I saw a quote by Laura Hudson earlier about the general bullshittery of, in particular, science fiction authors’ attempts to justify the absence of women in their books/films/etc.  I write science fiction, and Laura Hudson is cool news, so I read the whole thing and lo, it was good.

At eighteen I was the shithead snarking that it wasn’t “realistic” to have women starfighter pilots or ladies in shining armor, but jesus fucking christ I was writing about dragons and shit.  How do people grow up and continue thinking like idiot teenagers?  When your canvas is as blank as fucking FANTASY you can do whatever the shit you want.  I write women, I write LGBT characters, I write Trans* characters, and fuck realism because it’s motherfucking science fiction.  Single moms can be dimension-hopping pirates, man.

This genre is supposed to be at the leading edge of critical thought, and lately it hasn’t been, largely for bullshit reasons like this.  Get your head out of your ass and get your goddamn game together, sf/f.