On Twelfth Anniversaries, Starry-Eyed Owls, the Return of the Dragon, and Parental Glideance · 4:31pm Dec 8th, 2023
In which Impossible Numbers reports on the first week of December. It... could've gone better.
"Hm. Writer's block or piranha-infested pool: which is worse...?"
But OK, let's get a few topics going today.
Blog Number 242: Dodecahedron Edition
A few items of note for this week's report.
First of all, in four days it'll be my twelfth anniversary on FIMFiction! So whatever Chinese zodiac sign I started under (rabbit: I just checked), we're back to it again. Next year, we hit the Year of the Dragon, and shy of three years from now, we hit the Year of the Horse. You wanna plan something special, there's your thinly veiled excuse for a cosmic deadline! 
I don't have anything planned. Actually forgot about it till now. Whoopsie.
Curious to see what occupied me in prior Decembers, so here's a list of blog entries - one per year - I posted at around this time, with summaries that amuse me, because I am easily amused. Going all the way back to 2016, since I didn't start posting regularly until my later years, but there you go...
Ronnatomic Humans (2022)
- Humans are made up of 1027 atoms. Who knew? And I originally called it "brontoatomic" and got the suffix wrong. Who knew?
*
I've Been Thinking: Mixing Moral Tests and National Emergencies in Stories (2021)
- The ethical implications of making national survival contingent on one person being a Good Girl.
*
Three Featured Fics!? Three!? (2020)
- Turns out the CMCs and their sisterhood (sisterhooves?) are still pretty popular post-show.
*
The Oddity of Season Eight (2019)
- A mere year and a half after it ended, I muscle through my reservations to sample bits and pieces of Season Eight, which I have since promptly forgotten about.
*
'Tw(ill be) the Night Before Christmas, (Roast Dinners ahoy!), Be Ye Merry with Sherry, and Savour "La Joie" (2018)
- In which I put on a jolly mask before my next blog post involves me breaking down over writer's block. Yeah, it was a rough year.*
* And then the next next blog post has me celebrating the completion of my debut novel!! See!!!? Destroying your mental health is perfectly A!!! O!!!! K!!!! if it's for your ART!!!!!
**
** N.B. Destroying your mental health is not OK.
*
From the Other Side of the Gauntlet: A Conclusion to NaPoWriMo 2017 (2017)
- Hey, I used to do NaPoWriMo! Oh geez, I remember Magical Deathmatch. Poor overambitious soul... Oh, and I used to add stats at the end of my blog posts. How quaint.
*
The Fruits of Autumn, or What I Did For NaPoWriMo (2016)
- Hey, I really used to do NaPoWriMo! I remember Hive Versus Hive! Wait, Magical Deathmatch is actually THAT old?
Secondly, quick update: sadly, my writing's struggled a bit since last month. I haven't actually penned anything over the last week plus, which seems to have coincided with a low mood and general bad habits making a comeback (e.g. chaotic sleep, cheap diet, not doing things I normally enjoy doing).
Not ideal, but then again I'm not exactly working under the best conditions, what with all the stuff I mentioned last time. Regardless, I'm hoping to turn it around later today. Writing is great once I get into the zone; it's just a Sisyphean task getting to the border in the first place.
"Look at all that unbelievable slobbery! This looks like a job for... Potlatch Pie!"
Thirdly, I haven't been particularly keeping up with G5, but I gather Make Your Mark has come to a close? Although I'm not remotely interested in actually watching it (I struggled to muster much enthusiasm for the movie, and that was - as far as I can tell - peak G5), I still find myself curious as to what everyone else in the fandom makes of it.
Literally the least uninteresting thing about G5 at the moment.
Did it redeem a lot of the hanging threads left over by the movie? I even heard Spike makes an appearance: how does he fare? Is this a sign that G5's wrapping up and a brand new reboot is on the way (please say yes)?
"Mirror, mirror, on the wall, Who is the f- am-I-in-the-reboot!?"
Fourthly, for those who know and/or care about Helluva Boss,* that flawed-but-amazing Youtube cartoon about cute assassin demons...
* Yes, I'm a fan. On balance. When it's great, it's outstandingly great. That's enough drama and pizzazz and laugh-out-loud moments to make up for the more puerile or filler-ish bits.
...that new song is glorious, isn't it!?
Give or take a couple of iffy lyrics ("For making you means to an end", anyone?), this really is one of those "look how far we've come" moments. Gorgeous animation, heartfelt delivery, dripping with drama in context, and all this from a show ostensibly laughing at dorky killer imps doing their day job.
For all its many weaker moments, I really hope Season Two sticks the landing. And that its spiritual sister series Hazbin Hotel manages to take off without any issues. 🤞
Fifthly, for those who remember my Wakfu post back in July: I've been rewatching Wakfu, but this time in subbed French rather than in dubbed English.
About to finish the first season, but can I just say what a massive improvement this is already? Especially the earlier episodes, which with the proper audio in place (the English dub was notorious for missing whole cues) come across as properly dramatic instead of merely filler. So there you have it: my first tentative step away from dubbing and towards subbing!
(Also, there's apparently a fourth season coming next year. I can't wait!) 😁
And lastly, can you believe this? Ten years yesterday was the broadcast debut of "Daring Don't", that Season Four episode that brought us the... misdirectedly unwise idea of Daring Do being in-universe real and not just a fictional character. With all the continuity snarls and confusions that implies, showing that tangled mishmashes of canon were alive and well long before G5 came along.
She regrets it as much as anyone.
Seriously, I find it profoundly weird and personally unsettling that Season Four was starting ten years ago. It feels like it was only a short hop back, though that could be my front-loaded nostalgia talking. I mean, Season Seven was over six years ago, and I find that hard to grasp on anything other than an intellectual level. The TV show as a whole officially ended four years ago, well before the clusterbomb of the 20's hit us with pandemics, wars, and rising costs of living. What the heck, Time!? Why are you screwing with my head right now!?
I bring up Season Seven specifically for a couple of reasons. That's the season where I sort of checked out of the show as a thing I looked forward to, feeling that the Pillars finale was as good a place as any to say, "OK, I'm well-fed, I'm happy enough here." More to the point, Loganberry's recently caught up with that season in his My Little Repeats series, and it struck me just how few eps there are even among that lineup that I feel all that excited for.
To sum up "Parental Glideance", specifically its best moment:
JUST ADOPT HER ALREADY!
Of the first eight, "Parental Glideance" is the only one I have any enthusiasm for (though "A Flurry of Emotions" is a cute little bit of fluff), and that's mostly for the geekfest of the first half, because fangirl Scootaloo is umpteen times more adorable with fanboy Bow Hothoof and even bigger fangirl Windy Whistles to bounce off. Not entirely pleased with how the episode concludes, mind, but that early going was lovely while it lasted.*
* It's especially a shame because the easiest fix would've been to have Bow Hothoof and Windy Whistles learn their lesson at the end. I don't mind parent characters having flaws they need to work through, but good grief, recognize that they are flaws first!
Incidentally, I wish I had a door with customized sound effects. 
Shockingly, I'm genuinely looking forward to "Honest Apple", which is a bit wobbly moral-wise, but which I think holds up well enough on other strengths to move past that. Although cards on the table, I do like me some Rarijack**, so bias noted.
** Platonic. One of the vaguely annoying things about fandom navigation is having to remember that most people will interpret a portmanteau pair-up as romantic by default.
And then "Discordant Harmony", and then "The Perfect Pear"! 
Astonishingly good for an ep that's basically Romeo and Juliet with ponies.
Source: https://www.deviantart.com/andoanimalia/art/Hearts-and-Hooves-Day-Pear-Butter-x-Bright-Mac-870102768
Well, that should just about do it. N.B. For those interested, I haven't forgotten about the old Ep-By-Step series I was doing on Gravity Falls. Blame me: I haven't been great at keeping to a schedule. But I'd like to give the wheel another spin in the not-too-distant future.
"You got three conveniently-sized stories to tell, or should I die of boredom ahead of time?"
Otherwise, I think that's all for now. Impossible Numbers, out! 
Which is something of a miracle, given how slow I've got at it in recent months! I do hope to get to "Honest Apple" soon, though in my case that's probably mostly so that I can get to "A Royal Problem" after that. Not that everyone loves that episode, but I had a great time with it first time around and I'm hoping I will again this time.
5758378
I can't wait.