VERY long Ramble incoming
honestly now that I'm looking at the auraboa lore situation, I'm just disappointed. There was such POTENTIAL in the idea of the Loop and the horror of a new generation inexplicably being disconnected from it, forcing the newly hatched children into a world totally separate from that perceived by their parents (I mean, hell, they perceive TIME differently!).... but then the writer(s?) just fell ass backwards into Icky Tropes.
I feel like I can see what the idea was, especially with the recent alterations to the Encyclopedia entry... It seems like staff fundamentally understands the true Horror potential here, but... Instead, through the short story, they proposed it through the lens of a condescending outsider character, turning the fears of the older generation into something trivial. And also weirdly demeaning the Auroboa's situation by portraying them as overreacting.
Why... why would you do that? Like, from a storytelling perspective? What's gained from that? Why not embrace the true horror and even Emotional significance of that disruption? Why instead go for "ohh we NEED outsider help we NEED to be saved because we are so helpless and it is so Silly that we, creatures who have never experienced such things, do not know what sleep is"????
And if they WANTED to have a condescending outsider, I feel like they COULD have done that, but it would have to have that character realize the horror at some point. And make it obvious that their attitude towards distressed parents and children facing Eldritch Shit and the Sudden Deconstruction of it was not cool!
(or at the very least be a bit more...idk. Consistent with said outsider character? Juniper just goes from "omg I am so honored that the fascinating creatures of the behemoth have chosen me to speak to" to "oh their wasting my time because they don't know what sleep is. I'd rather be sleeping!! 🙄" like girl... c'mon now. Why are we trivializing it like this. Do you want me as the reader to be invested in their plight or not.)
I mean come on. They're beings connected through one networked hivemind-like system, yet each still maintains a silver of individuality that allows them to move freely throughout the Behemoth that they care for. And they've got an eldritch understanding of time that no other dragon could understand. They're seeing the future, past, and present unfold simultaneously. They're witnessing the birth and death of the world at the same time, and have no way to communicate it to other dragons. The best they can do is maintain their home, and even then, they see its roots spread and decay all at once.
And then the newest generation is suddenly disconnected.
An inherent link between parent and child and all dragons in-between, that has existed since the creation of their species, is just suddenly GONE for the newest births. With NO explanation for it.
The children have no easy way of communicating with their parents. The children are experiencing time in a way that was not meant for their species. They've forcefully been shoved into a circadian rhythm that they are Not! Built for!
The only way a parent could communicate properly with their child would be when the latter is sleeping, something that is also completely foreign to this species. It would be terrifying for all involved!!!
They are literally experiencing eldritch horror from the perspective of the eldritch being forced into the mortal.
Like why WOULDN'T there be panic!!! And why would that panic be trivialized! Why are we only shown the perspective of an outsider who looks at this situation and goes "Oh the silly tree beasts are being so silly over nothing, it's no big deal!"
That and the way the auraboas talk to outsiders. Like. There was such potential there. Real opportunity to explore how ancient, time-bending beings would communicate to someone who couldn't even BEGIN to understand the intricacies of it.
Instead we got what feels more like baby talk (even described as though they were hatchlings enunciating their first words, which... I dunno man, maybe we don't want to compare them to children like That) and less like... Beings that experience all of time at once. I mean, the hatchlings and the adults speak the exact same way, and that doesn't make any sense given the literal time barrier going on.
I totally get why people thought there was just a language barrier and that auraboas had their own language, thus causing the disjointed speak, and not that it was because They Do Not Experience Time Like We Do.
And I feel it would've been far easier to get it across by just... I dunno. Do anything else?? I saw someone on here suggest they speak in the "wrong" tenses, or using multiple tenses in the same sentence, which I think would've been far more clear.
Like, as opposed to "saplings wilt! saplings silent!" just "the saplings will wilt in silence, they've wilted in silence, they are wilting silently." Said all at once like all things are true simultaneously. And if we're going for hivemind, have each auraboa speak in a different tense, all at the same time, and have them switch it up every time.
Have our outsider get confused and be like "which is it? are they wilting now, or have they already wilted?" and the cluster of auraboas respond in a cacophony of yes's, no's, and maybe's all at once.
Would've probably gotten across the "alien" vibe they were supposedly going for far better than wide-eyed desperation for an outsider's guidance conveyed through disjointed, in-world described as baby speech.
And also maybe would've had less accidental connotations. Because as it stands, I completely see why people have made the connections to the real world where they have. This doesn't read like eldritch timey-wimey intrigue, or even a respectful look at how younger generations can become detached from their families' cultures over time and the struggles that come with it.
It reads like a culture being perceived by an ignorant outsider who (despite supposedly respecting these dragons) scoffs and rolls their eyes because the tree beasts with their funny words are being silly again, and that Hey, isn't it actually a great thing that the children are fundamentally different in all manners now? Because now they can join the rest of us in the "real world."
Yknow. Ick.
(I Personally think it would've been better to have the perspective be one of the Auraboas themselves, especially one of the children, to really understand what was going on here. Give us the full brunt of the mind of a creature experiencing all of time interwoven as one shape. The waters fall and the oceans crash with waves. They've now fallen to drought. The ocean has yet to be born. Caves have been carved out through the waters' currents. And when I break from this timeline, I open my eyes to see a child, the child not yet born, the child born now, the child born yesterday. Why can't I hear it? Why couldn't I hear it? Why won't I ever hear it?)
I dunno. People more qualified than me to speak on this matter have already torn the lore apart, I'm just... dropping my own two cents. Potential got weirdly squandered and we ended up instead with unfortunate implications and tropes that could be connected a liiiittle too awkwardly to irl situations.
*Also, before anyone points out: Yes, I know the hatchlings aren't COMPLETELY detached from the Loop and can join it when they sleep. But the fact is, these thangs never had to sleep before. That wasn't in their species' nature. So that's still weird and foreign for them on both sides. And since the hatchlings now have a circadian rhythm, they can't stay connected to the loop permanently. And also Also, seeing as the previous generations aren't experiencing time linearly, who's to say they even recognize when their child joins the loop? They'll speak with an echo of their child when that child was last asleep ages ago, not knowing that it's not them presently, because there is no 'present' for the older generations.
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me and my mum were listening to danish news about how rigshospitalet (basically the largest hospital in denmark) was cutting back on costs by no longer covering the costs of tattooing nipples on breast-cancer cis women patients who have had breast re-construction, which is paid by tax payer money/free on the hospital
and that's all a discussion about gender reaffirming care!
whether or not the nipple counts as "distressing enough" is a thing I won't get into (I am personally getting mine removed -- opposite gender affirming care!!! same-but-different) -- what is interesting here to me, is firstly that what is being argued -- the big fascinating hypocrisy at the centre -- is notably not whether or not cis women need to prove a significant amount of psychological distress by speaking to psychiatrists and jumping through segregated healthcare hoops
and yet in denmark trans people do have to do this in order to access care -- not to the same amount as in some countries (notably it is done at the hospitals, but as far as I'm aware it's only the two main hospitals in Denmark that offer it, and it's not legal to go private within the country), but that is still the process and was until not-so-many-years also including forced sterilisation
the idea that a cisgender woman might feel significant gender-based distress at not having breasts was not in question in the discussion my mum and I were listening to
the other thing that is interesting is that the person at the rigshospitalet who was arguing that the nipples was too much cost was a cis dude. and of course cis dudes can have breast-cancer, but I have a feeling this guy was not speaking from that kind of thinking + of course the weight of "being a woman who has breasts that look like people think breasts should look" is an issue that he would never have to deal with, and so there was indeed an example there of a doctor who was not taking cis women's dysphoria seriously and arguing a (partial) rolling back of care on this basis
to what extent do cis women have to contend with looking "enough" like a woman because of misogyny? to what extent can one argue the dysphoria they feel is an innate idea of the self that doesn't match with what they see? to what extent is it a reaction to a different traumatic event (the scars a reminder of having been sick)? to what extent is there a cultural disgust against scarring that ought to be unlearned?
I'd argue that for the particular question of whether they deserve the care right now, those questions aren't going to help. offer the care and we can dismantle harmful notions about "correct" womanhood next to it (putting the ball in the court of a far bigger sandpit of societal work we need to do), and at the same time be cognizant of how that hits trans women 100 times over just for existing and having to perform hyper-femininity or else it doesn't count but is also demonised for being a performance, and in a different-but-similar way hits anyone who is assigned female at birth who is trying to build a space of non-conformity and/or masculinity and being scrutinised for "always" being a female while also being masculine traitors (just look at responses to elliot page) (just look at butches regardless of AGAB full stop)
I am supportive of cis women (and cis men) receiving gender affirming care. now they need to be supportive of me and mine receiving the same
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IT IS DONE.
I mean...not really because I need to proofread it and if I was really a good writer, I'd probably have to edit it down a ton but whatever, I finished the OrangeHook fic!!
It's just over 8k words, yikes. I should probably take out a ton of it but who knows if I actually will or not. Mostly, I'm just happy because this is the first thing I've finished writing in months? The slump I was in was so bad, I honestly thought I might stop writing completely again. Turns out, all it took to get me back into the swing of things was a brand new pairing and a bad idea!
Didn't write the smut in the end though. I did my usual 'fade to black and then we pick up right afterwards'. Whatever. It's better than embarrassing myself with some shoddy, badly written, unsexy-sex times. And this monstrosity is long enough as it is, so.
At least I had the restraint to not include the part I was thinking of where OC politely asks Hook to never call him daddy. Ever. And Hook's just like ''Uh. Sure?''
Now I just need to polish it up a touch and then I've gotta decide whether I feel up to actually posting this thing or not...
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