Mirthful mouthfuls

But then one night they wake up in the middle of the night because something is in their closet. And the door starts to creak open so Stitch tackles whoever (whatever) is in there. They fall back into the closet, the door slams shut… and when Lilo runs over and opens it there’s nothing but an empty closet.

Then Boo tells Lilo all about this weird thing that happened to her when she was a kid, and how no one ever believed her but she knows it was real. 

Old books are the heart of my childhood. While I was growing up, we had more books in the house than we had furniture. The walls were shelved in hardbacked books; there were books under the beds, on the floor; stacked under a tablecloth to make a coffee-table. I spent my pocket-money on books, working out how many I could afford to buy with my weekly allowance. If I went onto the market, I could buy second-hand paperbacks by the yard for the price of a can of Coke, and although my mother disapproved of paperbacks in general, I read these avidly, in any genre from science fiction to romance; from spy novels to hardboiled mysteries.

Pulp fiction has had a mixed reputation over the years. Despised by the kind of reader who feels that only hardbacks are “serious,” mass-market paperbacks are often assumed to be less worthwhile, even trashy. And yet the books I loved the most were all mass-market paperbacks. Books with split spines, held together with tape; books with creased covers, bent pages. Books that have been read in the bath, swollen to three times their size. Books jammed into back pockets, or sneaked into bed with a flashlight. Books that have been re-read a dozen times, as familiar and as comforting as a favourite pair of sneakers.

Some people never re-read a book. I have never understood this. Much as I love discovering new things, I am a great re-reader of books, especially when I need something friendly and unchallenging. And I am a great believer in exploring different media: the rise of e-books and audiobooks have made books more widely accessible, especially to those who find the printed page a challenge. I have a Kindle, which is very useful when I’m travelling, although I’d never take it to the beach, or try to read it in the bath. And of course, I own plenty of hardbacks, too. But hardbacks are seldom comforting. Hardbacks may be beautiful, like carefully chosen objets d’art: but they are often too large to large to handle easily; too precious to be carried around. Hardbacks are teachers, professors, role models, even idols, but paperbacks are equals; friends. Paperbacks are always there at the best and worst of times. In times of plenty, buy them new: in times of need, buy them cheaply from market stalls and charity shops. As a child, I loved Rider Haggard’s jungle epics; Willard Price’s Adventure series; Enid Blyton’s mysteries. As an adolescent I discovered Stephen King, P.G. Wodehouse, Douglas Adams, John Mortimer, Ramsey Campbell, Georgette Heyer. I still have a whole shelf of these authors, books that I like to read in the bath: I know them almost by heart, which means that I can pick them up or put them down at will. And it means that however tired I am, or how many life challenges I am facing, my friends are always waiting to help relieve the pressure, like a pair of comfortable shoes.

When I’m signing at festivals, I love the well-read copies best. The copies that have been passed on from parent to child; the ones that have travelled all over the world. People sometimes apologize for not bringing a brand-new copy, but I take it as a compliment if theirs is battered and distressed. When I was 21, Roger Zelazny came to sign in a fantasy bookshop in Leeds, I handed him (rather nervously) my copy of Nine Princes in Amber, and he smiled and said: “You’ve been reading this in the bath, haven’t you, hon?” It was the nicest thing he could possibly have said. Because books are meant to be loved, not displayed; not stored in plastic wrappers.

Of course, the rise of the e-book, with all its shiny new innovations, may mean the slow death of the paperback. That doesn’t mean the death of the book: books remain books, whether they come to us in physical or virtual form. But in the tale, the offer of “new lamps for old,” turns out to be a bad bargain. It’s hard to find magic in hardware. And a physical book can be read and passed on: an e- book is only ever on loan. Our libraries of e-books will die with us, unlike the books we hope to pass on. Yesterday, at my mother’s house, I found her going through a pile of old books that had belonged to my father. Some dictionaries in German; some books on gardening and history. And a little stack of paperbacks with lurid pulp-fiction covers: my father always had a love of spy thrillers and Westerns. “I don’t know what he saw in those,” my mother said. “They’re terrible.”

(Branching out into historical costuming for everyday wear is like your one shot at variation, and even then, the ratio of men’s to women’s patterns on every website is frustrating to say the least.)

Twig and Tale on Etsy have a modest selection of slightly more unique men’s and unisex patterns, I’d really love to make their Pathfinder vest and Ridgeway shirt, among others

Merchant and Mills have a small selection as well, including their Billy gillet and unisex Landgate raincoat

Wardrobe by Me has mostly basics, but I do like their Ozark vest and utility jacket – and as a very small trans guy, I appreciate that their men’s patterns go down to a 2XS

Thread Theory is one of the places I absolutely have my eyes on for modern menswear – I’d particularly like to make their Gosling short-sleeved button-up, Jutland pants, and Belvedere waistcoat

Folkwear are absolutely inching into the desperately-needed much more unique zone – I have plans to make both their varsity jacket and vintage vests, and also have my eyes on their frontier shirts, sailor pants, shirts of Russia and Ukraine, and poet’s shirt

Black Snail Patterns does historical clothing patterns ranging from 1700 to 1910; I just nabbed their Victorian/Edwardian walking trousers and lounge jacket patterns the other day

Laughing Moon Mercantile also do historical patterns, likewise I am planning on making their Victorian shirts and neckwear (which has 15 different historical neckwear suggestions included) and Victorian notched collar vest

The Tudor Tailor do 16th century clothing, which might be a bit bold even even for historybounding for most people, but they do great work, and I highly recommend their bias-cut footed hose as well as their excellent books

(Last but not least, I would be remiss not to mention Norah Waugh’s The Cut of Men’s Clothes, which is a book and not a pattern retailer might be best for slightly more advanced sewers, but I did make a really excellent 1600s cassock using a pattern from it that has gotten a lot of compliments as everyday wear!)

He's one of those angry, weird, gatekeeping nerds who gets angry when a gross girl wants to touch his Magic cards, then complains that no girls will talk to him.

He's all the weird things we've worked so hard to push out of the larger community of nerds that we all love.

I don't care what these guys think, so I'm not responding to them. But this issue comes up from time to time, and thought this presentedan opportunity to clarify what I view as the big difference between a gatekeeper and a caretaker.

For too long, weird, antisocial gatekeepers did their best to make women (and anyone who wasn't a cishet white dude) feel unwelcome in gatherings of sci-fi, fantasy, gaming, and other "nerd" spaces, while they complained that they never got the attention from women they felt they deserved. Those dudes were always outnumbered by the rest of us, but they were the loudest and always got the most attention.

But one day, the majority of us sort of collectively realized that nobody ever agreed that these boys were in charge of us and our relationship with the things we loved. We told them that they didn't get to gatekeep anymore. It took years, but we slowly changed the culture to be more inclusive, more diverse, and less toxic. And holy shit did I not realize the extent and depth of the toxicity until it wasn't there, protected as I was by my demographic privilege. Jesus Christ was it toxic.

For years, these boys (most of them are still boys, well into their adult lives) have been big big mad that the majority of us, who never agreed with them, finally stood up and established a boundary. We said that all are welcome, unless you're a dick. These boys and JD Vance aren't able to cross that boundary, because it's at odds with who they fundamentally are in their core. They are bullies who like the same things a lot of nerds like. We are not the same. Our weird is amazing and fun, while their weird is ... weird. Offputting. Strange.

We aren't going back to a time when women felt unsafe and unwelcome at cons, because self-proclaimed "nerds" like JD Vance, who are just toxic bros who missed the entire point of The Lord of the Rings, Star Trek, and Star Wars, now have to respect clear and posted anti-harassment policies that carry real consequences.

We aren't going back to a time when someone had to pass an arbitrary trivia test, delivered by a self-appointed gatekeeper like JD Vance, to participate in any aspect of fan culture, because that demand is now met with the dismissive eyerolls it always deserved. Our cons, our game stores, our comic shops, and all of our spaces are safe and welcome to all because we work together to protect them from entitled weirdos like JD Vance.

All are welcome, just don't be a dick.

That's how it is now. That is massive progress. It is a fantastic thing, and we are going to protect our county from JD Vance and people like him, the same way we protect nerd culture from JD Vance and people like him. That was the point of the article I linked to with my original quote that inspired this ask:

For Vance and others, it’s not their interests in comic books or sci-fi that sets them apart now. What’s weird is their refusal to share that win with anyone who doesn’t fit the outdated stereotype of who and what a nerd is.

I'm not a gatekeeping hypocrite, as some boy declared, because I work to keep toxic boys -- who derive a sense of power and importance from bullying -- away from a community I care about. I'm, uh, ... you know ... being a caretaker.

There are a lot of us caretakers, now that I think about it. The vast majority of us, I imagine. So I am but one of the caretakers in this garden, keeping the weeds out, and protecting the plants from pests, so the garden can thrive. I'm proud as hell, and so grateful, to be part of that.

Patreon is the main source of income for many creators and not everyone can afford an extra 30% on top of what they're already paying.

No-one can have missed the absolute scenes on social media, both before and after the boxing match between Imane Khelife and Angela Carini, from which Carini withdrew after just 46 seconds, having received a blow to the face.

Social media had already been abuzz with unfounded claims that Khelife was a man, largely based on her athletic (and to Westerners, “masculine”) body type. (The same rumours had also been spread about Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-Ting; also a woman, assigned female at birth, who got into boxing to protect her mother from domestic violence.) From this explosion of misinformation came increasingly wild claims from all the usual suspects: that she was trans (in spite of coming from a Muslim country where transitioning isn’t allowed); that she had “self-identified” as a woman in order to win (again, not possible in Algeria) plus some quite ghoulish speculation about her sex organs and the type of puberty she might have undergone.

But here’s the thing.

Khelife is not trans. There is one trans boxer at the Olympics, a trans man called Hergie Bacyadan, who for some reason has gone almost unnoticed in this desperate attempt to prove a conspiracy that just isn’t happening. Imane Khelife was assigned female at birth, has a passport confirming it, and has spent her life as a woman, fighting against her country’s patriarchal ideas of what women are supposed to do. Not only this, but she is an ambassador for women and girls, who originally took up boxing to protect herself from those who disapproved of her interest in sports.

She was disqualified from the 2023 women’s world championships because tests showed she had XY chromosomes, which is altogether possible for a cis woman. Nor does her condition mean she is automatically likely to win against her opponents. In 2020, she made it to the quarter-finals of the Olympics, where she was defeated by Kellie Harrington, and she has been boxing on the international circuit for years without any of her wins or defeats gaining much attention.

Until now.

But her fight against Angela Carini on Thursday made her a magnet for some truly disgusting hate, largely, it seems, from the kind of men who enjoy threatening women, whatever the reason or excuse. In fact, there were distinct parallels with this and the recent anti-Muslim riots in Southport after the murderer of three little girls was falsely rumoured by agents of the far-right to be a Muslim immigrant.

Let’s be clear. Even if the attacker had been a Muslim immigrant, this violence would have been completely unacceptable. But the mob just wanted the opportunity to scapegoat and attack a community, in exactly the same way that the people attacking, threatening and objectifying Imane Khelife wanted the chance to attack a woman for not conforming to their idea of what a woman should be like.

In this context, it’s hard to see the rage and violence levelled against her for this victory as anything other than misogynistic - and racist.

It’s also hard to understand why in a sport like boxing – where the whole point is to hit your opponent – a person should be criticized for following the rules of the sport. It’s almost as if excellence is allowed in men’s sports, but in women’s sports, it’s automatically viewed as suspicious. And Imane Khelife isn’t the only athlete of colour accused of “being a man” because she defeated a white woman. Serena Williams has spent her career fending off accusations that she “was born a man” both because of her muscular physique and her excellence in her field. Caster Semenya, who has naturally elevated levels of testosterone, has been likewise demonized. It’s almost as if the people driving this toxic narrative believe that only men can excel in sport.   

And as for the argument that claims that elevated natural testosterone levels in a woman is “an unfair advantage,” don’t all elite athletes have some kind of physical advantage? Do we dismiss basketball players for being unusually tall, or weight-lifters for being unusually muscular, or runners for being lean and light? Why do we celebrate Michael Phelps for his genetic advantage, but penalize Caster Semenya for hers? Women have fought so very hard for the chance to participate in sports that were once seen as the sole province of men. Now, when they dare to excel in them, they are accused of secretly being men, or of not being “proper women.”

This isn’t any kind of feminism I recognize. The feminism I believe in is about breaking down barriers, not setting them. I personally dislike boxing (both for men and for women), but I respect any individual’s choice to compete. And attacking a woman boxer for winning a boxing match is as misogynistic as claiming to “defend” her opponent by painting her as a victim. Both athletes chose to compete. Both accepted the risks. Both have had their Olympic moment ruined by people who don’t care about sports, or the facts, or even women. This isn’t feminism. This is the worst and most patronizing kind of prejudice, and it actively hurts women – all women, but especially women of colour and those who do not conform to traditional ideas of what a woman should look like, what sports she should enjoy, or how she should behave.

Women fought for years for the right to make their own choices, to have their own identities outside of the stereotypes set by the patriarchy. Questioning those choices - those identities - isn’t progress.

 Supporting women doesn’t mean protecting them from themselves.