#it's about the work

[swan2swan]

"Okay, but in the Avatar comics--"

In the Avatar comics, Mai's father is plotting against Zuko to bring Ozai back to the throne while his daughter is first in line to produce the next heir to the throne. The man is a proposal away from having his name on the Royal Family Tree, and you want me to believe that he's going to be trying to restore the guy who probably wanted him executed for failing to keep King Bumi imprisoned, let alone keeping the city of New Ozai, the one with his name on it, under control?

Where's the political savvy? Where's the logic?

"Oh, but Mai broke up with--"

Then have him trying to push her back. Make THAT the story. "Daughter, are you OUT OF YOUR MIND?!?!? Your whole family is counting on this!!! Don't you love us? Didn't we raise you for this? You can sit on the throne! You'll never have to work a day in your life! You'll be the most important name in the family legacy! Why would you leave him?"

So, yeah, I just...don't have a lot of respect for them.

[mythserene]

I deleted that. It was stupid and I don't mean it that way and I have never wished anything bad for him. I think he's a decent guy who has mentored a lot of people and is a good friend to many more.

On the other hand my intellect abhors the academic part. It really offends me on a deep level. But the personal part, the human part, thinks about him a lot. I wrote him an email, not yet sent, but in it suddenly I was just talking to him like I'd known him all my life. But I do feel like I know him from studying him so closely. After one podcast where he talked about his son I couldn't write for like a week. It weighed on both of us. I didn't hate him. Neither of us ever did.

I didn't mean him, personally, but I do mean we kicked out the whole foundation of Beatles' historiography and we've got serious cleanup to do. We can't leave everything just lying there in ruins. Do you know how many books cite Lewisohn as a source? Like, ALL OF THEM. (That's only slight hyperbole.)

And that's what has brought me back to deal with this. That was always the draw for me. Taking that seriously.

My dream is every Beatles Con with a booth or two uploading Beatles' treasures to the web. My dream is books and magazines and ticket stubs popping up online and Beatles scholarship changing and growing in ways we can't even imagine, all accomplished while the conference goes on. And as far as where it will be uploaded to, my dream—(since we're on the subject)—is a Beatles' archive accessible to anyone with an internet connection—and I'm sure Paul McCartney would fund the hell out of it. But until then archive.org exists, is awesome, and made our work possible. (And makes all my work possible.)

This has been a hit to the whole community and a serious hit to Beatles' historiography, but it can be an opportunity as well. Peter Jackson got a lot of Beatles' scholars and fans licking their chops about what could be, created a lot of new fans and showed how much life there still was left. Showed us, really, that we were just getting started. It built new connections, got people talking and thinking and exchanging records. It also made me a fan of Robert Rodriguez (SATB) who cannot stop talking about Beatles' scholarship either. He is intensely focused on it.

I wrote “History cannot be hoarded,” but I want to be clear, I don't think that's what's happening. Not in the Beatles community as a whole. But it is siloed, and that's an obvious problem. Thankfully it's one with the easiest solution on earth. It's one we know how to solve with scanners.

It has been my experience that Beatles' fans will share anything you ask for, no questions asked. Early on listening to the Nagras I suddenly needed to know—just absolutely had to know—what Doug Sulpy had written about this particular day and I put out an SOS tweet saying

I desperately need to see what Sulpy wrote about January 14th 🙏🙏

but unfortunately like only two of my followers happened to be Beatles' fans back then. Within an hour and a half Joe Wisely of Beatles Books had DM'd me the pages.

*I would have screenshotted the tweet but unfortunately Musk has destroyed one of the best things about Twitter: the accessible record it provided.

Anyway, from now on I will always separate the man from the work. I stand humbled on that front and don't know what in the hell I was thinking.

[miggylol]

First off, spin this wheel.

You just landed on one of 200 fandoms that have been very popular somewhere on Tumblr over the years. Topics were chosen either from appearing on a @fandom end-of-year recap or from my own long (long, long) site memories before that.

also all of these fandoms are definitely things that really exist in the real world and none of them are Tumblr creations

[curiosity-killed]

There are truly very few forces in the world as strong as the inertia of staying up way too late doing fuckall

[scribefindegil]

being a writer leads to a genuinely helpful but also very stupid kind of mindfulness where you'll be having a sobbing breakdown or the worst anxiety attack of your life and think "okay, I really need to pay attention to how this feels. so I can incorporate it into my fanfiction."

[eruditetyro]

good morning let’s hear it for Mildly Cool Outside a round of applause for Mildly Cool Outside

[regina-cordium]

Guy just walked in with a shirt that said “I don’t question my wife’s choices because I’m one of them” and frankly I’m obsessed

[inkskinned]

please i love you i'm begging you bring back suspension of disbelief bring back trusting the audience like. i cannot handle any more dialogue that sounds like a legal document. "hello, i am here to talk to you about the incident from a few minutes ago, because i feel you might be unwell, and i am invested in your personal wellbeing." "thank you, i am unwell because the incident was hurtful to me due to my childhood, which was bad." I CANT!!!!

do you know how many people are mad that authors use "growled" as a word for "said"? it's just poetics! they do not literally mean "growled," it's just a common replacement for "said with force but in a low tone." it's normal! do you hear me!! help me i love you please let me out of here!!!

[hansoeii]

only you.

[demaparbat-hp]

That infamous prison escape.

[bamsara]

I love blocking people I've never interacted with based off their replies on some random popular post. Wow random user on a post with 50k notes with the worst take ever, I hope I never meet you and will make sure we never do

[12neonlit-stage]

you're allowed to discuss and work together, reblog for a higher sample size or something

You have 1 week, good luck!

[nighthawkes]

I must sleep. Sleep is the mind-healer. Sleep is the big-life that brings total ability to fucking do anything. I will face my bed. I will permit the blankie to pass over me and snores to pass through me. And when sleep has gone past I will turn the outer eye to greet the new morning. When the sleep has gone there will be everything. Energy and will to live will remain.

[ered]

Here’s my take on the whole audio books vs. reading:

Oral tradition of storytelling predates written ones by millennias, and honestly, which one you like is just a personal preference.

The actual difference is

when listening, you have no idea how to write characters’ names

when reading, you have no idea how to pronounce characters’ names

hope this helps!

[mermaidpiratevampire]