Have some noodling Oracle/Unnamed/Lia thoughts because Touchstarved consumes me and there is no end in sight:
So when I saw the three origins for the MC in Touchstarved, and I saw that one of them was an Oracle, I knew that was going to be my main no matter what - because when I see the word oracle, I always think of 300 by Frank Miller (or the movie by Zac Snyder) and I have SO many feelings about that (under a cute for tw: rape/non-con stuff)
I should say straight up, I love 300. I also hate it. I have a lot of mixed feelings about Frank Miller’s work in general, because he’s such a titan of industry, and there was a time when I genuinely did love and devour a lot of his stuff. I am older now, and a bit more media/genre savvy, and I know now that a lot of the mixed feelings I have about his work is the knowledge that his stories are not for people like me and never were for people like me
Case in point, the oracles in 300
For those not familiar with the story, King Leonidas of Sparta goes to the Ephors (magistrates, essentially) to ask for their permission to go to war against the soon to be invading Persians. The Ephors consult the Oracle, and this is depicted as a heavily drugged young woman in flimsy, almost non-existent clothing writhing around in a drug-induced stupor. It’s heavily implied that the Ephors rape her while she is in this state, and Leonidas finds them disgusting for this, but is still bound by tradition and culture to honor their leadership even if he does not abide by their ruling
And in both the comic and the film, there’s such a vibe of “oh no look at this poor girl, who is so insanely sexual and writhing about sensually as if to tempt men, but who is also clearly doing this against her will and is drunk to the point of incoherence. It’s so sad that’s she basically being raped to death by these disgusting old freaks. Oh well, I’m sure that’s none of my business”
And that hit me, so hard, back in the days when wee young Defira devoured these stories. I didn’t know why it was hitting me so hard (I mean, I knew it was disgusting and I hated it) but I know now that coupled with the treatment of the one or two other women in the entire story (also raped), it was basically a big flashing neon sign pointing me to the door to tell me this wasn’t a story where people like me got to be more than set dressing. We were consumable props. Nothing else. Not even people.
Fast forward to now, with Touchstarved promising an adult, monstrous horror setting that plays with queer stories and queer notions of alienation and self-loathing and, let’s be honest, monstrous sexuality and sex, when I saw the Oracle origin I knew that was the one for me.
Because that girl in 300 has lived rent free in my mind for DECADES. What if the Oracle got a chance to be more than a prop, more than a set dressing? What if she was never rescued, like she was just shrugged and abandoned to her tormentors in the story, but what if she got a chance to be monstrous and turn the torment back on them? What does that girl become, once she’s escaped from the only place she’s ever known, a place of isolation and pain and horror at the hands of humans? What does she believe about monstrosity, when faced with people and creatures who defy classification, as opposed to the mundane humans who caged her and abused her and raped her and used her for the own financial gain?
Ophalia, or Lia, is my answer to those questions. Her backstory is bleak, but the setting gives me leave to play in that bleak, miserable space. She’s frightened and she’s angry and she’s so stupidly trusting and naive because she doesn’t know how to be a human! She doesn’t know how to relate to other people! She is monstrous because of her curse, but she’s lived a monstrous life and I’m excited to play in that space
