[ID: Text-intensive Twitter thread from the Shapeshifters chest binders Twitter account in reply to a post by artist and author Ursula Vernon. Vernon says, A non-zero number of you apparently did not know that The Last Unicorn was a book before it was a movie. It is by Peter S. Beagle. It is made of spun glass and fairytales and iron knives and there are individual lines that I would give my lungs to have written. Shapechangers replies, I saw him every year at NYCC for several years straight, bought something at his table, asked him to sign it, and we spoke. He remembered me from year to year, no small feat at that con. He remembered which stories he'd told me. One year I came back with a different gender on. He squinted at me a bit and said thoughtfully, "I've seen you before in this place." All I had to say was, "last year you told me the story about the inoshishi." And his face cleared, and he leaned in with a grin and told me about a German guitarist who he traveled with, twice. Who transitioned between the first and second time, so he'd gotten to meet this person all over again on the second round. It was a wonderfully kind way to let me know that everything was fine. I was fresh out of the closet and I needed that, and maybe he could see it. The Last Unicorn is the best book in the world and I will defend it and its author til I die. the end. /end ID]
I don't usually talk about celebrities; artists, when I do, and I'm keenly aware that one needn't be a good person to be a hell of a heartwrenching artist.
But Peter S. Beagle has written a few of my favorite things in the world, he's an excellent singer and filker, and this Twitter thread was dreadfully important to me. I don't want it going away as Twitter becomes Shitter, because it's so often bad news, isn't it? It's important to me to share trans joy.
