hockey puck, rattlesnake, monkey monkey underpants

I am a professional librarian (MSLS) and I have worked in both archives and public libraries and a lot of the confusion and concern I see surrounding Ao3 is a fundamental misunderstanding of How Archives Work.

An archive is a collection related to a subject. That subject often a person but sometimes a field or concept or project. And the purpose of an archive is to keep everything. And I mean everything. I was going to say “short of biohazards” but since I know there’s a sealed R. Crumb Devil Gal chocolate bar in the UNC Chapel Hill archives, we really do mean everything.

When a collection of materials–which are usually unique and original and can be photos, manuscripts, letters, recordings (audio and/or visual), notes and notebooks, objects, published books, whatever–on and/or from the subject arrive at the archive, they are examined, preserved for longevity, accessioned and cataloged (added to the archive’s records), and added to the archive. You measure collections in linear feet. As in, once it’s all preserved and boxed and secure, you note how many feet of shelf space it takes up. And some of y'all on Ao3 have a lot of linear feet to your name (and I’m proud of you).

This is an archive: it is designed to preserve the original materials related to a subject. That is its purpose. Archives are how we have the original scroll manuscript of On the Road, for example, or the Lomax recordings of American folksongs, or Tijuana Bibles, or James Joyce’s loveletters to Nora.

Now you, a member of the public, can access some archives. Some are easier to access than others. The one I worked in was open to the public; good luck getting into the British Archives without a good reason.

So now apply this to Ao3–which is an archive both in name and in purpose. It is intended to preserve fan-created content long term. And this means everything, whether you personally like the materials or not. It is a repository for as much as possible.

And the “whether you personally like the materials or not” is important, hence why I mentioned Jim’s loveletters and Tijuana Bibles in particular. (RIP Jim, you would have loved pegging.)

If it’s made by fans and it exists, we should keep it to document the history and progression of fandom. That is the point. We have lost enough materials related to the subject of fans of media and we don’t need to lose any more.

The fact of the matter is that Ao3 is only one facet of the OTW, which preserves other fan-related materials (convention booklets and zines, for example). Somehow Ao3, an archive on the subject of fanfiction, has been divorced from the rest of the project, mostly by way of “purity culture” and panic over “dangerous” fiction.

The fact that you can go through an archive and find interesting information is the other side of archives. No, they shouldn’t be like the banker’s box of old letters stuffed in my closet. Yes, they should be organized and as accessible as is appropriate for the state of the materials.

It’s really, really cool to find stuff in an archive, I’m not even going to lie. I have done it before and I will do it again. And yet there are other items in an archive that I might not want or need or be interested in at all–but they’re still there. That’s the cataloging and accessioning: to keep up with what’s there, to stay “on topic” with collecting, and to be able to find things in that archive. Bless the tag wranglers who are doing the cataloging at Ao3.

The pearl clutching seems to come from 1. the creation of “dangerous” fanworks and 2. public access to those “dangerous” fanworks. These are issues of “purity culture” and opinions on censorship and should not involve Ao3.

We’re all basically familiar with libraries, right? A collection of materials designed to be used by the people who use the library. That’s the basics.

And that is not the same as an archive.

Library books, especially public library books, age like milk. I cannot tell you what a relief it has been to throw away dirty, smelly, stained, damaged, sand-in-the-covers books when a replacement comes in. I know there’s a Cult of the Book around here, but books are not all that inherently precious. The latest James Patterson novel is not a survivor of the Library of Alexandria (which was more of an archive anyway).

If a book is so rare that it cannot be replaced, it should be in an archive or a rare book collection and not a circulating library.

The first rule of libraries is “know your user population.” To use the example of public libraries, you need to know what books the people want to read (among other things).

Libraries, generally speaking, are more apt to adjust their collection to suit their users. A library in, for example, a prison is likely to have a lot of books on law. A church library will likely have a lot of religious books and, depending on the church, may not have any books by LGBTQ+ authors. These collections reflect their users (and also the controls or limitations placed on those users but I digress). A public library bookmobile taken to childcare centers will have a lot of children’s books. I have packed a bookmobile for that project so trust me on this one.

The news is full of challenges being laid against certain books in libraries–especially school libraries and public libraries. In some cases, the challenge may be valid. In most current cases, it’s really about exterting political and/or religious control over public institutions but couched in concerns about “the children.”

And, quite frankly, that’s what the “concerns” about what Ao3 contains feel like to me.

I go to the hills when my heart is lonely I know I will hear what I’ve heard before My heart will be blessed with the sound of music And I’ll sing once more

“I've had a lot of ups and downs in my life. I'm still working through it personally, but the best thing about me is that if an alcoholic or drug addict comes up to me and says, 'Will you help me?' I will always say, 'Yes, I know how to do that. I will do that for you, even if I can't always do it for myself! So I do that, whenever I can. In groups, or one on one.

And I created the Perry House in Malibu, a sober-living facility for men. I also wrote my play The End of Longing, which is a personal message to the world, an exaggerated form of me as a drunk. I had something important to say to people like me, and to people who love people like me.

When I die, I know people will talk about Friends, Friends, Friends. And I'm glad of that, happy l've done some solid work as an actor, as well as given people multiple chances to make fun of my struggles on the world wide web...

but when I die, as far as my so-called accomplishments go, it would be nice if Friends were listed far behind the things I did to try to help other people.

I know it won't happen, but it would be nice.”

- Matthew Langford Perry

And as you all know I Am currently taking a geology class, so I am probably more emotionally invested in minerals than usual. But that is...very obviously not a natural crystal.

So I did some looking around on Etsy.

Now, these shops all seem to advertise to the “witchy”/“spiritual healing” type of person. And there are a lot of them. Crystals are a Big Thing on Etsy. And ALMOST ALL of them are obviously artificially cut into the same sort of prism with a triangular pyramid top, regardless of the actual sort of crystal it is supposed to be.

Even like, fucking, obsidian. Obsidian is volcanic glass, it doesn’t form crystals at all, it is not a crystal

And as I scroll, I start to see items in...interesting shapes:

“Oh,” I think to myself. “Oh no.”

But it is too late. I have heard the siren’s song, singing to me of knowledge that will destroy me, but that I cannot help but seek.

These...elongated objects are almost always ambiguously described as “massage wands,” “crystal healing wands,” and other such innocuous things. The egg-shaped objects are, um, “yoni eggs.”

...Right. Okay.

Maintain the youthfulness of my sacred organ.

IT’S A SEX TOY. SAY IT. BITCH, IT’S A SEX TOY, IT’S OKAY, SERIOUSLY, THERE’S NO SHAME IN IT, SAY IT WITH PRIDE, SAY IT WITH YOUR CHEST,

OKAY.

Okay. I’m good. I’m fine.

Actually, you know what, never mind. There is shame in this and I want it to be never acknowledged again.

Additionally, I am not fine.

Why the fuck are there so many of these—

At this point I stop and start googling.

Now, Selenite is the crystalline form of gypsum. It is also known as satin spar. Selenite is brittle and breaks easily, and has a Mohs hardness scale of 2.

For those unfamiliar with the Mohs hardness scale, a mineral with a hardness of 2 is soft enough that it can be easily scratched with a fingernail. It also is dissolved by moisture.

NO. DON’T PUT THAT IN YOUR BODY???? DON’T PUT THE GYPSUM, WHICH HAS A MOHS HARDNESS SCALE OF 2, IS BRITTLE AND BREAKS EASILY, AND IS WATER SOLUBLE, INSIDE YOUR LITERAL ACTUAL VAGINA??????????

I try to reassure myself with the fact that these things are probably not actually selenite, because making a dildo out of such a soft mineral in the first place would be very difficult. Having seen fluorite before, I feel pretty certain that the fluorite yoni eggs are probably actually just glass.

I google fluorite.

Okay.

Further exploring online shows me that fluorite is soluble in various strong acids.

Some guys on a forum in 2004 have strong contradictory opinions on this.

(I google the pH of the vagina.)

I don’t understand how pH works. I give up on the solubility question and google the toxicity of fluorite:

I now know at least one orifice fluorite does not go inside.

I have opened Pandora’s box, except Pandora’s box is filled with minerals God did not intend to be anywhere near the vagina carved into the shape of dildos. Etsy is advertising me sex toys I wish I could forget.

And vaginal steam herbs.

It seems that there is potentially a correlation between wanting to steam your vagina and wanting to put rocks in it. I know, groundbreaking discovery.

Okay, so we’re talking therapy substitute therapy substitute.

(I begin to think about how desperately we need universal health care. Maybe I just need someone, something, to blame.)

At this point, I realize that I haven’t done any googling on whether dildos made of rocks are a good idea at all. So, very tentatively, as if typing it more slowly will make it any less observed by the FBI, I google whether quartz should be used...internally.

First result that pops up:

That’s, uh. That’s reassuring.

I decide I’m incapable of unpacking this particular suitcase.

There are, of course, a small handful of articles debating the safety of rose quartz sex toys. But I’m getting the feeling that this is not a normal question to have in the first place. I close the tab with little relief.

Etsy is still enthusiastically recommending me things that hurt me psychologically.

...pleasure chalk?

How can I describe the fear that this image struck in me, reader?

Pleasure Chalk? What could that be?

Is knowing worse, or is not knowing? I scarcely have a choice:

I check in with my emotions.

Is this relief? Am I relieved that they are eating the dirt instead of fucking it? One review complains about the taste. I don’t know what they expected.

I try in vain to struggle against the tide, to return to the relatively normal side of Etsy. I begin to resent, no, hate, these deceptively aesthetically pleasing hippie shops eagerly spreading medical misinformation and things as yet unknown.

This, unlike the other “crystals” I have shown, appears to show naturally grown crystals. They are, of course, quartz crystals, and $45 comes off as extremely overpriced. I have a quartz crystal I got for a dollar at an Eastern Kentucky rock festival, about the size and quality of the ones in the photo.

Quartz is the most common mineral in the Earth’s crust. But at least this is regular levels of annoying.

Then I see this:

Well, I see the photo and the price, and I think, that looks like a regular quartz crystal. There’s no way a regular quartz crystal is $1,347.

I read the description:

I am crying. I don’t want to google any of this. I am beyond googling. I no longer desire knowledge.

THATS A QUARTZ CRYSTAL. MOTHERFUCKER THAT’S QUARTZ. SIO2, MOST COMMON MINERAL IN THE EARTH’S CRUST. ITS FUCKING QUARTZ IM—

I click on a malachite.

The malachite promises to protect me from emails. And at this, darkest hour, I want to be protected.

I have been broken. I have been lured to my demise.

Big Brother: loved.

Geology lab I’m supposed to be doing: incomplete.

ascending at this part of

the entire post

"Why are there so many female archers in fiction?"

Please forgive the clickbait-y title! This is a super complex and interesting topic that I barely scratch the surface of here, but I hopefully will be able to do more justice to things like this in the future!

Also, it's not the point of the video, but I had fun with the outfits in this- do you have any faves?

Percy Jackson, we've been expecting you.

Goodnight room