Animal companions
Feb. 7th, 2015 05:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI've said it before and I'll say it again:
When writing an AU with daemons or other psychic animal companions, it is deeply creepy to use canon humans as said companions, especially when that's how they shuffle aside all the women.
I haven't in my latest reading found where all the black people end up, but that's the other thing that happens a lot.
Humans, especially those from minority groups, are not beasts of burden with their whole lives determined by their attachment to a particular white man.
Even if that would mean them being a snarky soundtrack in said white man's head, and even if the animal companion is taking that critical best friend role, it's just creepy to make them into non-humans.
There's been enough centuries of dogma suggesting women are a lower order of creation than men, don't go making your story say it again.
... to those with a different set of reading preferences I may seem to be going off on one rather randomly, but seriously, this happens every time.
It's also not the most interesting thing to do with it. You could start with the character you're giving a psychic other half and then do something like split out an aspect of their personality or make their companion mirror them in some way. That way they keep all their friends in human shapes, but you can use the psychic animal device to highlight and emphasise certain things about all of them.
When writing an AU with daemons or other psychic animal companions, it is deeply creepy to use canon humans as said companions, especially when that's how they shuffle aside all the women.
I haven't in my latest reading found where all the black people end up, but that's the other thing that happens a lot.
Humans, especially those from minority groups, are not beasts of burden with their whole lives determined by their attachment to a particular white man.
Even if that would mean them being a snarky soundtrack in said white man's head, and even if the animal companion is taking that critical best friend role, it's just creepy to make them into non-humans.
There's been enough centuries of dogma suggesting women are a lower order of creation than men, don't go making your story say it again.
... to those with a different set of reading preferences I may seem to be going off on one rather randomly, but seriously, this happens every time.
It's also not the most interesting thing to do with it. You could start with the character you're giving a psychic other half and then do something like split out an aspect of their personality or make their companion mirror them in some way. That way they keep all their friends in human shapes, but you can use the psychic animal device to highlight and emphasise certain things about all of them.