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I was trying to take an internet vacation. Then the Hugos happened, and racists came to my subreddit so here I am, tired and angry and sad, about to embark on a Twitter rant. 1/?
I am a second generation nerd. My dad read The Hobbit, LOTR, Narnia to my sister and I as bedtime stories when we were young. We watched countless episodes of Red Dwarf that he had taped on VHS. 2/?
The best thing my dad ever did though to get me into genre was not push his preferences on me. He just encouraged me to read anything and everything I was interested in. 3/?
Other than those nights where we were all snuggled on the couch while my dad read LOTR, I've never actually picked up anything Tolkien has written. And that happened so long ago I don't actually remember anything about the story. 4/?
My dad writes D&D content for a living. He listens to LOTR audiobooks while mowing the lawn. He has a huge collection of old Conan the Barbarian stories that he is constantly rereading. 5/?
He has never once told me that my love of sff is lesser then his because I don't love the same stories he does. Those nights listening to him read out loud may have been my entry into the sff genre, but they are not what shaped me at my core. 6/?
When I was 8, I stumbled across a new book that would change my life, SQUIRE by Tamora Pierce. It was on display as a new release in my school library and I remember being arrested by the cover. 7/?
A girl with hair like mine, freckles like mine, a face like mine, scuffed up from a fight and holding a baby griffin. This is my origin into sff, the book that made me, the book I still reread every few years and treasure my copy of. 8/?
I want every single person in the genre to have this moment, where lightning strikes you through and you know you have to have this book no matter what because you have never been seen before this moment. 9/?
For many people, they cannot find these books until they are a lot older. The whiteness and heteronormativity of publishing gatekeeps queer, trans, and poc stories. Those authors are not allowed to set foot in the door. 10/?
Or if they can manage to fight their way in, they are expected to change their stories to cater to white, straight, majority audiences. Fuck that. 11/?
Not every book needs to be for you. Not every book can speak to every person. But there needs to be a breadth of stories in order to reach people and allow our community to keep growing. 12/?
By continuing to lionize the racists and sexists of yesteryear, we alienate the people who are our community right now. It tells them that they are not as important as dead white men who did terrible things. 13/?
Read old sff if you want to. Know that it is a product of a particular time period and cultural consciousness. Know that history is rarely as straight forward as we write it down. 14/?
That queer and trans folks have existed since the dawn of time, even though we did not use those terms. That women are not merely objects of male desire and have searched for freedom and meaning as best they can within and outside social norms. 15/?
That people of colour and Indigenous folks also have long, complex histories around the globe, and Europe was never as white as you think it is.
We exist and we are telling our stories. 16/?
We exist and we are telling our stories. 16/?
I am tired of this constant fight uphill, against men who praise the racists and rapists that made their community, but not mine. I am no less a nerd and a livelong sff fan if I have not read LOTR, GOT, WOT, Lovecraft, Conan, etc. 17/?
I am the crest of a wave, rising upwards, pushing new voices forward, as we crash into the shore and reshape the landscape. This is my sff community. And the old guard is can no longer hold entry points hostage. 18/?
If you have money to spare, consider picking up a book that is not by a white, straight man. If you can't, see if your library has the book. Write a review. Recommend it to a friend. 19/?
So much of fandom and community is built on unpaid labour, just because we love something. But if you have a moment, take a breath. Know that you belong here. That the future will be filled with even more amazing stories that are yet to be written. 20/?
Now I'm going to stop angrily tweeting, go organize all the ebooks I rage bought to support favourite authors who were dissed by the Hugos. 21/?
I'm also going to read some old stories by James Tiptree Jr., who, despite Silverberg's assertions, was not the manliest of men. But rather an excellent pseudonym for Alice Sheldon. Again, we have always been here. And sff is better for it. 22/22
