Harry Potter was my first real fandom, and after many years as a Glee blog, I've circled back to my first love. Other fandoms that have a piece of my heart and may show up here are The Lunar Chronicles, Aristotle & Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, Teen Wolf, General Hospital, Crazy-Ex Girlfriend, White Collar, Hamilton, Supergirl, Agent Carter, The Flash, and a smattering of others.
as youre very both old school fandom and also someone who works to preserve old fandom content, what do you think is the best way to print off and preserve fanfics? I've been wanting to start to move my many many many archived pdfs into actual physical copies but ive been way too intimidated to really look deep into it so I was wondering if you had a preference
My preference is “yes.” Yes, I want you to archive them. Yes, I want you to save them. I’ve worked to preserve 1960s teen pulp mags, for fuck’s sake, it can’t get much worse than that, and I’m grateful to have them.
With that said, pick any or all of the following options to make your physical printouts last longer:
–select acid-free paper –bind by sewing, not stapling –store in archival sleeves, like the ones you use for old comic books
And now, pick any or all of the following options to make my life easier as a historian (or, you know, the lives of the historians who come after me):
–include the title –include the author’s name –include the fandom name –include which version of the canon, if relevant (e.g. the OG Transformers show vs the Michael Bay movies) –include the date, or at least year, of publication –include the summary –include the site of origin, including the URL
All of these things are called provenance and help not only to identify a specific work, but to place it within its cultural context. As an amusing example: I recently got into James Bond, and decided to go through every fic in the main pairing tag, in chronological order. There came a point where suddenly, out of nowhere, there were like two solid pages of nothing but A/B/O, which I previously had not seen at all. I had a suspicion, so I looked it up, and sure enough–those two pages appeared within just a couple of weeks of the corresponding Supernatural episode. Having publication dates let me determine that. If I were a historian trying to piece together a long-ago puzzle instead of going “lol I live on the hellsite, I bet I know exactly where this came from,” that would be a huge datapoint. I could probably find a similar sudden explosion in other fandoms, as well–and if we’re going far enough in the future, if Supernatural were to just vanish off the face of the planet along with its entire fandom, historians could still trace that it existed and even determine some of its events based on when certain tropes begin to appear in other fandoms. And further, the fact that its tropes and major events appear in so many other fandoms would allow those historians to say “this must have been a very, very popular story.” (This isn’t just me making shit up to sound important, by the way. This is literally how we have records of a lot of things throughout antiquity and even into the Renaissance. The more copies there are of something, or the more references that are made to a thing in other things, the more likely it is for at least part of it to survive. This is literally how we know about Shakespeare’s two lost plays–he was a popular enough playwright that quartos of his plays were advertised for sale.)
Whew! Now let’s get into stuff you could do that would make me, as a historian, scream with delight if I were to open your folder full of labeled, acid-free fanfiction fifty years from now:
–write a little something about why you picked this particular fic to preserve in hard copy when doing so is bulky and time-consuming compared to the easy instant storage of the internet, yes, even if your reason is “I’m trying not to use my phone in bed because the screen keeps me awake but this story is soothing to reread” –write a little something about who you are, even if it’s just “my name is X, my age is Y, I live in Z, I printed this out in 2022”
And last but not least:
Marginalia. Marginalia. Marginalia, my beloved. That’s when you write your thoughts in the columns on the sides, underline stuff, circle it, and so on. Having marginalia means I actually get a window into your thoughts as you read–your perspective, stuff that stuck out to you, places the story made you feel some kind of serious emotion. And yes, this goes for everything. Villain A kills Hero B and you write “YOU MOTHERFUCKER” in the margin, that tells Future Historian Me that you really loved Hero B, you were invested in seeing her succeed, and that this scene really resonated with you. One of my most treasured possessions in the fandom museum is a copy of the novelization of the Help! movie the Beatles did. This particular copy is very worn–unsurprising, it was a cheap paperback even when it was printed–but also, its original owner apparently took it to the movie theatre and
wrote notes in the margins indicating all the things happening onscreen that weren’t in the book. What does this tell me? WELL. Let’s go ahead and take a look:
1) the written ink doesn’t look any newer than the book, so I’m guessing a little when I say this was the original owner and in the theatre, but I have an actual datapoint I’m basing that on 2) based on handwriting and the main demographic of the Beatles audience at the time, this was a young woman, probably a teenager. 3) she went to see the movie more than once (some notes are in pencil, some in ink, but the handwriting is all the same) 4) she was dedicated to making sure every moment of the movie was preserved. This was an era before home video players, so once the movie left theatres, she had no guarantee of seeing it again. 5) while the book is worn, it’s not beaten all to shit. It was read a lot, but there’s no evidence it was mistreated, so it was probably a prized or at least respected possession.
What can I extrapolate from this, with the understanding that I mean “what theories can I reasonably form but not prove”? Well. She was probably a pretty big fan, since she went to see the movie at least twice and also bought the book. Maybe she wanted to keep the story after the movie was gone. Maybe she was looking for answers for some teen mag contest like “find these things in the Help! movie and win a chance to meet the Beatles.” Maybe she had a friend who wasn’t allowed to go to the movie. You know what the most tantalizing possibility is to me, although I’ll never be able to prove it and actual ethics as a historian mean I can only present it as one among many possibilities? Maybe she did it as a source reference for writing fanfiction. We don’t know. We can’t know, because I have no idea who the original owner was or if she’s even still alive and no way to trace her. But that? In terms of fandom history, that is a fucking gold mine. Pure 24-karat all through. From a strictly historical view, that’s worth more than the animation cel I’ve got in there, and I paid over a hundred bucks for that thing.
So yeah! That was a lot of words to say “just do it.” But there’s your answer!
Oh this is super helpful I had never even HEARD of acid-free paper before this, and I had no idea how important things like dates and notes in the margins could be! Also gives me an excuse to practice sewing again for the first time in years if stapling isn’t the best idea. I still have plenty of my own research to do because I care deeply about a lot of these stories and I want to do them justice. I’m also just really glad there’s people like you who go “Who cares if its a shitty first attempt? I have worse and I love it immensely not just despite of it but in some ways because of it!” it really takes the edge of my anxiety about not being perfect.
LAST TIME, ON “NINA BLOGS FANDOM HISTORY”:
Make me scream in glee by doing these things!
@sailorzeo can confirm she just saw me do just that, when she handed me an old book of printed fanfiction (actual quote upon her finding it: “SQUEEAK!!”). I’m looking through it right now, and when I say whatever you write, WHATEVER you write, provides provenance and context?
This is from 1996. Today it would almost certainly be measured in total word count. But in Ye Olde Days, you had to watch how much content you were putting per part because dial-up was slow and people wanted to read their fic when they were still young; measuring in pages or K/KB (kilobytes, not thousands) was the standard.
This is literally a look at the customs of fandom before broadband or even DSL were widespread. And it’s a single handwritten page. Look at everything there! How Zeo (and the author) chose to organize it; the length compared to modern-day fic; the way it’s segmented. (Looking at the fic itself, the formatting is also way different than modern formatting. Good, but different.)
And at least in theory, via the Wayback Machine or archive.org, I could still go find this fic online, because the name of the webpage is included on the printouts.
WRITE. YOUR. PROVENANCE.
I’m going to add a little bit that will make historians love you even more when you write the provenance down. Add the date you downloaded the fic.
When you are sourcing online information for research papers and the like, you have to put the date you found the info, because it can change on the web page. The information on the reference page is roughly
“Author, title, journal name, volume, number, year, url, date accessed” or
“Author, title, url, date accessed” for something short
Important addition.
…..i have thousands of words worth of comments that Ive left on fic. many that have been replied to and that I still have access to download also……
Just the idea thrills me. Comments are a form of marginalia! They’re sharing your thoughts, but with the author this time. The fact that we can do that so instantly is unmatched in history and it absolutely changes the way people engage with the text.
kinda cringe that he plans on staying there long enough that it’s worth decorating his cubicle like that
this just in: it’s cringe to have bills to pay and be in need of a stable job. more at 5.
Damn, cant believe its cringe to give yourself a happy place at work
victory
OK but I saw this thread on twitter a few days ago. Guy said thanks to this dude going all out on his cube and the management thinking it was like, the coolest shit, they are gonna start giving employees a budget to personalize their space. So yeah this IS more likely the kind of company you wanna stick with because they saw an employee go OFF on the decorating and instead of asking him to dial it back said “…holy shit we never thought of this, this is AWESOME go you!”
Friendly reminder that LGBTQ+, Queer, and LGBT+ are the preferred terms for the community (x).
Friendly reminder that Queer is approved by 72.9% of the people, and the groups who don’t prefer it’s use as an umbrella term are straight people, exclusionists, transmeds, truscums, sex-negative people, and sex work critical people (x).
Friendly reminder that aros and aces are excluded only 9.2% /
8.1%
of the time respectively while being included
78.9%
/ 81.2% of the time (x)
Friendly reminder that exclusionists are in the minority and aro/ace people are included in the LGBTQ+ community by the people within the community.
Also, i checked out the survey the second claim sources a while back: this is not OP choosing the words truscum, exclusionist, etc. These are labels that the survey gave people the option to self-identify as. It’s self-proclaimed exclusionists who dont like the word queer, not random accusations
yeah that’s super important.
This one gets reblogged on main. The reclassification of ‘queer’ as an inexcusable slur is a recent development which stems in part from exclusionist rhetoric. We reclaimed it decades ago. Learn our history. You are not immune to TERF propaganda, but you can absolutely choose to educate yourself to spite it.
another underappreciated tumblr feature that you dont get on other sites is the queue. i love it when something i thought was funny six months ago and then forgot about a week later crawlts its way out of the processing vortex and i get to see it all over again.
you should queue this post it would be funny and grant me immortality
we need ugly gross disgusting feminism again without conforming to aesthetics and advertisement companies i want pit hair i want leg hair i want weird haircuts i want to get rid of diet culture and ads for pink razors and make-up i want women to reject biological determinism and push away from the overwhelming tradwife narratives that social media feeds everyone (‘natural hormone cycles’ and 'divine feminine’ and all of that shit) etc. i want more women working i want heterosexual relationships to get more balanced i also want it to be a norm for heterosexual couples to assess role assignments in the relationships and think critically about why they want children i want having children not to be something people just do because it is expected of them. I want a dyke for president. Etcetera
and obviously any and all terfism falls under the biological determinism shit and does not belong in feminism
yo thats steven bradbury, winner of the short track 1000 metres at the 2002 winter olympics! yooo!! he’s the first man from THE ENTIRE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE to win a gold medal in the winter olympics!!!
hold on, lemme tell you about steven bradbury because the man’s olympic career is WILD. not to be an annoying australian but the whole “purely out of the luck of everyone else crashing, i unexpectedly won!” thing is like 50% myth. lemme explain
so the man actually won gold in the world championships as part of the australian relay team in 1991, but when the team went to the winter olympics the next year, they dropped from third to fourth in the semi-finals and failed to make the finals. get this: the reason is, his teammate lost his footing and crashed. (bradbury was a reserve at the time)
so in the 1994 winter olympics, the australian relay team (with bradbury as an active racer) decided to take a safe and conservative approach. they prioritised staying safe on their feet and hoping other teams would crash. sure enough, the canadian team had a crash, and while they got back up again it lost them significant time and allowed australia to eke out a bronze–this bronze was also the first medal australia EVER won at the winter. in fact, australia could have gone for the silver, but richard nizielski (the same teammate who crashed at 1992) decided to cede the silver to the american he was racing against in order to avoid risking another crash. safe, steady, conservative.
bradbury didn’t just compete in the relay team at the ‘94 winter, though. he was also in the 500m and 1000m short track, and he was INCREDIBLE, but also had insanely bad luck. for the 500m, he came second in his heat and then WON his qtrfinal. he ultimately came fourth in the semi, losing his shot at the finals, after he was suffered a crash from being knocked down by another competitor, and ended up limping over the finish line. for the 1000m, he was ILLEGALLY SHOVED OVER by another competitor, dropped his position, and was elimated.
but his worst luck came at the montreal world cup of the same year when, during a collision, another competitors blade sliced through his thigh. he was in the middle of competing, his heart rate was high because of the adrenaline, blood was pumping like crazy through his body–right out his wound as a result. he lost four litres of blood. all four quadriceps had been sliced through by the blade. he almost died. he later recounted that he was fighting to stay conscious because he thought if he lost consciousness he would definitely die (he probably would have). he ended up with ONE HUNDRED AND ELEVEN STITCHES in his leg, which he could not move afterward for three months. he ended up needing 18 months to get his leg back to full strength.
not only did the man almost DIE short tracking, he almost got a death sentence on his career at the time. his leg was almost disabled, and even though it healed, he was out of training for over a year because of the injury.
but he didnt die, and his career didnt end. bradbury kept training, and remained on the australian team. the man almost died and he still went, yeah nah, i’ve got a few good years left in me.
so bradbury comes back in the ‘98 winter olympics, both on the relay team and in the 500m and 1000m. the relay team unfortunately fails to qualify. devo. for the solos, bradbury was actually considered a real contender, he was still top of his game, but in the end he didn’t qualify for the quarterfinals. the reason for this was that his time had dropped due to collissions with other competitors. so he went home with nothing but a relay bronze. but bradbury was determined to see a short track win.
too bad fate fucking hates him apparently.
now, if you think almost dying because a skate blade sliced through your thigh and you almost bled out was bad, bradbury’s career was really threatened in 2000. during an exercise one of the other skaters fell in front of him. bradbury tried to jump, instead not only did he clip the other skater, but it caused him to lose his balance and he stacked it straight into the barrier, fracturing his vertebrae.
not only did the man spend months in a halo brace, not only did the man need to get pins skull and plates and screws bolted to his back and chest, but he was told explicitly by doctors he would never, ever be able to get back onto the ice again. that was it. he survives almost dying in the 94 world cup only to have his world crash and burn in a training exercise six years later.
anyway, fuck that, bradbury got back onto the ice. clearly. because goddamnit, he wanted that winter gold on a solo win.
look, not only did the man have a near death experience and metal bolted to his bones, but he was also aging up past the prime of an olympic athlete. he was, what some may say, not in his prime. it was a longshot. he admitted this. but he also wanted that fucking medal, and i guess everyone really liked him or felt incredibly bad for all the bad luck he’d had, so come the 2002 winter olympics, he’s on the team.
bradbury won his 1000m heat.
too bad in the qtrfinals he was racing against the gold medal pick of the host nation (ohno), and also the defending world champion (gagnon). only top two finishers could proceed to the semis.
bradbury came third. that was it. he was out. his olympic career was ov-
BUT WAIT, WHAT’S THAT! ON THE HORIZON! IS IT… A DISQUALIFICATION??? YES FOLKS, GAGNON WAS DISQUALIFIED FOR OBSTRUCTING ANOTHER RACER!! BRADBURY WAS IN!
he was in, but he still had the semis and the finals to get through. bradbury had, it was fair to say, an indomitable will, but his body was not in the same shape as his competitors. it had been through some shit. he knew he was slower than his rivals. so he took the same strategy as the australian relay team did all the way back in ‘94: conservative, steady, safe.
so here’s the thing. bradbury had a whole career, and body, full of proof that falls happen in short track. may as well call it short stack. it was a question of when, not if. people fall down, people collide, people trip, and medal chances are missed due to lost time. isn’t that what happened to him over and over again? so this is where i say that the whole “oh golly gosh who’da thunk everyone would fall down and i would just win!” thing is 50% a myth.
because that was his whole strategy.
you can’t be 100% certain the favourites are gonna fall, so of course there’s an element of chance, which is why i say only 50%, but bradbury’s plan for the semis and the finals was always to cruise along behind the other competitors, concentrate on skating safe and staying on his feet, avoiding collissions and trips, and just hoping (expecting) the other competitors to eat ice. he just wasn’t faster than his competitors, he was older, he had injuries, and he had to do (if things went well) four races in one night. it was a good strategy.
during the semis, bradbury’s “cruise behind the other races” strategy put him firmly in last place for most of the race. but then the other competitors all crashed, including a defending champion. bradbury cruised right into first place and went on to the finals. which is not the events of the picture above.
yep, that’s right. come the finals, bradbury repeats the exact same strategy. crusing behind the four other competitors, he kept a firm hold of last place and just concentrated on safety and steadiness. and then it happened. it wasn’t just a crash. it was the crash. a four-skater pile up. li (china) took the fall on the last turn of the race, just short of the finish, and triggered a chain crash that took all three other favourites down. bradbury was trailing 15m behind, putting him well clear of the collission.
bradbury hoped to get a bronze. he skated away with the first gold ever taken by an australian, by any man in the southern hemisphere, at the winter olympics.
he had over a decade of crashes and bashes. he almost died, twice. he almost had his career permanently destroyed, twice. he almost grabbed medals countless times, only to lose them to trips and shoves. he was the second oldest competitor, and the oldest of the finals. he was slower than everyone else. he was past his best. but let’s allow bradbury to say it best himself:
“Obviously I wasn’t the fastest skater. I don’t think I’ll take the medal as the minute-and-a-half of the race I actually won. I’ll take it as the last decade of the hard slog I put in.”
and what a goddamn slog. i want to say, firmly and proudly as an australian, the man didn’t win the gold at the 2002 winter olympics because he got lucky when seven competitors all tripped and fell. he won the gold at the 2002 winter olympics because he survived a ten year olympic career despite all the odds, never gave up despite the long shot, and used what he knew.
if there is a lesson in this as it relates to the original picture, it’s that while other social media platforms like twitter and reddit are jostling and shoving each other in competition to take first, tumblr has been slowly and steadily trailing behind, just focusing on keeping itself afloat, because it knows the simple truth that taking a fall is a matter of when, not if. and now everyone else is caught in a pile up and all it needs to do is keep cruising.
also, raise a glass to steven bradbury. man earned his medal.
