#cw: fantasy racism

[heniareth]

It would've been really cool if we'd seen signs of all the other origins who were not chosen as the PC origin in DAO. Just imagine! Two abominations, fighting alongside Uldred, turned maybe willingly, maybe not. You loot them and find on one a necklace with the crest of the Amell family. On the other, you find a drawing of a house with a family drawn in a child's hand; the drawing has been ripped and it appears a child is missing from the picture. You have a random encounter with two shrieks who defend each other with a care unseen in darkspawn; one chokes out "Tamlen!" as it falls. In Denerim, you see an elf hanging from the gallows; the plaque below makes their crimes public, their body, left and forgotten, serves as a warning and as a reason for the human population to lash out against the Denerim Alienage. In Orzammar, you find Brosca, starved to death in the cell next to Leske, yes. But in the Deep Roads, you find another dwarven body: dead by their own hands, it seems, curled up under the crest of house Aeducan. And in Howe's dungeon, on the rack, there is a corpse. Nothing identifies the noble for who they are, save for the word of the other noble you rescue there.

[puckpatti-and-co]

A lead by the harbor? What, like an investigation? Or are you trying to be some sort of dock hand now? A pirate?! Puckpatti piracy?!

“Like, a job lead! I overheard some folk talking about it the other day. It sounded interesting, so.. You lose all the chances you don’t take, right? Plus, they’ll hire any race!”

“Sailing jobs tend to be dangerous for half-foots.. A lot of ships are required to have one aboard in case of sirens. It’s a one way trip, going overboard- but it warns everyone else because we’d hear the song first.”

“As much as I’d like to go sailing someday, it just isn’t safe with current regulations. Most dwarven ships use song birds though!”

“Imagine if I got to sail with dwarven pirates.. That’d be so cool!! I bet it’d make Fler jealous! Hehe.”

[sharyrazade]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Tales of Symphonia, Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, Tales of Series Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Colette Brunel/Genis Sage, Sheena Fujibayashi/Lloyd Irving (referenced) Characters: Genis Sage, Colette Brunel Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Canon Compliant, Awkwardness, Awkward Crush, First Kiss, Childhood Friends, Romantic Friendship, Puberty, Interracial By Fantasy Standards, Fantastic Racism, Fantasizing, Unrequited Lust, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Genis' language is a little salty but he's a teenage boy what do you expect?, Colette is 20, Genis is a late 15 Summary:

Being a teenage boy is never exactly easy. But being a fifteen-year old boy while gradually coming to see the innocently-charming girl you grew up with as a stunning angel of a woman however, can be an absolute nightmare, only complicated by the lingering resentment you feel for humans.

This was actually written as an exploration of a concept I’d been wondering about for a while, but was genuinely disappointed by the fandom’s lack of interest in: Namely, Genis as an (older) teenage boy, doing what teenage boys do, feeling what teenage boys feel.

The assorted...complications in his life are what makes the idea really interesting IMHO. Also it’s been damn near five years since I wrote this and only realized that given who Colette’s family is, it would basically be a coin toss whether their son would look like dear old dad/aunt Raine/grandma or, well...

[anghraine]

Disney-era Lucasfilm has given me essentially one film I adored (Rogue One, which also has my favorite SW ship and two of my favorite SW characters in Cassian and Jyn). It's also produced two more films that I very much liked (though only one of those still remains high in my estimation tbh), and a bunch of SW material that is not really the SW that plays in my mind, but at least fun and interesting to think about with the very glaring exception of TROS. I never had any investment in Legends, either, so for me the Disney era is not some huge loss.

I say all of this to emphasize that I'm not a kneejerk Disney SW hater. Nevertheless, I'm actually very disappointed with DLF's tendency to emphasize how ground-breaking and diverse and ~challenging some new SW media thing is without doing much to support the people involved or appearing to foresee that a fanbase prone to bigotry, nostalgia, and throwing screaming temper tantrums for decades on end is not going to react well. This is in no way an excuse for those fans, but DLF does not seem to ever predict how SW fans will respond despite their well-documented history of responding really badly to anything that remotely challenges them.

I love SW and I love my personal friends in SW fandom, but there have always been a significant number of vocally hateful and reactionary SW fans who manage to shape the discourse around basically everything in it. This is completely predictable. The fact that DLF seems completely unprepared for this reaction every time they give central roles behind and in front of the camera to women and/or POC, and also appears to do very little to support the actual RL marginalized people they hire when not just cravenly giving in to the worst elements of the SW fanbase (*cough*TROS*cough*) is incredibly frustrating.

Yeah, this is about DLF's poor handling of eminently predictable fan tantrums over The Acolyte which has just culminated in cancelling it after a bare eight episodes, but it's happened so many times at this point. The Acolyte was far from perfect but after how visibly unprepared DLF were for the raging bigotry directed at Kelly Marie Tran, John Boyega, and Daisy Ridley, or how weird people were about Solo, or the misogynoir surrounding the response to Reva in Obi-Wan Kenobi, or or or—they absolutely could and should have known that something like The Acolyte was going to need a lot of higher-level support to have any chance of success. At the very least there's no excuse for being surprised at this point.

And it feels a bit like it, and the actual people involved in it, were never really given a fair shot and the real higher investment is going to be in, like, Baby Yoda 4: Now With More Ewoks.

My friends and I just finished our first run of Jedi: Survivor, which we really, really liked, but there is definitely a tragic white boy protagonist propped up by POC and/or women (many now dead!) aspect to the whole thing that feels essential to its popularity. And it is frustrating and disappointing and all the more so because it's so eminently foreseeable at this point.

[nekropsii]

One of the weakest Homestuck criticisms I see pop up every now and then is that the Hemoloyalty system is bad because “it’s not a clear-cut metaphor for any one specific real-world bigotry.” Acting as if it is a poorly made example of Sci-Fi/Fantasy Racism since it’s used to cover and express Racism, Classism, Xenophobia, Misogyny, etc.

It always makes me wonder if they’re new to fiction that contains Fantasy Racism, because Fantasy Racism systems covering multiple bigotries is entirely normal. It’s the standard, even.

You know.

Because that’s how actual real world bigotry operates?

For example… Racism does not stop at a judgment of skin color. It never just affects how your race is perceived and then stops before it dips into any other bigotry. Racism is almost never “Oh, ew, you’re brown,” with no other follow up. It’s a long series of assumptions and judgments made on your (perceived) race. Racism is deeply entangled with- you guessed it!- Classism, Xenophobia, Misogyny, all kinds of things.

Classic examples of Racism include:

Having your expressions of femininity and womanhood denied or fetishized based on your race, which happens quite regularly to Black and East Asian women in particular,

Suspicions towards Black people in middle class-rich suburban neighborhoods/gated communities, based on the assumption that “they could never legitimately afford to live there” so they “must be trespassing and/or a criminal”,

… And nutjobs screaming at people who are Latino or Arabic, or they perceive as Latino or Arabic, to “go back to their country” whether or not they were actually born there.

Are these all derived from Racism? Yes! But are they also combining forces with a different bigotry to help strengthen that racism? Yes! This is how it works! Fantasy Racism often has their fictional bigotry cast a wide net of judgments and assumptions that wind up making it all look very messy and unclear and containing multiple bigotries because that’s how it works in real life! You cannot in earnest say that a fictionalized bigotry system is bad because it “isn’t one clear cut thing” without looking like a moron. Are you sheltered? Have you only put one lone dying brain cell into this? Have you never experienced bigotry before, or thought about how it operates? I fear that you may need to do some reflecting!

[theharellan]

Names? Names!

Solas: His name, preferred. If you continue to refer to him as it after learning he's Fen'Harel then it is all the more appreciated.

Pride: Not appreciated. It isn't an exact 1:1 connection with the Elvhen meaning and lacks the nuance for the reasons why he chose it. A lack of positive connotation in the Common Tongue, if you will.

Wisdom / [Undetermined Elvhen Translation I'm still chewing on]: Touched, but a little confused. Likely feels like he's being manipulated unless it comes from someone he trusts. Rook calling him it will knock him off his guard.

Fen'amelan/Fen'Samahl/etc: Regarded with disapproval, corrected or assumed to be an insult. The first would most likely be used by the likes of Elgar'nan or anyone who wants to use Mythal's death and the destruction of Elvhenan against him.

Fen'Harel/Fen'Harillen: If you knew him as Solas first and refer to him as this, it will hurt, although he understands. If you are his enemy, he approves and takes it, as he says in Trespasser, as "a badge of pride." If you are his friend, he will correct you to referring to him as Solas, repeatedly if necessary. If you are his ally, he will accept the mantle for the purposes of inspiring hope. Fen'Harel, when invoked as akin to the divine, he is deeply uncomfortable with it, and will likely try to correct it or otherwise reluctantly accept it as a non-believing Inquisitor may accept their title(s).

The Dread Wolf: Neutral, he will assume you think of him as an enemy and keep you at arm's length. It lacks the nuance to him that Fen'Harel does and he is less likely to take it positively from anyone. This name and other permutations of the name are likely to adjust how he speaks to you, embodying much more of his pride than he might otherwise.

Lethallin/Lethallan: Acceptable, but may correct to 'lethallen' if he actually thinks of you as a friend.

Lethallen: The preferred term of address unless you know him well enough to know you can switch it up.

Vhenan/Sal'shiral/[Elvhen terms of romantic endearment]: Ian privileges.

[Non-Elvhen terms of romantic endearment]: Confused to neutral, if someone is the type of person to refer to anyone as "love" he won't think twice about it.

Ma'lath/Lath'len/Lath: Ian privleges and Mythal privileges, the latter being platonic in nature.

Chuckles: Varric privileges. Remembering it stings.

Baldy: Cadri privileges. Will likely not acknowledge anyone else who uses it.

Elfy: Sera privileges. He has been trained to respond to it.

Hahren: Dependent. Children, younger elves, and people he is teaching may use it without remark. Rook using it would be both annoying and funny.

Messere/Serah: Neutral, prefers "serah" as if I recall it is typically used between equals. Messere is accepted because some people need to use a respected form of address to feel comfortable, and it is not lofty enough a word to be uncomfortable.

Wolf-Kissed: A niche nickname he is known by only to the Avvar of Stone-Bear Hold (and any companions who were there at the time) because they were witness to wolf!Ian bowling him over and licking him on the mouth. He is fond of it.

Rabbit/Rattus/[Any other Elvhen slur]: He is coming for you in your sleep. Literally.

Flat Ear: Insulting enough it loops back around to being funny, but if Ian is in earshot he will bully you.

[probablyevilrpgideas]

As I see more things where "indigenous culture" and "spiral glyph" are linked, I'm forced to wonder... Was White Wolf drawing on something actually indigenous* when they created the aesthetics of the Wyrm stuff in Werewolf?

(there are more, but they're all variations on the theme, actually kind of one of the things I like about garou glyphs)

The one that's on top of my mind for an example of "spiral glyph denoting something bad and spooky, tied to indigenous culture" is Season 4 of True Detective-

*Now, granted, if there is a connection, it's not because White Wolf did a bunch of research, obviously (if they had, the depiction of indigenous people in WtA might have been more respectful), but I could see them finding something to this effect and throwing it in.

The other possibility that comes to mind is that spirals are just a general "creepy and easy to imagine being a '''primitive''' symbol" thing. But iunno.

[avoidcrowdraws]

Rysif is one of the nicest people you'll meet, she's incredibly friendly, but don't be fooled - she also has the world record for how many microaggressions she can drop on a person per second

She cannot be normal about an 'exotic' person like Tora

[splat20]

Another part of Icewind Dale that's been fucking grueling so far though... Ngl a part of me is actually fascinated by the historical fantasy worldbuilding done by A Certain Kind Of History Dude who clearly has no idea how history has ever actually worked. The hoops they jump through to convince you that history has never been what might be called "political" is, in its own way, kind of impressive.

Conflict has never been about stuff like colonialism, it's all about nebulous human themes like Tradition. Conflict is about Economy and Economy never involves anything like class or culture. Only trout. The entire machinations of this society revolves ONLY around trout. (I'm now genuinely harping about the trout, it's just really dumb ok.) Conflict is about different groups just being fundamentally different, usually with a clear evil one. Conflict is about all groups being greedy about THEIR FUCKING TROUT because it's just a nebulous human condition to be greedy. Racist also. And poor people are just poor because they aren't ambitious, as a little aside.

It's so...... ashistorical but also deeply uncurious about our own actual real life world right now.

So many "high" fantasy books are like this. The Certain Kind Of History Dudes have too much power in this genre. They get praised for their worldbuilding and it's just the most shallow understanding of how anything works ever.

And more nefarious is the way this seemingly innocent ignorance so quickly and easily justifies stuff like "well, it's totally chill for good guys to kill bad guys... because they're from a bad guy society." Drizzt will tie himself in knots if he has to kill the worst human you can possibly imagine, but swats down random orcs no problem. The way that seemingly creates no cognitive dissonace at all for these writers needs to be studied in a lab. It's all fun and games when we're talking about monsters, but then you think about how that translates into the real world using the exact same mechanisms and that isn't fun at all is it? The ways racist men can tell themselves they are good people follows similar mental gymnastics. Why are "humans" deserving of infinite grace and forgiveness even at their most evil but "orcs" are understood to be inherently a lost cause? Why really? What is that mechanism really? It's been particularly egregious as I'm trying to slog my way through The Crystal Shard because, like, we can generously say that the "barbarians" are based on vikings, but ngl all I'm getting from this dynamic is Salvatore playing "cowboys and indians" but with white people. The general underlying vibes... And maybe that's what I'm trying to get at with what I'm describing in the fantasy races too. If you take off the mask, it all just feels like "cowboys and indians." A trope so deeply embedded in American genre fiction which has always just been incredibly racist this whole time.

These books are such whiplash because unfortunately I do love the characters but boy I wish I could save them from these books sometimes. The Crystal Shard has been soooo much worse than the other books so far imo, so I'm hoping the series chills tf out again generally.

[leresq]

Orcs being inherently evil and savage and stupid is just as racist as goblins being greedy and cruel but none of you are ready for that conversation

[queenaeducan]

Var Shiral'vhen - Chapter Seven: Mission of Mercy

Ian accompanies the Thora on a journey to the Fallow Mire. As they struggle through a deluge of rain and hordes of undead, he comes to better understand the nature of the woman they call Herald.

Thora comes to stand at Ian's shoulder, hesitating before she kneels beside him.

“You’re her.” The scout’s words rasp in his throat, dark hair plastered to his forehead with fever-sweat. One hand protects the stained bandage that wraps his middle, but the other extends to reach for her. “The Herald.”

“My name’s Thora. What’s yours?” She catches his fingers in her own, folding both of her hands around them to squeeze with the same gentleness that Ian hears in her voice. While she speaks, he reaches into his satchel, tugging free a small bowl and waterskin, along with a bundle of clean–and, miraculously, dry–cloth. He sets the bowl at his side, filling it only half-way before passing his hand over its surface, first pulling heat until bubbles rise, then frost to force away the burn, leaving the liquid tepid.

The scout struggles in his answer, voice aching with blood loss and pain, though his Antivan accent is impossible to mistake.

“Emir, your worship.”

“It’s good to meet you, Emir.”

“I need to remove your bandage.” Ian’s bare hands hover over where Emir guards his hurt, yielding until permission is granted. “I’ll be gentle.”

(Read the rest on AO3!)

[kitabasis]

I’ve hardly seen anyone mention it, so. I think we need to acknowledge that the portrayal of the Gur is. Kinda racist.

and as much as I wish it wasn’t, GAW (game as written), Astarion is, charitably speaking, kinda racist.

Edit: just want to make it clear that I am of the opinion that BG3 itself is less racist than, for instance, Curse of Strahd. However it really grinds my gears to see that very few people acknowledge that tumblr's favorite companion is racist (and frankly, as far as I know, you can only tell him off once which is. Frankly I feel like the game should treat it like a bigger deal than it does). I can understand why you would not want to, because he is a very compelling character and it feels icky for a character you like to be racist so of course you just want to pretend that didn't happen, ignoring it feels. Not great to me.

Especially because only one of the companions is a poc and he's probably the most complained about one which I'm sure have nothing to do with each other

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

copying anon over here because i went to save the ask to my drafts and tumblr sent it directly to the shadow realm, welp:

I dug through your rambles about Hermes, so I'm looking forward to thoughts on Erich with the ancient world's everything lol ~

ahhhh thank you, i'm glad you've enjoyed my rambles so far!! i've been taking the second half of the pandaemonium arc more slowly, partly because i'm been Out of It the last few days and partly because the direction the plotline with erich and lahabrea has taken a turn for has been leaving a really bad taste in my mouth. i've been making my way through it, though, and percolating Deeply on the He and how he and pandaemonium as a whole fit into all this. spoiler alert i love him even more now

(on the one hand, it finally helped me articulate some points that imo make or break an 'abusive parent sees the error of their ways and apologizes up and down and swears to do better, and both that and the context in which the abuse happened leave their victim feeling conflicted about it' arc. so there's that! on the other hand it, uh. it did so by very much being the goofus here lmao, and erich deserved better.)

(the way the whole thing is played off is also just, deeply deeply misogynistic. athena is top-tier nastywoman and i love her for it, and 'mothers--in particular white women, especially to their children of color--can be shitty and predatory and abusive and are accountable for it full stop,' is great abuse rep but fucking WOWZERS)

(which like, i will say that the overtones are not at all lost on me that athena repeatedly goes out of her way to prey on, abuse, and violate not just men of color but black men; dehumanizes them and treats them and their bodies as her property; and is strongly implied to have sexually abused erich in particular. and how the one who gets the brunt of it is her biracial, very VERY not white-passing son, who she isolated from the black side of his family to do whatever she wanted with. it is insanely fucking refreshing to see that shit not cushioned at ALL, and it really sucks that that had to come bundled in with the abuse apologia and misogyny.)

(i am also realizing that this is one of the reasons erich whitewashing, and how common it is in the fandom as well as official art, bothers me so much beyond the obvious. while it's uncertain how much of it was intentional, his narrative evokes not just real-world racism but colorism, and a specific brand of it and how it intersects with abuse. even if just on a doylist level erich was abused for being as dark-skinned as he is, and erasing that is even shittier than your run-of-the-mill whitewashing.)

(anyway. ANYWAY. anyway. all that is a post of its own and i haven't even gotten to the parts about ancient society yet. you see what i mean by having a lot of thoughts about him lmao)

i'm hoping to finish the last leg of the questline tonight so i can start fully putting my thoughts together because god there is SO MUCH, and i'm excited even if i foresee having to grit my teeth through the rest of the moments between him and lahabrea lmao

[senerist]

alazia: the fear that you're no longer able to change.

obscure sorrows || accepting

Things are the same as they are then.

As a child, soren had screamed. he could understand the thrown rocks and vicious stares. What he couldn't understand was the cold, purposeful ignoring. he had no words back then to beg them to look at him; he couldn't ask them to acknowledge his existence, so he'd screamed instead. The laguz never did, even though it must have hurt their ears. Instead, a beorc inevitably tried to drive him away for being 'annoying'. 'Inconvenient.'

It's like an instinct that takes him over now. he has words, though.

The sub-human bitch delivers hers at Ike, and soren both wants to protect him... and wants to know.

"...Typical sub-human."

Her head swivels on a point and her violet eyes narrow with violent intent at him. She sees him.

his heart pounds in his chest. he digs the knife in deeper. Sub-human.

he feels the adrenaline of excitement, then of the fight. The larger one means to attack - she says kill - and so a wind spell is easily readied on his tongue. They do mean to kill him, and that intent fills his entire being. Fight or flight is a familiar feeling, but this time he has a choice.

It isn't rocks that aim for him, it's claws, and he can protect himself - he doesn't have to cry and run, he can kill them back, and he can -

"Soren! Stand down!"

And then Ike's in front of him, grimacing against the tiger's blow.

"Why did you stop me? He hurt you! He could have killed you! We can’t let him get away–"

"If you hadn’t provoked him, none of this would have happened. Right?"

...Right. The adrenaline makes him want to argue, but it dies quickly. There's no arguing with Ike, and as soren's focus shifts to him, he finds it so much harder to seize the feelings he'd just acted on.

he feels... sad.

he is sad. Stuck in the past, he's nothing but a pathetic child acting out against the ways of the world. Eyes are on him. Eyes are judging him - but they are on him.

Why now and not then? Is it speech? Is it the words chosen?

When the meeting ends, soren slinks away to be alone. he usually does anyway, no one will think it's strange that he needs a moment. Ike even implies, in his apology to the beasts, that soren is grieving Greil, too.

What's wrong with him? Something inside of him must be fundamentally wrong, for Ike to raise his voice to him. he wants to cut it out with a knife, make himself better, but how? The drive he felt to scream - to beg the attention of those beasts that shunned him - was so overwhelming...

And what if he can't?

It feels as though his heart is being crushed in his chest by a hand squeezing slowly. 'Can't' simply isn't an option for him. he has to. he has to.

[nobroth]

I also hc that Alistair knowing that people suspect he's elven at least in part fuels his decision to "quell" the riots in the Alienage. If he knew then he was part-elf I don't think he could make the same decision.

[theharellan]

Is there any characteristic or mannerism that Solas is afraid will give him away as something other than what he claims to be when he joins the Inquisition?

Fear of magic/spirits gives Solas like an embarrassing amount of plausible deniability in Inquisition. He doesn't have much of a history? He's an apostate. He doesn't have a family? Apostate. In Templar-aligned playthroughs he will even use it as a reason to deny telling you anything, stating outright that any information he gives you could be used to hunt him.

One of the primary characters who doubts and questions him, Vivienne, would probably just as likely have suspected him if he were everything he appeared to be. When Iron Bull points out his magic doesn't "clunk" like self-taught warriors, Solas can simply point out that Bull might not know enough about magic to know where Solas clunks (which is true! Especially since Solas and Vivienne have multiple banters critiquing each others' casting, as do Solas and Dorian).

If Thedas didn't suck so much he might not have gotten away with it as easily is what I'm saying.

I think Solas is most afraid of his knowledge of upper-class society (or the trappings of it that are near universal) giving him away. It is one of the moments in Inquisition you can call him out on, when he implies he's been to court before and he's forced to tell a near outright lie in ways he typically doesn't in Inquisition. It's also something I touched on from Josephine's POV in Celestine Black where she notices he knows how to drink wine but not pour it. Again, easily explained, but it is a clue to him having never been the sort of servant who had to pour wine.

Funnily though as far as roleplay goes, most of the stuff he's called out for is stuff he has answers for. So much of the suspicion I've encountered writing him revolves around low expectations set for apostates and elves that him turning it into their problem is simple- because even if they happen to be right their reasons are kind of shallow.

"Why do you know so much even though you've never been to a Circle?" becomes, "why do you think knowledge begins and ends within a Circle?" "Why do aren't you a city elf / Dalish elf / Circle elf?" becomes, "why have you decided elves can only be one of three things?" etc etc.

So beyond his background in court giving him away, I think the biggest concern is after WPHW where his panic/anger about the Well coupled with the "Elvhen such as you?" comment from Abelas are big hints that he has a closer connection with Elvhenan than a mere onlooker.

Yet even that... "this guy is Fen'Harel" is such a big leap in logic, even after Flemythal reveals herself, so I think he's more concerned about questions on if he's an ancient elf. He's sort of made safe by the events that transpire after that quest, but that is the quest that makes Ian begin to wonder if he's ancient (and Thora, but she only begins to put it together after he's gone) so he was right to think it might give him away.