a_sporking_rat | Entries tagged with spork: hit list

And excellent post by commenter finite_wombat on how LKH fails at writing the US Marshals
http://finite-wombat.livejournal.com/2580.html

Went to the zoo today, and saw the naked mole rat exhibit. Much like the St. Louis therians, they sleep in big piles, are constantly nude with no embarrassment or sexuality about it, and are ruled by a colony queen like ants or bees. Of course, unlike Anita, the mole rat queen actually rules the colony by DOING stuff and her harem consists of only 1-3 males.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6scHgACSD0

I've started writing Mary Sue X-Men fic based around/in X-Men: The Legacy Quest novel trilogy by Steve Lyons and I really like it and am not gonna stop. Just....also never gonna show it to anyone, dear lord. Y'know, I actually love Sues. I think they're great. I think everyone should have self-indulgence chars to play out their fantasies. It's publishing them/apping them to an RP so everyone else has to deal with them and believing them to be anything but said fantasies is where the trouble happens. And honestly, on the publishing side, there's a market for Sues too, actually. Sometimes you do just wanna read about one and put yourself in their special perfect Sues, and that's okay. So I guess the real line with published Sues is when they stop being enjoyable for any audience but the author's ID. (And as far as RP Sues go, if you've got a partner who *wants* to do it and is just fine with that, honestly, go for it, I'm referring more specifically to the type of online group RPs that I played at, which were forums where if the other players didn't want to play with someone's terribad character and go with their desire to be the center of board attention, too bad)

I guess it's like sex. It's great fun and nothing to be ashamed of, but talking about and shoving your sex life in the face of everyone and expecting praise for about how it's the best and expecting everyone to play along with fulfilling your sex fantasies is not okay. Likewise, there's a market for sex books, but that doesn't mean sex should be in (or be the focus of) every book, and the sex in the book has to appeal to the audience. Think LKH would get it if we put it in those terms? Since Anita was only able to understand "basic decent interaction with others" when it was explained to her as being a kind of flirting...

( HIT LIST CHAPTER FORTY ONE )

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 )

The wedding took place near where my aunt and uncle live (oddly, not the aunt and uncle who were the parents of the cousin having the wedding) and they live near Cape Fear. Seriously, it's a real place and it's really called that. There are signs up and everything. I asked my dad about it, because Cape Fear sounds like it should be the title of a horror novel or something, and he says he thinks it got its name because of the numerous shipwrecks that happened there due to all the little barrier islands. I looked it up and according to Wiki "The name comes from the 1585 expedition of Sir Richard Grenville. Sailing to Roanoke Island, his ship became embayed behind the cape. Some of the crew were afraid they would wreck, giving rise to the name Cape Fear." It is indeed also the name of a psychological thriller movie starring Gregory Peck. I just have to mention this because I wonder, if there's a Master of Cape Cod in the Anitaverse despite it being a cape and not a city, is there a Master of Cape Fear and is it hard for everyone to not find his name hokey-cheesy-horror-movie-trying-too-hard?

One of my other cousins asked how I was doing, and an uncle mentioned the death of my mouse (Jabez) and she exclaimed, "Your mouse died? The one you had since we were kids?" Apparently she thinks all my rodents have just been one! I found this hilarious, as did my dad.

As you've doubtlessly noticed, I am entirely fed up with how LKH refers to all her werebeasts as lycanthropes when the word "lycanthrope" only means werewolves. It's not only incorrect, it's lazy too. She claims to do all this research into mythology and folklore, but if she really did, she'd have known that the term in studies and folklore for people shifting into animals in general is "therianthropy" from the Greek words for "beast" (therion) and "human being" (anthropos). Stories of people becoming wolves, cats, and dogs are in particular so widespread and common that they warrant their own terms under the umbrella: Lycanthropy, ailuranthropy, and cynanthropy, respectively. These are all the "official"/pre-existing ones that I can find on Wiki, but it's not hard to see the pattern of "Greek name for the animal + -anthrope" and I assembled a little list of what each of the Anitaverse shifter types *should* be called if she's going to use this system:

Therianthrope - General term
Pontikoanthrope - Rat
Lycanthrope - Wolf
Alepoanthrope - Fox
Ophioanthrope - Snake
Kyknosanthrope - Swan
Yainanthrope - Hyena
Ailuranthrope - All felines
Leonoanthrope - Lion
Tigrisanthrope - Tiger
Leopardalianthrope - Leopard
Pantheranthrope - Jaguar (no Greek word exists for jaguar, but "panther" originally meant "large spotted cat" in Greece)

There are also no Greek terms I could find for cobra or anaconda, the two canon types of weresnake. I imagine that "ophioanthrope" is used to refer to the weresnakes in general though.

The ancient Greeks thought that a leopard was a hybrid of a lion and a panther, which is why the word "leopard" is a combination of leōn (lion) and pardos (panther, which then referred to a mythical type of cat, not as in a cougar or black panther like it does today), so I could also just see wereleopards or werejaguars being called pardusanthropes. Maybe wereleopards could be pardusanthropes and werejaguars could be pantheranthropes? Anyway, these all look pretty hard to say but actually they're not! No more than therianthrope or lycanthrope, at least.

( HIT LIST, CHAPTERS 38 & 39 )

Current Music: Florence + The Machine

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 )

- I took my little rat Sam to the vet to check out the lump that I mentioned under her armpit awhile ago, since it's grown. Diagnosis is that it may or may not be cancerous, and if it is, she'll need surgery we can't afford, so basically we just have to hope that it's not. (Also, the vet apparently raved to the manager about what good care I take of my rats. I have never felt prouder in my life.)

I honestly feel a little guilty/embarrassed about this, since I believe in not keeping animals I can't afford (including emergencies) but I'd never had a vet estimate a cost of more than a few hundred dollars for me when it came to rodents. Then again, I'd never even had surgery offered to me as an option before, since so few vets will do that on small animals because of the risk, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised surgery is more pricey than what I've always had to be prepared for instead. Really hoping she does okay, though, especially since she's a young, healthy, very active rat who is only halfway through her life, and her cagemate is devoted to her! Seriously, Miss Blatz would just be so sad. My dad says that if Sam died, Miss Blatz would "look for her until she died too" and I just about bawled because of how sadly true that it.

- Apparently there is some kind of stock called an "abandoned baby" and I guess it must be good because my dad keeps talking about them and how he's looking for one to buy. He's not trying to be funny because of their name, he just honestly wants to buy an abandoned baby!

"It'll show you the abandoned baby!" That's great, Dad

"There it is! There's the abandoned baby!" This is just so perfect for Boo jokes

Now Mom has overheard him and she's like WUT

- I've come to the conclusion that the St. Louis wererats are the nicest group in the city and have the best leader.

On the nicest people angle, every other group has two or more people who are rapists, killers, or killer rapists, barring the swans who just had one person (Kaspar) who was a killer (and not a rapist) and the hyenas who had just one person (Narcissus) who is a rapist (supposedly; I actually think JC faked those memories to get Richard and Anita on his side against Narci at a crucial moment). The rats? Have none of that. The rapist wererat Fernando wasn't one of the St.Louis lot, and there was a blond wererat in the first book who *threatened* rape against Anita before Rafael intervened and saved her, but we never saw him again (I think Rafael killed or at least banished him...and I really hate the irony that he saved her and yet she repays him books later by raping all his people)

As far as best leaders go...Rafael sacrificed himself to the doomcrotch because he believed it would keep his people safe (with no idea what she'd do instead) and, as Ramblings of a Creative Double Dipper says, " out of ALL the were-whatevers not only is Rafael the only one not dragged into Anita's shit on a regular basis, forced to fuck OR participate in Jean Claude's nonsense more than once in a blue moon, his leadership ability is completely unthreatened and Anita and CO. count him as a friend. He's not on the radar AT ALL. Rafael is like, political GOD. Bet your sweet shit the dude knows what he's hiding from. Good form, Mr. Rat King. Good form. "

Donovan is not, I don't think, as good a leader just on the basis he leaves the swanmanes in St. Louis. The duty of the Swan King is to travel the nation/world and check in on his people. There are only three swans in St.Louis since Kaspar was killed. They could be re-located to a less dangerous location. The rats can't be, there's too many and Rafael has no connections outside St. Louis, but Donovan is the nation-wide leader of swans, he has connections to every flock in the states, he could get someone to take them and probably get their relocation collectively funded.

( HIT LIST, CHAPTER THIRTY SIX )

( HIT LIST, CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE )

- In addition to animals and their corresponding therianthrope type, individual AB vampires have also been shown to be able to call djinn, ghosts, and merpeople, so I wondered if there was a vampire who could call humans. Then I last night...they can ALL call humans. Even basic vamps seem able to control humans like Master vampires can their animals to call. I figure that's because said vamps all started as humans, y/n? So they already have that inherent connection. That's why they can go around rolling humans, but not everything else unless that thing is their one specific OTHER animal to call!

- It turns out that there is actually a canon reason why so many vampires are French, and ones from other European countries (Germany, Russia, etc.) are seldom seen: It's because a lot of the non-French Euro-vamps got turned to toast a few hundred years ago.
http://eternaleve.wordpress.com/2013/10/11/a-review-of-laurell-k-hamiltons-burnt-offerings-chapter-thirty-four/
Historical fuckery failure aside, that is at least a decent in-universe explanation, and I therefore retract all previous statements about there being a glut of French vampires for no reason except that LKH likes them and/or doesn't seem to realize there are other countries in Europe. I did not have all the facts, and I will try to be careful to make sure that I do before making similar statements in the future. I don't feel bad one bit about snarking in general, but I am very serious about only snarking that which deserves to be snarked.

Luckily there's a lot that deserves to be snarked in....

( HIT LIST, CHAPTERS THIRTY THREE & THIRTY FOUR )

- 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 )

-I'd like to read about Micah/Nathaniel/Anita a lot more if they did more stuff like this
http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=3144

- I much prefer this Domino to the weretiger one
http://theratretreat.org/2013/10/18/domino-adopted/

- I know a lot of you guys are writers, and I believe I've mentioned that I'm working on my first serious novel...I just finished the second draft, and I am feeling kind of burnt out on the whole thing, am more mentally enthusiastic about the ideas of other projects, etc. Should I soldier on, or take a break to work on said other things? What works best, in your experience? I'm just worried that if I set it aside now, I might never come back to it.

- I am always thinking up new characters. I can't really stop myself. It's part of why I want to write loads of novels, so I can get them all out. What I love specifically about vampire characters is that it leads me to, in the process of researching the time periods they existed in and throughout, learning loads of things I never would have looked into otherwise. For instance, recently a gorgeous black vampire with incredible cheekbones came to my mind, who works in a modern-day shoe boutique, and when I tried to think of his original time, powdered wigs and lacy sleeves and such just seemed to FIT, as did a lavish lifestyle and surroundings. So I tried to see where that would be possible for him, and it turns out there totally were black noblemen in the 1700s French court of Versailles! I never would have guessed! And while looking into things for an odalisque character, I found out about "The Reign of Women" which was a nearly 130-year period during the 16th and 17th centuries when the women of the Imperial Harem of the Ottoman Empire exerted extraordinary political influence. Many of the Sultans during this time were minors and it was their mothers, leaders of the Harem, who effectively ruled the Empire. Most of these women were of slave origin AND YET THEY RULED THE FUCKING OTTOMAN EMPIRE! How awesome is that?

Know what's NOT awesome, though? This chapter segment. Sorry. Speaking of it though, I was thinking more about Lisandro and his possible sex addiction, and I realized, he didn't have that in Bullet. Remember, Anita said that prior to the rape, he'd always refused to sign up as ardeur-food because of his wife. He was able to not only say no to Anita but turn down a situation where it would be 'justifiable' for him sleep with her because, oh, well, it's not like he's doing it for any reason but to help his boss out, right? It wasn't until AFTER the ardeur-orgy that he found himself being unable to say no to sex with hot women despite how loyal he clearly is to his wife. I think this problem of his is a direct result of being raped. It's not unusual at all in rape victims to exhibit this kind of behavior afterward, I can't believe I didn't see it before. HOW ARE YOU DOING THIS UNINTENTIONALLY, LKH?! HOW?!

( HIT LIST, CHAPTER THIRTY TWO, PART TWO )

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 )

My dad and I are fans of The Walking Dead, the new season of which premiered last night. This led to a discussion about how Boo would kick the Governor's ass, and would kick all the zombies/walkers' asses too. And how he'd jump on them and take a bite and then be like EW GROSS WTF IS WRONG WITH THIS MEAT?! And then he'd realize that in addition to tasting terrible, these things are also competition for his food source (people) and he'd become a zombie-hunter to eliminate said competition---he'd just chew a hole right through their heads and leave the rest!

In honor of that, have some trivia regarding the undead from the world over!

* Some people think that the word "zombie" comes from the word "zuvembie" and that zuvembie is an African word for the undead. This is not the case. The "zuvembie" is a supernatural creature made up by an American author of pulp fiction for the "Weird Tales" magazine in 1938. Because the Comics Code Authority would not allow zombies, many comics since have used the "zuvembie" in place of the word "zombie" because they sound similar enough, even though the two creatures are quite different. Specifically, it was Robert E. Howard that created the "zuvembie" in his short story "Pigeons from Hell", published in Weird Tales in 1938, which LKH states as having been inspiring to her as a young writer (and which I really want to read too!)

* Irish legends speak of the Marbh Bheo, the night-walking dead, corpses that rise from the grave, usually on a specific night such as Halloween. There are two types of Marbh Bheo: The Blessed Dead, who were good people that lived good lives and so are allowed by God to come back to life for a night to enjoy all the things they once did, such as food, drink, and company. All others, however, are raised by the Devil, and were evil people who led evil lives and whose only drive when resurrected is to do, you guessed it, more evil! Usually they torment their family and neighbors, but there are also some tales of blood-drinking, taking this type of Marbh Bheo from being an Irish zombie to more an Irish vampire, though this could be confusion with the many tales of blood-drinking fairies in Irish lore. Of course, fairies were also thought by some to be the souls of the dead, so who knows?

* Though mummies are most closely associated in modern perceptions with the Ancient Egyptians, many other cultures practiced deliberate mummification of their dead as well. In fact, the earliest known examples of deliberately-made mummies are from the Chinchorro people of South America. Unlike the Egyptians and many other cultures, who only mummified royalty or otherwise elite, the Chinchorro mummified ALL members of society, including even miscarried fetuses. Chinchorro mummies are also notable in that their internal organs were not only removed but also replaced with animal hair and plant fibers that gave them a sort of continuous "growing" life from within. (Not supernatural, but cool nonetheless! Besides, mummies are often pictured as among the walking dead, so it sorts of counts to include facts about real ones, right?)

* According to the Kerry-born Sean O'Sullivan, who is the author of a book on Irish folktales and the archivist of the Irish Folklore Commission, Irish folklore says that there's supposedly a famous fairy fortress high in the Kerry mountains known as "Dun Dreach-fhoula" (pronounced "drak'ola") where blood-drinking fairies were said to live and prey on travelers who came through the mountain passes. Like most folks I figured Stoker got the name Dracula from Vlad the Impaler, who was called Drakulya by the Russians, but given stoker's Irish origins, that might be an alternative source of the name for him.

I wish there was an alternative to....

( HIT LIST, CHAPTER THIRTY 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 )

-Eeee, guys, look at the birthday gift I got! Sati fanart!
http://elila.deviantart.com/art/Birfday-Sati-405991804

-Tangled was on TV and I realized LKH must really hate this movie. Blonde femme heroine in pink, EVIL VILLAINESS WITH DARK CURLY HAIR OF EVIL. I told that to Cyngnusrex, and he said "Or she could relate to it because Mother Gothel traps a pretty young person with really long hair and convinces them that she knows best and she's protecting them by keeping them confined in order to use them to retain her immortality and youth. Whereas Anita brainwashes a few pretty young people with really long hair and takes away their individuality and will in order to use them as a power source in order to retain her immortality and youth. 'Cept Mother Gothel is actually less horrible of a person than Anita is, and she's the dang villain." SO TRUE!

-While at the library, I flipped through Circus of the Damned, and Melanie actually refers to her harem as being just that. Once again, I love her and her honesty. I also got Bloody Bones to reread the fey bits, so I might be posting some thoughts about those soon. I flipped to a random part of it, and lo and behold, so much instant facepalming in just one small passage

Anita asks JC what Serephina meant by him once having been "a catamite for any vampire who would have you" and JC explains how he was turned not for money, title, or even love, but for lust, cuz he's so hot to everyone, and he used to get passed around like a bong basically and Anita is like "if you were going to make up a story, this so wouldn't be it" REALLY? BECAUSE GIVEN YOUR PATTERN OF FALLING FOR ANY HOT MAN WITH A SEXUAL ABUSE SOB STORY, I THINK THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT HE'D COME UP WITH. granted JC is actually the *first* case of this, it wasn't a pattern yet, but he's so wily and manipulative and *knows* desire that I think he could see it from the start and was just waiting to whip these lines out.

Then she asks why Serephina is an older woman because she thought vamps didn't age. He's like SHE DIED AT THAT AGE, DUH ok without the duh. And Anita asks if he slept with her, and he said yes, and she asks "How could you let her touch you?" BECAUSE OLD PEOPLE ARE ICKY. I mean, it's not the sexual abuse there that's the problem, it's that SHE'S OLD EWWWWW

Oh Anita. Oh LKH.

( HIT LIST, CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE )

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 )

This chapter is basically ALL THE REASONS I HATE OLAF AND HIS PLOT to the max

Firstly, it's just another case of how all men love Anita, no matter who they are, no matter how little sense it makes. Remember how Byron the gay vampire boned her? Or how about Valentine, the vampire pedophile from the first book? In the prequel comic when he's about to kill her, he tells her that "From behind, I can pretend you're a boy" meaning that he's going to get off sexually on this the way he does when he kills little boys...even though curvy hips, big booty, teeny waist, and long hair are NOT exactly common features of young boys from behind. But everyone has to want Anita, even the dudes who like men or kids or killing women who look just like her!

Secondly it's so obvious how hard LKH is trying to sell this as dark and edgy and tense when really she just wants a serial killer to be into her heroine because that's so coool you guys. And believe me, there are people out there who think serial killers are sexy. You know how you hear about them getting love letters in prison from women? I've seen the modern equivalent of that. There are teenagers on DA and tumblr who seriously had the hots for and/or sympathized with the guy who did the Joker shootings. It makes me cringe to think a woman her age would have such a view, it's bad enough with young girls, but we all know she's basically got the attitude of a very immature teen about most things. This not a tense 'I will have to kill this man someday' thing like she claims it is. It's the "I can woobify/fix him!" fantasy, and Anita will never fucking have to kill him because LKH enjoys this so much.

Thirdly, there's the really gross usage of Anita's Not Like Other Girls syndrome. It is repeated throughout this chapter how Anita is Not Like Other Girls to Olaf. Given that in every other instance of this throughout the series, said Other Girls are being lambasted for not being as good as Anita, this gives this chapter a really fucked-up victim-blaming tone that to me seems to imply that, well, if only more women were like Anita maybe they wouldn't be dead!

Fourthly, this attempting-rehabilitation bullshit. I'm not saying I'm opposed to the idea that people like him could ever be changed, who knows, I sure don't, but that is a job for professionals, not a bunch of...well, enablers really. Jeebus, I never thought of it, but they are all total enablers for Olaf here. And worse, the way it's done. It's put all on Anita's shoulders, like it's her responsibility to change Olaf instead of him being accountable for changing his own damn behavior, like she has to act like she likes him or UNDO ALL THE PROGRESS, and do things she doesn't want to do with this creepy guy she finds repulsive and put herself very much in danger, all for the sake of...what? The mission? They don't fucking need him. That's what's being sold but I do not buy it. His future victims? They'll only be safe when he's behind bars, and this 'progress' goes in baby steps with looong intervals in-between him seeing Anita, and honestly it's basically said outright that he only behaves this well with Anita and not any other women, so it's clearly not for them. It's for LKH's need for Anita to be the receiver of gross unwanted sexual attention because for whatever fucking reason she likes that a whole lot.

A woman's life is being put on the line, against her will, for the potential moral betterment of a man. That would be terrible no matter what the genders, but the idea of sacrificing women so that men can be better people is in particular one that has a long nasty history of baggage in literature and other media. And that could be pretty cool to play around with, to subvert and deconstruct, but LKH is playing it straight here, and it makes me fucking sick. And what if he does change, what then? He just gets to walk free and never face justice for the women he's killed? Somehow, I wouldn't be surprised.

( HIT LIST, CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN )

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 )

- My character Delilah needs a pet rat named Sampson. And he will be buff as hell. I can't believe I never thought of this before!

- A friend of mine pointed something out: "I read somewhere that a large percentage of male anorexics tend to over-exercise and not compensate for those extra calories burnt rather than the stereotypical 'not eat anything' model. Meaning: Anita may not only be totally anorexic, she may be anorexic in a way that plays into her 'girl/guy' mentality." GUYS, I THINK SHE'S GOT SOMETHING HERE!

- Correct me if my memory is wrong (I also checked the Wikis, but they can miss things)...but I think Oliver is the only Council member with anything approaching political beliefs that we know about. He is the only Council member who has espoused a platform on which he believes vampires should operate, what kind of PR he thinks is best for them to succeed as a species, and actually tried to do something to make that a reality. The rest of the Council...do nothing of this sort. The only thing we know of their political opinions is that Belle Morte vote in favor of vampires being legal in America, whereas Morte D'Amor voted against it. The closest thing to actually doing anything politically-motivated (versus personally-motivated, like with Belle going after Anita due to jealousy) is the Queen of Nightmares in BO sending Council members and representatives to St. Louis to investigate the death of Mr. Oliver, offer JC his empty seat, and check on the general condition of vampires in the USA, and in Incubus Dreams, the Dragon sent Primo to St. Louis in an attempt to dethrone or destabilize Jean-Claude. Once Jean-Claude and Anita overcame Primo, the Dragon permitted Primo to remain as their servant and expressed a desire to discuss "Council business" with them. What this Council business is was never revealed or talked about since.

Oliver = only one who fucking ever does anything or thinks about anything at length. All the others basically either don't seem to say, think, or do anything, and those that do things...are doing things like raping people and wearing bad 80s ren faire fetish clothes. One of the regular commenters at Dottie Smith's Verbal Menagerie suggests that this is the in-universe reason for why vamps don't rule the world. Up until now, I figured they must just *secretly* rule it because they are basically demigods with mad mental powers who can control other supernaturals (not just therians, but also ghosts, merfolk, and djinn!) and mass-hypnotize humans, etc., what the fuck could hold them back? And, duh, obviously it's that they're all brainless sex-obsessed twits more interested in terrible costume parties than anything else. Secret world domination, how could I be that naive? And now, alas, with Mr. Oliver gone, the only real threat vampires ever posed is as well.

- Oh, and speaking of the Queen of Nightmares, what the fuck even happened to her? ll we know about her is that she is the current head of the Vampire Council, but she has not been mentioned at all since her first and only mention in BO, not even in books where the Council was a big deal. I think that LKH forgot about her, possibly mixing her up with (as many fans do due to her name) the Moroven/Morvoren/Nemhain (the fear vamp fountainhead) but they're clearly not the same person since Moroven isn't on the Council at all. I really wish we at least knew her bloodline powers. I know she must have some, since you have to be a fountainhead to be a Council member I'm pretty sure, but we never find out what, and I don't think we've seen any vampire appear yet that had abilities explicitly outside the other lines (the exception being Wicked & Truth, who supposedly killed their bloodline head...I say supposedly because Vittorio was noted to have trademarks of their line, so I think he was actually their fountainhead all along) which further supports my theory LKH just forgot her. As a note, at the AB board where my pals and I used to play at, we decided to let her line have "chaos" powers, though I don't remember how exactly that was executed/what it meant.

- lliira pointed out in her spork of Danse Macabre that therians never seem to use prayer or items of faith against vampires to free themselves from their control, and I realized I can't remember a single instance of a therian using faith at all in the entire series. Since there's never an in-universe reason given as to why they would not be able to, I think that LKH just simply never thought of the idea that they could. I am 100% sure that if there were an in-universe explanation, it would have come up by now, multiple times, given how she likes to explain shit we already know over and over (even in Kiss the Dead she reminds us how supernaturals have super-senses NO FUCKING DUH).

If it ever hits her, it'll go like this
1) She'll shoehorn in some reason why therians can't use faith against vampires that will probably not make sense and/or contradict canon in some way

2)Have the therians do just that, and never explain why they didn't just do it before

- FUN FACT: The clit, contrary to popular belief, is not a button, it is an iceberg. The estimated full size of the clitoris, most of which is internal and thus not visible, is 9-12 cm long and 6 cm wide.

Unlike the clit, this is an uber-boring chapter, and it could have been easily summarized into a much shorter form than its ten pages and not have had anything lost for the reader and/or story.

( HIT LIST, CHAPTER TWENTY SIX )

Current Music: Garfunkel & Oates

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 )

Cuteness!
http://www.buzzfeed.com/lyapalater/no-friendship-can-compare-to-this-one-between-a-dog-and-an-e

BILL NYE THE SCIENCE GUY!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=AZtHZM8XYUQ

Bit late with this update. I was all mopey and sad on Monday and didn't spork at all, and only got a little done yesterday because I was so busy. Jabez, Jenner, and Justin just sort of hit me all at once, and I think I needed a day to just be sad and get it all out of my system.

ON RATS
I've also had some anxiety over a little lump that Sam has, but I had Dad check it out and he says it's just subcutaneous cyst (he's good at telling these things). Since rats and mice seem as prone to cysts and zits as they are to tumors and cancer, that's not surprising, and is pretty relieving since that's not lethal and probably won't even bother her. I wish we could lance it, but it's too deep in. What's odd is that Justin had one right in the exact same location...maybe there is some gland there or something in rats that makes it likely for them to get a cyst there? Damn, every time I think I'm the expert, some new question gets raised...

According to a Cracked article on parenting practices of other cultures that would seem like child abuse in America (but don't seem to do the kid any harm), it's a common practice in some Northern European countries for women to just leave their babies outside in strollers and carriages while they go into shops and restaurants. Boo is now booking trip to Sweden.

I spoke to the president of this company, and we're going to see if we can get Miss Blatz fitted for a Migrubbie vest!
http://www.wowinsync.org/mistermigs-com/

ON AB
Remember how I've said that I don't think Nicky is a sociopath, I think he just *said* that he was to freak Anita out and she took him at his word? I've got a theory (That it's a demon! A dancing demon! No, something isn't right here...) about why he continues to make this claim even well past his trying to scare and threaten Anita. Originally I thought that maybe he was basically just a kid trying to sound cool and tough, or maybe even, given his past, mistook symptoms of his abuse for it and self-diagnosed, especially since he might also have seen it as protective or empowering to "not care" which would explain why he seemed to take pride in it when he first announced it to Anita. But now, I've got a different idea, and I think it might be the one that makes the most sense: Nicky believes he is a sociopath because Anita believes it. The claim was originally made to her to, as I first thought, intimidate her into thinking she was dealing with someone who could and would do anything without remorse no matter how reckless, such as killing the waiter in a public place, to make her cooperate. She believed him, and so after she ate his mind and made him her Bride, his personality and beliefs about himself started re-shaping to her beliefs about him, especially since she would *want* him to be a sociopath like he said he was because it "justifies" her enslaving him and because she has that "sociopaths fall in love with me and think I'm cool!" thing. He becomes one because she believes him to be one and wants him to be one. Of course, since Anita's understanding of what a sociopath even is is very shallow, and she only wants him to be one for shallow reasons and without any of the real unpleasantry, he doesn't actually become a sociopath, just someone who constantly says they are but never actually does anything, which is what she *really* wants because it fulfills the fantasy aspect with none of the actual consequences of having an honest-to-god sociopath around and tied to your mind.

I had a dream last night that my poetry professor from college read Affliction out loud to the class and got mad at me because the story just pissed her off so much. I also dreamed that LKH stole my idea for a vampire named Ruthven that ruled the English swans, except she also made him a prince and possibly wrecked his character/made him more to her tastes. And I was trying to gather up as much solid evidence as I could that he was my creation to sue her but was worried about being sued in turn for making fanfic of her universe.

ON OCs
I've realized why just copy-pasting the RP applications for Gaspard and Delilah felt kinda too-long and awkward: RP apps, at least where I played them, are supposed to cover absolutely everything possible (namely so the admins know you're not going to sneak in anything by surprise, like oh she was in xyz event I just didn't mention it in her app profile!) and generally also to be ~artfully written~ to a degree. With you guys, I should be just more trying to get across the essence and basics of a character, since you're neither deciding if you want to play against them nor judging to make sure they don't break any board rules. I think that when I'm done posting everyone else I'm gonna post, I'll go back and redo Delilah so hers isn't soooo long and written in rather pretentious style calculated to make her be as sympathetic as possible (much like Lucy is my Villain Sue, Delilah is my therapeutic Tragic Sue and is sort of meant to have a lot of Gothic novel tropes going on--grimdark Victorian England full of dreadful asylums and Dickensian poor, laboratories and body snatching, helpless virginal young maiden, The Ophelia, etc., and she's probably an obnoxious creation to anyone who *isn't* into her type, which even I normally find irritating when they aren't mine). However, that's no reason for me to have made you sit through paragraph after paragraph written in such a way. I might also do a re-do of Gaspard's post too? Of course, it might be *more* obnoxious to post about them twice instead of just learning from 'copy-pasting profiles is too much for people to read outside of RP' what do you guys think/want? Won't be for awhile anyway, I still have to do Sati, Klaus, Cleo, Faustina, Max, Eva, Hiero, maybe Nicole, and, of course, Lucille.

I'M SORRY YOU GUYS I JUST LOVE MY CHARS AND WILL NEVER STOP TALKING ABOUT THEM IF YOU LET ME START

YOU BROUGHT THIS ON YOURSELVES FOR SAYING YOU WERE INTERESTED

THE FLOODGATES ARE OPENED AND THERE IS NO GOING BACK

I'M SORRY I SHOULD HAVE WARNED YOU BETTER

I should also warn you about...

( HIT LIST, CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR, PART ONE )

Current Music: Welcome to Night Vale, Ep 23

I'm back from pet-siting dachshunds, and I am grateful that Jabez did not die while I was away. That was my biggest fear. However, I haven't checked on him in several hours, and he looked bad enough earlier that he could be dead now. He definitely has cancer, we can tell now, and he's not going to last much longer. I don't want to go check on him because I kinda know what I'll find, but I'll be making myself after I get this up.

( HIT LIST CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE )

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Entries tagged with spork: hit list

HIT LIST CHAPTER FORTY ONE

HIT LIST, CHAPTER FORTY

HIT LIST, CHAPTERS 38 & 39

HIT LIST, CHAPTER 37

HIT LIST, CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

HIT LIST, CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

HIT LIST, CHAPTERS THIRTY THREE & THIRTY FOUR

HIT LIST CHAPTER THIRTY TWO, PART THREE

HIT LIST, CHAPTER THIRTY TWO, PART TWO

HIT LIST, CHAPTER THIRTY TWO, PART ONE

HIT LIST, CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

HIT LIST, CHAPTER THIRTY

HIT LIST, CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

HIT LIST, CHAPTER 28

HIT LIST, CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

HIT LIST, CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

HIT LIST, CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

HIT LIST, CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR, PART TWO

HIT LIST, CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR, PART ONE

HIT LIST CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE