coaltide | Coal All The Way

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Coal All The Way

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https://archiveofourown.org/collections/yuletide2019/works/21833818

The recip's take: It features a character who, in canon, is a black man who spends his whole life as a servant with the threat of enslavement and/or imprisonment looming over him. At the end of the canon, he becomes a king of his own country and never has to serve anyone ever again.

Except, in this post-canon gift fic, surprise! The citizens of his new country force him to perform menial tasks for them as if he were their servant. This is played for comedy.

vs

The opposing side: Oh, that was really cute. And definitely not at all how OP characterized it. The whole fic seemed to be about Stephen not wanting Childermass to be his servant (and thus very deliberately chore-blocking him), and the fairies were very clearly being positively influenced by Stephen and thrilled to help with the one chore he would actually let them do.

*

Yeah, OP's description of "force him to perform menial tasks for them" is totally inaccurate to the point of wankbaiting. The faeries aren't forcing him to do shit, they're just so inhuman that the only way home comforts like decent, flour-rather-than-bonemeal bread or clean dishes are going to show up is if a human provides them.

The whole point of the fic, in fact, is that Stephen is not allowing anyone else to perform said menial tasks, even when a fellow human shows up and volunteers to serve him.

I think this author definitely knows they're being wanked about, since they've disabled the hits count since I first read this fic.

I'm always surprised at recips who bring very easily identifiable details out for wanking too. I guess they're not worried about staying anon.

Did you get the same impression from it as the recip, or is it fine?

I think we should let FFA wank stay on FFA.

But coal isn't big enough to sustain its own wank industry without buying in raw materials from the neighbors :(

You know, in general this has been a super wank-light year. Weird.

Well, it's only been 2 days since reveals. But yeah, no pinch hits of the apocalypse or anything.

Do we have to get it from ffa though? Aren't there other options?

Discord's always an option but it's been tame and boring so far.

Maybe we're all suffering a wank drought. We should have rationed while we still had the chance.

I can kinda see where the recip is coming from if they just read the first part. It's Stephen having to still do the same menial chores he did as a servant because the faeries aren't capable of it or don't care enough about it to do them well. And there's this undercurrent of him being helpless to change that while they watch him like he's some kind of entertainment.

It does get better as the fic progresses, at least, once it's made clear that at least Stephen is deliberately stopping Childermass from doing the chores.

I think the recip is in danger of looking like an ass if they really did mischaracterize what's happening as shades of racist.

So were they right, or were they looking for something to be offended about? I don't know the fandom and don't really want to read the story, but I want to know.

Okay, I caved and read it, since I'm familiar with the book. I do feel bad that OP turned off hits, and also that I've gone and given it another hit, but I was curious. I understand the recipient's impulse, and I think the nonnies defending it are being a little over the top, because it's certainly a choice to write a fic about the only black character, who is a servant, where the whole thing resolves around chores and domesticity. We can talk about the execution of the central concept until the cows come home, but it'll always be tied to that premise. One thing I will say is I do think it's an earnest example of "OP didn't realise this was dodgy." I read the recip's letter, and you can see how someone who didn't quite jive with the prompts but also didn't want to go entirely ODAO came up with this scenario and didn't consider the implications.

Hmm yeah, I took a look at the letter, and I can see how taking the domesticity/chores general like from the recip's letter just was an unfortunate choice to match to this particular character.

+1

My thoughts exactly.

I think there's a good case be made that having the fandom's only black character continue to do menial chores before an audience of giggling, white-coded onlookers after he becomes a king is racially insensitive at best.

And given that, I'm completely baffled why the recip thought it would be a good idea to mischaracterize the fic instead of just making that case on the merits. Did they think FFA wouldn't try to ferret out which fic it was and check? Their vague-meming wasn't that vague! And if there are two things the BFE thread has an ample supply of, it's spare time and a commitment to wank.

+1

If the recip had just described it honestly then there probably wouldn't have been pushback. That sure is a badly thought out authorial decision, but it's a "didn't think the implication through" decision rather than an actively racist one.

By exaggerating, the recip undermined their own side. Clearly they didn't think just stating the truth was bad enough so they had to spin it as way more racist than it was.

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