#i miss journal style fandom

[thisblogwasmadeforlurkin]

are there any folks who use dreamwidth who would be interested in joining a Whyborne & Griffin and/or general Jordan L Hawk book comm?

Been rereading W&G and I’m thinking of making one...

[i-am-the-oyster]

Can you tell me about Lewisohn and why he’s so hated? I’m a bit new here and I was recommended a blog that is solely dedicated to hating this guy. Was he a homophobe or did he do something rude to the boys?

Hello anon! I feel your pain. Lewisohn is a controversial figure, and it can be hard to get a read on what people think of him and why.

Lewisohn is writing what he hopes will be the definitive history of the Beatles. He has so far completed volume 1 (which covers from before they were born till 1962), as well as several other books from before he started working on the series.

He is very popular with some parts of the fandom because he has done really extensive research and is considerably better than other authors I could name.

But, there are some serious issues with his work.

First of all, his author bios tend to call him "the acknowledged authority" and his wiki article refers to him as a "historian". I would be slow to apply either of those terms to him. His training and experience are in journalism, and he does not apply modern standards of historical research to his work.

Secondly while his writing is engaging (I read the extended version of Tune In and missed it when it was over) his analysis is often lacking in empathy. For example, he tells us (ad nauseam) how "mean" and "cheap" Paul was, but doesn't take any time to consider the money and family issues Paul was facing that a) didn't apply to the others b) might have caused such behaviour. If the most ambitious and diligent musician in the group won't buy himself a new guitar, maybe he has a reason, you know?

Thirdly, he's weirdly dismissive of oral accounts. Liverpool locals figured out where Paul had his paper round, but it wasn't on a piece of paper, so as far as ML was concerned it didn't count.

Fourthly (this list is getting long) he had some kind of falling out with Paul (and Apple Corps) around 2009. He went from being invited to write Paul's biography to being dis-invited. It's not clear exactly what when on between them, but ML has not acknowledged that it might impact his objectivity wrt his writing.

Fifth he completely ignores queer issues. There's a part where he sort of darkly hints about George's sexuality, but in a childish heternormative way. His treatment of Brian's sexuality isn't completely terrible, but neither is it fantastic. I'd be amazed if he ever addresses the evidence for, eg, John's bisexuality.

One of the most difficult things for me is that he's overtly racist against the Irish in the worst self-satisfied Brit way (apologies to my British readers if that sounds harsh, but it is A Thing).

I would still recommend reading it, but as with all books on the Beatles, you must take it with a pinch of salt. Go in aware of his bias against Paul and his hero-worship of John, and there's a lot to be gained from reading the book, in my opinion.

And I really hope that he'll eventually pass on his extensive research collection as a public resource for actual historians to comb over and analyse.

@wingsoverlagos and @mythserene have done some detailed analysis of specific problems with his work, especially his terrible citation "style". (He merges quotes from different contexts, adds words in square brackets that change the meaning, chops out relevant information, and more). Some of those posts might seem a bit vitriolic if you're coming at them cold, but once you know the context the ire makes sense.

For a really in-depth analysis of the problems with his treatment of Paul in Tune In check out @anotherkindofmindpod's series Fine Tuning.

[vbsvartalf]

Audio Drama Sunday, 12/4/22

Yesterday was a long, big, busy Sunday, filled with some amazing audio dramas that I must share with all of you.

Dead Air, by Realm Media (created by Gwenda Bond) - If you like the true crime genre of podcasts, then a fictional version might just be up your alley. It's suspenseful, emotional, and filled with dark, dry humor. I've been devouring it recently, stopping just short of binging the entire thing in a single setting. I'm not a true crime fan, but I'm still hooked. If you liked Arden, I think you'll like this show.

Greater Boston, by Alexander Danner and Jeff Van Dreason - Humor, surrealism, quiet drama are all at the heart of Greater Boston. I know it's been around for a while and has a huge fandom but I'm excited that I get to experience this show for the first time six years after it started. Once I finish, I have a feeling I'll start the series over again without missing a beat.

A Ninth World Journal, by David S. Dear - The ultimate actual play turned audio drama, A Ninth World Journal episodes might be short but they are packed to the gills with content and keep you guessing as to what is going to happen next. David S. Dear is a fantastic narrator I've heard on several other shows at this point and it's wonderful to see him shine as the star.

Exoplanetary, by C. Christopher Heart - Managing to weave half a dozen sci-fi stories together in a nonlinear fashion without getting things too confusing is no easy task, but Exoplanetary as not only done just that, but thrived at it and keeps me coming back for new stories and new angles. It's filled with heart and emotion that stay with you long after the episodes is finished. From robotic love to colonialism to time travel, this show has it all.

Among the Stars and Bones, by Ungodly Hour Productions - Technically this will be my third listen but each time I get something more out of it, I feel more for the characters and understand their motivations. Telling a story from 8 or 9 limited viewpoints is a great way to employ the unreliable narrator, or as it happens, 8 or 9 unreliable narrators. I've seen recently that they are casting for season 2 and I cannot contain my excitement!

Old Gods of Appalachia, by DeepNerd Media - Folk horror, when done right, is better than any subgenre of any genre of literature, bar none. I will live and die on this hill. Old Gods does folk horror the right way. There's mood and atmosphere, a sense of place and a sense of dread. The show will have you jumping at shadows and creepy noises down by the creek at the witching hour.

The Town Whispers, by Cole Weavers - While similar to Old Gods of Appalachia, The Town Whispers takes cosmic horror and turns it up to 11 alongside all the folk horror that creeps around the edges of the Fort. The story telling is sharp and a sense of doom and dread purvey every word Mr. Weavers speaks. It's beautiful and chilling and leaves me needing more.

Malevolent, by Harlan Guthrie - It's a simple premise, guy wakes up unable to see with a creepy voice in his head that is not his own. Oh also there's a dead body, also there are monsters running around, oh also lots of creepy books, oh also it's set in the heart of Lovecraft Country. What could go wrong? I'm late to the party on the fandom for this show but as I work through the episodes I see why the fandom has exploded Hannibal style all over Tumblr.

Hi Nay, by Motzi Dapul - What if the Magnus Archives were less focused on Eurocentric monsters and fears and entities? What if there was a less organized group of people going after them? What if all of it was recorded lo-fi and given a health dose of Filipino folklore? Well, you'd have Hi Nay and you'd sweep the internets with a new, obsession worthy podcast that teaches as much as it entertains. Also they are working on getting 1000 subs on Youtube so get on that people!

The Kingmaker Histories, by Meg Molloy Tuten - Made by the same geniuses that brought us Less is Morgue, this audio drama gives us a glimpse at a steampunk world filled with magic. I enjoyed the first episode immensely. The acting, the script, the sound design are all top notch. Have to say I love this Ariadne character, she seems nice.

Moonbase Theta, Out, by D.J. Sylvis - Dystopian futures, corrupt governments, sinister warnings about the moon. Sounds like a typical day in 2022, right? Moonbase Theta, Out was and is ahead of its time in terms of storytelling, narratives, and characters. It's really a who's who in the world of audio drama with "famous" voices popping in and out to voice characters that will make you do the Leo pointing meme at least twice and episode.

WOE.BEGONE, by Dylan Griggs - Part surrealist sci-fi, part existential horror, WOE.BEGONE is a show that makes me want to run away screaming whilst at the same time binging more and more episodes. How deep does this creepy, deadly game go? What is the point of it all? Will Mike just be able to relax and have a nice time? I need to know!!!

And 195, by Guendalina Cilli - I just found out about this audio drama yesterday and I'm already a fan. I'm a runner with a bad sense of direction myself so the basis of the show is very, very familiar to me (aside from getting lost in other dimensions, that's not familiar but you never know in these days).

We Fix Space Junk, by Battle Bird Productions - Dystopian space dramas are a trope for a reason, but We Fix Space Junk manages to avoid the pitfalls and enjoy all the benefits of said trope. It's fresh, fun, and exciting. I've decided it was time for a re-listen to see what things I missed out on in the beginning that are integral parts of the show by the end. I'm already having a blast!

Care & Feeding of Werewolves, by Brenna Anderson-Dowd - What if True Blood were a sitcom, but far better than the sum of those two parts? What if it were funny and informative, silly and meaningful? You'd have Care & Feeding of Werewolves and you'd enjoy every single episode of this weird little show, and I do mean that endearingly. If it weren't weird, it wouldn't be nearly as fun.

[crazyexdirkfriend]

hi! i know you write fics but im not sure if you read too many! i thought i might ask for recommendations or if you have anything recent you have read and liked because i trust your taste!

I do believe that to try to be better at writing a form/genre/style etc you have to read a lot of it-- so I have read an obnoxious amount of fanfiction haha. I should try reading more academic journals so I can do my work but that's nowhere near as fun.

Anyway I have a lot of recs. I treat my bookmarks as a rec list of my favourite pieces, and you can filter these by fandom. Some were bookmarked a while back, and some are probably deleted since, but it's a pretty good starting point.

A more concise list would be that the following are my top five dirk/jake fics:

a thousand years

Probably the third DirkJake fic I ever read, and just objectively the peak Big fic. Every DirkJake fan should have read this fic, it’s really the only fic I reread on a biyearly basis. If I remember correctly, predicted BGD before that was canon?? Insane. Love this.

A Litany (In Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out)

Running theme here: I love a journey to the centre of the mind style fic. 

ten fold wild

I think about the Dave and Jake conversation in this all the time. Dirk towards the end as well...oof.

i’m sick, you’re tired; let’s dance

I loved that to really get what was going on here you have to read it twice. I still think about how clever that was and tried to emulate that multiple ways to interpret the ending idea later in my fic calvariæ. So really, I credit this fic for my one even existing.

We're All Friends & Family Here (And Frankly, We're Sick Of Your Shit)

I really enjoyed this fic when it came out in 2018. I remember thinking at the time it was the first time I’d seen someone handle Jane and Roxy with critical thought in yonks.

Bonus Epilogues content round!!!!!!

Opacifia’s epilogues fics are some of the best in the business. Warning: they are all DEEPLY upsetting (to me anyway!) and I have needed 1 business day to recover from reading any of them, before never managing to regain the emotional capacity to read them again. But they're amazing and offer a great perspective on the epilogues.

I, ironically, find a lot of Epilogues content difficult to read but you'll find more in my bookmarks. I may have missed more recent ones or some Big Fics of late. I read far more dirk/jake fanfiction pre-2019 than I have done since-- but I am always open for new recs myself!

[whenimgoodandready]

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! We can not stand ideally by and let this injustice continue! Someone needs to grow a spine and tell those oppressors to shove whatever it is they’re spewing at us up their a**! I’m talking to you Sabrina Raincomprix! You need to end that toxic “friendship” you have with Chloe and be more upfront! And you Ms.Bustier! You need to put your foot down and start disciplining Chloe for her b*tchy behavior! And I’m most definitely talking to you Damocles! You’re the God damn principal! Do your job! You worship an owl themed superhero and you’re not living up to the justice they were trying to preach to you!? Shame on you! Just how are these three gonna do that!? Let’s see:

*Confrontation-The class is taking an orientation assignment on what schools would be fitting for them regarding their future careers. It’s what they call Lycée. It’s how the French educational system works there. If one were to pursue journalism (Alya), they’d be more focused on literary courses. If one were to be a filmmaker or artist (Nino and Nathaniel, respectively), a performing art school is best! An environmentalist? (Mylene) Green Peace! A hairstylist? (for “unicorns”/“dragons” Rose) A beauty school! (Maybe she can style those flying T-rexes that now exist?) A love for helping people? (Sabrina) Nursing school. A spoiled b*tch who can do whatever the f*ck she wants cuz she’s got connections and another who can easily bullsh*t their way into life as long as they don’t get caught!? (Chloe and Lila crickets chirp) Yeah, they got no future for themselves :P. What about Adrien? He’s not modeling anymore, so what’s he gonna do!?…….he doesn’t know…….(whispers) sentibeing. With all these different goals in life, it makes them realize they won’t all be together next year and thus no more Le Resistance. Awww, that sucks.

To further sabotage Marinettes life, new class rep Lila and deputy Chloe force Sabrina to falsify the classes application forms with obscure careers (ex.Sporto Kim as a physiotherapist! Lol!) and leave Marinettes desire for fashion school untouched so as to place the blame on her with the excuse that she’s trying to get revenge on everyone for voting for Lila as class rep instead of her. The akumatized victim was Juleka who’s wish to be a mortician, (well, she is goth! But I thought she wanted to be a model!? (“Reflekdoll”). Oh well), is now saying she has to repeat the year! Again! Wait! When was this pointed out that Juleka was repeating the year? Did I miss something!? Another surprise that we were supposed to find out instead of foreshadowing!? Ugh! Whatever, she gets akumatized into her signature akumatized form, Reflekta, with her given miraculous power of The Tiger, and goes on a super megaton punching spree to vent out her frustration. Lame! But hey! I don’t have any ideas either on a villain who’s theme is repeating a school year! What would their look be!? What would their power be!? So yeah, they just…..went with what they know. The only difference is Reflekta can not only turn people into copies of herself, but also with her mind set!…..Eh.

Sabrina Raincomprix! Ms.Bustier! Principal Damocles! Let me just say, on behalf of everyone in the fandom, IT’S ABOUT F*CKING TIME! They say patience is a virtue, but whoever said that probably didn’t have anything good to keep themselves anticipated for next week! Sabrina finally put her foot down and outed Chloe and Lila as the culprits to the doctored application forms and even though Lila countered it by saying she (Sabrina) did it outta jealousy over Lila joining in the group, Sabrina did get one over on the both of ‘em when she and Marinette exposed the two over the crime and reveal Lila’s true colors. Marinette constructed a makeshift restroom with hidden microphones and a two way mirror (where did she get that!?) with help from construction workers and permission from the principal (how’d she convince him?). Although Sabrina had conspired a lot of misdeeds for Chloe, the pressure finally got too much for her as it included her whole class and trashing their future careers and it wasn’t worth it for a petty hatred against a single person. Just wish that inner courage was there seasons ago. For Ms.Bustier, she admitted she was too easy on Chloe for trying to get her to change, but she strictly tells her that from now on, it’s no more carrot! Only the stick! The cold hard stick! (Hmm, must be the pregnant hormones). Was this cathartic like we all assumed it would be!? Am I satisfied to see Chloe get busted and Lila exposed for the conniving little b*tch that she is!? NO! It wasn’t and it wasn’t cuz I was already spoiled by this, but because the girls did not actually get their comeuppance! Chloe easily got away with it through her dads mayoral connections (although Principal Damocles did stand up against Mayor Bourgeois and decided to quit so as not to be abused in hurting his own students anymore) and Lila or Cerise!? Just walked away, dropped her identity and went with another in a new school! WHO THE F*CK IS SHE!? (I’ve heard “Orphan” rumors!) Yeah, NOT SO CATHARTIC! The whole thing with “Cerise” was completely forgotten about during the reveal of how those “useless” anti-akumatizing charms work and there was no mention of anyone calling the ambassador mother about all this! Another sucky moment in all this was only Ms.Bustier apologized for not believing Marinette about “Cerise” and not Alya or any of her classmates cuz that scene was deleted for God knows why even though that would’ve been sooooooo much better for us fans to see and make it cathartic! (breathes) Now that the three I mentioned grew a spine, it’s a shame we’ll barely see any of it cuz of the remaining time the characters have before school ends and how the season is ending too. Despite that, good job Sabrina! You’ll make better friends. Ms.Bustier, show no mercy on Chloe with what little time you have with her in class (even though the next two eps are gonna be Hell!) and farewell Principal Damocles! Hope you find a new job and thanks for teaching us how those anti-akumatizing charms work! (and Congrats on breaking your speech impediment Juleka for encouraging him on that). Maybe next season we’ll see how they stay more confident and assertive?

[popculturebuffet]

Marcy's Journal: A Guide to Amphibia Full Review: The Gay Novel Masterpiece of Our Times

Hello all you happy frogs, newts, and toads! We're going back to Amphibia, because what's more fitting than visting some old friends over the holidays?

Well okay but this is a close second. As you can tell by the title i'm taking a look at the recently released Marcy's Journal: A Guide To Amphibia: A Rope of Sand. Marcy's Journal continues disney's on and off track record of making real life versions of books seen in their series, as seen with the stellar Journal 3 for Gravity Falls and Big Book Of Spells for Star Vs, both of which i'd be up for looking at some day and proudly own. These book use diary entries to help expand the canon, while also accurately representing the parts of the books we saw on screen. Their a grand slam multidemographically too: My niece who loves Gravity Falls has often borrowed my copy of Journal 3 simply because she loves pouring through it that much. And who wouldn't? To a nerd like me it's the best of both worlds as it's both a real piece of the show's universe.. but also has a practicality buying a prop version of said thing just doesn't have. It also helps a lot that both Journal 3 and Marcy's Journal came out AFTER their series ended, giving us one last taste of the show on the way out. It's why i'm disappointed Ducktales never got one as while the Art of Book is truly excellent, I reviewed that last month, it doesn't really expand the world or anything we didn't see. It'd be nice to get characters perspectives on things, especially since Webby and Huey BOTH had diary or diary like objects respectively.

Still we were lucky enough to get this wonderful book, as was I. See I intended to wait after the holidays when I had more money and while I got some on my 31st birthday last Friday, I didn't expect to find it when I took a jaunt to Barnes and Noble. I hoped maybe but given my attempts to find The Art of Ducktales in ANY store before giving up and using amazon as usual were entirely fruitless, I didn't have high hopes. It doesn't help mine doesn't update books often.. so it was a pleasant surprise to find a copy and I quickly snapped it up and poured through it a bit, instantly charmed by it. The book was worth the money too as it's a wonderful, well thought out bit of canon that helps expand on things, deepen marcy and anne's characters, and fills in some of the gaps we as a fandom were most vocal about. Seriously it's clear Matt Braly and co when writing this listened to us about what we missed and wove it into the story. Most questions our characters could answer they do in some way shape or form.

So as a result this review is going to have MASSIVE SPOILERS for the book as it would in any of my episode reviews. So come with me under the cut if you've either read it or can't afford it and thus want those juicy deets, as I explore one of the greatest, gayest, and some other g word tie in books i've read.

For Scale

The Books presentation is gorgeous. While I got the paperback version because i'ts what they had, so it's not likely 1:1 like the other re-creations Disney has done, I appricate both having a cheaper option, and that even with that it still looks and feels like a journal: it's got the size, the more yellowy pages and some marking on it. It seems like the kind of journal Marcy would pick out because it looks kinda fantasy ish.

The inside though is where it really shines: besides the page every entry has in addition to the carefully crafted words, painstaking and fun drawings of Marcy's. The book deftly switches between two styles for her portions: Smaller more cartoony drawings to help emphasizes full events due to the journals size, and lavish DND style fantasy drawings for her close up, neither fully matching the shows style, but still remaining just enough in it. We also get a nice running gag of Marcy drawing someone in a picture for Scale, using herself, Sprig and Polly. Another nice detail is when the Book shifts to Anne for the final third (more on that later), the art style changes, going completely to smaller more cartoony drawings, but in a completely different style. It's a small change, but it helps sell that these are anne's chapters. Her penmanship is also slightly different, and where Marcy uses red pen for underlines, Anne uses blue. It's a very small touch but it helps the book feel that much more real by giving it's two very different authors different yet similar styles.

So now we've got how it looks and feels out of the way, we can get into the meat of the book. The book is easily chunked up into four sections: The first third or so of the book detailing what happened to Marcy from waking up in Newtopia and falling down 200 flights of stairs to reuniting with Anne. Literally, there's a page of her going off to rescue the Plantars unaware Anne's there before the next page is her gushing over Anne for several paragraphs. The second deals with what we saw in Season 2 from Marcy's perspective, as well as fleshing out the bits of her story we DIDN'T see as clearly: We find out just what she was up to with Frobo for an episode, as well as exactly what offer Andrias made between "Day at the Aquarium" and when we see her next. The final main part of the story has Anne takeover post True Colors. It's a clever way to both have content related to season 3 and makes sense since that's the season that emphasized marcy's journal at all and parts of her passages actually do bring up the stuff Anne used for Clues. There's then two brief Epilogues: one covering the weeks after the girls return home up till Marcy leaves, and another 10 years later covering the events of the epilouge.. and a little something extra.

So with that in mind let's begin with…

Part 1: Captain Marcy and her Fearless Night Guard

So part one opens exactly with what we saw in the Theme Song Takeover, and a nice touch is ALL the thigns seen in that show up here.. and naturally that includes her memetic fall down a flight of stairs.. or rather 200 FLIGHTS OF STAIRS

We then get her recovery at the hosptial, as she realizes these are newts (after comparing them to some salamander aliens. Apparently Newts are senstive about being called salamnders. Who knew?), and gets adjusted to the world and her Iseki adventure. Seriously she calls it that. And in a few pages i'm reminded why I love this character: She's nerdy, awkward, and thus.. really relatable to myself. I too spout off about stuff only a few people care about for hours on end. It's how I got this as a career. She's a well defined character.

We see her meet olivia, and go into a LOT of detail on her, and Andrias, evne climbing into his robe pocket as you'd expect, and the two becoming buddies… and the audience wincing knowing, even if Marcy ultimately forgives him on some level.. he's going to cause this poor child a LOT of pain. A LOT.

We also get a rather painful detail.. any time Marcy gets close to talking outright about what LEAD her to amphibia in the first place.. she backtracks. She scribbles anything she writes about it out to the point I can't read it and is clearly panicking about the implications of what she's done and the pain she feels. It both hurt a lot.. and was somehow nice to see.

Hear me out: One complaint I saw crop up occasionally after True Colors was people wondering if Marcy could be forgiven after what she did. I did because A) SHE'S ONLY 13. and B) it was clear she had a lot of guilt: She's HORRIFIED when Andrias starts to outline it, not because she's been caught.. but because this is the worst thing she's done and someone she loved as the healthy father figure she never had and trusted was just outing it, taking everything he hadn't already from her. She tries backtracking and justifying.. but it's clear she's trying to talk HERSELF into it being okay as much as she's trying to talk Anne into it. At the sheer idea of loosing the people she loves most has broken her.

The book backs this up…

As i'ts clear from the getgo she feels massive guilt, but as we saw in the series tends to bottle that shit up instead of actually dealing with it. She's trying to just enjoy the adventure and not think abotu what she's done and the pressure just builds and builds for some time until eventually, it explodes during the game of Flipwart. After Marcy beat Andrias.. she poured her heart out to the guy, admitting what she did and why: See turns out Marcy's dad's only actions in the series, dumping a job transfer away from her friends without telling her and then getting mad when a 13 year old is understandably upset he didn't feel it important to talk about ANY of this with her prior to dropping this bombshell nad never considered her a factor.. was exactly who he was. Yeah, while he wasn't phsyically abusive or gaslighty, Mr. Wu was still a shitty dad who was overly strict on his daughter, pushed her way too hard from what we could tell, and it was clear the move was simply the last straw. We still don't learn MUCH about the guy though we do get to see him, Marcy's mom and sasha's parents thanks to some photos Anne puts in there later, but it puts a lot of Marcy's actions into context: She tried so hard to be good at school, to keep going, so long buckling under his pressure.. that she broke once he pushed too far and expected her to give up the only things besides her various fixations that made her happy.

It also makes Andrias' manipulations.. that much more horrible and why she didn't see all the red flags that much more obvious: He was the dad she always wanted, a kind jovial man who loved her quirks, gladly endulged in her intrests, didn't push her too hard, and actually listened. It also explains his own care for her despite his manipulations: He saw in himself someone pushed by an abusive (if not nearly to his dad's extent but to be fair his dad is a multiversal conquerer and right prick so fair enough) parent to be everything THEY want and not what the child actually wants. It's no wonder he kept trying to protect her from the core: he didn't want to shuffle her from one abuser to another despite ending up as one himself.

And yeah.. Marcy's dad is abusive. He does seem to change after everything , realizing what he was doing, but putting that much pressure on her, not remotely carring what she wanted, being overlys trict.. it's still not good parenting. Not being evil fantasy overlord bad dosen't mean you aren't a prick.. it just means you have a chance to correct it before it's too late.

Andrias encourages her to not tell them, to wait, that it'll hurt them and blah blah blah self serving nonsense.

We also get some of the infastructure stuff Marcy talked about in New Wartwood, and her bonding with Olvia who clearly worries about Mar Mar, though not as much as I would've liked given how much Olivia clearly cares for the girl on screen.

What we do get thoguh is a grand, epic adventure that explains where Marcy's cool new duds came from. Soon after arriving she sees The Night Guard, an elite squad dedicated to the city's defense, essentially why she responded to stuff like the ants. Naturally as would be most people's first repsonse to seeing a squad like that, she wants to join. I mean their no Ank-Morphok City Watch but they'll do in a pinch.

So after whipping up an explosive with some herbs she found, as she do, she impresses their head Albert who sends her on a major task: Get a golden egg from a golden crab. And look I loved this missoin already because it's a giant crabby boy. I love giant crabs. It's also the second time this month i've gottne to talk about them

So i'm eating well. Marcy of course solves it, studying i'ts patterns for days and figuring out a very clever trap for it, digging under it with a trench and using the various volcanic vents, which she'd figured out the timing for as it made a good clock, and knocked the fucker out and took the egg.

What makes this one of my faviorite moments in the book though, is that this was a training setup similar to the Kobiashi Maru in star trek only with more murder crabs, which makes it instantly better. She wasn't SUPPOSED to win, it was, much like that scenario , designed to teach recruits how to deal with failure. And just like James T. Kirk, she flipped the bitch.

Naturally this and the giant pile of money the egg brings in means Marcy gets fastracked from simply JOINING the Guard, to being a CAPTAIN and leading her own squad. And they are a fun bunch, original characters not hinted at in the series proper but still every bit as fun as the characters we got to know and love. Her squad consists of Javi, an egotistical too cool for school swordsman, Kettle, my favorite, a short newt with a hair trigger temper and tons of arrows and Femur, a senstive giant with a degree in classical muisc. And I guarantee this happened at least once

Team buildling takes some time, as the team was all brougt together by by Captain Ernst a totally swell guy who recently died and who i'm positive isn't evil. It's never hard when some new guy has to come and run a team someone else brought together, trained and made into a fighting force. It's why when Cyclops left the x-men he handed them off to Storm, who had been on the team for years at that point , knew them well and had the potential instead of Gary that guy down the street from the mansion who keeps offering to buy the New Mutants Beer.

Thankfully Marcy is more a Storm than a Gary. Granted she tries a very marcy move in trying to get the team to function via a rousing game of DND… also it's wild to realize that this universe has two diffrent versions of dnd as it also has Dungeons, Dungeons and More Dungeons.. though also plausable given just HOW many rpgs are out there.

This dosen't quite work, which makes sense. No what brings the party together is what brings most teams together: a giant ass fight forcing them to get their shit together: sometimes it's an island that walks like a man, sometimes it's a blue david tennant dragon, sometimes it's tryiing to get Gary home after he passes out on your lawn. For Team Marcy, it's a giant cobra, a bit i'd FORGOT was in the takeover. Using their teamwork and with Marcy playing on their various personality traits they beat the bitch, and now accept Marcy as one of them.

The main plot kicks in though with the next case, as a cult known as the order of the olms has been burning books

Yeah as someone who loves books and things being avaliable i'm with marcy in finding this heartbreaking and wanting her to catch the bitch. Having the outfitter guy from season 3 give them some galoshes, Team Marcy treks into the sewers. Sadly there aren't any teenage mutant ninja turtles or even regular presumably massive fire breathing ones, but we do meet my favorite addition from this book: Hamby, a weird newt who dresses up like the hamburglar and talks like Gollumn. Despite all appearance he isn't the one who did it and Marcy confirms it herself, realizing from his apperance and general..vibe that this sewer man isn't their guy and in exchange for a friend, Marcy's tamabuddy, he gladly gives them some spare robes and the time of their next meeting

From that Marcy learns about their leader gold mask, who has a sweet and horrifying ornate gold snake mask and the cult's next target, planning a massive intercept. We also get a sweet moment as we find out where Marcy got her sick crossbow: her team gifted it to her as thanks, formally and warmly welcoming her as their leader.

The sting.. goes pearshaped as while they manage to intercept the cult, Snakemask reveals himself.. to be ernst!

Yeah not a huge suprise. I had it spoiled for me via my thumbing around the book, but even then it's kinda obvious this is where it will go. Thankfully the twist itself isn't what's important.. it's how it impacts the character. Marcy was two steps from telling Anne and Sasha the truth when she found them.. but finding out about ernst, who also successfully destroys the old scrolls and what not he was sent after and gets away, challenging them all to come find him like the early game rpg big bad he is, destroys her team emotionally and leaves them scrambling for answers

Albert however refuses to let their team follow up as since they caught the cultists the mission seems over. Marcy however knows that A) maybe leaving a dangerous former captain who easily got the best of them despite being surrounded isn't a good thing and B) that there's more to this. Andrias naturally says his hands are tied and has no interest in actually searching into this more. If this comes off at all suspicious to you .. good it means you haven't forgotten what a lying dickhead this man is and are keenly picking up how burning down libraries full of ancient historical documents might benefit a guy who say, doesn't want history coming out before his evil plan is finished. We'll get to his exact hand in this soon enough.

So Marcy says

Partly because this is her perfect rpg quest.. I mean her reaction to the reveal before the reality of her friends depression set in was.. as you'd expect

But it shows her nature: she can get caught up in her hyper fixations, as I can, and loose the bigger picture.. but once she sees it she focuses on what matters. Her friends need answers and she's going to get them even if she has to go behind her best friends back to do it.

So they set sail for Dawnblood Island, and run into

GENERAL YUNAN, SCOURGE OF THE SAND WARS, DEFEATER OF RAGNAR THE WRETCHED AND THE YOUNGEST NEWT TO EVER ACHIEVE THE RANK OF GENERAL IN THE GRAND NEWTOPIAN ARMY!

Naturally Marcy is the only person in the canon to love that speech. She's a bit frosty to Marcy… and we later find out for hilarious reasons as she's mad Marcy didn't remember her from the hospital which is only because Marcy was hopped up on MMMM drugs. They quickly bond offer fighting some method actors. I mean who wouldn't want to punch newt jared leto in the face amirite?, pretending to be pirates, and Marcy saves them form certain death at yunanas hand.

Yunan plans to come back and fetch our heroes after she's done dealing with Grime.. given how that goes, i'ts no shock the two don't cross paths again in the book. That does leave them without a ride but that's not an issue for now as it's DUNGEON TIME BABY! I bet matt had a LOT of fun putting together what was basically a combination of a dnd campagin and an rpg dungeon.

Our heroes head through the castle, and Marcy gets her own eye flash moment like Anne's, though unlike anne's it dosen't go without notice: the rest of the party see it and comment on it and while Marcy isn't sure what happeend and assumes she just saw a puzzle she is curious.

The real show of course is finding Erest.. and despite so little page time he ends up being an engaging, intresting villian with nice parallels to marcy , a cool deisgn and a hell of a speech: As it turns out he faked his own death because he found the roll of a well regarded hero and mentor EXAUSTING. The more he kept having to do good.. the more he kept being crushed by the expectations people put in him and wanted a new life… just like Marcy. And just like Marcy andrias gave it to her… while Ernst's mysterious benefactor isn't named given his mission was to burn down libraries likely containing any trace of Andrias scheme.. yeah it's clear who it was. It also cleverly plugs the hole of "did newtopia have any records of the before time?" I mean I assumed Andrias had cleared them earlier but it makes sens eto use a public arson and a massive cult as a smokescreen. He even much like Marcy plans to have his friends and protges join him and is confused why they'd turn him down.. before deciding to kill them all.

The fight, as we find out after.. is brutal. Ernest easily takes out the team sans Marcy and even she is near death by the end, only winning thanks to a truly cool gambit that still nearly gets her choked out: She improvises a poition fo rplant growth, throws it down his armor and thus it rapid grows and almost treeafies him and he thus fall sinto the ocean. It's a tragic end.

The team spends the next few weeks stranded and recovering, till Marcy finds a boy.. yes WE FINALLY MEET JOE SPARROW. She tames him with song, befriends our boy of boys and future snail fucker,a nd uses him to get them home

While Andrias MILDLY dresses her down, he quickly lets the facade drop, being proud of marcy and giving her the royal advisor position we saw, likely to keep her from running off and possibly dying again or finding out his plans. As for her team they all retire: Javi and Kettle had a very obvious bout of belligerent sexual tension going that Marcy was shockingly genre blind to, and retire for the quite life, and Femur never really liked fighting in the first place and retires to herd sheep bugs with his soft tones. It's a fond farewell as while Marccy misses her friends, she understands this batch has to go and thier story is over. It also explains why the stuff with Anne and the Plantars pull her off. To her it's just her friends departing at the end of the journey it happens. For anne it's loosing her family.

Speaking of which

Part 2: Now We're Only Falling Apart So we go right up to the part where Marcy meets the Plantars and reunites with the love of her life: The Ants are attacking, Marcy manages to herd the newt advisors into actually doing something, and then goes to rescue the plantars and reunites with Anne.. and spends two paragraphs gushing over her, at first not even making coherent noises, and drawing her with an aura of light around her and with Anne blushing.

So yeah this brings me to something i've been saving up till now: If you like shipping sashanne, annearcy, marcsha or like me sashanarcy..

This book.. is gay as hell. There's a picture of Marcy in a heart blushing surronded by sasha and anne, an artists interpretation of them reuniting with all three blushng and like I said Marcy spending TWO WHOLE PARAGRAPHS on gushing about having anne back. And that's not getting into Sasha's anime drawing of the Anne vs Sasha fight having both blushing. And while Marcy DOES tend to throw blushes into her style from time to time it mostly happens with her self portraits specifically whenever one fo the girls is around. Like ti's the only timne it happens. Her subconscious coudln't be flashing

Harder if it tried. If it wasn't clear enough in seris it's very clear the girls are romantically interested in one another and the only reason matt didn't persue it is that it'd clash with the ending of the work. And he still manages to help us eat good as she outright calls Sasha and Anne "my loves" in her epilouge, and Sasha outright invites Marcy to live with her as an adult… followed by Adult Marcy talking about how love is a wonderful thing. Subtly is not matt's strong suit when it comes to this sort of thing and i'm here for it. There is a lot of sweet adorable content here and i'm glad it's here.

Unlike part one I won't be recaping this one piece by piece, but that's because parts 2 and 3 are MOSTLY simply the episodes we have seen.. just from the characters perspective. This isn't a bad thing: it's nice to get Marcy's own take on what happened, and to see what she was going through integrally, as well as gets nice bits and bobs of what we didn't see. It's similar to the dipper section of Journal 3 and parts of ford's second section: we saw most of this happen, but it's still neat to see what the characters thought of these events.

As such most of it just nice little stuff like Marcy gushing over Anne, talking about bonding with Sprig.. and most importantly her reaction to Sasha. We didn't really see it on screen.. but needless to say she's horrified. It also fully confirms that Anne didn't tell her the full story. It wasn't out of malice or anything, it's clear the event traumatized the poor girl and she didn't want to relieve one of the loves of her life attempting to throw herself off a tower after trying to kill her new best friend.

It makes things nicely complicated: Marcy understandably clings to Sasha and Anne reconciling both because loosing them would destroy her so she likely would've pushed for them getting back together either way.. but without the full picture she does so halfphazzardly, trying to shove them back together, as this helpful graphic shows

Instead of adress thier underlying issues. Sasha had a LOT to work out and as we'll get into in a moment with part 3, a reason why she was the way she was. It shows Marcy for what she was: a scared child who badly needed therapy,k had been pushed too far and has trouble relating to people at times. She has friends, girlfriends can connect with people.. but as someone on the spectrum myself, there's a fine line between that and being able to read people emotionally sometimes. I also have a bad problem of badly trying to fix an emotional issue instead of maybe letting it sit a second so the person can cool off, of wanting so badly to be liked and loved I forgot I don't have to try so hard. So I get where Marcy's coming from and my heart breaks seeing her like this.

We of course get her perspective on various episodes, including the fact she never really found out what went on with Hop Pop and Anne's schism, and that she loved getting to stay in the Fwagon between adventures.

The main stuff though is mostly what we didn't see. For starters we do get to see exactly what happened, or at least marcy's version of , what happened post "Day at the Aquarium". Marcy's former experince saying goodbye.. helps make it clear WHY she thought Anne would just leave the plantars and stay with her, and to her credit while Marcy writes down some pretty self destructive thoughs about anne possibly not wanting to be her friend or choosing them over her.. she snaps herself out of it, pointing out of course she wouldnt' want to say goodbye to her found family this soon, that she loves them, and it's really just Marcy worrying MORE about everything falling apart.

We also see exactly waht Andrias did: he gave Marcy her comfort food, Chicken Fly Nuggets (Which ngl even with the fly part in the title made me hungry enough for chicken nuggets I made some, as my dad sent a big frozen bag of em home with me after christmas dinner earlier this month), and outlined his fake "explore the multiverse plan". So yeah if you thought pre-face turn andrias coudln't get worse.. he manipulated a stressed out child's insecuritiys to further his own diabolical scheme to rob her of power that was rightfully hers.

The other extra scene so to speak we get is what exactly whe was doing with Frobo in that shed

Turns out she just spent the day testing him out. Though we do find something interesting about Frobes as a result: turns out part of why he ended up the way he was wasn't just being woken up early, something overwrote his UI with Rules of the Road.. which at first I thought they just crammed the book in there, but clearly Leif, on her way to the valley, must've stopped at the nearest factory and overwrote it with the family document. It also leaves fanfic possibilities for all of ya'll overflowing as it possibly means any other frobots coming out of that dome.. would've had the same basic start as Frobo, and as a third, which I can use for.. future projects, it means said UI COULD be used as the base blueprint to repurpose the war made frobots and give them the same chance Frobo got.

Finally for the wartwood portion of things we have her thoughts on Maddie. Which of course i'd focus on, she's my spirtual adopted daughter, but what's nice about it is the freindship seems like a first for BOTH of them. It has Marcy realising she's never really just been able to blab about her hyperfixations with someone whose gneuinely intrested and vice versa for Maddie, and that whlie Sasha and Anne "listneed" they weren't really paying attention. While Marcy didn't get AS much growth right away as the girls, it's nice to see her have some introspection during her journey.

So we finally come to true colors.. and all we get is a very gutwrenching page barely scribbled together in time after Marcy rescues Sprig.. and it HURTS as much as you'd expect, with it starting with a giantly written out and underlined he lied, more panicked thoughts, another large sentence this time "What have I done?… " and then a very small "i'm so sorry"

Part 3: Now For Someone Completely Diffrent

So Part 3 is written by Anne, switching things up entirley. And out of the three sections this is the one that most feels like Matt listneed to what fans had constant questions about. We do get some nice self reflection from Anne as she realizes both how little she used to care about her parents.. and how much things have changed, from seeing them as overprotective hovering jailers.. to the wonderful people they are.

We do get some common questoins I and others had first. The biggest is WHY DIDN'T SHE TELL SASHA'S PARENTS. As it turns out there was a good reason for that: The story was hard to belivie (as Oum himself said, if he wasn't seeing frogs first hand he wouldnt' see it) and there's no guaranttee they woudln't call the police or goverment or something. It was a crappy situation and Anne felt terrible.. but telling them would've been too risky to try. That said

Unlike some other things we'll get into.. there was PLENTY of room to adress this in a line of dialouge. So while I do appricate Matt explaning it here.. it's one of the few things I felt could've been squeezed into the series easier.

The book more than makes up for it though by giving us a LOT of answers on Sasha and Marcy's parents. Granted

But we get photos taped into the diary of both, and what exactly their situations are. With Marcy we already got most of it from her end, we do find out her parents didn't leave right away as they waited for her and were clearly stressed over loosing her. It's a low bar to clear but.. it's proof they aren't as horrible and there is hope for them to change. There's more hope later, but we'll get to that.

We also get Sasha's background and while I feel the character was fleshed out well in the series, both this and marcy's pressure should've ben threaded in right now as it explains a lot. The book confirms what fans thought from the seperate letters: her parents are divorced and while Sasha didn't tell Anne much, unsuprisingly she was very private.. what she does know fiills things in a lot: Sasha's parents both basically started new families: her dad remarried and her mom is dating someone with his own children. I don't think they fully threw her to the side.. but as Anne says it seems like Sasha got lost at sea.. and thus her control issues come from wanting something in her life. Anne also clearly forgives both.. she admits it'll still take a while for the wounds to heal, she leanred that from the incident with hop pop.. but gets that with Sasha they maybe leaned on her a bit much and while it dosen't forgie he ractions, it makes how much she leaned into the roll, coupled with being the only stable thing in her life, understandable, with with Marcy she's just worried why she didn't talk and admits she and sasha also fucked up plenty. We also get a ncie moment as this is all because her nightmares, incudling being DEATHLY afraid Marcy died and unable to admit it to herself, kept her up.. and Sprig noticed she wasn't in the room, made her coco and went out to comfort her.

We also later get more on Marcy as Anne finally reads her entreis.. and is sad she had no idea how much pain Marcy was keeping inside, and wishes she coudl've helped her. We also find out how they met: They were three, at the beach, and Marcy built an elaborate sand castle when Anne asked her to play. Marcy then went on about some game she loved, and Anne liked her and helped try to keep the waves back. It's as sweet as it is just.. painful.

We also get a nice coda to the episode abotu Sprig wanting Bee to be his mom. By the way it's an adjustment getting to use their names. I went through the WHOLE of the season 3 recaps desperatly trying to find a name.. nad Matt revealed them five minutes after the finale

So it's very nice to get to refer to them with actual names. Naturally once Anne told Oum why he did all that, she understood, felt bad for him, and made him bug pancakes , realizing the kid really did need a mom. She also taught him to sew later, which anne found nice.. then regretted when she found out about the whole Frog Man thing. We also find out Trantulad was a faviorite of Bees. Big nerd just like me. Knew there was a reason I liked this man…. besides everything else about him.

We also get what i'm sure anyone reading this was hoping for: Anne on MMMMM Drugs entry! Yeah we get the wacked out on painkillers entry my dudes.. and it turns out the Domino bit of foreshadowing for the finale was a bit more direct as the Gem God visited her directly during that dream, and said your fun, still using the domino form just with wings. So apparently getting stoned allows you to talk to them directly. Intresting

Also intresitng is that Terry is nonbinary. Yeah, it never came up in series, as they werne't sadly in it long enough but they are. They use they them prounouns. I love it and i'm sorry all my old entreis have all she's and her's. I didn't know.

Outside of some nice reflectoins on Anne realizing just how much her parents missed her and what she was missing out on not being as close, there's a LOT of wholesome anne and parents content in her part of the journal, a delcious recipie and Anne unsuprisingly having wanted heelies at some point, we're done with the earth portion of things.

For Amphibia , it turns out Marcy isn't the only one to melt into a very gay pile over a new look from Sasha as Anne also spends several paragrpahs talking about the nw and improved her, and drawing it. SO yeah these three were meants to be. We get some nice stuff on the various season 3 episodes, mostly Anne and Sasha's reconciliation, but the two episodes anne wasn't there for give us two bonus stories: While Sprig and Ivy were on their missoin and during "Grime's Pupil: for the former we find out she took time to catch up and as such we find out what exactly everyone did in the resitance besides missions: Wally composed Jingles, Mayor Toadstool took care of rationing suplies, Maddie was their medic, Croaker was their spymaster and intellegence, Grime their weaponsmaster and trainer and Logel.. taught exercise classes. I mean.. everything helps and he didn't get that buff overnight.

The other is Marcy and Anne just having a nice relaxing spa day. It was mentiond in the episode buti 'm glad they really done did it. They certainly earned it. We also get several sketches of Domino 2 and babies for a page. But with that we reach the final entry and entere the finale. .and unlike Marcy Anne dosen't journal like crazy, so her sectoin ends here

part 3 is incredible , a nice bit of fleshing out and of ironing out parts that were missing. That leaves us with

Epilouge 1: You're The Part of Me That Makes Me Better, Wherever I go.

So we find out what happened between our heroes leaving Amphibia, which Marcy writs an entry on, and the time skip. To her shock, Marcy's parents werne't mad at her, undersrtood what happened and felt she had nothing to apologize for, hinting that things seemed to get better after this. Marcy's Dad did have to leave early for the job and left her with her mom after a bit of her recovery, as Marcy needed plenty of doctors to check her out, got therapy

And generally calmed down. This also gave her one last summer with the girls , which depsite al lthe pain of recovery.. was nice. We even get both of them on the last day trying to play cauldrons and caverns, with Marcy appricaiting the gesture and them trying to show intrest in her stuff , and genuinely this time. She lets them off from having to do that as she gets they didn't quite enjoy it, but finds a ncie medium: they can find stuff they both enjoy and Sassh and Anne can at least try to find stuff marcy loves they enjoy to instead of jus tchecking out> Their their best couply selves as things end.

We also find out why they coudlnt' just use the portal: While I figured it was power issues, without the stones around in any form, seemingly, getting the portal working is hard. It dosne't help said portal is being kept top secret, though for VERY good reason: Mr. X feels no one country should have this power. Unless tehir krakoa but the mutants have earned it after about 80 or so geoncides so.. Terri and Him plan to keep working on it, it just may take a while.

So with that we get a tearful godobye and marcy calling them her loves because this book hadn't torn me the fuck up enough yet apparently. and thus

Epilogue 2: No One Needs To Say Goodbye

So we get a short section with Marcy 10 years later. We find out more about her web comci, which is directly based on Anne's adventures (Presumibly with her consent) Amphibi-Anne, likely a working title for the show and nicely worked in, and it's getting a print version soon. Nice girl, webcomics don't get those enough these days. We also find out Marcy decided to stay in LA with the girls…. no reallys he moved in with sasha and says love is a wonderful thing afterword. This is canon. It also made sense, as a webcomic writer she can work anywhere as long as her tools come with her and i've seen at leas ttwo have huge moves from one state to another, whcih were worked into the comics themselves. We also get a nice tease for a possible future sequel as Terri invites the trio to the lab as they have something for them.

NEVER THE END

Marcy's Journal is truly excellent, possibly the best of these three books though Journal 3 is still pretty close with it's immaculate drawings. This one is close though, and offers keen insight into the series, helps paper over what Matt missed the first go round and sets us up for a possible sequel down the line, in print or otherwise. It's everything you could hope and ask for and more so buy it. Buying these helps make sure we get more books like this and with Disney's new deal with tokyopop might mean these are more afordable for them to do too. Granted they still need to pay them, yeah I didn't forget the owl house light novel thing, but it gives me hope for the future> Thanks for reading and happy holidays.

[brehaaorgana]

The thing is, websites being slowly destroyed because of capitalist greed is bad in general for many reasons, but I would like to point out that one of those reasons is that not every social website is built to handle the same kinds of engagement in the same ways, and this destroys spaces that can't simply be ported elsewhere because they are symbiotic to their origins.

You destroy specific kinds of communities and communication styles that rely on the uniqueness of individual platforms. You can't move that to somewhere else with a different structure without fundamentally changing something.

This has always been true, but I feel like not everyone is fully...aware or familiar with how this happens. It's not even entirely a Gen Z thing either - there are plenty of Millennials/Xers and older generations who did not have a ton of internet access in the early-mid 2000's and so don't necessarily have familiarity with what vanished. Internet access has only recently been "expected," for more people across the class spectrum.

As a Millennial(TM) who has been connected to the internet basically since infancy (my dad did IT/software engineer management stuff and would literally sit me on his lap while he was on the computer as a baby), I am keenly aware of a) the fact that there are entire internet social communities which I didn't engage with but are now gone and b) that there are ones I did engage in and are lost or no longer really the same because of capitalism.

Like...forums are just not as popular anymore as they used to be. They still exist, but it's harder to find them and they usually see way less activity than other platforms. And we lose so much knowledge/advice/engagement without them. Things like: I turned around one day and found a digital art forum I used to lurk on was totally gone, along with all the inspiration, tutorials, and tips. I remember one thread was this one guy wanting to learn to draw, and it was basically just his progress journal of learning to draw. It went over the course of YEARS of progress from like, stick figures to beautifully rendered art. Shit inspired me so much, and I think it just...vanished?

But then there's things like, entire social norms, jokes, and kinds of engagement that also vanishes or becomes a graveyard. Forums usually have karma systems (which reddit apes, sort of) and that could tell you a lot about an account lol.

Look at the slow death of livejournal! Dreamwidth sort of...tried to fill the gap but there's so many platform specific expectations and experiences that Livejournal had:

Icons that you change based on: interests, content or intent of your post/comment, that you can create and have others use and which change often.

Related: icons and graphics communities.

CAPSLOCK COMMUNITIES WHERE YOU DON'T LAPSLOCK EVER!! EVERYONE TALKS LIKE THIS

Locked communities (especially age based!) Or dedicated communities with moderation and agreed upon rules unique to that comm. Tumblr literally can't recreate that. It doesn't port to how Tumblr specifically works.

Comms like ONTD, stupid_free, or comedy shit like weepingcock, - or even like, scanlations comms. Shit that just doesn't translate to tumblr's style, especially without optional anonymous engagement and nested conversations. There's no such thing as FFAF on Tumblr. It doesn't work. You don't break the internet here the same way ONTD did when Michael Jackson died.

Dedicated fandom/ship comms. As someone who was quite literally harassed on Tumblr for years because I didn't like a specific non-canon ship between a literal teenaged child and an adult and talked about it without tagging it (and even censored it when just words suddenly showed in tags!) I miss dedicated fandom comms so much. Because I had way more control over who engaged with me on my personal LJ and NEVER would've bothered people on a comm about a ship I hated because it's shitty behavior and because people who do that got banned! Shared communities with moderation and better blocking settings were benefits I didn't have on Tumblr.

Just...it doesn't translate to Tumblr and now it's just a tiny space on DW and the zombie of LJ.

Similarly I don't think AITA translates very well to Tumblr because Tumblr doesn't:

Have nested comments/comment threads that can be collected all on one central page

Have easy to make throwaway accounts

Allow for anon responses to posts directly (it's only asks! They can't reblog anonymously!)

Have an upvote system

Have a "sort by most popular" or "sort by oldest."

Have autoretention/bot capture of the original submission.

A way to click through to someone's comments in other communities, or see what their responses to the thread as the op easily.

A collection of moderators and standardized community rules and community ability to report trolling/spam/fiction/shit posts.

Call me a killjoy but AITA won't fully translate to Tumblr for the same reason why ONTD isn't translated to Tumblr, and even a similar concept to ONTD looks totally different on reddit (see: deuxmoi). It will look different, it won't have the same community or feel simply because the platform itself is different enough that it inherently changes how we engage, what that engagement looks like, and what can even feasibly be done.

When a website dies, the unique communities and communication styles of that platform also start to die.

[ao3feed-tf2ships]

Mann. Co. Mandatory Journal Project

read it on the AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/50532661

by Doorknobbie

In order to prevent the U.S. government from accusing Mann. Co. of employee neglect, the Administrator has taken to enforcing mandatory journals for all employees. Journals are to be submitted to respective therapists during government mandated mental health check-ups. Journal entries will promptly be discarded* after submission in order to prevent potential privacy breaches.

*discarded neatly in a crate in an on-base storage closet.

You are the new recruit responsible for on-base management. Your jobs include but are not limited to weapon maintenance, file storage and retrieval, and testing and assurance of on-base security. You have sworn secrecy for all the classified- ooh, what could this be?

Words: 2860, Chapters: 5/?, Language: English

Fandoms: Team Fortress 2

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: Gen

Characters: Scout (Team Fortress 2), Soldier (Team Fortress 2), Pyro (Team Fortress 2), Demoman (Team Fortress 2), Heavy (Team Fortress 2), Engineer (Team Fortress 2), Spy (Team Fortress 2), Medic (Team Fortress 2), Sniper (Team Fortress 2), Miss Pauling (Team Fortress 2)

Relationships: Heavy/Medic (Team Fortress 2), Demoman/Soldier (Team Fortress 2), Engineer/Spy (Team Fortress 2), Pyro & Scout (Team Fortress 2)

Additional Tags: gender neutral reader, this is entirely self indulgent, Journal Entries, Transman Reader - Freeform, reader is a new recruit, Found Family, Slow Burn, the mercs think the new recruit is soft, descriptions of medics research, descriptions of engies research, author is a bio student and not an engineer, some sciencey stuff can be explained by tf2 logic ok, i tried giving them different writing styles, blotted out words and emojis in pyros entries, pyro knows asl, sniper has a pet bird, Sort Of, I wrote the dates in day/month/year format, recruit swears excessively, pyro with they/them pronouns

read it on the AO3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/50532661

[thisblogwasmadeforlurkin]

i really hate the sites where most of Fandom is happening lately and I don’t know what to do about it

[scwirrel]

Tagged by lovely @themirokai. I didn't realise how much i wanted to journal some stuff out until now. thanks 👍.

Current time: 1:35am. which is not actually that late as i am live laugh loving in my nocturnal era. still plenty of time to watch a movie.

Current mood: creatively fraught. i want to get back into creative writing but I've gone so long without completing a project it feels hopeless. waiting on divine intervention at this point.

Current activity: vibing. (when i posted this originally it kept the previous description. i no longer remember what i was doing)

Currently thinking about: i really hope i don't get fired. also i need to clean more. also i need to do more admin. anxiety abounds.

Current favorite song: anything by MF Doom. 90s era. when i crack and swing back to whiny indie girl ballads its always gotta be Presumably Dead Arm by Sidney Gish though.

Currently reading: A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James. its a fairly hefty book about Bob Marley. im loving its versatile writing style and the portrait it paints of the rationale behind sexual violence but i definetly feel like im missing a lot of Jamaican political context. sometimes it feels like a book you should be handed a textbook for before you start, but thats a fault of mine and not the authors. I was previously trying to force myself though Pride and Prejudice but i just cant. Im usually a sucker for classic lit but that era just doesnt do it for me. sad.

Currently watching: im planning on watching the summer i turned pretty before i go to bed. no tv shows right now though. only chick flicks.

Current favourite character: im thinking a lot about everyone from the Sandman series. especially our titular boy. the cheekbones stick out in the mind. im desperately fighting back against another batfam phase. refixating on Tim Drake and Jason Todd would entail a lot more comics and bad movie adaptations than im comfortable with right now.

Current WIPs: i have a lot of unfinished paintings in my sketchbook right now. we wont talk about my writing wips. can a messy room count as a wip? thats the projects taking up most of my emotional space right now

Tagging my favourite (cough: only) mutuals here. no obligations at all, ignore this at your own discretion. @mammoneythegreat @fandoms-incorrect-quotes

[screechthemighty]

Okay so because I've seen people talking about these books and it seems like there's an influx of new fans/creators into the fandom...hi, this is just my opinion, but here's whether or not I think you should spend your time/money on certain tie-in works for the Norse cycle. Under a cut due to length, and there may be some stuff I've missed, but here's my assessment of the stuff I have consumed!

God of War: The Official Novelization

Pros: There are some nuggets of new information here, some of which are pretty interesting. Alistair Duncan AKA Mimir narrates the audiobook, which is the sole reason I got the audiobook lmao.

Cons: I'm gonna just say it: it's not a good adaptation. Any new info isn't worth sitting through a story that seems to fundamentally misunderstand the source material. I tagged my liveblog posts for it as "screech listens to god of war" if you want to see all my complaining, but there's something that's just...off about it.

Conclusion: If you can get the audiobook for free and you like listening to Mimir talk, may be worth it. But don't pay money for it.

God of War (comic) and God of War: Fallen God

Pros: Some of the dialogue is funny in an inadvertent way. The first God of War comic is a historical document because it was, up until two months ago, the closest thing we had to seeing what Faye looked like IRL and not as a drawing on a wall. Atreus is in the first one and Fallen God has a Hippo Kaiju. So that's cool.

Cons: The first comic is mid at best and Fallen God actively wasted my time by being the same conflict repeated over three issues with one (1) interesting issue to start. They're also basically the same plot (Kratos doesn't want to be a rage monster but life keeps forcing his hand) and Ragnarok explored that concept way better. For real, Fallen God pissed me off so much I actively re-wrote it (the fic now known as "Firestorm"), so that's the level of spite I'm operating at. The first comic just didn't do anything for me besides baffle me as to why Kratos was written Like That.

Conclusion: Save your money and pray they give us better comics one day.

Lore & Legends:

Pros: Okay this one has two really interesting chapters of Atreus journaling before the game and during Fimbulwinter and I actively enjoy both of them. They expand on his viewpoints, his psychic abilities, his relationship with his parents, etc. so those parts were cool. The art is neat, there's a timeline for the events leading up to the game, and it's a good reference material overall.

Cons: The book DOES get repetitive when they start touching on creatures, places, and people from the game. Like it's straight up just lifted game dialogue/codex descriptions. So if you're like me and you've played the game for over 100 hours, then yeah, this part will feel a little superfluous.

Conclusion: Worth buying if you're a hardcore fan and want a solid reference book, but the bad news is I think the physical edition might be out of print. :( There's still ebook copies out there, though!

The Lost Pages of Norse Myth:

Pros: It's a podcast, so it's easily accessible and free. The stories are pretty neat (AND two of them made game-canon status!) and the interviews give you a look at the creative process.

Cons: The interviews make up a majority of the episodes so this is really more for people who are interested in details about the game on its own versus the lore goblins. (Not saying one is more valid than the other, but y'know, keep that in mind going in!)

Conclusion: I mean, it's free, so yeah, worth it.

B is for Boy:

Pros: This is it. This is the best one. It's a better adaptation of the game than the novelization. The art style is cute. Kratos is peak tired pop pops energy. This is still my favorite one.

Cons: I'm pretty sure it's out of print, which hurts my heart.

Conclusion: If you can find a copy you should definitely get it, this is my favorite one and I sincerely hope they make another one.

Art Of Books:

Pros: So much gorgeous art and really interesting looks at the game-making process. Not to mention discarded concepts, while not canon, are basically free real estate for fanfic authors looking to spice things up. (I've only just started the Art of Ragnarök but there's some REALLY neat stuff in the Atreus section towards the beginning that I'm sure someone would have a field day with.)

Cons: Art of books are expensive as heck, and again, this is less for the lore goblins than it is the people interested in how the game was made.

Conclusion: Great for hardcore fans if you can afford it (for real why are art of books so expensive. Will this stop me from buying them, never, but ow my wallet).

[kpopfanfictrash]

Heloo miss🤍

I want advice 🫠 been thinking for a while that I want to start writing poems or songs but I dunno how to start can you share your story how did you get into writing and what made you think to be a blogger? how did you start?

How do I start? What do I write😭

Hi, anon! Hope your day/night is going well :)

Sure, I can share my experience with writing and on this blog. I've never actually written poetry or songs (not my forte!), but hopefully something about my creative process speaks to your own. Placing a cut here!

When I was growing up, I didn't write often outside of schoolwork and journaling. The first time I sat down and tried to write my own story/book (outside of school) was after college, during my first couple years in the workforce. I've always been an avid reader and kind of entered this slump where I wasn't seeing things I wanted to read on the market. This sparked the idea of... hey, what if I wrote the thing I want to read? I started by brainstorming and drafting a few full-length novels of my own. One of these I completed and the others were just snippets and scenes (none of these have been posted to my blog, although I do still have some in the back of my mind). I kind of got into a funk with this process, feeling as though I was writing without actually progressing.

COINCIDENTALLY, this happened to be around the time I found k-pop (2015). There were a lot fewer of us in the fandoms at the time lol, and Tumblr was pretty thriving with kpop creators. I created a blog here to see what was happening and that's when I stumbled upon fanfic. I realized this might be a great way to share my writing, get feedback and figure out whether people respond to my stories. I created this blog at the end of 2016 and started posting my writing.

To be blunt, things were very slow-going and I had NO idea what I was doing lol. I mimicked things I saw other writers doing (posting small chapters, adding a read more, creating a summary/header/etc., creating a master list, doing FAQs). At first, I was similar to you and had no idea what to write. Some things I found helpful were:

Take requests (ask readers to send you messages/asks with fic ideas for you to write)

Use story prompts/prompt generators (you can either Google writing prompt generator or find posts on Tumblr and ask your followers/readers to send you prompts)

As you start writing and posting, you'll eventually get a feel for what works for you. What genres are you drawn to? What tropes resonate with your writing style? Are you better at writing dialogue or description? Do you enjoy fantasy/world-building? (as a writer, not a reader LOL it's different) Are you comfortable with and/or inspired by writing sex between characters? All of these are things to explore and discover; and the answers can change over time! I know mine have. I will always recommend pushing your boundaries and trying new things; you never know what unexpected trope you'll enjoy.

It wasn't long before I stopped feeling inspired by requests and instead, started coming up with ideas of my own. Or -- maybe you'll try writing and find it never gets easier, you don't really enjoy the process and that's also cool. You can move onto the next thing of interest! Whatever you choose, best of luck and I hope you have fun and enjoy the experience.

[passionesolja]

Like half of the Fandom Menace mfs would not survive being a jojo fan with how they bitch and complain about minor changes in Star Wars.

Dawg, Star Wars is a 46 year old series that is holding onto its glory days (both with the OT and PT era) with a vice grip. Star Wars is such an unmoving object that everybody is tryna copy that lost era.

Meanwhile, jojo is a 37 year old series and has changed so much that you could put an JoJo fan from the 80s into the modern era and they wouldn’t even be able to comprehend it because of how much cast changes, art style evolutions, and setting changes there are.

Like imagine telling the average Phantom Blood reader “oh yeah in like 5 years, there won’t even be Jonathan Joestar or Hamon anymore lol”

But do jojo fans complain about it? Not really. Like you have a few small groups of ppl online who weren’t even around during the Hamon era of jojo saying “Stands suck I miss Hamon” but nobody in the fandom fights about it. It isn’t a talking point.

The biggest problem in Star Wars is how some of the wants think and what they ask for. Like they refuse to let Star Wars evolve but they complain that it isn’t changing

I’m not a big fan of a lot of new changes in Star Wars that’s because either it erase past stuff, or it’s fanservice but at least mfs be trying.

HOWEVER, the biggest factor in this is that JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure is made by Araki. Like it’s HIS story. Yeah, you have some lil loosely canon books like Dio Brando’s Journal and Purplehaze Feedback but Araki do not give a fuck about those books and once he finished with a Part in jojo, he never go back.

Granted, the character may appear in a new Part

Star Wars has so many cooks in the kitchen with different directions and perspectives that nothing as a consistent energy or vibe to it

I’ve said it a lot but modern Star Wars’ biggest issue is that the reliance on supplementary series and dlc stories mean that the fans and the writers are battling because the fans know more (sometimes).

The current Star Wars writers are tryna please people who are too lazy to write their own fanfiction and also explain bad writing decisions in past shows and films. It’s a lose-lose situation

Meanwhile, because JoJo is Araki’s world and only he understands it, whatever direction Araki goes in, fans just accept because it isn’t like you can say “oh well in this light novel this other writer did something different”. You might know everything about JoJo a fan can know, but you’ll never know more than Araki does. Jojo fans understand this because of the track record with the series

[jiinxriiver]

~Le Information~

Uh hi, welcome? I'm Jiinx, and before I get into the rules just wanted to say I'm an aspiring writer and want to use some of my free time with fanfics and such because it's fun, you guys can send me requests, and I can be challenged in ways that can help me grow. So yeah...uh feel free to read!

WHAT I WON'T DO:

No, I will not be doing ANY romantic minor x adult. End of story.

No Incest

No Character x Character (might change in the future)

No pedo weird shit

No ship wars

No different cultures (I'm working on this but I don't want hate if I screw up so best to avoid it unless the requester is very specific about the culture and or ethnic background! So...subject to change).

No disabilities or psych issues. (I'm well versed in psych since it is my field of study HOWEVER same as before, I don't want to mess it up, so unless the requester can provide very specific details on the disability, psych issues, or journals I could study from then I will just avoid it if possible. I can do certain ones but I may decline the request if I feel like I can't. Subject to change!)

No yandere!

No weird fetishization of people

No slow burns as of right now, and possibly no chapter work but I might change my mind.

No headcanons but might be open to it.

Okay Onto the good shit.

WHAT I WILL DO:

Yes, I write NSFW; it's my fave so minors...plz just...no.

Platonic and romantic ships

Yes, I'll do angst, fluff, and SFW.

Yes, I'll write for Male, Female, Gender Neutral, and Trans readers (I'm not great with trans characters so, if I am uncomfortable with the work or feel like I'm butchering it, I'll stop and let the requester know.)

Open to writing for the LGBTQ+ community (as stated earlier, please don't be upset if I deny a work because of my lack of knowledge. )

LIGHT Abuse, like background context (don't even start with me, some of y'all have made this request before so I don't wanna hear it!)

Aftermath of abuse

Preggo reader

Children and/or child reader X Parent! Character (PLATONICALLY!)

Coming out stories

Body types

Death

Gore

ANNNND I think that's it? IDK, I feel like I'm missing stuff so if y'all wanna give me suggestions please let me know. I know this is a mess and all over the place but hopefully, it makes some sense. I'm open to a lot of writing styles and aside from what I don't write / won't tolerate, It's basically free game per your request.

If you're uncomfortable with anything stated or feel like I should change something like not write for a particular group or whatever, reach out and tell me. I want this to be a safe space for y'all to enjoy reading and communicating, and not feel as though you're being ignored or represented in a poor way.

WITH THAT SAID, I HAVE A RIGHT TO DENY ANY REQUEST IF I SO CHOOSE.

THERE WILL BE NO HATE OR BULLYING HERE.

NO RUSHING - I GO TO SCHOOL AND I WORK SO SPARE ME (ALSO I HAVE VERY POOR HEALTH LOL)

PLEASE SEND A REQUEST IF YOU WANT SOMETHING WRITTEN OR HAVE COMMENTS, WANT TO CHAT, ETC.

BE RESPECTFUL TO OTHERS AND YOURSELF!

And, I'll write for almost any fandom so just ask away.

Okay, have a great day!

~Jiinx Riiver

[daydreamrry]

I have a lot to say so please buckle up.

For the last two years, the feelings of dislike towards her have never been this strong as they are now at this point. Jameela Jamil saying 'i met her properly for the first time last night' is legit giving the same meaning like 'how can he be so horrible? He was always nice to me' or 'i have black friends so i can't be racist'. That woman was only nice to you because you were at an event and because you're famous. 'Just like any other person, she's not perfect'- darling she's not perfect i get it but that doesn't mean she gets to be this horrible and stoop so low.

Miss Jamil has a problem with how ruthless the media has been to her 'friend' then I'm pretty sure you must've seen why she was being dragged through the mud and does it mean that she's okay with her being like this and gaslighting people, lying to everybody's faces, playing the victim card every card she gets and then has the audacity to say that 'the internet feeds itself'? She stayed absolutely silent while the whole kiki and ariel thing happened but god she couldn't help but make jokes about serious accusations? To hell with her performative feminism. She wants to 'fight through hellfire' right? She's the one who created it to begin with.

Why is it so hard for people to understand that calling out problematic and pathetic people isn't wrong or sexist. It is not. And what's stopping them? Their idol The Harry Styles? He gets paid either way. His management can leak a bunch of unseens, he can go meeting fans in cities he's in and disappear then come back and all will be forgotten by his fans like every single time. His name is in the tabloids and not for the good things in the last 3-4 months. His reputation has been 📉📉📉 and you guys claim that he's been 'happier than ever'? Please think clearly.

I am not saying he's innocent because he's definitely not and people just choose to ignore that but oh well, that's (selected) harries for you anyway.

And journalists. Oh my god. First of all, they put her on covers which is fine because rn she gets them clicks (which sucks but it's true) but at least ask her the relevant questions? Why didn't no one ask her about the video? About Florence? About Kiki and Gemma? Why has no one asked her about her past offending tweets? I mean miss girlboss didn't have any problem with tweeting questionable things earlier and now she's saying she wouldn't have changed her profession if she'd known that twitter would be like this now? Well darling if i had known that you were gonna be related to this fandom, i wouldn't have joined it. I wonder what must it be like to ignore all the shitty things you've done and yet have the courage to ignore and act innocent. Journalism is dead. If you want to put her on cover then ask her about the things public wants to know. No one wants to read the same 'oh my god my ex is so horrible' 'these misquotoes are everywhere with everything i do' 'female pleasure and eroticism' every single time.

Now let's talk about 'my private life being a reality show'. Who's gonna tell her that she's the only person who thinks that people are interested in her life? Everything i know about her and her so called little pathetic life has been against my will. We did not ask you to go on every single interview and talk about how much you hate your ex, love your current life, talk about doing drugs, talk about your 'best friend' and how you've never been so happier and post on social media ALL THE DAMN TIME. We did not ask you for all the details. No one held you by the throat to utter these things. You did it yourself. Your life is a 'reality show' because YOU made it. She thinks she's so slick and that she'll be let off but no. She's off bad mouthing the entire fandom but god forbid she takes a look at her own actions.

Karma is real babe. And believe it or not, all these things are going to catch up to you in one way or the other. Then we'll see who you blame it on.

-🧣

SPILLLLLLLLED

[halite-jones-reblog]

Dear internet journal everyone can read,

I keep on writing and then deleting blog style posts that are updates to my mood and likes. I tend to get so in my feelings sometimes that my thoughts get harsher than what I want to read back to myself having posted on the internet.

I'm writing a book. It started out as a way to wash my FFXIV feelings away, but now I'm invested and inspired to create something bigger out of it. I don't know or have timetables for things I can show, or even hardly any art for it, so I feel like I've got nothing to show, and that it makes me a dull person.

I wanna get back to doodling and scanning things. I've finished no less than two paper journals in the last 6 months, but I get overwhelmed trying to document my backlog because I'm out of practice and drive to do more than just take cell phone photos of my work. It's mostly just sketches and not finished pieces, but I find that I really like a lot of the work I've done lately.

I've been having a lot of feelings about rebuilding my brand. Trying to explain my new online name to local and non-fandom folks, but it's not the most important thing in the world. I am riding very high on creative energy, I just feel bad for having nothing to show for the moment.

I'm finding that, while I miss my friends from Twitter, the longer I'm away from it, the better. It was just a place where people's tiny quick knee-jerk thoughts would end up in battles with other knee-jerk thoughts, and I'm beginning to realize just how much damage that environment did to me. All I can do is go forward. There's no point in begging the past for validation.