#end of year thoughts

[netherfeildren]

End of Year Thoughts :

A different sort of post from me this evening.

I've been trying to write up my feelings about this year all day and struggling hard. Partly because I always try my hardest to keep this space as positive a place as possible and this here is not entirely that. Mainly because I've found myself for the past few days, and in spite of all I've been writing, very sort of bad and sad and strange about my writing, finding it a little meaningless, a little mediocre. Difficult because one, obviously, but two, now that I want to say something good and positive about what I've produced this year, words are falling flat and failing me. Frustrating because now that a year in which I've done so much new is coming to an end, I find myself lacking any sort of inner excitement for all this said newness. Typical and normal feelings within the creative process, I think, but still frustrating to navigate nevertheless.

What I'm clinging to through this, though, and fiercely, is you all who have been so astoundingly kind and supportive and generous to me all year long. You lovely people who read my work and talk to me about it and have befriended me in all the most special of ways. I appreciate you all so much, and sometimes I feel I say it so much it becomes redundant, but at a certain point words fail to express the magnitude of gratitude and so the only way I can continue to show my thanks of you all is to say it a million more times, and then keep writing for those of you who have been by my side all year long.

The point I'm trying to make, I think, is that sometimes, despite feeling successful or fulfilled or happy, or what have you, in some ways, sometimes there's still that naggy, prickly feeling that something is lacking or not right or not enough. I think this is so normal, not just in a creative process, but in all aspects of what it is to grow up and build a life and become a person and and and... Ennui or self perceived inadequacy or the highs and lows will ebb and flow, but what you all have taught me, and so thoroughly, is that the most important things are the little ones, the funny ones and the sentimental ones and the honest ones. These are all things you all have given me this year and for which I'll literally never be able to stop saying thank you for to you all, my dear, dear pocket friends who live in my phone.

I found myself in a very wrong direction last year, then entirely directionless this year. Next year, I think and I hope I'll get it all kind of sort of right, course correct and end up in a good spot. I hope if any of you are at all feeling a little blue like I am, please know you're not alone, and I'm right there with you. I think of you all always and I wish you all nothing but happiness and success and love in the new year 🤍🤍

[lunamarooned]

It feels like we’ve all had a hard 2023

For some folks, it was unavoidable and it felt like the universe was conspiring against you (for you?) to teach you some lessons

For some of other folks, you’re just a bunch of dumb bitches who would’ve been fine this year if you didn’t have your head jammed up your anus making things harder on the rest of us and yourselves

And if you feel you can’t fit in either of these categories, count yourself lucky for having dodged a bullet

In either case, I hope 2024 is kinder to us all.

[nyxicnymph]

Man. What a year.

I started this year with what I'd like to call "a bang". I opened my personal promotion server and became a lot more focused on my writing. I have 37 works on my ao3 page from this year alone, and even more on tumblr floating around.

I started playing Genshin Impact and surprisingly, it has helped me to further develop my writing and my drawing skills. I can spot a pretty marked difference in my stuff at the beginning of the year vs the end of it.

I finished my first year of college and in the process, found my true calling, not as an engineer but in veterinary medicine. Now I'm halfway through my second year, waiting on the edge of my seat for transfer applications to open in January.

Despite my family issues, I believe I am managing to grow past the problems and into my own life as my own person. I have my own goals and dreams and I definitely don't feel a bleak hopelessness about the future, most of the time anyway.

I've pushed my boundaries by finally shipping ships that aren't necessarily cishet, by writing for ships or characters I don't like, by pushing myself to add more details, to write personality differences in the characters. I've written gen fics, ship fics, poly fics, dramatic action fics. I'm slowly getting a better grasp on anatomy.

I've grown a lot this past year, and in the process I've lost some of the old pieces of my life. I've explored my sexuality and gender a bit more, and I think it's been rewarding. Still demisexual and demiromantic, but I'm genderqueer now, not demigirl. That was a good label for me for a while, but it's not mine anymore, and that's okay!

I've lost a friend, drifted away from others through nothing more than different interests, i started this year with a heartbreak.

But in all the whirlwind, I've found something special.

on the 25 of May I met a wonderful lady through a (former) mutual friend. I was nervous to meet her as the mutual spoke highly of her, but we clicked quite well once the anxieties faded. I was happy to be friends with her, and I was happy to have more friends in my interests!

Time passed and that former mutual has faded from our lives now. But that day has had a lasting impact on my life. Because that's how I met my beautiful lovely Girlfriend. The love of my life, the other half of my heart.

Navi and I have been dating for three months now, and we are so so lucky with each other. I know three months doesn't seem like a lot, and it definitely hasn't felt like just or even three months, but this has been my longest romantic relationship ever.

Someday, Navi. I want to marry you. I know I tell you that a lot, it's because I mean it. I will. We just have to hold out a little longer! By this time next year, we will be together in person!

Happy New Year's to those who have read this far, and an especially happy one to my beloved.

Here's to 2023, my year of Hope.

[zadien]

End of Year Writing thoughts

So this year I didn't post much, just updated SLTS in September and then again in December, chapters 40 and 41 respectively.

I also updated the SLTS rewrite on AO3 - it's slow but progressing and Saving is being updated there too.

But writing-wise, I wrote 257,260 words. Which is a LOT. I'm really proud of that. I've probably written more this year than any other year. Definitely helped getting a sunrise alarm clock because I write best first thing in the morning, so when that light comes on at 6, I just plug in and write for an hour before work.

But despite writing all of that, most of it will never see the light of day.

Anyway, for 2023, I want to keep writing. I want to finish my Cloti fic. There's a lot of FF7 stuff coming out, it's relevant again and it's fun to work with different characters I haven't had a chance to write before. So that's one thing I need to mark off.

I also want to add more to SLTS BUT I'm debating whether to keep updating it or just write it all and then post. That'll take a few years sure, but I'm not massively fussed about updating anyway. It's sort of anxiety-inducing and a huge exercise in frustration. You spend weeks and months of your life writing a chapter, spend a good week editing and polishing it, and then receive maybe 1 or 2 reviews? (Don't get me wrong, I love those reviews and reread them loads, but updating is very stressful. It's screaming into the void, I'm happier writing than sharing- and I can always just discord those people and get a serotonin boost that way). We'll see.

I know I was updating Saving but right now I don't have the time to put into two long fics, I just really don't. So SLTS is my priority, I'll write it, I'll hopefully finish it and then I can turn my attention back to Saving because I KNOW how it goes. It's just getting the words down.

[elysianholly]

Farewell 2022

What a difference a year makes.

At the end of 2021, I was on the brink of enforcing a very difficult but necessary decision. It was one that I knew would have immediate, painful consequences, but also one I made wholeheartedly believing it was for the best. And after that was done, I thought the hard part of the year was over.

Spoiler alert: It was not. I had no idea what 2022 was getting ready to throw at me.

A former employer had a sign posted above the exit of the office featuring a bastardized Oscar Wilde quote. All of us light up a room, some when they enter, others when they leave. My life has been brightened by both comings and goings this year. While very little unfolded the way I expected, the place I am now is one of peace, joy, and immense gratitude for those people who made this possible. In particular, the people I didn’t know in December 2021 who have become good friends. The people I did know in December 2021 but had no idea how much closer we would become. While I may have a few small regrets, they are indeed small. But that’s life, and it’s always going to be life.

Bottom line: nothing ever goes exactly the way you think it will. You can’t predict other people. Sometimes you can’t even predict yourself. All you can do is your very best. Every day. No matter how hard it is.

So it's the end of 2022, and I am looking forward to seeing what’s next. Given this roller-coaster of a year, it’s an especially nice place to have landed.

If you’re one of the people who brightened my life this year (and if you are, you know you are), thank you. I’ll never be able to put into words how much your friendship means to me, but I’ll keep trying. Onward to better things.

[silver-rings-and-rabbits]

PB destroyed my faith in sequels but Alexis Hall and Rian Johnson restored it

[maladaptivemetaphors]

end of an era

dried out mascara

too many tissues and no thank you notes

end of an era

but my souls is bleeding

and beetles keep following

all the way home

end of an era

but don’t touch your hair

it’s finally left alone

so it will grow

so put down your phone

you’re just scrolling to scroll

you’re twenty five now

and still ain’t got a home

or a hole

or a hope

or a warm place to grow

but you’re not starting over

you finally know

and you’ve taken your hands

and you’ve lotion-ed them slow

what else can you do

with nothing new to hold

and you’ve taken your thoughts

and you’ve put on a show

what else can you do

with no one who knows

and so it is

or so it seems

and one day possibly could be

and if you believe then you receive

remember middle school

and neighbors pools

and mermaids who could fly

and possibly

what you believed

is you would never want to die

and summers would set

but not in stone

and you survived

so you should know

exactly what to do

with it all

with right now

with what’s next

with reaching the very edge of the crest

it’s not the first year of your life you’ve ran through hundreds of sunsets

it’s just

the

end of an era

with no one to spare ya

so darling i’ll dare ya:

collect all your thoughts

and never come home

[loverockawaitsyou]

SAPPY END OF YEAR THOUGHTS: I don’t talk about it much on here, but I really love Bojack Horseman. This show really helped me to process my trauma and depression, and understand how to do and be better. More than any other character on TV, I resonate with Diane the most.

This year was a big one for learning how to heal, move forward, and enjoy life a bit more. As a writer, this scene really transformed me.

I mostly come come from a journalism background, and the main work I gained recognition and built my career off of were think pieces about diversity and inclusion and entertainment, and movie reviews/criticism. For the better part of a year, I’ve struggled to write anything, and had lost a lot of passion for writing due to pressure, routine, the lack of sustainable pay, and also the showbiz cattiness and cliquishness. 

I felt that I constantly needed to keep up, and needed to be serious, and always write about social injustice, and my own tumultuous life in the industry. I even had my little fifteen seconds of viral attention from an article I wrote for a major news site, but that of course, came and went.

However, after reading a simply wondrous fanfic I found on here, I felt reinvigorated about writing again, and decided to try my own hand at fanfic even if it’s not perfect. I am not accustomed to writing fiction, so I am well aware that my narrative skills need to be polished, but it has made me excited to craft my own characters and scenarios. 

I have been working on my transition to fiction work, and have a goal of completing the first draft of a novel in 2023.

[valtsv]

are we still doing this because i have a late submission

[benisasoftboi]

Best thing about Doctor Who, and I mean this so genuinely, is the way it goes from ‘haunting Celtic folk mystery about death and penitence’ to ‘what if your group chat banter was so dire that your phone developed sentience and tried to kill you’

[inkskinned]

probably time for this story i guess but when i was a kid there was a summer that my brother was really into making smoothies and milkshakes. part of this was that we didn't have AC and couldn't afford to run fans all day so it was kind of important to get good at making Cool Down Concoctions.

we also had a patch of mint, and he had two impressionable little sisters who had the attitude of "fuck it, might as well."

at one point, for fun, this 16 year old boy with a dream in his eye and scientific fervor in heart just wanted to see how far one could push the idea of "vanilla mint smoothie". how much vanilla extract and how much mint can go into a blender before it truly is inedible.

the answer is 3 cups of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup milk alternative, and about 50 sprigs (not leaves, whole spring) of mint. add ice and the courage of a child. idk, it was summer and we were bored.

the word i would use to describe the feeling of drinking it would maybe be "violent" or perhaps, like. "triangular." my nose felt pristine. inhaling following the first sip was like trying to sculpt a new face. i was ensconced in a mesh of horror. it was something beyond taste. for years after, i assumed those commercials that said "this is how it feels to chew five gum" were referencing the exact experience of this singular viscous smoothie.

what's worse is that we knew our mother would hate that we wasted so much vanilla extract. so we had to make it worth it. we had to actually finish the drink. it wasn't "wasting" it if we actually drank it, right? we huddled around outside in the blistering sun, gagging and passing around a single green potion, shivering with disgust. each sip was transcendent, but in a sort of non-euclidean way. i think this is where i lost my binary gender. it eroded certain parts of me in an acidic gut ecology collapse.

here's the thing about love and trust: the next day my brother made a different shake, and i drank it without complaint. it's been like 15 years. he's now a genuinely skilled cook. sometimes one of the three of us will fuck up in the kitchen or find something horrible or make a terrible smoothie mistake and then we pass it to each other, single potion bottle, and we say try it it's delicious. it always smells disgusting. and then, cerimonious, we drink it together. because that's what family does.

[blurred-9l]

Twenty-Six

Or, on the things I left behind and the things I can't let go of.

Sometimes, I wonder about identity. Not in a particularly specific way but rather as a pin-on-a-map type of thing:

"This is me".

"Yup, that's me".

"Right, that's where I am".

Who am I, really? It feels like it gets easier to point out the things I'm not than the things I am. Is that identity? Or some kind of denial?

I used to run a variety of blogs. Filled the web pages with empty words and rants. Self-serving catharsis. Half-empty projects to look back on. A soft knot coming undone, pulling my heart strings to pull the plug on them. Should I delete them? Pass ownership of them to the void? What's the point of a diary if not for letting go?

And yet, there's something poignant in this pondering. All the things that go unsaid. Is there a fragment of myself, just a teeny-tiny bit, embedded within the feelings I poured into the cybernetic void? If so, is there a piece of myself, orphaned and discarded, never to be seen again?

[ghostvvitch]

Does anyone else feel like towards the end of the year you can suddenly become anonymous?

Like wherever I go I feel like no one knows me and no one can know me. Like nothing matters (in the best way possible). Like time stays still.

It feels like limbo.

[malinaa]

if i think about the hunger games in peeta's perspective i WILL start sobbing

[spinaholi]

sandra lynn’s dating history now includes:

the most red-flag, gaslighting, married guy who became a world renowned insidious televangelist and ruined her perception of love and self-worth

the saddest, wettest, cardboard-box-living, yogurt covered man with an ancient hereditary curse of bad luck

the arch devil of gluttony and living embodiment of insatiable desire and hunger

a former drug addict, high school student councillor, werewolf, who’s probably the most mentally healthy person to ever exist

sexy pirate

[grntaire]

season 3 aziraphale taking crowley’s glasses off sweet passionate kiss in the rain BAM hard cut to them making out on every surface in the bookshop like it’s a shitty 2008 teen movie