Gather around, children. I’m about to tell you a story of ye olde fandom. (Real life fandom friends, I’m sorry. You’ve heard this story a thousand times, I know.)
Long before Disney bought Star Wars, long before the new trilogy, before even the prequels, and themselves predating the “remastered” versions of the original trilogy, Star Wars experienced it’s second renaissance in novel form. And comic book form. Skim the pages of the dozens upon dozens of Expanded Universe (”EU”) novels and you’ll find lots of foundations for the things you see on screen these days. Ben Solo, for sure, has his origins there.
But it was also a different era for the fandom. The 90′s saw the transition from fanzine culture to online fan fiction archives. The programming ability and computing power you needed to make a fan fiction archive that the authors could edit themselves did not yet exist in an accessible way. Series based archives popped up, mostly hand curated by webmasters posting .txt files of chapters and stories that they’d received from authors via email. Or usenet. Or mailinglists. I spent many of my teen years on Gossamer, the X-Files archive, and Fanfix.com, my favorite Star Wars archive. I remember haunting a Babylon 5 archive at the time, too, but it’s lost to history.
I read everything. Everything. But, by far my favorite fan fiction of all time was, and I will always remember this, “As Simple and as Complicated as All That” by Xia Sang Li. It was epic. Four novels. NOVELS. Dozens of chapters. Hundreds and hundreds of pages. It follows Luke Skywalker’s decision to finally throw caution to the wind and fall into bed, and in love, with Mara Jade. Written in the sweet spot after her character was introduced and explored, but before permission was given to the licensed authors to marry Luke off, it was an amazing indulgence. And, it was epic in scale and scope. The great plot twist in book one was that, spoiler alert, when Gaeriel Captison died, leaving Luke to look after her orphaned daughter, she didn’t tell the whole story. You see, Luke and Mara had indulged each other before, had a secret love child, and this brief period of time was erased or minimized in their memories. Slowly, the two come to realize, through their haze of lust and passion, that something is conspiring to keep them apart, and that this little girl isn’t who she seemed. Themes of family, and duty, and passion, and trauma. Force visions, original characters, and sex sex sex. It was amazing.
Epic right??? Right?? Wanna read it??
It’s impossible. The Fanfix.com archive zipped the textfiles, so the Wayback Machine hasn’t archived them. The Geocities page went down before the Geocities archive was published after its closure. And, the original author’s blog, not updated in a decade, features only a few chapters of a rewrite, an AU of her original epic.
But it’s not dead.
Starting in 1998, my teenage self printed the whole fucking epic. I did one chapter at a time. It took more than a year. I had it all saved, too, on a 3 ½ inch floppy that got destroyed. Beyond the author’s own hard drive somewhere on this green earth, I think this might be the only copy.
Every few years, when nostalgia overtakes me, I reread it, from front to back. The gender politics are very different. The interpretation of Luke, too, vastly different from modern fandom’s take. Sometimes I wish I could find the author, buy her dinner, and tell her how important her work was to me. But, that’s probably impossible. Sometimes I think about re-digitizing it and, like a different kind of pirate, putting it back into circulation. But, that’s just a wish. A whimsical dream. The notebook is at least 3 inches thick, with front to back printed pages of text. It would take… years. Certainly it took years to write. But, it was part of the floating world of fandom. And, it faded away. Stuff like this should never fade away.
Fan fic authors… I implore you. Never delete your work.
You can’t know the impact you make. You might think it not good, embarrassing, or irrelevant. It’s not. Not to someone. Not to me.
Seriously. You have no idea how many fanfics I had wanted to print and bind just so that I can keep it in my personal library to read. Some fics are so damn GOOD that they deserve to exist binded as a physical copy. Save them please!!! All fics matter to someone
PUT THAT BOOK IN A SAFE BOX OR A MUSEUM (is there a fandom museum? we should make one)
It’s not quite a museum, but there is the Fan Culture Preservation Project, which is a join venture between the OTW and the Special Collections department at the University of Iowa Libraries. It’s a place to preserve hard copies of fanworks and fandom memorabilia.
(Though it seems likely that @mizunocaitlin would like to keep a beloved fanfic.)
Dear fic readers: Save it before you lose it!
authors have pleanty of reason to delete their shit, sad as it is, but you can still have it!! do what that person did, use https://www.lulu.com/ like i did for my faves stuff (tho already archived on gdrive by someone else), but find a way to PRINT IT OUT if you love it so much. dont just rely on digital copies because shit happens.
This is my current printed library of fanfics. This way works best for fanfics up to 20000 words, but I’m learning basic bookbinding for the longer ones (an experiment of that can be seen in the right side of the picture – “This, You Protect” by Owlet), because I LOVE HOLDING THEM WHEN I READ THEM and also, what will I read if the power goes down? Exactly.
If someone could tag that person who did the gorgeous binding of @senlinyu‘s magnificent Manacled… I mean the book is awesome, and the book binding ? Gives it justice. Also I think that the person who did the binding has made / is making other bindings? Maybe? I can’t quite remember?
I feel so vindicated in seeing this post, and knowing I’m not the only one who has “probably-the-only-extant-copy” fanfics from the late 90s in binders.
I took probably the most ridiculous and difficult route, hand bookbinding. Here’s an example of an earlier-era fic I’ve bound for archival purposes.
And some Bookbinding resources if anyone wants to join in the efforts! Rock on, fanfic hamsters!
as an archivist (a real one!) and a fanfic author, this post speaks so hard to me. SAVE YOUR STUFF, AUTHORS
In high school my best friend and I were known as the book printers. At the time neither of us had access to the internet beyond school so we did the only thing that made sense, printed everything. We would spend as much time as we could after school, usually on fridays, huddled around the library computers printing fics we wanted to read. The librarians didn’t mind, one of them actually thought it was charming and christened us her book printers.
I owe so much to authors, the early ones who showed me that it was ok to think up grand worlds and fill them with my favorite characters as well as characters of my own creation, and especially the new authors who quickly became my found family and have taught me that finding yourself through your writing is perfectly acceptable, and losing yourself to an indulgent plot line is fine too.
If I’ve learned anything in the decades since I offered to pay the school for the gross amount of paper we used, it’s that you should never forget your roots, and always remember you might just be the one creating fertile grounds for others to put down roots of their own.
If you ever have the chance, do it, print the pages and bind them. The story already holds a special place in your heart, isn’t it only fair that you hold it close as well?
I always got baffled about how most people seem to have no “interest” at all – well, at least most of people I knew in my life, at my small hometown. Including – or better, especially – my parents. They tend to just focus on their definition of “life”, just working, socializing, working, eating, sleeping and more socializing. They just work because “they must”. They seem to be unsatisfied with their lives, and even with the people they seem to socialize with everyday (I mean, sometimes I hear at my corner that group of people gossiping about another person or group of people, everytime willingly, to the point I could not process 80% of what they’re saying because we’re in a big chattering crowd, and/or I’m focused on another thing, stimming freely etc., but these “small talks” were never interesting to me nevertheless),
yet they just go with it like fishes in a tide.
I tried to ask some of these people about their interests (mostly, hoping if I could also infodump talk about mine as well); most of their time, their answers were very ambiguous, which could mean anything. “Oh, I like books.” “I like playing stuff and hanging out with my friends.” “I like to watch movies and play games.” Which books? Playing what? Which movies and games? Sometimes, when my questions are a bit more specific, as “What is your favorite book saga?”, most just straight tell “I don’t like to read books.” When it’s about movies or series, they just go “I watch anything.” (that’s even my father’s case.) Although one person told me they hated to watch movies as much as they hated to read books. Granted, most of those “small talks” do not last that much. I just say something like “oh”, and get back to whatever tasks I was in – if there was one, of course. Or then I start a new one if I feel to, or I just go stim discreetly at a corner if I can.
Some people, though, have a lifelong interest, which they see as a hobby. Others, have changing interests through time. Yet, at one case or another, they don’t
think about it all the time, or take it as the definition or their lives
and characters. These people are a bit easier to talk to, but still, their “languages” and “paces” – if I could use these words – are different than mine. Even though they call it their “interests”, they just casually talk about it, as just another normal occurrence at their lives. If it’s a fandom-related media,
most don’t even call themselves “fans” – “it’s just fiction”, they tend to say. “Just a fun story to entertain. But I like to watch/read it at leisure.”
I cannot infer much about these people, though. I just met a few during my life – mostly teachers and school professionals, like psychopedagogists.
And then there are people like me.
My interests are not just normal “interests”. It’s not some occasional pleasure at one time or another. They are a part of me. In a way, they are my heart and soul.
Special Interests. Fandoms, stories, curiosities about that one subject. Every knowledge associated with it. Knowledge and pleasure. They define me waaay more than simple words can. The stories I like, the characters I admire, the music I adore, the random articles and essays I like to read while surfing the web, even my own internet history as a whole, or general history. They can tell one about my deepest wishes and doubts, strengths and flaws – way more efficient than astrology or personality tests. It’s those special interests, those stories I think by default, and also the very things which, in a way, govern my entire life. My actions, my beliefs, my state of spirit. My dreams, my nightmares. These things, these themes, stories and characters I tend to be more drawn to, and also the stories I create in my mind about them, or around a theme I always adored and thought upon – in a way, they can tell one about the deepest secrets into my soul. When I talk about my special interests, deep down I’m talking about me, be the best or the worst, about me.
Among themes, which can carry on without a story associated to them, can turn into intense interests once in a while. Photosynthesis (as silly as it may seem) was a strong one during a small period onto high school. Actually I was obsessed with the possibility of human photosynthesis. It’s my second favorite superpower besides underwater breathing. Feminism and left-wing themes and schedules were also a strong one for more than a couple of years, again when I was in high school. (I still consider myself a feminist, but the “interest” is not that strong anymore, compared to others.) The same with asexuality, and even though I always knew I was asexual – and never bothered myself about that, at least yet -, just then I started to oficially identify myself as ace and aro, also happy by the fact there could be so many people like me in this world. Finally, autism and neurodiversity was a big one this very year, which led me to question myself, my parents, my controversial behavior at school (and at home), all those appointments to medics and doctors and neurologists and psychologists and homeophatic pseudo-doctors (does that word even exist) and the diabo a quatro during my whole life, even leading me to a profound existential crisis at some point, but also being an important part of the reason I made this blog. However, stories, fandoms, are the ones that stand out onto my mind.
Percy Jackson and The Olympians is and always was my favorite book series ever. I love the Riordanverse in general. I always related intensely to Perseus Jackson himself – his emotions, his sense of otherness. I love his water powers. I love the complex themes and mythologies each series can approach. And the delightful feeling of me, a pre-teen at the time I started to read PJO and it slowly became one of my main SpIns (I had others before, but they are not even near as strong now as they were before – I don’t even know if I can consider them my “interests” anymore), seeing lots of teenagers around my age, as screwed as they could be, doing great things and being, well, generally awesome.
I love Star Wars – even though, as I’m very aware it may be controversial to some and those most “purist” fans may won’t take me seriously, the prequels are my favorite era. I’m always baffled by how big and complex the Star Wars universe can be – there’s so much to be inferred, and that may be a part of the wonder. The glory of the Jedi, and how their flawed principles, more controversial as time passed by and how politics at each corner over the galaxy went complicated due to conflicting wishes between lots of its representants, was a huge ballpoint to their downfall. I also related a lot with Anakin Skywalker, his troubled genius, his intense emotions, his innate rebelliousness contradicting the often strict Jedi “way of life”. As painful as watching his descent to darkness in Revenge of the Sith can be, remembering me of what I may become at the worst hypothetical future possible, but also thinking about how wonderful Anakin’s life could be if not because of those retrogressive Jedi and old snake Palpatine ruining everything the circumstances. I just have some reservations about the Sith being portrayed as Evil™
all the time. I mean, I always liked their emotion-driven philosophy, but if they really wanted to make a
Evil™
fantasy faction made only about Evil and more Evil, why didn’t they recurred about something like eugenics and Pseudo-Darwinism/Social Evolution (that indeed has nothing to do with actual Darwinism), which served as the basis for Nazism at first place? Granted, George Lucas never agreed with that portrayal of the Sith in the EU. An emotion-driven philosophy, as AWESOME as it may be, does not necessarily mean fascism (which the Sith seemed to represent at the OT) – but that’s a reservation for another hour, probably on my main.
The Clone Wars, the 2008 CGI series, is also a joy – seeing Anakin and
Ahsoka’s interactions is indeed fun, and the moral ambiguity is also on point.
I also have a soft spot for DC’s Aquaman, as aquatic heroes and aquatic themes were always a huge interest of mine, who had breathing underwater as the ultimate favorite power since earlier in my life. Besides those Monica’s Gang (Brazilian comic book brand) parodies, Aquaman was the first official “superhero” comic book I’ve read in my life, online, on PDF, probably pirated hey, I’m poor and there are NOT comic shops nor libraries in my terribly small hometown. I feel guilty about that but IDK, that time I didn’t even knew English that well, but I don’t consider it one of my main fandoms, even though the underwater approach is very imaginative and one of the best of the little I saw of media around themes like this (besides PJO I guess? Even on PJO it wasn’t well explored, well it wasn’t even near the main theme but underwater scenes in PJO were always my favorites) and no, this may be the most unpopular of unpopular opinions, but mermaid media doesn’t count. I think mermaid media are overrated and full of clichés, and I’m not drawn to the general upper-half human and lower half-fish design. I’d rather full-looking humans – who actually LOOK LIKE ME – who can breathe underwater and live under the ocean, or even aesthetic alien-looking anthropomorphic aquatic beings like some from Star Wars (I like Kit Fisto’s design). But again, a rant for another hour on my main. I don’t consider DC’s Aquaman one of my fandoms because, as well as the scenery (underwater fantasy and politics) is good, I had some difficulties on relating to Arthur Curry himself. Maybe it’s because he’s often a jock-looking adult who can pass as too perfect sometimes at some versions, or a very muscly brute adult – sometimes even bearing to repugnance sorry – at others, or even (at least at older versions I had the luck of not being presented, due to being older than, well, myself) as a plain joke with no inspiration. And I was always more drawn to emotional rebellious nerdy teenagers (and still am, even though I’m already 19). Nevertheless I’m really looking forward for Aquaman’s movie in December, as underwater fantasy/ocean opera (do this genre even exists?) is one of my favorite genres of all time.
Other interests march on. They can come in and go for a while, though
they always leave a huge mark on me, and can come back anytime – the
more intenser they are, more huge the mark left is. For a while,
A:TLA/TLOK was a huge interest, back when four elements and astrology
were still special interests of mine (before me being more
science-driven. Fantastic mythologies are still a thing though). A more (very) recent one, Trollhunters, is also a soft spot, but I still don’t consider it a special interest, yet or not – as awesome as this series can be, as well as the influence it may acidentally or not give to stories I may write, it didn’t arrive the I-cannot-think-about-another-think-rn-and-I’m-spending-all-day-making-Trollhunters-headcanons-in-my-mind-and-searching-Trollhunters-posts-on-Tumblr-and-giving-likes-and-searching-more-Trollhunters phase. Speaking about recent interests, so many fandoms yeah, I consider three many turned into huge SpIns during the span of only a year, well technically since the start of this very year, an intense interest I only feel for stories that may have a lifetime impact of me.
One of them is Voltron: Legendary Defender. Even among space operas, it has a lot in common with Star Wars, especially the Prequel era, which may tell a lot about me – the difference may be that, instead of samurai-like warriors with laser sabers defending the universe, we have a giant robot warrior made of five smaller mecha lions (yeah, exactly that LOL’) But the series is awesome nevertheless. The blend of science and epic fantasy, moral ambiguity, the complexity of the universe, the wonderful and relatable characters. My favorite was always Keith – his impulsive behavior, his strong emotions, being a misunderstood outcast yet still having a noble heart, capable of wakening a loved one from mind control even though it’s actually a clone.
The other two also have a lot in common, which can also tell A LOT about me no, these are not space operas this time – Big Hero 6, and the Disney XD’s cartoon, Marvel’s Spider-Man. Despite both being inspired on the Marvel comic book properties (one being hugely famous while the other was never even near before the Disney CGI film), both feature teenage aspiring scientists attending highly technologic high schools/college, but also using their natural powers and abilities (super or not) to save their respective cities. Both stories feature moral ambiguity as you see I’m very drawn to moral ambiguity – you can guess about me the way you want about that, interesting villains, and equally – if not even more – interesting main characters. Each teenager has their own unique interest, background and abilities – but also, they are relatable, as most – or all – characters in my favorite stories tend to be. Hiro Hamada and Peter Parker are among my strict personal little list of characters I most relate to, as I have so much in common with both.
These stories, characters and themes matter a lot to me. It’s about these things, these characters, these worlds – among some lots of particular characters and worlds I created myself as I intend to be an author someday, but I’d rather keep these as a secret deep in my mind for now, since I consider these original creations the most personal and intimate thing about me -, these are my default way of thinking, the very things that give me joy, pleasure, but also makes me feel like everything is possible.
Is this Cyril Anon? You always send the best Archer asks.
Don’t forget in “The Archer Sanction” when he mentioned his preference to sleep with a black man (if he would ever sleep with man), which is then backed up at the end of the episode by Ray remarking that the third item on Archer’s bucket list is “Bang Joe Frazier.” And I’m sure there are lots of little moments I can’t recall at the moment.
As for why Archer keeps dipping his toes in homoeroticism but won’t take the plunge, chalk it up to good, old-fashioned fragile/toxic masculinity and internalized homophobia. Despite displaying a lot of progressive leanings, especially as the series goes on, Archer has a specific core concept of masculinity and what a man is supposed to be, especially when it comes to himself. Goofing around, teasing, and fake-flirting with Ray and Cyril is one thing – Archer’s a tactile person, teasing is his preferred form of communication in any context, and he’s hypersexual and full of himself so of course he thinks dudes would want him – but sincere questions or comments about his sexuality throw his defenses up. Blame it on a number of factors – Malory’s parenting (she’s probably the most sincerely homophobic character in the series and she was constantly belittling Archer’s masculinity even when he was in the single digits), his history of severe, pseudo-sexual abuse at the hands of violent, homophobic bullies, and the insecurity and emotional instability from first growing up without a father, later learning the man he thought was his father wasn’t, and permanently being denied knowledge of who his father really is.
He never had a steady presence to model healthy masculinity for him, and the man he projected his adolescent ideas of masculinity onto (his supposedly dead father John Fitzgerald Archer) turned out to have never existed. (There was Woodhouse, of course, who was the closest thing he ever had to a father. But while they seemed to be close when he was very young, Malory’s return caused him to reject the idea of Woodhouse as a parent and role model.) In this absence, little Sterling had to piece together his ideas of what it is to be a man from the words of his mother, his interactions with his male peers, and media and society in general. Obviously, those first two examples were deeply screwed up, and the third’s not much better. Despite his cockiness and swagger as an adult, Archer is incredibly insecure in his masculinity because his patchworked concept of it is very shaky and easily threatened, which is why he’s so easily provoked by remarks on his sexual leanings and extremely uninspired taunts about “having a vagina” and such. Archer is clearly, blatantly attracted to men, but confronting his bisexuality sincerely or even jokingly hinting at it on anything but his own specific terms and initiation is too intimidating for him to face.
There are a few times when he’s almost open about it with someone else, and that’s always been the openly gay Ramon and Ray and the emotionally available Cyril. Sometimes with them he feels comfortable enough to skirt a little closer to the truth. He and Ramon bonded over their screwed up relationships with their mothers and were obviously attracted to each other by the end of their first adventure and it was just ramped up in the second meeting. Archer is very physical with Cyril and Ray, especially and rather affectionately so when they were on their mission in Columbia. He even felt comfortable enough around them to briefly but vocally fantasize about Ramon. (And at some point shared his bucket list with its distinctly not-straight third item with Ray.) I think I touched on it a little when I answered the ask about Archer and Cyril’s relationship, but Archer desperately wants close male friends and at times specifically seems to want those friends to be Ray and Cyril. I think he almost feels safe with them when the three of them are off on some bullshit together away from Malory, Lana, and the rest. Despite Ray and Cyril hating Archer the most of the group, they’re also two of the kindest and they’ve several times shown a willingness to genuinely connect with Archer if he’d just meet them halfway. But everyone’s dysfunctions just end up interfering every time.
And speaking of Archer’s lack of healthy, stable, reliable male influences in his life, his clear desire for such, and his baldfaced attraction to Ramon, I think it is significant that Ramon was noticeably older than him. Archer’s sexuality and his desire for a father figure seem to intersect at times, such as his mancrushes on Burt Reynolds and Steve McQueen.
Oh, and then there’s Lucas Troy. Archer never really did seem attracted to Luke specifically, but he was clearly over the moon to have a male best friend. He puts Luke on a pedestal despite him bearing a lot of similarities to the bullies who tormented him in school, which again I think speaks to his desire for male friendship and acceptance. Luke, however, despite his own ultimately disturbing attraction to/obsession with Archer, was overall, as Ray pegged him (phrasing – boom), another jerky, alpha male, frat boy, homophobic jock type, so Archer never felt safe enough to be emotional and vulnerable around him like he sometimes is with Ray, Cyril, and Ramon. Even though he’s clearly crazy about Luke, all their interactions (until Luke goes all bunny boiler) are just reading from a standard dudebro script. And the one time he was unknowingly vulnerable around Luke, said vulnerability was taken advantage of in the absolute worst possible way, so… yeah.
Yeah. Archer’s definitely bisexual, but he can’t face it. So he indulges when he can, always with an excuse at the ready. He can tease and be physical with Ray and Cyril because he’s making fun of them and if they’re attracted to him then that’s just because he’s so hot and awesome. He can sleep with kathoeys because he’s blitzed on cobra whiskey and they’re not really guys exactly. He can French kiss Ramon because it’s his dying wish. It’s not because he’s gay.
And to be fair, he’s not. He’s just really, really, super bi.
The target I work at has a skeleton that’s been our mascot. His name is Mr. Bones. We pose him every night.
Then we gave him a jacket and let him fold clothes
And then we let him get a nice drink at Starbucks
Sometimes work can be too hard on him
Everyone, especially our guests, love Mr. Bones and take pictures with/of him. I will keep everyone updated on his adventures
We put him in our Director’s office to scare him when he comes in the morning. For now, Mr. Bones is running the store.
Mr. Bones is catching up on his reading today!
Today Mr. Bones got a new look and some nice flowers as he greets guests to the fitting rooms!
Mr. Bones spotted having a party in the break room!
In his weird hiatus, Mr. Bones became a pilot and found a pumpkin!
Someone partied too hard last night
He got a job at Starbucks!!
Mr. Bones had his last day at work in the office! Thanks to everyone for following his journey!
Good news! Even after all this time, Mr. Bones still has a job!
Bad news everyone. 2020 took another Angel. Mr. Bones has been fired and isn’t allowed back in 2020, per my boss. It was fun last year and I’m sure he would have wanted to come back for more fun this year, but I guess Target will have to continue without our bone friend.
NEVERMIND HES BACK BAYBEEEE
We VIBING!!!!
Excuse me, Mr. Bones, but it’s a little unprofessional to not wear a mask, sir.
dude seeing these Mega high quality images of the surface of mars that we now have has me fucked up. Like. Mars is a place. mars is a real actual place where one could hypothetically stand. It is a physical place in the universe. ITS JUST OUT THERE LOOKING LIKE UH IDK A REGULAR OLD DESERT WITH LOTS OF ROCKS BUT ITS A WHOLE OTHER PLANET?
LIKE THIS JUST LOOKS LIKE IT COULD BE A PERSON’S BACKYARD. LIKE YEA A LITTLE DUSTY MAYBE THERE WAS A SANDSTORM BUT THAT’S COOL I’M JUST GONNA WALK DOWN TO THE STORE P S Y C H YOU’RE ON MARS BICH!
i hate to be rude and intrude on this post but we have decent pictures of the surface Venus too!
So it’s not quite snowing on Churyumov–Gerasimenko, unfortunately; the white specks are artifacts of cosmic rays impinging on the CCDs in the camera, as well as a rotating starfield in the background (since the comet is spinning). A few specks could be dust. But, holy shit, that’s the surface of a comet. That’s a spot you could in theory cling to for dear life sit down on. The Cliffs of Comet 76pare a place.
If that isn’t the neatest shit I don’t know what is.
I’m very excited for my latest craft experiment, where I rhythmically slap sale rank oil paint onto a canvas and I see how long it takes to dry so that I can finally touch the paint textures I stare at so longingly in museums. 12 hours in, still wet. I am beginning to think this might take longer than I thought which you can imagine is quite a burden, as I am absolutely horned up to rub this paint.
You guys sound like you know what you’re talking about but I’m gonna touch it every twenty minutes just to be sure
I’ve put this canvas to age in the basement like a fine wine, along another recent masterpiece of mine “I put the paint on me hand and I slap the canvas like a bongo”
Paint slapped on 6/9, as of 6/22 (I mean actually it was a couple days ago but I didn’t fully check the dryness then so I can’t be sure):
It is rubbery feeling and the peaks of paint move when you flick them. The texture is not at ALL what I expected tbh and it makes me excited to try a different experiment, thick brush strokes, you know, those mad thicc ones that swirl real good
Here’s an additional shot with my coffee cup for a further sense of scale so people will understand that these canvases are small and therefore stop sending me asks about my supposedly gorilla sized hands, you bastards, you rotten bastards scared of the hands your minds gave me
I don’t know shit about art but isn’t this like a great example of art that pushes the boundaries of what art is? Like you’ve got your canvas with paint on it, but your reason for putting the paint there is totally different than why most people put paint on stuff. It’s like a study on texture or something.
Agreed, this is really cool and also I love the fact that you really wanted to touch some paint, so you just went out and bought a bunch of paint and made your own painting for touching purposes. That’s striking me as really really cool right now for reasons I can’t entirely articulate.
For reference: Really thick paint on a piece of art is called impasto. Another really fun way to do it is with a painting knife: you can make each stroke SUPER SMOOTH like cake icing, but with visible, touchable texture between the strokes.
More impasto:
art by Jan Ironside, who does THICK IMPASTO FLOWERS THAT I SO WANT TO TOUCH
You LITERALLY sat down to watch paint dry…
Museums should have stuff like this on display JUST so you can touch it. With a sign like, “Feel me up! I won’t alarm!”
make good art
Only thing about thick impasto is that the paint can get a bit sharp sometimes. Like, I’ve cut my hand on dried impasto paint because the paint stroke was that pointed. -.-;
I hope Wikipedia doesnt go bankrupt it will feel like the end times . I think I will literally panic
Encyclopedia Britannica is always there
there’s this place called a library. and they have these things called books. and then there’s this thing called Google Search. where you can find books in PDF form.
Wikipedia is user edited. you can literally put anything you want in an entry almost. I think you know where I’m about to go with this.
You’re condescending and annoying. I am attached to Wikipedia out of sentimentality it’s always been there for as long as I remember and reliable to me for some casual trivia. Wikipedia is iconic and I love her. go write a research paper or something
who let high school teachers find tumblr
me: hm i wonder how many countries drive on the same side as the UK
friend: let’s check wikipedia in 2 seconds on our phones
some asshole on tumblr: um excuse me why don’t you stop what you’re doing to go to the library and look it up in an outdated book that’s edited maybe twice a decade and that definitely doesn’t have a single page article called “list of countries with left-hand traffic”
also “user edited” really doesn’t mean as much as you think it does. there are millions of people displaying accurate information, for every one person displaying inaccurate information. and that inaccurate information is usually changed quickly, and the person who made it can get their ip blocked from wikipedia if it was bad enough. way more accurate than textbooks or a library.
Librarian here! I’ve worked at both academic (college/university) and public libraries, and let me tell you this: most print encyclopedias are useless garbage we can’t get rid of fast enough. With the exception of subject-specific sets which we need to buy again every few years because the information has become outdated, most of the information in any volume of an encyclopedia is far more accessible and far more in-depth on the internet.
Wikipedia as a reference resource is fantastic because, just like print encyclopedias, it serves as a jumping-off point for research… and so do librarians! A librarian isn’t going to just write your paper for you, we’re going to point you to the books, articles, and websites that contain the information. Wikipedia is great for that, too, because any article that gets more than a bit of traffic will wind up with sources and external links. But print encyclopedias don’t go that far in citing their sources, and because they’re static media, the references may not only be outdated, they might be entirely inaccessible due to age, obscurity, or cost of access.
And there’s an interesting thing about all those books we have on the shelves… anyone can write one, and usually they only have a handful of other people checking their work. Academic journals are somewhat notorious for the ease with which a completely falsified paper can see publication (especially in cases of electronic journals), but printed books can also be easily falsified, whether as a result of publishers with an agenda or just fact-checkers slacking off.
As has been pointed out above, wikipedia is really great at getting obscenely specific in terms of the topics of articles. It’s an amazing collection of data, and more importantly, it’s an amazing collection of sources of data.
The role of a reference librarian and a wikipedia editor are basically the same: show you a brief summary of the information you need, and point you to more in-depth, reliable sources.
I was helping a friend clear out their dad’s old stuff from their home recently and we came across encyclopedias from the 90s.
They all went to the dump. They were ASTOUNDINGLY outdated. Totally fucking useless.
High school English teacher here–I regularly get crap from some of my colleagues, but I am completely fine with students using Wikipedia for info. Wikipedia does an excellent job of flagging articles that have been recently edited until someone can verify the changes, so pages with inaccurate info often have giant warnings at the top saying “THIS PAGE MAY CONTAIN IANCCURATE INFO”. Won’t find that in an out-of-date print edition.
Not only that, but Wikipedia cites its sources. It tells you right at the bottom of the page where all its info came from, so if you want to use a fact from Wikipedia but don’t want a teacher annoyed with you, just cite the source in the footnote. Teachers and professors are (a) not likely to check up on this and (b) it’s a real source so even if they do it’s legit?
The biggest problem I have had with letting students use Wikipedia is actually that Wikipedia articles are often written in such academic language that students sometimes struggle to understand them. That part kids have to overcome on their own or with the help of their teacher. But there’s nothing wrong with Wikipedia as a source. Hatred for it is a remnant of academic elitism, thinking that “peer-reviewed” can only mean some handful of crusty white dudes instead of literally anyone with enough knowledge and motivation to review it.
Honestly. My dad is a college professor and he’s told me time and again to always start my research at Wikipedia. You have to go further, obviously, but its such a great jumping off point for information.
Plus, where else can I find an itemized and updated list of every Cryptid known to human kind?
For the impenetrable articles, here’s my tip.
The list of other languages in the sidebar? Look at it and check whether the article has a version in Simple English.
Simple English is a mode for non-native English speakers but is also great if your reading comprehension is not super good, you’re having a slow brain day for any mental health or developmental disorder reason, or the English version is just poorly written.
Librarian here, and this whole post gives me so much joy.
I feel like people think “not a reliable source” means “not true” but it actually means “can’t be quoted because the words might change”
I never knew there was a simple English version? I learned something new!
So yeah, everyone go donate to Wikipedia, they’re having a hard time over there.
Lately my teachers have always said not to use it as a final source in a paper or such, but using it as a place to start is perfectly fine. But honestly? The accuracy of Wikipedia aside, you should use many sources anyway, so it doesn’t actually really matter.
It’s funny that the same people telling you that Wikipedia is bad are the same ones that teach using multiple sources.
Though also, I think teachers also kinda want you to use a little more effort than just Wikipedia.
ifesbob 