Honestly as a blind person I’m so tired of seeing fictional blind characters who don’t use white canes or other guides. “They have special powers so they know what’s around them” or “they’re confident enough to not need a guide” are common tropes, and I’m tired.
Are people scared that using a white cane will make their blind character seem weak? They can’t use a cane because they’re so special that they already know what’s around them, and other blind people who use guides are inferior because they’re not special?
I’m tired. Give your blind characters white canes and other guides. Let them hold onto their friends, let them have guide dogs. Don’t make white cane users feel ostracized for not being “strong enough” to go without.
Another thing that pisses me off is when a sighted character comes up with the fantasy equivalent of braille and teaches it to the blind character. Braille was invented by Louis Braille, a blind man, in 1824. The blind character should be the one coming up with it.
the amount of times merlin has actually said and/or hinted about his magic to gwen makes me all soft inside she’s his first friend in camelot and he cares for her so much …
Merlin hints at his magic the very first time he meets Gwen. He tells her he’s in disguise. Later, he tells her he isn’t ordinary. From the first, he wanted to tell her the truth. He doesn’t hint like this to anyone else, and even when he does cover his magic with Gwen he either evades/changes the subject, says something ridiculous, or does something to make her think he’s really weird whereas with everyone else he tries to make himself look insignificant/clumsy. I think he fully expected Gwen to put the pieces together one day, and I think that made him really proud of her.
Enough headcanons about Gwen, Lancelot, and Elyan (literally all the main characters of color…) not knowing how to read. They do know, in canon. Gwen and Elyan were both part of an independent business for which writing and mathematics would be necessary (not to mention, there are promo photos of Gwen actively writing), and Lancelot wrote letters back and forth with Merlin for as many as 3 or 4 years. They all know how to read and write.
It’s so telling when people hc that the few main characters of colour don’t know how to read, but very rarely hc that Percival doesn’t, for example. BBC Merlin is not historically accurate in regards to literacy in the Medieval period - in fact, it doesn’t really comment on literacy rates amongst the nobility vs commoners (which was a very broad category on its own) very much, if at all. From the first episode, we know that Hunith, who is ostensibly a peasant, knows how to read and write and has taught her son. If Hunith knows how to read, Gwen and Elyan definitely would - from running a business, from the requirements of serving the royal family, etc. Lancelot wrote Merlin letters for years, and I can’t imagine him training to be a knight and not also training himself to read and write. There’s never really, as far as I can recall, any mention of anyone not knowing how to read.
Honestly, I think the BBC Merlin writers just didn’t give a damn and created a universe with universal, or at least, widespread literacy. It’s historically inaccurate, but BBC Merlin is more often historically inaccurate than it is accurate and I doubt any of us watch a show about magic and dragons for historical accuracy anyways.
What you do when you try to hc that Gwen, Elyan, and Lancelot don’t know how to read and write but accept that white commoners (Merlin, Percival, Hunith, etc) can read and write, you’re headcanoning the characters of colour as less capable, less intelligent, than white characters. The racist implications of that are pretty clear (and before anyone panics, I’m not accusing anyone of being intentionally racist here, I’m not suggesting that this is what you were going for, I’m not trying to question anyone’s intentions, take a deep breath).
I should note that knowing how to read and write doesn’t equal “intelligent” and not knowing how to read and write doesn’t equal “unskilled/unintelligent” but our white supremacist/colonialist western culture does frame it that way, and BBC Merlin was produced in this white supremacist/colonialist western culture so it is harmful to hc that the main characters of colour cannot read and write, despite clear evidence in canon that they can, and the acceptance that white characters who belong in the same class can.
the current campaign for ao3 censorship in the guise of ending racism is just. exhausting. racism in fandom spaces is obviously a legit issue (one that i am personally affected by), and some of the things this particular group is asking for are perfectly reasonable. a lot of it isn’t. particularly the demand for otw to (somehow?) be held responsible for the off-site actions of users.
You don’t understand what EndOTWRacism is asking for here, and because you clearly do not understand it, you should have known better than to speak on it. They are not asking for AO3 to be responsible for the off-site actions of users, they are asking AO3 to allow us to provide evidence of off-site harassment to contextualize harassment happening on AO3. If someone gifts me an extremely racist fic, for example, and also harasses me on twitter, I want to be able to point to the harassment on twitter to help prove that this fic is harassment, and also to provide them with more context about what is happening. How is that unreasonable? If someone on twitter is harassing me but nothing is happening on AO3 even if the person has an AO3 account, I’m going to file a report on twitter not on AO3. Make sense?
“if AO3 users are getting harassed on AO3, and they provide proof in their abuse claim of off-site harassment, that off-site harassment should also be considered as context for making a decision in the abuse claim.”
You are either not understanding this demand, or are refusing to understand it.
Lastly, if you care about censorship, protecting fans of colour from racist harassment is taking action against censorship! You are affected by racism in fandom, so you know the toll it takes. You know how many of us are pushed out of fandom, how many of us lose our excitement for creating fanworks. You know how we are silenced. By not taking the anti-racist action that AO3 promised us three years ago, AO3 is very much enabling censorship because it is enabling racists to harass fans of colour on its site and to push them out of fandom, ensuring that we never see the fics and art that they wanted to create, and that we lose their work that they did create when they leave too. That’s a huge loss.
Relationship: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Gwen & Merlin (Merlin), Hunith & Merlin (Merlin), Gaius & Merlin (Merlin), Morgana & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Morgause & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Leon & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Agravaine & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Characters: Merlin (Merlin), Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Gwen (Merlin), Gaius (Merlin), Knights of the Round Table (Merlin), Hunith (Merlin), Morgana (Merlin), Morgause (Merlin), Agravaine (Merlin)
Archive Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Ancient Greek Religion & Lore Fusion, Inspired by Hades and Persephone (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Inspired by The Great (TV 2020), Inspired by Art, Embedded Images, Angst with a Happy Ending, Enemies to Lovers, Arranged Marriage, Canon-Typical Violence, Betrayal, Major Character Injury, Reverse Big Bang Challenge
