User blog:Hazelcats/Happy New Years!

Hello everyone!

2014 is upon us! Happy New Years to everybody! I hope you all have a great night. Whether you'll be at a party, watching televison specials, using a computer or just sleeping, enjoy your last day of this year to the fullest.

2013 has been full of ups and downs for the wiki and its users. I know many users here have had a pretty eventful year, including myself. This wiki has had a lot of things, too, both good and bad. We've had users new and old contribute, we've had parties and awards and even a couple weddings, and we've made plenty of great relationships here. Unfortunately, that means we've had some not-so-great moments. We've lost users, we've experienced lengths of inactivity, and we've had fights and drama that no one likes to think back on.

I know it can be hard, but I try to look at this positively. What do up and down moments mean? It means more than you probably realize. It means progress. It means bonding. It means growing up and maturity and real life and family. That might seem a little cheesy, but it's true. We have our "family trees" here, with fathers and mothers and siblings and spouses and children and third cousins twice removed (whatever that means, exactly). So many of us have grown so close and made real friends here and that's amazing and fantastic and great.

We've lost people, I know. Whether they were kicked off or quit or just didn't have time anymore, because they grew up. That's one of the downsides of a family: members get older and they either move on with their lives or grow angry and sick of the people around them and leave. Sometimes these members will come back for family reunions and holidays, sometimes they move back in and live in the basement, and sometimes you never hear from them again. It's sad and true and we've got to face these facts.

I know many users, especially the ones that have been with us for a while, are very worried about our wiki. They're worried (and I include myself in this) that some of their best friends on here are gone for good, and that they won't come back, and this wiki is doomed to become a graveyard of inactivity and nothingness, to be found years from now by some rich archeologist who wonders, "What the hell happened here?". And while I agree that one day, this website will become an old relic, that day is not in our near future. Why?

We have new users! I see new users editing all the time, and that makes me so happy! To all of you new users, who may be doubting their place on this wiki or their writing skills, ''I am so proud of you! ''I remember when I first joined this wiki. Here is a little kid who had found a book series that she had fallen in love with, a book series she would not be forgetting any time soon. Here is a little girl who found a website where she could write whatever she wanted, where on her first ever published story, she got a message saying, Hey, welcome! I like your story! And this inspired me because even though that story was short and never finished and the title was misspelled because I didn't know how to change a page's name, these people are so nice and I can talk to them and I am going to stay here!

That's how I got stuck on this website for the past almost four years. Yeah, I might've lost some time I can never get back because lets face it, I didn't exactly have a social life for a little while. Oops! But I'm glad I stuck around because this website and the people on it have changed me in so many ways. Of course, they might not all be for good-let's just say I didn't swear before the chat room was created-but the people on here have given me such a different view of life, and I grew up. They've created chain reactions that lead from one thing to another, and I can't imagine what kind of person I'd be if I hadn't joined this wiki. Perhaps I'd still have discovered fanfiction and Tumblr and all these other things in the world of nerdlandia, perhaps I would've discovered the tricks and knowledge I've found on the internet, but chances are, I wouldn't have done or seen half the things I have without this place. What if my music taste was completely different? What if I hadn't been able to improve my writing skills? ''What if, what if, what if? ''

What if I hadn't met my internet friends?

Honestly, that scares me. I know it's "bad" to have internet friends because it's "unsafe" and "not real social interaction". In a way, I guess that first one's true. The internet isn't safe, and while I love the people on this wiki, I do have to warn any new users and even old ones, ''do not give personal information to people you do not trust. ''Even then, don't go spreading it around to every friend you have. But not real social interaction? No, that's crazy. By that standard, any form of social networking, emailing, pen pal systems, and many more forms of conversation aren't real social interaction. I'm not saying you should lock yourself in your room 24/7 and only converse over a bright screen and keyboard, but you are talking to real people! You can help people and hurt people and do anything you can do in real life, sometimes even to a farther, much deeper extent! There are people on this wiki I want to thank with all of my heart for helping me and being my friend, because honestly, sometimes people outside the virtual world aren't very great.

I've gotten off track, I think, but it needed to be said. Back to my point of this wiki's inactivity and family: Families get new additions ''all the time. ''Just last night my cousin had her first child! I'm in no way saying that new users are babies, but it does come to prove my point that while families can shrinken, they can also grow! This wiki won't be dead for a long time, and even if it seems like there's dying hope, Pandora's box is still not empty! Every single one of us was at some point new. One day, maybe far from now, or maybe just in this next year, all of us older users will be gone, and there will be a new crowd on chat, laughing like friends that have known each other since kindergarten. They'll talk about the users before them and war stories from before, during, and after our time. New jokes and stories and fandoms will be discussed. There will be more fights and battles and more parties and awards. The family tree will grow and change as it always has.

In this new year, whether it arrives for you tomorrow or the next day, remember the ups and downs of this last year and think, "Yes! I'm still here! Let the roller coaster continue!" And then you'll experience new flips and turns that you weren't necessarily aware of and it's going to be really scary at times, but the strap is going to stay on and the fun will continue and you'll finish to the end in triumph. You did it! You finished the coaster! Now onto the next ride, let's see what's in store! And if you're out of tickets? There are so many people that would be happy to lend you another.

I'm really not trying to be all deep and poetic and philisphical, if you can even call this blog that, but really. I love every single user on this wiki, whether they've left or not, and I can't wait to meet more. So I want you to have a fabulous day and a wonderful year, and if you decide to leave and find yourself missing home, family's always here to welcome you back.

Happy New Year's Eve,

Happy New Year's Day,

and Happy 2013!

Let's make 2014 happy, too.

Stay asterous,

Hazel

Dancin' round the lies we tell, even the comatose don't dance and tell.  02:43, December 31, 2013 (UTC)