Procrastinating
May. 27th, 2026 06:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vriddy
Recent picture of another place I'd like to revisit soon. Dreaming of the cool shadowed spot under the trees!
vriddyRecent picture of another place I'd like to revisit soon. Dreaming of the cool shadowed spot under the trees!
Post and Jam: Into the Fire by Sarah McLachlan [1991]
May. 26th, 2026 09:43 pmdelphiFandom 50 #15
1991 was one of the years with several contenders, but I knew I had to get some early Sarah McLachlan in here.
Into the Fire by Sarah McLachlan
1991 was one of the years with several contenders, but I knew I had to get some early Sarah McLachlan in here.
Into the Fire by Sarah McLachlan
microblogging
May. 27th, 2026 12:43 amasuraidreading mary's socmed use has me pondering my own social media usage, or more revisiting aspects of why i use what, and what else i might like to use
my list is ... uh, honestly not that long LMFAO
things i use
- neocities / my own website: by extension one of my primarily holes because well. it's. my website LMFAO. kind of a weird microposting hole, but usually it's very website/indie web related things or to link out to my bearblog
- dreamwidth: hi hello hiii. a weird mix between long-form posting, and microposting (though i suppose this isn't really micro posting to some degree; even if i write a lot of 'short' journals, they usually tend to be longer than my average tumblr post). i feel comfortable here to air out my thoughts in a middle ground between 'clean blog post' (bearblog) and '1 sentence of me frothing at the mouth over sylvie's waist' (tumblr)
- tumblr: the hole(tm). my microposting hole. my hole(tm) ... wait that sounds bad LMFAO. junji ito(tm) my hole(tm). a lot of my yume oomfs are there + mutuals in general, plus i've been using it for literally half of my life
- deviantart: only considered a 'social media' since it's the only art related site i'm vaguely more active on with a social aspect to it
- treefort: the forum i made with another indie web oomf! obviously with my own involvement i'm active there, although it's small and slow enough that it's like ... neither overwhelmingly full of posts, but also alive enough to see posts around every day, or few days. less catered to posting, since it is a forum
things i've used but don't anymore/much
there's some other social medias i have, but i've either dropped them, or struggle to use them for various reasons
- twitter: ... yeah considering after the elon enshittification and mass migration to bluesky, it's kinda dead in the water for me. sucks that blocking also barely works as it should now, and the tagging culture there was kinda doodoo for blocking tags i didn't wanna see. unfortunately still one of the biggest sources of fandom art i had to give up
- as much as i'm fine toiling through the genshin/zhongli tag on tumblr to find art to reblog (god knows i've curated my blocked tag list to avoid 95% of the garbage on there), at least on twitter it came up more naturally than me having to go hunt for it myself
- bluesky: with a lack of private accounts, i couldn't get into using bluesky for personal stuff. glad the tagging culture is a LOT better than twitter, but it's still not great
- pillowfort: aughhh i want pillowfort to stick more to me, but the fact a lot of my fandoms are not alive there makes it a lot harder to want to be there :( i'm still supporting them through at least a little monthly sub for my border frames, but socially it's just hard to visit there too often or feel compelled to post
- spacehey: cool in concept, but i never grew up on myspace, so it's hard to really think of much to post on there, weirdly enough. idk why dreamwidth caught on more (even as someone who has never used livejournal) than spacehey did
- status.cafe: just need to use more often, with putting my tumblr rss feed as my 'feed' for my new website launch, the status.cafe widget doesn't seem quite as useful (but i'll probs try to find some use for it)
things i'd like to try
- mastodon: i'd be cool to just at least have an account made just in case ... idk how much i'd use it is the issue, i also tend to need fandoms to be active, or have a lot of like-minded people (indie web)
- hjonk: a microblogging specific site, but issue is i don't know how many people use it; if i'm to use a microblogging site, i'd like to at least know some mutuals are there. a lot of it is also ease of access and liking to have some social aspects to it
- micro.blog: also neat in concept, again centric on microblogging and having social aspects
... a lot of it is also that i don't want to spread myself too thin across too many sites, especially with the places i'm already active on. forever weighed down by the desire to test out new websites, but also to have everything consolidated in nice places, but also organizing, but also maintaining privacy. hellish!!!
truthfully i also want a secondary microposting place that's more ... private almost? or using some other username; although i am very open on my tumblr, sometimes i just wanna post things and not have it be seen by some people ... but still being social at the same time. weird oxymoron to some degree i suppose, and it's why im side-eyeing mastodon ... but i also know i struggle with juggling too many social medias, especially if the roles of some are shared (microblog + microblog, my brain will want to stick with only one)
either way, idk what the full purpose of this post is aside from clearing out my head and thoughts of inspiration to unpack my own social media usage
Some (new) old canons
May. 26th, 2026 11:30 pmgot_quietThe original Trigun series was a formative show for me. It's the only Anime for which I owned the whole series on VHS so I only had access to the dub back then. I've been avoiding the new Trigun because I didn't really feel the need for the revisit, but there were so few palatable options on a recent flight I gave in and ended up enjoying it a lot. It gets much more serious much more quickly than the first series iirc and stays there. It felt like this younger Vash had a harder time finding peace in the pain than the OG did, which I guess makes sense?
I don't know what the original Wolfwood's voice sounded like in JP but I enjoyed his Osaka ben in this series a lot. Though I guess I find accents interesting in general. And I'm always a fan of stories in which characters are constantly in some sort of philosophical debate. I was however miffed that the plane only provides the first 5 eps and then you have to sit there waiting to get home to pirate the rest. If Crunchyroll thinks they are getting my sub this way they are idiots. I did end up watching the full first season, but don't know if I'm going to bother with the second. As much as I enjoyed Trigun Maximum, it's not really my Trigun, I guess.
I also watched Inception again but dubbed in Japanese. At one point I had the script of that show memorized line by line, which is not something I often do. My memory has faded a bit, but it was a fun exercise in hearing the localization and doing a little canon review for what used to be my main fandom and is still the canon where I've posted the most fic.
On the way back I watched F1 the Movie. It was mid. Very formulaic and depended on weird gimmicks on the track. Rush is much better imo. But there was a little bit of chemistry between the two leads in the beginning. If it had been a little better I could have seen a decent enemies to lovers ship coming out of it.
Read a handful of books on the trip too. Reread The Last Sun. I don't know how confident I am about enjoying the entire series, mostly because of how many children are now involved, but I still like the first book a whole lot and it made for nice canon review. When I first read the books I wasn't particularly fond of Addam, mostly because I very clearly preferred Rune/Brand, but on reread I like him much better, and they make for a good ot3 anyway considering the nature of Atlantean society. I still read a lot of fic for this series, and on a whole the fandom puts out pretty high quality work, but I would say the peeve that seems to show itself most often is Rune thinking that polyamory is going to be a problem, actually, even though in canon he makes clear that is the default in Atlantean society and that Addam is explicitly within that default.
The next book in the Tarot Sequence I think was supposed to come out by now but hasn't quite yet. I'm going to gobble it up the second I get the opportunity.
I don't know what the original Wolfwood's voice sounded like in JP but I enjoyed his Osaka ben in this series a lot. Though I guess I find accents interesting in general. And I'm always a fan of stories in which characters are constantly in some sort of philosophical debate. I was however miffed that the plane only provides the first 5 eps and then you have to sit there waiting to get home to pirate the rest. If Crunchyroll thinks they are getting my sub this way they are idiots. I did end up watching the full first season, but don't know if I'm going to bother with the second. As much as I enjoyed Trigun Maximum, it's not really my Trigun, I guess.
I also watched Inception again but dubbed in Japanese. At one point I had the script of that show memorized line by line, which is not something I often do. My memory has faded a bit, but it was a fun exercise in hearing the localization and doing a little canon review for what used to be my main fandom and is still the canon where I've posted the most fic.
On the way back I watched F1 the Movie. It was mid. Very formulaic and depended on weird gimmicks on the track. Rush is much better imo. But there was a little bit of chemistry between the two leads in the beginning. If it had been a little better I could have seen a decent enemies to lovers ship coming out of it.
Read a handful of books on the trip too. Reread The Last Sun. I don't know how confident I am about enjoying the entire series, mostly because of how many children are now involved, but I still like the first book a whole lot and it made for nice canon review. When I first read the books I wasn't particularly fond of Addam, mostly because I very clearly preferred Rune/Brand, but on reread I like him much better, and they make for a good ot3 anyway considering the nature of Atlantean society. I still read a lot of fic for this series, and on a whole the fandom puts out pretty high quality work, but I would say the peeve that seems to show itself most often is Rune thinking that polyamory is going to be a problem, actually, even though in canon he makes clear that is the default in Atlantean society and that Addam is explicitly within that default.
The next book in the Tarot Sequence I think was supposed to come out by now but hasn't quite yet. I'm going to gobble it up the second I get the opportunity.
(no subject)
May. 26th, 2026 11:58 pmdustbunny105It was my mom's birthday today, so I made her a whole tilapia with veggies. I think I must've skipped a step or something, though, because most of said veggies were not properly cooked by the time the fish was. My mom said she can just re-cook them for breakfast in the morning, so at least it's not a total loss. And she said the fish itself came out really good, which is a relief since I don't care for fish and was relying heavily on the internet to tell me whether I was cooking it right, lol.
More early Cherryh
May. 26th, 2026 08:16 pmpetrea_mitchellI think I last checked in on this after reading Gate of Ivrel, which I thought was a pretty average planetary romance. After that:
Well of Shiuan: Now this is something special. Suddenly we're talking about deep time, insane aristocrats, and a doomed planet that cannot be saved by some last-minute feat of technological magic. It's very much more Tolkien than Burroughs. Possibly the best middle book of a trilogy I've ever read.
Fires of Azeroth: Sort of Tolkien-like again, with the qhal sort of playing the part of wood elves. A decent conclusion to the series, but badly overshadowed by the prologue, which is a parting shot from Shiuan and just served as a reminder of how good book 2 was.
Wave Without a Shore: And then into one of the more obscure corners of the Alliance-Union continuity, in fact so obscure that you can't really tell that it is part of the Alliance-Union continuity. This takes place on a planet where everyone is ranked by brainpower and the protagonist is the smartest man on the planet, competing with the other elites to impose his own version of reality on the rest of society until events intervene.
For a while this felt like it could have been an attempt to write like Ursula K. Le Guin, until about halfway through when it suddenly turns into a standard Cherryh story of a man who goes among aliens, absorbs their mindset, and becomes a mediator between societies. Le Guin would have found time to deconstruct the whole alleged meritocracy, but Cherryh's hero remains objectively ranked #1, he's just found a new use for his talents.
Also, I've commented before that human women tend to be unlucky or incompetent in Cherryh stories where there are aliens, and this is the most extreme example yet. There are three named women in this book, and two of them exist solely to draw a contrast with the protagonist's utter brilliance, and get killed off as soon as their part in the story is done.
What I should be doing at this point is checking out Exile's Gate, but when I was looking up information about the Morgaine books, I learned about a book previously unknown to me called Witchfires of Leth, and that diverted me onto a new reading project...
Well of Shiuan: Now this is something special. Suddenly we're talking about deep time, insane aristocrats, and a doomed planet that cannot be saved by some last-minute feat of technological magic. It's very much more Tolkien than Burroughs. Possibly the best middle book of a trilogy I've ever read.
Fires of Azeroth: Sort of Tolkien-like again, with the qhal sort of playing the part of wood elves. A decent conclusion to the series, but badly overshadowed by the prologue, which is a parting shot from Shiuan and just served as a reminder of how good book 2 was.
Wave Without a Shore: And then into one of the more obscure corners of the Alliance-Union continuity, in fact so obscure that you can't really tell that it is part of the Alliance-Union continuity. This takes place on a planet where everyone is ranked by brainpower and the protagonist is the smartest man on the planet, competing with the other elites to impose his own version of reality on the rest of society until events intervene.
For a while this felt like it could have been an attempt to write like Ursula K. Le Guin, until about halfway through when it suddenly turns into a standard Cherryh story of a man who goes among aliens, absorbs their mindset, and becomes a mediator between societies. Le Guin would have found time to deconstruct the whole alleged meritocracy, but Cherryh's hero remains objectively ranked #1, he's just found a new use for his talents.
Also, I've commented before that human women tend to be unlucky or incompetent in Cherryh stories where there are aliens, and this is the most extreme example yet. There are three named women in this book, and two of them exist solely to draw a contrast with the protagonist's utter brilliance, and get killed off as soon as their part in the story is done.
What I should be doing at this point is checking out Exile's Gate, but when I was looking up information about the Morgaine books, I learned about a book previously unknown to me called Witchfires of Leth, and that diverted me onto a new reading project...
TMNT NewMil Development Diary #1: Starting not with an outline, but a concept
May. 26th, 2026 02:59 pmspringsodasSo, I mentioned a couple of weeks back the idea of keeping a development diary for my TMNT fan iteration, TMNT: The New Millennium (NewMil for short.) Well, here we are with the first entry and what do I have to say? Quite a bit despite there still not being much at this point.
Speaking broadly, one of my fatal shortcomings when it comes to tackling any kind of project, regardless of what it may be, is how I tend to look at the project as a whole rather than a bunch of bite-sized pieces. I think about all the things I want to do, what needs to be done, where I'm planning to put everything, trying to fill in all the gaps, etc. Long story short: I end up overwhelming myself because I'm trying to figure out too many things at once and never actually get anything done. This is 100% the problem I encountered with the original concept of NewMil and why I struggled to go beyond anything other than a few basic character profiles and some vague ideas.
Now that I've rebooted the project from scratch however, I am taking a much slower, gradual approach where I'm not considering... basically anything outside the turtles themselves. Not the plot, which characters are going to appear, what horrors the boys are going to be put through, nothing. The only thing I'm thinking about right now is who the turtles are and what I want them to be. And working with the turtles is a bit of a contradiction, to be honest; they're official characters from an established IP and while no two versions have characterized them exactly the same, there are still a good handful of traits that remain consistent across all iterations. But these are going to be my versions of the characters and there is still so much that's ultimately up to my discretion that figuring out the various nuances and complexities in their characters and what kind of character journeys I want each of them to take is going to take some time. But hey, that is the fun of this kind of thing, right?
So far, the turtle who has gotten the most attention from me is Leonardo. It might seem a little odd considering my favorite of the brothers is Don, but I often think about how Splintered Fate described Leo as being the family's "soul" and that, I think, is a perfect word to describe him and his role both within the team and within the family dynamic. He's also been used as the baseline for the brothers' designs in most iterations, so once I figure him out, the rest should start falling into place. I still have no idea what the turtles are going to look like, but I've been pouring through my collection of TMNT arts by Michael Dooney, along with Khary Randolph's work and Freddie E. Williams II. All of their styles and approaches to the turtles have various qualities that I like, so it's mostly just a matter of mixing and matching until I find the formula that works best.
Speaking broadly, one of my fatal shortcomings when it comes to tackling any kind of project, regardless of what it may be, is how I tend to look at the project as a whole rather than a bunch of bite-sized pieces. I think about all the things I want to do, what needs to be done, where I'm planning to put everything, trying to fill in all the gaps, etc. Long story short: I end up overwhelming myself because I'm trying to figure out too many things at once and never actually get anything done. This is 100% the problem I encountered with the original concept of NewMil and why I struggled to go beyond anything other than a few basic character profiles and some vague ideas.
Now that I've rebooted the project from scratch however, I am taking a much slower, gradual approach where I'm not considering... basically anything outside the turtles themselves. Not the plot, which characters are going to appear, what horrors the boys are going to be put through, nothing. The only thing I'm thinking about right now is who the turtles are and what I want them to be. And working with the turtles is a bit of a contradiction, to be honest; they're official characters from an established IP and while no two versions have characterized them exactly the same, there are still a good handful of traits that remain consistent across all iterations. But these are going to be my versions of the characters and there is still so much that's ultimately up to my discretion that figuring out the various nuances and complexities in their characters and what kind of character journeys I want each of them to take is going to take some time. But hey, that is the fun of this kind of thing, right?
So far, the turtle who has gotten the most attention from me is Leonardo. It might seem a little odd considering my favorite of the brothers is Don, but I often think about how Splintered Fate described Leo as being the family's "soul" and that, I think, is a perfect word to describe him and his role both within the team and within the family dynamic. He's also been used as the baseline for the brothers' designs in most iterations, so once I figure him out, the rest should start falling into place. I still have no idea what the turtles are going to look like, but I've been pouring through my collection of TMNT arts by Michael Dooney, along with Khary Randolph's work and Freddie E. Williams II. All of their styles and approaches to the turtles have various qualities that I like, so it's mostly just a matter of mixing and matching until I find the formula that works best.
Here's the first turtle headshot doodle... can't wait to see what you look like down the road, little dude.
legion figurine get!!!
May. 26th, 2026 04:48 pmasuraid
sorry you guys get the full blasted image bc it feels redundant to post it under a cut when its uh. the. topic of the journal LMFAO
BUT LOOK AT THEM!!!! and a pretty good discount too bc what i'm seeing on ebay is well over a hundred dollars. they also had jack's figure from dark horse but i like legion more. i wasn't expecting to do any shopping at the mall but when i saw legion's figure at the EB games i HAD to get them, esp at abt a 30% discount
Fandom links
May. 26th, 2026 10:56 amvriddyThere's an interesting conversation going on at ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
meta_warehouse, mainly on fandom as consumerism with the discussion happening both as reactions in journal entries and in the comments on the comm. I wasn't too sure about the original article myself (a lot of "you are not enjoying things the right way" moments) so I didn't have any comment about it, but the conversation seems to have quickly moved on to what wasn't addressed in the article, and how terms like "fanon" have changed in recent years (like, basically there is less of a concept of fanon because of the way readers/watchers treat the original material and fan theories nowadays). I dunno, the thought got my brain juices engaged and that's always something I enjoy.
Coming across a link I wanted to share reminded me that I still have that not insignificant list of links from a while back that I now need to reread before I share... Gah!! Well. Let's get started with one!
Via![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png)
otw_news_feed, OTW Guest Post: Camilo Díaz Pino. Okay, that was an absolute delight to reread, totally recommended especially if you're into Japanese media fandoms. From my not-useless-for-once notes: "I particularly enjoyed this 5 questions OTW guest post about 'fans' who don't necessarily consider themselves fans in the context of Asian media culture becoming a normal part of the culture in Latin America for decades, for example with the president of Chile having a favourite pokemon, or the story about leftist activist organisations recreating scene from Dragon Ball Z to encourage everyone to get together to recreate a 'spirit bomb' like Goku asked the people of earth to do (I actually don't remember/know that scene, but I find how the speaker described it in the post incredibly moving)." I agree with you, past self!
meta_warehouse, mainly on fandom as consumerism with the discussion happening both as reactions in journal entries and in the comments on the comm. I wasn't too sure about the original article myself (a lot of "you are not enjoying things the right way" moments) so I didn't have any comment about it, but the conversation seems to have quickly moved on to what wasn't addressed in the article, and how terms like "fanon" have changed in recent years (like, basically there is less of a concept of fanon because of the way readers/watchers treat the original material and fan theories nowadays). I dunno, the thought got my brain juices engaged and that's always something I enjoy.Coming across a link I wanted to share reminded me that I still have that not insignificant list of links from a while back that I now need to reread before I share... Gah!! Well. Let's get started with one!
Via
otw_news_feed, OTW Guest Post: Camilo Díaz Pino. Okay, that was an absolute delight to reread, totally recommended especially if you're into Japanese media fandoms. From my not-useless-for-once notes: "I particularly enjoyed this 5 questions OTW guest post about 'fans' who don't necessarily consider themselves fans in the context of Asian media culture becoming a normal part of the culture in Latin America for decades, for example with the president of Chile having a favourite pokemon, or the story about leftist activist organisations recreating scene from Dragon Ball Z to encourage everyone to get together to recreate a 'spirit bomb' like Goku asked the people of earth to do (I actually don't remember/know that scene, but I find how the speaker described it in the post incredibly moving)." I agree with you, past self!
The die is cast
May. 26th, 2026 08:56 amigenlodeWell, I've done it; I've sent off my first 'query'. After a last-minute panic over exactly what people mean when they say 'the first 25 pages'; it turns out that they mean 'the first 25 pages when formatted as an A4 page in Microsoft Word in Times New Roman with one-inch margins', and as I don't have Microsoft Word or Times New Roman on my system and my manuscript is formatted to paperback book size and margins so that I could print and bind it for my own sample copy, that means that the 25 pages I had carefully exported and reformatted to be email-safe, one chapter at a time, were actually a considerably shorter extract than expected :-(
(If they gave a word count for their sample passage it would make life much easier.)( Read more... )
(If they gave a word count for their sample passage it would make life much easier.)( Read more... )
(no subject)
May. 26th, 2026 12:27 amsouthernmedicineI have had to postpone the massage I was going to do for Blair's grandmother tomorrow. I'm far too sick, I can barely get all the dishes washed and dried without feeling like I'm going to pass out, there's no way I can drag my massage table out of storage, down to the car, and set up in her home before doing an hour of massage.
I slept most of today, on and off. Blair has been a really good sport about picking up the slack today, but I still hate that I'm so useless and such terrible company. Bah.
I think the rest of this week will be pretty low key. Next week, there's some stuff I would really like to try and get done, so hopefully I'm 100% by then.
It's probably another Nyquil night tonight.
I slept most of today, on and off. Blair has been a really good sport about picking up the slack today, but I still hate that I'm so useless and such terrible company. Bah.
I think the rest of this week will be pretty low key. Next week, there's some stuff I would really like to try and get done, so hopefully I'm 100% by then.
It's probably another Nyquil night tonight.
Obsidian Thoughts (9 months later)
May. 26th, 2026 12:50 amasuraidWow, seeing my old Obsidian Thoughts is so weird because I wrote that ... well, it wasn't even that long ago, it was September, and as I write this, it is May, so ... 9 months? 11 if you include the 2-month mark where I last wrote that. Probably a year retrospective might be better bahaha, but I think it's enough time and usage to reflect on (especially as my first note I ever made in here was June 2025, just shy of a year at this point).
( Read more... )
(no subject)
May. 25th, 2026 08:50 pmdustbunny105The slow but steady progress on my room continues. Kinda. I swear it's messier, even though it doesn't feel like it should be. But most of what's coming back into the room to stay is indeed back in the room and mostly put away. I'll need to clean out and reorganize my closet before I can go any further.
I was hoping to be able to get done this weekend but I really should've known better, lol. I'll work on tidying through this week and do the closet next weekend. Based on what I have to do, I might be able to finish it in a day by then!
I was hoping to be able to get done this weekend but I really should've known better, lol. I'll work on tidying through this week and do the closet next weekend. Based on what I have to do, I might be able to finish it in a day by then!
120 ☆ so how does it taste?
May. 25th, 2026 11:44 pmtinkatonIn honor of Memorial Day, I beat Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater. Actually it was just a coincidence because I had a long weekend to spend gaming lol but damn if I wasn't crying by the end. I've played the original game multiple times, so I was obligated to pick up the remake and see my beautiful wife (The Boss) and my terrible son (Ocelot) in glorious HD.
I don't know if I've ever talked MGS on here? But I loved that series when I first played it in college, I made multiple fanmixes for it (which I rediscovered recently as I've been archiving my playlists), Big Boss/Ocelot still makes me feel slightly crazy. I almost want to replay the rest of the mainline games now but I do noooot have that kind of time lmao.
Needless to say I went into this remake with a big heap of nostalgia, and aside from the updated graphics and some QoL tweaks it was pretty much unchanged. So was this remake necessary? Not really. But if it got people who never touched MGS to check out the series then I can't really complain. I think you miss a tiny bit of the impact of certain scenes/info reveals by not having played MGS1/MGS2 first, but then I also originally played MGS3 first on the suggestion of my friend who got me into the series, so overall it's not a big deal to start with MGS3. And it's my favorite of the quadrilogy (?) so again, I win here no matter what.
I took notes while playing, so here they are. Spoilers for the whole game! ( + )
I don't know if I've ever talked MGS on here? But I loved that series when I first played it in college, I made multiple fanmixes for it (which I rediscovered recently as I've been archiving my playlists), Big Boss/Ocelot still makes me feel slightly crazy. I almost want to replay the rest of the mainline games now but I do noooot have that kind of time lmao.
Needless to say I went into this remake with a big heap of nostalgia, and aside from the updated graphics and some QoL tweaks it was pretty much unchanged. So was this remake necessary? Not really. But if it got people who never touched MGS to check out the series then I can't really complain. I think you miss a tiny bit of the impact of certain scenes/info reveals by not having played MGS1/MGS2 first, but then I also originally played MGS3 first on the suggestion of my friend who got me into the series, so overall it's not a big deal to start with MGS3. And it's my favorite of the quadrilogy (?) so again, I win here no matter what.
I took notes while playing, so here they are. Spoilers for the whole game! ( + )