Geek love

No, not the utterly creepy and strangely beautiful novel. Over the past few days, as fans have shown their racist asses to the world and other fans have lambasted OTHER other fans for not being "real" enough, I have been very disappointed in the nerd world. Being a geek is supposed to be about passion and excitement and loving things, not about racism, poor reading comprehension, and flat derision. So I decided to give the Internet geek message boards a rest for a bit and consider all the wonderful nerds in my life who aren't racist or sexist or cruel or exclusionary.

There's my best friend, with whom I share everything from Animorphs to Star Wars to Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

There's my friend dead-girl, who can always be relied upon for a run through Jurassic Park, a marathon of Doctor Who, or a long chat about fantasy novels (complete with property-appropriate food).

There's the group of people I've been lucky to hang out with here in Cleveland--my first friends here, really--an amazing collection of people who love comics, among other things. Guess what? Most of them are men, and a more nice and welcoming slew of dudes you will never meet. I've yet to be condescended to and I think it'll stay that way.

There's my bud Sara, a fellow nerdbrarian, a new comics fan, and a serious Whovian and lover of all things British literature.

There's some of my favorite Tumblrites: the-houxbois-academy, antioxidantsuperhero, and fyeahlilbitoeverything. Emma Houxbois brings the Marvel, antiox brings the Young Justice and Tammy Pierce love, and fyeah...well, as the name implies, that Tumblr's got some of nearly every geek property under the sun. 

There's my Shauna, for the times we've spent watching Firefly and Futurama and talking about Girls With Slingshots.

There's my youngest cousin, with whom I enjoy talking about books and movies, and who is just starting to read comics (her gateway drug was Batman: Arkham City), and my third-youngest cousin, often my date to the comic store when we lived in the same city. 

There's everyone at the Tao of Scoot and everything they love: anime and manga, Transformers, creepy old kids' films like Dark Crystal, Dune, Star Trek.

There's my gentleman, my companion to cons and comic shops and bookstores and action films, for always.

In short: there are very kind, very cool geeks out there, men and women alike.  For every dickbag there's five more friendly people like the ones I'm lovin' on here. If you haven't found your karass yet, you will. And to my various karasses, thank you for embodying the best of our communities.