#thoschei meta

[sclfmastery]

Quickfire hot take but, even though I totally grasp each of us having favorite regens of the doctor and the master, both individually and together, as symbols of their ever-evolving positions along their personal and relationship journey.... I will never ever understand fan (or canon...) portrayals that draw such a sharp line of favoritism from the characters themselves.

Missy said "they're all the Doctor to me" when recalling a memory to Clara, and to me that encapsulates the enduring nature of their intense bond. To me that is THE line. Regeneration is a form of death and rebirth, but certain core traits are immutable, particularly to two people who are narrative foils, who have known each other for centuries (or possibly millennia) and keep being thrown together by fate again and again and again.

Bottom line is, every Doctor is the same person, and so is every Master. Acting as though one of them only cares for select versions of the other is just so strange to me. They aren't us. To them, it's just like loving (or hating, or both) someone through the eras of their life. Their same life, broken down into stages od evolution and devolution. It's the same person.

I can point to the exact episode (a lol very polarizing episode in Series 10) where I think this "they're not the same person from face to face" trend got exponentially more pronounced, but anyone who knows me knows what that episode is. I truly believe it's a disservice to every version of every Doctor and Master involved.

And I really don't think that Spydoc, which came soon thereafter, is just the playing-out of the consequences of a MASSIVE miscommunication between soul mates. It IS that, but not JUST. I think all of the writing about Thoschei that followed the exacerbating episode was trying to force this inaccurate distortion, this illusion of separateness, which is part of what made the events in Power of the Doctor so painful to Thoschei fans. The Doctor walked away from the Master (literally and figuratively, ironically inviting his inevitable despair--and her own demise) partly out of understandable hurt and rage and caution, but also out of a cold, repulsed misunderstanding: "Missy was willing to change and you regressed, you're a different person than she was, and you have angered me to the point of indifference; I am able to turn off caring about you because you are unrecognizable from her, the version of you that I could control save."

Maybe Whittaker's response is intended by Chibnall: we're supposed to recognize that she's wrong but HAS to be in order to survive another betrayal by the Master, which is what makes it all so tragic.

But I think fan reception has taken the whole thing ( "each Doctor and each Master is an entirely discrete self-contained being") too far, and it bothers me, so much, I think, because it's a trope that enforces the idea that love is transactional and contingent (in such a way that also perhaps unwittingly targets the socially, culturally, and economically marginalized). If you're the "good, small, manageable version" of yourself, then you're easier to love, and it's worth the investment. Otherwise, "you gambled and you lost," and you deserve to die lying in the filth of your own poor decisions. I get why that's an appealing, vindicting plot device, from the POV of an audience member who has felt hurt or even abused IRL. I understand it, I've BEEN the Doctor many times. It just doesn't sit well with me. Maybe that's just me. I could be at peace with that, as a Whovian :P.

But, in-universe, it's based on a premise that's factually erroneous! Dhawan's Master IS Missy IS Delgado IS Simm IS Jacobi IS Ainley IS Roberts IS Beevers etc etc etc. Just as Whittaker's Doctor is a RESPONSE to Capaldi's, but ALSO still IS Capaldi's. And Tennant's. And Baker's (x2). And Eccleston's. And Gatwa's. And Pertwee's. Etc etc. Dhawan's Master was the Prime Minister of the UK and also made chairs that eat people and also cried remembering the names of people she killed. It's the SAME PERSON.

Lol, not quickfire at all. It's an old bone to pick, I know. I just can't stop finding the whole trope...very itchy.

(ok to reblog...dunno if anyone would, LOL, but feel free to reblog and to comment).

I'm gonna tag some ppl I know I've chatted about this with before to see if there are new insights. And feel completely free to disagree with me on any count. @natalunasans @mostincrediblechange @drummingncise @modernwizard @nickcagestrufflehog @rearranging-deck-chairs @koschei-no-more @likeacharacterinamusical

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

the funny thing with the master is that theyre the person in the universe best fit to tell the doctor it isnt about you which makes them look in waves like really sensible and level-headed and stable the problem is then that theres a second part to that sentence which is it should be about me instead and it’s that part exactly that reveals kinda like a magic trick the ways in which theyre actually so amazingly violently unwell that now suddenly the doctor looks like the reasonable one again

[dandelionjack]

missy doesn’t understand that she’s in the wrong genre. she believes she’s in a darkly alluring gothic romance instead of an optimistic sci-fi show. in her genre, gifting your estranged ex/enemy/lover/best friend/twin flame an indestructible undead army to prove to him that your will to power is identical is the most romantic gesture imaginable. it’s victory via surrender, it’s control through abdication. all her scheming to “corrupt” him, to demonstrate that they’re the same deep down, that his sanctimonious morality is nothing but a method of keeping his own conscience clean, that’s the hannibal gene, the lestat gene (*obviously the dynamics aren’t 1-to-1 similar, but… close enough) and missy’s tragedy in death in heaven is in that, within the narrative format she’s trapped in, she can never succeed

[causalityparadoxes]

I am absolutely incorporating the "Moon and the President's wife poem" into my understanding of the Doctor and the Master btw.

I went down to the beach and there she stood. Dark and tall at the edge of the woods.

"The sky's too big, I'm scared," I cried.

She replied "Young man, don't you know there's more to life than the Moon and the President's wife?"

I cant help but read it as a snippet of a conversation. The Doctor and Master talking after the incident with the Moon and the President's wife daughter. Both still on Gallifrey. Both rebels, causing so much trouble but not yet taking the step to leave.

The sky is too big. The universe too wide. I'm scared to leave. The young man on the beach, clearly the Doctor. Young and afraid, the boy who ran away from what he saw in the Schism. Who wants adventure but had stayed content to mess around with Presidents daughters. Who needed a push to steal that Tardis and run away.

Then the other. On the edge of the woods, already on the cusp of the unknown (Woods are always an adventure in stories). One foot already out the door. A dark and tall figure, telling the one on the beach to just come on. Don't you know there is more to life than the Moon and the President's wife?

The Master, abstracted through the story as Missy. The one who lied about who he stole. The figure who stood in the woods, and who fell in the woods. Just on the cusp of everything.

A promise to run, there's so much more, lets find out what lies in that big sky.

A promise that was never acted on.

A series of events abstracted through layers of fiction, shabogan rumour, and fairytale. A story that helped the Doctor calm down right before death, twice. When nothing else could.

Even now after everything, being saved and kept alive by thoughts of the Master.

I cannot and will not ever shut up about it.

[aletterinthenameofsanity]

plot twist: Ruby is the Master under chameleon arch

[roxannepolice]

I think one of the most headscratching to me aspects of thoschei fan interpretations - and to be fair, writing, lately - is the chaos-order thing. That's probably because both the writers and the fandom immediately slap moral values on what are fundamentally amoral states. There can be disagreements about which is good and which is bad and which character is which as a result of the moral association, but like. It's always about what the show is trying to tell you is the better way to live because "What would the Doctor do" has become an unironic life coaching advice.

Meanwhile, from philosophical, physical and cognitive perspective it's been spelled out by Eight:

I love humans. Always seeing patterns in things that aren't there.

and Ten:

No, but that's what you do. The human race makes sense out of chaos. Marking it out with weddings and Christmas and calendars. This whole process is beautiful, but only if it's being observed.

and Terry Pratchett:

Things just happen, one after another. They don't care who knows. But history...ah, history is different. History has to be observed. Otherwise it's not history. It's just...well, things happening one after another.

and Hesiod:

First it was Chaos, and next broad-bosomed Earth.

Chaos isn't eviler because scary and ununderstandable nor is it gooder because society wants to me do stuff, man. It's more primordial. It's the objective state of things without a subject to perceive them. Yes, there are patterns in nature, but they are results of working least bad in the evolution's infinite monkeying, not some unique order.

What I'm saying is, when you think of chaos snd order as ontological concepts rather than moral admonishments, it becomes borderline incomprehensible how you could look either at a character who delights in a species obsessed with evoking order out of chaos or a character who's whole shtick is control and scheming and say yup, one of these is totally into chaos.

[hobgoblinns]

“i had estates” is an insane fucking line. like, here is a dude whose entire species is gone save for the one who destroyed them. and here they are face to face, and his first thought isn’t for all their friends that are lost, or the children that burned, or even for his own family. no, the master’s priority is that his wealth, his status, his superiority is gone. it hits him extra hard now, when he’s literally destitute and dying on a foreign planet, stealing scraps (of human flesh).

and so accusatory — you took my land from me. you destroyed what was mine. you, my friend below my station, the one i took pity on, the one i invited onto my pastures of red grass, betrayed me. you burned up every memory we made there together.

he’s a brilliant strategist, a charismatic leader, and a war criminal, but he’s also a spoiled brat. and so the doctor becomes the one who took everything from him, the target of his petulance. look at us now.

[lokittystuckinatree]

Ok our fandom has been circulating theories on the identity of Rogue. I’m curious what you guys think

[drummingncise]

still thinking about how while i loved rogue for the rogue15 slash brain, it does smart as someone who ships thoschei and writes the master. because 15 was so openly smitten with rogue, openly kissed him, still wears his ring in subsequent episodes. & yet the doctor has done nothing but rebuff the master's attempts to get the doctor's attention. i'm not saying they go about it in healthy or morally correct ways, and i've definitely gone off before about how the master and the doctor have done the exact same crimes, and how it makes them the same, actually, but it's specifically the "let's argue across the stars" line that just. makes me so upset. because the master has never been afforded that freedom. it's always you're my responsibility now. you mean you're just going to... keep me? and i just want my friend back and the whole vault arc. the master is never offered freedom, the promise that they'll always gravitate to each other and love each other even if they disagree on things. narrative foils etc etc

[duskodair]

you know, I like the timeless child thing. to me, now that it fits into canon, it works. the doctor we know (and that the doctor themself knows), is like a construction of the chameleon arc. only the life the doctor has lived, from childhood onwards, is real. there are no false moments.

we have had 60 years of the doctor learning and growing and changing. the facts of the doctor have been immutable. they are from the planet gallifrey, in the constellation of kasterberos, etc etc. we have seen the timewar and gallifrey coming and going like someone doing the hokey kokey. we know the doctor's grief and the doctor's story.

to learn that all of that is a construction based on a forced regeneration to childhood, and uncountable lost memories that obscure lifetimes of pain and torture, well that is an easy concept to rail against. it makes the premise of the show a lie, the bildungsroman a farce.

but I like it.

we learn it through the eyes and the voice of the master, who has spent his entire lifetime orbiting the doctor like a twin star. in it, he discovers that his childhood is a lie and he takes it out on the doctor, on gallifrey, on the universe (because he can no longer be to the doctor, what the doctor is to him).

it is loud and it is dramatic and it is angry. in the master's reaction, I see the fan reaction.

It is anger and it is dismissal. The master sees that the doctor (inadvertently) has changed the DNA of the timelords, and so he destroys them and remakes them as cybermasters in his image.

I don't think we've really seen the doctor respond to it yet (I'm working off memory here ngl).

But the doctor has spent their life being a mediocre timelord, being a rebel, an outcast (sometimes president). They needed the master's help to get through school.

Idk there's just something in realising that the doctor was set up to fail in the academy, in timelord society, because they're not really a timelord, but the base model. But throughout the series, they have been held to the expectations of one, with no accommodations made for the fact that the doctor cannot do things like a timelord can.

the doctor can regenerate seemingly unlimited times, but the council still tortures 11 with it. the doctor is not a genetically modified shabogan, but is still treated like one.

sure, the doctor was something else, someone else (still called the doctor), before we and the master knew them, but that's not our doctor.

our doctor is the byproduct of a hidden experiment, turned into a timetot.

What's the line?

'he'll never make a timelord'

If we see the memories again, they're just more fodder for angst (because we really cannot keep hashing out the time war). But our doctor is still our doctor, and we just get to see them learn that they're still themself. That the doctor is still the doctor, no matter who or what they really are.

and then maybe they'll learn to not hold their shitty telepathy in such direct contrast to the master's.

[radio-ghost-cooks]

EOT but the Master had time to think while it was dead

tags: death is a place, resurrection, tensimm, their little forehead bonk, running, gallifrey referenced, longish

Turns out that Death is very good at quieting your mind. The Master figured that out when it slipped away from its life, in the Doctor's arms, stubbornly refusing itself a regeneration. And now there it floated, in the place where there was nothing. In Death.

When floating around in pure Nothingness you have a lot of time to think, you see. Especially for the Master who, for the first time in literal centuries, heard absolutely nothing. No Drums. None of the wretched pounding in its ears.

And now that it could think, it thought about quite a lot. The Valiant, its (ex) wife, the rest of the tracks on its Take Over The Universe playlist, the feeling of dying, how nice it felt to be in the Doctor's arms once more... Now there's a thought. It had actually quite liked it.

After realizing how much it liked being held, the Master also figured out that it really did want to run away with the Doctor. Like they'd planned when they were kids. Perhaps, if its plan worked out, it might take them up on their offer to help. Maybe they really could make the Drums go away.

When the Master met the Doctor next, it was in an abandoned junkyard warehouse. It attacked them first. Before anything else, as much as it loved the Doctor, it didn't want any tricks out of them.

It crouched down beside them and reminisced about Gallifrey. About its father's old estate and the hills they used to run through. Then it grew hungry, craving craving craving the taste of hot and fat and flesh between its teeth. The Doctor spoke of some old prophecy.

Oh, how the Master hated prophecies, the idea that certain events couldn't be changed. Everything could be changed. It was simply a matter of w- 1234, 1234, 1234.

"It hurts. Doctor, the noise. The noise in my head, Doctor. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Stronger than ever before. Can't you hear it?" The Master pleaded, begging for them to hear its pain. The Doctor shook their head. "I'm sorry." It began to shake, emotion threatening to slip through the cracks and expose it for the tired, scared thing it was. "Listen, listen, listen, listen," it hissed, "Every minute, every second, every beat of my hearts, there it is, calling to me. Please just listen."

The Master pressed their foreheads together; an intimate gesture that served to increase the power of the psychic bond they've had since the two of them were but children. Within moments, the Doctor scrambled away as if burned, a horrified confusion in their soft brown eyes. That could only mean one thing. They heard it.

She heard the Drums that had tortured it since it was small. The Master rushed back next to the Doctor, grabbing a hold of her coat and practically trying to burrow into it. It couldn't bear it. Its one true friend, its longtime lover, its one and only, could hear all which tortured it.

"I can help you," she whispered. "Please, Master, let me help you." What else could it do? It sobbed, "Make it stop..." whining in pain as the sound grew louder once more. She nodded and wrapped her arms around the Master. "Of course," the Doctor cooed, "Of course I'll help you."

After a little while, the Master finally untangled itself from the Doctor and stood up, taking her hand. "Take me to the TARDIS. It's been so long since we've been in one together," it thought, pulling her up onto her feet. She just smiled at it. And they ran.

They ran as quickly as they could over the piles of rubbish, back to where the TARDIS stood, big and tall and very much blue. They had to speed up a bit when a bunch of humans tried to catch them, but it was really just more fun for them than anything. Dashing into the ship, the Master barely had time to shut the door before the Doctor whisked them away. Far, far away.

The Master sighed, tapping its foot. "D'you really think you'll be able to fix me? Fix this?" It asked, gesturing to its head. "I'm rather fucked up." "Nothing, I've found, is entirely non-unfuckupable," they murmured in reply, " and I'm certain that you won't be the exception." They were both quiet for some time. Simply floating in space. In the middle of an awful lot of Something. "I've come to the conclusion that I don't like Death." The Doctor turned to look at it. It hummed, "As quiet as dying makes your brain, being surrounded by pure Nothing isn't all that fun." "Well it's a good thing you're here in Something then," they offered, grinning. "And if it means much, I'm glad you're here in Something with me."

[dandelionjack]

the composition of this shot... finger pointed at the doctor in accusation, bill is speaking the words but both masters are talking through her, surrounding her as witnesses as she channels their bitterness, their rage, their abandonment. the master waited for him. jack waited for him. older amy in that hospital waited for him. bill waited for him. ashildr-me waited for him. but he always came back too late. the man whose ship's engine noise is a sound that heralds hope wherever it lands left the ones he cared about behind. when hope itself leaves you behind, what redemption could you ever dream of?

[roxannepolice]

Just a meta vent for all the bad takes I've seen about the Master, and especially Saxon Master (and still trying to get my ass to work on my thesis, but! it looks like I'm getting another article published so yey, ranting about the raccoon works!!!)

So yeah, this is me, ranting about why I think the reintroduction of the Master into NuWho was absolutely brilliant in s3 and what hot takes I've seen about the way it's been done on da Internet. I'm putting this under a cut, because, weeell, comparing Masters and Doctors, and even companions(!) turns into a kind of beauty paegant that has little to do with how well the author's thought got translated into the final product, AND I GET IT! People have favourites! That's fine! Yes, there's a level at which I just think Tennant and Simm look cute together*! But for full disclosure, they weren't my fisrt thoschei - I watched ALL the stuff I could from classic Who online and decided they're married when Threegado had to actively stop each other from shaking hands in The Sea Devils. Which is why it hurts me all the more when mah twinks get framed as they betrayal of the dynamic.

*But let's be honest, the aesthetical aspect is very much part of the course. Jon Pertwee and Roger Delgado might not exactly look the same, but the outfits do ooze that same 70s two ends of the queer spectrum feel, and this carried over to Anthony Ainley's harem and Paul McGann and Eric Roberts. Picking two white twinks with different shades of brown hair and eyes and rectangular vs. round faces was a conscious choice, as was picking a witchy looking woman in a victorian outfit to match a wizardy looking man in old time-y outfit, both with striking blue yes, as was juxtaposing a light blonde white woman in light outfit with a brown dark haired man in a dark outfit (why. Chibs WHY not go with Whittaker's beautiful natural hair colour unless to underline just how much the reyesque champion of light your Doctor is and cause confusion as to how regeneration works). But anyway.

I think the primary issue I take with complaints about Simm's Master is the idea that he was somehow a hard break from classic who Masters. And yes, RTD definitely went a much more unhinged manic energy way than the more controlled Original and Tremas regenerations, he admits it himself (all of this is very much influenced by me watching DW confidential). And yes, that's absolutely the case! But that's the natural result of making the Doctor, both the Eccleston and Tennant faces, much more unhinged and manic than in the classic era. Whether you frame it watsonianly as the result of the Time War, or doylistly as the result of the way television changed as a medium with the development of home cinema systems and general social shift after the end of cold war (that's me, btw, hello, McLuhan's ghost keeps possessing me), it's up to you, but the point is, if you want to maintain the two sides of the same coin energy, you have to match your earlier choices. So, no, in my opinion this wasn't a hard break from classicWho Masters, but rather cutting through all the aesthetic overgrowth to the essense of the character. Digging down to the core of the character, so to speak. Yes, Saxon Master acts in a misogyinistc manner, which wasn't there before. But that's the natural result of involving the Doctor in explicitly romantic relationships! The flip side of explicit heterosexual attraction is the othering of the "opposite" for lack of the better word sex and when your focus is in domination YOU ARE GOING TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF WHATEVER POWER IMBALANCES THE SOCIETY PROVIDES YOU WITH!! And that extends to your aesthetics going more in the direction of a noir unhinged gangster villain than a queer coded Bond villain (srsly those of you who don't get where Simm!Master's quirks come from NEED to watch White Heat with James Cagney). Like, srsly, 90% of complaints about the way the Master has changed from classic Who to Saxon is the way politics have changed from cold war "my empire is better than yours but end of the day we're going to be courteous so we don't blow each other up" to post-politics "vote for me, I'm sexy and can make you sexy too" framework of the latest fin de siecle.

But this kind of cuts down to what it the essence and what is incidental. Politeness of classic Who can be traced back to noblesse oblige that was in place in 70s and 80s. But end of of the day, it was just an epiphenomenon of the main axis of power: class. In the merry world of identity politics, it's going to be gender and race. It's all about power relations, though.

Which sort of, very abstractly, relates to the handling of mental illness in NuWho Masters. Now, the yell of "you're insane!" as a general "dude, you're not making any sense :/" has been there in classic Who alright, but this has definitely become more pronounced in NuWho, starting from Saxon possibly because the idea politics involve some element of savoir vivrve has become dismissed as political in its own right rather than giving basic directions in unknown situations but hushhhh. I think the general framing of the Master as "just" needing to "hear the music" (yeah, I hate this line, is it a metaphor Steven? if so, of what?) or generally reconciling with the Doctor, because that's "what the Master really wants is to be loved" is very much rooted in the sort of... Frommian psychoanalysis of society. I would actually argue Fromm is very much present in spirit throughout all of the more refelctive aspects of Doctor Who, the Doctor themself is very much a Frommian hero, classic and new alike, which is great! Seriously, so many of Fromm's reflections cut so deep to the core of many social issues, and I think Escape from freedom has become particularly up-to-date recently, unfortunately. And I think this relates to the general trend in moral philosphy to go from ethical judgement to psyhcological understanding, which is absolutely great as far as realy life is concerned! Yes, if you actually want to prevent violent crimes instead of just reestabslishing social sense of justice through punishment, understanding where the idea to hurt somebody comes from is the way to go! Except... I don't think it's the best way to go when it comes to fiction. Like, fiction is all about putting people in situations. The situation kind of comes before the personality, if you get my drift. There can be aesthetical choices depending on whether you've made your character more decisive or indecisive, but end of the day, you chose to put the character in a situation where they find out their father has been murdered. This, I think, is the bedrock distinction between character relatability and resonance. Can we all relate to Hamlet? Not neccessarily, perhaps you relate to Laertes more. But can we all put ourselves in the situation where we find out something horrible and are called to act upon it? Yes.

Have I drifted off? Maybe.

But my point is, I would say the way in which RTD handled Simm!Master's "insanity" has less to do with any psychological diagnosis that the vague "insanity" of Ophelia, King Lear or Goethe's Gretchen. It's not something that can be "healed", it's the fundamental shine on you crazy diamond mephistophelian elan vital that in real world psychological therapy is redirected in ways that are constructive both for the individual and their surroundings. But in fiction? It's not to be healed. It's the essential driving force, The jester, who’s most lightly weighted. Man’s energies all too soon seek the level, He quickly desires unbroken slumber, So I gave him you to join the number, To move, and work, and play the devil.

Go home, Roxanne, you're drunk, go cry to another fic of the psyche mourning eros.

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

13/dhawan: too orange 12/missy: too blue 10/simm: too suits in offices

this is the burden of the thoschei shipper

[go-to-the-mirror]

via @roxannepolice

thinking about time lords and their fucked up little society again and i just realized how devastating the revelation of the drums in the end of time is in relation to the master's character.

because of all the renegade time lords in the universe, i think it's the master who most exemplifies the philosophical outlook that the time lords have towards the rest of the universe. they're stuffy observers, administrators, yes - but this position is one they've decided for themselves because of this concept of supremacy over other life forms. imposed and upheld this idea that other species that lack a time sense are less-than, primitive. and the master buys into this hard.

and i mean... compared to the doctor, the master is good at being a time lord. he buys into these supremacist concepts, this idea that every other species (and especially humans) is practically a meaningless ant in the grand scheme of the universe. takes it to the extreme, yes, but its the same underlying principle. he's a good student (despite whatever chibnall might think) - that one time lord from terror of the autons (identity forever a mystery) (its brax) even says "he did receive a higher degree of cosmic science than you." the master could play their game if he wanted to. he's remarkably comfortable with being on gallifrey/the idea of gallifrey(in eot/tlotl) than the doctor ever is. where the doctor avoids the subject of the lord presidency like the plague, the master is like "well if you kill the president you ARE the president! and then you have all of gallifrey!" and when the doctor destroys gallifrey (nominally), the master tries to rebuild it in the sound of drums/last of the time lords. tries to emulate their society. honor them in his little fucked up way. he brings them back from the time war!

and what does he get for it? how did the time lords treat him in response?

they decide to implant the sound of drums in his head, stretching back until he's a child. puts this insufferable noise, this splitting headache, in his head for his entire life. all so that they may live while he dies. because he is diseased, because of them. he has swallowed the pill, bought their propaganda, he has followed the rules, he tried to rebuild them he tried. and in response he is chewed up and spit out like trash so that rassilon's god complex can survive while the universe crumbles.

how crushing must that be to someone? to have your whole worldview - that you are better, you are chosen, you are special - come crumbling down in a few short moments? to see the revered founder-god of the civilization you have so desperately tried to revive look at you and say "you are diseased," even though he was the one to poison you in the first place?

and as his heart is torn to pieces... when rassilon says "no more," and charges his gauntlet, the master - who has spent countless lives fighting death with his bare hands - does not move.

part of me thinks he does not want to.

[dandelionjack]

missy says “the doctor kills people too, i just enjoy it more. he’s the farmer, i’m the hunter, you know” and that makes me think she’s intimately aware of the sacrificial lamb paradigm. the lord is my shepherd. companions as beautiful little foals raised for the slaughter. with sorrow, of course, and remorse. the farmer loves every new creature in their flock with an emotional tenderness reserved for children and lovers. he’ll grieve when the butcher comes. he always does. but it’s inevitable. and you can always pretend your pet will live as long as you but fifty dog years are ten of your own. and when the time comes to put them down you’ll blame the vet. you’ll blame whoever has to bleed the calf. you’ll try not to blame yourself. after all, creatures in the wild alone lead such boring, listless lives. you’re showing them the wonders of the cosmos they’d never have seen with their normalcy-blinkered gaze. you’re doing them a favour. you’ll adopt another one. it will thank you as the light leaves its eyes.

but the hunter is evil, you say. the hunter kills willfully, the hunter stalks its prey, the hunter attacks with no mercy. instantly. painlessly, maybe. is that really so much worse?

after all, many moons ago, with a bloodied rock in his hands and the spectre of Death breathing down his neck, the hunter’s future had become the farmer’s first sacrifice. many moons ago, cain was the farmer and abel the hunter. and cain killed abel