2023, A Look Back

2023 is over and done, and 2024 is now here. I've already said I'm not looking forward to it, and I'm already seeing signs that 2024 is gonna be a drag to get through. I'm prepared for the worst at this point. Maybe it'll somehow end up like 2022 and turn out good by the end, but I'm not holding my breath. G5 is basically all but done, "Tell Your Tale" cannot sustain it for more than a year before the audience grows bored and moves on to the next flashy thing. I wish I could just skip to 2025 and see if that can finally be a "good" year all year round (I mean come on, I know 2017 through 2019 weren't great by any means, but they were downright tame compared to how beyond bad 2020 was, and how much 2021 and 2022 until the second half were drags. Isn't it about time the world took a break from the doom and gloom, just for one year?).

In any case, you're all here to see how 2023 fared for me on this site. After all, I still published fanfics and did blog posts. If nothing else, this'll keep me going through 2024. So, let's see how 2023 was for me.

January
A pretty slow start to the year for me compared to the last two years, though I do start looking for a career closer to my interests and what my college education is in line with. My first fanfic of 2023 is one of my shortest and least popular stories of the year, depsite it ironically featuring Princess Luna in the form of "Shadows of Things That Have Been". That's okay, though, because my next fanfic is "The Pony Behind The Badge", my first G5 fanfic and my first fic this year to hit the feature box. I repeat that feat at the very end of January with "A Dragon's Tale", my attempt at bridging the lore gap between G4 and G5, and it's not the last time I sort of predict what "Make Your Mark" will do. That fanfic becomes (unsurprisingly) my most viewed story of the year (but not my most commented on, not even for a one-shot).

February
Just two fanfics for me in what will be my last "normal" month more or less, and both fanfics are G4 related. One is a YonaBar fic released on Valentine's Day entitled "One Sick Yak", and the other is "A Dazzling School Daze", featuring Lil' Cheese and adult Diamond Tiara. Aside from that, nothing else really happens for me this month, and it's my least active month on the site as a result since I only do one blog plost.

March
My first padded pony stories of the year are published with "Raving Rocks" (a MaudxMudbriar romance ageplay story) and "Pipp's Padded Livestream" (a sequel to "Izzy's 'Little' Secret" starring Izzy and Pipp). In between the two, I import the first of what will be four fanfics from fanfiction.net that all involve characters being flushed down the toilet in cartoon fashion. My 250th fanfic is thus "Pinkie Pie: Toilet Diver". Towards the end of the month, I publish "A Funeral in Griffonstone", and shortly thereafter I get another part-time job working in a musuem (albeit at a dining location as part of the food service team). But mere days after I start the job, my Uncle Tony suddenly and unexpectedly dies of what is later determined to be a heart attack. And that sadly is not the last time an unexpected death rocks my family.

April
On my 11 year anniversary of joining the site (it's actually on April Fool's Day, but I celebrate it the day after to avoid making anyone think it's an April Fool's joke), I publish an AU story called "Starlight: Queen of the Changelings" where Starlight is transformed into a changeling during "To Where and Back Again". I also host a Q & A session and post the inevitable follow-up about a week later. For the rest of the month, my time is spent on the sixteenth volume of my "What If?" rewrite series, which hosts twelve chapters and just barely misses crossing the 100,000 total word threshold. As of now, it is also the first one in the series to have less than a thousand views (not that I'm complaining). This is despite my Uncle Tony's funeral at the beginning of the month, and my continued working two part-time jobs afterward. I do update "Potty Training Tales" once again after touching up a previous chapter, and finding a new prompt added.

May
My first fic of the month is a G5 fic titled "A Day for Sprout", loosely based on "Winnie the Pooh and A Day for Eeyore". It's a fic that later has to be tagged AU as a result of events in later chapters of "Make Your Mark". My next fanfic is an import from fanfiction.net born of a comic sketch from Discord, "Flurry's Flush Fiasco", a choose your own adventure story where Flurry Heart unintentionally flushes Shining Armor down the toilet. It's my most commented on of the four flush fics. Getting back to normal, I start working on a sequel to "Dragon of Steel" in order to celebrate a milestone anniversary of the creation of Superman (it being 85 years since his creation). But I hold off on publishing it until June. Meanwhile, I work on "Super Duper Foalsitter?", a CheesePie ship fic taking place in an AU during "To Where and Back Again". "Potty Training Tales" wraps up once again with one last prompt, and that ultimately makes this my most active month on the site.

June
On June 5, I publish "Dragon of Steel II" to celebrate Superman's 85th anniversary, and have it finished by the middle of the month. During Father's Day weekend, I go up north with my family as my second younger brother turns 21. When we come back, I manage to publish as a late Father's Day present "The Great and Powerful Reunion" , a standalone sequel to "Road to Family" and "Trixie Hits the Jackpot" in which Jackpot reunites with Trixie. I also post episode reviews for Chapter 4 of "Make Your Mark" and start doing G5 ranking lists soon afterward. Towards the end of the month I publish "Fine Feathered Friends", involving Gilda officially apologizing to Fluttershy, and I manage to hit 1,050 followers, something I never expected to happen when I joined this site back in 2012 (oh how far away that seems, and how different the world seemed then). In terms of blog posts, it's my most active month on the site.

July
G5 once again opens up this month in terms of fanfics for me with "Leafs at Dawn", a shipfic between Misty and Sprout that has to be tagged AU later on. But it manages to be my first fanfic in months to hit the feature box. Afterwards, I publish two FiM fics, a SmolderxOcellus ship fic (since I also did YonaBar and GallusStream this year) in "Changing Times and Hearts", and then another story about older Flurry Heart in the form of "Sun and Flurries" that features Sunburst. Aside from that, things come and go as usual and with no significant developments.

August
On August 1, as has been a tradition of mine since 2016 I publish a Scootaloo fanfic for Matt11's birthday, this time in the form of "Prickly Path", a story more about Apple Bloom and how she never knew her parents well. Then I publish "Tales of a Butterscotch", a story featuring Izzy and Misty, and flashbacks to Izzy's youth. The day before my birthday, before leaving for a family vacation to Springfield, Illinois, Topkea, Kansas, Kansas City, Missouri and Six Flags St. Louis, I polish off a fanfiction.net padded pony story "A Birthday to Rave About" and publish it. Upon coming back from vacation, I learn that one of my old fanfics, "A Tale of Cards", has been given an audio play on YouTube. Meanwhile, having already worked on "The Baby Twily and Mommy Celestia Chronicles"' first two chapters, I publish them both on August 25th and start allowing voting for the next chapters. Sadly, the day before I do this, I learn that my faternal grandmother's dog died after being hit by a car (a dog she'd had since just a few weeks before my faternal grandfather died), marking the point where 2023 begins going downhill for me.

September
Although I'd completed "Baby Cakes Go Down The Hoooole" back in early August, I hold off on publishing this imported fanfiction.net story about the Cake twins being flushed down the toilet until September, and it gets only two comments that are subsequently deleted (and the user disappears). Fortunately, "Meet the Aunts" is published six days later and not only gets comments, it also gets into the feature box (it too is a fanfic I worked on back in August, alongside my next fanfic). Just before Chapter 5 of "Make Your Mark" hits, I publish "A Misty Mystery", and start working on "Misty's Crinkly Rave" which gets published later on as my last big padded pony work for the year aside from the ongoing "The Baby Twily and Mommy Celestia Chronicles". I also work on but do not publish "Starlight's Self Defense Class" and "Princess Potty Peril", the latter being the last of the four imported flush fics. Once Chapter 5 of "Make Your Mark" is released, I post blogs reviewing the episodes and do a few other G5 journals afterwards.

October
My first fanfic of the month is "Starlight's Self Defense Class", but I publish the next chapter of "The Baby Twily and Mommy Celestia Chronicles" before then. The first fanfic I work on for the month to be published in it is "Two Mages and a Foal", but it has to wait for "Princess Potty Peril" to come out first, then it takes a back seat while I work on the seventeenth volume of my "What If?" series, releasing it on October 11 and wrapping it up October 17th. During this month, I get a notice to start renewing my health insurance and I do all I can online, then wait for further instruction. At the very end of the month, I get called for jury duty and ultimately am dismissed after the first day of reporting.

November
Right before the sixth and final chapter of "Make Your Mark" comes out, I publish and release "Pipp's Special Stream" as my last G5 fic of the month. And earlier in the month I update "The Baby Twily and Mommy Celestia Chronicles" once again. "Make Your Mark"'s final act gives me a few blog posts to publish right around and just after Thanksgiving, and it keeps it from being my least active month on the site in terms of blog posts.

December
Another update to "The Baby Twily and Mommy Celestia Chronicles" comes first, as do two blog posts related to "Make Your Mark". Then after that, my last fic of the year is published on December 11 in the form of "An Appleloosian Hearth's Warming". It's just a simple story about Braeburn and Little Strong Heart spending the holiday together, and perhaps that's why it ends up being my least viewed story of the entire year. I thus end 2023 with 277 stories published and 1,071 followers. I'm pretty sure that if I keep at the pace I'm currently keeping at, I can cross the 300 story threshold next year. I will honestly be shocked if I somehow get to 1,100 or more followers by the end of next year. As always, should there be any significant changes in my life (still waiting to find out if my insurance is being renewed or not, and I'm looking into the possibility of getting a more demanding part-time or even a full-time job at the museum sometime this coming year), I'll do my best to keep you all informed and updated.

Comments

[Comickook]

Thanks very much for the recap. Of course, 2024 IS a "Year of the Dragon", so maybe you could do a number of stories that prominently feature dragons (your choice on the number).'

Like, for example, a one-shot "ship fic" for Ember and Thorax (that would be a good one for Valentine's Day)

Or a G5 "time skip" story featuring Sparky as a young adult (by pony standards) helping out his adoptive father on assorted minor cases. Possibly helping out the G5 Mane Six (PLUS Sprout) on a case involving ghosts (in honor of Scooby-Doo's 55th anniversary)

Or a "World's Finest"-type story starring Super Dragon, Batmare and the Titans all teamed against the villain of your choice, assuming it would be one that would have the ambition, intelligence and resources to pose a credible challenge to essentially the combined efforts of Batman, Superman AND the Titans (since this would also be in honor of Batman's 85th birthday AND the 60th anniversary of the Teen Titans)

Or a side-story to the immediately above that has Ember filling in for Spike as Super Dragon in the Super Dragon universe (year of the Dragon PLUS Supergirl's 65th anniversary) with the main villains being that universe's version of Metallo (65th anniversary for Metallo as well) AND the Ultra-Humanite (the Ultra-Humanite's 85th anniversary) with Ember being "helped" by Discord (Mister Mxyzptlk's 80th anniversary)

Or an Equestria Girls story featuring that world's Spike visiting Equestria along with his world's Twilight and getting used to having dragon abilities.

Or a story showing your spin on that set of "peace negotiations" Spike did concerning the Abyssinians and Diamond Dogs before flying off to Canterlot in the "future present day" part of "the Last Problem".

Or a G5 story that has Spike having a friendly chat with Hitch, Sunny and Sparky (helping Sparky learn more about his dragon heritage)