Text | user name: crypt_thing

[bloodyroses]

Okay, I'm not gonna be going around making any zombies or anything since apparently that's ILLEGAL and I'll respect it, but I really fucking hate that everyone I asked about that just looked at me like I ate someone's baby or something like that.

Real talk.

I can understand why it's ethically sketchy and disrespectful if someone didn't SAY they wanted to be a zombie, but this isn't the first time I've found other people treat necromancy like the worst thing you could do, magic-wise.

Someone please help me understand what the big fucking deal is because I think I'm gonna scream.

Comments

[Text; UN: gentlebreeze]

[gentledawn]

Excuse me, but would you mind telling me what a zombie might be?

text | un: HARU__

[hopticulture]

...nothing like that is possible where I'm from, but going with my gut, it's a matter of respect for the dead.

un: tikkunolam

[accidentallich]

Most people I know consider it an affront to God and the rules of nature...? And, well, I don't really disagree, in my position.

[bloodyroses]

Like I said, the ethics are pretty gross and it's disrespectful if you don't know whether or not they're okay with it. That part is understandable.

Trouble is people regularly sign up for this shit where I'm from and we've got people not from there being all judgy.

Like, no, fuck off with that shit.

[bloodyroses]

Imagine a corpse walking around except there's no more soul

so they're just shuffling around going HURR DURR

[hopticulture]

If it's something the person agreed to before dying, I don't really see what's so wrong with that. But a lot of people feel uncomfortable about death and try not to think about it. They probably try putting themselves in the zombie's place and it freaks them out. For me my gut response is that it's not natural. Death is a part of life and being brought back...

Well! I shouldn't judge. If that's what the person wants done to their body, it should be respected.

[bloodyroses]

Don't really want to get personal, but my whole existence has kind of been an affront to the natural order of things.

[bloodyroses]

The cultural history of it is... complicated. Traditionally in Vanth we have a pretty sharp cultural distinction between someone's body and their actual soul.

One of those things we recognize as "them" after a person dies, the other, not so much.

I could get more into the specifics but it's going to be a lot of history and cultural blathering, so you might wanna get a snack if you're interested in hearing about it.

[accidentallich]

Ah. I can relate?

[bloodyroses]

Difference is you were actually a victim in all this; I'm just kinda here.

[hopticulture]

Ah that sounds interesting and it does sound like really important stuff to know but
I'll pass on the history lesson.

[NOT TO BE RUDE OR ANYTHING IT'S JUST a subject she sucks at and zones out on during class.]

[accidentallich]

I don't know your situation, so I can't comment, I don't think...

[bloodyroses]

You know what, that is EXTREMELY FAIR. This shit gets wordy.

The short version: our kingdom's built over a place in the world where the wall between "regular living person meatspace" and "spooky spirit world stuff" is kinda...thin? Patchy?

And then a bunch of bad stuff happened a long time ago that necessitated zombies and ever since then we just kinda went all "this is normal"

[gentledawn]

Why would you do such a thing? You are desecrating the remains.

UN: SleepyAsh

[neetvampire]

You said the reason yourself, actually. Though I guess vampires are different from zombies.

It's wrong to raise the dead without their consent. They themselves might not have wanted that sort of twisted existence. It's impossible to tell what someone might have wanted once they are dead, and cruel to assume.

[bloodyroses]

So like, do you assume all necromancy is non-consensual?

Because I got people judging me when I said people actually sign up for this willingly all the damn time where I'm from.

[neetvampire]

Well I have to say it's fairly hard to imagine, yeah.

I've met people who were grateful, sure, but most humans who think becoming undead is a cool idea tend to have no idea what they're talking about.

How can you really consent to something that extreme without really knowing what it's like?

text | un: juliet

[brightred]

It's extremely rude! We put all that effort into properly collecting souls and making sure that a life is ended correctly, and then people like you just waltz in and start up the corpse again! It's a pain to have all these unregistered bodies walking around!

[bloodyroses]

You know what? Fair.

Everyone else so far is just like, "butbutbut it's disrespectful according to my own cultural norms that totally apply everywhere and it's an affront to the gods blah blah blah"

like, shut the hells up, if I had a dick I'd tell these people to suck it.

[brightred]

Disrespect for the dead has nothing to do with it! It's all about the disrespect for the time and effort of the people keeping your afterlife running smoothly!

[bloodyroses]

Traditionally we just let the soul run off to wherever it's supposed to go while the body is treated like another part of the deceased's estate, so, I dunno.

You would hate Vanth so fucking much, we got skeletons around every corner.

[bloodyroses]

If you're digging up the grave of someone who never wanted this, yeah, obviously.

One of the benefactors for my old school had his skeleton walk around a tiny cage on the grounds as an art installment. Weird, but it was what he wanted and the school was cool with it, so I'm not gonna judge.

Normally though, you just get people signing up to guard a tomb of a loved one or a temple or some other place that was important to them in life.

Or they donate their body to research or the government or something.

I think it's just as much desecration to put someone in a grave if they made it clear they don't want to be there.

[bloodyroses]

1) traditional Vanthian necromancy only works with the body, the soul just goes to the afterlife.

2) you are really underestimating how much undead we've got all over the place.

[neetvampire]

Wait.

How can a body move without a soul?

[Everything he's heard makes it sound like that's kind of important?]

[bloodyroses]

So might be different in other worlds, but the simple answer is:

The animating force behind what we'd call the "spark of life" is different from the wibbly wobbly soulsy wolsy bits that's an actual person.

If you're in a coma and you're probably never gonna wake up, you got one but not the other. Same goes for unborn babies, though in that case you just haven't gotten your person soul piece just yet instead of it having already left the building.

If you want to animate a zombie, you just have those lingering bits of animating force do their thing with the help of magic.