Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: excited
  • Music: Glee, "Torn."

Ask me a question! InCryptid knowledge party.

With Midnight Blue-Light Special approaching fast (and Half-Off Ragnarok just put to bed), I am naturally spending a lot of time thinking about InCryptid, and blogging about InCryptid, since I want everyone to be as excited as I am. So here is your invitation:

Ask me a question. Ask me a big question. Like when I posted about the rules governing fae marriage. The ones that require serious thought, and a genuine desire to know.

What can cuckoos really do? What was the straw that broke the camel's back for Alexander and Enid? How do cryptid communities conceal themselves in human cities? Questions too big, and too complicated, to answer in the FAQ. Now, because I apparently wasn't clear enough the first time, I WILL NOT GIVE SPOILERS. Please don't ask me where someone is, or whether someone else is coming back, or whether I'll post a full calendar of Aeslin holidays (because I never, ever will). Ask me about laws and rules and universe, about etiquette and speciation and trends in fashion.

The ten best questions will get full blog posts about them, explaining whatever facet or facets of the InCryptid world they touch on. I get to determine "best," although you're all welcome to weigh in or ask secondary questions.

I have comment amnesty for any questions I do not choose to answer during this particular publication lead-in, because I want my brain to not dribble out of my ears.

Game on!
Tags: comic books, incryptid, midnight bluelight special
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greyduck

February 1 2013, 16:30:07 UTC 4 years ago

Even if you wanted to come up with the thousands of possible Aeslin holidays, that'd be a sure-fire way to take the fun out of being introduced to them in the story! Besides, they seem to be purely contextual, which is part of why they're so damned amusing. :)

Sadly, all the questions I can come up with can be answered either with John Rogers' standby of "whatever interpretation lets you enjoy the story better" or "I haven't gotten there yet" or "spoilers!" So, no need to spend valuable time replying to this comment, I guess!

ebartley

February 1 2013, 16:34:19 UTC 4 years ago

Why *hasn't* the Covenant squashed the Prices? They aren't that well-hidden.

seanan_mcguire

February 5 2013, 19:45:38 UTC 4 years ago

Thy question hath been answered.

reedrover

February 1 2013, 16:43:54 UTC 4 years ago

How many kinds of Gorgons are there? Was this an evolutionary split from the original gorgon sisters, or was this convergent evolution instead. Do they co-habitate? Can they cross-breed? Do they have special talents besides waitressing and train-conducting?

(From Wikipedia, the fount of suspicious factoids - The three Gorgon sisters—Medusa, Stheno, and Euryale—were children of the ancient marine deities Phorcys and his sister Ceto, chthonic monsters from an archaic world. Their genealogy is shared with other sisters, the Graeae, as in Aeschylus's Prometheus Bound, who places both trinities of sisters far off "on Kisthene's dreadful plain"...)

seanan_mcguire

July 29 2013, 21:18:09 UTC 3 years ago

Three! You will learn more about them very soon.

herewiss13

February 1 2013, 16:44:53 UTC 4 years ago

I was never entirely clear. Do incryptids have actual magic, or is everything supposed to conform to (somewhat twisted) physical/biological law? Conversations about theriomorphs (conservation of mass?) squished together with discourses on convergent evolution across multiple dimensions confuse me.

seanan_mcguire

July 29 2013, 21:17:46 UTC 3 years ago

There is magic, but there's also a lot of science. MAGITECH.

geekhyena

February 1 2013, 16:47:51 UTC 4 years ago

How did Istas get into the Lolita scene, and why did she decide to move to a big city?

tiferet

February 1 2013, 21:42:35 UTC 4 years ago

Not Seanan, but you don't actually have to be part of the lolita scene to wear lolita, you just have to know about, like, and buy or make the clothes. Being part of a lolita community can be helpful (they can point good places to shop out to you, and warn you away from Milanoo, shitty replicas and costumes one step up from sex shop outfits) but all you have to really do to be a lolita is wear lolita clothes at least some of the time.

(I rarely wear lolita clothes to work because work, and I don't wear them to clean house in either, but they are my go-to dress up and look pretty/convention/party outfits.)

The biggest bar to doing lolita well isn't finding the community or tolerating human interaction. Unless you're a talented seamstress, the biggest bar to doing lolita well is MONEY. I own at least one $500 dress from Angelic Pretty (collab with manga artist Imai Kira). It is one of the stupidest financial decisions I've ever made given the time at which I bought it, and I don't regret it a bit.

It has bitchy cats gossiping at a Rococo tea party on it. And it's pink.

Most lolita dresses are around half that and you can get them secondhand or on sale if you're lucky, but by and large it's as bad a hobby as BJDs for your pocketbook if you want to buy brand.

geekhyena

4 years ago

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tiferet

4 years ago

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geekhyena

4 years ago

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tiferet

4 years ago

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geekhyena

4 years ago

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seanan_mcguire

4 years ago

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beccastareyes

February 1 2013, 16:48:29 UTC 4 years ago

So, magic. Magic use is mentioned in passing in Discount Armageddon in the form of the 'darks' -- the enchantment boogeymen and other dark-loving species use to make their territory nice and dim*. How closely tied is the cryptid community to various (human?) witches and sorts? And how does the Covenant feel about them?
--
Oooh, second question! The Covenant is named after an English saint. How worldwide are they and how did/when did they spread? (I seem to recall that at least the tanuki bouncer at Dave's Fish and Strips had strong feelings about them that Verity explained as past encounters between tanuki families and the Covenant, which implies that the Covenant operated in Japan at some point.)

* Plus, I seem to recall Sparrow Hill Road takes place in the same continuity, so you have route witches and such.

hasufin

February 20 2013, 16:34:43 UTC 4 years ago

And this is why I decided to read the comments. I was going to ask your first question. So, Seanan, here's a bump fpr someone else who's curious about the human magical community.

seanan_mcguire

4 years ago

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hasufin

4 years ago

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capplor

February 1 2013, 17:00:28 UTC 4 years ago

Don't the Aeslin holidays vary by community? I would imagine that Veriti's colony now have dozens of holidays that the parent colony doesn't.

Maybe a better question is "Don't they ever eventually retire/co-opt older holidays (as humans did with Saternalia) rather than run out of room on whatever passes for a calendar? (For that matter, do they have their own calendar, with a looser relation to the seasons than the Gregorian?)

Are colonies ever combined? I'd hate to think about holy wars to determine the calendar of a merged group, but it could happen.

seanan_mcguire

February 25 2013, 16:25:41 UTC 4 years ago

All these questions have been addressed, if obliquely, by the Aeslin answer I posted this weekend.

nomadmwe

February 1 2013, 17:01:10 UTC 4 years ago

Can someone practice magic and not be a Cryptid? What is magic like in this world, assuming it's usable like that?
---
What happens with orphans in the Covenant? I mean, we get some hints of that in Discount Armageddon but I'm really curious how it's handled as a matter of policy, if the reality of the situation changes from policy, and how kids in that group are brought up in general.

seanan_mcguire

July 29 2013, 21:16:58 UTC 3 years ago

Yes, and I cannot tell you; spoilers.

Spoilers!

wake_the_dragon

February 1 2013, 17:10:00 UTC 4 years ago

We know that the Covenant is a major threat to Incrpytds, but do they also have big conflicts with other Incryptds? Or are they ever drawn into huge human conflicts, like wars?

seanan_mcguire

February 24 2013, 20:15:19 UTC 4 years ago

I'm not quite sure what your question means? Who is "they" in this context?

ladymurmur

February 1 2013, 17:11:32 UTC 4 years ago

I'm not asking for calendar of holidays, but instead have a logistical ponderment - For how many generations to the Aeslin keep their holidays? when the colonies branch off, and begin creating their own new holidays, do the new holidays begin overwriting or supplanting the old holidays so that there is only one or just a few on any given day? Or do they stack, becoming almost an "on this day in history" sort of situation? If there are multiple celebrations on one day, are the celebrated concurrently? consecutively? Do colonies ever rejoin each other, or cross-pollinate in some fashion (an Aeslin exchange program?) and thus share holidays? or are the new colonies more like religious schisms, and ne'er the twain shall meet?

(I think some of this might be answered when I re-read DA just before MBLS comes out - but I've been wondering!)

seanan_mcguire

February 22 2013, 19:24:32 UTC 4 years ago

Your question has been answered.

kay_gmd

February 1 2013, 17:14:49 UTC 4 years ago

What's the organizational structure of the Covenant? Is it very top down, or is it more cell driven? Is it possible/likely that two different branches could be working on the same "problem"? How is it funded?

seanan_mcguire

July 29 2013, 21:17:20 UTC 3 years ago

Spooooooooooooooooooilers.

lilisonna

February 1 2013, 17:21:12 UTC 4 years ago

Other dimensions: they clearly exist and can be accessed given the correct time and circumstance. How many are they, how do they connect to the world that the Prices generally live in, and how strange do they get?

Jennifer Crowley

February 1 2013, 19:13:18 UTC 4 years ago

And is this dimension and the Velveteen dimension accessible to one another?

seanan_mcguire

4 years ago

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digitaleopard

4 years ago

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seanan_mcguire

4 years ago

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resolute

February 1 2013, 17:23:40 UTC 4 years ago

What is the cryptid scene like in Iraq? What role do the cryptids play in the diamond-arms-drug trade in Africa? How did the American cryptids react when the European cryptids began moving in during the 1700s? What happened to the Chinese cryptids during Mao's revolution?

Y'know. Answers to any ONE of these, or something similar, would be awesome. And I appreciate you taking the time to do this, thank you.

seanan_mcguire

February 1 2013, 17:56:40 UTC 4 years ago

These questions are broad and definitive enough to merit books of their own, not LJ posts. Also, I have a tendency to be held to anything I say in these Q&As, and I want to be able to give settings beyond my current "I live in and understand modern day West Coast America best of all" the proper attention and consideration.

resolute

4 years ago

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acelightning

February 1 2013, 17:25:39 UTC 4 years ago

1. Where did the mice come from? (Or is that a spoiler?)

2. The Price family's history suggests that there might be some sort of "paranormal" ability that helps a person detect cryptids, and that this ability is at least partially genetic. On the other pseudopod, it could all be nothing more than empirical knowledge, handed down from one generation to the next with a bit more intensity than Great-Grandmother's kugelhupf recipe.

3. Are all of the cryptids in your stories actual creatures from world mythologies/folkore (like gorgons, tanuki, chupacabras, etc.), or are some of them your own inventions? Which ones are your inventions? (I'm betting on the mice, for starters...)

tylik

February 1 2013, 17:37:00 UTC 4 years ago

I really like the cryptid detecting ability thing... mostly because I am a biologist, and apparently in the Incryptid world my profession is kind of falling down on the job. (I mean, clearly there are enough natural species to be overwhelmed with...

...OMG! The Covenant infiltrated the funding agencies. Bastards!)

acelightning

4 years ago

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hasufin

4 years ago

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acelightning

4 years ago

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seanan_mcguire

4 years ago

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boobook_owl

February 1 2013, 17:34:15 UTC 4 years ago

I'm another Aeslin mice fan, and what I want to know is did they evolve or were they created? If they were created, was it to worship Verity's family or did they worship other families first? If they evolved was it from a community of fannish mice that gradually crossed the border between fandom and religion ?

seanan_mcguire

February 1 2013, 17:39:31 UTC 4 years ago

They evolved.

thedragonweaver

4 years ago

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tylik

February 1 2013, 17:34:49 UTC 4 years ago

What is the deal with the tooth fairy's eating habits?

Likewise, what's so not funny about the Easter Bunny?

seanan_mcguire

February 1 2013, 17:39:39 UTC 4 years ago

Spoilers!

tylik

February 1 2013, 17:43:12 UTC 4 years ago

How frequently have Cryptids attended universities? Have many gone for graduate degrees? How has that worked out for them?

seanan_mcguire

March 7 2013, 19:25:22 UTC 4 years ago

Your question has been answered!

tylik

4 years ago

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skelody

February 1 2013, 17:48:36 UTC 4 years ago

Does human history in the InCryptidverse deviate notably from ours at any point due to the influence of cryptids? Perhaps not in massive super-AU-spawning ways, but in terms of languages lost or preserved, migrations modified, conquests complicated?

Are there other Covenant-scale organizations in the world -- of any species composition -- dedicated to the cryptid/noncryptid relationship? Whether that means an actual bilateral relationship or one-sided hostility, aha.

Is cross-species reproduction as difficult for most species as it is/was for the tanuki (or even harder)? There are cryptid species with different sex schemas (the massive sexual dimorphism thing, e.g.), but are there cryptid societies with absent or markedly different gender schemas?

vettecat

February 1 2013, 18:11:36 UTC 4 years ago

I'd love to know whether you invented any of the cryptids, and if not, where you found source material for all of them!

seanan_mcguire

February 20 2013, 15:38:25 UTC 4 years ago

This is more of a "writer's process" question than a "how the universe works" question, I'm afraid.

ohari

February 1 2013, 18:20:59 UTC 4 years ago

How many of the modern "mythical" animals of this world (Nessie, Bigfoot, Chupacabra, etc.) are really Cryptids escaping from the incriptid-verse into ours to hide?

seanan_mcguire

February 27 2013, 15:21:42 UTC 4 years ago

None, because I don't do crossovers.

ohari

4 years ago

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elisem

February 1 2013, 19:03:23 UTC 4 years ago

Are there microscopic cryptids who can play a beneficial role in human biology?

seanan_mcguire

February 1 2013, 19:13:15 UTC 4 years ago

In the sense that anything science has not yet proved exists is a cryptid, yes. There's lots that we don't know about.

In the sense that I've got anything planned with them, no, not yet.

elisem

4 years ago

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hasufin

4 years ago

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offcntr

February 1 2013, 19:23:27 UTC 4 years ago

Do Bigfeet and Sasquatches interbreed? That whole "Bigfoot-hunters are Sasquatch" thing sounds like (slightly teenage) courtship behavior to me.

Also, what are bugbears?

geekhyena

February 1 2013, 22:23:47 UTC 4 years ago

I thought they were faking Bigfoot hunts for money, etc. Getting money and then providing blurry, inconclusive "evidence". Do Bigfeet = Sasquatch?

offcntr

4 years ago

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martianmooncrab

February 1 2013, 19:27:23 UTC 4 years ago

The mice, what is the breeding cycle? If they were as prolific as normal mice, there would be a whole lot of cheering going on, unless of course, they are doing live mousie sacrifice when they are cheering. Plus, other than the color and the obvious intelligence, do the mice do anything else?

seanan_mcguire

February 27 2013, 18:51:55 UTC 4 years ago

No more mouse questions this round, I'm afraid!

martianmooncrab

4 years ago

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terriqat

February 1 2013, 21:05:15 UTC 4 years ago

Another Covenant question: Who decides what are animals and what are monsters? There is a reference in DA to "things on Noah's ark." According to whom? Cause the Bible is pretty vague on exactly what " birds of every kind, cattle of every kind, every kind of creeping thing on earth" means. (JPS translation)

rianax

February 19 2013, 00:18:42 UTC 4 years ago

This! This! I was wondering that the off shoots of humanity are pretty easy to define for the most part, but animals like the platypus were considering the works of charlatans until live examples were produced. Exactly how is a tailypo considered to be a matter of extermination but a kangaroo isn't?

geekhyena

February 1 2013, 22:19:05 UTC 4 years ago

A clarification of my earlier comment (since I realized I didn't word it as clearly as I had intended): Why do some cryptids from very reclusive/rural-oriented and/or endangered species (such Waheela/Gorgons/etc) choose to live in cities, as opposed to others of their species? Herd immunity (so to speak)? Cultural reasons? Genuinely curious here. (As to how Istas got involved with the Goth and/or Lolita subculture(s) )

seanan_mcguire

February 20 2013, 16:11:47 UTC 4 years ago

Your question has been answered.
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