Episode 4 - Dynamic!

So I ended up writing a good portion of this on Sunday and then not posting it. Now it is late and I have Episode 5 still to get to....

But back to Episode 4 - Diverse Dynamics



I'm going to go with a different style here with this episode than I have with my previous. Because when I feel awkward I definitely beat around the bush...

So let us turn to science!  I learned recently, and randomly, from a youtube video about soy (and generally falling down a social media spiral of clicking on things that look interesting), that the original idea of Alpha Wolf is outdated by the scientist who coined the phrase. That original biologist, L. David Mech, who wrote the book "The Wolf: Ecology and Behavior of an Endangered Species," has learned more about wolves than he did when he studied and wrote that book in 1968. Alpha wolf is an outdated notion. One that has been grasped onto by those who wish to to perpetuate that toxic masculinity notion of strong males can do whatever in the hell they want.  And they can suck it because check out these lesbian wolves.  Seriously, I need to stay off of youtube sometimes.

So my wife and I have 3 dogs. I consider our family a pack. If ABO were a thing, here is how it would break down...  My wife is the Alpha. Our oldest (border collie/aussie shepard) is the Beta, and sometimes he will get mildly aggressive during play, especially if there are females in heat on neighboring farms, and will "challenge" my wife (or that is the way we understand it in this pack dynamic notion). The middle child, my baby girl, (similar mix to the oldest since he is, in fact, her father, and her mother was the same mix with some cardigan welsh corgi mixed in), I honestly don't know where she would fit. She is deaf and doesn't give two fucks about much other than food and sleep. She might think she is an Alpha because she can boss her father around. The baby boy (a dachshund), he loves everyone and sort of lives in two different packs (he stays in the house during the day with his friends a boxer and a papillon because his older "siblings" are assholes). And then there is me. The joke is, I'm just the human who feeds them... 

But back to ABO, because the idea does exist and it has become popular in werewolf fiction, and now this non-werewolf ABO specific genre of fiction.

Actually, just listen to the podcast with Jude and Kendrene and their explanations, they are both more eloquent that I.

I'll go back to talking about random things.

So there are some notes I made when I sat down with DW to chat that I didn't get into. Which is fine, the conversation flows how it flows. Also this was before I learned to give DW an idea of some things I wanted to note so she can lead me in properly.

The scent bonding idea struck a chord with me. And I might get TMI, but scent is one of those things that helped clue me into being gay, and also helped clue me into my wife being the one. Acutally, I'll just leave it at that because I will get to the oversharing point very quickly.

My other note that correlates to scent is, in this fic, specific plants are named as scents. As a botanist, which might have been mentioned a few times now, I use scent to aid me in plant identification on occasion.  Want to tell the difference between the rabbitbrushes, especially when you are in that stupid hybrid zone and it kind of looks like both? I would use smell to differentiate. Not that it would ultimately matter in an ecological context, as most often was the focus of the study, because they both occupy the same niche. It is just how some of us scientists operate. Just ask a geologist about licking rocks. But I digress...

So I ended up going on a huge botany spiral in my notes and researching all the plants, which was neat but not ultimately helpful in my chat with DW or when we interviewed Kendrene.

 I might do a special blog about some of the interesting plant factoids I've come across reading fic.  We can even go back to Episode 2 and talk about orange hawkweed...

And last but not least. Some behind-the-scenes fun, shortly after DW pressed the stop recording button the words "I will eat pasta and think of you" were said.