#jun chen

Chloe is very poor, abused by her family, and mentally ill, but she's also white, and there's certainly no shortage of people in the fandom who have no compassion for her. There are even those who parrot eugenicist rhetoric by saying that paraplegic Chloe is "doing both herself and her family a favor" by "putting herself and them out of their misery by freeing them from debt caused by her medical expenses and the general burden of caring for a disabled child." Unfortunately but not surprisingly, those are the same types of people who vilify the wasteland gang (who are clearly being exploited by their employer) and have no compassion for them or their circumstances. The same goes for those who vilify Jun Chen fully without considering his circumstances. People can absolutely hate him for the way he treated his children, but failing to see that he is simultaneously an abusive, neglectful man AND a victim of white supremacy is willful ignorance. The racism and xenophobia really comes out alongside the classism with those types of people when they discuss the characters of color, and that's obviously absent in discussions about Chloe and her family because they still benefit from white privilege, a luxury the others don't have. And I'm really not surprised at all that the classist, ableist people who perpetuate the above garbage about disabled, mentally ill, impoverished white characters are also racist pieces of shit, because racist, xenophobic, classist, and ableist beliefs often go hand in hand.

BIG agree w/ you & w/ what all of the op’s ask about the fandoms contempt for drug users/characters who have to make their living around drugs to survive. parts of the fandom’s reaction to drew and especially the wasteland gang really got to me, and you’re on point as well about Mr. Chen being a victim of the system due in large part to systemic racism and poverty. though i’d still consider him abusive due to his neglect and eventual abandonment of his kids. that being said, i have

Maybe unrelated balls-2-thewall bonkers LiS AU idea: John Chen Lives AU, no honking idea how this'd work. Either toss most the canon out (as normal)or somehow this happens w/ Jed still hailed a hero &coverup still a thing (I rlly don't get the Present Mystery, why would Typhon blow it up 2x it's already coveredup? dunno enough abt mining). John had a headwound? Be vague abt how John escaped after Jed&co left the rest behind? Are powers heritable? Flesh the mystery &vs Typhon conflict 2 ig.