orbit in unlovable orbit

americans love doxxing their home states more than anything. we hear the name of our home state and everything goes black and we wake up 10 minutes later, having reblogged no fewer than 8 posts featuring the name of our home state

it's June

IT'S JUNE

obsessed with stories where you can never go home

you can never go home because you fell asleep for a thousand years and when you woke up and returned there, your society had changed, your house had fallen and all of your friends were dead. you can never go home because you made a choice and were shattered into pieces and your home was destroyed in your wake. you can never go home because someone took you and changed you against your will and although your home is the same, the person who belonged there is dead. you can never go home because you committed a crime and your family expelled you and even as they extend a hand of reconciliation, you will never forgive them. you can never go home because your home was a person and someone murdered her and now you drift and grieve to the point of insanity. you can never go home because you never knew your sister but she gave you every opportunity you have and now she's dead and your parents see nothing but her in your eyes.

This fan fiction is older than the push-through tabs on soda cans.

Your grandma wrote this on her Commodore 64.

I miss my Commodore 64

Oh my dear, sweet children. The Commodore 64 came out in 1982. This was produced on a typewriter and probably mimeographed. And while it may seem funny now, it took more courage to write and distribute this than you will ever  know.

Reblogged for that last comment.

respect your elders

Children, in the olden days fanfiction was written on a typewriter, copied and sent by snail mail. Getting one one of those letters from across the world was every bit as exciting as getting a notification that your favorite writer posted a new fic.

The precedent line is especially amusing when you bear in mind that “A Fragment Out of Time” is not only the first Star Trek slashfic to be published in a widely distributed magazine: it’s believed by some to be the first slashfic of any kind to be widely published.

In 1974 it was illegal to send pornography through the USPS. So distributing fic like this via mailed newsletter was literally dangerous. And they knew it.

Imagine if we did the “public libraries are punk” thing for other subcultures. Imagine if people made shirts that said “Soup kitchens are grunge” or “Mixed Use Urbanism is Juggalo”.