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2023 In-Review
a year ago
(OOC, of course!)
The New Year came and went. I have a tradition of posting a couple journals at the end of the year, just to collect my thoughts. A "Year in Review", a celebration of another year of Etheras content, and then plans for the upcoming year. Obviously I'm a bit late on it this year, it being mid-February at this point.
Every year I feel like next year will be calmer, there will be less vying for my time and attention... less stress. And every year it seems that the opposite is true. The stakes are always higher, there's always more that needs attention and less time to do it. I suppose I'm making excuses here for not writing my usual annual posts on-time. If I really forced myself to do it, forced myself to find the time, it would have been done. But I always seemed to feel like something else was a higher priority. Always some fire to put out or pressing emergency. I suppose reality is entropy in-action. Everything is always decaying and falling apart, and we scramble to try and hold it together as much as we can.
I don't mean to sound so dire and depressing, but 2023 was not a good year for me. Just another year of hopes and dreams that didn't come to fruition. It's probably my own fault. I feel like I lack structure and discipline in my life. Too willing to procrastinate. But the funny thing is, I don't procrastinate and do something relaxing or fun. I just get stuck in an in-between state where I'm like "preparing" to do the hard work, but never get to it. It's like... doing a stretch routine before exercise for so long that I no longer have time for the exercise. If that makes sense?
But enough using Journals as my personal psychiatrist (or is it a psychologist?) Let's talk about 2023!
ETHERAS ACHIEVEMENTS
I haven't been tracking data as closely as I used to. I've realized that it doesn't really matter. Back in the day, I treated views and faves and watches as a kind of "score" and took pride in it. I now see that as kind of hollow and narcissistic. People are not scores. And if you're doing things just to get thumbs-ups from others, that's very unhealthy. So I will probably stop following "scores" altogether, except one:
... passed 1000 followers on Twitter (yay)
Other than that, I also...
... uploaded a bunch of artwork!
... conquered some people!
... subjugated some stuff!
IRL ACHIEVEMENTS (or lack thereof)
It was a bit of an uneventful year TBH, and went by far too quickly. Filled with stress and scrambling around, I feel like I didn't really make any real improvements in my life situation. In fact, a few things got a lot worse.
FURRY FANDOM NEWS
The Furry sites seem to be a wasteland. Only those of us who got into the fandom early seem to remain. Everybody else seems to have moved on to Twitter of all places (which I don't understand), or perhaps Bluesky (I have a license code but haven't really used it yet).
As technology improves, it seems like interaction is moving away from static images too. Twitter is full of 2D and 3D animation. That is the future. The age of a person with modest means creating an interesting character and becoming popular through commissioning that character is probably over. These days, you'd either need to learn to animate or be independently wealthy and pay someone else to do it. Pay-for-popularity doesn't seem like it's going to foster a fun and creative community to me. It's kind-of sad. It reduces everybody to being a nobody while entrenching an aristocracy. But maybe that's just the way that things go when fandoms get this large.
Here I am, sounding like an old fuddy-duddy "Back in my day things used to be better!" ... but in all sincerity, I do think things were better. But maybe I'm just wearing rose-tinted nostalgia glasses.
IN THE WORLD
... everything is going to hell. I'm not sure whether we're all going to die in World War 3 or a 2nd American Civil War. Things seem to be pretty bad. I think I'm going to gloss over this section because it's just too depressing.
IN THE MEDIA
... nothing good, really.
... I did watch Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, and that was amazing, but even that is a few years old, I'm just late to the party.
... looking forward to Dune part 2, but even part 1 came out in 2022, not 2023. So... yeah, 2023 was a media wasteland.
... John Wick 4 was fun, but it's moving further away from its realistic roots and more into a comicbook-type movie. Each successive episode is more cheesy and vapid than the previous one. I feel like crying out like that kid from The Simpsons, "Stop! Stop!! It's already dead!"
IN GAMING
... Starfield is a big empty void of content. I do appreciate the NASA-punk aesthetic, but Bethesda Softworks seems to be continuing its identity crisis. (They seem to have forgotten why people love(d) their games)
... Hogwarts Legacy came out in 2023 though, and it was -amazing- . Best game I've played in a long time. I do wish that your choice to either become a dark or light wizard was less like Mass Effect 3's "3-choices" ending. To quote Linkin Park: In the end, it didn't even matter. I suspect that this was an effort to keep the game paths open enough for DLC. Maybe we'll have a "real" ending once all the DLC are published. One can only hope.
UNREACHED ACHIEVEMENTS
I pretty-much failed at everything this year.
... I didn't launch a 2nd game or even really support the 1st.
... I didn't start the tabletop group
... I didn't get any renovation done
... I didn't update www.etheras.com
GOALS FOR 2024
... launch 2 games. I absolutely must complete this.
... more Etheras artwork
... build the Youtube channel
... I'm going to put off the D&D group 'til 2025 at least. I need to focus on my work first.
... same with updating etheras.com . Need to get my game company profitable.
CONCLUSION
I hope this dower moping post didn't bring down your day too much. But another year, another opportunity. A chance for things to get better. I hope your 2024 is great. And thank you for being a fan of my lil fennec prince this year. ^.^
Cheers!
~ Etheras
The New Year came and went. I have a tradition of posting a couple journals at the end of the year, just to collect my thoughts. A "Year in Review", a celebration of another year of Etheras content, and then plans for the upcoming year. Obviously I'm a bit late on it this year, it being mid-February at this point.
Every year I feel like next year will be calmer, there will be less vying for my time and attention... less stress. And every year it seems that the opposite is true. The stakes are always higher, there's always more that needs attention and less time to do it. I suppose I'm making excuses here for not writing my usual annual posts on-time. If I really forced myself to do it, forced myself to find the time, it would have been done. But I always seemed to feel like something else was a higher priority. Always some fire to put out or pressing emergency. I suppose reality is entropy in-action. Everything is always decaying and falling apart, and we scramble to try and hold it together as much as we can.
I don't mean to sound so dire and depressing, but 2023 was not a good year for me. Just another year of hopes and dreams that didn't come to fruition. It's probably my own fault. I feel like I lack structure and discipline in my life. Too willing to procrastinate. But the funny thing is, I don't procrastinate and do something relaxing or fun. I just get stuck in an in-between state where I'm like "preparing" to do the hard work, but never get to it. It's like... doing a stretch routine before exercise for so long that I no longer have time for the exercise. If that makes sense?
But enough using Journals as my personal psychiatrist (or is it a psychologist?) Let's talk about 2023!
ETHERAS ACHIEVEMENTS
I haven't been tracking data as closely as I used to. I've realized that it doesn't really matter. Back in the day, I treated views and faves and watches as a kind of "score" and took pride in it. I now see that as kind of hollow and narcissistic. People are not scores. And if you're doing things just to get thumbs-ups from others, that's very unhealthy. So I will probably stop following "scores" altogether, except one:
... passed 1000 followers on Twitter (yay)
Other than that, I also...
... uploaded a bunch of artwork!
... conquered some people!
... subjugated some stuff!
IRL ACHIEVEMENTS (or lack thereof)
It was a bit of an uneventful year TBH, and went by far too quickly. Filled with stress and scrambling around, I feel like I didn't really make any real improvements in my life situation. In fact, a few things got a lot worse.
FURRY FANDOM NEWS
The Furry sites seem to be a wasteland. Only those of us who got into the fandom early seem to remain. Everybody else seems to have moved on to Twitter of all places (which I don't understand), or perhaps Bluesky (I have a license code but haven't really used it yet).
As technology improves, it seems like interaction is moving away from static images too. Twitter is full of 2D and 3D animation. That is the future. The age of a person with modest means creating an interesting character and becoming popular through commissioning that character is probably over. These days, you'd either need to learn to animate or be independently wealthy and pay someone else to do it. Pay-for-popularity doesn't seem like it's going to foster a fun and creative community to me. It's kind-of sad. It reduces everybody to being a nobody while entrenching an aristocracy. But maybe that's just the way that things go when fandoms get this large.
Here I am, sounding like an old fuddy-duddy "Back in my day things used to be better!" ... but in all sincerity, I do think things were better. But maybe I'm just wearing rose-tinted nostalgia glasses.
IN THE WORLD
... everything is going to hell. I'm not sure whether we're all going to die in World War 3 or a 2nd American Civil War. Things seem to be pretty bad. I think I'm going to gloss over this section because it's just too depressing.
IN THE MEDIA
... nothing good, really.
... I did watch Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, and that was amazing, but even that is a few years old, I'm just late to the party.
... looking forward to Dune part 2, but even part 1 came out in 2022, not 2023. So... yeah, 2023 was a media wasteland.
... John Wick 4 was fun, but it's moving further away from its realistic roots and more into a comicbook-type movie. Each successive episode is more cheesy and vapid than the previous one. I feel like crying out like that kid from The Simpsons, "Stop! Stop!! It's already dead!"
IN GAMING
... Starfield is a big empty void of content. I do appreciate the NASA-punk aesthetic, but Bethesda Softworks seems to be continuing its identity crisis. (They seem to have forgotten why people love(d) their games)
... Hogwarts Legacy came out in 2023 though, and it was -amazing- . Best game I've played in a long time. I do wish that your choice to either become a dark or light wizard was less like Mass Effect 3's "3-choices" ending. To quote Linkin Park: In the end, it didn't even matter. I suspect that this was an effort to keep the game paths open enough for DLC. Maybe we'll have a "real" ending once all the DLC are published. One can only hope.
UNREACHED ACHIEVEMENTS
I pretty-much failed at everything this year.
... I didn't launch a 2nd game or even really support the 1st.
... I didn't start the tabletop group
... I didn't get any renovation done
... I didn't update www.etheras.com
GOALS FOR 2024
... launch 2 games. I absolutely must complete this.
... more Etheras artwork
... build the Youtube channel
... I'm going to put off the D&D group 'til 2025 at least. I need to focus on my work first.
... same with updating etheras.com . Need to get my game company profitable.
CONCLUSION
I hope this dower moping post didn't bring down your day too much. But another year, another opportunity. A chance for things to get better. I hope your 2024 is great. And thank you for being a fan of my lil fennec prince this year. ^.^
Cheers!
~ Etheras
Here's to hoping 2024 will become and active and fruitfull year for you! :cheers:
... I'll do mine to make it entertaining :P