my norcal trip ootds, with daisy modeling this time!! 🌼🌼🌼

Me when Spock

From TV Guide, April 29-May 5, 1967

....by Isaac Asimov

picked a bunch of mandrakes the other day

born to be an idgafer forced to be a yearner

not to be pretentious, but a lot of stuff you guys complain is being ruined by capitalism/the algorithm/whatever can be solved by consuming something else than the most basic mainstream stuff that's thrown in your lap. "songs nowadays are getting shorter to fit entire tiktoks and it's ruining music" have you tried listening to something else than Spotify's Top 100 my dude? "fanfiction-to-publishing pipeline is churning out mediocre books and it's ruining literature" have you tried reading something outside the NYT bestseller list my dude? This is not a post about how algorithm based industries give visibility to the lowest common denominator art at the expense of actually creative and meaningful art that struggles to make itself known, which is a valid discussion for another time, this is about people actively not giving this kind of art their visibility because they won't get out of their way to discover stuff outside the mainstream radar and prefer to be passively fed what to consume while bitching that is not up to their tastes.

PLEASE for the love of the universe read anti-colonial science fiction and fantasy written from marginalized perspectives. Y’all (you know who you are) are killing me. To see people praise books about empire written exclusively by white women and then turn around and say you don’t know who Octavia Butler is or that you haven’t read any NK Jemisin or that Babel was too heavy-handed just kills me! I’m not saying you HAVE to enjoy specific books but there is such an obvious pattern here

Some of y’all love marginalized stories but you don’t give a fuck about marginalized creators and characters, and it shows. Like damn

If anyone has any recommendations give them to me please!

Gladly! The pieces on this list aren’t limited to specifically anti-colonial science fiction and fantasy, but they do center related and relevant topics, themes, etc.

• Anything by NK Jemisin. She is the best speculative fiction writer of her generation and probably the best speculative fiction writer alive. She is easily one of the best writers working right now, across all genres. That’s not hyperbole. She deserves all the hype.
• Anything by Octavia Butler. She needs no introduction. Her short fiction is incredible; “Bloodchild” is one of the pieces that inspired me to write.
• An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon. Excellent. Just read it.
• The Radiant Emperor duology by Shelley P. Chan. It broke my heart and it'll break yours.
• Babel by RF Kuang. You’ve probably already heard of this book because Harper Voyager marketed the shit out of it and was right to do so. It’s very, very good. Kuang writes a compulsively readable story, that’s for sure.
• The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo.
• So Long Been Dreaming: Post-Colonial Science Fiction and Fantasy (anthology) edited by Nalo Hopkinson.
• Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora (anthology) edited by Nalo Hopkinson.

Severely underhyped books of assorted speculative genres:

• The Blood Trials by NE Davenport. Given the current chokehold romantasy has on the public it’s insane to me that this book hasn’t sold a billion copies.
• The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez. It’ll change you.
• The Tiger’s Daughter by K. Arsenault Rivera.
• The Lesson by Caldwell Turnbull.

Read widely. Read diversely. People of the Caucasian persuasion need to stop getting pissy when the story doesn’t immediately center them and they don’t automatically relate to everything the character says and does and is. Just let yourself get swept in the story—even if it touches on (gasp!) racism—and maybe, just maybe, it’ll reveal something to you.

Or maybe not! Marginalized sff authors do not have to and should not have to educate their readers. But if I see one more white person complain about how Black characters are fundamentally annoying because they complain too much I’m going to fling myself into the sun

Thanks for coming to my ted talk I didn’t want to do it but here I am

Don't forget Aliette de Bodard! Especially her Xuya and Dominion of the Fallen series.

Zen Cho is my other favorite - Sorcerer to the Crown and The True Queen, and also Black Water Sister.

The Faded Sun Trilogy by CJ CHERRYH.

Just finished my umpteenth reread

SYLVIA. MORENO. GARCIA.

Do you love dark Gaiman-esque fantasy? Did The Shape of Water and Crimson Peak permanently alter your brain chemistry? Do you dig awesome female protagonists, bittersweet romance, and historic fiction that doesn't center on 19th century England for once? Get thee to this woman's writing immediately. (Gods of Jade and Shadow is my personal favorite, but you can't go wrong with Mexican Gothic or The Daughter of Doctor Moreau either.)

ALT

ALT

shapeshifting attempts

adhd moment

hello to girls who are in bed

I know "60s housewives who invented slash fanfiction" has taken on a life of its own as a phrase, but Kirk/Spock didn't really exist until the 70s and THOSE WOMEN HAD JOBS. They were teachers and librarians and bookkeepers and scientists and they damn well spent their own money going to conventions, printing zines, buying fanart and making fandom happen. Put some respect on their names.

Salute to our troops (70s careerwomen who put their hard-earned dollars into homemade gay erotica)

It was women with secretarial jobs doing a lot of the heavy lifting, if memory serves correctly.

They had training in type setting, could churn things out quickly, knew how to organise mailing lists, and had easy access to Expensive High Tech like photocopiers.

Boss make a dollar, she makes a dime. That's why she's printing Kirk X Spock zines on company time.

forget about touching grass, i need to touch THE SEA I NEED TO GO INTO THE WATER I NEED TO DIVE INTO THE SEA!!!!!!!!!!!!