Wow. It seems like only yesterday we were welcoming 2016 into the world. This post is gonna be a lot longer than the other end of the year posts, for a variety of reasons.
First off, 2016 in general has been a pretty crappy year in the grand scheme of things. There's been so many deaths, so many terrible things happening, so much pointless drama over movies, media, and other trivial stuff that really didn't need to be blown out of proportion, and to top things off, Donald Trump is president. If you like him, that's fine, and I won't judge you for doing so, as I'd never stoop that low. As much as I hate talking about politics and current events, as normally I don't give a rat's hat about those anyway, you can't deny that Donald Trump has done some pretty stupid things, and the fact that this guy is the president now, SOMEHOW, is making a lot of the general populace scared, namely autistic people like myself, the LGBT crowd, other minorities, etc. Because apparently racism, sexism, and plain ol' stupidity aren't big turn-offs for enough people! To the people who are scared, possibly with the rights people have fought so hard for being taken away, I say this: we have to be better than this. We have to stand not against people, but for ourselves, and not do so by putting others down. We should continue to help each other, make people happy, make a positive difference in the world, use positive, healthy methods of spreading good influence, and reach out to those in need. Things can definitely get worse, but we've managed to survive this much by helping each other.
Personally, for me, 2016 was...uneventful. Not great, but definitely not bad. Definitely better than the last two years I've had. I managed to get a short, if temporary job, which I no longer have, so I managed to get a taste of what it was like to be in the workforce. I'm still looking for a job as of right now, because I'm sick of sitting around feeling useless and bored all the time and I want to go out and do something with my time and make good use of it. I did manage to grow closer to my grandmother, and she got to know me better, and is interested in my interests, so whenever I visit her or she visits me, we exchange books to read. Well, more like I lend her a book, she reads and finishes it, then gives it back to me, and I give her another one of my books, rinse and repeat. She's been so good to me since last year, and I wish I could do more for her and my family. I'm truly grateful to my family for supporting me and showering me with love. But for the most part, not much has happened in terms of real life.
The fandom scene, on the other hand...has been nothing but great since I finally cut myself off from the social justice warriors and Tumblr. I still lurk around there every now and again, but away from the SJWs, and I deleted my Tumblr account, and have no desire to make a new one. Anyway, so many of my favorite series were either re-released or finally dubbed (Escaflowne the former and Show By Rock being the latter), I found new anime that I found that I truly love, I discovered some real masterpieces (Rose of Versailles), I wrote fan fics for more fandoms this year than any other year, most of which are oneshots, I feel I got to improve and polish my writing and prose some (though I still have a lot to learn), and even though I haven't watched as much anime this year as I used to (I think I'm suffering from anime burnout. I used to watch an episode of an anime once every two hours every day. Now I barely watch one a day, or don't watch any at all for a long while), my love for it won't waver. I've discovered some Western shows and movies that I really like (LoliRock, Redwall, Project Geeker, Ernest and Celestine, etc.), and I've been playing more new video game series such as Harvest Moon and some Tales games, namely Tales of Zestiria, and I plan to expand my gaming repertoire next year. I'm gonna buy a GameCube and whatever accessories are needed to play it because I now own a copy of Symphonia and I want to play it soooooo bad! I used to only play Pokemon games before 2009, but now I've played many more games and I want to play more, even though I don't have the consoles needed to play the ones I want to (Child of Light for example. I can't play it on the PC because of all the Ubisoft crap!). I even made some new friends over the course of the year, all online though, and they've all been very good to me in ways that I still don't feel like I deserve, but I love and appreciate them all the same. Best of all, my passion for writing has been reignited. My fans and critics alike have all been so great, and some of my fans even found happiness and hope thanks to my works (Both good stories and bad). It humbles me to know that something I made had a positive impact on someone's life.
Still, there's so much more I feel I could do. I definitely need to become more independent, and if I ever get a job, I'm going to need to learn how to get there every day. My parents aren't going to live forever, so I might apply for a driver's license. I don't even know where to begin with it, though. But I want to try doing it this time. I can't let fear hold me back anymore. I also plan on doing more reading, drawing, playing new games, job hunting, etc. I really hope I get a job, because I don't want to spend my days sitting around being useless, bored, and unproductive. It's high time I started being more proactive and active. I'm hoping to make 2017 better for myself. But I can at least say that I survived 2016, and I'm happy with how it turned out for the most part. Not perfect, but it's better than what happened before.
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