I was thinking I would have companions for this Disney visit but I was solo both days, wandering around wearing my Disneybounds with Labubus as fashion accents. I ate a lot (Bengal BBQ, Red Rose Taverne, Jolly Holiday Café, Tiana’s Place … and a churro … and some churro toffee), walked a lot, rode Rise of the Resistance three times because the Labubus insisted.
Puttered around in the museums and shops … made chitchat with the older cast members who do things like bus tables because they love being there … complimented small princesses on their fashion choices … sat around on benches, happily observing the humans and their younglings having fun. I enjoy Disney whether I'm solo or accompanied.
I woke up bright and early Tuesday for my flight home, feeling happy both thanks to my recent Disneyland infusion and the fact I was going to spend a whole day off my feet, culminating in an encounter with my very own bed. I put on my new Disney shirt – mint green with “Disneyland” and a rhinestone-bedazzled Thumper on the front. (My favorite color PLUS a bunny? Must have.) I rolled my bright magenta suitcase down the hall and to the shuttle stop.
Where I found David Gerrold, along with some other Worldconites, waiting for the shuttle.
Here’s my history with David Gerrold, who is one of the biggest deals at Worldcon. As a matter of fact, he was the man who presented the award for Best Movie Hugo, formally enscribing Sinners with the winners and my beloved K-Pop Demon Hunters with the also-rans.
As I expected. Maybe some of the folks in this crowd felt similarly when Star Wars lost the best picture Oscar to Annie Hall.
But I’m a smart little futurist, and I deliberately chose to be watching those scallawag pirates ransack that unfortunate port town yet again, while encouraging them by singing along. Instead of getting disappointed by David Gerrold again.
He’s quite a big deal on Facebook, and when I first started attending these conventions ten years ago, I was a little starstruck, and eager to be in his vast crowd of followers. As a noob writer I sent friendvites to anyone who seemed writerly, and I was excited when he accepted. Look at me, hanging out with the celebrity writers, even though I’m merely a permanent noob.
Or actually what I am is a tourist. I wrote in my last blog entry about never quite finding “my people” – but instead, I learned how to quickly insert myself into a scene and figure out whether I’m happy enough there to linger. I’m kind of commitment phobic, so I don’t have anyone else’s intellectual property tattooed on my hide, and I don’t see myself becoming a full-time fangirl for anything in particular. But I can spend a weekend being in the BTS Army or wallowing in sci fi geekdom or chilling with the other toymakers discussing the intricacies of miniature tiki mugs.
So I was having fun being in Gerrold’s fan army until the fateful day when I corrected him. He referred to Asperger’s Syndrome. I informed him that Asperger was a nazi, and that the term is no longer used clinically, and that some autistics were offended by it. He didn’t like that, and I was unfriended.
He later reconsidered and sent me a friendvite again, so I accepted. Then I got unfriended a while later for mentioning that Robert A. Heinlein wrote fan letters to the Manson girls, which they auctioned off to fans. Unfriended again; dude does not like references to the Mansonites, even though I wasn’t particularly endorsing them. I was just pedantically stating facts again.
Which I do. Professionally, informally, you name it. I’m a pedantic fact-checker. I realize that my kind are absolutely not welcome in certain contexts. However, in other contexts, I get encouraged, and compensated, for having my pedantic superpowers, and since code switching is complex, that’s the main reason I’m a tourist.
So anyway, I’m there at the shuttle stop, and we collectively decide to cross the street and wait at the other shuttle stop. Some of us are young and healthy, with small bags and backpacks, but I’ve got my large wheely bag, plus I’m wearing my neck brace. I always wear it if I’m in a car that’ll be going on the freeway, a plane that could get turbulent, or other occasions where I might get slammed.
David and I go the long way with our wheely bags; he makes a comment about I’m smart to go the long way and I said no, I just have a bad back. We get to the end of the line, he graciously gestures me to go in front. I tell him I’m Charon, but I also go by Lani, “you’ve unfriended me a couple times.” He introduces himself, “I’m David.” I say “I know.”
We get our bags loaded into the shuttle, and I go sit in the back by myself while he sits with somebody else, continuing his loud inclusive conversation where he’s getting others to talk, in a nice extroverted friendly way. They’re talking about science fiction people reaching out to kids, teaching them science.
And I was sitting back there thinking yeah, and teaching them dumb conspiracy theories too, and getting them to believe nonsense about telepathy and space aliens instead of focusing on real things like climate change and universal healthcare. Fifty years of heavy-handed anti-fascist propaganda barely slowed the fascists down. Plus there's all the damn gatekeeping.
But then I started considering that I had been on a panel regarding neurodivergence – from the side of encouraging neurodivergent people, and being supportive.
There was another science fiction writer with whom I exchanged a bit of tension, regarding autism. He had posted about a nonverbal autistic boy participating in something SF-related, with the usual sort of “heartwarming inspiration about the disabled” kind of language, and I pointed out that autistic people are all over the place, they’re not all nonverbal children, and some are even competent adults.
Fast-forward to 2026, that writer, Chris Barkley, was posting about autistic writer Jason Sanford, who won Best Fan Writer Hugo this year. And has been subjected to a certain amount of harassment in the community, which tends to happen to neurodivergents.
It's a lot better these days, and people aren’t getting exiled for stating facts. I do feel like I helped move the needle a little farther toward the neurodiversity acceptance zone, by taking point and being unpopular, and opening my big blunt mouth. And taking the risk of getting gatekept for it.
I’m less blunt these days, so I didn’t come right out and tell David Gerrold “by the way, the bad guy in my in-progress courtroom drama is partially based on you.”
I did morph him from a gay science fiction writer to a straight author of cowboy novels, and he’s got a different look and style, and he’s the owner of the house where the plaintiff met with her fatal accident, trying to argue to the jury that it was all her own fault. He’s not a villain – I don’t write those. He’s a self-interested opposing party, trying to brush away this pesky lawyer girl who wants his money.
And he’s charismatic, and articulate, and my noob lawyer character is up against him, armed only with cold hard facts. Will he succeed in gatekeeping her from justice? Will the jury respond to his avuncular charm? I guess we’ll find out when I finish writing it.
I’m glad I was in there helping to make science fiction a slightly more accommodating place, anyway. I’m maintaining my SFWA membership in case I ever feel like diving back in, but currently I’m wondering whether people who write lawyer novels ever have conventions near Disneyland.
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