It would seem that most people were not pleased with 2016.

Myself included, thus supporting my superstition that years ending in 6 tend to suck. 2006 wasn't much better; if anything it was worse. So 2016 wasn't quite my worst year, at least.

Those people often cite the litany of celebrity deaths and all the political screw-ups we had this year. In what is surely a controversial opinion... don't get me wrong, it's not saying much, but out of us all I'm likely the least upset over a certain election. Still not happy with it, how could I possibly be after the primary. I'm not going into 2017 fully pessimistic on that front, but my outlook is still pretty low. And I won't deny 2016 had some pretty tragic deaths, but the thing is that good people like them die each year. Among this year, David Bowie hit me the hardest, but not quite as much as Satoru Iwata did last year. And we're going to lose more people next year. Harsh words, I know, but it's an equally harsh truth.

I feel years are better defined on a personal basis, which for me was to say the least, still bad. It at least didn't start off so bad, and I don't remember too much what went wrong during the first half. Was probably just the usual family drama that goes on... which is actually far worse than you might think. Indeed, it did get much worse towards the end of this year. I'll just leave it at the fact that certain family members just cannot get along, engage in downright inappropriate behavior, and lash out at me instead when I call them out for it. The sad thing is that I'd be better off giving up altogether, but I simply cannot. It might not have been my only source of grief last year, but damn did it take up a good lot. And it too will probably continue...

So that may be why I failed this year. Failed to submit anything, failed to interact more with the scene, even practically disappearing for a good 2 months without notice. I've had maybe one successful instance of actually working on stuff all this year. In any other instance where I find time and/or gather enough "motivation," I seem to waste on other activities. Another thing I noticed this year is that while we've gotten lots of great stuff from familiar faces, we didn't have all that many new faces to the Pokevore scene.

That said, there were two high points for me this year, it's just that both of them are video games. One of course is Pokemon Sun/Moon, which... I still don't even own yet, so I can't truly call it a high point for certain (Spoilers are allowed btw, I purposely saw the leaks for instance). And the other is Brilliant Pagoda or Haze Castle, some bullet-hell game whose series only I'm a fan of in this circle, and even then that game is honestly slightly disappointing now that I'm realizing how stupid some of its gameplay decisions are. I mean, I'm still playing it, heck, my current avatar, Suzumi Kuzu (who is scary-psychotic btw) comes from that game. I just disagree with some of those decisions. Particularly the most recent version's changes. Bosses being invincible at the start of an attack is actually fine, Touhou does it too, I just don't think the invincible-time should be difficulty-dependent. 10 seconds on Unreal (read: Lunatic) is a bit much, especially if you get the midboss sub-event that doubles it to 20. 6/12 on all difficulties would feel right to me. And speaking of sub-events, ice physics in a shmup? WTF game.


Obligatory off-topic mini-review out of the way...

Well, what better time to start anew than with a new year? Now, that does NOT mean anything like a gallery nuke or changing accounts. I'll forever be against those actions. I'll simply accept the one-year+ gap between submissions. Nor will I reboot my series; they shall remain canon to their respective series. It's merely the principle of me having been this inactive for so long that it feels like I'm restarting.

I'm naturally hesitant to be setting up goals for this year now that I have a track record of failing to keep my promises, but here's what I wanted to do, but I'd still like to try again regardless:

Get back in touch with the community. I can't say I made any friends this year lurking in the shadows. But last year was a different story. I think this is one of the greatest communities I've joined, making friends with people who inspired me as well as those whom I myself inspired, and usually both at the same time. People like  TastyTales,  FlareBlitz,  ASaneMan,  Smuxray, and  PoncoCykes, among others I've yet to really talk to, including the other Clearspring members. I'm aware of their Telegram group, and hopefully you'll see me there soon, as well as on more personal communication means like Skype and Discord.

Continue catching up on everyone's stories, leave more feedback. It's not just an ever-growing backlog of stories, it's also a backlog of my thoughts on them. All the above mentioned are great writers and artists, and one of my most perennial regrets is not being there enough to give proper thanks and thoughts.

Obviously start writing again. No more excuses. I wasn't off to that bad a start in 2015, putting out a piece once every two months, and then I just... stopped. Missed every single personal deadline. Zero motivation. Thing is... I don't want to say I'm losing interest, but this happens with just about every community I join. I lose interest. On the other hand, it usually tends to be an on-off thing. It's doubtlessly possible for me to make a push back into writing as long as I actually make the effort. This is easily my loftiest goal, as I'm aiming for two stories per month.

Not commissions. I know others have lately been considering commissions. Me, I know I'm not ready for that for several reasons. One is my current track record. Nobody wants to wait years on this sort of thing. Sort of related is that I want to make sure I'm still considered at least decent, now that I've fallen out of practice. Lastly... I came into this with zero intention of making money off of my writing. It's not out of the question for me to reconsider, but unlikely.

Raffles. They were a pretty popular thing last year and before, and I haven't forgotten what I said. I would host a raffle once I reach both 1,000 views and 50 watches. I've hit the former with no fanfare, not even from myself. A 50 watcher raffle is still my intention, but I'll be honest, I feel a bit unprepared to host one, given that I don't even have experience participating in one. I really only have common sense to go by in raffle procedures. One reason behind going through with this is for practice/experience. Even then, I probably won't do too many.

Journals. They will still happen, but personally I think this account is a bit over-saturated with what has been my usual means of sending messages to the community. The content of said journals could use improvement as well. Too many journals here that largely amount to me apologizing for my laziness (there's some of that here too), and I'm even considering going against my "no deletes policy," or at least a compromise where I back them up into a graveyard of sorts. I could also cut down on the "Happy ___ Day" journals. Save them for the ones I feel are significant, or if I have a significant message to go with it. Such was the case with one special journal I did last January, and given my feelings on that subject I'm definitely gonna revisit it in about 1.5 weeks from now. And you can look forward to things like TMI/AMAs or me taking part in whatever "meme" journal's floating around at the time.

All in all, I'm glad you guys have had a better year than I did. For me it feels like it was all downs, and I'm still feeling down. Yet everyone else just keeps coming with new content, combating those downs and producing some ups. Just another way you guys are providing inspiration, despite the contrary evidence.

2017 shall be more than a new year for me. It shall be... a new eon.