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- She
Got all of them right except one! Woohoo! Will now incorporate it into a healthy lifestyle XD
Orderly (Worm Semi-SI)
- Thread starter Obscura
- Start date
- Superhero
- Location
- Attached to a wall
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I got three wrong.
12 + 10 +7 points = A prefect score, excuse me as I'm going to waste it all on the best thing in life
12 + 10 +7 points = A prefect score, excuse me as I'm going to waste it all on the best thing in life
At the next store that will accept arbitrary internet points
- Location
- The House of Moon and Star
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Try an arbitrary internet store. Just search "CYOA" and you'll find one eventually.At the next store that will accept arbitrary internet points
Good for you! Might I ask if it was one that was harder than the others? Or just a slip up? It's important for my examination creation bureau, they need the feedback.
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- She
Six, what is best in life. Obviously I chose hot water, good dentistry, and soft lavatory paper. Tortellini is nowhere near my top rankings for life stuff XD
- Location
- The House of Moon and Star
- Pronouns
- She/Her
You answered everything correctly, then. Stuff like that's the reason why "right" is in quotation marks, after all. Give yourself a cookie.
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- She
woo cookie!
23-3 Inharmonious
- Location
- The House of Moon and Star
- Pronouns
- She/Her
A/N: This chapter and the next contain non-detailed mentions of racial stereotyping, racist propaganda, dogwhistles, and a case of a canonical character canonically living down to them, as well as the Merchants in general. A Neo-nazi organisation, the Empire Eighty-Eight and it's use of these things is discussed briefly in this chapter and slightly more extensively in the next. Nothing explicit is described and the one example given is in extremely broad terms, and none of the above are depicted positively. Also, there'll be another post after this one talking about things more broadly.
So, the local loose mob of DARE rejects knew who I was. That wasn't exactly great news. At least some of them had demonstrated a complete disregard for the unwritten rules. That was worse. Perhaps it was ignorance. Drug addicts aren't exactly known for their keen grasp of current affairs, and the rules are a bit obscure. It's definitely plausible that they didn't actually know them. Unfortunately, whether or not they knew what they were doing didn't really matter.
They definitely knew my name, my face, and where I went to school. Two of those things hadn't changed. And they knew I was valuable, if not precisely why. All capes are, after all. On top of that, my would-be abductor claimed they knew a lot more, a claim we'd have to take seriously. Not because it was particularly credible in and of itself, but because if it was accurate and we acted like it wasn't that would not end well.
On a related note, it's kinda hard to breathe in the deepest depths of intergalactic space. Trust me on this, I have exactly zero experimental evidence. That's as much as top experts in the field. Take that, astronomers!
In all honesty, I have no idea what I have against astronomers, but it's got to be something. I have way too many traumatic incidents in my lives for it to not be related somehow.
Of course, at the meeting I couldn't distract myself with humourous tangents. Well, I could, but then I'd probably miss something, and that could get me killed. And I kinda like being alive. Not to mention the other dangers of not knowing.
Now there were a whole whackload of implications, possibilities and complications that naturally arose from all that Abductor Van Kidnapper had said and done. First of all, there was the possibility of some drugged up and/or strung out nincompoop deciding "if at first you don't succeed, try, try again."
Normally I'm somewhat ambivalent when it comes to that little turn of a phrase. It's nice enough, I guess, but it's no "Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more". Applied to most things, it's firmly cliched, but workable. Somehow, I was less sanguine about the idea of someone applying it to kidnapping, especially kidnapping me.
Ultimately, however, that was a relatively small concern in and of itself. Certainly not something to be complacent about, but a lone non-powered ganger was fairly unlikely to get past the security the PRT had on me. It's not like the Merchants have access to decent quality equipment (or even decently maintained equipment) or any sort of training beyond the security guard/bouncer level. And even that's something most of the ex-guards and ex-bouncers among them don't bother to share, or even remember, and most of the others don't bother to learn.
Turns out that recruiting exclusively from people addicted to hard drugs doesn't make for the best personnel quality, even if some of your lieutenants are rational enough to at least try for some semblance thereof. Who knew?
Much more concerning was the possibility of my new would-be abductors not being lone non-parahumans. The Merchants may have been the smallest and weakest of the big cape-led gangs of Brockton Bay (by a very wide margin, at that), but that still meant they were a big cape-led gang. Which, you know, means capes and manpower. Those were things they had. Not good capes or quality manpower, but even lousy capes are dangerous and quantity has a quality all of its own if you're not afraid of getting people killed.
Given that their primary source of income is selling drugs that are extremely unhealthy even with the quality control they sorely lack, and their habit of consuming vast quantities of said drugs, I think it's safe to say they're not afraid of getting people killed, even each other.
I think I've said it before, but their known capes were Skidmark, Squealer, and Mush.
Skidmark was their leader, or at least their boss. By all accounts he didn't provide much actual leadership per se. He was also basically a vaguely person-shaped mass of every single negative stereotype about urban African-Americans. Drug addicted, short-witted, foul-mouthed, thuggish, lazy, extremely slobbish, almost certainly involved in the sort of crime that even the other gangs look down on, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
Of course, most of that applied just as much to Squealer and Mush, both of whom were Caucasian, and to the rest of the gang (who come from all races, or at least all the races that actually have a presence in Brockton Bay), but that didn't stop people from focusing on the reprobate with a different skin colour than them. (Reprobates, really, but Skidmark's the main focus.) Or the E88 from using him for their propaganda efforts. A lot. Mostly word of mouth and online stuff, but there are actual posters in some parts of town harping on about the "Black Menace".
They don't say they're (neo-)nazi propaganda, obviously, and the "Black" is ostensibly not a race thing, but nobody's really fooled. Sadly, it's still enough to mean the BBPD doesn't do anything about them. Or maybe they just don't want to draw the ire of a massive and powerful extremist organisation. Normally I'd say something like "and who can blame them", but they're supposed to protect us and people are dying every day (and that's not nearly as hyperbolic as it should be) because of the groups they refuse to stand up to. Or maybe it's sympathisers within the police, or some combination thereof. But that's not immediately relevant. Deeply disturbing, in a great many ways, but not immediately relevant.
Skidmark's actual power is actually sort of impressive. He makes "zones" that accelerate anything they touch slightly in some (pre-set) direction, and he could layer them enough to turn random junk into what was basically artillery fire. Of course, that's the sort of ability that requires a lot of foresight and careful setup to use properly, and he isn't exactly known for either. So decent potential, by cape standards, meaning absolutely terrifying amounts of potential by sane standards, but none of the skill or proper mindset to actually bring that potential to bear. An extremely versatile Shaker power, but he mostly just acts like a cut-rate Blaster.
Mush is apparently a horrible little goblin. In both personality and appearance, if you believe the rumours, and I see no reason not to. I won't judge too much on the latter, but that grace does not apply to the former. He's a Changer, able to attach garbage to himself and make it act like part of him, something he uses to become a massive trash golem. Big and strong, but also slow and stupid, though the last apparently isn't a change. Hard to stop, easy to escape from, and not even very impressive in the areas he's good at. Not by cape standards, anyway.
He's also drug addicted, short-witted, foul-mouthed, thuggish, lazy, extremely slobbish, almost certainly involved in the sort of crime that even the other gangs look down on, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Even shorter-witted and lazier than his boss, actually, if the rumours are true, and with worse people skills. Which is saying something.
Squealer is the really dangerous one. For one, she's neither slow witted nor lazy, though she's still got all the other standard Merchant cape flaws. In fact, she's something of a savant, at least within her speciality. She's a vehicle Tinker, one with a habit of building massive and extremely dangerous armoured vehicles out of scrap and junk. Her "best" toys have the kind of speed, firepower, and ramshackle durability to seriously compete with tanks. Even without them, her lesser toys mean she contributes more presence and danger to the gang than both the others put together.
Not that that's saying much. Most of the capes in the city have more presence and danger to their name than Skidmark and Mush combined. Seriously, outside the Merchants the only ones with less fear of them than those two are those of us who don't participate in the fighting at all. Still, Squealer's solidly in the middle of the Brockton Bay "tier list".
The internet does concede that Uber and Leet are actually pretty good with that thing, aside from a tendency to inflate their own positions. Personally, I'm taking it as evidence they're smarter than they pretend to be, and could do much more productive things with their lives. Instead of squandering all the potential good they could good do for the human race like the vast majority of capes.
"Jacqueline!"
"Are you okay, Jacqueline?"
I was alive, anyway, and physically unharmed. That was close enough for the moment. I tried to tell Alice as much.
"M'okay"
Turns out there's a reason why adults tell you to finish getting yourself back in the game before you start talking. Though she didn't comment on it.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have just laid it out like that. You don't have to be here if it's too much."
Couldn't have that. I needed to know, even if what it was I was learning was terrible. If I didn't know exactly what the danger was I couldn't do anything about it, couldn't be sure I was doing the right thing about it, and I needed to do everything I could to stay alive, or I wouldn't be. So I shook my head and did my best to look determined, despite everything.
I probably looked like a terrified little chipmunk, too scared to move.
"The most pressing question is where this 'Leggy Joe' acquired this information."
And that little question was the really scary part.
Though it was somewhat undone by Stone yelling: "Armsmaster!" indignantly. Probably for the best. Somehow, that really cut the tension. Enough so I could start breathing again, anyway.
So, the local loose mob of DARE rejects knew who I was. That wasn't exactly great news. At least some of them had demonstrated a complete disregard for the unwritten rules. That was worse. Perhaps it was ignorance. Drug addicts aren't exactly known for their keen grasp of current affairs, and the rules are a bit obscure. It's definitely plausible that they didn't actually know them. Unfortunately, whether or not they knew what they were doing didn't really matter.
They definitely knew my name, my face, and where I went to school. Two of those things hadn't changed. And they knew I was valuable, if not precisely why. All capes are, after all. On top of that, my would-be abductor claimed they knew a lot more, a claim we'd have to take seriously. Not because it was particularly credible in and of itself, but because if it was accurate and we acted like it wasn't that would not end well.
On a related note, it's kinda hard to breathe in the deepest depths of intergalactic space. Trust me on this, I have exactly zero experimental evidence. That's as much as top experts in the field. Take that, astronomers!
In all honesty, I have no idea what I have against astronomers, but it's got to be something. I have way too many traumatic incidents in my lives for it to not be related somehow.
Of course, at the meeting I couldn't distract myself with humourous tangents. Well, I could, but then I'd probably miss something, and that could get me killed. And I kinda like being alive. Not to mention the other dangers of not knowing.
Now there were a whole whackload of implications, possibilities and complications that naturally arose from all that Abductor Van Kidnapper had said and done. First of all, there was the possibility of some drugged up and/or strung out nincompoop deciding "if at first you don't succeed, try, try again."
Normally I'm somewhat ambivalent when it comes to that little turn of a phrase. It's nice enough, I guess, but it's no "Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more". Applied to most things, it's firmly cliched, but workable. Somehow, I was less sanguine about the idea of someone applying it to kidnapping, especially kidnapping me.
Ultimately, however, that was a relatively small concern in and of itself. Certainly not something to be complacent about, but a lone non-powered ganger was fairly unlikely to get past the security the PRT had on me. It's not like the Merchants have access to decent quality equipment (or even decently maintained equipment) or any sort of training beyond the security guard/bouncer level. And even that's something most of the ex-guards and ex-bouncers among them don't bother to share, or even remember, and most of the others don't bother to learn.
Turns out that recruiting exclusively from people addicted to hard drugs doesn't make for the best personnel quality, even if some of your lieutenants are rational enough to at least try for some semblance thereof. Who knew?
Much more concerning was the possibility of my new would-be abductors not being lone non-parahumans. The Merchants may have been the smallest and weakest of the big cape-led gangs of Brockton Bay (by a very wide margin, at that), but that still meant they were a big cape-led gang. Which, you know, means capes and manpower. Those were things they had. Not good capes or quality manpower, but even lousy capes are dangerous and quantity has a quality all of its own if you're not afraid of getting people killed.
Given that their primary source of income is selling drugs that are extremely unhealthy even with the quality control they sorely lack, and their habit of consuming vast quantities of said drugs, I think it's safe to say they're not afraid of getting people killed, even each other.
I think I've said it before, but their known capes were Skidmark, Squealer, and Mush.
Skidmark was their leader, or at least their boss. By all accounts he didn't provide much actual leadership per se. He was also basically a vaguely person-shaped mass of every single negative stereotype about urban African-Americans. Drug addicted, short-witted, foul-mouthed, thuggish, lazy, extremely slobbish, almost certainly involved in the sort of crime that even the other gangs look down on, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
Of course, most of that applied just as much to Squealer and Mush, both of whom were Caucasian, and to the rest of the gang (who come from all races, or at least all the races that actually have a presence in Brockton Bay), but that didn't stop people from focusing on the reprobate with a different skin colour than them. (Reprobates, really, but Skidmark's the main focus.) Or the E88 from using him for their propaganda efforts. A lot. Mostly word of mouth and online stuff, but there are actual posters in some parts of town harping on about the "Black Menace".
They don't say they're (neo-)nazi propaganda, obviously, and the "Black" is ostensibly not a race thing, but nobody's really fooled. Sadly, it's still enough to mean the BBPD doesn't do anything about them. Or maybe they just don't want to draw the ire of a massive and powerful extremist organisation. Normally I'd say something like "and who can blame them", but they're supposed to protect us and people are dying every day (and that's not nearly as hyperbolic as it should be) because of the groups they refuse to stand up to. Or maybe it's sympathisers within the police, or some combination thereof. But that's not immediately relevant. Deeply disturbing, in a great many ways, but not immediately relevant.
Skidmark's actual power is actually sort of impressive. He makes "zones" that accelerate anything they touch slightly in some (pre-set) direction, and he could layer them enough to turn random junk into what was basically artillery fire. Of course, that's the sort of ability that requires a lot of foresight and careful setup to use properly, and he isn't exactly known for either. So decent potential, by cape standards, meaning absolutely terrifying amounts of potential by sane standards, but none of the skill or proper mindset to actually bring that potential to bear. An extremely versatile Shaker power, but he mostly just acts like a cut-rate Blaster.
Mush is apparently a horrible little goblin. In both personality and appearance, if you believe the rumours, and I see no reason not to. I won't judge too much on the latter, but that grace does not apply to the former. He's a Changer, able to attach garbage to himself and make it act like part of him, something he uses to become a massive trash golem. Big and strong, but also slow and stupid, though the last apparently isn't a change. Hard to stop, easy to escape from, and not even very impressive in the areas he's good at. Not by cape standards, anyway.
He's also drug addicted, short-witted, foul-mouthed, thuggish, lazy, extremely slobbish, almost certainly involved in the sort of crime that even the other gangs look down on, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Even shorter-witted and lazier than his boss, actually, if the rumours are true, and with worse people skills. Which is saying something.
Squealer is the really dangerous one. For one, she's neither slow witted nor lazy, though she's still got all the other standard Merchant cape flaws. In fact, she's something of a savant, at least within her speciality. She's a vehicle Tinker, one with a habit of building massive and extremely dangerous armoured vehicles out of scrap and junk. Her "best" toys have the kind of speed, firepower, and ramshackle durability to seriously compete with tanks. Even without them, her lesser toys mean she contributes more presence and danger to the gang than both the others put together.
Not that that's saying much. Most of the capes in the city have more presence and danger to their name than Skidmark and Mush combined. Seriously, outside the Merchants the only ones with less fear of them than those two are those of us who don't participate in the fighting at all. Still, Squealer's solidly in the middle of the Brockton Bay "tier list".
The internet does concede that Uber and Leet are actually pretty good with that thing, aside from a tendency to inflate their own positions. Personally, I'm taking it as evidence they're smarter than they pretend to be, and could do much more productive things with their lives. Instead of squandering all the potential good they could good do for the human race like the vast majority of capes.
"Jacqueline!"
"Are you okay, Jacqueline?"
I was alive, anyway, and physically unharmed. That was close enough for the moment. I tried to tell Alice as much.
"M'okay"
Turns out there's a reason why adults tell you to finish getting yourself back in the game before you start talking. Though she didn't comment on it.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have just laid it out like that. You don't have to be here if it's too much."
Couldn't have that. I needed to know, even if what it was I was learning was terrible. If I didn't know exactly what the danger was I couldn't do anything about it, couldn't be sure I was doing the right thing about it, and I needed to do everything I could to stay alive, or I wouldn't be. So I shook my head and did my best to look determined, despite everything.
I probably looked like a terrified little chipmunk, too scared to move.
"The most pressing question is where this 'Leggy Joe' acquired this information."
And that little question was the really scary part.
Though it was somewhat undone by Stone yelling: "Armsmaster!" indignantly. Probably for the best. Somehow, that really cut the tension. Enough so I could start breathing again, anyway.
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Racial Sensitivity and Worm
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- The House of Moon and Star
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- She/Her
Ah, yes. Skidmark. Frankly, from my understanding, "basically a vaguely person-shaped mass of every single negative stereotype about urban African-Americans" is entirely accurate about canon Skidmark. And the more I think about him, the more I become aware of a problem in Worm: Every single African-American parahuman in the story is either a supervillain or a "hero" who makes some of the supervillains look good in comparison.
Skidmark is, as mentioned, effectively a non-ironic stereotype played either for laughs or drama at different parts of the story.
Coil is probably the most hateable and vile character in the story, even if in some ways he's quite the opposite of the "normal" stereotypes. The Dinah and Lisa stuff is especially problematic. That was good "bad-guy" stuff when he was assumed to be white, but with Wildbow's word of god on the matter it's acquired some rather unfortunate racial implications.
Canon-Sophia feeds right into the classic "black people are animals" stereotype in a way that gets more uncomfortable the more I look at it.
Brian would be a fine, balanced character, in a racial vacuum, but he's still deeply flawed and an undeniable violent criminal, so it's worrying that he's the most positive and responsible African-American character in the story. By a fairly wide margin.
Aisha is weird to talk about in this regard. She fits a lot of stereotypes, but some of that's circumstances and some of it may be deliberately playing into them on her part. If she was handled sensitively in that regard, I suspect she could be fine, but as far as I know she wasn't.
Of course, very few characters come off looking good in Worm. Still, it's troubling that three of the very worst have this one thing in common, especially since they're three that have no "for the greater good" justification to them.
So how am I going to handle it? For starters, I'd like to note I'm hardly perfect on this or anything else. There will likely still be issues. Don't be afraid to call me on them.
You've seen Sophia, and I'm pretty much stuck with that by now. Skidmark's going to be bad, as in canon, but with way less emphasis on him specifically being the problem and on him in general in regards to the Merchants, and some stuff about how the Empire is using his bad example to their benefit. Brian will learn his lesson about how crime hurts people and become more responsible, though I'm not sure about the details. Aisha may or may not show up, but if she does I'll try to handle her well.
And for Coil, I'm thinking of just ignoring the Word of God on him. As far as I can tell it just adds a bunch of problems and no actual storytelling benefits. I'll have to go back and change at least one line if I do that, but I go back and fix typos and spacing issues all the time anyway.
And I should probably add some more African-American characters, positive ones.
There's also even more racial issues, such as the ABB, but that's not for this post.
Edited: Grammar
Skidmark is, as mentioned, effectively a non-ironic stereotype played either for laughs or drama at different parts of the story.
Coil is probably the most hateable and vile character in the story, even if in some ways he's quite the opposite of the "normal" stereotypes. The Dinah and Lisa stuff is especially problematic. That was good "bad-guy" stuff when he was assumed to be white, but with Wildbow's word of god on the matter it's acquired some rather unfortunate racial implications.
Canon-Sophia feeds right into the classic "black people are animals" stereotype in a way that gets more uncomfortable the more I look at it.
Brian would be a fine, balanced character, in a racial vacuum, but he's still deeply flawed and an undeniable violent criminal, so it's worrying that he's the most positive and responsible African-American character in the story. By a fairly wide margin.
Aisha is weird to talk about in this regard. She fits a lot of stereotypes, but some of that's circumstances and some of it may be deliberately playing into them on her part. If she was handled sensitively in that regard, I suspect she could be fine, but as far as I know she wasn't.
Of course, very few characters come off looking good in Worm. Still, it's troubling that three of the very worst have this one thing in common, especially since they're three that have no "for the greater good" justification to them.
So how am I going to handle it? For starters, I'd like to note I'm hardly perfect on this or anything else. There will likely still be issues. Don't be afraid to call me on them.
You've seen Sophia, and I'm pretty much stuck with that by now. Skidmark's going to be bad, as in canon, but with way less emphasis on him specifically being the problem and on him in general in regards to the Merchants, and some stuff about how the Empire is using his bad example to their benefit. Brian will learn his lesson about how crime hurts people and become more responsible, though I'm not sure about the details. Aisha may or may not show up, but if she does I'll try to handle her well.
And for Coil, I'm thinking of just ignoring the Word of God on him. As far as I can tell it just adds a bunch of problems and no actual storytelling benefits. I'll have to go back and change at least one line if I do that, but I go back and fix typos and spacing issues all the time anyway.
And I should probably add some more African-American characters, positive ones.
There's also even more racial issues, such as the ABB, but that's not for this post.
Edited: Grammar
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Thank you for trying to tackle this issue. I know its one of those things that we often slide by, just so that we can enjoy the story/fanfic, but I do think your readers will really appreciate the fact that you are trying to do some things about this. Worm has plenty of problems, and I am kind of glad you are taking some time to at least sand down the worst edges here.
- Location
- The House of Moon and Star
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Thanks for the reassurance. I think, with what I've noticed, trying to do better is the least I can do. Do you have any suggestions, or opinions on the specifics of what I've laid out? In particular, I'd really to know what you think about ignoring the WOG on Coil and how I intend to handle Skidmark.
Honestly, ignoring the WOG on coil seems like the right call. Him being black really doesn't add anything to the storytelling, so I think that is the correct choice.
As for skidmark, I don't think there is much you can do... without just altering a lot of things and making this an AU. I don't like the idea of one of the gangs being neo-nazis and another gang just happening to fulfill all the worse racial stereotypes of african-americans. I think your plan of making it more about the merchants, rather than just skidmark has a lot of merit, and it also makes sense that the Empire would use his bad example.
However, I would perhaps go a bit further, and perhaps make Skidmark's continued leadership a result of some Empire scheme. You could have Kaiser comment about how allfather shaped the bay so that they had the 'correct' enemies. That meant getting rid of polite types like the Marquis, and making sure any other enemies were not white and fit certain racial stereotypes. So he let the Merchants stick around as soon as they got a black leader (skidmark) who fit the terrible racial stereotypes and it makes it seem like they were trying to do something similar with the ABB, before Lung came along and illustrated why it wouldn't be that easy.
It would make the empire slightly more scheming, but it would explain a bit of the racial issues of the setting. Skidmark is no longer just a guy who happens to fit all the worst stereotypes, but is explicitly the first guy that fit those stereotypes that the Empire decided to keep around to serve as the terrible Counterexample to the Empire. It would also make the whole situation with the Merchants make more sense, as it always seems like they are this weird third wheel to keep surviving the larger war between the ABB and the Empire. This way, its at least easily explainable why the Empire wouldn't attack them.
Ultimately, I do like your plan for skidmark, as it helps to lean away from the worst racial implications that are being made with Skidmark as a character. I think you could go a little bit further (per my suggestion), but what you've stated is also pretty good, as it at least shows some awareness of the actual implications of these character choices, without glorifying the racism in any way.
Tbh I feel like ignoring the WoG on Coil is the wrong move, especially since he isn't a huge racial stereotype in how he is as a criminal, I think it is actually a technically positive thing that he's black, as ignoring it and making him white kinda feels like reinforcing the black stereotypes, since its saying he can't be black, he's not a stereotype
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- They/Any
As someone else who's noticed and been made deeply uncomfortable by Wildbow's handling of race in general and of Black characters specifically, thank you for addressing the elephant in the room! Yes, most of the characters in the Wormverse are awful in some respect, but the dearth of even mostly-heroic POC characters is really galling. (I've got... Carlos, Lily, maybe Sabah, and possibly Hannah, if you take Taylor's viewpoint at its word. That's one Hispanic, one Asian-American, and two Middle Eastern.)
The WOG on Coil is so unnecessary to anything except to provide yet another Black villain - and while he's not an amalgamation of the most common tropes, like Skidmark, the scheming spider at the center of the web working to destabilize the (majority-White) power structure, who has sadistic tendencies and kidnaps little girls? Still definite racist overtones to that one, and "Oh, this Black guy is a villain in a New And Interesting Way!" is not a win for representation.
As for Skidmark... honestly, yeah, the Merchants are, afaik, a racially-diverse group whose affiliation is about drug use and dealing, Skidmark is the cape who's been part of it longest, and the one whose power requires the least preparation or ramp-up time. That makes sense as a 'leader' or figurehead type, I guess - or at least the one who can respond immediately to sudden rebellion from within the ranks. Letting him take a bit of a backseat plotwise and allowing other members of the gang to take center stage in this story is perfectly legitimate, imo.
Basically, there's a limit to how far (and how plausibly) you can stretch canon, but those changes are pretty easy to make and serve a specific purpose. And that purpose - making the cast and characterizations less overtly racist, and acknowledging that racism where it still exists - is a really vital one, so kudos for making the attempt and being open about it.
- Location
- The House of Moon and Star
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The thing is, Coil in the story itself is primarily defined by his predatory behaviour towards Lisa and Dinah, both of whom are pretty white girls. Then Wildbow went and made him black, feeding right into the old racist myth of every african american male being a predatory threat to white women. When he was assumed to be white, his behaviour, while clearly horrible, was not an apparently unironic use of an extremely charged stereotype. One with a long history of use by groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and of being used as "justification" for lynch mobs. Not to mention the fact that he's not "merely" a criminal, he's a firm contender for the single most despicable character in the entire story.
Wildbow's WOG not only has all the usual problems of retroactively proclaiming a character to be a minority member with no indication of such in the story, it also plays into some very dangerous racist propaganda and greatly exacerbates the generally negative treatment of African-American characters in Worm. And it doesn't seem to add anything to the story.
Including more characters of underrepresented ethnicities and minorities is generally a good thing, but retroactively making a character that fits an extremely problematic stereotype about a group and is just absurdly vile in general a member of said group is not the way to handle it.
And I'm aware that making him White would not automatically make him not a stereotype. In fact, he fits a lot of cliche character beats no matter what his race is, and some of them are problematic in and of themselves, though to nowhere near the same degree. It just means that that particular stereotype would no longer apply, and it would make the presentation of African Americans somewhat less ridiculously negative.
Edited: Grammar
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- Location
- The House of Moon and Star
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I've kinda preempted myself here, but yeah, it does look this way. There's a lot of issues and I'm still not seeing any actual benefits.
This involves going a bit deeper into the Empire's thought processes than I'd really like, though it's not any schemier than I was already planning on making them. To be honest, I don't think literal nazis would have as good PR as they do without a lot of scheminess and propaganda efforts. I was already planning on giving the Empire a reason not to wipe out the Merchants, and it's basically the one you described. What you've got with the ABB won't work though, because it's already established in Orderly that they essentially didn't exist prior to Lung forcing a bunch of distinct ethnicities and nationalities into a single vaguely cohesive whole. I was aware of that little race screw up, and already tried to mitigate it.
It makes sense, yeah. It works just fine as an explanation, though I'm not sure how I'm going to express it without going too deep into their thought process. And I don't think I could handle that well.
Thanks for the support and the suggestions, both of you. I really appreciate it.
The thing about this is while yes he is predatory to young white girls, he is still a stereotypical *white man* villain, and by making him black it is actually a healthy thing, as he is a rich high society villain, and black people are never rich high society villains, they're always low class scum villains, so this is still a good thing, while Wildbow does have a lot of problems, this particular thing isn't actually a bad thing, the big issue of *all the black people are villains* is simply EVERYONE is a villain theres like, 3 people who aren't really villains or awful people in all of worm, and some of the least awful people are black(Brian and aisha, are imo some of the healthiest people in all of worm, despite, or possibly because, of the stereotypes they play into) the best way imo to fix the racial issues is to instead just make more people who are actively good who are black, not make coil white, as it just comes off as whitewashing to me
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It does provide slightly better representation in terms of high society characters, I'll concede, I'm just not convinced it's worth it. Thing is, while almost every character has issues in Worm, African American ones tend to come off far worse. Skidmark and Shadow Stalker both fit extremely neatly into very charged stereotypes without a hint of irony, and Coil post WOG does the same: even with his money and intelligence he's still falling exactly into classic "where da white women at" racist propaganda. Meanwhile, making him white or leaving it unspecified only makes him an overused cliche.
Brian is indeed a character who'd be fine on his own. He's definitely flawed, but not in an especially racially charged way, and on his own he's not really a racist cariacature. There's a reason I'm not changing him that much. It's only problematic that he's by far the most positively depicted African American character. Aisha could be someone who just doesn't care about feeding into stereotypes and, if that was actually explored and well handled, it could be quite interesting. But, as far as I know, it really isn't.
Meanwhile, literally all the other African American characters are some of the most despicable in the story (yes, everybody is some degree of bad, but some are definitely worse than others), have essentially no positive traits, and have the cores of their characterisation be almost exact copies of racist stereotypes. Putting in more positive African American characters is definitely necessary, but that doesn't make it sufficient. I really think you're downplaying the issue here.
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Huh,
This made me realize why I have such an hard time picturing Coil as being black.
He didn't register to me as a 'taking all our girls' type, because usually I imagine that stereotype as charming adolescent guys wooing girls to join them in their activities, "which is bad" because those guys make the girls choose for guys that aren't them. So picture the ABB loverboys charming girls.
And the politically important pedophile stereotype conflicts with the charming other race dudes seducing girls into debauchery in my head.
Politically important pedophile are usually middle aged white men, who have squired important positions in the community, like priesthood.
And the fact that he's politically manipulative made me picture him with teeth that were too white and hair. that has been treated with the bleach left over after whitening his teeth.
So the easiest description for how I pictured Calvert was Trump, but middle aged, healthier and without a spray tan.
This probably still says bad things about me, but y'know better to know my own flaws and all.
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Well, I'd say it means you've mostly gotten your impression of the matter from the news. I'm not sure if that's bad per se. Definitely not conducive to investigating the topic, but you're not exactly required to.
I will note that the "charming adolescent guys wooing girls to join them in their activities" version of the "they're going to take our women" is the somewhat less charged, less overtly bigoted version of the racist myth. That's not the version Post-WOG Coil plays into.
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Could still be bad; socially isolated and only informed through news and media with too little human interaction to know about the goings on within a society.
Gets me a bit nervous at the very least. What if I'm hallucinating society?
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Well, that's been going around these past few years. Though I can't say human interaction has helped me much in terms of my knowledge about sexual predators. Or non-sexual predators.
Then you have an extremely vivid and deeply warped imagination, making you perfect for writing fanfiction.
23-4 Incitation
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A/N: All the warnings about the previous chapter in it's foreword apply to this one, and after some revision and consideration, will apply to the next one.
I listened carefully to the ensuing discussion, not quite ignoring Alice Stone's efforts to comfort me. Long story short, we had a problem.
There were three ways the Merchants could have gotten the information, none of them good.
The first possibility was that somebody had gotten careless. Sloppy security happens, and the PRT doesn't have the budget or the specialised teams to make sure nothing ever leaks. Not for a not-particularly-important local branch, anyway. This way was probably the least problematic, since sloppiness can be addressed, at least to a degree. Heads would roll, but only metaphorically. Unfortunately, it was also the least likely. Because if it happened, why would a Merchant of all people be the one to benefit? Still, it was what I was personally hoping for.
It just wasn't very likely.
The second possibility was that the Merchants, or at least one of them, were/was a lot more competent than they wanted people to think. Now an entire operation of people who can be entirely competent while consuming massive amounts of drugs, or at least convincingly pretending to, is rather unlikely, even by parahuman standards. Not impossible, but it'd be a lot of effort for deeply unclear rewards. Sure there was at least one known case of a Tinker creating drugs that improved cognitive functioning, but that was way outside Squealer's specialty.
On the other hand, somebody joining up while keeping a clear head and then using them to their own ends was disturbingly plausible. "Leggy Joe" might be manipulating his fellows, being manipulated, or both.
The "being manipulated" option led to the third possibility, the one most of us felt was the most likely: somebody else gave them the information. If the "one Merchant is manipulating the others" theory was correct, that manipulator being tied to somebody else would explain how they got the information. The other possibility, that they were just that good a manipulator, was significantly less likely, though not impossible. It would pretty much require an espionage genius and/or a decently powerful Thinker, and those are both pretty rare. And those who do exist usually have better things to do with their lives. Better for them, anyway, given the number of villainous Thinkers.
If it was an outside source, it was probably done in the hopes that their unwitting dupes would try exactly what little (brained) Bilious Ewart did.
Whether that meant "kidnapping a valuable new cape" or "drawing the ire of the PRT" was unclear. Although, really, the gang just wasn't capable of doing the former without doing the latter. Or, of course, it might have been meant to kill me. Whoever it was wouldn't even have to convince the Merchants to do it on purpose; they were fully capable of doing so accidentally. Or, of course, an "accident" could be arranged once they had me. And, because of their incompetence, it'd be entirely believable, if we didn't already know there was more to the story.
Not that such would reduce the PRT's righteous fury at such an event, or reduce the charges in any way, but it would probably stop them looking further than the Merchants themselves. If, once again, Ewart hadn't blabbed and gotten us all suspicious like.
Thankfully, my gang-based threats so far seem to be rather bad at keeping their mouths shut, but that's a trend that can't carry on forever. Hopefully that'll be because they'll stop entirely, but that's not very likely either. Like most things I hope for, really. I dream big.
"Hoping to not be in danger someday soon" counts as dreaming big, right?
Two (extant) groups were known to have infiltrated the PRT's ENE branch before: The Empire Eighty Eight and Coil's nameless organisation. Naturally, that meant they were the prime suspects, especially since I fit both of their known victim profiles: the Empire was known to target minorities and new capes, while both of Coil's known Mastering victims were girls roughly my age when they were grabbed, one of whom also had powers. And, apparently, he'd tried again on another girl during the robbery, this one also with powers. No names were mentioned, aside from his, but it was nonetheless a trend.
If it was Coil, he probably wanted to get his creepy, latex covered hands on me. The methods fit the non-Mastering parts of his modus operandi: mysterious, hard to trace, and unprovable, with heavy use of understanding the criminal and law enforcement elements of the city. He'd used the PRT's precise limits and boundaries against them in several of his (mercenaries') actions, and taken heavy advantage of the other gangs' rivalries in order to claim his territory.
If it was him, the only reason we'd suspect him was because we were already predisposed to do so because of his previous victims, something he had no way of knowing we knew about. Hopefully.
Meanwhile, the Empire had been really careful around PR and the Unwritten Rules ever since their little brush with breaking them a while back. Official story is, after New Wave made their identities public, some little wannabe-genocider got it into his head to get a little payback for the trouble the newly open capes had given the hate group he so looked up to over the years. So he broke into one of their houses at night and shot "Fleur" in the head, without any authorization or orders from the Empire proper.
Can't be disproven, might even be true. The fool probably was impulsive enough, and the Empire has a habit of drawing that kind of useful idiot into their orbit. On the other hand, Kaiser is definitely the kind of person who would have thrown the killer kid to the wolves and deny all responsibility to preserve his own power even if he'd forced him into it by threatening his family.
Of course, said "wolves" then neglected to try him as an adult, and he got out and joined in fairly short order, probably because he was well off, white, and physically attractive. Which just goes to show that even if the Empire wasn't behind it in the first place they weren't all that upset about it. Still, the backlash against the E88 (from the cape community, not the courts) hindered them for some time, even with a lot of capes considering it fair play given how New Wave had hit Marquis in his civilian identity.
The Nazis got off far too easy, in my opinion, (not that anybody asked me,) but they were smart enough to know it was a close call. Ever since, they've been very enthusiastic about pushing blame away from themselves and onto various minorities, as a combination of distraction, "justification", and rallying point.
And the Merchants were the perfect scapegoat. Loathed and feared in equal measure, mostly associated with African Americans in the eyes of the public because of Skidmark and the E88 alike (despite their actual racial composition), and depraved enough to actually do it. It was entirely believable, especially if it was true. If it was the Empire, it was a stroke of (incredibly evil) genius.
Firstly, it'd rid them of a nuisance. The Merchants were no actual threat to the skinheads, but that didn't stop them from trying from time to time, and they could do some real damage with Squealer's monstrosities. More importantly, it could be twisted into a massive rallying point for them, serve as a distraction, and reduce the stain of Fleur by covering it with a more recent atrocity. Sure the Merchants did all that just by existing, but them attempting to kidnap a Ward would blow that up massively.
And it would let them get rid of me.
After all, just like I'd said way, way back, merely acting as a healer would undermine the Empire's message, and striking me down would just make them look worse. What I'd failed to realise was that the latter only applied if it was them being seen doing the striking. If somebody else did it, especially if that "somebody else" was thought of as a minority member, the bigots would likely get off scot-free.
And the only evidence we had towards either the Empire or Coil was "Cui Bono" and some general patterns of behaviour. And it could still be some totally unknown party. Or some totally unknown party working with either of the above. Or the Empire and Coil working together. Coil could be Empire, a deniable black-ops spinoff, or the Empire could be Coil's pawns, or either could be behind the Merchants, or both could be backing the Merchants, or any number of possibilities, most of them not good in so many not-good ways.
Yikes.
Yeah, meetings suck.
I listened carefully to the ensuing discussion, not quite ignoring Alice Stone's efforts to comfort me. Long story short, we had a problem.
There were three ways the Merchants could have gotten the information, none of them good.
The first possibility was that somebody had gotten careless. Sloppy security happens, and the PRT doesn't have the budget or the specialised teams to make sure nothing ever leaks. Not for a not-particularly-important local branch, anyway. This way was probably the least problematic, since sloppiness can be addressed, at least to a degree. Heads would roll, but only metaphorically. Unfortunately, it was also the least likely. Because if it happened, why would a Merchant of all people be the one to benefit? Still, it was what I was personally hoping for.
It just wasn't very likely.
The second possibility was that the Merchants, or at least one of them, were/was a lot more competent than they wanted people to think. Now an entire operation of people who can be entirely competent while consuming massive amounts of drugs, or at least convincingly pretending to, is rather unlikely, even by parahuman standards. Not impossible, but it'd be a lot of effort for deeply unclear rewards. Sure there was at least one known case of a Tinker creating drugs that improved cognitive functioning, but that was way outside Squealer's specialty.
On the other hand, somebody joining up while keeping a clear head and then using them to their own ends was disturbingly plausible. "Leggy Joe" might be manipulating his fellows, being manipulated, or both.
The "being manipulated" option led to the third possibility, the one most of us felt was the most likely: somebody else gave them the information. If the "one Merchant is manipulating the others" theory was correct, that manipulator being tied to somebody else would explain how they got the information. The other possibility, that they were just that good a manipulator, was significantly less likely, though not impossible. It would pretty much require an espionage genius and/or a decently powerful Thinker, and those are both pretty rare. And those who do exist usually have better things to do with their lives. Better for them, anyway, given the number of villainous Thinkers.
If it was an outside source, it was probably done in the hopes that their unwitting dupes would try exactly what little (brained) Bilious Ewart did.
Whether that meant "kidnapping a valuable new cape" or "drawing the ire of the PRT" was unclear. Although, really, the gang just wasn't capable of doing the former without doing the latter. Or, of course, it might have been meant to kill me. Whoever it was wouldn't even have to convince the Merchants to do it on purpose; they were fully capable of doing so accidentally. Or, of course, an "accident" could be arranged once they had me. And, because of their incompetence, it'd be entirely believable, if we didn't already know there was more to the story.
Not that such would reduce the PRT's righteous fury at such an event, or reduce the charges in any way, but it would probably stop them looking further than the Merchants themselves. If, once again, Ewart hadn't blabbed and gotten us all suspicious like.
Thankfully, my gang-based threats so far seem to be rather bad at keeping their mouths shut, but that's a trend that can't carry on forever. Hopefully that'll be because they'll stop entirely, but that's not very likely either. Like most things I hope for, really. I dream big.
"Hoping to not be in danger someday soon" counts as dreaming big, right?
Two (extant) groups were known to have infiltrated the PRT's ENE branch before: The Empire Eighty Eight and Coil's nameless organisation. Naturally, that meant they were the prime suspects, especially since I fit both of their known victim profiles: the Empire was known to target minorities and new capes, while both of Coil's known Mastering victims were girls roughly my age when they were grabbed, one of whom also had powers. And, apparently, he'd tried again on another girl during the robbery, this one also with powers. No names were mentioned, aside from his, but it was nonetheless a trend.
If it was Coil, he probably wanted to get his creepy, latex covered hands on me. The methods fit the non-Mastering parts of his modus operandi: mysterious, hard to trace, and unprovable, with heavy use of understanding the criminal and law enforcement elements of the city. He'd used the PRT's precise limits and boundaries against them in several of his (mercenaries') actions, and taken heavy advantage of the other gangs' rivalries in order to claim his territory.
If it was him, the only reason we'd suspect him was because we were already predisposed to do so because of his previous victims, something he had no way of knowing we knew about. Hopefully.
Meanwhile, the Empire had been really careful around PR and the Unwritten Rules ever since their little brush with breaking them a while back. Official story is, after New Wave made their identities public, some little wannabe-genocider got it into his head to get a little payback for the trouble the newly open capes had given the hate group he so looked up to over the years. So he broke into one of their houses at night and shot "Fleur" in the head, without any authorization or orders from the Empire proper.
Can't be disproven, might even be true. The fool probably was impulsive enough, and the Empire has a habit of drawing that kind of useful idiot into their orbit. On the other hand, Kaiser is definitely the kind of person who would have thrown the killer kid to the wolves and deny all responsibility to preserve his own power even if he'd forced him into it by threatening his family.
Of course, said "wolves" then neglected to try him as an adult, and he got out and joined in fairly short order, probably because he was well off, white, and physically attractive. Which just goes to show that even if the Empire wasn't behind it in the first place they weren't all that upset about it. Still, the backlash against the E88 (from the cape community, not the courts) hindered them for some time, even with a lot of capes considering it fair play given how New Wave had hit Marquis in his civilian identity.
The Nazis got off far too easy, in my opinion, (not that anybody asked me,) but they were smart enough to know it was a close call. Ever since, they've been very enthusiastic about pushing blame away from themselves and onto various minorities, as a combination of distraction, "justification", and rallying point.
And the Merchants were the perfect scapegoat. Loathed and feared in equal measure, mostly associated with African Americans in the eyes of the public because of Skidmark and the E88 alike (despite their actual racial composition), and depraved enough to actually do it. It was entirely believable, especially if it was true. If it was the Empire, it was a stroke of (incredibly evil) genius.
Firstly, it'd rid them of a nuisance. The Merchants were no actual threat to the skinheads, but that didn't stop them from trying from time to time, and they could do some real damage with Squealer's monstrosities. More importantly, it could be twisted into a massive rallying point for them, serve as a distraction, and reduce the stain of Fleur by covering it with a more recent atrocity. Sure the Merchants did all that just by existing, but them attempting to kidnap a Ward would blow that up massively.
And it would let them get rid of me.
After all, just like I'd said way, way back, merely acting as a healer would undermine the Empire's message, and striking me down would just make them look worse. What I'd failed to realise was that the latter only applied if it was them being seen doing the striking. If somebody else did it, especially if that "somebody else" was thought of as a minority member, the bigots would likely get off scot-free.
And the only evidence we had towards either the Empire or Coil was "Cui Bono" and some general patterns of behaviour. And it could still be some totally unknown party. Or some totally unknown party working with either of the above. Or the Empire and Coil working together. Coil could be Empire, a deniable black-ops spinoff, or the Empire could be Coil's pawns, or either could be behind the Merchants, or both could be backing the Merchants, or any number of possibilities, most of them not good in so many not-good ways.
Yikes.
Yeah, meetings suck.
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This, being Brockton 'hoping to not be in danger for a day anytime in my life' is already a big ask for any minority that is not an ABB male or Coil.
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It's not exactly safe for ABB members, either. They are gang members in a city constantly in a state of gang conflict. But yeah, that's the tragic thing about Earth Bet, even basic safety is dreaming big.
Coil Retcon.
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As discussed in a few previous posts, I've decided to remove a line indicating that Coil is African-American (as per Wildbow's retcon) from the story.
Including more characters of underrepresented ethnicities and minorities is generally a good thing, but retroactively making a character that fits an extremely problematic stereotype about a group and is just absurdly vile in general a member of said group is not the way to handle it, especially when the rest of the story is in itself deeply problematic in how it handles said group. I've discussed this in previous posts, at least one of which I'm thinking of marking as informational itself with a few edits for clarity and context.
If you're curious, the offending line was in 6-1, and went at the end of the 19th paragraph. "Gotta give the guy points though, getting to be an African-American multi-millionaire and highly successful businessman in the same city as the Empire couldn't have been easy. "
Not something I'd say is problematic in and of itself, but it was the sole line in Orderly that confirmed Wildbow's retcon. (That I'm aware of. If you find another one, please point it out.) It was made pretty much entirely to fit into said retcon, before I realised how unnecessary and issue-ridden that retcon really was. (Or even that it was a retcon. I encountered it in a fic whose name I don't recall and assumed I'd just missed it when it was confirmed to be actual canon in it's discussion.) It doesn't even really fit in with Jacqueline's tendency not to comment on people's races unless it comes up naturally, something that has otherwise been fairly consistent.
I've gone back and made typo corrections fairly regularly, and even a few changes to make sure stylistic elements were consistent, but this is the first time I've actually substantially changed the content of Orderly.
I'm also considering adding another line to Taylor's interlude with Adrian Jackson to make it clear that he's African American. Which he definitely is, I'm just less sure about adding stuff to already established chapters.
Including more characters of underrepresented ethnicities and minorities is generally a good thing, but retroactively making a character that fits an extremely problematic stereotype about a group and is just absurdly vile in general a member of said group is not the way to handle it, especially when the rest of the story is in itself deeply problematic in how it handles said group. I've discussed this in previous posts, at least one of which I'm thinking of marking as informational itself with a few edits for clarity and context.
If you're curious, the offending line was in 6-1, and went at the end of the 19th paragraph. "Gotta give the guy points though, getting to be an African-American multi-millionaire and highly successful businessman in the same city as the Empire couldn't have been easy. "
Not something I'd say is problematic in and of itself, but it was the sole line in Orderly that confirmed Wildbow's retcon. (That I'm aware of. If you find another one, please point it out.) It was made pretty much entirely to fit into said retcon, before I realised how unnecessary and issue-ridden that retcon really was. (Or even that it was a retcon. I encountered it in a fic whose name I don't recall and assumed I'd just missed it when it was confirmed to be actual canon in it's discussion.) It doesn't even really fit in with Jacqueline's tendency not to comment on people's races unless it comes up naturally, something that has otherwise been fairly consistent.
I've gone back and made typo corrections fairly regularly, and even a few changes to make sure stylistic elements were consistent, but this is the first time I've actually substantially changed the content of Orderly.
I'm also considering adding another line to Taylor's interlude with Adrian Jackson to make it clear that he's African American. Which he definitely is, I'm just less sure about adding stuff to already established chapters.
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