my baby needs blood

I really like this one. The blue, grainy images and the sounds of wind and crunching snow capture the mood of the long, oppressive winter where just surviving is a struggle, and likewise evoke the protagonist’s emotional isolation. We quickly discover that their life is shaped around caring for their sick partner; they’re forced into a maternal role they expressly don’t want, preparing his food, collecting blood for him to drink because he insists on it, not because it’s actually shown any efficacy as a treatment for his illness.

The reason the protagonist, Resunotek, rejects the idea of motherhood is, to use modern terminology that they don’t have access to, that they’re transgender. Early on, they relate the feeling that “someone could rip these pelts from me… revealing that I don’t belong, or that I’m not who I say.” Their partner’s assertions that “You’re the woman I love most on this Earth” and “I want nothing more but to call you my wife” are a twisting dagger. While Resunotek loves their partner, in part because “He’s everything [they] want to be”, he represents the patriarchy, continuing to adhere to his blood-drinking regimen because “[his] father and his father before him” attested to it; “to go against their word would be a betrayal.” Obeying the wisdom of his forefathers is more important to him than allowing his partner a respite.

The only suggestion he has for making things easier on Resunotek is that they have children, because when the children are old enough they’ll be able to help out—never mind that being pregnant and then having an infant to care for would only create more/harder work for Resunotek. Their conversation about the subject is clearly one they’ve had before, and it’s easy to believe that the partner’s claim that kids will be useful is just a way to try to convince Resunotek to fulfill his wishes, which would mean playing a role that does not fit them.

At the end of the story, Resunotek has a moment of identification, feeling momentarily “like [they] belong,” with the mythical figure described as a demon, a parasite, a monster, a mistake, who takes the guise of the goddess of the hunt in order to feed on hunters’ blood. This figure is not a provider, but a taker; she’s “a coward,” “hiding behind long hair,” “surviving only by playing the role of someone she was never born to be. Born to a world that gives her no other option. Born to a world where she cannot be.” my baby needs blood is a story about queer people identifying with the monstrous, the other, because we see ourselves in those figures who are unwanted, cast as frightening and dangerous, who do not and cannot fit with society’s expectations.