Writing
Last week I listed off many bars, without getting into any of the histories. Many of them, unfortunately, are lost to history. I hope to correct that where possible. This week we will look at The Ladybug in Chicago; not to be confused with the similarly titled tavern in Toronto.
These days, bars are remembered by the personal stories that occur within the alcohol-covered walls of the establishment. There is one such story about The Ladybug on the story I linked above. So while I don’t have enough information to describe how The Ladybug impacted the neighborhood and the kinds of people that patronized the place, I’m lucky enough to find anything at all.
Lesbian bars have all but disappeared. They have largely evolved to sports bars, from my own personal experience. Many of them have grown to include Non-Binary folx and even gay men. It’s easy to bemoan this if you want to find someone similar to you in a safe space. But it’s important to understand the troubling times that were as we fight for a better today and tomorrow.
This bar, though light on information, will be a huge influence on my superhero book, Project Ladybug Tavern. It’s actually where the project name came from. This fictionalized bar in the fictional city New London uses codenames to protect their patrons. This is a bit of creative license to the real-life use of aliases. If you were cruising at a gay/women’s bar and afraid of getting arrested, or living your life as the woman or man that you are at a trans bar, there were numerous reasons to not use your legal name.
In the book, there is a bartender at the fictional Ladybug Tavern that decides to use the name of her favorite character from her most adored cartoon show, The PowerPuff Girls. Not very usual. But this becomes an unwitting catalyst to the naming convention for the meta-humans in New London.
Have you ever heard of the Rougarou? I hadn’t either, until I began researching for the spooky side of Project Madison Flame (see Vol. 2023, Issue 18 for more details). Deep in the southern part of Louisiana lives the cryptid known as the Rougarou. This is the next part of my Cryptid Mythology Tour.
The etymology comes from the French word “loup-garou,” which is a werewolf. Since Louisiana is also home to many Cajuns, the word evolved phonetically to become Rougarou, keeping its meaning for the most part.
I was a bit confused at first, because the first couple of sites I found did their best to distinguish this cryptid from werewolves entirely. To be clear, it is an evolution of the creature. The word werewolf comes from the Proto-European languages that all mean “Man” and “Wolf.” But the more the mythology expanded, the further the reach, and the deeper the meaning. So the Rougarou is, indeed, a werewolf, but it’s the southern Louisiana Werewolf. And that deserves a spotlight.
The Rougarou is also important because of its inclusion in saving the swamplands of Louisiana. It is used as the mascot, to save both land and creature. There’s also a Rougarou festival every year.
