These are actually two different things. Shapeshifters - those who can intentionally change shape from one to another - are often looked upon with some suspicion; they are considered more than a little flighty, generally, but intentional shape-changing is broadly socially acceptable. The issue here is unintentional shapechanging - being unable to control your mental self-image so that you take on an aspect of something you want subconsciously or that other people want for you. That is generally only socially acceptable for children; adults are expected to be more mentally reinforced than that.
Renu's art thingies
- Thread starter Renu
- Start date
- Drawing
My perspective is that this seems more like a question of how a society responds to childhood mental health. It seems as if the defining attribute of the Kuldare is that their mind and body transform in response to social pressure. I imagine that the Kuldare would consequently be extremely vulnerable to deliberate or inadvertent social pressure transforming them against their will (or in ways that don't serve the interests of their family). Keeping the Kuldare isolated from (perceived) harmful influences and preparing them to overcome a major psychological trial seems like the only way to keep them safe until they are capable of maintaining stability in the face of extreme pressure to transform. There is certainly a potential for abuse as LGBT or other disfavored personality traits are misinterpreted as signs of negative influence or a weak sense of self, but that doesn't seem to be the overall goal or result of this process.
Consider what monsters could be created when childhood and teenage power dynamics result in direct changes rather than simple hurt feelings and harmful patterns of behavior. There would be a potential for permanent damage from a cycle of psychological trauma and transformation. EX: A bully mocks a Kuldare for being ugly - they change physically - more people start viewing them as ugly - the changes worsen and become permanent as they internalize their perceived ugliness. In many ways the physical transformation would be the least harmful as it is the easiest to detect and treat. Psychological changes involving cruelty or stupidity could go in some truly horrific directions.
When we apply this perspective to a society I think that we can see how this "Rite of the Waters" is a vital necessity. The Imperial Households need to have a unequivocal means of determining just when it is safe to expose their children to outside influences. They can't keep their children indefinitely isolated as that would cripple their personal development and prevent them from serving their family interests. The "Rite of Water" would be the culminating experience that builds on psychological training intended to help the Kuldare maintain their sense of self and which signals that it is safe for them to fully enter society.
The "Rite of Waters" and the general focus on suppressing unconscious transformation through a strong sense of self seems like an overall beneficial practice that does have some potential for abuse. The fact that those who fail are permanently relegated to an underclass rather than simply receiving more time to develop is a particularly problematic element of the described society.
PS: I missed the last Squishy post and it seems like I may be overestimating the potential for lasting harm. I still love to consider the psychological consequences of children growing up with the power to shapechange and am interested in seeing if anyone else would care to share their thoughts.
This is absolutely fascinating. It seems like you have put some real thought into the social mechanics of a society of shapechangers. Is this just something you made up from a single idea or part of a larger work?
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You're not wrong, just I think underestimating the impact of other dreamers on the kulare, and of the nature of the kulare dream itself. There are many dreamers, and many dreams that range from the very specific to the very broad, and their effects form layers of expectation and form.
This is one reason why shape-changing is very difficult (though not impossible). Imperial society as a whole dreams that its people are bipedal, roughly what we think of as person-sized, fleshy, and so on. That dream is not very specific - the dream doesn't tell you what eye color every person should have or what length hair - but it is very powerful because it is dreamed by many, many people at once, and so being a person who has the physical shape of a butterfly is very difficult: the Imperial dream - zuraca, it's called - strongly resists the idea that you might look like a butterfly, and to overcome that dream you must have a powerful sense of self-as-butterfly. On the other hand, a child who shifts skin color, hair style, or what have you from day to day is not resisted by the Imperial dream at all; those things are easy, as a kulare.
But of course there are ranges in between Imperial society as a whole and the individual. There are pressures of family, of household, of region, of social class, of friends, and indeed as you describe those pressures can be extremely powerful and often not what your family wants. An incident of being bullied by another child probably wouldn't make much of a difference in and of itself - the kulare are resilient as part of the Imperial dream, they are flexible and bounce back easily - but your household would definitely not want you to fall in with the wrong crowd where the influence of that crowd over a long term might overwhelm the influence of your household, at least until you had more capacity to resist.
This is just one small piece for illustrative purposes! The entire work is much longer and covers a considerable amount else - and in fact the shape-changing part is actually incidental to the main idea.
Mayumi
- Location
- Lost amidst hungry sheep
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Ultra Sonic 007
Trying to keep things simple~
- Location
- Colorado
Sweetness!
For the sake of clarity for those curious, this is another commission for my NGE/Persona crossover Shin Persona Evangelion. This is Mayumi Yamagishi (the extracanonical character from the Evangelion franchise) and her Persona...Armisael.
"Why Ultra," someone may ask, "isn't that the name of the 16th Angel from the TV show?"
"Why yes, you hypothetical and presumably handsome individual!"
"How in the world did that come about?"
"Spoilers~"
/
Kkutlord
Prince of Breath
- Location
- Indianapolis, Indiana
Welp, so much for asking why she seems like some Human/Shadow Hybrid given one of her eyes is clearly a Shadow's eyes…
Just patiently waiting for my own commissions so I can properly establish a superhero team filled with teenagers.
sabreFather
Dr Pepper is the flavour that I savour
- Location
- Land of Bears and Loggers AKA Oregon
Are they teenagers with attitude?
Kkutlord
Prince of Breath
- Location
- Indianapolis, Indiana
One was literally a trained assassin, another was subjected to inhumane experimentation, a third an orphan whose power basically made it impossible to convey her grief, and the fourth had to run away from home because of giant murder-robot enforced discrimination.
So… seems like a mentally healthy bunch with zero reason to have any issues with authority.
Louise and Liche
- Location
- Lost amidst hungry sheep
- Pronouns
- They/Them
sabreFather
Dr Pepper is the flavour that I savour
- Location
- Land of Bears and Loggers AKA Oregon
*Narrows eye* Did she summon Settra the Imperishable!? I know it doesn't look like his art, but let me meme!
- Location
- Lost amidst hungry sheep
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Settra doesn't serve, he's on the sigma grind. This is a generic Liche Priest.
sabreFather
Dr Pepper is the flavour that I savour
- Location
- Land of Bears and Loggers AKA Oregon
While I did assert that he was summoned, I never said Settra was the familiar in this scenario. Mind, I never said Lois(?) was a familiar either. She could have summoned him and he said "Fuck it, it's vacation time, my small understudy. Let's learn you some rulership". (I don't ZnT, WHF, or know if this is a fanfic or some rando commissioned art for a random idea).
So what is the stance on necromancy in Halgenkia?
(I know technically the Liche Priests are in the 'look dead but are still technically alive, sorta but not really' category but given how generally cadaverous they are I think the difference might be splitting hairs)
Also, nice to see Louise with someone there at her back with a great gilded mace to instill respect into people what don't listen up but good.
OffBrandANON
eldritch horror, pink flamingo
- Location
- California, USA
- Pronouns
- She/Her/They/Them
iirc, it's something that would be looked on horrendously poorly(and is the, like, single time it comes up iirc) if it wasn't generally thought of as "if we don't think of it it won't hurt us", but i might be wrong(i've basically just osmosed the series).
- Location
- Oklahoma
Damn, consider me curious what sorta story/scene inspired this piece, because it looks fuckin awesome in concept and in art
grommile
nasty-minded old cynic
- Location
- NERV-Mercia
- Pronouns
- Traditional/Animate
Inspired by this comment and the sequence in Lyndon Hardy's Riddle of the Seven Realms (I think it was that one) where a wizard summons a demon with a stronger will than her own, my brain's capacity for free association chains leading to utterly terrible fanfic ideas now proposes a crossover/fusion between Familiar of Zero and the setting of Lyndon Hardy's novels.
My brain, it is a silly place.
Bunkhead
Let's get down to business...
- Location
- Outside. Now!
Isn't that how most of this stuff gets made?
Dr Totentanz
Shut up, I’ll throw vodka at you!
- Location
- A roadside picnic.
Belgian teenage nobility and her world renowned Egyptian scholar and tutor work together to bring justice to her former fiancé and now state traitor.
I wish it was for a fanfic but it's been an idea that's been steadfastly refusing to leave my mind for the better part of a year. I wish I could have the time and drive write it but work and life isn't as accommodating. At least work gives me the money to have someone else draw it so it'll exist in some form beyond a jumble of snippets and my headspace.
As for the scene, Louise has decided to help Wardes visit his mother finally, and what luck her partner just so happens to be a Liche Priest and one that's specializes in wielding Shyish.
Kkutlord
Prince of Breath
- Location
- Indianapolis, Indiana
That sounds like an anime plot or something, you got magic future-seeing powers or something? Cause that sounds very real and I want to know how you discovered it before anyone else did.
The Familiar of Zero - Wikipedia
it is an anime plot
granted the egyptian dude is added on but still
Kkutlord
Prince of Breath
- Location
- Indianapolis, Indiana
The Familiar of Zero - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
it is an anime plot
granted the egyptian dude is added on but still
One, I was trying to make a joke about how "Belgian teenage nobility and her world renowned Egyptian scholar and tutor work together to bring justice to her former fiancé and now state traitor." sounds completely natural as an anime/manga/game/etc plot.
Two, I remember Familiar of Zero. I'm just bad at keeping up with Subs and accessing Anime is usually much easier for me than the source material.
Dr Totentanz
Shut up, I’ll throw vodka at you!
- Location
- A roadside picnic.
Alternatively the plot could be 'World famous Egyptian scholar and Professor of Ancient Funerary Rites and Customs assist his favored student and acolyte in helping her estranged and now divorced fiancé in meeting his mother once more.'
Ridli Scott
(Verified acid sweater mutant)
- Location
- The Periphery
Is that the plot or the title? Because it really looks like an actual isekai title.
- Location
- Lost amidst hungry sheep
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I don't know what it is.