#there isn't any more than just that online and I am not buying a book on an unrelated topic for this one fact

[runwayrunway]

It's okay. The Ryanair flying boat isn't real. It can't hurt you.

#miss conenginality #look I LOVE flying boats I have a problem and it's called loving flying boats #for context this is pre-o'leary and was a wet lease that never actually flew revenue flights for ryanair. idk. #there isn't any more than just that online and I am not buying a book on an unrelated topic for this one fact #ryanair

[tearwolfe]

I'll borrow a warrior cats book from the library and see how it is before buying a book.. shivers in fear, i did not know that..

yeah for sure do not buy them. there's also a bunch of free PDFs online you can read!! or check them out through libby or whatever online library service your local library uses if you don't mind reading from your phone.

gonna use this chance to highlight issues with warriors under the cut!! because i've spent so much time being with this series i have a lot of thoughts. i want to let you know i am not trying to cancel warriors or anything, there's just a lot of issues and i like talking about it.

CW: misogyny, pedophilia, ablism, racism

Okay, we're going to start with the more annoying aspects. First of all, Warriors is written by a ton of different people. They have the main writers outline the plot, and there's a bunch of other people that fill in all the empty space. Kind of an interesting way to do it, but that's why Warriors is able to publish several books a year. Erin Hunter is just a penname for a group.

INCONSISTENCIES

Why do I bring this up, what's the issue? The inconsistencies, dude. There's so many. Character appearances change between books. Dovewing's eye color changes frequently, for example, to the point where there was an internet war about how she would be represented on the Warriors Wiki. Another example is Mapleshade, a cat that's been prevalent as a villain since Crookedstar's Promise. In that book, she's referred to as a ginger-and-white she-cat, but after that she's been described as a calico (er, tortishelle-and-white, because Erin Hunter is somehow allergic to the word calico). Appearances aren't the only inconsistency. Character personalities are a big issue. After the first arc especially, characters will lose what charm they had in their personalities. Suddenly Spottedleaf is in love with Fireheart/star after she dies, suddenly Yellowfang is unwelcoming towards cats who find themselves breaking the Warrior Code (despite being a codebreaker herself and having compassion toward other cats while she was alive). The authors also seem to have trouble keeping track of characters. On one page Sandstorm leaves camp to go on patrol, and a paragraph later she is seen STILL in camp, talking to someone, despite having been written to leave camp. It's a very bizarre series to read. (Other inconsistencies include miswriting names [Ravepaw incident], using the wrong pronouns, and entirely confusing cats between each other). Heavystep also died a few times because the Erins forgot that he died.

MISOGYNY

Outside of poor writing, we're hit with misogyny. Main female characters, in POV, are written at least a little bit better than any of the other she-cats. However, as soon as the next arc starts and she's put out of the limelight, the authors have to give her a mate, give her kits, and make her a mother. There is only ONE POV she-cat I can think of that didn't die and never had kits. Twigbranch is literally the only one. This isn't a dig at being a mother at all, however whenever the Erins DO make a former main character a mother, that's the only trait they give them. Rarely do these she-cats continue to carry the personalities they were given initially.

It's not even a secret that the fandom dislikes when every she-cat is boiled down to being just a babymaker. The Erins literally killed off a she-cat because the fans didn't like the fact that her only personality trait was mom. Yes, this actually did happen.

There's lots of victim-blaming misogyny with whatever is going on between Squirrelflight and Bramblestar and between Leafpool and StarClan. Bramblestar will literally say the worst things to Squirrelflight and the narrative makes it seem like he's in the right. It's not wrong to display unhealthy relationships in media, but if you're writing a KID'S SERIES, it's extremely irresponsible to constantly write the victim as being wrong. This applies to how StarClan blames Leafpool for everything that's happened to her, despite the fact that Crowfeather was also a part of the equation.

Don't even get me started about Spottedleaf's Heart. In summary, Spottedleaf was groomed by Thisteclaw from when she was a kit (and he was a Warrior), and the narrative only makes Thistleclaw a bad guy because he was training in the Dark Forest, not because he is a predator.

ABLEISM

It's absolutely crazy how ableist this series is. In arc one, we have Brightpaw, an apprentice who gets mauled by dogs, and as Bluestar watched, as what she thought was going to be her death bed, she decided to give her her warrior name- a name that she would be stuck with in StarClan. She chose "Lostface." Brightpaw would eventually recover, loosing one of her eyes in the attack, and would live with being called Lostface until Firestar was able to rename her (to Brightheart). The whole renaming thing feels gross enough, but Brightheart is probably the best case scenario of ableism in Warriors, as she was allowed to function as a regular Warrior in the clan. Cinderpelt wasn't so lucky. She was a Warrior apprentice who got hit by a car, mangling her leg. She was then forced to become a Medicine Cat because she "couldn't hunt or fight" (despite the fact that real world cats are able to function completely normally while missing a limb). Longtail lost his vision in a fight with rabbits and he was retired early to the elder's den, despite wanting to be a Warrior. Jayfeather was blind, so he was made a Medicine Cat despite wanting to be a Warrior. Briarlight was paralyzed, so she was put in the Medicine Cat den most of the time despite wanting to be a Warrior. This is a very common theme in the series. Any cat who isn't fully able-bodied is often made to be a Medicine Cat or an Elder, even if that's not what they want. Literally every single Medicine Cat in ThunderClan since Spottedleaf through to Alderheart never wanted to be a Medicine Cat.

Being a Medicine Cat isn't supposed to be a bad role, but the way Warriors uses it as a cop-out to make disabled cats have a more "plot interesting" role without allowing them to be a Warrior is really weird.

ANTI-INDIGENOUS WRITING

I'm not the most knowledgeable person on this topic, however, many Indigenous readers have brought up a lot of issues the series has in terms of being culturally insensitive to native tribes. There's a well-written document that explains this in full detail.

IT'S KIND OF JUST BAD?

The writing isn't good. This goes back to the multi-writer issue. These people can't keep track of their characters or plot, so a lot of things just sort of fall flat. The best plotlines can be found in some of the novellas and graphic novels, and then I think it's because they're mostly written by one person.

How come StarClan can be so vague to living cats, but when we get POV in StarClan, they just act like normal cats? How come Ashfur randomly was super powerful in the Dark Forest/StarClan, while every other cat wasn't? There's just a lot of unexplained stuff, it's very weird.

Warriors is a very interesting series because it's pretty bad yet the fandom is huge. I definitely recommend watching Warriors Multi-Animator-Projects, reading fancomics, and fix-it fanfics instead of actually reading the books. The fans are so, so talented, it's crazy how a never-ending series of children's cat books has created such an insane fanbase.

#ask #no you did not ask for this i just like rambling about warriors sometimes #warriors #warrior cats

[a-hobit]

Since Luz and Hunter in your switched AU are born in 1600s colonial America and Luz clearly speaks Spanish in the AU (shown in a comic) and is Latina (specifically Dominican) in show cannon, is there any history stuff you’re adhering especially considering the differences between Spanish and English colonies in location and demographic or are you ✨going rogue?✨ Is Luz an indigenous-Spanish mix like many Latinos are today? How would she have gotten to mainland since a lot of Spanish claim was in the Caribbean or Florida and treatment of indigenous people by Europeans, specifically Spanish and British, was notoriously brutal? Sorry if I’m absolutely overthinking this. This is coming from a history nerd, so I’m just curious how that’s going to work considering the realities of racial divides in colonial settlements during 1600s America and the relatively small number of Spanish people that actually would’ve lived there by then. AGAIN SORRY IF I’M OVERTHINKING IT I’M JUST A NERD FEEL FREE TO JUST BE LIKE “NAH.”

OH btw, I noticed a comment in a comic that implied trans Hunter and just wanted to mention that there’s some super interesting accounts of LGBTQIA+ people from the time period if you’re interested. I know of a fan work about Caleb and Phillip where Caleb is trans that covers that extensively if you want a link.

I LOVE ASKS LIKE THIS ANON!! Because IM overthinking it but at least someone else is too! So there's a lot I can't answer due to spoilers -- and I actually will be explaining a fair bit because I just am so charmed at how we are so on the same wavelength here so if you don't want to not know literally anything even a little bit spoilery about Luz or Hunter before the comic comes out I would ignore this ask! -- but I will go into some of it!

Okay! So I tossed and turned on this exact issue for FUCKING MONTHS. Go rouge or loophole? How historically accurate did I want to go with this concept and how much of that accuracy am I sacrificing for just needing something to be a certain way? Do I want to be as accurate as possible or have a cohesive and interesting story?

The answer is a little bit of both! Im much more of an art history nerd than a straight up history nerd but I have my moments! I love the sociopolitical conundrum having a latina Dominican (ALSO half black! Love that about her but SO hard to write in!) girl in 1600s America because it can be as little or as highly complicated as you can get. I drew a lot of inspiration for a long few months pouring over what groups of people were where and when -- what languages they spoke -- wether the books that I could find could describe a day to day of these people rather than just political conflicts.

Footnote : There are certain Native American groups so fucking overlooked that they don't even have ONE BOOK of comprehensive (non war centered) history that isn't a four year old reading level. I looked for WEEKS. I tried everywhere and was even willing to start to buy reading material but it just doesn't exist? Especially around the original colonies????? HOW!! People around me started telling me I should write a book because of how much I was obsessing over it and trying to find any information but no books can be written on close to NONEXISTENT historical writings! OKAY BACK TO IT--

I looked out for the first sightings of Spanish in the west and where they were headed -- wether or not any Spanish broke away from the group to have children with the Native Americans in the area at the right time -- what the political state was between Britain and Spain -- did they occupy the same or around the same places close enough I could fudge it? Were they friendly toward each other? When were slaves from other countries brought to America? What languages would they have spoken and is there a good translator online? What kind of spanglish can come from Angola, Umbundu and Spanish speakers at the time? Or would it be spanglish with Portuguese because of who was controlling the slave trade at the time?

Tearing out my hair and a hundred more google searches later I decided it wasn't worth the misrepresentation of both languages to try and include either of them mixed together in that way in the whole comic-- just bits and pieces separate for my sanity -- although I WILL get some cultural things in there I promise!

Some things just can not stay historically accurate and one of those things is speech. That was the first thing -- so damn difficult to really pin it down properly in the older dialects so I just had to sadly put that away first. All of the languages written about will be mostly modern versions, English, Spanish, Portuguese, and others but while keeping in mind the time frame.

Next I obsessed about when and where exactly would culture mixing begin and if the people stayed in the same spots! Also unfortunate ( for this AU purpose only! )that most of the Spanish went down and not into the Americas but history will be what it is.

SO

I decided that what I was going to do is make it up a little using a lot of historical context available instead of switching up Luz's race in a serious way to make the accuracy better -- I was going to have things happen MUCH sooner. Like 2 or 3 generations sooner. The Native Americans and Spanish populate together in 1500 ish instead of 1700 or 1800. I GET THIS IS REALLY INACCURATE but it was so fucking impossible to do anything else without getting into things I didn't want to do. The British get there the same time as usual and start the colonies in the 1600s but the Spanish are already moving up into North America and have already spent a lot of time with the Native Americans there at the time. SO that means that Luz is able to have a Native Mexican/ Native American AND Spanish mix at the time of the AU start and be similar to how the population became around now -- my dad inspired this! He's got the same mix himself and I loved that I could pull from that. It's such an interesting genetic tree honestly -- there's a lot of seriously horrible things that happened do not get me wrong -- but the history is amazing.

Luz being half black however feels similarly difficult but it follows the same principles of things with everyone who is not British making things happen much earlier. Africans come to America ( Horrifically and brutally I want to make that very clear) and some in real life of course make their way out of that brutality and hide away from the British and the Spanish...with who? The mixed Natives and Spaniards. Couple of generations later and we have a beautiful mixed pot like the America we see today but hundreds of years early that allows me to keep my afro Latina!! Hunter eventually finds this group that has naturally traveled up into where the british are setting up their first settlements in Virginia and joins them for reasons I can not explain!

THANK YOU for letting me ramble about all this rich history it is incredible.

ALSO I love trans Hunter HC and I do a lot of it myself but in this comic Hunter is cisgender. ( BUT seriously if you wanna hc Hunter as trans in my story I would love it -- trans fem or masc because Hunter is one of the transest coded characters ever) Because both him and Luz are attracted to the same and opposite sex I will still be able to explore certain LGBTQIA+ issues as well!

(DISCLAIMER : Listen I completely understand if this switching around might feel tone deaf to some people but I do not intend to shy away from the brutality of the past or give it a nicer spin -- but this is not a comic focused on the nitty gritty details of the world that Luz and Hunter come from but a focus on the nastiness that comes from later in their lives in Gravesfeild and the witch trials. To have this happen and keep all characters relatively the same I had to do a lot of background but It is worth it to keep these characters with their integrity intact)

#ahobit asks #ahobit rants #TOHswitchedAU

[ecogirl2759]

so do you have all the dr1 4komas?

I am once again getting to this late ;-----;

Sorry, got busy again, hehe

I don't have all the DR1 4Koma's, no. I technically only have half of them. I've got the 4Koma KINGS anthology series, which is 4 books in total. I don't have the original 4Koma anthology series, however, which is another 4. (Not to mention the DR1+2 4Komas, but that's slightly different lol.)

For example, the cover on the left is the anthology, whereas the cover on the right is the KINGS series. I only have the series on the right.

With any luck (and a little more money lol), I do hope to find/buy the original anthology series so that I can translate everything and compile it all into one location, but I'm 90% sure that the first series is already fully translated and much more accessible than the 4Koma KINGS one is. Not to say that some of the KINGS series isn't translated as well, since you can definitely find some online. I just have a hard time finding them, and it doesn't look like anyone got to the 4th volume.

I hope this helps puts things into a little more context :D

#ecogirl #ask #danganronpa #dr1 #Once again I don't wanna be too crazy on my tags #I also keep forgetting that I have a Tumblr account LOL #I hope this answers your question tho! #I probably made this more complicated than it needed to be but oh well

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

I'm piggybacking a bit off of the last ask of asking for writing tips but I have an odd question... Am I the only person that struggles actually PICKING a book? It's the absolute bane of my existence because I feel like I can be so picky... Don't get me wrong, I love being a bookworm, and I'm trying to get back into reading physical books but it's so difficult to find a real taste of what the book is like without being completely spoiled or something... I miss when backs of books had an actual summary and not just NO.1 NEW YORK BESTSELLER!!!! It's so frustrating... I've been trying to get back into it by re-reading fond chapter childhood books read to me (The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane & A Wrinkle In Time). But at the same time I'm also trying to get into more "adult" books that isn't... Well, you try googling "adult books" and see how that goes, I didn't think too hard about what a poor decision THAT was. But I'm working up the courage to read Cat's Cradle right now to start with "Classic Authors" I guess!

Anyway I'm rambling here, I guess my question is... How do you pick out the books you read? I don't really have friends that read many books to recommend to me :')

Thank you in advance, Bog! I hope you get a callback from that interview soon!

no ok actually you've mentioned something that's been bothering me for a while - What The Hell Do Y'all Mea, Books Don't Have Summaries Anymore???? i have not once in my life found a book that didn't have a summary. i was in barnes & noble recently and everything i looked at had a summary. i have literally never seen a book without one in my life of reading & looking at new books on a regular basis

softcovers have theirs on the back. hardcovers are on the inside of the sleeve - lift the cover and it should be printed right there on the inside flap! summaries aren't legally required but both the author and Especially the publisher(s) know that no one's gonna buy a book without a summary. trust me, all books worth reading have a summary. if a book doesn't have one, it's probably not worth your time anyway. you just gotta know where to look!

so my answer to how i choose books... i read the summary lmao. if it seems interesting, ill either write it down to get later or ill get it there and then.

Before the summary though, i look for any titles that jump out at me from the shelf. then i look at the thickness. i like a bit of meat in my literature, so i tend to shy away from thinner books. thicker ones grab my attention more easily. then i look at the cover - if it interests me, then ill read the summary. i don't have specific tastes in title or cover. as long as it makes my brain "hm" thoughtfully, ill take a gander!

and really, if you have access to a bookstore (chain or not, ive found plenty of bangers in tiny used bookshops) or library, the best way to find a book is to physically browse. even if you dont buy anything, you can take pictures of books / write them down to buy online. but going to the store lets you search them out, examine the length, cover, title, summary - and easily put it back on the shelf or keep it. i hate shopping online bc there's ads, you can't examine the product, nothing really stands out since it's all portrayed similarly, there's limited pictures instead of the physical thing, and photos can lie.

plus, everything is (typically) meticulously sorted by genre & age range. when you go into a section with literature aimed at adults, you'll find exactly that instead of smut novels lmao. real life bookstores can be more accurate than online searches. & there's just something so good about walking through shelves, searching for that one book before you know it exists, smelling the paper... yeah...

#like for example i recently bought priory of the orange tree #ive been wanting it for a while and havent read it yet since im finishing something else #BUT! i remember when i first saw it #nothing had gotten my attention for a while #but then i saw the thickest fucking book ive seen in ages - which was automatically very sexy of it #and then the title was unique - priory of the orange tree??? whoah! what the fuck does that mean!!! #so automatically there was the interest of neat title + a new word that i get to learn + the implications of the word now that i understand #and then i picked the book up and it was deliciously heavy - & there was a Dragon on the cover. which. YES PLEASE #then the summary was fascinating!! the book was immediately seared into my brain! im very excited to read it #so thats a highly successful example of my book choosing Process #it checked all of my boxes so it was a win #most books dont check all of my boxes but as long as it hits most of them im down to clown yk yk #but yeah im picky too so! nothing wrong with being picky or having high standards! #rambles from the bog #my shelves are fuckin Full of books ranging from 'it was ok' to 'I WILL RECOMMEND THIS TO ALL WHO WILL LISTEN' #and then i have a drawer filled with books that i just could not care less about / dont like #but dont have the heart to throw away bc. well putting a book in the trash kills a part of my soul #i need to donate them... #but yes! i hope that helps! #and Thank You! i hope i get a callback as well...

[ohnoitstbskyen]

So a bit of personal behind-the-scenes blogging here about YouTube sponsorships, doing creative writing for a job, workloads and stress and burnout.

I am never taking this many sponsorships ever again.

I don't know if there was something in the water in September or if a bunch of marketing budgets just needed to get burned, but at the end of August I started getting a lot more emails than usual from agencies that wanted to purchase sponsorship integrations. I'm sure there's some structural industry-side reason for this that I'm simply not privy to, but from my perspective it was just a flood of emails.

There were the usual ones, of course, the RAID: Shadow Legends sponsorship that I am getting very tired of turning down over and over again, a bit of crypto-nonsense and Play2Earn games which can go get f*d, and then a smattering of things that just kinda don't fit my channel or my audience, like a Chinese-run site doing online coding classes for people who want to emigrate and work in the PRC, or one of those semi-fraudulent "purchase a square foot of land in Scotland and become a Lord, technically!" which are, like, usually just a harmless novelty, but not really fit for my audience.

The way influencer marketing on YouTube works (at least at my level of micro-celebrity) is that companies will contract marketing agencies to run campaigns for them. The agencies bid against each other for contracts, promising to deliver maximum engagement at minimal cost. The company picks an agency and gives them a pile of money to spend on ad-buys. Agencies reach out to influencers en masse (usually through mailing lists and directories of channels above a certain size, listing their general content and likely audience profiles), and ask us how much we charge for a 30-60 second integration.

The marketing agency's objective is to make their budget deliver as many trackable metrics for their client as possible, usually in the form of signups, clicks, website traffic and so on. Some agencies will focus on advertising only with huge names that have massive reach, some will pick out a hundred smaller creators hoping to cast a wider net. Most agencies will do some mix of the two.

So, they email me like "how much for an integration?" and I... have to invent an answer. See, there isn't really a standard rate for any of this. How much is a view on my channel worth? How much return on investment does an ad on my channel generate? I'm just a person, I don't have a market research department, I don't have any education or training in evaluating the effectiveness of advertising. I make video essays about game characters and occasional anime.

The best resource for YouTubers on this subject is... each other. We basically just have to talk to one another, figure out what everyone is charging and try and derive a reasonable rate from that. There isn't a union or a guild, there are no associations or central resources (or even community resources) that set the standards or allow us some form of collective bargaining.

My problem is that most of the peers I talk to don't really do influencer marketing. They stick with ad revenue and Patreon/Twitch subscriptions, or just aren't on the radar of advertisers yet, so I'm flying this one kinda by the seat of my pants.

Ayway, returning to the subject. In September I get a lot more inquiries about sponsorship than usual, which puts me in the very unusual position of turning sponsors down not because their product is a bad fit, or a crypto scam, or RAID: Shadow Legends, but because I simply can't make enough videos fast enough to fill the "order."

I book Squarespace and Skillshare, which are reputable companies whose products I've used myself, which basically fills out my schedule, and then the offers keep coming. I should not have accepted as many as I did.

---

I should say, I've never been poor. I come from a middle class family in a Scandinavian social democracy, there are safety nets under me that most people don't get to have, and I don't ever have to really be afraid of ending up on the street or starving. What I have been is broke. I used to make my living as a commission artist and cartoonist, and spent essentially a decade constantly, constantly dancing right on the very edge of being able to make rent each month. I was chasing a dream of building up a customer base to fund my independent comics work, and... it broke me a little bit. I came down with a very dark depression that I couldn't really deal with, and spent weeks and weeks pulling all-nighters chasing commissions and doing work trying to scratch money together.

YouTube happened entirely by accident, and for all that I've complained about the troubles that come with this work, might have genuinely saved my life a little bit.

I bring this up to say, ever since the YouTube gig started reliably paying my bills, I have had at least a couple of realizations per year of just how anxious and freaked out I still get about money. I still check my online bank obsessively, I still fret over keeping savings and paying bills, I still feel guilt over spending money on non-essentials.

And when I get too many sponsorship offers, I still feel like I should accept all of them, and pull whatever all-nighters it takes to fulfil them, even though I'm not 24 any more and when I tried to do it as a 24 year old it caused a depression that nearly made me suicidal.

Because what if these are the last sponsorships I'll ever get? What if the next sixth months are really bad months and I don't make as much in ad revenue? What if my videos lose steam and the audience moves on? What if everyone gets tired of me? What if someone copyright strikes my channel twelve times out of nowhere and kills it forever?

I haven't been broke in years now. I'm not a wealthy man, but I haven't been broke. I don't have a pension fund, but my bills are paid, and looking rationally at the statistics and analytics I have access to, there is literally no reason to believe it'll all go "poof!" and be gone overnight.

And yet, I feel so guilty about not taking every sponsorship I can ethically take. I feel so guilty about not hoarding money, building savings, protecting myself, "being responsible." And I feel so afraid of that unnamed catastrophe lurking just around the corner, where I'll be punished for my hubris to think that I was ever safe, and thrown right back into that fearful scramble. Right back into that depression.

It's a sticky fear. You scrub and scrub and scrub, and the stain of it just won't come out.

---

I took too many sponsorships in the latter half of this year. This is a champagne problem, there are creatives I know who would kill to get sponsorships at all, and I'm not trying to fish for too much sympathy here. "Oh no, too many people wanted to give you money to read 60 second ads, boo hoo YouTube man, how sad for you" is, like, a valid response to this. I'm not exactly being ground down by the Amazon Fulfilment Center over here. It's not a cry for help, or a plea for support, it's just a blog.

But I took too many sponsorships. I clogged my schedule, and committed myself to a lot of work, and... every other part of my life suffered. I found it harder and harder to spend time with my family, because the next deadline was always on my mind. That knowledge that taking time to do anything else inevitably means a harder rush to finish the work, it means more stress and less space to think, less space to do good work.

Because that's the other anxiety, of course. Having taken these sponsorships, I now feel pretty intensely that I need to make videos that are good enough that my audience doesn't feel taken advantage of, that they feel that the content I put behind the ad was worth the time they took to sit through it. Sponsored videos need to be better, they need to have higher production quality, better scripts, better editing.

So how do you justify taking time to do anything else?

I spent less time with my family, I became less and less able to keep the apartment clean, less and less able to cook, less and less able to even spend time socializing and doing enrichment for my pet rats, which they need for their mental health. And I started to feel the familiar sensation of burnout eating me up from the chest outwards.

I had started taking piano lessons at the local community center, something I've wanted to do for myself for a decade. And I had to cancel those lessons over and over again, and usually last minute, because work just got in the way. Last week I told my teacher that I simply wouldn't be able to make it to them anymore, to cancel the whole thing. And that knocked the wind out of me more than I thought, honestly. That was something I had been so excited to finally do for myself, and it just got bled out in front of me by the workload I couldn't get myself to say no to.

I've dealt with burnout many times before. I know what it is, I know how to recover from it. But I have never learned to stop inflicting it on myself. I am a workaholic, I am addicted to the stress of this sh**, not because I find it pleasurable, but because for ten years the satisfaction of finishing a piece of work and securing the paycheck was the only sense of real relief and catharsis I ever got to feel from my anxiety, and I don't know how to stop chasing that high. When I'm stressed, when I'm anxious, when I'm feeling unsure or unmoored, the only response I know is to drown myself in work. Energy drinks and junk food and too little sleep. I don't have any other real coping mechanisms.

It'll take... a while to fix those things, I think. It's not happening right now. But I am promising myself this, at least: I am never taking this many sponsorships ever again.

#tb blog #personal post #youtube #influencer #burnout #depression #workaholism

[she-who-fights-and-writes]

I remember finding your blog back in ~2016 and falling in love with your writing advice and the way you answered others. I remember you often posted about a book you were writing—did you ever finish it? I remember that I saw every update you wrote about your journey as an author and how much i was rooting for you back then. I couldn't wait to read your story and i told myself that i'd buy it even if my english wasn't all that great (and it still isn't now).

I deleted my old blog and now that i came back i wanted to look for you again to see how you were—at first i thought that your blog had been deleted but i ended up seeing one of your posts on my dash by accident and went "Oh! A familiar face!"

I never had the courage to send any asks on tumblr, and I realize now that i also never thanked you for all of your writing advice

So I'd just like to say here, thank you. For all of your writing advice, for all of the help you offer to strangers online and for posting about your book here.

Your advice helped and inspired me so much. You had such an impact on me and my writing and it shows through my works to this day and you have no idea just how much this means to me.

I apologize if this is long. But i appreciate your existence, and i wish you great success on the road ahead

This actually brought a tear to my eye.

Thank you so much for taking the time to write this, and to have the courage to send it. I am so glad that I have been able to help you along your writing journey with my posts. I'm always fighting the worry that my advice is just white noise, and that it doesn't really do anything for anyone, but I'm glad that it's made such a positive impact on you.

And damn, I've been here since 2016? Lmao that's crazy how time flies.

As for my book, Wings of Faith, you can find info about it on my FAQ (Pinned post!) I have a whole host of content linked there, and usually tag it as #wingsoffaith or #wof. Currently, I'm working slowly through a re-write that came as a result of an utterly devastating plot hole my best friend pointed out. It's been tough. I've been struggling with motivation, after more than ten years of an uphill battle. But it'll get done eventually, and I've put in too much love and effort into it to give up now. Hopefully, once this re-write is complete, I will enlist the help of some beta readers!

Much love always. I wish you the very best.

#maddytalks #writing #wings of faith #wof #answering asks #thank you so much for sending this fr #made my week

[bison-appreciation-club]

wait how have you been hated on for liking Native American history??? That's so weird 😭😭

oh boyyyy do I have stories for this.

I've never received any online hate, for which I am extremely grateful, but people have been exceedingly weird about it in real life, ranging from bizarre to just plain racist. I can't remember all of it, so I'll just take you through the highlights.

My grandmother never quite knows how to introduce me to her friends (because she has a lot of friends and is quite the social butterfly) so she often introduces me as 'her grandchild, who knows a lot about Native American history'. Which isn't really true. I know a little (well, maybe more than a little) about a very specific area of Native American history. So most of the following things have come from my grandmother's friends.

Native Americans aren't actually American *smug face* they actually come from Nepal. *smug face again*. She seemed so pleased with herself to know something I didn't. And honestly I didn't know how to react. I think that one was more funny than anything. Why are you trying to out-knowledge someone sixty years younger than you. why.

*Accusingly* I suppose you hate Columbus, then. Yes. Yes I do

You're only interested just because you like the aesthetic the what now?

It's just because you're woke why do conservative people have to use the word woke so many times. hey, sorry folks, researching cultures different to your own is WOKE. Proper right-wing fellows are INSULAR. they don't CARE about the rest of the world.

You're disrespecting and abandoning your white heritage ok. Tbh if you consider yourself peak white heritage, I'm glad to be out of it. Seriously tho, how do you think race and nationality works? I can be white and interested in Native American history. The two don't cancel each other out.

Similar to that one, is my personal favourite:

You're committing cultural appropriation by being interested in Native American history. What. This was also said to me by some rando in a bookshop when I was buying a book on, well, guess what topic. I thought they were one of the staff at first, but looking back at it I think they were really Just Some Rando. Why would you say that to someone who is just trying to buy a book. You don't even know me. I don't want your opinion.

That one really worried me for a while, I'm gonna be honest. I had to send a particularly grovelling anon to some Native American I found on Tumblr. And they said it wasn't cultural appropriation. AND they gave me book recommendations. So yeah.

(PS I can't remember who you are, but if you see this, then you metaphorically saved my life and literally saved my dignity)

That's all the specific incidents I can remember, but there have been a lot of other things. Jokes, mostly. Quoting westerns. Speaking like the Native Americans from Peter Pan or some shit whenever I enter the room. I once had someone make those western style war cries at me for five hours.

Making fun of their names is a big one. (Guys, there are only so many times you can make fun of anyone's name, and that amount is zero. even if they're called some shit like techno mechanicus -looking at you, Elon Musk. I literally don't see what's so funny about the name Black Kettle anyway. Either I've been reading about him too much, but it's not a weird name?? Also. He got fucking murdered. I'm researching how he got murdered and you're taking the piss out of him. Get some respect and dignity).

Also. If I have to hear one more joke along the lines of 'did you ever have any reservations about studying this topic' I am going to wring your neck.

So uh I'm sorry I turned your question into a bit of a rant but if I've learned one thing it's this: researching non-white history really shows you people's hidden racism. The amount of shit people have said to me about the Native Americans. My guys your opinions belong in a Victorian dime novel about the frontier. And that's not a compliment.

#dee answers #answered asks #anon answered #american history #us history #tw racism #native american history

[the---hermit]

Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung

I have seen this short story collection everywhere online in the past months, and after hearing a bit about it I was quite curious. You might know short story collections are easily my favourite type of book, and I feel like they are an amzing way to get to know a new author. I had never read anything by Bora Chung, and I had never read anything by a Korean author before. The fact that this anthology has stories that fit into diffent genres is also great, because you get to see a lot of the author's potential. Since it's not always easy to talk about short stories collections I'll write a few words for each story in the book. The Head is the first short story and it definitely sets the mood. One day the main character finds a head in her toilet and this face starts talking to her, and things move from there. It was pleasently creepy, and it works amazingly as a presentation of what you are about to read, it was one of my favourite stories of the book. The Embodiement is also quite creepy as a concept, the protagonist starts have heavy problems with her period and then things excalate quickly. I feel like the characters the protagonist of this story play the biggest part in creating a very anxious and claustrophobic enviroiment. Cursed Bunny gives the name to the book and it's a really nice tale about a family who creates cursed objects, and deals in particular with one of these objects. The Frozen Finger was my favoruite short story of this collection. It works amazingly, it's creepy and then it gets worse, it's a really simple idea dealing with a car crash. It's just very well done, and it's exactly the type of story I adore. Snare, alongside with Ruler Of The Winds And Sands, feel just like fairy tales. Just like classic fairy talesthey are magical and their plot feel more bitter than sweet when reading. Although these stories are very different this tale-like vibe worked amazingly for me. Goodbye My Love is a sci-fi short story about androids. I personally feel really creeped out by the idea of highly intelligent machines, and when they look human-like things are even worse in my opinion. The idea was very simple but very well executed. Scars was my only dnf of the collection, I noramlly try to push through with short stories, but I couldn't get into the story and I really didn't care for it. Clearly it wasn't for me. Home Sweet Home is the other story that didn't work for me, I did read it until the end, but I found it predictable and way too long. It's the story of a woman buying a house with her husband, but after the purchase many things start to go wrong in her life. Reunion made me think a lot. One of its themes are traumas and how they influence people's life (and death), which was really interesting. Although it wasn't one of my favourite stories of the collection is probably the one that made me reflect the most. I wish I could say more about each story but I don't want to risk giving out spoilers. Overall I feel like this collection is very interesting, I am really happy I picked it up, and I am now very curious to read more horror by asian authors. This isn't really a horror collection, it's quite difficult to place this book in any genre as I said, there's a lot of maical realism, a bit of sci-fi, and much more. I would definitely recommend it, especially because all stories have very different feels, although they tend to be one the creepier side. I feel like anyone could find something they like in this collection.

#2022 book #book #books #reading #bookblr #booklr #book cover #pretty books #short story collection #cursed bunny #bora chung #book rec #book recommendation #book review #bookish #book blog #studyblr #studyinspo #mine #the---hermit

[misscrawfords]

3, 35 and 40 for the book ask :)

3. Already answered!

35. What do you think of Ebooks?

Mixed feelings. I much prefer physical copies of books. However, I am a book borrower not a book buyer and my library is extremely slow at getting new books, especially more obscure books not originally published in the UK, if it gets them at all. And then there's a really long waiting list. So I see online there's a new diverse romance come out I want to read - chances of my library getting anytime soon are practically nil. I started borrowing or buying ebooks which are cheaper and reading on my phone - not a lot but enough that I finally bought a Kindle last month. Do I feel good supporting Amazon? No. But it did seem like the best way to be able to read certain books and I was getting tired of reading a lot on my phone - a Kindle has better visibility. I can also see the benefits when travelling. Don't worry though - 90% of what I read is still paperbacks. If I had a choice I'd always go for that.

40. Has there ever been a book you wish you could un-read?

Yes, actually. Two spring to mind, both from my childhood. The first was a totally age-appropriate story about a boy, possibly called Luke, whose brother had leukemia. It was one of those children/YA (I guess it would be Middle Grade these days) books with a Worthy Theme that Kids Might Relate To to Help Them With Difficult Stuff. Not my sort of book even then but for some reason I got hold of it. It really, really upset me. I started becoming terrified of getting cancer, of someone I loved getting cancer, of dying, of loved ones dying...

The second was a biography of the cellist Jaqueline du Pre that my uncle bought me as a present when I was 10. My uncle has a habit of misjudging presents but I didn't know that and while this wasn't a kid's book, I guess it looked innocuous enough. This may seem totally different to the above book but it really isn't. Du Pre developed the condition of MS and the biography went into detail about her condition and its effect on her life including her sex life (which I found morbidly fascinating without really understanding it) and eventually her decline and death. Like the above book, this absolutely grabbed me and obsessed me and scared me.

Basically, I cannot engage with fiction that deals with terminal illness, especially cancer. I just can't. I can't watch medical dramas - I can't even deal with Call the Midwife! To this day I will not read any book that has this kind of plotline or theme. All through my teenage years, I refused to read any book that didn't have a happy ending. It was only when studying Greek forced me to engage with Greek tragedy that I started to let in a couple of "sad stories". Even now I will always take happy endings over sad ones, I avoid angst and I never touch misery porn stories. I can deal with the genre of Tragedy (as in Greek or Shakespeare) because it is not so much sad as inevitable, if you get the difference. Chekhov is on a very thin line. In real life too I find terminal illness, hospitals, doctors really awful, more than is normal, I think. A lot of my friends at school wanted to become doctors - I would do literally any other career. It's my nightmare. Whether my horror of these things came before these two books or not I don't know, but I do remember they had a really profound and negative effect on me and I really wish I hadn't read them at that point in my life.

#books #cw: illness #ugh that all got a bit personal #but it's true #and it's why you have to be so careful when deciding what is or is not suitable for kids to read (or watch) #the two biggest traumatic media experiences of my childhood were that MG book about a boy with leukemia and the original Jumanji film #but I read loads of adult fiction without any effect #all children respond differently to things #you can try to protect them from what will adversely affect that individual #but you can't stop something totally left field from coming along and upsetting them

[namandabu]

It's about the efficacy

"The sole intent of Shakyamuni Buddha to appear in this world was to spread the teaching of the Larger Sutra of Immeasurable Life."

This isn't a direct quote, but it is an idea that is repeated in Jodo Shinshu teaching over and over again. It is part of what is so hard to accept about the Jodo Shinshu teaching, coming from the west.

I'll be honest, I grew up with simultaneously a very secular upbringing, while also having my own interests in mysticism and western esotericism that, admittedly, gave me a very inaccurate image of religious experience because while I read all of this stuff, I never really practiced any of it. I knew a lot of book knowledge, but I was all armchair, no meditation cushion.

When I finally decided to get serious about religion (I.E., when I started taking Buddhism seriously), I was bad at it, naturally. Meditation was fun in bursts but anything more than 5-10 minutes made me dread it. I was too overactive. I still am to be fair. And then I found Pure Land Buddhism and I had two conflicting impulses, one of which won out in the end it seems. The first, was to scoff at it, as if it were not "real" Buddhism, whatever that means coming from an arrogant westerner. The second, was to feel as though this was a form of Buddhism that spoke to me as I am now. I'll address the first impulse, then the second.

The first impulse came from a number of things, such as how the after-death aspect of Pure Land reminded me of Christianity which I had long ago thrown into the wastebasket of my mind as a religious feel-good cop-out, mostly out of anger at some of its more "vocal" supporters. Or that the practice of chanting and relying on other-power felt lazy, as though I had any right to make such a claim, as some armchair esotericist, who had never engaged in any kind of truly intensive Nembutsu practice. And to be clear, if these were my feelings for Pure Land more broadly, you can imagine my utter disdain for Jodo Shinshu, which does not even require any intensive practice at all! And to say that this is the sole intent of Shakyamuni Buddha? When Vajrayana exists and yields enlightenment in this lifetime? I did not buy it at all.

Looking back now, I cringe at my arrogance and prejudice, both towards Pure Land Buddhism, and towards Christianity. Because Pure Land Buddhism (very much including Jodo Shinshu) is a full and complete path to Buddhahood that is suitable for practicers of all capacities, and I should not have painted all of Christianity as a bad religion just because christian extremists exist and this ideology is a problem in my country. And if Christianity and Buddhism have overlap, then that isn't a measure of what Buddhism gets wrong, its a measure of what Christianity gets right. Because even though I'm not a Christian I know for a fact that a lot of people, from laypeople to clergy, old and young, get a lot of peace and fulfillment from their lives as Christians, and that deserves respect.

Fortunately, the second impulse won in this internal battle. I decided to follow my intuition, rather than my preconceived ideas. I was lead by this to Amitabha. And though I scoffed, I could not help but to just try reciting his name. Just a little bit. I attended a few chanting services online. I did chanting in my practices at home, when I did them, and more and more I wanted to understand Pure Land Buddhism. The more I practiced, the more I felt as though I was at home in my religion. Saying Amitabha's name became a positive experience for me. And when I tried to leave it behind, I felt lost. Eventually, I gave up on seated silent meditation altogether. I wasn't doing it anyway, and thinking about Amitabha can be done anytime anywhere, so I just let my OCD brain run with it. It was as though I didn't have to practice anything, it was like walking or breathing. And this continued despite my lack of keeping of the Precepts, despite my lack of regular ritual practices, despite my own internal inconsistencies and prejudices. Amida was and is, someone who can be relied upon. Nowadays, Amida and I communicate regularly.

And that's the crux of the matter, isn't it? It's about the efficacy of it. You read these Sutras, and if you have my attention span, not the entire thing, but everywhere you go the Buddha is talking about Great Compassion, the Bodhisattva Vows to save all sentient beings, and all the ways that can happen. And in every verse, it is all about enlightenment as the dynamic activity of the intent to save all beings. And when you look at it like that, and you read just the beginning fasicle of the Larger Sutra, you realize it makes sense:

"The sole intent of Shakyamuni Buddha to appear in this world was to spread the teaching of the Larger Sutra of Immeasurable Life."

Were it not for the Jodo Shinshu teaching, as well as Pure Land Buddhism more broadly, I might not even be a Buddhist today.

#jodo shinshu #amitabha #namu amida butsu #mahayana #pure land #buddhism

[deathlygristly]

I keep running up against that marriage thing online so I keep thinking about it.

I do think part of it is that certain groups who tend to be more prevalent online get an extended childhood that others don't get. I think another part that's invisible for me is religion. I didn't grow up around religion and it's never affected my life or any of my decisions, so I tend to not think about it without it being pointed out by others.

Probably another part is current economic factors - the house we could afford in 2008 when we bought it would be way out of our reach if we were 27 year olds looking to buy a house now. It's currently valued at more than three times what we paid for it, with gentrification coming for our side of town.

Anyway, I like my life and I don't know if I'd like it as much if it'd gone any other way.

I'm an introvert who's probably on the autism spectrum and also the kids would probably say I'm demisexual. The spousal person is also an introvert who's probably a bit further along the autism spectrum than I am, and…not sure if the kids would call him demisexual, but after 24 years of monogamy he seems to be happy and okay with it.

My brother dragged me to a club when I was old enough. A creepy guy kept following me around so I went out to my brother's car and I read the book I'd brought until my brother was ready to leave. Never went back to a club. It's just not something I enjoy.

I don't think we'd be in a better place now if we'd waited for some arbitrary higher age that strangers would have approved of. I don't know that a better place is even possible, really. What could be better than being able to emotionally handle your job, pay your bills, and cuddle up with your most favorite best human and your most favorite best cats every day?

I don't know. It just weirds me out when people have strong emotions about how people who are not them should live. Other people have different situations, neural makeups, histories, cultures, personalities, opportunities, limitations, etc. than you do. They're going to make different decisions and live different lives, and that's okay.

It's just...isn't it hard to exist if you're constantly experiencing strong emotions about others being different from you? Because in a species of over 8 billion individuals, there's going to be a lot of differences. I think it'd be a really hard life to be concerned and upset that billions of humans are making different choices than you would. My condolences to the people who stress about the choices of strangers.

#yes I have been concerned about the choices of strangers #about their choices that will have harmful effects on others #not their own personal choices that only affect them #and even then I had to give up my concern about the choices that harm others #for my mental health

[decepti-thots]

Hey you said that some of the transformers comics were jumping in price bc of paper shortages and limited prints due to poor sales. Is that true basically across the board, and they might go down if IDW prints more of them? I'm trying to collect the phase two hardcover collections and for some reason I can find all of them at retail price or lower, but there's like 3 copies of volume 5 online at any given time and they're 3-4x the retail price, and it's driving me crazy. (and the fact that it looks like phase 3 doesn't include the last 2-3 volumes-worth or so, and I can't tell if they just haven't published it yet, or it's going from limbo straight to never-published hell thanks to the reboot and IP sale...)

Ohhh this is about my SotW TPB post I take it?

So all the below is 100% conjecture for the record, and it is perfectly likely that I am wrong in every regard, but this is just what I've seen discussed these past few years in both fandom and publishing generally. Grain of salt, etc. Sorry to go into wayyy more detail than you asked for anon, but I figure while we're here and since I've seen people ask similar questions, may as well give all the advice I have to offer!

So yes, the reason they have jumped in price is they're out of print, period, and it is indeed more or less across the board bar brand new releases (which are likely getting 1-2 printings tops) as far as anyone can tell. We think this has been the case for a while, actually. A lot of stuff just didn't fully sell out everywhere so the last few copies in stock made it seem "in print" for a lot of titles, but then when IDW lost the license and people ran to buy up copies, well. Turns out those were just leftovers, mostly? So the prices started going way up.

The hypothesis in fandom is that IDW has almost certainly been running on a 'reprint only if needed' policy for at least some of their books for quite some time now, putting off doing new print runs for trades to avoid slapping a lot of cash down for a run that might take years to sell out and fully make a profit. Because again, publishing right now is expensive and risky for various reasons, so the threshold gets higher and higher before you want to go for it, especially for something as high-cost as full colour comics, especially for smaller print runs period.

So the stuff that the original print runs of haven't sold out yet are going for RRP, and that includes a lot of the more recent books, plus just some random older ones. Once they sell out, the price skyrockets. This leads to weird, random stuff being way more expensive, like volume 5 of the IDW phase 2 collection as you said, or volume 8 of MTMTE (saw one of those go for £110 not long ago).

(Also, stuff that came out before this was likely to be quite so big an issue isn't as badly hit even once out of print. LSotW is much cheaper than SotW despite both being out of print and both being in high demand. Why? LSotW probably got more and/or larger print runs. Not just because it's been out longer, but because when it was out, IDW may not have been as shy about when they reprinted stuff. See also: AHM is cheap as hell still, it's not as in demand and they probably just... printed way more copies total before the problem struck.)

For most of the TF stuff that's just sort of. It, really. They're not re-printing when the license is going next year, why would you. Buy whatever you can now tbh, if it's worth it to you; there's already MTMTE volumes on UK ebay not only being offered for £100+ but bought for £100, which means it's not people trying their luck and failing.

For the hardback collection volumes, though, there is the caveat people have speculated whether it's remotely possible IDW have retained the rights to finish publishing the rest of those comics in that specific collection past 2022. That is PURE speculation to be clear and not backed up by anything solid. The sole reason a few people think this is that they are, as you say, going ahead with the next phase three omnibus release as late as September 2022, which neither brings them remotely close to finishing the series nor makes a lot of sense if they are hoping to get them all out before losing the license January 2023. So we're wondering if they're not scrapping it because the transfer of rights allowed them to keep those in print, in which case maaaaybe reprints of earlier volumes will happen... but on the other hand maybe they're just. Gonna release a random last volume and let it end uncompleted. WHO KNOWS.

All of this may be eased somewhat if the new rights holder chooses to re-print IDW1 comics to make some cash off them, of course! The caveat being, there's a lot of IDW1 comics that just aren't... well remembered or beloved the way stuff like e.g. Wreckers is, so unless they specifically pick up the hardback omnibus series that covers the entire run, it's unlikely we'll see every comic physically reprinted even then. Some of this stuff is probably never going to see a physical re-release. Alas. They're a lot more likely to do a fancy MTMTE/LL omnibus release than like. Any of the random IDW1 crossover comics. (Which, sure, they're not worth it or anything half the time, but on principle it makes me sad, haha.)

tl;dr: it's not likely to get better for these versions, and we won't know til it's too late if the new comic publisher will make new versions. sorry. :(

[thescrapbookingscientist]

Bimonthly Media Roundup

-Hatoful Boyfriend (Video Game) - Hatoful finale and wow what an ending it was. I really have to applaud this game on turning a silly bonkers premise into a genuinely unnerving psychological horror while actually having interesting characters and emotional moments. I wouldn't say I connected enough with any of them to buy merch or anything but they had more depth than I was expecting from dating sim characters (and birds at that) with exiting little twists. The true ending was the culmination of all the routes and somehow delivered the most impactful story line of all, with a sort of fucked up but true case of "yeah minus the birds thing this is kinda how humans react to sudden and unexpected political shifts huh?". I'd definitely recommend giving it a playthrough/watch, it may seem a little slow at first but boy is it an experience.

-Face Off (TV) - Seasons 4 and 5 are on Netflix so I've been putting this on as background noise while I work. Really fun to see the neat challenges and designs, especially as I like to think how I would approach them myself (though more from a drawing/writing standpoint than crafting obviously). Too bad the whole show isn't available, I haven't found an archived set of all the designs and challenges online so I feel like I'm missing out on some fun ones.

-Suzume (Movie) - Okay so I had typed a whole big review on this out that glitched and did not save. I don't want to type it again so short version is that I respect the animation and themes or equating grief over the loss of a person with the loss of a location and community, but didn't really vibe with the lack of character or tension in the story. Also I feel bad for the little gremlin cat and think he deserved way better, justice for that cat that twink guy should've stayed a chair.

- Campfire Cooking (Manga) - A quick reread of the whole manga when I just wanted a self-indulgent relaxing cooking series. It's still very wholesome, though I will say that I think this is one of the rare ones where the anime is better than the manga due to the visuals really enhancing the appetizing meals and cute mannerisms of the familiars. Season 2 will be coming out soon which I am now fully prepared for, bring me the tiny dragon and loser elf.

- Six of Crows (Books) - Left without internet I was forced to listen to the pre-downloaded audio books I had bought months ago. It's actually pretty interesting so far, I do love heist stories, but I don't feel like talking about it until I'm farther in.

- The Apothecary Diaries (Anime) - I'm too tired to talk about how incredible this was right now but believe me it's really really good. I love MaoMao, this setting is amazing, the characterization of everyone is grounded enough to feel like unique people while leaving room for silly comedy, and the mysteries and twists are so compelling that I could barely stop watching. Highly recommend, might even rewatch it again soon.

- Dungeon Meshi (Anime) - Y'all weren't kidding about those lesbians huh? Good for them, Good for them.

- One Piece (Anime) - Arrived in Wano, the new art style is charming and so are Otama and Okiku.

- Genshin Impact (Video Game) - Making my way through Sumeru.

Listening To: How Did You Love by Shinedown, Give Up Your Dreams from The School of Rock, Everything Goes On by Porter Robinson, All the Boys by Panic! At The Disco, Willow by Taylor Swift, Rose Colored Boy by Paramore, Her Diamonds by Rob Thomas, Stray Italian Greyhound by Vienna Teng, Hey I Don't Work Here by Tom Cardy, Pierrot by Kei, and Can't Catch Me Now cover by Annapantsu

#weekly roundup #my posts

[cafalla]

Dorothy, Volume 1 (2005) Background // Part 1 of 3

Today I wanted to talk about and show off Dorothy, Volume I (2005). 

This book is my biggest scanning project to date (148 pages). So it took quite a while to scan and edit this book. Same goes for writing this post. For tumblr's sake, I've broken it up into 3 parts.

This is Part 1 of 3. See the end of the post for links to the other 2 parts.

Part 1 will focus on my sorta deep dive into the wayback machine for information on this comic, and the cool stuff I found out about it!

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This book is a collection of the first four chapters of the Dorothy comic, which is based on the story The Wizard of Oz. The comics were originally published in a single magazine format starting around 2004.

These comics are super interesting to me, because they are green screened photographs of an actor/actors/props with a digitally edited environment. From the very short wiki entry for Dorothy, I learned that comics illustrated with photographs are called “fumetti” or “photo comics”. 

I can’t say I’ve ever seen a comic like this before, so it was a super interesting visual experience. I admittedly was very impressed when I found this book buried in the thrift store children’s story book bin.

Like, "What the heck did I just find? This is so cool!"

I was even more surprised to find out that this was a signed copy from one of the creators and writer, Mark Masterson, that was signed at Emerald City Comic Con back in 2007. I think that's a different signature on top, but I can't make out who it belongs to.

Like what!!! What a weird find.

I felt compelled to buy and keep it, even if it’s not something I personally would pick up at the store. 

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So, a bit of a detour before I go into the book and share some scans.

I tried searching the internet for more info on this comic, as it just felt like a cult classic type of thing that other people would've been talking about…right?

Nothing came up besides a short bare-bones wiki and some links to purchase the comics from various online comic stores.

Really? Nothing?!

But then I had an idea to search the wayback machine, and I was able to get access to the old main site! 

Here is a screenshot of how the site looked from 2004 to 2005.

Unfortunately, a lot of the images are broken and do not load. I'm not bothering to include other screenshots of the different tabs because of this. There isn't much to see.

However, I did get lucky with the downloads tab! 

There were some wallpaper images still available to look at, so I went ahead and downloaded them.

I’ll probably throw those up full size on my Internet Archive account too, why not.

Here's how the site looked from 2006 to 2007.

The site remained mostly unchanged during these two years, other than updated news info.

Here's screenshots of how the links appeared.

The Twister Times aka the news and updates tab:

The Great Store of Oz aka the store and merch tab:

You know I'm going to be on the hunt for Dorothy merch now. The designs are pretty lackluster but I feel I'm in too deep in the Dorothy sauce to care. All I feel is the desire to obtain one of these T-shirts someday.

The Balloon Rides aka the self promotion and other related links tab:

And lastly, the Behind the Curtain aka the cast, crew, and behind the scenes tab (my personal favorite):

Even though these pages used to be public, and I doubt any of their contact information is correct in 2023, I am not going to post any screenshots of their bios.

Well, I'll post a bit of just one. I felt it was pertinent to point out that Mark Masterson's photo was…this…

Which uh….was certainly was a choice…

But also, this was the mid 2000s. Most people would've seen this as edgy, quirky, and funny, as opposed to cringe and off-putting.

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Before I talk about the actual comic and such, I did want to share screenshots from the behind the scenes tab. THIS was the kind of stuff I was interested to see after reading this comic.

I have a feeling these may have been the same photos under the BTS tab on the 2005 version of the site.

Very cool stuff! Cool to me, anyways.

I'm glad I got to see a glimpse into what the site looked like at the peak of this comic being published. It looked like they were doing rather well and having a good time.

Unfortunately, the site all but dies after 2007. This was also the year the last comic, Issue #7, was published. According to the very short wiki, Issue #7 also ended on a cliffhanger! How sad.

At least we can still experience and appreciate the art and comics that were released.

Before I dive into the content of the book, if you'd like to experience it without spoilers, you can read it on my Internet Archive account.

If not, then come along! Let's get to the (abridged) story of this now defunct comic!

Part 1 -> You're Here! Part 2 -> Chapters 1 & 2 Part 3 -> Chapters 3 & 4

#txt #dorothy #dorothy comic #dorothy volume 1 #dorothy gale #comic #comics #comic book #2004 #wizard of oz #scans #nostalgia #part 1 #long post #books #catie fisher #greg mannino #mark masterson

[greatghuleh]

Which is sadly why I think I failed to have a great time. The only Sam Raimi movie I know to my knowledge were his Spider Man movies. Like...I knew of the Evil Dead Series, and though I enjoy the paranormal, horror isn't exactly my fave genre. Because of this, to me the final end credit didn't have the same effect as Deadpool's fourth wall breaking 'go home already' thing, and felt like they were calling me a loser nerd with strong 90's/early 00 when it was a more serious insult for waiting for the second credit seen that has now been established as a Marvel thing. Like yeah, they really did make me feel like I wasted my time there and got shamed for it rather than it being a treat. Maybe Sam Ax fans liked it, I didn't. Add that the retcon/ignoring of WV.... This movie was just a lesson to me to temper back my expectations of MCU movies by a LOT going forward.

Do you buy your comics physically or do you read them online? I've been trying to get more into comics but with there being a lot of them, I never know where or how to start.

Yeah. Honestly, I'm seeing this fairly often when it comes to this movie actually. I've seen exactly what you're saying from quite a few people. I think the age/genre gaps of what Raimi does missed the mark with a fair amount of people. Sam Raimi has a style and a "brand" at this point. and if you aren't old enough to know it i guess or don't follow him outside of things like his Spider-Man movies then you kind of "miss" some of what makes a Raimi movie a Raimi movie.

I will say.... While Evil Dead movies are "horror" genre.... they are very COMEDY too. and Campy. So, you might enjoy them more than you think??? as I am NOT a horror genre fan either and I like them a lot. (tho i also grew up on them a bit and love Bruce Campbell) Campbell's cameo was FUN for me.

but I've also admitted I left the theater before the second credits scene, where you said you felt basically insulted, because I was so excited about Clea's introduction I like... just couldn't comprehend anything else after and took off. I did not give ONE shit about what came after that and LEFT. I didn't get the "are you dumb? the movie's over" experience from Campbell's character. I'm sure with the director and actor it was meant as a fun little moment...... but you are NOT alone in feeling a bit let down by it... even insulted. And that is definitely not what you want to feel as an audience member. I'm sorry it left that mark on you. I wish a Doctor Strange movie had given something more fulfilling.

Yeah, and on top of it not really being a true Doctor Strange movie. it still kind of just skimmed past or seemed to kind of ignore some WandaVision stuff, so I get you there. If we were gonna focus on Wanda like..... then.... let's go all in then!! let's GO! but they still just... skimmed it a bit. and then we ended up with this movie that was this kind of limbo between Wanda and Strange and left me, personally, feeling a bit wanting for more from either or both of the characters. We didn't even get a true parallel story for them, given how they skimmed Supreme!Strange's story and over the "hypocrisy" of Stephen using the Darkhold (which could be and might be revisited in future movies) but. it just didn't feel... like... a complete... or whole story. because it just danced around between Wanda and Strange and didn't complete any of their interconnecting threads, imo.

I would definitely temper legit expectations of MCU movies. Like, just try to understand... these are not actually long long term thought out arcs, they're actually very much like comic book story arcs/events.... ignore how much interviews with Feige will try to sell you that they've thought all this through years and years in advance. They're also here to put butts in seats, so even if planned out they WILL adjust just to get more butts in seats.

On the Comics themselves. Let me make a separate post for that right after this that I hope you see because this post is already long, as I get longwinded about Doctor Strange

#anonymous