Feel Free to Spark Joy With Me!

A bird who certainly has a gender and age (as far as you know) returning to their fandom roots after a long, long decade of languishing in depression. Wrote 63k in 2022, wrote 150k in 2023, hope to write even more in 2024 (and actually start posting some of it). Was once a fairly popular MLP fanfic author, but the strangely regressive culture chased me away. Unapologetic shipping trash once more because it sparks joy. Join me!

[cafiffle]

I might just be extremely in my thirties now but I simply cannot take any sort of fandom discourse anymore. I barely could before but I am at maximum capacity. just... just watch the thing and enjoy it or whatever, be nice to each other, isn't life hard enough

[systemic-dreams]

the youngers:

me:

[frostyemma]

Fuck the disk horse. Honestly. I'm just here to have a good fucking time.

If a piece of entertainment actively bothers me, there's a lot of other entertainment out there. I can barely keep up with it. I ain't disk horsing shit.

[thatwordybirb]

Used to be so fiery about the discourse. Felt like everything was so important. Like shouting into the seething mass of voices that is the internet meant something. The anger felt good, in some weird way, but more importantly: I felt I had to be angry in order to be good, to be a good person.

Now I just look back on all the wreckage of dead friendships and the scars of needless stress. I have fibromyalgia now. Stress physically hurts me because I was so stressed so often for so long, and I really... really didn't have to be. My life with my parents already sucked. I didn't need to carry the burdens of the whole world, too. And god, all the time that I wasted crusading I could've spent creating.

I'll never get that time back. I'll never get my health back.

Please learn from my mistakes. Try to be calm. Try to be kind. Don't beat yourself up when you stumble, but keep trying. Know what's right and wrong, raise hell when you need to, but don't go looking for reasons to rage. The reasons never end. You'll burn out before they run out.

[thatwordybirb]

I want to have conversations!

I want to talk to people!

I want to see a topic through to the end with a back-and-forth until there's some kind of conclusion!

I want to connect with people. I want to hear and be heard.

Social media doesn't give me that anymore. Not in any real capacity. It's all one-liners and gotchas and bots skimming what I say and deciding what I meant based on a couple keywords.

It's even more disheartening when it isn't a bot.

Reddit, someone says one or two things to you, usually a naked attempt to start an argument, then they vanish. Might block you. Might make fun of you on a months-old thread where you were grieving and asking for reading recommendations to get your mind off it... then block you.

Discord, it's an Instant Messaging service where anything you say can and will get drowned out and lost in the tide of text if there's much more than 10 people in the server.

Tumblr, everybody just... whispers around each other. Comments hidden in tags. Or reblogging without saying anything. Or, the vast majority of the time, silent likes from accounts you're not even sure have a real person behind them. Barely above a sign of life in a wellness check.

The amazing people I met online as a kid, the people I grew up with, connected with, when I felt like I couldn't be my genuine self in school or at home... I'd never find them in this new internet ecology.

I have a family beyond blood, and I love them more than anything.

And yet I crave a village that dataspace really isn't built to foster anymore.

[fforsythiaaa]

Once when I was in undergrad, someone described something as “problematic” in class and our professor was like, “That’s cool, but ‘problematic’ doesn’t really mean anything. It means that the thing you’re describing has a problem, and in and of itself that’s not bad. Art, especially, should always have problems, or else it’s not interesting and not art, either. It sounds like you’re trying to say that this is bad, but you don’t want to say ‘bad.’ Is that right?”

So from then on whenever one of us called something problematic, he would make us talk it out until we could name the “bad” thing we were hinting at. In this particular class, 7/10 it was some type of oppression, and the remainder was like, “I’m uncomfortable because this is very new/confusing/pushing boundaries that made me feel safe.”

Once we stopped calling things “problematic” and stopping at that, class got way more interesting and... we all had to say, like, “that’s racist” or “that’s misogynistic” or “ew capitalism gross” out loud, which a lot of us had never done in a classroom before. Or we had to be like, “Uhhh... I’m not sure what’s so bad?” and confront our own beliefs and that was maybe even more useful.

Anyway. Whenever I see the word problematic, I can’t help but think of this professor being like, “Good starting point, now let’s get specific.” I think when we have to commit to saying “that’s ___” it requires a lot more careful thought about the truth and impact and complexities of whatever we’re claiming. Sometimes there really is some bullshit afoot, and also sometimes it’s art, and it should be full of problems, because that’s what art is.

[thatwordybirb]

[thatwordybirb]

How is social media supposed to function anymore?

No, really, I mean it: on a fundamental level, how are any of us expected to be social online when the experience is just painful now?

Media literacy is dropping. That's kind of fucking vital to the functioning of fandom!

Reading comprehension is plummeting. That's kind of fucking vital to human communication entirely!

And so, so many people think they're the exception, though I guess that's nothing new. "Yes, media literacy and reading comprehension is down, but I-" No. If five people know communication and comprehension are dying skillsets but all of them think they're good at it, at least two of them misjudge their place on the Dunning-Kruger curve. "Sure, but other people do that, but I'm-" No, no, no. The point of the Dunning-Kruger curve is that you can always be bad at something and not even know it, and thus humility and willingness to listen are not just important, they're paramount.

And that doesn't even factor in that social media is swarming with bots specifically designed to antagonize us, encouraged by social media companies! They want us to argue to pump up their engagement analytics, keep us coming back so that their Number Go Up. Turns out, a bot and a real person with shitty media literacy and piss-poor reading comprehension are pretty hard to tell apart!

It just... feels impossible to have a pleasant, intelligent conversation with strangers anymore, even in spaces with people you have common interests with. They might not even be people.

How are you supposed to love chess anymore when nine times out of ten the only players you can find are pigeons in trench coats?

[halcyonbequest]

why is my entire dash 9/11 jokes did smth happen or

[halcyonbequest]

NEVERMIND.

[rillabel]

[annabelle--cane]

look, guys, this may seem ironic coming from a person with Verbose Disease, but I'm about to tell you the secret to winning social media: shutting the fuck up. you have a controversial discourse opinion? shut the fuck up and no one will know. can't participate in a boycott for various reasons? shut the fuck up and no one will know. you think or do something Problematic that has no bearing on anyone but yourself? shut the fuck up and no one will know. you haven't been keeping up on a pressing social issue? shut the fuck up and no one will know. your mind is a wonderful place where you can have all the bad takes in the world and they're all perfectly insulated from everyone and everything unless you try to excise them on a grand scale. you can take the mental L all by yourself without using a public platform as a confession booth and face zero repercussions and it'll be just fine. open up a damn diary and explain yourself there.

[annabelle--cane]

happy one year to the post that had an italian telling me that she hated me and everything I stood for so much that it actually made her reevaluate and appreciate mussolini because I was so much worse than him

[annabelle--cane]

it was because she wanted to watch eurovision and resented the idea that she could just choose not to liveblog it and no one would get mad at her btw

[thetomska]

also, if you've still managed to find yourself in the middle of a social media shitstorm, the best thing you can probably do - at least during the initial pile-on - is shut the fuck up. doubling down or even defending yourself while people are actively mad at you only ever makes things worse. the power of shutting the fuck up cannot be understated. please shut the fuck up.

[vt-scribbles]

“Nothing has changed, he is the same”

[thatwordybirb]

Wait.

Wait wait wait.

You were one of the artists that worked on this?!

A dear lovely of mine shared that with me a year or two ago when I was in a really rough spot - she's a big Warriors fan, that's how he found it, and she's how I found it. First time I ever heard that song. I was emotionally dead, numb through and through, but that wonderful combination of animation and music made me feel again. I had that M.A.P. playing at max volume in my room for days as I felt my feelings until they passed over me and through me. Ever since I've only ever broken it out again when I'm going through something dire, when I really, truly need it, and oh god how I've needed it at times.

I can't force you to feel proud of yourself, nor can I force you to avoid downplaying your contribution, but you really did work on something that did measurable good in someone's life: mine. And that, that's beautiful.

[thatwordybirb]

Imagine the seven rockets becoming so powerful they deicide to fight galactus on thier own.

I'm not super well-versed on Galactus in Marvelverse lore - all I know is second-hand from Atop the Fourth Wall, and I've watched so much over the years it's hard to retain it all - but from what I recall he seems to fluctuate between just being Some Guy and being a force of nature, some elemental of destruction and entropy.

And I just always thought... yeah, okay. Some Guy can be killed. And even if he's a force of nature, he can be hurt, and so he can die. In ROM: Space Knight, Galactus was lured to the homeworld of the Dark Wraiths, which had the same life-siphoning powers he did, and it injured him. We've overcome so many things over our history - smallpox, gravity, countless reasons the child mortality rate was so high in the past - that we once thought were impossible to overcome. Just have to find the right solution, and even eldritch gods can die.

And if the heroes of the Marvelverse put their heads together to find that theophage with science and strategy, Rocket would be among their most vital minds. With six more either they'd slow everything down with infighting, or the seven of them could figure it out by themselves.

Bonus points if they start hunting down other cosmic abominations with their ship like Ahab in Space.

Marvel Editorial would never allow it, though, so Galactus will remain basically invincible. Only side characters without a mainstream following are allowed to die permanently. Perhaps in an Elseworlds miniseries.

[thatwordybirb]

The seven rockets would probably date each other.

Pffff X'D Look, my guy [friendly], my deepest fandom roots are the pokemon community. I was there when the old magic was written. I was there when the strength of men fell.

I was there when the internet first asked if Mew/Mewtwo is incest or masturbation, and thus clones in general [still amused to this day].

I still don't know the answer! And I do not think a seven Rocket polyknot would bring me any closer to one [half-joking]. Though I'm not sure he'd care to think about it much. I've seen him be emotional, practical, even a little existential, not so much philosophical. If they were cool with that idea, little doubt it'd be casual instead of romantic. Romantically I think Quill would be his best match, but I can also see Squirrel Girl working out for him, and considering Marvel's cowardice that's probably what they'll go with, if they ever let him settle down at all.

[thatwordybirb]

How do you believe that seven rockets would live together?

Did not expect an ask like this! Well, from what I know of the guy...

The dating situation would get goddamn insane. Rocket's apparently one of the most datable guys in the Marvel Multiverse, has dated and broken up with just about every bachelorette, would probably have dated and broken up with just about every bachelor too if Marvel weren't still lukewarm about that sort of thing - just imagine, glimpse into the chaos with me, how disruptive seven of them would be to the social dynamics of the entire hero and hero-adjacent community.

It'd be like Helen of Troy but on a galactic scale.

Though that might not happen if a higher power intervenes and breaks up the septet for putting their heads together to create existential superweapons first... or the band breaks up on its own due to the sort of creative differences that result in attempted murder.

[rogertaylorswift]

Tw / SA trauma

New Rocket comic guys🫂

I was inspired by seeing my loved ones cry when I told them about my trauma— which is a strange thing to experience, very out of body. You forget how deeply you mean to other people, sometimes. You’re not alone, not by a long shot🫂

Making these comics has allowed me to process my CSA PTSD, and I’ll be forever thankful for Rocket for being the perfect vessel to make sense of my life. He’s given me my body back, he’s my hero— and I’ll spend the rest of my life thanking him🫂 I love him more than anything😭❤️

[happylittleshrub]

The world needs more animated series Rocket fan art and I am here to provide it

[rogertaylorswift]

I’ve been wanting to get a personal collection of my Rocket comics physically printed, so I had to draw a cover for it ofc!!

Behold our favorite boy— Rocket in a record store, featuring my album cover redraws!😄❤️❤️❤️enjoy!! :)

[cutleryclown]

got so bored at church my sister and i gave perry the platypus a drag persona

[thatwordybirb]

[grumpytrashpanda]

[rocket-roquill-raccoon]

No Words Needed

Rocket: :)

Quill: You’re happy I’m back but can’t bring yourself to say it, right?

Rocket: *hits him over the head* :)

[crimsonkingart]

It will all be fine

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀