What Happens Next: A Gallimaufry

melancholic romantic comic cynic. bi & genderqueer. fantasy writer. sysrae on ao3.

so look.

2016 has been a shitshow, I don’t think anyone’s gonna argue that point right now, but as hard as 2017 is likely to be for many of us, I also don’t want to give in to utter despair before it’s even started.

so what I’m doing right now is this: I’m thinking of 2016 like a video game grind.

you know how sometimes, with a new game, you accidentally enter an area full of monsters or quests that are just too hard for the level you are, but you still have to fight through a sea of crap to get back to relative safety because the only way out is through? it’s the most frustrating thing, because you go from feeling competent to struggling with basics, there’s usually at least two profound ragequit moments when you nearly get past a thing but die at the last second, you want to follow the wider plot developments but you’re continually tense with the fear of having to go back to a much earlier save and do the whole thing over, because augh-

but then you level up, and you think, I’m gonna make it. you dig in, and you figure out the traps, and then you level up again but you don’t really notice because you’re still not winning shit as easily as you were before, but okay, maybe you can tackle that new monster in the next area now to get back to the main map, and your stats ping again

and suddenly you’re through, and you’re back in the bit where you’re meant to be, only now you’re buff as hell and killing everything in about three hits, because you weren’t meant to find that hard area for another five levels. it’s not that the game has gotten any easier, per se - it’s just that you’ve fought off so much ridiculously overpowered crap at once that you’re better equipped to deal with what’s in front of you.

so yeah. maybe 2017 is gonna somehow break time and space and be even worse than 2016, but right now, I’m thinking of this year as the hellgrind level: anything else, no matter how bullshit, is going to seem more manageable by comparison. 

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