by being the Human Servant of JC, right? (Not something that usually happens with Human Servants, or ever before her because she's special, but most due to her being a necromancer is the in-universe theory as to how/why, I believe) And we learned in this book that she's basically like Rogue of the X-Men to vampires, permanently stealing any vamp power used against her, hence why she can call beasts like Padma, eat fear and anger like the Moroven and the Dragon, and do the life-draining thing like Obsidian Butterfly. Maybe that's not her power. Maybe stealing powers is JC's bloodline ability, and the reason she has it is the same reason she has the ardeur, through a tie to him. Makes sense, right? It's my headcanon too now! Might even show SvS if I can manage to cram another thing into that hydra-like fic.

FAN THEORY 2: Commenter writtenelision and I were talking last night (she's one of the fabulous roleplay buddies from back in the day before I was ever a-sporking-rat!) about just how much things SUCK for therians under vampires.
And being a vampire...not something that happens accidentally in this universe, but therianthropy? Just get scratched and bam, suddenly you're thrown into this world where you're at the bottom of a horrible hierarchy not only of your own species but bloodsuckers to boot.

And just think! If a vampire who can call a certain animal has a Therian Servant of that animal type, they can make said servant infect dozens of people, resulting in a lot of very new (meaning very weak) wereanimals of said animal, who will be easy for the vampire to control for their own purposes. I don't think there are any canon examples of this, but I bet you it has happened before. Therians actually have even MORE reason to hate vampires than baseline humans do, honestly!

Speaking of therian exploitation by vampires, both Maximillian Bellici (Master of Las Vegas and Samuel (Master of Cape Cod) have taken a wife of their species of animals to call (tiger, mermaid) who they also made their Therian Servant (well, Bibi is, not sure about Thea) which thus has DUBIOUS CONSENT ALL OVER IT since that entails taking a portion of their free will, and they have used that woman's position of power among her people (Chang, siren) to TAKE THAT PEOPLE OVER. Does this read as suspcious as hell to anyone else, even though nothing bad is even suggested as going on from Anita's POV? Shit, dude, even Ruthven at least used his own power to take over the English swans instead of binding a swan queen to him or something.

We know that a vamp can make someone their Servant by force. And the completed process robs them of a portion of their free will, as I mentioned. And do you think Bibi would just hand her people over to a vamp? COME ON. I can't believe I didn't see this before, it makes even more sense than my "Bibi sacrificed herself by becoming wife and Servant of Max to save her people during some calamity in the past" theory (and could coincide with it)

( BULLET, CHAPTER 48 )

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=7n39RzgVNP8

I 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 )

Let me tell you a story of Boo. Boo, short for Bubonic, was one half of a pair of my first rats, the other one being Fidget. Fidget was a pretty normal rat, though he had quirks and stories of his own which I shall also some day share, but Boo...Boo was something else.

To start with, Boo was BIG. I don't mean fat, i mean he was just plain HUGE, and all of it was muscle. When my dad and I first saw him in the pet store, he was sitting on his tail, so Dad couldn't see it was a naked rat tail, and Dad said, "Look, they sell skunks here!" He wasn't joking. He really thought Boo (a black and white rat, obviously, though he wasn't at all skunky-patterned) was a skunk because he was just that big! "No Dad," I said, "That's a rat, and that's the rat I want!" Dad said that I could have a rat, but I could not have THAT rat. But the next time I went to the store, I not only got that rat, I got his buddy too!

That's a story in itself, actually. See, I didn't know it at the time, but Dad was actually even more against letting me have rats than Mom was. Mom is still...not very thrilled about them...but Dad loves them now! Back then, though, he was ignorant of their wondrous ways, so in the pet store, when I told Mom we needed to get two or the one we got would be depressed, and she agreed that "If we have to have a rat, I don't want a depressed rat" my father reacted by shouting "WHAT THE HELL, MAUREEN, ARE YOU ON CRACK?!" in the middle of a pet store full of kids. It was terrific. And so we walked out of there with two rats, one of which being the one my dad said I couldn't have (FYI: I am my Daddy's princess, I won't lie. There's pretty much only *two* things I was never able to get out of him, and that's a horse and junk food. He's a health food nut, see. Other than that, though? Yeah, I get anything. It's awesome.)

Boo liked Fidget, and he liked people. Anything else had to WATCH THE FUCK OUT though. Especially dogs. He *hated* dogs. He would chase our dog Jessie (she was 70lbs, not a small dog at all!) and if he caught her, he would bite up her face, her ears, her nose, her paws...he did not like her. At first we thought he just had an issue with Jessie only, but then middle school had pet day and I brought them....Boo went after A LITTLE OF PUPPIES. And someone also though he *was* a puppy (I told you, he was big---I also had someone once look at a photo of him and ask "What's wrong with your cat's tail?") Meanwhile, Fidget was hardly well-behaved himself. He went up a teacher's pant leg and got into that same teacher's desk where he peed all over his papers. Needless to say I never brought them back into that building ever again. In fact, I can't totally remember, but I think I may have killed Pet Day permanently at that school, or at least as long as I was in attendance. I know I don't remember there ever being another, at least.

Now that the groundwork of just what badassery and 'tude this rat was packing has been laid down, I shall regale you with Boo's ultimate assault on our dog!

We were watching a movie. The Day After Tomorrow, to be specific. Boo was hiding in the couch cushions. Jessie came in, and decided she would try to be cute and act like a much smaller dog than she actually is and jump up on the couch. I waited for Boo to fly out and attack her. Oddly, he didn't. What he did was creepy slowly out of the cushions and sneak towards her. She did not spot him. When he reached her, he did not bite her, which puzzled me further. Instead, he went underneath her. Then, with a howl of pain, Jessie made an EPIC LEAP off the couch, and Boo was hanging by his teeth on her belly! She ran from the room, taking Bubonic with her.

Since then, Jessie was afraid of all rodents all her life.

BUBONIC THE RAT: More badass than Anita Blake could ever hope to be!

( BULLET, CHAPTER FORTY FIVE )

QUESTION: Would anyone like to read it if I made posts about my Anitaverse characters? Not fic, just...posts about them. Like this is who they are, this is their background, that kind of thing. Some of them are ones you've seen in fic (such as Lucille, Armel, and Cornelius), some aren't, some are more minor and don't have much to them, some are really fleshed-out, some are expies from my original stories, others were made for the Anitaverse but I'm going to convert for said stories, etc. But they're all in the Anitaverse in some form or another, so I consider them relevant enough to justify posting...but only if you guys would actually enjoy that. This is a sporking blog, after all, not a Let Me Yap About My Stuff blog, so I promise I'll not be offended if you just want to see sporkings only instead.

In other news...

New rat! My sister is moving, so she gave me Sid, Ratsputin's former cagemate. He has a lump/scab on his nose that seems to be an infection so we'll be giving him antibiotics for that. He also already gets along with Miss Blatz <3

GOOD NEWS: Sid and Ratsputin got along in the bathtub! At first Sid was really weird, like aggressively friendly...he kept herding Ratsputin with his body and basically forcing him to cuddle...but by the end they were just hanging side by side and Ratsputin was bruxing! I was able to carry them together back down to their cages. BAD NEWS: Ratsputin's penis was just covered today in gelatinous blood (like menstrual lining almost) and I'm going to try and find out if the antibiotic I used for him (which is almost out) is on the market.

( BULLET, CHAPTER 43 )

This is probably going to be my last spork until next weekend. My family and I are going for a week-long vacation to the beach! We don't leave until Monday, but I've got a party to go to on Saturday and will be with my gaming group on Sunday, and in between that I'll be trying to pack up and get all the rat cages clean. I'll still probably post something or other (I found an old ficlet about Anthony Blake, for instance) but reading and sporking any more of this dreck is NOT my idea of a fun vacation.

You'll probably need a vacation too after...
( BULLET, CHAPTER FORTY ONE )

Things Sam did when I let her play on the counter the other night: Played with a bottle cap, got into my sister's bag of clothes, and went watermelon fishing, meaning she perched on the edge of a nearly-empty bowl of watermelon and did her best to get the very last piece at the bottom out. Once she did, she took two bites, let Blatz have the rest, and ran off for more mayhem to cause. Maybe she just didn't like watermelon, but I think it was actually just that she only wanted the challenge, not the fruit itself. She's definitely the little problem-solver of the bunch.

Ratsputin has had some bloody discharge from his penis (I SWEAR I NEVER INTENDED TO TALK THIS MUCH ABOUT RAT DONGS. OR TALK ABOUT THEM AT ALL REALLY.) and since my sister can't afford a vet for him right now, I've been treating him with cranberry juice and with leftover antibiotics from when Scurvy was sick. Given that he is otherwise totally healthy (acts normal, eats/drinks/poops normal, hasn't lost weight or had any other physical changes) I think this is probably just a UTI or bladder infection, rather than a sign of something serious like cancer, and thus a vet is likely not needed anyway, so I am not too worried about him/my sister is not a horrible pet owner for not taking him.

My sister has also promised to give me Darth Sidius, Ratsputin's former cagemate, in August when she moves. We're hoping that they can reunite, as she says Sid has been forlorn since they split up. This may seem odd, given that they were split up because they were beating the crap out of each other and Ratsputin was given to me to nurse back to health (I succeeded too well, this rat is a BEEFCAKE) because he was the one worse for the wear, but rats are complex. Just because Sid wanted to be dominant over Ratsputin doesn't mean he didn't want him around. While you get the odd solo soldier type, most rats need friends.

If they can't get along, though, Sid can always have play dates (supervised, of course) with Miss Blatz. Sam is scared of the boys since they're twice her size, but Blatz, weighing a good pound herself, is not fussed by them in the slightest and is happy to do nice friendly ratty things like licking, grooming, cuddling, etc. with them. I admit to being really amused at how she draws the line at mating, though. Any time one starts to try with some courtship behavior, she pretty much just sidesteps them. This will go on repeatedly at length and it's kind of hilarious.

Also, tomorrow I will be going with my family to Calloway Gardens Animal Safari! You drive through this park full of all kinds of exotic ungulates and such, and they run up to your car, and you get to feed them! They also have a small zoo too. It's one of my favorite things/places!
http://www.animalsafari.com/Georgia/

Then on Monday, I start my training to be a volunteer at the animal shelter! Too bad there's no shelter for the wereanimals in...
( BULLET, CHAPTER 39, PART TWO )

Have some mice! Because this chapter is pointless, you may as well get some rodents out of it
http://fyeahmice.tumblr.com/post/52471224601/tiny-creatures-blending-in-by-elliums
http://fyeahmice.tumblr.com/post/52465297035
http://fyeahmice.tumblr.com/post/52333960120/ferret-in-a-frock-coat-jaffee-the-mouse-x

And chinchillas!
http://fuckyeahchinchillas.tumblr.com/post/52374911576/dolphinlegs-love-my-baby
http://fuckyeahchinchillas.tumblr.com/post/52319058835/blazeofreality-chinchillas-are-rediculously
http://dailychinchilla.tumblr.com/post/52092181594/via
http://villa-chinchilla.deviantart.com/art/Chinchilla-meeting-Clay-Bunny-116243397
http://clockworkphantom.tumblr.com/post/52488283944

And general cuteness!
http://mickeysam.tumblr.com/post/52521759825/bittersweetsadness-clementinescauldron
http://clockworkphantom.tumblr.com/post/52498409665
http://animals-riding-animals.tumblr.com/post/52503422273/goat-riding-llama
http://animals-riding-animals.tumblr.com/post/52471321225/rats-riding-dog
http://animals-riding-animals.tumblr.com/post/52422592671/monkey-riding-pig
http://fuckyeahcuteanimalss.tumblr.com/post/52376943200/via-cute-overload-d
http://fuckyeahcuteanimalss.tumblr.com/post/52376935873/via-cute-overload-d
http://fuckyeahcuteanimalss.tumblr.com/post/52145628621/via-funny-pic-dump-6-4-13-pleated-jeans-com

...and, um, a penis dog
http://clockworkphantom.tumblr.com/post/52503968154
( BULLET, CHAPTER 38, PART TWO )

Okay, I don't know about you, but I need a *lot* of cuteness for this one.
http://tinypawpets.tumblr.com/day/2013/06/03/
http://many-splendored-rat.tumblr.com/post/52060687655/batmanandrobin67-yes-im-a-rat-yes-i-play
http://many-splendored-rat.tumblr.com/post/51994416873
http://many-splendored-rat.tumblr.com/post/52008581702
http://www.zooborns.com/zooborns/dik-dik/
http://www.anothermag.com/current/view/1387/Audrey_Hepburn_and_her_Fawn
http://morethanprinceofcats.tumblr.com/post/51980218398

I want a pet baby deer/dik dik :C
( BULLET, CHAPTERS 36 & 37 )

Hey, you know what portrays just how fucked up it is to use mind control in order to take away a person's ability to consent? SAILOR MOON!
http://adventuresofcomicbookgirl.tumblr.com/post/5738438031/i-guess-i-should-put-a-tw-sexual-assault-for-all
http://adventuresofcomicbookgirl.tumblr.com/post/5809816030/continuing-the-analysis-tw-sexual-assault-in-the

On a lighter note, have I mentioned I like X-Men in addition to Sailor Moon and rats?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faOf0qSI1us

Speaking of rats, have a giant Gambian pouched rat with a plate of spaghetti!
http://img.fotocommunity.com/Pets-Farm-Animals/Rodents-Rabbits/AL-Dente-Gambian-pouched-rat-a19936589.jpg

And a very chubby chinchilla!
http://www.chin-chillas.com/web%20site%20images-2/DSC03084-293w.JPG

And now, unfortunately...
( BULLET, CHAPTERS 33 & 34 )

First, a wonderful explanation for Anita being...Anita...from Dottie Smith!
http://eternaleve.wordpress.com/2013/05/24/a-review-of-laurell-k-hamiltons-bloody-bones-chapter-sixteen/

Next, ratty stuff! Most rats love shoulders. Ratsputin, however, loves heads. He will climb up on top of mine and will squeak when I try to take him off. He's also growing a tail nail! Dominant rats get those; they lose them if their status in the cage goes down. Rose says Sid has grown one now too. I guess neither one was alpha (which was why they were fighting) when they were together so that's why they didn't have them before! For those wondering what that is, it's this little extra bit at the tip of the tail
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b384/befferoo/tailnail.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v53/jorats/Tip.jpg
Jenner has one too of course ;D I think the Anitaverse Rat Kings should have big ones they can stab people with!

One thing I hope that wererats don't have to deal with is penis plugs. (Warning: Link has pictures!)
http://www.ratballs.com/RatTails/Tails095.html
Jenner has gotten two big ones and one little one this week. He is an older rat, but he seems totally flexible as ever. So maybe he's just gotten inflexible in this one specific way...or, as a friend suggested, he's realized he can con me into cleaning his dong for him if he doesn't bother with it. Rats are as intelligent as dogs, and certainly understand cause and effect (do this and get a treat, don't do that and get a treat) so it's not that far-fetched a theory. I can't call his bluff either if that's the case, since a plug left alone can cause a lot of problems such as infection.

Still, even cleaning rat peens is better than...
( BULLET, CHAPTER 32, PART ONE )