#the overt racism of it all especially

[shoechoe]

playing rap/hip-hop for family members who like making fun of your music taste and are that "i hate rap i don't consider it real music" type really spotlights how much they do not know anything about or listen to rap and their "criticisms" for it are a bunch of garbage that they wouldn't say about any other music genre

[creatingblackcharacters]

Aren't a lot of people of color uncomfortable with white people having OCs of color? Or is the problem not giving more visibility to OCs of fans of color?

Well, I would highly suggest finding and making community with fans of color to see these things in action. But the issue is not that they have OCs of color. The discomfort includes when white creators:

Poorly create characters of color, usually including overt racism due to lack of research or empathy (from poorly drawn skin and hair, to stereotypes, to blatant tokenism)

Poorly create those characters and then getting defensive when fans of color- especially the ones being depicted- point out the racism in their work.

Poorly create those characters not even for those who are being represented, but for the applause and approval of other white fans (this includes when they apologize for racism... And it isn't actually directed to or accepted by said fans of color. But that doesn't matter, bc that's not who they did it for to begin with.)

Tokenizes those OCs/characters of color while mistreating fans of color- so, if your "favorite character" is Black, but I either 1) never see you interact with or support anyone Black in the fan base or 2) I only ever see you argue with the Black fans (or your politics are sus, tbh), odds are, you're just tokenizing that Black character. Because you don't actually like or respect Black people, just the puppet Black character that you can control. A "good Black", if you will.

Speak over fans of color on their own experiences, and don't make space for fans of color and their own OCs (which is what you said), while simultaneously claiming ignorance to said issues (how are you 'not racist' but you don t even know what that looks like? You 'cant spot' fandom racism, so how do you know when you're not doing it?)

If you're not willing to put in the effort to depict us correctly or respectfully, don't do it at all. We're not points for your "diversity clout" or to assuage your feelings of unaddressed racism. But many white creators of OCs of Color, or even fan characters, are not considerate of or concerned by these things. It's something I hope I address enough here to bring awareness to those reading.

[odinsblog]

No Action, No Peace

Republican lawmakers in Tennessee have been accused of overt racism after expelling two Black Democrats from the state legislature in an act of unprecedented retaliation, for their role in a peaceful protest calling for gun control in the aftermath of a massacre at a school in Nashville.

The Republican-controlled legislature voted on Thursday to spare a white Democratic lawmaker who participated in the same protest.

Justin Jones, representative for Nashville, and Justin Pearson, who represented Memphis, gave rousing speeches in the chamber before the majority-white legislature voted to oust them, leaving tens of thousands of mostly Black and brown Tennessee residents without representation.

Justin Jones, 27, said he had “no regrets” and would “continue to speak up for Tennesseans who are demanding change”, in an interview with CNN on Friday,

“What happened yesterday was an attack on our democracy and overt racism. The nation got to see clearly what’s going on in Tennessee, that we don’t have democracy especially when it comes to Black and brown communities. This is what we have been challenging all session, a very toxic, racist work environment.”

Jones said Republican lawmakers were trying to take Tennessee backwards, and pointed to the state’s history of white supremacy, the birthplace of the ultra-violent Ku Klux Klan.

After the vote to expel them, Jones and Pearson, the two youngest Tennessee lawmakers and former community organisers, were greeted with rapturous chants and songs of resistance by a huge crowd outside the state capitol building. During the vote, the visitors’ gallery exploded in angry shouts of “Shame!” and “Fascists!”

Pearson, 27, told reporters that in carrying out the protest, the three had broken “a house rule, because we’re fighting for kids who are dying from gun violence and people in our communities who want to see an end to the proliferation of weaponry in our communities”.

He later tweeted: “We will not stop. We will not give up. We will continue working to build a nation that includes, not excludes, or unjustly expels. People power will always prevail!”

Gloria Johnson, the white Democrat spared expulsion by a one-vote margin, was asked by reporters about the split vote as she left the chamber on Thursday.

“I’ll answer your question; it might have to do with the color of our skin,” said Johnson, a retired teacher.

(continue reading)

[stobinesque]

The last post I reblogged has me thinking about how Lucas is treated by his friends/the wider UD gang in-universe/from a more Watsonian perspective. Because here are the facts:

Lucas has spent most of his childhood being explicitly/overtly bullied for his race [being called "Midnight" by their season 1 bullies]¹

At the beginning of Season 2, Mike clearly assumes that Lucas agreed to go as Winston for no other reason than both of them being black. But when called on this, Mike cannot bring himself to admit that's what he was thinking. (He also does not apologize to Lucas.)

Until Billy attacks him, Lucas doesn't really know why Max is trying to avoid being seen with him when Billy picks her up/at her house, but having been on the receiving end of "my family is racist so I can't be seen with you," whether or not you actively know the reason someone is trying to hide you from another person, it feels alienating. Also, he absolutely figures it out in hindsight.

But since at first he doesn't know that Billy inexplicably and aggressively hates him/doesn't want him interacting with Max, from Lucas' perspective he gets attacked by a white boy 4-5 years his senior and almost twice his size out of literally nowhere. Said boy explicitly declares to him "You're dead, Sinclair."²

Lucas, upon entering high school, decides that he wants to acquire enough social pressure to protect him and his friends from the bullying they had to deal with throughout middle school. Neither Mike nor Dustin seem willing/able to understand why he might be interested in that protection.

There are a couple different ways to interpret Lucas (and Patrick)³ choosing to stay with Jason and Andy, but I think it's reasonable to assume that Lucas would be able to recognize a mob/witch hunt forming, and I also think it is reasonable to assume that Lucas knows that mobs tend to target the most vulnerable members of a population, and that he himself both as a black kid and a member of Hellfire is at risk.

Nancy knows for a fact that Jason was at the army surplus store in search of a gun, and while it is implied that she informs the group of this, they seem not to take that into any consideration when planning because

Taken altogether, this paints a picture that in-universe, all of Lucas' friends should be intimately aware that he has experienced overt racism for his entire life. But, the Halloween costume argument also suggests that even though they're all aware of said racism, none of the white members of the group really feel comfortable talking about it. Lucas does explicitly call Mike out on thinking that he would be Winston (or that Mike can't be) "because he's black," and Mike flat out lies to his face. If this is one of the first times Lucas has confronted one of the Party members about their own implicit racism, I think it would be reasonable for him to walk away from that exchange deciding that race isn't something he can have honest conversations with his friends about.

We also never see Billy attacking Lucas addressed on-screen after it happens. Which means we never get to see anyone check-in with Lucas about what happened, or see him process what happened.

So come season 4 Lucas has great reason both to want more social capital/protection and to feel uncomfortable explicitly talking to his friends about why that might be. (Especially with the added baggage of Billy having just been killed, which assuredly inspired a lot of complicated feelings for Lucas, especially because of how much his death impacted Max.) Instead, he makes one simple request of his friends (who he both wants at his game and still wants to play D&D with them): get Eddie to reschedule the game. And, sure, it's Eddie's fault that the game doesn't get rescheduled. But it is absolutely on Mike and Dustin that they didn't choose to skip (which honestly probably would have forced Eddie to reschedule anyway??).

So for the most important game of the season, Lucas winds up without his friends or his sister there to watch him make the winning shot, and he misses out on the D&D game that he wanted to play with his friends. It's entirely possible that Lucas still would have decided to go to the afterparty even if Mike and Dustin had come to the game. But I think it's reasonably likely that he'd have gone to celebrate separately with them! Or at least would have left the party early, rather than getting so drunk he pukes the next morning. So when Jason riles the whole team into becoming a mob out for blood, Lucas ends up stuck between a rock and a hard place. He can't really say or do anything to stop Jason that doesn't also put a target on his back. Sticking with him is the best way to 1) ensure his own physical safety and 2) have any hope of protecting Eddie/his friends.

And then Lucas risks his life to lead Jason & co. off Eddie's scent and bikes eight miles to come warn Dustin that he's in danger. He actually explicitly says that Dustin is in terrible danger. Lucas (and, honestly, all of the Party--except arguably Will) at this point is intimately aware of the fact that a white boy fueled by rage can been homicidally dangerous. So the fact that even after knowing for a fact that Jason has acquired a gun, the whole team send Lucas, Erica and Max to the Creel house without weapons, protection, or any sort of plan as to how to deal with Jason & co. if they turn up is not only baffling, but honestly feels downright callous.

From a purely Watsonian perspective, Lucas has every right and reason to be absolutely livid with his friends. Their consistent inability to recognize or acknowledge the racism Lucas experiences directly results in Lucas and his sister being attacked and nearly killed--and not even by the supernatural bad guy.

¹The show never returns to this, but to me it is broadly illustrative of the racial climate in Hawkins

²Please do not waste your breath trying to argue with me that Billy "wasn't really trying to kill him." I honestly don't care either way. He threatened to kill a 13-year-old boy whose only "crime" was being black. There is no other explanation for Billy's treatment of Lucas that makes sense, since he explicitly targets him, and not Dustin or Mike. Regardless of whether or not Billy had genuine homicidal intent, Lucas had no reason to think otherwise in that moment. I have no interest in arguing this point with anyone.

³Patrick is another excellent example of the show being unable to meaningfully reckon with with its racial implications, but that's its own post.

[hiiragi7]

Endogenic Plurality, Disability, & Ableism

Note: For simplicity's sake, this post will be focused on endogenic plurals without a CDD, and uses endogenic interchangeably with "endogenic without a CDD" to be less wordy. Disability and disorder are also used somewhat interchangeably here.

I've been thinking more on the "do endogenic plurals experience ableism for being plural" debate, and something which I really would like to explore more in discussion is how plurality's proximity to disability impacts the ways in which endogenic plurals are treated.

While I see some fair points in each argument, statements such as "if you don't have a disorder, you do not face ableism" and "endogenic plurals only face misdirected ableism" are vastly oversimplifying the actual issues here to the point that they are actually misleading at best and harmfully incorrect at worst.

I have been reading Cripping Intersex lately and it has changed a lot of the ways in which I view disability politics. One thing that this book has made very clear: Saying "I do not have a disorder" does not prevent you from being subjected to discrimination based on an ableist system, and in fact rejecting the disability framework entirely not only does nothing to dismantle that ableism but even reinforces it.

This is not to say that endogenic plurals are "actually disabled/disordered", but rather that plurality as a whole has a proximity to disability in such a way that it is almost inherently subjected to ableism. There is absolutely a socially and medically enforced view of self which excludes any sort of overt plurality, especially in a Western colonialist context. Whether your plurality is actually disordered or not, that does not matter when you are working within a systemic framework which seeks to eliminate anything not defined as normal or acceptable. It doesn't even matter if your plurality is non-pathological; if it is not socially accepted as "normal", it is treated as disordered and to be fixed.

This sort of ableism is not only related to ableism more common to DID, but ableism as a whole. It is related to disability as a socially prescribed status through discrimination rather than black-and-white categories or objective truths regarding disorder and non-disorder. It is related to how saneism defines what is and is not normal and acceptable, rather than what psychology or the medical field defines as "actually" pathological and disordered (though it is important to acknowledge that these two systems heavily interact, as well, and that oppression impacts how the medical system defines pathology).

I reject that ableism towards endogenic plurals is simply "misdirected". To call it "misdirected ableism" is so often used to say that endogenic plurals are not the intended target, but I argue that they absolutely are included as intentional targets because plurality as a whole is a target, explicitly named or not. The determining factor for ableism is not whether someone is "really" disordered or not, but that they are treated as such due to societal standards regarding acceptable and unacceptable ways of being. When "unacceptable" is equated to "disordered" through a saneist lens, you are treated as such - and, you are, therefore, vulnerable to ableism.

I heavily agree with those who have so far spoken about how what people call pluralphobia is so often just ableism (though I also view it as often intersecting with anti-spiritual/religious views and racism), however I feel that we need to take this conversation even further to examine exactly how ableism works and who it affects. This post is also not meant to say "endos are oppressed for being plural", but rather that endos are oppressed through the same ableist systems that affect all plurals/people with CDDs and to expand on that to open conversation about it.

On a final note, I'd like to reflect on how rejection of disability has gone for various movements in the past and how that relates to the modern plural community and its approach to "plural acceptance".

As someone who was diagnosed with autism in the 2000s and saw a lot of push from autistics back then to de-medicalize autism to avoid further forced "normalizing treatment" like ABA, I can say that rejecting the framework of disability and ableism did not help us to dismantle systemic medical violence against autistic people and even isolated many severely disabled autistics who rely on medical interventions and support.

As an intersex person, I can say that the intersex community rejecting the framework of disability and ableism did not help us to end "normalizing treatments" against intersex people and even isolated many intersex people who do identify themselves as being disordered due to their intersex condition.

And as a person with DID, I have learned about how the empowered multiples movement had attempted to reject the framework of disorder and ableism to avoid medicalization and forced fusion, and how that did not help systems who did need medical intervention nor did it do anything to dismantle medical violence or stigma against multiples.

Any sort of wider "Plural Acceptance Movement" that comes into existence will fail if it is not also simultaneously and inherently a disability movement, and this is not just due to the existence of CDD systems. Seperation from disability does not exempt you from ableism or ableist frameworks and systemic oppression. CDD or not, we all as a community are impacted by ableism and cannot find any widespread acceptance while ignoring that. Plural acceptance is disability acceptance.

[thedreadvampy]

I think there's a huge gap in language when talking about British legislative and social racism bc some of the most overt and unchallenged legislative racism lately is against GRT people and a lot of countries (especially America) do not use the term GRT.

The G in GRT stands for Gypsy (using this bc it's as-self-described, like it's the term the British GRT community uses often) and bc this is for a lot of people exclusively a slur and bc it has a lot of historical weight, people will often object to use of the expanded acronym slash try to correct it to Roma or Rroma.

But the GRT community as a political class and as a group subject to racism includes, but is not synonymous with, Roma, cause it also includes Irish Travelers (who are another large nomadic minority ethnic group, aka Pavee), Scottish, English and Welsh Travelers (a mix of indigenous nomadic groups), and other nomadic peoples in Britain.

In some, but not all, contexts, GRT also includes non-ethnic nomadic communities: New Age Travelers (people living nomadic lifestyles by choice - full-time caravanners or van lifers), Bargees (people living full time in canal boats) and showmen (traveling funfairs and circuses). Not being a specific ethnicity, New Agers and Showmen have a different relationship to racism and marginalisation than Roma and Travelers (a settled Roma or Traveler family are still Roma or Traveler, it's not just a question of lifestyle and community) but obviously anti-Traveler legislation and bias harms everyone living nomadically.

I think (and I'm not GRT and my thoughts should be taken with a truckload of salt, I just feel like it's worth explaining what the terminology actually means) that a lot of the nuance around GRT identity is kind of lost in transnational discourse (particularly with Americans) because. the G bit of GRT has been used as a blanket term for hundreds of years to refer to multiple groups of nomadic peoples in Europe and so there are ethnocultural groups included under that term who aren't Roma but also are GRT and are racialised as GRT.

People racialised within the GRT community (as Roma or Travelers) experience way higher rates of social and economic exclusion than any other ethnogroups in the UK, including if they're settled (living in brick-and-mortar housing, which around 75% of people recorded as GRT do).

Both Roma and Traveler kids are systemically excluded from education (Gypsy/Roma kids are 6x more likely to be suspended from school and 7x as likely to be expelled than the national average, and Traveler kids aren't much better off (4x more likely than average to be suspended and 5x as likely to be expelled)). GRT people face systemic employment discrimination, being 6x more likely than average to be long term unemployed and 1/4 as likely to be offered high-level or management positions. GRT folk have the worst health outcomes of any ethnic group, and consistently report high levels of medical discrimination and trouble accessing healthcare. As a result, GRT infant mortality and maternal death is way higher than average, and GRT life expectancy is 10+ years shorter than average. GRT communities are disproportionately criminalised, settled GRT families have spoken often about having been treated as inherently suspicious on the basis of their ethnicity.

A lot of people write these issues off as being, like, a product of a nomadic/no-fixed-address lifestyle, but a) it's a problem with the system if our social care systems don't account for the fact that some people are nomadic, itinerant or have no fixed address. there is no reason why nomadic life needs to be more dangerous or excluded than settled. but also b) as stated a majority of GRT people included in these figures do have fixed addresses. it is just racism.

Homelessness is also a huge problem in the community, with many landowners refusing to rent land to Travellers, residential camping berths being oversubscribed by something like 10,000%, and significant difficulty accessing affordable housing. The land which is available to Traveling communities is increasingly ringfenced, often specifically with the intention of discouraging nomadic communities.

given that it is. racism. with an exceptionally long and brutal history of genocide, criminalisation and systemic social exclusion. it is also striking how often open, sometimes genocidal, racism against GRT people is handwaved or accepted as normal. anti-GRT legislation is explicitly passed on the regular. people are incredibly comfortable referring to all GRT people as thieves, scroungers, criminals and frauds. I have had literal circular mailings offering to "remove vermin, pests and Gypsies from your land." and yet calling this racism is often treated as an overstatement. Even though it's explicitly ethnically-driven bias, and has deeply entrenched social impacts affecting everyone racialised as GRT regardless of cultural behaviour or lifestyle.

anyway that's what GRT means, it stands for Gypsy/Roma/Traveller and it's an extremely underserved and marginalised racialised group in the UK and Europe. It includes Romani ethnic groups, but also includes non-Roma ethnic groups (like the Pavee) and Roma subgroups (like Sinti). They're united by a common experience of anti-nomadic racism, criminalisation and social exclusion and, as an aggregate group, are consistently among the most directly disadvantaged racial groups in the UK.

[ladydeath-vanserra]

New Blog Bio:

I do not tolerate pro-israel, zionist shit anywhere near me. I don't tolerate anti semitism anywhere near me. I will not tolerate anyone who is upholding or supporting the ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Palestinians. if you do, BLOCK ME

if ur gonna follow or interact with my blog pls realize I am very critical towards most acotar content, especially if it involves Rhysand. I am more-or-less a Rhys Anti until further notice and I am hard-core side eye towards Cassian until Rhysand is held accountable for being a shitty person for more than like *checks notes* two pages

I'm not a Tamlin Stan, nor do I particularly care for him, but I have been engaging in thoughtful criticisms of his actions often which involves character analysis so you v likely will see that pop up every now and then

likely you will find:

anti Rhysand

anti/critical IC

anti/critical/pro feyre

anti/critical Cassian posts, maybe MAYBE pro cassian

critical/pro Azriel- I'm pretty neutral towards him

anti/critical/pro elain content [often. w/o being tied to a ship]

pro Lucien

pro Nesta

pro Eris

most pro tog characters

anti/critical chaol (he just annoys me with his high horse)

Pro Ships:

Azriel/Eris/Nesta

Tamsand (lmao)

Feylin [book one]

Elucien

Nesta/Lucien [idk the ship name]

Feycien

Feyssian

Mesta

most tog ships

aelin/manon

malide

chaorian

Anti Ships:

Nessian

Feysand

Elriel

lysaedion

chaolena

My Specific ACoTaR Meta:

SJM + Eugenics + Ableism in her Writing

CoN + the Eternal Perpetuation of Abuse and Toxicity

SJM and the vilification of Ireland in acotar and tog

SJM could have had the HLs give their power to resurrect her wo Rhys forcing them if she played by Faerie Rules

Rhys physically assaulted Nesta

Class Warfare + Class Traitors in ACoTaR

Rhysand + Morally Grey Behavior

My Meta / Aus / etc Posts

tag -> #justice for poor cassian and poor archeron Sisters

tag -> #glasses!elain propaganda

tag -> #slavic archeron Sisters au

tag -> #fix cassians characterization challenge

tag -> #scottish!tamlin

tag -> #welsh!rhys

tag -> #disabled!Cassian

tag -> #my acotar world building

tag -> #appropriated faerie lore in acotar

tag -> #hybern Ireland

tag -> #white feminism in acotar

tag -> #eugenics in acotar

tag -> #eugenics in tog

tag -> #classism in acotar

Other Acotar Meta:

Mor SA'd Cassian

tag -> #acotar tiktok meta

tag -> #acotar meta

tag -> #racism in acotar

tag -> #Nesta is not an alcoholic send tweet

Other:

A Synopsis of The Ballad of Tam Lin

Other Fandoms:

TVDverse:

leave season 1 Caroline ALONE. she deserved better 🥺

Damon and Rose's Friendship that is ALL

"He's the 'good brother'. I'm the 'bad brother'" Salvatore Brothers meta

Esther is Mikaels victim too stop this irritating 'Esther is the real villain'

tag -> #can we stop the overt vilification of Esther Mikaelson and the UwUization of Mikael Mikaelson

tag -> #tvd tiktok edits

tag -> #Damon Salvatore

tag -> #Caroline Forbes

tag -> #Vincent Griffith

tag -> #Shelia Bennett

Bridgerton:

It's Loving how Nuanced Portia is Hours

tag -> #Portia Featherington

Shadow and Bone / Six of Crows:

The Darkling Meta

tag -> #David kostyk

Once Upon a Time

tag -> #cora mills

The Hunger Games / A Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes:

Coriolanus Snow Meta

tag -> #thg tiktok meta

tag -> #coriolanus snow

tag -> #reaper ash

tag -> #wovey

Percy Jackson

tag -> #nico di Angelo

completely irrelevant:

tag -> #rural iowa

more to be added!

[andreal831]

the subtle racism portrayed by Julie Plec and TVDU (especially Klaroline fans) fans as well towards Michael Trevino (Tyler Lockwood) is something that will always irk my soul. Both the actor and the character were done SO BADLYYYYYY. I know that since Tyler is written as a white character, technically his writing wasn’t “racist”, but I have reason to believe that Julie may have written him the way she did due to her issues with Michael Trevino.

What do you think about Tyler Lockwood? I think he definitely is one of the characters with the most potential besides Bonnie, etc. Most of the POC in the show (actors/characters) had the most potential and were sidelined.

IN FACT, I can say the same about Enzo! Yeah, Enzo St John is a canonically white character, but Michael Malarkey is a mixed race man (Italian/Palestinian-Lebanese), and we know how Julie is towards POC.

Like I’m not trying to blame all the bad writing on racism and discrimination, but all the POC actors/characters have shitty storylines and a lot of them are racist.

Lucy, Sarah Salvatore (the black Salvatore), Enzo, Tyler, Marcel, Vincent, Bonnie, Qetsiyah, etc.

Coincidence?

Whenever I discuss race, I do want to preface it by saying, I am white so I am speaking from that point of view. If you disagree or have another perspective, I would love to hear it.

That being said, I don't even think we can call what happened on the set and in the show "subtle" racism. There was such overt racism throughout the show that it is hard to discuss the show in any way without discussing racism. Just because Julie Plec doesn't view her actions as blatantly racist, it doesn't mean they are not.

Just the fact that they had two actors who are ethically not white but were portrayed as white is telling. Both Michael Trevino and Michael Malarkey were made to appear white in the show when there really wasn't a necessity for it. Tyler being Mexican could have added to the history of the wolves or it could have even come from his mom's side, allowing them to cast a Latina woman. For Malarkey, his race isn't really discussed but it would have been so easy to show him making Bonnie a nice Lebanese meal when they were staying at the cabin (cause lord knows the zionists running the show wouldn't allow him to be Palestinian). I also personally just like Tyler and Enzo more than Damon. I would have been fine with killing Damon off earlier to allow more screen time for them.

A year or so ago, my friend began watching the show for the first time and by the time we got to The Originals, as soon as Sabine walked on screen, she said "Does she get killed this episode?" People of color, especially women of color, were treated as disposable by the network. To the point that Tyler and Enzo likely only survived as long as they did because they were "white" characters. But it is also still obvious how much worse they were treated than any other side characters. Tyler and Enzo are both killed in such nonsensical ways and then they have no justice or even mourning. Tyler was a lifelong friend of the Mystic Falls gang and yet Damon isn't even sternly lectured for killing him for zero reason. Tyler had escaped the supernatural world. What was the point of dragging him back on the show just to kill him and have Damon suffer no consequences. He was Caroline's first epic love and she just forgives Damon for it? And what was the point of Enzo's death? Just to make Bonnie suffer more? Just to make her attend the wedding of his murderer? I know Stefan had his humanity off, but that doesn't change the fact that Enzo was dead and Bonnie was still grieving.

Moving on to how the fandom treats them. There is honestly so much hate in this fandom sometimes, and you're right, there is definitely a racial element to it. The way Tyler is treated by the fandom is so telling. I don't know if a lot of the fandom even knows Michael Trevino's ethnicity, but he is clearly seen as "other" or "less than" by the fandom. We also have to acknowledge how his "angry outbursts" are seen as unacceptable but when Klaus does it, it is because he is just so "passionate." The scene where Caroline keeps pushing Tyler to forgive her for sleeping with his mother's killer comes to mind. He snaps but he makes no move to touch her, and this is after repeatedly telling her to leave and her pushing his boundaries. I have seen the fandom call him "disgusting" and an "abuser" because of this, celebrating the fact that Stefan punches him. Stefan uses physical violence against Tyler's words, yet Tyler is the abuser? Then we have, Klaus, who runs her through with a coat hanger and bites her because she said something slightly rude to him and he is praised for "saving her life." It's hard to believe there isn't a racial element here. I often say Klaus gets pretty privilege, but why isn't that awarded to Tyler? Because we can't deny that Michael Trevino is attractive (I'd say more attractive than Joseph Morgan but y'all will come for me).

There was so much left of Tyler's story. The fact that they even had the Lockwoods as the protectors of Inadu's bones in TO would have been a perfect way to bring him back. Can you imagine Hayley or Klaus having to go beg him for help? It would have been such an amazing moment. But no, instead they bring Matt Davis onto the show to make sure he could infect every single spinoff.

You mention all of these characters and that's just in TVD. TO was no better. One of my mutuals recently got into a Twitter 'discussion' with one of the writers and the writer attempted to claim that the Mikaelsons were white supremacists and that was the point of TO, to show it was bad. Yet, when did they do that? How did they show being a white supremacist is bad? The Mikaelsons were at the top of the food chain the entire time. Yes, they constantly had people coming for them, yet they always won and the writing was always done in a way to make the audience root for them to win. How many POC characters were sacrificed in order to prop up the main characters throughout the shows?

Whenever we talk about racism in the show, we have to talk about Bonnie. Bonnie was constantly having to sacrifice her own wants and happiness in order for her white friends, and even enemies, to get what they want. Often when she set a boundary, the fandom villainized her. According to the writing and the fandom, her entire purpose was to serve the white characters. That is blatant racism.

But it's not just Bonnie. It's her entire ancestry. The fandom seems to believe Emily is Katherine's friend in the flashbacks, but she is clearly either being enslaved or at least some type of servant to Katherine. We can go all the way back to Ayana who Esther stole her spell to create the vampires. Or to Qetsiyah who was cheated on and used in order to aid the white doppelgangers. These things separately may not raise any flags, but the fact that we see it happen repeatedly throughout the show tells us it's more than just a coincidence.

Let's not forget Damon was not a confederate solider in the books. Julie added that. And yes I know he deserted but he says it is basically because he was missing Katherine, not because he morally opposed what he was fighting for. They added the founding families and yet didn't make the Bennetts apart of it even though they had been there longer than anyone. They were actively celebrating slave owners. Tyler's mom makes a passing comment of why they have the chains in the cellars and everyone just moves on. They chose to have the Mikaelsons live on a plantation in New Orleans. They chose to hire a very white cast and make it even whiter by white washing and killing off POCs.

Sure TVD is set in Virginia, but Virginia is only 65% white. So why was the cast 99% white? Then they create a whole show in New Orleans where 59% of the population is black, yet we still have a majority white cast? And when they introduce POCs it is usually to serve the white cast. Both Vincent and Eva were brought on so there bodies could literally be used by the white characters. Eva and Vincent's trauma were completely neglected and Eva was even killed off to allow Rebekah to use her body as she pleased whenever Claire Holt wasn't available to be on set. I've already discussed the difference in how Aurora is treated versus Celeste by the show and the fandom. You can read that here. Marcel is constantly belittled and sidelined, even after he is upgraded. There are so many witches of color in New Orleans, yet Davina is the most powerful? Why couldn't she have been played by a POC?

The show repeatedly dehumanizes people of color, especially the women. It's not a coincidence. It is pure racism. And because the show does it, the fandom does it. I am not taking responsibility away from the fandom. Each individual person should know better. But media is supposed to influence society. If we grow up with media that glorifies and celebrates different races, cultures, ethnicities, the fandom will begin to as well. Julie had no desire to do that. All she cared about was ratings and her own racist viewpoint of the world. She could have done more research, or hell, even just listened to her cast, but she chose not to. The writing of the show suffered because of it, but even worse the actors and even fans suffer because of it.

There are so many great creators in this fandom who are POCs and I highly suggest following them. They are able to give better insight in the discussion of racism in the show. But please keep in mind, they do not owe you their time or energy. It is up to each of us to do our own research and learn.

Thank you for the ask! I hope I answered it. Sorry it was so long.

[golvio]

So I've got...some complicated feelings about this. Some of them more analytical, some of them more personal. I get pretty long-winded when I think out loud about this guy, so I'm putting my thoughts behind a cut.

On the one hand, I definitely noticed that TotK's Ganondorf was more preoccupied with his appearance, not necessarily in a stereotypical "vain villain who never shuts up about how beautiful they are" or a "gym bro who spends more time checking himself out in the mirror than actually working out" sense, but in a "he's very conscious about the image he projects and wants to maintain careful control of how other people see him at all times" way. I'm glad I've got confirmation that I wasn't just seeing things. Also, that TotK discusses how he uses attractiveness to manipulate people, as implied with how he portrayed "Princess Zelda," had some really interesting implications about his life as the Gerudo king and his personality and skills in reading people that Nintendo never followed up on, because god forbid we give this character any recognizable traits that could inspire curiosity about who he is as a person or discussions about gender roles in ways that aren't "He pretends to be a cute little white girl because he's an Evil Degenerate."

On the other hand...it kind of contributes to the way I've been weirded out by how the game itself treated him and how certain fans treat him. The game itself made a lot of effort to dehumanize and un-person this man as a character even while making his human form visually appealing. The fans themselves are celebrating this a validation of their seeing him as a sex symbol, calling him "a bi icon" because both men and women are attracted to him, etc.

Like...there's all this discussion about Ganon's appearance and how sexy people find him, but not much consideration of what *he* might want, or how he feels, or what he's attracted to. I know that's kind of a goofy question to ask about a fictional character who can't really have opinions on things beyond what the writers give him, but...it's just kind of...objectifying?

For example, I don't take any issue with headcanons that Ganon might be bisexual, or at least enjoys the attention he gets from people of any gender, since I've got my own headcanons about him being queer, but I do get weirded out by the assumption that just because both men and women find him attractive that means he *must* reciprocate their desires and be bisexual. It's the same thing that weirds me out about fan art pre-release that portrayed him as this airheaded himbo jock because fans wanted to ogle his sexy body without having to deal with his intelligence, his anger, his negative qualities, or his potential dangerousness.

There's this tendency to objectify him in both the game, whether as a "monster" to slay to prove the player/Link's mettle as a hero, or as a trophy to symbolize Rauru's dominon over the frontier territories of his kingdom. And then there's a tendency to objectify him in fandom, presenting him as a pinup devoid of his original personality, or trying to shape him into a "good Ganondorf" that the fans would actually like to be friends with by sanding off all his sharp edges so they can access his body, which they find beautiful, without having to deal with the parts that might complicate that or that they'd dislike.

Fandom as a whole seems to have a blind spot when it comes to the objectification of masculine characters, particularly because it's like, "Oh, BOYS can't be objectified! Only pretty (white) ladies can get objectified!" Nevermind that objectification is a phenomenon that's super commonly done to nonwhite men in tandem with the more overt and violent dehumanization that comes with racism, especially men with darker skin. And there doesn't seem to be much of an interest in exploring what that might mean for Ganondorf as a character, whether just as discussing double-consciousnesses and exploiting expectations to manipulate people, or to explore how being treated like a piece of meat or a pretty ornament who exists only for other people's pleasure can really warp a person.

I guess...this is something I've been thinking about since playing Slay the Princess, which asks a lot of questions about objectification, how people's complexity can be dismissed and ignored when they're shoved into the Love Interest archetype, and how being limited in this way in the eyes of others can seriously hurt and warp someone even if it's being done in the "nicest," most paternalistic and "benevolent" way possible. It presents the core relationship as being a fundamentally unequal power balance; no matter how fearsome and terrifying the imprisoned party becomes, she is always at your mercy, she lives and dies based on the choices you make, and the "nicer" routes are potentially just her saying what she knows you want to hear and auditioning for your sympathy because like it or not you're her warden. It also forces you to ask yourself what makes you come to love somebody, and to consider the possibility of loving somebody while also acknowledging their thorny, messy, contradictory, and dangerous parts. I wish I could see more works considering this for Ganon, as opposed to regurgitating tired old "Destroy This Mad Brute" tropes or turning him into a "safe," palatable, easy-to-digest love interest.

[clearancecreedwatersurvival]

The thing that makes me the most sad about how many people fall for radfem ideology on this website is that many of them genuinely think that they are fighting for liberation, and have various levels of class consciousness. Especially when it’s young people.

This is why I talk a lot about both the online rabbitholes/pipelines that pull people into terf circles and also the I would estimate somewhat smaller one that funnels into the whole ‘anti-shipping’ community. They both often have people in them who claim they are against overt oppression in other forms.

The terf pipeline in particular is functionally the same as the inverse blackpill ideological rabbit hole which targets young men: the incel pipeline. Both are reflexively reactionary ideologies that respond to the promises demands and expectations of cultural patriarchy. And both in the end, serve white supremacy and capital.

Terfs are so focused on violence against women that it is truly the only violence they see. And of course finding an easy scapegoat who is already disempowered under patriarchy is easier than confronting the complexities of the underlying social issues. Such as plainly acknowledging that trans feminine people, particularly black and native trans people, face the most intensive mysoginistic violence of anyone, and that all queerness and gender noncormity is counter to the rigid gender expectations of patriarchy and thus under threat of patriarchal reinforcing violence.

So rather than fighting for women’s liberation in any actually meaningful way, which would mean acknowledging that anyone who betrays gender roles is harmed by patriarchy, they rely on an outdated model of biological essentialism which hasn’t been relevant to thoughtful feminist critique since second wave feminism. We have fifty years of further gender theory in academia that they will ignore in favor of a 6th grade level basic and also plainly incorrect understanding of genetics. And in so doing they, usually unwittingly and unintentionally, fall for obvious white supremacist grifters like that woman who had a milkshake thrown on her and is Jo Rowling’s new best friend who has straight up said MANY times that ‘we need to abandon feminism’ and that she herself is not a feminist. Yet she’s one of the main and most popular speakers driving “radical feminist” ideology.

There is a REASON why terf thought leader speeches are protected by groups of Proud Boys.

Similarly the anti-shipping rabbithole also reinforces christofash puritanical sexual morality while claiming to fight sexual violence and be a liberatory movement.

If you are falling for these regressive ideologies, you are not fighting capitalism. You are not fighting racism. You are not fighting sexism.

You are falling for white supremacist christofascist recruiting schemes.

You are falling for the oldest trick in the book, blaming other members of the working class for your own oppression instead of acting in solidarity to fight for systemic change.

[semi-imaginary-place]

oh look fandom hates when I speak the truth again so I'm just going to repost this everywhere.

Most people do not understand Claude, and the loud ones especially misunderstand his character. Claude was never slutty meme frat boy. Joe Ziega made this worse. Things have actually gotten better after Hopes as Claude in Hopes is in line with Claude in Houses just overt characterization instead of implied.

The Marianne support is especially interesting because Claude for all his charm is sooo clumsy at interpersonal relationships. He knows he hurt Marianne and doesn't know how to fix it so the best he can come up with is to make the relationship transactional, he learned one of her secrets so he gives up one in exchange. He has leverage and vulnerability over her so he gives up some of his secrets and becomes vulnerable for her because in his minds that helps make up for things, makes things fair again. 

Claude's like an onion many layers. He's been hurt by people too many times to be vulnerable with others but he also likes people and genuinely wants to help them which leads to this contradicting behavior of wanting friends and to be loved and understood while also being terrified of genuine emotional intimacy. Also, like Claude always hated Rhea he implies in Houses he'd rather have her dead and Fodlan would be better without her.

For Felix I get into details later but I saw a weirdly high proportion of Felix depictions in fandom being trans or asian like higher than any other character Even the actually brown characters like Petra or Dedue or Claude had less non-white "screentime" in fandom than the canonically fantasy European Felix (Petra in general is woefully underrepresented in this fandom), which was paired with a lot of transphobic and racist stereotypes. And then there's the disturbing prevalence of homophobic stereotypes when Felix shows up in fandom. 

Felix is like a magnet for homophobia, transphobia, and racism. Fandom disproportionately )like more than any other character I have seen) makes him every gay, trans, and asian stereotype under the sun (why people race swap him I will never know). And what's worse is that these people think they're woke leftists without ever examining their own bigotry and start crying screaming sending death threats when confronted about it. Sis do some self reflection on how the way you ship really is just latent fetishizing of gay, trans, and brown men. 

And you know it's controversial because I get downvoted into hell every time I say this by people who lack media literacy, won't self reflect on their own subconscious bigotry, and won't accept the truth. Which just means I should say it more.

fe3h fandom often tacks on a lot of bigoted stereotypes onto Felix instead of engaging with his actual in game characterization (well that last part is a problem of fandom in general but I digress). For example in gay ships Felix tends to more often be the submissive, bottom, feminine, trans, or non white partner. All of which is fine but starts getting suspicious when all these traits are conflated with each other and even more suspicious when this is contrasted with Felix's partner (I think Sylvain and Dimitri are the most popular ones?) which is usually a dominant, top, cis, and white man. Again nothing wrong with any if this but suspicious that this seems to be the most common (by a large margin) characterization in fandom. To break it down it plays into classic right wing talking points that how in same gender relationships one partner is the "man" and one partner is the "woman". Again fem/masc pairs are fine its in combination with the rest of the stuff. Next is the classic transphobic talking point about how transmen aren't real men or as masculine as "real" men, which is the justification for corrective rape. Next is the classic racist stereotype that asian men inferior to white men by being more feminine (aka lesser, because racists also tend to hate women) and less masculine than again "real" (white) men leading to being pushed out of most career paths and only allowed lesser jobs like laundromat. And again nothing wrong with any of these traits individually or in combination when when it happens every time with little variation and all people can do is parrot right wing bigot talking points, these something fishy.

Oh hey I forgot the misogyny. Like a lot of this loops back to (what I presume is) internalized misogyny in the authors and artists, because all the points I talk about above in some way intersect back to the basis of misogyny that female is bad. And it isn't which is why I'm always confused why the (female dominated) fandom clings so hard to misogyny. I noticed in fanfiction before I just stopped and blacklisted the whole thing is that Felix tended to be written differently than the other men which connects with the observation that fandom makes Felix the "woman" in gay pairs.

Anyways yall need intersectionality, a history lesson, media literacy, and self reflection (because everyone carries bigotry within them, we live in a society it's unavoidable. It's not the choice of having no bigotry or not, it's the choice of being aware of it and actively counteracting it, or not and having it leak through).

I don't have any problem with shipping or shippers. I don't understand the appeal most of the time but whatever, I'm mostly neutral about it, doesn't bother me when I see it (although tag so I can blacklist if it personally doesn't jive with me). What I CAN potentially have a problem with how it is done however if someone it just regurgitating bigoted stereotypes without any sort of meaningful contribution to the discussion.

(Sometimes with like really out of character stuff like different personality, different setting, shipping two character that have never interacted in canon, I think these people just want to write original stories but are cowards, but whatever do what you want. )

[starleska]

as i'm posting a lot about the Toymaker it's only fair to address the elephant in room regarding his racist history and characterisation. i feel this is important, especially as i will be writing fanfiction and creating similar fanworks for him. discussion of racism re: the Toymaker below:

i tend to veer far away from fandom discourse, and don't believe enjoying a bad character = glorifying their bad traits. however, i'm a white person who has privilege in not being personally, directly affected by racism, and i think it's important to have this discussion about the Toymaker, a character whose history is inextricably tied with racism and whose recent depiction is canonically racist, whether we agree with this portrayal or not (or how well it was handled). the following are things we can't, and shouldn't, ignore:

in his original portrayal in the 60s, the Toymaker was played by a white actor (Michael Gough) who wore a Chinese mandarin outfit. this outfit was apparently sourced from the set of Marco Polo due to the BBC's tight budget. even though Michael Gough (the Toymaker's actor) was not putting on an accent nor was he in yellowface (the latter incorrectly sourced from a poorly-tinted print advertising the serial), this choice is unquestionably offensive today.

the word 'Celestial' as in 'The Celestial Toymaker' (alternately the name of the serial and sometimes applied to the Toymaker himself) was used as a slur for Chinese people at some point in history. i can't verify, but i believe it was sometime between the 19th and 20th century. although it appears that the term was supposed to refer to the Toymaker in its astronomical context, as a godlike, transient being, in combination with his outfit it is obviously offensive.

in the original broadcast 'The Celestial Toymaker', the King of Hearts (one of the Toymaker's pawns) outright says the N word. this is while reciting the 'eeny, meeny, miny, moe' rhyme, and appears to have been an ad-lib by the actor. this is revoltingly racist, and is rightly cut from most audio re-airs or animations.

the Toymaker as depicted in 'The Giggle' is a racist; he freely makes racist microaggressions and uses stereotypical accents in order to torment other people. the most overt example of this is his 'you must be used to sunnier climes' comment to Charles Bannerjee, a brown-skinned British man of Indian descent (his parents being from Kerala is sourced from 'The Giggle' novelisation). in the BTS for this episode, RTD has said this portrayal is a conscious effort to address the character's racist history: canonising his original outfit as a purposeful, offensive choice.

responses to this modern canonisation of the Toymaker as an actual racist have been mixed:

some feel it's a clever way of boiling the character's history down and making a truly despicable villain.

others feel it's a heavy-handed attempt to 'get ahead of the curve' of being criticised for the character's legacy, particularly as there was nothing to indicate the character was racist himself in the original portrayal. these are roughly my feelings about this choice.

for some, it makes sense that the Toymaker is racist because he views everything as a game, including playing with character's race and culture: it's all a performance to him, and as a nonhuman, godlike being, why would he have our cultural sensitivities except to weaponise them and hurt us?

however, by the same stroke, some wonder why would the Toymaker be racist at all if he likely exists beyond our human notions of race, as well as other qualities like gender, sex, age, etc.?

wherever you fall on this spectrum of feelings towards the Toymaker's character, ignoring this history and these facts can be harmful. i've seen a lot of POC upset and alienated alternately by the choice to canonise the Toymaker's racism, as well as the choice to bring back the Toymaker at all given the character's history. now, i'm a fan of the Toymaker. i love camp, theatrical villains; showy reality-benders with little regard for personal space; awful bastards who murder and abuse and don't care one jot about who they hurt. he's a fantastic concept with awesome powers and undeniable style, and the moment the Toymaker was announced, i knew i was going to fixate on him. this is a common feeling for lots of people: many of us simp for gorgeous bad guys, and that's fine! however, i'm conscious of doing real harm by either replicating the Toymaker's racism, or choosing to ignore it entirely. even if i disagree with this recent characterisation, i would hate for anyone to feel disrespected, excluded, or harmed by my fandom activities, particularly of the gushing 'oh he's so cool/handsome/etc.' variety, or creating ship, x Reader, x OC fanworks. so here's what i'm thinking of doing:

in my fanworks for the Toymaker, i will not be recreating his overtly racist characterisation. although i may be replicating, for instance, his pseudo-German accent (a Bavarian stereotype), i will not be writing him using microaggressions, nor will i be expanding on this trait by writing him using slurs or similar racist behaviour. this is because i feel doing so would be more harmful to my friends who are POC, as well as strangers who may stumble across the fanworks. this is also because i do not feel i could handle such a subject in a nuanced, meaningful way, and don't want to inadvertently upset people just trying to have fun in fandom.

to prevent the former being an erasure of the character's racism, i will link to this disclaimer if the Toymaker's racism is relevant to a fanwork/discussion. the aspects of the Toymaker that i enjoy are centred around his being a ridiculous, playful character, and i have no interest in exploring his bigotry. likewise, i do not want to continually remind POC fans about his racist characterisation, as i do personally feel that the way RTD handled the topic was clumsy and ill-informed. however, i recognise that i have privilege in being able to make that choice, and do not wish to glorify racism as an attractive, desirable trait.

i understand that there will be folks on both sides of the aisle who will feel strongly about the choice to enjoy the Toymaker as a character at all. some may feel strongly that fandom is not activism, and that posts like this aren't necessary when simping for a bad guy played by an attractive actor. others may be actively harassing people for finding the Toymaker attractive, or as a character worthy of exploration. i feel strongly that no one should be harassed for enjoying things in fiction, and i will not tolerate hateful or abusive language/tactics being used in any facet of this or other discussions. i hope that we are able to have open, honest, and informed conversations about the Toymaker's racism, both historically and in the present. we shouldn't shy away from the topic because it makes us uncomfortable, and people do have a right to choose whether or not to engage with triggering content. let's do our best to be mindful and respectful of each other's boundaries, educate one another where possible, and continue to have fun in fandom without harming others.

thank you kindly for reading this! this was written as well as i know how, but please do let me know if this approach seems like a good idea, or if there are other things i should be considering. take care, and have a lovely day 💖🙏

[genderkoolaid]

was thinking about why marginalized people often use slurs in describing oppression. like in the phrase "magical negro", or using the term "cripple" or "tranny" when talking about how people see us. its not reclamation, it's more about specifically forcing the dominant group to face their bias.

bc when it comes to overt forms of bigotry, there isn't really the need to do this. the bigot will very directly tell you why they hate you- because you are a [slur], a stand-in for everything the believe about the group they hate (being unnatural, criminals, dirty, sinful, ugly, a drain on society, etc).

but generally those kinds of overt bigotry are harder to have in polite society, especially when the marginalized group in question has enough visibility and has been loud enough about their treatment that people have to acknowledge it. now, saying you hate black people or trans people or immigrants is a social faux pas, and people acknowledge that hating those groups is Bad.

but anything less than hatred is still looked over, because critically examining how our actions contribute to social patterns is Hard and requires abstract thinking, and it's much easier to just get rid of the most blatant forms of bigotry and wipe your hands of the whole nasty "systemic oppression" issue. overt bigots are bad, ostensibly because of their bigotry, but largely because they just are so gauche about it, you know? it's easy for Good Liberals in the US north to mock the gun-obsessed fat Southern man caricature who doesn't believe in climate change and says slurs, but they often get quiet and awkward if someone brings up the liberal white woman from New York who quickly locks her door when a Black man walks by her car on the sidewalk. She doesn't hate black people, so she can't be racist- there's a world of difference (in her mind) between herself and the Racist. even if, whether it's through gun violence on private property or calling the cops because she feels scared, a Black man gets killed because a white person's racist bias.

getting back to the original point about slurs: using them in this context forces people to recognize that all of that bias is the same. your racism, transphobia, ableism, isn't different just because you use nice words. dominant groups get uncomfortable when marginalized groups use slurs to point out their bigotry (i.e "you want me to be a good tranny") because it draws a direct connection between the blatant, socially unacceptable bigotry and the socially acceptable, low-key bigotry. a lot of times, society reacts to oppressed groups fighting for liberation by addressing the most obvious elements while allowing and encouraging the subtle elements, so that way they calm down and stop causing problems, but society doesn't have to meaningfully change. drawing that connection pulls the cover off of society. no more "but I don't hate immigrants so I'm not xenophobic!", because xenophobia isn't just ICE officers keeping kids in cages, it's also getting annoyed with people who have strong accents because why can't they just learn to speak English better and making every movie set in Eastern Europe have a blue filter so you know it's Foreign and Sad.

basically, slurs are used as a weapon to remind marginalized groups of every stereotype about them, and "put them in their place". but they can also be used to force polite bigots to face their own bigotry, blowing away the smokescreen of "only violent oppression is real oppression". There's a power to be found in bringing your issues into the light when the world would really rather you sit pretty and smile and thank it for doing the bare minimum while still making your life hell.

[bollylion]

Do other autistics, especially those of color, often not notice when they’re experiencing discrimination? For myself, I am often completely unaware of hostility directed towards me unless it’s overt. I understand racism quite well as an abstract concept, but can rarely pick it out from daily interactions. There have been many times in my life where my mother had to sit me down and explain that a certain situation I was in was not okay. 

I say this all because I’m just curious about other people’s experience?

[liskantope]

Today I finished reading Uncle Tom's Cabin. A few thoughts below (some spoilers, of course).

Both the story and the dialogues are gripping in a number of areas but sometimes the tension fails to pay off and things work out a little too perfectly. While certainly a social justice tale (I hadn't realized how very explicit the author would constantly expound upon her moral motive for telling the story), it ultimately has a sort of feel-good quality, where most people are fundamentally good and things generally come out all right in the end, which seems not to be the accepted norm in today's fiction media wherever it has overt social justices messages (e.g. Orange Is the New Black). My biggest complaint about the plot was really a matter of timing: I disliked being kept hanging about George and Eliza's escape for nearly two hundred pages of focusing on Uncle Tom, only to get one more chapter thrown in wrapping up their escape arc much too neatly (there was more potential there, especially in the development of one of their pursuers who wound up staying with them to recover from bullet wounds). The timing of that arc with the main arc doesn't seem to match properly: a year has passed in Uncle Tom's life before we return to George and Eliza, who are still in the midst of their escape to Canada which seems to have only gone on for several more weeks.

(Interesting random observation: the author wasn't afraid to give different major characters the same first name. There is another character named Tom besides Uncle Tom, namely the aforementioned pursuer who got shot, and there are two Georges who each play a fairly significant role. This adds some verisimilitude to the story, but as far as I can tell, it's rare in fiction even if not rare in real life, and I can't think of many other examples of it outside of longer book series with much vaster arrays of characters such as Harry Potter and A Song of Fire and Ice, and even there it's never between two fairly prominent characters.)

The entire focus of the stories revolves around the current nature of slavery, and the author preaches her anti-slavery message very explicitly to the reader (dripping with explicit Christianity and often breaking the fourth wall in doing so). This was done powerfully enough to resonate well with me even though I grew up in a time when a universal message that slavery is evil was instilled in me from a young age so that this feels like "old news"; Stowe brought her contemporary knowledge of what slavery looks like to life in a vivid way that enriched my conception of the depths of its horrors. At the same time, I found it interesting that it felt like 80-90% of her anti-slavery message focused on the separation of families rather than other aspects of slavery.

Harriet Beecher Stowe clearly had a profound belief in the humanity of people of all races but also showed signs of racism popping up from time to time in talking directly to the reader and characterizes people of African descent as having a simpler, less refined, and less industrious nature, in ways that sometimes (though not always) imply that these differences are innate rather than a product of interracial history. Apparently the book has been criticized for indulging in a number of black stereotypes through several of the black characters. While the development of these stereotypes is unfortunate, I'm not sure we can fairly blame her for helping them to solidify, as it seems she was genuinely trying to base her characters off of amalgams of enslaved people that she had come in contact with.

What was gripping me the most while reading the last quarter or so of the novel was the view of the meaning of Christianity that it suggested to me, and I surprised myself, as someone who's never felt like much of a friend to Christianity, at how I was responding. Having finished the book, now I would say that it makes the most effective moral case for Christianity that I've ever encountered anywhere; certainly it does a better job of making Christian faith attractive than anything I've read by C. S. Lewis. Not that it ever bothers to argue any of the concrete claims of Christianity, mind you, not even the existence or nature of God. Rather, I'm saying it reaches me in some part of my gut which somehow gets the intuition behind why we should stand unyielding with our moral convictions because a higher power above affirms them, and that God or Righteousness or whatever you want to call it being on our side means infinitely more than whatever we'll suffer at the hands of less enlightened humans around us by refusing to budge an inch. (It's strange that I'm even typing these words on this website, where I'm usually better known for talking in a very different and much more pragmatic way about ethically contentious issues.) Stowe's religious convictions, as channeled through her character Uncle Tom, highlight what I've always called my favorite feature of Christianity: the exhortation to turn the other cheek and to love the sinner while hating the sin. It's hard for me to see Uncle Tom as anything other than a hero for resisting internal corruption even in the face of horrific oppression, refusing to be "broken in" by whipping one of his fellow slaves, and being willing to die for what he believes in rather than become a cog in the machine that he abhors. (It's very much like the climax of the original Star Wars trilogy, and there are notes of these ideas in other modern popular fantasy series, of course.) It's a shame that Uncle Tom has become known as an epithet referring to something related but quite distinct, which grew not directly from the Uncle Tom in this novel but from the evolution of the character through various stage adaptations afterwards that Stowe had nothing to do with.

As a final note, it may seem strange that I'm applauding the "turn the other cheek" idea as exemplified by Stowe's character and yet wrote this post expressing horror at the passive "be good to your master" acceptance that Jupiter Hammon preached to his fellow slaves in the 1780's. I think my main crucial issue with the Hammon speech is not that it advised remaining passive and placating one's oppressors (which, I might be inclined to agree with Hammon, however reluctantly, was probably the safest way to minimize harm in most individual's cases when escape really wasn't an option), but rather that it argued that slavery existed for the time being because it was God's will and it should be accepted for now as God's will (regardless of the fact that Hammon hoped to see the institution end, when God should will it). That message was clearly a recipe for inaction, as in reality as well as even in many theistic models of the world, things aren't just going to change on their own because of God's will without humans taking deliberate action to change them.

Neither Stowe nor her Uncle Tom character followed Hammon's idea that slavery should just be accepted for now, even if Tom (just like Hammon) at one point early on claimed not to care for his own emancipation and only hoped to see his younger fellows emancipated (although in fact Tom is later overjoyed when his master St. Claire promises to free him). Rather, Uncle Tom sees slavery for what it is, objectively a great evil, and simply believes that evil can only be fought with pacifistic good and a refusal to abandon one's deepest principles. He encourages others' escapes even though he doesn't attempt to escape himself; at the same time he is not all right with other enslaved and oppressed people violently attacking their oppressors or not seeing their oppressors' humanity. I'll acknowledge that this ultra-pacifistic approach isn't the whole story of how to resist oppression and that sometimes there is a time and place for violent aggression against one's oppressors. But still I see a lot of beauty in the approach Uncle Tom stood for, and as a character he did not deserve to be reduced to the derogatory trope that later became the popular notion of "an Uncle Tom".

[choicesficwriterscreations]

September MC & OCs of the Month - Special Edition: Vivian Carrick

Help us in welcoming September's MCs and OCs of the month! That's right, plural! Most months, CFWC highlights one randomly selected MC or OC from our Meet My MC / OC List. (More info here.) But this month, we're doing something different.

In August, @lilyoffandoms hosted a Writers Appreciation Month, and we announced the September Writer of the Month would be selected from its participants. But all participants agreed - Lily deserved the honor! Still, we wanted to do something nice for the eleven writers who elected to participate to help uplift other writers in the fandom. So, this month, each of the eleven participants will have one of their MCs or OCs highlighted.

We will introduce each MC / OC individually, and once all eleven have been highlighted, a masterlist for the month will be created. We hope you enjoy getting to know all about them!

The fifth OC of the Month is @jerzwriter 's Vivian Carrick!

Learn more about Vivian below!

In your own words, tell us what you like most about your OC.

It's hard to narrow it down because I just adore Vivian. She was the first original character that I created in the Choices World, and I felt like she almost created herself. It was within my Delaying the Inevitable Universe, and we met her when she walked in on Casey in her son's apartment wearing his bathrobe. After Vivian realized Casey was being truthful, there was nothing going on between her and Tobias, she made it her mission in life to change that.

At that point, I didn't know I'd have a full T/C headcanon, much less have Vivian a part of it, but I couldn't let go of her. She's a strong, smart, powerful, intuitive woman. She's witty, quick thinking, and can verbally disarm anyone in a nanosecond. Sophisticated and worldly, but she has quite a backstory, that wasn't always her life.

Despite a sometimes intimidating exterior, she has the biggest heart. She will defend those she loves to death. The way she and Tobias banter gives me life! lol

Do you feel your OC is like you at all? How are you alike or different?

We have some similarities, but I wouldn't say a lot. We both think quick on our feet and enjoy bantering/teasing. We also love putting a bully or bigot in their place. We're both extremely loyal to those we love and understand they're the most important thing in life.

While we both grew up, not poor, but not well off by any stretch, I never had to endure the overt and systemic racism that Vivian did.

We both put ourselves through school and are quite proud of it, but she followed her dreams, and I allowed myself to be talked out of too many of mine. She's definitely got more confidence than I do. I also never married into extreme wealth lol, nor did I marry - and lose - the love of my life.

But we both adore our children and would do anything for them.

What is most important to your OC? What is their motivation in life?

Her family. There are other things - justice, equity, an intense desire to prove her naysayers wrong... but nothing comes close to her family.

What are their biggest pet peeves/dislikes?

Ignorance. Especially wilful ignorance.

Racism and sexism.

Dishonesty.

Her sons making her wait decades before they get their shit together and settle down. lol

If your OC could change one thing - anything - what would it be?

The one thing she'd like to change more than anything is her late husband, Charles's death. He was the love of her life, and while she's managed to go on and live a full life without him, no one knows just how difficult that's been. Even more so, she knows the toll his death has taken on her boys, especially Tobias, who was not on the best of terms with him when he passed. While this is her greatest wish, she knows it can't happen, and she doesn't even know if it should. She doesn't like the ending but has a strong faith and believes this happened by God's design, so she doesn't feel right questioning it.

For something she feels she has a bit more of an ability to impact, she'd want to make the world a better place for her granddaughters and children like them. She knows things like systemic racism and misogyny are so ingrained in our society that they'll be almost impossible to fully overcome, but she sure as hell won't let that stop her from trying.

Also, I see Vivian as a strong ally for LGBTQIA equality. She will admit this isn't something she understood well in her younger years, but she now has a bisexual daughter-in-law, and eventually, her son, Jordan, comes out, and later, her granddaughter, Kayla. Inequity and discrimination are things that she abhors, and when she begins to what the community faces, she is a vocal ally who puts her time, money, and energy where her mouth is.

What is your OC’s favorite quote or song?

Her favorite songs are:

Louis Armstrong's What a Wonderful World - that was her and Charles's song.

Diana Ross's Ain't No Mountian High Enough - Because she used to sing it with Tobias and Jordan when they were children.

John Legend's All of Me - Tobias & Casey's wedding song - and Vivian was certain her son getting married was a miracle.

Her favorite quote:

“Neither love nor terror makes one blind: indifference makes one blind.” - James Baldwin.

Is there anything else you’d like to share about your OC?

Vivian is not perfect. Sometimes, her sarcasm and humor can be viewed as acerbic. She is a loving and doting mother, and as a grandmother, triple that, but she acknowledges mistakes she made when her boys were small. She and Charles had a love so strong that sometimes, it may have made the boys feel secondary, even though they never were. Also, she was determined to prove she belonged in her husband's world, not so much for herself but for those who would follow - most importantly, her children. But she acknowledges that sometimes she was so busy pursuing that agenda that she lost sight of little things that were, in the end, far more important.

She has so many accomplishments in her life that the list could go on for days. But the one thing she is most proud of is the relationship she has with her adult children, their partners, and her grandchildren. When she closes her eyes for the last time, she knows she leaves behind a legacy of love, and that's all she ever wanted.