From A to Z in the InCryptid Alphabet: M.

[seanan_mcguire]

M 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.

Comments

[professor_mirror]

To the Aeslin mice, the women of the Price family are priestesses, and the men? The men are Gods.

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?

[archangelbeth]

In a demonmouse advocate side... Well, they are mice. Eidetic mice. If they imprinted on Gender Roles, then that could affect them -- and they do tend to have pheromonally mediated gender roles, if Teh Intarwebs are accurate...

(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.

[kengr]

One has to wonder what that scent cue "background" makes of perfume vs cologne. :-)

Given the genderqueer comments below, that could get *way* more interesting than the Price family will care for. <eg>

[seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com]

The assumption that "Priestess" is a lesser designation is assigning human understanding of gender and religious roles onto something that isn't human, no matter how cute and cuddly they might seem. Caroline would never have claimed to be a God, because she was a good Catholic woman, so she simply said she spoke "for a Higher Power." At the time, it was her father. Cue mouse religious dogma.

The mice do not listen to the Gods. They listen to the Priestesses. This annoys the shit out of Price boys with sisters, as they will inevitably find themselves persecuted by their siblings and their swarms of talking mice. Gods say things, and Priestesses explain them.

As for how the Aeslin would handle someone who was genderqueer, that will eventually be addressed, when it comes up in the main family line. They have a lesbian, and she's a Priestess, who has brought home a succession of Goddesses. (Alex is VERY ANNOYED that this did not grant him Priest status.) There is currently a small amount of religious conflict brewing in Alex's colony, as some of the younger priests are starting to insist that he should be considered a Priest, not a God, on account of making sense.

[danceswithlife]

<3 <3 <3
and also
ROTFL!

[kengr]

Oh thank you for actually *considering* that sort of thing.

and breaking paradigms is always good for "interesting" situations.

[archangelbeth]

*loves the mice even more*

[professor_mirror]

The assumption that "Priestess" is a lesser designation is assigning human understanding of gender and religious roles onto something that isn't human, no matter how cute and cuddly they might seem.

That is a valid criticism of my argument. And thank you for your nuanced further explanation of how the mice work.