look i’m gonna be as nice about this as i can but i genuinely earnestly think the reason we have a whole generation of queer teens happily begging for table scraps from the walt disney corporation is because no one listens to welcome to night vale anymore. wtnv was a generations introduction to explicit positive queer rep, and for some people, myself included, queer rep at all. and it sets the bar at a reasonable place. from the first episode, our narrator, a man, is outright stated to be in love with another man. this is taken seriously, and treated as healthy and normal, rather than secret or shameful. once you have that, you can’t go back to crumbs. and you certainly can’t go back to pretending crumbs are a four course meal.

I gotta confess that I never quite get it when the ending of a piece of media is criticized based just on the fact that a character ... does something else? Criticism that the end state is not “everybody goes on living exactly like they did during the story, except without whatever looming problem the plot revolves around fixing.” In particular, the claim that this somehow invalidates actions or growth or relationships that grew up during the story.

Notably I especially don’t get this in relation to either finished arc of TAZ. Like ... no, the Birds don’t all end up living together or something? But that doesn’t mean they’re no longer each other’s family, or that they’ve gone their separate ways never to speak again. I mean, the whole show is literally an offshoot of a project that started because three siblings wanted to make sure they’d continue to spend time all together regularly despite living in different places and pursuing different lives. If anything, we should be drawing the conclusion that the Boys are going to start Faerun’s first podcasting empire any day now, or that the IPRE regularly meet up over their Stones of Farspeech to play tabletop games. It’s the same kind of thing that forms the basis of Magnus’s character arc. You can miss the happiness you had in the past, but what you shouldn’t do is give up on the new and different kinds of happiness that you’re going to find in the future. And you don’t have to be physically (or metaphysically) with someone to love them, or for them to be important in your life.

Same thing with Amnesty, and especially with Duck. I mean, easily one of my favorite things about him was that he was such a good version of the reluctant hero, because he doesn’t just not want to do Hero Things; there’s genuine discussion and a really good sense of exactly how much and why Duck actively loves the life he does have and the good he’s already doing in his mundane, non-destiny-related day to day. It’s part of what makes it so poignant and so powerful that he’s the kind of just genuinely good person that he is, because he voluntarily agrees to do Hero Things anyway, even though he could walk away. But I really think that a lot of his character arc -- from sparing Billy to temporarily losing his powers to the realization that Minerva selected him essentially at random to the choice he makes at the end -- involves him gaining confidence that he doesn’t have to be someone else to do those Hero Things! That kind, quiet, skateboard-riding, forest-tending soup aficionado Duck Newton can be a hero, in large part because of the desire to help others that he shows from the very start.

And I mean, there’s not even the least indication that he leaves Kepler permanently? The opposite, if anything. But it makes absolutely perfect sense to me that after everything that happened and after the character arc he had, Duck went from “I have a responsibility to this particular place and this particular set of duties, I’m just a local forest dude” to seeing a far away problem that, while totally mundane, can’t be solved by just one person, and saying, “I want to help with that.” Especially since, as he points out, it’s a problem much more in line with the kind of things he’s always wanted to do.

(Hell, both of these stories specifically end with an affirmation of the relationships between the characters, where they’re all physically spending time together, even the dead ones.)

I don’t know, I might have a bit of a bias, because that kind of ending has always been a huge comfort to me, especially in the past few years, when I’ve been doing things like living apart from my own siblings for the first time, or facing down the vast uncertainty of graduating from college and not knowing what the fuck the rest of my life is going to be. And I do actually love stories that hold to a kind of, for lack of a better word, status quo -- I think we need more of them, actually, pieces of media like Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou or Welcome to Night Vale that I’ve always felt are less like an ongoing narrative than a place you get to visit regularly (I’m that rare bird who thinks Night Vale is at its best when it isn’t following a traditional plotline). But that’s a very different kind of story, and when it comes to more typical narrative, I’m much more of an ending-of-Gravity-Falls type of person. Summer vacation ends, and childhood ends, and adventures end, and you don’t get to spend all your time with the people and places you’ve come to love, the way you used to. And it’s okay to be sad about that! But that doesn’t mean that those things, and those connections, don’t matter; or that we’ve lost them, just because like all things do, they’ve changed.

.

.

..... (which is the point where I could bring up Ars Paradoxica, but I wouldn’t want to spoil that for anyone who hasn’t listened to it, and I think anyone who has is gonna know what I mean there)

2018 post because I still want to and it’s on my to-do list

I'm sure at this point no one but me cares considering we're fully two months into 2019 but whatever, I want to record it for posterity, because there were a lot of things in 2018 that I did for the first time and that's kind of important. (”this will be brief!” I said, you know, like a liar.)

I finally got a tattoo. I've been talking about it for years but never figured out exactly what I wanted or where, and even once I figured out what I wanted ("all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us," which has been important to me in different ways for years) I didn't know exactly how I wanted it to look, because it can be tough to make text tattoos look good and I’m not an artist or a graphic designer. and then Scully was diagnosed with kidney disease and I realized, oh yeah, his paw print, there's an obvious one. my tiny little semi-colon (of which I apparently never took a decent picture) was also pretty obvious once I started looking for something small I could do as a test tattoo, although the way things worked out I got them both at the same time. the whole process was...kind of odd? but instead of just talking about it I finally actually made it happen, and it hurt but not, like, unbearably, and now I have a piece of my furry little boy that goes everywhere with me, which was especially important after he died.  

I did way more political volunteering than I ever have before. I always feel like I'm not doing enough and compared to people who volunteered with campaigns every single day, I guess I'm not, but I still did a lot in 2018 compared to any previous year: lots of donations to multiple Democrat candidates and progressive organizations, textbanking for several candidates across the US, sign-waving and even phonebanking for the Alaska Democrats, poll watching on election night for the Alaska Democrats, at least a few hundred handwritten postcards to voters for a few more candidates, data entry for the campaign against a local bathroom bill last spring (I keep forgetting that happened in 2018 too because, you know, 2018 was about a decade long), going to several local anti-Kavanaugh demonstrations and the like, leaving lots of voicemails for my legislators and bugging other people to do the same (with varying levels of success), and maybe other stuff I'm forgetting. which is all good, because actually doing shit is vastly preferable to just going "wow everything is terrible and we're all gonna die" both in terms of actual impact and my mental health. the unfortunate part is that after doing as much as I did for the 2018 midterms--whether or not I really actually did enough, whatever "enough" might be--I got pretty well burned out, especially because...all the candidates I did the most work for DID NOT WIN so that made it feel kinda pointless (even though we took back the House and I was so relieved about that I could’ve cried). especially locally where Alaskans did the stupid thing and 1) kept Don Young and 2) elected a Trump wannabe with almost no experience as our governor because he made promises that any idiot should've been able to see he wouldn't be able to keep. but...I still worked hard for causes and people I care about, and I devoted a pretty significant amount of time and money, and I got out of my comfort zone with last-weekend phonebanking, and none of that is nothing.

I joined a gym and started going there fairly regularly. as usual I want to qualify this, because "30 minutes on the elliptical once or twice a week" is not exactly an amazing workout, and I haven't been as good at going regularly since I finished TAZ: Balance, but like...it's still a new thing that I went out of my way to do, and it was a positive change toward taking care of myself physically.

related: I...finished a podcast? I'm bad at podcasts (see also: I'm two or three years behind on Welcome to Night Vale, the only other podcast where I've listened to more than one or two episodes), but the Balance arc of The Adventure Zone is amazing and it basically let me trick myself into wanting to work out so I could listen to more. (unfortunately, Amnesty and MBMBAM haven't been as effective this way, I think because MBMBAM is hilarious but there's no narrative and therefore no "oh shit what's gonna happen next" suspense, and Amnesty is great but it's just...less zany, I guess. constant zany goofs are great for distracting me from the fact that I'm doing generally unpleasant physical activity.) now maybe if I could find a site like GoodReads for podcasts, which apparently doesn’t exist yet, maybe I’d do better at remembering and then listening to all the podcasts I’ve heard of that interest me...although I still don’t know what would be useful for workouts to give me that all-important combo of zany goofs (made by people who are not horrible) and suspenseful narrative. 

I got back into conventions and cosplay for the first time in six years, which is kind of dumb because I was never that deep into cosplay in the first place and I'm still not, and the vast majority of cons I've attended have been tiny local ones...but I did do several attempts at varying levels of quality starting back in college, and I put together some complicated-by-my-standards outfits for SDCC 2012, and then I didn't do any cosplay at all until last year when I semi-spontaneously decided to go to ECCC. I only did two for that one (AoU Wanda, and Avengers Academy Loki) but they involved more actual work than any previous cosplays and I was pretty proud of how they turned out. and then I kind of went "oh hey, cons and cosplay are fun, I forgot", so I did a very simple cosplay for one tiny local con and two that were much more complicated (Stuttgart Loki and The Final Pam) for our larger local con, and it was a lot of work and I'm not 100% happy with how I looked as Pam but the handful of people thrilled to recognize me made it worthwhile. also my Loki staff is damned cool and I look great in suits.

I got contacts! for the very first time! LITERALLY JUST FOR COSPLAY! I've worn glasses since I was about two so I don't remember my adjustment period and I've never had much desire to try contacts, and with past cosplays I just kind of shrugged and wore my glasses anyway, but after ECCC I wanted to Do It Right so...I got contacts. it kind of sucked actually! after the week or so where I was supposed to wear them to get used to them, I literally have not worn them except for the local convention! it turns out contacts will never be a great idea for me because astigmatism is wacky! but now I have contacts I can use for future cosplays, and it's another new thing outside my comfort zone where I went "you know, actually, I could do this thing" and then I made it happen, which is...sort of a big deal for me.

I played Silent Hill 3 and 2, in that order, which is not that big of a deal but still feels like something of a milestone for me, because a) actually finishing a game is embarrassingly rare for me and b) I feel like...they're so well known and such a part of gaming canon, so to speak, that finally playing a couple classic games I previously only knew by osmosis is sort of significant actually. also I love them both in different ways, and discovering a new favorite game series is always fun.

I said goodbye to Scully. this was...not a fun one, obviously, and in fact those last few days were completely fucking awful. but, well, it was a big thing that happened, and it was new in my experience. like I said (a lot) at the time, I realize it's a sign of how lucky I've been that Scully was my hardest personal loss so far, but that doesn't change the fact that it was, and...of course it was hard and horrible. he was my furry little boy, he was unquestionably family, he was a huge part of my life every day for 9 years.  I took care of him as well as I could for as long as I could, and then I made the most compassionate decision I could, and for the most part I was able to focus on remembering the joy he brought me instead of just how much it hurt to lose him. (I've also said this before but I think dealing with Loki in Infinity War helped with Scully, because I'd already done some work on my unhealthy tendencies toward hopelessness in the face of, you know, things ending.) and then I found Hazy, and that's been hard in different ways but she's also worth it, and I think I can train her enough that other people will actually get to see how silly and adorable and sweet she is instead of just BARK BARK BARK.

I more or less kept up with my writing goals of posting at least one new thing a month? I guess this is an accomplishment rather than a first, since it's something I've been mostly successful in doing for the last few years, but it's still notable. also it does involve a first, because until I will kiss you till your breath is found I'd never written anything even semi-explicit (well, I very vaguely described a couple sex scenes in my Crimson Peak fic a few years ago but that was...VERY vague) and then I wrote several thousand words of fucked-up dubcon sort-of-p0rn and fairly shortly followed it up with another one. so that's a thing I've done now I guess. (is it actually explicit if you never really, directly reference anyone's genitals but it's still obvious what's happening and also it's fucked-up sex stuff? I don't know but at this point I'm definitely still too squeamish to use certain words in my fics. is that because I'm hella ace or because I grew up hella repressed in purity culture? BOTH PROBABLY)

and then there are my goals for 2019! or rather the rest of 2019 but it's cool because I got started on a couple of these pretty much right away!

cut my hair real short. already done! in fact this was basically the first thing I did in 2019, because I made the appointment Jan. 1 and got my hair cut Jan. 2! kind of like the tattoo, this is something I've been wanting to do, and talking about wanting to do, for ages and I've never actually gone for it; the shortest I've gotten my hair cut was basically chin-length, more than once, because I'd go in like "I kind of really want a pixie cut or something similar but idk if that would work on me without adding a bunch of time and Product to my morning routine so maybe I shouldn't?" and the stylists were always like "yeah you shouldn't, a good pixie for your face shape is not wash-and-wear hair" so I never did it even though I kept wanting to just...cut all my fucking hair off. and then this December I kind of went, wait, I got a TATTOO with less angst than this and that's permanent. I CAN CUT MY HAIR. IT GROWS BACK. so I got all my fucking hair cut off. it's not perfect because a short cut really does take more maintenance, from what I'm told (I got it cut the first week of January, so...probably I should have scheduled a trim by now), and I really would prefer to continue paying almost no attention to my hair while still looking generally okay, and the bits in front fall in my eyes and piss me off if I don't pin them back (I did buy the hair wax stuff the stylist suggested that was supposed to sort of lightly anchor it in place but it just never worked for very long, so...pins), BUT it is very nice not constantly catching my hair in my purse strap and stuff like that, and also I'm more visibly queer with short hair and that's definitely a plus.

train Hazy. this is a work in progress. it took a while to get signed up for an actual class and then I had to go with one for reactive dogs specifically, and so far I've only been to two sessions, just one of which involved Hazy, and then I've been trying to do other stuff at home, and...well, it's a work in progress. but she's a good dog who just needs to learn to chill a little bit, and I should've trained Scully and didn't so I'm trying to do things right this time.

specifically, I would like to get her trained enough that she can accompany me to Pride in June, wearing her adorable Wonder Woman harness and cape. given that she is not great with individual strange humans and strange dogs, taking her into a big crowd of both would definitely result in a screaming meltdown if I did it now and it may or may not be realistic to hope I'll be able to get enough improvement on that in time. but that's the goal. if it doesn't work, there's always next year, I guess.

also, I want to make myself a flying ace costume for Pride. this may or may not be much more complicated than I anticipate.

speaking of costumes, I'm planning to go back to both local conventions this year, and I imagine I'll reuse my Stuttgart Loki outfit at least once but it would be nice to do at least one other new cosplay. Heather/Cheryl from Silent Hill 3 seems like it should be straightforward but Value Village hasn't provided me with any of the pieces yet so who knows.

post more to @alaska-gothic​ because I have a bunch of cool photos I'd like to have a place to show off (and I've taken a lot of new pictures, some in VERY cold weather, for this exact purpose)

finish more games. in practice this might turn into "play more short games while continuing to neglect long games" but I want to make my list of completed games longer and I also want to PLAY MORE GAMES in general because it's a thing I really like, and it's possibly the only thing I do that's purely for my own enjoyment, and I want to make more time for that. also I want to finish SWTOR’s existing singleplayer content because, I mean, it’s an eight-year-old(!!!) MMO so its remaining time is probably limited by default and it’s fucking ridiculous I’ve been a subscriber for at least seven years without even finishing all the class storylines, what the actual fuck Past Me. (I also want to make more time for console games specifically, because those are almost definitely easier on my body and I can do them while cuddling with Hazy on the couch. unfortunately this also generally requires me having the place to myself, which is kind of a rare thing that is also necessary for comfortably working on customs or writing, so...opportunities are limited.)

speaking of games: finish buying the parts to upgrade my computer and then upgrade my fucking computer, and also back up my fucking files

finish a long fic? or honestly if I can even finish more short fics that would be great. really just...make progress on the WIP list. especially if I can finish some IW-specific fics before Endgame comes out. that would be super cool of me.

get another tattoo. I still want that LotR quote but I don't know how I want it to look so who knows when that might happen. HOWEVER, I've been wanting something queer, and I very much loved Foxflight Studios’ "we fight as one" design, and when I asked the designer if she was okay with me getting it as a tattoo she said yes. so at least with that I wouldn't have to figure out a design. I do of course have to figure out a) where I want it (ideally, somewhere normally covered by clothes but where I can see it if I want to, and where a person might conceivably keep a real dagger) and b) how much more it's going to hurt/cost than the paw print considering it would have to be bigger and it has a lot more colors and linework.

do some travel around Alaska. I've lived here for nearly my entire life and I really haven't seen that much of my own state. more importantly there are a few extremely cool places within theoretical driving distance, like Kennicott, Igloo City, and abandoned military installations near Seward, and I want to visit them. @erlkonigstochter and I had vague plans to do this last year and it never materialized (although I did visit Nike Site Summit on my own), so...this year I intend to try harder to make that happen, especially since I have no current plans of traveling out of state.

put more stuff on Etsy (and figure out how to advertise them?). in particular there are a bunch more things I want to repaint in various Pride colors, in part because those are way easier than custom Funko figures. of course, a lot of these things are kinda technically copyright infringement which means somehow I have to figure out how to make more sales of the easier things without drawing the attention of any corporations (and/or shift my focus to things that aren't under copyright of some kind but that's probably more complicated).

but also do more personal projects. I have so many partially finished custom figures, and so many other figures I bought specifically to customize but haven't touched since, and it would be cool to actually...do something with some of those. especially because several of my WIPs/plans are more Lokis, and I need all the Lokis, and there are not many more left that I can buy.

figure out how to motivate myself to work out more and keep up with PT exercises, see above re: needing a  better replacement for the magic of TAZ Balance whoops

get a therapist and work on ADHD issues, because I'm increasingly convinced that ADHD issues are at the root of the vast majority of my other issues (depression, anxiety, etc.), and that I would be immeasurably improving every aspect of my life if I could make some progress on that aspect. the difficulty, of course, is that finding a therapist is kind of complicated and difficult, and also I don't really want to add yet another regular appointment to my schedule when I already don't have enough time after work to do all the things I want and/or need to do, but...this one thing could go a long way toward helping me actually do all those other things, so obviously this is a time investment I really need to make. although probably not until I've made serious progress with Hazy's separation anxiety because that also makes it hard to go places after work. so uh, I guess we'll see. in the meantime it might be smart if I tried to figure out some kind of self-guided therapy thing I could do. I'm sure there's...something.

just, like, be more intentional about...things. in general. this is a bad goal because it's very nonspecific but it is slightly more specific than "generally do better FFS" so at least there's that.