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A buffalo storyteller tells young calves about the first real monster their kind has ever known. A monster so fearsome that dragons are nothing in comparison, one that promises to make the true meaning of evil known.
You can't wait to hear tonight's story...
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This was an excellent quote, and some really cool & interesting word building. I especially enjoy cool buffalo worldbuilding, so this was a good read. The verbal storytelling tone came across really well, too.
11593444
Thank you so much! I was wondering when this would get the first comment. The buffalo have always been super fun to write. I wish more people would write them, 'cause I'm always proud when I get the chance to.
Brilliant world building and a most disquieting monster indeed to reveal. Excellent work and framing device. Thank you for it.
11593657
Thank YOU so much for reading this! I was worried that this story might struggle to find an audience.
I think there's a big problem here in that the fire doesn't seem consistent between the different bulls; with the first several, it shows who they love, and it's implied that the bulls haven't been with those they love yet, needing this revelation to be paired with them, but then with the last bull, it seems it's showing instead an action* done to one the bull doesn't love. Surely, if it worked the same, the last bull would simply get nothing shown in the fire.
It would make far more sense if the fire was described as being a sort of special-day confession tool to reveal who a bull has been sneaking off with, so that last-minute marriages can be arranged with some forgiveness. It could also be fixed by having the fire show nothing, but then for a suspicious shaman to use a second ritual that reveals someone's dark misdeeds, rather than the fire do it on its own.
*: I'm assuming that it's a past action (and probably one done a lot) and not a desire or future action. I really wouldn't know what to suggest if it's meant to be the latter instead, since then it'd just be utterly horrific, with the Buffalo effectively stoning people because of abnormal mental development, rather than giving them help to be able to resist dangerous urges.
11593714
The fire either shows love, or as shown in the story, the opposite. Note that when the fire changed the ashes of the previous fire were noted to be within and it was said to be unlike any fire in living memory. The first fire also contains the contributions of the medicine pouches of the tribe. The second one Carrie’s a reflection of what was in the medicine pouch of the lone bull. The feeling and sensations of the fire reflect who and what he truly is.
There is no past action that was done, as you can tell by the absence of the non-con tag and any specific calf coming forward or being named against him in his trial. The fire literally only reflects desires, so it could show someone who is longed for or just act as a mood ring for sexual orientation. In this case, it didn’t reflect a sexual orientation but a danger in the community.
Remember, the storyteller refers to hiding a nature, not hiding actions.
11593721
Oh...I see I assumed wrong...well then, the Buffalo just kill anyone who ends up with dangerous urges, rather than try to help them resist...that's pretty awful of them, and doesn't make a lot of sense in a society with so few members (bad luck, particularly if there was a famine causing developmental problems for a while, and you could end up having to stone a quarter of the adult males in a given period).
11593765
The community found and convicted someone who exploited them for resources with deceit (acting as though they were not a pedophile) and executed them for crimes on the basis of evidence. There were no victims in this story nor were there any mere 'urges' either, I'm not going to take kindly to downplaying pedophilia of all things in my comments. That's monstrous stuff, and whaddya know, this is literally a story about that.
It is repeatedly stated in the story that the buffalo have many tribes and that their population is numerous. Over the Barrel showed one camp of buffalo, which could be one tribe, or as stated in the story a fraction of a tribe. Also, societies without pedophiles are better than societies with them. There is also no reason to focus only on the males because pedophilia impacts adults of all genders.
Deleting the comments before I can read them be like
11593813
You say the word pedophile but the story barely if at all mentions pedophilia.
11594090
It's a heavy, obvious implication.
11593813
Setting aside the nature of executing people for having the misfortune to end up with a certain mental problem (and pretending that nobody could possibly as a family member of someone like that feel bad about them being gone), are you suggesting that the buffalo should've openly announced to all of them that he was this way at some prior point, so as to not deceive, and this would lead to him getting help instead of being executed?
If so, I must note that it's a bit hard to get people to open up about things that may get them murdered, and that creates intense stress on people.
Anyone who wants to rape children is bad and dangerous person. It amazes and horrifies me to no end that this is apparently a controversial statement among some people here.
11594116
That such a person's potential to act is dangerous is not at issue, it's how to address that danger; the approach spoken of in the story is to stone them to death without any consideration of alternatives (or that their mother might miss them when they're dead etc.).
11594098
Not really the only possible mention of it seems like it could mean a lot of things. Granted none of them good, but still feels vague though.
Fellas, fellas. This story isn’t about pedophiles.
The titular monster is an insurance salesman.
11594090
The fire shows love and its opposite. The opposite of love is shown to be a distraught child. It's referring to pedophilia in all but name.
11594098
This is not 'a certain mental problem' because this story is about someone who wants to rape children. It's not about anyone who is misunderstood or has a condition like anxiety, autism, personality disorders, or whatever else constitutes a harmless difference. There is a real condition called pOCD where a person with OCD has obsessions centered around fear of becoming a pedophile, and survivors of sexual abuse can have intrusive thoughts about pedophilia, but the story is not about these things. As limited as the method for presentation (a campfire story) is, I at least wanted to exclude those. The bull doesn't have OCD and he isn't a trauma survivor, nor does he have any other mental health condition. He's literally just a pedophile, and the details that are provided about his life state that he was a seemingly normal part of the community. So, please don't use my comments to demonize people with mental health conditions like OCD or intrusive thoughts.
There are indeed those who die without being missed. Also, it's worth noting that the bull had no spouse, no calves, and only parents possibly acknowledged. The fewer there are with any good connections, the more likely they are to go unmourned in the event that they're a bad person (or in this case, buffalo). Also, something to note: feelings do not have sway in whether someone is executed. Someone's mommy missing them won't change the fact that they're a serial rapist. Evidence of innocence is used, and what lands ya there is the conviction of being guilty of the accused crimes based on some sort of evidence. To avoid things like confession, testimony, evidence, or any measure of justice wasn't done in the story.
Do you notice where it says in the story that he's been abusing the trust of others and using the community resources by pretending he's something he's not? He should have announced it in the sense of turning himself in so that others know that a) he wasn't trustworthy b) he wasn't worth the resources of society c) he should not be in society in the first place. The buffalo clearly have a very communal, multi-generation society that thrives on concepts like charity. If you want to rape children, all of those are wrong to offer to you. Voluntary association is also important to consider. You deserve to know if your neighbor is dangerous... or if your neighbor arguably has no right to the community at all.
Native American communities were heavily decentralized, and the tribes of the Great Plains (where I derive most of my inspiration for the buffalo) were especially so. Common forms of serious punishment in those communities included exile, though that always runs the risk of eventually finding another community to trick. Heavily communitarian lifestyles mean that being outcasted from the community is generally a death sentence. That would have been the other option if he had turned himself in instead of tricking others for years.
The feelings of pedophiles don't matter bro.
11594116
The best comment. I sure love getting pedophile apologia in my comments.
11594129
The fire confirms he wants to rape kids. He admits to the whole tribe he wants to rape kids and then some.
11594156
True that.
11594511
It could still mean a lot of things, physical abuse, the child parents were murdered, the child's mother was raped right before it's eyes, and yes pedophilia. Then again perhaps that's not really the point of the story is it?
11594595
It literally only can mean one thing, and I've already stated what that is. The image isn't a ghost. The images that appear in the fire reflect attraction.
11594511
None of what I was trying to say is meant to demonize anyone having a mental health problem. Quite the opposite, I must point out the logic of societal danger alone to dictate treatment of mentally ill people has historically been used to do horrible, horrible things to them.
Note the buffalo in question seems to not just have Pedophilic Disorder by the DSM-5's definitions, but also Antisocial Personality Disorder (a disorder characterized by no regret for actions, whether hurting others or deceiving them) and
Sadistic Personality DisorderSexual Sadism Disorder (correction on the name, and it's a disorder where one enjoys the suffering of others); the latter two without the first can create still a very dangerous individual, but who would want to hurt adults instead of children, and can still, with management of their situation, engage just fine in society and contribute to the generational passing-on of traditions.I doubt this will really go anywhere as far as agreement, but I will note that a while back, a video on the subject of this was shown to me that greatly affected how I view this stuff. It's Dr. James Cantor talking about his research into the behavior and neuroscience behind pedophilia...I must note that it seems like in more recent years he's gone down a bad political path, the usual stuff of a scientist stepping outside their field and becoming harmful, but at least the findings involved with the developmental nature of things are significant...basically, there are extreme signs of developmental oddities, similar in some ways to what's seen in autism and schizophrenia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB6zwvBtDK8
And those findings don't seem to simply be a fluke, as later studies show similar abnormalities in the brain (on pedophiles and rapists):
http://www.antoniocasella.eu/dnlaw/poeppl_2013.pdf
https://bmcneurosci.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12868-016-0278-3
11594609
Again that was what the spell was showing, however the way the story was written, seemed to suggest a massive change in nature of the spell and there were a lot of other things that particular buffalo could have been attracted to that could have been represented by that image, before you say anything I think you have written stories with individuals getting off on other particularly dark subject matter other than pedo yes? Than you do accept the fact that the image you have painted doesn't necessarily explicitly imply pedo, nice story though, the actual semi-vagueness actually helps in this regard so there's no reason to feel ashamed.
11594636
It was literally a child. I wasn't ambiguous about that.
Only one where it was stated explicitly or relevant to the story, and it's stated outright in the particular story (Stay Golden) that the character is a sexual sadist that cannot be trusted in society.
11594613
You do in your comment.
While this statement is true, this isn't a story about mental illness. There are no characters that are even hinted to have a mental health condition in the story.
This is not correct for a variety of reasons.
None of their actual criteria or proposed criteria offer a limit in age group of who the behavior is demonstrated around or towards.
A major reason is that the people who have these conditions =/= wanting to rape children. Refer back to my comment about how there are some conditions that manifest intrusive thoughts that could be mistaken for (but are not) pedophilia. Someone with a PD isn't an inherently dangerous person. Someone who wants to rape children is.
You are acting morally offended about a story where something that is bad is shown as bad and the character who is bad gets their comeuppance. There isn't any moral ambiguity to that. Treating demographics of people who are wholly terrible to others and actively harm society in the comments of my stories and continuing to do so when this is pointed out by other people is one of the few ways to earn a block from me other than maybe just being genuinely perverted or an antagonistic presence on the site. This honestly could fit the latter, since I'd put people who are actively hostile, encouraging discrimination, supporting violent/totalitarian mistreatment, and other equally shitty conduct that may not strictly be against site rules there. Though, inviting sympathy to the unsympathetic arguably is hostile and discriminatory to wider society, especially when you pick pedophiles as your category of choice. Jesus Fuckin' Christ, the state of the MLP fanfic scene.
To the character in the info for this story, the one that said: "You (they) can't wait for tonight's story", I say: was it worth it?!
Awesome and adorable cover art! Who made it?
Dang, this was interesting and well-written, and includes believable lore from Buffalos and other species such as Saddle Arabians - great work!
So...was the story a message that shows that evil can be in one's self? Was the evil was a nigh-adult calf who had anger and hate festering inside his heart, enough for it to block the ungulate from getting a wife and causing the dark emotions to become a physical force that destroyed every cattle's joy and braveness since the magical force could physically be felt and it put out the holy fire - though he had also destroyed resources (clarity please); and if they had not destroyed the bull, he would have taken everyone else down into black darkness? Oof, what a story!
11597322
The artist is called "SourCherry" and I know they can be found on derpibooru under the tag "artist:sourcherry" but I don't know where else you can find them.
Thank you!
The story is a message about how pedophiles are bad for society. The clarity for the bit about destroying resources is that because he never showed his true nature, he was deceiving others into thinking he was still a good buffalo by living normally.