#many many pieces of minority fiction utilize animal imagery as a way of representing oppressed groups of people to get past censorship

[sapphicslaylist]

I also want to point out!!! Not only were witches just general human people, but they were usually ones who were capable of taking care of themselves and treated as unconventional for their abilities outside of the church. The association with cats? Used to help hunt vermin and keep the house safe. Brooms? Literally just. Cleaning. Many did have apothecary knowledge but more in the style of just being able to heal small ailments; things which people would otherwise go to the church to pray over.

This is why Witch is incredibly unconventionally attractive. She’s more in touch with nature, living in hiding, essentially, with the way that her cabin is depicted (it’s more shaped like a cabin than actually looking like it/deliberately looks abandoned). You have willed her to appear more creature-like with your perception therein, but she is in fact still more human than you expect her to be. Also need to point out the body hair. Off-roading for one second to say that it was hella validating to see and I kinda screamed a bit realizing it wasn’t just shading? But moreso in context, body hair is still viewed of as beastly and dirty, when it’s literally just. A part of human physiology. And it is 100% used in this way to call out strange elements of exoticism.

AND I ALSO think it’s important to talk about the bridge over to Thorn in this context. Witch comments that “your tricks are all I’ve ever known,” and uses the blade to defend herself. She’s expecting to be hunted down eternally; that’s why she is so insistent on never letting you go, because you can’t be trusted to do anything that doesn’t benefit you (Thorn also. Directly calls this out but getting there). So when she’s been given kindness, she flips your perspective on you and shows you how it’s like to be preyed upon for no reason except existing. She didn’t expect you to crumple. She expected you to fight back. And really, honestly, watching her stand over your body with the blade in hand, horrified, is the first time when you truly see her as HUMAN.

So when the cycle repeats again, she tries again; based on elements which you are more accustomed. Her body is bleeding and feeble (I have. A lot of Thorn disability takes elsewhere), but aside from exhaustion, rampant magic & the torn dress is more or less conventionally beautiful. The body hair is gone, either due to being sheared off by the vines & open wounds or because of the fact you’re seeing her differently. Her face is more human unless you cross her (I personally believe the feline energy IS her default, but you didn’t care for that last time so she essentially glamours it/tucks the tail beneath the dress like Abby HCs), and the only really non-humanoid thing is the ears. She doesn’t have to disguise the magic anymore; you already know about that, so why would you? But being trapped by both the world and expecting betrayal yet again, she relinquishes control of it as it’s done nothing but hurt.

The ways in which chapter 1’s Feral Vessel/Proto Witch & Beast fights back is very much out of necessity to survive. One of the lines you can choose is that she doesn’t bear any magic; she merely ripped you apart using slightly upgraded nails and teeth. But as the story continues you have seen her as something she is not; a magical monster with the tenacity to kill. So naturally, with your perception making her who she is, that is who she becomes.

Witch’s overall *lore* is one of my favorites. Beast was really my first love in STP, but the whole setup of how convention and attraction works within Witch’s is truly one of the better ones imo. The soft princess is in the end a victim not prepared to fight back, expecting you to keep your word; and thus, she makes for some of the most interesting betrayals therein.

(Lmk if y’all want me to tackle Wild, too. I would but this addenum is already getting very long).

pls could someone explain why The Witch is named the Witch?? Like, I don't have a lot of culture so maybe Witch are associated with lying?? Like, The Tower is named The Tower because she towers over us, but the Witch doesn't make potions to poison us or something??