This is earlier than we usually do the annual Wrap-Up, I know, but since it’s Christmas Eve and I honestly don’t know how often I’ll be able to post in the next couple of days and weeks, what with the holidays and all, I figured I’d do the yearly summation now while I’ve got all my thoughts together.

First, let’s address the elephant in the room…

‘Sup, ‘yall?

Those of you who know us from Toon Zone may have noticed that neither Jason nor myself have made a post there since November 10th (yeah, we marked the date); that’s because we’ve both basically retired from TZ, and message boards in general. I don’t wish to drum up a lot of high-school mud-slinging BS–we don’t do that here, not anymore–so I’ll spare you the ugly details; the short story is that we’ve been unhappy there for some time and for the sake of my own sanity and happiness I needed to make a drastic change in my life and daily routine; most of the people who we came to know as friends and allies on the boards have since moved on, either started other venues, gotten busy with their own lives and responsibilities in real life or just plain left, and I was really getting tired of having the same debates with the same people over the same subjects again and again, and I’ve gotten far too many slaps on the knuckles from people who at this stage in my life I really don’t feel like I should have to be taking guff from. I’ve had to bite my tongue so much over there that it now looks like a dog’s chew toy. When I got raked over hot coals just for pointing out a few spelling errors, I knew my time on Toon Zone was over. Something had to change, and the Powers That Be over at TZ made it crystal clear that they were never going to change, so I had to change myself. I knew the day when I separated myself from message boards altogether was coming, and I couldn’t have gotten a bigger sign if it had been blazing on a burning bush. It was just time for me to move on.

And now you know.

Now on to more pleasant news: thankfully, we don’t have any major changes in the works for Twinsanity at this point; 2015 has been a good year for the site and the content we’ve been producing now has been pretty good, if I do say so myself. I’ve had a lot of fun posting here this past year, and I’ve really enjoyed the style and subject matter we’ve been tackling. There haven’t been that many Highly Opinionated articles this year, and I for one am glad; don’t get me wrong, schooling the ignorant, ill-informed, confused and unwashed can be cathartic, but I’d be upset if that were all we were doing. I never wanted the rant posts to become what this site is known for. I’ve always wanted Twinsanity to be a fun place where we can geek out over the cartoons and media that we love and share that celebration with like-minded individuals, and that’s the path I want to stay on.

This is another reason why I’m currently not on any message boards: I’m really starting to get tired of the same rants from people who cry that the sky is falling  (“Oh noes! Warner Brothers is dying!” “Cartoon Network is dying! 2D animation is dying!!”) whenever they don’t like certain shows or movies or when something they do like gets canceled, when these things happen on TV and movies all the time. It always just degenerates into the same people nostalgically pining away for “the good ol’ days” instead of actual intelligent discussion. Over time, I’ve come to realize that I/we don’t have to respond to every single insane statement or opinion that someone spews out; no matter what you do, some people are always going to remain stubborn, some people choose to remain secured in their tiny bubbles of ignorance, and these people are simply beyond help. Some people just want to bark at the moon, and those people are best ignored. If a topic or opinion grinds our gears significantly enough to inspire a Highly Opinionated, then we’ll post one, but I’m no longer actively seeking those out, I’ve stopped doing that a while ago; I really don’t have the passion for or interest in those sort of topics that I used to. I just plain enjoy the humorous and creative posts more, and in 2016 and beyond I plan to continue doing more of those over taking fools to school. These days I’d rather spend my time geeking out over things I enjoy than snarking about things I don’t.

This is probably the only time you’re going to get a sports metaphor out of me, so you might want to mark this day on your calendar: I think Jason (Goldstar) should be named MVP of Twinsanity this year. It was his decision and machinations that led to the resurrection and restructuring of the defunct Reviews on the Run segments and the subsequent renaming of that segment to the much better Cartoon Country; this will go down in the annals of Twinsanity as one of the single best moves either of us have made here to date. The Cartoon Countries both pop and rock, and I actually look forward to doing them as opposed to Reviews on the Run, which I dreaded having to do and would have to practically fist-fight myself to research and type them. I enjoy these new non-reviews, abridged reviews and quasi-reviews far more than I ever did the actual reviews. Now that we’ve come to realize that we don’t have to review every new cartoon that comes down the pike, now that we only cover shows that we’re genuinely interested in, now that the subject matter need not be about a new show, or even a currently running show, that they can be just about a single episode of a show, or just a single scene or act from a particular episode of a show, we can do a lot more with Cartoon Country; it covers a lot more ground, it’s far less repetitive and it allows for shorter, less essay-like content, which I just plain do much better and enjoy much more. The numbers speak for themselves: there have only been 7 Reviews on the Run (not counting the early ones we did on Blogger which were so bland and uninspired that we didn’t feel the need to port them over to WordPress) and to date there have been 23 Cartoon Countries in just the one year since we started doing them. Overall, I’m enjoying the free-form style we’ve been doing here lately, and in 2016 I plan to continue going this route with the articles, only bigger and better.

I’ve started some (very) rudimentary attempts at videos; the webcam I have now sucks, so I’m going to get a better camera as well as more professional lighting. I don’t half-ass anything; when we’re ready start making videos for this site, I want them to look as good and be as professional as possible. So, yes, that’s happening.

Finally, you may have noticed that this year in the articles we’ve been making the odd foray into original characters and premises here; this is most evident in the ‘Flip the Script’ articles (which is actually reminiscent of an idea for a segment I had a few years ago called “If We Made It”, where we would entail our spins on already existing shows) and miscellaneous articles such as Superhero City: A Visitor’s Guide. This ties into and may hopefully lead to something that I’ve wanted to do for some time: post original works of fiction, complete with original illustrations. If all goes well, Twinsanity could start boasting some original works of fiction, in fact both of us are currently working on ideas (which could possibly become a single idea depending on what happens) about a family unit who reside in a unique residence in a toyetic cartoon world; each of us have been wanting to do something with a kooky family and a crazy house for some time….well, it’s a work in progress; hopefully something will come of this idea sometime in the next year.

So that’s it. Expect no major changes to occur on Twinsanity, just for things to get bigger and better and for the production values here to increase. The ultimate goal is still the same: for Twinsanity to to expand and shed its’ blog skin and emerge as a full-blown website. We’re tentatively calling this dream project TWINSANITY 2.0.

Oh, and one more thing: by January 14th, the URL thetwinfactor.com will expire, and twinsanity.co will become the only URL that directs you to this site. If you haven’t done it already, make sure to bookmark us as twinsanity.co, because that’s going to be the site’s only URL very shortly.

Nothing else to say, except Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Holidays, Happy Winter Solstice, Happy Festivus for all you Seinfeld fans, Happy New Year and we look forward to you joining us for more nonsense and nuttiness next year.