I Have Strong Opinions Read online

  I HAVE STRONG OPINIONS

  A Collection of Frothing, Fuming and Funny

  Laura Anne Gilman

  Faery Cat Press

  Copyright © 2020 by Laura Anne Gilman

  Cover Design: Natania Barron

  Production: April Steenburgh

  eBook ISBN 978-1-951612-88-7

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  Introduction

  History Will Fuck You Up

  Don't Join A Neighborhood Facebook Community. Just... Don't.

  I'm Done with the Motherfucking Cold of this Motherfucking Winter

  The War on Christmas Retailers

  Words with Friends, No.

  My Music is Problematic

  Check It or Chuck It

  Identifying Your Troll Subspecies: The Circular Tapdancis minor.

  Impolite Vampires

  We're All Special Snowflakes, Sunshine.

  It's About the Ethics

  Seven Words

  Fuck You I'm Not Neurotic.

  Leave the Goddamned Kids Alone

  Facebook RSVPs

  You Made a Promise, Damnit.

  It’s a Shitty Situation

  I Will Stab You With this Pencil I Swear to God

  Do Not Make Me Choose Sides, You Both Suck

  You're Not Here Alone, Damn It

  Get Your Boom Out of My Room

  Do You Want to Die, Or Just Kill Me?

  "No Hoods, Ever!"

  If You Can't Identify It, You Shouldn't Touch It.

  Whose Story Is It Anyway?

  About the Author

  With thanks to my Patreon supporters, without whom these Rants would not exist.

  Introduction

  Chuck Wendig

  It is often said that the Internet was a DARPA project, made for military research and education. Blah blah blah, something-something Al Gore. Sharing of data, a marriage of systems, yadda yadda yadda.

  That is false.

  I am here to tell you The Truth. And that Truth is—

  The Internet was made for rantin’. Maybe a little ravin’, too. Definitely some roarin’ about and most certainly for some rhetorical ragin’. It is not simply made for these things, but also, made of these things – a “world wide web,” you might say (and I did say, for I just made that up, “world wide web,” it’s catchy, isn’t it?). Opinions are the glue that keeps all these 1s and 0s zipped up tight.

  But let is also be said that not all opinions are equal in the eyes of whatever gods of justice watch over us all, nay. Were that true, we would not have to endure wanton dipshittery at every level, in every corner, of the Intertubes, oh no. It is vital to note that in this era of unmitigated fuckery, we must again return to cherishing the power of expertise.

  And there exists no greater expert in this matter than: a writer. Even better, a writer of fictions, and even better than that, a writer of fictions across the various genres—a multi-faceted ink-slinger with a lot to say, and many, many ways to say it.

  So enters Laura Anne Gilman, an author of just that variety who is in fact an expert ink-slinger and opinion-haver, a choice ranter, raver, roarer and rager, who has not only written many fine books, but who has also concocted a frothy foam-over of opinions, many of which she has shared via her Patreon. And that’s what you’ve got in your digital, ephemeral hands right now: a collection of those very rants and raves, a heady jumble of choice mini-essays that talk cover a scythe-swept swath of topics including (but most certainly not limited to) pets, Facebook, bathrooms, bodily habits, politics, Santa Claus, music, and more. Plus, as a licensed and certified sommelier of profanity, I can assure you with great delight that she is an expert in the ways of the foul tongue, as well, calling people “shitwaffles” and “duckfuckers,” which is demonstrable evidence of her deft vulgarity.

  So, go on the journey. Buckle up. Get ready for some salt. You’re in good hands. You’re in an expert’s hands. Behold the boil-over of finely-curated, vulgar-as-anything opinions of Laura Anne Gilman.

  History Will Fuck You Up

  Periodically I encounter someone who scoffs when I say that I write fantasy, as though the genre is somehow less than others because “it’s all made up.”

  Look, I get it, I do. You’re right: fantasy is all make-believe. It’s magic and elves (checks work: no elves) and swords (no swords) and kings (no kings) and demons (no… shit, okay, there are demons). So it’s not like we have to worry about anything other than internal consistency which yeah is a bitch but it’s not like it’s anything every other writer isn’t supposed to be doing anyway

  (Emphasis on the ‘supposed’ but that’s a rant for another month)

  Except that’s utter bullshit.

  Here’s the thing. I wrote urban fantasy for a long time. A dozen+ books’ time, in fact. Books set in New York, a city that I know reasonably well. And I still had to pull out the map and get on the subway, and check shit out, to make sure I had my facts straight, because trust me, if I got it wrong, someone (probably many someones) would let me know.

  [As an aside, did you know that the underside of the Brooklyn Bridge is painted purple-ish? Also, that if you start taking photos of the underside of a bridge, a cop may give you a very thorough side-eye? Always bring your id and your business cards with you when you Research, kids. Seriously. I shit thee not.]

  But that’s fact-checking, I get told. That’s not research. It’s all still made up.

  At this point I usually stop to remind myself that the agency bail fund probably won’t cover even justifiable homicide, so I only ask my interrogator if they ever wrote a research paper in their lives, and if so how they gathered the material to do it. If they say “Wikipedia,” I give up and drown my sorrows in whisky. But if they admit that yes, they have been known to crack a book or two, and jot down some thoughts about their thesis rather than regurgitating a bunch of facts onto a page, I ask them what they thought that was. And what they did when something they learned didn’t fit that thesis.

  Because oh my dog, people. That happens all the time when you’re writing a book. And three times as often when you’re writing a book set against the backdrop of actual history. The plot goes Thisaway but the actual events, or people, went Thataway. So what do you do?

  Sure, you can fudge it. You can fudge it for a research paper, too, but you’re not going to get a good grade. And in fiction, the immediate, always-easier answer is to say “screw it, alternate timeline.” That is an incredibly valid answer. This is a created world, for all that it’s set against a real backdrop, and there’s an infinite number of ways the writer can tweak it without losing all recognition. But.

  But.

  In the Vineart War trilogy, I threw most all but the basic overlays out. I could do that with impunity, because my divergent point was with the Etruscans (700-400 BCE) and who was going to argue with me? (answer: a few people, actually. It was a fun discussion.) But for The Devil’s West, I was playing in a background that people thought they knew

  (Rant for yet another time: the difference between “The Old West” and Western American history before 1820 because oh holy shit. We may need a few beers for that).

  So when I was trying to figure out a way to include Sacajawea in the story, because hey, the timing was right, and the location was right, and it would be cool to have her there before she got subsumed by the two white dudes writing history. Except, except oh god, and here is where I start to cry, the history of she-who-becam
e-Sacajawea is so convoluted and filled with conflicting oral histories and name changes and when-was-she-actually-there… and oh yeah, she was maybe actually only around 12 or 13 when this story takes place. Which would have been an interesting counterpoint to Isobel being 16, but it was problematic in a lot of other ways.

  Research. I did my research, and it gave me a dilemma. Did I work with her at that age? Did I decide that in this history, she was already an adult woman (as she’s portrayed in our history, since she was carrying her infant son on that expedition)? Or did I scrap the subplot entirely?

  Reader, I scraped it.

  Would anyone have noticed if I’d included her as an older woman? Or would they have accepted it, since that’s how she is portrayed in our history? I’m pretty sure some keen-eyed, history-minded reader would have caught it. But even if they hadn’t, it would have undercut the rest of what I was doing.

  And since that accuracy was the core of the world, fantasy or no, research couldn’t be ignored.

  We fucking hate research, some days. But it’s what makes worldbuilding work.

  Don't Join A Neighborhood Facebook Community. Just... Don't.

  I made a mistake. I joined my town’s Facebook page.

  Oh. My. Dog.

  No, okay, overall it’s… interesting. I get to hear a lot of different viewpoints and take the pulse of the neighborhood. And there are often a lot of good local recs being made (if you need to know where to get a first birthday cake made or find a hair stylist who specializes in short cuts for women, I got ya covered).

  But every now and then someone goes and posts shit that makes me want to find their home address just to drive by and roll my eyes at them. Hard.

  And sweet baby flying spaghetti monster on fucking toast, no topic hits that response around here like the topic of development.

  Excuse me while I let off a little steam.

  * * *

  Yes, neighborhood poster, I understand your sadness at the house from your childhood being torn down to make way for multi-dwelling unit. I understand your regret at not being able to buy it and fix it up. However, and there is always a however, the fact remains that you did not. Nor did anyone else. So - since the current owner is no longer able to maintain it - the alternative to a developer coming in would be to have the house sit there and slowly fall part until it became an eyesore.

  Are you really saying that you’d rather have a decaying farmhouse? That you’re okay with property values going down? That’s what you fucking want for your (our) town?

  Look, I understand there are a lot of people who don't like it when a small town gets bigger. You think there's too much construction, too many new buildings, and it's not like you remember, and that is not what you wanted when you bought a home here a decade (or more) ago.

  News flash: shit changes. Towns, like people, change. And when a town’s within commuting distance of a major city with increasing real estate prices (in this case, Seattle), one of two things is going to happen. You’re either going to adapt to the inevitable influx, or you’re going to lose that growth to other towns, and find yourself marginalized and revenue-hungry,

  And you need to choose fast, because playing catch-up costs more in the long run.

  But like I said, I get the upset. What really pissed me off, neighborhood poster, was that while you're bitching about the new construction and the new buildings and the destruction of your memories, you never seem to mention the way part of that construction is involved in creating a new beautiful park, complete with a playground, or buying 60+ acres of forest land and setting it aside to remain forest alongside those new houses and new construction. Or the way that they’re revising the layout of downtown to make it more pedestrian-friendly. Or that we’re part of the county-wide plan to keep our streams and rivers clean and salmon-safe.

  None of that pings your radar, only the immediate inconvenience.

  I suspect that you are the same people who bitched when the University of Washington built a secondary campus and developed student housing, ignoring the fact that having UDub in town is one of the best things that could've happened to the town in terms of income with a relatively low impact, and that the development included the state-mandated preservation of the wetlands surrounding campus, plus the addition of a bus stop hub connecting us to the rest of the area.

  Yeah, we’re not a sleepy little town anymore. But we’ve got revenue coming in to fund the infrastructure, and we’re controlling our own destiny, as much as any town can, rather than being run over by it. I’ve seen what happens to economically-depressed towns. Trust me, you wouldn’t like that, either.

  Oh, and speaking as someone who lives across the street from the campus, the students are quiet and respectful, and make pretty damn good neighbors. Plus, they seem to be too busy to join in the community Facebook group. That probably makes them better than us.

  I'm Done with the Motherfucking Cold of this Motherfucking Winter

  Every year around March 1st I wake up and think, I am so fucking done with this fucking weather.

  Acknowledged fact: I am a delicate northern flower. If the temperature gets above 80 degrees, I may in fact melt. If the temperature gets above 85 degrees, and the humidity rises, I will not only melt, I may in fact melt down. And I’m not shy about taking people in my vicinity down with me, if they ask “hot enough for ya?”

  (Seriously, just don’t. Not even once. I will tear your face off).

  I’m not going to apologize for this: it’s who I am and I’ve made my peace with it. The only place I’ve ever been able to stand high temperatures is down in the tropics, and that’s because a) Trade Winds and b) cold Red Stripe.

  And so, yeah, I prefer cooler temperatures. I like the snow. I don’t mind bundling in sweaters, or having to shovel snow (within reason, Boston, no need to dump another 100+ inches in one winter). I like snowball fights and sledding, and hot chocolate after. This is my jam. Even after having moved to the PNW, where things are… different, I’m still enjoying the colder temperatures, and the winter-clouded skies.

  That said, there comes a moment when I haul myself to the front door, lean on the doorjamb, and holler “enough, you motherfucker! I want spring, and I want it NOW.”

  I’m at that point right now.

  It’s not that I suddenly overnight don’t like the cold. Or that I don’t enjoy seeing snowflakes falling from the sky like a fucking Hallmark Holiday Card. I do. Even in March. Even in April, because I know that those suckers are going to melt in a day or two.

  But March? March is the fucking tease of the calendar year. “Spring!” it calls out, cheerful like a fucking bluebird. “Spring is almost here!” Especially here in the PNW, where things start to re-green obscenely early, making you think about hauling out the bike, and lacing up the hiking boots.

  And then we’re walloped in the face with blasts of miserably cold rain and rattling wind that carries nothing but desolation and despair.

  Dear March: Fuck you. Fuck you and your early-appearing flowers, and your occasional mornings of gorgeous blue skies and sunshine where we fall prey to your lures and open the windows, only to have the temperatures drop 20 degrees in a half hour. Fuck you for the cold-as-congress hail falling past new-budded trees. And fuck us for forgetting, every February, that this is the same shit you pull every damn year.

  The War on Christmas Retailers

  I walked into the Starbucks one morning in late October (I’d run out of coffee beans, don’t judge) and they were playing Christmas music.

  I was prepared - it’s not like it doesn’t happen every year around this time - but I still felt the need to inform my otherwise lovely barista that they would not be seeing me again until January.

  Because, yes Virginia, there is a war against Christmas holiday retailers. And it begins with the first stores loading up Christmas decorations and candies the week before Halloween (Rite Aid and such, we’re looking at you, and you were already on our shitlist for not discounting
Halloween candy the day after, what the hell is wrong with you?)

  Look, anyone who is that into Christmas that they need it two months ahead of time? They have the ever-increasing option to go to a 365-days-a-year Christmas Store. Or buy things online. They don’t need that in their local drugstore. The rest of us get ambushed early, we say “oh hell no” and walk out again, often without searching for the thing we went in for. Or if we do, we curtail any further impulse shopping, in order to escape as quickly as possible.

  You jump the gun by a month or more, and shove your retail Christmas agenda in my face weeks before Thanksgiving? I’m going to walk past your door and go somewhere else. And I know I’m not alone in this.

  It’s not that we hate Christmas. Many war-on-Christmas-retail advocates love it. Hell, even those of us who don’t celebrate (and there are more of us than the Christian Right wants to admit) think it’s kind of adorable, when kept within a reasonable three week celebratory period. I love the dark-of-winter lights, and the pine scents and the hustle and bustle of gleeful shopping, and the way many of you get positively glow-y as the day approaches.

  And if you want to put your personal home-decor Christmas lights up the day after Thanksgiving, (ideally) before snow hits and while you still have the teenagers off from school and available to help, go for it. I’ll be on the sofa, napping off the turkey and pecan pie, cheering you on (and mocking you when you go overboard, because seriously?)