Arlock

You’re fourteen and you’re reading Larry Niven’s “The Protector” because it’s your father’s favorite book and you like your father and you think he has good taste and the creature on the cover of the book looks interesting and you want to know what it’s about. And in it the female character does something better than the male character - because she’s been doing it her whole life and he’s only just learned - and he gets mad that she’s better at it than him. And you don’t understand why he would be mad about that, because, logically, she’d be better at it than him. She’s done it more. And he’s got a picture of a woman painted on the inside of his spacesuit, like a pinup girl, and it bothers you.

But you’re fourteen and you don’t know how to put this into words.

And then you’re fifteen and you’re reading “Orphans of the Sky” because it’s by a famous sci-fi author and it’s about a lost generation ship and how cool is that?!? but the women on the ship aren’t given a name until they’re married and you spend more time wondering what people call those women up until their marriage than you do focusing on the rest of the story. Even though this tidbit of information has nothing to do with the plot line of the story and is only brought up once in passing.

But it’s a random thing to get worked up about in an otherwise all right book.

Then you’re sixteen and you read “Dune” because your brother gave it to you for Christmas and it’s one of those books you have to read to earn your geek card. You spend an entire afternoon arguing over who is the main character - Paul or Jessica. And the more you contend Jessica, the more he says Paul, and you can’t make him see how the real hero is her. And you love Chani cause she’s tough and good with a knife, but at the end of the day, her killing Paul’s challengers is just a way to degrade them because those weenies lost to a girl.

Then you’re seventeen and you don’t want to read “Stranger in a Strange Land” after the first seventy pages because something about it just leaves a bad taste in your mouth. All of this talk of water-brothers. You can’t even pin it down.

And then you’re eighteen and you’ve given up on classic sci-fi, but that doesn’t stop your brother or your father from trying to get you to read more.

Even when you bring them the books and bring them the passages and show them how the authors didn’t treat women like people.

Your brother says, “Well, that was because of the time it was written in.”

You get all worked up because these men couldn’t imagine a world in which women were equal, in which women were empowered and intelligent and literate and capable. 

You tell him - this, this is science fiction. This is all about imagining the world that could be and they couldn’t stand back long enough and dare to imagine how, not only technology would grow in time, but society would grow. 

But he blows you off because he can’t understand how it feels to be fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen and desperately wanting to like the books your father likes, because your father has good taste, and being unable to, because most of those books tell you that you’re not a full person in ways that are too subtle to put into words. It’s all cognitive dissonance: a little like a song played a bit out of tempo - enough that you recognize it’s off, but not enough to pin down what exactly is wrong.

And then one day you’re twenty-two and studying sociology and some kind teacher finally gives you the words to explain all those little feelings that built and penned around inside of you for years.

It’s like the world clicking into place. 

We got Tumblr’s attention with our past peaceful protest campaigns

Protect the Creators

Bring Back Reply

Protest against hate speech

Bring Back Arch Atlas

Maybe it is time we use our beloved Tumblr to protest this sexist policy that marks female nipples as porn. Tumblr is being extreme in what its decision and policies, and is using a useless algorithm that sees Rothko paintings (see @dailyrothko) and flowers and all kinds of non-porn images as porn.

So, on Monday, 12-17-18, we should not post anything on Tumblr, except the above photo, which is available here. NOTE: You can also add these to your avatar to let anyone who visits your site know about this.

As this post suggests, if we have a queue with images, we should add this one to 12-17-18. As part of our protest, we should not do anything on Tumblr for the whole day: no dashboard, no posts, no comments, chat, replies. We should also, as recommended by @jtmportland, we should also completely log out to show a physical drop in traffic/use.

Nothing on Tumblr, all day, M, 12-17-18. Even log out completely for the day so there is a drop in traffic/use.

Also, please think about putting @staff & @support​ on any and all reblogs of this and any on any posts about this, since this will send them a direct notification of each and every post about this. We need to flood their dashboards so they see we are upset.

Also, please use the staff and support tags.

Dancing Goddesses

These are AWESOME.

*falls over laughing*

There’s another thing we do when we’re about to go into battle and we’re scared out of our minds. 

So Alien Steve is minding his own business as the new guy on the Starship Incandescent. It’s a mixed ship, about half human, a quarter Silesian, and the rest a grab bag of species, but he hasn’t had any major problems so far. Then the pirates show up and shoot out their FTL drives so they can’t escape, and they’re outnumbered ten to one, and he calculates their odds of survival at very low. The comm link is still active, so they can hear the pirates laughing as they get ready to tear the Incandescent open and vent them all into vacuum. At least the end will be quick. 

And then he hears it. 

Stamp stamp clap. Stamp stamp clap. Stamp stamp clap. Stamp stamp clap.

And Human Steve starts chanting. It makes no sense. Human incantations are for birth anniversaries, or aquatic grooming rituals, or for the ancient rite of passage known as “ka-ra-oke”. This is not a time of celebration. It is a time of preparing for imminent and ugly death by gravity cannon. But every human on the bridge starts chanting, too. 

The pirates aren’t laughing anymore. Human Steve wraps his fingers around the main gunnery controls, and the crew descends as one into battle. 

“Oh, by the way, does your species have music?” She’d asked.

Plygax’s initial reaction was joy - humans always loved this trick! He began to rub his hinds together, creating a beautiful melodic sound similar to one of their human “cellos.” But the captain looked disappointed.

“But do you sing?” She asked. 

Plygax had heard of singing, but never tried it. Why bother struggling with throat-strings when your hinds can make music for you? “I - my ‘voice-box’ works for it, but I don’t.” he said, after a pause. 

“Well, you’ll have to learn.”

“But I don’t understand, ma’am. I’m an engineer? What does singing have to do with that?”

She smiled. “You’ll see.”

Hours later, Plygax was in the engine room when he heard a voice cry out over the intercom:

“Oh, the year was seventeen seventy-eight”

And, then, as one, the engine crew answered:

“How I wish I was in Sherbrooke now!”

“A letter of marque came from the king to the scummiest vessel I’d ever seen”

“God damn them all! I was told we’d cruise the seas…”

Plygax looked around him, stunned. Humans, as far as he was aware, had no hive mind, nor any kind of telepathy, but each of them, as they sang, worked in perfect unison, to the rhythm of the song. And as he looked closer, he realized it wasn’t just the humans. A dozen other species sang along and worked in perfect lockstep. And he had just one thought: