From A to Z in the InCryptid Alphabet: M.
Feb. 20th, 2012 07:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seanan_mcguireM is for MICE.
Oh, the mice.
Aeslin mice are highly religious. They want to believe. They need to believe. Their mental health depends on it. So they find something they can believe in, and they believe in it with all their might, for as long as that thing endures. Sometimes it's an object, or a place. Other times, as with the colony that currently lives with the Price family, it's a bloodline. To the Aeslin mice, the women of the Price family are priestesses, and the men? The men are Gods.
The Catechism of the Mice begins with Caroline, the Compassionate Priestess, and continues through the generations to the present day. They have celebrated every birth and mourned every death. They have given their lives in the name of the family. They have given their hearts in the honor of the family. They have given everything they are, and in return, the family has cared for and protected them, and has sworn to continue doing so for as long as family, and colony, endure.
Aeslin mice never forget anything. If they have heard it, or seen it, they recall it. There are divisions within the central family colony, each dedicated to preserving the teachings of their specific Priestesses to future generations. While the colony that lives today will learn the present en masse, in the future, Evelyn, Verity, and Antimony will be remembered by their own branches of the Aeslin priesthood. Nothing is ever forgotten. Nothing is ever left behind.
All Prices are remembered forever, in the rituals of the mice. No one ever leaves for good. As long as there is a family, the colony will endure.
Oh, the mice.
Aeslin mice are highly religious. They want to believe. They need to believe. Their mental health depends on it. So they find something they can believe in, and they believe in it with all their might, for as long as that thing endures. Sometimes it's an object, or a place. Other times, as with the colony that currently lives with the Price family, it's a bloodline. To the Aeslin mice, the women of the Price family are priestesses, and the men? The men are Gods.
The Catechism of the Mice begins with Caroline, the Compassionate Priestess, and continues through the generations to the present day. They have celebrated every birth and mourned every death. They have given their lives in the name of the family. They have given their hearts in the honor of the family. They have given everything they are, and in return, the family has cared for and protected them, and has sworn to continue doing so for as long as family, and colony, endure.
Aeslin mice never forget anything. If they have heard it, or seen it, they recall it. There are divisions within the central family colony, each dedicated to preserving the teachings of their specific Priestesses to future generations. While the colony that lives today will learn the present en masse, in the future, Evelyn, Verity, and Antimony will be remembered by their own branches of the Aeslin priesthood. Nothing is ever forgotten. Nothing is ever left behind.
All Prices are remembered forever, in the rituals of the mice. No one ever leaves for good. As long as there is a family, the colony will endure.
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Date: 2012-02-20 04:03 pm (UTC)I would read these books just for the mice, much as I love what we've seen of the humans. So excited!
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Date: 2012-02-20 05:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-20 07:32 pm (UTC)You know how various rpg settings will have additional sourcebooks? I want one for the Incryptid world, _The Catechism of the Mice_. I want it SO MUCH. With the names and titles of all the priestesses and stories about them, stories about the family Gods, and many stories about the Aeslin mice's rituals. OH I WANT THIS BOOK. If you decide to write this and put up a "preorder pay hardback price NOW" link I will click it and pay.
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Date: 2012-02-20 08:30 pm (UTC)It's beautiful because the Aeslin mice are utterly cute.
It's frightening, because I can't imagine how hard it must be to know that you'll be remembered like this, from the highest of highs to the moments in your life that you wish you could forget.
Now I really want to see the book, because I imagine that if a Price leaves Buckley Township, the mice will send an observer, so nothing will be forgotten.
(I'm also inclined to think that nobody with any sense will attack a Price at home. They may only be mice, but I'd put my bets on two hundred intelligent mice with sharpened forks and pieces of broken glass above an intruder.)
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Date: 2012-02-20 09:42 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2012-02-20 10:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2012-02-20 09:18 pm (UTC)This has always bugged the CRAP out of me. Why not priests and priestesses, or Gods and Goddesses? Why priestesses and Gods? I don't know if the Aeslin mice are sexist, but they certainly seem sexist, with this. Why do they assign the women a lesser designation? I would even be okay with a mix of priests and priestesses, Gods and Goddesses -- the nicer, more approachable humans are clergy, and the more distant humans who don't talk to the Aeslin directly are Gods and Goddesses. Why does it HAVE to devolve along gender lines?
Also, how would the Aeslin classify someone who is genderqueer?
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Date: 2012-02-20 09:50 pm (UTC)(http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=all-that-separates-male-from-female-is-smell)
I do look forward to seeing how that plays out, mind.
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Date: 2012-02-20 09:22 pm (UTC)I'm also curious why the men are deified and the women exalted -- I presume it dates back to Caroline, when the colony's ancestors needed something to believe in.
Yes, I'm interested in cryptid mouse anthropology/history.
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Date: 2012-02-20 09:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2012-02-21 01:36 am (UTC)And I am absolutely tickled by your above explanation of why the Price women are Priestesses, and the men are Gods.
I want this book to arrive pretty much NOW, Universe...
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Date: 2012-02-21 05:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2012-02-21 07:40 am (UTC)CHEESE! AND! CAKE!
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Date: 2012-02-21 05:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-21 05:11 pm (UTC)Bandwidth wise I know it's not likely to happen anytime soon but the Catechism idea is brilliant all the same :-)
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Date: 2012-02-21 05:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2012-02-22 02:02 am (UTC)Wee!
Aeslin Mice associated merchandise would be nifty.
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Date: 2012-09-27 05:38 pm (UTC)