#dawn of a new year

[somethingwittyandweird]

Dawn of a New Year - 2025

So, once more, the turning of the year is upon us all, and once again I like to take in that an opportunity to recap the things that came before and reorient myself on what is still to come. No further ado needed, let’s start digging into the recently departed 2024.

A lot of the same things that went right in 2023 also went right in 2024, so I’ll list those first. I drew some pretty cool swords again- 5 years running, now. It was still a year full of lots of time spent with friends in person and in internet, and if anything I think I was in more gaming sessions than ever before. I got really into Civilization VI with friends, I had the incredible privilege to enjoy Four Swords for the first time with friends, and I’ve already written about how Splatoon 3 was the game that defined 2024 for me. I connected with so many people over it, and made unforgettable memories. This may be an indication of me being more open to partaking in multiplayer experiences than I’ve been in the past, which, hey, by all means let that continue. 

I don’t know that any particular new media is a standout for 2024- the things I liked previously I still continue to like, but nothing new added itself to my fandoms in a big way. I did listen to the McElroy’s TAZ: Vs Dracula after a while of not being in their sphere, and that was a delightful reminder of what I liked about their style of humor/actual play. Happy to know they’ve still got that magic that made me fall in love with TAZ Balance. And speaking of DnD…

I got to see, not just one, but two long running tabletop campaigns to completion this past year. One was an excellent Pathfinder isekai adventure to save the new world from the echoes of the old, run by @prismaticate. The other… was the best experience I think I’ve had in DnD. It’s been my longest and most consistent tabletop experience, and I didn’t think much when I began but as time went on, it turned into the *quintessential* campaign for me. I got to play through the campaign people imagine when asked to call to mind a DnD campaign; high fantasy adventure spanning the globe, godly emissaries, demonic invasions, perilous dungeons, extraplanar travel, epic fights, and unlikely heroes rallying against a powerful adversary for the fate of the world. I’ve never had the chance to see an OC’s arc to full completion like I did here, and it’s the highest honor I could enshrine my planologer warlock, Val, with. Endless thanks to the incomparable GM work of @imperatortez, and to my fellow players, for making Falamoore a campaign I’ll remember forever.

Outside of media and the things I do with friends, I did take some real life steps that made the year feel accomplished. I got to travel for business for the first time in my life (super cool experience, if just for the novelty). I successfully navigated switching health insurance providers and shouldered that adult burden without too much trouble. And I took classes again! I got to be in a college band ensemble for the first time in years, which was wonderful, and added an introductory paralegal course just to satisfy some long-held curiosity. Being back in an academic environment after so long felt as good as I knew it would, but more than that, it felt like I was finally taking steps towards a direction- that I wasn’t just settling for where I was.

I said last year, and the year before that, that I’m still waiting for a change in my life to happen- that where I am is comfortable and not easy to leave, but notwithstanding I would like to move into the next thing sooner or later, and the only question has been where between sooner and later that watershed is. As it turned out, 2024 wasn’t the year for that change either, even though in my own mental accounting I was kind of curious if it might be. It would fit nicely with the way my life’s cadence has been in fours since high school; four years of high school, four years of undergrad, then for years of this job before four years of the next thing. It didn’t happen that way, which is fine- it was an arbitrary enough pattern. So we’re spending five years where we are, and that’s alright by me. Five years isn’t a lot of time in some respects, even if it feels like it is in others. I still think I could stay exactly where I am for a couple more years and nothing bad would come of it.

But regardless of any arbitrary deadlines I did or didn’t meet, I did take those exploratory steps. And I still feel the change coming. And I think I can say it is closer now. It’s too far away to grab from where I am, there’s more groundwork that needs to be laid first, more steps that I need to take. But it feels… almost in reach. Maybe it’s time to start stretching more.

I’m hopeful to find out what I can achieve this next year. More than that- and this may just be the New Year’s zeal talking, but even so- I intend to find out. I intend to do more of the things that I liked this year that were good. I intend to spend more time with friends, deepening those connections, sharing more meals, sharing conventions and experiences, building things together. I intend to tackle gaming with the same zeal that blazed through much of my backlog this last year.

It’s always hard for me to make proper resolutions or definite goals, to say that I Won’t or that I Will have something done by a date. I think it leaves too much room for my brain to say ‘if I Haven’t by the date, then my own credibility to myself is tarnished.’ I'm compelled to allow for changing circumstances, for unknown factors. Even here I still don’t feel like putting things into hard numbers. But I do feel good about saying that, by the end of 2025, I will have accomplished a lot. And it feels good that that feels good.

I hope that your 2025 is a year of accomplishment as well, whatever that looks like to you. Whether that’s achieving a long held dream of your own, making time for joyful moments or connections, working on a better habit or some other internal improvement, or, at the end of the day, just making it through a turbulent world intact- that’s an accomplishment too.

I look forward to seeing what’s in store for each of us. Thanks for continuing to make my life better each year. 

Happy 2025.

[letmetellyouaboutmyfeels]

I am incredibly serious right now when I beg you all, please, and if you have Twitter or Tiktok or whatever to please spread the word: click on an author's profile on Ao3.

You want to know if an author has written more? Want to know if they're still writing? Want to see more from them? Want to know if they've written a trope or kink or sex scenario you enjoy?

Click on their name. And look at their profile.

I cannot tell you how many times in the last six months someone has read a new or newer fic of mine and said they (a new reader who has read nothing else I've done) "can't wait to see what you do next!" I've written 50+ fics and over a million words already.

"I don't know if you're still writing..." click on my profile. I am. I literally wrote a 128k+ fic for that ship last month.

"Would you ever do X?" "Please do Y!" I already did. Click on my name and look at my works.

Archive of our Own is a library. It's an archive. Not social media. It is your responsibility to fight back against the laziness that corporate algorithms have trained into you.

Click my author name. Just click it. Just click it.

Before you demand more, or ask if a writer will do XYZ, or wonder if the author still writing, or anything - click on their profile. Click on the author's profile.

I'm not trying to be mean or condescending or anything like that. I'm just exhausted. It's disheartening and frustrating to repeat myself ad nauseam, because someone couldn't take thirty seconds to do the tiniest bit of work to see if I've written lately, if I've written more for their ship, or scan my works to see if I've written what they're asking for. Please. Please. I'm begging.

Click the author's name, and explore before you ask.

[taylornation]

We’re looking back on this year and feeling like we just lived 13 lives? 🤯

Thanks for making it best year yet! 🫶 Also, since today is 123123, we gotta say it… 1, 2, 3, let’s go (to 2024), bitch!

[edwardsdeathcabcd]

i've said it before but it will forever and always make me insane that jacob's ending is to join the cullens for the sake of bella not having to give anything up. they find out jake will be immortal & tied to renesmee forever, so bella gets to smile & say "my family is finally complete! ^-^" but jake already HAS a family. he has a father and 2 sisters. quil, embry, seth and sam are like his brothers. jacob and leah were planning to run away together. he's always been welcome in emily's home, sue has been a family friend since before his birth. bella abandons her mortality by choice because she feels no connection to the people around her, but jacob has really strong bonds. it's clear that every character we meet in la push is like family to him, he's an active member of the community. jake would've graduated high school and been a mechanic, would've grown into a young man. a good friend, a fun uncle, a present son. he's set up to have such a rich life. and he's just magically compelled to give that up. beyond his control, he loses sight of everything, because his high school crush's baby is now the singular most important thing to him. he's perpetually 18 with his perpetually 18 year old girlfriend, running around vancouver or alaska or wherever with the girl who friendzoned him at 16 & her in-laws (who were antagonistic to him for months). and i'm just supposed to say omg yay now he doesn't have to let go of bella! everyone is happy! it's complete madness

[r3ynah]

Family of Distinguished People.

So like what if, the Fenton family is just a family full of heroes, villains, and vigilantes. like.. just imagine a long line of people that had or has contributed to the world somehow. Like the Fenton parents as Supervillains, Jazz as a Vigilante, Danny as Hero. Dani just decides to travel not too interested, but does help with her family if needed, Dan does the same thing.

BUT WHAT IF joker is actually a close relative of the Fenton Family (ex. Uncle, Cousin,Family Friend) and like he's just there all happy with his (found)family during family reunions, birthdays and shit.

And the batfam are just like so confused and stressed to why the joker goes missing once a month.

While Joker is literally having a game of Monopoly with the elementary kids at amity park (the kids couldn't bother, they've saw scarier things they handled scarier things) cue Joker giving the kids a hundred dollars because he lost.

This is just one of my what if prompts, that i got locked up in a vault. Might delete this later who knows.

[maoyang533]

happy new year! 🐉🧧

[bug-taffy]

i think she’d understand

[nerd-artist]

Happy New Year to all of you! I hope the next year starts being better than the last 💖

This piece is dedicated to my friends on the Two Minutes server who keep on supporting my addiction to drawing Horizon (and specifically these two) despite I’m probably too much most of the time 😆

For more brain rot in 2025! 🍾

[avenoirn]

my store is back open again until feb 3! with a little surprise 🥰 (prints and other merch are available as well!) 💐

🩵 international / locals (🇮🇩) 🩵

shares are greatly appreciated! thank you for looking 💝

[rand0m-drp3pp3r-l0v3r]

Since today is new years Eve for most.. Allow me to make a reference.

[somethingwittyandweird]

Dawn of a New Year- 2024

Getting a bit of a later start on this one than last year's, which went out day of. But, there's a few days yet before the fresh shiny coating falls off this new year completely. Plenty of time to do some reflection on the last one and looking forward to this one. So, with that said...

It's been another year that passed for certain. Again, it's been pretty devoid of watershed moments or drastic living situation shifts for me. When I made this post this time last year, I said that I knew a change would happen, but it hadn't happened then and it didn't look as though it would anytime soon. In that, at least, the projection didn't change. And this is good! Like it was last year, it says a lot that I'm in a comfortable and secure environment on nobody's timetable to change but my own. That's a blessing of a sort that I wouldn't take for granted.

But, if there's anything that does differ from last year to this, I get the impress I'm closer to that change. Literally, in the broad sense that time is constantly moving me closer to every future point. But, it's also in a more specific sense- the things that I know are going to change haven't changed yet, but I feel like they're closer to it than they were last time this post rolled by. If nothing else, this year I'll have to get my own health insurance, so that's the first sign that the times of change are rolling in. That's why I intend to look into that over the coming months, and in the process, potentially look into other things too. It's finally time for part of that uncertain change to come at me for certain, so I'd better meet it head on.

But, before we get there, that's not to say I did nothing this year at all. It was another good year of time spent with friends, in online communities familiar and new- being in tabletop sessions, sitting in voice calls, chilling in plenty of livestreams, and much more. I'm lucky again to be part of so many communities of people from all over the world, and I'm lucky to be finding more such communities to join all the time. It means the world to me whenever a friend or mutual decides I'd be a good addition to an undiscovered circle of theirs.

I posted all my swordtember art to Tumblr this year, realizing that I had as much audience here as any other site, and I intend to keep that going as long as I'm around. I could resolve to try and draw more things outside of that month, but conjuring creative inspiration on command remains a difficult prospect. That said, I think it would be wonderful if the year ahead had a big project in store that I could really get the gears turning with. I'm optimistic about the possibility.

I already made my post about the games that I enjoyed in 2023, and I'm delighted here at the end of the year to report that here at the end of the year I'm within sight of the endings to a few more backlog titles (Just to name one, in between now and then I've beaten the main story of Pokemon Ranger: Shadows of Almia and I'm working on the postgame). Along with these, this year had me flipping out when The Owl House's final episodes aired, and the wry, informative humor of Well There's Your Problem began accompanying my work commute. For 2024, I don't know if there's any particular media I'm anticipating (most of my home franchises chose this past year for their new entry) but even so I'm certain I'll find something new to check out. Perhaps it'll be a good year to get into one or more of the series my friends have long raved about...

As I write all this up, I would like to give a special shoutout to one of the aforementioned new friends/friend circles that I came into in 2023: @skysometric. Aside from being funny, a great friend, and just a general boon to know, something I really have enjoyed about coming into her space is seeing how intentional her online presence is. From her custom website to her commentary posts on her projects to the way she uses her blog as, of all things, a blog in the original and traditional sense, she puts herself out there very visibly, creating and urging others to create by example. And I've come to really appreciate that.

That's the thing about existing online: you have to be speaking up for your presence to be felt. Being around is one thing, but if you never say a word, it can be easy to just be one username of many. And as someone who trends towards simply lurking and being around myself, there's nothing wrong with that. But, for as much as I enjoy seeing the things my friends get up to, I think I could be a little more visible in talking about my own activities- give them more of a chance to enjoy seeing what I'm up to. I want to be present in other people's lives as much as they are in mine.

I said it last year, but it bears repeating: I don't get to know how long someone's in my life for. Websites can close, friend groups can drift apart, people can leave this life for the next. Perhaps I think too much about the fact that someday that change will come. But since I don't get to know that and can't do anything about that, the only thing I really can do is cherish others now, and let the future be its own concern. And I intend to.

Thank you, all of my dear friends and beloved mutuals. I hope I can keep sharing this online space with you for a long time to come. You brighten my days with your presence. I hope 2024 has good things in store for you, be that strength, love, reassurance, a much-needed sea change, or whatever you've been needing in your life. Once again, the best year I can wish for is one where every day is better than the last, and every evening we all go to bed just a little more improved than the evening before.

Happy 2024.

[quiche-draws]

Late Happy New Year sketch from yours truly because I was out with family that whole holiday 😁

May everyone have a blessed 2025!! Happy New Year!

Please do not repost! Reblog only!

[charmwitch]

Happy New Year!!! :)

[windrelyn]

[Akatsuki no Yona]

The spring is coming

[larachelledrawsfe]

Prompt: Alternate outfits

Manifesting for 2025...

For FE Artscuffle

Drawn for @aptericia !!

[uchiha-itachi-amaterasu]

X by o_hqfu "osechi - Akatsuki"