#i admit to not having played with a lot of the non-shapeshifter supernatural creatures

[thatndginger]

Happy WBW, K! I'm wondering about the world of Shapeshifter. What sort of supernatural things exist in that world and how well do they all coexist? I feel like if I try to ask additional questions in too much detail I will reveal that I don't know much about that world, but I'd like to please go ahead and ramble about any aspect you like!

Hey Moshke! Sorry this took so long for me to get to ^.^|| Life has been a lot lately.

Don’t worry at all about not knowing much about Shapeshifter world. All my actually worldbuilding stuff is scattered to hell and breakfast, so if anyone besides myself *did* actually know about it at this point, I’d be amazed. Maybe when I finally finish a draft that will change…

There are three main types of supernatural creatures in the Shapeshifter world: human-like, animal-like, and ‘other’. These are very broad categories, to be sure, but it’s kind of like taxonomic classification, you know? Start with the broadest categories, and narrow it down from there. 

Human-like supernaturals are, by definition, primarily human or humanoid in appearance and behavior. Many scholars classify human-like supernaturals as “beings who were once human, but have since been altered via magic into something else”. Human-origin shapeshifters fit into this category, as well as vampires, various faeries, and some spirits. There is debate over whether witches classify as supernatural beings, but most scholars exclude witches on the grounds that they only manipulate magic and aren’t changed by exposure to it.

Animal-like supernaturals are primary animal in appearance and behavior. These supernaturals are perhaps the most varied category, since they can be anything from a spectral cat to a bird that can wield magical healing powers. Animal-origin shapeshifters such as selkies or kitsune fit into this category; as well as creatures such as the various Celtic water horses, magical birds like the Sri Lankan devil birds and Chinese shangyang, the Chilean carbuncle, and Argentenian peryton. 

‘Other’ supernaturals are those who do not easily fall into human- or animal-like categories, or have yet to be ‘proven’ scientifically. Things like ghosts, gods and deities, and a variety of mythical creatures that show up in ancient stories are in this category. Anything that can be believed in but never definitively proven tends to end up in this category.

For the most part, all supernatural creatures tend to coexist well enough, though there are definitely prejudices between most of the human-like supernatural creatures. Vampires and shapeshifters tend to dislike being around each other, but will work together and live in proximity if they need to. Faeries and spirits are usually isolated to ‘wild’ places and are distrusting of most humans and human-like creatures, to the point that there are many people who don’t believe that faeries and spirits still exist - if they ever did. Animal-like supernaturals tend to be rather rare and also prefer isolation over human interaction, but they’ll interact with other supernaturals when given reason. There’s only been a few points in history where supernatural creatures were actively hostile to each other. Their hostility is usually reserved for humans.

[dionetaofavalon]

Book review: The Devourers

I recently finished The Devourers by Indra Das. It’s a good book, it deserves an audience, and I’m pretty sure a huge chunk of that audience hangs out on Tumblr.

Here’s the summary on the back of the book:

“On a cool evening in Kolkata, India, college professor Alok encounters a mysterious stranger who reveals part of an extraordinary story. Tantalized by the man’s unfinished tale, Alok will do anything to hear its conclusion. So Alok agrees, at the stranger’s behest, to transcribe a collection of battered notebooks, weathered parchments, and once-living skins. From these documents spills the chronicle of a race of people at once more than human yet kin to beasts, ruled by instincts and desires blood-deep and ages-old---and the lone woman who dares defy them.”

cw: rape

And if we were to tag it: #Indian author; #India Indian; #folklore; #myth; #Indian folklore; #Norse folklore; #shape-shifters; #werewolves; #but not really; #soul eaters; #potential cannibalism; #depending on how you want to define things; #tw:rape; #m/m sex; #bisexual characters; #non-binary characters; #gender-bending; #genre bending; #fiction; #fantasy; #dark fantasy; #horror; #can go in any one; #interesting story; #well-wrought; #good book

 The more thorough review is under the cut---spoiler alert:

The book begins outside a Baul performance in Kolkata, where Alok stands, observing. A stranger walks up, and after a few cursory pleasantries, announces he’s half-werewolf. Then he immerses Alok in a story.

The way the stranger relates the story, and a second one, is literally mesmerizing---Alok feels as though he’s experiencing it first hand. He also feels as if he’s coming off a high, of sorts, once the story ends. Partly to re-experience this sensation, partly out of boredom and loneliness, and partly because he’s kind of attracted to the stranger, Alok agrees to transcribe some notebooks.

The notebooks come in two sets: one a male narrator, Fenris, and one a female narrator, Cyrah. It’s immediately obvious how these two relate to each other (Fenris dedicates his scroll to Cyrah, for one), but how the first two oral stories fit in becomes apparent only later.

The stranger does not entirely lie when he says he’s half-werewolf, but the term is so inaccurate that it might as well be a falsehood. The stranger is the product of Fenris, a shape-shifter, and Cyrah, a human, via rape.

And the book itself never wavers on that point, though Fenris does. He wants to create a baby, and he’s chosen Cyrah. He will impregnate her whether she likes it or not. She ‘agrees’ in that she chooses not to get beaten, and she demands payment (she’s a prostitute, which the book treats simply as being the way she’s played the cards she’s been dealt). That she ‘agrees’ and he pays her confuses Fenris, but the book is clear: it’s rape.

Fenris’s tale is rather short, but Cyrah’s is much longer, comprising a good third of the book. She relates her version of her first encounter with Fenris, as well as the rape, but continues much further than that: Fenris had arrived with two companions, Makedon and Gevaudan (a Northman, a Greek, and a Frenchman), but Makedon objected to Fenris’s actions and motives regarding Cyrah, leading Gevaudan to kill Makedon. Fenris and Gevaudan split up, though Gevaudan, being in love with Fenris, didn’t really want to. Cyrah meets Gevaudan, and together they track down Fenris, Gevaudan withholding his motives and Cyrah not entirely sure about hers.

Cyrah and Gevaudan become friends, which marks Gevaudan as a pariah. Not that it makes much difference to him, since falling in love is also taboo among their kind. 

The way The Devourers deals with shapeshifting creatures is about as original as you can get. They have two souls; they feed off the souls and bodies of humans; they live extremely long lives; they can molt into a different human body if they wish---so they’re shape-changers in that respect too; and their beast form is its own thing. Their second selves, as they call them, are animalistic, but not ‘wolf’ or ‘tiger’ or whatever else. Their second selves are huge, hermaphroditic, fast, terrifying, and have incredible senses.

However, there isn’t one form taken by second selves. Fenris is wolf-like, but some shape-shifters from the Sundarbans are more tiger-like. Broadly speaking. Some discussion in the book itself wonders whether human mythologies arose due to encounters with shape-shifters, or if shape-shifters adjusted their forms to align with the cultural beliefs of local humans. Fenris thinks human beliefs influenced beast-forms, but during the Durga Puja, the stranger points out art of mythic stories and concludes that Indian gods and demons must have been shapeshifters, and humans invented divine and/or supernatural beings to explain them.

(Das, being Indian, spends most of his time with Indian myths, legends, and beliefs, though he dips into Norse stuff---some of it obscure---and a little Greek.)

Additionally, the depictions of same-sex attraction are well-executed. Alok is definitely not straight, nor is the stranger, but the book eschews labels. A lot of times that annoys me: I’m bisexual and I like words that tell the world---if there’s a word for you, then you’re real, and so often ‘no labels’ is used to efface. In this book’s case, it works. One, no one has to say Alok is bi/pansexual, as it’s clearly shown in between the lines, especially in his interactions with the stranger. Two, Alok seems to have a traditional family, and you find out his fiancee had issues with some of the things he liked and wanted---rejection can make coming to terms with yourself difficult, and part of this story is about Alok finding his comfort zone regarding his own sense of self. Three, how humans see sex and relationships is different from how shapeshifters see sex and relationships, so human terms don’t really apply (even with Gevaudan, whom it’s tempting to label straight-up gay). 

Also, Alok and the stranger have sex. I’m more forgiving of ‘no labels’ when you actually show what may-or-may-not need the label.

The book deals with gender, too. As stated above, the shapeshifters are hermaphroditic in their second selves. And since they can molt, they can change the gender of their human self. The stranger admits that his final molt will probably take the form of Cyrah. With Alok, one of his fiancee’s problems was that she didn’t like that he wanted to wear lipstick. More than that, he wants to wear women’s clothes. I didn’t get the sense that he’s transgender (at no point did ‘he’ seems an inappropriate pronoun), but he’d rather have a sari.

The Devourers is well-written, with a developed style---although this is Das’s debut novel, he’s obviously been writing for a while (I’m a snob when it comes to technique, sue me). Characterization is good, especially with characters like Fenris, who’s ‘empathetic’ in the story-telling sense of three-dimensional, with clear, understandable motives; but he’s not sympathetic.

I mentioned this was the spoiler-review, by which I meant I discuss details, but I haven’t summarized the story anymore than the back of the book does---there’s plenty to discover for any interested reader. As I said initially, this is a good book, and it deserves an audience.