Bay 12 Games Forum

One of the more popular fantasy/technically!sci-fi series for a while, actually. The sex/romance things generally weren't a super huge part of them, just a part.

Not really a 'made it to you local library' thing -- most american/english-language-primary libraries that carry fiction will probably have some pern books, and most (older) sci-fi/fantasy readers will have at-least heard of McCaffrey. Pern was pretty big for a while. There were roguelikes made based off it

You... can't alleviate many/most of their fears, though. Not without brutally fucking over lots of other people. What part isn't outright irrational is rooted largely in the thought of no longer being the group that gets to shit on people. The only way to alleviate that fear is to leave someone for them to shit on. Their discomfort comes from the existence of other people and said other people's lives becoming less of a heap of shit to live through. You can't fucking mitigate that without throwing someone under a bus.

She absolutely did not. Iirc pern had the dragon mating thing screw with an underage character at some point (dub/non-con, statutory), and her other works involved rape at least once -- one I can't remember the name of* that involved an interspecies relationship, had a book in which the lady involved gets drugged, fucked, and knocked up in the process. The general (non)reaction of everyone aware of it happening (the victim included) is wtf worthy (and I think I actually posted in the wtf thread about it at some point :V), heh. McCaffrey's definitely not as bad as Anthony, but they're approaching the same ballpark.

... though yeah, some of the pern stuff was alright. Some was eye-gougingly boring, though, on top of the sketchy shit the whole dragon connection thing brought to the table.

* Actually, now that I check it's that cat-thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_WarhUuR0E
I don't really know the series, did they play games in the actual anime?

It wasn't smash, obviously enough, but yes. Apparently poker against the critter's brother, too.

We don't have self-check at any of the branches I'm working with

SF/F stuff definitely isn't among our major circulation genres, though, no. They move okay-ish for our libraries and we have a handful of patrons that request it, but it's way behind the (other) bestsellers et al, or just mystery/suspense, westerns, or christian fiction in general. _{though inflicting mccaffrey on someone is just mean, ahaha* also nevermind the son's contributions, probably don't direct them towards anything that isn't pern, too. Anne's just a bit behind Piers Anthony in how off some of their works get.}

*Though if it works, it works.

Also as a librarian, the degree of caring can vary based on where you are. Lots of people don't care about the smut right up until you actually mention it or do something like direct them into a pit that has toddlercon tag groups (i.e. AO3 ).

Where I'm at actually has had the patronage throw a fit about stuff that gets too blatant, and our director generally has us be fairly careful about what we put on the shelves vis a vis that sort of thing* (we have neither the funding nor the staff to deal with folks pitching regular shitfits, sadly). There is a fair amount of smut on the shelves, but meaningfully signal boosting it would probably catch us more flak than anyone involved feels like dealing with. Shrugging when a patron's browsing something like AO3 is one thing (drawn or video porn would be a different one; kids in library etc., etc.), putting the library's name behind it would be another.

... mind you, the exceptions can be fun. Director had us get a new copy of lady chatterley's lover fairly recently, part of some kind of all time whatever books. The trick was it had a classic genre label on it so we were pretty sure no one would read it even if it was displayed fairly openly :V

* Now, ILL or whatev' we give zero shits about. We wouldn't put straight up porn on the shelves but if there's another (in-state) library that has it, give us a buck to handle processing and postage and we'll get that porn in your hands.

All that said, Best Related Work specifically looks like it's always been kinda' weird. Hugo in other categories is probably still fine even if this decision has tanked your faith in the thing. It's pretty understandable in some ways how it got the nom and subsequent award (AO3 itself has a little twitter blurb where they asked folks there when they got the award that were involved with the site as users et al to stand and co-accept and like half the bloody auditorium stood up, including many of the people involved with other nominees), but... yeah.

I mean, it's not actually just as bad by a hefty goddamn margin since, y'know, they haven't fucking murdered people. It's maybe a concern but it's not bloody nearly an equal one.

Wrong isn't the right word. It's friggin' weird, though. For one, it's utterly unlike, as near as I can tell, literally everything else that's ever been awarded a hugo in that category. It's not really an individual work, it's very nature renders it basically impossible to complete, it's not so much any particular sort of content itself so much as a container for it... it's like giving a hugo award to book binding or somethin'. So on, so forth.

For two, at least by the wiki page on the category, it wasn't published or translated within the last calendar year (AO3's been around like a decade or so). Individual works within it were, but... still.

For three, it's not really anything specifically to do with sci-fi or fantasy, either. The stuff's heavily involved, sure, but it's not nearly as closely tied as most older/other winners seem to be. It's just a really odd choice.

It's not a bad thing, exactly (and it's not even remotely like I dislike AO3, even if I probably wouldn't mention it in polite company due to how much smut is on it and how extreme it can get*). Just weird. My reaction's varyingly intense confusion with a side of disappointment I probably won't be able to get the library I work at to mention it much or at all due to all the smut on it.

* I didn't check too hard on the other ones, but this might be the first hugo winner that qualifies as child porn in some countries