#paratext

Paratext (on the Internet) has historically been used, not only for folksonommy, but for social functions, too. This is true for websites that have a broader range of social media-like features, such as comments, likes and private messages and for those that lack one or more of these. However, Bourlai observes differences in how paratext is used and ties it to the above features of the site:

Since Tumblr does not have a separate comment section for posts, the tag section may also be used for tags with discourse functions such as expressing an opinion, a reaction, or including asides. (…) The results suggest that social tagging practices on Tumblr are influenced by both the technological specifications of the platform and the social structure of the website. E. Bourlai: “Comments in Tags, Please!: Tagging practices on Tumblr”

Those interested in fandom might instantly think about the paratext and especially the tags of Archive of Our Own. The archive, will providing commenting options, the post themselves serve no social function in theory. It is all the more telling, what communicative functions the different elements of a post serve. While the post itself would need to contain the fanwork only, a space known as Author’s Notes is provided where the users can communicate additional information. However, users still relegate some of this information to the comments.

Comment tags play no role in enhancing the visibility and searchability of a post and would not be considered metadata labels like keyword tags. They are part of the content and would normally be included in the body section of a post. By placing part of the content in the tag section, users indicate a logical or structural division in the post.  E. Bourlai: “Comments in Tags, Please!: Tagging practices on Tumblr”

This logical separation is so embedded in fannish practices that folksonomical functions and social functions have become entangled where we see some messages becoming codified (i wrote this instead of sleeping), while some tags might start out with intending to categorize the post but end up in a conversation with the reader (Hua Tuo would regret featuring in this fic, Lin Chen regrets nothing). These suggest that a tracing of historical development of tags would be possible. It also suggests an awareness on the users’ part for what is more fitting as an Author’s Note and what is more fitting as a tag. Two further quote might highlight the significance of this awareness.

As can be seen from the examples shown above, particularly on Tumblr and AO3, these motivations can result in rich tagging practices, that evidence the fan community’s desire to share and engage widely with one another, as well as to accurately and usefully organise and classify their works. Price, L. and Robinson, L.: “Tag analysis as a tool for investigating information behaviour: comparing fan-tagging on Tumblr, Archive of Our Own and Etsy”

While some of these activities are not necessarily „important” in themselves, they are the enabling conditions for fan cultural productions and for the construction of fandom as a social community. Jenkins, H. Textual poachers: Television fans and participatory culture. Routledge.

100 Words for Water: A Projective Ecosocial Vocabulary, Edited by Eva Franch i Gilabert, Mireia Luzárraga, and Alejndro Muiño, Lars Müller Publishers, Zürich, 2025 [Zabriskie Buchladen für Kultur und Natur, Berlin]

See my point: Sidestep often embodies political anger, which is GOOD and yields result, but they also embody despair, however much justice plays a part into their path--and while their plans fuel them, it's only towards an abstractedness, towards a one-scaled, personal project, and even then only through destruction--not construction, and certainly not ground-level or wider-scaled activism. They rely on the obfuscation that everything they do is a mean to an end, as if revolution WAS an end, instead of a constant progression and a perennial reconstruction.

In the end, they're mired in a similar guilelessness to the one they want to break in Daniel, one that relies on despair rather than idealism, but is still riddled with blindspots. Daniel is in the world, with all the bias that come with it, especially in his position of privilege; Sidestep is too often out of the world, looking at experience through the distorted lens of shortcuts, marginalization, amalgamation (and of course: the noise they hear is deafening). The blinders are on both ways; they just don't hide exactly the same shit. One doesn't exist without the other, which the book drives home even more sharply by constantly paralleling who Sidestep was and who Daniel is, and the middle-points where their experiences and skills intersect, despite very different backgrounds; but yes, as I was saying, idealism and despair cannot exist without the other, just like liberation doesn't exist without community action, and battle without care ethics; or they self-destruct.

Anyway, I feel like Herald's path COULD and might ask--what does that look like, this collision, this similar goal underpinned by contrary means, and how do you find common ground, especially when the two sides have been too-long fuelled and tormented by discredit and tamed anger?

also interesting that we see one of G&P's notes through Harrow's hand, as Gideon is reading the copy Harrow made (with the original right there, one might add, so again, it seems deliberate): "In the hope of attaining Lyctoral understanding. All glory and love to the Necrolord Prime." (GtN ch. 19)

Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: Gen, Other Fandoms: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games) Characters: Original Characters, Original Female Character(s), Sora (Kingdom Hearts), Xemnas (Kingdom Hearts) Additional Tags: unfiction, paratext, Science Fiction, Science, Mathematics

Summary: Abstract. We present a framework for describing the ontological structure of a reality in which physical matter is not the fundamental substrate. Drawing on direct observation, native scholarship, and mathematical formalism adapted from terrestrial topology and set theory, we propose that reality is constituted by the set of all conceivable ideas (Ω), that local physics are determined by the compositional profile of a given region of Ω, and that interiority (subjective experience) is an emergent inevitability of sufficient complexity in any substrate. We describe the tripartite structure of persons, the taxonomy of derivative entities produced by component-separation events, the dimensional structure of inter-world space, and several anomalous properties of entities originating from high-Lymph pockets. We identify what we believe to be a universal principle governing the spontaneous generation of interiority and discuss its implications for substrate regulation theory.

Series:

Part 1 of Kingdom Hearts: Leviathan

Those fans who say “this is the moment it gets good” or “trust me you’ll love it after episode 5” are lying. What I mean is, whatever argument they’re making to defend their favorite thing is irrelevant to them. They love all of it. The whole thing.

When I get asked to watch something or that I didn’t get something and I need to rewatch it or wait until the whole show is done to critique it, they’re not asking me to give the show a chance. They’re asking me to go away. To shut up.

Because we’re not talking about a show. We never were. We’re talking about sports teams. I am on one side and you are on the other. And there’s no real way to have a conversation anymore because to them I’m not critiquing media to them. I’m insulting culture.

For fans, the art stopped being art a long time ago. A movie becomes less about its story and themes and more about nights waiting in line for advanced screening tickets, bonding with your best friend over how a side character changed your life, making craft figures to sell at an artist’s alley.

You can’t argue these things. You can’t argue against them. In some way I think fans know this? That you can’t respond to someone saying “I don’t like it” with “what about the part where the protagonist made my sister cry and we all realized she gay and her wedding was beautiful. Are you seriously going to tell me my sister’s wedding was not beautiful?!?!”

So everyone just kind of yells at each other. Or maybe past each other. Cause the only way to deal with someone who insults your sister’s wedding is to tell them to fuck off and die. Fan culture wars can only be about hating people. They can’t be about the thing everyone likes.

this is driving me insane and none of my searches are showing up with anything. can someone tell me of there's a word for things outside the main body of a text which relate to the text? maybe it's paratextual, but I'm not sure. like the outside stuff which aren't directly related to the text but can't be separated from its context?