Repeat after me: People of other ethnic groups... are... not... ANIMALS. Why is this hard?

I just read a story in which gypsies are magical creatures who MATE FOR LIFE and share many of the properties of fanon Veelas (a la Draco-is-a-Veela-and-Harry-is-his-mate fic). I just. What? They're creatures?

The most completely flabbergasting part is that the author seems to have not a hint, not the slightest clue that there could be anything offensive about that. wax_jism suggested that perhaps the author thought gypsies were magical creatures, ie she didn't realise the Rom really exist outside of fiction; but a throwaway line of dialogue about how they're "related to" "Muggle gypsies" made that unlikely and made everything worse. I'm flashing back to the Miscegenation Kerfluffle... which, perhaps not coincidentally, was also in Harry Potter fandom...

Alligator Dreams

I dreamt that my parents moved into a gigantic house somewhere in the Midwest with a whole third storey just for me, and downstairs between the kitchen and livingroom there were two rooms of swimming pools - one with a big pool for us, and one with three smaller connected pools. When we were looking at the place I saw those and said "Hey, we could get an alligator," so we did. A pet alligator. (Maybe this is an expression of aggravation frothing over from all the badfic I've been exposing myself to recently, which occasionally incites me to daydream about committing violence.)

I was afraid of the alligator and tended to fly quickly over the room just under the ceiling most of the time, and watch it from the doorways - of course I could fly in this dream; I usually can, in my dreams. But then my dad's sisters, Crunchy Aunt and Crazy Aunt, came to visit and showed me that the alligator could actually talk. Telepathically. And I petted its nose and had some conversations with it although it was tough to get the hang of because it thought sort of slowly and lazily. I was still a little nervous, though, after they left.

Then I discovered a hidden service elevator that led up to a shopping mall and there was like a whole shoestore above my, er, apartment in the house, full of more shoes than I could ever want, and then the whole thing changed into this bizarre suspense/action story with people from the mall coming in and stealing my shoes even though I kept saying "They're not for sale!" and I had to, er, have the... magical ATM machine turn me into an animated flying paperback book so I could spy on them and... er... well, maybe you had to be there. I've never dreamt that I was a flying paperback book before, for the record. It wasn't as different as you might think.

follow up to this morning's 'surprise! a racially offensive harry potter badfic!' post

The story where gypsies are actually magical creatures with strange powers who MATE FOR LIFE was mentioned in passing in a post on fandom wank last year here (thanks to kyuuketsukirui for reminding me), but the post is mainly about a public blow-up that occurred thanks to an equally appalling story about Native Americans (who apparently also mate for life - I guess in Mediocre Harry Potter Fandom Slushpile Land, all non-caucasian/white/whatever races really are animals!). Apparently whatever happened about the gypsy story happened in a locked post, and it isn't summarised. In fact, the post doesn't make clear that gypsies are creatures who mate for life in the story, which is why I didn't remember it in the first place, no doubt.

If you look at the post, though, you'll see that quite a lot of back-and-forth went on about the other story, which had essentially the same issue (plus many other offensive stereotypes in a horrifying sort of Accidentally Pick Up One, Get Ten or Twenty For Free deal). So... either (a) a lot of people are so completely clueless as to be incapable of grasping why OTHER RACES = ANIMALS is offensive even after it's been explained repeatedly, or (b) a small but vocal minority are. Either way, it's pretty nauseating, in that can't-look-away way. I mean, you know that people who are this clueless exist, but it's hard to wrap your brain around it, so you tend to be surprised/revolted/despairing anew every time you run into them.

portrait in acrylic

( Here is a photo of the Princess Carmela painting I did for Carmela's birthday. I'm fairly pleased with it all things considered - and it actually looks like her. )