Do you have that one series that carved out a permanent niche in your mind? The one that slumbers in the back corners of your brain until something nudges it awake, for it to then completely possess your thoughts, even years later? What are the footprints that mid-late 00's webcomics left on the surface of the internet, and what were the legacies of the anime we grew up around?

I've been batting the idea of writing/speaking about things like this for years, and the time continues to pass anyway, so I might as well start now. There are a number of pieces of media that have felt...if not foundational, then at least influential to some part of my life. I wanted to create a space for myself to sort through my thoughts on those pieces of media in a (hopefully) more organized manner than threads of string-of-consciousness tweets every now and then when the spirit (ghoul, poltergeist, demon, etc.,) moves me.

My goal is to focus on series that have been with me for at least 5 years, hence the "forever" in the title. If they can be a severe subversion of this, they might also be worth discussing (anything that blew up and faded away in the span of a single season, perhaps). I have a lot of thoughts on the current climate of fandom as a whole, and the unsustainable nature of "content creation" that seems to plague all creative spaces nowadays.

The idea for this came from the many hours-long conversations held with my friends (usually about Naruto) about what it was like online back in our days, how different being a fan of things has become, and how social media algorithms are ruining society. Some very "Old man yells at cloud" type stuff. I don't plan to neg anything unless it comes from a place of love or admiration, but I consider grief and betrayal to count as love in this case.

And despite how that last paragraph may sound, I do have a lot of love and admiration towards the things I want to talk about. If I didn't, I simply wouldn't go through the effort of making a whole little blog about it. The online world is full of negativity already, and I hope to inject some amount of positivity into each post that I make.

I would say the blog title is to be decided, but I can't think of a better one. I'm "here" forever (online, in fandom spaces), but engaging with things that bring me joy can make my stay a little more pleasant.

Screenshots from 'The Simpsons', one of Mr Burns with a sign stating 'DON'T FORGET, YOU'RE HERE FOREVER', and another below it where the sign is covered in photos of Maggie Simpson to change the words to 'DO IT FOR HER'.

I'll do my best to actually post, too.