Um... This prompt wasn't designed for making Harry a villian. In fact, Harry's my favorite character and I didn't plan for anyone to say she-male.
This was suppose to be a fun prompt in which shows the silly side of the Dresden Files. I was just inspired by a game in which for each round you lose, your opponent gets to write on your face and you have to leave it like that for either the entire day or until you can get somewhere to wash your face.
Couldn't anyone tell that since Kincaid and Harry were playing a game and Ivy was applying their make up that this is a silly/crack prompt?
NA: I think it's well-established that the original prompt was worded with extremely poor taste, to say the least.
The comment you are replying to looks like it is geared toward the prompt inspired by yours, where someone is appropriately schooled on the varous facets of queer theory and how, even forty years ago, "shemale" was never meant to be anything but offensive.
I think the poster you're replying to was referring to the fic I outlined in my reply, not your original prompt. This is the joy on anon memes! :D (And I like Harry too, I just find his constant lack of sensitivity about sexuality and gender issues frustrating yet adorable.) I think everyone knows that yours was meant to be fun.
Yes, I was talking about your idea for a fic. I just happen to disagree that Harry-- a man who lived through the 80s and early 90s-- would call anyone a 'shemale' casually, or even in anger. Maybe, MAYBE he would a fae, since he has a strong fae/human disconnect. But he knows that it is a bad word he shouldn't be using.
No lie, I know he's a BALL of unexamined white/male/cis/able privilege. But in the same way that he can obliviously use 'a crazy person' without taking that conscious step over to 'retarded', or call Martin's hair 'gay' without ever thinking it was okay to drop the word 'faggot', I don't think he would go to that level of offensiveness.
So to make him casually use 'she-male' in the context of a fic makes him seem like he's been conveniently shoehorned into the villain role so that everyone else can look awesome. Why not make the offender someone who's either a) a hateful fuck, or b) someone so disconnected with modern society that their last reference for slang WAS the 1970s/1980s and they think that's just what you call trans* people? It's not like Dresdenverse is shy on old-timers who spend a lot of their time away from society or humans at all.
This isn't really the place to go into this in depth, so I'll just leave it that I think, based on personal experience including our OP, that it would be entirely possible for a person of Harry's age and situation to be a decent person and not understand how bad that word is until someone tells him. I think we'll just have to disagree on that. (It wasn't really meant as a serious prompt anyway! I pulled all of the serious bits of it into the genderqueer!Archive prompt downthread.)
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
(frozen) OP Here
Date: 2011-02-17 04:05 am (UTC)This was suppose to be a fun prompt in which shows the silly side of the Dresden Files. I was just inspired by a game in which for each round you lose, your opponent gets to write on your face and you have to leave it like that for either the entire day or until you can get somewhere to wash your face.
Couldn't anyone tell that since Kincaid and Harry were playing a game and Ivy was applying their make up that this is a silly/crack prompt?
D:
(frozen) Re: OP Here
Date: 2011-02-17 04:12 am (UTC)The comment you are replying to looks like it is geared toward the prompt inspired by yours, where someone is appropriately schooled on the varous facets of queer theory and how, even forty years ago, "shemale" was never meant to be anything but offensive.
(frozen) Re: OP Here
Date: 2011-02-17 04:12 am (UTC)(frozen) Re: OP Here
Date: 2011-02-17 04:19 am (UTC)Yes, I was talking about your idea for a fic. I just happen to disagree that Harry-- a man who lived through the 80s and early 90s-- would call anyone a 'shemale' casually, or even in anger. Maybe, MAYBE he would a fae, since he has a strong fae/human disconnect. But he knows that it is a bad word he shouldn't be using.
No lie, I know he's a BALL of unexamined white/male/cis/able privilege. But in the same way that he can obliviously use 'a crazy person' without taking that conscious step over to 'retarded', or call Martin's hair 'gay' without ever thinking it was okay to drop the word 'faggot', I don't think he would go to that level of offensiveness.
So to make him casually use 'she-male' in the context of a fic makes him seem like he's been conveniently shoehorned into the villain role so that everyone else can look awesome. Why not make the offender someone who's either a) a hateful fuck, or b) someone so disconnected with modern society that their last reference for slang WAS the 1970s/1980s and they think that's just what you call trans* people? It's not like Dresdenverse is shy on old-timers who spend a lot of their time away from society or humans at all.
(frozen) Re: OP Here
Date: 2011-02-17 04:49 am (UTC)