Rails 3: Single Model backing multiple Controllers - ruby-on-rails

Question

Ok, I have search Google, API's as well as StackOverflow and have found no real decisive help for my issue. So here goes!
I have a Polymorphic model setup named Favorite and it ties to the User. Being that Favorite is Polymorphic I of course can use the relationship to allow my user to add pretty much any entity in my application as their Favorite.
Each of these Favorite relationships between the user and a specific model I want to be able to call different things such as 'Favorite' or 'Like' or 'Friends'. This allows me to have a different Controller with Views to manage each of these different relationships so they are more understandable to the user and myself. Hence I am covering the global generic idea of Favorites with a more precise idea of a 'Friend'.
So I went ahead and created a Friend controller with its associated views to handle the Favorite relationship between a user and other user's in the system.
But what I have found is that Rails expects me to pass a 'Friend' model in all of my interactions between views and controller even though I want to use the Favorite model and I get 'uninitialized constant Friend' as an error in my view. How do I get past this 'convention', how do I make the controller and views if necessary understand that I am using the Favorite model as my underlying model not the Friend?
I considered creating a new model named 'Friend' and inheriting it from 'Favorite' just to fool the controller, but man that just seems like a waste of energy to me. Any ideas out there?
CODE EXAMPLE this is using the Favorite polymorphic model to ButtSlap another User. Each form partial is pass the User as a local variable called local_entity.
ButtSlapController
class ButtSlapsController < AuthorizedResourceController
def create
#favorite = current_user.favorites.build(params[:favorite])
respond_to do |format|
if #favorite.save
flash[:success] = 'butt slap successful!'
format.html { redirect_to('/lounge') }
# format.js { render :action => "create_success"}
else
flash[:success] = 'ah poop!'
format.html { redirect_to('/lounge') }
# format.js { render :action => "create_failure"}
end
end
end
def destroy
#favorite = current_user.favorites.find(params[:id])
respond_to do |format|
if #favorite.destroy
flash[:success] = 'butt slap has been successfully removed.'
format.html { redirect_to('/lounge') }
# format.js { render :action => "create_success"}
else
flash[:success] = 'ah poop!'
format.html { redirect_to('/lounge') }
# format.js { render :action => "create_failure"}
end
end
end
end
Creates The ButtSlap
<%= form_for current_user.favorites.build, :as => :favorite, :url => butt_slaps_path do |f| %>
<div><%= f.hidden_field :favorable_id, :value => local_entity.id %></div>
<div><%= f.hidden_field :favorable_type, :value => local_entity.class.to_s %></div>
<div class="actions"><%= f.submit "butt slap!" %></div>
<% end %>
Removes the ButtSlap
<%= form_for current_user.get_favorites(
{:id => local_entity.id,
:type => local_entity.class.to_s}),
:html => { :method => :delete }, :url => butt_slaps_path do |f| %>
<div class="actions"><%= f.submit "take back" %></div>
<% end %>

Answer 1

Well it all turned out to be a little gem called CanCan v1.6.4
I have been using CanCan for Authorization within my application and when declaring your authorization rules in your Ability class you can either do it by Model or by Controller or a mixture.
In order to handle this I setup 2 root Controllers which inherited from ApplicationController. The first 'AuthorizedController' is used for all controllers which do not use a Model and the second 'AuthorizedResourceController' is used for all controllers which are backed by a Model.
Turns out that for my ButtSlap controller I had it setup as an AuthorizedResourceController and by doing so CanCan was automatically looking to pull and authorize either a collection or a single model based off of the controller's name 'ButtSlap'. But due to the fact that I was using the Favorite model on the backend every time I tried to post to the controller CanCan tried to load its imaginary model based off of its convention. And I thus received the errors messages 'Uninitialized Constant 'ModelName''.
Once I switched the ButtSlapController from an AuthorizedResourceController over to a AuthorizedController CanCan no longer looked to instantiate and authorize a model based off the controller name and it moved to controller based authorization instead and just like everyone was saying 'Poof' my confusion as to why Rails was looking for a Model tied to a controller name was gone.
You really have to love bugs like this, they really stretch your limits as well as your keyboard stockpile (I tend to throw keyboards when I get frustrated ;)