MISC: GODLING # 53 The Masked Merchant part 2 by J. Vandersteen

[Scott Eiler]

On 2016-03-18 13:32, Drew Perron wrote:
> On 1/22/2016 5:33 PM, jvdsteen1974 at gmail.com wrote:
> <snip>
>> Lower Troy. A group of thugs wearing black bandanas is chilling,
>> sitting on their cars, smoking and drinking while a boombox plays
>> rapmusic.
>
> Not gonna lie: I'm uncomfortable with this. A lot of the simplified
> cultural tropes you use are harmless, but the word "thug" has been used
> in some really awful ways recently?

ehh, that just makes me think of my earliest stories of Ellipsis And His 
Amazing Friends.  (Listed in "The Balance" section of 
http://www.eilertech.com/stories/1988/ .)  Ellipsis of course had better 
things to do, but a couple of his teammates liked to go out and Fight 
Crime.  And I never described how they *found* crime that the police 
weren't already on top of.  They'd either have to start fights in the 
single most sleazy bar in town, or somehow learn about crack houses that 
the police didn't even know about - in which case, why not *tell* the 
police?

Suffice it to say, my stories grew away from that trope.  My heroes who 
*have* copious mission time, now either get paid to go on patrol, or 
spend their time doing Good Works other than crime-fighting.  My 
upcoming Powernaut 2006 series will pretty well show how *he* operated then.

-- 
(signed) Scott Eiler  8{D> -------- http://www.eilertech.com/ ---------

When you *are* the leader... whatever goes wrong... whether you did it
or not... *you* are held responsible. - Barack Obama

I know. - Archie Andrews

- from Archie #617, March 2011, scripted by Alex Simmons.