We Clean Up Nice

So, by “grateful” what you ~actually mean~ is “afraid to say no because of the overwhelming possibility that they would experience harm because of it”!

Because with a power differential as large as there is between reds trapped in their district, and the clean people who control their access to things like food, and clothing, and ~not being beaten to death~, you really can’t be sure that they aren’t just pretending to be okay out of fear of ~what you’ll do to them if they aren’t~!

When you can have someone’s entire family tortured or killed with very little difficulty, you can’t assume they’re consenting just because they ~don’t actively stop you~!

And really, even if you were using that standard with clean people only, it would still be terrible!

If you aren’t sure that they ~actively want~ to do something, then you need to splashing ~ask~!

i don’t so much get why there’s fic that – from what i can tell based on the summary – treats red experiences as not horrifying in any way. not the simplistic “eww reds” way, not the unfortunately common “reds are evil” way, not the ow-too-real “look what society does to reds” way.

is the author assuming things must be okay and not thinking about it – but then why would they write about reds at all? is it wish fulfillment? imagining a world where being red was, somehow, okay? that seems plausible, i guess, i’ve seen wish-fulfillment fanstuff before, but it’s usually short-form; you’d think it’d get cloyingly saccharine somewhere before the six-figure wordcount mark.

i’m really, really not sure i want to read the fic to find out.

I feel like I owe people an explanation because apparently people were worried about me. I am sorry if I made you worry.

It is going under a cut because I don’t know how long it is going to be.

I think museums count as businesses because you still have to have the people come to them? I would like to make a Red History Museum.

I think that is probably more of a green thing but I could maybe find someone who would like to collaborate and there’s probably something involved in that that I could do without it being OOCI.

There is an argument, given that premise, that the guards ought to simply have let themselves be murdered. There were more red people than guards, and therefore it is arguably better that those guards die than that the red people die. There are a few problems with this argument, even postulating that the life of a guard is exactly equivalent in value to the life of a red person.

First, if people generally don’t defend themselves against other people trying to kill them, people will be more likely to try to kill other people, knowing that then they have only to evade detection by the police. A single incident would most likely not have been enough to trigger it, but it’s a risk that bears consideration.

Secondly, the red people weren’t merely killing guards – two civilians died as well. If the guards had all been killed, it’s entirely plausible that they would have continued to riot and continued to kill civilians, eventually leading to a higher death toll.

Third, even if it would have been more ethical for the guards to allow themselves to be murdered, asking people not to defend themselves when under attack is not the sort of request very many people will honor. Any plan that will fail if a single person defends themself against violence is a plan that will fail if there is violence.

It is possible that, after the logistics mistake and commencement of rioting, the situation was still salvageable. It is possible that the officers had non-lethal options available that they did not exhaust. It is possible that they could have been contained, and that the officers could have vacated the area. It’s not clear whether either of those are actually the case, but they are possibilities.

So. Um. Here’s the first part of that story I was talking about, as best as I can piece together from memory. I didn’t think I’d have it done so soon but Blush (nosy cousin!) has been pestering me.

Warnings: mention of pollution, mention of babies, red pronouns used to address reader (which might not translate to other languages)