#hart root tea

[campaignskyjacks]

Would one be able to add non edible or possibly harmful ingredients to hrtea? As in an ingredient that on its on wouldn't be able to be consumed (such as poisonous plants or just straight up clay) but since its part of the tea it would be edible now?

Hmmm... I'll be honest I feel like we may have strayed to close to self-harm stuff in magic already what with folks opening veins for sacrifice, but I stand by my defense of blood magic.¹ People needing to drink poison to be themselves seems like it could easily be not good™ especially with the serious suicide rates amongst trans folks.

My second instinct is there is a good "toxic masculinity" joke in here if we look for it.

My third instinct is that there is something to be said for trans ownership of the seeing your gender as something that another person litterally couldn't survive being. Or that people see what is healthy for you and write it off as universally dangeous. That might be worth preserving! I don't know that it would be on the show but that is worth an open window.

I think non-organic things already have an effect on the tea process. If your HRT brew calls for whiskey, cloves, and stirring with an iron nail, that fucking slaps! Canon supports it. I don't see why that wouldn't also include inedible stuff like toxic plants.

I think my personal answer is yes. HRT would naturally protect the user if a dangerous ingredient was imortant to their gender jouney. That is why apothecaries, witches, doctors, and Lilies are critical parts of certain HRT journeys. They can tell you "hey I think you need hemlock for better results."

I don't know if that's a thing that would show up in the show tho.

¹Essentially there is a western taboo against blood being used in magic. It shows up in a ton of fantasy media, to the point that "blood magic" is short hand for "evil magic" everyone who listens to our show assumes everyone is in horrible danger. Also "blood sacrifice" and "blood ritual" have icky excotfied colonialist color to the. I wanted to assert this is a different world with different values. Blood isn't evil because bodies are natural. I's not uncivilized or unseemly either.

[campaignskyjacks]

hiiii first of all the maiden and the hart is soooooo fucking cool and good goddam it made me cry fr also idk if this is ok 2 ask but did u just come up with the story recently for margaret week or did u already have the hart root origin myth figured out?

I knew that I wanted hart root to litterally look like the roots are a beautiful set of antlers branching into the earth. It seemed natural for the folktale element of that being a "hart" (or stag deer if you aren't familiar with antiquated animal terms) having its antlers or skull be planted to grow the first one. Once we add deer to the mix its only a matter of time before I decided it should connect to The Changeling, The Queen, and The Maiden.

With that little seed rolling around in my head I had a possible origin myth on the backburner. When Margaret Week popped up it gave me the excuse to actually write it.

Things kind of fell into place as I wrote things down. The original draft didn't have much of the hunter/prey stuff going on. The hunter was going to find the Hart already injured and have every reason to shoot him, but stay her bow because he represented what she wants. The hart was going to be moved by this act of mercy and offer to help the hunter, then lay down his life to help everyone trans.

The problem was this became a wild thing to justify. Since all the pieces were there, I decided to make the hunter into The Maiden and have it be a previous– and possibly ancient– Changeling cycle. The love story made way morse sense and thematically hit way harder. Also the idea that trans medicine existing out of an act of love and compassion resonated with me.

Fun fact: there was the version of the story where The Maiden eats a hart root seed and has the hart's child. It's very "tragic folktale bittersweet" so it might have fit. However, I decided an HRT story should be a fundamentally trans narritive. I wanted to disconnect the idea of femininity from fertility. Old folktale stuff can be okay, but it's old so it can be harmful without conscientious questioning.

Anyway, I hope that helps!