transmutation as legitimate life trajectory: exposing implicit biases of the Wardview Hunters’ Guild
The recent bulletin posted by the Hunters’ Guild is perhaps the most transparent attempt at fearmongering which has been penned in recent months. If one were to believe the Guild, they would have no choice but to come to the conclusion that there is an epidemic of irresponsible witches roaming the streets of Wardview, transmuting any innocent bystander into something which is not human.
According to the Guild, there is no possible reason that citizens would choose transmutation; it is only the choice made by someone unsound of mind and/or under extreme duress.
Never mind the fact that there are historical documents dating as far back as the 1100s detailing how humans have chosen to shed their humanity.
In the European stage there were stories dating back to the time of Arthurian legends of individuals choosing to ‘Melion’ themselves, roaming the countryside as wolves for rites of passage; the Northern Song dynasty saw nobles choosing to live as birds to better understand how to transform the harmony of nature to the balance of the state; and the Oyo Empire saw the possibility of one of its alaafins turning into a spirit of lightning and flame (Murky Waters: The Line Between History and Mythological Heroes, Adeoye et al., 2021) .
Even if one disregards these accounts as mere fiction, one cannot disregard the myriad of memoirs penned either by the transmuted or someone recording the oration of the transmuted.
In Lenora Pavarichi’s Memoirs of a Wine Barrel, the transmuted, one formerly known as Theodori Medici, purportedly used the different flows of the wine inside its body to give voice to its new life experience (1548). Medici describes the religious devotion that led him to shed his humanity. “I have attained a state which the friars only dream,” stated the wine barrel, “It is a beautiful hollowing of vessel and self; the soul transcends where the hallowed shell remains. I know what Christ desired in asking the Apostles to drink of Him.”
Religious fervor is far from the sole reason for transmutation. There have been countless stories where runaways saw transmutation as a way to escape. While most stories end with the runaway choosing to return to human form, others, such as the account told by Maria Santos Primavera, has the runaway choosing to remain as something other than human (Harpy Tails: the History of Girls’ Flight from Life in the Abbey, Magboo, 2008). Primavera describes how the tawitawi doves were the sole familiar thing she saw when sent to live as a nun. “It was like a sign from home- one saying, come back, come see us, we will be as you left us.” (Harpy Tails, 2008).
While the hand of Spanish colonialism would, in effect, change everything, Primavera’s transmutation into a harpy bearing resemblance to her beloved tawitawi allowed her to hold onto a piece of her home. This is perhaps the most prevalent reason why humans have chosen to become something “Other” throughout the ages; searching for a sense of purpose, of belonging, and of home.
Is it any surprise, then, that there is an entire romance subgenre in circles within the Know where one lover changes their species to be with their love interest? One only needs to look at the local bookstore to find Leticia G. Smith’s Dram of Whiskey, a wildly popular historical romance set in the Jazz Age. It is a book where the protagonist, Ruthie Jean, must choose between continuing to make music in an industry that won’t recognize her talent or run away with her lover, known only as ‘Blue’, into the waters of the Mississippi as a riverdram. Considering the content of the rest of the article, you can imagine what Ruthie Jean’s ultimate decision is. This novel is itself one of Smith’s best selling works, outsold only by the academic reports of her cousins.
Transmutation for love isn’t solely in the bounds of fiction, however. If the Hunter’s Guild would only look back over its own interview logs, it would see that at least one of the recent transmutations- one only identifying himself as 化茧 (Hua Jian), and one identifying herself as 成蝶 (Cheng Die), both apparently speaking under the condition of anonymity- has done so specifically for this reason. After both consented to be transmuted into faeries, their testimony was given through the medium of flight pattern, spelling out the story of their families’ refusal to allow them to see each other. Rather than continue on in human society, they decided to take the plunge into transmutation together. Though they sometimes watch over their old human families from afar, both have expressed happiness in their choice. “Being in this [butterfly-esque] form is pretty much like a dream- now we can fill our days with each other.” (“Butterfly Dancers”, Wardview Review, May 202X).
I ask: where is the epidemic that the Hunters’ Guild is stirring moral panic over? By their own admission, all 23 of the suspected ‘forced transmutations’ have no curse placed on them to remain silent. No wizard has found evidence of magic tampering with their thought process. All 23 interviewed have spoken at length for their reasoning to shed their humanity, and yet the Guild is not satisfied. I ask: what would it take to satisfy the Guild’s extraneous interrogations?
And I answer: nothing. The Hunters’ Guild of Greater Wardview believes itself to be the arbiter of personhood; to them, humanity is the height of existence, and any deviation therein is to be met with skepticism. Many in Guild leadership cannot fathom a world where someone would choose to change their species because they cannot fathom a world where someone would refuse to be human.
As such, they feel they must dramatize the situation. They must fret over the paltry 27 transmutations which have occurred in Wardview because they are a number above zero. They must claim that all transmuted did so under duress, because otherwise, there would be no crime to hunt witches over. They must humanize all those transmuted and force them through the traumatic bureaucratic process of “legally” transmuting their species again to “protect” them.
In truth, the Guild only wants for there to be more humans in Wardview.
[The author of this article has asked to remain anonymous for their safety. The Wardview Review takes no responsibility for the content of this article.
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Couple of days ago two hunter brothers destroyed our frat house and we couldn’t be happier.
Yeah, I know what you’re saying- what? Chadster, what are you talking about? Didn’t all your worldly possessions get utterly wrecked in some fiery inferno or whatever? And I’m like, yeah! It’s all gone dude! The only reason why we didn’t get dusted was because Kurt had rented out a motel room to score with some smoking dames who blew into Wardview.
It was a good night, even with the unholy existential terror of the rising sun through the slats in the blinds.
So, the brothers. No one let us know that they were showing up. Which isn’t that big a deal, actually. We weren’t having a party that night ‘cause Zebulon was taking his midterms. Like, sure, the rest of us haven’t been into taking tests since like the 50s, but he’s still super in on the academic stuff. Zeb’s out here collecting degrees like it’s no one’s business. A brother’s gotta help a brother out. Even when it scores goose eggs in actually getting some chicks.
Point is, Z-man was the one who let us know shit was going south.
He was doing the studying, as usual, even though it was getting to dawn and there was a ton of vague light just kinda there over the horizon, right within burning distance.
“The fading nights are the closest remains of our fleeting mortality,” Zeb says, “You may hide in the revelries of endlessly repeating witching hours, but there is a part of you, still, which craves the sun. Why do you shy away? Is it not love, to touch that which will destroy you utterly?”
Sure thing, Z . Sure.
So Zs was looking out the window, contemplating immortality or whatever, when he saw a couple guys through the morning fog. Not exactly anything big, since we get a lot of the thralls of the frat running out in the morning to keep their massive gains. Problem was, the two guys were a lot slower than any of our guys. And there wasn’t a single short leg between them! It was just jeans and flannel all the way down, like two models stepping out of the Old Navy summer sale that was gonna be starting any day now. That’s all fine and whatever.
What wasn’t fine were the rifles across their backs. What wasn’t fine was the fact that they were making a beeline straight for our front door at this bullshit time of morning, and that they were gunning straight for us.
So yeah, of course Z was sounding the alarms left and right! What else was he supposed to do? When he got turned, he was still nerdy and weak, so the vampiric strength couldn’t really do much. The rest of us though? We can handle a couple of guys. Even if we were all kinda hung over.
As the leader of AlphaBetaO, I was naturally the first one up. Zeb barged into my room, voice cracking from volume he wasn’t used to as he yelled about, “Hunters!” And of course I was thinking, shit, do we still have the babes from before? But he was just pulling on me, dragging me off the couch I was totally and elegantly thrown all over, pointing at the direction of the stairs, looking paler than… well, than the dead. Lol! There’s some vamp humor for you there!
Then there was a HUGE bang from downstairs, and that was when I started hearing everyone else start to get up, annoyed muttering and groans filtering in through the walls with my totes superior vampire hearing, and I could hear the heartbeats of those hunters from a mile away.
Steady, strong, pumping lots of hot blood through the foot that just crashed into our goddamn living room. And it’s like, dude! We just got that shit screwed back on days ago! We can’t keep running through wood like this or my dad’s gonna flip!
I won’t get too far into the logistics of the battle, since all that crap’s pretty boring, and you know that me and boys put up one hell of a fight- but somehow- somehow!- those hunters got one over on us. They were just lucky, of course. If it were any other time, we would’ve cleaned the floor with those guys, guns and all.
We didn’t have much time, so we all ended up piling into the back of Zeb’s van and drove to the room that Kurt had rented out to stay the day, and that was when we saw the flames licking over the walls of the frat. In a way, I guess the fire was a good thing- all the smoke and ash blocked out the rising sun in the east, and it let us get away without any light hitting us.
We only found out what happened the night after, when my old man came to grab us; turns out, there’d been a plasticshifter in the house, and none of us had even realized.
I mean, how could we? If it was a plastie, it could have turned into anything around our house- toothbrushes, cups, pens, you name it! It would’ve been there! Slowly eating away at the insides of our mouths! Really, we dodged one hell of a bullet, when we were beating that entirely tactical retreat. It wasn’t that we were running away- it was just that we needed to recoup, and it gave the hunters time to take care of things.
Dad says that they got a tip that the thing was staying in our frat, and now that the place was burnt, he sorted everything with the hunters! Sure, right now we have to deal with temporary housing until we can move into the other house that the fraternity owns, but no one was hurt, so! All’s well!
At least, that’s how most of us see it. Zeb says he isn’t all that sure about everything.
Zeb’s been asking things. Like, who would have tipped the hunters off, if no one in the house knew? And if they were tipped off, why wouldn’t they try to call us first, just to make sure that the pasticshifter wasn’t riding us out of the house as a pair of glasses or a prized novelty shot glass or whatever? Why did my Dad say he ‘sorted everything out’? Why the guns at all?
Like, sure, I can’t answer those questions. But maybe tipping us off would have tipped the plastie off too. Maybe one of our thralls saw something and didn’t want to freak anyone out; maybe the hunters just assumed we knew. Who knows!
Zebulon’s still reading a whole lot into the situation. I wanna tell him to take a chill pill, but he’s just holing up in his room with all those boring textbooks and won’t come out. Kurt says he needs space to ‘process’ his “”emotions””. He hasn’t really gotten the hang of growing a thicker skin just yet; he just needs some time to figure it out.
Now see, this is the result of all this mistrust that’s been going around about hunters. Everyone’s talking about how hunters are out to get all us supernatural folk, but that’s just not the case! The only ones they go after are the real monsters, like the plasticshifter in our frat, who hurt the entire community. Folks like us, who have nothing to hide and who pay all our dues, don’t have anything to worry about!
Plus, we can’t lie- those guns looked cool as shit.
[ The preceding opinion piece was paid for by members of the Vladsly family in conjunction with the Wardview University Hunters’ Corp. Chad Vladsly is a university student, student leader, and vampire. For more on the activities of hunters in the community, please click the following link.
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