DORIAN STORM, ROBBIE DAYMOND, AND THE CRITICAL ROLE FANDOM: AN ADDENDUM

aka: zoinks, scoob! it got worse!

(same disclaimer as before: we’re talking about racism, not how annoying you think xyz white character is or how much you want to punt all xyz shippers into a fire. keep your comments focused on dorian himself; it feels counterproductive when conversations about the racism experienced by actors of color and the fictional characters they play snowballs into shitting on fictional white characters and completely ignoring the former.)

as should be obvious, this is an addition to my other long post about dorian storm's racist treatment by fandom which can be found here. now onto my suffering for the past couple of weeks!

funny in a nasty sort of way that everyone was fucking PISSED at robbie for saying that technically the gods swang first and in a way damned orym's family to die a thousand years down the line, then insisted that dorian was going to tell orym to his face that his family deserved death and join ludinus out of spite. but then orym tells dorian to his face that he's just making excuses for a fascist if he is upset about his brother dying. despite him only saying he thinks the gods should be fairer and the playing field should be level.

again, the white supremacy in fandom jumped out!

a man of color's trauma is in no way more violent and irrational than a white man's. hope this helps.

not to intrude but it began earlier than this. orym and laudna said out loud that they pitied bor'dor and wished they didn't have to kill him and the fanbase continues to demonize bor'dor when earlier on they legitimately saw him as a cute little animal following around the white players.

i remember a certain bnf the moment deanna was introduced claim imodna shippers were going to turn her into a mammy stereotype and they'd force her into making imodna canon. but the second deanna questioned pelor this same person insisted she was an emotional abuser and later on said aabria was "projecting her headcanons onto lloth" despite being you know, an active DM who was DMing the session. and now they're onto being passive-agressive and condescending about dorian's trauma saying that he's valid but needs to be sat down and reeducated by the hells.

reading comprehension questions about dorian storm

DORIAN STORM, ROBBIE DAYMOND, AND THE CRITICAL ROLE FANDOM

because some people don’t know how to act when a piece of collaborative media they like starts getting people of color to add to it. a good amount of this are things I’ve already discussed on my blog, so if you’ve been following me for a while, consider this a more polished version of my complaining. obvious content warnings for racism, with explicit focus on whitewashing, pinkwashing, and cultural assimilation.

quick note before we start: we’re talking about racism, not how annoying you think xyz white character is or how much you want to punt all xyz shippers into a fire. keep your comments focused on dorian himself; it feels counterproductive when conversations about the racism experienced by actors of color and the fictional characters they play snowballs into shitting on fictional white characters and completely ignoring the former.

with all that said, let’s begin.

i wanna make a bigger more serious post detailing people being gross about dorian (racism in shipping and character treatment as well as outright racialized hate towards his character) in detail but since i've brought it up so often i'm worried it'll come off as me being annoying or just retreading my smaller little jabbier complaint posts

i will leave this up to democracy

hey so i accidentally made this poll go on for a week as opposed to a day so uh. might as well use this to ask what you would like to see me touch on in particular with dorian's fandom treatment

what to touch on: fandom racism in general or fics: honestly? both. i mean, the racism in general is a necessary thing to cover. it's the big one, fics are just specific examples of that overall fandom bullshit.

(like i'm thinking of the demonization/villification over everything should be a big focus (y'know like the misogynoir with deanna?). People can't seem to let go of dorian leaving dariax, despite it making all the sense in the world and wasn't an unkindness, etc etc etc. there's so much.)

So guess who totally forgot that the Ebonheart Pact only freed Argonians from Dunmer slavery instead of outlawing slavery altogether! Big difference.

Me walking through the House Dres capital and seeing something called "slave quarters": "You mean the quarters of former slaves, right?" Me walking up to a nearby point of interest literally called a plantation: "You mean the plantation where the slaves used to work, right?" Nah.

The owner of said plantation is almost comically evil; halfway through the quest I was like "the Covenant can have this place, actually", and almost as soon as I thought that, she said:

Oh you want some strong Bretons and Redguards here? That can easily be arranged. Some strong Orcs, too. All heavily armed! There's several ships' worth of them not far from here! Many people have died trying to keep them out of Stonefall's settlements, but if you're so eager to have them on your land, be my guest!

It's absurd that the quest has the option to kill the Khajiit leader of the revolt, but not the awful slaveowner lady. I was sure she'd get her due! Especially when the Khajiit cryptically said that he's going to go "apologize" to her. I assumed he'd use the opportunity to murk her, but no, he actually apologized??? The hell.

Anyway, back to the first paragraph: this situation raises a very interesting question (that I'm sure the game won't address). The Argonians are now allies of the Dunmer, including House Dres. This means that they now have to support them and uphold their laws — including the ones regarding slavery. The Argonians are raised to be equal with their former masters, while the Khajiit are now subjugated to the both of them. How do the Argonians feel about this betrayal? How do the Khajiit?

it's disgustingly morally myopic at best and absolutely reprehensible at worst.

the writers don't care.

I'll never be able to complete the ebonheart pact stuff.

remember when eso made you directly complicit in ensuring a sacred space to the ashlanders will be stolen and built over by house redoran, lore that did not exist before that sidequest, and went hee hee they’re going to lose ald’ruhn :)

i think more people need to be more critical of the way that genocide and racism are presented in tes.

the elder scrolls is a series that has deeply entrenched racist ideals that have dug their roots into western fantasy and it does not subvert or challenge these ideals. concerningly, it presents multiple scenarios wherein a genocide is “justified” in some way, often presented in the form of “human vs elf race wars” that have more or less become fascist dogwhistles in fantasy. elves frequently become stand-ins for races and ethnicities seen as subhuman, and you can look no further than the real-life politics of die-hard stormcloak fans to prove this matter. in fact, members of the neo-nazi forum stormfront have overtly stated that to them, ulfric stormcloak represents whites struggling against jewish overlords. it’s not hard to see how this issue came about- the presentation of essentially white humans being subjugated by a near-but-not-quite-human race of overlords for their religious reverence of a man who is also a god is something found in both far-right christian circles and also skyrim. the clear influence of christianity on the imperial pantheon does nothing to help this issue.

skyrim lends itself to being co-opted by antisemitic conspiracy theorists in this manner with the thalmor, and the status of dunmer refugees and their descendants in windhelm openly appeals to anti-immigration fans who then go on to use the dunmer as a stand-in for whatever culture or race they scapegoat as an immigration threat. it is concerning to me to hear ostensibly liberal tes fans arguing that the dunmer should be grateful to be allowed to live in a slum at all, echoing the sentiments expressed by far-right fans who don’t really mean dunmer all that much when they say those things.

the falmer pose another issue. it shouldn’t be hard to imagine why the lore of a european-analogous race sailing to a “new” continent where they proceed to slaughter the prior inhabitants with the excuse that they were attacked first might be upsetting to players. the fact that the game goes on to present surviving falmer as mindless subhuman monsters is yet more unsettling. yet skyrim goes out of its way to avoid placing the blame on the atmorans/nords, instead pulling that whole deal with the dwemer and focusing on that as the source of the falmer’s suffering. even one of the few surviving unchanged falmer places more emphasis on the crimes of the dwemer and the malevolence of the betrayed than on the nords that enacted a genocide in the first place.

this is a writing decision that places the player in a spot of perceived innocence- the game implicitly suggests that nothing can really be done now because the dwemer are gone, and the falmer are so corrupted that you have no choice but to carry out indiscriminate violence against a race subjected to a genocide. meanwhile the companions actively revere ysgramor and you as the player can acquire an axe with the sole purpose of being used to kill elves AND A DAMAGE BONUS AGAINST THEM, and none of this is condemned nor really even all that discussed at all.

these kinds of decisions don’t exist in a vacuum. it is known that bethesda has had an issue with bigoted employees, most famously but far from exclusively michael kirkbride. while certainly fantasy racism isn’t a direct 1:1 to real life oppression, there’s undoubtedly influence from real life biases and bigotries (even if subconscious and not the result of intentional malice) in the writing of the elder scrolls, and it’s important to be able to recognize this and point it out so you don’t end up sounding like a nazi when you discuss the games.

welp

Safe to say you like the new breed <3 Site performance might be a little spotty for a bit, but we're here, monitoring, and giving the servers a poke as needed. Thank you for your patience!

an update addressing the issues with the racism in this new dragon's design and story would be nice.

an acknowledgement while in the process of fixing these issues would be great.

Writing a BG script about Beamdog's handling of the franchise and I got caught going on a rant about how much I hate the way Beamdog treated Hexxat.

You absolutely know that if monsters were a real thing, white women would be treating their relationships with monsters the way they treat relationships with men of color - ie white women dating black and Latino men to piss off their conservative dad, fetishizing their bodies, and hating/resenting their mixed children for "not being pretty enough", "not white enough" or "took dark", but going on tirades on Facebook about how they're "totally not racist because they have a non-white spouse and mixed children" and that WoC are "bullying them" by pointing out that you can't love away racism and having a mixed family doesn't make them an ally, especially if they're not doing their due diligence of educating their child(ren) about that aspect of their identity and instead opt for the "colorblind" experience or just make them feel shame for not being fully white.

What the actual fuck?!

Yeah, unfortunately, it's a thing. I have literally seen it happen on feminist-y Fb pages and groups, I've even had a middle-age white woman at work complain about it to me, I guess because she saw that I'm an afab white latine (I work in a very pro-Tr*mp town, so I choose not to tell anyone that I'm genderfluid or dress that way for my own safety, so most people just see "white (assumed cis) woman"), about how "mean" and "hurtful" it is that "black women come up to her and tell her she's not cut out to raise black-mixed children". And on the one hand, I can empathize with the frustration of having strangers come up to you and tell you that you're a shitty parent because you're not raising your child(ren) in a manner that they approve of (which is something that happens to a lot of people that identify as mothers) BUT at the same time, in this particular instance, they have a point.

There are so many adults out there who have confirmed through their own personal experiences of growing up as a mixed child with a white parent (a white mother in particular) or being a black child adopted and raised by white parents, that regardless of how well meaning or whatever their motivations are for having a mixed/poc child, they often do not have the desire to raise that child to be aware of how that part of their identity affects/will affect their lives as they grow up or to be close to that aspect of their identity. There are white mothers out there who act sanctimonious about having a mixed child(ren), behaving as they're on some higher level because they're teaching their child(ren) to be "colorblind" and "not judge someone based on the color of their skin", but behind the scenes subject their child(ren) to a bunch of micro-aggressions as they grow up, often with passive-aggressive/catty remarks about their "wide nose", "big lips", "nappy, unruly hair", their skin being "too dark", and that often goes hand-in-hand with the white mother being resentful of the black father who she was only with to have "beautiful mixed babies" or to "piss off her conservative parents". I still remember several years ago reading a story on Facebook about a white mother cutting off her mixed daughter's braids because... ooh it's been awhile so I don't quite remember, but it was either because she accused the child's black father of "ruining her hair" by putting them in braids to begin with (a protective hairstyle for natural hair btw) or the white mother fucked up her daughter's hair by getting it tangled because the mother didn't want to bother looking up how to care for black hair, instead treating it the same way she did white hair (tl;dr - caring for and styling black hair is very different from white hair due to things like pattern, texture, thickness so you can't really do the same thing to it that you would white hair) and she cut off the daughter's hair... I want to say it was more likely the first version of the story involving the father because I believe it was him who posted about it online to vent his frustration.

Apologies for the long post. I don't want to appear as though I'm speaking for black women or black mixed adults who have experienced this. This is what I've learned from listening to these stories. I know you're not fond of recommendations for many things, so I apologize now for this, but on the off chance you choose to learn more about this, Kat Blaque has a video on it from her old JSYK (Just So You Know) series on her channel where she interviews an adult transracial adoptee who shares her experiences with this - the video in particular has text on it with a quote from her during the interview where she says "You can't love away racism", and T1J has a video called "Adopting Kids Outside of Your Race" that touches on it too. (Again, if you're interested in sharing this depressing learning experience.)

I mean, for all the talk of "you can't love away racism"... It doesn't sound like those women are even trying. Jesus fucking, to have children at all and not put in the fucking effort like...

I mean I'M biracial and part of the reason I'm so assimilated and have only just re-established a connection to my family's tribe is because my father aggressively opposed any attempt to do so and I internalized that shit for a long time.

But this?

Fucking hell that is a whole new level of absolute nastiness. That actually makes me angry. Is that even a MICRO aggression? Seems pretty macro to me.

The idea that someone could have children and not adore them, not want to put in the effort for them, I know it happens a lot but the concept is so alien to me. Like... Why?

Is there a feature of any Elder Scrolls game you dislike? Which ones, and why?

Sure you wanna go here UESP? OK alright I’ll start:

the objectively pro-imperialist bend to the narratives of like, pretty much every single game from morrowind onward. and yes, even morrowind the “good” game with “good” writing ultimately portrays a colonizing force in morrowind as an inevitable and positive force of change by using the same orientalist excuses used against MENA cultures in real life

-devs creating fantasy races to punch down on so they don’t get pegged for “real” racism

-devs fantasizing during the skyrim podcast about ingame race violence and that shitty attitude translating over to the ingame content

-dogshit portrayals of drug addiction

-dogshit portrayals of mental illness

-all substantial lore about an unvisited province being watered down into a bland, comfortable pseudo-catholic society when that province actually becomes a mainline game setting, because we can’t intellectually challenge the target demographic of white gamers

-michael kirkbride stans and his pseudointellectual lore that consists almost exclusively of dr seuss words and contrived bullshit designed to make gamers feel smart when understanding it can almost always be boiled down to “baby’s first dictionary dive”

-shitty writing of female characters being blamed on the fictional characters themselves instead of bad writing, resulting in outpouring of misogyny from the community

-the intersexism/transphobia surrounding characters like vivec as well as the several dead gay couples in mainline games (one of whom is provided with posthumous mocking that i don’t think any straight couples are given)

haven’t seen the imga explicitly named- they are one of my least favorite inclusions:

“The Dunmer keep the apemen as slaves, though not in as great numbers as Argonians.”

“Some Imga see the Altmeri as their superiors and as a portrait of an ideal, civilized society. Imga go to desperate measures to emulate the Altmeri: they wear capes, practice with the dueling sword, and attempt to speak with perfect enunciation and courtly manners despite their gravelly, baritone voices.“ “Each individual bears some kind of title, be it Baron, Duke, Earl, or the like, which they use when addressing the members of the Thalmor (but despite what the titles suggest, there are no land-owning Imga). More extreme Imga shave their bodies and powder their skin white to seem more like the Altmeri. The Imga feel that Men are beneath them as lesser beastfolk and pretend to find their smell exceedingly offensive: when Men are around, Imga hold perfumed corners of their capes to their noses. “

as other people have explained better, most of their lore is reused from racist antiblack stereotypes.

Me, much more loudly: "HEY AO3! WHY DO YOU HAVE A RACEPLAY TAG!?!?!?!"

Initially, I was confused so I decided to look at this tag out of curiosity. And oh..oh the terrible, disgusting, downright immoral shit that showed up on my screen. And I didn’t even have to read the story, I just had to see the tags!

AO3 seriously needs stricter moderation

Ooh this video is going to be good!

As for the AO3 thing, I'm not fucking surprised. There are dipshits out there that are really claiming that removing the child p*rn on the site "is bad actually" and attempting to convince everyone that it's "really just encouraging censorship" through roundabout excuses... of fucking course there's a fucking tag for Raceplay! GDI AO3!!

Wait..there are people who claim it’s actually bad!?

Their stated argument is that "censorship is a slippery slope" as if banning things like racism, child porn, and RPF would lead to the banning of all LGBT or erotic content.

This is lie of course. The real reason they're angry about it is because racism, child porn and RPF are the things THEY get off to, and they're cranky and lashing out about real human beings not wanting to be around their nasty asses.