Driving Someone to Suicide

*Tweets this*

Have I told you about a species I have in my main fantasy world, a species called the Harun Daha Dahe {hah-roon dah-hah dah-hey} (Harun for short)? They started out as pretty good shapeshifters who happened to eat meat, but were peaceful toward other Sapients. But many of the people of their home planet (mostly humans, but some draconics and other species) were afraid of their shapeshifting abilities. They were persecuted mercilessly. Nothing they said or did stopped the onslaught. Rather than fight back, they got better at hiding. They accidentally discovered they all had an inherent magical ability: magically-aided evolution. To solve a problem, they could evolve a solution before the problem killed them (or, in other cases, adapt to problems that had already killed one or more of them). For example, if one was drowning, the gift might bless him with spontaneous gills. If it was enough of a problem that it was happening to a lot of them, critical mass would update the DNA of all Harun to include gills.

This gift helped them get better at hiding, better at shapeshifting, which only made the others more scared and hateful and determined. The persecution intensified. Around and around it kept going for several hundred years. When the Harun developed immunity to fire and even having their heart pierced or their head cut off could no longer kill them, things got REALLY bad; the persecutors started using magic against them in force. Finally, it got to be too much and the peaceful Harun finally lost their shit (to use a colloquialism) and basically went insane. Not all Harun are insane, but most are. They are now a bit of a peculiar combo, psychologically; able to control/suppress emotions so well that they usually seem completely without emotion, but sociopathic against anyone who isn't Harun (and occasionally against their own kind, under the right circumstances) and power-hungry. They're basically on a quest to have nothing to fear from anyone, and make everyone else have a damned good reason to fear them, stealing DNA from other species when their own magical gift isn't sufficient to give them powers they covet. They've mostly succeeded, as they are now so impossible to kill that if even one cell survives, the whole individual can grow back. A nuke would merely piss them off. They've been trying to cement their immortality by trying to add Phoenix DNA to their species. And they've even scaring the godlike energy beings called the Vecerti, because some of them have figured out how to Ascend to energy beings, even jumping back and forth from energy to mortal and back again so they can break the Vecerti's rules with impunity. And the kind of energy they can become now is basically toxic to all other life forms.
Despite all this, though, they're not really evil. They've no desire to commit genocide, though they do tend to treat other Sapients with disinterest at best or - at worst - as unwilling research subjects. Several groups have forgiven the "lesser creatures" and, out of a kind of loneliness, are trying to bring several other species up to their level, or close.

Basically, the whole moral of the Harun story is "Be careful who you demonize, or you may turn them into a real demon." And I suspect it was inspired by my own demonic rage at the bullying I endured growing up. And I must be honest: the Harun are evil and frakking terrifying; I hope to Gods they aren't real (at least not the evil version) in any universe, and I hope and pray I never meet one. But I think I like them even more than the Ah'Koi Bahnis. If I ever did meet one, I hope it would be one of the ones that want to uplift others to their level. As long as the process wouldn't change me emotionally to be like them. Ugh. I can't even stand the Vulcan level of emotionlessness, despite the fact I have my moments of it myself.

Did you read my Vampire Vignette a few weeks ago? It's the same spectrum of feeding.

I was teased and bullied. I was an empath. I could never explain to anyone why what they said upset me so much. It wasn't what they said, it was what they felt at me, about me. When I was a kid, there were no words in my lexicon to express this, and if there were, I would have been thought insane.

Even the people who don't kill themselves? They are partially eaten, with huge bites out of their souls, some of which will never heal, just scar over with hurt or rage. If a predator gnaws your leg off, even if you later get a prosthetic, it just isn't the same as being whole.

Even the people who don't kill themselves? They are partially eaten, with huge bites out of their souls, some of which will never heal, just scar over with hurt or rage. If a predator gnaws your leg off, even if you later get a prosthetic, it just isn't the same as being whole.

Yes.

(added to memories)

So, so true.

I'd like to repost this in my journal. If I may, how would you like me to do so--with attribution to you, or as anonymous?

This is too good an analogy not to pass on.