Official End Of 2017 Wrap-Up Post

[xyzzysqrl]

If 2016 was a year that didn't have the courtesy to just go away, 2017 was a year that grabbed us by the arm and dragged us through a whirlwind tour of everything bad it could do to us, the scenery blasting past while 2017 laughed and howled like a homicidal maniac. It was all a blur of tears and disorienting speed and a relentless sensory assault of wrongness.

It's December and I still feel like it's August or something. Did we actually lose autumn? I think we lost autumn.

Everyone check under your seat for autumn please?

... Eh on second thought let's just leave it behind.

I personally dealt with the chaotic fatigue of this year by huddling up and becoming even more of a hermit. 2017 is the year I abandoned Twitter because I disliked what it was doing to me mentally. I abandoned Twitch because it was creating psychological blocks around what was "worth" playing to show off and these blocks persisted even in offline mode, ruining my play habits a bit. I dropped Livejournal to post full-time on Dreamwidth because of LJ's TOS.

I closed off more than ever this year, and I'm wondering if that was a bad life choice or the correct reaction. Maybe it was both, I'm not great at doing stuff.

I made a few efforts to break out of my isolation and make new friends here and elsewhere but for the most part I huddled down and played games and tried to avoid the world outside my door. The stuff that leaked in under the frame smelled terrible, and my little cluster of loved ones talked about that sometimes, but mostly we huddled up.

My first of three resolutions for next year involves taking that even further to aid my mental health. Aside from a sparse few sites (here, Metafilter, one or two forums that are heavily moderated, a couple other blogs) I want to stop reading the comments anywhere on the internet.

(I find that Comments to Cats is very helpful. If you're not a cat person perhaps there is a puppy edition somewhere. If there isn't, there really should be.)

No more glancing at what people have to say about news or gaming or whatever video I just got linked on Youtube. No more tolerance for whiny, angry dead weight. I try to enjoy things first and foremost and right now the internet atmosphere is frequently hostile to that approach, so I'm finished with it.

I'm tired of letting anyone from anywhere come into my metaphorical house and crap on my metaphorical rug. I don't need these people and I don't need their bitter, edgy opinions. I'm fine with cutting that out of my life entirely, because it is not my job to wring joy out of a bricklike heart.

Every minute you spend on someone else's godawful but non-life-threatening opinions is less time you can spend thinking about how great whatever you actually enjoy is.

That applies to me as much as anyone else, though. If you hate what I have to say here, I thus release you: You are free. Go, find something you can love, and be troubled by me no more.

Now, cutting out comments and discussion threads does mean I would get even more isolated and limited, so my second resolution involves reaching out to people more. I know a fair number of people I just don't talk to as much as I should. I need to open up more, figure out who belongs in my life and who doesn't. I want to be accessible and genuine with people I like and part from those I do not.

People fall in and out of each other's lives all the time, for any number of reasons. With the collapse of most of the big-name instant messengers over the last few years, I know for a fact that there are people I loved that I will never be able to speak to again. They've moved along in their lives and left no way of contacting them. I want to hold on to those that stuck around.

If you take one thing away from this, please: Find the people that matter to you and tell them how you feel. It really is an important thing.

As to last year's Big Moment, genderwise I've slid into "being female online" really easily. Like, I declared that's what I want to be, it's what I am, it has taken no effort to just DO it. I'm still working on what that means and how far to take it, offline. I've never liked HAVING a body, I don't know if I feel a need to modify it, when I would rather it just be GONE.

Plus there's just plain... going for gender neutrality, which is ALSO a nice feeling.

The expense is painful to consider too.

I just don't know. Research and thought. There's also the terrible concerns that I'm a living stereotype as someone who loves pink and girlish things and...

Mmh. It's all very complicated. No bombshells this year, just gratitude that things are working out mostly okay.

I'm terrified every day of my life, y'know? So much could be going wrong, or IS going wrong. I try to hold on to what's right.

Aside from that, I feel like I've been a good (or good-enough) person and supportive to friends and loved ones over the last year, but I can always get better there too. There's never a reason to stop reaching for higher standards.

Next year is... I'm not gonna lie, it's probably gonna suck really hard, but maybe ...

I dunno.

Maybe it'll be different.

Maybe we'll be surprised in a good way.

We have hope, right?

All we can do is hope that this dark cloud has a silver lining. On that note, and with a little music to play us out, I formally declare...

2017 IS OVER
2017 IS OVER
2017 IS OVER

Comments

[penguinmayhem]

Maybe tomorrow will be a better day.



Probably not really the right tone and all, but I couldn't resist making the reference.

Also I apologize for that weird video I couldn't find that damn song ANYWHERE.

[xyzzysqrl]

Tonally inappropriate maybe but I can't deny I really LIKE Poets of the Fall.

And yeah, maybe tomorrow is a better day. We'll find out.

[davidn]

"No more tolerance for whiny, angry dead weight" is a wonderful goal to live by. And I would love to talk to you more :) I have to stop spending so much time on things that make me angry, myself, and to read through your and others' game posts here more.

[xyzzysqrl]

You seem pretty great and I'm looking forward to that. Speaking of game posts I've still got YOUR game on Steam waiting to be dug into. (By some happy coincidence I bought it before I knew you'd made it and learned later.) I'll have to try to get to that this year too.

[davidn]

Oh, thank you :D I'm proud of it but it's far too long!

[kjorteo]

It's fine if you just play it through without worrying about percentages! It's just a completionist's nightmare, since every level in the game has however many Mario 64-esque "Do this particular thing to get the gem" runs.

I just have the wrong personality for it, because I can't leave things like that alone, I want to 100% everything I can before moving on (barring the obvious "you literally cannot get this one without a spell to get past the locked door, come back later" ones of course) and that makes the game about a thousand hours longer and it also makes a lot of the challenges harder by not having the "You can technically try this one now but it sure would be easier if you came back with more MP and endgame spells and...." advantage. (Looking at you, Dust Hill ghost!)

Xyzzy does not have nearly as much of an issue with feeling a compulsion to 100% things, so she stands more of a chance of getting through it than I do at this point. :)

[kjorteo]

Cutting out the toxic elements and sticking to the more helpful ones is definitely a good goal... it's why my post too went on about leaving Twitter and getting caught up in this whole big gameblogging thing here. My only regret is that Comments to Cats doesn't work in Firefox/Waterfox, but I do have a more generic comment blocker (I would prefer pictures of cute cats but a white empty void works too) and that helps a lot as well.

I would be thrilled to have you as part of this whole big thing we have going on over here. :D

[bhagpuss.blogspot.com]

On the Big Moment, for what it's worth, when I began reading your posts and comments a few years back, to the extent that I assigned a notional gender to the entity named "XYXXYSSQRL", that identity was female. The choice of language, the tone and tenor, the words and the way you expressed yourself somehow seemed to confirm it. It was quite a while later that you said something that specifically contradicted that impression but even then I didn't always remember that the label had changed and of late, without really trying, I've slipped back into the old way of thinking.

Actually, let's be honest, I thought you were a squirrel. Still do. I also pronounce your name "Zizzy Squirrel" in my head. I am entirely prepared to believe there are woodland animals posting on the internet. Woodland animal identity is a big thing in our house.

Happy New Year!

[xyzzysqrl]

Ha. The ... DEBATE over how to pronounce Xyzzy has run since the 1970s and nobody's gonna win it now. I used to swear by "ZY-zee" but lately zissy/zizzy has been winning out. Things change with the years after all.

(As to the squirrel community, hey, there's a few of us here and there around the landscape...)

[penguinmayhem]

Chizzy, Shizzy, X-izzy, The Artist Formerly Known As Yzzy.

Or you could pronounce it like Tennessee. Technically.

Not that I would because that would be horrible.

[xyzzysqrl]

Cool now I'm hearing Coach Z from Homestar Runner going "YORTZEE PEARLS" in my head.

Thanks I hate this.

[penguinmayhem]

GREET JARBS DERE SKYRL

[davidn]

I've always sounded it out as X-Y-Z-Z-Y ever since the bird and the wand and Y2, and it was only when Celine said it out loud at Furpocalypse that I realized that it could be pronounced as a word! So now I don't know any more.

[kjorteo]

You have the 2x combo of spelling it out as X-Y-Z-Z-Y and pronouncing the Zs as "Zed" because you're British. :D

I have a way of turning things into words, though. I turned Xaq (whose name you originally really were supposed to pronounce just by spelling it) into "Zack" because that's how I saw it, and it stuck.

That being said, if I can use my powers to turn Xyzzy into a word as well, I'm still not sure which word to turn it into. I go with Zizzy myself, personally, but... well, like the sqlrmog herself said, that debate has been going since the 70s and it will never conclude.

[kjorteo]

I shall forever think of 2017 as the year I fucked off from Twitter and drew closer to you and your friend circle (Sword, Penguin, etc) and this is a GOOD TRADE.

Being social is good. Being social with the kind of people who leave those kinds of comments on things is not. Cutting that element out, but then holding onto the good ones more closely in exchange? Yeah, I can get behind this.

I can talk to you more about the complicated portion of the Big Moment news in PM, if you'd like, but suffice it to say that the worrying about stereotype part is actually fairly normal, or at the very least I have absolutely been there myself. I'm still kind of there myself, really.

You are good, though.

[penguinmayhem]

I can agree that I, personally, constantly worry that I'm being a stereotype.

I have no idea what I'd be a stereotype of, considering my personal identity is some nebulous and undefined "other" but... you get the point I guess.

[tuftears]

Happy Mew Purr!

[dang_bunni]

I thank you for Comments to Cats. I needed that.

[kjorteo]

I really need a Firefox/Waterfox equivalent. I mean it has a comment blocker, so I at least have the important part, but the "... and put pictures of cute cats in its place" part is awesome and I want it.

[dang_bunni]

I use Vivaldi as my main browser, and it works in that.

Didn't Firefox change their extension API recently with one of the reasons being it would be easier to port Chrome extensions? Maybe it'll happen soonish!

[penguinmayhem]

Firefox Quantum now uses some entirely different architecture and it's broken loads of extensions and you can't do a lot of things with it so people are upset.

I just want Pixiv++ to actually work.

[subtlegrey]

We lost autumn here, too, although I kinda think 2017 didn't deserve autumn. :P

I miss the IM platforms. Even the old chat-room stuff. Probably wouldn't be successful at them anymore but I still miss 'em.

I'm glad you're here. [nose boops] Looking forward with hope to 2018 & being better at connecting to people, your furry self included!

[kjorteo]

Speaking of reaching out and connecting with people more, you have a lot of comments in this post from friends of yours I've really never met or spoken to. I find that... encouraging, I guess? In an optimistic room-for-growth sense? Like, "Ooh, look at all these new people, and they must be cool if they're with you. Hi!"

Maybe I should start plundering your friend list reaching out to people. DW is an actual active thing now, let's keep expanding.

[chalcedony_starlings]

I suspect comments make more sense when there's at least almost enough coherence to the grouping that it becomes a reasonable assumption that two people will remember each other and have some kind of long-term investment in synchronizing (even if it's weak and indirect between most pairs).

The usual thing we kinda reflexively tell people who're having Hmm Gender Feelings is: go do some preëmptive research and set up your knowledge of resources beforehand, in case it does suddenly turn into “I actually have to do this yesterday”, because if it does that and you weren't ready you can have a very bad time. Other than that, most people get to take a while to explore if they want.

Re “I closed off more than ever this year, and I'm wondering if that was a bad life choice or the correct reaction”: We've been seeing a lot of people doing that. Recharge and figure out where you can open up—you've pretty much got it optimized, I think. Good luck.

[xyzzysqrl]

Thank you. Good luck to you too. I'm not entirely sure what else to say.