Welcome to the Dark Side

The darkness has a very underserved bad reputation. Always what people fear and try to avoid, yet such an essential part of life. Humans fear the darkness despite their deep need for it and the benefits it provides them, the balance it gives, and the rest from the relentless burning light. The demonize what they need.

In the same way the Unseelie court - those fey folk labelled as unholy or unlucky by mortals - tend to have a bad reputation. So many protections against the Unseelie, so many words of iron and salt, so many stories warning against wandering out too late or too far. But all things must be true to their own natures and it's wrong to see the Unseelie as evil; there is no evil here just hard truths and hunger. And the more dangerous fairies have as much right to exits and thrive as the popular, friendly sorts.

There's been a lot of change in how fairies are viewed over the last hundred years. Everything reduced and disempowered, everything made servile and aesthetically pleasing. Well, that is not a mould that works here no matter how many novels try to paint the Unseelie as misunderstood and full of love to give. There is no loss of power here or size, and nothing in this darkness willingly serves humanity. Strength remains and its time that strength was respected again.

Many of the beings counted among the numbers of the Unseelie are antithetical to humanity. They are not made to be gentled or domesticated. They are dangerous. They are uncanny. They are fierce. And all of those things are unchanging. Even the idea of humans labelling the Fair Folk as seelie or unseelie, as good or bad, shows a misunderstanding of what fairies are, of the shifting nature that goes between helpful and harmful. Humans rules are not fairy rules, and fairy rules are all that matter here.

You won't find any gentle messages of reconciliation here or the idea that we all just want to get along with humanity. Humanity has screwed us over for a milenia. Some of us remember that very well and are ready to speak out against it.

So here we are, speaking the hard truths into the mortal world. Maybe some of you will listen.