#i'm scared as shit to post this but i'm hitting the god damn button anyway.

[fallout-new-mudkip]

Edge of a Coin

(Read on AO3!)

Chapter 2

MacCready awkwardly shuffled into the mayor's house in Nate's clunky armor. "Are you guys sure this won't scare Duncan?"

"Nah. His daddy is looking badass." Hancock reassured while setting plates of toast and eggs from some wasteland critter. "Might want to get out of it to eat, though."

"There's no time. Thanks anyway, Hancock." MacCready said while trying to fit the helmet to the suit, while Nathan pointed out where the pieces locked together.

"I'll see you off!" Nate promised while biting his toast. "I'll work on Railroad business while you're away. Probably visit little Shaun too. If I can get him out of the Institute." Nate frowned. "Go get your boy, Mac."

"I put your hat in your duffle bag, Sunshine." Hancock pointed to the bag on the table. "Not like it'll fit over the power helmet."

The pair thanked the mayor again before leaving to meet up with Daisy at the town's gate. When they arrived, she was talking to the driver, who was also a ghoul.

"Hey, did Daisy tell you about the arrangements?" Nate asked.

The caravanner nodded and took MacCready's pack. Nate then handed him a drawstring bag full of caps.

"Hopefully 250 can at least help cover meals and possibly some ammo."

"Don't worry about all that, Nathan." Daisy said. "I had all that taken."

"I– I can't thank everyone enough!" MacCready fought back tears. "I'll let him know how much you all care."

Goodneighbor shrank in the distance behind the party, then MacCready decided he would no longer look anywhere but forward.

---

Southwest of the Boston area, two starving travelers clutched each other and nearly collapsed every other step.

"Charon," the smaller of the duo, a blonde man in a green sweatshirt, stopped walking to catch his breath. "I'm so glad you haven't turned feral, or I'd be a snack by now."

Charon, a tall redhead ghoul, scowled but let the remark slide. "Boss, ahead."

Just up the road from the pair looked to be an abandoned town. "Good idea. Possible food… water… no… more… 'claws…"

The ghoul nodded. "Then we get back to I-90."

"Stupid PIPboy." Alex, the blonde traveler, motioned to the wrist-mounted computer's frozen screen. He had not so much as a stimpak needle to hit the tiny reset button. "Looks like there's a Red Rocket, a church, some offices…"

"A lake." Charon said with a hint of hope.

"What? Oh, fuck yes!" The aching man hobbled into the lake and desperately gulped down handfuls of water. Charon followed soon after.

"Oh God even if this shit is irradiated I don't care!" he shouted in between slurps.

"I don't mind either." Charon smiled for just a short second.

"Oh, glad you spotted this. If only some fish would jump out at us."

"You jinxed it." Charon said after waiting a moment.

A man with a minigun and a tall lady with a super sledge approached from their post nearby, but stayed on the banks.

"Travelers?" asked the hammer lady.

"Yeah, I crashed my ride into a different lake, now we're looking for Boston." Then, something started to click in Alex's mind. "You're outfits look familiar as fuck. Do you guys have a base in Rivet City?" Then, in a hushed voice, "These might be people we know, Charon!"

"Young man," the minigun dude spoke up. "We're awfully close to the Glowing Sea. Do you have a Geiger counter?"

"Yeah it's the only thing on this damn PIPboy that works!" Then it hit. "Wait, no! It's in the shop! It's in the shop!"

The hammerwielder grinned. "Hello, agent."

---

With the power armor encasing him, MacCready still was barely as tall as the caravan guard. He didn't want to sound rude, but the question was burning him.

"So, uh, are you like a white super mutant?"

"What?" the guard tilted his head. One cannot blame RJ for asking, he looked like your average mutant in size, with skin so white it was blue, and shimmering pale hair.

"Are you a mutant?"

"No, I'm Tyler."

"Okay. So, where are you from?"

"Texas!" Tyler happily answered.

"Well that's neat." Mac decided that everything was bigger in Texas.

"I miss home. But the caravan lets me meet new people. And spend time caring for the cows."

Cows? That's what Nate used to call 'em. Big guy's either a dweller or pre-war.

"Not many people fuck with us when Tyler's our guard." the caravan driver boasted. "It's like traveling with a behemoth you can talk to, without getting shot on sight."

"Farley, can we tell him about the raider?" Tyler asked. "The one from last month."

"Yeah bud. So these raider punks tried taking our merchandise while we were camping. As soon as Tyler stood up with his gun, they turned and ran."

"And one tripped and fell, then peed his pants for real!" Tyler lit up while telling his part. "Then he ran away and tripped on a bush!"

"Huh, normally the phrase about being scared enough to pee yourself is just an expression." MacCready looked impressed by the caravanners. "Anyway, when do we set up camp?"

Farley then explained. "The nearest place we typically stop is the turnpike tunnel,but we plan on going until we're near Natick, there's an outpost of some organization that will trade with us."

"Better to stop there." MacCready agreed. "Tunnels typically have bugs, and ferals."

"Ferals are a bitch and a half, at least for humans. Hope my looks don't make you wigged out. I don't like scaring people." Farley admitted.

"As long as you don't start gnawing on my leg like a drumstick, we're good."

---

As it turns out, some people are stupid enough to mess with the caravan. Potshots from pipe rifles and shotguns rained on the party from the rooftop of the reservoir. MacCready pulled his sniper rifle from out of thin air and let the power armor soak up the bullets.

"Ty! You see a way up there?"

"No time, Farles!" Tyler lobbed a grenade up to the assaulting raiders above.

"You two head down the road, I'll keep picking them off!" Mac suggested.

It seemed to work alright. One headshot, two headshots, an 'accidental' groin shot… until the other raiders retreated into the structure. "You're right Tyler, we don't have time. Duncan needs me."

---

The Roadside Pines Motel had seen better days, but one Railroad heavy made it into a home. Weekly, they expected "packages" to come through; runaway synths relocating to other parts of the continent. Then, about once every third month, the Worldwide Caravan stopped by to rest.

Tyler ducked down into the lobby doorway with Farley and an unarmored MacCready following close.

The lobby's rubble had been cleared and walls were remade from metal sheets, plywood, and concrete chunks. A typical motel dining area was set up with a microwave, coffee maker and donut display case on the counter. If those appliances still worked was anyone's guess. Instead of a few small tables, one large oblong table occupied the center of the room, with two of the eight chairs around it holding diners.

"Looks like it's been cleaned up a bit since Nate and I took the raiders out." RJ noticed.

Alex whipped his head towards the voice. "Mayor McButtface?"

"Doctor Mungo! Holy sh–shoot, I thought you were dead!" MacCready admitted.

"Everyone probably thinks that, back home. Have a seat, you guys. Our hostess will be back with more food in a bit. In the meantime, RJ and I have some catching up to do."

[fidespeaks]

Laying The Groundwork For How Privilege Works

Okay, so before I get into any other topics on this blog I want to talk about privilege.  I feel like it’s something we’re all simultaneously very aware of but a lot of us fall into this trap of very quickly forgetting about how it works.  Or, alternatively, it’s something we know exists because we frequently use the term for it but we forget the nuances of multiple layers of privilege when it comes to talking to people in marginalized groups that aren’t our own.  So, that’s kind of what I want to discuss with this post before anything else: multiple layers of privilege, how they stack, and how we should stay conscious of them while being allies to other marginalized groups.  

A lot of what I want to talk about today is pulled directly from and reflection upon the book: Me & White Supremacy by Layla Saad.  If you haven’t read the book before, it’s similar to a guided journal that’s meant to be completed over the course of a month and if you’re serious about your allyship and supporting BIPOC & BLM, I highly suggest you read it.  But be sure you’re in a decent state of mind - some of the things you may uncover while doing the work can be pretty heavy, especially in my experience. 

Now I know a fair number of people are probably thinking: "but Fides, I’m (multiracial, biracial, a good ally, def not a racist, have experienced discrimination, am a person of color, ect).  Why do I need to read this book?”  to which my response would be to point you towards one of the very first sections of the book, titled “Who is this work for?”  which actually inspired the entire post that I’d like to write today.  Layla begins that section by clarifying:  

This work is for any person who holds white privilege. By any person, I mean persons of any gender identity, including gender-nonconforming persons, and by who holds white privilege, I mean persons who are visually identifiable as white or who pass for white. Therefore, this includes persons who are biracial, multiracial, or white passing People of Color who benefit under systems of white supremacy from having lighter skin color than visibly Brown, Black, or Indigenous people. 

And that seems pretty simile, right?  Not all people experience privilege or discrimination to the same degree and sometimes the ways that we do experience discrimination are vastly different from one another.  I’m completely aware that this seems like... honestly really obvious stuff, but I remember first reading this and the first week of work titled “Me and White Privilege” in which Layla discusses that lacking one kind of privilege does not mean you don’t still have white privilege and thinking... wow.  I’ve definitely tired to pull this “oppression olympics” shit before.  Sometimes I didn’t even do it on purpose.  Sometimes I was just trying to explain that I understand and I can relate.  But that brought the conversation back to me, and that’s exactly the problem. 

In the chapter “Me and White Privilege”, Layla specifically goes out of her way to point out that white privilege specifically is separate from, but can sometimes intersect with, other kinds of privilege (class, gender, sexuality, age, able-bodied, and so on).  She then goes on to make a slew of examples, stating that just because a person lacks a certain kind of privilege, doesn’t mean they don’t still (in the case of her topic) have white privilege.  She also clarifies that it works in reverse and finishes her thought with off with: 

“...and having white privilege with other privileged identities adds to the amount of overall privilege that you hold.”

it’s this thought that brings me to my idea of the day: in my own personal experience, people on tumblr tend to forget that just because you are in possession of one form of privilege it does not mean you suddenly don’t still benefit from holding another. Layla uses white privilege as an example, but it goes in any direction.  If you’re straight and BIPOC, you still have straight privilege.  If you’re white, gay, and neurodivergent, you still have white privilege.  And I’d like to even take it a step farther, to incorporate a concept I’ll be discussing later: your experience does not define the experience of a person who is lacking a type of privilege. 

What I mean to say is: someone who is eastern asian is going to face an entirely different, albeit similar, kind of discrimination vs someone who is latinx or black.  If you’re of color, or if you’re gay, or if you’re transmasculine, you don’t get to speak for or over other people who have similar but different circumstances to your own.  Every voice matters and each voice ought to be given a chance to speak and add it’s opinion.  The experiences of someone who’s nonbinary are going to be completely different from the experiences of someone who’s binary trans.  Hell, even the experiences between lesbians and gay men are incredibly different:  minorities aren’t a monolith and treating them as such silences other voices.  You cannot decide just because you belong to a group that you get to speak for them. 

But that’s a different topic that I want to tackle in multiple different forms, because it goes in a lot of different ways.  What I mostly mean to do today is to clarify that when someone else who has lacks a privilege you have speaks to you - listen.  And I know it’s really fucking hard not to be like “oh yeah, I've been there dude, I’ve had xyz happen to me before so I get it” because it’s a way of empathizing, especially for neurodivergent people.  But you have to listen and you have to make sure that you’re not overfocusing the conversation back onto you.  A simple “I understand” is enough and if you don’t, as for clarification.  And if they don’t feel up to giving it, try to research yourself or ask if you can ask another time. 

Most importantly to all of this however is this: we have got to stop hiding behind our own lack of privilege as a way of excusing our shitty behavior.  If someone calls you out (or in, which I highly encourage over calling out because... people on tumblr don’t fucking know how to call people out in a productive fashion but I’ll get there trust me) you CANNOT say as a defense: oh, you can’t talk to me like that I’m neurodivergent.  Or if someone calls you out for being transphobic you can’t say “oh you can’t talk to me like that, I’m POC”.  Hell, if someone calls you out for being a fucking asshole, you don’t get to flip it around and be like “naw, you can’t say that, because I’m this that and another thing”.  You can clarify, especially if there’s a cultural difference or you’re neurodivergent, but you don’t get to hide behind shit. 

And you especially do not get to turn around and tell someone who’s calling you out for abusive behavior that they’re (racist, transphobic, homophobic, etc). They aren’t calling you out because of your identity, they’re calling you out because you’re a manipulative brat.  That doesn’t have to DO with those things.  Lack of privilege does not give you an excuse to be abusive.  End of conversation.  But... I suppose to end this conversation today, I’ll say this: CONFLICT IS NOT ABUSE, which is actually another book that I want to read and incorporate into these essays.  So I’m trying not to put the cart before the horse. 

Anyway, hopefully that clarifies at least a little bit the trend I’ve noticed of people forgetting that lacking one kind of privilege doesn’t magically mean they don’t have another.   The fact that you’re trans doesn’t exclude you from being racist,  your race doesn’t exclude you from being homophobic, and none of those things give you a right to be a jerk.  But they all do make it a little bit easier to understand when someone else comes to us with their own story of oppressions. 

Thanks for reading <3