Undead plot bunnies
May. 30th, 2024 07:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethSometimes, while tumbling different canons together and inserting ideas and seeing what happens if you twist, I come up with a Wouldn't It Be Cool If
(or a You Brilliant Bastard, when I am in fact the one imagining the Bastard)
and you'd think from there I could have Story
but
usually by then it is so many steps away from canon it does not resemble canon sufficiently to show its face as fanfic
and yet
relies on canon too specifically to call original.
I have a lovely sequence of Buffy canon plus Pathfinder rules plus a way of handling 'stealing magic' that neither canon quite allows but that can be hung up between them
that all spins Willow as on a downward spiral
to becoming a Lich Lord.
(If magic is a piece of your soul, ala Ka and Ba in Pathfinder Adventure Path Mummy's Mask, then Willow stealing magic in season six leaves others with negative levels they can heal except for Rack, who just dies. Maybe she gets to keep that bit of him. That's all necromancy stuff. But Willow doesnt treat it as a distinct danger, it's just Magic Addiction TM. Maybe she keeps doing it when she thinks its really important and just doesnt notice the soul fragments piling up? Or uses them. But then she puts a piece of her magic into Buffy in the comics. Which could be a Contingency spell, or could be a bit of her soul, making Buffy a Soul Cage for a Lich ala Pathfinder. Not that you can usually use a person for that, but someone managed it with a kind of mould when they really screwed up, so who knows. And! Then future!Willow the probably undead one who needed Buffy to kill her? Would just snap back to her Soul Cage to regenerate ie past Buffy. Maybe possess her younger self, since that body is handy. Time travelling undead Willow could do so much damage!)
But the problem is? Why do I want Willow to be the big bad?
I don't, really.
And most of those twists are a step side from either ruleset.
So it's just, like, sort of cool? Tada, a new big bad of magic and undeath, who got there a little piece at a time by accident, figuring it was all necessary, for her friends.
Now what?
My extended daydream kind of plugged her in to Torchwood Miracle Day, because thinking you're ending death is an easy oops for a 'good' necromancer.
But again, why? Why Willow? Why do I want to make the good guy go there?
Evil insane dead combinations sucked hard enough in canon.
But in all three canons you can't just go oh hey, maybe undeath would have up sides,
since it is necessarily kind of awful in all three.
Buffyverse needs to try a different policy about vampires though, the scientific conditions have changed and surviving on donor blood got possible, ish, so now it's a lot of maths and a specific medical need, not, you know, all stakes all the time. Staking becomes a pretty creepy response if you reframe vampires as a set of medical needs and some mental health problems. Especially since Harm was kind of fine once she had a good job to keep? So the 'verse makes an argument for vampires being Like That because of, like, being homeless, excluded from society, told they don't count as people, unable to meet their physical needs without hurting people *because* there's no legitimate path to getting the medical supplies they need because mostly they can't work any more because legally dead and sunlight sensitive... I know the story was trying to argue that without a soul they're just going to suck, but since that story was so flat they got finished with it pretty quick and all the other stuff is sitting there as well. And I donlt like any answer that works so hard to make the only option 'kill them all'. Wrong.
Seeking civil rights for vampires and adding in other undead makes a whole different story set available.
Maybe one where undead!Willow isn't simply Big Bad?
I mean you can take it apart, see the problem with undeath being the draining other people, Willow draws power from other people when she wants to do something big and fast... But like, gods. What is the deal with gods. They're giving out power, is it straight from the source? Why do they have the taps? Are they bundling the power from their worshippers and funneling it back? Do they have to be chosen first or are they powerful without being chosen? What is the fundamental problem with Willow taking in power? Not asling first? So... is it okay if she has donors?
Can we make this thing more about democracy, where we hand in some of our power to a central place that can do a lot with it? Democracy being about choice, and contrasting with the ones who choose themselces?
But Willow v much goes there on doing all the choosing. Including on what people remember and think about. So she goes dark side on that measure too. And, interestingly, if free will is key, she didnt actually go light side when she made everyone Chosen. Like, as far as we saw, they didnt get a choice.
Okay, so, there's story in it if this is all getting her up the tree. But how do we get her back down?
Like, is the solution actually giving up undeath for death? Because all the canons I mentioned really do agree that undeath sucks and the only good answer is not being undead.
But! Owen Harper! Sure, canon ended his story with heroic death, but thankfully landed on him still not wanting to die. So, no, ending up dead isn't the answer, ever, for obvious reasons.
We're going to have to invent some healing here.
... Pathfinder Kingmaker had one undead character choose to reject undeath and come back as human. Angel had that glowy blood situation that gave him a way out. The Whoniverse has a cure for vampirism in a Short Trip audio, 7 invented it, though there's many sorts of vampire so it probably applies only narrowly. But cures are possible.
... to needing power from other people?
And, also, is this a Try Not Being Disabled moment? Does a story want to build a metaphor that looks like a health need and then only accept people back if they just don't need it anymore??
Ugh.
So. Say that Lich!Willow took magic from other people in a more systematic way, say she took it when she decided they were using their power to hurt people and she could use it better, and then she discovers the down side of necromancy is more necromancy. Say she sort of slips into being a Lich who can power big magics by big magic drain.
Then what?
Give it all back and not use power at all?
Well then the world goes back to not being hurt by Willow in particular.
... is this a trolley problem sort of thing? Messy maths. Builda bigger lever by running over one person at a time again and again...
Share that power out again?
I mean it is still stolen, in this hypothetical. She very much did kill Rack. And Rack was, actually, sharing power out again.
... oh there's another good intentions trap. If sharing makes the coven feel too good... how to not be the creep she learned from...
It does keep circling around the undead vs deity distinction. Like sure, a lot of beings can give you power, but what's the ideal model here, and why is undeath not it?
I've never actually finished watching Miracle Day so I'm not sure what it said about undeath, but I think it was saying that without healing it would suck horribly forever, because pain and suffering. Which is a choice. But Cybermen say without pain it also sucks horribly forever, because not caring, and the Toclafane says if you're always happy that is An Problem, because no empathy and doing horrible things with a smile and a laugh. So there's a lot of undeath adjacent ways to be in the Whoniverse, and they all seem to be making the argument for mortality and just feeling your feelings.
Torchwood audios make a lot of story out of Owen pushing on the difference between undeath and feeling alive. It is apparently profoundly different.
I was thinking that if they switch from being biochemical to being an energy based system then every cell in their body would be sending emergency signals forever and ever, because it is starving to death. Like, sure, it's currently being animated by eldritch horror instead, but the basic biochemical circuits don't know that. The feeling would be Hungry Forever. And also needing air. How long would undead gasp for breath before getting used to not needing it?
... I think some weird things...
And if you do undeath as a metaphor... I mean Owen is clearly depressed as fuck and getting weird about for instance food as a way of chasing feeling alive, as a natural ish segue from his pre undeath depression where he chased sex and violence for feeling alive, but can't any more because too much damage. It's poetic and dark and only manages to avoid being depressing as fuck because he keeps choosing however much life he's got left, even hanging on by his metaphorical fingernails. If there's juet one thing, he'll take it. He wants to live.
Willow's got the addiction metaphor going on but that is so many layers of messed up because they used the same signifiers for gay love/sex, and also the signifiers are themselves prayers, just non Christian ones, so there's... oh so many levels where calling that Addiction is A Problem.
Her actual problem was pursuing power/control of her external environment, and ultimately of the people around her, instead of deal with her inside feelings on the inside. It's why it screwed up her loving relationships. She changed her bad feels by changing other people. Bit of a problem.
Several forms of undeath that can do the Thrall thing though. Several ways you can get from there and raising Buffy to just... doing things quicker and ending up with a bunch of undead of her own.
But since I do not want to treat her with a good being killed then the situation needs a positive resolution. A way of using power that doesnt control other people.
I'm still not convinced that the Slayer situation fits. They did that whole thing with Buffy rejecting more power because it was a darkness forced on a gitl, and then what did they do?
Empowerment has to be a choice.
... I keep on looping back around to the way Pathfinder gods do things. Have some power, have it as set spells, learn more by proving you can use it, and stay inside alignment and anathema lines or just get cut off from that source.
If Willow's way out is to become an actual Pathfinder style Goddess, that would not solve all her problems, but would put them on a new playing board.
... One Cordelia has been playing for a while...
Still not convinced this one is going anywhere but
someone who is utterly convinced
they can combine
undeath
and
good?
Has story.
... problem is you have to choose the metaphor pretty carefully and navigate a lot of pit traps to get non toxic story out of it...
Someone coming back from a dark future to avert it, where their previous path was just taking all the power for themselves in confidence they's use it right...
I don't know, this one needs tumbling some more.
(or a You Brilliant Bastard, when I am in fact the one imagining the Bastard)
and you'd think from there I could have Story
but
usually by then it is so many steps away from canon it does not resemble canon sufficiently to show its face as fanfic
and yet
relies on canon too specifically to call original.
I have a lovely sequence of Buffy canon plus Pathfinder rules plus a way of handling 'stealing magic' that neither canon quite allows but that can be hung up between them
that all spins Willow as on a downward spiral
to becoming a Lich Lord.
(If magic is a piece of your soul, ala Ka and Ba in Pathfinder Adventure Path Mummy's Mask, then Willow stealing magic in season six leaves others with negative levels they can heal except for Rack, who just dies. Maybe she gets to keep that bit of him. That's all necromancy stuff. But Willow doesnt treat it as a distinct danger, it's just Magic Addiction TM. Maybe she keeps doing it when she thinks its really important and just doesnt notice the soul fragments piling up? Or uses them. But then she puts a piece of her magic into Buffy in the comics. Which could be a Contingency spell, or could be a bit of her soul, making Buffy a Soul Cage for a Lich ala Pathfinder. Not that you can usually use a person for that, but someone managed it with a kind of mould when they really screwed up, so who knows. And! Then future!Willow the probably undead one who needed Buffy to kill her? Would just snap back to her Soul Cage to regenerate ie past Buffy. Maybe possess her younger self, since that body is handy. Time travelling undead Willow could do so much damage!)
But the problem is? Why do I want Willow to be the big bad?
I don't, really.
And most of those twists are a step side from either ruleset.
So it's just, like, sort of cool? Tada, a new big bad of magic and undeath, who got there a little piece at a time by accident, figuring it was all necessary, for her friends.
Now what?
My extended daydream kind of plugged her in to Torchwood Miracle Day, because thinking you're ending death is an easy oops for a 'good' necromancer.
But again, why? Why Willow? Why do I want to make the good guy go there?
Evil insane dead combinations sucked hard enough in canon.
But in all three canons you can't just go oh hey, maybe undeath would have up sides,
since it is necessarily kind of awful in all three.
Buffyverse needs to try a different policy about vampires though, the scientific conditions have changed and surviving on donor blood got possible, ish, so now it's a lot of maths and a specific medical need, not, you know, all stakes all the time. Staking becomes a pretty creepy response if you reframe vampires as a set of medical needs and some mental health problems. Especially since Harm was kind of fine once she had a good job to keep? So the 'verse makes an argument for vampires being Like That because of, like, being homeless, excluded from society, told they don't count as people, unable to meet their physical needs without hurting people *because* there's no legitimate path to getting the medical supplies they need because mostly they can't work any more because legally dead and sunlight sensitive... I know the story was trying to argue that without a soul they're just going to suck, but since that story was so flat they got finished with it pretty quick and all the other stuff is sitting there as well. And I donlt like any answer that works so hard to make the only option 'kill them all'. Wrong.
Seeking civil rights for vampires and adding in other undead makes a whole different story set available.
Maybe one where undead!Willow isn't simply Big Bad?
I mean you can take it apart, see the problem with undeath being the draining other people, Willow draws power from other people when she wants to do something big and fast... But like, gods. What is the deal with gods. They're giving out power, is it straight from the source? Why do they have the taps? Are they bundling the power from their worshippers and funneling it back? Do they have to be chosen first or are they powerful without being chosen? What is the fundamental problem with Willow taking in power? Not asling first? So... is it okay if she has donors?
Can we make this thing more about democracy, where we hand in some of our power to a central place that can do a lot with it? Democracy being about choice, and contrasting with the ones who choose themselces?
But Willow v much goes there on doing all the choosing. Including on what people remember and think about. So she goes dark side on that measure too. And, interestingly, if free will is key, she didnt actually go light side when she made everyone Chosen. Like, as far as we saw, they didnt get a choice.
Okay, so, there's story in it if this is all getting her up the tree. But how do we get her back down?
Like, is the solution actually giving up undeath for death? Because all the canons I mentioned really do agree that undeath sucks and the only good answer is not being undead.
But! Owen Harper! Sure, canon ended his story with heroic death, but thankfully landed on him still not wanting to die. So, no, ending up dead isn't the answer, ever, for obvious reasons.
We're going to have to invent some healing here.
... Pathfinder Kingmaker had one undead character choose to reject undeath and come back as human. Angel had that glowy blood situation that gave him a way out. The Whoniverse has a cure for vampirism in a Short Trip audio, 7 invented it, though there's many sorts of vampire so it probably applies only narrowly. But cures are possible.
... to needing power from other people?
And, also, is this a Try Not Being Disabled moment? Does a story want to build a metaphor that looks like a health need and then only accept people back if they just don't need it anymore??
Ugh.
So. Say that Lich!Willow took magic from other people in a more systematic way, say she took it when she decided they were using their power to hurt people and she could use it better, and then she discovers the down side of necromancy is more necromancy. Say she sort of slips into being a Lich who can power big magics by big magic drain.
Then what?
Give it all back and not use power at all?
Well then the world goes back to not being hurt by Willow in particular.
... is this a trolley problem sort of thing? Messy maths. Builda bigger lever by running over one person at a time again and again...
Share that power out again?
I mean it is still stolen, in this hypothetical. She very much did kill Rack. And Rack was, actually, sharing power out again.
... oh there's another good intentions trap. If sharing makes the coven feel too good... how to not be the creep she learned from...
It does keep circling around the undead vs deity distinction. Like sure, a lot of beings can give you power, but what's the ideal model here, and why is undeath not it?
I've never actually finished watching Miracle Day so I'm not sure what it said about undeath, but I think it was saying that without healing it would suck horribly forever, because pain and suffering. Which is a choice. But Cybermen say without pain it also sucks horribly forever, because not caring, and the Toclafane says if you're always happy that is An Problem, because no empathy and doing horrible things with a smile and a laugh. So there's a lot of undeath adjacent ways to be in the Whoniverse, and they all seem to be making the argument for mortality and just feeling your feelings.
Torchwood audios make a lot of story out of Owen pushing on the difference between undeath and feeling alive. It is apparently profoundly different.
I was thinking that if they switch from being biochemical to being an energy based system then every cell in their body would be sending emergency signals forever and ever, because it is starving to death. Like, sure, it's currently being animated by eldritch horror instead, but the basic biochemical circuits don't know that. The feeling would be Hungry Forever. And also needing air. How long would undead gasp for breath before getting used to not needing it?
... I think some weird things...
And if you do undeath as a metaphor... I mean Owen is clearly depressed as fuck and getting weird about for instance food as a way of chasing feeling alive, as a natural ish segue from his pre undeath depression where he chased sex and violence for feeling alive, but can't any more because too much damage. It's poetic and dark and only manages to avoid being depressing as fuck because he keeps choosing however much life he's got left, even hanging on by his metaphorical fingernails. If there's juet one thing, he'll take it. He wants to live.
Willow's got the addiction metaphor going on but that is so many layers of messed up because they used the same signifiers for gay love/sex, and also the signifiers are themselves prayers, just non Christian ones, so there's... oh so many levels where calling that Addiction is A Problem.
Her actual problem was pursuing power/control of her external environment, and ultimately of the people around her, instead of deal with her inside feelings on the inside. It's why it screwed up her loving relationships. She changed her bad feels by changing other people. Bit of a problem.
Several forms of undeath that can do the Thrall thing though. Several ways you can get from there and raising Buffy to just... doing things quicker and ending up with a bunch of undead of her own.
But since I do not want to treat her with a good being killed then the situation needs a positive resolution. A way of using power that doesnt control other people.
I'm still not convinced that the Slayer situation fits. They did that whole thing with Buffy rejecting more power because it was a darkness forced on a gitl, and then what did they do?
Empowerment has to be a choice.
... I keep on looping back around to the way Pathfinder gods do things. Have some power, have it as set spells, learn more by proving you can use it, and stay inside alignment and anathema lines or just get cut off from that source.
If Willow's way out is to become an actual Pathfinder style Goddess, that would not solve all her problems, but would put them on a new playing board.
... One Cordelia has been playing for a while...
Still not convinced this one is going anywhere but
someone who is utterly convinced
they can combine
undeath
and
good?
Has story.
... problem is you have to choose the metaphor pretty carefully and navigate a lot of pit traps to get non toxic story out of it...
Someone coming back from a dark future to avert it, where their previous path was just taking all the power for themselves in confidence they's use it right...
I don't know, this one needs tumbling some more.