#cw slavery mention

[nukacourier]

Can I just say the Arcade slavery jokes make me super uncomfortable and I wish they weren't so common with other Arcade likers or tolerated by them in the fandom :/

[ttrpg-smash-pass-vs]

Locathah! Aww, they even have a pet :3 They're strong, athletic, observant, and amphibious. Thier will is strong, being very good at resisting anything that might poison, stun, scare, or put them to sleep! Combine with thier thick hide and incredible endurance could make for a fun time, but they do need do hop in water every few hours. They're actually really friendly and always down for friends and allies, but they do have a good bit of social etiquette they ask for. It's simple stuff though, mainly "social distance unless given permission to approach." Which I hope you did when possible to begin with, and isn't relevant since we're assuming you have permission.

Their species was enslaved by a different species of fish people (who are former slaves of squid people), and it still happens occasionally, so they just get wary about people getting within grabbing range. Also why they're big on friendship, as they noticed kidnapping mainly happens when they're in periods of infighting or have driven away thier allies. So they adopted a "together we are strong and safe" mentality. Just don't mess with thier kelp farms and speak from a distance and they're friendly.

[aggressiveworldbuilding]

i hate elves.

i say this, having played an elf before so i know why powergamers like them. there is nothing wrong with enjoying the aesthetic of 'twink with a sword' or 'elven accuracy go brrrr'.

but having read the 'elf book' (i think it was the same book as them releasing all the new variants of tieflings? i cant remember now) i was underwhelmed.

Elf lore is that they are basically No Name brand Tolkien elves with none of the interesting, ethereal bits and all of the xenophobia. Which - wanna preface this - there is nothing bad about exploring themes of discrimination in ttrpgs. It just. has to be handled with something other than misinterpreting or straight up copying Lord of the Rings?

I cannot for the life of me find the book it was in, but i remember reading that elves want to travel back to their homeland or feel a call to the beyond or something like that. Which is just. LotR elves but less interesting.

My main issue is that elves in WotC worlds offer nothing new to the genre. They are generic, easily digestible, bland ass creatures. I'm not as familiar with Pf2e lore but at least they actually bring up the problem of different lifespans in their description. Also! Elves change in appearance in pf depending on where they live. so we don't NEED 700 different kinds of elves.

Doing a cursory glance at a wiki (which is sad that only Fandom has info on WotC. one would think they would care more about their lore.) I get this.

This is everything they have on the general culture for elves. If i click into the lore sections for Sun Elves, it provides me with a little bit more - which is nice.

only issue is that Sun Elves aren't a thing anymore.

The most expansive lore for elves is. Drow. Eughhhhhh spider sex cult.

anyone who knows me irl has gotten the Drow Rant before; but recently I changed my mind. I don't hate Drow for what they do - but rather how it is presented.

Drow are an 'Evil Race' - although not Naturally Evil like Orcs (which was wild to read and i have a bone to pick abt that)

Yet their lore emphasizes that 'all' drow have a massive superiority complex, a lack of conventional morality, are vengeful, taught to be power hungry, and mistrust everyone around them - even the ones that don't want to be 'evil'. And you know what?

Thats rad! I like that!

There is a non-perfect society that doesn't always get along with itself. Granted the reason they provide as to why Drow haven't just killed each other is kindof a cop-out but with very minimal tweaking you might actually have something. The only thing i don't really like abt drow is that there is no 'good' or redeeming traits about them. Culture is 2 sides of the same coin; for every horrible policy, there was something relatively good. Maybe their judicial system is tight. Maybe they have great infrastructure. Idk but I want to know more.

i should make a post abt them.

Anyways TLDR: Elves deserve better. I find them bland because they are just empty husks stolen from Lord of the Rings, and half their lore no longer applies to modern dnd. Drow are the only semi-fleshed out elves and that scares me bc they are a spider sex cult. ;/

[writerofweird]

As far as "Wizard of Oz but dark" designs go, this "Scarecrow King" from Shane Kirshenblatt's Dorothy Gale Journey to Oz is pretty sick. He belongs on a heavy metal album cover and I mean that as a compliment.

(Dorothy Gale: Journey to Oz was a webcomic set in a darker alternate Oz taken over by an evil Wizard after gaining control of the flying monkeys, where an older Dorothy and her boyfriend Thomas (nicknamed Toto) find themselves in. In it, Scarecrows are evil corpses reanimated by spiders, and there's also evil versions of the Tin Woodman, Jack Pumpkinhead and Tik-Tok. Most of the comic is unavailable online now, save for a few pages you can find by looking up freefallcomics dot com on archive dot org. There were physical book releases but they're fairly hard to find.)

[brightblessed]

@phoenixfiiire said: "I can promise you that no harm will come to you if you come with me." The Undying would not dare attack someone that the Phoenix had placed under his protection. Dominant of Darkness or not, Joshua wasn't about to see them end the life of another innocent person.

Roi's body ached. He had been in so many battles. Wounds healed, sure... And lately, they seemed to heal faster than they used to. Ink-black darkness coated his wounds, shielded his body. He had always been a bearer. Even when his family tried to hide him from the empire. A long time ago, Rosaria was better for Bearers. Not perfect in the slightest... But better. Those stories used to give him hope before his family was murdered and he was enslaved. Made into a weapon. And when he had broken those chains and began to kill those that would harm the weak... He had listened to the voice guiding him. A mentor he needed. Oh, Roi... Will you always be a dog on a leash?

He didn't know what was happening to him. He remembered losing control before. When his unit was wiped out. He had heard someone call out to him and when he came to... he was the only survivor. Shadows twisted around him, flickering over his skin. The men that attacked him could not break through it. Power. He had power. He LIKED power.

But even then, his strength eventually wavered. He had killed many soldiers. His body ached. He couldn't force himself up from his knees and he gasped for breath. He could taste blood. He had no idea what was happening to him. He didn't know if he should run from it or embrace it. But he knew its name. Zodiark.

His wild eyes rested upon the man, though he could barely move... He would fight to the very last. He had killed soldiers. His brand was exposed as the shadows drifting over his body faded. He didn't care if he died. But if he died now.... Would his mother and Niall ever forgive him? They died to protect him just so he could burn out pointlessly here? What a waste.

He knew better than to trust the words of another person. But something about this one felt... Warm... Soothing even. Roi's battered body needed rest. If this man wanted to kill him, there was little he could do to stop him. He didn't know if he could muster up the energy to fight. He knew that there must be others. He could feel the eyes on him. Or maybe he was just paranoid. He almost laughed. The end.... right as he finally felt a sliver of something he could fight back with.

"Don't act like I have a choice." He grimaced. When had he ever? "My body feels like.... it's too heavy to move." A pause as he bites his lip in frustration. "If you want me to come with you, fine... More enemies will probably come." Not like he was at all subtle here. He had never seen or felt anything like that before.

[canonmisogynyvictimstournament]

Malty is an interesting case where she's good at being a hateable villain with a personality that could probably exist IRL, but like, the protagonist went at least a little too far using revenge as an excuse for the stuff he did to her.

(Also it's one of those series where the shounen protagonist justifies slavery, all the female characters are mysogyny victims by default)

Malty deserved better. Justice for Malty!

[kindnessisstillhere]

Possession

Items,

That's what a possession is,

An item someone owns.

Why did fiction change that?

Why did demons steal the term,

Stop me making the connection

That possession means an item,

Not a person enslaved,

Although I suppose they've been called it,

Their masters possession, a vile idea.

Yet I don't connect it to pets,

Wouldn't call livestock a possession,

They're sheep or cows or pigs,

Not items to be possessed.

Yet thanks to demon stories

To fantasy tales of many kinds,

Possession counts from person to person,

And possessiveness even more so.

Still a possession is an item,

And no human or animal is that.

[peridot-tears]

Finished Freedom Cry.

As far as American education goes (mind you, the bar isn't just low, it's underground), I received one that didn't give us a rose-tinted version of history. I was taught about Euro-American atrocities, including what Columbus was actually like, the Triangle Trade, and how slavers turned from oppressing Tainos to Africans. My textbook even mentioned Haitian independence (again, bar's underground). But I had to learn about the cultural significance of voudou during the uprising, Code Noir, the backlash from Europe that established the current relationship between Haiti and DR, etc. from other sources, including Freedom Cry.

I like that Ubisoft doesn't flinch away from what Black and Indigenous folks (including the Kanien'kehá:ka in ACIII and Kesegowaase, who is Wolastoqiyik) had to go through during this time period, but instead of painting a pure victim narrative, it reminds us that they had agency, and because people are not monolithic and always clash over the "right" way to help others, there was inner conflict too. And that's not something that's shown in a lot of historical media about slavery, segregation, the Trail of Tears, broken treaties, etc. because they end up taking the white guilt route.

But it's still incredibly difficult to watch. I played that scene on the ship in the final sequence before killing De Fayet, and SPOILERSSTARThaving to leave people still chained up in the ship behind was awful I ran at them several times and tried to find a way around to get to them before realizing there was no way to do soSPOILERSEND.

I still can't believe the audacity of Ubisoft to show these scenes. That includes when Ratohnhaké:ton's village was burned down; Noah Watts mentioned that it was hard to watch with the knowledge that this was the reality Indigenous folks had to face then. I...personally think they should be shown, because that's just reality, but it's difficult to watch.

Speaking of, I'm still salty about having to kill Jing Lang in Black Flag, she was the ONLY Asian around and they did THAT, even though as a group we were not getting oppressed by Europeans or anyone in the Caribbean at the time. If they ever released a game about atrocities against Chinese or Chinese diaspora I'd just turn off the game and leave tbh. Again, should be shown, but difficult to watch.

I love Adéwalé so, so much.

I said I'd probably have a different opinion on what my favorite AC songs are after playing Freedom Cry, but tbh I don't have a particular favorite on this track. It might be my favorite overall track, though.

I had a good chuckle over learning that Tristan D. Lalla was in Raisin in the Sun iykyk.

I'm gonna reboot the sequence where I kill De Fayet again, the first time wasn't satisfying enough brb.

[revvywevvy]

Okay, just had a realization and am now next-level pissed.

I would like to point out that, canonically, it is implied that Pyrrha is an SA survivor. Albeit, it's never mentioned specifically, just stated that she was kidnapped by slavers at one point after being tricked by Dam/pie/rre. I think it's safe to assume something horrible along those lines happened before the ring was busted by Jur/gis. Now, with that out of the way...

IF YOU SELF-SHIP WITH A FUCKING RAPIST, STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM ME, MY BLOG, AND PYRRHA. Not only will you be BLOCKED, but I will dream of serving your and your rapist f/o's heads on a fucking stick. Keep you and your rapist freak in your own corner, away from us.

[cartoonscientist]

there’s like an open world survival rpg in my dream universe that in-universe is apparently inspired by the Frank Baum Oz books, Dune, Kill Six Billion Demons and paleontology, where a dude who is trying to reality shift to his comfort anime accidentally actually shifts to a planet just called Mars by the inhabitants where reptile/mammal hybrids are a thing, the environment can be extremely hostile including the presence of irritating and pathogenic spores released by giant fungi towers, and people ride raptor/dromaeosaurid birds, and the game starts with being sold as a slave to a scavenger witch whose design made me think the dev is a betty grof enjoyer for sure

[vaultingfist]

Her pirate side was starting to show when she downed the rest of the bottle, which was what he wanted to see; he wanted her to be herself and cut loose; there was no need for anyone to hide their colors. But it would all be in due time. Ulti herself was probably still processing the fact that her captain had gone sinking into a lake of magma. As far as he was concerned, the beast king was no more.' 'Wri-Wri' would avoid the topic concerning her captain's well-being just in case it would subject him to a thrashing. If her brother was as pleasant as she was, then perhaps he could try and persuade them to make this their new home and crew.

The Duke couldn't help but laugh at her little jab at him. "Oh? Being a dummy would do just fine as long as I get to keep my date going with you." Sitting up, he would join her at the edge. His hand reached to clear a spot on her forehead, leaning and then giving a kiss on it. His chest throbbed as his lips pressed against such warm and clear skin. "How could I say no to such a pretty face?" A growl erupted from his stomach; it had been a while since breakfast, and it was time to get some food with their wine. The main deck was the perfect place to continue things, but a problem did arise, mostly his guest being drunk as a sailor.

He put in some thought before using the bottom of his fist to his palm. "Ah, I got it! Hold still, okay?" Giving her proper warning, he then leaned down to sweep the oni off her feet, carrying her bridal style, like how a knight would with a princess. "You looked tired. So I'll be your chariot for the rest of the night, okay?" The Duke teased before setting off down a flight of stairs. She looked so cute tucked up like that in his arms and was surprisingly light to him. It was light work compared to carrying that luggage all day. Once on the main deck, he would through the grassy plots of land up a little hill to a cabana overlooking the musical performance and rave, but private enough to where they could hold a conversation. Once at the bed, he would rest her down as gently as possible, letting her head lay on the pillow. "There we go, all good?" He hummed

An order for the resort's specialty meat pizza was placed, with a side of spiral potatoes and water on the device near their cabana. It needed to arrive fast if he wanted that rumbling to quit. With that done, he lay next to Ulti on the padding, eyes looking up to the stars. "Let's see. I suppose this one is as good as any." Contrary to what he said before, he would dig up more of his past for her. "I was born as a slave, not to pirates... but to a Celestial Dragon. We were raised as workers, attending to every whim, working hard with little to no food and beaten for the slightest mistake. I was thirteen, and my master decided I had made enough mistakes, so he entered me into one of the dragon's favorite sports. Hunting."

"Only us slaves were the game, and they were the hunters. Our collars were removed so they wouldn't interfere in the hunt, and they let us loose on an island. They gave us ten minutes to run.... and then the slaughter began." He paused for a bit, gulping to wet his throat to continue. "I was lucky, being so young, I had the energy to run a good while. Others, not so much. But I could only run so far before reaching the other end. I was found. Thought I was done for, but as my master lunged forward to gut me, I grabbed hold. He was strong, and all I could do was struggle; with enough of that, I got us near the edge of a cliff, and we fell off. Fate decided that day that he would break my fall, and into the ocean I went... I swam, and swam and swam as far as my arms would let me get away from that island, and then-"

His work arrived to drop off the food and drink, "Thank you kindly." The Duke sat up, gave a generous tip, and laid the plates on the bed with them. "Foods here, let's eat!" His voice was perky despite the past he told, eager to stuff his face with a greasy slice of cheese and tender meats.

Even with the little time she had spend with Wriothesley, the shinuchi could tell he was a good person. And at least one she didn't need to deem as an enemy. Still. There was more of an urge to find out his own secrets as the day went on. To find out who was the man who decided to be brave enough to extend his kindness toward her. Even in those few simple sentences he was already telling her a lot. A tch sound formed passed her lips as he admitted more of is own feelings.

"You're a dummy, Wrio" the beast pirate quipped back at him as she raised her own glass letting it clink against his own. "Calling someone such as myself beautiful??"

This was something she did actually want to believe. She was tired of having to put on the persona of being tough. There was no time or place within the Kaidou's crew for such softness. That would have got anyone killed on the spot. Or worse.

But here...now with Wriothesley. She wasn't having act completely on guard. The truth came out slowly. It still was seeping out. Why was she so comfortable telling him these things? All the while there was a pained worry that her involvement with just -any- enslaving pirate crew could be met with instant rejection. And that was putting it lightly.

Her own thought process causing her to impulsively grab the bottle of remaining wine just as the fireworks burst in the night sky. Bringing the it to her lips to unceremoniously swig it back. Unlike the duke, her tolerance for alcoholic wasn't quite as refined. Oh there was an effort to get up from where she sat to go investigate the source of noise from below as soon as the nightlife set in.

"Wri-Wri ... why don't we go down there??" she asked in a heavily slurred tone. By now she was slouched over the railing. Brows furrowing somewhat as she studied the rest of the guests who were mingling amongst themselves. She made a slight grumbling sound about her brother catching the fish. Clearly she was still salty about his escape attempt from her. Regardless she still was proud of her sibling as a small smile formed from behind her mask at learning such an accompliment.

"I want to hear more of your own stories, arinsu" she requested turning slightly to look back at Wriothesley. In truth, even though it was all his choices of how the day was planned, Ulti had genuinely enjoyed her time with him. And it was to the point she didn't want the night to end quite yet.

[mjrtaurus]

All of the original Seraphim still have their original PX logo etched onto their bodies, with the exception of Nemo since he was still too young to be properly activated and have it inscribed onto him. And all of them hate it. Poor Thea (S-Snake) and Jimmy (S-Bear) can't even look at theirs without feeling sick because it reminds them too much of the hoof of the flying dragon Kuma and Hancock were branded with.

King and Dragon's solution? Lunarian markings with some Shandian influence. They're all but unheard of in such young children, but in this case, an exception is warranted.

Off to consult uncles Franky and Marco for tattooing needles capable of putting a dent in their skin and ink that won’t mess with anything in their immune systems. Franky even goes in and does some tweaking to lessen the pain in the clavicle area because Marco doesn’t want to overprescribe sedatives.

Dragon and King both insist that the kids take part in the designing process. These will be for them, chosen by them. It’s a reclamation of self, not a rebranding. Thus, each of the children have their own personally approved designs.

Eventually when Nemo gets older, he gets a tattoo in the same place. He did not have had the mark forced on him, and he refuses to be a subject of envy because of it (poor Thea… poor, poor Thea). He is not “better” than them because of it. He is equal. He is their brother.

[aggressiveworldbuilding]

A follow up on Drow: How I would write it

a quick post on drow - which i had to delete from the 'elf' post bc it was getting too long. if i were to re-write drow i would:

a) give them more choice for religion. I don't mind a domineering religion but for me - personally- its a bit overused. If you like that, go ahead. Keep the competition, keep the backstabbing and the power-hungryness of the culture. Contrary to popular belief, you don't need a evil deity to have a backstabbing subterfuge plotline.

for player interest, this lets people play the character they want to play while still being thematically relevant to the story you are telling.

b) figure out their hierarchy. exactly what kind of hierarchy drow use. Is it a caste system? do they use ascribed or achieved status? To what extent is there social mobility? what sort of judicial system do they use? Is there any way to progress beyond owning material things?

Most players don't have to adhere to this rule. I would make a General Cultural rule for that group if a player wants to get the 'vibe' of the group. It doesn't work like that in real life - but thats the limitations of ttrpgs.

c) Decide your personal stance on slavery in ttrpgs: It is mentioned that slavery is used by drow, and then never really expanded on. Understandably WotC doesn't want to touch on this - with the backlash that Paizo received. Slavery - like discrimination - is something that can be discussed in ttrpgs. it has to be handled with care and respect, which can take a lot of research.

But removing it entirely also doesn't solve anything. You can run an entire campaign where the players are fighting against slavery. Hell, Out of the Abyss starts with the players escaping confinement themselves. If you don't want to use that idea then, again, no one is making you use it. But it is something you have to decide on in the beginning.

A side note: idk why drow bother to go on surface raids to capture people why they already have a hierarchy system, which has people in lower social statues.

If i had to choose cultures to research with regards to that, I would look to Mesoamerica, specifically Aztec indentured servitude within their own people and the Roman Empire. (if you think all of Mexico was Aztec, you are wrong and i encourage you to do your research

[e-m-p-error]

Following after him and more than ready for the drink he thought to give her, too. Listening to him speak, however, she slowly set her own wants aside. If there was one other person in her entire life, her entire afterlife, that she cared about, it was Vox. Carefully, her dainty hands wrapped around one of his, and her brow furrowed.

"An imp, huh...?" Velvette had gotten there fairly late for the party in comparison to her boys, but she knew enough about imps to know what they were used for. Biting her lip, she slowly dropped her eyes until all she could see were her shoes. Nice shoes, but still. ...Bloody shoes, they still had Valentino's blood on them.

"...You know why I'm so close with him, don't you?" Honestly, she wasn't totally sure if he did, but she suddenly bristled and shook her head.

"We should go back to killing him."

[ @thenextchapterbegins LIKED For A Starter || Vox ]

[ Velvette ]

She'd gotten him wrong, but that was her loss, wasn't it?

Valentino was hardly a man that anyone could pin down, and a moth he may have been, but his wings didn't stick to the crushed velvet. Crushed Velvette, she mused, as she nursed her ego more than the scuff on her cheek.

It wouldn't happen again, neither of them would make the same mistake.

Sure, Velvette had gotten smacked pretty good, but Valentino was the one that would be feeling it for a few days. They'd split paths after she'd left him bloody and winded on his back, and she hadn't known where else to go. Her apartment would have been too open, too confined all at once, so she'd gone to him instead.

A flutter of knocks hit Vox's door, rapid succession in two different places with two different beats. If anything said Velvette more than that, she didn't know what it would be.

Seconds after the knocking stopped, the bell was pressed ten times in a row, never quite getting to finish chiming until the tenth attempt.

[antimony-medusa]

Hi! I don't know if you've followed the debate on twitter these last few days (if you haven't, feel free to ignore this ask, I don't want to drag you into stuff) about whether themes of slavery can be depicted in fictional settings. I'd be curious to have your opinion because you have very based takes on the topic of fanfiction

Boy. I have been at a wedding so I have NOT been following, but a friend dug that one up for me, and boy. Isn't that something.

Okay, do I think that slavery can be depicted in fictional settings?

I'm gonna start this with a caveat of saying that I'm white, and as far as I know my family tree doesn't include any enslaved people. So slavery is an atrocity, but not a personal one for me any more than I feel personally about all atrocities, and your opinion on this subject might be different based on your experience, and that's completely fair. This is just the opinion of someone who thinks about content warnings and representation and exchange rules sometimes, and honestly if you want to take my answer as me saying "i'm white, anything I say after this doesn't really matter" that's a fair read of the situation. End post.

But further, the siren song of being asked a question:

My general stance is that there are very few things that can't be depicted in fictional settions, but there are a lot of things that should be depicted with care and research. And I consider major archive warnings to be one of these things. (I'm on the team that says that in an ideal world we would have a major archive warning for racism or slavery.) I don't think that there are any topics that are inherently off-limits for fiction.

If you're interested in writing professionally, there's a workshop called Writing The Other that does intros into writing topics that you don't share experiences with, and they do a really good job of breaking down the ways that you can analyze your work for cliches and stereotypes and other weaknesses, and ways that you can research to avoid them. It's an excellent workshop and I really recommend it— they even do scholarships, which is how I got to join! I consider them the industry standard of the question of "can I write about this", and as I remember it their basic answer is that the more outside of your experience a thing is, the more research you have to do to make sure you don't mess it up, and the more central to your story a thing is, the more you want to make sure that you don't mess it up. So sometimes you do hit topics and you go "am I the right person to tell this story, should I leave this topic to someone who knows it more personally, who's studied this". But that doesn't mean that you can't tell the story, it just means that to do it well, you have to put the work in. And that no one is obliged to trust you on the surface of things to have put the work in. I am probably going to trust an author who I know is disabled to have written disability well, for example, more than an ablebodied author. But there are authors out there that I know do their research and I pretty much trust them to deal with any topic carefully, if they want to take it on. A lot of the time, the more sensative a topic you are touching, the more you need a relationship of trust between author and reader, and sometimes you have to earn that trust carefully.

And boy is there fiction out there that deals with sensitive topics in ways that does not earn that trust. I have read things that I find highly distasteful. I have read published work that chooses to deal with real life atrocities in ways that I find wildly uncomfortable and I do not tend to recommend those books or authors.

I have also read nuanced and insightful explorations of horrific things, including slavery, including domestic violence, including racism, in ways that I felt enriched my understanding of the world and the people around me. I've read books that carefully touched on things like childhood sexual abuse and police violence and involuntary commitment, and that didn't make the story not a life-affirming and joyful experience, because the stories were able to take these things and make healing and catharsis out of them. Simply hearing that a story deals with a topic does not tell you if it's a story to recommend to others. We all live lives that sometimes touch on terrible things, and I think that trying to police who can tell stories about bad things leads into bad things like making people prove that they've suffered enough to write or shit like "are you black enough for this story", and I don't want that in my writing community. I have literally seen the bad end for going down that road, check out "helicopter discourse," and I'm against that.

I'm against that enough that I'm willing to endure people who do not share an experience writing badly about terrible things as the price we have to pay to allow people who have personal stake in the situation to be able to explore sensitive topics without harassment. Especially with fanfiction, we're dealing with amateur writers, so unfortunately most of the time when you have a subject come up the default assumption is going to be that it's dealt with badly. But I personally fall on the side that it's worth five people writing it badly to allow the one person who's personally impacted to write about it as much or as little as they want. My personal bugbear is terminal illness in children, that's my trauma, but I would personally rather have people write horrible tearjerker fic about aging down their characters and killing them off and it's so sad, even though I don't want that, rather than to say that that topic is off-limits to people.

On the topic specifically of slavery, this fandom, as many fandoms do, has a habit of including slavery and human trafficing as themes in their writing. A lot of the time this is not done well. We have a lot of baby writers who are deliberately writing the saddest thing they can think of or writing unjust societies for their guys to rebel against. This is not what I would say is a strength of the writing in the fandom, taken as a whole. And some people do their research and do it well! I've read great fics that pull from history in an informed way and do interesting things with it! But not everybody, good lord.

But saying that because a lot of people deal badly with slavery nobody should deal with slavery is not a path forward that I'm personally in support of. Do I think it should be tagged? Absolutely. Nobody should hit that unawares. But a lot of societies through human history practiced slavery of one kind or another! If you are drawing from roman history for your gladiator au, most of those guys were not there of their own free will. Tropes like fae folklore includes themes of posession and ownership, because that was the background radiation to the lives of the people who told these stories in the first place. There are a lot of tropes where these topics are going to arise, and I don't think that's inherently bad (though I personally would certainly feel a lot more comfortable with pulling on classical and medieval history for these stories rather than 1800s America, for example). And like, you can absolutely try your best to steer around these topics! That's an option! But honestly if you're doing something historic or historic-inspired, I'm not sure if it's more respectful to write a fantasy past in which greek history did not include slavery. That's whitewashing of history by definition. So if you want to avoid that, you're left with most of human history off-limits to write about, because of the atrocities? And I don't think that's ideal.

And like, I think with fanfiction you kind of just have to accept as background radiation that there are going to be a lot of people dealing with topics that they are not equipped to deal with. That's just how it goes. These are people writing with minimal research, experience, and editing, cause we're all here for fun, not professional development. You're gonna have people mishandle things. And that's why I think tagging is really really important, so that you can see the tags on a fic and go "oh I do not trust them with that topic" and navigate away, or filter the topic entirely. I have my touchpoints that I steer away from, and I have 100% clicked away from stories in horror going "oh no no no no no that's not good." But I don't think people should all be banned from writing about these things because some people do it badly.

Note: that doesn't mean that like, we shouldn't have conversations about how maybe if you put the minecraft men in your story where hybrid trafficing is a metaphor for the underground railroad, you should do that Carefully. We can still strive to do better. I have Seen Things and there is room to improve. There's room for discussion about people using slavery for cheap angst, in the same way that I've talked about the treatment of disability used for angst, and I've seen people talk about the agency allowed female characters, and the list goes on.

And that doesn't mean that I'm not going to 100% respect it if I get a DNW in an exchange where someone has said they don't want slavery or hybrid racism. People should be able to opt out of these topics (entirely! even if they're dealt with well!) and nobody has to read things they don't want to.

So in essense, when it comes to writing sensitive topics like slavery I'm going to do my best to think about what I'm doing and do my research— and I have written slavery and human-trafficing-type-deals before, I like gladiator aus and classical-inspired fantasy— and I'm going to tag so that anyone who doesn't trust me— and nobody has to trust me— can navigate away. But when it comes to policing what other people are writing, I don't think it does anyone any good to post callouts on twitter. At most I'm going to warn a friend that a certain fic deals with a topic badly. That's my viewpoint.

[shakespearefreak]

“Reaching Across Time”

The United States has come a long way since Addy’s time, but Makena still has to deal with problems and dangers due to the color of her skin. Just think how Addy might feel knowing Makena goes to school with kids of all races, and that one of her best friends is from an interracial family, but also how she had the police called on her and her sister for “breaking into” their own house! Or how Makena would respond to learning about the horrors of slavery that Addy lived through, the dangerous escape to freedom, and the way she and her family found each other again and re-invented themselves in the North.

…..

I got this idea on Juneteenth itself, but I didn’t have time to finish it that day. It was originally supposed to be just a quick thing, a sort of remix of this post I made a couple of years ago, but I ended up putting quite a bit of work into it.

Full disclosure: the backgrounds are (slightly edited) AI, done with Photoroom. I am aware that AI is harmful to both the environment and to artists, and I certainly don’t intend to make a habit of this. After a few days of trying and failing to use stock images for backgrounds, I decided that AI was the only way I would get this posted, at least at my current skill level. Someday I’ll go back and re-do it again, without the AI this time. (I also used Mac Photos and LunaPic for editing.)

I’m including an alternate version below the cut; it’s almost exactly the same, but with a dark sky dotted with stars separating the two girls. I can’t decide which one I like better; what do y’all think?

Note: I am White. If you are Black and find anything in this post offensive, please let me know and I’ll edit it or take it down!