Virtual spaces as places
Imperfect put out a challenge to think about the physical space of our internet with a virtual space tour.
Being online feels like wandering a vast new world. There was a Nanowrimo thing I liked about "run whooping through the valleys of your imagination" and that is how the internet feels to me - the valleys of your imagination, as in, everyone else's. I'm just out here, a shambling mound, shambling the country lanes and worn trails with my little knapsack on a stick. Checking in with familiar faces. Coming across fascinating new people and their gardens or workshops. Asking "Seen anything cool lately?" and getting directions onward.
Visiting the endlessly vast libraries of Wikipedia and the Internet Archive. The museums and archive collections and crumbling relics still lovingly tended.
AO3 is a bustling bazaar where you can get everything you ever imagined plus a lot more besides. Market traders set out their wares and yell tropes. People in trenchcoats sidling over and opening up so you've got that moment of trepidation whether it's going to be absolute gold or an illicit horror. Also, everything is stolen. It's all off the back of a van and still has the tags on.
Occasionally there are rumours of the bad things happening in enormous city-states and empires I've never been to. So I ignore them, blissful in my ignorance.
My space I envisage as ramshackle, overgrown, and cluttered with broken treasures. In which vein I want to add some 'features' to the site. Bring it more in line with how I see things in my head. There are already some sea creatures hidden about. There needs to be vines, gargoyles, fungus, Grecian urns, old maps, gorgons, antique astronomical equipment, collections of trilobites, and fruit still life tableaux that have started to go off a bit. Expect them soon.
