You Can Write About Anything
I was thinking about how recently (other than the weeknotes), my blog posts have been mostly reviews of stuff I've been watching/playing/reading/etc and I haven't made any posts about blogging or tech stuff or that sort of thing that I used to write about a decent amount. I was wondering if this was a problem, but then realized this was silly. It's my site and my blog and I can publish any kind of content that I want!
A common question when you suggest someone start blogging is "What would I even write about?" and the answer is simply "You can write anything you want!"
Some people starting out blogging may read some advice about writing about a specific topic or niche and focusing on that. I guess that is fine advice if your main focus is something silly like making money from blogging or "content marketing" or "building a personal brand" or somesuch. But you should always consider writing as a form of personal expression, and as a form of personal expression, it doesn't make sense to limit yourself or to hold back any of your interests.
I have tried limiting my writing to specific topics before. Early in my blogging years, I wrote a list of dev stuff I thought I could post about, with the goal of being a "tech blogger". Later I also tried writing blogs dedicated to Magic the Gathering or comic books. In all of these cases, I found it difficult to keep up writing about the same topic day in and day out. This is probably partly because I am easily distracted, but I also really think life is more interesting when we aren't focused on the same thing all the time.
I follow some economists on social media; I find their posts about economics, academic studies, trends in geopolitics, etc interesting enough, but the ones that I consider more interesting follows are those that also post about other, more personal interests like their pet rabbits or movies or anime or other things like that.
Recently a friend who is a very serious figure in certain business circles started tweeting about one of her fandom "ships". Later on she mentioned that some people had suggested she set up an "alt" account for her fandom stuff because it "detracts from her image". Her response: "Thanks but I don't think any of my fandoms detract anything from my accomplishments. Normalize being true to your geeky fanfic reading die hard shipper self AND kicking ass."
I find that my preference for variety extends to the people I read and feeds I follow. Most of the my regular follows on social media or blogs on my blogroll are generally people who post about a variety of topics and interests. I do sometimes visit sites that are very narrow, like say Python/JavaScript/CSS focused sites or Magic the Gathering sites, but usually only when I am in certain moods or mindsets or I am seeking out specific information.
There is of course the concern of signal to noise ratio. If you write about a wide band of stuff, you risk putting off people who are only interested in a small subset of your content. And I think that's fine actually? People should be free to choose the mix of content they want to follow. Alternatively, people could provide feeds that filter to specific topics for people to follow. On this blog, tags like software-development or tech-life or blogging serve that purpose.
You are (I hope) a person, not a company or a "brand". People are a varied lot and each individual has their own peculiar set of interests. What you write about and who you read on the internet should reflect that. I think that the world and the internet are big enough that there will be people who will be interested in your writing anyway. And I believe the internet will be all the richer for it.
(I originally wanted to title this post "What should you write about?" but then I realized I'm not a clickbait-y ad-hungry website, I can just put the answer in the title)
2023 Week 21
These weeknotes are coming in very late, because I was quite busy Saturday through Monday. June is coming up this year, and June coming around always makes me feel like the year is passing by so quickly since that's almost the halfway point. All the years pass by so quickly these days.
A supertyphoon was supposed to hit the country over the weekend, but the weather so far over the past few days has been quite pleasant (aside from some habagat rainshowers here and there). I think it's more of the northern side of the country being affected, but I read somewhere that NCR might start to feel the typhoon in the middle of the week maybe?
A Quote
“It is no bad thing to celebrate a simple life.”
― J.R.R Tolkien
My Week
- The week kind of went by in a blur, I suspect because of Zelda. Not much in terms of errands. A bit of productive side project work here and there.
- Spent the weekend out of town for a family gathering. It was fun, but exhausting. We were a bit worried about the prophesied supertyphoon screwing things up but waves around at all the pleasant weather.
- Trivia team didn't attend any quiz nights this week, but someone's been uploading some of our nonsense Discord sessions to the Youtube channel, you can check them out if you like people being stupid while trying to solve puzzles.
- The Twitter API keys I use for this site's interop have stopped working over the past week, so I've disabled all Twitter integrations already. Might be worth a blog post later? IDK.
Media Diet
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Gaming:
- Single player: Still playing so much Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. The Switch says I have played it for "70 hours or more", which I just assume means 80 hours. I am a fair bit away from actually finishing the game (there is so much to do!), but I am assuming that when June hits I am going to start tempering my daily play time so I can get back some free time and do some of the other things I want to be doing.
- Online: Magic Arena and Marvel Snap daily grinding continue as usual. Eternal is a bit neglected, but I try to sneak it in every so often.
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Reading: I still have not yet selected a new book to read next. Reading a lot of comics still; I wrote a blog post about Jason Aaron's Thor/Avengers runs. Feed reader backlog: 199 items.
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Watching: Managed to watch a couple of movies this week: The Raid (2011) and Mystic River (2003). Still trying to power through the final season of The Flash
Walking
This past week (Sunday thru Saturday), Fitbit says I walked a total of 72,490 steps and burned 24,889 calories. I purposely tried to get a bit more steps in at the end of the week because I knew I'd be busy on the weekend and was worried that I would not meet the targets next week!
Some Links of Interest
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Linear feeds are a dark pattern: "Dark pattern" might be a bit too strong here. I think sometimes you do want a linear feed, but sometimes you might want something like what the OP describes. I think one issue is that anything more complicated than a linear feed might turn off most people who aren't terminally online, which is why most socmed platforms just default to a linear feed. The grouping OP describes is a common feature of RSS feed readers! Though they typically don't have the "per day" grouping thing, that sounds like an option feed readers could implement.
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See your identity pieced together from stolen data - ABC News: Nice visualization of the breaches you were involved in. I was in 18 breaches!
Check out the linkblog for past links!
This coming week
Spider-Verse sequel comes out this week!
MTG: Lord of the Rings previews start!
Street Fighter 6 comes out this week!
Complete Marvel Run: Jason Aaron's Thor, Avengers, and War of the Realms
Show Table of Contents
Previously
This is part 4.1 [1] in my continuing insane effort to try to read EVERY MARVEL COMIC EVER PUBLISHED and catalog the effort in blog posts. You can see previous posts using the tag "complete-marvel-run". I am tackling the older/longer series first, and going in "MCU Order", but now I'm also doing these "side mission" posts [2] to cover series/runs that I have mostly already read prior to starting this effort. The previous main entry was about Thor v1.
Actually, most of this entry was originally planned to be included in the Thor v1 post, but it was already far too long, so it gets to be the first "side mission" content instead.
(Note: All volume nos. are based on the Wikipedia listings)
Jason Aaron's Thor run
From around 2013 to 2019, Jason Aaron was the Thor guy at Marvel, a long run that introduced many exciting new elements to the God of Thunder's mythos (some of which would be adapted for the MCU in Love and Thunder), quite possibly the best modern Thor run so far. The only annoying thing is how many volumes it was split into.
Thor: God of Thunder (2013)
Volume length: 25 issues. Part of the 2012 Marvel Now! relaunch, this volume introduced several new concepts and characters that would be recurrent during Aaron's run, such as Gorr the God Butcher (horribly underused in Love and Thunder), a young viking era pre-Mjolnir Thor, and a far future King Thor, All-Father of Asgard. This volume features fantastic interior art by one of my favorite artists at the time, Esad Ribic.
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The same scene as seen in Love and Thunder
Thor v4 (2014)
Volume length: 8 issues
This short volume takes place in the wake of the Original Sin crossover when Thor became unworthy and thus lost access to Mjolnir. It covers the mysterious appearance of a new female wielder of Mjolnir calling herself Thor; at the end of the volume her identity is finally revealed as Thor's former lover Jane Foster, now affected by cancer. I was a big fan of the new Thor's design and used it for a sketchdaily back in the day:
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Mighty Thor v2 (2016) and v3 (2017-2018)
Volume length: 23 issues + 7 issues
This volume covers Jane's time as Thor, while the original Odinson is off doing... other things. For me, this volume is characterized by the gorgeous art of Russell Dauterman and colors by Matthew Wilson. The spreads are always so good!
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The primary threat in this volume is Malekith the Accursed, as he prepares for his War of the Realms. Thor assembles the League of Realms to hunt Malekith down. Towards the end of the volume, Malekith unleashes the Mangog and Jane is forced to sacrifice Mjolnir by hurling it and Mangog into the sun, giving up her identity as Thor in the process. Jane's cancer claims her, but she hesitates at the gates of Valhalla, refusing to die; Odin and Thor Odinson combine their powers to bring her back to life.
This is two volumes because they decided to renumber when legacy #700 rolled around, but that didn't last long.5
Unworthy Thor (2016)
Volume length: 5 issues4
This one was new to me (only read it for this post). A side story about what Odinson was up to while Jane was off being Thor. A limited series with fantastic art by one of my favorite artists, Oliver Coipel.
A Mjolnir from a dead universe (the former Ultimate Universe!) has survived the Secret Wars and landed on Asgard. With the help of Beta Ray Bill, Odinson faces off against the Collector and Thanos who both want the hammer for themselves. In the end, Thor refuses to pick up the hammer, saying it belongs to another Thor. Also, this is where Thor and Thori first meet!
Thor v5 (2018)
Volume length: 16 issues + 1 annual
A short volume by Jason Aaron and Mike del Mundo covers Thor (Odinson this time) and his attempts to prepare for Malekith's War of the Realms and compensate for the loss of Mjolnir. Mainly with new hammers. Lots of hammers.
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King Thor (2019)
Volume length: 4 issues
A sort of epilogue to Aaron's Thor run, it reunites Aaron and Esad Ribic in a story about the far future King Thor and his efforts to stand defiant against the inevitable death of the universe.
The War of the Realms (2019)
This crossover event served as the culmination of Aaron's Thor run, having been foreshadowed as far back as Jane's first reveal as Thor. Malekith's War of the Realms has been brewing in the background for a while, but in this crossover it finally comes to Midgard, the last realm to fall!
I read the main event book for this back in the day, but skipped all the side books, as is typical. So I read them all over the past month and a half! There's quite a lot. As usual for events, I cover only the titles specific to the event; tie-in issues from other ongoings will count when I review those ongoings.
All event-specific titles:
- War of the Realms #1-#6
- War of the Realms Omega #1
- Giant-Man #1-3
- War of the Realms: Journey into Mystery #1–5
- War of the Realms: New Agents of Atlas #1–4
- War of the Realms: Punisher #1–3
- War of the Realms: Spider-Man & the League of Realms #1–3
- War of the Realms Strikeforce: The Dark Elf Realm #1
- War of the Realms Strikeforce: The Land of Giants #1
- War of the Realms Strikeforce: The War Avengers #1
- War of the Realms: Uncanny X-Men #1–3
- War of the Realms: War Scrolls #1–3
Total: 34 issues
The main event book has fantastic art by Dauterman and Wilson, and features the invasion of Midgard, drawing in all of Earth's heroes in its defense. Thor has been shanghai'ed off to one of the other realms, so Lady Freya takes command of the resistance and divides Earth's heroes into 3 strike forces: one to venture into the Dark Elf realm to take control of Malekith's Black Bifrost which facilitates his invasion, one to venture into Jotunheim to bring back Thor Odinson whose might is needed to defeat Malekith, and one to defend Midgard itself agains the invaders. Things take a turn for the worse when Malekith takes Venom's symbiote and uses it to manifest All-Black the Necrosword. In the end, Malekith sets up a trap that only Thor can penetrate. To overcome Malekith, Thor needs the help of three other Thors prominent during Aaron's run - young Thor, King Thor and even Jane Foster temporarily takes up a hammer again. In the final battle, Thor Odinson manages to reforge Mjolnir to defeat Malekith once and for all.
I won't discuss all the side story issues, but some highlights for me:
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New Agents of Atlas
Okay, I will admit I mostly enjoyed this one because it introduced Wave, who hails from Cebu here in the PH. It brings together Asian superheroes (many of them also introduced in this series) to defend Asia against Surtur's daughter Sindr.
War of the Realms New Agents of Atlas #3
I wonder if Hornel/Spam paid for this promotion
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Giant-Man
IDK, the premise of this was just hilarious for me. Under orders from Freya, Scott Lang gets together with a team of superheroes who can go giant-size to go undercover and infiltrate territory held by Frost Giants, in an attempt to locate and assassinate the OG Frost Giant Ymir. Oh, and Scott is looking for Cassie. It's just great that they have to change their skin color (to look like Frost Giants) and generally try to blend in, at which they fail spectacularly a few times.
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Spider-Man
Okay, I just really enjoyed having Spider-Man interact with all the Asgard stuff. His antics are covered in the main book, Strikeforce: The Land of Giants and Spider-Man and the League of Realms
Spider-Man and Wolverine together again
Spider-Man discovers his magic helmet lets him talk to the horses
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Daredevil as guardian of the Bifrost
For some reason, Heimdal got blinded and could no longer do his duties as guardian of the Bifrost, so Daredevil takes over and gains godlike senses, becoming a crucial part of logistics and coordination for the resistance effort. His adventures are mostly covered in the main book and in War Scrolls
Overall the event feels super epic in scale and I re-read and enjoyed the main book much more this time since I followed the recommended reading order and read through all of the side stories first. It's usually difficult to do this while the event itself is running because it can get confusing! A worthy finish to Aaron's epic Thor run.
Jason Aaron's Avengers run
Avengers v8 (2018) #1-#66, Avengers Forever #1-#15, Avengers 1,000,000 BC, Avengers Assemble Alpha, Avengers Assemble Omega
Total: 84 issues
While I was a big fan of his Thor run, Aaron's Avengers run was a bit meh for me. He tried to shoot for some epic stuff, but most of the crisis they faced were not really that interesting for me (especially the vampire stuff, the whole Avengers of the past thing, etc). Overall the run just wasn't exceptional for me, and I didn't like the art too much. (I will cover what I do think are some excellent Avengers runs in the future, hopefully!)
Things I did like: The Avengers being based in the corpse of a dead Celestial. The big important role for Ghost Rider (Robbie Reyes). The final culminating arc with the multiversal Avengers and the multiversal Masters of Evil and the army of Mephistos. Aaron also got to reuse some elements of his Thor run here, such as King Thor's grand-daughters (the Girls of Thunder!).
This run also had an annual, but it was not done by Jason Aaron and was part of a separate story arc, so I guess I will cover it elsewhere.
Progess Bar
Total issues covered in this post: 89 (Thor) + 34 (War of the Realms) + 84 (Avengers) = 292 issues.
Total issues covered so far: 1,882 + 292 = 2174
Current total (released) according to the reference reading order: 33,629
Progress: 6.4%
Well, we hardly made a dent in the progress bar (<1% added), but it's something, especially given how the target is always moving! This first "side mission" post still ended up quite long although covering less issues than the "main" posts. It will take some iteration for me to find a good cadence/rhythm to balance the amount of stuff I want to cover and the frequency of the posts and my desire to up the progress bar as quickly as possible. I don't want these comic book posts to dominate this blog after all!
What's Next
Ongoing: Avengers v1, currently up to around #90 I think, so a bit less than 25% done, and I am covering annuals this time as well.
For the next "side mission" posts, will most probably do either Amazing Spider-Man or some 90s X-Men stuff maybe?
Footnotes: