Story summary: Infinite the Jackal goes up to Antoine and asks him "Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?"
REFERENCES:
Predatory drift is a real biological phenomenon that occurs in dogs. I first heard about it years and years ago in a National Geographic show (I think; if it wasn't Nat Geo, then it was Animal Planet) reference to a pack of Russian street dogs that were shown hunting a cat (I'm no animal expert, but I kinda think they were doing that just because they were hungry). What I've read online made it sound more like the dog could just be up there playing or walking around or whatever when they suddenly switch into this predatory drift.
It doesn't seem like it affects every dog -- the dogs my family had back when I was growing up never displayed any behavior of this sort. They were all small breeds (two of which were shih tzus). But I had a coworker tell me about the time her shih tzu once stalked, killed, and ate a bird. AFAIK this was a house pet, not some starving stray dog. Wild stuff. So it seems like it can happen to any breed, but it's just more dangerous if it's a medium/large dog that can actually do some damage. It's honestly why I'd be very careful when having a small dog interact with a large one.
Anyways, my nerd brain went "Maybe I could use this predatory drift thing for one of my anthro fandoms", and filed it away for later use.
GENERAL:
- This is the first holiday-inspired fic I've ever written! I had two sources of inspiration:
1.) I knew somebody who said they were working on a Sonic
story. One of the things they wanted to have happen was Fiona Fox
trying to tempt Antoine over to her side by appealing to his predatory
instincts. I (privately) turned to a friend of mine's and told them that this person
was probably never going to do anything interesting with that idea, if
indeed they actually even went through with writing the whole story at all (I
was right, they didn't). I've chanced over any number of fanfics/or ideas
before where a writer will inadvertently create an interesting situation
with a particular character, but then either fail to follow through or
don't want to be bothered to do so because the character(s) either
doesn't interest them enough or they dislike them. Some people are just
lazy/or simply don't know how to pick up a plot point and carry it.
So
I decided to do something with the idea myself, only minus Fiona
because I can't stand that character. The idea wouldn't work in Guardians Of Acorn because
that Antoine actually has a support system in place that would
ultimately keep him from doing what PD!Antoine did. I kept the idea in
mind however, still wanting to use it for a fic.
2.) A piece of fan art for the movie Lady And The Tramp 2: Scamp's Adventure, where you can see the Angel character holding the leash of another dog in her mouth. She's pulling it back towards a bush, and behind her you can see Buster and a pack of other dogs waiting with these creepy whited-out eyes. I've been trying to track this picture down so I could link to it here, but haven't been able to find it. So if anybody out there knows what I'm talking about, then please link it to me.
Anyways, I don't even like the movie in question (an understatement), but it
is a very striking image. The juxtaposition of having a cute,
innocent-looking character seducing someone into a bad situation as
significantly more sinister figures, their comrades, watch hidden in the
background is just really fascinating to me. I just imagine a Sonic-verse version of this with Antoine in Angel's place and Infinite and the rest of the Jackal Squad looking on behind him.
So, every now and then I'll watch videos about Sonic-related topics on YouTube if they catches my eye. Well, I started watching one about Infinite the Jackal one day. The creator was a fan of his, and before I knew it, he got me interested in the character as well. He looks cool and he sounds cool, but it doesn't sound like he was utilized all that well in Sonic Forces, and they haven't used him in anything since. :(
Then it hit me -- why not a story where Infinite takes notice of Antoine and think he'd be a great way to get at Sonic and the other good guys by playing on the fact that both he and Antoine are predators/canines and Antoine's outsider status? I typically don't like stuff where Antoine is a traitor or whatever just because it's very obvious the writer is going this route because they hate his character, but in this case, I thought I could make this into an interesting psychological horror story.
- Let me be clear, I don't like the whole predator/prey thing the
way the internet has treated it for the past several years now. You got
people who saw Zootopia who seem to actually think it's a literal
wildlife documentary. I sincerely wish I was joking. I don't like the
whole "predators are stand-ins for minorities" thing, I think it's very
silly. Leave it at the internet to take something that could potentially
be very complex and strip it of all nuance and thoughtfulness. I think
prey animals are well within their rights to be wary of predators, especially
in settings where they are more animalistic. I mean, have y'all seen
what Cape hunting dogs do to their prey? And this is coming from someone
who thinks they're cool animals.
Then there are the weird furries
who make the "I'm a furry/predator" thing their whole identity and
lifestyle -- that's extremely annoying. I'm sorry, but I don't
believe in encouraging people to just wholly immerse ourselves in
fantasy worlds instead of just dealing with real life and their
problems. That's not healthy (also, I get very tired of being told to respect
furries like this when a number of them rank up there as being some of
the most disrespectful, judgmental crybullies I've ever had the misfortune of meeting -- right up
there with Karens and the like).
But I'll discuss all that
further when I get around to posting another one-shot in the future that also
deals with predatory and prey animals.
- It's kinda funny, but I got two unpopular canine characters interacting with each other here. :D Granted, I do think Infinite has a bigger fanbase, or at least more people have a more positive attitude towards him, as opposed to all the folks who act like Antoine personally stole their girlfriends and murdered their nanas.
- The appeal of this whole idea to me personally is this -- a character
like Antoine, someone who dresses and behaves like a noble gentleman, rediscovering his wild roots and exploring that. The person I mentioned
above who'd devised the Antoine/Fiona thing also talked about Antoine's
innate instincts (as well as Tails) being suppressed due to living
around so many non-carnivores. Which is also interesting, but again, it
didn't seem like that was going to be actually explored in the hypothetical story
that was never written. Honestly, that idea could've been tackled by
just having Antoine and Tails feeling dissatisfied or unhappy, not
understanding why, so they both set out together to discover what the
issue behind this could possibly be. Boom, you got a potentially
interesting plot and character development right there. But I find that
I'm way more interested in digging into characters' psyches and developing them, rather than
being super self-indulgent like a lot of fans tend to be (I mean, my stuff can be self indulgent, but I also try to marry that with interesting storytelling rather then just stuff like "My favorite character collected all the Dragonballs/Chaos Emeralds/whatever and is now the most powerful, sexiest being in the universe!").
- Yes,
walruses and foxes are not herbivores either. But foxes can be
omnivorous* (plus, Tails is just a child), while I think an animal that
largely eats things like shellfish can still fare better than a canine
in Antoine's situation could. Apparently walrus bulls however will kill
and eat seals on occasion, but Rotor's probably not going to be running
around trying to stab somebody with his tusks anytime soon.
*Yes,
coyotes can be omnivorous too, just like dogs, but being carnivores
obviously prefer meat. You cannot feed canines a vegetarian diet because
they can't get the proteins and such that they otherwise would get from
meat.
- Very obviously I was just mushing together different bits of Sonic
canon. We have Eggman, not Robotnik, Tails being a more active member
of the team as opposed to his role in SatAM, Nicole is just a handheld
computer, and no Bunnie/Antoine shipping.
- Generally I depict Antoine as being part coyote, part dog. But since I
wanted to get people interested in PD and avoid confusion, I decided to
keep him a pure coyote.
- Dog imagery and references are rife within the story, very intentionally. I think my favorite of them is this line: But that word – dog – did something. It rolled around his head, got teeth of its own. And compare Antoine's house pet vibe to Infinite's wild, feral dog vibe.
- A couple of major elements in the story are deliberately left
vague or up to readers' interpretation. How much of what happened was
actually due to Infinite/or his beacon? Or did he light the spark and
Antoine just did the rest himself? It's entirely up to the readers.
Sally's fate is also left ambiguous.
- The line "You see me now, don't you?" was originally "I told her I would guard her." I thought the former hit a little harder.
FUN FACTS:
- Since it was Halloween, I thought it'd be pretty fun to experiment
with writing in a style evocative of certain popular horror authors, more specifically Stephen King, Clive Barker, and Ray Bradbury.
Prior to this, I'd never read a Clive Barker book before or seen
one of his movies the whole way through, though I was aware of who he
is. I listened to the Midnight Meat Train on YouTube after watching the trailer for the movie adaptation on Tubi, and decided I really like his writing style. I
don't mind audio books, but do find that I prefer to either read
something on a screen or actually hold a physical book. So I'll probably
see can I find the physical book at my local libraries.
Pretty much
have known who King was since forever. I'll go more in depth
into my history with his work in a future post, since one of my future
one-shot ideas involves a certain character of his.
My first encounter with Bradbury was watching The Halloween Tree on broadcast television back in the '90s. Listened to a short story of his on YouTube, The Wind, and thought it was pretty good. My ultimate goal is to see Something Wicked This Way Comes (Disney turned it into an awesome-looking movie that I don't think a lot of people even knows exists) as well as read the book it adapts.
I'm always in the market to read something by any of these three writers.
- While writing this, I listened to some music to get myself in the right frame of mind -- the soundtracks for The VVitch, Wolf, and The Shining, as well as the "Patricide" instrumental from Gladiator for the attack scene (that's not a horror movie of course, but that music/scene instantly sprang to mind while plotting out that particular part in the fic). All four very good soundtracks. I admit I didn't fully realize the role The Shining's soundtrack plays in that film, because it really is discordant and eerie to listen to even by itself. Ennio Morricone described visualizing Wolf's soundtrack as a man experiencing a "dark dream". I also wanted parts of PD to have a dream-like quality. I also listened to general seasonal ambience music.
