Slang term for fantasy humanoid minorities?

I'm trying to make up a name for a piece of legislation that pastiches the Jim Crow laws and I need an all-encompassing term for a wide spectrum of non-human, ex-human, or part-human species from mythology like lycans, vampires, gorgons, orks and harpies.

Can anyone help me out on what I might call them? Up until now I've been referring to them as "demihumans", but I feel like that's more of an official term that doesn't carry the same weight as a nice bit of politically incorrect slang.

Mimics. People see them as nothing but attempted copies of humanity.

If the law is supposed to imply the demis were once slaves who were granted integration into the world's society, an unsympathetic catch-all term would be more suitable, like inhuman, or animals, or beasts.

If the demis have a prolific society outside the country the law affects, or are in no way at a disadvantage against the humans, then a term that makes them sound untrustworthy or evil would be suitable. Even having them grouped together as an evil thing they have no relation to would convey a racist tone for antagonists in the story.

A word that conveys shame when used by humans is also a plus. If you want, you can even borrow a word from the demi-humans' language to be used against them as slang, to convey the writers of the laws don't even want to dirty a word of their own language when speaking of the demi-humans.

• Conveying Inferiority: "unhumans", "inferiors", "nobodies", "tolerables", "falsemen", "halfies", "mooks", "wastes", "things", "unpeople", "objects", "beasts", "antis", "slaves", "freaks", "fakefolk/halffolk/notfolk"

edited 7th Dec '14 2:27:04 PM by Aespai

" Freaks", "mutants", "horrors", "abominations", "monsters"

edited 25th Dec '14 11:31:04 AM by dvorak

"Mocks" or "mockmen"?

Ooooooh, I like "Mockmen". Or maybe "Scarecrows"? Either would be a catchy replacement for slang like "Jim Crow".

"Mockmen" feels more offensive than "Scarecrows".

edited 20th Dec '14 8:18:38 PM by nekomoon14

"Demis" seems like a good place to start. Negro was an official term once upon a time, being a description using the Spanish(?) word for black and it mutated into...well, you know.

And it's short and to the point, fakefolk etcetera seems like a mouthful.

"Human" for those humanoids whose heritage is so mixed you can't tell what they are anymore.

Werewolves referred to as mutts or dogs, orcs referred to as half-men, humans as plebeians.

One webcomic I read used the word Occult as a group term for fantastic humanoids.

Wouldn't want to go down to that part of town, it's full of those Occult.

I really liked "crow" at first because it was so close to "Jim crow" that it made a very natural sounding and relevant slur: Imagine a bigoted character calling a harpy Jim (or Jane) Crow as an insult, the harpy responds angrily that he/she has a name, and the guy retorts back with "You all look the same to me, Canary"

I had an offhand idea that an Orcish character of mine might once unexpectedly flew off the handle when someone called him a "big lug" as he spent most of his life as a slave moving heavy machinery, his kind being nicknamed "luggers" by some of his abusive foremen.

Do any particular groups have any past stigmas associated with them that would form grounds for prejudice? It's somewhat common for orcs to be painted as an ascended slave race as per the example above, or maybe you have an "all female" race that requires interbreeding with males from other races to reproduce, which would make them subject of a mixture of labels such as base, lustful whores or devious sexual predators by those who argue that their method of reproduction isn't natural. Maybe it's not a catchy name that's always needed, just something that hits home about what some ignorant or plain angry person really wants to say about who they are insulting.

Pointy ear for elves is common. Shorty works for dwarves and halflings.

I think it depends on the rest of your setting.

If it's a Victorian-y horror-fantasy like it already kinda sounds like, then the simple term 'monster' goes much farther, given that it was used in that era to describe genetic defects and the living products thereof. In that context, calling them 'monsters' is both horrifyingly dehumanising, and era-appropriate, especially if the back-story is that genetic research led to their existence.

Of course, 'monster' is both utterly generic otherwise, and in this context is quite squarely associated with cheesy Universal Pictures crap, so unless your setting already goes well out of its way to portray the cultural 'horrors' of the era, then the whole nuance is lost, and you're well on your way toward a story that comes across to modern readers as less Jim Crow and more Monster Mash.

Failing that, I'm partial to the suggestion of avoiding concrete nouns and having them be referred to using abstraction-turned-title terms. Specifically, I'm partial toward the idea that mainstream humans would actively try to avoid referring to them by any term that sounds too concrete.

The Japanese term 'yokai' is a good example. It outright means 'weird shit', or rather, weird happenings, strange phenomena... despite the fact that it generally refers to mythical creatures. Mind you, 'creatures' in Japanese folklore are rather indistinct from anthropomorphisms, optical illusions, etc.

Hence, the genre of 'investigating yokai'. That's pretty much the same thing Star Trek characters say when they check out an 'anomaly'. The alien of the episode isn't even a living creature... it's an event.

And if you think about it, terms like 'creature', 'monster', 'beast', 'thing', have kinda lost their sting in your world's context. Humanoid creatures which nonetheless 'aren't human' aren't a horror-genre reference anymore... they're an objective reality. And part of the point of referring to living humans as 'inhuman', 'monster', etc, is to imply that they somehow don't, or at least shouldn't, exist. It's the ultimate expression of unwelcome, the implication that one's existence, one's presence in the world, is an unwelcome outsider from the perspective of 'reality'.

So if 'dehumanisation' means relatively little, on account of non-human persons just kinda 'being a thing' now, then terms like 'outsider', 'thing', or 'monster' have lost a bit of their sting. Not necessarily all of their sting, mind you, but definitely that part of the sting that people are actually going for when slurring these creatures.

...And really, how badly does -that- get the point across, that it's the nicer, more-tolerant humans who refer to them as 'creatures' or 'defects'... while the official, documented term is 'Happenings'... or worse yet, 'Incidents'.

I mean hell, I like that last one enough that I almost wish I'd used it in my own work instead of suggesting it. 'Happenings' implies preternaturality... 'Incidents' implies the inherent presumption of criminality which is a consistent hallmark of urban racism.

"Animals". No matter how intelligent they are, they still don't count as people. Also works for those who crossed the Moral Event Horizon. They're no longer people. Basically, one apes humanity, the other lost it's humanity.

edited 10th Mar '15 3:08:28 AM by dvorak