#casteism cw

[fictionkinfessions]

The version of the Alternian language in my place and time was a bit different from the tongues I now speak.

There were separate first person pronouns for seadwelling highbloods, landdwelling highbloods, midbloods, and lowbloods. Second person pronouns were similarly separate by how far above or below you someone was in caste. No specific caste pronoun was used to refer to mutantbloods, who were referred to in the same way as objects.

Separate first person, second person, and third person pronouns existed for every caste, but this was growing outdated even in my time and was only used on formal occasions or by particularly pretentious individuals.

- a Alternian troll, speaking uncharacteristically out of a wish to remain anonymous. Suffice to say I am a member of the group referred to as the ancestors.

x

[a-terror-of-shadow-and-flame]

Haaa, I know how you handle that grey of yours. Everyone thinks greys are these ~*~big strong warriors~*~, but once you smack yours on the head a couple times, they learn better. 'Grats on training your grey so well, I'm working on getting mine some obedience training myself. They're just so slow, aren't they?

hey, quick question, what the FUCKING fuck is wrong with you

[flameofcertainty]

i think i see why people don’t like decision

so for those of you who don’t know, decision is a dystopian novel about a society where instead of being assigned a caste at birth (or i guess later, if you live in that one hair color country whose name i forget) people choose their caste when they turn four, and then they have that caste permanently. the author is of the opinion that this would be terrible because lots of people would end up in castes where they were unhappy. which, i mean, this seems like probably not the best way to do caste freedom, for a number of reasons.

but the author doesn’t actually go into any of those reasons! like, this would be bad for caste balance, but that barely even gets a mention apart from an aside about child allocations. it would probably also do weird things to wars, and there’s no mention of that at all. and there’s no discussion of better ways to do caste freedom. instead it’s just ‘oh, lots of people would choose castes that are bad for them, that would be terrible’

and, like ... the author doesn’t really acknowledge that the reverse might sometimes be true, that sometimes people who would have been in a caste that was a bad fit would wind up in a better fit. like, nhothe has this whole speech about how if she had only stayed in grey, even though she’s disabled, she still could have had a grey job, like a bookie or something. but the problem is pretty clearly not actually that she chose yellow instead, the problem is that halfway through the book the author completely changed her characterization to fit her argument. or, one of the ones that really bothered me was at location 1432 of the orvaran edition, when famvira says “how could i, a child of a welder and a tailor, ever have dared to hope to be a singer?” and then goes on a long spiel about how choosing green was a mistake, because no purple could ever be a good fit for green, that’s just not possible.

like, people who are bad fits for their caste, who’d do better off in another one -- we exist! you don’t have to think there’s a lot of us but there aren’t zero. and i feel like that’s something you should at least acknowledge if you’re writing a story like this one. you might not think the tradeoff is worth it, and that’s fine, but the tradeoff is there, and not everyone would be worse off if there were a way to have a caste that wasn’t your birth one

[bloodiedwater]

and like?? are cultural differences not a thing. some people would be REALLY GOOD yellows but they feel like they wouldn’t be accepted by yellows, maybe these people would really benefit from doing yellow work and they would lend a lot of value by doing yellow work but they haven’t been able to because of dialect or culture or connectional differences, and it’s just absolutely not fair to assume that just because someone doesn’t “seem like a yellow” whatever that means that they wouldn’t be good at doing a yellow job

[prioritizingpurples]

didn't know you were anti-orange. unfollowed.

i’m not anti-orange but like….oranges deffo have privilege over, say, purples. especially therapists? 

just like i’m not anti-gray but grays deffo have privilege over, say, purples. especially, like, police, and probably other jobs that i can’t think of

same goes for literally all the castes except for purples (except i kinda am anti-red and anti-blue tbh lmao)

[worstblueintheworld]

My aunt’s informed position on the red cleaning issue:

“They’ll be cheaper than purple staff, and I don’t talk to the help anyway, so doesn’t matter if they’re all savages.”

Well, I guess that's better than “kill ‘em all”? 

[flameofcertainty]

so i don’t think anyone except that one asshole thinks that for real, but just in case

i really don’t see how having out of caste hobbies is “disgusting”

non-greens can play violin for fun

like, non-purples can cook, even if they’re cooking beyond the bare minimum needed for survival

non-purples can crochet

non-yellows can make game apps

non-greens can write fanfic

non-greys can do physical activities (exercise: it’s a thing)

if you’re not orange you can still be interested in anatomy or medicine. if you’re not green you can still be interested in history. if you’re not blue you can still be interested in politics. if you’re not grey you can be interested in military strategy. if you’re not yellow you can be interested in computers. if you’re not purple you can be interested in clothing.

none of these things are disgusting

seriously, ‘people sometimes have hobbies that aren’t literally perfect stereotypes of their caste, and that’s fine as long as you aren’t, like, breaking the law ’ isn’t some weird edgy opinion, it’s basic commonsense that you can figure out from the fact that each caste has, at minimum, millions and millions of people

[bloodiedwater]

U want us to think ur therapist is a rapist? Lol ur so fucking fake.

anon is a rape apologist and should throw themself off a fucking cliff. I don’t have any responsibility to justify myself to them.

btw this is exactly what I’m talking about re: oranges being oh-so-innocent