(possibly) five kobolds in a coat

I was driving through Vermont with a friend, and we pulled over at a tiny shop offering Maple Items. We were on the state highway, not the interstate, so "pulling over" meant "squeezing my tiny car into a parking bay the size of a broad highway shoulder."

As we got out of the car, an older woman emerged from behind the building where she had been pruning her roses. She introduced herself as Tammy.

Her shop offered the promised variety of Maple, but also a number of small antiques and a plethora of dog figurines, plaques, and clearly-hand-stitched garden flags.

A huge purple ribbon hung on the wall behind the register, along with many pictures of small dogs. This was no county fair ribbon. It was the size of my torso. The material had the soft sheen of actual silk.

As I placed my purchases on the counter, I asked, "Do you... Breed dogs?"

Yes. She does. She has bred Yorkies for the last 40 years. Her mother bred Yorkies before her. The purple ribbon was from her national championship winning Yorkie.

You may be expecting that the infodump was going to be about Yorkies.

It was not.

It was about 40 years of drama in the Yorkie breeding community. Where – you must understand – the judging at shows is often about who you're in with, not about the dogs. This is especially true when Tammy's opponents win anything.

And Tammy's mother! Well. Phyllis has been on the Yorkie scene since Yorkies were invented. Because of this, many women of equally venerable age hold deep grudges against Phyllis. The sort of grudges that result in episodes of Midsommar Murders.

This led to deep injustices against Phyllis on the part of judges and prevented her dogs from winning so often she retired from the scene. Judging is all about who you're friends with, after all.

After 20 years in hiding, Phyllis – the One True Queen of Yorkie Breeding – hatched a plot. She may have been out of the show circuit, but she was still breeding dogs. She entered an absolutely perfect bitch in the national competition, but sent her with a handler rather than go in person.

None of the usurpers knew who this dog belonged to, and in dog-breeding circles this Does Not Happen. This could have resulted in further injustices, but Phyllis was crafty. She knew this tournament was being judged by a man from the UK, who knew naught of the drama in the US Yorkie Empire.

With these advantages – and being the best dog there – Phyllis's bitch won the highest honor at the show.

Incensed by this insult to their ill-gotten supremacy, the other owners descended on the handler after the show, demanding to know for whom he was working.

"Phyllis," said he.

The name of the overthrown queen evoked horror in the usurpers.

"PHYLLIS!? She's still ALIVE!???"

Yes, Phyllis yet lived, and this bitch – the dog, not the woman – went on to mother Tammy's current dogs. One of whom, Lucy-Fur, is the reincarnation of Tammy's sister (also Lucy). This is certain for two reasons.

Firstly, Sister Lucy absolutely went straight to Hell upon her death, and Lucy-Fur the dog is positively as evil as Sister Lucy was.

I thought we were better now about slurs and accidental* racism in media, even media that we like?

But there's a Pokemon that is known for stealing scrap metal and getting into fights, that's so hostile that public services can't run in areas where it congregates, it's moveset in all forms starts with "Pickpocket" - And call it "Tink" - That feels like too many coincidences, all around the nucleus of the stereotypes of Nawken, Scottish Gypsy Travellers, Mincéirs or Irish Travellers, Romany Gypsies and Romani people as a whole.

(Note on language use: I'm using Traveller with a capital T throughout this, to mean collectively the nomadic peoples of the UK and Ireland, which includes both Romani and non-Romani people. Mincéirs are an Indigenous people of Ireland who also live in significant numbers in the UK, and Nawken are a nomadic Scottish people with distinct culture and language different to settled Scots language and Scottish people)

First: "Tink" and "Tinker" is a common slur for Travellers and especially for Nawken and Mincéirs in the UK and Ireland, especially in Scotland, Ireland and Northern England. It comes from the historic profession of tinsmithing - mostly cold-working tin and sheet metal to make small items like water jugs and plates - Which is an archetypal "traditional Traveller profession". It's not the kind of slur that anyone particularly reclaims, especially "Tink", and is still very much a modern term of abuse that usually presages violence.

It's still used innocuously as a verb- Like "He tinkers with old radios and classic cars" but it's not something that can be used as a noun, calling someone "a tinker" or even more so "a tink" is unambiguously offensive and a term of racial abuse. Old white people might call a mischievous small child "a little tinker" but that is in the same way as white people will say "a little sa*age" - they're saying "This child is like the Uncivilised (racialised) People" (Closely related- This is also why I have zero sense of humour about white gorjers describing themselves as "feral" in any context - Unless you have actually been the focus of a moral panic about "feral kids" then please, don't)

(Also, yes, Tinkerbell is a somewhat dodgy name. Who would have thought that the same racist Scottish guy who wrote awful stereotypes of Native Americans and First Nations people into his fantasy might also use a term of abuse along with common racist tropes about Nawken - That they're angry, tricksters, and nebulously magical-mystical - in creating another character, and then Disney the notably racist corporation that made the notably racist adaptation of the book just kept it.)

Common stereotypes in the UK and Ireland of Travellers is that we're violent, and thieves, and especially that we steal scrap metal and live in scrapyards, or that our trailers are always surrounded by scrap metal and fly-tipped rubbish. Ambulances, fire engines, and notably taxis often refuse to attend to Traveller sites. Common stereotypes of Travellers everywhere, and especially of Roma, is that we're pickpockets.

From Bulbapedia's Tinkaton article:

"Tinkaton is intelligent and has a reckless personality. It swings its hammer at rocks to send them into the sky, aiming to hit flying corviknight. This Pokémon will also steal anything that it wants and take it back to its dwelling. It has been observed using its hammer like a bed to sleep on."

And from the violet pokedex:

The hammer tops 220 pounds, yet it gets swung around easily by Tinkaton as it steals whatever it pleases and carries its plunder back home.

From Wikipedia's Tinkaton article:

Highly intelligent and daring, they steal items to bring back to their lair, while using their hammer to launch projectiles at their natural prey, the flying Pokémon Corviknight. As a result of this predatory behavior, Corviknight has been unable to provide a taxi service to humans within the region where Tinkaton is found.

From the scarlet and violet pokedex entries for Tinkatuff:

This Pokémon will attack groups of Pawniard and Bisharp, gathering metal from them in order to create a large and sturdy hammer.

These Pokémon make their homes in piles of scrap metal. They test the strength of each other's hammers by smashing them together.

I don't have a great conclusion just it's annoying to see all the talk of Tinkaton being a fan-favourite whilst totally missing the really unfortunate implications of the name, which get worse when paired with the description.

1. looking at alpacas

2. looking at rope swings

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