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Some days I forget how much of my feelings are tied into the racial dynamics of orcs and then I see something like Don't Kill Them All and I want to break someone.

Accidentally clicked on the trailer after foiling YouTube's attempts to foist this on me for several days, and god fucking damn, it's white savior bullshit. Biracial girl raised by the white elven side of her family returns to her savage orcish brethren who definitely aren't supposed to be some kind of racial analogue to try and civilize them. Ignore that the girl and some of the orcs have dreadlocks. The half-orc has to introduce the orcs to such complex concepts as 'don't kill everything' and 'don't mindlessly destroy resources' and 'gathered food can be turned into delicious things like bread'. Who the fuck decided we needed a game about some privileged outsider teaching the 'savages' how to maintain their own land?

It's like the most Euro-centric bits of the Civilization games combined with DnD race politics, complete with the idea that only a half-orc (rather than a full orc) has the civility and intelligence to be a proper protagonist. I've seen so many people acting like we've fully divorced the fantasy concepts of orcs and goblins and the rest from real-world racial issues, and here we have someone recreating The White Man's Burden with orcs from base principles. Have y'all learned nothing from what black and indigenous people have been saying about orcs for years?

Okay, here's my window.

This is the big one. I've had this one cooking since before I started posting here.

Reblogging again because this is some of the best writing in the entire story so far and in honor of Kendrick, because Victor's mom is just as much of a hater with just as much justification.

important and encouraging

Found a great (free) documentary on the Freedom House Ambulance Service here- https://www.wqed.org/freedomhouse/ (has captions too)!

This one's a fun one. I can't believe I used to think Vance was one of the more dull viewpoint characters.

I've accidentally made an Emmett Till reference twice now while writing Freestone, catching both mistakes during the editing process. Something about my mind just thinks about the vile nature of his murder and goes 'yeah, that happened in the 1800s'. He was murdered in 1955? The same year of the Montgomery bus boycotts? He wouldn't have been 30 by the time MLK was assassinated by the government.

Just makes me think about how America wants to keep putting racism behind it and gets upset whenever it turns out it's still there and we're still getting killed by it. The most wish-fulfillment thing in Freestone, my greatest indulgence, is that Reconstruction is still fully alive in 1875, that Ulysses S. Grant is popular enough that the Mayor thinks he'll get two more terms, that any attempts to refurbish the reputation of the South will be held back by all the evil wizardry. What's more fantastic than a man who can disassemble people like they're tables is an American government that doesn't abandon us as soon as it becomes convenient to do so, an enfranchised white majority that's willing to cede some of its power to prevent such horror from continuing. Racism that's a bit less institutionalized than usual.

Oh I did not realize I posted this right when Black History Month started.

Um.

Dr. Birch once said "Incorrect thinking is a disease in its own right. Cure it like you would anything else". He said that because I told him to say it, as is my prerogative, but also he said it because he's very smart. There is no fixing what this country has done to us without, as Victor would do to a body to cure a disease, disassembling it to chase out the problem. Without primordial werewright powers, it's about as hard to do that cleanly with a country as it is with a body, but it still has to be done. Powerful white people in this country made it just so and get really upset whenever we have to dismantle it, but...this shit's terminal. Either we fix the problem for everyone or this country *will* die and all we'll be able to do is fertilize what comes next with its corpse.

I'm getting into the weeds here. What I'm saying is that there is a path to a more equitable future but if the directions on that path tells you that you have to break the rich man's heart in his rich man house, don't start looking for detours. Trust in the map.

Just started my new job under the sink

Lord Vetinari turned away, took some papers from a desk drawer, walked to a wall, touched a certain area and stepped quickly through the hidden door that noiselessly swung open.

Beyond was a corridor, lit by borrowed light from high windows and paved with small flagstones. He walked forward, said "...no, this is Tuesday..." and moved his descending foot so that it landed on a stone that in every respect appeared to be exactly the same as its fellows.

Anyone overhearing his progress along the passages and stairs may have caught muttered phrases on the lines of "...the moon is...waning..." and "yes, it is before noon." A really keen listener would have heard the faint whirring and ticking inside the walls.

A really keen and paranoid listener would have reflected that anything the Lord Vetinari said aloud even when he was alone might not be totally worth believing. Not, certainly, if your life depended on it.

Terry Pratchett, The Fifth Elephant