My dearest TMSers, today was my last day as your Weekend Editor. (I know, I know, I should not have picked April Fools’ Day for this announcement/final day. But it’s true, and I work on weekends! I don’t get to make the calendars!)

I wish I could tell you I’m off to better and brighter things, but alas, I’m off to the corporate world. Should I ever win the lottery, you’d never get rid of me. But the ol’ universe refuses to send me that gift. (Rude of it, I know.)

Two years after I graduated college, I wrote a list of life goals for myself, and one of them was “Write for The Mary Sue.” It’s very rare that you get to keep one of those ridiculous promises to yourself, and it’s even rarer that the experience is exactly as fulfilling and challenging as you imagined. As a queer goddamn weirdo, I got to write about all of my favorite things and analyze them endlessly; I got to call the president racist when he was being racist; I got to talk to astronauts and awesome writers; I got to lavish praise on Cate Blanchett as Hela. I still can’t believe how lucky I’ve been to get to write for all of you.

Before TMS, I wrote freelance for Comic Book Resources (CBR). My coworkers were amazing, and I loved writing about comics, but if you are old enough to remember what those forums were like before they finally purged the trolls in 2014, you know the sort of comments I used to have to read. (Shoutout to the dude who simply wrote, “I agree with this man” under one of my comic reviews, though. That one still makes me laugh.)

The contrast between those swamp-forums and TMS’s comments was unreal. I’m grateful for TMS’s moderation, but I’m also grateful for the times we don’t have to use that moderation. I’m grateful that so many of you are thoughtful, passionate, and funny – even when you’re vehemently disagreeing with or criticizing me. Writing for you has made me a better writer and a better feminist, and this sort of comments section is a rarer and rarer thing in the social media internet. So thank you all for being a snarky little spot of sanity in our Twitter-bot-YouTube-comment-Facebook-screed digital universe.

Most of all, though, thank you for your reaction GIFs to our tweets about sexist, racist garbage. Writing about our national nightmare(s) can be emotionally exhausting, especially on the weekends when I have to churn out quite a few articles per day. Some days, I didn’t even want to look at the headline. But then you lot would go and make me laugh really, really hard with a “Sure, Jan” about Betsy Devos or an eyeroll GIF at a Jared Leto project. Please keep dunking on silly TV shows, sexual predators, bigoted politicians, and reactionary fanboys forever.

I’ll absolutely still be writing pieces for various outlets, including The Mary Sue, in my spare time, and I hope you’ll smile when you see my byline in the future. I also tweet sporadically and poorly over at @MKJasp if you want to come say hi.

And please, in the spirit of Bill & Ted, continue to be excellent to each other. The world is nasty enough, and you and the TMS writers all deserve better than our dystopia.

(Featured image: Netflix)

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