The plethora of shape shifters in modern storytelling is like a wave. A wave of furry bodies, replete with fangs and black snouts and cool names like Trent or Chase or even Chaze. They know how to dress and they have smoldering stares and I would assume (wrongly or rightly) that they prefer their cocktails shaken, not stirred.
Of course, they come in all shapes and sizes, as long as those sizes are large and either of the wolf, large cat, or wolf variety. This limited scope of imagination has me wondering. Questions are blooming in my mind like belladonna flowers at midnight.
Instead of yet another lycanthrope, when are we going to see a blattathrope? I refer, as you certainly already deduced, to those lightning quick and powerful shape shifters who transform from human into cockroach and back again. Yes, yes, I know what you are going to point out. It’s been done already, and done well. Kafka. True, but Kafka single story did not result in a tidal wave of cockroaches a la our modern wolves named Trent, etc. Yes, you can rent a room in a Tiajuana hotel and experience a wave of cockroaches sometime during the night as they come to gobble up your deodorant and that half-eaten Snickers bar you left on the nightstand, but that’s not literature (unless you write about it in a format somewhat longer than a postcard home).
I’m convinced that it’s only a matter of time before we see urban paranormal romances featuring blattathropes. I can’t wait. Blattathrope Chase Maguire, special agent of the FBI, chiseled abs by day, mad scurrying with feelers a-waving at night… Lock up your guacamole, for goodness’ sake, or he’ll come for it!
It would have to be a blattanthrope, not -athrope. From anthropos, the man. One would also have difficulties with the foreign-language translations of said works of literature; Germans would picture a blattanthrope as a flattish, green being (Blatt meaning leaf). Those issues aside, I can clearly see that new trend in literature forming with you right at the cutting edge. Wait, are you going to combine it with your new trillionaire series? Blattanthrope Chase Maguire, chiselled-abbed TRILLIONAIRE special-agent of FBI by day, etc? And the starry-eyed barrista he falls for is, of course, a vermanthrope. Oh, the possibilities…
What is a vermanthrope? I’m very tempted to start writing the blattanthrope opus. Very tempted…
A vermanthrope turns into a worm-like creature, obviously. Their nighttime form is exemplified in the daytime by their undulating motion while dispensing triple-shot no-fat macchiados to trillionaire blattanthrope FBI agents.
Although, if it’s a girl, shouldn’t it be a vermgyne-something? I’m not too firm on my Greek word endings.