Hello all! This isn’t really a blog post. We had some really supportive comments before we launched and I wanted to honor them, and not lose them when the home page changed. So, this is a version my pre-launch post!

For years “digression girl strikes again” was a phrase I used a lot when posting answers and comments on Quora. Basically, it could have been a lifelong catch phrase had I thought of it earlier! If there is one thing I have always been known for it is wandering down side roads before getting back to the highway!

One day a fun question was asked on Quora (see About page for the full story), and what began as a deeply silly answer to that question, became the moment when “yes, yes, digression girl digressed again” became moment when Digression Girl leapt from my aching head, like a cyber-born Athena from the brow of Zeus, and from that question, a fully-formed hero was born, after too many years of gestation and headaches that I would happily have whapped my own head with a labrys to bring the relief of letting the warrior and wisdom out into a world with her swirling brain filled with comic books, genre media, and useless trivia, and, of course, song lyrics (no, there is not song lyric category on the site)!

Digression Girl is the hero that no one asked for, but so many of us need, as our world of outsider content moved into the hands of the mainstream population. Bored, and with nothing but the internet for entertainment, she dove in, and quickly came up or air out of the toxic dump that the internet can be in certain neighborhoods, took a look around her world, the internet, and Digression Girl saw a lot of not-love and not-knowledge for the source material for the movies and TV shows so many enjoy, and a lot of not-love for the fantastic genre TV shows and movie that adapted genre novels and comic books and wholly original works from people who love the same things we love.

She also saw a LOT of talented people who loved talking about all of this, having spirited conversations, passionate debates, sharing theories, proposing ideas that probably would never happen but would be so cool! All this talent, all these great ideas, all out of love for these “niche” genres, a love that got us labels like “geek,” “nerd,” “fanboy,” and “fangirl.” But something odd and unlooked for had been happening for a while, quietly at first, then so loud it broke the glass in movie studio corporate towers everywhere: While the “too cool for the comic book store” crowd wasn’t looking, “niche” media and the people who created it took over the world. Surely now these talented, intelligent, passionate life-long supporters of these genres would be heard.

Nope. Now, every person with a couple of seasons of the Reimagined Battlestar Galactica or The Big Bang Theory under their belt, or who has seen a handful of MCU or WoDC movies, loves/hates the Prequels and the Sequels, thinks you have to choose between Star Trek and Star Wars, and has an internet connection fancies themselves experts in the field and produce a lot of well-intended, but flawed, content.

And our voices are being drowned out. Oh, we are out there, making YouTube channels, writing articles, adding our knowledge to questions on Reddit, Quora, various wikis. But we are getting harder to find, edged out by glorified click-bait sites, corporate owned listicles, and “review” sites whose writers produce a lot, but it is superficial and often filled with errors, both grammar and on the topics.

Digression Girl took this in, the good, the bad, the incomprehensible; she traveled the highways & byways & backroads of the internet; she decided:

We can do better.

This is Digression Girl’s, well, my, attempt to contribute to making things better. I hope you will enjoy it and join in. We are new, but growing daily. I hope you will visit often and watch us grow; comment on the Blogs; become active on the Questions & Answers page–you can ask them or answer them, you can just throw out an idea to talk about, or do all of it; read the Reviews and talk about your thoughts, why you agree or disagree, in the comment section; get involved in the Chat with the Digressors page, where you can post ideas for the contributors and your fellow DG followers to engage with; Contact us with feedback or site questions; maybe see about posting a guest blog, or a become a regular Contributor. And check out our Cool Links page and explore other sites run by people who love all of this as much as we do!

Some of the pages are still being constructed, but we will keep working until this site is fully operational, on target for late July/early August. Fortunately, Alderaan won’t be sacrificed to test our site and terrify the galaxy. You can use the time to read the site Site Rules, especially as it pertains to posts. Short form? Follow Wheaton’s Law: Don’t be a Dick.

To see the story based on the answer to that long ago fun question that took digression girl, to Digression Girl, visit About Digression Girl.

 

It will take a little time, but the plan is to go from our launch with Blogs to a LAUNCH with Q & A, users posting questions and getting quality answers, fun theories that grow out of essays or responses no matter how far they strayed from the original* (Terror Tangent’s main playground), great conversations, and all sorts of opinions. The key component for all of these extra features is all of you, those who have commented early, those visiting now that we’ve launched . . . if all I wanted was a place to share my thoughts, this would be a single person blog. I want to create a space that is interactive, fun, and provides an outlet to anyone who is passionate about the topics covered.

I’m lining up people with expertise in areas I don’t have or to supplement areas I’m strong in but want more voices, so we’ll have comic books; superhero movies & TV; genre lit, movies, TV (for example, The Magicians, BTVS, BSG, Supernatural); gaming, video games, DnD and other RPGs, visual arts . . . We’ll have information about the team: How to contact the artists if they’re taking commissions, info about the contributors (the regular posse), and guest contributors, if I get lucky.

And a surprise or two. Not at all ambitious!

Comments!!

This really helped the Team’s morale and we wanted to preserve that. You guys are the best: Anna, Wyatt, UDM King, Yubi, RoSinSkY, FMJ Rett, The Random Unicorn, Bigman, and Plant!

Now that we’ve launched and joined us free to add your thoughts on the site here in the comments section or head on over to Contact if you want a longer or more private conversation!

Thank all of you who checked us out early. I hope we can live up to your expectations. Your support is appreciated. I am blessed with amazing artists & writers on Team Digression Girl and amazing early supporters!

And I hope to include amazing readers and site users to my increasing list of great Digression Girl peeps.