(Cross-posted from the Witchy Chicks blog)
Paranormal stories, including those of shapeshifters (including werewolves), have become more and more popular over the last few years but if you look at things like native legends, these stories have been around for a very, very long time. But only recently have they moved out of the more horror or life-lesson realm and into situations where the shapeshifter is the hero or romantic interest of the story.
Suddenly, shifters are sexy!
Because I write paranormal romance and erotic romance and one of my series is the Coyote Clans, a coyote shapeshifter race, I’ve done a lot of thinking about shapeshifters and why I like them.
One of the big things I find fascinating about shifters is one that actually permeates a lot of my work, if you know to look for it — it’s the disconnect or mismatch between what someone thinks another person (or themselves) is and what they really are. What if the reality doesn’t match the wrapping?
In the case of shifters, at any one point in time they appear wholly human or appear wholly animal but are really a mix of both. What if you wear fur and people believe and treat you to be a coyote but you’re using that perception of your abilities and limits against them? What if you look like a short, cute woman but you’re really part snow leopard and could claw their throat out in a half second if they keep harassing you?
I think shifters are also popular and intriguing because the very fact of them having an animal “side” can give them a perception of danger, of being a bit wild, of even being a bit out of control but, unlike for regular people, they have a built in excuse. They aren’t ALL human so it’s okay or even good to be these things where it would be considered bad or even criminal in our real society.
So a shifter might be able to get away with kidnapping a woman and holding her while he convinces her she’s his one true mate and he can’t live without her where a human would be considered creepy and mentally disturbed.
Shifters are often portrayed as more than human. Stronger, faster, fiercer and even longer lived. So in this way they are something humans wish for and something that is better than human.
And shifters, as well as their society and mythos, are both familiar and not at the same time. A werewolf may abide by some human rules but some pack rules. Another variety of shifter may have another mix. And don’t forget about each author’s take on the mix – you’ll find very different rules depending on whose story you are reading.
But you’ll find a variation of this appears in a lot of my work in other forms but all around the issue that one’s perception of another based on outside evidence is never correct or complete. You can’t judge a book by its cover, in other words. Because of this fascination, I tend to have fairly non-standard shifters as well. I’ve not written a werewolf because there are so many assumptions about them – instead I have coyote shifters, a biker dragon shifter in the works and even a were-ferret species!
In my Coyote Clans universe, I’ve taken the actual coyote behavior and mixed it with some Native American beliefs to come up with a shifter species that has an internal consistency and ties to the real world to make it a bit familiar. Matt, my hero in Del Fantasma: Texas Tea is a Desert Song coyote shifter who is quiet, adaptable, intelligent and honorable. The Coyote Clans are not weres so they are not tied to the moon but they are a shifter species who can shift at will. They are not infectious so biting another person won’t make that person a shifter but instead their abilities are a mix of DNA and old magic where their Coyote really is another spirit in their same body. Part of them but yet not.
Matt is tall, handsome and not the surly Park Ranger he seems to be.
I definitely like a well-written shifter story and have read about some SEXY shifters. What about you? Do you like shifters? Do you have a favorite kind? Why do you like them?
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