I Went On A Rant On Twitter Because I Didnt Have My Coffee To Restrain Me

I went on a rant on twitter because I didnt have my coffee to restrain me

Fem jeith but smols

Let’s talk about autistic Keith and Pidge

Because I am trash and it took me all of three episodes to be 1000% convinced that they’re both autistic. And now I’ve watched this show straight through three times (plus bits and pieces like eight full episodes of a fourth run for Research!) and I want to ramble about it.

Under the cut: a look at canonical evidence for autistic Keith and autistic Pidge, plus a few of my own headcanons.

Minor spoilers, mostly for the first four episodes.

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we, as a society, need to discuss this amazing exchange and the acknowledgement that neither of these two have a brain cell between the two of them.

Romani Tropes 101: A Comprehensive Guide to Writing a Romani Character

Although I strongly discourage non-Roma from writing Romani characters that involve any sort cultural or linguistic association, I am in no way opposed to authors writing characters that happen to be Roma.. as long as said authors don’t rely on tropes and stereotypes.

We will start with some obvious and common ones:

Magic | Mysticism This one is pretty obvious. Romani people have long been stereotyped as having some sort of magical or mystical abilities. In reality, though, we are just ordinary people. What’s important to remember, however, is that this stereotype has played a pretty big role in the oppression we’ve faced, which stems from a fear-mongering campaign led largely by the Catholic Church.

How does this impact writing Romani characters: if you are considering a Romani character that has some sort of magical ability you need to ask yourself some questions before continuing writing. 1. Is magic or mysticism necessary to the plot? 2. Is your Romani character the only one with magical abilities? 3. Is magic or mysticism used to augment the “Gypsy-ness” of your character? 4. Are you treating magical or mystical abilities as cultural or ethnic phenomenon?

If you answered yes to anything other than the first question, you need to stop and reevaluate your character. If your writing involves anything listed in numbers 2-4 then you are relying on stereotypes and perhaps you should not include a Romani character at all.

Fortune-Telling | Palmistry | Tarot Cards Yes, many Roma do these things, but they are also common in many other cultures. This is a really common stereotype. If you’re not Roma then I would avoid any having your Romani character perform any sort of fortune-telling. We’re not going to go through any evaluation questions for this topic because it pretty obviously relies heavily racist stereotypes.

Maybe you want to touch on those stereotypes in your writing, though. That’s a good idea! So, using the topic of fortune-telling is okay when you’re doing it in a way to combat stereotypes.

For example, your Romani character could be asked to do some form of fortune-telling and respond with some history or an explanation as to why it’s a stereotype. There are ways to actually combat stereotypes about Roma by using the stereotype itself. Just be super careful to not demean or accidentally reinforce the stereotype.

Belly-dancing This is a big misconception about Romani people! We don’t belly-dance in the traditional sense. We have a type of dance that uses similar hip motions, and some Roma in the Balkans and Turkey do perform belly-dance. However, belly-dancing comes from MENA [Middle Eastern / North African] cultures and is not actually Romani. It also plays into the hyper-sexualization of Romani women, but we will touch on that next.

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