Twitter Thread on AO3 and the Hugos

[forestofglory]

This the text of a twitter thread that I posted yesterday about the current mess with AO3 users being told not call themselves Hugo winners. I wanted to save it somewhere more permanent than Twitter and also share with people here who don't follow me on twitter


I have a lot of feelings about the current mess with AO3 users being told not to call themselves Hugo winners.

I've been a Hugo voter for longer than I've had an AO3 account. I got started in part because marginalized people where encoring me to take part and represent the diversity of the genre.

So I've always seen the Hugos as flawed and in need of improvement, but still its been an important community for me. I've bounded with people and discovered works that I love. I wouldn't read so much short SFF without the Hugos

Some of those people are AO3 users, and they've slowly gotten me more and more involve in the transformative side of fandom. Which has been amazing.

I'm also one of the people who helped create the Lodestar Award -- the-not-a-Hugo YA award. We hoped that the Lodestar would honor diverse works and also be a bridge between WSFS and the YA community

I was so pleased when AO3 won the Hugo this year. I watched on the livestream as so many in the audience stood up because they where part of the AO3 community.

All those people who stood up are WSFS members. Everyone who nominated and voted for AO3 to win a Hugo is WSFS member!

Some of us have been working to make the Hugos more inclusive for a long time. It feels shitty to have the Mark Protection Committee come gatekeep all over our efforts

Comments

[naye]

It does feel super shitty, and pointless. I can see them maybe not wanting someone to sell pins with the Hugo logo (as was apparently happening), but good lord. If you want to claim to be a Hugo Winning Fanfic Writer in your Twitter bio WHAT DOES IT MATTER?

[forestofglory]

I know! I'm just very sad and frustrated.

[suncani]

Wow, I hadn’t realised that was happening. That’s so shitty and is just helping to widen that gap again at the moment when it looked like it was narrowing.

I don’t have anything more profound to say than BAH!

[forestofglory]

It's all over my twitter feed the last couple of day. I'm glad you missed it because its not fun. I am sad and frustrated with the whole thing.

[lunabee34]

Ursula Vernon has been fabulous throughout the whole thing.

[forestofglory]

She's amazing! (Somewhat ironically I think I first heard about her work when Digger won a Hugo)

[lunabee34]

I knew her name but hadn't read her before. Now she's on my list.

[forestofglory]

I really like a lot of her work! Here's short fiction starter pack one of my friends put together.

Also note that some of her work is published as T. Kingfisher.

[lunabee34]

Thank you, thank you on both counts!

[sakana17]

Thanks for posting this. I saw a mention of this just today but had no context for what was happening. This is... arrrrgh. Maddening/saddening. :(

[forestofglory]

I'm glad I could give you some context. I'm finding the whole situation quite upsetting.

[jo_lasalle]

This is really sucky. I'm sorry that kind of pettiness has brought a damper on that awesome Hugo win. >.

[forestofglory]

I'm just trying to remember how awesome that win felt despite all of this nonsense. They can't take the actual win from us!

[fairestcat]

I was so happy when we won, and I'm so mad that that's now tarnished in some way by this bullshit.

I was a Hugo voter this year, not because I wanted to vote for the AO3 (although that was a bonus) but because I really wanted a) the voter packet, and b) to vote for Space Opera, because I adored it.

And also because I got a job and thus could justify the cost for the first time in a while.

[forestofglory]

It's so sad and frustrating. I'm trying to remember that moment where everyone was invited to stand up and accept the award together and not let this fight taint that. But its hard.

I hope you enjoyed the Hugo packet and the rest of the voting process before all that happened! And now you'll be able to nominate next year which is my favorite part of the Hugo process!