Fleet Sparrow

I'm going to limit myself to two wishes!  totally not because that's all I can think of, of course not, who said that?

I wish for...

• Video games similar to The Darkside Detective (computer, phone/tablet, Nintendo Switch; I have other consoles, but these are the easiest for me to access for now)
• Video games similar to Sorcery School mobile solitaire game (same systems as above)

Note:  For "similar to" in terms of games, I'm mostly looking for vibes.  Both games are fun and light-hearted, with a touch of dark humor.  I am partial to point-and-click and card or word games, but I definitely prefer games that I can take breaks between sections/chapters/etc.  (For example, I started There Is No Game on my phone last year, but I'm not 100% sure it actually has save points, which means I have not actually picked it back up since stopping.)

Talking about how fandom has improved my life must include the ways in which fandom has also been a struggle in my life.  (Why must it?  Because my thoughts about the good things are intimately tied up with the bad things.)

In an attempt to keep this relatively brief, I'm only counting fandom from my college days on (about 13 years ago to present).

In my last couple of years at college, I joined a DC Comics roleplaying group on Tumblr.  I had, at this point, already made a couple of friends through tumblr, but it was during my time in this group that I really started posting my own fanfics online and getting very involved in the then-current Batfandom on Tumblr.  (Fun Fact:  My first ever smut writing experience was a threesome in a live chat/real-time RP with two other people.  This was the event that convinced me I could, in fact, write and post my own smut.  If I could do it live, I could certainly do it on my own time!)  I was on Tumblr for the New 52 event.  I was there for the entire run on Grayson, including the unnecessary (and, lbr, pretty damn racist) hatred towards the rebooted version of Helena Bertinelli and the absolute bullshit that was the aggressively loud Grayson-haters' Twitter harassment of Tim Seeley while he was on a date.  Some of y'all fuckers need to learn some manners, I stg.

During this time, I went to several comic conventions (WonderCon and Long Beach Comic Con being the biggest two).  I met some local artists and creators.  I actually got to not only get some Grayson comics signed by Tom King for me and a friend, but also got to talk to him about the comic for a good chunk of time.  (My favorite story:  During the issue where Dick walks through the desert with the baby, there are two pages where he tells the story of a dream he had, which is actually the 1963 Batman story Robin Dies At Dawn.  The art in Grayson is of Dick walking through the bottom third of the pages while the sun beats down on the upper two-thirds.  Tom King had originally wanted the upper parts of the panel to be drawings from the Robin Dies At Dawn story as a nice reference/Easter Egg.  Editorial said no, so they stuck with the sun.)

I wrote a ton of fanfics between 2013-2018!  I did so many fandom events and big bangs!  I made some fandom friends who I still consider very dear friends!

And I also saw a lot of fandom explode at others and implode on itself.

Right around 2019, I got my first job outside home.  I still wrote a lot, but a lot of my fandom friends were either going into new fandoms or moving to different sites, especially after the 2018 Tumblr porn ban.  By 2020, I was starting to get back into fandom in a very light-touch way, but so many of us were gone.  I did end up writing my biggest/most involved fanfic in years during that year (a graveyard shift job as a COVID symptom checker where I only had to pay attention at the top of each hour helped immensely, ngl).  But, oof, there was a lot going on that I no longer wanted to be part of in fandom.

In 2021, I wound up back at the same company I worked for in 2019 (this time as a permanent employee) and my stress levels tripled.  I started to get back into fandom as a way to stay sane, and it worked, for the most part!  I was still doing too many exchanges and events (which ended up only adding to the stress, unfortunately), but I was getting back into that kind of fandom friendship space that I genuinely had missed.  I even ended up going back on Tumblr!

And then, in 2024, after an incredibly brutal end to 2023, I found a Discord group that seemed to have that old-school fandom feeling to it.  During my three months off work post-surgery, I not only joined that group, but found a subgroup of new friends within it (and we've been going strong since).

I feel like a lot of this post seems more negative, but it's not really meant to be.  I have made some great friends through fandom.  I've written some honestly fantastic things because of fandom.  I've also learned a lot about myself through fandom, about what stresses I can take, about what kinds of things I like to write and read, even about how to take care of myself and when I need to remove myself from the more toxic and/or anger-inducing aspects of fandom.

And yet, unfortunately, brevity is clearly not one of the things I've learned via fandom.

...every bird has them.

I don't know if this is so much a fandom opinion as much as a fandom practice, but if my [redacted] years online have taught me anything, it's that I really do not have the energy to spend gleefully hating on things.  Even if it sucks.  Even if it's factually wrong.  If it's in any way within my control to avoid seeing a terrible hot take or avoid a fandom, I'll do it.  So long as no one's being hurt where it's within my power to help, I just do not have the spoons.

That does not mean I won't ever go into a group chat and have a good laugh at such things.  I ain't perfect.  But there is a certain level of ire and rage that I just no longer have the energy to expend by engaging with the willfully obtuse.

That said, I also no longer have the patience to be nice about certain behaviors.  You don't get to come uninvited into my house and then complain about the decorations.  It's my house.

I think I vaguely remember signing up for this last year, or maybe it was this past year, but, uh, clearly that never got done.

Am I going to remember to do it this year?  Who knows!  I will try, though!

Well, I had voted for the Happy Place choice during the poll, so I thought I'd combine the two (more or less) with five things making me happy.

1. Tarot/Astrology.  Admittedly, these are not, strictly speaking, interchangeable, but they do seem to go together a lot for myself and other people.  I've been getting very much into tarot over the 2023 year (so many decks I bought in my day), and deepening my study into astrology (not incredibly deeply, but deep enough to be learning).  I've been paying attention to synchronicities and coincidences a lot and things have been wild.
2. Tumblr.  I swore I would never return here, but once Twitter died, I realized that I missed the community and fandom nonsense.  Incredibly, I've found it easier to casually scroll and leave at any time, and also much more fun and calming than Twitter ever was for me.
3. Rest.  As I've mentioned, I recently read Rest Is Resistance and that has been so formative and informative for creating my own rest practice, especially when dealing with my unnecessarily stressful day job.  By actively taking time to rest and deciding to not do things, I've typically ended up with more energy for the things I enjoy and been able to stop feeling guilty when I don't have the energy.
4. Previous Loves.  This is kind of a catch-all category of listening to music I used to love, doing old fandom stuff, and just allowing myself to do things that I used to really like.  I've been curating my playlists and just taking the time to really sit with things that I like and let go of things that are no longer serving me.
5. Writing.  My oldest love, but I've been very careful about not working on things I don't want to work on and allowing myself to actually not work on things when I don't want to work.  Somehow, I've ended up doing more writing than I usually do, even during the week.

I have only one (1) thing going on that actually Needs Doing, because it was due last year, but beyond that, I am blissfully free.

So far, I have written a bit for the upcoming Bruce/Dick Week prompt "Batkids Matchmaking" and a lot for prompt "Bat-God Bruce", the latter of which super got away from me and is now close to 4,000 words!

You know, I was trying to think of what kinds of things I like and would like recommendations or gifts of and, for a while, I couldn't think of anything.  I was a little stuck because I know I'm picky particular about things I like in terms of reading and art and such.  But then I thought, what if I expanded my ideas of what fandom-related things there are out there, and suddenly, I had ideas.

I am feeling very called to music and its intersection with fandom right now.  But also, since I basically live within the floating timeline of DC Comics, I'm also super interested in any canon recs for various parts of canon that maybe aren't or haven't been as well-known as others.

Recommendations Wishlist:

• Soundtracks (movies, shows, comics, etc.);  I'm a big fan of, like, Prince's Batman album, or the Batman Forever soundtrack, or the musical It's A Bird It's A Plane It's Superman! for example
• Concept albums/Story Songs (Thick as a Brick, The Wall, Tommy, etc.);  Love me some concept albums, things that tell a story over an entire record or song are so my jam
• Unique comic events (miniseries, AU/Elseworlds, Imaginary Stories, etc.); Doesn't even have to be strictly DC Comics related, though that's always my first love; I've been getting very much into indie comics and experimental comics
• Comic-inspired/media tie-in novels/novelizations (DC's Inheritance, Last Sons, Final Crisis, No Man's Land, etc.); I cannot get enough of comic stories in novel/prose form
• Comic Histories/Philosophies/General Academic-type nonfiction (The Caped Crusade, Soul of the Dark Knight, Is Superman Circumcised?, etc.)

Honestly, I'm just in such a mood for odd and unique fandom things, anything would be super cool!

(this is a very serious post and I'm sorry, but I couldn't resist that headline)

Finally, after about a decade of trying to figure out why NaNo, the one time the rest of the world (more or less) cares about writing, is always not only the one time of the year that I write LESS, but also seems to actively depress me about writing, I did it.

I'd do a Top 5 tweets, but me and Twitter aren't getting along right now, so....