Why aren't there paranormal insect love interests?

Author: ckaras License: Public Domain Dedication

Yeah, I know, a large shapeshifter horseshoe crab isn't very appealing and probably neither is a large preying mantis. But consider these facts before you completely rule out the possibility of an alpha insect.

Photo by SweetCrisis. Published on 18 July 2011

Stock photo - Image ID: 10050169 

1. Bugs outnumber humans on planet earth by about 1,000,000,000 to 1. That's quite a lot. If you're looking for a shifter army, you're gonna have more soldiers in the insect world hands down. If there was ever an insect/human war, I'd pick the larger -- way larger -- team for sure.

2. Bugs are stronger. Okay, they make shapeshifting humans tougher by giving them lots of muscle and strong bones, but they still can't be run over by a car and survive. Yet there are beetles you can step on who won't get hurt at all! Plus, insects can lift hundreds of times their own weight, putting humans to shame. Bugs aren't just tough, they're super tough.

3. Insects can fly! Well, not all of them, but unless it's a vampire we're talking about, most of the paranormal lovers out there don't, even when shifted. They tend to stick to the ground dwelling beasts such as bears, wolves, coyotes, etc. When they aren't shifted, they take planes.

4. Wolves have extra sharp noses, but insects have tricky eyes! Their compound eyes allow them to see in all directions at once. How cool is that?

5. They've got more legs. Does that mean they have more hands? Ah, the better to handle you with my dear!

Well, there's just a few thoughts on why we should have a bug shifter series. I mean, wow, there's so many to choose from we'd never run out of options.

Plus, they're kind of cute, don't you think?

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Eva

Author Bio and Contact:

Eva Lefoy writes and reads all kinds of romance, and is a die-hard Trekkie. She’s also terribly addicted to chocolate, tea, and hiking. One of these days, she’ll figure out the meaning of life, quit her job, and go travel the galaxy. Until then, she’s writing down all her dirty thoughts for the sake of future explorers.

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Does Paranormal Romance Allow Us To Indulge Our Darker Side?

Welcome to the Paranormal Love Wednesday Blog Hop, where we celebrate paranormal romance in all its many forms! Every Wednesday, we invite authors of paranormal fiction to share snippets of their works, either published or unpublished, involving some aspect of paranormal love.

In my first entry on the Paranormal Love Features page, I noted that even those paranormal stories that don't focus on romance in some way tie in to our deep-seated connection to the sexuality of the paranormal. Sexy vampires, for example, have been with us for quite a while—and long before vampires were openly sexy, they carried a sexual connotation.

In Bram Stoker's original novel, for example, Dracula has hairy palms (and for some great information about the historical connections between masturbation and hairy palms, check out this excellent article).  Carmilla, from Sheridan Le Fanu's 1871 novel, seduces her female victim in scenes of pretty heavy-duty sublimated eroticism. Lord Ruthven from Polidori's The Vampyre seduces virtually every woman with whom he crosses paths. And the blood exchange between vampires and their creations is often a heavily eroticized version of other exchanges of bodily fluids.

Similarly, werewolves and other shapeshifters appeal to our animalistic sides—the parts of us that want to let go and revel in violence and/or sexuality. And hardly a traditional monster is without its seductive side. Incubi and succubae are openly sexual, drawing energy to survive from the seduction of their victims. Early witches were said to have "congress with the beast" (or sex with Satan). And demons offered people their hearts' desires in return for their souls.

As a general rule, I would argue (as many others have) that our monsters illustrate our deepest, darkest desires. In our cultures, we create that which both frightens and entices us. And then we depict it over and over again, as many ways as possible, as often as possible, because these depictions are safe outlets for our less cultured selves.

Given that, paranormal love offers us a way to indulge the parts of ourselves that we might not openly share in our daily, structured lives. These stories allow us to be the monsters and the victims, the lover and the beloved. They allow us to delve into the parts of us we don't usually let out into the light—and in doing so, they allow us to understand ourselves, and one another, better than we might otherwise.

So if you love vampires, shapeshifters, demons, witches, faeries, incubi, succubae,  or even the occasional ghost or goblin, click on the entries below to HOP to the entries!

But before you go, tell us: what do you love most about paranormal love?