holywatering:

calanthes:

callmejude:

afternoonsnoozebutton:

Part of the issue I have reading scifi is so much of it is “a wandering band of white men set out to colonize space” and it’s just like reading a history book except there are asteroids. 

Okay, seriously. I’ve been staring at this post for like an hour trying to name one book like this and I can’t. What awful sci-fi novels are you kids reading? 

What about the Red Mars series or 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson? 2312 plays a lot with gender, too, not just race. Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. La Guin? (Hell, most things by Ursula K. La Guin…) The Faded Sun trilogy by C.J. Cherryh? Jesus, Island in the Sea of Time by S.M. Stirling has time-travelling interracial space lesbians! Ben Bova’s Mars is about the Navajo nation terraforming Mars. Imperial Earth by Arthur C. Clarke’s lead is a bisexual dude. The Expanse series by James S.A. Corey is a ragtag team of space explorers and only one guy is white. Literally nothing by Octavia Butler or Margret Atwood fit this trope you’ve painted out, either.

And that’s just the ones I can think of that take place IN space, which this post seems to assume is ALL SCI-FI. Granted, a lot of older sci-fi is a bunch of old white dudes, like Brave New World and that sort of thing. But what about Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson?

The lead is an interracial badass hacker, there.

Y the Last Man is a comic series by Brian K. Vaughan where there is only one human man left alive after all the others mysteriously die off. Tons of lesbians and nonwhite characters.

It sounds to me like you kids watched James Cameron’s Avatar and declared yourselves aficionados of the whole fucking genre. I understand being sheltered, it’s hard to go looking for stuff that you don’t hear about on every best-seller list. But you cannot blame the genre as a whole on your own ignorance.

adding to kelty’s brilliant post to say that if you think sci-fi is just White Dudes Colonizing Space then you probably have no idea what sci-fi actually is. i’ve been a sci-fi fan my whole fucking life and i have no clue what the fuck kind of sci-fi you’re talking about, because literally nothing that’s been popular in the past 75 years in the sci-fi genre fits that description? like ok, first of all, sci-fi as a /genre/ was invented by arab writers, so let’s get that straight: it was not invented by white dudes and stop perpetuating the myth that it was.

sci-fi has always been a means by which inclusivity could be snuck past the radar, because in times when it wasn’t really accepted to have non-white or LGBTQ characters, you could get away with putting them in your movie or TV show by having it be sci-fi. case in point: this is why star trek managed to have characters who were a black woman, a japanese man, and a russian man (yes this was a Huge Deal in the 1960s) and have them be portrayed in a positive manner, whereas they wouldn’t be able to do that in a show that took place in the “real world” because it was seen as too political.

not to mention that a lot of sci-fi, including the franchises tumblr likes to shit on because they have some white guys in them, follow very liberal ideologies! the original star wars trilogy literally revolves around a group of rebels (LED BY A WOMAN) fighting against a totalitarian government. padme amidala, a pivotal character in the prequel trilogy, is an explicitly anti-war senator who spends most of the prequels trying to stop the rise of said totalitarian government. star wars, as a franchise, has absolutely nothing espousing the virtues of colonialism – quite the contrary in fact, when the antagonists are literally an intergalactic, human-supremacist, sexist, exploitative, colonialist empire led by white dudes. (the fact that so many white dude star wars fans constantly jerk it to the trappings of the empire is frankly disturbing, but don’t take that as the fault of the media itself.) also, the newest series, like clone wars and rebels, have a SHITLOAD of female characters and, despite being ostensibly for kids, deal with heavy topics like oppression, bigotry, concepts of personhood, and basically everything that the OP thinks sci-fi glosses over. there isn’t a white dude in the entire cast of rebels save for a couple of imperial grunts, cameos by tarkin and vader, and the inquisitor, who is less a white dude and more “an alien who is literally the color white” – all of whom are villains.

basically: the white dudes colonizing space are almost never the good guys, even in avatar – it’s hamhanded as shit and really white-savior-y, but the entire point of that movie was that COLONIZATION IS BAD!! and as an aside, i also take issue with how the OP seems to think the definition of sci-fi is “IT TAKES PLACE IN SPACE”, because that’s… that’s not the definition of it. it’s something that’s common to a lot of works in the genre, but it sure isn’t a marker of it.

definition of sci-fi: “fiction based on imagined future scientific or technological advances and major social or environmental changes, frequently portraying space or time travel and life on other planets”

ergo, examples of things that tumblr loves that are considered sci-fi and don’t fit the description given in the OP:

  • the hunger games
  • neon genesis evangelion
  • every gundam series (especially wing and 00, which have diverse casts and deal explicitly with colonialism and oppression)
  • the alien movies
  • the terminator movies
  • hell, even the jurassic park movies are technically sci-fi
  • PACIFIC RIM
  • mad max (this is tenuous but i would say that the road warrior, beyond thunderdome, and fury road definitely fall under the “major social or environmental changes” definition)

so basically, don’t talk about what you don’t know. don’t trash an entire genre because you don’t understand the fucking definition of it, or because you saw one movie you didn’t like.

also, here’s a list of authors and works you should really educate yourself about before you make sweeping fucking judgments about ALL SCI-FI EVERYWHERE ALL THE TIME: ursula k. leguin (left hand of darkness and, as kelty said up there, pretty much everything she’s ever written), octavia butler (again, everything, but lilith’s brood is incredible), g. willow wilson (alif the unseen), n.k. jemisin (the hundred thousand kingdoms – more fantasy, but read her anyway), kim stanley robinson (the years of rice and salt), spider robinson (the callahan books), storm constantine (the wraeththu books), nancy farmer (the ear, the eye, and the arm), nnedi okorafor (who fears death), THE ENTIRE AFROFUTURISM MOVEMENT IN LITERATURE FOR FUCK’S SAKE

#if any genre is guilty of the wandering band of white men syndrome#it’s fantasy

marauders4evr:

iama-potato:

endurement:

marauders4evr:

I just really want to write a book (in fact, I think that I’m going to) where the protagonist is in a wheelchair. And they live in a city where there’s a group of superheroes. And there’s a big, magical, villain because of course there is.

And since they were a young child, this protagonist has wanted nothing more than to join the group of superheroes. Like they’re a huge fan of the group and they just know that it’s their destiny to join.

And one day, when wheeling through the city, they see the group of heroes fighting the villain. And they quickly wheel over and cry, “Let me help!”

But the ‘heroes’ laugh and instead make a whole bunch of ableist remarks.

And so the protagonist has to prove themselves.

And the villain is trying to warn them to stop.

But the protagonist ends up taking their footrest off of their wheelchair and they swing it. And it hits the villain in the side of the face and the villain collapses and groans in pain.

And so the protagonist proudly smiles and turns to the group of heroes.

Because they just proved that they are strong and worthy enough.

But the group of ‘heroes’ still keeps making ableist remarks.

And the protagonist is shocked.

And meanwhile, the ‘villain’ staggers to their feet and is standing next to the protagonist’ wheelchair.

And one of the ‘heroes’ goes too far when calling the protagonist the R word.

And the protagonist and the ‘villain’ just sort of glance at one another.

And the ‘villain’ is just like, “You know…I can zap them for you…if you want.”

And the protagonist hesitates and says, “Yeah, alright!”

One fried group of heroes later, the ‘villain’ says, “Why do you think that I’m always fighting them? They’re all a bunch of assholes.”

And the protagonist sadly nods and starts to wheel away.

Then:

“Hey, do you want a job?”

The protagonist turns at the villain’s remark. And the protagonist mumbles something like, “Oh, come on. I don’t need your pity.”

And the ‘villain’ is like, “Pity!? Do I look like someone who hands out pity!? I don’t pity you! I’m kind of afraid of you, to be honest! I mean…I’m going to have a giant bruise on my face because of you.”

“Yeah…sorry…”

“Water under the bridge! So, what do you say? Do you want a job?”

And the protagonist thinks about it for a minute before shrugging.

And the ‘villain’ is all excited because they’ve wanted someone to work with them for years but no mortal is allowed to ‘step into’ their lair.

And then the ‘villain’ stops and is like, “Hang on…you can’t work with me in that.”

And they gesture to the protagonist’s wheelchair.

And the protagonist is all embarrassed.

And then the villain goes, “Because we can get you a much better wheelchair! It’ll look great! And it’ll be indestructible! And it’ll have all sorts of weapons and gadgets! Hey, how do you feel about flying…?”

And all of that is literally in the first chapter and then the rest of the story follows the two going around the city like BAMFs, forcing people to stop being ableist, one way or another. And maybe it’ll have some commentary on the scale of morality and what it truly means to be a hero and what it truly means to be a villain.

Would anyone be interested in this!?

Because I really want to write it!?

YESSSSS. ALL MY YES PLS WRITE IT

I’D READ THE SHIT OUT OF THAT YES PLEASE

OP HERE!

Man, it’s so surreal to look at this.

BECAUSE I ACTUALLY WROTE IT!

AND IT WAS JUST PUBLISHED TONIGHT!

Of course, there are some differences between the final book and this original idea. The most notable difference is that all of this takes place in the first book (it’s going to be a series!) and the whole ‘superhero’ thing is just going to be a front. There’s a few other differences as well (such as a huge plotline involving Merlin and immortal characters!)

BUT I WROTE IT!

AND IT’S PUBLISHED!

AND IF YOU’RE INTERESTED, YOU CAN BUY IT HERE:

www.amazon.com/Antagonists-Book-One-Burgandi-Rakoska-ebook/dp/B015BWS9J0/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1442188845&sr=1-1&keywords=the+antagonists

AND IF YOU WANT TO HELP ME OUT, YOU CAN REVIEW IT!

AND IF YOU REALLY WANT TO HELP ME OUT, YOU CAN SIGNAL BOOST THIS POST WITH THIS REPLY SO THAT PEOPLE ACTUALLY KNOW THAT THE BOOK NOW EXISTS!