Year-end review
On the road tomorrow, so here goes.
Anime
Last year was a really good year -- this year I wasn't that impressed/fell off the bus. The main thing I picked up and enjoyed was ONE PIECE (obviously) -- caught up with the manga sometime in January and have been a faithful/obsessive fan ever since. Hahaha.
I honestly can't remember what else I've watched this year (had to go back through tags). Pretty much the only things I finished/watched a lot of were....
New(ish) series:
- Red Data Girl (enjoyable but TERRIBLY paced)
- Chihayafuru (liked the first season better but this is still a very lovely show)
- Kingdom (best/most underrated show, though I still haven't started s2)
- Space Brothers (but I stopped soon after the flashback episodes sometime in the 50s or 60s due to lack of motivation)
- Jormungand (like Kingdom, great story/characters with mediocre animation. SUPER soundtrack though)
Obviously, I did not jump on the Titan bandwagon, not because I thought the show sucked, but because I just wasn't motivated to keep up. And wasn't interested in swimming animu designs. There's stuff I probably will pick up at some point next year (Log Horizon, Eccentric Family, Kill La Kill), but eh.
Old backlog:
- Beck (SO GOOD, I wish the full series had been animated though)
- Soukou no Strain (so sadistic. amusing enough, and decent SF, but TERRIBLE ethics.)
As usual, won't talk about manga because I casually follow a lot of series when I remember to and usually don't really associate manga with particular years.
Gaming
Vindictus, Vindictus, and more Vindictus.
Still derping around on Mabinogi every now and then, but have kinda given up on Age of Wushu, which has a shitty community even if you ignore all its other flaws (though I am sooooooooooo jealous of the Age of Wulin translation, hmphhhhhh). Tried Ragnarok Online 2 muuuuch earlier in the year and thought it sucked/wasn't innovative enough for a game coming out in 2013. And earlier this month tried Aura Kingdom beta with my sister (who'd tried the HK version earlier) -- nice graphics (gorgeous battle animations with really nifty cut scene design), decent system, but UI = info overload, I am not even kidding. We'll see if I stick with this (probably not, Vindictus is the only game I've been this damn loyal to in a very long time).
other stuff: Tokimeki Memorial (the first two boy games -- last year was the girl games). PERSONA 3 PSP. Some brief exploration of mobile otome stuff that I may talk about someday.
Half-watched my sister play Pokemon X/helped her molest her catches. The new game design is suuuuuper cute but wow is the training part even supposed to be challenging anymore? XD
A lot of stuff that I've been interested in finally got completed translation patches too. (namely, the Suikogaidens and Front Mission 2.) Started the first Suikogaiden but decided to save it for some other time because MY FEELS.
Reading/TV/Movies
Hey look a new category. In which I lump together all the miscellaneous junk I don't usually talk about.
Um, I read a lot more than I have in years, but there wasn't actually that much variety.
- finished the random Diana Wynne Jones standalones that I'd never touched before
- The entire Ngaio Marsh oeuvre <3
- Most of the Phryne Fisher series
- Josephine Tey's Inspector Grant stuff
- The Summer of the Ubume
- All four books of Megan Whalen Turner's Thief series. (First book was a reread -- it's the weakest of the four. The series as a whole is really impressive and super underrated.)
- Sabriel. First time read. Didn't like it as much as I thought I would.
- The Emperor's Edge. Indie steampunk. Solid fun, decent worldbuilding, but not particularly interesting.
- And All the Stars. Indie SF by Andrea K. Host, an author I really love (I liked her fantasy offerings better though, but this was still good). She released two other standalones this year that I haven't gotten around to yet.
- The Roman Hat Mystery (Ellery Queen)
- Another famous classic whodunnit puzzler that's escaped my mind.
- The King of Elfland's Daughter
Pretty sure that's it, I'm bad at keeping book records (since the older I get, the worse I become about starting and never finishing stuff) so this is entirely off the top of my head. I started/bought some other stuff but haven't gotten far enough with any of them.
As for TV:
- Biblia Koshodou no Jiken Techou: J-drama. Antique bookstore mystery. Really really good series which I keep meaning to post about some more. Detective figure is an intelligent but shy young woman with a darker edge beneath her fragile surface.
- Watched some Doctor Who for the first time in my life. I don't think I'm the target audience for this... (really don't like Rose and the David Tennant Doctor. Rose's mom is awesome though. And I actually like Mickey a lot too. And the episodic characters are usually pretty likeable.) Kind of liked the Eccleston Doctor, but only saw his first two episodes or so. And I like Martha in theory but am SO not into the romantic subplots. My mom's pretty into the series though, which amuses me (and was not unexpected). Basically it's entertaining to watch but it's not something I'd go out of my way to follow... /blasphemy
Only movie I saw in the theaters this year was Hobbit 2, but I think the two movies that really stood out for me this year are actually The Mongol (2007) and Detective Dee (2010). I still haven't talked about The Mongol huh?
Writing
Let us not talk about writing, which has been kind of painful this year due to various reasons, despite my creative ADD. I fell way short of my goals and have apparently hit my latest major wall/rut. The last time this happened was.... a long ways back, I think probably 2004-2005ish iirc? I have journal records of this but too lazy to look up. I came out of that time period a much stronger writer, but well, like I said, I don't want to talk about it.
Got a decent amount of translation done instead though.
Personal
This was another year of reevaluation. I see that last year I considered myself as having emerged from a cocoon, but maybe I spoke too soon, as I spent much of this year suffering from a SERIOUS case of misanthropy.
What I said last year about emotional stability and being generally in a better place still holds true. Every single damn day I wake up I am grateful that I am not going through what I did in late 2011/early 2012, when I pretty much came close to just stopping. But the misanthropy this year felt like it came out of nowhere (it actually didn't and had two major, very identifiable root causes, plus a third factor lurking in the background)... and hit me really hard. I had to work through a lot of anger and resentment and in the process withdrew into a complete hermit state -- I feel like even in my darkest moods, I have never been so bleakly cynical about people and society in general.
It's like I suddenly decided I just didn't want to be a kind or good person anymore and fuck everyone else. I was tired of being understanding, of giving people the benefit of the doubt, of letting people think I'm a clueless doormat (I am NOT) and/or in need of "saving," of giving my time and interest to others out of genuine compassion only to have people assume that gave them some sort of hold over me.
Much better now, but to be honest... I'm still not completely over this yet.
One of the side effects of this though was that I finally started figuring out how to dress myself in the way I want to be seen/in a way that makes me happy. I feel like I understand fashion a lot more now than when I was an angry kid who dismissed it all as pointless superficial crap and/or ridiculous trend-chasing.
My taste is too conservative/traditional to ever be considered hip or stylish, but it is who I am. And it's been oddly empowering to see how differently the world sees and treats me when I don't hide who I am by dressing like a slob. I'm lucky, I suppose, in that my tastes are socially acceptable and only very subtly unconventional.
Even so, it's been freeing. And really damn strange to experience. (Like pretty much everything else in my life, I feel like my fashion experimentation is happening WAY too late compared to when most other girls start??? LOL. But whatever.)
Resolutions and stuff
Eh, oddly enough I did succeed in keeping two of last year's. I read a lot more fiction this year for sure and have been steadily improving/expanding my language abilities. SO let's try again this year.
1. Writing: I'm going to break through that damn wall I've hit even if it kills me, and perhaps learn how to weather these bumps even when it happens again in the future.
2. Keep learning new stuff. Maybe cooking this year? /chronic "toss random things in pan" improviser. I can make several variations of fried rice and that's about it. :P
3. Financial organization: I can't move forward on this in my current situation. For a long time I was torn on how to deal -- but think I will just keep enduring for now and see what happens next year. There's no use wallowing over things I cannot control, so I'm just going to keep bulling ahead for now and gamble that major shit doesn't happen in the meantime. I'm still single and still intend to be, possibly for the rest of my life. I can afford to be -- well, not reckless, but it's a gamble I can still afford to make and so I might as well.
4. Somewhat in line with the previous: don't forget to exercise and watch health. I got hit with ridiculous colds way too many times this year, sheesh. Like right now. @_@
comments at the original Dreamwidth post
Anime
Last year was a really good year -- this year I wasn't that impressed/fell off the bus. The main thing I picked up and enjoyed was ONE PIECE (obviously) -- caught up with the manga sometime in January and have been a faithful/obsessive fan ever since. Hahaha.
I honestly can't remember what else I've watched this year (had to go back through tags). Pretty much the only things I finished/watched a lot of were....
New(ish) series:
- Red Data Girl (enjoyable but TERRIBLY paced)
- Chihayafuru (liked the first season better but this is still a very lovely show)
- Kingdom (best/most underrated show, though I still haven't started s2)
- Space Brothers (but I stopped soon after the flashback episodes sometime in the 50s or 60s due to lack of motivation)
- Jormungand (like Kingdom, great story/characters with mediocre animation. SUPER soundtrack though)
Obviously, I did not jump on the Titan bandwagon, not because I thought the show sucked, but because I just wasn't motivated to keep up. And wasn't interested in swimming animu designs. There's stuff I probably will pick up at some point next year (Log Horizon, Eccentric Family, Kill La Kill), but eh.
Old backlog:
- Beck (SO GOOD, I wish the full series had been animated though)
- Soukou no Strain (so sadistic. amusing enough, and decent SF, but TERRIBLE ethics.)
As usual, won't talk about manga because I casually follow a lot of series when I remember to and usually don't really associate manga with particular years.
Gaming
Vindictus, Vindictus, and more Vindictus.
Still derping around on Mabinogi every now and then, but have kinda given up on Age of Wushu, which has a shitty community even if you ignore all its other flaws (though I am sooooooooooo jealous of the Age of Wulin translation, hmphhhhhh). Tried Ragnarok Online 2 muuuuch earlier in the year and thought it sucked/wasn't innovative enough for a game coming out in 2013. And earlier this month tried Aura Kingdom beta with my sister (who'd tried the HK version earlier) -- nice graphics (gorgeous battle animations with really nifty cut scene design), decent system, but UI = info overload, I am not even kidding. We'll see if I stick with this (probably not, Vindictus is the only game I've been this damn loyal to in a very long time).
other stuff: Tokimeki Memorial (the first two boy games -- last year was the girl games). PERSONA 3 PSP. Some brief exploration of mobile otome stuff that I may talk about someday.
Half-watched my sister play Pokemon X/helped her molest her catches. The new game design is suuuuuper cute but wow is the training part even supposed to be challenging anymore? XD
A lot of stuff that I've been interested in finally got completed translation patches too. (namely, the Suikogaidens and Front Mission 2.) Started the first Suikogaiden but decided to save it for some other time because MY FEELS.
Reading/TV/Movies
Hey look a new category. In which I lump together all the miscellaneous junk I don't usually talk about.
Um, I read a lot more than I have in years, but there wasn't actually that much variety.
- finished the random Diana Wynne Jones standalones that I'd never touched before
- The entire Ngaio Marsh oeuvre <3
- Most of the Phryne Fisher series
- Josephine Tey's Inspector Grant stuff
- The Summer of the Ubume
- All four books of Megan Whalen Turner's Thief series. (First book was a reread -- it's the weakest of the four. The series as a whole is really impressive and super underrated.)
- Sabriel. First time read. Didn't like it as much as I thought I would.
- The Emperor's Edge. Indie steampunk. Solid fun, decent worldbuilding, but not particularly interesting.
- And All the Stars. Indie SF by Andrea K. Host, an author I really love (I liked her fantasy offerings better though, but this was still good). She released two other standalones this year that I haven't gotten around to yet.
- The Roman Hat Mystery (Ellery Queen)
- Another famous classic whodunnit puzzler that's escaped my mind.
- The King of Elfland's Daughter
Pretty sure that's it, I'm bad at keeping book records (since the older I get, the worse I become about starting and never finishing stuff) so this is entirely off the top of my head. I started/bought some other stuff but haven't gotten far enough with any of them.
As for TV:
- Biblia Koshodou no Jiken Techou: J-drama. Antique bookstore mystery. Really really good series which I keep meaning to post about some more. Detective figure is an intelligent but shy young woman with a darker edge beneath her fragile surface.
- Watched some Doctor Who for the first time in my life. I don't think I'm the target audience for this... (really don't like Rose and the David Tennant Doctor. Rose's mom is awesome though. And I actually like Mickey a lot too. And the episodic characters are usually pretty likeable.) Kind of liked the Eccleston Doctor, but only saw his first two episodes or so. And I like Martha in theory but am SO not into the romantic subplots. My mom's pretty into the series though, which amuses me (and was not unexpected). Basically it's entertaining to watch but it's not something I'd go out of my way to follow... /blasphemy
Only movie I saw in the theaters this year was Hobbit 2, but I think the two movies that really stood out for me this year are actually The Mongol (2007) and Detective Dee (2010). I still haven't talked about The Mongol huh?
Writing
Let us not talk about writing, which has been kind of painful this year due to various reasons, despite my creative ADD. I fell way short of my goals and have apparently hit my latest major wall/rut. The last time this happened was.... a long ways back, I think probably 2004-2005ish iirc? I have journal records of this but too lazy to look up. I came out of that time period a much stronger writer, but well, like I said, I don't want to talk about it.
Got a decent amount of translation done instead though.
Personal
This was another year of reevaluation. I see that last year I considered myself as having emerged from a cocoon, but maybe I spoke too soon, as I spent much of this year suffering from a SERIOUS case of misanthropy.
What I said last year about emotional stability and being generally in a better place still holds true. Every single damn day I wake up I am grateful that I am not going through what I did in late 2011/early 2012, when I pretty much came close to just stopping. But the misanthropy this year felt like it came out of nowhere (it actually didn't and had two major, very identifiable root causes, plus a third factor lurking in the background)... and hit me really hard. I had to work through a lot of anger and resentment and in the process withdrew into a complete hermit state -- I feel like even in my darkest moods, I have never been so bleakly cynical about people and society in general.
It's like I suddenly decided I just didn't want to be a kind or good person anymore and fuck everyone else. I was tired of being understanding, of giving people the benefit of the doubt, of letting people think I'm a clueless doormat (I am NOT) and/or in need of "saving," of giving my time and interest to others out of genuine compassion only to have people assume that gave them some sort of hold over me.
Much better now, but to be honest... I'm still not completely over this yet.
One of the side effects of this though was that I finally started figuring out how to dress myself in the way I want to be seen/in a way that makes me happy. I feel like I understand fashion a lot more now than when I was an angry kid who dismissed it all as pointless superficial crap and/or ridiculous trend-chasing.
My taste is too conservative/traditional to ever be considered hip or stylish, but it is who I am. And it's been oddly empowering to see how differently the world sees and treats me when I don't hide who I am by dressing like a slob. I'm lucky, I suppose, in that my tastes are socially acceptable and only very subtly unconventional.
Even so, it's been freeing. And really damn strange to experience. (Like pretty much everything else in my life, I feel like my fashion experimentation is happening WAY too late compared to when most other girls start??? LOL. But whatever.)
Resolutions and stuff
Eh, oddly enough I did succeed in keeping two of last year's. I read a lot more fiction this year for sure and have been steadily improving/expanding my language abilities. SO let's try again this year.
1. Writing: I'm going to break through that damn wall I've hit even if it kills me, and perhaps learn how to weather these bumps even when it happens again in the future.
2. Keep learning new stuff. Maybe cooking this year? /chronic "toss random things in pan" improviser. I can make several variations of fried rice and that's about it. :P
3. Financial organization: I can't move forward on this in my current situation. For a long time I was torn on how to deal -- but think I will just keep enduring for now and see what happens next year. There's no use wallowing over things I cannot control, so I'm just going to keep bulling ahead for now and gamble that major shit doesn't happen in the meantime. I'm still single and still intend to be, possibly for the rest of my life. I can afford to be -- well, not reckless, but it's a gamble I can still afford to make and so I might as well.
4. Somewhat in line with the previous: don't forget to exercise and watch health. I got hit with ridiculous colds way too many times this year, sheesh. Like right now. @_@
comments at the original Dreamwidth post