Back in my younger days, when people would ask where I went to high school, the conversation would often go like this:

“I go to Arts Magnet.”

“Oh. So you’re a painter.”

“No.”

“A sculptor?”

“Um, no.”

“What? You just draw?”

“Nope.”

“But . . . you’re an artist, right?”

“Yep. I compose music and direct and act in plays.”

“Oh, right. Artssss Magnet.”

*sighs*

One of the fudgeries of spoken English is the way we often use the word for a subset to mean the whole set, and vice versa. To some people, “artist” means “painter,” “American” means “from the USA,” and “animal” means “multicellular, eukaryotic organisms of the kingdoms Animalia or Metazoa BUT NOT HUMANS CAUSE WE’RE SPESHUL.”

Of course, we’re starting to get rid of a lot of these fudges, but it’s still tricky. I often use “USian” instead of “American,” but as a southerner I correct Aussies who call me a “yank.” The politics of who’s the subset in these verbal habits can be very problematic, you see. (But at least pretty much everyone has given up saying “man” for “humanity.”)

AND YET, here I’ve done more than a dozen Fan Art Fridays, and about 99% of the fan art I’ve shared with you is drawn or painted (or the digital equivalent). Apparently I’ve been colonized by my painterly high school oppressors without even realizing it!

So here we are at last, a special edition of Fan Art Friday in which NO art is drawn or painted. (Well, some of it is, partly. There is no escape.)

Let’s start off with costumes. Here’s an awesome piloting jacket by DA’s WaxesNostalgic, based on Alek’s from Leviathan:

Cool, huh? You don’t see enough leather in cosplay.

And here’s some self-portraiture by bano–kagi, which is partly cosplay, but also involves the art of resembling Deryn Sharp without even trying.

I mean, seriously. It’s like she jumped out of the book.

SPEAKING OF WHICH:
This one is sort of on the border between drawing and sculpture, but you will agree it’s totally cool. See if you can find the Leviathan characters in “Jump Off the Page” by ThePrinceOfParties.

This is a crop. You must follow this link for the whole thing!

Characters jumping out of books makes me happy.

More sculpture! Of a Huxley Ascender! This one from Parker-Strom.

And in a more jewelry mode, Heather L. offers up one of the Leviathan‘s fabricated bees:

It’s so glittery, kind of like I describe the bees in the gut.

And now . . . something that will keep you Midnighters fans in stitches.

Heh, in stitches. (Bada-BOOM.) From Kristen G, who is clearly awesome, because those midnighters symbols are really detailed.

And in the photography category, Ren W. and Sammy sent me shots of the sky that might be related to Leviathan, of course. But which might also be somehow related to a CERTAIN LINE at the beginning of the Uglies series!

That one’s by Ren W, and this next one’s by Sammy.

Okay, we’ve covered Leviathan, Midnighters, and Uglies, and EIGHT pieces of art, so I think I’m stopping here. (Still fluey.) Rest assured, though, there will be more non-painterly art next week, including the bajillion pieces of fan-fiction you all sent me. (So. Much. Fan. Fiction.)

There will also be a tattoo, or perhaps even two. Seriously.

If you’re coming to BEA or simply live near New York City, don’t forget
my appearances next month. I’m coming 10,000 miles for this BEA, so I don’t want any empty chairs!

And just a reminder, you guys know I’m on Twitter, right?

Just in case you thought I’d given up serious blogging to spend all my time trolling (or perhaps trawling) Deviant Art, let it be known that I just wrote a real essay about Literary Things.

It was for Tor.com‘s Dystopia Week (to which I say, ONLY A WEEK?) and was an analysis of why teenagers like tales of dystopia.

The funny thing is, lately everyone wants dystopia essays from me, because dyslit is BIG and I am officially a famous fake expert in how teens think, especially about dystopian fiction, thanks to the whole writing Uglies thing. (Score.)

A snippet:

Teenagers’ lives are constantly defined by rules, and in response they construct their identities through necessary confrontations with authority, large and small. Imagining a world in which those authorities must be destroyed by any means necessary is one way of expanding that game. Imagining a world in which those authorities are utterly gone is another.

It’s little wonder, then, that a lot of YA dyslit embraces both extremes of hyper-control and of chaos, wedding an oppressive government with post-apocalyptic ruin . . .

Click here to read the rest. And then comment here or there with your gentle sledgehammers of correction. Don’t let us fake expert adults define you!

And now . . . back to trolling Deviant Art! Because it’s Fan Art Friday. (Well, not here in Sydney, or even in New York, but somewhere in the world. Like, say, Hawaii.)

Here’s a cutie from strawberrycream17:

I mean, seriously: Awww. Happy times. Check out strawberrycream17’s stuff at DA.

And another quiet moment from Tobuishi, who, after last week’s Fan Art Friday, quite understandably requested that I use a piece of hers that didn’t have the word “boobs” in it:

Click here to see her other stuff at DA.

I love how a lot of fan art and fan fic shows characters doing, you know, sort of nothing. Fan artists like showing the downtime that’s part of everyone’s real life, but doesn’t ever quite get shown in canonical texts, because doing nothing isn’t part of the uber-dramatic Story we authors are telling. Believe me, if we put it in there, editors would probably edit it out!

Fans actually want to see the downtime, though, or at least imagine it, because that makes the characters more real, more like someone you could hang out and do nothing with. So downtime becomes a major theme of the para-literature of fan fic and fan art.

Maybe I’ll save these thoughts for another essay about Literary Things. But you know I’m right.

And speaking of just hanging out, here’s another example, by Irrel, of everyday life aboard the Leviathan:

HAH! GOT YOU! Awkward moment is awkward! (Here’s the source on DA.)

Okay, some fan art is totally dramatic, telling its own fantabulous non-canonical story, or even predicting what will happen in a not-yet-published book like Goliath. This is why writing Serious Essays is a pain, because you have to keep second-guessing yourself.

Awkward, heh.

So for the next Fan Art Friday, let’s do something different. Send me art that’s not regular two-dimensional drawings and such. You know: fan fic, sculpture, cosplay, music, models, video, photography, or whatever else you can come up with or find out in the interwebs.

I’m curious as to how much is out there. And I think we’ve had quite enough of a certain couple’s canoodlings!

See you soon.