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Just so I'm not always writing about the same thing, I'm going to talk some TJ Klune, who it's no secret I adore. House in the Cerulean Sea was definitely one of my favorite books of recent times. (chubby, fussy, 40s gay man finds love and a place to fit? heck yeah!) Apparently people are trying to cancel him now? I know they tried to with The Extraordinaries because of police dad, but now they're saying he's cool with pedophilia because of Wolfsong (the age thing was weird but I think anyone who is says they are a woke ally should know better than to throw the "p" word out about a gay man willy nilly... We STILL have the conservatives using that as an attack point) and that he has appropriated First Nations pain and exploited it/made it okay with House On the Cerulean Sea.
Now, I'm not saying that he's above reproach or whatever. He apologized for the police dude. I don't believe he's said anything about the latter two yet, but I also think people seem to be too harsh. Like Cerulean, apparently someone asked where the idea came from and he said he read about the Scoop in Canada when they took all the native children to awful boarding schools. This has turned into him apparently thinking that is a good idea since the kids end up with a happy family in Cerulean and him telling a story he doesn't have the right to tell. But I don't think that fits at all, personally. There is no way to read Cerulean and know anything about the Scoop, right? He's not telling that story. He created his own world where a bad thing happened and showed that individuals can matter. We don't even really know how the magic kids ended up on that island, if I recall right, other than that a stronger magical being wants them protected. And I haven't been able to find a single First Nations person decrying this -- it's all fired up white women "allies." How good an ally is someone if they bury the voices of the folks they supposedly care about?
I dunno, what do you think?
I sort of wonder if Klune is partly getting poked at so much because he's one of the biggest, most visible gay, neurodivergent authors in recent years. He got a MAJOR book deal (like seven books or something) when Cerulean and the Extraordinaries came out. And it seems to have just grown. I'm not saying the majority of people attacking him and removing Cerulean from their shelves are homophobic, but I do wonder where the initial outrage stories began? Who started it and did they have good intentions?
And my goodness is there so much virtue signaling online. I am amazed at some of these videos. So much outrage and so many lists and no forgiveness. Which is especially weird when they take old books as examples... These days, I'm really trying to pay attention to creators of color and queer ones, because that's where the nuance seems to come from. And despite being the people more directly affected by these authors, they seem to have a much less... histrionic?... approach to their outrage.
Though, I guess when it comes to queer books, there's some outrage over "straights" taking over the Heartstopper fandom and... doing something that makes it bad? When it isn't their lane? Which I one hundred percent don't get. A friend was asking me about it and, to me, works like Heartstopper or Red White and Royal Blue and Winter's Orbit and so on that are m/m romances that aren't written my men are good for representation and I love that it gives more positive gay representation to the world and love that straight people like them. They can do whatever they want with them because those were obviously NOT written for me or other gay men. They're all some weird fantasy for straight people. I'll stick to things like Klune's (oops, we came back to him) How to Be a Normal Person or Gail Carriger's San Andreas Shifters series (you can tell for sure that while she is writing for a broader audience, she is also definitely trying to include gay men specifically in that audience AND she is close friends with actual gay men or something. She gets it RIGHT). So, to me, there are two kinds of good m/m romances: own voices/or focused on the gay community and the fun for everyone else ones and they both have a placer in the world.
Now, I'm not saying that he's above reproach or whatever. He apologized for the police dude. I don't believe he's said anything about the latter two yet, but I also think people seem to be too harsh. Like Cerulean, apparently someone asked where the idea came from and he said he read about the Scoop in Canada when they took all the native children to awful boarding schools. This has turned into him apparently thinking that is a good idea since the kids end up with a happy family in Cerulean and him telling a story he doesn't have the right to tell. But I don't think that fits at all, personally. There is no way to read Cerulean and know anything about the Scoop, right? He's not telling that story. He created his own world where a bad thing happened and showed that individuals can matter. We don't even really know how the magic kids ended up on that island, if I recall right, other than that a stronger magical being wants them protected. And I haven't been able to find a single First Nations person decrying this -- it's all fired up white women "allies." How good an ally is someone if they bury the voices of the folks they supposedly care about?
I dunno, what do you think?
I sort of wonder if Klune is partly getting poked at so much because he's one of the biggest, most visible gay, neurodivergent authors in recent years. He got a MAJOR book deal (like seven books or something) when Cerulean and the Extraordinaries came out. And it seems to have just grown. I'm not saying the majority of people attacking him and removing Cerulean from their shelves are homophobic, but I do wonder where the initial outrage stories began? Who started it and did they have good intentions?
And my goodness is there so much virtue signaling online. I am amazed at some of these videos. So much outrage and so many lists and no forgiveness. Which is especially weird when they take old books as examples... These days, I'm really trying to pay attention to creators of color and queer ones, because that's where the nuance seems to come from. And despite being the people more directly affected by these authors, they seem to have a much less... histrionic?... approach to their outrage.
Though, I guess when it comes to queer books, there's some outrage over "straights" taking over the Heartstopper fandom and... doing something that makes it bad? When it isn't their lane? Which I one hundred percent don't get. A friend was asking me about it and, to me, works like Heartstopper or Red White and Royal Blue and Winter's Orbit and so on that are m/m romances that aren't written my men are good for representation and I love that it gives more positive gay representation to the world and love that straight people like them. They can do whatever they want with them because those were obviously NOT written for me or other gay men. They're all some weird fantasy for straight people. I'll stick to things like Klune's (oops, we came back to him) How to Be a Normal Person or Gail Carriger's San Andreas Shifters series (you can tell for sure that while she is writing for a broader audience, she is also definitely trying to include gay men specifically in that audience AND she is close friends with actual gay men or something. She gets it RIGHT). So, to me, there are two kinds of good m/m romances: own voices/or focused on the gay community and the fun for everyone else ones and they both have a placer in the world.
