Diary of a Teenaged Mimic

Dear Diary,

Y’know, I don’t often think about racism and prejudice much any more. I mean, at least compared to back in the day, where both were kind of ubiquitous dangers I had to make sure I clocked before they intersected with my much appreciated ability to keep my precious bodily fluids on the inside.

So weird, watching things change, even at my relatively young age. I think it’s because after my mom started on her death run, I basically had nobody watching me, so I could websurf to my heart’s content. When I started looking into things, because I’d been a little bit of an urban nerd and spent most of my time sheltered from the worst of the streets until then, I really dug into the topic. Well, topics, since they’re two different things; systemic racism and personal prejudice. When I started reading back in the mid teens, the online dictionaries were just starting to catch up to where academic discussion had been since... Fuck, since before the internet.

Personal prejudice is just what it says on the tin; judging people based on some easily identifiable feature, or something you think is easily identifiable. The color of their skin. Who they love. What’s in their pants, and whether that disconnects with their presentation. Basically all the stuff we’re told as kids is socially unacceptable, a failure to be ’fair’ and ’just’ and all that good stuff. It’s also usually blatant as hell, talking about women and brown people and queer people like they’re somehow less human than mayonnaise American boys. It’s also something that’s sorta ubiquitous, and can in fact go both ways. Well, any which way, since back in the day the kids from PR and DR had all kinds of slurs for each other, but the one that would get you shivved was ’Mexican’. Prejudice sucks, but everybody’s got some, I think. The trick is to know it’s unacceptable, like stuffing the Thanksgiving turkey with your own personal batter or shitting in the street.

Systemic racism is... Different. It’s the shit that people who aren’t affected by it don’t even see, so they can’t get all riled up by it. Shit like women and brown folks having lower credit ratings because they’re women, or brown. Like my mom not being able to get a credit card when she graduated high school, because it wasn’t legal for women then. Where a Gay couple can’t adopt, not ’because they’re Gay’, but they didn’t fill out the forms right, because they list ’Mother’ and ’Father’ or ’Husband’ and ’Wife’, and you can’t have two of the same gender on the application, see? Totally not because they’re Gay, just because they didn’t follow procedure.

That’s really the thing about that shit; it’s baked into the gears of the systems we all needed to get by, and you don’t notice it unless you get caught in those gears and slowly, painfully, systematically get crushed to death.

But over the course the eight years my mom worked herself to death, the ’official’ dictionaries pulled back from the definitions that they’d progressed to. ’Racism’ was a synonym for ’prejudice’ again. Which meant that somebody who never thought an unkind thought about a brown person couldn’t be racist, even if they wouldn’t give one a job, because their credit rating was too low.

Here and now, things are different. I think I got incredibly lucky, really. I showed up just as the cracks in the system were showing. Because fucked up systems like that wind up with some really fucked up shit going on eventually. In this case, I’m pretty sure the old Dan families were getting inbred enough that they weren’t making enough larval Heroes to keep the system going. The wealthy Human kids had already been burned through, so they decided to give the dregs a try. To let the Bag try to be Heroes.

I dunno what would have happened if I didn’t show up. Probably the same kind of long, drawn out, back and forth social change that paralleled the Army response to Japanese shelling white soldiers with shrapnel and Black soldiers with propaganda. Battalions got integrated damn quick, young white soldiers saw that the young Black soldiers weren’t cowardly, lazy, or stupid, and the system started coming apart. I mean, by the time I got shot the reaction had happened pretty hard, but still, I think if I hadn’t been, the folks here and now would wind up with some kind of long, drawn out social and economic warfare.

Instead, I kinda smashed that shit into little bits, starting with the Battle of the Walls. Not just because I was, and still kinda am, the most powerful single military force in Atlantis, or because I made Saffron Imperator of the new Alliance. Neither of those would have done shit if I hadn’t done what I did next, which really wasn’t even me. I pulled Larry’s head out of his ass, and Bonnie held it there until, by virtue of never backing down even when she knew she was going to die horribly, he chose to start the hard work of undoing generations of shitty systematic prejudice. Between him doing that in Lancaster, Saffron nudging things with her Imperator’s hips, Calverton and New Amsterdam basically losing a big chunk of their Heroes, and Norfolk deciding to try the wealthy Path of Johnson rather than the lethal Path of Gormsson, we’ve shaken most of that shit out of the fabric of our new nation.

Okay, it kinda galls me to say this, but I think it helps that the surviving members of the Old Guard, specifically Ophelia and Lenny, are for different reasons now completely invested in the new way of doing things. Ophelia because it means she can be head of House Orange, and Lenny because Larry and Bonnie are improving the only thing Lenny cares about, that being House Lancaster.

But the thing is, it’s been a long time since any of that touched me personally. I think the last time it really did was the reactions of the Muscogee folks. The Spirits especially, and I think they were more upset about me being a ’Plague Spirit’ and, y’know, a fatass of continental proportions than me being Bag, or even Europan. Yeah, some of my kids are Fae, and that comes with some allergies and potential medical issues. Maybe dietary needs, I’m not sure. But in general nobody gives them shit about being Fae, and there sure as shit aren’t any systemic things in their way.

It was not pleasant to have to really think about that in any way again. Even to the degree that it impacted my newest foundling’s health and well being.

So after spending yesterday following Isnomi around, the Docs wound up sorta exhausted. Way too tired to talk about Aisling’s situation, let alone trying to do anything about it. So we all ate roast... It wasn’t chicken. Not chicken, not turkey, not duck, but apparently whatever bird it was tasted enough like chicken to pass the Aisling test.  Goose, maybe, or pheasant.

The Docs definitely enjoyed the soak in the Bath after dinner, especially when it came to their feet. Well, feet and legs. I don’t think they walk a whole lot. Not a lot of call for it, even if they maybe spend a lot of time on their feet.

Dreamt of my ladies experimenting with stuffing their ears with my tentacles. This did not go well in any sense except how much they enjoyed getting dunked and how good they tasted. If the Docs think my daughters are disturbing, I really hope they never see my dreams.

In the morning I got the kids ready; I had Isnomi say her farewells to the Docs before we left, then Co-Located as I stepped the kids to school. At that point I turned to Doc Glass, who stood next to his husband, still in the Dining Room of the Homestead. ”Would it be too much to ask you guys to Assess and Inspect her today?”

”Inspect?” Doc Glass sounded like that was the most sus idea he’d ever heard. Then again, pointing Status at somebody was a felony offense before Saffron and I weaponized it, so I guess he maybe had a point.

”I think we can get Council approval. Also, I’m pretty sure at this point that she’s an orphan in the ’abandoned child’ sense, which means I’m as much parent as she’s got.”

Saffron appeared beside me, arms going around my waist. ”Since the official requirement in Phileo, whose territory we technically stand in, is two Councilpersons, the two of us count. Also...” Karen? A moment in person please? Karen arrived a moment later, and Saffron said, ”as the Priestess in charge of the Temple of Love, the sponsor of the Orphanage where Aisling has been housed, do you agree that if they think it might be diagnostically useful, Doctors Glass and Zeccardi ought Inspect Aisling?”

Karen didn’t hesitate. ”Absolutely.” She turned and nodded to Doc Glass. ”Assuming they think it might be useful.”

Doc Z chuckled, a laugh barking its way out of him despite his best efforts to keep it in. ”Well, I think despite the preponderance of Clergy involved, our legal bases are covered, don’t you, Steve?”

Doc G bristled one more moment, then sighed. ”I’m uncertain if Inspect will reveal anything useful, but I’m equally uncertain it wouldn’t.”

At that point Doc Z turned to me and said, ”my only concern is safety.”

”I can keep her from noticing you guys. It might take a bit for you to get through everything with her distracted by the school day, but I’ll be ready to scoop everyone out if something sets her off.” Then I shrugged. ”Also, whatever she did didn’t affect Isnomi, Hailee, and I, and some of the other kits will be in class.”

Doc G got himself a kumquat look at that, which only twisted harder when Doc Z said, ”I appreciate you putting your own children at risk with the others, but I’d rather not put any kids at risk.”

”That’s not what she meant, Joe.” At Doc Z’s raised eyebrow, Doc G sighed and said, ”Deities. Whatever she does, it isn’t strong enough to harm Deities.”

I nodded. ”And if I tell my kits to evacuate the room, they will.”

Doc Zeccardi didn’t look happy about that. ”Children protecting children.” He shook his head. ”Are you certain you can keep her from noticing us?”

I shrugged. ”If she hadn’t already surprised us, I’d say absolutely. As it is? I’m pretty sure I could sneak you past Cerberus if I had to, so I don’t think she’ll notice.”

They looked at each other, a long, quiet communication between spouses, until they turned back to Saffron, Karen and I. ”We’ll do it,” said Doc G.

I nodded, reached out, and Blended the three of us into a figment of a dream, then stepped the three of us to an unused corner of my classroom. Where I spent the day teaching math to kids and keeping two Doctors Blended into figments while they proceeded to go through, like, all the new bits of Assess, not to mention delving deep into Aisling’s Status.

Some time after lunch, which the three of us spent eating some nice paninis Karen brought us from the bar, Doc Z shook his head, murmured something to Doc G, who snorted and turned to me.

”What’s the situation, Doc?”

He opened his mouth, Doc Z laid a hand on his arm, and he shook his head before saying, ”I hate to say this, both because it ought not be true in any just world, and because from your reputation you may strike me down for doing so, but I think Aisling’s Race is a problem.”