a-sporking-rat

- I'm going to take a short break befire I start sporking Kiss the Dead in order to get the next installment of my fanfic "Sue vs Sue" up because I've been neglecting it.

- Danse Macabre is currently being sporked at Ramblings of a Creative Double Dipper, and she put her finger on something I have been trying to for awhile regarding the nonsense about how Richard is homophobic cuz he doesn't want to have sex with guys. Now, the obvious fact of that being completely absurd is self-evident, as is the fact that Anita probably just thinks this because *she* wants him to bone her other boyfriends for her benefit, but there was always something more nasty still about it that I could never quite articulate, and she put it perfectly:

"Stating that not desiring something is indicative of -ist-ish behavior on your part is a manipulative tactic... It's not that Richard is a homophobe. It's that Richard isn't giving Anita what she wants "

I know this probably was obvious to all of you, but I hadn't quite realized it yet. The manipulation aspect of it, I mean. Probably because Anita usually comes off as too dumb and ignorant of how people work to be properly manipulative most of the time. CW also points out something very notable about this particuliar instance of "homophobia" from Richard: "You know, it seemed that Richard's disgust with the whole JC/Auggie/Anita thing centered on the issue of consent. Anita and Jean Claude Raped Augistine and all of his people. Richard did not say "How could you let that disgusting homosexual pair of monsters fuck each other on top of you" or anything like that. His issue was that Jean Claude and Anita collectively rolled another person and then screwed him and every person tied to him while he was in a state of dubious consent."

This is part of what wigs me out about this series. You'd think that if LKH (not Anita, but LKH) really wanted to paint Richard as homophobic, she'd have had him object specifically to JC boning Auggie because their both men, instead of accusing JC and Anita of raping Augustine like he did. Likewise, many of Anita's rape victims *act* like rape victims afterwards, such as London hiding from her and crying in the bathroom. You'd think that if LKH really didn't think this was rape, she wouldn't write people having these kinds of reactions to it. There are about another dozen or so examples of this sort of thing I could name, but what it comes down to is that while it usually seems unintentional how awful Anita and what she does is, sometimes it seems like LKH is actually deliberately making her do these terrible things with knowledge of how terrible they are and how it's hurting the other characters...yet still also thinking that it's sexy or brave or that Anita should be praised and seen as a hero for it. And frankly, that scares me WAY more than if she just plain didn't seem to realize what she was writing like it usually seems.

Anyway, here's the moral and/or legal failures of our heroine in Hit List. Feel free to add any I missed!

( HIT LIST MORAL/LEGAL FAILS OF ANITA )

Guys, I think I figured out how to fix this series: MAKE EVERYTHING RATS! Or at least rodent-related!

Ratnita Blake:
Guilty Rats/ Ratty Pleasures
The Laughing Ratties
Circus of the Rats
The Rattata Cafe (whoo, Pokemon!)
Ratty Scones
The Ratty Dance
Cheese Offerings
Blue Mouse
Obsidian Chinchilla
Porcupine Dreams
Danse Ratcabre
The Hamsterquin
Beaver Noir
Squirrel Trade
Rat List
Kiss the Rats

Merry Gerbil:
A Capybara of Shadows
A Cavy of Twilight
Seduced by Muskrats
A Squirrel of Midnight
Marmot's Kiss
Cheek-stuffing Darkness
Dormice Misdemeanors
A Springhare of Light

...that cute enough for you? Cuz you're gonna need it for...

( HIT LIST, CHAPTER FORTY )

ETA: Sam's mass is shrinking! I wasn't sure yesterday, but now it clearly is! It's like 3/4 its original size, if that! I don't know what's going on but I hope it's good!

Tonight is Halloween, and I would like to remind you all of last Halloween, when Scurvy was still around and had what I think was truly the best night of his life, as well as the story of Scurvy himself and how he came to be with us:
http://a-sporking-rat.livejournal.com/5250.html
http://a-sporking-rat.livejournal.com/5421.html

Miss Blatz is going to be the door-rat this year, and while she's very docile and chill, I don't think even she will be as truly enthusiastic as dear Scurves was!

In other news, there probably won't be any new sporks up until next week, since one of my cousins is getting married and we're all going to be traveling to make it to the wedding. I'll still post though, I have a couple of AB OCs to put up, and my notes on swanmanes and nagas from The Lunatic Cafe. Right now, though, it's...

( HIT LIST, CHAPTER 37 )

- 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 )

Blood Noir is still in the dollar store. I again flipped it to a random place...I came to a scene with Anita, Jason, and a bunch of blonde girls ("they looked like Barbie clones, or Paris Hilton clones") and I think it's a party or something and they're begging Anita to stay and the one with the biggest fanciest hair is all "if you leave now you'll think we're terrible" and oh my gosh, this is totally teen!LKH fantasizing about the popular kids inviting her to a party and caring immensely about what *she* thinks about *them* instead of vice versa.

I know this is such a small, small thing. But the whole 'werebeasts tied to the moon' that everyone and their cousin in modern media of all types uses...is not from folklore. It's from The Wolf Man, or rather, it's sequel. and that's fine. But LKH claims to do so much research, and she also claims she doesn't use anything that's not from folklore or from her own head, that she refuses to get any ideas from any other source (White Wolf, Buffy, etc.). Soooo....how'd you wind up with the moon situation in your books then, Laurell? Someone doesn't do as much RESEARCH! as they claim.

Speaking of that, since I did undead folklore trivia, how about some werewolf trivia?

* As I just mentioned, the idea of werewolves being tied to the full moon was also made popular by The Wolf Man; there is little to no mention of such a connection in any traditional werewolf folklore that I am aware of. This is due to the "gypsy fortune teller" stock character telling the protagonist a rhyme about werewolves that includes the phrase "when wolfbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright". This was originally not meant to indicate the full moon (which is not portrayed in the film as having any influence on the werewolf) but to imply that it happens in autumn, which is when wolfbane does indeed bloom. It was the 1943 sequel "Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man" that made the full moon connection and changed the rhyme to "when the moon is full and bright". This is what led to the 20th century "full moon transformation" idea concerning modern werewolf depictions.

* The first werewolf film was not, as many people think, The Wolf Man (1941) but a silent film made in 1913 called The Werewolf. It was only 18 minutes long, and featured a Navajo woman as the titular monster who uses magi/witchcraft to shapeshift. This in keeping with Navajo folklore about such shapechangers, and which is more common in traditional werewolf lore on the whole than the biting scenario used almost exclusively in modern media (due, most likely, to its use in the popular 1941 aforementioned Wolf Man film). In fact, it was the only werewolf movie featuring Native American werewolves that transform via witchcraft like in their actual legends rather than through other means like non-Native werewolves are portrayed as using/having. Unfortunately, it was destroyed in a 1924 fire.

* During the time that werewolf legends were originally being told, dogs and real wolves came into conflict often in real life because dogs were guarding flocks of sheep that wolves would want to attack, as well as protected human travelers that wild wolves would also prey on. As a result, some legends depict dogs as hostile to werewolves, sometimes even being able to detect them in human form. The first film example of domestic dogs disliking werewolves (even while they are in human form) was in the 1974 movie "The Beast Must Die" and has been commonplace in media ever since. The movie "Monster Dog" (a 1980s werewolf movie from Spain starring Alice Cooper) turned this on its head and had its werewolf able to control dogs instead.

* The hostile history between dogs and wolves is also the reason that many non-werewolf wolf-monsters are depicted as the enemies of dogs in their respective legends, such as the American shunka-warakin and the crocotta of India and Ethiopia.

A word of warning before we begin this next spork: I called the previous chapter "soul-destroying" and that was wrong. This has shown me the true meaning of the word. It is thirty pages. Thirty pages of destroying my soul and brain. Thirty pages all about Anita. Anita and her thing with Nicky, Anita and Olaf, Anita and how much Edward cares about her and how deeply, Anita and how Lisandro inexplicably wants her to help him stay faithful to his wife (yes, really) and like...there's some that doesn't focus on Anita, in the beginning with Olaf scoping out a new victim, but it just spirals downward and oh my god you guys it's terrible I think I died a little inside.

And I'm taking you with me. Ten pages at a time.

( HIT LIST, CHAPTER THIRTY TWO, PART ONE )

If you've read Shutdown or read a sporking of it, you know what a vile, mean-spirited, Mary Sue masturbatibation spite-fic that it is. And I have a theory about it. Ellen, the victim of the it that we are all supposed to hate, is not a judgemental meanie at all. Everything she says and does is very reasonable and tolerant up until she just finally gets pushed too far by everyone being an asshole to her. Now, we all know that LKH can write straw-men with the best of them, and she's not the kind of author who ever likes to give the 'villain' (or anything who has a problem with the protagonist) any kind of good points or sympathy, so you'd think she'd choose to make Ellen the most frothing judgey self-righteous horrible mean bigot she could, especially since Anita's reaction would be much more understandable that way. But she doesn't. Ellen sounds and acts like a real person...

...and I think that's because she is. I think this is a revenge fic on someone that actually exists and is based on something that actually happened. LKH has been pretty open that she and Jon her husband Jon are poly and have other lovers. I think one of those other lovers tried to bring their girlfriend into the fray. The girlfriend said some of the same things that Ellen did, LKH (who was probably already biased against her for existing and just looking for an excuse) took it as BIGOTRY and PERSECUTION and decided to vent via a petty hateful revenge fic and then share what should have just been a private fantasy (as is the case with most of her work these days) with the world under the pretense of it being a 'gift' the second she saw an opportunity (since I'm sure even her usually over-indulgent publishers told her that no way no how could this be charged for). I have no doubt that she'd indeed see such innocuous remarks, made from well-meaning wanting-to-learn ignorance rather than judgmental ignorance, as being the assaults that Anita treated them as. As we all know, she shelters herself from any criticism, seems to take anything less than praise as an attack, and pretty obviously has no idea what actual bigotry looks like, as has been discussed here regarding her portrayal of in AB. Add that one to her rampant hate-on for anything female potentially getting near her guys, or even just being near enough to get attention that should be going to her, and yeah, perfect storm.

I don't usually like to speculate on her life, it feels tacky and reaching and assumptive to a mean point, but she makes it very, very hard not to given how transparent she makes it that AB is a window in to her psyche, and once this thought entered my head about Ellen, the rest really just fell into place automatically.

I'd also like to add that I showed Dottie's spork of it to a friend of mine who is poly...said friend pretty much flipped her shit at Anita/LKH, and rightly so. It actually makes me glad I'm not poly too or I'd probably be even more appalled by the whole thing, if that's even possible.

( HIT LIST, CHAPTER THIRTY )

To start with, a fun fact: Though not an official holiday, August 6 is called the day of hamsters by hamster lovers in Japan. This is because their word for "August 8" is pronounced "hamu" and hamu is an abbreviation of a hamster in Japanese.

Unrelated: So, you know Operation Pied Piper? When the British government moved urban kids out to more rural areas so that they would be safe from German bombings in WWII? ALL THE YOUNG SWANMANES TOTALLY GOT MOVED OUT TO RUTHVEN'S PLACE

ALL OF THEM

AT ONCE

WHAT FUN

FUN LIKE A BARREL OF MONKEYS

BY WHICH I MEAN FUN LIKE TINY SCREECHY BITING POO-FLINGING THINGS EVERYWHERE

has to save their downy asses every two seconds from moor-beasts because they have viciousness of swans and illusion-of-immortality of kids and thus are constantly going after hellhunds and lindworms and what and thus ENDANGERING HIS INVESTMENT IN THEM DAMMIT

...he's not happy.

UR BABYSITTING, CELIA! NO THE THERIAN EMPLOYEES CAN'T DO IT, they won't be able to resist snacking on them when they're this size

Even if you have no interest in my characters or stories, I will bet anything you'd rather be reading that than...

( HIT LIST, CHAPTER 28 )

Bit of a mixup; I marked the previous update as Ch. 26, but it was Ch. 25. This is the real Ch. 26!

Singing mice!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/27/mice-sing-fights-video_n_3998276.html?ref=topbar

Blatz let me put a pearl bracelet around her neck as a necklace! She shall be my dress-up rat now!

( HIT LIST, CHAPTER TWENTY SIX )

Sometime down the road (I'm not getting anything new for awhile) I want to get another mouse that looks just like Jabez but female and name it Jezebel because JABEZ AND JEZEBEL ISN'T THAT CUTE

Now not only does Sam run up to people in her rat ball to bump their ankles and feet, she has taken to FOLLOWING ME AROUND INSIDE HER BALL omg how is she so cute

I was rereading the AB Wiki article on fey, and according to it, one of the types of fey is the Daoine Sidhe, who are the "fairy high court" in this world" and are divided into Seelie and Unseelie courts. So, I wonder, just what is a fairy "court" in this context? My guess is that it might be a name for a group of fairies, like Kiss is for vampires and Pard is for wereleopards, and the high court could be like the Vampire Council, except determined by breed/hereditary (since you apparently have to be Daoine Sidhe to be a part of it). Also, Anita determines that Magnus must be descended from the Daoine Sidhe specifically when she sees him use glamor (suggesting that other breeds don't have glamor) and this tells me that there must be other types of fairy too besides Daoine Sidhe and boggle that just never got mentioned. After all, she already knew he was part-fey, and clearly not a boggle like Rawhead and Bloody Bones, so if the Daoine Sidhe were the only other type, she wouldn't need to see him use glamor to know that they're the type he's got in his family tree. What do you think?

( HIT LIST, CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR, PART TWO )