Cultural Insights of Our Own: Lessons From a Newly Decoded Digital Archive
Interplanetary Journal of Cultural Studies
Volume 16, Issue 3, Pages 322-340
Abstract
The recently decoded Internet Archive includes the digital artifact called “Archive of Our Own” (AO3) from early third millennium Earth. AO3 is unusually well backed up and therefore is presumed to contain some of the most significant -- perhaps even sacred -- texts of the time. In this paper we present our preliminary analysis of AO3 metadata, including new insights about the literature, gender and sexuality, religion, and scientific understanding of this historical era:
I. LITERATURE. We describe the cultural centrality of figures such as the Winchesters and Reader. We explore how they featured heavily in every dominant literature genre of the era, including Fluff, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, and Oral Sex.
II. GENDER AND SEXUALITY. We review the overwhelming evidence that male-male relationships were the most culturally significant sexual and romantic relationships, but we also show that it was a culture with an unusually broad set of sexual and gender roles. In particular, we highlight the unusual tripartite conceptualization of gender as including alpha, beta, and omega roles; we note the apparent prejudice against betas, illustrated in the prevalence of “no beta we die like men” and similar protest slogans.
III. RELIGION. We describe a newly discovered religious taboo: doves were a common sacrificial animal of the time, but they were forbidden from being eaten.
IV. SCIENCE. Finally, we present new insight about alternate universes. While previous scholars hypothesized that the scientists of Earth may have developed a correct early theory of the multiverse by the late second millennium, our analysis of AO3 presents evidence to the contrary. As late as the early third millennium, prevailing theories postulated highly specific universes, such as a universe in which everyone is in high school, or a universe contained within a coffee shop.
Taken together, these historical insights show that further investigation is warranted into the valuable documents stored within AO3, perhaps even going beyond the metadata to examine the full texts.
I explained the concept of "blorbo from my shows" to my 71 year old immigrant grandfather because I referenced it in passing and I thought nothing of it, until today when he said "I think I'll watch peaky blinders tonight and see my blorbo from my shows" referring, of course, to Cillian Murphy playing Tommy Shelby
English isn't his first language so he's not super in touch with modern slang, so I've been accidentally teaching him to talk like a tumblr user. His favorite thing to say lately is "me when I'm a little hater" when he's like talking shit about the neighbor's son
I explained the “x before gta6” meme to my immigrant father and he, in turn, explained to me how back in his day in Romania, they had the same type of joke, except instead of it being gta6, it was about the imminent death of a singer named Gică Petrescu, who everyone was continuously shocked by because he refused to die. Every time a momentous event happened people would say, in essence: “This happened and Gică Petrescu hasn’t even died yet?!?”
So. He understood the gta6 meme immediately because they apparently had the same thing in Romania when he was young, except way, way more morbid
Happy Moon Landing Eve! Remember to leave out milk and cookies for Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong, and don’t let Michael Collins convince you to prank NASA!
It was a huge milestone of scientific and technological advancement. (Plus, at the time, politically significant). Humanity went to space! We set foot on a celestial body that was not earth for the first time in human history! That’s a big deal! I’ve never thought about it before but now that I have, it’s ridiculous to me that that’s not part of our everyday lives and the public consciousness anymore. Why don’t we have a public holiday and a family barbecue about it. Why have I never seen the original broadcast of the moon landing? It should be all over the news every year!
It’s July 20th. That’s the day of the moon landing. Next year is going to be the 54th anniversary. I’m ordering astronaut shaped cookie cutters on Etsy and I’m going to have a goddamn potluck. You’re all invited.
This is a scheduled post for two days before the anniversary of the moon landing. Please get your moon themed items and foods sorted now in anticipation.
Peeling off the broken breastplate of a stoic knight who only fights and never speaks, just to realize there’s nothing in there. Not metaphorically—the armor is literally empty. It doesn’t appear to affect him. If the armor stays mostly in the shape of a knight, he just gets back up to keep fighting. But with the chest plate off he just sits there, equally impervious to curiosity as I reach up into the cavity where his body might’ve gone. Stubbornly, no answers are found anywhere in there.
So I forge him a new breastplate and on the inside, because I know he has plenty of room, I put a little pocket. Not big enough to hold anything functional of course. Just a little extra piece to see what he’ll do with it.
He comes back next time with some grievous injury to his nothing, presumably from the massive shredded gash across his thigh plates. He sits and waits. I fix it for him. He is still nothing in there. I decide to add a drawing on the inside, of the type of beast I imagine could rend metal into scraps with a single blow. He puts it back on. He no longer moves as if he is injured.
Over time the interior of the knight becomes decorated with whatever odds and ends I could think to attach to the inside of a guy who’s got room to carry it. What really gets me is that he never removes any of it. Never requests a change. Not even when I installed a curtain rod for a small tapestry, or a bud vase to carry roses for his beloved, or an accordion folder for letters. He didn’t say a word for any of the many, many drawings of mythical beasts that now fight forever inside of his shell.
There are plenty of other forges. I’m not entirely sure why he keeps coming back here anyway. We’re pretty popular, but he could get his armor fixed a lot quicker (and with fewer ridiculous modifications) literally anywhere else. I asked him if I could get a look at his nothing again. He flipped up his visor and nodded his head so I could take a look. It was the same as it had been, filled with drawings and trinkets and weird little fixtures I’d put in there. I asked if he was annoyed by it, or liked it, or felt anything at all, but he literally only ever says nothing, so I’m not sure why I asked.
There’s not much room left in his nothing now. When he comes back for repairs I’ve had to fix my own foolish additions. Some of these pieces are intricate and irritating to repair, but I fix them anyway. It feels wrong to take any of it away from him now, even though I’ve been rudely encroaching on his nothingness to the point where it’s barely even there. How he squeezes his nothing back into a body so full, I’ll never understand. But it’s a game to me now, finding a spot not yet filled and putting something there. A dark part of me wonders if he ever gets filled up completely, if whatever sorcery holds the nothing-knight together may break, and it will all clatter unceremoniously to the floor.
When he hands me his breastplate yet again, it is so shockingly disfigured that I wonder if being made of nothing has somehow kept him alive. No ordinary knight could sustain such injuries. So I fix it. And he waits, unmoving, in a quiet corner of the forge. It’s like he’s watching, even though I know the reading glasses I put inside his helmet were just for fun. I’m careful to put it all back exactly the way it was when he last left. There’s no room to add more this time.
He examines the breastplate, and pauses before putting it back on, like he’s looking for something. Is he worried about the fit? But it suits him just as it always did. He calmly points to a little space, about an inch, between a miniature shelf and one of many pockets. There’s nothing there. I ask him what’s wrong, and again he points. It’s the most emotion I’ve ever seen from him, and it’s barely anything at all. I take it to mean he wants something there.
I spend some time engraving a little snail in the gap. He watches, as much as nothing can watch. When I’m finished he holds the breastplate, but he doesn’t put it on right away. I ask him if something’s still wrong. He says nothing, and puts it on. I tell him I can’t add anything else. Even if he could ask, there’s no room left.
Next time he comes back, there’s nothing wrong with his armor—he lets me check to make sure. I ask him what he’s doing here. Out from one of many pockets, he retrieves a tiny rusted knife. It’s in miserable condition, barely worth saving. I tell him I could make him a nice new one, but I’ll fix it if he likes. He puts it away and reaches around to find something else, a needle and thread. Better condition, but I’m not a sewist and I tell him as much. He puts them away. He then retrieves a little twisted piece of wax paper. I open it. It’s candy. I ask if I can eat it. He says nothing. I eat it. It’s flavored with cinnamon. I’m surprised he let me take it.
He keeps bringing me candy now. His armor is the most laborious to repair out of every client my forge serves, but it’s my own fault so I can’t complain. Sometimes he keeps me company while I work. I wonder if he is trying to tell me something when he hands me mints. I wonder again at the lemon lozenges. He stares at me when I eat, as much as nothing can stare.
One day he brings me a little jar of honey. I thank him, I tell him I’ll save it for dinner. He watches me work, he puts his repaired armor back on, and he stays. My shift passes slowly, and when I finally pack up to leave it’s dark outside. He follows me out of the forge. I ask him where he’s going. He points to the jar in my hand. I ask him if he wants to watch me eat it. He says nothing, but the nothing-knight clearly wants something, so I open the lid and dunk my finger in the honey. I try not to get any on my chin. He stands there, inches away, watching me try to consume this jar of honey without a utensil. It tastes like clovers. About half the jar is left when I’ve finally had enough of pretending to be a bear, but he doesn’t move to leave.
I ask if he’s going to follow me home. He says nothing. I tell him he can if he wants to. Again, nothing. I start walking, and he follows at my side. I know he’s not going to say anything ever, so I fill the silence. I tell him I’m grateful for the sweets, I tell him about how his various components are made, I tell him I’ve never met anyone made of nothing before. I tell him it’s a rare opportunity for a smith to work so much on the inside of something. He says nothing. I tell him again how much I like the candy.
It occurs to me that maybe filling me with sugar is as close as he can get to filling someone else’s empty armor with trinkets. I’m not sure if that’s really why he does it. I tell him I don’t have room to be filled with anything on the inside, not like him. I’m not a container for much besides food. He offers me another piece of candy. Maybe he likes containing something, the way I like to feel full. Maybe it’s nothing at all.
—
I didn’t edit this even a little bit. Thanks for reading!
It's Spiders Georg! I've translated it into Angkorian Khmer, the language of Cambodia from 802-1351 AD. Because I like doing stuff like that ;)
You read the black consonants first, then the blue consonants, than the purple vowels. If there's no written vowel, use an 'a'. Magenta is punctuation - a dingbat marking the start, periods, and then a stronger period that tells you the paragraph/section is finished.
Here's what it says!
The original:
reallyreallytrying
Jan 8, 2013
“average person eats 3 spiders a year” factoid actualy just statistical error. average person eats 0 spiders per year. Spiders Georg, who lives in cave & eats over 10,000 each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted
Transliterated into Latin characters:
1935¹ śaka, ekādaśi roc mārggaśira, 'aṅgāravāra, nu rilirilitroyiṅ kathā: Neḥh ’ālakṣaṇa kathā: ’nak cya pīṅ pi pratisaṃvatsara, toy vyat vakra saṃkhyā.
’Nak cya pīṅ śūnya pratisaṃvatsara.
Nau ru Jaṃrau Pīṅ, ’nau guhā cya daśasahasra pratidina, ga te krau daṃnuk ta caṅvāt ti mān ban dāṃ ta kāñ.
More detail under the cut!
How it’s spelled:
1-9-20-10-5 ś-k e-kā-d-śi ro-c|mā-ʳgg-śi-r
ʔ-ṅgā-r-vā-r nu ri-li-ri-li-tro-yi-ṅ|k-tʰā neḥ-
h|ʔā-l-kṣ-ṇ k-tʰā ʔn-kˣ cy pi-ṅ|pi pr-ti-sṃ-
v-ts-r to-yˣ vy-t|v-kr sṃ-kʰyā . ʔn-kˣ cy
pi-ṅ|śū-ny pr-ti-sṃ-v-ts-r . nau ru jṃ-rau pi-
ṅˣ ʔnau gu-hā cy d-ś-s-h-sr pr-ti-di-
n g te krau dṃ-nu-k|t c-ṅvā-t|ti mā-n|b-n|dāṃ
t kā-ñ .
1935th Śaka year, 11 day of the waning moon of the month Mārggaśira, Tuesday. On this day, Reallyreallytrying said:
This, the instruction which says “People eat 3 spiders yearly” is really because of a calculation mistake.
People eat zero spiders every year.
Of Spiders Georg - who lives in a cave and eats 10,000 daily - he is outside the boundaries of the set and should not have been counted.
¹ The Angkorian Khmer used a different calendar than we do, called the Śaka Saṃvat, or Shaka Era. It starts in year 78 of the Christian Era, so 2013 AD lines up with 1935 Śaka.
² The Khmer has a large number of Sanskrit/Pali words, similar to how English has a lot of Latin/French. These loans are marked with a degree symbol ( ° ). I decided to use very formal language here, so there's a lot of loans.
³ ‘pīṅ’ is a Modern Khmer word (or at least a component of several modern names) for spiders. My Angkorian dictionaries didn’t have a term, and this one has cognates in several related languages, so I decided it was my best bet.
⁴ I'm not certain that zero could be used in this way at the time. They were definitely using 0 in large numbers, but actually treating it LIKE a number is usually a later development.
⁵ Translations in brackets mean that the word has no direct translation. The best I can do is say the function they serve in the sentence.
⁶ I think I'm funny.
⁷ Angkorian Khmer doesn't have a word for 'and' - you can just put things side by side. I've chosen to move the 'e' in 'ge ta' so that it reads 'ga te' to replicated the original misspelling.
And here are some (undescribed) old guides to reading Angkorian Khmer. They're written in a slightly different style - especially visible in the 'ñ' - but might still help if you're interested!
kastrakomnenes
this may be one of the most interesting posts I've ever seen. What got you into Angkorian Khmer specifically?
Thank you!
I'm interested in cultural history and I love the First Millenium AD/Early Medieval period. I got really into Heian Japanese fashion, and then was looking at other cultures that existed around the world during the same period. Sometimes it was the fashion that grabbed me. Sometimes the architecture. And sometimes it was the script or language. Angkor has all three!
I find the script (characters used to write) to be gorgeous, and the grammar is similar enough to English that I can wrap my head around it. (Very little inflection!) I am endlessly fascinated by how people take scripts that do NOT work for their language, and smash them with hammers until they do - the way the Irish use Latin to communicate consonantal sounds, how English uses it to communicate vowel sounds, how Angkorian Khmer uses Braḥmi to communicate consonant clusters, etc.
There's a large enough surviving corpus (enough things with writing on them), and enough of it's online (even if the scan quality can be unbelievably bad) that I can really sink my teeth into it. There are enough grammars from India during the same period that we've got a good understanding of how Sanskrit/Pali works, and studying the differences between Indian and Khmer Sanskrit/Pali is really, really neat! Plus, Angkorian Khmer works COMPLETELY differently, so seeing how they incorporated all the Sanskrit loanwords into non-Sanskrit texts is even MORE interesting!
But mostly, I love the curves. I love how the characters stack. I love how the 'e' diacritic comes before the main letter and I always forget to leave space for it and then want to have a tantrum. I love that the last black character on that text I wrote becomes a spiral later on in history. Becomes half as wide, loses all those weird bits that look like diacritics but aren't, and just becomes a spiral.
I’m not sure if this will be helpful to anyone, but you literally do not have to be a good writer to write and post fan fiction. Yes you will naturally get better at writing and finding your voice the more you do it but you do not have to be or become a professional level writer to enjoy writing and sharing fics. It’s common to hear people praise fic writers by saying their work is better than published books, and while I think this comes from a good place, that’s not the norm or expectation. There is also a sentiment that fic writing is “good practice” for becoming a better writer or doing something else later, but if fic is the only creative writing you ever do that is literally okay. Your technical skill does not mean you cannot have fun and build community with your writing, or that other people cannot love and find meaning in your work.
Last spring, my children and I travelled to Xeraco, Spain. We stayed in a small fisherman’s house in a neighbouring village. It didn’t have many modern comforts, but it stood right beside the beach and had a terrace overlooking the sea—and that was more than enough.This quick sketch was painted directly from life on the coast in about 30 minutes, while the children played in the sand and flew a kite nearby.Everything in front of me was constantly changing: the light shifted, the sky transformed from one minute to the next, the waves kept moving, and a ship slowly passed across the horizon. But on the canvas, all these fleeting moments remained together—still, yet somehow full of movement.That is what I love about painting from life: the world never stops, but for a moment, the painting holds it still. 🌊🎨🪁
