LKH Lashouts

This has been brewing in my mind for quite some time....

All evidence in the AB books points to vampire/therian media being identical to that in our world. For instance, Anita citing Dracula: Prince of Darkness, other therians being mad that werewolves get all the movies, everyone throwing stuff at TV for getting stuff wrong, Anita sneering at "movie shit", and so on. Yet this idea doesn't make sense. As I am always finding myself having to bring up, vampires, therians, fae, witches, psychics, ghosts, gargoyles, ghouls, zombies, trolls, and merfolk all been around forever and openly so. They're not fantasy and horror creatures, fantastic and horrible though they may be, they're just...real. And everyone knows it.

So not only should modern media get them 'right' according to the rules by which they function in the Anitaverse, especially since now they're legal citizens it'd probably be considered bigoted to portray them inaccurately. Yeah, horror movies about sharks and snakes get things wrong about sharks and snakes despite those being real too, but sharks and snakes can't speak up in protest about it like supernaturals can. Plus most of the changes made are made to make the animals scarier and/or the movie better. Example: giant snakes being ready to eat another person right after gobbling up one, even though real snakes will go a long time between meals. It just wouldn't be much of a movie if the giant snake took a long nap after eating one person and then could be killed at the leisure of the heroes. However, when it comes to the supernaturals of the Anitaverse, there's really no need to embellish them in this way; their super-powers and bloodlust means they're already quite scary enough!

Really, the entire horror genre should be different in the Anitaverse. In fact, Anitaverse supernaturals might not even be staples of horror genre. They're not unknown, they have fixed rules, you can't play around with them. The folklore that came before the movies and books would be a lot more fixed too; in fact, it wouldn't really be folklore, because they're real. Or, given their status as hated and feared, it'd be more along the lines of unfortunate sort of folklore that crops up around Jews and Roma peoples, but it would still be limited as hell compared to the rich and varied global lore about vampires, therians, etc., in our world. Maybe AB horror media focuses mainly instead on creatures that are fictional in Anita's world as well as ours, like chupacabra, Deer Woman, and Lovecraftian horrors.

They also wouldn't be confined to horror genre, they're everyday people so there are probably regular monsters on all shows, books, etc., just like there are, say, black people on most shows (albeit still usually not as the main character, not more than a few, may be tokenized, etc., which may well be case for monsters too, but there's still probably at least one on every soap, especially given that can you see TV producers passing up drama like they could bring?). In fact, there's likely whole different set of cliches for supernaturals in media in Anita's world than there is in ours, stock roles and stereotypes and such (again, as with real-life minorities like the sassy gay friend, the spicy Latina, etc.) So they might well get upset at TV, but not for reasons she suggests.

And that's just modern media. These beings existing openly throughout history means they will be in media throughout history. They will be in everything from all our greatest ancient worldwide cultural works--Beowulf, Illiad, the Bible, etc.--to famous literary works--Charles Dickens, Jane Austen--to just, well, everything! Speaking of the Bible, Bible (along with all other holy books) in Anitverse probably has a lot of additional material explaining the existence of supernaturals, how they are to be treated, and probably even stories of individual ones and what they did just as there's many stories about humans in there and their lineage and what they did. Logically speaking there should be metric fuckton of Biblical material and subsequent cultural impact. Not just for Bible either-- each species probably has its own creation story in every culture alongside with the creation story each culture has for humans, the pantheons we're familiar with will have been modified to include them (for instance, maybe Artemis is also the goddess of therians, or there's an entirely new Greek god unique to the Anitaverse for that), and so on.

In addition to stuff ABOUT supernaturals, there are probably many famous (and many more not-famous) works of art and literature in this world by vamps and therians and other monsters. You know how, in our world, there seems to be a rumor that basically every famous person, no matter what for, was gay, and/or that the work of every famous man (artist, writer,s scientist, what have you) was actually done by a woman? I bet that in the Anitaverse, there's a rumor every famous person is either a supernatural or stole their work from one. And you know how people will swear that Elis Presley/Marilyn Monroe/etc. are still alive? I bet you in the Anitaverse, they swear they're not just alive but vampires, explaining why they stay hidden and also allowing them to be forever the young hotties they're always be in our heads. Not to mention the whole vampires thing means people can also claim that folks like Napoleon and Marie Antoinette are still around too since 'they'd be dead by now' isn't an issue.

Which brings us to....shouldn't history as a whole be completely different, not just media? Shouldn't everything have happened totally differently with monsters in the mix?

My short answer is...possibly. But it doesn't HAVE to. My personal headcanon is that all the same stuff happened in the Anitaverse that did in our world, just in different ways, these differences being the presence and participation of supernaturals. For instance, George Washington still crossed the Delaware, but maybe he had the help of a pyrokinetic witch to keep everyone warm. The Allies still beat the Axis, just now we have several more names in the history books of spies and soldiers on both sides who were supernaturals and how they used their abilities in the service of their countries. So there would be a lot of little differences, but ultimately history got to the same place. It's a longshot, yes, considering all the possible other outcomes for a world like this, and it's one of the very few ways you could write the "monsters exist, always have, and everyone has always known" scenario without doing an entire rehaul of the history of the world, which is such an insanely big job that I don't blame LKH for not taking it on.

I do, however, massively blame her for not *understanding* that her own premise means media with monsters should be different, cops should know basics on how to deal with vampires., etc., of course.

I wanted to post some of my headcanon (some of which I think I've posted in the past, but most of it I haven't posted here before) and it breaks a big headcanon rule: It contradicts canon. Headcanon is not supposed to do that. It's supposed to be stuff never stated in canon (hence why it's something your own head came up with) but that wouldn't contradict it if it was. For instance, it's never stated in HP canon that Sirus Black an Remus Lupin were in love, but it was never stated they weren't and there weren't reasons they couldn't be, so it's a headcanon a lot of people have. However, when it comes to the very special case that is the AB series, canon is, in my opinion, basically pick-and-choose for the reader after Narcissus in Chains, because that is where shit starts getting ridiculous. Hence why some of my statements aren't about headcanon so much as whether I do or don't accept a certain part of the post-NiC canon.

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