#i truly feel that if you wanna be a jenny fan you HAVE to reckon with the racism within the text

[theajaheira]

as a romani woman who's always felt hurt by how romani people are portrayed in canon and viewed in fandom, its so nice to see this kind of allyship from a gadhži. its incredibly frustrating having to know that to a lot of people in fandom we'll be nothing more than a Villain and im always so appreciative for those who work against it and talk about the racism towards us in both canon and fandom

oh gosh this means a lot to me? i am constantly feeling that i'm really doing the bare minimum here, so this ask is .... simultaneously really heart-warming and really Makes Me Wanna Kick Some Knees (the knees of the people causing these problems. to be clear). i literally got an ask within an hour of my response to that ask about angel going "i think that the fandom sees the romani as shortsighted, not evil" discounting the fact that i am a goddamn jenny calendar fic scholar who has read everything that she's in and has been keeping fucking track of the way people write her larger romani background.

i think one of the problems is also that jenny as a character is written so clearly as someone who is stepping away from old traditions and customs, and the romani in the buffyverse are portrayed as locked in the past and unable to progress (because, again, the show is egregiously racist towards romani), so of course in fic if you're not thinking about what you're doing you're going to go "well, she's not like her family :)" and kinda lean into that. i sometimes worry that my fic does that too sometimes. i know one of the things that meant the most to me as i was writing what you make was 1) presenting jenny as part of a romani family that is full of a lot of joy and community (nora and donovan!) and 2) introducing non-white-passing romani to the narrative (donovan and his kids!) sort of shifting the focus away from jenny's family being romani as the problem & towards the idea of jenny's IMMEDIATE family having a lot of complex generational trauma that motivates their approach towards angelus. like, enyos as someone whose immediate family was slaughtered by vampires and who has never been able to process that loss, yknow?

but yeah! it is horrible and disheartening to see all the ways that people will bend over backwards to go "there's no anti-romani sentiment in btvs OR in the fandom :) it's just that the romani were trapped in the past and not good at what they did and didn't understand that angel REALLY deserved to be redeemed, and also enyos got what he deserved and jenny was a lying [anti-romani slur] spy :)" like hglksdhglksd the number of times i've just seen that slur tossed around IN FIC, or by people who are talking POSITIVELY about jenny! there's been a shift away from it but it was still very present in fic from the mid to late 2000s! (and still also now in fic where jenny is a supporting character who the writer doesn't care about!)

thank you for this ask. to know that saying stuff about how fucking horrible this fandom is about this (and other things) is making other people feel better & safer here -- i am so glad that this has a tangible positive impact somewhere! yesterday felt a little like shouting into the void especially as i look at spuffy fandom, which is STEEPED in racism in a way that i rarely see white spike/spuffy fans interacting with or wanting to talk about. i am determined to carve out a corner of the internet that feels good for nonwhite btvs fans, because it is HARD OUT HERE.