2017 is almost behind us... · 1:43am Jan 1st, 2018
For some, it is already 2018. For others, like me, we still have a few more hours of 2017 to go. Realistically, a new year doesn't mean much of anything, being just an arbitrary term our species created to make sense of the rotation of the Earth around the Sun, but one cannot deny the symbolism of a "new year" bringing with it the possibility of a new beginning. A fresh start to things, as it were.
So before the year ends, I shall decompress. Feel free to run while you can.
This year, we had ourselves a seventh season of miniature equines with atypical pigments going on wacky adventures. We learned that Rainbow Dash is worst pony because she's a horrible liar and hates pies. Twilight Sparkle is a moron who unseals ancient horrors so that senpai will notice her. Starlight Glimmer continued to improve, even if it was mostly by allowing us to bring Trixie and Maud onto the show more often. Pinkie Pie is still insane. We finally got the closest thing we will ever get to a proper Celestia episode, even if the majority of it was focused on Luna and Starlight. And to top it all off, we had an excellent episode detailing the Apple Family parents, complete with well-handled celebrity guests and proof that pony can do light, schoolyard-friendly drama well when it wants to.
On the other side of the mirror...we had a trio of crappy specials, coupled with some amusing-but-empty YouTube shorts. Sunset Shimmer still refuses to be acknowledged by the main series, but the Sirens are now canon as of the season finale, meaning EqG by extension is canon, and any of the fans that would have been weeping about this have either gotten over it or left long ago so nothing really changed.
We also had that long-promised theatrical movie. It was...okay. Nothing great, certainly not worth all the hype, but it was a disposable bit of entertaining fluff. And unlike the majority of Hasbro's movies, it actually stayed true to the source material. It wasn't a Hannah Montana rip-off like the Jem movie, it wasn't completely nonsensical like Battleship, it wasn't as pointlessly dull as G.I. Joe, and it wasn't the continent-sized dumpster fire that is the Michael Bay Transformers movies.
On my front, I was promoted...back to the position I was demoted from two years previously. My physical health has continued to deteriorate at a considerable rate, my heart is about ready to give, and I can barely move, but it's also all my fault, so it's alright. Most of the year was bog standard as I went to work, came home, wrote occasionally, watched the country get slowly screwed by our new leader, and did other things as needed. I took one actual vacation to power level though Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood upon release, only for the game to be DDOSed and be rendered unplayable for almost the entire time I had set aside. I also got laryngitis for about a month, which is a problem when your job depends on answering the phone.
But on the positive side...well, I'm still alive. And we finally got a relaunch of Mystery Science Theater 3000 on Netflix, with a new season announced just this last Thanksgiving. Not really necessary in a world with Rifftrax and a few dozen other programs, not to mention all the movie reviewers on YouTube MST3K helped inspire, but it was good to have the old show back, the new cast is fine, the riffing is still solid, and the new series stays true to the "our budget is whatever spare change we found between the sofa cushions" aesthetic of the original.
Sadly, the reason the year went by so standard is because all the pain needed to be packed into December. My computer's hard drive, along with several other components, died out suddenly. I was able to get my hands on a new machine, but the data could not be retrieved. Because I am a stupid person, I didn't keep backups of everything, so I lost not only my fics but also the original novel I had been working on slowly for years. I'm starting work on Little Sunny's next chapter again, but the long-promised Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid crossover is probably lost forever, along with the other projects I had on the drawing board. While that was going on, I had opened up my home to my parents for the holidays, which meant scrubbing every last inch over and over to make things perfect...and then my dad got sick two days before Christmas and I had to drive to their house anyway.
In all reality, this year could have been a lot worse. I'm still alive, my family is still alive (except for my grandmother, who died early this year). I still have my job for at least another year. Life could objectively be much worse. But it still helps to get the whine out before the year's done. So 2018, here we come. And 2017, don't let the door hit you in the 7 on the way out.
Anyone have anything they need to vent or praise before we move to the new year?
Really sorry to read about your hard drive failing. *Hugs* I'm glad you're still here, IAH.
I survived Raubahn Savage.
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Probably the only good thing to come out of that mess was seeing the FFXIV community try to find some way to get past the choke point. Whether it be trying to form orderly lines, or using two-rider mounts to get people over the wall so they could map out the rest of the region, it was nice to see people trying to make the most of the mess in the midst of legitimate rage.
Now if only SE would learn from this and stop locking everything behind story content...
I didn't realize your heart was so bad. I will be sure to pray for you. God bless.